Giacobbe Giusti, Petrarch

 

Giacobbe Giusti, Petrarch

 

Giacobbe Giusti, Petrarch

Petrarch’s Virgil (title page) (c. 1336) Illuminated manuscript by Simone Martini, 29 x 20 cm Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Milan.

Giacobbe Giusti, Petrarch

The Triumph of Death, or The 3 Fates. Flemish tapestry (probably Brussels, ca. 1510–1520). Victoria and Albert Museum, London. The three Fates, Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos, who spin, draw out and cut the thread of life, represent Death in this tapestry, as they triumph over the fallen body of Chastity. This is the third subject in Petrarch’s poem « The Great Triumphs ». First, Love triumphs; then Love is overcome by Chastity, Chastity by Death, Death by Fame, Fame by Time and Time by Eternity

 

Giacobbe Giusti, Petrarch

Laura de Noves

Giacobbe Giusti, Petrarch

Petrarch’s Arquà house near Padua where he retired to spend his last years

Giacobbe Giusti, Petrarch

Santa Maria della Pieve in Arezzo

 

Giacobbe Giusti, Petrarch

La Casa del Petrarca (birthplace) at Vicolo dell’Orto, 28 in Arezzo

Giacobbe Giusti, Petrarch

Dante Alighieri, detail from a Luca Signorelli fresco in the chapel of San Brizio, Duomo, Orvieto.

Francesco Petrarca Giacobbe Giusti, Petrarch
Petrarch portrait by Altichiero
Born	July 20, 1304 Arezzo, Italy
Died	July 19, 1374 (aged 69) Arquà, Italy
Occupation	Scholar, poet
Nationality	Italian
Period	Early Renaissance
Literary movement	Renaissance humanism
Children	Giovanni (1337–1361) Francesca (born in 1343)
Relatives	Eletta Canigiani (mother) Ser Petracco (father)

Santa Maria della Pieve in Arezzo

La Casa del Petrarca (birthplace) at Vicolo dell’Orto, 28 in Arezzo

Francesco Petrarca(Italian: [franˈtʃesko peˈtrarka]; July 20, 1304 – July 18/19, 1374), commonly anglicized as Petrarch (/ˈpiːtrɑːrk, ˈpɛ-/), was a scholar and poet of Renaissance Italy who was one of the earliest humanists. His rediscovery of Cicero‘s letters is often credited with initiating the 14th-century Renaissance. Petrarch is often considered the founder of Humanism.^[1] In the 16th century, Pietro Bembo created the model for the modern Italian language based on Petrarch’s works, as well as those of Giovanni Boccaccio, and, to a lesser extent, Dante Alighieri.^[2]Petrarch would be later endorsed as a model for Italian style by the Accademia della Crusca.

Petrarch’s sonnets were admired and imitated throughout Europe during the Renaissance and became a model for lyrical poetry. He is also known for being the first to develop the concept of the « Dark Ages. »^[3]

Biography

Youth and early career

Petrarch was born in the Tuscan city of Arezzo in 1304. He was the son of Ser Petracco and his wife Eletta Canigiani. His given name was Francesco Petracco. The name was Latinized to Petrarca. Petrarch’s younger brother was born in Incisa in Val d’Arno in 1307. Dante was a friend of his father.^[4]

Petrarch spent his early childhood in the village of Incisa, near Florence. He spent much of his early life at Avignon and nearby Carpentras, where his family moved to follow Pope Clement V who moved there in 1309 to begin the Avignon Papacy. He studied law at the University of Montpellier (1316–20) and Bologna (1320–23) with a lifelong friend and schoolmate called Guido Sette. Because his father was in the profession of law, he insisted that Petrarch and his brother study law also. Petrarch however, was primarily interested in writing and Latin literature and considered these seven years wasted. Additionally, he proclaimed that through legal manipulation his guardians robbed him of his small property inheritance in Florence, which only reinforced his dislike for the legal system. He protested, « I couldn’t face making a merchandise of my mind, » as he viewed the legal system as the art of selling justice.^[4]

Petrarch was a prolific letter writer and counted Boccaccio among his notable friends to whom he wrote often. After the death of their parents, Petrarch and his brother Gherardo went back to Avignon in 1326, where he worked in numerous clerical offices. This work gave him much time to devote to his writing. With his first large-scale work, Africa, an epic in Latin about the great Roman general Scipio Africanus, Petrarch emerged as a European celebrity. On April 8, 1341, he became the second ^[5] poet laureate since antiquity and was crowned by Roman Senatori Giordano Orsini and Orso dell’Anguillara on the holy grounds of Rome’s Capitol.^[6][7][8]

He traveled widely in Europe, served as an ambassador, and has been called « the first tourist« ^[9] because he traveled just for pleasure,^[10] and the reason he climbed Mont Ventoux.^[11] During his travels, he collected crumbling Latin manuscripts and was a prime mover in the recovery of knowledge from writers of Rome and Greece. He encouraged and advised Leontius Pilatus‘s translation of Homerfrom a manuscript purchased by Boccaccio, although he was severely critical of the result. Petrarch had acquired a copy, which he did not entrust to Leontius,^[12] but he knew no Greek; Homer, Petrarch said, « was dumb to him, while he was deaf to Homer ».^[13] In 1345 he personally discovered a collection of Cicero‘s letters not previously known to have existed, the collection Epistulae ad Atticum, in the Chapter Library (Biblioteca Capitolare) of Verona Cathedral.^[14]

Disdaining what he believed to be the ignorance of the centuries preceding the era in which he lived, Petrarch is credited or charged with creating the concept of a historical « Dark Ages« .^[3]

Mount Ventoux

 Ascent of Mont Ventoux

Summit of Mont Ventoux

Petrarch recounts that on April 26, 1336, with his brother and two servants, he climbed to the top of Mont Ventoux (1,912 meters (6,273 ft), a feat which he undertook for recreation rather than necessity.^[15] The exploit is described in a celebrated letter addressed to his friend and confessor, the monk Dionigi di Borgo San Sepolcro, composed some time after the fact. In it, Petrarch claimed to have been inspired by Philip V of Macedon‘s ascent of Mount Haemo and that an aged peasant had told him that nobody had ascended Ventoux before or after himself, 50 years before, and warned him against attempting to do so. The nineteenth-century Swiss historian Jacob Burckhardt noted that Jean Buridan had climbed the same mountain a few years before, and ascents accomplished during the Middle Ages have been recorded, including that of Anno II, Archbishop of Cologne.^[16][17]

Scholars^[18] note that Petrarch’s letter^[19][20] to Dionigi displays a strikingly « modern » attitude of aesthetic gratification in the grandeur of the scenery and is still often cited in books and journals devoted to the sport of mountaineering. In Petrarch, this attitude is coupled with an aspiration for a virtuous Christian life, and on reaching the summit, he took from his pocket a volume by his beloved mentor, Saint Augustine, that he always carried with him.^[21]

For pleasure alone he climbed Mont Ventoux, which rises to more than six thousand feet, beyond Vaucluse. It was no great feat, of course; but he was the first recorded Alpinist of modern times, the first to climb a mountain merely for the delight of looking from its top. (Or almost the first; for in a high pasture he met an old shepherd, who said that fifty years before he had attained the summit, and had got nothing from it save toil and repentance and torn clothing.) Petrarch was dazed and stirred by the view of the Alps, the mountains around Lyons, the Rhone, the Bay of Marseilles. He took Augustine‘s Confessions from his pocket and reflected that his climb was merely an allegory of aspiration toward a better life.^[22]

As the book fell open, Petrarch’s eyes were immediately drawn to the following words:

And men go about to wonder at the heights of the mountains, and the mighty waves of the sea, and the wide sweep of rivers, and the circuit of the ocean, and the revolution of the stars, but themselves they consider not.^[19]

Petrarch’s response was to turn from the outer world of nature to the inner world of « soul »:

I closed the book, angry with myself that I should still be admiring earthly things who might long ago have learned from even the pagan philosophers that nothing is wonderful but the soul, which, when great itself, finds nothing great outside itself. Then, in truth, I was satisfied that I had seen enough of the mountain; I turned my inward eye upon myself, and from that time not a syllable fell from my lips until we reached the bottom again. […] [W]e look about us for what is to be found only within. […] How many times, think you, did I turn back that day, to glance at the summit of the mountain which seemed scarcely a cubit high compared with the range of human contemplation […]^[19]

James Hillman argues that this rediscovery of the inner world is the real significance of the Ventoux event.^[23] The Renaissance begins not with the ascent of Mont Ventoux but with the subsequent descent—the « return […] to the valley of soul », as Hillman puts it. Arguing against such a singular and hyperbolic periodization, Paul James suggests a different reading:

In the alternative argument that I want to make, these emotional responses, marked by the changing senses of space and time in Petrarch’s writing, suggest a person caught in unsettled tension between two different but contemporaneous ontological formations: the traditional and the modern.^[24]

Later years

Petrarch spent the later part of his life journeying through northern Italy as an international scholar and poet-diplomat. His career in the Churchdid not allow him to marry, but he is believed to have fathered two children by a woman or women unknown to posterity. A son, Giovanni, was born in 1337, and a daughter, Francesca, was born in 1343. Both he later legitimized.^[25]

Petrarch’s Arquà house near Padua where he retired to spend his last years

Giovanni died of the plague in 1361. In the same year Petrarch was named canon in Monselice near Padua. Francesca married Francescuolo da Brossano (who was later named executor of Petrarch’s will) that same year. In 1362, shortly after the birth of a daughter, Eletta (the same name as Petrarch’s mother), they joined Petrarch in Venice to flee the plague then ravaging parts of Europe. A second grandchild, Francesco, was born in 1366, but died before his second birthday. Francesca and her family lived with Petrarch in Venice for five years from 1362 to 1367 at Palazzo Molina; although Petrarch continued to travel in those years. Between 1361 and 1369 the younger Boccaccio paid the older Petrarch two visits. The first was in Venice, the second was in Padua.

About 1368 Petrarch and his daughter Francesca (with her family) moved to the small town of Arquà in the Euganean Hills near Padua, where he passed his remaining years in religious contemplation. He died in his house in Arquà early on July 20, 1374 – his seventieth birthday. The house hosts now a permanent exhibition of Petrarchian works and curiosities; among others you find the famous tomb of Petrarch’s beloved cat who was embalmed. On the marble slab there is a Latin inscription written by Antonio Quarenghi:

Etruscus gemino vates ardebat amore:
Maximus ignis ego; Laura secundus erat.
Quid rides? divinæ illam si gratia formæ,
Me dignam eximio fecit amante fides.
Si numeros geniumque sacris dedit illa libellis
Causa ego ne sævis muribus esca forent.
Arcebam sacro vivens a limine mures,
Ne domini exitio scripta diserta forent;
Incutio trepidis eadem defuncta pavorem,
Et viget exanimi in corpore prisca fides.^[26]

Petrarch’s will (dated April 4, 1370) leaves 50 florins to Boccaccio « to buy a warm winter dressing gown »; various legacies (a horse, a silver cup, a lute, a Madonna) to his brother and his friends; his house in Vaucluse to its caretaker; for his soul, and for the poor; and the bulk of his estate to his son-in-law, Francescuolo da Brossano, who is to give half of it to « the person to whom, as he knows, I wish it to go »; presumably his daughter, Francesca, Brossano’s wife. The will mentions neither the property in Arquà nor his library; Petrarch’s libraryof notable manuscripts was already promised to Venice, in exchange for the Palazzo Molina. This arrangement was probably cancelled when he moved to Padua, the enemy of Venice, in 1368. The library was seized by the lords of Padua, and his books and manuscripts are now widely scattered over Europe.^[27] Nevertheless, the Biblioteca Marciana traditionally claimed this bequest as its founding, although it was in fact founded by Cardinal Bessarion in 1468.^[28]

Works

Original lyrics by Petrarch, found in 1985 in Erfurt

Petrarch’s Virgil (title page)(c. 1336)
Illuminated manuscript by Simone Martini, 29 x 20 cm Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Milan.

The Triumph of Death, or The 3 Fates. Flemish tapestry (probably Brussels, ca. 1510–1520). Victoria and Albert Museum, London. The three Fates, Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos, who spin, draw out and cut the thread of life, represent Death in this tapestry, as they triumph over the fallen body of Chastity. This is the third subject in Petrarch’s poem « The Great Triumphs ». First, Love triumphs; then Love is overcome by Chastity, Chastity by Death, Death by Fame, Fame by Time and Time by Eternity

Petrarch is best known for his Italian poetry, notably the Canzoniere(« Songbook ») and the Trionfi(« Triumphs »). However, Petrarch was an enthusiastic Latin scholar and did most of his writing in this language. His Latin writings include scholarly works, introspective essays, letters, and more poetry. Among them are Secretum Meum (« My Secret Book »), an intensely personal, guilt-ridden imaginary dialogue with Augustine of Hippo; De Viris Illustribus (« On Famous Men »), a series of moral biographies; Rerum Memorandarum Libri, an incomplete treatise on the cardinal virtues; De Otio Religiosorum(« On Religious Leisure »)^[29] and De Vita Solitaria (« On the Solitary Life »), which praise the contemplative life; De Remediis Utriusque Fortunae(« Remedies for Fortune Fair and Foul »), a self-help book which remained popular for hundreds of years; Itinerarium (« Petrarch’s Guide to the Holy Land »); invectives against opponents such as doctors, scholastics, and the French; the Carmen Bucolicum, a collection of 12 pastoral poems; and the unfinished epic Africa. He translated seven psalms, a collection known as the Penitential Psalms.^[30]

Petrarch revived the work and letters of the ancient Roman Senator Marcus Tullius Cicero

Petrarch also published many volumes of his letters, including a few written to his long-dead friends from history such as Cicero and Virgil. Cicero, Virgil, and Seneca were his literary models. Most of his Latin writings are difficult to find today, but several of his works are available in English translations. Several of his Latin works are scheduled to appear in the Harvard University Press series I Tatti.^[31] It is difficult to assign any precise dates to his writings because he tended to revise them throughout his life.

Petrarch collected his letters into two major sets of books called Epistolae familiares (« Letters on Familiar Matters« ) and Seniles(« Letters of Old Age« ), both of which are available in English translation.^[32] The plan for his letters was suggested to him by knowledge of Cicero‘s letters. These were published « without names » to protect the recipients, all of whom had close relationships to Petrarch. The recipients of these letters included Philippe de Cabassoles, bishop of Cavaillon; Ildebrandino Conti, bishop of Padua; Cola di Rienzo, tribune of Rome; Francesco Nelli, priest of the Prior of the Church of the Holy Apostles in Florence; and Niccolò di Capoccia, a cardinal and priest of Saint Vitalis. His « Letter to Posterity » (the last letter in Seniles)^[33] gives an autobiography and a synopsis of his philosophy in life. It was originally written in Latin and was completed in 1371 or 1372 – the first such autobiography in a thousand years (since Saint Augustine).^[34][35]

While Petrarch’s poetry was set to music frequently after his death, especially by Italian madrigal composers of the Renaissance in the 16th century, only one musical setting composed during Petrarch’s lifetime survives. This is Non al suo amante by Jacopo da Bologna, written around 1350.

Laura and poetry

On April 6, 1327,^[36] after Petrarch gave up his vocation as a priest, the sight of a woman called « Laura » in the church of Sainte-Claire d’Avignon awoke in him a lasting passion, celebrated in the Rime sparse (« Scattered rhymes »). Later, Renaissance poets who copied Petrarch’s style named this collection of 366 poems Il Canzoniere(« Song Book »).^[37] Laura may have been Laura de Noves, the wife of Count Hugues de Sade (an ancestor of the Marquis de Sade). There is little definite information in Petrarch’s work concerning Laura, except that she is lovely to look at, fair-haired, with a modest, dignified bearing. Laura and Petrarch had little or no personal contact. According to his « Secretum », she refused him because she was already married. He channeled his feelings into love poems that were exclamatory rather than persuasive, and wrote prose that showed his contempt for men who pursue women. Upon her death in 1348, the poet found that his grief was as difficult to live with as was his former despair. Later in his « Letter to Posterity », Petrarch wrote: « In my younger days I struggled constantly with an overwhelming but pure love affair – my only one, and I would have struggled with it longer had not premature death, bitter but salutary for me, extinguished the cooling flames. I certainly wish I could say that I have always been entirely free from desires of the flesh, but I would be lying if I did ».

Laura de Noves

While it is possible she was an idealized or pseudonymous character – particularly since the name « Laura » has a linguistic connection to the poetic « laurels » Petrarch coveted – Petrarch himself always denied it. His frequent use of l’aura is also remarkable: for example, the line « Erano i capei d’oro a l’aura sparsi » may both mean « her hair was all over Laura’s body », and « the wind (« l’aura ») blew through her hair ». There is psychological realism in the description of Laura, although Petrarch draws heavily on conventionalised descriptions of love and lovers from troubadoursongs and other literature of courtly love. Her presence causes him unspeakable joy, but his unrequited love creates unendurable desires, inner conflicts between the ardent lover and the mystic Christian, making it impossible to reconcile the two. Petrarch’s quest for love leads to hopelessness and irreconcilable anguish, as he expresses in the series of paradoxes in Rima 134 « Pace non trovo, et non ò da far guerra;/e temo, et spero; et ardo, et son un ghiaccio »: « I find no peace, and yet I make no war:/and fear, and hope: and burn, and I am ice ».^[38]

Laura is unreachable – the few physical descriptions of her are vague, almost impalpable as the love he pines for, and such is perhaps the power of his verse, which lives off the melodies it evokes against the fading, diaphanous image that is no more consistent than a ghost. Francesco De Sanctis remarks much the same thing in his Storia della letteratura italiana, and contemporary critics agree on the powerful music of his verse. Perhaps the poet was inspired by a famous singer he met in Veneto around the 1350s.^[39] Gianfranco Contini, in a famous essay on Petrarch’s language (« Preliminari sulla lingua del Petrarca ». Petrarca, Canzoniere. Turin, Einaudi, 1964) has spoken of linguistic indeterminacy – Petrarch never rises above the « bel pié » (her lovely foot): Laura is too holy to be painted; she is an awe-inspiring goddess. Sensuality and passion are suggested rather by the rhythm and music that shape the vague contours of the lady. In addition, some today consider Laura to be a representation of an « ideal Renaissance woman », based on her nature and definitive characteristics.

Sonnet 227

Original Italian[40]

English translation by A. S. Kline[41]

Aura che quelle chiome bionde et crespe cercondi et movi, et se’ mossa da loro, soavemente, et spargi quel dolce oro, et poi ’l raccogli, e ’n bei nodi il rincrespe, tu stai nelli occhi ond’amorose vespe mi pungon sí, che ’nfin qua il sento et ploro, et vacillando cerco il mio tesoro, come animal che spesso adombre e ’ncespe: ch’or me ’l par ritrovar, et or m’accorgo ch’i’ ne son lunge, or mi sollievo or caggio, ch’or quel ch’i’ bramo, or quel ch’è vero scorgo. Aër felice, col bel vivo raggio rimanti; et tu corrente et chiaro gorgo, ché non poss’io cangiar teco vïaggio?

Breeze, blowing that blonde curling hair, stirring it, and being softly stirred in turn, scattering that sweet gold about, then gathering it, in a lovely knot of curls again, you linger around bright eyes whose loving sting pierces me so, till I feel it and weep, and I wander searching for my treasure, like a creature that often shies and kicks: now I seem to find her, now I realise she’s far away, now I’m comforted, now despair, now longing for her, now truly seeing her. Happy air, remain here with your living rays: and you, clear running stream, why can’t I exchange my path for yours?

Dante

Dante Alighieri, detail from a Luca Signorelli fresco in the chapel of San Brizio, Duomo, Orvieto.

Petrarch is a world apart from Dante and his Divina Commedia. In spite of the metaphysical subject, the Commedia is deeply rooted in the cultural and social milieu of turn-of-the-century Florence: Dante’s rise to power (1300) and exile (1302), his political passions call for a « violent » use of language, where he uses all the registers, from low and trivial to sublime and philosophical. Petrarch confessed to Boccaccio that he had never read the Commedia, remarks Contini, wondering whether this was true or Petrarch wanted to distance himself from Dante. Dante’s language evolves as he grows old, from the courtly love of his early stilnovisticRime and Vita nuova to the Convivio and Divina Commedia, where Beatrice is sanctified as the goddess of philosophy – the philosophy announced by the Donna Gentile at the death of Beatrice.^[42]

In contrast, Petrarch’s thought and style are relatively uniform throughout his life – he spent much of it revising the songs and sonnets of the Canzoniere rather than moving to new subjects or poetry. Here, poetry alone provides a consolation for personal grief, much less philosophy or politics (as in Dante), for Petrarch fights within himself (sensuality versus mysticism, profane versus Christianliterature), not against anything outside of himself. The strong moral and political convictions which had inspired Dante belong to the Middle Ages and the libertarian spirit of the commune; Petrarch’s moral dilemmas, his refusal to take a stand in politics, his reclusive life point to a different direction, or time. The free commune, the place that had made Dante an eminent politician and scholar, was being dismantled: the signoria was taking its place. Humanism and its spirit of empirical inquiry, however, were making progress – but the papacy (especially after Avignon) and the empire (Henry VII, the last hope of the white Guelphs, died near Siena in 1313) had lost much of their original prestige.^[43]

Petrarch polished and perfected the sonnet form inherited from Giacomo da Lentini and which Dante widely used in his Vita nuova to popularise the new courtly love of the Dolce Stil Novo. The tercet benefits from Dante’s terza rima (compare the Divina Commedia), the quatrains prefer the ABBA-ABBA to the ABAB-ABAB scheme of the Sicilians. The imperfect rhymes of u with closed o and i with closed e(inherited from Guittone’s mistaken rendering of Sicilian verse) are excluded, but the rhyme of open and closed o is kept. Finally, Petrarch’s enjambment creates longer semantic units by connecting one line to the following. The vast majority (317) of Petrarch’s 366 poems collected in the Canzoniere (dedicated to Laura) were sonnets, and the Petrarchan sonnet still bears his name.^[44]

Philosophy

Petrarch

Statue of Petrarch on the Uffizi Palace, in Florence

Petrarch is traditionally called the father of Humanism and considered by many to be the « father of the Renaissance. »^[45] In his work Secretum meum he points out that secular achievements did not necessarily preclude an authentic relationship with God. Petrarch argued instead that God had given humans their vast intellectual and creative potential to be used to their fullest.^[46] He inspired humanist philosophy which led to the intellectual flowering of the Renaissance. He believed in the immense moral and practical value of the study of ancient history and literature – that is, the study of human thought and action. Petrarch was a devout Catholic and did not see a conflict between realizing humanity’s potential and having religious faith.

A highly introspective man, he shaped the nascent humanist movement a great deal because many of the internal conflicts and musings expressed in his writings were seized upon by Renaissance humanist philosophers and argued continually for the next 200 years. For example, Petrarch struggled with the proper relation between the active and contemplative life, and tended to emphasize the importance of solitude and study. In a clear disagreement with Dante, in 1346 Petrarch argued in his De vita solitaria that Pope Celestine V‘s refusal of the papacy in 1294 was as a virtuous example of solitary life.^[47] Later the politician and thinker Leonardo Bruni (1370-1444) argued for the active life, or « civic humanism« . As a result, a number of political, military, and religious leaders during the Renaissance were inculcated with the notion that their pursuit of personal fulfillment should be grounded in classicalexample and philosophical contemplation.^[48]

Legacy

Petrarch’s tomb at Arquà Petrarca

Petrarch’s influence is evident in the works of Serafino Ciminelli from Aquila (1466-1500) and in the works of Marin Držić (1508-1567) from Dubrovnik.^[49]

The Romantic composer Franz Liszt set three of Petrarch’s Sonnets (47, 104, and 123) to music for voice, Tre sonetti del Petrarca, which he later would transcribe for solo piano for inclusion in the suite Années de Pèlerinage. Liszt also set a poem by Victor Hugo,  » O quand je dors » in which Petrarch and Laura are invoked as the epitome of erotic love.

While in Avignon in 1991, Modernist composer Elliott Carter completed his solo flute piece Scrivo in Vento which is in part inspired by and structured by Petrarch’s Sonnet 212, Beato in sogno.^[50] It was premiered on Petrarch’s 687th birthday.^[51]

In November 2003, it was announced that pathological anatomistswould be exhuming Petrarch’s body from his casket in Arquà Petrarca, in order to verify 19th-century reports that he had stood 1.83 meters (about six feet), which would have been tall for his period. The team from the University of Padua also hoped to reconstruct his cranium in order to generate a computerized image of his features to coincide with his 700th birthday. The tomb had been opened previously in 1873 by Professor Giovanni Canestrini, also of Padua University. When the tomb was opened, the skull was discovered in fragments and a DNAtest revealed that the skull was not Petrarch’s,^[52] prompting calls for the return of Petrarch’s skull.

The researchers are fairly certain that the body in the tomb is Petrarch’s due to the fact that the skeleton bears evidence of injuries mentioned by Petrarch in his writings, including a kick from a donkeywhen he was 42.^[53]

Works in English translation

• Francesco Petrarch, Letters on Familiar Matters (Rerum familiarium libri),translated by Aldo S. Bernardo (New York: Italica Press, 2005). Volume 1, Books 1-8; Volume 2, Books 9-16; Volume 3, Books 17-24.
• Francesco Petrarch, Letters of Old Age (Rerum senilium libri), translated by Aldo S. Bernardo, Saul Levin & Reta A. Bernardo (New York: Italica Press, 2005). Volume 1, Books 1-9; Volume 2, Books 10-18.
• Francesco Petrarch, My Secret Book, (Secretum), translated by Nicholas Mann. Harvard University Press.
• Francesco Petrarch, On Religious Leisure (De otio religioso), edited & translated by Susan S. Schearer, introduction by Ronald G. Witt (New York: Italica Press, 2002).
• Francesco Petrarch, The Revolution of Cola di Rienzo, translated from Latin and edited by Mario E. Cosenza; 3rd, revised, edition by Ronald G. Musto (New York; Italica Press, 1996).
• Francesco Petrarch, Selected Letters, vol. 1 and 2, translated by Elaine Fantham. Harvard University Press.

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Notes

1. ^ This designation appears, for instance, in a recent review of Carol Quillen’s Rereading the Renaissance.
2. ^ In the Prose della volgar lingua, Bembo proposes Petrarch and Boccaccio as models of Italian style, while expressing reservations about emulating Dante’s usage.
3. ^ Jump up to:^a b Renaissance or Prenaissance, Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 4, No. 1. (Jan. 1943), pp. 69–74; Theodore E. Mommsen, « Petrarch’s Conception of the ‘Dark Ages' » Speculum 17.2 (April 1942: 226–242); JSTOR link to a collection of several letters in the same issue.
4. ^ Jump up to:^a b J.H. Plumb, The Italian Renaissance, 1961; Chapter XI by Morris Bishop « Petrarch », pp. 161–175; New York, American Heritage Publishing, ISBN 0-618-12738-0
5. ^ after « Albertino Mussato » who was the first to be so crowned according to Robert Weiss, The Renaissance Discovery of Classical Antiquity (Oxford, 1973)
6. ^ Plumb, p. 164
7. ^ Pietrangeli (1981), p. 32
8. ^ Kirkham, Victoria (2009). Petrarch: A Critical Guide to the Complete Works. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. p. 9. ISBN 9780226437439.
9. ^ NSA Family Encyclopedia, Petrarch, Francesco, Volume 11, page 240, Standard Education Corp. 1992
10. ^ Bishop, Morris Petrarch and his World, p. 92; Indiana University Press 1963, ISBN 0-8046-1730-9
11. ^ Plumb, J.H. (1965). Renaissance Profiles (PDF). Harper & Row. p. 4. ISBN 9780061311628.
12. ^ Vittore Branca, Boccaccio; The Man and His Works, tr. Richard Monges, p.113–118
13. ^ Ep. Fam. 18.2 §9
14. ^ « History – Biblioteca Capitolare Verona ».
15. ^ Nicolson, Marjorie Hope; Mountain Gloom and Mountain Glory: The Development of the Aesthetics of the Infinite (1997), p. 49; ISBN 0-295-97577-6
16. ^ Burckhardt, Jacob. The Civilisation of the Period of the Renaissance in Italy (1860). Translated by S. G. C. Middlemore. Swan Sonnenschein (1904), pp. 301–302.
17. ^ Lynn Thorndike, Renaissance or Prenaissance, Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 4, No. 1. (Jan. 1943), pp. 69–74. JSTOR link to a collection of several letters in the same issue.
18. ^ Such as J. H. Plumb, in his book The Italian Renaissance,
19. ^ Jump up to:^a b c Familiares 4.1 translated by Morris Bishop, quoted in Plumb.
20. ^ Asher, Lyell (1993). « Petrarch at the Peak of Fame ». PMLA. 108 (5): 1050–1063. JSTOR 462985.
21. ^ McLaughlin, Edward Tompkins; Studies in Medieval Life and Literature, p. 6, New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1894
22. ^ Plumb, J. H. (1961). The Horizon Book of the Renaissance. New York: American Heritage. p. 26.
23. ^ Hillman, James (1977). Revisioning Psychology. Harper & Row. p. 197. ISBN 978-0-06-090563-7.
24. ^ James, Paul (Spring 2014). « Emotional Ambivalence across Times and Spaces: Mapping Petrarch’s Intersecting Worlds ». Exemplaria. 26 (1): 82. Retrieved 4 August 2015.
25. ^ Plumb, p. 165
26. ^ The last lay of Petrarch’s cat, Notes and Queries, Vol. V, Number 121, February 21, 1852, Author: Various, Editor: George Bell
27. ^ Bishop, pp. 360, 366. Francesca and the quotes from there;^{[clarification needed]} Bishop adds that the dressing-gown was a piece of tact: « fifty florins would have bought twenty dressing-gowns ».
28. ^  Tedder, Henry Richard; Brown, James Duff (1911). « Libraries § Italy.« . In Chisholm, Hugh. Encyclopædia Britannica. 16 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 573.
29. ^ Francesco Petrarch, On Religious Leisure (De otio religioso),edited & translated by Susan S. Schearer, introduction by Ronald G. Witt (New York: Italica Press, 2002).
30. ^ Sturm-Maddox, Sara (2010). Petrarch’s Laurels. Pennsylvania State UP. p. 153. ISBN 9780271040745.
31. ^ « I Tatti Renaissance Library/Forthcoming and Published Volumes ». Hup.harvard.edu. Retrieved July 31, 2009.
32. ^ Letters on Familiar Matters (Rerum familiarium libri), translated by Aldo S. Bernardo, 3 vols.’ and Letters of Old Age (Rerum senilium libri), translated by Aldo S. Bernardo, Saul Levin & Reta A. Bernardo, 2 vols.
33. ^ Petrarch’s Letter to Posterity (1909 English translation, with notes, by James Harvey Robinson)
34. ^ Wilkins Ernest H (1964). « On the Evolution of Petrarch’s Letter to Posterity ». Speculum. 39 (2): 304–308. doi:10.2307/2852733. JSTOR 2852733.
35. ^ Plumb, p. 173
36. ^ April 6, 1327 is often thought to be Good Friday based on poems 3 and 211 of Petrarch’s Il Canzoniere, but in fact that date fell on Monday in 1327. The apparent explanation is that Petrarch was not referring to the variable date of Good Friday but to the date fixed by the death of Christ in absolute time, which at the time was thought to be April 6 (Mark Musa, Petrarch’s Canzoniere, Indiana University Press, 1996, p. 522).
37. ^ Petrarch (2004-03-04). « Petrarch ». Petrarch. Retrieved 2017-08-23.
38. ^ « Petrarch (1304–1374) – The Complete Canzoniere: 123-183 ». http://www.poetryintranslation.com.
39. ^ Anna Chiappinelli, « La Dolce Musica Nova di Francesco Landini » Sidereus Nuncius, 2007, pp. 55-91 [1] Archived February 2, 2011, at the Wayback Machine.
40. ^http://it.wikisource.org/wiki/Canzoniere_%28Rerum_vulgarium_fragmenta%29/Aura_che_quelle_chiome_bionde_et_crespe^{[full citation needed]}
41. ^http://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Italian/PetrarchCanzoniere184-244.htm#_Toc11161988^{[full citation needed]}
42. ^ « Archived copy » (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on November 12, 2013. Retrieved December 28, 2013.
43. ^ « The Oregon Petrarch Open Book – « Petrarch is again in sight« « . petrarch.uoregon.edu.
44. ^ « Movements : Poetry through the Ages ». http://www.webexhibits.org.
45. ^ See for example Rudolf Pfeiffer, History of Classical Scholarship 1300-1850, Oxford University Press, 1976, p. 1; Gilbert Highet, The Classical Tradition, Oxford University Press, 1949, p. 81-88.
46. ^ Famous First Facts International, H. W. Wilson Company, New York 2000, ISBN 0-8242-0958-3, page 303, item 4567.
47. ^ Petrarca, Francesco (1879). De vita Solitaria (in Italian). Bologna: Gaetano Romagnoli.
48. ^ « Skuola.net, Il Rinascimento » (in Italian). Skuola.net. Retrieved 11 September 2015.
49. ^ Encyclopedia of the Renaissance: Class-Furió Ceriol, Volume 2, page 106, Paul F. Grendler, Renaissance Society of America, Scribner’s published in association with the Renaissance Society of America, 1999. ISBN 978-0-684-80509-2
50. ^ Mailman, Joshua B. (2009). « An Imagined Drama of Competitive Opposition in Carter’s Scrivo in Vento, with Notes on Narrative, Symmetry, Quantitative Flux and Heraclitus ». Music Analysis. 28 (2–3): 373–422. doi:10.1111/j.1468-2249.2011.00295.x.
51. ^ Spencer, Patricia (2008) « Regarding Scrivo in Vento: A Conversation with Elliott Carter » Flutest Quarterly summer.
52. ^ Caramelli D, Lalueza-Fox C, Capelli C, et al. (November 2007). « Genetic analysis of the skeletal remains attributed to Francesco Petrarch ». Forensic Sci. Int. 173 (1): 36–40. doi:10.1016/j.forsciint.2007.01.020. PMID 17320326.
53. ^ « UPF.edu » (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on March 6, 2009. Retrieved March 1, 2009.

References

• Bartlett, Kenneth R. (1992). The Civilization of the Italian Renaissance; a Source Book. Lexington: D.C. Heath and Company. ISBN 0-669-20900-7
• Bishop, Morris (1961). « Petrarch. » In J. H. Plumb (Ed.), Renaissance Profiles, pp. 1–17. New York: Harper & Row. ISBN 0-06-131162-6 .
• Hanawalt, A. Barbara. The Middle Ages:An Illustrated History pp. 131–132 Oxford University Press New York 1998
• James, Paul (2014). « Emotional Ambivalence across Times and Spaces: Mapping Petrarch’s Intersecting Worlds ». Exemplaria. 26 (1): 81–104. doi:10.1179/1041257313z.00000000044.
• Kallendorf, Craig. « The Historical Petrarch, » The American Historical Review, Vol 101, No. 1 (Feb. 1996): 130-141.

Further reading

• Bernardo, Aldo (1983). « Petrarch. » In Dictionary of the Middle Ages, volume 9.
• Celenza, Christopher S. (2017). Petrarch: Everywhere a Wanderer. London: Reaktion. ISBN 9781780238388
• Hennigfeld, Ursula (2008). Der ruinierte Körper. Petrarkistische Sonette in transkultureller Perspektive. Würzburg, Königshausen & Neumann, 2008, ISBN 978-3-8260-3768-9.
• Hollway-Calthrop, Henry. (1907). Petrarch: His Life and Times, Methuen. From Google Books.
• Kohl, Benjamin G. (1978). « Francesco Petrarch: Introduction; How a Ruler Ought to Govern His State, » in The Earthly Republic: Italian Humanists on Government and Society, ed. Benjamin G. Kohl and Ronald G. Witt, 25-78. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 0-8122-1097-2
• Mailman, Joshua B. (2009) « Imagined Drama of Competitive Opposition in Carter’s Scrivo in Vento (with Notes on Narrative, Symmetry, Quantitative Flux and Heraclitus) » Music Analysisv.28, 2-3.
• Nauert, Charles G. (2006). Humanism and the Culture of Renaissance Europe: Second Edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-54781-4
• Rawski, Conrad H. (1991). Petrarch’s Remedies for Fortune Fair and Foul A Modern English Translation of De remediis utriusque Fortune, with a Commentary. ISBN 0-253-34849-8
• Robinson, James Harvey (1898). Petrarch, the First Modern Scholar and Man of Letters Harvard University
• Kirkham, Victoria and Armando Maggi. (2009). Petrarch: A Critical Guide to the Complete Works. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-43741-5.
• A. Lee, Petrarch and St. Augustine: Classical Scholarship, Christian Theology and the Origins of the Renaissance in Italy, Brill, Leiden, 2012, ISBN 9789004224032
• N. Mann, Petrarca [Ediz. orig. Oxford University Press (1984)] – Ediz. ital. a cura di G. Alessio e L. Carlo Rossi – Premessa di G. Velli, LED Edizioni Universitarie, Milano, 1993, ISBN 88-7916-021-4
• Il «Canzoniere» di Francesco Petrarca. La Critica Contemporanea, G. Barbarisi e C. Berra (edd.), LED Edizioni Universitarie, Milano, 1992, ISBN 88-7916-005-2
• G. Baldassari, Unum in locum. Strategie macrotestuali nel Petrarca politico, LED Edizioni Universitarie, Milano, 2006, ISBN 88-7916-309-4
• Francesco Petrarca, Rerum vulgarium Fragmenta. Edizione critica di Giuseppe Savoca, Olschki, Firenze, 2008, ISBN 978-88-222-5744-4
• Plumb, J. H., The Italian Renaissance, Houghton Mifflin, 2001, ISBN 0-618-12738-0
• Giuseppe Savoca, Il Canzonieredi Petrarca. Tra codicologia ed ecdotica, Olschki, Firenze, 2008, ISBN 978-88-222-5805-2
• Roberta Antognini, Il progetto autobiografico delle « Familiares » di Petrarca, LED Edizioni Universitarie, Milano, 2008, ISBN 978-88-7916-396-5.
• Paul Geyer und Kerstin Thorwarth (hg), Petrarca und die Herausbildung des modernen Subjekts (Göttingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2009) (Gründungsmythen Europas in Literatur, Musik und Kunst, 2).

Petrarchat Wikipedia’s sister projects

• Media from Wikimedia Commons
• Quotations from Wikiquote
• Texts from Wikisource

• Petrarch and his Cat Muse
• Canzoniere (different edition) and other works
• Petrarch from the Catholic Encyclopedia
• Excerpts from his works and letters
• Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch) (1304-1374)
• Works by Francesco Petrarca at Project Gutenberg
• Works by or about Francesco Petrarca at Internet Archive
• Works by or about Petrarch at Internet Archive
• Works by Petrarch at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks) 
• Timeline of life of Petrarch
• Poems From The Canzoniere, translated by Tony Kline.
• Francesco Petrarch at The Online Library of Liberty
• De remediis utriusque fortunae, Cremonae, B. de Misintis ac Caesaris Parmensis, 1492. (Vicifons)
• Free scores of works by Petrarch in the Choral Public Domain Library(ChoralWiki)
• Petrarch and Laura Multi-lingual site including translated works in the public domain and biography, pictures, music.
• Petrarch – the poet who lost his head April 2004 article in The Guardianregarding the exhumation of Petrarch’s remains
• Oregon Petrarch Open Book – A working database-driven hypertext in and around Francis Petrarch’s Rerum Vulgarium Fragmenta (Canzoniere)
• Historia Griseldis From the Rare Book and Special Collections Division at the Library of Congress
• Francesco Petrarch, De viris illustribus, digitized French codex, at Somni

hide v t e Petrarch
Works	Poetry Canzoniere (Rerum vulgarium fragmenta) Africa Trionfi Bucolicum carmen Treatises De viris illustribus De remediis utriusque fortunae De vita solitaria De otio religiosorum Rerum memorandarum libri Epistles Familiares « Ascent of Mont Ventoux«  Liber sine nomine Seniles Letter to Posterity Others Secretum Itinerarium syriacum
Related people	Philippe de Cabassoles Laura de Noves Ser Petracco Stefano Colonna Dionigi di Borgo San Sepolcro Francescuolo da Brossano Giovanni Boccaccio Dante Alighieri Robert, King of Naples Francesco Nelli Simone Martini Giovanni Colonna Lodewijk Heyligen
Miscellaneous	Petrarch’s library Petrarchan sonnet Petrarch’s and Shakespeare’s sonnets Arquà Petrarca Influence of Italian humanism on Chaucer Palazzo Molina Petrarca-Preis award

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrarch

http://www.giacobbegiusti.com

Giacobbe Giusti, PIETRO di COSIMO: Portrait of Simonetta Cattaneo Vespucci, Musée Condé, France

Giacobbe Giusti, PIETRO di COSIMO: Portrait of Simonetta Cattaneo Vespucci, Musée Condé, France

 

 

Giacobbe Giusti, SANDRO BOTTICELLI: Simonetta Cattaneo Vespucci

 

Giacobbe Giusti, SANDRO BOTTICELLI: Simonetta Cattaneo Vespucci

 

Giacobbe Giusti, SANDRO BOTTICELLI: Simonetta Cattaneo Vespucci

 

Giacobbe Giusti, SANDRO BOTTICELLI: Simonetta Cattaneo Vespucci

 

Giacobbe Giusti, PIETRO di COSIMO: Simonetta Cattaneo Vespucci

 

Giacobbe Giusti, SANDRO BOTTICELLI: Simonetta Cattaneo Vespucci

 

Giacobbe Giusti, PIETRO di COSIMO: Portrait of Simonetta Cattaneo Vespucci, Musée Condé, France

Portrait of a woman, said to be of Simonetta Vespucci (c. 1490) by Piero di Cosimo
Born	1453 Genoa or Portovenere, Liguria, Italy
Died	26 April 1476 (aged 22–23) Florence, Italy
Spouse(s)	Marco Vespucci
Parent(s)	Gaspare Cattaneo Della Volta and Cattocchia Spinola

Simonetta Vespucci(née Cattaneo; 1453 – 26 April 1476), nicknamed la bella Simonetta, was an Italian noblewoman from Genoa, the wife of Marco Vespucci of Florence and the cousin-in-law of Amerigo Vespucci. According to her legend, before her death at 22 she was famous as the greatest beauty of her age in North Italy, and the model for many paintings (many not showing similar features at all) by Botticelli and other Florentine painters. Many art historians are infuriated by these attributions, which the Victorian critic John Ruskin is blamed for giving some respectability.^[1]

Biography

Early life and marriage

She was born as Simonetta Cattaneo circa 1453 in a part of the Republic of Genoa that is now in the Italian region of Liguria.^[2] A more precise location for her birthplace is unknown: possibly the city of Genoa,^[3] or perhaps either Portovenere or Fezzano.^[4] The Florentine poet Politian wrote that her home was « in that stern Ligurian district up above the seacoast, where angry Neptune beats against the rocks … There, like Venus, she was born among the waves. »^[5][6] Her father was a Genoese nobleman named Gaspare Cattaneo della Volta (a much-older relative of a sixteenth-century Doge of Genoa named Leonardo Cattaneo della Volta) and her mother was Gaspare’s wife, Cattocchia Spinola (another source names her parents slightly differently as Gaspare Cattaneo and Chateroccia di Marco Spinola.^[7]

At age fifteen or sixteen she married Marco Vespucci, son of Piero, who was a distant cousin of the explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci. They met in April 1469; she was with her parents at the church of San Torpete when she met Marco; the doge Piero il Fregoso and much of the Genoese nobility were present.

Marco had been sent to Genoa by his father, Piero, to study at the Banco di San Giorgio. Marco was accepted by Simonetta’s father, and he was very much in love with her, so the marriage was logical. Her parents also knew the marriage would be advantageous because Marco’s family was well connected in Florence, especially to the Medici family.

Florence

Simonetta and Marco were married in Florence. According to her legend, Simonetta was instantly popular at the Florentine court. The Medici brothers, Lorenzo and Giuliano took an instant liking toward her. Lorenzo permitted the Vespucci wedding to be held at the palazzoin Via Larga, and held the wedding reception at their lavish Villa di Careggi. Simonetta, upon arriving in Florence, was discovered by Sandro Botticelli and other prominent painters through the Vespucci family. Before long she had supposedly attracted the brothers Lorenzo and Giuliano of the ruling Medici family. Lorenzo was occupied with affairs of state, but his younger brother was free to pursue her.

At La Giostra (a jousting tournament) in 1475, held at the Piazza Santa Croce, Giuliano entered the lists bearing a banner on which was a picture of Simonetta as a helmeted Pallas Athene painted by Botticelli, beneath which was the French inscription La Sans Pareille, meaning « The unparalleled one ».^{[8][9][7][10]} It is clear that Simonetta had a reputation as an exceptional beauty in Florence,^[11] but the whole display should be considered within the conventions of courtly love; Simonetta was a married woman,^[8][9] a member of a powerful family allied to the Medici,^[11] and any actual affair would have been a huge political risk.

Giuliano won the tournament,^[8] and Simonetta was nominated “The Queen of Beauty” at that event. It is unknown, and unlikely, that they actually became lovers.

Death

Simonetta Vespucci died just one year later, presumably from tuberculosis, on the night of 26–27 April 1476. She was twenty-two at the time of her death. She was carried through the city in an open coffin for all to admire her beauty, and there seems to have been some kind of posthumous popular cult in Florence.^[11] Her husband remarried soon afterward, and Giuliano de Medici was assassinated in the Pazzi conspiracy in 1478, two years to the day after her death.

Botticelli finished painting The Birth of Venus around 1486, some ten years later. Some have claimed that Venus, in this painting, closely resembles Simonetta.^[12] This claim, however, is dismissed as a « romantic myth » by Ernst Gombrich,^[11] and « romantic nonsense » by historian Felipe Fernández-Armesto:

The vulgar assumption, for instance, that she was Botticelli’s model for all his famous beauties seems to be based on no better grounds than the feeling that the most beautiful woman of the day ought to have modelled for the most sensitive painter.^[13]

Some, including Ruskin, suggest that Botticelli also had fallen in love with her, a view supported by his request to be buried in the Church of Ognissanti – the parish church of the Vespucci – in Florence. His wish was carried out when he died some 34 years later, in 1510. However this had been Botticelli’s parish church since he was baptized there, and he was buried with his family. The church contained works by him.

There are some connections between Simonetta and Botticelli. He painted the standard carried by Giuliano at the joust in 1475, which carried an image of Pallas Athene that was very probably modelled on her; so he does seem to have painted her once at least, though the image is now lost.^[7][10] Botticelli’s main Medici patron, Giuliano’s younger cousin Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de’ Medici, married Simonetta’s niece Semiramide in 1482, and it is often thought that his Primavera was painted as a wedding gift on this occasion.^[14][15][16]

Possible depictions

• 

  Portrait of a Woman by the workshop of Sandro Botticelli, early-mid 1480s

   

• 

  Portrait of a Woman by the workshop of Sandro Botticelli, mid-1480s^[17]

   

• 

  Flora in Botticelli’s Birth of Venus

   

• 

  Detail of one of the Three Graces in Primavera by Botticelli

   

 

• 

  Detail of the Venus figure in Primavera by Sandro Botticelli, circa 1482

   

 

• 

  Detail of the Venus figure in The Birth of Venus by Sandro Botticelli, circa 1484-1486

   

 

• 
• A Satyr mourning over a Nymph by Piero di Cosimo, circa 1495

   

Regarding each Portrait of a Woman pictured above that is credited to the workshop of Sandro Botticelli, Ronald Lightbown claims they were creations of Botticelli’s workshop that were likely neither drawn nor painted exclusively by Botticelli himself. Regarding these same two paintings he also claims « [Botticell’s work]shop…executed portraits of ninfe, or fair ladies…all probably fancy portraits of ideal beauties, rather than real ladies. »^[18]

She may be depicted in the painting by Piero di Cosimo titled Portrait of a woman, said to be of Simonetta Vespucci that portrays a woman as Cleopatra with an asp around her neck and is alternatively titled by some individuals Portrait of Simonetta Vespucci. Yet how closely this resembles the living woman is uncertain, partly because if this is indeed a rendering of her form and spirit it is a posthumous portrait created about fourteen years after her death. Worth noting as well is the fact that Piero di Cosimo was only fourteen years old in the year of Vespucci’s death. The museum that currently houses this painting questions the very identity of its subject by titling it « Portrait of a woman, said to be of Simonetta Vespucci », and stating that the inscription of her name at the bottom of the painting may have been added at a later date.^[19]

Notes

1. Jump up^ Leopold Ettlinger with Helen S. Ettlinger, Botticelli, pp. 118-119, 164-168, 1976, Thames and Hudson (World of Art), ISBN 0500201536; Jiminez; Ettle
2. Jump up^ Mineo, Nicolò (1979). « CATTANEO, Simonetta ». Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, Volume 22: Castelvetro–Cavallotti (in Italian). Rome: Istituto dell’Enciclopedia Italiana. Retrieved 3 July 2018.
3. Jump up^ Richter, Luise Marie Schwab (1914). Chantilly in History and Art. Scribner. p. 146.
4. Jump up^ Farina, Rachele (2001). Simonetta: Una donna alla Corte dei Medici. Turin: Bollati Boringhieri. pp. 90, 121–23. ISBN 9788833913568. OCLC 49036189.
5. Jump up^ Ambrogini, Angelo. Giostra. 1, verse 32. This translation is somewhat loose. Maraviglia di mie belleze tenere / Non prender già ch’ i’ nacqui in grembo a Venere. A literal reading of Poliziano would put her birthplace in the town of Portovenere, but this is more likely a reference to Botticelli’s Birth of Venus.
6. Jump up^ Simioni, Attilio (1908). « Donne ed Amori Medicei ». Nuova antologia di Lettere, Scienza, ed Arti. Roma. CXXXV: 688.
7. ^ Jump up to:^a b c Lightbown 1989, p. 63.
8. ^ Jump up to:^a b c Lightbown 1989, p. 61.
9. ^ Jump up to:^a b Lightbown 1989, p. 62.
10. ^ Jump up to:^a b Lightbown 1989, p. 64.
11. ^ Jump up to:^a b c d Jiminez, Jill Berk (15 October 2013). Dictionary of Artists’ Models. Routledge. p. 547. ISBN 9781135959142.
12. Jump up^ Harness, Brenda. « The Face That Launched A Thousand Prints ». Fine Art Touch. Retrieved 10 August 2009.
13. Jump up^ Fernandez-Armesto, Felipe (2007). Amerigo: The Man Who Gave His Name to America. Random House. p. 231. ISBN 1-4000-6281-0.
14. Jump up^ Lightbown 1989, p. 120.
15. Jump up^ Lightbown 1989, p. 121.
16. Jump up^ Lightbown 1989, p. 122.
17. Jump up^ « Painting at the Gemäldegalerie Berlin ». Bode-Museum (in German). 25 August 2011. Retrieved 3 July 2018.
18. Jump up^ Lightbown 1989, p. 313.
19. Jump up^ « Portrait de femme dit de Simonetta Vespucci ». Musee Conde (in French). Retrieved 11 December 2011. Once on the museum’s web site, click on the « Recherche » section, then search by « Vespucci » to find details of this painting

References

• Ettle, Ross Brooke, « THE VENUS DILEMMA: NOTES ON BOTTICELLI AND SIMONETTA CATTANEO VESPUCCI, » Notes in the History of Art 27, no. 4 (Summer 2008): 3-10. DOI: 10.1086/sou.27.4.23207901
• Lightbown, Ronald W. (1989). Sandro Botticelli: Life and Work. Thames and Hudson (Abbeville Press). p. 336. ISBN 9780896599314.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simonetta_Vespucci

Giacobbe Giusti, SIMONETTA CATTANEO VESPUCCI (BOTTICELLI)

http://www.giacobbegiusti.com

 

Giacobbe Giusti, Divine Comedy Illustrated by Botticelli

Giacobbe Giusti, Divine Comedy Illustrated by Botticelli

 

Giacobbe Giusti, Divine Comedy Illustrated by Botticelli

Giacobbe Giusti, Divine Comedy Illustrated by Botticelli

Giacobbe Giusti, Divine Comedy Illustrated by Botticelli

 

Giacobbe Giusti, Divine Comedy Illustrated by Botticelli
The Map of Hell painting by Botticelli is one of the extant ninety-two drawings that were originally included in the illustrated manuscript of Dante’s Divine Comedy commissioned by Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de’ Medici.
Artist	Sandro Botticelli
Year	c. 1485[1]

Canto XVIII, part of the 8th circle of Hell. Dante and Virgil are each shown 6 times, descending through the 10 chasms of the circle via a ridge. One of only 4 fully coloured pages.^[2]

The Divine Comedy Illustrated by Botticelli is a manuscript of the Divine Comedyby Dante, illustrated by 92 full-page pictures by Sandro Botticelli that are considered masterpieces and amongst the best works of the Renaissancepainter. The images are mostly not taken beyond silverpointdrawings, many worked over in ink, but four pages are fully coloured.^[1][3]The manuscript eventually disappeared and most of it was rediscovered in the late nineteenth century, having been detected in the collection of the Duke of Hamilton by Gustav Friedrich Waagen, with a few other pages being found in the Vatican Library.^[4] Botticelli had earlier produced drawings, now lost, to be turned into engravings for a printed edition, although only the first nineteen of the hundred cantos were illustrated.

In 1882 the main part of the manuscript was added to the collection of the Kupferstichkabinett Berlin (Museum of Prints and Drawings) when the director Friedrich Lippmann bought 85 of Botticelli’s drawings.^[4]Lippmann had moved swiftly and quietly, and when the sale was announced there was a considerable outcry in the British press and Parliament.^[5] Soon after that, it was revealed that another eight drawings from the same manuscript were in the Vatican Library. The bound drawings had been in the collection of Queen Christina of Sweden and after her death in Rome in 1689, had been bought by Pope Alexander VIII for the Vatican collection. The time of separation of these drawings is unknown. The Map of Hell is in the Vatican collection.^[4]

The exact arrangement of text and illustrations is not known, but a vertical arrangement — placing the illustration page on top of the text page — is proposed by Barbara Watts as a more efficient way of combining the text-illustration pairs. A volume designed to open vertically would be approximately 47 cm wide by 64 cm high, and would incorporate both the text and the illustration for each canto on a single page.

The Berlin drawings and those in the Vatican collection were assembled together, for the first time in centuries, in an exhibition showing all 92 of them in Berlin, Rome, and London’s Royal Academy, in 2000 and 2001.^[6]

The 1481 printed edition

Engraving by Baldini after Botticelli, from the 1481 book

The drawings in the manuscript were not the first to be created by Botticelli for the Divine Comedy. He also illustrated another Commedia, this time a printed edition with engravings as illustrations, that was published by Nicholo di Lorenzo della Magna in Florence in 1481, and is mentioned by Vasari. Scholars agree that the engravings by Baccio Baldini follow drawn designs by Botticelli, though unfortunately Baldini was unable to render Botticelli’s style very effectively.^[7][8]

Botticelli’s attempt to design the illustrations for a printed book was unprecedented for a leading painter, and though it seems to have been something of a flop, this was a role for artists that had an important future.^[9] Vasari wrote disapprovingly of the edition: « being of a sophistical turn of mind, he there wrote a commentary on a portion of Dante and illustrated the Inferno which he printed, spending much time over it, and this abstention from work led to serious disorders in his living. »^[10] Vasari, who lived when printmaking had become far more important than in Botticelli’s day, never takes it seriously, perhaps because his own paintings did not sell well in reproduction.

The Divine Comedy consists of 100 cantos, and the printed text left space for one engraving for each canto. However, only 19 illustrations were engraved, and most copies of the book have only the first two or three. The first two, and sometimes three, are usually printed on the book page, while the later ones are printed on separate sheets that are pasted into place. This suggests that the production of the engravings lagged behind the printing, and the later illustrations were pasted into the stock of printed and bound books, and perhaps sold to those who had already bought the book. Unfortunately Baldini was neither very experienced nor talented as an engraver, and was unable to express the delicacy of Botticelli’s style in his plates.^[11] The project may have been disrupted by Botticelli’s summons to Rome to take part in the project to fresco the Sistine Chapel. He was perhaps away from July 1481 to at the latest May 1482.^[12]

Conception and progress of the manuscript

Lucifer’s second drawing by Botticelli from Inferno XXXIV. Lucifer’s picture, spans across two pages, and lies outside the text-illustration structure, unifying the narrative of the series. It also illustrates the full story of Inferno canto XXXIV and shows Lucifer’s geographical position in Hell.^[13]

It is often thought that Botticelli’s drawings were commissioned by Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de’ Medici, an important patron of the artist. The early 16th-century writer known as the Anonimo Magliabecchiano says that Botticelli painted a Dante on parchment for Lorenzo, but makes it sound as if this was a completed work. Alternatively the drawings we have may have been a different set for Botticelli’s own use and pleasure, which is the conclusion of Ronald Lightbown.^[14]

Although the printed and illustrated book was rapidly replacing the traditional and very expensive illuminated manuscript in the last decades of the 15th century, the grandest bibliophiles were still commissioning manuscripts,^[15] and continued to do so well into the next century, from artists such as Giulio Clovio (1498–1578), perhaps the last major artist to be mainly a manuscript illuminator.

The drawings illustrate a manuscript of Dante’s Divine Comedy. The entire thematic sequence of each canto was supposed to be illustrated by its own full-page drawing by Botticelli, an unprecedentedly ambitious conception. Normally, by the 15th centuury, a single incident was shown in each framed illustration in illustrated Dantes, as for other narrative works. Botticelli was combining this tradition with another, continuous narrative, where recurrent incidents were shown, usually unframed and in the margin below the text. Thus the principal figures of Dante, Virgil and Beatrice often appear several times in an image.^[16]

There are two additional drawings, a map of Hell preceding Inferno, and a double-page drawing of Lucifer that depicts Dante’s and Virgil’s descent to Hell.^[1] The text is written on the reverse of the drawings, so that it was on the same page as the next drawing. As was usual, the text was completed before the illustrations were begun, omitting the major capital letters which were to be illuminated.^[3]

The exact date of creation of the drawings is unknown but it is agreed that they were produced over a period of several years, and a stylistic development has been detected.^[17] Estimates vary between a start around the mid-1480s with the last approximately a decade later,^[1]and a period extending between about 1480 and 1505 (by which time Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco was dead).^[18] Botticelli never completed the task. Many of the images are not fully drawn and illumination is completed for only four of them. However, the drawings are of such artistry and beauty, that they have been described as « central to Botticelli’s artistic achievement » and no less important than the Primavera.^[1] They represent by far the bulk of surviving drawings by Botticelli. Of the small number of other sheets surviving, none relate directly to surviving paintings.^[19]

Botticelli is thought to have started the drawings at least roughly following the text sequence. The drawing for Canto I of Inferno has the figures at a larger scale than that used in later cantos, up to the end of the Purgatorio. The earlier drawings for the Inferno are generally the most completed, and the most detailed,^[20] but cantos II to VII, XI and XIV are missing, though probably made by Botticelli. We have the text pages for the last cantos, Paradiso, XXXI to XXXIII, but the drawings were never begun.^[21] The differing degrees of completion, and the canto numbers and first lines of the matching text inscribed on some sequences of pages but not others, all complicate understanding Botticelli’s progress, and have been extensively debated.^[22]

Technique

Paradise, Canto XXX. The vegetation and small figures to the left of the path have been inked over; on the right only the silverpoint stage has been done.

Each page was first drawn with a metal stylus, leaving lines that are now very faint. There are numerous changes evident, which are easy to make in this technique. The next stage was to go over these lines with a pen and black or brown ink. Most of the pages were not taken beyond these stages, which are often found together on a page, with only some areas inked over. Other pages have not yet been inked at all. Only four pages fully received the final stage of colouring in tempera, though others are part-coloured, usually just the main figures. It has been argued that Botticelli, or his patron, came to prefer the uncoloured drawings, and deliberately left the rest, but this is not accepted by most scholars.^[23]

Structure and innovations

The illustration for canto XV is part of the third round of Inferno, depicting the punishment of those who acted violently against God, nature, and art.^[24]

Botticelli’s manuscripts incorporate several innovations in the way text and images are presented in the volume. In other similar illustrated manuscripts of Dante’s Inferno, multiple illustrations were used to depict the events described in a canto. In addition, most of the space in a page was given to the illustration and associated commentary while the text portion was smaller in comparison. Therefore, a single canto spread over multiple pages. Botticelli’s text and illustration arrangement innovates by presenting the text on a single page in four vertical columns.^[25]

In addition, unlike similar works, Botticelli’s manuscript uses but a single illustration per canto, which occupied a whole page, presenting a unified depiction of the sequence of events of a canto in a vertical format. This way, the readers know that when they advance to a new page, they enter the thematic sequence of a new canto.^[25] The text of each canto, from left to right, matches, to a high degree,^[25] the pictorial representation as the reader views the illustration from the upper left corner and then proceeds downwards. This reflects the vertical structure of the descent of the two poets through the nine circles of Hell. The additional two illustrations of the Map of Hell and Lucifer lie outside this canto-text structure, thus providing an element of continuity which unifies the work.^[26] Lucifer’s second drawing by Botticelli from Inferno XXXIV spans across two pages, and lies outside the text-illustration structure, unifying the narrative of the series. It also illustrates the full story of Inferno canto XXXIV and shows Lucifer’s geographical position in Hell.^[13]

Botticelli renders vertically the ground planes of the illustrations of the second and third rounds of Inferno. Although the illustrations for the first three rounds depict different imagery, the vertical perspective links them into a single unit. The third round consists of the illustrations for cantos XV, XVI and XVII, which depict the punishment of those who sinned by violence against God, nature and art.^[24]

Botticelli uses thirteen drawings to illustrate the eighth circle of Hell, depicting ten chasms that Dante and Virgil descend through a ridge.^[2]

Dimensions

Inferno X, with just Dante (in red) and Virgil (in blue) coloured.

Each page of the manuscript was approximately 32 cm high by 47 cm wide. Since the text of each canto was written on a single page and the accompanying illustration was on a separate page, arranging the two pages in a horizontal format would have been impractical as it would be approximately 94 centimetres (37 in) wide. This would entail the readers turning their heads from left to right while trying to connect the text columns on the left to the illustration on the right. A vertical arrangement, stacking the illustration page on top of the text page, is a more efficient way of combining the text-illustration pair; a volume designed to open vertically is a more probable scenario for Botticelli’s manuscript. If the manuscript’s binding were to open vertically, the dimensions would be approximately 47 centimetres (19 in) wide by 64 centimetres (25 in) high, and would incorporate both the text and the illustration on a single page. This would have made reading the text and looking at the drawing of each canto easier and more efficient.^[26]

Content location

The Vatican Library has the drawing of the Map Of Hell, and the illustrations for cantos I, IX, X, XII, XIII, XV and XVI of the Inferno. The Map of Hell and the drawing for canto I are drawn on each side of the same goat-skin parchment. The drawings that were in the Berlin museum were separated post-war after the division of Germany, but the collection was re-integrated following reunification.^[6] The Berlin Museum houses the rest of the extant illustrations, including the drawing for canto VIII. The sequence of the Inferno drawings for cantos XVII to canto XXX for Paradiso is without gaps. The page for the drawing of canto XXXI appears blank, and the sequence ends with the unfinished drawing for canto XXXII.^[3]

The film Botticelli Inferno is based on the history of the illustrated manuscript.

Notes

1. ^ Jump up to:^{a b c d e} Watts, Barbara J. (1995). « Sandro Botticelli’s Drawings for Dante’s « Inferno »: Narrative Structure, Topography, and Manuscript Design ». Artibus et Historiae. 16 (32): 163. JSTOR 1483567. The drawings’ dates are uncertain, but he probably began them in the mid-1480s, and worked on them for an ex tended period, probably into the mid-1490s.4 Unfortunately, he never finished the project. Many of the extant drawings are not fully fixed in pen, and only four of these contain illumination.5 Nonetheless, Botticelli’s Dante drawings are of such vision and beauty that, no less than the Primavera, they are central to his artistic achievement. In all likelihood, the cycle for Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco’s manuscript was Botticelli’s second effort at illustrating Dante, the first being designs for the Florence Commedia, published by Nicholo di Lorenzo della Magna in 1481 [Fig. 2].6 The engravings for Inferno I through XIX that were printed for this edition have long been attributed to Baccio Baldini, who according to Vasari, had no invenzione and relied exclusively on Botticelli for his designs.7 The similarities between these engravings and Botticelli’s lnferno drawings support the assumption that Botticelli made the designs Baldini used. If he did, the engravings are especially significant because they provide a sense of what the lost drawings for Inferno Il-VIII and XIV looked like.
2. ^ Jump up to:^a b Watts, Barbara J. (1995). « Sandro Botticelli’s Drawings for Dante’s « Inferno »: Narrative Structure, Topography, and Manuscript Design ». Artibus et Historiae. 16 (32): 182. JSTOR 1483567. The eighth circle is made up of a series of ten descending chasms (the Malebolge) that Dante and Virgil cross by a continuous ridge, which extends from the top to the bottom of the circle (XVIII:14–18).46 In the thirteen illustrations for this circle, Botticelli consistently placed these ponti on the right side of the composition, breaking the pattern only when the narrative required it or when rendering a chasm for the second time [XVIII-XXXI, Figs. 17–27].
3. ^ Jump up to:^a b c Lippmann, F. DRAWINGS BY SANDRO BOTTICELLI FOR DANTE’S DIVINA COMMEDIA. LAWRENCE AND BULLEN LONDON. p. 16. Not only does the general character of these drawings at once suggest Botticelli, but a careful study of their details confirms the belief that they were entirely executed by him. We recognize throughout the specific character of his art as manifested in his best pictures, […]
4. ^ Jump up to:^a b c Lippmann, F. DRAWINGS BY SANDRO BOTTICELLI FOR DANTE’S DIVINA COMMEDIA. LAWRENCE AND BULLEN LONDON. p. 15. There are 88 sheets in the Berlin group, 85 of them illustrated. These were in an 18th-century binding. The Vatican group is 8 drawings on 7 sheets; the introductory map of Hell is on the same sheet as the first illustration to Canto 1, on the reverse.
5. Jump up^ Havely, R. N., Dante’s British Public: Readers and Texts, from the Fourteenth Century to the Present, pp. 244–259, 2014, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0199212449, 9780199212446, google books
6. ^ Jump up to:^a b Nigel Reynolds (7 September 2000). « Royal Academy wins battle over Botticellis ». The Daily Telegraph.
7. Jump up^ Lightbown, pp. 86-89
8. Jump up^ Lippmann, F. DRAWINGS BY SANDRO BOTTICELLI FOR DANTE’S DIVINA COMMEDIA. LAWRENCE AND BULLEN LONDON. p. 20. It is very probable that Botticelli began the Dante drawings before he went to Rome in 1481. Vasari says that « he illustrated the Inferno, and caused it to be printed ». Now we do possess an edition of the Divine Comedy, printed in Florence in 1481, in which the Inferno is illustrated with nineteen little engravings. The affinity between these plates and Botticelli’s drawings is unmistakable. This edition, published under the direction of Cristophoro Landino, and furnished with his commentary on the poem*, it was originally proposed to illustrate with engravings throughout.
9. Jump up^ Landau, 35, 38
10. Jump up^ Vasari, 152
11. Jump up^ Lightbown, 89; Landau, 108; Dempsey
12. Jump up^ Lightbown, 90, 94
13. ^ Jump up to:^a b Watts, Barbara J. (1995). « Sandro Botticelli’s Drawings for Dante’s « Inferno »: Narrative Structure, Topography, and Manuscript Design ». Artibus et Historiae. 16 (32): 193. JSTOR 1483567.
14. Jump up^ Lightbown, 282
15. Jump up^ Ettlingers, 178-179
16. Jump up^ Ettlingers, 178-179; Lightbown, 294
17. Jump up^ Lightbown, 282, 290
18. Jump up^ Lightbown, 282-290, 295
19. Jump up^ Lightbown, 296
20. Jump up^ Lightbown, 290
21. Jump up^ Lightbown, 280
22. Jump up^ Lightbown, 280-296
23. Jump up^ Lightbown, 282; Ettlingers, 179
24. ^ Jump up to:^a b Watts, Barbara J. (1995). « Sandro Botticelli’s Drawings for Dante’s « Inferno »: Narrative Structure, Topography, and Manuscript Design ». Artibus et Historiae. 16 (32): 180. JSTOR 1483567. This formula is maintained in the extant illustrations for the third round, where those violent against God, nature, and art are punished [XV-XVII, Figs. 14–16. […] page. By rendering vertically the planes of the second and third rounds, Botticelli linked their illustrations to that for the first round in which the space actually is perpendicular.
25. ^ Jump up to:^a b c Watts, Barbara J. (1995). « Sandro Botticelli’s Drawings for Dante’s « Inferno »: Narrative Structure, Topography, and Manuscript Design ». Artibus et Historiae. 16 (32): 195–197. JSTOR 1483567.
26. ^ Jump up to:^a b Watts, Barbara J. (1995). « Sandro Botticelli’s Drawings for Dante’s « Inferno »: Narrative Structure, Topography, and Manuscript Design ». Artibus et Historiae. 16 (32): 198. JSTOR 1483567. From here, the step to a volume that opened vertically is almost inevitable when practical and aesthetic concerns are coupled with the nature of Botticelli’s illustrations and the content of Dante’s poem. A conventionally bound manuscript composed of sheets measuring over 32 cm. high and over 47 cm. wide, would, when open, have a breadth of at least 94 cm. […] A manuscript bound so as to open vertically would have none of the aforementioned shortcomings. When open, it would measure approximately 64 cm. in height and only 47 cm. across, a more manageable size. With the text below and the illumination above, the text would be easy to read and the illustration close at hand for detailed scrutiny […] This drawing thus binds the series together: the cosmographical plan of Hell that is presented in its first image is completed in the last, which in turn provides the geographical bridge to the mountain of Purgatory and the second stage of Dante’s journey. This relation between the first and final images of the Inferno confirms a cohesive plan for the manuscript, a plan grounded in the manuscript’s pictorial cycle.

References

• Dempsey, Charles, « Botticelli, Sandro », Grove Art Online, Oxford Art Online. Oxford University Press. Web. 15 May. 2017. subscription required
• « Ettlingers »: Leopold Ettlinger with Helen S. Ettlinger, Botticelli, 1976, Thames and Hudson (World of Art), ISBN 0500201536
• Landau, David, in Landau, David, and Parshall, Peter. The Renaissance Print, Yale, 1996, ISBN 0300068832
• Lightbown, Ronald, Sandro Botticelli: Life and Work, 1989, Thames and Hudson
• Vasari, selected & ed. George Bull, Artists of the Renaissance, Penguin 1965 (page nos from BCA edn, 1979). Vasari Life on-line (in a different translation)

• Gentile, Sebastiano (vol 1) and Schulze Altcappenberg, Heinrich-Thomas, Sandro Botticelli: pittore della Divina Commedia, in 2 volumes (facsimile with scholarly introductions), 2000, Skira (vol 1), Scuderie Papali al Quirinale and Royal Academy of Arts (vol 2)
• Plazzotta, C. (2001). Review: « Botticelli and Dante: Berlin, Rome and London », The Burlington Magazine, 143(1177), 239–241. JSTOR
• Schulze Altcappenberg, Heinrich-Thomas, Sandro Botticelli: The Drawings for Dante’s Divine Comedy, 2000, Royal Academy/Harry N Abrams, catalogue for the exhibition, ISBN 0810966336, 9780810966338

•  Media related to Sandro Botticelli’s illustrations to the Divine Comedy at Wikimedia Commons

show v t e Sandro Botticelli

hide v t e Dante‘s Divine Comedy
Characters and locations	Inferno Acheron Alichino Barbariccia Ciampolo Cocytus Dis Ugolino della Gherardesca Malacoda Paolo Malatesta Malebranche Malebolge Minos Odysseus Phlegethon Francesca da Rimini Satan Scarmiglione Styx Virgil Purgatorio Cato the Younger Forese Donati Eunoe Beatrice Portinari Statius Paradiso Adam Thomas Aquinas Bernard of Clairvaux Bonaventure Cacciaguida Charles Martel of Anjou David Empyrean Justinian I Peter Lombard Piccarda
Verses	« Papé Satàn, papé Satàn aleppe«  « Raphèl mai amècche zabì almi«
Adaptations	Classical music Après une Lecture de Dante: Fantasia quasi Sonata (Liszt, 1849) Dante Symphony (Liszt, 1857) Francesca da Rimini (Tchaikovsky, 1876) Francesca da Rimini (Rachmaninoff, 1904) Francesca da Rimini (Zandonai, 1914) Gianni Schicchi (Puccini, 1918) The Divine Comedy (Smith, 1996) Paintings The Barque of Dante (Delacroix, 1822) The Wood of the Self-Murderers: The Harpies and the Suicides (Blake, 1827) Francesca da Rimini and Paolo Malatesta appraised by Dante and Virgil(Scheffer, 1835) Dante in Hell (Flandrin, 1835) Pia de’ Tolomei(Rossetti, 1868) Paolo and Francesca da Rimini (Rossetti, 1885) La barca de Aqueronte (Hidalgo, 1887) La Laguna Estigia (Hidalgo, 1887) Sculptures The Kiss (Rodin, 1882) The Thinker (Rodin, 1904) The Gates of Hell(Rodin, 1917) Architecture Danteum (Terragni, 1938) Modern music Inferno (1973 album) « Dante’s Inferno » (1995 song) Dante XXI (2006 album) A Place Where the Sun Is Silent (2011 album) Film L’Inferno (1911) Dante’s Inferno (1924) Dante’s Inferno (1935) The Dante Quartet (1987) A TV Dante (1989) Dante’s Inferno (2007) Dante’s Inferno: An Animated Epic (2010) Dante’s Hell Animated(2013) Literature The Story of Rimini (1816) La Comédie humaine (1830–1850) Earth Inferno (1905) The Cantos (1917–1962) As I Was Going Down Sackville Street (1937) The System of Dante’s Hell (1965) Demon Lord Dante (1971) Inferno(1976) The Dante Club (2003) Jimbo’s Inferno (2006) Inferno(2013) Video games Tamashii no Mon (1994) Devil May Cry series (2001) Bayonetta(2009) Dante’s Inferno (2010) The Lost (cancelled)
Related	Cultural references in Divina Commedia Dante Alighieri and the Divine Comedy in popular culture English translations Divine Comedy Illustrated by Botticelli Botticelli Inferno, 2016 documentary

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divine_Comedy_Illustrated_by_Botticelli

http://www.giacobbegiusti.com

 

 

 

Giacobbe Giusti, Stèle de victoire du roi Naram-Sin

Giacobbe Giusti, Stèle de victoire du roi Naram-Sin

Artist Unknown Description Victory stele of Naram-Sin [1] Limestone Brought back from Sippar to Susa as war prize in the 12th century BC Dimensions 2 m high, 1.05 wide Current location (Inventory)Louvre Museum   Native name Musée du Louvre Location Paris

Giacobbe Giusti, Stèle de victoire du roi Naram-Sin

Giacobbe Giusti, Stèle de victoire du roi Naram-Sin

Stèle de victoire du roi Naram-Sin

Artiste	Inconnu
Date	vers 2254-2213 av. J.-C.
Type	Calcaire
Technique	Sculpture, bas-relief
Dimensions (H × L)	200 × 105 cm
Localisation	Musée du Louvre, département des Antiquités Orientales du Louvre, Paris (France)
Numéro d’inventaire	Sb 41

La stèle de victoire du roi Naram-Sin est une stèleaujourd’hui parcellaire édifiée en l’honneur de la victoire de Naram-Sin, roi de l’empire d’Akkad, sur un peuple rebelle du Zagros, les Lullubis. Elle est aujourd’hui conservée au département des Antiquités Orientales du musée du Louvre.

Contexte historique

Durant le règne de Naram-Sin, le peuple des Lullubis, habitant dans le Zagros, se rebelle. Après avoir maté la révolte, le roi akkadien fait ériger cette stèle en son honneur à Sippar. Celle-ci fut enlevée au xii^e siècle av. J.-C. par le roi médio-élamite Shutruk-Nahhunte pour être transportée à Suse. Il y fait graver une inscription en élamite comme sur toutes les œuvres qu’il rapporta de ses expéditions, au niveau de la montagne figurée sur la stèle. Celle-ci fut retrouvée le 6 avril 1898 par l’archéologue Jacques de Morgan sur le tell de l’acropole de Suse.

Description

La stèle de victoire de Naram-Sin constitue un jalon majeur dans la sculpture de cette époque. En effet, il s’agit de la première stèle connue réalisée en bas-relief à s’affranchir de la notion de registre. Ainsi, l’histoire n’est plus racontée scène par scène, mais d’un seul tenant, rassemblant dans la même représentation l’arrivée des troupes akkadiennes, la bataille, la défaite des Lullubis et le triomphe de Naram-Sin. Qui plus est, cette stèle est la première à mettre le roi au même niveau que le dieu. Ainsi, Naram-Sin est représenté en taille héroïque et porte un casque orné de cornes, symbole de divinité au Proche-Orient ancien.

La stèle, aujourd’hui fragmentaire, devait à l’origine être de forme longiligne et son sommet arrondi. Au sommet de la stèle, des astres (sept supposés lorsque la stèle était complète), allégories des dieux veillant sur Akkad. Représenté en taille héroïque surplombant la bataille, Naram-Sin se distingue des soldats par sa coiffe divine, un casque à une paire de corne. Il porte un arc ainsi qu’une lance et est vêtu d’un pagne court adapté au combat. Le roi est ici clairement un guerrier. Il ne fait pas que commander au combat, il participe à la bataille. Naram-Sin se trouve au sommet d’une montagne (le Zagros) sur laquelle se déroule la bataille. Sur le flanc gauche, les Akkadiens, à droite les Lullubis. Les Akkadiens sont représentés tous identiques, marchant d’un pas déterminé vers l’ennemi, tandis que ces derniers sont en pleine débandade. Certains Lullubis supplient le roi de les épargner tandis que d’autres fuient ou tombent sous les coups des Akkadiens. L’un d’entre eux chute d’ailleurs de la montagne, créant une ligne verticale séparant les vainqueurs des vaincus. Un autre s’écroule face à Naram-Sin après avoir reçu de sa main une lance dans la gorge.

La scène est d’une violence évidente, caractéristique de l’art akkadien où les peuples vaincus sont représentés enchainés nus, si ce n’est exécutés. On note également la présence de décor (un arbre, la montagne) sur la stèle, ce qui est également inédit.

Notes et références

1. ↑ Notice n^o 11955 [archive], base Atlas, musée du Louvre

Annexes

Sur les autres projets Wikimedia :

• Stèle de victoire du roi Naram-Sin, sur Wikimedia Commons

Liens externes

• Noticen^o 11955 [archive], base Atlas, musée du Louvre
• « Descriptions sur le site du Musée de Louvre » [archive] (consulté le 19 août 2012)

Bibliographie

 : document utilisé comme source pour la rédaction de cet article.

• Agnès Benoit, Art et archéologie : Les civilisations du Proche-Orient Ancien, Paris, Réunion des Musées Nationaux, École du Louvre, coll. « Manuels de l’École du Louvre », 2007, p. 260-261
• Pierre Amiet, L’art d’Agadé au musée du Louvre, Paris, Éditions des Musées nationaux, 1976, p. 29-32
• (en) Irene Winter, On Art in the Ancient Near East : Volume II From the Third Millennium B.C.E., Leyde et Boston, Brill, coll. « Culture and history of the ancient Near East », 2010, p. 85-149

 Giacobbe Giusti, Stèle de victoire du roi Naram-Sin

The Victory Stele of Naram Sin

The Victory Stele of Naram-Sin is a stele that dates to approximately 2254-2218 BC, in the time of the Akkadian Empire. The reliefmeasures six feet in height and was carved in pink limestone. It depicts the King Naram-Sin of Akkad leading the Akkadian army to victory over the mountain people, the Lullubi. It shows a narrative of the King crossing the steep slopes into enemy territory; on the left are the ordered imperial forces keeping in rank while marching over the disordered defenders that lay broken and defeated. Naram-Sin in shown as by far the most important figure; he is shown towering over his enemy and troops and all eyes gaze up toward him. The weak and chaotic opposing forces are shown being thrown from atop the mountainside, impaled by spears, fleeing and begging Naram-Sin for mercy as well as being trampled underfoot by Naram-Sin himself. This is supposed to convey their uncivilized and barbaric nature making the conquest justified.^[1]

The stele is unique in two regards. Most conquest depictions are shown horizontally, with the King being at the top-center. This stele depicts the victory in a diagonal fashion with the King still being at the top-center but where everyone else can look up to him. The second unique aspect of the piece is that Naram-Sin is shown wearing a bull-horned helmet or shown as the face of lion. Helmets of this type at the time when this stele was commissioned were only worn by the Gods. This stele is in essence telling the viewer that Naram-Sin is a victorious conqueror as a result of his divine status. But it also shows Naram-Sin gazing up toward two stars. Showing that although Naram-Sin is a god, a feat that was up to this point only achieved by deceased kings, he is still not the most powerful of gods.

Rediscovery

The stele was found at the Iranian site of Susa. It was taken out of Mesopotamia by the Elamite King Shutruk-Nakhunte in the 12th century BC. Shutruk-Nakhunte was a descendant of the Lullubi people, whose defeat the stele commemorated. He also claimed to carry the stele there himself. The already ancient inscription was kept, indicating respect for Naram-Sin’s victory. He did, however, add an inscription declaring his own glory and tells how the stele was carried out of the city after the pillage of the city Sippar.^[2] The stele now resides inside of the Louvre in Paris.

Giacobbe Giusti, Stèle de victoire du roi Naram-Sin

Narrative

Naram-Sin is shown in hierarchic scale as a god-like figure on the stele, he is looked up to by all others shown. He is supported by his ordered troops and feared by his defeated enemies. His face is that of lion or bull, signifying his powers. He is also depicted by showing no mercy to his enemy. One of the defeated people pleas for their lives on the top right as they run from Naram-Sin. This is for good reason because he is shown stepping on the dead body of one of the Lullubi people after kicking another off the side of the mountain. He has stabbed another in the neck with a spear and is holding an arrow to perhaps impale the next. The Lullubi people are shown in stark contrast to the Akkadian soldiers they are shown as a disorganized chaotic mess of individuals being trampled underfoot by the very organized Akkadians.^[3]

The Lullubi grovel before the conqueror who has destroyed them and will show no mercy. This was created to justify the conquest of the people of that region. They were seen as uncivilized and barbaric and the much stronger Akkadians deserve to rule over them. It is also there to strike fear into the hearts of any rebels that wish to challenge the rule of the King. This shows his lack of mercy and that any resistance is futile. But more is told about Naram-Sin through this stele. When a figure is shown wearing a horned helmet in Akkad at the time they would commonly considered a god. Here Naram-Sin is wearing just such a helmet and shows the viewer that Naram-Sin is in fact a god-king. Now future generations would commonly associate Naram-Sin as a possessor of great hubris but that didn’t stop him telling everyone he was a god throughout his life. And this stele is by far the most famous image of him.^[4][5]

The low depth, typical of similar reliefs, is unusual in the diagonal composition (compare the scenes on the Standard of Ur). This was perhaps to create a more interesting composition or to perhaps allow everyone depicted in the scene to look up to Naram-Sin. Naram’s horned helmet and much larger size show him as powerful and godly. Perhaps given his divine and godly power, the sun could have been the god to give him his power.

The text under the sun was written in Akkadian cuneiform and depicts the rise of the Akkadians over the Lullubians. Naram-Sin leading his army into destroying the last of the Lullubians shows just how powerful the Akkadians and Naram-Sin truly are and they are not a group to reckon. Naram-Sin thought of himself as godly, which explains his depiction as very god-like.^[6]

Notes

1. Jump up^ « Archived copy ». Archived from the original on June 10, 2013. Retrieved May 16,2013.
2. Jump up^ « Victory Stele of Naram-Sin ». http://www.mtholyoke.edu. Retrieved 20 July 2017.
3. Jump up^ « The Victory Stele of Naram-Sin – Art Time Traveling! ». sommerville88.wordpress.com. Retrieved 20 July 2017.
4. Jump up^ « Naram-Sin ». Ancient History Encyclopedia. Retrieved 2015-11-16.
5. Jump up^ « Victory Stele of Naram-Sin | Louvre Museum | Paris ». http://www.louvre.fr. Retrieved 2015-11-16.
6. Jump up^ Westenholz, Joan Goodnick. Legends of the Kings of Akkade.

References

• Pierre Amiet, L’art d’Agadé au musée du Louvre, Paris, Éditions des Musées nationaux, 1976, p. 29-32
• Pierre Amiet: Altakkadische Flachbildkunst, in Propyläen Kunstgeschichte XVIII, p. 196–197 Taf. 104.
• Agnès Benoit: Agnès Benoit, Art et archéologie : Les civilisations du Proche-Orient Ancien, Paris, Réunion des Musées Nationaux, École du Louvre, coll. Manuels de l’École du Louvre, 2007, p. 260-261
• Irene Winter, On Art in the Ancient Near East : Volume II From the Third Millennium B.C.E.,Leyden & Boston, Brill, coll. Culture and history of the ancient Near East, 2010, p. 85-149

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victory_Stele_of_Naram-Sin

http://www.giacobbegiusti.com