Andrea Mantegna

Hidden in the vegetal ornament of one of the pilasters of the Camera Picta, Mantegna placed his self-portrait in the form of a leafy mask. In so doing, he introduced the sign of his authorship at the heart of a germinative process. This essay reconsiders the insertion of the self-portrait as an image of the generative power of the artist. Together with the room’s dedicatory inscription (in particular the term absoluvit), the date 1465 inscribed in the marble, as well as several pictorial inventions signalling the porosity between art and nature, the secret, changing and subtle poietical programme in the Camera Picta can be revealed.

Dieci grandi opere d'arte del passato interpretate da dieci scrittori:
Ferdinando Albertazzi, Sara Boero, Teresa Buongiorno, Roberto Denti, Ermanno Detti, Aldo Gerbino, Angela Nanetti, Emanuela Nava, Roberto Piumini, Costanza Savini

e da cinque illustratori contemporanei:

Antonella Abbatiello, Alessandra Cimatoribus, Emanuele Luzzati, Sophie Fatus, Lucia Scuderi

Illustrazione di copertina: Roberto Innocenti

A little-known series of three immense spalliere on the Abduction of Helen (Walters Art Museum) can now be identified as Venetian, ca. 1468 for the wedding of Caterina Corner with the King of Cyprus, by Dario di Giovanni (Vasari's Dario da Treviso), and the reflection of a performance of theatricals on the abduction of Helen that would have accompanied the wedding, possibly the earliest known representation from the history of Venetian  theater. The paper addresses the environment in Padua in the 1440s, and the school of Squarcione, where Dario and Mantegna were said to be rivals,  the adaptations of Roman sculpture to be seen there including the source for the  earliest classical nude Venus in Venetian art,  as well as the importance of the myth of Trojan ancestry for Venice and the significance of the marriage for the Corner and for Venice. Other essays in the volume reveal important factors of the series original appearance including the remarkable use here of Pressbrokat for a domestic commission.

A review of Elam's anthology of Roger Fry's lectures and essays on Italian art, which highlights the value of Elam's lengthy introduction and commentary, as well as the enduring relevance of Fry insights into Piero della Francesca, Botticelli, Mantegna and other Italian painters of the Renaissance.

This paper explores the intellectual and social circumstances that informed the production of Andrea Mantegna’s 'Mars and Venus' (1497), the first painting executed for the studiolo of Isabella d’Este Gonzaga.  Documentary evidence suggests that Mantegna collaborated on this project with an iconographic advisor, most likely the learned Paride da Ceresara. I argue, somewhat against the received wisdom, that both Paride and Mantegna are responsible for this painting’s invention. Indeed, I maintain that the collaborative nature of their enterprise invites us to rethink the nature of artistic “invention” itself. The term, which entered the lexicon of early modern art theory via the writings of Cicero and Quintilian, describes an intellectual process of discovery. Paride discovered his iconographic "invenzione" by using the techniques of humanist philology. Mantegna drew on his knowledge of classical sculpture, as well as a hitherto unacknowledged tradition of textual criticism that linked his handling of a brush to the tenets of ancient rhetorical theory and to the writings of Leon Battista Alberti. Discovering in these contexts a set of poetic, formal, and stylistic devices uniquely suited to the learned environment of Isabella's studiolo, Mantegna and Paride together invented a means of visibly addressing their patron's concerns. These concerns are ultimately tied to the Platonic philosophy of the soul.

Il "bel Francesco”, come veniva chiamata la chiesa collocata nella Civitas Nova, appena oltre il limite della Mantova più antica, sorta laddove frate Benvenuto, discepolo di San Francesco, aveva fondato un oratorio, ha conosciuto stagioni gloriose, come Pantheon per i primi Gonzaga, ma anche distruzioni devastanti. Si prendono in esame le vicende a partire dall’Ottocento, quando da tempo la stagione gonzaghesca è tramontata e, già da inizio Settecento, il convento è diventato una base d’appoggio per i francesi presenti a Mantova. Nel 1782 il convento viene infatti soppresso, nel 1797 la chiesa è chiusa al culto, dal 1811 trasformata in arsenale militare, spogliata degli arredi monumentali e suddivisa in due piani e, dal 1854, isolata dal resto della città tramite le mura e un fossato. Lo studio prende il via dall’alba dell’Ottocento, secolo nel quale sono protagoniste alcune figure importanti legate alla storia del restauro e della tutela. Il Novecento è il secolo delle grandi contraddizioni, tra le problematiche legate al passaggio di proprietà e al ritorno dei francescani, passando per i restauri dell’inizio degli anni Quaranta, condotti da Aldo Andreani, fino ai giorni terribili delle bombe e della violenza inaudita che riduce a polvere e briciole gli antichi affreschi che avevano illuminato la chiesa nei secoli. Le pagine dedicate alla ricostruzione post bellica sono tormentate ma anche cariche di speranza se, nel 1954, Memore Pescasio dava conto dei restauri già compiuti fino a quel momento e preannunciava nuovi interventi per riportare il complesso “quasi al primitivo splendore”. Bisognerà infine attendere l’ultimo decennio del secolo affinché una nuova luce faccia risplendere gli affreschi della cappella Gonzaga, ovvero le Storie di San Ludovico, in un’operazione di restauro, condotta da Augusto Morari, che si rivela ancora oggi valida e che dovrebbe spingere alla virtuosa emulazione per la cura dei restanti affreschi che costituiscono il più importante ciclo trecentesco ancora presente a Mantova.
L'apparato fotografico documenta i restauri, i bombardamenti e il cantiere di ricostruzione. In appendice sono riportate le trascrizioni dei diari dei frati degli anni Quaranta e Cinquanta.
Il volume, edito dall’Associazione Postumia nei "Quaderni di Postumia", è stampato dalla Publi Paolini di Mantova, realizzato con il contributo del Dipartimento Culture e Civiltà dell’Università di Verona, con il patrocinio del Comune di Mantova.

In art history, allegory is a controversial and problematic topic. Allegory, or
personification, visually embodies abstract concepts and ideas. Namely, the sphere of the literal and the symbolic are juxtaposed in this single theme; this caused definitional, methodological, and interpretational problems and contradictions. Because of its wide use in Western art, these problems need some analysis and clarification in order to be as fruitful as possible for art historical studies.

From its invention by the ancient Greeks and Romans, through the Middle Ages, and then the Renaissance, ending up in current times, allegory has taken various characteristics, becoming multifaceted and ambivalent. Its nature can be synthesised as follows: either readily understood and clear – conveying explicit moral or didactic messages – or obscure and ambiguous – hiding complex and/or more allusive meanings. As the product of classical antiquity, allegory was originally conceived as a figure of speech to sway the viewer. Its moral and straightforward side was adopted by the Church and by state institutions to display moral, religious, or civic notions to the public. During the Renaissance, particularly at the end of the 15h century and first half of the 16th century, it started to become more problematic, sophisticated, less clear and explicit. Methodological and interpretational issues emerge distinctly from certain examples of Venetian art.

Some case studies have been interpreted as allegories because of their ambiguity and vagueness, although it is likely that they are not. Allegory’s ambivalence, whether clear or obscure, begun to be irrespective of its context and/or presumable function. This is due to the fact that allegory’s nature is mainly dependent on the individual artist’s style and technique. It is highly probable that most of the issues of allegory emerge from the advent of the Venetian school. This imbued allegory with fine colour techniques, lyricism, and allusiveness, rendering it more ambiguous and evocative.

Due capolavori di Mantegna, creati a 40 anni di distanza, due opere magnifiche su cui il tempo non è passato senza conseguenze. La cosiddetta Pala di San Zeno costituisce uno dei più precoci esempi di Sacra Conversazione nella pittura del Rinascimento e registra un'ideazione architettonica, prospettica e archeologica che unifica, scena dipinta, cornice e spazio sotto l'attenta regia del committente, l'abate Gregorio Correr. La Madonna in gloria tra i santi Giovanni Battista, Gregorio Magno, Benedetto e Gerolamo, nota come Pala Trivulzio, eseguita per la chiesa di Santa Maria in Organo del 1497 è ora patrimonio del Castello Sforzesco. La prima è stata sottoposta a una campagna di indagini e a un accurato intervento di manutenzione la seconda è stata oggetto di un articolato programma di monitoraggio.

In 1525, Isabella d’Este’s son, Federico, commissioned architect Giulio Romano to build him a pleasure palace at the family’s stables at the south end of Mantua. Giulio took the mantle of Mannerism from the late Andrea Mantegna and created a masterwork of iconographically rich trompe l’oeil frescoes on the interior surfaces. Two of the corner rooms are particularly significant, the lyrical room of Amor and Psyche, and the Room of the Fall of the Giants, which depicts a massive architectural collapse. The palace’s outer walls manifested a bizarre articulation — including falling triglyphs and rising keystones — that scholars have debated the meaning of for years. This essay shows the complex interconnections within the complex, the city, and the Roman classical heritage, by which these façades form a manifesto, in which Giulio Romano confronts the meaning of architectural language as well as the role of the architect as intermediary between Form and Matter.

During the Renaissance a new notion of the individual was created. This identity was formed through knowledge based on the relationship of the individual to the world in which they lived. At the time, new forms of knowledge were being pursued and old ones were being questioned or repositioned. The debate over the relationship of past and present knowledge of the divine or ‘ideal’ to science and nature changed the way that people viewed themselves. Individual identity is constructed in Andrea Mantegna’s Lamentation over the Dead Christ through the confrontation of different forms of knowledge.
The body of Christ is the place where knowledge is deposited and discussed. At one time this figure is a depiction of God and the ideal body while at the same time it shows the mortality of the human being.  Andrea Mantegna  was aware of the new consciousness about the individual. The evidence that exists in Mantegna’s paintings has lead many art historians to conclude that he was one of the leading historical thinkers of his time.
The relationship of man and nature was beginning to be articulated in new ways through the arts. A new interest in the anatomy of the human body sparked a debate about the relationship between body and soul that also called into question the role of man in the natural world. At this time the notion of the ‘ideal’ body was strongly held by those artists who depicted the human figure. These notions also changed the relationship of artists to the divine in their depictions. God was seen as being more personal to each individual. It is against this backdrop that around 1480 Mantegna painted the Lamentation over the Dead Christ.

На примере отдельных памятников рассмотрены специфические формы цитирования античного образца, прежде всего, использование детали all’antica в живописи Андреа Мантеньи и Филиппино Липпи. Внешне документальный характер классических деталей у Мантеньи противостоит фантастическим образам, конструируемым Липпи. В действительности в работах мастеров прослеживается сходство — как в приемах и мотивах, так и в целом в эволюции позднего стиля, некоторые черты которого были унаследованы искусством Чинквеченто.

წმინდა სებასტიანე საკმაოდ პოპულარული იყო რენესანსის ეპოქის პერიოდის იმ მხატვრებთან, რომლებიც რელიგიური ჟანრის ფერწერაში იყვნენ ჩართულნი. მას წერდნენ ისეთი ფერმწერები, როგორებიც არიან: ტიციანი, კარავაჯო, ელ გრეკო, რუბენსი, ეჟენ დელაკრუა, სალვადორ დალი, პაოლო ვერონეზე, გვერჩინო, გვიდო რენი, ბოტიჩელი და მრავალი სხვა. ზოგიერთი შეფასებით ფერწერის
ისტორიაში წმინდა სებასტიანეს გამოსახულების რაოდენობა 6000 ითვლის, რაც მას ერთ-ერთ განთქმულ წმინდანად ქმნის წარსულისა და თანამედროვემხატვრობაში. როგორც ცნობილია, მოწამე სებასტიანე საკუთარი რწმენის გამო ბოძზე მიაბეს და ისრებით განაგმირეს. ჭრილობები მომაკვდინებელი არ იყო და საბედნიეროდ გადარჩა, თუმცა მოგვიანებით ქვებით ჩაქოლეს.

The polyptych made by Agostino De Marchi and Marco Zoppo for the Bolognese church of San Clemente in the Collegio di Spagna is a very early expression of the new Renaissance style in Bologna. The intention here – backed up by a re-examination of partly unpublished documents and stylistic analysis of the piece as a whole – is to sustain that the work of the woodcarver and the work of the painter were planned concurrently, and this determined a substantial continuity in terms of execution. The completion of the retable, including the painted part, can therefore be dated to no later than the spring of 1459, corresponding therefore with the final payments received by Agostino De Marchi. The study also focus- es on the distinctive techniques adopted by Zoppo and on his highly original capacity to mediate between the perspective and compositional innovations assimilated during his stay in Padua and the chromatic qualities of the Florentine “painting of light” which had arrived in Emilia thanks to the activity there of Piero della Francesca.

Giovanni Bellini (1435 ca.-1516) è unanimemente riconosciuto come il maggiore protagonista dell'arte veneziana fra Quattro e Cinquecento. La lezione si concentrerà monograficamente sulla produzione del maestro, da un lato, spiegando, attraverso la sua crescita, la successione degli stili nell'età dell'Umanesimo e, dall'altro, mettendone in luce la singolare coerenza di temperamento lungo circa sessant'anni di pittura.

The allegorical paintings produced for Isabella d’Este’s studiolo in the ducal palace of Mantua present one of the most complex riddles in the history of Renaissance art. Andrea Mantegna’s Pallas Expelling the Vices from the Garden of Virtues is especially enigmatic among them. It has fascinated many art historians who tried to interpret its meaning, while many questions are yet to be answered. The painting includes figures of classical gods, cardinal virtues, centaurs and satyrs. Less common figures, such as the crippled figure of otium (leisure), putti with butterfly wings, or bird-headed, appear there as well. In this work I suggest approaching the subject of this painting as battle between virtues and vices, or psychomachia, that was an important theme in medieval Christian thought. This makes me to connect the painting to the traditions of knighthood and courtly culture at the Mantuan court rather than to humanistic discourse on classical gods. The tradition of representation of moral battle as ideal leisure was present in past artistic commissions at the Mantuan court, conspicuously in the tournament scenes painted by Antonio Pisanello, which in my view became a sort of model for psychomachic battles represented in the studiolo of Isabella d’Este. However, under the female patron, the original chivalric approach of Christian and courtly literature to leisure was transformed into a more sophisticated philosophical system that found expression in Mantegna's complex invention.
In this light the meaning of individual figures in the painting can be clarified. Minerva (Pallas) personifies virtue and opposes the personification of vices in the figures of Luxuria (related to as Venus in the previous research) and hybrid creatures that surround her in medieval iconography. I analyze the motif of battle, as well as the attributes and retinue of Luxuria and find the models for these motifs in medieval art.

Hercules was an exemplar of moral and civic virtue when represented in Italian Renaissance art.  How he embodied masculinity, however, has not been explored.  A popular but complicated figure, he visualized the burdens and tensions of idealized masculinity.  By examining his battle against desire, as represented in his struggle with Antaeus, this article points to multivalence and varying receptions, from moralizing allegory to erotic fantasy.  It concentrates on imagery from the ‘Florentine Picture Chronicle’, Pollaiuolo, Mantegna and his circle, and Michelangelo.

Suite d’estampes de la Renaissance italienne, dite Tarots de Mantegna, ou Jeu du gouvernement du monde au Quattrocento, vers 1465[1], tel est le titre sous lequel sont enregistrées ces gravures énigmatiques à la Bibliothèque nationale de France. Ces estampes rectangulaires conservées sous forme de livre ne sont en vérité ni un tarot ni de Mantegna, et posent question quant à leurs significations.

Pour comprendre ce tarot, il faut se replacer au début de la Renaissance italienne au milieu du xve siècle. Après une période de moralité chrétienne forte qui condamnait les passe-temps au Moyen Âge, les jeux notamment intellectuels mais aussi de divination et de prophétie reviennent à la mode, en partie grâce à la diffusion de l’objet livre. Il devient ainsi courant de « tirer les sorts » en utilisant comme support les grandes œuvres chrétiennes ou mythologiques telles que La Bible ou l’Énéide.

L’époque est à la redécouverte de la culture antique, les textes des anciens sont traduits et Platon prend de plus en plus d’importance face à Aristote dans les cercles d’érudits, en témoigne la création de l’académie néoplatonicienne de Florence en 1459, avec à sa tête Marsile Ficin. L’harmonie du monde et les dépendances de chaque partie entre elles et l’univers est une préoccupation au cœur de la société intellectuelle italienne, les doctrines chrétiennes et païennes, loin d’entrer en opposition, s’unissent alors pour proposer une vision d’ensemble aux lettrés et savants du Quattrocento.

The myth of Orpheus, the ancient hero who could enchant nature with his music and tried to  bring back his beloved Eurydice from Hades, consists of many different elements. There is no single original Orpheus myth, but the story gradually developed in Antiquity, over time absorbing new elements and new turns. These elements often occur separately in texts and the visual arts, but are sometimes combined in a story as well. Thus Orpheus has
become a complex figure with many aspects. This versatility is an important feature of his character, that causes his reception not to be uniform, but to take many different forms. Orpheus appears in many different types of texts, but also in the visual arts, and especially in plays and operas.
Writers, visual artists and musicians often have views on the figure of Orpheus that differ strongly and often conflict with one another. These different and conflicting views are inherent to the diversity of the figure of Orpheus. People who use Orpheus in their works, often choose between the many stories about him.
On the one hand this choice is often determined by the knowledge available: many a time a stereotipical view is copied
from predecessors in the same genre. On the other hand, some artists are familiar with more aspects of Orpheus, but appear to deliberately select only those aspects that are appropriate  for  their  argumentation.  Orpheus  is  often  seen  and  presented  either  as  a positive character or as a negative character. Amongst his positive aspects are mainly reckoned his musical and poetical qualities and his ability to tame the beasts (i.e. to civilize
human kind) with his song (eloquence). Besides, his participation in the voyage of the Argonauts and his status as a poet-theologian or philosopher are judged in a positive
manner. Amongst his negative aspects are reckoned his love of wordly goods (Eurydice) and his looking back at these things, his homosexuality and his horrible death. The attempt to unite these conflicting images of Orpheus runs through his reception in Italy between 1300 and 1600 like a continuous thread. For example,
authors tend to ignore his negative aspects  or  express  their  astonishment  about  the  irreconcilability  of  the  different
characterizations of Orpheus; in some extreme cases they adjust the outcome of the myth.
Except for the change of outcome, there are no major adjustments to the myth, like a complete change of characters, of the action or of the setting of the story in time and
space. Most changes to the image of Orpheus stem from the
possibilities which the myth as a whole offers. Many representations of Orpheus are inherent to the character itself. An author or an artist chooses from the existing possibilities and thus manipulates his own version of the myth.

The article presents the lecture notes from the first of three university courses on Venetian painting taught by Roberto Longhi at the University of Bologna (1945-1946). Preserved in typescript form in the library of the Department of Visual Arts in Bologna, the volume regards the same topics addressed in a concise, razor-sharp manner in Longhi’s contemporary Viatico per cinque secoli di pittura veneziana (1946), embracing a period of about two centuries, from the Trecento of Paolo Veneziano to the Quattrocento of Giovanni Bellini. Through its dissection of the most significant parts of these notes, the article casts light on their concordance with other celebrated essays by Longhi (especially his “Lettera pittorica” a Giuseppe Fiocco, Giudizio sul Duecento and Viatico), offering a response to thorny questions concerning fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Venetian painting left unresolved or unaddressed in Longhi’s text of 1946.

Della produzione artistica di Andrea Mantegna, ad oggi conosciuta, i dipinti su tela costituiscono la parte più consistente. La scelta, basata su tradizioni tecniche, s'innesta, anche in questo caso, su motivazioni culturali proprie, le cui radici sono riconducibili agli ambienti umanistici frequentati dall'artista.

The book publishes the acts of a colloque held in 2008 about the influence of serial models, as engravings or plaquettes, on art in Lombardy in Mantegna's age. Scholars and curators of museums show very different examples of influences in very different kinds of artistic techniques.

In 1985 Colin Eisler brought together a series of panels painted in the Bellini workshop, known to have once been a sin- gle ensemble, which he suggested formed part of the celebrated altarpiece produced in 1459-1460 by Jacopo, Gentile and Giovan- ni Bellini for the Gattamelata chapel in the Basilica del Santo in Padua. Though problematic, the hypothesis has found widespread agreement, generating an inevitable shift in the early chronology of Jacopo’s sons. The article seeks to highlight the difficulties, first and foremost stylistic, in Eisler’s proposal. The author believes that Eisler’s reconstruction of the Santo provenance can be ruled out, instead hypothesizing that the work may be associated with the high altar of the church of San Giobbe in Venice.