Objects of Devotion: The Material Culture of Italian Renaissance Piety, 1400–1600

An earthquake ravages a small town in central Italy. Catastrophic fissures rip through the buildings; desperate cries can be heard from those whose houses are collapsing; others try to attract attention by standing on rooftops and waving their hands but to no avail. Only one home stands firm while the buildings all around it crumble to the ground. Here, the Viadana family kneels in quiet prayer; husband, wife and four sons, all neatly attired and strikingly tranquil amid the chaos, appeal to their local saint, Nicholas of Tolentino.

This compelling image is preserved among the remarkable collection of ex votos at Tolentino, in the Marche region of central Italy: nearly 400 painted wooden boards, dating from the 15th to the 19th centuries, usually about a foot long and orientated horizontally, purchased or commissioned by those who had been granted a miracle thanks to the intervention of St Nicholas.

Ex voto means ‘in fulfilment of a vow’ and the idea was that when one prayed to the Virgin Mary or to the saints for a miracle one would promise to leave an offering in return for a favour granted. This is why, in Italy and in other Catholic countries, shrines are sometimes bursting with objects and pictures like this one, each recording the miraculous activities of God’s busiest saints.

I have been drawn to thinking about ex votos as part of my project on ‘Objects of Devotion: The Material Culture of Italian Renaissance Piety, 1400–1600’ funded by a Leverhulme Trust Major Research Fellowship. My research reacts against the common misconception of the Renaissance as a secular age, characterised by luxury, individualism, worldliness and scepticism.

Click here to read this article from Medievalists.net

Leonardo da Vinci: Bag Designer

Leonardo da Vinci (1452 - 1519) was an artist, inventor, scientist, architect, engineer, writer and even a musician. Now we know that he was also a fashion designer.

After several months of meticulous research, scholars have reconstructed some fragmented drawings of a unique bag designed by the Renaissance genius around 1497.

The sketch was first published in 1978 by Carlo Pedretti, a leading Da Vinci scholar, who identified it among the Atlantic Code's tens of thousands of drawings.

Overlooked for more than three decades, it has been reconstructed and reassembled by Agnese Sabato and Alessandro Vezzosi, director of the Museo Ideale in the Tuscan town of Vinci, where da Vinci was born in 1452.

"Leonardo designed several fashion accessories, but this bag is pretty unique. It blends beauty and functionality in a very harmonious way," Vezzosi told Discovery News in an exclusive interview.

Click here to read this article from Discovery News

Money and Beauty: Bankers, Botticelli and the Bonfire of the Vanities – new exhibition at the Palazzo Strozzi

Masterpieces by Botticelli, Beato Angelico, Piero del Pollaiolo, the Della Robbia family, Lorenzo di Credi and Memling – the cream of Renaissance artists – show how the modern banking system developed in parallel with the most important artistic flowering in the history of the Western world. Money and Beauty. Bankers, Botticelli and the Bonfire of the Vanities, on view at Palazzo Strozzi, Florence, from 17 September 2011 to 22 January 2012, explores the links between that unique interweave of high finance, economy and art, and the religious and political upheavals of the time.

The exhibition examines the birth of the modern banking system and the economic boom that it triggered, providing a reconstruction of European life and the continent’s economy from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance. Visitors will be able to delve into the daily life of the families that controlled the banking system and perceive the ongoing clash between spiritual and economic values. The story of the art patrons is closely linked to that of the bankers who financed the ventures of princes and nobles alike and, indeed, it was that very convergence that provided the climate in which some of the leading artists of all time were able to flourish.

Click here to read this article from Medievalists.net

500 years later, Michelangelo’s ‘greatest work of art’ may be completed

From the espresso-serving waiters to the floor of the Uffizi, Florence residents are hotly debating a suggestion by the mayor that the city should take over where Michelangelo left off five centuries ago and complete a façade for the famous San Lorenzo Basilica.

The great artist was commissioned in 1515 by Pope Leo X to build the front of the ornate church — one of the oldest in Florence — out of white marble from Carrara. But when the financial strain of buying and hauling the huge chunks of rock from northern Tuscany became apparent, the pope abandoned the project and assigned Michelangelo to work on another part of the church.

Construction on the façade was never initiated. A few sketches and a wood model are all that remain of Michelangelo’s 500-year-old plans.

Click here to read this article from the Toronto Star

Milan museum to test whether sketch is lost Leonardo da Vinci work

Peter Hohenstatt was skeptical at first, especially when he learned the drawing dated to about 1500.

The sketch was "absolutely Leonardesque," the University of Parma art historian thought, but it was probably the product of one of the master's students, imitators or admirers. When a technical exam showed the drawing originated closer to 1473, his skepticism waned.

The reason? Leonardo da Vinci was an apprentice until the late 1470s. He didn't have any students, imitators or admirers of his own yet. "I can't be sure it's a Leonardo drawing, not scientifically or any other way," said Hohenstatt, "but I'm highly convinced that we have here one of the first drawings. I'm quite convinced it's one of his first portrait sketches."

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Archives of Renaissance Artist Vasari almost sent to Russia

An odd story of the possible sale of the archives of a Renaissance artist to a mysterious Russian oligarch seems to be coming to an end with the Italian government seizing the archive for non payment of inheritance tax.

The sequence of events started in September when the mayor of Arezzo, Giuseppe Fanfani, received a letter from the owners of archival records of Giorgio Vasari, the 16th century Italian painter and architect famous for his history of Renaissance artists. The owners stated that a Russian company had agreed to buy the archives for 150 million euros.

The letter informed him that he could block the sale by matching the price supposedly offered by a Russian company. He was given 90 days to comply. “Madness,” said the mayor. “Where am I going to find €150m? That’s equivalent to five times the annual budget of the Arezzo council.”

As news of the possible sale drew widespread media attention, there were calls for the Italian government to step in and buy the archives, and avoid the possibility that they would be moved to Russia. Others pointed out that the €150 million price was massively over-inflated and suspected something underhanded in the whole affair.

A spokesperson for Italy's Culture Ministry spokesperson Giuseppe Proietti, said that "150 million euros is a preposterous sum of money well above the archives' market value." Milan's former culture chief and prominent art critic Vittorio Sgarbi added that archive was "worth 10 to 15 million euros, not 150 million."

These archives have been held at a museum in Arezzo since 1925, having been loaned to it by Count Luciano Rasponi-Spinelli. The Spinelli family and its descendants have claimed to keep ownership, although the museum believes it is on permanent loan to them.

To add to the intrigue, it was revealed that the Russian firm which had put the bid for the archives was not buying it for themselves, but were working on behalf of an unnamed Russian oligarch who had died in car accident on September 9th, and because of his death the deal was now null and void.  This led to more questions - Italian officials could find no records of any wealthy Russian oligarch who had died in or around that date, nor was their any explanation on why the deal was being brokered by a company that is normally involved in building shopping malls rather than a mainstream art brokerage.

Then, on October 17, the latest owner of the archives, Count Giovanni Festari, also died, leaving his inheritance to his four sons. They continued to pursue their claim to sell the archives, and even hinted that they wanted to get back some three volumes of Vasari's records which are located at a library in Yale University, alleging that they had been stolen decades earlier.

The Italian government has now acted - first by declaring even if the archives were sold, they could not be moved from the country. This was followed by an announcement that their tax collection agency had seized the Vasari archive for non-payment of an inheritance tax.

There has been much speculation that the alleged sale to the Russian oligarch was part of a scheme to trick the Italian government into buying the archives for far more than they were worth.  But it seems for now that Vasari's archives will be staying in Arezzo.

Giorgio Vasari (1511 – 1574) was born in Arezzo and was an accomplished artist - his paintings can be found in Florence's Duomo and Palazzo Vecchio, while he is also responsible for designing the Palazzo degli Uffizi, which is now the Tuscan city's most important art gallery. He is most well-known for his writings, which include The Lives of the Artists, an encyclopedia of artists biographies from the late Middle Ages and Renaissance.

His archives were discovered in 1908 and include 29 volumes of documents, including drawings, sonnets, and 17 letters written by Michaelangelo. They also include Vasari's correspondence with other important Italian figures such as Cosimo de Medici and Amerigo Vespucci.

The city of Arezzo is planning to celebrate the 500th year of Giorgio Vasari's birth
next year.