Ausgabe 2.2011 / Renaissance

Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://edoc.hu-berlin.de/18452/590

Redaktion: Angela Dressen / Susanne Gramatzki

Ausgabedatum: 23.06.2011

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Now showing 1 - 5 of 5

2011-06-23Zeitschriftenartikel
Inaugural Lecture at the Warburg Institute, London
Gardner, Julian; Dressen, Angela; Gramatzki, Susanne
2011-06-23Zeitschriftenartikel
The Representation of Philosophers in the Art of Salvator Rosa
Langdon, Helen; Dressen, Angela; Gramatzki, Susanne
Salvator Rosa longed to be considered a philosopher-painter, and to win a reputation for his learned representation of novel subjects. This essay traces the development of this kind of subject matter in his art, from the satirical paintings of Cynics and Stoics which date from his years in Florence (1640 – 1649) to philosopher paintings of the 1660s, when he chose instead the pre-Socratics, such as Pythagoras and Empedocles, and natural philosophers and magicians. It sets these paintings in their intellectual contexts, in Florence in the world of the literary academies, in which Rosa played a key role, and in Rome in the scientific world of Athanasius Kircher, Daniello Bartoli and Queen Christina of Sweden. The essay aims to illuminate the strains of contemporary thought and feeling to which these paintings so deeply appealed, and, by studying the treatment of such subjects in contemporary poetry and literature, to suggest how they may have been read. It argues that much of their appeal may have lain in their ambiguity, and in the power that they had to stimulate discussion. Several of Rosa’s subjects are extremely rare in painting, but, as in the case of two paintings of Pythagoras, they are subjects common in literature. They would not have been seen as odd and eccentric, as now they seem, but as subjects central to 17th century philosophical debates.
2011-06-23Zeitschriftenartikel
Socrates Becomes Narcissus: Moral Mediation and Artistic Representation in Achille Bocchi’s Symbolicarum quaestionum
Packwood, David; Dressen, Angela; Gramatzki, Susanne
Achille Bocchi’s Symbolicarum quaestionum of 1555 shows Socrates drawing a preparatory design, in the presence of his demon. Socrates as artist was used to illustrate Bocchi’s adage, “The significance of weighty things is shown by a picture/ Whatever is hidden deeper becomes more apparent.” A companion print of Socrates holding a mirror illustrates another maxim “Behold - a live face is splendidly transmitted from a mirror. You know this and are able to do everything you yourself want.” This article explores how Socrates’s iconography is intertwined with theories of artistic representation and moral mediation in the Symbolicarum quaestionum. It also argues that Bocchi’s juxtaposition of Socrates looking into a mirror and performing an artistic function, suggests that the Bolognese intellectual knew of a philosophical tradition that combined Socrates and Narcissus: the former linked with inner truth via the mediation of the mirror; the latter with the origin of painting, also a form of self-knowledge. Finally, by drawing on recent scholarship on Socrates, which meshes reflections on philosophy, gender and age, Bocchi’s representation of Socrates is placed within a new context.
2011-06-23Zeitschriftenartikel
The Marble Philosophers and the search for pia sapientia
Dressen, Angela; Dressen, Angela; Gramatzki, Susanne
Central to the design of the Siena cathedral pavement is the Mountain of Wisdom. It is located among Sages like Hermes Trismegistus and the Sibyls. Originating in a larger study of the roles of Neoplatonic, Gnostic and Hermetic concepts of salvation in the cathedral pavement design, this paper concentrates on the panel designed by Pintoricchio in 1504 which shows Socrates, Crates, Fortuna and Sapientia together with a "peripatetic" group of Sages who ascend the mountain. Many sources have been claimed for this scene, among them the Bible, Augustine, and the tabula cebetis. Crucial for understanding the panel's iconography are however the Old Testament's Book of Wisdome and Lactantius' Divine Institutes, with its chapter on the False Wisdom of the Philosophers. Lactantius uses ancient philosophy and their pagan sages to undermine his apologetic approach to justify Christian religion. Within this context Socrates and Crates constitute important moral exemplars. The Book of Wisdom indicates Sapientia as the teacher of all the virtues, and through an interpretation of Divine Wisdom links humanity to the maritime allegory. Only those who recognize the superiority of Divine Wisdom finally achieve enlightenment.
2011-06-23Zeitschriftenartikel
A Conflation of Characters: The Portrayal of Aristotle and Averroës as Jews in a Venetian Incunabulum
Karem, Marina Del Negro; Dressen, Angela; Gramatzki, Susanne
This article examines the illustrations on the frontispieces of a two-volume incunabulum printed in Venice in 1483 in which the artist Girolamo da Cremona represented Averroës, Aristotle and other philosophers as Jews. Girolamo had trained in Andrea Mantegna’s shop and by the late Quattrocento had achieved the reputation as the best illustrator working all’antica. Stylistically, Girolamo’s miniatures are a clear indication of the level of interest towards classical art of its patron and, indeed, of all well-educated Venetian society. However, while visually expressing the latest Renaissance trends, Girolamo’s scenes contain also evidence of the opposition towards Aristotelian philosophy on the part of the Dominican and Observant Franciscans. By conflating Classical Greek and other philosophers (despicable pagans according to the Dominicans) into Jews, Girolamo clearly expressed both the common perceptual ambivalence towards classical philosophy as well as the ongoing struggle for supremacy between faith and reason. The artist's residence in cities with a numerous Jewish population and, particularly, his experience in Venice where Jews were essential participants in the early publishing enterprises would have rendered him familiar with their appearance. For Girolamo and, indeed, even for most well educated Christians, Jews (like the Muslim and Greek philosophers) represented both the epitome of scholarship as well as the error of denying the “true” faith.

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