Baroque Routes - June 2011 1 2 Baroque Routes - June 2011 Contents Events Past Events in the World of Baroque ________4 Current Events in the World of Baroque ___________________________6 Features Ephemeral Manifestations in Baroque Malta __________________________8 International Conference on the Baroque Heritage _______________________17 Jesuit Mathematics and Military Architecture ___________________________18 Fort Manoel’s Baroque Gateway gets a Reconstructed Drawbridge __________19 Books _______________________________ 22 Website ______________________________23 Courses _____________________________ 24 Baroque Routes - June 2011 3 - www.um.edu.mt/iibs - will reveal details of Foreword these recent initiatives. The Institute will be this year again accepting applications for a Masters and Doctorate I am pleased to present issue no. 8 of the Programmes in Baroque Studies which will Baroque Routes Newsletter which is published be starting in October 2011.The five-semester on a regular basis by the International Institute MA in Baroque Studies programme run for Baroque Studies at the University of Malta by the International Institute for Baroque on behalf of Baroque Routes Network of the Studies includes an intensive four-semester Council of Europe. This publication comes at a taught component dealing with the political, time of growth when the Institute is promoting religious, social, architectural, artistic and new teaching and research initiatives targeting scientific (including medical) scenarios of the at a wider dissemination of inter-disciplinary Baroque age as well as with the conservation knowledge about the rich legacy of the Baroque of the Baroque heritage of mankind, which age. A glance at the recently updated website of is concluded with the presentation of a the International Institute for Baroque Studies dissertation. The PhD programme of studies is research-orientated and targeted at the investigation of some hitherto-unexplored The International Insttute for Baroque Studies field of Baroque Studies. In addition to these (IIBS) at the University of Malta was set up postgraduate programmes of study, the Institute, to promote the pursuit of interdisciplinary, academic studies on various aspects of in conjunction with the Malta University Baroque culture. It organizes symposiums, Holdings Company (MUHC), is presently public lectures, exhibitions and other activities offering a series of one-week short courses on leading to a greater appreciation of Baroque various topics, this year focused on the military culture, with particular reference to Malta, and the networks with similar centres for studies and civil architecture of the Baroque age, as overseas. It is currently engaged in research can be seen in the course catalogue which is projects concerning Baroque art and architecture being reproduced in this newsletter for ease of of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The Institute organizes MA courses on Baroque reference. studies and short courses on Baroque heritage of Malta and its conservation, and is also engaged A series of books and contributions to peer- in giving assistance to various bodies concerned with the restoration of Baroque buildings reviewed journals are also being prepared to and artefacts. It also organizes a pre-tertiary enhance and disseminate the research profile of Certificate course and a Diploma course in the International Institute for Baroque Studies Baroque architecture. on an international platform during the period Contact Address 2011-2013. It is hoped that these initiatives International Institute for Baroque Studies will help to attract foreign students who are University of Malta interested to pursue postgraduate studies on the Msida MSD 2080 Tel / Fax: 00356 - 21333919/21316619 Baroque age at the University of Malta. Website: www.um.edu.mt/iibs Director: Professor Denis De Lucca Professor Denis De Lucca Academic Staff:Arch. Hermann Bonnici Director Dr. Stephen C. Spiteri Executive Officer: Mr Jonathan Apap International Institute for Baroque Studies University of Malta 4 Baroque Routes - June 2011 Rembrandt, Durer, and Correggio, arms and Past Events in armor; coins and medals, decorative arts and the World of Baroque sculpture. Tapestry in the Baroque: threads EXHIBITIONS of splendour 17 October 2007 to 6 January 2008 Saints and Sinners: Caravaggio Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York This international loan exhibition, conceived and the Baroque Image as a sequel to “Tapestry in the Renaissance: 1 February 1999 to 24 May 1999 Art and Magnificence” (spring 2002), was the McMullen Museum of Art, Boston first comprehensive survey of high-quality This exhibition explored the style, subject matter seventeenth-century European tapestry. Drawing and social function of religious art in Italy circa from collections in more than fifteen countries, 1580 to 1680. Some 30 Baroque paintings from it presents some 40 rare tapestries made in both public and private collections were on Brussels, Delft, Florence, London, Munich, display with the visual centerpiece provided by Paris, and Rome between 1590 and 1720, along the rediscovered masterpiece by Michelangelo with approximately 25 drawings, engravings, Merisi da Caravaggio, ‘The Taking of Christ’, and oil sketches. The exhibition investigated painted in Rome in 1602, which had disappeared the stylistic and technical development of in the late eighteenth century. Two hundred this figurative medium and explored the years later, in 1993, it was rediscovered in the contributions of artists such as Rubens, dining room of the Jesuit Fathers in Dublin. Jordaens, Vouet, Le Brun, da Cortona, and A group of scholars from diverse academic Romanelli, as they responded to the challenges disciplines served as curators for this exhibition, of the medium in unique and spectacular ways. including Guido Reni, Domenichino, Ludovico Carracci, and Pietro da Cortona. Bernini and the Birth of Baroque The Glory of Baroque Dresden Portrait Sculpture 3 March 2004 to 6 September 2004 5 August to 26 October 2008 Mississippi Art Pavilion, USA The Getty Center This exhibition was the first major exhibition This major international loan exhibition brought from Dresden in North America in 25 years together nearly 60 works from both public when a similar exhibition appeared at the and private collections, celebrating Baroque National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., sculpture, paintings, and drawings, and is the at the California Legion of Honor in San first important exhibition on Bernini in North Francisco, and at the Metropolitan Museum America. Bernini is frequently credited with of Art in New York City. This new exhibition inventing Baroque art and, throughout his long consists of more than 400 masterpieces from life, remained its greatest exponent. eight collections/museums of the State Art Collections Dresden and Moritzburg Castle. Among the highlights were Johann Vermeer’s 1620-1800 Baroque: Style in the “The Procuress” and the 41-carat “Dresden Age of Magnificance Green Diamond.” Other artworks include 27 4 April - 19 July 2009 Old Masters paintings by Rembrandt, Rubens, Victoria and Albert, London. Titian, van Dyck, Veronese, Tintoretto, and The magnificence and splendour of Baroque, Mantegna. On display were also Chinese, one of the most opulent styles of the 17th and Japanese, and Meissen porcelain including 18th centuries, was the subject of the V&A’s the famous animal sculptures and the “Venus spring exhibition in 2009. The exhibition Tureen” from the Swan Service, together reflected the complexity and grandeur of the with prints and drawings by Michelangelo, Baroque style, from the Rome of Borromini Baroque Routes - June 2011 5 and Bernini to the magnificence of Louis XIV’s motivations behind the practice of copying Versailles and the lavishness of Baroque theatre during the 16th and 17th centuries. and performance. On display were religious paintings by Rubens and Tiepolo, and silver Sciences and curiosities at the furniture, portraits, sculpture, a regal bed Court of Versailles and court tapestries chosen to conjure up the 26 October 2010 to 27 February 2011 opulence of a Baroque palace. The exhibition, Palace of Versailles, France. which brought together around 200 objects, This exhibition was organized by the was the first to examine all the elements of the Etablissement public du château et du domaine Baroque style and how, European power spread, national de Versailles thanks to the sponsorship this style reached other parts of the world. of the Alten group and Saint-Gobain. On a Pedestal: From Renaissance Rome and Antiquity, Reality and Chopines to Baroque Heels Vision 19 November 2009 to 20 September 2010 30 November 2010 to 6 March 2011 Bata Shoe Museum, Toronto, Canada. Palazzo Sciarra, Rome. The exhibition explored two of the most An exhibition by Fondazione Roma dedicated extreme forms of footwear ever worn in Western to the rediscovery of classical antiquity in Rome fashion, the outrageous platform chopine and its in the eighteenth century, curated by Carolina eventual replacement, the high heel. It offered Brook and Valter Curzi. The exhibition gathered visitors a once in a lifetime opportunity to see works of art and archaeological finds which exceptionally rare examples of Renaissance highlighted the key factor behind Rome’s rise to and Baroque footwear on loan from numerous international renown in the eighteenth century. renowned International museums including: The exhibition featured a nucleus of 140 Victoria and Albert Museum,