Giacobbe Giusti, GIOVANNI BELLINI: The Feast of the Gods, completed by his disciple Titian, ; National Gallery of Art, Washington

Giacobbe Giusti, GIOVANNI BELLINI: The Feast of the Gods, completed by his disciple Titian, ; National Gallery of Art, Washington

 

References

1. ^ Luciano Canepari. « Giovanni ». DiPI Online (in Italian). Retrieved 19 October 2018.
2. ^ Luciano Canepari. « Bellini ». DiPI Online (in Italian). Retrieved 19 October 2018.
3. ^ His precise date of death is not recorded, but he was known to have died by 29 November 1516 – PDF
4. ^ « The Barber Institute of Fine Arts, the Lapworth Museum of Geology and the University of Birmingham Collections – Objects ». Mimsy.bham.ac.uk. 1948-07-23. Archived from the original on 2012-03-23. Retrieved 2013-01-26.
5. ^ « The Feast of the Gods ». Nga.gov. 1942-01-09. Archived from the original on 2013-02-01. Retrieved 2013-01-26.
6. ^ S.J. Freedberg, p 171
7. ^ Peter Humfrey et al, “Bellini Family,” Grove Art Online, Oxford Art Online, Oxford university Press (2003), https://doi.org/10.1093/gao/9781884446054.article.T007643
8. ^ Humfrey
9. ^ Stephen J. Campbell and Michael W. Cole, Italian Renaissance Art. (New York, New York: Thames and Hudson Inc., 2012), 239-244.
10. ^ John T. Paoletti and Gary M. Radke, Art in Renaissance Italy. (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2012), 322-326.

• C. C. Wilson (ed.), Examining Giovanni Bellini: An Art « More Human and More Divine » (= Taking Stock, 3), Turnhout, 2016 (ISBN 978-2-503-53570-8)
• Oskar Batschmann, Giovanni Bellini (London, Reaktion Books, 2008).
• Rona Goffen, Giovanni Bellini (Yale University Press, 1989).

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

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, Byzantine Iconoclasm

Giacobbe Giusti,

Byzantine Iconoclasm

A simple cross: example of iconoclast art in the Hagia IreneChurch in Istanbul

Giacobbe Giusti,

Byzantine Iconoclasm

 

Giacobbe Giusti,

Byzantine Iconoclasm

Giacobbe Giusti,

Byzantine Iconoclasm

A simple cross: example of iconoclast art in the Hagia Irene Church in Istanbul

Giacobbe Giusti,

Byzantine Iconoclasm

Byzantine Iconoclasm, Chludov Psalter, 9th century.^[1]

Byzantine Iconoclasm(Greek: Εἰκονομαχία, Eikonomachía, literally, « image struggle » or « struggle over images ») refers to two periods in the history of the Byzantine Empire when the use of religious images or icons was opposed by religious and imperial authorities within the Eastern Church and the temporal imperial hierarchy. The « First Iconoclasm », as it is sometimes called, lasted between about 726 and 787. The « Second Iconoclasm » was between 814 and 842. According to the traditional view, Byzantine Iconoclasm was started by a ban on religious images by Emperor Leo III and continued under his successors. It was accompanied by widespread destruction of images and persecution of supporters of the veneration of images. The Western church remained firmly in support of the use of images throughout the period, and the whole episode widened the growing divergencebetween the Eastern and Western traditions in what was still a unified church, as well as facilitating the reduction or removal of Byzantine political control over parts of Italy.

Iconoclasm, Greek for « breaker of icons » (Medieval Greek εἰκονοκλάστης, equivalent to Greek εἰκονο- icono- [icon] + κλάστης – [breaker]), is the deliberate destruction within a culture of the culture’s own religiousicons and other symbols or monuments, usually for religious or political motives. People who engage in or support iconoclasm are called iconoclasts, a term that has come to be applied figuratively to any person who breaks or disdains established dogmata or conventions. Conversely, people who revere or venerate religious images are derisively called « iconolaters » (εἰκονολάτρες). They are normally known as « iconodules » (εἰκονόδουλοι), or « iconophiles » (εἰκονόφιλοι). These terms were, however, not a part of the Byzantine debate over images. They have been brought into common usage by modern historians (from the seventeenth century) and their application to Byzantium increased considerably in the late twentieth century. The Byzantine term for the debate over religious imagery, « iconomachy » means « struggle over images » or « image struggle ».

Iconoclasm has generally been motivated theologically by an Old Covenantinterpretation of the Ten Commandments, which forbade the making and worshipping of « graven images » (Exodus 20:4, Deuteronomy 5:8, see also Biblical law in Christianity). The two periods of iconoclasm in the Byzantine Empire during the 8th and 9th centuries made use of this theological theme in discussions over the propriety of images of holy figures, including Christ, the Virgin (or Theotokos) and saints. It was a debate triggered by changes in Orthodox worship, which were themselves generated by the major social and political upheavals of the seventh century for the Byzantine Empire.

Traditional explanations for Byzantine iconoclasm have sometimes focused on the importance of Islamic prohibitions against images influencing Byzantine thought. According to Arnold J. Toynbee,^[2] for example, it was the prestige of Islamic military successes in the 7th and 8th centuries that motivated Byzantine Christians to adopt the Islamic position of rejecting and destroying devotional and liturgical images. The role of women and monks in supporting the veneration of images has also been asserted. Social and class-based arguments have been put forward, such as that iconoclasm created political and economic divisions in Byzantine society; that it was generally supported by the Eastern, poorer, non-Greek peoples of the Empire^[3] who had to constantly deal with Arab raids. On the other hand, the wealthier Greeks of Constantinople and also the peoples of the Balkan and Italian provinces strongly opposed Iconoclasm.^[3] In recent decades in Greece, Iconoclasm has become a favorite topic of progressive and Marxist historians and social scientists, who consider it a form of medieval class struggle and have drawn inspiration from it. Re-evaluation of the written and material evidence relating to the period of Byzantine Iconoclasm by scholars including John Haldon and Leslie Brubaker, has challenged many of the basic assumptions and factual assertions of the traditional account.

Background

19th-century Italian painting, The Iconoclasts, by Domenico Morelli

Christian worship by the sixth century had developed a clear belief in the intercessionof saints. This belief was also influenced by a concept of hierarchy of sanctity, with the Trinity at its pinnacle, followed by the Virgin Mary, referred to in Greek as the Theotokos(« birth-giver of God ») or Meter Theou(« Mother of God »), the saints, living holy men, women, and spiritual elders, followed by the rest of humanity. Thus, in order to obtain blessings or divine favour, early Christians would often pray or ask an intermediary, such as the saints or the Theotokos, or living fellow Christians believed to be holy, to intercede on their behalf with Christ. A strong sacramentality and belief in the importance of physical presence also joined the belief in intercession of saints with the use of relics and holy images (or icons) in early Christian practices.^[4]

Believers would, therefore, make pilgrimages to places sanctified by the physical presence of Christ or prominent saints and martyrs, such as the site of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. Relics, or holy objects (rather than places) which were a part of the remains, or had come into contact with, Christ, the Virgin or a saint, were also widely utilized in Christian practices at this time. Relics, a firmly embedded part of veneration by this period, provided physical presence of the divine but were not infinitely reproducible (an original relic was required), and still usually required believers to undertake pilgrimage or have contact with somebody who had.

The use and abuse of images had greatly increased during this period, and had generated a growing opposition among many in the church, although the progress and extent of these views is now unclear. Images in the form of mosaics and paintings were widely used in churches, homes and other places such as over city gates, and had since the reign of Justinian I been increasingly taking on a spiritual significance of their own, and regarded at least in the popular mind as capable of possessing capacities in their own right, so that « the image acts or behaves as the subject itself is expected to act or behave. It makes known its wishes … It enacts evangelical teachings, … When attacked it bleeds, … [and] In some cases it defends itself against infidels with physical force … ».^[5] Key artefacts to blur this boundary emerged in c. 570 in the form of miraculously created acheiropoieta or « images not made by human hands ». These sacred images were a form of contact relic, which additionally were taken to prove divine approval of the use of icons. The two most famous were the Mandylion of Edessa (where it still remained) and the Image of Camuliana from Cappadocia, by then in Constantinople. The latter was already regarded as a palladium that had won battles and saved Constantinople from the Persian–Avarsiege of 626, when the Patriarch paraded it around the walls of the city. Both were images of Christ, and at least in some versions of their stories supposedly made when Christ pressed a cloth to his face (compare with the later, western Veil of Veronica and Turin shroud). In other versions of the Mandylion’s story it joined a number of other images that were believed to have been painted from the life in the New Testament period by Saint Luke or other human painters, again demonstrating the support of Christ and the Virgin for icons, and the continuity of their use in Christianity since its start.

The events of the seventh century, which was a period of major crisis for the Byzantine Empire, formed a catalyst for the expansion of the use of images of the holy and caused a dramatic shift in responses to them. Whether the acheiropoietawere a symptom or cause, the late sixth to eighth centuries witnessed the increasing thinning of the boundary between images not made by human hands, and images made by human hands. Images of Christ, the Theotokos and saints increasingly came to be regarded, as relics, contact relics and acheiropoieta already were, as points of access to the divine. By praying before an image of a holy figure, the believer’s prayers were magnified by proximity to the holy. This change in practice seems to have been a major and organic development in Christian worship, which responded to the needs of believers to have access to divine support during the insecurities of the seventh century. It was not a change orchestrated or controlled by the Church. The events which have traditionally been labelled ‘Byzantine Iconoclasm’ may be seen as the efforts of the organised Church and the imperial authorities to respond to these changes and to try to reassert some institutional control over popular practice.

The rise of Islam in the seventh century had also caused some consideration of the use of holy images. Early Islamic belief stressed the impropriety of iconic representation. Earlier scholarship tried to link Byzantine Iconoclasm directly to Islam by arguing that Byzantine emperors saw the success of the early Caliphate and decided that Byzantine use of images (as opposed to Islamic aniconism) had angered God. This does not seem entirely plausible however. The use of images had probably been increasing in the years leading up to the outbreak of iconoclasm.^[6]One notable change came in 695, when Justinian II put a full-faced image of Christ on the obverse of his gold coins. The effect on iconoclast opinion is unknown, but the change certainly caused CaliphAbd al-Malik to break permanently with his previous adoption of Byzantine coin types to start a purely Islamic coinage with lettering only.^[7] This appears more like two opposed camps asserting their positions (pro and anti images) than one empire seeking to imitate the other. More striking is the fact that Islamic iconoclasm rejected any depictions of living people or animals, not only religious images. By contrast, Byzantine iconomachy concerned itself only with the question of the holy presence (or lack thereof) of images. Thus, although the rise of Islam may have created an environment in which images were at the forefront of intellectual question and debate, Islamic iconoclasm does not seem to have had a direct causal role in the development of the Byzantine image debate.^{[citation needed]}

The goal of the iconoclasts was to restore the church to the strict opposition to images in worship that they believed characterized at the least some parts of the early church. Theologically, one aspect of the debate, as with most in Christian theology at the time, revolved around the two natures of Jesus. Iconoclasts believed that icons could not represent both the divine and the human natures of the Messiah at the same time, but separately. Because an icon which depicted Jesus as purely physical would be Nestorianism, and one which showed Him as both human and divine would not be able to do so without confusing the two natures into one mixed nature, which was Monophysitism, all icons were thus heretical. Reference was also made to the prohibitions on the worship of graven images in the Mosaic Law but the nature of Biblical law in Christianity has always been in dispute. However, no detailed writings setting out iconoclast arguments have survived; we have only brief quotations and references in the writings of the iconodules.

Sources

Argument about icons before the emperor, in the Skylitzis Chronicle

A thorough understanding of the Iconoclast period in Byzantium is complicated by the fact that most of the surviving sources were written by the ultimate victors in the controversy, the iconodules. It is thus difficult to obtain a complete, objective, balanced, and reliably accurate account of events and various aspects of the controversy.^[8] The period was marked by intensely polarized debate amongst at least the clergy, and both sides came to regard the position of the other as heresy, and accordingly made efforts to destroy the writings of the other side when they had the chance. Leo III is said to have ordered the destruction of iconodule texts at the start of the controversy, and the records of the final Second Council of Nicaea record that books with missing pages were reported and produced to the council.^[9] Many texts, including works of hagiography and historical writing as well as sermons and theological writings, were undoubtedly « improved », fabricated or backdated by partisans, and the difficult and highly technical scholarly process of attempting to assess the real authors and dates of many surviving texts remains ongoing. Most iconoclastic texts are simply missing, including a proper record of the council of 754, and the detail of iconoclastic arguments have mostly to be reconstructed with difficulty from their vehement rebuttals by iconodules.

Major historical sources for the period include the chronicles of Theophanes the Confessor^[10] and the Patriarch Nikephoros,^[11] both of whom were ardent iconodules. Many historians have also drawn on hagiography, most notably the Life of St. Stephen the Younger,^[12] which includes a detailed, but highly biased, account of persecutions during the reign of Constantine V. No account of the period in question written by an iconoclast has been preserved, although certain saints’ lives do seem to preserve elements of the iconoclast worldview.^[13]

Major theological sources include the writings of John of Damascus,^[14]Theodore the Studite,^[15] and the Patriarch Nikephoros, all of them iconodules. The theological arguments of the iconoclasts survive only in the form of selective quotations embedded in iconodule documents, most notably the Acts of the Second Council of Nicaea and the Antirrhetics of Nikephoros.^[16]

The first iconoclast period: 730–787

The torture and martyrdom of the iconophile Bishop Euthymius of Sardeis by the iconoclast Byzantine Emperor Michael II in 824, in a 13th-century manuscript

An immediate precursor of the controversy seems to have been a large submarine volcanic eruption in the summer of 726 in the Aegean Sea between the island of Thera(modern Santorini) and Therasia, probably causing tsunamis and great loss of life. Many, probably including Leo III, interpreted this as a judgement on the Empire by God, and decided that use of images had been the offence.^[17]

The classic account of the beginning of Byzantine Iconoclasm relates that sometime between 726 and 730 the Byzantine Emperor Leo III the Isaurian ordered the removal of an image of Christ, prominently placed over the Chalke Gate, the ceremonial entrance to the Great Palace of Constantinople, and its replacement with a cross. Fearing that they intended sacrilege, some of those who were assigned to the task were murdered by a band of iconodules. Accounts of this event (written significantly later) suggest that at least part of the reason for the removal may have been military reversals against the Muslims and the eruption of the volcanic island of Thera,^[18] which Leo possibly viewed as evidence of the Wrath of God brought on by image veneration in the Church.^[19]

Leo is said to have described mere image veneration as « a craft of idolatry. » He apparently forbade the veneration of religious images in a 730 edict, which did not apply to other forms of art, including the image of the emperor, or religious symbols such as the cross. « He saw no need to consult the Church, and he appears to have been surprised by the depth of the popular opposition he encountered ».^[20]Germanos I of Constantinople, the iconophile Patriarch of Constantinople, either resigned or was deposed following the ban. Surviving letters Germanos wrote at the time say little of theology. According to Patricia Karlin-Hayter, what worried Germanos was that the ban of icons would prove that the Church had been in error for a long time and therefore play into the hands of Jews and Muslims.^[21]

Patriarch Germanos I of Constantinople with icons supported by angels

This interpretation is now in doubt, and the debate and struggle may have initially begun in the provinces rather than in the imperial court. Letters survive written by the Patriarch Germanos in the 720s and 730s concerning Constantine, the bishop of Nakoleia, and Thomas of Klaudioupolis. In both sets of letters (the earlier ones concerning Constantine, the later ones Thomas), Germanos reiterates a pro-image position while lamenting the behaviour of his subordinates in the church, who apparently had both expressed reservations about image worship. Germanos complains « now whole towns and multitudes of people are in considerable agitation over this matter ».^[22] In both cases, efforts to persuade these men of the propriety of image veneration had failed and some steps had been taken to remove images from their churches. Significantly, in these letters Germanos does not threaten his subordinates if they fail to change their behaviour, he does not seem to refer to a factional split in the church, but rather to an ongoing issue of concern, and Germanos refers to the Emperor Leo III, often presented as the original Iconoclast, as a friend of images. Germanos’ concerns are mainly that the actions of Constantine and Thomas should not confuse the laity.

At this stage in the debate there is no clear evidence for an imperial involvement in the debate, except that Germanos says he believes that Leo III supports images, leaving a question as to why Leo III has been presented as the arch-iconoclast of Byzantine history. Almost all of the evidence for the reign of Leo III is derived from textual sources, the majority of which post-date his reign considerably, most notably the Life by Stephen the Younger and the Chronicle of Theophanes the Confessor. These important sources are fiercely iconophile and are hostile to the Emperor Constantine V (741-775). As Constantine’s father, Leo also became a target. Leo’s actual views on icon veneration remain obscure, but in any case may not have influenced the initial phase of the debate.

During this initial period, concern on both sides seems to have had little to do with theology and more with practical evidence and effects. There was initially no church council, and no prominent patriarchs or bishops called for the removal or destruction of icons. In the process of destroying or obscuring images, Leo is said to have « confiscated valuable church plate, altar cloths, and reliquaries decorated with religious figures« ,^[20] but he took no severe action against the former patriarch or iconophile bishops.

In the West, Pope Gregory III held two synods at Rome and condemned Leo’s actions, and in response Leo confiscated papal estates in Calabria and Sicily, detaching them as well as Illyricum from Papal governance and placing them under the governance of the Patriarch of Constantinople.^[23]

Ecumenical councils

Leo died in 741, and his son and heir, Constantine V (741–775), was personally committed to an anti-image position. Despite his successes as an emperor, both militarily and culturally, this has caused Constantine to be remembered unfavourably by a body of source material which is preoccupied by his opposition to image veneration. In 754 Constantine summoned the Council of Hieria in which some 330 to 340 bishops participated and which was the first church council to concern itself primarily with religious imagery. Constantine seems to have been closely involved with the council, and it endorsed an iconoclast position, with 338 assembled bishops declaring, « the unlawful art of painting living creatures blasphemed the fundamental doctrine of our salvation–namely, the Incarnation of Christ, and contradicted the six holy synods. . . . If anyone shall endeavour to represent the forms of the Saints in lifeless pictures with material colours which are of no value (for this notion is vain and introduced by the devil), and does not rather represent their virtues as living images in himself, etc. . . . let him be anathema. » This Council claimed to be the legitimate « Seventh Ecumenical Council »,^[24] but its legitimacy is disregarded by both Eastern and Western traditions as no patriarchs or representatives of the five patriarchs were present: Constantinople was vacant while Antioch, Jerusalem and Alexandria were controlled by Muslims, and Rome did not send a representative.

An icon of the Seventh Ecumenical Council (17th century, Novodevichy Convent, Moscow)

The iconoclast Council of Hieria was not the end of the matter, however. In this period complex theological arguments appeared, both for and against the use of icons. Constantine himself wrote opposing the veneration of images, while John of Damascus, a Syrian monk living outside of Byzantine territory, became a major opponent of iconoclasm through his theological writings.^[25]

It has been suggested that monasteries became secret bastions of icon-support, but this view is controversial. A possible reason for this interpretation is the desire in some historiography on Byzantine Iconoclasm to see it as a preface to the later Protestant Reformation in western Europe, in which monastic establishments suffered damage and persecution.^{[citation needed]} In opposition to this view, others have suggested that while some monks continued to support image veneration, many others followed church and imperial policy.^{[citation needed]}

The surviving sources accuse Constantine V of moving against monasteries, having relics thrown into the sea, and stopping the invocation of saints. Monks were forced to parade in the Hippodrome, each hand-in-hand with a woman, in violation of their vows. In 765 St Stephen the Younger was killed, and was later considered a martyr to the Iconophile cause. A number of large monasteries in Constantinople were secularised, and many monks fled to areas beyond effective imperial control on the fringes of the Empire.^[25]

Constantine’s son, Leo IV (775–80) was less rigorous, and for a time tried to mediate between the factions. When he died, his wife Irene took power as regent for her son, Constantine VI (780–97). Though icon veneration does not seem to have been a major priority for the regency government, Irene called an ecumenical council a year after Leo’s death, which restored image veneration. This may have been an effort to secure closer and more cordial relations between Constantinople and Rome.

Irene initiated a new ecumenical council, ultimately called the Second Council of Nicaea, which first met in Constantinople in 786 but was disrupted by military units faithful to the iconoclast legacy. The council convened again at Nicaea in 787 and reversed the decrees of the previous iconoclast council held at Constantinople and Hieria, and appropriated its title as Seventh Ecumenical Council. Thus there were two councils called the « Seventh Ecumenical Council, » the first supporting iconoclasm, the second supporting icon veneration.

Unlike the iconoclast council, the iconophile council included papal representatives, and its decrees were approved by the papacy. The Eastern Orthodox Churchconsiders it to be the last genuine ecumenical council. Icon veneration lasted through the reign of Empress Irene‘s successor, Nikephoros I (reigned 802–811), and the two brief reigns after his.

The second iconoclast period: 814–842

Late 14th-early 15th century iconillustrating the « Triumph of Orthodoxy »under the Byzantine empress Theodora over iconoclasm in 843. (National Icon Collection 18, British Museum).

Emperor Leo V the Armenian instituted a second period of Iconoclasm in 815, again possibly motivated by military failures seen as indicators of divine displeasure, and a desire to replicate the military success of Constantine V. The Byzantines had suffered a series of humiliating defeats at the hands of the Bulgarian Khan Krum, in the course of which emperor Nikephoros I had been killed in battle and emperor Michael I Rangabehad been forced to abdicate.^[26] In June 813, a month before the coronation of Leo V, a group of soldiers broke into the imperial mausoleum in the Church of the Holy Apostles, opened the sarcophagus of Constantine V, and implored him to return and save the empire.^[27]

Soon after his accession, Leo V began to discuss the possibility of reviving iconoclasm with a variety of people, including priests, monks, and members of the senate. He is reported to have remarked to a group of advisors that:

all the emperors, who took up images and venerated them, met their death either in revolt or in war; but those who did not venerate images all died a natural death, remained in power until they died, and were then laid to rest with all honors in the imperial mausoleum in the Church of the Holy Apostles.^[28]

Leo next appointed a « commission » of monks « to look into the old books » and reach a decision on the veneration of images. They soon discovered the acts of the Iconoclastic Synod of 754.^[29] A first debate followed between Leo’s supporters and the clerics who continued to advocate the veneration of icons, the latter group being led by the Patriarch Nikephoros, which led to no resolution. However, Leo had apparently become convinced by this point of the correctness of the iconoclast position, and had the icon of the Chalke gate, which Leo III is fictitiously claimed to have removed once before, replaced with a cross.^[30] In 815 the revival of iconoclasm was rendered official by a Synod held in the Hagia Sophia.

Leo was succeeded by Michael II, who in an 824 letter to the Carolingian emperor Louis the Pious lamented the appearance of image veneration in the church and such practices as making icons baptismal godfathers to infants. He confirmed the decrees of the Iconoclast Council of 754.

Michael was succeeded by his son, Theophilus. Theophilus died leaving his wife Theodora regent for his minor heir, Michael III. Like Irene 50 years before her, Theodora presided over the restoration of icon veneration in 843, on the condition that Theophilus not be condemned. Since that time the first Sunday of Great Lenthas been celebrated in the Orthodox Church and in Byzantine Rite Catholicism as the feast of the « Triumph of Orthodoxy« .

Arguments in the struggle over icons

Iconoclast arguments

This page of the Iconodule Chludov Psalter, illustrates the line « They gave me gall to eat; and when I was thirsty they gave me vinegar to drink » with a picture of a soldier offering Christ vinegar on a sponge attached to a pole. Below is a picture of the last Iconoclast Patriarch of Constantinople, John VII rubbing out a painting of Christ with a similar sponge attached to a pole. John is caricatured, here as on other pages, with untidy straight hair sticking out in all directions, which was meant to portray him as wild and barbaric.

Nikephoros I of Constantinopleupholding an icon and trampling John VII of Constantinople. Chludov Psalter.

What accounts of iconoclast arguments remain are largely found in quotations or summaries in iconodule writings. It is thus difficult to reconstruct a balanced view of the popularity or prevalence of iconoclast writings. The major theological arguments, however, remain in evidence because of the need in iconophile writings to record the positions being refuted. Debate seems to have centred on the validity of the depiction of Jesus, and the validity of images of other figures followed on from this for both sides. The main points of the iconoclast argument were:

1. Iconoclasm condemned the making of any lifeless image (e.g. painting or statue) that was intended to represent Jesus or one of the saints. The Epitome of the Definition of the Iconoclastic Conciliabulum held in 754 declared:
   

   « Supported by the Holy Scriptures and the Fathers, we declare unanimously, in the name of the Holy Trinity, that there shall be rejected and removed and cursed one of the Christian Church every likeness which is made out of any material and colour whatever by the evil art of painters…. If anyone ventures to represent the divine image (χαρακτήρ, kharaktír) of the Word after the Incarnation with material colours, let him be anathema! …. If anyone shall endeavour to represent the forms of the Saints in lifeless pictures with material colours which are of no value (for this notion is vain and introduced by the devil), and does not rather represent their virtues as living images in himself, let him be anathema! »

2. For iconoclasts, the only real religious image must be an exact likeness of the prototype -of the same substance- which they considered impossible, seeing wood and paint as empty of spirit and life. Thus for iconoclasts the only true (and permitted) « icon » of Jesus was the Eucharist, the Body and Blood of Christ, according to Orthodox and Catholic doctrine.
3. Any true image of Jesus must be able to represent both his divine nature (which is impossible because it cannot be seen nor encompassed) and his human nature (which is possible). But by making an icon of Jesus, one is separating his human and divine natures, since only the human can be depicted (separating the natures was considered nestorianism), or else confusing the human and divine natures, considering them one (union of the human and divine natures was considered monophysitism).
4. Icon use for religious purposes was viewed as an inappropriate innovation in the Church, and a return to pagan practice.
   

   « Satan misled men, so that they worshipped the creature instead of the Creator. The Law of Moses and the Prophets cooperated to remove this ruin…But the previously mentioned demiurge of evil…gradually brought back idolatry under the appearance of Christianity. »^[31]

   It was also seen as a departure from ancient church tradition, of which there was a written record opposing religious images. The Spanish Synod of Elvira(c. 305) had declared that « Pictures are not to be placed in churches, so that they do not become objects of worship and adoration »,^[32] and some decades later Eusebius of Caesaria may have writren a letter to Constantia (Emperor Constantine’s sister) saying « To depict purely the human form of Christ before its transformation, on the other hand, is to break the commandment of God and to fall into pagan error »;^[33] Bishop Epiphanius of Salamis wrote his letter 51 to John, Bishop of Jerusalem (c. 394) in which he recounted how he tore down an image in a church and admonished the other bishop that such images are « opposed . . . to our religion »,^[34] although the authenticity of this letter has also long been disputed, and remains uncertain.^[35] However, as Christianity increasingly spread among gentiles with traditions of religious images, and especially after the conversion of Constantine (c. 312), the legalization of Christianity, and, later that century, the establishment of Christianity as the state religion of the Roman Empire, many new people came into the new large public churches, which began to be decorated with images that certainly drew in part on imperial and pagan imagery: « The representations of Christ as the Almighty Lord on his judgment throne owed something to pictures of Zeus. Portraits of the Mother of God were not wholly independent of a pagan past of venerated mother-goddesses. In the popular mind the saints had come to fill a role that had been played by heroes and deities. »^[36]

Iconophile arguments

The chief theological opponents of iconoclasm were the monks Mansur (John of Damascus), who, living in Muslim territory as advisor to the Caliph of Damascus, was far enough away from the Byzantine emperor to evade retribution, and Theodore the Studite, abbot of the Stoudios monastery in Constantinople.

John declared that he did not worship matter, « but rather the creator of matter. » He also declared, « But I also venerate the matter through which salvation came to me, as if filled with divine energy and grace. » He includes in this latter category the ink in which the gospels were written as well as the paint of images, the wood of the Cross, and the body and blood of Jesus. This distinction between worship and veneration is key in the arguments of the iconophiles.

The iconophile response to iconoclasm included:

1. Assertion that the biblical commandment forbidding images of God had been superseded by the incarnation of Jesus, who, being the second person of the Trinity, is God incarnate in visible matter. Therefore, they were not depicting the invisible God, but God as He appeared in the flesh. They were able to adduce the issue of the incarnation in their favour, whereas the iconoclasts had used the issue of the incarnation against them. They also pointed to other Old Testament evidence: God instructed Moses to make two golden statues of cherubim on the lid of the Ark of the Covenant according to Exodus 25:18–22, and God also told Moses to embroider the curtain which separated the Holy of Holies in the Tabernacle tent with cherubim Exodus 26:31. Moses was also instructed by God to embroider the walls and roofs of the Tabernacle tent with figures of cherubim angels according to Exodus 26:1.
2. Further, in their view idols depicted persons without substance or reality while icons depicted real persons. Essentially the argument was that idols were idols because they represented false gods, not because they were images. Images of Christ, or of other real people who had lived in the past, could not be idols. This was considered comparable to the Old Testament practice of only offering burnt sacrifices to God, and not to any other gods.
3. Regarding the written tradition opposing the making and veneration of images, they asserted that icons were part of unrecorded oral tradition (parádosis, sanctioned in Catholicism and Orthodoxy as authoritative in doctrine by reference to Basil the Great, etc.), and pointed to patristic writings approving of icons, such as those of Asterius of Amasia, who was quoted twice in the record of the Second Council of Nicaea. What would have been useful evidence from modern art history as to the use of images in Early Christian art was unavailable to iconodules at the time.
4. Much was made of acheiropoieta, icons believed to be of divine origin, and miracles associated with icons. Both Christ and the Theotokos were believed in strong traditions to have sat on different occasions for their portraits to be painted.
5. Iconophiles further argued that decisions such as whether icons ought to be venerated were properly made by the church assembled in council, not imposed on the church by an emperor. Thus the argument also involved the issue of the proper relationship between church and state. Related to this was the observation that it was foolish to deny to God the same honor that was freely given to the human emperor, since portraits of the emperor were common and the iconoclasts did not oppose them.

Emperors had always intervened in ecclesiastical matters since the time of Constantine I. As Cyril Mango writes, « The legacy of Nicaea, the first universal council of the Church, was to bind the emperor to something that was not his concern, namely the definition and imposition of orthodoxy, if need be by force. » That practice continued from beginning to end of the Iconoclast controversy and beyond, with some emperors enforcing iconoclasm, and two empresses regent enforcing the re-establishment of icon veneration.

Art

14th century miniature of the destruction of a church under the orders of the iconoclast emperor Constantine V Copronymus

The iconoclastic period has drastically reduced the number of survivals of Byzantine art from before the period, especially large religious mosaics, which are now almost exclusively found in Italy and Saint Catherine’s Monastery in Egypt. Important works in Thessaloniki were lost in the Great Thessaloniki Fire of 1917 and the Greco-Turkish War (1919–1922). A large mosaic of a church council in the Imperial Palace was replaced by lively secular scenes, and there was no issue with imagery per se. The plain Iconoclastic cross that replaced a figurative image in the apse of St Irene’s is itself an almost unique survival, but careful inspection of some other buildings reveals similar changes. In Nicaea, photographs of the Church of the Dormition, taken before it was destroyed in 1922, show that a pre-iconoclasm standing Theotokos was replaced by a large cross, which was itself replaced by the new Theotokos seen in the photographs.^[37] The Image of Camuliana in Constantinople appears to have been destroyed, as mentions of it cease.^[38]

Reaction in the West

The period of Iconoclasm decisively ended the so-called Byzantine Papacy under which, since the reign of Justinian I a century before, the popes in Rome had been initially nominated by, and later merely confirmed by, the emperor in Constantinople, and many of them had been Greek-speaking. By the end of the controversy the pope had approved the creation of a new emperor in the West, and the old deference of the Western church to Constantinople had gone. Opposition to icons seems to have had little support in the West and Rome took a consistently iconodule position.

When the struggles flared up, Pope Gregory II had been pope since 715, not long after accompanying his Syrian predecessor Pope Constantine to Constantinople, where they successfully resolved with Justinian II the issues arising from the provocative anti-Western decisions of the Quinisext Council of 692, which no Western prelates had attended. Of the delegation of 13 Gregory was one of only two non-Easterners; it was to be the last visit of a pope to the city until 1969. There had already been conflicts with Leo III over his very heavy taxation of areas under Roman jurisdiction.^[39]

Byzantine Iconoclasm.

•  Quotations related to Byzantine Iconoclasm at Wikiquote
• Aniconism in Christianity
• Feast of Orthodoxy
• Libri Carolini

Notes

1. Jump up^ Byzantine iconoclasm
2. Jump up^ Toynbee, Arnold Joseph. A Study of History: Abridgement of volumes VII-X. p. 259.
3. ^ Jump up to:^a b Mango (2002)
4. Jump up^ Brubaker, Leslie; Haldon, John (6 January 2011). « 1 ». Byzantium in the Iconoclast Era, C. 680-850: A History. United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. p. 32. ISBN 978-0-521-43093-7. Retrieved 10 January 2015.
5. Jump up^ Kitzinger, 101 quoted, 85-87; 95-115
6. Jump up^ Kitzinger (1977), 105
7. Jump up^ Cormack, 98-106
8. Jump up^ Brubaker and Haldon (2001)
9. Jump up^ Noble, 69
10. Jump up^ C. Mango and R. Scott, trs., The Chronicle of Theophanes Confessor (Oxford, 1997).
11. Jump up^ C. Mango, ed. and tr., The short history of Nikephoros (Washington, 1990).
12. Jump up^ M.-F. Auzépy, tr., La vie d’Étienne le jeune par Étienne le Diacre (Aldershot, 1997).
13. Jump up^ I. Ševčenko, « Hagiography in the iconoclast period, » in A. Bryer and J. Herrin, eds., Iconoclasm (Birmingham, 1977), 113–31.
14. Jump up^ A. Louth, tr., Three treatises on the divine images (Crestwood, 2003).
15. Jump up^ C.P. Roth, tr., On the holy icons (Crestwood, 1981).
16. Jump up^ M.-J. Mondzain, tr., Discours contre les iconoclastes (Paris, 1989), Exodus 20:1-17.
17. Jump up^ Mango (1977), 1; Beckwith, 169
18. Jump up^ Volcanism on Santorini / eruptive history at decadevolcano.net
19. Jump up^ According to accounts by Patriarch Nikephoros and the chronicler Theophanes
20. ^ Jump up to:^a b Warren Treadgold, A History of the Byzantine State and Society, Stanford University Press, 1997
21. Jump up^ The Oxford History of Byzantium: Iconoclasm, Patricia Karlin-Hayter, Oxford University Press, 2002.
22. Jump up^ Mango (1977), 2-3
23. Jump up^ David Knowles – Dimitri Oblensky, « The Christian Centuries: Volume 2, The Middle Ages », Darton, Longman & Todd, 1969, p. 108-109.
24. Jump up^ « Internet History Sourcebooks Project ».
25. ^ Jump up to:^a b Cormack,
26. Jump up^ Pratsch, 204–5.
27. Jump up^ Pratsch, Theodoros, 210.
28. Jump up^ Scriptor incertus 349,1–18, cited by Pratsch, Theodoros, 208.
29. Jump up^ Pratsch, Theodoros, 211-12.
30. Jump up^ Pratsch, Theodoros, 216-17.
31. Jump up^ Epitome, Iconoclast Council at Hieria, 754
32. Jump up^ Literatures, Prof. John P. Adams, Modern and Classical Languages and. « CANONS OF THE CHURCH COUNCIL ELVIRA (Granada) ca. 309 A. D. »
33. Jump up^ The letter’s text is incomplete, and its authenticity and authorship uncertain. David M. Gwynn, From Iconoclasm to Arianism: The Construction of Christian Tradition in the Iconoclast Controversy [Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 47 (2007) 225–251], p. 227-245.
34. Jump up^ Paragraph 9, text
35. Jump up^ Gwynn, p. 237
36. Jump up^ Henry Chadwick, The Early Church (The Penguin History of the Church, 1993), 283.
37. Jump up^ Kitzinger (1977), 104-105
38. Jump up^ Beckwith, 88
39. Jump up^ Beckwith, 169

References

• Beckwith, John, Early Christian and Byzantine Art, Penguin History of Art (now Yale), 2nd edn. 1979, ISBN0140560335
• Brubaker, L. and Haldon, J. (2001), Byzantium in the Iconoclast Era, c. 680-850: the Sources Birmingham
• Cormack, Robin, Writing in Gold, Byzantine Society and its Icons, 1985, George Philip, London, ISBN054001085-5
• Kitzinger, Ernst (1977), Byzantine art in the making: main lines of stylistic development in Mediterranean art, 3rd-7th century, Faber & Faber, ISBN0571111548 (US: Cambridge UP, 1977)
• Mango, Cyril (1977), « Historical Introduction, » in Bryer & Herrin, eds., Iconoclasm, Centre for Byzantine Studies, University of Birmingham, ISBN0704402262
• Mango, Cyril (2002), The Oxford History of Byzantium
• Noble, Thomas F. X., Images, Iconoclasm, and the Carolingians, 2011, University of Pennsylvania Press, ISBN0812202961, 9780812202960, google books
• Pratsch, T., Theodoros Studites (759–826): zwischen Dogma und Pragma(Frankfurt am Main, 1997)

Further reading

• Leslie Brubaker, Inventing Byzantine Iconoclasm, Bristol Classical Press, London 2012.
• L. Brubaker and J. Haldon, ‘’Byzantium in the Iconoclast Era, c. 680-850’’ Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011.
• A. Cameron, « The Language of Images: the Rise of Icons and Christian Representation » in D. Wood (ed) The Church and the Arts (Studies in Church History, 28) Oxford: Blackwell, 1992, pp. 1–42.
• H.C. Evans & W.D. Wixom (1997). The glory of Byzantium: art and culture of the Middle Byzantine era, A.D. 843-1261. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art. ISBN 9780810965072.
• Fordham University, Medieval Sourcebook: John of Damascus: In Defense of Icons.
• A. Karahan, « Byzantine Iconoclasm: Ideology and Quest for Power ». In: Eds. K. Kolrud and M. Prusac, Iconoclasm from Antiquity to Modernity, Ashgate Publishing Ltd: Farnham Surrey, 2014, 75-94. ISBN978-1-4094-7033-5.
• R. Schick, The Christian Communities of Palestine from Byzantine to Islamic Rule: A Historical and Archaeological Study (Studies in Late Antiquity and Early Islam 2) Princeton, NJ: Darwin Press, 1995, pp. 180–219.
• P. Brown, « A Dark-Age Crisis: Aspects of the Iconoclastic Controversy, » English Historical Review 88/346 (1973): 1–33.
• F. Ivanovic, Symbol and Icon: Dionysius the Areopagite and the Iconoclastic Crisis, Eugene: Pickwick, 2010.
• E. Kitzinger, « The Cult of Images in the Age of Iconoclasm, » Dumbarton Oaks Papers 8 (1954): 83–150.
• Yuliyan Velikov, Image of the Invisible. Image Veneration and Iconoclasm in the Eighth Century. Veliko Turnovo University Press, Veliko Turnovo 2011. ISBN978-954-524-779-8 (in Bulgarian).
• Thomas Bremer, « Verehrt wird Er in seinem Bilde… » Quellenbuch zur Geschichte der Ikonentheologie. SOPHIA – Quellen östlicher Theologie 37. Paulinus: Trier 2015, ISBN978-3-7902-1461-1 (in German).

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

http://www.giacobbegiusti.com

Giacobbe Giusti, Atelier de VERROCCHIO: Madonna Dreyfus

Giacobbe Giusti, Atelier de VERROCCHIO: Madonna Dreyfus

 Giacobbe Giusti, Atelier de VERROCCHIO: Madonna Dreyfus

Artiste	Atelier de Verrocchio
Date	1470-1472
Technique	Détrempe et huile sur bois
Dimensions (H × L)	15,7 × 12,8 cm
Mouvement	Renaissance italienne
Localisation	National Gallery of Art, Washington (États-Unis)
Numéro d’inventaire	1952.5.65

La Madone Dreyfus (parfois appelée La Vierge à la grenade) est un tableau représentant une Vierge à l’Enfant. Le tableau a été peint à l’intérieur de l’atelier de Verrocchio dans les années 1470-1472. Il s’agit, soit d’une œuvre personnelle de Léonard de Vinciou de Lorenzo di Credi, soit d’une collaboration entre plusieurs des élèves de Verrocchio. La Madone Dreyfusest conservée à la National Gallery of Art de Washington¹ .

Éléments historiques

Le tableau appartenait au collectionneur d’art Gustave Dreyfus (1837-1914) qui a donné son nom au tableau. Il provenait peut-être de la collection du peintre et critique d’art Charles Timbal, que Gustave Dreyfus avait acquise dans la tourmente des événements de la Commune en 1871. Toutefois, dans l’inventaire de la vente de 1871, aucun tableau n’est présenté comme provenant du cercle de Verrocchio. Les héritiers de Gustave Dreyfus vendent le tableau en 1930 à Joseph Duveen, l’un des plus grands antiquaires et marchands de tableaux au monde^{[réf. nécessaire]}. En 1951, le collectionneur Samuel Kress achète La Madone Dreyfus et en fait don l’année suivante à la National Gallery of Art de Washington.

Description

La Madone Dreyfus est un tableau de petites dimensions (15,7 × 12,8 cm), typique, comme l’a souligné Zöllner des petits tableaux de dévotion domestique de la seconde moitié du xv^e siècle².

La Vierge dont les cheveux sont enveloppés d’un voile transparent qui tombe sur ses épaules, tient dans sa main gauche une grenade. L’Enfant Jésus, très potelé, est debout sur les genoux de sa mère et il semble avoir pris un morceau du fruit dans son poing droit fermé qu’il tend à sa mère comme son regard.

Les deux personnages sont auréolés discrètement. Les ouvertures à droite et à gauche laisse voir un paysage de collines parsemées d’arbres et de montagnes au loin.

Analyse

La grenade est le symbole de la Passion du Christ. Ce genre de composition, avec l’Enfant Jésus debout (souvent sur un parapet) provenait de Venise, et tout particulièrement de l’atelier de Giovanni Bellini. L’atelier de Verrocchio l’avait déjà repris : dans La Vierge à l’Enfant de Berlin (Staatliche Museem Gemäldegalerie), celle de Francfort-sur-le-Main (Stadelsches Kunstinstitut), et celle du musée Jacquemart-André de Paris.

Les ouvertures placées à gauche et à droite laisse dessiner sur le fond noir derrière le groupe, la croix du destin du Christ.

Attribution

Le premier à attribuer le tableau à Léonard de Vinci fut Wilhelm Suida en 1929³. L’attribution ne peut se faire que sur des données stylistiques. En effet, aucun document ne permet de retracer l’histoire du tableau avant son apparition au xix^e siècle. Aucun des premiers biographes de Léonard de Vinci n’y fait non plus allusion. L’attribution à Léonard est reprise plus tard par Daniel Arasse. Pour lui, « Léonard intensifie la relation entre les deux figures, instaurant un dialogue intime⁴ ». Janice Shell, Pietro. C. Marani, mettent en valeur « la combinaison de rouge, de vert sombre, de jaune, de bleu, ici et là de violet⁵ » pré-léonardienne. Pourtant aucune des empreintes de doigt que l’on trouve souvent dans les tableaux de Léonard de Vinci n’apparaissent ici. Le paysage est peu léonardien. Le corps de l’enfant, très allongé, disproportionné par rapport à sa tête, diffère de sa représentation dans la Madone à l’œillet, ou dans la Madonna Benois. Le tableau a été peint sur un panneau en chêne, alors que, pour ses autres tableaux, Léonard de Vinci utilise du bois de peuplier ou de noyer.

Les partisans de l’attribution à Lorenzo di Credi rapprochent le tableau de la Madone du musée de Camaldoli, due à Lorenzo, et d’une étude préparatoire à la pointe d’argent conservée à la Gemäldegalerie de Dresde, qui lui est attribuée. Une radiographie du tableau a montré que le paysage avait été peint plus tard que le reste de l’œuvre, semblant confirmer l’hypothèse d’un travail d’atelier auquel plusieurs peintres auraient collaboré.

Notes et références

1. ↑ Site de la NGA [archive]
2. ↑ Frank Zöllner Léonard de Vinci, tout l’œuvre peint et graphique, Taschen, 2003
3. ↑ (de) Wilhelm Suida, Leonardo und sein Kreiss, 1929
4. ↑ Daniel Arasse, Léonard de Vinci, le rythme du monde, Hazan
5. ↑ Pietro. C. Marani, Léonard : Une carrière de peintre, édition française, Actes Sud / Motta, 1999

• Notice dans une base relative aux beaux-arts : National Gallery of Art [archive

Giacobbe Giusti, Atelier de VERROCCHIO: Madonna Dreyfus

Maria mit dem Kinde und einem Granatapfel (Madonna Dreyfus)
Lorenzo di Credi, um 1475–1480
Öl auf Holz
15,7 × 12,8 cm
National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.

Die Madonna Dreyfus ist ein aus kunsthistorischer Sicht bedeutendes Madonnenbild der italienischen Renaissance von Lorenzo di Credi.

Geschichte und Kontroverse

Das Bild der Maria mit dem Kinde und einem Granatapfel ist, nach ihrem langjährigen Besitzer allgemein als Madonna Dreyfus in die Kunstgeschichte eingegangen. Das Bild aus der Schule des Andrea del Verrocchio wird heute Lorenzo di Credi zugeschrieben, der sich stilistisch an Leonardo da Vinci orientierte. Eine frühere Identifikation als Werk von Leonardo gilt heute als falsch.

Bekannt wurde das Bild erst, als es sich im Besitz des bekannten Pariser Kunstsammlers Gustave Dreyfus befand. 1930 wurde es von seinen Erben verkauft und befand sich über mehrere Jahre hinweg im Kunsthandel der Duveen Brothers, Inc. in London und New York. Von dort erwarb es 1951 die Samuel H. Kress Foundation, die es 1952 der National Gallery of Art in Washington schenkte.

Seit seiner Entdeckung schrieb man das Bild erst Verrocchio selbst und dann, in Ermangelung gesicherter eigenhändiger Werke, dem Lorenzo di Credi zu. Allerdings wurde von Anfang an darauf hingewiesen, dass das Bild weit über dem steht, was Lorenzo di Credi zu schaffen imstande war. Es zeigt solche sanften Übergänge in den Farben und Konturen und solch weiche Schatten, wie man sie auf keinem seiner anderen Bilder findet. 1929 schlug Wilhelm Suida deshalb erstmals Leonardo als Urheber des Bildes vor und fand 1932 Unterstützung bei Bernard Degenhart.

Trotzdem blieb die Kunstwissenschaft in der Folgezeit gespalten. Bernard Berenson hielt das Bild (1938) für ein Werk von Lorenzo di Credi, der damit versuchte, Leonardo zu imitieren. Dieser Zuschreibung schlossen sich viele andere Kunsthistoriker an. John Shearman dagegen beurteilte das Bild (1967) als eigenhändiges Werk von Verrocchio und sah in einer Zeichnung im Dresdener Kupferstichkabinett eine eigenhändige Studie dafür. Günter Passavant beurteilte (1969) das Gemälde nur als ein Werk der Verrocchio-Werkstatt, hielt die Autorenschaft durch Lorenzo di Credi aber ebenfalls für möglich. Dementsprechend wurde das Bild lange Zeit nur werteneutral als aus der Werkstatt des Verrocchios stammend bezeichnet, bevor sich die National Gallery of Art in Washington dazu entschloss, es wieder als Werk des Lorenzo di Credi zu katalogisieren und bis heute auszustellen.

Dessen ungeachtet tendiert ein Großteil der modernen Kunstwissenschaft heute wieder verstärkt dazu, das Bild als eigenhändiges Frühwerk des Leonardo da Vinci anzusehen. 1968 äußerte Sheldon Grossman noch, dass es sich bei dem Bild um eine Kopie nach einem verlorenen Werk von Lorenzo di Credi handelt, welches nach einem Entwurf von Leonardo gemalt wurde. Doch noch im gleichen Jahr wurde es von Raymond Somers Stites Leonardo selbst zugeschrieben. Dem schlossen sich unter anderem Carlo Ragghianti (1975) und Pietro C. Marani (1989 und 1999) an.

Dagegen erkennt Jack Wasserman (1975) Leonardo wieder nur die Erfindung des Bildes zu, und auch Piero Adorno (1991) hält es nur für eine Werkstattarbeit aus dem Atelier von Verrocchio, an dem vielleicht mit Blick auf das schlecht gemalte Kind und die bessere Maria zwei verschiedenen Schülern gearbeitet haben. Ähnliches wird heute auch die Anbetung des Kindes mit zwei Engeln in Detroit (Art Institute) beurteilt, in der manche Forscher ebenfalls für einzelne Partien die Mitwirkung von Leonardo annehmen.

Neben dem misslungenen Kind, ist das Fehlen der für Leonardo typischen Fingerspuren sicherlich ein Hauptargument gegen seine Autorenschaft. Marani erklärt dies mit einer alten, nicht dokumentierten Reinigung des Bildes, bei der diese verloren gegangen sein könnten. Heute schreibt es der Besitzer, die National Gallery of Art in Washington DC, eindeutig di Credi zu.

Umstritten ist die Entstehungszeit des Bildes. Passavant geht davon aus, dass es später als die Madonna mit der Nelke gemalt sein muss. Wasserman setzt es um die gleiche Zeit an. Marani rückt es in die zeitliche Nähe der Verkündigung in den Uffizien in Florenz, in der er maltechnische Gemeinsamkeiten sieht. Des Weiteren erkennt er venezianische Einflüsse, die er damit erklärt, das Leonardo 1469 Verrocchio bei seiner Reise nach Venedig begleitet hat.

Literatur

• Wilhelm Suida: Leonardo und sein Kreis, 1929, Verlag F. Bruckmann A.-G. (München)
• Maria Pomilio / Angela Ottino Della Chiesa: Klassiker der Kunst – Leonardo da Vinci, 1967, Kunstkreis Luzern – Freudenstadt – Wien
• Pietro C. Marani: Leonardo, 1989, Cantini (Florenz) ISBN 88-7737-046-7
• Franziska Windt, Andrea del Verrocchio und Leonardo da Vinci – Zusammenarbeit in Skulptur und Malerei, Münster, 2003, ISBN 3-930454-39-4
• Serge Bramly: Léonard de Vinci, Jean-Claude Lattès, Paris, 1988
• Brigitte Labbé, Michel Puech, Jean-Pierre Joblin: Léonard de Vinci. – Toulouse : Milan jeunesse, coll. « De vie en vie » n° 18, 2005. – 58 p., 18 cm. – ISBN 2-7459-1631-9.

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

http://www.giacobbegiusti.com