Differentia: Review of Italian Thought Number 5 Spring Article 14 1991 The Eloquent Eye: Roberto Longhi and the Historical Criticism of Art David Tabbat Follow this and additional works at: https://commons.library.stonybrook.edu/differentia Recommended Citation Tabbat, David (1991) "The Eloquent Eye: Roberto Longhi and the Historical Criticism of Art," Differentia: Review of Italian Thought: Vol. 5 , Article 14. Available at: https://commons.library.stonybrook.edu/differentia/vol5/iss1/14 This document is brought to you for free and open access by Academic Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Differentia: Review of Italian Thought by an authorized editor of Academic Commons. For more information, please contact
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[email protected]. The Eloquent Eye: Roberto Longhi and the Historical Criticism of Art David Tabbat Bernard Berenson once observed that Vasari's greatest strength as a writer was that sure instinct for narrative and char acterization which made him a worthy heir of Boccaccio. Lest his readers misconstrue this appreciation of Vasari's "novelistic ten dency" as a denigration of his work when judged by purely art historical criteria, Berenson added that the author of the Lives "is still the unrivaled critic of Italian art," in part because "he always describes a picture or a statue with the vividness of a man who saw the thing while he wrote about it." 1 To a remarkable degree, these same observations may aptly introduce the work of Roberto Longhi (1890-1970),2who is often regarded by the Italians themselves (whether specialists or inter ested laymen) as the most important connoisseur, critic, and art historian their country has produced in our century.