On Titian's Annunciation in Naples
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Dangerous Disorder: 'Confusione' in Sixteenth- Century Italian Art Treatises
Dangerous disorder: ‘confusione’ in sixteenth- century Italian art treatises Caroline Anjali Ritchie In sixteenth-century Italian writing on art, confusione is a much-maligned concept. While many scholars skim over the word, swiftly pressing on to examine neutral or positively charged words like composizione, varietà or grazia, the connotations of confusione as used in Renaissance art treatises are far from self-evident.1 Particularly in the second half of the cinquecento, writers used the word confusione to express manifold concerns regarding the supposedly detrimental effects of confused and hence confusing artworks upon the beholder’s enjoyment or pleasure, as well as upon their intellectual, psychological, and spiritual experiences. The profusion of cinquecento instances of the word, in the treatises of artistic practitioners and non- practitioners, is potentially symptomatic of writers’ reactions against so-called ‘mannerism’ and their concerns about the perceived decline or senescence of art; more explicitly, some important instances are bound up in counter-reformation debates about sacred images. Most fundamentally, considered in the context of Renaissance art theory and faculty psychology, confusione indicates the prevalent fears surrounding inherently ‘bad’ artistic qualities. I thus begin not with artworks but with the words that writers used to describe artworks. Such words are revealing of the ‘broad phenomena’ of responses that David Freedberg expounded as the stuff of legitimate historical inquiry.2 I argue specifically that images were also thought to reveal their efficacy through a perceived formal defectiveness, as distinct from the kind of morally dubious subject matter examined by Freedberg in relation, for example, to Savonarola’s burning of ‘profane’ images.3 Words like confusione, expressing negative value-judgements about the quality of artworks, can help to detect and diagnose the concerns of their users regarding the potentially malign powers of images considered defective. -
Hacia El Dialogo Della Pittura Lodovico Dolce Y Sus Lettere Di Diversi (1554 - 1555)
View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Portal de Revistas Científicas Complutenses Hacia el Dialogo della Pittura Lodovico Dolce y sus Lettere di diversi (1554 - 1555) Santiago ARROYO ESTEBAN Real Academia de España en Roma [email protected] Recibido: 4 de Marzo de 2009 Aceptado: 24 de Junio de 2009 RESUMEN Acercamiento a la prehistoria del Dialogo della pittura de Lodovico Dolce (1557), prestando especial atención a su relación con las cartas de Miguel Ángel, Rafael y Tiziano incluidas en las Lettere di diversi (1554) recopiladas por el literato. Se traducen y comentan en Apéndice las cartas de sujeto artístico aparecidas en la segunda edición de las Lettere (1555) que Dolce dirige a Gasparo Ballini y Alessandro Contarini. Palabras Clave: Lodovico Dolce. Cartas. Diálogo de la pintura. Gasparo Ballini. Alessandro Contarini. Tiziano. Rafael. Miguel Ángel. Literatura artística. Teoría. Ut pictura poësis. Ékphrasis. Venus y Adonis. Variedad. Inven- ción. Dibujo. Colorido. To the Dialogo della pittura: Lodovico Dolce and his Lettere di diversi of 1554-1555 ABSTRACT Approach to the prehistory of the Dialogo della pittura by Lodovico Dolce (1557), paying special attention to its connection with the letters by Michelangelo, Raphael and Titian included in the Lettere di diversi (1554) compiled by the writter. In Appendix also the translation into Spanish and comment of the letters of artistic argument that appeared in the second edition of the Lettere (1555) which Dolce addressed to Gasparo Ballini and Alessandro Contarini. Key Words: Lodovico Dolce. Lettere. Dialogo della pittura. Gasparo Ballini. Alessandro Contarini. -
Studiofirmano 14 MAGGIO 2013.Indd
View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Archivio istituzionale della ricerca - Università di Macerata Rosa Marisa Borraccini Libri di medicina nei chiostri e nei casali (dall’inchiesta della Congregazio- ne dell’Indice dei libri proibiti, 1597-1603) La fonte e il contesto A distanza di un secolo dai primi prodotti dell’ars artifi cialiter scribendi, un medico, il bolognese Leonardo Fioravanti, si profuse in un elogio della stampa che andava oltre gli apprezzamenti dei primi stupiti testimoni del novum mo- dum scribendi. Nello Specchio di scientia universale l’antigalenista e paracel- siano Fioravanti, riduttivamente e a torto defi nito da Salvatore De Renzi «uno de’ più celebri secretisti e ciarlatani» del secolo XVI, propose alcune rifl essioni critiche sulla stampa, chiaramente avvertita come determinante “fattore di mutamento”1. L’invenzione gutenberghiana – affermava Fioravanti – aveva risvegliato il mondo addormentato nell’ignoranza e, ampliando i confi ni della lettura anche oltre il recinto dei lettori tradizionali, aveva facilitato lo sma- scheramento di coloro che «adorati e riveriti come se fussero stati huomini divini», avevano potuto fi no ad allora impunemente «cacciare carotte quanto loro piaceva, che non era chi contradicesse loro»2. Grazie al nuovo procedi- mento di produzione del libro – sosteneva ancora Fioravanti con entusiasmo 1 Il riferimento è al titolo del libro di E. Eisenstein, La rivoluzione inavvertita. La stampa come fattore di mutamento, Bologna, Il Mulino, 1986. Per il giudizio negativo del De Renzi si veda S. De Renzi, Storia della medicina in Italia, vol. 3, Sala Bolognese, A. -
Lodovico Dolce's Somma Della Filosofia D'aristotele and The
Addressing the Reader: Lodovico Dolce’s Somma della filosofia d’Aristotele and the Audience for Vernacular Philosophy in Sixteenth-Century Italy Lodovico Dolce’s popularization of Aristotelian philosophy, the Somma della filosofia d’Aristotele, was published in Venice around 1565. It is a rather loosely organised compendium of philosophical material, comprising books on logic, practical philosophy (ethics, economics, and politics) and natural philosophy. It has not been much studied,1 and yet offers valuable insights into both the vernacularization of Aristotelian philosophy and the increasingly sophisticated ways, often through the use of paratext, that sixteenth-century authors (working together with editors and publishers) sought to appeal to and communicate with their audience. This article will examine the differing readerships foreseen for the Somma della filosofia d’Aristotele and how the work seeks to persuade, mollify or rebuff these readers. The Somma della filosofia d’Aristotele serves as an example of the ways Renaissance authors and publishers sought to shape readings of a work of popularized philosophy, and Dolce, as a poligrafo accustomed to writing for a commercial audience, shows a particularly keen awareness of the “diverse quality” (Somma 3: 97v) of readers which might encounter the text; this diversity is addressed with overtures intended for his cultured but non-scholarly readers, his learned critics, and those who might take issue with his work on religious grounds. In his magisterial Aristotle and the Renaissance, Charles Schmitt demonstrated not only the persistence of Aristotelianism as a philosophical force in the Renaissance but also the tradition’s variety, subtlety and ability to adapt to changed intellectual and cultural circumstances. -
Bartolomeo Maranta's 'Discourse' on Titian's Annunciation in Naples: Introduction1
Bartolomeo Maranta’s ‘Discourse’ on Titian’s Annunciation in Naples: introduction1 Luba Freedman Figure 1 Titian, The Annunciation, c. 1562. Oil on canvas, 280 x 193.5 cm. Naples: Museo Nazionale di Capodimonte (on temporary loan). Scala/Ministero per i Beni e le Attività culturali/Art Resource. Overview The ‘Discourse’ on Titian’s Annunciation is the first known text of considerable length whose subject is a painting by a then-living artist.2 The only manuscript of 1 The author must acknowledge with gratitude the several scholars who contributed to this project: Barbara De Marco, Christiane J. Hessler, Peter Humfrey, Francesco S. Minervini, Angela M. Nuovo, Pietro D. Omodeo, Ulrich Pfisterer, Gavriel Shapiro, Graziella Travaglini, Raymond B. Waddington, Kathleen M. Ward and Richard Woodfield. 2 Angelo Borzelli, Bartolommeo Maranta. Difensore del Tiziano, Naples: Gennaro, 1902; Giuseppe Solimene, Un umanista venosino (Bartolomeo Maranta) giudica Tiziano, Naples: Società aspetti letterari, 1952; and Paola Barocchi, ed., Scritti d’arte del Cinquecento, Milan- Naples: Einaudi, 1971, 3 vols, 1:863-900. For the translation click here. Journal of Art Historiography Number 13 December 2015 Luba Freedman Bartolomeo Maranta’s ‘Discourse’ on Titian’s Annunciation in Naples: introduction this text is held in the Biblioteca Nazionale of Naples. The translated title is: ‘A Discourse of Bartolomeo Maranta to the most ill. Sig. Ferrante Carrafa, Marquis of Santo Lucido, on the subject of painting. In which the picture, made by Titian for the chapel of Sig. Cosmo Pinelli, is defended against some opposing comments made by some persons’.3 Maranta wrote the discourse to argue against groundless opinions about Titian’s Annunciation he overheard in the Pinelli chapel. -
I Placiti Di Luca Ghini (1490-1556): Traduzione Dal Latino E Osservazioni Botaniche
delpinoa 54-55: 1-79. 2012-2013 I Placiti di Luca Ghini (1490-1556): traduzione dal Latino e osservazioni botaniche I. MEnaLE Via C. de Marco 21/b, 80137 napoli. [email protected] Riassunto. Col presente lavoro è stata effettuata la traduzione dal Latino all’Italiano dei placiti di Luca Ghini, medico e botanico vissuto a cavallo dei secoli XV e XVI. La traduzione è corredata da note esplica- tive e da considerazioni botaniche sulle piante descritte nei placiti. Abstract. The translation from Latin to Italian of the “placiti” of Luca Ghini, a physician and botanist lived between the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, has been carried out. The translation is accompanied by explanatory notes and botanical considerations on the plants described in the “placiti”. Key words: Giovan Battista de Toni, Luca Ghini, Pietro andrea Mattioli, Placiti Tra i numerosi scritti botanici che videro la luce nel XVI secolo, di particolare interesse sono i placiti di Luca Ghini (Croara d’Imola (Bologna), circa 1490 - Bologna, 1556), medico e bota- nico, il quale fondò il primo Orto Botanico di Pisa (GarBarI 1992: 225; VOn EnGELhardT 2011: 231) e, successivamente, diresse i lavori per la realizzazione di quello di Firenze (CELLaI CIuFFI 1992: 93). I placiti, dei quali si servì l’umanista e medico Pietro andrea Mattioli (Siena, 1501 - Trento, 1578) nel suo lavoro sul De materia medica di dioscoride, riportano informazioni, scritte in Latino, concernenti determinate piante i cui exsiccata furono mandati da Ghini a Mattioli insie- me agli appunti e alle descrizioni dei campioni d’erbario (dE TOnI 1907: 9). Ghini fu forse il primo a preparare collezioni di piante per erbario. -
Quaderni D'italianistica : Revue Officielle De La Société Canadienne Pour Les Études Italiennes = Official Journal Of
Antonio Ricci i6 Si gran volume in piccola e manigevole forma'': Bindoni and Pasini's 1535 edition of the Orlando Furioso^ Francesco Bindoni and Maffeo Pasini operated one of the largest publishing houses in Venice during the first half of the sixteenth century.' The partners specialized in popular genres such as chivalric literature, and between 1525 and 1542 they produced eight editions of Ariosto 's Orlando Furioso, a title that enjoyed wide success on the book market.^ The most important of these editions, and one which holds a prominent place in the publishing history of the Furioso in the Cinquecento, was the octavo they issued in 1535, the first edi- tion in which the text of the poem was printed with a set of paratexts.^ Lodovico Dolce, the editor of the book, prepared two dedicatory letters, an "Apologia" in which he defends Ariosto from detractors, and three other paratexts designed to assist the readers: a glossary in which he explains some difficult words found in the Furioso; a list of the additions Ariosto made in the final version of the poem; and a table of characters listing their appearance in major episodes. This was the first time that ihQ Furioso was given a paratextual apparatus, and it marked the beginning of a much-imitated editorial practice; over the course of the sixteenth century this practice would eventually see the text submerged by notes in the margins, by commentary preceding and follow- ing each canto, and by extensive critical material before and after the poem. The paratexts in the Bindoni and Pasini edition are relatively brief, but they represent a significant source for the early reception of the Furioso, since they reflect and enact the well-defined marketing strategy that Bindoni and Pasini had developed in response to the book's intended public. -
Luca Ghini (1490-1556) Il Padre Fondatore Della Botanica Moderna Nel Contesto Dei Rapporti Scientifici Europei Del Sedicesimo Secolo (1)
Ann. Mus. civ. Rovereto Sez.: Arch., St., Sc. nat. Vol. 27 (2011) 227-246 2012 DIETRICH VON ENGELHARDT LUCA GHINI (1490-1556) IL PADRE FONDATORE DELLA BOTANICA MODERNA NEL CONTESTO DEI RAPPORTI SCIENTIFICI EUROPEI DEL SEDICESIMO SECOLO (1) Abstract - DIETRICH VON ENGELHARDT - Luca Ghini (1490-1556). The founding father of modern botany in the framework of the European scientific world of the 16th century. Renaissance and Italy are the historical and cultural setting which led to the autonomy of botany as well as of other natural disciplines, like mineralogy and zoology, independently of medicine or any therapeutic aim. A central figure in this development was the Italian physician and naturalist Luca Ghini – not so much for his publications, as for his teaching and scientific contacts, for the establishment of specifically botanical courses at University, the foundation of the first botanical garden in the world and the introduction of the herbarium as a collection of dried plants. The fame and importance of Ghini is proved by his pupils, colleagues and visitors to the «Orto botanico of Pisa» from many European countries during the 16th century: with their observations, concepts and ideas they deeply influenced the history of botany. Key words: Renaissance - Italy - Autonomy of botany - Importance of Luca Ghini - Establish- ment of botanical lectures - Foundation of the botanical garden - Introduction of the herbarium - Scientific contacts in Italy and abroad during the 16th and 17th century. Riassunto - DIETRICH VON ENGELHARDT - Luca -
The Reception of Ancient Drama in Renaissance Italy Francesca Schironi
Part III The Renewal of Ancient Drama 7 The Reception of Ancient Drama in Renaissance Italy Francesca Schironi Introduction The first reception of Classical drama in a modern language occurred in sixteenth‐ century Italy. Italian neoclassical drama not only served as a basis for the development of European drama—as it provided the theoretical framework and models which were then perfected by the Elizabethan and French dramatists—but also represented a very rich cultural phenomenon in itself. Without aiming to offer a complete analy- sis of theater in Renaissance Italy, I will here give an overview of its most important characteristics, focusing on why neoclassical drama originated in Italy, on the theo- retical debates that this new genre ignited, and on the main trends and themes of Italian “neoclassical” tragedy and comedy as well as their place in the larger Italian cultural milieu. From this survey, I will omit tragedies and comedies written in Latin in the previous centuries, such as Albertino Mussato’s Ecerinis (1314), a tragedy based on Seneca as a model (especially Octavia) and depicting the cruel deeds of Ezzelino III da Romano (1194–1259) against Padua. Even if Latin humanist plays were important predecessors, Italian neoclassical drama was a new phenomenon, which stemmed mostly from the rediscovery of the Latin and Greek originals at the end of the fifteenth century. I will also omit discussing pastoral plays such as Angelo Poliziano’s Orfeo (c. 1472–1480) or Giovan Battista Guarini’s Il pastor fido (c. 1580), which are based on Classical myths and are the predecessors of Italian opera.1 The “Rediscovery” of the Classics in Italy The development of neoclassical drama in Europe was a consequence of the “rediscovery” of Classical literature in humanistic and early Renaissance Italy. -
The Atrides Saga and Power Play: the Dilemma Between Freedom and Death on the Theatrical Scene
ISSN 2411-9598 (Print) European Journal of September-December 2017 ISSN 2411-4103 (Online) Language and Literature Studies Volume 3 Issue 3 The Atrides Saga and Power Play: The Dilemma Between Freedom and Death on the Theatrical Scene Maria Sgouridou Stefan Lindinger Georgios Bitsakos National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, School of Philosophy* Abstract Thyestes’ myth is difficult to read: cruel, abominable, but also multidimensional. And this is why it is adaptable to multiple interpretations, highlighting the different aspects of tyranny within different political, socio-cultural and philosophical contexts during the centuries. Thyestes, the protagonist of the tragedy, serves, with his unique characteristics, as an example to the spectator in order to understand and improve his own situation, even his very existence. First, we will take a look upon the theatrical production by Petros Katsaitis, author of a tragedy based upon this myth in 1721. At that time, Greece does not yet exist as a national state, being under the rule of the Ottoman Empire. Thus, Katsaitis highlights the complex historical reality in which he lives in person. The German author Christian Felix Weiße writes his Atreus und Thyest in 1766 in the philosophical context of Enlightenment, with a focus on the anthropological education of his audience. Ugo Foscolo, being between Italy and Greece, between Neoclassicism and Romanticism, in his Tieste (1797) recalls the memories of modernity’s Ancient Greek roots and re-elaborates the myth by reinvesting it with civil and political sense. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to present three versions of an ancient Greek myth composed during the eighteenth-century in three different regions of Europe in order to highlight the potential impact of this tragedy on the viewer's reception and in relation to the historical-cultural and philosophical trends of the time. -
In the Second Edition of the Lives of the Artists (1568), Giorgio Vasari
The Unsympathetic Exemplar in Vasari’s Life of Pontormo 1 The Unsympathetic Exemplar in Vasari’s Life of Pontormo Sharon Gregory Giorgio Vasari’s Lives of the Artists, first published in 1550, was constructed according to Renaissance conventions for biography, a genre inherited from the ancient Romans. Biography was a form of historical writing that allowed for the representation of lives of famous men as exemplary: the reader was meant to examine the deeds of famous men for the lessons they could teach him about proper and improper behavior. Vasari’s great innovation was to apply this formula to the lives of visual artists, thus making the practice of art a heroic profession. 1 In the second edition of the Lives (1568), Vasari substantially revised many of the biographies, and added several new ones, mainly of artists who had died in the intervening years. Among these new biographies was the Life of Jacopo Carucci da Pontormo. In his biography of Pontormo, as elsewhere, Vasari employs the rhetorical strategies of epideictic to assign the painter both praise and blame. He has considerable praise for Pontormo’s style as a painter, especially in his earliest works. While he disapproves of some aspects of Pontormo’s character (describing him, for example, as solitary and melancholy), the most important critical passages in the biography are directed instead at two contrasting stylistic phases in his painting career. The first of these phases began with a fresco cycle of scenes from Christ’s Passion that Pontormo painted at the Certosa del Galluzzo, the Carthusian monastery outside Florence (1522-5, Figs. -
Busenello's Didone: Rewriting The
Magnus Tessing Schneider, “Busenello’s Didone: Rewriting the Virgilian Myth of Venice,” working paper, the Italian Academy for Advanced Studies in America, Columbia University, spring 2018. Busenello’s Didone: Rewriting the Virgilian Myth of Venice By Magnus Tessing Schneider Virgil’s Anna went to absorb, with her own mouth, the residue of the deceased Dido’s soul, the remnants of her spirit: I see here, with my restoring memory, the relics of my father’s and my brother’s enjoyments, both of whom were most enamored of this place. And like the man who kills two birds with one stone, on my own bed I perform the obsequies of these honored departed; and since solitude is a sweet fomentation for melancholy, I imagine that after my death you shall celebrate many anniversaries here in remembrance of my life. And it is certain that if the souls that lack a better life have the liberty to roam as they desire, with the permission of the Elysian Fields I shall stroll through these halls, I shall loiter among these orchards, and without occupying a site or filling a place I shall play here with my little Perino. But no more. Stay well. Legnaro, 29 September 1659. Your most loving father, Giovan Francesco Busenello.1 With these lines the Venetian lawyer-poet ends his last letter to his son, written a month before he died at his beloved family villa at Legnaro on the mainland where he had come to spend his remaining days. In his youth, Giovan Francesco Busenello (1598-1659) had studied at Padua under the materialist philosopher Cesare Cremonini who