Mannerism

In this article, I explore the intersection between seventeenth-century theories of rhetorical and poetic conceits and natural philosophy in seventeenth-century Italy, with a focus on the work of Pier Francesco Minozzi and Giovanni Battista Manzini. Conceits were devices through which orators and poets reshaped reality in creative, plastic ways by means of tropes. I show that Minozzi elaborated a sustained analogy between conceits and fireflies, arguing that the insects possessed a dim but mysterious light
that, just like the precarious and merely apparent likelihood of conceits, rendered them paradoxically more enticing. Then, I demonstrate that Manzini linked the invention of conceits to the process of spontaneous generation that natural philosophers believed led to the emergence of amphibians, reptiles, and a variety of insects, including fireflies. Manzini thus assimilated imagination to a protean view of nature that foregrounded transformation at the expense of the relatively predictable and repetitive trappings of sexual reproduction and parent-child resemblance. Both Minozzi and Manzini, I finally argue, legitimized the invention of conceits by comparing them to the
products of a luxuriant nature, self-conscious of its ability to surprise through variety and artifice, skillful at working at small scale, and fond of play and concealment.

Although it may come as disappointing news to some curators, collectors, and dealers, there are many sheets that should, in my opinion, be removed from Creti's over-large oeuvre: they are simply not of the high quality that is to be expected for such a virtuoso. At times, it is possible to recognize and isolate a distinctive hand, even though a specific alternative name cannot be suggested. This is the case of a coherent group of some fifty-six sheets, many double-sided, by an artist that I have here christened the "Amico di Donato"; they are found in numerous public and private collections, almost invariably attributed to Creti and often published as such.

Bronzino's so-called London Allegory (c.1545), one of art history's most reinterpreted images, has long been misunderstood as a textually unanchored painting. This has led to varied, contradictory and equally unverifiable interpretations. A rereading of it as referencing Sophocles' and Seneca's Œdipus and Aristotle's Poetics provides the natural key for understanding all its elements and situating it within its particular cultural and political contexts. The fairly new availability of these texts and the crucial role they were playing in determining the theoretical frameworks for Italian theater led to Bronzino's use of them as the subject of a pictorially expressed commentary upon tragedy. Politically, the choice of a syphilitic man as one of the central figures of the painting is argued as a reference to both the Theban plays and the outbreak of this epidemic during the Italian War of 1494 - 1498, a repetition of which was reoccurring between 1542 – 1546, t...

The goal of the article is to examine the theoretical and aesthetical views related to art and concerning painters, mainly in the French tradition, from the early 17th to the mid-18th century, starting with works by Gian Paolo Lomazzo and ending with the viewpoints of Denis Diderot. Using different examples from the texts of the key authors of their day, the article’s aim is to show how, starting in the early 17th century, the type of painter who can be described as a “learned genius” starts to develop; and from the beginning of the next, 18th century, this type gradually starts to transform into the subject that can be called a “mad genius” with all the main features of a modern artist.With the introduction of the neo-Platonic Mannerist doctrine of Lomazzo and Federico Zuccari the “learned genius” is now in its embryonic stage of development, differing greatly from the Renaissance painters of an earlier era. The “painter-mystic” is a self-centred person, whose “inner eye” is direct...

A royal order from 1600 establishes the registration by their
owners of gold and silver objects. The statements made in Valladolid offer
a broad view of the poorly preserved domestic silversmith. Although the use
of noble metals has a clear function of distinction and ostentation, we will
study these objects according to their utilitarian functions.
Una pragmática de 1600 ordena el registro por sus poseedores de los objetos de oro y plata. Las declaraciones realizadas en la ciudad de Valladolid ofrecen una amplia visión de la escasamente conservada platería civil. Aunque el uso de metales nobles tiene una clara función de distinción y ostentación vamos a estudiar estos objetos según sus funciones.

A palestra inaugural vai estar a cargo do diretor da Casa-Museu Elysio Moura, Milton Pacheco, sob o título “Os monumentos a Camões durante a construção da Cidade Universitária de Coimbra”. A apresentação vai ser centrada no desmantelamento e na deslocação do monumento oitocentista e nos projetos não executados dedicados a Camões, no âmbito da construção da Cidade Universitária de Coimbra (1934-1975).

A palestra inaugural vai estar a cargo do diretor da Casa-Museu Elysio Moura, Milton Pacheco, sob o título “Os monumentos a Camões durante a construção da Cidade Universitária de Coimbra”. A apresentação vai ser centrada no desmantelamento e na deslocação do monumento oitocentista e nos projetos não executados dedicados a Camões, no âmbito da construção da Cidade Universitária de Coimbra (1934-1975).

The history of the Riga Cathedral organ façade began in 1601 with its oldest dated part, and over more than 400 years the façade has experienced several phases of reconstruction, crucially changing its visual and compositional exterior and supplementing it with new stylistic elements. Today the organ façade can be considered an exceptional art object paradigmatic of stylistic hybridity in Latvia. Recent restoration work materials and various solutions for computer programmes enable individual analysis of each of the construction phases and exploration of the diversity of the façade’s ornamental, sculptural and architectural features. Using visualization, the most detailed changes that have affected the organ façade are revealed.

The informational boom has contributed to change the scenario and the behavior in relation to how information is treated, especially from the beginning of the 21st century. Gradually the concern regarding the offer of means for the user to retrieve information that meets demands efficiently and specifically imposes itself to the purpose of prioritizing only the dissemination of information. One of the key aspects for the information retrieval process to occur adequately is the treatment of information. This process comprehends, among various tasks, indexing. This activity presents the challenge of attributing terms that represent the analyzed object faithfully. The quality of indexing is conditioned by how qualified the indexer is, and his or her impartiality in the process. However, it is inevitable that some elements of subjective judgment affect this activity. This article presents the partial results of a study carried out in university libraries, with the objective of identifyi...

The submission date has been extended to May 27, 2024 !

Organized by the Albertina and the Institute of Art History at the University of Vienna with generous support from the Wolfgang Ratjen Foundation

We are pleased to announce our 6th annual study course on drawings. The course is designed for doctoral students and early post-doc-researchers which are working in the field of drawings and prints, and are interested in exploring curatorial practices. The course offers the opportunity to discuss current research on the graphic arts and, at the same time, to gain insight into one of the most renowned collections of prints and drawings. The course is organized jointly by the Institute of Art History at the University of Vienna and the Albertina and is generously supported by the Wolfgang Ratjen Foundation. Participants are expected to present aspects of their current research in a 30-minute paper. Together we will discuss relevant drawings in the Albertina and gain insight into different curatorial practices: conception and planning of exhibitions, publication of catalogues, conservation and marketing, collecting and provenance research. Accommodation in Vienna will be covered as well as documented travel costs (economy flight, 2nd class train ticket) up to 350 Euros. The general course language is English, while individual papers can be presented also in German, Italian and French. The course is directed by Univ.-Prof. Dr. Sebastian Schütze. Applications, including cv, short description of the drawing or print related research project and a reference letter from a university professor, should be sent by 27 May 2024 via e-mail to Dr. Silvia Tammaro: silvia.tammaro@univie.ac.at

Artillery instruments appeared in the 16th century as a consequence of the development of gunpowder artillery. Until now they have not attracted the attention of the art history community, despite the fact that these skilfully made devices decorate the collections of the world's best museums: the Louvre, the Mathematisch-Physikalischer Salon in Dresden, the Kunstkammer Wien and the St. Petersburg Kunstkammer. The peculiarity of sighting devices is that they are both rather innovative "technical" devices and aesthetically expressive collector's items that were commissioned by the most enlightened monarchs of that epoch, reflecting their knowledge of science and symbolising power and might. The synthesis of engineering and art in artillery instruments implies a special approach to their analysis. Such a methodology was developed in the Soviet Union in the second half of the 20th century by specialists in "technical aesthetics". Its principles formed the basis of the present study of the composition of 16th century gunner’s levels and sights from St. Petersburg and foreign collections, which showed the congeniality of the categories of beauty of the technical aesthetics of the 20th century with the artistic conceptions of 16th century instrument makers.

ТЕХНИЧЕСКАЯ ЭСТЕТИКА И АРТИЛЛЕРИЙСКИЕ ПРИЦЕЛЬНЫЕ ПРИСПОСОБЛЕНИЯ XVI ВЕКА. ОПЫТ ПРИМЕНЕНИЯ РАЗРАБОТОК ТЕОРЕТИКОВ СОВЕТСКОГО ПРОМЫШЛЕННОГО ДИЗАЙНА К АНАЛИЗУ КОМПОЗИЦИИ.

Артиллерийские инструменты появились в XVI веке как следствие развития пороховой артиллерии. Их изучают историки науки и техники, однако до сего дня они не привлекали внимания искусствоведческого сообщества, несмотря на то, что эти искусно выполненные приспособления украшают собрания лучших музеев мира:  Лувр, Физико-математический салон в Дрездене, венская и петербургская Кунсткамеры. Особенность прицельных приспособлений в том, что это и довольно инновационные «технические» устройства, и эстетически выразительные коллекционные предметы, которые делались по заказу самых просвещенных монархов той эпохи, отражая их осведомленность в науках и символизируя власть и могущество. Синтез инженерно-конструкторского  и художественного в артиллерийских инструментах предполагает особый подход к их анализу. Такая методика  разрабатывалась в Советском Союзе во второй половине XX века специалистами по «технической эстетике». Ее принципы легли в основу настоящего исследования композиции артиллерийских прицельных приспособлений XVI столетия из петербургской и зарубежных коллекций, показавшего конгениальность категорий прекрасного технической эстетики века XX с художественными представлениями мастеров-инструменталистов XVI столетия.

L'articolo analizza due studi preparatori di Niccolò Circignani, detto il Pomarancio, per il dipinto della Deposizione dell'Abbazia di Valvisciolo, a Sermoneta. La tela fu realizzata insieme al figlio Antonio, che ne eseguì la parte maggiore, come visibile stilisticamente.
I due fogli vanno ad arricchire l'esiguo catalogo grafico dI Niccolò, composto finora solo da una trentina di disegni, malgrado la sua prolifica attività pittorica.
Le influenze dei grandi maestri e, in particolare, di Michelangelo vengono rese evidenti attraverso i confronti con sue opere.

The artillery instruments of the 16th century fully reflect the late Renaissance, an era in which science was closely intertwined with art. The era determined the duality of artillery devices, which were both military instruments and decorative objects. Existing research today is mainly concerned with the history of technology and science, without looking at the artistic side. However, for the Renaissance, which valued the aesthetic element, this side is no less important and represents a significant part of the creative method of the instrument makers of the time. Craftsmen, responding to the tastes of their princely and scholarly customers, sought not only to make an instrument in accordance with all the rules of military science, also to match the dominant style characteristics of the 16th century. The study of artillery devices as works of art, using formal and stylistic, iconographic and iconological analyses, makes it possible to fill in the existing gaps and draw a complete picture of their use. The art historical analysis of some artillery instruments from European, American, and Russian museum collections conducted in this study has shown that certain meanings and images were imprinted into the instruments by the craftsmen, often foretelling the triumph of the victor to their owners. The study has identified Renaissance and Mannerist style characteristics of the instruments and revealed a group of similar devices in terms of style and design in various museum collections, suggesting their common origin and creating prerequisites for further clarification of the attribution.

Throughout history, architects have communicated their ideas through writing, drawing, model-making, speculation, and built work. Photography, which appeared in architecture books at the beginning of the 20th century, was mostly considered to be ancillary to the written word. A recent exhibition of photographs by Denise Scott Brown at Tyler School of Art and Architecture in Philadelphia during summer 2021 demonstrates the possibility of another creative and intellectual path for the medium. Photography simultaneously serves as a precedent and catalyst for architectural and urban thinking and theory. This article aims to examine the relationship and continuity between Scott Brown's photographs and the ideas that she conveyed in essays and books. Photography, therefore, becomes the catalyst for writings that integrate disparate topics, such as anthropology, vernaculars, history, and Pop Art, as the iconology of Las Vegas and the changing urban landscape of Philadelphia. Embodying ...

Not all the problems surrounding Caravaggio's double realisation of the theme of "Matthew and the Angel" can be considered solved. The essay pursues the possibility that the "scandal" surrounding the "Matthew Giustiniani" may not have existed at all.

There is no complete description of either the term “mannerism” or its associated features. Contradiction, paradox, and ambiguity may have been the terms most referential for mannerism since the 1950s, but this article poses a unification of opposites as another important feature, specific to modern and contemporary architecture. We analyse three series of works by Andrea Palladio against another three pairs of opposing concepts—absence versus presence, frontality versus foreshortening, and grid versus assemblage. An analysis of each pair of concepts using commonly accepted examples from late twentieth-century architecture, following Venturi in the way of “both-and,” allows us to argue how this merging of opposites in the same element, blends into, and participates in both characterisations. The pairings of opposites maintain their features, becoming simultaneous complementary characters. These mannerist characterisations are less common in current architecture, but they can, we claim, be easily detected in various recent projects.

This contribution is dedicated to a famous codex from the Urbinate Latino collection of the Vatican Library, (ms. Urb. Lat. 276), in order to show its extraordinary characteristics - which make it a unique specimen for the beauty, richness and variety of its illuminated set - and retrace its genesis and history through the salient stages of its composition and ornamentation. The codex contains Pietro Candido Decembrio's "De animantium naturis atque formis", dedicated in 1460 to the marquis of Mantua Ludovico Gonzaga. The essay aims to clarify: a) when exactly the volume arrived from Mantua to the Libraria nuova of Francesco Maria II della Rovere in Casteldurante the animalier subject was very dear to the duke); b) and when the creation of the illustrative apparatus dates back to (and to which hand it belongs).

Stucco has never fit comfortably into traditional art-historical discourses structured according to the media of architecture, painting and sculpture. This article addresses the novel role of stucco in Cinquecento ensembles that integrated many media, eliding the borders among them; and examines the critical and historical concepts of such syntheses. Beginning with Raphael and Bramante in Rome, artists deployed stucco to create total, integrated environments encompassing vaults, revetments, architectural ornament, relief, and figural sculpture, which were important models into the seicento. It is a long-standing maxim that the Italian Renaissance was a rare historical era that produced important, novel architecture that was not a product of technical innovation. Rather, the reformulation of stucco was indeed such an innovation; this essay posits stucco as a protean, transformative material, and an engine of technical innovation that enabled advances in Renaissance art and architecture, and the Renaissance incarnation of the total work of art.

Lo stucco non si è mai adattato comodamente ai tradizionali discorsi storico-artistici strutturati secondo i media dell'architettura, della pittura e della scultura. Questo saggio affronta il nuovo ruolo dello stucco negli insiemi del cinqucento che ha integrato molti media, eliminando i confini tra loro; ed esamina i concetti critici e storici di tali sintesi. A partire da Raffaello e Bramante a Roma, gli artisti hanno utilizzato lo stucco per creare ambienti totali e integrati, che comprendono volte, rivestimenti, ornamento architettonico, rilievi, e scultura figurativa, che sono stati importanti modelli fino al seicento. È una tradizione di lunga data che il Rinascimento italiano fu una era storica rara che produsse un'importante architettura innovativa che non era un prodotto di innovazione tecnica. Piuttosto, la riformulazione dello stucco è stata davvero una tale innovazione; questo saggio pone lo stucco come materiale proteiforme e trasformativo, e un motore di innovazione tecnica che ha consentito progresso nell'arte e nell'architettura rinascimentale, nonché l'incarnazione rinascimentale dell'opera d'arte totale.

The article focuses on a graphic project related to the first decorative phase of the Chapel of the Dukes of Urbino in the Basilica of the Holy House of Loreto, now preserved in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. The drawing, traditionally attributed to Federico Brandani, is here assigned to Federico Zuccaro through precise comparisons with his graphic and pictorial work. On the basis of this attribution, also confirmed by the re-reading of some already known documentary information, the history of the Loreto chapel during the duchy of Guidobaldo II della Rovere is therefore redefined, which now sees Federico Zuccaro as the inventor of the original decorative scheme, later partially modified and enriched by Brandani.

Masonic Allusions in a Latin Poem of István Agyich Addressed to Count Ferenc Balassa (1785)

In this paper I articulate the following hypothesis: an occasional poem may have some masonic relevance, how little soever this reference may be expressed openly. What are the markers which may allow this to be tested? In this respect my case study invokes a masonic constitution called
Draskovich observance which was elaborated in 1775 and was amended in 1777. With this observance a masonic province called Liberty (Libertas) was established under the protection of the Holy Crown of the Kingdom of Hungary, aiming to connect Croatian and Hungarian lodges into a Grand
Lodge independent from the Austrian and German Grand Lodges, thus implementing a separate system on its own. In terms of politics this system was attached to the Austrian Grand Lodge in 1781, however, the accession procedure was drawn-out until 1784. Under such circumstances – and in the
light of latter changes exerted in the case of a 1789 issuance of the poem by Karl Joseph Michaeler who was a mason indeed – it is telling that István Agyich (or regarding his Croatian origin, Stjepan Hadžić, 1730–1789) wrote a salutary poem to Count Ferenc Balassa in 1785 when the Count was
appointed to Ban of Croatia, Dalmatia, and Slavonia. On the other hand, in the same year Count Balassa was also appointed to the commissioner of the Zagreb District (one out of the ten newly established administrative unite by Joseph II) which consisted of such counties where masonic activity was current at the time: Zagreb, Kőrös (Križevci), Pozsega (Požega), Szeverin (Severin), Varasd (Varaždin), and Zala Counites. Lodges in these counties were included in the Grand Lodge of Liberty. And Agyich’s poem does not miss to reflect some crucial facts concerned here. This is clear in a single reference to Zala, a Hungarian county, which was attached to Zagreb district later, which further alludes to a historical-political unity of the two countries, Croatia, and Hungary, in a symbolic way under the auspices of the Holy Crown, which altogether is embodied by the governance of the newly appointed Count Balassa. As Count Balassa wrote a treatise on the Holy Crown in his formative years at the Theresianum in Vienna, and later he was a keeper of the relic, these facts exposed in the poem may gain some ambiguous meaning as well. Beyond that, the career of Count Balassa is displayed by a narrative based on a catalogue of virtues. Although, these virtues are not specified only described in the poem, at this point one can observe a certain resemblance to the text of the Draskovich observance in which a copiously detailed catalogue of virtues can be found as well. However, the most striking parallel between the poem and the masonic thought is Hercules since Count Ferenc Balassa is represented as Hercules many times in the text, and the antique hero is a key figure for the masonic constitution too. Along these details and by detecting such allusive tactics as above (typical for masonic thought), I provide an interpretation of the poem in favour of freemasonry. However, I must specify that I was unable to tell whether Agyich and Balassa had been masons themselves or not.

Российский государственный гуманитарный университет Институт высших гуманитарных исследований им. Е.М. Мелетинского Десятые Даниловские чтения Античность-Средневековье-Ренессанс Искусство и музей Всероссийская конференция с международным участием Программа-тезисы Москва, РГГУ 13-14 марта 2024 Начало дневных заседаний в 11 часов, Вечерних-в 15

Erwin Panofsky’s 1934 essay, entitled “What is Baroque?” provides an opening to discuss the state of the tectonic in Baroque architecture. His text raises a number of issues including: what was missing in the available literature on the art and architecture of Baroque that Panofsky wanted to bring to the reader’s attention? Should Panofsky’s take on Baroque be considered as part of a general problematic that sees Baroque as a unique state of mind and aesthetics, an understanding that has been revisited whenever the culture of Humanism faces its historical limits? To explore the broader theoretical connotations and implications of the questions raised here, this essay will investigate the position of two other major art historians on the subject, Heinrich Wölfflin and Alois Riegl. These historians will be discussed in connection to their discursive commonality with Gottfried Semper’s theory of tectonics. I will give particular attention to various interpretations of the tectonic of c...

The contribution aims to establish the figurative context of Venus with Cupid which is part of the Florentine
collection of Villa La Pietra belonging to Arthur Acton and his wife Hortense Mitchell.
The work, attributable to the 1620s, shows a clever synthesis of ideas drawn from Giambologna and Ammannati, overlaid by the teachings of Giovanni Caccini, interpreted in the light of a timid reformed naturalism. It seems attributable
to Chiarissimo Fancelli from Settignano, an artist who is still in search of a precise definition even today and who was
particularly appreciated by the Medici family and Queen Mary of France. The sculpture is stylistically close to the
works of art completed by the artist for the Grand Duke Cosimo II, showing a strong analogy with the Vulcano of the
Boboli Gardens, one of the marble pieces sculpted by Fancelli to complement the famous Island of Venus: a piece whose
protagonist has not yet been identified with certainty

Although described by Vasari as ‘rare and truly beautiful’, no struck example of a medal made by Alessandro Cesati for the Jubilee of 1550 is known. The main evidence of its appearance is a thin silver-plated lead striking of its reverse in the Bargello, Florence. The discovery of a pamphlet, possibly by Cesati, describing the medal confirms the design of its obverse, explains its ‘double Jubilee’ iconography and suggests that these unusual lead strikings were made to advertise his skill to prospective clients or employers.