Giacobbe Giusti, Renaissance humanism

Giacobbe Giusti, Renaissance humanism

 

Leonardo da Vinci‘s Vitruvian Man (c. 1490) shows the correlations of ideal human body proportions with geometry described by the ancient Roman architect Vitruvius in his De Architectura. Vitruvius described the human figure as being like the principal source of proportion among the Classical orders of architecture.

Giacobbe Giusti, Renaissance humanism

Domenico Ghirlandaio: Zachariah in the Temple (detail): Marsilio Ficino, Cristoforo Landino, Angelo Poliziano and Demetrios Chalkondyles. Fresco. Santa Maria Novella, Cappella Tornabuoni, Florence, Italy. 1486-1490.

Quatre philosophes humanistes pensionnés par les Médicis : Marsile Ficin, Cristoforo Landino, Ange Politien et Démétrios Chalcondyle (fresque de Domenico Ghirlandaio).

 

Giacobbe Giusti, Renaissance humanism

Anonimo, Francesco Petrarca nello studium, affresco murale, ultimo quarto del secolo XIV, Reggia Carrarese-Sala dei Giganti, Padova.

Giacobbe Giusti, Renaissance humanism

Vincenzo Foppa, Fanciullo che legge Cicerone. Quest’affresco, datato intorno al 1464, proveniva dal Banco Mediceo presente a Milano e denotava la profonda venerazione che si teneva nei confronti del retore e filosofo Marco Tullio Cicerone, ammirato e celebrato quale massimo prosatore latino dagli umanisti.

Giacobbe Giusti, Renaissance humanism

Giusto di Gand e Pedro Berruguete, Vittorino da Feltre, olio su tavola, 1474, Museo del Louvre, Parigi

 

Giacobbe Giusti, Renaissance humanism

The School of Athens » by Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino

Giacobbe Giusti, Renaissance humanism

Leonardo da Vinci‘s Vitruvian Man (c. 1490) shows the correlations of ideal human body proportions with geometry described by the ancient Roman architect Vitruvius in his De Architectura. Vitruvius described the human figure as being like the principal source of proportion among the Classical orders of architecture.

Renaissance Giacobbe Giusti, Renaissance humanism
The School of Athens, Raphael, 1509–1511
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Renaissance humanism is the study of classical antiquity, at first in Italy and then spreading across Western Europe in the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries. The term humanism is contemporary to that period, while Renaissance humanism is a retronym used to distinguish it from later humanistdevelopments.^[1]

Renaissance humanism was a response to the utilitarian approach and what came to be depicted as the « narrow pedantry » associated with medieval scholasticism.^[2]Humanists sought to create a Citizenry able to speak and write with eloquence and clarity and thus capable of engaging in the civic lifeof their communities and persuading others to virtuous and prudentactions. This was to be accomplished through the study of the studia humanitatis, today known as the humanities: grammar, rhetoric, history, poetry, and moral philosophy.

According to one scholar of the movement,

Early Italian humanism, which in many respects continued the grammatical and rhetorical traditions of the Middle Ages, not merely provided the old Trivium with a new and more ambitious name (Studia humanitatis), but also increased its actual scope, content and significance in the curriculum of the schools and universities and in its own extensive literary production. The studia humanitatisexcluded logic, but they added to the traditional grammar and rhetoric not only history, Greek, and moral philosophy, but also made poetry, once a sequel of grammar and rhetoric, the most important member of the whole group.^[3]

Humanism was a pervasive cultural mode and not the program of a small elite, a program to revive the cultural legacy, literary legacy, and moral philosophy of classical antiquity. There were important centres of humanism in Florence, Naples, Rome, Venice, Genoa, Mantua, Ferrara, and Urbino.

Origin

Some of the first humanists were great collectors of antique manuscripts, including Petrarch, Giovanni Boccaccio, Coluccio Salutati, and Poggio Bracciolini. Of the four, Petrarch was dubbed the « Father of Humanism » because of his devotion or loyalty to Greek and Roman scrolls. Many worked for the Catholic Church and were in holy orders, like Petrarch, while others were lawyers and chancellors of Italian cities, and thus had access to book copying workshops, such as Petrarch’s disciple Salutati, the Chancellor of Florence.

In Italy, the humanist educational program won rapid acceptance and, by the mid-15th century, many of the upper classes had received humanist educations, possibly in addition to traditional scholasticistones. Some of the highest officials of the Catholic Church were humanists with the resources to amass important libraries. Such was Cardinal Basilios Bessarion, a convert to the Catholic Church from Greek Orthodoxy, who was considered for the papacy, and was one of the most learned scholars of his time. There were several 15th-century and early 16th-century humanist Popes^[4] one of whom, Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini (Pope Pius II), was a prolific author and wrote a treatise on The Education of Boys.^[5] These subjects came to be known as the humanities, and the movement which they inspired is shown as humanism.

The migration waves of Byzantine Greek scholars and émigrés in the period following the Crusader sacking of Constantinople and the end of the Byzantine Empire in 1453 greatly assisted the revival of Greekand Roman literature and science via their greater familiarity with ancient languages and works.^[6][7] They included Gemistus Pletho, George of Trebizond, Theodorus Gaza, and John Argyropoulos.

Italian humanism spread northward to France, Germany, the Low Countries, and England with the adoption of large-scale printing after the end of the era of incunabula (or books printed prior to 1501), and it became associated with the Protestant Reformation. In France, pre-eminent humanist Guillaume Budé (1467–1540) applied the philological methods of Italian humanism to the study of antique coinage and to legal history, composing a detailed commentary on Justinian’s Code. Budé was a royal absolutist (and not a republicanlike the early Italian umanisti) who was active in civic life, serving as a diplomat for François I and helping to found the Collège des Lecteurs Royaux (later the Collège de France). Meanwhile, Marguerite de Navarre, the sister of François I, was a poet, novelist, and religious mystic^[8] who gathered around her and protected a circle of vernacular poets and writers, including Clément Marot, Pierre de Ronsard, and François Rabelais.

Paganism and Christianity in the Renaissance

Many humanists were churchmen, most notably Pope Pius II (Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini), Sixtus IV, and Leo X,^[9][10] and there was often patronage of humanists by senior church figures.^[11] Much humanist effort went into improving the understanding and translations of Biblical and early Christian texts, both before and after the Protestant Reformation, which was greatly influenced by the work of non-Italian, Northern European figures such as Desiderius Erasmus, Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples, William Grocyn, and Swedish Catholic Archbishop in exile Olaus Magnus.

The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy describes the rationalism of ancient writings as having tremendous impact on Renaissancescholars:

Here, one felt no weight of the supernatural pressing on the human mind, demanding homage and allegiance. Humanity—with all its distinct capabilities, talents, worries, problems, possibilities—was the center of interest. It has been said that medieval thinkers philosophised on their knees, but, bolstered by the new studies, they dared to stand up and to rise to full stature.^[12]

The rediscovery of classical philosophy and science would eventually challenge traditional religious beliefs. In 1417, for example, Poggio Bracciolini discovered the manuscript of Lucretius, De rerum natura, which had been lost for centuries and which contained an explanation of Epicurean doctrine, though at the time this was not commented on much by Renaissance scholars, who confined themselves to remarks about Lucretius’s grammar and syntax.^[13] Lorenzo Valla, however, puts a defense of epicureanism in the mouth of one of the interlocutors of one of his dialogues.^[14] Valla’s defense, or adaptation, of Epicureanism was later taken up in The Epicurean by Erasmus, the « Prince of humanists: »

If people who live agreeably are Epicureans, none are more truly Epicurean than the righteous and godly. And if it is names that bother us, no one better deserves the name of Epicurean than the revered founder and head of the Christian philosophy Christ, for in Greek epikourosmeans « helper. » He alone, when the law of Nature was all but blotted out by sins, when the law of Moses incited to lists rather than cured them, when Satan ruled in the world unchallenged, brought timely aid to perishing humanity. Completely mistaken, therefore, are those who talk in their foolish fashion about Christ’s having been sad and gloomy in character and calling upon us to follow a dismal mode of life. On the contrary, he alone shows the most enjoyable life of all and the one most full of true pleasure.^[15]

This passage exemplifies the way in which the humanists saw paganclassical works, such as the philosophy of Epicurus, as being in harmony with their interpretation of Christianity.

Renaissance Neo-Platonists such as Marsilio Ficino (whose translations of Plato’s works into Latin were still used into the 19th century) attempted to reconcile Platonism with Christianity, according to the suggestions of early Church fathers Lactantius and Saint Augustine. In this spirit, Pico della Mirandola attempted to construct a syncretism of all religions (he was not a humanist^{[clarification needed]} but an Aristotelian trained in Paris), but his work did not win favor with the church authorities.

Historian Steven Kreis expresses a widespread view (derived from the 19th-century Swiss historian Jacob Burckhardt), when he writes that:

The period from the fourteenth century to the seventeenth worked in favor of the general emancipation of the individual. The city-states of northern Italy had come into contact with the diverse customs of the East, and gradually permitted expression in matters of taste and dress. The writings of Dante, and particularly the doctrines of Petrarch and humanists like Machiavelli, emphasized the virtues of intellectual freedom and individual expression. In the essays of Montaigne the individualistic view of life received perhaps the most persuasive and eloquent statement in the history of literature and philosophy.^[16]

Two noteworthy trends in Renaissance humanism were Renaissance Neo-Platonism and Hermeticism, which through the works of figures like Nicholas of Kues, Giordano Bruno, Cornelius Agrippa, Campanellaand Pico della Mirandola sometimes came close to constituting a new religion itself. Of these two, Hermeticism has had great continuing influence in Western thought, while the former mostly dissipated as an intellectual trend, leading to movements in Western esotericism such as Theosophy and New Age thinking.^[17] The « Yates thesis » of Frances Yates holds that before falling out of favour, esoteric Renaissance thought introduced several concepts that were useful for the development of scientific method, though this remains a matter of controversy.

Though humanists continued to use their scholarship in the service of the church into the middle of the sixteenth century and beyond, the sharply confrontational religious atmosphere following the Protestant reformation resulted in the Counter-Reformation that sought to silence challenges to Catholic theology,^[18] with similar efforts among the Protestant denominations. However, a number of humanists joined the Reformation movement and took over leadership functions, for example, Philipp Melanchthon, Ulrich Zwingli, John Calvin, and William Tyndale.

With the Counter Reformation initiated by the Council of Trent (1545-1563), positions hardened and a strict Catholic orthodoxy based on Scholastic philosophy was imposed. Some humanists, even moderate Catholics such as Erasmus, risked being declared heretics for their perceived criticism of the church.^[19]

The historian of the Renaissance Sir John Hale cautions against too direct a linkage between Renaissance humanism and modern uses of the term humanism: « Renaissance humanism must be kept free from any hint of either « humanitarianism » or « humanism » in its modern sense of rational, non-religious approach to life … the word « humanism » will mislead … if it is seen in opposition to a Christianity its students in the main wished to supplement, not contradict, through their patient excavation of the sources of ancient God-inspired wisdom »^[20]

Humanists

 List of Renaissance humanists

See also

Part of a Philosophy series on
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History
Renaissance humanism in Northern Europe in France Humanist Manifesto
Secular humanism
Center for Inquiry A Secular Humanist Declaration Amsterdam Declaration
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Outline List of secular humanists Philosophy portal
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• Thomas More
• Greek scholars in the Renaissance
• Humanist Latin
• Legal humanists
• New Learning

Notes

1. ^ The term la rinascita (rebirth) first appeared, however, in its broad sense in Giorgio Vasari‘s Vite de’ più eccellenti architetti, pittori, et scultori Italiani (The Lives of the Artists, 1550, revised 1568) Panofsky, Erwin. Renaissance and Renascences in Western Art, New York: Harper and Row, 1960. « The term umanista was used in fifteenth-century Italian academic slang to describe a teacher or student of classical literature and the arts associated with it, including that of rhetoric. The English equivalent ‘humanist’ makes its appearance in the late sixteenth century with a similar meaning. Only in the nineteenth century, however, and probably for the first time in Germany in 1809, is the attribute transformed into a substantive: humanism, standing for devotion to the literature of ancient Greece and Rome, and the humane values that may be derived from them » Nicholas Mann « The Origins of Humanism », Cambridge Companion to Humanism, Jill Kraye, editor [Cambridge University Press, 1996], p. 1–2). The term « Middle Ages » for the preceding period separating classical antiquity from its « rebirth » first appears in Latin in 1469 as media tempestas.
2. ^ Craig W. Kallendorf, introduction to Humanist Educational Treatises, edited and translated by Craig W. Kallendorf (Cambridge, Massachusetts and London England: The I Tatti Renaissance Library, 2002) p. vii.
3. ^ Paul Oskar Kristeller, Renaissance Thought II: Papers on Humanism and the Arts (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1965), p. 178. See also Kristeller’s Renaissance Thought I, « Humanism and Scholasticism In the Italian Renaissance », Byzantion 17(1944–45), pp. 346–74. Reprinted in Renaissance Thought (New York: Harper Torchbooks), 1961.
4. ^ They include Innocent VII, Nicholas V, Pius II, Sixtus IV, Alexander VI, Julius II and Leo X. Innocent VII, patron of Leonardo Bruni, is considered the first humanist Pope. See James Hankins, Plato in the Italian Renaissance (New York: Columbia Studies in the Classical Tradition, 1990), p. 49; for the others, see their respective entries in Sir John Hale’s Concise Encyclopaedia of the Italian Renaissance(Oxford University Press, 1981).
5. ^ See Humanist Educational Treatises, (2001) pp. 126–259. This volume (pp. 92–125) contains an essay by Leonardo Bruni, entitled « The Study of Literature », on the education of girls.
6. ^ Byzantines in Renaissance Italy
7. ^ Greeks in Italy
8. ^ She was the author of Miroir de l’ame pecheresse(The Mirror of a Sinful Soul), published after her death, among other devotional poetry. See also « Marguerite de Navarre: Religious Reformist » in Jonathan A. Reid, King’s sister–queen of dissent: Marguerite of Navarre (1492-1549) and her evangelical network^{[dead link]}(Studies in medieval and Reformation traditions, 1573-4188; v. 139). Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2009. (2 v.: (xxii, 795 p.) ISBN 978-90-04-17760-4 (v. 1), 9789004177611 (v. 2)
9. ^ Löffler, Klemens (1910). « Humanism ». The Catholic Encyclopedia. VII. New York: Robert Appleton Company. pp. 538–542.
10. ^ See note two, above.
11. ^ Davies, 477
12. ^ « Humanism ». The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, Second Edition. Cambridge University Press. 1999. p.397 quotation:
    

    The unashamedly humanistic flavor of classical writings had a tremendous impact on Renaissance scholar.

13. ^ Only in 1564 did French commentator Denys Lambin (1519–72) announce in the preface to the work that « he regarded Lucretius’s Epicurean ideas as ‘fanciful, absurd, and opposed to Christianity ». Lambin’s preface remained standard until the nineteenth century. (See Jill Kraye’s essay, « Philologists and Philosophers » in the Cambridge Companion to Renaissance Humanism [1996], p. 153.) Epicurus’s unacceptable doctrine that pleasure was the highest good « ensured the unpopularity of his philosophy » (Kraye [1996] p. 154.)
14. ^ Charles Trinkhaus regards Valla’s « epicureanism » as a ploy, not seriously meant by Valla, but designed to refute Stoicism, which he regarded together with epicureanism as equally inferior to Christianity. See Trinkaus, In Our Image and LikenessVol. 1 (University of Chicago Press, 1970), pp. 103–170
15. ^ John L. Lepage (5 December 2012). The Revival of Antique Philosophy in the Renaissance. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 111. ISBN 978-1-137-28181-4.
16. ^ Kreis, Steven (2008). « Renaissance Humanism ». Retrieved 2009-03-03.
17. ^ Plumb, 95
18. ^ « Rome Reborn: The Vatican Library & Renaissance Culture: Humanism ». The Library of Congress. 2002-07-01. Retrieved 2009-03-03.
19. ^ « Humanism ». Encyclopedic Dictionary of Religion. F–N. Corpus Publications. 1979. p. 1733. ISBN 978-0-9602572-1-8.
20. ^ Hale, 171. See also Davies, 479-480 for similar caution.

Further reading

• Bolgar, R. R. The Classical Heritage and Its Beneficiaries: from the Carolingian Age to the End of the Renaissance. Cambridge, 1954.
• Cassirer, Ernst. Individual and Cosmos in Renaissance Philosophy. Harper and Row, 1963.
• Cassirer, Ernst (Editor), Paul Oskar Kristeller (Editor), John Herman Randall (Editor). The Renaisssance Philosophy of Man. University of Chicago Press, 1969.
• Cassirer, Ernst. Platonic Renaissance in England. Gordian, 1970.
• Celenza, Christopher S. The Lost Italian Renaissance: Humanism, Historians, and Latin’s Legacy. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. 2004 ISBN 978-0-8018-8384-2
• Celenza, Christopher S. Petrarch: Everywhere a Wanderer. London: Reaktion. 2017
• Erasmus, Desiderius. « The Epicurean ». In Colloquies.
• Garin, Eugenio. Science and Civic Life in the Italian Renaissance. New York: Doubleday, 1969.
• Garin, Eugenio. Italian Humanism: Philosophy and Civic Life in the Renaissance. Basil Blackwell, 1965.
• Garin, Eugenio. History of Italian Philosophy. (2 vols.) Amsterdam/New York: Rodopi, 2008. ISBN 978-90-420-2321-5
• Grafton, Anthony. Bring Out Your Dead: The Past as Revelation. Harvard University Press, 2004 ISBN 0-674-01597-5
• Grafton, Anthony. Worlds Made By Words: Scholarship and Community in the Modern West. Harvard University Press, 2009 ISBN 0-674-03257-8
• Hale, John. A Concise Encyclopaedia of the Italian Renaissance. Oxford University Press, 1981, ISBN 0-500-23333-0.
• Kallendorf, Craig W, editor. Humanist Educational Treatises. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The I Tatti Renaissance Library, 2002.
• Kraye, Jill (Editor). The Cambridge Companion to Renaissance Humanism. Cambridge University Press, 1996.
• Kristeller, Paul Oskar. Renaissance Thought and Its Sources. Columbia University Press, 1979 ISBN 978-0-231-04513-1
• Pico della Mirandola, Giovanni. Oration on the Dignity of Man. In Cassirer, Kristeller, and Randall, eds. Renaissance Philosophy of Man. University of Chicago Press, 1969.
• Skinner, Quentin. Renaissance Virtues: Visions of Politics: Volume II. Cambridge University Press, [2002] 2007.
• McManus, Stuart M. « Byzantines in the Florentine Polis: Ideology, Statecraft and Ritual during the Council of Florence ». Journal of the Oxford University History Society, 6 (Michaelmas 2008/Hilary 2009).
• Melchert, Norman (2002). The Great Conversation: A Historical Introduction to Philosophy. McGraw Hill. ISBN 978-0-19-517510-3.
• Nauert, Charles Garfield. Humanism and the Culture of Renaissance Europe (New Approaches to European History).Cambridge University Press, 2006.
• Plumb, J. H. ed.: The Italian Renaissance 1961, American Heritage, New York, ISBN 0-618-12738-0 (page refs from 1978 UK Penguin edn).
• Rossellini, Roberto. The Age of the Medici: Part 1, Cosimo de’ Medici; Part 2, Alberti 1973. (Film Series). Criterion Collection.
• Symonds, John Addington.The Renaissance in Italy. Seven Volumes. 1875-1886.
• Trinkaus, Charles (1973). « Renaissance Idea of the Dignity of Man ». In Wiener, Philip P. Dictionary of the History of Ideas. ISBN 978-0-684-13293-8. Retrieved 2009-12-02.
• Trinkaus, Charles. The Scope of Renaissance Humanism. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1983.
• Wind, Edgar. Pagan Mysteries in the Renaissance. New York: W.W. Norton, 1969.
• Witt, Ronald. « In the footsteps of the ancients: the origins of humanism from Lovato to Bruni. » Leiden: Brill Publishers, 2000

• Humanism 1: An Outline by Albert Rabil, Jr.
• « Rome Reborn: The Vatican Library & Renaissance Culture: Humanism ». The Library of Congress. 2002-07-01
• Paganism in the Renaissance, BBC Radio 4 discussion with Tom Healy, Charles Hope & Evelyn Welch (In Our Time, June 16, 2005)

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

 

http://www.giacobbegiusti.com

Giacobbe Giusti, Rampin Rider, Acropolis Museum

 

Giacobbe Giusti, Rampin Rider, Acropolis Museum

 

Giacobbe Giusti, Rampin Rider, Acropolis Museum

Rampin rider Louvre

 

Giacobbe Giusti, Rampin Rider, Acropolis Museum

Rampin Rider at the Acropolis Museum

The Rampin Rider or Rampin Horseman (c. 550 BC) is an equestrian statuefrom the Archaic Period of Ancient Greece. The statue was masterfully made of marble and has traces of red and black paint.

The head of the rider was found on the Acropolis of Athens in 1877 and donated to the Louvre. Parts of the body of the rider and horse were found ten years earlier in a ditch filled with statues broken during the 480 BC Persian sack of Athens. The head was not associated with the rest of the statue until 1936. The statue is displayed with a plaster cast of the head at the Acropolis Museum while the head remains at the Louvre where it is displayed with a cast of the rest of the statue.

The rider has many of the features typical of an Archaic kouros, but has several asymmetrical features that break with the period’s conventions.

Interpretations

The statue was originally thought to be a part of a set of statues, perhaps paired with another as a mounted presentation of Castor and Pollux common on vases from this period. According to another theory, the statue represents the winner of a race. This theory is supported by the crown of lovage, given to winners of the Nemean Games and the Isthmian Games, on the statue.

References

• Page at the Louvre (English): Head of a horseman, known as the « Rampin Horseman »

• Gisela M. A. Richter, L’arte greca, Torino, Einaudi, 1969.
• Jean Charbonneaux, Roland Martin; François Villard, La Grecia arcaica : (620-480 a.C.), Milano, Rizzoli, 1978. ISBN non esistente
• Humfry Payne, Paolo Enrico Arias, La scultura arcaica in marmo dell’Acropoli, Roma, L’Erma di Bretschneider, 1981, ISBN 88-7062-500-1.
• Ranuccio Bianchi Bandinelli, Enrico Paribeni, L’arte dell’antichità classica. Grecia, Torino, UTET Libreria, 1986, ISBN 88-7750-183-9..
• Pierluigi De Vecchi ed Elda Cerchiari, I tempi dell’arte, volume 1, Bompiani, Milano 1999. ISBN 88-451-7107-8

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

http://www.giacobbegiusti.com

Giacobbe Giusti, FILIPPO BRUNELLESCHI:Chapelle des Pazzi, Florence

Giacobbe Giusti, FILIPPO BRUNELLESCHI:Chapelle des Pazzi

 

 

Giacobbe Giusti, FILIPPO BRUNELLESCHI:Chapelle des Pazzi

 

Giacobbe Giusti, FILIPPO BRUNELLESCHI:Chapelle des Pazzi

 

Giacobbe Giusti, FILIPPO BRUNELLESCHI:Chapelle des Pazzi

 

Giacobbe Giusti, FILIPPO BRUNELLESCHI:Chapelle des Pazzi

 

Giacobbe Giusti, FILIPPO BRUNELLESCHI:Chapelle des Pazzi

 

Giacobbe Giusti, FILIPPO BRUNELLESCHI:Chapelle des Pazzi

Chiesa di Santa Croce, cappella dei Pazzi, particolare della cupoletta sopra l’altare

 

 

Giacobbe Giusti, FILIPPO BRUNELLESCHI:Chapelle des Pazzi
La chapelle au fond du premier cloître
Présentation
Nom local	Cappella dei Pazzi
Culte	Catholicisme
Début de la construction	1441
Fin des travaux	inachevée en 1478
Architecte	Filippo Brunelleschi
Style dominant	Renaissance florentine
Géographie
Pays	Italie
Région	Toscane
Ville	Florence
Géolocalisation sur la carte : Italie

Plan de la chapelle.

La chapelle des Pazzi (en italien : Cappella dei Pazzi) est une chapelle située dans le premier cloître de la basilique Santa Croce à Florence en Italie, une des œuvres architecturales de la Renaissance de Filippo Brunelleschiqu’il laissa inachevée.

Histoire

Bien que les fonds de la chapelle aient été assemblés en 1429 par Andrea Pazzi (1372-1445), chef de la famille Pazzi, dont la richesse venait juste derrière celle des Médicis, la construction de l’édifice n’a commencé que vers 1441, puis la mort de Brunelleschi en 1446 voit le chantier repris par ses assistants Giuliano da Maiano, Luca della Robbia, Donatello, Salvi d’Andrea, et Michelozzo, qui poursuivent les travaux jusqu’en 1478, année qui clôt les travaux à la suite des conséquences de la conjuration des Pazzi qui, les ayant opposés aux Médicis, les bannirent vaincus de la ville. La chapelle resta en l’état et est restée vide depuis.

Destination

L’édifice était destiné à l’enseignement des moines et autres desseins religieux. Cependant, l’arrière-pensée de la famille Pazzi était probablement de mettre leur marque sur la ville de Florence afin de montrer leur richesse et leur pouvoir à l’époque de la Renaissance italienne. Le fait que la ville soit en guerre avec une ville voisine à l’époque et que la famille possédait les fonds nécessaires pour la construction de cette chapelle montre l’importance de la famille Pazzi parmi le peuple de Florence.

Architecture

Concernant le travail de Filippo Brunelleschi, il semble maintenant qu’il était probablement responsable du plan, qui est basé sur des formes géométriques simples, le carré et le cercle¹, mais pas pour l’exécution de l’édifice et les détails. Une façade qu’il avait commencé, et dont on peut voir aujourd’hui seulement le registre inférieur, a été partiellement transformée par l’ajout d’un porche. La principale source d’inspiration pour cet édifice était le monastère dominicain de Santa Maria Novella à Florence.

La taille de la chapelle a été prédéterminée par des murs existants, malgré cela le bâtiment nous donne un aperçu des ambitions des architectes de la Renaissance dans leur lutte pour apporter une cohérence au langage architectural des colonnes, des pilastres, des arcs et des voûtes. Les éléments architecturaux de l’intérieur sont tous en pietra serena.

L’entrée se fait par la cupoletta, un portique ouvert (inachevé, sans fronton) soutenu par six colonnes corinthiennes et un arc central à plein-cintre, avec un coupole décorée de bleu.

La chapelle proprement dite comporte un atrium à voûte à berceau ornée de caissons et de rosaces des douze apôtres, une coupole hémisphérique s’ouvre en son centre, dont les écoinçons sont décorés également de médaillons en terracotta invetriata de Luca della Robbia, ici les quatre évangélistes du tétramorphe.

Des médaillons de Luca della Robbia, les bustes des douze Apôtres, en faïence blanche sur fond bleu ciel, ornent les fenêtres et les cadres. Les quatre pendentifs représentant les quatre Évangélistes, qui bordent la coupole centrale, et le lanternon, sont attribués à Brunelleschi.

La sacristie (la scarsella ) comporte une coupole à voûte astronomique peinte comme celle de la vieille sacristie de la basilique San Lorenzo de Florence des Médicis et est due probablement au même peintre Giuliano Pesello conseillé par l’astronome Paolo Toscanelli.

• 

  Voûte du portique

   

• 

  Intérieur de la chapelle

   

• 

  Médaillon de saint Marc

   

• 

  Voûte astronomique de la Scarcella

 Cliquez sur une vignette pour l’agrandir.

Notes et références

1. ↑ (en) Brunelleschi, Filippo: Architectural career, Encyclopædia Britannica, 2007

Bibliographie

• Fred Bérence, La Renaissance italienne, La Colombe, 1954, p. 172-173
• Giulio Carlo Argan, Brunelleschi, Macula, 1981, p. 117
• (it) Elena Capretti, Brunelleschi, Florence, Giunti Editore, 2003(ISBN 88-09-03315-9)
• (it) Guida d’Italia, Firenze e provincia (« Guida Rossa »), Milan, Edizioni Touring Club Italiano, 2007

Sur les autres projets Wikimedia :

• Chapelle des Pazzi, sur Wikimedia Commons

• « La Chapelle des Pazzi et ses plans détaillés » [archive], sur http://www.pazzis.com

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chapelle_des_Pazzi

http://www.giacobbegiusti.co
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Giacobbe Giusti, Catherine of Alexandria

Giacobbe Giusti, Catherine of Alexandria

Ring of Saint Catherine, given to pilgrims visiting Mount Sinai.

 

Giacobbe Giusti, Catherine of Alexandria

Saint Catherine in a 15th-century fresco on the St. Jacob church in Urtijëi, Italy.

Giacobbe Giusti, Catherine of Alexandria

Catherine of Alexandria, by Carlo Crivelli

 

Giacobbe Giusti, Catherine of Alexandria

Bernardino Luini – Saint Catherine

 

Giacobbe Giusti, Catherine of Alexandria

Ambrogio Bergognone. The Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine of Alexandria and Saint Catherine of Siena

 

Giacobbe Giusti, Catherine of Alexandria

The Beheading of St. Catherine, Barcelona Cathedral

Saint Catherine of Alexandria Giacobbe Giusti, Catherine of Alexandria
Bernardino Luini – Portrait of Catherine of Alexandria (National Art Museum of Azerbaijan)
Martyr and Virgin
Born	c. 287 Alexandria, Roman Egypt[1]
Died	c. 305 (aged 17–18) Alexandria, Egypt
Venerated in	Coptic Orthodox Church Orthodox Church Oriental Orthodoxy Eastern Catholic Churches Roman Catholic Church Anglican Communion Lutheranism
Major shrine	Saint Catherine’s Monastery
Feast	25 November 24 November (Orthodox churches of Russian background) 29 Hathor (Coptic Orthodox church)[2]
Attributes	the « breaking wheel« ; sword; with a crown at her feet; hailstones; bridal veil and ring; dove; scourge; book; woman arguing with paganphilosophers[3]decapitation
Patronage	Unmarried girls, Aalsum; apologists; craftsmen who work with a wheel (potters, spinners); archivists; dying people; educators; girls; jurists; knifesharpeners; lawyers; librarians; libraries; Balliol College; Massey College; maidens; mechanics; millers; milliners; hat-makers; nurses; philosophers; preachers; scholars; schoolchildren; scribes; secretaries; spinsters; stenographers; students; tanners; theologians; University of Oviedo; University of Paris; haberdashers; wheelwrights; Żejtun, Malta; Żurrieq, Malta; Pagbilao, Quezon, Philippines; Carcar City, Cebu, Philippines; Katerini, Greece, Porac, Pampanga, Arayat, Pampanga, Philippines, Dumaguete City, Philippines, Santa Catalina, Negros Oriental, Philippines, Santa Catalina, Ilocos Sur, Philippines, Tayum, Abra, Diocese of Dumaguete, University of Santo Tomas

Saint Catherine of Alexandria, or Saint Catharine of Alexandria, also known as Saint Catherine of the Wheel and The Great Martyr Saint Catherine (Coptic: Ϯⲁⲅⲓⲁ Ⲕⲁⲧⲧⲣⲓⲛ, Greek: ἡ Ἁγία Αἰκατερίνη ἡ Μεγαλομάρτυς – translation: Holy Catherine the Great Martyr) is, according to tradition, a Christiansaint and virgin, who was martyred in the early 4th century at the hands of the pagan emperor Maxentius. According to her hagiography, she was both a princess and a noted scholar, who became a Christian around the age of 14, converted hundreds of people to Christianity, and was martyred around the age of 18. More than 1,100 years following her martyrdom, Saint Joan of Arc identified Catherine as one of the Saints who appeared to her and counselled her.^[4]

The Eastern Orthodox Churchvenerates her as a Great Martyr and celebrates her feast day on 24 or 25 November (depending on the regional tradition). In Catholicism she is traditionally revered as one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers. In 1969 the Roman Catholic Church removed her feast day from the General Roman Calendar;^[5] however, she continued to be commemorated in the Roman Martyrology on 25 November.^[6] In 2002, her feast was restored to the General Roman Calendar as an optional memorial.

According to modern scholarship, the legend of Catherine was probably based on the life and murder of the Greek philosopher Hypatia, with reversed roles of Christians and pagans.^[7]

Legend

According to the traditional narrative, Catherine was the daughter of Constus, the governor of Egyptian Alexandria during the reign of the emperor Maximian (286–305).^[8] From a young age she devoted herself to study. A vision of the Madonna and Child persuaded her to become a Christian. When the persecutions began under Maxentius, she went to the emperor and rebuked him for his cruelty. The emperor summoned 50 of the best paganphilosophers and orators to dispute with her, hoping that they would refute her pro-Christian arguments, but Catherine won the debate. Several of her adversaries, conquered by her eloquence, declared themselves Christians and were at once put to death.^[9]

Torture and martyrdom

Giacobbe Giusti, Catherine of Alexandria

Icon of Saint Catherine of Alexandria, with scenes from her martyrdom

Catherine was then scourged and imprisoned. She was scourged so cruelly and for so long, that her whole body was covered with wounds, from which the blood flowed in streams. The spectators wept with pity; but Catherine, strengthened by God, stood with her eyes raised to heaven, without giving a sign of suffering or fear. He ordered her to be imprisoned without food, so she would starve to death. During the confinement, angels tended her wounds with salve. Catherine was fed daily by a dove from Heaven and Christ also visited her, encouraging her to fight bravely, and promised her the crown of everlasting glory.

During her imprisonment, over 200 people came to see her, including Maxentius’ wife, Valeria Maximilla; all converted to Christianity and were subsequently martyred.^[10] Twelve days later, when the dungeon was opened, a bright light and fragrant perfume filled it, and Catherine came forth even more radiant and beautiful.

Upon the failure of Maxentius to make Catherine yield by way of torture, he tried to win the beautiful and wise princess over by proposing marriage. The saint refused, declaring that her spouse was Jesus Christ, to whom she had consecrated her virginity.

The furious emperor condemned Catherine to death on a spiked breaking wheel, but, at her touch, it shattered.^[9] Maxentius ordered her to be beheaded. Catherine herself ordered the execution to commence. A milk-like substance rather than blood flowed from her neck.

Burial

Angels transported her body to the highest mountain (now called Mt. Saint Catherine) next to Mount Sinai, where God gave His Law. In 850, her incorrupt body was discovered by monks from the Sinai Monastery. The monks found on the surface of the granite on which her body lay, an impression of the form of her body. Her hair still growing, and a constant stream of the most heavenly fragranced healing oil issuing from her body. This oil produced countless miracles.

In the 6th century, the Eastern Emperor Justinian had established what is now Saint Catherine’s Monastery in Egypt (which is in fact dedicated to the Transfiguration of Christ). Her relics include her left hand, often warm to the touch and her head. Her incorrupt body is not publicly displayed. Countless people make the pilgrimage to the Monastery to receive miracle healing from Saint Catherine. ^[11]

Historicity

Giacobbe Giusti, Catherine of Alexandria

Saint Catherine of Alexandria by Artemisia Gentileschi

Pietro Aretino, Vita di santa Caterina vergine e martire, 1636.

Donald Attwater dismisses what he calls the « legend » of Saint Catherine, arguing for a lack of any « positive evidence that she ever existed outside the mind of some Greek writer who first composed what he intended to be simply an edifying romance. »^[12] Harold Davis writes that « assiduous research has failed to identify Catherine with any historical personage » and has theorized that Catherine was an invention inspired to provide a counterpart to the story of the slightly later pagan philosopher Hypatia of Alexandria (c. 350–370 – March 415 CE).^[13][14]

Modern scholarship supports Davis’ assumption that the legend of Catherine of Alexandria was probably based on the life and murder of Hypatia, with the roles of Christians and pagans reversed.^[15]

Hypatia was a Greekmathematician, astronomer, and philosopher, who was brutally murdered by a Christian mob after being accused of exacerbating a conflict between two prominent figures in Alexandria, the governor, Orestes, and the bishop, Cyril of Alexandria.^[16][17]

Sometimes cited as a possible inspiration of Saint Catherine, the writer Eusebius wrote, around the year 320, that the Emperor had ordered a young Christian woman to come to his palace to become his mistress, and when she refused, he had her punished, by having her banished and her estates confiscated.^[18] Although Eusebius did not name the woman, she had been identified with Dorothea of Alexandria.^{[citation needed]}

The earliest surviving account of Saint Catherine’s life comes around 600 years after the traditional date of her martyrdom, in the menologium a document compiled for Emperor Basil II (976), although the rediscovery of her relics at Saint Catherine’s Monastery at the foot of Mount Sinaiwas about 800,^[19] and presumably implies an existing cult at that date (the common name of the monastery developed after the discovery). The monastery was built by order of Emperor Justinian I (reigned 527–565), enclosing the Chapel of the Burning Bush ordered to be built by Helena, the mother of Constantine I, at the site where Moses is supposed to have seen the burning bush; the living bush on the grounds is purportedly the original. It is also referred to as « Saint Helen’s Chapel ». The main church was built between 548 and 565, and the monastery became a major pilgrimage site for devotees of Catherine and the other relics and sacred sites there. Saint Catherine’s Monastery survives, and is a famous repository of early Christian art, architecture and illuminated manuscripts that remains open to tourists and visiting scholars. The site is sacred to Christianity and Islam.^{[citation needed]}

In her book The Cult of St Katherine of Alexandria in Early Medieval Europe, Christine Walsh discusses « the historical Katherine »:

« As we have seen, the cult of St Katherine of Alexandria probably originated in oral traditions from the 4th-century Diocletianic Persecutions of Christians in Alexandria. There is no evidence that Katherine herself was a historical figure and she may well have been a composite drawn from memories of women persecuted for their faith. Many aspects of her Passio are clearly legendary and conform to well-known hagiographical topoi. »^[20]

Name

Rufinus states that her first name was Dorothea (Greek: Δωροθέα), and that at her christening she acquired the name Aikaterina (Αικατερίνα), a name that signifies her pure, clean and uncontaminated nature (from Greek αιέν καθαρινά ‘ever clean’).

Medieval cult

Giacobbe Giusti, Catherine of Alexandria

Catherine of Alexandria, by Carlo Crivelli

Saint Catherine was one of the most important saints in the religious culture of the late Middle Ages, and arguably considered the most important of the virgin martyrs, a group including Saint Agnes, Margaret of Antioch, Saint Barbara, Saint Lucy, Valerie of Limoges and many others. Her power as an intercessor was renowned and firmly established in most versions of her hagiography, in which she specifically entreats Christ at the moment of her death to answer the prayers of those who remember her martyrdom and invoke her name.

The development of her medieval cult was spurred by the reported rediscovery of her body around the year 800 at Mount Sinai, with hair still growing and a constant stream of healing oil issuing from her body.^[19]There are several pilgrimage narratives that chronicle the journey to Mount Sinai, most notably those of John Mandeville and Friar Felix Fabri.^[21] However, the monastery at Mount Sinai was the best-known site of Catherine pilgrimage, but was also the most difficult to reach. The most prominent Western shrine was the monastery in Rouen that claimed to house Catherine’s fingers. It was not alone in the west, however, accompanied by many, scattered shrines and altars dedicated to Catherine, which existed throughout France and England. Some were better known sites, such as Canterbury and Westminster, which claimed a phial of her oil, brought back from Mount Sinai by Edward the Confessor.^[22][23] Other shrines, such as St. Catherine’s Hill, Hampshire were the focus of generally local pilgrimage, many of which are only identified by brief mentions in various texts, rather than by physical evidence.^[24]

St. Catharine’s College, Cambridge was founded on St Catharine’s Day (25 November) 1473 by Robert Woodlark (the then-provost of King’s College Cambridge) who sought to create a small community of scholars who would study exclusively theology and philosophy. Wodelarke may have chosen the name in homage to Catherine of Valois, mother of Henry VI of England, although it is more likely that it was named as part of the Renaissance cult of Saint Catharine, who was a patron saint of learning. At any rate, the college was ready for habitation and formally founded on Saint Catharine’s Day, 1473.

Saint Catherine also had a large female following, whose devotion was less likely to be expressed through pilgrimage. The importance of the virgin martyrs as the focus of devotion and models for proper feminine behavior increased during the Late Middle Ages.^[25] Among these, St. Catherine in particular was used as an exemplarfor women, a status which at times superseded her intercessory role.^[26] Both Christine de Pizan and Geoffrey de la Tour Landry point to Catherine as a paragon for young women, emphasizing her model of virginity and « wifely chastity. »^[27] From the early 14th century the Mystic marriage of Saint Catherine first appears in hagiographical literature and, soon after, in art. In the Western church, the popularity of her cult began to reduce in the 18th century.^[28]

Veneration

Her principal symbol is the spiked wheel, which has become known as the Catherine wheel, and her feast day is celebrated on 25 November by most Christian churches. However, the Russian Orthodox Church celebrates it on 24 November. The exact origin of this tradition is not known. In 11th-century Kyivan-Rus, the feast day was celebrated on 25 November. Saint Dimitry of Rostov in his Kniga zhyttia sviatykh(Book of the Lives of the Saints), T.1 (1689) places the date of celebration on 24 November. A story that Empress Catherine the Great did not wish to share her patronal feast with the Leavetaking of the feast of the Presentation of the Theotokosand hence changed the date is not supported by historical evidence. One of the first Roman Catholic churches to be built in Russia, the Catholic Church of St. Catherine, was named after Catherine of Alexandria because she was Catherine the Great’s patron.

The 1908 Catholic Encyclopedia describes her historical importance:

Ranked with St Margaret and St Barbara as one of the fourteen most helpful saints in heaven, she was unceasingly praised by preachers and sung by poets. It is believed that Jacques-Benigne Bossuet dedicated to her one of his most beautiful panegyrics and that Adam of St. Victorwrote a magnificent poem in her honour: Vox Sonora nostri chori.

In many places her feast was celebrated with the utmost solemnity, servile work being suppressed and the devotions attended by great numbers of people. In several dioceses of France it was observed as a Holy Day of Obligation up to the beginning of the 17th century, the splendour of its ceremonial eclipsing that of the feasts of some of the Apostles. Numberless chapels were placed under her patronage and her statue was found in nearly all churches, representing her according to medieval iconography with a wheel, her instrument of torture.

In France, unwed women who have attained the age of 25 wear richly decorated bonnets on the day of her feast. This custom gave rise to the French idiom coiffer Sainte-Catherine (‘don St. Catherine’s bonnet’), to describe an unmarried woman between the ages of 25 and 30.^[29]

In memory of her sacrifice in some homes, Egyptian and other Middle Eastern foods are offered for her feast, such as hummus or tabbouleh salads. Favorites also are melons cut into circles with sherbet « hubs, » or cookies shaped as spiked wheels with icing.

Meanwhile, owing to several circumstances in his life, Saint Nicholas of Myra was considered the patron of young bachelors and students, and Saint Catherine became the patroness of young maidens and female students. Looked upon as the holiest and most illustrious of the virgins of Christ after the Blessed Virgin Mary, it was natural that she, of all others, should be worthy to watch over the virgins of the cloister and the young women of the world. The spiked wheel having become emblematic of the saint, wheelwrights and mechanics placed themselves under her patronage. Finally, as according to tradition, she not only remained a virgin by governing her passions and conquered her executioners by wearying their patience, but triumphed in science by closing the mouths of sophists, her intercession was implored by theologians, apologists, pulpitorators, and philosophers. Before studying, writing, or preaching, they besought her to illumine their minds, guide their pens, and impart eloquence to their words. This devotion to Saint Catherine which assumed such vast proportions in Europe after the Crusades,^[11] received additional éclat in France in the beginning of the 15th century, when it was rumoured that she had spoken to Joan of Arc and, together with Saint Margaret, had been divinely appointed Joan’s adviser.^[9]

Giacobbe Giusti, Catherine of Alexandria

Ring of Saint Catherine, given to pilgrims visiting Mount Sinai.

Devotion to Saint Catherine remains strong amongst Eastern Catholics and Eastern Orthodox Christians. With the relative ease of travel in the modern age, pilgrimages to Saint Catherine’s Monastery at Mount Sinai have increased. Pilgrims to her monastery on Mt Sinai are given a ring, which has been placed on the relics of the saint as an evlogia (blessing) in remembrance of their visit.

Legacy

The pyrotechnic Catherine wheel, from which sparks fly off in all directions, took its name from the saint’s wheel of martyrdom.^[18]

In art

Scenes from the Life of Saint Catherine of Alexandria, Germany, ca. 15th century, Walters Art Museum

Countless images of Saint Catherine are depicted in art, especially in the late Middle Ages, which is also the time that the account of Saint Catherine’s Mystical Marriagemakes its first literary appearance. She can usually be easily recognised as she is richly dressed and crowned, as befits her rank as a princess, and often holds or stands next to a segment of her wheel as an attribute. She also often carries either a martyr’s palm or the sword with which she was actually executed. She often has long unbound blonde or reddish hair (unbound as she is unmarried). The vision of Saint Catherine of Alexandria usually shows the Infant Christ, held by the Virgin, placing a ring (one of her attributes) on her finger, following some literary accounts, although in the version in the Golden Legend he appears to be adult, and the marriage takes place among a great crowd of angels and « all the celestial court »,^[30] and these may also be shown.

She is very frequently shown attending on the Virgin and Child, and is usually prominent in scenes of the Master of the Virgo inter Virgines, showing a group of virgin saints surrounding the Virgin and Child. Notable later paintings of Catherine include single figures by Raphael (National Gallery) and Caravaggio (Madrid), (Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum).

Contemporary media

• The opening scene of The Sopranos episode 38, « Amour Fou« , features mob wife Carmela Soprano and her daughter Meadow Soprano in an art museum, where (among other topics) they discuss Jusepe de Ribera‘s painting: The Mystical Marriage of Saint Catherine of Alexandria.
• A movie about Catherine, called Decline of an Empire, began production in January 2010 and was released in 2014.^[31]

• 

  Ambrogio Bergognone. The Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine of Alexandria and Saint Catherine of Siena

   

• 

  Konrad Witz, Saints Mary Magdalen and Catherine, shown as a crowned scholar with her wheel behind

   

• 

  Catherine, reading again, with sword on the ground, c. 1520

   

• 

  Master of the Legend of Saint Lucy, late 15th century Master of the Virgo inter Virgines

   

• 

  The Beheading of St. Catherine, Barcelona Cathedral

   

• 

  Girolamo Citolanzo, The Martyrdom of St. Catherine, Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, Rome

   

• 

  The Resurrection of the Body of St. Catherine, Refectory Museum of the Cathedral of St. Mary, Pamplona, Spain

• 

  Lorenzo Lotto, Catherine of Alexandria and Saint Augustine

• 

  Saint Catherine in a 15th-century fresco on the St. Jacob church in Urtijëi, Italy.

• 

  Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherin’ (triptich by Hans Memling

• 

  Catherine of Braganza, Queen of England, painted as Catherine of Alexandria – by Jacob Huysmans

• Breaking wheel and the Catherine wheel firework named after it and St. Catherine
• Catharina—Lunar crater named after Saint Catherine
• Catherinettes, A French term for girls unmarried at 25
• Kaarina—A city in Finland named after Saint Catherine
• Santa Catalina Island—California Channel Island named after Saint Catherine
• Santa Catalina Mountains—A prominent mountain range north of Tucson, Arizona, United States was named after Saint Catherine in 1697.
• Santa Catarina—One of the three states in southern Brazil.
• Se Cathedral—dedicated to Saint Catherine
• St Catharine’s College, Cambridge University
• St Catherine’s College, Oxford University
• St. Catherine University, women’s college in Saint Paul, MN
• St. Catherine’s Day
• St. Catherine’s School, K-12 in Richmond, VA
• St Helen and St Katharine, girls school in Oxfordshire, England, which celebrates « St. Katharine’s Day » in November
• The Catherine Wheel (album)—David Byrne’s musical score commissioned by Twyla Tharp for her dance project.
• St. Catharine’s School for Girls (Kwun Tong),girls school in Hong Kong

Notes

1. Jump up^ Self-Ruled Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America. Accessed 11 December 2014.
2. Jump up^ http://www.copts-united.com/Article.php?I=1010&A=48162
3. Jump up^ « Liturgical Year : This Item Currently Unavailable ».
4. Jump up^ Williard Trask, Joan of Arc: In Her Own Words (Turtle Point Press, 1996), 99
5. Jump up^ Calendarium Romanum (Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1969), p. 147
6. Jump up^ Martyrologium Romanum (Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2001 ISBN 88-209-7210-7)
7. Jump up^ See Christine Walsh: The Cult of St Katherine of Alexandria in Early Medieval Europe, Aldershot 2007, p. 3–26; Michael A. B. Deakin: Hypatia of Alexandria, Mathematician and Martyr, Amherst (New York) 2007, p. 135, 202; Maria Dzielska: Hypatia of Alexandria, Cambridge (Massachusetts) 1995, p. 21; Christian Lacombrade: Hypatia. In: Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum, Bd. 16, Stuttgart 1994, Sp. 956–967, here: 966; Gustave Bardy: Catherine d’Alexandrie. In: Dictionnaire d’histoire et de géographie ecclésiastiques, Bd. 11, Paris 1949, Sp. 1503–1505, here: 1504.
8. Jump up^ « Great Martyr Catherine of Alexandria ».
9. ^ Jump up to:^a b c « Clugnet, Léon. « St. Catherine of Alexandria. » The Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 3. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1908. 1 May 2013″. Newadvent.org. 1908-11-01. Retrieved 2013-08-26.
10. Jump up^ « Saint Catherine of Alexandria ». Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 2010-10-29.
11. ^ Jump up to:^a b « Foley O.F.M., Leonard.  »Saint of the Day, Lives, Lessons, and Feast,(revised by Pat McCloskey O.F.M.), Franciscan Media ». Americancatholic.org. ISBN 978-0-86716-887-7. Retrieved 2013-08-26.
12. Jump up^ Mateus Soares de Azevedo (25 April 2005). Ye shall know the truth: Christianity and the perennial philosophy. World Wisdom, Inc. p. 324. ISBN 978-0-941532-69-3. Retrieved 2011-11-29.
13. Jump up^ Harold Thayer Davis, Alexandria: The Golden City (Principia Press of Illinois, 1957), p 441
14. Jump up^ Allen, pp. 214–217
15. Jump up^ See Christine Walsh: The Cult of St Katherine of Alexandria in Early Medieval Europe, Aldershot 2007, p. 3–26; Michael A. B. Deakin: Hypatia of Alexandria, Mathematician and Martyr, Amherst (New York) 2007, p. 135, 202; Maria Dzielska: Hypatia of Alexandria, Cambridge (Massachusetts) 1995, p. 21; Christian Lacombrade: Hypatia. In: Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum, Bd. 16, Stuttgart 1994, Sp. 956–967, here: 966; Gustave Bardy: Catherine d’Alexandrie. In: Dictionnaire d’histoire et de géographie ecclésiastiques, Bd. 11, Paris 1949, Sp. 1503–1505, here: 1504.
16. Jump up^ Edward Jay Watts, (2006), City and School in Late Antique Athens and Alexandria. « Hypatia and pagan philosophical culture in the later fourth century », pages 197–198. University of California Press
17. Jump up^ A. B. Deakin, Michael (1994). Hypatia and Her Mathematics. Mathematical Association of America. pp. 234–243.
18. ^ Jump up to:^a b « Catherine of Alexandria, Lives of Saints« . John J. Crawley & Co., Inc. Retrieved 2013-08-26.
19. ^ Jump up to:^a b S. R. T. O d’Ardeene and E. J. Dobson, Seinte Katerine: Re-Edited from MS Bodley 34 and other Manuscripts (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981), xiv.
20. Jump up^ Walsh, Christine. The Cult of St Katherine of Alexandria in Early Medieval EuropeAshgate Publishing Company, Burlington, 2007, p 143
21. Jump up^ John Mandeville, The Travels of Sir John Mandeville (New York: Dover Publications Inc., 1964); Felix Fabri, The Wanderings of Felix Fabri (New York: AMS Press, 1971), 217.
22. Jump up^ Walsh, Christine. « The Role of the Normans in the Development of the Cult of St. Katherine », St. Katherine of Alexandria: Texts and Contexts in Western Medieval Europe (eds. Jacqueline Jenkins and Katherine J. Lewis) (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2003), p.31
23. Jump up^ Lewis, Katherine J., Pilgrimage and the Cult of St. Katherine of Alexandria in Late Medieval England, St. Katherine of Alexandria: Texts and Contexts in Western Medieval Europe (eds. Jacqueline Jenkins and Katherine J. Lewis) (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2003),p.44
24. Jump up^ Lewis, Pilgrimage and the Cult of St. Katherine, 49–51.
25. Jump up^ John Bugge, Virginitas: An Essay in the History of the Medieval Ideal (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1975), 132; Katherine J. Lewis, The Cult of St. Katherine of Alexiandria in Late Medieval England (Rochester: The Boydell Press, 2000), 229; Eamon Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England c. 1400-c. 1580 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992), 174.
26. Jump up^ Katherine J. Lewis, « Model Girls? Virgin-Martyrs and the Training of Young Women in Late Medieval England » in Young Medieval Women eds. Katherine J. Lewis, Noel James Menuge and Kim M. Phillips (New York: St. Martin’s PRess, 1999).
27. Jump up^ Christine de Pizan, The Treasure of the City of Ladies trans. by Sarah Lawson (New York: Penguin Books, 2003), 146; Christine de Pizan, The Book of the City of Ladiestrans. by Rosalind Brown-Grant (New York: Penguin Books, 1999), 203; Rebecca Barnhouse, The Book of the Knight of the Tower (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), 126, 193.
28. Jump up^ Allen, 217
29. Jump up^ « Coiffer sainte Catherine ». La France pittoresque (in French). November 24, 2016.
30. Jump up^ Life of Saint « Katherine » in William Caxton‘s English version of the Golden Legend.
31. Jump up^ mohill05 (12 August 2014). « Katherine of Alexandria (2014) – IMDb ». IMDb.

References

• Allen, Prudence, The concept of woman: the Aristotelian revolution, 750 BC-AD 1250, 1997 (2nd edn.), Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, ISBN978-0-8028-4270-1
• Walsh, Christine. The Cult of St Katherine of Alexandria in Early Medieval Europe, (Ashgate 2007)

Saint Catherine of Alexandria.

• Passio sanctae Katharinae—11th century (between 1033–1048); at Latin Wikisource
• Details of Saint Catherine’s life—Saint Catherine Orthodox Church; includes a gallery of icons of the saint
• St Catherine’s church in Muhu island (Estonia)
• Representations of Saint Catherine
• Saint Catherine of Alexandria at the Christian Iconography web site
• « The Life of St. Catherine, Virgin and Martyr » from the Caxton translation of the Golden Legend
• « Catharine« . New International Encyclopedia. 1905.
• « Catherine, Saint« . Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). 1911.
• Colonnade Statue St Peter’s Square

Katherine of Alexandria (film).

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

http://www.giacobbegiusti.com

Giacobbe Giusti, Caryatid

Giacobbe Giusti, Caryatid

A caryatid from the Erechtheion, standing in contrapposto, displayed at the British Museum

 

Giacobbe Giusti, Caryatid

Pavillon Turgot, Palais du Louvre, Cariatide par Eugène Guillaume

Giacobbe Giusti, Caryatid

Cariatides de la villa d’Hadrien à Tivoli.

Giacobbe Giusti, Caryatid

Salle des Caryatides (Aile François Ier, Palais du Louvre, Paris), pièce de réception des rois de France. Manifeste Renaissance, elle est l’œuvre de l’architecte catholique Pierre Lescot et du sculpteur protestant Jean Goujon qui s’est inspiré des caryatides de l’Érechthéion pour réaliser la tribune des musiciens en 1550. Dans cette salle sont rassemblées depuis 1692 des copies romaines de la sculpture hellénistique : Artémis à la biche, dite Diane de Versailles, Hermaphrodite endormi dont le matelas de marbre est réalisé par Le Bernin, l’Écorcheur rustique.

Giacobbe Giusti, Caryatid

Les Cariatides à l’entrée de l’Érechthéion.

Giacobbe Giusti, Caryatid

Tabouret luba (Musée ethnologique de Berlin).

Giacobbe Giusti, Caryatid

Cariatides de la villa d’Hadrien à Tivoli.

Giacobbe Giusti, Caryatid

Cariatides de Jean Goujonau Louvre.

Une cariatide ou caryatide (du grec ancienΚαρυάτιδες, littéralement « femmes de Caryes », du nom d’une ville de Laconie) est une statue de femme souvent vêtue d’une longue tunique, soutenant un entablement sur sa tête ; remplaçant ainsi une colonne, un pilier ou un pilastre, les Caryatides apparaissent essentiellement sur les édifices d’ordre ionique.

Le nom fait référence à celles qui figurent sur le baldaquin de l’Érechthéion, sur l’acropole d’Athènes. L’atlante est une variante masculine de la cariatide.

Cariatides de l’Érechthéion

Giacobbe Giusti, Caryatid

Les Cariatides à l’entrée de l’Érechthéion.

Giacobbe Giusti, Caryatid

Intricate hairstyle of Caryatid, displayed at the Acropolis Museum in Athens

Giacobbe Giusti, Caryatid

Tabouret luba (Musée ethnologique de Berlin).

Le nom de « cariatides » leur a été attribué secondairement, on les appelait auparavant simplement « jeunes filles », en grec Korè¹.

Plusieurs interprétations ont été proposées². Il pourrait s’agir des jeunes filles de Laconie qui dansaient chaque année en l’honneur d’Artémis Karyatis³, ou les choéphores de Cécrops, le baldaquin formant la partie visible de son tombeau².

D’après l’architecte romain Vitruve, leur nom viendrait de ce que la ville de Karyes s’étant alliée aux Perses lors de l’invasion, ses habitants furent exterminés par les autres Grecs et leurs femmes réduites en esclavage, et condamnées à porter les plus lourds fardeaux. Mais cette explication n’est actuellement pas retenue, ce motif architectural étant déjà répandu à cette époque, par exemple sur le Trésor des Siphniens à Delphes.|||

Usages ultérieurs

Giacobbe Giusti, Caryatid

Pavillon Turgot, Palais du Louvre, Cariatide par Eugène Guillaume

Les architectes romains ont intégré des cariatides au forum d’Auguste et à la villa d’Hadrien.

En 1550, Jean Goujon (architecte et sculpteur du roi Henri II) a réalisé des cariatides au Louvre, elles soutiennent la plateforme des musiciens dans la salle des gardes suisses (aujourd’hui dite « des Cariatides »). Il s’agit d’une réplique des cariatides de l’Érechthéion, cependant Jean Goujon n’en avait eu connaissance que par des descriptions et n’avait jamais visité l’original.

De figure hiératique dans l’antiquité, la figure de la cariatide est devenue au cours du xix^e siècleextrêmement lascive, avec des drapés plus moulants, des poses plus suggestives (voir la fontaine Wallace).

Les cariatides sont également présentes dans l’artisanat et l’ameublement, notamment dans l’art africain (trônes, tabourets, plateaux)⁴.

La cariatide est aussi utilisée comme expression représentative du peuple sur lequel se nourrit l’élite et qui est gouverné par elle⁵.

Notes et références

1. ↑ Israel Trianti, The Acropolis Museum Lire en ligne. [archive]
2. ↑ ^a et b site du Musée de l’Acropole [archive]
3. ↑ site du British Museum [archive]
4. ↑ « Caryatides et atlantes », in Les Arts de l’Afrique, Hazan, Paris, 2008, p. 187-190.
5. ↑ Victor Hugo, Les Quatre Vents de l’esprit, 1908, p. 373-396.

Annexes

• Cariatide, sur Wikimedia Commons
• cariatide, sur le Wiktionnaire

Bibliographie

• Marie-Nicolas Bouillet et Alexis Chassang(dir.), « Cariatide » dans Dictionnaire universel d’histoire et de géographie, 1878(Wikisource)
• Henry Lemonnier, Jean Goujon et la salle des Cariatides au Louvre, Gazette des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 1906, 20 p.
• Jacqueline Nebout, Les cariatides de Paris, Hervás, Paros, 1992, 124 p. (ISBN 2-903118-65-5)
• (en) Lenore O. Keene Congdon, Caryatid mirrors of ancient Greece : technical, stylistic and historical considerations of an archaic and early classical bronze series, Éditions Philipp von Zabern, Mayence, 1981, 288 p. (ISBN 3-8053-0245-2) (texte remanié d’une thèse, Harvard, 1963)
• Claire Derriks, Les miroirs cariatides égyptiens en bronze : typologie, chronologie et symbolique, P. von Zabern, Mayence, 2001, 232 p. (ISBN 3-8053-2819-2)
• Daniel Hourdé, Atlantes & Caryatides : trônes d’Afrique Noire, Galerie Ratton-Hourdé, Paris, 2004, 76 p.
• (de) Evamaria Schmidt, Geschichte der Karyatide : Funktion und Bedeutung der menschlichen Träger- und Stützfigur in der Baukunst, Université de Munich, 1982, 255 p. + 40 p. de pl. (ISBN 3-87825-036-3)
• (de) Andreas Schmidt-Colinet, Antike Stützfiguren : Untersuchungen zu Typus und Bedeutung der menschengestaltigen Architekturstütze in der griechischen und römischen Kunst, Université de Francfort, 1977, 294 p. + 57 p. de pl. (texte remanié d’une thèse, Cologne, 1975)

Articles connexes

• Atlante ou télamon (équivalent masculin de la
• cariatide)

Caryatid

Giacobbe Giusti, Caryatid

A caryatid from the Erechtheion, standing in contrapposto, displayed at the British Museum

A caryatid (/kæriˈætɪd/kair-ee-AT-id; Greek: Καρυάτις, plural: Καρυάτιδες) is a sculpted female figure serving as an architectural support taking the place of a column or a pillar supporting an entablature on her head. The Greek term karyatidesliterally means « maidens of Karyai« , an ancient town of Peloponnese. Karyai had a famous temple dedicated to the goddess Artemis in her aspect of Artemis Karyatis: « As Karyatis she rejoiced in the dances of the nut-tree village of Karyai, those Karyatides, who in their ecstatic round-dance carried on their heads baskets of live reeds, as if they were dancing plants ».^[1]

Ancient usage

Giacobbe Giusti, Caryatid

The Caryatid Porch of the Erechtheion, Athens, 421–407 BC

Some of the earliest known examples were found in the treasuries of Delphi, dating to about the 6th century BC, but their use as supports in the form of women can be traced back even earlier, to ritual basins, ivory mirror handles from Phoenicia, and draped figures from archaic Greece.

The best-known and most-copied examples are those of the six figures of the Caryatid Porch of the Erechtheion on the Acropolis at Athens. One of those original six figures, removed by Lord Elgin in the early 19th century, is now in the British Museum in London. The Acropolis Museum holds the other five figures, which are replaced onsite by replicas. The five originals that are in Athens are now being exhibited in the new Acropolis Museum, on a special balcony that allows visitors to view them from all sides. The pedestal for the Caryatid removed to London remains empty. From 2011 to 2015, they were cleaned by a specially constructed laser beam, which removed accumulated soot and grime without harming the marble’s patina. Each Caryatid was cleaned in place, with a television circuit relaying the spectacle live to museum visitors.^[2]

 

Giacobbe Giusti, Caryatid

Intricate hairstyle of Caryatid, displayed at the Acropolis Museum in Athens

Although of the same height and build, and similarly attired and coiffed, the six Caryatids are not the same: their faces, stance, draping, and hair are carved separately; the three on the left stand on their right foot, while the three on the right stand on their left foot. Their bulky, intricately arranged hairstyles serve the crucial purpose of providing static support to their necks, which would otherwise be the thinnest and structurally weakest part.

The Romans also copied the Erechtheion caryatids, installing copies in the Forum of Augustus and the Pantheon in Rome, and at Hadrian’s Villa at Tivoli. Another Roman example, found on the Via Appia, is the Townley Caryatid.^{[citation needed]}

Renaissance and after

Giacobbe Giusti, Caryatid

St. Gaudens‘ caryatids

In Early Modern times, the practice of integrating caryatids into building facades was revived, and in interiors they began to be employed in fireplaces, which had not been a feature of buildings in Antiquity and offered no precedents. Early interior examples are the figures of Hercules and Iole carved on the jambs of a monumental fireplace in the Sala della Jole of the Doge’s Palace, Venice, about 1450.^[3] In the following century Jacopo Sansovino, both sculptor and architect, carved a pair of female figures supporting the shelf of a marble chimneypiece at Villa Garzoni, near Padua.^[4] No architect mentioned the device until 1615, when Palladio‘s pupil Vincenzo Scamozzi included a chapter devoted to chimneypieces in his Idea della archittura universale. Those in the apartments of princes and important personages, he considered, might be grand enough for chimneypieces with caryatid supporters, such as one he illustrated and a similar one he installed in the Sala dell’Anticollegio, also in the Doge’s Palace.^[5]

In the 16th century, from the examples engraved for Sebastiano Serlio‘s treatise on architecture, caryatids became a fixture in the decorative vocabulary of Northern Mannerism expressed by the Fontainebleau School and the engravers of designs in Antwerp. In the early 17th century, interior examples appear in Jacobean interiors in England; in Scotland the overmantel in the great hall of Muchalls Castle remains an early example. Caryatids remained part of the German Baroque vocabulary (illustration, right) and were refashioned in more restrained and « Grecian » forms by neoclassical architects and designers, such as the four terracotta caryatids on the porch of St Pancras New Church, London (1822).

Late Baroque caryatid and atlantidhemi-figures at Sanssouci, Frederick the Great‘s schloss at Potsdam

Many caryatids lined up on the facade of the 1893 Palace of the Arts housing the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. In the arts of design, the draped figure supporting an acanthus-grown basket capital taking the form of a candlestick or a table-support is a familiar cliché of neoclassical decorative arts. The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Artin Sarasota has caryatids as a motif on its eastern facade.

In 1905 American sculptor Augustus Saint Gaudens created a caryatid porch for the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, New York in which four of the eight figures (the other four figures holding only wreaths) represented a different art form, Architecture, Painting, Sculpture, and Music.^[6]

Auguste Rodin‘s 1881 sculpture Fallen Caryatid Carrying her Stone (part of his monumental The Gates of Hell work)^[7] shows a fallen caryatid. Robert Heinleindescribed this piece in Stranger in a Strange Land: « Now here we have another emotional symbol… for almost three thousand years or longer, architects have designed buildings with columns shaped as female figures… After all those centuries it took Rodin to see that this was work too heavy for a girl… Here is this poor little caryatid who has tried—and failed, fallen under the load…. She didn’t give up, Ben; she’s still trying to lift that stone after it has crushed her… »^[8]

Origins

The origins of the term are unclear. It is first recorded in the Latin form caryatides by the Roman architect Vitruvius. He stated in his 1st century BC work De architectura(I.1.5) that the female figures of the Erechtheion represented the punishment of the women of Karyæ, a town near Sparta in Laconia, who were condemned to slavery after betraying Athens by siding with Persia in the Greco-Persian Wars. However, Vitruvius’ explanation is doubtful; well before the Persian Wars, female figures were used as decorative supports in Greece^[9] and the ancient Near East. Whatever the origin may have been, the association of Caryatids with slavery persists and is prevalent in Renaissance art.^[10]

The ancient Karyæ (« Walnut Trees ») supposedly was one of the six adjacent villages that united to form the original township of Sparta, and the hometown of Menelaos‘ queen, Helen of Troy. Girls from Karyæ were considered especially beautiful, tall, strong, and capable of giving birth to strong children.^{[citation needed]}

A caryatid supporting a basket on her head is called a canephora (« basket-bearer »), representing one of the maidens who carried sacred objects used at feasts of the goddesses Athena and Artemis. The Erectheion caryatids, in a shrine dedicated to an archaic king of Athens, may therefore represent priestesses of Artemis in Karyæ, a place named for the « nut-tree sisterhood » – apparently in Mycenaean times, like other plural feminine toponyms, such as Hyrai or Athens itself.

The later male counterpart of the caryatid is referred to as a telamon (plural telamones) or atlas (plural atlantes) – the name refers to the legend of Atlas, who bore the sphere of the heavens on his shoulders. Such figures were used on a monumental scale, notably in the Temple of Olympian Zeus in Agrigento, Sicily.

Gallery

• 

  Austrian Parliament (1874–1883), Vienna

   

• 

  1812 dessert stand
  (Paul Storr, London)

   

• 

  Book Tower (1916–1926), Detroit

   

• 

   

  Sun Life Building (1913–1931), Montreal

   

• 

  Walhalla Temple (1830-1842), Bavaria, Germany

   

• 

  At the portal of the Palais Pallavicini in Josefsplatz, Vienna

   

• 

  In New York City’s SoHo district
  (542 Broadway, 1864)

   

• 

  Victorian caryatids on an Edinburghdepartment store

   

• 

  Cast concrete caryatids in Nogales, Sonora, Mexico

   

  Giacobbe Giusti, Caryatid

   

• 
• caryatids representing the seasons by Thomas Shields Clarke, Appellate Division Courthouse of New York State, NYC

   

• 

  Monument to the Unknown Hero, Belgrade, Serbia

   

 

• 

  Supreme Court of Poland (1996-1999), Warsaw, Poland

• Atlas (architecture)
• Term (architecture)
• The Sphere: Große Kugelkaryatide (Great Spherical Caryatid) – WTC sculpture by Fritz Koenig

References

Notes

1. Jump up^ (Kerenyi 1980 p 149)
2. Jump up^ Alderman, Liz (7 July 2014). « Acropolis Maidens Glow Anew ». The New York Times. Retrieved 9 July 2014.
3. Jump up^ Noted by James Parker, in describing the precedents for the white marble caryatid chimneypiece from Chesterfield House, London, now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Parker, « ‘Designed in the Most Elegant Manner, and Wrought in the Best Marbles’: The Caryatid Chimney Piece from Chesterfield House », The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, New Series, 21.6 [February 1963] pp. 202-213).
4. Jump up^ Also noted by Parker 1963:206.
5. Jump up^ Both remarked upon by Parker 1963:206, and fig. 9.
6. Jump up^ « archsculptbooks.com ». Archived from the original on 7 July 2011. Retrieved 29 December 2016.
7. Jump up^ « Fallen Caryatid Carrying Her Stone ». The Collection Online. Metropolitan Museum of Art. Retrieved January 29, 2015.
8. Jump up^ Heinlein, Robert A. (1961). Stranger in a Strange Land. Putnam. ISBN 978-0-441-79034-0.
9. Jump up^ Hersey, George, The Lost Meaning of Classical Architecture, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1998 p. 69
10. Jump up^ The Slave in European Art: From Renaissance Trophies to Abolitionist Emblem, ed Elizabeth Mcgrath and Jean Michel Massing, London (The Warburg Institute) 2012

Caryatids.

• Kerényi, Karl (1951) 1980. The Gods of the Greeks (Thames & Hudson)
• Conserving the Caryatids in the Acropolis Museum
• Images of Caryatids of Athens (Spanish)

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

http://www.giacobbegiusti.com