16th Century Italian Art

Inserito nel numero speciale del Notiziario pubblicato dagli Amici dei Musei e dei Monumenti di Bassano del Grappa per celebrare il dono al locale Museo Civico di due frammenti inediti di Jacopo Bassano raffiguranti la "Vergine" e un "Pastore", l'intervento fa  il punto sugli studi e sul mercato delle opere dei Bassano negli ultimi dieci anni.

This most recent edition of the bibliography contains almost 21,200 titles in English (64%) and French (36%), with an introductory section on historiography. It deals with every aspect of Italian history and culture from the Late Renaissance to the French Revolution.

A partire dal XV secolo la famiglia Poncini, in via di affermazione sul panorama cittadino di Bergamo grazie ai proventi dell'attività mercantile, avviò l'acquisto di appezzamenti di terra nella media pianura bergamasca, nei pressi della località Padergnone (Zanica), luogo che in seguito fu scelto da alcuni esponenti del casato per la costruzione di una dimora extraurbana e dell'azienda agricola annessa. A Girolamo di Simone Poncini spettò in particolare la trasformazione dell'antico castello lì esistente  in "residenza dominicale", attraverso l'ammodernamento delle strutture e l'apertura di nuovi cantieri. L'articolo propone l'analisi di tre episodi della committenza di Girolamo, corrispondenti alla costruzione del nucleo abitativo con portico e loggia (1508), al rimaneggiamento della torre medievale (1510) e al rinnovamento della cappella castrense (post 1513). I cantieri inaugurati da Girolamo furono condotti a compimento dai suoi discendenti, come dimostra il caso della citata loggia, decorata ad affresco nella seconda metà del secolo. Ciò che resta oggi di quella campagna decorativa è uno strappo di affresco raffigurante una rara carta topografica del territorio bergamasco, conservato presso il Museo Diocesano di Bergamo, databile attorno agli anni settanta del Cinquecento e attribuita all'ambito di Cristoforo Sorte.

Nous présentons une solution nouvelle à l’énigme de ce « théâtre » (acheté en 1531 par François 1er, et livré par Camillo début 1534),  celle de sa conception intellectuelle, et celle de son fonctionnement, approche qui privilégie la logique rationnelle. Cette approche montre que l’invention de Camillo ne fait pas appel à des phénomènes de magie occulte restant irrationnels, mais s’avère une construction largement inspirée des thèses de Marsile Ficin, et notamment du christianisme néoplatonicien défendu par cet auteur. Elle distingue deux mécanismes différents pour garantir à l’usager les deux enjeux mentionnés par Camillo dans L’idea del theatro :
- le perfectionnement de l’éloquence pour tout discours, assuré par une structure logique sophistiquée sans art magique
- l’accès à une connaissance supérieure  pénétrant tous les secrets des principes du monde et élevant l’âme à une sagesse suprême, asssuré par la peinture spéciale des images du secteur central du "théâtre" (celui du Soleil) qui applique simplement la technique des images irradiantes décrite par Ficin dans son De triplici vita (cf. Copenhaver et Quinlan McGrath) : l'irradiation solaire de ces images centrales est censée communiquer à l'usager l'effet d'Intellect agent dont le soleil est porteur dans le christinanisme néoplatonicien de Ficin.
Enfin, cette approche peut être validée  par les deux citations du « théâtre » que donne le décor de la Galerie François 1er de Fontainebleau (1530-1539).

Although several portraits of Shah Ismail I – the founder of Safavid State of Azerbaijan are known today, there are no detailed research works on the true author of these portraits, when and under what circumstances they were painted. For the first time, the identification of the portraits was classified according to two different criteria: the first for outward signs (clothes, ornamental accessories, hat, etc.) and the second for anthropometric signs. The image of Shah Ismail I was analyzed comparatively with the portraits of Yavuz Sultan Selim, their different peculiarities were revealed.

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.

“Some Comments on Correggio in Connection with his Pictures in Dresden,” is here identified as the earliest publication on the connoisseurship of Italian Renaissance painting by renowned connoisseur Bernard Berenson.  The evolution of the article reveals that Berenson's selection of Antonio Allegri da Correggio (1489-1534) as a subject was not arbitrary.  Indeed, the selection of Correggio constituted Berenson's formative effort to combine the methodological approaches of two earlier historians of Italian Renaissance art, Giovanni Morelli and John Addington Symonds.  By integrating a Morellian examination of anatomical details with a Symondian aesthetic sensitivity to the artist as revealed through his work, Berenson arrived at his concept of “artistic personality” and a seemingly certifiable science of connoisseurship. To demonstrate its viability, Berenson implemented his new methodology in a pioneering monograph on Lorenzo Lotto - an artist whose work he initially believed demonstrated an affinity to that of Correggio.

The numerous plagues that overflown Bologna in the second half of the 15th century were the reason for the spread of saint Sebastian’s iconography in the city, which reached its climax in the last twenty years of the century. The possible political meanings of this iconography are also discussed. Towards the end of the century, we observe a softening of saint Sebastian’s figure, which is less burly in build than the examples painted around the mid-century. We focus on several cases, for which the reasons for the choice of this saint are investigated; they also provide the opportunity to reconsider the attribution of a selection of paintings.

Andrea Palladio’s research and work concerning the Roman tradition of theatre most famously resulted in the Teatro Olimpico, completed by his protégé, Vincenzo Scamozzi. However, another work, the Villa Rotonda, distills and transposes Palladio’s ideas in response to its particular site and landscape, and explains the villa’s particular morphology. Palladio left one conspicuous clue to what he was up to, right in the dead centre of the plan: A mysterious mask, grinning up at the visitor from the marble floor.

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.

In 1556 the great editor Francesco Marcolini published in Venice Daniele Barbaro's traduction and comment. Andrea Palladio was to Barbaro's eyes the "architetto virtuoso" expected to renovate Venetian architecture non only in mainland but in the city core. Marcolini too contributed with technical advises in the illustrations of machines, clocks, hydraulic organ of Libro X.

THIS STUDY describes and analyses the design and theory of Classical interior detail from its Italian origins through its development into a shared European style around 1700. It presents a close study of some forty chosen interiors in Italy, France and Sweden dating from antiquity to the close of the seventeenth century. One point of departure is the text of the ancient architectural theoretician Vitruvius. The role of Vitruvian theory in the history of interior detail has previously received relatively little attention. The actual impact of Vitruvius on Classical interior details is investigated in comparing the interiors and their components with local tradition as well as with contemporaneous architectural theory and with Vitruvius’s rules.
The study is divided into ten chapters. Chapter one develops a model which can be used to describe the relationship between interior detail and the Classical room as a whole. Chapter two deals with the ancient origins of architectural profiles. Chapter three systematises the ancient proportional system that came to be used for Classical interiors. Chapter four describes and compares the ancient vis-à-vis the Medieval frame profile. Chapters five to nine outline the development of interior detail from 1400 to 1700 as seen in a selection of the most renowned interiors in European architecture. Each chapter concludes with a summary of the principles and ideals behind the proportion and design of the rooms and their parts for the period in question. Chapter ten examines the treatment of mouldings in European architectural theory from 1450 to 1990.
Interior detail is described here using two variables, on the one hand its factual form, and on the other the way it has been proportioned in relation to the structure of the room. The form of interior details as well as their heritage from antiquity are essential for the continuity of the Classical tradition. This thesis shows that small variations in the shape of architectural profiles provide new options for interplay between the building as a whole and the form of the room, walls and details within. This possibility has to a great extent been used to adapt Classical detail to the artistic language of different times and spirits.
ISBN 91-1-301624-5.

The focus of this dissertation is the façade decoration that adorns an early sixteenth-century house in the Borgo in Rome, on vicolo del Campanile. In order to understand the meaning of the messages conveyed by the decoration, we will consider the history of the Borgo and the topography of the house in its immediate surroundings (Saint Peter’s basilica at the Vatican, Castel Sant’Angelo, Meta Romuli, Santa Maria in Transpontina), the tradition of façade decoration and its social functions, the cultural heritage of ancient Rome, and twelfth- through sixteenth- century moralisations of Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Analysing these contexts will enable us to understand the complexity of the meaning of the façade, especially its main narrative scene of Mercury slaying Argus, and posit what message a patron sought to convey through such a commission.

- Ignoto scultore meridionale, Busto di Giacomo Alfonso Ferrillo (?), inizi del XVI secolo, Acerenza, Museo Diocesano, in "Rinascimento visto da Sud...", catalogo della mostra (Matera, Palazzo Lanfranchi, 19 aprile - 19 agosto 2019), a cura di Dora Catalano, Matteo Ceriana, Pierluigi Leone de Castris, Marta Ragozzino, Arte'm, Napoli 2019, p. 323 scheda n. 4.5.

Con la presente mi pongo l'obiettivo di analizzare le vicende orbitanti attorno all'arrivo dell'elefante Annone alla corte papale di Leone X e le conseguenti ripercussioni in campo artistico, a partire dal disegno di Raffaello conservato a Berlino.

La letteratura artistica seicentesca ha posto i fondamenti teorici per la suddivisione in generi delle diverse categorie iconografiche di cui la pittura si compone. Questa classificazione da allora è entrata nell’uso comune e nel linguaggio dell’arte in modo talmente pervasivo da farla sembrare connaturata all’arte stessa; è implicitamente passato in secondo piano il fatto che, come ogni fenomeno culturale, anche i generi pittori ci hanno un loro momento d’inizio che ne condizionò la definizione e l’identità. Dove rintracciare, dunque, le origini di questo fenomeno?
Il tema, ricco e affascinante, costituisce il cuore di questo volume, frutto dello sforzo collettivo di un gruppo di studiosi che hanno condiviso e confrontato differenti metodologie e background di ricerca.
Gli otto casi studio, muovendosi tra Venezia, Roma, Colonia, Francoforte e Anversa, mettono a fuoco al- cune delle principali tematiche collegate allo sviluppo della pittura europea a cavallo tra ’500 e ’600: dalle pra- tiche di bottega e la specializzazione degli artisti, alla professionalizzazione mercantile dei pittori e alle loro connessioni con i mercanti, senza dimenticare alcune ben note tipologie pittoriche, dai cabinet paintings (o quadri da stanza) ai paesaggi affrescati, fino a una nuova ridefinizione visiva della pittura devozionale.

In the 1630s, Alessandro Sforza distinguished with crowns several Marian images ‘venerated for antiquity and miracles’, including Michelangelo’s Vatican Pietà, carved c. 1500. It was crowned in 1637, although there is no record of any miracles believed to have been worked by it. The contention of this paper is that three reasons might have contributed to the crowning of the Vatican Pietà: its reputation as a devotional image, its connection with an artistic rather than religious notion of miraculousness, and its relationship to other Marian images venerated in the Vatican Basilica (above all, the Madonna della Febbre, crowned in 1631).

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 role of Raphael’s and Michelangelo’s inventions in the shaping of the canon of figural compositions in the modern era is well known; further disseminated by the generation of their disciples and epigones by means of blueprints, stencils and more or less approximate copies in various techniques. On the other hand, the ways that 16th-century ornaments were disseminated still remain only broadly outlined, and the role of graphics in the process has not been precisely determined. A particular example is the popularisation of moresque motifs around the half of the 16th century. Graphic models are among the main sources of the proliferation of this fashion, which was much more popular than it is believed. It can be demonstrated that the moresque – as the first ornament in a line of many – was disseminated through graphical works. Over the three decades from ca. 1530, about twelve publications were issued, of which some were re-issued, and most were soon copied. The number of available pattern books (consisting of multiple drawings with a wide range of motifs) found its reflection in a great number of artworks decorated with the moresque. Goldsmithing was one of the domains in which the ornament found its place. In the decoration of pieces dated to mid-16th century and later, for example in double beakers or lidded cups, the moresque constitutes an almost obligatory element of the decoration, perfectly combined with other elements such as the grotesque or the scrollwork. To conclude, I believe that the intensified publishing of pattern books was the main source of dissemination for the moresque. It was the first precedent of such significant impact of the new medium – the ornamental prints.

Priva di riferimenti antichi locali, la tecnica dello stucco si impose nel Veneto del Cinquecento come un fenomeno di importazione. Grazie alla sua particolare natura a cavallo di più arti, si diffuse rapidamente attraverso diversi mezzi, sviluppando stilemi strettamente legati al nuovo contesto.

"Il concetto d'imitazione nella lettera di Pietro Summonte (1524). La pittura fiamminga e la costruzione di un’identità culturale napoletana aragonese", in La Corona d'Aragona e l'Italia. Atti del XX Congresso della Corona d'Aragona (Conference proceedings, Rome/Naples 2017), ed. by Guido D'Agostino et al., 2 vols., Rome 2020, vol. 2, pp. 599–617.

This is the full text and map book (image document separate from and attached to the end of the text) of my undergraduate Bachelor's thesis completed and defended in May 2010. I received high honors and the Alumni Award in the History of Art for this project.

The article examines and discusses some drawings by Giulio Pippi, known as Romano (c.1495–1546). One sheet is unpublished, while a few others are already known, although their exact destination is unknown. All of them concern the Mantuan period of Giulio, who worked for the Gonzaga family from 1524 until his death. The sheets all relate to Palazzo Te, except for one linked to an altarpiece carried out by his workshop.