Course teached as: B006313 - STORIA DELL'ARTE MEDIEVALE (MINIATURA) Second Cycle Degree in HISTORY OF ART
Teaching Language
Italian
Course Content
The course is in two modules: A) Fundamentals of History of Medieval Illumination (12 September - 14 October 2022); B) For another Florence: the miniaturist tendency between historiography and philology. Miniaturist tendency is the definition suggested by Richard Offner to indicate a tendency in Florentine painting alternative to that of the painting of Giotto and his followers. The course aims to verify the relevance of this definition through the study of some exemplary cases.
Modulo A:O. Pächt, La miniatura medioevale, Torino, 1987 (o ristampe successive), pp. 45-95 (L’iniziale), 129-153 (L'illustrazione della Bibbia) (ed. or. in lingua tedesca O. Pächt, Buchmalerei des Mittelalters. Eine Einführung, a cura di D. Thoss e U. Jenni, München 1984).
G. Zanichelli, I soggetti dei libri liturgici miniati (VI-XIII), in L’arte medievale nel contesto (300-1300), a cura di P. Piva, A. Cadei, Milano, 2006, pp. 245-276.
J. Alexander, I miniatori medievali e il loro metodo di lavoro, Modena 2003 (ed. inglese London 1992), pp. 55-81, 111-173.
Modulo B:-M. Boskovits, A Critical and Historical Corpus of Florentine Painting. The Painters of the miniaturist tendency, sec. III, vol. IX, Firenze 1984.
-A.Spagnesi, Appunti sui codici miniati che riportano la versione toscana della “Somme le Roi” di Zucchero Bencivenni, in Il codice miniato, Atti del Congresso di Storia della Miniatura Italiana 1988, Cortona, a cura di M. Ceccanti e M. C. Castelli, Firenze 1992, pp. 337-362.
-M. Ciatti, Le miniature dei “Regia Carmina”, in “Itinerari”, 6, 1993, pp. 9-18.
-M. G. Ciardi Duprè Dal Poggetto, Nuove ipotesi di lavoro scaturite dal rapporto testo - immagine nel "Tesoretto" di Brunetto Latini, in “Rivista di storia della miniatura”, 1-2, 1996-1997, pp. 89-98.
-Florence at the Dawn of the Renaissance. Painting and ---Illumination 1300-1350, exhibition catalogue edited by C. Sciacca, Los Angeles 2012.
-Officiolum di Francesco da Barberino: commentario all’edizione in fac-simile, Roma 2016.
- “Onorevole e antico cittadino di Firenze”. Il Bargello per Dante, catalogo della mostra a cura di L. Azzetta, S. Chiodo, T. De Robertis, Firenze 2021.
Learning Objectives
The course aims to introduce students to the medieval and Renaissance book illumination (Module A) and to improve knowledge and understanding on a fundamental period of the Italian history of art (Modulo B), developing at the same time skills in making personal judgements and communication.
Prerequisites
None
Teaching Methods
The course contents will be presented in lectures, accompanied by Power Point presentations. The exam program will be supplemented by readings intended to be analyzed independently by the students and which will be discussed during the final test.
Further information
Students reception: Friday 14-17.
Type of Assessment
oral exam
Course program
“Miniaturist tendency” is the definition suggested by Richard Offner to indicate a tendency in Florentine painting alternative to that of Giotto and his followers. As an alternative to the stately, monumental, spacious language of Giotto and his pupils, the artists of the “miniaturist tendency” would be more attentive to detail, prone to a meticulous narrative up to the description of the everyday. At the origin of this tendency, the scholar placed the author of the panel with Saint Cecilia and stories from his life in the Gallerie degli Uffizi, but also the first and last three stories of the Franciscan cycle of Assisi. Offner did not believe that the main painter of the Assisi frescoes was Giotto, but now that Giotto's authorship of Franciscan stories is recognized by all, the paradox on which this historical reconstruction is based is evident. Does using the critical category of "miniaturist tendency" as defined by Offner, therefore, still make sense or is it necessary at least to redefine it?
In an attempt to overcome the contradictions and reconstruct a more articulated and historically founded context, the course deals with some exemplary case studies relating to the period between 1295 and 1342, i.e. between the beginning of the government of the Arts and the expulsion of the Duke of Athens . In these decades, which coincide with the activity of Giotto and his direct followers in Florence, the first generation of painters of the “miniaturist tendency” is active: the Master of Santa Cecilia (alias Gaddo Gaddi), the Master of the Corsi crucifix, the Daddesque Master, and then Pacino di Bonaguida, the Master of the Dominican Effigies, the most mysterious Master of the Codex of San Giorgio. Their works in some cases flank those of Giotto and his pupils in Florentine churches, in others they carve out their own exclusive space in the book illustration, to which Giotto and his family seem to have remained extraneous, which opens a glimpse into contemporary literary production and reveals a dialogue still to be reconstructed between these "minor" artists and leading intellectuals - Francesco da Barberino, ser Zucchero Bencivenni, the commentators of Dante's Comedy, Convenevole da Prato, Giovanni Boccaccio - who chose them as their privileged interlocutors. Another Florence is revealed, the work of art is a multimedia object, made up of words and images, perhaps also of collective reading, the expression of a dialogue between artists, intellectuals, men of law and of the church, not a secondary counterpart or " minor ”to the monumental cycles and the panels painted by Giotto and his team.
Topics
• The Golden Legend displayed in the works of the Master of Santa Cecilia (alias Gaddo Gaddi?). Santa Cecilia and stories from her life, Firenze, Gallerie degli Uffizi; Santa Margherita and stories from her life, Montici, Santa Margherita.
• From France to Tuscany. The “Somme le Roi” in the vulgarization of ser Zucchero Bencivenni: illustrators, models and adaptations (Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Redi 102; Vatican City, Barb. Lat. 3968).
• Francesco da Barberino. The Documenti d’amore and a proposal for the Master of the Corsi Crucifix. The Uffiziolo and a in-depth analysis on the first visualization of Dante Alighieri's Commedia.
• Pacino di Bonaguida's illustration between poetry and rhetoric: the Regia Carmina by Convenevole da Prato.
Bibliografia di riferimento
M. Boskovits, A Critical and Historical Corpus of Florentine Painting. The Painters of the miniaturist tendency, sec. III, vol. IX, Firenze 1984.
A.Spagnesi, Appunti sui codici miniati che riportano la versione toscana della “Somme le Roi” di Zucchero Bencivenni, in Il codice miniato, Atti del Congresso di Storia della Miniatura Italiana 1988, Cortona, a cura di M. Ceccanti e M. C. Castelli, Firenze 1992, pp. 337-362.
M. Ciatti, Le miniature dei “Regia Carmina”, in “Itinerari”, 6, 1993, pp. 9-18.
M. G. Ciardi Duprè Dal Poggetto, Nuove ipotesi di lavoro scaturite dal rapporto testo - immagine nel "Tesoretto" di Brunetto Latini, in “Rivista di storia della miniatura”, 1-2, 1996-1997, pp. 89-98.
Florence at the Dawn of the Renaissance. Painting and Illumination 1300-1350, exhibition catalogue edited by C. Sciacca, Los Angeles 2012.
Officiolum di Francesco da Barberino: commentario all’edizione in fac-simile, Roma 2016.
“Onorevole e antico cittadino di Firenze”. Il Bargello per Dante, catalogo della mostra a cura di L. Azzetta, S. Chiodo, T. De Robertis, Firenze 2021.
Altra bibliografia
Su la Somme le Roi
B. Cosnet, La transmission de l’iconographie des vertus dans les manuscrits italiens du 14e siècle : la réinvention de la "Somme le roi", in “Re-inventing traditions”, a cura di J. C. Heyer, C. Seidel, Frankfurt am Main, 2015, pp. 33-47.
Su Francesco da Barberino.
V. Nardi, Le illustrazioni dei “Documenti d’amore” di Francesco da Barberino, in “Ricerche di storia dell’arte”, 49, 1993, pp. 75-92.
G. Freni, From terrific death to the angel’s care: the program of the tomb of Antonio d’Orso and Francesco da Barberino, in “Marburger Jahrbuch für Kunstwissenschaft”, 36, 2009, pp. 7-32.
M. Ciccuto, Francesco da Barberino: un pioniere del "Bildercodex" tra forme del gotico cortese e icone della civiltà comunale, in “Letteratura & Arte”, 9, 2011, pp. 83-95.
G. Mariani Canova, Francesco da Barberino e Dante: due mondi a confronto, in Intorno a Dante, a cura di L. Azzetta e A. Mazzucchi, Roma 2018, pp. 241-269.
Francesco da Barberino al crocevia, a cura di S. Bischetti, Berlin – Boston 2021.
Sui Regia Carmina di Convenevole da Prato.
C. Grassi, Regia carmina: introduzione, testo critico, traduzione e commento, Cinisello Balsamo 1982.
A. Tomei, I Regia Carmina dedicati a Roberto d’Angiò nella British Library di Londra: un manoscritto tra Italia e Provenza, in “Arte medievale”, 4 serie, anno 6, 2016, pp. 201-212.
C. Smout, Sprechen in Bildern - Sprechen über Bilder: die allegorischen Ikonotexte in den Regia Carmina des Convenevole da Prato, Köln, Weimar, Wien 2017.
M. Desmond, Translatio imperii and the matter of Troy in Angevin Naples : BL Royal MS 20 D I and Royal MS 6 E IX, in “Italian studies”, 72, 2017, 2, pp. 177-191.
C. Smout, "Sehe ich meine Füße, leugne ich, gemalt worden zu sein mit den Gaben der Anmut oder des gefalligen Neuen": zu Reflexion und Sprechen über Malerei in der "Regia Carmina" des Convenevole da Prato, in Parlare dell’arte nel Trecento, a cura di A. Hoffmann, L. Jordan, G. Wolf, Berlin, München 2020, pp. 159-182.