Italian Renaissance Courts: Art, Pleasure and Power

257 Pages·2016·13.11 MB·English

by  Alison Cole

Italian
Renaissance
Courts:
Art, Pleasure
and Power
Alison Cole

Italian
Renaissance
Courts:
Art, Pleasure
and Power
Alison Cole
Laurence King Publishing
Genealogies
To download genealogies for each chapter,
go to: www.laurenceking.com/en/italiancourts
and click on the Associated Materials tab.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank the following people for their help
and encouragement: my sons Jay and Louis, and my
shipmate Horacio, who have patiently supported my
endeavours; Sharon Fermor and Mary Stewart for their
consistent belief in my ideas; and my brother, Sam, and
Barbara Ricci for their valuable Italian perspective. I am
also indebted to my copy editor Caroline Bugler, to the
expert team at Laurence King, and to my academic
readers past and present. I would like to dedicate this
book to the memory of my late husband Keith Shadwick,
who gave me the space to write.
Published in 2016 by
Laurence King Publishing Ltd
361–373 City Road
London EC1V 1LR
e-mail: [email protected]
www.laurenceking.com
© text 2016 Alison Cole
Alison Cole has asserted her right under the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988,
to be identifi ed as the author of this work.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication
may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or
by any means, electronic or mechanical, including
photocopy, recording or any information storage
and retrieval system, without prior permission
in writing from the publisher.
A catalogue record for this book is available from
the British Library.
ISBN: 978-1-78067-740-8
Series and cover design by Pentagram
Design: Geoff Fennell
Cover: Andrea Mantegna, Parnassus
Frontispiece: Francesco Laurana,
Bust of Isabella of Aragon (?)
This page: Justus of Ghent / Pedro Berruguete (?),
Portrait of Federico da Montefeltro and his
Son Guidobaldo
Printed in China
Contents
Preface
6
Introduction

T e Fif eenth-Century Renaissance Court
10
1

Art and Princely ‘Magnif cence’
30
2
T e Court Artist
58
3
Piety and Propaganda:
Naples under Alfonso of Aragon
80
4
Arms and Letters:
Urbino under Federico da Montefeltro
106
5
Varieties of Pleasure: Este Ferrara
134
6
T e Art of Diplomacy:
Mantua and the Gonzaga
164
7
Local Expertise and Foreign Talent:
Milan and Pavia under Ludovico ‘Il Moro’
200
Epilogue

A Grander Stage
232
BIBLIOGRAPHY 250
INDEX 252
PICTURE CREDITS 256

Preface
O
Fig. 1
ver the centuries, art historical studies of the f f- Benedetto and Bonifacio
teenth-century Italian Renaissance – taking their Bembo (?)
Vault of the Golden Room
cue from Giorgio Vasari’s famously Tuscan-cen-
tric Lives of the Artists (1550/68) – have tended ca. 1460. Fresco. Castle of
Torrechiara, Emilia-Romagna.
to focus on the precocious talent, individualism
and innovation of Medici Florence, followed by The lord’s castles, dotted
throughout his territories,
the mature f owering of the arts in Rome and Venice around 1500.
provide a ready image of
T e ancient Roman republican ideal of a political state, built on the formidable princely power.
Here, on the vault of Lord
civilizing principles of human dignity, rights, representation and
Pier Maria Rossi’s castle
liberty, appealed particularly to nineteenth-century Italian and Ger- of Torrechiara, the castles
straddling the mountain
man historians, who viewed the republics of Florence and Venice as
peaks are depicted, each
the cradles of the liberal, Western-style modern state. On the other appearing at the correct
hand, the Italian city-states controlled by signorie (despotic lords) compass point in relation
to Torrechiara itself.
were of en regarded as centres of oppression, quixotic brilliance and Those occupying the lower
ground are depicted in the
delicious depravity, moulded in the image of the tyrants who ruled
wainscoting of the room –
them. T ese were places where a lord like Sigismondo Malatesta of the distinction represents
their different strategic
Rimini (fig. 2) – famed for his brutality and obsessive love for Isotta
locations and purposes.
degli Atti – could be summarily consigned by the pope to Hell.
In the last 50 years, however, the art of the other city-states
has emerged strongly from the shadows, and there have been a num-
ber of scholarly publications focusing on Italy’s princely centres –
Preface
6 | 7
particularly the northern courts and their varied, splendid and dis-
tinctive cultures (such as Werner Gundersheimer’s 1973 landmark
study of the court of Ferrara, and Evelyn Welch’s 1996 authoritative
portrait of Milan). T ese studies have helped place the remarkable
achievements of the so-called Renaissance period (which now usu-
ally embraces the years between 1300 and 1600) in a much richer,
more nuanced and rather less orderly context. Key texts are noted in
the bibliography.
T anks to the ever widening perspective of Italian Renais-
sance court scholarship – which now encompasses Europe and
beyond – and the incisive focus of some def nitive monographs on
individual artists associated with the courts (Stephen Campbell’s
examination of the Ferrarese Cosmè Tura is a stimulating exam-
ple), the f f eenth century is no longer characterized as a moment of
miraculous transition to a new ‘modern’ style – a notion that usu-
ally takes its cue from the astonishing advances made in painting,
sculpture and architecture in Florence around the 1410s and 1420s
(focusing on the achievements of Lorenzo Ghiberti, Donatello, Bru-
nelleschi, Masaccio and Alberti). Nor is the Florentine style, with
its mastery of central perspective and rilievo (the ability to model
things in the round in light and shade), antique-inspired natural-
ism and sculptural monumentality, now regarded as the dominant
aesthetic of the time. While Florence developed a school of superbly
accomplished native artists (many initially trained as goldsmiths)
and exported their cultural expertise to other centres as part of a
sophisticated package of inf uence, the other city-states enthusiasti-
cally cultivated and developed vibrant alternative aesthetics of their
own, looking particularly to the great courts of Paris, Burgundy and
Bruges for their inspiration.
In late medieval writings, the idea of rinascità (rebirth) def ned
a movement rather than a period, focusing on the revival of classi-
cal learning and an exhilarating sense of renewed human potential
in the moral, political and creative spheres. T is revival, which is
generally embodied by the great Tuscan poet Petrarch (1304–1374)
and his passion and hunt for lost ancient texts, gathered pace in the
f f eenth century, nurtured by princes and popes as well as doges,
merchants, bankers and clerics. Yet it sits side by side with an equally
compelling range of cultural inf uences, ranging from early impe-
rial Byzantine iconographic traditions to medieval chivalric culture,
and embraces the full range of artistic production: the period prized
the arts of tapestry, illuminated manuscripts, ivories, engraved plate
and jewellery, as much as – if not more than – sculpture and paint-
ing. Scholars now characterize the f f eenth century as a period of
Fig. 2
Agostino di Duccio
Portrait of Sigismondo
Pandolfo Malatesta
(supported by elephants)
ca. 1449–55. Marble. Tempio
Malatestiano, Rimini.
This triumphal portrait of
Sigismondo is part of the
lavish decoration of the
temple he built (see Fig. 26
and Fig. 27) that was to
serve as a mausoleum for
himself and his beloved
Isotta (who was to become
his third wife). Crowned
with laurel, and encircled
by the laurel wreath of
fame, Sigismondo is shown
in striking imperial
profi le (echoing the tondo
portraits decorating
Rimini’s Roman Arch of
Augustus). Sigismondo’s
image, forming the base of
pilasters, is supported by
a pair of elephants: the
elephant was a favourite
Malatesta device and appears
on both Sigismondo’s and
Isotta’s medals as a symbol
of Fortitude and Fame, and
Piety and Chastity.
imaginative continuity as well as rediscovery and innovation, and
one that is as keenly preoccupied with sacred ritual, dynastic tra-
ditions, international exchange, corporate elitism and aristocratic
ideals, as with the potent legacy of ancient Greece and Rome. It is
the mix of these inf uences, fuelled by an atmosphere of political tur-
bulence, a remarkable rate of social change (af ecting almost every
social value), and a thirst for accelerated progress, that makes this
period in Italy’s cultural development so ‘supercharged’.
Preface
8 | 9