Medieval English Alabaster Sculptures: Trade and Diffusion in the Italian Peninsula

In 1382 Cosmato Gentili, Pope Urban VI’s representative in England, got an export license for three large alabaster carvings to be shipped to Rome from the city port of Southampton. This is the first evidence which attests the trade of English alabaster sculptures in Italy. Although only few similar documents survive, the spread of these works of art in Italy is proved by the great amount of existing pieces. Indeed, with more than 40 carvings held in Italy, the Peninsula should be considered among the eagest purchasers of alabasters in Europe. Through a careful investigation of the carvings kept in different Italian regions this essay aims to trace the diffusion of these artworks in the Peninsula. Some unpublished or neglected carvings are here discussed for the first time, and some scattered panels are here recomposed together as part in origin of the same altarpiece

Pittura e contesto. Guariento

The thesis, entitled “Pittura e contesto. Guariento”, is devoted to the Paduan painter Guariento di Arpo. Born around 1310, and dead before 1370, the painter is widely known because of the artworks he did for the Carraresi, and in particular the private chapel he painted inside their palace. Since he was an esteemed and much valued painter, his fame soon extended over the city boundaries, and he was involved in other important patrons' commissions. Indeed, the Rossi-Botsch wanted him to paint their funerary chapel inside the Dominican church of Bolzano, and later the Dogi called him in Venice to paint the funerary monument of Giovanni Dolfin, and the huge Coronation of the Virgin in the Sala del Maggior Consiglio in Palazzo Ducale. Guariento worked a lot in his native city as well; the Eremitani, in particular, commissioned him two chapels inside their church. Furthermore, Guariento painted several altarpieces, which are now mainly scattered and kept in Museums and private collections all over the world. Despite the fact that many ancient sources underlined the high quality and the innovative character of his paintings, modern scholars tend to underestimate his works. The fact that his most important works are partially or totally destroied, and the ambiguity of his style, has caused an evident misunderstanding of his paintings. Indeed, his models are yet to be identified properly, and the development of his style has been too strictly connected to other artistic schools, as if we were just a passive imitator. Through a new analisys of his paintings, of the sources, and of the historical context in which the painter lived and worked, this research rearranges Guariento's entire artistic development. The thesis consists in four chapters, which are followed by the usual devices, the historical documents and the catalogue of the paintings. The first chapter is devoted to the critical reception: the opinions that ancient and modern scholars gave of Guariento's works are analyzed within the wider historical and cultural context in which they were expressed. The second chapter is focused on the stylistic evolution, which is analyzed starting from the first paintings, reconnected to the context of the giottesque Paduan workshops, to the last ones. Particular attention is also paid to the decorative and material aspects of the paintings, that have been totally ignored by scholars untill now. The third chapter is devoted to patrons; the important frescoes commissioned by the Carraresi, the Rossi-Botsch, the Eremitani and the Dogi are the main subjects of this chapter. These fragmentary paintings are ideally recomposed in their original aspect, relocated in their sites, and analyzed in their inner meaning, that is often connected to the glorification and celebration of their patron. Finally, the last chapter is devoted to panel paintings. Here their functions, typologies and provenances are taken into account

Sex difference and intra-operative tidal volume: Insights from the LAS VEGAS study

BACKGROUND: One key element of lung-protective ventilation is the use of a low tidal volume (VT). A sex difference in use of low tidal volume ventilation (LTVV) has been described in critically ill ICU patients.OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to determine whether a sex difference in use of LTVV also exists in operating room patients, and if present what factors drive this difference.DESIGN, PATIENTS AND SETTING: This is a posthoc analysis of LAS VEGAS, a 1-week worldwide observational study in adults requiring intra-operative ventilation during general anaesthesia for surgery in 146 hospitals in 29 countries.MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Women and men were compared with respect to use of LTVV, defined as VT of 8 ml kg-1 or less predicted bodyweight (PBW). A VT was deemed 'default' if the set VT was a round number. A mediation analysis assessed which factors may explain the sex difference in use of LTVV during intra-operative ventilation.RESULTS: This analysis includes 9864 patients, of whom 5425 (55%) were women. A default VT was often set, both in women and men; mode VT was 500 ml. Median [IQR] VT was higher in women than in men (8.6 [7.7 to 9.6] vs. 7.6 [6.8 to 8.4] ml kg-1 PBW, P < 0.001). Compared with men, women were twice as likely not to receive LTVV [68.8 vs. 36.0%; relative risk ratio 2.1 (95% CI 1.9 to 2.1), P < 0.001]. In the mediation analysis, patients' height and actual body weight (ABW) explained 81 and 18% of the sex difference in use of LTVV, respectively; it was not explained by the use of a default VT.CONCLUSION: In this worldwide cohort of patients receiving intra-operative ventilation during general anaesthesia for surgery, women received a higher VT than men during intra-operative ventilation. The risk for a female not to receive LTVV during surgery was double that of males. Height and ABW were the two mediators of the sex difference in use of LTVV.TRIAL REGISTRATION: The study was registered at Clinicaltrials.gov, NCT01601223

"Angelo che pesa le anime (Dominazione?)", cat. 55

La scheda discute una tavola con la raffigurazione di un Angelo che pesa le anime (Dominazione?) dipinta da Guariento per il soffitto della cappella carrarese di Padova attorno al 1354 ed entrata a far parte della collezione privata di Tommaso degli Obizzi nel XIX secolo. Il dipinto \ue8 analizzato dal punto di vista di vista stilistico, iconografico, e funzionale; \ue8 inoltre ricostruita la sua vicenda collezionistica

Padova e Aquileia. Per un riesame dei cicli dipinti nella reggia carrarese all\u2019epoca di Francesco Novello

This essay explores previously neglected aspects of the Patriarchate of Aquileia. Indeed, rather than focusing on the religious features of the Patriarchate, it examines the role of the Patriarchs as feudal lords and the crucial part they played during the Trecento in the fights between the Guelphs and the Ghibellins. It tackles this issue from an unconventional perspective, i.e. the relationship between the Patriarchs and other feudal lords in Italy, namely the Da Carrara, lords of Padua. By exploring political strategies of the Da Carrara, and the actions they undertook to both protect the Patriarchate against its enemies and to extend their power and dominion on the Aquileian territory, this essay recovers a sense of the transnational, political relevance that the Patriarchate once enjoyed. In addition, it sheds new light on the frescoes that once adorned the Reggia of the Da Carrara in Padua, proposing a new reading of the episodes painted in the Sala delle Brentelle, hence considering visual culture as a means to express political concerns and propaganda, while also recovering a sense of the importance that now scarcely considered historical events had in the past

Il "podium" della pieve di Santa Giustina a Monselice nella descrizione del vescovo Pietro Barozzi

L'articolo propone l'analisi e l'ideale ricostruzione del tramezzo che divideva la Pieve di Monselice fino al XVI secolo. Fonti storiche, e soprattutto il dettagliato resoconto della visita pastorale effettuata dal vescovo di Padova Pietro Barozzi nel 1489, e indizi materiali, in particolare le tracce lasciate sulla muratura della navata della chiesa dal tramezzo l\uec addossato, consentono di ricostruire con buona precisione la consistenza originaria di tale struttura divisoria

Leather manufacturing and circulating models in the Middle Ages: from a Byzantine patena in Halberstadt to a Veneto-Cretan Icon in Ljubljana

L\u2019articolo \ue8 dedicato alla circolazione di idee, modelli, prototipi figurativi e tipologici in contesto mediterraneo, fra Bisanzio, la Germania e Venezia. A partire da una patena bizantina conservata presso il Tesoro della Cattedrale di Halberstadt, l\uec pervenuta dopo la IV Crociata, lo studio ricostruisce una trama assai fitta di rapporti interculturali sulla lunga distanza e in un arco cronologico piuttosto dilatato, sulla base delle molte riprese (in alcuni casi vere e proprie copie) del modello bizantino originale

Guariento. Pittore di corte, maestro del naturale

Erede della tradizione giottesca, Guariento di Arpo (1310 ca. - 1367/1370) fu l\u2019interprete pi\uf9 sensibile del gotico cortese a Padova. La sua pittura, densa di personaggi e di dettagli realistici minuziosamente indagati, impreziosita dall\u2019oro e dalla brillante cromia, si articola sullo sfondo di spazi accertati per via prospettica e di solide architetture costruite con rigorosa geometria. Primo pittore di corte dell\u2019Italia padana, Guariento fu artista prediletto dei Carraresi, e si aggiudic\uf2 inoltre il favore dei dogi veneziani, dei principali ordini religiosi, e di numerosi committenti che, fino a Bolzano, gli affidarono prestigiosi incarichi. La sua fisionomia artistica \ue8 stata spesso sottostimata dalla critica, che, confusa dal suo linguaggio in bilico fra naturalismo padano e preziosismi gotici di matrice oltralpina e veneziana, e disorientata dalla distruzione di alcuni dei suoi cicli pittorici pi\uf9 importanti, ne ha frainteso la pi\uf9 autentica natura. Si \ue8 scelto, dunque, di dedicare a Guariento un nuovo lavoro a carattere monografico, condotto con approcci differenziati e attento inoltre al contesto storico e culturale in cui il pittore visse e oper\uf2. I dipinti, presentati con il supporto di un ricco apparato fotografico e di ricostruzioni grafiche che restituiscono i complessi smembrati o distrutti, vengono letti in rapporto all\u2019ambiente fecondo della Padova carrarese, dove i frequenti dialoghi fra gli artisti e gli intellettuali attivi presso la corte e lo Studium cittadino sfociarono in pitture colte e cariche di significati encomiastici, similmente a quanto si verific\uf2 in Laguna sotto l\u2019occhio esigente dei dogi. L\u2019intera parabola artistica di Guariento \ue8 qui ripercorsa con nuovi criteri, e vasto spazio \ue8 dedicato a tematiche finora trascurate quali le sofisticate manipolazioni spaziali a cui il pittore sottopose le sue composizioni, le lavorazioni della foglia d\u2019oro e degli inserti polimaterici di tavole e affreschi, le tipologie, le funzioni e gli originari assetti di pale d\u2019altare o di opere per la devozione individuale. Il libro si apre dunque in pi\uf9 direzioni, nella consapevolezza che solo un approccio di questo tipo pu\uf2 restituire la figura di un artista versatile e sfaccettato quale fu Guariento di Arpo. Vuole inoltre essere un invito ad avvicinarsi ad un intero ambiente, quello della Padova carrarese, che costitu\uec lo sfondo culturale e sociale entro cui la pittura elegante di Guariento trov\uf2 terreno fertile per svilupparsi e fiorire