Book Reviews Altavista, Clara. Lucca e Paolo Guinigi, 1400–1430: la costruzione di una corte rinascimentale: città, architettura, arte. Pisa: ETS, 2005. Pp. 255, 80 b. & w. illustrations. The study of Paolo Guinigi (1372/76–1432) and his vibrant court in Lucca has intensified in recent years. Among the most important initiatives have been the conference devoted to the man and his times, which was held in his native city in 2001, and the national committee established in 2007 to promote the funerary monument of his short-lived second wife, Ilaria del Carretto (d. 1405). We are now better informed about his rise to power, his shaping of the Lucchese state, his patterns of control in the contado, his relations with neighboring powers, and his marital politics. Clara Altavista’s book, meanwhile, is the first serious assessment of the lord’s direct involvement in the architectural reorganization of early fifteenth-century Lucca. Scrutinizing a group of impressive urban projects, the author shows that both transformations and additions to the fabric of the city ensured the prestige of ruler and state alike. In fact, the reader is required to consider the built environment of the early quattrocento town as a form of political art where buildings and spaces document relationships of power and notions of sovereignty. Altavista’s approach, as clearly set out in the introduction, draws on the scholarly methods of Manfredo Tafuri who prioritized comparative analysis “in order to avoid (along with generalizations) a constricting focus on local history” (Interpreting the Renaissance: Princes, Cities, Architects [New Haven/London: Yale University Press, 2006], 60; originally published in Italian as Ricerca del Rinascimento. Principi, città, architetti in 1992). As a result, she establishes useful parallels between Guinigi’s Lucca and Florence at the time of Giovanni di Averardo and Cosimo de’ Medici, as well as with Milan and Pavia in the age of Gian Galeazzo Visconti. More thought-provoking still are the claims that Paolo, in commissioning a studiolo for his private residence in 1413, unwittingly set an example for such well-known princely patrons as Leonello d’Este and Federigo da Montefeltro. Paolo Guinigi was created signore (lord) of Lucca in 1400 and exercised authority for thirty years. Owing to the city’s deep-rooted traditions of republican liberty, local chroniclers from the sixteenth century onwards made short shrift of his rule, so both the man and his reputation have suffered as a consequence. Relying heavily on the fruits of the latest scholarship on the social, political, and cultural circumstances of the lordship, Altavista casts new light on Guinigi’s patronage, overcoming many 226 Fifteenth-Century Studies 37 (2012) misconceptions and received ideas that proliferated in older accounts. At the same time, the author’s reconstruction of the regime and its physical environment is underpinned by painstaking archival research, a rigorous reading of the books known to have been in the lord’s private library, an insightful analysis of the city’s planning codes, as well as a sharp eye to buildings and urban spaces. Indeed, it is for the treatment of the three foci of Guinigi’s court — the Lord’s Citadel, the Fortress of the Augusta, and the Palazzo ai Borghi — that this publication will be of value to the historian interested in the political importance of architecture. The book is structured thematically, not as a chronological survey of building types but as an investigation organized around key issues and projects. The opening chapter leads the reader through a consideration of the many aspects of the urban history of Lucca in the late Middle Ages. This is followed by a focused study of the involvement of Francesco (pater patriae; d. 1384) and Lazzaro (d. 1400) Guinigi, Paolo’s father and older brother respectively, in the transformation of the city in the years between 1369, when the Lucchese state recovered its political independence from Pisa, and 1400, when the Guinigi signoria established itself. Both chapters make clear the local context within which Paolo’s structures and spaces were later situated or reconfigured and provide a helpful introduction to his political motivations. The central concern of chapters 3 and 4 is the signore himself. Here, the author attempts to define the social and cultural forces that shaped the personality of the ruler and that also stimulated his activity as a builder and patron of the arts. But the assertion that the Guinigi court failed to attract artists of the highest order appears excessive, especially in light of the fresh evidence generated by recent exhibitions and monographs devoted to painting, metalwork, and polychromed wooden sculpture in late-medieval Lucca. Admittedly, the chief obstacle to a meaningful evaluation of Paolo’s productive relationship with artists is the dearth of surviving or securely documented works of art. However, those items that can be identified with certainty — from the magnificent tomb-monument by Jacopo della Quercia to the dazzling Croce dei Pisani by Vincenzo di Michele da Piacenza — testify to the consummate craftsmanship of their creators as well as the exquisite taste of the man who commissioned them. Moreover, some artists known to have worked for Paolo are also recorded in the employ of such discerning patrons as Palla di Nofri Strozzi and Pandolfo III Malatesta. The implications of these episodes of artistic exchange might have been explored for a more complete assessment of the consumption habits of the Lucchese court, especially given the author’s stated desire to embrace comparative models. Book Reviews 227 In the next three chapters — devoted to Guinigi’s buildings and territorial reforms, including the extension of the city’s boundaries — Altavista’s cogent analysis points towards a rethinking of the lord’s efforts at transforming Lucca into a princely capital. Particularly welcome are the reconstructions of the now-vanished Citadel and Augusta Fortress based on drawings and descriptions. In reviewing the archival and literary evidence, the author probes the implications and circumstances of each project. In the case of the rebuilding of the Augusta, for example, she highlights the importance of memories of Castruccio Castracani degli Antelminelli (reg. 1316– 28), the ruler of Lucca who founded the fortress around 1322, reputedly involving Giotto in its design. The strong and evocative associations of Castruccio with both the structure and the surrounding area must have served Paolo well, validating the latter’s right to rule, not least because Guinigi himself was part heir of the Antelminelli through his mother, Filippa Serpenti, and through his short-lived marriage to Maria Caterina degli Antelminelli (d. 1400), the last of Castruccio’s direct descendents. The episode as a whole addresses broader questions about the role of collective memory embodied in buildings and spaces. While the symbolic values of the destroyed Augusta and Citadel are difficult to discern today, the opposite is true of Paolo’s surviving Palazzo ai Borghi (built from ca. 1413). The author accounts for the aesthetic intentions of the patron who built the impressive palace and developed the surrounding area of the Borghi when he was at the height of his power. While her arguments are relevant and persuasive, the question of the social and political consequences of Guinigi’s transformation of the physical fabric of the city might have been afforded more space. Altavista’s volume is more than justified on the basis of the new information and fresh contextual analysis it provides on the urban and architectural history of Lucca. The book is also an important resource for the study of a small Italian court, one of many that rose during the Renaissance and managed to exist autonomously beside the largest. As such, it will encourage its readers to think more deeply about the relationship between major and minor centers of fifteenth-century Italy and the complex dynamics of cultural exchange. Flavio Boggi, University College Cork