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“Anticamente moderna et modernamente antica”: Imitation and the ideal in 16th-century Italian painting

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Abstract

This essay examines the relationship between sixteenth-century critical texts that define the stylistic accomplishments of Renaissance painters and the evidence of the paintings themselves. Central to this relationship was the synthesis of past and present in the formation of a new style, where ancient visual models and theoretical principles were creatively blended with modern cultural ideals within an atmosphere of political and religious change. Two historical frescoes by the Florentine painter, Franceso Salviati (1510–1563) are discussed in detail along with selected passages from the texts of Giorgio Vasari, Franceso Bocchi, Antonfrancesco Doni, Ludovico Domenichi, and Giovan Battista Armenini, among others.

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  1. See E.H. Gombrich, “Zum Werke Giulio Romanos”, Jahrbuch der Kunsthistorischen Sammlungen in Wien, N.F. 8, 1934, pp. 79–104; N. F. 9, 1935, pp. 121–150; “The Style ‘all’antica’: Imitation and Assimilation”, in Idem Zum Werke Giulio Romanos, Norm & Form—Studies in the Art of the Renaissance I London, 1966, pp. 122–128; “‘Anticamente moderni e modernamenti antichi’—Note sulla fortuna critica di Giulio Romano pittore” in Idem Zum Werke Giulio Romanos, Giulio Romano, Milan, 1989, pp. 11–13. See also the important but infrequently cited essay by A. Warburg, “L’ingresso dello stile ideale anticheggiante nella pittura del primo rinascimento”, in Idem Zum Werke Giulio Romanos, La rinascita del paganesimo antico. Contributi alla storia della cultura, ed. G. Bing, Il Pensiero storico 49, Florence, 1966, pp. 283–307.

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  2. See, for example, C. L. Frommel, “Villa Lante e Giulio Romano artista universale”, in O. Baracchi Giovanardi et al., Giulio Romano—Atti del Convegno Internazionale di Studi su ‘Giulio Romano e l’espansione europea del Rinascimento’, Mantua, 1989, p. 142; F. Vinti, Giulio Romano—pittore e l’antico, Florence, 1995, p. 48; J. Cox-Rearick, “Beyond Eclecticism: Salviati and Giulio Romano”, in Francesco Salviati et la Bella Maniera—Actes des colloques de Rome et de Paris (1998), ed. C. Monbeig Goguel et al., Collection de l’Ecole française de Rome 284, Rome, 2001, p. 356. I address this last study again later on in my discussion. See below, n. 47.

  3. The most recent and thorough study on Vasari’s Lives is Patricia Lee Rubin, Giorgio Vasari Art and History, New Haven, 1995. See also the still fundamental collection of articles in Il Vasari Storiografo e Artista—atti del Congresso internazionale nel IV Centenario della Morte, Florence, 1974, and Giorgio Vasari: tra decorazione ambientale e storiografia artistica—Convengo di Studi, Arezzo 1981, ed. G.C. Carfagnini, Florence, 1985. J. Rouchette, La Renaissance que nous a léguée Vasari, Paris, 1959 still contains a wealth of suggestive critical insights. For a variety of recent interpretive essays addressing the cultural environment in Florence during the mid-sixteenth century, see Vasari’s Florence—Artists and Literati at the Medicean Court, ed. P. Jacks, New York, 1998.

  4. For Vasari’s theoretical description of the idea and process of disegno, see his “Della Pittura” in Le Vite de’ più eccellenti Pittori, Scultori ed Archtettori, scritte da M. Giorgio Vasari Pittore con Nuove Annotazioni e Commenti di Gaetano Milanesi, 9 vols., Florence, 1878–1885 (repr. Florence, 1981), vol. 1, pp. 168–169. I will refer to Vasari’s Lives hereafter as “Vasari, ed. Milanesi” followed by the appropriate volume and page. On the theory and practice of disegno as it was formulated in Florence during the sixteenth century see Karen-edis Barzman, “The Florentine Accademia del Disegno: Liberal Education and the Renaissance Artist”, in Academies of Art Between Renaissance and Romanticism, ed. A. Boschloo (Leids Kunsthistorische Jaarboek, V/VI, 1986–1987), 1989, pp. 14–32; Eadem, “Perception, Knowledge, & the Theory of Disegno in Sixteenth-Century Florence”, in From Studio to Studiolo, ed. Larry J. Feinberg, Seattle, 1991, pp. 37–48, and her recent book, The Florentine ‘Accademia del Disegno’ and the Early Modern State, New York, 2000.

  5. Unless otherwise noted, all translations are mine.

  6. See, for example, the discussions of Salviati’s style in Antonfrancesco Doni, La Libraria del Doni Fiorentino, nella quale sono scritti tutti gli autori volgari, con cento & più discorsi sopra di quelli, Venice, 1549, pp. 112–113 where Doni includes a dedicatory letter to Salviati which introduces his elaboration of eight literary genres. Doni’s text is available in fascimile, ed. A Forni, Bologna, 1979 and in a modern edition, ed. V. Bramanti, Milan, 1972. Ludovico Domenichi dedicated his 1547 vernacular translation of Alberti’s De Pictura to Salviati, the first published translation of the treatise. See L. Domenichi, La pittura di Leon Battista Alberti, Venice, 1547. The only modern edtion is a fascimile published by A. Forni, Bologna, 1988. Other notable discussions include a passage from Raffaello Borghini, Il Riposo, in cui della pittura e della scultura si favella, de’ più illustri pittori e scultori e delle più famose opere loro si fa menzione; e le cose principali apartenenti a dette arti si insegnano, Florence, 1584, p. 239, for which see the fascimile edition with bibliography and index edited by M. Rosci, 2 vols., Gli storici della letteratura italiana 13, Milan, 1967, and Giovan Battista Armenini, De’ veri precetti della pittura, Ravenna, 1587, for which see the edition by M. Gorreri, Torino, 1988, pp. 29–30; 72–81; 201–203.

  7. Among the most engaging studies on imitation and idealism in Renaissance culture are: E. Garin, La Cultura Filosofica del Rinascimento Italiano, Florence, 1961; C. Vasoli, La Dialettica e la retorica dell’ Umanesimo, Milan, 1968; F. Tateo, Tradizione e realtà nell’umanesimo italiano, Bari, 1974; A. Battistini and E. Raimondi, Le Figure della Retorica, Torino, 1990, and more recently, L. Barkan, Unearthing the Past—Archaeology and Aesthetics in the Making of Renaissance Culture, New Haven, 1999.

  8. See M. Schlitt, “The Patronage of Style: Francesco Salviati’s Frescoes of ‘Camillus’ and Cosimo I de’ Medici”, in The Search for a Patron in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, eds. D. G. Wilkins and R.L. Wilkins, Lewiston, New York, 1996, pp. 157–177; Eadem, “‘Lavorando per pratica’—Study, Labor, and Facility in Vasari’s Life of Salviati”, in Francesco Salviati e la bella maniera—Actes des colloques de Rome e de Paris (1998), Rome, 2001, pp. 91–105; Eadem, “The Rhetoric of Exemplarity in Sixteenth-Century Painting: Reading Outside the Imagery”, in Perspectives on Early Modern and Modern Intellectual History—Essays in Honor of Nancy S. Struever, eds. J. Marino & M. Schlitt, Rochester, 2001, pp. 259–282. I have recontextualized some of the material originally presented in “The Patronage of Style…” in the second half of the present essay, although with an obviously different focus.

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  9. I am adapting my reading of Vasari in this context from the penetrating analysis by Giancarlo Mazzacurati, “Baldassar Castiglione e la Teoria Cortigiana: Ideologia di Classe e Dottrina Critica”, Modern Language Notes, 83, 1968, pp. 16–66. See also P. Sohm, Style in the Art Theory of Early Modern Italy, New York, 2001, esp. pp. 81–114, for an engaging analysis of Vasari’s critical language in the construction and definition of style. On the emergence of a courtly ambient and Castiglione’s formulation of a courtly lingua, see Joseph Marino, “The Court Ambient of Baldassare Castiglione and the Initiative of the Aulic”, Rivista di Studi Italiani, vol. 14, 1996, pp. 64–106, and Idem, Joseph Marino, “A Renaissance in the Vernacular: Baldassare Castiglione’s Coining of the aulic”, in Perspectives on Early Modern and Modern Intellectual History… (above, —Essays in Honor of Nancy S. Struever, eds. J. Marino & M. Schlitt, Rochester, 2001, pp. 145–163. On the culture of the Roman courts in the sixteenth century, see especially La Corte e Il Cortegiano, Un modello Europeo, eds. A. Prosperi & C. Ossola, 2 vols. Rome, 1980; C. Vasoli, La Cultura delle Corti, Bologna, 1980; J. D’Amico, Renaissance Humanism in Papal Rome—Humanists and Churchmen on the Eve of the Reformation, Baltimore, 1983; and more recently, I. Rowland, The Culture of the High Renaissance—Ancients and Moderns in Sixteenth-Century Rome, New York, 1998.

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  10. On the Oratory and its decoration see, R.E. Keller, Das Oratorium von San Giovanni Decollato in Rom: eine Studie seiner Fresken, Bibliotheca Helvetica Romana 15, Neuchâtel, 1976 and L. Partridge’s provocative review of the same in The Art Bulletin 60, 1978, pp. 171–173; J.S. Weisz, Pittura e Misericordia: The Oratory of S. Giovanni Decollato in Rome, Ann Arbor, 1984; M. Hirst, “Francesco Salviati’s Visitation”, Burlington Magazine, June, 1961, pp. 236–240, and Idem, M. Hirst, “Salviati’s two Apostles in the Oratory of S. Giovanni Decollato”, in Studies in Renaissance and Baroque Art Presented to Anthony Blunt on his 60th Birthday, New York/London, 1967, pp. 34–36. See also L. Mortari, Francesco Salviati, Roma, 1992, pp. 13–16; 107–108; 119–120, and Franceso Salviati o la Bella Maniera, exh. cat., ed. C. Monbeig Goguel, Milan, 1998, pp. 118–119. The other painters who contributed to the decoration of the Oratory were Jacopino del Conte, Battista Franco, and Pirro Ligorio.

  11. The popularity of the Visitation is further suggested by the fact that it was subsequently engraved by Giorgio Ghisi, Jacob Matham, and Bartolomeo Passarotti for which, see Mortari, Francesco Salviati (above, n. 10), Roma, 1992, “Incisioni,” nos. 30, 34, 36, pp. 301–302.

  12. “Ma con tutto che questa pittura fusse condotta con molta fatica, non fu a gran pezzo tenuta pari a quella del Salviati, per essere fatta con stento grandissimo e d’una maniera cruda e malinconica, che non aveva ordine nel componimento, nè in parte alcuna punto di quella grazia e vaghezza di colorito che aveva quella di Francesco … E sopra tutto si vuole avvertire, che le teste siano vivaci, pronte, graziose, e con bell’arie, e che la maniera non sia cruda, ma sia negl’ignudi tinta talmente di nero, ch’ell’abbiano rilievo, sfugghino, e si allontanino, secondo che fa bisogno; per non dir nulla delle prospettive de’paesi e dell’altre parti che le buone pitture richieggiono; nè che nel servirsi delle cose d’altri si dee fare per sì fatta maniera, che non si conosca così agevolmente,” (Vasari, ed. Milanesi, vol. 6, pp. 579–580). “But although this painting was executed with much effort, it was not held to be equal by great measure to that of Salviati, from its having been painted with a most great labor and in a crude and melancholy manner, while it did not have order in the composition, nor in a single part any of that grace and charm of coloring which Francesco’s work possessed … And above all, care must be taken that the heads are vivacious, spirited, graceful, and with beautiful expressions, and that the manner not be crude, and the nudes be tinted just so with black that they have relief, melting gradually into the distance according to what is required; to say nothing of the perspective views and the other parts that good paintings require, nor that in making use of the works of others one should proceed in a manner that this may not be too easily recognized.”

  13. P. Bober and R. Rubenstein, Renaissance Artists and Antique Sculpture—A Handbook of Sources, New York, 1986, pp. 33–34.

  14. See D. Quint, Origin and Originality in Renaissance Literature—Versions of the Source, New Haven, 1983.

  15. See Vasari, ed. Milanesi, vol. 4, pp. 373—379. For the most penetrating discussion of Raphael’s method as constructed by Vasari, see C. Dempsey, Annibale Carracci and the Beginnings of Baroque Style, Villa I Tatti 3, Glückstadt, 1977, pp. 60–74.

  16. The bibliography on the theory and practice of imitation in the Renaissance is enormous. For some of the more cogent and enlightening studies, see R. Sabbadini, Il Metodo degli Umanisti, Florence, 1922; the still fundamental analysis by H. Gmelin, “Das Prinzip der Imitatio in den romanischen Literaturen der Renaissance,” Romanische Forschungen 46, 1932, pp. 83–360; G.W. Pigman, “Versions of Imitation in the Renaissance,” Renaissance Quarterly 33, 1980, pp. 1–32; and T. Greene, The Light in Troy—Imitation and Discovery in Renaissance Poetry, New Haven, 1982.

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  17. Quint, Origin and Originality … (above, n. 14), in Renaissance Literature—Versions of the Source, New Haven, 1983, p. 6. For a discussion of Poliziano’s letter within a broader historical context see R. Sabbadini, Storia del Ciceronianismo e di altre questioni letterarie nell’ età della rinascenza, Torino, 1885, pp. 32–45. Giovanfrancesco Pico della Mirandola and Pietro Bembo followed Poliziano’s and Cortesi’s example, and continued the debate in their own series of letters. See Le Epistole “De Imitatione” di Giovanfrancesco Pico della Mirandola e di Pietro Bembo, ed. G. Santangelo, Florence, 1954. Poliziano’s letter to Paolo Cortesi on imitation and style is reprinted in E. Garin, Prosatori latini del Quattrocento, pp. 902–904 and in Greence, Light in Troy … (above, n. 16), Imitation and Discovery in Renaissance Poetry, New Haven, 1982, p. 150 with an English translation. On the Pico/Bembo, Poliziano/Cortesi exchanges, see also I. Rowland, The Culture of the High Renaissance … (above, n. 9), Ancients and Moderns in Sixteenth-Century Rome, New York, 1998, pp. 196–211.

  18. For the most recent and engaging discussion of this generation of artists, see M. Hall, After Raphael—Painting in Central Italy in the Sixteenth Century, New York, 1999.

  19. Raphael’s followers and pupils further realized the potential of his expressive language and classicism in their own history paintings where they formulated styles that were not only rhetorically powerful, but also self-conscious in acknowledging their Roman legacy through a manner that was referentially rich and inventively complex. Hirst had specifically cited Raphael’s Vatican tapestry of the Sacrifice at Lystra as the most relevant visual source for Salviati’s conception of the Visitation. See Hirst, “Francesco Salviati’s Visitation” (above, n. 10), Burlington Magazine, June, 1961, pp. 236–239. See also Mortari, Francesco Salviati (above, n. 10), Roma, 1992, pp. 13–16; 107–108.

  20. The rapidity with which the invention was realized in the drawing lends support to Vasari’s general praise of Salviati’s inventive facility. Weisz, Pittura e Misericordia … (above, n. 10), The Oratory of S. Giovanni Decollato in Rome, Ann Arbor, 1984; M. Hirst, p. 15 suggested that the square format of Salviati’s drawing reflects the possibility that the frescoes were originally intended to occupy square spaces, as can also be seen in Jacopino del Conte’s Annunciation to Zachariah, and that this earlier design was changed to the present horizontal format during the early stages of decoration.

  21. See S.J. Freedberg, Painting in Italy 1500–1600, Baltimore, 1975, p. 438 for mention of the importance of Perino to Salviati. Mortari, Francesco Salviati (above, n. 10), Roma, 1992, pp. 9–21 addresses the importance of Perino in the formation of Salviati’s early style more thoroughly. See also Francesco Salviati o la Bella Maniera, exh. cat. (above, n. 10), ed. C. Monbeig Goguel, Milan, 1998, pp. 116–119; 140; 164; 185; 198.

  22. In Salviati’s idea for the old man leaning on his stick in the modello (whose character and figuration have been modified in the fresco), we can see part of the process of imitation revealed and its genesis in the ornamental figure on the far right of Perino’s painting. In a paradigmatic example recalling Petrarch’s well-known advice on imitation where the resemblance to a model sould be analagous to the resemblance between a father and son, Salviati has unmistakably recalled the rhythm, movement, and gesture of Perino’s figure with his pen as he transformed it within a new context, leaving only a suggestive trace of his original source in the fully developed, painted figure. On Petrarch and imitation see, T. Greene, The Light in Troy… (above, n. 16), Imitation and Discovery in Renaissance Poetry, New Haven, 1982, pp. 81–126.

  23. The idea of Romanitas was of central importance to the conception and stylistic effects of history painting during the first half of the sixteenth century, especially those works representing heroic ancient subjects or contemporary events in the guise of epic history. Romanitas reflected both the painter and patron’s participation in helping to shape a cultural renovatio in a visual synthesis between an idealized past and idealized present. For an enlightening, though technical, discussion of Romanitas as it figured in the ways in which ancient Romans established their identity through language, see J.N. Adams “Romanitas and the Latin Language”, Classical Quarterly 53, 2003, pp. 184–205. (I thank Prof. Marc Mastrangelo for this reference.)

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  24. In his letter to Benedetto Varchi on the relative nobility of painting and sculpture (1546), Vasari emphasized the importance of the painter’s ability to create architectural settings of all types, not only in the representation of buildings, columns, and other structures, but in an infinite variety of landscape settings as well. See P. Barocchi, Scritti d’arte del Cinquecento, 10 vols., Torino, 1979, vol. 3, pp. 496–497.

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  25. Loren Partridge suggested that the individual scenes in the Oratory are calculated to inspire a particular emotional response appropriate to each narrative subject, such as joy, compassion, or sorrow. See L. Partridge, “Review of R.E. Keller, Das Oratorium von San Giovanni Decollato in Rom,” in The Art Bulletin 60, 1978, pp. 171–173.

  26. Salviati employed this dense compositional strategy with similar success in his altarpiece of the Deposition of Christ which he painted for the Dini chapel in Sta. Croce in Florence, 1545. On the Deposition of Christ, within the context of Florentine style during the mid-sixteenth century, see. M. Hall, Renovation and Counter-Reformation: Vasari and Duke Cosimo in Sta. Maria Novella and Sta. Croce, 1565–1577, Oxford, 1979, especially pp. 149–151. See also, L. Mortari, Franceso Salviati… (above, n. 10), Roma, 1992, p. 115.

  27. Alberti’s discussion in book 2 of the De Pictura of the value and qualities of painting are especially resonant in the theory and criticism of Vasari’s generation. See especially II, 40–43 for discussion of varietas and affectiones. C. Grayson, ed. & trans., Leon Battista Alberti—On Painting and On Sculpture, Phaidon: Bath, 1972, pp. 79–84.

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  28. Hirst, “Francesco Salviati’s Visitation…” (above, n. 10), Burlington Magazine, June, 1961, p. 240, n. 22. Salviati had used this same figure in a drawing of Saul Anointing David (previously identified as David Anointing Samuel) which was commissioned by Cardinal Giovanni Salviati at approximately the same time as the Visitation. The drawing was to have been executed in intarsia, but only a copy of the original survives. See Mortari, Francesco Salviati (above, n. 10), Roma, 1992, p. 261, cat. no. 489 for a reproduction of the drawing which is now in the Louvre. On the reuse of figures and drawings by artists of Vasari’s generation, see A. Nova, “Salviati, Vasari, and the Reuse of Drawings in their Working Practice”, Master Drawings 30, 1992, H. 1, pp. 83–108.

  29. See Schlitt, “The Patronage of Style…: Francesco Salviati’s Frescoes of ‘Camillus’ and Cosimo I de’ Medici”, (above, n. 8), in, for a summary of previous scholarship and interpretations, and Eadem, Francesco Salviati at the Court of Cosimo I de’Medici: The Politics of Style (forthcoming). See also Mortari, Francesco Salviati (above, n. 10), Roma, 1992 pp. 25–32; 110–112, and more recently, Francesco Salviati o la Bella Maniera (above, n. 10) ed. C. Monbeig Goguel, Milan, 1998, exh. cat., pp. 61–65; 178–183. See above, n. 8 I have recontextualized some of the material originally presented in “The Patronage of Style…” in the second half of the present essay, although with an obviously different focus. for clarification regarding recontextualized material.

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  30. Historians such as Benedetto Varchi, Bernardo Segni, and Jacopo Pitti, for example, sometimes found themselves in an ambiguous ideological position with respect to Cosimo, their patron, and the new government during the 1540s. They were caught between having to address the events in the decades after 1494—the beginning of the dissolution of the Florentine republic, to which they had been loyal—with an understanding of political motives, while providing an historical interpretation of those events and hence justifying the political inevitability of the principate. For historiography during the 1540s and 1550s in Florence, see R. von Albertini, Firenze dalla Repubblica al Principato—Storia e Conscienza Politica, Biblioteca di cultura storica 109, Torino, 1970, Ch. 5, “Gli storici fiorentini del Cinquecento e la loro interpretazione storico-politico della crisi dello Stato fiorentino” (pp. 306–350; originally published in German as Das florentinische Staatsbewusstsein im Übergang von der Republik zum Prinzipat, Bern, 1955, Ch. 5, “Die florentinischen Historiker des Cinquecento und ihre geschichtlich-politische Interpretation der florentinischen Staatskrise” [pp. 299–341]). See also H. Gmelin, “Personendarstellung bei den Florentinischen Geschichtschreibern der Renaissance,” Beiträge zur Kulturgeschichte des Mittelalters und der Renaissance 31, 1927, pt. 3, and L. Gentile, Studi sulla Storiografia fiorentina alla corte di Cosimo I de’Medici, Pisa, 1905.

  31. F. Bocchi, Le Bellezze della città di Fiorenza, Florence, 1591, fascimile ed. with an introduction by J. Shearman, Westmead, England, 1971, pp. 41–42.

  32. For discussions of Salviati and rhetorical technique, see Schlitt, “The Patronage of Style…: Francesco Salviati’s Frescoes of ‘Camillus’ and Cosimo I de’ Medici”, (above, n. 8) in, pp. 157–177 and “The Rhetoric of Exemplarity in Sixteenth-Century Painting…”, (above, n. 8) Reading Outside the Imagery,” in Perspectives on Early Modern and Modern Intellectual History—Essays in Honor of Nancy S. Struever, eds. J. Marino & M. Schlitt, Rochester, 2001, pp. 259–282.

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  33. On the genre of history and history writing in Florence during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, see G. Spini, “Historiography: The Art of History in the Italian Counter Reformation,” in The Late Renaissance 1525–1630, ed. E. Cochrane, New York, 1970, pp. 91–133; G. Cotroneo, I Trattatisti dell’ars historica, I principii 2, Napoli, 1971, especially pp. 4–86; and F. Gilbert, Machiavelli and Guicciardini—Politics and History in Sixteenth-Century Florence, Princeton, 1973, Ch. 5, “The Theory and Practice of History in the Fifteenth Century,” pp. 203–235.

  34. On the Camillus frescoes as exempla, see Schlitt, “The Rhetoric of Exemplarity in Sixteenth-Century Painting …” Reading Outside the Imagery,” in Perspectives on Early Modern and Modern Intellectual History—Essays in Honor of Nancy S. Struever, eds. J. Marino & M. Schlitt, Rochester, 2001, pp. 259–282, and for an excellent contextual study of the use of exemplum during the Renaissance, see J. Lyons, Exemplum—The Rhetoric of Example in Early Modern France and Italy, Princeton, 1989. Camillus’s life and exploits are discussed throughout books V, VI, and beginning of book VII of Livy’s Ab urbe condita with the most sustained narrative about his military conquests in Etruria occupying all of book V and book VI, 1–11. Plutarch’s Life of Camillus in Parallel Lives of Greeks and Romans is paired with Themistocles, though without a concluding comparison between the two. Also useful for background on Camillus are O. Hirschfeld, “Zur Camillus-Legende” (1895), in Idem, J. Lyons, Kleine Schriften Berlin, 1913 (reprint New York, 1975), pp. 273–287, and G. Dumézil, Camillus—A Study of Indo-European Religion as Roman History, ed. U. Strutynski, Berkeley, 1980. Florentine Renaissance sources that discuss Camillus are numerous. For some of the more significant, see F. degli Uberti, Il Dittamondo e Le Rime, 2 vols., ed. G. Corsi, Bari, 1952, vol. 1, bk. 1, chap. 21, p. 62; bk. 2, chap. 28, p. 168; F. Petrarca, De viris illustribus, ed. G. Martellotti, Florence, 1964, vol. 1, pp. 29–43; Leonardo Bruni, History of the Florentine People, ed. & trans. J. Hankins, vol. 1, The I Tatti Renaissance Library 3, Cambridge, MA., 2001, I, 31–32; 35 (pp. 41–45; 47). B. Baldini, “Panegirico della Clemenza di M. Baccio Baldini al Serenissimo Signore Cosimo de’Medici Primo Duca di Toscana,” in Vita di Cosimo Medici Primo Gran Duca di Toscana (1578), Florence, 1980, pp. 9–10; J. Nardi, “Trionfo della Fama e della Gloria,” in Canti Carnascialeschi del Rinascimento, ed. C. Singleton, Bari, 1936, pp. 251–253; N. Machiavelli, Discorsi sopra la prima deca di Tito Livio, ed. S. Bertelli, Milan, 1983, bk. I, chap. 12; bk. II, chap. 30; bk. III, chap. 20–21.

  35. Scholarly interpretations of Salviati’s frescoes have in general proceeded under the assumption that Camillus was regarded as an historically important though unpopular Roman republican hero, and that in choosing this subject, Cosimo and his advisors intended to convey his analagous dictatorial role in a deliberate rejection of Florentine republican ideals and alienation of important republican sympathizers in the cultural and political community. (I. Cheney, Francesco Salviati, 1510–1563, 4 vols., Ph.D. Diss., New York University, 1963, best represents this position). There are several problems with this interpretation, as Henk Th. van Veen first noted in print. See his Letteratura artistica e arte di corte nella Firenze Granducale—Studi Vari, Florence, 1986, pp. 15–16. First, the success of the transition from republic to principate, together with the restructuring of Florentine social and political institutions, depended far less on the alienation of republican sympathizers than on negotiating a political and often intellectual reconciliation with them. Furthermore, Cosimo during the early years of his rule often appropriated imagery and conceits that were associated with the Florentine republic and his Medici ancestors. Appropriating well-known imagery perpetuated the illusion of historical continuity and allowed those familiar precedents to be recontextualized under new circumstances. Second, the idea that Camillus was considered an unpopular tyrant is at odds with the image of him expressed in over three centuries of Florentine literature and history. In addition, the traditional argument that the primary events from the life of Camillus should be read as representing parallel military and political accomplishments in Cosimo’s life cannot be consistently maintained throughout the frescoes. The deeds of Camillus do not represent the analagous res gestae of Cosimo’s early career, but rather function as exempla in which are embodied his ideal virtues.

  36. For the culture of Renaissance courts see, n. 9. For a broader discussion of the changing perspectives and relationships between letterati and courts during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries see F. Gaeta, “Dal comune alla corte rinascimentale,” in Letteratura Italiana—il Letterato e le Istituzioni, ed. A.Asor Rosa, Torino, 1982, vol. 1, pp. 149–25, and W. Barberis, “Uomini di corte nel cinquecento tra il primo della famiglia e il governo dello stato,” in Storia d’Italia Annali, vol. 4, Torino, 1981, pp. 857–894. Also central to the social and linguistic study of courtly culture are C. Dionisotti, Geografia e storia della letteratura italiana, Torino, 1967, pp. 25–88; Le corte Farnesiane di Parma e Piacenza 1545–1622, II, Forme e istituzioni della produzione culturale, ed. A. Quondam, Rome, 1978, and Le Corte e lo spazio: Ferrara estense, 3 vols., eds. G. Papagno and A. Quondam, Rome, 1982. For the broadest study on the genre of courtly history painting, see J. Kliemann, Gesta Dipinte—La grande decorazione nelle dimore italiane dal Quattrocento al Seicento, Milan, 1993.

  37. On the panegyric, see G. Kennedy, A New History of Classical Rhetoric, Princeton, 1994, pp. 20–22; 61–62; 225–228; The Propaganda of Power: The Role of Panegyric in Late Antiquity, ed. M. Whitby, Leiden/Boston, 1998, and the fundamental study by J. O’Malley, Praise and Blame in Renaissance Rome—Rhetoric, Doctrine, and Reform in the Sacred Orators of the Papal court, c. 1450–1521, Durham, 1979. See also B. Vickers, “Epideictic and Epic in the Renaissance,” New Literary History 14, 1982–1983, pp. 497–537, in which he discusses the significance of ethics and demonstrative virtue to the epic genre. The ideal of heroic virtue as a value especially associated with the epic genre would have been implicitly associated with Camillus though the historical imagery, and thus equally associated with Cosimo as patron by the viewer. G. Weise, L’ideale eroico del Rinascimento e le sue Premesse Umanistiche, Naples, 1961 provides a rich compendium of primary sources and a broad range of contexts for each category he defines. Weise discusses heroic virtue particularly as it pertains to the Aristotelian definition.

  38. See (Ps.-)Cicero, Rhetorica ad Herennium, IV, 39, 57 for the figure of descriptio and IV, 55, 68 for the figure of demonstratio which were essential to creating illusion in rhetorical practice. T. Cave, The Cornucopian Text—Problems of Writing in the French Renaissance, Oxfor, 1979, pp. 3–35, provides an illuminating discussion of the rhetorical theories of Cicero, Quintilian, and Erasmus as they pertain to Renaissance stylistic models in literature.

  39. On Livy as a stylistic exemplar, see F. Gilbert, Machiavelli and Guicciardini—Politics and History in Sixteenth-Century Florence, Princeton, 1973, pp. 203–209. Pietro Bembo, for example, in his letter on imitation to Gian Francesco Pico della Mirandola, characterized Livy’s style as one of ubertas (copiousness), and Jacopo Nardi in his 1540 translation of Livy into the vernacular, similarly explained in his preface to the reader that he endeavored to maintain the variety and richnes of Livy’s style in Italian (questa lingua cosí copiosa e varia). See J. Nardi, Le Deche Delle Historie Romane di Tito Livio Padovano, Tradotte nuovamente nelle lingua Toscana, da Jacopo Nardi cittadino Fiorentino, con le postille aggiunte nelle margine del libro…, Venezia, 1540, n. p., “A gli lettori”.

  40. See R. Lee, Ut Pictura Poesis: The Humanistic Theory of Painting, New York, 1967. Specific Renaissance discussions of the analogy between painting and poetry or painting and rhetoric are far too numerous to mention here. For three excellent sixteenth-century source anthologies where discussions of the painting/poetry and painting/rhetoric analogies abound, see Trattati di poetica e retorica del Cinquecento, ed. B. Weinberg, 4 vols., Bari, 1970; P. Barocchi, Scritti d’arte del Cinquecento… (above, n. 24) 1979, 3, pp. 496–497 and Eadem, Trattati d’arte del Cinquecento fra manierismo e controriforma, 3 vols., Bari, 1960–1962.

  41. Cicero, De oratore, II,12–15 and especially II,15,62–64. Cicero provides a guideline for rhetorical procedures in writing history which he based not on any independent rules for history established by the rhetoricians (which he reminds the reader do not exist per se), but rather on the writings of the Greek historians. For a general discussion of the importance of these passages in the De oratore to humanist discussions of history writing, see F. Gilbert, Machiavelli and Guicciardini…, pp. 203–235. For a more thorough study of theories of Renaissance historiography and rhetorical practice, see Cotroneo, I Trattatisti dell’ ars historica (above, n. 33), I principii 2, Napoli, 1971, esp. pp. 29–120.

  42. Livy provides the most suggestive descriptions of the legendary wealth and strength of Veii in book V of the Ab urbe condita.

  43. A classic study on the problem is still H. Baron, “The Querelle of the Ancients and the Moderns as a Problem for Renaissance Scholarship,” Journal of the History of Ideas 20, 1959, pp. 3–22, now revised in Idem, H. Baron, In Search of Florentine Civic Humanism—Essays on the Transition from Medieval to Modern Thought, 2 vols., Princeton, 1988, vol. 2, pp. 72–100. See also the series of articles in the Journal of the History of Ideas 48, no.1, 1987, “Ancients and Moderns: A Symposium”, pp. 3–50, and G. Savarese, “Antico e moderno in umanisti romani del primo Cinquecento”, in Roma e L’Antico nell’arte e nella cultura del Cinquecento, ed. M. Fagiolo, Rome, 1985, pp. 23–32.

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  44. Translation by Bernadotte Perrin, Plutarch Lives—Pericles and Fabius Maximus, Nicias and Crassus, Loeb Classical Library, n. 65, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press; London: W. Heinemann, 1956), p. 41. For the most thorough analysis of Plutarch’s “Pericles”, see Philip A. Stadter, A Commentary on Plutarch’s Pericles, Durham, N.C., 1989.

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  45. G.B. Armenini, De’ veri precetti della pittura… (above, n. 6) Ravenna, 1587, for which see the edition by M. Gorreri, Torino, 1988, p. 93. On Armenini see, E.J. Olszewski, Giovanni Battista Armenini—On the True Precepts of the Art of Painting, New York, 1977, and the article by R. Williams, “The Vocation of the Artist as seen by Giovanni Battista Armenini”, Art History 18, no.4, December 1995, pp. 518–536. Of the many sources on Giulio Romano and the relationship between invention, antiquity, and style see especially, Giulio Romano—Atti del convegno internazionale di studi su “Giulio Romano e l’espansione europea del Rinascimento” (Mantova-Palazzo Ducale, 1–5 ottobre 1989), Mantua, 1989; F. Vinti, Giulio Romano pittore e l’antico, Florence, 1995; Giulio Romano—Master Designer (Exhibition of Drawings in Celebration of the Five Hundredth Anniversary of his Birth), ed. J. Cox-Rearick, New York, 1999. See also the essay by Cox-Rearick in this last-cited source, “Giulio Romano—Master Designer”, pp. 13–27, where Armenini’s text is briefly discussed.

  46. “Il Doni a M. Lelio Torelli, 1546”, in Raccolta di lettere sulla pittura, scultura, ed architettura, eds. M.G. Bottari and S. Ticozzi, Milan, 1822, vol. 5, p. 161. The letter has also been reprinted in A.F. Doni, Disegno (fascimile of 1549 edition), ed. M. Pepe, Milan, 1970, pp. 105–108.

  47. In her essay, “Beyond Eclectisicm: Salviati and Giulio Romano…” (above, n. 2) in Francesco Salviati et la Bella Maniera—Actes des colloques de Rome et de Paris (1998), ed. C. Monbeig Goguel et al., J. Cox-Rearick remarked in passing that “… if Pietro Aretino’s apt characterization of Giulio’s concetti as ‘anticamente moderni e modernamente antichi’ could not quite be said of Salviati’s, his art too is informed by a fluid exchange of antique and modern” (p. 356). While I don’t entirely agree on this point, it should be noted that Cox-Rearick’s study is largely concerned with direct visual comparisons between Giulio and Salviati and the inspiration Giulio’s art may have provided for Salviati, particularly through the medium of drawings.

  48. L. Domenichi, La Pittura di Leon Battista Alberti… (above, n. 6) Venice, 1547 2(v)–3(r).

  49. A. Doni, La Libraria del Doni Fiorentio…(above, n. 6), nella quale sono scritti tutti gli autori volgari, con cento & più discorsi sopra di quelli, Venice, 1549, p. 112 For a detailed analysis of these two letters and their critical implications for Salviati’s position within the artistic community in Florence, see Schlitt, “Lavorando per pratica—Study Labor, and Facility in Vasari’s Life of Salviati…” (above, n. 8). in Francesco Salviati e la bella maniera—Actes des colloques de Rome e de Paris (1998), Rome, 2001, pp. 91–105; Alessandro Cecchi recently referred to the letters, though without extensive discussion, in his article: “In Margine a una Recente Monografia sul Salviati”, Antichità Viva 32, 1994, H. 1, pp. 12–22.

  50. R. Borghini, Il Riposo… (above, n. 6), in cui della pittura e della scultura si favella, de’ più illustri pittori e scultori e delle più famose opere loro si fa menzione; e le cose principali apartenenti a dette arti si insegnano, Florence, 1584, p. 239.

  51. See for example, Freedberg, Painting in Italy… (above, n. 21), 1500–1600, Baltimore, 1975, pp. 437–42, where he compares the visual appearance of Salviati’s frescoes to relief sculpture, and discusses ornament in the context of applied decoration. The question of Mannerism is of course central to this issue, for which see the insightful introduction by Elizabeth Cropper to the new edition of C.H. Smyth, Mannerism and Maniera, Vienna, 1992, pp. 12–21

  52. L. Mendelsohn, Paragoni—Benedetto Varchi’s “Due Lezzioni” and Cinquecento Art Theory, Ann Arbor, 1982, p. 150.

  53. Vasari particularly notes the effectiveness of ornamenti and invenzione in history, painting in his letter: “Tanto più vedendo questo secol d’oggi ripieno di tanti ornamenti nelle figure e nell’altre appertenenzie… la quale con dolci tratti di poesia sotto varie forme vi [con]duce l’animo e gli occhi prima a maraviglia stupenda…” P. Barocchi, Scritti d’arte del cinquecento… (n. 24), vol. 3, pp. 498–499. “All the more seeing this present era replete with so many ornaments in the figures and in other embellishments…[and] which with sweet features of poetry in various forms, leads the eyes and [then] the mind to a stupendous wonder…”

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  54. Continuing his defense of painting, Vasari remarks: “… e vedendo in elle antiquità in elle istorie di marmo le fughe degli armati, ma non il sudore e la spuma elle labbia e’ lustri de’ peli de’ cavalli, e’ crini e le code di quegli sfilate, e lo abagliamento delle armi et i rinverberi delle figure in esse. La scoltura mai lo farà. Di più il raso, [il] velluto, l’argento e l’oro, e le gioie con i lustri delle perle”. Barocchi, Scritti d’arte del cinquecento… above, n. 24),, vol. 3, p. 499. ”… and seeing in ancient historical reliefs the flight of the soldiers, but not the sweat and foam at the muzzle[s] of the horses and the lustre of [their] coats, or the hair and tails of those marching past, or the armor of the troops and the reflections from the figures in them. Sculpture can never represent these things. [And] moreover, satin, velvet, silver and gold, and gems with the lustre of pearls.”

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    Melinda Schlitt

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Schlitt, M. “Anticamente moderna et modernamente antica”: Imitation and the ideal in 16th-century Italian painting. Int class trad 10, 377–406 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12138-004-0002-z

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