Portrait d’un procureur, 1507, huile sur bois, musée d’Art Fuji, Tokyo, Japon.
Notes et références
↑(en) Daniel W. Maze, « Giovanni Bellini: Birth, Parentage, and Independence », Renaissance Quarterly, vol. 66, no 3, , p. 783–823 (lire en ligne [archive])
↑Reconstitution photographique du retable de San Giobbe. Rendue célèbre par la prédication de saint Bernardin de Sienne, et reconstruite en style Renaissance, reconsacrée en 1493 par l’architecte Pietro Lombardo avec cet autel. La Pala di San Giobbe(Retable de saint Job) de Giovanni Bellini, huile sur panneau de bois, 471 × 258 cm, peinte selon les auteurs entre 1470 et 1500, est actuellement conservée aux Gallerie dell’ Accademia à Venise. La reconstitution est conforme au montage effectué dans Peter Humfrey 1996, p. 78.
↑Cadre de bois probablement dessiné par Giovanni Bellini : Terizio Pignatti, Tout l’œuvre peint, 1969.
↑Stefano Zuffi, Petite encyclopédie de la Renaissance, Solar, , 430 p. (ISBN978-2-263-04462-5), p. 202
↑ a et bMarc-Édouard Gautier (dir.), Splendeur de l’enluminure. Le roi René et les livres, Ville d’Angers / Actes Sud, , 416 p.(ISBN978-2-7427-8611-4), p. 216-223 et 226-229
↑(en) Vincent Pomarède, Louvre Abu Dabhi : Album of the exhibition, Flammarion, , 55 p.(ISBN978-2-0813-3199-0), p. 29
Bibliographie
(en) Oskar Batschmann, Giovanni Bellini, Londres, Reaktion Books, (ASINB00MMQKQUY)
(en) David Allan Brown(directeur scientifique), Sylvia Ferino-Pagden (directeur scientifique) et Jaynie Anderson, Deborah Howard, Peter Humfrey and Mauro Lucco ; technical studies : Barbara H. Berrie, Louisa C. Matthew; Elke Oberthaler and Elizabeth Walmsley (Catalogue d’exposition 2006-2007), Bellini, Giorgione, Titian and the Renaissance of Venetian Painting, Washington, D.C. et Vienne, National Gallery of Art and Kunsthistorisches Museum, , 336 p.(ISBN978-0-300-11677-9)
(en) Rona Goffen, Giovanni Bellini, Yale University Press, , 352 p.(ISBN978-0300043341)
(de) Georg Gronau, Die künsterfamilie Bellini, Bielefeld/Leipzig, Velhagen & Klasing, (OCLC2085605)
(de) Georg Gronau, Spätwerke des Giovanni Bellini, Strasbourg, J. H. Ed. Heitz, (OCLC2096547)
(de) Georg Gronau, Giovanni Bellini; des Meisters Gemälde in 207 Abbildungen, Stuttgart, Berlin, Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, (OCLC1265191)
(en) Giovanni Bellini, New York, E. Weyhe, 1930
Peter Humfrey, La peinture de la Renaissance à Venise, Adam Biro, (1re éd. 1995) (ISBN2-87660-175-3)
Anchise Tempestini, Giovanni Bellini, Gallimard, coll. « Maîtres de l’art », , 196 p.(ISBN978-2070116621)
The Stele of the Vultures is a monument from the Early Dynastic III period(2600–2350 BC) in Mesopotamiacelebrating a victory of the city-state of Lagashover its neighbour Umma. It shows various battle and religious scenes and is named after the vultures that can be seen in one of these scenes. The stelewas originally carved out of a single slab of limestone, but only seven fragments are known today. The fragments were found at Tello (ancient Girsu) in southern Iraq in the late 19th century and are now on display in the Louvre.
Discovery
The stele is not complete; only seven fragments are known today. The first three fragments were found during excavations in the early 1880s by the French archaeologist Ernest de Sarzec at the archaeological site of Tello, ancient Girsu, in what is today southern Iraq. Another three fragments came to light during the excavations of 1888–1889. A seventh fragment, which was later determined to be part of the Stele of the Vultures and thought to have come from Tello, was acquired on the antiquities market by the British Museum in 1898. While two initial requests to hand this fragment over to the Louvre were denied by the British Museum, it was eventually given to them in 1932 so that it could be incorporated in the reconstructed stele together with the other fragments.[1]
Description
The complete monument, as reconstructed and now in display in the Louvre, would have been 1.80 metres (5 ft 11 in) high, 1.30 metres (4 ft 3 in) wide and 0.11 metres (4.3 in) thick and had a rounded top. It was made out of a single slab of limestone with carved reliefs on both sides.[2] The stele can be placed in a tradition of mid- to late-third millennium BC southern Mesopotamia in which military victories are celebrated on stone monuments. A similar monument is the Victory Stele of Naram-Sin, created during the Akkadian period that followed on the Early Dynastic III period.[3]
The two sides of the stele show distinctly different scenes and have therefore been interpreted as a mythological side and a historical side. The mythological side is divided into two registers. The upper, larger register shows a large male figure holding a mace in his right hand and an anzu or lion-headed eagle in his left hand. The anzu identifies the figure as the god Ningirsu. Below the anzu is a large net filled with the bodies of naked men. Behind Ningirsu stands a smaller female figure wearing a horned headband and with maces protruding from her shoulders. These characteristics allow the figure to be identified as the goddess Ninhursag. The lower, smaller register is very badly preserved but, based on comparisons with contemporary depictions, it has been suggested that it depicted the god Ningirsu standing on a chariot drawn by mythological animals.[2]
A fragment of the Stele of the Vultures showing vultures with severed human heads in their beaks and a fragment of cuneiform script
The historical side is divided into four horizontal registers. The upper register shows Eannatum, the ensi or ruler of Lagash, leading a phalanx of soldiers into battle, with their defeated enemies trampled below their feet. Flying above them are the vultures after which the stele is named, with the severed heads of the enemies of Lagash in their beaks. The second register shows soldiers marching with shouldered spears behind the king, who is riding a chariot and holding a spear. In the third register, a small part of a possibly seated figure can be seen. In front of him, a cow is tethered to a pole while a naked priest standing on a pile of dead animal bodies performs a libation ritual on two plants spouting from vases. Left of these scenes is a pile of naked bodies surrounded by skirted workers with baskets on their head. Only a small part of the fourth register has been preserved, showing a hand holding a spear that touches the head of an enemy.[2] Some Sumerologists have proposed reconstructing a caption near the enemy as « Kalbum, King of Kish ».[4]
The inscriptions on the stele are badly preserved. They fill the negative spaces in the scenes and run continuously from one side to the other. The text is written in Sumeriancuneiform script. From these inscriptions, it is known that the stele was commissioned by Eannatum, an ensi or ruler of Lagash around 2460 BC. On it, he describes a conflict with Umma over Gu-Edin, a tract of agricultural land located between the two city-states.[2] The conflict ends in a battle in which Eannatum, described as the beloved of the god Ningirsu, triumphs over Umma. After the battle, the leader of Umma swears that he will not transgress into the territory of Lagash again upon penalty of divine punishment.[5]
Upper register of the « mythological » side
Another fragment
Detail of the « battle » fragment
Detail of the « battle » fragment
Reconstruction of the layout of the « historical » side
Reconstruction of the layout of the « mythological » side
References
^Barrelet, Marie-Thérèse (1970). « Peut-On Remettre en Question la « Restitution Matérielle de la Stèle des Vautours »? ». Journal of Near Eastern Studies (in French). 29 (4): 233–258. doi:10.1086/372081. JSTOR543336.
^ Jump up to:abcdWinter, Irene J. (1985). « After the Battle is Over: The ‘Stele of the Vultures’ and the Beginning of Historical Narrative in the Art of the Ancient Near East ». In Kessler, Herbert L.; Simpson, Marianna Shreve. Pictorial Narrative in Antiquity and the Middle Ages. Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, Symposium Series IV. 16. Washington DC: National Gallery of Art. pp. 11–32. ISSN0091-7338.
^Pollock, Susan (1999). Ancient Mesopotamia. The Eden that Never Was. Case Studies in Early Societies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 181. ISBN978-0-521-57568-3.
^Thorkild Jacobsen, Toward the image of Tammuz and other essays on Mesopotamian history and culture 1970, p. 393; Eva Strommenger, Five thousand years of the art of Mesopotamia 1964 p. 396
^Frayne, Douglas R. (2008). Presargonic Period (2700-2350 BC). Royal Inscriptions of Mesopotamia: Early Periods. 1. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. pp. 126–140. ISBN978-0-8020-3586-8.
La stèle des vautours, ou stèle de victoire d’Eannatum, roi de Lagash, est une stèle historiée datée des dynasties archaïques III (2500-2340 av. J.-C.), vers 2450 av. J.-C.commémorant la victoire de la cité-ÉtatLagash sur sa rivale Umma. Elle a été exhumée en état fragmentaire sur le site de Tello (l’antique Girsu) en Mésopotamie. Il s’agit de la première stèle historiée connue, insistant sur une victoire militaire et le rôle guerrier du souverain. Elle est conservée au département des Antiquités Orientales du musée du Louvre.
Contexte historique
Cette stèle commémore la victoire de la cité de Lagash sur son ennemie Umma vers 2340 av. J.-C. Le conflit opposait les deux cités en raison d’un bout de terrain attribué par le roi de Kish Mesilim à Lagash un siècle plus tôt mais que revendiquait la cité d’Umma.
La stèle présente sur ses deux faces un texte en sumérien de 830 lignes, écrit à la première personne au nom du roi Eannatum afin de glorifier sa victoire. Il s’agit du plus important document historique de l’époque des dynasties archaïques.
Description
Face historique
La stèle présente deux faces : l’une historique, l’autre mythologique. La première face illustre la bataille ayant opposé les cités de Lagash et de Umma. Elle est divisée en cinq registres.
Les vautours emportant les restes des ennemis vaincus
Seul un fragment du premier registre, extrêmement parcellaire comme l’ensemble de la stèle, est aujourd’hui conservé en haut à droite de l’œuvre. Il donne son nom à la stèle puisque l’on y voit un groupe de vautours dévorant des restes humains. Le spectateur doit ici comprendre que les restes humains sont ceux des soldats de la cité d’Umma, ennemie de Lagash dont le roi Eannatum a fait ériger la stèle.
Détail du deuxième registre
Au second registre, plus complet, les troupes de Lagash s’avancent en rang, armées de lances et de boucliers, piétinant les corps de leurs adversaires, menées par leur roi vers ces derniers. Ceux-ci sont d’ores et déjà vaincus. Les soldats de la cité d’Umma sont ainsi représentés dénudés, attachés, entassés les uns sur les autres. On observe une profonde dichotomie dans la scène entre d’une part les troupes d’Eannatum, puissantes, organisées, où tous les soldats sont exactement identiques, dans une stricte isocéphalie alors que les soldats d’Umma sont chétifs, vaincus et désorganisés. Eannatum est quant à lui reconnaissable à sa coiffe, caractéristique des souverains de cette période. Le musée de Bagdaden conserve d’ailleurs un exemplaire, daté de cette période, ayant appartenu à Meskalamdug, prince de la cité d’Ur. Il s’agit d’un casque en or, reproduisant la chevelure et les oreilles du roi. Ce dernier n’est pas représenté en taille héroïque vis-à-vis de ses soldats. Le souverain n’est à cette époque qu’un administrateur au service du dieu de la cité, Ningirsu. Cette stèle est pour autant la première connue à faire l’éloge d’un souverain, idéologie qui sera considérablement développée lors de la période suivante, à Akkad, comme sur la stèle de victoire du roi Naram-Sin.
Détail du troisième registre, avec à droite un gros-plan d’Eannatum.
Le troisième registre voit s’avancer l’armée de Lagash avec à nouveau à sa tête Eannatum. Ce dernier est ici monté sur un char dont ne subsiste aujourd’hui qu’une partie et s’apprête à donner un coup de lance dans la direction des soldats d’Umma. Néanmoins, cette partie de la stèle est aujourd’hui détruite. Il s’agit du défilé après la victoire. Le kaunakès porté par les soldats et le roi est ici clairement visible. Cette longue robe en mèches laineuses se retrouve sur toutes les représentations de l’époque.
Au quatrième registre, ont lieu les rituels suivant la bataille. Les corps des défunts empilés à gauche sont recouverts d’un tumulus dont la construction est l’œuvre des personnages grimpant à une échelle pour y déverser la terre qu’ils transportent dans des paniers. À côté, se trouve un prêtre en nudité rituelle procédant à des libations devant un personnage assis dont il ne reste plus que les pieds, soit le roi, soit le dieu de la cité.
Enfin, le registre inférieur n’est conservé que dans une très faible mesure. Seule une lance tenue par une main est visible, atteignant la tête d’une personnage situé à l’opposé du registre. Il s’agit probablement là du roi Eannatum exécutant son adversaire, le roi d’Umma.
Face mythologique
Reconstitution de la face mythologique
Sur le premier registre, Ningirsu assenant un coup de massue au roi d’Umma.
Texte figurant sur la partie droite du fragment du second registre.
La face mythologique de la stèle n’est quant à elle composée que de deux registres. Le premier, occupant les deux tiers de la hauteur, nous montre le dieu Ningirsu, reconnaissable à sa très grande taille, tenant dans sa main gauche son animal attribut, l’aigle léontocéphale Anzû. Celui-ci tient dans ses serres deux lions formant les poignées d’un grand filet dans lequel sont entassés des hommes. Il s’agit là des ennemis de Lagash, capturés lors de la bataille et offerts à Ningirsu. Ce dernier, de sa main droite assène un coup de massue sur la tête de l’un d’entre eux dont la tête dépassait du filet, le roi d’Umma. À la droite du dieu, se trouve Ninhursag, mère de Ningirsu qui lui avait offert Anzû.
Au second registre, le dieu également représenté, sur un char cette fois-ci, probablement tiré par des animaux fantastiques (aujourd’hui disparus) faisant face à sa mère.
: document utilisé comme source pour la rédaction de cet article.
Agnès Benoit, Art et archéologie : Les civilisations du Proche-Orient Ancien, Paris, Réunion des Musées Nationaux, École du Louvre, coll. « Manuels de l’École du Louvre », , p. 224-225
Edmond Sollberger et Jean-Robert Kupper, Inscriptions royales sumériennes et akkadiennes, Paris, Le Cerf, coll. « Littératures anciennes du Proche-Orient », , p. 47-58 (traduction de l’inscription)
(en) Irene Winter, « After the Battle is Over: The ‘Stele of the Vultures’ and the beginning of Historical Narrative in the Ancient Near East », dans Pictorial Narrative in Antiquity to the Middle Ages, Washington, National Gallery of Art, coll. « Studies in the history of art », , p. 11–32
Giacobbe Giusti, Geierstele
Namensgebendes Bruchstücke der Stele
Als Geierstele bezeichnet man eine fragmentarisch erhaltene Stele mit einer Inschrift des sumerischen Königs E-ana-tumder Stadt Lagaš, die nach der mittleren Chronologie um das Jahr 2.470 v. Chr. entstanden sein könnte. Die Bruchstücke der Stele wurden 1878 von Ernest de Sarzec an verschiedenen Stellen des Tempelbezirkes von Telloh entdeckt und befinden sich heute im Louvre in Paris. Ihren Namen erhielt die Stele aufgrund der Darstellung von Geiern in einem der Bruchstücke. Mit ihrer historischen Inschrift gehört sie zu den ältesten historischen Dokumenten überhaupt und bezeugt den Konflikt zwischen den frühdynastischen Stadtstaaten Umma und Lagaš (siehe Lagaš-Umma-Krieg).
Darstellung
Giacobbe Giusti, Geierstele
Rückseite des größten Bruchstückes
Giacobbe Giusti, Geierstele
Darstellung der gefallenen Feinde
Die Stele war komplett aus Kalkstein gefertigt. Ihre Maße werden aus den noch vorhandenen Bruchstücken auf ca. 180 cm Höhe, 130 cm Breite und 11 cm Tiefe geschätzt. Sowohl die breiten als auch die Schmalseiten waren reliefiert:
Das größte Bruchstück zeigt auf seiner Vorderseite Ningirsu, den Stadtgott von Lagaš, der in einem Netz gefangene, nackte Feinde mit einer Keule erschlägt. Der Verschluss dieses Netzes hat die Form eines Löwenadlers, evtl. des Anzu. Auf der Vorderseite der kleineren Bruchstücke befinden sich vermutlich Teile weiterer Gottheiten, von denen eine einen Streitwagen lenkt, während eine andere eine Standarte in Form eines Adlers trägt.
Auf der Rückseite des größten Bruchstücks ist König E-ana-tum in der für Könige üblichen Kleidung (sogenannter Zottenrock und Überwurf) dargestellt, der seine in Schlachtordnung über gefallene Feinde schreitende Phalanx anführt. Im unteren Bereich dieses Bruchstücks ist ein Teil eines Frieses erhalten, auf welchem der König mit einem Speer in der Hand an Bord eines Streitwagens vor seinen mit Speeren marschierenden Truppen erkennbar ist. Die namensgebenden Geier sind auf einem Bruchstück des oberen Bogenfeldes zu sehen, wie sie menschliche Köpfe davontragen. Ein weiteres Bruchstück dieses Bogenfeldes zeigt die in der Schlacht gefallenen Feinde. Auf einem Bruchstück aus dem unteren Bereich der Stele befinden sich eine Opferszene sowie die Darstellung eines Leichenberges, der vermutlich eine Bestattung in einem Massengrab repräsentieren soll.
Die übrigen Darstellungen der Stele entziehen sich aufgrund der Fragmentierung einer genaueren Beschreibung.
Hintergrund
Giacobbe Giusti, Geierstele
Vorderseite des größten Bruchstücks
Anlass für die Herstellung der Geierstele war der auf ihr eingemeißelte Vertrag zwischen E-ana-tum von Lagaš und dem Fürsten von Umma, der einen lang andauernden Konflikt um Ländereien zwischen den beiden Städten beenden sollte, aus welchem E-ana-tum zuvor als Sieger hervorgegangen war. Dieser Konflikt ist mindestens zweifach bezeugt:
Spätere Inschrift
Aus einer späteren Inschrift geht hervor, dass Mesilim von Kiš die Grenze zwischen den Städten Umma und Lagaš festgesetzt und mit einer Stele vermarkt habe. Der König von Kiš besaß damals wahrscheinlich eine herausragende Stellung unter den sumerischen Stadtfürsten und konnte als Schiedsperson in Konflikte eingreifen. Uš von Umma habe bei einem Übergriff auf das Gebiet der Nachbarstadt diese Stele dann beseitigt, woraufhin E-ana-tum diese Gebiete zurückerobert, sich Territorien von Umma angeeignet und die neue Grenze mit einem Graben und einer Stele vermarkt habe. Ob es sich bei dieser Stele um die Geierstele handelt ist unklar, da ihre Fragmente in Telloh, den Ruinen der Stadt Girsu gefunden wurden.
Inschrift der Geierstele
Die Inschrift der Stele berichtet die Ereignisse aus Perspektive E-ana-tums. Demnach habe Umma wiederholt Wasser, Kanäle und Felder von Lagaš benutzt und damit Eigentum des Stadtgottes Ningirsu missbraucht. Nachdem eine Vermittlung durch die Stadt Kiš scheiterte, beantwortete E-ana-tum als Repräsentant des Gottes diesen Missbrauch:
é-an-na-túm-me
Eannatum
ummaki-a
hat in Umma
IM–ḫul im-ma-gim
wie einen bösen Regensturm
a-MAR mu-ni-tag4
dort eine Sturmflut losgelassen
Nach dem Sieg E-ana-tums wurde dieser von Umma offiziell durch einen Eid vor den Göttern bestätigt und die neue Grenze durch die Stele markiert. Für den Fall eines Friedensbruches solle Umma das auf der Vorderseite der Stele dargestellte Schicksal erleiden, die Vernichtung durch die Götter.
Lorenzo de’ Medici(Italian pronunciation: [loˈrɛntso de ˈmɛːditʃi], 1 January 1449 – 8 April 1492)[1] was an Italian statesman, de facto ruler of the Florentine Republicand the most powerful and enthusiastic patron of Renaissance culture in Italy.[2][3][4] Also known as Lorenzo the Magnificent(Lorenzo il Magnifico[loˈrɛntso il maɲˈɲiːfiko]) by contemporary Florentines, he was a magnate, diplomat, politician and patron of scholars, artists and poets. As a patron, he is best known for his sponsorship of artists such as Botticelli and Michelangelo. He held the balance of power within the Italic League, an alliance of states that stabilized political conditions on the Italian peninsula for decades, and his life coincided with the mature phase of the Italian Renaissanceand the Golden Age of Florence.[5] The Peace of Lodi of 1454 that he helped maintain among the various Italian states collapsed with his death. He is buried in the Medici Chapel in Florence.
Youth
Lorenzo’s grandfather, Cosimo de’ Medici, was the first member of the Medici family to lead the Republic of Florence and run the Medici Banksimultaneously. As one of the wealthiest men in Europe, Cosimo spent a very large portion of his fortune on government and philanthropy, for example as a patron of the arts and financier of public works.[6]Lorenzo’s father, Piero di Cosimo de’ Medici, was equally at the centre of Florentine civic life, chiefly as an art patron and collector, while Lorenzo’s uncle, Giovanni di Cosimo de’ Medici, took care of the family’s business interests. Lorenzo’s mother, Lucrezia Tornabuoni, was a writer of sonnets and a friend to poets and philosophers of the Medici Academy.[7] She became her son’s advisor after the deaths of his father and uncle.[6]
Lorenzo, considered the most promising of the five children of Piero and Lucrezia, was tutored by a diplomat and bishop, Gentile de’ Becchi, and the humanist philosopher Marsilio Ficino,[8] and he was trained in Greek by John Argyropoulos.[9] With his brother Giuliano, he participated in jousting, hawking, hunting, and horse breeding for the Palio, a horse race in Siena. In 1469, aged 19, he won first prize in a jousting tournament sponsored by the Medici. The joust was the subject of a poem written by Luigi Pulci.[10]Niccolò Machiavelli also wrote of the occasion, perhaps sarcastically, that he won « not by way of favour, but by his own valour and skill in arms ».[11] He carried a banner painted by Verrocchio, and his horse was named Morello di Vento.[12][13]
Piero sent Lorenzo on many important diplomatic missions when he was still a youth, including trips to Rome to meet the pope and other important religious and political figures.[14]
Lorenzo was described as rather plain of appearance and of average height, having a broad frame and short legs, dark hair and eyes, a squashed nose, short-sighted eyes and a harsh voice. Giuliano, on the other hand, was regarded as handsome and a « golden boy », and was used as a model by Botticelli in his painting of Mars and Venus.[15]Even Lorenzo’s close friend Niccolo Valori described him as homely, saying, « nature had been a step mother to him in regards to his personal appearance, although she had acted as a loving mother in all things concocted with the mind. His complexion was dark, and although his face was not handsome it was so full of dignity as to compel respect. »[16]
Paintings by Botticelli that use the Medici family as models
The Adoration of the Magi by Botticelli includes several generations of the Medici family and their retainers. Sixteen-year-old Lorenzo is to the left, with his horse, prior to his departure on a diplomatic mission to Milan.
Lorenzo, groomed for power, assumed a leading role in the state upon the death of his father in 1469, when he was twenty. Already drained by his grandfather’s building projects and constantly stressed by mismanagement, wars, and political expenses, the assets of the Medici Bank contracted seriously during the course of Lorenzo’s lifetime.[17]
Lorenzo, like his grandfather, father, and son, ruled Florence indirectly through surrogates in the city councils by means of threats, payoffs and strategic marriages.[18]He effectively reigned as a despot, and ordinary citizens had little political freedom.[19] Rival Florentine families inevitably harboured resentments over the Medicis’ dominance, and enemies of the Medici remained a factor in Florentine life long after Lorenzo’s passing.[18]The most notable of the rival families was the Pazzi, who nearly brought Lorenzo’s reign to an end.[20]
On Easter Sunday, 26 April 1478, in an incident known as the Pazzi conspiracy, a group headed by Girolamo Riario, Francesco de’ Pazzi, and Francesco Salviati (the archbishop of Pisa), attacked Lorenzo and his brother and co-ruler Giuliano in the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore in an attempt to seize control of the Florentine government.[21]Shockingly, Salviati acted with the blessing of his patron Pope Sixtus IV. Giuliano was killed, brutally stabbed to death, but Lorenzo escaped with only a minor wound to the shoulder, having been defended by the poet Poliziano.[22] News of the conspiracy spread throughout Florence and was brutally put down by the populace through such measures as the lynching of the archbishop of Pisa and members of the Pazzi family who were involved in the conspiracy.[20]
In the aftermath of the Pazzi conspiracy and the punishment of supporters of Pope Sixtus IV, the Medici and Florence earned the wrath of the Holy See, which seized all the Medici assets that Sixtus could find, excommunicated Lorenzo and the entire government of Florence, and ultimately put the entire Florentine city-state under interdict.[23] When these moves had little effect, Sixtus formed a military alliance with King Ferdinand I of Naples, whose son, Alfonso, Duke of Calabria, led an invasion of the Florentine Republic, still ruled by Lorenzo.[24]
Lorenzo rallied the citizens. However, with little support from the traditional Medici allies in Bologna and Milan,[20] the war dragged on, and only diplomacy by Lorenzo, who personally traveled to Naples and became a prisoner of the king for several months, ultimately resolved the crisis. That success enabled Lorenzo to secure constitutional changes within the government of the Florentine Republic that further enhanced his own power.[18]
Thereafter, Lorenzo, like his grandfather Cosimo de’ Medici, pursued a policy of maintaining peace, balancing power between the northern Italian states and keeping major European states such as France and the Holy Roman Empire out of Italy. Lorenzo maintained good relations with Sultan Mehmed II of the Ottoman Empire, as the Florentine maritime trade with the Ottomans was a major source of wealth for the Medici.[25]
Efforts to acquire revenue from the mining of alum in Tuscany unfortunately marred Lorenzo’s reputation. Alum had been discovered by local citizens of Volterra, who turned to Florence to get backing to exploit this important natural resource. A key commodity in the glass-making, tanning and textile industries, alum was available from only a few sources under the control of the Ottomans and monopolized by Genoa before the discovery of alum sources in Italy at Tolfa. First the Roman Curia in 1462, and then Lorenzo and the Medici Bank less than a year later, got involved in backing the mining operation, with the pope taking a two-ducat commission for each cantar quintal of alum retrieved and ensuring a monopoly against the Turkish-derived goods by prohibiting trade in alum with infidels.[26] When they realized the value of the alum mine, the people of Volterra wanted its revenues for their municipal funds rather than having it enter the pockets of their Florentine backers. Thus began an insurrection and secession from Florence, which involved putting to death several opposing citizens. Lorenzo sent mercenaries to suppress the revolt by force, and the mercenaries ultimately sacked the city. Lorenzo hurried to Volterra to make amends, but the incident would remain a dark stain on his record.[27][28]
Lorenzo himself was an artist and wrote poetry in his native Tuscan. In his poetry, he celebrates life while acknowledging with melancholy the fragility and instability of the human condition, particularly in his later works. Love, feasts and light dominate his verse.[29]
Cosimo had started the collection of books that became the Medici Library (also called the Laurentian Library), and Lorenzo expanded it. Lorenzo’s agents retrieved from the East large numbers of classical works, and he employed a large workshop to copy his books and disseminate their content across Europe. He supported the development of humanism through his circle of scholarly friends, including the philosophers Marsilio Ficino, Poliziano and Giovanni Pico della Mirandola.[30] They studied Greek philosophers and attempted to merge the ideas of Plato with Christianity.
Apart from a personal interest, Lorenzo also used the Florentine milieuof fine arts for his diplomatic efforts. An example includes the commission of Ghirlandaio, Botticelli, Pietro Perugino and Cosimo Rosselli from Rome to paint murals in the Sistine Chapel, a move that has been interpreted as sealing the alliance between Lorenzo and Pope Sixtus IV.[30]
In 1471, Lorenzo calculated that his family had spent some 663,000 florins (about US$460 million today) on charity, buildings and taxes since 1434. He wrote,
« I do not regret this for though many would consider it better to have a part of that sum in their purse, I consider it to have been a great honour to our state, and I think the money was well-expended and I am well-pleased. »[31]
Marriage and children
Lorenzo by Pieter Paul Rubens (1612-1616), Museum Plantin-Moretus, Antwerp
Lorenzo married Clarice Orsini by proxy on 7 February 1469. The marriage in person took place in Florence on 4 June 1469. She was a daughter of Giacomo Orsini, Lord of Monterotondo and Bracciano by his wife and cousin Maddalena Orsini. Clarice and Lorenzo had 10 children, all except Contessina Antonia born in Florence:
Contessina Antonia Romola de’ Medici (1478-1515), born in Pistoia, married Piero Ridolfi (1467–1525) in 1494 and had five children, including Cardinal Niccolò Ridolfi
Lorenzo also adopted his nephew Giulio, the illegitimate son of his slain brother Giuliano. Giulio later became Pope Clement VII.
Detail of Domenico Ghirlandaio‘s Confirmation of the Franciscan Rule from the Sassetti Chapel frescos. Mounting the stairs in the forefront are the tutor of Lorenzo’s sons, Angelo Poliziano, and Lorenzo’s sons Giuliano, Piero and Giovanni, followed by two members of the Humanist Academy.
Later years, death, and legacy
During Lorenzo’s tenure, several branches of the family bank collapsed because of bad loans, and in later years he got into financial difficulties and resorted to misappropriating trust and state funds.
Toward the end of Lorenzo’s life, Florence came under the spell of Savonarola, who believed Christians had strayed too far into Greco-Roman culture. Lorenzo played a role in bringing Savonarola to Florence.[34]
A posthumous portrait of Lorenzo by Giorgio Vasari(16th century)
Lorenzo died during the late night of 8 April, at the longtime family villa of Careggi. Savonarola visited Lorenzo on his death bed. The rumour that Savonarola damned Lorenzo on his deathbed has been refuted in Roberto Ridolfi‘s book, Vita di Girolamo Savonarola. Letters written by witnesses to Lorenzo’s death report that he died peacefully after listening to the Gospel of the day. Many signs and portents were claimed to have taken place at the moment of his death, including the dome of Florence Cathedral being struck by lightning, ghosts appearing, and the lions kept at Via Leone fighting one another.[35]
The Signoria and councils of Florence issued a decree:
« Whereas the foremost man of all this city, the lately deceased Lorenzo de’ Medici, did, during his whole life, neglect no opportunity of protecting, increasing, adorning and raising this city, but was always ready with counsel, authority and painstaking, in thought and deed; shrank from neither trouble nor danger for the good of the state and its freedom….. it has seemed good to the Senate and people of Florence…. to establish a public testimonial of gratitude to the memory of such a man, in order that virtue might not be unhonoured among Florentines, and that, in days to come, other citizens may be incited to serve the commonwealth with might and wisdom. »[36]
Lorenzo was buried with his brother Giuliano in the Church of San Lorenzo in the red porphyrysarcophagus designed for Piero and Giovanni de’ Medici, not, as might be expected, in the New Sacristy, designed by Michelangelo. The latter holds the two monumental tombs of Lorenzo and Giuliano’s less known namesakes: Lorenzo, Duke of Urbino, and Giuliano, Duke of Nemours.[37] According to Williamson and others, the statues of the lesser Lorenzo and Giuliano were carved by Michelangelo to incorporate the essence of the famous men. In 1559, the bodies of Lorenzo de’ Medici (« the Magnificent ») and his brother Giuliano were interred in the New Sacristy in an unmarked tomb beneath Michelangelo’s statue of the Madonna.[37]
Lorenzo’s heir was his eldest son, Piero di Lorenzo de’ Medici, known as « Piero the Unfortunate ». In 1494, he squandered his father’s patrimony and brought down the Medici dynasty in Florence. His second son, Giovanni, who became Pope Leo X, retook the city in 1512 with the aid of a Spanish army.[38] In 1529, Lorenzo’s nephew Giulio – whom Lorenzo had raised as his own son and then reigned as Pope Clement VII – formalized Medici rule of Florence by installing Alessandro de’ Medici as the city’s first hereditary duke.[39]
Jump up^Janet Ross. « Florentine Palaces & Their Stories ». August 14, 2016. Page 250.
Jump up^Walter, Ingeborg (2013). « Lorenzo der Prächtige: Mäzen, Schöngeist und Tyrann » [Lorenzo the Magnificent: Patron, Aesthete and Tyrant]. Damals (in German). Vol. 45 no. 3. p. 32.
^ Jump up to:abcReinhardt, Volker (2013). « Die langsame Aushöhlung der Republik » [The Slow and Steady Erosion of the Republic]. Damals (in German). Vol. 45 no. 3. pp. 16–23.
Jump up^Guicciardini, Francesco (1964). History of Italy and History of Florence. New York: Twayne Publishers. p. 8.
^ Jump up to:abSchmidt, Eike D. (2013). « Mäzene auf den Spuren der Antike » [Patrons in the footsteps of Antiquity]. Damals (in German). 45 (3): 36–43.
Jump up^Brucker, G., ed. (1971). The Society of Renaissance Florence: A Documentary Study. New York: Harper & Row. p. 27.
Jump up^J.N.D. Kelly, The Oxford Dictionary of Popes (Oxford 1986), p. 256.
Jump up^Tomas, Natalie R. (2003). The Medici Women: Gender and Power in Renaissance Florence. Aldershot: Ashgate. p. 7,21. ISBN0754607771.
Jump up^Donald Weinstein, Savonarola the Rise and Fall of a Renaissance Prophet (New Haven, 2011) Chap 5: The Magnificent Lorenzo
Lorenzo de’ Medici, The Complete Literary Works, edited and translated by Guido A. Guarino (New York: Italica Press, 2016).
Miles J. Unger, Magnifico: The Brilliant Life and Violent Times of Lorenzo de’ Medici (Simon and Schuster 2008) is a vividly colorful new biography of this true « renaissance man », the uncrowned ruler of Florence during its golden age.
André Chastel, Art et Humanisme à Florence au temps de Laurent le Magnifique (Paris, 1959).
Christopher Hibbert, The House of Medici: Its Rise and Fall(Morrow-Quill, 1980) is a highly readable, non-scholarly general history of the family, and covers Lorenzo’s life in some detail.
F. W. Kent, Lorenzo de- Medici and the Art of Magnificence (The Johns Hopkins Symposia in Comparative History) (The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004) A summary of 40 years of research with a specific theme of Il Magnifico’s relationship with the visual arts.
Peter Barenboim, Michelangelo Drawings – Key to the Medici Chapel Interpretation (Moscow, Letny Sad, 2006) ISBN5-98856-016-4, is a new interpretation of Lorenzo the Magnificent’ image in the Medici Chapel.
Williamson, Hugh Ross, Lorenzo the Magnificent. Michael Joseph, London. (1974) ISBN0-7181-1204-0
Parks, Tim, Medici Money: Banking, Metaphysics, and Art in Fifteenth-Century Florence (W. W. Norton & Company 2005) ISBN0393328457, is a mixture of history and finance, documenting the logistics of Lorenzo and the Medici Banks
Historical novels
Robin Maxwell, Signora da Vinci (NAL Trade, 2009), a novel that follows Leonardo da Vinci’s mother, Caterina, as she travels to Florence to be with her son.
The painting originally formed the protective cover of the Portrait of Bernardo de’ Rossi, the bishop of Treviso who was Lotto’s patron at the time. When it was opened to display the portrait, the inscription (on the reverse of the Allegory) would have been revealed:
Inscription
English translation
BERNARD. RVBEVS
Bernardo Rossi
BERCETI COM. PONT
of Berceta, Papal Count [Bishop]
TARVIS. NAT.
of Treviso, age
ANN. XXXVI. MENS. X.D.V.
36 years, 10 months, 5 days,
LAVRENT.LOTVS P. CAL.
Painted by Lorenzo Lotto,
IVL. M.D.V.
July 1, 1505
The painting was brought to Parma when de’ Rossi fled Treviso, and there it became part of the Farnese collection, from which it was bought in 1803; after a series of different possessors, it arrived in the United States in 1935, and was donated to the current museum four years later.
Description
The painting is an allegoric scene with the bishop’s coat of arms lying on a tree in the center of the composition. The tree divides the latter in two parts corresponding to its two branches, one green and one dried. The former is associated to the allegory of Virtue, featuring a putto playing with books (a symbol of wisdom) and the symbols of the Liberal Arts.
The right half shows a drunk silenus, sleeping among the symbols of vice; to these, in the background, corresponds a valley with an easy access, but dark and including a forest, which is a symbol of getting lost without the divine light, as well as a boat sinking in a lake, a symbol of failure.
The theme is perhaps derived from an engraving by Albrecht Dürer, which also includes a similar tree with moral symbols.
Amico Aspertini (c. 1474 – 1552), also called Amerigo Aspertini, was an ItalianRenaissancepainter whose complex, eccentric, and eclectic style anticipates Mannerism. He is considered one of the leading exponents of the Bolognese School of painting.
Biography
He was born in Bologna to a family of painters (including Giovanni Antonio Aspertini, his father, and Guido Aspertini, his brother), and studied under masters such as Lorenzo Costa and Francesco Francia. He traveled to Rome with his father in 1496, and is briefly documented there again between 1500–1503, returning to Bologna thereafter and painting in a style influenced by Pinturicchio and Filippino Lippi (whose work the critic Roberto Longhi suggested [in Officina ferrarese, 1934] he may have seen in Florence before 1500). To his Roman years belong at least two collections of drawings, the « Parma Notebook » (Taccuino di Parma) and the Wolfegg Codex. In Bologna in 1504, he joined Francia and Costa in painting frescoes for the Oratory of Santa Cecilia next to San Giacomo Maggiore, a work commissioned by Giovanni II Bentivoglio.
In 1508-1509, while in exile from Bologna following the fall of the Bentivoglio family, Aspertini painted the splendid frescoes in the Chapel of the Cross in the Basilica di San Frediano in Lucca (a church, like the Oratory of Santa Cecilia, maintained by Augustinian friars). Aspertini was also one of two artists chosen to decorate a triumphal arch for the entry into Bologna of Pope Clement VII and Emperor Charles V in 1529.
He died in Bologna.
Giorgio Vasari describes Aspertini as having an eccentric personality: half-insane but ambidextrous, he worked so rapidly with both hands that he was able to divide chiaroscuro between them, painting chiarowith one hand and scuro with the other. Vasari also quotes Aspertini as complaining that all his Bolognese colleagues were copying Raphael. Aspertini also painted façade decorations (all now lost), and altarpieces, many of which are often eccentric and charged in expression. For example, his Bolognese Pietà appears to occur in an other-worldly electric sky.
Anthology of works
Adoration of the Shepherds – Staatliche Museen, Berlin
Adoration of the Shepherds (1515) – Uffizi, Florence[1]
Francis P. Smyth and John P. O’Neill (Editors in Chief) (1986). National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, ed. The Age of Correggio and the Carracci: Emilian Painting of the 16th and 17th Centuries. pp. 56–61.
Freedberg, Sydney J. (1993). Pelican History of Art, ed. Painting in Italy, 1500-1600. Penguin Books Ltd. pp. 404–409.
Seuls de rares documents permettent de reconstituer la vie du peintre. La date de naissance de l’artiste (1459 ou 1460) n’est pas établie, mais déduite des registres de Conegliano de 1473, qui mentionne un cimator (ouvrier drapier) nommé Joannes, mais est-ce lui, ou bien un ouvrier de son frère Antonio ? Joannes est un prénom courant. Si c’est bien le peintre, il devait avoir à ce moment quatorze ans, puisque c’est l’âge où il a commencé à payer des impôts, selon les lois de la ville.
On ne sait rien sur sa formation en peinture avant 1489, date de sa première œuvre qu’il signe et date (vierge à l’enfant entre saint Jérôme et saint Jacques). À ce moment-là, il vit à Venise où il est « maître », ce qui sous entend qu’il a son propre atelier avec au moins un apprenti.
Vasari dit de lui qu’il fut l’élève de Giovanni Bellini, qu’il est mort jeune et que sans cela il aurait probablement égalé son maître.
L’année 1494 voit quelques paiements effectués à l’artiste. Les autres paiements remontent à 1499, 1504 et 1510.
Entre 1500 et 1515, il a probablement vécu entre Venise et la région de l’Émilie. À Parme, Bologne, des œuvres lui ont été commandées pour les églises, comme la Vierge et l’Enfant, des saints Michel et André en 1505 et la Conversation sacrée en 1513.
Sa présence à Conegliano, où il a passé les étés, est documentée pour la dernière fois en 1516. Il meurt entre 1517-1518, probablement à Conegliano, où il existe aujourd’hui un musée Giovanni Battista Cima.
Le Couronnement de la Vierge v. 1490, huile sur toile, restauration en 1999. San Zanipolo Venise
Vierge à l’Enfant couronnés avec des saints et des saints patrons(Conversation sacrée avec les saints Sébastien, Jean-Baptiste, Madeleine, et Roch), v. 1490, huile sur toile, 301 × 211 cm, Pinacothèque de Brera, Milan
Vierge à l’Enfant avec les saints Jean-Baptiste et Nicolas de Tolentino, v. 1500, tempera et huile sur peuplier, 72,1 × 111,1 cm, Brooklyn Museum, New York
Présentation de la Vierge Marie au Temple, 1500, huile sur toile, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen de Dresde
Vierge à l’Enfant avec saint François et sainte Claire, 1510, Huile sur bois, 20,3 × 26,7 cm, Metropolitan Museum de New-York
Vierge à l’Enfant avec saint Georges et saint Jacques, 1510–1511, triptyque, huile sur toile, 114 cm × 52 cm et 110 cm × 39 cm, musée des beaux-arts de Caen
↑Augusto Gentili, « Giovanni Battista Cima da Conegliano », dans Giovanna Nepi Sciré, La Peinture dans les Musées de Venise, Paris, Editions Place des Victoires, (ISBN978-2-8099-0019-4), p. 150 à 157
Giorgione(/ˌdʒɔːrdʒiˈoʊneɪ, –ni/, US: /ˌdʒɔːrˈdʒoʊni/; Italian: [dʒorˈdʒoːne]; born Giorgio Barbarelli da Castelfranco; c. 1477/78–1510[2]) was an Italian painter of the Venetian school in the High Renaissance from Venice, whose career was ended by his death at a little over 30. Giorgione is known for the elusive poetic quality of his work, though only about six surviving paintings are affirmatively acknowledged to be his. The uncertainty surrounding the identity and meaning of his work has made Giorgione one of the most mysterious figures in European art.
Together with Titian, who was probably slightly younger, he founded the distinctive Venetian school of Italian Renaissance painting, which achieves much of its effect through colour and mood, and is traditionally contrasted with Florentine painting, which relies on a more linear disegno-led style.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). « Giorgione« . Encyclopædia Britannica. 12 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 31–33.
Le Finanze del Comune in Tempo di Pace e in Tempo di Guerra (1468), tavoletta di Biccherna, no 52 de la collection des archives de l’État de Sienne2 (attribuée par Bernard Berenson).
Madonna col Bambino, Collegiata di San Martino, Sinalunga,
L’Annonciation, 1466, tempera sur bois, 181 × 224 cm, Pinacoteca communale, Volterra, Italie3
Madonna della Misericordia, 1481, commandée pour la fondation de la Banque de Monte dei Paschi di Siena
La Mort de sainte Catherine
La Vierge et l’Enfant entre saint Bernardin et sainte Catherine de Sienne
Le Jugement de Pâris, sur un bouclier de parade
L’Adoration de l’Enfant avec saint Jérôme et saint François, Philbrook Museum of Art, Tulsa
The Quaratesi Polyptych is a painting by the Italian late medieval painter Gentile da Fabriano, now divided between several museums.
It was painted by the artist for the Quaratesi family’s chapel in the Church of San Niccolò Oltrarno, perhaps not a long time after the Strozzi Altarpiece. Today four of the five original compartments (including the painted cusp) are known, as well as some parts of the predella (which has scenes of the Life of St. Nicholas):
Madonna with Child and Angels with, in the cusp, Angels and a medallion of the Redeemer (central compartment), 139.9 x 83 cm, The Royal Collection, Hampton Court, stored at the National Gallery, London
St. Mary Magdalene, with cusp (left compartment), 200 x 60 cm, Uffizi, Florence
St. Nicholas of Bari, with cusp (left compartment), 200 x 60 cm, Uffizi, Florence
St. John the Baptist, with cusp (right compartment), 200 x 60 cm, Uffizi, Florence
St. George, with cusp (right compartment), 200 x 60 cm, Uffizi, Florence
Predella
Birth of St. Nicholas, 36.5 x 36.5 cm, Pinacoteca Vaticana, Rome
The Gift of St. Nicholas, 36.5 x 36.5 cm, Pinacoteca Vaticana, Rome
St. Nicholas Saving a Ship from the Tempest, 36.5 x 36.5 cm, Pinacoteca Vaticana, Rome
St. Nicholas Saves Three Youths from the Brine, 36.5 x 36.5 cm, Pinacoteca Vaticana, Rome
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Giacobbe Giusti 
