‘Luca Martini as an art consultant and patron of artists in Pisa’, in A. Geremicca and H. Mièsse (eds), Essere uomini di “lettere”: segretari e politica culturale nel Cinquecento, Firence: Cesati, 2015, pp. 145-153. (original) (raw)
Related papers
Art and Patronage during the Renaissance Period: The Medici Family of Florence
In the dictionaries there is a common definition of art as ‘‘the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power.’’ Even in this very simple definition, it can be seen a necessity for the existence of an artist who is creating the art. When it is again looked at the definition of the artist, it says that the artist is ‘‘a person who practices or performs any of the creative arts.’’ As you can see while the very definition art was signifying the artist, the definition of the artist signifies the art. However, in this paper what it is wanted to do is to show the role and importance of another figure -of course without regretting the role, importance, environment and atmosphere of the art and artist- it is the role of the patrons in the artistic expression. It will be seen how important the impacts of the patrons and their positions in the rest of the paper. While demonstrating their impacts on the artist and naturally on the art, it will also be discussed the political, social, economic and philosophical atmosphere of the artists and patrons. In his book, Şair ve Patron, Halil İnalcık claims that together with the rising merchant class and decentralization in the west, it could be seen different power centers and different artistic expressions growing around those centers but in the east, such a kind of economic and political decentralization did not happen therefore the artistic expression had grown around one center which was depending on the land and agricultural production. His claim helped me to chose a specific period while investigating the role and impact of the patrons; it is apparently the Renaissance period which is witnessing the rise of mercantilism, decline of the church authority and increase of the city states and small principles all around Europe. And lastly, when it is chosen the Renaissance as the period to investigate the role and impacts of the patrons in the artistic expression under, it is appeared as a natural outcome of the period; the Medici Family that is the most effective and powerful patron of the period. While investigating their patronage, I have chosen a chronological methodology which will help us to see the reasons and background of the Renaissance art and Medici patronage.
sixteen essays by an international group of scholars that examine the role of noble women as patrons of architecture and music in early modern italy and that explore the behavior of woman art patrons and artists involved in the creation of art and architecture"--Provided by publisher. isBn 978-1-59910-306-8 (hardcover : alk. paper) --isBn 978-1-59910-307-5 (pbk. : alk. paper) --isBn 978-1-59910-308-2 (e-book) 1. art patronage--italy. 2. Women art patrons--italy. 3. arts, italian. 4. arts and society--italy. i. Valone, Carolyn, honouree. ii. Mciver, Katherine a., editor. iii. stollhans, Cynthia, editor. iV. title: Patronage, gender and the arts in early modern italy. nX705.5.i8P38 2015 707.9'45--dc23 2015023843 Cover image: the tomb of Mausoleus, halicarnassus. engraving by Philips galle after Maerten van heemskerck, Seven Wonders of the World, 1572. For a coMplEtE liSt oF italica prESS titlES viSit our wEb SitE at: www.italicaprESS.coM a monster's plea SuzannE b. buttErS
The Compagnia della Cazzuola as Locus of Opposition to Medici Rule--UPDATED VERSION 8/27/14
In his life of Jacopo Rustici, Vasari gives us a poignant, though veiled, description of his position vis-à-vis the Medici rulers of Florence by whom he was employed, constrained, for reasons of family obligations, to play the role of courtier/painter at the court of Cosimo deí Medici, to the detriment of his own artistic ambitions: " Giovan Francesco, besides being of a noble family, had the means to live hon ourably, and therefore practiced art more for his own delight and from desire of glory than for gain. And, to tell the truth of the matter, those craftsmen who have as their ultimate and principal end gain and profit, and not honour and glory, rarely become very excellent, even although they may have good and beautiful genius; besides which, labouring for a livelihood, as very many do who are weighed down by poverty and their families, and working not by inclination, when the mind and the will are drawn to it, but by necessity from morning till night, is a life not for men who have honour and glory as their aim, but for hacks, as they are called, and manual labourers, for the reason that good works do not get done without first having been well considered for a long time. 1 " He has become, in service to his Medici masters, a mere coverer of walls, a decorator.
The Compagnia della Cazzuola as Locus of Opposition to Medici Rule--REVISED 1/27/15
In his life of Jacopo Rustici, Vasari gives us a poignant, though veiled, description of his position vis-à-vis the Medici rulers of Florence by whom he was employed, constrained, for reasons of family obligations, to play the role of courtier/painter at the court of Cosimo deí Medici, to the detriment of his own artistic ambitions: ! Giovan Francesco, besides being of a noble family, had the means to live hon ourably, and therefore practiced art more for his own delight and from desire of glory than for gain. And, to tell the truth of the matter, those craftsmen who have as their ultimate and principal end gain and profit, and not honour and glory, rarely become very excellent, even although they may have good and beautiful genius; besides which, labouring for a livelihood, as very many do who are weighed down by poverty and their families, and working not by inclination, when the mind and the will are drawn to it, but by necessity from morning till night, is a life not for men who have honour and glory as their aim, but for hacks, as they are called, and manual labourers, for the reason that good works do not get done without first having been well considered for a long time. 1 ! Giorgio Vasari, Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors and Architects, trans. by 1 Gaston de Vere (London: Macmillan, 1912-1915), vol. 8, 109-129. ! ! 2 covering his eyes, in order that, in entering by that gate, he might not see the sub urb and his own houses all pulled down. Wherefore the guards at the gate, seeing him thus muffled up, asked him what that meant, and, having heard from him why he had so covered his face, they laughed at him. Lorenzo, after being a few months in Florence, returned to France, taking his mother with him; and there he still lives and labours.
This conference aims to discuss a forthcoming book : Déborah Blocker, Le Principe de plaisir: esthétique, savoirs et politique dans la Florence des Médicis (XVIe-XVIIe) (forthcoming with Les Belles Lettres in Paris, in it collection "Essais" : https://www.lesbelleslettres.com/collections/15-les-belles-lettres-essais). The book's central claims, its methods, its archival findings and the historiographical reframings it is advocating for will therefore be at the center of our debates. But we will also discuss the academic and civic culture of early modern Italy and the history of aesthetics more generally. For the manuscript purports to shed light on long-term transformations in the realm of aesthetics by closely examining the practices, discourses and ideas of a late 16th century Florentine academy, and of its aristocratic membership. The book principally focuses on understanding the Alterati’s conception of art as the source of a “praise-worthy pleasure” (lodevole diletto), analyzing in detail how this representation fits in with the social and political conceptions of the Florentine patricians who belonged to this academy, most of which stemmed from families which had fought to uphold the late Florentine Republic during the rise of the Medici. The study shows how their understandings of art, which centered on pleasure, freedom, parity and leisure, were initially at odds with conceptions of art developed under direct Medici patronage. It also studies the various ways in which, over the life of the academy, the Alterati’s hedonistic conceptions of art were progressively integrated into the culture of the Medici court. Finally, the book places the pleasure principle on which the Alterati based their aesthetic conceptions into comparative perspective, by drawing connections with 17th century France and 19th century Berlin. The central hypothesis of this study is that the pragmatic tension between courtship and defiance, which manifested itself in the affirmation of aesthetic of pleasure, amid and around an patrician academy such as that of the Alterati of Florence, was a major cultural phenomenon among the aristocracies of early modern Europe, as they adapted to the rise of authoritarian régimes — and one that has shaped understandings of art, literature and aesthetics to this day. This book is a thoroughly interdisciplinary investigation that attempts to delimit a new research field, which could be defined as the social and political history of early modern aesthetics. Aesthetic theories developed in and around German Idealism largely rejected the aesthetic discourses produced in early modern Italy and France as amateurish, irrational or lacking in historical perspective. Yet, many of the aesthetical concepts articulated throughout early modern Europe, such as that of pleasure, remain centrally important today, in our own aesthetical discourses or practices. The book attempts to understand the social and political circumstances in which these conceptions became important, in order to recover some of the early modern foundations of current understandings of art. Because of the interdisciplinary nature of the project, ten speakers from a wide variety of disciplines and fields — such as social, political and/or intellectual historians of Florence (15th-18th centuries), scholars working in comparative literature and aesthetics across the early modern period, and scholars of early modern Italian literature, music and culture — have been brought together. Two of the speakers are UC Berkeley colleagues or graduate students (one of each), four are attached to other major American universities, two are from Italy (both will will be participating via Skype) and one will be coming from France. The manuscript is in French but discussions will be held in English and Italian. If you would like to receive a PDF of the manuscript prior to the conference, please email Déborah Blocker at dblocker@berkeley.edu. With the distinguished participation of Albert Ascoli (Terrill Distinguished Professor in Italian Studies, UC Berkeley), Déborah Blocker (Associate Professor of French and affiliated faculty in Italian Studies, UC Berkeley), Tim Carter (David G. Frey Distinguished Professor of Music, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill), Louise George Clubb (Professor Emerita of Italian Studies and Comparative Literature, UC Berkeley), Arthur Field (Associate Professor Emeritus of Renaissance History, University of Indiana, Bloomington), Jean-Louis Fournel (Professor of Italian Studies, University of Paris-VIII and École Normale Supérieure de Lyon), Wendy Heller (Professor of Music and Director of the Program in Italian Studies, Princeton University), Jennifer MacKenzie (PhD in Italian Studies, UC Berkeley), Francesco Martelli (curator of Medicean collections at the Archivio di Stato di Firenze and scientific coordinator of its Scuola di archivistica, paleografia e diplomatica), Diego Pirillo (Associate Professor in Italian Studies, UC Berkeley), Maria-Pia Paoli (ricercatore in early modern Italian History at the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa) and Jane Tylus (Professor of Italian and Comparative Literature, New York University).
Baccio del Bianco and the Cultural Politics of the Medici Court
Baccio del Bianco's career, an artist with a polyvalent education and multiple talents, is examined in the light of the artistic politics dominant in Florence in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, as a result of a cultural programme carefully coordinated by the Medici court: a clear emphasis on the manual, productive aspect of the arts, and on the "applied arts," and a close connection between the artistic domain and the scientific one. For both of these fields the concept and practice of disegno is central; the almost exclusive use of the graphic medium by Baccio del Bianco and the circle of artists around Giulio Parigi is considered in relation to the role of the artist in this courtly milieu.
Art as Politics in Late Medieval and Renaissance Siena
Art as Politics in Late Medieval and Renaissance Siena, 2017
Art as Politics in Late Medieval and Renaissance Siena Judith B. Steinhoff In Art as Politics in Late Medieval and Renaissance Siena, contributors explore the evolving relationship between image and politics in Siena from the time of the city-state's defeat of Florence at the Battle of Montaperti in 1260 to the end of the Sienese Republic in 1550. Engaging issues of the politicization of art in Sienese painting, sculpture, architecture, and urban design, the volume challenges the still-prevalent myth of Siena's cultural and artistic conservatism after the mid fourteenth century. Clearly establishing uniquely Sienese artistic agendas and vocabulary, these essays broaden our understanding of the intersection of art, politics, and religion in Siena by revisiting its medieval origins and exploring its continuing role in the Renaissance.