Scienze umanistiche (Department of Humanities)

Different Knowledge
Beauty, Art, and Images in Leon Battista Alberti

The great attention that, during the past few years, has been paid to Leon Battista Alberti has led to the creation of research centers and to the organization of exhibitions and conferences dedicated to him, but it has yet to result, especially in Italy, in a new approach to his aesthetic theories. This represents a serious scholarly gap, because Alberti was an important figure in the history of aesthetics, both for the role he played in the aesthetic and literary debates of the 15th century, as well as for the impact that his thought had on theory and art in subsequent centuries. The present volume constitutes an important tool to fill such gap.
The volume centers on three key concepts: beauty, art, and images. The first chapter problematizes the traditional view that Alberti promoted an objective notion of beauty as harmony, showing instead how he also entertained a functionalist aesthetics and considered the perception of beauty as a subjectve experience linked to individual taste. In the second chapter, after examining the relationship between Alberti’s treatises and ancient models, the analysis focuses on the “learned artist”, outlining a conception of knowledge that, refuting all abstractions, is rooted in practical experience and activity. The last chapter examines Alberti’s theory of images, which has been neglected by scholars, and focuses on Egyptian hieroglyphs. The concluding pages of the present volume analyze the hierglyph of the winged eye, which was adopted by Leon Battista Alberti as his personal emblem, and suggest that it may provide a key for a comprehensive interpretation of his humanistic thought.

Art and Ideas
Francisco de Hollanda and Sixteenth-Century Aesthetics

The historians of aesthetics who have studied the problem of
ideas in art theory (from Panofsky to Baeumler and Tatarkiewicz) have overlooked Da pintura antiga, by Portuguese artist and theoretician Francisco de Hollanda (1517-1584), a text where the Platonic notion of idea enters a treatise on art for the first time.
The present volume aims to fill such gap by shedding light on an author who has long been overshadowed by the great Michelangelo (whom Hollanda met during his stay in Rome in the years 1538-1540), as well as by advancing an analysis of the aesthetic concepts that emerge not only from Da pintura antiga, but from the entire body of Hollanda’s works.
The most significant element is that in Hollanda’s approach art
theory appropriates connotations previosuly reserved for poetic
creativity. In fact, poetry had borrowed from Platonic philosophy the notion of “divine frenzy” to describe the inspired poet. According to Hollanda, on the contrary, it is the artist who, possessed by such frenzy, is able to rise to the world of ideas. Artistic creativity thus acquires a sacred dimension: “ancient painting” is seen as a sort of “prisca pictura” that, like Ermete Tremegisto’s “prisca theologia”, reveals the most hidden truths. The “melancholic”
artist, who possesses an inspired and bizarre imagination,
as best exemplified by “grottesche”, is the only one capable of
grasping the idea and fixing it with uncommon rapidity in a
sketch. This is a complex and not always immediately successful procedure. Thus, Hollanda considers blindness as a privileged factor to grasp the kind of beauty that the artist, like the prophet, can see only with his “inner eyes”, eyes that are not dimmed by sensible perceptions.
Consequently, “drawing” becomes a key element of Hollanda’s
thought. Drawing emerges as the basis not only of painting,
sculpture, and architecture, but of all the arts that are connected with images: from martial strategy to civil and military engineering; from maps to the design of insignia, livery, clothes, and ornaments.
Hollanda moves beyond the distinction between major
and minor arts, and his approach emerges as more modern than the one that Vasary will articulate a few years later in his famous definition of the “arts of drawing”.

The Beautiful and The Idea in 17th-Century Aesthetics

In his renowned lecture on the Idea, which he delivered at the Academy of Saint Luke in 1664, Giovan Pietro Bellori asserts the superiority of ideal beauty against the slavish imitation of reality and the unbridled freedom of the imagination. However, an equally important, albeit lesser known, contributor to the formulation of this classicist aesthetic theory is Giovan Battista Agucchi, author of a Treatise on Painting that appeared in fragmentary form in 1646. In this work, Agucchi identifes beauty as the truest and highest aim of painting; he attributes to the artist the power to contemplate the Idea, and confers a profound cognitive value to
this form of imitation. Finally, he ponders on aesthetic judgement, addressing the issue, which became increasingly more relevant in the 17th century, of the role of the connoisseur. Many of these themes would later be reelaborated, in a changed cultural context,
by Bellori, who would define the co-ordinates of a strict classicism which centered on the selective paradigm of ideal beauty. Elisabetta Di Stefano proposes a comparative
analysis of the two afore-mentioned texts which are reprinted
in the appendices. Her study foregrounds the progressive ascent of the Idea from natural data to the perfection of beauty, a complex process that in the 18th century, through the theories of Batteux and Winckelmann, will lead to the birth of modern aesthetics under the banner of ideal beauty.

Orfeo Boselli and the “Nobility” of Sculpture

There is not much information available about the work of Orfeo Boselli, sculptor, theoretician and restorer, and there is only very incomplete data also about his life and artistic production.
Even though his name is mentionened in several texts of art criticism, he remains a rather shadowy and little-known figure in the context of 17th-century aesthetics. To this day, there are no studies specifically devoted to the reevaluation of the far from secondary role Boselli played in the theoretical debates of his times.
His volume Observations on Ancient Sculpture belongs to the tradition, started by 15th-century theoreticians, that aimed at bestowing intellectual value on the figurative arts by including them among the liberal arts. Boselli pursued this goal of demonstrating the “nobility” of sculpture also in the lesson (which has been reprinted in the Appendix to the present volume) that he gave in 1663 at the Accademia di San Luca, of which he was a member.
Boselli, in fact, opposed the old prejudice that underplayed the
importance of sculpture via-à-vis the other two figurative arts.
That this prejudice was still prevalent in the 18th century is demonstrated by the fact that, despite the great achievements of Baroque sculpture (especially with such artists as Gian Lorenzo Bernini), Boselli’s Observations is the only 17th-century treatise that deals specifically with the practical and theoretical aspects of sculpture as an art.
Along with more technical sections, Boselli’s volume includes
chapters that discuss, in remarkably original ways, aesthetic issues such as the theory of ideal beauty in connection with the baroque notion of “wonder”, the figure of the “learned sculptor”, and artistic representation in relation with the “theory of affections”.
Of particular importance is also Boselli’s emphasis on restoration, which he presented for the first time as a profession in its own right possessing intellectual dignity and value.

In questo lavoro si prendono in esame alcuni elementi architettonici, quali la facciata, la porta, la finestra, il vestibolo che, costituendo un "limen", una sorta di sacro confine tra pubblico e privato, rivestono un’importante funzione simbolica e aprono interessanti prospettive d'indagine sull’evoluzione della teoria architettonica dal Rinascimento all’età contemporanea. In modo particolare ci si sofferma sul pensiero di Leon Battista Alberti che, nel "De re aedificatoria", riflette molto sul valore estetico e simbolico dei luoghi di transizione; egli sente fortemente il ruolo della facciata come "limen" tra pubblico e privato; non a caso nelle facciate di San Francesco a Rimini e Sant’Andrea a Mantova riprende il motivo dell’arco trionfale. Poiché la bellezza esercita un forte potere sulla collettività, Alberti interpreta la facciata e il vestibolo alla luce della retorica, la disciplina che nell’antichità aveva maggiormente preso in esame i rapporti col pubblico. Come nel discorso l’esordio è particolarmente importante perché deve coinvolgere l’uditorio, allo stesso modo la facciata e il vestibolo hanno lo scopo di attirare l’attenzione, pertanto esigono particolare bellezza e decoro. Applicando all’architettura il principio retorico del “decorum” ne consegue che l’ornamentazione nei vari edifici deve essere distribuita, secondo una gerarchia assiologica, in base al grado sociale di chi vi abita o delle funzioni che vi saranno svolte. Tuttavia oggi tale principio sembra vacillare, nuovi valori s’impongono, segnando la sparizione della simbolicità della soglia come figura tragica dell’aut-aut, della scelta.

Il concetto di genio si forma nella temperie romantica, ma in realtà nella pratica artistica si annoverano figure geniali anche prima del Settecento. Un caso esemplare è Michelangelo. Il divino, però, oltre le lettere e le Rime, non ha lasciato altra testimonianza scritta per cui questa nozione tarda a farsi strada nella storia delle idee. Però l’architetto e miniaturista portoghese Francisco de Hollanda, che aveva conosciuto Michelangelo durante un breve soggiorno romano (1538-42), rielaborò le idee del Maestro nel suo trattato Da pintura antiga, tracciando per la prima volta la figura del genio. Il Da Pintura Antiga, pertanto, si può considerare il solo trattato d’arte neoplatonico del Rinascimento. La teoria estetica di Francisco de Hollanda, incentrata sulla nozione di Idea infusa da Dio, reinterpretando la nozione classica di ingenium alla luce della melanconia cinquecentesca, delinea per la prima volta in un trattato di pittura il ritratto dell’artista creatore.

Lo specchio, simbolo sia dell’inganno sia dell’imitazione realistica, compare nel De pictura albertiano nella sua duplice ambigua valenza, per connotare le origini della pittura. Attraverso una sistematica ricognizione delle fonti bibliche e filosofiche (ermetiche, neoplatoniche) si dimostra che in Alberti lo specchio assurge a metafora della creazione artistica

Attraverso un esame dei testi albertiani in cui compare il concetto di idea si dimostra che Alberti stravolge l’originario valore trascendente di questa nozione per farne il fondamento razonale della bellezza. Infatti il concetto di artista come “alter deus” svolge nel De pictura un ruolo parallelo a quello dell’“artista-scienziato”, dato che Alberti condanna chi, dimentico delle regole, confida solo sul proprio ingegno e su un’astratta idea di bellezza.

Ornament and Architecture. The Functionalist Aesthetic of Louis H. Sullivan

The present volume by Elisabetta Di Stefano offers an introduction to and advances a new interpretation of the aesthetic of Louis Henry Sullivan(1856-1924).
Sullivan is universally known as one of the most important American architects, possibly even the greatest one of the 19th century.
Scholars of the Modern Movement have misinterpreted his motto “form follows function” and have hailed him as the “father of functionalism”. Sullivan, however, attributed to the concepts of “form”, “function” and “suitability” a higher and more poetic meaning than the other architects of the Chicago School, among whom the debate on such issues, as related to Gottfried Semper’s theories and evolutionist doctrines, was quite heated. Nevertheless, rationalist criticism has approached Sullivan solely as “the prophet” of the new architecture of glass and steel, and it has privileged those drawings where mass and simplicity prevailed over ornament, ignoring that part of his theoretical and projectual work that Sullivan himself considered the most significant.
Admittedly, among Sullivan's numerous essays there are only two that focus explicitly on the ornament (both of which have been included in the Appendix to the present volume): Ornament in Architecture (1892) and A System of Architectural Ornament, According with a Philosophy of Man’s Powers (1924). However, in light also of the fact that the first of these essays was written at the height of his career and that he was working on the second at the end of his life, it can be argued that the ornament was a central issue that, though intertwined with functionalist and organicist
concerns, permeated Sullivan’s entire work.

Il De equo animante si presenta come un trattato tecnico ed erudito, piuttosto che artistico, in quanto rielabora notizie attinte dalle auctoritates in materia di ippologia. Tuttavia, a partire dal concetto di “vitalità”, messo in rilievo fin dal titolo, è possibile individuare due percorsi che consentono di rileggere il testo all’interno dell’estetica albertiana: il primo si snoda in seno stesso alla teoria della bellezza e mette in luce una concezione estetica che si risolve nella funzionalità; il secondo interpreta il concetto di “vitalità” nel senso dell’enargeia, della “vivezza rappresentativa”, qualità fondamentale delle opere d’arte. A conclusione di queste analisi e alla luce dell’osmosi che nel Quattrrocento legava riflessione artistica e scientifica, si comprende che anche uno scritto tecnico, come il De equo animante, può avere valenza estetica, secondo una chiave di lettura non settoriale e depauperante, ma aperta a cogliere le idee estetiche presenti anche in contesti lontani da quelli più specificatamente artistici.


The De equo animante is introduced as a technical and erudite, rather than artistic essay, because it elaborates news drawn by the auctoritates in subject of hippology. Nevertheless, beginning from the concept of " vitality ", envoy in relief since the title, is possible to individualize two paths that allow of to reread the text inside the Leon Battista Alberti's aesthetics: the first one is untied in same breast to the theory of the beauty and it shows an aesthetical conception that is resolved in the functionality; the second interprets the concept of " vitality " in the sense of the enargeia, of the "representative liveliness", fundamental qualities of the work of art. At the end of these analyses and to the light of the osmosis that tied artistic and scientific reflection in Fifteenth Century, it is understood that also a technical writing, as the De equo animante, can have aesthetical value, according to a key of non sectorial and impoverishing reading, but open to gather also aesthetical ideas found in far contexts from those more specifically artistic.

Nell’attuale società dell’immagine multimediale bisogna riconfigurare le tradizionali categorie estetiche dell’arte e dell’artista. Dal mito michelangiolesco dell’artista divino che plasma faticosamente con le mani la materia si è passati a quello dell’artista divo, a cui l’aureola della celebrità è conferita, come alle star, secondo meccanismi economici di pubblicità e di mercato. Oggi si assiste al declino della techne, della perizia manuale, l’artista opera su immagini già esistenti, modificandole e trasformandole anche con strumenti informatici: L’espansione della tecnologia ha trasformato la nostra cultura e le nostre forme di vita. In questo senso l’estetica, come scienza della conoscenza sensibile, secondo la definizione di Alexander G. Baumgarten riacquista una sua attualità, configurandosi come quella disciplina che, tenendo conto dei nuovi media, deve ridisegnare la mappa epistemica del sapere estetologico e recuperare il valore etimologico dell’aisthesis.