Randolph Starn
- Published in print:
- 1989
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520064287
- eISBN:
- 9780520908925
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520064287.003.0009
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Anthropology, Theory and Practice
This chapter demonstrates the effect of literary theory in its analysis of the fifteenth-century frescoes of Andrea Mantegna. It also addresses the domain of “seeing” as opposed to “reading.” A new ...
More
This chapter demonstrates the effect of literary theory in its analysis of the fifteenth-century frescoes of Andrea Mantegna. It also addresses the domain of “seeing” as opposed to “reading.” A new typology of seeing that includes what is termed the glance, the measured view, and the scan is presented. It then reviews the process of seeing by showing that even forms have historical content. Mantegna's square-and-circle design foists a double order on the viewer, once in its centering geometry, and once again as an archetype of perfect proportion. Documentary research, iconography, and connoisseurship, the prevailing art-historical paradigms, have entered only marginally into the analysis.Less
This chapter demonstrates the effect of literary theory in its analysis of the fifteenth-century frescoes of Andrea Mantegna. It also addresses the domain of “seeing” as opposed to “reading.” A new typology of seeing that includes what is termed the glance, the measured view, and the scan is presented. It then reviews the process of seeing by showing that even forms have historical content. Mantegna's square-and-circle design foists a double order on the viewer, once in its centering geometry, and once again as an archetype of perfect proportion. Documentary research, iconography, and connoisseurship, the prevailing art-historical paradigms, have entered only marginally into the analysis.
Oren Margolis
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- June 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780198769323
- eISBN:
- 9780191822384
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198769323.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, European Medieval History, Political History
This chapter shows how a series of illuminated books transmitted from Jacopo Antonio Marcello to René of Anjou bound René to Marcello and both to the artistic avant garde around Mantegna and the ...
More
This chapter shows how a series of illuminated books transmitted from Jacopo Antonio Marcello to René of Anjou bound René to Marcello and both to the artistic avant garde around Mantegna and the Bellini in Padua, thus drawing the two patrons into an Italian cultural elite. At the same time, they cultivated René’s crucial political connections with his traditional allies. The chapter focuses primarily on the Life of St Maurice, which Marcello sent from the battlefield in 1453, and the presentation copy of Guarino of Verona’s 1458 translation of Strabo, sent to René in 1459. Understanding the political motives behind these books’ production provides a new perspective on the major artistic developments credited with launching the northeastern Italian Renaissance manuscript tradition.Less
This chapter shows how a series of illuminated books transmitted from Jacopo Antonio Marcello to René of Anjou bound René to Marcello and both to the artistic avant garde around Mantegna and the Bellini in Padua, thus drawing the two patrons into an Italian cultural elite. At the same time, they cultivated René’s crucial political connections with his traditional allies. The chapter focuses primarily on the Life of St Maurice, which Marcello sent from the battlefield in 1453, and the presentation copy of Guarino of Verona’s 1458 translation of Strabo, sent to René in 1459. Understanding the political motives behind these books’ production provides a new perspective on the major artistic developments credited with launching the northeastern Italian Renaissance manuscript tradition.
Tim Shephard
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- October 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199936137
- eISBN:
- 9780199381241
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199936137.003.0004
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
The famous Marchesa of Mantua, Isabella d’Este, was celebrated in her day with great vigor for her accomplishments as a musician and connoisseur, and for her classicising tastes. This chapter sets ...
More
The famous Marchesa of Mantua, Isabella d’Este, was celebrated in her day with great vigor for her accomplishments as a musician and connoisseur, and for her classicising tastes. This chapter sets out to add a musical dimension to an argument put forward some years ago by Rose Marie San Juan. Drawing on contemporary views on music, gender, and morality, it posits that Isabella’s musical preeminence took her to the limits of what was considered appropriate for a noblewoman, and that the visual environment of her studiolo and grotto—especially Mantegna’s Parnassus and her device known as the impresa delle pause—was designed in response to prompt positive readings of her musicianship. The chapter concludes with a re-examination in the light of these arguments of a verse by Castiglione which she is known to have sung in a setting by Marchetto Cara.Less
The famous Marchesa of Mantua, Isabella d’Este, was celebrated in her day with great vigor for her accomplishments as a musician and connoisseur, and for her classicising tastes. This chapter sets out to add a musical dimension to an argument put forward some years ago by Rose Marie San Juan. Drawing on contemporary views on music, gender, and morality, it posits that Isabella’s musical preeminence took her to the limits of what was considered appropriate for a noblewoman, and that the visual environment of her studiolo and grotto—especially Mantegna’s Parnassus and her device known as the impresa delle pause—was designed in response to prompt positive readings of her musicianship. The chapter concludes with a re-examination in the light of these arguments of a verse by Castiglione which she is known to have sung in a setting by Marchetto Cara.
