From the Vite or the Ritratti? Previously unknown portraits from Vasari’s Libro de’ Disegni

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Leonardo e «mag.° Antonio florentino». Cenni su codici vinciani perduti nel "Foglietto del Belvedere" dell’Archivio Pedretti

This paper proposes an unpublished manuscript from the Pedretti Foundation Archive in Lamporecchio for the attention of scholars of Leonardo da Vinci, it was entrusted to me by the illustrious Professor Carlo Pedretti, who, unfortunately, died recently. The analysis of this brief and enigmatic Foglietto del Belvedere shows not only the likely contact of Leonardo with «mag.° Antonio florentino» (pseudonym of the architect and engineer Antonio Marchesi da Settignano) at the Belvedere in Rome, between 1515 and 1516, but also the existence, in that context, of two lost Leonardo da Vinci treatises: the first, owned by «mag.° Antonio» himself, «trattava di acque e di volo di Homini (dealt with waters and Men who could fly)»; the second, «un libro de pictura (a book of painting)», belonged to a «ser Antonio (Mr. Antonio)» whose surname is illegible. Based of these elements, this study – far from being considered exhaustive – can be useful for a discussion with the scholars, despite the cryptic nature of the Foglietto; it could offer a new element within the complex mosaic of the diffusion of da Leonardo’s scientific, artistic and technical method during the Early Modern age. Thus, on the occasion of the Fifth Centenary after his death, we hope to give a new contribution to the history of the great scientist-artist’s thought

Lodovico Dolce e uma crítica às Vite de Giorgio Vasari

This paper considers some aspects that link the Dialogo della pittura intitolato l’Aretino (1557), of the Venetian man of letters Lodovico Dolce, to the work Le Vite de’ più eccellente architetti, pittori et scultori italiani, da Cimabue, insino a’ tempi nostri (1550), of the Florentine historian Giorgio Vasari. It seeks to demonstrate along its lines that Dolce’s work was based on theoretical concepts exposed in the Vite, while reverting them to his own arguments in order to exalt the Venetian Cinquecento painting as cultural heritage, by matching it with the Tosco-Roman art, and stressing the importance of Titian’s painting, which was absent in the first edition of Vasari’s work.Este artigo contempla alguns aspectos que ligam o Dialogo della pittura intitolato l´Aretino (1557), do Homem de Letras veneziano Lodovico Dolce, à obra do historiador Florentino, Giorgio Vasari, Le vitede´più eccellenti architetti, pittori et scultori italiani, da Cimabue, insino a´tempi nostri (1550). Procura-se demonstrar ao longo do texto que Dolce apoiou-se em conceitos teóricos expostos nas Vite, revertendo-os em seus próprios argumentos com o propósito de exaltar a pintura veneziana enquanto patrimônio cultural do Cinquecento, equiparando-a à arte da Tosco-romana, bem como buscou salientar a relevância da pintura de Ticiano, ausente da primeira edição da obra

Deconstructing the Doctrine of Disegno

The decades between 1540 and 1570 have seen the emergence, in Florence, of the idea that painting, sculpture, and architecture share fundamental characteristics because of their common dependency upon draftsmanship, or disegno. This conviction would have a considerable impact in the following decades and centuries, because of the influence the first public art school (the Florentine Accademia del Disegno, 1563) execised upon the whole academic movement. This article examines the positions held by three theorists who stood at the cradle of the “doctrine of disegno” regarding the position of architecture in the triad of the arts: Benedetto Varchi, Cosimo Bartoli, and Vincenzo Borghini. Regarding the problem of architecture, an important theoretical shift can be assessed. The article offers an explanation for this shift by situating the debate in the context of how, by then, the architectural profession was exerciced

Leonardo and «Mag.° Antonio Florentino». Evidence of Lost da Vinci Treatises in the Foglietto del Belvedere of the Pedretti Archive

This paper proposes to the attention of Leonardo scholars an This paper proposes an unpublished manuscript from the Pedretti Foundation Archive in Lamporecchio for the attention of scholars of Leonardo da Vinci entrusted to me by the illustrious Prof. Carlo Pedretti, who, unfortunately, died recently. The analysis of this brief and enigmatic Foglietto del Belvedere shows not only the likely contact of Leonardo with «mag.° Antonio florentino» (pseudonym of the architect and engineer Antonio Marchesi da Settignano) at the Belvedere in Rome, between 1515 and 1516, but also the existence, in that context, of two lost Leonardo da Vinci treatises: the first, owned by «mag.° Antonio» himself, «trattava di acque e di volo di Homini (dealt with waters and Men flight)»; the second, «un libro de pictura (a book of painting)», belonged to a «ser Antonio (Mr. Antonio)» whose surname is illegible. Based of these elements, this study – far from being considered exhaustive – can be useful for a discussion with the scholars, despite the cryptic nature of the Foglietto; it could offer a new element within the complex mosaic of the diffusion of Leonardo da Vinci’s scientific, artistic and technical method during the Early Modern age. Thus, on the occasion of the Fifth Centenary after his death, we hope to give a new contribution to the history of the great scientist-artist’s thought

Tanti modi per promuoversi. Artisti, dottori, letterati nella Roma del Seicento

The central idea of this book is that since the Renaissance and through the 17th and 18th centuries, a certain number of artists, scholars and members of the liberal professions struggled to construe themselves as "intellectual personae" endowed with distinct features that placed them in a distinct social rank. They did so individually and collectively, through theoretical writings and through practice, openly claiming for social recognition or more silently trying to attain it through their actions. I have borrowed the notion of “intellectual personae” from Lorrain Daston and Otto Sibum who in the introduction to a special issue of Science in Context spoke of a persona as “a cultural identity that simultaneously shapes the individual in body and mind and creates a collective with a shared and recognized physiognomy”. But while Daston and Sibum were primarily interested in the cultural aspects of this phenomenon, as they considered the fashioning of the scientific personae within the context of the history of science, I would rather focus on its socio-economic and political features within the context of the history of the Ancien regime, i. e. a hierarchical society, strongly characterized by ascribed status. By intellectual personae I thus refer to people exercising very different activities – as I said artists, scholars, lawyers, medicine doctors – and yet sharing a common feature: they were all exercising “intellectual” or “cultivated” professions and providing “cultural” services or goods. And they all pretended that this special quality of their activities placed them in a separate rank: if they did not belong to the titled nobility, they certainly were not members of the laboring ranks of the society