Petrarch and Sixteenth-Century Italian Portraiture

Petrarch and Sixteenth-Century Italian Portraiture

The volume presents a wide-ranging investigation of the ways in which Petrarch’s legacy informed the relationship between visual and literary portraits in sixteenth-century Italy. Petrarch’s vast literary production influenced the intellectual framework in which new models of representation and self-representation developed during the Renaissance. His two sonnets on Laura’s portrait by Simone Martini and his ambivalent fascination with the illusionary power of portraiture in his Latin texts — such as the Secretum, the Familiares and De remediis utriusque fortune — constituted the theoretical reference for artists and writers alike. In a century dominated by the rhetorical comparison between art and literature (ut pictura poësis) and by the paragone debate, the interplay between Petrarch’s oeuvre, Petrarchism and portraiture shaped the discourse on the relationship between the sitters’ physical image and their inner life. The volume brings together diverse interdisciplinary contributions that explore the subject through a rich body of literary and visual sources.
  • Cover
  • Table of Contents
    • Acknowledgements
    • 1 Introduction
      • Ilaria Bernocchi, Nicolò Morelli, and Federica Pich
    • 2 Widows, Poetry, and Portraits: Livia Spinola and Francesca Turina on the Portraits of their Dead Husbands
      • Simone Monti
    • 3 In Medusa’s Eyes: Petrification and Marble Portraits in Late Sixteenth-Century Poetry
      • Martina Dal Cengio
    • 4 The Portrait of the Ideal Woman: Petrarch in Conduct Literature Texts for and about Women
      • Francesco Lucioli
    • 5 Anti-Petrarchist Portraiture or a Different Petrarchist Portraiture?
      • A Literary Outlook on Some Non-Idealised Female Sitters in Renaissance Art
        • Diletta Gamberini
    • 6 The Shadow of Petrarch: Benedetto Varchi and Agnolo Bronzino on Portraiture
      • Antonio Geremicca
    • 7 Double Portraits of Petrarch and Laura in Print (c. 1544–1600)
      • Gemma Cornetti
    • 8 Sonnet ‘Diptychs’ and Double Portraits: Figurative Allusions in Sixteenth-Century Encomiastic Poetry
      • Muriel M. S. Barbero
    • 9 Images of Women from Subject to Frame in Printed Portrait Books
      • Susan Gaylard
    • Bibliography
    • Index
  • List of Illustrations
    • Fig. 5.1 Leonardo da Vinci, Old Woman, c. 1490, pencil on paper, Codex Forster III, fol. 72r, Victoria and Albert Museum, London. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
    • Fig. 5.2 Leonardo, Grotesque Elderly Couple (‘A satire on aged lovers’), c. 1490, leadpoint, pen and pale ink on paper, 26.2 ×12.3 cm, RCIN 912449, Royal Collection, Windsor.
    • Fig. 5.3 Giorgione, La vecchia, c. 1506, oil on canvas, 68 × 59 cm, Gallerie dell’Accademia, Venice.
    • Fig. 5.4 Giorgione, Portrait of a Woman (Laura), 1506, oil on canvas mounted on wood, 41 × 33.6 cm, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.
    • Fig. 5.5 Francesco Torbido, Portrait of a Young Man with a Rose, 1516, oil on canvas, 62 × 51.8 cm, Alte Pinakothek, Munich.
    • Fig. 6.1 Agnolo Bronzino, Portrait of Lorenzo Lenzi, c. 1527–1530, oil on panel, 90 × 71 cm, Civiche Raccolte Artistiche-Pinacoteca del Castello Sforzesco, Milan.
    • Fig. 6.2 Agnolo Bronzino, Portrait of Lorenzo Lenzi, c. 1527–1530, detail, oil on canvas, Civiche Raccolte Artistiche-Pinacoteca del Castello Sforzesco, Milan.
    • Fig. 6.3 Agnolo Bronzino, Portrait of Laura Battiferri, c. 1560, oil on panel, 87.5 × 70 cm, Musei Civici Fiorentini, Museo di Palazzo Vecchio, Donazione Loeser, Florence.
    • Fig. 6.4 Agnolo Bronzino, Portrait of Laura Battiferri, c. 1560, detail, oil on panel, Musei Civici Fiorentini, Museo di Palazzo Vecchio, Donazione Loeser, Florence.
    • Fig. 7.1 Portrait of Petrarch and Laura with sonnet, woodcut from Il Petrarcha con l’espositione d’Alessandro Vellutello (Venice: Gabriele Giolito, 1544), fol. A3r, copy C. 27.e.19, The British Library, London.
    • Fig. 7.2 Sonetti canzoni e triomphi di m[esser] Francesco Petrarca, con la spositione di Bernardino Daniello (Venice: Giovanni Maria Nicolini da Sabbio, Pietro Nicolini da Sabbio, Giovanni Battista Pederzano, 1549), fol. *1r, copy 638.h.4, The British Lib
    • Fig. 7.3 Il Petrarcha con l’espositione d’Alessandro Vellutello (Venice: Gabriele Giolito, 1544), fol. A1r, copy C. 27.e.19, The British Library, London.
    • Fig. 7.4 Portrait of Petrarch and Laura with quatrain, woodcut from Il Petrarca novissimamente rivisto e corretto (Venice: Gabriele Giolito, 1559), fol. A3v, copy SC8160A, The John Rylands Library, Manchester.
    • Fig. 7.5 Anonymous, Portrait of Petrarch and Laura, 1510–1562, engraving, 23 × 32.7 cm, inv. RRP-P-H-H-263, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. Image in the public domain.
    • Fig. 7.6 Giacomo Franco, Portrait of Petrarch and Laura, 1575–1590, engraving and etching, 21.4 × 32.7 cm, inv. 1877.0210.117, The British Museum, London.
    • Fig. 8.1 Piero della Francesca, The Duke and Duchess of Urbino Federico da Montefeltro and Battista Sforza, c. 1465–1474, oil on wood, 47 × 33 cm each, Gallerie degli Uffizi, Florence. Courtesy of Scala Archive.
    • Fig. 8.2 Piero della Francesca, The Triumphs of the Duke and Duchess of Urbino Federico da Montefeltro and Battista Sforza (reverse of the portraits), c. 1465–1474, oil on wood, 47 × 33 cm each, Gallerie degli Uffizi, Florence. Courtesy of Scala Archive.
    • Fig. 8.3 Title page of I Trionfi del Petrarcha, con la spositione di M. Giovanni Andrea Gesualdo da Traetto (Venice: Domenico Giglio, 1553). Courtesy of Clark Art Institute clarkart.edu.
    • Figs 8.4.1 and 8.4.2 Anonymous, Portraits of Guillaume des Autels and his Beloved, engraving, from Guillaume des Autels, Les amoureux repos (Lyon: Jean Temporal, 1553), fols A1v–A2r, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris. Courtesy of gallica.bnf.fr, Bib
    • Fig. 8.5 Etienne Delaune, attr., Portraits of Catherine de’ Medicis and Henri II of France, sixteenth century, engraving, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris. Courtesy of gallica.bnf.fr, Bibliothèque nationale de France.
    • Figs 8.6.1 and 8.6.2 Anonymous, Portraits of the King of France, Charles IX, and of the Queen of France, Elisabeth of Austria, 1571, engravings, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris. Courtesy of gallica.bnf.fr, Bibliothèque nationale de France.
    • Fig. 9.1 Medallion portrait of Fulvia, from Andrea Fulvio, Illustrium imagines (Rome: Jacopo Mazzocchi, 1517), fol. XIIIr, Wing ZP 535.M458, Newberry Library, Chicago.
    • Fig. 9.2 Medallion portraits of Melusina and her son ‘Gotfrid with the Big Tooth’, from Diethelm Keller, Kunstliche und aigendtliche Bildtnussen der rhömischen Keyseren (Zurich: Andreas Gessner, 1558), p. 525, Case E 436.463, Newberry Library, Chicago.
    • Fig. 9.3 Agrippina the Younger, from Enea Vico, Le imagini delle donne auguste (Venice: Vico and Valgrisi, 1557), p. 98, Z233.A43 V53im 1557, Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, UCLA.
    • Fig. 9.4 Aelia Paetina, from Enea Vico, Le imagini delle donne auguste, (Venice: Vico and Valgrisi, 1557), p. 144, Z233.A43 V53im 1557, Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, UCLA.
    • Fig. 9.5 Portrait of Charles the Bold, from Francesco Terzio, Austriacae gentis imaginum (Innsbruck: Gaspar Patavinus, 1569–73), vol. 4, unpaginated, Wing oversize ZP 539.O815, Newberry Library, Chicago.
    • Fig. 9.6 Portrait of Philip II of Spain, from Francesco Terzio, Austriacae gentis imaginum (Innsbruck: Gaspar Patavinus, 1569–73), vol. 4, unpaginated, Wing oversize ZP 539.O815, Newberry Library, Chicago.
    • Fig. 9.7 Portrait of Empress Maria, from Francesco Terzio, Austriacae gentis imaginum (Innsbruck: Gaspar Patavinus, 1569–73), vol. 5, unpaginated, Wing oversize ZP 539.O815, Newberry Library, Chicago.

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