My research is concentrated in the Italian Renaissance and the topics of popular religion, the relationship of art and society and the artists Sassetta and Piero della Francesca.
Luca Pacioli and Portrayal of Mathematical Humanism ... this paper addresses two outstanding puzz... more Luca Pacioli and Portrayal of Mathematical Humanism ... this paper addresses two outstanding puzzles in the Portrait of Luca Pacioli and Disciple [Capodimonte]: the numbers and line segments on the bottom left of the tablet and the addition problem on the bottom right, and the two remarkable solids appearing respectively in the lower right and upper left. The numbers and segments on the tablet will be shown to relate to different powers of the golden ratio, while the solids will be analyzed on their own terms and their presence explained contextually from the perspective of the history of complex geometric solids in the Renaissance. The present study confirms that the iconography of the Portrait was carefully composed by Pacioli, at a moment—retrospectively—that marked a turning point in his life: after 1495, the friar will transform himself from itinerant teacher of introductory and classical mathematical knowledge into courtier and creator of new and exciting mathematical insights, which eventually bore fruit in the pages of the Divina proportione.
... Bigi was a carpenter and constructed the choir of S. Agosti-no in San Sepolcro when Pieto wis... more ... Bigi was a carpenter and constructed the choir of S. Agosti-no in San Sepolcro when Pieto wis painting the polyptych for that church's high altar; this man acquired the house that ibutted the della Francesca house before Piero's deith so it is conceivable that the Bigi acquired the ...
... Comunale, Perugia: IH-914[4]); Giancarlo Angelozzi, Le confraternite laicali: Un'esperie... more ... Comunale, Perugia: IH-914[4]); Giancarlo Angelozzi, Le confraternite laicali: Un'esperienza cristiana tra medioevo e età moderna (Bre-scia: Queriniana, 1978), 42; Mario Fanti, San Procolo: Una Parrocchia di Bologna (Bologna, 1983): 21 23; Danilo Zardin, Confraternite e Vita ...
... Despite his father's social and financial ambiti... more ... Despite his father's social and financial ambitions, della Francesca became a painter not the most eminent of careers in the Renaissance city of San Sepolcro. ... Page 7. The Culture of San Sepolcro during the Youth of Piero della Francesca Thi9 One G5FD-NRW-AXJJ Page 8. ...
Sassetta, the subtle genius from Siena, revolutionized Italian painting with an altarpiece for th... more Sassetta, the subtle genius from Siena, revolutionized Italian painting with an altarpiece for the small Tuscan town of Borgo San Sepolcro in 1437-1444. Originally standing some six yards high, double-sided, with a splendid gilt frame over the main altar of the local Franciscan church, it was the Rolls Royce of early Renaissance painting. But its myriad figures and scenes tempted the collectors of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and today its disassembled panels can be found in twelve museums throughout Europe and the United States. To produce this landmark volume, experts in art and general history, painting technique and conservation, woodworking, architecture, and liturgy have joined forces across the boundaries of eight different nations. A model of collaboration, it opens new windows onto the creative process of the artist as he confronted a late-medieval church at a crossroad of cultures, the miracle-working body of a holy man, and a community of Franciscan friars breathing the exhilarating air of reform. To confront such challenges, Sassetta raised the most spiritual school of early Italian art, the Sienese, to a higher level of understanding, grace, and splendor.
Piety and Charity in Late Medieval Florence. By John Henderson. (New York: Clarendon Press, Oxfor... more Piety and Charity in Late Medieval Florence. By John Henderson. (New York: Clarendon Press, Oxford University Press. 1994. Pp. xviii, 533. $85.00.) John Henderson's book is a long-awaited contribution to the history of confraternities and charity in Renaissance Florence. Many scholars have already consulted profitably his 1983 thesis at the University of London entitled"Piety and Charity in Late Medieval Florence: Lay Religious Confraternities from the Middle of the Thirteenth Century to the Late Fifteenth Century to the Late Fifteenth Century." Readers will not be disappointed with the range of knowledge and the number of issues addressed and all treated from numerous original sources from the Archivio di Stato and other archives of Florence. The author has pieced together complex data from thousands of documents relevant to confraternities and lay charity. Art, musical, and literary historians will henceforth consult this book with great profit on a wide range of topics. Also, highly useful is the appendix of the "Confraternities Meeting in Florence, 1240-1499," in which the author lists 163 Florentine confraternities (pp. 443-474). The author writes," [T] he organization of the book into two main parts (piety and charity) reflects the dual nature of charity' (p. 9). Part I surveys lay piety in Florence from 1250 to 1500 by first establishing confraternities as one of many forms of corporate organization in the High Middle Ages. Chapters 2 through 6 trace the evolution of confraternities primarily through two forms, that of the laudesi and disciplinati, ending with a finely nuanced study of the confraternity of Orsanmichele. Part II introduces the reader to the complex world of Florentine charity and hospitals. Documents from Orsanmichele provide evidence for an extensive discussion of the systematic poor relief by this confraternity and other Florentine institutions. Noting the decline of large charitable confraternal institutions and the growing role of state supervision by the late fifteenth century, the author concludes with a discussion of the relationship of these corporate groups with other institutions and particularly with the state. In the introduction the author discusses a number of books on European and Italian confraternities, which he organizes into the now conventional two schools, the religious-local and social-historical. He states his intention of making historiographic progress by combining the two schools, but does the book succeed in making a historiographic breakthrough beyond the two schools and convey a fundamentally novel view of either Renaissance confraternities or charity? …
1492.Rivista della Fondazione Piero della Francesco, 2008
Piero della Francesca copied the Latin manuscript of the Opera of Archimedes and drew over 200 ge... more Piero della Francesca copied the Latin manuscript of the Opera of Archimedes and drew over 200 geometrical designs as proofs of the verbal arguments.
Introduction 1. Piero's Formation in Sansepolcro 2. Piero the Incessant Learner and Traveler,... more Introduction 1. Piero's Formation in Sansepolcro 2. Piero the Incessant Learner and Traveler, 1439-1450 3. Piero in the Court of Sigismondo Malatesta in Rimini 4. Piero in Arezzo: The Legend of the True Cross 5. The Confraternity and the Altarpiece of Madonna della Misericordia 6. Greek Geometry in Rome and Piero's Trattato d'abaco 7. Piero's Return to Patria and Family 8. An Arezzo Interlude 9. The Practice of Perspective: The Sant'Antonio and Sant'Agostino Altarpieces and the Flagellation 10. Piero della Francesca in Urbino in the Early 1470s 11. Piero in Sansepolcro, 1472-1475 12. Piero in Urbino in 1475-1476 13. The Persuasiveness of Paternal Authority, 1477-81 14. Piero in the Last Decade of His Life Conclusion Chronology of Piero's Life and Work Index
Sassetta, the subtle genius from Siena, revolutionized Italian painting with an altarpiece for th... more Sassetta, the subtle genius from Siena, revolutionized Italian painting with an altarpiece for the small Tuscan town of Borgo San Sepolcro in 1437-1444. Originally standing some six yards high, double-sided, with a splendid gilt frame over the main altar of the local Franciscan church, it was the Rolls Royce of early Renaissance painting. But its myriad figures and scenes tempted the collectors of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and today its disassembled panels can be found in twelve museums throughout Europe and the United States. To produce this landmark volume, experts in art and general history, painting technique and conservation, woodworking, architecture, and liturgy have joined forces across the boundaries of eight different nations. A model of collaboration, it opens new windows onto the creative process of the artist as he confronted a late-medieval church at a crossroad of cultures, the miracle-working body of a holy man, and a community of Franciscan friars brea...
This article analyzes the context and content of a manuscript written by a Perugian nun overseein... more This article analyzes the context and content of a manuscript written by a Perugian nun overseeing the regularization of a group of Franciscan tertiaries into the second order convent of S. Sebastiano in Borgo San Sepolcro in 1500. This narrative allows the “other voice,” the voice of the nun, to be heard, but this female voice has a strong agenda, and in its turn blocks the voices of the third-order women. Close reading of the manuscript provides the opportunity to examine the process of regularization by assessing not only the separate roles of the women from Perugia supervising the enclosure and the women, mainly from Borgo San Sepolcro, being newly enclosed, but also the different roles assigned to women and men in the multiple layers of the ecclesiastical hierarchy. The account suggests that certain second-order nuns acted in conjunction with sections of the male ecclesiastical hierarchy and the secular authorities to carry out the regularization.
Page 1. THE PROGRAM FOR THE SASSETTA ALTARPIECE IN THE CHURCH OF S.FRANCESCO IN BORGO S. SEPOLCRO... more Page 1. THE PROGRAM FOR THE SASSETTA ALTARPIECE IN THE CHURCH OF S.FRANCESCO IN BORGO S. SEPOLCRO JAMES R. BANKER ... 96-111. See Document 3 for a transcription from the notarial protocol of Francesco de Largi. 7 POPE-HENNESSY, op. cit. ...
... Comunale, Perugia: IH-914[4]); Giancarlo Angelozzi, Le confraternite laicali: Un'esperie... more ... Comunale, Perugia: IH-914[4]); Giancarlo Angelozzi, Le confraternite laicali: Un'esperienza cristiana tra medioevo e età moderna (Bre-scia: Queriniana, 1978), 42; Mario Fanti, San Procolo: Una Parrocchia di Bologna (Bologna, 1983): 21 23; Danilo Zardin, Confraternite e Vita ...
Luca Pacioli and Portrayal of Mathematical Humanism ... this paper addresses two outstanding puzz... more Luca Pacioli and Portrayal of Mathematical Humanism ... this paper addresses two outstanding puzzles in the Portrait of Luca Pacioli and Disciple [Capodimonte]: the numbers and line segments on the bottom left of the tablet and the addition problem on the bottom right, and the two remarkable solids appearing respectively in the lower right and upper left. The numbers and segments on the tablet will be shown to relate to different powers of the golden ratio, while the solids will be analyzed on their own terms and their presence explained contextually from the perspective of the history of complex geometric solids in the Renaissance. The present study confirms that the iconography of the Portrait was carefully composed by Pacioli, at a moment—retrospectively—that marked a turning point in his life: after 1495, the friar will transform himself from itinerant teacher of introductory and classical mathematical knowledge into courtier and creator of new and exciting mathematical insights, which eventually bore fruit in the pages of the Divina proportione.
... Bigi was a carpenter and constructed the choir of S. Agosti-no in San Sepolcro when Pieto wis... more ... Bigi was a carpenter and constructed the choir of S. Agosti-no in San Sepolcro when Pieto wis painting the polyptych for that church's high altar; this man acquired the house that ibutted the della Francesca house before Piero's deith so it is conceivable that the Bigi acquired the ...
... Comunale, Perugia: IH-914[4]); Giancarlo Angelozzi, Le confraternite laicali: Un'esperie... more ... Comunale, Perugia: IH-914[4]); Giancarlo Angelozzi, Le confraternite laicali: Un'esperienza cristiana tra medioevo e età moderna (Bre-scia: Queriniana, 1978), 42; Mario Fanti, San Procolo: Una Parrocchia di Bologna (Bologna, 1983): 21 23; Danilo Zardin, Confraternite e Vita ...
... Despite his father's social and financial ambiti... more ... Despite his father's social and financial ambitions, della Francesca became a painter not the most eminent of careers in the Renaissance city of San Sepolcro. ... Page 7. The Culture of San Sepolcro during the Youth of Piero della Francesca Thi9 One G5FD-NRW-AXJJ Page 8. ...
Sassetta, the subtle genius from Siena, revolutionized Italian painting with an altarpiece for th... more Sassetta, the subtle genius from Siena, revolutionized Italian painting with an altarpiece for the small Tuscan town of Borgo San Sepolcro in 1437-1444. Originally standing some six yards high, double-sided, with a splendid gilt frame over the main altar of the local Franciscan church, it was the Rolls Royce of early Renaissance painting. But its myriad figures and scenes tempted the collectors of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and today its disassembled panels can be found in twelve museums throughout Europe and the United States. To produce this landmark volume, experts in art and general history, painting technique and conservation, woodworking, architecture, and liturgy have joined forces across the boundaries of eight different nations. A model of collaboration, it opens new windows onto the creative process of the artist as he confronted a late-medieval church at a crossroad of cultures, the miracle-working body of a holy man, and a community of Franciscan friars breathing the exhilarating air of reform. To confront such challenges, Sassetta raised the most spiritual school of early Italian art, the Sienese, to a higher level of understanding, grace, and splendor.
Piety and Charity in Late Medieval Florence. By John Henderson. (New York: Clarendon Press, Oxfor... more Piety and Charity in Late Medieval Florence. By John Henderson. (New York: Clarendon Press, Oxford University Press. 1994. Pp. xviii, 533. $85.00.) John Henderson's book is a long-awaited contribution to the history of confraternities and charity in Renaissance Florence. Many scholars have already consulted profitably his 1983 thesis at the University of London entitled"Piety and Charity in Late Medieval Florence: Lay Religious Confraternities from the Middle of the Thirteenth Century to the Late Fifteenth Century to the Late Fifteenth Century." Readers will not be disappointed with the range of knowledge and the number of issues addressed and all treated from numerous original sources from the Archivio di Stato and other archives of Florence. The author has pieced together complex data from thousands of documents relevant to confraternities and lay charity. Art, musical, and literary historians will henceforth consult this book with great profit on a wide range of topics. Also, highly useful is the appendix of the "Confraternities Meeting in Florence, 1240-1499," in which the author lists 163 Florentine confraternities (pp. 443-474). The author writes," [T] he organization of the book into two main parts (piety and charity) reflects the dual nature of charity' (p. 9). Part I surveys lay piety in Florence from 1250 to 1500 by first establishing confraternities as one of many forms of corporate organization in the High Middle Ages. Chapters 2 through 6 trace the evolution of confraternities primarily through two forms, that of the laudesi and disciplinati, ending with a finely nuanced study of the confraternity of Orsanmichele. Part II introduces the reader to the complex world of Florentine charity and hospitals. Documents from Orsanmichele provide evidence for an extensive discussion of the systematic poor relief by this confraternity and other Florentine institutions. Noting the decline of large charitable confraternal institutions and the growing role of state supervision by the late fifteenth century, the author concludes with a discussion of the relationship of these corporate groups with other institutions and particularly with the state. In the introduction the author discusses a number of books on European and Italian confraternities, which he organizes into the now conventional two schools, the religious-local and social-historical. He states his intention of making historiographic progress by combining the two schools, but does the book succeed in making a historiographic breakthrough beyond the two schools and convey a fundamentally novel view of either Renaissance confraternities or charity? …
1492.Rivista della Fondazione Piero della Francesco, 2008
Piero della Francesca copied the Latin manuscript of the Opera of Archimedes and drew over 200 ge... more Piero della Francesca copied the Latin manuscript of the Opera of Archimedes and drew over 200 geometrical designs as proofs of the verbal arguments.
Introduction 1. Piero's Formation in Sansepolcro 2. Piero the Incessant Learner and Traveler,... more Introduction 1. Piero's Formation in Sansepolcro 2. Piero the Incessant Learner and Traveler, 1439-1450 3. Piero in the Court of Sigismondo Malatesta in Rimini 4. Piero in Arezzo: The Legend of the True Cross 5. The Confraternity and the Altarpiece of Madonna della Misericordia 6. Greek Geometry in Rome and Piero's Trattato d'abaco 7. Piero's Return to Patria and Family 8. An Arezzo Interlude 9. The Practice of Perspective: The Sant'Antonio and Sant'Agostino Altarpieces and the Flagellation 10. Piero della Francesca in Urbino in the Early 1470s 11. Piero in Sansepolcro, 1472-1475 12. Piero in Urbino in 1475-1476 13. The Persuasiveness of Paternal Authority, 1477-81 14. Piero in the Last Decade of His Life Conclusion Chronology of Piero's Life and Work Index
Sassetta, the subtle genius from Siena, revolutionized Italian painting with an altarpiece for th... more Sassetta, the subtle genius from Siena, revolutionized Italian painting with an altarpiece for the small Tuscan town of Borgo San Sepolcro in 1437-1444. Originally standing some six yards high, double-sided, with a splendid gilt frame over the main altar of the local Franciscan church, it was the Rolls Royce of early Renaissance painting. But its myriad figures and scenes tempted the collectors of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and today its disassembled panels can be found in twelve museums throughout Europe and the United States. To produce this landmark volume, experts in art and general history, painting technique and conservation, woodworking, architecture, and liturgy have joined forces across the boundaries of eight different nations. A model of collaboration, it opens new windows onto the creative process of the artist as he confronted a late-medieval church at a crossroad of cultures, the miracle-working body of a holy man, and a community of Franciscan friars brea...
This article analyzes the context and content of a manuscript written by a Perugian nun overseein... more This article analyzes the context and content of a manuscript written by a Perugian nun overseeing the regularization of a group of Franciscan tertiaries into the second order convent of S. Sebastiano in Borgo San Sepolcro in 1500. This narrative allows the “other voice,” the voice of the nun, to be heard, but this female voice has a strong agenda, and in its turn blocks the voices of the third-order women. Close reading of the manuscript provides the opportunity to examine the process of regularization by assessing not only the separate roles of the women from Perugia supervising the enclosure and the women, mainly from Borgo San Sepolcro, being newly enclosed, but also the different roles assigned to women and men in the multiple layers of the ecclesiastical hierarchy. The account suggests that certain second-order nuns acted in conjunction with sections of the male ecclesiastical hierarchy and the secular authorities to carry out the regularization.
Page 1. THE PROGRAM FOR THE SASSETTA ALTARPIECE IN THE CHURCH OF S.FRANCESCO IN BORGO S. SEPOLCRO... more Page 1. THE PROGRAM FOR THE SASSETTA ALTARPIECE IN THE CHURCH OF S.FRANCESCO IN BORGO S. SEPOLCRO JAMES R. BANKER ... 96-111. See Document 3 for a transcription from the notarial protocol of Francesco de Largi. 7 POPE-HENNESSY, op. cit. ...
... Comunale, Perugia: IH-914[4]); Giancarlo Angelozzi, Le confraternite laicali: Un'esperie... more ... Comunale, Perugia: IH-914[4]); Giancarlo Angelozzi, Le confraternite laicali: Un'esperienza cristiana tra medioevo e età moderna (Bre-scia: Queriniana, 1978), 42; Mario Fanti, San Procolo: Una Parrocchia di Bologna (Bologna, 1983): 21 23; Danilo Zardin, Confraternite e Vita ...
Dal 1997, «Pagine altotiberine» pubblica saggi di approfondimento e rubriche informative (Beni ar... more Dal 1997, «Pagine altotiberine» pubblica saggi di approfondimento e rubriche informative (Beni artistici e culturali, Spigolature d'archivio, Recensioni, Scuola e storia, Vita dell'Associazione, Bibliografia altotiberina). Sono stati pubblicati 561 saggi in italiano e in inglese da parte di studiosi italiani, francesi, tedeschi e satunitensi.
Pagine altotiberine pubblica saggi di approfondimento e rubriche informative (Beni artistici e cu... more Pagine altotiberine pubblica saggi di approfondimento e rubriche informative (Beni artistici e culturali, Spigolature d'archivio, Recensioni, Scuola e storia, Vita dell'Associazione, Bibliografia altotiberina). Sono stati pubblicati 542 saggi in italiano e in inglese da parte di studiosi italiani, francesi, tedeschi e satunitensi.
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