A Thesis Submitted for the Degree of PhD at the University of Warwick Permanent WRAP URL: http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/92095 Copyright and reuse: This thesis is made available online and is protected by original copyright. Please scroll down to view the document itself. Please refer to the repository record for this item for information to help you to cite it. Our policy information is available from the repository home page. For more information, please contact the WRAP Team at: [email protected] warwick.ac.uk/lib-publications NATURALISM AND THE PICARESQUE IN JUSEPE DE RIBERA’S WORK Volume One of two volumes (Text) by Carlo Avilio Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History of Art at the University of Warwick This thesis may not be photocopied University of Warwick, Department of the History of Art September 2016 CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS i DECLARATION iii ABSTRACT iv LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS v Introduction. Ribera: The ‘Picaresque’ in an age of experimentalism 1 Chapter 1 The Picaresque Rhetoric: Devices and Themes of a New Genre of Comedy 14 1.1 Trajectory of the Picaresque Genre 14 1.2 Heraclitus or Democritus? Themes and Strategies of a Genre 25 1.3 A Neapolitan Picaresque? 40 Chapter 2 Experimentalism and the Senses in Early Seventeenth-Century Rome and Naples 58 2.1 The Alleged Pre-Eminence of Sight in Seventeenth-Century Science 58 2.2 The ‘Collaboration of the Senses’ in the Lyncean’s Treatise ‘Novae Hispaniae Thesaurus’ (1611-1651) 64 Chapter 3 Ribera’s Five Senses: The Paragone of the Arts and Senses in a Picaresque Vein 91 Introduction 91 3.1 The Sense of Sight: Scholar, Philosopher, Soldier 104 3.2 The Sense of Smell: Pícaro or Academic? 124 A Picaresque Palimpsest 124 Lynceans’ Issues 140 Conclusion 145 3.3 The Sense of Taste 148 3.4 The Sense of Touch and the Paragone of the Senses 172 Chapter 4 The Beggar Philosopher: Folly and Self-Concealment 201 Chapter 5 Human Physiognomies 224 Introduction 224 4.1 Portents of Nature: Jusepe de Ribera and the Bearded Woman 234 4.2 The Clubfooted Boy: Pícaro or Soldier? 248 Epilogue Towards a Definition of Ribera’s Picaresque 262 BIBLIOGRAPHY 270 Acknowledgments I would firstly like to thank the Warwick Graduate School, which awarded me the Chancellor’s Scholarship for the duration of my research. I wish to thank my former supervisor Professor Paola Santucci (University Federico II, Naples), who encouraged me to embark upon such fascinating and challenging project; and my Phd supervisor, Dr Lorenzo Pericolo, for the passion and enthusiasm with which he has supervised my work, and for his invaluable advice. I am also indebted, for their academic counsel, to Professor David Mañero Lozano (University of Jaén, Department of Spanish Philology), Professor Alberto Martino (University of Wien, Institute of European and Comparative Literature and Language Studies), and Dr Alessandro Ottaviani (University of Cagliari, Department of Pedagogy, Psychology and Philosophy). In Italy I owe thanks, for their precious bibliographic support, to Dr Daniela Castaldi (Deputy Librarian, The Second University of Naples); and Pina Teora (Librarian, University of Insubria, Varese). A special thank goes to Caterina and Matilda, for whom I am here. i At the end of this work, my thought turns again to my Mother, and to my magister ludi, Fr. Giuseppe Rassello. ii Declaration I declare that this thesis is my own work and that it has not been submitted for a degree in any other university. iii Abstract Although it was an era of extraordinary scientific progress and fertile methodological debate, the seventeenth century was characterized by a profound vein of scepticism that can be traced throughout its literary, scientific and philosophical works. Upon his arrival in Italy, the Spanish painter Jusepe de Ribera (1591-1652), one of the most innovative interpreters of Caravaggio’s painting in Europe, wittily thematized, through his series of the Senses (c.1612-1616), the aspirations, achievements and doubts of his age with regard to man’s sensorial experiences and the possibility of investigating and comprehending the functioning of the senses. Scholars have singled out both the allusions within Ribera’s paintings to scientific experimentalism and their affinity with the themes which characterised contemporary Spanish picaresque literature. However, neither the ‘picaresque vein’ nor the scientific factors in question have been analysed per se, or indeed been examined comparatively. In this regard, my main contention is that, by juxtaposing the tools of the new science with low-genre props, the Senses series clearly alludes to contemporary discussions about the function and reliability of sensory perception, a theme which was then of the utmost importance. By staging the equivalent of the pícaro, the shabby protagonist of numerous novels who has to constantly struggle for his existence and who is both assisted and misled by his senses, Ribera’s series parodies not only the experimental method which had been established by the Roman and Neapolitan members of the Accademia dei Lincei, but also Galileo’s contributions to the debate. By the same token, his connection with picaresque literature is often reduced to Ribera’s predilection for plebeian models and his propensity to represent high subject matters with ordinary figures and accessories. The main goal of this thesis is to offer a new interpretation of Ribera’s naturalism and its interconnections with the picaresque novel, as developed not only in Spain but also in Spanish Naples. My contention is, in fact, that these two aspects of Ribera’s art are not only inextricably connected, but are also specifically rooted in early seventeenth-century Roman and Neapolitan culture and society. iv List of Illustrations Figure 1. La vida de Lazarillo de Tormes y de sus fortunas y adversidades (Medina del Campo’s ed., 1554), title page. Figure 2. Diego Velázquez, The Waterseller of Seville, oil on canvas, c.1618-22, Apsley House, London, 105 × 80 cm. Figure 3. Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, Beggar Boys Eating Grapes and Melon, oil on canvas, c.1650, Alte Pinakothek, Munich, 145.9 x 103.6 cm. Figure 4. Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, The Young Beggar, oil on canvas, c.1645-50, Louvre, Paris, 134 x 110 cm. Figure 5. Jacques Callot, The Beggars-Frontispiece, etching, 1622, Fine Arts Museums, San Francisco, 144 x 91 mm. Figure 6. Jusepe de Ribera, Grotesque Head, etching on laid paper, 1622, National Gallery of Art, Washington DC., 146 x 114 mm. Figure 7. Jusepe de Ribera, Large Grotesque Head, etching and engraving, c.1622, The MET, New York, 214 x 140 mm. Figure 8. Giovan Battista Della Porta, De Humana Physiognomonia (1586), p. 51. Figure 9. Giovan Battista Della Porta, De Humana Physiognomonia (1586), p. 57. Figure 10. Giovan Battista Della Porta, De Humana Physiognomonia (1586), p. 59. Figure 11. Galileo Galilei, Sidereus Nuncius (1610), title page. v Figure 12. Galileo Galilei, Sidereus Nuncius (1610), c. 10r. Figure 13. Accademia dei Lincei, Rerum Medicarum Novae Hispaniae Thesaurus (1651), title page. Figure 14. Federico Cesi, Phytosophical Table (n. 1), from Rerum Medicarum (1651), p. 905. Figure 15. Federico Cesi, Phytosophical Table (n. 3), from Rerum Medicarum (1651), p. 910. Figure 16. Federico Cesi, Phytosophical Table (n. 7), from Rerum Medicarum (1651), p. 917. Figure 17. Andries van Wesel, Humani corporis fabrica (1543), title page. Figure 18. Giulio Casseri, De vocis auditusque organis (1600), p. 15. Figure 19. Ferrante Imperato, Dell’istoria naturale (1599), cc. A3v-A4r. Figure 20. Giovan Battista Della Porta, Phytognomonica (1591), p. 206. Figure 21. Giovan Battista Della Porta, Phytognomonica (1591), p. 216. Figure 22. Johann Faber, Aliorum animalium, from Rerum Medicarum (1651), p. 587. Figure 23. Fabio Colonna, Annotationes, from Rerum Medicarum (1651), p. 887. Figure 24. Galileo Galilei, Il Saggiatore (1623), title page. Figure 25. Accademia dei Lincei, Antropomorphic orchids, from Freedberg, (2002), p. 233, fig. 8.29. Figure 26. Illustration to Agustinus of Hippo, De Spiritu et de Anima, Cambridge, Trinity vi College Library, early thirteenth century, Ms 0.7.16, f. 47r. Figure 27. Georg Pencz, Taste, engraving, c.1544, 76 x 52 mm, from The Illustrated Bartsch, Vol. 16. Figure 28. Cornelis Cort, Smell, engraving, c.1561, Art Museum, Harvard, 205 x 272 mm. Figure 29. Adrien Collaert after Martin de Vos, Sight, engraving, c.1600, Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Wien, 211 x 256 mm. Figure 30. Jan Pietersz Saenredam after Hendrik Goltzius, Smell, engraving, 1595, 157 x 121 mm, from The Illustrated Bartsch, Vol. 4. Figure 31. Jan Pietersz Saenredam after Hendrik Goltzius, Sight, engraving, 1595, 157 x 121 mm, from The Illustrated Bartsch, Vol. 4. Figure 32. Theodoor Rombouts, Allegory of the Five Senses, oil on canvas, c.1632, Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Gent, 288 x 207 cm. Figure 33. Luca Giordano, Carneade with the Bust of Paniscus, oil on canvas, c.1658-60, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, 127 x 102 cm. Figure 34. Luca Giordano, Pasta Eater: Allegory of Taste, oil on canvas, c.1660, Princeton University, Art Museum, 91.5 x 74 cm. Figure 35. Dirck van Baburen, The Lute Player, oil on canvas, 1622, Central Museum, Utrecht, 71 x 58 cm. Figure 36. After Ribera, Sense of Sight, oil on canvas, first half of the seventeenth century, priv. coll., Naples, 114 x 88 cm (without frame). vii Figure 37. After Ribera, Sense of Smell, oil om canvas, first half of the seventeenth century, priv. coll., Naples, 114 x 88 cm. Figure 38. After Ribera (?), Sense of Hearing, oil on canvas, first half of the seventeenth century, priv. coll., Pulley, Switzerland, 96 x 75.5 cm. Figure 39. Jusepe de Ribera, Democritus, oil on canvas, c.1615, priv.