Italian Renaissance and Baroque Art

A Leonardo által ihletett vagy befolyásolt kép olykor merész ötletekkel dol­gozza fel a hagyományos témát, bár  a részletek nem mindig vannak az igazán nagy mesterekhez illően kidolgozva. A bolygók és a Jézus-monogram, az ED-tengelyek hozzárendelése ötletes, számomra ez az interpretatív rész tűnik a mű igazi erősségének.

BEYOND THE CANVAS is an innovative project that brings art history to life by combining literature, art, and storytelling. It aims to make art more accessible to a wider audience.
This collection features a series of short stories inspired by the historical events that led to the creation of famous paintings. Each story is based on biographical, historical, and archival research, transforming artists and their creations into the protagonists of the narrative.
The stories are developed from previous publications by M.A. Fiore, turning specialized content into engaging experiences.
Beyond the Canvas balances the simplicity of storytelling with the complexity of art historical analysis, making art more accessible without sacrificing depth.
Published online in Italian, German, and English, Beyond the Canvas is an international project that encourages discussion among scholars and captures the interest of a broader audience.
The natural evolution of the project is the creation of an international anthology television series. Each story will be adapted into a screenplay in English, breathing new life into the hidden stories behind masterpieces of painting.
This approach balances the promotion of art with cultural awareness, developing an ethical and innovative art marketing model that values creativity.


"A Gaze of Virtue" explores the intersection of art and morality in 17th-century Florence. The story follows a young, troubled prostitute who seeks refuge in the studio of the painter Francesco Furini.
Their unexpected encounter sparks a transformation in both their lives, demonstrating how Beyond the Canvas uses intimate narratives to explore profound themes of redemption and the complex relationship between artist and subject.

the burlington magazine | 166 | september 2024 984 landscape of ideas and inventions, bringing many fresh insights into individual paintings and taking seriously the effort to make history painting coherent, effective and moving. Readers of this book will relish fresh and engaging readings of works loved and unloved, familiar and strange. However, a history of history painting as a series of encounters of texts and images, as brilliant and erudite as this one is, does not fully capture the complexity of history painting as practice and as a human and social endeavour.

This study is analyzing one of the three works in the Italian Painting collection in the Brukenthal National Museum which depicts Saint Francis of Assisi. Although the work is currently considered to be after Agostino Carracci, the darkened chromatic of the painting reminds us of the Roman and even the Neapolitan School of Art. Thus, the present research aims to clarify the stylistic affiliation of this painting, this being the second research in a series of three studies dedicated to the presence of Saint Francis of Assisi in the Italian Painting collection of the Brukenthal National Museum.

Tornato da Parigi nel 1623, celebrato come il più grande poeta europeo dei suoi tempi, Giovan Battista Marino incontra a Roma un destino sfortunato. L'elezione di Maffeo Barberini, papa Urbano VIII, provoca un mutamento degli orizzonti culturali: il poeta viene condannato dal Sant'Uffizio, e ogni nuova stampa del suo capolavoro, l'Adone, viene proibita. Nel 1624 Marino decide di lasciare Roma per Napoli, la città natale che aveva lasciato ormai da molti anni, tra i suoi libri e la sua collezione di pitture "per ritirar la nave in porto e ripiegar le vele". A Napoli Marino viene accolto con tutti gli onori, viene celebrato dalle accademie, è conteso dall'aristocrazia locale. Sono gli ultimi mesi di gloria, seppure venati di malinconia, e occupati dai progetti per la stampa di nuove opere, e soprattutto de La strage de gl'Innocenti; Marino però si ammala e chiude i suoi giorni il 25 marzo 1625, forse chiedendo in punto di morte un rogo dei suoi manoscritti di materia profana. "Abbiamo perduto le delizie della poesia, l'ornamento del secolo, il lume degli ingegni" commentò il suo amico Girolamo Preti. A quattrocento anni esatti dalla morte, nella sede del Real Monte Manso di Scala, fondato da Giovan Battista Manso, amico ed erede del poeta, la giornata di studio intende celebrare nella sua città uno dei più grandi poeti della tradizione letteraria italiana, il principe della stagione del Barocco.

Тетяна Ярошенко (м. Львів, Україна) МОРФОЛОГІЯ КУЛЬТУРИ ТА ЕТИКА В ПРОБЛЕМНОМУ ДИСКУРСІ «СЬОГОДЕННЯ-СУЧАСНІСТЬ»: МОДЕЛЬ, ЕТОС-ДОМІВКА Сьогодення -чуттєва, блискавична за тривалістю мить теперішнього часу, що сприймається нами як «тепер», «зараз», «тут» буття. Як схопити швидкоплинне мінливе в калейдоскопі змін історії, надати йому цінності не короткочасного/скороминучого, а сталого значення, як виробити відповідальне ставлення людини до часу і місця, в якому вона живе? Як відрізнити ілюзорне, хибне від насправді вартісного? Думаю, це стає можливо завдяки покликанню, засобам сучасної морфології культури та етики, шляхом переведення сьогодення з якості неосмисленого і неоформленого часу в якість осмисленої, відрефлексованої сучасності; просіювання крізь сито здорових форм, ментальних установок, маркерів ціннісного. Спробуємо роз'яснити це твердження. Розмитість, розірваність, хаотичність та еклектизм є типовими оціночними характеристиками нашого сьогодення. Здебільшого вони несуть негативну конотацію, фіксують змістовну розпорошеність, смислову невизначеність і неоформленість часу, в якому ми живемо. З іншого боку, вони засвідчують інтенсивний пошук нових підходів, концептів, мисле-форм життя, що мали б забезпечити єдність ідейного і практичного, концептуалізованого і прикладного рівнів знання, допомогти прояснити роль соціогуманітарних наук, культури, етики в житті людини. В попередні часи така місія майже повністю покладалася на філософію; проте з ХХ ст. дедалі більшої ваги набуває культурологія, а з нею і морфологія культури, що від самих початків впитали у себе принципи плюральності, увагу до індивідуалізованих форм буття і культури, багатоманітності та єдності світу; ідеї ціннісного моделювання життя. Морфологія культури -сфера знання, що сформувалася на пограниччі природничих наук, власне самої морфології та філософії культури. Традиційно морфологія була сфокусована на описі, вивченні та аналізі органічних, сталих форм життя, ілюстрації та поясненні розмаїття світупитаннях, які за допомогою філософії культури були скеровані у предметну площину ціннісно-смислових утворень. Сучасна морфологія культури, починаючи від А. Шопенгауера, вивчає різні сфери смислової наповненості та ціннісної об'єктивації волі до життя, площини, що служать свого роду материнським лоном зародження та розвитку, плекання і культивації ідей, цінностей, концептів. Вона орієнтована на розкриття множинного світу культури та дослідження природи цієї багатоманітності, пояснення феномену культурної самобутності, значення індивідуалізованих форм життя і творчості ... ; тому в тематичному полі її досліджень завжди були питання різних вимірів і структурованих форм буття культури, її моделей. Модель -одне з базових понять морфології культури. Одні науковці, дослідники визначають модель, культурну модель наступним чином: це « ... -відносно самостійна і постійна форма почування, емоційного реагування, мислення, діяльності ... » [3, с. 54]. Інші акцентують на специфіці характеру її глибинної природи: вона «... наділена гармонією, єдністю, однорідністю, у ній взаємопов'язані простір, форма, речовина, функція -вони утворюють розвинутий синтаксис» [1, с. 123]. Ще інші вказують на особливість її функціонального застосування, коли її використовують у значенні зразка, що відтворює, імітує будову і дію якого-небудь об'єкта, для отримання нових знань про об'єкт; уявний чи умовний образ якого-небудь об'єкта, процесу або явища, що служить

This chapter in a collection edited by Gabriel Ricci is drawn from my book, 'Brunelleschi's Egg:  Nature, Art and Gender in Renaissance Italy' (2010).  A lot has changed since I wrote that book. The climate change problem is becoming a crisis. Technology has created AI, which threatens to steal back the inventive creativity that Renaissance man claimed to steal from Mother Nature.  But the issue of the human-nature relationship, which Renaissance people struggled to define, remains very much alive today. I've created this short version of a long book, hoping to make it more useful.

The spiritual turmoil of the sixteenth century had a profound impact on religious life throughout Italy. Art and architecture were directly implicated in the seismic historical events of the age, as the Catholic Church countered Protestant iconoclasm through the embrace of sacred images as decreed by the Council of Trent in 1563. In this volume, Marie-Louise Lillywhite considers the impact of religious reform on the devotional art and architecture of sixteenth-century Venice. Interrogating early modern censorship, artistic liberty, notions of decorum tied to depictions of the body, and the role of sacred images in the shaping of local identity, she shows how Venice, a crossroads city exposed to a rich gamut of religious and artistic currents, serves as a fascinating case study through which to explore these themes. Her study reconstructs the conditions that enabled artistic invention to prevail and how artists became interpreters of spiritual values.

Nella singolarità monumentale del Palazzo Contarini del Bovolo e davanti al magnifico Paradiso di Jacopo Tintoretto saranno esposte opere di artisti della collezione universitaria V:Ar.Co (Vanvitelli per l'Arte Contemporanea) presso il Dipartimento di Lettere e Beni Culturali (DiLBeC) a Santa Maria Capua Vetere: un Doppio Dialogo, appunto, tra originali espressioni moderne e passate. Ludovico Bomben (Pordenone, 1982) e Amedeo Sanzone (Napoli, 1968) troveranno un punto di contatto e di confronto nella ricerca della politezza delle forme grazie agli speciali materiali che ne contraddistinguono la produzione: a ognuno sarà riservato uno spazio di rappresentazione che andrà a unirsi di fronte al cielo del Paradiso. Il dialogo al Bovolo sarà dunque innescato dalle opere donate a V:Ar.Co accanto a nuovi lavori site-specific: la natura preparatoria della grande tela tintorettesca permetterà l'incontro tra diversi quanto affini sentire. Il progetto espositivo proseguirà con la seconda coppia artistica, Olimpia Biasi e Antonello Tagliafierro protagonisti del secondo Doppio Dialogo dal 6 giugno al 31 agosto 2025: a loro sarà chiesto di proporre e ridiscutere le loro parallele riflessioni sulla Natura e sulle sue ferite sempre più evidenti e lacerate. In prossimità del finissage del primo appuntamento, venerdì 30 maggio 2025, sarà presentato al Bovolo un unico catalogo (MyMonkey Edizioni, Bologna) per entrambe le rassegne, strumento scientifico e memoria del progetto.

The murals of the Stamp House in Sibiu, whose restoration has not yet been completed, are unique in Transylvanian iconography, illustrating a discourse popular in both the early modern art and literature of Western Europe, for the instruction of youth by means of exempla contraria. Since the painting was made in 1628, just two years before merchant Gregor Stamp died, the two antithetical images may be considered a visual testament for his young sons, whose double portrait is painted next to the positive version of the motif, the scene known as "Family saying grace before a meal," which reproduces a lesser-known engraving by Dominicus Custos (ante 1612). The opposite image, of "The Prodigal Son dissipating his wealth," combines Abraham de Bruyn's engraving (c.1587) with elements from Plate III of Jacob von der Heyden's print-book, Pugillus facetiarum (Strassburg, 1608). Individually, both motifs of Biblical origin, here represented antithetically, are widespread in early modern Western Europe art, a similar message being expressed even more strongly a few decades later, in the mural of the house in Sighișoara belonging to Gregor Stamp's stepson, the chronicler Georg Kraus (1607-1679).

Più che ribadire l’essenza barocca della produzione gaddiana, più volte già sottolineata dalla critica, il contributo intende mostrare come la stessa categoria di Barocco potrebbe offrire una chiave per delineare la sua "funzione", e al contempo cogliere alcune delle ragioni che hanno portato Gadda a essere percepito, invece, come un "caso unico" del canone letterario.
Al fine di ricostruire una simile genealogia il saggio farà riferimento a due concetti, utili a mio avviso per comprendere come Gadda intenda il Barocco in relazione alla «natura» e alla «storia»: il «movente lombardo» teorizzato da un autore prediletto da Gadda come Roberto Longhi; e la paradossale accezione borgesiana di «precursore», utilizzata da Ezio Raimondi per descrivere il processo attraverso cui Gadda individuò il suo modello in Manzoni – un’operazione simile, come vedremo, a quella esperita dall’ultimo Pasolini attraverso la rievocazione dei suoi «maestri».

Over the last thirty years or so, increasingly detailed studies have been made into copies and different versions of the same theme produced in Titian's workshop. Titian's portraits of Emperor Charles V represent a subject particularly well suited to being produced as a series.

The landmark publication of Leonardo da Vinci's Traitté de la peinture and Trattato della pittura in Paris in 1651 brought attention to Leonardo's theory of aerial perspective. The early prepublication copies of the abridged version had line diagrams for four of the chapters on aerial perspective, some of which presented conceptual difficulties to the illustrators. The tendency was to enhance their ornamental character, not their didactic value. Two seventeenth-century innovators are responsible for their transformation into landscapes exemplifying the precepts of aerial perspective in practice: Gaspare Berti, hired by Cassiano dal Pozzo, transformed the line diagrams into illusionistic pictures. Charles Errard completed the transformation by envisioning landscape pictures in fictive frames combining engraving and etching to capture atmospheric effects on distant hills and buildings. A half-century later, full page illustrations in the 1716 pocket-sized edition of the Traité testify to the success and continuing importance of Errard's contribution.

Massimo Oro Nobili compie uno studio sul ritratto del Duca d’Urbino Francesco Maria I della Rovere, opera di Tiziano, evidenziando come Tiziano, sin dal celebre quadro “Donna allo specchio” (1512-1515) fosse attratto dalla disputa su quale delle due arti, la pittura o la scultura, fosse superiore (anche per la capacità di rendere la terza dimensione).

I l Polittico della Madonna di Cusio si presenta agli occhi tanto del fedele quanto del visitatore attento e interessato come una delle opere d'arte più raffinate e di grande bellezza che ornano e impreziosiscono la locale parrocchiale intitolata alla vergine e martire Margherita. Il polittico è stato da sempre attribuito alla mano del pittore bergamasco Andrea Previtali 1-o a un pittore di incerta paternità a cui è stato riconosciuto un indubbio carattere "alla Previtali" 2-mentre in tempi assai recenti è stato ricondotto al brembano Antonio Boselli 3. Anche per quanto concerne la datazione, la critica e la storiografia sono tutt'altro che concordi: la maggior parte degli studi riconducono l'esecuzione dell'opera al decennio 1510-1520 4 , datazione circoscritta dalla storiografia locale al 1517, anno in cui il po-Il Polittico della Madonna di Cusio. Una lettura storica attraverso le fonti archivistiche e bibliografiche

Символічний капітал творчих робіт, отриманий ними від авторитетів у сегменті креативних індустрій, безпосередньо впливає на їхній економічний успіх. Необхідність встановити не лише символічну, а й економічну цінність творів була пов’язана з початком професіоналізації і комерціалізації творчих видів діяльності. Еволюція критеріїв оцінювання творчих робіт, від перших спроб кількісно порахувати мистецьку цінність до встановлення практики експертного суддівства, пояснює принципи встановлення цінності.

A comprehensive exploration of the life and work of the Roman Renaissance goldsmith, Antonio Gentili. Presented are new discoveries, a detailed analysis of his work and an overarching picture of the relationships emanating from the school of Guglielmo della Porta. Also discussed are the interactions with patrons and new data concerning the work of the German goldsmith, Cristoforo Vischer, active in Rome and Naples.

Este artículo da a conocer una pintura sobre ónice con la representación del apóstol Santiago en la batalla de Clavijo conservada en el Museo Colegial de Daroca (Zaragoza). Asimismo, se analizan con detalle las características artísticas de la pieza y su iconografía y, tras la comparación con su obra gráfica y pétrea, se adjudica al círculo del pintor italiano Antonio Tempesta (h. 1555-1630). Por último, se propone al obispo Martín Terrer de Valenzuela (1549-1631) como su posible propietario.

Following the death of Pope Urban VIII (1568-1644), Roman art slowly started to decline, giving precedence to other artistic centres such as Florence, Venice and Naples. In this favourable art scene moved Luca Giordano, his speed and unlimited powers of imagination winning him a considerable number of commissions at home and in the above-mentioned centres, culminating with the period spent in Spain towards the end of his life. Among this vast career there are three lost paintings illustrating the Archangel Michael defeating the Devil. The purpose of this article is to demonstrate that one of these three missing canvases is the painting held by the Art Museum in ClujNapoca (Romania). The key question that my article tackles is what is the reasons why I consider that this painting belongs to Luca Giordano. To prove this attribution, I bring forth the provenance material found in the Romanian archives, a close reading of his first biographers and the exhibition catalogues where the painting was included, and lastly an iconographic analysis. My contribution to the literature is the iconographical analysis that proves that the Archangel Michael defeating the Devil from Cluj belongs to Luca Giordano. The argument of this paper is divided in six parts: the first two sections include primary and secondary literature mentioning the missing paintings from Giordano’s corpus of paintings and the story of the painting from Cluj. The third section includes representations of the Archangel Michael before Giordano that might have influenced his vision. The fourth part incorporates all known versions of the Archangel painted by Giordano and the fifth one the iconographical analysis of the painting from Cluj. The last part wraps up the article and presents the next steps for the research.

Questo agile libretto presenta il grande progetto di Maria Teresa
d’Austria che in Lombardia, fra il 1768 e il 1786,
diede vita in due importanti città, come Mantova
e Milano, a istituzioni aperte agli studi
socialmente utili, quali furono le accademie. Nel
1768, infatti, è istituita a Mantova la Reale
Accademia di Scienze e Belle Lettere, l’attuale
Accademia Nazionale Virgiliana, cui farà seguito
nel 1776 a Milano l’Accademia di Brera.
A fianco delle due Accademie furono istituite le due  importanti biblioteche.
A queste realtà e alla cultura di quel tempo sono dedicati i contributi

Vasari, Armenini, Zuccari.  Arte, Storia, Fonti, Lessico, Filosofia
a cura di  Vita Segreto
«Studi di Memofonte», XXXII, 2024 , pp. 111-398.
La raccolta di saggi – avviata in occasione del convegno internazionale "Vasari, Armenini, Zuccari. Intelligenza, Giudizio, Disegno", organizzato nel 2019 presso l’Accademia Nazionale di San Luca, proseguita nel corso del seminario internazionale "Art Academies", organizzato da ZHI a Monaco e da CASVA a Washington DC, e perfezionata nell'ambito della Edizione Nazionale delle opere di Federico Zuccari – si propone di avviare uno studio delle relazioni che intercorrono tra le "Vite" di Giorgio Vasari, i "Precetti" di Giovanni Battista Armenini e gli scritti teorici di Federico Zuccari, in particolare "Origine et progresso dell'Academia del Dissegno di Roma" e "L'Idea".
La fase storica che va dalla Giuntina del 1568 all’"Idea" del 1607 può, in effetti, definirsi ‘eroica’ a motivo dell’eccezionale lavoro intellettuale svolto dai tre pittori-umanisti per affermare, attraverso la scrittura e una particolare lingua scritta, un discorso illustre sul divenire storico, i presupposti umanistici e i fondamenti epistemologici dell’operare artistico, nel contesto e all’indirizzo delle accademie letterarie e filosofiche e del Disegno, che frequentano o promuovono.
Partendo da ambiti disciplinari molteplici (storia dell’arte e della critica d’arte, storia della lingua, storia della filosofia) e da punti di attacco metodologico diversi, gli undici saggi riuniti restituiscono una prima lettura, comparata e critica, delle principali opere di Vasari, Armenini e Zuccari, evidenziando continuità e variazioni di un dialogo imprescindibile, nel quale ogni scarto, ogni contrasto è indice di una visione tesa non solo a un superamento, ma a una differente visione dell’artista e del processo creativo, della funzione dell’uno e delle condizioni epistemologiche dell’altro.
Ne è conferma il convergere negli scritti di Federico Zuccari – eterogenei per tipologia, funzione e destinazione, ma internamente coerenti – di una elaborazione speculativa indiscutibilmente indice di una consapevolezza volta a proporre o, meglio, ad affermare, un nuovo paradigma, una nuova figura di "artista universale".
La correlazione poi tra testi teorici e testi visivi, evidenziata in alcuni saggi, ha il compito di proiettare quella prima lettura nella prospettiva più ampia della storia della cultura e delle idee in Italia e in Europa, tra Cinque e Seicento.

>>> GENEVIEVE WARWICK,  Filarete’s Compass: Renaissance Technologies of Disegno, pp. 125-151
>>> ANNA MARIA SIEKIERA, Vasari, Armenini, Zuccari pittori e scrittori, pp. 152-162
>>> CRISTINA GALASSI, «A l’arte vera e perfetta fu molto vicino»: Pietro Perugino in Vasari, Armenini e Zuccari, pp. 163-185
>>> MARCO RUFFINI, Caravaggio e Giorgione, a partire da Vasari, pp. 186-206
>>> EVA STRUHAL, Precetti: Reflections on the relationship between artistic practice and theory, pp. 207-219
>>> ELISA ACANFORA, La teoria artistica di Armenini attraverso il mito di Michelangelo
pp. 220-238
>>> SALVATORE CARANNANTE, La «vera filosofia d’Aristotele». Forme e significati nella presenza aristotelica nell’Idea di Federico Zuccari, pp. 239-250
>>> MARIA GIULIA AURIGEMMA, Pareri in postille, per gli avvii critici di Federico Zuccari, pp. 251-279
>>> FRANCA VARALLO, Tra Idea e disegno: la narrazione di sé nel Passaggio per Italia di Federico Zuccari, pp. 280-303
>>> MACARENA MORALEJO ORTEGA, Ripensare l’Idea: scrittura e pittura nel soggiorno spagnolo di Federico Zuccari (1585-1589), pp. 304-348
>>> VITA SEGRETO, Circa 1605, Zuccari e Rubens in Mantova: la Lettera a’ Prencipi e la Santissima Trinità Gonzaga, pp. 349-398

The paper discusses a seascape made from hard stones that serves as the top of a table. The piece was commissioned by Ferdiando I de' Medici in 1601 and was made by the stonecutter Cristofano Gaffuri (d. 1626) after a drawing of Jacopo Ligozzi (1547-1627). It shows the harbor of Livorno from a sea-to-shore vantage point and is made from colored stones of various types and forms, among them agate, chalcedony and lapis lazuli. The paper investigates the intrinsic political and territorial claims of Medici power and its dominion of the Tyrrhenian Sea. These claims are emphasized by the representation of towers, cannon and the display of naval power; at the same time, the blue seascape opens up a fluid space that transcends territorial control, by invoking the vastness and dynamism of the sea. It is an uncontrollable space where natural forces are embodied by the large, creamy, blue and golden waves of lapis lazuli. The article analyzes the appreciation of precious stones as part of an early enviromental thinking of early globalization processes and the dynamics of seas and oceans.

The virtuosa, poet, and courtesan Barbera (b. 1500), widely but erroneously known as Barbara Salutati, is most often remembered for her association with the Florentine politician and writer Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527), who grew attached to her during the last years of his life. Even though Machiavellian scholarship tends to depict Barbera as a passive figure, this article aims to foster appreciation of the active ways in which she as well as other comparable figures participated in the cultural life of sixteenth-century Florence. The initial section of the article offers the first sustained attempt to reconstruct Barbera's biography, network of social contacts, and activities as a virtuosa and a poet. The second complements this reconstruction by analyzing Barbera's engagement with poetry. Finally, the third section contextualizes Barbera's case study in relation to the profiles of other virtuose and courtesans to articulate some of the social scenarios and cultural practices through which these women participated in the musical and literary sociability of their day. This article is based on the paper that received the Sixteenth Century Society's Carl S. Meyer Prize for the best paper delivered at the 2021 annual meeting by a scholar still in graduate school or recent PhD. I would like to thank Marcello Simonetta and Alessio Assonitis, whose suggestions greatly benefited my archival research, and Jo Ann Cavallo and Eugenio Refini, who read and commented on an earlier draft. I am also grateful to Karen Nelson for proposing edits that strengthened my discussion.

In Rubens and the Eloquence of Drawing Catherine Lusheck proposes a coherent body of concepts, values, and purposes undergirding this artist's large and diverse oeuvre of graphic work. She limits her analysis to work from ca. 1600 to 1620, a period of Rubens's early career that included his ten years in Italy. The circumscribed body of drawings treated in Lusheck's study nonetheless encompasses a range of media and techniques, as well as a diversity of styles. As is well established in the extant literature, Rubens's drawings also appear to perform functions that do not readily correspond to their degree of finish, nor to their relationships to the paintings, book illustrations, tapestry designs, and other works produced in Rubens's busy studio. Lusheck apprehends this variety by approaching the drawings as material that graphically shows how theoretical and philosophical commitments informed the rhetorical aims of Rubens's art. In Lusheck's account, the theory of disegno, which privileges art as the product of the maker's intellect, and the humanist values and rhetorical style promulgated by the Neo-Stoic philosopher Justus Lipsius converge in the notion of artistic eloquence that shaped and animated Rubens's drawings and his larger enterprise. Treating the drawings as more than merely preparatory or instrumental, Lusheck links them to Rubens's "broader artistic concerns and philosophical ambitions" (27). A short prologue establishes the contours of Lusheck's argument, which she expounds in the book's two distinct parts. Part 1, "Drawing in Context," consists of two chapters that situate Rubens's practice of drawing vis-à-vis notions of the intellectual artist and classically derived theories of style. In part 2 the author further demonstrates the force of Rubens's humanistic "graphic eloquence" (94) in two chapter-length case studies of individual works. This structure allows Lusheck to delineate a richly researched picture of early modern theories of art founded upon the values of translation, imitation, and emulation, and to demonstrate how to see the deep investment of intellectual content in Rubens's drawings. A key argument in part 1 is Lusheck's assertion that the drawings evince his deliberate strategy of artistic self-fashioning as an eclectic artist. As theorized in numerous early modern treatises praising it as a technique of literary and artistic eloquence, eclecticism entailed the capacity to judiciously select elements from the best models and to deploy those selected elements toward persuasive and poetic effects. Lusheck not only deftly mines the often-cited classical and early modern sources on this topic, but she also offers a fascinating analysis of theories of epistolary style in Rubens's milieu. Her account of Lipsius's recommendations of an unadorned, direct epistolary manner as a model for Rubens's graphic style occasions an astute exposition of the shared values ascribed to drawings and personal letters by humanist artists and art collectors: both media were prized as intimate works of hand, expressive of the maker's thought, and evidence of his erudition.

Bernardo BeUotto and his circle in Italy. Part I: not Canaletto but BeUotto by CHARLES BEDDINGTON while stefan KOZAKiEWicz's monograph on Bernardo BeUotto of 1972 covers fairly definitively the several series of views of northern capitals on which the artist's fame has long and justifiably rested, it is far from exhaustive on the issue of his work in Venice before his departure for Dresden in 1747.1 As a Pole, Kozakiewicz was both less interested in BeUotto's activity in Italy and had less access to the relevant paintings. He clarified the attributions of most of the Roman views and capricci executed after the painter's visit to Rome in 1742, but accepted only six Venetian views as certainly by BeUotto2 (one of them wrongly, in the opinion of the present writer).3 Rejected or relegated to the jumble of mosdy anonymous views that is the 'attributed works' section of his catalogue are such masterpieces of BeUotto's early style as The Arsenale and the Campo dell'Arsenale and The Piazzetta, looking north in the National GaUery of Canada, Ottawa, and The Via di Ripetta, Rome in the Kunstmuseum, D?sseldorf, which in 2001 were included in the exhibition Bernardo BeUotto and the Capitals of Europe in Venice and Houston.4 Here and elsewhere Koza kiewicz was foUowing the lead of W.G. Constable, author of the only catalogue raisonn? of Canaletto's paintings and 1697?1768, London 1998 (hereafter cited as Links Supplement), p.viii. 12 Links Supplement, pp.viii-ix. In a private letter of June 1995 Links went even fur ther, writing 'I don't do attributions and certainly do not know enough of BeUotto's Venetian work to be able to say what he did or did not paint while there'. THE BURLINGTON MAGAZINE CXLVI OCTOBER 2OO4 665 Burlington Magazine is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve, and extend access to The Burlington Magazine

Leonardo da Vinci's small groupings of botanical drawings in Windsor Castle represent curious objects.1 For an artist who seems to have been averse to the idea of finish,2 and whose manuscript folios replete with text and image may not have been printed or more widely disseminated given that for Leonardo they may have signaled "the idea of an end, a conclusion, or even death,"3 these sheets beg further accounting for their finished style, dearth of text, and their insistent focus on botanical parts. Sketched around 1505-10, they are also * The germination of this essay dates to my participation in the

Scopo dell’articolo è quello di analizzare un dipinto inedito di Faustino Bocchi, L’incendio, mettendone in luce l’assoluta peculiarità rispetto all’itinerario artistico del maestro bresciano. La tesi che si intende dimostrare è che si tratta di un’opera profondamente segnata dalla maniera del Mulier, il celebre Cavalier Tempesta, e dal linguaggio espressivo della pittura olandese, di cui la tela riprende non solo gli stilemi, ma anche i contenuti. Proprio in questo risiede l’eccezionalità del dipinto, che si configura come un unicum nella produzione del Bocchi.

Painted polyptych altarpieces appeared on high altars in late Duecento in the churches of mendicant orders. They were characterized by a special manner of organizing visual material by juxtaposing single half-figures with each other and arranging them in rows and columns, allowing no room for narrative elements, widely used at that time in panel painting. Such narrative-free character of main altarpieces would be preserved throughout the whole period of their popularity. However, polyptychs created in late Trecento integrated narrative scenes and even entire cycles into the structure of the altarpieces, which required new approaches to composition and to the use of pictorial space. The article examines the role of narrative content in altarpieces of late Trecento and discusses the origins and development of this new style.
Живописный алтарный полиптих, предназначенный для главного храмового алтаря, сформировался во второй половине XIII века в Италии в церквах нищенствующих орденов и использовал особый способ организации визуального материала путём сопоставления фигур между собой и выстраивания их в ряды по вертикали и по горизонтали, в рамках которого почти не было места для повествовательных элементов, которые в это время широко использовались в других типах живописных произведений на досках. Такой «анти-нарративный» характер алтарный образ будет сохранять на всём протяжении своего существования. Однако произведения, созданные с середины до конца XIV века, демонстрируют уникальные решения, нацеленные на интеграцию повествовательных сцен и даже циклов в структуру алтарного полиптиха, что потребовало новых конструктивных решений и композиционных подходов. Автор статьи анализирует эти решения, роль нарративных элементов в алтарных полиптихах второй половины треченто и задаётся вопросом о причинах появления новых решений.