16th Century Florence

Esiste una "maturazione", conseguente alla saggezza derivante dall'età, nelle opere di due dei più grandi artisti di tutti i tempi?
Questo breve lavoro prende in considerazione alcune opere per valutare se e in che modo la "saggezza" dell'età si rifletta nelle opere stesse.

Une visite, effectuée en 1656 lors de l’achat du domaine de Meudon par Abel Servien aux héritiers de la Maison de Guise, permet de préciser la nature des travaux menés dans la seconde moitié du XVIe siècle, notamment ceux exécutés sur les dessins du Primatice. L’intervention de ce dernier ne se borna pas en effet à la seule grotte que Vasari mentionne, non sans exagération, et qui au demeurant n’a pas été achevée, mais elle porta aussi sur le château : création de galeries terrasses dans la cour, des décors de la galerie dans l’aile droite, de la grande salle et d’un petit studiolo peint sur le thème d’Aristote.

The article discusses Andrea del Sarto's use of cartoons throughout his career and gradual transition to the involvement of members of the workshop in the design process. Presented here for the first time with an attribution to Andrea del Sarto is a large-scale fragment of a drawing of a young boy looking and pointing toward the right, the only surviving example of a fully autograph cartoon for a painting within the artist’s corpus of drawings and a crucial missing link for the full understanding of his working method.

Today the name of Giovanni de’ Medici (1498-1526), better known as Giovanni of the Black Bands, is still largely linked to the heroic and tragic figure created by nineteenth century Risorgimento historiography and literature. First the renown of the so-called ‘Medici warrior’, and then his sudden oblivion as the result of more up-to-date historiographic methods, have obscured both his true story and that of the men to whom he owed his fame. This is a study not of Giovanni himself but of the Black Bands -- the first famous unit of Italian infantry in the pike-and-shot era. Based on unpublished documentary sources, the volume traces the Bands' story from the time of their birth in the days following Giovanni's death on 30 November 1526 until their surrender and disbandment at Aversa on 30 August 1528. Although they were but a simple pawn in the dramatic end game between the Empire and France for supremacy in Italy, the Black Bands nonetheless drew the attention of all the principal ‘players’. The last Florentine Republic entrusted them with most of its hopes for survival. In the course of two consecutive campaigns culminating in the great siege of Naples (1528), and whose dramatic outcome would affect the balance of power in Italy and Europe for decades, Giovanni de’ Medici's 'orphans' consolidated the fame of their late master and soon established their own legend. In recounting their story, the volume examines the practice of war in the Early Modern Age, highlighting interactions between the political world and the changing realities of the battlefield.

WONDER WOMEN: SOFONISBA ANGUISSOLA, LAVINIA FONTANA AND ARTEMISIA GENTILESCHI
A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF RENAISSANCE AND BAROQUE SELF-PORTRAIT PAINTING BY FEMALE ARTISTS

by Rosa Lena Reed Robinson

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of
Master of Arts in Art History at
Studio Art Centers International
Florence, Italy

2017


This  thesis is focused on the self-portrait painting practice by three female artists from the Renaissance and the Baroque periods: Sofonisba Anguissola, Lavinia Fontana, and Artemisia Gentileschi. Chapter I introduces the self-portrait as it developed specific to the Renaissance and in relation to a Greco-Roman classical ideal. The chapter focuses on Renaissance concepts of art and the very role of the artist. Chapter II studies the numerous self-portraits of Sofonisba Anguissola, the first great Renaissance female artist to have an international career. The artist’s self-portraits both became a foundation for those of later female artists and self-consciously expressed the new elite status achieved by this Lombard artist of noble lineage who worked as court portraitist for the Spanish monarchy. Chapter III examines the self-portraits and innovative identity self-portraiture of Lavinia Fontana of Bologna. It is demonstrated how her two early self-portraits built on the precedent established by Sofonisba, and yet, are of somewhat greater iconographic complexity. While in her maturity the artist developed self-portraiture into the identity self-portrait through the subject of Judith and Holofernes. Within her treatments of the theme in some examples she put herself into the figure of Judith and in others into Judith’s maid Abra. Lavinia Fontana’s final masterpiece, the improbable painting Minerva Dressing done at the end of her extensive career was likewise arguably an identity self-portrait. Minerva Dressing constitutes the first female fully nude figure painted by a female artist. Chapter IV focuses on Artemisia Gentileschi. This thesis designates the artist’s Pommersfelden Susanna and the Elders as both Artemisia’s first exact self-portrait and the first female full-length nude self-portrait painted by a female artist. The work is also an identity self-portrait. This chapter continues with a discussion of both versions of Artemisia’s infamous Judith and Holofernes (Capodimonte/Uffizi). Both works are arguably exact self-portrait paintings and identity self-portraits. Artemisia’s Allegory of Painting in London, often referred to as a self-portrait in scholarship, is suggested a perhaps better understood as an ideal identity self-portrait rather than a literal self-representation. The Allegory of Painting is considered together with other attributed self-portraits and portraits of the artist. A major theme in Chapter IV is the transition from literal self-representation to allegorical and ideal portrayal of the self. This thesis suggests that, as the artist’s career advanced, Artemisia Gentileschi did continue to paint both the exact and the ideal self-portrait. Finally, in the Conclusion, the legacy of the self-portraits of the Wonder Women, to adopt a phrase from Giorgio Vasari, is considered in reference to future female artists such as Elisabetta Sirani, Angelica Kauffmann, Elisabeth Vigée Le-Brun and Paula Modersohn-Becker.

The book focuses on a category of works of art that blend within the same iconographic frame historical, mythical, even alchemical, themes revealing patrons’ intentions, ambitions and aspirations. Scenes of this kind can be traced in Florence between 1537, year of Cosimo I de Medici’s rise to power, and 1609, year of death of Ferdinand I, third Grand Duke of Tuscany. Consistent with the general concern of the period with the culture of the ancient world, the Medici not only appropriated exempla virtutis, but also intervened in person in the plot of the depicted mythological narratives, using them as vehicles for their political messages. The intellectual and visual culture of the time was, after all, linked with Mannerism, a style of excess, with preference for variety rather than unity and open to unexpected combinations. By encouraging their artists to add a diachronic dimension to the themes of art by connecting them with ancient myths, the Medici intended not ony to signal to contemporary Italian and European princes their magnificent status, but also to secure for themselves everlasting fame. Actually, they succeeded in establishing a dynasty that lasted for two hundred years.

The famous "Seal of Nero, a Roman intaglio depicting Apollo, Marsyas and Olympus, was once in the collection of Lorenzo il Magnifico and is now in the National Museum of Naples. Two gems related to that "Seal of Nero" are published here for the first time: one, a severely damaged intaglio kept in the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon, is supposed to date from the third quarter of the first century BC. Another gem with a similar motif, a refined Renaissance cameo, recentlya ppeared in Oxfordshire and is now in a private collection in London. It is presumed that this perfectly preserved piece originally was in the possession of the Medici. The author considers a possible attribution of this work to the young Michelangelo Buonarroti and discusses a copy shown in a portrait painting by Botticelli now in the Städel Museum in Frankfurt on the Main. (summary by Matthias Barth)

Dell'attività dedicata al volgare nell'Accademia degli Alterati di Firenze (1569-1634) rimane una trattazione ragionata intorno al lessico, ovvero alla struttura e alla formazione delle parole antiche e moderne in toscano, fittamente corredata da esempi delle opere di Dante, Petrarca, Boccaccio e Giovanni Villani, ma anche del «Novellino» nonché dalle citazioni tratte dai «buoni libri a mano» di altri testi trecenteschi. Quest’opera linguistica di mano di Francesco Bonciani (l'accademico Aspro) conservata nella Biblioteca Riccardiana testimonia le ricerche intorno al fiorentino antico condotte dai giovani Alterati alla scuola di Vincenzo Borghini, ancor prima dei lavori di Lionardo Salviati e degli Accademici della Crusca.

A “giuntina” edition of «Perì hermenèias» (Florence, Biblioteca Riccardiana, Stamp. 15826), belonging to Benedetto Varchi (1503-1565) and by him richly annotated, testifies on his study on Logica. During his stay in Padua (1537-1541), while giving lectures on Philosophy at the «Studium» and taking part to the Accademia degli Infiammati, the Florentine scholar prepared the ground for building a vernacular philosophic prose by translating and commenting Aristotle's work. When he was called back to Florence in 1543 with the assignment of writing the «Storia fiorentina», Varchi persevered in his efforts to realize the project of putting the philosophic and scientific doctrine into vernacular, by giving lectures on Dante and Petrarch at the Accademia Fiorentina. Such project, moreover, matched with the aim of Duke Cosimo I to make Florentine language an efficient tool of his cultural policy. ***************************************************************************************
L’edizione giuntina del «Perì hermenèias» (Firenze, Biblioteca Riccardiana, Stamp. 15826), appartenuta a Benedetto Varchi e da lui fittamente postillata, è il testimone dei suoi studi sulla logica. Durante il soggiorno a Padova (1537-1541), fra le lezioni di filosofia nello Studio e l’attività all’Accademia degli Infiammati, il letterato fiorentino, traducendo e commentando l’opera di Aristotele, pose le basi alla costruzione di una prosa filosofica in volgare. Richiamato a Firenze nel 1543 per scrivere la Storia fiorentina, Varchi s’impegnò anche, con le letture dantesche e petrarchesche all’Accademia Fiorentina, a mettere in pratica il progetto di trasferire in volgare la dottrina filosofica e scientifica, un progetto che nei principi s’incontrava con l’aspirazione del duca Cosimo I a fare del fiorentino un mezzo efficace della sua politica culturale.

Giovannni di Agnolo Niccolini (1544-1611), membro di una famiglia aristocratica di Firenze fortemente legata al potere dei Medici, fu ambasciatore residente di Toscana presso la corte di Roma per un lungo periodo (1587-1611), svolgendo il servizio diplomatico sotto sette pontefici, da papa Sisto V a Paolo V. Lasciò memoria manoscritta dei primi anni della sua legazione in un dettagliato diario-cronaca che racconta gli avvenimenti di cui fu testimone, ma anche attore protagonista, nell’arco di tempo che va dal 1 gennaio 1588 al 30 aprile 1593. Portata alla luce per la prima volta nella presente edizione, la cronaca del Niccolini mette a disposizione degli studiosi una preziosa testimonianza diretta che descrive molti passaggi cruciali della storia europea di questo periodo: l’andamento dei Conclavi e i cerimoniali della corte papale; la politica e le strategie dei cardinali; la ingombrante influenza della Spagna; i fragili equilibri politici degli antichi stati italiani; i drammatici conflitti religiosi in Francia e nelle Fiandre; l’ascesa contrastata di Enrico di Navarra e il problema della sua conversione al cattolicesimo; la fallimentare impresa di Inghilterra di Filippo II; i propositi di espansione del duca di Savoia Carlo Emanuele I; i conflitti nello scacchiere baltico con al centro la successione in Polonia; la costante preoccupazione militare per la minaccia ottomana sui mari e nei Balcani; il problema del banditismo e dell’amministrazione dello stato ecclesiastico; la gravissima carestia dei primi anni Novanta.
Una cronaca densa di avvenimenti e di personaggi che si intreccia con il privato dell’ambasciatore, la cui carriera e le cui aspirazioni vengono ricostruite nella prima parte del volume grazie alle sue carte personali conservate nell’archivio di famiglia.

Durante el siglo XVI, numerosos mercaderes, nobles y mecenas de origen hispánico formaron parte de la comunidad “extranjera” más poderosa de Florencia. Siguiendo la trayectoria de los personajes más destacados, promotores del arraigo de ilustres familias hispanas en la ciudad del Arno, este libro analiza la esencia de este desconocido colectivo en el contexto de las sólidas relaciones políticas, económicas, sociales y culturales que vincularon a la Monarquía Hispánica con el gobierno de los Grandes Duques de Toscana.

Así, se averigua la figura del mercader a través del consulado castellano, cuyos miembros constituyeron la Nobilissima Nazione Spagnola; la del noble a partir de los españoles que integraron la corte de los Médicis y la Orden Militar de Santo Stefano; y la del mecenas, descubriendo las principales manifestaciones pictóricas comisionadas por estos españoles en los palacios y conventos florentinos en la segunda mitad del Cinquecento. Estas obras, encargadas a los artistas más distinguidos del panorama artístico, constituyen el aspecto más externo del mecenazgo español, en consonancia con los ideales del gusto imperante y nos permiten hablar, junto a otros aspectos estudiados en este volumen, de una “España en Florencia” o de una “Florencia Española”.

Nel saggio si analizzano alcuni passi delle «Lectiones» e dei «Commentari»  vettoriani al trattato di retorica di Demetrio (pseudo-) Falereo, in cui il filologo fiorentino commenta la lingua, le metafore e le fonti della «Commedia»; anche per difendere l'opera dantesca dalle critiche rivolte alla lingua del poema da Giovanni della Casa nel «Galateo».

Magnificence was not just an aesthetic judgement – it was a moral virtue. We have long assumed that it was the pursuit of this virtue and of individual fame that led Florence’s cultural patrons to commission the key artworks of the fifteenth century that thrust the city into the front ranks of artistic innovation. According to this view, Aristotle gave the concept its theoretical form and Timoteo Maffei its local voice in a spirited 1450 defence of Cosimo de’ Medici that set his ‘magnificence’ on an individual and largely secular foundation. Peter Howard, however, overturns this concept and argues persuasively not only that Florentines were discussing the virtue of ‘magnificence’ decades earlier, but also that it was mendicant preachers working with medieval texts who took the lead. He points out that Antonino Pierozzi (a Dominican friar who became Florentine archbishop and was eventually canonized) in his sermons of the 1420s articulated concepts of ‘magnificence’ that he later developed in his influential Summa. To do so, Howard carefully reconstructs the concept of ‘magnificence’ by tracing its development through Antoninus’s texts and his mendicant career. As a result, the origins of Florentine public discourse on magnificence are decisively relocated from the 1450s to the 1420s, and from a largely secular to a distinctly religious context

This volume studies the teaching of Aristotle's "Nicomachean Ethics" (the standard textbook for moral philosophy) in the universities of Renaissance Italy. Special attention is given to how university commentaries on this text reflect developments in educational theory and practice and in humanist Aristotelianism. Case studies are taken from the universities of Florence-Pisa, Padua, Bologna and Rome (including the Collegio Romano), although material on Pavia is also included.

The files below contain: the Table of Contents of the book; the Introduction; and Chapter 5 on the University of Florence, including Niccolò Tignosi and Donato Acciaiuoli.

« Shedding light on the readings of Aristotle’s Poetics developed within the Alterati of Florence (1569 — ca. 1630) : from manuscript studies to the social and political history of aesthetics », in Bryan Brazeau (dir.), The Reception of Aristotle’s Poetics in the Italian Renaissance and Beyond : New Directions in Criticism, Londres, Bloomsbury, 2020,  p. 98-132.

FULL TEXT AND ALL ARCHIVAL IMAGES VIEWABLE IN FULL ON E-SCHOLARSHIP : https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9133m8k5

Full description of the volume : https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/the-reception-of-aristotles-poetics-in-the-italian-renaissance-and-beyond-9781350078949/

Die Zeichenkunst gehörte in der Frühen Neuzeit zu einer grundlegenden künstlerischen Arbeitspraxis. Seit dem 16. Jahrhundert begannen in Italien zunehmend auch Kunstliebhaber damit, sich das Zeichnen anzueignen. Nanobashvili stellt erstmals in der Studie die Lerntechniken von Künstlern und Dilettanti gegenüber. Auf diesem Weg werden entscheidende Erkenntnisse zur Kunsttheorie und Zeichenpraxis in den Jahren von 1560 bis 1630 erlangt. Dies erlaubt eine Neubewertung von Alessandro Alloris Ragionamenti delle regole del disegno, der Carracci-Akademie in Bologna sowie der Praxis des Aktzeichnens, ausgehend von den Werkstattbeständen des venezianischen Künstlers Filippo Esengren.


208 Seiten, 160 Farb- und 43 S/W-Abbildungen, Hardcover
ISBN 978-3-7319-0612-4

Online: https://doi.org/10.11588/arthistoricum.1051

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In the early modern period drawing was one of the main working practices of artists. Since the 16th century more and more dilettanti showed interest for learn drawing. For the first time Nanobashvili opposes learning techniques of artists and dilettanti, by which she can shed new light on drawing practices and theoretical questions. This approach allows a new understanding of Alessandro Alloris Ragionamenti delle regole del disegno, the Carracci-academy in Bologna, as well as the life drawing by examining an informal circle of venetian artist Filippo Esengren.

Online: https://doi.org/10.11588/arthistoricum.1051

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Il saggio mette in discussione l'attribuzione, fatta da Bernard Weinberg, del volgarizzamento manoscritto della "Poetica" di Aristotele (1573) a Lorenzo Giacomini. L'esecuzione della traduzione, conservata nel codice Ashb 531 della Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, viene ora assegnata al fonetista fiorentino, Giorgio Bartoli, che per quasi vent'anni aveva accompagnato e guidato negli studi il giovane Giacomini, stendendo materialmente anche sotto dettatura di questi i suoi lavori di traduttore di opere greche. Il testo volgarizzato della "Poetica", senza firma, è di mano del Bartoli e fa parte del codice che raccoglie i suoi scritti autografi, compresa la trascrizione delle lezioni accademiche di Agnolo Segni e il volgarizzamento del trattato di Demetrio (pseudo)Falereo del Giacomini (1572ca), ma questi due ultimi, debitamente firmati dallo stesso Bartoli a loro nome. Nel saggio si espongono diversi argomenti a sostegno della paternità di Giorgio Bartoli, che all'epoca studiava l'opera aristotelica, fonte basilare anche per i suoi studi di fonetica; e l'elemento considerato decisivo per l'attribuzione è la datazione segnata in calce al testo ashburnhamiano, il 28 agosto 1573, in considerazione del fatto che Giacomini, impegnato negli affari della casa mercantile di famiglia ad Ancona, non era tornato a Firenze dal 1572.

This essay examines Bernardo Segni's "Trattato dei governi", a translation and commentary in Italian on Aristotle's "Politics". In particular, it argues that in this work Segni is responding to more contemporary concerns
and debates relating to Florence’s political situation. It shows
that Segni was strongly aware of and exploited Niccolò Machiavelli’s doctrines, both in his interpretation of Aristotle and even more strongly in his work of political history, the "Istorie fiorentine", even though he disagreed with some of Machiavelli’s premises. It also considers in what ways Segni expressed his discontent with the Medici regime, considering it a tyranny, even while he managed to praise and defend Duke Cosimo I.

On January 25, 1504, a famous meeting was held at the Opera del Duomo in Florence: thirty people were summoned to advise the Signoria, headed by the gonfaloniere a vita Piero Soderini, about the placement of Michelangelo's David, the giant marble statue which had been carved for the base of one of the spurs of Santa Maria del Fiore, but now in search of a new location. Among the participants there were the most illustrious artists of the time, such as Leonardo da Vinci, Sandro Botticelli, Filippino Lippi, Piero di Cosimo and Giuliano da Sangallo. Their choice was not the one that the Florentine government finally approved.