Lucca in the Middle Ages Lucca by FLAVIO BOGGI THE FO NDAZIO NE RAGGHIANTI celebrated the centenary of the birth of its founder, Carlo Ludovico Ragghianti (1910–87), with the exhibition Lucca e l’Europa: un’idea di medioevo; V–XI secolo (closed 9th January). Held in the former monastic complex of S. Micheletto, Lucca, the institution’s beautiful home within the sixteenth-century city ramparts, it addressed the European context of Lucchese art over seven centuries and across various media and techniques, from metalwork and manuscript illumination to textiles and ivories. But it was more than a critical revaluation of the artistic culture of an often overlooked Tuscan town. As the subtitle of both the show and the accompanying catalogue1 suggests, it was also an opportunity to probe Carlo Ludovico Ragghianti’s methodology, rooted as it was in Benedetto Croce’s ‘pura visibilità’ and Alois Riegl’s Kunstwollen. Critic, film-maker, teacher, art historian and politician, Ragghianti made a significant contribution to the cultural and intellectual life of post-War Italy. And although his academic interests encompassed a broad range of subjects – Pompeian frescos and Piet Mondrian’s paintings, as well as cinema, theatre and dance – Lucca e l’Europa had as its central focus his thoughts on medieval art. The organisers, mostly Ragghianti’s former pupils from the University of Pisa, made their careful selection of objects mindful of his particular priorities. In fact, the latter acted as a critical framework, if not a lens through which the viewer was encouraged to look at the works on show. A wall text revealed something of his methods,2 but those who wish to get to 132 february 2011 • cliiI • t h e b u r l i n gt o n mag a z i n e EXHIBITIONS 68. Consular diptych of Areobindus. Constantinople, early sixth century. Elephant ivory, 34 by 12.5 cm. (each valve). (Museo della Cattedrale, Lucca; exh. Fondazione Ragghianti, Lucca). grips with Ragghianti’s ideas should read Prius ars, his survey of Italian art from the fifth century to the tenth, which was reissued in 2010 as part of the centenary celebrations.3 The range and variety of the 102 exhibits emphasised Ragghianti’s outlook, in particular, his belief that many different products of human creativity are worthy of serious scholarly scrutiny and that a meaningful investigation of the material culture of the past can only be realised if predetermined notions of artistic hierarchy are discarded. While such concerns are commonplace in medieval studies today, they were less evident in the Italian academic circles in which Ragghianti was trained. Given that the premise of the exhibition hinged on Lucchese art, at least one item from or for the town was reverentially installed in most sections. In an unpublished personal note Ragghianti commented on his lifelong reflection on the visual culture of his native city and its place within a more universal history of the arts.4 Curatorial decisions on the grouping of works clearly took account of this. The objects were largely arranged by artistic medium and production method in eleven uncluttered sections, although some of the larger rooms allowed for a thematic reading across categories and types. The layout also conveyed a chronological progression from the world of late antiquity to the emergence of the Romanesque style in the early age of the Italian commune. The first room featured a selection of coinage dating from the late Roman empire to the period of the Lombard duchy of Lucca and after (cat. nos.1–23). The sequence highlighted the increasingly abstract decorative principles of the later examples. While the coins themselves were often too tiny to allow for a meaningful appraisal, enlarged photographs aided the visitor’s appreciation. One of Ragghianti’s own ‘critofilms’, The art of coins in the late Roman empire (1958), was shown in a room at the end of the exhibition. This underscored his keen interest in pattern, while also making clear his debt to the numismatic studies of both Riegl and Julius von Schlosser. Gathered near the coins were ivories (nos.24–26) – two consular diptychs and a pyx – and two carved marble human heads (nos.27–28), all from the fifth and sixth centuries. The message here – the ever-changing norms and variations of late antique art – is not new, but the arrangement and close proximity of works in different media gave it a particular resonance. The diptychs were the highlight of the room, especially the earlier example commemorating Basilius (no.24), whose valves – one in Milan and the other in Florence – were temporarily reunited for the event. The presence of Lucca’s Areobindus diptych (no.25; Fig.68) in the same glass case encouraged receptive viewers to test each carver’s markedly distinctive response to narrative and symbolism. The following two rooms treated the advent and development of abstract decoration in a range of artefacts from the sixth century to around the ninth. The first of these spaces, mostly dedicated to early medieval arms and jewellery, was dimly lit so that the precious metals and polished stones gleamed in the dark. Many of the exhibits were archaeological finds from Lucca, but a few choice items from treasure hoards from elsewhere in Italy were also included, among them a late sixth- or early seventh-century disc brooch unearthed from a Lombard grave in Parma in 1950 (no.39), its glistening cloisonné enamelling remains as powerfully appealing today as it must have been for the woman who first wore it. It is likely to have been the product of a goldsmith attached to the Lombard court in Milan who was also in contact with the traditions of Byzantine jewellers. Fragments of marble relief sculpture, mostly architectural decoration, were found in this and the adjoining room (nos.40–43 and 46–54), making a profound visual statement about the inventive use of pattern in another medium and on a different scale, and demonstrating the interaction between craftsmen in gold and sculptors in stone. The exhibition examined the formation of new artistic imperatives in the Carolingian and the Ottonian ages. The wide-ranging spectrum of crafts such as polychromed stucco sculpture (nos.59–60), fresco painting (no.61), metalwork (no.63), manuscript illumination (nos.64–69) and carving in ivory, 69. Detail of a textile fragment. Syria, late eighth–early ninth century. Worked silk, whole fragment 150 by 122 cm. (Museo Diocesano, Ascoli Piceno; exh. Fondazione Ragghianti, Lucca). t he b u r li n g t o n maga zi n e • c li iI • febr u a ry 2 01 1 133 EXHIBITIONS 70. Lion. Tuscany(?), before 1263. Bronze, 30 by 50 cm. (Private collection, Lugano; exh. Fondazione Ragghianti, Lucca). wood, bone and stone (nos.70–74), encouraged the visitor to reflect on the high degree of compilation and assimilation in the arts from both north and south of the Alps, and from the eastern and western fringes of Europe. This synthesis was most clearly expressed in the juxtaposition of codices dating from the ninth century to the eleventh from Lucca (nos.64 and 69) and elsewhere (nos.65–68). There the emphasis was on the aesthetic importance of the abstract patterns on the page. The clever installation of the manuscripts provided insights into the varied forms and functions of the decorated initial, even if in some cases it might have been possible to exhibit more than a single page from each item, especially for MS 490 (Biblioteca Capitolare Feliniana, Lucca; no.44), which is currently disbound. The final displays focused on the Italian peninsula’s relationship with Byzantine and Islamic cultures. This was a rare opportunity to compare an impressive array of imported luxury textiles (nos.75–78) with examples of monumental sculpture (nos.79–87). Perhaps the most alluring object in the show was a substantial fragment of a little-known ninthcentury Syrian brocade depicting hunting scenes (no.78; Fig.69), which was wrapped around the bones of St Emydigius when they were translated to the cathedral of Ascoli Piceno in the eleventh century. Across the room were two marble reliefs from the late 900s which once belonged to Sorrento Cathedral (no.79). The symmetry of their designs and the treatment of the ornamental motifs illustrated how much Italian sculpture was invigorated by design practices derived from other media and from foreign artistic traditions. While the arrangement of the textiles and sculpture illustrated stylistic parallels and variations, more light might have been 134 february 2011 • cliiI • cast on the elusive topic of the medieval beholder’s reception of crafts and materials, especially those of Oriental origin. A bronze lion (no.102; Fig.70) acted as a coda to this rich and beautifully presented exhibition. This rare, if not unique work is thought to date to before 1263, as Carlo Bertelli convincingly argues in the catalogue.5 The concentrated gaze and anthropomorphic head of the fearsome creature betrays clear points of contact with the designs of marble carvers active in Lucca, Pisa, Barga and Pistoia in the thirteenth century. But much remains to be explained about this puzzling piece, which the organisers of Lucca e l’Europa promise to revisit in a future exhibition devoted to the artistic culture of Romanesque Tuscany, one of Ragghianti’s greatest scholarly passions. 1 Catalogue: Lucca e l’Europa: un’idea di medioevo; V–XI secolo. Edited by Clara Baracchini, Carlo Bertelli, Antonino Caleca, Marco Collareta, Gigetta Dalli Regoli and Maria Teresa Filieri. 256 pp. incl. 179 col. + 84 b. & w. ills. (Edizioni Fondazione Ragghianti Studi sull’Arte, Lucca, 2010), €30. ISBN 978–88–89324–26–4. An edited collection of essays on the wider concerns of the exhibition is forthcoming. 2 ‘. . . un criterio storiografico che, liberato da ogni soggezione a teorie od ipotesi preordinate od a schemi preconcetti, costituisca anzitutto una precisa restituzione pragmatica, oggetiva degli eventi artistici, e cerchi di accertarne ed esporne la differenziata qualità . . .’. 3 C.L. Ragghianti: Prius ars: arte in Italia dal secolo V al secolo X, ed. A. Caleca, Lucca 2010; first published as C.L. Ragghianti: L’arte in Italia, vol.II, Dal secolo V al secolo XI: da Roma ai comuni, Rome 1968. 4 ‘Posso dire che fin da giovanissimo fui fra i più attivi cultori del patrimonio artistico lucchese, che per la sua varietà e complessità rifletté durevolmente nel mio animo il senso della differenziazione coeva dei fenomeni artistici’. Quoted by G. Cattani and M.T. Filieri in the foreword to the catalogue. 5 C. Bertelli: ‘Leone’, in Baracchini, op. cit. (note 1), pp.222–26. t h e b u r l i n gt o n mag a z i n e