Tag: Italian Art History

Review | Franco Mormando, ‘Bernini: His Life and His Rome’. Reviewed by John Weretka

by  • 

Franco Mormando, Bernini: His Life and His Rome, 2011 John Weretka Franco Mormando, Bernini: His Life and His Rome, Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2011 (ISBN-13 978-0-226-53852-2). Surprising as it may be, in a world awash with biographies of his somewhat older contemporary, Caravaggio, Bernini has all too frequently been overlooked in the traditional life-and-works genre. After filling the better part of half a century with a torrent of works in almost all media and for almost all occasions, the employee of a succession of popes and a leading figure in shaping the look of Rome during its seventeenth-century Golden Age, Bernini passed into eternity almost unnoticed: as Franco Mormando notes, we know reasonably little about the artist’s death and funeral exequies from contemporary notices, all the more surprising given the sumptuousness of the similar events to which he contributed during his own life.…

Read more →

Symposium on Italian Renaissance Art at The University of Melbourne

by  • 

Symposium on Italian Renaissance Art at The University of Melbourne A symposium is to be held on 9th and 10th of March 2012 on recent research on Italian Paintings in the exhibition Renaissance currently at the National Gallery of Australia, from the Accademia Carrara, Bergamo on to be held in the Public Lecture Theatre, Old Arts Building at the University of Melbourne. Morning Session Chaired by Dr Christopher Marshall, The University of Melbourne 10.00 – 10.20am  Professor Jaynie Anderson, The University of Melbourne ‘Why and what did Giovanni Morelli collect in Renaissance Art?‘ One of the major collectors, whose works are in Canberra for the Renaissance exhibition, is the politician, writer and connoisseur Giovanni Morelli (1816-1891).  Morelli is celebrated for the fact that he invented connoisseurship for the modern world and for the fact that Sigmund Freud claimed to have invented psychological…

Read more →

EVCS: Robert W. Gaston ‘Exploring a Postmodernist Bronzino’

by  • 

This lecture was first delivered on December 10, 2020 at the British Institute, Florence, as the keynote address for the conference Agnolo Bronzino – Medici Court Artist in Context, a convegno that, in the words of its proposer, Prof. Andrea Gáldy, “sought to place the major exhibition of Bronzino’s work organised by the Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi into a broader artistic, historical, and economic context. Unlike a catalogue, the conference sessions will be organised thematically rather than focused exclusively on specific works by the artist, and will encourage specialists in other fields (such as tapestries or theatre) to bring new perspectives to bear on the artist and his world. We thus propose to anchor Bronzino in time, space, and the stylistic development of sixteenth century Italian art, without losing sight of trends in social and political history or patronage in Florence…

Read more →

Lecture: Dale Kent ‘Images of Friendship from Renaissance Florence from Dante to Michelangelo’

by  • 

Joseph Burke Lecture, 2011 Images of Friendship from Renaissance Florence from Dante to Michelangelo Professor Dale Kent The question of whether true friendship could exist in an era when patronage shaped most social relations occupied Renaissance Florentines as it had the ancient Greeks and Romans whose culture they admired and emulated. Rather than attempting to measure Renaissance friendship against a universal ideal defined by essentially modern notions of disinterestedness, intimacy and sincerity, I will explore the meaning of love and friendship as they were represented in Renaissance images, drawn from a repertoire of Christian and classical themes, and embracing the relationship between heavenly and human friendship. Dale Kent has returned to live in Melbourne after a distinguished academic career in the United States of America where she held positions as Professor of History, University of California, Riverside and then Professor Emerita…

Read more →

Call for Papers: Vasari/500

by  • 

VASARI/500: Envisioning New Directions in Vasari Studies History of Art and Architecture Department, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, 28-29 October 2011 Deadline:  15 May 2011 Courtier, architect and impresario of Duke Coismo de’Medici’s most famous commissions, founder of the first state-sponsored academy for the arts, and author of the first extended discussion of contemporary artists – no individual had had a greater impact on early modern art and its historiography than Giorgio Vasari. Nor has any figure been more controversial: criticized by turns for his regional biases and high regard of theory at the cost of arts and crafts traditions, Vasari’s work and its legacy have been the subject of debate for centuries. Vasari continues to figure prominently in critical debates throughout the humanities: from the birth of the cult of the individual, and the role of contentious models in…

Read more →

EVCS: Katrina Grant ‘Verdi prati, selve almene’: Theatres in the Italian Baroque Garden’

by  • 

Katrina Grant ‘Verdi prati, selve almene’: Theatres in the Italian Baroque Garden The links between theatre and the garden have long been recognised. The theatre as a feature of garden design can be traced back to the fifteenth century and its peak period of popularity was the seventeenth century. It remained a common feature of gardens well into the eighteenth century, and even saw a revival in the early twentieth century. In modern scholarship these theatres are often explained simply as a symptom of the Baroque period’s obsessive ‘theatricality’. However, a closer look reveals that the theatre in the Baroque garden was, rather, a manifestation of a specific ideological approach to the space of the garden and its accompanying art forms. Date: Monday 28  February 2011 6:30 pm Venue: Room 150 Elisabeth Murdoch Building, University of Melbourne, Parkville All Welcome…

Read more →

Funding: Fellowships at Villa I Tatti (Italy)

by  • 

Fellowships at Villa I Tatti (Italy) Two fellowships at Villa I Tatti, just outside Florence. Deadline for both is: April 15 2011. Craig Hugh Smyth Visiting Fellowship The Craig Hugh Smyth Visiting Fellowship is designed for scholars in any field of Italian Renaissance studies who, because of their full-time occupations, do not have the research time that is normally enjoyed by university academics. Each year Villa I Tatti, The Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies, offers a limited number of Fellowships for periods of three months. The selection committee pays special attention to the candidate’s record of publications, the strength of the proposed project, and its potential to yield original results. The project must represent advanced research in the Italian Renaissance, broadly defined as the period ranging from the 13th to the 17th centuries. Subjects covered include the architecture, history,…

Read more →

Research in Progress in Early Modern Art History at Melbourne University

by  • 

Research in progress in Early Modern Art History Date: 18th November 2010 Venue: Elisabeth Murdoch Theatre Research papers in honour of Professor John Paoletti, following the Margaret Manion lecture on 17th November ‘Clothing Michelangelo’s David: History, Iconography, Context’ (6:30pm) – Full lecture details here. Program 11-11.30 Dale Kent, School of Historical Studies, University of Melbourne ‘La cara e buona imagine paterna di voi’: ideal images of patriarchs and patrons as models for the right ordering of Renaissance Florence’ Paternal, filial and civic duties were closely related in Renaissance Florence, and their imperatives derived ultimately from the example of the Divine Father and his decrees. This paper explores a key theme of the first chapter of my forthcoming book, “Fathers and Friends: Patronage and Patriarchy in Renaissance Florence.” It will focus on the major fifteenth century Florentine representations of the chief…

Read more →

New Database: Payments to Artists – 17th-Century Rome

by  • 

A new database has been launched based on the research of Richard Spear for his recent book Painting for Profit: The Economic Lives of Seventeenth-Century Italian Painters (see this earlier post for details on the book). The database is described on the Getty website as follows: Artists’ wealth, like that of most Renaissance and Baroque painters, was principally derived from what they earned selling their art. Data that documents payments to artists—as opposed to resale prices or inventory evaluations—is the primary means for analyzing the socioeconomic lives of painters in early modern Europe. This online database contains approximately 1,000 payments recorded in Rome between 1576 and 1711. Information concerning painters active in Rome for a small portion of their careers is limited to their Roman phase. Richard Spear gathered this set of data in order to write the Rome section…

Read more →

Gandioli Fumagalli Foundation Milan Internship: Closing Soon

by  • 

Gandioli  Fumagalli Foundation Milan Internship Discipline: Art History, Art Conservation, Italian, Classics and Archaeology at University  of Melbourne Eligibility: Academic Staff, Honorary associates, PG students in Research or Coursework in Faculty of Arts, Universtiy of Melbourne (Must be Australian Citizens or an Australian Permanent Resident) Closing Date:  Extended to FRIDAY 30TH APRIL, 2010 Approximate Value:   Between $5,000 and $10,000 Further information:  Contact the Faculty’s  Scholarships and Prizes officer artsprizes-info@unimelb.edu.au

Read more →

‘Wonder-Lust’: The Reception of the Belvedere Sculpture Courtyard

by  • 

The European Visual Culture Seminar presents: Caterina Sciacca ‘Wonder-Lust’: The Reception of the Belvedere Sculpture Courtyard The Belvedere Sculpture Courtyard houses one of the most famous sculpture collections in the Western world. It has attracted the interests of scholars, artists and tourists since the Renaissance. It originally functioned as a private pleasure garden to which only a privileged few were granted access. In the eighteenth century this changed, and the courtyard became popular with a new audience: the Grand Tourists. For the Grand Tourist, the experience offered by the collection in the Belvedere Sculpture Courtyard was both educational (in that it provided access to some of the masterpieces of antiquity) and aesthetic (in that it encouraged viewers to take pleasure in the representation of the human body). This paper will discuss the sensual nature of the Belvedere Statue Courtyard during…

Read more →

Painting for Profit in 17th century Italy – Upcoming Book and online Database

by  • 

Painting for Profit: The Economic Lives of Seventeenth-Century Italian Painters by Richard Spear and Philip Sohm with contributions by  Renata Ago, Elena Fumagalli, Richard Goldthwaite, Christopher Marshall and Raffaella Morselli. In this highly original book five leading art historians team up with two distinguished economic and social historians to investigate the financial worlds of painters in Baroque Italy. Exploring the many variables that determined the prices asked or received by painters—including the status of their patrons, the size of works and time spent making them, their subject matter, and their number of figures—the authors offer major insights into the social lives, psychological disposition, and economic circumstances of a wide range of major and minor artists. Richard Spear is Professor Emeritus of Art History at Oberlin College and Affiliate Research Professor at the University of Maryland, College Park. Philip Sohm is University…

Read more →