Renaissance antiquarianism

This article argues that Onofrio Panvinio's 1571 study of the Roman triumph embodies a central innovation of sixteenth-century classical scholarship, the use of visual reconstructions alongside textual accounts to communicate the details of ancient ceremonies. Panvinio built on the work of predecessors, most notably Pirro Ligorio, to produce a densely-detailed image of the triumphal procession in the style of Roman bas-reliefs, using the evidence of coins, friezes and texts. This illustration can be seen as an alternative historical rendition, rather than as an accompaniment to a textual description of the triumph. More generally, it reveals the creativity of Renaissance antiquarianism, a movement usually seen as devoted to the dry accumulation of evidence about antiquity, not its imaginative interpretation.

In 1731, Filippo Argelati printed for the first time the complete works of the Modenese historian Carlo Sigonio (c. 1522–84). Intended originally as an edition in five volumes, the collection was augmented by a sixth volume after the discovery in Rome of previously unknown manuscripts of Sigonio. Among the new papers were four sets of ecclesiastical censures which had been secretly directed in the 1580s against four of Sigonio's works (De regno Italiae, De Occidentali Imperio, the text and commentary of Sulpicius Severus's Historia Sacra, and De republica Hebraeorum), and, with them, Sigonio's responses to the papal authorities. According to Argelati, the censures and Sigonio's responses were found in two manuscripts, one from the Vatican Library and the other from the city of Bologna. Until now, the veracity of Argelati's account has never been questioned. Yet, while there is no doubt about the authenticity of the censures, which are attested also by eight other sixteenth-century manuscripts, Sigonio's replies do raise doubts, as three-quarters of them are known only from Argelati's edition of his works. The present article investigates the sources used by the author of the replies. This new evidence clearly proves that, in fact, the replies were written centuries after Sigonio's death, probably in the same period as Argelati's edition. In turn, this supports the hypothesis that Sigonio's works were employed as an instrument to oppose the Roman Church's political claims, in the jurisdictional debate between the papacy and the empire in the early eighteenth century.

This is the first in-depth historical study of Jan Gossart (ca. 1478-1532), one of the most important painters of the Renaissance in northern Europe. Providing a richly illustrated narrative of the Netherlandish artist's life and art, Marisa Anne Bass shows how Gossart's paintings were part of a larger cultural effort in the Netherlands to assert the region's ancient heritage as distinct from the antiquity and presumed cultural hegemony of Rome.

Focusing on Gossart's vibrant, monumental mythological nudes, the book challenges previous interpretations by arguing that Gossart and his patrons did not slavishly imitate Italian Renaissance models but instead sought to contest the idea that the Roman past gave the Italians a monopoly on antiquity. Drawing on many previously unused primary sources in Latin, Dutch, and French, Jan Gossart and the Invention of Netherlandish Antiquity offers a fascinating new understanding of both the painter and the history of northern European art at large.

The De rebus antiquis memorabilibus basilicae S. Petri Romae by Maffeo Vegio (1407-1458) gives a picture of St Peter’s Basilica in Vatican before the radical restoration decided by pope Nicholas V (1447-1455). The treatise has always been considered as a collection of inscriptions and antiquarian data about the Constantinian temple. The identification of classic and medieval sources has now given a key to the writer’s historical workshop and to his project. Vegio’s treatise aims at re-establish - ing the literary genre of the descriptiones basilicarum, not ignoring the most recent theories of humanistic historiography but not discarding the medieval bibliographical tools. The result is a book hovering between past and present but still an important contribute to the historiographical thought in the Italian Quattrocento.

An unstudied manuscript in Princeton contains lectures delivered by the youthful Jacques Sirmond at the Jesuit college of Pont-a-Mousson. In contrast to the received pictures of Jesuit pedagogues as devoted rhetoricians, Sirmond explained 'Aeneid' books 3 and 12 in a self-consciously historical way, concentrating especially on Roman law and religion and their interaction. His concerns are discussed in light of sixteenth-century scholarship on ancient Rome, contemporary Virgil commentary, humanist interest in the history of culture as a hermeneutic tool, and Sirmond's own later career as a philologist and ecclesiastical historian. Sirmond's comments on 'Aeneid' 12 in particular show how he used religious and legal information in an unusual ethical reading of Virgil's text. Like some other early modern readers, Sirmond read Virgil's poem, other ancient literary texts, and Roman historical texts and documents as equivalent and interchangeable sources of information.

This paper sets out to chart the custodial history and availability to scholars of the unpublished writings of the antiquary John Leland (c.1503-1552) in the century or so following his mental collapse and death. It argues that, prior to the transcription of many of these papers by John Stow in 1576, they were largely inaccessible; and that consequently not only Leland's materials, but also his perspective and method, began to have a significant influence on antiquarian scholarship only a generation after his death. An appendix lists Leland's original notebooks, and collates them with early transcripts and notes.

Only through a protracted and challenging process at the end of the nineteenth-century was Paul the Deacon (Paulus Diaconus) correctly identified as the author of the abridged version of Festus’s De verborum significatione that was in circulation in medieval times. However, a group of French scholars had already reached this conclusion during the Renaissance. Te purpose of this study is to reconstruct the cultural path followed by the antiquarians and philologists who were able to make this important discovery ante litteram: by examining the many Renaissance editions of Festus, the perception of Paul’s authorship emerges, revealing how scholars realised that the unidentified Paulus  was in fact the Diaconus historian of the Goths and Lombards.

La moda o passione del ritorno alla civiltà classica agisce certamente da stimolo, nel corso del Quattrocento, a una riscoperta anche dell'orchestica antica. Perché se ne venga a sapere qualcosa di più, tuttavia, bisognerà attendere la nuova messe di fonti classiche che proprio le ricerche e la filologia degli umanisti misero a disposizione del pubblico dei dotti. Un'attenzione meno episodica per la danza, intesa come una componente significativa del contesto delle consuetudini in voga nell'antichità classica, emerge con una generazione di eruditi nati fra la metà degli anni Cinquanta e la fine degli anni Sessanta del Quattrocento.

Edizione e commento di una delle più cripitiche e tormentate opere di Cardano (1544) che valse all'autore l'attenzione dell'Inquisizione. Le pagine introduttive tracciano l'ideale cardaniano del sapiente, uomo destinato a provare tutti gli aspetti della conoscenza, da quelli sublimi che assimilano alla Divinità, fino a quelli demoniaci, che perseguono i più bassi istinti materiali fino a sconfinare con il crimine.
Particolare attenzione è dedicata, nel commento al testo, all'individuazione delle fonti, l'indagine sulle quali mostra la straordinaria erudizione dell'autore che rilegge la cultura classica nei canoni cinquecenteschi del "riuso", la cui rigorosa codifica è attentamente seguita.
Dalla trattazione emergono inoltre notizie di vario genere sulla politica dei principati in Italia ed Europa, racconti di cronaca minuta, considerazioni morali con esempi tratti dalla letteratura classica e dalla vita quotidiana, considerazioni letterarie e artistiche che rendono il quadro dell'opera mosso e ricco di spunti di ogni genere.
L'indagine dell'origine di alcune notizie di carattere antiquario reperibili nel IV Libro potrebbe inoltre essere utile per comprendere la circolazione di opere classiche greche di recente riscoperta nell'Europa di allora.
Molti dettagli delle scelte di scrittura, pur se di un'opera rimasta incompiuta e non rivista, mettono in luce particolarità interessanti di una delle ultime figure di genio (tormentato) rinascimentale.

During the sixteenth century, confessional disputes between Catholics and Protestants became the " battlefield " for determining and shaping the reformed Christian religion. Antiquarian erudition played a key role in this process, acting in accordance with the diverse cultural systems in place, justifying doctrinaire positions, and legitimizing the existence of their institutions. Renaissance chronotaxes illustrate this point particularly well. In this article, for the first time, the ecclesiastical chronotaxes disseminated to Christian scholarly environments throughout Renaissance Europe have been collated and studied. Both the driving forces behind this cultural phenomenon and the methods applied are investigated. The key objective here is to present the first catalogue of these works and to offer valuable material that sheds further light on the cultural, historical, and religious dynamics of the time, which may serve as the basis for further academic debate.

The epigraphic manuscript known as Liber Parmensis (whose existence was pointed out in the 19th century, but which has never been studied) constitutes a document of high value as one of the very few collections of inscriptions written down in Iberia at the beginning of the 16th century. This paper reconstructs the origin of the collection — composed in Barcelona around 1510, and largely derived from Pere Miquel Carbonell’s —, it analyses its content in the light of the Renaissance manuscript tradition, and divulges the new epigraphical information contained therein.

La pubblicazione degli Antiquaria Urbis nel 1513 e delle Antiquitates Urbis nel 1527 di Andrea Fulvio fu di grande importanza per la nascente storia delle biblioteche. Entrambi i trattati antiquari furono ispirati dal De mirabilibus urbis di Francesco Albertini, dunque, come l’opuscolo del canonico fiorentino, riservano un capitolo specifico alle biblioteche antiche. In tali capitoli Fulvio introduce rilevanti novità concettuali, quali la necessità di una definizione etimologica del termine bibliotheca e l’individuazione di una continuità storica tra le biblioteche greche, quelle romane e la Vaticana. La narrazione della  spedizione dei letterati e la designazione esplicita della Vaticana quale erede delle antiche librariae evidenziano un modello di biblioteca proposto da Fulvio assai innovativo. Il prenestino intuisce che la natura della biblioteca ha risvolti propositivi e di grande attivismo, che affiancano al suo ruolo di custode della tradizione quello, tutto contemporaneo, di edificatrice di cultura, come è definitivamente sottolineato dallo scopo di mettere a disposizione omnibus Romae sia il suo consolidato patrimonio che i suoi recenti ritrovamenti. Nel suo capolavoro antiquario, dunque, il prenestino non soltanto individua alcuni dei punti chiave della futura riflessione bibliotecaria, ma, indicando la Vaticana quale supremo esempio della realtà libraria contemporanea, anticipa di molto compiti e caratteristiche che in seguito la stessa biblioteca avrebbe rivendicato come sue proprie.

The ‘De rebus antiquis memorabilibus’ by Maffeo Vegio (1407-1458) is the last de- scription of the basilica of St Peter before Nicolas V began its radical remodelling. The work is not simply a collection of inscriptions and antiquarian information about the old building, but constitutes an essential chapter in the papal historiography of the mid- 15th century, actively concerned to defend papal primacy, which had been sorely tested in the conciliar period. Study of the printed and manuscript tradition of this short work en- ables us to see better the factors governing its circulation in the Renaissance period; neg- lected by contemporaries, it was rediscovered about the time of the Council of Trent. By concentrating on the localities which contributed most to circulation, the Vatican Library and the Chapter of St Peter, it is possible to reconstruct the network of readers in the 15th-17th centuries.

This study focuses on the figure of Giovanni Matteo Bembo and, especially, on his relationship with the island of Cyprus. Bembo was a learned Venetian aristocrat and nephew of Cardinal Pietro, whose famous Asolani take place at the court of Caterina Cornaro, former queen of Cyprus. Giovanni Matteo Bembo had a long and successful career, both as a military man and as an administrator of the Venetian possessions on the Italian mainland and overseas. He was sent to Cyprus with different appointments, including that of Captain of Famagusta from 1546 to 1548, during which time he was in charge of the most important military stronghold of the island. While in Famagusta he promoted a sophisticated plan of urban renewal, which entailed major works at the city walls, the building of a new aqueduct and the establishment of a series of monuments in the main square of the city. Among these were two granite columns and a marble sarcophagus that, according to contemporary sources, was said to be the ancient tomb of Venus, first queen of Cyprus. The article concludes by offering a preliminary explanation of the political and ideological motivations underlying the apparently bizarre interpretation of this ancient artefact..

Nel Cinquecento, i libri delle «Antichità di Roma» in volgare non solo diffusero le conoscenze sui monumenti architettonici dell'epoca romana, ma proposero anche un nuovo genere di scrittura in lingua italiana, incentrato sulla descrizione delle opere d'arte, con il ricorso al linguaggio specialistico ricco sia di latinismi sia di termini propri delle botteghe e dei cantieri.

From a book studying the history and interpretation of the Arch, this article looks at the history of the Arch in the early modern period and at some of  the ways in which it was represented, before considering in more detail the study of the friezes and their interpretation.

Le XVIe siècle toulousain ayant longtemps été qualifié de « siècle d’or » par les érudits et les historiens locaux, son historiographie est particulièrement riche. L’architecture, en particulier celle des hôtels particuliers, en constitue un axe fort depuis les découvertes archivistiques des érudits de la fin du XIXe siècle. La question de la réception des formes « à l’antique » au XVIe siècle, qui a occupé les chercheurs en France et en Europe à partir des années 1980, a mis en exergue la nécessité de déceler des préférences formelles et de prendre en compte les habitudes constructives d’une zone de création pour comprendre l’intégration et la réinterprétation d’un nouveau répertoire ornemental dans une architecture locale. Si plusieurs grands chantiers et quelques personnalités artistiques ont été bien cernés, de nombreux rapprochements peuvent être faits avec les grandes créations françaises et italiennes, les traités d'architecture, les dessins, les estampes voire les antiquités locales, permettant de replacer la production toulousaine dans un large contexte européen de transferts artistiques. Les sources archivistiques permettent quant à elles d’interroger la signification de l’évolution stylistique dans un milieu de réception ainsi que les mécanismes et les ressorts de la commande architecturale.

This essay examines Queen Christina of Sweden’s material response to accusations of barbarism by establishing that her collections of antique sculpture acted as artistic and intellectual foils to her detractors. The goal is to situate Christina’s development of a classicized persona within existing scholarship about the queen as a collector and patron, thereby illustrating its impact on her decision to build one of the largest collections of ancient Roman antiquities amassed by an early modern woman. This is accomplished by identifying key themes such as knowledge and rulership that formed the queen’s public persona and were projected to visitors through her display-spaces. To help understand why specific imagery related to these themes appears repeatedly in her suite of antiquities, allegorical emblems associated with Christina are contextualized as reflections of early modern intellectual movements that entwined Gothicism with Swedish history. Like her sculptural displays, these movements creatively inserted Scandinavia, and by extension Christina, into the Greco-Roman tradition.

Scheda 7 (Bartolomeo Marliani, "Urbis Romae topographia")
Scheda 8 (Bernardo Gamucci, "Libri quattro dell'antichità della città di Roma")
Scheda 9 (Sebastiano Erizzo, "Discorso sopra le medaglie antiche")
Scheda 28 (Roberto Valturio, "De re militari")
Scheda 40 (Ottaviano Vignati, "ΠΑΛΑΙΟ ΤΙΤΛΑ", BNB: AH.XI.005)
Scheda 41 (Andrea Alciato, "Antiquae inscriptiones veteraque monumenta patriae", BNB: AE.XIII.25)
Scheda 42 (Sebastiano Serlio, "De architectura libri quinque")
Scheda 43 (Sebastiano Serlio, "Tutte l'opere di architettura")
Scheda 45-46 (Francesco Colonna, "Hypnerotomachia Poliphili")
Scheda 47 (Albrecht Durer, "De symmetria partium in rectis formis humanorum corporum")
Scheda 48 (Luca Pacioli, "De divina proportione")
Scheda 49 (Fra Giocondo,  "M. Vitruvius per Iocundum solito castigator factus")