Thursday, March 09,

Book:"The Cabinet of Eros"- Studiolo of Isabella d'Este-The Mythological Image- Important Renaissance Artistic Genre

The ANNOTICO Report

It amazes me, it astounds me, and it offends me that the period from the fourteenth through the sixteenth centuries, when Italy was responsible for far more cultural contributions than ALL other European countries combined, should be called the Renaissance instead of more correctly, the Rinascimento (rebirth). The Rinascimento was the bedrock foundation of Western Civilization.  

Because English has been  the predominate language world wide of the most powerful countries, England and the US, for the last 200 years, the Rinascimento is largely attributed to England, and because of the "snooty" factor, and much LATER French contributions, was "dubbed" the Renaissance. :(

The Middle Ages featured Feudal/Serf relationships and the Black Death, (Bubonic Plague). 25 million people died in just under five years between 1347 and 1352, one third of Europe's population.

During the Rinascimento, Europe emerged from the economic stagnation of the Middle Ages and experienced a time of financial growth. Also, more importantly, the era was an age in which artistic, social, scientific, and political thought turned in new directions.

The financial growth sprung from trade and commerce, that started with the Italian coastal cities, that were the crossroads of trade with China, and became centers for the culture and education that ensued. Florence was one of the cities that exemplified these new trends, whose wealth was based on business, unlike  other important cities of Italy that had noble families resulting from land holdings.

Using the term Renaissance FALSELY conveys that France was the principal contributor, an illusion that most people readily and easily accept.

Was it Einstein that said: "History is a Myth repeated" !!!

The Cabinet of Eros

Renaissance Mythological Painting and the Studiolo of Isabella d'Este

Review by Nicola Giacomo Aluigi Giuseppe Linza

for Yale University Press

Highly recommended

The work of Italian artists and craftsman has always been renowned for being executed to the highest level quality standards of artistic vision, materials, as well as workmanship. The Italian court work of the fifteenth century, especially that of the studiolo as expressed at Villa d'Este for Isabella d'Este marks a period which remains unsurpassed.

Stephen Campbell’s scholarly volume "Renaissance Mythological Painting and the Studiolo of Isabella d'Este" published by Yale University Press seeks out the history of such special commissioned spaces. Campbell's work is important as he studies and presents the studiolo and goes far beyond convention to the social history and purposes of such specific and personal luxurious spaces.

This volume will be of particular interest to Italians in Italy and abroad, especially interior decorators, designers, and architects. There will also be particular interest to Italian social historians, non-Italians in the fields, and those whose work encompasses art history of the period.

Feb 20, 2006 Release

Stephen Campbell; With an Appendix by Clifford M. Brown

The Renaissance studiolo  was a space devoted in theory to private reading and contemplation, but at the Italian courts of the fifteenth century, it had become a space of luxury, as much devoted to displaying the taste and culture of its occupant as to studious withdrawal. The most famous studiolo  of all was that of Isabella d’Este, marchioness of Mantua (1474–1539). A chief component of its decoration was a series of seven paintings by some of the most noteworthy artists of the time, including Andrea Mantegna, Pietro Perugino, Lorenzo Costa, and Correggio. 

These paintings encapsulated the principles of an emerging Renaissance artistic genre—the mythological image. Using these paintings as an exemplary case, and drawing on other important examples made by Giorgione in Venice and by Titian and Michelangelo for the Duke of Ferrara, Stephen Campbell explores the function of the mythological image within a Renaissance culture of reade! rs and collectors.

Stephen J. Campbell is professor of history of art at Johns Hopkins University and author of Cosmи Tura of Ferrara: Style, Politics and the Renaissance City, 1450-1495, published by Yale University Press. Clifford Malcolm Brown, now retired, was professor of history of art at Carleton University, Ottawa.