Books by Areli Marina
"During the long thirteenth century, the cities of northern Italy engendered a vital and distinct... more "During the long thirteenth century, the cities of northern Italy engendered a vital and distinctive civic culture despite constant political upheaval. In The Italian Piazza Transformed, Areli Marina examines the radical transformation of Parma’s urban center in this tumultuous period by reconstructing the city’s two most significant public spaces: its cathedral and communal squares. Treating the space of these piazzas as attentively as the buildings that shape their perimeters, she documents and discusses the evolution of each site from 1196, tracing their construction by opposing political factions within the city’s ruling elite. By the early fourteenth century, Parma’s patrons and builders had imposed strict geometric order on formerly inchoate sites, achieving a formal coherence attained by few other cities.
Moreover, Marina establishes that the piazzas’ orderly contours, dramatic open spaces, and monumental buildings were more than grand backdrops to civic ritual. Parma’s squares were also agents in the production of the city-state’s mechanisms of control. They deployed brick, marble, and mortar according to both ancient Roman and contemporary courtly modes to create a physical embodiment of the modern, syncretic authority of the city’s leaders. By weaving together traditional formal and iconographic approaches with newer concepts of the symbolic, social, and political meanings of urban space, Marina reframes the complex relationship between late medieval Italy’s civic culture and the carefully crafted piazzas from which it emerged."
To read the beginning of the book, click on the pdf or the link to Penn State Press.
Articles & Book Chapters (Selection) by Areli Marina
This essay introduces the architecture and urban space of upper Italy by focusing on the two citi... more This essay introduces the architecture and urban space of upper Italy by focusing on the two cities Dante knew best: peninsular Florence, where he lived from birth until his exile from the faction-riven republic in 1302, and continental Verona, where he twice found refuge in the Della Scala signorial court (in 1303-4, 1312-18).
Though Matteo Visconti (1250-1322) is now the most obscure of the twelve Visconti lords who ruled... more Though Matteo Visconti (1250-1322) is now the most obscure of the twelve Visconti lords who ruled Milan, he launched the enduring cultural strategy that justified the Visconti right to rule. Its hallmark consisted in seizing preexisting objects and monuments, inventing or embroidering their historical associations, and then recasting these artifacts in new terms that asserted the nobility of the Visconti house and promoted its sovereignty. This essay examines that practice, through analysis of the artifacts that most vividly embody this neglected aspect of Matteo’s cultural program: a trove of precious objects from the treasury of San Giovanni in Monza—the palatine church founded in the seventh century by the Langobard Queen Theodelinda—and the enigmatic sculpted lunette above the main portal of the church, whose reconstruction Matteo sponsored beginning in 1300. After retrieving the treasure from pawn, where it had been placed by his political rivals, Matteo conceived a strategy to reconstitute the meaning of the treasury’s religious objects. When depicted on the new lunette alongside Queen Theodelinda and her royal descendants, the objects became simultaneously devout offerings to San Giovanni, Theodelindan relics, and Langobard regalia. By emulating the queen’s veneration of Langobard patron saint John, building in the saint’s name, and enriching his church, Matteo transformed San Giovanni’s treasures into a vehicle for the aggrandizement of his lineage and positioned himself and his sons not only as worthy lords of Milan, but as the Lombard crown’s sole legitimate claimants.
This study analyzes the campo of San Pietro di Castello from its mythologized origins to the Rena... more This study analyzes the campo of San Pietro di Castello from its mythologized origins to the Renaissance, paying particular attention to the architectural and political forces that shaped it. Although San Pietro was Venice's cathedral from the ninth to the nineteenth centuries, civic leaders marginalized the site, which incarnated the contentious relationship between the Roman Church and the Venetian republic. The essay places the campo at the center of inquiry because the episcopal complex's significance is best discerned through diachronic analysis of the urban landscape. The building activities of its medieval and Quattrocento patrons generated a heterogeneous campo that incorporated morphological elements from two Venetian urbanistic types: the parish campo and the monastic island. Its sixteenth-century patriarchs created a new architectural vision of the campo, contesting its slippage from the center of Venetian life and forging a distinctive ensemble that differs markedly from the better-known piazzas at San Marco and Rialto.
Source: Notes in the History of Art, 2011
A short study of the baptistery of San Pietro di Castello in Venice. For fuller and more up-to-da... more A short study of the baptistery of San Pietro di Castello in Venice. For fuller and more up-to-date study treatment of the San Pietro cathedral complex, see "From the Myth to the Margins: The Patriarch's Piazza at San Pietro di Castello," Renaissance Quarterly. You can find it on my Academia.edu page.
Book Reviews (Selection) by Areli Marina
Reviews of The Italian Piazza Transformed by Areli Marina
Papers by Areli Marina
I Tatti Studies in the Italian Renaissance, Sep 1, 2013
THE MOST FAMOUS REPRESENTATION of an Italian Renaissance court may be the Camera Picta, or painte... more THE MOST FAMOUS REPRESENTATION of an Italian Renaissance court may be the Camera Picta, or painted chamber, in the northwestern tower of Mantua’s Castello di San Giorgio (fig. 1). At the behest of Ludovico III Gonzaga, second Marquess of Mantua (r. 1445–78), Andrea Mantegna created the illusionistic murals that transform the small, square room into an opulent pavilion between 1465 and 1474. A fictive all’antica architectural frame that supports rods hung with simulated gold brocade curtains divides each wall into three arched bays. On the room’s west wall, the curtains are drawn back to show two groups of life-sized figures before a deep landscape. Four retainers attend to the marquess’s sumptuously caparisoned horse and several hunting dogs to the left and center. To the right, Marquess Ludovico, his son Cardinal Francesco, and other male members of the Gonzaga dynasty stand in the foreground alongside their suzerain, Holy Roman Emperor Frederick III, and King Christian I of Denmark.
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Books by Areli Marina
Moreover, Marina establishes that the piazzas’ orderly contours, dramatic open spaces, and monumental buildings were more than grand backdrops to civic ritual. Parma’s squares were also agents in the production of the city-state’s mechanisms of control. They deployed brick, marble, and mortar according to both ancient Roman and contemporary courtly modes to create a physical embodiment of the modern, syncretic authority of the city’s leaders. By weaving together traditional formal and iconographic approaches with newer concepts of the symbolic, social, and political meanings of urban space, Marina reframes the complex relationship between late medieval Italy’s civic culture and the carefully crafted piazzas from which it emerged."
To read the beginning of the book, click on the pdf or the link to Penn State Press.
Articles & Book Chapters (Selection) by Areli Marina
Book Reviews (Selection) by Areli Marina
Reviews of The Italian Piazza Transformed by Areli Marina
Papers by Areli Marina
Moreover, Marina establishes that the piazzas’ orderly contours, dramatic open spaces, and monumental buildings were more than grand backdrops to civic ritual. Parma’s squares were also agents in the production of the city-state’s mechanisms of control. They deployed brick, marble, and mortar according to both ancient Roman and contemporary courtly modes to create a physical embodiment of the modern, syncretic authority of the city’s leaders. By weaving together traditional formal and iconographic approaches with newer concepts of the symbolic, social, and political meanings of urban space, Marina reframes the complex relationship between late medieval Italy’s civic culture and the carefully crafted piazzas from which it emerged."
To read the beginning of the book, click on the pdf or the link to Penn State Press.