Title: Vasari’s <i>Ritratto di sei poeti toscani:</i> A Visible Literary History
Abstract: Vasari’s Ritratto di sei poeti toscani: A Visible Literary History1 Deborah Parker (bio) Giorgio Vasari’s Ritratto di sei poeti toscani, a painting rich in literary implications, illustrates six of Tuscany’s most distinguished poets engaged in animated discussions, surrounded by books and instruments of learning (fig. 1). While earlier studies have stressed the importance of viewing the painting’s significance in terms of sixteenth-century cultural debates, the delineation of the issues involved has tended to be rather general. This essay seeks to clarify and further illuminate the complex of literary and cultural issues reflected in Vasari’s painting. In the choice of sitters and their arrangement, Vasari and his patron collaborated upon an invenzione that offers a remarkably sophisticated and self-conscious account of literary preeminence and genealogy. The subject or invenzione of the painting was likely suggested by Luca Martini, a distinguished figure in the court of Cosimo I. Martini commissioned the painting from Vasari on 10 July 1543, and the work was completed by September of 1544. Martini was one of the most active promoters of intellectual and cultural exchange between artists and writers in Florence: he helped Benedetto Varchi procure contributions for the Due lezzioni, a treatise on the paragone between sculpture and painting, and he was a well-known patron of the arts. Martini commissioned the first artistic work on a single episode from the Commedia, Pierino da Vinci’s 1548 relief of the death of Ugolino [End Page S204] della Gherardesca and his sons. Martini’s interest in Dante was not confined to commissioning works based on the Commedia; he was also a keen student of the poem. In 1546, along with Benedetto Varchi and three other Florentine letterati, Martini compared the 1515 Aldine edition of the poem to seven early manuscripts of the Commedia. Many of their findings are recorded in the marginal annotations of a 1515 Aldine now in the Biblioteca Nazionale Braidense in Milan. Dante’s prominence in Vasari’s painting doubtless reflects the high estimation with which Martini and his circle regarded the poet. Click for larger view View full resolution Fig. 1. Giorgio Vasari, Ritratto di sei poeti toscani. Minneapolis Institute of Art. The Ritratto di sei poeti toscani emerges at a pivotal moment in the history of Dante’s reception—in the mid-sixteenth century when Petrarch’s reputation was on the ascent. We can best place the different [End Page S205] literary relations depicted in the painting in context by recalling some of the most pungent comments made by Pietro Bembo—the leading arbiter of literary matters in the sixteenth century—on the Commedia.2 Bembo advocated specific literary models—Petrarch and Boccaccio—and discouraged others, namely Dante. In Bembo’s eyes, Dante’s incorporation of Latinisms and Provençal words, and his discussion of “le bassissime e le vilissime cose” made the Commedia an unsuitable linguistic model.3 In an often quoted comparison, he likened Dante’s combination of lofty and unseemly expressions to un bello e spazioso campo di grano, che sia tutto d’avene e di logli e d’erbe sterili e dannose mescolato, o ad alcuna non potata vite al suo tempo, la quale si vede essere poscia la state sì di foglie e di pampini e di viticci ripiena, che se ne offendono le belle uve.4 For Bembo, Petrarch’s refined lyricism, free of indecorous sentiment, was an ideal model for emulation. The literary activities of the Accademia Fiorentina, of which Luca Martini was a member, illustrate the extent to which Bembo’s promotion of Petrarch influenced literary circles throughout Italy. The Accademia’s statutes encouraged members to “leggere, esporre, sonetti o altre composizioni del Petrarca, o d’alcuno altro lodato toscano componitore”.5 While explication of Petrarch’s poetry occupied much of the group’s attention, many lectures were also devoted to the explication of the Commedia. In November 1541, for example, members heard both Gismondo Martelli’s exposition of Petrarch’s sonnet Una candida cerva sopra l’erba and Pier Francesco Giambullari’s lecture on the site of Dante’s mountain of Purgatory. Hence, while elsewhere in Italy men and women of letters tended to follow...
Publication Year: 2012
Publication Date: 2012-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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Cited By Count: 2
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