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Home , Aldus Manutius, Emanuele Cavalli

EXHIBITIONS

Aldus Manutius

by XAVIER F. SALOMON

A HANDWRITTEN INSCRIPTION on the front- ispiece of Gregorius Nazanzienus’ Carmina, published in Venice by Aldus Manutius in 1504 as part of a series of volumes of ancient Christian poems, proudly proclaims: ‘I belong to , and I will not change my master’. This copy of the book was owned by the celebrated Dutch humanist Desiderius Erasmus, who had lived in Venice in 1507–08, where he collaborated with Manutius on a new edition of his .1 Notwithstanding the scholar’s pride in owning the volume, the book did change hands. A second inscription reads: ‘I belonged to Erasmus, and I changed my master’. The book’s second owner was another humanist, Martin Lipsius, who commented the volume’s change of ownership: ‘Indeed I have not changed, for 76. Portrait of a man (?), by Titian. a friend is a second self’. Books published by c.1514–18. Canvas, 85.7 by Aldus Manutius were considered works of art 72.7 cm. (Royal Collection, in themselves and were highly sought after. It London; exh. Gallerie is easy to understand why, when looking at the dell’Accademia, Venice). impossibly elegant single surviving copy of De Re Rustica, printed entirely on blue paper and published by Manutius in 1514 (Fig.75). Books Sannazaro – displays in the splendid portrait families in Carpi and in Mirandola, he such as these were passionately collected in by Titian (Fig.76) from the Royal Collection. moved to Venice in 1489. The forty-year-old sixteenth-century Europe, and owners often The copy of the Carmina (no.74), together Aldus established a partnership with Andrea chose to hold them in their hands when with the blue De Re Rustica (no.66) and Torresano and started classic texts. portrayed. It is indeed an Aldine edition that Titian’s portrait (no.93) are three of the almost Between 1495 and his death he published the man – traditionally identified as Jacopo one hundred extraordinary objects gathered about one hundred books, starting with the in the splendid exhibition Aldo Manuzio: publication of ’s complete works in Il Rinascimento di Venezia at the Gallerie Greek in five volumes (1,792 pages!); this took dell’Accademia, Venice (to 19th June). from November 1495 to June 1498. In April The show celebrates the 500th anniversary 1501 Manutius created the ‘pocket’ book, for of Manutius’ death in 1515 and follows in the the first time allowing people to carry their footsteps of other recent exhibitions on the cherished classic texts with them, and read publisher, including one at the Grolier Club away from their libraries. This was a radical in New York.2 It would have been impossible enterprise and, as straightforward as the to think of a better project to inaugurate the innovation may now seem, Aldus changed the new exhibition spaces of the Accademia world. The invention of Aldine is and the new directorship of Paola Marini. comparable, as the curators argue, to today’s This is hopefully a sign of things to come in digital revolution. By diminishing the size of Venice and the first excellent exhibition in a books and by making Greek and texts city that has long been starved of significant readily available, the publisher made reading shows. It is refined, like an Aldine volume, an intimate experience that transformed the but also easily accessible to a general public. way in which people thought and behaved. One of the project’s greatest achievements is Venice, of course, was at the centre of this to demonstrate that no matter how recondite printing revolution and Aldus was its main an exhibition topic may be, with intelligent protagonist.4 curatorship it can succeed. The exhibition The exhibition in Venice is not simply is organised by two outstanding curators, about book publishing, although perhaps half Guido Beltramini and Davide Gasparotto of the objects on view are books. It shows (working with Giulio Manieri Elia), the same how fundamental books are in developing team that curated in 2013 (with Adolfo Tura), culture; and the ideas, stories and the one of the most exemplary exhibitions of the creatures described by ancient and modern last twenty years: Pietro e l’invenzione authors leave the pages of Aldine editions and del Rinascimento.3 The Manutius exhibition come to life at the Accademia. The show is follows the same impeccable methodology divided into nine sections, beginning with and focuses on a central hero, bringing to an introduction on Manutius’ life between life the shifting world of Renaissance Venice and Venice, and concluding with four 75. De Re Rustica, published by Aldus Manutius and Andrea Torresano. 1514. Blue paper. (Morgan and Europe. portraits of Aldine readers by Titian (no.93), Library & Museum, New York; exh. Gallerie Manutius was born near Rome and, after Palma il Vecchio (no.94), Parmigianino dell’Accademia, Venice). years working as a tutor to the Pio and Pico (no.95) and Lotto (no.96).

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the sculptors Severo da Ravenna (nos.44–46), Riccio (no.61) and Moderno (no.54). The handsome exhibition catalogue explores the relationship of Aldine publications to the visual arts: architecture (Guido Beltramini), sculpture (Matteo Ceriana), (Davide Gasparotto), miniature painting (Federica Toniolo) and prints (David Landau).5 In December 1499, Aldus published one of his most unusual books, which also became his most famous and one of the most beautiful volumes ever produced: the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, written by the obscure Dominican friar Francesco Colonna. The book (Fig.77) has a place of honour at the heart of the exhibition, and a clever display makes it possible to examine a facsimile of every illustrated page. It is a whimsical book that was to have an enduring influence on the arts. Helena K. Szépe analyses the volume in her catalogue essay, and the exhibition focuses in particular on the two artists who provided designs for the 77. Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, by Francesco Colonna, with illustrations by Benedetto Bordon and the Second woodcuts, Benedetto Bordon and the Second Master of the Canzoniere Grifo, published by Aldus Manutius. 1499. White paper. (The Provost and Fellows Master of the Canzoniere Grifo. Other works of Eton College; exh. Gallerie dell’Accademia, Venice). by or attributed to Bordon (nos.31, 32 and 34) provide stimulating comparisons. Regrettably In between, sections explore the different sculptures, prints and medals, demonstrate the refused to lend the ways in which Manutius’ books shaped how this happened. Most important for Rime by Antonio Grifo (1490–1500, included Renaissance Venice. By publishing the Greek Venice was the discovery of landscape through in the catalogue; no.30), which would have , Aldus effectively restored the Greek the publication of Arcadian and idyllic classics. provided the relevant comparative miniature language; consequently Venice witnessed the A series of masterpieces from the Accademia, by the Second Master of the Canzoniere Grifo. development of archaeology and of ekphrastic such as the Reliquary (no.11), The way in which the Hypnerotomachia was works intended to recreate the lost masterpieces Giorgione’s Tempest (no.59), and embedded in contemporary visual culture was of antiquity. The classical world – Greek and by Bellini (no.38) and Carpaccio (no.1) are tangible throughout the exhibition, such as, Roman – entered the secular and religious joined by international loans of works by for example, with the stunning Double portrait consciousness of the sixteenth century. Two Dürer (no.24), Jacopo de’ Barbari (no.23), by Tullio Lombardo (Fig.78), which provided rooms displaying books alongside paintings, Lotto (no.26) and other painters, as well as the inspiration for one of the woodcuts in the book (illustrated on p.147). The curators have dedicated an entire section of the exhibition to explaining why Aldine books are so beautiful. They focus on the design of the books, on the proportion of the pages and on the sophisticated fonts used in the volumes. Manutius invented italics and the semicolon, and was an expert in transforming books into luxury objects that were desired by a modern, cultured elite. Many of the bestselling books produced in sixteenth-century , such as Bembo’s Asolani (1505) and Sannazaro’s Arcadia (1514), were printed by Aldus. He not only published the classics, but also volumes described in the exhibition as ‘modern classics’. The world in which Manutius lived and operated was deeply steeped in antiquity. Inspiration from the distant past stimulated a better present and future. This show, like the one on Bembo, should serve as a model for future exhibitions, with its uncompromisingly serious, yet accessible nature. Its curators are, like Aldus himself, rigorous and creative, and have made an exhibition that is erudite, cultivated, clever and ultimately gorgeous. It brings to mind Aldus’ preface to Aristotle’s Organon of 1495. In the dedication to Alberto Pio da Carpi, Manutius hoped to ‘benefit greatly in due course thanks to the forthcoming supply of 78. Double portrait, by Tullio Lombardo. c.1491–93. Marble, 47.5 by 50.5 cm. (Galleria Giorgio Franchetti alla good books. By these, we hope, all barbarism Ca’ d’Oro, Venice; exh. Gallerie dell’Accademia, Venice). will finally be swept away, since I do not

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believe that men are perverse enough to eat acorns after the discovery of grain’.6 This exhibition makes us want never to eat acorns again.

1 For an account of Erasmus’ Venetian sojourn and his relation with Manutius, see Erasmo da Rotterdam: Opulentia sordida e altri scritti attorno ad Aldo Manuzio, ed. L. Braida, Venice 2014. 2 G. Scott-Clemons and H. George Fletcher eds.: exh. cat. Aldus Manutius. A Legacy More Lasting than Bronze, New York (Grolier Club) 2015. 3 Reviewed in this Magazine, 155 (2013), pp.355–57. 4 For a general account of printing in Venice, see A. Marzo Magno: Bound in Venice. The Serene Republic and the Dawn of the Book, New York 2013. 5 Catalogue: Aldo Manuzio. Il Rinascimento di Venezia. Edited by Guido Beltramini and Davide Gasparotto. 374 pp. incl. 131 col. + 24 b. & w. ills. (Marsilio, Venice, 2016), €45. ISBN 978–88–317–2361–9. 6 A. Manutius: The Greek Classics, transl. N.G. Wilson, Cambridge and London 2016, p.17.

After Piero Forli

by CARL BRANDON STREHLKE

THE INSTALLATION OF the exhibition : indagine su un mito, at the Musei San Domenico, Forlì (to 26th June), on the influence of Piero della Francesca, begins with Carlo Carra’s The engineer’s lover (1924; cat. no.114) and ends with Edward Hopper’s Approaching a city (1946; no.171). In between, there are 171 items, of which four paintings and one are by Piero, fifty Renaissance works by artists ranging from Fra Angelico to Palmezzano, a number of copies of Piero’s paintings and the rest are nineteenth- and twentieth-century pictures by Italian artists as well as a scattering of works by Puvis de Chavannes, Degas, Seurat and Balthus. The gathering is in part an imitation of Mimita Lamberti’s exhibition Piero della Francesca e il Novecento held in Sansepolcro in 1991, but without its refinement. In Forlì, the artist with the most works is the little known Pietro Gaudenzi. A section dedicated to his studies (nos.159–64) for destroyed frescos in the governor’s palace on the island of Rhodes commissioned in 1937 by the Fascist viceroy, Cesare Maria De Vecchi de Valcismon, directly confronts the influence of the quattrocento master on the art of Fascist Italy, the era that also saw the publication 79. Women sewing, by Massimo Campigli. 1925. Canvas, 161 by 96.5 cm. (State Hermitage Museum, in 1927 of Roberto Longhi’s monograph on St Petersburg; exh. Musei San Domenico, Forlì). Piero in the series. A wall of photographs made for that book, not illustrated Virgilio Guidi (six works), Achille Funi human body, but is Piero the unifying thread in the catalogue,1 shows how Longhi’s (seven works), Felice Casorati, Gregorio or reason for their stylistic choices? The period thinking about the artist coincided with the Sciltian, Pompeo Borra and others of the has been associated with the ‘return to order’ layout of the book and how his cropping of 1930s Roman School including Giuseppe after the First World War and the end of more the illustrations had an incalculable effect Capogrossi, Emanuele Cavalli, Corrado exciting explorations such as and on contemporary Italian artists and, later, Cagli and Franco Gentilini, but with little . While in some cases there are direct cinematographers such as Pasolini. sense of their rapport with older art. They quotes from Piero and Masaccio, as in Cagli’s The criteria for the selection of the modern are figurative painters working in a style that Neophytes (1937; no.148), the more important artists are unclear: we are presented with emphasises the underlying geometry of the dialogue seems to be with Picasso, as in

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