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The paper aims to propose the first results of a quantitative survey on the dialogue-form in the Italian Renaissance. Among the characteristics of this writing and argumentative practice, spread especially between the sixteenth and sixteenth centuries, there is in fact the vast print production. A macroscopic vision of this phenomenon allows, through a quantitative and qualitative investigation at the same time, to evaluate generic trends, to study publishing practices related to the dissemination of knowledge and, finally, to grasp with greater precision the moments of historical evolution of this form of writing.

The contribution intends to make a brief examination of the evolution of the portrait in the period that goes from the thirteenth century to the end of the Late Middle Ages, till to Antonello da Messina, framing this fascinating journey from the point of v iew not only of an exquisitely historical and artistic nature but also of social history and sociology of art, to reflect on what is meant by portrait in a specific historical era and what its function is in the society of that time.

This contribution analyzes a completely unknown 16th century drawing. In the document, the author identifies a lost project for a pulpit in the Cathedral of Cosenza, draw up by Andrea Maggiore, Niccolò Ciolli and Antonio Grasso. The reconstruction of the drawing’s origin is possible thanks to some valuable indications on the document itself. The discovery allows us to re-analyze the personality of Andrea Maggiore, and his first known work, in the context of the Calabrian renaissance. Andrea Maggiore is especially important for the introduction of coloured marble altars in the region. His works are framed in the general phenomenon of the introduction of a new architectural language in southern Italy with an important reference to the role of his clients: a powerful and sometimes foreign cultural élite.

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Il saggio studia gli esiti del rapido incremento del «bisogno di scrivere» che interessò la popolazione bergamasca nella seconda metà del Quattrocento. Sono analizzate le grafie tanto delle scritture private contenenti obbligazioni commerciali quanto delle polizze d’estimo. Gli effetti delle trasformazioni delle prassi documentarie sono valutati su tre fronti: la composizione del gruppo degli alfabetizzati; la distribuzione delle abilità grafiche entro i vari contesti sociali e professionali; le scelte di coloro che, per analfabetismo o inesperienza grafica, accedevano alla produzione di documenti attraverso l’opera di mediatori professionisti e non. Sono ricostruite anche le differenze tra lo spazio urbano e i territori rurali, nei quali la minore alfabetizzazione favorì l’emergere di figure di mediatori seriali, talvolta prive di competenze scrittorie di livello professionale.

Premessa alla sezione monografica dedicata alla sezione monografica (Confronti) Nuove prospettive per la storia diplomatica, dedicata alla New Diplomatic History.

Un volume curato da Anne Huijbers (Emperors and Imperial Discourse in Italy, c. 1300-1500. New Perspectives) ha proposto importanti riflessioni sugli ideali, sull'ideologia e sulla propaganda imperiali nell’Italia del tardo medioevo. Da diversi punti di vista, cinque studiosi ne discutono nei saggi qui raccolti, anche in chiave di comparazione fra l’Italia e altre regioni dell’impero.

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Vespasiano da Bisticci was a bookseller in Florence in the 15th century. His work was important for the dissemination and preservation of classic poems and allowed the creation of the libraries of great Italian Renaissance rulers - from the library of Lorenzo dei Medici to the libraries of contemporary popes. Traces of his work can be found in a corpus of letters and in the Vite di Uomini Illustri del secolo xv. This article presents an edition of Vespasiano’s letters and the preliminary work on a semantic edition for the Comentario de la vita del signore Federigo duca di Urbino.

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Common in manuscript form since the Middle Ages, with the invention of printing, predictions, iudicia and almanacs soon reached very high circulations. Much of this forecasting literature concerns catastrophic events, including floods and deluges (the one predicted for February 1524 on the occasion of the great conjunction in the sign of Pisces is particularly famous), earthquakes, plagues, or attempts to explain the unexpected, including comets or the stellae novae that appeared in 1572 and 1604. The contribution investigates the reactions of sixteenth-century (in particular with the ‘novelle sul diluvio’ by Anton Francesco Doni and Ortensio Lando) and early seventeenth-century literati to the ominous predictions of the time, also highlighting the gap between private and public positions. In a variegated panorama influenced by the bulls of Sixtus v and Urban viii on astrology, severe condemnations of iudiciaria alternate with mockery of predicted calamities, but also – in keeping with the etymology of ‘catastrophe’ – there is the recovery of a hope for upheaval or even renovatio, as in the Catastrofe del mondo by the physician-philosopher Giovanni Francesco Spina.

Il contributo intende analizzare la figura del giovane eroe nella Teseide e nel Peregrinaggio di Rinaldo di Danese Cataneo (1508-1572), autore del più noto Amor di Marfisa (1562), poema spesso studiato in rapporto all’epica tassiana. I poemi, tràditi dal manoscritto Chig. I.VI.238 (Città del Vaticano, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana), nonostante lo stato frammentario in cui ci sono giunti, offrono interessanti spunti di riflessione sul tema della poiesis del giovane eroe. Lo scopo del presente contributo è quello di analizzare la declinazione del tema molto frequentato del giovane eroe in testi poco noti del panorama letterario italiano del secondo Cinquecento che si distinguono dagli esiti medi della produzione coeva per le innovative e originalissime soluzioni metriche, stilistiche e narrative.

CESURA - Rivista è espressione delle posizioni critiche e storiografiche di CESURA, nella sua duplice configurazione di associazione e di centro interuniversitario internazionale. Riflette la vocazione all’interdisciplinarietà e all’integrazione di diverse discipline (in particolare letteratura, filologia, linguistica, storia, arte) dimostrata negli incontri seminariali degli ultimi anni: nel più alto sguardo prospettico che li ha caratterizzati, l’espressione letteraria, la testimonianza documentale, la rappresentazione artistica si sono sempre integrate e la dimensione artistico-culturale non si è mai separata da quella ideologica e dottrinale. La vocazione della rivista, dunque, è riprodurre sinteticamente l’intrinseca varietà e la coesa interazione dei modelli e delle attestazioni storico-culturali dell'Umanesimo e del Rinascimento che si generarono nel Regno dell'Italia meridionale e nella Corona d'Aragona. L'editoriale è stato scritto da Guido Cappelli e Fulvio Delle Donne con la collaborazione degli altri membri del Direttivo di CESURA.

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Il saggio si propone di fornire una possibile soluzione a un antico enigma che è al tempo stesso storiografico e archivistico: perché i libri contabili basso medievali e rinascimentali sono presenti negli archivi fiorentini (e più in generale toscani) con una abbondanza quasi straripante, di fronte a un panorama italiano (per non dire europeo) assai magro? Per quale motivo tra Firenze e Prato si conservano, per i secoli XIII-XVI, più libri di conto che in tutta l’Europa messa insieme? E infine, come spiegare che gli archivi familiari dei nobili fiorentini conservassero, ancora in tarda età granducale, mastri, registri di cassa e giornali redatti alcuni secoli addietro, la cui utilità pratica era apparentemente pari a zero? Lavorando su molteplici fronti, quello della storia economica, quello della storia delle tecniche e della formazione culturale, quello della storia politico-sociale, l’autore mette a confronto il caso fiorentino con quello delle altre grandi città mercantili italiane, proponendo infine una immagine di Firenze leggermente diversa da quella stereotipata di culla dell’Umanesimo.

The essay highlights the reception of De Architectura between the Fifteenth and Sixteenth centuries, focusing on the exegetical contributions to the complicated Vitruvian text by humanists and artists. The authors illustrate three case studies that testify how the intrinsic complexity of the Vitruvian text and the stratification of humanistic interpretations led to significant innovations in the architectural practice of Renaissance artists.

Between 1513 and 1529, Giovanni IV de’ Cappellani, Bishop of Bovino, built Palazzo dei Tufi in Lauro. The name comes from tufa stone ashlars covering the façade. Indeed, the main wall masonry is made up, at the base, of stones shaped like trunks of pyramids and, on the piano nobile, of diamond shaped stones like pointed pyramids. In Italian and European Renaissance architecture, there are many buildings like these, the so-called diamond palaces. The two most famous are the Roberto Sanseverino Palace in Naples, built in 1470, and the Sigismondo d’Este in Ferrara, built in 1493. In Italy, from north to south, and abroad (France, Spain, Portugal and Russia) we can find many buildings like these whose peculiarity is the masonry of the façade, but there are indeed many differences in the decorative style. The following paper is a comparison between the façade of the Palazzo dei Tufi and the drawing by Giuliano da Sangallo of the Porta di Fano (reverse side of sheet number 61 in the Vatican Code Barberini 4424). Similarities can be found not only in the diamond shaped stones but also in the architectural style of the portal (Palazzo dei Tufi), with doors and windows, and in the belt course distinguishing the two floors. In conclusion, while we cannot attribute for sure the design of Palazzo dei Tufi to Giuliano da Sangallo we have indeed enough evidence to believe that Giovanni de’ Capellani was inspired by da Sangallo’s drawing of the Porta di Fano.

Il saggio si propone di individuare la peculiare prospettiva dell'umanista Benedetto Varchi in relazione all'uso che della Commedia dantesca fa Michelangelo Buonarroti. Nelle due prolusioni dal titolo Due lezzioni, recitate presso l'Accademia fiorentina nel 1547, egli infatti delinea il profilo di un artista, Michelangelo appunto, che si è nutrito delle pagine dantesche, ma ha pure fatto suo il profilo etico e civile del grande poeta medievale. E proprio in virtù di questo costante modello ha realizzato i suoi capolavori (poetici e artistici) trasfigurando secondo tecniche ecfrastiche l'opera dantesca.

Ripercorrendo la lunga e ben nota ecfrasi che Pio II dedicò a Pienza nei Commentarii, il contributo intende evidenziare che Enea Silvio Piccolomini progettò e mise in atto - tramite Bernardo Rossellino - un progetto di città in carne e ossa estremamente razionale, che egli seppe finanziare e costruire mattone per mattone, pietra per pietra, edificio per edificio; una città che innalzò a centro di una nuova diocesi e descrisse senza alcuna retorica. Più che il sogno umanistico di una città “ideale” - come di norma si usa dire - Pienza può dunque apparire come un modello pragmatico e virtuoso di grande attualità, particolarmente a fronte delle elaborazioni troppo spesso fumose e tutte concettuali sul tema della “smart city” che tanta fortuna tendono a riscuotere nella società contemporanea.

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Music and singing, which are present in every form of worship in the Christian rite, have acquired from the outset a very particular connotation, in which Jewish tradition and Neoplatonism have merged: every musical manifestation in the liturgy has as its model the perennial praise given to God from the angelic choirs. This conception, combined with the Pythagorean doctrine of the harmony of the spheres, informed throughout the Middle Ages fundamentals aspects of music theory and the aesthetic frame of reference for every sound manifestation, especially in devotional contexts (Gregorian chant, polyphony). The Neo-Platonic Judeo-Christian approach to music, which was associated with a cosmological conception based on music regulated by arithmetical relationships, informed compositional techniques and formal organization of music from the Carolingian era onwards. It is also reflected in great works of art, in architectural solutions in the sacred buildings, and found a scenic manifestation in the first liturgical dramas. Moreover, it was the prototype of the structure of Dante’s Paradise in the Divine Commedy. This essay offers an interpretation of the motet for 24 voices Qui habitat by Josquin Desprez as grounded in these philosophical and aesthetic tenets linking composers from Middle Ages to the Renaissance and presenting still today an extraordinary model of trans-disciplinary education (music, philosophy, art history, literature), when the aim is to preserve exchange and communication among the arts.

The concept of Mannerism in architecture had great critical fortune between the 30s and the 60s in the 20th century, with the progressive achievement of this historiographic category in the field of arts and culture. Regarding architecture, the term Mannerism received different definitions, periodisations and evaluations, up until the sudden and silent decline of the interest it had sparked. This paper briefly reconstructs these events through the analysis of different critical approaches and positions with particular regard to the contributions of three great scholars who share the fact of having used the category of Mannerism to analyze architecture and then of having moved away from it in their more recent studies: Ernst Gombrich, Manfredo Tafuri, and Arnaldo Bruschi. The history of the concept of Mannerism is put in relationship to contemporary historical research on architecture, by revealing that the use of this category allowed the renovation of traditional historiographical points of view and drew attention to previously neglected subjects. In conclusion, the later rejecting of Mannerism as an interpretative tool of architectural phenomena is attributed to the development of research itself, which had highlighted the complexity of XVth and XVIth century architecture, and to methodological improvements regarding not only the Renaissance but the whole field of architectural history as well.

Il parto cesareo su donna viva, per salvare entrambi i soggetti del parto, la donna e il bambino, venne preconizzato in ambito medico alla fine del XVI secolo, nel breve trattato in lingua francese del medico e chirurgo François Rousset. Fino ad allora era stata unicamente discussa e praticata l'apertura del ventre della madre morta per la salvezza del bambino, con ricadute sul piano giuridico e religioso. Dopo l'opera di Rousset, in testi medici e religiosi, per convincere della possibilità di successo del “cesareo” su donna morta, tornarono in auge racconti medievali su bambini sopravvissuti all'intervento. Si trattava in realtà di bambini non comuni, santi o re, e, nel Medioevo, la loro sopravvivenza era recepita alla stregua di un evento miracoloso, mentre nello stesso periodo vennero redatti diversi tipi di racconti di miracoli riferiti al “cesareo”, che comprendevano anche l'apertura del ventre della madre viva. L'articolo si propone di analizzare tali racconti nel contesto culturale di redazione, tenuto conto delle coeve conoscenze medico-ostetriche, così come delle dissertazioni (in ambito religioso e giuridico) e delle leggende dedicate al tema dell'apertura del ventre della donna gravida.

In this article we consider the perspective that Piccolomini adopts in works with characters, interlocutors or recipients women, in order to propose a new interpretation that can overcome the vexata quaestio phylogeny / misogyny, already deepened by critics, and to try to dispel doubts about the true nature of these writings. Through the analysis of La Raffaella and Oratione in lode delle donne, a distancing of the Stordito from rigid ideological positions emerges to use the ironic and playful perspective of the "upside down world", in which elements such as the overturning of vices take shape of women by virtue of social conventionality, stereotypes and the real world through the playful code. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Leonardo and ice: Leonardo’s interest for the Flemish art and vice versa The aim of the article is to underscore the importance of cultural exchange: on the one hand Leonardo’s knowledge of Flemish oil painting techniques at the beginning of his career made it possible for him to improve his style; on the other hand his influence extended in an early stage to the Low Countries, and concerned thematical choices. The first part of the article focuses on the period in which Leonardo, during his apprenticeship in the workshop of Andrea del Verrocchio, became aware of the significance of the new oil technique, which had been imported in Florence due to economic contacts with Bruges in the fifteenth century and the role of Florentine families such as the Medici, the Portinari and the Pagagnotti. The possibilities of the new oil painting technique were explored in Florence in the workshops of Verrocchio and the Pollaiolo brothers. A signature in the Codice Atlantico testifies that Leonardo himself was acquainted with members of the Portinari family, active in Bruges. Knowledge of Flemish art became essential in technical and formal aspects of his first female portrait, the Portrait of Ginevra Benci, which had been ordered by Bernardo Bembo as a pendant to his own portrait, painted by Hans Memling during his mission in Bruges as an ambassador to the Venetian Republic. The second part intends to invert the focus and to study Leonardo’s influence on Flemish art by presenting several paintings on the subject of Jesus and Saint John embracing. This iconographic subject originates from a composition, once in the royal collection in Mechelen, of Leonardo’s pupil, Marco D’Oggiono. The Flemish painter Joos van Cleve probably saw it and started to produce many paintings on this subject in his workshop in Antwerp. These works were so successful that over fifteen of them survive in different collections in Europe, and constitute a good example of Flemish artists’ interest in Leonardo’s art.

Qualche riflessione a proposito della diffusione del saper leggere e scrivere tra gli artigiani, veicolato dall’approdo della lingua volgare nella letteratura e quindi della scrittura alla colombara (Ginzburg). Dalla fine del XIII secolo, e a maggior ragione fra Tre e Quattrocento, gli artigiani delle città italiane non soltanto registravano per iscritto i loro affari ma iniziarono anche a elaborare opere originali (cronache, diari ecc.). Le tracce delle loro scritture sono tuttavia ancora scarse per alcune regioni italiane, tranne che per la Toscana, a causa della difficoltà di reperimento tra i fondi archivistici. La documentazione conservata presso l’Archivio di Stato di Milano consente tuttavia di svolgere qualche considerazione a proposito dell’uso del volgare da parte di un segmento artigianale specifico, cioè quello dei pittori attivi in città fra Quattro e Cinquecento.

Recensione alla Mostra: Raffaello (1520-1483), Roma, Scuderie del Quirinale, 5 marzo-2 giugno 2020. Ante lockdown COVID-19

La sezione monografica intende esplorare quella che appare come una rilevante novità nei discorsi politici praticati nell’Italia bassomedievale, vale a dire la propensione – diffusa a vari livelli della società – a naturalizzare specifici rapporti politici e identità sociali. I diversi interventi focalizzano i vari contesti in cui questi motivi si precisano: la discussione dello statuto artificiale della natura nella dottrina giuridica (S. Menzinger); l’identità nobiliare (F. Del Tredici); l’appartenenza di partito (M. Gentile); le rappresentazioni del potere principesco (F. Cengarle); la condizione di suddito (M. Della Misericordia, L. Arcangeli).

Il testo intende discutere le prospettive di ricerca da cui si può considerare una rilevante novità nei discorsi politici praticati nell’Italia bassomedievale, vale a dire la propensione – diffusa a vari livelli della società – a naturalizzare specifici rapporti politici e identità sociali. Se infatti nei regimi popolari duecenteschi sembra prevalente una nozione convenzionalistica del poli- tico (potremmo dire altrimenti discorsiva o procedurale), e una forte ostilità nei confronti di posizioni innate di dominio e privilegio, nell’Italia del Tre e Quattrocento paiono avanzare in modo significativo delle retoriche che invocano in maniera inedita la “natura” come fondamen- to dell’appartenenza a determinate comunità politiche o corpi sociali. L’affermazione di queste nuove retoriche sancisce processi di esclusione, e si accompagna a nuove stabilizzazioni del po- tere, a dimostrazione dell’interesse che potevano avere per esse i detentori del potere politico; ma non pare linguaggio estraneo ai governati, a volte disposti tanto quanto i governanti a natu- ralizzare il panorama politico-sociale circostante, e la propria stessa condizione.

La tesi dell’articolo è che nella Lombardia sforzesca, nel corso del Quattrocento, sia cresciuta l’attenzione per la classificazione etnica dei luoghi e delle persone: denominazioni nazionali, impiegate non di rado in modo neutro ma presto con un’esasperazione dei tratti negativi, associati a uno stato di barbarie, ricorrono nel carteggio di stato. Questo lessico proietta così la relazione politica su uno sfondo dal carattere non solo consuetudinario, ma naturale, perché per natura la persona apparteneva a quella che si denominava una natione e perché sempre dalla natura si facevano derivare le caratteristiche salienti di quest’ultima. L’ipotesi è che tale mutamento sia connesso a processi culturali generali, ma soprattutto a decisive trasformazioni politiche intervenute nel XV secolo: il rafforzamento di un orizzonte diplomatico di scala italiana, con la costituzione della Lega italica, il deterioramento dei rapporti fra lo stato di Milano e i vici- ni svizzeri e grigioni, e, di particolare rilievo, le nuove strategie di legittimazione dell’autorità centrale mediante la riconfigurazione ideologica del rapporto di obbedienza, stabilizzando un potere sui sudditi tanto poco negoziabile quanto si vuole lo sia la natura.

The essay explores different aspects relating to the letters of Francesco Della Torre, secretary of the Bishop of Verona Gian Matteo Giberti, with the aim of better clarifying the modalities and peculiarities of his epistolary writing. Particular attention is devoted to Francesco’s letters published in sixteenth-century letter books, in order to investigate the actual degree of involvement of the author in publishing these texts. Even though letter anthologies recommended Della Torre’s works as models of «ben scrivere» and formal elegance, the tone and content of Della Torre’s private letters appear rather different compared to his published correspondence.

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Copyright of Reti Medievali is the property of Firenze University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

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The essay investigates an author, Fra' Giovanni Angelico, perhaps still not too understood in his vision of mysticism and beauty. The Dominican community experience seems to be the centre of inspiration for this Renaissance painter who transmits human events and the Gospel into the light of day. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the decisions and events that brought an important work of Spanish Renaissance architecture from Spain to the U.S.: the Vélez Blanco patio, today installed outside the entrance to the Thomas J. Watson Library at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Commissioned at the beginning of the 16th century by Pedro Fajardo y Chacón, the imposing structure was sold in 1904 by its legitimate owners to the dealer J. Goldberg. Subsequently, its marbles were shipped from Andalusia to Paris and, a few years later, to Manhattan, where it was installed in the Park Avenue house built by the banker George Blumenthal. Now, numerous new archival documents, together with unpublished photographs, allow us to accurately reconstruct the different phases of this complex history. In particular, they clarify the chronology of and the actors involved in the successive phases that brought the work across the Atlantic, up until it joined the collections of the Met during the Fourties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]