Antiquarianism

The aim of this entry is to provide a definition for Renaissance antiquarianism as a cultural phenomenon that influenced the way the past was interpreted between the fourteenth and seventeenth centuries. This cultural pathway represented a methodological perspective which involved the cross-referencing of heterogeneous sources, strongly linked to mankind’s perception of time, and which helped to shape historical consciousness. The focus then turns to the history of the phenomenon and an explanation of its methodology

Between Renaissance and Reformation: Grotesques and the Debate on Images

This collection offers a set of new readings on the history, meanings, and cultural innovations of the grotesque as defined by various current critical theories and practices. Since the grotesque frequently manifests itself as striking incongruities, ingenious hybrids, and creative deformities of nature and culture, it is profoundly implicated in early modern debates on the theological, philosophical, and ethical role of images. This consideration serves as the central focus from which the articles in the collection then move outward along different lines of conceptualization, chronology, cultural relevance, place, and site. They cover a wide spectrum of artistic media, from prints to drawings, from sculptures to gardens, from paintings to stuccos. As they do this, they engage with, and bring together, theoretical perspectives from writers as diverse as Plato and Paleotti, Vitruvius and Vasari, Molanus and Montaigne. Whether travelling a short distance from Nero’s Domus Aurea to Raphael’s Vatican logge, or across the ocean from Italy to New Spain, this volume goes further than any previous study in defining the historic understanding of grotesque and, in so doing, providing us with a more nuanced resource for our understanding of an art form once viewed as peripheral

Notes on a Renaissance Bestiary by Ulisse Aldrovandi

A unique codex in the University of Bologna, crafted as a single monographic volume, transmits an extremely interesting treatise by the naturalist and antiquary Ulisse Aldrovandi (1522–1605). Entitled Discorso sopra alcuni animali quadrupedi per i quali si possono esprimere i 7 peccati capitali, literally ‘discourse about those animals through which it is possible to [symbolically] express the seven mortal sins,’ it was completed, according to an earlier copy (bub Aldrov. 91, cc. 472r–482v), on 12 August 1578. The work was dedicated to Alessandro degli Orsi, a nobleman of the city and infantry commander in Hungary, who was honored in 1585 with the gran croce. This article suggests a reconstruction of lost decorations in one of the Orsi family mansions, either the Palazzo Orsi or the Villa Orsi. It also considers the moral implications of virtues versus vice represented by four-legged animals

Paradigms of Renaissance Grotesques

This collection offers a set of new readings on the history, meanings, and cultural innovations of the grotesque as defined by various current critical theories and practices. Since the grotesque frequently manifests itself as striking incongruities, ingenious hybrids, and creative deformities of nature and culture, it is profoundly implicated in early modern debates on the theological, philosophical, and ethical role of images. This consideration serves as the central focus from which the articles in the collection then move outward along different lines of conceptualization, chronology, cultural relevance, place, and site. They cover a wide spectrum of artistic media, from prints to drawings, from sculptures to gardens, from paintings to stuccos. As they do this, they engage with, and bring together, theoretical perspectives from writers as diverse as Plato and Paleotti, Vitruvius and Vasari, Molanus and Montaigne. Whether travelling a short distance from Nero’s Domus Aurea to Raphael’s Vatican logge, or across the ocean from Italy to New Spain, this volume goes further than any previous study in defining the historic understanding of grotesque and, in so doing, providing us with a more nuanced resource for our understanding of an art form once viewed as peripheral

Atlas of Renaissance Antiquarianism

Renaissance antiquarianism can be defined as a cultural phenomenon that aims to interpret the past by cross-referencing heterogeneous sources accumulated and collected over time. This entailed the use of new investigative techniques which involved combining literary sources and material findings to provide a reliable foundation for the idea of history. Atlas of Renaissance Antiquarianism, moving along different lines of theoretical and practical conceptualisation, declines the matters according to a plethora of different disciplines: philology, iconology, numismatics, epigraphy, chronology, conviviality, art, and fashion. The purpose of this manyfold investigation is to demonstrate how the antiquarian approach – that based the growth of thought on documented sources and empirical evidence – represented a methodological perspective capable to influence the way the past was viewed through a critical analysis of sources

ATRA - Atlas of Renaissance Antiquarianism

ATRA – Atlas of Renaissance Antiquarianism is a digital system that maps the circulation of antiquarian learning in Renaissance Europe. Its purpose is to contribute to the promotion of new knowledge on antiquarian studies in the Renaissance and demonstrate how the antiquarian approach – that based the growth of thought on documented sources and empirical evidence – played a primary role in the evolution of the entire cultural/intellectual life of Early Modern times

The Key in the Hand: Features of Birth in the Renaissance Imagery of Lucina

The purpose of this study is to analyse the complex development of the key as an unusual attribute of Lucina in Renaissance iconography, which appears to have been influenced by several semantic fields and emerged as a visible phenomenon of a deeper cultural dynamic. The works of artists such as Jacopo Zucchi, Lorenzo Lotto, and Raphael, together with the mythographic treatises of antiquarian scholars such as Lilio Gregorio Giraldi, Giovanni Pierio Valeriano, Vincenzo Cartari and Baccio Baldini, will be examined for the purpose of retracing all aspects of this evolutionary path. What emerges is new material concerning the different perspectives on Lucina during the sixteenth century, including new symbolic readings derived from the philological and textual interpretations that influenced the iconographic building method of that time

The Renaissance editions of Festus: Fulvio Orsini's version

During the Renaissance, with the rediscovery of the Codex Farnesianus, a new philological and editorial interest in Festus' De verborum significatione arose. Many famous scholars of the 15th and 16th century, inter alios Angelo Poliziano, Aldo Manuzio, Piero Vettori, Antonio Agustin and Joseph Scaliger, studied and published this work, focusing on various aspects of its tradition. A substantial watershed occurred around 1580 when Fulvio Orsini decided to propose a new edition of Festus: from a methodological perspective, this work emerged as a revolutionary text with the potential to modify our perception of its history, since it considered the Farnesianus as the central ecdotic element. The aim of this contribution is to retrace the pathway followed by Orsini in arranging his text, considering its complex transmission and showing the impact of its innovations and its controversial literary fortunes

The Renaissance Nomenclature of the Fasti Consulares

In 1546 one of the most important archaeological discoveries of the Renaissance took place, the so-called Fasti consulares, panels upon which were engraved the succession of Roman magistrates. These epigraphs were named in several ways, reflecting how they were understood by the scholarly community and what their reception would be, given the growing sensitivity to artefacts from antiquity. Their nomenclature was problematic from the very beginning. Only the thorough cross-referencing of textual and material sources could provide a term which eventually expressed their real essence. The purpose of this study is to reconstruct the phases that brought this find to acquire the denomination of fasti in early modern times, and to discover what precisely contributed to this choice

Lettere sulle grottesche (1580-1581)

Sul finire del Cinquecento le grottesche registrarono una tangibile riforma dello stile. Questo genere decorativo era infatti stato per decenni oggetto di discussione da parte di umanisti e artisti, al fine di sondarne l’ammissibilità e collocarlo nei più ampi schemi della pittura moderna. Il libro accresce l’apparato di fonti a riguardo, pubblicando un nucleo epistolografico inedito proveniente dal circolo di Gabriele Paleotti e conservato a Bologna presso l’Archivio Isolani e la Biblioteca Universitaria: tra le voci più significative, Ulisse Aldrovandi, Pirro Ligorio e Egnazio Danti. Di qui si schiudono ulteriori dinamiche sviluppatesi nel tardo Rinascimento circa queste pitture