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Saida Bondini
A History of Families: Networks of Artistic Patronage in late fifteenth-century Bologna
This paper aims to investigate the interplay between social relationships and artistic patronage of
Bolognese patrician families during the last decades of the fifteenth century. In these years (1463-1506),
Bologna’s administration was de facto in the hands of the Bentivoglio family who, through a careful strategy
of political alliance and cultural promotion, managed to create and perpetuate the image of a rich and
powerful signoria. However, the family never officially acquired the title of signori of the city and their
authority strongly depended upon the support of the urban oligarchy who assumed a key position in the
city’s life.
My paper will explore the social and political interdependence between these two actors – the
Bentivoglio and the urban patriciate – in relation to the dynamic of local artistic patronage, questioning the
existence of a courtly system and revealing the establishment of a network of artistic exchanges defined by
social and familial associations. To this end, the paper will consider the circulation of architectural and
pictorial models among a group of noble families, starting with the commission of their private chapels in
the Augustinian church of Santa Maria della Misericordia.
Anna Merlini
A Journey through the Labyrinth of Symbols:
Retracing a Social Network across Achille Bocchi’s Symbolicae Quaestiones (1555)
This paper explores the theoretical and methodological implications of studying a 16th-century book of
emblems as the material embodiment of a social network. The discussion focuses on Symbolicae
Quaestiones by the Bolognese scholar Achille Bocchi, published in 1555 and 1574, and illustrated with
engravings based on the drawings of Prospero Fontana.
Through the flexible, multi-layered language of emblematics, Bocchi intertwined public and private scope.
While broadly discussing religion, philosophy and ethics, many of his emblems were dedicated to
colleagues and patrons, attesting personal acquaintance with specific biographical allusions. As well as
summarising Bocchi’s intellectual activity, the book also provides a reflexive account of the construction of
his identity through the weaving of social relationships.
The Quaestiones were also meant to function as an inanimate, concise reproduction of the
environment of Accademia Hermathena, founded by Achille Bocchi. Emblems were well-suited to convey
the elitary nature and aims of this intellectual circle: their hermetic structure, decipherable by those who
were familiar with the cultural framework of the academy, solidified group ties by separating insiders from
outsiders.
Bocchi’s emblems were not simply visual and textual representations; they were intentionally created to
perform certain actions as they circulated, shaping and reproducing an interpersonal network around
author and reader. Their study requires an interdisciplinary analytical framework encompassing both
humans and artistic products within a common notion of agency. The book can thus emerge as a virtual
space for the encounter of individuals, facilitated by emblems that operated as “delegates” of the self in
symbolic form.
Wouter Wagemakers
Visualizing patterns of patronage in sixteenth-century Verona: Michele Sanmicheli and the Roman connection
The end of the War of the League of Cambrai (1508-1517) marked the beginning of a new era for the
inhabitants of Verona, during which the city emerged at the vanguard of architectural innovation. The
architect Michele Sanmicheli – born and raised in Verona, but trained in the surroundings of Bramante and
the Sangallo family in papal Rome – is regarded as the one to have set this process in motion, but how he
was able to effect this change and achieve many great works in a relatively short time is up for debate. In
this paper I will make a new suggestion as to why Sanmicheli received several commissions immediately
upon arrival in Verona and argue that his contacts from Rome were essential in obtaining work at a time
when he had nothing but drawings and models to show for his talent.
The aim of this paper is to visualise the patterns of patronage that underpin Sanmicheli’s early
successes in Verona, and to show the mechanisms at work behind the quick embrace of an innovative
style that was viewed by the community as alien to local customs and traditions. Simultaneously, by
visualising these patronage networks, it becomes evident that Sanmicheli’s buildings were used by his
patrons as instruments to manifest power and denote a social identity independent of the governments
that ruled the city during and after the war.
Marina Porri
Marriage portraits as political networking:
the Medici court at the end of the sixteenth century
In 1621, Peter Paul Rubens was commissioned by Maria de' Medici to realize an encomiastic cycle in the
Luxembourg Palace. Highly praised for her humanistic culture and passionate devotion as an ideal mother
and wife, Maria was represented by the Flemish painter during the major steps of her rise to power. One
of the paintings, in particular, shows a train of angels and divinities while presenting to an astonished Henri
IV the portrait of his bride-to-be.
The literary motif of lovers burning with passion before the portrait dates back to the ancient world, but
it is from the fifteenth century onwards that the use of portraits in marriage negotiations rose gradually
into the European courtly life, turning in a short time into an outstanding instrument of political strategies.
This ritual exchange of paintings, which usually took place between the bride- and the groom-to-be
at some point before the marriage, has not yet been extensively studied by scholars, especially with
respect to what concerns its ceremonial and political dimension. Focusing on the Medici dynasty in a
period of time between the 1580s and the beginning of the following century, the paper will thus discuss
marriage portraits in their function of weaving social and political relationships. Commissioned, exchanged
and displayed for dynastic purposes, indeed, painted portraits fulfiled the task of visualizing family ties,
turning themselves into a political message for others.
Maria Gabriella Matarazzo
The Plinian Monuments in Como: Classical Antiquity as Municipal Identity
On the facade of Como's Cathedral one can admire the imposing monuments dedicated in 1498 to two of
the most famous authors of Ancient Rome: Pliny the Elder and Pliny the Younger, according to the
tradition both born in Como. Despite the high quality of these statues, scholars focused only on the
attributive problem so far, discussing whether Tommaso Rodari's paternity has to be confirmed or
confuted. Still now, no study has ever attempted a general understanding of the iconography of the
monuments that this paper aims to interpret as a visual manifestation of Como’s civic pride and as an
attempt to strengthen the bounds within the community celebrating its ancient illustri cives.
I will argue that the idiosyncratic presence of two pagan figures on the facade of the Cathedral is
allowed by the social cohesion that it can establish, modeling the common identity on the glorious history
of the town. The visual strategies that perform this public purpose will be the main focus: if the ex
cathedra pose signifies the dignity of the Plinys, the allocutive gestures actively engage the viewer into a
dialogue, so that the community can be inspired by the wisdom of their ancient fellow citizens to the
pursuit of virtue and common good. Moreover, the political meaning of the decorative elements and the
dedicatory inscriptions, working as cartoons, connote the monuments as talking statues directly
addressing the public.
These evidences will demonstrate how the monuments structured the identity of XVth century
Como in a political sense, especially against the rival - and more powerful - Milan. Besides, to erect a
monument to the most famous ancient author was typical in humanistic Italy, as Panofsky pointed out in
his “Renaissance and Renascences” about Virgil and Mantua. Yet, it’s worth it to verify this general
phenomenon on the Plinys case since, I believe, it casts a new light on the late XVth century humanistic
milieu in Como, neglected by scholars but fundamental for the contextualization of Paolo Giovio, whose
Museo has been mostly interpreted with regards to its legacy but scarcely to its local precedents.
Luca Baroni
Urbino to Europe: Federico Barocci’s artistic and diplomatic network as visualized in his paintings
This lecture will focus on the activity of the urbinate painter Federico Barocci (Urbino 1533-1612) and on
his way to represent the Duchy of Urbino’s cultural, social and political links in his paintings.
When Barocci left Rome for his small hometown, in 1563, it seemed that his promising artistic
career was irremediably compromised. By 1590, however, he had managed to become the most soughtafter artist in Europe, adulated by popes, kings and emperors and well known from Southern Italy up to
Flanders, where his paintings were engraved and circulated. This was made possible thanks to a wellbalanced agreement between Barocci, an independent and emancipated painter, and his lord, Francesco
Maria II della Rovere, Duke of Urbino. When the economical and military importance of his small duchy
started to decline, the Duke staked on the traditional urbinate excellence in art, sciences and artisanship
as a means to increasing international prestige. During the second half of the sixteenth century, his
mathematicians, military engineers and manufactures became the most renowned in Europe. When
Barocci resettled in Urbino, the Duke started to promote and manage the commissions for his great
altarpieces through the State Chancellery, using them as diplomatic favours, thereby increasing his own
prestige and the painter’s international fame.
This lecture will try to reconstruct this well-thought gear through a parallel reading of the Della
Rovere’s diplomatic correspondence and Barocci’s major paintings, whose recognizable urbinate settings
represented the most striking visual evidence of the small state’s diplomatical, political and social
relationships.
Maria Harvey
‘ + Eνταυθα εστιν η καππελλα τ[ης] … α[γιας] Kατ[ερινας]’: art and community in fifteenth-century Salento.
The aim of this paper is to discuss how the relationship between Greek- and Latin-rite communities
informed the fresco decoration of the Franciscan church of Santa Caterina at Galatina, in Salento, Italy.
Raimondo del Balzo Orsini (d. 1406), Prince of Taranto in 1399, founded Santa Caterina in 1385. Thirty
years later, his widow Maria d'Enghien (d. 1446), who had since become Queen of Naples through her
marriage to King Ladislaus (d. 1414), commissioned the fresco decoration (ca.1415-23). The foundation
Bull for Santa Caterina clearly states that Raimondo’s aim was to provide mass in Latin for those who did
not speak Greek, the predominant language. Scholars have interpreted this as evidence that Raimondo and
Maria, part of the Franco-Italian aristocracy, were converting the population to Latin Christianity. I argue,
however, that this view needs to be nuanced, and that a framework that allows for fluidity and fuzziness is
more appropriate and beneficial.
I will address only in passing the issue of an earlier Greek chapel incorporated in the structure - its
existence possibly indicated by the Greek inscription on the façade quoted in the title -, focusing instead
on the frescoes. The main piece of evidence is the depiction of the Sacraments and Triumph of the Church,
clearly modelled on those by Roberto d’Oderisio in the Incoronata in Naples. The only exceptions are the
depictions of the Marriage and Baptism scene, the former probably resembling rituals described in
12th/13th century Salentine euchologia and the latter depicting baptism by immersion. The choice to deviate
from models is always meaningful, but here even more so as the frescoes serve as a counterpart to the
Papal Bull, revealing a more complex network between the Greek- and Latin-rite communities than
previously described.
Rebekah Helen Lee
By the Book: Dynastic and Corporal Network Building in the Arenberg Family Portrait Album c. 1600
Preserved within the Arenberg family archive in a small town outside Brussels is a remarkable leather
bound album. It is isolated within the archives as no documentation survives to suggest who made it,
commissioned it or why. Produced c1600, the album is made up of eighteen watercolour miniatures
depicting two generations of the Arenberg and Croy families. Each portrait is intricately detailed and
vibrantly coloured. They take a ¾ length format, emulating the pictorial conventions of much larger
courtly oil paintings found on display in the semi pubic spaces of aristocratic portrait galleries.
Despite the rich scholarship on miniature painting in sixteenth-century Netherlands and a growing
body of work on album amicorum produced in the region, the portrait book has been overlooked. Up until
now, the images have predominantly been used on an individual level as cheerful illustrations for
publications on regional or family history. However, when the album is examined as a whole, it forms a
complex and multifaceted social network. Indeed, as this paper will argue, the album should be understood
as a sophisticated network-building device. It worked to join many bodies through the engagement of one.
The format, materiality and arrangement of the painted miniatures work in unison to generate the
dynastic network they display, creating a scaffolding of relationships around a central portrait. The subject
of this portrait, Anne de Croy, would have directly encountered and engaged with it on a personal level.
It can be argued that, by turning the pages back and forth in a process of quiet reading, Anne could
visualise and internalise her place and purpose within the dynastic community, ultimately mirroring the
social network it conveyed.
Anastazja Grudnicka
The (Un)Making of the Habsburg Dynasty: Visual Representations of Matthias Habsburg in the Dutch Provinces
(1577-1581)
When Matthias Habsburg first arrived in the Netherlands in 1577, he was, by all definitions, an outsider.
The young Archduke was a stranger to the Dutch Provinces, their culture and politics, and his
appointment as governor of the Netherlands, which was instigated without the approval of his brother and
sovereign, the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II, made Matthias in the eyes of his family and European elites
a dissent and a renegade to the dynasty’s values. Matthias’s status as an ‘outsider’ found its striking
manifestation in his visual representations in 1577-1581. Whilst his immediate predecessors and
successors in the Dutch Provinces lavishly employed Habsburg iconography, stressing their dynastic
allegiance, Matthias’s self-fashioning was devoid of such symbolism. In forgoing the use of his dynastic
devices, Matthias was a maverick not only among Habsburgs, but also European dynasts. By analysing the
ways in which Matthias’s visual representations calibrated the use of the Habsburg devices, I shall argue
that dynastic iconography was not only instrumental in forging and cultivating social relationships, but was
also indicative of underlying intellectual pluralism within a seemingly uniform dynastic ideology. By
analysing the aesthetic of Matthias’s visual representations, their content, and the context in which they
were forged and displayed, this paper explores how a sense of belonging to a community was forged,
articulated, and fostered as well as illuminates the ways in which different corporate, familial, and regional
identities intersected, existed along, and competed with one another.
Ann Adams
Perpetual membership: The fifteenth-century tombs of the Knights of the Order of the Golden Fleece
Founded in 1430 by Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, the Order of the Golden Fleece was an exclusive
chivalric order, limited initially to 24 members and extended to 30 in 1433. Its stated purpose was ‘…the
reverence of God and the maintenance of our Christian Faith, and to honour and exalt the noble order of
knighthood…’; in practice, it created a network that served to bind together the growing and diverse
parts of the Duke’s domains. Membership of the Order was signified by the grant of a gold collar which
members were required to wear at all times and which invariably appeared in their portraits. On death,
the collar was to be returned to the Order for use by the knight’s successor. Some, but not all, funerary
monuments of members of the Order include a representation of the collar indicating that its presence
(or not) was a positive choice, not solely a conventional expression of status and one which, in a highly
visual culture, would have conveyed meaning to the viewer. In unpicking that meaning, materials and
iconography are important, as well as the specific historical and social context. Case studies, including
Philippe Pot, Sénéchal of Burgundy, John, Duke of Cleves, Jean de Melun, Seigneur of Antoing, and Jean of
Luxembourg, bastard of St-Pol, reveal not only the post-mortem significance of the Order, but the
interplay with familial networks and other allegiances.
Sara Frier
So sah ich als Soldat aus (“This is how I looked as a soldier”): The Mercenary-Artists of Renaissance Switzerland
Warfare is a contest of mobilized belligerent networks. In sixteenth-century Europe, ongoing bids for
political dominion primarily required access to human bodies—collective manpower—for infantry-based
combat. The famed mercenary foot-soldiers of the Swiss Confederation (Reisläufer) served the foreign
courts as skilled economic migrants, gaining a reputation for bravery, a love of outlandish fashion, and
apolitical, self-serving ruthlessness. As an ambivalent avatar of Swiss male identity, the Reisläufer occupied a
highly prominent yet unstable position in the visual culture of their homeland. On one hand, they served
as ubiquitous civic mascots, appearing as heraldic device-bearers in stained-glass Wappenscheiben and
public architecture.
Yet the Reislaufer’s body was more than a static iconography. This paper will argue in favor of a
deeper connection between artistic and mercenary labor, turning to a shared language of violent physical
force (gewalt) expressed primarily in the private, manual medium of drawing. Having served in both
professions, the Swiss artists Niklaus Manuel Deutsch (c. 1584-1530) and Urs Graf (c. 1485-1523) explore
mercenary identity through the process of picture-making. Wielding the sword and the pen, banner and
paper, they show that the laboring body can be an instrument of both service and subversion for the
larger networks that employ it. The graphic mark expresses these potentials.
Elizabeth Bernick
Mapping Cesare da Sesto: A Placeless Style
Within his lifetime, Cesare da Sesto (1477-1523) belonged to two of the most illustrious artistic
“communities” in Italy: he had direct access to Leonardo da Vinci’s workshop in Milan, and he worked
alongside Raphael in the Vatican. Yet, his modern reception has been plagued by assumptions that he does
not “belong” anywhere. Cesare was an itinerant artist who traveled the length of the Italian peninsula
twice, working in locations as disparate as Milan and Messina. As this paper will argue, however, Cesare
shrewdly marketed himself as an artist with direct personal and stylistic ties to Leonardo da Vinci and
Raphael, able to imitate and combine each of their styles into one, hybrid style that nevertheless carried
“markers” of Cesare’s membership in Leonardo and Raphael’s social milieus.
This paper will therefore explore how, for Cesare, designations that place him in groups such as
“school of Raphael” and “the Leonardeschi” function not just as stylistic catch-alls, but as social
constructions as well. This, in turn, has influenced the way art history categorizes and explains artists like
Cesare, who lived and produced art along a “stylistic network.”
In many ways, Cesare existed outside traditional social networks such as the workshop, the
academy, or the patronage of one individual. He was never formally trained under any one master, and
what little we know of his patrons runs the gamut from Pope Julius II, to Cardinal Carafa, to a small
monastery outside of Naples, to the secular elite of Milan. The one consistency seems to be his
connection to the style of Leonardo and Raphael, but styles are by definition not bound to any one time,
place, or social network. They travel. As Cesare’s art demonstrates, one of the Leonardeschi can be
operating in Sicily, just as the “school of Raphael” can be transplanted to Milan.