Angelamaria Aceto | University of Oxford (original) (raw)

Articles by Angelamaria Aceto

Raphael’s unexecuted "Resurrection of Christ" and Santa Maria della Pace , 2024

Ashmolean Magazine, 60, 2013

Studi di Memofonte, 29, 2022

The aim of this article is to present a selection of drawings for ornament from the collection of... more The aim of this article is to present a selection of drawings for ornament from the collection of the Ashmolean Museum of Oxford hitherto anonymous or still carrying problematic attributions. Encompassing a wide range of decorations, including frames, cartouche and grotesque designs for translation in painting or other media, whether seen as single motifs or combined to form frieze or ceiling projects, ornament drawings form one of the most elusive categories which specialists still confront today. As well as the loss of the original contexts for which they might have been conceived, it is their use and function that greatly contribute to their anonymity. While it is often possible to place them chronologically, or even to link them to the house-style of a workshop, the vocabulary often reflected the broader fashion of the time, with schemes and single motifs repeated with little variation design after design and over decades. In many instances, such drawings were conceived as pattern-drawings, often gathered to form model-books, now dispersed. These would have comprised drawings by the master, but also variations by workshop members, who remain unnamed largely due to the lack of documentary evidence. Furthermore, their open-ended nature, both as a quick source of ideas for the workshop to draw from and for patrons to browse 1 , meant designs were presented with very generic and neutral content that could be adapted and re-adapted to a variety of contexts. The lack of armorial devices or specific iconographies associated with this use is often a defining characteristic that complicates matters, leaving us to rely on a purely connoisseurial exercise. When such visual information, in turn, is included, it provides invaluable clues, as seen in a splendid, hitherto unattributed sheet at the Ashmolean Museum, which is the first I shall present 2. A problem-solving drawing (Fig. 1) the artist began to work in graphite freely, jotting down solutions for an armorial frieze, which would have embellished a rectangular stateroom, then turning to pen and rich diluted ink to fix some of his thoughts. The presence of measurements in Roman palmi clearly indicates the draughtsman had a precise commission in mind. The height of the frieze would have measured 1.34 meters (6 palmi), excluding the upper and lower cornices, the length of both the long sides roughly 11 meters (49 palmi), and that of the short sides just over 7 meters (32 palmi). In the two segments above, the artist experimented with different solutions, with wider compartments containing empty coats of arms surmounted by coronets that do not correspond correctly to any normal Italian rank of nobility. The drawing is effectively still a general concept. The aspects of the coat of arms, and the more detailed iconography, would have been defined at a later stage of the design in collaboration with the patron, whose involvement was evidently regarded as fundamental for their accomplishment, as testified by Giovanni Battista Armenini in a chapter of the De' veri For the fruitful and stimulating exchanges about the drawings here presented I shall like to warmly thank

in Raffaello 1520-1483 , 2020

in Raphael: Drawing and Eloquence, edited by Ben Thomas and Catherine Whistler, ACCADEMIA RAFFAELLO, URBINO , 2020

catalogue entry in Pagella, Enrica et al., Leonardo da Vinci : disegnare il futuro. Cinisello Balsamo, Milano : Silvana Editoriale, 2019

in Raffael als Zeichner. Raffaello disegnatore, edited by Marzia Faietti and Achim Gnann, Firenze ; Milano : Giunti, 2019, 2019

Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz, 2018

Papers by Angelamaria Aceto