17th Century Italian Art

EUGENIO POLITO
A colossal head with a laurel crown from Aquinum Marble fragments of a head with a laurel crown were recently found during the excavation of ancient Aquinum. They have been preliminarily studied prior to restoration. By analysing the dimensions of the
fragments it has been possible to gauge the size of the colossal statue. The appearance of what remains of the face, with its flat and uniform surfaces, and the hairstyle with its short locks cropped close to the skull, identify the statue as a male portrait from the Julio–Claudian era.

BENEDETTA CAGLIOTI
The Cathedral of San Giorgio Martire in Ferrara: Notes and observations on its Fourteenth–century phase
The construction of the Cathedral of San Giorgio Martire in Ferrara began in the 12th century. It was a symbol of the new position the city held in relation to the papacy, as opposed to the latter’s traditional links with Ravenna. Mixing written evidence with a project of surveying and drawing, focussing on the actual physical evidence, the medieval phase of the Cathedral appears to have a harmonious composition within an
overall precise scheme with a regular design and a balanced arrangement of the facades.

GIUSEPPE CASSIO
A new attribution to Cola dell’Amatrice:
The Lamentation over the Dead Christ in the Collegiate Church of Fara in Sabina
A fresco with a Lamentation over the Dead Christ, recently uncovered in the Collegiate Church of Sant’Antonino in Fara in Sabina (Rieti), is one of the earliest known paintings in that religious building. It’s an example of the close link between the town and the nearby Abbey of Santa Maria di Farfa. Between the second half of the fifteenth century and a large part of the sixteenth, the imposing Benedictine “stronghold” had been subjected to frenetic renovation, called for by the commendatory abbots. This included work by Giovanni Battista Orsini (1482–1503). From 1486 to 1514 the Sabine monastery was home to a community of Teutonic monks from the Sacro Speco in Subiaco. There, Nicola di Filotesio, known as Cola dell’Amatrice, had painted the frescoes in the Old Chapter. Documents mention the painter at work in Farfa’s Abbey
in 1508.

ENRICO NOÈ
A Saint John the Baptist by Giulio del Moro
In the parish church of Donada, in the province of Rovigo, there is a little–known marble statue of Saint John theBaptist, signed by the painter and sculptor Giulio del Moro (Verona, around 1555 – Venice, 1616). From an analysis of the piece, the paper moves on to research its possible provenance, perhaps the Church of Santa Giustina
in Venice, and above all its chronology, in the context of the artist’s extensive production. The hypothetical conclusion is that it dates to around 1590. This was the most youthful, and perhaps happiest, period of the maestro.

MARIA TERESA CANTARO
Some news about Lavinia Fontana: From her debut to about 1590
An analysis of some autographed works by Lavinia Fontana (Bologna 1552 – Rome 1614) is presented.
They have changed hands on the antiques market over the last three decades and are now kept in private collections. They include some unpublished works, attributable to the time of the painter’s earliest period. They start with her debut between 1570 and 1575, up to around 1590 when the artist’s activity was now recognised and well known. Brief clarifications are proposed regarding a couple of paintings already linked
to Lavinia Fontana and some new attributions. Finally, some observations are put forward concerning a document transcribed in its entirety for the first time and which casts doubt on the hypothesis of the artist’s stay in Rome during the years of the pontificate of Sixtus V.

CARMELA CAPALDI
From Divus Augustus to Bonaparte:
Notes on the restoration of the colossal seated statues from the Augusteum in Herculaneum
During the first excavations of Herculaneum in what was then known as the Basilica, two colossal marble statues were found representing seated male figures, wrapped only in paludamenta. The building was later correctly identified as the Augusteum, a place for the worship of deceased and deified emperors. The statues, lacking their heads and arms, were subjected to additive restoration, first by Joseph Canart, then Filippo Tagliolini, which made it harder to identify them. Placed in the Bourbon Royal Museum collection, they are mentioned in the first inventory of the museum in 1819, as statues portraying Augustus and Claudius. Scholars have, for the most part, accepted this definition. It has been argued that the plaster head of Augustus was modelled on the portrait of the prince in the Gemma Augustea now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.

LUCILLA DE LACHENAL – ANNA MARIA CARRUBA
Behind the scenes at the Torlonia Marbles exhibition.
New contributions to the exhibition in Milan: analysis, explanation, bibliography and restorations
The new outlay for the Torlonia Marbles exhibition in Milan, in the large and prestigious rooms of the Gallerie d’Italia, provided the opportunity to enrich the exhibition of sculptures already presented in Rome with some new pieces. The paper lists them, giving updated datasheets in terms of bibliography and explanations, recognising two busts as modern. Moreover, a marble copy of Leda and the Swan and the sarcophagus decorated with a Consular procession are accompanied by valuable observations and remarks by those who restored it.

MAURIZIO RICCI
The entrance portal to the Orange Garden: A few annotations
Savello Park, in Rome’s Ripa district, is better known as the Giardino degli Aranci. It was transformed into gardens by Raffaele de Vico in 1932. Its current, Sixteenth–century portal, originally came from Villa Balestra. It was taken apart in 1910 and laid to rest in the municipal deposits. Antonio Munõz had it rebuilt on the Aventine in 1936, partially modifying its construction. The paper, based on an analysis of the remains of Villa Balestra and an important unpublished plan, clarifies once and for all the original site of the gateway.

ALESSIO CIANNARELLA
The Church of San Lorenzo in Miranda: New documents on the restoration of the Domenichino altarpiece and a hypothetical attribution to Giovan Battista Beinaschi
The paper deepens and broadens information about the church of San Lorenzo in Miranda and the rich decorative apparatus inside. Documents held in the church archives have shed light on when and how Raffaele Vanni (1670) unfortunately attempted to restore a painting by Domenichino. His Madonna and Child with Saints Philip and James had been painted between 1626 and 1627. The paper also looks at Vanni’s realisation of an altarpiece of a similar subject to repair the damage after his work on Domenichino’s, it dates to the same year as the restoration. Working from an Eighteenth–century manuscript kept in the Casanatense Library in Rome, and some stylistic comparisons, it is thought that Giovan Battista Beinaschi painted the Crucifix adored by Saint Francis.

FRANCESCA MATTEI
Clay elements in the construction of the vaults of Palazzo Naselli Crispi in Ferrara.
History and geography on Sixteenth–century Este building sites
Palazzo Naselli (1529–1537) was restored between 2018 and 2020. During the work, clay elements came to light, immersed in the cement conglomerate of the vaults of some rooms. The paper traces the building techniques used for the construction of these ceilings, and highlights the relationship between the earliest material evidence, architectural treatises and the architectural projects of the time. Este.

LUCA LEONCINI
Giovanni Maria Mariani at the Palazzo del Quirinale: Documentation of the decoration entrusted to Gian Lorenzo Bernini for the apartments of Alexander VII
This paper presents a complete transcript of the account of the work carried out by Giovanni Maria Mariani on the main floor of the Palazzo del Quirinale, between March and August 1656. He was a perspective painter and decorator, under the supervision of Gian Lorenzo Bernini. Mariani’s assignment was a few months prior to that of the group of artists chosen by Pietro da Cortona to decorate the Gran Galleria, later
known as that of Alexander VII. Mariani was involved there too. Until now Giovanni Maria’s duties had been considered «work of an artisan nature», limited to gilding the gallery’s ceiling. Careful examination of documents in Rome’s State Archive has shown instead that the gilding was not done by him, whereas the sweeping painted glossy stucco decorations were. The detailed specifications of what the painter from Ascoli
Piceno was responsible for are to be found in a document which has never previously been analysed, in its entirety, leaving important data untouched upon.

Through a comprehensive comparative analysis of Gian Lorenzo Bernini's Bacchanal: A Faun Teased by Children (1616-17) and Balthasar Permoser's Marsyas (1680-85), this paper seeks to illuminate how each overlooked sculptural masterpiece implements distinct artistic techniques and stylistic preferences respectively to divulge contrasting narratives and evoke dissimilar emotional responses, thus elucidating the artists' unique interpretations of mythological motifs and evaluating their exercising of the expressive capacity of sculpture in the Baroque period.

Once he has finished his work, the restorer puts all his instruments back in their cases, switches off
the lamps and the microscope, cleans up the worktable and, satisfied, resumes his normal daily
routine. Imagine the disappointment when, during an inspection, the same restorer discovers after
some time that part of his work has been thwarted by an extraneous intervention that was not only
unnecessary but also carried out by inexperienced hands!
So, after carefully pondering and agreeing on a preventive and future preservation, capable of
slowing down (not being able to prevent) the normal degenerative process of a historical artefact,
when can one be certain of considering a restoration work as complete?
The answer is provided by the cases of restoration of some papyri, musealised both in Italy and
abroad, which have shown the dangers of a lack of control on the part of the curators of the
collections; the article will therefore aim to illustrate the risks of using inappropriate and harmful
supports/adhesives and will also reiterate that only a skillful hand after years of specialised study and
unconditional love can guarantee future preservation.

Questo saggio ripercorre la storia di una pala d’altare raffigurante Cristo risorto con un angelo e i Santi Carlo Borromeo, Maria Maddalena e Rocco, eseguita dal pittore bolognese Giovan Francesco Gessi tra il 1639 e il 1640 per l’oratorio della confraternita del Santissimo Sacramento di Porretta Terme ed oggi dispersa. Attraverso la documentazione rintracciata nell’Archivio Parrocchiale di Porretta e nell’Archivio Diocesano di Bologna, è stato possibile ricostruire molti aspetti riguardanti il dipinto perduto, dalle vicende riguardanti la commissione al soggetto e alla composizione dell’opera, dalla forma dell’altare che la pala condivideva con una statua della Madonna del Carmine al momento della sua scomparsa, da collocare probabilmente in epoca napoleonica.

Questo saggio cerca di ricostruire una figura sconosciuta, e per molti versi ancora sfuggente, della storia dell’arte: Ferdinando Berti, pittore fiammingo proveniente da Bruxelles, stabilitosi verso il 1610 a Porretta Terme sull’Appennino bolognese. Attraverso il reperimento di alcuni documenti inediti nell’Archivio parrocchiale di Porretta e nell’Archivio di Stato di Bologna, si è cercato di precisare alcuni punti della sua misteriosa biografia, dall’arrivo a Porretta al matrimonio, alla nascita del figlio omonimo, alla morte avvenuta prima del 1633. Si è poi tentato di inquadrare il pittore all’interno del contesto artistico bolognese di inizio Seicento, attraverso un’analisi stilistica della sua unica opera nota, la Madonna del Ponte di Porretta, e un confronto con opere di un altro celebre pittore fiammingo trapiantato a Bologna, Denys Calvaert, e della sua scuola. Questa è stata anche l’occasione per indagare nuovamente la presenza di artisti della cerchia di Calvaert nell’Appennino bolognese, tra i quali si segnala Gabriele Ferrantini detto dagli Occhiali, attivo tra Capugnano e Gaggio Montano in date molto vicine a quelle dell’attività di Berti.

Questo saggio si compone di due parti, riguardanti rispettivamente le vicende costruttive e la realizzazione delle pale d’altare della chiesa parrocchiale di Porretta Terme sull’Appennino bolognese. Nella prima si ripercorrono le principali tappe della storia di questa chiesa, nata tra il 1427 e il 1435 circa come cappella dell’abitato termale e ricostruita una prima volta nella prima metà del secolo successivo. Divenuta poi parrocchia, pieve e vicariato foraneo nel 1585, nell’ambito della politica di applicazione dei decreti del Concilio di Trento da parte del cardinale bolognese Gabriele Paleotti, sarebbe stata ricostruita nuovamente tra il 1689 e il 1696 per volontà dei conti Ranuzzi, che intendevano arricchire il loro feudo della Porretta di una chiesa di dimensioni maggiori e di un palazzo comitale, quest’ultimo mai edificato.
La seconda parte del saggio si concentra invece sulle testimonianze pittoriche di grande pregio tuttora visibili nella chiesa. Realizzate per la maggior parte tra la seconda metà del Cinquecento e la prima metà del Seicento, in pieno periodo controriformistico, esse arricchirono gli altari di giuspatronato delle famiglie locali grazie all’intervento di pittori della scuola bolognese. Tra queste si sono scelti tre casi studio esemplificativi di tre fasi distinte della storia dell’edificio: la pala con il Noli me tangere dell’altare maggiore, eseguita da Ercole Proccacini il Vecchio su commissione del conte Marco Antonio Ranuzzi; il Sant’Antonio Abate di Pietro Maria Massari detto il Porrettano, allievo dell’accademia dei Carracci, datato 1588; la Madonna col Bambino tra i Santi Francesco e Bernardino di Alessandro Tiarini, proveniente dall’antico oratorio attiguo della confraternita delle Sacre Stigmate di San Francesco.

Il complesso di San Filippo Neri a Lodi fu costruito a partire dal 1740 su progetto di Giovanni Antonio Veneroni per volontà della locale congregazione dell'Oratorio. L'edifìcio comprendeva un tempo in un organismo unitario la chiesa, l'oratorio e la casa della Congregazione, ma in seguito alla soppressione degli oratoriani sotto il dominio napoleonico la fabbrica venne smembrata tra la chiesa, passata come sussidiaria alla cattedrale, e la parte conventuale, divenuta proprietà statale prima e comunale poi e da tempo sede della Biblioteca Laúdense e del Museo Civico di Lodi.

After numerous initiatives devoted to the paintings of the great Bolognese master, the Guido Reni exhibition at the Museo Nacional del Prado, in conjunction with this International Congress, is an excellent opportunity to explore the scientific, historic and artistic contexts in which his life took place. Starting with the inaugural lecture by Elizabeth Cropper, a specialist in Bolognese painting and 17th-century art literature, the congress will address Guido Reni´s training in Bologna and Rome, his figure in art theory and literature, new reflections on the catalogue of his works and his creative process, his posthumous fortune in modern collecting and contemporary historiography.

A fine Ottocento, i lavori per una nuova carrozzabile dapprima stravolsero e poi distrussero del tutto la chiesa extramuranea di San Sebastiano a Zagarolo (Rm), sede del locale culto anti-pestilenziale.
Il saggio ricostruisce innanzitutto l’inedita vicenda storica del sacello: attraverso la documentazione grafica e archivistica, ne rintraccia le origini da una “cona” stradale mariana, ne rileva la struttura architettonica, indaga la decorazione scultorea e pittorica, testimonianza di pratiche devozionali altalenanti, che ebbero un momento di particolare effervescenza in occasione della peste del 1656.
Si delinea così un un caso di studio esemplare dei culti anti-pestilenziali nella Campagna Romana tra XVI e XIX secolo, riscontrandone la mutevolezza, gli arricchimenti, il progressivo abbandono. In particolare, si sottolinea il rapporto fra tradizione popolare (Sebastiano, Rocco, etc,) e intervento signorile, con l’apporto dato dai duchi Ludovisi al culto di Ignazio di Loyola, Teresa d’Avila e Francesco Saverio (protagonista di un caso di “grazia ricevuta” familiare); ci si sofferma poi sugli inizi della devozione a santa Rosalia, raffigurata secondo una variante iconografica tipicamente “romana”, riscontrabile anche in altri borghi del circondario.
Il saggio vuole essere un tentativo di lettura in profondità di un fenomeno normalmente schiacciato sul dato di una diffusione tanto capillare quanto poco esplorata nel dettaglio.

In his day, Reni was one of the most successful and celebrated painters in all of Europe, coveted by the most important patrons, including the Borghese Pope Paul V, the Duke of Mantua, and the Queen of England. Hardly appreciated in the nineteenth century due to other aesthetic preferences and later relegated to second place by the one-sided concentration on his temporary rival Caravaggio, he no longer holds the place he deserves in the public consciousness.

For the first time in over thirty years, the Städel Museum, in cooperation with the Museo Nacional del Prado in Madrid, brought together more than 130 of his fascinating paintings, drawings, and prints and thus offered a new perspective on Guido Reni. The painter was deeply religious and also superstitious, tremendously successful and hopelessly addicted to gambling, as one contemporary biography authoritatively informs us. Even during his lifetime, Reni was given the honourable epithet “Il divino” (“The Divine”)—this refers to his fame as an artist star who, aware of his skills, occasionally behaved like a diva. However, “The Divine” also refers to his themes: Reni is the painter of the divine par excellence. He had a profound effect on the religious iconography of European art and, like no-one else before or since, gave visual form to the beauty of the divine—be it the Christian kingdom of heaven or the world of the ancient gods. The enormous impact of his art is reflected in the countless variations of his depictions of the heads of Christ and Mary, with their upturned faces and heavenward gaze, reproductions of which still circulate widely today as picture pull-outs in Roman Catholic prayer books. Indeed, this unparalleled imitative reception history only served to tarnish Reni’s image, obscuring the actual qualities and other fascinating aspects of his art.

Curator: Dr. Bastian Eclercy (Head Italian, French, and Spanish Paintings before 1800, Städel Museum)

"Documentarsi e ricostruire monumenti, ville e strade rimosse dalla topografia di Roma è coinvolgente ma al tempo stesso sconvolgente. Grande è infatti la perdita del patrimonio culturale e paesaggistico della città, che non è rimasta certo indenne ai millenari passaggi storici e quindi ai cambiamenti che questi portarono con sé. Oggi torneremo sulle tracce di un’altra villa urbana che non esiste più: Villa Ludovisi, la fu Villa Ludovisi."

Abstract:

The Villa Ludovisi was the second biggest villa in Rome. It was built during the XVII century by the cardinal Ludovico Ludovisi. Its extension was from Fiume Square to Francesco Crispi’s street and from the Aurelian Walls (near Villa Borghese) to Margherita’s Palace (the actual American embassy). At the moment, the Casino of the Aurora is the only existent trace of the villa and it takes the name from Guercino’s masterpiece The Aurora. Inside it, there is another artwork, Giove, Nettuno e Plutone con il cane Cerbero by Caravaggio. The Casino of the Aurora is declared of cultural value, but is actually on sale. The Villa Ludovisi started its decline during the XIX century when Boncompagni Ludovisi sold it. Today, in its place, there is an elegant district, the rione Ludovisi, which reminds to the name of a princely villa.

Two Astronomical-Astrological Motifs on the Portal of Trogir Cathedral Two colonettes at the entrance of the portal of Trogir Cathedral, work by Master Radovan, are covered by reliefs which have been rightly explained as illustration of the state of sin and the disorder before the arrival of culture. As noticed before, the scenes include some mythological creatures. Among astronomic teams one should count, for example, a representation of a man killing a snake (constellations Hercules and Dragon), of a big and small bear (Big and Little Dipper). In this study we reinterpret two such fi gures at the top of the left, northern colonette, a centaur (centauress?), and a maid on a sea bull. The relief of a half-man (or woman) and half horse (or mare) is probably linked to astronomical or astrological matter, not excluding some other connotations. The motif was probably taken over from some model, an illustration of a bucolic theme, but on the colenette it is tied to astronomical-astrological context. At the top of the colenette, next to the centaur (centauress?) there is a maid sitting on a bull, holding his horn by her right hand, while laying her left on the bull’s back. The hind portion of the bull transforms itself into a curving fi sh tail. That portion of the bull’s body is diffi cult to see as the colonette nears the wall surface. We suggest that the scene is linked to astronomical-astrological context in connection with the myth of the rape of Europe, and the Bull constellation

Na kolegiju ”Hrvatsko narodno rukotvorstvo” prvi puta sam se susrela s tradicijskim odijevanjem na Hvaru. Budući sam obiteljski vezana za otok Hvar, izabrala sam tu temu i za seminarski rad i proučila radove Nevenke Bezić – Božanić o odijevanju na Hvaru u 16. i 17. stoljeću te katalog izložbe Mirjane Kolumbić – Šćepanović ”Iza škura”.On the basis of existing works, the author has come to the conclusion that there are very few sources for the study of traditional ways of clothing on the island of Hvar. Researchers have been relying mostly upon archival documents. The author finds it particularly interesting that not a single costume, either woman’s or man’s one, has been preserved on the island. The holdings of the Ethnographic Museum of Split include only two jackets, an apron and a skirt that originate from Hvar. She finds this surprising, especially in consideration of the fact that from other parts of Dalmatia and Croatia numerous items, as well as entire costumes from different ...

La mostra “Guido Reni a Roma. Il sacro e la natura”, tra i vari pregi, ha fornito un’occasione eccezionale per l’approfondimento dell’attività di Guido Reni paesaggista. Dato il quasi assoluto silenzio nelle fonti antiche, all’epoca della monografia di Stephen Pepper, nel 1988 – incredibile a dirsi – nessuno sospettava che Guido potesse essersi cimentato in questo genere pittorico. L’apparizione sul mercato antiquario inglese, nel 2008, della cosiddetta Danza campestre, acquistata da Patrick Matthiesen e Tiziana Sassoli come opera di «anonimo bolognese del XVII secolo», poi studiata e attribuita a Reni per primo da Keith Christiansen, era tuttavia destinata a rivoluzionare le nostre conoscenze sulla produzione del pittore, soprattutto quella relativa agli anni del primo soggiorno romano .
In virtù di questi recenti aggiornamenti, appare oggi del tutto evidente che Reni, una volta arrivato a Roma (1601), si distaccò rapidamente dallo stile crepuscolare tipico di Ludovico e Agostino Carracci che traspare nei paesaggi di sfondo delle pale d’altare bolognesi, aderendo fin da subito, e con entusiasmo, alla nuova maniera aperta, solare e neoplatonica brevettata da Annibale in quegli anni, con l’invenzione del paesaggio che oggi denominiamo “classico” o “ideale” . Il saggio propone un bilancio critico dell'attività di Guido Reni paesaggista e include alcune precisazioni e nuove proposte attributive.

Dear Members of the Italian Art Society, I hope you are all having a happy and healthy start to the new year. Thanks to all of you who have already renewed your membership for 2023. We're thrilled so see so many of you using the Sospeso membership option and adding a donation to your membership to fund IAS memberships for others in our community. Your support for our increasing commitment to equity and inclusivity within our organization is greatly appreciated. If you haven't yet had a chance to renew your membership at IAS for 2023, I remind you to please do so! Our annual election for new committee members, chairs and board positions has just concluded. I want to deeply thank those of you who have nominated yourselves and volunteered your time and energy to our organization. I'd also like to thank our outgoing Nominating Committee Chair, Sarah Cantor, and the entire Nominating Committee for their work in fielding another exceptional slate of candidates. [...]

Dear Members of the Italian Art Society, I hope all of you are doing well and that many of you are gearing up for exciting and productive summers of travel and research and/or teaching. The pandemic unfortunately continues, but hopefully we all keep as safe as can be, despite continued disruption and ongoing concerns. Those of you who are traveling to Italy shortly, or who are there already, please keep in mind that after a two-year hiatus we'll be holding our annual IAS/Kress Lecture on June 30 in Cortona! To our great pleasure, Dr. Francesca Fiorani (Professor of Art History, University of Virginia) will present "Leonardo da Vinci and Cortona. Wetlands, Mapping, and the Art of Painting in Renaissance Italy." The lecture will be held at 4pm (IT) at the Centro Convegni Sant'Agostino and will be followed by an aperitivo in the cloister. We hope to see many of you there! For more information on this special event, see pp. 3-4. If you have any questions, please email me and ask! At our Annual IAS Business Meeting at CAA (held virtually, as will be our policy going forward) we said goodbye to those officers, chairs, and committee members whose terms had ended, and welcomed those who were newly elected. [...]

Dear Members of the Italian Art Society,
I hope you are all having a happy and healthy start to the new year. Obviously, Omicron has cast a substantial shadow over the beginning of 2022, forcing some conferences like CAA to return to a fully online format and many US campuses to start the Spring semester virtually. Yet hope for the future does remain. The magnitude of the Omicron surge is giving many health officials optimism that it will leave behind substantially higher levels of immunity in the population. As Dr. Hans Kluge, director for the W.H.O.’s European region, said in late January: “Omicron offers plausible hope for stabilization and normalization.” We can only hope that this prediction is accurate and that things do improve soon! [...]

Dear Members of the Italian Art Society,
I’d like to begin by wishing everyone a healthy, safe, and productive academic year. While many of us have returned to teaching in person, and some fortunate few were able to resume traveling abroad for research over the summer, it is clear that we are still far from getting entirely back to “normal.” Please take care of yourselves,  both mentally and physically in this continuingly difficult time. [...]

Dear Members of the Italian Art Society,
I’m happy and honored to be writing my first address to you as the President of the Italian Art Society, having begun my term in February. I’d like to open by thanking all of you for your continued involvement with—and support of—the IAS during these difficult times, and most especially thanking my predecessor Mark Rosen, with whom I have been privileged to work over the last two years. His leadership enabled us to continue to thrive and ushered us into a new digital age with a revitalized and much more functional website. [...]

Dear Members of the Italian Art Society, I want to wish all of our members a happy and healthy new year and thank you for renewing your memberships, especially at a moment when COVID cases continue to rise in most countries and most instruction remains online. At the moment of this writing, some museums in Italy are starting to reopen (including the Uffizi and other Florentine museums, as well as some archeological sites like Pompeii) while other areas, such as Venice, will—to the consternation of some—continue to keep many museums closed through April in response to the Italian government’s declaration of a national State of Emergency through the end of that month. With the spring 2021 conferences of the CAA, RSA, and ICMS all being held online, we unfortunately won’t be gathering in person before the summer (at earliest), although one of the consolations of the virtual conference is the ability to see even more presentations than would be physically possible in person. [...]

Dear Members of the Italian Art Society, Greetings to all of you at this difficult, challenging moment. When our last newsletter came out in early March, the world was a different place; we had just finished a successful session and meeting at the CAA in Chicago and were looking forward to a spring filled with the RSA, AAIS, Kalamazoo, and a Kress Lecture in Cortona, as well as festivities and receptions related to those meetings. As everyone is aware, those activities were canceled or postponed while universities, museums, and research institutions have all shuttered for the time being with as-yet-uncertain dates of reopening. [...]

This research note, published in the Bonhams catalogue (Old Master Paintings, New Bond Street, London, 5 July 2023), presents a previously unknown oil sketch attributed to Alessandro Vitali and executed after the celebrated Crucifixion by Federico Barocci in the Genoa Cathedral (1596).

Early modern Bologna was exceptional for its many talented women artists and for its progressive  attitude towards women’s rights. They painted self-portraits, altarpieces, nudes, mythologies, allegories, portraits and other art pieces that were celebrated in the flourishing art scene during the  Italian Baroque. One of the very gifted and prolific local artists was Elisabetta Sirani who is less  well known to modern audiences but was celebrated as a cultural icon during her brief life. She  became known for her ability to paint beautifully finished canvases so quickly that many visited  her studio to watch her paint. This performative display of painting is known as meraviglia. She  left an important legacy through establishing the first art academy for women. Her pupils included  her two sisters Barbara and Anna Maria and more than a dozen other young women who pursued  successful artistic careers. In this dissertation, I will examine the origins of the first female art  studio and academy founded by Elisabetta Sirani and how her inspirational meraviglia allowed her  to overcome gender barriers, prove the authenticity of her paintings and create a cultural salotto that attracted wealthy patrons and admirers.

The Order of the Knights Hospitallers of St John, officially established in Jerusalem in 1113 to provide assistance and medical care for pilgrims to the Holy Land, soon acquired a military role and in effect shared fully the vicissitudes of the Crusading milieu. After being forced to evacuate Acre in 1291 and finding refuge in Cyprus, in 1309 the knights of the Order seized the island of Rhodes, holding it till 1522, when the Ottoman sultan Suleiman the Magnificent laid siege to the town of Rhodes and compelled the Order out of their Aegean base. Then in 1530, the emperor Charles V handed to the Order of St John the Maltese islands (and the port of Tripoli) as a feudal fief, a generous arrangement that permitted the Order to gradually translate this charge into a de facto sovereign state in all possible meaning. But in 1798 General Bonaparte, in charge of the armies of the French Directorate, seized the Maltese Islands en route to the projected invasion of Egypt and the Near East.

Title: The Matter of Violence in Baroque Painting
Author: Bogdan Cornea
Series: Visual & Material Culture, 1300-1700
Publisher: Amsterdam University Press

Baroque depictions of violence are often dismissed as ‘over the top’ and ‘excessive’. Their material richness and exciting visual complexity, together with the visceral engagement they demand from beholders, are usually explained in literature as reflecting the presumed violence of early modern society. This book explores the intersection between materiality, excess, and violence in seventeenth-century paintings through a close analysis of some of the most iconic works of the period. Baroque paintings expose or reference their materiality by insisting on various physical changes wrought through violence. This study approaches violence as the work of materiality, which has the potential to analogously stage pictorial surfaces as corporeal surfaces, where paint becomes flayed flesh, canvas threads ruptured skin, and red paint spilt blood.

For more information, visit: https://www.aup.nl/en/book/9789463727808/the-matter-of-violence-in-baroque-painting

The article investigates the first phase of the activity of Giuseppe Recco, the most eclectic of the Neapolitan still life painters. The most recent investigations on the Milanese flower painters of the mid-seventeenth century have highlighted singular similarities between the initial production of Giuseppe Recco and that of Vincenzo Volò, known as Vincenzino dei fiori, founder of the Vicenzini workshop and true promoter of Baroque nature painting died in Lombardy.

Opere d'arte pittoriche: condotte di delinquenza economica e possibilità di contrasto.

L'acquisto di un manufatto-a prescindere dall'entità dell'impegno economico che questi richiede-pone la problematica della veridicità di corrispondenza con il suo presunto autore. Nel caso delle opere d'arte, il pregio non è vincolato alla sola preziosità materica, esso deriva in larga parte dal rilievo che la società gli attribuisce, dalla notorietà del suo ideatore e dalla rarità delle stesse. Seppur vero che le opere d'arte non si possono classificare come beni strumentali, la cognizione economica le identifica quali averi di consumo, che si contraddistinguono per un valore che tende a crescere nel tempo e il cui prezzo di cessione, non è legato ai soli aspetti culturali. Il loro mercato è pertanto, ampiamente duttile: domanda ed offerta si articolano nel vivo di uno spettro condizionabile dagli stessi attori, il cui favore o il cui disinteresse è di norma stabilito dal clima economico che caratterizza un particolare periodo storico. I diversi fattori che incidono sul modo in cui l'arte viene non solo commercializzata, ma anche distinta e consumata, ne paragonano l'essenza ad un "prodotto" definito in termini meramente monetari, all'interno di un ambiente dominato dal potere di acquisto e non dalla sola sensibilità percettiva. La differenza tra l'arte intesa quale bene culturale, status symbol ed oggetto d'investimento è labile, sebbene l'Art. 64 bis D.lgs. 42/2004 e D.lgs 26 marzo 2008 n.62 sancisca che "i beni costituenti il patrimonio culturale non sono assimilabili a merci", mentre come tali sono stati spesso percepiti fin dall'antichità, lasciando emergere un intricato arcipelago dall'insidiosa navigazione, non scevro da reati. Diretta conseguenza di suddetto modo d'intendere, è il fenomeno della contraffazione (Art. 178 D.lgs. 42/2004), che ha conosciuto nel tempo una crescita esponenziale, fino al 2019; momento in cui si è registrata un'insolita inversione di tendenza. Dai report stilati dal Comando dei Carabinieri per la Tutela del Patrimonio Culturale, le opere contraffatte risultano diminuite del-12,09% rispetto all'anno precedente, di cui i falsi di arte contemporanea restano in numero maggiore, circa il 70% del totale dei beni sequestrati. Il lavoro investigativo svolto nel corso del tempo, ha permesso d'individuare un'articolata rete di produzione, autenticazione e vendita di croste; un sistema di traffico collaudato che si è ripetuto spesso, in maniera sostanzialmente uguale.