Bronzino

Intensa y abstracta, ornada y esencial, la «Alegoría con Venus y Cupido», de Bronzino, transforma el deseo y el miedo, el deleite y el sufrimiento, en una refinada experiencia estética en la que los valores morales han sido subyugados por los valores artísticos.

The iconography of Bronzino’s sexually explicit Portrait of Cosimo I de’ Medici as Orpheus has long challenged scholars, especially since scientific analysis revealed a fully-conceived underpainting below the portrait’s surface, depicting a different moment from the story of Orpheus.  First, I suggest that this change was associated with Cosimo’s military victory at the Battle of Montemurlo, where the duke’s army finally extirpated his political opposition. Second, I contend that Cosimo’s nudity should be interpreted within the milieu of the Accademia Fiorentina, where the painting’s eroticism suggested to court literati that the duke had achieved the highest state of Platonic spirituality, known as “erotic furor.” Finally, I argue that although Bronzino’s Cosimo as Orpheus seemingly aggrandizes the duke, it is a polysemous image that former-Republican, antiducal literati could likewise interpret as a scathing critique of the young ruler and an embodiment of the hope that political demise was close at hand.

This study is devoted to the emotional experience of the famous Renaissance sculptor, goldsmith, and writer, Benvenuto Cellini (1500–1571), as it is portrayed in his life writing, the Vita. Providing the variety of arguments on the connection between the artist and contemporary intellectuals, who attended the Florentine Academy (1540–1583) together, I demonstrate that Cellini’s literary production can be examined productively against the background of Neoplatonic thought. In particular, Marsilio Ficino’s On Love, first published in the vernacular Italian in 1544, helps to establish an explanation of what Cellini meant when he decided to play the cornet while falling in love simultaneously with a young boy and girl, or  how he justified kicking or punching his servants, or why he did not kill his adversary, the artist Baccio Bandinelli, when he had the chance. These cases of radical affectivity are inscribed into Ficino’s concept of the “melancholy genius” manifesting melancholic madness. In Cellini’s Vita, the latter can not only turn humans almost into beast, literally (for example, in a bat); but, properly tempered by the means of music and poetry, as well as of individual and collective magic, it elevates one’s soul “on high,” which corresponds to the Neoplatonic concept of divine madness.
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Table of Contents
Introduction
Chapter 1.  Benvenuto Cellini and the Florentine Academy
1.1 Why did the Italian academies emerge?
1.2 Academic movement before the Florentine Academy
1.3 The Florentine Academy
1.4 Benvenuto Cellini’s writings in the context of the Florentine Academy
Chapter 2.  “Essendo io per natura malinconico”: Benvenuto Cellini and the Ficinian Legacy
2.1 “Grand theories” and “grounded” early-modern artists
2.2 Marsilio Ficino’s On Love
2.3 “Melancholy genius” concept
2.4 (Neo)Platonic love
Chapter 3.  “Tu ten sei gito a contemplar su ’n Cielo l’alto Fattore”: Benvenuto Cellini Ascending on High
3.1 Esoteric knowledge and censorship
3.2 “Furor divino” and “diabolico furore”
3.3 Different kinds of furor divino in the Vita
Conclusion

Il ritratto di Laura Battiferri è una delle opere più enigmatiche di Bronzino, che aveva per la ritrattata amicizia e stima e nondimeno la rappresenta priva di ogni avvenenza in un dipinto totalmente spoglio. In realtà, questa dovette essere una precisa richiesta della stessa Battiferri, che frequentava circoli maschili di poeti e letterati, ed era lei stessa poetessa di grande fama. A lei, unica donna, fu conferito il grandissimo onore di essere ammessa all'Accademia degli Intronati di Siena, preclusa alle donne, ed è significativo che scegliesse allora il nomignolo accademico di Sgraziata, per sottolineare che le sue qualità non dovevano essere quelle femminili dell’avvenenza, ma quelle maschili dell’intelletto. Questo è l’unico ritratto di profilo dipinto da Bronzino, che tuttavia aveva già realizzato anni prima il lascivo profilo della Venere dell’Allegoria, oggi a Londra, nel quale il pittore sembra essersi ispirato ai canoni di bellezza indicati da Agnolo Firenzuola in un dialogo dedicato appunto alla bellezza delle donne. Si potrebbe pertanto anche ritenere che il profilo della Battiferri e quello della Venere siano stai pensati, sia pure a distanza di anni, quasi in maniera complementare come un rapporto dialettico di opposti.

This book breaks new ground by illuminating the key role of verse-writing as a cultural strategy on the part of Italian Renaissance artists. It does so by undertaking a wide-ranging study of poems by painters, sculptors, architects, and goldsmiths who were active in Florence under Cosimo I and Francesco I de’ Medici – a milieu in which many practitioners of the visual arts appropriated the literary medium to address issues related to their primary professions.

New Apelleses and New Apollos intervenes in the burgeoning scholarly discourse on the intellectual life of artists in early modern Italy, revealing how poetry often provides fresh insights into art-theoretical debates, patronage questions, workshop cultures, issues of professional identity, and networks of personal relations.

https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110743661/html

For a preview: https://books.google.de/books/about/New_Apelleses_and_New_Apollos.html?id=g3lVEAAAQBAJ&source=kp_book_description&redir_esc=y

Michelangelo’s lost Noli Me Tangere cartoon for Vittoria Colonna is known to us today through the painted copies of Pontormo (1531), Bronzino (1531-32), and Battista Franco (1537).  These paintings bear witness to the originality of Michelangelo’s composition, which defies iconographical expectations established for scenes of the Noli me tangere.  His innovative interpretation of the subject focuses on the Magdalene’s privilege and the worth and redemptive power of her words and deeds, rather than her sinful past and penitence, as was typical of other renditions of the Noli me tangere.  By celebrating the more empowered aspects of the Magdalene’s identity, this painting participates visually in the debate raging in humanist and theological circles over the status of women in religion and society, and not only reflects Colonna’s personal devotion to the Magdalene but also her active participation in the contemporary pro-feminist dialogue.

In 1565 Francesco I de’ Medici, son of Duke Cosimo I de’ Medici, married Johanna of Austria, the daughter of Charles V’s brother Emperor Ferdinand I. This was the second attempt to unify the Habsburg and Medici dynasties in marriage after a short-lived attempt in 1536 with the nine-month marriage of Duke Alessandro de’ Medici and Margaret of Austria, daughter of Charles V. The union between Francesco I de’ Medici and Johanna of Austria proved more lasting and laid the groundwork for a flourishing relationship and frequent intermarriages between the Habsburgs and the Medici that lasted up until the eighteenth century. It not only strengthened political and familial ties, but reinforced the artistic connections between these two European dynasties. This dissertation focuses on the 1565 marriage, its negotiation, conclusion and celebration. Specifically, it traces the cultural and artistic strategies employed in contracting this wedding and its lasting cultural consequences for the Habsburg and Medici courts. The Medici carefully and purposefully deployed their Florentine cultural capital through elaborate gifts and through a language of overt magnificence to overcome their weak dynastic credentials in 1565 to successfully broker a direct familial alliance with the Austrian Habsburgs. Diplomatic gifts of high artistic value – paintings, sculpture, jewellery, goldsmith work – were employed alongside smaller tokens of appreciation, such as medicinal oils, plants and foodstuffs to obtain a Habsburg bride for Francesco I de’ Medici and eventually to petition the Habsburg Emperor for a higher noble title for the Florentine dynasty. Examining the intersection of diplomacy, gift-giving and artistic production in the context of sixteenth-century marriage brokering, this study illustrates how the Medici harnessed their artistic legacy to forge and cement their standing as pre-eminent cultural brokers and powerful players on the European political stage.

‘“Painting’s Enchanting Poison”: Artistic Efficacy and the Transfer of Spirits’, in: C. Göttler & W. Neuber (eds.), Spirits Unseen: The Representation of Subtle Bodies in Early Modern European Culture. Intersections, Yearbook for Early Modern Studies, vol. IX, Leiden and Boston 2007, pp. 141-178.

Hieronymus Cock (1518-1570) was an Antwerp painter and printmaker. Together with his wife, he was one of the first to establish a publishing house for prints. From 1548 their firm "At the Sign of the Four Winds" issued hundreds of important etchings and engravings. Prints after frescoes and paintings by Italian artists Raphael and Bronzino, the first series of classical ruins, antique sculpture, as well as designs by such Northern artists as Maarten van Heemskerck and Frans Floris were distributed all over Europe and helped to spread Renaissance ideals of beauty. It was Cock who spotted the talent of Pieter Bruegel, an artist who would eventually supply Cock with more than sixty designs for prints.

The  article  starts  with  an  exam  of  the  volume  of  the  conference  proceedings STORIA DELLA  LINGUA  E  STORIA  DELL‟ARTE  IN ITALIA. DISSIMMETRIE  E  INTERSEZIONI(2004) to
draw  some  general  considerations,  without  pretense  of completeness:  there  is  only  some mentions  of  too  specific  topics  or of  topcis external  to  the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries. The  fundamental  aim  is  to  recompose  a  plausible  framework  for  the  topics,  discussing  ideas
that  emerged  during  the  2004  conference  and  at  times  developing  them.  Beyond  the  usual reference  to  the  profitable  viability  of  interdisciplinary  contact,  it  proves  particularly  fruitful the collaboration  of  linguists,  philologists  and  historians,  when  together  (or,  at  least,  taking
into account each of the others) work on texts, characters or particular topics.

Duke Cosimo I de' Medici commissioned portraits of his children throughout his reign (1537-1574). The majority depict his second son, Giovanni (1543-1562), and are exceptional because of the inclusion of atypical and often overlooked attributes that distinguish his images from those his siblings and other courtly youth of the mid-fifteenth century. Though some of these portraits have been studied individually, they have not been studied as a group, allowing for new consideration of unique visual choices that depart from contemporary conventions. Giovanni's nine individual childhood portraits capture his transition from a boy in infanzia (age 0-7) bearing arms to a man-child in puerizia (age 7-14) with books. Because Giovanni was positioned from infancy for a dual destiny as a leader of Florence or the Church, his expected trajectory demanded an unusually complex representation through a visual campaign that was crafted to broadcast his exceptional position. The present paper analyzes Giovanni's portraits in comparison to more than 700 portraits of his Italian and European peers. Created in Florence during a period of diplomatic exchange between the Medici and the papal court, these representations of Giovanni as a child present an alternate model of humanist maturity and masculinity, and illustrate an attempt by the Medici to distinguish themselves from other princely families. The critical evaluation of this visual campaign suggests that the Medici developed a formula of representation directed toward the pope, rather than the Holy Roman Emperor, in their desire to use Giovanni as a vehicle to promote Medici power in Rome. Ultimately, these findings indicate that the comparative analysis of one child's portraits in sequence, in addition to their evaluation in isolation, can yield new readings and information about patrons' intentions and the visual conventions of early modern portraiture.

The fascinating issue underlying Benedetto Varchi's Due Lezzioni opens up a multiplicity of views and approaches. At the crossroads of disciplines and sectors that are often separated, the dispute on the 'Paragone' requires an effort of interdisciplinary openness in order to bring together aspects that are otherwise unconnected and therefore poorly understood.
The debate decisively involves the artists' approach to operative practice: in the lines of the letters to Varchi we can gather important indications on executive practices considered to be for 'insiders', and for this reason normally concealed.
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L’affascinante tematica sottesa alle Due Lezzioni di Benedetto Varchi apre una molteplicità di sguardi e di possibilità di approccio. Crocevia di discipline e di settori spesso separati, la disputa sulla maggioranza delle arti obbliga a uno sforzo di apertura interdisciplinare per coniugare aspetti  altrimenti slegati e per questo poco compresi. Il dibattito coinvolge in maniera determinante l’approccio degli artisti alla prassi operativa: fra le righe delle lettere al Varchi possiamo cogliere indicazioni importanti su pratiche esecutive considerate da ‘addetti ai lavori’, e per questo normalmente sottaciute.

FOCUS SUL BRONZINO, in "Theory and Criticism of Literature and Arts", 3/1/2018, Carla Rossi:
Il quadrato magico del Bronzino e i ritratti di Tonino Lapi, Filippo Peruzzi
ed un'effige di Don Garzia mai consegnata a Cosimo I,
pp. 19-55
La Milvia bronziniana
pp. 56-65

Les abîmes secrets intrinsèques à la photographie du collectif Void of course justifient l’intérêt porté à la couleur noire. Dans l’antiquité grecque la nuit donne naissance au jour, le noir est donc aussi la nativité. La figure du néant et des ténèbres, lorsque Jésus agonisant sur la croix au Golgotha, qui signifie “lieux du crâne” ; la scène est décrite ainsi : “de midi jusqu’à trois heures de l’après-midi, il y eut les ténèbres sur tout le pays” évangile selon Saint-Matthieu, passage 27.35-27.36 issu de la Bible. Le noir dérange, il est mystérieux, secret, pénétrant et sensuel, ce qui le rend transgressif puisqu’il flirte avec l’interdit.