L'Agenda des Médiévistes

In this book Claudia Daniotti provides the first comprehensive study of the representation of Alexander the Great in Renaissance Italian art, exploring a fundamental turning point in the tradition: the transition from the medieval imagery of Alexander as a legendary, fairy-tale hero to the new historically grounded portrait of him as an example of moral virtue and military prowess.

During the Middle Ages, Alexander was turned into a fabled creature and fearless explorer, whose Flight to Heaven and other marvellous adventures were tirelessly recounted and illustrated, enjoying huge popularity. With the humanist recovery of the ancient historical texts and the changing taste and expectations of the wider, wealthier and more diverse public of the courts and cities of the Italian peninsula, the fabulous aura that had surrounded Alexander for centuries evaporated. He was recast as the moral exemplum and valorous military commander spoken of by the newly available ancient historians, and became the protagonist of an unprecedently vast iconographic repertoire established in the course of the sixteenth century.

By discussing a body of artworks from 1160s to 1560s spanning several media (from illuminated manuscripts and frescoes to sculptural reliefs, wedding chests and tapestries) and researching this material in constant dialogue with the literary tradition, this book offers a reassessment of the whole visual tradition of Alexander in Renaissance Italy, making sense of a figurative repertoire often perceived as fragmentary and disparate, and casting new light on an overall still neglected chapter in the tradition of the myth of Alexander.

Claudia Daniotti is an art historian specialising in Italian Renaissance art, with an emphasis on iconography, the classical tradition, and the transmission of visual motifs from antiquity to the present times. She holds a PhD from the Warburg Institute, London, and is currently a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow in the Centre for the Study of the Renaissance at the University of Warwick.

Table des matières :

Acknowledgments
Introduction

Chapter 1. The Legendary Tradition of Alexander in Medieval Art and Literature  
The Medieval Tradition in Italy: An Overview

Episodes from the Legend: The Begetting and Birth of Alexander; The Taming of Bucephalus; The Flight with Griffins; The Submarine Voyage; The Visit to the Trees of the Sun and the Moon

Chapter 2. The Persistence of the Legendary Tradition in Fifteenth-Century Italian Art  
Marvellous Adventures in the East in the Doria Tapestries

The Flight with Griffins in a Curtius Rufus Manuscript

Alexander as King of Swords in the Sola-Busca Tarocchi

A Fifteenth-Century Drawing Depicting the Submarine Voyage

Alexander among the Nine Worthies: the Sala Baronale in the Castle della Manta; the Triads of Castel Roncolo; the Castelnuovo Cycle; the ‘Cavalcavia’ with the Worthies of Palazzo Trinci

Chapter 3. The Humanist Recovery of Ancient Historical Sources and Its Impact on the Reception of Alexander      
The Recovery of the Ancient Greek Sources: Plutarch’s Life of Alexander; Arrian’s Anabasis; Diodorus Siculus’s Bibliotheca Historica

The Revived Interest in the Ancient Latin Sources: Curtius Rufus’s Historiae Alexandri Magni; Justin’s Epitoma Historiarum Philippicarum
Humanist Use of Ancient Sources: Petrarch; Giovanni Boccaccio; Angelo Decembrio’s De politia litteraria; Pier Paolo Vergerio

Chapter 4. The Emergence of a New Renaissance Iconography in the Fifteenth Century  
Alexander on Cassone Panels: The Battle of Issus and the Meeting with the Family of Darius; Two Sienese Panels Based on Plutarch

Alexander and the Cycles of Uomini famosi: An Introduction to the Uomini famosi in Italian Art; Representations of Alexander in Uomini famosi Cycles; Medieval Cycles (The Castel Nuovo Cycle, Naples); Transitional Cycles (The Cycle in the Aula Minor, Palazzo Vecchio, Florence; The Cycle in the Orsini Palace of Monte Giordano, Rome); Humanist Cycles (Alexander in the Sala dei Giganti, Padua; The Cycle in the Corte Ducale, Palazzo dell’Arengo, Milan; The ‘Piccolomini Cycle’ of Famous Men and Women)

Images of Alexander in Fifteenth-Century Manuscripts: Images of Alexander Based on Ancient Numismatic Prototypes (Alexander Wearing the Lion-Skin of Hercules; the Helmeted Alexander; Alexander with the Horns of Zeus Ammon); A Curtius Rufus Manuscript “Illustrated like a Romance Text”
         
Chapter 5. The Development and Consolidation of Renaissance
Iconography in the Sixteenth Century                  
Selected Episodes from the Life of Alexander: The Meeting with the Women of Darius; The Marriage of Alexander and Roxane; Alexander, Apelles and Campaspe; The Taming of Bucephalus; The Birth (and Begetting) of Alexander
Conclusion

Conclusion                      
Appendices
Bibliography
Index of names
List of Illustrations
Table of contents

Informations pratiques :

Claudia Daniotti, Reinventing Alexander. Myth, Legend, History in Renaissance Italian Art, Turnhout, Brepls, 2022 ; 1 vol., 348 p. (Alexander redivivus, 15). ISBN : 978-2-503-59743-0. Prix ;: € 100,00.

Source : Brepols

L’activité des peintres et sculpteurs qui ont travaillé au cours des siècles gothiques et de la Renaissance continue de susciter un grand intérêt parmi les spécialistes de l’art occidental. L’une des approches les plus suggestives pour comprendre la gestation et la diffusion de la production artistique est d’aborder le phénomène comme un fait multiforme et complexe du point de vue historico-artistique. La connaissance des matériaux et des procédés techniques utilisés est également enrichissante, ainsi que les liens entre les œuvres et les ateliers, auxquels on accède en suivant le parcours des marchands qui transportaient les pigments, les laques et les teintures et en recherchant la trace de l’itinérant. des artistes qui diffusent leur savoir dans les ports de destination.

Sept auteurs, issus de différentes universités et centres de recherche d’Europe et des États-Unis, spécialistes de l’histoire de l’art médiéval et moderne, présentent dans cet ouvrage leurs dernières contributions, exposées lors de la conférence « Rutas de mercado, rutas de arte: 1.as Jornadas Internacionales. Materiales, procedimientos y artistas en la configuración pictórica en el Mediterráneo del siglo XV», qui a eu lieu à l’Universitat Politècnica de València et au Musée des Beaux-Arts de Valence les 17 et 18 novembre 2021.

Informations pratiques :

Rutas de mercado, rutas de arte: Materiales, procedimientos y artistas en la configuración pictórica en el Mediterráneo del siglo XV, éd. Joan Aliaga Morell et Nuria Ramón Marqués, Valence, Tirant Editorial, 2022 ; 1 vol., 172 p. (Plural). ISBN : 978-8-41937-610-7. Prix : € 16,90.

Source : Tirant Editorial

L’ordre des Frères prêcheurs et la première communauté de moniales à en dépendre ont été fondés au début du XIII^e siècle dans le Midi de la France par deux religieux castillans, l’évêque d’Osma Diego et son chanoine Dominique de Caleruega. Toutefois, force est de constater que la péninsule Ibérique occupe une place encore trop discrète dans une historiographie dominicaine dominée par un tropisme franco-italien. Le présent dossier rassemble des travaux inédits en histoire de l’art qui cherchent à combler cette lacune. Les six articles envisagent les couvents de Frères prêcheurs et les monastères de moniales dominicaines de la péninsule au prisme des problématiques les plus actuelles de la recherche internationale sur les ordres mendiants et sur le monachisme féminin tardo-médiéval. Il s’agit ainsi de contribuer au débat sur le rôle des frères dans la ville, sur le poids des réformes de l’Observance au XV^e siècle, sur les liens entre les communautés religieuses et le pouvoir royal, sur les structures de division de l’espace ecclésial, ou encore sur les spécificités de l’art produit par et pour les moniales.

Accès : ici

Table des matières :

Haude Morvan et Eduardo Carrero Santamaría – Introduction

Eduardo Carrero Santamaría – Los frailes en la ciudad. Una aproximación a la predicación como argumento urbanístico

Diana Olivares Martínez – Du couvent au collège : relations, circulations et conflits entre San Pablo et San Gregorio à Valladolid

Diana Lucía Gómez-Chacón – Manly hearts in female bodies. Representing holy Dominican women in Castile in medieval times

Saul António Gomes et Jean-Marie Guillouët– Les Dominicains au Portugal du XIIIe à la fin du XVe siècle. Éléments de synthèse sur leur histoire et leur architecture

Paula Cardoso – Shaping an Observant identity: Narrative and image in the service of reform in the Portuguese Dominican nunneries

Haude Morvan et Mercedes Pérez Vidal – La mémoire du passé. Les couvents dominicains des provinces d’Espagne et d’Aragon à travers les écrits de l’époque moderne

Informations pratiques :

L’ordre dominicain dans la péninsule Ibérique : nouvelles perspectives de recherche en histoire de l’art (XIIIe-XVIe siècles), dans Mélanges de la Casa de Velázquez, t. 52, 2022 , DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/mcv.16993

Source : Casa de Velázquez

When Saint Dominic (c. 1174–1221) came to Rome to seek papal approval of the Order of Preachers, he founded two houses on the periphery of the city — a nunnery at  S. Sisto, in structures rebuilt by Pope Innocent III, and a priory next to the early Christian basilica of S. Sabina. The Dominicans modified and enlarged the existing buildings, according to their needs. Saint Francis of Assisi (c. 1182–1226) also came to consult the Pope, but he did not make any foundations in Rome. In 1229, Pope Gregory IX ordered the Benedictine monks of SS. Cosma e Damiano in Mica Aurea to cede to the Franciscans their hospice of S. Biagio in Trastevere, where Saint Francis had stayed. The friars built the church and friary of S. Francesco a Ripa there. Later, Gregory IX took over the Benedictine monastery itself, where he established the Franciscan nunnery of S. Cosimato in 1234. Moving into the more densely inhabited parts of the city, the Friars Minor built a new friary and church at S. Maria in Aracoeli on the Capitoline Hill from c. 1248–1252 onwards. The Dominicans, in 1266, acquired a convent near the Pantheon, where they constructed the Gothic church of S. Maria sopra Minerva. In 1285, the Colonna family established a Franciscan nunnery at S. Silvestro in Capite.

In the context of the origin and evolution of the two Mendicant Orders, this book traces the history of these thirteenth-century Dominican and Franciscan foundations, focussing on their location in Rome, the history of each site, their architecture, and the medieval works of art connected with them. Popes and cardinals, members of important families, and Franciscan Tertiaries contributed generously to their construction and decoration. The book ends with Saint Catherine of Siena, who lived near S. Maria sopra Minerva, where she was buried.

Table des matières :

List of Illustrations

Preface

Abbreviations

Colour Plates

Introduction

Part I. The First Dominican and Franciscan Foundations in Rome

Chapter 1. The Dominican Nunnery at S. Sisto (now S. Sisto Vecchio), founded c. 1218–1221

Chapter 2. The Dominican Priory at S. Sabina, founded c. 1220–1222

Chapter 3. The Franciscan Church and Friary of S. Francesco a Ripa, founded in 1229

Chapter 4. The Franciscan Nunnery of SS. Cosma e Damiano (S. Cosimato), founded in 1234

Part II. A New Generation of Dominicans and Franciscans and their Foundations in Rome

Chapter 5. The Friars Minor at S. Maria in Aracoeli, founded c. 1248–1252

Chapter 6. The Friars Preachers at S. Maria Sopra Minerva, founded c. 1266–1276

Chapter 7. The Franciscan Nunnery at S. Silvestro in Capite, founded in 1285

Chapter 8. Medieval Dominican Penitents from c. 1286 and Catherine of Siena (1347–1380)

Conclusion

Glossary

Informations pratiques :

Joan Barclay Lloyd, Dominicans and Franciscans in Medieval Rome. History, Architecture, and Art, Turnhout, Brepols, 2022 ; 1 vol., 439 p. (Medieval Monastic Studies , 6). ISBN : 978-2-503-57883-5. Prix : € 110,00.

Source : Brepols