DOCSLIB.ORG

The Trend Towards the Restitution of Cultural Properties: Some Italian Cases

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
The Trend Towards the Restitution of Cultural Properties: Some Italian Cases CHAPTER twenty-three THE TREND TOWARDS THE RESTITUTION OF CULTURAL PROPERTIES: SOME ITALIAN CASES Tullio Scovazzi* 1. The Basic Aspects of the Italian Legislation The importance of cultural heritage is rooted in the mind of the majority of Ital- ians. The unification of the country was first achieved in the cultural field, due to the Divina Commedia of Dante (1265–1321) and the literary works of Petrarch and Boccaccio (XIV century), written in the Italian language and not in Latin. The cultural dimension was strengthened by the great artistic tradition of the Renaissance and the Baroque styles which originated in Italy. The political uni- fication of the country followed much later, as the kingdom of Italy was pro- claimed only in 1861. One of the first instances of legislation in the field of cultural properties is a decision taken in 1602 by the grand duke of Tuscany, subjecting to a licence the export from the State of “good paintings” and prohibiting altogether the export of the works of nineteen selected masters, namely Michelangelo Buonarroti, Raf- faello Sanzio, Andrea del Sarto, Mecherino, Rosso Fiorentino, Leonardo da Vinci, Franciabigio, Pierin del Vaga, Jacopo da Pontormo, Tiziano, Francesco Salviati, Bronzino, Daniele da Volterra, Fra Bartolomeo, Sebastiano del Piombo, Filippino Lippi, Correggio, Parmigianino and Perugino.1 The legislation adopted in the Papal State at the beginning of the XIX century, in particular the edicts enacted respectively on 2 October 1802 and on 7 April 1820, set forth a number of fundamental principles that are reflected also in the legislation in force today. Private subjects have to declare to the State the cul- tural properties of which they were owners. The export of cultural properties is prohibited or subjected to an authorization, depending on the case. A register of * Professor of International Law, University of Milano-Bicocca, Milan, Italy. 1 See L. Parpagliolo, Codice delle antichità e degli oggetti d’arte, I, Roma, La libreria dello Stato, 1932, 51. 504 tullio scovazzi cultural properties located in the State is drawn up. The State is the owner of all archaeological objects found underground. After the unification of the country, general legislation in the field of cultural heritage was adopted and replaced by subsequent enactments, namely Law 12 June 1902, No. 185, on the conservation of monuments, antiquities and artistic objects, Law 20 June 1909, No. 364, on antiquities and fine arts, and Law 1st June 1939, No. 1089, on the protection of properties of artistic or historic interest.2 Pro- visions on cultural properties belonging to the State demesne can also be found in the civil code, approved by Royal Decree 16 March 1942, No. 262, and still in force today.3 After World War II, the Constitution of the Italian Republic, adopted on 27 December 1947, included the protection of landscape and of the historical and artistic heritage of the nation among the fundamental principles of the State (Art. 9, para. 2).4 In 1999 a general regime for the cultural heritage was set forth under Legislative Decree 29 October 1999, No. 490, called Single Text on Cultural Prop- erties, later replaced by Legislative Decree 22 January 2004, No. 42, called Code of Cultural Properties and Landscape. This enactment is composed of 184 articles and, as modified by subsequent amendments, is in force today.5 The main aspects of the Italian regime on ownership and movements of cul- tural properties, as resulting from the Code of Cultural Properties and Landscape, are the following. The cultural properties that belong to the State, the regions and the other public territorial entities (provinces or municipalities) form the cultural demesne (Art. 53). The most important among them, including archaeological areas and collections of museums, cannot be alienated (Art. 54). The others can be alienated on the basis of an authorization by the Ministry and provided that certain conditions are met (Arts. 55 and 56). Cultural properties cannot be destroyed, damaged and used in a manner that is not compatible with their historic or artistic character or that can be detri- mental to their conservation.6 Private interests and rights, such as private owner- 2 Law 27 June 1939, No. 1497, on the protection of natural beauties, was adopted in the same period. 3 See, in particular, Art. 822, para. 2, according to which are part of the public demesne, if they belong to the State, the collections of museums, pinacothecas, archives, libraries. 4 “[La Repubblica] tutela il paesaggio e il patrimonio storico e artistico della Nazione”. Emphasis on landscape is a typical aspect of the Italian legislation on cultural heritage. It is based on the assumption that man has the capacity to recast nature in the form of cultural landscapes. 5 For the text and a commentary see M.A. Sandulli (ed.), Codice dei beni culturali e del paesaggio, Milano, Giuffrè, 2006. 6 “I beni culturali non possono essere distrutti, danneggiati o adibiti ad usi non compati- bili con il loro carattere storico o artistico oppure tali da recare pregiudizio alla loro con- servazione” (Art. 20, para. 1). Under Art. 20, para. 2, archives cannot be dismembered..
Load more

Recommended publications
  • The Exhibit at Palazzo Strozzi “Pontormo and Rosso Fiorentino
    Issue no. 18 - April 2014 CHAMPIONS OF THE “MODERN MANNER” The exhibit at Palazzo Strozzi “Pontormo and Rosso Fiorentino. Diverging Paths of Mannerism”, points out the different vocations of the two great artist of the Cinquecento, both trained under Andrea del Sarto. Palazzo Strozzi will be hosting from March 8 to July 20, 2014 a major exhibition entitled Pontormo and Rosso Fiorentino. Diverging Paths of Mannerism. The exhibit is devoted to these two painters, the most original and unconventional adepts of the innovative interpretive motif in the season of the Italian Cinquecento named “modern manner” by Vasari. Pontormo and Rosso Fiorentino both were born in 1494; Pontormo in Florence and Rosso in nearby Empoli, Tuscany. They trained under Andrea del Sarto. Despite their similarities, the two artists, as the title of the exhibition suggests, exhibited strongly independent artistic approaches. They were “twins”, but hardly identical. An abridgement of the article “I campioni della “maniera moderna” by Antonio Natali - Il Giornale degli Uffizi no. 59, April 2014. Issue no. 18 -April 2014 PONTORMO ACCORDING TO BILL VIOLA The exhibit at Palazzo Strozzi includes American artist Bill Viola’s video installation “The Greeting”, a intensely poetic interpretation of The Visitation by Jacopo Carrucci Through video art and the technique of slow motion, Bill Viola’s richly poetic vision of Pontormo’s painting “Visitazione” brings to the fore the happiness of the two women at their coming together, representing with the same—yet different—poetic sensitivity, the vibrancy achieved by Pontormo, but with a vital, so to speak carnal immediacy of the sense of life, “translated” into the here-and- now of the present.
    [Show full text]
  • Sight and Touch in the Noli Me Tangere
    Chapter 1 Sight and Touch in the Noli me tangere Andrea del Sarto painted his Noli me tangere (Fig. 1) at the age of twenty-four.1 He was young, ambitious, and grappling for the first time with the demands of producing an altarpiece. He had his reputation to consider. He had the spiri- tual function of his picture to think about. And he had his patron’s wishes to address. I begin this chapter by discussing this last category of concern, the complex realities of artistic patronage, as a means of emphasizing the broad- er arguments of my book: the altarpiece commissions that Andrea received were learning opportunities, and his artistic decisions serve as indices of the religious knowledge he acquired in the course of completing his professional endeavors. Throughout this particular endeavor—from his first client consultation to the moment he delivered the Noli me tangere to the Augustinian convent lo- cated just outside the San Gallo gate of Florence—Andrea worked closely with other members of his community. We are able to identify those individuals only in a general sense. Andrea received his commission from the Morelli fam- ily, silk merchants who lived in the Santa Croce quarter of the city and who frequently served in the civic government. They owned the rights to one of the most prestigious chapels in the San Gallo church. It was located close to the chancel, second to the left of the apse.2 This was prime real estate. Renaissance churches were communal structures—always visible, frequently visited. They had a natural hierarchy, dominated by the high altar.
    [Show full text]
  • The Strange Art of 16Th –Century Italy
    The Strange Art of 16th –century Italy Some thoughts before we start. This course is going to use a seminar format. Each of you will be responsible for an artist. You will be giving reports on- site as we progress, in as close to chronological order as logistics permit. At the end of the course each of you will do a Power Point presentation which will cover the works you treated on-site by fitting them into the rest of the artist’s oeuvre and the historical context.. The readings: You will take home a Frederick Hartt textbook, History of Italian Renaissance Art. For the first part of the course this will be your main background source. For sculpture you will have photocopies of some chapters from Roberta Olsen’s book on Italian Renaissance sculpture. I had you buy Walter Friedlaender’s Mannerism and Anti-Mannerism in Italian Painting, first published in 1925. While recent scholarship does not agree with his whole thesis, many of his observations are still valid about the main changes at the beginning and the end of the 16th century. In addition there will be some articles copied from art history periodicals and a few provided in digital format which you can read on the computer. Each of you will be doing other reading on your individual artists. A major goal of the course will be to see how sixteenth-century art depends on Raphael and Michelangelo, and to a lesser extent on Leonardo. Art seems to develop in cycles. What happens after a moment of great innovations? Vasari, in his Lives of the Artists, seems to ask “where do we go from here?” If Leonardo, Raphael and Michelangelo were perfect, how does one carry on? The same thing occurred after Giotto and Duccio in the early Trecento.
    [Show full text]
  • Exploring the Path of Del Sarto, Pontormo, and Rosso Fiorentino Thursday, June 11Th Through Monday, June 15Th
    - SUMMER 2015 FLORENCE PROGRAM Michelangelo and His Revolutionary Legacy: Exploring the Path of Del Sarto, Pontormo, and Rosso Fiorentino Thursday, June 11th through Monday, June 15th PRELIMINARY ITINERARY (as of January 2015) Program Costs: Program Fee: $4,000 per person (not tax deductible) Charitable Contribution: $2,500 per person (100% tax deductible) Historians: William Wallace, Ph.D. - Barbara Murphy Bryant Distinguished Professor of Art History, Washington University in St. Louis William Cook, Ph.D. - Distinguished Teaching Professor of History, SUNY Geneseo (Emeritus) For additional program and cost details, please see the "Reservation Form," "Terms and Conditions," and "Hotel Lungarno Reservation Form" Thursday, June 11th Afternoon Welcome Lecture by historians Bill Wallace and Bill Cook, followed by private visits to the Medici Chapels. Dinner in an historic landmark of the city. Friday, June 12th Special visit to the church of Santa Felicità to view the extraordinary Pontormo masterpieces, then follow the path across Florence of a selection of frescoes from the Last Supper cycle. The morning will end with a viewing of the Last Supper by Andrea del Sarto in San Salvi. Lunch will be enjoyed on the hillsides of Florence. Later-afternoon private visit to the Bargello Museum, followed by cocktails and dinner in a private palace. Saturday, June 13th Morning departure via fast train to Rome. View Michelangelo's Moses and Risen Christ, followed by lunch. Private visit to the magnificent Palazzo Colonna to view their collection of works by Pontormo, Ridolfo da Ghirlandaio, and other artists. Later afternoon private visit to the Vatican to view the unique masterpieces by Michelangelo in both the Pauline Chapel and the Sistine Chapel, kindly arranged by the Papal offices and the Director of the Vatican Museums.
    [Show full text]
  • La Galerie De François I”
    Trinity College Trinity College Digital Repository Senior Theses and Projects Student Scholarship Spring 2020 Enigma and Assumption: A Foundational Overview of the History, Legacy and Famous Names associated with “La Galerie de François I” Sophie Klieger [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalrepository.trincoll.edu/theses Part of the Architectural History and Criticism Commons, Art Practice Commons, Historic Preservation and Conservation Commons, Interior Architecture Commons, and the Painting Commons Recommended Citation Klieger, Sophie, "Enigma and Assumption: A Foundational Overview of the History, Legacy and Famous Names associated with “La Galerie de François I”". Senior Theses, Trinity College, Hartford, CT 2020. Trinity College Digital Repository, https://digitalrepository.trincoll.edu/theses/840 Enigma and Assumption: The Galerie de François I 1 Enigma and Assumption: A Foundational Overview of the History, Legacy and Famous Names associated with “La Galerie de François I” by Sophie Klieger Trinity College Department of Art History Thesis Advisor: Professor Jean Cadogan In Fulfillment of the requirements of the Degree of the Bachelors of Arts Enigma and Assumption: The Galerie de François I 2 Table of Contents Abstract .............................................................................................................................. 3 Chapter I: King Francis I………………………………………………...………………..4 Chapter 2: Rosso Fiorentino……………………………………………………………..17 Chapter 3: Giorgio Vasari…………………………………………………….………….36
    [Show full text]
  • News Release
    NEWS RELEASE FOURTH STREET AT CONSTITUTION AVENUE NW WASHINGTON DC 20565 . 737-4215/842-6353 CONTACT: Dena Crosson Laura Carter (202) 842-6353 ** FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE PRESS PREVIEW: Tuesday, Oct. 20, 1987 11:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m. THE ART OF ROSSQ FIORENTINO TO OPEN AT NATIONAL GALLERY First U.S. Exhibition Ever Devoted Solely to 16th-century Italian Renaissance Artist October 1, 1987 - The first exhibition in the United States ever devoted solely to the works and designs of 16th-century Italian Renaissance artist Rosso Florentine opens Oct. 25 at the National Gallery of Art's West Building. Rosso Fiorentino Drawings, Prints and Decorative Arts consists of 117 objects, including 28 drawings by Rosso, 80 prints after his compositions, majolica and enamel platters, and tapestries made from his designs. On view through Jan. 3, 1988, the exhibition is supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities. Giovanni Battista di Jacopo (1494-1540), best known as Rosso Fiorentino, worked in Florence from 1513 until 1524, when he went to Rome. He left the city during the infamous Sack of Rome in 1527, wandering about Italy until 1530, when he went to France to work for King Francis I at Fontainebleau. Rosso began his career with a style modeled on the art of the Florentine Renaissance, but he is now seen as one of the founders of the anticlassical style called Mannerism. An intense and eccentric individual, Rosso was internationally famous in the 16th century while today he is most readily recognized for his work at Fontainebleau and for the great impact of his Italian style on French art.
    [Show full text]
  • Andrea Del Sarto: the Renaissance Workshop in Action
    ANDREA DEL SARTO: THE RENAISSANCE WORKSHOP IN ACTION FIRST MAJOR U.S. MONOGRAPHIC EXHIBITION ON THE ARTIST October 7, 2015, through January 10, 2016 Andrea d’Agnolo (1486–1530), called Andrea del Sarto after his father’s profession as a tailor (sarto), transformed sixteenth-century Florence through his art and influence. Through his large and prolific workshop, one of the most significant of the age, he enriched his native city with portraits, altarpieces, and fresco paintings. Drawings were at the core of his working process. Produced primarily in red and black chalks, his vibrant figure studies, energetic compositional drawings, and masterful head studies display the range of his talents as a draftsman and the complex roles that drawing played in developing his paintings. This autumn, The Frick Collection celebrates the Italian master with Andrea del Sarto: The Renaissance Workshop in Action, Andrea del Sarto (1486–1530), Study for the Head of Julius the first major U.S. monographic exhibition devoted Caesar, ca. 1520, red chalk, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, partial and promised gift of Mr. and Mrs. David M. Tobey; © The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Image source: Art to his art, centering on his creative process. This Resource, NY exhibition was organized with the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, where it has run as a summer show. In New York, the presentation will feature forty-five drawings and three paintings from international collections and will offer an unprecedented look inside the creative production of one of the most influential figures in Italian Renaissance art. To be shown in the Oval Room and in the lower-level galleries, the exhibition was coordinated at the Frick by Associate Curator Aimee Ng and is Portrait of a Young Man, ca.
    [Show full text]
  • Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects
    Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects Giorgio Vasari Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects Table of Contents Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects.......................................................................1 Giorgio Vasari..........................................................................................................................................2 LIFE OF FILIPPO LIPPI, CALLED FILIPPINO...................................................................................9 BERNARDINO PINTURICCHIO........................................................................................................13 LIFE OF BERNARDINO PINTURICCHIO.........................................................................................14 FRANCESCO FRANCIA.....................................................................................................................17 LIFE OF FRANCESCO FRANCIA......................................................................................................18 PIETRO PERUGINO............................................................................................................................22 LIFE OF PIETRO PERUGINO.............................................................................................................23 VITTORE SCARPACCIA (CARPACCIO), AND OTHER VENETIAN AND LOMBARD PAINTERS...........................................................................................................................................31
    [Show full text]
  • Il Franciabigio)
    Frammentiarte.it vi offre l'opera completa ed anche il download in ordine alfabetico per ogni singolo artista Giorgio Vasari - Le vite de' più eccellenti architetti, pittori, et scultori italiani, da Cimabue insino a' tempi nostri (1568) Parte terza (primo volume) Francia Bigio (Il Franciabigio) VITA DEL FRANCIA BIGIO PITTOR FIORENTINO Le fatiche che si patiscono nella vita per levarsi da terra e ripararsi da la povertà, soccorrendo non pure sé ma i prossimi suoi, fanno che il sudor e disagi diventano dolcissimi, et il nutrimento di ciò talmente pasce l’animo altrui, che la bontà del cielo, veggendo alcun volto a buona vita et ottimi costumi e pronto et inclinato agli studi delle scienze, è sforzato sopra l’usanza sua essergli nel genio favorevole e benigno. Come fu veramente al Francia pittor fiorentino; il quale da ottima e giusta cagione posto all’arte della pittura, s’esercitò in quella, non tanto desideroso di fama, quanto per porgere aiuto ai poveri parenti suoi. Et essendo egli nato di umilissimi artefici e persone basse, cercava svilupparsi da questo, al che fare lo spronò molto la concorrenza di Andrea del Sarto allora suo compagno, co ’l quale molto tempo tenne e bottega e la vita del dipignere. La qual vita fu cagione ch’eglino grande acquisto fecero l’un per l’altro all’arte della pittura. Imparò il Francia nella sua giovanezza, dimorando alcuni mesi con Mariotto Albertinelli, i principii dell’arte. Et essendo molto inclinato alle cose di prospettiva e quella imparando di continuo per lo diletto di essa, fu in Fiorenza riputato molto valente nella sua giovanezza.
    [Show full text]
  • Visualizing Dynasty and Dissent in Jacopo Pontormo's Portrait Of
    Visualizing dynasty and dissent in Jacopo Pontormo’s Portrait of Cosimo il Vecchio Mary Hogan Camp Figure 1 Pontormo, Portrait of Cosimo il Vecchio, c. 1519, oil on panel, 90 x 72 cm Uffizi Gallery (inv. 1890, n. 3574), Florence. Photograph courtesy of Wikimedia Commons (Public Domain) The Portrait of Cosimo il Vecchio, c. 1519, marked the first Medicean portrait commission for the rising young Florentine artist Jacopo Pontormo (b.1494). [Figure1] It proved pivotal in his career, garnering him the favour and patronage of the Medici, who would continue to give him commissions and eventually place him on their payroll, where he remained for over twenty-four years until his death in 1556.1 At the time this commission was given, however, there was no such future surety: the family was facing a crisis, and the survival of the Medici line was in grave doubt. In 1516, Duke Giuliano de’ Medici, the youngest son of Lorenzo the Magnificent and ruler of Florence, had died childless at the age of thirty-seven. In 1519, his twenty-six-year-old nephew and successor, Duke Lorenzo, succumbed to a combination of syphilis and tuberculosis just twenty-one days after the birth of his only daughter Catherine. Their unexpected deaths left the family with no legitimate heir to power. There was one 1 Elizabeth Pilliod, Pontormo, Bronzino, Allori: a genealogy of Florentine art, New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001, 17. Journal of Art Historiography Number 17 December 2017 Mary Hogan Camp Visualizing dynasty and dissent in Jacopo Pontormo’s Portrait of Cosimo il Vecchio glimmer of hope, and of a hoped-for change in fortune: the birth of a healthy son to Maria Salviati, granddaughter of Lorenzo the Magnificent, on 12 June 1519, only one month after Duke Lorenzo’s death.
    [Show full text]
  • A Taxonomy of Art Patronage in Renaissance Italy Sheryl E
    1 A Taxonomy of Art Patronage in Renaissance Italy Sheryl E. Reiss On November 25, 1523, Michelangelo wrote from Florence to his stonecutter Topolino in Carrara with important news: “You will have heard that Medici has been made pope, because of which, it seems to me, everyone is rejoicing and I think that here, as for art, there will be much to be done.”1 Michelangelo spoke of Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici, who had been elected Pope Clement VII two days before. This passage reveals the necessarily symbiotic relationships of patrons and artists in early modern Italy. Each depended upon the other to secure their repu- tations by bringing works of art and architecture into existence. Although the strategies employed by artists and patrons were often mutually reinforcing, some- times relations between them were adversarial. Patrons in Renaissance Italy promoted personal, familial, and group renown by requesting works from – and fostering the careers of – famous or promising artists. Just as artists in this period often competed for the attention of patrons, patrons frequently competed for the services of successful artists. While artists of the caliber of Michelangelo, Raphael, or Titian often manipulated the patronage game to great advantage, most painters, sculptors, and architects in the period functioned within a deeply entrenched sociocultural system of mutual dependency. Even in the case of Michelangelo (who had, to paraphrase William Wallace, “reversed the rules of patronage”), in a painting for the Casa Buonarroti, his Seicento descendants had him depicted in the mode of a traditional presentationCOPYRIGHTED image, in which artist MATERIAL was subservient to patron (fig.
    [Show full text]
  • ARTH206-Giorgio Vasari-Lives of the Most Emminent
    Selections from Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors & Architects Giorgio Vasari, Translated by Gaston Du C. De Vere (1912-14) Source URL: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/25326/25326-h/25326-h.htm#Page_153 Saylor URL: http://www.saylor.org/courses/arth206/ Saylor.org This work is in the public domain. Page 1 of 199 LIVES OF THE MOST EMINENT PAINTERS SCULPTORS & ARCHITECTS 1912 BY GIORGIO VASARI: NEWLY TRANSLATED BY GASTON Du C. DE VERE. WITH FIVE HUNDRED ILLUSTRATIONS: IN TEN VOLUMES LONDON: MACMILLAN AND CO. LD. & THE MEDICI SOCIETY, LD. 1912-14 CONTENTS Volume 1 3 Dedications to the Cosimo Medici 4 The Author’s Preface to the Whole Work 7 Giovanni Cimabue 19 Niccola and Giovanni of Pisa 31 Giotto 50 Ambrogio Lorenzetti 78 Volume 2 83 Duccio 84 Paolo Ucello 90 Lorenzo Ghiberti 100 Masolino Da Panicale 121 Masaccio 126 Filippo Brunelleschi 136 Donato [Donatello] 178 Volume 1 Footnotes 198 Volume 2 Footnotes 199 Source URL: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/25326/25326-h/25326-h.htm#Page_153 Saylor URL: http://www.saylor.org/courses/arth206/ Saylor.org This work is in the public domain. Page 2 of 199 VOLUME I Source URL: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/25326/25326-h/25326-h.htm#Page_153 Saylor URL: http://www.saylor.org/courses/arth206/ Saylor.org This work is in the public domain. Page 3 of 199 DEDICATIONS TO COSIMO DE' MEDICI TO THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS AND MOST EXCELLENT SIGNOR COSIMO DE' MEDICI, DUKE OF FLORENCE AND SIENA MY MOST HONOURED LORD, Behold, seventeen years since I first presented to your most Illustrious Excellency the Lives, sketched so to speak, of the most famous painters, sculptors and architects, they come before you again, not indeed wholly finished, but so much changed from what they were and in such wise adorned and enriched with innumerable works, whereof up to that time I had been able to gain no further knowledge, that from my endeavour and in so far as in me lies nothing more can be looked for in them.
    [Show full text]