Hollow Men: Writing, Objects, and Public Image in Renaissance Italy 9780823252183

Citation preview

H ol l ow M e n

This page intentionally left blank

Hollow Men writing, objects, and public image in r ena issance ita ly

susa n g ay l a r d

❁

Fordham University Press, New York, 2 0 13

this book is made possible by a collaborative grant from the andrew w. mellon foundation.

Copyright © 2013 Fordham University Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher. Fordham University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party Internet websites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. Fordham University Press also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available from the publisher. Printed in the United States of America 15 14 13

54321

First edition

❁ To the memory of Professor Nelia Saxby (1945–2010), founder and chair of Italian at the University of Cape Town

This page intentionally left blank

Contents

Acknowledgments ix

i. monuments, imitation, and the noble ide al in e ar ly r enaissance italy Introduction: Reinventing Nobility? Artifacts and the Monumental Pose from Petrarch to Platina 1 1. How to Perform Like a Statue: Ghirlandaio, Pontano, and Exemplarity 31 2. From Castrated Statues to Empty Colossi: Emasculation vs. Monumentality in Bembo, Castiglione, and the Sala Paolina 64 ii. print monuments, exposure, and str ategies of concealment 3. Banishing the Hollow Man: Print, Clothing, and Aretino’s Emblems of Truth 123 4. Heroes with Damp Brains? Image vs. Text in Printed Portrait-Books 160 5. Silenus Strategies: The Failure of Personal Emblems 227 Afterword 287 Notes 295 Works Cited 335 Index 359

This page intentionally left blank

Acknowledgments

It is difficult to express my thanks sufficiently to the large numbers of

people who made this book possible. My most immediate debt is to the community of early modern scholars at the University of Washington, and in particular Stuart and Estelle Lingo, whose thoughtful critiques and art historical expertise were integral to shaping the project. Special thanks are also due to Donald Gilbert-Santamaría, Marshall Brown, Louisa Mackenzie, Albert Sbragia, Ben Schmidt, Geoffrey Turnovsky, and Rebecca Wilkin, who critiqued multiple drafts and offered advice and encouragement at critical moments. Ann Rosalind Jones and Walter Stephens provided extraordinarily generous and timely comments on the entire manuscript. Extensive feedback on individual chapters was contributed by Angela Matilde Capodivacca, Aileen Feng, Lisa Regan, Hannah Wojciehowski, and Brandon Jones—who also offered generous and patient aid with Latin translations. Lina Bolzoni and Sergio Zatti inspired me to do the research on Tasso and emblems that started the project, and without the initial encouragement of Timothy Hampton and Trevor Murphy, the project would have died an early death. A conversation with Giovanna Rizzarelli led to the creation of Chapter 4—research for which was generously funded by a Newberry Library fellowship. The Royalty Research Fund of the University of Washington supported extended archival research in Europe, and two grants each from Modern Language Quarterly and the Center for Western European Studies at the University of Washington allowed for investigations without which later research would have

Acknowledgments x

been impossible. Staff at the Biblioteca Angelica, the Biblioteca Casanatense, the British Library, the Newberry Library, the Whiteley Center at Friday Harbor, and the University of Washington Libraries were supremely helpful. For their timely and practical help I am eternally indebted to Katie Warrener, Lane Eagles, Risa Pavia, Sonia Steinberg, Erin Tindell, Jenny Allen, Megan Miller, Jessica Kamin, Brian Dionisi, and Sarala Puthuval. My writing group—Andreá Williams, Ilya Parkins, Swati Mukerjee, Lisa Dilling, and Melanie Marshall—made me finish the book, while other friends and colleagues helped in myriad ways: in Seattle, Christine Goettler, Alex Hollmann, Jennifer Keene, Sandra Kroupa, Leigh Mercer, Gina Neff, Cindy Perry, Deb Raftus; in Italy, Monica Bilotta, Peter Ciaccio, Elisa Curti, Chiara de Lena, Fulvio Ferrario, Valerie Hoagland, Cecilia Pasero, Leone Porciani, Eva Valvo; in London, Florian Mussgnug and Lloyd Perry. My parents bravely supported the move to America, and never once suggested that Italian Renaissance studies was an odd career choice. To Albert Ascoli, without whose unfailing guidance, support, and sense of humor no part of my graduate career—or the subsequent long haul that led to this book—would have been possible, I can only say grazie. There are no words with which to thank sufficiently Andrew Donovan, whose courage and sense of humor accompanied me on this long and unexpected adventure.

introduction

Reinventing Nobility? Artifacts and the Monumental Pose from Petrarch to Platina

The Florentine church of San Lorenzo is famous for Michelangelo’s

Medici chapel (1519–34), whose main point of interest is the elaborate tomb monuments to Giuliano and Lorenzo. Each year, thousands of tourists visit the site to pay their respects to Michelangelo and gaze at the large statues of two good-looking young princes. Many visitors do not notice the masks displayed prominently on the men’s armor, next to the statue of Night, and in the decorative frieze around the room; and most visitors are unaware that the statues were not designed to depict either man with any kind of visual accuracy. Michelangelo is reputed to have said—apparently with great prescience—“in a thousand years, nobody will know that they looked any different.”1 Although statues like these were seen as exalting the person commemorated, it has frequently been observed that in the early Renaissance, images of people were considered not so much imitations of reality as a part of “reality” itself.2 The separation of this kind of representation from “real” reality is part of the story of this book, as this separation occurred alongside and contributed to a rhetorical stance that I call the monumental pose—a pose that demanded and authorized an outward projection of authority, which might or might not coincide with some inner sentiment. The Medici tombs are useful in opening this discussion, as tourists gaze not on true-to-life funerary portraits, but rather on what Stephen Campbell has called “ideal heroic bodies.” These ideal figures are linked with a series of prominently placed masks or larvae, a word that could also translate as “phantasms”

Monuments, Imitation, and the Noble Ideal

2

or “ghosts.”3 The conventions of tomb sculpture required an idealized effigy of the young princes; Michelangelo, in taking this demand one step further and adding masks that suggest hollowness while emphasizing the artifice involved in crafting these ideal bodies, opened up a gap—much discussed by his contemporaries—between the visual evidence (the tomb sculptures) and the original point of reference (the actual physiognomy of two young men). Although facial features are clearly sculpted, and although (or perhaps because) clothing is so closely molded to the body that it is difficult to distinguish clothing from skin, there are no inscriptions anywhere and the monument is thus self-consciously a simulacrum, a self-referential hollow surface that is more a celebration of art than of the young men themselves.4 Although Michelangelo’s point may have been (as Campbell has argued) a valorization of artifice and surface, of the “undivinity” of art in general and of his own art in particular, the idealized heroic bodies and the ironic mask-like nature of the entire monumentalizing program reflect a far broader and growing sense of contradiction between the will to self-monumentalize (on the part of the elite), and the need to create an enduring, monumentalizing image that was unique but flexible enough to adapt to changing circumstances. The Medici tombs— with their lack of inscribed dates and names, and their idealizing, nonmimetic statues—exemplify these competing demands.5 Given the tombs’ emphasis on beautiful surface rather than specific historical referent, they also illustrate tensions between the interests of those who commission monuments, and those who make them—who likewise want to “self-monumentalize.” In order to situate the Medici tombs in some kind of context, we should go back in time to consider this need to “self-monumentalize.” Dante was famously preoccupied with the problem of how a man eternalizes himself (“come l’uom s’etterna”; Inferno 15.85)—an issue that imposed conflicting pressures on men of letters, artists, and their patrons in early modern Italy. On the one hand, a successful literary man was expected to maximize his social and political status and to follow the example of active virile writers like Cicero. Learning from his reading, he was to perform and to write, to make himself into a monument by creating an outward identity for himself and rendering

Introduction

3

himself part of a permanent cultural patrimony. On the other hand, precisely because social status was changing, and the place of the literary man was not secure at the emerging Italian courts, men were forced to adapt to changing circumstances. Following the example of historical figures became problematic, as a new awareness of the passage of history and a sense of inevitable distance from the past contributed to a gradual move away from the use of great exemplars in humanist teaching.6 As we shall see, early modern Italian writers tended to conceive of personal and familial glory in a particularly concrete way—a perception at variance with the new imperative to mold oneself to changing circumstances. The quest for an eternity guaranteed by monumentality generated what I call the “monumental pose”: the self-conscious projection of an image derived from the ideal of visually comprehensible and reproducible exemplars. Since this ideal, however, revealed an “interior” to the subject that was seen as suspect, effeminizing, or both, it needed to be recast as monumental and masculine. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the contradictory requirements to be both monumental and flexible frequently opened up a gap between exterior “surface” and interior “character”—a gap instantiated (intentionally or not) in the Medici chapel masks. The question of “interior” and “exterior” has been usefully examined by John Martin, who shows that the tension between the emerging sixteenth-century concept of sincerity and the changing idea of prudence (newly divorced from ethics) resulted in a more complex sense of the “individual,” also called the “modern subject.”7 The new attention given to a person’s “interior” as distinct from his or her external behavior is also related to the failure of exemplarity theories: According to the humanists, a man should emulate ancient examples so as to become an exemplar himself for future generations. Yet this paradigm ultimately failed, resulting in what François Rigolot has called a “retreat into self-absorbed interiority” by the end of the sixteenth century.8 In both approaches, there is a clear relationship between the emerging subject and the notion of identity as a performance.9 The Medici tombs, with their suggestion of hollow surfaces, and their emphasis on the mask, offer an interesting gloss on William Egginton’s relating the emergence of subjectivity to sixteenth-century developments in theater: Early in the century,

Monuments, Imitation, and the Noble Ideal

4

the tombs suggest a theatrical split between interior and exterior.10 Indeed, the Medici monuments showcase the issue with the mask beneath Night’s shoulder, which is uncannily inhabited by wide staring eyes, visible only from certain viewpoints (see the cover image of this book).11 My project follows this line of thought beyond the visual arts into literature, to show that the emerging problematization of “interiority” derives from a visual ideal—the monument that was the basis of exemplary pedagogy. Simply put, the notion that each man would emulate exemplars to become in turn an exemplar was based on the idea of gazing at, and then becoming, a monument, yet this rhetoric of monumentality led to the emergence of a problematized “hollow” interior. The monumental pose emerged earlier than either Martin or Egginton suggests the “modern individual” came into being: The new idea of prudence informed visual and textual representations from the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, and in each case, the monumental pose itself embodied the tension between inner feelings and outer behavior well before the Reformation articulation of sincerity. The shift toward the need for a more multivalent and ambiguous public persona (for example, in the Medici monuments’ lack of inscriptions and idealizing, nonmimetic statues) coincides with the self-conscious staging of the tension between two contradictory paradigms of understanding art, identified by Alexander Nagel and Christopher Wood.12 According to Nagel and Wood, the emerging “performative” notion of an artwork showing its specific circumstances of production drew attention to (or even “invented”) the previously dominant substitutional paradigm, in which visual patterns repeated across the centuries, with each instance somehow “participating in” the ancient (sometimes fictive) original. Although Nagel and Wood stress that the anachronic is specific to material artifacts, humanist exemplarity similarly posited an (ideal) unbroken chain of exemplars going back in time, with each one an instance of ancient virtue surviving into the present, and the whole series validated by this survival.13 At the same time, critics have argued that the rhetoric of exemplarity was inherently flawed: I posit that the staging of the failure of exemplarity corresponds (broadly speaking) with Nagel and Wood’s self-conscious substitution-performance tension, and that the two paradigms meet in the monumental pose.14 If

Introduction 5

the medieval image had “presence” while the modern artwork offers “representation,” the literary monumental pose sought nostalgically to convey the unmediated presence of ancient virtue while acknowledging that such presence was a representation all along. The various iterations of the pose, as proposed by writers on visual models from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, ultimately failed to produce an adaptable but permanent self-image, leaving the interior of the subject exposed to the necessity of justifying adaptability rather than exemplifying timeless heroism.

Coining Oneself from Dante to Pisanello The complexities of the quest for a concrete kind of glory start to be apparent if we return to Dante: In Dante’s text, Brunetto Latini supposedly teaches him self-eternalization through writing, which is closely compared with coining. Before the fifteenth century, coins showing the emperor’s image were the only models for autonomous secular portraiture. Coining also imposes form (a masculine act for Aristotle) on (passive, feminine) matter: Women were thus excluded from this process of self-monumentalization (as Dante’s audience would have taken largely for granted), and the various coining references to Brunetto, a sodomite, are profoundly ironic.15 In addition to the linkages between writing and coining in Inferno 15, Dante’s Convivio likewise emphasizes that words have the power to construct identities: Albert Ascoli has shown that the discussion of the true nature of nobility is part of the author’s agenda to acquire poetic auctoritas for himself.16 Dante was one of the earliest of the many fourteenth- and fifteenth-century writers to engage in the debate concerning noble identity and who thereby essentially appropriated the authority of arbiter of nobility. Petrarch took up the challenge of “coining” oneself by giving some ancient coins to the emperor Charles IV, instead of the book Charles had requested, Petrarch’s De viris illustribus.17 According to Petrarch’s letter to the emperor, the coins bear “the portraits of our ancient rulers and inscriptions in tiny and ancient lettering, . . . and among them was the face of Augustus Caesar, who almost appeared to be breathing” (Fam. 19.3).18 The gift of coins is intended as didactic (Charles should

Monuments, Imitation, and the Noble Ideal

6

imitate the Caesars depicted on the coins and so become worthy of joining the illustrious men in Petrarch’s book), and antihierarchical (it reverses the usual direction of patronage, asserting Petrarch’s autonomy and pedagogical authority). Petrarch’s strategy of coining Charles in the image of the Caesars failed, as Charles misread the coins as objects of economic exchange rather than texts (as Ascoli points out), and seems to have sent an image of Caesar back to Petrarch. Although it is unclear from Petrarch’s response exactly who the gift came from, Petrarch’s letter suggests that Charles was the sender, and mourns that the image of Caesar “would cause you, if it could speak or be seen by you, to desist from this inglorious, indeed infamous journey” out of Italy (Fam. 19.12).19 Petrarch clearly tried—and failed—to appropriate ancient artifacts in the construction of his relations to a powerful patron. His lack of success is partly attributable to his audience’s misreading the gift of coins and rejecting the exhortatory nature of lifelike portraits. Charles’s response disappointed Petrarch, who claims to have expounded at length on the pedagogical nature of his gift (Fam. 19.3). Yet this moment is profoundly important for the humanistic ideal of exemplarity: In a gesture meant to affirm his own authority, Petrarch proposed a visually accessible exemplar to be imitated; to his dismay, the artifact was appreciated not as an exemplar but as an object of value in and of itself—much like the Medici tombs, which self-consciously invite commentary on their value as beautifully crafted surfaces, rather than inspiring generations of men to imitate the two heroes supposedly depicted. Petrarch’s own De remediis utriusque Fortune warns of precisely this problem: Reason argues that, although images of heroes may inspire men to virtue, they should not be cherished too much in themselves (De remediis 1.41). Yet while staying in Milan, the author “venerates” the tomb effigy of St. Ambrose “as though it were alive and breathing,” using language typical of ancient discussions of lifelike images, as though indulging in the veneration of beautifully crafted surfaces (Fam. 16.11).20 Yet while the author perhaps failed to venerate the saint rather than his likeness, and never managed to cast the emperor in the role of the ancient Caesars, another letter presents Petrarch as an exemplary model for a lowly goldsmith, who took the image of Petrarch as

Introduction

7

the inspiration for a new way of life: “He had begun spending a sizeable portion of his patrimony in my honor, displaying the bust, name, and portrait of his new friend [Petrarch] in every nook of his house, and carving his image even more deeply in his heart” (Fam. 21.11).21 Unlike the emperor, who willfully misunderstood the images of the Caesars, the aging goldsmith has sculpted the image of Petrarch into his heart, and proceeds to follow the author’s example by renouncing his occupation and instead taking up literary studies. In a more characteristically contrived pose of modesty, another of Petrarch’s letters warns Francesco Bruni against praising him (Petrarch) immoderately, and gives the example of Pandolfo Malatesta’s going to great lengths to commission a portrait of Petrarch, “a longed-for face of an unknown man” (Seniles 1.6).22 Although the first portrait (Petrarch says) was made without his knowledge, Malatesta later sent the greatest painter of the age to make another likeness of Petrarch, who, realizing what was going on, “unwillingly” allowed it. The fascinating part of this tale is that the artist failed to portray Petrarch: “Notwithstanding all his artistic skill, he could not do it” (Seniles 1.6).23 Malatesta took the image anyway and, according to Petrarch, treasured it because it bore the author’s name. The failure to produce a true likeness that Petrarch reports is perfectly in accord both with Petrarch’s very elaborate and nuanced self-portrayal over the decades of his career, and with much later developments in which, we shall see, a visual or rhetorical portrayal fails to communicate the nuances required of an author’s public image. The portrait anecdote clarifies that the naïve goldsmith of Familiares 21.11, for all his skill in making treasured objects, may be able to carve Petrarch’s image onto his heart, but will never be able to carve himself in the image of Petrarch. The mediation of authority via objects, like coins or portraits, that were ancient or imitated ancient artifacts became a well-used trope by writers, artists, and their patrons, in Quattrocento Italy. The coining metaphor developed by Dante and Petrarch was actualized by the mid-fifteenth century, as portrait medals of contemporary figures became fashionable in Northern Italian courtly circles, eventually spreading southward to Florence and then Naples.24 The new archeological interest in ancient coins—and in imitating them—worked in

Monuments, Imitation, and the Noble Ideal

8

conjunction with the study of classical texts: In the early fourteenth century, even before Petrarch’s more famous coin-collecting was publicized, the Veronese historian Giovanni Mansionario had sketched coin images of emperors in the margins of his Historia imperialis.25 The text-image connection remained after fifteenth-century portraitists began to cast medals, as we see in a miniature illustration attributed to the workshop of Pisanello, who was one of the earliest and most celebrated Renaissance medal portraitists. The image, in a presentation copy of the Scriptores historiae augustae of the 1430s or 1440s, depicts a medallion of two Caesars alongside the text.26 Pisanello even followed in Petrarch’s footsteps by sending a wedding gift to Leonello of an image of Julius Caesar, as a companion to Guarino’s biography of Caesar.27 A few years later, in 1448, Leonello d’Este commissioned Pisanello to cast a portrait medal of the court humanist Pier Candido Decembrio, as a gift to Decembrio.28 Here, the construction of authority is mediated by the patron, whose gift simultaneously operates as payment, confers a kind of authority on Decembrio, and puts him under further obligation to Leonello. What is important about Pisanello’s three medals of humanists is that the artist had no models for a coin image of a writer who was still living—although there was a tradition of portraying venerable auctores (such as the evangelists and the Church Fathers) in the act of writing their magnum opus. The new medals derived from the Roman coin tradition, which had traditionally depicted the Caesars: Despite Petrarch’s claims of autonomy and authority over the emperor, in the fourteenth century there was no way to interpret the image of Caesar on Charles’s reciprocal gift as a model for the writer.29 Thus the claim of authority for Decembrio is startling, in particular as the reverse of the medal depicts a book inscribed liber svm (I am the book).30 The humanist becomes the book, symbol of timeless transcendent truth. The inscription also holds a second meaning, “I am free,” suggesting the freedom of the intellectual from political bonds, and the link between freedom and the study of truth. Luke Syson and Dillian Gordon suggest that the motto may allude to the Bible (linking Decembrio with pious scholarship), but the inscription could also reference Horace’s satire of wealth and high office as a form of servitude,

Introduction

9

as the slave Davus teaches “Horace” about freedom: “‘liber, liber sum,’ dic age” (come, say, “I am free, am free”; Satires 2.7.92).31 In this case the ironies are even more startling: The point of the gift to Decembrio is precisely his indebtedness to the Este family, so the liberty implied by the coin’s inscription is self-evidently a fiction. Much larger and far more immediately obvious than the liber svm inscription is Pisanello’s own claim to authorship of the medal: Opus pisani pictoris (the work of Pisanus the painter) encircles the book. This large signature implies that Decembrio has reached the summit of authority by becoming a “free” book through the work of Pisanello, who here claims the title pictor. Although pictor appears on many of Pisanello’s medals, it deviates significantly from the more standard formulae used by his medal-casting contemporaries, along the lines of opus pisani or simply pisani.32 Like Dante’s poetry, Petrarch’s coining pedagogy, and Michelangelo’s tombs, Pisanello’s medal reveals an attempt by its creator to monumentalize himself within the cultural canon—even though this work is a commission intended to glorify someone else. Indeed, it is worth noting that Pisanello, like Petrarch, also thought about “coining” himself: We have a coin image of the artist from the 1440s or 1450s (when he was at the height of his fame) in which the artist, shown in profile, is clearly prosperous (he has a fleshy face and chin and rich clothing), and is again labeled Pisanus Pictor. On the reverse, the medal lists the initials of the three cardinal virtues and the four theological virtues, clarifying that the artist’s success derives specifically from these virtues.33 As Syson and Gordon point out, the unsigned coin was most probably made in Pisanello’s workshop, and was almost certainly accepted as a self-portrait by Pisanello’s contemporaries.

Negotiating Nobility via Objects of Virtue In recent years, art historical scholarship has paid a great deal of attention to the symbolic value of objects like Pisanello’s medals; at the same time, new editions and translations have focused attention on Quattrocento discussions of both nobility and “magnificence.”34 As we have already seen, there was substantial crossover between the creation

Monuments, Imitation, and the Noble Ideal

10

of objects of authority and writings on the same subject. It is surprising, then, that little attention has been given to the rhetoric about monuments that permeates writings on nobility: This rhetoric, we will see, derives simultaneously from the humanist idea of exemplarity and the crisis in the idea of “nobility.” Emerging questions about what constituted nobility also raised problems for the representation of nobility: For this reason the Quattrocento both produced an extraordinary number of works debating the term “noble” and responded to the crisis by promoting the representation of nobility via objects. Even texts that try to disprove any link between wealth and nobility tend to connect nobility with artifacts. This connection was often justified in terms of exemplarity, as collecting statuary or portraits could be linked with the desire to emulate the exemplars depicted. Although literary humanistic circles followed the example of Dante (and of the Romans) in emphasizing stoic virtue as the primary characteristic of nobility, expensive artworks like Pisanello’s medals increasingly came to have a value of their own in establishing not only authority and nobility but also—in part thanks to the humanist equation of nobility with virtue—virtue itself. In both Florence and elsewhere, there was an emerging conception of magnificence, especially following Cosimo de’ Medici’s programmatic construction of public buildings from the 1430s on. The funding of public buildings, first pioneered in fourteenth-century commissions by the Acciaiuoli and Alberti families, changed so that by the mid-fifteenth century it was both accepted and expected that the wealthy elite would invest in displays of their riches.35 Many different kinds of objects, from jewelry to tableware, were produced and circulated as projections of the owners’ virtue.36 The new paradigm of display signaled a departure from earlier religious and political ideas, which had considered poverty a virtue and personal expenditure on public architecture unwise (it made one appear too powerful)—but readings in St. Thomas’s Summa Theologiae and Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics helped to justify displays of wealth. In the 1440s Francesco Filelfo articulated a theory supporting displays of wealth to dignify the rich; Leon Battista Alberti’s De re aedificatoria of the 1450s similarly expressed the idea that investment in architecture brought honor to one’s family and descendants. Giovanni Pontano, writing in

Introduction 11

the later part of the century, composed a treatise exalting the virtue of “magnificence,” in which he connected noblemen with the permanence and beauty of the buildings they left behind, and remarked on Cosimo de’ Medici’s construction of buildings in the ancient style as an instance of actual and visual exemplarity: “It seems to me that he has done this so that future generations might know how to build.”37 The idea that such monuments constituted exemplars to be imitated eventually helped to justify the display of wealth as both virtuous and noble in humanistic circles, yet for much of the fifteenth century such justifications were by no means a given, and nobility remained a highly contested category. Poggio Bracciolini famously collected ancient statues, as we learn from an anecdote that opens his own foray into the textual debate on nobility—a dialogue written in 1440. Here, the author-narrator tells the reader that he had brought his friends, Niccolò Niccoli and Lorenzo de’ Medici (brother of Cosimo il Vecchio), to his country villa in order to show them his collection of ancient statues. To Poggio’s dismay, however, his audience scoffs at the sculptures, saying that they are a feeble effort to ennoble Poggio and his villa, an attempt to bring Poggio fame among his descendants: Hic hospes noster . . . , cum legerit esse moris antiqui apud priscos illos excellentes viros, ut domos, villas, hortos, porticus, gymnasia variis signis tabulisque maiorum quodque statuis exornarent ad gloriam et nobilitandum genus, voluit cum progenitorum imagines deessent, hunc locum, et se insuper his pusillis et confractis marmorum reliquiis nobilem reddere, ut rei novitate, aliqua eius ad posteros illis gloria manaret. (Poggio 65) (Our host, having read that illustrious men of old used to ornament their homes, villas, gardens, arcades, and gymnasiums with statues, paintings, and busts of their ancestors to glorify their own name and their lineage, wanted to render his own place noble, and himself, too, but having no images of his own ancestors, he acquired these meager and broken pieces of sculpture and hoped that the novelty of his collection would perpetuate his glory among his own descendants.) (Rabil 122–23; translation modified)38

Monuments, Imitation, and the Noble Ideal

12

This comment, attributed to Lorenzo, links the misreading of ancient texts (cum legerit) with the misuse of ancient monuments, yet superficially, both the host and his visitors—all noted humanists—seem to consider monuments as instruments of glory, whether they are inherited from the past or bequeathed to the future. The collection of statues is an extension of its owner, and both the author and his audience imply that Poggio is trying to annex ancient artifacts to create a present-day identity. Poggio’s dialogue bypasses the statues and becomes a verbal negotiation of opinions that address the relatively new awareness that nobilis is not a fixed term with transcendent meaning—an awareness whose corollary is the possibility of “self-fashioning.” Niccoli, who leads the ensuing debate, argues that possessions and wealth cannot convey nobility, but he does admit that they elicit admiration: Atria vero maiorum imaginibus referta, porticus signis ac tabulis ornati, magnificae villae, templa constructa, varia domus ornamenta plus admirationis aspicientibus quàm nobilitatis secum ferunt. (Poggio 80) (Courtyards filled with statues of ancestors, arcades decorated with sculptures and paintings, magnificent villas, newly built shrines, and richly decorated houses obtain more wonder in spectators, than nobility.) (Rabil 84; translation modified)

In response, Lorenzo points out that although virtue is one part of nobility, the external signs rejected by Niccolò “make men famous, and bestow nobility”: Without the externalization of inner qualities, the public recognition that confers nobility is impossible (Poggio 81; Rabil 86).39 Although the main force of Poggio’s dialogue is that nobility is found only in virtue, Carlo Marsuppini, in poetic response to Poggio (also from 1440), felt the need to reiterate this idea, remarking, Est qui si proavum monstret imagines Varius per veteres undique et atria Exornet pario marmore et omnium Maiorum statuis, ordine dictitans

Introduction 13 Longa facta mirum quique securibus Ornatus fuerit, qui capitolio Olim claruerit curribus aut equis Aut qui pertrepidis tempore civibus Dictator patriae consulit anxie. Illis quippe viris se similem putet, Tanquam gloriolae pars sibi cesserit Heredi misero. (The falsely noble conspicuously displays in his foyers statues of his ancestors, sculpted from Parian marble, and recites at great length their wonderful deeds— which one held high office, which one was famous on the Capitoline with horse and chariot, or which one, when the citizens were terrified, as dictator provided for the state in danger. Doubtless, he thinks he is like those men, as if some small share of their glory was passed on to the wretched heir.)40

Marsuppini’s derogatory poem about the falsely noble ends by linking generositas (true nobility) with virtus et probitas (virtue and goodness)—generositas meaning “nobility” but also implying generosity (“De Nobilitate” 108–9).41 Despite the poem’s extended condemnation of those who associate nobility with birth and wealth (the ancient feudal aristocracy), it ends with an encomium that justifies the display of new wealth in conjunction with family (“blood”), by attributing to Cosimo and Lorenzo de’ Medici “gifts of mind and body” (“De Nobilitate” 109). What links these two pieces of writing is their attempt to define nobility in terms other than concrete manifestations of glory: In both cases, ancient sculptures are displayed in the vain hope of concretizing their owner’s status. Both texts suggest not only that “nobility” may have different meanings according to time and place, but also (despite their strenuous protests, or perhaps because of them) that statues and monuments—at least superficially—offer a common language of nobility through a substantive “glory” that transcends these differences. In both cases, noble identity is foremost a verbal negotiation: It is no accident that Poggio’s interlocutors start with a philological

Monuments, Imitation, and the Noble Ideal

14

discussion of the word nobilis. By supplanting physical artifacts with discussion, Poggio’s interlocutors (and by extension, the author-narrator) imply that dialogue, or at least this dialogue, has greater persuasive power than do statues from the past. Marsuppini likewise considers Poggio’s treatise “written for posterity,” and it is clear from the dialogue (and its subsequent history) that Poggio’s written work is both more compelling and more permanent than are his “meager and broken pieces of sculpture.”42 This is especially true for a writer and bureaucrat of limited means: Only the very wealthy (like the Medici) could afford the kind of visual self-representation that went beyond the redeployment of broken fragments. Poggio’s dialogue proposes that the term nobilis, unlike the ruined sculptures, can be largely reconstituted through philological reconstruction and discussion.43 Yet in both texts, the discussion begins with, and depends on, the material evidence of “nobility.” Marsuppini’s scathing poem recalls Juvenal’s ridicule of those who have “painted masks,” “all those statues,” and “so many portraits” of noble ancestors: tota licet veteres exornent undique cerae atria, nobilitas sola est atque unica virtus. Paulus vel Cossus vel Drusus moribus esto, hos ante effigies maiorum pone tuorum, praecedant ipsas illi te consule virgas. (Though you adorn your entire atrium with ancient wax portraits in every direction, virtue, and virtue alone, is the only nobility. So, be a Paulus or a Cossus or a Drusus in your behavior. Honor their images above all your ancestral portraits.)44

Juvenal reminds the reader that images of predecessors have the function of exemplary exhortation: The point of surrounding oneself with portraits, he says, is to “be” their subjects via imitation—not to use the images as a short-cut to a noble pedigree. Yet in Poggio’s text, Lorenzo elides the notion that exemplary portraits inspire virtue and suggests instead a more direct link between portraits and nobility: The ancients “thought that visible examples of those who had a zeal for fame and wisdom would help ennoble and excite the mind.”45 Although Niccoli

Introduction

15

replies with irony that, according to this logic, artists and sculptors are the most noble men of all, Lorenzo’s comment still suggests that for the educated elite (which at this time would have excluded artists and sculptors), there is a connection between nobility and concrete manifestations of glory. Poggio’s dialogue draws from Buonaccorso da Montemagno’s earlier De nobilitate tractatus (c.1428), in which the first speaker offers the opinion that the function of statues and monuments is to glorify great men through their descendants: “Those images, by artifice and contrivance, conceal the physical representation of illustrious men, but nature reveals the true images of the parents in their children.”46 This speech recalls the connections between coining and self-eternalization in Inferno 15, as nobility through a bloodline of virtuous men is closely linked with the Aristotelian idea of generation: “The images of parents have been impressed upon the faces of their children”; “the possession of nobility itself has been left to me as an inheritance, in that the very images have been implanted by my ancestors as an hereditary possession.”47 The argument for inherited nobility—although convincingly opposed by Buonaccorso’s second and final speaker—thus depended on the idea that the descendants of great people were in themselves monuments that made visible the ancient nobility of their forebears; this is an idea that is strikingly close to Nagel and Wood’s substitutional paradigm for art. Especially interesting in these texts is the fact that the leading opinion (that nobility comes from virtue) must constantly attempt to counter very specific and well-articulated arguments linking objects (especially statues and portraits) with nobility. In fact, despite strenuous opposition from writers like Poggio, Marsuppini, and Buonaccorso, the idea that monuments offered a shortcut to nobility seems to have had widespread currency, as we see in an undated letter by Leonardo Bruni. Writing to Poggio, Bruni denounces as vain and crass the construction of an elaborate tomb to Bartolomeo Aragazzi, commissioned (according to Bruni’s letter) by Aragazzi himself, in his will.48 Although Aragazzi was a humanist and poet employed at the papal court, the letter gives the impression that he was an ignorant and bungling fraudster from a family of small-time merchants and midwives. It is telling

Monuments, Imitation, and the Noble Ideal

16

that Bruni takes the trouble to condemn the man’s family in order to deny any pretensions to nobility. Bruni affirms that “no one who was confident of his glory ever thought of having a tomb made for himself,” and asserts that Cyrus, Alexander, and Caesar (three of history’s greatest exemplars) were unconcerned with constructing monuments to themselves since they knew that their glory rested on their actions.49 Once again, the writer sees monuments as concrete manifestations of a sought-after glory—in this case, a blatantly fictitious and vain fame rather than true glory. This relatively new notion of constructing a substantial monument to oneself was fully realized with the reinvention in the fifteenth century of large-scale equestrian statues based on classical models. Following the early fourteenth-century tomb sculpture to Cangrande della Scala, equestrian funeral monuments to rulers or condottieri became fairly common in Northern Italy by the Quattrocento, and culminated with a new style of monument in the Ferrarese statue of Niccolò d’Este by Niccolò Baroncelli and Antonio di Cristoforo (1444–51, now lost), as well as Donatello’s Gattamelata in Padua (1445–53) and Verocchio’s Colleoni in Venice (c. 1481–86). These three broke with tradition by creating a bronze monument that was larger than life size, by separating the commemorative statue from the tomb, and by placing the monument outside the boundaries of the church.50 Their strong debt to the classical Marcus Aurelius in Rome and the Regisole in Pavia (now lost) worked to commemorate a specific individual in a secular space by identifying with ancient models of sculpture and of masculine authority. Like the Medici tombs, the Gattamelata and Colleoni offer portraits that do not correspond with the men’s actual features: They are ideal heroic bodies.51 An anonymous poem published in response to the Gattamelata reads the statue, erected in the 1450s in the Piazza del Santo (then still a cemetery), as a gift and a prize for the deceased: At tu nescio quem Mellatam munere Gattum Insigni et facto donasti ex aere caballo, Premia magna fugae subitae rerumque tuarum Discrimen dubium, Patavinae dedecus urbis,

Introduction 17 Quo fugit infelix, statua monstratur aena. (You have granted a remarkable gift, a bronze horse, to some Gatta Melata, a noble prize for a sudden flight, and a hidden danger to your affairs. This is a disgrace to the city of Padua, where the wretched man flees, and a bronze statue is displayed for him.)52

Here, Rome apostrophizes Venice, decrying her habit of making statues to a loser, and warns that Venice will become a school of negative exemplars: Conde solo indignum monstrari in secula Gattum: Quod si aliter facies, fugientibus una futura es Hospitium timidis; si dantur praemia victi, Omnes effugient. (Throw to the ground that Gatta, unworthy of being shown off for centuries. For if you do otherwise, you alone will be the refuge of cowards; if prizes are awarded to the losers, everyone will flee.)

Although highly ironic, the poem clarifies that, in practice, exemplarity depends less on glorious deeds than on concrete prizes: The statue acts as a spur to future generations who want the same reward, so other men will emulate Gattamelata’s cowardliness so as to be enstatued. This poem subordinates virtue and exemplarity to the more practical concern of impressing an audience. Regardless of whether or not Gattamelata was actually virtuous enough to deserve being treated as an exemplar, his monument makes him an exemplar because other men desire the glory that derives from a monument. As in Bruni’s letter, the strong language indicates that these statues were seen as significant statements about the worth of the person commemorated. What is more, based largely on the representation of Gattamelata in the statue, we tend to think of him as an important captain. Antonio Pollaiuolo, writing to Virginio Orsini in 1494, sums up the situation as he explains why he would prefer to make a full-size equestrian bronze than a bust: “I would rather do you complete on a big horse, for I would make you eternal.”53 The very specific military and imperialistic connotations of an equestrian monument—quite aside from its cost—meant that it was

Monuments, Imitation, and the Noble Ideal

18

not, in fact, an ideal choice for most men of the elite. This would be especially true after the 1494 invasion by France and the political disarray of the ensuing wars, in which foreign powers fought over Italian territories. Indeed, we see no more full-size equestrian monuments for another century after Verocchio.54 Ironically enough, the ancient statues chosen by Poggio—broken and fragmented as they apparently were—would have been in many senses more useful, since fragmented ancient monuments both carried with them an air of classical authority and tended to be indecipherable and therefore multivalent.55 Since nobility was a fluid category, enigmatic ancient artifacts seemed to offer a stable sign of nobility, a fixed but flexible signifier of an indefinable authority. Yet as we have already seen with both Petrarch and Poggio, such signs were easily misconstrued, exposing to disappointment and ridicule the writer who tried to use artifacts to construct authoritative relationships with people he wanted to impress. The fluidity of the “noble” is clear in Poggio’s dialogue, which is heavily weighted in favor of the virtue argument. Niccoli reviews the geographically diverse definitions of “noble” to suggest that nobility cannot be equated with anything as stable as a monument; rather, nobility is “umbra nescio quae sub oscura mentes nostras versat somnijs similis, quae cum dormientes falsis imaginibus satis exagitarint, inania redduntur excitatis” (like some dim shadow, it plagues our minds, resembling dreams that excite those who sleep with false images, which are made empty when the sleepers awake).56 In this moment, nobility is reduced to a problem of representation, both of ourselves and to ourselves; it is an image that will turn out to be false and hollow once we no longer dream of it. This comment problematizes the question of self-representation as representation much earlier than we are used to seeing (for example, in such sixteenth-century figures as Castiglione and Bronzino).57 Curiously, Niccoli’s critique of nobility as an empty dream closely resembles Michelangelo’s gloss, nearly a century later, on the idea of the divinely inspired and inspirited artwork. In both cases, the focus on the hollow, false image derives from Lucretius’s De rerum natura (which Poggio had famously rediscovered); both reflect the awareness that the conscious negotiation of a public “identity” (via

Introduction 19

epithets such as “noble” or “divine,” or visual markers like monuments) paradoxically destabilizes the subject by requiring an effort of representation, an external image or imago, which may turn out to be a false shadow that is hollow. Indeed, the simulacrum may even displace the ostensibly monumentalized subject—as we see today in popular touristic interpretations of the Medici chapel figures as “epic” images of Michelangelo’s greatness and imagination. Despite the fact that Poggio’s character briefly equates nobility with the antimonument that is the empty shadow, the dialogue as a whole predicates nobility on virtue. At the same time, it provides insight into the difficulty of achieving great renown without inherited advantages—and so exposes the limited possibilities of social mobility. Given that Niccoli first argues that opposing definitions of nobility demonstrate that nobility is an illusion, and then argues in favor of yet another definition of nobility (virtue), the new definition is itself relativized, so that virtue—like nobility—is reduced to being a problem of representation.58 By suggesting that any category elicits competing definitions that ultimately negate the entire category, the dialogue hints at a total breakdown of representation, so that all that remains of “nobility,” or indeed of “virtue,” are the empty simulacra that seem to indicate it—Poggio’s ancient statues, and the wealth and possessions argued for by Lorenzo. As we have already seen, however, many writers depended on precisely these simulacra in generating definitions of the noble in order to gain favor with their patrons (and so to participate in some of the “empty signs” of nobility, like wealth). Given the disconcerting nature of Poggio’s ideas, and the fifteenth-century awareness of the fragility of “nobility” as a category (which spurred the debates in the first place), the Aristotelian idea of magnificence offered a simple solution to a crisis in representing the noble. If, as Poggio indicates, the nobility debates embodied a crisis in representation, it is not surprising that later writers tended to associate nobility (and virtue) with objects, especially permanent objects. One of the later treatises is Cristoforo Landino’s De vera nobilitate (c.1470), whose dedication to Lorenzo de’ Medici equates the Medici with monuments in a process of ennobilization. The family’s great deeds (and by extension those of Lorenzo) are compared with

Monuments, Imitation, and the Noble Ideal

20

the deeds of other families, concretized in the city’s monuments and landmarks: Cum nostrae civitatis vetusta multis iam saeculis monumenta quam longe possum animo repeto illaque annorum perpetua quadam serie diligenti investigatione perscrutor, nulla omnino domus ex innumeris paene familiis, quae multis magnisque rebus nobilitatae sunt, mihi sese offert, magne Laurenti, quam cum tua comparare audeam. (When I call to mind and ponder at length the monuments of our city—monuments now many centuries old—and in my careful search investigate them as a chronological series, none from among the almost innumerable families which have been ennobled by many great deeds presents itself to me, great Lorenzo, which I would dare to compare with yours.)59

This progression of greatness and nobility, culminating with the Medici family and specifically with Lorenzo, indicates a logical development from great deeds to nobility and monuments. The word domus—meaning both “house” and “family”—underlines that illustrious families are indivisible from the structures, metaphorical and actual, that they leave for posterity. Thus, even the newly rich, by virtue of being and having a domus, leave behind monumenta. Landino’s dialogue both starts from and leads back to physical manifestations of nobility, stressing the negotiation between the adaptable nature of words and the monumentality of physical artifacts. Although Landino’s project is officially very pro-Medici, the discussion reflects the complex position of the intellectual in the sphere of a mercantile prince as it becomes a verbal performance of the power of Landino’s spokesman, the philosopher-orator Aretophilus (“lover of excellence”), over the Maecenas figure of Philotimus—who turns out to be Aretophilus’s wealthy patron. In this way, the dialogue exalts the possibility of “self-made” nobility, simultaneously offering an encomium of Medici nobility and a display of Landino’s own brilliance. Aretophilus tries hard to locate nobility in an unshakeable, intransigent virtue even as he exalts an “additional virtue” that takes into account “places, times, things, and persons.”60 Landino attempts to keep a foot

Introduction 21

on each side of the inherited/self-made fence by having his spokesman assert that nobility is the preserve of the virtuous, and that virtue is almost always inherited. Lineage and concrete artifacts return to the fore, however, when Aretophilus praises archeological relics as traces of the virtue of the Florentines’ Etruscan and Roman ancestors.61 Aretophilus moreover links Lorenzo with the kind of virtue that leaves monuments to posterity: A “senate of the virtues” will award Lorenzo de’ Medici “true nobility” and will “order that this surname be added to his name, to be either engraved, sculpted, or painted in some place.”62 Landino’s emphasis on civic monuments differs somewhat from Bartolomeo Sacchi’s De vera nobilitate (written between 1475 and 1477), which tries to reconcile the display of wealth with the idea that nobility equates to a virtue based on the reception of ancient exemplars and their monuments. In a fascinating paradox, praise of material goods frames the discussion of a new kind of exemplary “nobility.”63 The dialogue begins with a discussion of the villa in which the interlocutors, Orsini and Platina (Sacchi’s pen name), find themselves. Platina points out that Varro retreated to this part of the country during the summer heat, and praises Orsini’s villa. Orsini (a fictionalized version of Giovanni Orsini, archbishop of Trani and dedicatee of the dialogue) follows the tradition of citing Aristotle to justify making a home commensurate with his considerable wealth.64 Platina then proposes, “since we so venerate Varro, let us suppose that this is his estate”; he notes that, in recognition of Varro’s extraordinary learning, a statue was raised to him during his own lifetime.65 By invoking Varro, whose famous magnum opus contained seven hundred portraits of ancient men, Platina links literal monuments (Varro’s statue and his villa) with literary ones, including the author’s own nobility project. Although Orsini has raised some objections to the supposition that they are on Varro’s ancient estate, at this point he agrees: “I will readily allow that this was Varro’s villa, since he was such a man as mortals are scarcely able to wish for” (4v).66 In this way, the dialogue opens by connecting the selective reception and interpretation of the antique with displays of wealth, and self-consciously dramatizes a “substitutional” paradigm in which, as a matter of audience choice, a contemporary villa does not

Monuments, Imitation, and the Noble Ideal

22

merely imitate or resemble, but is a mythical ancient space that confers authority on the speakers.67 This beginning is very different from the opening of Poggio’s De nobilitate—written roughly three decades earlier—which condemned the selective reading of the ancients and the equation of nobility with monuments. Displays of wealth clearly posed a thorny dilemma for those who, like the speaker Platina, wished to equate “true nobility” with virtue alone—as we see from Orsini’s argument: Nam cum magnifici proprium sit aedes aegregias templa, porticus, oppida struere cumque item liberalitas circa dandas pecunias versetur [quod] ab eo fiet [quem] liberalem appellamus, si nil habuerit quod donet? Si quae ei potius aliorum benignitas expetenda. (8r)68 (Since it is the attribute of a generous person to construct prominent temples, shrines, colonnades, and towns, and since also liberality is implied with the giving of money, what will be done by the person whom we call liberal if he has nothing to give, indeed, if, rather, he has to depend on the generosity of others?) (Rabil 279)

Although the argument of Platina hinges on a generosity based less in material goods than in improving the world—by teaching, for example—his idea of liberality does include giving money and constructing buildings (13v; Rabil 289). Such displays gain importance at the end of the dialogue where, after apparently convincing Orsini that nobility lies in the virtues alone, Platina returns to praising Orsini’s villa: Facit pulchritudo et magnificentia harum rerum quas nuper magna cum arte et miro sumptu aedificasti ut eo facilius proficiscar. Quid . . . decentius reperire potest si trabes auratas si parietes ben pictos inspicis. Quid commodius si ampla canacula si porticus fastidigiatas, si cubicula venusta si hortos aegregie cultos intuemur. (18r) (The beauty and magnificence of the building which you recently built with great skill and at great cost, causes me to set out all the more quickly. What could be more well-formed than that building, with its beams ornamented with gold and its walls well decorated

Introduction 23

with pictures? What is more appropriate than to gaze attentively at large dining rooms, gabled porticoes, charming bedrooms, gardens exquisitely cultivated?) (Rabil 297)

Ironically enough, Platina himself has already provided the answer to this question, as he earlier insisted on the importance of gazing at portraits of ancient exemplars (11v–12r; Rabil 285–86). Yet in the final moments of the dialogue, the interlocutor displaces attention from what he has underlined as the most important part of nobility, to frame the discussions of virtue within a discourse that exemplifies the display of wealth. Indeed, the display of magnificence here has precisely the exhortatory value that Platina, early in the dialogue, attributed to images of the ancients: It is the sight of Orsini’s villa that causes the interlocutor to hurry. The use of monuments themselves as visual exemplars offers a rather unclear example to follow. The suggestion seems to be that, rather than following the ancient examples of virtue cited earlier in Platina’s quote of Juvenal, people will gaze upon the villa as an object of beauty—precisely the trap that Petrarch had warned of in De remediis utriusque Fortune. In sum, the strenuous humanist emphasis on virtue as the defining characteristic of nobility conflicted with the emerging Aristotelian paradigm of the noble display of wealth. The tension between these two ideas (and the crisis in representation that underlay the discussions on nobility) was resolved by the short-circuiting equation of virtue with wealth. Signs of wealth—especially statues and monumental constructions—remained closely connected with definitions of nobility, both via the traditional emphasis on giving (in classical Latin generositas means “noble”) and via the new paradigm of display. The rhetoric used in justifying the paradigm of display drew heavily from the humanist ideal of exemplarity, with its focus on both drawing inspiration from examples of virtue and leaving examples to inspire future generations. The idea of a visible, even tangible, exemplar contributed substantially to the development of attempts to negotiate a rhetorical authority via objects. Yet as Poggio’s dialogue had indicated, the author’s display of statuary and his claim to the authority of a stake in

Monuments, Imitation, and the Noble Ideal

24

the nobility argument barely concealed the threat that such representations of nobility and of intellect could be exposed as illusions, empty dreams, false images.

Displaying Hercules: Shifty Exemplarity The uncertain nature of nobility and virtue lent force and urgency to many writers’ emphasis on objects—but such artifacts needed to be carefully chosen. At the end of Landino’s De vera nobilitate, the account of the labors of Hercules alludes to three enormous canvases produced for the Medici Palace in about 1460 by the Pollaiuolo brothers.69 In the dialogue, Landino’s Aretophilus begins by saying that Hercules is the great exemplar to imitate, and allegorizes the labors of Hercules as a psychomachia; he then reappropriates Poggio’s warning about nobility and virtue to insist that fear “is an entirely vain shadow,” as it derives from bodily things.70 Yet Aretophilus’s speech also seems to derive from bodily things, as it concentrates on the tasks depicted in the Pollaiuolo panels, which showed Hercules and the Nemean lion, Hercules and the Hydra, and Hercules and Antaeus. In traditional iconography, Hercules was a Christ-type; the city of Florence had adopted the figure of Hercules in the thirteenth century as a symbol of civic power and authority, a visible metaphor for the masculine triumph of the Florentine Republic.71 Although the Pollaiuolo panels are no longer extant, small copies (by Antonio Pollaiuolo) of the Hydra and Antaeus images have survived. While Landino’s passage insists on the combat of earthly vices to achieve true nobility of mind, the panels extend this meaning and show the movement of violent combat, drawing on Florentine republican iconography and humanistic ideals of self-transformation to offer both moral and political exempla. This layering of meaning is especially significant when we consider that the Hercules and Antaeus story was a vehicle for describing the overthrow of tyranny—but is now being used in the public receiving hall of a family rapidly becoming undisputed rulers.72 The political force of the Pollaiuolo panels was extraordinary even before Hercules became more closely associated with Medicean power in the sixteenth century (in particular with

Introduction

25

the identification of Cosimo I with Hercules). Hercules and the Hydra is especially notable for its landscape of the Arno valley, clearly connoting Medici control over the region, and perhaps alluding to the importance of gaining Pisa at the mouth of the Arno. Read in conjunction with the Hercules panels, Landino’s dialogue is an exhortation to personal and political self-transformation. The Pollaiuolo Hercules panels fall within the new paradigm of display of “virtue,” operating simultaneously in multiple ways: They associate the Medici both with an object of great value in the newest style of painting (mythological colossi) and with the ancient Florentine Republic (Hercules); they exhort the viewer (the Medici and their allies) to emulate the heroic warrior of the panels; and they offer a warning (through the Tuscan landscapes and the violence of the images) of Medici power. The multivalent nature of these paintings emerges even more clearly from their immediate post-Medicean history. After the family was expelled from Florence in 1494, the panels were removed to the seat of government in the Palazzo Vecchio, and redeployed as anti-Medicean symbols of the Florentine Republic. Much like Petrarch’s ancient coins or Michelangelo’s Medici tombs, the labors of Hercules lent themselves to multiple kinds of interpretations. This flexibility of interpretation, as we shall see, is fundamental to later developments—where, however, ambiguity of meaning is not left up to the interpreter, but becomes specifically manifested in a single pose.

The Chapters The Hercules panels are part of a broader fifteenth-century trend to decorate halls of state with a series of “famous men” from classical times—a fashion that drew from the ancient and humanist ideal of the exemplary image that spurs men to emulate heroes. Dating back to Giotto’s series of Biblical and pagan heroes, painted in the 1330s at Castelnuovo for King Robert of Naples, these pictorial cycles did not usually focus on a single man—although Hercules did often appear within a series. The Pollaiuolo Hercules panels modeled “good” violence to provide an exemplum that allowed for multiple and even

Monuments, Imitation, and the Noble Ideal

26

contradictory interpretations, offering a paradigm of multivalent exemplarity that would be further developed in later literary and visual works. In Chapter 1, I show that there was a political need—at least fifty years earlier than the traditional dating of the breakdown of exemplarity—for a single authoritative pose that seemed timeless and classicizing but was enigmatic and ambiguous. The potential for varied interpretations of the Hercules panels is taken much further by Ghirlandaio’s fresco cycle in Florence (1483) and Pontano’s mid-fifteenth-century reinterpretation of ancient political theory in De principe (1460s–1490). Both Pontano and Ghirlandaio demonstrate an incipient awareness of the distinction (usually dated to the late sixteenth or early seventeenth century) between a subject’s interior and exterior, which undermines the pose of monumentality proposed by Pontano’s politics. In response to political crisis, both Pontano and Ghirlandaio emphasize enigmatic surface over virtuous substance. As a result, their exemplary heroic figures are threatened by hollowness and its correlative, effeminacy—and so need to emphasize masculinity. The hollowness and emasculation that undermine the imitation of ancient monuments (both literal and literary) finds different solutions in Chapter 2, which compares the dissimulatory strategies of Pietro Bembo’s philology (1501–1530s), Castiglione’s model courtier (1507–28), and Perino del Vaga’s trompe-l’oeil figures in the Sala Paolina of the Castel Sant’Angelo (1545–47). In contrast with Poggio’s triumphant (if futile) display of statuary sixty years earlier, Bembo revisits the Roman forum—locus of ancient political authority and contemporary nostalgia—to declare that its monuments are irreparably “castrated,” signaling the failure of both bodily and philological imitation. By contrast, Castiglione rewrites Cicero’s De Oratore to offer a corrective to the ancient “virile” orators. As Harry Berger has noted, the monumental, heroic Hercules is conspicuously absent from Castiglione’s Libro del Cortegiano.73 Instead, Castiglione uses a nuanced rhetoric of monuments to associate intransigent virtue with women and erasure from history, while the more adaptable courtier displays “effeminate” arts (symbolized by the Trojan horse, that hollow colossus of deception) to create—and dissimulate his ability to create—history’s statues, edifices,

Introduction 27

and empires. In both cases, the changing political climate, and the increasing sense that genuine imitation of ancient writers and politicians is impossible, results in a discourse of emasculation that parallels the marginalization visible in Perino del Vaga’s trompe-l’oeil courtier in the Sala Paolina. At the same time, however, both authors—like the trompe-l’oeil courtier and the apes in Perino del Vaga’s fresco—dissimulate their isolation from power to model instead a masculine control over discourse, from which, however, the ideal philologist or courtier is safely distanced. The validation of surfaces seen as early as Platina and Pontano, and confirmed in Castiglione, is further elucidated in the second part of this book, which explores links among the emergence of print culture, the decline of exemplary pedagogy, and the failure of the monumental pose, as self-conscious strategies of simultaneously showing and hiding oneself became increasingly important to writers and patrons from the mid-sixteenth century. These three chapters build on discussions of the emerging modern subject in theater (by William Egginton) and in printed images (by Bronwen Wilson). By the mid-Cinquecento, the discourse of monument making was changing as advances in printing technology altered the way that audiences thought about objects (like ancient coins and statues) that had previously been considered inspirited by the artist.74 Although print initially seemed to promise perfect replicas of any picture—so that the authoritative “essence” of an ancient coin could be endlessly reproduced—this paradigm changed over the course of the sixteenth century.75 In the late sixteenth century in particular, the number of print portraits exploded so that portrait-books and other media offering print images of people were widely circulated and came to constitute a substantial portion of the publishing market. While fifteenth- and early sixteenth-century reception of statues and ancient epigraphs belonged to the medieval paradigm of “presence,” some mid-sixteenth-century coin collections are in fact collected images of coins, printed and reproduced and copied at a series of removes from the original coin—if it even existed, which it often did not.76 This allows for the kind of separation or distancing that scholars have identified in the emergence of the early modern subject. Here we do not see characters act out a “real” but fictive situation that mimics

Monuments, Imitation, and the Noble Ideal

28

“reality,” framed by the stage (as in Egginton’s analysis, which connects modern subjectivity with theater), but rather we see the separation of the inspirited objects from images that purport to represent them. The objects have no presence; they are entirely mediated. What is more, the kind of exemplarity that is enabled by inspirited monuments is made more difficult by this mediation. This is especially the case as print “monuments” are so replicable.77 Yet print itself, via author-portraits and wide diffusion, seemed to offer a monumentalizing stability for an author courting patrons—generating the kind of respect for an author not available through either manuscript circulation or the strategic use of clothing. In Chapter 3, I examine how Aretino’s exploitation of images, clothing, letters, and the printing press reveals an increasing awareness of the need for a single, fixed symbol as a means of self-representation: Rhetorically “unclothing” himself to reveal his “hidden self” unmasked, Aretino ultimately chooses a phallus to symbolize his creative manliness and fictive autonomy from his very real patrons. Yet even while he struggled to reconcile his “unmasked” persona with his contrived efforts to publicize that persona, Aretino collaborated with editors making pirated editions of his works. This blurring between “authentic” and “inauthentic” books points to the problem examined in Chapter 4: The explosion of print allowed for the mass publishing of “inauthentic” images and texts. The promise of monumental authority offered by print to Aretino is not borne out by two major fads of the late sixteenth century: the printed portrait-book and the impresa book. While the printed portrait-book exploits ideals of exemplarity to propose a series of images of “famous men” alongside narratives of their lives, it exposes a series of contradictions in theories of both portraiture and historiography. While the portrait-book is the sixteenth century’s answer to fifteenth-century frescoes of exemplary men, the audience is vastly broader and the quality of the images often poor. Chapter 4 explores the possibilities and meanings of these pictures. Rather than offering a printed monument in the style of Ghirlandaio’s frescoes, portrait-books reveal that a new kind of “theatricality” (as Egginton would define it) is in play: The images are no longer taken as unique monuments somehow inspirited by the artist’s genius, but rather as what we, following Egginton, might

Introduction 29

call “avatars”—visual place-holders (frequently figments of the artist’s imagination) for a character constructed in the narrative. Books by Roville, Goltzius, Sansovino, and Giovio epitomize the contradictory urges of humanist historiography for both historical accuracy and monumentalization—as these text-image contradictions emerge, so that books intended to glorify previous generations instead cast doubt upon them. Paradoxically, portrait-books highlight the incompatibility of the three concepts on which they depend (physiognomy, exemplarity, visual accuracy), and suggest a growing need to legitimize the existence of a hidden, “interior” persona against physiognomy. By using sets of frames to nuance propagandistic portraits, the volumes thematize an emerging theatricality of the subject, now explicitly a representation. It is no coincidence that one of the later portrait-books, as the genre was developing into the biographical encyclopedia, is entitled Theatro del Mondo (Girolamo Ghilini, 1647). The chapter shows how the explosion of printed portrait-books revealed contradictions between exemplary theory, physiognomic theory, and the idea of the “mimetic” portrait— and thereby destabilized the monumental pose. One way to re-inspirit the monumental pose was via the personal emblem or impresa, which was discussed explicitly in terms of body and soul (corpo, the image, and anima, the motto)—and so recalled the kind of statues that were, in Pomponio Leto’s terms, “inspirited” by the anima applied by the poet. In theory, each impresa was unique, individual, and enigmatic, and thus retained the sense of mystery associated with deciphering ancient and fragmentary statues. Yet exploring the impresa in print ultimately exposed the limitations of the personal emblem. Coinciding with the explosion of portrait-books across Europe was the brief but intense popularity of impresa books: These volumes promised guidelines and examples for creating the kind of all-purpose, adaptable monumental pose that Aretino was seeking in identifying himself with the phallus, or the enigmatic but self-aggrandizing memorial to the artists in the Sala Paolina. The idea of a personal emblem took hold of the Italian elite, and the particularly Italian contours of this cultural development have yet to be explained—why the impresa fashion was so intense, and why it died out so quickly, differing from the pedagogical nature and longevity of Northern

Monuments, Imitation, and the Noble Ideal

30

European emblems. Designed to be understood by a select few, Italian imprese were intended to be enigmatic while still conveying information about the person to whom they referred. Chapter 5 shows that even the move toward ambiguous, multivalent personal symbols in the construction of a monumental public identity was doomed to failure: Torquato Tasso’s writings theorize and problematize a more general realization of the limitations of the impresa. Mediated by the printed treatise, emblems intended to be personal were frequently imitated and copied; what is more, imprese that were too enigmatic to be imitated were often also incomprehensible; and the reliance on multivalent symbols—although providing a seemingly adaptable monumental pose— resulted in meaning becoming a question of taste. In other words, not even personal emblems were able to provide a monumental identity that could adapt to multiple situations. What emerges instead is a new interest in the unique, the individual instance—a paradigm that influenced and altered conceptions of both the author and his protagonist.

chapter one

How to Perform Like a Statue: Ghirlandaio, Pontano, and Exemplarity

I

n about 1332, Giotto painted a series of Biblical and classical heroes at Castelnuovo for King Robert of Naples; this decorative program may have been inspired by Petrarch, who at that time was working on De viris illustribus.1 Now lost, the frescoes were much admired and imitated over the next century and a half, to the extent that the commemoration of “illustrious men” became fashionable in government buildings across Europe—from palaces to judgment chambers—and ultimately comprised the foundation of modern public art.2 The idea behind this kind of decoration was the humanistic tenet (derived from the ancient world) that seeing images of exemplars spurs men to emulate their actions. One still-extant example of this fashion is Taddeo di Bartolo’s fresco cycle in the Palazzo Pubblico in Siena. Dating to around 1414, Taddeo’s images include some of the virtues, and reflect Sienese republicanism via Roman heroes, from the first Brutus to the end of the republic with Pompey and Caesar.3 Similar pictorial cycles, now lost, in Padua (c.1370) and Foligno (c.1424) included a mix of kings, republican citizens, and emperors. Florence still boasts a cycle of “famous men” by Domenico Ghirlandaio (1483), in which Roman heroes occupy a space traditionally used in Florence for statues: the niches above windows. Spread across the east wall of the Palazzo Vecchio’s Sala dei Gigli, the cycle is divided into three vertical sections separated by arches based on the triumphal Arch of Titus (Fig. 1.1).4 The two side arches contain three republican heroes each, flanking the central arch, in which Florence’s patron Saint Zenobius is seated on a throne. The architectural frames

Monuments, Imitation, and the Noble Ideal

32

and their exemplars are two-dimensional, frescoed onto the walls in a fashionable style that was much cheaper than the traditional combination of masonry and sculpture. Between the spandrels of the three arches there are six circular portrait-busts, modeled on imperial Roman coins; the remaining background is dark blue flocked with gold fleurde-lis. At first glance, then, the program incorporates motifs that are, variously, religious, republican, imperial, Florentine, and Medicean. In the same way that Ghirlandaio reproduced in paint ancient triumphal arches, heroic statuary, and coins, humanists proposed in writing the monumental and classicizing heroism that Ghirlandaio’s program exalted. By the Quattrocento both visual and literary examples of the fashion for “illustrious men” were prevalent—and exemplarity in literature often used the rhetoric of being inspired by images of the ancients. This concept of exemplarity informed political writings up to and beyond Machiavelli, who is generally thought to have proposed a new model of political realism based on expediency rather than Christian ethics and ideal virtue—a change often attributed to the political crises of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries.5 As we shall see, however, nearly half a century before Machiavelli was writing, Giovanni Pontano’s De principe proposed a pragmatic politics with a new emphasis on appearances, justified with the extensive use of classical sources and ancient exemplars. Since De principe promotes the traditional princely virtues, this rhetoricization of exemplarity has gone relatively unnoticed, and although Pontano’s later writings clearly influenced Machiavelli, most scholars still consider De principe a morally informed precursor to Machiavelli’s self-serving amorality.6 Yet Pontano departs from his sources by framing many traditional tenets in terms of audience perception; in a parallel fashion, Ghirlandaio’s Florentine frescoes cast doubt on the idealized virtue typically associated with the same visual exemplarity they seem to promote. While Pontano was revising his text for printing, Ghirlandaio completed his fresco program in support of Lorenzo de’ Medici’s hold on Florentine government.7 Although Pontano was employed by the king of Naples, and Ghirlandaio by the republic of Florence, their two apparently different kinds of work were both produced in the wake of a local political crisis, and show a similar blend of caution and

How to Perform Like a Statue 33

opportunism, advocating that surface appearances can and should veil a hidden interior. When, in 1463, the newly crowned King Ferrante gave Pontano the job of educating his son and heir Alfonso, the humanist had good reason to wonder if his king would manage to keep the throne after a narrow victory against the Angevins; Ghirlandaio was commissioned to decorate a hall in the seat of government after both the 1478 Pazzi conspiracy—in which Giuliano de’ Medici was murdered—and another plot to kill Lorenzo in 1481.8 While Ghirlandaio’s frescoes of ancient heroes seem to reinforce humanist notions of visual exemplarity, their combination of republican, religious, imperial, and Medici themes allows for significant freedom of interpretation and invites the viewer’s participation in forming new narratives. Likewise, Pontano’s text initially proposes that the prince must imitate ancient histories, which are supposedly as simple to read as visual exemplars. Yet just as Ghirlandaio’s visual exemplars turn out to be ambiguous, so too Pontano’s prince must conceal his inner thoughts while maintaining the appearance of an exemplary hero: This act of concealment while performing exemplarity is modeled by the author’s own sleight of hand in interpreting history. In both cases, effeminacy—the antithesis of masculine heroism—threatens the monumentality of the exemplary pose. In Pontano’s case, the emphasis on surface (particularly clothing) raises the specter of an “internal” womanishness that must be quashed by reasserting virile virtue; for Ghirlandaio the feminine is so marginal as to seem innocuous, almost invisible, yet it begs questions about the overall heroic thrust of the visual program. These developments indicate that humanist ideals of imitation in literature showed signs of socio-historical pressure earlier than we usually think—in the mid-Quattrocento, rather than the sixteenth century. Although scholars have nuanced Timothy Hampton’s dating of the breakdown in exemplary rhetoric to the early sixteenth century, even François Cornilliat, who argues that no exemplum is entirely stable, is still informed by a chronological vision of the rhetoric of exemplarity declining “from Erasmus to Montaigne”—that is, over the course of the sixteenth century.9 While François Rigolot asserts that, before the Cinquecento, the “retreat away from human affairs into self-absorbed interiority cannot be adequately documented,” we shall see that a form of this “interiority” is already being

Monuments, Imitation, and the Noble Ideal

34

problematized in Ghirlandaio and Pontano, with exemplarity dramatizing its inherent contradictions.10 Just as exemplary rhetoric demanded an ideal surface that might or might not “cover” something beneath— thereby contributing to the emergence of early modern subjectivity—so too Renaissance “exemplary men” cycles occasionally modeled the contradictions of artistic commissions required to represent political virtue in permanent form (for a public space used by opposing factions), and so allowed glimpses “beneath” the ideally virtuous surface of the heroes. Pontano would have been familiar with pictorial cycles of heroes in halls of state, and probably saw both Giotto’s frescoes at Castelnuovo (which were destroyed several years after Pontano entered the service of Alfonso I in 1447), and also Ghirlandaio’s recently completed “famous men” (on his trip accompanying Prince Alfonso through Florence in 1484).11 De principe follows the logic of including heroes in palace decorations by advocating humanist principles of imitation in visual terms. The letter, by comparing written histories with images whose meaning (according to Pontano) is immediately clear, suggests that the past is accessible through the gaze. Yet just as Ghirlandaio painted such ambiguous exemplar images that his republican heroes could legitimize princely rule, so too Pontano both used histories of republican heroes in support of monarchy and rhetoricized these exemplars to the point that the prince’s behavior is guided not by the ideal of becoming a great man, but by the need to project the image of a great man. Appearances, already latent in the mirror-for-princes tradition, take priority in Pontano’s De principe.12 Although Pontano draws on the tradition of Cicero’s De officiis—which holds that virtue and expediency are always in accord— and even uses many of the terms employed by Cicero, expediency for Pontano’s prince demands the outward performance of virtue regardless of underlying substance. Indeed, the princely figure that emerges from De principe corresponds to a surprising extent with the much later notion of “dissimulation” usually associated with sixteenth-century treatises on court life, and especially with Torquato Accetto’s seventeenth-century Della dissimulazione onesta. Like the images on palace walls, Pontano’s prince is a monument comprising surface rather than substance: He is required to perform “majesty” in a manner strikingly akin to the “performance of status” more usually associated with sixteenth-century

How to Perform Like a Statue 35

developments like Castiglione’s courtier, and the attendant development of an interiority that must be partially hidden.13 Indeed, Pontano’s insistence on performance suggests exemplarity is a pose whose primary purpose is the retention of power.

Ghirlandaio’s Visual Exemplars Looking more closely at Ghirlandaio’s frescoes, we see that the six republican heroes in the right- and left-hand arches offer a frame for the lower, central figure of Saint Zenobius, flanked by his two deacons, Eugenius and Crescentius (Fig. 1.1). The portraits of Roman emperors in the spandrels of the arches—smaller, monochromatic cameo-style images in the upper margins of the program—contrast with the brightly colored heroes below, and appear part of the trompe-l’oeil architecture. As such, the roundels seem a mere marginal gloss on the classical heroes and saints below. The central elements of the program clearly emphasize republicanism in the ancient style as ideally combining with Christian virtue and Florentine patriotism. In conjunction with the imperial portraits and the abundant Medici fleur-de-lis on the walls and ceiling, the exemplary cycle plays on traditional pride in the idea of the Florentine republic while seeking to legitimize the actual fact of rule by Lorenzo de’ Medici, through a positive representation of Roman imperialism and dynastic Medici succession.14 The republican heroes are particularly interesting in that they are grouped together—unlike Taddeo’s republican men in Siena, each of whom occupies a single architectural frame. In the left-hand arch, we have Brutus, Mucius Scaevola, and Furius Camillus; on the right, Decius Mus, Scipio Africanus, and Cicero. This grouping of gesturing heroes, according to Eckart Marchand, suggests that the men are in dialogue with each other, with the result that their function as potential exemplars is highlighted, since they are no longer tied to specific historical moments.15 To the fifteenth-century patrician, Ghirlandaio’s figures would recall monumental statues, both because their position echoes the Florentine tradition of placing ancestral busts in niches over windows, and because, as Marchand shows, their facial features are modeled on sculptural figures identified in the Quattrocento with the specific heroes.16 Yet the

How to Perform Like a Statue 37

figure 1.2. Decius Mus, Scipio Africanus, Cicero. Detail from Ghirlandaio’s Sala dei Gigli frescoes, Palazzo Vecchio, Florence. (Photo: George Tatge)

men in each frame are more like statues come to life than typical monuments: Characterized by bright coloring, lively gestures, flapping cloaks, and flying standards, they present a vitality that offers the promise of reviving and restoring the classical world. The rippling cloaks reflect the Florentine painterly tradition and so link Florence more closely with the heroes of ancient Rome.17 Indeed, Nicolai Rubinstein argues that the mix of classical and contemporary details (like Camillus’s banner and Cicero’s robe) is intentional.18 The mix of eras, and the possibility that the heroes may be in dialogue with each other, introduce an element of contingency to the program—these vigorous men appear to engage each other and the viewer, leaving the portrait-busts in the spandrels to convey the notion of static monumentality. figure 1.1 (opposite page). Sala dei Gigli frescoes, Ghirlandaio, Palazzo Vecchio, Florence. (Scala / Art Resource, N.Y.)

Monuments, Imitation, and the Noble Ideal

38

If we look closely, however, most of the figures gesture toward each other without truly engaging in dialogue. Compared with Donatello’s debating pairs on the Old Sacristy doors, or even Andrea del Castagno’s series of heroes in the Uffizi (who have individual frames but appear to interact), the gestures of Ghirlandaio’s heroes are self-referential and indicate a single act or attribute. In the left-hand arch, Brutus turns toward Mucius Scaevola but gazes upward, past his own gesturing hand; although Scaevola’s self-sacrifice turns him toward Camillus, he looks past Camillus’s hand into the middle distance (Fig. 1.1). Camillus, while turning toward Brutus and Scaevola, seems to look beyond them, out of the windows of the Sala. In the right-hand arch, Decius Mus, in the act of self-sacrifice, turns away from the other two men, the only figures who truly seem to interact (Fig. 1.2). This one interaction underlines the difficulty of interpreting exemplary figures that have been extrapolated from their original narratives and allowed to interact in a single space. Scipio Africanus turns in profile toward Cicero, whose contemporary Quattrocento robe, ambiguous gesture (either of speech or, in the medieval style, of rejection), and frown as his eyes shift toward Scipio, suggest a more complex relationship with the military leader at his side. Following the debate between Poggio and Guarino in the 1430s, Scipio was traditionally associated both with Florentine republican sentiment (in opposition to the northern signorie, which were linked with Caesar) and with the rise to power of Cosimo de’ Medici.19 In this sense, Scipio offers an excellent bridge between republican ideals and the reality of Medicean princely government. Cicero, too, despite his republican credentials, is usefully multivalent: He is depicted wearing armor beneath his robe, in reference to Catiline’s conspiracy of 63 BCE.20 Cicero responded to Catiline by dressing for battle underneath his toga, and from this we can infer an analogous response to the conspiracies of 1478 and 1481 on the part of Lorenzo de’ Medici. Yet in the fresco, Cicero’s gesture remains difficult to interpret. While he could merely be speaking, the statesman frowns and turns his feet and body away from Scipio (although his head turns toward the soldier), possibly indicating rejection—and invites speculation as to the meaning of this interaction. If we look at Scipio and Cicero in context, reading the frescoes from left to right, we see a temporal progression of five soldiers, from the founder of the republic (Brutus) to the man who first asserted Rome’s primacy in the

How to Perform Like a Statue 39

Mediterranean (Scipio), followed by one soldier-intellectual. Cicero is the only figure who clearly interacts with his neighbor, whose gesture is ambivalent, and who is dressed primarily as a civilian—and a Quattrocento one at that. Unlike Taddeo’s frescoes in Siena, Ghirlandaio’s program excludes Caesar, who has no place in promoting a positive image of Medicean power. Instead, by ending with a Cicero dressed in contemporary clothing, the frescoes seem to promote a temporal and cultural progression that sublimates militarism in favor of modern intellectual engagement modeled on Ciceronian civic activism. This makes sense if we consider both Cicero’s fame as pater patriae—a sobriquet applied to Cosimo de’ Medici by Quattrocento humanists—and the iconographic tradition of Cicero as the great exemplar of civic engagement and defender of republicanism.21 What is more, by deploying Cicero as an image of its politics, the government proclaims its commitment to the liberal arts, thus encouraging scholars to support Medici rule.22 Despite the implied progression from left to right, there is a symmetry between the two groups of men: The two sacrifices in the lefthand arch—that of Lucretia (apparent in Brutus’s bloody knife) and of Scaevola—prefigure the self-sacrifice of Decius Mus in the right-hand arch. On the far right-hand side, the defender of the state Cicero is preempted by Camillus (considered a “proto-Augustus”) in the left-hand arch, as well as by Scipio, who saved Rome from Hannibal and whose expansionism heralded Rome’s imperial destiny.23 The notion of self-sacrifice for the patria—glorified in Cicero’s Somnium Scipionis—moreover links the heroes with Saint Zenobius and with Lorenzo himself, who fostered a cult of martyrdom in the wake of the Pazzi conspiracy.24 Indeed, even if we disregard the overtly Christian and imperial elements of the fresco program, the grouping of republican heroes, with their mix of contemporary and ancient details, suggests that Lorenzo’s postconspiracy Florence will draw on the best traditions of self-sacrificing Roman republicanism (Brutus, Scaevola, Decius Mus) to create a new Medicean Florence (Scipio, Cicero) whose climate of intellectual engagement (Cicero) will evoke the best of imperial Rome (Camillus, Scipio). As we explore the literary and iconographic connotations of each hero, possible readings multiply. Marchand, for example, sees the program as more straightforwardly republican, while Rubinstein and Hegarty argue for

Monuments, Imitation, and the Noble Ideal

40

a nuancing of republicanism with Medicean princely ideals.25 Despite the proliferating interpretations, there seems to be no way to account for Cicero’s odd expression. The ambiguous gesture and frown are particularly inexplicable considering the real Cicero’s vast admiration for Scipio Africanus; they could indicate anything from an implied critique (by Ghirlandaio) of Medici government, to a rejection of the militarism represented by the other figures, to a refusal (also suggested by Cicero’s static robe) of the Florentine nature of the other figures (and by extension ambiguity toward the Medici). A further point of curiosity, and a possible resolution of the Cicero question, emerges from a closer look at the imperial portrait-busts in the spandrels. Although lacking tituli, these have been convincingly identified—from left to right—as Hadrian, Caligula, Vespasian, Nero, Faustina the Younger, and Antoninus Pius (Fig. 1.1).26 Ghirlandaio’s sojourn in Rome (to work on the Sistine Chapel in 1481–82), immediately prior to the Sala dei Gigli commission, seems to have inspired him to include identifiable artifacts like coin images in his work. On his return to Florence, he would have had access to the Medici collection, which included ancient portraits of three of the frescoed emperors— Vespasian, Nero, and Antoninus Pius.27 The inclusion of Faustina the Younger invites the viewer to look more closely at the imperial images—not only because Faustina is the only woman present on the entire wall, but more importantly, for her notoriety as a murderous and sexually perverse adulteress. Since Faustina is paired with Antoninus Pius (Fig. 1.2), it is possible that Ghirlandaio conflated or confused Faustina the Younger with her mother, the famously wise, beautiful, and virtuous wife of Antoninus Pius; Faustina the Elder and her husband provide precisely the image of marriage as the foundation for society that Leonardo Bruni had extolled in his Vita di Dante (1436). Yet in light of Ghirlandaio’s extreme accuracy in reproducing the facial features and hairstyles of both the emperors and the republican heroes, this explanation seems less likely, especially as ancient coin images of the Younger identify her specifically.28 If we agree with Rubinstein that, with regard to the heroes’ dress and accoutrements, “apparent inconsistencies in the decoration of the Sala dei Gigli were deliberate,” it seems fair to assume that jarring choices in the roundels may likewise have been intentional.29

How to Perform Like a Statue 41

The portrait busts taken together seem to mirror the progression from left to right that we noted in the depiction of the heroes (Fig. 1.1): On the far left, Hadrian—famous for his military command, building projects, and intellectual engagement—is paired with Caligula. This infamous tyrant, perhaps best known for claims about his cruelty, extravagance, and sexual perversion, was assassinated in a failed attempt to restore the Roman republic; as such, he is hardly a positive image of centralizing monarchical power for a pro-Medici program. Over the central arch, Vespasian—renowned military commander who invaded Britain and built the Colosseum—faces Nero, one of history’s most notorious despots. Known for his tyranny and extravagance, and often blamed for watching Rome burn, Nero was a suicide who persecuted the Christians—not a figure one would expect above the depiction of Florence’s patron saint. On the right, Faustina the Younger faces her father, Antoninus Pius—a builder and patron of the humanities known for his very peaceful reign, he was never involved in military action. Thus, over the first two arches, good military commanders and builders are paired with wicked tyrants, while above the space in which there is a shift from military heroism to Cicero’s intellectual engagement, a sexually perverse murderess is coupled with a nonmilitary patron of the arts. The repeated pairing of positive and negative exemplars of monarchic rule indicates that the inclusion of Caligula, Nero, and Faustina was not just an accident of available source materials or misidentification. In order to maintain the good/bad pairings, the profile of Nero on the wall has been flipped to mirror Ghirlandaio’s probable model in the Medici gem collection.30 What is more, the notoriety of the three negative exemplars (while not always historically accurate) is so legendary that it is not really balanced out by the virtue of Hadrian, Vespasian, and Antoninus Pius. It is true that the pairs seem to offer some balance, and to end with positive exemplars, but if read in conjunction with the heroes beneath, the imperial busts offer a progression that destabilizes the positive heroic poses of the republicans. The sequence—from Caligula’s cruelty, extravagance, and perversion, to Nero’s destruction of both Rome and himself, to Faustina’s adultery and perversion (and of course, her gender)—suggests the perils of abandoning the republican

Monuments, Imitation, and the Noble Ideal

42

rule represented by the heroes below. While the chronological shift from the militarism of Brutus on the far left to the intellectualism of Cicero on the far right seems to represent a positive change, the portrait-busts above undermine this “progress” by warning that abandoning militarism for intellectualism (a development represented by Antoninus Pius) and the loss of republican rule (represented by all the imperial portraits) can result in self-destruction (Nero), the ruin of the patria (Nero), and perversion and effeminacy (Caligula, Nero, Faustina). The simplicity with which the imperial coin images were painted, their marginal placement, and their lack of tituli belie the gloss they offer on the entire program, and on Cicero’s expression in particular.31 While the coin portraits seem to be simplified imperial complements to the main republican thrust of a pro-Medici program, they offer insight into the many interpretive layers visible in the Cicero figure below. Read in conjunction with the imperial portraits, the Cicero-Scipio interaction seems to indicate a hidden critique of the same Medici politics that the fresco program was officially advancing, as well as a warning against the effeminizing nature of monarchy and intellectualism. Cicero’s layering of clothing, in addition to his enigmatic frown, shows that even apparently simple visual exemplars can remain somewhat difficult to interpret, and invites us to look closer, beneath the “surface.” What we see is yet more surface—but by reading the various elements together, we can construct alternative interpretations to the official pro-Medici narrative on which art historians agree. Ghirlandaio’s frescoes themselves thus constitute a “monumental pose” of Medici might: Acting in dynamic combination, the elements of the program variously exemplify virile militarism, intellectualism, republicanism, imperialism, and Christianity all under the general rubric of Medicean self-sacrifice and martyrdom for the sake of Florence. Yet at the same time, the frescoes themselves partially undo that pose by hinting that the very agenda they seem to advance is in fact flawed, and may lead to effeminacy, corruption, loss of the patria, and loss of self. The “pose” struck by the program as a whole—as suggested by Cicero’s easily missed frown and the marginal presence of Faustina the Younger—willfully ignores its own weakening and effeminizing elements to reassert manly republican and Christian virtue. This tension, closely analogous to the substitutional

How to Perform Like a Statue 43

versus performative tension identified by Nagel and Wood, indicates that exemplarity was inherently and self-consciously unstable. Yet the combination of many different motifs into a beautiful whole—as well as the understated nature of the imperial roundels and the ambiguity of the CiceroScipio interaction—allows the viewer to use the program in the service of disparate political agendas. In other words, this pose has been mostly successful: Although the frescoes were commissioned by the Medici, their survival is a tribute not only to their beauty, but to their inherent multivalency.

Exemplarity and Visual Rhetoric in Pontano’s De principe I turn now to the political agenda of Pontano’s De principe, which advocates that the prince represent himself via the kind of heroic virtue depicted in Ghirlandaio’s frescoes. Yet the ambiguity we have noted with respect to the Cicero image will come into play as the prince— like Ghirlandaio’s Cicero—interacts with those around him. As in the case of Ghirlandaio’s Cicero, the surface of Pontano’s exemplary figure conceals and reveals signs of the “interiority” we typically associate with the decline of exemplarity in the Cinquecento.32 Just as Ghirlandaio subtly warns against the corruption and effeminacy potentially resulting from embracing the frescoes’ own pro-Medici program, so too Pontano cautions his prince against an effeminate “interior” that arises precisely from the attention to appearances Pontano himself insists on. Pontano’s letter to the sixteen-year-old Alfonso spells out, early on, that kings must draw on literature to find examples for their own lives. Pontano’s phrasing is, however, rather unusual: Mirum est enim quantum valeat ad optimam vitae institutionem assidua et diligens lectio. Nam si, ut Scipionem dicere de se solitum scribit Crispus, “maiorum imagines mirum in modum intuentes ad virtutem excitant,” quanto magis illorum dicta factaque imitatione digna . . . commovere debeant! Avus nunquam sine libris in expeditionem profectus, . . . cumque nullas Fabiorum, Marcellorum, Scipionum, Alexandrorum, Caesarum haberet imagines alias quas intueretur, libros inspiciebat, quibus gesta ab illis continerentur. Cuius te nomen referentem hoc eius exemplum, ut alia multa, imitari maxime oportet.33

Monuments, Imitation, and the Noble Ideal

44

(It is remarkable to what extent careful and thorough reading helps to train us for the best manner of life. Sallust writes that Scipio had the habit of saying that the images of the ancients move to virtue in a remarkable way those who gaze upon them; but how much more should their words and their acts worthy of imitation move us . . .? Your grandfather never left on any expedition without books. . . . Not having any other image of the Fabii, the Marcelli, the Scipios, the Alexanders, the Caesars to contemplate, he would gaze upon the books that preserve their deeds. In this as in many other things, you who renew his name must imitate his example to the highest degree.)

Guarino Veronese had argued that contemplating ancient images would improve one’s character as one recalled the virtue of the ancients—a notion reminiscent of Tacitus, who claimed that reverence and emulation (rather than visual likenesses) made the ancients live eternally in human hearts.34 Pontano incorporates both ideas as he claims that Alfonso’s grandfather gazed upon books, not images. The verb intueor comes from Sallust, and is reinforced with inspicere; both verbs denote visual contemplation, and so help to construct ancient written records of heroic deeds as imagines. In Sallust’s text, these imagines are death masks of high-ranking ancestors, and act metonymically as histories, while in Pontano’s account the written histories themselves become objects of contemplation.35 In this way Pontano’s text portrays the written records of great men’s actions as coherent, consistent representations of the men’s deeds, so that histories become timeless monuments that are immediately visually accessible to the modern reader. This rhetoric naturally elevates the position of Pontano himself, along with other scholars like him, who may not be able to produce visual artworks, but whose writings are (we infer) as accessible to the eye as are figurative monuments, and are far more useful, since they can be carried anywhere, even on military campaigns.36 The passage quoted above posits an ideal conjunction of the man of letters with the military leader—Sallust and Scipio, whom Pontano and his prince must presumably emulate. This exemplary balance of words and action is reduplicated by an example in the immediate past, as Alfonso’s grandfather (paired with another great scholar-educator, Panormita) applied the advice of Sallust’s Scipio to study books about

How to Perform Like a Statue 45

men and their famous deeds. The passage collapses historical distance to propose the fiction that the greatness of Rome continues into the present, through the actions of the young prince. In addition to bearing his grandfather’s name, Alfonso must physically represent his grandfather and his Roman forefathers by following their example in a potentially eternal continuum of men of action whose historical imagines—as preserved in books—become examples to future generations. In keeping with the idea of a visually accessible and essentially reproducible past, Pontano proposes exemplars that erase the difference between Alfonso’s immediate forebears and heroes from ancient history, as the text shifts among avus tuus, pater tuus, and the manly training of Augustus and Cyrus: Avus tuus meridianis horis arcu se cum iuvenibus exercebat, Augustus pila et folliculo. Venatio quoque et aucupium corpus animumque maxime reficiunt. Pater tuus istud aetatis equis operam dabat, Cyrus, apud Astyagem avum, puer equum agere. (Principe 38) (Your grandfather used to practice archery with other young men, in the afternoons; Augustus played ball games. The various forms of hunting restore, to a great degree, the mind and the body. Your father at this age used to ride horses; the young Cyrus, when at the house of his grandfather Astyages, used to ride.)

Just as Alfonso’s forebears have followed the ancient examples of Augustus and Cyrus, so must Alfonso follow both their example and that of the ancients: “Hortor ac moneo uti, paterna avitaque imitatus vestigia” (I strongly encourage you to follow the footsteps of your father and grandfather; 48); “Cyrus hic, quem imitari te maxime cupio” (That Cyrus, whom I most particularly wish you to imitate; Principe 42). In the same way that Alfonso’s father and grandfather have become examples for the young prince, so must Alfonso be an example for his people to follow. The text again insists on the visual aspects of this kind of exemplarity, noting that Alfonso is being watched from all sides (“se se spectandam omnibus”; Principe 52). In addition, Pontano tells the prince, “ad [virtutem] nulla eos res magis excitabit quam spectata ipsis virtus tua et mores quam probatissimi” (nothing will excite the people to virtue more than the visual contemplation of your virtue and your

Monuments, Imitation, and the Noble Ideal

46

most excellent customs; Principe 54). Indeed, Pontano continues, citing Claudian, “componitur orbis / regis ad exemplar” (the world is formed in a king’s image; Principe 54). Simply put, Alfonso’s grandfather followed the example of Scipio by gazing upon “images” of great deeds and emulating them; imitating in turn this example, Alfonso too will become an image of virtue for his people to admire and emulate. Thus the chain of exemplarity as a series of uncomplicated, fixed visual models extends unbroken through time and space—reinforcing both the claim of the Aragonese to the throne and their connection with classical heroes. In the same way that Ghirlandaio’s fresco program initially seems fairly straightforward, but in fact proposes contrasting, competing, or ambiguous exemplars, so too Pontano’s comparison of himself and his prince with Sallust and Scipio is muddled by other potential models: The letter moves indiscriminately between ancient republican and imperial examples. The opening of the letter is paradigmatic of this rhetorical blurring in offering a striking juxtaposition—“Publius Cornelius Scipio, Dux Alfonse”—apparently suggesting that the future king, Alfonso, should take the republican Scipio for his primary model. The passage recounts the election of Scipio Africanus as aedile, and compares this with King Ferrante’s appointing Alfonso prince of Calabria. Pontano recycles Scipio as exemplar of the virtues of leadership, disregarding his political affiliations to reappropriate him for the Aragonese kings.37 Yet the comparison remains awkward because, although Pontano’s text emphasizes leadership by young men, it contrasts the vote for Scipio—who proposes himself as candidate—with Alfonso’s own case, in which governance has been assigned to a passive royal heir who has yet to prove his worth: Fretus enim virtutibus suis, quanquam adolescens et ante tempus, magistratum tamen petere a populo non dubitavit. Te, autem vix dum annos pubertatis egressum nec id petentem, pater vicarium Regni creavit decrevitque provintiam Calabriam. (Principe 2–4) (Confident of his own virtue, [Scipio] despite being young and precocious, did not hesitate to ask the people for the magistracy. You, however, have barely left childhood, and although you did not seek public office, your father has made you prince regent and assigned to you the province of Calabria.)

How to Perform Like a Statue 47

The negative contrast implicit in “Te autem . . . nec id petentem,” highlights that the ancient republican military commander is very different from the modern prince who passively receives public office. Pontano’s account of Scipio’s election comes from Livy, who emphasizes the groundswell of support for Scipio’s candidacy: Popular enthusiasm results in Scipio’s election.38 By contrast, Pontano emphasizes the visibility of the prince: All eyes are on Alfonso, waiting to see if he will live up to his political appointment: videlicet non annis aut aetati haec tribuens tuae, sed virtutibus, quarum tanta apud omnes sit expectatio ut cunctorum et populorum et procerum Regni oculos in te unum converteris. (Principe 4) (This [political appointment] is clearly not a tribute to age or to your youth, but to your virtues, of which so much is expected in all quarters, that you have turned the eyes of everyone—both the people and the nobles—onto yourself alone.)

The extreme visual prominence of the prince continues the Scipio resonances by echoing Cicero, and points to the importance of meeting public expectations during a political crisis: In Cicero’s Somnium Scipionis, Scipio Africanus the Elder (Pontano’s initial exemplar) predicts the violence of the Gracchi and the moment that all eyes will turn to Scipio Africanus the Younger as the hope of the state’s security.39 Likewise, in De amicitia 6, immediately after the younger Scipio’s subsequent murder (presumably at the hands of the Gracchi), Fannius warns Laelius that, since his closest friend is now dead, he must understand that “omnium oculos in te esse coniectos unum” (all men have fixed their eyes on you alone), as everyone wonders whether he can maintain his civic responsibilities. The emphasis on the prince’s visibility, in recalling a moment of crisis for the Scipios and following the tale of the Elder Scipio’s overcoming political resistance, suggests the importance of gaining the favor of the people—an imperative for the Aragonese rulers, who faced continued opposition. Indeed, the moral that follows this opening exemplar and introduces the next one is the value of public approval: “Nihil enim ad conciliandos subiectorum animos tam valet, quam iustitiae ac divini cultus opinio” (For nothing is as useful in acquiring the minds of your subjects as a reputation

Monuments, Imitation, and the Noble Ideal

48

for justice and religious observance; Principe 4). As we shall see, this concern for reputation supersedes the republican or imperial agenda of many of Pontano’s exemplars, and conditions much of his advice. The text continues to emphasize the importance of reputation in winning popular opinion: Quantum autem ad popularem comparandam benevolentiam religionis valeat opinio docuit Macedo Alexander, qui etiam superstitionem laudare solitus est, tanquam per eam in plebis animos rectores ipsi illaberentur. (Principe 6) (The Macedon Alexander taught how useful a reputation for religion is to obtain the goodwill of the people. He even used to praise superstition, as if through superstition leaders could insinuate themselves into the popular imagination.)

The reprise of opinio (reputation), used just a few sentences earlier, emphasizes the importance of outward appearance. Pontano uses the quintessential virtuous hero, Alexander the Great, as mouthpiece promoting the manipulation of religio (religious observance) to gain popular support—rather than advocating adherence to fides (faith), which was one of the theological virtues.40 Religio, by contrast, was a Roman virtue associated with the pagan cult: In Taddeo’s Sienese frescoes, religio suggests the politically useful nature of religious observance (irrespective of fides), and shows that Pontano’s stress on religio is neither an isolated case nor a momentary aberration.41 The anecdote about religious observance extends the significance of the opening passage about Scipio: Since all eyes are on the prince, he must cultivate appearances to his advantage, and even (following Alexander’s example) manipulate superstition to win support, when possible. Indeed, the text connects religious observance with numerous exemplars, including Scipio himself: “Qua virtute et Cyrus . . . et Camillus et Africanus et praestantissimi quique viri excelluerunt” (Cyrus . . . , Camillus, Scipio Africanus, and the most distinguished men excelled in this virtue; Principe 6–8). The line between religio and superstition blurs, however, as Alfonso’s grandfather appears in the list of heroes who upheld pagan ceremony: He was so observant of the outward signs of religion—“sacra stata ritusque christianos ac solemnes cerimonias” (holy festivals, Christian rites, and

How to Perform Like a Statue 49

solemn ceremonies)—that “ne ab ipsis etiam sacrosanctis pontificibus in hoc vinceretur” (not even the holy pontiffs excelled him; Principe 8). The rhetoric of spectacle in fact subtly modifies a substantial part of Pontano’s advice to cultivate the traditional virtues: The prince must be forbearing because “Clementiam in quo esse senserimus illum omnes admiramur, colimus, pro deo habemus” (the man in whom we perceive forbearance, we all admire, we revere, we consider a god; Principe 8–10). In the Ciceronian and humanistic tradition, clementia is unlike other virtues in often being discussed in terms of the spectator’s impression, making a man appear god-like.42 Yet Pontano’s canonical celebration of forbearance is one of a series in which a subtle rhetoric of spectacle amends traditional praises of the virtues. Thus, the exhortation to be as uncorrupt as Cato the Censor is premised by the notion of public perception: “Qui temperantem te senserit turpia nunquam petere audebit” (Anyone who perceives you to be temperate will never dare to make disgraceful requests; Principe 14).43 Scipio, who is once again the exemplar here, demonstrates not temperance, but continentia—a lesser virtue in the Aristotelian tradition, since continence implies discord between good actions and less-than-good desires—but which to an observer was potentially indistinguishable from the greater virtue of temperance.44 The traditional accompaniment to temperantia is facilitas, which, however, Pontano presents in the unusual terms of acquiring goodwill: Imprimis autem studere oportet ut qui te adeunt facilem esse intelligant. . . . Avus tuus hac una re potissimum benevolentiam hominum sibi conciliabat, quod neminem patiebatur tristem a se abire. (Principe 14) (You must take especial care that those who apply to you understand you to be good-natured. . . . With this one quality your grandfather procured the goodwill of men, as he did not allow anyone to leave unhappy.)45

The ambiguous verb intelligere—to perceive or to comprehend—shifts the focus from the prince’s virtue to the way people see him. Although Platina promoted the same Ciceronian concept with the specific aim of gaining goodwill, Pontano went a step further in focusing on audience perception.46 Similarly, in advocating the importance of humanistic

Monuments, Imitation, and the Noble Ideal

50

learning, Pontano points out that those who hold the foremost positions as leaders are “qui docti habentur” (those who are considered well-educated; Principe 30). In the traditional discussion over whether a ruler should be loved or feared, De principe insists that the prince gain the love of his household and immediate circle by having them understand that they are loved by him (“ut amari se abs te intelligant”; Principe 40). Again, this wording is peculiar to Pontano.47 For the same reason, his subjects must never perceive the prince to be covetous (“Non sentiant te avidum alieni”; Principe 44): This admonition is part of a long tradition, but although Pontano’s pragmatism recalls that of Diomede Carafa, De principe again offers a unique emphasis on public perception.48 Taken together, these potentially insignificant word choices—all of which were new and specific to Pontano—form a semantic cluster that privileges a utilitarian emphasis on outward appearances. In this context, a king’s traditional role as exemplar to his people emerges as both necessary and dependent on audience perception. Pontano condemns Massinissa and Dionysius of Syracuse for living in a climate of fear, and emphasizes that, for his own safety, the prince must present himself as an example of humanitas: Ad haec, quid magis alienum a regibus aut ipsorum securitati minus conducens quam quod, cum ipsi praebere se coeteris debeant humanitatis exemplum, difficiles et superbos agant? (Principe 44) (Besides, what could be more alien to kings, less conducive to their security, than to behave in a proud and difficult fashion, when instead they should show themselves to others as exemplars of humanity?)

The king’s safety and status as exemplar of humanitas depend on how others perceive him. While the verb praebere se is typical of Christian exemplary rhetoric, the context here emphasizes a personal political aim (the king’s safety) via public perception—echoing the unusual cluster of verbs privileging audience impressions.49

How to Perform Like a Statue 51

Beneath the Display of Virtue The emphasis on appearances is particularly marked in the second half of the letter, centered around Pontano’s theorization of maiestas (majesty), traditionally considered his original contribution to discussions of princely behavior.50 The two chief components of maiestas, Pontano tells us, are gravitas (authoritative dignity) and constantia (constancy; Principe 54–56). The combination is once again Ciceronian: In this context, Cicero insisted that the statesman preserve an indifference to rerum humanarum (outward circumstances, or human affairs)—yet Pontano develops Cicero’s acknowledgment that such an indifference is difficult to achieve, as his letter reveals the inherent contradiction between performing virtue and meeting the demands of contingency.51 The language of performance is explicit—in order to achieve maiestas, Alfonso must “play the role” or, more literally, “assume the mask” of the prince: “oportet teipsum ut cognoscas intelligasque te gerere principis personam” (it is necessary that you know yourself and understand that you bear the role of the prince; Principe 54). The basic meaning of personam is an actor’s theatrical mask. The semantics of representation (personam gerere) are Cicero’s—his magistrate must assume the role of the state—but are also reminiscent of Aristotle’s recommendation that a tyrant wishing to retain power should “in all his other actions real or pretended . . . cleverly play the part of royalty.”52 While Aristotle suggests that the tyrant will develop at least some virtues through repeated virtuous acts, Pontano wants his prince to perform virtuous acts, but usually fails to link actions with the development of virtues.53 In fact, while De principe echoes Aristotle’s repeated insistence that a tyrant must be seen by his people as good, the text collapses the Aristotelian distinction between monarchy and tyranny in a single-minded focus on retaining power. In discussing maiestas, the letter gives increasingly practical advice for achieving renown through a reputation for virtue. Pontano tells the prince that he should te . . . ostendas (show [him]self) to be a keen defender of laws and liberty (Principe 68); and should conduct himself in such a way that his subjects sentiant (perceive) him as a father figure and intelligant (understand) that he cares about them, so that his people

Monuments, Imitation, and the Noble Ideal

52

will love and revere him as lord and protector (Principe 60). Of the many sources advocating the strategy of mutua caritas, Seneca comes closest to Pontano’s concern with audience perception: In instructing his young pupil Nero, Seneca points out that pater patriae is the most significant honorific that the Romans have applied to the prince, for it reminds him to care for the people as a father might.54 This formulation makes Seneca’s prince the responsive “audience” of his people’s respect; Pontano’s prince, by contrast, must perform for the people so as to win respect.55 In administering the law, while the prince’s people must sentiant (understand) his severity, he must be careful to be seen to punish the crime rather than the criminal (“sic animadvertas, ut . . . videare,” Principe 60–62). The Ciceronian source here does not use the same language of presentation; indeed, the only earlier writer who approaches Pontano’s pragmatic concern for the king’s audience is Diomede Carafa.56 Cicero’s emphasis on reputation does, however, seem to underlie Pontano’s advice to calibrate the monarch’s response to petitioners according to his audience: He must te praebeas (show [him]self) as gentle and affable, listen eo vultu (with that expression) that gives petitioners courage, and in refusing dishonest requests, ostendendum est (it must be demonstrated) that he does so for the petitioner’s own good (Principe 58).57 Neither Cicero nor other sources, however, offer Pontano’s close attention to calibrating appearances for a specific end. This attention to outward show is likewise evident in the admonition to be well liked within the palace, as servants’ gossip can be harmful: Danda est opera ut familiares quique “aulici” hodie vocantur optime de te sibi persuadeant, quod his moribus artibusque facillime assequeris si facilem, comem, benignum, liberalem erga eos te praebueris. (Principe 70) (One must take pains so that servants, and those who are nowadays called “courtiers,” think most highly of you. You will accomplish this very easily through these manners and techniques: Show yourself toward them as affable, courteous, kind, and generous.)

The text once again focuses in a utilitarian manner on external appearances, counseling “manners and techniques” to “exhibit” so that others sibi persuadeant (persuade themselves) to the prince’s advantage.

How to Perform Like a Statue 53

Since a monarch deals with different kinds of people, his performance of virtue is conditioned by circumstance: “mutantur enim multa pro locis, rebus, temporibus” (many things change according to time, place, and circumstance; Principe 62). The principle of receiving guests according to their station, already present in Pontano’s sources, emerges strongly here as the prince must show (“prae te feras”) a range of different qualities and behaviors—from munificence to religious observance— depending on the requirements of his own dignity and the guests’ petitions (Principe 64). This careful modulation of actions tends toward the theatrical as the prince must show himself (“te . . . praebeas”) as affable and pleasant toward foreign visitors, and demonstrate (“ostendes”) that he enjoys their conversation (Principe 62–64); on bidding them farewell, he must speak charmingly (“blandis verbis et comi sermone”; Principe 64). While the precepts in themselves are somewhat generic, the specific practical advice to assume certain attitudes for a particular audience is fairly unique.58 Carafa, while not offering a similar cluster of “performance” verbs, is the closest source to Pontano’s semantics of show, recommending that the king “benignamente ricevere e con lieto viso e dolce e piacevole parlare” (receive benevolently and with a glad face and sweet, charming speech; Memoriali 49). Given Pontano’s close attention to modulating behavior in accordance with circumstance, a contradiction surfaces as the text defines maiestas in terms of the coherence of the prince’s identity: Totius autem maiestatis fundamentum est, si tecum ita quidem vivas ut minime a te ipse dissentias in omnibusque tum dictis tum factis fidem ut teneas atque constantiam. (Principe 74) (The foundation of all majesty is this, that you live with yourself such that you are not at all inconsistent with yourself [inconsistent with yourself as little as possible]; in all words and deeds maintain faith and constancy.)

Translations typically convert the negative construction (minime . . . dissentias) into a positive, “always be consistent”—so the passage is frequently glossed as reflecting a strong religious morality.59 While minime can mean “not at all” (common as a negative response to a question), a positive translation both elides the textual suggestion

Monuments, Imitation, and the Noble Ideal

54

that it is impossible to be true to oneself all the time, and dismisses the pragmatism of the Ciceronian source, where the function of decorum—and of all the virtues—is to win the approbation of others.60 The intimation that perfect consistency is not possible emerges more clearly from Pontano’s discussion of faith, which, like most of the prince’s actions, is subject to circumstance: Si, ut fraudulenti et perfidi nomen abhominabere, ita nec semper nec omnibus tantam fidem adhibebis aut in dicendo aut in consulendo aut in aliis quae plurima in vita mortalium dubia et incerta contingunt, ut non existimes posse aliquando eos decipi, errare, labi, cum veritas plurima habeat diverticula et, ut Narcissus theologus, acutissimus vir, dicere solet, in latebris habitet. (Principe 74–76) (Even as you abhor the name of perfidy and treachery, you will not always nor in all matters exercise so much faith, in words or deliberations or in other things—many of which in the lives of mortals are doubtful and uncertain—that you do not suppose that men can sometimes be deluded, erroneous, or wrong, for the truth has many divergent paths and, as that most astute theologian Narciso used to say, dwells in hiding places.)61

Carafa, Pontano’s main source, is more blunt about the problem of maintaining perfect faith in an imperfect world: “Non creda ogni cosa; perciò che vari sono gl’ingegni degli huomini et i costumi di molti sono ingannevoli e corrotti” (Don’t believe everything; for there are different kinds of temperaments, and many people’s habits are deceitful and corrupt).62 Yet Pontano’s exhortation goes further than just being a suspicious listener: The king must be careful in “exercising faith” and must loathe “the name of perfidy.” Is treachery permissible without a reputation for it—perfidy by another name? Indeed, it may be necessary since (Pontano tells us) truth is evasive and hidden. Yet if truth is by nature hidden, it disconcertingly resembles its own negation, dissimulation—fundamental to political discourse a century later—which is also antithetical to the ideal of a consistently virtuous self. Pontano however mitigates the exhortation to a slippery kind of faith by attributing this relativistic view of truth to his friend Narcis Verdún, a “most astute theologian,” and so reinscribes it into a Christian philosophical context.

How to Perform Like a Statue 55

It is characteristic of De principe’s internal tensions that, prior to blurring the question of faith, an earlier section of the text emphasizes fides as “dictorum conventorumve constantia et veritas” (truth and constancy in words and agreements; Principe 12), and so seems well within both Ciceronian tradition and the bounds of Christian ethics.63 Yet even here, while this phrasing recalls Cicero’s definition of justice, Pontano’s approach is conditioned by considerations of circumstance: Quae promittas et cui etiam promittas videto. Non modo autem facultatum ac meritorum, sed etiam temporum atque ingeniorum habenda est ratio. In quo et alia multa consideranda sunt, et illud maxime quod nihil turpius sit quam fidem non servare. (Principe 12) (Be careful what you promise and to whom you make promises. One should take into account not only possibilities and individual merits, but also circumstances and temperaments. In this regard, many other things must be considered, and especially that nothing is more disgraceful than not keeping faith.)

While advocating fides, then, Pontano warns of the dangers inherent in keeping faith, and urges an awareness of circumstances before committing oneself to a promise. In keeping with its interest in appearance, the letter emphasizes the public disgrace of breaking one’s word. The passage then reinforces the relation of fides to performance by describing the ancient ritual of monarchs kissing the book of the Gospels, intended to remind the prince that truth should be worshipped (“colendae veritatis admonitus”; Principe 12). Just as fides is subject to circumstance, so too the ritualized public spectacle of venerating the idea of truth moderates the original proposal to preserve faith through truth and constancy. Considering that Pontano emphasizes public perception in keeping faith, it is not surprising that De principe nuances its initial proposition concerning justice, with the need to play to an audience according to circumstance. Early on, the text proposes that justice should be timeless and equal for all: “nullum a te personarum discrimen habeatur, sed ipsarum legum personam induas, quae eaedem semper sunt omnibus” (do not distinguish between people, but dress yourself in the character of the laws themselves, which are always the same for everyone; Principe 58). Pontano’s advice seems clear: By clothing himself in laws,

Monuments, Imitation, and the Noble Ideal

56

the king assumes the identity of the law itself (a traditional admonition for rulers)—but the unique phrasing, “legum personam induas,” hints at taking on a theatrical role, as persona is a mask worn by actors.64 While this phrasing—although unique—could merely be generic, the text subsequently suggests that justice has some affinities with theater: In hos severum, in illos facilem, pro causis, ingeniis, temporibus locisque te exhibebis, sciens summum ius summam interdum iniuriam esse; non raro etiam magis ex aequo et bono quam iure agendum, quaedam etiam magis ignoscenda esse quam punienda, nonnulla etiam praeterunda tanquam ignores aut in aliud temporis differenda. (Principe 66; my italics) (You will show yourself as harsh with some, gentle with others, according to the case, the people involved, time, and place; knowing that the greatest justice is sometimes the greatest injustice and that often one must act according to equity and goodness rather than the law. Some things should be pardoned rather than punished, others one must pretend to ignore [forgive], or put off to another time.)

According to a tradition dating back at least as far as Terence, injustice can arise from an oversubtle and excessive interpretation of the law.65 In Pontano’s letter, however, justice is described in unusually pragmatic terms, as Alfonso must “show himself” as a just king and employ a certain amount of pretense in his sentencing.66 The language of performance, alongside the privileging of contingency over the law, highlights the difficulty of applying an inherited legal code to contemporary societies, which were complex and continually evolving.67 The emphasis on contingency also poses the question: If a thorough study of the law is insufficient preparation for dealing with legal issues, how can Pontano’s written teachings be useful, and why should one study the ancient writers? In other words, does humanism have anything to offer the prince? The discussion of justice seems to conflict with Pontano’s promotion of constancy as the basis of majesty. This notion derives from Cicero’s definition of decorum, which requires “in omni re gerenda consilioque capiendo servare constantiam” (maintaining consistency in the performance of every act and in the conception of every plan; De

How to Perform Like a Statue 57

officiis 1.125). Yet even Cicero’s decorum is essentially self-serving, as he describes the virtues as partes (roles) assumed to earn public approbation—decorum’s ultimate goal. In this light, Pontano’s emphasis on reputation with regard to both fides and most of the other virtues is fairly close to his classical source—even if, unlike Cicero, he often stresses audience approval rather than actual virtue. This emphasis is most explicit toward the end of the letter as Pontano—in a brief aside that offers no explanation or justification—reframes maiestas in terms of reputation rather than its earlier definition of dignity and constancy: “cum fama maxime constet maiestas” (since majesty corresponds primarily with public opinion; Principe 88).68 As it turns out, the king’s status is based largely on popular approval. A resolution of these contradictions emerges gradually from the discussion of the body in the final pages of the treatise. Physiognomy traditionally revealed a man’s character, and the soul’s control of the body was analogous to reason’s control of the appetites: Physical gestures are therefore important in ancient oratory, Pontano’s main source.69 In the letter, however, the classical ideal of the pleasant demeanor—which traditionally symbolized internal humanitas—is recast in terms of political utility: “Vultus etiam bonus et laeta, ut dicitur, frons incredibile est quantum adiuvent” (It is incredible how useful a pleasant demeanor and, as they say, a cheerful expression, can be; Principe 74).70 The text forbids unregulated gestures, and then pays unusual attention to the eyes: In oculis quoque non parvam natura posuit motuum animi declarationem. . . . nihil foedum, varium, crudele, invidum, vanum in illorum appareat motu atque obtutu, nihil in superciliis, nihil in fronte. (Principe 78) (Nature has placed no small declaration of our mental processes in our eyes: . . . let nothing disgraceful, shifty, cruel, envious, or vacant appear in their movement or their gaze, or in the eyebrows or on the brow.)

This passage borrows closely from Cicero, who urges the orator to indicate emotion through the eyes, but still seems to adhere to the idea that “the brow is the door to the mind.”71 Although this notion clearly

Monuments, Imitation, and the Noble Ideal

58

subtends Pontano’s advice, his recommendations concerning political deliberations indicate, however, that the prince’s brow should not be the door to his mind: Oportet . . . oculis nutuque multa declarare, multa etiam pensitantem animo vultu praeteferre; sententias aliorum ita examinare ut mentes dicentium videare velle introspicere; quod ipse sentias aut non statim aut solum paucis aperire. (Principe 56) (It is necessary . . . to explain much with your eyes and your nod, to demonstrate by your expression that you are pondering many things in your mind, to examine the opinions of others in a such way that you appear to want to look into the minds of the speakers; you should not show your own thoughts immediately, or only to a few.)

Here, a king’s appearance is the key to his political power—as is his secrecy in not revealing his thoughts to those around him. While the control of one’s gestures recalls classical oratory, Pontano’s advice to be enigmatic seems to be unique. This recommendation moreover modifies the significance of the example of fortitudo earlier in the letter, in which Alfonso’s father Ferrante, during the war of succession, found that entire provinces had turned traitor, but “nunquam mutavit vultum . . . , in ipsos defectores nullo unquam contumelioso dicto usus” (he never changed his expression, . . . he never used any abusive words against those same traitors; Principe 18). Pontano’s wording delicately shifts the traditional emphasis on preserving one’s presence of mind—a Ciceronian topos typical of Quattrocento writings about Ferrante—to focus instead on outward manifestations of self-possession.72 Curiously, the closest source is Tacitus’s disapproving description of Tiberius’s reaction to the revolt of numerous tribes in Gaul: “Neque vultu mutato” (and neither did he change his expression): Tacitus explains this as extreme reserve or self-delusion, and is skeptical of Tiberius’s facial and gestural control as dissimulatio (dissimulation) or hypocrisy.73 Yet Pontano clearly advocates this kind of careful control, in contradiction of ancient physiognomic theories and oratorical treatises that promoted an equivalence between character and facial expression. If the prince’s features must not reveal his thoughts, and he

How to Perform Like a Statue 59

should sometimes “pretend ignorance,” neither Ferrante’s stoic expression nor the required “pleasant demeanor”—nor, in fact, any part of the prince’s performance of virtue—necessarily indicate his actual thoughts or feelings. Rather than presenting himself as a coherent and visually accessible series of gesta, an easily readable exemplar, the wise king should simultaneously show and hide himself, promoting a public persona whose performance of exemplarity depends, in part, on concealment. In fact, the prince’s performance of power, by demanding concealment, generates what Berger (in discussing Norbert Elias’s “civilizing process”) has termed the “unrepresented inner self,” more commonly associated with the dissimulation promoted by sixteenth-century texts like Castiglione’s Cortegiano.74 Precisely what the prince may be concealing beneath his stoically virtuous appearance emerges in the final pages of the treatise, where Pontano offers advice on dress and deportment, and for the first time acknowledges that literature fails to provide a model for projecting majesty in an ever-changing world. In order to augment the prince’s maiestas, his dress must suit his age and the exact situation in which he finds himself (Principe 80). Humanist pedagogy falls short as, considering the potential range of circumstances, fashions, colors, and garments, Pontano recommends choosing “quid maxime conveniat” (what is most suitable)—but is unable to suggest what this might entail, and even dismisses the timeless principle of moderation as unsuited for promoting majesty (Principe 82 and 86). The program of teaching by example fails in the contemporary world: Pontano admits that since modern fashions change so rapidly, he cannot offer examples or precepts on the subject, or even suggest which kind of clothing is most fitting (Principe 84). What is more, Pontano claims that the transient nature of clothing prevents him from identifying precise limits in tending to one’s appearance (Principe 84).75 Instead, the text offers two negative precepts—that the prince eschew French clothing, and that he above all avoid the threat of effeminacy. While early in the treatise, effeminacy results from idleness (Principe 36), here excessive attention to physical appearance emerges as the true culprit: “Sit igitur cultus qui dignitatem augeat, non formam venustet” (Therefore let care of the body augment

Monuments, Imitation, and the Noble Ideal

60

one’s dignity, not beautify one’s physical appearance; Principe 84). While this kind of warning against feminine venustas is traditional, Pontano qualifies it with the admission that, in fact, careful attention to the body can greatly improve physical appearance—and even argues that clever styling can hide physical defects (Principe 84).76 The text then changes tack yet again, reinforcing its earlier condemnation of venustas as effeminate, but tempering this with a diatribe against “barbarian” beards and hairiness (Principe 84). Pontano does not attempt to resolve this set of contradictions, but instead proposes the precept of “virilis et italica disciplina” (manly Italic discipline; Principe 84)— an unexplained notion suggesting an idealized masculine stoicism that unites the Italian peninsula in its superiority to effeminate or barbaric foreigners. “Manly Italic discipline” also evokes a timeless ideal in contrast with the transience of fashions from abroad: The text seems to use disciplina in its religiously informed medieval sense of “moral law” or “self-restraint” (rather than the classical Latin “branch of knowledge”). It is no surprise that Pontano cannot identify the limits of grooming, since what emerges from the contradictions of this discussion is that the prince must tend very carefully indeed to his outward appearance, choosing styles that minimize his physical defects and make him seem more handsome—but he should do so in such a way that he ultimately appears more masculine and less interested in clothing than in manly self-restraint. In other words, the prince’s manly, statue-like outward appearance conceals a very “feminine” preoccupation with that appearance. Pontano’s proposal that the prince focus on but dissimulate attention to dress presages Castiglione’s recommendations for the courtier’s appearance, and even foreshadows Castiglione’s idea of sprezzatura. What is more, Pontano’s main advice on dress is applicable to all of his other precepts: “Danda tamen est opera ut nos et ubique et semper ii simus quos esse convenerit” (It is, however, necessary to do things so that always and in every place we are as befits us; Principe 80). This recommendation, while not offering much of a practical guide, closely parallels Cicero’s clothing in Ghirlandaio’s frescoes, where the statesman is dressed, quite literally, for anything. The final portion of the treatise, where costume and deportment depend on circumstance,

How to Perform Like a Statue 61

does not represent an addendum of mundane details after the initial great exemplars, but in fact gives specific recommendations as to how Prince Alfonso might present himself as a modern Scipio. Indeed, Pontano here tacitly conflates his two contrasting definitions of maiestas—consistency with oneself, and one’s reputation—by advising consistent deportment in accordance with circumstances: “Sint verba rebus convenientia, quibus etiam accedat vultus et totius etiam corporis motus aptus ac decens” (Let your words be in accord with circumstances, and to your words let there be added your expression and indeed, the appropriate and fitting movement of your whole body; Principe 90).77 Rather than true constancy, it is this kind of outward performance of consistency—closely derived from Cicero’s decorum—that the prince can use to build his reputation and so augment his majesty.

Pontano, Ghirlandaio, and the Enigmatic Monumental Pose Pontano argues that ancient exemplary histories are visually accessible and essentially reproducible, so the good monarch will himself become one of the permanent monuments of history. This theory seems to be borne out by the popularity of the kind of images Ghirlandaio was painting. However, Ghirlandaio’s frescoes show that contingency plays a substantial role in reading even apparently uncomplicated exemplary histories, while Pontano’s letter indicates that the specifics of any situation determine the prince’s actions. Indeed, De principe points to the limits of humanist education, with its strong emphasis on exemplars, and of those exemplars themselves, which—as the text suggests—display an outward moral goodness that does not necessarily correspond with any historical “reality.” Although Pontano’s advice is informed by the idea that by being a good moral leader Alfonso can, like his grandfather, become a monumentalized part of history, moral leadership depends very much on audience perception. The prince’s facial expression, behavior, and dress are all calibrated to circumstances, and just as the monarch’s expression and deportment should conceal his true feelings, his dress must also hide the effeminizing attention he is required to devote to it. While Pontano advocates following exemplars of manly virtue like Scipio, Cyrus, and Cicero, the prince’s defining

Monuments, Imitation, and the Noble Ideal

62

attribute—majesty—depends largely on his reputation. The prince’s primary concern is thus how others perceive him—so in order to resemble ancient heroes he must adopt the essentially “effeminate” trait of caring for, and constantly adapting, his outward appearance. The result is a prince for whom justice may require a pretence of ignorance, and for whom truth “lives in hiding places,” as does his own concern for appearances, concealed by the external pose of a manly exemplar. This inwardness emerges differently in Ghirlandaio’s Cicero, whose dress and pose seems to confirm Pontano’s advice to perform like a statue: Cicero is timelessly monumental despite thematizing the contingency of dialogue through his interaction with Scipio. His Quattrocento robe and classical armor meet Pontano’s criterion that apparel suit the exact circumstances in which the prince finds himself: On the one hand, these garments refer to two specific historical moments—Cicero’s response to Catiline, and by extension, Lorenzo’s response to his opponents—while on the other hand, they also indicate the hero’s permanent readiness for either oratory or battle. In addition, the mix of Quattrocento and Roman clothes suggests that Cicero’s exemplary heroism is timeless. Yet the layered clothing goes still further in depicting the kind of public image Pontano advocates: Cicero overtly represents a “layered” identity in the service of the state. Outwardly, he is an intellectual civilian, while beneath his robe the armor signals his willingness to fight. Although Cicero’s civilian surface can be partially penetrated to see the warrior beneath, his expression and gesture remain difficult to quantify, offering precisely the kind of ambiguity that Pontano requires the prince to demonstrate in his dealings with the world. Like Ghirlandaio’s Cicero, whose ambiguous pose both suggests virtuous exemplarity and defies definition, Pontano’s prince must cultivate a show of virtue combined with external, visible mystery, anticipating much sixteenth-century advice for courtiers. What is more, Ghirlandaio’s program as a whole instantiates Pontano’s advice to generate a beautiful and straightforwardly virtuous appearance without revealing one’s “interior”: Ghirlandaio’s curious pairing of good emperors with some of history’s most notorious tyrants and profligates (including a “wicked” woman), on a wall that otherwise celebrates only masculine virtue, is rendered almost invisible by

How to Perform Like a Statue 63

its marginality and lack of signposting. Pontano’s prince, Ghirlandaio’s Cicero, and the Sala de’ Gigli program overall are thus more like the enigmatic personalized emblems that will flourish in the late sixteenth century than the supposedly readable “images” that Pontano initially proposes as models. The concealment characterizing Pontano’s prince and Ghirlandaio’s Cicero relates to the humanist pedagogical program more broadly: What is being taught is not exemplary virtue per se, but exemplarity for the sake of exemplarity—how to perform like a statue so as to be enstatued. This is an idea that emerges clearly from Pontano’s shift in defining princely majesty first as moral consistency and then in terms of fame. The resulting monumental pose comprises a surface that aims to be both statue-like and sufficiently enigmatic that its inwardness is invisible; the interior may be changeable, effeminate, politically ambiguous, or even morally empty, but it is covered by an outward classicizing manliness.

chapter two

From Castrated Statues to Empty Colossi: Emasculation vs. Monumentality in Bembo, Castiglione, and the Sala Paolina

In the Castel Sant’Angelo in Rome, there is a room splendidly redec-

orated under Pope Paul III to Perino del Vaga’s design (1545–47). The ceiling and walls of the Sala Paolina include stories about Alexander the Great and St. Paul, with the wall sections alternating between scenes in red-brown monochrome (in imitation of bronze reliefs) and enormous full-color heroic narratives.1 Amongst the colorful riot of larger-thanlife heroes posing or performing actions from the past, there are three trompe-l’oeil images, one of which in particular seems to belong in the room rather than on its walls. On entering the Sala Paolina from the main staircase, one sees a door on the right, through which a sixteenth-century courtier is entering, about to cross paths with the visitor (Fig. 2.1). This trompe-l’oeil courtier is easy to miss since he is in a corner of the room, soberly dressed in dark grey or black, and, unlike the massive figures elsewhere on the walls, is scaled to life size and so appears small and insignificant. Yet even if a visitor entering from the main staircase were to notice him immediately and be fooled by the trompe l’oeil, there would be no real fear of bumping into the man, as he seems to hesitate on the threshold. This trompe-l’oeil courtier is particularly intriguing when compared with the trompe-l’oeil doorway immediately opposite the main entrance: Here, we see two men on a staircase partially concealed by a scarlet curtain (Fig. 2.2). The stairs visually continue the staircase from which the visitor entered, but the bright curtain contrasts with the plain brown wood paneling of the other trompe-l’oeil entrance (Fig.

From Castrated Statues to Empty Colossi

65

2.1). A man wearing an orange tunic has his back to the viewer as he carries a heavy load in his arms upstairs toward another man, who is only partially visible. These figures are typically interpreted as either thieves making off with loot or servants engaged in domestic tasks, so it is interesting that the load-carrier enjoys the same bright coloring and overdeveloped musculature as the heroes elsewhere on the walls. In this way, the scene presents a domestic interlude in a world in which even “menials” appear heroic. Although the men exiting the room on the trompe-l’oeil staircase mirror the movement of the visitor approaching the room from the main entrance, it is the soberly dressed courtier, hesitating on the threshold with his hat respectfully in hand, who provides an accurate model of the discretion and humility required of a visitor to the papal court. While the brilliantly colored giants elsewhere on the walls belong to a series of heroic narratives, it is the apparently insignificant man in black who is the example most readily available for imitation. The third trompe l’oeil—on the same wall as the domestics on the staircase—represents an exotic scene that seems to blend easily with the monumentalizing background: Two monkeys, eating fruit, appear to squat in front of a bronze relief (Fig. 2.2). The details of the scene depicted in the faux relief behind the monkeys are unclear, suggesting that the real focus here is indeed the monkeys. The inclusion of these rather anomalous figures “within” the papal chambers seems to be a self-conscious reference to the old adage ars simia naturae, “art is the ape of nature.”2 Only reaching about thigh-height on the average visitor, the monkeys, like the courtier, are easily missed, yet both monkeys and courtier are a major contributor to the primary monumentalizing program of the frescoes: While the monkeys ironically celebrate the artistry of the program, the courtier represents the intellectuals and bureaucratic functionaries who ran the papal court—including its publicity campaigns. Just as the trompe-l’oeil courtier seems to pose questions about the intersection between exemplarity and historical accuracy, so too do the monumental frescoes that comprise most of the program. The narrative paintings depict the deeds of Alexander the Great, and offer somewhat multivalent exempla, in which Alexander simultaneously

figur e 2.1. Courtier. Fresco detail, Perino del Vaga, Sala Paolina (east wall), Castel Sant’Angelo, Rome. (By permission of the Sopraintendenza Speciale per il Patrimonio Storico, Artistico ed Etnoantropologico e per il Polo Museale della città di Roma—Museo Nazionale di Castel Sant’Angelo.)

figur e 2.2. Fresco decoration, Perino del Vaga, Sala Paolina (north wall), Castel Sant’Angelo, Rome. (Gianni Dagli Orti / The Art Archive at Art Resource, N.Y.)

Monuments, Imitation, and the Noble Ideal

68

represents both Alessandro Farnese (Pope Paul III) and the emperor Charles V—who is depicted in a slightly ambiguous light.3 The emperor in the paintings pays homage to and is clearly subservient to the papacy, offering a substantial revision of historical events during the sack of Rome in 1527—during which Alessandro Farnese (then a cardinal) was holed up with the papal court in the Castel Sant’Angelo while imperial troops wreaked havoc on the surrounding city. The combined references to Alexander the Great and the papacy also point to the pope’s politics of ecclesiastical imperialism, so that the overall redecoration program of the emperor Hadrian’s mausoleum here offers a vision of the peaceful Christian emperor-pope who builds cities and monuments.4 Although such representational revisionism was not unusual, the multivalent and ambiguous exemplarity in the monumental paintings poses questions about the role of the trompe-l’oeil courtier in the fresco program. The figure’s role as an exemplar emerges via his congruity with some of the precepts for an ideal courtier set forth in Castiglione’s Libro del Cortegiano, first published in 1528. The man in the fresco appears to be middle-aged—in contrast with the mostly youthful heroic figures elsewhere on the walls—and is dressed in black (as Federico Fregoso recommends in the Cortegiano II.27). Indeed, the fact that the man is not wearing ecclesiastical garb explicitly identifies him as a courtier, rather than the prelates one might expect at the papal court. His age and the velvet cap he has respectfully doffed convey a sense of personal dignity, yet unlike Castiglione’s courtier, this man seems to hesitate on the threshold, apparently reluctant to draw attention to himself. The contrast between this self-effacing figure and the rest of the program is so striking that it must be intentional, yet one wonders why the courtier in the Sala Paolina appears on the margins, only sixty years after Ghirlandaio monumentalized the soldier-intellectual Cicero as the culminating model of statesmanship, and two decades after Castiglione’s Libro del Cortegiano revisited Cicero’s orator-statesman in a celebration of the ideal Renaissance courtier. The answer that this is simply a trompe l’oeil does not solve the problematic positioning of the courtier on the same representational plane as the two servants and the apes on the north wall. By showcasing the contrast between most of the program—large-scale narratives (rather than single heroes in an iconic pose)—and life-size courtier and apes,

From Castrated Statues to Empty Colossi

69

the program highlights representation as representation, eliminating the possibility of the kind of heroic and nostalgic “substitution” required of exemplarity: The only exemplars available for imitation are the courtier and the monkeys.5 Considering the inability of Renaissance aesthetics to understand Hellenistic statuary that seemed to offer heroic status to minor characters, the contrast between the semiheroic menials and the courtier poses the question: How did aristocratic intellectuals respond to this kind of marginalization from the monumental pose?6 If servants in this decorative program appear nonchalant and larger-than-life, while the courtier is small, hesitant, and as insignificant as a pair of monkeys (who—like the courtier—are easily missed amid the overwhelmingly large and colorful frescoes), then it seems heroic models no longer apply to the lives of even the courtly elite, who are peripheral to the monumentalization of the prince. In this context, what happens to the rhetoric of exemplarity? The Sala Paolina’s hesitant courtier, and the difficulty of defining his role in the narrative decorations, sheds light on the literary rhetoric of rediscovering and making monuments in the early sixteenth century— that is, after the initial humanist fervor had worn off, and during a period of severe political crisis. Pietro Bembo and Baldassare Castiglione were noblemen or cavalieri writing in an age in which the medieval chivalric ideal was alive only in the pages of literature. In place of the self-determining, arms-bearing knight were men obliged to entertain lords and ladies at court with speeches, music, poetry, and the occasional chivalric spectacle. As we saw in Chapter 1, even fifteenth-century humanists had questioned their own pedagogy of emulating both classical writers and their celebrated ancient heroes—especially as new philological awareness gave rise to a sense that the past was irrevocably lost. On the political front, the position of the intellectual was ambiguous: With the ascendancy of the Northern Italian signorie, or despotic city-states, active engagement in politics modeled on Cicero’s Roman republicanism was clearly obsolete. Although the university-educated “man of letters” still drafted laws, wrote poetry and treatises, and performed the role of ambassador, he was subordinate to the prince, and his place at court was precarious and usually lacked definition. While indispensable to the running of both court and state, the early sixteenth-century Italian aristocrat

Monuments, Imitation, and the Noble Ideal

70

rarely held a stable, secular, political post; perhaps for this reason, writers (including Bembo and Castiglione) increasingly sought the security of ecclesiastical office.7 Exacerbating the situation in Italy was the succession of wars that followed the French invasion of 1494 and extended beyond the sack of Rome in 1527: These decades have frequently been characterized as a period of crisis during which writers and artists were dispersed from one court to another. In the midst of such turmoil, the question of imitation—the relevance of an idealized classical past to an increasingly brutish present—loomed large. Bembo’s project of normalizing the literary vernacular and Castiglione’s Cortegiano respond to the same set of socio-political and intellectual upheavals. While Bembo posits a theory of written style, and Castiglione a behavioral ideal, both draw on the humanistic notion that a Renaissance man of letters rediscovers and remakes “monuments”—actual statues and buildings, as well as ancient texts. Bembo and Castiglione both promote the idea that the noble Renaissance intellectual learns to imitate the ancient writers and their heroes and eventually creates enduring monuments to himself. Yet both Bembo’s and Castiglione’s monument making depends on a series of slippery moves that seek simultaneously to disguise the effective powerlessness of the philologist-courtier to imitate the ancients, and to rehabilitate the problematic models that mark their projects. The result is an ideological shift from what we have seen in the previous chapter: In Bembo’s case, an imaginative solution to philological problems attempts to dissemble the philologist’s emasculating inability to interpret ancient texts, and to reinscribe the philologist as the active male rescuer. Castiglione’s courtiers, modeled on Cicero’s orators—and, like both the republican orators and the Sala Paolina courtier, threatened with marginalization and irrelevance—use the mediating figure of the virtuous woman as negative exemplar in order to validate an expediency that will monumentalize not only courtier and prince, but also the author who courageously outmaneuvers Cicero. For both Bembo and Castiglione, the emphasis is on a masculinity that tries to assert itself so as to negate—or dissimulate behind a pose of monumental solidity—a sense of powerlessness that derives from the failure of imitation. Bembo calls his fantasy Virgilian text a “reconstruction,”

From Castrated Statues to Empty Colossi 71

and posits his ideal vernacular as everlasting monument. In Castiglione’s case, the ideal courtier employs an art, that of courtiership, which— despite appearing to effeminize the man—allows him, through discourse, to build the kind of monument that is everlasting: history. Like Perino del Vaga’s monkeys, Bembo’s castrated statues and Castiglione’s empty colossi offer a reflection on the nature of art, artifice, and monumentality. Yet while the monkeys nonchalantly munch away, partially obscuring the monumental “bronze” relief behind them and reminding us (via the ars simia naturae trope) of the excellence of the artists, the brokenness of Bembo’s statues in the forum and the emptiness of Castiglione’s colossi problematize the kind of artistic achievement that is being touted in the fresco program.

The Emasculated Philologist: Pietro Bembo’s Castrated Statues In the early 1500s, Pietro Bembo began writing a dialogue known as De Virgilii Culice et Terentii Fabulis (On Virgil’s Culex and the Fables of Terence). Set in the early 1490s in Rome, the dialogue was probably revised and completed around the same time as Bembo’s more famous Prose della volgar lingua and Letter to Gianfrancesco Pico.8 De Virgilii Culice opens with two characters meeting in the gardens that were once the Roman Forum. They see “hominis marmoreo trunco, qui ante illorum pedes humi temere atque indecore iacebat, sine capite, sine pedibus, sine etiam manibus, pallio tantum laevo brachio involuto” (the marble trunk of a man, which was lying heedlessly and disgracefully on the ground before their feet, without a head, without feet, without even hands, with only the left arm covered by a cloak).9 Looking at this broken statue, one of the characters says, Hic habes obtruncatam deturpatamque omnibus modis statuam, quis scit, an alicuius Fabiorum, Marcellorum, Sulpitiorum, Catonum, aut etiam Scipionum illorum hostium eversorumque Cartaginis, fuerit effigies? Non enim scire te arbitror, cum neque vultus eius inspiciatur, neque nomen legatur, cuius fuerit. (De Virgilii 6) (That sorry object, the statue you have here, cut down and dashed down in every way, who can know whether it was the image of

Monuments, Imitation, and the Noble Ideal

72

someone from among the Fabii, the Marcelli, the Sulpitii, the Catos, or even one of those famous Scipios who were the enemies and destroyers of Carthage? For considering that his face cannot be seen, and his name cannot be read, I do not think you know whose statue it was.)

The man speaking here is Pomponio Leto, a major figure of mid-fifteenth-century humanism; he is talking to Ermolao Barbaro, another member of the generation of humanists preceding Bembo. Pomponio Leto famously led the Roman Academy, who in lamenting the ruined state of Rome’s monuments and in collecting and displaying inscriptions, helped advance the idea that ancient statues were somehow “inspirited” or “animated” by the genius of the sculptor, and that these animated sculptures could in turn inspire poetic genius.10 Indeed, Leonard Barkan has argued that it was precisely the fragmented state of the ancient sculptures that intensified their animated status for the humanists.11 Yet the statues in Bembo’s dialogue are so broken and unrecognizable that it is hard to imagine how these sculptures (presumably inspirited by their original maker) can help pass on the poetic genius that resides within them. The fact that most ancient statues were fragmented and not easily recognizable also problematized bodily and literary imitation. If a monument cannot be recognized as commemorating a specific individual, then the reason it was made is nullified, as Ermolao points out: Ego enim id Pomponi nihilo plus scio, quam tu. Nam, ut vides, nullae omnino notae, quibus simulachrum cognosci possit, remanserunt, Quare de eo nunc quidem arbitratu tuo existimes licet: refellere te nemo poterit. Quod si cuiuspiam illorum non fuit, quos dicis, certe fuit illa quidem effigies magni alicuius viri. Itaque ille ob suum aliquot egregium in rempublicam facinus se exculpi fecit: ut quoniam erat ipse moriturus, extaret quasi quoddam exemplum sui, in quod cum homines respexissent, aut inscriptionem legissent, bene de se loquerentur, appareretque qualis fuisset seclis innumerabilibus. (De Virgilii 6–7; my italics) (I myself, Pomponius, know nothing more than you do: for, as you see, absolutely no marks or writing have remained by which the statue

From Castrated Statues to Empty Colossi

73

might be known. For this reason you can now say what you think about it as you wish: nobody can prove you wrong. Because if it was not a statue of any of those men that you mention, this image was certainly of some great man. He had a statue made of himself for some impressive action performed for the Roman state, so that, since he too was destined to die, there would remain, so to speak, a copy of himself. In seeing the image, or in reading its inscription, men would praise him, and it would be clear what kind of a man he was, for innumerable centuries.)

The absence of writing to identify the statue would resonate with anyone familiar with Pomponio Leto’s reverence for ancient inscriptions: His Academy considered inscriptions as epigrammata, poetic epigrams that were models for their own poetry, and Leto’s own garden displayed an extensive collection of ancient epigraphs—but apparently no statues.12 In the dialogue, then, the lack of any writing indicating whom this statue represents means not only that it has failed in its goal to preserve the image of the man who had it made as a visual exemplar, but also that the monument offers no literary models. On the other hand, as Ermolao says, in the absence of any information, the two humanists are now empowered to invent whatever they want. This is not, however, how the two speakers interpret their predicament. Pomponio says of the statue, or the man represented by it, “qui si se ipse contemplaretur, credo ingemisceret, rogaretque te ut se restitueres: quod quoniam effici non potest, est hoc quidem miserum, sed tamen commune illi cum multis” (if he himself were looking carefully now, I think he would have reason to complain, and he would ask you to repair and reinstate him, which indeed cannot be done; this is lamentable but common to him with many others; De Virgilii 7). The slippage between the man represented by the monument and the statue itself demonstrates the tendency to attribute a voice to indecipherable statues, as discussed by Barkan, Christian, and Paul de Man.13 In a peculiarly literal version of De Man’s “silencing” of the poet by the monument that is imagined to speak, the voice that Pomponio attributes to the broken statue articulates the philologist’s fear that he cannot, in fact, make the statue speak: His inability to repair and reinstate ancient monuments renders the philologist powerless. The consternation of the two speakers becomes more

Monuments, Imitation, and the Noble Ideal

74

evident as they note that almost every monument in Rome is ruined: “Ferè statuae nullae integrae permanserunt: avulsae et amputatae ita tamen, ut dignosci possit quorum fuerint, omnino perpaucae” (Almost no statues have survived in one piece: and in all there are very few that have been overturned and amputated in such a way that one can still see whose statues they were; De Virgilii 7). The passage suggests that, as there are almost no identifiable statues, bodily imitation—the exemplarity urged by humanistic pedagogy—is impossible. Amputation has broken the chain of exemplary behavior: Like the first statue they see, all of these monuments are literally cut off from the symbolics of exemplary activity: “sine capite, sine pedibus, sine etiam manibus” (without a head, without feet, without even hands; De Virgilii 6). The repetition of sine (without) emphasizes the metaphorical castration of both these statues and the historical cycle of manly activity they are supposed to represent, in which the exemplar should be immortalized to inspire future viewers, who will themselves reinstantiate the virtue of the original by becoming exemplars. While “metaphorical castration” may seem an overstatement, this is the rhetoric of the dialogue. The discourse of castration emerges as the speakers begin to discuss how to read ancient texts—that is, what kind of philological approach to adopt when faced with texts that are as mutilated as the monuments in the Forum: HERM: Quid illa vero Pomponi, quae non oblectamenta modo et delectamenta, sed levatio etiam et medicina, et quasi potus aliquis cibusque animorum sunt, scripta videlicet illa tot in omni quidem doctrinarum genere antiquorum hominum, . . . quae perierunt, quomodo sunt ferenda? an non tibi longe maior iactura haec, quam illa lapidum et murorum videtur? POMPON: . . . Sed utinam illa tantummodo periissent, ac non ii etiam Poëtae nostri, qui habentur, quique permanent, mutilati decurtatique haberentur. Quis enim iam eorum liber (de antiquis loquor) mendis perversionibusque non scatet? quae plerunque quasi delumbant amputantque non modo carminum numeros, orationisque structuram, sed etiam ipsum sensum scribentis. (De Virgilii 8–9)

From Castrated Statues to Empty Colossi

75

(Ermolao: But Pomponius, what about those monuments that are not only a pleasure and delight, but also a cure and a medicine, almost a kind of food and drink, for souls?—namely the many writings of ancient men, . . . which have perished. How must they be tolerated? Doesn’t this seem to you by far the greater loss than the loss of stones and walls? Pomponius: . . . If only those [walled monuments] alone had perished, and not those poets of ours who are available and survive, mutilated and maimed. For by now which book of those men (I speak of the ancients) does not abound with defects and perversions? These many defects often, as it were, castrate and amputate not only the measures of poems or the structure of an oration, but also the very meaning intended by the writer.)

The close parallel set up between literal and literary monuments is made all the more apparent through the choice of Pomponio Leto, famed collector of written monuments, as spokesman. What is more, the verb delumbare (to castrate) genders texts in such a way as to illustrate very clearly why fifteenth-century philologists were so keen to associate corrupted texts with corrupted female bodies.14 In Bembo’s dialogue, a male writer stands in all too easily as a metonym for his text, itself a monument that has been irreparably harmed—and the prototype statue at the start of the dialogue stands in for poet, text, and monument, amputated and reduced to powerlessness by the loss of both head and hands. The rhetorical castration of writer and text enfeebles the reader, who cannot decipher the author’s intended meaning in the mutilated texts. It is difficult to reconcile the sense of loss, despair, and male disempowerment in the opening of De Virgilii Culice with Bembo’s better-known project of imitating Cicero’s Latin style, elaborated in his famous letter to Gianfrancesco Pico at around the same time that Bembo rewrote De corruptis poetarum locis as De Virgilii Culice. The letter advocates imitating a single model for writing in Latin, since (Bembo says) this is analogous to using a single architectural style to create a harmonious building (Petrus Bembus 176).15 Bembo is responding to Gianfrancesco Pico’s insistence on connecting writing with the personal and mutable: Affirming that style and language change with the times, Pico asserts

Monuments, Imitation, and the Noble Ideal

76

that nobody can reproduce Cicero’s style because nobody is truly like Cicero (Libellus 148).16 Even if writers treat Cicero’s words like bricks and use them to build a wall, they cannot create a Ciceronian wall. According to Pico, written language is more like clothing, which changes with the times and according to personal preference and ability, so that even the ancients used a variety of clothes, materials, styles, and colors (Libellus 150). Indeed, Pico argues, wholesale imitation is like stealing the ancients’ clothes.17 The wholesale “plundering” of an ancient author’s “wardrobe” reveals an inevitably thwarted desire to become one of the ancients through the theft of identity.18 Instead, Pico advocates a Neoplatonic Idea drawn from numerous models with a dash of imagination. In contrast, Bembo disassociates writing from personal identity and the body, by comparing writing with permanent structures. While this position is at odds with the opening of De Virgilii Culice—in which walls and statues perish over time—it shows how Bembo’s philology works by reconstruction.19 Responding to Pico’s image of stolen clothing, Bembo associates Pico’s ideal of variety with indiscriminate plundering or begging. Just as an architect must use a single model for his building to be harmonious, so too must a writer: distrahit . . . mentem atque sensum copia, neque haerere animum sinit, cuius autem in nullo haeret animus, is omnino recte conficere nihil potest. (Petrus Bembus 176) (abundance distracts his mind and senses, and prevents his mind from being stable. The person whose mind is not fixed on one thing can do nothing at all correctly.) (11)

In other words, Bembo’s “ideal building” is only possible through complete constancy of purpose. He goes so far as to compare the insecurity of multiple examples with aimless drifting on the currents of the sea, in opposition to a single model that acts like a protective guide on a well-directed voyage (Petrus Bembus 178, 182, and 187). Bembo’s letter suggests that he himself may become the single model who guides others to safety. He counters the threat of change and multiplicity by depicting himself as the active male philologist—no longer the powerless reader of the De Virgilii Culice—who “rescues” the vernacular.

From Castrated Statues to Empty Colossi

77

Observing to Pico that his own written Latin may not reflect the perfect Ciceronian imitation of his precepts, Bembo excuses himself by pointing out that, instead of devoting all his time to Latin, he has also dedicated himself to the vernacular, because “ita depravata multa atque perversa . . . ea in lingua tradebantur” (so many depraved and perverse things have been introduced into the language; Petrus Bembus 186; 14). The philologist’s role as manly rescuer of the feminine vernacular emerges clearly in the switch, halfway through the sentence, from masculine vernaculo sermone (vernacular tongue) to lingua (language). Indeed, Bembo claims, “brevi ut videretur, nisi quis eam sustentavisset, eo prolapsura ut diutissime sine honore, sine splendore, sine ullo cultu dignitateque iaceret” (it seemed the language would soon decline to the point where it would lie for a very long time without honor, without splendor, without any culture or dignity, unless some one sustained it; Petrus Bembus 186; 14). The repetition of sine here—as well as the terms depravata and perversa—are reminiscent of De Virgilii Culice’s description of the loss manifested in castrated and amputated texts. Yet in this case the poethero Bembo has restored honor to the feminized vernacular by the same principles of imitation that he recommends for composition in Latin; in doing so, he ennobles both himself and the language. By casting himself as rescuer of the vernacular, Bembo moreover follows Petrarch in appropriating the role of the poet-hero who works for the good of the patria. Bembo’s project to standardize the vernacular likewise plays out the paradox of proposing to “rebuild” the same ancient models that De Virgilii Culice deemed degraded, mutilated, and irrevocably lost. Book III of the Prose della volgar lingua opens with an encomium to the rediscovery, preservation, and imitation of the monuments of ancient Rome, which—the text presupposes—are sufficiently whole to be preserved and imitated. Many artists, he says, le belle antiche figure di marmo e talor di rame, che o sparse per tutta lei qua e là giacciono o sono publicamente e privatamente guardate e tenute care, e gli archi e le terme e i teatri e gli altri diversi edificii, che in alcuna loro parte sono in piè, con istudio cercando, nel picciolo spazio delle loro carte o cere la forma di quelli rapportano; e poscia, quando a fare essi alcuna nuova opera intendono, mirano in quegli essempi, e di rassomigliarli col loro artificio procacciando, tanto più

Monuments, Imitation, and the Noble Ideal

78

sé dovere essere della loro fatica lodati si credono, quanto essi più alle antiche cose fanno per somiglianza ravicinare le loro nuove; per ciò che sanno e veggono che quelle antiche più alla perfezzion dell’arte s’accostano, che le fatte da indi innanzi.20 (try hard, in the circumscribed space of paper or wax, to reproduce the shape of the beautiful ancient statues made of marble and sometimes of bronze, which either lie scattered across all of her [Rome] or are publicly and privately guarded and held dear, and the arches and the baths and theaters and all of the other various buildings, of which any parts still stand. Then, when they intend to create a new work, they aim for these examples, and try to imitate them with their skill, and the more they believe that they must be praised for their effort, the more they make their works resemble the ancient ones; because they know and see that those ancient works are closer to artistic perfection than those made since.)

The Prose then compares writing itself with visible monuments, relating the rebuilding of a feminized Rome to the recovery of the vernacular, and creating a parallel between the energetic male creator and the active philologist-builder, by proposing that men of letters emulate the artisans: Facciamo ancor noi, i quali agli studi delle lettere donati ci siamo . . . quello stesso che far veggiamo agli artefici . . . ; e per le imagini e forme, che gli antichi uomini ci hanno de’ loro animi e del lor valore lasciate, ciò sono le scritture, . . . diligentemente cercando, a saper noi bene e leggiadramente scrivere appariamo, . . . nella nostra volgare. (Prose 169) (May we too, who have given ourselves to the study of literature, do the same as we see the artisans doing . . . , and through the images and forms that the ancients have left us of their hearts [animi] and their skill [valore], that is, texts, . . . by applying ourselves diligently, let us learn to write well and elegantly in our vernacular.)

The Prose thus posits a continuity with the past through imitation, clearly presupposing the integrity of both kinds of monuments—statues and texts—that artists and writers use as models in order to become part of an unbroken cultural continuum. In other words, Bembo’s Prose tries to rehabilitate the emasculating rhetoric of De Virgilii Culice by

From Castrated Statues to Empty Colossi

79

self-consciously propagating the fiction of reviving ancient monuments. This strategy invokes the emulation of such masculine attributes as might apply as easily to a warrior as to writers: animi, valore. The idea of imitation here is in direct contradiction with De Virgilii Culice, in which the broken statue’s plea to the viewer emphasizes the impossibility of restoration. However, “images and forms” of the ancients’ hearts evoke the visual paradigm of “substitution,” so often compared with the impress or mold, and suggests that Bembo was espousing a nostalgic substitutional ideal that might allow seemingly powerless philologists to revive lost genius.21 The two positions are barely reconcilable in the shift that Carlo Vecce notes in Bembo’s philology: While Bembo seems to support Poliziano’s proposal to privilege the most ancient and reliable manuscript, the later part of De Virgilii Culice in fact offers not a transcription of an old Virgilian manuscript of the Culex, but a critical edition that diverges from the manuscript 213 times. According to Vecce, the emendations and normalizations are based on what Bembo imagined the original text to have been. In other words, despite Bembo’s famous argument against Pico’s proposal of the Ideal in imitation, his textual reconstruction in De Virgilii Culice is based on an imaginative fantasy that denies the reality of philology and historical loss to reassert a “medieval” substitutional paradigm.22 The two parts of De Virgilii Culice, taken together, stage precisely the kind of tension between “performative” and “substitutional” models that Nagel and Wood associate with the visual arts from this period. Bembo’s “restored” ideal text becomes normative through the wide distribution of print, as print protects the work from the influence of new discoveries, thus establishing the (reconstructed) written word as fixed through time. In other words, Bembo cleverly urges his readers to imitate not Virgil, Cicero, or Petrarch, but Bembo’s version of these writers—so that Bembo’s text becomes the model, the ultimate monument reproduced over the centuries. Yet this solution does not entirely compensate for the extraordinary rhetoric of male disempowerment in the opening of De Virgilii Culice. Like the mutilated statues and inscriptions that were specifically designed as enduring examples for future generations, Bembo’s reconstructed, “ideal” text, even distributed through the medium of print, is susceptible

Monuments, Imitation, and the Noble Ideal

80

to the “castration” of meaning over time—and the only viable response to such loss is substitution, now recognized (by the dialogue’s interlocutors) as pure invention. Bembo’s philological and poetic project arises from a “silencing” that illustrates all too well the weaknesses of his theories of imitation: Although the printed edition of the Culex is the result of Bembo’s imagination and philological expertise, Virgil gets the credit, while the philologist remains—like the courtier in the Sala Paolina—on the margins, a nearly invisible spectator. Like the Sala Paolina’s apes, who represent the artistic genius behind the frescoes celebrating the pope, Bembo’s philological creativity goes almost unnoticed.

The Arts and Artifice in Castiglione’s Cortegiano Bembo’s comparison of rebuilding Rome with recovering the literary vernacular is reminiscent of much of the literature concerning the “rescue” and reconstruction of Rome. A particularly famous example is the 1519 letter by Castiglione (in collaboration with Raphael) introducing Raphael’s study of the ruins for Leo X. The letter personifies Rome, as is typical of the discussions of reconstruction. Queen Rome is reduced to a corpse: “il cadavere di quella nobil patria, che è stata regina del mondo, così miseramente lacerato” (the corpse of that noble homeland, which was once queen of the world, so wretchedly torn apart); later on we are told that the remains are the ossa (bones) of the old city.23 The authors however propose to restore some part of Rome’s former glory through Raphael’s study and description of Rome, accioché più che si può resti vivo un poco della immagine, e quasi l’ombra di questa, che in vero è patria universale di tutti li cristiani. (“Lettera” 59) (so that as far as possible there will remain alive a small part of the image, almost the shade of this city, which is truly the universal homeland of all Christians.)

The nobility of Rome can thus be partially recaptured, an assertion reaffirmed a little later as the letter urges the pope to promote rivalry with the ancients by new construction projects and by fostering le virtuti, a term

From Castrated Statues to Empty Colossi

81

that by this time connoted both masculine heroism and artistic ability (“Lettera” 60).24 Although Rome is a mutilated dead body, the heroic abilities of artists (in particular Raphael) will somehow bring back to life a small part of the image of Rome—her ghostly shade. The creation or re-creation of such empty images, in the service of the “universal homeland of all Christians,” is a significant part of the Cortegiano’s project, which promotes the judicious use of the courtier’s art in order to reconstruct or even improve upon ancient Roman models. Castiglione was, however, well aware of the difficulties involved in animating the ancient monuments that littered early sixteenth-century Rome. He engaged in some prosopopoeia himself, attributing a voice to the enigmatic Vatican statue of the reclining woman that was thought to represent Cleopatra.25 Bought by Julius II in 1512 for the Belvedere courtyard, the statue excited extensive commentary, including a Latin poem by Castiglione. Castiglione’s premise is that Cleopatra—famous for killing herself to avoid the humiliation of public defeat by Octavian (being paraded in Rome as war spoils)—was however present in Octavian’s triumphal procession in the form of an effigy. The Vatican statue was thought by some to be the effigy that Octavian had paraded in Rome; Castiglione gives her the following response to this indignity: Quod licuisse mihi indignatus perfidus hostis saevitiae insanis stimulus exarsit et ira; namque triumphali invectus Capitolia curru insignes inter titulos gentesque subactas exstinctae infelix simulacrum duxit, et amens spectaclo explevit crudelia lumina inani. Neu longaeva vetustas facti famam aboleret aut seris mea sors ignota nepotibus esset, effigiem excudi spiranti e marmore iussit testari et casus fatum miserabile nostri. (My treacherous enemy, outraged that it was permitted to me [to die in Egypt], burned with anger and the mad goadings of rage, for, in his triumphal chariot on the Capitol among the famous captives with their labeled titles, he was so unlucky as to have only a simulacrum of me dead to lead in his procession. In his frenzy he satisfied his cruel desire for glory with an empty spectacle. And so that the long passage of time

Monuments, Imitation, and the Noble Ideal

82

might not cancel the fame of his achievement, or my fate be unknown to my late descendants, he ordered a statue to be hammered out of breathing marble to bear witness both to my fall and to my miserable fate.)26

As Barkan points out, Cleopatra’s statue attempts to separate her enduring fame as a living artwork—carved spiranti e marmore (from breathing marble)—from the political trophy that is mere simulacrum.27 Yet Octavian’s command governs (literally and grammatically) both the making of the statue and its purpose: to bear witness to Cleopatra’s downfall and tragic fate. The distinction between the simulacrum of Cleopatra in a vacant spectacle, and the enduring statue of breathing marble is therefore less convincing, since—although Cleopatra did manage to defy Octavian by killing herself—it is the victor and empire maker who decides how she will be remembered in history. Cleopatra’s voice remains a figment of the poet’s imagination, much more of a simulacrum than Octavian’s triumph. The distinction between bearing witness to heroism (in monuments, literal or literary) and “empty spectacle” runs through much of the dialogue of the Cortegiano. It is particularly relevant to the discussions of exemplary women in Book III—where Cleopatra is again mentioned. The relationship of history to monuments emerges early in the dialogue, as Lodovico da Canossa praises the ancient artist who inscribed his own name in the frescoes of the Temple of Salus, “parendogli che, benché fosse nato in una famiglia così chiara ed onorata . . . , potesse ancor accrescere splendore ed ornamento alla fama sua lassando memoria d’essere stato pittore” (for, even though he was born of so illustrious and honored a family . . . still it seemed to him that he could add splendor and ornament to his fame by leaving a memorial that he had been a painter; I.49; 57; translation modified).28 The discussion of the plastic arts thus opens with another instance of the humanist idea of elite men leaving a memorial to themselves through a combination of visual artifact and text. Count Lodovico starts by discussing painting, as he addresses the idea of longevity—a classic topos of the paragone between the rival arts. Lodovico proposes that, although statues are more durable, paintings are fairly long lasting and are more beautiful while they last (I.50). While admiring both sculpture and painting, the Count points out that “un altro artificio maggiore” (an even

From Castrated Statues to Empty Colossi

83

greater skill) is required by the painter, whose work creates the illusion of depth and distance on a flat plane (I.51; 59). It is significant that Lodovico values painterly beauty and illusion over more solidly durable monuments like statues: David Rosand has highlighted the comparison between the artificio (skill) of the painter and the grazia (grace) required of the courtier to show that Cinquecento art theorists subsequently discussed artworks using Castiglione’s language of courtiership.29 In other words, the first generation of readers of the Cortegiano recognized that Castiglione’s courtier used techniques similar to those required of the painter. Indeed, the positioning of the Sala Paolina’s trompe-l’oeil courtier on the same representational plane as the monkeys suggests a parallel between courtier and painter: Even if the frescoed courtier’s humility and apparently marginal position (like that of the monkeys) reflect the changed political reality two decades after Castiglione had published, his art is as great as that of the men who made the frescoes. The painting versus sculpture question in the Cortegiano is part of a discourse on the arts that—following from the Cleopatra poem and Lodovico’s discussion of longevity versus illusionistic beauty— belongs to a much broader consideration on the formation of history. Gasparo Pallavicino famously derides music as “insieme con molte altre vanità . . . alle donne conveniente” (along with many other vanities, . . . well suited to women; I.47; 55). In response, Lodovico da Canossa points out that music is politically useful for the courtier, as different kinds of music could incite Alexander the Great to take up arms or enjoy peace: Se scrive Alessandro alcuna volta esser stato da quella [la musica] cosí ardentemente incitato, che quasi contra sua voglia gli bisognava levarsi dai convivii e correre all’arme; poi, mutando il musico la sorte del suono, mitigarsi e tornar dall’arme ai convivii. (I.47) (It is recorded that Alexander was sometimes so passionately excited by music that, almost in spite of himself, he was obliged to quit the banquet table and rush off to arms; whereupon the musician would change the kind of music, and he would then grow calm and return from arms to the banquet.) (55)

Monuments, Imitation, and the Noble Ideal

84

If this is true, then music—certainly a far more ephemeral art than even painting—is evidently important to the courtier who wishes to have a successful career at court. Yet the text generalizes a single instance in Plutarch’s Moralia to an ongoing condition: In Plutarch, it happened once that Alexander, on hearing a specific piece, “leapt up and laid hands upon the weapons that lay near”; there is no mention of different kinds of music inciting different responses.30 This nuancing of the original source reaffirms that music should be taken seriously as a political tool: The manipulation through music of Alexander, empire builder extraordinaire, emphasizes the courtier’s power via ephemeral and “effeminate” arts. To hammer the point home, Lodovico argues that the power of music was recognized by Socrates, who learned to play, while Plato and Aristotle considered it pedagogically useful, as it is “sufficiente ad indur in noi un novo abito bono ed un costume tendente alla virtú” ([able] to induce a good new habit of mind and an inclination to virtue; I.47; 56). Lodovico continues in this vein, insisting that music not only has the power to “sweeten” the human spirit, but even to tame wild animals. Coupled with the reference to manipulating Alexander the Great, the talk of “taming” and “inducing virtue” explains Giuliano de’ Medici’s affirmation—immediately following Lodovico’s praise of music—that music is a necessity for the courtier, and not a mere ornament (I.48). Although music may seem trivial (as Giuliano says), or effeminate (in Gasparo’s terms), when used judiciously it can be a significant political tool—for teaching the prince virtue or even inciting men to war.

Refusing Monuments to Castiglione’s Virtuous Women The Cortegiano’s discussion of the ephemeral arts echoes Bembo’s philology and prefigures the Sala Paolina frescoes via the problematic ideal of imitating the ancients, as against the reality of increasing marginalization and the threat of emasculation. The Sala Paolina courtier is on the margins of the program and yet seems the most imitable exemplar for a visitor to the papal court, while the extraordinary deeds of Alexander and St. Paul glorify the pope through historical revisionism, without offering any real exemplary model to follow. At the same time, the self-reflexive trompe-l’oeil apes memorialize the manipulation of appearances in the

From Castrated Statues to Empty Colossi 85

visual arts. Clearly, in the Sala Paolina, history’s models depend on external forms—a theme reiterated in both Bembo and Castiglione. Bembo’s fantasy text is an illusion that covers up the emasculating impossibility of literary interpretation and imitation. For Castiglione, the valorization of ephemeral arts like music and painting, and the debate on imitation in art, are closely connected with the problem of textual imitation (how to use Cicero’s De Oratore as primary model for the dialogue?) and bodily imitation (what kind of exemplars are viable for the courtier?). At around the same time, and in the same place (Rome) that Bembo and Pico were debating imitation, the “letter from Raphael to Castiglione”—which Castiglione wrote in the voice of his already-deceased artist friend—put forth Pico’s Idea principle in creating art.31 Likewise, in the Cortegiano, Lodovico da Canossa advocates multiple models in art (with painting as the perfect art), and proposes the perfect Idea of the courtier in Book I.32 Lodovico’s praise of the illusions created by painting is valorized in terms of courtiership in Book II, where Federico Fregoso nuances Lodovico’s ideally virtuous courtier, taking into account the exigencies of real political life, to propose what Virginia Cox calls a “rhetoricization of ethics.”33 As we shall see, Book II’s emphasis on appearances over substance is confirmed in Book III, as ideally virtuous behavior (posited in a series of stories that humanistic pedagogy would normally offer as exemplars), is demonstrably not the model to follow. These exemplars are women who, despite having been memorialized in ancient texts for their unwavering virtue, have their heroic status systematically undermined in a series of passages that point to both erasure from history and the fallibility of historical accounts—in an operation reminiscent of Bembo’s “silenced” statues and his inventive reconstructions. The Idea principle—that one should choose from a variety of models and add a dash of imagination—allows this operation to proceed: Taken to its logical conclusion, the theory that one may choose from numerous models and adapt them to a personal style means choosing what to ignore while shaping history’s models to meet present-day exigencies. Rather than molding oneself to the models, exemplarity becomes a question of adaptation and presentation. The selective interpretation of history’s models is key to understanding the stories of exemplary women in Book III of the Cortegiano.

Monuments, Imitation, and the Noble Ideal

86

Within Castiglione’s text, Harry Berger has identified two kinds of gynephobia, which prior scholarship broadly grouped together under the term “misogyny”: There is a gynephobia of gender and a gynephobia of sex: the former is fear of effeminization, fear of the woman within the man, and the latter is fear of impotence, emasculation, or infantilization, fear of the women outside the man. . . . The former is a fear of having one’s status reduced to that of woman but not necessarily by women; the latter is specifically a fear of having one’s status reduced or usurped by women.34

According to Berger, the “profeminist” discourse of Giuliano de’ Medici and Cesare Gonzaga participates in an essentially “antifeminist” agenda that tries to hold in check both kinds of gynephobia: An antifeminist agenda makes sense in terms of David Quint’s argument that the women at Castiglione’s court effect an effeminizing “civilizing process” on the men.35 Constance Jordan has likewise pointed out that the Cortegiano both represents and undermines the power that women have, while Olga Pugliese shows that as the dialogue was elaborated from the first redaction to the 1528 edition, women—both interlocutors and exemplars— were made less visible, but in increasingly subtle ways.36 But why are the women exemplars there at all? As a number of the interlocutors indignantly point out, this is supposed to be a dialogue about the courtier, not his female counterpart. Through a detailed analysis we shall see that the heroic women are negative exemplars for the courtier, highlighting the courtier’s new role as a less-than-virtuous builder of monuments and maker of history via “ephemeral” and “effeminate” arts.37 In a famous passage, Cesare Gonzaga compares the plight of chaste women besieged by suitors with a prince’s retainers who are tempted to change allegiances: Non è ròcca tanto inespugnabile né cosí ben diffesa, che essendo combattuta con la millesima parte delle machine ed insidie, che per espugnar il costante animo d’una donna s’adoprano, non si rendesse al primo assalto. Quanti creati da signori, e da essi fatti ricchi e posti in grandissima estimazione, avendo nelle mani le lor fortezze e ròcche, onde dependeva tutto ’l stato e la vita ed ogni ben loro, senza vergogna

From Castrated Statues to Empty Colossi

87

o cura d’esser chiamati traditori, le hanno perfidamente per avarizia date a chi non doveano? . . . ché molte [giovani] sonosi trovate, le quali hanno eletto la morte piú presto che perder l’onestà. (III.46) (There is no fortress so unassailable that, were it attacked with a thousandth part of the weapons and wiles as are used to overcome the constancy of a women, it would not surrender at the first assault. How many retainers of princes, made rich by them and held in the greatest esteem, who were in command of fortresses and strongholds on which that prince’s state and life and every good depended, without shame or any fear of being called traitors, have perfidiously and for gain surrendered those to persons who were not to have them? . . . for many [young girls] have been known who chose to die rather than to lose their chastity.) (183–84)

As Carla Freccero points out, the passage starts as an encomium on the steadfast chastity of women but becomes a condemnation of courtiers who betray their masters.38 Cesare’s final comment, that many young women have chosen death rather than lose their onestà, points to the inappropriateness of the simile: The men choose between dying and financial gain, the women between dying and “total loss.”39 Gasparo’s reply suggests that the intransigent chastity Cesare advocates for women is too anachronistic to apply to the ethical nuances faced by modern courtiers: “Queste, . . . credo che non siano al mondo oggidí” (I do not believe that such women exist in the world today; III.47; 184).40 Indeed, the exchange implies that models of exemplary virtue are inapplicable in the modern world. Cesare responds to Gasparo’s accusation of anachronism with recent examples of women of high and low social status who chose death rather than lose their honor. He begins with two women who threw themselves into rivers: The first of these is a noblewoman who, on being captured by the French during the sack of Capua (in 1501), slipped her captor’s clutches to drown herself. The tale as a whole conforms with Guicciardini’s account of the event, during which, according to various sources, a number of women drowned themselves to avoid dishonor.41 Yet the woman in Cesare’s story is unnamed and her identity remains the subject of historical conjecture, so her name—good or bad—has been

Monuments, Imitation, and the Noble Ideal

88

lost in spite of her rank, her heroic attempt to preserve her good name, and the fact that the sack was of very recent date. This process of historical erasure is reinforced by the next story Cesare recounts. The first redaction of this passage initially conforms with the final 1528 edition: A lovely peasant maiden is raped and without warning throws herself into the river Oglio, refusing all efforts to pull her out of the water. At this point the early and later versions of the tale diverge. The first redaction continues as follows: Alhor m.ser Pietro Bembo, in vero, disse, s’io sapessi el nome di questa così nobil contadinella gli farei uno epitaphio. Per questo non restarete, disse m.ser Camillo, il nome suo era Madalena Biga e se non sopragiongeva la morte del vescovo di Mantua, zio della s.ra duchessa nostra, adesso seria quella rupa d’Oglio nel loco ond’ella se gettò ornata d’uno bellisssimo sepulchro et d’infiniti epigrammi, per memoria di così gloriosa anima che meritava tanto più chiara fama doppoi la morte, quanto in men nobil corpo vivendo era habitata. (269v–270r)42 (Then Monsignor Pietro Bembo said, “Indeed, if I knew the name of this noble peasant girl I would make her an epitaph.” “You won’t have to wait for that,” said Monsignor Camillo, “Her name was Madalena Biga and if the Bishop of Mantova, uncle of our lady duchess, hadn’t died at that time, today the bank of the Oglio at the place where she threw herself in would be decorated with a beautiful tomb and infinite epigrams, in memory of that glorious soul who deserved all the brighter fame in death for the fact that in life she lived in a less noble body.”) (my translation)

In the final printed version, the tale is very similar—except that now Cesare is the narrator (not Camillo), and there is no intervention by Bembo about wanting to know the girl’s name to write an epitaph. Indeed, the girl’s identity is not only not given, but is explicitly unknown, and there is a new insertion emphasizing the elision of women’s virtuous deeds from history: Or di qui potete comprendere quante altre donne facciano atti dignissimi di memoria che non si sanno, poiché avendo questa, tre dí sono, si po dir, fatto un tanto testimonio della sua virtú, non si parla di lei, né

From Castrated Statues to Empty Colossi

89

pur se ne sa il nome. Ma se non sopragiungea in quel tempo la morte del vescovo di Mantua, zio della signora Duchessa nostra, ben saria adesso quella ripa d’Oglio, nel loco onde ella se gittò, ornata d’un bellissimo sepulcro. (III.47) (Now from this you can see how many unknown women perform acts so greatly deserving of praise; for this woman gave such proof of her virtue only a few days ago, you might say, yet no one speaks of her or even mentions her name. But if the death of the Duchess’s uncle, the Bishop of Mantua, had not occurred at that time, the bank of the Oglio, at the place where she threw herself in, would now be graced by a very beautiful monument.) (184–85)

There are a number of points to be made here concerning the formation of history. The temporal slippage between tre dí sono (which suggests that the girl’s suicide is very recent) and in quel tempo (implying a much greater temporal distance from the event) breaks up the two stages in the narrative—the heroic act and its failed memorialization—and also implies that Cesare’s story is unreliable. Although the dialogue is set in 1507, Cesare refers both to a contemporary act of heroism—which, according to his account, happened so recently and so far away that news of it could not feasibly have reached him at the court of Urbino—and to the death of a bishop that occurred in 1511.43 These discrepancies suggest that history and its narrators (including Cesare) cannot be trusted, while the story itself underscores the construction of history in the form of monuments by male systems of authority—here represented by the Church and the Gonzaga (including Cesare himself)—rather than by, or for, female figures of virtue. The removal of the exchange in which Bembo asks to know the identity of the young woman, and the elision of her name, as well as the new emphasis on the erasure of women’s virtuous deeds from even the most recent history—tre dì sono—adds force to the statement that this woman deserved but did not get a monument. Far from being memorialized with a beautiful and ornate tomb, the woman is now notable for the fact that she has already been forgotten. In Book IV, Cesare insists on the importance of making monuments for future generations. Yet the women he invokes in Book III as exemplars for future generations choose death as the only option for female

Monuments, Imitation, and the Noble Ideal

90

control of discourse—silence, no discourse at all. Their reward is to be forgotten, as indeed they seem to be earlier in Book III, where Gasparo and Frigio claim not to know Giuliano’s stories from Plutarch’s treatise on women—stories that humanistically educated men would have encountered. Margherita Gonzaga emphasizes that men are selective as both writers and readers of history, saying: Parmi che voi narriate troppo brevemente queste opere virtuose fatte da donne; ché se ben questi nostri nemici l’hanno udite e lette, mostrano non saperle e voriano che se ne perdesse la memoria. (III.23) (I think that you tell all too briefly of these virtuous deeds of women; for these enemies of ours, although they have heard and read of them, yet pretend not to know them and would have the memory of them lost.) (165)

In earlier versions of the dialogue, Margherita’s complaint had been that the men pretended not to know about these exemplary women so as not to be obliged to tell anyone about them; now, however, her claim is stronger: Men wish their memory to be lost.44 While the text draws attention to this process of erasure, it operates its own historical selection. Giuliano and Cesare tell stories that overwhelmingly exemplify women’s silence and defense of honor through suicide. Moreover, in his revisions Castiglione deleted numerous female exemplars, including another reference to monumentalization—the statues of Venus raised to memorialize heroic Roman women.45 It is no accident that Giuliano’s first three stories, early on in Book III, are suicides who die after their powerful menfolk are overthrown (III.22). The next two are also political exemplars: Women who remain silent under torture and are killed. The second of these, Leona, is most unusual in that Giuliano mentions that she was memorialized by a bronze lion without a tongue: “per dimostrar in lei la constante virtú della taciturnità” (to exhibit the steadfast virtue of silence that had been hers; III.23; 164).46 Although in both cases the women’s silence protected those who conspired against a tyrant, they are conspicuously on the losing side against tyranny, and it is silence that characterizes women as virtuous in the Western tradition.47 It is at this point that Margherita protests the men’s silence about these illustrious women—and her complaint

From Castrated Statues to Empty Colossi 91

is further highlighted by a substantial operation of elision in the next tale, which combines both motifs—suicide and the act of being silenced. Giuliano begins the story with a series of historical details and is cut off by Frigio, who protests that this sounds like a lunga fabula—a long story or a tall tale (III.24). Giuliano apologetically rushes to the end of the story, which is another suicide—but in hurrying to finish, he gives no explanation as to why the woman killed herself or who she was, with the result that the story loses its force and the woman’s exemplary potential is lost. The political overtones of the tale of Camma, whose suicide seems to focus on personal fidelity, lend further significance to the first five exemplars in which women die for steadfast political and familial allegiances (III.26). Giuliano’s version of Camma’s story alters the classical source so as to offer an important point of comparison with the lady besieged by suitors and the courtier tempted to change sides, and lends weight to Cesare’s later outburst contrasting women’s faithfulness with the lack of fedeltà among male courtiers. The first hint of a political message here is that the determined suitor was of much higher social status than both Camma and her husband, and quasi tiranno (almost tyrant) of their city (III.26). This is a gratuitous departure from the source in Plutarch, in which husband and suitor are both powerful men of equal standing, and Camma’s status as a revered priestess is marked by magnificent attire.48 According to Giuliano, the suitor had the husband killed (“fece amazzar”) in a show of princely power that again contrasts with Plutarch, whose villain does the deed himself. After he approaches the woman’s relatives, they all press her to accept his suit, “mostrandole il consentir essere utile assai e ’l negarlo pericoloso per lei e per tutti loro” (showing her that her consent would be very advantageous, and her refusal dangerous to her and to them all; III.26; 166). The mention of danger again departs from Plutarch, where the heroine’s relatives merely press Camma to accept Sinoris. Here, Camma’s refusal—her constancy to her murdered husband—explicitly endangers not only herself but also her relatives.49 Her eventual show of acceptance is a ploy to enable her to kill herself and the groom at the wedding altar, so that “ebbe Camma di tanto la fortuna favorevole, o altro che si fosse, che innanzi che essa morisse seppe che Sinorige era morto” (Camma had the good fortune [or whatever it

Monuments, Imitation, and the Noble Ideal

92

was] to know, before dying, that Sinoris was dead; III.26; 167). By mentioning her “good fortune (or whatever it was),” Giuliano emphasizes the personal cost of Camma’s constancy in contrast with the utile that would have accrued to herself and to her family had she complied with the man’s wishes. Although she eliminated a would-be tyrant, Giuliano does not mention this aspect of her heroism. The dangers of intransigent constancy, and its relevance to the plight of the modern courtier, are further underlined by Frigio’s objection that this tale—even if it were true—is anachronistic: “tai donne non si trovano piú al mondo” (such women are no longer found in the world; III.26; 167). The doubts that Frigio, Gasparo, and the other interlocutors continually cast on the reliability of Giuliano’s exemplary narratives are furthered by Giuliano himself. He prefaces his list of exemplary women with the words, “potrei dirvi un numero infinito, e narrarvi delle tanto antiche che quasi paion fabule” (I could tell you of an infinite number [of such women], and recount such ancient ones that they almost seem fairy tales; III.28; my translation). The mention of fairy tales underscores the unreliability of history, which is promoted, not negated, by Giuliano’s next three examples, which are mythical rather than historical: Pallas, Ceres, and the Sibyls. By prefacing the list with the fairy-tale reference, and starting with mythical women, Giuliano cleverly undercuts the value of his subsequent list of women teachers, poets, and prophets. Even two examples that offer some level of memorialization—the Trojan women and the Sabines—are weak in that they present a group of women, undifferentiated from each other, in less-than-heroic roles. The Trojan women are remembered for a crime of destruction with a positive outcome: They burned the ships, halting the Trojans’ wanderings and leading to the foundation of Rome (III.29).50 Giuliano notes that the first woman to set fire to one of the ships was called “Roma”—so the great city that grew from the women’s actions is really the ultimate monument to this individual. Yet Giuliano gives us no other clues as to Roma’s identity, and the choice of Plutarch’s positive version of this tale, rather than Virgil’s more negative account, suggests that history depends on the narrator. The woman Roma, undifferentiated in the story (aside from her name) from a group of women, has long been superseded in historical narratives by Rome itself.

From Castrated Statues to Empty Colossi

93

A similar process of nondifferentiation among a group of supposed exemplars is clear in the tale of the Sabine women (III.30). Known to history for their abduction and rape, the Sabines are depicted as peacemakers, thanks to their role as wives, mothers, and daughters. Above all, however, Giuliano’s Sabines are mourners: Piangendo (weeping) appears three times in two sentences; thus, “le donne sabine, vestite di nero, co’ capelli sparsi e lacerati, piangendo, meste, senza timore” (the Sabine women, dressed in black, with hair loosened and torn, weeping and mourning, with no fear; III.30; 170) come between the opposing sides on the battlefield; “con questi gemiti piangendo,” “mostrando i nepoti e piangendo” (with groans and weeping, showing the little children and weeping; III.30; my translation), the women convince the men to stop fighting. While the strong emphasis on the women’s sorrow—rather than their eloquence—is part of a tradition of the bereaved woman, it highlights that the women are indistinguishable from each other.51 The coda to Giuliano’s narrative is that the Sabine women were memorialized by Romulus’s naming the city’s thirty wards after them, yet the tale nowhere mentions their names, and this “monument” did not survive the city’s evolution, as Augustus, first emperor of Rome, divided the city into fourteen sectors or regiones, known in the sixteenth century as rioni. In other words, both of these attempts to inscribe onto the landscape the achievements of heroic women are short-lived, superseded by the reconfiguration of Rome as empire in Virgil’s negative report of the Trojan women and Augustus’s reshaping of Rome. The implied contrast between Virgil and Plutarch gains force as the next chapter shows that memorials depend on who writes history. Here, Giuliano points out that Cicero is full of self-praise (and continues to take the credit) for ruining Catiline’s plot against the Roman republic, even though it was a vil femina who in fact first revealed the conspiracy (III.31). Significantly, Giuliano himself does not mention the woman’s name, or anything about her—other than the derogatory epithet vil (base, cowardly) even though, in an ironic rehearsal of the very source he is criticizing, he mentions Cicero by name twice.52 The inaptness of the epithet vil for a courageous woman—as well as the significance of history writing—becomes clear as the following chapter applies the same adjective to cowardly men (III.22). The close juxtaposition of the two stories

Monuments, Imitation, and the Noble Ideal

94

shows that men, if cowardly, are considered vili, but even a very courageous woman is remembered as vil. At this point, the dialogue offers three examples in which women put men to shame in war, apparently establishing women as exemplary for courage and military audacity. The emphasis is on the term vergogna (whose variants appear three times) as women put up a stronger fight than their menfolk, and reproach them for their feeble behavior. Although these examples emphasize arms and seem intended to shame courtiers into “manly” defense of Italy against invasion, the three narratives are undercut by the following example, which suggests that strategic capitulation may be the wisest option.53 Giuliano mentions the Saguntine women who (he says) “nella ruina della patria loro prendessero l’arme contra le genti d’Annibale” (in the ruin of their country, . . . took up arms against the forces of Hannibal; III.33; 172). Yet the two major accounts of this event—Livy’s and Appian’s—shed substantial light not only on the Saguntines but also on the preceding “shaming” exemplars. According to Livy, Hannibal’s army besieged Saguntum for several months before offering the city the same pact that the women of Chios (in Cortegiano III.32) rejected as shameful: Hannibal would spare the inhabitants if they left Saguntum unarmed, with only two items of clothing each.54 The Saguntines rejected the offer, the result being a massacre from which Hannibal emerged victorious and Saguntum destroyed. Although Giuliano says that the Saguntine women “took up arms” against Hannibal, Appian’s account—the only one to detail the women’s actions (notably absent from contemporary treatises on women)—clarifies what this might mean: “When the women witnessed the slaughter of their husbands from the walls, some of them threw themselves from the housetops, others hanged themselves, and others slew their children and then themselves.”55 In both Livy and Appian, the city is obliterated, so Giuliano’s example of valor ends in the worst possible way. The Saguntines’ long siege and refusal to capitulate—and its outcome—is a literalized version of Cesare’s comparison between a sought-after woman and a besieged citadel. In case the point is not clear enough, Giuliano immediately presents another “defense” of honor—both personal and political—that explicitly hinges on suicide and defeat: The wives of the defeated Teuton army killed their children and committed mass suicide

From Castrated Statues to Empty Colossi

95

(III.33).56 The unusual choice of these two tales, and Giuliano’s skewed version of the Saguntine story, is highlighted by Gasparo’s skepticism about the formation of history: “Dio sa come passarono quelle cose; perché que’ secoli son tanto da noi lontani, che molte bugie si posson dire e non v’è chi le riprovi” (God alone knows just how those things happened, for those centuries are so remote from us that many lies can be told, and there is no one to gainsay them; III.33; 172). Giuliano’s linking of honor with defeat sets up the point that political success does not derive from the steadfast defense of honor. This idea is further clarified by the references to postclassical queens in III.34. Giuliano begins with Amalasuntha, who was exiled and then killed by her cousin and coruler, ultimately resulting in the partial invasion of Italy by the emperor Justinian.57 The next three examples, by contrast, are known for their close association with the Church: Theodelinda is traditionally credited with converting both her spouse and the Lombard peoples to the Roman Church.58 The empress Theodora was sainted by the Orthodox Church; Matilde da Canossa famously promoted the interests of the papacy, presiding over Henry IV’s self-abasement before Pope Gregory VII in 1077. Broadly speaking, these queens either “lose” against expansionist empire, or “win” by furthering the interests of the Church: The grouping is carefully edited in the final version of the Cortegiano to contrast with the next (and last) two examples in this chapter.59 These (which in earlier versions of the manuscript appeared alongside Isabella of Spain) cast further doubt on the exemplary value of women who lost their lives while defending their honor: Anne of Brittany is praised as “grandissima signora non meno di virtú che di stato” (a very great lady no less in ability than in matters of state; III.34; 173; translation modified).60 Anne is a superb example of politics trumping marital devotion—under siege by the French, she agreed to have her marriage to Maximilian of Austria annulled and to marry Charles VIII of France, and (in the event of his death) his heir Louis XII. This capitulation resulted in her substantial autonomy in governing Brittany: Giuliano’s use of the multivalent term virtù, his praise of Anne’s statesmanship, and his mentioning her marriages to both kings of France, highlights Anne’s flexibility over intransigent fidelity. Giuliano likewise commends Maximilian’s daughter, Margaret of Austria, for her prudence and justice in governing “her

Monuments, Imitation, and the Noble Ideal

96

state” (III.34)—presumably the Low Countries, which Margaret governed from 1507 (the fictitious date of the dialogue), although Margaret’s marriages (proposed, actual, and proxy) offer a checkerboard of possibilities. Repudiated by Charles VIII of France (so that he could marry Anne of Brittany), Margaret married Juan of Spain; widowed, she then married Filiberto II of Savoy. Widowed again, Margaret was proposed as a bride for Henry VIII of England (in an alliance against France), but she refused to cooperate, and became regent of the Low Countries for her nephew Charles V. As an Italian diplomat, Castiglione would have been well aware of the “dethroning” of Margaret and her Italian advisors in 1515 (to the advantage of the French faction). Yet by promoting her nephew Charles V to become king of Spain, Margaret adroitly repositioned herself as necessary leader of Charles’s Netherlandish government by 1518. While Giuliano naturally does not mention the many marriage treatises that were drawn up and revoked—with Anne and Margaret as complicit pawns in political strategy—his audience would have known of these recent events, and Giuliano’s emphasis on statesmanship (rather than marital or political fidelity) contrasts starkly with the many tales of women whose heroic constancy resulted in suicide and erasure from memory. Perhaps the most significant of Giuliano’s exemplars is Queen Isabella of Spain, whose praise is extended in the final version of the text to occupy an entire chapter.61 Isabella, in Giuliano’s account, deserves the credit for giving her husband a good reputation; for stripping the Castilian grandees of their feudal lands and power and instituting a centralized government; and for the conquest of Granada. Naturally, Castiglione, as papal nuncio in Spain, can only praise Isabella, yet Giuliano’s praise is a carefully calibrated comment on the loss of power by the nobility: Ognun sa che quando essa venne a regnare trovò la maggior parte di Castiglia occupata dai Grandi; nientedimeno il tutto ricuperò cosí giustificatamente e con tal modo, che i medesimi che ne furono privati le restarono affezionatissimi, e contenti di lassar quello che possedevano. (III.35) (Everyone knows that, when she came to rule, she found the greater part of Castile held by the grandees; nevertheless, she recovered the

From Castrated Statues to Empty Colossi

97

whole with such justice and in such manner that the very men who were deprived of it remained greatly devoted to her and content to give up what they possessed.) (174)

The unlikelihood of this report—that the grandees loved the queen and were happy to abandon their lands and possessions—is countered by the initial “everyone knows.” Even though this opening only applies grammatically to the first clause, it lends a sense of factual commonplace to the entire account, and nowhere do we see Giuliano’s more typical “it has been said” or “this may seem like a fairy tale.” The loss of feudal power would have struck a chord for Giuliano’s audience and for Castiglione’s readers. With the expansion of the larger north-central Italian principalities, as well as the constant spate of wars and shifting political alliances in the early Cinquecento, many of the elite had lost control over their own possessions—and Giuliano was himself dispossessed, exiled from Florence at the date of the dialogue. Coupled with Isabella’s determined conquest of Granada, what emerges is the praise of a centralizing imperial power closely allied with the Church— which again, would have resonated with Castiglione’s readers, aware that Medici fortunes took a turn for the better under the Medici popes, with Giuliano himself signore of Florence and perpetual governor of Parma, Piacenza, Reggio Emilia, and Modena. Overall, the adjectives Giuliano applies to Isabella are those of the ideal prince who governs by inducing in all subjects “una somma riverenzia, composta d’amore e timore” (a very great veneration of her, comprised of love and fear; III.35; 174). The combination of love and fear, and her tempering of rigid justice with “la mansuetudine della clemenzia e la liberalità” (the gentleness of mercy and liberality), strongly recalls the mirror-for-princes tradition and suggests that Isabella is the ideal prince. This is particularly clear in Giuliano’s account of the siege of Granada, where, for the first time in Book III, we have the story of a siege told from the point of view of the conqueror rather than the besieged: In cosí lunga e difficil guerra contra nimici ostinati, che combattevano per le facultà, per la vita, per la legge sua e, al parer loro, per Dio, mostrò sempre col consiglio e con la persona propria tanta virtú, che

Monuments, Imitation, and the Noble Ideal

98

forse a’ tempi nostri pochi príncipi hanno avuto ardire non che di imitarla, ma pur d’averle invidia. (III.35) (In such a long and hard war against obstinate enemies—who were fighting for property, for life, for religion, and (to their way of thinking) for God—she always showed, both in her counsel and in her very person, such ability that perhaps few princes in our time have dared, I will not say to imitate her, but even to envy her.) (174)

The besieged Muslims fought for all they had—like the women in Cesare’s outburst who defend their lives in the “siege” against the “fortress” of their honor. As in the case of the besieged Saguntines, the citizens’ determination and constancy (and for the citizens of Granada, their belief in their own righteousness) are no match for the centralizing, imperialistic power. It is odd enough that Giuliano attributes the conquest of Granada not to Ferdinand and his armies, but to Isabella—who clearly did not participate in the struggle but whose body was somehow involved, as her persona demonstrated tanta virtú that most modern princes do not even dare to envy her. Yet the most curious part of the chapter is the beginning, which asserts that Isabella deserves the credit for her husband’s reputation: Poiché la Regina lo giudicò degno d’esser suo marito e tanto lo amò ed osservò, non si po dire che ’l non meritasse d’esserle comparato: ben credo che la riputazion ch’egli ebbe da lei fusse dote non minor che ’l regno di Castiglia. (III.35) (Since the Queen judged him worthy of being her husband, and loved and respected him so much, we cannot say that he does not deserve to be compared with her; yet I believe that the fame he had because of her was a dowry not inferior to the kingdom of Castile.) (173)

The wife-husband dynamic here is (as we shall see) curiously like that of the ideal courtier-prince relationship depicted in Book IV: The fact that the queen loved and obeyed her husband renders him worthy of comparison with her, and her successful public-relations campaign on behalf of her husband is at least as valuable as her dowry of Castile—which allowed a single monarchy to unify peninsular Spain. Added to this is

From Castrated Statues to Empty Colossi

99

her outward subservience to her husband, so that Isabella seems like the ideal courtier serving a good prince—most especially since she is the driving force behind completing the Christian conquest of Spain. The chapter on Isabella contrasts strongly with the following chapter, which recounts the varying fortunes of six Italian grand dames, all of whom are related, and three of whom are named “Isabella.” None of these, however, has the close alliance with the Church that Isabella of Spain did, and none of them has a similar career. While Isabella represents all of Spain (both rhetorically and for the unification of 1492), the internal divisions of the Italian peninsula emerge through the list of women in III.36. Giuliano begins by glossing over two unspecified “singular queens” in Naples (Giovanna III and Giovanna IV d’Aragona, Ferrante’s widow and daughter)—even though Giovanna III would offer an example of statesmanship in combination with marital fidelity (III.36). Giuliano then praises Beatrice d’Aragona (who, widowed by Matthias Corvinus, King of Hungary, was repudiated by her second husband Ladislao, and returned to Naples), and continues with Isabella d’Aragona, whose disastrous political fate was legend (her husband Giangaleazzo lost the Duchy of Milan while her male Aragonese kin were dispossessed of Naples). These two are balanced by a second, more successful Isabella-Beatrice pair, the Este sisters: Isabella had a long career as Marchesa of Mantua and Beatrice was wife of Lodovico il Moro (who dispossessed Giangaleazzo Sforza of Milan), but died young in childbirth. Their mother, Eleonora d’Aragona, is the next “exemplar.” The wife of Ercole d’Este, she died before the Aragonese were ruined. Thus far, the chapter praises the virtues of the Aragonese women—glossing over their extraordinary misfortunes—and their Este relatives, to whose fortunes their own were eventually tied. The final example returns to the fall of the Aragonese, with another Isabella, the wife of Federico I of Naples. After the death of her male Aragonese kin, she sought refuge at the court of the Este. Here, for the first time, Giuliano explicitly lists his exemplar’s misfortunes: Dopo la perdita del regno, lo esilio e morte del re Federico suo marito e di duo figlioli e la pregionia del Duca di Calabria suo primogenito, pur ancor si dimostra esser regina e di tal modo supporta i calamitosi

Monuments, Imitation, and the Noble Ideal

100

incommodi della misera povertà, che ad ognuno fa fede che, ancor che ella abbia mutato fortuna, non ha mutato condizione. (III.36) (After the loss of her kingdom, the exile and death of her husband, King Federico, and of two children, and the captivity of her firstborn, the Duke of Calabria, [she] still proves herself a queen, and so sustains the calamitous vexations of bitter poverty as to give all men proof that, though her fortune has changed, her character has not.) (175)

The predominance of Isabellas in this chapter, and the numerous reminders of the downfall of the Aragonese family, reinforce the idea that these women, each tied to a single family, cannot escape the ruin of their relatives. The pattern is not coincidence. For the definitive redaction of the chapter Castiglione eliminated several women—including Costanza d’Avalos, who had famously defended Ischia against a four-month siege by the French—and added the final Isabella with an extended description of her misfortunes.62 The repetition of names (Isabella-BeatriceAragona) highlights the notion of replicable exemplarity, and yet exemplary virtue left most of these women powerless, even miserable. By contrast, Isabella of Spain, linked not to her male kin but to the Church, was far more successful—as were the queens who changed kinship alliances as they changed husbands. At this point Giuliano says that he has finished talking about both great ladies and of women of lower social status, adding however as an example of the latter another group of women who were on the “losing” side: The Pisan women who, in defending their city against Florence, “hanno mostrato quell’ardire generoso, senza timore alcuno di morte, che mostrar potessero i piú invitti animi che mai fossero al mondo” (showed that generous courage, without any fear whatever of death, which the most unconquerable spirits that ever lived on earth might have shown; III.36; 175). Although the specific battle is a matter of scholarly conjecture, the outcome is clear: The Pisans lost to Florence; their spirits are not, after all, “unconquerable.” Indeed, it is the conquering side that tells the tale. The narrator is Giuliano, representative (after 1513) of increased Medicean power through the papacy and Florentine territorial expansion.

From Castrated Statues to Empty Colossi

101

Giuliano’s political allegory ends with what looks like an admission that modernity is different from ancient times, and that the great feats of history are no longer possible: Se adesso non si trovano al mondo quelle gran regine, che vadano a subiugare paesi lontani e facciano magni edifici, piramidi e città, come quella Tomiris, regina di Scizia, Artemisia, Zenobia, Semiramis, o Cleopatra, non ci sono ancor omini come Cesare, Alessandro, Scipione, Lucullo e quegli altri imperatori romani. (III.36) (If there are not now found on earth those great queens who go forth to conquer distant lands and erect great buildings, pyramids, and cities—like that famous Tomyris, Queen of Scythia, Artemisia, Zenobia, Semiramis, or Cleopatra—neither are there still men like Caesar, Alexander, Scipio, Lucullus, and those other Roman commanders.) (176; translation modified)

Yet once again, there is a very obvious disparity between the women “exemplars” listed here and their masculine counterparts. Tomyris is less famous for defeating Cyrus the Great than for desecrating his corpse by drenching his head in blood.63 Artemisia offers the opposite pole of this extreme. After the death of her husband Mausolus, she constructed an enormous tomb (Mausoleum) to his memory, and epitomized honorable widowhood by dying of grief.64 Although Tomyris subjugated foreign lands, and Artemisia made a monument that was partly pyramidal, it is a stretch to say that they constructed “great buildings, pyramids, and cities.” It is true that Zenobia, Queen of Palmyra, built an empire, but she was eventually captured and her realm subjugated by the Roman emperor Aurelian. Semiramis and Cleopatra, bringing up the rear of this list, ring alarm bells for readers familiar with Inferno 5, where both queens are condemned for the sin of incest—the inverse of the chastity that has been central to the discussion of exemplary women. The comparison with “Cesare, Alessandro, Scipione, Lucullo” is so skewed as to be ridiculous—and indeed Frigio immediately responds by highlighting the pleasure-loving nature of these women (III.37). By focusing on chastity, Frigio’s reaction diverts attention from the political fortunes of these women: Semiramis was ultimately killed by her son, while Cleopatra’s armies (with those of Antony) were likewise

Monuments, Imitation, and the Noble Ideal

102

defeated, resulting in her suicide and, ultimately, the transition of Rome from Republic to Empire. Not only are these “exemplary” women not particularly exemplary to begin with, but they are once again on the side of the losers, with the only escape being suicide. As we saw in Castiglione’s “Cleopatra,” it is the winners who make history, whether in the form of Octavian’s simulacrum of the Egyptian queen (which bears witness to her downfall) or in Dante’s condemnation of Cleopatra and Semiramis in Inferno 5. The lengthy discussion of chastity that follows—and the much lengthier discussions of this discussion in recent scholarship—shows just how apt the text is at diverting attention from the political nature of these exemplars. As Berger has noted, Cesare Gonzaga, along with the other “profeminists,” attributes to women a great love of chastity and honor— and this strategy manages “to alienate the operation of managerial discourse to women,” distancing men from the policing of women’s bodies.65 As we have seen, however, the profeminists’ strategy goes further. By enumerating so many tales of forgotten virtuous women, the speakers alienate the discourse of exemplary virtue to women, so that men, freed from the constraints of exemplarity, can rewrite the rules of masculine “honor.” There follows another clue as to the politics of the exemplary tales, as Cesare Gonzaga takes over the lead in the debate, showing the unreliability of history writers as he notes that some writers cast doubt on the story of Scipio’s continence, while his own exemplars are entirely true (III.44). Frigio again interrupts to show his disbelief, and at this point Cesare makes the rather dubious assertion, “Io stesso l’ho veduto” (I witnessed it myself; III.44; 182). Considering that he is referring to a tale of a woman who repeatedly lay naked in the arms of her beloved without having sex (III.43), and that Cesare previously stated that he was driven to the point of death by a woman’s “troppo severa onestà” (all too stern chastity; III.41; 179), listeners and readers can surmise that Cesare himself was in this very compromising position and is therefore unlikely to tell the truth about what happened. Cesare reiterates the notion that history writers are unreliable: They should be ashamed, he says, of telling celebratory lies (III.45)—and yet his own narrative has proven untrustworthy. He finishes his comparison of supposedly continent men and

From Castrated Statues to Empty Colossi 103

truly continent women with another accusation against the self-aggrandizement of men: “Queste sono le miraculose continenzie che di se stessi scrivono gli omini, accusando per incontinenti le donne, nelle quali ogni dí si veggono infiniti segni di continenzia” (These are the instances of the miraculous continence that men have recorded of themselves, the while they denounce women as incontinent: in whom every day we see infinite proofs of continence; III.46; 183). At this point, Cesare launches into his famous diatribe condemning men for changing sides (in political situations) while women remain steadfast (in their personal lives). Cesare’s words gain ironic force in light of Giuliano’s preceding “exemplars”: Women’s steadfast virtue (whether under literal or metaphorical siege) repeatedly results in ruin and elision from history, while flexibility (especially in conjunction with imperial expansion) brings success. After Cesare’s diatribe, as we have already noted, there are two stories of women who drown themselves—the second of whom is explicitly denied a monument and written out of history. The next two “exemplars” involve rape and death: a failed seduction that turns into murder (III.48) and Felice della Rovere’s readiness to commit suicide when threatened by pirates (III.49). There is no good reason for the Duchess of Urbino (who presides over the discussions) to be named as the third exemplar here: Non posso pur tacere una parola della signora Duchessa nostra, la quale, essendo vivuta quindeci anni in compagnia del marito come vidua, non solamente è stata costante di non palesar mai questo a persona del mondo, ma essendo dai suoi proprii stimulata ad uscir di questa viduità, elesse piú presto patir esilio, povertà ed ogn’altra sorte d’infelicità, che accettar quello che a tutti gli altri parea gran grazia e prosperità di fortuna. (III.49) (Nor can I keep from mentioning our Duchess who has lived with her husband for fifteen years like a widow, and has not only been steadfast in not manifesting this to anyone in the world, but, when urged by her own people to leave such widowhood, she chose to suffer exile, poverty, and all kinds of hardships rather than accept what seemed to all others the great favor and bounty of Fortune.) (186)

Read in context with the many women who were killed or ruined for remaining constant to a single spouse or a single family, this encomium

Monuments, Imitation, and the Noble Ideal

104

takes on a substantially ambiguous tone, especially as it emphasizes the duchess’s exile, poverty and infelicità.66 The passage contrasts strongly with the unusual success of queens who changed husbands (III.34), resonating instead with the political disasters assailing the Aragonese women who remained tied to their kin (III.36), as well as the suicide of Camma, who refused familial and political gain in order to remain faithful to her husband (III.26). The question of changing sides remains very problematic—not least because Castiglione himself memorably switched allegiances multiple times, ultimately working for the same Medici popes who had ousted the Della Rovere duke of Urbino.67 As these “exemplars” illustrate over and over again, however, intransigent virtue as extolled in traditional terms is anachronistic and results in death—and worse, is not only not memorialized, but is actively forgotten. The text ironically makes this point by memorializing virtuous women in terms of this process of exclusion, illustrating that true power lies in control of discourse, as the men choose the tales they tell and how they tell them, and even opt to forget them. As history writers, they control the processes of monumentalization. The elimination of these women from history, in Castiglione’s account, offers a corrective to the ancient histories that posit intransigent virtue as exemplary.

The Courtier Combats Effeminacy by Making Monuments All of the issues dealt with thus far come together in Book IV: the ideal of imitating ancient writers and heroes to make monuments; the impossibility of doing so, both because ancient monuments and texts were ruined, leaving the philologist and the would-be hero without reliable models, and because the elite had limited autonomy at the new courts; the valorization of “effeminate” arts like music; and the discourse of an intransigent virtue (gendered as feminine) that fails to produce lasting monuments. Book IV opens by drawing attention to Castiglione’s use of, and difference from, the Ciceronian model, De Oratore.68 As both Wayne Rebhorn and Carla Freccero have pointed out, the lament for the deaths

From Castrated Statues to Empty Colossi

105

of three courtiers recalls the series of deaths that opens Book III of Cicero’s text.69 Even Cicero’s ideal orators are helpless to avert a major political crisis, and the account of their violent deaths at the beginning of the last book of the dialogue casts doubt on the efficacy of Cicero’s ideal orator who is politically engaged in service to the republic.70 I have argued elsewhere that Gasparo’s death in particular echoes the death of Crassus, and that his demise signals the end of the kind of outspoken and idealistic manly virtue that both characters represent—indicating that Cicero’s ideal orator is ineffective because anachronistically outspoken, and that Gasparo’s strident diatribes do not belong in courtly politics, where appearances and moderation are paramount.71 A second Ciceronian echo at the beginning of Castiglione’s Book IV comes from a different point in De Oratore, where Antonius, in sketching a history of oratory, compares the orators from Isocrates’s school with the principes (leaders) who emerged from the Trojan horse (II.94). In the Cortegiano, the passage immediately follows from the account of the deaths, offering a much more positive opening overall than does Cicero’s final book: Questi adunque se vivuti fossero, penso che sariano giunti a grado, che aríano ad ognuno che conosciuti gli avesse potuto dimostrar chiaro argumento, quanto la corte d’Urbino fosse degna di laude e come di nobili cavalieri ornata; il che fatto hanno quasi tutti gli altri, che in essa creati si sono; ché veramente del caval troiano non uscirono tanti signori e capitani, quanti di questa casa usciti sono omini per virtú singulari e da ognuno sommamente pregiati. (IV.2) (Thus, had these men lived, I think they would have attained such eminence that they would have been able to give to all who knew them clear proof of how praiseworthy the Court of Urbino was, and how adorned it was with noble cavaliers—as nearly all that were ever reared there have adorned it. For truly there did not come forth from the Trojan horse so many lords and captains as from this court have come men singular in worth and most highly regarded by all.) (208)

The Trojan horse is famously a symbol of takeover by craft rather than force—that is, by both deception and artistry.72 From this hollow colossus, according to Castiglione, there emerged unusually gifted men. As

Monuments, Imitation, and the Noble Ideal

106

many scholars have noted, the list that follows is a series of men who are almost all in the employment of the Church or close allies of the papacy. This opening is significant not only because Book IV has elicited so much comment for how it defines the courtier’s role vis-à-vis the prince, but also because the motif of the Trojan horse marks a shift, from the solid monuments (either literal or literary, in the form of reliable histories) denied to women in Book III, to a different kind of statue—a hollow, temporary colossus that conceals something. There is another shift here: Book III begins by comparing the Urbino court with Hercules, while Book IV compares the court with the Trojan horse.73 On the surface, this change seems to posit a straightforward contrast between solid heroes and hollow statues. Yet the rhetorical nuances of both opening chapters ultimately signal that the Cortegiano’s Hercules is not very different from the hollow statue that is a figure for both deception and effeminate “Greek” rhetoric—Greek in the pejorative sense implied both in Cicero’s De Oratore and Virgil’s account of the Trojan horse.74 It is no coincidence that Book III introduces not Hercules himself, but Pythagoras’s imagined Hercules, as recounted by Aulus Gellius. As Berger has argued, Castiglione’s emphasis on textual mediation points to the absurdity of the comparison: Not only is the heroic Hercules absent from the dialogue, but the analogy between Hercules and the unheroic and “effete” courtiers of Urbino is also an indication of the unreliability of the Cortegiano as historical document.75 What is more, Hercules is a notably multivalent exemplar: As we saw in the Introduction, the Quattrocento political-visual tradition of Hercules’s struggle against Antaeus (signifying the overthrow of tyrants) could also be used in the service of despots whom Hercules might rather be expected to destroy. The rhetorical shift from Hercules to the Trojan horse heralds a new political pedagogy that takes into account both the multipurpose application of heroic exemplars to a variety of political agendas, and the unreliability of history signaled both by Castiglione’s interlocutors (in Book III) and by the framing devices of the Cortegiano as a whole (as analyzed by Berger). After positing a comparison between the court and the Trojan horse—in contrast with the preceding association with Hercules—the narrator comments on Ottaviano’s tardiness in arriving to lead the evening’s discussions, and so points to a new direction in the dialogue.76

From Castrated Statues to Empty Colossi 107

Ottaviano begins rather unusually, with a famous condemnation of courtly activities as weakening and effeminizing Italian men. The courtier’s role as educator of the prince, however, legitimates activities that would otherwise be “leggerezze e vanità, ed in un omo di grado piú tosto degne di biasimo che di laude” (frivolities and vanities and, in a man of any rank, deserving of blame rather than of praise; IV.4; 210). Through such “frivolities” the courtier must obtain the prince’s favor, so that he can speak the truth and teach the prince moral goodness—continence, fortitude, justice, and so on (IV.5). Rebhorn sees this as a move from the “Hellenistic ideal of well-roundedness and elevated amateurism in the first three books” to a more Roman (or earlier Greek) notion of “education as training for service to the state.”77 However, the insertion of Isocrates’s Trojan horse (itself a figure for Greek deception), and Ottaviano’s careful legitimation of what Cicero might have considered idle, effeminate, “Greekish” chatter, argue rather that Book IV is attempting to rehabilitate Isocratean “armchair” rhetoric as service to the state, in a subtle critique of Cicero’s ambiguity toward his own indebtedness to Hellenism, and of the inability of Cicero’s manly and active republican orators to save their beloved republic.78 The criticism of Cicero, exemplar par excellence for humanists from Bruni to Bembo, also implies a reassessment of humanistic pedagogy as founded on Ciceronian and other ancient tenets. The difficulty with Ottaviano’s optimistic program of educating the prince is that the prince himself is highly flawed. Ottaviano decries the prince’s worst defects as ignorance and conceit, arising from la bugia (falsehood), because princes have nobody who tells them the truth and reminds them of virtue. For this reason, says Ottaviano, princes are ignorant both of the world and—worse still—of themselves (IV.6). Lack of self-knowledge leads to conceit, with the result that some princes detest reason and justice, as they believe justice to be “un certo freno ed un modo che lor potesse ridurre in servitú” (a kind of bridle and a way of reducing them to servitude; VI.6; 211). According to Ottaviano, this fear of servitude produces an arrogance that makes princes come i colossi che l’anno passato fur fatti a Roma il dí della festa di piazza d’Agone, che di fori mostravano similitudine di grandi omini

Monuments, Imitation, and the Noble Ideal

108

e cavalli triunfanti e dentro erano pieni di stoppa e di strazzi. Ma i príncipi di questa sorte sono tanto peggiori, quanto che i colossi per la loro medesima gravità ponderosa si sostengon ritti; ed essi, perché dentro sono mal contrapesati, e senza misura posti sopra basi inequali, per la propria gravità ruinano da se stessi. (IV.7) (like the colossi that were made last year at Rome on the day of the festival in Piazza d’Agone, which outwardly had the appearance of great men and horses in a triumph, and which within were full of tow and rags. But princes of this kind are much worse in that these colossi were held upright by their own great weight, whereas these princes, since they are ill-balanced within and are heedlessly placed on uneven bases, fall to their ruin by reason of their own weight.) (212)

The unschooled prince is like a false monument that cannot last—a temporary statue built to impress the masses from afar. While fake colossi resemble “great men and horses” (like the horse of Troy), their façades conceal rubbish, a symptom of the prince’s moral poverty. These fake colossi are made for carnival, the brief time of year when the social order is turned upside down in a game in which even menials can masquerade as nobles. Yet carnival statues—rubbish masquerading as monuments— perform their task more successfully than the unschooled prince: The false statues remain standing, while the self-deceiving men who masquerade as invincible princes topple and break from their lack of internal equilibrium. Ottaviano enlarges on this idea in the following chapter, which cancels out the playful carnivalesque aspect of the empty colossi as it stresses that one man’s inability to govern causes disaster for many. According to Ottaviano, ancient heroes like Scipio, while flawed, were sufficiently virtuous for their teachers to be able to correct their errors (IV.8). This kind of austere pedagogy, he says, would be impossible today. Yet despite the importance of such frivolous amusements as music and dancing for Ottaviano’s pedagogy (IV.9, IV.24), the courtier’s role as teacher of the prince depends specifically on humanistic theories of exemplarity and monument making: He will excite the prince to virtue con l’esempio dei celebrati capitani e d’altri omini eccellenti, ai quali gli antichi usavano di far statue di bronzo e di marmo e talor d’oro;

From Castrated Statues to Empty Colossi 109

e collocarle ne’ lochi publici, cosí per onor di quegli, come per lo stimulo degli altri, che per una onesta invidia avessero da sforzarsi di giungere essi ancor a quella gloria. (IV.9)79 (by the example of the famous captains and other excellent men to whom the ancients were wont to make statues of bronze, of marble, and sometimes of gold, and to erect these in public places, both to honor these men and to encourage others, so that through worthy emulation they may be led to strive to attain that glory too.) (213)

As we know, the idea is a classic topos of humanist pedagogy: Contemplate the deeds of the ancients as depicted in statues, and be inspired to emulate them—so that you, too, will one day be commemorated by a monument. This theory is reiterated later as Cesare Gonzaga says the courtier must urge his prince to construct “magni edifici, e per onor vivendo e per dar di sé memoria ai posteri” (great edifices, both to win honor in his lifetime and to leave the memory of himself to posterity; IV.36; 232). Cesare gives examples of both ancient and modern monuments, culminating with the ultimate statue-making project—which he attributes to Alexander the Great—of shaping a mountain (Mt. Athos) into the form of a man. The pleasure pedagogy of Book IV thus also depends on humanistic theories of exemplarity and monument making. Yet this hopeful rhetoric contrasts directly with the reality of princes, who, according to Ottaviano, are everything that a monument should not be—and are likely to be too engrossed in “ephemeral” arts like music and dancing to bother with contemplating ancient heroes. There is an obvious contrast between the prince’s likeness to fake, temporary colossi, and the “real” statues he should use for inspiration and self-commemoration. Although the courtier may seek to turn the prince from unstable, “fake statue” into “solid monument,” the rhetoric of the empty colossus contaminates the prince to a disconcerting extent, undermining Ottaviano’s pedagogical ideal. The notion of seeking to overcome (or hide) interior moral “hollowness” is moreover evident in Ottaviano’s approach to teaching the prince: His pedagogy is based on habit. Rather than teaching moral integrity as a starting point, Ottaviano stresses that good behavior leads to good thoughts, so the courtier must first teach the prince good behavior: “prima operiamo le virtù o i vicii, poi siam virtuosi o viciosi” (first

Monuments, Imitation, and the Noble Ideal

110

we practice virtue or vice and then we are virtuous or vicious; IV.12; 215). This is a commonplace of Aristotelian thought about teaching virtue through practice.80 The practice of goodness seems to bring about “real” internal goodness, but it does so, says Ottaviano, because “si fa l’abito con la consuetudine” (the habit is produced through practice)—so that behavior becomes an identity-conferring habitus, in the manner of a garment.81 Ottaviano returns to this idea in IV.29, where, however, la morale substitutes for l’abito: “la morale si fa con la consuetudine” (moral virtue is produced through practice), in a rhetorical shift that suggests that moral goodness and garment-like external behavior are interchangeable, or at least have the same value in terms of what the courtier can teach the prince about virtue. In the same way that Berger identifies the external mannerly perfection of Giovanni Della Casa’s Galateo with statues that are constructed “from the outside in,” we can see that Castiglione’s prince is likewise fashioned via outward behavior, as surface seems to be all that matters.82 Book III has already set up the courtier as maker of statues through discourse, via Giuliano’s claim to be “Pygmalion” making the ideal court lady—the subtext being that real court ladies are full of defects.83 In Book IV, however, the courtier as monument maker cannot choose his material, but begins with a ready-made, unbalanced fake statue filled with rubbish. In this way, the text both proposes and obfuscates that the well-behaved prince starts out as a “bad” prince, a poor semblance of a real monument, and must learn to perform outward goodness. This hints at a concealed interior, so the prince is less like a statue made from solid material—marble or bronze all the way through—and more like the temporary colossus whose appearance of solidity hides its insubstantial interior. The idea of the prince as a kind of hollow shell persists: A few chapters later, Ottaviano compares a corrupt prince with a cracked container, which, when empty, shows no sign of its defect, but when full spills out vice—because, as with the empty colossi, there is a problem with distribution of weight: “non bastano per supportare il grave peso della potenzia” (they are then unable to bear the heavy weight of power; IV.24; 223). The rhetoric of hollowness thus threatens in multiple ways the ideal monument-making prince that the text apparently advocates. What is more, the notion of the empty container reinforces

From Castrated Statues to Empty Colossi

111

Berger’s reading of Casa’s Galateo and extends its relevance back to the Cortegiano: According to Berger, Messer Galateo, as an ideal embodiment of good manners, is a pastiche of Castiglione’s ideal courtier, a man whose appearance comprises his entire being. Berger argues that this ideal emerges in the Galateo as a fallacy: The perfect performance of good manners is always an overlay concealing “darker purposes.”84 There are in fact a few hints that the hollow prince is precisely what Castiglione’s text is bargaining on. The discourse of real versus fake monuments develops further, as Cesare Gonzaga adds to Ottaviano’s discussion of the virtues that the courtier must teach the prince in order to recast the prince as monument maker (IV.36). Cesare gives a list of great men—ancient and modern—who have constructed buildings, roads, and other monuments, culminating with Alexander the Great, who “not satisfied” with being famous for having “tamed the world,” built Alexandria and a number of other cities, “e pensò di ridurre in forma d’omo il monte Athos, e nella man sinistra edificargli una amplissima città e nella destra una gran coppa” (and he thought of giving Mount Athos the form of a man, and of building a very spacious city in the man’s left hand and in his right a great basin; IV.36; 232). To emphasize the importance of making monuments, Cesare ignores the tradition that it was Alexander’s sculptor, Stasicrates, who wanted to carve Mt. Athos into a statue, and that Alexander rejected the idea.85 In his disregard for historical record, Cesare once again shows that in making history, discourse takes precedence over fact. Here, Cesare both recalls and reinscribes in a positive sense his earlier tirade about men who choose gain and expediency over virtue. Highlighting the importance of building things to make the prince gloriosissimo, he adds a caveat to the strict principles of justice and goodness in government that Ottaviano has just painstakingly outlined: “Se i Romani, Alessandro, Annibale e gli altri avessero avuto questi risguardi, non sarebbon stati nel colmo di quella gloria che furono” (If the Romans, Alexander, Hannibal, and the others had been concerned with such things as these, they would not have reached the pinnacle of glory they did; IV.36; 232). In other words, strict scruples and the extraordinary glory represented by lasting monuments are incompatible. This is a positive restatement of the negative moral that emerges from the virtuous

Monuments, Imitation, and the Noble Ideal

112

exemplars who are denied monuments in Book III—including the one (also narrated by Cesare) that most explicitly showed the failure of history to record women’s virtuous deeds. Ottaviano’s response is telling: While he insists that princes would do better to respect a strict sense of virtue, his examples of truly virtuous leaders are not merely from the irrevocably lost antique world, but are more ancient still, the mythical heroes Theseus and Hercules (IV.37). The return to Hercules within the discourse of monument making reminds the reader of the shift from the prologue of Book III—with its comparison of the Urbino court with Hercules—to Book IV, which compares Urbino with the colossal machine of deception that is the Trojan horse. Ottaviano ignores the rhetorical discrepancies between actual courtiers and princes, and the ideal prince (Hercules?) taught by his ideal courtier, and returns instead to the realm of “real” princes by appropriating Cesare’s supreme exemplar, Alexander the Great. Tacitly ignoring the question of moral scruples, Ottaviano instead stresses that the empire Alexander instituted was in itself a great source of benefits to the conquered (IV.37).86 Reading between the lines, then, scruples matter less than imperialism, and someone to eulogize it. The rhetoric of beneficent empire recalls the unlikely claims made for Queen Isabella’s subjugated aristocrats, who supposedly loved her. The combined power of history writing and imperialism is further clarified in the following chapter, where Ottaviano asks what more noble, glorious, or useful undertaking there could be than for Christians to subjugate the infidels (IV.38). Even before Cesare blurs the question of moral scruples, the courtier-prince team is explicitly engaged in empire building. Ottaviano likens the courtier to a horse tamer or cavaliero who must teach the prince the virtues of temperance and justice, from which will follow the other virtues and the knowledge of good government (IV.18).87 The prince, then, in addition to being like a tamed horse, becomes a holder of virtues: Ma se ’l nostro cortegiano farà quello che avemo detto, tutte le [virtù] ritroverà nell’animo del suo principe, . . . ; e tra se stesso sentirà grandissimo contento, ricordandosi avergli donato non quello che donano i sciocchi, che è oro o argento, vasi, veste e tai cose, . . . ma quella virtú che forse tra tutte le cose umane è la maggiore e la piú rara, cioè la manera e ’l modo di governar e di regnar come si dee; il che solo

From Castrated Statues to Empty Colossi

113

basteria per far gli omini felici e ridur un’altra volta al mondo quell’età d’oro. (IV.18) (But if our Courtier will do what we have said, he will find them [the virtues] all in his prince’s mind, . . . and within him he will feel very great satisfaction, remembering that he gave his prince, not what fools give (which is gold or silver, vases, garments, and the like, . . .), but rather that virtue that in all human affairs is perhaps the greatest and rarest, that is, the manner and method of right rule: which alone would suffice to make men happy and to bring back once again to earth that Golden Age.) (219–20; translation modified)

The idea of “finding” the virtues inside the prince’s mind, and the notion that the courtier has given him these great “riches,” suggest that the educated prince has become a repository of the great treasure that is good government, conferred on him by the courtier. In a wishful reversal of (idealized) courtly power dynamics, the courtier is the generous donor of priceless treasures, which the prince—forever indebted to the courtier—keeps safe. The result is that the prince will be able to “make men happy” and return the Golden Age to the world. This is a very strong claim for the courtier as the ultimate source of imperialistic power and good government. As we have seen, however, the subsequent discussion makes it clear that the many virtuous principles that Ottaviano wants the courtier to put “inside” the mind of his prince are in fact incompatible with empire building. To succeed, the prince must in fact resemble more the empty colossi filled with ambiguous qualities than a repository of great treasures: The prince needs to be more like the Trojan horse. If that most colossal monument to empire, Alexander’s Mt. Athos, was possible only because Alexander disregarded virtuous scruples, then the difference between the solid, permanent memorial and the ephemeral carnival statues is blurred. Moreover, considering that Alexander’s Mt. Athos is a figment of Cesare’s imagination, it too is an ephemeral colossus, whose discursive purpose is not only to entertain but also to teach the value of such ephemera. The most interesting part of the celebration of the courtier as educator of the prince—and the consequent happiness of men and the return

Monuments, Imitation, and the Noble Ideal

114

of the Golden Age—is that his role remains a secret to everyone but the courtier: “tra se stesso sentirà grandissimo contento” (within him he will feel very great satisfaction; IV.18; 219). Like the insignificant man on the walls of the Sala Paolina, Castiglione’s courtier goes unnoticed—or resembles the Sala Paolina’s monkeys, who to the uninitiated seem decorative dumb animals, but to those in the know are a celebration of the great artistry behind the imperial program on the walls. The courtier’s role as educator of the prince is reexamined after virtuous scruples are sidelined: In IV.47, the authorship analogy indicates that the courtier can even take credit for what he accomplishes as educator of the prince. Ottaviano once again proposes his ideal courtier-prince team, Aristotle and Alexander: Alexander’s civilizing empire, which Ottaviano calls nobil filosofia, is in fact not the creation of Alexander, but of Aristotle: “di queste cose in Alessandro fu autore Aristotile, usando i modi di bon cortegiano” (Aristotle was the author of these deeds of Alexander, employing the methods of a good Courtier; V.47; 241). Alexander carries out the agenda of his philosopher-courtier to the extent that even the most “solid” colossus of all—the monument of Mt. Athos—is the creation of the courtier. The attribution to Aristotle of “i modi di bon cortegiano” echoes an apparently throwaway line in III.45, where Cesare says that philosophy “consiste nei boni costumi e non nelle parole” (consists in good habits and not in words; 182). As author of this kind of “philosophy” the courtier is not, however, always successful: Ottaviano tells us that Plato abandoned the service of Dionysius of Syracuse, who was too much like a “libro tutto pieno di mende e d’errori e piú presto bisognoso d’una universal litura che di mutazione o correzione alcuna” (book full of defects and errors and in need of complete erasure rather than of any change or correction; IV.47; 241). Ottaviano’s insistence that the courtier should leave the service of a bad prince recalls the same assertion, by Federico Fregoso, in Book II—as well as Calmeta’s response that, in reality, most courtiers are stuck with the prince they have (II.22). The reprise here reminds us that the courtier will not always be such a successful “author” as to control discourse to his own ends, creating history or filosofia (as both text and monument) like Aristotle. A similar ambiguity emerges from the duchess’s claim that since Ottaviano knows so well how to educate the

From Castrated Statues to Empty Colossi

115

prince, he himself would make an ottimo principe, and Ottaviano’s own suggestion that courtiers can become princes (IV.43, IV.47): Ottaviano Fregoso became Doge of Genoa in 1513, but met his downfall when the city was sacked in 1522 (while his brother Federico, a cleric, escaped).88 The idea then, that the courtier’s role as author of the prince’s agenda is secret, allows for failure while keeping the courtier free from blame until success is secured. As a repository for the courtier’s teachings, and in performing the secret agenda of the courtier-author, the prince seems to prefigure the empty Silenus statues we associate with later sixteenth-century rhetoric about the secretary who writes what his prince wishes him to write.89 Ottaviano’s teaching of the prince does not turn the unbalanced and empty colossus into a real Hercules, or a solid monument, or even a Silenus statue filled with virtuous treasures; rather, it creates a façade of strength, a puppet propped up by the courtier’s control of discourse— in a clear justification of the valorization of illusion, arte, and appearances in Books I and II. That the ruler ideally becomes a façade for the courtier’s discourse is apparent even in the relationship between the speakers and the ladies: Berger points out that what Rebhorn calls “the thrones from which Emilia Pia and the duchess rule” are “like papier-mâché thrones on a carnival float”—so that Berger’s own reflection on what the Cortegiano pretends to portray as a true seat of power echoes Ottaviano’s comment on princes who are like fake statues made for carnival.90 Although Ottaviano’s comparison specifically refers to princes consumed by overweening pride, the unstable semblance of power that he describes could equally be applied to the Urbino court, where women’s seeming authority is simultaneously deferred to and constantly in question—and not even due to last until the publication of the dialogue that made them famous. As we have seen, the rather devious means the courtier may employ in order to deceive his prince into empire building—dubbed filosofia and considered ideal by the courtier who writes history—are justified by the rhetoric of monuments in Book III, as uncompromisingly virtuous women are explicitly, repeatedly, on the side of the losers, denied monuments and written out of history. Even the women whose actions have the most positive outcome—the Trojans who burned the ships so that

Monuments, Imitation, and the Noble Ideal

116

Rome could be founded—contrast starkly with Ottaviano’s Alexander: The Trojans are an indistinct group that founds the Roman republic via an act of destruction, while Alexander—according to the histories that the courtiers choose to cite—is an exceptional individual who builds an empire through construction and acculturation. Indeed, the text’s repeated focus on processes of history writing makes evident that the courtier’s “teaching” of the prince is primarily an artful process of illusionistic public relations. Just as the most memorably heroic women can be depicted as losers and written out of history, so too any prince can be presented to the world as heroic and worthy of emulation. The various hollow monuments in Book IV of the Cortegiano give special meaning to the motif at the beginning of the book, in which the courtiers of Urbino are compared with the signori e capitani who emerged from the Trojan horse. Although the Trojan horse epitomizes the temporary colossus whose interior conceals secrets from the viewer, it is here presented in a positive light, as a school for courtiers. This rhetoric is turned around in Book IV, as courtiers school horses, make statues, fix colossi and hollow receptacles, and above all disguise the fact that they are doing so. It seems that, once the prince has the courtier’s wisdom at his disposal, he will be a well-balanced empty colossus, a Trojan horse that seems beautiful (like Guidubaldo’s Urbino) but has a political agenda known only to those artists who created him. Rather than reducing a mountain to the form of a man (like Aristotle’s Alexander as imagined by Cesare Gonzaga), this prince is more like the montis equus described by Virgil, the horse that resembles a mountain, which impresses from afar but conceals the hidden purpose of the cavalieri who use it as a temporary shelter for their project of building empire via discourse.

Conclusion Pomponio Leto’s Academy linked inscriptions on ancient monuments with inspired poetry; Bembo’s De Virgilii Culice revists this idea, but his Pomponio Leto expresses a sense of hopelessness, as the monuments and texts he discusses have lost all identifying marks in an operation of metaphorical castration. Despite this effeminizing disempowerment of the philologist, Bembo’s letter to Gianfrancesco Pico proposes literary

From Castrated Statues to Empty Colossi

117

imitation as the equivalent of making monuments, while the Prose posit the re-creation of Rome, in which genius rebuilds genius to rescue the distressed (feminized) city. The letter by Castiglione and Raphael likewise plans to rescue a feminized Rome and rebuild her. The Cortegiano, by contrast, proposes a new kind of “Roman empire,” whose author-creator is the courtier who exploits his disempowering courtly obligations (to practice ephemeral and effeminizing arts) in order to achieve something lasting. As is the case for the “artists” on the walls of the Sala Paolina, and for Bembo as “author” of Rome’s reconstructed textual monuments, however, the mastermind behind the imperial program artfully dissimulates his authorship, so that only those in the know will appreciate it. Just as the Sala Paolina envisages a separation between the intellectual or artist (the marginal trompe-l’oeil courtier and apes) and the statesman with his expanding empire (St. Paul and Alexander the Great as Paul III and Charles V), so too the Cortegiano admits that the courtier, although responsible for empire building through discourse (including the discourse that is the Cortegiano), will never get full credit for it. Indeed, the self-effacing courtier of the Sala Paolina, produced two decades after the Cortegiano was printed, and in a very different political climate (following the sack of Rome), seems to offer a visual check to the fantasy of a charming and charismatic courtier who can change the world: Whatever power he wields will remain largely invisible. There remain, however, some suggestions that Castiglione’s courtier will ultimately triumph. The hint that the courtier may himself become prince (borne out by Ottaviano Fregoso’s election as doge in 1513), as well as his capacity to write the agenda of the prince and to write or erase history (even projecting a fictitious and pastoral “Urbino” into the future via his text), are evidence of the courtier’s very real power. While Berger argues for ironic distance and self-criticism in the framing of the text, the same process of critiquing history writing occurs in the actual dialogues: Together these sets of internal criticisms cast serious doubt on the humanist monument-making project and propose a more insidious kind of monument making via control of discourse. Even though, as Berger argues, the text’s frame regards this project with great irony, the Cortegiano as a Trojan horse that spreads a false pastoral vision of the court has paradoxically succeeded, as history has borne out many of the

Monuments, Imitation, and the Noble Ideal

118

Cortegiano’s claims: It continues to be regarded as the great monument to both Urbino and Castiglione. In contrast with the solidity and manly force of Hercules, or Cicero’s idealized and virile republican orators, the courtier derives his power from acknowledging that expediency and deception are essential. Constancy and virtue (associated in Book III with women) are superseded by “shiftability”—which must be dissimulated by the appearance of fixity, the solid monumentality of a Hercules or a Mt. Athos. For this reason the courtier’s appearance is paramount, and he must teach the prince via external behavior, bearing in mind that abito and morale are interchangeable terms. Berger contends that Giovanni Della Casa’s Galateo is like a statue, constructed from the outside in, with nothing other than more surface beneath the surface, and that this insistence on appearance, on manners over ethics, is a critique of the “new” aristocratic courtier emerging in Castiglione’s Cortegiano. Yet this critique is in fact already present in Castiglione, who extends it beyond the courtier to include the prince. The Cortegiano repeatedly insists on appearances over ethics, and on placating the prince so as to lead him—as well as on the prince as a highly flawed, fake effigy who needs to be propped up so as to present a monumental appearance. The hollowness of Castiglione’s fake statues in Book IV, and the conspicuous absence of monuments to the virtuous women in Book III, show that the Cortegiano is already self-consciously the project of covering a moral emptiness with manners. This agenda is, however, explicitly justified in terms of the book’s greater project. The Cortegiano advocates building the next Rome: While there are many hints that this might be the Rome of the papacy (despite the text’s ambiguity toward the papacy), it might equally be the empire created by the spread of the Cortegiano itself.91 Castiglione is not proposing a reconstruction project—either of Rome itself or of Cicero’s ideal orator—but rather the building of empire via a courtier who is much more adaptable to changing political realities than were Cicero’s orators. Just like the fake, hollow monuments that conceal much more than they show, so too the courtier’s “feminine” occupations and “rhetoricized” ethics conceal the power to manipulate discourse and create empires. And should this new empire fail, Castiglione’s courtier will survive, thanks to his resemblance to the almost-unnoticed courtier and apes on the walls

From Castrated Statues to Empty Colossi

119

in the Sala Paolina: He is able to celebrate his own artistry secure in the knowledge that his separation from a position of visually obvious power in fact grants him great flexibility. Both trompe-l’oeil courtier and apes could retain their visual force in a different room, in a different political program—whereas the enormous panels celebrating the papal empire via Alexander the Great and St. Paul only make sense in the specific context of Alessandro Farnese as Paul III.

This page intentionally left blank

chapter three

Banishing the Hollow Man: Print, Clothing, and Aretino’s Emblems of Truth

In a letter to his mother from the Montefeltro court, Baldassarre Castiglione wrote in 1504:

Vorei che la M. Vostra facesse sollicitare maestro Bernardino armarolo, per quella mia celata: e non havendo lui hauto veluto per fornirla, prego quella che voglia sub fargelo dare, e sa negro. E perché ’l mi è forza anchor havere una lanza: . . . prego la M. Vostra che voglia fare che subito el la dora. Vorei che la fosse tutta dorata e brunita, cussì, senza divisa alcuna: poi al fondo, e cussì apresso el ferro, che la havesse de la franza de seda, bella. . . . Prego anchor la M. V. che mi voglia mandare quelle sopraveste di brocato d’oro vechio, perché le adoperarò anchor loro. Item vorei vinti braza de corda de seda bianca larga, in questa Cesena non c’è, che Dio l’impichi; se ge ne fosse, non darei già questo fastidio a la M.a .1 (I would like you to have master Bernardino the armorer beseeched for that ceremonial helmet of mine; and since he did not have any velvet to finish it, I ask that you please get some to him, and it should be black. And I also have to have a lance: . . . I ask that you please have him gild it immediately. I would like it to be all gold and polished, plain, without an emblem: then further down, close to the blade, it should have a silk fringe, a pretty one. . . . I ask too that you send me those robes of old gold brocade, for I will need them too. Also, I would like twenty ells of thick silk cord, in white: in this city of Cesena there isn’t any, may God hang them all; if there were, I would not bother you for this.)

Print Monuments, Exposure, and Strategies of Concealment

124

Castiglione’s letter had the immediate purpose of solving his wardrobe problems. Written privately to his mother, it was never intended for publication, and stipulates that the outfit not include an emblem. The author’s close attention to the details of his ceremonial dress reflect the extreme importance of clothing as a marker of public identity: Quattrocento debates over nobility had led to a newly positive rhetoric about displaying wealth (as we saw in the Introduction), and rich clothing was a fundamental part of such display. On the other hand, too much attention to dress raised the specter of effeminacy, and clothing was excluded from the rhetoric of monumentality used in creating a public image (see Chapters 1 and 2). Thirty years after Castiglione’s wardrobe difficulties, Pietro Aretino reversed the trends evidenced in the letter cited above. Writing letters specifically for publication, he used clothing as a trope for writerly authority, and he adopted first a series of print portraits of himself, and later a personal emblem (also called impresa). Aretino’s letters, the subject of this chapter, thus herald two major trends in constructing authority, which will be discussed in Chapters 4 and 5: the exploitation of print portraits, and the development of impresa writing. Aretino’s careful deployment of print portraits to disseminate an authoritative image of himself was revolutionary in the 1530s, and has been thoroughly investigated by such scholars as Raymond Waddington and Joanna Woods-Marsden.2 In Chapter 4, we shall see that the promise of authority and uniqueness conveyed by Aretino’s likeness heralded an explosion of print portraits, a genre that rapidly became so profitable for publishers that people depicted in print images typically had no control over the production or reception of their image: Their portraits became markers of commercial enterprise rather than images of authority. At around the same time, beginning in the 1550s, another new genre developed, as writers from Paolo Giovio to Torquato Tasso printed entire dialogues devoted to discussing, defining, and designing personal emblems. As we shall see, the first collection of Aretino’s letters offers a particularly clear understanding of how and why this craze came into being: The letters initially prioritize clothing, but then increasingly problematize investiture via patronage relationships—one of the main paradigms for achieving social recognition and authority.

Banishing the Hollow Man

125

Instead, Aretino’s letters liken clothing to manuscript letters and to literary imitation, and broadly condemn both borrowed clothes and borrowed literary tropes as effeminate. While Quattrocento writers had attempted to construct a nobility that was defined in terms of virtue but often depended on displays of wealth, Aretino approached the same problem in a new way. Aretino’s social and political status depended on his self-proclaimed “virtue,” his autonomous writerly genius, despite the fact that this virtue was validated by displays of clothing that depended on patrons’ generosity. To resolve this double bind, the author flaunted the generosity of his patrons as signaling his own material worth, and at the same time asserted his autonomy from the same patrons via a personal symbol that ultimately superseded the need for portraits. These transformations have as their background the emergence of print as the dominant paradigm for publishing, a shift that gains significance as we bear in mind the image-building strategies (some years after Aretino) of Antonfrancesco Doni.3 Doni claimed that publishing in print granted eternity to an author, but although he exploited the printing press to diffuse his writings, he also created elaborate manuscript presentation copies of books (for select patrons) to signal his skill and value as a writer and draftsman. In a similar vein, Aretino deployed print as a tool to gain a permanent place in the writerly canon, but ultimately claimed uniqueness and value via a personal symbol. Aretino’s approach was in some ways more successful than Doni’s, as his impresa was more flexible and reusable (in both rhetoric and visuals) than a unique handmade copy of a book. An impresa could go anywhere (on clothing, into an illustrated book, or—via description—into text), while Doni’s presentation copies, by virtue of their uniqueness, could not be replicated. Yet, as we shall see in both this chapter and those following, replicability is problematic. Just as manuscript letters and clothing could be imitated and circulated indiscriminately, so too—eventually—could printed books, portraits, and emblems. While Aretino on the one hand fought hard to establish his uniqueness through a very finely honed volume of letters, he also collaborated with unofficial printers to produce pirated versions of his work—thereby ensuring his further fame and guarding (at least temporarily) against inaccurate pirated copies. The very success of his project, however, made Aretino

Print Monuments, Exposure, and Strategies of Concealment

126

an object of imitation by countless authors; once distributed via print, even his impresa could be appropriated and reused by others.

Aretino’s Letters of 1538 While Castiglione never intended to publish the letter quoted above, there was a new market for printed collections of correspondence, which Aretino exploited when he became the first to publish his own letters in the vernacular. In this volume of correspondence, clothing, printing, and letter writing converge to support an authorial Aretino. The volume set a fashion for printed collections of letters in the vernacular, and helped to construct the author’s public image as a powerful man who, unlike those around him, was not afraid to insult rulers in his frequently scandalous writing. The first edition was printed by Marcolini in 1538 in Venice, Aretino’s adopted city and the center of Italian print culture. Raymond Waddington’s thorough analysis of the editio princeps shows that its luxurious large format (106 leaves in folio) helped to project a sense of the author’s wealth and importance.4 The title page contributed to this impression by displaying a prominent portrait of the author dressed in fine clothing, enclosed by a frame of monumental classicizing architecture (Fig. 3.1), borrowed from the title page of Sebastiano Serlio’s architectural treatise (which Marcolini had printed a few months earlier, also in folio). Aretino’s material trappings are equally important in the actual letters, which include frequent descriptions of sumptuous clothes that the author allegedly received from patrons. Both the book’s format and the clothing discussions attempt to resolve tensions between the need for patronage relationships, the necessary “effeminacy” of caring for appearances, and the desire to assert writerly authority. Waddington has demonstrated that Aretino, over the course of his career, constructed an authorial and increasingly complex literary identity based on the figure of the satyr. This visual and rhetorical symbol allowed the writer to associate himself with the priapic satyr’s “legendary sexuality and truthfulness”; later in his career Aretino nuanced this sign with the satyrs of Socrates, Silenus, and Marsyas.5 We turn here to the practical motivation behind the choice of a personal symbol by exploring

Banishing the Hollow Man

127

figur e 3.1. Title page of the princeps of Aretino’s first book of letters. ((C) the British Library Board, De le Lettere di Pietro Aretino libro primo [Vinetia: Francesco Marcolini da Forlì, Genaro, 1538], 88.h.14).

Aretino’s early use—and eventual abandonment—of the theme of apparel in his letters. If Aretino’s satyr symbol can be considered an impresa (as Waddington argues), his early letters suggest that the desire for a timeless personal sign developed, in part, out of an awareness of the failings of clothing. In the correspondence, elaborate descriptions of clothes invest the writer with authority and putative wealth. At the same time, however, Aretino tries to distance himself from gifts of

Print Monuments, Exposure, and Strategies of Concealment

128

clothing, seeking to project an autonomous identity. The letters eventually resolve this paradox by associating fancy clothing with women and effeminacy, and with pedantic literary imitation. The collection as a whole thus presents an authoritative but “undressed” Aretino, an idiot savant whose literary identity is freed from temporal and societal markers and associated with the phallus, the timeless priapic symbol of masculine creativity. In this way, the letters follow the trend of anticanonical writings that both use and reject traditional models of authority: The author posits his own writings as permanent and eternal by exploiting and then undermining the notion of investiture.

The Value of Clothing Exhibitions of wealth were particularly important in Venice, a major center for trade with the East, but became a contentious issue as sumptuary legislation from the fifteenth century on increasingly focused on dress. While Venetian men’s clothing was relatively egalitarian—the black toga was the standard outfit for all citizens—social hierarchy was clearly marked through colors, rich fabrics, and the cut of the sleeve.6 Gold or silver cloth, and silks and velvets in black, crimson, or dark purple were evidence of a man’s wealth and status.7 Clothing in the early modern era was not, however, a mere external marker of identity. Ann Rosalind Jones and Peter Stallybrass have shown that clothes actually shaped identity, in keeping with the ancient notion of dressing as investiture.8 Although Renaissance apparel was a fragmentary assemblage of sleeves, collars, lacing, buttons, overskirts, underskirts, and so on, these individual pieces were enduring: Circulated, reused, and frequently pawned (by members of all social classes), clothes often stood in for money. Clothing usually comprised a substantial portion of servants’ wages, and the consequent blurring between gifts of clothing and servants’ livery is especially significant as we read Aretino’s letters. In fact, the offer of clothing was a fundamental tool in the creation and consolidation of social bonds and hierarchies.9 Gifts of old clothes were not confined to servants: Massimiano Stampa gave one of his used shirts to Aretino, and in England, Queen Elizabeth frequently passed both new and used items of clothing to her

Banishing the Hollow Man

129

ladies-in-waiting.10 Even in the socially exclusive circle of the English queen’s ladies-in-waiting, gifts of identical gowns to groups of women suggest a kind of livery.11 Clothing, whether payment or gift, “was more binding than money, both symbolically, since it incorporated the body, and economically, since a further transaction had to take place if you wanted to transform it into cash.”12 The value of clothing—its material worth and its power to invest the wearer with a symbolic identity—comes across clearly in Aretino’s letters. Early in the collection, a letter thanks Duke Federico II Gonzaga of Mantua for a set of clothes: “Io mi vestii il dì de l’Ascensione d’una robba di velluto nero fregiata di cordoni d’oro con la fodra di tela d’oro, e d’un saio e d’un giubbone di broccato” (On the feast of the Ascension I wore a long robe of black velvet trimmed with golden cord, and lined with gold cloth. My tunic and jerkin were brocade; I.13, 11 May 1529). This description is a representative sample from the early letters, as it demonstrates both Aretino’s efforts to make himself visible, and the demands he made of patrons: Velvet and gold cloth were very valuable, and black and gold were colors reserved for the Venetian upper classes—to which Aretino, a commoner from Arezzo, did not belong. While such an outfit might be acceptable for a major feast day, it suits the author’s purposes that this feast should be the Ascension: Christ’s miraculous ascent into heaven provides a backdrop for the volume’s ambitious message of Aretino’s own rise from penniless obscurity to political influence. In case this reference is unclear, the letter then highlights the paradigm of investiture, saying, “Né mi sono tanto rallegrato del dono per la ricchezza sua, quanto de l’avere voi, che principe sete, giudicatomi degno di portare gli abiti dei principi” (Nor did I rejoice so much for the richness of the gift, than for the fact that you, who are a prince, have judged me worthy of wearing the clothes of a prince).

Clothing and Patronage in Aretino’s Letters To clarify the intensity of Aretino’s efforts to construct a powerful public image, and the connections among clothing, printing, and letter writing, I return briefly to the publication of the letters. The first volume, printed in 1538, set a fashion for printing vernacular correspondence,

Print Monuments, Exposure, and Strategies of Concealment

130

and was followed by a further five volumes in 1542, 1546, 1550, 1556, and 1557. Deriving from the illustrious Latin tradition of Cicero, Petrarch, and Ficino, the collected letters contrasted sharply with Aretino’s prior reputation for writing scurrilous poems, especially the sexually explicit Modi sonnets that had scandalized the papal court a few years earlier. Aretino probably did not merely select and edit his letters, but actually wrote them with an eye to publishing.13 The individual letters convey almost no news, suggesting that they originated as public documents destined for a broader audience.14 Thus the printed correspondence, in particular the first and most successful volume, is key to understanding how Aretino constructed his public image. The careful construction of an image is evident in the description, quoted above, of Aretino’s Ascension Day outfit—part of a series of letters dating from 1527 to 1535 that thank patrons for gifts and solicit new gifts. The theme of the gift in almost all of the published letters from this period (roughly sixty letters, or one-fifth of the collection) marks an editorial choice, according to Giuliano Innamorati, who rightly suggests that the emphasis on gifts signals a concern for self-presentation and a determination to exploit the gift economy.15 While gifts typically belonged to an economy of exchange, the obligation of reciprocity was a contentious issue for religious reformers, who attempted to restore gratuitousness to the gift, and occasionally used art as a gift.16 At various moments, Aretino manipulated these contrasting iterations of gift rhetoric: The letters depict the author as giving away gifts received, or reciprocating generously; in writing, Aretino generously passes on a gift from God, seeking to place the reader under an enormous obligation to reciprocate directly to the author. The concern for self-presentation is very evident in Aretino’s luxury volume of Lettere, whose first section—crucial to establishing the writer’s authority—comprises letters about expensive gifts. Innamorati dates Aretino’s decision to publish his letters to June 1536, and argues that preparing the edition helped Aretino overcome an artistic crisis— so the narrow scope of these letters also signals what Innamorati considers to be Aretino’s negative view of his previous work. This may be the case, but since Aretino chose to include a relatively small number of letters from this early period, it is difficult to detect (either here

Banishing the Hollow Man

131

or elsewhere) a genuinely negative tone regarding Aretino’s own work. Rather, the early correspondence both promotes and dissimulates an economy of exchange as Aretino demands gifts in exchange for published praises, but professes his autonomy as a teller of truths. These repeated assertions are strident and hardly credible, but continue in the later letters as Aretino’s influence grew exponentially. The resultant tension in the collection epitomizes a moment of transition from a system of patronage—by which a poet was maintained at a court that he was obligated to glorify—to a supply-and-demand economy, in which writers and artists depend on sales for their livelihood.17 At the same time, Aretino’s diffidence toward gifts of clothing generates a rhetoric that regards clothes as ephemeral, effeminate, and disposable—attributes antithetical to the investiture paradigm on which European kinship hierarchies had depended for centuries, and which Aretino himself exploited. The resultant contradiction in the letters parallels the broader Renaissance tension in European definitions of fashion— between the medieval sense of “to make, mold” and the gradually emerging idea of “changeable styles”—and suggests that new notions of unique personhood (such as that claimed by Aretino) challenged traditional models of investiture.18 Aretino’s letters convey a sense of ambiguity toward the printing press and the financial benefit from book sales—which, in a letter to the printer Marcolini, Aretino publicly likens to pimping (I.153).19 This same letter, which reappears at the very end of the January 1538 edition, makes a gift of the letters for Marcolini: “vi dono queste poche lettre” (I give you these few letters), writes Aretino, clarifying that he wants his efforts to be paid for by princely favor, and not by the “pittance” of those who buy his writings (I.153 and 325). Yet despite the author’s public disdain for profits, it was through his popularity and wide sales that Aretino transformed himself in Venice from court poet (first in Rome and then for the Gonzaga family of Mantua) into professional writer or poligrafo, a man who lived by his pen, whether directly, from book sales, or indirectly, from benefits accrued by exploiting print. It is clear that Aretino expected to benefit from publishing the letters, since he collaborated closely with the printer, and evidently paid

Print Monuments, Exposure, and Strategies of Concealment

132

attention to detail in the oversize, luxury-format published volume.20 The title page shows that the author sought to maximize the effects of publication by performing a complex negotiation between demanding patronage and appearing autonomous: There are, for example, small differences between the author-portraits in the first two authorized editions, of January and September 1538.21 The later portrait suppresses a gold chain that the author wears in the original picture (Fig. 3.1): This necklace had been sent to Aretino by the French king Francis I in 1533, so its appearance is problematic in a volume published six months after Emperor Charles V had granted Aretino a stipend.22 Although Charles and Francis had finally made peace in 1537, Francis’s alliance with the Turks had long been a serious threat to Venice. In contrast with the link to France in the original picture, the later image depicts the author wearing a chain that has not been conclusively identified, over a voluminous lynx-fur collar (probably the lining of a cloak).23 The portrait is smaller and dedicates more space to Aretino’s apparel and less to his actual features, so that the increased volume of clothing and the smaller size of the face augment the author’s consequence and authority. While we cannot know if these portraits faithfully represent Aretino’s own clothes, the rich apparel in both pictures indicates enormous personal wealth and public importance. The gold chains in particular hint at princely favor, but the overall impression of wealth and authority belies any suggestion that Aretino actually needed patronage. By suppressing Francis I’s necklace, the later title page asserts the author’s political autonomy, establishing his distance from the French king. Aretino’s reception of the necklace from Francis I, in the Lettere, problematizes patronage and personal ornament in terms of writerly truthfulness. The necklace arrived three years after Francis had first promised it to Aretino. In his response, dated 10 November 1533, the author chides Francis for his dilatory generosity, and even suggests that he does not deserve the title “most Christian king” (I.36). The letter also gives the chain’s motto (which is not visible in the author-portrait), “Lingua eius loquetur mendacium” (His tongue speaks falsehood). This is a parodic citation of Psalms 37.30: “Os iusti meditabitur sapientiam, et lingua eius loquetur iudicium” (The mouth of the righteous man utters wisdom, and his tongue speaks

Banishing the Hollow Man

133

what is just).24 In his reproof to Francis upon receipt of the necklace, Aretino is indignant at the alleged motto: “Adunque, se io dico che sete ai vostri popoli quello che è Iddio al mondo e il padre ai figliuoli, dirò io la menzogna?” (If, therefore, I say that you are to your peoples what God is to the world, and a father to his sons, am I telling a lie?). Given the social bonds inherent in a gift of clothing, a necklace from Francis I with a motto suggesting that Aretino is a liar both obligates Aretino to the French king and, in the sense used by Jones and Stallybrass, “imprints” the wearer as a liar: a serious charge for a writer who took pains to represent himself as a truthteller. In fact, the actual wording on the chain from Francis may have been complimentary, respecting the biblical maxim; yet in the printed letters, Aretino chose to show up the French king in a very public forum by foregrounding the problem of remaining truthful while receiving patronage.25 To the man who delivered the necklace, Anne de Montmorency, Aretino later writes, “il motto de la catena voleva ch’io stessi sempre queto perché io, secondo lui, lodando sua maestà veniva a dir la bugia” (the motto on the chain wanted me to remain silent always because, it asserted, when I praised his majesty I was telling a lie; I.144, 8 June 1537]). By suggesting that Francis is trying to imprint him as a liar, the letters give the lie to Francis, and underscore the predicament of being indebted to patrons who are slow to deliver and ungrateful for praises received. Aretino’s attention to the detail of the necklace, in both the title page and the letters themselves, highlights his sensitivity to the power of dress. The significance of clothing received as a gift is particularly evident in the letter, cited previously, which thanks Federico Gonzaga for Aretino’s Ascension Day clothes. This letter is noteworthy as it is the first (and one of very few) in which the writer asserts that he has actually worn garments received: In most cases, Aretino suggests that he is giving the clothes away. The Ascension Day letter emphasizes that the commoner from Arezzo has worn a prince’s clothes, underscoring his social ascent and suggesting that he has assumed some of the prince’s dignity and authority (I.13). Having begun with Aretino’s investiture in the clothes of a prince, the letter then issues a warning to stingy patrons, which is disguised as an encomium to Federico

Print Monuments, Exposure, and Strategies of Concealment

134

Gonzaga. The letter uses as negative example Lorenzo, Duke of Urbino (dedicatee of Machiavelli’s Prince): E a chi imita Federico Gonzaga non gli intervien ciocché intervenne al signor Lorenzo de’ Medici. Alfonsina, sua madre, poi che egli fu morto, gli vendé a lo incanto fino a la camisce; onde fu visto indosso al boia (mentre al tempo di Leone impiccava Pocointesta, favorito di Pandolfo Petrucci) il più caro saio che avesse, a laude e gloria de la miseria di chi esce de le vie di vostra eccellentissima signoria. (Those who imitate Federico Gonzaga are spared the fate of my lord Lorenzo de’ Medici. After he died, his mother Alfonsina sold, at a public auction, all of his belongings, including his shifts. Thus his best long jacket was seen on the hangman’s back [while he was hanging Pocointesta, Pandolfo Petrucci’s favorite, at the time of Leo X], to the praise and glory of the tightfistedness of those who stray from the ways of your most excellent lordship.)

A hangman’s wearing of his lord’s jacket is a disgrace, and the very mention of such a possibility threatens that the vestiges of a prince’s public identity (his clothes) may be assumed by the man of lowest social standing and foulest occupation. This anecdote is not mentioned by Guicciardini and seems apocryphal—but the discrepancy of dates between the death of Lorenzo de’ Medici in 1519, and that of Pocointesta in 1517, suggests that the author had a specific purpose in juxtaposing Lorenzo’s demise with the hanging of an enemy of the Medici.26 The implied connection between the executioner and the prince also underscores the arbitrary power of life and death that a lord held over his subjects. By referring to the execution of one of Leo X’s enemies, Aretino’s letter intensifies the link between a stingy prince and the executioner, since the hangman dressed like a Medici duke stands in metonymically for the Medici pope who kills his adversaries. In both of these examples, the author exploits the traditional conception of clothes—the idea that clothing, passed from one person to another, evokes the presence of the previous owner, so that Aretino becomes like the duke whose clothes he wears. The same letter, however, binds together by mutual clothing the hangman and the duke, as a warning that the “presence” summoned by clothing can

Banishing the Hollow Man

135

also disrupt power structures. Ostensibly portraying Duke Federico II of Mantua as an example to others, the letter conveys a threat to the duke—despite the fact that Federico was consistently openhanded toward Aretino, even in the face of general disapproval at his own court. Although Aretino asserts with pride that he has worn the clothes given to him, the letter implies that, if the duke fails to continue in his generosity, Aretino may have to sell some of the princely attire for which he initially thanked Federico. The final recipient of pawned clothing may actually be the executioner. Within the context of the letter as a whole, the tale suggests that just as Aretino can assume the clothes of a prince, so a prince’s identity may become confused with that of a hangman. The veiled threat to the duke reflects the contradiction between asking people for gifts and asserting autonomy—a tension that Aretino tries to defuse by insisting that he alone is truthful in a world of fickle flatterers. To Antonio de Leyva, Aretino expresses his gratitude for a large covered cup made of gold, “la quale mi donate non perché io vi laudi ma perché io vi dica il vero” (which you give me not so that I praise you but so that I will tell you the truth; I.41, 6 June 1534]). The following letter, thanking Cardinal Bernardo Cles for a gift, shows the tension between receiving presents and maintaining a semblance of autonomy, as Aretino asserts that he is unchanged, even if gratitude to a generous patron makes him appear different: Io vi son quel che vi fui, né più né meno, perché il premio non accresce l’affezione ma la rallegra, e nel rallegrarla par che ella ringrandisca, e pur è tale. . . . Questa malvagia necessità è cagione ch’io paia quel che io non sono. (I.42, 15 November 1534) (I am to you what I have always been to you, neither more nor less. The reward does not make my affection grow, but delights it, and in doing so, it seems to enlarge it—although it is the same as before. . . . This unpleasant necessity is the reason that I seem what I am not.)

The very next letter effusively praises Cardinal Jeande de Lorraine, and then insists, “lo dico per dire il vero” (I say this to tell the truth), and

Print Monuments, Exposure, and Strategies of Concealment

136

not to repay the cardinal for money and a very precious robe (I.43, 21 November 1534). On the whole, the letters try to cultivate a kind of grateful detachment from gifts of clothing, often by touting Aretino’s own generosity—which has the added benefit of emphasizing the author’s supposed independence from his patrons. While Erspamer points out that many, if not most, of the gifts Aretino received were pawned or sold, the letters very rarely mention that the author will wear any of the garments he is given.27 One early letter thanks Cesare Fregoso for a hat decorated with pins and a medal, saying that he has provided the author with precisely the kind of gift he wanted to give to someone else; the writer also says he is including a copy of the Sonetti lussuriosi in exchange for Fregoso’s gift, underscoring that he is under no further obligation (I.10, 9 November 1527). In a similar vein, Aretino thanks the Duke of Mantua for fifty scudi and a robe embroidered with gold, but reminds him that he still owes Titian for a portrait of Aretino, tempering this demand with a promise of images from Jacopo Sansovino and Sebastiano del Piombo (I.9, 6 August 1527). This reaction reverses the poet-patron relationship by indicating that the duke is in Aretino’s debt, and by casting the writer as arbiter of artistic taste who chooses objects to augment the duke’s authority. Another letter thanks the duke for luxurious clothing, and responds with the offer of fine glassware, crafted to Aretino’s specifications (I.29, 3 November 1531). The writer emphasizes his generosity in the abrupt opening of a letter to the Marquis of Monferrato: “Io mandai a Padova a donarvi i profumi che chiedeste, e non a venderveli” (I sent to Padua to give you the perfumes you asked for, and not to sell them to you); the letter then, however, thanks the marquis for both money and a gold chain “che qui mi poneste al collo” (which you placed on my neck here; I.19, 12 March 1530). Aretino’s pose of benefactor in the opening lines is tempered by the (probably fictitious) act of investiture by the marquis himself. Yet only three letters later, Aretino is the one wielding the power of investiture, as he announces to Lorenzo Salviati that he is sending him two fine shirts worked with gold thread. Although Aretino then proceeds to thank Salviati for money received, the opening lines of the letter set the tone, so that Salviati, an aristocratic man of letters, becomes

Banishing the Hollow Man

137

the poet clothed by his benefactor, a commoner from Arezzo (I.22, 26 December 1530). One letter even asks Duke Ercole d’Este to wear a ring that Aretino is sending him “per segno di tributo” (as a sign of homage), reiterating, five times in four short sentences, that he is giving a gift to the duke: “vi mando . . . ne faccio un presente. . . . Io la dono . . . io ve la do . . . vel dona il mio core” (I am sending to you . . . I make a gift of it. . . . I am presenting it to you . . . I am giving it to you . . . I give you my heart; I.53, 12 September 1535). In response to one particularly generous gift of clothes and jewels, Aretino ups the ante by literalizing courtly formulae: “sendo io facilissimo in donar me stesso, . . . mi diedi” (as I am most generous in making a gift of myself, I gave myself; I.72, 20 September 1536). This represents a recurrent theme, by which the fruits of Aretino’s genius, his writing, become fair exchange for gifts received, since the writer will provide eternal glory. For example, one letter offers the Duke of Mantua several stanzas of the Marfisa in praise of the Gonzaga family, barely mentioning, in closing, the duke’s gift of money and a black velvet robe (I.24, 2 June 1531). To Massimiano Stampa, Aretino promises carte (writings) to honor him in return for gifts; another letter metaphorically wrests the power of investiture from Stampa by comparing his ephemeral gift of clothing with Aretino’s immortalizing prose—which, he says, will clothe Stampa’s name (I.30, 85). Writing again to Stampa, Aretino uses a lament for the death of Francesco II Sforza as a reminder that fame is the reward of a generous patron: “Sia la consolazion vostra la fama che . . . fa tromba di voi in ciascun luogo” (May your consolation be the fame that . . . trumpets your name everywhere; I.57, 23 November 1535). In contrast with evanescent pompe (such as the state funeral he recommends for the duke), the author promises Stampa the stabilità degli inchiostri (stability of ink).28 Aretino’s evident diffidence toward the traditional poet-patron relationship explains his frequently ambiguous reception of expensive, wearable gifts. To Giovanni Gaddi, he expresses humble gratitude for embroidered gold cloth (not explicitly worn), but immediately critiques the general avariciousness of the clergy, problematizing the connection between clothing and identity: “Ma dove se udì mai che uno, appena vestitosi l’abito di prelato, cominci a dare e non a torre?” (But where did anyone ever hear that a man, as soon as he took on ecclesiastical garb,

Print Monuments, Exposure, and Strategies of Concealment

138

began to give rather than take?; I.12, 7 October 1528). In a similar vein, Aretino thanks Guido Rangone for money, an emblem, and a white silk robe, but, in a tongue-in-cheek application of the Christian precept that it is more blessed to give than to receive, irreverently assumes the role of benefactor for himself: Essendo maggior la felicità del donare che quella di ricevere, io ho caro fuor di modo che dal presente . . . , che mi fate, nasca in voi il sommo grado de la consolazione. . . . Per la qual cosa farei ingiuria a la signoria vostra prolungandomi in ringraziarla di quello che, per avere accettato i suoi doni, merito di esser ringraziato io. (I.16, 12 September 1529)29 (Since it is more blessed to give than to receive, I am delighted that from the present . . . you give me, there arises in you the greatest joy. . . . For this reason I would be insulting your lordship if I were to continue to thank you, since having accepted your gifts I deserve to be thanked myself.)

Another letter thanks the Bishop of Vaison for a very beautiful necklace, but then suggests that it is too beautiful to wear in public (I.20, 17 September 1530). Further dismissing the investiture paradigm inherent in the gift of a necklace, the letter pokes fun at the bishop’s notion of conferring on Aretino the title cavaliere, and stresses that titles and clothing do not change who he is: “io mi contentarei di quel che io sono” (I would be happy with who I am). The letter closes with the suggestion that Aretino will pawn the necklace unless the bishop sends more cash. Implied here is the idea that investiture with titles and fine clothing does not change who a person is beneath the external trappings: a modern notion further developed in subsequent letters. Aretino’s refusal of an identity conferred through investiture is especially clear in a letter, dated 7 January 1531, which thanks Massimiano Stampa for clothing. Apparently, the author has received one handed-down shirt from Stampa himself (which he does not describe), plus two of silk and two embroidered with gold, and a series of hats of velvet, silk, and gold and silver cloth (I.23). The detailed description impresses upon readers the magnificence of the gift, and, by association, Aretino’s own prestige and monetary value. Aretino, however,

Banishing the Hollow Man

139

says that his friends will enjoy wearing these clothes during Carnival while he himself stays home unmasked and undressed: Non che io mi mascari, che a me non piacque mai, ma per fornire gli amici, per amor de i quali rimango dispogliato in casa i sei e gli otto giorni. (Not that I dress up in a mask, for I have never liked doing so, but to supply my friends, for the love of whom I stay at home deprived of clothes for six or eight days at a time.)

Thus the author’s display of generosity coincides with the literal unveiling of his own true self, free from masks and costumes, and undisguised by the clothing of his patrons. We infer that, unlike everyone else, Aretino is content to be his own (generous) self and does not aspire to a false identity even as part of a social game. What is more, by associating received clothing with masking and Carnival, the author implies that investiture itself is a masking of the person beneath, the addition of a deceptive outer shell, rather than the transformative assumption of gifted authority. While Aretino here overstates his own public image as transparent—in contrast with that of everyone else—he also hints that the expensive clothes from Stampa may be worn by people outside his social circle, as these garments (including Stampa’s own shirt) could be pawned. During Carnival, Aretino says, his clothes “hanno una gran ventura” (have great adventures, or have great good fortune): Since during Carnival the usual clothing hierarchies do not apply, there is no knowing who may end up wearing Stampa’s clothes. The contrast between the description of rich clothing, and the insouciant tone with which the letter mentions the probable fate of these very expensive garments, highlights the author’s determination to preserve an appearance of autonomy, despite accepting—and indeed soliciting—generous gifts. The letter moreover threatens that if Aretino’s benefactors are stingy, their own clothes will end up being worn by unknown commoners—so that Carnival becomes a literal investiture of the disenfranchised who assume the second skin of their masters.

Print Monuments, Exposure, and Strategies of Concealment

140

The Struggle to Be Unique The transferability of clothing, which Aretino is at pains to highlight in the early letters, also, however, renders clothing an unfortunate vehicle for literary authority. The problematic nature of clothes as a trope for authority becomes clear in a series of letters from February to April of 1537, in which Aretino attempts to discredit some correspondence falsely attributed to him. Since the writer’s claims on his benefactors depend on his uniqueness, the fake letters are a serious threat. Defending himself against the attribution, Aretino has recourse to his own immutable and inimitable truthfulness, declaring, “Io fui sempre e sempre sarò d’una medesima fede coi miei padroni e con i miei amici” (I have always maintained and will always maintain the same faith with my patrons and with my friends; I.97, 8 February 1537). In fact, the writer asserts, it is for his transparency that emperors and kings pay him. Seeking to redeem his reputation, Aretino insists, Io sono uomo verace, e scrivo quel che mi par che sia; e son poltronarie il mandar fuora con la mia ombra le sciocchezze che freddamente vorrien calunniar gli uomini onorati. (I.97) (I am a truthful man, and I write what I think is true, and it is cowardly to set forth with my shadow the nonsense that would coldly slander honored men.)

Aretino rebuts the suggestion that his “shadow” can be misappropriated, by asserting his unique material worth: He urges Luigi Gonzaga to use his judgment to decide how the “stamp” of his “coins” could be “counterfeited” (“in che modo si possono contrafare i conî de le monete mie”; I.97). This metaphor evokes the economic and status value of portrait-medals and collections of ancient coins, and places the author in august literary company by echoing figurative Dantean and Petrarchan “coining” through writing. Increasingly, in the letters about fraudulent “Aretino” letters, the author reasserts his prerogative as political arbiter by referring to himself, in a series of material similes, as guarantor of truth: Se le monete ben falsificate e i diamanti ben contrafatti sono scoperti dai zecchieri e dai gioiellieri, chi dubita che da chi sa non si

Banishing the Hollow Man

141

comprenda se il maligno seguita ne l’imitazione il sale dei miei tratti o no? (I.105, 25 March 1527) (If well-counterfeited coins and cleverly made fake diamonds are exposed by coin makers and jewelers, who doubts that those in the know can tell if the evil one pursues the salt of my writings through imitation?)

Although Aretino compares his letters with objects of great value, it is ultimately the trademark saltiness of the author’s wit that guarantees the inimitability of his writings. This comment returns the responsibility of proving the letters’ authorship to the reader, since anyone duped by the false letters is insufficiently familiar with the genuine article, the true “jewel.” Moreover, by characterizing the writer of the false letters as il maligno, the letter pits Aretino against an adversary whom we may interpret as “the Evil One” himself. A similarly adversarial, good-versus-evil portrayal of the author is apparent in the first letter defending him as a unique and truthful writer, in which Aretino draws a parallel between himself and the famous and beloved condottiere Giovanni delle Bande Nere (friend and patron of Aretino until he died in 1526): Molti Rodamonti e molti Gradassi son parsi Giovanni dei Medici, ma non sono stati; e così chi si sforza di doventar me, ne la fine non è per lui. (I.97) (Many Rodamontes and many Gradassos have looked like Giovanni dei Medici, but they were not him; in the same way, whoever forces himself to become like me, fails in the end.)

In the same way that men who resemble the treacherous and violent knights of chivalric poetry are not true heroes, so too lesser writers will never be able to pass themselves off as Aretino. The author’s comparison of himself with a soldier-hero is in keeping with Paul Larivaille’s observation that the later letters of the volume attempt to portray Aretino as a condottiere della penna, a mercenary soldier of the pen. As Larivaille points out, the advantage of this self-portrayal is that Aretino is not obliged to “fight” on behalf of any single commander, but can instead do battle simultaneously for all the leaders who pay him, regardless of whether or not they

Print Monuments, Exposure, and Strategies of Concealment

142

are mortal enemies: This approach allows the writer not to lie, but simply to decide which part of the truth to publish.30 As soldier of truth, Aretino explicitly distances himself from the violent and traitorous military commanders with whom Italians had all too much experience: La milizia mia non ruba le paghe, non amuttina le genti, né dà via le rocche; anzi, con le schiere dei suoi inchiostri, col vero dipinto ne le sue insegne, acquista più gloria al principe che ella serve, che gli uomini armati terre. (I.144, 8 June 1537) (My soldiering does not steal stipends, incite popular revolts, or give away fortresses; rather, with its inky troops, under the insignia of truth, it wins more glory for the prince it serves than armed men do lands.)

By offering gloria, the author promises something more lasting than lands, which might easily be lost—especially in sixteenth-century Italy. The soldier of the pen repeatedly threatens to do harm, in metaphorically physical terms. Aretino warns those who are foolish enough to believe that he wrote the false letters, “con l’unghia degli inchiostri gli cavarei dal viso del nome gli occhi de la fama” (with the nails of my ink I’d pull the eyes of fame from his name’s face; I.97). The use of violence in the service of truth belongs to a pattern that recurs throughout the collection, but becomes particularly apparent in the letters defending Aretino’s uniqueness. As early as 20 September 1530, in a letter to Pope Clement VII, the writer suggests that his “lacerating” the pope is part of an exchange of physical hurts (I.21)—a reference to Aretino’s attempted assassination, orchestrated in Rome in 1525 by the papal datary, a crime for which Clement never set in motion any judicial process.31 In pseudoapologetic mode, the author then asserts that the role of truth sayer excuses him from treading on toes: “in tutte le cose che io mai dissi, o composi, sempre a la lingua fu conforme il core” (in all the things that I have said or written, my heart was always in accord with my tongue; I.21). The concordance of tongue and heart is carried to extremes in a much later letter, dated 11 November 1537, in which Aretino defends his suggestion that Francis I break an alliance with the Ottomans to join the pope, Venice, and the emperor against the Ottomans. Professing

Banishing the Hollow Man

143

himself a loyal servant of Francis, the author asserts his right to express impartial opinions to the king and emperor who pay him: Io non giudico il torto né il dritto de le due maestà nel discorso ch’io faccio, anzi tengo la ragion di Domenedio, e ricordandomi che l’una e l’altra m’ha rallegrato con la cortesia, non sono ingrato né a quella né a questa. (I.227) (I do not judge the rights and wrongs of the two majesties, . . . on the contrary, I uphold God’s reason, and since I remember that both majesties have delighted me with their courtesy, I am ungrateful to neither.)

By affirming his possession of “God’s reason”—a not entirely absurd claim, since he is advocating a Christian alliance against the Turks— Aretino exempts himself from conforming to the accepted forms of adulation that the letter condemns. A few lines later, the author extends his appropriation of God’s righteousness, claiming divine inspiration in speaking the truth: “Così Iddio spiri chi disturba la pace universale, come l’intendimento di ciò ch’io dico o scrivo è sincero e verace” (Thus may God inspire anyone who disturbs universal peace, just as the intent of that which I say or write is sincere and true; I.227). This kind of sweeping claim of righteousness, while in keeping with the moralistic tone of the later letters of the first volume, is present even as early as a letter dated 19 December 1533, in which Aretino writes to Cardinal Ippolito de’ Medici that he is forced by penury to move to Constantinople under the protection of the Doge’s son (I.39). The author then asserts that the role of truth teller is a physical burden that he, the lone virtuous man on earth, has taken upon himself: E così l’Aretino, uomo verace eccetto nei biasimi che le troppe aspre cagioni mi hanno fatto dare a nostro signore, misero e vecchio se ne va a procacciarsi il pane in Turchia, lasciando fra i cristiani felici i roffiani, gli adulatori e gli ermafroditi. (I.39) (And so Aretino, a truthful man except when too harsh circumstances made me reproach our pontiff, leaves, old and miserable, to earn his bread in Turkey, leaving good Christians in the company of pimps, adulators, and hermaphrodites.)

Print Monuments, Exposure, and Strategies of Concealment

144

The author thus simultaneously pledges his truthfulness and exculpates himself from previous remarks made against Clement VII. At the same time, the self-portrayal as a wretched old man, exiled to pagan lands, becomes yet another demand for patronage. The letter asserts that the author, a God-given miracle, has—like Christ—paid for truth with his blood: io che ho ricomperato il vero col proprio sangue me ne andrò là; e nel modo che gli altri mostra i gradi, l’entrati e i favori acquistati ne la corte di Roma per i suoi vizi, mostrerò le offese ricevute per le mie vertù. (I.39) (I, who have bought back the truth with my own blood, will leave for that country, and just as others show off the dignities, profits, and favors acquired at the Roman court for their vices, I will show the hurts received in exchange for my virtues.)

Rhetorically invoking the incommensurable sacrifice of Christ’s blood, in contrast with the buying and selling of favors (grazie quite unlike God’s grace) at the papal court, the letter threatens quite bluntly that, if forced by poverty to accept patronage in Constantinople, Aretino will publish unpleasant facts about the Roman court. This menace is followed by a suggestion that not only is Christ guiding and watching over him (a dig relating to the assassination attempt he survived in Rome), but that Aretino is himself a living miracle: E quel Cristo che a qualche gran fine mi ha campato tante volte de la morte, sarà sempre meco, perché io tengo viva la sua verità e ancora per esser io non pur Pietro, ma un miracoloso mostro degli uomini. . . . Io parlo con l’anima sincera, svelata da la fraude e d’ogni adulazione, le quali fanno me misero per aborrirle e altri beato per osservarle. (I.39) (And the same Christ who has saved me so many times from death, to fulfill some grand design, will always be with me. This is because I keep his truth alive, and because I am not just a Peter (like the Apostle), but a miraculous portent of a man. . . . I speak from a sincere heart, stripped of deceit and all adulation—vices that make me miserable because I abhor them, but bless others for practicing them.)

Banishing the Hollow Man

145

This hyperbole hints that its author is greater than the pope himself, since Pietro Aretino is not just any “Peter.” Overall, the letter depicts him as a misunderstood, abused, and Dantesque prophet who has been preserved from death by Christ so that he may fulfill some divine plan. Moreover, the telling of truth is part of an exchange in which Aretino’s body acquires immeasurable, Christological value, since the price of truth is Aretino’s blood. Depictions of the author and his supposed integrity, in this and other letters, attempt to resolve the question of autonomy and truthfulness raised by gifts of clothing. What makes Aretino inimitable is apparently his truthfulness, his blood, and the salt of his wit. However, in depicting himself as unique, the writer faces a double bind: On the one hand, as a commoner of obscure origin, he needs to assert his material value. He must be worth money, likened to precious stones and gold coins, so that people will pay him and he can keep up a façade of wealth and prestige. On the other hand, jewelry, coins, and rich clothing are outward trappings that are both imitable and imitations of other models, so the author’s uniqueness has to be asserted in nonmaterial terms—thus, the “saltiness” of Aretino’s wit, the violence of his pen, the gift of his blood, and his likeness to the truly inimitable Christ. The many letters about clothing in the early part of the collection resolve one concern: They show that Aretino is a valued and important correspondent of princes. This solution, however, poses a new problem: How to establish a man who is dressed by others—that is, a man over whom others have the power of investiture—as an independent and autonomous teller of truths. While clothing adds value to the writer, it also puts him under an obligation—an obligation that the letters try to neutralize by insisting that he gave the clothes away, and by stressing that his writing has its own material value.

Resolving Contradictions: Vertù Dressed Up and Rescued The correspondence about the falsely attributed letters brings to a critical point the problem of replicability via both clothing and writing, and heralds a double resolution. Dated between 8 February and 6 April 1537, the series begins at I.97 and continues intermittently to I.111, with only

Print Monuments, Exposure, and Strategies of Concealment

146

four letters explicitly discussing the falsified correspondence (97, 105, 106, and 107). Four more concern gifts of clothing (100, 102, 103, and 108), and the last two letters of the series are about gifts of food (109, 111). By pointing out Aretino’s generosity with what he calls his own “vertù,” the letters broach the difficulty of reconciling rich apparel with the author’s vaunted independence and lack of guile. The first time Aretino writes about the faked letters, he signs off, “promettendovi de la mia vertù tutto quello che ella può” (promising you all that my vertù can do)—in other words, promising the gifts of his genius to Luigi Gonzaga (I.97). A few weeks later, he asks Bastiano da Cortona to take advantage of the “piccol poter de la vertù mia” (small ability of my vertù; I.101, 6 March 1537), and ten days later offers to an army captain “la mia piccola vertù” before making a grander gesture: “me vi do tutto in preda” (I give my whole self to you as loot; I.104, 15 March 1537). The letter immediately preceding Aretino’s offer of himself as “loot” also touts the author’s generosity, but concerns a different kind of loot. Here, thanks for clothes received become an opportunity to remind Gian Battista Castaldo that his previous gift of clothing was stolen from one of Aretino’s dependents by a boatman who “pontò via con la preda” (punted away with the loot; I.103, 12 March 1537). While the anecdote suggests that Aretino never wore the clothes, and that his dependent in fact pilfered them, the author’s praises of his own generosity become a challenge to the patron he is ostensibly thanking: “do a ognuno quel ch’io ho! . . . perché io ebbi la prodigalità per dota come la maggior parte degli uomini ha l’avarizia” (I give to everyone what I have! . . . because I received prodigality as a gift the way most men have avarice; I.103). The changing of hands of apparel—from Aretino to the other man, and then to the boatman—emphasizes the transferability of clothing, downplaying the “material memory” that links those who share clothes. Quite why Aretino mixes encomiums of his own genius, or vertù, with details of his generously giving away expensive clothing becomes clearer in this series of letters—in both those concerning false correspondence and those thanking patrons. Insisting on the superlative material value of his own genius, the author declares that “il maligno, per aver falsificato la vertù merita altra pena che chi falsifica le stampe

Banishing the Hollow Man

147

de le zecche” (for having falsified my vertù, the evil one deserves far worse punishment than the man who forges molds to counterfeit money; I.106, 25 March 1537). Similarly, the following letter begins with a defense of “l’oro de la vertù che io ho da Dio” (the gold of vertù that I have from God; I.107, 3 April 1537). While vertù clearly has a great financial value, it is unlike other valuables in that, as a gift from God, it cannot be fabricated like fake coins—or stolen, like clothing. Alongside the impassioned defense of Aretino’s precious genius, the letters about clothes emphasize their transferability, pointing out in three out of four cases that these gifts have been given away to, or appropriated by, women (I.100, 102, and 108)—an important detail that problematizes the gendering of vertù. The close association between women and clothing is confirmed in a letter addressed to a presumably fictitious person, which seems to be a public declaration of Aretino’s role in patronage politics, and offers an intriguing articulation of the tricky Aretinian term vertù (I.107, 3 April 1537). Waddington observes that, for Aretino, vertù etymologically connotes manliness and implies a “code of values”—in this case, Aretino’s manly creative power and his way of seeing the world (Satyr 43). The ancient Latin sense of the feminine noun vertù (or virtù, deriving from Latin virtus, from the masculine vir, man), had been resuscitated by fifteenth-century humanists, so that, for the elite, vertù could suggest masculine heroism and valor.32 Aretino’s use of the word also belongs to the new, Cinquecento epithet virtuosi for excellent artists, writers and singers.33 Vertù appears in the letter renouncing financial gain from book sales, in which Aretino asserts that he would rather suffer hardship than degrade his vertù by profiting, like a pimp, from selling books (I.153).34 The association of printing with prostitution was a familiar trope, but Waddington points out that there is a “metamorphic flexibility or sexual confusion” about Aretino’s ingegno or vertù both here and in a much later letter to a courtesan of indeterminate gender: Waddington concludes that Aretino’s “sexual identity is confusingly both feminine and masculine” (Satyr 45). As we shall see, Aretino’s own genius, as depicted in I.107, is similarly both active and male and yet constructed by the patronage system as akin to the passive, effeminate vertù over which Aretino—however briefly—claims dominance.

Print Monuments, Exposure, and Strategies of Concealment

148

The feminine noun vertù, while lending itself to personification, complicates the traditional gendering of intellectual activity as active and male (in the masculine noun ingegno, or Latin ingenium), as does the correspondence asserting Aretino’s uniqueness. The letter to the unidentified Giannantonio da Foligno validates genius in material terms, praising Aretino’s “gold of vertù” as a gift from God (I.107). Affirming both his identity as a soldier of the pen, and his own power of investiture, Aretino asserts that he has performed a public service since princes fear the violence of his pen if they are stingy toward artists and writers: Io ho scritto ciò che ho scritto per grado de la vertù, la cui gloria era occupata da le tenebre de l’avarizia dei signori. E inanzi ch’io cominciassi a lacerargli il nome, i vertuosi mendicavano l’oneste commodità de la vita, . . . Adunque i buoni debbono avermi caro perché io con il sangue militai sempre per la vertù: e per me solo ai nostri tempi veste di broccato, bee ne le coppe d’oro, si orna di gemme, ha de le collane, dei danari, cavalca da reina, è servita da l’imperadrice e riverita da dea; ed è empio chi non dice ch’io l’ho riposta nel suo antico stato. Ed essendo il redentor di lei, che ciancia l’invidia e la plebe? (I.107) (I have written what I have written for the sake of genius [vertù]. Up to now she had been hidden in shadow by the avarice of the great lords. Indeed, before I began to lash out at the name of those fellows, men of ability [vertuosi] had to beg for the ordinary needs of life. . . . The worthy should hold me dear, for always and with my own blood, I have done battle for the sake of genius [vertù], and it is thanks only to me that she nowadays wears brocade, drinks from cups of gold, dresses in jewels, has necklaces and money, rides like a queen, is served like an empress and revered like a goddess. Anyone who does not say that I have restored her to her ancient place is a rude blasphemer. And since I am her savior, of what account is the herd’s chatter, the chatter of envy?)

The clothing and bejeweling of vertù looks remarkably similar to the clothing and bejeweling of Aretino that the preceding letters try simultaneously to promote and dissimulate—even to the details of gold cups

Banishing the Hollow Man

149

and brocade.35 It is no coincidence that the fancy trappings associated with the slippery term vertù are precisely the sort of “loot” stolen in I.103. Indeed, the affected nonchalance concerning rich clothing, in the letters surrounding I.107, complicates the claims in this letter. The comparison between vertù and a queen, and the reverence of empresses and goddesses, reinforce vertù’s femininity. Thus the author becomes the more worthy soldier, a savior who sacrifices his own blood for the reinstatement and investiture of a personified vertù. Aretino is both more masculine (for his attack and rescue operation) and more independent than writers, artists, and others who rely on a courtly system of patronage. Indeed, those at court are perilously like vertù itself— feminized by their passivity and need for a savior, effeminate for the excessive trappings of beauty that will be their payment at court (as secured by Aretino). Moreover, as the knightly savior of a feminine vertù, Aretino is responsible for its esteemed (albeit effeminate) position and its investiture. Taking a swipe at scholars who might look down their noses at the upstart from Arezzo, the letter affirms, “Caminino pure i dotti per le strade che gli han fatte le mie sicure braccia” (Let the learned walk the streets that my strong arms have made for them). Regardless of their criticisms, scholars owe their position to Aretino’s soldierly strength. The letter immediately following this investiture of a feminized vertù takes pains to underline both Aretino’s distance from clothing, and the connection between clothing and women: No sooner had Aretino given away some clothing from Luigi Gonzaga’s sister-in-law, he says, than more elegant clothes arrived from Luigi Gonzaga’s wife; these last were immediately stolen by the women of Aretino’s household (I.108, 3 April 1537). While women are the ultimate recipients of clothing gifts as early as June 1535, it is notable that, in the series of letters seeking to prove Aretino’s uniqueness, those that mention gifts of clothing specify that the clothes were given away to women (100, 102), or bemoan that the clothes were stolen by a menial (103) or by women (108).36 The close association of women with fancy apparel reinforces the effeminacy of courtly vertù implied by the clothing and bejeweling of vertù. If women and servants routinely steal clothes to which they have no right, the letters imply, then certain kinds of literary

Print Monuments, Exposure, and Strategies of Concealment

150

identity—like the courtly vertù that is rescued and dressed up—are replicable and can be appropriated by the weak and unscrupulous. An ambiguity emerges in the author’s definition of his artistic genius, as the rescue and investiture of a personified feminized vertù contrasts with Aretino’s assertions of his own invaluable vertù. The letters seem to suggest that the vertù of others requires resplendent exterior trappings while Aretino’s more active genius is itself authentic “gold”—in other words, his vertù is not merely artistic excellence, but also seems to incorporate the archaizing meaning of manly heroism. The author apparently resolved the clothing issue to his own satisfaction, as after this letter the collection begins to discuss more earthy, and less symbolically weighted gifts: food. A letter dated the very next day thanks Marcantonio Venier for two calves and some cheeses and salami, which the entire household enjoyed; two days later, proving his mettle as “scourge of princes,” the author sharply reproves Manfredo di Collalto for promising a young goat that never materialized (I.109, 4 April 1537; I.111, 6 April 1537). It is thus not too surprising that almost the last letter concerning opulent, wearable gifts occurs as early in the collection as 20 August 1537, thanking the Empress Isabella for a gold chain (I.175). After this encomium and pledge of servitude, the few letters about gifts concern food such as mushrooms, game birds, or sugar (I.183, 209, and 343), or the interruption of the usual delivery of salad (I.217). Douglas Biow has observed that, in his letters, Aretino explicitly takes pleasure in all kinds of food (both “peasant” and more “refined” foods): His eating with gusto acts as a corrective to the courtly Castiglionesque paradigm, by which the elite takes expensive foodstuffs for granted and does not pay attention to “base” bodily functions like eating.37 This is certainly true in the later part of Lettere I: Immediately following the letter to Isabella, the author claims that his house is always a mensa del carnasciale (I.176)—literally, a carnival eatery in which the carnivalesque assumption of false identities, earlier rejected by Aretino, is now replaced by greedy feasting that extends permanently through time and is identified directly with Aretino’s home. The author has become master of carnival: Rather than accepting (potentially temporary, or carnivalesque) investiture, he prefers to disrupt social codes

Banishing the Hollow Man

151

in celebrating (on a permanent basis) the physical joy of consuming food. Even before the letter thanking Isabella for the necklace, there is a decided change in the discussion of gifts. On 3 June 1537, Aretino thanks Marcolini for food and flowers (I.137), and two weeks later a note reaffirms the association of fine clothing with women, asserting that a collar received was so beautiful that the writer immediately sent it to a female relative in Arezzo (I.148). A fortnight later, Aretino thanks Girolamo da Coreggio for some peaches, noting that despite the fact that the peaches were overripe, “mi sono più state a core per esser venute ai miei dì, che i presenti in contanti e in robbe, i quali mi danno i principi” (they were more dear to me for having arrived in time than are the gifts of money and fine clothes that princes give me; I.158, 29 June 1537). In keeping with previous discussions of gifts, Aretino notes that he immediately gave the peaches away, just as he had done with some pears from Veronica Gambara. While this letter rehearses the themes of the tardiness of princes’ gifts and Aretino’s own generosity, the contrast with the earlier letters describing clothing is stark. The absence of descriptions of rich apparel in the second half of the collection is particularly noticeable when coupled with a tendency to treat letters received as gifts in themselves, as in a note to Luigi Alamanni, which asserts “non conosco gemma di più stima” (I know no precious stone of more worth) than Alamanni’s letter (12 September 1537, I.189; see also I.58, 69). If letters are intrinsically valuable, then Aretino is both very wealthy and very generous. In a similar vein, the final letter to mention a wearable gift (a jewel), an isolated case at the end of the collection, considers as “gifts” both the jewel and the letter accompanying it, clarifying that “ne la vertù de l’una consiste la sicurezza de la vita e ne la eleganza de l’altra l’onor de la fama” (in the virtue of the one there is a life’s security, and in the elegance of the other, there is the honor of fame; I.317, 21 December 1537). The mention of “life’s security” hints that the jewel may be pawned for hard cash, but the rhetorical parallel between the two gifts, and the idea that well-written letters impart fame, suggest that letters are a more worthy gift, since they offer something more enduring than financial security. Aretino’s attempts to counter the traditional paradigm of investiture,

Print Monuments, Exposure, and Strategies of Concealment

152

by valorizing letters and other writings as far more valuable than gifts of clothing, presage the modern idea, identified by Alexander Nagel as emerging in reform circles (a few years after Aretino’s Lettere were published), that “works of art are not like other commodities but are giftlike in that their value is irreplaceable and incommensurable.”38 Aretino’s motives, however, situate him in a more traditional gift economy, in that—unlike Vittoria Colonna and Michelangelo—he hoped to place the recipient under a greater sense of obligation. A further clue as to the change in the letters appears in a letter of 24 November 1537 to the poet and jurist Antonio Cavallino (I.248). The letter begins by lamenting the theft of some cloth, and goes on to compare the lot of poverty-stricken poets with that of wealthy lawyers: “I poeti gracchiaranno un secolo prima che se gli impeli la beretta e il saio, non vo’ dir la veste” (Poets may croak for a century before they get to wear a cap and tunic, never mind a gown). While this metaphor of investiture sums up the cliché that poets take a long time to gain wealth and authority, the letter continues in Aretino’s self-praise by asserting that Petrarch regretted choosing poetry and the servitude of court life over law. In the context of the collection, Aretino has clearly done better than that other writer from Arezzo since he has already been invested with “hat and gown” and declared himself autonomous of courtly patronage. Far from being poor and unclothed, the author rejects fancy apparel to feast on extravagant delicacies sent to him by important people—gifts that, unlike clothing, cease to exist once they are used. In contrast with the greatest modern poet, Aretino has not only gained recognition and fame in his own lifetime, but has actually superseded investiture by others, becoming the warrior whose efforts have resulted in the investiture of weaker poets and of poetic genius itself. Yet the question of replicability remains somewhat unresolved despite Aretino’s rhetoric shunning clothing, assuming mastery of carnival, and emphasizing his own fame and recognition through expensive gifts. In addition to valorizing individual letters as more valuable than jewels, Aretino offers the contrasting proposition that the printed collection awaits consumption, like food, by his audience: Biow has noted that Aretino’s work as a whole links the enjoyment of eating with

Banishing the Hollow Man

153

both the pleasure of reading and that of sex, and observes that the food described in the letters is available for the reader’s delight. In a letter of 1538 that appeared in the September 1538 edition of Lettere I, the author compares the reaction to his book of letters in Rome with children’s excitement at eating the first cherries of the season.39 By dispersing his discourse (and his image) through print, the author once again rejects the courtly paradigm of literary production by becoming available for consumption by a greedy and varied public. Cherries, however, are not unique. By explicitly embracing the food analogy, the author is master of the carnival feast only very briefly, as any writer can (and subsequently did) imitate Aretino’s strategy of publishing his collected vernacular letters, and any publisher can (and did) reproduce Aretino’s letters, with or without his permission.

Genius Unmasked The replicability problem is further countered as the later part of the collection emphasizes Aretino’s greatness and innate sense of judgment—either indirectly, as he offers advice and reflections on a variety of topics—or more directly, as the writer dwells on his own brilliance and uniqueness. A letter of 14 June 1537 warns against making an enemy of Aretino: Amimi se vol ch’io nol disami, e apprezzimi se vuol ch’io nol disprezzi; perché quando lo spirto di Pasquino mi pone nel furor poetico, son più orribile che il diavolo. (I.146) (Love me if you don’t want me to hate you; and appreciate me if you don’t want me to despise you; because when Pasquino’s spirit sends me into a poetic frenzy, I am more terrifying than the devil.)

In other words, the writer’s ability to write satirical pasquinades comes from a poetic fury that renders him dangerous to anyone who displeases him (including, of course, insufficiently generous patrons). A famous letter, dated two weeks later, extends this notion that Aretino is an inspired poet, and clarifies what scholars have considered the writer’s official opinions on poetry. Decrying artificial ornament and slavish copying of predecessors, the letter declares: “la natura stessa, de la

Print Monuments, Exposure, and Strategies of Concealment

154

cui semplicità son secretario, mi detta ciò che io compongo” (nature herself, of whose simple truths I am the secretary, dictates to me what I write down; I.156, 25 June 1537). Aretino thus distinguishes his own “naturalness” from the dominant theories of imitation promulgated by the scholarly “pedants” against whom he repeatedly inveighs. The artificiality of many of the letters belies the assertion of naturalness that follows from the traditional humanistic pose of letters as artless outpourings of thought. The idea of Aretino as the secretary of nature is, however, shored up by the careful presentation, in the later part of the volume, of the author as a self-taught visionary. In advising Antonio Gallo on how to write poetry, Aretino suggests that an author rely on nature and his own memory while subject to the furor of Apollo, since copying others is worthless (I.172, 6 August 1537). We infer that Aretino’s own writing is the result of a combination of inspiration, memories, and observations of real life. Increasingly, the letters affirm that Aretino is a self-taught commoner, a kind of idiot savant whose “hidden genius” deserves the grateful support of unnumbered scholarly patrons: merito la grazia vostra e d’ogni dotto uomo, perché il sapere di saper nulla che è in me, viene da la modestia d’una occulta vertù. (I.154, 23 June 1537) (I deserve your favor, and that of every educated man, because my knowledge that I know nothing comes from the modesty of a hidden genius [vertù].)

Such professions of ignorant humility are most striking in a letter to Lodovico Dolce, dated five months later: La fante de la gloria fa lume al buio del mio nome con una candela di sego e non col torchio; perciò porto l’ignoranza in su la palma de la mano, pregandola che faccia sì che i dotti non mi scomunichino, quando la presunzione . . . mi pon la penna ne l’inchiostro sacrato. (I.250, 25 November 1537) (Glory’s maidservant sheds light on the darkness of my name with a tallow candle, not a torch. I carry ignorance in the palm of my

Banishing the Hollow Man

155

hand, and I pray that she stop the learned from excommunicating me when presumption . . . dips my pen into the sacrosanct ink.)

The disingenuousness of this passage is particularly startling: By late 1537, Aretino, far from being “excommunicated” by scholars, was not only paid a regular stipend by Charles V, but was widely courted because his pen was considered too powerful to ignore. Following this assumption of humility, the letter excuses Aretino’s failings by noting that he attended school barely long enough to learn the alphabet. The note closes with the most outlandish assertion of all: “Sì che leggendo le mie coglionerie scusatimi con voi stesso, perch’io son più tosto profeta che poeta” (So excuse me if you read my crap, for I am more a prophet than a poet; I.250). Readers should forgive any roughness of style or disagreeable content in his writings because the author is a visionary who must not be judged by the same standards as mere writers bound by convention and tradition. Thus the almost total abandonment of the theme of clothing, after the extended defense of Aretino’s uniqueness, coincides with a change in tone of the letters. Aretino’s praises of his own unpolished style and his genius—“hidden” no longer—emerge in the later part of Lettere I, particularly in condemnations of those “pedants” who adhere to canons of literary production. On 17 December 1537, Aretino claims that he has turned away from the models of Petrarch and Boccaccio, “per non perder il tempo, la pazienza e il nome ne la pazzia del volermi trasformar in loro, non essendo possibile” (so as not to waste time, patience, and my own name in the insanity of trying to become them—since this is impossible; I.300). A writer cannot transform himself by borrowing someone else’s poetic style as he can by assuming someone else’s clothes. Asserting that his roughness of style has its own pedagogical logic, the letter continues, Io porto il viso de l’ingegno smascarato, e il mio non sapere un’acca insegna a quegli che sanno la elle e la emme. (I.300) (I wear the face of genius [ingegno] unmasked, and my not knowing a thing teaches a lesson to those who know everything.)

Print Monuments, Exposure, and Strategies of Concealment

156

The unmasking of Aretino’s genius, in conjunction with his rough style, reclaims the rough style as part of that genius. We infer that Aretino’s ingegno will infuse new energy into the pedantry of writing, redefining written expression. The assertion that Aretino is more a prophet than a poet, alongside frequent, spurious claims of ignorance and lack of education, is part of what Paul Larivaille identifies in the later letters as the development of an Aretinian morality. This is best summarized in a famous letter, dated 11 December 1537, that justifies the publication of the scandalous Modi sonnets: Che male è il veder montare un uomo adosso a una donna? . . . A me parebbe che il cotale, datoci la natura per conservazion di se stessa, si dovesse portare al collo come pendente e ne la beretta per medaglia, però che egli è la vena che scaturisce i fiumi de le genti e l’ambrosia che beve il mondo nei dì solenni. Egli ha fatto voi, . . . . Ha creato me, che son meglio che il pane. Ha prodotto i Bembi, i Molzi, i Fortuni, i Franchi, i Varchi, gli Ugolin Martelli, i Lorenzi Lenzi, i fra Bastiani, i Sansovini, i Tiziani, i Michelagnoli, e doppo loro i papi, gli imperadori e i re. . . . Onde se gli doverebbe ordinar ferie e sacrar vigilie e feste, non rinchiuderlo in un poco di panno o di seta. (I.315) (What wrong is there in seeing a man mount a woman? . . . To me it would seem that the thing that nature gave us to preserve her should be worn around the neck as a pendant, and on the hat as a brooch, for it is the source of all the rivers of the people, and the ambrosia that the world drinks on feast-days. It made you, . . . it made me, who am better than bread. It made all the Bembos, Molzas, Fortunios, Francos, Varchis, Ugolin Martellis, Lorenzo Lenzis, Dolces, Fra Sebastianos, Sansovinos, Titians, and Michelangelos, and after them all the popes and emperors and kings. . . . So one should honor it with holidays and vigils and feasts, not shut it away in a piece of plain cloth or silk.)

Waddington has pointed out that this eulogy of the phallus connects male sexuality with the creative power of artistry, since the creation of Aretino is linked with—and precedes—that of writers, painters, and sculptors (Satyr 115). More significant for our purposes is the proposal to

Banishing the Hollow Man

157

display the phallus, symbol of creative male power, which has until now been “shut away in a piece of cloth.” In the context of the many letters about clothing, the letter assumes greater import as the writer throws off all the “clothing” that disguises his “hidden genius.” Received clothes attempt to transform Aretino into something that he claims not to be, while obligating him to a patronage system that (he says) he despises. While Leonardo da Vinci had recommended “transhistorical” attire for the subjects of paintings, so that contemporary details did not render artworks mere indices of their moment of production, Aretino tried to make clothing ephemeral, and to separate it from his own body— which, now finally “unclothed,” would remain as the timeless monument to the author’s greatness.40 In place of clothing, Aretino advocates wearing the creative energy of the phallus, in the style of a personal emblem, as an external marker of generative masculine creativity. This unchanging emblem of uniqueness is subject neither to the patronage and investiture system, nor to the inflections inherent in clothing fashions, but is a different kind of external identifier. Aretino’s ambitious and evolving use of satyr images helps to clarify the importance of this letter. In the 1520s, the writer identified himself through satire and licentiousness with satyrs, especially Priapus.41 Later in his career, Aretino was influenced by Erasmus’s use of Plato’s Symposium—in which Socrates is likened to the outwardly ugly clay Silenus statues that conceal figures of the gods beneath their hollow surface. Just as Erasmus had compared Christ and the unadorned Christian style with the Silenic Socrates, Aretino gradually tried to associate himself with the more complex and enigmatic figure of Silenus.42 This later self-presentation is presaged in Lettere I by the author’s claims to be a prophetic Christological figure, a soldier of truth, the “secretary of nature” who scorns literary tropes, a genius initially hidden but later uncovered. The unveiling of the phallus, and the assumption of the phallus itself as clothing, thus belong both to Aretino’s use of satyr images and to a series of letters that glorify the uncovering and display of raw creative energy—associated with vertù and ingegno—in contrast with the effeminacy of imitating others, characteristic of the courtly patronage system. Yet the idea that one might wear the phallus as a badge, hung

Print Monuments, Exposure, and Strategies of Concealment

158

around the neck or pinned to a hat, is disconcerting, even though it recalls traditional priapic images. The letter tells us that the phallus is usually “covered,” so presumably attached to a body, but in order to be worn as a badge must be symbolically “cut off” and reattached.43 Figurative dismemberment or not, the immediate resumption of clothing in the letter—even clothes decorated in priapic style—is a compromise highlighting both the disingenuousness of the gesture and the impossibility of escaping the literary and social conventions that Aretino publicly denigrates. The uncovering of an Aretinian vertù—closely associated with the writer’s active male sexuality—and the reclothing of the poet in symbols of phallic creative power do, however, extend the significance of Aretino’s rejection of poetic imitation. The letters first construct Aretino’s identity as authoritative through lengthy descriptions of rich clothing, and then reject the obligation inherent in received clothes, opting instead for a symbol of creative masculinity. In parallel fashion, the first edition of Lettere I takes both humanist correspondence and Serlio’s Architectura as its models, only to make a show of casting them off in favor of a rougher style that claims to be the expression of natural, Christian genius. The simultaneous exploitation and rejection of clothing as a marker of social identity is a tactic presaging the popularity of personalized emblems in the later part of the sixteenth century: Aretino’s privileging of a timeless symbol over the social specificity of clothing suggests that the personalized emblem responded to the demands of the monumental pose by offering hope to writers needing an autonomous and adaptable public image—unlike clothes, an emblem is personal, enigmatic, and can be used in multiple situations. In this way, the letter collection both posits and tries to resolve a problem regarding not just the circulation of clothes, but also the circulation of manuscript letters: Just as clothing is transferable, so are letters—and this is their danger. While, on the one hand, letters (like clothes) signify an exchange between two people that binds them in a relationship of obligation, on the other hand letters are short, handwritten texts that (like clothes) rely on models for imitation and circulate autonomously from their creator. This transferability of clothing and letters clarifies and justifies both the choice to collect the letters

Banishing the Hollow Man

159

into a single, distinctive, and thus authoritative volume, and the need for Aretino to identify himself with something more permanent, more personally unique, and less threatening to his autonomy, than clothing: a personal emblem. In the same way that the letter collection progressively abandons the discussion of gifts of clothing to emphasize instead the consumption of gifts of food, Aretino replaced the circulation of manuscripts with a printed volume offered up for the reader’s greedy appetite—and countered the inherent replicability of both food and print by ostentatiously rejecting courtly and literary norms, and by claiming uniqueness. Alongside the personal emblem—a timeless marker of creative masculinity adopted as clothing—Aretino took on a signature style, itself a kind of emblem, which he codified in the form of a book that is identified, unmistakably, with his own face.

chapter four

Heroes with Damp Brains? Image vs. Text in Printed Portrait-Books

The following encomium to manly physical attributes is drawn from

the fourth book of Francesco Sansovino’s 1565 history of the Orsini family: In questo Principe, che di bella presenza di huomo da guerra, et di honorato aspetto di volto, . . . fu gran virtù congiunta con sommo valore: si come si comprende in questa faccia venerabile, nella quale vedendosi ferocità, et vivezza insieme.1 (In this prince, who with the fine presence of a warrior and a look of honor about his face . . . great virtue combined with the highest merit: as one can see in this venerable face, in which one sees both ferocity and liveliness.)

Sansovino’s volume was the first in the Italian peninsula to incorporate full-page portraits alongside biographies, and so is considered the first Italian portrait-book. The image that accompanies the description we have just read is not, however, what we might expect. While the text leads us to imagine a warlike embodiment of virtuous manhood, the picture shows a fat, bald man with a paunch, a double chin, and a wandering eye (Fig. 4.1). What is more, the man’s armor (suggesting martial qualities) clashes with his hat, which might be worn by a businessman or scholar. In spite of its elaborate and monumentalizing frame— and despite the author’s apparent involvement in all stages of the book’s production—this is an image that does not immediately suggest virile strength and virtue.

Heroes with Damp Brains?

161

figur e 4.1. Francesco Sansovino, De gli huomini illustri della casa Orsina (Venice: Fratelli Stagnini, 1565), 69v. (Photo courtesy of the Newberry Library, Chicago. Call # Case fE7.O76)

The apparent disconnect here between text and image raises questions about the relations between physiognomic theories, the representation of an individual’s character and appearance by the portraitist, and the rhetoric of exemplarity with which such representations were presented. According to physiognomic theory, appearance was a manifestation of character, and debates over how to portray the human figure—as well as the artist’s representation of both appearance and

Print Monuments, Exposure, and Strategies of Concealment

162

character—inevitably depended on a broad if superficial acceptance of physiognomic theory.2 If appearance reflected character, images of men could be held up as visual exemplars to incite emulation by future generations. In other words, statues or portraits embodying the character of a great man—as imagined by the artist based on knowledge of that virtuous character—became in turn objects of imitation: The imagined, embodied virtue is a crucial mediator of exemplarity. A major writer-publisher in Venice, Sansovino himself had in 1550 produced a treatise on physiognomic theory, L’edificio del corpo humano:3 according to the tenets of this treatise, the man depicted in Figure 4.1 is lazy (his cheeks are fleshy and his forehead is wide and flat), has indulged in too much sexual activity (he is bald), and is somewhat cruel and rapacious (one eye and its eyelashes gaze sideways). Turning from Sansovino’s physiognomic treatise to his portrait-book, we immediately see an image that does not support the exemplary rhetoric that conflates physical beauty with virtue. In the years immediately following the publication of Sansovino’s illustrated Orsini family history, portrait-books became very popular in Western Europe. Artists and patrons had no hope of controlling the production or the reception of these volumes: In fact, collections of print portraits were hardly ever authorized by either the men portrayed or the original artists. As we shall see, in portrait-books—mass-produced for a vast audience—the tensions between theories of physiognomy, exemplarity, and the ideal of the “lifelike” portrait became too evident to ignore. Portrait-books were the printing world’s answer to the painted cycles of illustrious men we saw in Chapter 1: They epitomized the contradictory urges of humanist historiography for both accuracy and monumentalization.4 Accordingly, the portrait-book eventually developed in various directions: Responding to the desire for accuracy, it began, by the early seventeenth century, to turn into a biographical encyclopedia, often without pictures, as in Karel van Mander’s unillustrated Schilder-Boeck (1604) and Girolamo Ghilini’s alphabetized Theatro di uomini letterati (1647). At the same time, images of Ottomans, Africans, and native Americans were popular material for another kind of book that also prized descriptive “accuracy.” The new interest in facial categorization allowed the rhetoric of

Heroes with Damp Brains?

163

accuracy to coincide with the equation of physiognomy and character, as we see in Giambattista Della Porta’s De humana physiognomonia (1586).5 While the market grew for portrait-books, literature about personalized emblems (imprese) became wildly popular, albeit only for a few short decades. Personalized emblems bypassed the problems posed by portraits of trying to equate appearance with character and represent both visually: Instead, imprese offered an image that explicitly set out not to depict physical traits, and only hinted obliquely at character, but still drew on the rhetoric of exemplarity to exalt single individuals and to offer a monumentalizing image. As it became clear by the end of the sixteenth century that personalized emblems—like printed portraits—failed to provide an adaptable but still exemplary visible representation, their popularity declined in favor of increasingly didactic and impersonal emblems. These developments are significant because, despite both the promise of monumental authority that print offered to Aretino, and the rhetoric of exemplarity and physiognomy that portrait-books relied upon for self-aggrandization, portrait-books and impresa volumes ultimately threatened the monumental pose that had been the foundation of authority for Aretino, Castiglione’s courtier, Pontano’s prince, and even Ghirlandaio’s Cicero—they thematized representation as representation, and they were infinitely printable and replicable. The broad scope of this chapter and the next—which focus on portrait-books and impresa literature respectively—is to argue that this undermining of the monumental pose led to the definitive separation of the image from reality, and that this necessarily coincided with the moment in which subjectivity was recognized and accepted as a problem of representation.

Appearance, Character, and Representation The notion that a man’s outward appearance was a manifestation of his character undergirded various strains of Renaissance thought: Political writers like Pontano and Castiglione drew from Cicero’s emphasis on facial expression, gesture, and bearing; contemporary medicine derived from humoral theory the belief that melancholics showed specific traits. Theories of bodily imitation from Cicero to Castiglione (and beyond)

Print Monuments, Exposure, and Strategies of Concealment

164

assumed a correlation between appearance and character that enabled the visually accessible exemplarity informing work like that of Pontano and Ghirlandaio. The congruency of appearance and character also fed into ancient and modern theories of portraiture: Pliny the Elder had commented on displays of famous men’s images, noting that the imagination takes over when we have no portrait to look at.6 Similar ideas became especially current in the Cinquecento following the publication of Guaricus’s influential De sculptura (1504), which went so far as to affirm that the science of physiognomy allowed artists to produce likenesses solely on the basis of character: Ea [physiognomonia] autem est certa quedam obseruatio, Qua ex iis que corpori insunt signis, animorum etiam qualitates denotamus, . . . uel ex uiuentium corporibus effigies imitabimur, . . . Vel Mortuorum praesentias ex notissimis eorum moribus imaginabimur.7 (Physiognomy is a certain kind of observation, by which we deduce the qualities of mind from those signs that are on the body. . . . we will both produce an image from living bodies, . . . and imagine the appearance of dead men from their famous characters.)

Vincenzio Borghini, while not going as far as Guaricus, affirmed in the second half of the sixteenth century that knowledge of a subject’s character was important in portraiture—so, to portray Cicero, an artist must formulate “nel concetto suo un volto che negl’oc[c]hi, nella fronte et in tutta la persona co’ gesti e co l’abito rapresenti quella prudenzia et autorità che fu in quell’uomo” (in his mind a face whose eyes, forehead, and entire body with gestures and dress represent the prudence and authority that characterized the man).8 At the same time, Borghini also linked artistic mimeticism, or “imitation,” with the imitation of exemplars: Queste arti sono imitazione, l’imitazione è trovata per e’ poeti a due effetti: a dilettare et a giovare . . . tornando a l’utile, . . . infiniti sono stati quelli che dal vedere le statue e l’immagini e l’istorie d’uomini eccellenti o di cose virtuose e notabili, si sono accesi a ffar gran fatti et opere virtuose. (646–47)

Heroes with Damp Brains?

165

(These arts constitute imitation; imitation is devised by poets to produce two effects: to please and to be useful . . . returning to what is useful, . . . there have been infinite men who upon seeing the statues and images and histories of excellent men or of virtuous and notable things have been fired up to do great deeds and excellent works.)

In practice, however, the linking of these three concepts—the reflection of character in one’s appearance; the representation of both character and appearance by the artist; and the imitation of great deeds, inspired by the artist’s representation—was more problematic than these theories seem to suggest. Despite the widely accepted view that appearance accorded with character, and despite the treatises of Gauricus, Sansovino, and others, it was only in 1571 that Francesco Bocchi became the first writer to use a solid knowledge of physiognomic theory—which concentrated on the features of the face—to stress the importance of conveying costume (by which he means “character”) in painting.9 Instead, artists had typically concentrated on conveying emotions through gesture and posture. We have seen in Figure 4.1 that in printed books, physical features did not necessarily accord with the character attributed to someone; there existed, in addition, the millenarian tradition of the man who, like Socrates (or the Silenus statues associated with Socrates), displayed an unattractive exterior in contrast with his heroic or virtuous interior. A recent example for sixteenth-century readers was Federico da Montefeltro, a famously ugly military hero. Print portraits both traded on physiognomic theories that equated beauty with virtue, and complicated these theories, so that (as with Aretino in Chapter 3) personal emblems or imprese seemed to offer a solution, a new version of the monumental pose. Portrait painting was dominated by debates on how an artist should represent the sitter: While narrative painters aimed to represent what was seen (ritrarre), portraitists tended to create an idealized version (imitare) of the sitter; highly skilled artists like Bronzino managed to depict the tension between the two kinds of representation.10 Print portraits, on the other hand, raise further problems for the concept of representation. Although printed images of people were considered

Print Monuments, Exposure, and Strategies of Concealment

166

increasingly “lifelike” as engraving techniques developed during the sixteenth century, this simply means that mass-produced pictures seemed to represent more accurately a human face. These “lifelike” print portraits were most often copied from other print portraits or (less often) from other images (coins, painted portraits, historical paintings, sketches); the quality of the engravings was often poor; and a single image might be used by multiple printers as the portrait of a number of different men. Indeed, the idea of the mimetic portrait is itself complicated by competing models of imitation—ritrarre required a portrait made from life, but most print portraits followed the classical ideal of imitating sources rather than life. While we might expect that, for all these reasons, print portraits elicited different expectations from their spectators than did painted portraits, their audience was vastly larger than that of painted portraits. Portrait-books were a huge commercial success, and the increasing rhetorical emphasis on “accuracy” by their authors suggests that many viewers, while not expecting a perfect copy of a face, probably accepted portraits in books as approaching the true likenesses they were said to be, and for that reason paid good money for these volumes.

Why Do Portrait-Books Matter? Having one’s portrait painted was an obvious and timeless way of creating a monumentalizing image of oneself: A portrait implied that a man was important and presupposed an audience eager to see a picture of him. As Pliny the Elder had pointed out, “nullum est felicitatis specimen quam semper omnes scire cupere, qualis fuerit aliquis” (there is no greater kind of happiness than that all people for all time should desire to know what kind of a man a person was).11 As statues were believed to be animated by the sculptor’s genius, so also portraits, through the artist’s brilliance, acquired a “life” of their own: Commentary on portraiture frequently considered the image of a man as either standing in for that person (in his absence) or memorializing him (after his death). Images of women at times had similar functions to those of men, although they raise additional interpretative problems.12

Heroes with Damp Brains?

167

While the author-portrait—such as those created by Aretino—was not new in the sixteenth century, the increase of apparent lifelikeness in printed author-portraits and the immediate recognizability of Aretino’s face were still novel in the 1530s. Considering how hard Aretino worked (as we have seen) to guide the viewer’s interpretation of both his image and the accompanying texts, he was evidently aware of the broad reach of the print portrait—as compared with the relatively small audience viewing the painted portrait: artist, patron, and the patron’s immediate circle. Print portraits and portrait medals both began to appear in Italy around the mid-fifteenth century, and a number of scholars have shown the cross-pollination involved in collecting and producing coins, emblems, painted portraits, and the images that ended up in portrait-books.13 According to John Cunnally, in the early sixteenth century, the “spiritual content” of a coin was seen as separable from the physical medium, so that prints of coin portraits preserved the integrity of the original’s “essence.”14 Collections of coin images thus fed into the humanist emphasis on groupings of exemplary men (in pictorial cycles, collections of painted portraits, and literature), and contributed to the interest in physiognomy as a reflection of character.15 In other words, this new genre was born of disparate discourses. The very earliest incarnation of the printed portrait-book seems to have been Albanzani’s translation of Petrarch’s De viris illustribus, which was printed in Poiano (near Verona) in 1476 and included fullpage woodcut frames that were designed to hold hand-drawn portraits.16 This was followed by Hartmann Schedel’s famous Liber Cronicarum (Nuremberg, 1493)—a kind of potted world history through biographies, with smaller images in the margins—and Foresti’s mostly ignored Ferrarese collection of women’s biographies (1497), which belongs to the tradition of exalting exemplary women and includes historiated “portrait” initials.17 This large volume provides some background on what a woodcut portrait in a book might represent before the major sixteenth-century advances in image reproduction. Foresti’s collection, produced in a cultural climate that extolled women’s achievements and the ideal of the donna erudita, offers 182 biographies, 172 of which are accompanied by portraits. There are, however, only fifty-eight different images in the book, with fully half of the pictures appearing multiple

Print Monuments, Exposure, and Strategies of Concealment

168

times to represent more than one woman. Even the depiction of a woman in a study, surrounded by a large number of books—a woman exceptionally presented in a man’s pose to honor her “manly” erudition—is used interchangeably for Isotta Nogarola, her aunt, Angela Nogarola, and the poet Faltonia Betitia Proba.18 Clearly, at this point, a printed “portrait” is a loose term for an iconographic representation that is not expected to convey specifics about physiognomy. What is more, the repetition of a single image of exceptional womanhood promotes its function as a visual exemplar by indicating that such virtue can be reproduced by successive generations of women. At the same time, the repetition of a woman in “manly” guise suggests that erudite women are made from the same mold, anomalies to their sex. More commonly accepted as antecedents of portrait-books are the sixteenth-century numismatic volumes that offer biographies of Roman emperors accompanied by small circular images copied (or supposedly copied) from ancient coins: Andrea Fulvio’s Illustrium imagines (Rome, 1517) was the first, and was widely imitated, including by Guillaume Roville, who adopted a highly successful new strategy in publishing his Promptuaire des médailles simultaneously in French, Latin, and Italian (Lyon, 1553). Unlike later portrait-books, these early volumes included a substantial proportion of women (sometimes based on fictitious images, as few women were commemorated on ancient Roman coins), perhaps indicating an initial readership of schoolchildren (Fulvio was a teacher).19 Yet Fulvio also chose to publish in Latin, prompting Stephen Perkinson to posit an elite audience: It is possible that the audience of these volumes was quite varied.20 While portrait-books follow the format of Albanzani’s 1476 translation of Petrarch, emblem books derive their visual layout from Fulvio’s volume—indicating the close relation between the two genres.21 Numismatic volumes initially drew from the fashion for coin collecting, but later portrait-books were often inspired by collections of painted portraits, most famously that of Paolo Giovio. Giovio was planning to set up his portrait collection as a gallery as early as 1504, and he seems to have been inspired to publish a book from his collection by Fulvio’s Illustrium imagines—for which volume Giovio thanks Doni in a letter of 1548.22 Although Giovio planned to print biographies

Heroes with Damp Brains?

169

alongside portraits (to be copied from his collection), the undertaking proved too problematic until 1575 (two decades after his death), so the Elogia veris clarorum virorum imaginibus apposita and Elogia virorum bellica virtute illustrium were initially published as biographies without pictures in 1546 and 1551. By the 1560s, portrait-books had developed beyond the numismatic format, with Sansovino’s 1565 volume on the Orsini family leading the trend in Italy. Although Sansovino concentrated on a single family, he was following the large-scale format and emphasis on visual accuracy of Hubert Goltzius’s collection of full-page medallion images of Roman emperors (Antwerp, 1557).23 Like Roville, Goltzius published in multiple languages, but his focus on “authenticity” meant that his work discredited and superseded Roville’s volume. Toward the end of the fashion for portrait-books, Tomasini’s Illustrium virorum elogia (1630) included both a portrait and a personal emblem for each biography.24 Eventually, portrait-books evolved into biographical dictionaries, with Girolamo Ghilini’s Theatro di uomini letterati (1647) being the first to order the biographies alphabetically, and a number of seventeenth-century volumes omitting portraits entirely. Portrait-books were highly successful—as we know from the large number of editions and reissues—and images were extensively copied and reused, so (as Clough has shown) many portraits became types that were accepted as true to life, even when the original was a figment of the artist’s imagination. Given both the increasingly lifelike style of printed portraits, and the popularity and relative affordability of portrait-books, it seems reasonable to agree with Bronwen Wilson that printed portraits, and the books that displayed collections of print portraits, had a more direct and profound effect on Western European perceptions of the human face than did painted portraits, even if they were informed by, and derived from, new modes of painting.25 Wilson’s work on late sixteenth-century portrait-books has shown their significance for the formation of early modern cultural identities: As Europeans came into contact with different cultures, they saw for the first time facial detail reproduced for a vast audience, and began to distinguish “European” from “foreign” traits.

Print Monuments, Exposure, and Strategies of Concealment

170

We will concentrate on those portrait-books produced as the genre was emerging, before ethnographic identifications developed—and while contradictions in depicting and describing features prevailed. These early publications are important in that, over the course of the sixteenth century, facial characteristics in print portraits became steadily more distinguishable, and makers of portrait-books increasingly presented their images as “true” depictions—so Foresti’s unapologetic use of the same picture for multiple biographies in a single volume was unthinkable a hundred years later when Caprioli produced copperplate engravings for his Ritratti di cento capitani illustri.26 While early numismatic prints were considered to convey the spiritual content of a coin, reproductions increasingly emphasized the artist’s own personal invenzione and his grasp of disegno—instantiating the tension between substitutional and performative paradigms that Nagel and Wood see as enabling such rich artistic production in this period.27 At the same time, the idea that print could reproduce the integrity of an original (textual or visual) artifact was problematized by unauthorized copies as the genre became fashionable: While Fulvio in 1517 compared himself with Varro for recuperating exemplars that would keep virtue alive through the “flame” of emulation, some years later Johann Huttich complained that he was spurred to publish by the corruption and “dishonor” in successive printings of Fulvio’s volume.28 Indiscriminate copying, and the reuse of one image for several people, was further problematized by audiences who (around the mid-sixteenth century) began to expect a genuine physical resemblance between a portrait in a book and the person represented.29 What is more, the changes in format and the increasing exclusion of women from sixteenth-century portrait-books suggest that as these volumes emerged as a genre, they gained status and acquired a more literary and wealthy male audience. Since the focus of portrait-books is, by definition, image rather than text, scholars have tended to approach the genre from an art-historical perspective, with emphasis on the question of the portraits’ authenticity in terms of Renaissance definitions of mimesis—were images drawn from life, from other images, from ancient coins, or were they inventions? My primary interest, however, is in the interaction between portraits and accompanying biographies. The biographical

Heroes with Damp Brains?

171

narratives invariably qualify or modify the viewer’s perception of the images, often with unexpected results. The prints themselves follow a visual rhetoric that over the course of the sixteenth century increasingly gives the impression of “mimesis”—the imitation of nature—and since many of the prints derive from flattering propagandistic portraits, a contradiction frequently emerges between external appearance in the image and moral qualities in the accompanying biographies. This tension would become a commonplace of the genre by the time writers like French geographer Thevet were publishing in the 1580s, but the issue bears examination in earlier volumes because it goes some way to explaining both the contemporaneous fad for personal emblems and the eventual collapse of the monumental pose.30 While portrait-books were a pan-European phenomenon, my primary interest is their reception in Italy, where the genre first emerged (in Albanzani’s 1476 Petrarch and Fulvio’s 1517 coin volume) and later grew from Giovio’s portrait collection—and where emblem literature developed in a way foreign to the rest of Europe. This chapter analyzes examples from a range of texts to show that the commonly accepted scholarly opinion—that portrait-books in general offer little meaningful interaction between text and image, and very few insights relating to physiognomic theories—is in fact significant for the development of European notions of the image.31 It also raises serious problems for the monumental pose. As image and text are juxtaposed on the page for a mass market, they emerge as noncomplementary (at best) or competing, thus highlighting tensions between discourses that claim to be complementary: Portrait-books routinely invoke notions of physiognomy and exemplarity and “accuracy” (variously interpreted). The desire for historical accuracy contradicts the impulse to monumentalize, with the result that identity itself is problematized as a process of public perception and willed representation. By the 1560s, it became difficult for the increasingly lifelike style of printed portraiture to sustain the monumentalizing rhetoric of heroism, or the inspiration that such images were meant to provide to future generations. Less still could the newly “lifelike” print portraits uphold the hazy notions of physiognomic theory that had helped to maintain the ideal of a visual exemplar. By uniting previously separate discourses

Print Monuments, Exposure, and Strategies of Concealment

172

in the same visual space of the page (literary exemplarity; literary-scientific physiognomic theory; “authentic” portraits), portrait-books raise visual-verbal discrepancies that thematize representation as representation and offer another reason to use personal emblems to signify an individual spiritual essence, and they suggest a growing need to legitimize the existence of a hidden, “interior” persona as against external physiognomy.32

Domestic Monsters: Roville and a “Mirror for Princesses” In 1553, Guillaume Roville (or Rouille, Rouillé, c.1518–89), a Lyonbased publisher with strong Italian ties who produced many Italian titles, included in his Prontuario de le medaglie (also published as Promptuaire des médailles) a remarkable “portrait” of Melusina (Fig. 4.2).33 This image—self-evidently not drawn from an ancient coin of any kind—is particularly noteworthy as it is the only one that I have found in any portrait-book to depict the face of a monster, even though numerous biographies indicate that “monstrousness” marks both the character and the physiognomy of the person depicted, and there are some human faces that include animal characteristics like horns (as in Stimmer’s famous woodcut of Attila in Giovio’s 1575 Elogia). Roville’s Melusina is especially odd in that her biography is by no means as derogatory or defamatory as many of the narratives that are accompanied by relatively normal images. Although the volume’s 828 woodcut medallions and biographies are frequently apocryphal (running from the beginning of time with Adam to Henri II of France), it is remarkable that Melusina is described first as a noblewoman who married and had sons, and then as a possible monster. While the relatively positive biography is in keeping with the ambiguity of the Melusine tradition, it contrasts sharply with the image. Given the paucity of information available about Roville, it is difficult to know with any certainty whether we should believe the author’s prefatory note to the reader, asserting that the text was produced as a comment on the woodcuts (“Guglielmo Rovillio A` i lectori,” n.p.). This order of production is, however, reasonable, considering that the volume imitates other coin-based publications in having the medallions as

Heroes with Damp Brains?

173

figur e 4.2. Melusina. Guillaume Roville, Prima [-seconda] parte del Prontvario de le medaglie (Lyon: Guillaume Roville, 1553), 2nd part, 151. (Photo courtesy of the Newberry Library, Chicago. Call # Wing ZP539.R745.)

the primary focus. Either way, the Melusina image indicates that as late as the 1550s, “portraits” could be merely indicative of the salient features of a person’s public identity rather than intended to reference specifics of physiognomy. Visually, Melusina is depicted not as she is described in the first part of the biography (“signora di Melle et Lusignano”), but rather as she is suspected or imagined to be: Quel che si finge che questa Melusina fussi mezza serpente, non è forse fuor di proposito attribuido al sortilegio et incantamento, del quale era peritissima, come anche in quel tempo l’arte magica era

Print Monuments, Exposure, and Strategies of Concealment

174

vulgatissima in piu paesi, ò veramente, perche portava tal mostro nelle sue arme et insegna.34 (What people pretend—that this Melusina was half-snake—is perhaps not inaccurate, and can be attributed to the fortune-telling and enchantment in which she was highly skilled, also considering that at that time the art of magic was very common in many countries. Or else, truly, because she wore such a monster on her arms and insignia.)

The two possible reasons behind Melusina’s reputation as a “half-snake” are, apparently, her expertise in magic or—more banal but apparently equally valid—her use of the snake as emblem. In fact, the image here seems much more like a personal emblem (which depicts the hidden interior of a person’s character) than a representation of external physical features. It is clear that Melusina’s imagined identity and her real insignia determine her “portrait”: Unlike the medieval monster (monstrum)—typically a sign that warned (monere) of God’s wrath—the only mostro in this text is the one on Melusina’s insignia, which has the purpose of showing (monstrare) Melusina’s internal character (her expertise in magic).35 The monstrous feminine is thus imagined and depicted—and then domesticated in the text. This representation is significant in that the narrative contains the threatening physiognomy of the image by suggesting that what is depicted is not so much Melusina herself but the Melusina that people imagine they see. Yet through the tension between monstrous image and prosaic narrative, Roville’s Melusina recalls Jean d’Arras’s Mélusine (1390), whose title character—as Sylvia Huot has pointed out—demonstrates the fragility of public identity: “All identity is but an act and an illusion, . . . we retain our identity only to the extent that we are able to persuade others to believe, or to act as if they believe, that it is real.”36 Once the medieval Mélusine is publicly denounced as monstrous, she transforms into a flying snake and abandons all hope of achieving a human identity. Roville’s Melusina belongs to the traditional imagery that follows this final transformation: In the early part of the story, only the lower half of her body is snakelike; after her secret is broadcast, some medieval illustrations show her entire

Heroes with Damp Brains?

175

body transformed.37 The difference between the medieval images and Roville’s dragon-like profile portrait is that the former give the full context of the publicly witnessed transformation. While the medieval illustrators made it clear that public perception determines identity, this idea remains implicit in Roville’s monstrous Melusina, depicted as a monster but described as a good wife and mother. It is noteworthy that the physical grotesquerie of Melusina’s son, Gotfredo del Gran Dente, pictured alongside his mother, is not broached in the text at all (Fig. 4.2). According to the medieval tales, Melusina had numerous offspring, all of whom demonstrated some bodily deformity derived from their mother. Roville’s Gotfredo has an enormously long tooth protruding upwards from a malformed mouth, yet his biography presents no corresponding monstrosity; we learn only of his heroism in the First Crusade before the text refers us to another source. While Melusina’s picture is too gruesome to be overlooked, and is carefully explained away by the text, Gotfredo appears quite normal alongside his mother. Paradoxically, the matter-of-fact style of his biography, and its failure to remark on his tusk-like abnormality, suggests a level of belief in the monstrous that belies the textual containment of Melusina’s portrait. What is more, there is a visible resemblance between the two faces—intentional or not—in the wide mouth, the eyes, and even the set of the nose, which further hints that the monstrous is only a degree removed from the ordinary. The depiction of Melusina takes on special significance when we consider Roville’s letter to the reader at the beginning of his fat quarto volume, which makes broad claims for historical accuracy, visual life-likeness, physiognomic theory, and visual exemplarity: Hor queste Medaglie, . . . sono state ricercate, . . . con le vere, proprie, et vive effigie de primi grandi, dell’uno, et dell’altro sesso: tal che in quelle, et chi, et quali, et quanto grandi sieno stati i figurati et segnati, dalla faccia, come da un chiaro specchio dell’animo, per arte di Physiognomia, si possa conietturare. (“A` i lectori,” n.p.) (Now these medals, . . . have been searched for, . . . with the true, personal, and living images of the earliest great people, both men and women: so that in those images, from the face—as from a clear

Print Monuments, Exposure, and Strategies of Concealment

176

mirror of the mind—by the art of Physiognomy, one can understand who, which, and how great were the people depicted and indicated.)

Roville, also, however, asserts the right to invent images if none can be found, because, he explains, citing Pliny the Elder, it is perfectly permissible to depict someone on the basis of biographical knowledge. According to Perkinson, Roville felt obliged to justify his invented images because audience expectations were shifting from the medieval notion that a picture is an aid to memory to the modern idea of the portrait as physiognomically accurate. Here Roville admits to basing many of the woodcuts on knowledge of biography—yet the biographies are based on the woodcuts: Roville’s “historical researches” short-circuit from commonplace to imagination. Yet apparently such inventions need not impede the exemplary function of the book: Finalmente pigliera chi vorrà, esempi di vita, costumi, et di ciascheduna virtù, et narrando poi à gl’altri queste cose lette et viste, parrà che non solo sia stato al tempo, et insieme con quegli che piu non sono: ma anchora innanzi. (“A` i lectori,” n.p.) (Finally, he who wishes to do so will take examples of life, customs, and every virtue. Then, telling other people about what he has read and seen, it will seem that not only was he there in the past with those people who are no longer; but even before they existed.)

The reader therefore gains not only exemplary historical knowledge but, by retaining facts and telling others, himself appears to be a figure from history so ancient as to predate all those in the book because he seems omniscient about the past. This is an extraordinary assertion of the power of reading, considering that the first biography in this book is that of Adam: Only God predates Adam. It is also an unusual claim within sixteenth-century rhetoric of exemplarity. Typical rhetoric argues that the reader will read, learn, and emulate—and only then be eligible to join history’s exemplary figures. The near-elimination of this process implies that the reader is so impatient to join the ranks of famous men as to skip the performance of deeds and jump ahead to being a history teacher. Roville’s offer of a shortcut suggests that his ideal reader is not very highly educated—since the highly educated would probably be

Heroes with Damp Brains?

177

familiar with more credible biographies of the figures depicted—but is a literate person who wants to appear well-informed: perhaps an upwardly mobile bureaucrat, or an aristocratic woman married to a more erudite man. This approach reinforces the process of identity as public perception that is suggested by the Melusina representation, and is furthered by Roville’s recommendation to the reader to “act in such a way” as to be memorialized in Roville’s planned third volume.38 The short-circuiting of exemplarity here is reminiscent of the poetic response to Gattamelata’s fifteenth-century equestrian monument. While Roville’s volume is a long way from being a biographical encyclopedia (which emerged only in the seventeenth century), this new rhetoric suggests the lure of encyclopedic knowledge as a social tool for the upwardly mobile, in contrast to the heroic deeds traditionally advocated as a source of prestige and power for the elite. In this light, Roville’s mix of humanist rhetoric (of physiognomy and exemplarity) with discourses of witchcraft, folklore, and morbid curiosity makes commercial sense. The idea that these images will have a positive, exemplary influence on the viewer gains force in the author’s dedicatory letter to Caterina de’ Medici, Queen of France: Poi cosi come in uno specchio si veggono i colori, lineamenti, et profili et tutte le qualitadi esteriori: cosi qui V. Sublime Maiestà rivedrà à sua posta se, con quelle sue supreme bellezze di virtù tanto amate, et l’illustri sue qualità, et doti: et di piu, molti suoi antiqui, esempi di costumi et vita à tutto il mondo, et gioirà d’insolito piacere. (n.p.) (Then, just as in a mirror one sees colors, outlines, profiles, and all the external features, so Your Sublime Majesty will in turn see herself here, with those supreme and much-loved beauties of virtue, and her illustrious qualities and gifts; and, in addition, many of her ancestors, examples of customs and life to the entire world—and Your Sublime Majesty will rejoice with unusual delight.)

In other words, the Prontuario claims to be an historical document of great accuracy, a source of entertainment, and also a mirror for a queen who “supera ogn’altra vivente Principessa” (exceeds every other living princess), complete with actual images in which the princess “will see herself.”

Print Monuments, Exposure, and Strategies of Concealment

178

Considering that the author’s dedication and proem belong within standard declarations, and that the dedication was a strategic move for an Italian volume printed in France, we should not make too much of the Melusina biography as a possible mirror for the queen of France. It may be a mere coincidence that, within fifteen years of Roville’s publication, there was a documented tradition of depicting Machiavellian political players, and most especially Caterina de’ Medici, as a siren—a seductive creature who tries to win favor with false flattery so as to sap the strength of others in compensation for her own weakness.39 Coincidence or not, there is a clear disjunction between the high-blown exemplary rhetoric that opens and justifies Roville’s portrait-book, and its content—the aim of which seems to be to entertain and therefore to sell more copies. Given the representation and containment of the monstrous feminine, as well as the offer of encyclopedic knowledge, I would also argue that the intended audience here is both men and women. Ultimately, the Melusina narrative and the Caterina de’ Medici dedication suggest that, in construing a portrait-biography combination, the author does not propose a mirror for the reader, but rather offers a reflection on history itself as a product of the popular imagination, here packaged primarily for entertainment. In other words, rather than offering the “mirror of nature” that one might expect from a series of portraits, the volume provides a mirror of the reader’s imagination. If we also take into account the suggestion, conveyed by the Melusina image and by Roville’s short-circuiting of traditional exemplarity, that identity depends on popular perception, we begin to see the extent to which portrait-books might challenge traditional monumentalizing narratives.

Goltzius’s Handsome Emperors The modest-sized volumes and small medallions of Roville and his predecessors contrast sharply with the images of emperors published by Hubert Goltzius (or Goltz, 1526–83), a painter, engraver, sculptor, scholar, and merchant based in Belgium. Goltzius’s large-scale folio volume, Vivae Omnium fere Imperatorum imagines, appeared in Latin, German, Italian, and French in 1557, four years after Roville’s Prontuario, and was published in Spanish in 1560.40 Although printed in Antwerp, the book’s intended

Heroes with Damp Brains?

179

audience was pan-European, and given the number of volumes available in libraries today, the book—including the Italian edition—was indeed very popular. For numismatists, Goltzius’s book is unprecedented in scale and size, and is often considered the first serious attempt to catalogue and faithfully depict collections of ancient coins (in particular that of the geographer Ortelius). The 1557 editions included only 131 images; Goltzius added more medallions later as the success of his publication brought him invitations to view collections around Europe. Despite many variations between editions and print runs, the volume is an important milestone for historians of art and of print, and the printing technique behind the large and striking colored images is still a matter of debate; it is also unclear whether text preceded image or vice versa.41 Whatever the methods used, we know that Goltzius himself played a fundamental role in all aspects of the book’s production: He produced the black line-engraving of the images, authored the Latin text, translated it into German, and apparently commissioned the Italian translation from Francesco Astari.42 The author takes ample credit for the work, claiming in the dedication to Philip of Spain that he not only toiled at his own expense to find and collect ancient coins, but also made all the images “con il dipinttorio penello” (with the brush that depicts) and wrote the entire text “con il penello della Istorica scrittura” (with the paintbrush of historical writing).43 This dual role of author and artist makes Goltzius an unusual case and a useful one for considering the relations between text and image. The “paintbrush of historical writing” echoes the full title of Goltzius’s volume, where the “historic paintbrush” refers to the accuracy of the images: le vive imagini di tutti quasi gl’imperatori, da c. iulio caesare, insino a carlo .v. et ferdinando suo fratello, dalle vechie medaglie con grandissima solertia cavate, et al vero fidelissimamente adumbrate, con le vite, atti, maniere, virtu, et vicii delli medesimi imperatori, secundo i proprii loro colori, col historico penello depinte. (the living images of almost all of the emperors, from julius caesar to charles v and ferdinand his brother, taken from the old medals with great diligence, and most faithfully

Print Monuments, Exposure, and Strategies of Concealment

180

shaded to represent the truth, with the lives, acts, manners, virtues, and vices of the same emperors, according to their true colors, painted with the historic brush.)

The rhetorical conflation of Goltzius’s capacity as an artist with historical accuracy, via the “historic brush,” paid off: Scholars typically consider Goltzius’s volume very accurate for his time, although numismatists today point out its many errors.44 Through its reputation for precision and truthfulness, Goltzius’s book seems to have discredited Roville’s recent publication and pushed it out of the market.45 Yet despite Goltzius’s long-standing reputation for accuracy, Christian Dekesel has shown that Goltzius’s images were almost all copied from his predecessors rather than from actual coins; more recently, Dekesel has argued that the emperor’s profiles were “the result of a compilation of elements from different coins and medals in order to give the most accurate or flattering picture of an emperor.”46 The contradiction between “accurate” and “flattering” images derives from the fact that Goltzius was copying and conflating images (printed medallions and actual coins) that were themselves based on highly flattering propagandistic portraits—and from Goltzius’s own conflation of different models in order to reproduce an imagined lost original in his own style. The tensions inherent to this operation are reminiscent of Bembo’s philology (see Chapter 2) and Nagel and Wood’s anachronic paradigm. The question, then, is why was Goltzius received as so much more authentic than the predecessors whose images he copied? And why do so many scholars today still accept Goltzius’s images as more “accurate” than those of earlier publications? The answer, I believe, is two-fold: Firstly, Goltzius was an accredited artist; he had access to coin collections; and loudly touted the accuracy of his own images and the length of time he had spent researching them. Unlike Roville’s proem, which makes no bones about the right to publish images derived from imagination, Goltzius took the then fairly unusual step of asserting that all his likenesses were based on actual coins, and that he preferred to leave blank pages rather than add in fictitious portraits—even though this was patently untrue, as, for example, in his “portrait” of Charlemagne, of whom no coin image was ever made.47 Such blatantly invented

Heroes with Damp Brains?

181

images call on the medieval substitutional paradigm that allowed artists and writers to reconstitute a lost original, even while the book as a whole seems to perform historical precision. Secondly, the full-page, large (folio) size, colored engravings in Goltzius’s book are light-years away from the small and comparatively uncomplicated woodcuts produced just four years earlier in Roville’s quarto volume. While an audience might expect the simple prints in Foresti, Fulvio, Huttich, Micyllus, and Roville to be “representations” rather than “true likenesses,” the large-size, finely cut portraits with colored detailing in Goltzius’s book seem to declare their own truth and authenticity—even without the author’s insistence on their veracity. By appearing more life-like, the images became accepted as well-researched and authentic, and this impression is furthered by Goltzius’s own rhetoric of visual imitation, which conflates the touted accuracy of his copies of ancient coins with the truthfulness of the original portrait: He claims that his volume contains le vive e vere imagini quasi di tutti gl’Imperadori, con sue verissime similitudine con somma diligenza effigiate, e cavate dalla prima et antica impressione delli danari o vero Medaglie. (Dedication) (the living and true images of almost all the emperors, with their highly authentic likeness reproduced with the utmost diligence, taken from the first and ancient casting of coins or medals.)

Goltzius’s insistence on the authenticity and antiquity of his images suggests an anxiety concerning his new, large-size image format.48 Given Goltzius’s commercial success, however, readers evidently gave far more credence to the newly detailed images than they had to simpler woodcuts—and they tended to assume that finely cut, detailed (and expensive-looking) prints were more true-to-life than were the smaller, simpler woodcuts that were most often the source of these images. Following the author’s lead, readers were apparently unconcerned with the fact that imperial coin images were in fact propagandistic portraits and therefore very unlikely to be “true likenesses” in the first place. In other words, Goltzius’s publication is not very important for the muchtouted authenticity of its images, but extremely significant in what it

Print Monuments, Exposure, and Strategies of Concealment

182

tells us about European readers of portrait-books in the late 1550s and, indeed, in successive generations. While the propagandistic nature of Goltzius’s portraits and text-image tensions characterize most of the biographies, these internal contradictions are exacerbated for those ancient emperors who are remembered as dishonorable or vicious. This is partly because the portraits of earlier emperors, based on classical coin likenesses (or printed images drawn from these coins), are produced in a visual style with which the educated Italian reader would have been familiar from contemporary painted and sketched portraits—the classicizing mode associated with the new “mimetic” portraiture. These images show more facial detail than Goltzius’s prints of late antique and early medieval emperors, which follow the stylization of their probable sources. The late medieval and Renaissance emperors are less useful for our purposes because, being closer to the dynastic imperial line that Goltzius sought to venerate, and lacking centuries of conflicting sources, their visual depiction tends to align with propaganda that would have been familiar to a European audience. In analyzing a representative selection of early emperors who are considered “bad,” we shall see both the importance of internal contradictions between text and image, and the significance of Goltzius’s page format (surprisingly similar to the layout of contemporary emblem books) for the separation of image from “reality.” Nero is a useful starting-point due to his legendary viciousness. Before looking at Goltzius’s Nero, we should consider briefly the Nero of his predecessors in order to understand the difficulty of identifying specific artistic choices as intentional, considering how little we know about the production of these volumes. Jakob Micyllus’s popular Icones Imperatorum, et Breves vitae, atque rerum cuiusque gestarum indicationes (Strasbourg: C. Mylius, 1544) was based on the XXIII Caesares of the fourth-century poet Decimus Magnus Ausonius, and for visual format drew from Fulvio’s 1517 Illustrium imagines and Huttich’s 1525 Imperatorum romanorum libellus.49 Huttich’s woodcut—which is based on Fulvio’s—shows a full but unlined and regular profile that is very close to ancient coin images of Nero (Fulvio XLVIIr; Huttich 13v, Fig. 4.3).50 With a few simple modifications to this model, Micyllus’s Icones

Heroes with Damp Brains?

183

shows a pronounced frown, a thick neck, and—significantly—a nose and chin that almost meet (Fig. 4.4). The meeting of nose and chin was a type given currency by Leonardo da Vinci’s studies of facial traits of “worse than average” working-class characters in the 1490s: His drawings had an immediate influence on both Italian and Northern painting, and his format of contrasting pairs provided the model for physiognomic treatises by both Indagine (in 1523) and Della Porta (in 1586).51 For a visually adept reader, then, Nero’s modified profile would immediately signify some kind of monstrosity—a visual signal confirmed by the accompanying text. Yet while all three texts follow the historiographical tradition that condemns Nero, none of them comments on Nero’s physiognomy, ignoring the opportunity to use Suetonius’s colorful condemnation of the emperor’s physique in demonstrating that wickedness is physically visible.52 Although the portraitist here departed from visual predecessors in not only establishing his own style of coin images, but also in making facial features in the portrait accord with character, such a strong tension between authenticity (in reproducing existing images) and artistic invenzione is rare, and the text-image accord may be coincidence. Goltzius’s chapter on Nero, while a succinct single page, follows the broadly condemnatory strokes of Suetonius and the later biographers, but like earlier sixteenth-century biographies, does not refer to the classical author’s strictures on Nero’s physiognomy. This seems curious until one considers the accompanying coin image (Fig. 4.5): The apparently lifelike Nero in the image is undeniably handsome, quite unlike the description given by Suetonius, according to which the emperor’s body was “marked with spots and malodorous,” his eyes grey and dull, his neck too thick, his belly protuberant, and his hairstyle reflecting excessive attention to the body.53 The contradiction between shockingly wicked narrative and pleasant features (visible in a number of emperors besides Nero) is attenuated by the inclusion of an emblemstyle tag above the coin image. In this case, the motto is: priamo fu sopra modo felice, qual vide la patria con il regno perduta. (Ch. VI) (priam was overjoyed, when he saw his country and his reign lost at the same time.)

Print Monuments, Exposure, and Strategies of Concealment

184

figur e 4.3. Nero. Johann Huttich, Imperatorum et Caesarum vitae cum imaginibus ad viva effigem expressis (Strasbourg: Wolfgang Caephalaeus, 1534), 13v. (Photo courtesy of the Newberry Library, Chicago. Call # Case E436.42.)

The reference here is to Cassius Dio, who claims that Nero “used to call Priam wonderfully fortunate in that he had seen his country and his throne destroyed together.”54 For this reason, says Dio, Nero sent arsonists to start the great fire of Rome in 64 CE; Goltzius chooses this tag in order to highlight the emperor’s famous desire for destruction. At the bottom of the page, we see a one-line précis of Nero’s life: “Poi

Heroes with Damp Brains?

185

figur e 4.4. Nero. Jakob Micyllus, Icones imperatorum et breves vitae (Strasbourg: C. Mylius, 1544), n.p. (Photo courtesy of The Newberry Library, Chicago. Call # Case E436.33.)

che hebbe anni .XXXII. vissuto, e regnato .XIIII. sestesso di vita se privó” (When he had lived for thirty-two years and ruled for fourteen, he killed himself). These two tags complement and comment on the inscription around the coin medallion, which follows the propagandistic imperial formula in recording Nero’s reign.55 In this way, the print presents a flattering image framed by an oblique mention of Nero’s destructive madness and a reference to his suicide: This succinct overview resembles emblematic representations, which do not offer a clear portrait of the individuals depicted, but instead present a series of clues that point toward the men’s character.56 Already in the 1550s, then, commemorative images are being distinguished from “true” character, which is presented via a series of signs that accompany and qualify the picture of a face. What is more, these

Print Monuments, Exposure, and Strategies of Concealment

186

figur e 4.5. Nero. Hubert Goltzius, Le vive imagini di tutti quasi gl’ imperatori (Antwerp: Gillis Coppens Van Diest, 1557). (Photo courtesy of the Newberry Library, Chicago. Call # Case fJ036.351.)

clues constitute a set of frames that separate and distance the biography from the face depicted: the tags at the top and bottom of the page, the decorative inscription around the coin image, and the visual contrast between the colored coin image and the rest of the page frame the actual profile. The result is quite unlike the black-and-white woodcuts of earlier volumes, where elaborate frames (as in Fulvio and Huttich) reproduced Roman funereal decoration, emphasizing the image’s authenticity and commemorative function.57 Goltzius’s frames actively nuance our reading of the portrait. Goltzius’s entry for Caligula is particularly telling. The image is of a very beautiful profile that closely recalls not only the Caligula

Heroes with Damp Brains?

187

figur e 4.6. Caligula. Hubert Goltzius, Le vive imagini di tutti quasi gl’ imperatori (Antwerp: Gillis Coppens Van Diest, 1557). (Photo courtesy of the Newberry Library, Chicago. Call # Case fJ036.351.)

portrait of Huttich and Fulvio, but also that of ancient coins (Fig. 4.6). Here, the profile is august and serene, with a high forehead and serious brow, even if the long straight nose extends in the direction of a very protrudent chin. Yet the narrative describes a man who “transformed into a monster”: Questo Germanico di grande longa supero di atroce crudelta Tiberio. Imperoche di huomo Prencipe si trasmutò in monstro: tanto di crudelita e lusuria era pieno, che tutte le sue sorelle, Agrippina, Drusilla, e Giulia, stuprare volse. (Ch. IIII)

Print Monuments, Exposure, and Strategies of Concealment

188

(This Germanicus by far surpassed Tiberius in atrocious cruelty. For from a human prince he transformed into a monster: He was so full of cruelty and lust that he wanted to rape all of his sisters— Agrippina, Drusilla, and Julia.)

In further proof of Caligula’s inhumanity, the text states that he wanted disasters to befall the empire in order that his reign might be remembered: “All’imperio Romano infortunij, pestilenza, incendio, depopulatione, e rovina desiderava, accioche appresso gli posteri piu longa memoria dil suo imperio fusse” (For the Roman empire he desired misfortune, plague, fire, devastation, and ruin, so that among future generations there would be a more enduring memory of his reign; Ch. IIII). This information, condensed down from Suetonius, is a sure sign of the kind of monstrousness that is so far removed from rational human behavior as to be insanity. Yet the image gives no clue of mental disturbance or monstrosity, even though the text specifically discusses Caligula’s obsession with his own appearance and personal dignity, noting that he was the first emperor to wear purple, and had a taste for jewels. He also decreed that he be known by a series of increasingly august sobriquets, the last being “Dio de tutti gl’altri Dei” (god of all gods). The text follows Suetonius, but gives special emphasis to the emperor’s obsession with representations of himself: “alli simulacri li capi levar fece, e ponerli il suo, chiamandosi Giove Latiale” (he had the heads of statues cut off and replaced with his own head, calling himself the Jupiter of Lazio); the statue of Caligula in the temple was (we are told) dressed each day in the same clothes as the emperor, who ordered that his image be erected in the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem along with a number of Roman statues. Despite this focus on Caligula’s fixation with his public image, the text displays no self-consciousness about the improbably flattering image, based (directly or indirectly) on the propagandistic coins inherited by Renaissance numismatists. On the facing page, the tag above Caligula’s profile is the only element giving the beautiful image some meaning beyond that of ancient propaganda: nella natura mia nessuna cosa piu laudo, che la inverecundia (in my own nature i praise falsehood more than anything else; Fig. 4.6). This motto, while in keeping with Caligula’s

Heroes with Damp Brains?

189

legendary wickedness, by no means reflects the most striking part of the biography, which is primarily dedicated to Caligula’s violence and monstrosity and his attention to public impressions.58 By announcing the emperor’s love of falsehood at the top of the portrait page, the motto applies most immediately to the image, suggesting that Caligula’s elegant profile is misleading, a beautiful deception. The tag also hints in more general terms that the emperor’s displays of godlike greatness were empty spectacle. This suggestion is confirmed as we turn back to the text, where the substitution of one head on a statue for another indicates how easily a monumental body can be reassigned to a new face—so that the face itself becomes a mere mask (rather than the true “Jupiter of Lazio”), attachable to any number of bodies. The very short reign of Vitellius (a few months in 69 CE) is commemorated in Goltzius’s volume with, as motto above the portrait, one of Vitellius’s more memorable quotes: lo nimico ucciso rende buono odore, ma megliore il cittadino (an enemy who has been killed smells sweet, but a fellow citizen smells sweeter still; Ch. IX).59 Below the image, the summary of his reign is given in the usual italics: “Nell’ Imperio stette mesi .VIII. e visse anni .LVII. poi fu ucciso con horrenda morte” (He held imperial power for eight months and lived for fifty-seven years, and was killed in a horrible way). Once again, the portrait itself—of a prosperous-looking man with strong nose and heavy chin—would be neutral or positive without these intriguing (if damning) tags. The biography does not disappoint: Vitellius abused the Roman people with every kind of “tirannia, crudelita, superbia, e scelerita,” deserving (as in Suetonius) his eventual violent death. It is characteristic of Goltzius’s volume that the emperor’s physiognomy is not even mentioned; rather, the reader must interpret the set of clues framing the image to understand that he was a bad emperor. Domitian is interesting for the more ambiguous treatment of his rule, both by Goltzius and by sources like Suetonius. The biography begins with the famous anecdote of how the emperor spent an hour a day killing flies, but then discusses the surprisingly positive aspects of Domitian’s early reign (Chapter XII; see Suetonius 8.3). Roughly the last third of the page, however, is dedicated to the emperor’s increasing persecution of various groups—Jews, Christians, the political elite—and

Print Monuments, Exposure, and Strategies of Concealment

190

then to his murder and burial “in ignominy,” literally without a name. While this is not entirely in keeping with the full story in Suetonius, the biography is interesting for a number of reasons. Despite the ignominy in which Goltzius tells us he died (and his subsequent damnatio memoriae), Domitian is here commemorated as a famous ancient, which indeed he was. Suetonius provides a thorough commentary on Domitian’s physical attributes, and especially the emperor’s sensitivity about being bald. In keeping with Domitian’s descent into tyranny, Suetonius says he was initially tall and good-looking (although with dim eyesight and cramped toes, both of which prefigure his later physical and moral decline), but eventually descended into disfiguring baldness, with a paunch and spindly legs.60 Nowhere in Goltzius is there any mention of this, and the portrait medallion (resembling the emperor’s coin images) shows a classically good-looking profile with a head of thick curly hair (Fig. 4.7).61 More interesting still is the tag above Domitian’s coin image, which declares, quanta sia misera e infelice la conditione di principi, da pochi e conosciuta, li quali alhora sono dalla falsa suspitione di tirannia liberati, quando spirano l’anima fuora. (few people know how wretched it is to be a prince; princes are freed from the false suspicion of tyranny when they breathe their last breath.)

This tag confusingly implies that—despite what the biography may tell us about Domitian’s reign—the emperor was not a tyrant after all.62 In point of fact, the positive views of Domitian were by and large produced during his reign (for example, by Statius), while it was after his death that harsh criticism emerged (as in Tacitus). The précis of his life below the portrait does not clarify matters: “Fu questo occultamente ucciso l’anno di vita sua .XXXV. e dil suo Imperio .XV.” (He was secretly killed in the thirty-fifth year of his life and the fifteenth year of his reign.) In brief, the chapter on Domitian offers an ambiguous narrative, a somewhat positive tag, and a portrait that does not offer any clues as to Domitian’s true nature.

Heroes with Damp Brains?

191

figur e 4.7. Domitian. Hubert Goltzius, Le vive imagini di tutti quasi gl’ imperatori (Antwerp: Gillis Coppens Van Diest, 1557). (Photo courtesy of the Newberry Library, Chicago. Call # Case fJ036.351.)

Despite Domitian’s damnatio memoriae and negative treatment by most historians, Goltzius’s combination of narrative, image, and tags does not create a coherent picture of the emperor. The blandly flattering portrait follows classical sources, so does not provide further physiognomic clues. A similar set of contradictions is apparent with the much-later emperor Zeno, whose biography opens (as in Huttich) with a condemnation of both his habits and face as being “disforme” (Ch. LXXXIX). Yet this initial condemnation is nowhere supported in the rest of the action-packed biography, or in the profile image of a helmeted soldier bearing a spear and shield (which bears no resemblance to the woodcuts in Huttich and Fulvio, and may be based on an actual

Print Monuments, Exposure, and Strategies of Concealment

192

coin). The elliptical tag likewise adds nothing to the condemnation: “a uno grande nodo aggiugnere si gli debbe un cuneo acuto” (for a large knot one must bring a sharp wedge). This motto may be an aphorism attributed to the philosopher Zeno of Elea (not Zeno the emperor), meaning perhaps that a difficult philosophical question (the knot) must be resolved (unraveled) by approaching the most complex part (with a sharp wedge to loosen it). Investigations into Zeno of Elea do not, however, offer confirmation or enlightenment; the likelihood of confusion between Zeno the emperor and Zeno the philosopher merely suggests the contingent nature of “history” produced for mass consumption in even the more respected portrait-books. The ambiguity in these chapters offers a more general indication about how portrait-books altered the way Europeans saw images of people: Since most biographies are a mix of positive and negative, it is almost impossible to understand the accompanying portraits as necessarily conveying information about character. This means that, as facial detail was reproduced for the first time on a massive scale and Europeans began to distinguish faces from each other (as Wilson has shown), the generally (if superficially) accepted notion that “inner” character is reflected in external physiognomy—on which the monumental pose depended—was seriously weakened, even as newly emerging racial discourses (enabled precisely by print images) invited classifications and discussions of non-European features.63 Goltzius’s Commodus is another emperor who suffered the damnatio and whose biography offers further clarity and insights. Defined by the attributes of cruelty, pride, and lust, this emperor apparently attempted to rape all the Vestal Virgins, as well as his own daughter (Ch. XIX). More shocking for a ruler, however, is his lack of statesmanship: Commodus abandoned the war with Germany just as the Romans were about to win, and he exiled his father’s allies so that they would not stand in the way of his libidine (lust). His response to failed assassination attempts was increased repression, with the result that he had all of Rome’s best senators killed. Most significantly, however, Commodus appears in the facing-page image as a kind of latter-day Hercules, with a lion-skin over his head in the place of a helmet, and a thoughtful, handsome profile (Fig. 4.8). The text subverts this picture,

Heroes with Damp Brains?

193

suggesting that it is a propagandistic effect of the mad delusion that Commodus played out on the stage of Rome: E in tanta demenza e insania divenne, che il nome paterno sprezando, e gittando via gl’ornamenti Imperiali, se medesimo Hercole Romano, figliuolo di Giove chiamando: Et ancor della pelle dil Leone vestendosi, la mazza similmente in mani portando, per Roma andava, con le bestie combattendo. Le sue statue a similitudine di Hercole dirizzare fece, con l’arco tirato in mano, dimostrando con il volto severo la sua fortezza. (And he became so demented and insane that, spurning his father’s name and discarding imperial pomp, he styled himself the Roman Hercules, son of Jupiter. Dressed in a lion skin and carrying a club, he went around Rome fighting with wild beasts. He had statues made in the likeness of Hercules, with his bow drawn and showing his strength with his stern face.)

Like Caligula, Commodus is concerned enough about his public image to mandate that his statues be made in a certain way. To the savvy reader, the heroic-looking image (Fig. 4.8) is merely part of Commodus’s own amoral subversion of the Hercules myth. The idea of Commodus as the anti-Hercules is further confirmed by the text’s assertion that he roamed the city clad only in his lion skin—which, we infer, may be fine for mythic heroes, but was unacceptable in the flesh: Nudo tutti li giuochi frequentava, ancora li Gimnasij, mescolandosi in ogni generatione d’huomini, e in ogni concertatione. La qual cosa non volontera sopportando li Romani, per questo fu da tutti giudicato nemico dell’humano genere. (He attended all the games naked, and also the gymnasiums, mixing with all kinds of men, and in every kind of gathering. The Roman people did not willingly put up with this, and so he was judged by everyone to be the enemy of humankind.)

While the text is not entirely clear as to whether it was the emperor’s nakedness or his indiscriminate mingling with all levels of society that made him so objectionable, his behavior earns him the title of “the

Print Monuments, Exposure, and Strategies of Concealment

194

figur e 4.8. Commodus. Hubert Goltzius, Le vive imagini di tutti quasi gl’ imperatori (Antwerp: Gillis Coppens Van Diest, 1557). (Photo courtesy of the Newberry Library, Chicago. Call # Case fJ036.351.)

enemy of humankind.” In this way, the text invites us to see the man in the image—which suggests Herculean heroism, via the lion-skin and the profile—as a false Hercules, an inhuman beast. Although the emperor takes on the mask of Hercules, his performance is unconvincing and doomed to remain a mere mask, a simulacrum that barely conceals the evil man beneath. The portrait-page also qualifies the Herculean image via the rather sinister motto at the top of the page, which reads, li negocii di uno sano huomo si possano a poco a poco finire, ma de uno che sia morto non mai.

Heroes with Damp Brains?

195

(the affairs of a healthy man can gradually be concluded, but never those of a dead man.)

The motto is applicable to both those healthy men that Commodus had killed, and to Commodus himself; this heading definitively warns the reader that there is more to the image than the apparently heroic profile.64 The synopsis of the emperor’s life, beneath the image, in fact contradicts the biography by indicating that Commodus was a suicide (the main text asserts that he was killed by his lover, Martia). Once again, the emperor’s own self-consciousness about his public image, and his early demise, is not clear from the accompanying portrait, but may be inferred from the text and tags that frame and qualify the coin image. Goltzius’s version of Caligula—who intentionally made a statue that was as indistinguishable as possible from himself, so that both man and simulacrum wore the same outfit and were addressed and worshipped in the same manner—suggests that there is a disturbing approximation between the real-life emperor and the representation of the emperor: Both man and statue are efforts of staging. This point is even clearer in the chapter on Commodus, which offers a handsome Herculean hero in the image, only to clarify in the text that this “heroic Hercules” was a self-reinvention that was unsuccessful except in propagandistic portraits. Although Commodus uses as stage the city of Rome, his performance remains an unconvincing spectacle, and the emperor a simulacrum of heroism. We know that Goltzius’s book was a runaway success: Sixteenthcentury readers would have been persuaded to spend money on the volume not only because of its size and beauty, but at least partly because of the author’s reputation for accuracy in copying ancient coins, often conflated with his fame for producing “true” portraits (however the reader construed this). Browsing through the book, thoughtful readers would note that emperors’ efforts at self-representation extended to their coin images, and so also to the “accurate” print portraits. It is here—in early portrait-books like this one—that the notion of identity as a willed self-representation becomes visible to a broad public. Goltzius’s representation of this willed self-representation needs its own

Print Monuments, Exposure, and Strategies of Concealment

196

set of modifiers so as not to be misunderstood: As with Caligula and Commodus, the portraits of Nero and Vitellius do not correlate with the monsters presented by the text except through the set of textual frames around the image. In the case of Domitian and Zeno, no clear sense of the emperors’ character emerges, in part because of competing agendas within and between text and image, but mostly because their accompanying mottoes do not—at least to a well-informed twenty-first-century audience—resolve the ambiguities presented elsewhere in these two chapters. The failure of the tags in these two cases (regardless of how comprehensible they might have been to the sixteenth-century elite) indicates just how dependent each chapter is on the textual motto that frames and contextualizes each image. In other words, as print portraits seemed more “real,” so too did they need more qualification. We are a long way indeed from the visually accessible and easily comprehensible exemplars imagined by Sallust, Guarino, and Pontano (and complicated by Ghirlandaio). Instead, the images are visual placeholders for a character constructed in the text; the tag confirms that we should not see Commodus’s portrait as a true likeness of a latter-day Hercules, but as a representation of a representation of a self-representation: The subject of the chapter emerges through a representational effort that depends on a set of frames. While Egginton has argued that the early modern emergence of subjectivity is related to new elements of mediation or “theatricality” in conventions of visual culture, the framing devices he discusses with relation to the stage are very evident in print volumes like Goltzius’s—as is the new possibility of seeing pictures with copies of the self.65 In this way, portrait-books point both to the separation of the image from its earlier status as participating in “reality,” and to the emergence of framing devices that insist on a “staging” of the subject. As a result, the kind of permanent singularity that Aretino had hoped for in printing his first volume of letters emerges as a mirage, and the failure of the monumental pose seems inevitable.

Heroes with Damp Brains?

197

Francesco Sansovino and the Contradictions of Physiognomy At around the time that Goltzius’s volume gained popularity across Europe, Sansovino published his study of the Orsini family (in 1565). The first Italian book to combine full-page portraits with facing-page biographies, it was only the second to focus exclusively on men from contemporary history. Sansovino’s volume is particularly significant for investigations of text-image relations in portrait-books, as Sansovino both wrote a treatise on physiognomic theory, and (unlike many other writers) consistently incorporated comments on physical features in the text of his portrait-book.66 Francesco Sansovino, son of the sculptor Jacopo (a friend of Aretino), was a prominent figure in the publishing world of Venice. Over the course of his varied career, Francesco Sansovino wrote, translated, or edited roughly eighty books, most of them historical.67 For long intervals he operated his own press in Venice, although he published the fourth book of his De gli huomini illustri della casa Orsina in 1565 with the Fratelli Stagnini, possibly for technical reasons. Commissioned by the Orsini family, the illustrated folio volume must have been costly both to publish and to buy—which would have added to the prestige of the author and his subjects. We know that his history of the Orsini—which was an anomaly for Sansovino, who rarely produced commissioned works—brought the author substantial benefits from Paolo Giordano Orsini, Duke of Bracciano.68 While precise information about the mechanics of the volume’s publication is very scarce, it seems clear that Sansovino both produced the text and oversaw all aspects of publication.69 The preface to Book 4 of the Huomini illustri explains why Sansovino has included portraits alongside the biographies of his illustrious Orsini men, invoking the tradition of memorializing heroes to inspire future deeds of greatness and establishing a link between a person’s physiognomy and his deeds. The preface then continues, Onde si come a chi studiosamente ricerca le Historie è necessaria la cognitione della Cosmografia, per rispetto de luoghi, dove avennero le cose scritte, cosi conferisce molto alla medesima Historia, lo haver

Print Monuments, Exposure, and Strategies of Concealment

198

sotto gli occhi le imagini di coloro de’ quali si leggono le pruove segnalate et illustri. (Huomini illustri 63r) (For this reason, just as whoever studiously researches history needs a knowledge of cosmography, for the places where recorded events occurred, in the same way it adds a great deal to that same history, to have before one’s eyes images of those whose noted and illustrious actions one reads about.)

The comparison between knowing “cosmography” in order to understand where historical events took place, and seeing the portraits of those who have performed memorable deeds, suggests that Sansovino expects his readers to consider the portrait-book as a kind of geography of human experience, in which the details of facial physiognomy are elements of a broader map of human history. This rhetoric reflects the classificatory impulse, more familiar to us from later “scientific” categorizations—as in the 1590s costume book by Cesare Vecellio, and Della Porta’s physiognomic theories (1586 and subsequent editions). Sansovino’s introduction, however, is followed by the caveat that beautiful faces can often hide “wicked and terrible thoughts.”70 Having warned of the potential for deception inherent in facial physiognomy, the author however again changes tack, demanding the reader’s discernment in understanding the faces he will see in this volume: Et trovando [il Lettore] le forze dell’animo nostro implicate insieme con la fattura del viso, in quella maniera che è congiunto insieme l’odorato, il gusto, et il colore con la fattura d’un frutto, fa le piu volte dal [sic] viso indubitato giudicio de cuori humani. (Huomini illustri 63r) (And [the reader] finds that the quality of our spirit joins in shaping the face—in the same way in which smell, taste, and color mix together in making a fruit—this most often renders the face the unquestioned index of human hearts.)

The contradictory admonitions here—in addition to the ambiguous phrasing in this quote—suggest both that one’s character shapes one’s face, and that the reader’s own character determines his perception of a face. If the face is how we most often evaluate character, but this

Heroes with Damp Brains?

199

evaluation depends on the viewer, then Sansovino is—however briefly and inadvertently—positing a notion of inner character that depends on external audience perception. Like Goltzius, Sansovino does not clearly distinguish between the volto (face) and the sembiante (image) of a man—so we infer that both are functions of representation: Ora in queste imagini di huomini cosi chiari, habbiamo da notare, che nella gente Orsina si vede grandezza et maestà nel sembiate [sic] et nel volto, perche essendo pieni di spirito et di vigor militare, con le fronti aperte, et con le bocche per la maggior parte assai grandi, significative di huomini di molta eloquenza et con aspetti veramente reali, possiamo chiaramente credere . . . che essi siano senza alcun dubbio discesi d’altissimo, et nobil sangue, se dalla faccia (che è vera dimostratrice de gli animi nostri) si dee far coniettura della grandezza de’ generosi, et alti pensieri. (Huomini illustri 63r; emphasis added) (Now in these images of such famous men, we must note that in the Orsina family one sees greatness and majesty in the semblance and in the face, because since they are full of spirit and military vigor, with an open brow, and for the most part with fairly large mouths—indicating men of great eloquence—and with a truly regal aspect; we can clearly believe . . . that they are without any doubt descended from the greatest noble blood, if from the face (which is the true revealer of our minds) one should make conjectures about the greatness of generous and noble thoughts.)

Clearly, this project is fraught with internal contradictions. On the one hand, the author has physiognomy correspond with moral temperament (and the deeds that result from it), even going so far as to say that audience perception of facial features is key in establishing character; on the other hand, he warns that faces are often misleading and, despite being the son of an accomplished artist, makes no distinction between a face and the image of a face. Sansovino’s earlier treatise, L’edificio del corpo humano (Venice, 1550), casts some light on the author’s notions of physiognomy, as it sets out a monumentalizing ideal of both the human body and the book that studies it. Justifying the title Edificio rather than Anatomia,

Print Monuments, Exposure, and Strategies of Concealment

200

the author’s proem compares the book’s focus on common topoi with the immediately visible façade of a building, which (like the human body) sometimes also allows one to see “some portion of the interior through the windows.”71 Both the body described by the book and the book itself are monumental structures with a decipherable façade. The author himself is an “Architetto” whose work will invite improvement, in the future, by a more expert architect (Edificio 4r)—so the treatise will be as important and long-lasting as the edifice it is imagined to be. The trope draws on both the tradition that casts literary works as permanent buildings, and the Vitruvian and Albertian assimilation of architecture to the body’s harmonic proportions—so here the body is a beautiful edifice rather than the more utilitarian Ciceronian or Vesalian fabbrica (structure, workshop).72 As in the introduction to the Orsini Historia, the body is important not for its functions but for its sembiante, how it appears to a spectator. The treatise as a whole draws on the scientific tradition of Aristotle, Pliny, Galen, and others (cited in Edificio 4v) to offer a few very precise, if traditional, correlations between physiognomy and moral character: A large head is praiseworthy; a small one suggests a cold and imperfect brain (5v); baldness results from too much sexual intercourse (6r); a narrow forehead is evidence that a man is by nature rustico (6v); a small chest shows him to be cowardly and small-minded (20v); and so on. In this light, a man’s body is an edifice whose façade is a product of and manifestation of his inner self—into which others can see through the eyes, “finestre del nostro corpo” (windows of our bodies; 7v). This theorization correlates with Aretino’s attempt to distance himself from the kinship and reciprocity obligations of received clothing (and received literary tropes), and posit instead an “undressed” and “true” Aretino, so that the man beneath the “clothes” becomes his own monument. Sansovino’s close correlation, in the treatise, of physiognomy with character, invites questions about the relation between his physiognomic theories and the biography-portrait pairings in the Huomini illustri. The Huomini illustri presents seventeen biographies of Orsini men from recent times (from the 1400s to Sansovino’s day), of which six lack an accompanying image. At least one biography—that of

Heroes with Damp Brains?

201

Paolo Orsini, “Marchese della Tripalda”—offers a fair correspondence between visual evidence and textual narrative.73 The marchese is “valoroso et chiaro huomo nella milizia” (a valorous and famous military man), and his actions are distinguished by “altezza d’acuto ingegno, con singular forza di corpo, et con maestria maravigliosa di guerra” (the greatness of a sharp mind, with remarkable bodily strength, and marvelous knowledge of warfare; 79r). This information seems to be borne out by the image of a man in an oval medallion, framed by elaborate monumentalizing decoration and shown in profile, with thick glossy hair, a robust-looking chest under heavy armor, and large eyes (Fig. 4.9). So far, so good. The image, however, also shows that the man has a disproportionately small head in relation to his torso, arm, and hands—recalling Sansovino’s own strictures on the size of the head: “Il picciolo et acuto dimostra la temperatura del cerebro manca e imperfetta” (a small and narrow head shows that the brain’s temperature is cool and imperfect; Edificio 5v)—and we recall that Sansovino, following his many ancient sources, associates cooler temperatures with women’s bodies. Thick hair also indicates a particularly humid brain, most common in females (Edificio 6r). If we accept that there may be a correlation between Sansovino’s physiognomic theories and the images in his portrait-book, then Paolo could be subject to imperfections of the brain, especially womanishness—so it is not too shocking to read that he was repeatedly duped by Cesare Borgia, let himself be corrupted by the gifts and promises of “that harsh tyrant,” became his “instrument” in Borgia’s attempt to wipe out the Orsini clan, and died at his hands (Huomini illustri 79r). Paolo’s refusal to listen to the warnings of his kinsmen about Cesare Borgia, and his failure to accept that “gli andamenti scelerati del Borgia tendevano alla rovina di tutti i Baroni Romani” (Borgia’s wicked machinations aimed to ruin all the Roman barons; Huomini illustri 79r), are not indicative of his supposedly sharp mind. The poetic gloss on the biography (attributed to Livio Coraldo da Lonigo) excuses this lapse by pointing out that “spesso avien che l’huom che ha cuor sublime / Non conosce in altrui l’empio veneno” (often it happens that a man with a sublime heart does not recognize wicked venom in others; Huomini illustri 80r). Ultimately, however,

Print Monuments, Exposure, and Strategies of Concealment

202

figur e 4.9. Francesco Sansovino, De gli huomini illustri della casa Orsina (Venice: Fratelli Stagnini, 1565), 78v. (Photo courtesy of the Newberry Library, Chicago. Call # Case fE7.O76.)

the biography, image, and verses together maintain an ambiguous tone that is encapsulated by the poem’s assertion that Paolo Orsini suffered for his sins—“Se però il creder troppo ha in se peccato” (if it is a sin to believe too much; Huomini illustri 80r). Indeed, the inclusion of lifelike details and contemporary politics, in narrative and visuals intended to glorify and “en-statue” a man, result in a moral uncertainty that undermines ideas of exemplarity. What is more, physiognomic discussion of characteristics shown in the portrait is moot if one considers that the unknown artist may simply have been working in the mannerist style of his time, most likely from portraits that were not of high quality in the first place—so the

Heroes with Damp Brains?

203

disproportionately small head in the portrait is easily explained.74 If this is the case, then Sansovino’s publication indicates the fundamental incompatibility of visual conventions with physiognomic formulae and written histories—even for a writer-publisher who also wrote a physiognomic treatise and participated in contemporary artistic debates, and even for interpreting print portraits that seem “lifelike.” The portrait-book, rather than reinforcing the idea of the monumental image that is at the heart of both exemplary theories and the portrait-book’s own enterprise, juxtaposes two incommensurate discourses (visual and verbal) to expose this idea as mere rhetoric. Even in portraits that lack obvious indicators of a mannerist style, and that seem to be very flattering, visual-verbal tensions still arise if we take into account Sansovino’s own treatise on physiognomy. The first biography, of Giovan Antonio Orsini, Prince of Taranto, begins, Era in questo principe, che dimostra ne gli occhi un certo che di nobile et di militare con questa chioma lunga et col berettone in capo alla Ducale, . . . uno spirito pien d’ambitione, et una voglia pur troppo ardente di signoreggiare. Conciosia che questo huomo . . . non poteva se non con altissimo et profondo pensiero aspirare a gran cose. (Huomini illustri 64r) (It was in this prince, who shows in his eyes a certain something of the nobleman and the soldier with this head of long hair, and the ducal hat on his head . . . , a spirit full of ambition, and too ardent a desire to rule. So this man . . . could only, with very great and profound thought, aspire to great things.)

Despite this promising start, the prince meets an ignominious end: He heads a terribil congiura (terrible plot) against the Aragonese kings of Naples but fails to overthrow the monarchy, and in the illness of old age he is aiutato a morire (helped to die) by his own household on behalf of the king of Naples, who then rides into Taranto and seizes his territories (Huomini illustri 64v). The portrait depicts a man of fairly “noble” aspect, according to Sansovino’s own principles: He has a large, square forehead, indicating that he is wise and prudent (Edificio 6v), which is confirmed by his biography (Huomini illustri 64r). The prince’s exercise of molto artificio di simulatione (great art in simulation; Huomini illustri

Print Monuments, Exposure, and Strategies of Concealment

204

64r) is, however, not indicated by the portrait: The man’s cheeks are not rounded, as Sansovino argues is typical of those who practice deception (Edificio 9r); instead, he has a strong square jaw. Overall, then, the biography and accompanying image offer the rather dispiriting message that noble character and lofty ambition offer no guarantees of power or stability. The failure to render visible (in the face) expertise in deception may suggest that deception can be interpreted as “noble” in some cases, but more probably indicates that for Sansovino, overseeing the production of the book, physiognomic discourse belonged in the text, and had little or nothing to do with the visual representation. That physiognomic and visual discourses were seen as entirely separate—even for Sansovino, and even in a book that explicitly brings the two discourses together—is clear from the many chapters in which narrative and image do not support each other. As an exemplar of both the show of nobility and of exemplarity itself, Napoleon Orsini (Huomini illustri 67v–68v) seems promising. He displays his wealth in the manner of a prince: “Nella pace vivendo esso con sommo splendore, . . . non cedeva punto alle grandezze et alle magnificenze de Principi segnalati de suoi tempi” (Living peacefully in the greatest splendor, he conceded nothing to the greatness and magnificence of the famous princes of his time; Huomini illustri 68r). A man of war, he belongs in the best tradition of exemplarity, as he reinvigorates ancient military virtue and trains others: “Era cagione che gli antichi precetti della militia, si rinovassero nell’occasione delle cose presenti” (He was the reason that ancient military precepts were renewed in current affairs; Huomini illustri 68r); the men he trained subsequently brought honor to Italy (Huomini illustri 68v). Yet the accompanying portrait (Fig. 4.10), while probably flattering, does not support the uniformly positive narrative of noble munificence and warlike virtue if we take into account Sansovino’s theories of physiognomy. The man in the image has a thick neck and bejowled face, calling to mind Sansovino’s own strictures on cheeks: “Le carnose dan segno di pigro le tonde d’ingannatore, et le larghe di vano” (fleshy cheeks are a sign of laziness, round cheeks indicate a deceiver, and broad cheeks a vain man; Edificio 9r). Despite the vague distinction between cheeks of different shapes, the author’s own physiognomic theories do not support the narrative here.

Heroes with Damp Brains?

205

The description of Nicola Orsini turns out to be a nondescription, as it describes features common to almost all of the portraits: “Con questo honorato volto et con la barba rasa et con lo habito armato mostrava il Conte di Pitigliano un vigilantissimo et veramente grave Capitano” (With this honored face and with his beard shaved off and in armor the Count of Pitigliano showed himself a most vigilant and truly serious captain; Huomini illustri 74r). Most of Sansovino’s images depict close-shaven men in military dress. The viewer can search for visible signs that the man’s face is honorato, but instead—even if we allow that the man’s expression is pensive rather than vacant—we see baldness, supposedly indicative of excessive indulgence in sexual activity. As we saw at the beginning of this chapter, if we apply Sansovino’s own physiognomic theories to his portrait-book, the image of Virginio Orsini (Fig. 4.1) suggests that the man is lazy (he has fleshy cheeks and a wide, flat forehead), oversexed (he is bald), and is somewhat cruel and rapacious (one eye and its eyelashes gaze sideways). If we also consider that he has a fleshy petto (a term often referring to most of the upper body, from the belly button to the base of the neck) then the man in the picture demonstrates “mancamento d’affetti et d’ogni destrezza” (an absence of emotion and of all aptitude; Edificio 20v).75 Even if we argue that Sansovino’s physiognomic theories—like those of his ancient models—offer rhetorical strategies for blame rather than a system for reading signs on bodies, the fact remains that the biography appears alongside a picture of an ugly man.76 Although the wandering eye and badly proportioned chest may be attributable to the artist’s limitations, it remains impossible to reconcile the “honorato aspetto di volto” (look of honor about the face) and “faccia venerabile” (venerable face) of the text with the image accompanying it. Indeed, the “venerable face” celebrated at the beginning of the biography meets a sticky end by the bottom of the page: Initially depicted as the passive victim of a cruel Fortune that involves the Orsini hero in political “maneggi noiosi” (unpleasant machinations), Virginio ultimately deserves to be poisoned at the hands of Pope Alexander VI, “perché schernendo il suo parentado, et la natione Italiana, haveva servito i Barbari a rovina delle sue cose medesime” (because scorning his kin and the Italian nation, he served the barbarians, to the ruin

Print Monuments, Exposure, and Strategies of Concealment

206

figur e 4.10. Francesco Sansovino, De gli huomini illustri della casa Orsina (Venice: Fratelli Stagnini, 1565), 67v. (Photo courtesy of the Newberry Library, Chicago. Call # Case fE7.O76.)

of his own affairs; Huomini illustri 70r). The internal contradictions here have still broader ramifications, as the dramatic deterioration of Virginio Orsini’s apparent virtue negates Sansovino’s own statement about the transmission and immutability of virtue, which appears in the dedication “A Signori Orsini,” at the beginning of the first book of the larger project, L’Historia di casa Orsina. Sansovino maintains that La virtù . . . sia sempre d’un tenor istesso, incorruttibile, et d’una medesima forza, et che trapassando di gente in gente per molta lunghezza di tempi si mantenga et conservi in uno stato medesimo. (n.p.)

Heroes with Damp Brains?

207

(Virtue . . . always has the same substance, is incorruptible, and has the same force; and that virtue, in passing from kindred to kindred over a long period of time maintains itself and remains in the same state.)

If virtue belongs to the kind of substitutional paradigm that allows for its integral transmission across the centuries and—as Sansovino asserts in his introduction—can be seen in a man’s face, then the biography-print combination dedicated to Virginio Orsini, with a visual clarity that was new and unusual in the mid-sixteenth century, highlights the inconsistencies that are a normal part of praise for patrons: It shows an ugly man whose “beauty” demonstrates his “immutable” virtue—which, however, disintegrates in moments of political crisis when it is most needed. Indeed, this text-image combination undermines both the idea of unassailable virtue (whether specific to individuals or inherited over generations) and the notion that such virtue is legible in facial features. The chapter thus also questions the viability of the monumental pose predicated on the idea of an outwardly immutable and visible virtue. The primacy of the separate conventions of artistic production and the rhetoric of praise—even for Sansovino, who brought the two discourses together in discussing contemporary men—is especially clear in the case of Camillo Orsino da Lamentana, whose is the only chapter in which text and image work together in a convincing fashion. Characterized by autorità, prudenza, and fede, Camillo demonstrates a mental acuity that is both accortissimo (very sharp) and vivacissimo (very energetic); he shows extraordinary prudence as he conflates religion and war by reducing “l’arte bellica all’ordinamento del culto divino, et la religione all’uso retto della guerra” (the art of warfare to the status of a sacred practice, and religion to the uses of war; Huomini illustri 61r–61v). Like Castiglione’s ideal courtier, Camillo also demonstrates continence, gentleness, and patience, as well as expertise in letters, “et d’altri nobili et gentili ornamenti, convenevoli ad huomo honorato” (and other noble and gentle ornaments, fitted to an honored man; Huomini illustri 61r–62r). According to Sansovino’s panegyric, Camillo halted the course of a war, prevented an invasion of Rome, stripped his

Print Monuments, Exposure, and Strategies of Concealment

208

corrupt kinsmen of honors and public office, was sought out for advice by both rulers and entire peoples, and even managed to stop the Italian peoples from turning to the iniquity of heresy (i.e., reformist ideas). In short, he personifies the very idea of exemplarity: “nell’imitar i passati, si fece essempio a coloro che verranno” (in imitating men from history, he made himself an example to those who will come; Huomini illustri 61v). This truly remarkable biography is, rather surprisingly, introduced by negative comments on the portrait (Fig. 4.11). The author draws attention to the man’s pallor, which is indistinguishable in the blackand-white engraving: Questo volto cosi asciutto, et di color macilente, dimostrativo di qualità di huomo nervoso, et per natura agile et forte, è il vero ritratto del Signor Camillo Orsino. (Huomini illustri 61r) (This face, which is so thin and of a gaunt pallor—signaling a man of great nerve, and by nature agile and strong—is the true portrait of my lord Camillo Orsino.)

Although the term macilento usually indicates thinness and physical weakness from illness or exhaustion, Sansovino here couples it with asciutto and redeems both adjectives by making them indicative of agility and strength, as well as of daring (nervoso). The educated viewer will also read these negative characteristics against the visual tropes of broad shoulders, large hands, aquiline features, high brow, wide mouth, and Neptune-like beard in the portrait. The text, then, apologizes for a potential problem (a small and thin old man) that a knowing viewer will easily redeem in the print, as the figure in fact bears a set of recognizably virtuous features. The slight contradiction here adds complexity and fortitude to the character, who emerges as a troubled soul who bears up well. In this unusual case of text complementing image, both the visual and textual discourses are fairly standard. The coincidental nature of visual-textual accord in the case of Camillo Orsini is more evident if we consider that Sansovino’s biographies generally include phrases such as “this is” or “this face,” even if there is no portrait, as in the imageless biography of Giulio Orsini,

Heroes with Damp Brains?

209

figur e 4.11. Francesco Sansovino, De gli huomini illustri di casa Orsina (Venice: Fratelli Stagnini, 1565), 60v. (Photo courtesy of the Newberry Library, Chicago. Call # Case fE7.O76.)

which begins “Questo è” and mentions Giulio’s physical beauty (Huomini illustri 73r). In these cases, the elaborate, monumentalizing empty frame indicates that the subject deserves a portrait, inviting an imagined projection of glory. In two biographies that are unusual for their uniformly positive tone, there is no reference to physical features: Gian Giordano Orsini (whose portrait does not appear) is praised in every way except for his physiognomy, which Sansovino does not mention (Huomini illustri 77r–78r). Likewise, the text praises the honorata virtù—bravery, loyalty, and brilliance in military strategy—of the portraitless Gian Corrado Orsini (72r), but fails to mention physical characteristics. There are no physical descriptions of two members of

Print Monuments, Exposure, and Strategies of Concealment

210

the Orsini family who participate in internecine violence—Napoleon, “Abate di Farfa” (87r–89r), and “Hieronimo” (90r)—who have empty frames instead of portraits, possibly because they appear near the end of the volume (at which point, we assume, production costs are rising and images are less important to catch the reader’s eye). Similarly, Paolo Orsini—a perfect candidate for physiognomic condemnation, considering that he “faceva mostra dell’animo suo incrudelito ne minor homicidi, per spaventar gli aversari” (made a show of his cruel mind through lesser murders, to frighten his adversaries)—is neither depicted nor described in physical terms at all, although his biography begins with “questo è” (this is).77 Rather than offering an unproblematic monument to the Orsini family (and to Sansovino as historian and poligrafo), the Huomini illustri in fact raises questions about history making. The volume substantially weakens the traditional correspondence between character and physiognomy, with at least five of the eleven portrait-narrative combinations presenting incongruencies, and the six that lack portraits posing questions as well. It seems clear that even though Sansovino was concerned enough about physiognomic theory to write a whole treatise on it, he did not apply this discourse with any consistency to the making of his first, signature portrait-book. Instead, textual and visual rhetoric follow independent paths, with the result that the first true Italian portrait-book shows both that these discourses are not really compatible, and that there are contradictions between the humanist urge for historical accuracy and the will to monumentalize—“sculpir le bellissime statue de vostri antecessori” (to sculpt beautiful statues of your predecessors), as Sansovino puts it.78 The interaction of these tensions, and in particular the substantial presence of empty frames, highlight that the history provided by a portrait-book is at least partly a mirror of the reader’s imagination (as we saw with Roville’s Melusina): Visual-verbal tensions demand interpretation, with the result that the subject is constituted through the reader-viewer’s understanding of sets of frames (both textual and pictorial), rather than via a single, coherent visual-textual portrait.

Heroes with Damp Brains?

211

Mimeticism vs. Exemplarity in Paolo Giovio The interaction between text and image likewise poses interpretative questions for the reader of Paolo Giovio’s Elogia virorum bellica virtute illustrium (1551 and 1575). Giovio is famous for having set up a museo of over four hundred portraits in his villa in Como, and perhaps more famous still for the two large illustrated volumes of Elogia that were based on the portraits and their appended descriptions on display in his collection.79 Since the vast scale of the Elogia posed major financial and technical challenges as portrait-books, the illustrated versions were published posthumously in 1575 and 1577 by Pietro Perna, a Lucchese based in Basel, who sent well-known artist Tobias Stimmer to Como to copy the remnants of Giovio’s already-dispersed portrait collection. During his lifetime, however, Giovio did manage to be the first to publish a portrait-book that abandoned the format of coin images: The Vitae duodecim Vicecomitum Mediolani principum (Paris: Robert Estienne, 1549) was commissioned by Charles, Duke of Orléans, who became interested in his Visconti ancestors when it seemed he might be awarded the duchy of Milan. This volume comprises twelve biographies with ten portraits of Visconti men, engraved by Geoffroy de Tory. Despite similarities in format between the Vitae Vicecomitum and the Elogia, the latter are far more extensive and more interesting to read since they include colorful descriptions of, and physiognomic commentaries on, history’s villains—signaling clearly the difference between a patron’s commission and an independent publishing enterprise.80 The Elogia followed the tendency of popular writing to make history a function of character (in the tradition of Suetonius and Plutarch) rather than vice versa.81 In fact, the illustrated Elogia take this tendency further than earlier works by Sansovino and Goltzius, since (as Sonia Maffei has argued) for Giovio, the image depicted character rather than a “true likeness.” Being Swiss, Stimmer had a different training from Italian and Franco-Italian artists: It seems that he read the biographies and descriptions, and so produced interpretative copies of actual portraits.82 In other words, just as Giovio’s text subordinates history to character, so too Stimmer’s images subordinate “true likeness” to

Print Monuments, Exposure, and Strategies of Concealment

212

textual biography. In this the Elogia differ from volumes by Goltzius or Sansovino, who despite asserting that they provide text and image in perfect accord, offer images drawn from a visual tradition that was separate from the text. The fact that the woodcuts in the Elogia are secondary to the text has prompted Eichel-Lojkine to assert that these portraits maintain a “plurisémantisme” that is faithful to the author’s comments on the physique of their characters.83 This kind of multivalency, while useful for creating a nuanced character, weakens the images’ potential as visual exemplars. Take, for example, Ghirlandaio’s illustrious men in the Sala de’ Gigli: Each was shown in a heroic pose, accompanied by a few attributes and a small titulus to guide the viewer.84 While Ghirlandaio’s figures are by no means simplistic, his men are immediately recognizable as heroic ancients, and it is up to the viewer to understand their visual significance. By contrast, even though many of Stimmer’s figures belong to an iconographic tradition and seem to reflect the ideal monumental pose, and even though Giovio’s concept of the portrait was informed by notions of both exemplarity and physiognomy, the images are at times only comprehensible by reading the text. One wonders what kind of “multivalency” is created by the image that accompanies the one woman’s biography in the entire Elogia—the life of Isabella d’Aragona, wife of Giangaleazzo Sforza of Milan (the duke who was dispossessed by his uncle Lodovico il Moro). The print alongside this biography is odd in that it is an image not of Isabella, but of her son Francesco. This is the only case in Giovio’s Elogia in which the portrait is explicitly not a likeness of the person described in the biography. The discrepancy is particularly strange as the text begins with a comment on Isabella’s physiognomy: “Hunc pallidi oris, et atrati cultus habitum ferebat Elisabella Aragonia Ioanne Galeacio Sforzia coniuge orbata” (Isabella of Aragon wore this pale face and these mourning garments after she was bereft of her husband Giangaleazzo Sforza; Elogia V, 271).85 Considering that Giovio’s museo held a significant number of portraits of women, it is already odd that the Elogia include only one woman. We know that Giovio owned an image of Isabella with her son, which was itself a copy of another portrait, so it seems reasonable to suppose that there existed a fairly clear iconography of Isabella herself

Heroes with Damp Brains?

213

when Stimmer was making the engravings in the late 1500s.86 Giovio’s text refers to this painting, as he notes, “Francescus filius qui in eadem tabula cum matre pictus conspicitur” (the son Francesco can be seen in this picture, depicted with his mother). Yet the image for Isabella’s biography only shows half the picture—her son. This is particularly strange considering that the publisher was so concerned with honoring the original project that he commissioned expensive woodcuts of Giovio’s own collection, and that some consumers had so much respect for Giovio’s wishes that the author-portrait of one copy was hand-colored, as Giovio had originally envisioned.87 The image of Isabella’s son, rather than offering a physiognomy complementary to the biography, instead promotes confusion. We are so far from the visually readable exemplars imagined by Pontano (see Chapter 1) that the image almost negates its accompanying text, implying that this chapter is not about Isabella at all. The printed portrait does, however, perform a negation of Isabella that is to some extent borne out by the text. The biography initially promises to be uniformly positive: “Haec enim una inter viros celebres ideo sedem meretur, quod contra sexus imbecillitatem asperis in rebus virilem animum praeferens” (For this one woman deserves a throne among famous men because contrary to the feebleness of her sex, in harsh circumstances she showed the spirit of a man; Elogia V, 271). Yet the overall narrative is ambiguous, making Isabella the root cause of France’s invasion of Italy in 1494, which led to the wars that devastated the Italian peninsula for fifty years and ended with domination by Spain: “arsurae bello Italiae primas faces intulerit” (she brought in the first flames of war that would set Italy ablaze; Elogia V, 271)—an event more often attributed to Lodovico il Moro, who asked the French to support his usurped hold on Milan.88 In the central portion of the biography, Isabella is a weeping bystander who sustains tragic losses to her male kin, including the premature demise of her husband, and multiple deaths resulting in the extinction of the Aragonese line. The final blow in this tale of woe is the death of Isabella’s son, Francesco, in exile; there follows a brief positive interlude including the marriage of her daughter, but this moment of happiness is cut short as Isabella dies of dropsy. Although we are told that she bore her illness with the

Print Monuments, Exposure, and Strategies of Concealment

214

dignity of a devout Christian woman, the narrative ends as ambiguously as it began, by suggesting that later in life she had adulterous relations with Prospero Colonna: Caeterum in hac eximiae virtutis foemina improbae plebis rumor, non mediocriter pudoris decus perstrinxit, ob id gravior quòd quum florente aetate impenetrabilem pudicitiam praetulisset, in ipso demum aetatis flexu Prosperum Columnam sibi cultum et officium assidué tribuentem, saepeque procacem ad urbaniores iocos admitteret. (Elogia V, 273) (But in this woman of utmost virtue the rumor of the unruly mob wounded in no small way the honor of her modesty. And this was all the more serious because while in her adolescent years she had displayed impenetrable chastity, in her middle years she consorted with Prospero Colonna, a man who displayed refinement and assiduous attention to duty and was often excessive in the more urbane pleasures.)

While this passage initially seems to disregard as gossip any aspersions on Isabella’s chastity, it then insinuates that Isabella was in fact too permissive, prompting the reader to imagine all sorts of nefarious behavior. The biography ends here, with a decidedly equivocal representation of Isabella. The effect achieved contrasts with that of Roville’s Melusina, who is characterized as a wife and good mother, and whose obvious monstrousness is explained as a product of the popular imagination and normalized by the visual proximity of her semimonstrous offspring. Indeed, Melusina seems a paragon of feminine virtue in comparison with Giovio’s Isabella, whose image is effaced by that of her male offspring, and whose true character is left open to the reader’s imagination. By inviting the reader to imagine the worst, and by removing all physiognomic evidence, this “celebration” of Isabella demonstrates the lesson of Melusina—a lesson also seen in Goltzius—that identity is constituted through public perception. The case of Isabella’s nonportrait remains odd in the context of Giovio’s claim to fame as an historian—a claim borne out by his care to mention the provenance of many of the “true likenesses” in his museo.

Heroes with Damp Brains?

215

According to the Elogia, a number of the images in Giovio’s gallery were gifts—a detail that would add to the author’s prestige as a collector of portraits. The text tells us that the image of Narses (which does not appear in the 1575 edition) was a gift from a trio of writers (Elogia I, 20), and says that Alfonsina de’ Medici gave the author a bronze engraving of Charlemagne (Elogia I, 24).89 In some cases, the author links authenticity with the stability of an image so as to underline its accuracy: Giovio emphasizes both the eternal stability of the statues raised in Hannibal’s honor, and the close resemblance of the painted portrait to an extant marble head (Elogia I, 10–11). In the case of Federico Barbararossa, Giovio tells us, he has seen three different images of the man, all very like each other, “quoque oris et barbae” (with the same face and beard; Elogia I, 34). Although Giovio admits that faces can change over time, and that some portraits are more accurate and authentic than others (as in Elogia II, 122; II, 91), the underlying assumption is that it is possible to reconstruct an accurate portrait of an individual using a number of sources. The idea of facial stability and “authenticity” poses a problem, however, in the biography of Ezzelino.90 A thirteenth-century tyrant whose cruelty was legend, Ezzelino does not appear to advantage in Giovio’s text: Acctiolinus Patavinorum Tyrannus, portentum humani generis, hac obducta feralique fronte, hoc atroci pallore, hisque vipereis oculis, suam indomitae naturae torvitatem spirans, in Praetorio Patavij pictus spectatur: unde nobis exempli tabula haec in Museaum relata est. (Elogia I, 41) (Ezzelino, the tyrant of Padua—a monster of the human race—is seen depicted in the Palazzo Pretorio in Padua, with this frowning forehead, this horrifying pallor, the ferocity of his indomitable nature breathing from these viper-like eyes. From this image I had the copy made that is in our Museum.)

Giovio emphasizes his subject’s pallor, which the readers cannot see. In contrast with Sansovino’s interpretation of pallor as a sign of intelligence and daring, Ezzelino’s pallor is atrox (horrifying)—a reading furthered by the rhetoric describing the eyes as viper-like. In this case,

Print Monuments, Exposure, and Strategies of Concealment

216

figur e 4.12. Ezzelino. Paolo Giovio, Elogia virorum bellica virtute illustrium (Basel: Pietro Perna, 1575), Book I, p. 41. (Photo courtesy of the Newberry Library, Chicago. Call # Vault Wing fZP538.P2 copy 2.)

Stimmer’s woodcut seems (as Maffei suggests) to follow the text, giving a compelling depiction of a bad man (Fig. 4.12): Shown in three-quarter view and full armor (without his helmet), Ezzelino has a thick beard, large nose, balding forehead, furrowed brow, narrowed eyes, and no visible neck. The shoulder-pieces of his armor rise almost to the level of his ears, further shortening his neck and emphasizing that he is a

Heroes with Damp Brains?

217

military man. If that were not menacing enough, he holds up a deadly looking battle-axe and on his chest there is the blazon of a large imperial eagle, signifying his Ghibelline allegiances. What is most interesting about the chapter, however, is that, despite the text’s insistence on Ezzelino’s traditional wickedness, the parts of the biography that describe the man himself (rather than his historical deeds) in fact recall much of Pontano’s advice to his prince: Fuit Actiolinus ingenio peracuto, constanti, versutoque apprime validus, corpori autem quanquam mediocri, singulisque membris habilis inerat vigor, adeo firma explicataque nervorum compage, ut eques pariter et pedes armorum exercitatione, cunctos aequales anteiret, nec unquam inedia, vigilijs, algore, aut aestu frangeretur. (Elogia I, 42) (Ezzelino had a very sharp mind, which was tenacious and adaptable. Although he was not physically robust, the individual parts of his body were vigorous, and his mental constitution was so strong and firm that, in military exercises, he beat all his contemporaries both on horseback and on foot. And he never gave way to hunger, lack of sleep, cold, or heat.)

While scholars often relate Ezzelino’s supposed physical endurance to his traditionally animalesque nature, this passage in fact reads like a summary of the kind of exemplary physique and mental force that princes (including Pontano’s pupil) were exhorted to develop.91 The passage continues, however, with a more ambiguous tone: Id verò in eo homine peculiare maximeq´ue mirum fuit, momento temporis diversos commutati animi habitus quum usus posceret, gestu, voce, oculis ementiri, alieni porrò animi latebras sagacissime perscrutari, incredibiliq´ue simulationis artificio, vel penitissimos astutorum hominum sensus explorare. Vir enim suspiciosus, vafer, invidus, saevus et semper ad imperium anhelans, modo hanc, modo illam personam induere histrionum more didicerat. (Elogia I, 42) (What was most extraordinary and astonishing in this man was that in an instant, if circumstances required it, he could feign different states of mind through the attitude of his body, his voice, and his eyes. What is more, he could—with great accuracy—examine the

Print Monuments, Exposure, and Strategies of Concealment

218

hidden thoughts of others; and with an extraordinary ability for simulation, he managed to explore the most inward thoughts of sly men. For a suspicious, crafty, envious, savage man like him, always gasping for power, had learned to put on now this mask, now that one, just like an actor.)

If we disregard the accumulation of negative adjectives, this outline of Ezzelino’s political acumen reads almost like the account of a very successful pupil of Pontano—a student prince who has taken to their logical conclusion Pontano’s teachings on bodily control, including the idea of “dressing” in one or other mask according to circumstances. While Pontano’s theories are predicated on his pupil’s potential for goodness, the kind of advice given in his text is, ironically, borne out in Giovio’s account of a man who managed (albeit briefly) to accumulate great power. The idea that Ezzelino was able to don a series of masks, like an actor, again problematizes the question of physiognomy. According to Giovio, Ezzelino was able to dominate his body to the extent that his appearance fooled his audience. Yet in the print alongside this biography, the man’s body offers an obvious outward display of his inward wickedness. The portrait bears little facial resemblance to Corona’s 1511 depiction of Ezzelino in Padua’s Scuola del Santo, although the two figures share the same three-quarter pose and high-shouldered armor, and both meet the spectator’s gaze. Corona’s Ezzelino wears a hat and has long hair that is fairly thick and straight; his beard and mustache are minimal compared with those in Stimmer’s depiction, and his face is more oval and less fleshy. Stimmer was evidently not using as template the Padua Ezzelino mentioned in the text. In fact, Stimmer’s portrait resembles less the Padua Ezzelino than it does another figure whose physiognomy typically confounds his audience: Socrates. Famously compared with a Silenus for his ugliness, the classic description of Socrates was that “he had a thick neck, was bearded, balding, and had bulging eyes, a wide nose, open nostrils, a large mouth, and thick lips”; he was “stocky, broad-shouldered, and pot-bellied.”92 With the exception of the nose (sometimes referred to as “pug”), these details correspond to a surprising degree with what we

Heroes with Damp Brains?

219

see in Stimmer’s Ezzelino. While earlier Renaissance images of Socrates typically showed a lean, intellectual figure (as in Perugino’s Palazzo dei Priori of 1498–1500, and Pinturicchio’s 1504 design for Siena’s Duomo floor), Raphael’s School of Athens had famously reintroduced the iconography of the Silenic Socrates early in the sixteenth century (c.1510–12). Fulvio Orsini’s 1570 “portrait-book” of ancient stone busts reproduced four Socrates images of this kind, citing the ancient philosopher’s resemblance to a Silenus; and Zsámbocky’s Icones veterum aliquot (Antwerp, 1574) likewise showed a balding man with a bushy beard.93 It is reasonable to assume that Stimmer was familiar with the new visual paradigm for Socrates (although as Giovio’s Elogia do not include Socrates, we do not know what kind of image Stimmer might have produced). I am not suggesting that Stimmer intentionally used the emerging Silenic Socrates iconography as a model, or that Stimmer’s Ezzelino appears any more “good” for his resemblance to Socrates. It is, however, clear that even in the case of an arch villain like Ezzelino, tensions occur both within the narrative and between the narrative and the image, and that these tensions are heightened by the visual resemblance to Socrates—another figure who was famously able to manage without physical comforts, could perceive the thoughts of others, and had a major role in sixteenth-century literature via the Socratic mask so often donned in dialogues. Even in a portrait-book that scholars agree subordinates image to text, contradictions arise between textual biography and visual portrait, so that Isabella’s story is negated by the accompanying image, and Ezzelino’s biography and image simultaneously highlight his legendary viciousness and suggest strength of character. Far from being visually accessible exemplary signs, these prints need textual qualification in order to be understood.

Coda: Taking Physiognomy to Logical Conclusions in Giambattista della Porta and Aliprando Caprioli Both Ezzelino and Socrates feature prominently in Giambattista della Porta’s De humana physiognomonia Libri IIII (Naples, 1586): As Francis Haskell and Sonia Maffei have shown, Della Porta adapted Stimmer’s

Print Monuments, Exposure, and Strategies of Concealment

220

woodcuts from the Elogia and reused them to demonstrate that human facial characteristics correspond with character types general to all animals.94 As Maffei points out, this transformation is enabled by both Stimmer’s interpretation of Giovio’s text, and Giovio’s extensive use of Pliny’s Natural History as a rhetorical source for describing men in animal terms. Yet it is also true that Della Porta used the same images multiple times to demonstrate different aspects of facial physiognomy and character—indicating that each face offers numerous signals to mean a number of different things. Wilson rightly interprets this examination of specific facial characteristics in their constitutive parts as the forerunner of a new meaning of the term “identity,” closely associated with the face of a specific individual.95 Della Porta provides an overview of human types, which suggests that the images he used as the basis for his anatomy of the human figure—Stimmer’s woodcuts for Giovio’s Elogia—were themeselves a series of types.96 His project did not, however, immediately bear fruit. It would only be later, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, that “ethnographic” or “racial” typologies would become a more common subject for illustrated books.97 Paradoxically, Porta’s 1610 expanded Italian translation, Della fisonomia dell’ huomo, makes obvious the lack of correspondence between character and face, which we have seen emerging in the earlier portrait-books. This disjunction goes some way to showing how facial features, newly identifiable and reproducible thanks to print, became associated with specific individuals—but did not emerge as clear indices of that individual’s moral character, in spite of projects like Porta’s. In a chapter that was new in Porta’s 1610 edition, Valeria Messalina and Faustina are introduced not as wives of emperors who (regardless of their reputations) at least bore children, but as negative exemplars of lasciviousness. The chapter’s images simultaneously demonstrate the argument that character is visible in physiognomy and belie this notion (Fig. 4.13). The first plate, on the left, shows profile portraits of Messalina and Faustina in the very classical style: In line with his portrait-book antecedents, Porta asserts that these are “il ritratto . . . vero, cavati dalle medaglie di bronzo, argento, e statue loro” (the true portrait . . . , taken from the bronze and silver medals, and from their statues) in his own brother’s personal collection.98 By citing multiple

Heroes with Damp Brains?

221

sources for the two profiles, the caption suggests that the likenesses, far from being true, are the work of interpretative amalgamation. The image on the opposite page is of a naked satyr-like man, covered in hair from the waist down, with a hooked nose and chin pointing upward. In direct contradiction with the profile portraits, the textual description of the women evokes the physiognomically deviant satyrman: Messalina’s whole body was very hairy; she had “l’occhio grasso, e lascivo, e cavo, la barba quasi rivolta al naso” (large, lascivious, deepset eyes, and her beard turned up toward her nose [bearded up to the nose]; 308). The portrait, however, shows none of these signs of satyrlike monstrosity—not even the familiar monstrous trait of the nose meeting the chin. Messalina, we are told, gave out magistracies on the basis of sexual prowess and stamina proven in contests, and so through her vice wielded real political power. Porta’s Faustina is also “piena di capelli, magra, e simile di fattezze, e di costumi che veniva ancora à giacersi con i gladiatori, et altre persone basse” (full of hair, thin, and with similar features and habits; she would even lie with gladiators and other lowly people; 308). The bizarre physical features that Porta attributes to Messalina and Faustina are thus marked for the reader as signs of unbridled lust. Emphasizing the text-image contradiction still further is the next picture in the series: a traditional priapic satyr fondling a classical statue—who is animated by her reluctance to be the object of the satyr’s sexual aggression (Fig. 4.14). Although the Messalina and Faustina portraits epitomize classicizing beauty, and the other two images of lechery are hairy satyr-like males, the text associates lechery with women and animals. Visually, we move from the classically beautiful busts of Messalina and Faustina, to the sexually aggressive satyrman whom these women supposedly resemble, to an inversion of the text’s imagined relationship of statue-like beauties to sexual aggression. Porta’s textual gendering of lechery as feminine is unconvincing precisely because the visual trope of sexual violence—as inherited from the classical past—is explicitly masculine, as the final image clarifies. While the text describes sexually aggressive and physiognomically deviant women, the pictures show that Porta’s classicizing artistic models could not easily be molded into this kind of textual reinterpretation.

Print Monuments, Exposure, and Strategies of Concealment

222

figure 4.13. Giambattista della Porta, Della fisonomia dell’ huomo (Naples: G. G. Carlino e C. Vitale, 1610), Book V, pp. 306–7. (Photo courtesy of the Newberry Library, Chicago. Call # Wing fZP635.C2.)

One of the key problems we have repeatedly seen with physiognomic theory is that although authors reference it as fundamental for their portrait-books, there are always cases in which face indicates the opposite of character. In analyzing such inconsistencies, Juliana Schiesari argues that Porta fails to offer a convincing system of categorization, and instead works in the classical tradition of physiognomic discourse as denigration of “others,” to reinforce preexisting prejudices.99 In the case of Porta’s lascivious women, the text-image clash shows the extent to which the printed juxtaposition of visual and textual discourses in portrait-books exposes the contradictions that underpin the monumental (visual or textual) exemplar. These contradictions demand the viewer’s understanding that the image of a person does not necessarily convey reliable information about that person’s character,

Heroes with Damp Brains?

223

figur e 4.14. Giambattista della Porta, Della fisonomia dell’ huomo (Naples: G. G. Carlino e C. Vitale, 1610), Book V, p. 309. (Photo courtesy of the Newberry Library, Chicago. Call # Wing fZP635.C2.)

biography, or internal state. Indeed, printed portrait-books invite a more nuanced appreciation of the “interior” persona beneath the physical appearance—which itself becomes accepted more as representation. The contradictions in Porta go some way to explaining why the portrait-book’s complicated negotiation among physiognomic theories, visual mimeticism, and historical accuracy tended more toward the resolution proposed in Aliprando Caprioli’s Ritratti di cento capitani illustri (Rome, 1596). The number of re-editions (1600, 1635, 1647)

Print Monuments, Exposure, and Strategies of Concealment

224

indicates that the volume was popular; Casini cites it as evidence of a continued interest in physiognomy on the part of portrait-book writers (Ritratti 148). Yet in almost every case, Caprioli appended the physical description as a separate piece of information after the end of the biographical narrative (in a manner reminiscent of classical obituaries)—a far cry from Giovio’s opening a biography with “this pale face” or Sansovino’s starting with “this man.” For example, Caprioli’s chapter on John Hawkwood begins with his portrait, continues with just over a page of biography, and—following the mention of the equestrian statue erected after his death—there is a separate, one-sentence paragraph: “Era l’Acuto più che di mediocre statura, et di forti membri: il volto havea rubicondo: gli occhi, et capelli castagnicci” (Hawkwood was of above average height, and had strong limbs; his face was ruddy, and his hair and eyes brownish; Ritratti 34v). Likewise, the physical characteristics of Charles I of Naples are compressed into one line at the bottom of his one-page biography, and follow the description of his funeral: “Haveva Carlo statura grande: volto rubicondo: occhi, et cappelli neri” (Charles was of large stature, he had a ruddy face, and black hair and eyes; Ritratti 10r). A description of King Robert of Naples appears, unusually, in the middle of the page dedicated to his biography—but here too, the single sentence has no connection with the surrounding narrative: “Il volto hebbe bianco: gli occhi castagnicci: et i capelli neri. Fù Roberto giudicato non solo di valore, ma di qualunque sorte di virtù gli altri Rè di que’ tempi lasciarsi adietro” (He had a white face, brownish eyes, and black hair. Robert was considered not only a valorous man, but characterized by the kind of virtue the other kings of that time had abandoned; Ritratti 11r). In fact, the “white face” and “brownish eyes,” usually asides following the end of a biography, appear so frequently and are so unrelated to the narrative that these characteristics seem irrelevant to the point of being as interchangeable between historical figures as were Foresti’s woodcut “portraits” in 1497. Even Ezzelino, whose image is adapted from Stimmer’s Elogia woodcut (and so, in the wake of Della Porta’s publication, invites physiognomic commentary) follows the same format: A single-page biography culminates with his death, which is followed by a one-sentence paragraph condemning his actions. Only after this does there appear another

Heroes with Damp Brains?

225

single-sentence paragraph describing (but not commenting) on his appearance: “Era grande, et gagliardo: di volto livido, et smorto: d’occhi neri, et così di barba, et capelli” (He was tall and bold, of livid pallor, and sallow; his eyes were black, as were his beard and hair; Ritratti 4r). Although this description is partly in accord with what the biography tells us about Ezzelino’s character, in comparison with Giovio’s beginning his narrative with “viper-like” eyes and Della Porta’s use of Ezzelino’s face to typify a number of negative characteristics, this is a very weak physiognomic commentary. Caprioli’s systematic separation of physical description from biography constitutes a tacit acknowledgment that physiognomic theory and biographical narrative are discourses best kept separate. What is more, with increasingly “life-like” portraits like those in Caprioli’s volume, physiognomic commentary is unnecessary as the image itself is specific enough to serve as a mnemonic link to the biography.100 It is not surprising then, that thirty years later, Tomasini’s Illustrium virorum elogia (1630) include for each entry a somewhat idealizing but apparently lifelike image, a biography, and the personal emblem of each illustrious man—without any physiognomic commentary. The personal emblem or impresa seemed to redeem the failure of printed facial features (even with physiognomic commentary) to provide a portrait of character. Print portraits (as we have seen) were copied and adapted regardless of their visual accuracy, which undermined the authenticity of the image and put in doubt its original substitutional power and “presence”—a problem that was exacerbated by the need to frame seemingly lifelike propagandistic images with nuancing interpretive discourses, thereby highlighting the notion that the prints were just pictures. Visual-verbal tensions drew attention to the incongruencies among exemplary rhetoric, imitation theories, and physiognomic theories, problematizing identity as representation for a vast audience. By contrast, the personal emblem—explicitly designed not to include details of the human face—seemed to promise both an externalized “essence of virtue” and a substantial level of control by its originator, while eliminating references to physical features—references that, although they may have been formulaic, easily muddied the image of a “great man.” Indeed, a number of seventeenth-century “portrait-books”

Print Monuments, Exposure, and Strategies of Concealment

226

left out images entirely and concentrated instead on including more biographies: Karel van Mander’s Schilder-Boeck (1604) omits images, as does Giambattista Marino’s Ritratti in his 1619 Galeria. In spite of its title, the 1645 Pinacotheca imaginum of Gian Vittorio Rossi (also known as Giano Nicio Eritreo) did not include any portraits, although it did reincorporate women—a move that invites further research into the role of the visual in the exclusion of women from portrait-books during the second half of the sixteenth century. While the portrait-book thus developed into the text-only biographical encyclopedia, the emblem book seemed to offer a set of solutions to preserve the monumental pose.

chapter five

Silenus Strategies: The Failure of Personal Emblems

The “hollow men” of the title of this book, who weaken the supposed

solid monumentality of Pontano’s prince and Castiglione’s courtier, are finally validated by the Academy of the Occulti’s adoption of the Silenus device about thirty years after Aretino associated his literary identity with this figure (Fig. 5.1). The Occulti (whose name means “hidden”) formed as an academy in Brescia in the early 1560s, and for about twenty years promoted intellectual activity ranging from poetry to mathematical debates.1 Unlike Aretino, who worked to create a persona with nothing to hide from the reading public and repeatedly talked about removing all masks and showing himself naked to the world, the Occulti preface their Rime degli Academici Occulti (Brescia: V. Di Sabbio, 1568) with an emphasis on the enclosing of secrets within a Silenus, and the hiding of something beautiful and true beneath an ugly, rustic exterior—which goes some way toward explaining the academy’s name. The device on the title page shows a Silenus whose body clearly has doors that can be opened, accompanied by the motto intus non extra (within, not without): It is intelligible to the Latinreading elite through the mutual illustration of picture and motto. The Occulti’s anthology, which presents the device of each academician, a biographical narrative explaining the image, and a series of poems, belongs to the broad category of impresa literature. Imprese (sometimes called “devices”) had come into vogue in the late fifteenth century. In the mid- to late sixteenth century they achieved an extraordinary popularity among the literati, who generated a large number of literary dialogues

Print Monuments, Exposure, and Strategies of Concealment

228

figur e 5.1. Rime de gli Academici Occulti: con le loro imprese et discorsi (Brescia: V. di Sabbio, 1568). Title page. (University of Washington Libraries, Special Collections, 704.946 R463.)

that sought to define, enumerate, catalogue, and design devices.2 A significant motor of this literary genre—as we can intuit from the Silenus impresa’s insistence on protecting secrets—was the anxiety of the elite (particularly acute following the Italian wars and the confirmation of Spanish domination in 1559) for recognizable class distinctions and signs of status. Yet just as courtesy literature, while often produced with the aim of exalting the elite and excluding all others, was usually consumed by those “others” as aspirational how-to material, so too impresa literature

Silenus Strategies

229

both promised to reinforce elite status and had the effect of making that status available to a wider audience. The plethora of impresa dialogues foregrounds the displacement of heraldry from the family to the individual, reflecting the move away from a feudal system of chivalric identities to a court society. Heraldic emblems had a monumental and exhortatory function, since they traditionally memorialized a warrior’s heroic deeds: A knight’s past actions became synonymous with his present identity through an external sign on his armor. By the sixteenth century, however, emblems were generic rather than personal, and were used by entire families rather than individuals. In contrast with the emblem, the impresa recaptured to some extent the origins of heraldic tradition by depicting a personal intention or sentiment. Imprese, however, were removed from all links to the battlefield: Personal signs became a fashionable ornament, produced by scholars and courtiers, not earned by knights, and the invention of imprese (for example, by Castiglione’s courtiers) developed into a pastime supplementing other forms of self-fashioning at court.3 Rather than tied to a past heraldic identity, the impresa was specific to the present and could represent a group, as with the Academy of the Occulti. While individual academies used imprese in different ways (from the Occulti’s emphasis on secrecy to the Partenia’s later focus on Jesuit orthodoxy), they all projected an idealizing vision of the whole group in the academy’s chosen device.4 Armando Maggi distinguishes emblems from imprese as two different conceptions of representing public identity: Che cos’è l’impresa se non il tentativo di ordinare, regolare l’immagine che l’Altro potrebbe avere di noi? . . . Se l’emblema esprime soltanto concetti ideali ed universali, quali il coraggio o l’amore di patria, l’impresa è il nostro ideale essere, il nostro universale mostrarci.5 (What is the impresa if not the attempt to govern, to regulate, the image that the other could have of us? . . . If the emblem merely expresses ideal and universal concepts, such as courage or love of one’s country, the impresa is our ideal being, our universal showing of ourselves.)

Print Monuments, Exposure, and Strategies of Concealment

230

In short, the impresa was the perfect pose: It encapsulated, externalized, and appropriated to a specific person or group those heroic virtues that Tacitus had considered obscured by physical likenesses.6 While Tacitus had argued that contemplation and emulation of virtues—not faces—made heroes survive eternally, the impresa responded simultaneously to the desire to “live on” via a visually accessible image of virtue, and to the need for an enigmatic public persona. It is easy to see why the impresa achieved such popularity: It seemed to offer an ideal response to the competing demands of monumentality, as its enigmatic nature lent it a certain flexibility, but by virtue of being an image, the impresa was also fairly permanent; its motto (and, indeed, its existence) signified erudition and elite status; and it both concealed and revealed information, as required by the monumental pose traced throughout this book. It is therefore intriguing that, as a literary visual-textual genre, impresistica was short-lived. Having begun with Paolo Giovio’s Dialogo dell’ imprese militari e amorose in 1551, Italian device literature was, by the late 1590s, already turning into something resembling its Northern European counterpart: the anthology of didactic emblems with explanatory verse. At the same time, a competing strain of impresa literature diverged from emblem books as it retained the notion of concealment but increasingly insisted on the verbal and metaphorical character of what became, by the time of Tesauro’s Cannocchiale aristotelico (1654), a verbal conceit.7 Stephen Greenblatt famously argued for an early modern subject that was fashioned (broadly speaking) by social and political pressures from the outside in; Timothy Reiss has likewise cautioned against imposing contemporary notions of selfhood onto pre-Enlightenment writers and thinkers.8 At first glance, the impresa seems partly to contest these views as it explicitly externalizes a hidden, interior “self”: Maggi has shown that authors used imprese to project an idealized image of themselves and to be viewed by others. Maggi’s analysis is especially true in relation to the impresa book, in which each device is depicted, framed, and packaged for the viewer. The framed device, and the device as frame, shed light on the interior-exterior problem and on the contribution of impresa books to a newly emergent modern subjectivity. If, as Daniel Russell and Karen Pinkus have argued,

Silenus Strategies

231

emblematic discourse broadly defined operated as a frame—participating in, but not central to, the object framed (in the case of the impresa, the subject depicted)—then the definition of framing and the question of how to self-frame were crucial for the Italian intellectual elite of the later sixteenth century, only to become progressively less important by the turn of the seventeenth century.9 The notion of framing subtends Egginton’s argument that the modern subject emerged in part through the Renaissance concept of space as empty (in contrast with the medieval understanding of space as full and displaced by movement), and the consequent new possibilities of framing versions of the self, promoted by theater. The framing of selves in print was much more pervasive than the new forms of theater: Just as the kinds of framing promoted by portrait-books allowed readers to see that images of individuals were explicitly staged and could even be interchangeable (with text and frames modifying the “character” projected by the portrait), so too the self-framing inherent in the impresa genre allowed the elite to offer staged projections of themselves. While the portrait-book assigned an identity to the people it described, each impresa was originally given meaning by its maker, who created it to externalize his “inner self” (in theory; in reality, intellectuals frequently invented devices for their patrons). The impresa appeared fixed but was somewhat multivalent; in case of changing circumstances, it could be substituted by another impresa—a different, externalized inner self. In other words, the impresa offered not so much a hidden, interior “self,” but rather— under pressure of external forces—it gave a self-consciously theatrical display of a “self” that was always necessarily externalized. As a genre, much device literature offered series of imprese or descriptions of imprese attributed not to the author but to others: In addition to visualizing the author’s identity, impresa writing demonstrated the author’s encyclopedic erudition, his knowledge of other people’s imprese, and his ability to invent imprese to express new ideas. With the proliferation in print of symbols designed to convey an elite identity, newer and more complex imprese were needed to convey the same kind of elite identity. In other words, the packaging of the impresa as part of a series within a book generated the need for more imprese, so the genre became self-perpetuating. This auto-proliferation, on top

Print Monuments, Exposure, and Strategies of Concealment

232

of the encyclopedic nature of the genre, diluted the elite significance of the impresa.10 In fact, by the 1590s, the definition of “insignia” became increasingly problematic, with some authors aiming for a narrower and more elite classification, and others accepting that everyone wears insignia in the form of clothing. The major shift in impresa writing across the later sixteenth century is the disappearance of the impresa into metaphor.11 We shall see how this change arises from the impresa’s failure to meet the demands of the monumental pose. Although usefully adaptable, the impresa was both too open-ended (allowing a variety of contrasting interpretations) and too stable (so that an individual needed a new impresa for each new set of circumstances) to offer the kind of ideally fixed-but-adaptable outward identity that writers had been seeking since the mid-fifteenth century. While elite individuals continued to use imprese well into the 1600s, writers clearly experienced fatigue in discussing, delimiting, and theorizing the vast amounts of visual material that were used and reused to make a “unique” public identity, and so the genre became increasingly focused either on pedagogy (as in the emblem tradition) or on the verbal conceit. Although the impresa promised to be like a Silenus, containing things of great value, it emerged in the literature as akin to Erasmus’s inside-out Silenus, concealing wickedness beneath a lovely exterior (rather than hiding virtue beneath an ugly surface)—or worse, as a set of interchangeable masks.

Revealing vs. Concealing: Imprese and the Rhetoric of Secrecy The Silenus device of the Academy of the Occulti can be read as the impresa par excellence because it represents the academy’s intention both to study the “interna forma et non nell’esterna forma” (the internal and not the external form) and to “occultare cose remote dal cieco et storto giudicio delle turbe” (hide things far from the blind and twisted judgment of the masses).12 Broadly speaking, the impresa proposes the symbolic opposite of the physiognomic paradox revealed in Giambattista della Porta’s images of lustful women—in which the classically beautiful “true likenesses” of Messalina and Faustina contrast with the engraving of a hairy male satyr whom (according to the text)

Silenus Strategies

233

the women supposedly resemble physically.13 While Porta’s Messalina and Faustina are externally beautiful but satyr-like in character, the Socratic Silenus is always depicted as externally satyr-like, but with a hollow interior concealing great treasures. The emphasis on concealment in impresa volumes positions them also at the opposite pole of the public-image spectrum from portrait-books, although both derive from early sixteenth-century numismatic volumes, and both offer a series of publicly conceived outward identities, drawing from the idea of the visually accessible exemplar. The increasingly lifelike images of portrait-books highlighted discrepancies between physiognomic and exemplary theories: Porta’s work, at the end of the century, attempted to systematize a correspondence of body with soul that was already in question. Yet Porta’s rhetoric of body and soul, and the disjunctions between physiognomy and character that emerge in portrait-books, find an echo and a solution in the exploding genre of impresa books in the late sixteenth century. The constitutive parts of the impresa were dubbed the “body” (the image, which usually represented an object or a situation; never a person) and the “soul” (the motto, usually in Latin, sometimes in Greek or the vernacular). Device literature in some ways acted like a portrait-book for the initiated: It exalted the identity of individuals but bypassed the issues posed by print portraits since device literature (unlike portrait-books) did not have to justify images of the “ugly but good” or of those who, like Messalina and Faustina, were beautiful but wicked. Furthermore, in impresa books, uncontrolled distribution was less of a problem than with portrait-books. Poor quality prints reflected on the artist or publisher, and did not impinge directly on the dignity of the depicted subject because he was never represented physically. In contrast, poorly executed prints in portrait-books could make individuals seem cross-eyed or even deformed. For impresa writers, a successful combination of text and image depended on the balance between concealing and revealing: Paolo Giovio’s mouthpiece in the founding dialogue of the genre insists that a device should be “non . . . oscura di sorte ch’abbia mestiero della sibilla per interprete a volerla intendere, né tanto chiara ch’ogni plebeo l’intenda” (not so obscure that one needs a sibyl as interpreter, nor so

Print Monuments, Exposure, and Strategies of Concealment

234

obvious that every plebeian can understand it).14 This injunction, as is the case with most impresa literature, echoes or even overstates advice from comportment manuals: The courtier on display in society was expected to exhibit a measure of proportion similar to that applied to the impresa. Like a device, the courtier must employ decorum in combining carefully chosen words with visual beauty, neither giving away too much information nor appearing, at first glance, to conceal anything. This careful balance between revealing and concealing recalls that required of Pontano’s prince, and contrasts with Aretino’s chosen symbol of the priapic phallus that, alongside his rough style, epitomized unmediated virile genius—although even Aretino eventually nuanced his self-representation via a progressive alignment with the more multivalent, enigmatic, and Christ-like figure of Silenus. The impresa in some ways emblematizes concealment. The Academy of the Occulti, in the prefatory chapter of the Rime de gli Accademici Occulti emphasizes the enclosing of secrets within the Silenus figure, the concealment of something beautiful and good beneath a rough and ugly exterior.15 Immediately following the device on the title page is the explanatory “Discorso intorno al Sileno Impresa de gli Accademici Occulti”: Sotto’l velo del corpo di questo Sileno arteficiale ascondiamo l’anima dell’Impresa, ch’è l’intento primo di mantener la parte nostra migliore nella sua nativa forma et purissima luce. però v’aggiungiamo, qual sia il fine nostro sotto’l letteral vestimento del Motto, intus non extra. cioè, come per entro al Sileno, et non per di fuori miravano gli antichi; cosi noi nell’interna et non nell’esterna forma curiamo di porre ogni studio. (n.p.) (Beneath the veil of the body of this artificial Silenus we hide the soul of the Device, which is the primary intention to keep the best part of ourselves in its native form and purest light. We therefore add to the device our aim, in the literary clothing of the Motto, within, not without. That is, just as the ancients gazed into the Silenus, and not at it, so too we will seek to put all our study into the internal and not the external form.)16

The new emphasis on seeking out the internal truth—besides showing a strong Ficinian Neoplatonic influence—indicates a shift in the

Silenus Strategies

235

rhetoric of exemplarity and the idea of self-representation, now both associated with veiling. In the same way that Silenus statues protected images of the ancient gods from detrimental exposure to the elements, the Silenus device represents at once the hiding of the immortal soul in a mortal body, the hiding of the soul of the device in the body of the Silenus, the concealing of the identity of the Accademici Occulti in a device, and finally, the concealing and protecting of “le pretiosissime gemme della philosophia” (the most precious gems of philosophy) from the plebeian masses whose intelligence is primarily sensory.17 The Silenus device seems to take Castiglione’s sprezzatura several steps further. The courtly ideal of sprezzatura has traditionally been considered a kind of nonchalance masking the effort of performing perfectly, although Berger identifies sprezzatura as the nonchalance that aims to showcase how naturally one masks the effort of performing perfectly.18 Castiglione’s text subtly emphasizes the act of artful masking. The Silenus impresa, however, is unambiguously about the act of masking itself through a sign that connotes hidden wisdom and concealment. Indeed, the academy deploys a rhetoric of exemplary secretiveness, which Armando Maggi has called “un dire contro il dire” (speech that works against speaking).19 Instead of exemplarity being a series of gesta to be seen, understood, and reiterated, the exemplary pose is now explicitly a pose of hiding and concealing. While the function of the impresa itself—to conceal and reveal, provoking interest in the partially concealed subject—is analogous to the behavior of Castiglione’s ideal courtier, the Occulti’s discussion of their Silenus impresa suggests that the literary genre of impresistica, with its emphasis on concealment and codification of the impresa, offers a closer parallel with a new social model, the secretary. Beginning with Francesco Sansovino’s Del secretario (1564), the various treatises codifying the secretary’s job emphasize the etymological link between secretario and secrecy: Sansovino in particular stresses the secretary’s “fido silentio” (faithful silence).20 Giulio Cesare Capaccio recalled the rhetoric of the Occulti’s Silenus device in suggesting that the secretary is entrusted with royal concetti (idea or conceit, emblematic conceit); and as Lodovico Zuccolo was to put it decades later, “i prencipi amano più i Sileni degli Apolli” (princes love Silenuses more than Apollos).21

Print Monuments, Exposure, and Strategies of Concealment

236

Castiglione’s visually pleasing entertainer, who balanced display and concealment, has been supplanted by a figure whose external ugliness explicitly conceals treasures. Douglas Biow points out that “his silence, which makes the secretary seem a cipher, actually functions to suggest a secret interior existing within him and thus ironically confers on him an identity, a private self, he would otherwise seem to lack.”22 It is precisely this private, hidden inwardness inherent in a secretary and in an impresa that renders both difficult to read, and therefore also difficult to control. In the case of the impresa, the result is that the device is first overwhelmingly defined and redefined by increasingly pedantic rules (thus the astonishing number of dialogues and treatises about imprese in the late sixteenth century), and then gradually abandoned either in favor of more generic emblems, or in favor of embedded conceits.

Writing as Image Against the new valorization of hollowness and concealment in the Silenic secretary, Torquato Tasso set out to promote writing itself as monumental, and to validate imprese as solid monuments: His dialogue Il Cataneo overo de le conclusioni amorose (written around 1591) redefines writing as image. According to the dominant Western tradition since Plato’s Phaedrus, ontological truth could not be entrusted to writing: Oral transmission guaranteed a greater adherence to the naked essence of thought. Mario Andrea Rigoni notes that in the Cataneo, this view is proposed by the speaker Paolo, who relates writing to images:23 Per autorità di Socrate medesimo le lettere sono simili a la pittura, le quali, essendo addomandate, nulla rispondono, . . . e non distinguono i tempi, i luoghi e le persone, ma sempre dicono a tutti le medesime cose, là dove il parlare s’accomoda a l’occasioni e a gli uomini co’ quali si ragiona. (Dialoghi 2:864)24 (On the authority of Socrates himself, letters are like pictures, which on being addressed do not respond, . . . and they do not distinguish time, place, and persons, but always say the same thing to everyone, whereas speech adapts to the occasion and the men with whom one speaks).

Silenus Strategies

237

The passage raises the problem of adaptability to circumstance, which troubled the idea of the visual exemplar. As we have seen, it was difficult to convey an exemplary image of a person that could respond to the demands of all possible circumstances—so painters like Ghirlandaio aimed at conveying a potentially multivalent exemplarity while later portrait-books left out portraits altogether. In contrast with his interlocutor, the speaker “Torquato Tasso” in the Cataneo argues that unchanging images are a good thing. He points out that without writing the great knowledge of Socrates would have been lost, and expands on the permanence of writing and its superiority to speech: La voce ha sempre bisogno de la scrittura; ma la scrittura basta a se medesima senza la voce: la voce è mobile imagine del concetto, le lettere sono quasi statue e simolacri saldissimi. Laonde io assomigliarei la voce ad un vento che non lassi alcun vestigio, o ad una nuvola che, portata da’ venti, tosto sparisca, o pure ad una velocissima nave in alto mare; ma le lettere sono a guisa d’ancora che possa fermarla: e chi edifica con le parole senza lettere, fa un edificio ruinoso ne l’arena; ma sovra le lettere s’edifica quasi in saldissima pietra. . . . le lettere sono quasi eterne e possono far eterna la memoria de’ mortali: nondimeno ne le sacre lettere il figliuolo d’Iddio è chiamato non solo Verbo ma imagine e carattere del padre. (Dialoghi 2:865–66, emphasis added) (Speech always needs writing, but writing is self-sufficient without speech: speech is a fleeting image of an idea, letters are like statues and extremely solid simulacra. For this reason I would compare speech with a wind that leaves no trace, or with a cloud that, carried by the winds, soon vanishes, or with a fleeting ship on a high sea; but letters are like an anchor that can hold it, and whoever builds with words and no letters creates a building that will collapse, on sand; but on letters one builds as though on the most solid stone. . . . Letters are almost eternal and can make eternal the memory of mortals: in the holy scriptures the son of God is called not only the Word but the image and figuration of his father.)

Both interlocutors in the dialogue (Paolo and Torquato) liken writing to images: The sacred ontological truth of God’s Word depends on its visual configuration, its imagine e carattere.25 The repeated insistence

Print Monuments, Exposure, and Strategies of Concealment

238

on the concrete solidity of writing recalls the rhetoric of monumentality typically associated with exemplary theory, and clearly argues for writing itself as offering an ideal monument to the author. Tasso’s theory of the written word and his rhetoric concerning language in the Cataneo resonate strongly with the frame of his impresa dialogue, Il Conte overo de l’imprese (written between 1588 and 1594), which was one of the last major literary discussions of devices.26 The Conte begins as the “Forestiero Napolitano” (identified with the author in the dedication) asks the anonymous Conte about the obelisk in front of San Giovanni in Laterano. The obelisk is essentially a primordial, concrete impresa, a monumental union of writing and image, which leaves the Forestiero Napolitano “sospeso fra’l piacere de la vista e la cupidità del sapere” (suspended between pleasure in seeing it and eagerness to know more; Conte, 83–84)—precisely the desired effect of a sixteenth-century device, and almost exactly replicating the effect of Castiglione’s courtier on his audience. The obelisk is a “very solid stone” carved with letters, which renders eternal the memory of various historical personages: It demonstrates the theory expounded by “Torquato Tasso” in the Cataneo. The idea that writing both is permanent and confers permanence is carried even further in the Conte, which (like many other late sixteenth-century impresa dialogues) does not include a single image. The Forestiero Napolitano simultaneously stresses the importance of the verbal component of an impresa over the picture, and claims that the motto is itself like an inspirited image: Sí come al corpo nostro, già vivo e animato, soppragiunge di fuori la mente immortale a guisa di peregrino, cosí a l’impresa, già viva per artificio del pittore, è dato dal poeta, quasi da celeste iddio, nuovo intelletto con le parole, che fa immortale la vita de la pittura, . . . questi nomi di segno e d’imagine possono attribuirsi non solo a la forma de l’impresa materiale, ma al motto, ch’è quasi divino intelletto; e Aristotele . . . chiamò le parole note di quelle cose che abbiamo ne l’animo, che tanto rivela quanto s’egli l’avesse chiamati segni e imagini de’ nostri concetti. (122–23) (In the same way that the immortal soul comes like a wanderer to our bodies, which are already alive and animated, so too the impresa, already alive through the work of the painter, is given

Silenus Strategies

239

by the poet—as by a heavenly god—a new intellect with words, which makes the image’s life immortal; . . . these names of sign and image can be attributed not only to the material form of the device, but also to the motto, which is like a divine intellect; and Aristotle . . . called words the notes of those things that we have in our mind, which is as revealing as if he had called them the signs and images of our ideas.)

Although image and motto were traditionally considered corpo and anima, together taking on an aura through the poet’s inspiration, Tasso takes to extremes this standard distinction, insisting on the evanescent nature of an image without a motto.27 The godlike poet confers immortality on the emblematic device through the written motto, which is simultaneously a “soul” and (with the help of Aristotle) an “image.”

Monuments or Masks? Tasso’s dialogue, constructed around the “very solid stone” of the obelisk, and insisting on writing as a permanent visual monument, reflects an anxiety about solidity and permanence that we see in numerous emblematists of the later sixteenth century. In volumes that include images, this concern is also visible in the prints. For example, the visual architecture of Lodovico Dolce’s publication of Pittoni’s engraved imprese (originally published in 1562) is extremely monumentalizing: It is striking how little space the actual impresa occupies on the printed page (Figs. 5.3 and 5.4).28 The area around the device comprises architectural structures that constitute an edifice upon which the impresa is depicted. These structures are in turn decorated with a lavish selection of the usual accoutrements of a beautifully engraved frame—including satyrs, phallic fruit, grotesque faces, egg-and-dart detailing, and architectural flourishes. While this kind of frame is quite common for highend engravings, in the context of impresa discourse the print constructs a double layer of meaning: On the generically classicizing edifice of the person’s public identity (given by the frame), there is a window into the inner meaning (given by the impresa), itself hidden within a metaphorical combination of word and image.29

Print Monuments, Exposure, and Strategies of Concealment

240

The monumentalizing framing details in Pittoni’s engravings, however, contrast with the insubstantial masks on his title page. Here, the title appears as inscription in the center of the page, surrounded by a very elaborate architectural frame (Fig. 5.2). Since this is a volume exalting self-representation in imprese, it is not surprising to find the bust of a feminine figure in profile on either side of the architectural structure, and the head of a man at the top of the ornate pediment that surmounts the architectural border. Beneath the central surround there is a smaller “pedestal” frame, bearing a plaque inscribed with the printer’s name and details of publication. This is surmounted by a small device (also in a sculptural frame). Aside from the monumentalizing architecture, the prevalent motif here is not the impresa, but the mask: There are two resting within the end scrolls of the upper pediment, one on the outer edge of each base of the women’s busts, one on each outer edge of the frame of the “base,” and finally one in the center at the bottom of the page. These are entirely normal decoration for a title page—including the grotesque mask at the foot of the page, which seems oddly inhabited with its staring eyes and grimace. Yet if one accepts that despite its glare, this face is merely a mask, the corresponding face at the top of the frame—which at first glance seems to be the head of a portrait-bust—is also very masklike: The only thing separating it from being a mask is its staring eyes and the apparent realism of the facial features depicted. At this point, the difference between “face” and “mask” blurs. Why did Pittoni—an accomplished artist with a vast repertoire of decorative motifs at his disposal—choose to emphasize faces and masks on the title page of a volume exalting the impresa, which as a representational sign forecloses the possibility of depicting the human face? In the logic of the impresa, the external masklike layers are peeled away so that the reader will see the “inside,” the character or internal desires, of each individual depicted. Yet in Pittoni’s plates, the central portion of each page—the device supposedly representing the inner truth of the image—is so elaborately framed as to seem more like a carefully staged representation, a carved or painted tableau, than a window onto any kind of truth (Figs. 5.3, 5.4). The title page, with its blurring of mask into face and vice versa, suggests that imprese are nothing more than a series of

figure 5.2. Title page of Porro’s re-edition of Battista Pittoni’s engravings, in Lodovico Dolce, Imprese nobili et ingeniose di diversi prencipi (Venice: Girolamo Porro, 1578). (University of Washington Libraries, Special Collections, 704.946 P687i 1578)

Print Monuments, Exposure, and Strategies of Concealment

242

figur e 5.3. “Ut ipse finiam”: engraving by Pittoni in Lodovico Dolce, Imprese nobili et ingeniose di diversi prencipi (Venice: Girolamo Porro, 1578). (University of Washington Libraries, Special Collections, 704.946 P687i 1578.)

masks. The emphasis of impresa writers on monumentality and solidity does more to confirm this suspicion than to allay it. A number of the devices in the Pittoni volume in fact depict monumentality as either something to be achieved, or something threatened. For example, the image of an unfinished pyramid and the motto ut ipse finiam (that i may finish it myself) show Count Fabio di’ Pepoli’s celebration of his own will to be monumentalized (Fig. 5.3). The accompanying poem plays on the double meaning of

Silenus Strategies

243

figur e 5.4. “Immobil son di vera fede scoglio”: engraving by Pittoni in Lodovico Dolce, Imprese nobili et ingeniose di diversi prencipi (Venice: Girolamo Porro, 1578). (University of Washington Libraries, Special Collections, 704.946 P687i 1578.)

the word impresa and also on the notion of completing a monument to oneself: È difficil le belle et alte imprese Incominciar: cosí il condurle al fine Apportar suol assai maggior fatica. (9–11) (It is difficult to undertake great and beautiful devices/enterprises [imprese]: completing them usually takes even more effort.)

Print Monuments, Exposure, and Strategies of Concealment

244

The idea of the impresa as an undertaking is frequently spelled out by theorists: Tesauro’s Idea delle perfette imprese (1622–29) defines the device as a word-image combination that signifies “alcuna privata deliberazione o nobile impresa da farsi o vero anche fatta, accennandola però come fosse ancora da farsi” (some private decision or noble enterprise to be undertaken, or in fact even finished, mentioned—however—as though it were still to be done).30 An impresa by definition implies a task that is incomplete, even if this is in fact a misrepresentation. In this sense, Tesauro’s impresa appears to be the direct descendant of the exemplary image that inspires the viewer to complete heroic deeds. Just as the impresa (theoretically) spurs its owner to complete a task, the exemplary image exhorts the viewer to imitate good deeds: Both are intended to promote action, and both should elicit admiration and emulation by others. The device of the incomplete pyramid—the eternally unfinished monument—raises the problem of whether or not an individual’s device should change over time, which was also a thorny question for portraitists depicting aging patrons. Giovanni Ferro asserted in 1623 that the impresa must remain the same for its outward audience, even as its meaning altered for its inventor. Ferro, however, admits that there is a potentially infinite number of devices: quante operationi io imprenderò, altretante potrò io Imprese formare mutandole secondo l’incominciamento d’altre opere.31 (I can create as many imprese as tasks I undertake, changing my device with the beginning of each new enterprise.)

In other words, if the impresa really does depict an intention rather than a completed task—if it does have an exemplary heroic function— it should change as soon as each task is completed, and so the number of possible devices for each individual represented is potentially infinite. At this point, the impresa seems less efficient than even the printed portrait, which—although it might not accurately represent a face that was changing with age, and although it was easily pirated or falsely labeled as the wrong person—at least was not expected to alter with each completed action, and might thus stand as somewhat monumental and eternal. What is more, the potentially infinite number of

Silenus Strategies

245

imprese does indeed reduce them to the level of masks: They no longer represent an individual’s ideal self-representation, but one of any number of self-representations. If devices are intrinsically self-multiplying, with each device spurring the author to the completion of a specific task and so to a new intention and device, then the question of elite self-representation—the kind of memorable representation that is the goal of exemplary pedagogy best achieved by a statue or monument—is moot. Felice Milensio complains in 1595 that the problem with emblems in general is their lack of exclusivity: Since the time of Federico Barbarossa, coats of arms have become so common that “gli hortolani portano le lor Insegne nelle Zucche” (farmers wear their insignia on pumpkins).32 Despite this kind of protest, device literature exploded as a printed genre. The competing agendas inherent in the printing of device literature become clear when one considers Porro’s introduction to his re-edition of Pittoni’s devices: Porro first compares the experience of reading the book with seeing a large group of knights at a tournament, and then argues that it is in fact better to read his book than to see a tournament, as imprese require time and space and a certain amount of acumen to be understood (n.p.). Indeed, by seeing these devices, even readers “di mediocre giudicio” (of limited ability) will learn to make perfect imprese for themselves and others: In the hands of publishers, the project of elite self-representation becomes available to a wider audience. Consoling the readers for their exclusion from the practices of nobility at which imprese were most commonly evident, Porro invites them to participate in the noble fad of inventing devices, as imitators of and interlocutors with the counts and dukes represented on the pages of his book. In reaction to this kind of accessibility, Stefano Guazzo’s dialogue (printed in 1586) explicitly proposes the use of two images in a device so as to complicate its meaning—“per non lasciarle in facultà della vil plebe” (so as not to leave [devices] available to the common herd).33 The speaker explains that even rough peasants, knowing something about dogs, could use the single image of a dog to show the idea of fidelity, thereby degrading the impresa to the level of the facile (Guazzo 55v). Giulio Cesare Capaccio’s solution to the problem of exclusivity and monumentality in the early 1590s is a return to the impresa

Print Monuments, Exposure, and Strategies of Concealment

246

understood in more traditional terms as a permanent representation of manly greatness. His impresa treatise distinguishes devices that represent a fleeting intention—“di queste far se ne ponno per quanti pensieri all’humana mente occorrono” (one can make as many of these as there are thoughts occurring to the human mind)—from those representing heroism: “Ma quelle ch’eterne rimangono da qualche gloriosa attione appartenente a fatti d’Arme, sono propriamente dette heroiche” (But those that remain from some glorious military action are correctly called “heroic”).34 This distinction in fact returns us to the medieval origins of the emblem as a sign referencing an heroic deed, worn on the body (and eventually adopted as family insignia). Emblem writing seems to be coming full circle at this point, with a move away from the “fleeting” impresa and back to the family emblem (signifying ancient nobility), which Pietro Grizi in 1587 likewise considers vastly superior, à differenza de’ caduchi, ò individui, che vengono ogni di da ogni cavalliere composti per entrare in qualche mostra ò Torneo: che durano solamente quel giorno dell’attione: et che in ogni attione mutare si sogliono.35 (unlike the ephemeral or individual emblems that are composed every day by every nobleman to enter some parade or tournament: These last only the day of the action, and are usually changed for each different action.)

Even more tellingly, Grizi describes Proteus—god of changing forms— as an ancient Egyptian king who defied custom to wear a wide variety of insignia: Et Proteo antichissimo Rè pur d’Egitto donde venne in favola di cangiarsi in cotante forme? Non da altro se non dalla varietà dell’Insegne, et de’ Cimieri, che frequentissimamente cangiava. (Grizi 23) (And Proteus, most ancient king of Egypt, from where does the tale derive that he changed himself into so many forms? From nothing other than the variety of his Insignia, and the Crests on his helmet, which he changed very frequently.)

Silenus Strategies

247

This is a fascinating reversal of the typical derivation of insignia from clothing: Here, global outer appearance is derived from worn insignia, rather than the opposite. According to Grizi, the metonymy of insignia (which represent an attribute of the wearer) has been misinterpreted as synecdoche (for the whole man). In a similar turnaround, Grizi’s Hercules had the lion as his personal insignia, so writers pretended that he wore lion’s skin. The author again accuses historians of willfully misreading metonymy as simple synecdoche: In an elite reappropriation of insignia, only Grizi has the ability to distinguish these related figures of speech and so correctly interpret visual signs. The mask, in other words (recalling Plato’s discussion of the simulacrum), is too easily mistaken for the man—a claim that problematizes the impresa’s aim to represent the “inner truth.” What is more, the rationalizing of Proteus as a king who wore multiple insignia suggests the dangers of the potentially unlimited number of personal imprese: An outward sign should represent something substantive and permanent about the wearer, or he risks being taken for a Protean shape-shifter. Capaccio ultimately identifies imprese as paradoxically requiring novelty to represent permanence: l’Impresa è tanto antica, quanto è la creatione dell’huomo, col quale nascente, l’intelletto fecondo fù produttor de’ capricci suoi. Ma che andò mutando le bizzarrie, come mutar suole ogni giorno le varie Imprese ne gli ornamenti del corpo. . . . [A]ll’Impresa accade il contrario che all’Epitafio accader suole, . . . e se di questo diciamo che all’hor è vago, quando hà dell’antico; di quella, che all’hora è bella quand’è moderna, sogliono dire. (Delle imprese i, 20v) (The Impresa is as ancient as the creation of mankind, who from birth had a fecund mind, the creator of his conceits. But this mind went on to change its bizarre novelties, just as it typically changes each day the various devices in the ornamentation of the body. . . . What happens to the Impresa is the opposite of what usually happens to the Epitaph, . . . and while we say that the latter is the more charming the more ancient it is, of the former (the impresa), they usually say that it is beautiful if it is modern.)

Print Monuments, Exposure, and Strategies of Concealment

248

Despite the fact that imprese are as old as creation itself, they—unlike epitaphs or monuments, which are valued for their age—are appreciated for their novelty; they are fleeting signs of the caprices of the human mind. This statement undercuts Capaccio’s earlier statement that “truly heroic” devices are long lasting, like monuments (or indeed epitaphs), although the insistence on antiquity returns us to the same concern for monumentality and permanence that we saw in Grizi. In both authors, this anxiety reflects a longing for reliable class distinctions based on signs of heroic chivalric action. Given the sociopolitical situation in late sixteenth-century Italy, such rhetoric is really wishful thinking—leaving us instead with infinite signs of fleeting thoughts, or a set of interchangeable masks, as the only option.

Altering and Erasing Imprese in Torquato Tasso’s Epic Poems: Why? Considering that a range of authors shared anxieties and doubts about the efficacy of the impresa, it is noteworthy that in his epic poems, Torquato Tasso—one of the last major authors of the impresa literary genre—ignored his own precepts about imprese. We shall see that successive revisions to Tasso’s poems, when read alongside his impresa dialogue, reveal the profound limitations of this form of self-representation and question the usefulness of personal insignia, highlighting the impossibility of constructing an adaptable yet fixed outward persona through objects. Tasso’s contribution to literary and emblematic culture responds to Ariosto’s Orlando furioso, which in the early sixteenth century satirized the hollowness of a culture that advocated the matching of art and nature. Ariosto showed that it was impossible to be like an impresa (adaptable to one’s audience) and also deserve to wear one in the medieval chivalric sense (as a sign of heroism): Requirements of decorum had been imported into both social life and emblem theory, undermining the medieval concept of fidelity to oneself, and thus also rendering later emphasis on secretarial fidelity suspect.36 Decades later, Torquato Tasso set out to reinscribe Ariosto’s endlessly diversifying chivalric epic in a Christianizing, Counter-Reformation context. The best-known version

Silenus Strategies

249

of Tasso’s epic poem, the Gerusalemme liberata, was first published in 1581 and dominated literary circles for at least half a century. Far from happy with the Liberata, however, the author continued to revise it according to artistic criteria influenced by the Counter-Reformation. The revised (unpopular) poem was eventually published under the title Gerusalemme conquistata, in 1593. The very next year, Tasso published his dialogue about devices, Il Conte overo de l’ imprese. Like the Conquistata, the Conte was dedicated to Cinzio Passeri, nephew of Pope Clement VIII. Printed in 1594 or 1595, the dialogue is a rare case in which Tasso himself saw his work published.37 The Conte addresses the construction of poetic and court identities, as well as the origin, production, and material value of writing—concerns that help explain the reworking of insignia in Tasso’s poetic descriptions of the Christian and Saracen troops. While the Conte’s emphasis on contemporary device theory appears to subscribe to a highly individualistic conception of public identity, the military parades and the instances of individual insignia in both the Gerusalemme liberata and the Conquistata betray a tension between the need to depict the Christian army as a unified and uniform whole, and the exigencies of creating an epic poem complete with protagonists and plot. Surprisingly, Tasso’s revised epic disregards the precepts of his own impresa dialogue, notably by suppressing the protagonists’ insignia. Nevertheless, device literature influences the poem unexpectedly: Rather than listing an emblem for each major character, Tasso embeds devices directly into the characters’ descriptions via metaphors that recall emblematic conceits and offer a range of interpretative possibilities. In the final version of the epic poem, there is no longer a moment in which each character consciously self-represents via a personal insignia on his armor or shield. Evidently, an awareness of the impresa’s limitations led Tasso to make these changes, in a tacit admission (intentional or not) that the self-conscious monumental pose, at least via the impresa, was at an end. Tasso had begun to develop a theory of emblems by the time he wrote the military review of the Saracens in his youthful chivalric romance Rinaldo, first published in 1562. This catalogue of the troops includes a list of twenty-six devices that would fit comfortably in many sixteenth-century poetic accounts of chivalric armies (Rinaldo

Print Monuments, Exposure, and Strategies of Concealment

250

XII.21–35).38 The imprese of the principal characters are an externalized characterization of the wearer, the most patent example being Odrimarte, whose insignia denotes hubris (he is destined within the space of a few octaves to be defeated): “Porta egli sé dipinto, e’l fiero Marte / incatenato e da’ suoi piedi oppresso” (He wears an image of himself, with proud Mars in chains beneath his feet; Rinaldo XII.30.4– 5). In a similar manner, the shield of the Saracen king succinctly illustrates the king’s temperament and military position: Ne lo scudo d’impresa avea dipinta, un gran leon ferito e sanguinoso che la piaga mirava, e v’era scritto, “Io non perdono, e so chi m’ha trafitto.” (Rinaldo XII.22.4–8) (On his shield he had painted his device, a great lion, wounded and bleeding, who gazed at the wound; and there was written, “I do not forgive, and I know who has pierced me.”)

By contrast, the device of the Christian hero Rinaldo is a panther that inspires fear in all who look upon it and whose mouth is red with blood (Rinaldo I.25)—in victorious opposition to the wounded lion of the pagan king. These are not canonical imprese in that they include human figures and their meaning is very obvious: According to the tenets of impresistica, Odrimarte’s depiction of himself on his shield is a solecism, probably intended to highlight Odrimarte’s arrogance. Yet the author labels these heraldic images imprese, and they merit attention for their absence from Tasso’s later poems. The chivalric individualism of the Rinaldo contrasts with the Christian project of the Gerusalemme epics: The military reviews at the beginning of the later poems are more concerned with representing a unified Christian army than with deploying emblematic signs to distinguish paladins from each other. Although Goffredo, leader of the Crusade, reviews the squadrons under their individual leaders, only two banners appear in the military parade of the Liberata: The lilies of the French troops lead, and the sign of the papal keys and diadem brings up the rear (GL I.37, I.64).39 Later on, this troop review is reinscribed as a communion procession, in which the Christian army

Silenus Strategies

251

unites under the “sign revered in Paradise” (GL XI.5.2; GC XIV.7.2).40 The shift in the display of banners reflects a turning point at which the crusading army unifies under the sign of the cross—rather than the secular political concerns of the earlier parade. The united Christian troops, finally aligned with Counter-Reformation religious militarism, contrast with the Saracens, who represent lay, materialistic, pluralistic humanism.41 Considering that Tasso wrote the Conte dialogue and revised his epic poem at around the same time, it is not surprising that the emblems of three Neapolitan families in the revised troop review of the Gerusalemme conquistata come straight from the dialogue’s discussion of imprese.42 The Conte describes the blue lion of the Acquaviva and Caracciola families, and the black lion with five red lilies of the Gesualdo family.43 Turning to the poem, we find these family emblems ascribed to characters in the first book of the Conquistata: “il forte Ettorre . . . sotto il leone azzurro” (strong Hector, beneath the blue lion); “co ’l nero leone i cinque gigli / spiega Aristolfo” (Aristolfo unfurls the five lilies with the black lion; GC 1.55.2–4, 1.56.1–2). Torquato Tasso’s father, Bernardo, had likewise referred to contemporary political figures as a means of making his epic poem Amadigi appeal more to his audience while immortalizing those mentioned.44 Overall, however, what is striking is the lack of emblems in a catalogue of troops revised and greatly expanded around the same time as Tasso was writing the Conte. A few minor characters gain highly specific insignia, but protagonist Riccardo (Rinaldo in the earlier poems) does not. The troop review of the Saracens in both the Liberata and the Conquistata likewise stumps the emblematist. One would suppose that the pagan army exemplifies the kind of individualistic chivalric concerns embodied by an impresa, but the military parade of the pagans does not rely on insignia to convey the pagans’ dispersiveness. Rather, we read generic negative descriptions of their military strength, despite the fact that heraldry in Tasso’s earlier Rinaldo had so admirably served the same purpose of denigrating the Saracens.45 The pagan military parade remains almost the same in the later Conquistata: The only change in Saracen clothing is the suppression of Clorinda’s tiger

Print Monuments, Exposure, and Strategies of Concealment

252

emblem—an image identifying her with a genealogy of women warriors, including Ariosto’s Marfisa and Virgil’s Camilla, and that entitled Clorinda to an independent chivalric identity not permitted in the more Counter-Reformation and antifeminist Conquistata.46 There is one more notable shift in insignia—Tancredi’s—which is commented on in the Conte dialogue, and indicates Tasso’s engagement with Counter-Reformation ideals and his ambivalence toward court politics. The earliest version of Tancredi’s motif is an obvious Petrarchan love conceit, which appears in the youthful Gierusalemme (an epic begun and abandoned in 1559): Tancredi alquanto iva in disparte ché nel suo petto Amor s’apre il sentiero tra i santi affanni e nel fervor di Marte. Il bel tempio di Vesta è il suo cimiero, ond’escon molte fiamme al cielo sparte; e scritto appar nel più sublime loco: “Esca ognor si rinnova al mio gran foco.” (Tancredi walked somewhat apart from the others, for in his breast Love was opening the path between holy struggles and the fervor of Mars. The lovely temple of Vesta is his helmet’s crest, from which many flames scatter toward the sky; and there appears written in the most sublime place, “Each hour in my great fire the tinder is renewed.”)47

This overstated externalization of Tancredi’s fate disappears from the Gerusalemme liberata, in which a general reference to Tancredi’s love leads into a four-stanza narrative digression from the troop review (GL 1.46–49). The Conquistata offers a further correction, in which a new, subtle emblematic reference minimizes the excursus (now only two and a half octaves) and leads directly from a description of Tancredi’s arms into their implicit explanation: Venía poscia Tancredi, . . . D’oro anch’ei splende, e l’oro aggiunge a l’ostro, sparso pur d’aurei strali e di facelle; e porta ne lo scudo accesa pietra che non s’estingue, ardendo, e non si spetra. (GC 1.57)

Silenus Strategies

253

(Then came Tancredi, . . . he too shone with gold, gold along with scarlet, scattered too with golden rays and sparks; and he carries on his shield a blazing stone, which burns without extinguishing itself, and does not shatter.)

While the Liberata identifies the hero by the fact that “alcun ombra di colpa i suoi gran vanti / rende men chiari” (some shadow of guilt makes his great feats less bright), the Conquistata replaces the metaphorically dark aspect of Tancredi’s “follia d’amore” (love madness; GC 1.45) with the splendor of fire and flame of his ornamented armor. While the amorous meaning is no less clear in the later poem, its force is tempered by the fact that fire and flame lend themselves to less “shadowy” readings—to interpretations both more warlike and more Christian. That these alterations to Tancredi’s armor were a carefully meditated choice is clear from the Conte, in which the title speaker, the Conte, says to the Forestiero Napolitano: Noi siamo passati da le cose naturali a le artificiose senza far menzione del diamante o de l’asbetide, la quale fu impresa del vostro Tancredi nel vostro poema.48 (We have gone from natural things to the man-made without mentioning diamond or asbestos, which was the device of your Tancredi in your poem.)

What is more, Tancredi’s stone, which never stops burning, rivals the famous device of Alfonso d’Este, Duke of Ferrara and a patron of Tasso’s bête noire, Ariosto (decades earlier): after years of very troubled relations, Tasso eventually left the Ferrarese court. Giovio describes Alfonso’s device as follows: Alfonso, Duca di Ferrara, . . . portò una palla di metallo, piena di fuoco artificiale che svampava per certe commissure, ed è di tale artificio che a luogo e tempo il fuoco terminato rompendosi farebbe gran fracasso di quegli che gli fussero incontra . . . il motto . . . gli fu poi aggiunto dal famoso Ariosto, e fu loco et tempore.49 (Alfonso, Duke of Ferrara, . . . wore a metal ball, filled with a manmade fire that flared up in certain fissures . . . , and it was made so that when and where the fire burned out, as the ball broke apart

Print Monuments, Exposure, and Strategies of Concealment

254

it would destroy all those who were near it . . . the motto . . . was added by the famous Ariosto, and it was in time and place.)

It is notable that this celebrated Este device does not appear in the Conte: The visual similarity with Tancredi’s stone (which is natural, and explicitly does not stop burning) suggests that the paladin’s sign is a corrective to the Duke’s celebrated but short-lived, artificial, and destructive metal ball. The successive alterations to and suppression of insignia in the later poems invite a closer scrutiny of how exactly these changes fit with Tasso’s theory of imprese. Thus far we have examined the changes to actual emblems, but considering that the emblematic image was pervasive in literature, we should look for answers beyond the denotative level of heraldry.50

Transplanting Authority into Epic Tasso’s claims to authority via emblematic devices come into focus as we study the changes to the Gerusalemme poems alongside some of the author’s more youthful poetic work. As a member of the Paduan Academy of the Eterei, the young Tasso (under the academic alias of “Il Pentito”) published some of his more successful poems in the Rime degli Academici eterei, a collection printed in 1567 to celebrate the third anniversary of the academy since its founding by Cardinal Scipione Gonzaga.51 One of Tasso’s contributions to the Rime degli Academici eterei adapts a Plinian and emblematic topos, the peach tree that produces bitter fruit until transplanted.52 The sonnet, “Poi che ’n vostro terren vil Tasso alberga” (Since a lowly yew makes its home in your land), is centered around a commonplace motif in emblem literature, the transplanted tree that thrives in its new home. The tree here is a yew or tasso, and the autobiographical intention of Tasso’s sonnet is made explicit by the gloss in the table of contents: Venendo l’Autore di Bologna in Padova, fu raccolto nell’Accademia de gli Eterei, che si ragunava in casa del Signor Scipione Gonzaga suo particolare signore e protettore, ond’egli scrisse loro questo Sonetto

Silenus Strategies

255

continuando nella metafora del Tasso Arbore del suo cognome, de’ cui frutti gustando l’api producono il mele amarissimo (81r).53 (When the Author came from Bologna to Padua, he was welcomed into the Academy of the Eterei, which met at the house of Lord Scipione Gonzaga, his particular lord and protector. This is why he wrote for them this Sonnet, continuing with the metaphor of the Yew Tree of his surname; when bees taste the fruit of this tree they produce very bitter honey.)

The poem was written in 1564 to Scipione Gonzaga and the newly founded academy; the name “Il Pentito” presumably refers to Tasso’s return to Padua from Bologna.54 The sonnet revisits Virgil’s discussion of poetry, which compares poetic inspiration with bees to whom the yew tree is poisonous (Eclogues 9.30–37).55 The notion that the taxus or yew is particularly injurious to bees also appears in Virgil’s Georgics 4.47: “neu propius tectis taxum sine, neve rubentes / ure foco cancros” (don’t have a yew too close to their hive, or burn in a brazier / reddening crab-shells).56 Tasso’s autobiographical reference to bees and the tasso revisits these lines, as does Ariosto’s famous impresa, which depicts a beehive being smoked out. After appearing in the 1516 edition of the Orlando furioso, Ariosto’s device was interpreted as a metaphor for patrons’ ingratitude toward poets. Tasso’s interpretation in the Conte dialogue is no exception: il vaso de le pecchie portato da l’Ariosto co ’l detto pro bono malum, perché i poeti sono simili a l’api, cacciati da l’ingratitudine e da l’altrui ambizione. (Conte 166) (the beehive worn by Ariosto, with the saying evil for good, because poets are like bees, chased by ingratitude and by the ambition of others).

By contrast with Ariosto’s device, Tasso’s sonnet offers a positive view of patronage relations: Under his patron’s care, the young poet will grow to new heights and, despite being the tasso or yew, will produce the fruit from which bees make honey for later generations. The result is both a positive recontextualization of Virgil’s motif of the dispossessed

Print Monuments, Exposure, and Strategies of Concealment

256

poet-farmer in Georgics 4, and an indirect rebuttal of Ariosto’s device (understood as a complaint against patrons): In the new territory (under a new patron) the tasso, once injurious to bees (poetic inspiration), will change its character to become a model for future generations of poets. The trope of the transplanted tree—Tasso’s stake of his place in the literary canon—reappears decades later in his epic poetry in a surprising context: There is a distinct shift from the Liberata to the Conquistata in the description of Guelfo, uncle to Rinaldo/Riccardo (on the German side of the Estense family), in the Christian troop review. In the Liberata, Tasso introduces Guelfo in terms of his genealogy and lands: Occupa Guelfo il campo a lor vicino, ... Ma german di cognome e di domino, ne la gran casa de’ Guelfoni è inserto. Regge Carinzia, e presso l’Istro e ’l Reno Ciò che i prischi Suevi e i Reti avièno. (GL 1.41) (Guelfo occupies the field nearby, . . . But German by name and rule, he is part of the great house of the Guelphs. He reigns over Carinthia, and the land near the Rhine and Istria which the ancient Suebi and Raeti possessed.)

By contrast, in the Conquistata, Tasso presents Guelfo with reference to his own emblematic trope: Ingombra Guelfo il campo a lor vicino, ... ma come si traslata abete, o pino, ne l’alta stirpe è de’ Guelfoni inserto, per lo materno suo lato sinistro, e signoreggia presso al Reno e l’Istro. (GC 1.44) (Guelfo holds the field nearby, . . . but like a transplanted fir, or pine, is inserted on his mother’s side into the noble line of the great Guelphs, and reigns by the Rhine and Istria.)

Rather than identifying the knight with an emblem on a banner or shield, the later version describes him directly in terms of a particularly well-known emblematic motif, the transplanted tree, which in this

Silenus Strategies

257

case is transplanted from emblem literature directly into epic poetry.57 Considering the very deliberate nature of this change, and Tasso’s earlier autobiographical appropriation of the transplanted tree, the poem seems to be asserting a genealogical relationship of Tasso himself to both Guelfo and Guelfo’s more famous nephew, the hero Rinaldo/ Riccardo. The author’s own emblematic link with the protagonist’s uncle merges with Rinaldo/Riccardo’s long-standing association with the Estense family genealogy. As with the change to Tancredi’s insignia—in competition with that of Alfonso d’Este—this small alteration claims greater authority for both the writer and his fictional paladins. Along with his newly enriched genealogy, in the final version of the poem, protagonist Rinaldo/Riccardo bears no interpretable device. Instead, he is introduced through a simile: Ma come pino o palma in aspro monte fra le piante minor dispiega l’ombra, sovra gli altri Riccardo alzò la fronte, e l’elmo d’òr che d’alte piume adombra. (GC 1.79.1–4) (But like a pine or palm on a harsh mountain, which among lesser plants makes shade, Riccardo above the others raised his head, his golden helmet casting shade from its tall feathers.)

Young, tall, and beautiful, but fierce as Rinaldo in the Liberata (GL 1.58), the more mature Riccardo emerges through a series of device tropes, with the pine evoking the warlike ships of epic poetry, and the palm referring to both poetry and Christian victory. Tasso’s Conte dialogue illuminates the significance of the mountain pine with reference to Riccardo: Il pino, che nasce ne’ monti, ne’ quali agevolmente è superato da’ venti, suol esser trasportato ne’ giardini, dove di leggieri è crollato da l’istessa violenza: fu impresa del signor Giovan Francesco Macasciuola co ’l motto quid in pelago?, ne le quali parole ebbe riguardo a le navi, che si fanno de l’istessa materia e da’ turbini e da le tempeste sono agitate. Il pino fulminato, co ’l motto il mio sperar, che troppo alto montava, fu disegnato dal signor Curzio Gonzaga. (Conte 178)

Print Monuments, Exposure, and Strategies of Concealment

258

(The pine, which is born in the mountains where it is easily overcome by winds, is often carried off into gardens, where it is effortlessly broken by that same violence: This was the impresa of signor Giovan Francesco Macasciuola, with the motto why in the sea?—which referred to ships, which are made from the same material and are tossed about by winds and storms. The pine struck by lightning, with the motto my hope, which climbed too high, was designed by signor Curzio Gonzaga.)

Given the singularity of this excursus on the pine tree, and the obscurity of Macasciuola, Tasso can only be explaining the attribution of the trope to Riccardo in the Conquistata.58 The device of the pine that may be overcome by wind and transported to a garden—where it is ruined—foreshadows Rinaldo/Riccardo’s love digression in the enchanted garden of the pagan sorceress Armida. The Conte’s linking of the pine tree with ships tossed by storms relates Riccardo not only to ships in the later poem, but to a long and highly complex tradition of ship imagery in literature, including Tasso’s own works and, indeed, other parts of the Conte dialogue. Riccardo’s association with both pine and palm may come from Virgil, who groups them together, mentioning the fir’s fate at sea: “Etiam ardua palma / nascitur et casus abies visura marinos,” (So too the palm that scales the sky / Is reared, and the fir that goes to take its chance at sea; Georgics 2.67–68). The traditional association between fir trees and seafaring is so close that Latin abies often means “ship”; and Tasso does not seem to distinguish abete from pino—so Guelfo is “like a fir, or pine tree.” Additional warlike background is provided by Ovid’s association of the end of the Golden Age with the felling of the mountain pine to make ships.59 Riccardo’s revised description in terms of the palm or pine acts as an emblematic mnemonic device for what is to come in the Conquistata— especially if we take into account the device details explained in the Conte. Ships are made from the mountain pine associated with Riccardo. In a new addition to the poem, the spirit of the sea meditates on the possibility of sinking the ships sent to aid Riccardo (GC 18.4–11). Riccardo’s mountain-pine height (in the emblematic description) foreshadows another new addition, the moment in which he looks

Silenus Strategies

259

down from the hill upon his burning ships (GC 18.120.1–8). In the final battle of the Conquistata, Riccardo is fighting in the sea when the African wind dashes the ships onto the rocks, wrecking them, although Riccardo himself is not submerged (GC 24.112–114). The visual placing of Riccardo in the troop review as higher than those around him is in accord both with the ship additions to the poem and with our foreknowledge of Rinaldo/Riccardo. The excessive personal ambition expressed in the pine device attributed to Curzio Gonzaga (a poet and friend of Tasso) is indeed one of Rinaldo’s faults and a cause of digression in the Liberata: The hero must learn to fight for the greater good of all Christians rather than personal glory. While the Conquistata associates Guelfo only with the pine or fir tree, Riccardo’s description includes the palm tree, whose long emblematic and literary tradition succinctly enriches Riccardo’s character. The discussion of the palm in the Conte immediately follows that of the pine, and compounds the emblematic connotations of the Conquistata’s brief introduction to Riccardo: La palma, . . . co ’l detto inclinata resurgit, fu portata per impresa dal signor Francesco Maria duca d’Urbino, il cui valore inestimabile risorse da l’oppressione di contraria fortuna con la fama d’una gloriosa vittoria. (Conte 179) (The palm, . . . with the saying having been tilted over, it rises again, was worn as a device by signor Francesco Maria, Duke of Urbino, whose inestimable worth rose up again from the oppression of misfortune, with the fame of a glorious victory.)

The palm tree was common in emblem literature, and is connected in both the poetic and the emblematic tradition with the production of poetry. Alciato’s emblem of the palm tree that rises up more strongly the more it is pressed down evokes a belief reported by Aristotle, Pliny, and others, and discussed by Erasmus: Tasso derives his discussion from Ruscelli’s reuse of this image.60 In the 1551 edition of Alciato’s emblems, the Muses wear a crown of palm fronds, and even the earliest Greek sources connect the production of poetry with the palm.61 Most commonly, however, the word palma signified “prize” in Latin literature.

Print Monuments, Exposure, and Strategies of Concealment

260

Petrarch’s Canzoniere nuances the traditional association of the palm with victory in a way that is significant for Tasso’s Riccardo, two centuries later. In the Canzoniere, the dead Laura appears to the poet and draws branches of palm and laurel from her breast as she exhorts the poet to turn to God: “Palma è vittoria, et io giovene ancora vinsi il mondo e me stessa; il lauro segna triunfo, ond’io son degna mercé di quel Signor che mi dié forza.” (359.49–52) (“The palm is victory, and I when still young conquered the world and myself; the laurel means triumph, of which I am worthy, thanks to that Lord who gave me strength.”)62

Riccardo’s association with the palm thus bears connotations of Christian conquest: Like Laura, Riccardo must overcome the evils of the world, embodied in both the Saracen army and his own self, for a victory that is simultaneously outward and inward. The archetype for such a victory is that of Christ—a victory remembered for its humility on Palm Sunday, and in accord with the Counter-Reformation ideal of ultimate triumph embodied in the inclinata resurgit device. Riccardo’s emblematic description goes further still: In referring to the palm and the swan (through the feathers on his helmet), it connects the protagonist with the production of Christian poetry and so with Tasso’s own project. The Conquistata compares Riccardo with a palm tree that casts shade over those around him: These lines recall Virgil’s prescription that one should provide bees with the shade of palm trees—bees evoking the production of inspired poetry (Georgics 4.20). Tasso reinforces Riccardo’s link with poetry by stipulating that the feathers in his helmet are those of a swan (GC 1.53.7), a bird connected with poetic eloquence in both the emblematic tradition (including Tasso’s Conte) and the Virgilian tradition taken up by Bembo, Della Casa, and Varchi, from whom Tasso drew his authority-claiming yew tree sonnet, “Poi ch’in vostro terren vil Tasso alberga.”63 Even more significantly, Riccardo’s swan feathers are a challenge to the eagle of the Estense family, which Rinaldo (the earlier incarnation of Riccardo)

Silenus Strategies

261

wore in the Liberata: The Conte discusses a device in which a swan defeats an eagle (GL 3.37.5; Conte 161). Taken together, these small alterations to the description of Riccardo, in an otherwise long and dry military parade, offer a strong statement of writerly authority hidden in a cluster of emblematic tropes. The revised Riccardo embodies the power of Tasso’s militant Christian eloquence rather than the worldly political ambitions of the Este family with which Rinaldo—and Tasso, in his earlier days—had been so closely associated. The revisions to Riccardo’s description and ultimate fate reinscribe Ariosto’s review of the Christian troops in the Orlando furioso, in which the insignia are all invented by the poet and include banners of trees, a sinking boat, a pine in the sea, a ruptured mountain, and a burning pine.64 This succession of insignia seems to represent the realization of identity, as Ariosto’s hero Ruggiero must both read signs and learn to become a sign by establishing his right to the emblem of the Trojan eagle. Yet, as Albert Ascoli points out, the representation of human beings as “birds, beasts, flowers, trees etc” parallels the sorceress Alcina’s reduction of men to subhuman form, and also undermines Ruggiero’s return from the realm of the sorceress to “mimetic nature”: Despite the fact that Ruggiero is back in the real world, the parade of insignia seems to offer the same disjunction between outer form and inner being as did the realm of the sorceress.65 More importantly, Ascoli observes that “tree” and “burning pine” recall the imprisonment of paladin Astolfo (by the sorceress Alcina) in a tree so that the pageantry that Ruggiero admires in fact hides “a sign of his own imminent demise, his own disappearance into the death of allegorical signhood”: In order for Ruggiero to found the Este dynasty and become a symbol on a flag, he (as the reader finds out) must die an early death.66 The Conquistata both endorses and recontextualizes the demise of the self within a Counter-Reformation agenda: Riccardo does not merely wear the symbols with which he is associated; he is likened to them so that he becomes the palm of Christian victory, the pine tree that neither burns nor sinks. The emblems in Ariosto’s Furioso are overstated to the extent that they threaten not only a stable mimetic nature but also the possibility of narrative resolution: The wrecked ships of the

Print Monuments, Exposure, and Strategies of Concealment

262

insignia destabilize the navigation metaphor on which the entire poem is structured. By contrast, Tasso’s Conquistata avoids insignia and instead transplants conceits from impresa literature into the descriptions of the heroes, so as to render both more probable and more significant their negation of individual chivalric desires and submission to the single banner of the cross—conditions necessary for the resolution of the poem. Moreover, in contrast with the interpretative limits achieved by the exaggerated emblem descriptions of the Rinaldo, the understated nature of the Conquistata’s emblematic references allows for a multiplication of readings, including a victorious militant Christian poetics that supsersedes the secular, courtly, and genealogical concerns of the Este family.

Representing the Ideal Courtier While Tasso’s poems develop identifying signs for idealized Christian heroes, his Conte dialogue, in discussing imprese, must tackle the problem of self-representation for the courtly elite: How to reconcile the need to be enigmatic with the will for permanent monuments? After some argument in the dialogue, the Forestiero Napolitano convinces the Conte that a device must conceal its meaning. In response to the Conte’s assertion that devices should depict things similar to those which they symbolize, the Forestiero slyly suggests that the Conte use palpably obvious imprese to signify his loves: F. N. [V]oi ne’ vostri amorosi desiderî non vogliate esser così segreto . . . C. Questo non farò io, ma cercherò d’occultarlo quanto sarà possibile . . . F. N. Concedasi adunque l’esser tanto misterioso ne le figure quanto arguto ne’ motti. (Conte 211) (Forestiero Napolitano: You would not be so secret in [depicting] your amorous desires . . . Conte: On the contrary, I will attempt to hide this as far as possible . . . Forestiero Napolitano: In that case, let’s agree to be as mysterious with the images as we are sharp-witted with the mottoes.)

Silenus Strategies

263

It seems ironic (even odd) that the Conte, whose primary subject is the construction of a public identity through identifying outward signs, deals directly with the issue of self-representation only here, at the very end of the dialogue. Yet this theme appears in Tasso’s writings as early as the Malpiglio overo de la corte (1584–85), in which the Forestiero Napolitano counsels the young Malpiglio on how to conduct himself at court so as to avoid the envy of others: Dunque appari il cortigiano più tosto d’occultare che di apparere. . . . Questo nascondersi nondimeno si può fare con alcuno avvedimento, per lo quale la picciola parte che si dimostri generi desiderio di quella che si ricopre, e una certa stima e opinion de gli uomini e del principe medesimo, che dentro si nasconda un non so che di raro e di singolare e di perfetto (Dialoghi 2:610). (Therefore let the courtier seem quicker to hide than to reveal. . . . This concealing of oneself, however, must be done with a certain acumen so that the small part that is shown externally elicits a desire for that which remains hidden, and a certain esteem, and the opinion of men and of the prince himself that inside there is hidden a certain something that is rare and unusual and perfect.)

Simultaneously showing and hiding himself, the ideal courtier behaves like an impresa to avoid the envy of prince and courtiers, and to generate interest in himself and authority for his counsel. While Castiglione in the first decades of the century had likened the courtier to Cicero’s orators (albeit with substantial modifications), the professional courtier of Tasso’s 1594 Conte is a creature of very different attributes from the engaged republican orator or even Castiglione’s aesthetically pleasing (if somewhat amoral) courtier. The ideal courtier’s device appears in the middle of Tasso’s encyclopedia of imprese, and hints at the perils of court life: F. N. Il nautilo non è il polpo, ma simile, . . . e in questa maniera naviga, alzando a guisa di vela i due crini superiori, . . . gli altri due distende in mare in vece di timone; se vede cosa che gli venga incontra, raccoglie i piedi e, riempendo la sua conca d’acqua, si sommerge

Print Monuments, Exposure, and Strategies of Concealment

264

nel profondo, dove suole ancora fuggir la tempesta. È impresa del signor Girolamo Catena, . . . il quale ha voluto assomigliare la navigazione del nautilo a quella del cortegiano, e dichiara la sua intenzione con questo motto tempestatis expers. (Conte 174–75)67 (Forestiero Napolitano: The nautilus is not an octopus, but similar, . . . and it navigates like this, raising its two upper crests like a sail, . . . the other two it stretches into the sea like a rudder; if it sees something approaching, it pulls in its feet and, filling its shell with water, it goes deep underwater, where it habitually avoids the storm. This is the device of signor Girolamo Catena, . . . who wanted to compare the navigation of the nautilus with that of the courtier, and declares his intention with this motto: free from stormy weather.)

The successful navigation of the nautilus-courtier contrasts sharply with several devices depicting ships in difficulty, in one of which the navigational metaphor has a particularly close bearing on the dangers of life at court: Il signor Antonio Costantini . . . si serví parimente de la nave per impresa, . . . perché, essendo favoritissimo dal suo prencipe, caminava a gran passi a i primi onori de la corte, ma voltatasegli contra una crudel borasca di persecuzione, se non fosse stato armato d’una piú che netta conscienza, sarebbe restato sommerso nel mare de l’altrui malignità. (Conte 196–197) (Signor Antonio Costantini . . . likewise used the ship as his device, . . . because, being most favored by his prince, he was making great strides toward the highest honors of the court, but after a cruel storm of persecution turned against him, if he had not been armed with a conscience that was more than clean, he would have been submerged in the sea of other people’s malice.)

Tasso’s emblematic commentary on the necessity of standing firm in the perils of life at court finds a number of parallels in earlier imprese. Dolce’s collection of Pittoni’s engravings includes Andrea Alessandrino’s impresa: a snake curled back upon itself, surrounded by a troubled seascape (winds, billowing clouds, ships at sea), with the motto ut prudente vivam (that i may live prudently) and, in the accompanying poem, the

Silenus Strategies

265

exhortation to avoid the “rio veneno” (evil venom) of malevolent gossip. The poem emphasizes patience and prudence: E ripien di prudenza il petto e’l seno Aspetta, che’l furor caggia e s’estingua Con la pacienza, e col girar del giorno. (Dolce, Imprese nobili n.p.) (And with his breast filled with prudence he waits with patience for the tempest to change and die down with the break of day.)

The courtier-as-snake has the ability to avoid confrontation and close his ears to gossip—avoidance techniques very similar to those celebrated in the nautilus. The snake’s real venom is not mentioned: It is clearly eclipsed by the metaphorical poison of court gossip. Although it has frequently been observed that court life was sufficiently difficult as to impel morally ambiguous behavior on the part of both courtiers and princes, the ideal of steadfast virtue remained, at least within the realm of impresistica—the literary locus of the idealized public image. Among Pittoni’s engravings, the device of Cardinal Ferrero shows an immobile ball in the sea, while Count Achille da Lodrone’s impresa has the motto immobil son di vera fede scoglio (i am the unmoving reef of true fidelity), and shows some rocks in a tempestuous sea, being blown upon by the four winds (Fig. 5.4). The accompanying poem celebrates Lodrone’s immutable virtue: Cresca pur, quanto può, l’ira e l’orgoglio, O sia d’Amor, o di Fortuna errante; Immobil è di vera fede Scoglio Un’animoso cor, saldo, e costante; .... Cio si trova nel saggio e buon Lodrone, Il qual di pura fede è paragone. (Dolce, Imprese nobili n.p.) (Let rage and pride grow as much as they can, whether born of Love or errant Fortune: a brave heart that is solid and constant is the reef of true fidelity. . . . Such a heart can be found in the wise and good Lodrone, who is a paragon of true faith.)

Print Monuments, Exposure, and Strategies of Concealment

266

This device rehearses the same notions of perfect exemplarity that the snake, ship, and nautilus emblems tell us were really anachronistic and impracticable: The poem here extols the steadfast fidelity of the count and implicitly exhorts the reader to a similar constancy—even as it hints at circumstances that render constancy so remarkable as to be almost miraculous.

Floundering in a Sea of Images The recurrent motifs of navigation are not only significant for the gentleman at court—more importantly, they trouble his ideal model of self-representation—the impresa genre itself. Francesco Caburacci’s treatise of 1580 begins by comparing the invention of an impresa with the construction of a ship for the careful workmanship required.68 However, in light of Caburacci’s defense of Ariosto’s epic poem, this comparison necessarily evokes more famous sixteenth-century tropes of writing as navigation, as well as the various devices that depict life at court as a sea of dangers. Ariosto used the journey by ship as a figure for both writing and reading the Orlando furioso: As we have seen, the series of sinking ship images in the troop review appear to threaten this project.69 Decades later, Tasso responded to the Furioso by opening the Liberata with a similar navigation trope.70 Stefano Guazzo’s dialogue Delle imprese (1586) begins in a more negative sense, with a speaker fearing that a discussion of the origins of the emblematic device is a “grande Oceano, alla cui altezza non ardisco affidare il mio picciol legno” (vast ocean to whose depths I dare not entrust my little barque), although he promises to make a short trip close to the safety of the shore (Delle imprese, 49r–v). The fear of shipwreck owing to the vastness of the impresa material is a trope that haunts the founding work of the literary genre, Paolo Giovio’s dialogue of 1555. The abrupt ending of Giovio’s Dialogo dell’ imprese militari e amorose is indicative of the overwhelming nature of the topic, as the interlocutor “Paolo Giovio” declares not an arrival in port, but the failure to navigate through all the material in order to create a full encyclopedia of emblematic devices: Ma, a dire il vero, . . . ce ne sono tanti che affogarebbono ogni diligente e laborioso scrittore, il quale pensasse di voler fermarsi in ogni

Silenus Strategies

267

passo dove apparisca qualche valore e prodezza di famoso soldato. (Dialogo 148) (But, to tell the truth, . . . there are so many that they would drown every diligent and hardworking writer who thought to halt with every step where there appears some act of valor and daring by a famous soldier.)

The dialogue ends here, without any further attempt to frame the discussion as reaching a natural conclusion. A similar difficulty is evident in Tasso’s Conte, as the interlocutors use the metaphor of a hunt to express their failure to master the material: Guardiamo che [il pardo] non ci prenda, come suole avenir in quella caccia ne la quale il cacciatore alcune volte è preda de le fiere medesime. (Conte 148) (Let us take care that the leopard does not catch us, as happens in the hunt where the hunter sometimes falls prey to the same beasts he is stalking.)

Toward the end of the Conte, the overwhelming proliferation of possible public identities—with a device for every circumstance in which a courtier might find himself—is palpable in the description of some devices, as in that of the camel, “ne le stanchevoli arene . . . con quel motto . . . piú non posso” (in whose exhausting sands . . . with that motto . . . i can take no more; Conte 150). The Conte dialogue ends barely less abruptly than Giovio’s, as the patron returns and the speakers must resume their court duties: In a single breath, the Conte agrees to follow the Forestiero’s advice and construct only enigmatic devices, and points out that the carriages have arrived (signaling the cardinal’s return); the dialogue ends here (Conte 212). Far from being the safe navigation of the ship into port, this is an arrival trope that is imposed externally on the text in the form of the arriving patron—a deus ex machina, whose absence enables the potentially infinite production of literature (and therefore the infinite production of permanent public identities). The clear sense of exhaustion and defeat visible at the end of both Giovio’s and Tasso’s dialogues—at either end of the chronological arc

Print Monuments, Exposure, and Strategies of Concealment

268

of the impresa as a literary fashion—points to the fact that the exponential multiplication of personal devices, produced in anticipation of a myriad situations, limits the usefulness of attributing a single, specific impresa to a character in a poem. The emblems listed in Tasso’s youthful poem Rinaldo make sense only in the specific context of the final battle, and their one-dimensional nature places them firmly in the chivalric romance tradition, in which knights (whether Christian or Saracen) are not required to develop as characters. More is expected of the Conquistata’s Riccardo, who is connected enigmatically with a combination of device traditions that multiply rather than delimit the possibilities of his identity, even as they prefigure his errant desires and eventual demise of selfhood in submission to his Christian destiny. Likewise, Tancredi’s symbol of the burning asbestos in the Conquistata is much more open-ended than the original emblem in the unfinished fragment Gierusalemme: It defines his identity in terms of his love for Clorinda, while implying a warlike and Christian fiery passion. Indeed, the combination of device tropes in Riccardo’s description and the burgeoning of devices for different circumstances in impresa literature highlight the significance of the nautilus emblem. It is precisely the ability of the nautilus to adapt to different circumstances that allows it to represent a successful courtier. While poets, philosophers, and knights may be likened to ships, the quest for a safe port is not always destined to be successful. Rather, the poet-courtier needs to learn the adaptability of a creature that can behave as more than just a ship. It may be concern for the position of the court poet that prompts the author of the Conte not to attempt a direct rebuttal of Ariosto’s enigmatic device, which appeared in the 1516 edition of the Orlando furioso. However, on the title page of the first edition of the Conte there appears a device of two hands clasped within a circle of branches of palm and laurel, accompanied by the motto sine fraude bona fide (without deception, in good faith). This is one of a number of printer’s marks used by the Stigliola in Naples, and it is particularly well chosen. The device is followed by the dedication, in which the author reveals that the “Forestiero Napolitano” is in fact a Platonic mask for himself. By this stage in Tasso’s career, the author has become synonymous with the

Silenus Strategies

269

“Forestiero Napolitano” of his dialogues; thus, the revelation is redundant to the point of arousing our curiosity. The highly explicit printer’s device, coupled with the redundant de-masking, appears to negate the dialogue’s project of creating an enigmatic public identity: The Forestiero Napolitano, who counsels both the Conte and (in earlier dialogues) Giovanlorenzo Malpiglio to conceal their true thoughts, goes so far as to declare, “La vergogna e il guastamento de l’onore è in cose palesi” (Shame and the ruin of honor lie in obviousness; Conte 164). While the overt display of good faith framing the Conte may be intended to dissimulate the negative references to court life within the dialogue, it may also—like the tree sonnet of 1564—be an indirect response to Ariosto’s device. In the Conte, Tasso interprets Ariosto’s famous impresa according to sixteenth-century tradition: Poets are like bees, unappreciated (at court) and pushed out by the ambition of other people. This brief explanation initiates a particularly long eulogy of bees, in which a host of classical authors are cited, including Plato: “I poeti sono sacri e da divino furore inspirati, e da lui commossi volino a guisa di pecchie e si spaziino intorno a’ fonti de le Muse e a fiori de la poesia” (Poets are sacred and inspired by divine furor, and moved by this furor they fly like bees and wander around the founts of the Muses and the flowers of poetry).71 This is a fairly common comparison, very much in keeping with Ariosto’s bee-as-poet image. The Forestiero, however, extends his discussion of bees, stating: Sono presaghe de le pioggie e de le tempeste, quasi abbiano parte di spirito divino; quando sono agitate da’ venti, si conformano nel volo con qualche picciola pietra a guisa di nave che porta la savora. (Conte 168) (They are harbingers of rains and of storms, almost as if they partake of the divine spirit; when buffeted by winds, they steady their flight with some little stone like a ship that carries ballast.)

This account of the bee using ballast, while based on the authority of a series of classical authors, recalls the depiction of the nautilus that knows how to avoid storms. While the nautilus represents the courtier,

Print Monuments, Exposure, and Strategies of Concealment

270

the bee is the poeta-vates inspired by divine frenzy. This idea accords with the assertion, made earlier in the dialogue, that the poet acts “quasi da celeste iddio” (almost like a heavenly god; Conte 122) in conferring the “soul” on the impresa. Tasso’s bee-poet simile, however, is unstable. Further exploiting classical sources, the Forestiero continues, connecting the bee with another series of images: [Le api] fanno con mirabile artificio le celle e gli alberghi di sei angoli; mandano fuori colonie; hanno in odio quelli che sono andati in essilio; puniscono i ladri con la morte. . . . In tutti gli uffici de la vita sono somiglianti a i regni e a le republiche ben governate. (Conte 168) (With marvelous skill, [bees] make cells and homes with six corners; they send out colonies; they hate those who have gone into exile; they punish thieves with death. . . . In all offices of life they are like kingdoms and well-governed republics.)

In trying to discern where the simile with the poet ends and the likeness with the state begins, we begin to suspect that a truly useful symbol can play multiple roles in precisely the manner of a successful court poet. The bee image showcases the poet’s vast knowledge of classical sources even as it pays homage to Ferdinando I de’ Medici, whose symbol it was. The extended eulogy of bees also implies that Ariosto’s pro bono malum device, understood according to its standard interpretation, is deficient in that bees are not merely the symbol of poets: Tasso’s bees—like his yew tree—adapt to new poetic and political circumstances, while Ariosto’s bees are condemned to a fixed meaning. Through the interweaving and slippage of symbols, the reader is led from the bee-as-poet to the bee-as-state, by way of the bee as intelligent ship-nautilus-courtier that knows how to avoid the storms of court life. It is in fact between the two poles of poet and state that the courtier-poet seeks to create a public and eternal writing—an image of himself that will weather political and artistic storms in the manner of the inscriptions on the “very solid stone” of the obelisk. The hieroglyphics on the obelisk embody the double bind of Tasso’s impresa enterprise: Hieroglyphs are written pictures that remain enigmatic

Silenus Strategies

271

to the uninitiated and yet confer permanence. While the dialogues attempt to redefine writing as image, they deny that images have a life of their own without writing. Yet, only those visual symbols in the Conte that lack mottoes allow for a range of interpretative possibilities and, therefore, remain enigmatic. In the end, it is not too surprising that the Rinaldo’s intricately described devices with mottoes give way to generic, universalizing political and Christian symbols in the Liberata, which, in turn, are bolstered in the Conquistata by the direct application of emblematic conceits to protagonists. While some minor characters of the Conquistata wear family insignia, the protagonists discard political clothing and instead assume symbolic characteristics. Tancredi burns eternally—with love for Clorinda but also with Christian and warlike passion. Riccardo as pine and palm is described both in terms of his errant nature and its sublimation in obedience to God’s inevitably victorious plan. In the 1560s, the young Tasso hoped that his transplanting would result in the production of sweeter literature for future generations. Thirty years later, in the Conte, Tasso’s writing both professes to be sine fraude and dissimulates—through the multiplication of possible fixed identities— the desire for (and impossibility of) an eternal, all-encompassing, stable yet mutable, public and poetic identity. The redundant demasking of the Forestiero Napolitano at the beginning of the dialogue merely casts further doubt on the correspondence of signifier and signified, of device sine fraude and sign without dissimulation. While the court poet must conceal and adapt his identity to suit Church and patron, he is keenly aware that only in the realms of fiction is there the possibility of sublimating one’s selfhood under the sign of submission to God’s grand design.

Meaning as a Question of Taste: The Failure of Personal Emblems Tasso’s works develop and theorize a more general realization of the limitations of personal emblems. Just thirty years after Tasso’s mouthpiece had asserted that obviousness was repugnant and dishonorable, Camillo Baldi’s treatise (1624) advocated clarity of meaning in creating imprese, saying of the images chosen for a device:

Print Monuments, Exposure, and Strategies of Concealment

272

Bisogna siano conosciuti, e non solo d’alcuni pochi, ma semplicemente da tutti, perche chi fà l’Impresa, la mostra al Popolo, perche molta parte di quello la possa intendere; . . . è proprio delle cose ignobili esser men conosciute, come le nobili à tutti sono palesi, il che dal nome stesso può ciascuno comprendere, essendo nobile quello, che è noto. (Baldi 308)72 (They must be known, and not just by a select few, but by simply everyone, because whoever makes an impresa, shows it to the masses, so that most of them can understand it; . . . and it is characteristic of ignoble things to be less well-known, just as noble things are known to everyone—which anyone can understand from the word itself, since noble is that which is known.)

This view makes sense for a supporter of state pageantry by the Spanish governors in Italy, and it also responds to the kind of confusion generated by devices that were so multivalent as to be incomprehensible. Indeed, Baldi continues his attack on the incomprehensible as ignoble as he asserts that the impresa’s motto “deve parimente esser conosciuto, perche è parte di quella cosa, che fà fede” (should likewise be known, because it is part of that thing that testifies in faith; 314). A few pages later, Baldi repeats the idea that the device “fa fede”—literally makes a pact of faith with the viewer (318). This notion is so far distant from the Silenus device proposed by the Occulti sixty years earlier (with its insistence on secrecy and guarding the jewels of philosophy from the common herd) as to indicate an unease about the layers of self-representation explicitly honed and promoted by the explosion of device literature in print. Distributed by print, the “arcane secrets” of inventing imprese were available to anyone who was sufficiently literate: Baldi’s emphasis on fede tells us that the focus on concealment in impresa writing generated anxiety about the legitimizing of deception in self-representation. The call for a set of visually recognizable signs that follow the tenets of a pact of faith—and so do not confuse, obfuscate or deceive—reveals a wishful nostalgia for a lost world, in which to be noble meant both to be known and to be a guardian of faith. The shift we see in Baldi highlights the kinds of contradictions with which earlier, minor writers were apt to struggle. Lodovico

Silenus Strategies

273

Arrivabene, a leading literary light at the Gonzaga court of Mantua, condemned the modern-day attention paid to “ornamenti del corpo” (ornamentation of the body) in 1589, associating cowardice with close attention to chivalric dress.73 Arrivabene disparages the “moderns” with their “rusted swords,” and denounces “dressing up” as opposed to genuine cavalleria: For Arrivabene, chivalry in its true sense entails men on horseback fighting wars. His polemic is forceful enough to threaten the stated purpose of his dialogues, which is to exalt the founding of a “new” order of knights (the Order of the Golden Fleece, actually founded 150 years earlier by Duke Philip III of Burgundy, in 1430), and to discuss heraldic devices and the creation of a device for the order. This last task proves particularly difficult, and makes evident the contradiction between the individualistic heraldic enterprise of the impresa, and the need for the cavalieri to be a unified group of Christian knights. In addition to the retrospective look at the founding of the order, which reveals a nostalgia similar to that in Baldi, Arrivabene confronts the more practical need to “Christianize” the knights’ classicizing symbol of the golden fleece in a post-Tridentine world. The dialogue highlights precisely the problem pointed up by the alterations to Tasso’s poems: Mi venne à memoria una Impresa, la quale, si come io estimo, trappassa di grandissima longa la bellezza, et la eccellenza di ogni altra figura, et questa è la Croce. (Arrivabene 77) (I recalled a Device, which, in my opinion, by far outstrips in beauty and excellence any other figure, and this is the Cross.)

The main speaker, “Giovanni di Lucimburgo Signor di Beureuir” (Jehan de Luxembourg, one of the original knights of the order), then launches a panegyric of the cross as “figura architettonica delle figure”—the primordial architectural design of all other signs—as well as the “key to Paradise” (Arrivabene 79). His interlocutor, Duke Philip (hailed as the “new Jason”), objects that this is contrary to Giovanni’s own precepts, which a few pages earlier in fact insisted on a symbol that would not be evident to “ogni huomo, quantunque zotico, et di

Print Monuments, Exposure, and Strategies of Concealment

274

basso intelletto” (any man, no matter how uncouth and of base intellect; Arrivabene 72). In other words, the cross, for all its perfection, is too democratic to be an impresa. The dilemma here is the same one that Tasso faced in the revisions to his epic poem: On the one hand, post-Tridentine thought taught that Christian unity (under the banners of the cross) should supersede humanistic projects of self-aggrandizement; on the other hand, elite status needed to be both protected and represented as protected. Overall, Arrivabene’s short dialogues are rife with contradictions: Cavalieri have fallen into disrepute and are now cowards who dress up in fine clothes, but the new order of knights will continue the great deeds of Jason, and in doing so, will need a distinguishing device—so their fine clothes are inherently important; the one perfect sign (the cross) is both too readily accessible and makes all other signs redundant and self-aggrandizing. The dialogues together represent well the underlying problems with impresa writing, and the book (including its material format) hints at a general weariness with the genre. Although the debate about the origin of the Knights of the Garter is lively and entertaining, the discussion of imprese is compact, even rushed; the font is unusually large and the margins are very wide; and the addition of seven sonnets stretches the total number of pages to arrive at page number 100. Arrivabene’s retrospective look at the Order of the Golden Fleece ends on a curious note: I fucili, e la pietra focaia Simbolo sono di fatica. . . . ma il più nobile, et più sublime intendimento de’ fucili, et della pietra è la carità, significata per lo fuoco, la quale altronde non si hà, che dallà pietra, ch’è Christo, usando il fucile dellà Oratione, et dellè buone, et vertuose operationi Christiane ma dimane, Dio permettente, ci allargheremo favellando à nostro volere. (Arrivabene 85–86) (Fire-strikers and flint stone are symbols of fatigue. . . . But the most noble and most sublime meaning of fire-strikers and of the stone is charity, signified by fire, which comes only from the stone that is Christ, using the fire-striker of the Sermon, and of the good and virtuous works of Christians but tomorrow, God willing, we will expand on this talking as we please.)

Silenus Strategies

275

Readers hoping for an explanation as to why a single symbol might mean both “fatigue” and “charity” are doomed to disappointment. Although Arrivabene’s book was reprinted in a later edition, the promise of continued discussion is not borne out, as there is no third dialogue. This very abrupt ending—as with Tasso, it interrupts a line of thought—both suggests impresa fatigue and indicates one of the major difficulties with using obscure symbols: the problem of multiple meanings. In the Rime degli Academici Occulti, the role of the prose commentary by the “secretario” was precisely to limit the potentially endless possible meanings of each symbolic image.74 As Maggi points out, “everything can mean everything,” so that a symbol used in one personal emblem may mean something different when used in another: The academicians’ identity derives from the plurality of different possible meanings in an emblem.75 The potential limitlessness of emblematic signification is important for understanding the modifications to Tasso’s poem, but also, more broadly, for understanding why the impresa was so short-lived as a literary genre for writers making their way at court. The Occulti volume avoids misunderstandings by guiding the reader through the academicians’ devices—even going so far as to add, at the end of the volume, an index that identifies each individual by name, effectively rendering pure theater the mystery created in the main text by such sobriquets as “Il Sommerso” (the Submerged One). If we look at a set of personal devices that lack the kind of clarification provided by the academicians (explanations typical of impresa writing), it becomes clear just how cryptic or confusing they can be. At the back of the small and relatively obscure Sienese volume of Rime del Monsignor Ascanio Piccolomini (1594) there appears a set of twelve personal devices of the author.76 Some are fairly obvious: for example, a tortoise with the motto ad locum tandem (at length to a place; 89r). Other imprese are much more open-ended: ut validius (that i may be more worthy) is the motto of an image that depicts a castle on a hill with the foreground of a natural-seeming woodland barrier (97r). This kind of device—invoking chivalric ideals apparent both in the motto and in the political authority implied by the hilltop

Print Monuments, Exposure, and Strategies of Concealment

276

figur e 5.5. “Mutatus exit”: device in Ascanio Piccolomini, Rime di Monsig. Ascanio Piccolomini, fatte la maggior parte nella primavera dell’eta sua (Siena: Bonetto, 1594). (University of Washington Libraries, Special Collections, 704.946 P581r .)

stronghold—is still clearer to an uninformed reader than the one we see in Figure 5.5, which shows an insect emerging from a cocoon, with the motto mutatus exit (changed, he exits; 99r). Although the device evidently refers to rebirth and renewal, only the select few close to Piccolomini would be able to understand the specific referent. What is more, the moment of rebirth is emphatically presented as posed or staged by the curtain positioned behind the cocoon—rather than, for example, a bright sky or a rising sun, which one might expect in connection with a transformative moment of rebirth. Although the placing of the naturalistically tattered curtain may seem casual, put there

Silenus Strategies

277

simply to take up space, it is carefully centered around the emerging insect (placed at the top of a tree or shrub) and—casual or not—has the effect of highlighting the depicted transformation precisely as a depiction, an artfully staged representation. The fact that Piccolomini’s volume offers twelve quite different imprese to depict the author points again to the proliferation of devices, a new one for each occasion, and suggests once more that the value of a personal device—despite all protests to the contrary—lay primarily in its visual beauty, so that it was much more like clothing than most authors are prepared to admit. While Arrivabene rather clumsily decried the insistence on visual finery while proposing the importance of the golden fleece symbol, the relationship between clothing and signs was addressed differently by Capaccio, whose Delle imprese (1592) came out at around the same time that Tasso was writing the Conte and finalizing the Conquistata. Showing the same sensitivity as Aretino toward the similarities between clothing and signs, Capaccio’s treatise reveals a semiotics of clothing, in which clothes are signals requiring reading—with the result that his history of symbols becomes a series of moments in which clothing determines the actions of princes: Insegne eran le Vesti de’ popoli, . . . le Toghe de’ Romani, o de’ Regi e di Principi, come i Regi di Persia prima che ricevessero lo Scettro, bisognava che vestissero la Veste di Ciro; . . . le scarpe rosse de gli Imperadori di Costantinopoli, che già Basilio Patriarca non volse in gratia ricevere Foca Barda, se prima scalzatosi quelle scarpe non venisse in habito d’huomo privato . . . . O sono de’ Capitani, e de’ Soldati, . . . come quella qualità di scarpe, che usarono i Germani per comandamento di Henrico IIII. Imperadore, nella speditione dell’Asia . . . ; e come anco le Vesti de i Soldati di Sforza, e di Braccio di color giallo e bianco, ondegiato di azzurro; et eran queste Insegne propriamente dette, Tessere militari, e Simboli. (Delle imprese 1, i9r) (Insignia were the clothing of the people . . . the togas of the Romans; or of kings and princes, like the Kings of Persia, who had to put on the cloak of Cyrus before they received the scepter; . . . the red shoes of the emperors of Constantinople—Basil the Patriarch refused to receive Bardas Phokas if he did not first take off those

Print Monuments, Exposure, and Strategies of Concealment

278

shoes and come in the dress of a private citizen . . . . Or insignia are the clothes of captains and soldiers, . . . like the kind of shoe that the Germans used on the orders of Emperor Henry IV in the expedition into Asia . . . ; and also like the uniforms of the soldiers of Sforza and Braccio in yellow and white with shades of pale blue, and these insignia were properly defined as military signs and symbols.)

Capaccio begins by equating insignia with clothing: Insignia are thus inherently democratic since everyone wears clothing, and all clothing signifies—even if most of Capaccio’s examples reference garments that signaled some kind of elite status. The signifying power of an emblem is really no greater than that of soldiers’ boots—an intriguing insight into the menace of collapsing meaning. Indeed, impresa literature offers a thoughtful investigation of the processes of signification, opening new (and possibly frightening) vistas for the writer anxious to establish his authority through writing and images. For Capaccio, meaning ultimately comes down to personal taste: Può significar la Stella, sdegno, e castigo, di cui fù fatto un simbolo contra i Giudei . . . . Può significar prosperità, . . . . Appresso i Romani, la Stella posta sopra il capo di Romolo e di Remo che sugghiavano le mamme della Lupa, significava la custodia de i proprij Genij, per cui furono conservati quei fanciulli. Ma che un’altro volesse introdurla all’Impresa, con qualche motto, significante custodia, o salute, havrebbe troppo del rimoto. Come farebbe medesimamente della Stella Canicula, la qual se nel suo nascimento è caliginosa, significa peste, se lucida, salute. Ben è vero che mai la Stella non istà bene congiunta con instrumenti mechanici . . . ne con le cose terrestri . . . , ma non sò fin hora che voglia dir il motto, LUMINA MENS ILLINC. Che solamente finir il motto con un’Avverbio, muove nausea a chi di buone lettere si diletta; e con Avverbio così mozzo. (Delle imprese I, 24v–25r; emphasis added) (The star can signify disdain, and punishment, for which reason it was made a symbol against the Jews . . . . It can mean prosperity. . . . Among the Romans, the star above the heads of Romulus and Remus who suckled from the she-wolf signified the protection of one’s own guardian spirits, by which those little boys

Silenus Strategies

279

were saved. But if someone else wished to introduce the star into an impresa, with some motto meaning guardianship, or health, it would be too far-fetched. As it would be for the Dog Star Sirius, which if obscured by mist when rising portends disease, and if clear, health. It is true that the Dog Star should not be joined with mechanical tools . . . nor with earthly things . . . , but I still don’t know what the motto LUMINA MENS ILLINC means. . . . Ending a motto with an adverb elicits nausea in anyone who enjoys good literature; and with such a broken adverb.)77

Capaccio’s complaint about poor taste and obscure mottoes signals a much broader problem with the impresa: A symbol can mean almost anything. According to Capaccio’s guidelines it is good taste that prevents a star from meaning (for example) health—except that, under certain circumstances, a star can indeed signify health! For each apparently fixed rule of signification, there is a qualifying “except sometimes”—and whoever lacks the good taste to invent a well-thought-out impresa can assemble symbols and words to mean anything, even if the results elicit incomprehension and nausea rather than interest and admiration.

Nobility, Silence, and the Hollow Man The question of taste occupies much of the discussion of Stefano Guazzo’s Delle imprese (1586), which focuses on a discourse of self-representation that will exclude the “vil plebe,” also characterized as “i rozi bifolchi” (common herd; rude peasants; Guazzo 55v).78 Paradoxically, Guazzo’s dialogue not only appeared in print, making it accessible to the relatively large numbers of the “common herd” who could read, but also offered a series of rules for creating an exclusively “noble” device. At the same time, the text is unusual in impresa writing for its extreme brevity, exemplifying its own argument that “noble” speech should be very laconic, bordering on the oracular, in order to differentiate the speaker from the common people (Guazzo 50r). The “artificio” (art or artifice) of showing nobility thus depends on the kind of silence associated with the Silenus device of the Occulti—or indeed, the Silenic secretary. The praise of brevity and silence shares the first half of the short

Print Monuments, Exposure, and Strategies of Concealment

280

dialogue with condemnations of devices in poor taste: The speaker Cesare tells the story of a Spaniard who, on hearing that his beloved Anna is betrothed to another man, has a medal made that he wears for her to see: The medal is of a duck that Cesare says in Spanish was called “anadino,” so that the medal was a message, “Anna, di, non” (Anna, say no; Guazzo 52r). Annibale dismisses the “childish sentiment” of such inventions, which he derides as “ingegnosamente goffe” (ingenuously clumsy; Guazzo 52r). Multiple interpretations, always a strong point in favor of enigmatic devices, apply especially to hieroglyphs, which Cesare regards as overused precisely for their power to signify different things; yet their multiplicity, he warns us, also tends to confuse (Guazzo 51v). This threat of meaninglessness is partially countered as Guazzo’s mouthpiece Annibale praises the metaphor as a place to hide ideas: Ufficio de’ nobili spiriti è di separare ne i concetti, et nelle parole dalla volgar gente, et di far sotto veli, et sotto figure che già furono ritrovate, non ve n’hà alcuna più famigliare della metafora, ò vogliamo dir traslato, la cui natura è di contenere una occulta similitudine sotto parole trasportate dal loro proprio, et applicate ad altro nuovo sentimento. (Guazzo 53v) (It is the duty of noble spirits to separate from the common people in conceits and in words, and to act under cover of veils, and beneath figures that have already been rediscovered; there is no more familiar figure than the metaphor, or rather “transferred meaning,” whose nature is to contain a hidden comparison beneath words transported from their proper place, and applied to a new sentiment.)

This idea is in line with Doglio’s tracing of a gradual shift away from the device itself and toward a concentration on verbal conceits—so that in the 1590s Tasso’s dialogue (which does not include a single image) speaks of the creator of devices as a “poet,” and Tesauro’s Cannocchiale aristotelico (1654) focuses on the baroque metaphor.79 The “transporting” of meaning from one context to another is precisely what we have traced in the alterations to Tasso’s epic, in which emblematic conceits are embedded as descriptive metaphors rather than traditional blazons.

Silenus Strategies

281

Guazzo’s short dialogue tackles head-on the issue left unresolved by Arrivabene and other writers—that imprese are mere decorations that distract from true chivalry (a concern that recalls Castiglione’s debates about the courtier’s activities). Toward the end of the discussion, Cesare reveals his final doubt, che cosi fatte Imprese non siano come un bel fiore senza frutto, et non servano ad altro che à pascer gli occhi delle genti spensierate. (Guazzo 56r) (that this kind of impresa may be like a lovely flower that bears no fruit, and has no purpose other than to delight the eyes of thoughtless people.)

Annibale’s lengthy response hinges on the idea of the impresa as a visual spur to positive actions that lead to greatness: Just as the crusaders were spurred on by the cross they wore, so too modern-day cavalieri who have made their intention public through a device, “quasi con religioso voto . . . non mancano mai di portarsi heroicamente in tutti i loro fatti” (almost with the fervor of a religious vow . . . never fail to conduct themselves heroically in everything they do; Guazzo 56r). Annibale deploys the familiar rhetoric of visual exemplarity to suggest that an impresa works as an even greater spur than the traditional instruments of visual exemplarity: Et se un Cavaliere veggendo le statue, l’imagini, et l’insegne de’ suoi valorosi, et honorati predecessori si sente risvegliar nel cuore un focoso desiderio di seguire vigorosamente le vestigia loro, quanto maggiormente sarà costretto, et obligato poi che havrà dirizzata in alto la sua propria Impresa, à mantenerla gloriosamente infino all’ultimo spirito? (Guazzo 56v) (And if a Cavalier, on seeing statues, images, and blazons of his brave and honored antecedents, feels awaken within his heart a burning desire to follow zealously in their footsteps, how much more will he be forced and obligated—once he has raised up his own impresa—to maintain it unto his last breath?)

In this idealistic vision, the emblematic device reinstates the “solid goodness” of the man who wears it, who resembles a medieval paladin fighting

Print Monuments, Exposure, and Strategies of Concealment

282

to keep his vow to Christ. The worn device shapes a man’s actions in a very literal way, from the outside in, in line with both the paradigm of fashioning identity through clothing and the Aristotelian notion of virtue deriving from external habit. Yet this lofty description of the function of the emblematic device is immediately followed by a discussion that appears to be a non sequitur but, as a rather odd choice for the closing portion of the dialogue, deserves our attention. Cesare asks Annibale whether or not he thinks the impresa of King Henry III of France has any faults, and to Annibale’s elliptical response, “Basti il dire ch’ella sia Impresa reale” (It should be enough to say that it is a royal impresa), Cesare urges him to speak freely as this is a private discussion (Guazzo 56v). Annibale’s eulogistic response is clearly not an example of free speech: His interpretation of the king’s device suggests that the king is more concerned with God’s realm than with his own earthly realms (Guazzo 57r). At this point the conversation takes an interesting turn, reverting to the rhetoric of appearances that we came across in Pontano and Castiglione, and that Aretino ostentatiously deployed and tried to deny: Cesare raises the specter of the impresa as mere regal display, which may or may not correspond with the “hidden interior” it is supposed to advertise: “Voglia Iddio che tale sia il cuore del Rè, quale è il suono dell’Impresa, et della vostra interpretatione” (May it please God that such is the heart of the king, as is the report of his device and of your interpretation; Guazzo 57r). Annibale’s response, however, is not at all reassuring; he says that in fact the king’s impresa “contains so many mysteries” that a thousand writers could work on its elucidation—presumably each with his own interpretation, so the king’s “heart” could correspond with any one of these. Still more perplexing is the fact that he mentions that the “Academico Elevato” prepared a three-volume set of work elaborating the meaning of the king’s impresa, ma perche da molti suoi amici era persuaso che ne riporterebbe larga mercede da sua Maestà, egli . . . si ritirò da questo proponimento, amando meglio di privar se stesso di questa gloria che di dar altrui sospetto d’avaritia. (Guazzo 57r) (but because he was convinced by many of his friends that he would receive substantial rewards from His Majesty for this,

Silenus Strategies

283

he . . . withdrew from this scheme, preferring to deny himself this glory than to let others suspect him of avarice.)80

This self-sacrificing behavior—entirely out of keeping with more typical complaints about courtiers’ sycophantic greed—meets with Cesare’s approval, albeit with a caveat: CES. . . . è forse stato il meglio tener nascosto il libro, et star in buona opinione della liberalità regia, che darlo fuori et metter i suoi amici à rischio di restar mentiti, veggendo che in vece di riportarne gran mercede, à pena gli fosse toccato un gran mercè. AN. Sia detto per ischerzo. CES. Anzi sia per non detto. (Guazzo 57r) (CESARE: . . . perhaps it was better to keep the book hidden, and to keep thinking positive things about royal generosity, than to publish it and risk his friends’ being belied, as they might have seen that instead of this work’s bringing him great favor, he barely got a “many thanks.” ANNIBALE: Let that be said as a joke. CESARE: No, let it rather not be said at all.)

The dialogue ends here, with the retraction of a comment that is clearly too dangerous to be articulated, yet remains articulated as the closing idea of a discussion of self-representation. The notion of ideal exemplarity, by which the king’s heart corresponds with his impresa, is debunked immediately after being raised, with the king resembling not so much the Silenus concealing great treasures, but rather the prince identified by Castiglione’s courtiers with an empty, cracked container. This moral hollowness is somewhat disguised by the impresa’s explosion of possible meanings—which, however, undermines intelligibility and credibility. The dialogue’s abrupt ending confirms Cesare’s original suspicion: Emblematic devices are mere decoration after all; they do not necessarily reference anything beneath the surface, and have no exemplary function. As Capaccio and Grizi suggest, devices are no more exclusive or exemplary than clothing. What is more, the obvious failure of the impresa in

Print Monuments, Exposure, and Strategies of Concealment

284

the case of the king, at the very end of Guazzo’s dialogue, casts doubt on the self-representation of the ostensibly virtuous courtier who composed the book of interpretations of the king’s device—and by extension onto the two interlocutors themselves and so too onto the author of the dialogue. The real message here seems to be conveyed—in a manner that presages that of Torquato Accetto, writing several decades later—via the silence of self-censorship that abruptly replaces discussion, hinting at the real use of emblematic devices as pure concealment: The courtiers once again aim to resemble the silent Silenic secretary, the man who conceals his writing and suppresses his speech.

Conclusion Guazzo’s two main positive statements about imprese—that metaphor is a good hiding place for ideas, and that insignia can (in theory) have an exhortatory exemplary function—presage the devolving of Italian impresa literature in the seventeenth century into the verbal conceit and the pedagogical emblem. Indeed, Guazzo’s brief dialogue theorizes a number of problems raised by multiple writers. While the impresa purports to be like a Silenus, concealing gems beneath its surface and promising to be a cryptic sign of elite exemplarity, it frequently turns out to be unintelligible—as we see in Piccolomini and Capaccio— or to have so many potential meanings as to threaten meaninglessness. As the work of Grizi, Capaccio, Pittoni, and Arrivabene attests, impresa theorists struggled against the sense that devices are a set of interchangeable masks, or worse—clothing whose meaning depends on personal taste rather than any inherent logic. Tasso’s poems reflect an acute awareness of the limits of a fixed outward sign in conveying a flexible identity: For this reason, the poet ultimately disregarded his own emblematic precepts in his epic poems. While the dialogues of Giovio and Tasso evince an awareness of the infinite possible contingencies that require a highly specific display of oneself, the revisions Tasso made to his epic poem signal a tacit admission of the failure of the impresa to resolve the double bind posed by the requirement of a permanent, adaptable identity. The author progressively replaced insignia with more multivalent emblematic conceits. The revised emblematic

Silenus Strategies

285

descriptions of Tasso’s two main protagonists—Tancredi and Riccardo— successfully worked as militant Christian correctives to the humanistic concerns of the Ferrara court, bolstered Tasso’s authority as the writer of Christian conquest, and (in Riccardo) even posited the perfect Christlike correspondence of character with external representation. Beyond the realms of fiction, however, Tasso had to contend with the difficult reality of representing elite identities at court—both his own and those of others. Far from positing the correspondence of interior and exterior, Tasso’s ideal courtier behaves as an impresa, combining concealment with beauty to generate interest; the ideal courtly impresa, the nautilus, is characterized by the ability to avoid storms. Yet the tropes of failed navigation typical of many sixteenth-century insignia also infected the impresa genre as a whole, as individual intentions each demanded their own representation, resulting in an exponential explosion of a genre that became self-perpetuating. The literature is often characterized by fatigue from the infinity of possible imprese, or frustration with their fleeting nature—since the proliferation of insignia rendered them more like empty decoration than enduring signs of heroism. Guazzo reiterated, in stronger terms, the nostalgic wish for a sign of elite virtue articulated earlier by Baldi and Arrivabene: As the “interior self” is externalized as a sign on the body, it covers an absence of true virtue and signals a lack of correspondence between signifier and signified. What is more, the exponential multiplication of devices for different circumstances, published and republished in print, diluted the validity of these devices until they resembled the interchangeable masks of Pittoni’s frontispiece. Thus, the promise offered by imprese to create and regulate one’s public image—in Maggi’s words, the hope of projecting “our ideal being, our universal showing of ourselves”—was doomed to failure as the inevitability of adapting to historical pressure undermined the ideal of a monolithic identity. By the 1590s the limitations of the impresa genre were sufficiently apparent to its practitioners as to indicate the general breakdown of the monumental pose. The exemplary pose was intended to signify an enduring and timeless nobility and authority— but as impresa literature showed, the meaning of the outward signifying pose is only limited by the confines of personal taste.

This page intentionally left blank

Afterword

T

he idea of proposing images of ancient heroes as models for the viewer was by no means new in the fifteenth century, but it was the foundation for much humanistic rhetoric of imitation. Following the fame of Giotto’s 1332 fresco cycle of ancient heroes for King Robert of Anjou, the fashion spread across Italy for the display of visual exemplars in public spaces. In Milan, Azzo Visconti ordered a series of images of ancient princes, while Francesco da Carrara in Padua commissioned frescoes illustrating Petrarch’s De viris illustribus. While such cycles generally represented exemplary men, in the 1480s Eleonora d’Este commissioned a series of paintings of classical suicidal heroines to illustrate the motto of her father, Ferrante of Naples: malo mori, quam foedari (i prefer dying over dishonor). This kind of display was advocated by many humanists, the most famous of whom (although not the first) is Paolo Cortesi, who in the later fifteenth century suggested that such decoration would be useful in a cardinal’s palace. Just as Petrarch had urged following the example of Roman emperors depicted on coins, so scholars like Cortesi and Pontano suggested that images of great people—the Caesars, the Fabii, the Scipios—were worthy of reverence as both representations of greatness and examples for modern men to follow. At the same time, ancient images of heroes seemed to be inspirited by the genius of the artist, and so conferred authority on the writer who appropriated such artifacts in his own self-construction.

Afterword

288

The idea of the accessible, reproducible exemplar in literature recalls Nagel and Wood’s “substitutional” paradigm of art, according to which churches could reproduce and literally “partake of” the model of Jerusalem’s temple, and paintings of the Madonna could “participate in” both a much earlier icon and the Madonna herself—so that medieval artworks defied the chronology of artistic production by conveying the “presence” of their models.1 In the same way that Renaissance artists “invented” the idea of timeless substitution by staging it in tension with a chronologically specific performative paradigm—with artists and architects simultaneously drawing on the notion of a transhistorical artwork and producing something specific to themselves—so too the humanistic theory of exemplarity necessarily performed a similar contradiction as it had, as its ultimate goal, exceptionalism. Authors like Petrarch, Pontano, and Bembo emphasized that a man who followed models from history would be memorialized—both as one in a timeless series of virtuous heroes, and as an exceptional instance of the spirit of the ancients. Quattrocento and early Cinquecento commentators on imitation, like Gianfrancesco Pico, frequently advocated imitating the ancients in such a way as to create something that could make the old new again—an idea modeled visually by the combination of classical and Quattrocento elements in Ghirlandaio’s frescoes. This divergence between reproducing a model and striving for exceptionalism echoes, in literary terms, the tension between substitutional and authorial modes of art, which Nagel and Wood argue produced unique forms of creativity in the Quattrocento and early Cinquecento. In fact, Pontano’s own text undercuts the notion that images of kings and rulers are a readable and reproducible series of gesta: Pontano posits a prince who will follow in the footsteps of his forebears, and attempts to collapse historical distance so as to create a chain of exemplarity linking the prince directly with Scipio and Cyrus—with the ancients made present again in the person of the prince. Yet at the same time, Pontano’s text clearly stages the tension between this ideal and the reality, as the prince’s exemplarity exists on the surface, threatening to become mere representation. Together with Ghirlandaio’s frescoes of exemplary men, Pontano confirms that what is required is a pose that appears classicizing and

Afterword

289

authoritative—seeming to reproduce ancient models—but is in fact enigmatic and ambiguous. Bembo’s De Virgilii Culice restates this problem, clarifying that the exemplary function of monuments has failed because all monuments from the past—both tactile and textual—are irreparably broken, “castrated” and unreadable. Bembo’s eventual solution to this problem—the reconstruction of an imagined ideal—contradicts his statements earlier in the same text about the irrecoverable nature of ancient monuments. Yet this contradiction instantiates the tension between substitutional and performative paradigms in the most dramatic way: The only possible performance available to the emasculated philologist is nostalgic substitution. Bembo’s solution is superseded by Castiglione, who rejects idealized models from the past in favor of a self-consciously artful public image that is multivalent and less easily readable. Castiglione moreover subverts the paradigm of exemplarity by linking heroic virtue (as epitomized in Cortesi’s exemplary images) with an erasure from history: The ideal of “death over dishonor” promoted in Eleonora d’Este’s paintings of suicidal heroines is debunked as Castiglione’s heroines lack both concrete monuments and literary tributes. While Bembo compensates for the emasculating brokenness of history by reconstructing an imagined ideal, Castiglione reimagines that history by defining heroic masculinity in terms of adaptable representation. The terms of the problem are further articulated by Aretino, who tries to throw off the models of the past by claiming authority through clothing—and then by asserting his autonomy from a patronage system represented by both gifts of clothing and the kinds of literary imitation promoted by Castiglione and Bembo. Just as Castiglione had discredited intransigent virtue by associating it with women and historical erasure, Aretino linked literary imitation and courtly patronage with clothing and effeminacy. Aretino went further still, thematizing representation itself as problematic, and attempting to recover immediacy and unmediated authorial “presence” through his rough style and ostensibly uncensored thoughts; yet this was a choice clearly determined by the need to perform for an audience. Instead of clothing described in manuscript letters, Aretino used a timeless mythological symbol, fixed in print, to claim authority as a writer. Aretino thus

Afterword 290

heralds a major shift in the second half of the Cinquecento by embracing print as key to establishing his new authorial persona. Aretino’s strategy confronted the problem of “presence” as he tried to free himself from the traditional paradigm of investiture (by which a gift of clothing evoked its previous owner, to whom the recipient was bound) to instead render clothes transient objects of consumption, on a par with peaches or lettuces. At the same time as emphasizing his own uniqueness, however, the author also compared his printed letter collection with food, offering it for the hungry reader’s consumption. The tension between the paradigm of uniqueness and that of consumable commodity was resolved in the short term both by the replicability of print (Aretino worked with unauthorized printers to publish cheaper, pirated versions of the authoritative text) and by the potential of the impresa to recapture the author’s “inner essence” in such a way as to be entirely unique and irreproducible, thus returning presence to the tired rhetoric of authority. While print promised influence and autonomy to Aretino, the explosion of print portraits in the later half of the century undermined this kind of program by exposing contradictions among exemplary theory, physiognomic theory, and the idea of the lifelike portrait. The genres of impresistica and portrait-books both derive from early sixteenth-century numismatic volumes (which showed images of ancient coins), and offer a series of publicly conceived outward identities, drawing from the idea of the visually accessible exemplar. The emphasis on concealment in impresa volumes, however, positions them at the opposite pole of the public-image spectrum from portrait-books. The latter called on the idea of the visually comprehensible exemplar and even professed to offer encyclopedic knowledge to the eager reader—a foretaste of their eventual development into the biographical encyclopedia. Portrait-books offered images that appeared increasingly lifelike and in doing so highlighted discrepancies between exemplary and physiognomic theories. The resultant split between visual and narrative called for a series of framing devices around the image in order to modify its iconic value: The multiplication of frames emphasized that the image is just an image—not an inspirited monument to virtue. The proliferation of (usually unauthorized) portraits in books not only diluted the

Afterword

291

value of these images through indiscriminate copying and sheer force of volume, but also, repeatedly and consistently, exposed inherent contradictions between visual and textual discourses, contributing to the separation of the image from reality, so that by the 1580s, coin portraits no longer offered the same spiritual presence that they had in Fulvio’s publication of 1517. In many ways, the impresa responded to problems posed by the portrait-book: It encapsulated, in a word-picture combination, an enigmatic identity that emphatically suppressed visual likeness and attempted to recapture the possibility of externalizing ancient heroic virtue—simultaneously thematizing both representation and spiritual presence. Thanks to its enigmatic nature, the impresa offered more scope for interpretation (and misunderstanding) than any other iteration of the monumental pose. Yet just as the replicability and internal contradictions of portrait-books ultimately destabilized the possibility of a monumental public image in print, so too the proliferation of impresa literature increasingly devalued even the most unique personal symbol—and the rhetoric of such symbols—through the replicability of print. My work would be incomplete without a few complementary remarks on painted portraiture. While the visual-textual contradictions of portrait-books undermined the imagined confluence of exemplarity and physiognomic theories, offering further motivation for seeking out alternative modes of self-representation (like the impresa), painted portraiture likewise ventured into the realm of the nonmimetic. Like the exemplary text, symbolic images were subject to substitution according to the needs of the viewer: In the most banal example, Christ is represented as dark, blond, bearded, clean-shaven, black, or white—but the image still partakes of God’s holiness. Most early modern portraits however combined elements of both the exemplary and the mimetic. One early example of the intersection between the two is Azzo d’Este’s stipulation that his own likeness be part of the cycle of exemplary rulers that he commissioned in the fourteenth century. The resulting monumental image thus signals both the ruler’s unique identity and his exemplary function in a patrilineal succession

Afterword

292

of heroes. Likewise, many later autonomous images showed the individual as an outstanding member of a larger group—for example, a family, or a group of scholars—through the use of clothing, emblems, books, family medals, or other references within the frame. As Berger has shown, portraits depicted people in the act of being depicted—so that portraiture shows not merely the idealized features of the sitter, but the sitter actively posing.2 The emphasis on a pose that would be unique and somehow monumentalizing—in the visual arts as in literature—generated images such as Bronzino’s Portrait of Ugolino Martelli. Painted in the late 1530s or early 1540s, the image portrays a young man in three-quarter view, whose gaze is directed over his right elbow, beyond the viewer. He wears a sober but voluminous black gown and hat, and has a book open under his right hand, his forefinger pointing to a line on the page. The background is a classicizing courtyard, with a statue of David and Goliath on a podium at the vanishing point beyond the sitter’s right shoulder. The open book shows the beginning of the ninth book of the Iliad; the spine of the closed book in the sitter’s lap reads “M BEMBO,” identifying the book as one of Bembo’s works. The corner of a third volume is also visible on the table next to the open book: The word “MARO” on the page edges identifies this with Virgil. Here, as in the case of Pisanello’s “Liber sum” medal and Aretino’s first volume of letters, the book is equated with its author. Within the painting, all three canonical authors are present, suggesting a succession of literary exemplars in which the young Martelli is about to establish his place. The evident primacy of Homer over Bembo, and Bembo over Virgil, however, perplexes art historians. Why should the pro-Florentine Bronzino privilege Homer over Bembo, who advocated a pro-Tuscan answer to the language question? What is implied by the spatial relations between the victorious David in the background, and Agamemnon’s speech to a sulking Achilles, clearly legible in the book? And how do these potentially politically charged questions relate to the implied paragone between art and literature?3 Perhaps the most useful response to these questions is a general observation by Deborah Parker that much of Bronzino’s poetry can be read in multiple ways; she asks “what it means to produce works that are fundamentally ambiguous and inconclusive.”4 The equivocal nature of Bronzino’s poetry and his

Afterword

293

Portrait of Ugolino Martelli—and, to a greater degree, the mystery surrounding such problematic images as the Portrait of Cosimo I de’ Medici as Orpheus (clearly not a “true likeness” as a ruler cannot be depicted naked)—are another version of the quest for singularity and multivalency most evident in the enigmatic symbolism of the device fashion sweeping through Italy.5 The questions raised by the Martelli portrait, and by emblematic portraiture—enigmas designed to be decoded, or guessed at, only by those in the know—offer a complementary perspective on the tendencies we have tracked. As the vernacular superseded Latin, and printing became a notable economic and intellectual force, anyone of sufficient reading knowledge could study Castiglione’s Cortegiano or Della Casa’s Galateo—how-to books that were intended to exclude the majority of their readers from the ranks of the elite. Likewise, one did not need a trained eye to identify the person portrayed in a “lifelike” portrait. Moreover, such autonomous portraits were no longer reserved for the extremely powerful: Even upstarts like Aretino could, through print, diffuse authoritative images of themselves. Only the most careful readers, however, could fully appreciate Castiglione’s “rhetoricization” of ethics; and the claims to wealth and power made by Aretino’s portrait are best understood alongside the text that exploited and denigrated the authoritative luxury implied by the author-portrait. Yet as we have seen with Aretino, with the Martelli portrait, and in particular with the impresa fashion, the quest for the inimitable instance of monumentality—alongside the recognition that such monumentality was a performance that must constantly adapt—led to a growing interest in the singular instance per se: a paradigm that developed into emerging concepts of the author and his protagonist, and of the modern subject— who is already visible in the split between the external pose of ideal elite manhood and the conscious decision to adopt that pose.

This page intentionally left blank

Notes

introduction 1. “Di qui a mille anni nessuno non ne potea dar cognitione che fossero altrimenti.” Letter of Niccolo Martelli, July 1544, quoted in John Pope-Hennessy, Italian High Renaissance and Baroque Sculpture (London: Phaidon, 1970), 336. 2. See Hans Belting, Likeness and Presence: A History of the Image before the Era of Art, trans. Edmund Jephcott (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994). Recent art history criticism suggests that the “presence” of the art object continues today. W. J. T. Mitchell argues for a reconciliation of the ontological and visual studies approaches, insofar as objects are animated by their association with viewers; see What Do Pictures Want? The Lives and Loves of Images (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005). Such arguments are further complicated by Alexander Nagel and Christopher S. Wood, who perceive a visible tension between “substitutional” (medieval) and “authorial” (modern) notions of the artwork from the fifteenth to the early sixteenth century; see Anachronic Renaissance (New York: Zone, 2010). 3. Stephen Campbell, “‘Fare una cosa Morta Parer Viva’: Michelangelo, Rosso, and the (Un)Divinity of Art,” Art Bulletin 84, no. 4 (2002): 596–620. 4. Campbell, “(Un)Divinity,” 609–10. See also Charles Dempsey, Inventing the Renaissance Putto (Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, 2001), 190–231, for the larva as the false dream of Medici glory. 5. The lack of inscriptions—originally planned but never included—renders the identification of the statues problematic. See Richard C. Trexler, “True Light Shining: vs. Obscurantism in the Study of Michelangelo’s New Sacristy,” Artibus et Historiae 21, no. 42 (2000): 101–17. 6. See Thomas Greene’s foundational article, “The Flexibility of the Self in Renaissance Literature,” in The Disciplines of Criticism, ed. Peter Demetz, Thomas

Notes

296

Greene, and Lowry Nelson Jr. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968), 241– 64; see also The Light in Troy: Imitation and Discovery in Renaissance Poetry (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982); Terence Cave, “The Mimesis of Reading in the Renaissance,” in Mimesis: Mirror to Method, ed. John D. Lyons and Stephen G. Nichols Jr (Hanover, N.H.: University Press of New England, 1982) 148–65; Timothy Hampton, Writing from History: The Rhetoric of Exemplarity in Renaissance Literature (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1990); and David Quint, “‘Alexander the Pig’: Shakespeare on History and Poetry,” Boundary 2 10, no. 3 (1982): 49–67. 7. John Martin, “Inventing Sincerity, Refashioning Prudence: The Discovery of the Individual in Renaissance Europe,” American Historical Review 102, no. 5 (1997): 1309–42. 8. François Rigolot, “Problematizing Renaissance Exemplarity: The Inward Turn of Dialogue from Petrarch to Montaigne,” in Printed Voices: The Renaissance Culture of Dialogue, ed. Dorothea Heitsch and Jean-François Vallé (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004), 5. While Rigolot points to the difficulty in establishing a clear trajectory of this failure, I hope to offer some clarity by expanding the discussion from literature into the visual arts. 9. On performance and interiority, see Harry Berger Jr., Fictions of the Pose (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000), as well as Chapter 1 of this book. For an attempt to suspend the “pre-given voluntarist subject” so as to adhere to Judith Butler’s notion of performativity, see Catherine Bates, Masculinity, Gender and Identity in the English Renaissance Lyric (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007). I do not emulate Bates as the texts I am working with presuppose a masculine author-narrator who chooses to write—a figure that works to constitute itself as an authoritative, unified masculine subject. 10. William Egginton, How the World Became a Stage: Presence, Theatricality, and the Question of Modernity (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2003). Egginton uses theater as the paradigmatic case of the emergence of “theatrical” subjectivity in all the visual arts. 11. I thank Stuart Lingo for pointing out the staring eyes beneath the mask. 12. See Nagel and Wood, Anachronic Renaissance, and “Toward a New Model of Renaissance Anachronism,” Art Bulletin 87.3 (2005), 403–15. See also the responses in the same issue by Charles Dempsey, “Historia and Anachronism in Renaissance Art,” 416–21; Michael Cole, “Nihil sub Sole Novum,” 421–24; Claire Farago, “Time Out of Joint,” 424–29; and Nagel and Wood, “The Authors Reply,” 429–32. For the changing status of the image, see also Georges DidiHuberman, Fra Angelico: Dissemblance and Figuration, trans. Jane Marie Todd (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995). 13. Nagel and Wood, “Reply,” 429; Anachronic Renaissance, 32–34; their distinction between “document” and “nondocumentary texts” is problematic for

Notes

297

this period. For a literary application of their model, see Kristin Phillips-Court, “Performing Anachronism: A New Aetiology of Italian Renaissance Tragedy,” Renaissance Drama 36/37 (2010): 43–67, and The Perfect Genre: Drama and Painting in Renaissance Italy (Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate, 2011). 14. On the rhetoric of exemplarity, see Hampton, Writing from History; François Cornilliat, “Exemplarities: A Response to Timothy Hampton and Karlheinz Stierle,” Journal of the History of Ideas 59 (1998): 613–24. See also in the same issue François Rigolot, “The Renaissance Crisis of Exemplarity,” 557– 63; Karlheinz Stierle, “Three Moments in the Crisis of Exemplarity: BoccaccioPetrarch, Montaigne, and Cervantes,” 581–95, who identifies signs of crisis in exemplary rhetoric in Boccaccio and Petrarch; and Michel Jeanneret, “The Vagaries of Exemplarity: Distortion or Dismissal?,” 565–79, who argues that transmission and transformation of exemplars was normative and does not indicate a crisis in exemplarity. 15. For ironic references to coining, immortalizing oneself, and fatherhood with respect to the sodomite Brunetto, see Ronald L. Martinez in The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri: Inferno, ed. Robert Durling and Ronald L. Martinez (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 557–59. 16. See Ascoli, Dante and the Making of a Modern Author (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 97–108. 17. This discussion of Familiares 19 summarizes part of Albert Ascoli’s “Petrarch’s Private Politics: Rerum Familiarum Libri 19,” in “A Local Habitation and a Name”: Imagining Histories in the Italian Renaissance (New York: Fordham University Press, 2011), 118–58. See also Nicholas Mann, “Petrarch and Portraits,” in The Image of the Individual: Portraits in the Renaissance, ed. Nicholas Mann and Luke Syson (London: British Museum Press, 1998), 15–21. For Petrarch’s use of imperial Roman history, see Giuseppe Mazzotta, The Worlds of Petrarch (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1993), 102–28. 18. “nostrorum principum effigies minutissimis ac veteribus literis inscriptas, . . . in quibus et Augusti Cesaris vultus erat pene spirans.” Francesco Petrarca, Le familiari, ed. Vittorio Rossi, Edizione nazionale delle opere di Francesco Petrarca (Florence: Sansoni, 1934), vol. 12; Latin quotations are all from this edition. All translations of Familiares are from Francesco Petrarca, Rerum familiarum libri, trans. Aldo S. Bernardo, 3 vols (Albany: State University of New York Press / Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975–1985). 19. “si vel ipsa loqui posset vel tu illam contemplari, ab hoc te prorsus inglorio ne dicam infami itinere retraxisset.” See Ascoli, who notes that the syntax is ambiguous: The gift could be from Laelius, but the ambiguity invites the reader to see a symmetry with Petrarch’s gift of coins to the emperor in Familiares 19.3 (Local Habitation, 144n49).

Notes 298 20. “imaginemque eius summis parietibus extantem, quam illi viro simillimam fama fert, sepe venerabundus in saxo pene vivam spirantemque suspicio.” See Mann, 17. 21. “iam primum patrimonii sui partem non exiguam in meum decus expendere, signum nomen imaginem novi amici in omnibus domus sue angulis, sed in pectore altius insculptam habere.” 22. “exoptatam ignoti hominis facie[m].” Petrarch, Res seniles, ed. Silvia Rizzo, 2 vols, (Florence: Le Lettere, 2006–2009). Translations from Rerum senilium libri I-XVIII, trans. Aldo S. Bernardo, Saul Levin, and Reta A. Bernardo, 2 vols (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992). 23. “quod nec tamen omni artis ope quivit efficere.” Mann contests Bernardo’s identification of this painter with Simone Martini (on chronological grounds) and suggests Altichiero (192n24). 24. For the advent of the fifteenth-century medal, see Luke Syson and Dillian Gordon, Pisanello: Painter to the Renaissance Court (London: National Gallery, 2001), 109–30; Beverly Louise Brown, “Portraiture at the Courts of Italy,” in The Renaissance Portrait from Donatello to Bellini, ed. Keith Christiansen and Stefan Weppelmann (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2011), 26–47; and for autonomous portraiture more generally, the other essays in this volume, as well as Lorne Campbell, Renaissance Portraits: European Portrait-Painting in the 14th, 15th, and 16th Centuries (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990). 25. Vatican Library, MS. Chig.I.VII.259, cited and reproduced in Roberto Weiss, The Renaissance Discovery of Classical Antiquity (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1969), 22–23; 37 pl. 5. 26. Turin, Biblioteca Nazionale, inv. MS.E.III.19, folio 85, cited in Syson and Gordon, 109–10. 27. Syson and Gordon, 96, 111; Mario Salmi, “La ‘Divi Julii Caesaris Effigies’ del Pisanello,” Commentari 8 (1957): 91–95. 28. Syson and Gordon, 118; Joanna Woods-Marsden, “‘In la Persia e nella India il mio ritratto si pregia’: Pietro Aretino e la costruzione visuale dell’intellettuale nel Rinascimento,” Pietro Aretino nel cinquecentenario della nascita. Atti del Convegno di Roma-Viterbo-Arezzo (28 settembre–1 ottobre 1992), Toronto (23–24 ottobre 1992), Los Angeles (27–29 ottobre 1992) (Rome: Salerno, 1995), 1104. Letter of Leonello d’Este to Pier Candido Decembrio reproduced in Giorgio Vasari, Le Vite de’ piu eccellenti pittori, scultori e architettori, vol. 1, Gentile da Fabriano e il Pisanello, ed. Aldolfo Venturi (Florence: Sansoni, 1896), 58. 29. For the novelty of attributing auctoritas to early modern writers, see Ascoli, Dante. 30. Syson and Gordon, 118; Woods-Marsden, “In la Persia,” 1104.

Notes

299

31. Latin and translation from Horace, Satires, Epistles, and Ars poetica, trans. H. Rushton Fairclough (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1942). 32. Compare pisanus pi[nxit], the signature on a panel from around the late 1430s, The Virgin and Child with Saints Anthony Abbot and George (London, National Gallery); see Syson and Gordon, 140–41. 33. See Syson and Gordon, 1–2; Dominique Cordellier, “Le peintre aux sept vertus,” in Pisanello. Le Peintre aux sept vertus, exh. cat., ed. Dominique Cordellier and Paola Marini (Paris: Réunion des musées nationaux, 1996), 15–18; and Joanna Woods-Marsden, “Pisanello et le moi,” in Actes du colloque organisé au musée du Louvre: Pisanello, 2 vols, ed. Dominique Cordellier and Bernadette Py (Paris: Documentation française, 1998), 265–95. 34. The phrase “objects of virtue” is borrowed from Luke Syson and Dora Thornton, Objects of Virtue: Art in Renaissance Italy (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2001). 35. See A. D. Fraser Jenkins, “Cosimo de’ Medici’s patronage of architecture and the theory of Magnificence,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 33 (1970): 162–70; and Patricia Lee Rubin, Images and Identity in FifteenthCentury Florence (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007). See also Dale V. Kent, Cosimo de’ Medici and the Florentine Renaissance: The Patron’s Oeuvre (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000); and F. W. Kent, Lorenzo de’ Medici and the Art of Magnificence (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004). 36. See Syson and Thornton; for the complex role of treasured objects, see Renata Ago, Il gusto delle cose: Una storia degli oggetti nella Roma del Seicento (Rome: Donzelli, 2006). 37. “qui mihi videtur egisse, ut discerent posteri qua via aedificarent.” Giovanni Pontano, De magnificentia, in I libri delle virtù sociali, ed. Francesco Tateo (Rome: Bulzoni, 1999), 180, 192. 38. Poggio Bracciolini, Opera omnia, con una premessa di Riccardo Fubini, vol. 1 (Turin: Bottega d’Erasmo, 1964). Translation modified from “On Nobility,” in Albert Rabil, ed., Knowledge, Goodness, and Power: The Debate over Nobility among Quattrocento Italian Humanists (Binghamton, N.Y.: Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1991). 39. “Haec enim claros et homines celebres praestant, et nobiles efficiunt.” 40. Carlo Marsuppini, “Carmen De Nobilitate” and translation in Rabil, ed., Knowledge, Goodness, and Power, 102–9; here 104–5. 41. “Nam generositas, / Virtus et probitas veraque et unica est” (For virtue and goodness alone / are the marks of true nobility). 42. We bear in mind a long tradition that upheld the monumental nature of writing—for example, in Horace’s famous “Exegi monumentum aere perennius” (I have finished a monument more lasting than bronze), in Odes and Epodes,

Notes 300 trans. C. E. Bennet (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1995), Odes 3.30.1. 43. For the debates about the term “noble” as a means of self-definition in the sixteenth century, see David M. Posner, The Performance of Nobility in Early Modern European Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999). 44. Juvenal, Satire 8.19–23, in Juvenal and Persius, ed. and trans. Susanna Morton Braund (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2004). Translation modified. 45. “Multum enim ad nobibilitandum [sic] excitandumque animum conferre existimaverunt, imagines eorum qui gloriae et sapientiae studiis floruissent ante oculos positos.” Poggio, 65; translation in Rabil, 65. 46. “Ea enim stultitia ficto quodam artificio signa virorum illustrium dissimulabant; in iis autem natura veras parentum imagines ostendit”; Buonaccorso da Montemagno il Giovane, De nobilitate tractatus, in Prose e rime dei due Buonaccorsi da Montemagno, ed. Giovanni Battista Casotti (Florence: Stamperia di Giuseppe Manni, 1718), 18; translation in Rabil, 36. 47. “parentum imagines in ipsis liberorum vultibus quasi insitae, atque ingenitae.” Buonaccorso, 14; Rabil, 35. “Est igitur mihi propria nobilitatis possessio relicta, quod a maioribus meis quasi haereditariae sunt ingenitae illorum imagines.” Buonaccorso, 28; Rabil, 38. 48. Work on the tomb began in 1427 and continued for some years; Bruni’s letter was presumably composed at some point after Aragazzi’s death in 1429. See Carlo Del Bravo, “Preparativi per l’interpretazione di opere funebri quattrocentesche,” Artibus et Historiae 12, no. 23 (1991), 83. 49. “nemo qui gloriae suae confidat, de sepulcro sibi faciundo unquam cogitavit.” Leonardo Bruni, Epistolarum libri VIII recensete Laurentio Mehus (1741), vol. 2, ed. James Hankins (Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 2007), 46; translation in Creighton E. Gilbert, Italian Art 1400–1500: Sources and Documents (Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1992), 166. 50. Dario Covi, “The Italian Renaissance and the Equestrian Monument,” in Leonardo da Vinci’s Sforza Monument Horse: The Art and the Engineering, ed. Diane Cole Ahl (Bethlehem, Pa.: Lehigh University Press, 1995), 39–56. 51. Covi, 49; Peter Meller, “Physiognomical Theory in Renaissance Heroic Portraits,” in Renaissance and Mannerism: Studies in Western Art. Acts of the Twentieth International Congress of the History of Art, vol. 2 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1963), 53–69. 52. Anonymous Latin poem in Alessandro Parronchi, Donatello e il potere (Firenze: Cappelli / Il Portolano, 1980), 145–48; here 146; translation is my own. 53. “più charo arej farnj tuto intero in sun chaval grosso che vi farej etterno.” Original in Casa Orsini Archives, published by Maud Cruttwell, Antonio Pollaiuolo (London: Duckworth, 1907), 256–57; translation my own.

Notes 301 54. The next completed commission that was life-size or larger was finished in 1595, Giovanni Bologna’s statue of Cosimo I de’ Medici. See Covi, 49. 55. Leonard Barkan, Unearthing the Past: Archeology and Aesthetics in the Making of Renaissance Culture (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999), especially 119–73. 56. Poggio, 73; translation modified from Rabil, 84. 57. Jean Baudrillard likewise argues that the simulacrum arises from the breakdown of referentiality, in “The Precession of Simulacra,” trans. Paul Foss and Paul Patton, in Art after Modernism: Rethinking Representation, ed. Brian Wallis and Maria Tucker (New York: The New Museum of Contemporary Art, 1984), 253–81. 58. This view accords with that of Riccardo Fubini in Humanism and Secularization from Petrarch to Valla, trans. Martha King (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2003), 128, who explores the broader philosophical context. 59. Cristoforo Landino, De vera nobilitate, ed. Maria Teresa Liaci (Firenze: Olschki, 1970), 23; translation in Rabil, 190. 60. “Est praeterea virtus quaedam, quae, quicquid dixeris, egeris fecerisve in primis cavet ut locorum, temporum, rerum ac personarum rationem habeamus, et quoniam singula discernendo haec virtus comparatur, iccirco multi illam ab eo verbo discretionem denominaverunt.” Landino, 72; Rabil, 229. 61. Landino, 103–4; Rabil, 252–53. 62. “Laurentium Medicem vera nobilitate donandum censeo, eumque vero cognomento, sive caeletur sculpaturve uspiam sive fingatur pingaturve, inscribi mando” (Landino 104; Rabil 253). 63. Claudio Donati, L’ idea di nobiltà in Italia: secoli XIV-XVIII (Bari: Laterza, 1988), points out the unusually strong argument in favor of wealth (16); Rabil however suggests that the dialogue critiques clerical avarice (166). 64. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 4.2.1123a7. 65. “Sed Varronis divini hominis auctoritate moti eius hunc vicum esse existimus.” Bartolomeo Sacchi, Dialogus Platyne De vera nobilitate ([Erfurt: Striblita, 1510]), 4r; translation in Rabil, 273. 66. “Facile patior hanc illius fuisse villam quandoquidem talis fuit qualem optare mortales vix possunt.” Translation modified from Rabil, 273. 67. I use “substitutional” in the sense defined by Nagel and Wood. 68. Latin modified, assuming printer’s error; original reads “pecūias uersetur qūo id ab eo fiet quæ liberalē.” 69. See Wolfger Bulst, “Die sala grande des Palazzo Medici in Florenz: Rekonstruktion und Bedeutung” and Alison Wright, “Piero de’ Medici and the Pollaiuolo” both in Piero de’ Medici, “ il Gottoso” (1416–1469): Kunst im Dienste der Mediceer = Art in the Service of the Medici, ed. Andreas Beyer and Bruce Boucher (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1993), 89–127 and 129–49.

Notes 302 70. “vanus totus umbraque est.” Landino, 108; Rabil, 256. 71. See Donald Weinstein, “The Myth of Florence,” in Florentine Studies: Politics and Society in Renaissance Florence, ed. Nicolai Rubinstein (Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1968), 15–44. 72. For the reference to tyranny, see Alison Wright, The Pollaiuolo Brothers: The Arts of Florence and Rome (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005), 83. 73. Harry Berger, Jr, The Absence of Grace: Sprezzatura and Suspicion in Two Renaissance Courtesy Books (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000), 119–228. 74. Leonard Barkan, “The Beholder’s Tale: Ancient Sculpture, Renaissance Narratives,” Representations 44 (Autumn 1993): 133–66, and Unearthing the Past, especially 119–207; Kathleen Wren Christian, “Poetry and ‘spirited’ ancient sculpture in Renaissance Rome,” Aeolian Winds and the Spirit in Renaissance Architecture: Academia Eolia Revisited, ed. Barbara Kenda (New York: Routledge, 2006), 103–24. 75. See John Cunnally, Images of the Illustrious: The Numismatic Presence in the Renaissance (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1999), 144; also Nagel and Wood, Anachronic Renaissance, 21–34, 347–68. 76. I use the term “presence” as employed by Egginton in the history of theater, and by Belting and many others in the history of the image. 77. See Walter Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” in Media and Cultural Studies: Key Works, ed. Meenakshi Gigi Durham and Douglas M. Kellner, rev. ed. (Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 2006), 18–40.

chapter 1 Parts of this chapter appeared in Italian Studies 64, no. 2 (2009): 245–65. 1. Christiane L. Joost-Gaugier, “Giotto’s Cycle in Naples: A Prototype of Donne Illustri and a Possible Literary Connection,” Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 43, no. 3 (1980): 311–18. 2. Christiane L. Joost-Gaugier, “Poggio and Visual Tradition: Uomini Famosi in Classical Literary Description,” Artibus et Historiae 6, no. 12 (1985): 57. Ferdinando Bologna, in I Pittori alla corte angioina di Napoli 1266–1414 e un riesame dell’arte nell’età federiciana ([Rome: Ugo Bozzi Editore, 1969], 219– 23), argues for the protohumanist significance of Giotto’s cycle, as does Leone de Castris in Arte di corte nella Napoli angioina ([Florence: Cantini Edizioni, 1986], 313–31). Samantha Kelly, in The New Solomon: Robert of Naples (1309–1343) and Fourteenth-Century Kingship ([Leiden: Brill, 2003], 45–46), suggests that the reception of Giotto’s frescoes indicates a continuity between medieval and Renaissance ideals.

Notes 303 3. See Nicolai Rubinstein, “Political Ideas in Sienese Art: The Frescoes by Ambrogio Lorenzetti and Taddeo di Bartolo in the Palazzo Pubblico,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 21 (1958): 179–207; Un ciclo di tradizione repubblicana nel Palazzo Pubblico di Siena: Le iscrizioni degli affreschi di Taddeo di Bartolo (1413–1414), ed. Rodolfo Funari (Siena: Accademia Senese degli Intronati, 2002). 4. For Ghirlandaio’s arches in this program, see Nicolai Rubinstein, “Classical Themes in the Decoration of the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 50 (1987): 29–43; more generally, Melinda Hegarty, “Laurentian Patronage in the Palazzo Vecchio: The Frescoes of the Sala dei Gigli,” Art Bulletin 78 (1996): 264–84; Eckart Marchand, “Exemplary Gestures and ‘Authentic’ Physiognomies,” Apollo 159 (2004): 3–11; Philine Helas, “Ghirlandaios Fresken in der sala dei gigli—‘ewiges’ Abbild einer ephemeren Inszenierung?” in Domenico Ghirlandaio: künstlerische Konstruktion von Identität im Florenz der Renaissance, ed. Michael Rohlmann (Weimar: VDG, 2004), 63–88. 5. See especially Hampton, 31–80. Patricia Eichel-Lojkine, in Le siècle des grands hommes: Les recueils de Vies d’ hommes illustres avec portraits du XVIème siècle (Louvain: Éditions Peeters, 2001), argues that Machiavelli, however, tries to locate some surviving “essence” of ancient virtue in modern leaders (90–93). 6. Claudio Finzi, in Re, baroni, popolo: La politica di Giovanni Pontano (Rimini: Il Cerchio, 2004), notes Pontano’s emphasis on appearances but argues that “i principi morali restano ancora saldi per incominciare a cedere, caso mai, nel trattato De obedientia” (moral principles remain firm, perhaps beginning to give way in the treatise De obedientia, 23–24). Similar views characterize Guido M. Cappelli’s introduction to his edition of De principe ([Rome: Salerno, 2003], esp. xxxviii) and Felix Gilbert’s Machiavelli e il suo tempo ([Bologna: Il Mulino, 1988], 171–208). Eugenio Garin, in Prosatori latini del Quattrocento (Milan: Ricciardi, 1952), introduces De principe as an antecedent to Machiavelli, but does not elaborate (1021). Manlio Pastore Stocchi’s overview of humanistic treatises highlights their focus on expediency (“Il pensiero politico degli umanisti,” in Storia delle idee politiche economiche e sociali, ed. Giuseppe Alberigo et al, vol. 3, [Turin: UTET, 1987], 3–68); Davide Canfora, in Prima di Machiavelli: Politica e cultura in età umanistica (Bari: Laterza, 2005), suggests that Pontano’s meditations on power resemble those of Erasmus in the sixteenth century (100– 108). Brian Richardson, in “Pontano’s De prudentia and Machiavelli’s Discorsi” (Bibliothèque d’ humanisme et Renaissance 33 [1971]: 353–57), shows the influence of Pontano’s De prudentia on Machiavelli’s Discorsi. For Pontano’s conception of prudentia, see Victoria Kahn, “Giovanni Pontano’s Rhetoric of Prudence,” Philosophy & Rhetoric 16, no. 1 (1983): 16–34; Mario Santoro, “Il Pontano e l’ideale rinascimentale del ‘prudente,’” Giornale italiano di filologia 17, no. 1 (1964): 29–54.

Notes

304

7. Pontano may have written the letter as early as 1464; he oversaw the first printed edition, under the title De principe liber, in 1490. See Finzi, Re, baroni, 16. 8. For the 1481 conspiracy, planned for Ascension Day, see Alamanno Rinuccini, Ricordi storici di Filippo di Cino Rinuccini dal 1282 al 1460, colla continuazione di Alamanno e Neri suoi figli fino al 1506, ed. G. Aiazzi (Florence: Piatti, 1840), cxxxiv–cxxxv; and Richard C. Trexler, “Lorenzo de’ Medici and Savonarola, Martyrs for Florence,” Renaissance Quarterly 31, no. 3 (1978): 298. 9. Hampton, Writing from History; Cornilliat, 623. 10. Rigolot, “Problematizing Renaissance Exemplarity,” 5. 11. For the destruction of Giotto’s frescoes between 1453 and 1457, see Francesca Flores D’Arcais, Giotto (New York: Abbeville Press, 1995), 350. For Pontano’s visit to Florence, see Carol Kidwell, Pontano Poet & Prime Minister (London: Duckworth, 1991), 186. 12. Pastore Stocchi departs from most criticism to observe that humanist treatises differ from the medieval speculum principis in that, for the Quattrocento prince, “non conta la sostanza, bensì l’apparenza” (what counts is not substance, but appearance, 52). 13. See Berger, Fictions, 95–96 and 137–52; Berger responds to Norbert Elias, The Civilizing Process: The History of Manners, trans. Edmund Jephcott (New York: Urizen Books, 1978), especially 70–84. See also Chapter 2 of this book. 14. See Hegarty for Lorenzo’s influence in the decorative program; also Rubinstein, “Classical Themes,” 37–38. 15. Marchand, 7. My discussion of gestures and physiognomy is indebted to Marchand. 16. See Marchand, 6. Rubinstein notes that the contrast between the classicizing architecture and the heroes’ lively gestures is typical of Florentine painting of this period (“Classical Themes” 38). See Helas for the comparison of Ghirlandaio’s frescoes with temporary manifestations of heroic figures. 17. I thank Estelle and Stuart Lingo for pointing out the Florentine style of the cloaks. 18. Rubinstein, “Classical Themes,” 40–41. The seemingly anachronistic mix of details suggests an “anachronic” paradigm by which the figures both replicate ancient statuary and propose the fiction that the ancient world can be recreated in Medicean Florence. 19. Giuliana Crevatin, “La politica e la retorica: Poggio e la controversia su Cesare e Scipione,” in Poggio Bracciolini 1380–1980 (Florence: Sansoni, 1982), 281–342. See also Claudio Finzi, “Cesare e Scipione: due modelli politici a confronto nel Quattrocento italiano,” in La cultura in Cesare Atti del Convegno Internazionale di Studi Macerata–Matelica, 30 aprile–4 maggio 1990, ed. Diego Poli (Rome: Editrice Il Calamo, 1993), 689–706.

Notes

305

20. Marchand, 8. 21. For the Florentine tradition of Cicero as pater patriae, see Leonardo Bruni’s Cicero novus, in M. Tulli Ciceronis Sex orationum partes, ed. Angelus Maius and Quintus Asconius Pediamus (Milan: Regiis Typis, 1817), 271. For Cosimo as pater patriae, see Alison Brown, “The Humanist Portrait of Cosimo de’ Medici, Pater Patriae,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 24 (1961): 186–221. For background on Cicero iconography and the Medici, see Howard Jones and Ross Kilpatrick, “Cicero, Plutarch, and Vincenzo Foppa: Rethinking the Medici Bank Fresco,” International Journal of the Classical Tradition 13 (2007): 369–83. 22. Mark Jurdjevic, in “Civic Humanism and the Rise of the Medici” (Renaissance Quarterly 52, no. 4 [1999]: 994–1020), shows that humanist debates over types of government were related to the status of the liberal arts. 23. For Camillus as proto-Augustus, see Marchand, 7. 24. See Hegarty, 73; Trexler, “Lorenzo,” 298. Rubinstein suggests that Scipio and Camillus, as “saviours of Rome,” can be read as figures for Lorenzo’s actions in the wake of the conspiracy (“Classical Themes” 38). 25. Consider, for example, the interpretation of Marchand in contrast to Rubinstein, “Classical Themes,” and Rubinstein, The Palazzo Vecchio, 1298– 1532: Government, Architecture, and Imagery in the Civic Palace of the Florentine Republic (Oxford: Clarendon, 1995), 61–65. 26. J. Albert Dobrick, “Ghirlandaio and Roman Coins,” The Burlington Magazine 123, no. 939 (1981): 356, 358–59, and 361. 27. Dobrick, 356; Nicole Dacos, Antonio Giuliano, and Ulrico Pannuti, eds., Il tesoro di Lorenzo il Magnifico, vol. 1, Le gemme (Florence: Sansoni, 1973), 60, 73–74, and 80–81. 28. See Dobrick, Marchand; also Peter Brennan, Michael Turner, and Nicholas L. Wright, Faces of Power: Imperial Portraiture on Roman Coins (Sydney: Nicholson Museum, 2007), 32–33. 29. Rubinstein, “Classical Themes,” 41. 30. See Dacos, Giuliano, and Pannuti, fig. 59. 31. Dobrick attributes the “certain degree of simplification” in the coin portraits to the haste of fresco painting and the marginal position of the roundels (356). 32. See Rigolot, “Problematizing Renaissance Exemplarity,” 3–5. 33. Giovanni Pontano, De principe, ed. Guido M. Cappelli (Rome: Salerno, 2003), 26–28; emphasis added. Translations are my own. See also Nicholas Webb’s translation in Cambridge Translations of Renaissance Philosophical Texts, vol. 2, ed. by Jill Kraye (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 69–87. For Pontano on humanistic education, see Finzi, Re, baroni, 17–18; Kahn, 19–20; and Cappelli, xliv–xlvi.

Notes

306

34. Guarino Veronese, Epistolario, ed. Remigio Sabbadini ([Venice, 1916] Turin: Bottega d’Erasmo, 1967), letter 668; Tacitus, Agricola 46. 35. In urging his reader to follow the examples of history, Sallust himself posits the example of Scipio in Bellum Iugurthinum IV.5, in Sallust, trans. J. C. Rolfe (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1980). 36. Pontano’s prevalent attempts at self-justification are understandable in light of Alfonso’s initial reluctance to have Pontano as tutor (see Kidwell, 93–94). 37. Cappelli, lviii–lxi, and 2n1; see also Canfora, 103. 38. Livy, Ab urbe condita 25.2.7. 39. “In te unum atque in tuum nomen se tota convertet civitas, te senatus, te omnes boni, te socii, te Latini intuebuntur, tu eris unus, in quo nitatur civitatis salus” (The whole state will turn to you and your name alone: the senate, all good citizens, the allies, the Latins, will look to you; you shall be the sole support of the state’s security). Cicero, De re publica 6.12; translation modified from Cicero, De re publica De legibus, trans. Clinton Walker Keyes (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1943). 40. Pastore Stocchi, 53. St Thomas Aquinas explicitly distinguishes religio from fides (Summa Theologiae, IIa IIae, 94, art. 1). Cappelli points out the lack of religious scruples adduced by the insistence on opinio (6n5). 41. For religio in Taddeo’s frescoes, see Rubinstein, “Political Ideas,” 197. 42. See Cappelli, 8–9n6; compare Bartolomeo Platina (c.1470), “clementes deo similes existimamus” (De principe, ed. Giacomo Ferraù [Palermo: Edizioni “Il Vespro,” 1979], 121). My discussion focuses on the unusual semantics of Pontano’s advice rather than the concepts themselves, which derive primarily from the Ciceronian tradition (see Cappelli, esp. lxxii–lxxxvii). 43. In this and the quotations that follow, italics have been added for emphasis and clarity. 44. For Aristotelian continentia and temperantia, see Bonnie Kent, Virtues of the Will: The Transformation of Ethics in the Late Thirteenth Century (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1995), 200–206. Cappelli argues that Pontano’s blurring of terminology here is Ciceronian (15n12, and lxxiv–lxxxi). The textual parallel, however, between Scipio’s defeat of the enemy through fortitude and defeat of his own desires indicates that continentia is well chosen (“Altera enim bis aut ter hostem superavit, altera seipsum semper”; Principe 16). Pontano was probably familiar with Bruni’s distinction between the two in his Isagogicon moralis discipline in Opere letterarie e politiche di Leonardo Bruni, ed. Paolo Viti (Turin: UTET, 1996), 232. 45. In this context, Cappelli observes Pontano’s fusion of the ancient values of gravitas and severitas with the humanistic emphasis on comitas and humanitas, but fails to point out Pontano’s unusual emphasis on the prince’s audience

Notes 307 (14n11). Compare Cicero: “nihil magno et praeclaro viro dignius placabilitate atque clementia . . . exercenda etiam est facilitas” (nothing is more becoming in a pre-eminently great man than courtesy and forbearance . . . we must school ourselves to affability). De officiis, trans. Walter Miller (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2005), 1.88. 46. Compare Platina: “Nihil est enim quod aeque principem charum omnibus et popularem faciat, quam ipsa comitas, cui certe bonitas, liberalitas, amicitia connexae sunt, quibus ex rebus maxime conciliari hominum benevolentia solet ut contra duritate et acerbitate amittitur” (De principe 82). 47. Compare, for example, Cicero, De officiis 2.23; Seneca, De clementia in Moral Essays, trans. John W. Basore (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1998), I.12.3–13.5; and Petrarch, Familiares 12.2. For sources, see Cappelli, 39–40n35; for a synthesis of the debate on mutua caritas, Cappelli, lxxxi–lxxxvii, which places Pontano within a tradition that does not, however, have Pontano’s insistence on appearances. For the late medieval shift toward emphasizing mutua caritas, see Cary J. Nederman, “The Opposite of Love: Royal Virtue, Economic Prosperity, and Popular Discontent in Fourteenth-Century Political Thought,” in Princely Virtues in the Middle Ages, ed. István P. Bejczy and Cary J. Nederman (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2007), 177–99. 48. Compare Diomede Carafa, “si puro lo bisogno fosse che le rendite ordinarie non bastassero, se volino requedere in tal modo ve aiutano, che cognoscano la necessità et no la voluntà ve nce induce [sic]” (if in case of need the usual income were insufficient, they must be asked to help you in such a way that they understand that necessity, and not desire, makes you do this; Memoriali, ed. Franca Petrucci Nardelli [Rome: Bonacci, 1988], 123). See also Cicero, De officiis 3.21–23; and, for the tradition, Cappelli, 43–45n39. 49. See, for example, Titus 2:7, “In omnibus teipsum praebe exemplum bonorum operum” (In all things showing thyself a pattern of good works). 50. On maiestas, see Finzi, Re, baroni, 22–26; Cappelli, xciii–cx. 51. Cicero, De officiis 1.72–73. 52. Aristotle, Politics, trans. H. Rackham (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1950), 5.9.10. For Cicero, see Cappelli, 55n46; Cicero, De officiis 1.124. 53. Aristotle, Politics 5.9.20. 54. “Patrem quidem Patriae appellavimus, ut sciret datam sibi potestatem patriam, quae est temperantissima liberis consulens suaque post illos reponens” (to “the Father of the Country” we have given the name in order that he may know that he has been entrusted with a father’s power, which is most forbearing in its care for the interests of his children and subordinates his own to theirs). Seneca, De clementia I.14.2, in Moral Essays, vol. 1.

Notes

308

55. Cicero, Ad Quintum Fratrem 1.1.13, advocates a reputation for fairness and for prosecuting bribery, but lacks the same semantic cluster of seeing and being seen (Epistulae ad Quintum Fratrem et M. Brutum, ed. D. R. Shackleton Bailey [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980]). 56. Compare Cicero, De officiis 1.88–89; Carafa: “Quando accascano in pene, mustrarli che per mantinire la iustitia se fa, et non per sete de sua robba” (When they are punished, show them that it is done to uphold justice, and not out of greed for their possessions; Memoriali 123). 57. The discussion of mansuetudo and facilitas derives from Cicero: “Vehementer autem amor multitudinis commovetur ipsa fama et opinione liberalitatis, beneficentiae, iustitiae, fidei omniumque earum virtutum, quae pertinent ad mansuetudinem morum ac facilitatem” (the love of people generally is powerfully attracted by a man’s mere name and reputation for generosity, kindness, justice, honour, and all those virtues that belong to gentleness of character and affability of manner; De officiis 2.32). The closest other source seems to be Isocrates; see Cappelli, 57–59n48. 58. For sources, see Cappelli, 63–64nn53–55. 59. See Cappelli, 75; Webb, 78; and Garin, 1055. Maria Luisa Doglio observes that “il primato morale assume una funzione politica” (the moral high ground takes on a political function), but political expediency still depends on the prince’s “moralità esemplare” (exemplary morality; L’arte delle lettere: Idea e pratica della scrittura epistolare tra Quattro e Seicento [Bologna: Il Mulino, 2000], 38). Lucia Miele acknowledges the text’s emphasis on contingency and the instability of politics, but glosses Pontano’s response here as proposing “una rigida coerenza tra azioni e pensiero e una costante fedeltà ai propri principi morali” (a rigid coherence between thought and actions, and an unwavering fidelity to his own moral principles); “Tradizione letteraria e realismo politico nel De principe del Pontano,” Atti dell’Accademia Pontaniana 32 [1983]: 301–21; here 316. 60. “hoc decorum . . . movet approbationem eorum, quibuscum vivitur, ordine et constantia et moderatione dictorum omnium atque factorum.” Cicero, De Officiis 1.98. 61. Compare Webb’s translation of fidem adhibere as “to keep faith” with Garin’s and Cappelli’s more conservative “prestare fede” (to lend faith); my translation seeks to convey the inherent ambiguity of the phrase. “Narciso” is Narcis Verdún, bishop of Mileto from 1473 and a friend of Pontano (Cappelli 75n64). 62. Carafa, Memoriali, 61. 63. Compare Cicero: “Fundamentum . . . est iustitiae fides, id est dictorum conventorumque constantia et veritas” (The foundation . . . of justice is good faith; that is, truth and constancy in words and agreements; translation modified; De officiis 1.23). For the humanist transmission of this notion, see Cappelli, 12n10.

Notes 309 64. Compare Cicero: “legum similes sint, quae ad puniendum non iracundia, sed aequitate dicuntur” ([government administrators] should be like the laws, which are led to inflict punishment not by wrath but by justice; De officiis 1.89). The idea comes from Aristotle, Ethics 5.4.7, in which a good judge is “justice personified.” For the judge or ruler as lex animata, see Cappelli, 57–59n48. 65. See Cappelli, 67n57, for the tradition of the ideal judge whose severity is moderated by clemency; Cicero’s Epistulae ad Quintum Fratrem 1.1.21 depicts such a judge but does not employ Pontano’s semantics of appearance. 66. For the opposing (and prevailing) view, see Vincenzo Prestipino, Motivi del pensiero umanistico e Giovanni Pontano (Milan: Marzorati, 1963), 195. 67. See Donati for Trecento commentators on the difficulty of applying the ancient Justinian legal code in late medieval Italy (3–17). 68. Cappelli’s stronger translation suggests a direct equivalence between majesty and fame: “La maestà consiste soprattutto nella fama” (89); compare Garin, “poiché la maestà si fonda sulla fama” (1061). 69. See, for example, Augustine, De civitate dei 9.13. 70. See Cappelli, 74n63 for the humanitas tradition. 71. Compare Cicero, De oratore 3.222–23, “oculorum esto magna moderatio; . . . oculos autem natura nobis, . . . ad motus animorum declarandos dedit” (there is need of constant management of the eyes; . . . nature has given us eyes, . . . to indicate the feelings of the mind). Quintus Cicero (Commentariolum petitionis 44) urges his brother to be accessible not only by the doors of his house, “sed etiam vultu ac fronte, quae est animi ianua” (but also by your face and your demeanor, which is the door to the mind), in Cicero, Letters to Quintus and Brutus, Letter Fragments, Letter to Octavian, Handbook of Electioneering, ed. and trans. D. R. Shackleton Bailey (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2002). 72. Compare Cicero, De officiis 1.80; for Quattrocento sources, see Cappelli, 17–19n15. 73. Tacitus, Annals 3.44; also 6.50, 2.28, and 3.3. Cappelli does not note Tacitus as a source. See Francesca Santoro L’Hoir, Tragedy, Rhetoric, and the Historiography of Tacitus’ “Annales” (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2006), 80–82 and 183–85. 74. Berger, Fictions, 141; Elias, Civilizing Process. See also Bronwen Wilson, “The ‘Confusion of Faces’: The Politics of Physiognomy, Concealed Hearts, and Public Visibility,” in Making Publics in Early Modern Europe: People, Things, Forms of Knowledge, ed. Bronwen Wilson and Paul Yachnin (New York: Routledge, 2010), 177–92. Wilson argues that the sixteenth-century interest in faces and physiognomic theory helped constitute interiority, and that before this change, the face was “relatively transparent” (180).

Notes 310 75. “in excolendo quae sit meta difficile dictu est”; Cappelli interprets meta as “purpose” or “goal” (fine); this stronger reading makes sense in light of the negative advice that follows. 76. “licet forma ipsa de cultu plurimum capiat adiumenti ac nonnunquam etiam quae insunt a natura vitia cultus accessione aut minuantur aut contegantur.” See Cappelli, civ–cv and 82–84nn71–72. 77. For sources, see Cappelli, 90–91n77.

chapter 2 1. My discussion of the program as a whole is indebted to Julian Kliemann and Michael Rohlmann, Italian Frescoes: High Renaissance and Mannerism 1510–1600, vol. 3, trans. Steven Lindberg (New York: Abbeville Press, 2004), 352–69. See also Roberto Guerrini, “Biografia dipinta,” in Biografia dipinta: Plutarco e l’arte del rinascimento 1400–1550, ed. Roberto Guerrini (La Spezia: Agorà Edizioni, 2001), 51–66. 2. Kliemann and Rohlmann, 356. Marcia B. Hall, in Color and Meaning: Practice and Theory in Renaissance Painting (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), identifies these animals as baboons (192); this does not preclude Kliemann and Rohlmann’s interpretation. 3. Lorenzo Canova, “omnes reges servient ei: Paolo III e Carlo V: la supremazia pontificia nella Sala Paolina di Castel Sant’Angelo,” Storia dell’arte 103 (2002): 16. See also Kliemann and Rohlmann. 4. Kliemann and Rohlmann, 354–55; and Marica Mercalli, “‘Paolo terzo pontefice massimo ha trasformato la tomba del Divo Adriano in alta e sacra dimora’: Storie e motivi adrianei negli affreschi dell’Appartamento farnesiano in Castel Sant’Angelo,” in Adriano e il suo mausoleo: Studi, indagini e interpretazioni (Milan: Electa, 1998), 255–75. For the contrasting view that the program is less concerned with historical events than with the papacy as global moral authority, see Elena Parma Armani, Perin del Vaga: L’anello mancante. Studi sul Manierismo (Genoa: Sagep Editrice, 1986), 209–43. For the humanist conflation of papal and imperial Rome, see Charles L. Stinger, The Renaissance in Rome (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998), 5. 5. I use “substitution” here in the sense coined by Nagel and Wood. See Introduction. 6. For the failure to understand Hellenistic statues, see Barkan, “The Beholder’s Tale,” 134. 7. Carlo Dionisotti, Geografia e storia della letteratura italiana (Turin: Einaudi, 1967), 55–88. 8. Giancarlo Mazzacurati, La questione della lingua dal Bembo all’Accademia Fiorentina (Naples: Liguori, 1965), 77; and Carlo Vecce, “Bembo e gli antichi.

Notes 311 Dalla filologia ai classici moderni,” in “Le Prose della volgar lingua” di Pietro Bembo, ed. S. Morgana, M. Piotti, M. Prada (Milan: Cisalpino, 2000), 9–22. Vittorio Cian first identified De corruptis poetarum locis with De Virgilii Culice, in Un decennio della vita di M. Pietro Bembo (1521–1531) (1885; Bologna: Arnaldo Forni Editore, 1982), 155–56. 9. Petri Bembi ad Herculem Strotium de Vergilij Culice et Terentii Fabulis liber, in Petri Bembi opuscula aliquot (Lyon: Gryphium, 1532), 6. Spelling and punctuation are from this edition; abbreviations have been resolved. Translations are my own. On imaginative reuses of ancient monuments, see Antiquity and Its Interpreters, ed. Alina Payne, Ann Kuttner, Rebekah Smick (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000); for the idea of Rome, see P. A. Ramsey, ed., Rome in the Renaissance: The City and the Myth (Binghamton, N.Y.: Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1982). 10. Kathleen Wren Christian, “Poetry,” 108, and Empire without End: Antiquities Collections in Renaissance Rome, c.1350–1527 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010), 121–49. 11. See Barkan, “The Beholder’s Tale,” and also Unearthing the Past, especially 119–207, for the interpretative problems generated by fragmented monuments. 12. See Christian, “Poetry,” 108. 13. Barkan, “The Beholder’s Tale,” 144–50; Christian, Empire; and Paul de Man, The Rhetoric of Romanticism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1984), 75–76. 14. See Stephanie H. Jed, Chaste Thinking: The Rape of Lucretia and the Birth of Humanism (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989). 15. Pietro Bembo, Petrus Bembus Joanni Francisco Pico s.p.d, in Rinascimento e classicismo. Materiali per l’analisi del sistema culturale di antico regime, ed. Amedeo Quondam (Rome: Bulzoni, 1999), 166–97. Translations adapted from Controversies over the Imitation of Cicero in the Renaissance, ed. Izora Scott (Davis, Calif.: Hermagoras Press, 1991). 16. Gianfrancesco Pico, Ioannis Francisci Pici Mirandulae domini, Concordiaeque comitis, ad Petrum Bembum de imitatione libellus, in Quondam, ed. Rinascimento e classicismo, 136–53. Translations adapted from Scott, Controversies. 17. “sunt . . . plurimi qui panno vestiantur libenter, qui sit contextus ex lato illo Ciceronis stamine, et presso Plinii subtegmine. . . . alii, quia frigus fortasse metuunt, conantur ut evolvant scrinia Carmentae, unde peplum surripiant aptandam sibi: nec eo contenti, vetustos illos et cariosos Romanorum augurum et martiorum fratrum cophinos adeunt; atque . . . in eorum [Catonis Enniique] etiam supellectilem praedabundi et populabundi penitus irruunt.” (Libellus 150) (Very many . . . would clothe themselves in a patch taken from the ample cloak of Cicero and the subdued cloth of Pliny. . . . Others perhaps because they

Notes 312 feel the cold try to roll out the book-box of Carmenta to steal a robe fitted to them. Not content with this they approach those rotten old coffers of the Roman augurs and the brothers Marcii. And . . . they rush forth to despoil the stores of Cato and Ennius.) (6) 18. For clothing as constituting identity, see Ann Rosalind Jones and Peter Stallybrass, Renaissance Clothing and the Materials of Memory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000); Ulinka Rublack, Dressing Up: Cultural Identity in Renaissance Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010); also Chapter 3 of this book. 19. See Vecce for this view of Bembo’s philology with reference to De Virgilii Culice. 20. Pietro Bembo, Prose della volgar lingua, in Prose e rime, ed. Carlo Dionisotti (Turin: UTET, 1960), 167. Translations are my own. 21. See Nagel and Wood, especially Anachronic Renaissance, 30–31; see also the Introduction to this book. Nagel and Wood suggest that philology was antithetical to the substitutional model; Bembo here evokes substitution as self-consciously as Nagel and Wood’s Renaissance artists. For Petrarch’s more ambiguously anachronistic approach to literary imitation and ruined monuments, see David Galbraith, “Petrarch and the Broken City,” in Antiquity and Its Interpreters, ed. Alina Payne, Ann Kuttner, and Rebekah Smick (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 17–26. 22. See Nagel and Wood, Anachronic Renaissance, 31. 23. Castiglione, “Lettera a papa Leone X sulle rovine di Roma,” in Quondam, Rinascimento e classicismo, 59–66; here 59. Translations are my own. 24. See Bruno Migliorini, Storia della lingua italiana (Florence: Sansoni, 1988), 271, 360. 25. For the reception of this statue, now identified as Sleeping Ariadne, see Barkan, “The Beholder’s Tale.” 26. Baldesar Castiglione, “Cleopatra,” in Renaissance Latin Verse, ed. Alessandro Perosa and John Sparrow (London: Duckworth, 1979), 193–95. Translation modified from Barkan, “The Beholder’s Tale,” 155. 27. Barkan, “The Beholder’s Tale,” 155; this interpretation uses a looser translation than mine of the last four lines. 28. All Italian citations give book and chapter numbers from Baldesar Castiglione, Il Libro del Cortegiano, ed. Walter Barberis (Turin: Einaudi, 1998). English translations give page references to Baldesar Castiglione, The Book of the Courtier: The Singleton Translation, ed. Daniel Javitch (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2002). 29. David Rosand, “Una linea sola non stentata: Castiglione, Raphael, and the Aesthetics of Grace,” in Reading Medieval Culture: Essays in Honor of Robert

Notes

313

W. Hanning, ed. Robert M. Stein and Sandra Pierson Prior (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2005), 454–79. 30. Plutarch, “On the fortune or the virtue of Alexander,” in Moralia, trans. Frank Cole Babbit (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1936) vol. 4, 2.335. 31. For the authorship of the letter and its Neoplatonic connections with the imitation debate, see John Shearman, “Castiglione’s portrait of Raphael,” Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz 38 (1994): 69–97. 32. Shearman, “Castiglione’s portrait”; Shearman argues that Canossa is Castiglione’s mouthpiece. 33. Virginia Cox, The Renaissance Dialogue: Literary Dialogue in Its Social and Political Contexts, Castiglione to Galileo (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 57. 34. Berger, Absence, 71–72. 35. David Quint, “Courtier, Prince, Lady: The Design of the Book of the Courtier,” Italian Quarterly 37, nos. 143–46 (2000): 185–95. 36. Constance Jordan, Renaissance Feminism. Literary Texts and Political Models (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1990), 76–85; and Olga Zorzi Pugliese, Castiglione’s “The Book of the Courtier” (Il Libro del Cortegiano): A Classic in the Making (Naples: Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane, 2008), 275–360. 37. My observations follow from Dain Trafton’s and Carla Freccero’s insistence on the political character of Book III. See Carla Freccero, “Politics and Aesthetics in Castiglione’s Il Cortegiano: Book III and the Discourse on Women,” in Creative Imitation: New Essays on Renaissance Literature in Honor of Thomas M. Greene, eds. David Quint, Margaret W. Ferguson, G. W. Pigman III, Wayne A. Rebhorn (Binghamton, N.Y.: Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1992), 259–79; Dain A. Trafton, “Politics and the Praise of Women: Political Doctrine in the Courtier’s Third Book,” in Castiglione: The Ideal and the Real in Renaissance Culture, eds. Robert W. Hanning and David Rosand (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1983), 29–43. 38. Freccero, “Politics,” 273–76. 39. Freccero, “Politics,” 275. 40. Freccero, “Politics,” 275. 41. Francesco Guicciardini, La Storia d’Italia vol. 1 (Florence: Adriano Salani Editore, 1932), 5.5, p. 493. 42. I thank Olga Zorzi Pugliese for the transcription from Vat. Lat. 8205: See Pugliese’s discussion of the changes made to this passage in Castiglione’s “Book,” 355. Amedeo Quondam likewise notes that the girl’s name is removed, in “Questo povero Cortegiano”: Castiglione, il libro, la storia (Rome: Bulzoni, 2000), 338. 43. The uncle is Ludovico Gonzaga, bishop of Mantua from 1483 to 1511; see Barberis’s note in Castiglione, Cortegiano, 318n11.

Notes 314 44. Pugliese, Castiglione’s “Book,” 350–51. 45. Pugliese, Castiglione’s “Book,” 348. 46. For the story of Leaena, see Pausanias, Attica 23.2. 47. Trafton sees both Epicharis and Leona as exemplars of virtue resisting tyranny (41). 48. See Plutarch, Moralia, “The Bravery of Women,” 20.257. 49. Trafton, by contrast, argues that only personal gain could motivate Camma’s agreeing to the marriage (40–41). 50. Trafton rightly points out that the tale casts the women’s deception in a positive light (36). 51. See Juliana Schiesari, The Gendering of Melancholia: Feminism, Psychoanalysis, and the Symbolics of Loss in Renaissance Literature (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1992). Compare the emphasis on eloquence in Livy, Ab urbe condita 1.13; Plutarch, Parallel Lives 1.19; and Christine de Pizan, Le Livre de la Cité des Dames, trans. Éric Hicks and Thérèse Moreau (Paris: Editions Stock, 1986), II.23. 52. The woman is Fulvia, considered muliere nobili in Sallust, Bellum Catilinae 23.4 (in Sallust). 53. For the emphasis on arms, see Trafton, 38; Gerry Milligan argues for the shaming effect in “The Politics of Effeminacy in Il cortegiano,” Italica 83, no. 3–4 (2006): 345–66. 54. Livy, Ab urbe condita 21.22. 55. Appian, Roman History, trans. Horace White (London: William Heinemann, 1912), 6.12. 56. The source in Valerius Maximus does not mention the killing of children; see Facta et dicta memorabilia 6.1. 57. See A. Daniel Frankforter, “Amalasuntha, Procopius, and a Woman’s Place,” Journal of Women’s History 8, no. 2 (1996): 41–57. 58. Giovanni Sabadino degli Arienti begins his late Quattrocento set of women’s biographies with Theodelinda in these terms; see Gynevera delle clare donne, ed. Corrado Ricci and Alberto Bacchi della Lega (Bologna: Romagnoli-Dall’Acqua, 1888), 9–17. For a reevaluation of Paul the Deacon’s account of Theodelinda (the traditional source for her life), see Ross Balzaretti, “Theodelinda, ‘Most Glorious Queen’: Gender and Power in Lombard Italy,” The Medieval History Journal 2 no. 2 (1999): 183–207. 59. Compare La seconda redazione del ‘Cortegiano’ di Baldassarre Castiglione, ed. Ghino Ghinassi (Florence: Sansoni, 1968), III.67–69. 60. Compare La seconda redazione, III.68. 61. See Pugliese, 346. 62. Compare La seconda redazione, III.69.

Notes 315 63. See Herodotus, Histories 1.205–14; in Purgatorio 12.55–57, Dante’s poet-narrator sees an image of Tomyris taking this revenge on Cyrus. 64. In Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 2.31.75, Artemisia wastes away after the loss of her husband. 65. Berger, Absence, 92. 66. In addition, as Constance Jordan has pointed out, any suggestion that the duchess might take a lover would cast aspersions on her chastity, in Renaissance Feminism, 83. 67. See José Guidi, “Baldassar Castiglione et le pouvoir politique: du gentilhomme de cour au nonce pontificial,” in Les Ecrivains et le pouvoir en Italie à l’ époque de la Renaissance, Centre de recherche sur la Renaissance italienne (Paris: Université de la Sorbonne nouvelle, 1973), 243–78; also Susan Gaylard, “Castiglione vs. Cicero: Political Engagement, or Effeminate Chatter?” Italian Culture 27 (2009): 81–98. 68. For the contrasts between the Ciceronian orator and courtly behavior and poetry, see Daniel Javitch, Poetry and Courtliness in Reniassance England (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1978), 18–49. 69. Wayne A. Rebhorn, Courtly Performances: Masking and Festivity in Castiglione’s Book of the Courtier (Detroit, Mich.: Wayne State University Press, 1978), 91–115; Freccero, “Politics,” 267. 70. Freccero, “Politics,” 267. 71. Gaylard, “Castiglione.” 72. I agree with Berger’s assertion that Virgil’s Trojan horse is important here (Absence, 160), although the Ciceronian source also has significant resonances. Virgil’s horse is considered a “mountain” made with the art of Minerva, goddess of wisdom and the arts: “montis equum divina Palladis arte / aedificant” (Aeneid 2.15–16); it is also described as a huge mass “molem . . . equi” (Aeneid 2.32; 2.150). 73. See Rebhorn, Courtly Performances, 95–97; Berger, Absence, 119–64. 74. For effeminate “Greekish chatter,” see Wayne Rebhorn, “Outlandish Fears: Defining Decorum in Renaissance Rhetoric,” Intertexts 4 (2000): 2–24. For the Trojan horse as figure for Greek rhetoric, see Berger, Absence, 160; Gaylard, “Castiglione,” 89–95. 75. Berger, Absence, 119–29. 76. Rebhorn, Courtly Performances, 177–204. 77. Rebhorn, Courtly Performances, 197. 78. Gaylard, “Castiglione,” 89–95. 79. For “moral imperialism” in Ottaviano Fregoso’s discourse, see Jennifer Richards, “‘A wanton trade of living’? Rhetoric, Effeminacy, and the Early Modern Courtier,” Criticism 42, no. 2 (2000): 185–206, especially 193.

Notes

316

80. James Hankins, “Renaissance Philosophy and Book IV of the Cortegiano,” in Baldesar Castiglione, The Book of the Courtier, ed. Daniel Javitch (New York: Norton, 2002), 381. See Nicomachean Ethics 2.1. 81. I use my own translations in this discussion. 82. See Berger, Absence, 203, for this comment on Galateo: “The figure who briefly materializes in Chapter 4 is as integral as marble or ivory statues, which are constructed from the outside in, and within which there is only more of the same—marble or ivory matter. . . . the Galateo displayed by the narrator exhibits no signs of interiority or unrevealed motivation.” 83. See Berger, Absence, 87–115. 84. Berger, Absence, 204. 85. Plutarch, Moralia, “On the Fortune or the Virtue of Alexander” 2.2; 335–36. 86. See Richards, “A wanton trade of living?,”193. 87. For the courtier as “horse-tamer” of both women and princes, see Gaylard, “Castiglione.” 88. Ottaviano actually says that the courtier may become teacher to the prince, but the analogy—between courtiers who become the prince’s teacher, priests who become popes, soldiers captains, and private citizens kings—suggests that the courtier can become prince (IV.47). Sixteenth-century readers interpreted Ottaviano’s statement in this way; see Jennifer Richards, “From Rhetoric to Conversation: Reading for Cicero in The Book of the Courtier,” in Rhetoric and Courtliness in Early Modern Literature, ed. Jennnifer Richards (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 63. 89. See Salvatore Silvano Nigro, “Lezione sull’ombra,” in Torquato Accetto, Rime amorose, ed. Salvatore S. Nigro (Turin: Einaudi, 1987), v–xxi; Lodovico Zuccolo, Discorso dell’ honore, della gloria, della riputazione, del buon concetto (Venice: Marco Ginami, 1623); also Douglas Biow, Doctors, Ambassadors, Secretaries: Humanism and Professions in Renaissance Italy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002). 90. Berger, Absence, 77. 91. For the Cortegiano’s approach to the papacy, see Freccero, “Politics.”

chapter 3 An earlier version of this chapter appeared in The Italianist 28, no. 2 (2008): 179– 202, under the title, “‘Naked’ Truth: Clothing and Poetic Genius in Aretino’s Letters.” 1. Baldesar Castiglione, Le Lettere, ed. Guido La Rocca, Tutte le opere, 2 vols (Milan: Mondadori, 1978), I, 21, letter dated Cesena, 7 Luglio 1504. Since fashions

Notes

317

changed over time and differed from place to place, both the Italian and the English terms for most items of clothing are generic. Translations are my own. 2. Raymond B. Waddington, Aretino’s Satyr: Sexuality, Satire, and SelfProjection in Sixteenth-Century Literature and Art (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004); Joanna Woods-Marsden, “In la Persia.” 3. See Douglas Biow, In Your Face: Professional Improprieties and the Art of Being Conspicuous in Sixteenth-Century Italy (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2010), 156–85; Antonfrancesco Doni, La libraria del Doni Fiorentino (Venice: Gabriele Giolito, 1550). 4. See Waddington; my discussion of the printing history and the format of the volume derives from Waddington and from Fabio Massimo Bertolo, Aretino e la stampa: Strategie di autopromozione a Venezia nel Cinquecento (Rome: Salerno, 2003). 5. Waddington, xix. 6. See Patricia Fortini Brown, “Behind the Walls: The Material Culture of Venetian Elites,” in Venice Reconsidered: The History and Civilization of an Italian City-State, ed. John Martin and Dennis Romano (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000), 295–338. Fortini Brown notes that Venetian sumptuary laws were unusual in that they applied to almost all citizens (excepting the doge and his family, and the cavalieri), thus allowing less wealthy patricians a justification for curtailing expenses (327–29). For markers of social hierarchy in Venetian dress, see Stella Mary Newton, The Dress of the Venetians: 1495–1525 (Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1988). For the body as locus of display and for establishing hierarchies, see Alan Hunt, Governance of the Consuming Passions: A History of Sumptuary Law (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996), 40. See also Catherine Kovesi Killerby, Sumptuary Law in Italy 1200–1500 (Oxford: Clarendon, 2002) for the rise and failure of Italian sumptuary legislation; and Carole Collier Frick, Dressing Renaissance Florence: Families, Fortunes, and Fine Clothing (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002) for the clothing economy. 7. Fortini Brown, 327. 8. Jones and Stallybrass. 9. Paola Venturelli, Vestire e apparire: Il sistema vestimentario femminile nella Milano spagnola (1539–1679) (Rome: Bulzoni, [1999]), 72. See also Jones and Stallybrass, 19. 10. Pietro Aretino, Lettere, ed. Francesco Erspamer (Parma: Fondazione Pietro Bembo, Ugo Guanda Editore, 1995–), I.23 (Roman numerals refer to volume, Arabic numerals to letter number); Janet Arnold, Queen Elizabeth’s Wardrobe Unlock’ d: The Inventories of the Wardrobe of Robes Prepared in July 1600 (Leeds: Maney, 1988), 99–100. 11. Arnold, 99–100.

Notes 318 12. Jones and Stallybrass, 19. 13. Guido Baldassarri, “L’invenzione dell’epistolario,” in Pietro Aretino nel Cinquecentenario della nascita: Atti del convegno di Roma-Viterbo-Arezzo (28 settembre–1 ottobre 1992), Toronto (23–24 ottobre 1992), Los Angeles (27–29 ottobre 1992), 2 vols, Centro Pio Rajna (Rome: Salerno, 1995), vol. 1, 163. On self-fashioning in epistolarity, see John M. Najemy, Between Friends: Discourses of Power and Desire in the Machiavelli-Vettori Letters of 1513–1515 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1993). 14. Baldassarri, “Invenzione,” 169. 15. Giuliano Innamorati, Pietro Aretino: Studi e note critiche (Messina: G. D’Anna, 1957), 239–42. 16. Natalie Zemon Davis, The Gift in Sixteenth-Century France (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000); and Alexander Nagel, “Gifts for Michelangelo and Vittoria Colonna,” Art Bulletin, 79 (1997), 647–68. Also see Jacques Derrida, Given Time: I. Counterfeit Money, trans. Peggy Kamuf (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), who argues that gifts inherently resist the possibility of reciprocity; Derrida critiques Marcel Mauss, The Gift: The Form and Reason for Exchange in Archaic Societies, trans. W. D. Halls (London: Routledge, 1990), who considers gifts in “archaic” societies as part of an economy of exchange. 17. See Davis for the coexistence of, and blurring between, patronage, gifts, and sales (73–109). For the changing relationship of patronage to authorship, see Jane Tylus, Writing and Vulnerability in the Late Renaissance (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1993). 18. See Jones and Stallybrass. 19. See Waddington’s discussion of this letter (42–43). 20. See Bertolo, Waddington. 21. See Waddington for the changes wrought on the entire title page (62– 64). The image was based on a portrait by Titian; for Titian’s painted portraits of Aretino, and for Aretino as art critic, see Luba Freedman, Titian’s Portraits through Aretino’s Lens (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1995), especially Chapter 2. 22. For psychological and material changes effected by Charles V’s stipend of 1537, see Paul Larivaille, Pietro Aretino fra Rinascimento e Manierismo (Rome: Bulzoni, 1980), 313–16. 23. For sumptuary restrictions on lynx fur, see Fortini Brown, 322; and Rosita Levi Piseztky, Storia del costume in Italia, 5 vols ([Milan]: Istituto Editoriale Italiano, 1966), vol. 3, fig. 67. Levi Pisetzky observes that lynx fur was popular in portraits (fig. 77); Jones and Stallybrass note that people commissioning images of themselves were often depicted in clothing above their station or beyond their budget.

Notes

319

24. Erspamer in Lettere I.36n4. 25. One manuscript version of a letter to Pier Paolo Vergerio, dated 20 January 1534, praises the French king for his generosity and asserts that the motto on the chain respected the biblical maxim. See Erspamer’s note to I.40 for the validity of the manuscript version of this letter (90–93). 26. See Erspamer’s historical note for the characters mentioned in this letter (I.45n8). 27. See Erspamer’s note (I.20n7). 28. According to Erspamer, it is unclear which work Aretino intended to dedicate to Stampa (I.57n15). 29. Since Aretino associated with groups of reformers, this facetious comment might, for Aretino’s contemporaries, evoke the religious debate about gifts, and especially the Protestant polemic against offering to God the “sacrifice” of bread and wine at mass as “an effort to put up ransom to God, to oblige the Lord by a gift” (Davis, 181). 30. Larivaille, 314. 31. According to Erspamer, Aretino’s “lacerating” the pope may refer to a pasquinade of 1527, the Pax vobis, which labels the pope with a series of strong epithets (I.21n3). 32. See Bruno Migliorini, Storia della lingua italiana (Florence: Sansoni, 1988), 271. 33. Migliorini, 360. 34. “Io voglio, con il favor di Dio, che la cortesia dei principi mi paghi le fatiche de lo scrivere, e non la miseria di chi le compra, sostenendo prima il disagio che ingiuriar la vertù facendo mecaniche l’arti liberali.” See also IV.374; Waddington, 43–45. 35. See as further evidence especially letters I.41, 54, 73, and 89. 36. For earlier gifts explicitly requested for or given to Aretino’s mistress, Angela Serena, see I.48, 61. 37. Biow, In Your Face, 63–91. 38. Nagel, “Gifts” 651n19. 39. Biow, In Your Face, 79–91. The letter appears in Pietro Aretino, Lettere, ed. Paolo Procaccioli (Rome: Salerno, 1997), I: 523–24 40. Nagel and Wood, Anachronic Renaissance, 85–95. 41. Waddington, 19. 42. Waddington, 124–29, 144. 43. I thank Albert Ascoli for pointing out the castration issue here.

Notes 320 chapter 4 1. Francesco Sansovino, De gli huomini illustri della casa Orsina di M. Francesco Sansovino Libri Quattro (Venice: Bernardo, et Filippo Stagnini, fratelli, 1565), Book 4, 70r. English translations are mine. Unless otherwise specified, citations are from the fourth book (the portrait-book section of the history). De gli huomini illustri forms part of a larger history of the Orsini family, L’Historia di casa Orsina di Francesco Sansovino (Venice: Bernardo, et Filippo Stagnini, fratelli, 1565): For the sake of clarity, these are cited as separate works. 2. For an overview of Renaissance physiognomic theory, see Wilson, “Confusion”; Martin Porter, Windows of the Soul: The Art of Physiognomy in European Culture 1470–1780 (Oxford: Clarendon, 2005). 3. Francesco Sansovino, L’edificio del corpo humano (Venice: Comin da Trino di Monferrato, 1550). 4. Eric Cochrane, Historians and Historiography in the Renaissance (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979), 375, argues that Paolo Giovio’s historiographical work was not favorably received precisely because of this contradiction: I am suggesting that this contradiction is especially evident in portrait-books because they emphasize the idea of the “true likeness.” On the significance of the print portrait, see Adrian Randolph and T. Barton Thurber, eds, “Likeness in an Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” special issue, Word & Image 19, no. 1–2 (2003). 5. For the Renaissance reception of physiognomic theory, and for later developments, see Eichel-Lojkine, 113–18; Lucia Rodler, I silenzi mimici del volto: Studi sulla tradizione fisiognomica italiana tra Cinque e Seicento (Pisa: Pacini Editore, 1991); Wilson, “Confusion”; Porter, Windows. See Michael Gaudio, Engraving the Savage: The New World and Techniques of Civilization (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2008), for the significance of new printing techniques in interpreting and representing the New World. 6. Pliny, Natural History 35.9. 7. Pomponius Gauricus, De sculptura, ed. and trans. André Chastel and Robert Klein (Geneva: Droz, 1969), 129. English translation is mine. 8. In Paola Barocchi, ed., Scritti d’arte del Cinquecento, vol. 1 (Milan: Riccardo Ricciardi, n.d.), 640. 9. Moshe Barasch, “Character and Physiognomy: Bocchi on Donatello’s St. George. A Renaissance Text on Expression in Art,” Journal of the History of Ideas 36, no. 3 (1975): 413–30; Robert Williams, “A Treatise by Francesco Bocchi in Praise of Andrea del Sarto,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 52 (1989): 111–39. See also Eichel-Lojkine’s account of physiognomy in portrait-books after 1575.

Notes 321 10. Robert Williams, “Bronzino’s Gaze,” in The Beholder: The Experience of Art in Early Modern Europe, ed. Thomas Frangenberg and Robert Williams (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006), 87–101. The ritrarre/imitare distinction is that of Vincenzo Danti, Trattato delle perfette proporzioni, in Paola Barocchi, ed., Trattati d’arte del Cinquecento fra Manierismo e Controriforma (Bari: Laterza, 1960), vol. 1, 239–41. For an overview of debates emerging from the early Renaissance portrait, see the essays in Christiansen and Weppelman; on the blurring between likeness and myth, see Una Roman D’Elia, “Niccolò Liburnio on the Boundaries of Portraiture in the Early Cinquecento,” Sixteenth Century Journal 37, no. 2 (2006): 323–50; see also John Shearman’s classic Only Connect . . . Art and the Spectator in the Italian Renaissance (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1992), 108–48. 11. Natural History 35.10, in Pliny the Elder, Histoire Naturelle Livre XXXV, ed. and trans. Jean-Michel Croisille (Paris: Société d’Édition “Les Belles Lettres,” 1985). English translation my own. 12. See Patricia Simons, “Portraiture, Portrayal, and Idealization: Ambiguous Individualism in Representations of Renaissance Women,” in Language and Images of Renaissance Italy, ed. Alison Brown (Oxford: Clarendon, 1995), 263–311; Elizabeth Cropper, “On Beautiful Women, Parmigianino, Petrarchismo, and the Vernacular Style,” Art Bulletin 58, no. 3 (1976): 374–94, also “The Beauty of Woman: Problems in the Rhetoric of Renaissance Portraiture,” in Rewriting the Renaissance: The Discourses of Sexual Difference in Early Modern Europe (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986), 175–90; the essays in Christiansen and Weppelman; Paola Tinagli, Women in Italian Renaissance Art: Gender Representation Identity (Manchester, U.K.: Manchester University Press, 1997); and Women and Portraits in Early Modern Europe: Gender, Agency, Identity, ed. Andrea Pearson (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008). The question of women in portrait-books is too complex to discuss in detail here; see Susan Gaylard, “Vanishing Women: Gendering History in 16th-Century Portrait-Books,” in Gender, Agency and Violence. European Perspectives from Early Modern Times to the Present Day, ed. Ulrike Zitzlsperger (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars, 2013). 13. See Tommaso Casini, Ritratti parlanti: Collezionismo e biografie illustrate nei secoli XVI e XVII (Florence: Edifir, 2004), 20. 14. Cunnally, 143–45. 15. See Eichel-Lojkine, 48–101; Cecil H. Clough, “Italian Renaissance Portraiture and Printed Portrait-Books,” in The Italian Book, 1465–1800: Studies Presented to Dennis E. Rhodes on his 70th Birthday, ed. Denis V. Reidy (London: British Library, 1993), 183–223. 16. The Biblioteca Casanatense in Rome has the only known copy to include hand-drawn portraits.

Notes

322

17. Iacopo Filippo Foresti, De plurimis claris sceletisque mulieribus (Ferrara: Lorenzo de’ Rossi, 1497); I use the title as given in the Casanatense Library volume (more usually selectisque than sceletisque): Different volumes also present differing numbers of biographies and images. See Stephen Kolsky, The Ghost of Boccaccio: Writings on Famous Women in Renaissance Italy (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2005), 111–37, 235; Virginia Cox, Women’s Writing in Renaissance Italy 1450–1650 (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008), 25–26, 386; Casini, Ritratti, 22. 18. Research on the Foresti volume in the Biblioteca Casanatense courtesy of Valerie Hoagland. 19. This is the theory of Cunnally (see especially 53). 20. Stephen Perkinson, “From an ‘Art De Memoire’ to the Art of Portraiture: Printed Effigy Books of the Sixteenth Century,” The Sixteenth Century Journal, 33, no. 3 (Autumn 2002): 687–723. Perkinson does not take into account Fulvio’s simple Latin or the relatively precarious status of the vernacular in 1517. 21. Cunnally, 115. 22. See the careful reconstruction of dates by Franco Minonzio, “Il Museo di Giovio e la galleria degli uomini illustri,” Testi, immagini e filologia nel XVI secolo, ed. Eliana Carrara and Silvia Ginzburg Carignani (Pisa: Edizioni della Normale, 2007), 77–146; and Franco Minonzio, “Gli ‘Elogi degli uomini illustri’: il ‘Museo di Carta’ di Paolo Giovio,” introduction to Paolo Giovio, Elogi degli uomini illustri, ed. Franco Minonzio, trans. Andrea Guasparri and Franco Minonzio (Turin: Einaudi, 2006), XVII–LXXXVII. 23. Hubert Goltzius, Le vive imagini di tutti quasi gl’ imperatori (Antwerp: Gillis Coppens Van Diest, 1557). 24. Giacomo Filippo Tomasini, Illustrium virorum elogia (Padua: Apud Donatum Pasquardum, et Socium, 1630). 25. Bronwen Wilson, The World in Venice: Print, the City, and Early Modern Identity (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005). 26. Aliprando Caprioli, Ritratti di cento capitani illustri intagliati da Aliprando Capriolo Con li lor fatti in guerra da lui brevemente scritta (Rome: Domenico Gigliotti, 1596). 27. Cunnally, 143–45; Nagel and Wood, Anachronic Renaissance, also “Toward a New Model.” 28. Andrea Fulvio, Illustrium imagines (Rome: Jacopo Mazzocchi, 1517), dedication to Cardinal Jacopo Sadoleto; Johann Huttich, Imperatorum Romanorum libellus: Una cum imaginibus, ad uiuam effigiem expressis (Strasbourg: Wolgang Cephalaeus, 1534), letter to the reader. 29. See Perkinson for this change.

Notes

323

30. For the later commonplace nature of this tension, see Eichel-Lojkine, 121. For Thevet’s role in the portrait-book genre, see Casini, Ritratti, 91–94. 31. Francis Haskell, History and Its Images: Art and the Interpretation of the Past (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993), notes that portrait-books are characterized by a lack of correlation between image and text (60); most critics follow Haskell’s lead. 32. I have avoided extended examinations of Fulvio, Giovio, Vasari, and Thevet, whose volumes have not only been extensively studied but were also, at the time of their printing, highly exceptional. Giovio’s Elogia (1575–77) are particularly problematic in that they were produced two decades after the author’s death, and critics agree that the uniformity and quality of Tobias Stimmer’s images probably supersede that of Giovio’s collection of painted portraits. 33. Guillaume Roville, Prontuario de le medaglie de piu illustri, et fulgenti huomini et donne (Lyon: Guglielmo Rovillio, 1553), part 2, 151. For information on Roville’s publishing career (which began in Venice with the Giolito), and the debate about his name, see Émile Picot, Les français italianisants aux XVIe siècle, vol. 1 (Paris: Honoré Champion, 1906), 183–220; for the Prontuario as a whole, see Ilaria Andreoli, “La storia in soldoni: il Promptuaire des médailles di Guillaume Rouillé,” in Storia per parole e per immagini, ed. Ugo Rozzo and Mino Gabriele (Udine: Forum, 2006), 235–66. For the origins of the Melusine tradition, see Matthew W. Morris, “Les origines de la légende de Mélusine et ses débuts dans la littérature du Moyen Âge,” in Melusine Moderne et Contemporaine, ed. Arlette Bouloumié and Henri Béhar (n.p.: L’Âge de l’Homme, 2001), 13–19. 34. Prontuario, part 2, 151. English translation is mine. 35. For this definition of monsters and monstrous births in both the Middle Ages and sixteenth-century Italy, see Lorraine Daston and Katharine Park, Wonders and the Order of Nature, 1150–1750 (New York: Zone Books, 1998), 51, 187. 36. Sylvia Huot, “Dangerous Embodiments: Froissart’s Harton and Jean d’Arras’s Mélusine,” Speculum 78, no. 2 (2003): 412. 37. See Françoise Clier-Colombani, La Fée Mélusine au moyen âge: Images, Mythes, et Symboles (Paris: Le Léopard d’Or, 1991), and “Mélusine: Images d’une fée serpente au moyen âge dans les manuscrits illustrés du XVe siècle du Roman de Mélusine,” in Mélusine Moderne et Contemporaine, ed. Bouloumié and Béhar, 21–34. 38. Roville, prefatory note to the reader; see Eichel-Lojkine (100) for this short-circuiting of exemplarity.

Notes 324 39. See Rebecca May Wilkin, Women, Imagination and the Search for Truth in Early Modern France (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008), 97–139, especially the reproduction of Pierre de l’Estoile’s 1570s engraving (116). 40. My account of the publication adheres primarily to Christian E. Dekesel, “Hubertus Goltzius (Venloo 1526–Bruges 1583) and his Icones Imperatorum Romanorum,” in L’ immaginario del potere: Studi di iconografia monetale, ed. Rossella Pera (Rome: Giorgio Bretschneider Editore, 2005), 259–82. The Académie Royale de Belgique’s Biographie Nationale, vol. 8 (Brussels: BruylantChristophe et Compagnie, 1884–85) ignores the German translation; Cunnally and Casini (Ritratti) do not acknowledge the Italian translation; Dekesel (“Hubertus Goltzius”) identifies a single copy of a Tuscan edition, which seems to be a one-off version of the Italian volume. Since my focus is how Goltzius might have been read in Italy, I concentrate on the 1557 Italian edition. The 1557 editions were published in Antwerp by Gillis Coppens Van Diest. 41. For the claim that the book is the first adaptation of chiaroscuro print for full-scale book production, see Nancy Bialler, Chiaroscuro Woodcuts: Hendrick Goltzius (1558–1617) and His Time (Amsterdam: Rijksmuseum / Ghent: SnoeckDucaju & Zoon, 1993), 30–34. For arguments discrediting the woodcut theory, see Wilfried Le Loup, “Hubertus Goltzius, drukker-graveur,” parts 1 and 2, Archief- en Bibliotheekwezen, 1–2 (1975): 33–49; 3–4 (1975): 567–91; Dekesel, “Hubertus Goltzius.” 42. See Dekesel, “Hubertus Goltzius.” 43. “E si come ho queste Imperiale imagini con la distintione di colori, e con il dipinttorio penello ho effigiato, parimente con il penello della Istorica scrittura per compendio ho depinto li gesti delli medesimi Prencipi, o con honore o con vergogna fatti, con sincera fede richiesta da varij scrittori.” The pages of the dedication, and of the rest of the volume, are not numbered; where possible chapter numbers are given. 44. See Casini, Ritratti, 28; Cunnally, 191. 45. See Casini, Ritratti, 28. This theory is consistent with the paucity of scholarship on Roville. 46. C. E. Dekesel, Twelve Highlights from the Numismatic Book Collection in the Herzog August Bibliothek (Augusteer) in Wolfenbuttel (BRD) (Ghent: Bibliotheca Numismatica Siciliana, 1991), 97; “Hubertus Goltzius,” 269. 47. “Et non essendosi tutte l’imagine de tutti gl’Imperadori trovate, quantunque per me con somma industria e assidua fatica ben ricercate, non ho però qui voluto porre il numero perfetto e compito, anzi piu presto ho voluto alcuna cosa per imperfettione mancarmi, che per cagione di supplemento alcuna imagine fitticia aggiongnere” (Dedication). 48. See Nagel and Wood, Anachronic Renaissance, 21–28.

Notes 325 49. For an overview of the reception of Ausonius, see R. P. H. Green, ed., The Works of Ausonius (Oxford: Clarendon, 1991), xxxii–xl. For Ausonius as imitator of Juvenal (including the Caesares), see Robert E. Colton, “Ausonius and Juvenal,” The Classical Journal 69, no. 1 (1973): 41–51; more generally, see CharlesMarie Ternes, Études ausoniennes 3 (Luxembourg: Centre Alexandre-Wiltheim, 2002). 50. See Brennan, Turner, and Wright, plate 15. Cunnally notes that even the images in Fulvio’s early volume offer the artist’s own interpretation of Roman virtue (63–69). 51. Michael W. Kwakkelstein, “Leonardo da Vinci’s Grotesque Heads and the Breaking of the Physiognomic Mould,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 54 (1991): 127–36; Bert W. Meijer, “From Leonardo to Bruegel: Comic Art in Sixteenth-Century Europe,” Word & Image 4, no. 1 (1988): 405–11. 52. Suetonius, Lives of the Caesars, vol. 2, trans. J. C. Rolfe (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1997), 6.51. 53. “corpore maculoso et fetido, . . . oculis caesis et hebetioribus, cevice obesa, ventre proiecto” (Suetonius, Lives of the Caesars 6.51). 54. Cassius Dio Cocceianus, Dio’s Roman History, trans. Earnest Cary (London: William Heinemann, 1925), 62.16. 55. Dekesel points out that the coin inscriptions are, like the emperor’s profiles, frequently an amalgamation of the inscriptions on different coins (“Hubertus Goltzius,” 269). 56. Dekesel notes (in a different context) that Goltzius’s book was “totally in line with the emblemata books which were very popular in those days” (“Hubertus Goltzius,” 269). 57. Cunnally, 61–62. 58. The mention of falsehood may come from Tacitus, Annals 6.45: “nam etsi commutus ingenio simulationum tamen falsa in sinu avi perdidicerat” (For though he was of an excitable temper, he had thoroughly learnt the falsehoods of hypocrisy under the loving care of his grandfather); The Complete Works of Tacitus, trans. Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb, ed. Moses Hadas (New York: The Modern Library, n.d.). 59. See Suetonius, “optime olere occisum hostem et melius civem” (the odour of a dead enemy was sweet and that of a fellow citizen sweeter still; Lives of the Caesars 7.10). 60. Lives of the Caesars 8.18. 61. See Brennan, Faces of Power, 28. 62. The tag, while seeming to be a quote from Domitian himself, bears no clear relation to accounts in Suetonius or Cassius Dio, the primary sources for Domitian. 63. See Wilson, World, especially 186–265.

Notes

326

64. There are no obvious sources for this tag, which may be a reference to the many people Commodus had killed; see, for example, Cassius Dio 73.4, 73.7. 65. Egginton, 123–39. 66. The first volume to focus on contemporary men was Paolo Giovio’s Vitae duodecim Vicecomitum Mediolani principum (Paris: Robert Estienne, 1549). 67. See Elena Bonora, Ricerche su Francesco Sansovino: Imprenditore libraio e letterato (Venice: Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere, ed Arti, 1994), for details of Sansovino’s career. For an overview of sixteenth-century popular history, and Sansovino’s role as a popular historian, see Paul F. Grendler, “Francesco Sansovino and Italian Popular History 1560–1600,” Studies in the Renaissance 16 (1969): 139–80. For Sansovino’s place in Venetian debates about art and imitation, see Eliana Carrara, “Francesco Sansovino letterato e intendente d’arte,” Arte Veneta 59 (2002): 229–38. 68. Bonora, 69–70. 69. Information about the production of Sansovino’s images is minimal; I have been unable to verify the few rare scholarly identifications of specific artists. 70. “Vedendosi spesse volte che l’opere non corrispondono a i volti, et che talhora sotto bellissimi visi, si scuoprono scelerati et horrendi pensieri.” 71. “In questo libro si fa di quelle cose mentione, le quali piu comunemente son note, non altramente che d’una fabbrica avegna della quale comunemente si appresenta a gli occhi de riguardanti, le colonne, le cornici e l’altre parti che son della facciata ornamento, con tutto che talhora si vegga per le finestre qualche parte di dentro” (4r). 72. For a brief overview of the architectural resonances of Sansovino’s Edificio, see Roberto Paolo Ciardi, “L’Edificio del corpo umano di Francesco Sansovino,” in Scritti e immagini in onore di Corrado Maltese, ed. Stefano Marconi (Rome: Edizioni Quasar, 1997), 177–81. For an overview of anatomy and physiognomy in this period, including Vesalius’s De humana corporis fabrica (1543), see Lynn Thorndike, A History of Magic and Experimental Science, vol. 5–6, The Sixteenth Century (New York: Columbia University Press, 1959), 498–531. 73. Haskell asserts that there is no correlation between text and image in portrait-books (60), while Casini asserts that there is close attention, by some authors, to theories of physiognomy and to the portraits accompanying their biographies, but does not offer much evidence to support his theory that text and image correspond and complement each other (Ritratti, 137ff); Eichel-Lojkine locates a new interest in depicting ethno-cultural signs of difference emerging in the wake of the 1575 Perna edition of Giovio’s Elogia (133–37). 74. On the politics of style in painted portraits, see for example, Elizabeth Cropper, “Prolegomena to a New Interpretation of Bronzino’s Florentine Portraits,” in Renaissance Studies in Honor of Craig Hugh Smyth, ed. Andrew Morrogh et al., vol. 2 (Florence: Giunti Barbèra, 1985), 149–60.

Notes

327

75. See the definition of petto in Rigutini and Fanfani, Vocabolario italiano della lingua parlata (Florence: G. Barbèra, 1854), which accords with Sansovino’s own description of the petto in Edificio 20r. 76. For physiognomics as a power strategy in ancient rhetoric, see Tamsyn S. Barton, Power and Knowledge: Astrology, Physiognomics, and Medicine under the Roman Empire (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1994). On contradictions between artwork and text in the ancient world, see Jaś Elsner, “Physiognomics: Art and Text,” in Seeing the Face, Seeing the Soul: Polemon’s “Physiognomy” from Classical Antiquity to Medieval Islam, ed. Simon Swain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 203–24. For physiognomic theory in portrait-books from Giovio onward, see Eichel-Lojkine. 77. Page 64r in Newberry Library copy (Case folio E 7.O76); 66r according to numerical progression. 78. Dedicatory note at the beginning of Book 1 of the Historia, n.p. 79. For Giovio’s museo, see Minonzio, “Gli ‘Elogi,’” XVII–LXXXVII. 80. For publication details, see Casini, Ritratti, 58; T. C. Price Zimmermann, Paolo Giovio: The Historian and the Crisis of Sixteenth-Century Italy (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1995), 165, 224; for Giovio’s physiognomic descriptions, see Eichel-Lojkine, also Sonia Maffei, “Spiranti fattezze dei volti. Paolo Giovio e la descrizione degli uomini illustri dal Museo agli Elogia,” in Ecfrasi: modelli ed esempi fra Medioevo e Rinascimento, ed. Gianni Venturi and Monica Farnetti (Rome: Bulzoni, 2004), 1: 227–68. See Maffei, 234, for the influence of the Vitae Vicecomitum on Giovio’s Elogia to men of warlike virtue; the Elogia to men of literary fame were published prior to the Vitae Vicecomitum, in 1546. 81. For Giovio’s choice of the Plutarchan and Suetonian model for his Elogia (sometimes considered an odd contrast with his more serious histories), see Zimmermann, 221. 82. Maffei, 242. 83. Eichel-Lojkine (105) asserts that this is true for both the Perna edition of Giovio, and Thevet’s Vrais Pourtraits et vies. 84. See Chapter 1. 85. Paolo Giovio, Elogia virorum bellica virtute illustrium (Basel: Petrus Perna, 1575). All references to Giovio’s text are to book and page number of this edition. Translations are my own. 86. For Giovio’s copy of the portrait, see Minonzio’s note in Paolo Giovio, Elogi degli uomini illustri, ed. Franco Minonzio, trans. Andrea Guasparri and Franco Minonzio (Turin: Einaudi, 2006), 814n1. 87. See the McCormick acquisition by the Newberry Library (Wing folio ZP 538 .P42 c.2). Since this is the only Giovio volume known to include contemporary hand-coloring, it seems to have been a personal choice by the volume’s owner

Notes 328 rather than the enterprise of a bookseller. See also Tommaso Casini, “La ricerca della verosimiglianza fisionomica nelle biografie illustrate tra Cinque e Seicento: ritratti dal vero, immaginari e contraffatti,” in Percorsi tra parole e immagini (1400–1600), ed. Angela Guidotti and Massimiliano Rossi (Lucca: Maria Pacini Fazzi, 2000), 75–88, especially 78. 88. See Zimmermann, especially 206–7, 243–45, for Giovio’s use of poetic licence in the Elogia, in contrast with his more “serious” Historiae. 89. Giovio’s emphasis on authenticity is well-documented: See Linda Klinger, The Portrait Collection of Paolo Giovio (PhD diss., Princeton University, 1991); Maffei, 236n41; Casini, Ritratti, 34–35; and Minonzio, “Il Museo,” 116–19. See Zimmermann (206) for Giovio’s efforts to obtain “authentic” portraits. 90. For an overview of the Ezzelino tradition, see Gherardo Ortalli, “Ezzelino crudelissimo tiranno: genesi e sviluppo di un mito,” La ricerca folklorica 25, no. 1 (1992): 89–98. 91. For the “animal-like” interpretation, see Giovio, Elogi degli uomini illustri, 492n3; also Maffei; Casini, Ritratti, 148. 92. Kenneth Lapatin, “Picturing Socrates,” in A Companion to Socrates, ed. Sara Ahbel-Rappe and Rachana Kamtekar (Malden, Mass: Blackwell, 2006), 110. Also see John Henderson, “Seeing through Socrates: Portrait of the Philosopher in Sculpture Culture,” Art History 19, no. 3 (1996): 327–52; and Paul Zanker, The Mask of Socrates: The Image of the Intellectual in Antiquity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), 173–75. 93. See Lapatin for the iconographic tradition; see also Fulvio Orsini, Imagines et elogia virorum illustrium (Rome: Lafrery, 1570), 50–51. 94. Haskell (70n122) shows that Della Porta re-uses the images; Maffei (251ff) shows that Giovio’s Elogia virorum bellica virtute form the basis of Della Porta’s work. See also Casini, Ritratti, 148–51; and Wilson, World, 186–255. 95. Wilson, World, 248–55. 96. Maffei and Wilson, World, both suggest that this is the case. 97. See Wilson, World, especially 248–65. 98. Giambattista della Porta, Della fisonomia dell’ huomo (Naples: G. G. Carlino et C. Vitale, 1610), V.21, 306; see Wilson, World, 334n53. 99. Juliana Schiesari, Beasts and Beauties: Animals, Gender, and Domestication in the Italian Renaissance (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2010), 54–72. Schiesari does not address the text-image contradictions of Porta’s lascivious women. 100. See Lina Bolzoni, La stanza della memoria (Torino: Einaudi, 1995), xxiv, for the mnemonic function of Giovio’s museo; see Perkinson; Wilson, World, 186–255, for portrait-books as mnemonic devices.

Notes

329

chapter 5 1. For the academy and its volume of Rime, see Armando Maggi, Identità e impresa rinascimentale (Ravenna: Longo, 1998), 97–115. English translations are my own. 2. Paolo Giovio considers the device fashion an import by invading French troops at the end of the Quattrocento; Abd-El-Kader Salza points out that imprese were evidently already in vogue at the time of Poliziano (Luca Contile Uomo di Lettere e di Negozj del Secolo XVI [Florence: G. Carnesecchi e Figli, 1903], 208). 3. Despite the theoretical differences between emblem literature and impresistica—Aristotelian or Neoplatonic? Latin or vernacular?—the distinctions are often blurred. See Maria Luisa Doglio’s introduction in Paolo Giovio, Dialogo dell’ imprese militari e amorose, ed. Maria Luisa Doglio (Rome: Bulzoni, 1978); Denis L. Drysdall, “Devices as ‘Emblems’ before 1531,” Emblematica 16 (2008): 253–69; also Karen Pinkus, Picturing Silence: Emblem, Language, CounterReformation Materiality (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996), 129–58. 4. Maggi, 79–82; see Maggi more generally for the impresa rhetoric of academies; see also Dorigen Caldwell, who points out that academies tended to describe both themselves and imprese as simultaneously presenting ancient knowledge and belonging uniquely to the present: another instance of the anachronic substitution-performance tension (The Sixteenth-Century Italian Impresa in Theory and Practice [Brooklyn: AMS Press, 2004], 63–64). 5. Maggi, 13. 6. Tacitus, Agricola 46; see Chapter 1 of this book. 7. For the stages of this transformation, see Maria Luisa Doglio, “Introduzione,” in Emanuele Tesauro, Idea delle perfette imprese, ed. Maria Luisa Doglio (Florence: Olschki, 1975). 8. Stephen Greenblatt, Renaissance Self-Fashioning: From More to Shakespeare (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980); Timothy J. Reiss, Mirages of the Selfe: Patterns of Personhood in Ancient and Early Modern Europe (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003). 9. See Daniel Russell, “Emblems, Frames, and Other Marginalia: Defining the Emblematic,” Emblematica 17 (2009): 1–40; Pinkus, 172–81. 10. For the devaluing of the impresa through proliferation, see Pinkus, 166–67. 11. For the shift, see Doglio, “Introduzione”; also Maggi. 12. “Discorso intorno al Sileno,” Rime de gli Academici Occulti (Brescia: V. Di Sabbio, 1568), n.p. See Maggi, especially 98–101. 13. For Porta, see Chapter 4. For the late sixteenth-century changes in the science of physiognomy, see Wilson, “Confusion”; and Porter, Windows.

Notes 330 14. Giovio, Dialogo, 37. 15. My brief summary here is indebted to Maggi (97–115), who gives an extensive discussion of the Rime de gli Accademici Occulti, including their impresa. 16. To facilitate reading, all mottoes have been translated into English. While this runs counter to the spirit of the impresa genre, it is impossible to replicate the position of the sixteenth-century reader vis-à-vis each web of emblematic references. 17. “Discorso intorno al Sileno,” n.p. See Maggi, 97–115. 18. See Berger, Absence, 9–25; see also Chapter 2 of this book. 19. Maggi, 101. 20. Francesco Sansovino, Del secretario (Venice: Al Segno della Luna, 1575), 1r–v; 4r–v. 21. Zuccolo, Discorso, 125; Giulio Cesare Capaccio, Il secretario. Opera di Giulio Cesare Capaccio ove con modi diversi da quei ch’insegnò il Sansovino, si scuopre il vero modo di scriver Lettere familiari correnti nelle Corti. Insieme col primo Volume di Lettere dell’istesso Autore (Rome: Vincenzo Accolti, 1589), 2. See also Douglas Biow, Doctors, and “From Machiavelli to Torquato Accetto: The Art of Secretarial Dissimulation,” in Educare il corpo, educare la parola nella trattatistica del Rinascimento, ed. Giorgio Patrizi and Amedeo Quondam (Rome: Bulzoni, 1998), 219–38. 22. Biow, Doctors, 160. 23. Mario Andrea Rigoni, “Un dialogo del Tasso: Dalla parola al geroglifico,” Lettere italiane 24 (1972): 30–44. 24. Torquato Tasso, Dialoghi, 2 vols, ed. Giovanni Baffetti (Milan: Rizzoli, 1998). References to Tasso’s dialogues are from this edition, except for the Conte dialogue, taken from Il conte, overo De l’ imprese, ed. Bruno Basile (Rome: Salerno, 1993). Translations are my own. 25. Rigoni, 32–33. 26. For the now-problematic dating of this dialogue, see Emilio Russo, L’ordine, la fantasia e l’arte: Ricerche per un quinquennio tassiano (1588–1592) (Rome: Bulzoni, 2002), 26–27n67; Claudio Gigante, Tasso (Rome: Salerno, 2007), 253–55; and also Massimo Rossi, Io come filosofo era stato dubbio: La retorica dei “Dialoghi” di Tasso (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2007), 213–45. 27. For the poetic aura of the impresa, see Pinkus, 129–37. 28. Lodovico Dolce, Imprese nobili et ingeniose di diversi Prencipi (Venice: Girolamo Porro, 1578). 29. For frames in early printed books as the “meta-dimension of art,” see Anja Grebe, “Frames and Illusion in Late Medieval Book Illumination,” Framing Borders in Literature and Other Media, ed. Werner Wolf and Walter Bernhart (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2006), 43–68.

Notes

331

30. Tesauro, Idea, 41. 31. Giovanni Ferro de’ Rotarij, Teatro d’ imprese (Venice: Giacomo Sarzina, 1623), 2 parts; part 1, chapter XXIII, 207. 32. F. Felice Milensio Agostiniano, Dell’ impresa dell’elefante dell’Illustrissimo e Riverendissimo Signore il Sig. Cardinal Mont’Elparo. Dialogi Tre (Naples: Gio. Tommaso Aulisio, 1595), 14. 33. Stefano Guazzo, Delle imprese, in Dialoghi piacevoli (Venice: Presso Gio. Antonio Bertano, Ad Instantia di Pietro Tino, Libraro in Milano, 1586), 55v. Translations are my own. 34. Giulio Cesare Capaccio, Delle imprese. Trattato di Giulio Cesare Capaccio in Tre Libri diviso (Ex Officina Horatij Salviani. In Napoli, Appresso Gio. Giacomo Carlino, et Antonio Pace, 1592), I, 14v. Translations are my own. 35. Pietro Gritio (Grizi), Il Castiglione, overo dell’arme di nobiltà. Dialogo del signor Pietro Gritio da Iesi a gl’Illustrissimi SS. Conti Girolamo, et Paolo Canossi; Nuovamente posto in luce da Antonio Beffa Negrini. (Mantua: Francesco Osanna, 1587), 136. Translation is my own. 36. See Albert Ascoli, “Faith as Cover-Up: Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso, Canto 21, and Machiavellian Ethics,” I Tatti Studies: Essays in the Renaissance 8 (1999): 135–70; and Ariosto’s Bitter Harmony (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1987), 214–15. 37. Angelo Solerti, Vita di Torquato Tasso, 2 vols (Turin: Ermanno Loescher, 1895), vol. 1, 782. 38. Torquato Tasso, Rinaldo, ed. Luigi Bonfigli (Bari: Laterza, 1936). 39. References are to Torquato Tasso, Gerusalemme liberata, ed. Lanfranco Caretti (Milan: Mondadori, 1983), and Gerusalemme conquistata, ed. Luigi Bonfigli (Bari: Laterza, 1934). Translations are my own. 40. Walter Stephens, “Metaphor, Sacrament, and the Problem of Allegory in Gerusalemme Liberata,” I Tatti Studies 4 (1991): 217–47. 41. See Sergio Zatti, L’uniforme cristiano e il multiforme pagano. Saggio sulla Gerusalemme liberata (Milan: Il Saggiatore, 1983), 12. 42. Guido Baldassarri, “Tradizione cavalleresca e trattatistica sulle imprese. Interferenze, uso sociale e problemi di committenza,” in Ritterepik der Renaissance. Akten des Deutsch-Italienischen Kolloquiums, Berlin 30.3–2.4.1987, ed. Klaus W. Hempfer (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 1989), 48. 43. Conte, 139–40. 44. Baldassarri, “Tradizione cavalleresca,” 76. 45. Zatti observes that the parade of Saracen troops falls in the semantic field “MOLTITUDINE-DISCORDIA-VARIETÀ,” in contrast with the Christian troop review, in which “la diversità delle armature pare come

Notes

332

confondersi e annullarsi in una festosa indifferenziazione” (L’uniforme cristiano, 21–22). 46. In both versions of the poem we eventually find out that Clorinda was suckled by a tiger (GL 12.31; GC 15.31). In the Conquistata, this detail of Clorinda’s past no longer explains retrospectively any insignia and therefore becomes more exclusively a miracle of St George. For a detailed consideration of Tasso’s treatment of women, see Laura Benedetti, La sconfitta di Diana (Ravenna: Longo, 1996). 47. Gierusalemme 108, in appendix to Bonfigli’s edition of Rinaldo (257–87); Bruno Basile, “Microscopie tassiane,” Bergomum 81 (1986): 751. The Petrarchan reference is to Canzoniere 175.5 and 271.7. The last line is apparently a reference to the saying, “Metter l’esca accanto al fuoco,” to put someone in danger of falling in love; the esca is a mushroom that catches fire (Rigutini, esca). 48. Conte, 187; Basile, “Microscopie,” 11–12. 49. Giovio, Dialogo, 88. 50. Mario Praz, Studies in Seventeenth-Century Imagery, 2nd ed. (Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1964), 206; and Peter Daly, Literature in the Light of the Emblem, 2nd ed. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998). 51. References to the Rime degli Academici eterei are from the selection in Torquato Tasso, Rime ‘eteree,’ ed. Lanfranco Caretti (Parma: Zara, [1990]). See Caretti’s “Postfazione” in this volume for background information on the text. 52. Agostino Casu, “‘Translata Proficit Arbos.’ Le imprese ‘eteree’ nelle Rime del Tasso,” Italique: Poésie italienne de la Renaissance 2 (1999): 82–111. 53. The 1567 text of the sonnet is as follows: “Poi che’n vostro terren vil Tasso alberga / Dal Ren traslato, ond’empia man lo svelse, / Là ’ve par, ch’egualmente homai l’eccelse / Piante, e le basse horrida pioggia asperga; / S’egli già fù negletta, et humil verga, / Hor mercè di colui, che qui lo scelse / Fra’ suoi be’ lauri, e propria cura felse, / Tosto averrà, ch’al Ciel pregiato s’erga. / E caldi raggi, e fresch’aure, e rugiade / Pure n’attende à maturar possenti / E raddolcir l’amate frutta acerbe: / Onde il lor succo à l’Api schife aggrade, / E mel ne stilli, che si pregi, e serbe / Poscia in Parnaso à le future genti.” Reproduced in Tasso, Rime ‘eteree.’ Translation is my own. Casu points out that the poem makes more sense if one reads correctively amare for amate in line 11 (“Translata” 86). 54. Solerti, 1:92. 55. Casu, 85–86. 56. P. Vergili Maronis Bucolica et Georgica, ed. T. E. Page (London: Macmillan, 1965). Translations are from The Eclogues, Georgics and Aeneid of Virgil, trans. C. Day Lewis (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1966). Tasso’s sonnet mediated his revisiting of Virgil through a dialogue with the previous

Notes

333

generation of great writers, Bembo and Casa, and with the Academy of the Eterei at large; see Casu. 57. The Conte repeats Giovio’s account of the transplanted tree: “Il persico trasportato in piú felice regione, con le parole translata proficit arbos, fu invenzione del Domenichi” (Conte 180). 58. See Basile’s note on Macasciuola in his edition of the dialogue (Conte 178n571). 59. Ovid, Metamorphoses 1.94–96. 60. Virginia Woods Callahan, “Andrea Alciato’s Palm Tree Emblem: A Humanist Document,” Emblematica 6 (1992): 219–37; and Conte 179n578. 61. See Woods Callahan (222) for a full discussion. 62. Original and translation from Petrarch’s Lyric Poems: The “Rime sparse” and Other Lyrics, ed. and trans. Robert M. Durling (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1976). 63. For the influence on Tasso’s sonnet of the poetic exchanges between Bembo and Casa, and Casa and Varchi, see Casu, 86. For the swan impresa signifying poetic eloquence, see Conte, 162, where Tasso borrows from Bargagli. 64. Orlando furioso 10.78.2; 10.80.2, 6, 5; 10.88.1. Baldassarri discovers over three hundred insignia described in a selection of fourteen Renaissance long narrative poems: Only about fifty insignia occur more than once; among these are albero (3), ape (2), nave or barca (6), palma (2) and pino (3) (“Tradizione cavalleresca,” 63–64). 65. Ascoli, Bitter Harmony, 215. 66. Ascoli, Bitter Harmony, 216. 67. I am indebted to Marco Ruffini for drawing my attention to this description of the device of the ideal courtier. 68. Francesco Caburacci, Trattato . . . Doue si dimostra il vero, & nouo modo di fare le imprese. Con vn breue discorso in difesa dell’Orlando Furioso di M. Lodouico Ariosto (Bologna: Per G. Rossi, 1580). 69. Ascoli, Bitter Harmony, 22, 25–27. 70. On Tasso’s reinscription of the chivalric “boat of romance” in his Christian epic, see Sergio Zatti, L’ombra del Tasso. Epica e romanzo nel Cinquecento (Milan: Mondadori, 1996), 2–27; Ascoli, “Liberating the Tomb: Difference and Death in Gerusalemme liberata,” Annali d’ italianistica 12 (1994): 159–80; and David Quint, Epic and Empire: Politics and Generic Form from Virgil to Milton (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1993), 248–67. 71. Conte, 166. Plato’s own eloquence was attributed to an association with bees (Cicero, De divinatione 1.78, in De senectute De amicitia De divinatione, trans. William Armistead Falconer [Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2001]).

Notes 334 72. Camillo Baldi, Introduttione alla virtù morale et al modo, che si deue tenere per parlare, e proceder lodevolmente . . . . Con l’aggiunta d’un Trattato dell’Imprese del medesimo autore (Bologna: T. Mascheroni et C. Ferroni, 1624). Translations are my own. 73. Lodovico Arrivabene, Della origine de’ Cavaglieri del Tosone, et di altri Ordini, de’ Simboli, et delle Imprese. Dialoghi due (Mantua: Gìacomo Ruffinello, 1589), 41. 74. Maggi, 98–99. 75. Maggi, 99–100, 111. 76. Ascanio Piccolomini, Rime di Monsig. Ascanio Piccolomini, fatte la maggior parte nella primavera dell’eta sua. Et alla fine d’esse, saranno dodici Imprese del medesimo . . . (Siena: Bonetto, 1594). 77. Lumina mens illinc may mean “The mind sheds light from there.” This however is a strange word order with the not very well-attested verb, luminare: Capaccio’s complaint is quite legitimate. 78. See also 50r, 51v, 52r, 54r. 79. For the emergence of anamorphic imagery at the end of the sixteenth century—pictures that were, by definition, not fixed—see Marco Arnaudo, Il trionfo di Vertunno: Illusioni ottiche e cultura letteraria nell’ età della Controriforma (Lucca: Maria Pacini Fazzi, 2008). 80. “Academico Elevato” may refer to a member of the Academy of the Elevati of Padua (1557–59), which was continued by the Academy of the Eterei; there were, in different periods, several academies called “Elevati.”

afterword 1. Nagel and Wood, Anachronic Renaissance; “Toward a New Model.” 2. Berger, Fictions. 3. See Maurice Brock, Bronzino, trans. David Poole Radzinowicz and Christine Schultz-Touge (Paris: Flammarion, 2002), 124–32. Brock suggests that an implied competition between David and Agamemnon hints at the loss of republicanism (represented by the statue David, relegated to being a family possession), and the importance of rhetoric (in Agamemnon’s representations to Achilles). 4. Deborah Parker, Bronzino: Renaissance Painter as Poet (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 152–53. 5. Elizabeth Cropper, “Pontormo and Bronzino in Philadelphia: A Double Portrait,” in Pontormo, Bronzino, and the Medici: The Transformation of the Renaissance Portrait in Florence, ed. Carl Brandon Strehlke (Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2004), 1–33, connects the intentional opacity of such paintings with the courtly impresa genre.

Works Cited

primary sources Appian. Roman History. Translated by Horace White. London: William Heinemann, 1912. Aretino, Pietro. Lettere. Edited by Francesco Erspamer. Parma: Ugo Guanda, 1995. ———. Lettere. Edited by Paolo Procaccioli. Vol 1. Rome: Salerno, 1997. Arienti, Giovanni Sabadino degli. Gynevera de le clare donne. Edited by Corrado Ricci and Alberto Bacchi della Lega. Bologna: Romagnoli-Dall’Acqua, 1888. Aristotle. Politics. Translated by H. Rackham. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1950. Arrivabene, Lodovico. Della origine de’ Cavaglieri del Tosone, et di altri Ordini`, de’ Simboli, et delle Imprese. Dialoghi due. Mantua: Gìacomo Ruffinello, 1589. Ausonius. The Works of Ausonius. Edited by R. P. H. Green. Oxford: Clarendon, 1991. Baldi, Camillo. Introduttione alla virtù morale et al modo, che si deue tenere per parlare, e proceder lodeuolmente . . . Con l’aggiunta d’un Trattato dell’Imprese del medesimo auttore. Bologna: T. Mascheroni et C. Ferroni, 1624. Barocchi, Paola, ed. Scritti d’arte del Cinquecento. Vol. 1. Milan: Riccardo Ricciardi, 1971. Bembo, Pietro. Petri Bembi ad Herculem Strotium de Vergilij Culice et Terentii Fabulis liber. In Petri Bembi opuscula aliquot. Lyon: Gryphium, 1532. ———. Petrus Bembus Joanni Francisco Pico s.p.d. In Rinascimento e classicismo. Materiali per l’analisi del sistema culturale di antico regime, edited by Amedeo Quondam, 166–97. Rome: Bulzoni, 1999.

Works Cited 336 ———. Prose della volgar lingua. In Prose e rime, edited by Carlo Dionisotti. Turin: UTET, 1960. Benavides, Marco. Illustrivm iureconsvltorum imagines. Rome, Lafrery, 1566. Bruni, Leonardo. Cicero novus. M. Tulli Ciceronis Sex orationum partes. Edited by Angelus Maius and Quintus Asconius Pedianus. Milan: Regiis Typis, 1817. ———. Epistolarum libri VIII recensete Laurentio Mehus. Edited by James Hankins. Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 2007. ———. Isagogicon moralis discipline. In Opere letterarie e politiche di Leonardo Bruni. Edited by Paolo Viti. Turin: UTET, 1996. Buonaccorso da Montemagno, il Giovane. De nobilitate tractatus. In Prose e rime dei due Buonaccorsi da Montemagno, edited by Giovanni Battista Casotti. Florence: Giuseppe Manni, 1718. Caburacci, Francesco. Trattato . . . Doue si dimostra il vero, & nouo modo di fare le imprese. Con vn breue discorso in difesa dell’Orlando Furioso di M. Lodouico Ariosto. Bologna: Per G. Rossi, 1580. Cambridge Translations of Renaissance Philosophical Texts. Edited by Jill Kraye. Vol. 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. Capaccio, Giulio Cesare. Delle imprese. Trattato di Giulio Cesare Capaccio in Tre Libri diviso. Ex Officina Horatij Salviani. In Napoli, Appresso Gio. Giacomo Carlino, et Antonio Pace, 1592. ———. Il secretario. Opera di Giulio Cesare Capaccio ove con modi diversi da quei ch’ insegnò il Sansovino, si scuopre il vero modo di scriver Lettere familiari correnti nelle Corti. Insieme col primo Volume di Lettere dell’ istesso Autore. Rome: Vincenzo Accolti, 1589. Caprioli, Aliprando. Ritratti di cento capitani illustri intagliati da Aliprando Capriolo Con li lor fatti in guerra da lui brevemente scritta. Rome: Domenico Gigliotti, 1596. Carafa, Diomede. Memoriali. Edited by Franca Petrucci Nardelli. Rome: Bonacci, 1988. Castiglione, Baldesar. The Book of the Courtier: The Singleton Translation. Edited by Daniel Javitch. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2002. ———. “Cleopatra.” In Renaissance Latin Verse, edited by Alessandro Perosa and John Sparrow, 193–95. London: Duckworth, 1979. ———. “Lettera a papa Leone X sulle rovine di Roma.” In Rinascimento e classicismo. Materiali per l’analisi del sistema culturale di antico regime, edited by Amedeo Quondam, 59–66. Rome: Bulzoni, 1999. ———. Le lettere. Edited by Guido La Rocca. Milan: Mondadori, 1978.

Works Cited

337

———. Il Libro del Cortegiano. Edited by Walter Barberis. Turin: Einaudi, 1998. ———. La seconda redazione del ‘Cortegiano’ di Baldassarre Castiglione. Edited by Ghino Ghinassi. Florence: Sansoni, 1968. Cicero, Marcus Tullius. De officiis. Translated by Walter Miller. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2005. ———. De oratore. Translated by H. Rackham. 2 vols. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1942. ———. De re publica De legibus. Translated by Clinton Walker Keyes. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univeristy Press, 1943. ———. De senectute De amicitia De divinatione. Translated by William Armistead Falconer. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2001. ———. Epistulae ad Quintum Fratrem et M. Brutum. Edited by D. R. Shackleton Bailey. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980. ———. Letters to Quintus and Brutus, Letter Fragments, Letter to Octavian, Handbook of Electioneering. Edited and translated D. R. Shackleton Bailey. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2002. Dante Alighieri. The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri: Inferno. Edited by Robert Durling and Ronald L. Martinez. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996. Danti, Vincenzo. “Trattato delle perfette proporzioni.” In Trattati d’arte del Cinquecento fra Manierismo e Controriforma, edited by Paola Barocchi. Vol. 1. Bari: Laterza, 1960. Dio Cocceianus, Cassius. Dio’s Roman History. Translated by Earnest Cary. 9 vols. London: William Heinemann, 1925. Dolce, Lodovico. Imprese nobili et ingeniose di diversi Prencipi. Venice: Girolamo Porro, 1578. Doni, Antonfrancesco. La libraria del Doni fiorentino. Venice: Gabriele Giolito, 1550. Ferro de’ Rotarij, Giovanni. Teatro d’ imprese. Venice: Giacomo Sarzina, 1623. Foresti, Iacopo Filippo. De plurimis claris sceletisque mulieribus. Ferrara: Lorenzo de’ Rossi, 1497. Fulvio, Andrea. Illustrium imagines. Rome: Jacopo Mazzocchi, 1517. Garin, Eugenio, ed. Prosatori latini del Quattrocento. Milan: Ricciardi, 1952. Gauricus, Pomponius. De Sculptura. Edited and translated by André Chastel and Robert Klein. Geneva: Librairie Droz, 1969. Gilbert, Creighton, ed. Italian Art, 1400–1500: Sources and Documents. Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1992.

Works Cited

338

Giovio, Paolo. Dialogo dell’ imprese militari e amorose. Edited by Maria Luisa Doglio. Rome: Bulzoni, 1978. ———. Elogi degli uomini illustri. Edited by Franco Minonzio. Translated by Andrea Guasparri and Franco Minonzio. Turin: Einaudi, 2006. ———. Elogia virorum bellica virtute illustrium. Basel: Petrus Perna, 1575. ———. Vitae duodecim Vicecomitum Mediolani principum. Paris: Robert Estienne, 1549. Goltzius, Hubert. Le vive imagini di tutti quasi gl’ imperatori. Antwerp: Gillis Coppens Van Diest, 1557. Grizi, Pietro. Il Castiglione, overo dell’arme di nobiltà. Dialogo del signor Pietro Gritio da Iesi a gl’Illustrissimi SS. Conti Girolamo, et Paolo Canossi; Nuovamente posto in luce da Antonio Beffa Negrini. Mantua: Francesco Osanna, 1587. Guarino Veronese. Epistolario. Edited by Remigio Sabbadini. Turin: Bottega d’Erasmo, 1967. Guazzo, Stefano. Delle imprese. In Dialoghi piacevoli. Venice: Presso Gio. Antonio Bertano, Ad Instantia di Pietro Tino, Libraro in Milano, 1586. Guicciardini, Francesco. La storia d’Italia. Vol. 1. Florence: Adriano Salani Editore, 1932. Horace. Satires, Epistles, and Ars poetica. Translated by H. Rushton Fairclough. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1942. ———. Odes and Epodes. Translated by C. E. Bennet. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1995. Huttich, Johann. Imperatorum romanorum libellus. Strasbourg: Wolfgang Cephalaeus, 1534. Juvenal and Persius. Edited and translated by Susanna Morton Braund. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2004. Landino, Cristoforo. De vera nobilitate. Edited by Maria Teresa Liaci. Firenze: Olschki, 1970. Marsuppini, Carlo. “Carmen De Nobilitate.” In Knowledge, Goodness, and Power: The Debate over Nobility among Quattrocento Italian Humanists, edited and translated by Albert Rabil Jr., 97–109. Binghamton, N.Y.: Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1991. Micyllus, Jakob. Icones Imperatorum, et Breves vitae, atque rerum cuiusque gestarum indicationes. Strasbourg: Mylius, 1544. Milensio, F. Felice. Dell’ impresa dell’elefante dell’Illustrissimo e Riverendissimo Signore il Sig. Cardinal Mont’Elparo. Dialogi Tre. Naples: Gio. Tommaso Aulisio, 1595.

Works Cited

339

Orsini, Fulvio. Imagines et elogia virorum illustrium. Rome: Lafrery, 1570. Petrarca, Francesco. Le familiari. Edited by Vittorio Rossi. Edizione nazionale delle opere di Francesco Petrarca. Vols. 10–12. Florence: Sansoni, 1934. ———. Petrarch’s Lyric Poems: The “Rime sparse” and Other Lyrics. Edited and translated by Robert M. Durling. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1976. ———. Petrarch’s Remedies for Fortune Fair and Foul. Translated by Conrad H. Rawski. 5 vols. Bloomington and Indianapolis, In.: Indiana University Press, 1991. ———. Rerum familiarum libri. Translated by Aldo S. Bernardo. 3 vols. Albany: State University of New York Press; Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975–85. ———. Rerum senilium libri I–XVIII. Translated by Aldo S. Bernardo, Saul Levin, and Reta A. Bernardo. 2 vols. Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992. ———. Res seniles. Edited by Silvia Rizzo. 2 vols. Florence: Le Lettere, 2006–2009. Piccolomini, Ascanio. Rime di Monsig. Ascanio Piccolomini, fatte la maggior parte nella primavera dell’eta sua. Et alla fine d’esse, saranno dodici Imprese del medesimo . . . . Siena: Bonetto, 1594. Pico, Gianfrancesco. Ioannis Francisci Pici Mirandulae domini, Concordiaeque comitis, ad Petrum Bembum de imitatione libellus. In Rinascimento e classicismo. Materiali per l’analisi del sistema culturale di antico regime, edited by Amedeo Quondam, 136–53. Rome: Bulzoni, 1999. Pizan, Christine de. Le Livre de la Cité des Dames. Translated by Éric Hicks and Thérèse Moreau. Paris: Éditions Stock, 1986. Platina [Bartolomeo Sacchi]. De principe. Edited by Giacomo Ferraù. Palermo: Edizioni “Il Vespro,” 1979. ———. Dialogus de vera nobilitate. [Erfurt: Striblita, 1510.] Pliny the Elder. Histoire Naturelle Livre XXXV. Edited and translated by JeanMichel Croisille. Paris: Société d’Édition “Les Belles Lettres,” 1985. Plutarch. Moralia. Translated by Frank Cole Babbit. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1936. Poggio Bracciolini. De nobilitate. In Opera omnia. Vol. 1. Turin: Bottega d’Erasmo, 1964. Pontano, Giovanni. De magnificentia. In I libri delle virtù sociali, edited by Francesco Tateo. Rome: Bulzoni, 1999. ———. De principe. Edited by Guido M. Cappelli. Rome: Salerno, 2003.

Works Cited 340 Porta, Giambattista della. De humana physiognomonia Libri IIII. Vici Aequensis [Italy]: Apud Iosephum Cacchium, 1586. ———. Della fisonomia dell’ huomo. Naples: G. G. Carlino et C. Vitale, 1610. Quondam, Amedeo, ed. Rinascimento e classicismo. Materiali per l’analisi del sistema culturale di antico regime. Rome: Bulzoni, 1999. Rabil, Albert Jr., ed. and trans. Knowledge, Goodness, and Power: The Debate over Nobility among Quattrocento Italian Humanists. Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies 88. Binghamton, N.Y.: Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1991. Rime de gli Academici occulti con le loro imprese et discorsi. Brescia: V. Di Sabbio, 1568. Rinuccini, Alamanno. Ricordi storici di Filippo di Cino Rinuccini dal 1282 al 1460, colla continuazione di Alamanno e Neri suoi figli fino al 1506. Edited by G. Aiazzi. Florence: Piatti, 1840. Roville, Guillaume. Prontuario de le medaglie de piu illustri, et fulgenti huomini et donne. Lyon: Guglielmo Rovillio, 1553. Sallust. Sallust. Translated by J. C. Rolfe. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1980. Sansovino, Francesco. De gli huomini illustri della casa Orsina di M. Francesco Sansovino Libri Quattro. Venice: Bernardo, et Filippo Stagnini, fratelli, 1565. ———. Del secretario. Venice: Al Segno della Luna, 1565. ———. L’edificio del corpo humano. Venice: Comin da Trino di Monferrato, 1550. ———. L’Historia di casa Orsina di Francesco Sansovino. Venice: Bernardo, et Filippo Stagnini, fratelli, 1565. Scott, Izora, ed. Controversies over the Imitation of Cicero in the Renaissance. Davis, Calif.: Hermagoras Press, 1991. Seneca. Moral Essays. Translated by John W. Basore. Vol. 1. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1998. Suetonius. Lives of the Caesars. Translated by J. C. Rolfe. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1997. Tacitus. The Complete Works of Tacitus. Translated by Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb. Edited by Moses Hadas. New York: The Modern Library, n.d. Tasso, Torquato. Il Conte overo De l’ imprese. Edited by Bruno Basile. Rome: Salerno, 1993. ———. Dialoghi. Edited by Giovanni Baffetti. 2 vols. Milan: Rizzoli, 1998.

Works Cited

341

———. Gerusalemme liberata. Edited by Lanfranco Caretti. Milan: Mondadori, 1983. ———. Gerusalemme conquistata. Edited by Luigi Bonfigli. 2 vols. Bari: Laterza, 1934. ———. Rime ‘eteree.’ Edited by Lanfranco Caretti. Parma: Zara, [1990]. ———. Rinaldo. Edited by Luigi Bonfigli. Bari: Laterza, 1936. Tesauro, Emanuele. Idea delle perfette imprese. Edited by Maria Luisa Doglio. Florence: Olschki, 1975. Tomasini, Giacomo Filippo. Illustrium virorum elogia iconibus exornata. Padua: Apud Donatum Pasquardum et Socium, 1630. Vasari, Giorgio. Le Vite de’ piu eccellenti pittori, scultori e architettori. Edited by Adolfo Venturi. Vol 1. Florence: Sansoni, 1896. Virgil. The Eclogues, Georgics and Aeneid of Virgil. Translated by C. Day Lewis. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1966. ———. P. Vergili Maronis Bucolica et Georgica, edited by T. E. Page (London: Macmillan, 1965). Zuccolo, Lodovico. Discorso dell’ honore, della gloria, della riputazione, del buon concetto. Venice: Marco Ginami, 1623.

secondary sources Académie Royale de Belgique. Biographie nationale. Vol. 8. Brussels: BruylantChristophe et Compagnie, 1884–1885. Ago, Renata. Il gusto delle cose: Una storia degli oggetti nella Roma del Seicento. Rome: Donzelli, 2006. Andreoli, Ilaria. “La storia in soldoni: il Promptuaire des médailles di Guillaume Rouillé.” In Storia per parole e per immagini, edited by Ugo Rozzo and Mino Gabriele, 235–66. Udine: Forum, 2006. Arnaudo, Marco. Il trionfo di Vertunno: Illusioni ottiche e cultura letteraria nell’età della Controriforma. Lucca: Maria Pacini Fazzi, 2008. Arnold, Janet. Queen Elizabeth’s Wardrobe Unlock’ d: The Inventories of the Wardrobe of Robes Prepared in July 1600. Leeds: Maney, 1988. Ascoli, Albert Russell. Ariosto’s Bitter Harmony: Crisis and Evasion in the Italian Renaissance. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1987. ———. Dante and the Making of a Modern Author. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008.

Works Cited

342

———. “Faith as Cover-Up: Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso, Canto 21, and Machiavellian Ethics.” I Tatti Studies: Essays in the Renaissance 8 (1999): 135–70. ———. “A Local Habitation and a Name”: Imagining Histories in the Italian Renaissance. New York: Fordham University Press, 2011. ———. “Liberating the Tomb: Difference and Death in Gerusalemme liberata.” Annali d’ italianistica 12 (1994): 159–80. Baldassarri, Guido. “Tradizione cavalleresca e trattatistica sulle imprese. Interferenze, uso sociale e problemi di committenza.” In Ritterepik der Renaissance. Akten des Deutsch-Italienischen Kolloquiums, Berlin 30.3–2.4.1987, edited by Klaus W. Hempfer, 61–76. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 1989. ———. “L’invenzione dell’epistolario.” In Pietro Aretino nel Cinquecentenario della nascita. Atti del convegno di Roma-Viterbo-Arezzo (28 settembre–1 ottobre 1992), Toronto (23–24 ottobre 1992), Los Angeles (27–29 ottobre 1992), 157–79. 2 vols. Rome: Salerno, 1995. Balzaretti, Ross. “Theodelinda, ‘Most Glorious Queen’: Gender and Power in Lombard Italy.” The Medieval History Journal 2, no. 2 (1999): 183–207. Barasch, Moshe. “Character and Physiognomy: Bocchi on Donatello’s St. George. A Renaissance Text on Expression in Art.” Journal of the History of Ideas 36, no. 3 (1975): 413–30. Barkan, Leonard. “The Beholder’s Tale: Ancient Sculpture, Renaissance Narratives.” Representations 44 (Fall 1993): 133–66. ———. Unearthing the Past: Archeology and Aesthetics in the Making of Renaissance Culture. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999. Barton, Tamsyn S. Power and Knowledge: Astrology, Physiognomics, and Medicine under the Roman Empire. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1994. Basile, Bruno. “Microscopie tassiane.” Bergomum 81 (1986): 7–51. Bates, Catherine. Masculinity, Gender, and Identity in the English Renaissance Lyric. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Baudrillard, Jean. “The Precession of Simulacra.” Translated by Paul Foss and Paul Patton. In Art after Modernism: Rethinking Representation, edited by Brian Wallis and Maria Tucker, 253–81. New York: The New York Museum of Contemporary Art, 1984. Bejczy, István P., and Cary J. Nederman, eds. Princely Virtues in the Middle Ages. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2007. Belting, Hans. Likeness and Presence: A History of the Image before the Era of Art. Translated by Edmund Jephcott. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994. Benedetti, Laura. La sconfitta di Diana. Ravenna: Longo, 1996.

Works Cited

343

Benjamin, Walter. “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.” In Media and Cultural Studies: Key Works, edited by Meenakshi Gigi Durham and Douglas M. Kellner, 18–40. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 2006. Berger, Harry. Fictions of the Pose: Rembrandt against the Italian Renaissance. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000. ———. The Absence of Grace. Sprezzatura and Suspicion in Two Renaissance Courtesy Books. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000. Bertolo, Fabio Massimo. Aretino e la stampa: Strategie di autopromozione a Venezia nel Cinquecento. Rome: Salerno, 2003. Bialler, Nancy. Chiaroscuro Woodcuts: Hendrick Goltzius (1558–1617) and His Time. Amsterdam: Rijksmuseum / Ghent: Snoeck-Ducaju & Zoon, 1993. Biow, Douglas. Doctors, Ambassadors, Secretaries: Humanism and Professions in Renaissance Italy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002. ———. “From Machiavelli to Torquato Accetto: The Art of Secretarial Dissimulation.” In Educare il corpo, educare la parola nella trattatistica del Rinascimento, edited by Giorgio Patrizi and Amedeo Quondam, 219–38. Rome: Bulzoni, 1998. ———. In Your Face: Professional Improprieties and the Art of Being Conspicuous in Sixteenth-Century Italy. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2010. Bologna, Ferdinando. I Pittori alla corte angioina di Napoli 1266–1414 e un riesame dell’arte nell’età federiciana. Rome: Ugo Bozzi Editore, 1969. Bolzoni, Lina. La stanza della memoria. Turin: Einaudi, 1995. Bonora, Elena. Ricerche su Francesco Sansovino. Imprenditore, librario e letterato. Venice: Istituto Veneta di Scienza, Lettere ed Arti, 1994. Brennan, Peter, Michael Turner, and Nicholas L. Wright. Faces of Power: Imperial Portraiture on Roman Coins. Sydney: The Nicholson Museum, 2007. Brock, Maurice. Bronzino. Translated by David Poole Radzinowicz and Christine Schultz-Touge. Paris: Flammarion, 2002. Brown, Alison. “The Humanist Portrait of Cosimo de’ Medici, Pater Patriae.” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 24 (1961): 186–221. Brown, Patricia Fortini. “Behind the Walls: The Material Culture of Venetian Elites.” In Venice Reconsidered: The History and Civilization of an Italian City-State, 1297–1797, edited by John Martin and Dennis Romano, 295–338. Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000. Bulst, Wolfger. “Die sala grande des Palazzo Medici in Florenz: Rekonstruktion und Bedeutung.” In Piero de’ Medici, “ il Gottoso” (1416–1469): Kunst im Dienste

Works Cited

344

der Mediceer = Art in the Service of the Medici, edited by Andreas Beyer and Bruce Boucher, 89–127. Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1993. Caldwell, Dorigen. The Sixteenth-Century Italian Impresa in Theory and Practice. Brooklyn: AMS Press, 2004. Campbell, Lorne. Renaissance Portraits: European Portrait-Painting in the Fourteenth, Fifteenth, and Sixteenth Centuries. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990. Campbell, Stephen. “‘Fare una cosa Morta Parer Viva’: Michelangelo, Rosso, and the (Un)Divinity of Art.” Art Bulletin 84, no. 4 (2002): 596–620. Canfora, Davide. Prima di Machiavelli: Politica e cultura in età umanistica. Bari: Laterza, 2005. Canova, Lorenzo. “omnes reges servient ei: Paolo III e Carlo V: la supremazia pontificia nella Sala Paolina di Castel Sant’Angelo.” Storia dell’arte 103 (2002): 7–40. Carrara, Eliana. “Francesco Sansovino letterato e intendente d’arte.” Arte Veneta 59 (2002): 229–38. Casini, Tommaso. “La ricerca della verosimiglianza fisionomica nelle biografie illustrate tra Cinque e Seicento: ritratti dal vero, immaginari e contraffatti.” In Percorsi tra parole e immagini (1400–1600), edited by Angela Guidotti and Massimiliano Rossi, 75–88. Lucca: Maria Pacini Fazzi, 2000. ———. Ritratti parlanti. Collezionismo e biografie illustrate nei secoli XVI e XVII. Florence: Edifir, 2004. Casu, Agostino. “‘Translata Proficit Arbos.’ Le imprese ‘eteree’ nelle Rime del Tasso.” Italique. Poésie italienne de la Renaissance 2 (1999): 82–111. Cave, Terence. “The Mimesis of Reading in the Renaissance.” In Mimesis: Mirror to Method, edited by John D. Lyons and Stephen G. Nichols Jr. 148–65. Hanover, N.H.: University Press of New England, 1982. Christian, Kathleen Wren. Empire without End: Collections of Antique Sculpture in Renaissance Rome, c. 1350–1527. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010. ———. “Poetry and ‘Spirited’ Ancient Sculpture in Renaissance Rome.” In Aeolian Winds and the Spirit in Renaissance Architecture: Academia Eolia revisited, edited by Barbara Kenda, 103–24. New York: Routledge, 2006. Christiansen, Keith, and Stephan Weppelman, eds. The Renaissance Portrait from Donatello to Bellini. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2011. Cian, Vittorio. Un decennio della vita di M. Pietro Bembo (1521–1531). Bologna: Arnaldo Forni, 1982. Ciardi, Roberto Paolo. “L’Edificio del corpo umano di Francesco Sansovino.”

Works Cited 345 In Scritti e immagini in onore di Corrado Maltese, edited by Stefano Marconi, 177–81. Rome: Edizioni Quasar, 1997. Clier-Colombani, Françoise. La Fée Mélusine au moyen âge: Images, mythes, et symboles. Paris: Le Léopard d’Or, 1991. ———. “Mélusine: Images d’une fée serpente au moyen âge dans les manuscrits illustrés du XVe siècle du Roman de Mélusine.” In Mélusine moderne et contemporaine, edited by Arlette Bouloumié and Henri Béhar, 21–34. N.p.: Editions L’Âge de l’Homme, 2001. Clough, Cecil H. “Italian Renaissance Portraiture and Printed Portrait-Books.” In The Italian Book, 1465–1800: Studies Presented to Dennis E. Rhodes on his 70th Birthday, edited by Denis V. Reidy, 183–223. London: British Library, 1993. Cochrane, Eric. Historians and Historiography in the Renaissance. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979. Cole, Michael. “Nihil sub Sole Novum.” Art Bulletin 87, no. 3 (2005): 421–24 Colton, Robert E. “Ausonius and Juvenal.” The Classical Journal 69, no. 1 (1973): 41–51. Cordellier, Dominique. “Le peintre aux sept vertus.” In Pisanello: Le peintre aux sept vertus, edited by Dominique Cordellier and Paola Marini. Paris: Réunion des musées nationaux, 1996. Cornilliat, François. “Exemplarities: A Response to Timothy Hampton and Karlheinz Stierle.” Journal of the History of Ideas 59, no. 4 (1998): 613–24. Covi, Dario A. “The Italian Renaissance and the Equestrian Monument.” In Leonardo da Vinci’s Sforza Monument Horse, edited by Diane Cole Ahl, 39–56. London: Associated University Presses, 1995. Cox, Virginia. The Renaissance Dialogue: Literary Dialogue in Its Social and Political Contexts, Castiglione to Galileo. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992. ———. Women’s Writing in Renaissance Italy, 1400–1650. Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008. Crevatin, Giuliana. “La politica e la retorica: Poggio e la controversia su Cesare e Scipione.” In Poggio Bracciolini, 1380–1980, 281–342. Florence: Sansoni, 1982. Cropper, Elizabeth. “The Beauty of Woman: Problems in the Rhetoric of Renaissance Portraiture.” In Rewriting the Renaissance: The Discourses of Sexual Difference in Early Modern Europe, edited by Margaret W. Ferguson, Maureen Quilligan, and Nancy J. Vickers, 175–90. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986. ———. “On Beautiful Women, Parmigianino, Petrarchismo, and the Vernacular Style.” Art Bulletin 58, no. 3 (1976): 374–94.

Works Cited

346

———. “Pontormo and Bronzino in Philadelphia: A Double Portrait.” In Pontormo, Bronzino, and the Medici: The Transformation of the Renaissance Portrait in Florence, edited by Carl Brandon Strehlke, 1–33 Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2004. ———. “Prolegomena to a New Interpretation of Bronzino’s Florentine Portraits.” In Renaissance Studies in Honor of Craig Hugh Smyth, edited by Andrew Morrogh et al. Vol. 2, 149–60. Florence: Giunti Barbèra, 1985. Cruttwell, Maud. Antonio Pollaiuolo. London: Duckworth, 1907. Cunnally, John. Images of the Illustrious: The Numismatic Presence in the Renaissance. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1999. Dacos, Nicole, and Antonio Giuliano, Ulrico Pannuti, eds. Le gemme. Vol. 1 of Il tesoro di Lorenzo il Magnifico. Florence: Sansoni, 1973. Daly, Peter. Literature in the Light of the Emblem. 2nd ed. Toronto: Toronto University Press, 1998. Daston, Lorraine, and Katharine Park. Wonders and the Order of Nature, 1150– 1750. New York: Zone, 1998. Davis, Natalie Zemon. The Gift in Sixteenth-Century France. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. De Castris, Leone. Arte di corte nella Napoli angioina. Florence: Cantini Edizioni, 1986. Dekesel, Christian E. “Hubertus Goltzius (Venloo 1526–Bruges 1583) and his Icones Imperatorum Romanorum.” In L’ immaginario del potere: Studi di iconografia monetale, edited by Rosella Pera, 259–82. Rome: Giorgio Bretschneider Editore, 2005. ———. Twelve Highlights from the Numismatic Book Collection in the Herzog August Bibliothek (Augusteer) in Wolfenbüttel (BRD). Ghent. Bibliotheca Numismatica Siciliana, 1991. Del Bravo, Carlo. “Preparativi per l’interpretazione di opere funebri quattrocentesche.” Artibus et Historiae 12, no. 23 (1991): 83–94. D’Elia, Una Roman. “Niccolò Liburnio on the Boundaries of Portraiture in the Early Cinquecento.” Sixteenth Century 37, no. 2 (2006): 323–50. de Man, Paul. The Rhetoric of Romanticism. New York: Columbia University Press, 1984. Dempsey, Charles. “Historia and Anachronism in Renaissance Art.” Art Bulletin 87, no. 3 (2005): 416–21. ———. Inventing the Renaissance Putto. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001.

Works Cited

347

Derrida, Jacques. Given Time: I. Counterfeit Money. Translated by Peggy Kamuf. Chicago: University Chicago Press, 1992. Didi-Huberman, Georges. Fra Angelico: Dissemblance and Figuration. Translated by Jane Marie Todd. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995. Dionisotti, Carlo. Geografia e storia della letteratura italiana. Turin: Einaudi, 1967. Dobrick, J. Albert. “Ghirlandaio and Roman Coins.” Burlington Magazine 123, no. 939 (1981): 356, 358–59, 361. Doglio, Maria Luisa. L’arte delle lettere: Idea e pratica della scrittura epistolare tra Quattro e Seicento. Bologna: Il Mulino, 2000. ———. Introduction to Idea delle perfette imprese, by Emanuele Tesauro. Florence: Olschki, 1975. Donati, Claudio. L’ idea di nobiltà in Italia: secoli XIV-XVIII. Bari: Laterza, 1988. Drysdall, Denis L. “Devices as ‘Emblems’ before 1531.” Emblematica 16 (2008): 253–69. Egginton, William. How the World Became a Stage: Presence, Theatricality, and the Question of Modernity. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2003. Eichel-Lojkine, Patricia. Le siècle des grands hommes: Les recueils de Vies d’ hommes illustres avec portraits au XVIème siècle. Louvain: Peeters, 2001. Elias, Norbert. The Civilizing Process. Translated by Edmund Jephcott. Vol. 1. New York: Urizen Books, 1978. Elsner, Jaś. “Physiognomics: Art and Text.” In Seeing the Face, Seeing the Soul: Polemon’s Physiognomy from Classical Antiquity to Medieval Islam, edited by Simon Swain, 203–24. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. Farago, Claire. “Time Out of Joint.” Art Bulletin 87, no. 3 (2005): 424–29. Finzi, Claudio. “Cesare e Scipione: due modelli politici a confronto nel Quattrocento italiano.” In La cultura in Cesare: Atti del Convegno Internazionale di Studi Macerata—Matelica, 30 aprile–4 maggio 1990, edited by Diego Poli, 689–706. Rome: Editrice Il Calamo, 1993. ———. Re, baroni, popolo: La politica di Giovanni Pontano. Rimini: Il Cerchio, 2004. Flores D’Arcais, Francesca. Giotto. New York: Abbeville Press, 1995. Frankforter, A. Daniel. “Amalasuntha, Procopius, and a Woman’s Place.” Journal of Women’s History 8, no. 2 (1996): 41–57. Fraser Jenkins, A. D. “Cosimo de’ Medici’s Patronage of Architecture and the Theory of Magnificence.” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 33 (1970): 162–70.

Works Cited 348 Freccero, Carla. “Politics and Aesthetics in Castiglione’s Il Cortegiano: Book III and the Discourse on Women.” In Creative Imitation: New Essays on Renaissance Literature in Honor of Thomas M. Greene, edited by David Quint, Margaret W. Ferguson, G. W. Pigman III, and Wayne A. Rebhorn, 259–79. Binghamton, N.Y.: Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1992. Freedman, Luba. Titian’s Portraits through Aretino’s Lens. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1995. Frick, Carole Collier. Dressing Renaissance Florence: Families, Fortunes, and Fine Clothing. Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002. Fubini, Riccardo. Humanism and Secularization from Petrarch to Valla. Translated by Martha King. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2003. Funari, Rodolfo, ed. Un ciclo di tradizione repubblicana nel Palazzo Pubblico di Siena: Le iscrizioni degli affreschi di Taddeo di Bartolo (1413–1414). Siena: Accademia Senese degli Intronati, 2002. Galbraith, David. “Petrarch and the Broken City.” In Antiquity and Its Interpreters, edited by Alina Payne, Ann Kuttner, and Rebekah Smick, 17–26. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Gaudio, Michael. Engraving the Savage: The New World and Techniques of Civilization. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2008. Gaylard, Susan. “Castiglione vs. Cicero: Political Engagement, or Effeminate Chatter?” Italian Culture 27 (2009): 81–98. ———. “Vanishing Women: Gendering History in 16th-Century PortraitBooks.” In Gender, Agency and Violence. European Perspectives from Early Modern Times to the Present Day, edited by Ulrike Zitzlsperger. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars, 2013. ———. “‘Naked’ Truth: Clothing and Poetic Genius in Aretino’s Letters.” Italianist 28 (2008): 179–202. Gigante, Claudio. Tasso. Rome: Salerno, 2007. Grebe, Anja. “Frames and Illusion in Late Medieval Book Illumination.” In Framing Borders in Literature and Other Media, edited by Werner Wolf and Walter Bernhart, 43–68. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2006. Greenblatt, Stephen. Renaissance Self-Fashioning: From More to Shakespeare. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980. Greene, Thomas. “The Flexibility of the Self in Renaissance Literature.” In The Disciplines of Criticism, edited by Peter Demetz et al., 241–64. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968. ———. The Light in Troy: Imitation and Discovery in Renaissance Poetry. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982.

Works Cited

349

Grendler, Paul F. “Francesco Sansovino and Italian Popular History, 1560–1600.” Studies in the Renaissance 16 (1969): 139–80. Guerrini, Roberto. “Biografia dipinta.” In Biografia dipinta: Plutarco e l’arte del rinascimento, 1400–1550, edited by Roberto Guerrini, 1–98. La Spezia: Agorà Edizioni, 2001. Guidi, José. “Baldassar Castiglione et le pouvoir politique: du gentilhomme de cour au nonce pontificial.” In Les Ecrivains et le pouvoir en Italie à l’ époque de la Renaissance, edited by André Rochon, 243–78. Paris: Université de la Sorbonne nouvelle, 1973. Hall, Marcia B. Color and Meaning: Practice and Theory in Renaissance Painting. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992. Hampton, Timothy. Writing from History: The Rhetoric of Exemplarity in Renaissance Literature. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1990. Hankins, James. “Renaissance Philosophy and Book IV of the Cortegiano.” In Baldesar Castiglione, The Book of the Courtier, edited by Daniel Javitch, 377– 88. New York: Norton, 2002. Hanning, Robert W., and David Rosand, eds. Castiglione: The Ideal and the Real in Renaissance Culture. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983. Haskell, Frances. History and Its Images: Art and the Interpretation of the Past. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993. Hegarty, Melinda. “Laurentian Patronage in the Palazzo Vecchio: The Frescoes of the Sala dei Gigli.” Art Bulletin 78 (1996): 264–84. Helas, Philine. “Ghirlandaios Fresken in der sala dei gigli—‘ewiges’ Abbild einer ephemeren Inszenierung?” In Domenico Ghirlandaio: Künstlerische Konstruktion von Identität im Florenz der Renaissance, edited by Michael Rohlmann, 63–88. Weimar: VDG, 2004. Henderson, John. “Seeing through Socrates: Portrait of the Philosopher in Sculpture Culture.” Art History 19, no. 3 (1996): 327–52. Huot, Sylvia. “Dangerous Embodiments: Froissart’s Harton and Jean d’Arras’s Mélusine.” Speculum 78, no. 2 (2003): 400–420. Hunt, Alan. Governance of the Consuming Passions: A History of Sumptuary Law. New York: St. Martin’s, 1996. Innamorati, Giuliano. Pietro Aretino: Studi e note critiche. Messina: G. D’Anna, 1957. Javitch, Daniel. Poetry and Courtliness in Renaissance England. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1978. Jeanneret, Michel. “The Vagaries of Exemplarity: Distortion or Dismissal?” Journal of the History of Ideas 59, no. 4 (1998): 565–79.

Works Cited 350 Jed, Stephanie H. Chaste Thinking: The Rape of Lucretia and the Birth of Humanism. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989. Jones, Ann Rosalind, and Peter Stallybrass. Renaissance Clothing and the Materials of Memory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Jones, Howard, and Ross Kilpatrick. “Cicero, Plutarch, and Vincenzo Foppa: Rethinking the Medici Bank Fresco.” International Journal of the Classical Tradition 13 (2007): 369–83. Joost-Gaugier, Christiane. “Giotto’s Hero Cycle in Naples: A Prototype of Donne Illustri and a Possible Literary Connection.” Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 43, no. 3 (1980): 311–18. ———. “Poggio and Visual Tradition: Uomini Famosi in Classical Literary Description.” Artibus et Historiae 6, no. 12 (1985): 57–74. Jordan, Constance. Renaissance Feminism: Literary Texts and Political Models. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1990. Jurdjevic, Mark. “Civic Humanism and the Rise of the Medici.” Renaissance Quarterly 52, no. 4 (1999): 994–1020. Kahn, Victoria. “Giovanni Pontano’s Rhetoric of Prudence.” Philosophy & Rhetoric 16, no. 1 (1983): 16–34. Kelly, Samantha. The New Solomon: Robert of Naples (1309–1343) and FourteenthCentury Kingship. Leiden: Brill, 2003. Kent, Bonnie. Virtues of the Will: The Transformation of Ethics in the Late Thirteenth Century. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1995. Kent, Dale V. Cosimo de’ Medici and the Florentine Renaissance: The Patron’s Oeuvre. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000. Kent, F. W. Lorenzo de’ Medici and the Art of Magnificence. Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004. Kidwell, Carol. Pontano: Poet and Prime Minister. London: Duckworth, 1991. Killerby, Catherine Kovesi. Sumptuary Law in Italy, 1200–1500. Oxford: Clarendon, 2002. Kliemann, Julian, and Michael Rohlmann. Italian Frescoes: High Renaissance and Mannerism, 1510–1600. Translated by Steven Lindberg. Vol. 3. New York: Abbeville, 2004. Klinger, Linda. The Portrait Collection of Paolo Giovio. Ph.D. diss., Princeton University, 1991. Kolsky, Stephen. The Ghost of Boccaccio: Writings on Famous Women in Renaissance Italy. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2005.

Works Cited

351

Kwakkelstein, Michael W. “Leonardo da Vinci’s Grotesque Heads and the Breaking of the Physiognomic Mould.” Journal of the Warburg and Cortald Institutes 54 (1991): 127–36. Lapatin, Kenneth. “Picturing Socrates.” In A Companion to Socrates, edited by Sara Ahbel-Rappe and Rachana Kamtekar, 110–55. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 2006. Larivaille, Paul. Pietro Aretino fra Rinascimento e Manierismo. Rome: Bulzoni, 1980. Le Loup, Wilfried. “Hubertus Goltzius, drukker-graveur.” Archief- en Bibliotheekwezen 1–2 (1975): 33–49. Levi Piseztky, Rosita. Storia del costume in Italia. Vol. 3. Milan: Istituto Editoriale Italiano, 1966. Maffei, Sonia. “Spiranti fattezze dei volti: Paolo Giovio e la descrizione degli uomini illustri dal Museo agli Elogia.” In Ecfrasi: modelli ed esempi fra Mediovo e Rinascimento, edited by Gianni Venturi and Monica Farnetti, vol. 1, 227–68. Rome: Bulzoni, 2004. Maggi, Armando. Identità e impresa rinascimentale. Ravenna: Longo, 1998. Mann, Nicholas. “Petrarch and Portraits.” In The Image of the Individual: Portraits in the Renaissance, edited by Nicholas Mann and Luke Syson, 15–21. London: British Museum Press, 1998. Mann, Nicholas, and Luke Syson, eds. The Image of the Individual: Portraits in the Renaissance. London: British Museum Press, 1998. Marchand, Eckart. “Exemplary Gestures and ‘Authentic’ Physiognomies.” Apollo 159 (2004): 3–11. Martin, John. “Inventing Sincerity, Refashioning Prudence: The Discovery of the Individual in Renaissance Europe.” American Historical Review 102, no. 5 (1997): 1309–42. Mauss, Marcel. The Gift: The Form and Reason for Exchange in Archaic Societies. Translated by W. D. Halls. London: Routledge, 1990. Mazzacurati, Giancarlo. La questione della lingua dal Bembo all’Accademia Fiorentina. Naples: Liguori, 1965. Mazzotta, Giuseppe. The Worlds of Petrarch. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1993. Meijer, Bert W. “From Leonardo to Bruegel: Comic Art in Sixteenth-Century Europe.” Word & Image 4, no. 1 (1988): 405–11. Meller, Peter. “Physiognomical Theory in Renaissance Heroic Portraits.” In Renaissance and Mannerism: Studies in Western Art. Acts of the Twentieth International Congress of the History of Art. Vol. 2, 53–69. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1963.

Works Cited

352

Mercalli, Marica. “‘Paolo terzo pontefice massimo ha trasformato la tomba del Divo Adriano in alta e sacra dimora’: Storie e motivi adrianei negli affreschi dell’Appartamento farnesiano in Castel Sant’Angelo.” In Adriano e il suo mausoleo: Studi, indagini e interpretazioni, edited by Marica Mercalli, 255–75. Milan: Electa, 1998. Miele, Lucia. “Tradizione letteraria e realismo politico nel De principe del Pontano.” Atti dell’Accademia Pontaniana 32 (1983): 301–21. Migliorini, Bruno. Storia della lingua italiana. 2 vols. Florence: Sansoni, 1988. Milligan, Gerry. “The Politics of Effeminacy in Il cortegiano.” Italica 83, no. 3–4 (2006): 345–66. Minonzio, Franco. “Gli ‘Elogi degli uomini illustri’: il ‘Museo di Carta’ di Paolo Giovio.” In Paolo Giovio, Elogi degli uomini illustri, edited by Franco Minonzio, translated by Andrea Guasparri and Franco Minonzio, xvii– lxxxvi. Turin: Einaudi, 2006. ———. “Il Museo di Giovio e la galleria degli uomini illustri.” In Testi, immagini e filologia nel XVI secolo, edited by Eliana Carrara and Silvia Ginzburg, 77–146. Pisa: Edizioni della Normale, 2007. Mitchell, W. J. T. What Do Pictures Want? The Lives and Loves of Images. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005. Morgana, Silvia, Mario Piotti, and Massimo Prada, eds. Prose della volgar lingua di Pietro Bembo. Milan: Cisalpino, 2000. Morris, Matthew M. “Les origines de la légende de Mélusine et ses débuts dans la littérature du Moyen Âge.” In Mélusine Moderne et Contemporaine, edited by Arlette Bouloumié and Henri Béhar, 13–19. Lausanne: L’Age d’Homme, 2001. Nagel, Alexander. “Gifts for Michelangelo and Vittoria Colonna.” Art Bulletin 79 (1997): 647–68. Nagel, Alexander, and Christopher S. Wood. Anachronic Renaissance. New York: Zone, 2010. ———. “The Authors Reply.” Art Bulletin 87, no. 3 (2005): 429–32. ———. “Toward a New Model of Renaissance Anachronism.” Art Bulletin 87, no. 3 (2005): 403–15. Najemy, John M. Between Friends: Discourses of Power and Desire in the Machiavelli-Vettori Letters of 1513–1515. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1993. Newton, Stella Mary. The Dress of the Venetians, 1495–1525. Aldershot: Scolar, 1988. Nigro, Salvatore S. “Lezione sull’ombra.” In Torquato Accetto, Rime amorose, edited by Salvatore S. Nigro, v–xxi. Turin: Einaudi, 1987.

Works Cited

353

Ortalli, Gherardo. “Ezzelino crudelissimo tiranno: genesi e sviluppo di un mito.” La ricerca folklorica 25, no. 1 (1992): 89–98. Parker, Deborah. Bronzino: Renaissance Painter as Poet. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Parma Armani, Elena. Perin del Vaga: L’anello mancante. Studi sul Manierismo. Genoa: Sagep, 1986. Parronchi, Alessandro. Donatello e il potere. Bologna: Cappelli / Firenze: Il Portolano, 1980. Pastore Stocchi, Manlio. “Il pensiero politico degli umanisti.” In Storia delle idee politiche economiche e sociali, edited by Giuseppe Alberigo et al. Vol. 3, 3–68. Turin: UTET, 1987. Payne, Alina, Ann Kuttner, and Rebekah Smick, eds. Antiquity and Its Interpreters. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Pearson, Andrea, ed. Women and Portraits in Early Modern Europe: Gender, Agency, Identity. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008. Perkinson, Steven. “From an ‘Art De Memoire’ to the Art of Portraiture: Printed Effigy Books of the Sixteenth Century.” The Sixteenth Century Journal 33, no. 3 (Fall 2002): 687–723. Phillips-Court, Kristin. The Perfect Genre: Drama and Painting in Renaissance Italy. Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate, 2011. ———. “Performing Anachronism: A New Aetiology of Italian Renaissance Tragedy.” Renaissance Drama 36–37 (2010): 43–67. Picot, Emile. Les français italianisants au XVIe siecle. Vol 1. Paris: Honoré Champion, 1906. Pinkus, Karen. Picturing Silence: Emblem, Language, Counter-Reformation Materiality. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996. Pope-Hennessy, John. Italian High Renaissance and Baroque Sculpture. London: Phaidon, 1970. Porter, Martin. Windows of the Soul: The Art of Physiognomy in European Culture, 1470–1780. Oxford: Clarendon, 2005. Posner, David M. The Performance of Nobility in Early Modern European Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Praz, Mario. Studies in Seventeenth-Century Imagery. 2nd ed. Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1964. Prestipino, Vincenzo. Motivi del pensiero umanistico e Giovanni Pontano. Milan: Marzorati, 1963. Pugliese, Olga Zorzi. Castiglione’s “The Book of the Courtier” (Il Libro del

Works Cited 354 Cortegiano): A Classic in the Making. Naples: Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane, 2008. Quint, David. “‘Alexander the Pig’: Shakespeare on History and Poetry.” Boundary 2 10, no. 3 (1982): 49–67. ———. “Courtier, Prince, Lady: The Design of the Book of the Courtier.” Italian Quarterly 37, no. 143–46 (2000): 185–95. ———. Epic and Empire: Politics and Generic Form from Virgil to Milton. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1993. Quondam, Amedeo. “Questo povero Cortegiano”: Castiglione, il libro, la storia. Rome: Bulzoni, 2000. Ramsey, P. A., ed. Rome in the Renaissance: The City and the Myth. Binghamton, N.Y.: Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1982. Randolph, Adrian, and T. Barton Thurber, eds. Likeness in an Age of Mechanical Reproduction. Special Issue, Word & Image 19, no. 1–2 (2003). Rebhorn, Wayne A. Courtly Performances: Masking and Festivity in Castiglione’s “Book of the Courtier.” Detroit, Mich.: Wayne State University Press, 1978. ———. “Outlandish Fears: Defining Decorum in Renaissance Rhetoric.” Intertexts 4 (2000): 2–24. Reiss, Timothy J. Mirages of the Selfe: Patterns of Personhood in Ancient and Early Modern Europe. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003. Richards, Jennifer. “‘A Wanton Trade of Living’? Rhetoric, Effeminacy, and the Early Modern Courtier.” Criticism 42, no. 2 (2000): 185–206. ———, ed. “From Rhetoric to Conversation: Reading for Cicero in The Book of the Courtier.” In Rhetoric and Courtliness in Early Modern Literature, 43–64. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Richardson, Brian. “Pontano’s De prudentia and Machiavelli’s Discorsi.” Bibliothèque d’ humanisme et Renaissance 33 (1971): 353–57. Rigolot, François. “Problematizing Renaissance Exemplarity: The Inward Turn of Dialogue from Petrarch to Montaigne.” In Printed Voices: The Renaissance Culture of Dialogue, edited by Dorothea Heitsch and Jean-François Vallé, 3–24. Toronto: Toronto University Press, 2004. ———. “The Renaissance Crisis of Exemplarity.” Journal of the History of Ideas 59 (1998): 557–63. Rigoni, M. A. “Un dialogo del Tasso: dalla parola al geroglifico.” Lettere italiane 24 (1972): 30–44.

Works Cited 355 Rigutini, Giuseppe. Vocabolario italiano della lingua parlata. Florence: G. Barberà, 1893. Rodler, Lucia. I silenzi mimici del volto: Studi sulla tradizione fisiognomica italiana tra Cinque e Seicento. Pisa: Pacini Editore, 1991. Rosand, David. “Una linea sola non stentata: Castiglione, Raphael, and the Aesthetics of Grace.” In Reading Medieval Culture: Essays in Honor of Robert W. Hanning, edited by Robert M. Stein and Sandra Pierson Prior, 454–79. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2005. Rossi, Massimo. Io come filosofo era stato dubbio: la retorica dei “Dialoghi” di Tasso. Bologna: Il Mulino, 2007. Rubin, Patricia Lee. Images and Identity in Fifteenth-Century Florence. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007. Rubinstein, Nicolai. “Classical Themes in the Decoration of the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence.” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 50 (1987): 29–43. ———. “Political Ideas in Sienese Art: The Frescoes by Ambrogio Lorenzetti and Taddeo di Bartolo in the Palazzo Pubblico.” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 21 (1958): 179–207. ———. The Palazzo Vecchio, 1298–1532: Government, Architecture, and Imagery in the Civic Palace of the Florentine Republic. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995. Rublack, Ulinka. Dressing Up: Cultural Identity in Renaissance Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. Russell, Daniel. “Emblems, Frames, and Other Marginalia: Defining the Emblematic.” Emblematica 17 (2009): 1–40. Russo, Emilio. L’ordine, la fantasia e l’arte: ricerche per un quinquennio tassiano, 1588–1592. Rome: Bulzoni, 2002. Salmi, Mario. “La ‘Divi Julii Caesaris Effigies’ del Pisanello.” Commentari 8 (1957): 91–95. Salza, Abd-El-Kader. Luca Contile Uomo di Lettere e di Negozj del Secolo XVI. Florence: G. Carnesecchi e Figli, 1903. Santoro, Mario. “Il Pontano e l’ideale rinascimentale del ‘prudente.’” Giornale italiano di filologia 17, no. 1 (1964): 29–54. Santoro L’Hoir, Francesca. Tragedy, Rhetoric, and the Historiography of Tacitus’ “Annales.” Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2006. Schiesari, Juliana. Beasts and Beauties: Animals, Gender, and Domestication in the Italian Renaissance. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2010. ———. The Gendering of Melancholia: Feminism, Psychoanalysis, and the

Works Cited

356

Symbolics of Loss in Renaissance Literature. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1992. Shearman, John. “Castiglione’s Portrait of Raphael.” Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz 38 (1994): 69–97. ———. Only Connect: Art and the Spectator in the Italian Renaissance. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1992. Simons, Patricia. “Portraiture, Portrayal, and Idealization: Representations of Renaissance Women.” In Language and Images of Renaissance Italy, edited by Alison Brown, 263–311. Oxford: Clarendon, 1995. Solerti, Angelo. Vita di Torquato Tasso. 2 vols. Turin: Ermanno Loescher, 1895. Stinger, Charles L. The Renaissance in Rome. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998. Stephens, Walter. “Metaphor, Sacrament, and the Problem of Allegory in Gerusalemme Liberata.” I Tatti Studies 4 (1991): 217–47. Stierle, Karlheinz. “Three Moments in the Crisis of Exemplarity: BoccaccioPetrarch, Montaigne, and Cervantes.” Journal of the History of Ideas 59, no. 4 (1998): 581–95. Syson, Luke, and Dillian Gordon. Pisanello: Painter to the Renaissance Court. London: National Gallery, 2001. Syson, Luke, and Dora Thornton. Objects of Virtue: Art in Renaissance Italy. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2001. Ternes, Charles-Marie. Études ausoniennes. Vol. 3. Luxembourg: Centre Alexandre-Wiltheim, 2002. Tinagli, Paola. Women in Italian Renaissance Art: Gender Representation Identity. Manchester, U.K.: Manchester University Press, 1997. Thorndike, Lynn. A History of Magic and Experimental Science. Vol. 5–6 of The Sixteenth Century. New York: Columbia University Press, 1959. Trafton, Dain A. “Politics and the Praise of Women: Political Doctrine in the Courtier’s Third Book.” In Castiglione: The Ideal and the Real in Renaissance Culture, edited by Robert W. Hanning and David Rosand, 29–43. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983. Trexler, Richard C. “Lorenzo de’ Medici and Savonarola, Martyrs for Florence.” Renaissance Quarterly 31, no. 3 (1978): 293–308. ———. “True Light Shining: vs. Obscurantism in the Study of Michelangelo’s New Sacristy.” Artibus et Historiae 21, no. 42 (2000): 101–17. Tylus, Jane. Writing and Vulnerability in the Late Renaissance. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1993.

Works Cited

357

Vecce, Carlo. “Bembo e gli antichi. Dalla filologia ai classici moderni.” In Le Prose della volgar lingua di Pietro Bembo, edited by Silvia Morgana, Mario Piotti, and Massimo Prada, 9–22. Milan: Cisalpino, 2000. Venturelli, Paola. Vestire e apparire: Il sistema vestimentario femminile nella Milano spagnola, 1539–1679. Venice: Marsilio, 2002. Waddington, Raymond B. Aretino’s Satyr: Sexuality, Satire, and Self-Projection in Sixteenth-Century Literature and Art. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004. Weinstein, Donald. “The Myth of Florence.” In Florentine Studies: Politics and Society in Renaissance Florence, edited by Nicolai Rubinstein, 15–44. Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1968. Weiss, Roberto. The Renaissance Discovery of Classical Antiquity. Oxford: B. Blackwell, 1969. Wilkin, Rebecca May. Women, Imagination, and the Search for Truth in Early Modern France. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008. Williams, Robert. “Bronzino’s Gaze.” In The Beholder: The Experience of Art in Early Modern Europe, edited by Thomas Frangenberg and Robert Williams, 87–101. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006. ———. “A Treatise by Francesco Bocchi in Praise of Andrea del Sarto.” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 52 (1989): 111–39. Wilson, Bronwen. The World in Venice: Print, the City, and Early Modern Identity. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005. ———. “The ‘Confusion of Faces’: The Politics of Physiognomy, Concealed Hearts, and Public Visibility.” In Making Publics in Early Modern Europe: People, Things, Forms of Knowledge, edited by Bronwen Wilson and Paul Yachnin, 177–92. New York: Routledge, 2010. Woods Callahan, Virginia. “Andrea Alciato’s Palm Tree Emblem: A Humanist Document.” Emblematica 6 (1992): 219–37. Woods-Marsden, Joanna. “‘In la Persia e nella India il mio ritratto si pregia’: Pietro Aretino e la costruzione visuale dell’intellettuale nel Rinascimento.” In Pietro Aretino nel cinquecentenario della nascita: Atti del Convegno di RomaViterbo-Arezzo (28 settembre–1 ottobre 1992), Toronto (23–24 ottobre 1992), Los Angeles (27–29 ottobre 1992), 1099–1125. Rome: Salerno, 1995. ———. “Pisanello et le moi.” In Pisanello: Actes du colloque organisé au musée du Louvre, edited by Dominique Cordellier and Bernadette Py, 265–95. Paris: Documentation française, 1998. Wright, Alison. “Piero de’ Medici and the Pollaiuolo.” In Piero de’ Medici, “ il Gottoso” (1416–1469): Kunst im Dienste der Mediceer = Art in the Service

Works Cited 358 of the Medici, edited by Andreas Beyer and Bruce Boucher, 129–49. Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1993. ———. The Pollaiuolo Brothers: The Arts of Florence and Rome. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005. Zanker, Paul. The Mask of Socrates: The Image of the Intellectual in Antiquity. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1995. Zatti, Sergio. L’ombra del Tasso: Epica e romanzo nel Cinquecento. Milan: Mondadori, 1996. ———. L’uniforme cristiano e il multiforme pagano: Saggio sulla “Gerusalemme liberata.” Milan: Il Saggiatore, 1983. Zimmermann, T. C. Price. Paolo Giovio: The Historian and the Crisis of SixteenthCentury Italy. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1995.

Index

Academy, Roman, 72 Academy of the Elevati of Padua, 282, 334n80 Academy of the Eterei, 254, 333n56, 334n80 Academy of the Occulti, 227–29, 228, 234–35, 272, 275, 330n15 Accetto, Torquato, 34, 284 Agamemnon, 292, 334n3 Alamanni, Luigi, 151 Albanzani, Donato degli, 167, 168, 171 Alberti, Leon Battista, 10, 200 Alciato, Andrea, 259 Alcina, 261 Alessandrino, Andrea, 264 Alexander the Great: Canossa, Lodovico, on, 83–84; Fregoso, Ottaviano, on, 114, 116; Gonzaga, Cesare, on, 109, 111–13; religio and, 48; stories about, 64, 65, 68, 119 Alexander VI (pope), 205 Alfonso II (duke of Calabria, then king of Naples), 33, 43–48, 61 Amalasuntha (Ostrogoth queen), 95 Ambrose (saint), 6 anachronic paradigm, 4, 180, 304n18. See also substitution-performance tension Anne of Brittany, 95–96

Antaeus, 24, 106 Antoninus Pius (emperor), 40–42 Apollo, 154, 235 appearance, representation, character and, 161–62, 163–66, 198–200 Appian, 94 Aragazzi, Bartolomeo, 15, 300n48 Aragona, Alfonso II d’. See Alfonso II Aragona, Beatrice d’ (queen of Hungary), 99 Aragona, Eleonora d’, 99 Aragona, Isabella d’ (wife of Giangaleazzo Sforza), 99, 212–14, 219 Arch of Titus, 31, 36 architecture: body assimilation to, 200; classicizing, 31, 35, 126, 304n16; in imprese, 239–40; public, 10, 299n34 Aretino, Pietro, 196; on authority, 289– 90; as Christological figure, 157; clothing and, 124, 126–40, 145–52, 157–59, 200, 277, 289–90; letters of, 124–59, 127, 292; Modi sonnets, 130, 156; patronage and, 124–25, 126, 129–39, 144, 147, 152, 289; personal emblem of, 124; phallus and, 28, 29, 156–58, 234; philosophy of, 227; print portraits of, 124; replicability and, 125–26, 145, 152, 153, 159, 290;

Index uniqueness struggle of, 15, 140–45, 153; unmasking of genius of, 153–59; vertù and, 145–53; virtues of, 125, 144, 150, 157–58 Aretophilus, 20–21 Ariosto, Ludovico, 248, 253, 261, 266, 268 Aristotle, 84, 114, 200, 238–39, 259; Aristotelian idea of magnificence, 10, 19, 21, 23; Aristotelian training in virtue, 51, 110, 282; on generation, 15; Nicomachean Ethics, 10; on tyranny, 51 Armida, 258 Arrivabene, Lodovico, 272–75, 277 art: as ape of nature, 65, 71; as gift, 152; as illusion, 115; inspirited work of, 6, 18, 27–29, 72, 238, 287, 290; substitutional and performative notions of, 4, 15, 170, 288, 295n2; transhistorical, 43, 118–19, 288 arte, artificio, 82–83, 203, 238, 279, 315n72 Artemisia, 101, 315n64 Ascoli, Albert, 5, 6, 261, 297n19, 298n29, 319n43 Astari, Francesco, 179 Astolfo, 261 Astyages, 45 Attila, 172 Augustus (emperor), 45, 93. See also Octavian Aurelian (emperor), 101 Ausonius, Decimus Magnus, 182 authority, 5, 6, 24, 28, 287; Aretino on, 124, 126–28, 130–33, 139–40, 152, 289–90; coining oneself and, 7–9; monumental pose and, 1, 163, 285; nobility and, 10, 16, 18, 22–23; Tasso, T., and, 254, 257–61, 285; two major trends in constructing, 124, 163 Avalos, Costanza d’, 100

360 avatars, 29 Baldi, Camillo, 271–73 Barbaro, Ermolao, 72–73 Barkan, Leonard, 72, 73, 82, 310n6, 311n11, 312n25 Baroncelli, Niccolò, 16 bees, 255, 260, 269–70, 333n71 Bembo, Pietro, 69–70, 180, 260, 292; castrated statues and, 26, 71–80; De Virgilii Culice et Terentii Fabulis, 71–80, 116, 289; Letter to Gianfrancesco Pico, 71, 116–17; Prose della volgar lingua, 71, 77–79, 117 Berger, Harry: on Libro del Cortegiano, 26, 86, 110, 111, 117–18; on portrait painting, 292; on sprezzatura, 235; on unrepresented inner self, 59 biographical encyclopedia, 29, 162, 177, 226, 290 Biow, Douglas, 150, 152–53, 236 Boccaccio, Giovanni, 155 Bocchi, Francesco, 165 body: assimilation to architecture, 200; control of, 57–61; ideal heroic, 1–2, 16, 187–89, 193–95 Borghini, Vincenzio, 164 Borgia, Cesare, 201 Bronzino, 165, 292–93 Brunetto Latini, 5 Bruni, Francesco, 7 Bruni, Leonardo, 15–17, 40, 300n48 Brutus, 35, 38–39, 42 Buonaccorso da Montemagno, 15 Butler, Judith, 296n9 Caburacci, Francesco, 266 Caesar, Caesars, 6–8, 31, 287 Caligula, 40–42, 186–89, 187, 195 Camma, 91–92, 104, 314n49 Campbell, Stephen, 1–2 Cangrande della Scala, 16

Index Canossa, Lodovico da, 82–84, 85 Canossa, Matilde da, 95 Capaccio, Giulio Cesare, 245–48, 283, 284; Delle imprese, 247, 277–79; on Silenus device, 235 Caprioli, Aliprando, 170, 223–25 Carafa, Diomede, 50, 53, 54, 307n48, 308n56, 308n62 Carrara, Francesco I da, 287 Castagno, Andrea del, 38 Castaldo, Gian Battista, 146 Castel Sant’Angelo, 26, 27, 29, 64, 68. See also Sala Paolina Castelnuovo, 25, 31, 34 Castiglione, Baldassare, 289; on ideal courtier, 68, 71, 111, 207, 235, 263; letter to mother by, 123–24; Libro del Cortegiano, 26, 59, 68–71, 80–118, 293; on sprezzatura, 60, 235. See also individual characters castration, 26, 71–80 Catena, Girolamo, 264 Catiline’s conspiracy (63 BCE), 38, 93 Cato the Censor, 49 cavaliere, cavalleria, 69, 112, 116, 138, 273, 274, 281. See also knights Cavallino, Antonio, 152 character, representation, appearance and, 161–62, 163–66, 198–200 Charlemagne, 180, 215 Charles, Duke of Orléans, 211 Charles I of Anjou (king of Sicily), 224 Charles IV (emperor), 5–6, 8 Charles V (emperor), 96, 132, 155 Charles VIII (king of France), 95–96 chastity, 86–92, 101–2, 315n66. See also death over dishonor chivalry. See cavaliere Christian, Kathleen Wren, 73 the Church, 89, 95, 97, 99–100, 106 Cicero, 2, 130; De amicitia, 47; De officiis, 34, 307n45, 308n57, 308n60,

361 308n63, 309n64; De oratore, 26, 85, 104–6, 309n71; De principe and, 51–52, 55–57, 63; in Libro del Cortegiano, 69–70, 93, 104–7; in Sala dei Gigli frescoes, 35, 37–43, 60, 62; Somnium Scipionis, 47 Ciceronian humanism, 39, 49 Claudian, 46 Clement VII (pope), 142, 144, 319n31 Clement VIII (pope), 249 clementia, 49 Cleopatra, 81–83, 101–2 Cles, Bernardo, 135 Clorinda, 251–52, 271, 332n46 clothing, 59–60, 62, 283–84; Aretino and, 124, 126–40, 145–52, 157–59, 200, 277, 289–90; effeminacy and, 59–60, 125; gifts of, 127–29, 131, 136–39, 146, 149, 159, 290; as identity, 76, 124, 128–29, 134, 137– 38, 282; insignia and, 277–78; Jones and Stallybrass on, 128, 133, 318n23; masks, Carnival and, 139; terms for, 317n1; value of, 128–29; women and, 147–49, 151 coins: coin collections, 27, 140, 168, 179; coin inscriptions, 185–86, 325n55; coin portraits, 5–9, 35, 36, 37, 40, 42, 43, 167, 291, 305n31; coining oneself, 5–9; gifts of, 5–6. See also portrait-books Collalto, Manfredo di, 150 Colonna, Vittoria, 152 Colonna, Prospero, 214 Commodus (emperor), 192–95, 194, 326n64 concealing vs. revealing, 232–36 condottiere, 16, 141 constantia, 51 Il Conte overo de l’ imprese (Tasso, T.), 238–39, 249, 251–55, 257–64, 267– 71, 277, 333n57

Index continentia, 49, 306n44. See also chastity Coraldo, Livio da Lonigo, 201 Coreggio, Girolamo da, 151 Cornilliat, François, 33, 304n9 Corona, Gian Antonio, 218 Cortesi, Paolo, 287, 289 Cortona, Bastiano da, 146 Counter-Reformation, 248–49, 251–52, 260–61 courtier, 64–65, 66, 68–71; Aristotle as ideal, 84, 114, 116; as author, 115–17; Castiglione on, 68, 71, 82–84, 114–19, 235, 263; and ephemeral arts, 82–84, 109, 115; making monuments, 104–19; as philosopher, 114–15; representing, 262–66 cowardly. See vil, vile Cox, Virginia, 85 Crassus, Lucius Licinius, 105 Cristoforo, Antonio di, 16 Cunnally, John, 167, 322n19 Cyrus the Great, 45, 101 damnatio memoriae, 190–92 Dante: Inferno 15, 5, 15; on nobility, 5; on self-monumentalization, 2, 5 David and Goliath, 292, 334n3 De gli huomini illustri della casa Orsina (Sansovino, F.), 160, 161, 197–210 De Man, Paul, 73 De principe (Pontano), 26, 32–35, 43–63; Cicero and, 51–52, 55–57, 63; exemplarity and visual rhetoric in, 43–50; majesty in, 34; perception in, 49–50, 55; performance in, 34–35; virtues in, 32, 49, 51–61, 306nn44–45 death over dishonor, 84–92, 94, 103–4, 289 Decembrio, Pier Candido, 8–9 Decius Mus, 35, 38, 39

362 decorum, 54, 56–57, 234 Dekesel, Christian, 180 Della Casa, Giovanni, 110, 118, 260 Della Porta, Giambattista, 163, 183, 198; De humana physiognomonia, 163, 219–20; Della fisonomia dell’ huomo, 220–25, 222, 223; Faustina and Messalina by, 220–22, 222, 232–33 Delle imprese (Capaccio), 247, 277–79 Delle imprese (Guazzo), 266, 279–84 details, classical combined with contemporary, 37, 304n18 Dialogo dell’ imprese militari e amorose (Giovio), 230, 233–34, 266–67 Dio, Cassius, 184, 325n62 Dionysius of Syracuse, 50, 114 dissimulation, 34, 54, 58, 59, 70, 114–16, 139, 271 Doglio, Maria Luisa, 308n59 Dolce, Lodovico, 154–55, 239, 241, 242, 243, 264 Domitian, 189–91, 191, 325n62 domus (house and family), 20 Donatello: debating pairs on Old Sacristy doors by, 38; Gattamelata, 16–17 Doni, Antonfrancesco, 125, 168 L’edificio del corpo humano (Sansovino, F.), 162, 199–200 effeminacy, 59–60, 62, 104; borrowing clothing as, 125; masculinity compared to, 33, 147–50 Egginton, William: on space as empty, 231; on theatrical subjectivity, 3, 28, 196, 296n10 Eichel-Lojkine, Patricia, 212, 303n5, 326n73 Elias, Norbert, 59 Elizabeth I (queen of England), 128–29 Elogia virorum bellica virtute illustrium (Giovio), 169, 211–20, 216, 224–25, 323n32, 327nn80–81, 328n87

Index emasculation, 26–27, 69–80 emblem, 229, 232, 245–47; clothing and, 278; types of, 333n64; family, 246, 251, 271. See also impresa emblem books, 168, 182, 226, 230 equestrian statues, 16–18 Erasmus, 157, 232, 259 Erspamer, Francesco, 136 Este, Alfonso I d’, 253–54, 257 Este, Azzo d’, 291 Este, Beatrice d’, 99 Este, Eleonora d’, 287, 289 Este, Ercole d’, 99, 137 Este, Isabella d’, 99 Este, Leonello d’, 8–9 Este, Niccolò d’, 16 ethnographic or racial typologies, 220 exchange economy, 130–31, 318n16 exemplarity, 288; coining oneself and, 6; exceptionalism and, 288; failure of, 3–4; ideal of, 28, 283; mimeticism vs. exemplarity in Giovio, 211–19; nobility and, 10, 21–23; Rigolot on, 3, 33–34, 296n8; and visual rhetoric in De principe, 43–50. See also virtue, virtues exemplars, 25, 33, 61; moral and political, 24; multivalent, 65, 68; visual, 33, 35, 37, 37–43, 290; women, 85–104, 168, 287 exterior, tension between interior and, 3–4, 26, 172, 285 Ezzelino III da Romano, 215–19, 216, 224–25 the Fabii, 44, 72, 287 façade, 108, 115, 145, 200 facilitas, 49 fairy tale, 92, 97 faith (fides), 48, 54–55, 306n40, 308n61 Faltonia Betitia Proba, 168 Farnese, Alessandro, 64, 68, 117, 119. See also Paul III

363 fashion, 60, 131. See also clothing Faustina the Younger, 37, 40–42, 220– 22, 222, 232–33 Federico Barbararossa, 215, 245 Federico I (king of Naples), 99 feminine. See effeminacy Ferdinand II (king of Spain), 98 Ferrante (Ferdinando I, king of Naples), 33, 46, 58–59, 287 Ferrero, Cardinal, 265 Ferro, Giovanni, 244 Ficino, Marsilio, 130, 234 fidelity, 91, 95–100, 103–4, 245, 248 fides (faith), 48, 54–55, 306n40, 308n61 Filelfo, Francesco, 10 Filiberto II (of Savoy), 96 fleur-de-lis, 32, 35 Florence, 10, 24, 25, 31, 32, 34, 37, 39, 42, 97, 100, 304n18 food, 150–51, 153, 159, 290 Foresti, Iacopo Filippo, 167–68, 170, 224 Forestiero Napolitano, 238, 253, 262–64, 268–69 fortitudo, 58 framing, 230–31, 239–40, 290 Francis I (king of France), 132–33, 142–43 Freccero, Carla, 87, 104, 313n37 Fregoso, Cesare, 136 Fregoso, Federico, 68, 85, 114 Fregoso, Ottaviano, 106–16, 316n88 Frigio, Niccolò, 90, 92, 101–2 Fulvio, Andrea, 168, 170, 171, 182, 291, 325n50 Furius Camillus, 35, 38, 39, 305n24 Gaddi, Giovanni, 137 Galateo, Galateo, 110, 111, 118, 293, 316n82 Galen, 200 Gallo, Antonio, 154 Gambara, Veronica, 151

Index 364 Gattamelata, Gattamelata, 16, 17, 177 Gauricus, Pomponius, 164 Gellius, Aulus, 106 generositas, 13, 23 Geoffroy de Tory, 211 George (saint), 332n46 Gerusalemme conquistata (Tasso, T.), 249, 251–53, 256, 258–62, 268, 271, 277, 331n45, 332n46 Gerusalemme liberata (Tasso, T.), 249– 53, 256–59, 261, 266, 271 Ghilini, Girolamo, 162, 169 Ghirlandaio, Domenico, 237; Pontano, monumental pose and, 61–63; Sala dei Gigli frescoes by, 26, 31–43, 37, 38, 60, 62, 288, 304n16, 304n18 gifts: of clothing, 127–29, 131, 136–39, 146, 149, 159, 290; of coins, 5–6; exchange economy and, 130– 31, 318n16; of food, 150–51, 159; religious debate about, 319n29 Giotto’s frescoes of heroes series, 25, 31, 34, 287 Giovanna III (queen of Naples), 99 Giovanna IV (queen of Naples), 99 Giovio, Paolo: Dialogo dell’ imprese militari e amorose, 230, 233–34, 266–67; Elogia veris clarorum virorum imaginibus apposita, 169; Elogia virorum bellica virtute illustrium, 169, 211–20, 216, 224–25, 323n32, 327nn80–81, 328n87; on d’Este, A., 253–54; mimeticism vs. exemplarity in, 211–19; portraitbooks by, 29, 168–69, 171, 320n4; Vitae duodecim Vicecomitum Mediolani principum, 211, 327n80 glory, 3–17, 29, 84, 104–111, 137, 142, 154, 202, 209, 246, 259, 295n5 . See also heroes Goltzius, Hubert, 29, 169; Caligula by, 186–89, 187, 195; Commodus

by, 192–95, 194; Domitian by, 189–91, 191; Nero by, 182–85, 186; translations of, 324n40; Vivae Omnium fere Imperatorum imagines, 178–96, 325n56 Gonzaga, Cesare, 86–90, 94, 98, 102– 103, 109, 111–13, 116 Gonzaga, Curzio, 259 Gonzaga, Elisabetta (duchess of Urbino), 88–89, 103–4, 114, 115, 315n66 Gonzaga, Federico II (duke of Mantua), 129, 133–35, 136, 137 Gonzaga, Luigi, 140, 146, 149 Gonzaga, Margherita, 90 Gonzaga, Scipione, 254–55 Gordon, Dillian, 8 Gospels, 55 Gotfredo del Gran Dente, 175 Gracchi, 47 Granada, siege of, 97–98 gravitas, 51, 306n45 grazia, 83, 154 Greenblatt, Stephen, 230 Gregory VII (pope), 95 Grizi, Pietro, 246–48 Guarino Veronese, 38, 44, 196 Guazzo, Stefano, 245, 266, 279–84 Guelfo, 256–59 Guicciardini, Francesco, 87, 134 gynephobia, 86 Hadrian (emperor), 40–41, 68 Hampton, Timothy, 33, 303n5 Hannibal, 94, 215 Haskell, Francis, 219, 323n31, 326n73, 328n94 Hawkwood, John, 224 Hegarty, Melinda, 39–40 Henry IV (emperor), 95 Henry VIII (king of England), 96 Hercules, 24–26, 106, 112, 193–95

Index 365 Hercules and the Hydra, 24–25 heroes, 6, 24–25, 31, 33, 38, 45–48, 62, 64, 69, 106, 108, 112, 165, 193, 230, 262, 287, 292; heroic women, 85–104, 116, 287, 289; poet-hero, 77, 141; republican, 31, 34–42, 212, 304n16. See also body, ideal heroic heroic deeds (gesta), 44, 59, 177, 229, 235, 244, 246, 248, 285, 288 hieroglyphs, 270–71, 280 hollowness, 2, 18, 63, 108–13, 115–16, 118, 139, 227, 279–85 Homer, 292 Horace, 8–9, 299n42 horse tamer. See cavaliere humanitas, 50, 57, 306n45 Huot, Sylvia, 174 Huttich, Johann, 170; Imperatorum romanorum libellus, 182; Nero by, 182–83, 184 Idea principle, 76, 85 ideal courtier: Castiglione on, 68, 71, 111, 207, 235, 263; representing, 262–66 identity: clothing as, 76, 124, 128–29, 134, 137–38, 282; imprese and, 229– 32; new meaning of term, 220; as performance, relationship between emerging subject and, 3. See also performance; subjectivity imagined ideal, reconstruction of, 79, 81, 289 imago, imagines, 19, 44–45 imitation, 33, 34, 164–66, 287. See also mimesis impresa, imprese (personal emblems): architecture in, 239–40; body and soul, 29, 233, 235, 239; development of, 124; double meaning of, 242–43; framing and, 230–31, 239–40; identity and, 229–32; Italian, 30; as monumental pose, 165; monuments,

masks and, 239–48; overview of, 163, 227–32, 329n2; proliferation of, 231–32, 291; secrecy and, 232–36, 272; uses for, 125, 229–32; writing as image and, 236–39. See also Silenus device; snake device impresa books, impresistica, 28–30, 230, 235, 250, 265, 290 Indagine, Giovanni da, 183 ingegno (genius), 147–48, 155–57 Innamorati, Giuliano, 130 interior, tension between exterior and, 3–4, 26, 172, 285. See also hollowness interiority, 62, 109, 200, 230, 231, 282, 285, 296n9; faces and physionomic theory on, 29, 57–58, 165, 200, 223, 309n74; problematization of, 3–5, 172; self-absorbed, 3, 33; signs of, 26, 43, 236. See also hollowness; subjectivity; unrepresented inner self invenzione, 170, 183 Isabella (empress, wife of Charles V), 150–51 Isabella I (queen of Spain), 95–100 Ischia, 100 Isocratean armchair rhetoric, 107 Isocrates, 105 Jean d’Arras, 174 Jean de Lorraine (cardinal), 135 Jehan de Luxembourg, 273 Jones, Ann Rosalind, ix, 128, 133, 312n18, 318n23 Jordan, Constance, 86 Juan of Spain (prince), 96 Julius Caesar, 8 Julius II (pope), 81 justice, 55–56 Justinian (emperor), 95 Juvenal, 14, 23

Index 366 knights, 69, 141, 229, 245, 256, 268, 273–74. See also cavaliere Ladislao II of Bohemia, 99 Laelius, 47 Landino, Cristoforo, 19–21, 24 Larivaille, Paul, 141, 156 Lazio, 188, 189 Leo X (pope), 80, 134 Leona, 90 Leonardo da Vinci, 157, 183 Leto, Pomponio, 29, 71–75, 116 Letter to Gianfrancesco Pico (Bembo), 71, 116–17 Leyva, Antonio de, 135 Liber Cronicarum (Hartmann Schedel), 167 liberal arts, status of, 39, 305n22 Libro del Cortegiano (Castiglione), 26, 59, 68–71, 80–118, 293; arts and artifice in, 80–84; Berger on, 86, 110, 111, 117–18; Cicero in, 69–70, 93, 104–107 Livy, 47, 94, 314n51 Lodovico il Moro. See Sforza, Lodovico Lodrone, Achille da, 265 Louis XII (king of France), 95 Lucretia, 39 Lucretius, 18 Lucullus, 101 lynx fur, 132, 318n23 Macasciuola, Giovan Francesco, 258 Machiavelli, Niccolò, 32, 303n5 Maffei, Sonia, 211, 216, 219–20 Maggi, Armando, 229, 230, 235, 285 magnificence, 9–11, 19, 23, 138, 204 maiestas (majesty), 34, 51, 53, 56, 57, 59, 61–63 Malatesta, Pandolfo, 7 Malpiglio, Giovanlorenzo, 269 Mansionario, Giovanni, 8

Marcantonio Venier, 150 the Marcelli, 44, 72 Marchand, Eckart, 35, 39 Marcolini, Francesco, 126, 131, 151 Margaret of Austria (governor of Netherlands), 95–96 Marino, Giambattista, 226 Marsuppini, Carlo, 12–14 Marsyas, 126 Martia, 195 Martin, John, 3, 4 Martini, Simone, 298n23 masculine author-narrator, 296n9 masculinity, 3, 16, 24, 27, 33, 60, 81, 102, 147–50. See also castration; phallus masks, 155, 189, 194; clothing, Carnival and, 139; death masks, 44; imprese, monuments and, 239–48; Medici tombs and, 1–2, 4; Socratic, 157, 219. See also persona Massinissa, 50 Matthias Corvinus (king of Hungary), 99 Mausolus, 101 Maximilian of Austria (emperor), 95 Medicean power, 24–25 Medici, Alfonsina de’, 215 Medici, Caterina de’ (queen of France), 177–78 Medici, Cosimo de’ (il Vecchio): funding of public buildings by, 10–11; rise to power by, 38; as Scipio Africanus, 38–39 Medici, Cosimo I de’, 25, 293, 301 Medici, Ferdinando I de’, 270 Medici, Giovanni de’ (delle Bande Nere), 141 Medici, Giuliano de’ (brother of Lorenzo il Magnifico), 33 Medici, Giuliano de’ (Duke of Nemours), 84, 86, 90–101, 103, 110; tomb monument of, 1–4, 295n5

Index Medici, Ippolito de’, 143 Medici, Lorenzo de’ (brother of Cosimo il Vecchio), 11–15, 19–21 Medici, Lorenzo de’ (Duke of Urbino), 134; tomb monument of, 1–4, 295n5 Medici, Lorenzo de’ (il Magnifico), 33, 35 Medici Palace, 24 Medici tombs: lack of inscriptions on, 2, 4, 295n5; by Michelangelo, 1–4, 19 Melusina, Mélusine, 172–78, 173, 214 Messalina, 220–22, 222, 232–33 Michelangelo, 1–4, 18–19, 25 Micyllus, Jakob, 182–83, 185 Miele, Lucia, 308n59 Milensio, Felice, 245 mimesis, 170–71, 182; mimeticism vs. exemplarity in Giovio, 211–19 mirror-for-princes tradition, 34, 97, 304n12 Mitchell, W. J. T., 295n2 monster, monstrum, 144, 174 Montaigne, Michel de, 33 Montefeltro, Federico da, 165 Montmorency, Anne de, 133 monument making, 10, 19–23, 70, 101, 108–11, 197, 210 monumental pose: authority and, 1, 69; definition of, 1–4; example of, 42, 165, 230; failure of, 27, 29, 30, 232, 287–93; Pontano, Ghirlandaio and, 61–63; presence and representation in, 5; problems for, 163, 171, 285; tension between interior and exterior in, 4, 192, 207 monumentality: demands of, 230; imprese, masks and monuments, 239–48; quest for, 3, 5, 293; rhetoric of, 4, 124, 238; selfmonumentalization, 2, 5, 79, 113– 19, 130–32, 166, 230–31; static, 37; threat to, 33

367 mutua caritas, 52, 307n47 Nagel, Alexander: on anachronic paradigm, 4, 180; on art as gift, 152; on substitutional and performative notions of art, 15, 43, 79, 170, 288, 295n2 Narses, 215 nautilus, 264–66, 268–70, 285 navigation motifs, 262, 264, 266–67, 285 Nero (emperor), 36, 40–42, 52; by Goltzius, 182–85, 186; by Huttich, 182–83, 184; by Micyllus, 182–83, 185 Niccoli, Niccolò, 11–12, 14–15, 18–19 nobility: authority and, 16, 18, 22–23; Dante on, 5; definitions of, 12–24; exemplarity and, 10, 21–23; glory and, 12–13, 15–17; hollowness and, 18–19, 279–85; inherited, 15, 21; magnificence and, 9–11, 19; Medici, Lorenzo de’ (brother of Cosimo il Vecchio), on, 11–15, 19–21; Niccoli on, 11–12, 14–15, 18–19; objects of virtue and, 9–24; wealth and, 10–14, 21, 23, 124 Nogarola, Angela, 168 Nogarola, Isotta, 168 obelisk, 238–39, 270 Octavian, 81–82, 102. See also Augustus Odrimarte, 250 opinio (reputation), 47–48, 306n40. See also reputation Orsini, Camillo, da Lamentana, 207– 208, 209 Orsini, Fulvio, 219 Orsini, Gian Corrado, 209–10 Orsini, Gian Giordano, 209 Orsini, Giovan Antonio, 203–204 Orsini, Giovanni, 21–23

Index 368 Orsini, Giulio, 208–209 Orsini, Napoleon, 204, 206 Orsini, Napoleon (abbot of Farfa), 210 Orsini, Nicola, 205 Orsini, Paolo (marquis of Atripalda), 201–203, 202, 210 Orsini, Paolo Giordano (duke of Bracciano), 197 Orsini, Virginio, 17, 205–207 Orsini family, 160–62, 161, 169, 197– 210, 202, 206, 209 Ortelius, 179 Ovid, 258, 333n59 Palazzo dei Priori (Perugia), 219 Palazzo Pubblico (Siena), 31, 35, 39, 48 Palazzo Vecchio (Florence), 25, 31. See also Sala dei Gigli Pallavicino, Gasparo, 83, 84, 87, 90, 92, 105 Palm Sunday, 260 palm tree, 259–60 Panormita, 44 paragone, 82 Parker, Deborah, 292 pasquinades, 153 Passeri, Cinzio, 249 Pastore Stocchi, Manlio, 303n6, 304n12 pater patriae, 39, 52, 305n21 patria, 39, 42, 77, 80, 94, 183, 229 patronage: Aretino and, 124–25, 126, 129–39, 144, 147, 152, 289; Tasso, T., and, 255–56 Paul (saint), 64, 84, 117 Paul III (pope), 64, 68, 117, 119 Pazzi conspiracy, 33, 39, 305n24 Il Pentito (T. Tasso alias), 254–55 Pepoli, Fabio di’, 242 perform like a statue, 33, 59, 62, 63, 107–16 performance: in Pontano’s De principe, 34–35, 51–61; relationship between

emerging subject and identity as, 3, 59, 111, 194, 293, 296n9; substitution-performance tension, 4, 42–43, 79, 170, 181, 288–89, 329n4 performativity, 296n9 Perino del Vaga, 26, 27, 64–65, 66, 67, 68–69 Perkinson, Stephen, 168, 176 Perna, Pietro, 211, 326n73 persona, 51, 56. See also masks personal emblems, 29–30, 159, 163; of Aretino, 124; failure of, 271–79; origins of, 246; portrait-books compared to, 225–26, 233, 291. See also impresa, imprese Perugino, 219 Petrarch, 130, 152, 155; Canzoniere, 260; coining oneself and, 5–8; De remediis utriusque Fortune, 6, 23; De viris illustribus, 5, 31, 167, 287 Petrucci, Pandolfo, 134 phallus, 28, 29, 156–58, 234 phantasms, 1, 18 Philip II (king of Spain), 179 Phillip III (duke of Burgundy), 273 Philotimus, 20 physiognomy, 57–58, 161–62, 165, 168, 171, 215–26, 309n74; Sansovino, F., and contradictions of, 197–210 Piccolomini, Ascanio, 275–77, 276 Pico, Gianfrancesco, 75–77, 288 pine tree, 258, 261 Pinkus, Karen, 230 Pinturicchio, 219 Piombo, Sebastiano del, 136 Pisa, 25, 112 Pisanello, 8–9, 10, 292 Pitigliano, Count of, 205 Pittoni, Battista, 239–40, 241, 242, 242– 43, 243, 245, 264–65, 285

Index Platina (Sacchi’s pen name), 21–23, 49 Plato, 84, 114; bees and, 269, 333n71; Phaedrus, 236; on simulacrum, 247; Symposium, 157 Pliny the Elder, 164, 166, 176, 200, 220, 259 Plutarch, 84, 91, 92, 93 poeta-vates, 270 poet-hero, 77, 141 Poggio Bracciolini, 11–15, 18–19, 22–24, 38 poligrafo, 131 Pollaiuolo, Antonio and Piero, 17, 24–26 Pompey, 31 Pomponio Leto, 72–75, 116 Pontano, Giovanni, 10–11, 196; De principe, 26, 32–35, 43–63, 306nn44–45; Ezzelino and, 217–18; on gesta, 288; monumental pose, Ghirlandaio and, 61–63 Porro, Girolamo, 245 Portrait of Cosimo I de’ Medici as Orpheus (Bronzino), 293 Portrait of Ugolino Martelli (Bronzino), 292–93 portrait-books, 27–69, 160–226; by Giovio, 29, 168–69, 171, 211–19, 320n4; by Goltzius, 178–96; importance of, 28–29, 166–72, 290– 91; personal emblems compared to, 225–26, 233, 291; by Roville, 172–78; by Sansovino, F., 29, 160–69, 197– 210; text correlation to image in, 161, 171, 179, 182, 196, 207, 210, 220–26, 326n73; women and, 167–68, 170, 321n12. See also print portraits portraits: lifelike, 6, 162, 166–67, 169, 171, 203, 290, 293; portrait medals, 7–9, 10, 140, 167; portrait painting, 165–67, 291–92; portrait-busts, 32,

369 37, 40, 42, 240. See also coins; print portraits; portrait-books presence, 5, 134, 290–91, 295n2, 302n76; authorial, 289; medieval paradigm of, 27–28, 225, 288 Priapus, 157 print portraits, 27, 124, 162, 169–71, 195–96, 203; copied and adapted, 225; as markers of commercial enterprise, 124; popularity of, 27, 290; portrait painting compared to, 165–67, 291. See also portraits; portrait-books printing press, 28, 125, 131 Promptuaire des médailles (Roville), 168, 172 Prontuario de le medaglie (Roville), 172–78, 173 Prose della volgar lingua (Bembo), 71, 77–79, 117 prosopopoeia, 81 prostitution, 147 Proteus, 246–47 prudence, 3, 4, 207, 265, 303n6 Pugliese, Olga, 86, 313n42 Pygmalion, 110 Pythagoras, 106 question of taste, meaning as, 30, 271–79 Quint, David, 86 Rangone, Guido, 138 Raphael, 80–81, 219 Rebhorn, Wayne, 104, 107, 115 Reiss, Timothy, 230 religio (religious observance), 48, 306n40 replicability, 28, 100, 125–26, 145, 152, 153, 159, 163, 290 representation: appearance, character and, 161–62, 163–66, 198–200; and

Index 370 presence in monumental pose, 5; problem of, 18–19; as reality, 1, 6, 27–28. See also hollowness; persona; reputation reputation, 47–48, 51, 52, 54, 57, 61–62, 96, 98, 140, 174, 180, 195, 220, 306n40. See also opinio revealing vs. concealing, 232–36 Rigolot, François, 3, 33–34, 296n8 Rigoni, Mario Andrea, 236 Rime degli Academici Eterei, 254 Rime de gli Academici Occulti, 227, 228, 234–35, 275, 330n15 Rime del Monsignor Ascanio Piccolomini (Piccolomini), 275–77, 276 Rinaldo (Tasso, T.), 249–51, 262, 268, 271 Robert of Anjou (king of Naples), 25, 31, 224, 287 Rosand, David, 83 Rossi, Gian Vittorio, 226 Rovere, Felice della, 103 Roville, Guillaume, 29; Melusina by, 172–78, 173, 214; Promptuaire des médailles, 168, 172; Prontuario de le medaglie, 172–78, 173 Rubinstein, Nicolai, 37, 39–40, 304n16, 305n24 Ruscelli, Girolamo, 259 Russell, Daniel, 230 Sabines, 92–93 Sacchi, Bartolomeo, 21. See also Platina sack of Capua (1501), 87 sack of Rome (1527), 70, 117 Saguntum, Saguntines, 94–95, 98 Sala dei Gigli (in Palazzo Vecchio), 26, 31–43, 37, 38, 60, 62, 288, 304n16, 304n18 Sala Paolina (in Castel Sant’Angelo), 26, 27, 29, 64–65, 66, 67, 68–69 Sallust, 44, 46, 196, 306n35

Salviati, Lorenzo, 136–37 San Giovanni in Laterano (church), 238 San Lorenzo (church). See Medici tombs Sansovino, Francesco: career of, 197, 326n67; De gli huomini illustri della casa Orsina, 160, 161, 197–210, 202, 206, 209; L’edificio del corpo humano, 162, 199–200; L’Historia di casa Orsina, 206–207, 320n1; on Orsini family, 160–62, 161, 169, 197–210, 202, 206, 209; physiognomy contradictions and, 161–62, 197–210; portrait-book by, 29, 160–69; Del secretario, 235 Sansovino, Jacopo, 136, 197 satyr, 126–27, 157, 221, 223, 232–33 Scaevola, Mucius, 35, 38, 39 Schedel, Hartmann, 167 Schiesari, Juliana, 222, 314n51, 328n99 Scipio Africanus, 35, 38–40, 42–43, 46–49, 305n24, 306n35 Scipio Africanus the Younger, 47 the Scipios, 44, 47, 72, 287 secrecy, 232–36, 272 secretario, 235, 275 Semiramis, 101–2 Seneca, 52, 307n54 Serlio, Sebastiano, 126, 158 severitas, 306n45 Sforza, Francesco II (duke of Milan), 137, 212–13 Sforza, Giangaleazzo (duke of Milan), 99, 212 Sforza, Lodovico (duke of Milan), 99, 212 ship motifs, 258–59, 261, 266 Silenic secretary, 236, 279, 284 Silenus, 126; Socrates compared to, 218– 19; statues, 115, 157, 165, 235 Silenus device, 227–28, 228, 232–35, 272 simulacrum, 2, 19, 82, 102, 194–95, 247, 301n57 sincerity, 3, 4, 135, 138–39, 140–45, 154–55, 271

Index Sinoris, 91, 92 Sistine Chapel, 40 skill. See arte snake device, 174, 264–65 Socrates, 84, 126, 157, 165; images of, 218–19; Silenus compared to, 218–19 space as empty, 231 sprezzatura, 60, 235 Stallybrass, Peter, 128, 133, 312n18, 318n23 Stampa, Massimiano, 128, 137, 138, 319n28 Stasicrates, 111 Statius, 190 statues: animated, 72, 166, 221, 295n2; castrated, 26, 71–80; equestrian, 16–18; fragmented, 11–12, 18, 71–75, 311n11; Giuliano de’ Medici, 1–2; Lorenzo de’ Medici, 1–2; perform like a statue, 33, 59, 62, 63, 107–16; Silenus, 115, 157, 165, 235; speaking, 73–75, 81–82. See also hollowness Stephens, Walter, ix, 331n40 Stimmer, Tobias, 172, 323n32; Elogia virorum bellica virtute illustrium and, 211–13, 216, 218–20, 224 subjectivity: emerging modern subject, 3, 27, 34, 163, 230, 293; theatrical, 3, 28–29, 196, 230–31, 296n10 substitution, 69, 79, 312n21 substitutional and authorial notions of art, 15, 288, 295n2 substitution-performance tension, 4, 43, 79, 170, 288–89, 329n4 Suetonius, 183, 188–90 sumptuary legislation, 128, 317n6 Syson, Luke, 8, 298n24, 299n34 Tacitus, 44, 58, 190, 230, 325n58 Taddeo di Bartolo, 31, 39, 48 Tancredi, 252–54, 257, 268, 271, 285 Tasso, Bernardo, 251

371 Tasso, Torquato, 30, 124, 284–85; altering and erasing imprese in epic poems of, 248–54; authority and, 254; Il Cataneo overo de le conclusioni amorose, 236–38; Il Conte overo de l’ imprese, 238–39, 249, 251–55, 257–64, 267–71, 277, 333n57; Gerusalemme conquistata, 249, 251–53, 256, 258–62, 268, 271, 277, 331n45, 332n46; Gerusalemme liberata, 249–53, 256–59, 261, 266, 271; Gierusalemme, 252, 268; Malpiglio overo de la corte, 263; patronage and, 255–56; Rime degli Academici Eterei and, 254; Rinaldo, 249–51, 262, 268, 271; sonnet by, 255–56, 332n56 tasso (yew tree), 254–56, 270 taste. See question of taste Temple of Salus, 82 Terence, 56 Tesauro, Emanuele: Cannocchiale aristotelico, 230, 280; Idea delle perfette imprese, 244 theatrical subjectivity, 3, 28–29, 196, 296n10 Theodelinda (Lombard queen), 95, 314n58 Theodora (empress), 95 Theseus, 112 Thevet, André de, 171, 323n30, 323n32, 327n83 Thomas Aquinas (saint), 10, 306n40 Tiberius, 58, 188 Titian, 136, 318n21 Tomasini, Giacomo Filippo, 169, 225 Tomyris, 101, 315n63 transhistorical art, 43, 118–19, 288 Trojan horse, 26, 105–7, 112, 113, 116, 315n72 trompe-l’oeil, 26, 27, 64–65, 66, 67, 68–69

Index truth, 54–55, 62, 102, 107, 126, 131– 33, 135, 140–45, 154, 157, 180–81, 236–37, 240, 247, 308n63; study of, 8, 234 tyranny, 24, 51 tyrant, 41, 51, 62, 90, 91–92, 106, 190, 215 Uffizi museum, 38 unrepresented inner self, 59, 110, 231, 236, 282–85 Van Mander, Karel, 162, 226 Varchi, Benedetto, 260, 333n63 Varro, 170 Vasari, Giorgio, 323n32 Vecce, Carlo, 79 Vecellio, Cesare, 198 Vergerio, Pier Paolo, 319n25 vergogna, 94, 269 vernacular, 77 Verocchio’s Colleoni, 16 vertù, 146–53, 157, 158. See also virtù Vespasian, 40–41 Vestal Virgins, 192 vil, vile (base, cowardly), 93–94 Virgil, 92–93, 252, 292; Georgics, 255–56, 332n56; on Trojan horse, 106 virtù, 95, 98, 105, 147, 209; connoting heroism and artistic ability, 80–81, 147–48 virtue, virtues, 4–5, 6, 9, 31–35, 74, 160, 162, 165, 168, 170, 176, 177, 179–80, 204, 206–207, 214, 224, 225, 230, 232, 265, 282, 285, 289, 290, 291, 303n5, 314n47, 325n50; of Aretino, 125, 143–44, 150, 157–58; Aristotelian

372 training in, 51, 110, 282; in Il Libro del Cortegiano, 84, 85, 87, 89, 90, 99–104, 107, 108, 110–15, 118; nobility and objects of, 9–24; in Pontano’s De principe, 32, 41–49, 51–54, 57, 59, 61–63, 306nn44–45. See also death over dishonor; exemplarity Visconti, Azzo, 287 Vitellius, 189 Vivae Omnium fere Imperatorum imagines (Goltzius), 178–96, 325n56 Waddington, Raymond, 124, 126, 147, 156 Wilson, Bronwen, 27, 169, 192, 220, 309n74 women: clothing and, 147–49, 151; exemplars, 85–104, 168, 287; portrait-books and, 167–68, 170, 321n12; sexually aggressive, 37, 40–42, 101, 220–21, 222, 232–33. See also chastity Wood, Christopher: on anachronic paradigm, 4, 180; on substitutional and performative notions of art, 15, 43, 79, 170, 288, 295n2 Woods-Marsden, Joanna, 124 writing as image, 236–39 yew tree, 254–56, 270 Zeno of Elea, 192 Zeno (emperor), 191–92 Zenobia (queen of Palmyra), 101 Zenobius (saint), 31, 35, 39 Zsámbocky, Janos (Johannes Sambucus), 219 Zuccolo, Lodovico, 235, 330n21