Italian Courts and European Culture 9789048550944

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Italian Courts and European Culture

Renaissance History, Art and Culture This series investigates the Renaissance as a complex intersection of political and cultural processes that radiated across Italian territories into wider worlds of influence, not only through Western Europe, but into the Middle East, parts of Asia and the Indian subcontinent. It will be alive to the best writing of a transnational and comparative nature and will cross canonical chronological divides of the Central Middle Ages, the Late Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period. Renaissance History, Art and Culture intends to spark new ideas and encourage debate on the meanings, extent and influence of the Renaissance within the broader European world. It encourages engagement by scholars across disciplines – history, literature, art history, musicology, and possibly the social sciences – and focuses on ideas and collective mentalities as social, political, and cultural movements that shaped a changing world from ca 1250 to 1650. Series editors Christopher Celenza, Georgetown University, USA Samuel Cohn, Jr., University of Glasgow, UK Andrea Gamberini, University of Milan, Italy Geraldine Johnson, Christ Church, Oxford, UK Isabella Lazzarini, University of Molise, Italy

Italian Courts and European Culture

Marcello Fantoni

Amsterdam University Press

Illustration: Parmigianino, Portrait of Galeazzo da Sanvitale (1524), Lord of Fontanellato. Naples, Museo di Capodimonte. Cover design: Coördesign, Leiden Lay-out: Crius Group, Hulshout isbn 978 94 6372 942 0 e-isbn 978 90 4855 094 4 doi 10.5117/9789463729420 nur 685 © M. Fantoni / Amsterdam University Press B.V., Amsterdam 2022 All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the written permission of both the copyright owner and the author of the book.

Per Costanza, perché ha dato un senso alla mia vita.



Table of Contents

Acknowledgments 9 Preface 11

I.  Republics and Princes 1. The Historiographical Journey

17

2. Historical Development

25

3. A World of Courts 3a What Is the Court? 3b Courts Everywhere

31 31 36

II.  Italian Courts and European Culture 4. Europe of the Courts 53 4a The Terms of the Question 53 4b From the Middle Ages to the Finis Italiae 57 4c Invasion and Counter-Invasion 64 4d Italian Courts and Renovatio Imperii 73 4e A Queen and Two Kings 80 4f The ‘Second Renaissance’ … 90 4g … and Beyond 96 5. People 5a Princesses and Princes 5b People Going 5c People Coming

109 109 114 128

6. Things 6a The Arts Market 6b Books 6c Language

135 135 148 163

III.  The Models 7. The Spaces

179

8. Images

197

9. The Performing Arts

209

10. The Forma del Vivere 223 10a Dance 231 10b Clothes 237 10c The Gentleman 247

IV.  Common Denominators Conclusion 259 Bibliography 275 Index 295

Acknowledgments There are many people I need to thank: all of whom have helped me or are my friends. Luckily for me, the list would be too long to mention them all, and so I will limit myself to the essential. I thank Fabrizio Ricciardelli, who was a spur and an example. I thank Gustav Medicus for editing the manuscript and for his stimulating questions. I thank Chiara Continisio, who thinks highly of me, because she likes me. And, lastly, I thank Cesare Mozzarelli and Amedeo Quondam from whom I have learnt almost all of the little I know.

Preface Why write a book on Italian courts? Obviously, I was the first to ask myself this question. What is still left to say that is not already known about courts from the Middle Ages to the Baroque period? I discovered that I had two answers to that question, and – consequently – two reasons for writing this book. The first arose from a realization about what scholarship already existed. Scholars of different nationalities and from various disciplines have used a variety approaches to write about the courts, and their research has grown exponentially in recent decades. Since the mid-1970s, in Italy alone, the study center Europa delle Corti has published more than 150 volumes. There are specialized journals, such as the English-language The Court Historian, and research centers like the Residenzenkommission in Germany or the one hosted by the Chatêau de Versailles in France. To which we can add a selection of exhibition catalogues and countless works by art and architecture historians. Literature, too, has been explored in its multiple genres, and so has music and the exuberant universe of pageantry, theater and ceremonial. Yet, despite this abundance and variety of knowledge, a consolidating theme still seems to be missing – a center of gravity, a unifying theory that could give it all a coherence. In particular, for a long time, the Italian courts were ostracized by historians of the state, who regarded them merely as a hangover from feudalism. This was exacerbated by the tenacious myth of a republicanism that only recognizes the roots of political and cultural modernity in the communal city-states. While those times have more or less passed, it was here that the road came to an end (or led in other directions), which is why, as far as I know, there is currently no alternative reconstruction of the political panorama in Italy between the fourteenth and seventeenth centuries – one that could shape new theories about the country’s cultural dimension. The second (principal) question is a rather daunting one: what contribution did the Italian courts make to Europe? If, indeed, it is true that the courts occupied a significant place in Italian history, then it is inevitable that cultural models were exchanged, albeit in very different ways. But a peril lurks here. That of preaching to the converted, so to speak, in proving what we (or, at least some of us) already know: e.g. the cultural primacy of the Italian courts and their influence on the civilization of the ancien régime. This is true, but is primarily the substance of specialist studies. What is missing is an attempt to summarize all this. To do so successfully requires

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Italian Courts and European Culture

systematic teamwork. It has already been tried a couple of times. Firstly, by the European Science Foundation, which has produced four volumes, and, secondly, by Il Rinascimento Italiano e l’Europa (‘The Italian Renaissance and Europe’) project, which has six volumes to its credit.1 These are certainly important ventures, and there is much to be learnt from them in all sorts of disciplines, concerning all sorts of historical phenomena. It may be, though, that the very approach of these projects and the vast number of researchers involved has left a gap: no one has set out any general theories. In the end, we know what happened, but we know little of the how and why of it happened. If I have tried to provide some answers, it is not conceit on my part, but a desire to spur others on. The novelty is in the sketching of a preliminary collage of facts, trying to find correlations between them, and suggesting a sense in them that is more than the mere sum of their parts. In short, I am simply highlighting the common denominators. What exactly are we talking about? Some time back, Fernand Braudel authoritatively stated that: ‘From 1450 to 1650, in the course of two particularly eventful centuries, the thousand glorious colors of Italy’s light radiated far beyond its confines: this light, this dissemination of a cultural heritage that had formed within it, appeared as the characteristic of an exceptional destiny.’2 This is true, but so is the fact that this history has been broken up into too many stories. So, why retrace this path again? There are good reasons to do so. Firstly, Braudel’s work has not been followed up and many historians continue to speak of ‘Italian decadence’ for the period spanning 1550–1700. In addition, over the years, studies have appeared that have added significant arguments and suggestions to the discourse; so, it is not absurd, fifty years on, to reconsider Braudel’s work. Above all, is the issue of periodization, with an Italian golden age enclosed in two centuries, between the Treaty of Lodi (1454) and the end of the Pax Hispanica (c. 1650). As I try to show, on the one hand, the ‘dissemination’ of Italian culture seems to have put down roots (and located itself) in the spread of humanism at least a century before. On the other, it has been proved that Italy’s capacity to export culture continued after the mid-eighteenth century, right up to (and after) the outbreak of the French Revolution. This temporal dilation brings with it consequences that go beyond mere chronology. It paints a different picture of the culture of the ancien régime, a homogeneous culture 1 The first of the two projects is entitled ‘Cultural Exchange in Early Modern Europe’ and the volumes were published between 2006 and 2007. The works of the second, sponsored by Cassamarca, were published from 2005 on. 2 Braudel, Out of Italy, p. 3.

Preface

13

that endured. Moreover, the process also acquires significant value for the construction of modernity and of the European identity. In addition, Braudel believed that the conditions that allowed Italy to play this guiding role were to be found, above all, in its economic superiority (which he extends to the mid-seventeenth century), while I prefer to identify its primary cause and catalyzing force in the political dimension and, in particular, in the universe of the courts. Finally, I think that the essence and unifying element should be sought in classicism. If this is true, then we should ask why and what functions it performed. To what extent, then, was adopting the lessons and models of the ancients simultaneously an element of homogeneity and a break with the Middle Ages? Moreover, it was those very Italian courts that, from the early fifteenth century, brought classicism (the child of humanism) back into vogue and encouraged the infusion of many different cultural expressions. And it was politics that classicism supplied – first in Italy and then throughout Europe – with a reliable system of values and symbols based on which it was able to define itself. What was the relationship, then, between classicism and politics? And how and why did politics adopt these new codes? These are other questions that need to be asked. Meditating on how to tie up these loose strands, I felt the need to try and (re)define the framework and content of the rich, multicolored world of the Italian courts and the propagation of their culture. But – and here lies a second danger – how do we curb the uncontainable bibliography, and how do we embrace the quantity and complexity of the subjects? How do we account for it all in a coherent summary? Without losing ourselves in the multitude of clues, but taking them as a starting point, we need to trace a context that will allow us to evaluate the importance, the modalities, and the meaning of the phenomenon. A certain adroitness is also necessary in discerning what pertains to the court and what does not, if only to circumscribe the enquiry. We cannot lump everything together indiscriminately. Where possible, I have chosen to remain at a safe distance from the myriad specific studies, trying, at the same time, to trace as clear a picture as possible. Exemplification is a bottomless pit, which I have peered into, so to speak, where necessary, doing my best not to fall in. In any case, the point is not to accumulate examples, in the illusory quest for completeness, rather it is to understand what was happening. At the same time, it meant finding the right balance between eschewing the obvious and not making any assumptions; between avoiding commonplaces and only addressing the specialist. In short, I wanted to write a book that was properly documented and at the same time readable.

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Italian Courts and European Culture

But this is not just a compilation. On the contrary. The reconstruction of the overall picture reveals (as some have already noted) the fallaciousness of a number of the interpretive paradigms that our reading of the ancien régime is based on. Along the way, we will see some of our historiographic certainties wavering: from evaluations of whole eras of Italian history, to theories of the alleged twilight of the Italian Renaissance in favor of its migration to the Protestant north, to the genealogy of modernity and its supposed roots in the city republics. That is not to say that these cruxes can be dealt with exhaustively, but nor can they be wholly evaded. Finally – and this might be an additional question: what need is there, in the twenty-first century, for a book on such a remote past? Tackling this question would take us on a long journey. But I think that anyone who picks up this (or any) book already has an answer. At least, I hope so.

Works Cited Fernand Braudel, Out of Italy, 1450–1650 (Paris: Flammarion, [1974] 1991). Cultural Exchange in Early Modern Europe, 4 vols, I, Religion and Cultural Exchange in Europe, 1400–1700, ed. by Heinz Schilling & István György Tóth (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006); II, Cities and Cultural Exchange in Europe, 1400–1700, ed. by Donatella Calabi & Stephen Turk Christensen (2007); III, Correspondence and Cultural Exchange in Europe, 1400–1700, ed. by Francisco Bethencourt & Florike Egmond (2007); IV, Forging European Identities, 1400–1700, ed. by Herman Roodenburg (2007). Il Rinascimento Italiano e l’Europa, 6 vols, I, Storia e storiografia, ed. by Marcello Fantoni (Costabissara: Angelo Colla, 2005); II, Umanesimo ed educazione, ed. by Gino Belloni and Riccardo Drusi (2006); III, Produzione e tecniche, ed. by Philippe Braunstein and Luca Molà (2007); IV, Commercio e cultura mercantile, ed. by Franco Franceschi (2008); V, Le scienze, ed. by Antonio Clericuzio and Germana Ernst (2009); VI, Luoghi, spazi, architetture, ed. by Donatella Calabi and Elena Svalduz (2010).

I. Republics and Princes

Abstract Until a few decades ago, scholars used to place republics at the center of the political and cultural Italian history between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. This interpretation has now been revised. However, we are still missing a reconstruction of the alternative scenario that this would imply. Discussing this historiographical process and reconsidering the Italian geopolitical system under the new perspective of the centrality of the courts is a necessary premise to explain how Italian princely courts became culturally central and capable of exporting to Europe their ‘political language.’ In fact, princely courts carpeted the peninsula from Sicily to the Alps and maintained their cultural supremacy from the fourteenth to the eighteenth century. Keywords: republics, courts, historiography, political geography

Fantoni, M., Italian Courts and European Culture. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press 2022 doi: 10.5117/9789463729420_ch01

1.

The Historiographical Journey

To gain perspective, let us first get the historiography in focus. To understand the courts, paradoxically, we must start from the republican theory through which Italian history, from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance, has long been read. We know that Italian Renaissance republicanism was ‘de-masked’ decades ago.1 No further proof is needed. There is an abundance of literature on the subject, from how the myth originated in the writings of the Florentine humanists to how recent scholarship appropriated it. Though this is not the purpose of this book, before we venture to explore new territories and formulate new theories, we must re-assess the political scenario of Early Modern Italy. The two endeavors are inseparable: it is illogical to think of hypothesizing a new cultural role for Italian courts if we do not first establish that they were, in fact, central to the Italian political context. This also entails retracing the process that gave birth to a certain idea of Italian courts. In doing so, we must also re-evaluate the traditional ingredients of the court saga, by examining the correlation of republican theoretical thought with actual government practice, and by gauging the consequences this had on the representation of the Italian Renaissance in its entirety. In particular, the Manichean picture of a peninsula divided into republics and principalities does not do justice to the wealth of its political geography. Underneath the surface of the supposed polarization, between the two opposing conceptions of politics and forms of rule, lies a much more nuanced and fluid archipelago of city and regional states that were dialectally interacting and constantly evolving. Comparing republics and principalities also involves considering similarities along with differences and acknowledging that both were multifaceted universes, not immune from hybrid forms. In addition, the contrast between the two constitutional systems was probably less definite in the eyes of contemporaries than it is to us. In the early 1950s, the British scholar Nicolai Rubinstein was among the first to point out how historians themselves were victims of humanistic rhetoric, in which ‘Florentine liberty is praised over and over again.’2 Moreover, at any given time between the fourteenth and eighteenth centuries, the majority of Italian states were monarchical and, consequently, courts were key institutions. Despite this, 1 The expression is borrowed from Brown, ‘De-masking’, pp. 179–199. 2 Rubinstein, ‘Florence’, p. 21. On the same subject, see also Jones, ‘Communes’, pp. 146–156 and, more recently, Ricciardelli, The Myth.

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Italian Courts and European Culture

until quite recently, courts were neglected as irrelevant or antithetical to the paradigm of the Renaissance. What picture would we have if we considered this ‘other’ social, political, and cultural universe? If signori (‘lords’) and courts were predominant throughout the entire Middle Ages and Renaissance, what would become of the theory of the ‘crisis of the Early Italian Renaissance?’3 Would there be a transition at all, or rather a magmatic longue durée? And how would this impact the periodization of Italian (and European) history? Finally, the monochromatic representation of this age as epitomized by proto-democratic regimes has compromised the possibility of seeing the multi-centrality of the Italian Renaissance and its variegated political landscape, let alone the pervasiveness of humanism. The distinctive traits of the Renaissance are equally undermined. In light of this, and because we have all these pieces that do not fit together, a brief excursus on the evolution of the myth of republicanism is well worth the opportunity it affords us to restore the authentic features of an entire period. Implicit consequences (or causes?) of this process include the scant dialogue between historians of political ideas and historians tout court and the partially unexplored discrepancy between political theory and government action. In short, before examining the European role of the Italian courts, we need to cast light on the peninsula’s geopolitical position, clarify the actual cultural exchanges between courts and republics, and – last but not least – understand what we mean exactly by court. The goal is not to reconstruct a detailed history of the interpretations of Italian Renaissance; it will be enough to mention the main stages and outcomes.4 The process is articulated in different phases, each one responding to the solicitations of the scholar’s time, and each one generating a different Renaissance to meet its changing needs. Many Renaissances have thus been fabricated over the last 150 years as a way of providing fresh evidence for the legitimization of the present. A common feature of many of these multiple Renaissances is their function as models for modern democracies. We shall therefore look at the main stages in this history. The republican axiom preceded the enunciation, in the second half of the nineteenth century, of the Renaissance as a historical category. The philosophers of the Enlightenment postulated it as a corollary of the opposition of the nouveau régime against the age of absolutism, and Simonde de Sismondi’s Histoire des républiques 3 See Baron, The Crisis. 4 For an overview of the historiography on the Italian Renaissance, see Ferguson, The Renaissance.

The Historiogr aphical Journey

19

italiennes (1807–1818) codified it as the spirit that inspired Italian medieval city-states.5 After the fall of the Napoleonic Empire, Romanticism inherited the republican theorem and, especially in England, the years between the 1820s and the 1860s were a true age of ‘italomania’, amplified by sympathy for the Risorgimento. A parallel was thus established between Italy’s striving for independence and its assumed Renaissance forebear.6 At the time, when Jules Michelet, Jacob Burckhardt, and John Addington Symonds formulated the category of the Italian Renaissance between the 1850s and the 1880s, the incompatibility of medieval republicanism with Renaissance despotism was thus already formed. Similarly, German cultural history gave rise to the belief that only the city-state republics could be a fertile environment for the blossoming of culture and art. This is also the Renaissance that was popularized in England; for the Victorians it arose from libertas (‘liberty’). This story continued to flourish well into the twentieth century. It re-emerges in the early 1970s, when the historian Eric Cochrane, while discussing the ‘forgotten centuries’ of Tuscan history, claimed that ‘monarchical regimes are incompatible with intellectual and cultural creativity.’7 We now move to the New World, because it was the incubator where these early assumptions grew into a myth. The Renaissance arrived in the United States in the second half of the nineteenth century, and, from the start, was recognized and welcomed as the source of the founding values of the young nation’s identity. Before professional historians started writing about it, the Italian Renaissance was already flooding the pages of American residents in Italy (Florence in particular), attracting wealthy travelers, inspiring artists and drawing the attention of insatiable art collectors. The ‘lure of Italy’ preceded the historical fortune of the Renaissance in North America.8 This fascination for Italy was later absorbed into the concept of Western Civilization, coined to rebuild an ideal bridge between the democratic regimes on the opposite sides of the Atlantic, and it quickly became a pillar for reconstructing American genealogy.9 This is the time when America fashioned itself as the re-embodiment of the Renaissance to strengthen internal consensus and to validate international supremacy. In the 1930s, the diaspora of German intellectuals further solidified this theorem and 5 Venturi, ‘L’Italia fuori’, p. 1178. 6 See Bullen, The Myth. 7 Cochrane, Florence, p. XIV. 8 See Stebbins, The Lure. 9 See Allardyce, ‘The Rise’, pp. 695–743.

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introduced the concept of ‘civic humanism’ to the debate.10 Hans Baron, in particular, gave voice to the view of a preponderantly republican humanism, which drew three generations of American historians to the archives of Florence and Venice. While playing this teleological role, the Italian Renaissance became an extraordinary success story in American universities. Its protagonists and events were investigated from a multiplicity of angles, but it was inevitably still subject to distorting forces to make it comply with the demands of the present. This was both parallel and opposed to the process leading to the construction of Italian identity. Parallel because of its republican ingredients and opposed because the Risorgimento did not leverage the Renaissance – an age of the nation’s past splendor – but rather applied an inverse relationship with the age of the Counter Reformation.11 The category of ‘decadence’ continued to be a central theme of the reading of the Italian past and found additional evidence in Benedetto Croce’s representation of the Baroque,12 when foreign dominion, religious obscurantism, and cultural servitude constituted the main ingredients of the age from which the Risorgimento assured a regeneration. Although Italy was a monarchy until 1946, courts were thus regarded as the antithesis of the process that culminated in the new parliamentary state. Americans embraced the Renaissance and Italians ignored it, but, for both, republicanism was unquestionably a noble precursor. A result of this approach is the overwhelming ‘florentinocentricity’ of the historiography. ‘My beautiful Florence! The flower of cities, the most highly cultivated of communities, the very rose of civilization’13 were the emphatic words of the novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne in 1870, concisely echoed, almost a century later, by the British historian J. H. Plumb: ‘Of all Italian cities, Florence had been the cradle of the Renaissance.’14 Florence is the Renaissance itself. In this city, were identified the birthplace and essential traits of modernity. American historians, in particular, focused on it in the search for their genetic patrimony. Florence was where their ancestors had prospered and where their values were forged. With the partial exception of Venice and Rome, we can confidently affirm that, until recent decades, the tenacity of Florentine centrality precluded the 10 For the success of the Italian Renaissance in America, see Muir, ‘The Italian’; and Molho, ‘Italian History’. 11 For a discussion of this topic, see Quondam, ‘L’identità’. 12 The classic work by Croce is Storia dell’età. 13 Hawthorne Notes, p. 372. 14 Plumb, The Italian, p. 48.

The Historiogr aphical Journey

21

possibility of appreciating the pervasiveness and plurality of the forms of the Italian Renaissance. This brings us to courts and to how they have been depicted. The place accorded to signorie (‘lordships’) and courts was, in fact, inversely linked to the myth of republicanism. Generally, historians portrayed courts as the dark side of the moon of Italian politics. Implicitly (and sometimes explicitly), courts were positioned at the opposite end of the spectrum from republics, as congregations of Oblomovist aristocrats. This ideological construct marginalized courts in the work of historians until at least fifty years ago. Although Mantua, Urbino, Milan, Ferrara, and many other capitals of princedoms were political laboratories, gatherings of humanists, and centers of art patronage, they were not considered poles of a two-way exchange with Florence and the other republican towns. We now know, however, that one of the main factors and expressions of the Italian Renaissance was precisely this capillarity of centers and the constant, intense, multi-level osmosis between them. To recapitulate (and lay a premise): it seems to me that there were two main factors that influenced how the court was represented. First, in opposition to the myth of republicanism, and, second, the fact that it was trapped in the Renaissance paradigm. This reading of the court goes back a long way. Jacobin criticism of the court was already severe, fed by polemics against luxury and aristocracy, but also by its links with (unenlightened) despotism. This does not mean that there were no courts after the French Revolution. On the contrary, the Restoration Age was marked by a grand return of the institution with Napoleon III, Queen Victoria, Franz Joseph, and the Russian Romanov dynasty. The courts survived until the end of the First World War, but this coincided with a growing negative view of them from both public opinion and historiography. It was from this nineteenth-century hinterland that aversion for the court was born, which was to continue into the twentieth century and inhibit its appropriation by scholarship. The literature is steeped in these prejudices, which indicated lack of freedom as the cause of Italy’s backwardness. Italy was straddling unification in the period, the main aim being ‘to establish a bridge that, spanning the [dark] centuries,’ links the age of the ‘free Communes with that of deliverance, redemption and the Risorgimento.’15 And so there was a chorus of condemnation of an age that saw the centuries of the courts as the source of Italy’s tragedies. In this ‘invention of tradition’ backwards, the court constituted the greatest expression of the decline 15 Olmi, ‘La corte’, p. 66.

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of civic humanism. This was the ‘baroque politics,’ marked by ‘twists and turns, ambiguity, and the complication of listening and expressing oneself,’ synthesized in that ‘dissimulation’ that was stigmatized as ‘intrigue’ and anti-political ‘duplicity.’16 The Savoys were the only exception in declaring their guiding role in the unification process. The claims of the Risorgimento also led to the centrality of the state, which would enhance that of the prince, further obscuring the court. ‘Essentially,’ wrote the historian and statesman Pasquale Villari in 1877, ‘all power then was concentrated in the despot, and the unity of the new state came into being as a personal creation by him. And with him was born the science and art of government.’17 Given this, the court ‘cannot be seen as having a positive role, nor can we find in the courtly form of society elements that contribute to making the modern world.’18 As the prince was identified with the state, the court was, at most, the place around which empty ceremonies revolved. This was the role in which the positivist and Marxist historians would remain ensnared in the twentieth century. The precursor of the rediscovery of the figure of the magnifico signore (‘magnificent lord’) was the banker and many-sided writer William Roscoe, author of two successful works: The Life of Lorenzo de’ Medici, published in 1795, and, ten years later, The Life and Pontificate of Leo X. Roscoe was seduced by the allure of the despot-prince, celebrating the very characteristics of him that Protestant morality had severely criticized.19 And for Symonds, too, the Renaissance was still ‘a history of great men.’20 For all the inevitable skullduggery and lechery, said Symonds in 1875, ‘we must render this justice to Italian despotism’ as ‘it must not be forgotten that during this period the art and culture of the Renaissance were culminating.’21 In short, he offers a positive idea of despotism, as a factor in the ‘resurrection’ of civilization in the waning of the age of the ‘free towns.’ Going further (and this is relevant for us), he also recognizes that ‘it was during the age of the despots that the conditions of the Renaissance evolved’ and ‘affected the whole of Europe.’22 In sum, it took a long time before the court seized historians’ interest. In the same way, the vision of the signoria (‘lordship’) as an ‘anomalous 16 Viroli, Dalla politica, p. 6. 17 Villari, Niccolò Machiavelli, I, p. 10. 18 Mozzarelli, ‘Principe’, p. 246. 19 See Quondam, ‘William Roscoe’, pp. 249–338. 20 Fraser, The Victorians, p. 216. 21 Symonds, The Age, pp. 96 and 87. 22 Ibid., p. 51.

The Historiogr aphical Journey

23

occurrence’ – almost a pathology created by the crisis of the Commune – continued, and so began the sad decline of the Renaissance. It was not until the end of the 1990s that someone noticed that ‘the image of the brutal and illegitimate despot’ had maintained ‘a strongly tenacious hold on the historical imagination,’ even though it was an anachronistic term ‘borrowed by nineteenth-century historians from Greek antiquity’23 and its success was due to Florentine and Venetian propaganda against the Visconti and da Carrara dynasties. And so, we should banish the ‘term despot […] from the vocabulary of late medieval Italian politics and encourage the adoption of the less charged and more accurate signore, or lord.’24 We have noted how Baron in particular was responsible for an exclusively republican view of humanism. In his wake, many studies of the 1960s and 1970s emphasized the decline of civilization that accompanied the rise of the signorie. But it was not only due to him. What gave certain voices fresh vigor after the Second World War was also the need for the Renaissance to remain relevant. The ideological climate of North American historiography in this period led to a downplaying of the ‘seignorial regimes, Renaissance equivalents of twentieth century dictatorships.’25 The battle against Nazism that had just been won, as well as the ongoing struggle against communist totalitarianism, played a decisive role in this regard. These convictions seemed to crumble in the face of the rise of new socio-cultural tensions that were tending to erode the founding values of Western Civilization. We can therefore say that, to an extent, interest in the court arose from a decline in interest in the Renaissance. One idea of civilization that was becoming obsolete was gradually giving way to another. A new Renaissance, that of the courts, was replacing the old one, as it responded better to the need for diversity that took the place of the search for affinities. Things began to change in the 1980s. Driven by multiculturalism, the Renaissance gradually left the field to the study of other cultures. Only a little later was the translation of Über den Prozess der Zivilization (1936 and 1939) by the German sociologist Norbert Elias made available, a work whose impact, together with that of the later Die Höfische Gesellschaft (1969), was to shift attention to the court as a motor force of that ‘process of civilization’ that consisted in turning the feudal warrior into a gentleman.26 23 Kohl, Padua, p. xvii. 24 Ibid., p. xviii. 25 Molho, ‘The Italian’, p. 280. 26 Elias’s works were translated into Italian between 1980 and 1983, into English between 1969 and 1982, into French between 1973 and 1975, and into Spanish between 1982 and 1987.

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Italian Courts and European Culture

To a large extent, this combination of elements explains how the court was reabsorbed into the political ambit in the early 1990s,27 as well as why a whole range of social practices and ways of thinking – and thinking about oneself – typical of court society, and hence of the ancien régime, were reconsidered. Also for scholars of architecture, art, and literature court culture was closely related to politics. The time is now gone when it was a ‘non-existent’ historiographic problem.28 By virtue of these developments, the study of the court has become newly fashionable. But this has opened a kind of Pandora’s box, setting free all manner of research topics. From all this, the court emerges as ubiquitous, but also sub-divided into a thousand different rivulets. This is a blessing and a curse. In fact, it leaves us with a daunting volume of information that is difficult to use. We also find ourselves faced with a court revival that does not lead to a systematic rethinking of the politico-cultural processes of which it was the epicenter. At the very moment of its greatest popularity, it might seem superfluous to dwell on these questions. I disagree. Starting from the vast (but heterogeneous) material available, I would therefore like to try to (re)situate the court among the institutions particular to the ancien régime and restore its proper role in expressing European culture.

27 It was officially endorsed at the conference on ‘The Origins of the State in Italy, 14th–16th Centuries’ at the University of Chicago in 1993. 28 Mozzarelli, ‘Principe’, p. 237.

2.

Historical Development

Before speaking of courts, we must speak of the principalities. In particular, we must consider the transition from republics to signorie. A diachronic mapping of thirteenth–sixteenth century Italy reveals an incessant swinging of urban governments from one type of regime to another. Instead of a crystallized picture, we find a fluid political landscape. Since the Duecento (‘thirteenth century’) we have rarely had diametrically contrary regimes and not even a gradual transition from pure republicanism to complete tyranny, but rather unsteady signorie juxtaposed and alternating with precarious Communes.1 Signorie were often interludes of Communes, and communal regimes were, in turn, interludes of many signorie. In some cases, it is hard to establish if they were genuine signorie. Also, in many cities, the relations between politics and religion had an incestuous quality and, in most cases, a signoria was established on the basis of a pact between Commune and lord. The titles or offices attributed to the latter were extremely varied, and often the constitutional formulas were (for us) an incongruous mixture of republican statutes and autocratic prerogatives. For these cases historians of the Middle Ages have coined the definitions of princely republics.2 Holding absolute authority, all lords were sovereigns in their own territory. Many were subject to vassal limitations and bonds of loyalty toward monarchs more powerful than they were. Many of them were superior to an undergrowth of collateral branches of their families and vassals of various kinds. Many were little more than ephemeral, only some of them managed to make their power hereditary, and very few established lasting dynasties. There is a bit of everything: secular dominions and ecclesiastic powers, and different titles and degrees of sovereignty. The winding trajectories of many major and minor individuals tell us much of the magmatic nature of politics. This, too, should be taken as a sign of the peculiar nature of political categories in the period. Some were mere warlords, some received a humanistic education, others were victims of the political instability in Italy, while still others headed feudal houses. Many did not achieve their ambitions, and many built principalities that evaporated leaving almost no trace of their presence. Only a few impressed their mark on their towns.

1 See Jones, The Italian, pp. 519–520. For a concise overview of northern and central Italian territorial states, see Scott, The City-State, pp. 64–128. See also Larner, The Lords. 2 See Tabacco, Egemonie, p. 355.

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Still with the aim of delineating the context, let us now briefly illustrate the historical continuity between Commune and signoria hence their contiguity – ‘political as well as cultural.’3 The so-called tyrants were not uncommonly ‘head of the republic’, and this fusion of the atmosphere of the feudal court with that of the ‘free Republic’ is perhaps the most distinctive feature of Italian society. 4 Italy had a nuanced variety of political systems. Let us also not forget the additional layer introduced by the juridical and symbolic papal and imperial vicariate, which also applied to both lords and republics. The wide range of the dynamically evolving regimes reveals an extremely fragmented map. This sheds light on the authentic political landscape of the Italian peninsula, amply painted in grey tones, rather than in black and white. The intertwining between different regimes was not the exception but the norm. Instead of a static picture, we witness constantly fluid institutional arrangements. The signoria was not an irreversible political fracture. The lord was often also delegated additional powers from below, and he did not necessarily usurp republican power by force. Often, there was a ‘condominium with the Communes.’5 Power-sharing is a customary order. Seignory was not a net rift with the Commune. In some instances, it was little more than a façade, in others the fruit of compromise, and in others again it had juridical foundations. Cohabitation between signoria and Commune was almost the norm – at least in the early stages of the signorie – and not at all an incestuous union between irreconcilable positions, as propaganda of the time argued. There was no iron curtain in Italy between signorie and Communes. Communes and signorie were not the ‘expression of opposite societies or contrasted phases of history but two coexistent’ and interlocking systems.6 What, then, is the dividing line between communal rule and autocratic signorie? Was Florence a republic under Cosimo and Lorenzo de’ Medici between 1434 and 1492? Leaving aside appearances, we know how the Medici faction infiltrated magistracies with their clients and manipulated the electoral system, emptying the formally surviving institutions.7 And what about fifteenth-century Bologna with the signoria of the Bentivoglio, whose legitimacy was sanctioned by the Commune and coexisted with papal vicariate? Similar situations can be found in many other Italian towns, large 3 Ady, The Bentivoglio, p. 207. 4 Ady, ‘Morals’, p. 2. See also Chittolini, ‘Introduzione’, pp. 10 and 11. On the debate, see Zorzi, Le signorie. 5 Jones, The Italian, p. 335. 6 Ibid., p. 548. 7 See the classic Rubinstein, The Government.

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27

and small. Where did the signoria start and the Commune end? At what point did the metamorphosis take place and what did it consist of? The dividing lines are theoretically clear, and the writings of the humanists leave no room for doubt. Nonetheless, actual behaviors reveal how porous the divisions were, and we find all manner of shades between different typologies of auctoritas (‘authority’). The duality of government was, if anything, a fertile humus for propaganda to spread. Anathematizing tyrants on the one hand and disparaging communal regimes on the other was a physiological part of the demagogy of this phase of Italian history. Similarity of governing structures and procedures was also the rule, not the exception. This was the case in the policies and management of public finances and taxation, in the administration of the local contado (‘countryside’), in the juridical systems, and in diplomacy. The transformations and continuities in the organization and competency of offices and legislative councils, the bending of civic statutes and the twisting of constitutional orders also depicts an intricate socio-political interplay. The intersections extended to the variety of laws and procedures signori inherited from Communes. This was also true for the reorganization of criminal jurisdictions, administrative optimization, and bureaucratic rationalization. There was also little change in policing measures.8 Most of this political overturning was not accompanied by tabula rasa transitions of the local patriciates: there was no such thing as a spoils system. The communal bureaucracy commonly remained in place under signori, and government positions were occupied by the same people. The same clans and guilds continued to drive the city’s political agenda. ‘Beneath the façade, sustaining and uniting’ republics and despots ‘in intimate association were similar group interests, a common interdependent elite with shared ideals, social attitudes, and political objectives.’9 Public offices were the prerogative of the urban patriciate that commonly managed to perpetuate itself across political turmoil. It originally consisted of the professional urban elite, but it adapted to changing circumstances and not uncommonly transitioned from communal positions to court appointments. The advent of the signorie triggered almost everywhere a process of aristocratization that led to the creation of a court oligarchy. With ennoblements or the conferring of benefices, court life needed formalizing. Hence the demand arose for precise, functional rules of behavior to sanction prestige and honor,

8 See Jones, The Italian, p. 378 ff. and Ruggiero, Violence. 9 Jones, The Italian, p. 648.

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from etiquette to diplomatic protocol, precedence, and those rules of grazia (‘grace’) that Baldassarre Castiglione went on to formulate. Why this digression on republic and principality? Why start from so far away if our aim is to study the influence of Italian courts on Europe? In addition, as we have said, it was (at least partly) already known about. The reason we have already indicated at the start, but, at this point, it is worth recalling that it is also useful for defining our frame of reference. What have we established, then? First, the signoria did not come after the Commune, and still less did it originate from a crisis in the Commune.10 If anything, the experience of the Communes is to be situated in the spatial and temporal interstices of the seignorial powers. The Commune flourished in a long seignorial period and was an institutional anomaly. Frequently, we also find ourselves dealing with hybrid forms of government. Second, the prevalence of seignorial regimes is a statistically concrete fact: between the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries almost 400 lords are listed in the Repertorio delle esperienze signorili cittadine (‘Repertoire of city lordly experiences’).11 There are three essential facts here: the large number of seignorial and monarchic states, the fact that they cover the entire peninsula, and that this was so for a long period. Between the fourteenth and eighteenth centuries, Italy was a close-packed nebula of signorie. The multitude of stories created an intimately interwoven web. It is important to sketch this picture, because it will keep coming up. This was the shattered, constantly evolving nature of the late-medieval Italian signorie, which, gradually and by different paths, are the premise of those princely powers that, in later centuries, were destined to give life to the splendid world of the courts. In this way, the traditional chronologies based on supposed political fractures do not apply to the period between the fourteenth and eighteenth centuries. Instead, we have periodizations that are intrinsic to the development of the seignorial regimes. ‘The long process of subsidence that had started with the disintegration of the communal states’ may be ‘regarded as closing more or less around the 1430s.’12 After this phase, there was a period of seignorial stabilization in the mid-fifteenth century that would define the organization of Italy. Despite the wars of the early sixteenth century, a mosaic of regional states took form, most of them principalities, which would come down to the age of the Restoration. For the long centuries 10 Maire Vigueur, ‘Introduzione’, p. 11. 11 See Signorie. 12 Chittolini, ‘Introduzione’, p. 31.

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of the ancien régime, the court offers itself as the central institution for Italian (and European) history. Its zenith, the Italy of the dynasties, would occur between the early sixteenth and late seventeenth centuries, but with significant offshoots.13 This is, for us, the golden age of the courts, the centuries in which Italy’s cultural supremacy was strongest and during which its models radiated outwards the most. In this context, too, the south of Italy is not a separate world, but a land of monarchies and royal courts, conversing with the signorie and principalities of the center north. The royal culture of the south preceded and nurtured that of the northern signorie and enjoyed close relations with the northern cities. They made alliances with them, traded, and artists and intellectuals moved unhampered between them. For a long period of time, the Provençal dynasty of the Angevins in particular played a key role in the internal political conflicts.14 The Italian and European monarchies possessed, in turn, a patrimony of values, cultural, and ceremonial, that ‘greatly intrigued the inhabitants of the cities.’15 Without a doubt, the monarchic model was ‘a powerful instrument of propaganda in support of seignorial ambitions.’16 The contiguity and interpenetration between north and south naturally suggests a generalized sharing of values and knowledge. The courts constituted the reference point of the intellectual class, used by politics and producing politics. Court and aristocratic culture – to a certain extent – is present everywhere. The seignorial density of the peninsula leads to a saturation of court culture – more than we have liked to admit. By this means, from the late fifteenth century on, they reinvented the specific codes that would dominate the succeeding phase of modernity. In this sense, the polycentric system of the courts marks out the real physiognomy of the Renaissance: many different micro-histories flowing into a macro-history. It was this very fragmentation that was the terrain from which the cultural homogeneity guided by the courts originated – not from any single one in particular, but from all of them jointly. The municipal specificity moved ‘toward a homologation of intellectual activity,’17 which – after being consolidated in Italy – moved to Europe. The court functioned as an epicenter of a process of cultural coagulation. The early-sixteenth-century makers of the ‘morphological’ unification ‘of the written language’ in Italy 13 For an overview of the Italian dynasties, see Spagnoletti, Le dinastie. 14 See Galasso, ‘Charles Ier’, pp. 85–97. 15 Grillo, ‘Introduzione’, p. 8. On these aspects, see also Zorzi, ‘Una e trina’, pp. 435–443. 16 Grillo, ‘Introduzione’, p. 9. 17 Mazzacurati, Rinascimento, pp. 17 and 41.

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were also court intellectuals. Pietro Bembo, who was the leading figure in this process, was in Ferrara, Urbino, and Rome, but Castiglione, too, saw the linguistic canon as an intrinsic element of the socio-cultural system of the court. Between 1480 and 1530, a new ‘Italian cultural geography’18 was redesigned in this way, and the relation between culture and power was stabilized. From the mid-fourteenth century on, humanism burst into this now compact universe, and this changed the rules of the game, leading to the formation of classical models. This was one of the main fractures that originated within the court and designed a new periodization of the modern age, a discontinuity of cultural codes, and mental horizons that Europe would then go on to import. In this view of things, the courts were undoubtedly the main laboratory of this cultural homologation. From this moment on, it would no longer be the Italian lords who took inspiration from foreign monarchic models. With the rebirth of the ancients, it would now be for the European monarchs to draw on the formidable artistic and cultural heritage of the Italian princes. But before reaching this point, let us dwell briefly on the Italian politico-cultural universe. If the reader will be patient just a little longer.

18 Ibid., pp. 56 and 75.

3.

A World of Courts

3a What Is the Court? Which of these lords, tyrants, and princes whom we have encountered, and how many of them, initiated a court? It is hard to be exact, sometimes because of a lack of sources, but, more generally, because of an absence of precise criteria for defining what a court is. Certainly, not everyone had a court, and that, in turn, depended on various factors. In many, cases there were not the structural or circumstantial conditions for it. Sometimes, this depended on political instability. Sometimes, the conditions for constituting a courtier class were lacking, due to incomplete social training or the existence of hostile parties. One frequent cause was a dearth of economic resources. Sometimes, quite simply, the lord did not have the time to create a court, and often this was due to the impossibility of building a residence that was not a superficial restyling of the previous public palaces or clan residences. This also shows us that size is not a reliable parameter for defining a court. Similarly, there is no direct relation between the greatness of a state and its court, and its territorial extension, which also has little to do with its standing. Despite their highly reduced domains, the Aleramici and Vitelli families undeniably had a court, at Piombino and Città di Castello, respectively. The same goes for the Cybo and Manfredi families at Massa and Faenza, and for the swarm of satellite micro-dynasties of the Gonzaga. And the court of the Marquises of Monferrato was also ‘important’ by virtue of their ties with the Byzantine dynasty of the Paleologo. In any case, almost all the Italian courts were courts of small states: the courts might be large or small, but the states were always small. Instead of drawing on a prototype, we should proceed empirically. In some cases, there is no doubt: there was a court in Turin from 1563 to 1864, in Rome there had always been one since the popes installed themselves in the Lateran palaces, and the Norman kings certainly held court in Palermo. It is more arduous, however, to establish when the Este and Gonzaga families laid the foundations for a court or claim precisely what kind of court the Scaligeri set up in Verona. Whether some will be called courts and others not will depend on what we decide are the essential requisites. In addition, what might have been a court in the fourteenth century does not have the same characteristics as one in the sixteenth. Though standards may change, as well as the perception of contemporaries, in different periods, the percentage of

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princes with courts in the fifteenth century was decidedly higher than that of lords in the fourteenth. Much will depend on the standards we formulate as we proceed with our enquiry. Before venturing into the territory of Italian courts, we should provide ourselves with some notion of what a court is. This is not an easy task. There is no prêt-à-porter definition, and, even if there were, it would be imprudent to apply it to all the variants. We need, then, to make one (or more than one) for ourselves to describe a world that includes the whole range of formulas of sovereignty in a broad chronological span. And we should also take seriously the judgments of contemporaries. In the Middle Ages, the term curia referred to a center of administrative power, a sovereign’s residence, and the retinue of nobles and servants that surrounded him. These ingredients remained more or less unvaried for centuries. In his manuscript treatise De fortuna aulica (1396), the humanist Giovanni Conversini divided the court into the prince’s family, the men of government, the functionaries, and, lastly, the household servants.1 In his dialog Il Malpiglio (1587), Torquato Tasso called a court a ‘congregation of men brought together by honor’. Shortly after, in his Iconologia (1593), Cesare Ripa wrote that the court was ‘a company of well-bred men in the service of a distinguished superior.’2 So, what are the requisites that make it a court? I shall suggest four: the physical spaces, society, politics, and symbolism. The court is the place where the prince lives, surrounded by those who serve him and help him govern the state; it is also the seat of power, the center of ceremonial, as well as the fulcrum of artistic and cultural output. A court was thus not defined by size but rather by functions, behaviors, and norms. This said, in many cases, we shall have proof enough on one or more of these aspects, but rarely the co-presence of all four elements. Not all these traits were necessarily given at the same time, and this is the reason for the existence of multifaceted samples of this peculiar power entity. Hence, Italy not only had many courts, but also many typologies of court. Let us look more closely, then, at these characteristics of the court, starting with architecture. Being the prince’s residence, the court was identified with a specific place. Its most common forms were the castellum (‘castle’), palatium (‘palace’), or enclosure. If we start with the medieval castle, we have the two Este and Gonzaga fortresses, the Angevin keep in Naples, or the many fortified residences of the medieval city signorie. The rediscovery of classical stylistic features later brought into vogue the prototype of 1 Quoted in Kohl, Padua under, p. 293. 2 Tasso, Il Malpiglio, p. 552; Ripa, Iconologia, p. 3.

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the palatium, which inspired the constructions ex novo or Renaissance remodelings in Urbino, or in Mantua with the Domus Nova designed by Leon Battista Alberti. By contrast, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, ‘court’ meant a large palace, or a genuine precinct inside which a complex of buildings gave rise to a miniature city, Castiglione’s ‘city in the form of a palace.’3 The court was distinguished overall for its ‘dignity’, its cleanliness, the quality of its buildings, and the regularity of its plan. For these reasons, but also for the ritual it housed and its allegorical decorations, the space of power was dense and filled with meaning. Every court, large or small, was also – and this reflected on the whole city that housed it – a sacred space, as power descends from God. Lastly, we have the codes introduced by treatises on the modeling of a city following the plans of the ancients. These spaces were codified in Italy from the mid-fifteenth century on, and European sovereigns invariably looked at them in planning courts and cities, and (re) defining the symbolism of their power. By court we mean a well-defined ‘social formation’ (to adopt Norbert Elias’s famous formula) that, over time, extended and developed into separate bodies. The court was a closed, restricted society, mainly consisting of aristocrats who had left commerce or warfare. 4 Access to the court was by appointment with the prince, and all those who served in his entourage had specific roles. Without exception, they were all linked to him by a personal tie. From the prince they received, in exchange, a salary, maintenance, honor, and privileges. Numerically, the size of courts varied extremely – from a few dozen people in the medieval signorie to the thousands of individuals in Baroque Rome. The Medici court grew from the ten or so servants in the early years of Cosimo I’s dukedom (1537–1564), to the 900 or more with Cosimo III (1670–1723); the fourteenth- and fifteenth-century courts of the many Gonzaga branches hardly had fifty active components; the retinue of Ranuccio I Farnese (1646–1694) in Parma consisted of 226 persons; in 1598, the Ferrara court of Alfonso II d’Este had 480. The sources indicate that the court of Galeazzo Maria Sforza (1466–1476) numbered almost 2,000 individuals (but this probably included local craftsmen and non-salaried figures); the court of Leo X (1514–1516) listed more than 1,000 members, a figure approached by the Savoy court in Turin in the late seventeenth century; and, lastly, in 1591, the payrolls of the court of Vincenzo I Gonzaga listed 529 names.5 These are just fragments. Though the sources are not 3 4 5

For this process, see Fantoni, Il potere. See Bertelli, ‘La corte’, pp. 134 ff. See Fantoni, La corte, pp. 29–31.

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always generous, as a rule we can conjecture that between three and seven per cent of the citizenry was employed at court. The total of those revolving around it – occasional figures, artisans and suppliers, foreign guests, and artists – gives a much higher figure, however. As the number grew, the internal organization became more complex, which is almost always synonymous with more elaborate rituals and functions. Renaissance courts now had clearly defined sectors, often called ‘offices’: the ‘wardrobe’ that oversaw furnishings, the ‘chamber’, the ‘table’, the ‘stable’, the ‘chapel,’ and the ‘kitchen,’ etc. The figures populating the courts included pages, confessors, stewards, butlers, bodyguards, artists, doctors, tutors for minors, ladies in waiting, etc. Not all of them were liveried or salaried, and only some were admitted to the prince’s presence, but all of them had clearly defined duties, were placed in a rigid hierarchy, and enjoyed benef its. The cost grew with the number of dependents, but there was no direct link between the two: small courts could have proportionately higher costs than large ones. From the available data we know that the court absorbed on average between ten and twenty per cent of state budgets, but it would be reductive to regard it merely from the point of view of expenditure and consumption.6 Economic historians have discussed the question at length, concluding that the presence of a court was positive for a city’s economy. The court was not an economically parasitical body.7 All this – let us not forget – should also be placed in a different cultural context. The prince’s power was based on a web of relations that needed constant tending with favors. Display, generous gifts, and virtues, such as liberalitas (‘generosity’), were thus essential for understanding the political, and therefore qualitative, value of court expenditure. Courts were primarily political entities in all their manifold forms; they were decision-making centers, the confluence of the ruling class and the fulcrum of public offices. They contained all, or almost all, the functions of the state, from the councils flanking the prince to the administration of justice, chancelleries, secretariats, and financial magistracies. Moreover, there was no such thing as the separation between court and state, between ruling and governing. The court was the state; it was the peculiar form of the early-modern state. ‘Ruling’ and ‘governing’ were terms in the same equation. The power of princes was also based on negotiation and compromise, and personal relations were intrinsic to it. The mobility imposed on court 6 See De Maddalena, Le finanze. 7 See La cour comme.

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positions aimed to erode the old oligarchies and consolidate a new ruling class. The prince tended to set up a retinue of underlings. Despite the variation in time and space, the ruling process always jointly involved courtiers and ministers, favorites, secretaries, financial advisors, butlers, confessors, diplomatic officials, and military cadres. Papal nuncios and ambassadors converged on the court, and members of the chivalric orders and the nobility orbited around it. The young of the main local and foreign families served or were educated there. Which brings us to another point: courts were laboratories for the creation of new institutional practices. The court (and not the state) was the locomotive of political modernization, and signorie (not Communes) functioned as trailblazers of the process. The Popes, the Anjou and Aragon monarchies, the Medici and Este families, and the many smaller seignorial regimes gave birth to organized government apparatuses. The functions of the court were the incubators of modern bureaucracy. It has also been shown that administrative rationalization within principalities happened first in the smaller ones. The Italian states revolved around a prince, and they became states more quickly where there was ‘greater centralization of functions and powers in the hands of the prince.’8 Social relations and symbolism were also part of the political realm. They provided artistic and ceremonial expressions of politics. The contribution of social groups, the role of prominent individuals, the personal ties of loyalty, the value of honor, and the pursuit of splendor, the behavioral norms – and much more – pervaded the functioning of power. Moreover, this was encapsulated in a specific cultural and ethical dimension. Social distinctions, the logic of favors, and the norms regulating grazia (‘grace’) and decoro (‘decorum’) delineate a more authentic image of the true forces at stake. The political domain was based on a plurality of agents and on a vast assortment of actors. The way the court was organized caused many courtiers to play active ceremonial roles. The court also served as a royal stage: ‘it was a lofty theater, raised up and exposed to the view of the whole world,’ wrote Eustache Refuge in the early seventeenth century.9 More than anyone else, the prince was exposed, added Don Pio Rossi, in the same period, ‘to the view of a world of spectators.’10 The court was the scene of festivals and the ephemeral. For the same reasons, it was identified with splendor and was seen as a 8 Mozzarelli, ‘Il Senato’, pp.184, 211 and 226. 9 Refuge, Trattato, p. 4. 10 Rossi, Convito morale, II, p. 175.

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concentrate of beauty. Here, artists, men of letters, musicians, actors, and scientists worked, making it a cultural nerve center and part of what created the prince’s majesty. For these reasons, governing functions and courtly manners were part of the same domain. Aristocratic forma del vivere (‘way of life’) and state roles belonged to the same sphere. Etiquette followed a very clear script, based on codified precepts and was crucial in regulating hierarchies and confirming sovereignty. On the other hand, this gave political prerogatives to courtiers, peculiar to this political culture. The natural upshot of this is Castiglione and the need to ‘form a perfect courtier,’ who would obey the rules of good upbringing, but who also knows how to use them to ingratiate himself with the prince and so perform the delicate task of guiding his choices. It was in the field of manners, the dialectic between onore (‘honor’) and utile (‘useful’), and how a gentleman thought and saw himself, that the politics of the early modernity is explained. The grammar of the courtier expressed by Castiglione – and his countless epigones – founded practices and ways of being that were consubstantial with that specific political dimension. Through the grazia (‘grace’) we may therefore ‘understand the ancien régime as a culturally homogeneous cosmos that was only disrupted in the late eighteenth century.’11 These were the rules that the court elaborated, through which socially unbalanced bonds were created. And it is on this fundamental premise that I shall undertake a survey of the Italian courts.

3b Courts Everywhere In the early Middle Ages, courts existed in Capua and in Pavia under Lombard rule. Before becoming a principality under the Normans (1058–1107), Capua had been the seat of a gastaldate in Campania since the sixth century. After the deposition of the last Lombard king in 924, Pavia remained the place where Italian kings were crowned until the twelfth century. The city returned to the condition of court under the Visconti family of Milan. Palermo was the capital of the Kingdom of Sicily. Robert Guiscard, successor of the Byzantine Duke of Sicily (1059–1085), had already given rise to a splendid court there, and the city later hosted the Norman court of Altavilla until 1194. Great architectural projects were undertaken by the Normans with the cathedral and the Palatine chapel. Even Boccaccio could not escape the fascination of William II (1167–1189) and he set two of the novelle in his 11 Mozzarelli, ‘Prefazione’, I, p. VIII.

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Decameron at his court. Palermo later transitioned to the Hohenstaufens and became the court of Frederick II (1220–1250). After Frederick’s grandson Conradin died in 1268, Sicily passed to the Angevins dynasty. Especially in Naples, the Anjous (1282–1442) established one of the main international courts of the time.12 It was Charles I who transferred the capital from Palermo to Naples. The residence of the Anjous was the Castel Nuovo, designed by the French architect Pierre de Chaules. With Robert, who was also King of Jerusalem and Count of Provence (1309–1343), the magnificent palace became a remarkable center of artistic and literary culture, hosting Petrarch, Boccaccio, and Giotto. For almost six centuries, between 1282 and 1860, Naples was continuously the seat of a court under different foreign monarchs: the Aragons (1442–1501), Spain (1504–-1714), and the Bourbons, first between 1735 and 1806 and, again, after the fall of Napoleon (1816–1860). From the fourth century, the Lateran was the apostolic residence, and the pontiffs were enthroned in the adjacent basilica. Commingling ancient tradition and religious rituals and spaces, for almost one thousand years the Lateran incarnated the theocratic authority of the Roman popes over Christendom. Along with Byzantium, the curia of the Lateran was of extraordinary importance, and it represented the undisputed model for medieval courts. On two occasions, papal courts were set up outside, in Viterbo (1266–1281) and Avignon (1309–1377). After the French captivity and the Great Schism, the papacy returned to Rome and, with Martin V (1417–1431), it settled in the Vatican Apostolic palaces across the Tiber, giving birth to a new glorious season of magnificence that lasted well into the age of the Counter Reformation. Throughout the entire ancien régime Rome was considered the ‘theater of the world’ in recognition of its undisputed political and cultural centrality.13 We now move to Central and Northern Italy, the lands of seignorial powers. Courts were created by the Scaligeri family in Verona toward the end of their rule (1272–1387) and by the da Carrara in Padua between 1318 and 1405. The construction of the della Scala Castelvecchio was carried out between 1354 and 1376, but they were already holding court in town by the end of the previous century. Cangrande (1308–1387) was an enlightened lord, and men of letters and artists found a welcome during his time. Patronage from the della Scala brought painters such as Altichiero and Pisanello to Verona, and Dante Alighieri was a guest between 1312 and 1318. A Reggia (‘royal residence’) was completed in Padua in 1338. It was a genuine ‘island’ in 12 See Les Princes. 13 See the essay collected in Court and Politics.

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the heart of the city, set apart by walls, and consisting of a Palazzo di Ponente (the prince’s residence) and a Palazzo di Levante (for the women). Francesco il Vecchio da Carrara (1356–1388) moved his chief officers, humanists, a chancery, judicial magistracies, and all his courtiers to it. After a short period of Venetian domination, Francesco Novello (1390–1405) reconquered the city and made it the seat of a pre-Renaissance court centered around the splendid Sala Virorum Illustrium (‘hall of illustrious men’).14 Courts were established by the Manfredi family in the Romagna towns of Imola and Faenza after Giovanni di Ricciardo obtained the lordship in 1350. Corrado Aleramici was King of Jerusalem from 1192 and Marquis of Montferrat from 1191. Therefore, the small town of Casale in the Piedmont happened to be the location of one of the most highly regarded courts of Italy until 1305. The da Polenta family set up as lords of Ravenna and developed a court between the 1320s and the 1390s.15 Many seignorial courts did not make it to the Renaissance but some of them did. Quintessential Renaissance courts with a medieval origin were Urbino, Ferrara, and Mantua. They are almost too famous to dwell upon. They were certainly the cradle of cultural models that would be exported all over Europe. It was the archetypal Renaissance triangle where classicism was developed by humanists, artists, and poets, with rich libraries, and large art and antique collections. They were home to the most talented artists of the Renaissance. Their princes, educated by humanists, well understood the value of splendor to maintain their power and they bestowed their patronage on music and epics, painting and opera. Urbino was ruled by the Montefeltro family until 1523, when they moved to Pesaro and the dukedom – after a Medici interlude – went to the della Rovere. Like other cities, Pesaro had seen a succession of different courts. The first was that created by Malatesta dei Sonetti from 1368 to 1429, followed in 1445 by Alessandro Sforza, and finally – after subduing the city – Pope Julius II annexed it to the domains of his nephew Francesco Maria della Rovere. The della Rovere family, who were dukes of Urbino, would thus hold court in Pesaro from 1513 to 1621.16 The Estes were first marquises and later dukes of Ferrara between 1452 and 1598. After the devolution, they moved to Modena and Reggio Emilia, where they established new courts that survived until 1859.17 The House of Gonzaga seized Mantua after expelling the Bonacolsi clan in 1328 and kept it until 14 See Kohl, Padua under, pp. 133–139 and 292–296. See also Bertelli, The Courts. 15 For an overview, see Cantarella, Principi. 16 See La corte, pp. 14–35. 17 For more details, see Signorotto, ‘Modena’.

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the early eighteenth century, when the Gonzaga-Nevers branch inherited it. For at least two centuries (if not more), Mantua was a cultural center second to none: here, Alberti, Mantegna, Giulio Romano, Rubens, and Titian produced some of their finest work; here, the first modern musical dramas were performed; here, the first companies of the Commedia dell’Arte cut their teeth; and here, were to be found some of the most admired collections of paintings and antiquities in Europe.18 A court was established in Bologna by the Bentivoglio family. From 1463 to 1506, Giovanni II ‘was able to live like a prince and maintain one of the most splendid courts of Italy.’19 In 1473, Pope Sextus IV gave his power hereditary status, and, in 1494, the emperor, Maximilian I, confirmed his privileges of creating knights and including an eagle – as long as it was not black – in his coat of arms. The Bentivoglio court was frequented by men of letters like Sabadino degli Arienti and artists like Perugino, Filippino Lippi, and Francesco Francia. Unfortunately, nothing remains of the great palace in the parish of Santa Cecilia, as it was razed to the ground after the papal conquest, but we know it was lived in from 1475 and contemporaries considered it the equal of the ducal palace in Urbino and the castle in Mantua. Rimini became a court in the late fourteenth century, thanks to the Malatesta. Its moment of glory coincided with Sigismondo Pandolfo (1432–1468) and its physical expression was the famous Tempio Malatestiano designed by Leon Battista Alberti and decorated by Piero della Francesca and others. A typical f ifteenth-century lord and condottiero (‘military captain’), Sigismondo served the same pope who had excommunicated him in 1462 and, as a humanist prince, ‘nurtured a Greek revival and surrounded himself with artists and poets’ who crafted an image of him as ‘a classical hero who cultivated pagan virtue.’20 The court vanished when Rimini was annexed to the Papal States in 1528. After the Malaspina, the Cybo held court in their possessions of Massa and Carrara. When Alberico Cybo was enfeoffed by the emperor, Maximilian II, in 1568, he built a new palace in a restored and enlarged Carrara, and here exercised the artistic patronage of a small prince. There had been a court in Milan since 1277, when the Viscontis received full power from the Commune. The imperial diploma of 1395 later granted Gian Galeazzo the title of duke, and with it the court continued to grow until the mid-fifteenth century along with the Visconti ambitions of royal status. 18 See Cole, Italian Renaissance. 19 Ady, The Bentivoglio, p. 98. On the Bentivoglio court, see also ‘Bentivolorum magnificentia”. 20 D’Elia, Pagan Virtue, p. 3.

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The court took form in the building of the Castello di Porta Giova from 1358 to 1370, which remained the seat of power until it was destroyed when the signoria fell in 1447. After the short interlude of the Ambrosian Republic, the new Sforza dynasty was installed, and would remain in power until 1499. Immediately after taking command of the duchy in 1450, Francesco Sforza began the reconstruction of the castle, which would so increase in size and splendor that, as we shall see, it was taken as a model by various sovereigns in eastern Europe. For more than a century, between the Visconti and Sforza periods, the Milanese court was one of the most important in the peninsula.21 Paolo Guinigi was nominated lord of Lucca in 1400 and held power long enough to weave matrimonial ties and give himself a court worthy of a prince. He imitated the patronage of the other Italian lords and had important architectural projects completed – in particular, Villa Guinigi, within the walls, which was a genuine palatium, with an extensive library, an art collection and a closed garden.22 In Siena, Pandolfo Petrucci (1496–1512) began to develop a court as soon as he took power. In doing this, he drew on the rules of splendor, with his residence in Piazza Duomo, begun in 1506, and with the building of a family mausoleum in the convent of the Osservanza (1494).23 There was a court for nearly a century in Foligno with the Trinci family, between its being made an apostolic vicariate in 1349 and its annexing to the Papal State in 1439.24 In another Umbrian town, Città di Castello, the Vitelli family created a small Renaissance court in the fifteenth century in their Palazzo alla Cannoniera. Guastalla had already been elevated to the status of a county under the Torelli (1428) when Ferrante Gonzaga bought it for 22,000 gold scudi in 1539 to build a small ideal city. The presence of Ferrante was commemorated by his statue, made by Leoni Leoni and installed in the main square by his son Cesare in 1594. Guastalla continued to be a court for more than 200 years, home to artists like Guercino and Torquato Tasso. A fully fledged court and ideal city designed by the architect Domenico Giunti da Prato existed in Sabbioneta under Vespasiano Gonzaga (1556–1591). Like Guastalla, Sabbioneta is identified with its founder, who was also a vassal of the King of Spain.25 All the small estates of the lateral branches of the Gonzaga family – Bozzolo, Novellara, Suzzara, Bagnolo, Luzzara, and 21 See Lubkin, A Renaissance. 22 See Altavista, Lucca. 23 See Clough, ‘Pandolfo Petrucci’, pp. 383–397. 24 See Signorie in Umbria. 25 For Guastalla and Sabbioneta, see Ferrante Gonzaga and Forster, ‘From “Rocca”’.

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various others – were micro-courts. They may not all have had completely autonomous powers, but each of them was certainly worthy of being regarded as a court, as was the tiny Fontanellato, land of the Sanvitale family. One need only look at Parmigianino’s portrait of Galeazzo da Sanvitale in 1524 to dispel any doubt (see cover picture). Castiglione’s Cortegiano was still four years from publication, but what – if not a perfetto gentiluomo (‘perfect gentleman’), endowed with grazia – is this small prince? The court of the marquisate of Saluzzo reached its apogee in the fifteenth century. The Pio family created an elegant seignorial court in the town of Carpi until 1525, as did the Pico family in Mirandola (1310–1711), and the counts of Correggio in Correggio. Colorno became a court in 1458 and remained under the Sanseverino family until 1612. The castle of Piombino on the Tuscan coast hosted the Appiani court from 1445 until 1634. In 1545, the Farnese pope, Paul III managed to have his son Pier Luigi elected Duke of Parma. After his assassination, his brother Ottavio (1547–1586) secured the throne (and added Piacenza to his title) by marrying Margherita, the illegitimate daughter of Charles V. Until 1731, the two cities were the poles of a two-headed court with two grand palaces. The splendor of the Farnese family also derived from their international profile in the Spanish empire and relied upon their other extensive Italian fiefdoms. The artists in their entourage included Correggio, Parmigianino, and Giovanni Lanfranco, and their Palazzo della Pillotta contained one of the first Renaissance theaters. Turin became a court city in 1563 and continued to be the Savoy capital until Italy’s unification. The Savoys had the city designed as one of the most complete Baroque capitals of Europe by several generations of architects, Juvarra, Guarini, and Castellamonte, among others. The Medicis started developing a court in Palazzo Vecchio until Ferdinand I finally moved it to Palazzo Pitti in the 1580s. By virtue of their wealth and their marriage alliances with the prominent European dynasties, the Medicis created a formidable art machine. For two centuries (1532–1737), Florence was one of the most admired and emulated courts on the continent.26 It did not end here. After signing the contract with Charles V as Captain General of the Habsburg fleet in the Mediterranean (1528), Andrea Doria exercised an ‘almost’ princely power over the city of Genoa and held court there until 1560. In exchange for liberation from the French, and for placing government in the hands of twenty-eight noble families, the republic conferred on Doria ‘the title of Pater Patriae et Liberator’ imitating the

26 See Pollack, Turin and Fantoni, ‘The Grand’.

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‘honors granted to Augustus’ by the Roman Senate.’27 Andrea shifted the seat of power from the town hall to Villa Doria, adopting classical iconography on the advice of his friend Paolo Giovio. Synthesizing military, republican, aristocratic, and imperial symbolism, Andrea brought ‘the culture of Renaissance courts to Genoa […] with the aim of creating a princely environment in the Genoese Republic.’28 Finally, it has also been argued that Venice too produced a ceremonial and artistic system similar to a court.29 After the Serrata of 1297 Venice took the form of a closed oligarchy, guided by an elected prince, not very different from the Papal State or the Kingdom of Poland. As such, Venice several times came close to becoming itself a hereditary principality. A well-known case is that of Doge (‘duke’) Francesco Foscari, who was also helped by his long tenure from 1423 to 1457.30 I shall stop here. It has been a tour de force. Between large and small courts, I have mentioned a good fifty of them. And yet, there are many others that could be cited from secondary seats, summer palaces, and satellite courts. But it is more than enough – I hope – to give an idea of the overall picture. There were courts from Sicily to the Alps and most Italian cities and territorial states were at some point centered on a court. City-state republics were a geographically circumscribed and chronologically limited phenomenon; courts were everywhere from the seventh to the twentieth century. This is the real continuity and defining trait of Italian political and cultural history. There were many different types of court. Even if we exclude the courts of the cardinals, baronial households and the retinues of the many imperial and papal vassals, Italy still stands out as a polyhedric universe of courts blanketing its territory. They were different in size, in the lavishness of their residences, and they differed in their social composition; but they were all courts to the extent that their lords enjoyed some kind of authority. Even if we wanted to put things in order, we would still find ourselves faced by an extremely multiform scene. We have seen royal and ecclesiastical courts, medieval and Baroque courts, courts that enjoyed long seasons of splendor, and others that vanished before reaching maturity. We have seen male and female courts, rich and poor, new courts, courts that replaced other courts, courts used as a model and courts that tried to imitate others. Though closed in on themselves, all were connected to their cities. The 27 Gorse, ‘Committenza’, p. 257. 28 Ibid., p. 265. 29 See Casini, I gesti. 30 See Romano, In the Likeness.

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court existed and was functioning, perhaps more slowly and with limited activities, even when the prince was absent. It was not an isolated body, but part of an articulated structure. This is due to the circulation of texts, fashions, people, artifacts, and codes of behavior. To which we may add diplomatic relations and the sharing of artists, men of arms and letters and statesmen. A standardizing factor was also the protocol for the endless formal celebrations that marked out the calendar. The main factor linking them, however, was marriage. Between the fourteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Este family formed ties with the families of da Carrara, Malatesta (of both Saluzzo and Rimini), Gonzaga, Montefeltro, da Correggio, Pio (of Carpi), da Varano of Camerino, Pico of Mirandola, Sforza, Borgia, Bentivoglio, Medici, della Rovere, and Cybo, without counting the marriages of cadet sons with the families of the feudal nobility. Suppose we were to extend the list to all the Italian aristocratic and royal houses. We would certainly have a system in which everybody would prove to be related to everybody else in a sort of large family. Italian history from the fourteenth to the twentieth century, then, is a history of dynasties – small and great dynasties.31 ‘The close network of family and blood relationships among the states of Northern Italy undoubtedly helped to create a kind of koiné, a language of manners and etiquette common at all levels to the various courts.’32 All this primed and favored (as we shall see) the establishment of a broader European network. We should see the court as the founder and center of values and knowledge, giving meaning to the transversal politico-cultural schema to which the thought and action of a gentleman responded. The element of unity in the ancien régime revealed, in the end, the transnationality of its ideological and ethical vocabulary, and of the social practices whose fulcrum was in the court cosmos. As is rightly said, in this way, ‘from Renaissance Italy on […]a European ecumene of the courts’ developed, with numerous variations of detail, marked by ‘shared underlying values’, in which ‘should be recognized the true legacy of the Italian Renaissance, which was able to give a decisive impetus […] to the culture of aristocratic Europe.’33 Courts existed everywhere in and beyond Europe. However, the courts of Italy had a model of their own and followed their own peculiar evolution. They were all courts, but all different according to the historical period in which they were formed or were active. In this sense, the Norman court in 31 See Spagnoletti, Le dinastie. 32 The Courts of. 33 Reinhardt, Il Rinascimento, pp. 124–125.

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Sicily cannot be compared to the Baroque court of the Savoy in Piedmont, just as Francesco I Gonzaga’s (1382–1407) was materially and functionally different from his descendant’s Carlo II (1637–1665). However magnificent, the papal court in the medieval Lateran had physical structures and cultural typologies unlike those of the Renaissance court that settled into the Vatican palaces in the mid-fifteenth century, and still more so as regards those of post-Tridentine Rome. As we have seen, the Middle Ages in Italy were swarming with signorie in the north and center and royal courts in the south, while in the Renaissance the north progressed toward principalities. The encounter between court and humanists was, in particular, a cultural turning-point in creating a professional class of counselors and secretaries in the chancelleries, as their schools educated the young princes in the humanities and – above all – they introduced classicism. But it was with the greater stability brought by the Treaty of Lodi (1454) that the princely courts finally consolidated their politico-cultural supremacy. Courts were complex bodies with many dimensions. Following their changing shape and functions over time means considering various interpenetrating levels that were not necessarily moving in unison. This may be why historiography is no great help to us. For the signorie of Northern Italy alone we can suggest three phases: the domestic-clanic one of the elementary, primitive state of an extended family; the signorile one, which took over when an individual had created a stable power base; and the bureaucratic-ritual one of the late Renaissance and Baroque periods, in which its political and representative functions were fully developed.34 The material structures changed along with them, and a courtier class was defined and professionalized, the rules of aristocratic life being codified, and the glittering machine of glory was developed. This brings us to the main watershed in the mid-sixteenth century. More precisely, between the 1530s and 1560s, various circumstances came together: above all, the formation of regional states when the Italian wars ended and – especially – the stating of Castiglione’s doctrine. Still in these crucial years, Charles V was to give a decisive impetus to the adoption of Italian courtly-classical models on a continental scale. After Cateau-Cambrésis (1559), the Pax hispanica ensured a balance of power that continued at least until the reign of Philip IV of Habsburg (d. 1665). A century or more, in which the extraordinary artistic and cultural exuberance of the Italian courts translated into recognized and imitated supremacy in Europe. 34 See Cattini and Romani, Le corti, I, pp. 47–82.

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The time span for this process goes from around the fourteenth to the eighteenth century. However, different courts evolved at different times and in different ways. Each court had its own history and proceeded at its own pace. To make it all even more complicated is the fact that, alongside the signorie of the center-north, the peninsula contained (as we have seen) many other forms of sovereignty, and, so, various models of a court co-existed. The history of the court in Italy runs on non-synchronic lines and on multiple levels. Not all the courts passed through the same phases. There are also courts that were born already ‘adult’, so to speak, being the fruit of states that were formed in later periods, examples being the Medici in Florence and the Farnese in Parma. So, the picture we have of this world is anything but sharply defined. We would do well to recall this as it is the basis for our understanding of how the courtly-classical cultural models took shape and spread. But we should also bear in mind that, despite this extreme territorial fragmentation and non-homogeneous historical process, it was precisely this mosaic of experiences that gave birth to a homogeneous framework. If we adopt this perspective, then, instead of historical fractures, we see, rather, the threads of an extraordinary longevity. Moreover, what used to be seen as a ‘crisis in culture and society,’35 was actually the apogee of the Renaissance of the courts – a long period when they were certainly not immune from internal changes, but still an age with the same institution at its center. This age of the courts has been extended down to the late eighteenth century.36 This long-term perspective further supports the idea of a uniform, hegemonic, classicist culture with the court its epicenter. It was also an age marked by the European dimension of aristocratic-courtly culture that was first the forging house and then the bulwark of Western civilization.

Works Cited Cecilia Ady, The Bentivoglio of Bologna: A Study in Despotism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1937). Cecilia Ady, ‘Morals and Manners of the Quattrocento’, in Art and Politics in Renaissance Italy, ed. by George Holmes (Oxford: Oxford University Press, [1942] 1993). Clara Altavista, Lucca e Paolo Guinigi (1400–1430). La costruzione di una corte rinascimentale, Città, architettura, arte (Pisa: ETS, 2005). 35 Baron, The Crisis, p. XXVI. 36 See Tenenti, ‘La corte’.

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Gilbert Allardyce, ‘The Rise and Fall of the Western Civilization Course’, American Historical Review, 87, 3 (1982), pp. 695–743. Hans Baron, The Crisis of the Early Italian Renaissance: Civic Humanism and Republican Liberty in an Age of Classicism and Tyranny (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1955). “Bentivolorum magnificentia”. Principe e cultura a Bologna nel Rinascimento, ed. by Bruno Basile (Rome: Bulzoni, 1984). Sergio Bertelli, The Courts of the Italian Renaissance (New York and Oxford: Facts on File, 1986). Sergio Bertelli, ‘La corte come problema storiografico. A proposito di alcuni libri (più o meno) recenti’, Archivio storico italiano, 164, 1 (2006), pp. 129–163. Alison Brown, ‘De-Masking Renaissance Republicanism’, in Renaissance Civic Humanism. Reappraisals and Reflections, ed. by James Hankins (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006), pp. 179–199. James B. Bullen, The Myth of the Renaissance in Nineteenth-Century Writing (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1994). Glauco Maria Cantarella, Principi e corti. L’Europa del XII secolo (Turin: Einaudi, 1997). Matteo Casini, I gesti del principe. La festa politica a Firenze e a Venezia in età rinascimentale (Venice: Marsilio, 1996). Marco Cattini and Marzio Achille Romani, ‘Le corti parallele. Per una tipologia delle corti padane’, in La corte e lo spazio. Ferrara estense, ed. by Giuseppe Papagno and Amedeo Quondam (Rome: Bulzoni, 1982), I, pp. 47–82. Giorgio Chittolini, ‘Introduzione’, in La crisi degli ordinamenti comunali e le origini dello stato del Rinascimento, ed. by Giorgio Chittolini (Bologna: il Mulino, 1979), pp. 7–50. Cecil H. Clough, ‘Pandolfo Petrucci e il concetto di magnificenza’, in Arte, committenza ed economia a Roma e nelle corti del Rinascimento, ed. by Arnold Esch and Cristoph L. Frommel (Turin: Einaudi, 1995), pp. 383–397. Alison Cole, Italian Renaissance Courts: Art, Pleasure and Power (London: Laurence King, 2016). La corte di Pesaro. Storia di una residenza signorile, ed. by Maria Rosaria Valazzi (Modena: Panini, 1986). La cour comme institution économique, ed. by Maurice Aymard and Marzio A. Romani (Paris: Maison des Science de l’Homme, 1998). Court and Politics in Papal Rome, 1492–1700, ed. by Gianvittorio Signorotto and Maria Antonietta Visceglia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002). Eric Cochrane, Florence in the Forgotten Centuries, 1527–1800 (Chicago, IL and London: University of Chicago Press, 1973). Benedetto Croce, Storia dell’età Barocca in Italia (Bari: Laterza, 1929).

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Anthony D’Elia, Pagan Virtue in a Christian World: Sigismondo Malatesta and the Italian Renaissance (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2016). Aldo De Maddalena, Le finanze del Ducato di Mantova all’epoca di Guglielmo Gonzaga (Milano-Varese: Istituto Editoriale Cisalpino, 1961). Norbert Elias, The History of Manners (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, [1936] 1978). Norbert Elias, State Formation and Civilization (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, [1939] 1982). Norbert Elias, The Court Society (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, [1969] 1983). Marcello Fantoni, La corte del Granduca (Rome: Bulzoni, 1991). Marcello Fantoni, ‘The Grand Duchy of Tuscany: The Courts of the Medici, in The Princely Courts of Europe, 1500–1750, ed. by John Adamson (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1999), pp. 255–273. Marcello Fantoni, Il potere dello spazio. Principi e città nell’Italia dei secoli XV–XVII (Rome: Bulzoni, 2002). Marcello Fantoni, ‘La corte di Carpi’, in Storia di Carpi, II, La città e il territorio dai Pio agli Estensi (secc. XIV–XVIII) (Modena: Mucchi, 2009), pp. 49–68. Wallace K. Ferguson, The Renaissance in Historical Thought: Five Centuries of Interpretation (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1948). Ferrante Gonzaga. Il Mediterraneo, l’Impero (1507–1557), ed. by Gianvittorio Signorotto (Rome: Bulzoni, 2009). Kurt W. Forster, ‘From “Rocca” to “Civitas”: Urban Planning at Sabbioneta’, L’Arte, II (1969), pp. 5–40. Hilary Fraser, The Victorians and Renaissance Italy (Oxford and Cambridge: Blackwell, 1992). Giuseppe Galasso, ‘Charles Ier et Charles II, princes italiens’, in Les Princes angevins du XIIIe au XVe siècle. Un destin européen, ed. by Noël-Yves Tonnerre and Élisabeth Verry (Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2004), pp. 85–97. George L. Gorse, ‘Committenza e ambiente alla “corte” di Andrea Doria a Genova’, in Arte, committenza ed economia, pp. 255–271. Paolo Grillo, ‘Introduzione’, in Signorie italiane e modelli monarchici. Secoli XIII–XIV, ed. by Paolo Grillo (Rome: Viella, 2013), pp. 7–17. Nathaniel Hawthorne, Notes in England and Italy (New York: G. P. Putnam & Son, 1870). Philip Jones, ‘Communes and Despots in Late-Medieval Italy’, in Major Problems in the History of the Italian Renaissance, ed. by Benjamin Kohl and Alison A. Smith (Lexington, KY and Toronto: Heath and Co., 1995), pp. 146–156. Philip Jones, The Italian City-State: From Commune to Signoria (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997). Benjamin G. Kohl, Padua under the Carrara, 1318–1405 (Baltimore, MD and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998). John Larner, The Lords of Romagna: Romagnol Society and the Origin of the Signorie (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1965).

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Gregory Lubkin, A Renaissance Court: Milan under Galeazzo Maria Sforza (Berkeley, Los Angeles, CA and London: University of California Press, 1994). Olga Raffo Maggini, ‘I principali funzionari e le più alte cariche di nomina sovrana dello stato’, in Il tempo di Alberico, 1553–1623, ed. by Claudio Giumelli and Olga Raffo Maggini (Pisa: Pacini, 1991), pp. 11–28. Jean-Claude Maire Vigueur, ‘Introduzione’, in Signorie cittadine nell’Italia comunale, ed. by Jean-Claude Maire Vigueur (Rome: Viella, 2013), pp. 9–17. Giancarlo Mazzacurati, Il Rinascimento dei moderni. La crisi culturale del XVI secolo e la negazione delle origini (Bologna: il Mulino, 1985). Anthony Molho, ‘Italian History in American Universities’, in Italia e Stati Uniti. Concordanze e dissonanze (Rome: Il Veltro, 1981, pp. 201–224. Anthony Molho, ‘The Italian Renaissance. Made in the USA’, in Imagined Histories: American Historians interpret the Past, ed. by Gordon S. Wood and Anthony Molho (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997), pp. 263–294. Cesare Mozzarelli, ‘Il Senato di Mantova. Origine e funzioni’, Rivista italiana per le scienze giuridiche, III, XVIII (1974), pp. 19–118. Cesare Mozzarelli, ‘Prefazione’, in “Familia” del principe e famiglia aristocratica, ed. by Cesare Mozzarelli (Rome: Bulzoni, 1988), I, pp. I–VIII. Cesare Mozzarelli, ‘Principe e corte nella storiografia italiana del Novecento’, in La corte nella cultura e nella storiografia. Immagini e posizioni tra Otto e Novecento, ed by. Cesare Mozzarelli and Giuseppe Olmi (Rome: Bulzoni, 1983), pp. 237–274. Edward Muir, ‘The Italian Renaissance in America’, American Historical Review, 100, 4 (1995), pp. 1095–1118. Giuseppe Olmi, ‘La corte nella storiografia italiana dell’Ottocento’, in La corte nella cultura, pp. 65–93. The Origins of the State in Italy, 1300–1600, ed. by Julius Kirshner (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1996). Martha D. Pollack, Turin, 1564–1680: Urban Design, Military Culture, and the Creation of the Absolutistic Capital (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1991). John H. Plumb, The Italian Renaissance: A Concise Survey of Its History and Culture (New York: Harper Torchbacks, 1961). Amedeo Quondam, ‘William Roscoe e l’interpretazione del Rinascimento’, in Gli anglo-americani a Firenze. Idea e costruzione del Rinascimento, ed. by Marcello Fantoni (Rome: Bulzoni, 2000), pp. 249–338. Amedeo Quondam, ‘L’identità (rin)negata, l’identità vicaria. L’Italia e gli italiani nel paradigma culturale dell’Età Moderna’, in L’identità nazionale nella cultura letteraria italiana, ed. by Gino Rizzo (Galatina: Mario Congedo, 2001), pp. 127–149. Eustache Refuge, Trattato della Corte del Signor di Refuge […] (Venice: Dal Ciotti, 1621). Volker Reinardt, Il Rinascimento in Italia (Bologna: il Mulino, 2004).

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Fabrizio Ricciardelli, The Myth of Republicanism in Renaissance Italy (Turnhout: Brepols, 2015). Cesare Ripa, Iconologia, overo, Descrittione di diverse imagini cavate dall’antichità […] (Rome: Lepido Facij, [1593] 1603). Dennis Romano, In the Likeness of Venice: A Life of Doge Francesco Foscari (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007). Pio Rossi, Convito Morale. Per gli Etici, Economici, e Politici (Venice: Guerigli 1672). Nicolai Rubinstein, The Government of Florence under the Medici (1434 to 1494) (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966). Guido Ruggiero, Violence in Early Renaissance Venice (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1980). Nicolai Rubinstein, ‘Florence and the Despots: Some Aspects of Florentine Diplomacy in the Fourteenth Century’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 2 (1952), pp. 21–45. Tom Scott, The City-State in Europe, 1000–1600 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012). Signorie in Umbria tra Medioevo e Rinascimento. L’esperienza dei Trinci (Perugia, Deputazione di Storia Patria per l’Umbria, 1989). Gianvittorio Signorotto, ‘Modena e il mito della sovranità eroica’, in La corte estense nel primo Seicento. Diplomazia e mecenatismo artistico, ed. by Elena Fumagalli and Gianvittorio Signorotto (Rome: Bulzoni, 2012), pp. 11–49. Angelantonio Spagnoletti, Le dinastie italiane nella prima età moderna (Bologna: il Mulino: 2003). Jean Charles Léonard Simonde de Simondi, Histoire des républiques italiennes du moyen age (Paris: Furne et C., 1807–1818). Theodore E. Stebbins, The Lure of Italy: American Artists and the Italian Experience, 1760–1914 (New York: Harry Abrams, 1992). John Addington Symonds, The Renaissance in Italy (London: Smith Elder, 1875–1898) (The Age of the Despots, 1875; The Revival of Learning, 1877; The Fine Arts, 1877; The Catholic Reaction, 1886 and Italian Literature, 1898). Giovanni Tabacco, Egemonie sociali e strutture del potere nel medioevo italiano (Turin: Einaudi, 1979). Torquato Tasso, Il Malpiglio overo de la Corte, in Dialoghi, ed. by Ezio Raimondi (Firenze: Sansoni, 1958), II, pp. 547–565. Alberto Tenenti, ‘La corte nella storia dell’Europa moderna (1300–1700)’, in Le corti farnesiane di Parma e Piacenza. 1545–1622, I, Potere e società nello stato farnesiano, ed. by Marzio Achille Romani (Rome: Bulzoni, 1978), pp. IX–XIX. Franco Venturi, ‘L’Italia fuori d’Italia’, in Storia d’Italia, III, Dal primo Settecento all’Unità (Turin: Einaudi, 1973), pp. 985–1481. Pasquale Villari, Niccolò Machiavelli e i suoi tempi (Florence: Le Monnier, 1877).

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Maurizio Viroli, Dalla politica alla Ragion di Stato. La scienza del governo tra XIII e XVII secolo (Rome: Donzelli, 1994). Andrea Zorzi, ‘Legitimation and Legal Sanction of Vendetta in Italian Cities from the Twelfth to the Fourteenth Centuries’, in The Culture of Violence, pp. 27–54. Andrea Zorzi, ‘Una e trina. L’Italia comunale, signorile e angioina. Qualche riflessione’, in Gli Angiò nell’Italia nord-occidentale (1259–1382), ed. by Rinaldo Comba (Milan: Unicopli, 2006), pp. 435–443. Andrea Zorzi, Le signorie cittadine in Toscana. Esperienze di potere e forme di governo personale (secoli XIII–XV) (Rome: Viella, 2013).

II. Italian Courts and European Culture

Abstract The circulation of Italian court models is an authentic European phenomenon. Besides the different aspects and cases, it is critical to comprehend the modalities and reasons for this process of acculturation. First, we need to identify who were the sovereigns and what were the political conjunctures that sparked the emulation of Italian courtly models. Another angle considers peoples’ mobility as a vehicle of the circulation of cultural models. We also need to consider those who traveled to Italy in search of antiquity and learning. Finally, we need to cast light on the myriad of ‘objects’ (ancient sculptures, paintings, books, etc.) that were imported by European sovereigns and the ‘immaterial’ – yet, very tangible – elements of culture such as language and aesthetics. Keywords: cultural models, acculturation, migrations, art objects

Fantoni, M., Italian Courts and European Culture. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press 2022 doi: 10.5117/9789463729420_ch02

4. Europe of the Courts 4a The Terms of the Question Having set out the general framework, we must now understand what all this meant for the circulation of cultural models. What would happen if we re-introduced these courts into the equation? Would courts give us a better idea of how the Italian Renaissance evolved into the European Renaissance? What would be the Italian Renaissance’s legacy to modernity? Many of these questions have already been answered using the republican paradigm. It actually constituted the most widespread interpretation of the genesis of Western civilization. The periodization, the forces, and the essential codes of the modern world derive precisely from this reconstruction that selected the threads of affinity and followed them throughout the centuries down to the present. This ‘comfortable history’ reassures the contemporaries about the roots of their identity. What if, on the contrary, we found that we owe courts more than we would like to admit? If their civilization were one of the main sources of present-day cultural traits? Which, by default, would also make us realize that there is more affinity where we posited diversity. In other words, I am suggesting that the categories that outlived the Renaissance and became founding elements for European civilization are more rooted in the court than in the republican genetic patrimony. This presupposes imagining alternative routes and forms of cultural circulation, identifying different actors, and re-evaluating traditional interpretations. It also entails overturning some of the most tenacious historical stereotypes. Accounting for the influence of Italian courts on European culture and identity is undoubtedly an ambitious project. And this applies both for exemplifying the case and for formulating new theories. Yet, we must start somewhere. To adopt a metaphor: we are faced with a leopard-skin picture, with many specialist studies on specific aspects and figures of this phenomenon, but nothing – yet – systematic that might explain organically the how and the why of the process. We know Sebastiano Serlio stayed at the court of Francis I of France, we know of the wanderings of actors and architects, of the success of Castiglione’s Cortegiano, the effect created by the festivities of Italian courts, and we have a fairly clear idea of how the art market worked and how large it was. The list could continue. But, like a leopard-skin, these are disconnected dots. Apart from a chronological and typological arrangement, we need to get to the heart of the mechanisms, logics, and meanings of the phenomenon. In short, we have before us a vast

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ocean of information that has not yet been sifted and interpreted holistically. To illustrate the phenomenon in all its breadth and complexity, I have made use of everything I could possibly consult. I know I have read only a tiny part of the available documentation, whose volume cannot be mastered by a single individual. Aware of the inevitable lacunae, to make the examples more eloquent and to build from them a platform solid enough to support some theories, I shall therefore proceed by intersecting approaches, first dealing with the geographical aspect, then sketching the developments of a process that was spread over various centuries, and finally setting out the facts in various classifications. In conclusion, I shall try to indicate some constants, models, and common denominators. From Spain to Poland, from the fourteenth to the eighteenth century, following the tracks of artists, ideas, books, customs, and consumption, where will we be led by assembling this data? Let us anticipate some of the conclusions to provide ourselves with a compass with which we can take our bearings for the voyage. First, in most cases, the courts were places from or to which the cultural traffic between Italy and Europe departed and arrived. Second, politics was the catalyzing force of this traffic. We shall also discover, on our journey, that different periods are marked by different versions of the same process, and we shall realize that the age of the courts was anything but a sterile period of Italian history. Another necessary premise is that it was Europe itself that recognized the superiority of the Italian culture of the courts. Which is like saying one is aware of one’s own inferiority – which contemporaries openly did. In the late sixteenth century, William Shakespeare, for example, gives the following words to one of his characters in Richard II: ‘Report of fashions in proud Italy/Whose manners still our tardy-apish nation/Limps after in base imitation.’1 After eight years at the court of Matua (1600–1608), Rubens was surprised, on arriving in the England of Charles I, to find culture and art in ‘a place so remote from Italian elegance.’2 And in 1670, Richard Lassels, in his guide The Voyage to Italy claims that ‘as for their [the Italians] manners, they are most commendable. They are taught them in their books, they practice them in their actions, and they have spread them abroad all over Europe, which owes its civility unto the Italians.’3 Particularly in Protestant countries, there was sharp criticism of Counter-Reformation Italy, but the fascination of its civilization was irresistible. In the preface to his translation of the 1 Shakespeare, Richard II, II, i. 21–23. 2 Trevor-Roper, Princes, p. 149. 3 Quoted in Botteri, ‘Della Casa’, p. 150.

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Galateo of 1703, Barnaby Lintot defines Italy as ‘the most polite Country in the World’, but – to justify adapting Giovanni della Casa’s text – adds that what was proper ‘150 years ago’ is now ‘counted indecent amongst us.’4 Dazzled by this splendor, foreigners came to Italy to learn about its customs, admire its beauty, purchase works of art, and learn how to be like Italians. All manner of people came, from those who frequented the humanists’ schools to artists and young aristocrats doing the Grand Tour. Because of this irresistible attraction, and in recognition of its being a valuable arsenal of political symbols, books were read, antiquities collected, and the courtly entertainments of the Italians were taken as a model for imitation. European sovereigns wanted courts and cities like the Italian ones. They wanted Italian architects, painters, and musicians; they wanted portraits, galleries, and theaters like those of Italian princes; they wanted to surround themselves with beauty and show that they were like the ancients, too; and they wanted – desperately – to adopt the forma del vivere, decorum, and good manners of the Italian courts as they were the new fashion, the new aesthetics and ethics, the new necessary ways of civilitas (‘civility’). The princes, great and small, were fast followed by aristocrats and ecclesiastics, all the way down to the minor nobility, who willingly sought to emulate these codes of behavior to display their status and wealth, or simply to conform to the parameters of civilized living. We have already indicated the historical circumstances in which this happened. But what led to Italy being discovered by European monarchs and aristocrats? Why was its superiority so quickly perceived? We need to answer these questions, too. The keystone, I repeat, was the recognition of the qualities and potentialities of classicism. Its overwhelmingly innovative power was perceived at once compared with chivalric (and Burgundian) culture. But what drove Europe to convert to the new cultural models and to want to adopt them programmatically, was the realization of how suitable they were in providing an effective code of politico-social representation. What was set in motion was a macro-phenomenon of acculturation that embraced, but also transcended, the aesthetic of the plastic and figurative arts, architectural design, Castiglione’s grazia, and musical and dramatic genres. The circumstances that started the process were foreign invasions. In particular, that of Charles VIII, which would be the first of many, to be followed by Louis XII and Francis I, until the final affirmation of Spanish dominion over the peninsula after the Battle of Pavia (1525). And while we are about it, we may also cite the famous tag of Horace’s, ‘once defeated, 4

Botteri, ‘Della Casa’, p. 151.

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Greece conquered its savage captor,’5 which describes well what happened when Italy was subdued by the European powers. The Italians, who had been defeated on the battlefield, became victors in the field of culture. Nor would it be the first or last time that a militarily superior civilization imposed its dominion over another, which then dwarfed it and transformed it culturally. In addition, many states lost their libertas and many others ended up in the orbit of the great European monarchies, but – on the other hand – the peninsula as a whole became more peaceful. Above all, Europe discovered the splendor of the Italian courts and was exposed to classicism. Another fundamental stage in this process of acquiring a recognized cultural hegemony, was the publication of the Cortegiano in 1528. This was the clearest watershed of them all. Barely two year later, in 1530, Charles V received the imperial crown in Bologna from Pope Clement VII, setting off the colossal ideological machine of the renovatio imperii (‘renewal of the empire’) that had perforce to draw on the symbolic repertoire of the ancient world and make use of Italian artists and intellectuals. This, very broadly, is the avenue we shall follow – one that reveals a new chronology between 1495 and 1530, the years of the decisive point in Italian cultural predominance. Humanist proselytizing had already begun in the late fourteenth century, but the process would not fully take off until the first decades of the sixteenth century. In this scenario, the Reformation lost much of its significance in terms of epoch-making discontinuity. How long did the phenomenon continue? We need not bother with a certain Italian tradition that claim it never even happened. Although these positions have been left behind now, we still need to look elsewhere in search of alternative readings. As I said at the start, one of these comes from Fernand Braudel with his theory of the Baroque as a ‘second Renaissance’ in Italy, as the era in which the Renaissance moved from being a domestic to an international movement. There is no trace of crisis in his reconstruction, neither cultural nor economic. In his words, a ‘fall’ may cause ‘a multiplicity of splendors,’ by which the terminal date of 1650 should not be taken categorically. In the very last phrase of his book, ‘the whole sky of Europe was lit up’ by the ‘night’ of the Italian decline.6 In years closer to us, many scholars have ventured beyond Braudel’s pillars of Hercules, reaching the Napoleonic invasions. We shall deal with them too. By one of those singular, though not infrequent, chances of history, the fruit, we might say, was mature enough to be gathered just as Europe was 5 Orazio, Epistole, II, 1, 156. 6 Braudel, Out of Italy, p. 160.

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discovering Renaissance Italy, but – on the other hand – the times, too, were mature for a resetting of the politico-cultural systems outside Italy. Castiglione, Serlio, Guazzo, Titian, the poets, painters, and sculptors, and everyone else who made a contribution to Italian civilization were suddenly at the center of much larger interests and horizons, which increased their own personal success and their role as cultural mediators. The exportation of artifacts and luxury goods also played a part, and later it would be the turn of actors and dramatists, composers, and musicians, but there was, in any case, a single connecting thread that was eminently political and that led to the same outcome – the homogenization of European culture and the definition of the salient features of its identity. The process extended over a long period of time around the various great sovereigns, but they were phases and examples of a single phenomenon whose dynamics were uniform. Among its promoters we find Charles V (1519–1558), Francis I (1515–1547), Rudolf II (1576–1612), Elizabeth I (1558–1603), and Charles I (1625–1649). They will each receive our attention in different sections. There were also many who followed in their wake in the same countries. But, independently or by contagion, the same was happening in many minor nations: in the German principalities, Scandinavian countries, central-eastern Europe (Hungary, Poland, Bohemia, etc.), Portugal, and Russia. Some individuals stand out. We shall be encountering more than one of them, but all were part of the same framework: Ivan III (1462–1505) in Moscow, Matthias Corvinus (1458–1490) in Buda, Sigismund I Jagiellon (1506–1548) in Cracow, the Archdukes Albert and Isabella in Brussels (1584–1621), Peter I (1682–1725) in St Petersburg, and so on. The exodus of thousands of artists, the hemorrhage of works of art, or the increase in reading matter, were not extempore facts, but manifestations of a single, systematic macro-process of cultural conversion. It was a genuine transformation of the typologies of aesthetics and ethics. The flow of people, objects, and ideas should therefore be channeled along these lines. There were fractures and there was continuity, there was stopping and starting, sudden turns and different waves, dynastic trends to be followed or the onslaught of wars and epidemics to be survived, but the f irst step will therefore be to organize the facts chronologically.

4b From the Middle Ages to the Finis Italiae When Charles the Bold fell at the head of his troops in the Battle of Nancy in 1477, bringing to nothing the plan for a Kingdom of Burgundy,

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the Italian humanist models were already widespread. The culture emerging from the Italian courts already coexisted and contended with the chivalric tradition for hegemony.7 The process had begun long ago. The literature on the European diffusion of Italian humanism and the inf luence of Petrarch is bulky. He has been icastically described as a child of Italy and citizen of Europe. His myth was exported by foreigners: hundreds of manuscripts of his works, treated as holy relics by princes and humanists, crossed the Alps. Since the late fourteenth century, Petrarch had exercised enormous influence and Petrarchism was one of Italy’s main literary exports well after the f ifteenth century. 8 Meanwhile, the architect-humanists of the Sforza family had been working on the fortress of the Kremlin in Moscow, and the Avignon captivity had already taken Petrarch himself (in 1309 and 1336) and many Italian artists to France. The decorations of the papal palace were carried out by, among others, the Sienese Simone Martini, who had already worked on the old basilica of St Peter’s in Rome. The long period that the papal court spent in Avignon was also an opportunity for a meeting of styles, customs, and ideas, the conditions were created to open printshops, and the convergence of prelates increased the demand for luxury goods. The Council of Constance (1414–1418), called to mend the Western Schism, also saw a concourse of humanists from all over Europe. Boccaccio was widely read in Europe as well – not only the Decameron, but also his classicizing poems and, above all, his Genealogia deorum gentilium, which was required reading for men of letters and artists. Boccaccio’s works, too, were passed around before printing in manuscripts that were often illustrated, and, unlike Italy, in France – and later Burgundy, Flanders, England, and Spain – it was very favorably received in the courts: its greatest admirers, indeed, ‘were kings and princes, powerful lords and distinguished patrons.’9 Possessing a copy of a manuscript by Boccaccio in a royal library was ‘required, almost a status symbol.’10 Italian humanists established a new curriculum and wrote texts that were printed many times all over Europe; they greatly contributed to the revival of antiquity; and a large number of them traveled outside Italy. Abroad, humanists created new cultural movements and attracted to Italy students and scholars. Poggio Bracciolini served for three years as the secretary of Henry Beaufort, Bishop 7 See Huizinga, Le déclin and Belozerskaya, Rethinking. 8 Weiss, Spread, p. 1. 9 Branca, ‘Boccaccio’, pp. 74 ff. 10 Ibid., p. 75.

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of Winchester; he was later (from 1418 to 1423) counsellor of Henry VI.11 Enea Silvio Piccolomini (the future Pope Pius II) was secretary to the Emperor Frederick III for a certain period. Pier Paolo Vergerio (1370–1444), who had studied Greek with Crisolora and imbibed the civic humanistic values from Salutati and Bruni, spent much of his life as an exile. After following Emperor Sigismund to Constance, he continued his journey and died in Buda serving the king of Hungary.12 On the opposite side of the continent, the Italian humanists were welcomed to the court of Ferdinand and Isabella in Spain. The humanists were a new breed of scholar who traveled constantly following patrons and leads for library findings. They were interconnected by multiple bonds of friendship, academic interests, discipleship, and cultural exchange. Nationality, political sympathies, and religious faith were unimportant: they were a single group of cosmopolitan scholars. ‘Many learned Italians entered the service of princes or dignitaries’ from all over Europe ‘as instructors or secretaries, librarians, poets or court historians.’13 In 1383, Queen Elizabeth of Hungary offered Giovanni Conversino the post of notarius mayor (‘chief notary’) in the Republic of Ragusa, which was then a Hungarian vassal state. The Tuscan humanist Filippo Buonaccorsi, known as Callimachus, resided at the court of Cracow for much of his life. He arrived in Poland in 1470, when he fled Rome after being involved in an assassination attempt on Pope Paul II. In his new life as an exile he became tutor to the sons of King Casimir IV Jagiellon, took on diplomatic duties, and was appointed royal secretary in 1474. In 1489, he was also one of the co-founders of the Sodalitas Litteraria Vistulana, which was a kind of academy of a select circle of admirers of the Italian Renaissance. In England, in the same period, the steady diplomatic exchange with the papal curia prompted the entry of humanists into government service. The influence began earlier but it was under Henry VII (1485–1509) that the humanists really came to court. Among others, the king employed Pietro Carmeliano from Brescia as his Latin secretary and started to give his children a humanist education. Filippo Beroaldo (1453–1505), professor of poetry and rhetoric at Bologna University from 1472 (under the Bentivoglio), traveled to France in 1475 and here became friend with the philosopher Robert Gaguin, on whose thought he would have great influence. Publio Fausto Andrelini, poet and close friend of Erasmus, left the court of Cardinal Ludovico Gonzaga in 1488 for France. He helped spread humanism from 11 Wyatt, The Italian, pp. 28 and 32. 12 Monfasani, ‘Umanesimo ’, pp. 49–70. 13 See Kristeller, ‘La diffusione’, pp. 75–94.

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his chair at Paris University, which he received in 1489, and, later, from his position as court poet under Charles VIII. Pico della Mirandola also spent time in France from 1485 to 1488, and the Roman humanist Gregorio Tiferna taught in Paris from 1456 to 1458. Both of them, with other Italian masters, created proselytes and revived French humanist studies.14 Finally, Gian Giorgio Trissino, a pupil of Demetrius Chalcondylas, became a favorite of Pope Leo X, traveled to Germany as ambassador, and, in 1532, was made count by Emperor Charles V. And this is just the most noteworthy. Much of the impetus for the spread of humanism came from northern visitors. By the mid-fifteenth century, scholars and nobles were flocking to Italy, lured by humanism. Among them was the poet Janus Pannonius, who entered the school of Guarino Veronese, in Ferrara, in 1447. The Englishman John Free was another who came to Italy to study with Guarino in 1456. By the end of the century, it had become a steady stream: Guillaume Fichet, John Colet, William Grocin, Conrad Celtis, John Reuchlin, and others came to Italy primarily to visit humanists and courts. We know of humanists from Eastern Europe and France, such as Lefèvre d’Etaples in 1492, who served their apprenticeship in Italy. The German philosopher Nicholas of Cusa was a student at Padua University (1417–1425); the Pole Nicholas Copernicus received a humanist education in Italy (1496–1501); the Dutch scholar Rudolph Agricola arrived in 1469 and lived in Ferrara (1475–1479), where he studied with Guarino and served Ercole I d’Este. In 1481, Agricola spent six months in Brussels at the court of Archduke Maximilian and, in 1484, he started teaching at Heidelberg University. One of Guarino’s pupils in Ferrara was the Englishman John Tiptoft, while the Portuguese Hermicus Caiadus was a pupil of Poliziano and Beroaldo.15 Antonio de Nebrija spent a full ten years in Italy (from 1463 to 1473); he was trained in theology in Bologna but returned to Spain fully converted to humanism. The German Peter Luder spent five years at Padua (1461–1466) before introducing humanism to Baden-Württenberg. Transalpine students were the most receptive to humanism, but many other foreigners had reason to come to Italy, one of the most important being business at the princely courts. Similarly, when the papal court returned to Rome in the 1440s, the city became a major European humanist center. Not only did the papacy employ many non-Italians, but an even larger number were attached to the various cardinals, and many of the foreign prelates were themselves humanists or supporters of humanists. 14 See Weiss, ‘Italian’, pp. 77–78. 15 Kristeller, ‘La diffusione’, p. 78.

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In a very short time, Europe absorbed Italian humanism, Italians continued to be leading figures in intellectual endeavors, and their works exercised widespread influence. As it spread, a sort of European republic of letters grew up. Between the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the circulation of Italian humanism over large parts of Europe – from Portugal to Poland – was of vital importance for the later periods of Italian cultural influence.16 The spreading of Italian culture presupposed the existence of patrons who were educated in humanism and literate audiences familiar with the stories and images of antiquity. Humanism grafted itself onto the existing culture in different ways in different countries: it was not inert, but reacted to contact with the local environment, thus preparing the ground for the later spread of courtly-classicist cultural models. At this point, we should open a window on the arrival of Italian humanism and art in Hungary. ‘Italians brought the Renaissance in Central and Eastern Europe first of all areas.’17 Everywhere the humanists reached, they introduced the germs of a new philosophy and sensibility. Before Europe discovered Italy in the age of the wars for its conquest, humanists paved the way for a revolution in the cultural models and in the language of politics in Hungary. The monarch that was most engaged in the adoption of the new paradigms was Matthias Corvinus, king of Hungary from 1458, king of Bohemia from 1469, and Duke of Austria from 1486. Under Matthias’s crown, humanism was transplanted at the Hungarian court and Italian artists, architects, and sculptors flocked to Buda, to Visegrád, and to Esztergom to rebuild and decorate the royal palaces. For 38 years, his kingdom overlapped with the Grand Duke of Muscovy Ivan III but – as we will see – the import of Italian courtly culture followed relatively different patterns. Ties with Italian humanism already existed through the inclusion in the Angevin kingdom in the fourteenth century (1308–1382) and a role should also be attributed to Matthias’s Italian spouse, Beatrice of Aragon. His predecessor, Sigismund of Luxembourg (1404–1437), had also already initiated the process after his visit to Rome, where he became an acquainted with Ciriaco d’Ancona and Poggio Bracciolini. In the wake of this trip, many humanists traveled to the Buda court – Ambrogio Traversari, Antonio Loschi, Francesco Filelfo, and Pier Candido Vergerio, among others. Though he never visited Hungary, for over twenty years Marsilio Ficino established a close relationship with the Hungarian court with his epistolary exchange with Janos Pannonius, a leading member 16 See Rapporti. 17 DaCosta Kaufmann, Court, Cloister, p. 30.

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of Corvinus’s retinue. Ficino introduced Neoplatonism and used to send philosophical manuscripts delivered by his friend Francesco Bandini, including Filarete’s Trattato dell’architettura in 1487 or 1488.18 The king surrounded himself with humanists. Peter Varadi, who had studied in Bologna, in the 1460s, was appointed secretary and chancellor in 1475; Janus Pannonius, who had spent most of his life at Italian courts, was one of the king’s closest collaborators; and Jacobus Piso from Transylvania, poet and diplomat, was a leading intellectual of the court after spending almost a decade in Rome. The Florentine Francesco Bandini ended up settling in Buda following the train of Beatrice of Aragon in 1476. Finally, Antonio Bonfidi, author of the Rerum Ungaricarum decades, was appointed royal historian in 1488. Matthias himself was educated by the Croatian humanist Jónas Vitéz (who had studied in Italy) and entertained a correspondence with Italian philosophers. The Biblioteca Corviniana sheds further light on Matthias’s cultural inclinations, containing much humanist-inspired literature, which – according to witnesses – he would often read. From the humanists the king also borrowed the classical doctrine of magnificentia (‘magnificence’) – re-proposed by Giovanni Pontano at the Aragon’s court of Naples – that very much sparked his desire to imitate the patronage of Roman emperors and to develop an art collection. All the humanists in Hungary ‘had a lasting impact on the treatment of the visual arts’ and architecture.’19 Humanists ethically inspired patronage and practically educated in the arts. Some of them played a key role in the Golden Age of Matthias’s kingdom: Antonio Bonfidi after 1486 from his position of reader aloud to the queen and Francesco Arrigoni, for eight years at court in Buda. Bandini became ambassador and played an important role as well as catalyst of Neoplatonism and in the introduction of Renaissance art. During his earlier stay in Naples (1474–1476), he became acquainted with Pontano’s circle and absorbed the concept of magnificentia that he later converted the king to. With time, Bandini became ‘the chief adviser of the king on artistic (especially architecture) issues.’20 Bonfidi elaborates on this idea in an apology of King Matthias in which he states that his ‘magnificentia surpassed the buildings and works’ of ancient Roman emperors, because of his huge expenses and because he invited Italian artists to establish ‘a genuinely Antique architecture.’21 18 See Rees, ‘Marsilio Ficino’, pp. 127–148. 19 DaCosta Kaufmann, Court, Cloister, p. 41. 20 Farbacky, ‘Florence and/or’, p. 347. 21 Feuer-Tóth, Art and Humanism, p. 69.

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Of the Italian artists brightening the court of Matthias Corvinus, ‘the Florentine Gregorio di Lorenzo deserves distinguished attention. He spent nearly 15 years (from c. 1475 to 1490) in Buda and Visegrád as a marble and stone sculptor.’22 Among the first artists that went to Hungary were Manetto Ammannatini, member of the Florentine school of Filippo Brunelleschi, and the already famous Masolino da Panicale, who had collaborated with Masaccio in the frescoing of the Brancacci chapel. Masolino worked in Buda between 1425 and 1427. The king also ordered from Italian artists’ – ‘Pollaiuolo designed drapery for his throne’ and ‘Florentine goldsmiths executed’ precious objects for his treasury. If Filippo Lippi would not accept his invitation, however, others, like Benedetto da Maiano and Caradosso, traveled to Buda, the latter in 1489. Lorenzo’s Florence was the main source of supply, but Italian artists capable of working in the ‘new’ stile all’antica (‘ancient style’) also came from papal Rome and Sforza Milan, proving the existence of a uniform culture centered around courts. His multiple contacts and sources of inspiration were also Naples and Ferrara, because of his wife, sister of Eleanor of Aragon, daughter of Ferrante of Aragon, and wife of Ercole I d’Este. From Florence, we also have the architect Chimenti Camicia, who ‘oversaw work at the Buda court from 1479.’ All’antica architecture in Hungary and Central Europe started with him. Camicia did not operate alone but was helped by a team of assistants and he sub-hired many craftsmen, including specialized legnaioli (‘woodworkers’). In the castle, Camicia built a ‘courtyard with superimposed arcades’ that ‘resembles the design of the 1460s’ castle of Urbino.’23 Villas with gardens were also built for the king in Visegrád and Nyék according to instructions from Pliny the Younger and designs of the Medicean villa of Poggio a Caiano. But the palimpsest of Camicia’s quotations – stylistic and conceptual – includes Roman palaces from the age of Nicolas V, the Neapolitan Aragon’s castle, and the Florentine patrician palaces. No work of Camicia is known in Italy, and not much of what he built in Hungary as chief architect survived the fury of wars. This partially explains why his name is virtually ignored by scholarship, though he is a protagonist of the European Renaissance.24 After his death (1505), Camicia’s place was taken by another Florentine, Baccio Cellini. Hungary’s assimilation of the Italian Renaissance was not limited to the capital. Along with the Visegrád castle, the city of Esztergom was a 22 Caglioti, ‘Gregorio di Lorenzo’, p. 129. 23 DaCosta Kaufmann, Court, Cloister, pp. 42–43. 24 See Farbaky and Sárossy, ‘Chimenti Camicia’, pp. 215–256.

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great pole of attraction. For almost ten years after the death of her husband (1490–1497), Beatrice of Aragon went to live in Esztergom with his nephew Ippolito d’Este, son of her sister and archbishop of the city. Ippolito’s lavish expenditure in patronage caused his court (with over 250 members) to become the destination of many artists, humanists, and works of art coming from the courts of Northern Italy, mostly Ferrara, transforming the town into almost an alternative to the royal capital. The sculptor Giovanni Dalmata was in Buda (after having worked at Palazzo Venezia in Roma) in 1488–1490, and many book illuminators and specialized craftsmen came from Italy to embellish Matthias’ court. Verrocchio executed bas reliefs for Matthias and art historians speculate about paintings by Mantegna making their way to Hungary along with the young Sandro Botticelli. All the paintings and sculptures sent from Italy are tragically lost and the sources provide fragmentary information. If this were not the case, probably the Italian courtly influence would appear even more pronounced. However, we know quite a bit about the services of the German painter Alexander Formoser, personal agent of Matthias residing in Florence. Formoser was a broker between two worlds, functioning both as an intermediary with artists and as an ambassador with the republican Signoria and with Lorenzo de’ Medici. His activity spanned from recruiting musicians to buying marble in Carrara, from commissioning a fountain to Verrocchio in 1485 to shipping paintings to his master. Thanks to his good offices, Benedetto da Maiano and the brothers Francesco and Domenico Rosselli accepted working for the king of Hungary. Matthias looked at Italy because, ultimately, its courts were – as we would say today – at the vanguard of modern design, which means the one from antiquity. Already in the fifteenth century, in the eyes of European, Italy was classical itself.

4c Invasion and Counter-Invasion And so, in 1494, Charles VIII entered Italy with his troops. His campaign opened the gates to foreign invasions but left the French gates wide open to the Italian Renaissance. With the finis Italiae (‘end of Italy’), as we have said, so began the European discovery of the Italian Renaissance. Europe set out on the road to building the future, looking to the past. In this divided and vulnerable peninsula, the sovereign and his aristocracy discovered the wonderful world of the courts; they were dazzled by it, realizing what an abyss separated them from this land of the ancients and the moderns, who were moderns because they had restored the ancient world. They also

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realized that these strange customs and cultural models lent themselves much better than the Gothic-Burgundy lexis to representing majesty and social distinction. There were already Italian humanists in France and French artists in Italy (like the painter Jean Fouquet) before Charles VIII, but it was his incursion that marked the change. The effect on Charles VIII and his nobility of the Italian mirabilia (‘marvels’) is vividly described in Le voyage de Naples by André de la Vigne, who accompanied Charles’ expedition. Charles was the first to return home with a long caravan of wagons laden with works of art. Others were sent by sea to Marseille along with Italian artisans to introduce the new style to France.25 He was followed across the Alps by marble cutters from Carrara, decorators, painters, and specialized craftsmen. On returning to France, with the memory of the Italian glories fresh in his mind, he wrote to Pierre de Bourbon, charging him ‘to be on the lookout for appropriate works to adorn his palace at Amboise.’26 From the Italy of the courts, he took gardeners and the use of the meraviglia (‘wonder’) as an ornament of his regality. In Siena, he discovered Italian dance, which (as we shall see) would soon pour its treatises and maestri into France. In Florence, he was enchanted by the Medici feasts, and, in Naples, awestruck by the summer residence of the Aragons, the villa of Poggio Reale, from whose site he took artifacts for his castle in Amboise. The castle of Chambord, too, was constructed following the plan of Domenico da Cortona, a pupil of Giuliano da Sangallo, who was another who followed Charles into France in 1495, hired with Fra’ Giocondo, who also came from the site of Poggio Reale. Above all, Charles returned home convinced that he needed to adapt to the new classicizing dictates. So began a process that would continue for centuries, and in France until the Revolution. Other sovereigns would follow in his wake, investing politically in antiquity and in Italy as the place that abounded in it and where there were talents that could restore it to life. For the French sovereigns this was not an ephemeral cultural foray, but a prolonged engagement that would last for thirty years (from 1494 to 1525), involving three monarchs. On Charles’s death (1498), Louis XII came to the throne (1498–1515), and, like his predecessor, he dreamt of extending his dominion over the peninsula. He, too, invaded it twice, in an attempt to conquer the Duchy of Milan and the Kingdom of Naples, but ‘only’ succeeded in becoming more intimate with Renaissance culture. 25 Rosenthal, ‘The Diffusion’, p. 38. 26 McGowan, The Vision, p. 56.

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Paradoxically, it was under Francis I (1515–1547), and the final wrecking of his ambitions in Italy to the advantage of Spain, that France began a programmatic change of cultural direction. In their works, the Italians had to declare the glory of the first prince of the Christianity and ‘exalt the power and the wealth of the kingdom’; for the Valois the appeal to Italian artistic skills is […] a weapon in the rivalry between them and the Habsburgs.’ The arrival of Italian courtly classicism was ‘a cultural counteroffensive’ and an ‘ideological overcompensation’ against Charles V.27 The persistence of a migratory current from Italy to France, ‘whether in painting, decorative arts or music,’ had one ‘fundamental objective’: ‘to adorn the court, to display the splendor of the monarch, to exalt the crown of France.’28 Despite the military debacle, Francis I and the flower of the French nobility had the opportunity of being exposed to Italian court splendor. Defeated by Charles V at Pavia in 1525, Francis quickly learnt the political lesson from his bitter enemy and he, too, embraced completely his imitatio (‘imitation’) of the antique and of Italy. Francis I also resorted to the paradigm of the imperator. This was already attested by a chalcedony intaglio from about 1515, where Matteo del Nassaro from Milan depicted the king in ancient imperial armor.29 Although Francis’s imaginaire was defined by the juxtaposed and complementary Christian sacrality and classical symbolism already in the period 1504–1525, the latter grew especially after the Madrid imprisonment, with its models and artists coming from Italy in reinforcement of his absolutism. Antiquity gradually gained ground in the justification of majesty as the only source of authority.30 He found in the Italian courts what his kingdom needed for a profound cultural renewal, which was functional to consolidating his regality. There were the triumphal entrances, the planned gardens, the striking of medals, the architectural codes, the purchase of antiquities, the creation of a gallery at Fontainebleau, the theater, and all that can be achieved in a thirty-year reign. Francis was the main purchaser of antique sculptures excavated in Rome. His proverbial collector’s appetite meant that a rich gift was essential to entering his good graces. ‘Ambassadors arrived with diverse offerings’: the cardinal of Ferrara – in 1540 – with gold work by Benvenuto Cellini; antique statues; armor made by the renowned Giampetro; paintings and medals; and even a horse dressed in silver. In the same year, Ippolito 27 Dubost, La France italienne, pp. 65–66. 28 Ibid., p. 70. 29 Lecoq, François Ier, p. 218. 30 See Ibid., p. 20.

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d’Este turned up, ‘sacrificing 215 coins from his own collection to please the king.’31 From his first invasion, which concluded with the Battle of Marignano (1515), and more so after his long imprisonment in Spain (1525–1526), Francis made the conscious choice to abandon Burgundian culture. In Bologna, he met Castiglione, and also Leonardo in 1515, and he set up personal relations with men of letters and artists. Men of the caliber of Benvenuto Cellini, Sebastiano Serlio, and Rosso Fiorentino started migrating to the court of France. In 1516, Francis took Leonardo into his service, settling him near Amboise and lavishing a pension on him. There, Leonardo planned a city-castle (never built), which was to have become the new, sumptuous residence of the Valois. Francis had also seen Serlio’s books on the Vitruvian order, which were to have enormous influence on French architecture. Surrounded by a host of craftsmen, he took on the job of building the castle of Fontainebleau, which – the ‘uncontested center of the art of the court’32 – became the main laboratory of political experimentation. The Italian maestri (‘masters’) were called here to work, and here were created the most characteristically Italian features, like the famous gallery. Fontainebleau began to be seen as a new Rome and was described as ‘l’asile de toutes les antiquités’ (‘asylum of all antiquities’).33 As there was much talk at court of Palazzo Tè, Giulio Romano, too, was asked to come there from Mantua in 1532, but he refused the invitation and sent in his place his pupil Primaticcio, who would remain in France for a good forty years.34 At the suggestion of Pietro Aretino, Francis also recruited Rosso Fiorentino for the project, and Benvenuto Cellini also worked there. Rosso fled to France from the Sack of Rome in 1527 and stayed until his death (1540); with Primaticcio and others – all Italian – he initiated the prestigious School of Fontainebleau. The Modenese architect Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola also worked there until 1543; with Serlio he introduced the ancient orders with his Regola delli cinque ordini d’architettura (1562), the most reprinted book in architectural history. Francis’s court was swarming with craftsmen, plasterers, goldsmiths, smelters, potters, etc., coming in on the coat-tails of these great artists. They included Leucadio Solombrini, who set up a workshop at Amboise to produce glazed ceramics. Competing with Cellini, Matteo del Nassaro from Verona (1490–1547) excelled in producing medals and cameos all’antica. 31 McGowen, The Vision, pp. 66–67. 32 Zerner, Renaissance, p. 108. 33 McGowan, The Vision, p. 173. 34 See Chastel, Architettura, pp. 31 ff.

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The Florentine Girolamo della Robbia was in Paris, building the imposing Château de Madrid, work on which began in 1527. On his return from his Spanish prison, Francis found the Louvre beneath his dignity. Despite his military highs and lows, Francis’s was the reign in which the market for Italian art reached its height. He even considered removing Leonardo’s Last Supper from the Milanese basilica of Santa Maria delle Grazie. The parterre of artists convened by Francis is truly remarkable, but this should not distract us from his general plan of imitating the same ancient canons to which Charles V had entrusted the construction of the imperial idea. The ancient unified everything: the subjects and styles of the iconography, the collecting, the suits of amour, the settings for the shows and plays, the fantastic views of ancient Rome by the painter Antoine Caron, and the funeral monuments. Francis had himself allegorically portrayed dressed as Caesar and developed an interest in classical statuary from Rome, where he sent Primaticcio as a scout to commission plaster casts of ancient statues and send them back to France. The mission culminated with copies of masterpieces, including the Laocoon and the Apollo of the Belvedere. The hollow molds were shipped by sea from Civitavecchia in a great number of cases. From them, bronze copies were also cast in a newly established foundry at Fontainebleau directed by Primaticcio and Vignola.35 These contributed, in turn, to spreading the appreciation of antique sculpture throughout the court elite, who also saw the potential in it for self-promotion. The number of Italian manuscripts and books grew notably in France under the three sovereigns involved in the wars in Italy. In 1499, Louis XII carried ‘off as spoils of war the whole of Petrarch’s library that was in the castle of Pavia.’36 Under Francis, France became an intellectual home for Boccaccio, Ariosto, and Bandello, too, and prepared for the arrival of Tasso and Marino. One of Francis’s favorites was the Florentine poet Luigi Alamanni, whose poetry was widely drawn on by members of the Pléïade. Alamanni moved to France in 1530, where he contributed both to making Italian literature known and to Francis’s political plan. Both Francis and Henry II sent him on diplomatic missions, including one in Spain, in 1544, to Charles V. In 1546, Francis commissioned him to set down a poem narrating the adventures of Gyron le Courtoys, a supposed ancestor of the Valois family, but Alamanni was unable to complete the work (in Italian) before the sovereign died, and so it was dedicated to his successor Henry II in 1548. Like Leonardo, Alamanni died at Amboise after 26 years of service as a 35 Haskell & Penny, Taste, p. 4. 36 Feo, ‘Petrarca e’, p. 51.

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‘perfect courtier.’ Emblems were also extremely popular; not by chance, the first edition of Andrea Alciati’s Emblemata (1531) was published in France, as were two of Serlio’s Libri. Above all, there were the new courtly manners; as we shall see, there were no fewer than seven editions of the Cortegiano during his reign. The first translation (1538) was by Jacques Colin, Francis’s personal valet. Flavio Biondo’s De Roma triumphante appeared in Paris, in 1533, and the teaching of the Italian language in France in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries is now well documented.37 In the first edition of Petrarch, in 1545, the Lyon printer Guillaume Rouillé claimed that the Tuscan tongue was ‘so highly esteemed in the court of our sire’ (Francis I).38 The iconography of Francis I drew on the image of Caesar from the 1540s on; a Parallèles de Caesar et de Henri IV was published in Paris in 1609; and Henry II was depicted as imperator in an engraving by Niccolò della Casa and in a medal struck in commemoration of his victory at Calais. Francis was also constantly seeking choreographers from the courts of Northern Italy, from which he imported the taste for the moresca dance, which made use of mythological allegories. The Milanese composer Giovanni Paolo Paladino was his lutenist from 1516 to 1522. After his French experience, Paladino published three books of music. Francis also took up Italian fashions. To embellish the splendor of his court, Francis supported Serlio’s venture in compiling systematic collections of classical architectural features, and busts of Roman emperors arrived in Paris, as well as paintings, furniture, jewelry, silverware, and ivory work. The objets d’art designed by Rosso and Cellini were also part of the program – candelabra, domestic utensils, and tableware, such as the famous Salt Cellar of 1543. In short, the best of made in Italy and ‘made as in Italy.’ Italians ‘played a central role during two centuries of French history.’ Without the Italians ‘la France des années 1550–1660 aurait le teint blafard’ (‘France in the years 1550–1660 would have a pale complexion’).39 The France italienne reaches its apogee ‘between the regency of Catherine de’ Medici and the government of Mazarin.’40 Francis’ cultural reform (or revolution) continued under his successors. His (political) project was pursued almost without interruption by ministers, kings and regents – through the Wars of Religion – until the reign of Louis XIV (and beyond). His legacy was taken up in the short term by Henry II (1547–1559), and Henry IV (1589–1610) 37 See Sberlati, L’ambiguo, pp. 48–50. 38 Richardson, ‘La stampa’, p. 149. 39 Dubost, La France, p. 14. 40 Ibid., p. 383.

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would later draw on ‘Gallic Caesarism,’ and not even the two Frondes could interrupt this process. When Francis died, Catherine de’ Medici had already been in France for fourteen years as Henry II’s bride. From 1547 to 1559, Catherine was Queen Consort, after her husband’s death, and regent to her minor sons till her death, in 1589. Barely eleven years later, in 1600, another Medici woman, Marie, married Henry IV and, after his assassination, she, too, was regent, from 1610 to 1617. Marie died in July 1642, and, in December, the Italian Mazarin became first minister until 1661, the same year that Louis XIV took on full powers. Totting it up, then, there is a period of little less than 130 years when Italians were at the heart of French government and the court. This gave a decisive contribution to propagating Italian forms. Thanks to this, musicians, painters, actors, and writers crossed the Alps, the ballet de cour was imported, as was cuisine, and large building projects were planned, like the new Luxembourg Palace (1631), which was intended to recreate Palazzo Pitti. Despite her unpopularity, already Catherine de’ Medici had opened the way to a Florentine court culture and launched herself in an ambitious program of artistic patronage, leading the French Renaissance in all branches of the arts. A vast Italian entourage visited France for her wedding, and this is how Italian table manners (including the use of the fork) arrived in France. She was a voracious art collector and introduced Florentine court pageantry. Her true passion, however, was architecture. After her husband’s death, she commissioned Philibert de L’Orme – the most famous interpreter of classicism in France – to build the new Tuileries Palace. In 1571, she appointed Jean Bulland, another architect who had spent many years in Italy. By virtue of her sophisticated upbringing, Marie de’ Medici was an important enabler of the penetration of Medici culture. Marie imported styles, music, people, and art forms from Tuscany to produce festivals and allegorical ballets in support of her regency and to keep the throne to her son. She was renamed regina impresaria (‘impresario queen’) for her direct involvement in the negotiations with artists and theater companies. 41 In particular, she consolidated the presence of the theater and the ballet de cour in Paris, infusing it with allegorical values designed to reinforce her authority. The Parisian court and aristocracy were exposed to the avantgarde of new performing genres, which derived from her experience of ‘court spectacles in Florence – balli, mascherate, intermedia (‘dances, masques and interludes’) and early opera.’42 An Italian colony formed around her, 41 See Mamone, Firenze e, pp. 78–80. 42 Gough, Dancing Queen, p. 8.

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including the minister Concino Concini and the poet Giovan Battista Marino. The company was housed by the Marchesa Jean de Vivonne de Rambouillet, another Italian. Born of a noble Roman family, Madame de Rambouillet married extremely young and moved to Paris. Around 1620, she began to gather and entertain a circle of artists and men of letters. Despite the caricature of her in Molière’s Précieuses ridicules, until the mid-century her salon was the center of French and Italian intellectual discussions. In this period, the Commedia dell’Arte also took root. Francesco Andreini at the head of his company of the Gelosi and his wife Isabella had a roaring success. They would be followed by the actor-manager Tristano Martinelli, who played the part of Harlequin in 1600 before the king. Italian theater and opera had made a permanent home in France, though there would be no shortage of polemics. Pivotal f igure in this continuum (‘continuous’) is Cardinal Mazarin, prime minister from 1645 until 1661. Mazarin turned the Baroque into the royal style by attracting artists from Italy, like the painter Giovanni Francesco Romanelli (a pupil of Pietro da Cortona), who decorated the summer apartment of Anne of Austria. Under the Neapolitan cardinal, the Comédie-Italienne and Italian music also triumphed in Paris in the 1640s. In 1648, he founded the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture, and its art collection contained almost 900 paintings and more than 300 sculptures – masterpieces by Correggio and Titian, and Raphael’s famous portrait of Castiglione, which he purchased from the English king, Charles I. Thanks to Mazarin, first Scaramouche and then Harlequin enjoyed a sensational success in Paris, and he effectively made the Baroque the language of the monarchy. In 1645, he commissioned from Romanelli the Ovidian-inspired frescos for the ceiling of one of the galleries in his palace. More systematically than Catherine and Marie de’ Medici, Mazarin brought Italian music to Paris: we owe it to him that Italian operas were staged between 1645 and 1662, and he invited the Mantuan soprano Leonora Baroni and the castrato Atto Melani. 43 Nor could Louis XIV do without Italy in his plan of exalting his own regality.44 During his long reign, he preferred the Frenchman Girardon for equestrian monuments and rejected Gianlorenzo Bernini’s projects for the Louvre45 but he had an insatiable desire for antique statues for the park of Versailles, purchased paintings, metabolized good manners, and had artifacts 43 See Poncet, Mazarin, pp. 92 ff. 44 See Burke, The Fabrication. 45 See Tapié, Barocco, pp. 161–187.

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created in imitation of Italian ones. The flow of artists thus continued: the cabinetmaker and engraver Domenico Cucci arrived, and stayed in France from 1660 to 1704, and the famous Florentine composer Giovanni Battista Lulli worked in Paris from 1653 to 1687. The declaration by Louis XIV’s powerful Minister of Finances Jean-Baptiste Colbert that ‘nous devons faire en sorte d’avoire en France tout ce qu’il y a de beau en Italie’ (‘we must act to have in France all that is beautiful in Italy’) sounds like a pragmatic political project.46 As does the royal decree of 1666 to found the Academie de France in Rome to train French artists. In 1682, the literary gazette Mercure Galant could triumphantly declare that this prophecy had come true, proclaiming that ‘on peut dire que l’Italie est en France et que Paris est une nouvelle Rome.’ (‘one can say that Italy is in France and that Paris is a new Rome’).47 But it was not all plain sailing, and there were many examples of nationalization of Italian forms or open hostility to them. It has been said that, even in the ‘France italienne’ of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries there were contrasting attitudes to the Italians, both the target of criticism and sought after for their inimitable skills and as those who had the gift of savoir vivre. As we shall see, the debate became especially bitter in the eighteenth century, particularly around theatrical genres and opera. But this does not mean that the ‘Italianization’ of France, in spite of chauvinistic resistance, did not continue down to the late eighteenth century. Despite everything, Carlo Goldoni remained a favorite of the court public and – after thirty years in France – died there, in 1793. Like him, many others had had a role as cultural mediators, interacting with the great figures and seasons of French culture. Even if fiercely debated at times, the ‘Renaissance is an Italian phenomenon imported to France.’ In particular, the French ‘felt constantly obliged to measure themselves against the Italians.’48 As is wellknown, Lully (the French name for Lulli) started a tradition and established a French musical canon (codified by an Italian). While co-existing with the ‘national’ style, Serlio’s teaching, too, was irreversibly rooted in France and developed in autochthonous directions with Philippe de l’Orme, Pierre Lescot, and Jean Goujon. Painting also acquired a national identity in which Italian features were metabolized: François Clouet and Jean Cousin are the most famous examples. What Francis I inaugurated, then, was a long season during which the classicism of the Italian courts became the primary ornament of the monarchy. 46 Haskell and Penny, Taste, p. 37. 47 Ibid., p. 40. 48 Zerner, Renaissance, p. 5.

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4d Italian Courts and Renovatio Imperii Italy’s artistic ideals and cultural codes became appealing to the Spanish crown from the early sixteenth century. The interest in Italy’s roots in antiquity began at the time of Isabel of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragón, whose marriage forged a single kingdom. The ‘Crown proclaimed itself heir of the Roman Empire. The political program made the Spanish monarchy turn increasingly toward Italy and its humanistic “revolution”, renewing its own politics of images on the model of this modern adaptation of ancient motifs.’49 At this time, and because of this push, Italian artists started resettling and working for Spain and in Spain; this peculiar trade of men and artifacts involved in particular the Spanish territories, Rome, Florence, and Genoa. One of the first commissions was the royal tomb in the Capilla Real in Granada executed by Domenico Fancelli in 1504–1505. Charles V consolidated the cultural osmosis and accelerated ‘the adaptation of the classicizing style […] especially in sculpture and architecture.’ Already in the ‘years between 1516 and 1519, he exponentially increased his Spanish commissions, choosing to follow the path already indicated by his predecessors, so as to emphasize the legitimacy of his dynastic privilege.’50 Thanks to his travels through the Italian peninsula, Charles was able to admire courtly art and pageantry and these experiences informed his subsequent political patronage. Charles V of Habsburg, King of Spain from 1516 and Holy Roman Emperor from 1519 to 1556, is a fundamental engine of cultural diffusion. Here, too, there is a substantial literature on the renewed fashion of the imperial myth founded on the ancient code and – thus – on the role the Italian courtly culture played in this process.51 With Charles V, writes the Spanish art historian Checa Cremades, classicist discourse acquired political pregnancy, to be resolved in the dominance ‘de lo italiano y “antiguo”, sobre lo gótico y “moderno”’ (‘of the Italian and the “antique” over the Gothic and “modern”’).52 Precisely because it was nurtured on classicism, the imperial paradigm was destined to last. In addition, if Charles VIII had introduced the Italian Renaissance to France, barely thirty years later Charles V would be the tool for spreading it throughout Europe. Another important factor in rooting this ideological register came from the many vassals (princes, captains, courtiers, diplomats) who migrated from Italy 49 50 51 52

Artistic Circulation, p. 1. Ibid., p. 5. See Fantoni, ‘Carlo V’, pp. 101–114. Checa Cremades, Carlos V, p. 31.

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to serve the emperor and who drew on that register in turn to legitimate their own potestas (‘power’). The ritual of the triumph, which expanded throughout sixteenth-century Europe with the renovatio imperii, conveying ‘notions of Roman authority and greatness’ was also classical. Without entering the entire new domain of power ceremonials, we nonetheless need to call attention to the fact that the roots of triumphal entries lay in fifteenth-century Italy, where interest in them arose from the revival of the ancient archetype. In addition, classical literature supplied ample accounts of triumphs of Roman emperors and the reenactment of these rituals also owed much to Petrarch’s Trionfi. Moreover, among the visual sources we must include the reliefs of the surviving ancient triumphal arches and – above all – the greatly admired cycle of nine canvases of the Triumphs of Caesar by Andrea Mantegna, painted in the 1480s for the Duke of Mantua. Relying upon this tradition, grandiose triumphal entries were set up for Charles V on the occasion of his many trips to Italy, and from here they were metabolized by all European monarchies after the 1530s. ‘It constituted both a model and an idea […] immediately recognizable as having a universalizing effect.’53 As well as the itinerant Charles V, French sovereigns made use of this ritual in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries with a calculated imitation of Roman imperial legacy. Charles V’s triumphs during his seven journeys through the peninsula thus sanctioned the affirmation of the symbolism and iconography of the imperial ritual.54 In the figurative and plastic arts, too, the movement from medieval formulas to those founded on Roman tradition is notable in the coronation in Bologna. The basilica of San Petronio was modified to resemble St Peter’s and, for his entry to Bologna on 6 December 1529, Charles was welcomed by a city that had disguised itself as Rome. On 24 February 1530, still not thirty years old, Charles became ‘officially one of the Roman emperors’ and could thus be legitimately associated with them.55 All the resurrected antiquity concentrated in this event a retying of the knots with ancient majestas (‘majesty’). One factor that ensured that his era was placed in the framework of romanitas was the ‘extraordinary combination of circumstances [the young Charles] seemed to have planned’ to restore the temporal and spiritual imperial pax (‘peace’).56 One of his many titles, that of Rex Romanorum (‘king of the romans’), was placed before all the others, and even the motto 53 McGowan, The Vision, p. 312. 54 See Mitchell, The Majesty and Eisler, ‘The Impact’, pp. 93–110. 55 Leydi, Sub umbra, pp. 79–80. See also Brandi, Carlo V, p. 273. 56 Yates, Astrea, p. 33.

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Plus oultre (coined in 1516 and matched with the emblem of the pillars of Hercules) was Latinized in Plus ultra (‘further beyond’). The journey of 1535–1536, following the conquest of Tunis, offered an unmissable opportunity for the Italian cities and princes to display this model to the utmost. Dozens of equestrian statues, effigies, and mockantique embellishments were raised on triumphal arches and inserted in makeshift apparatuses, not to mention the spectacles and tournaments, at the center of which there was always the figure of the sovereign amid pagan divinities or ancient heroes. The emperor’s image was always presented in historical and mythological registers: Hercules, Jupiter, and Neptune, but also Augustus, Caesar, and Marcus Aurelius.57 And one cannot fail to remember the sensational Sala dei Giganti (‘Hall of the Giants’) in Palazzo Té, where Jupiter’s/imperial’s eagle is on Jupiter’s/Charles’ throne, from which she will quell the rebellion of the Titans against the legitimate deities of Mount Olympus. As well as images, the works of Plutarch and Suetonius contributed to these choices, for their influence in spreading the exemplum of the monarch of antiquity made him transcend the ‘political boundaries’ and ‘ideological differences’ of late-sixteenth-century Europe.58 The entire repertoire of emblems, feats and imperial allegories (eagle, globe, pallium (‘woolen cloak’), staff of command, etc.) reappeared, with textual codification provided by authors of the period.59 If Charles V rejuvenated the imperial idea, it was the Italian artists who provided the symbolic and figurative tools for him. The revival of the empire offered artists and humanists a living propaganda tool on which they could ‘justifiably lavish the entire rediscovered repertoire of classical antiquity.’60In Trent, for his entry in April 1530, Marcello Fogolino was responsible for the décor, Perin del Vaga superintended that of Genoa (August 1529), Polidoro da Caravaggio handled the mighty apparatus of Messina in 1535, and Giulio Romano prepared the ‘memorable inventions’ for the two entries into Mantua (April 1530 and November 1532). Baldassarre Peruzzi supervised the triumph in Siena in April 1536, for which Domenico Beccafumi prepared a papier-mâché equestrian statue of Charles V, which Niccolò Tribolo imitated the same year for the display in Florence. A similar statue was designed by Guglielmo della Porta, in 1549, and there was one in Piazza San Pietro in Rome, a homage from Clement VII. Antonio da Sangallo, Francesco 57 See Checa Cremades, Carlos V. 58 See Mezzatesta, ‘Marcus Aurelius’, pp. 620–633. 59 See, for example, Doni, Sopra l’effige. 60 Strong, Art, p. 76.

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Salviati, and Baldassarre Peruzzi again worked on the Roman celebrations in 1535 and many artists under Giorgio Vasari were ordered by Cosimo I de’ Medici to prepare those in Florence.61 The honors rendered to Charles V were a ‘conscious effort on the part of the Italian princes to impress the young emperor. Every city attempted to outdo the other in order to gain the emperor’s approval.’62 In exchange, there would be titles and benefices, on which a widespread network of subordination was founded that would tie the Habsburgs to the Italian princes, guaranteeing Spanish hegemony and stability to the peninsula. Laden with political significance, the imperial theme was a powerful driving force for spreading this iconography and those themes that had already been developed by the Italian courts, and to which their many lords would increasingly return, as their sovereignty drew on and emulated that of Charles V. In a kind of short circuit, Charles imitated the Italian courts, whose princes drew inspiration from his sovereignty. One need only think of the authentic propaganda campaigns launched by the Medici, Gonzaga and Farnese families in their luxurious residences. Cosimo is enthroned dressed as Augustus on the ceiling of the Salone dei Cinquecento, Giulio Romano filled Palazzo Té and Palazzo Ducale in Mantua with these figures, and the Fasti Farnesiani in Piacenza (commissioned by Ranuccio II and executed by Giovanni Evangelista Draghi and Sebastiano Ricci from 1685 to 1687) link indelibly the heroic feats of Alessandro Farnese to those of Charles V. But the imperial theme even extended to Genoa, Guastalla, Carpi, and wherever a prince wanted to ratify his power, placing it in the shadow of Charles V.63 There was, then, an ‘imperialization’ of political language, which consolidated the affirmation of the classicist canon, and yet also found in it a suitable vocabulary for expressing it in frescos, engravings, medals, cameos, armor, sculptures, tapestries, and much else. This could not have happened without the cultural hinterland of the Italian courts and those artists, intellectuals, and craftsmen, who had now fully assimilated the lesson of the ancients. Only the ‘now mature Italian Renaissance was able to supply individuals able to fully handle the political reutilization of the classical tradition. Charles V provided them with the opportunity to ‘lavish [on him] an entire culture.’64 The imperial code inundated and was also nurtured by the writings of historians and humanists, such as Paolo Giovio – above 61 See Pietrosanti, ‘Ben venga’, pp. 553–583. 62 Eisler, ‘The impact’, p. 109. 63 Klieman, Gesta dipinte, pp. 37 ff. 64 Leydi, Sub umbra, p. 82.

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all, though not only, for his Dialogo delle imprese militari e amorose (1555); Giovanni Stradano’s Dodici Cesari (c. 1590); and emblem books and lives of eminent men. As many had not only undeniable artistic talent, but had also mastered the new language, they moved to Spain or other European courts, where many of the texts written and printed in Italy would find success (in translation or the original). The transition from Burgundian forms to classicizing ones is also visible in official portraiture. The first portrait of Charles V by an Italian painter was Parmigianino’s (1530), in which the sovereign is shown surrounded by the figures of Fame and the child Hercules holding up the world. The most important workshop, however, was certainly Titian’s in Venice, from which emerged three famous paintings of Charles V with Dog (1533), Charles V at Mühlberg (1548), and Charles V seated (1548). The fascination with these works is testified to by, for example, the 37 prints of the Charles V and Clement VII on Horseback in Bologna by Nikolas Hogenberg (1539) and the series of Victories of Charles V by Maerten van Heemskerck (1556).65 Italian and European courts also meet in the famous Cabinet of the Caesars, the cycle of twelve emperors painted by Titian for Federico II Gonzaga (a loyal vassal of the emperor) from 1536 to 1540. The Cabinet was built as a typical court space for the exclusive use of the prince, his favorites and distinguished guests. In it, effigies of emperors and res gestae (‘deeds’) mingle with the didactic illustration of the virtues of the ancients, creating an allegorical mimesis of heroic f igures of the past and present-day sovereigns.66 As ‘possessing a portrait of Charles V’ meant ‘showing (and demonstrating) one’s subjection and the personal reverence of the owner and his family,’ in this case, too, innumerable copies were made of the originals, scattered throughout the Italian and European courts.67 But the Titian series also enjoyed extraordinary success from the engravings by Egidio Sadeler and Ippolito Andreasi, for the replicas on medals and tapestries, and for the many reports from travelers.68 The cycles of emperors became an authentic stereotype that was rife everywhere: it is to be seen on the façade of the Pio castle in Carpi, in the halls of the castle of Ambras (the Tyrolese residence of Archduke Ferdinand II of Austria), in the courtyard of Wawel Castle in Cracow (seat of the Polish court), and on the façade of Palazzo Spada in Rome. So widespread was it that, in 1581 (a few decades after the original had been 65 See the fundamental study by Panofsky, Problems. 66 See Bodard, Tiziano. 67 Leydi, Sub umbra, p. 132. 68 See Leydi, Sub umbra, pp. 199–212.

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painted), Cardinal Gabriele Paleotti was already speaking with distaste of the ‘misuse’ of the subject in his Discorso sopra le immagini sacre e profane: so ‘vigorously’ did it ‘run through the palaces, halls, loggias, libraries and studies […] in all the main cities of Italy and of Christendom.’69 In the plastic arts, the credit for fixing the figure of the emperor in images was shared by the Medici sculptor Giambologna and the Milanese Leone Leoni (1509–1590), who, with his son Pompeo (1533–1608), alternated as portraitist of the Spanish crown for nearly a century. Father and son put their talent in the service of Charles V, Philip II, and their many Italian vassals. With them, Italian-made imperial imagery made its way throughout the empire: Leone also traveled to Germany, Austria, Holland, and France.70 The magnificent busts and full-length statues added to the imperial vocabulary of canonical allegorical figures – from Envy, to Fury, and Discord – and turned Charles V into an Augustus triumphant, ‘who seemed to promise a new era of peace and unity for Europe,’71 and codified the most fitting symbolic uniformity for representing the sovereign throughout the continent. How much the renovatio owed the Italian courts is also shown by the overwhelming richness of the artisanry. The whole of Italy was regarded as in the avant garde for the ‘splendor of its courts, which competed for the best artists, scenographers, costume designers, builders of theatrical machinery,’ goldsmiths, medalists, etc. No feasts were more lavish than the Roman ones, and few could equal the richness of Farnese family’s jewels, and, from the 1530s, the Milanese workshop of Filippo Negroli dominated armory. Still more evident was the primacy of the Italian courts in elegance of dress; this is borne out by Italian tailors supplying entire wardrobes for Charles V and his retinue, and many documents mentioning the ‘high standard’ of his dress.72 Another contributory factor was the heroic-martial register. In iconography and treatises on Charles V’s wars against the Turks, the French and the Lutherans became an epic equal to that of the ancient heroes, the labors of Hercules, or the victories of the great condottieri (‘captains’). Carolus Africanus was the name bestowed upon him after the conquest of Tunis, and his captains, most of whom were Italian princes, were given similar epithets. In his Discorso (1573), the Florentine Francesco Bocchi (a Medici panegyrist) listed – in an original juxtaposition – Giovanni de’ Medici, 69 Paleotti, Discorso, discorso II, cap. XIII. 70 See Los Leoni (1509–1608). 71 Mezzatesta, Imperial, p. 337. 72 Leydi, Sub umbra, pp. 155 and 53.

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Consalvo de Cordova, Charlemagne, and Charles V, among the ‘moderns’ capable of equaling the feats of the ancients and worthy of comparison with Caesar, Scipio, Hannibal, and Alexander the Great.73 Charles consolidated the interpenetration of romanitas and the Christian order. His Sacra Maiestas (‘sacred majesty’) consisted in using the sword to create a world that had been pacified and united as the premise for realizing the respublica christiana. The warlike virtues, in Christian-classical syncretism, were essential in defining the features of the wise prince, who choose to combat only just wars. This set the tone for the literature on the ‘perfect captain’ and the figure of the ‘Christian prince.’74 In 1561, discussing ‘just wars’ in his Principe Heroico, Giovan Battista Pigna, secretary of Duke Alfonso II d’Este, had praised Charles for adhering to this ideal in promoting conflicts designed to re-establish peace and bring about the triumph of the ‘true religion.’ In Pigna’s interpretation, the emperor embodied the pure heroic model through his ‘excellent virtues,’ which made him fully ‘divine.’75 In this sense, he was the greatest of modern sovereigns for his courage in facing so many daunting enemies and restoring the declining empire. Just three years after the death of this heir of Caesar and rival of Mars in the monastery of Yuste, Pigna eulogized the ‘most holy intention toward the Apostolic seat,’ which made him even superior to the insuperable ancients, who lacked ‘the final Heroic perfection, which is in giving oneself to Religion.’76 Nor did Paolo Giovo have any doubts that Charles was predestined to ‘establish universal concord,’ and Francesco Sansovino attributed to him the statement: ‘I cannot say like Caesar veni vidi vici, but I can certainly say veni, vidi, et Christus vicit’ (‘I came, I saw, and Christ conquered’).77 An imperial myth destined to make its mark on the collective imagination of Christendom thus took form and imposed itself; Napoleon would be inspired by it two and a half centuries later. Combining Christian providentialism and classical revival, Charles embodied the prototype of the perfect sovereign in the ancien régime, a mold that would serve for various generations of European monarchs. The portraits of artists and the writings of Italian authors forged a profile of auctoritas that, in its malleability, suited every kind of prince, military rank, and type of gentleman. It was an ethical-political code that became part of a shared legacy. The renovatio 73 Bocchi, Discorso, p. 39. 74 See Il “Perfetto”, pp. 1–35. 75 Pigna, Il Principe, p. 68. 76 Ibid., pp. 69–70. 77 See Giovio, Gli Elogi, p. 413 and Sansovino, Il simulacro, p. 51r.

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imperii had a powerful effect in carrying with it classicist models developed by the Italian courts, and politics – as always – amplified them. The myth of empire was not buried with Charles in 1558. Romanitas remained the preferred language of the European monarchies. Imperial themes had enormous impact on Francis I (who married Charles’ sister) and on Elizabeth I, with the myth of the return of the Golden Age under the imperial virgin Astrea.78 And it goes without saying that the imperial mantle was transmitted through the Habsburg dynasty, which thus continued to proclaim its divine origins. The country that more than any other was indebted to the arts and culture of the Italian courts was certainly Spain, but the rebirth of the imperial ‘ghost’ was not limited to the Iberian monarchy. After his abdication (1556), Charles’s son Philip II and brother Ferdinand I made the imperial imaginary their own, but it also infected the propaganda machine set up by Philip IV. We shall also find it in the Polish kings, victorious over the Turks, and it would be adopted in the Protestant world, by the Scandinavian sovereigns, by William of Orange, and even by Oliver Cromwell. This is just one piece of the much larger contribution the Italian courts made to European political culture, but not so much in terms of aesthetic codes and symbolic forms, as – through them – ideological models. After Charles V, the mythical image of the emperor set up permanent residence in Western political thought, addressing the whole heroic-mythological catalog, from the legend of the descent from Troy to the iconographic incarnations with the gods of Olympus.79

4e A Queen and Two Kings The influence of Italian court culture in England starts in the early Tudor period and continues – with the interruption of the Civil Wars (1642–1646: 1648; and 1688–1689) – until the end of the eighteenth century. To simplify, we can roughly identify four different phases, each one marked by its own traits: the early Tudor period dominated by the Florentine connection, the Elizabethan period mostly revolving around language and literature, the kingdom of Charles I with the formation of art collections, and the age of the Restoration all the way until the Neopalladian vogue and the fortune of Italian opera in the nineteenth century. Accounting for all this evolution would require a separate book, we will only briefly sail through these stages. 78 Yates, Astrea, p. 5. 79 See Tanner, The Last.

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Let us start from the beginning. We were saying that Italy was present in England – with its Florentine humanists, merchants and artists – since the early Tudor period. London was the home of a ‘Florentine nation’ already at the end of the fifteenth century. The great bulk of Italian art in England at this time was funerary sculpture. The most notable work of this age was Pietro Torrigiani’s funeral monument of Henry VII and his wife Elisabeth of York in Westminster Abbey, in 1512–1518. The artists of Henry VII and Henry VIII tombs (the latter is by Benedetto da Rovezzano and Giovanni di Benedetto da Maiano) were all from a republican city.80 In England, Torrigiani (and his team of fellow Florentines) received many other religious and secular commissions, and he is generally credited with introducing the Italian Renaissance sculptural style before moving to Spain, in 1522–1525.81 Antonio Toto, a pupil of Ghirlandaio, was another Florentine painter in England from around 1519. In 1543, he was naturalized and, one year later, was appointed Serjeant Painter. He was joined by Hans Holbein, in 1526, in the service of Henry VIII, in a kingdom ‘where an Italianate decorative vocabulary had triumphed, as it had throughout Europe.’82 The duo TotoHolbein, an Italian and a Flemish converted to Italian style, dominated the court scene for the entire 1530s. It would have been ‘inconceivable at this date to imagine a court such us Henry VIII welcoming a painter [Holbein] who was not adept at using the fashionable Italianate decorative vocabulary.’83 The apogee of this phenomenon is the period between 1558 and 1649. This period saw the birth and full development of English infatuation with Italian culture. It happened mainly during the reigns of Elizabeth I (1558–1603) and Charles I (1625–1649). Two different sovereigns in two equally different epochs of English history: Elizabeth, last of the Tudor dynasty, and Charles, the second of the Stuart dynasty. Social and religious pacification proceeded in Elizabeth’s reign, while under Charles the country slipped into the abyss of civil war. The former came to the throne the year in which the emperor Charles V died and survived for five years after the death of his successor Philip II, who had tried, in vain, to make her his consort and unleashed his Armada against her. Her long reign overlaps with that of the emperor, Rudolf II (1576–1612), who, like her, was an avid collector of Italian art, and who, like her, never married. Charles became king four years after Philip IV and died on the scaffold on 31 January 1649, six years after the coronation of 80 81 82 83

See Caglioti, ‘Benedetto da Rovezzano’, pp. 177–202. See Phipps Darr, ‘Pietro Torrigiani’, p. 49. Foister, ‘Holbein’, p. 281. Ibid., p. 285.

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Louis XIV. Between the two, James I reigned (1603–1625), the first to occupy the thrones of England, Scotland, and Ireland simultaneously. Of Scottish origin, James opened the season of conflict with parliament, sustained the divine right of kings, and became one of the most cultured men in England. All three – Elizabeth, James, and Charles – looked to Italy as a lighthouse of civilization, trying to bridge the gap between them by introducing its culture to England. ‘Not only in literature and art, but in science, politics, commerce, banking, sport and social refinement the civilization of Italy was years ahead of that of England.’84 The fact that Italian language and culture were very popular in England is also borne out by the many printers in London, who constantly supplied books in Italian. The effect created by Italian painting, literature, and drama was understandable, partly because the Italians found England a ‘barbarous island,’ in which it was relatively easy for one’s ability and sophistication to be appreciated. But admiration often went hand in hand with envy, and we should not forget the prejudices they were victims of. This said, the thirst for civilization and the desire to appropriate Italian forms in court circles exceeded any prejudice. This was the century of William Shakespeare, Inigo Jones, Ben Jonson, Edmund Spenser, and Anthony van Dyck, and many other great creators of the English Renaissance, which was modeled on the Italian one. Italy exercised an ‘attractive power’ over them as they recognized it as ‘the intellectual center of Europe.’85 ‘Italy was one of the key cultures against which England defined itself,’ in particular ‘as a source of forms.’86 With various tonalities, Italy was still that of the courts and classicism, to which was attributed ‘a powerfully normalizing mode.’87 The practice (the necessity) of imitating the Italians, to be like them, (and to approach the classics) culminated – despite the Anglican Reformation – in the late sixteenth century. The 1590s were the decade of the pervasive Italianization of England, which went in waves, starting with Petrarchism, moving on to the epic of Ariosto and Tasso, and the turn of Castiglione and della Casa, Palladio, various dramatic genres (comedy, pastoral, opera, etc.), down to the 1628 purchase of masterpieces from the Gonzaga collection. The multifaceted influence of Italian culture on the English Renaissance, particularly in the Elizabethan era, is widely known. There is little new to add, though I shall provide a concise summary to set it in relation to 84 Einstein, The Italian, pp. 260–261. 85 Hale, England, p. 14. 86 Dasenbrock, Imitating, pp. 1, 2, and 4. 87 Gent, ‘Introduction’, p. 1.

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the construction of the monarchic image. Here, too, the revival of empire enabled Italian humanists and artists to ‘apply to a living individual the whole rediscovered repertory of classical antiquity.’88 In The Faerie Queene (1590), the poet Spenser referred to Elizabeth – the virgin queen – as the ‘most Mightie and Magnif icent Empresse.’89 This affected equally the figurative arts of ancient insignia, and it spilled over into tournaments, spectacles, and ballets. The crucial literary f igure that ‘def ined English poetic culture’ was undoubtedly Petrarch. English poets of the Renaissance perceived ‘their own languages as rude and barbaric, as lacking of any basis for a literary’ expressions, hence they ‘translated Petrarch precisely in order to create that idiom.’90 His first translator (and imitator) was Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503–1542), who wanted to enhance the language and who deserves the credit for introducing the sonnet into English literature. Petrarchan language, lyrical forms, and themes were destined to endure in England, and would become a sine qua non with the works of Spenser, Sidney, and Shakespeare. In this, they would be helped by the political value attributed to love poetry and Italian court culture in Elizabethan ideology. Once again, then, politics gave the impulse and created the field of application. Take, again, The Faerie Queene, in which Spenser shows how indebted he was not only to Petrarch, Ariosto, and Tasso, but also (despite his Protestant creed) to the ‘Catholic culture of Italy’ in general.91 But Petrarch was not alone. The success of Italian books in England was sensational. Between 1550 and 1650, more than 400 titles were translated by 225 different authors, without counting those read in the original language. Architectural treatises circulated, along with epic poetry, plays and opera libretti, literary theory, and books from and on the court. Many aristocratic libraries possessed more Italian books (or in Italian) than English. Ariosto’s Orlando furioso was translated, as were Tasso’s Gerusalemme liberata, Jacopo Sannazzaro’s Arcadia, and the writings of Pietro Aretino, Francesco Guicciardini, and Giovanni Boccaccio. Dante was the great exception. Half a dozen books by Giordano Bruno were published in England in Italian during his stay in London between 1583 and 1585. Among others, in 1611, Robert Peake translated Sebastiano Serlio and introduced him to an educated elite that had already come across the Aldine edition of the Hypnerotomachia 88 Strong, Spendour, p. 81. 89 See Yates, Astrea. 90 Dasenbrock, Imitating, p. 87. 91 Ibid., p. 81.

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Poliphili of 1499 before it became The Strife of Love in a Dream in the London translation of 1592. We notice that the ‘courtesy books were among the most influential.’92 In particular, those that codified the characteristics of court gained a place in aristocratic households: Castiglione, Guazzo, Giovio, and della Casa above all, but also the countless treatises on court manners, rules, and professions. There is a weighty bibliography on the success of Italian literature in England. One of its bulkier sections is certainly that on the intertextual aspects and on Shakespearean drama, where there have been competing attempts to register linguistic and stylistic traces, settings, characters, plots, and situations taken from Italy. There are innumerable case studies and ‘paired analogies’ between Italian and Shakespearean works, and on the polyform modalities of influence that can be attributed to Shakespeare’s ‘mastery of Italian techniques.’ The incorporation of Italian influence happened by ‘fission and fusion’ and Shakespeare demonstrated that he was both receptive and omnivorous, quick to scent novelty, daring in imitating it, and a master in reworking it, ‘not by borrowing plots from sources but by contaminatio (‘mixing’) of structures, recombining in novel ways.’93 In this respect, it has been noted that his use of Italian elements ‘was not mere imitation’ but ‘application of Italian methods to new purposes.’94 Along with tragedy, he experimented with various types of comedy: serious comedy, the comedy of errors, tragicomedy, ‘tragedy with a happy ending,’ and the Commedia dell’Arte. And here, among others, Bernardo Dovizi’s La Calandria (1513) and Annibal Caro’s Gli straccioni (1543) are relevant. A profound influence on Shakespeare’s work has been attributed to the Neapolitan Giovan Battista della Porta, whose ‘dramatic works’ were ‘often translated by Elizabethans and Jacobeans.’95 There are correspondences between Hamlet and Tasso’s Il re Torrismondo, which was first printed in 1587 and performed in London just two years later. A ‘structural kinship’ links ‘the design of Othello and the Pastor fido’ (1590) by Giovanni Battista Guarini of Ferrara, just as ‘ingredients of the magical pastoral’ of the Arbore incantato (1611) by the little-known Ferdinando Neri and Flaminio Scala appear in A Midsummer Night’s Dream and in The Tempest. Through Guarini and the pastoral genre, Shakespeare also made contact with the primary classical source. And we could continue endlessly. 92 Hale, England, p. 8. 93 Clubb, Italian Drama, p. 11. 94 Salinger, Shakespeare, p. 77. 95 Clubb, Italian Drama, p. ix.

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With the host of playwrights and court poets, sometimes the correspondences are documented by the sources, while others can be found between the lines of the texts, others again are woven deeply into the dramatic structure, and others can be heard as an echo of classical tradition. There are many adaptations and reworkings of Italian texts, such as The Garden of Pleasure (1573) by James Sanford, a ‘free’ translation of Hore di Ricreatione by Lodovico Guicciardini, the nephew of the more famous Francesco. Certainly, English authors had access to translations of Italian comedies and their performances in the London theaters and it is usual to mention the writings of the Italianist John Florio, but we should also consider that Italians and English were moving in the same intellectual circles, including – last but not least – the court. Italian authors fertilized English literature, no more, no less. And, as a result, interest grew in their classical sources – Cicero, Terence, Plautus, Ovid, Livy, Pliny, etc. – and autochthonous guides. Histories and descriptions of Italy also increased, like William Thomas’s Historie of Italy (1549). The essence of the phenomenon is the awareness of a cultural backwardness that was seen as a weakness of the English monarchy compared with European ones, who had converted to these canons earlier. Italy was imitated so that they might put themselves on a level with other sovereigns. Elizabeth’s puritan subjects were also avid readers (in English or Italian) of treatises ‘on the most various topics such as military theory, cooking, government, religion, horse-riding, moral philosophy and good manners.’96 Along with this, the Italian language provided ‘the single most important complement to the English literary tradition.’97 There were thus many masters of the tongue who arrived in England. They included the Florentine Michel Angelo Florio, followed by his son John (1553–1625). Frances Yates has written a detailed biography of the latter. It may be partly for this reason that Florio stands out as one of the most emblematic figures of this colonization by Italians or by Italian. John was born in London and never set foot in Italy. Known, above all, for his English translation of Montaigne, he is an example of the cultural popularizer par excellence, always in search of pupils and protectors. Temporary employment in the French embassy introduced him to Giordano Bruno, with whom he remained in contact when the latter left London in 1585. Florio had friends among men of letters and frequented aristocratic circles, was linked to the powerful Francis Walsingham, first secretary of Elizabeth from 1573 to 1590, he became Italian tutor of the Earl of Southampton, and had a direct influence on Ben Jonson, siding with him 96 Lievsay ‘Stefano Guazzo’, p. 210. 97 Salingar, Shakespeare, p. 9.

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in his dispute with Shakespeare. His success peaked in 1604, when he was appointed ‘reader in Italian to Queen Anne and as one of the grooms of her privy chamber’98 with the handsome salary of 100 pounds a year. He died of the plague in Fulham, where he eked out his last years in poverty. His Fist Fruites (1578) ‘is primarily a text-book for the teaching of Italian’ and consists of a grammatical part and a section with 44 dialogs in Italian and English ‘arranged in parallel columns.’99 His Second Fruites (1591) is more broadly a bilingual introduction to Italian language, customs, and geography; and the Worlde of Wordes (1598) – his major work – is the first comprehensive dictionary of the Italian language. With these Florio made available to the English aristocracy a distillate of proverbs, quotations, and terms extrapolated from the great Italian authors. The second edition of the New Worlde of Wordes (1611), dedicated to Queen Anne, lists 252 titles and more than 250,000 entries. With Il Giardino di Ricreatione (1591) – a collection of almost 6,000 Italian proverbs (with no English equivalent) – Florio also prepared an inexhaustible summary of quotations ready for use. It should also be said that his success bears witness to the esteem in which Italian culture and the Italian language were held in England in his day. He entered an environment that, in 1550, had already seen the ‘first published Italian grammar and dictionary in English’ by William Thomas,100 and that was submerged in works printed in the original tongue. Other grammars and dictionaries of local authors circulated, too, like The Italian Schoolmaster (1597) by Claude Hollyband and the Grammar of Introduction to the Italian tongue (1605) by John Sanford. Giovanni Torriano would later take Florio’s place as the principle teacher of Italian, publishing in his name a Vocabolario Italiano & Inglese (1659), which reproduced with few alterations a manuscript left unpublished by Florio. He also edited other works deriving from Florio: a collection of proverbs and two grammars of the Italian tongue, in 1640 and 1657. In the field of architecture, Andrea Palladio stood alone and unrivaled. His dominance was to be long-lasting and to mutate into an indigenous architectonic form. The publishing history of Palladio is part of ‘the complete and radical conversion to models of [Italian] taste’ during Charles I’s reign.101 We might say that Palladio stands to English architecture as Serlio does to French, but in slightly different ways and times. Both had an 98 Yates, John Florio, p. 247. 99 Ibid., pp. 28–29. 100 Wyatt, ‘Reading’, p. 125. 101 Wittkower, Palladio, p. 106.

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enormous influence and began a school, but in France a local style survived tenaciously, while, in the course of time, England became wholly Palladian. There were two distinct waves to it, in the seventeenth century, and then in the eighteenth with neo-Palladianism, which in this version moved overseas where it became the mark of the new American democracy. When Palladio was translated, the treatises of Serlio, Alberti, Vignola, and Scamozzi were already circulating in England (there were 68 seventeenth- and eighteenthcentury translations of Italian architectonic treatises in all).102 There were five translations of Palladio’s magnum opus (‘great work’) in the seventeenth century (the first dates from 1663), followed by another eight in the next century, when derivative authors were mainly being published. The ‘proudly puritan’ Inigo Jones (1573–1652) was an enthusiastic interpreter of Palladio, and, with him, Palladio was at the heart of the monarchy’s projects. Jones worked for the king and the aristocracy, and, with him, the classical manner was imposed as the court style. After its adoption in the seventeenth century, in eighteenth-century England, Palladianism was no longer an imported idiom but the national architectonic language and – after this adaptation – it began to spread throughout Enlightenment Europe. To tell the truth, its favorable reception also came about through the architect Giacomo Leoni, who published in instalments The Architecture of A. Palladio, in Four Books between 1715 and 1720. Leoni had come to London before 1715 at the age of 28, after working at the court of Düsseldorf since 1708. The Vitruvian order and the vernacular tradition coexisted, and their combination can be seen in villas and decorative styles, churches, and ornaments, as well as in curial spaces like galleries, which increasingly became part of local tradition. But collecting Italian artifacts began relatively late with Charles I, when the trend had already caught on in France, Spain, and the German states. This gives us indications as to the periodization of the assimilation of Italian models: with the Elizabethan phase pre-eminently marked by linguistic-literary influences, and the following one – starting with the first two decades of the seventeenth century – with the arrival of art and antiquities, and with a more general conversion to court tastes and practices. In both cases, however, it did not change the fact that there had been an intentional political choice to adapt to a new symbolic vocabulary in support of the monarchy. The process begun by Charles I also revealed how a domino effect of mutual imitation was set off between the reigning houses of Europe, who competed in prestige by adopting Italian models. It reached the point, under Charles, when Italy was drawn on indirectly 102 Ibid., pp. 164–165.

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through emulating its equals. It was the example of what Francis I had done at Fontainebleau that led Charles I, on ascending the throne in 1625, to begin collecting antiquities (copies and originals) in his residences of St James and Somerset House, and it was also the effect on him of Philip IV’s collections in Madrid that decided him to enter the art market. As we shall see, he quickly made up for lost time with the purchase of Vincenzo Gonzaga’s Celeste Galleria. Despite the moral risks it involved, anything with a whiff of Italy was fashionable, and it became fashionable to imitate the Italians, too. Let us remain in the schema of movements from one court to another and of the political use and significance of imitation. In addition, the imitation of Italian models also signals a cultural discontinuity in this case. Quite apart from the individual arts, modalities of transmission and reception, and the different sovereigns and historical circumstances, we are faced with a phenomenon whose actual value becomes clear only if we take a broad, general view of the question. With language, literature, architecture, collecting, and social practices, we should look at the complete repertoire of forms and formulas of propagation, and also examine more carefully how they adapted to Castiglione’s regula, and the same goes for the widespread diffusion of della Casa’s Galateo, but we also need to consider art forms such as dance, music, and opera in particular if we are to build up a picture substantially similar to the other European cases. We can return in greater detail to some of these later, but a brief note on Italian theater is essential. It might be better to speak of the performing and entertaining arts, as it embraced the most varied forms. Without them, and all their genres, there would have been no English theater. But it would also be reasonable to state that there were two aspects to it, being both a part of court spectacles and ceremonies, and also authentic show business with broader economic and social effects outside the court. Italian comedy in particular was perceived and received as such by the urban classes, and the monarchy’s interest ‘is proved by Queen Elizabeth’s request that her courtiers organize’ these performances, and ‘there are records of seven visits to England by Italian players between 1546 and 1578, and by 1591 the traffic’ was now constant.103 London became a fixed stage of European tours by Italian companies and many of their actor-managers and leading ladies enjoyed huge popularity.104 Once again, it was accompanied by the publication (translated or otherwise) of Italian texts, from the sixteenth-century 103 Clubb, Italian Drama, p. 50. 104 See Strong, Art and Yates, Astrea.

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classics, like Ariosto’s, Tasso’s, Sannazzaro’s, or Trissino’s Sofonisba, the works of Giraldi Cinzio, or canovacci (‘scenarios’) of comedies. As well as comedy (Commedia dell’Arte above all) the pastoral genre was much performed and imitated. The ‘resemblances under the surface between Italian pastorals and various kinds of English plays’ are so numerous as to confirm ‘the impression that English dramatists were aware not merely of one or another specific Italian play but rather of Italian theatrical fashion in general.’105 Theory, of course, was quick to follow, particularly regarding the extremely changeable nature of the arts in question. One example may suffice: Lodovico Castelvetro’s Poetica d’Aristotele vulgarizzata, et sposta, first published in Vienna in 1570, an international success whose fame also reached Elizabethan England. There were many, then, in England too, more or less famous, who helped spread Italian culture. The theatrical companies often visited, Giordano Bruno was living there, as were language teachers and opera singers. They included Elizabeth I’s resident composer, Alfonso Ferrabosco (1543–1588) from Bologna: dividing his time between the two countries and with a taste for living dangerously, he was crucial in introducing the madrigal to England. Like Florio, Ferrabosco was an Anglo-Italian. He taught music to the Prince of Wales and was an ‘associate of Inigo Jones and Ben Jonson in the production of masques.’106 Giovanni Francesco Biondi, who was also a diplomat, enjoyed a ‘court appointment as Gentleman Extraordinary of the Royal Privy Chamber,’ and we know that intimacy with the sovereign conferred prestige and power.107 In his case, so much that James I knighted him in 1622. Biondi, too, published during his period in England. One bridge was the English actor and dancer Will Kempe (d. 1603), specialized both in Italian comedy and Shakespearean drama. Kempe had long resided in Italy, and Italian actors, his partners, joined him in London.108 We cannot know how many of these figures, who for us are little more than a shadow world, played crucial roles in transmitting ideas, techniques, styles, tastes, etc. Despite the wars and difficulties in travel, we are left with an image of widespread sharing, of an integrated system of reading and readers, itinerant artists, circulation of goods, professional synergies, and human fellowship. This suggests there were no borders, but more of a polymorphous koine, and a wave of cultural experimentation, appropriation, and reworking. 105 Clubb, Italian Drama, p. 157. 106 Yates, John Florio, p. 254. 107 See Starkey, ‘Intimacy’, pp. 71–118. 108 See Wright, ‘Will Kempe’, pp. 516–520.

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After the Civil War, a new complex art market was born in England that included the nouveau riches, the gentry, and the upper bourgeoisie. The percolating down the social rank of this new market offers another example of a ‘civilization process’ that overflows the court elite. This also entails a crisis of political symbolism associated with art and a shift from collecting as royal luster to social commodity, with a ‘process of cultural unification of the upper ranks of English society.’109 Notwithstanding all these changes, this new market of the Restoration age was dominated by Italian art. Between 1722 and 1774, over 13,000 Italian paintings were imported and sold at auctions in England. This averages to 251 per year with a 42 per cent of the market share that grows to 45 per cent for paintings that fetched more than £40.110 Many of these works of art are still from the Renaissance masters but a good number of them are the product of the artists of the time, which proves that Italy was still a vital center of art production. Baroque Italy exported culture as never before. For the moment, we stop here but we will soon add more about the eighteenth century.

4f The ‘Second Renaissance’ … There is no obvious change in the transition from the sixteenth to the seventeenth century. The Baroque Age – let us say from 1580 to 1680 – did not appear to bring with it any sign of decline in the spread of Italian culture abroad. On the contrary, it seemed to grow in intensity, both in volume and in variety of forms. The process showed no sign of flagging in Spain after the death of Charles V (1558) despite the devotional emphasis of Philip II’s artistic patronage. And though Spain also had its points of excellence, like the theater, the importation of Italian culture continued, peaking during the long reign of Philip IV (1621–1665). The prolonged dominance of Spain in Southern Italy certainly helped to keep the level of cultural interpenetration high. We have also seen how, in France, there was a constant Italian presence down to the eighteenth century. Here, too, special factors played their part, which certainly included many Italians occupying positions of power. We have also just mentioned England, where even the execution of Charles I (1649) did not bring with it a caesura in cultural Italianization. Both with the second season of Palladianism and with the extraordinary success of opera and theater, England remained profoundly linked to Italian cultural 109 Pears, The Discovery, p. 3. 110 See Pears, The Discovery, pp. 207–229.

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models throughout the nineteenth century. The German mosaic, from nordic Prussia to Catholic Bavaria, was a (fragmented) land in which the years 1580–1680 certainly showed no signs of the courtly-classicist model losing favor. The same goes for the Habsburg Empire, in which the flood of Italian culture and artists arrived via two different tributaries: the continuity with the Spain of Charles V through the rise to the imperial throne of his brother Ferdinand I (1556–1564) and the existence of a previous Italian tradition in central Europe. There were also exceptional mediators, like Rudolf II (1576–1612) in Prague, about whom much has been written. There is clear continuity in Poland, while the situation is different in Hungary and Russia. The former returned to Italy when the long parenthesis of the Ottoman occupation ended with the retaking of Buda in 1686, and the latter when the reforming Peter I came to the throne in 1672. There were also significant new entries like Portugal, Sweden, and the Baltic countries. The Baroque Age also saw the final welding of classicism with absolutism. New generations of sovereigns were following in the footsteps of their predecessors. Circulation was at its height, in ever wider geographical waves, with competition between monarchies leading to mutual emulation between the reigning houses of Europe. Though conditioned by economic and historical circumstances or internal resistance, this happened programmatically and led to cultural homologation. This was sometimes accompanied by an awareness of their own cultural backwardness, causing a lack of the requisites for competing in the arena of European politics. We have seen how Charles I understood this from Philip IV, and Francis I from Charles V in the period of his imprisonment. In the Baroque Age, the courtly-classicizing cultural models achieved an authentically continental dimension. From Portugal (thanks, above all, to its union with Spain between 1580 and 1640) to Russia, from Scandinavia to Hungary, the dynastic network of the courts thus found an element of unity in its sharing of aesthetic, ethical, and behavioral codes. Classicism was more extended than classical antiquity itself, stretching eastwards and northwards toward lands never reached by the Roman legions. Pushing beyond the limes romanus (‘frontier of Roman rule’) also satisfied the need for Westernization. This bloodless conquest of Europe reached its limit only with the Ottomans, who restricted its penetration to the Balkan regions, at least until the Habsburg Empire set about reconquering them. This was combined with the concurrent process of propagation from the center to the periphery – from the center to the European periphery, but also from the center to the periphery of individual states. From Paris to the French provinces, from the capitals to the minor cities, from England

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to Scotland, from the court to the aristocratic estates. In the same way, the German princes adopted the codes of imperial renovatio, and took their cue from Vienna or Prague. In any case, whether Catholic or Protestant, they took a new path. The contagion from the centers to the peripheries of states was accompanied both by a trend toward centralization and by an enlargement of the social audience. In this case, too, with emulation, power games, precedence, and friction, we see the new culture spilling over to strata that were increasingly distant from the court entourage. It happened by degrees, with the political elites acquiescing f irst: the grandee of Spain, the English aristocracy and then the gentry, the French nobility, the lords and electors, the vassals and subordinates, the prelates and functionaries. The eighteenth century saw the bourgeoisie partially engaged in this process. This is attested by opera, with its advancing commercialization as an entertainment industry, but also by the forma del vivere (‘way of life’), which was changed into good manners to which the whole social spectrum conformed. This, too, was politics, the politics of networking and conspicuous consumption, the politics of adulation to carve out privileges and prebends for oneself and to climb the social hierarchy. None of this has anything to do with coercion or discipline; everywhere it was a matter of voluntary adoption of socio-cultural codes that had acquired the status of unquestionable paradigms because courts and sovereigns had converted to them. Italian cultural models radiated outward, with their times, modalities, and guiding principles, in harmony with the regulation of socio-political dynamics. We know little about this phenomenon, on which greater light should be cast. The process has many other faces: these include the involvement of city populations, which brings us back to the old, but still valid, court-city coupling. We shall see it in Paris with the various responses – popular and courtly – to Italian theater and opera, in England again with the reception of drama, and in all those cases where the bourgeoisie adapted to the aristocratic models. We shall return to this to ask how the alleged ‘process of civilization’ developed. It is an undisputed fact that, from the mid-sixteenth to the late seventeenth century, Italy was recognized as enjoying cultural hegemony – though one gradually shared with other models (the French one in particular). This contradicts what was long claimed, e.g. that Italian history was split into two parts – the sixteenth century and the eighteenth – with the void of the seventeenth century filling the gap. During this void, Italy had apparently left Europe, only to return with the Enlightenment. Expressions such as ‘cultural degradation’ or ‘civic idleness’ loom over us, and there is talk of

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‘ambiguous primacy.’111 The seventeenth century, in particular, was regarded as synonymous with ‘crisis,’ the word being constantly invoked in this connection.112 A masochistic genealogy of one’s identity, founded on denying an age of one’s past is a well-known distorting lens. This vision is structured in Francesco De Sanctis’ exegetical schema, from whom Benedetto Croce took it, influencing more recent scholars. After the parenthesis of the Renaissance, it was Italy that allegedly placed itself ‘on the sidelines’ of Europe, an Italy that censored ‘herself,’ and that offered ‘a vicarious identity of herself; hence the category of ‘decadence’ that was also correlated with ‘another great myth: the lack of a Reformation, or envy for the Reformation elsewhere.’113 All the commonplaces that weighed on the interpretation of the Baroque (and of the courts) are on this supposed line of development: the intellectual drowsiness, above all – of which I see no sign. Let us consider the question for a moment. The years between Cateau-Cambrésis (1559) and the closing of the Council of Trent (1563), and the second half the seventeenth century (with the awakening of Reason) were – if we follow traditional theories – centuries of darkness, in which a culturally wilting and subordinate Italy completely lost itself after its glorious Renaissance season. This is Italy as described by Alessandro Manzoni and Risorgimento thinkers. Yet, looking at the facts, it is also the Italy that ‘civilized the England of the Tudors and Stuarts,’ which passed on its classicist language to Charles V; it is the Italy on which the grandeur of the Sun King still draws abundantly; and it is the Italy of Palladianism in England, the widespread adoption of ideal town planning, and its capacity to guide the renewal of musical and dramatic genres. It is the Italy that Inigo Jones and Molière, Pierre Ronsard and Albrecht Dürer, Rubens and Händel inevitably measure themselves against, and to which many, many others turn to learn the arts of fencing and dancing, social manners and conversation. It is the Italy of the mass migration of artists and cultured people, and not the Italy of the few persecuted by the Inquisition that spread its culture abroad.114 But it is, above all, the Italy of the courts that act en bloc as an inexhaustible model of behavior, taste, and knowledge of the entire Western world. To the European courts, Italy appeared as a land of treasures to be sacked and stripped. 111 Sberlati, L’ambiguo primato, pp. 10–11. 112 See Benigno, ‘Ripensare’, pp. 7–52. 113 Quondam, ‘Il barocco’, pp. 132 and 162. 114 The origin of this interpretation dates to Cantimori, Eretici italiani.

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In this new interpretation, much of the seventeenth century becomes the century of Italian forms, equal to the Siglo de oro (‘golden century’) and the Grand siècle (‘great century’). Throughout this era, the attractive power of Italy as the intellectual center of Europe remained alive, and she was looked to in a wide-ranging process of Italianization of European culture. The Baroque was the century of effervescent artistic and intellectual creativity, and so the seventeenth century became the age of the triumph of the Baroque. Never had Italy been so completely at the center of Europe, nor had she been the polar star, and the lymph that generated Europe’s very identity, comprised of a melding of classicism and Christianity. From this age there emerged the extraordinary cultural vitality that took the form of new artistic and dramatic forms. The Renaissance was the ‘initial phase of a new epoque,’ in the words of Lewis Munford, ‘that reached its full significance in the Baroque.’115 The Renaissance did not come and go in Italy between the mid-fourteenth and late fifteenth century. The conditions for its survival went well beyond Cateau-Cambrésis (1559) – they were fully revealed, indeed, after the midsixteenth century. The (quantitative and qualitative) productions of works of art, the vitality of the internal market, and the demand for Italian works and artists abroad indicate anything but a cultural twilight. The success of Tasso’s epic and the iconography of empire were an essential part of this, but Italy was also at the forefront in scientific experimentation, instrumental music, ballet, equestrianism, and manners. And, despite the standard theory of economic recession, the massive exports of luxury goods also required renewed attention. The situation was fluid, with kingdoms and regions that emerged and disappeared for purely internal reasons. This meant that, in a fundamentally unified framework, the various artistic and cultural expressions spread in different ways and at different times in different areas. This is partly attributable to variations in reception. In different cultural situations and traditions, with marked political identities, adopting the culture of the Italian court involved distinct characteristics and intensity in different countries, and varying combinations and formulas by which it could ‘take.’ Yet, the conversion to the Italian form was carried through in all its many variants. The outcome at the end of the Baroque Age was a polyhedric homogenization. Just one final example. Italian music and opera were already dominating at the court of the Austrian emperors long before the age of Metastasio. 115 Mumford, The City, p. 446.

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Although the empire emerges prostrated from the Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648), already in the seventeenth century, the court of Vienna was a consumer of Italian opera and music. The credit for first introducing these models in Vienna goes to Ferdinand II (1619–1637). He sent ‘many times to Venice his master of the chapel, Pietro Antonio Bianco, to hire musicians and to buy operas and musical instruments.’116 It was him, again, who fired almost all the Flemish court musicians and replaced them with Italians when he ascended to the throne. And this Italian monopoly of Viennese music reached its peak when he married Eleonora Gonzaga from Mantua. The genres, techniques, and models arrived directly from Italy, imported through family ties and diplomatic relations. They infiltrated ‘dynastic representations’ and this lasted ‘almost to the Napoleonic period.’117 The merit of introducing Roman religious oratory, after 1650, belongs instead to another Eleonora Gonzaga, the wife of Ferdinand III. ‘During the period from the 1640s to 1740, a total of approximately 400 performances of nearly 300 oratories took place in Vienna, establishing the city as the major center of Baroque oratorio practice outside of Italy.’118 From Vienna, oratory bounces to Prague and to the other cities of the empire. Specialized scholarship floods us with a plethora of names of all kinds of artists and professionals, names, for the most part, now forgotten; however, these are the names of one of the most impressive cases of cultural transmigration in European history. Individuals capable of adapting the commercial format of Venetian opera to the ceremonial circumstances of a court, but also many names of people coming from Florence, Mantua, Rome, and other Italian court cities. We shall mention just a few of them. Rummaging in the historical literature, we encounter Francesco Rasi, a singer from Mantua who moved to Prague for Emperor Matthias in 1612; the librettist Don Cesare Gonzaga, prince of Guastalla, author of the text of the opera La caccia felice put on stage in Vienna, in 1631, for the wedding of the future emperor, Ferdinand III; Antonio Cesti, author of melodramas in Venice before entering the service of the archduke in Innsbruck and later the emperor at the Hofburg; Marco Sittico in Salzburg for 50 years, imperial dance master and choreographer; Silvio Stampiglia, Arcadian poeta cesareo (‘imperial poet’); the composer Giovanni Battista Buonamente; and also Burnacini, Caldara, impresarios, stage designers, and many more. This was the environment when Metastasio arrived in Vienna. 116 Seifert, ‘La politica culturale’, p. 2. 117 Kanduth, ‘Silvio Stampiglia’, p. 45. 118 Schnitlzer, ‘The Viennese Oratorio’, p. 217.

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4g … and Beyond I said at the outset that the historiography of recent decades has added new elements and extended the period of Italian cultural vitality to the eighteenth century. It has also revealed how gradually it ran out of steam, though a famous work of 1935 on the European mind began by claiming that: ‘Never was there a greater contrast, never a more sudden transition than this!’119 As far as I can see, Europe did not suddenly ‘drop the cult of antiquity,’120 but its symbols and languages survived as shared ingredients of the Western imaginary. Research has confirmed that the years 1680–1715 did not mark a dramatic caesura, during which the triumph of Reason suddenly supplanted the previous mental schema. The process was slow, to the point that it was more of a long phase of cohabitation between the modernity of the ancients and the modernity of the moderns. Though new ferments were certainly emerging, this suggests there was a long period, during which one certainly cannot see the sun setting on the courtly and classicist models, but rather their continuing to the point of becoming part of the shared Western identity, in a new cultural mixture and in a new context. This, too, has now been proved: such a momentous thirty years of rupture is not caused by an impoverishment of its Italian roots. Despite its economic and political suffering, eighteenth-century Italy maintained a leading cultural position. ‘The infiltration of Italian music, art and theatre into the life of the gentry and aristocracy of pluralist Europe was no less significant than the more “Enlightened” French high culture, to which many twentieth-century historians have attributed a greater impact.’ ‘There is little doubt that Italian culture was valued by most European centers that still maintained a court ethos.’121 Italianità affected the courts of sovereigns, great and small, making it a tool of political promotion. Cultural politics was politics tout court. Hence the diaspora of Italian artists who moved across national and cultural confines. This also raises the by no means secondary question of setting bounds to the ancien régime. And here opinions are more discordant. If, as we have done, we also include the eighteenth century, this opens striking scenarios, as we are almost obliged to extend it further to the nineteenth century (which was still a century of courts) and there is the prospect of offshoots right up to the early twentieth century, pretty much up to the end of the First 119 Hazard, The European, p. xv. 120 Ibid., p. 30. 121 West, ‘Introduction’, pp. 3 and 5.

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World War. Admitting this evidence also means dropping the paradigm of a migration of Europe’s cultural motor from south to north, substituting it with an exportation from south to north. There was no standing down of one country in favor of another, between Italy, Spain, France, and England, but something much less linear – a dynamic cross-pollination that started from Italy and generated new cultural creatures. The same ‘solar system’ with Versailles as a ‘center,’ around which ‘the countries of Europe should be the satellites,’122 was itself the fruit of the framework of Italian cultural models. Some have even theorized a ‘long eighteenth century,’123 another century of vitality that continued many of the existing trends. At least in certain (geographical and artistic) areas this now seems generally accepted, but we should bear in mind that the phenomenon did not happen in a historical void. The reference frame changed over time, both regarding Italy and for the other countries of Europe – individually and overall. The exportation of Italian cultural models in the eighteenth century functioned, then, in a system that suffered definite changes from the previous era, without counting the distance that now separated it from the Renaissance. The economic and political ‘progress’ of the northern countries contributed to this, as well as the new neo-classical sensibility. But the perspectives introduced by Enlightenment thought also stepped in, as well as the lens through which the new enlightened absolutism looked at Italy, wanting to cut the umbilical cord with its Baroque counterparts. In addition, Europeans in the eighteenth century no longer approached present-day and ancient Italy as two correlated versions of the same reality. In the sixteenth century, Italian court civilization was seen as synonymous with classicism, the courts being the direct heirs and faithful interpreters of it. Increasingly, from the early eighteenth century on, the two dimensions separated, and present-day Italy was viewed in a different light from that of the past; certainly, the remote past of antiquity, but also the more recent one of its Renaissance splendor. Antiquity and Renaissance, on the one hand, and the present, on the other, were two irremediably different entities that foreigners responded to in diverse ways. Only for the first two did admiration – almost subjection – continue unchanged. However, the peninsula’s glorious past began to jar with the condition of its present, and northern Europeans began to feel they were more advanced economically and politically than their contemporaries in the south. Though the attraction remained, interests became more selective; this is shown by the success of 122 Hazard, The European, p. 56. 123 West, ‘Introduction’, pp. 1–5.

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the Grand Tour – the journey European nobles made to Italy in search of antiques and ‘to admire and exploit its cultural heritage.’124 This is connected with the loosening of the tie that bound the European demand for art and culture with the world of the court. Italy remained a beacon of civilization, but its courts were no longer the principle model to imitate. This was also evident in the growing importance of Venice for its art and the trade of art, and for the myth of its political constitution. As such, it became an essential staging-post for the Grand Tour. The European courts remained important points of arrival, but, now, aristocratic emulation and increasing commodification had been set in motion, and so Italian culture spread everywhere both socially and geographically. Though some artistic channels and forms began to mark time, the process of Italianization reached new classes and became continental. It was here that shared features of identity took root. Nor was there a monopoly of Italian form, as other countries provided culture, too. This was particularly clear in architecture and the performing arts, where Italy had equals in the cultural market, but the assimilation process had developed into autochthonous schools and trends more or less everywhere. The range of cultural expressions to which one might feel indebted was also reduced, though opera and theater, along with architecture, continued to be most highly appreciated, the rest of Europe had partially freed itself of its subjection to Italy. If the Italians kept their reputation, the hegemony of classicism lasted, but the eighteenth century was also the century in which the exclusive tie between artists and court circles loosened. It became increasingly clear that Italian culture had been metabolized in constructing national identities and – above all – in defining the shared features of European culture. It is also worth noting that Italians abroad were organizing themselves more. This happened with family businesses like that of the Tiepolos, in which the father, Giovanni Battista, was assisted by his sons, Domenico and Lorenzo, in Würzburg and Madrid, or with ‘the Colombo, Carlone and Scotti families of painters and plasterers at many European courts.’125 In 1780, the architect Quarenghi, active in St Petersburg, received permission to avail himself of tens of Italian assistants, and the set designer Gonzaga was assisted by six Italian helpers and four Russian apprentices. Far from declining, Italian cultural exports in the eighteenth century were becoming more business-like, with improved organization of middlemen, agents, and impresarios. This happened with the strolling players, with artists and decorators, and with 124 Ibid., p. 1. See also Grand Tour. 125 West, ‘Introduction’, p. 9.

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the semi-itinerant troupes of singers under artist-managers. The sculptor Antonio Lione, the poet Stefano Pallavicini, the architect Matteo Alberti, and the painter Antonio Pellegrini, as well as various other craftsmen, were long active in German courts as a tested professional team. The phenomenon became structural for the large-scale productions of plays and operas. There was almost a symbiosis between the painter Jacopo Amigoni and the castrato Farinelli; they linked their peripatetic careers in an effective self-promoting teamwork.126 Farinelli was used to this kind of association, as he had already collaborated with Metastasio in Vienna. In 1730, they were in London and, after wandering around the court circuits, they moved to Madrid in 1737, where Farinelli became ‘Music Director of the Spanish court’ and Amigoni ‘primer pintor to the Bourbon monarchs.’127 ‘Throughout the eighteenth century, Italians gained attention, patronage and success’ through a ‘variety of skills and crafts that could not be matched elsewhere.’128 Specialized craftmanship, versatility, business mentality and innovative skills were the keys to this success. There was also a tendency to focus on exceptional individuals, the ‘stars’ who came from Italy: the castrato Farinelli, the miniaturist Rosalba Carriera, or the librettist Metastasio. And, alongside this, niche fashions like vedutismo persisted. Hence the celebrity of Canaletto, but also of Bernardo Bellotto, Antonio Piranesi, and Giovanni Paolo Panini.129 Vedutismo was no longer appreciated only at court. The same goes for the art of stucco. Interior decoration in general still seemed in demand, as is shown by the nomadic career (Venice, Spain, and German capitals) of the Tiepolos. But Venice remained his place of birth. For semi-precious stones, too, the European courts now had their own goldsmiths. And equestrian statues no longer came from the Medici foundries. They did indeed continue to be produced, but they were the work of local sculptors, who had learnt the lessons of Giambologna and Tacca. We can see it from the statues of Sobieski in Warsaw (1788), of George I in London (1719), of Joseph I in Lisbon (1775), of Frederick IV in Copenhagen (1771), and of Peter the Great in St Petersburg (1772). The process was not only gradual but proceeded at various paces. Take architecture. With neo-Palladianism it was no longer a court monopoly. The movement started in the mid-eighteenth century (incorporating influences from ancient Greece) and then became one the prominent and iconic styles 126 See Griffin Hennessy, ‘Friends serving’, pp. 20–45. 127 Ibid., p. 23. 128 West, ‘Introduction’, p. 13. 129 See Eglin, ‘Venice, pp. 101–115.

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in the Western World. Ironically, with Thomas Jefferson its symbolism was transplanted overseas, but with completely different political meaning. The imitation of Italian models continued: in Vienna, Berlin, and Scandinavia, but above all in St Petersburg, where Italian design was applied to an entire capital.130 This was another great season of Italian architecture in Russia, to which we owe the building of the lavish imperial residences. The most representative figure of the age of Peter the Great was Domenico Trezzini, who designed the Peter and Paul Fortress (1703) and introduced late Baroque to Russia. Antonio Rinaldi built the palace of Oranienbaum in the Gulf of Finland. Rinaldi arrived in St Petersburg in 1751 and, when Catherine II came to the throne, held the position of court architect until 1784. The most illustrious architect under Catherine the Great, however, was Giacomo Quarenghi, while Francesco Rastrelli was the favorite of the tsarina Elizabeth, who planned the main imperial projects for twenty years. He was responsible, for example, for the Winter Palace (1754–1762), the Summer Palace (1741–1744), the Palace of Peterhof (1747), and that of Tsarskoe Selo (1752). These, and many others, formed the cities and buildings of imperial Russia and whole generations of local apprentices were influenced by them, continuing their legacy in the century that went from the Congress of Vienna to the October Revolution. With architects arrive sculptures, painters, musicians, and set designers. They all attest to an authentic Italianization of Russian culture in the eighteenth century. The eighteenth century was, above all, the golden age of melodrama, almost more so abroad than in Italy. The demand for Italian opera in Europe remained high throughout the century, as is well known. On an eighteenthcentury map of Europe, we find Italian opera on almost every court stage. It was at home in the royal capitals and courts of Germany: in Munich, Berlin, Würzburg, Karlsruhe, Stuttgart, and, obviously, Dresden.131 Though the Seven Years War was barely over (1756–1763), the Elector Frederick August III restored Dresden as the center of Italian theater and opera. In the wake of this revival, in 1769, Caterino Mazzolà was brought there, and would remain until 1796, writing sixteen libretti.132 Despite his long period at the court of Paris, Goldoni’s fame was not restricted to France: his comedies ‘were at once translated into German for the Viennese public’ and Goldoni himself ‘in 1750, accepted a contract to provide the court of Dresden with two intermezzi a year.’133 130 See Cuppini, Gli architetti. 131 See Music at. 132 See Fabbri, ‘Caterino Mazzolà’, pp. 205–206. 133 Pieri, ‘La scena’, p. 194.

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Antonio Caldara worked in Barcelona, Domenico Scarlatti in Portugal, and Lorenzo da Ponte’s comic operas (set to music by Mozart) were staged in Prague. At the Estehazy court in Hungary, Joseph Haydn set Goldoni’s and Metastasio’s libretti to music,134 and Catherine II brought Italian opera to St Petersburg. As Italian librettists, composers, and innumerable singers and musicians left the country for the four corners of the continent, so, too, did Italian experts in lighting and ‘staging techniques originally developed by the Italian scene designers of the Renaissance.’135 Like manners, theater, fencing, and all other aspects of court forma del vivere (‘style of life’), music and opera overflowed from the court to the city in the eighteenth century, entering the customs and being made available for the urban upper classes. Italian opera became one of the central forms of spectacle between the late seventeenth and early nineteenth centuries.136 It passed the test of Romantic sensibility unscathed, and, renewing itself again, remained the last area in which Italian culture played a leading role in the twentieth century. In the nineteenth, the court itself became part of the drama itself, and not in a flattering light. ‘Cortigiani vil razza dannata’ (‘courtier vile damned race’) sang the protagonist of Giuseppe Verdi’s Rigoletto (1851). Just a few notes on the main centers of this influence: St Petersburg, Vienna, London, and Paris. In the period 1740–1760, entertainment at the court of St Petersburg was on a regular schedule: Italian music was played on Thursday and Sunday; every Tuesday, Italian comedies were performed; and intermezzi were staged on Fridays.137 In 1735, a large group of singers arrived, led by Francesco Araya, a Neapolitan composer who had spent 25 years in Russia (1735–1760), where he wrote fourteen operas for the imperial court. Set designer Pietro Gonzaga realized 36 operas, 23 ballets, three comedies, three dramas, and two tragedies in Russia.138 Giovanni Paisiello was invited by Catherine II in 1776, and what was intended as a short stay lasted eight years. Here, he produced his masterpiece, Il barbiere di Siviglia, which gave him international fame. Catherine also engaged Domenico Cimarosa as her court composer and conductor between 1787 and 1791. The soprano Giuseppe Manfredini had gone to St Petersburg in 1758 after stopping in Moscow; he was joined by his brother Vincenzo, whom Emperor Peter III made maestro of the court’s Italian opera company in 1762. In 1765, however, his star began 134 Coletti, Da Monteverdi, p. 194. 135 Nalbach, The King’s, p. 130. See also The Eighteenth-Century. 136 Fabiano and Noiray, L’opera italiana, p. xi. 137 Koršunova, ‘Gli scenografi italiani’, p. 80. 138 Ibid., p. 92.

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to fade with the arrival of Baldassarre Galuppi, again at Catherine’s request. The prolonged negotiations with the Venetian authorities had begun as early as 1764, before the Senate granted Galuppi leave to go for a three-year engagement at the Russian court. The uncontested capital of eighteenth-century Italian opera, however, was Vienna – almost certainly the ‘most Italian city beyond the Alps.’139 The process had already begun in the early seventeenth century, creating a colony of expatriates who continued an unbroken tradition of Italian opera down to the nineteenth century. Before Metastasio was appointed imperial poet, there had been dozens of Italian librettists and composers who had preceded him in the role or as Kapellmeister, such as Antonio Bertali (1649) and Apostolo Zeno, poet laureate from 1718 to 1729. They were helped in creating lavish court productions by musicians, scenographers, singers, painters, and craftsmen, in a flow that not even the Thirty Years’ War or the anti-Turk counter-offensive in the Balkans could interrupt. Finally, after a year of negotiations, Metastasio was formally appointed by the imperial court in March 1730, where he remained more than fifty years until 1782. We must bear in mind that Metastasio’s role (and success) went well beyond his poetic activity, as he made a great contribution to delineating the image of the Habsburg monarchy. This happened in two different ways, first by enhancing its overall cultural profile, and second by shaping the traits of the royal ideology. His operas and oratori established parallels between gods and heroes, on the one hand, and emperors on the other, and – along with other Italians – he allegorically developed the rhetoric of the pietas and the clementia Austriaca (‘Austrian mercy’).140 Metastasio’s extraordinary fame as a librettist attracted many other Italian composers, such as Antonio Caldara and Niccolò Jommelli. Vienna also became the adopted country of Antonio Salieri, Francesco Bartolomeo Conti, and Giuseppe Torelli. Mozart’s rival, Salieri, held the position of director of the Italian opera at the Habsburg court from 1774 until 1792, but his works were staged at opera houses throughout Europe. Orfeo e Euridice, by the Bohemian composer Christoph Wilibald Gluck, based on a libretto by Ranieri de’ Calzabigi, was staged in Vienna in 1762. In London, Italian opera ‘flourished for a period of about a century and a half.’141 Its main stage was the Queen’s Theatre in the Haymarket, built in 1705. ‘By virtue of the Opera Agreement of 1792,’ the now renamed King’s 139 Ricaldone, Vienna italiana, p. 14. 140 See Neville, ‘Metastasio’, pp. 156–157. 141 Nalbach, The King’s, p. ix.

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Theatre ‘was the only house licensed to perform Italian opera until the Licensing Act was formerly revoked in 1843.’142 Season after season, with a huge turnover, for 140 years consecutively, the King’s Theatre was home to only Italian ‘productions,’ mainly sung in Italian. There was a memorable performance by Farinelli in 1738, for which he received the enormous sum of £2,000, as well as ‘an estimated £15,000 in gifts from an adoring public.’143 Even foreign composers like Georg Frideric Händel and Gluck wrote operas ‘all’italiana’ for the London theater. The choreographer Giovanni Andrea Gallini served as director of dances at the King’s Theatre between 1758 and 1766, but also took on the role of impresario by building a splendid concert hall (1776) – the Hanover Square Rooms – and, after numerous disputes, he became manager of the King’s Theatre itself. Despite the occasional, often bitter, controversies that agitated Parisian culture over Italian and French opera, the genre set down deep roots and built up a huge repertoire. Many Italian talents flocked to the French court(s) until the Revolution. It was during this period that painters, stage designers, composers, and singers came to Paris from many Italian cities, mostly Rome and the northern courts. For the most part, they enjoyed great success. Lully brought to Paris the Florentine composer Giovanni Theobaldo de Gatti (1650–1727). The scenic designer Carlo Vigarani (1623–1713) followed his father Gaspare to France, where he become the king’s ‘intendant des plaisirs’ (‘master of the amusements’). Before moving to London and Vienna, Roberto Clerici from Parma was in Paris from 1740 to 1743 working for the Comédie-Française. Giovanni Niccolò Servandoni moved to Paris, in 1724, where he became director of decorations (1724–1742) at the Opera and a member of the Académie Royale in 1731. The hostility toward Italian opera did not stop hundreds of Italians being active in Paris between 1724 and 1798, or 177 Italian operas being performed, 81 of which were sung in Italian. The new arrivals included Piccinni, Scarlatti, Goldoni, and Metastasio: in all, there were around ten Italian composers in Paris on the eve of the Revolution. The roaring success of Italian operas presented at the Académie between 1752 and 1754 ‘constitutes one of the principal events of French musical life in the eighteenth century.’144 Despite the warm reception from the public, Giovan Battista Pergolesi’s intermezzo buffo, La serva padrona, performed in 1752, also prompted the so-called Querelle des Bouffons. Jean-Jacques Rousseau himself was involved in it, with a piece written in 1753 and – three 142 Ibid., p. 115. 143 Ibid., p. 40. 144 Fabiano and Noiray, L’opera, p. 19.

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years later – D’Alembert, with the daring proposal to ‘replace French with Italian opera.’145 Fundamentally, there were three concomitant trends in France: one was the assimilation of Italian models and genres (the founding father of this movement was Lully), another was the pro-Italian feeling of the general public, and the third the dogged opposition in the name of national values. Also the Italian theater continued to enjoy widespread approval (not without objections) in the eighteenth century, not only its more sophisticated forms, but also that of the zanni (‘clowns’) who were equally in demand in Austria and England, and invited to perform at the Iberian and Baltic courts. Harlequin, impersonated by the actor Carlo Bertinazzi, was brought to Russia for the tsarina Anne between 1735 and 1738.146 In Paris the Comédie-Italienne grew up, the name entering into use in 1680, to distinguish this theater from the Comédie-Française. At first, it simply housed the companies of the Commedia dell’Arte, but with the passage of time became a genuine experimental laboratory for Italian drama. Only the tragic events of 1792 put an end to this venture, but only briefly, as in 1801 it was reopened by Napoleon. Our glance at the eighteenth century concludes with three stories that are both anecdotal, but also (I hope) emblematic. The first is the extinction of the Medici dynasty in Florence with the death of the last grand-duke, Gian Gastone, in 1737 and the resulting succession of the House of Lorraine. The first to sit on the throne of Tuscany was Francis III from 1737. His marriage with Maria Theresa of Austria, in 1736, brought him to Vienna as emperor. And here, by virtue of his sovereign prerogatives, he transferred much of the Medici treasures, systematically plundering them. Many Medici possessions are still in the Wunderkammern of the Viennese Hofburg – paintings, sculptures, antiquities, artifacts with semi-precious stones, jewelry and silverware, books, etc. – but many were also auctioned off, or melted down for coinage, as in the case of the wonderful silver reliquaries. And it would have been even worse, if Anna Maria Luisa de’ Medici (1667–1743), the last descendant of the family, had not made a will, binding most of the family art collection to Florence, including the contents of the Uffizi, Palazzo Pitti, and the Medicean villas. The cultural ties and flow of persons and objects between the courts of Florence and Vienna would continue for many decades when Peter Leopold was Grand Duke (1765–1790), right up until the threshold of the even worse Napoleonic raids. 145 Quoted in Fabiano and Noiray, L’opera, p. 42. 146 Ferrone, La Commedia, p. 214.

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Barely 22 years after the Lorraine succession in Tuscany, in 1759, Charles of Bourbon came to the throne of Spain as Charles III, finally leaving Naples, where he had reigned for a quarter of a century. He left as a legacy to Naples the splendid palace designed by Vanvitelli at Caserta and the palace of Capodimonte, but took with him to Madrid whole teams of artists and artisans of the precious porcelain artifacts of Capodimonte and semiprecious stones. In Spain, he found a palace under construction as a result of the fire of Alcazar, and so plasterers, furniture-makers, and painters also left Naples, as well as furnishings and furniture to decorate it. At the same time, the palace of La Granja and other royal buildings were strongly Italian in style. Filippo Juvarra had already been at work on La Granja in 1733. Charles’s ties with the Italian courts were not limited to Naples. As the eldest son of Elisabeth Farnese, he had also been Duke of Parma and Piacenza from 1731 to 1734, which kept him in contact with the Italy of the courts throughout his reign. Like Peter Leopold, his Enlightenment-influenced reforms did not prevent him from cultivating a taste for classicism (the two sovereigns died just two years apart from each other, Charles in 1788 and Peter Leopold in 1790). The third and last example takes us to the cold Sweden of Gustav III Vasa (1771–1792). Despite the recent example of Louis XIV, Gustav turned to Italy in his search for symbols of grandeur and elegance. Partly because of Queen Christina’s voluntary exile, Rome was chosen as a cultural paradise. Frederick IV of Denmark had already been bewitched by Rome when he visited it on a royal Grand Tour in 1692. The Italian legacy was simply the most meaningful choice even in remote late-eighteenthcentury Scandinavia. After the f ire of the royal palace of Stockholm in 1697, Charles XII had already chosen the architect Nicodemus Tessin the Younger to rebuild it because of his mastery of Italian models. The choice of prototype for the new palace fell on Palazzo Zuccaro in Rome. And after years residing in Rome, the sculptor Johan Tobias Sergel, the f inest Swedish interpreter of neo-classicism, was summoned home by the sovereign in 1779. In Stockholm, Sergel was immediately given the task of assisting the king in creating his gallery of antiquities in the royal palace. Gustav’s infatuation with the antique convinced him of the need for a Bildungsreise (‘educational trip’) to Italy, which he embarked on in 1783. The king traveled incognito, under the name of Count of Haga, and Sergel accompanied him as his guide. From the travel diary kept by a courtier we learn that the party went as far as Naples and Sicily, visiting the recently excavated Pompei and Herculaneum. He returned from the journey convinced that Italy was ‘the source of beauty

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and good taste.’147 As a sign of the impression Italy made on him, in Rome Gustav took part in a Christmas Mass in St Peter’s (though the Catholic faith was considered a crime in Sweden) and commissioned a large canvas of the episode from the French neo-classical painter Louis-Jean Desprez. Gustav also hired Francesco Piranesi (son of Gian Francesco) in Rome as his buying agent for works of art, and – from what is written – returned to Sweden with a large collection of paintings, and just ‘9,000 riksdaler left in his travel purse.’148 The king also brought back Desprez from Rome, who resided in Stockholm for twenty years, from 1774, working as stage designer for the Royal Opera House, which would gain him admission to the Royal Academy of Art – the only foreigner – by virtue of his indirect Italian status. Details aside, for the king the political message ‘was and remained of supreme importance in his love of art and architecture and theatre and in the aesthetic statements which he wished them to express’; Italian art ‘was associated with Renaissance rulers’, and so ‘Renaissance and Baroque artistic traditions as developed in the humanist courts of Italy provided the ideal media for expressing his political values and achieving his goals.’149 This program explains the popularity of La Gerusalemme liberata and theatrical scenery reproducing ancient Rome, and why the royal apartment was decorated in Pompeian style. A picture gallery was created in the palace of Drottingholm, and – above all – the Palladian style was adopted for the splendid summer palace of Haga. The villa, commissioned from Desprez in 1787, proved to be a palimpsest of citations of the Palace of Caserta, Villa Rotonda, and even Piranesi’s scenes. There was also to have been a column modelled on Trajan’s, surmounted by a statue of Gustavus Vasa, founder of the dynasty. Not all the projects were completed, but the assassination of Gustav (in his own opera house) in 1792 did not interrupt the process he had started, which continued into the nineteenth century. The great season of Italian cultural supremacy and influence thus opened with the invasion of a king of France and ended with the invasion of a French emperor; it opened with the pillage of Charles VIII and closed with Napoleon’s looting. The former brought back home the splendor of Renaissance courts to magnify his own regality, while the latter systematically sacked Italy for the grandeur of France and the project of the Louvre. In this sense, the Napoleonic incursions both closed one era and opened another. The new age would be that in which Quatremère de Quincy theorized an 147 Kent, ‘Gustav III’, pp. 192 and 193. 148 Ibid., p. 198. 149 Ibid., p. 200.

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educational function for the arts with his Considérations morales (1815); an age we shall not consider as it is outside our chronological terms of reference, but which still deserves to be studied, both in itself and to understand how it stands in relation to previous centuries. The hemorrhage of Italian art and artists certainly did not stop with the end of the ancien régime. The world’s museums continued to be enriched with Italian art well after national unification. To remedy this, an act of Parliament was necessary in 1919. Obviously, a new age was beginning in which the historical conditions had changed profoundly and in which leading collectors, particularly from North America, were great magnates of industry and finance – the various Mellons, Rockfellers, Vanderbilts, and Gettys. Everything changed, but what changed? The ends changed and also the actors, but the desire to appropriate Italian art certainly did not. The question to ask might then be whether there was a genuine fracture with the end of the ancien régime. To answer that would require us to consider the long wave of Neoclassicism alongside the mid-nineteenth-century historiographic rediscovery/invention of the Renaissance. But that must await another book.

5. People 5a Princesses and Princes The Europe of the ancien régime was divided both politically and – from the early sixteenth century – religiously, too, but it was also closely bound by contacts and shared features of every kind. Many of these were related to courts and were essentially to do with dynastic relations. This quarrelsome Europe found the premises for its present cultural homogeneousness and future identity in the constant cross-pollination between its court centers and aristocratic classes. There were so many marriage ties between Italian princes and European monarchies that we cannot possibly list them all. Bear in mind that, as this was a patrilocal system, it was always the brides who left their countries of origin to become part of the families of their consorts. For that reason, these mobile women were the means of cultural circulation. Many young princesses left Italy from the fifteenth to the eighteenth century, taking with them the people, customs, tastes, and objects – the contagion – of their courts of origin. We have already met some of them but let us remind ourselves of the main ones. In 1494, Bianca Maria Sforza (1472–1510), daughter of Galeazzo Maria, became the third wife of Emperor Maximilian I. Bianca Maria would die still young in Innsbruck, after being empress for sixteen years. Beatrice of Aragon (1457–1508), daughter of Ferdinand I of Naples, was second wife of Matthias Corvinus King of Hungary (1476), and their mutual understanding contributed much to spreading the Italian Renaissance. Beatrice would become a queen twice over from her second nuptials (1491) with Vladislaus II, Matthias successor to the throne of Hungary and Bohemia. Bona Sforza (1494–1557), daughter of Gian Galeazzo, was second wife of Sigismund I Jagiellon (1518) Grand Duke of Lithuania and King of Poland. She was Queen Consort of Poland and Grand Duchess for thirty years until Sigismund’s death in 1548. She herself was assassinated in Bari in 1557. Catherine de’ Medici (1519–1589), daughter of Lorenzo de’ Medici, Duke of Urbino, was wedded to Henry II of France in 1533, and was Queen for twelve years, experiencing the horrors of the Wars of Religion. After her husband’s death, she ruled as regent to the infant Charles IX from 1560 to 1563 and was Queen Mother until 1589. Marie de’ Medici (1575–1642) was the second wife of Henry IV, first of the Bourbon kings. Following the assassination of her husband, in 1610, she acted as regent for her son, Louis XIII, until 1617. Elisabeth Farnese (1692–1766), daughter of Odoardo Duke of Parma, married Philip V, King of Spain, in

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1714. Elisabeth was queen until 1746. Finally, Eleonore Gonzaga (1598–1655) married the widowed Emperor Ferdinand II in 1622 and became Empress, German Queen, and Queen Consort of Hungary and Bohemia. We might also add Zoë, niece of the emperor Constantine Palaiologos and wife of Ivan III Rurik. Born in Constantinople in 1448, at the age of five Zoë witnessed for herself the Ottoman conquest but managed to flee to Rome. She remained there for nearly twenty years, entrusted to the care of Cardinal Roberto Bessarione by Pope Paul II. The same pope negotiated her marriage to the Grand Duke of Muscovy in 1472. Zoë learnt Latin and Italian and received a solid humanist education from her learned tutor. Rebaptized Sophia on her conversion to Orthodoxy, as well as playing a leading political role, it was also through her contacts with Italian artistic circles that her husband built his capital. From Milan to Vienna, from Naples to Hungary, and then to Poland and Lithuania, twice from Florence to Paris, from Parma to Madrid, from Mantua to Vienna, and from Byzantium – via Rome – to Moscow. These were the itineraries of the Italian princesses, and these were the lines of cultural transmission they fostered. Almost 300 Italians in Bona Sforza’s retinue settled in the Polish capital. They included secretaries, doctors, gardeners, dancing and riding masters, tailors, and many others. ‘Thanks to them, the court of Wawel was introduced to the new forms of social life’ of the Renaissance courts and – from here – the influx radiated ‘over the whole country.’1 Beatrice of Naples equally exerted a major impact on the court of Hungary, spreading Italian classicism, founding an Academy, being instrumental in the creation of the Bibliotheca Corviniana, and building the palace of Visegrád as a Renaissance-style residence for the court. We have already mentioned the key role of the two Medici queens in France – Catherine and Marie – who were the means by which Italian culture penetrated the country and by which the center of gravity was modified by teams of expatriates. An Italian party was also created at the court of Madrid, which not only achieved political dominance but acted as a bridge with Italian culture. As well as the queen, Elisabeth of Parma, two other figures from that city, the powerful Cardinal Alberoni, and Laura Pescatori, Elisabeth’s nurse, were presiding spirits in this. Besides laying the foundations for political alliances, each of these marriages constituted a premise for lasting cultural interchange. The relations were, one might say, asymmetrical: the Italian princes received protection, while the European sovereigns received intellectual stimulus. Each case 1

Harasimowicz, ‘Il Rinascimento’, p. 422.

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had its own characteristics, but these women played an unquestionable role as cultural mediators. Loved or hated, they all made themselves ambassadors of the culture in which they had grown up. Their marriages were sealed with substantial dowries in money, but the richest dowries were cultural ones. With them came courtiers, artists, relatives, ladies-in-waiting, guards, confessors, musicians, and voluminous trunks with their trousseau, objets d’art, books, and – above all – knowledge, taste, and customs. At their husbands’ courts they would spread the refinement of their fathers, becoming a reference point for the local aristocracies and for networks of patronage. These women were projected into the great arena of European politics, often pursued by prejudices about Italians, but also able to assert themselves through shrewd cultural strategies. The crucial role played by women in propagating Italian courtly forms obviously goes far beyond the few cases cited, including all those who did not necessarily come from or enter a reigning family, but who still belonged to great Houses. Here, there really would be too many examples. There were the daughters of minor lords and great barons, brides of imperial Electors and nobles from all over Europe, girls who had grown up in Ferrara, Mantua, Milan, or Florence, used to reading the classics and elegant conversation, living examples of sensibility and graceful manners. The daughters of foreign sovereigns who were given as brides to Italian princes also formed alliances and created lasting cultural ties. There was no Italian court without one. In the long run, this transformed the whole of Europe into an interconnected dynastic network, a great extended family, and – consequently – a web of courts in which cultural transmission retraced the itineraries of this female mobility. There are still many social typologies and individual stories that are related with the influence of Italian culture. Other significant figures as connecting tissue between European and Italian courts are the ‘little princes’ and members of seignorial families. Pursuing onore (‘honor’) and the utile (‘useful’), they served and, at the same time, polished the manners of the host monarchs, being living models of the precepts of grazia (‘grace’). In this case, too, we must be satisfied with a few samples. One name that stands out is that of Alessandro Farnese, Duke of Parma (1586–1592), Philip II’s Captain General and Governor of the Spanish Netherlands from 1578 to 1592. Prince Eugene of Savoy (1663–1736) followed a similar path. As a youth, he frequented Louis XIV’s court and rode in some of the bloodiest battlefields in the seventeenth-century wars, serving three different emperors and scaling the Viennese political hierarchy. It was in Vienna that he had the Belvedere built, whose grandeur rivalled the imperial Hofburg. Ferrante

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Gonzaga (1507–1557), Duke of Guastalla, was the third son of Francesco II Gonzaga. In 1523, at the age of sixteen, he was sent to Spain to be educated at the court of the Emperor Charles V. Only seven years older than the latter, Ferrante friendship with him lasted all his life;2 the emperor allowing him to attend his levée in the morning, to ride his favorite horses, and to borrow from his elegant wardrobe. From 1535 to 1546, Charles V appointed him Viceroy of Sicily, and from 1546 to 1555, Governor of Milan. Ferrante, like many other Italian gentiluomini (‘gentlemen’), became intimate with powerful sovereigns as a courtier. He was a prince himself and, like others of his standing, built for himself an ideal city-state. Alberto III Pio was born in Carpi in 1475. Emperor Frederick III granted him dominion of the city in 1490. As well as being a devoted servant of Louis XII, a favorite of Maximilian of Habsburg, ambassador of Francis I, and a trusted agent of Leo X, in 1505 he entered the service of the Gonzagas. The alternating fortunes of his life took him from the courts of the Po Valley and the company of Ariosto, ‘to the castles of regal France,’ to the ‘nordic, Gothic palace of Maximilian,’ to the ‘opulent congresses of princes and diplomats,’ to places where ‘great alliances were forged,’ ending up in the ‘splendid and corrupt Rome of the two Medici popes, before his final destination in the Paris of Francis I.’3 His life was an incessant wandering, performing various missions at courts geographically and culturally distant from each other: he was at Urbino with Castiglione (1505), often in Mantua, Naples, and Madrid, in the Florence of Lorenzo il Magnifico, and was an assiduous presence in the papal curia at the time of Raphael. Stripped of his title, he died in France in 1531. 4 He exemplif ied the lordly f irmament of the Renaissance and was only apparently on the fringes of the great political game, of which he was not a spectator but a protagonist. Just one more – Vespasiano Gonzaga (1531–1591), another trait d’union between the small Italian courts and those of the European monarchs. Founder of Sabbioneta, Vespasiano spent his childhood at the court of Pedro de Toledo in Naples, after which he was sent, at the age of eleven, to the court in Madrid to complete his education under his uncle, King Philip II, who made him his personal advisor and a Grandee of Spain. Thanks to the support of Rudolf II of Habsburg, in 1577, Sabbioneta was declared an independent Duchy and Vespasiano acquired the principality. He was at the court of Madrid three times, the first from 1545 to 1548, the second 2 See Dall’Acqua, ‘Il bastone’, pp. 29–36. See also Ferrante Gonzaga. 3 Vasoli, Alberto III, p. 9. 4 Semper, Carpi, p. 77.

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from 1563 to 1564, and the last and longest from 1568 to 1578. Philip II, as he himself wrote, ‘treated him well,’ brought him into his intimate circle, and openly ‘favored’ him,5 and he was promoted to Duke of Sabbioneta and honored with the Golden Fleece. Vespasiano followed the king in his travels, governed in his stead in Valencia, built fortresses in North Africa, negotiated peaces, and fought wars. He served both Philip II and his cousin Guglielmo Gonzaga and protected from afar his potentadillo (‘feudal estate’) in the Po Valley. Alessandro Farnese, Eugene of Savoy, Ferrante and Vespasiano Gonzaga, and Alberto Pio are probably the most famous names, but they are also the tip of the iceberg of the constant flow of Italian lords to European courts.6 As in a set of Chinese boxes, they were inferior to their superiors on the larger continental chessboard and superior to their inferiors in the smaller Italian peninsula. Whatever their rank, they all transplanted Italian manners into the great European capitals. They were men of arms and men of letters, they brought expertise with them, but they also spoke a language, wore clothes, and spread customs that made them formidable instruments of cultural contagion. They were princes and courtiers, but also intellectuals, architects, and writers, educated by humanists and companies of artists. Ferrante had grown up under the guidance of his cultivated mother Isabella d’Este. For Alberto Pio, his uncle, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, had chosen Aldo Manuzio to educate him. Orphaned, Vespasiano was educated under his aunt, Giulia Gonzaga, in Naples. Like Alberto, he mixed with important intellectuals and was an intellectual himself. He knew Ariosto and inspired and was the protagonist of the Civil conversazione, dedicated to him by his friend Stefano Guazzo. There were also endless secretaries, counselors, and ministers guiding the policies of the great sovereigns. The Marquis Mercurino da Gattinara was Charles V’s chancellor until his death (1530).7 The Florentine nobleman Concino Concini came to Paris in 1601 in the retinue of Marie de’ Medici, whom he served as prime minister. He was powerful, but unloved. From 1642 until his death in 1661, the Italian-born cardinal Jules Mazarin held the post of prime minister for Louis XIII and Louis XIV. Another priest, Cardinal Giulio Alberoni was prime minister of Philip V of Spain from 1716; it was he who negotiated the king’s marriage with Elisabeth of Parma. As we have seen, Alberoni created a position of power for himself and imported 5 Tamalio, ‘Vespasiano Gonzaga’, p. 125. 6 See Spagnoletti, Principi italiani. 7 See Boone, Mercurino.

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Italian manners, in particular table etiquette. A nobleman David Riccio become the private secretary of Mary, Queen of Scots; he had been at the Savoy court, and he must have learnt there how to get ahead in Mary’s court (and, it was said, in her heart) – so much so that he was assassinated in 1566. Riccio, too, combined political with cultural influence, particularly in the field of music and dance, two arts still missing from the northern court of Edinburgh. But there are many others we could cite. Many Italians ascend to governing positions in the circle of ministers and statesmen. At court, Italians sont partout (‘are everywhere’) and are the ‘reason for the Italianization of manners, fashion, and above all government principles.’8

5b People Going It was a constant coming and going of people in all directions and for the most varied reasons. Everyone had something to learn, to show, to buy, or to sell. Some found what they were looking for, others made do with what they found. In general, people came to Italy to take something and went elsewhere to bring something. Nevertheless, everyone was a pawn in a macro-process of cultural interchange, and became a vehicle of contagion through their words, creations, knowledge, and behavior. Everyone traveled – priests, ambassadors, courtiers, gentlemen and humanists, architects, actors, opera singers, businessmen, nuncios, military commanders, artists of genius and skilled craftsmen, foundrymen, stage designers, dancing masters, musicians, poets and mere adventurers. We have already come across many of them. They traveled for commercial or diplomatic reasons or to train; they responded to invitations from powerful patrons, roamed in search of fortune, some were fleeing something, and others were seeking it. Some lived perambulating lives, while others ended up making a home for themselves. Above all, they taught and introduced models and techniques. Painters travelled with their brushes and palettes, but also with skills and knowledge about ancient stories and how to compose them on canvases or grand ceilings. They brought the blues of the Italian skies, trained assistants and taught at local academies, proselytizing and giving birth to Italian schools destined to leave profound marks on the indigenous environment. Many, then, left the Italy of the courts for the Europe of the courts. And the highest dignities are only a tiny part of those who left their land of origin behind them to go abroad, preceded by their fame or hoping to create it for 8 Dubost, La France, p. 271.

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themselves. We would need a database to account for them all; the examples – insofar as they can be given – do no more than scratch the surface of an exodus that lasted centuries, toward the most disparate destinations and destinies of thousands of people, with various abilities and duties. Yet, in their vast numbers and infinite variety, they all had something in common: all of them, without exception, were vehicles for spreading Italian culture. When he moved to France, Leonardo had the Mona Lisa in his baggage, and his St John the Baptist and his St Anne, and Rosso Fiorentino took with him a copy of the Cortegiano in 1531. Almost all, in one way or another, cut their teeth at the courts of Italian princes or had been there. All, or almost all, migrated to work for princes and aristocrats. All brought their tools and their talents, but – more importantly – they brought themselves, their belonging to the civilization of the court. All displayed the grazia that Europe looked at admiringly and yearned to parade as well. The knowledge and know-how of the Italians exercised a powerful seduction in the countries of the north. Being of Italian origin was, in any case, a guarantee. The list of these figures would be long, too. Let us take, for example, the ambassadors, like the Florentine nobleman Ottaviano Lotti, the cultivated ‘resident’ of the Grand Duke of Tuscany at the English court of Elizabeth I. From 1603 to 1607, his home (like that of Madame de Rambouillet in Paris) was a ‘rendezvous for Italians in London.’9 In his diplomatic role, Lotti had access to the court, not only to weave the web of a marriage between the houses of Medici and Tudor, but also as a cultural intermediary: he deserves the credit for introducing the ‘recitative style’ that would develop in opera. Diplomats were the initial agents of diffusion; they represented a supranational group that established regular channels of communication. Ambassadors were on the front line of promoting cultural (ex)change. In anthropological terms, ‘ambassadors were cultural mediators, their primary function being to bridge political and aesthetic values between various cultural contexts.’10 They were living examples of the civilitas and refinement of the Italian courts in their way of dressing, speaking, and in what della Casa called buone creanze (‘good manners’). Combining diplomatic duties and literary professions was typical. Examples include Castiglione in Spain, ambassador to Charles V and then his advisor; Jacopo Sannazzaro in France; Fulvio Testi in Spain from 1636 to 1637; or poet Virgilio Malvezzi from Bologna, who became Philip IV’s historian and was sent by him as ambassador to London in 1640. Stefano Guazzo was sent 9 Yates, John Florio, p. 250. 10 Nordera, ‘The Exchange’, p. 320.

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to Charles IX’s court in 1563 and Tasso followed him (from 1571 to 1572) in the retinue of Cardinal Luigi d’Este. Castiglione also accompanied Guidobaldo da Montefeltro to England when the latter was awarded the Order of the Garter between November 1506 and January 1507. It sometimes becomes difficult to confine these figures to precise categories, but it was their multiple identities that distinguished a thousand different individuals with multiple talents who invariably acted as fashioners of civility. Either directly or through mediation, multiple networks of relations were established between princes and artists, princes and princes, ambassadors and princes, impresarios and artists, etc. These networks were also the basis for the cultural common ground between the European courts of the ancien régime, a prelude to the later welding together of national and supranational identities. Thanks to their talent and (intellectual and social) sophistication, as well as their political astuteness, many of these men (and women) enjoyed success, which only invigorated their appeal. Many were in close relations with sovereigns, on whom they exercised their influence. Charles V greatly admired Titian, whom he called huius saeculi Apelles (‘the Apelles of this century’) and whom he made a count palatine and Knight of the Golden Spur. Leone Leoni became imperial sculptor in 1546 and he, too, enjoyed the sovereign’s benevolence. Many held influential positions at court, were given aristocratic titles, were appointed to administrative duties, or headed cultural institutions. The choreographer Baldassarre di Belgioioso, after forty years of court service, died an aristocrat in France as seigneur des Landes in 1595. From 1604 to 1619, with his appointment as Groom of the Privy Chamber, Florio lived at court, ‘holding a prestigious position at the center of power, serving the new Queen as her Italian preceptor and private secretary.’11 Honors, like fetishes of the favor he enjoyed, were bestowed on Pietro Aretino by Francis I and Charles V, the first with the gift of a gold chain in 1533 and the second allowing him to ride at his side in 1543. The dancing master Guglielmo Ebreo was knighted by the Emperor Frederick III in 1469 and his colleague Pompeo Diobono obtained a position as valet at 200 francs a year and was nominated governor by the future King of France Charles IX. The humanist from Vicenza Gian Giorgio Trissino was made a count palatine by Charles V in 1532, and the same honor the year after went to the Ferrara cook Cristoforo di Messisburgo. Rosso Fiorentino was made canon of the Sainte Chapelle in 1532, and, five years later, Francis I conferred another canonry on him at Notre Dame. In addition to the well-known careers of 11 Haller, ‘Introduction’, p. xvi.

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Castiglione, Ferrante Gonzaga, and Giovanni Battista Marino, the numerous figures that have now fallen into oblivion were also symptomatic, such as the soprano Margherita Durastanti, who received the honor of having George II of Hanover as godfather of one of her sons in 1722, and the actor-manager Piermaria Cecchini, who was given the title of gentleman at the imperial court of Vienna in 1614. Artistic and intellectual emigration, in all its various fields, was also a central phenomenon. It is pointless (and impossible) to recall all their names. One need only think of the fifteenth-century waves of architects in Eastern Europe, the supranational humanist community, the mass of Italians in the German courts, and the effective colonies of Italians in London, Paris, Madrid, or Vienna. There was immense theatrical and musical mobility from the late-sixteenth century on: from the actor manager Giovan Battista Andreini to Pietro Metastasio, and the myriad actors, singers, librettists, and dancers who performed in foreign theaters. In the eighteenth century, the diaspora of the ‘musical population’ was of such proportions that it turned Europe into a ‘greater homeland’ for Italians.12 Many of them were less conspicuous, or less fortunate – set designers, Kapellmeisters, impresarios, agents, special-effects experts, etc. All of them also brought to the European courts something taken from the Italian ones: scenic inventions, monody, carpentry, or costumes. Each contributed in his/her own way, some recreating the elegant banquets, some the lavish parties, and others the splendid decorations or the wonderful dance moves. Sovereigns competed to get hold of them, taking them from their Italian vassals. Painters and sculptors, with architects, were particularly in demand – those, in short, who could help fabricate images of the monarchs. We have seen how Francis I made use of Rosso Fiorentino and other Italians to give an elevated tone to his favorite residence, just as the two Leoni (father and son) were responsible for the plastic images of Charles V, Federico Zuccaro became court painter of Philip II, and Pellegrino Tibaldi and his workshop had a hand in decorating the cloisters of El Escorial. We know of Tiepolo’s reputation in German lands after he had painted the frescos in the Kaisersaal (1753) of the residence at Würzburg, and of Orazio Gentileschi’s, first in Paris with Marie de’ Medici and then in England in the Duke of Buckingham’s service, and how generation after generation of Italian sixteenth- and seventeenth-century artists worked in mansions, villas, and royal and aristocratic palaces throughout Europe. The movements of the most famous were followed by troops of mainly anonymous individuals 12 The Eighteenth, p. xiii.

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as their names were not important enough to come down to us from the sources. Yet, they were skilled artisans who transformed austere castles into elegant and luxurious residences (in Prague, Stockholm, Dresden, and Warsaw); masons who carved capitals, lintels and cornices; decorators who frescoed halls and rooms with grotesques and antique stories; plasterers, furniture-makers, engravers, carvers, and so on. We owe to this anonymous mass, often employed by their more admired fellow-Italians, the patina (the form) that unites the styles, subjects, and languages of the immensely varied universe of images. Between 1570 and 1680, Jean-François Dubost calculates a flux of about 5,000 individuals that migrated from Italy to France.13 However, what counts more than the number is the cultural quality and the socio-economic level of these people. It is a truly elite long-distance migration along the usual commercial roads and toward the court environment. We may rightly say that the migratory wave that exported cultural models was one of the greatest in Italian history – a long-lasting flow of people, whose volume is hard to establish, but was certainly a shifting of substantial masses of individuals, united by their knowledge, talent and ability, which was universally appreciated. On their own, what one might call these emigrations of luxury are the proof, if it were necessary, of a long-lasting pre-eminence. It was not an emigration caused by poverty, but a high-profile exodus that was sparked by a condition of cultural supremacy, a centrifugal motion that did not bring about a brain drain but kept high Italy’s ascendancy. This (as we shall see) also explains the striking flow of works of art. The movements of people also help us understand those of language and treatises, epic, and opera libretti. The mobility of their authors created the conditions for the success of their works (and vice versa), and everyone established social relations and served as a cultural interlocutor. Countless texts were translated, adapted, sold, or printed for the first time abroad, in whatever place their authors happened to be. We have seen a lot of people: great men like Leonardo, Castiglione, Bernini, and the humanists who found positions in chancelleries, universities, academies, and courts: Petrarch in Avignon, Vergerio in Budapest, Callimachus in Cracow, the architects involved in the construction of the Third Rome on the banks of Moskva, and the many who worked just about everywhere in the German, Scandinavian, Central European, and Iberian capitals. We have mentioned the Italians whom Charles V called to Madrid, Francis I to Paris, Rudolf II to Prague, Matthias Corvinus to Budapest, Charles I to 13 Dubost, La France, p. 383.

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London, Sigismund I Jagiellon to Cracow, Peter the Great to St Petersburg, and Charles III to Vienna. On the roads of Europe we have encountered the goldsmith Benvenuto Cellini, the poet Torquato Tasso, the architect Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola, and the composer Domenico Cimarosa. So many names, and so many different stories. It is impossible to resist the temptation to evoke yet more names and to add more stories. In 1638, the young painter Artemisia Gentileschi arrived at the English court to join her father Orazio; the military engineer Giacomo Palearo built fortifications for Charles V and Philip II; Andrea Sansovino, architect and sculptor, was in Portugal from 1493 to 1500, working for King Manuel I; in 1549, the brothers Benedetto and Gabriele da Tola were at the court of Maurice of Saxony in Dresden, where they were working as musicians and painters; in 1644, the singer and instrumentalist Leonora Baroni moved to the French court of Anne of Austria. The Venetian painter and printmaker Jacopo de’ Barbari spent much of his active life in Germany, passing through various courts, admiring and admired by Lucas Cranach and Albrecht Dürer. In 1500, he was in Nuremburg where he was working for Maximilian I, who, in the same year, nominated him imperial painter. In 1503, he entered the service of Frederick the Wise, Duke of Saxony, and, in 1505, of the Elector of Brandenburg. He finally left for the Low Countries in the retinue of Margaret of Austria in 1510, where he worked for Philip the Fair of Burgundy. The Milanese Giuseppe Arcimboldo enjoyed success abroad as court portraitist to Ferdinand II in Vienna from 1562, but also continuing under his successor Maximilian II. Then, in 1583, Arcimboldo worked under Rudolf II in Prague as a painter, chief master of court ceremonial, costume designer, decorator, and friend of the emperor. Giulio Romano sent his pupils to Fontainebleau, the Farnese family supplied the Stuart kings with actors for their London theaters, the Medicis allowed Florentine cabinetmakers to move to Madrid, popes and cardinals generously shared their artists with their allies, and the Sforzas provided Ivan III with architects. Almost all of them remained in the court network, however, one that was extended to the aristocratic elites and ecclesiastical dignitaries. The demand they satisfied was, in the last analysis, political and social by nature. Adapting to Italian culture became an imperative in representing majesty and prestige. This is what the Renaissance-style residence, the picture galleries, the libraries and opera houses were aiming for and trying to certify. And, as we have seen, the motives that drove the European sovereigns to undertake their programs of adopting classicism were political. All this required the shifting of expertise and people – many, many people – regardless of religious beliefs, economic trends or wars. The two Frondes in France, Henry VIII’s

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reform of the Church, the Thirty Years’ War, and the English Civil War certainly caused sudden shocks and momentary obstacles, but they did not interrupt the substantial continuity of the ongoing processes. They did not raise barriers that culture was unable to overcome. If anything, the dynamics of interchange were modified, as were those involved, and there were cyclical variations in the direction and intensity of the transmission. The historical circumstances were equally behind upswings in the art market, in carrying out projects, and in strategies of cultural appropriation. There were marked flows of this kind toward France under Francis I and with the two Medici queens, toward Russia in the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries, to Hungary until the Battle of Mohács (1526), more or less everywhere in the seventeenth century, and toward Vienna or Scandinavia in the eighteenth. The quality of dynastic (or diplomatic) relations between the states of the peninsula and the European monarchies played an important part. The constitution of the Anjevin Kingdom, between 1266 and 1481, gave rise to a virtuous circle of contacts between Provence, Southern Italy, and Hungary.14 In the 1470s, René of Anjou made arrangements with the king of Naples for Francesco Laurana to come to France. There was a similar effect on the Barcelona–Naples axis when the other Mediterranean power, the Aragons, took the Angevins’ place. Piedmont became closer to France with the marriage of the twelve-year-old Christine of France and Vittorio Amedeo of Savoy in 1619, and this revived cultural relations between the two countries. Some routes, at certain times, were better traveled than others, but the traffic knew no pause. Some fell into disuse, but many others were added, perhaps for shorter periods, defining the contours and dimensions of an urgent mobility, and indicating the vast geographical horizons and the pervasiveness of Italian cultural influence. In the sixteenth century, movements of Italians to Spain and Spaniards to Italy became more frequent, for obvious reasons.15 After the viceroyalty was created (1516–1700), Naples became an easy land of encounters, but the interchange also involved Rome, Milan, Florence, and the courts of the Po Valley. It was mainly painters and architects who left. Jacopo Fiorentino, Domenico Fancelli, Pietro Torrigiani, and others. Among those coming were Juan Bautista de Toledo, whom Philip II recalled for the Escorial project in 1563.16 Giovanni Battista Castello, an artist of the Pallavicino court, moved to Spain in 1567 on invitation of Philip II. Castello, too, worked on 14 See Galasso, ‘Charles Ier’, pp. 85–97. 15 See Artistic Circulation. 16 See Pane, ‘Gli scambi’, pp. 105–116.

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the Escorial before being appointed architect of the royal palaces. His work continued with Luca Cambiasi, who arrived in 1583 after being involved at a very young age in decorating Palazzo Doria in Genoa. Between 1585 and 1588, the restless Federico Zuccaro passed through Madrid after residing at the court of Elizabeth I, for whom he painted a famous portrait. In 1692, it was the turn of Luca Giordano, invited by Charles II, who granted him the title of caballero (‘knight’). He stayed for ten years, returning to Naples only in 1702. In Spain, he was assisted by his pupils, Aniello Rossi and Matteo Pacelli. Giovan Battista Crescenzi was in Madrid from 1617. A painter and architect, he was involved in the decoration of the pantheon of the Spanish kings at El Escorial. After his rise to prominence, Philip II awarded him the title of Knight of Santiago. Later, between 1753 and 1759, Ferdinand VI patronized Corrado Giaquinto, who had previously worked in Rome and Turin, nominating him director of the prestigious Academy of San Fernando. We shall stop here, but clearly this is only a pale image of a phenomenon that can be better grasped from the three (celebratory) volumes in the 1930s on the work of Italian genius abroad.17 And now for a short biographical digression. We could have taken Serlio, Leonardo, or Marino – there is no shortage of famous names. But I am going to choose the (relatively) less conspicuous Jacopo Strada, partly because he embodied the distinguishing marks of so many figures: artist, antiquarian, cultural promoter and art dealer, influential leader of taste. Much of his fame is due to Titian’s 1568 portrait of him. His fame, however, is not particularly gratifying if we follow what Titian sought to express with his painting: a man who had achieved success ‘due to a capacity for flattery,’ despite his ‘incompetence and duplicity.’18 Yet, we can also see resemblances with Raphael’s portrait of Castiglione in 1515. Strada is in his study, surrounded by objects indicating his knowledge (books, antiquities, and coins). A gold necklace is around his neck, from which a medal hangs as a pendant, probably a gift of Emperor Maximilian II when he was taken on as Antiquarius Caesareus (‘Imperial antiquarian’), a position referred to in the writing above to the right. But his appearance is that of a perfect gentleman, elegantly dressed, of graceful manner, and with a fur around his shoulders, given to him by Titian himself. But who was Strada and why should he interest us? We know he was born in Mantua in 1507 and became an apprentice goldsmith in Giulio Romano’s workshop. He stayed in Lyon for three years before entering the service of 17 See Maggiorotti, L’opera. 18 Pope-Hennessy, The Portrait, pp. 145–147.

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Pope Paul III in Rome. No longer very young, he finally left Italy in 1556 for Vienna, where he followed in the footsteps of his father Ottavio, who was also appreciated as an antiquarian and artist, just as he himself would be followed by his son and grandsons. At the age of fifteen, his sister, Anna Maria, rechristened Kateřina Stradová and made a countess, became the mistress of Rudolf II, and bore him six children. In Vienna, he built a palace for himself, proudly named Musaeum, where he lived till his death, using it as a means of social self-promotion and as a showcase for his art dealing. It contained a library of more than 3,000 volumes and a Kunstkammer that included his valuable collection of coins, drawings, antique sculptures, and paintings purchased in Italy. He took Viennese citizenship and died in Prague in 1588 after being given aristocratic status in 1574. His true passion was antiquities, a passion he pursued in many ways ‘as an artist, a designer, an architect; as an antiquary, a scholar and encyclopedic writer; as a publisher and bookseller; as a collector of, and dealer in antiquities and contemporary works of art; as an agent and a scholarly and artistic advisor of powerful patrons; and – last but not least – as a courtier.’19 But Strada was much else besides: he was a renowned numismatist, librarian, and bibliophile. He was costume designer for various festivities, with which he left his mark on the culture of the imperial court. Undoubtedly versatile, Strada knew how to win approval and received prestigious positions and honors from various European courts after working for the rich banker of Antwerp Jacob Fugger, whose close friend he became. He played a leading role in creating the Antiquarium at the Munich Residenz of Duke Albert V. In 1558, he became court architect to Emperor Ferdinand I and, still in Vienna, entered court circles and served two more emperors.20 In Austria, he provided plans for the imperial castle of Bučovice near Brünn and probably for that of Neugebäude, Maximilian II’s hunting lodge. As an architect, he also worked in Bohemia for Rudolf II. In 1577, he published in Italian Sebastiano Serlio’s Settimo libro of architecture, with an introduction in which he describes receiving the manuscript directly from the artist himself. Strada also produced his own architectural designs, which were published posthumously by his grandson Ottavio II in 1617. Commissioned by the Fuggers, he compiled a fifteen-volume comprehensive array of coats of arms of the Italian nobility, and the 36 volumes of his Epitome thesauri antiquitatum, ‘in folio volumes of numismatic drawings’ was published in Lyon in 1553 (for the emperors Ferdinand I and Maximilian II) in French, 19 Jansen, Jacopo Strada, I, p. XIV. 20 See Jansen, ‘Gli strumenti’, II, pp. 711–743.

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Latin, and German editions with woodcut illustrations.21 For Duke Albert of Bavaria, he compiled a catalogue of the surviving literature of antiquity and a lexicon during 1571–1574. He also visited Venice on Albert’s behalf in 1567–1568 to try to acquire Gabriele Vendramin’s collection of art and antiquities. He was a cultural mediator, above all as an agent in purchasing antiquities from Italy, a duty that made him a remarkable shaper of classicist aesthetics, languages, and values north of the Alps. As an art consultant and dealer himself, he conditioned the choices of his patrons. His period at the court certainly left a deep and lasting mark on the intellectual milieu of Vienna and Prague.22 In acquiring the works of Perino del Vaga and Giulio Romano, Strada deliberately posed as an artistic-cultural intermediary. Strada’s impact, however, was greater than had been recognized until recently. In an age of religious dogmatism, he was one of the greatest promoters of the movement of religious tolerance at the imperial court, and it has also been said of him that – in the Italian manner – he ‘helped transform a more provincial Habsburg court into a sophisticated and international center for artistic activity.’23 In seventeenth-century European culture, Strada stands out for his ‘dissemination of the ideas, values and the artistic forms of the Italian High Renaissance.’24 He played the role of an arbiter elegantiorum (‘arbiter of taste’) with the house he built in Munich to entertain guests and display both himself and his refinement. Along with many others, he operated as artist, courtier, entrepreneur, and cultural mediator. One such was his contemporary, the furniture maker and sculptor Giovanni Maria Nosseni (1544–1620), who was mainly active in Dresden, where he, too, set up an ‘antiquarium and an art gallery in his own home which displayed original sculpture alongside copies made of plaster, clay or wax’ of and by famous artists.25 Although characterized by an unique eclecticism, Strada and Nosseni are not the only ones playing the role of divulgators. Many of these comings and goings were connected with the courts. For centuries, there was a constant flow of people of all kinds and classes, origins and talents. With dozens of servants in her retinue, like Catherine de’ Medici, along with their wives and children, pupils and assistants, alone 21 Jansen, Jacopo, p. 10. 22 See Evans, Rudolf II, pp. 128–129. 23 Louthan, The Quest, p. 8. 24 Jansen, Jacopo, p. XVI. 25 Marx, ‘Wandering’, p. 220.

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or with military escorts, with their troupes or incognito. A multitude of human figures and forms of expertise moved along Europe’s roads (which were few, badly maintained, and unsafe), invited by foreign sovereigns or in homage from Italian ones, with contracts already agreed or trusting to fortune, as exiles or illustrious guests. Some were paid by impresarios; others were exponents of local cartels or family genealogies. Their fortunes varied, but almost all of them showed surprising ability to adapt. Integrated into the communities they had adopted, or restricted to colonies of their fellow countrymen, the targets of envy or beneficiaries of favors, they were almost always able to find the benevolence – and, with it, the patronage – of sovereigns and nobles. Some were acclaimed and showered with gifts and honors. On his arrival in Madrid as nuncio, in 1525, Castiglione received a warm reception from Charles V, who called him ‘uno de los mejores caballeros del mundo’ (‘one of the finest knights in the world’). But there are also stories without a happy ending, such as the sad failure of Gian Lorenzo Bernini in Paris in 1624 and 1630.26 Each story had its own distinctive features: in some cases, they were short stays, in others a whole life. This was an important variable. In 1509, Michele Carlone went to Spain just long enough to install a courtyard that he had executed in Genoa, while Primaticcio arrived at Fontainebleau in 1532 and continued to work for the French crown for more than thirty years. Also, some Italian architects customarily went to Austro-German centers as Gastarbeiter (‘guest workers’), leaving before the chill of autumn, and thus inevitably called ‘the swallows of spring’ by envious German masons.27 The company of the Fedeli remained in France for almost ten years, from 1613 to 1622. ‘Tournées are now carried out in Italy, like that of Tiberio Fiorilli (alias Scaramouche) in 1647, and the actors take lettres de naturalité.’28 The standard contract in Russia for Italian artists was three years, but Domenico Trezzini, the favorite architect of Peter the Great, resided in St Petersburg for thirty years, from 1703 until his death in 1734. And Rastrelli went even further, staying 48 years. The life of many individuals was spent in travel, seeking commissions from different patrons. In a letter, Florentine sculptor Benedetto da Rovezzano (1474–1552) complained that he had not seen his wife in ten years. In his travel memoires, Il passaggio per l’Italia (1608), Federico Zuccaro comes to the conclusion that ‘[h]aving always been in continuous motion either 26 See Tapié, Barocco, pp. 75–116. 27 Rosenthal, ‘The Diffusion’, p. 37. 28 Dubost, La France, p. 101.

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here or there […] I have consumed two thirds, no, four fifths of my life in travel.’29 And we get a similar impression by reading Benvenuto Cellini’s Autobiography (1567). It would be anthropologically enlightening to create a prosopographic database with all the ages at which artists left Italy; this would certainly help us ascertain at which stage of their careers they decide to go abroad and the role that working abroad plays in the trajectories of their lives. Many married and set down roots in their adoptive countries; actors and opera singers were the most peripatetic figures, and more than a few changed their name – Lully was born Lulli, Marco Ruffo became Marco Friazin, Novi became Novyi – and some converted to the local creeds. Many died outside Italy and were buried there. All shared the need to travel. Above all, early modern Italian artists were ‘relentlessly on the move.’30 Before crossing the Alps, they were almost invariably traveling the courts of Italy as apprentices, honing the talents that would make them still more attractive to foreign sovereigns. For many of them, the Italian courts were springboards for their later international careers, but quite a few left Italy as, among so many maestri, there was no room for their ambitions, or they were pursued by debts, by the law, or by the Inquisition. Traveling had its risks, however. They traveled on horseback, by sea, in carriages, or by river, in stages that were often long and dangerous. The actor-managers were eternally on tour with their companies and ‘props’ loaded on barges for rivers and canals, from France to Russia. To be able to take part in the Moscow carnival of 1731, an Italian theatrical company had to undertake a tortuous route through the Ukraine, and travel on watercourses to avoid wolf-infested areas. The itinerant companies were also subject to unforeseen events, like wars or epidemics, which often forced them to change their range of action or the direction of their migrations. Between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries, traveling from Milan to London was a serious undertaking, and moving from Rome or Florence to Budapest or Prague sometimes required months. When the architect Aloisio Lamberti traveled from Italy to Moscow, it became a real odyssey: he was blocked in the Crimea for four years by the Khan of the Tartars, who took the opportunity of entrusting him with building a palace. The journey sometimes left countless objects in its wake, and important acquaintances were made. The adventurer Concino Concini combined traveling with courting Marie de’ Medici en route to Paris. The most unfortunate did not 29 Quoted in Young Kim, The Traveling, p. 3. 30 Ibid., p. 1.

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survive and others never reached their destination as they stopped at the first good job offer. There is an inexhaustible goldmine of stories that, if each were recounted, would make the practicalities of cultural diffusion more vivid. We have no idea how many different circumstances contributed to the encounter with the art of or at the Italian courts. Despite religious differences, Charles I Stuart was in Madrid in 1623 to seek a marriage with the Infanta Maria Anna (sister of Philip IV). At the Spanish court, he saw the paintings by Titian and other Italian artists. Perhaps, without this fortuitous encounter with Titian, there would have been no abrupt introduction of Italian art at the English court, and a couple of decades later Charles might not have sent his ships as far as Mantua to get the Gonzaga collection. None of this, however, dents the uniformity – like in a pointillist painting – of the scenario. The culture of the Italian court was transmitted by this infinite variety of roads, names, destinations, and destinies. It generated admiration and, sometimes, suspicion; it brought with it techniques and new tools; it infiltrated fashions, tastes, and consumption; it changed lifestyles and social practices; it exported knowledge and introduced books; it formed generations of local artists, redesigned cities and refined interior decoration, but – above all – it spread the classicist idiom. This is the history of Europe, not of its individual nations, and not even of Italy itself: it was an authentically international phenomenon in its dimensions, in how it functioned, and in what it led to. The mobility of artists and experiences that it entailed was captured in letters, treatises, and memoirs, such as Cellini’s Autobiography (1562) or Federico Zuccaro’s Il passaggio per Italia (1608), where we find abundance of information on personal vicissitudes, but also on the human aspects of this circulation of individuals. These writings also make the abstract concept of influence much more tangible. Still from Zuccaro we learn, for instance, that he was, among other places, in Urbino, Rome, Venice, Brussels, London, and Madrid, and that during these movements he made the acquaintance of artists such as Palladio, El Greco, and Juan de Herrera, and rulers like Queen Elizabeth, Philip II, Pope Pius IV, and Mary, Queen of Scots. One last digression on the link between ‘European history’ and Italian ‘local history,’ which has often synonymous with ‘minor history,’ in comparison with a supposed major one. What we have just described is anything but that. There are not just famous names and great courts. Cultural influence happened, above all, thanks to the myriad ‘minor’ figures from ‘minor’ centers – craftsman from the valleys of Lombardy, artists from Abruzzo, intellectuals from the Upper Valdarno, musicians, actors, and sculptors from

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the provinces of Umbria or the Apennine slopes. Not just Rome and Naples, but also the Milan of the Sforza, the Mantua of the Gonzaga, the Ferrara of the Este dynasty, and even Sabbioneta, Gustalla, and Carpi: not only did they not end up on the fringes of history, but they were on the central axis of the spread of classicist culture. Through the courts, the supposed periphery of Italy returned to the center of the universe of the ancien régime. The microcosms of Italy, from the fifteenth to eighteenth century, became decisive in illuminating European politico-cultural history. What we have is many small centers that are almost always connected with the courts. The centrality of the ‘micro’ is such for its systemic relation with the ‘macro’: quite apart from their relative size, the Italian courts were the founding place of large-scale ideological and artistic processes. There is no difference between micro and macro, partly because they were both sharing in a unified culture. Wherever we dig, what is turned up is the same. The very identification of shared characteristics on a large or small scale confirms how pervasive the cultural models were. The dimensions were insignificant: from London to Urbino, there was just one identikit of a gentleman, just one code of honor, and just one meaning of grazia. So, there is a sense to parallels between the Memoires of Versailles and Bozzolo’s Istorietta, between the Marquis of Saint Simon, and the abbot Andrea Penci. ‘The measurements’ were certainly different, but ‘wholly similar the strategies and ends’, which were steeped in the same ‘court and classicist culture.’31 The ‘myriad signorie around the Duchy of Mantua’ was emblematic of this situation: it was a galaxy of small courts, linked to Europe by a thousand different threads. Each of them was part of a politically interconnected and culturally coherent whole. As we have seen, these minor princes moved on different planes and played leading roles on the larger European chessboard. Many minor princes, quite apart from their rank, imposed themselves inevitably as actual vehicles for propagating Italian civilization and as living artificers of its predominance. Major historical events were also founded on the seeming oddities of Italian court life. Many of these Lilliputian states possessed a forma urbis (‘city form’) that followed the theories of the ideal city. Sabbioneta, Guastalla, Modena, and the still smaller Pomponesco and Pienza, were taken as models by European sovereigns in designing their capitals. In a European perspective, the same operation applied to the redeeming of local history, in the theory by which the small, divided, marginal, allegedly decadent Italy acquired from the early sixteenth century a leading position. 31 See Mozzarelli, ‘Il Seicento’, I, pp. 220–221.

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The more this theory constituted a ‘Copernican revolution,’ the more it overturned the traditional theory of a northern Europe – protestant, capitalist, and bourgeois – that in that very period replaced the Italian Renaissance as the motor force of modernity. Throughout the sixteenth century and beyond, the Renaissance was still vibrant in Counter-Reformation Rome, in Spanish Milan, and in all the small and great courts; its initial locomotive force in recovering classicism remained intact and its exuberance was such that for several centuries it remained a bright beacon of civilization for the whole of Europe.

5c People Coming Just as many people traveled in the opposite direction. For all those who left Italy, others came from every corner of Europe to drink up its ‘exceptional beauties’ and its culture. Here, we can only cite some of them, but we know we are inevitably wronging many others. The list is a mirror image of the those who left Italy. The only difference is the intention. In Italy foreigners saw a land of grand ruins and courts, and they came there mainly to admire, study, imitate, and purchase. Anyone coming to Italy returned home with books, personal contacts, visual experiences, knowledge, cultural models, and customs, and then was able to transmit them. The registry list of the artists who found it normal to go to Italy to perfect their style and learn from their peers is infinite, and after the beginning of the sixteenth century it is a routine. Purely impressionistically, we can mention Albrecht Dürer, Peter Paul Rubens, the Spanish architect Juan de Herrera, and innumerable other northern Europeans. Pierre Franqueville (1548–1615), a Flemish sculptor trained in Florence by Giambologna, ended up working in France for Mary de’ Medici. Friar and painter Juan Bautista Maino was trained in Italy before returning to the Spain of Philip III. The painter Peter de Witte (1548–1628) – renamed Pietro Candido – came to Florence from Flanders at the age of ten following his father, a tapestry weaver. After absorbing the Italian maniera from the artists of Cosimo I’s circles, he exported it to the court of Duke Wilhelm V of Bavaria in 1585. Austrian architect Johan Fisher von Erlach (1656–1723) was in Rome at the age of fifteen as an apprentice of Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Carlo Fontana, and the antiquarian scholar Gian Pietro Bellori. Von Erlach’s resounding career brought him to disseminate romanitas throughout the Habsburg empire. Also kings came to Italy (not only for war) and they all took something away with them, material or immaterial. Gustav III from Sweden in the

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eighteenth century, Sigismund from Hungary in the fifteenth century, and Ludwig X from Bavaria in the sixteenth. The latter was greatly impressed by Palazzo Té in Mantua in 1530 and went to build the Landshut Residenz with this prototype in mind. There were also heretics who went into exile, just as there were Catholics who came to Italy for the same reasons. One of them, Caspar Van Wittel, father of the more famous Luigi, arrived in 1674, and died in Italy in 1736. Dozens of humanists swarmed into Italy in the fifteenth century, and the Jesuit colleges were visited by the cream of the young European aristocracy. Those who wanted to train as artists or deepen their knowledge naturally chose to come to Italy, either to study the ancients or to emulate the moderns. Both those who came and those who went were often doing so for political or commercial reasons, but the common denominator of traveling to Italy was a desire to learn the classical language and to appropriate the arts and manners of its courts. Those who came to Italy were yearning something specific they had clearly in mind: and so treasure seekers came, as did architects wanting to study ancient ruins, or aspirant artists in search of inspiration. If they arrived already prejudiced by Protestant propaganda, it was still not enough to undermine the desires aroused by reading the classics, consulting texts on Roman antiquities, or studying the inviting itineraries suggested by guidebooks, which had become a genuine cottage industry. They arrived, then, with ideas pre-established by reading Cicero, Virgil, or Petrarch, or by gazing at the faces of the past engraved on coins and medals and attracted by the catalogs of important galleries. They came, full of expectations after turning the pages of Flavio Biondo or Andrea Fulvio, and so were already introduced to the grandeur of ancient Rome, and eager to feast on its magnificence and take back home some fragments of it. For this reason, Pirro Ligorio’s Le Antichità di Roma (1553) was much sought after and reprinted abroad. They also came to Italy to learn from painters and architects, and to meet famous maestri and writers. Not all of the meetings were scheduled. In Rome, Philibert de L’Orme met Rabelais, who was also on a study trip. In Paris, Lully worked alongside Molière, and Louis Poussin came to Italy, encouraged by and under the protection of the poet Marino. Meetings, and personal and literary contacts, influenced the modes of reception and were an essential factor in cultural circulation. Perhaps the most numerous group ‘consisted of foreign students who stayed in Italy for many years and then returned to their countries, where they occupied important positions.’32 The European intellectuals who 32 Kristeller, ‘La diffusione’, p. 78.

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undertook the labor of a journey to satisfy their thirst for learning included Erasmus in 1506, Reuchlin, and Guillome Budé, who, on his return, became librarian of Fontainebleau (1552). There were also the architects. Philippe De l’Orme came twice and made an important contribution to French architecture after spending three years – from 1533 to 1536 – studying antiquity. ‘From 1544, he was involved with the construction or repair of nearly all royal buildings and in this work he applied the knowledge he had acquired in Rome.’33 Other French architects first flocked to Italy in the 1530s: Nicolas Bachelier accompanied the Bishop of Rodez to Venice and du Cerceau followed in the 1540s. Inigo Jones visited Italy repeatedly, and the ancient sites and Palladio’s Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza must have had a certain effect on him. Their backgrounds could not have been more different, and this is significant. The Elizabethan poet and courtier Philip Sidney stayed in Italy in 1573–1574, acquiring the expertise to present himself as an adept of Italian culture in England. Rabelais was in Italy twice between 1533 and 1535. Michel de Montaigne undertook a journey to Italy lasting seventeen months, from June 1580 to November 1581. The poet John Milton came to Italy in 1644–1645 to expose himself to its ‘wealth of literary heritage.’34 Thomas Hoby, the first English translator of the Cortegiano, traveled to Italy between 1547 and 1564, and has left us a detailed account of his admiration for its wonders, whose spokesman he became to rejuvenate the culture of his own country. Cervantes was in Italy from 1570 to 1573. Georg Frederich Händel traveled from Halle to Florence in 1706, invited by Ferdinand I de’ Medici. In Rome, Händel became friend with the librettist Antonio Salvi, with whom he continued to collaborate after he moved permanently to London. Albrecht Dürer made his first trip to Italy (1494–1495) when still in his twenties, in search of new experiences. The second time (1505–1507) he came as a famous artist to paint and to visit its courts. His ties with Italy were, in any case, guaranteed by regular correspondence with Raphael, Giovanni Bellini, and Leonardo. Velázquez’s first trip to Italy, sponsored by Philip IV in 1629, was a crucial chapter in the development of his style and in the history of Spanish royal patronage. Italy also played an important part in the life of Alonso Berruguete: he spent some time there from 1504 on, and before being appointed – now fully Italianized – court painter and sculptor by Charles V in 1518. The Flemish Bartholomeus Spranger, known for initiating ‘Nordic Mannerism,’ spent many years in Italy from 1565 on. After short stays in 33 McGowan, The Vision, p. 143. 34 Lawrence, ‘Who the devil’, p. 184.

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Milan and Parma, he reached Rome at last, where he became a protégé of Giulio Clovio and court artist to Pius V in 1570. Six years later, he was called to Vienna by Maximilian II. Rudolf II, too, was an admirer, wanting him in Prague, where he stayed until his death in 1611, obtaining the role of valet de chambre. Antony van Dyck came to Italy in 1621, and here he remained for six years, studying with the great masters of the time. The Flemish painter Frans Pourbus was recruited as court painter by Vincenzo Gonzaga in 1600 and remained in Mantua until the arrival of Rubens. This interlude in his career introduced him to the extraordinary Gonzaga collection. While still very young, Simon Vouet took the long voyage to Istanbul, and then to Rome, where he remained for thirteen years, from 1614 to 1627. In Rome, he assimilated the spirit of the triumphant Baroque, which he transplanted successfully to Mazarin’s France, where he received a royal pension. Another French painter, Claude Lorrain, first came to Rome as a young man and was an apprentice of Goffredo Wals in Naples (1620–1622), before joining the landscape painter Agostino Tassi’s workshop from 1622 to 1625. Miniaturist Giulio Clovio’s nomadic life was emblematic and enriched by his moving to Italy. Born in the Kingdom of Croatia, at the age of eighteen he entered the service of Cardinal Marino Grimani, under whom he completed his apprenticeship (1516–1523) and by whom he was protected for the rest of his life. In 1525, Clovio brought his ‘Italian art’ to Budapest, where he painted for King Louis II until the Ottoman invasion put an end to his dream of a great kingdom of Hungary. In the following years we find him in Perugia, in Florence with Eleonora di Toledo, and in the household of Alessandro Farnese. These wanderings brought him the friendship of the greatest artists of his time, including El Greco, Michelangelo, Titian, Brueghel, and Raphael. The Dutch painter Maarten van Heemskerck spent the years 1532–1536 in Italy, mostly in Rome collaborating with Antonio da Sangallo the Younger, Battista Franco, and Francesco de’ Rossi. Rubens’s Italian period lasted from 1600 to 1608. In 1600, he first stopped in Venice, where he was fascinated by Titian, and later settled in Mantua at the court of Duke Vincenzo I Gonzaga. He also traveled to Rome by way of Florence in 1601. There, he studied classical art, copied works of the Italian masters, and was inspired by Caravaggio. In Rome, he associated with the neoStoic philosopher Justus Lipsius, who had recently been reconciled with Catholicism. Rubens returned to Italy in 1604 and this time stayed for four years, first in Mantua and then in Genoa and Rome. In Italy, he worked for many patrons and left many paintings but, above all, the experience greatly influenced his work. He also learnt Italian and continued to write many of his letters in the language.

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All four of the main artists of Albert and Isabella, in the short period when they were archdukes of Brussels (1584–1621), were trained in Italy. Before returning to Antwerp in 1596, the painter Jan Brueghel had been in the service of Cardinal Federico Borromeo. The Flemish Wenzel Coebergher spent 25 years in Rome and Naples (from 1570 to 1595) before becoming archducal architect. Born in Leiden, the humanist painter Otto van Veen spent around five years in Rome (from 1574), where he learnt his craft, and was also the favorite of Alessandro Farnese. Maestro of the young Rubens (the last and most distinguished of the four), Van Veen had been influenced by Correggio and Parmigianino in Parma and had been Federico Zuccaro’s pupil in Rome. It was probably here that he developed an interest in emblem books, which he himself would go on to produce on returning to his native land. His Amorum emblemata (1608) became an essential reference point for artists and authors in the Low Countries. There were many Spaniards who returned home after a journey to Italy with their knowledge enriched. The first Spanish architect to study there was probably Lorenzo Vazquez in 1488. After him, an entire generation of Spaniards went to Italy for extended periods of study. Their return to the Iberian Peninsula in the early sixteenth century introduced a new style to architectural design.35 The Escorial was designed by Juan Bautista de Toledo, who had worked in Rome under Michelangelo at St Peter’s. Fernández de Navarrete, painter to Philip II, had studied in Italy under Titian. Juan de Herrera followed Charles V in one of his Italian campaigns and – as a result of this experience – qualified as an architect and worked for Philip on El Escorial. Diego de Siloe visited Naples around 1517, but in Italy also learnt from Michelangelo and Bramante, whom he combined with Spanish Gothic and Arab style. This original classicism would be Siloe’s brand in the architecture of Granada, where he spent much of his life after 1528. El Greco passed through Italy, and in 1575 left his work on Palazzo Farnese in Rome to move to Spain. Sometimes it was the sovereigns themselves who sent their artists to Italy with diplomatic tasks or as experts to explore the art market, inspect works and negotiate their purchase. In 1550, the Duke of Northumberland sent John Schute to Italy for the purpose of studying ancient Roman and modern Italian architecture; what he learned was included in a treatise finished in 1563.36 In 1609, the landgrave Moritz von Essen procured a grant for the young musician Heinrich Schütz to study in Italy.37 William Kent resided 35 Trevor-Roper, Princes, p. 35 36 Wittkower, Palladio, p. 105. 37 Heinemann, ‘Translocazione’, p.178.

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in Rome for ten years (from 1709 to 1719), drawing on the classical masters. Inigo Jones traveled throughout Italy, the first time in 1601 and the second from 1613 to 1614. After painting for prominent patrons in Rome, Nicholas Regnier (1590–1667), from the Spanish Netherlands, moved to Venice where he became a speculator on the art market. Between 1649 and 1651, Diego Velázquez sojourned in Naples, essentially on an art shopping trip on behalf of Philip IV. The Renaissance style for the royal residences in Spain, was ‘established, primarily by members of the Mendoza and Fonseca families, many of whom had held ambassadorial posts in Italy.’38 Some stayed just long enough to perform their set tasks, buying works of art or collecting books. There was also a large group of foreign artists who chose Italy as their new country. One example is the French painter Nicolas Poussin, who was in Rome from 1624 to 1640 and then from 1642 to 1665.39 The Flemish Justus Suttermans painted for the Medicis in Florence for more than sixty years (from 1620 to 1681), and Jean de Boulogne from Flanders worked in Italy for 58 years. The Danish medalist and sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen spent most of his life in Italy (1797–1838). In Rome, he became famous for his neoclassical style. Jusepe de Ribera moved to Naples in 1616, where he married and remained till his death (1652), though many of his works found their way to Spain anyway. Caravaggio and Correggio had a profound influence on him, and Luca Giordano became his disciple, closing the circle by spending ten years in Madrid (1692–1792) as court painter to Charles II. Those who came assimilated the Italian idiom and integrated into the court system. Rome exercised a particular fascination for many, whether to draw and buy antiquities, train in the workshops of local artists, or to conduct business or diplomatic missions. In Rome, we find Rubens, Valentin De Boulogne, Poussin, Claude Lorrain, Nicolas Cordier, and the Flemings Jan van Schoorel, Frans Floris, and Jan Brueghel. 40 There were also Gerrit van Horthorst (rechristened Gherardo delle Notti), Francisco Zurbaran, Georges de La Tour in his early twenties, Velasquez, Peter van Laer (nicknamed il Bamboccio), and Ribera (known as Spagnoletto). Marten van Heemskerck stayed in Rome from 1532 to 1536. French architects learnt their trade in Rome: Pierre Lescaut in 1556 and Jean Bullant, who remained there for five years from 1540 on. Foreign prelates came to the city, discovering its ruins and spending fortunes in buying them. Here, too, came ambassadors, who 38 Trevor-Roper, Princes, p.35. 39 Oberhuber, Poussin. 40 See Dacos, Roma quanta.

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were almost always either aristocrats or men of letters. The philosopher Justus Lipsius visited Rome at the age of thirty and stayed eighteen months. For almost a century, ‘a steady flow of French artists’ was ‘sent to Rome to learn to paint and to build.’41 They included Francis I’s goldsmith and engraver, Jean Duvet, who spent ten years in the city from 1533. Montaigne was right, when, in the late sixteenth century, he complained that Rome was full of Frenchmen. And where, if not in Rome, could Louis XIV command the Académie de France to be established? Founded in 1666 by the powerful minister Colbert, it was intended to enable the finest talents of French art to complete their training. Still in the eighteenth century (and beyond), young artists came to Rome to perfect their apprenticeship and to complete their education. Among them we find the British John Flaxman and the Prussian Asmus Jacob Carstens. The trend was not even interrupted by the Napoleonic wars and Rome continued to be the rendezvous of Europe, growing into a true cosmopolitan city. All these ‘guests’ were organized in national communities, the most numerous of which was the English one with thirty artists. The journey became a kind of institutio (‘training’), as well as a necessary social practice for the education of young gentlemen: in those days, the Grand Tour did not follow the rhythms of modern tourism, and – inevitably – exposed visitors to long sojourns and slow traveling. Lord Burlington’s Italian journey (he was the father of English neo-Palladianism) lasted a whole year. 42 Burlington came to Italy despite the fear of bandits, risks of wars, and the Spanish presence. His was a standard itinerary, through the Mont Cenis Pass toward Milan, Mantua, Venice, and Florence, without going any further south than Rome. It was also standard in its accompanying chaperons and tutors, its study programs, and its extensive use of guides. It was a constant flow. The letters they sent home amplified the knowledge and fueled more desire to visit the peninsula. This happened in a variety of ways but – notwithstanding the abundance of literature – there is still much to unearth about the modalities of the ‘acculturation process.’ The travelers’ experiences always reverberated in one way or another in their countries of origin, and their long stays would give them enough knowledge to make them effective cultural ambassadors and attractive agents for princes with an eye on the arts market. And this is the subject to which we must now turn.

41 McGowan, The Vision, p. 19. 42 Wittkower, Palladio, p. 168.

6. Things 6a The Arts Market I say ‘arts’ because of the variety of goods circulating; proof of the desire to appropriate – through them – the beautiful, the antique, the customs, and the ways of being that might give a sovereign legitimacy and regulate his distinction. A stimulus for the art market was the feverish need to furnish new buildings. Given this circumstance, and the consequential demand for a large variety of objects, it would be misleading to conventionally distinguish between fine arts, applied arts, and luxury goods. Although the art market was linked to architecture, what was happening is also explainable in cultural terms. In fact, the mass of goods acquired was also aimed at creating canonical spaces and settings with a specific political symbolism. Furthermore, purchases also abided by the Aristotelian canon of magnificentia, as it had been revived by Galvano Fiamma in Visconti Milan and by Giovanni Pontano in Aragon Naples. It essentially consisted of spending generously in art and architecture as a fitting occupation of the monarchs. The Italian rebirth of this ancient virtue inflamed the patronage competition throughout Europe as a form of political legitimation. The kings promoted the arts and the arts glorified the kings. These arts completed the creation of new royal residences, and heads of state everywhere aligned with the codes of Italian courts. Whether these new spaces were a gallery, a bedchamber, a garden, a library, an audience, or a banqueting hall, each of them required decorations, furnishings, and fresco cycles whose subjects and allegorical meanings were also the fruit of emulating similar ambiences and motifs in the courts of the peninsula. Imports of Italian art by the European courts remained high from the sixteenth to eighteenth century. The courts of ‘London, Paris, Vienna, Munich, Madrid, Lisbon, St. Petersburg seemed insatiable in their demand’ for Italian painting. This was ‘of incalculable importance to European culture as a whole.’ It is ‘scarcely an exaggeration to claim that between the last decades of the seventeenth century and the end of the eighteenth nearly every first-rate Italian artist provided a significant portion […] of his output to foreign customers.’ In 1666, Salvator Rosa wrote to a friend that every day he had ‘to turn down commissions (and important ones at that) from all over Europe.’1 1

Haskell, ‘The Market’, pp. 48, 49, 51, and 56.

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In this way, the hunt was on for Italian treasures, using the most varied methods. Along with considering the typology of the goods, it is also important to understand the formulas of their circulation. They were not always limited to the mere market. There were also wedding presents, the pillage of war, the legacies in wills, and diplomatic gifts – this latter category, as well as involving massive transfers of objects, reveals the political value of the transactions. Rummaging among the sources, we can find endless examples. For his castle in Buda, Lorenzo de’ Medici homaged Matthias Corvinus with an Andrea del Verrocchio’s bronze relief of Alexander the Great and Darius. Equestrian statues by Giambologna and Tacca were given by the Medici to the kings of France and Spain. A huge mass of antiquities left Rome as popes and cardinals sought to enhance Europe’s alliances. Philip IV gifted works by Titian, Veronese, and Giambologna to the English King Charles I as a mark of appreciation for his visit in 1623. A ‘small group of pictures was sent’ to his spouse, Queen Henrietta Maria of France, ‘in 1637 by Cardinal Francesco Barberini, nephew of Pope Urban VIII, who knew of the king’s love of paintings and used them to help promote the Catholic cause at court.’2 A lover of classical erotic art, Francis I of France received from Cosimo I de’ Medici the Allegory of the Triumph of Venus (1546) by Agnolo Bronzino; a gift aimed at sealing the good dynastic relations that had been initiated by the wedding of Catherine de’ Medici and Francis’s second son, Henry II. Without exception, every sovereign was involved in this interchange of gifts, obeying the obligations of reciprocity, squandering money to keep relationships alive, or ingratiating monarchs more powerful than themselves. In the end, all were bound by similar conventions; all were subjects of the same dynastic network. Abiding by a conventional etiquette and associated to specific circumstances, gift giving was responsible for an enormous circulation of precious objects, for standardizing aesthetic taste and for the assembling of treasures and art collections. A motley world of figures was involved in these transactions: ambassadors, intermediaries, ministers, curators of collections, merchants, artists sent on missions as connoisseurs, etc. Once it was established as the practice of princes, in the eighteenth century collecting became a badge of identity for the aristocracy. Both in practice and in treatises, the role of the Master of the House took on new importance, with functions as treasurer and administrator of the collection.3 The whole of Italy was involved in this frenzy 2 Brown, Kings, p. 47. 3 See Gozzano, La quadreria, pp. 155–167.

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to appropriate works of art. The historiography on the art market is now extensive, but may not have given sufficient attention to Italy’s exporting to Europe. 4 And yet, along with the Low Countries, the main centers of the art market, particularly in the seventeenth century, were Rome and Venice: Rome for antiquities and Venice for paintings (more than 20,000 works were listed in the sales catalogs between 1640 and 1710).5 And there is no sign of a drop in the production and market of art in Italy until the late eighteenth century at least.6 There was something for everyone, whatever one’s taste, or however deep one’s pockets were, and – even in Venice – many of the works on sale belonged to the milieu of courts and their purchasers were mostly aristocrats or agents of foreign sovereigns. ‘Italian merchants, taking advantage of the sustained, vibrant trade routes between Genoa, Livorno and the ports of Spain, sent sculptures in large quantities, and some merchants, like Ludovico Turchi, specialized in this import/export business.’7 The art market between Italy and France in the age of Marie de’ Medici assumed such proportions as to require the involvement of bankers to manage the financial transactions.8 There was a bit of everything in these objects leaving Italy. Paintings and sculptures, ancient and modern, were not the only goods sought. It was a market of refinement and master craftsmanship: jewelry, armor, tapestries and brocades, silverware, mosaics, clocks, furniture, glass- and porcelainware, fans, mirrors, and lacework. An authentic ‘empire of things’9 from Italian workshops and courts inundated Europe and entered the homes and customs of foreign sovereigns and aristocrats. It was a genuine industry of the beautiful, regulated by the laws of supply and demand, with its experts, associations, contracts, and its significant fiscal spin-offs. But in this case, too, the motor force for creating galleries was the desire to increase political prestige and social distinction. This is also shown by the status value that was no minor contributor to fixing prices. The price was a matter of honor, prestige, and status. This meant that works belonging to persons of note or coming from a famous collection – of a cardinal or prince – cost more, and it also meant that the price rose if the purchaser was someone of note or a sovereign. That is why ‘the agents of princes were always very careful 4 See, for instance, Art Markets. 5 Cecchini, Quadri, p. 38. 6 See Guerzoni, Apollo. 7 Artistic Circulation, p. 10. 8 See Szanto, ‘Gli itinerari’, pp. 413–421. 9 The expression is by Goldthwaite, ‘The Empire’, pp. 153–175.

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not to reveal for whom they were buying, so as not to raise the asking price too much.’10 Viewed from this perspective, not too much care was taken and often works of art were bought unseen, simply on the basis of inventories, descriptions, and – the most fortunate – sketches. For the same reason, copies proliferated and were traded, particularly in the seventeenth century, along with originals. There were copies of sacred icons, plaster casts of antique statues, state portraits of betrothed couples, and genuine pastiches. To please Rudolf II, whose requests were becoming increasingly urgent, in 1605, Vincenzo I Gonzaga asked Rubens (who was in Mantua at the time) to make copies of Correggio to be sent to the emperor in Prague. In the eighteenth century, Paolo Andrea Ticonia made marble copies of famous ancient statues to be shipped to Russia to decorate St Michael castle for Tsar Paul I. Around 1630, Gerard Seghers was sent to Italy by an art dealer from Antwerp to copy paintings from Italian masters, and – in 1626 – ‘the Parisian bookseller Charles Hulpeau, also known as a painting’s’ merchant, committed to fund ‘a stay in Italy of the painter Nicolas Régnaud ‘likely with the intention to copy paintings.’11 There was no distinction between a copy and an original. We need to understand the humanist model of imitation in order to understand the imitation of Italian models, which were not regarded as fraudulent at all or as ‘fakes.’ They were much sought after, if one wanted to display a masterpiece, reproduce an ambience, or show sensitivity to a specific style or subject. Copies were used, partly because works of high value were scarce, or when costs were prohibitive. But let us return to the objects. There are many, many examples we can give. Our first example is armor. From the sixteenth century on, we witness more and more the emergence of a new fashion of their design based on the ornament found in classical art. Competing with Augsburg, one renowned center for this art was Milan, where the tradition dated back to the fifteenth century, with the Missaglia family, who supplied the Sforzas. In 1464, ‘Francesco Sforza, Duke of Milan, sent Philip the Good the great armorer Francesco Missaglia, to take the measurements for three ceremonial coats of armor, in the sharp, clear, classical form that had made the Milanese workshop famous.’12 In the first two decades of the sixteenth century, the Missaglia were succeeded by the Negroli, whose workshop furnished pieces unrivaled 10 Cecchini, Quadri, p. 241. 11 Szanto, ‘Gli itinerari’, p. 414. 12 Quondam, Cavallo, p. 85.

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in the history of metalworking that would transform armor into sculpture in steel. In particular, the lavish embossed parade armors of Filippo Negroli became necessary attributes for all those kings and captains who wished to project an aura of power and prestige. ‘His armours belong to a humanist culture and were intended for Renaissance princes who were often educated in the classics and saw themselves as successors to the great statesmen and generals of ancient Rome and as embodiment of the virtues of the ancient heroes.’13 The Negroli workshop was renowned for (re)creating armor all’antica, derived from careful study of monuments, statues, and Roman coinage, and, for this reason, their clients included many sovereigns of the period: Charles V and Philip II in Spain, Henry II in France, and Philip the Fair in Burgundy. Renaissance armor also made ‘clear the irreversible crisis of the [medieval] knight’ and his ‘transformation into a gentleman.’14 Along with many others, these artifacts, richly decorated with classical motifs, became luxury objects confirming the codes of the new aristocratic society. One could say the same for silk, like that from Bologna purchased by the king of ‘Hungary, who in 1477 sent agents to the city to buy silk and other precious materials for his court.’15 Another flourishing market for collectors was that of medals and ancient coins, and we shall see how sought-after precious stones from Florence were. Once again, we have a made in Italy ante litteram, a form prized for its design and its symbolic content. There were also the antiquities, most of them from Rome, which went to adorn the palaces, villas, galleries, and gardens of courts throughout Europe. Just to get an idea, the trade in antique grew to such a point that Pope Paul III (1534–1549) felt obliged to ‘appoint a special commissioner – Giovanni Manetti – whose job was to protect’ them from exportation.16 Here, too, the trend was long-lasting: beginning in the sixteenth century, it reached the reinterpretation of the antique in the neo-classical period, and Johan Winkelmann’s Geschichte der Kunst des Alterthums (‘The History of Art in Antiquity’) (1764). In the eighteenth century, the phenomenon extended to the Kingdom of Naples, as a result of the new excavations in Herculaneum (1718) and Pompei (1748), and a surge of interest accompanied the discovery of the Farnese Hercules, an event that attracted swarms of foreigners to admire it, to draw it, or to make casts of it. The spirit of enterprise often went hand in hand with smuggling and a total lack of scruples in getting hold of 13 Phyrr, Heroic Armor, p. 2. 14 Quondam, Cavallo, pp. 80–81. 15 Ady, The Bentivoglio, p. 187. 16 McGowan, The Vision, p. 57.

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valued pieces. But the flow of antiquities from Italy to Europe (and then to North America) continued into the twentieth century. Francis Haskell has written a fine essay on the subject, speaking of the taste for the antique, which he describes strikingly as ‘a surrogate religion.’17 Collecting antiquities is essentially European (and Western) history. Key moments in this uninterrupted flow are connected with both the policies of individual sovereigns and the new treasures that gradually reappeared from the Roman excavations. Francis I was converted to collecting antiquities in the 1540s, just as Gustav III of Sweden was two centuries later. Propelled by princely courts, collecting of ancient works also spread to Germany, where antiquities and especially small bronzes were sought out, accompanied by cameos and coins. Following the advice of Leone Leoni, Mary, Queen of Hungary, Governor of Flanders, was an avid collector of originals and copies for her Italianate palace in Binche (near Brussels). Her ambition was to rival Fontainebleau. The ‘most spectacular attempt yet made anywhere to acquire the originals or copies of the most famous antique sculpture in Rome,’ however, was made by Louis XIV in conjunction with the building of Versailles.18 The Roman Academy was highly suitable as a storage place and workshop for reproducing casts; in 1668, the sculptor François Girardon was asked to advise on what should be molded there. Taste was decidedly omnivorous, as intention counted for more than content, and the appetites of collectors gave value to subjects (busts of philosophers or emperors), provenance, original owners, etc. Primary objectives were the Medici Venus, the Laocoön, the Torso capitolino, or the Farnese Hercules. Apart from these masterpieces, producing and marketing copies became a genuine industry. There was a link, therefore, between collecting antiquities, painting, mythography, the recreation of spaces, and the re-enactment of how the ancients lived. The goal, in short, was to create ancient times afresh. This presupposes educated audiences, which is why works like Luciano Mauro’s Le antichità della città di Roma (1556) were sought after. A massive exchange of letters across the continent accompanied and made possible the transactions of artworks. Letters from buyers to owners, from agents to patrons, from artists to princes describing collections, with catalogs of works on sale. Letters that also contributed to disseminating the patterns of collections and spread social practices and a new taste.19 17 Haskell and Penny, Taste, p. 14. 18 Ibid., p. 37. 19 See Correspondence.

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These letters wove a web of relations among those involved in the market. In their letters, which were also facilitated by kinship ties, foreign sovereigns addressed Italian ones with requests for artists or proposals of purchase. Louis XIV wrote to the Duke of Parma, asking him for a theatrical troupe; there was a series of letters between Madrid and Florence concerning objects in precious stones, and the great German electors competed with each other via these epistolary relations with more or less all the Italian courts. The letters were accompanied by services from diplomats and agents. It was usually the task of ambassadors and artists. From his castle in Prague, Rudolf II made use of the painters Arcimboldo and Bartholomeus Spranger, and the royal antiquarian Jacopo Strada. Primaticco sounded out the Roman market in antiquities by order of Francis I. In 1650, Diego Velasquez traveled to Italy with the assignment from Philip IV to find decorators and buy art for the renovated Alcazar. ‘He returned to Spain in the following year, having secured the services of two fresco painters, Colonna and Mitelli, and with numerous sixteenth-century paintings to swell the royal collections.’ However, his most important achievement was to acquire ‘a set of plaster casts, together with some bronze copies of the most beautiful antique statues in Rome.’20 To have an idea of the many possible reverberations of the circulation of the art of the Italian court, there is no better example than the well-known story of the Gonzaga collection. It had been accumulated over 200 years. It was displayed in the various residences in Mantua, and consisted mainly of antiquities and paintings (many of them undisputed masterpieces), until, in the early seventeenth century, it was almost entirely sold off, leaving the halls of Palazzo Ducale and Palazzo Té sadly bare.21 There were two episodes that caused the dispersion of the Gonzaga collection: the so-called Mantua purchase by Charles I of England, and – two years later, in 1630 – the devastation of the imperial troops. Partly because of the outbreak of plague, Mantua resisted the first siege in 1629, but not the second in July 1630, which led to the imperial conquest. The Ducal Palace was thus stripped of its remaining artistic treasures and magnificent library. It was not the first time – nor, unfortunately, the last – that the looting of foreign armies gave an opportunity to scatter the artistic and cultural heritage of the Italian courts. The ‘wholesale’ transactions with Charles I are also well documented. Indicating his desire to emulate the prestigious examples of royal collections, in the same period he took possession of the Celeste Galleria from Mantua, 20 Haskell and Penny, Taste, p. 33. 21 On the Gonzaga art collection, see La Celeste.

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he received from Richard Wynn a detailed description of the collections of El Escorial.22 As the result of complicated negotiations, and mainly due to financial difficulties, the Gonzaga were obliged to sell a considerable portion of their art to the English king between 1627 and 1628. The first instalment included masterpieces by Titian, Raphael, Rubens, Correggio, Caravaggio, Giulio Romano, and Andrea del Sarto. The second contained the famous canvases of Andrea Mantegna’s Triumph of Caesar and hundreds of antique sculptures. Charles acquired the cream of the Gonzaga art, in what was by far the greatest art deal of the seventeenth century. In this regard, the ‘Mantua purchase’ is part of the wider appropriation of Italian court culture by the Stuart monarchy and ruling classes. The transaction was orchestrated by Daniel Nijs (1572–1647), a Flemish protestant refugee, collector, and dealer living in Venice.23 The first batch shipped from Murano on English ships brought the Gonzaga £16,000 sterling. But after the death of Vincenzo Gonzaga ‘Nys saw the chance to strike again’ and now it was the turn of Mantegna’s canvases for £10,500 sterling.24 Coincidentally, Rubens was in London and witnessed in astonishment the arrival of many of the works he had been custodian of when working for the Gonzagas. The collection arrived in England at the start of the prorogued parliament, at the right moment to support the besieged monarchy. Now, the English crown, too, could boast an art collection in its residences that was equal to that of other European sovereigns. And so, what had been a collection of hardly twenty canvases at the start of Charles’s reign (1625) had become more than 1,500 pieces at the time of his death (1649). During the interminable eighteen years of the Elizabethan war with Spain, England had been largely cut off from Catholic Europe and art in all its aspects had been monopolized by the Dutch. It was the signing of peace in 1604 that gave Englishmen their first real chance of becoming acquainted with the aesthetic achievements of their Counter-Reformation enemies in Brussels, Madrid, and Rome. Already in the first half of the seventeenth century, ‘there was a passionate hunt for Italian old masters and a certain patronage of works by living Italian artists at the Court of the Early Stuart.’25 In this sense, England truly discovered Italy and the purchase of the Gonzaga collection marked the peak of its Renaissance in the figurative arts. 22 Lightbown, ‘Charles I’, p. 64. 23 Anderson, The Flemish. 24 Brown, Kings, p. 45. 25 Stone, ‘The Market’, p. 94.

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Moreover, to enter the king’s good graces, a restricted circle of aristocratic collectors was created around Charles, which took the name of the ‘Whitehall Group’. Its leading exponents were the Earl of Arundel, the Duke of Buckingham, and the Duke of Hamilton. Arundel had stayed in Italy in 1614 and had brought back an enviable collection that would beautify his residence in Highgate, an English version of an Italian villa. He later made use of the cultivated priest William Petty, who resided in Italy for him, striking his best bargains on the Venetian market. His main antagonist was the Duke of Buckingham, who made use of the expertise of Balthasar Gerbier and the good offices of Rubens. Hamilton, too, accumulated a notable collection, which he used to ‘advance his position with the king by showing an interest in pictures.’26 This trend lasted barely thirty years, however. Charles had little time to enjoy his art treasures, let alone pass them on to his successors. With his death, hundreds of works of art were scattered in every direction. Very simply: ‘Once Parliament had disposed of the king, it decided to dispose of his property.’ The puritan faction saw the figurative arts as a particularly dangerous symptom of a combination of classical paganism with a baleful imitation of the display of Roman Catholicism. And so, a few months after the king’s execution, in July 1649 ‘the Commons voted for the liquidation’ of the royal collection.27 The English Civil Wars that brought the Stuart king to the scaffold also decreed the disgrace of his most loyal political clients and fellow collectors. The so-called Commonwealth Sale, in autumn 1649, put onto the market a good 1,570 canvases of the royal gallery and almost as many from those of Arundel, Buckingham, and Hamilton, with the aim of gathering funds to cover the debts contracted by the crown. Other European sovereigns exploited this opportunity through agents and ambassadors they had operating in England: Alonso de Cárdenas did so for the worthy Luis Méndez de Haro, who succeeded his uncle, the Count-Duke Olivares in the role of Philip IV’s prime minister from 1645 to 1661, and Everhard Jabach for Louis XIV. Christina of Sweden – who was offered a group of canvases – took a mild interest as she had already been gratified by the ‘looting of the castle of Prague in 1648, during which the Swedish soldiery made off with part of the famous collection of Rudolph II.’28 The works left Somerset House, where the auction had taken place, in batches of tens, and sometimes hundreds. In all, 1,410 paintings were sold, bringing in a total of more than £33,000 sterling, but England certainly lost more than it gained. Among the few 26 Brown, Kings, p. 50. 27 Ibid., p. 10. 28 Ibid., p. 81.

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works saved (at least temporarily) were those smuggled out to Amsterdam and Flanders, where members of the aristocracy had taken refuge from the revolutionary fury, and those that had remained unsold. These returned to the crown in 1661 and included Mantegna’s Triumphs of Caesar. But, in their straitened circumstances, many of the refugees had to get rid of works. Thus, both of the two largest art sales of the seventeenth century involved the Gonzaga collection: the first, divided into two sections, took most of the works in it from Mantua to London, and – thirty years later – it was scattered in a multitude of courts, and European aristocratic residences. In one way or another, the work of Italian artists who had been active in Mantua or that the Gonzagas had purchased, ended up in the furthest corners of Europe – in Whitehall, Buen Retiro, Ölmutz, Cardinal Mazarin’s palace in Paris, the residences of the great families of Spain, the castles of German and Moravian princes, the imperial palaces, the homes of rich bankers and cardinals, etc. Not only the taste for the beautiful and the antique was disseminated, but also the habit of forming art collections. This English case is only the most sensational. Many other collections left Italy for European royal residences. The first Spanish monarch protagonist of a major purchase of antiquity was Philip V (whose second wife was a Farnese), who acquired the entire Roman collection of Cristina of Sweden, in 1724, for his palace of La Granja.29 Albrecht V of Bavaria made an enormous investment in the decoration of the banquet hall of his Munich Residenz, culminating ‘in 1567–1568 with his acquisition of the famous Venetian Loredan collection of 91 busts, 43 statues and torsos, 33 reliefs and 120 small bronze statues.’30 In 1575, the court artist Giovanni Maria Nosseni offered to sell a series of paintings imitating the cycle of the Cabinet of the Caesars in Mantua to the Elector Christian I of Saxony. A decade later, in 1586, the same Duke of Saxony sent his valet, Heinrich von Hagen, in search of works of Renaissance sculpture for his residence. He was accompanied by the architect Carlo Theti, who pointed him toward the works of the great Florentine sculptors.31 Prince Johann Adam (1662–1712) of Liechtenstein ‘commissioned forty-two pictures from the Bolognese painter Franceschini alone.’32 Similar circumstances took thousands of works from Italy to Spain and France.33 In both countries, Italian art adorned the many palaces of the 29 30 31 32 33

See Silva Maroto, ‘La escultura’, pp. 26–27. Marx, ‘Wandering’, p. 208. See Müller, ‘Giovanni Maria’, pp. 34–45. Haskell, ‘The Market’, p. 54. See Szanto, ‘Gli itinerari’, pp. 413–421.

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monarchs and of the country’s aristocracy. In France, we saw how the door was opened by Charles VIII’s invasion and culminated under Francis I. Vasari, referring to Giambattista della Palla (an art intermediary) wrote that ‘he had stripped Florence of an infinity of choice things, with no respect, to organize for the King of France an apartment of rooms that was the richest in such ornamentation that could be found’.34 In Spain, the process that had begun with Charles V was later amplif ied when the nomadic court settled in Madrid (1561) and when El Escorial and the royal palaces of Aranjuez and Buen Retiro were built. With a colorful expression, Hugh Trevor-Roper explains that Philip II’s ‘governors and ambassadors combed Italy,’35 though the apogee was reached under Philip IV, whose magnificent collection is now for the most part in the Prado museum. Other sovereigns who saw the art of the Italian courts as an effective investment in power were Rudolf II in Prague and the archdukes Albert and Isabella (1584–1621) in Brussels. Similar intentions in different historical contexts motivated the acquisition of Italian works by Catherine of Russia, and, in the 1460s, the King of Hungary began importing sculpture by Benedetto da Maiano and other Florentines for his residences in and around Buda. Think, too, of the transport network by land and sea, or the unsafe, poorly maintained roads of the time, across mountain passes, stopping at Mediterranean ports or navigating the continents’ rivers upstream. And think, too, of the means of transport, the animals and people used in this trade, which were probably no different from the standard ones. Think of the caravans of wagons transporting across the Alps antiquities from the Roman excavations for Europe’s palaces. They were sometimes small objects that could be kept in the bags strapped to the horses’ saddles – coins, books, miniatures, cameos – but others were bulky consignments, and delicate too, like Titian’s great canvases. They required complex packing, or were genuine feats like the transport to France and Spain of the equestrian statues from the Florentine workshop – bronze casts about three meters high and weighing several tons, to be fixed onto rafts and floated down the Arno to Livorno, whence they were embarked for Barcelona. In many cases, a horse, a chest, a cart, or a few people were enough, but in others military escorts had to be paid for and ships and herds of oxen hired. The extreme case was the English fleet sent by Charles I in 1630 to pick up the Gonzaga collection. The cabinet commissioned by the Duke of Beaufort, in 1726, for his residence in Badminton House was sent by sea from Livorno, reaching 34 Vasari, Vite, vol. 6, p. 568. 35 Trevor-Roper, Princes, p. 56.

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England in 1732 packed in ‘96 boxes and with a color sketch indicating how to put it back together.’36 It took 105 crates to ship 9,000 books from Italy to Cardinal Mazarin in Paris in 1646. Think of the risks for the purchasers of losing their precious cargoes or receiving them partially or wholly damaged by the weather or the state of the roads, by carelessness, or theft, or shipwreck. Think of the length of time of the transport, the rich fauna of agents, operators, intermediaries, experts, the network of friends and clients, of art dealers, restorers, and forgers, of the labor necessary for the excavations, the packing, and their placing in gardens and galleries. And think of the journeys of the purchasers, the studies displaying the works for sale, the flow of money and the many different pockets it filled – though more for the sellers and mediators than for the manual laborers, of course. And think of the flow of money toward Italy, but, above all, the flow of art toward Europe. And of that art market that was essential in its macro-economic and political dimensions for the process of adapting to the classical canons and taste. The reader may have noticed that the word fashion has not appeared so far. It seemed to me an unsuitable term to use in relation to cultural processes. And yet, in certain cases and in some respects, the psychological attitudes, social practices, and formulas of consumption are very close to it. ‘Fashion’ is, in any case, a term people resorted to at the time – ‘in Italian fashion’ (or other similar phrases) we can often read in the sources. And so, there is nothing debasing in calling the desire to appropriate artifacts and to imitate aesthetic tastes a fashion, and a fashion could be the mainspring that led European courts to design and furnish their palaces in the Italian style. One case seems close to these categories: that of mosaics of precious stones. This was a typical court art that developed in Rome, Milan, and Florence in the early sixteenth century, its success lasting for at least three centuries.37 It is one of the few authentically international arts, mainly due to the Florentine opificio (‘factory’) that was set up by Ferdinand II in 1588. The grand dukes placed an array of court artists in charge of it, from Giacomo Bylivert to Jacopo Ligozzi, Bernardo Buontalenti, and Giovan Battista Foggini. It was an art that had various attractions: luxury, the taste for rarity, the virtuosity of the handwork, the preciousness of the materials, the classical origin of the mosaics. Francesco and Ferdinando de’ Medici had also taken an interest in esoteric studies and their passion for the stones partly derived from the magic powers attributed to them. 36 González-Palacios, Mosaici, p. 45. 37 See Giusti, L’ arte and Pittura.

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Furniture and objects of every style and size were embellished with inlays and decorations of precious stones: polychromatic marble, lapis lazuli, agates, mother of pearl, porphyry, alabaster, etc. This ‘stone picture’ with floral, geometric decorations, coats of arms, and sacred scenes decorated tables, reliquaries, cabinets (typical of the Baroque), frames, altarpieces and studioli (‘studies’) without distinction. Florentine artisanry became the center of the most elegant and admired production of these artifacts. In the seventeenth century, the fashion for furniture and objects decorated with semi-precious stones extended to many European courts. A great many of those gifts of these objects are recorded in the court ceremonial journals. In the late sixteenth century, a cabinet from Florence ended up in England in the aristocratic residence of Henry Hoare. Furniture inlaid with precious stones was introduced to France by the cabinet maker Domenico Cucci, who moved to Paris around 1660 and stayed there until his death in 1704, working on the lavish decoration of the Petite Galerie in the Palace of Versailles, and on the famous silver throne for Louis XIV in the Hall of Apollo. A workshop for precious stones was included in 1668, under the young Louis, in the Manifacture Royale des Gobelin, where Florentine craftsmen were working from the start.38 The emperor, Rudolf II, also believed in the magic properties of stones and was so fascinated by the beauty of the Florentine artifacts that he was not satisfied with purchasing them and receiving them as gifts from the Medicis, but sent rare stones from his collection and commissioned his own objects, like a lavish table from the Florentine factory, which was sent to him in Prague in 1597. By that date, Rudolf had almost certainly already founded his own workshop there, to which he had called the Florentine stonecutters Cosimo and Giovanni Castrucci, who worked for him until 1611. In 1585, Rudolf had also brought over from Rome the famous engraver Nicolas Cordier, known as ‘Franciosino,’ and the Florentine sculptor Costantino de’ Servi also remained in Prague four years (1573–1576) in the service of Baron Wratislao from Pernestein, the emperor’s counselor. His work was clearly appreciated as he was knighted in 1581. In 1607, Dyonisio Miseroni was born in Prague, the son of the Milanese stonecutter Ottavio Miseroni, who was the founder of the local gemstone mill. We know that the Lichtensteins were also interested in their work from payments made to them in 1623.39 A studiolo in precious stones was consigned a few years later to the castle of Rosenborg in Copenhagen and the whole of Germany (Catholic and 38 González-Palacios, ‘La manifattura’, p. 242. 39 González-Palacios, Mosaici, p. 60.

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Lutheran) loved these works. Furniture decorated with precious stones was made in Augsburg, the city of the Fugger and the Welser, and as early as the time of Duke William V (1579–1597) specialists in this art had been active at the court of Munich. The same happened at the court of Charles I, landgrave of Hesse-Kassel. Charles had visited Florence in 1700 and, struck by the factory, brought back one of its artisans, a certain Mugnai. The fashion for these objects extended to the Spain of Charles III, who, after leaving Naples in 1759, established a workshop in the Palace of Buen Retiro, whose first directors were Domenico Stecchi and Francesco Poggetti. The two Florentines were probably in Madrid as early as 1762, and the latter’s son, Louis, remained there till the end of the century, helping the workforce there grow to thirty adepts.

6b Books Books are very special objects. They belonged to the area of cultural commerce and were codified as mercanzia d’onore (‘honorable merchandize’).40 The impact of the printing industry and the centrifugal forces that spread cultural models were huge. Leaving this last aspect to one side for the moment, let us consider books simply as objects. Italian texts were already circulating extensively in manuscript form. Visitors to Italy returned to their home countries loaded with manuscripts. And, in parenthesis, as manuscripts spread throughout Europe, so, too, did the handwriting reform of the Italian humanists. And the return of the antiqua littera (‘old letter’) of Coluccio Salutati was no minor aspect of classicism but would later decide the printed characters. From the early sixteenth century, the printing industry accelerated remarkably, partly as the Italian publishers were so prolific. Here, we can merely add some brief notes. From customized prints commensurate with the demand of a small audience, in the sixteenth century, the activity evolved into market production. It also grew from local sale to transnational trade, especially in Venice where printing reached a genuine industrial scale. Parallel to this, book trade became more organized with wholesalers and retailers and with the web of the distribution reaching the final terminal of the cartolai (‘booksellers’). This is, incidentally, another way that literature in Italian found a market throughout Europe. 41 ‘With no fewer than 12,500 works printed during 40 Nuovo, The Book, p. 14. 41 Ibid., p. 195.

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the fifteenth century and 65,000 [notwithstanding the Index of Prohibited Books] during the sixteenth century, Italy played a leading role during the first part of the age of print.’ Moreover, and this is obvious, ‘the development of early printing coincided fully with the most influential moment in Italian cultural history.’42 Aldo Manuzio in Venice and Lucantonio Giunti in Florence both deserve a place of honor among printers. The former, who was himself a humanist, established his press in 1494 and his first publication was in 1495. Giunti, after beginning in Venice in 1489, moved to Florence, where he obtained the Grand Duke’s favor. From 1497 on, the Giunti family produced and published books in France, Spain, and many other foreign markets. 43 Lorenzo Torrentino was nominated printer to Cosimo I in Florence in 1547, his subordinates including Giorgio Marescotti before the latter began to work independently. There were many other names of famous ‘librai’ (‘book makers’), such as Giolito and Marcolini. In the early sixteenth century, Venice alone counted around 150 printshops, to which should be added many foreign publishers specializing in catalogs of Italian works: in Germany, France, Spain, etc. After a long stay in Italy, the Englishman John Wolf printed from London 23 editions of Italian works in the original language between 1581 and 1591. His presses produced such works as Tasso’s Aminta and Guarini’s Pastor fido (a great European bestseller). After an early phase in which northern businessmen established printworks in Italian cities, from the late fifteenth century on, the phenomenon was inverted and the formal innovations of Italian printers began to be imitated elsewhere. One of the book centers where Italian emigrants had notable success was Lyon. The nephew of Giacomo Giunti also came here in 1520, employing twenty or more workers and opening warehouses in many European cities. Italian printers were also established in Geneva and Frankfurt, producing Italian books for a Protestant readership. Giovanni Pietro Bonomini from Cremona worked in Lisbon between 1501 and 1517, and, after starting in Seville in the 1540s, Giovanni Paoli from Brescia opened a subsidiary in Mexico, and one in Lima was founded by Antonio Ricardo from Turin. From the outset, then, the book trade in Europe was mainly Italian, starting with the printers, bringing out editions suited to the market and organizing workshops, and ending with well-stocked bookstores that dealt directly with wholesalers and readers. The growing demand could be satisfied by an exponential increase in the number of copies produced, often more than 42 Ibid., p. 1. 43 See Ibid., pp. 51–70

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a thousand. It generated an extensive, pervasive network with the opening of subsidiaries in a growing number of cities. Classical texts and the works of moderns were now widely available for foreigners, too. Books of every kind circulated: books printed in Italy, books translated or re-published in the original, compilations, extracts, books by architects and humanists, manuals for good manners, dictionaries, epic poems, emblem books, mythographies, editions of the classics, but also books often intended for the court. Italian works were everywhere – bought, read, and thought about by artists, princes, ecclesiastics, gentlemen, and gentlewomen. A copy of Domenico Nani Mirabelli’s Polyanthea (1585) was annotated by Henry VIII of England and royal libraries throughout Europe possessed the Italian classics. They were to be found in the most remote corners of the continent – the Silesian castle of Brzeg has a copy of Monumenta Sepolcrorum cum Epigraphis (1574) with more than a hundred engravings of funeral monuments and tombs of sovereigns and famous Italians. The texts spread the court culture, formed generations of aristocrats, and stimulated the imitation of styles and genres. Printed books in Italy were sold and frequently imitated abroad. Forgers set to work practically everywhere to satisfy the demand for italianità. There are many aspects of this to consider, both to understand how the texts circulated and the approach to reading them. Meanwhile, we shall see Italian books made available both in translation and in the original: and this is, in itself, a significant fact. The meanders of book (re)production are infinite. The list includes plagiarism, citations and longer extrapolations, adaptations and paraphrases, infiltrations and borrowings of characters, plots and settings, which are connected with the originals by various kinds of dialectic – just to give an idea of how elaborate and complex the subject is, going much further than tracing reprints. There were many channels and vehicles for circulation, too, and purchasing was just one of them. Books were given as presents, lent, or borrowed, and this may have increased the likelihood of their being read and discussed. One means of spreading Italian texts (and texts in Italian) were the theater companies and opera casts, who brought their canovacci (‘scenarios’) and libretti to the European courts. In this case, they were the means of a personal bond in which the book was an opportunity for exchanging ideas, sensibilities, and knowledge. Nor was it uncommon for Italian books to be translations of translations from other languages. The English version of La civil conversazione of 1581 (just seven years after the first edition) edited by George Pettie, is taken from the previous French edition of 1579. The first English edition (1585) of Paolo Giovio’s Dialogo dell’Imprese Militari e Amorose also derives from the French. Foreigners were often reading texts that might distort the original intention.

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Alberti’s treatise, translated as L’Art de bien batir in 1553 for Henry II, has only a partial tie with the original. And not much remains of the Galateo in La Bienséance de la conversation entre les hommes of 1618, supposedly an adaptation for students in Jesuit colleges. The thread becomes even slenderer with partial imitations or extrapolations. There are verbal echoes of John Florio in Shakespeare, and plots, terms, and suggestions of Italian texts constantly recur in his tragedies and comedies. One of the most well-known is the borrowings from Giraldi Cinzio’s Hecatommiti in Othello and the situations of Orlando furioso were transposed to Much Ado About Nothing. It has often been attempted to naturalize Italian poetic forms and genres. There are many examples and typologies of them, like The Queenes Arcadia, a free adaptation of the Pastor fido by Guarino, written by Samuel Daniel for ‘performance during the visit of the royal family to Oxford university in August 1605.’44 There is a weighty literature on this we can simply refer to, but which is significant for us for comprehending the mechanisms by which Italian (and court) literature penetrated other countries and became part of national literary traditions. This and other cases give an idea of the dynamics of cultural transmission through reading. But it is not enough to know how and how many books circulated, or how they changed hands; we also need to establish how they were read and metabolized. There is not only a difference between owners and readers, but also between reading and studying. And we might add paratextual apparatuses, thematic indexes, and marginalia, the social condition of owners, and much else. The libraries of courts, monasteries, academies, aristocratic houses, or private citizens placed a book in different contexts and conferred difference potentiality of impact. And yet, without other indications, the inventories of libraries tell us more about the owners than the readers. A decisive factor for the actual reading and level of understanding was whether the books circulated in the original or in translation, whether they were compilations of originals or complete adaptations to local circumstances. Let us turn to the works. The list is infinite. Starting with the humanists, Petrarch in primis. Completed in 1366, his De remediis utriusque fortunae circulated steadily down to the eighteenth century with more than 250 manuscript codexes and 28 European editions. 45 De ingenuis moribus et 44 Lawrence, ‘Who the devil’, p. 97. 45 The translations are in German (1478), Spanish (1510), French (1523), Italian (1549), English (1576), Bohemian (1501), Dutch (1606), Swedish (1641), and Hungarian (1720). See Quondam, La forma, p. 261.

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liberalibus studiis, written by Vergerio in the early fifteenth century, quickly became the most influential of Italian educational treatises, passing through forty editions before 1600. Treatises on the education of a prince were much sought after. Among literary works, Ludovico Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso (1532) and Torquato Tasso’s Gerusalemme Liberata (1581) enjoyed pride of place. Ariosto offered his work personally to Charles V in Mantua in 1532, having added new stanzas to it in his honor. The Furioso was translated into French in 1543, in English in 1591, and went through eighteen Spanish editions between 1549 and 1588. These figures are certainly significant, but do not give us any idea of the actual penetration of Ariosto’s poem in European courts. There are two factors that might make us dubious: first, because few were able to read it in the original, and secondly, because innumerable plots and characters were extrapolated from it for theatrical and operatic arrangements. One single canto of it became the plot of Robert Greene’s The Histoire of Orlando Furioso, performed in 1592 and printed two years later. John Stewart went even further in the 1580s, with an English adaptation of a French adaptation of Ariosto’s work. Quite apart from reprints, the long wake of imitators who tackled the epic made it one of the most influential works in European literature. In Spain, Lope de Vega wrote a continuation of the epic with the title of La hermosura de Angélica (1602) and the Orlando Furioso is present in Don Quixote. In France, Jean de la Fontaine used some of its episodes for his Contes et Nouvelles en vers (1666). In the late sixteenth century, both Ariosto’s and Tasso’s works arrived as far as Poland. Adapted to the court circles there, epic flourished to a great extent as a result of these two works. We might continue, and we might also apply the same methodology to dozens of other literary or theatrical works, and in every case we would find similar procedures, down to its miniaturization in iconography or themes, characters and situations infiltrating ballets and ceremonials. Further evidence of the union of culture and politics is in Tasso’s widespread and lasting ideological penetration of Europe. 46 The Liberata’s fame quickly spread throughout Europe and, over the next two centuries, various sections were adapted for madrigals, operas, and plays. The work’s immense popularity also includes the migration of its many scenes into art from Poussin and Tintoretto to Tiepolo. It was particularly well received in England, where Edmund Spenser’s Faerie Queene (1590), drawing heavily on Tasso’s epic, was charged with eulogistic motifs, contributing to creating the myth of Elizabeth. The first attempt to translate the poem into English 46 See Ŝlasky, ‘Baronio’, pp. 37–57.

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was in 1594, and a new and more complete rendering appeared in 1600. At the court of Warsaw, the Liberata translated into octaves and published in 1618 under the title of Gofred by Piotr Kochanowski, became almost a national epic. But the foreign success of Italian epics was not limited to the canonical works of the sixteenth century, and their success had nothing to do with their present-day fame. One example among many is Giovanni Ambrogio Marini’s Calloandro (1641). Praised by contemporaries, this Baroque novel was repeatedly printed and translated in Poland, France, Germany, and Sweden. The successor and modernizer of Tasso was Giovanni Battista Marino (1569–1625). Marino’s works were acclaimed all over Europe and their influence in the seventeenth century was immense. The cult of Marino is comparable only to Petrarchism, and his style was widely imitated. Among his admirers were Lope de Vega and John Milton. The most read and translated of his works, was the mythological poem Adone, published in Paris in 1623 and dedicated to King Louis XIII. Gian Giorgio Trissino also occupies a prominent place in modern European literature because of his Sophonisba (1524), the first tragedy to show deference to the classical rules. It served as a model for European drama throughout the sixteenth century. It was translated into French and was performed to great acclaim in 1556 at the Château de Blois. The papal curia also contributed to the primacy of Italian literature with the pastoral poem Arcadia by Jacopo Sannazzaro. First printed in Naples in 1584, it became an absolute European bestseller. Treatises on the arts – on architecture, painting, emblems, and mythography – were also published in every European language and had a huge circulation and impact. Giacomo Barozzi Vignola’s Regola delli cinque ordini di architettura (1562) went through seven editions in the sixteenth century, ‘twenty in the following one, twenty-five in the eighteenth century, and another forty-six in the nineteenth.’47 Derived from Vignola’s own experience of classical monuments, the Regola became the most published architecture book. As already noted, Palladio’s works were very widely published, from early-seventeenth century England to the American colonies the following century. His Sette libri di architettura (1537) quickly became available in a variety of languages. Sebastiano Serlio published three of his treatises directly in France, between 1545 and 1551, but the European success of the books drawn from Serlio’s repertory was particularly astonishing. 48 The works of Philippe de l’Orme and Androuet du Cerceau in France belong 47 Repishti, ‘L’idea’, p. 484. 48 Chastel, Architettura, p. 172.

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to this category, as do the Medidas del Romano (1526), written by Diego de Sagredo after staying in Italy (1518–1521), and the treatise on the orders of architecture by the German Hans Blum, Quinque columnarum exacta descriptio (1550). Within a few years of their first publication, a Flemish adaptation appeared, and more followed in German and French. Still separately published, Serlio’s books were printed in Spanish in 1552, in Dutch in 1606, and in English in 1611. Scamozzi’s and Peruzzi’s works enjoyed similar success, as did – earlier – Alberti, Filarete, and the other fifteenth-century theorists of the ideal city. De re aedificatoria (1452) remained the classic treatise on architecture from the sixteenth until the eighteenth century, and Filarete’s visionary Sforzinda (1464) became the prototype for city planning well beyond the Renaissance. During Henry II’s reign Vitruvius’s and Alberti’s treatises were translated into French, the former in 1547 and the latter in 1553. Mythographies and works on images were just as popular. There was a real outpouring of literature on emblems, and imprese (‘personal devices’). Emblem books accompanied mythological manuals, which, in turn, codified and moralized the ancient stories. These reference books were consulted by every educated person and were indispensable tools for every artist. Andrea Alciati’s Emblemata (1531) went through more than a hundred editions in a century, as well as instigating a plethora of translations, updatings and imitations. Alciati was used to decorate Charles V’s entry into Paris in 1540. Paolo Giovio’s Dialogo dell’imprese militari e amorose (1551) also enjoyed immediate success, being reprinted at least ten times, and Gregorio Giraldi Cinzio’s De deis gentium varia et multiplex historia (1548) became a standard European source. They were reprinted in numerous editions and his name was virtually synonymous with mythology. Giovanni Boccaccio’s Genealogia deorum gentilium (1370) was copied in around fifty manuscript versions. Le imagini con la sposizione dei dèi antichi (1556) by Vincenzo Cartari (a favorite of the Duke of Ferrara) was an overwhelming success throughout Europe. Natale Conti’s Mythologiae (1567) was also reprinted in numerous editions and in the seventeenth century, it inspired various art forms, including the Ballet comique de la Reine (1581). Cesare Ripa’s Iconologia (1593) was a great classic that went through a number of editions – nine in Italian up to 1767 and eight in other languages up to 1779. 49 Both text and images vary greatly, and later editions use Ripa’s idea, rather than following his text in ten or so Italian reprints and 49 French in 1644 and in 1766, Dutch in 1699, German in 1704 and 1760, English in 1709 and 1779.

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an equal number of European ones. Domenico Nani Mirabelli’s Polyanthea was available for two centuries in fifty different editions. First published in 1503, this book became the classicist encyclopedia utilized by all European intellectuals until the end of the seventeenth century. It counts hundreds of entries arranged in alphabetical order, offering an abundance of quotations, proverbs, anecdotes, and historical examples. The sources were classical authors, Church Fathers or modern poets without distinction, for a total of more than 200 authors. Many works drew on Ovid’s Metamorphoses, which were also brought back into circulation by Giovanni Andrea dell’Anguillara’s translation. We have said nothing yet of countless texts, but also various genres, such as political thought, with Machiavelli’s Il Principe and Giovanni Botero’s La Ragion di Stato being of particular note. Nor have we mentioned the works of the many versatile thinkers dealing with such subjects as the ‘Christian prince’ or ‘dissimulation’ (honest or not). We have said nothing of scientific works, which were often produced and circulated at court, or the grammars and dictionaries of Italian, the manuals on the mestieri (‘professions’) of the court, and on the arts of dancing and fencing. We have left unmentioned the incalculable number of opera libretti and theatrical texts, from simple scenarios to the most literary tragedies, and the anthologies of academies linked to the court and cookery books. All these contributed to an immense ocean of texts, whose waves lapped at every court in Europe. It was an ocean of knowledge, of precepts, of instructions, and wisdom that flooded the whole continent. In this vast output, courtly texts of institutio were unrivaled. Cortegiano (1528), Galateo (1558), and Civil conversazione (1574) were, in this sense, the European triptych par excellence of the ancien régime. These three texts journeyed ‘jointly combined and allied’ in time and space.50 Three books of and on the court, which codified the archetype of the perfect gentlemancourtier and defined the rules and practices he should follow. They were not competing between themselves but complemented and completed each other. Their success was sensational, both individually and as three terms of the same equation. Their circulation is well-known and it would be an arduous task to reconstruct in detail the main lines and formulas of their penetration, particularly the deeper infiltration and their impact on their readers’ behavior. We know how often they were reprinted, both in Italy and abroad, how many times they were translated, in which languages and in what chronological order, and we can also draw a map of their geographical 50 Quondam, ‘La virtù’, p. 248.

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diffusion. We have a fairly clear idea of which libraries possessed them, and also of how they were read (used) and by whom. We can only say a few words here. The number and variety of texts of the ancien régime indebted to the Italian court triptych is extraordinary. It had a significant presence in the collective imagination, both of imitators and readers. We could write a real intellectual history of Europe through these three books and all their offspring, a real history without frontiers. The Europe-wide success of Castiglione’s Cortegiano is particularly astonishing. It is still indisputably the fundamental grammar of the society of the ancien régime down to the French Revolution,51 but its offshoots can be found in the following centuries too. To speak of the ‘success of the Cortegiano’ is both right and misleading at the same time: right because the book’s success remained a unique case in the history of European culture, yet misleading as its popularity has meaning only if seen within the broader framework of the spread of courtly-classical culture. We shall see later how the publication of the Cortegiano marked ‘Italian primogeniture of a style of life’ on which the culture of the ancien régime would model itself.52 There has been a wealth of studies on Castiglione and his text and context.53 In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, his book was ‘in everyone’s hands,’ as a German witness of the period tells us. It was a massive publishing phenomenon ‘for the circulation of Italian editions, for the number of translations’ and, transversally, with abridgments, adaptations and much else.54 It is well-known that Nicolas Faret drew on it wholesale in his L’honneste homme ou l’art de plaire a la cour (1630). Though marked by the pragmatism of manuals on how to be successful at court, without the ethical charge of the original, it – and other similar publications – bear witness to how the French culture spreading through Europe from the late seventeenth century, was based on and not replacing Italian culture. Even an intransigent moralist like the English Roger Ascham recommended Hoby’s translation of the work. The rules and concepts codified by Castiglione were exactly what the Europe of the monarchies and aristocracies needed to activate systems that could legitimize their power and status. Reprints, translations, and imitations soon began pouring out, so that, within a few decades, the original 51 52 53 54

See idem, ‘La “forma”’, pp. 15–68. Botteri, ‘I trattati’, pp. 436 ff. See Quondam, Questo povero. Bonfatti, ‘Fortuna oltr’Alpe’, p. 540.

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text had become an irreplaceable vademecum. The figures are staggering: in all, there were 166 editions of it before the end of the seventeenth century (in Italy there were fifty or so in the sixteenth century alone), and some estimate 100,000 copies printed and 300,000 readers.55 As evidence of how widely read it was, we can add that it was printed in six different languages, with editions in dozens of different cities. It was translated into Spanish in 1534, into French in 1537, into Latin in 1561, into German in 1565, and into Dutch in 1566. A good sixty foreign editions of the work were published between 1528 and 1619, but the text written in tiny court of Urbino, also reached Poland, Portugal, Sweden, Scotland, Holland, Denmark, and Russia.56 The translations were rarely faithful, not out of incompetence, but often as a deliberate adaptation to the different politico-social contexts. Many, throughout Europe, were able to read it directly in Italian, the language of the courts. Terms and concepts like sprezzatura, grazia and affettazione (‘affectation’) became universally understood lexical stereotypes, entering the vocabulary, social practice, and mental dimension through which individuals thought about the world and about themselves. Nevertheless, there were two different approaches to translating it. The first consisted in applying the concepts to other disciplines, such as painting and architecture, with the need to provide adequate nuances such as harmony, proportion, decorum, and restraint. We can find traces of this in the theoretical works of Ludovico Dolce and Giovanni Paolo Lomazzo, as well as in Vasari’s Lives.57 The second was to provide a genuine translation, which was not always easy for sprezzatura, which became nonchalance, desprecio, effortlessness, Unachtsamkeit, and much else. Another option was to leave the original term with an explanation of its sense. As well as reprints and translations, there were many imitations. Without broaching the question of the difference between plagiarism and paraphrase, there were hundreds of versions of Castiglione’s book circulating in both Italy and abroad. Many texts sprang from it, aimed at courtly-aristocratic society – too many to list them all, though all of them, in their different ways, can be seen as legitimate progeny of the Cortegiano. This pile of texts gives us a sense of how pervasive Castiglione’s ideas were and the ramifications of the corpus of writings on courtliness and on civilité. Yet, there has been no review of Castiglione’s imitators, or of the adaptations and abridged versions. The Cortegiano initiated a long wave of autochthonous works destined to 55 Burke, The Fortune, p. 140. 56 See Ibid., pp. 60–65. 57 See Ibid., p. 53.

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grow and develop over time. In 1566, Łukasz Górniki, librarian and secretary of Sigismund II of Augsburg, had Il cortegiano polacco published, a complete reworking of Castiglione’s text, more a manual for the nobles of an elective monarchy than for the courtiers of Italian princes. For the period in which it was published, and for its relation with the original, the work is an emblem of the ‘desire to import Italian models,’ reformulated on the basis of ‘national tradition.’58 Castiglione was introduced to England with The Boke of the Governour (1531) by Sir Thomas Elyot, and, a century later, with Richard Brathwaite’s The English Gentlemen (1631). Though very different personalities, both ‘preserve its [general features and] ethical rigor.’59 The Cortegiano was at the head of this widespread discourse: it was the axis on which all the other texts, directly or indirectly, were founded; it was the general, generative grammar, it was the trunk of an ‘arbor textualis, the stem of this blooming efflorescence of treatises.’60 It also led to indigenous works on public affairs. This included works like Thomas Hoby’s ‘free’ translation of 1561, which provides the philosophy of life for the Elizabethan gentleman; Eustache du Refuge’s Traité de la cour ou instruction des courtisans (1616), which was extremely popular in France, where it was republished a dozen times; or the Oróculo manual y Arte de Prudencia (1647) by the Spanish Jesuit Baldasar Gracián. The tradition of court literature that Castiglione had initiated traveled even further in time, down to Lord Chesterfield’s Letters (1774) to his son, and beyond. The ramification also led to a typological fraying that extended from texts of institutio like Gracián’s, to manuals of civility, those on the gentleman and gentlewoman, handbooks of etiquette and various court services, and the crude instructions for getting on in society. Everyone found what they were looking for. Castiglione and company made their way through the Jesuit schools, family upbringing, social fashions, and the tastes and consumption of all social strata. The Cortegiano also obliges us to make a brief reference to Elias’s ‘civilizing process,’ which Castiglione’s was certainly an essential starting point for. And one is strongly tempted to go further, as far as the themes and methodologies of Thorstein Veblen, Pierre Bourdieu, and Erving Goffman. Monsignor Giovanni della Casa’s Galateo and Stefano Guazzo’s La civil conversazione were also fundamental European books. There were around 150 editions of the former before the end of the eighteenth century. But other successful works also included a swarm of adaptations and imitations of 58 Sberlati, ‘Il Rinascimento’, p. 678. 59 Domenichelli, Cavaliere, p. 115. 60 Quondam, ‘Introduzione’, p. XXXVIII.

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both Italian authors read abroad and foreign ones, which, in turn, became classics, like the Honnête homme ou l’Art de plaire à la Cour (1630) by the Frenchman Faret.61 The English translation of the Galateo – ‘worke very necessary & profitable’ – by the ‘gentleman’ Robert Peterson appeared in 1576, but paraphrases of the Galateo also appeared in seventeenth-century England, camouflaged under titles such as The Rich Cabinet (1616) or Youth’s Behaviour (1640). Della Casa’s treatise was a complementary ‘practical exemplification’ of Castiglione’s and reworkings of it continued well into the seventeenth century. This short Italian work ‘spread through the channels of the Jesuit colleges in many European countries, including Reformation England even the New World,’ serving in his specific case ‘as a text for George Washington to learn both […] fine writing and good manners.’62 In 1788, John Wesley, ‘the founder of the evangelical Methodist movement, when he wanted to forewarn his disciples of the coarseness of that age, found nothing better than republishing some passages from The Refined Courtier (1663), which was simply a paraphrase of the Galateo.’63 The Civil conversazione was also widely read, with 44 Italian editions by 1631, as well as numerous translations into Latin, English, French, German, Dutch, and Spanish, making it another genuinely European book.64 George Pettie’s English translation of 1581 penetrated ‘the cultural context of Elizabethan England,’ and from it ‘Shakespeare in turn appropriates the courteous Italianate conversational mode’ as a representation of civilitas.65 There were many triangulations and references among the various translations: Gabriel Chappuys’s French one, in 1579, became the basis for George Pettie’s English one of 1581. In the same way, Guazzo’s German translation of 1599 was used for the later versions in Czech and Dutch. Without losing its meaning, the term ‘civil conversation’ became current in a genre of treatises. The immediate success of the Civil conversazione can also be explained by the fact that it ‘appeared at a moment when Italy still possessed the dominant culture in the Western world’ and ‘just when the courts of Spain, France and England were emerging from their limits and their medieval squalor.’66 Also in this case, the Jesuits used Guazzo – with or without adaptations – in the teaching in their colleges, and, at the same time, he became reading matter for Calvinist courtiers and aristocrats of all faiths. 61 62 63 64 65 66

See Faret, L’honnête. Botteri, ‘I trattati’, pp. 454 and 456. See also Botteri, “Galateo”. Botteri, ‘Della Casa’, p. 147. See Bonfatti, La Civil and Lievsay, Stefano Guazzo. Elam, ‘At the “cubiculo”, p. 117. Lievsay, ‘Stefano Guazzo’, p. 203.

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In general, the vicissitudes of this text remind us of how in the ‘great historical contexts’ regarding the European cultural tradition ‘one notes the lacuna’ left by the ‘scant attention to the Italian sources.’67 As well as the translations, Guazzo appeared innumerable times in compilations, was adapted and imitated, and his influence continued at least till the end of the seventeenth century. Often, the sense of the text is bent in the interest of contingent requirements, sometimes insisting on the pragmatic dimension, and others even changing its cultural perspective. The rewriting by the German Elias Reusmer in 1606, for example, emphasized its political value and the one published in 1599 under the title of Bürgerlicher Wandel is written for the city bourgeoisie.68 The German editions – from the first in Latin in 1585 – also reveal Guazzo’s notable success in the Protestant world. In addition, to take up an earlier suggestion, Casale Monferrato (Guazzo’s home) is still more ‘peripheral’ than Urbino, but – for that very reason – provides further confirmation of the (European) cultural centrality of these courtly microcosms. The circulation of Italian books from and on the court was extensive, lasting, and pervasive. As they were clearly written and lent themselves to easy consultation, the texts in this tradition became the ‘structured deposit of the Western cultural tradition.’69 Following on from the ‘arch-texts’ of the court, there were also countless manuals for use by the various levels and kinds of courtiers, and the ‘huge sector of treatises on dancing, playing, dueling, hunting, riding, dressing and eating.’70 This immense body of works was systematically plundered and showed there was a general, ongoing process of homologation with Italian practices and customs. It provided instructions and precepts that molded a shared identity in the aristocratic society of ancien-régime Europe. There were many genres dealing with the court and all of them are potential threads to follow up. These books on public matters (despite the Inquisition’s best efforts) flooded court libraries, aristocratic houses, and monasteries and academies throughout Europe. For all its extreme variety – because of it, indeed – this forest of texts covered the whole territory of registers and arts that defined court culture and constituted a single schedule of knowledge, concepts, and rules that marked the path for civilizing customs, which – partly for its didactic slant – the gentleman would turn to for self-improvement. 67 Patrizi, ‘La “Civil conversazione”’, p. 10. 68 See Bonfatti, La Civil, p. 117. 69 Quondam, La forma, p. 164. 70 Quondam, ‘Introduzione’, p. XXXVIII.

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The number of re-editions and translations is objective, incontrovertible evidence of the thirst for Italian court culture. Yet, we know that, on its own, it is not enough to cast light on the actual influence of the texts and how much their content had been metabolized. We need much more than this to understand how Europe appropriated it, how Italian culture was transmitted, and how deeply it penetrated. Of course, the consumption of texts provides important indications. But many other elements need to be considered alongside. Above all, how widely did the various genres circulate, and how? To understand better, we also need to establish where these texts were, and in whose hands they ended up – both to define the geography of the cultural influence and also to bring into focus the social profile of the consumers. Who read these works? How and where did they read them? We know that the relation with reading changed over time, according to social ambiences, customs, or objective factors, such as the degree of literacy.71 Discovering how the books were used is even more complicated. Here, too, the purpose of a work comes into play, and how much it could satisfy expectations. Some books were regarded as entertainment, others as instruction or as a means of rising in society. Much of a book’s reception and success also depended on this. The reasons for ‘the fascination and success of Castiglione’s treatise are,’ in this sense, also ‘to be sought in its nature as a practical manual of rules, social etiquette, as a secular gospel of life at court.’72 Amedeo Quondam has appropriately coined the definition of libri utensile (‘tool books’) for this literature.73 In conclusion, we must consider the myriad minor or specialist pamphlets and – above all – their overall power on people’s ideas and behavior. This is the real knot to be loosened. What was the passage from reading to action? Understanding the impact of this moral literature on individual actions in society would mean truly tracing the archeological roots of Western Civilization. As well as this, we are entering the field of intertextuality, where my lack of competence does not allow me to proceed, and – even if it were possible – it would impose further research that goes far beyond the aims of this book. I am referring, in short, to the more granular levels of infiltration of works on foreign artists or writers. How did the exempla, the theories, the argument, the reflections find their way into their discourse, thinking, and writing? How much did stylistic imitation travel, how long and far, 71 See Chartier, Lectures. 72 Domenichelli, Cavaliere, p. 104. 73 See Quondam, La forma.

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compared with the appropriation of stories and concepts? The notion of ‘social energy’74 can better explain what we are alluding to, and what we mean for the – maybe controversial but, in any case, omnipresent – pattern of the migration of ideas. This is a terrain for the specialists who deal with the endless combinatory play of citations. Think of how much has been written on Castiglione’s influence on The Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia (1593) by Sir Philip Sidney, one of the most prominent poets, courtiers, and scholars of the Elizabethan age.75 Think, in general, of the borrowings, back-and-forth of ideas and images, the imitations of styles and genres, which create a dynamic interweaving between works of Renaissance Italy and English poetry. Think, too, of the traces of Aretino, Bandello, Ariosto, and Boccaccio in Elizabethan drama. In this migration of texts and discourses, the debate on the debt of dramatists to the world of Italian court culture is part of the widespread imitation of Italian poetry. For a long time, scholars have been intrigued – without necessarily finding agreement – by Shakespeare’s connection to Italian literature and culture. An extensive debate focuses on the appropriation, metabolization, and transformation of topoi: from Italian drama pulsating in every line, to the adoption of settings and realistic Italian ambiences, borrowings from concepts, stylistic, thematic, and rhetorical echoes, detailed correlation between textual references.76 In particular, Shakespeare infuses his works with ideas received from the sophisticated world of Italian courtliness. The Merchant of Venice and Othello are a def inition of sprezzatura. English drama overall is imbued with the conversational strategies of Italian courtesy manuals and with lexical and cultural loans. Permeability and fascination are stronger than hostility to Italy. And we might continue, recalling how these authors also revered Italian literary tradition, including the fecund impact of Italian popular theater, the Commedia dell’Arte, on Molière, or the influence of Ariosto on Cervantes. And that is not all. We have seen how many paths led to textual circulation: from the simple chain of book distribution, to gifts, loans, meeting between individuals, which led to shared readings, etc. All this certainly influenced the attitude toward the works and – consequently – the modes of cross-fertilization. In this sense, it would be reductive to think of a process of passive assimilation or mere reading. 74 Greenblatt, Shakespearean, pp. 1–20. 75 Domenichelli, Cavaliere, pp. 205–212. 76 Marrapodi, ‘Introduction’, pp. 8–15. For the aspect of location, see Shakespeare’s Italy.

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Cultural discourses resemble a tree: with deep roots from which they draw nourishment, and with a solid trunk from which a thick network of branches grow, which, with the leaves, give form and color to the mass of foliage. The same lymph is circulating everywhere, but it is the last terminals – the leaves – that the real synthesis takes place. But here – perhaps – our metaphor gives out, as discourses develop, and adapt to times and places, and bond with other flows and influxes. That is how one might image the macrophenomena of textual circulation. However, here lies the complexity, but also the extraordinary fascination, of the process of cultural appropriation.

6c Language This cultural primacy was also expressed in knowledge of the Italian language.77 A virtuous circle was established by which the language was transmitted by the literature and the literature spread through the language. The language was both means and end. Italian was studied so as to be able to read, and one read so as to learn Italian. On the one hand, knowledge of the language was the access key to understanding Italian epic, opera, and theater, but, on the other, opera libretti and theatrical writings served as a tool for learning the language. This, in the end, was the sense of the structure and content of works in which the texts of the Italian literary canon were ground down and made easy to use both as extracts for aiding the re-use of maxims, proverbs, and witticisms, and as support systems for linguistic teaching. The Italian language, the language of the superior Italian civilization, the language of the courtier, was itself a form to appropriate in the process of imitating cultural models. And so, the fashion for learning Italian exploded, and in the arts, too, the language played a leading role. Italian transmitted melodrama abroad, and melodrama transmitted Italian to Europe.78 The language was brought by art and music. The local populations themselves recognized the inadequacy of their idiom (compared with Italian) for creating a national poetry. Poets like Wyatt and Spenser in England, or Ronsard and du Bellay in France, perceived ‘their own languages as rude and barbaric, as lacking any basis for a literary language.’79 During the four years he spent in Rome (1553–1556), the poet Joachim Du Bellay, founder of the Pléiade, composed some of his 77 See Bruni, Una lingua. 78 See Bonomi, Il docile. 79 Dasenbrock, Imitating, p. 87.

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masterpieces. After all, the very method of the linguistics and poetics of the movement was inspired by Sperone Speroni’s Dialogo delle lingue (1542), which means that Italianism was the basis of the emergence of the French national literary consciousness. Mastery of Italian became an essential skill for the European man of letters and gentleman. Guazzo was read in Italian at the English court. For much of the seventeenth century in Vienna, ‘Italian poetry meant poetry in the language of the Empress as well as that of diplomacy.’80 Aretino’s works appeared directly in Italian in England by the publisher John Wolfe, and The Conversation of Gentlemen, probably written by John Constable in 1738 ‘is studded with Italian sayings.’81 Many people in many languages labored to create a poetic idiom, translating Petrarch, but also drawing on that codified by Pietro Bembo. The book most widely read abroad in the original in the seventeenth century was the Gerusalemme liberata, followed by a host of works of every genre: from Sannazzaro’s Rime and Arcadia to Aretino’s Ragionamenti, from Tasso’s Aminta to Bembo’s Asolani, from Guarino’s Pastor fido to – obviously – Petrarch. Petrarchism was, indeed, one of the main vectors of the European triumph of Italian. The myth of Petrarch was a socio-political phenomenon at least as much as a cultural one. ‘The English desire to read Italian fluently in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries is predicated primarily on a specifically literary interest.’82 In other words, language and literature were two concomitant aspects of English Italophilia from the 1540s on. There are many reasons for Italian establishing itself outside the national confines: its literary heritage in the vernacular (from the fourteenth century to the sixteenth-century epic), its use in drama (theater and opera), its accompanying Italians traveling abroad, and its being the closest heir to Latin. Until the fifteenth century, merchants and humanists had been carriers of the language, and now this happened in the court circuit. Italian was the language of the educated, the language of diplomacy, the arts, and conversations. It was studied to understand poetics, but also to cut a good figure at court. Before French, Italian was the language of the European elite. It was, in particular, the ‘most useful language in courts’ and the most suitable for the aristocracies of Europe.83 Knowledge of Italian was recommended to noblemen throughout the continent by the books on the 80 Neville, ‘Metastasio’, p. 149. 81 Woodhouse, ‘I manuali’, p. 291. 82 Lawrence, ‘Who the devil’, p. 5. 83 Matarrese, ‘Una grammatica’, p. 90.

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court that followed in Castiglione’s wake. Thomas Hoby, who had translated Castiglione, also wrote an Italian grammar and recommended that English courtiers learn this language; the Polish Górnicki and the French Faret did the same, in 1566 and 1630, respectively. Italian was acted and sung, and down to the late seventeenth century, knowledge of the language was a synonym of refinement. In a letter sent from Prague in January 1628, we read: ‘Italian actors are really good, and one can understand all the words easily, the Emperor enjoys them so much he hardly ever goes hunting at all now.’84 As a result, Italians were welcomed as language teachers, literary advisers, and court intellectuals. Italian was learnt from literary texts, teaching manuals (grammars, dictionaries, dialog books, and collections of proverbs), from journeys to Italy and language teachers. From the mid-sixteenth century, the number of teachers and manuals grew exponentially. Among the mass of expatriates teaching Italian in England were the Tuscan Petruccio Ubaldini, an ex-mercenary who recycled himself as a teacher; Giovanni Battista Castiglioni, employed in prestigious households and tutor of the young princess Elizabeth; and Iacopo Castelvetro, who moved from London to Edinburgh in 1592, where he taught Italian to the King of Scotland, the future James I of England. But the most popular of them was still John Florio, and his pupils came almost entirely from the royal family, the court, and the aristocracy. In England in particular, Italian was commonly spoken at court, so much so that Queen Elizabeth was fluent in it. Elizabeth studied Italian using Petrarch’s Trionfi and the Liberata. The ‘mediating influence on Elizabethan civility’ of the fashioners of gentlemen readers came via the language.85 On the wave of admiration for its literature, Italian in the sixteenth century was the language of the courts of England, Germany, Poland, France, and Russia. From the end of the century onwards – the popularity of the Commedia dell’Arte and of opera also made it the international language of music. The fashion for Italian caught on in France and England, above all. In both countries, many operas were published in the original, as well as didactic texts. The f irst Italian grammar for foreigners appeared in France, the Grammaire italienne by Jean Pierre de Mesmes in 1548. In 1555, a Decamerone appeared in Lyon, whose premise promised that it was in the ‘beautiful and today much lauded Tuscan tongue.’86 And so, in 1675, the Tuscan 84 Quoted in Ferrone, La Commedia, p. 160. 85 Elam, ‘“At the cubiculo”’, p. 114. 86 Matarrese, ‘Una grammatica’, p. 86.

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ambassador wrote that, at the court of Vienna, ‘no one with the face and dress of a gentleman does not speak Italian correctly.’87 The printer John Wolfe published a score of works in Italian between 1580 and 1591, and their ‘impact on the readership of Italian materials in London is almost immediate.’88 Giacomo Castelvetro collaborated with him. It is worth noting that Florio’s A Worlde of Wordes (1598) was published fourteen years before the Vocabolario degli Accademici della Crusca, without counting that it was preceded in England by William Thomas’s in 1550. Cristobal de Las Casas’ Vocabolario de las dos lenguas Toscana y castellana dates from 1570 and Jean-Antoine Fenice’s Italian French one from 1584. The second edition (1611) of A Worlde of Wordes quotes over 200 works introduced to the English public, with citations and entire passages from them. A vast corpus in which it is no surprise to find the Cortegiano, La Gerusalemme liberata, or the Galateo, and in which Petrarch, Boccaccio, Sannazzaro, Ariosto, Bembo, and Aretino are leading figures. But there is also a cookery book by Messisburgo from Ferrara, one of falconry by Federighi, and another on equestrianism by Federico Grisone – in short, an entire courtly repertoire. Nor should it pass unnoticed that Florio lists quite a few ‘forbidden fruits’: that is to say, more than forty texts included in the Inquisition’s list of forbidden books, a fifth of the total. Another text for teaching foreigners Italian was Alberto Acaristo’s Grammatica volgare (1536). Partly because it was easy to use (it was itself an adaptation of Bembo’s Prose), it enjoyed great international success: as well as in France, it was used as a text at the University of Louvain (in the 1555 reprint) and as a source for the Principal Rules of the Italian Grammar (1550) by the Englishman William Thomas. Acaristo’s work was also drawn on in a short work written by Gismondo Colreuter (a court doctor), in 1579, for the son of the Duke of Saxony. At that time, the principality of Saxony was turning itself into a sovereign state and looked to the Italian courts as a model. The language was part of a precise political strategy. For that reason, relations were established ‘with the Houses of Medici, Este and Gonzaga; artists and artisans arrived from Italy’ and ‘state functionaries and diplomats came to stay in Italy to learn there the style and rules of “courtly” behavior, which necessarily included knowledge of the Italian tongue.’89

87 Cit. in Malato, ‘Immagine’, p. 51. 88 Lawrence, ‘Who the devil’, p. 189. 89 Matarrese, ‘Una grammatica’, pp. 92–93.

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A few last examples. The education of young Philip IV, orchestrated by Count-Duke of Olivares, included translating into Spanish Guicciardini’s History of Italy.90 In spite of the diffusion of French, at the end of the seventeenth century, the Tuscan ambassador Lorenzo Magalotti wrote to the grand duke complaining that he could not practice his German at the Vienna court as everybody would speak Italian. When Rubens wrote letters, they were in Italian – hundreds of them, including diplomatic letters and ones to non-Italians. Montaigne wrote part of his diary of a journey to Italy in Italian. The Spanish author Francisco de Quevedo (1580–1645) wrote sonnets in Italian (a language he had learnt while staying in Naples and Palermo between 1613 and 1619). In his collection of poems in 1645 (immediately after his return from a trip to Italy), John Milton included five sonnets and a canzone written in Italian.91 We know that Francis I conversed with the Venetian ambassadors in Italian in 1536, and Henry III, too, got by in the language. And the audience must have been able to understand something when they watched the Commedia dell’Arte or Italian operas. Italian was the lingua franca of architecture in Eastern Europe. Queen Anne, the Danish wife of James I, was fluent in Italian. Statesmen and favorites sought to learn Italian, as did young gentlemen and gentlewomen. Inigo Jones could speak the language, as could many of the men of letters of his time. In the early 1590s, Shakespeare too ‘decided finally to immerse himself in the Italian language.’92 Books were used as a lexical source for compiling dictionaries, which, in turn, introduced books and made it possible to read them. The language was the vehicle that gave access to the texts of the Italian literary canon, but knowledge of it was also an effect of the diffusion of this literary corpus. It was a one-to-one relation. Until the ascent of French in the late seventeenth century, the Italian language enjoyed a prominent international role that mirrored and complemented the superiority of Italian culture. Teachers helped to read books in Italian, as being able to read the language was one of the necessary skills of a gentleman. But not only that. I am drawing on Florio here, when he links knowledge of the tongue to the ‘curtesie’ of Italians. In Elizabethan England, ‘it was a sign of sophistication to be able to speak Italian’ among the educated court elite.93 The language served to civilize manners and spread culture. 90 91 92 93

Brown and J. H. Elliott, A Palace, p. 41. See Lawrence, ‘Who the devil’, p. 181. Elam, ‘“At the Cubiculo”, p. 111. Haller, ‘Introduction’, pp. ix and xiii.

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Leo Salinger, Shakespeare and the Traditions of Comedy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1974). Francesco Sansovino, Il simulacro di Carlo V imperatore […] (Venice: F. Franceschini, 1567). Francesco Sberlati, ‘Il Rinascimento italiano nei paesi dell’Est’, in L’Italia fuori d’Italia. Tradizione e presenza della lingua e della cultura italiana nel mondo (Roma: Salerno Editrice, 2003), pp. 671–694. Francesco Sberlati, L’ambiguo primato. L’Europa e il Rinascimento italiano (Rome: Carocci, 2004). Rudolph Schnitzler, ‘The Viennese Oratorio and the Work of Ludovico Ottavio Burnacini’, in L’opera italiana a Vienna, ed. by Maria Teresa Muraro (Florence: Olschki, 1990), pp. 217–237. Herbert Seifert, ‘La politica culturale degli Asburgo e le relazioni musicali tra Venezia e Vienna’, in L’opera italiana a Vienna prima di Metastasio, ed. by Maria Teresa Muraro (Florence: Olschki, 1990), pp. 1–15. Hans Semper, Carpi. Ein Furstensitz der Renaissance (Dresden: Bleyl & Kammerer, 1882). Shakespeare’s Italy: Functions of Italian Locations in Renaissance Drama, ed. by Michele Marrapodi (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1993). Pilar Silva Maroto, ‘La escultura clásica en las colleciones reales. De Felipe II a Felipe V’, in El coleccionismo de escultura clásica en España (Madrid: Museo Nacional del Prado, 2001), pp. 11–41. Jan Ŝlasky, ‘Baronio, Botero e Tasso in Polonia e nella Slavia orientale’, Europa Orientalis, 6 (1987), pp. 37–57. Angelantonio Spagnoletti, Principi italiani e Spagna nell’età barocca (Milan: Mondadori, 1996). David Starkey, ‘Intimacy and Innovation: The Rise of the Privy Chamber, 1485–1547’, in idem, The English Court from the War of the Roses to the Civil War (London and New York: Longman, 1987), pp. 71–118. Lawrence Stone, ‘The Market for Italian Art’, Past and Present, 16 (1959), pp. 92–94. Jacopo Strada, Epitome thesauri antiquitatum (Lyons: Strada and Thomas Guerin, 1553). Roy Strong, Spendour at Court: Renaissance Spectacle and the Theater of Power (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1973). Michaël Szanto, ‘Gli itinerari della pittura dall’Italia alla Francia nel primo Seicento: dalle vie diplomatiche ai circuiti bancari’, in The Art Market in Italy, 15th–17th Centuries, ed. by Marcello Fantoni, Louisa C. Matthew and Sarah Matthews Grieco (Modena: Panini, 2003), pp. 413–421. Raffaele Tamalio, ‘Vespasiano Gonzaga al servizio del re di Spagna in Spagna’, in Vespasiano Gonzaga, ed. by Ugo Bazzotti, Daniela Ferrari and Cesare Mozzarelli (Mantova: Accademia Virgiliana di Scienze Lettere e Arti, 1993).

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Maria Tanner, The Last Descendant of Aeneas: The Hapsburgs and the Mythic Image of the Emperor (New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press, 1993). Victor L. Tapié, Barocco e Classicismo (Milan: Vita e Pensiero, 1998). First ed. 1957. Hugh Trevor-Roper, Princes and Artists: Patronage and Ideology at Four Habsburg Courts, 1517–1633 (London: Thames & Hudson, 1976). Giorgio Vasari, Vite de’ più eccellenti pittori scultori e architetti (Florence: Davide Passigli, [1550] 1838). Cesare Vasoli, Alberto III Pio da Carpi (Carpi: Assessorato ai Servizi Culturali, 1978). Roberto Weiss, ‘Italian Humanism in Western Europe. 1460–1520’, in Italian Renaissance Studies, ed. by Ernst F. Jacob (London: Faber & Faber, 1960). Roberto Weiss, Spread of Italian Humanism, (London: Hutchinson University Library, 1964). Shearer West, ‘Introduction: Visual Culture, Performance Culture and the Italian Diaspora in the Long Eighteenth Century’, in Italian Culture in Northern Europe, pp. 1–5. Rodolf Wittkower, Palladio e il palladianesimo (Turin: Einaudi, 2007). John R. Woodhouse, ‘I manuali di cortesia tra l’Italia e l’Inghilterra; la morte del “vir perfectus” e la nascita dello “snob”’, in L’Europa delle corti alla fine dell’Antico regime, ed. by Cesare Mozzarelli and Gianni Venturi (Rome: Bulzoni, 1991), pp. 279–306. Louis Booker Wright, ‘Will Kempe and the Commedia dell’Arte’, Modern Language Notes, 41 (1926), pp. 516–520. Michael Wyatt, The Italian Encounter with Tudor England: A Cultural Politics of Translation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005). Michael Wyatt, ‘Reading between the Lines of John Florio’Italian Books’, in Italomania(s), 2007, pp.123–132. Frances A. Yates, John Florio: The Life of an Italian in Shakespeare’s England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1934). Frances Yates, Astrea. L’idea di impero nel Cinquecento (Turin: Einaudi, [1975] 1978). David Young Kim, The Traveling Artist in the Italian Renaissance: Geography, Mobility, and Style (New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press, 2014). Henri Zerner, Renaissance Art in France: The Invention of Classicism (Paris: Flammarion, 2002).

III. The Models

Abstract European politics refashioned itself ideologically and symbolically by adhering to the Italian courtly models in a vast and consistent range of areas. Italian courts provided new space models revived from antiquity and the know-how of architects that were able to replicate it. The universe of images and the innovative iconographical language is equally important. But there is more, much more, from the performing arts to clothing fashion to the behavioral rules codified by Castiglione, Della Casa, and Guazzo, to the variegated field of aristocratic manners. All these new forms of consumption, social practices, and ethical values compose a mosaic that defines the profile of the European gentleman and that homogenizes its culture on a continental level. Keywords: political symbolism, antiquity, iconography, manners, social practices

Fantoni, M., Italian Courts and European Culture. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press 2022 doi: 10.5117/9789463729420_ch03

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One model that was exported was that of the city. It happened at various levels and in many ways. Firstly, it was thanks to the architectural theories circulating: the translations of Alberti’s, Scamozzi’s, Serlio’s, Peruzzi’s and Palladio’s treatises were universally praised, creating a host of imitators, and were used as reference works for constructing many buildings and cities where a court had its seat. The buildings they created for Italian princes aroused equal admiration. If necessary, their pupils were accepted and their teachings applied anyway. In each case, precise (and, in the long run, shared) codes were disseminated. Royal residences throughout Europe were thus created following the layout of the Italian courts. The sovereigns’ urgency to develop new building policies explains the attractive conditions offered to Italian artists. Their social status was very high, as were their salaries. Many stayed at various courts, while others emigrated and never came back. Almost all of them were able to adapt and were also skilled at finding favor with the aristocracy. They traveled with their families and apprentices, created proselytes, and often had to cope with the hostility of the indigenous architects. All of them realized the importance of adapting the Renaissance style to local tradition, and the sculptures, furnishings, and paintings as well. The choice fell on Italian architects for their innovative techniques, their careful planning, and their versatility in fields such as topography, military engineering, and monumental sculpture. The primacy of Italian town planning was also partly due to the fact that the lords of the peninsula had settled in cities long before, creating the conditions for building new courts before the European monarchies. But the Italians were admired above all for bringing back and experimenting with the formulas and orders of the ancients. Only they had the know-how and were expert in the classical canons of architecture. It was the rules, the forma urbis (‘urban layout’), the elegance, and proportions of the ancients, and of the moderns who reproduced them, that conquered Europe in a general renewal of the spaces of power.1 Italian architects were at the avant garde as they studied the classics. The European sovereigns competed for their services as they were able to create for their cities and ambiences something similar to those of the Italian princes. This set off an effective diaspora of Milanese, Roman, and Florentine architects toward the courts of Europe, and they introduced more or less 1

See D’Agostino, ‘Città’.

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everywhere the characteristics of the new architecture that had been exhumed by reading Vitruvius. They also followed the plans of ideal cities, which were to be the model for the monarchic capitals and through which an extended process of standardizing the political spaces would begin. The number of those who moved abroad went far beyond the few cases we can mention here, just as it would be arduous to list all their works. They included plans for whole cities or portions of them, and the creation or remodeling of individual buildings. There were engineers who adapted walls and fortresses to the new requirements of war that artillery had created. But there were also the antecedents of modern interior designers, who improved the unadorned, uncomfortable medieval castles, adding classical features, reorganizing volumes around airy courtyards and loggias, planning galleries and gardens, changing the ornamental design of the windows, and generally bringing them closer to the decorum required by the new political proprieties and ceremonies. There would be too many stopping posts in our imaginary journey following the classical and Italian forms to France, Germany, Spain, England, Bohemia, and also Sweden, Russia, Portugal, and Denmark. Just to give an example, I will take two cases: Moscow and Cracow. At first sight, they seem two marginal cases, but they were not. And, even if they were, it would show how far the progeny of the Italian models thrust themselves. Moscow and Cracow also have something in common. Poland and Russia are two kingdoms that each had two different capitals in the course of time: Moscow until 1712 before St Petersburg, and Cracow until 1596 before Warsaw. Italian artists and architects made a fundamental contribution to building them, bringing to both of them the new rules and styles of construction. Both deliberately imitated the Italian courts, which imposed forms and transmitted meanings to these remote places that would make them structurally and symbolically close. They also were two cases in which the adoption of classicism was a tool of Westernization. Having broken the yoke of the Tartars, Ivan III (1462–1505) needed to give his new state a center. It should not be forgotten that, in the 1470s, most of the buildings in Moscow were of wood. Moscow was not only the political capital of the new Grand-Duchy of Muscovy but – after the fall of Constantinople in 1453 – also aspired to the role of ‘Third Rome,’ and, as such, had to look to classicism. And so, what has rightly been christened the ‘Italian Kremlin’ was born.2 Matthias Corvinus acted as intermediary in the choice of Italian models, being himself involved in building a kingdom 2 Voyce, The Moscow, pp. 18–24.

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and also married to an Italian princess. Matthias, Ivan III and Sigismund of Poland had three Italian wives, which influenced their choice of Italian artists and architects. Ivan was advised by Sophia Palaiologina (married in 1472), who had lived in Rome, bringing with her from there a new aesthetic sensibility, an entourage of Italians, and a vast network of relations.3 Thus, in 1474 Ivan sent embassies to Italy with the order to recruit architects. The first to arrive in Moscow, the pioneer, accompanied by his son Andrea, was Aristotele Fioravanti. Now in his sixties, this Bologna architect had worked for the Bentivoglio and Gonzaga, and for Cosimo il Vecchio de’ Medici. He had refused an invitation to Istanbul from the sultan, but in 1467 had accepted Matthias Corvinus’ and had spent six months at his court in Budapest, where he had planned fortresses and, it is said, a bridge over the Danube. He had returned from Hungary to Rome, then moving to Naples (1471-1472), where he had worked under Ferdinand I of Aragon. His role in propagating Renaissance architectural models is connected with his tie with Filarete, who often mentions him in his Trattato di architettura (1464).4 But, as we can see from the gifts of furs and falcons sent to Milan, Fioravanti continued to see himself as a servant of Galeazzo Maria Sforza, who had sent him ‘temporarily’ to Moscow. He says as much in a letter: ‘Wherever I find myself, I intend to act in your service and at your command.’5 ‘After the deal was struck for the considerable salary of ten rubles a month, Aristotle and his assistants arrived in March 1475.’6 In Moscow he was immediately given the job of rebuilding the cathedral of the Dormition (consecrated in 1479), the ‘crucial ceremonial site where Russia’s rulers were crowned.’7 Ivan’s court was expanding: the sources indicate 3,000 members, and Fioravanti had the immense task of planning the new fortress of the Kremlin, a true sacred enclosure for both the political and the religious power. But in Russia he also had responsibility for striking coins, casting canons and bells, and, as a military engineer, took part in Ivan’s campaigns against Novgorod, Kazan, and Tver. Before his death in 1486, he managed to create a substantial team of local artisans and his fame paved the way for many other Italian architects in the future. The first to follow in his footsteps was Antonio Gilardi from Vicenza in 1485, and, in 1487, another embassy brought to Russia Marco Ruffo, also from 3 Ascher, The Kremlin, pp. 28–29. 4 Shvidkovsky, Russian, pp. 85–98. 5 Quoted in Welch, ‘Between Italy’, p. 76. 6 Ibid., p. 75. 7 Ibid., p. 71.

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the Lombardy of the Sforzas. In the years 1489–1490, it was the turn of Pietro Antonio Solari, bringing with him smiths, jewelers, and smelters. Solari was born in Milan in 1450, and, by 1481, he had already taken his father’s place in superintending the building of the Cathedral. He then worked on the Ospedale Maggiore, founded by Francesco Sforza in 1456 and designed by Filarete. Before entering the service of the Great Prince of Muscovy, he had also been involved in building the Charterhouse of Pavia, which Gian Galeazzo Visconti wanted as a family mausoleum. In Moscow, Solari continued the construction of the Kremlin, which had been interrupted after Fioravanti’s death, and, in 1491 and 1492, built the four mighty towers of the fortress, three of which, unfortunately, were destroyed in 1812 by the French forces. Solari and Ruffo collaborated on the planning of the Palazzo a Faccette, the central building of the court inside the Kremlin with its throne room, banqueting hall, and audience room for foreign ambassadors. The building echoes the style of Palazzo dei Diamanti in Ferrara: the two edifices proceeded together, the first begun in 1487 and the second in 1493. With the style and typology of the court spaces of Northern Italy came mural decorations, sculpture, and ceremonies, and so Ivan III did not use Pietro Solari ‘only to commission impressive buildings but also to design an iconography that western visitors could understand.’8 When Solari died, in 1493, further talent needed to be imported from Italy: the architect Alvise da Carcano, the stone-cutter Bernardino da Borgomanero, and the metalworker Michele Papione. Carcano wrote from Moscow in 1496 mentioning his favor with the tsar, who had charged him to build ‘a castle like that of Milan.’9 We can see that the Sforza court was the main source of inspiration from the original structure of the Troitskaya Tower, built in 1495–1499 by Aloisio da Milano, which is almost a replica of the main entrance tower of the Sforza Castle, designed by Filarete in 1450. Like others before him, Aloisio Novi (renamed Fryazin) arrived in the retinue of an embassy sent to the court of Ludovico il Moro. Novi built the Terem Palace, which was also inside the Kremlin, completed in 1508 and also strongly reminiscent of the architecture of the courts of Northern Italy. From then on, increasing numbers of names can be found in the registers and chronicles, and both public and private projects consisted of a synthesis of Russian traditions with those of the Italian Renaissance. After 1528, diplomatic relations between Russia and the Italian states 8 9

Welch, ‘Between Italy’, p. 86. Repishti, ‘L’idea’, p. 484.

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deteriorated, interrupting the flow of architects: the last to move to Russia was Pietro Annibale, architect to Pope Clement VII. Partly as a result of Ivan IV’s (1533–1547) nationalistic change of direction, the seventy-year period (from 1470 to 1540) concluded with Italian artists colonizing the country, introducing forms, techniques, and materials, and leaving a ‘profound impression on Russian civil architecture.’10 Fioravanti used compasses, levels, and plans, all hitherto unheard-of technical devices, and bricks began to take the place of wood and stone. We know that two centuries later Italian architects moved to Russia again to put into effect Peter the Great’s dream of a new capital on the Baltic. For St Petersburg, too, it was an effort to come closer to the west, and – once again – Italy supplied the tools and esthetic codes. But this is another story, and a long one, too. The history of Cracow, to which the Polish kings moved the capital from Gniezno after the great fire of 1320, was in many respects like that of the Kremlin. Especially under the Jagiellonian dynasty (1386–1572), the city experienced an age of growth and splendor that culminated in the building of the court in the Wawel Castle. The Jagiellons were also Grand Dukes of Lithuania (1440–1572) and kings of Hungary (1490–1526) and Bohemia (1471–1526), making them an important means of introducing Italian architectural schemes in much vaster political and geographic areas than Poland alone. Poland’s love of the ancient derived from cultural ties with Italy going back to the fifteenth century. The terrain was prepared by educational journeys to Italy by the Polish nobility and by the humanist Filippo Buonaccorsi staying in Cracow. But the influx increased after Bona Sforza married Sigismund I (1517). Like in Hungary, also in Poland the ground had been prepared by humanist circles, and King Sigismund, like Corvinus, was educated by a humanist, Buonaccorsi, called Callimacus. Moreover, Sigismund had spent three years in Buda in the atmosphere of a court imbued with Italian ideas. And to Buda Vladislav II from Boemia sent his architect Benedict Ried ‘to study the Italian structures erected in Hungary and to transplant their style in Prague.’11 Three generations of Florentine artists thus became creators of the court of Cracow: Francesco Fiorentino, Bartolomeo Berecci, and Santi Gucci. Fiorentino had been active in Cracow since 1502. The first work he undertook was rebuilding two wings of the royal Wawel Castle, which had been partially destroyed by fire in 1499. Fiorentino’s most significant contribution was to design the beautiful galleries enclosing the large castle courtyard. Building 10 Voyce, The Moscow, p. 20. 11 Białostocki, The Art of the Renaissance, p. 15.

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started in 1507, and the ornamental form draws on the decoration of the Ducal Palace in Urbino. It was the first stage of rebuilding this edifice in the Renaissance style. Fiorentino also designed the tombs of King John Albert and Ladislao II Jagiellon, both in the cathedral. On his death (1516), Bartolomeo Berecci, a pupil of Giuliano da Sangallo, was called to replace him until 1537.12 Berecci was a businessman as well as an artist: he managed stone quarries and owned a kiln and various commercial estates. The architect’s and sculptor’s workshop, which he had inherited from Fiorentino, was right at the foot of the castle hill. Almost all the twenty or so helpers working there were Italian. His main work was the funeral chapel of Sigismund I (1519–1529), the first structure to introduce to Poland the characteristics of classicism and unanimously regarded as the most beautiful piece of Italian Renaissance architecture outside Italy. Following Fiorentino’s plan, Berecci continued rebuilding the castle from 1517 to 1536. His fame grew, and he was soon asked to carry out the funeral chapel of the Bishop of Cracow Tomicki (1524–1533) and to work on various projects restoring fortresses and churches in Poznan and Warsaw. These were not just royal commissions. When Bartolomeo was assassinated in 1537, ‘in the market square of Cracow, the art of the Italian Renaissance had now established itself among Poland’s secular and ecclesiastical elite.’13 All the works in Renaissance style carried out in Poland between 1516 and 1530 came from his workshop. He and his assistants and pupils propagated classical iconography throughout the country. Santi Gucci, the last of the three Florentines, arrived in Cracow in 1550, barely twenty. He spent many active years there, during which he served two kings (Sigismund II and Stefan Bathory), built religious and secular buildings in the capital and the provinces, created a school that introduced Mannerism to Poland, and was finally ennobled. The projects of those who followed – including the Milanese Girolamo Canavesi and Giovanni Maria Mosca from Padua – completed the process of adapting the monarchy to the models of Italian courts. In the wake of Charles V’s policy of renovatio, for example, a cycle of busts of ancient emperors was positioned to decorate the second floor of the courtyard. The cycle was inspired by the Illustrium Imagines (1517) of Andrea Fulvio, an associate of Raphael in Rome. Unfortunately, all this was almost completely destroyed by another fire in 1595. There were two royal castles, then, both built by succeeding waves of Italian architects. The second wave included Giovanni 12 See Cappelletti, Bartolomeo Berecci. 13 Harasimowicz, ‘Il Rinascimento’, p. 419.

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Battista Trevano, who started working in Poland in the team of Italian artists and craftsmen that rebuilt the Royal Castle. The new construction was undertaken in the years 1598–1619. Unlike Russia, Warsaw knew no interruption to the presence of Italian architects. In 1569, Sigismund II Augustus entrusted Jacopo De Pario and Giovanni Quadrio with rebuilding the new royal seat of the castle of Warsaw. The capital of the kingdom transferred here in 1596. The choice for Warsaw was made by Sigismund III, the first king of the Vasa dynasty. The holiday palace of Wilanòv (1677–1696) was also by the Italian Agostino Vincenzo Locci, born in Warsaw, son of the architect and stage designer Agostino, and naturalized after loyally serving the Polish sovereigns. Another figure was the architect, stage designer, and musician Giovanni Battista Gisleni, who spent the years 1630–1668 at the court of Warsaw, where he wrote the manuscript of Varii disegni d’architettura dedicated to the sovereigns of the Vasa dynasty. And here, too, we must stop. The fortress of the Kremlin and the castle of Wawel were two curial enclosures, two royal cities within the walls of the capital. Their forms and symbolic and ceremonial functions were very similar. A cathedral was built inside the walls of Wawel, too, where Polish monarchs were crowned and, in this case, also buried. Similar curial enclosures were being built in the same period in Budapest, Prague, Vienna, and Dresden, too, as well as in various other principalities and bishoprics (Salzburg, for example) within the Empire’s territory. The historical, formal, and, above all, ideological similarities clearly show that this was a single process of adapting to the Italian courtly morphology, whose spaces were designed to contain a power and a culture that could define majesty. The spatial models of the time on which they drew were the Sforza castle, the court of Mantua, the Este court of Ferrara, the Bentivoglio residences in Bologna, and also Vasari’s Florence, and Rome, where a new Vatican apostolic seat was being built after the schism had been recomposed and the papal court had returned to the city. Partly due to dynastic ties, the Italian style spread like wildfire to Silesia, the Baltic, Bohemia, Mecklenburg, Hungary, Scandinavia, and pretty much everywhere among north-east Europe’s reigning families and aristocracies. Everywhere, architecture led the way in imposing the Italian curial model and extending classicism far beyond the limits of the Roman Empire. Let us try to summarize this migration. By virtue of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, officially established with the Union of Lublin in 1569, but essentially in force since 1386, Sigismund I Jagiellon had a second capital in Vilnius. This justifies Bartolomeo Berecci being there to rebuild the grand-ducal cathedral. After Gustav Vasa had ended the Union of Kalmar

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(1532), making Sweden an independent kingdom, he turned his attention mainly to the castle of Stockholm, to make it the court for his new kingdom – another new state, with a new monarch who entrusted Italian-imported classicism with ratifying his power. This explains the arrivals in Sweden of Francesco De Pario, with his brothers Giovanni Battista and Domenico, employed by Gustav III Vasa, for whom they organized the rebuilding of the royal castles of Uppsala (1572–1580) and Borgholm (1572), and completed the transformation of Kalmar Castle into a palace (1571–1574). In 1539, the bishop-prince of Wroclaw employed a ‘Maestro Jacopo Italiano’ to restore the castle of Bolkóv; also in the early sixteenth century, Duke Frederick II of the Piast dynasty entrusted the De Pario family (who had already worked in Warsaw) with restyling his castle of Brzeg in Silesia. Francesco De Pario is also cited as employed by Duke Ulric I of Württemberg to build the palace of Güstrov (1558) in Pomerania. However, the ‘true cradle of Italian-style art in central-eastern Europe’14 was the palace of Buda, completed in 1479. The classicist conversion of royal architecture in Hungary had been begun by Mattias Corvinus. To rebuild his court, Matthias had followed the advice of Alberti and Filarete and (echoing Luca Fancelli’s project in Mantua) had named his Italian-style residence the novum palatium. The spread of Italian influence in Hungary continued under Ladislao II Jagiellon, who, through his other crown in Bohemia (1471–1516), also had an impact on Prague, particularly on the royal castle of Hradčany, which was modernized by Benedetto Ried (1484), an interpreter of the forms of Central–Northern Italy. Later, ‘Wladislaw II in 1487–1500’ rebuilt the royal castle in Italian style15 and Ferdinand I followed suit with an Italian-style Belvedere for his wife Anne of Hungary. Many Italian artists settled in Prague in the service of the Habsburgs. The Renaissance court style arrived mainly in the late 1530s with Paolo della Stella’s design for the royal garden and the summer palace. The next two waves of Italian architects were appointed by Rudolf II (1576–1612) and Marie Therese (1740–1780), their leading figures being Giovanni Gargioli and Anselmo Lurago. The latter died in Prague in 1765 after decades of indefatigable building activities for the crown and the local aristocracy. Cracow, Prague, and Buda are three royal castles and an identical plan to remodel them stylistically into a palatium and symbolically into a sacred precinct. The castles on hills overlooking a river became outposts of the Italian classical model, and we could also add, among others, Visegrád, 14 Harasimowicz, ‘Il Rinascimento’, p. 416. 15 Marx, ‘Wandering’, p. 179.

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Salzburg, Moscow, Brzeg, Würzburg, Heidelberg, etc. They all transition from fortified residences into palaces by adding ornamentations and features such as a garden, a courtyard, libraries, etc. The Italian interventions mark a fracture with medieval royal symbolism, a fracture that is not indigenous but imported from abroad and from antiquity. Throughout ‘transalpine Europe, the overwhelming majority of works in the Renaissance style were seignorial residences, concentrated around the leading court centers of Europe.’16 The predominance of royal patronage suggests that its value was symbolic rather than aesthetic. Italian architecture and architects were especially essential for the modernization of German court residences and for princely political competition. While visiting Mantua in 1536, Ludwig X of Bavaria ‘saw the construction of Palazzo Te’ designed by Giulio Romano for the Gonzaga, ‘and decided to transfer its architectural features and frescoed decoration to the Italienischer Bau’ (‘Italian building’) of his Landshut palace, built between 1537 and 1543.17 ‘Occupying a subordinate position in the Wittelsbach family, Ludwig’ explicitly adopted the Italian palace type ‘to demonstrate his political independence’ from his older brother. Similarly, Italian stucco artists were hired by Count Palatine Ottheinrich in 1530 to decorate his Neuburg castle to create ‘the frame for political legitimation’; and similar ‘motives also guided’ the renovations ‘of the palace in Dresden, ordered in 1548 by Elector Moritz of Saxony.’18 On returning from Italy, Duke Maurice transformed his castle in Dresden into a princely residence like the Italian ones he had seen, and, to this end, used Benedetto and Gabriele di Tola and projects sent him by the Este architects in 1549. The Tola brothers also planned the decoration of the Hall of the Giants, which explicitly evokes Giulio Romano’s in Mantua.19 In 1550, the Protestant Maurice turned, again, to his Catholic Este friends with a request for new architects. Ercole II replied by sending Francesco Borno, who designed ‘Italian-style’ villas and castles in Saxony. Once again, another architect ‘in the service of an Italian court’ crossed the Alps ‘as temporary Hofkünstler’ to German princes.20 In 1534, Ferdinand I called Italian artists to Prague; this is the first group of Italian masters in Bohemia.21 They worked on the construction of the new imperial residences; among others, we can mention Paolo Stella author of the 16 17 18 19 20 21

Rosenthal, ‘The Diffusion’, p. 35. Forster, ‘Il palazzo’, pp. 512–515. Marx, ‘Wandering’, pp. 192 and 193. Marx, ‘L’ossessione’, pp. 108–110. Ibid., p. 119. DaCosta Kaufman, Court, Cloister, p. 142.

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Villa Belvedere with a ‘singing fountain’ in the garden by Francesco Terzio. Pietro Cuci worked in Stuttgart at the Lusthous with Mario Nosseni, and Baldassarre Maggi was responsible for innumerable castle modernizations to classical codes. Almost synchronically, 35 Italian architects were building prestigious residences for the high nobility. Filiberto Lucchese designed the Leopoldine Tract in Vienna (1660–1666), Francesco Caratti built Černin Palace in Prague (1668), and Carlo Martino Carlone executed the Eszterázy Palace in Eisenstadt (1672). And we have also Giovanni Facconi, Antonio Cometa and, many others only known to specialists, though they all contributed to design the façades, the internal lay out, and the ornamentation of princely and aristocratic central European residences. Italian architects and interior decorators (plasterers, painters, intarsia masters, etc.) conferred a similar Italian image to Baroque Europe, standardizing architectural aesthetics. Hundreds of these vehicles of homologation also swarmed to Spain, Portugal, England, and Eastern Europe. The tradition continued in the following centuries. Many migrated to or operated temporarily in eighteenth-century Germany: Domenico D’Allio, Riccardo Detti, Donato Giuseppe Frisoni, Luca Antonio Columba, Pietro Scotti, Guseppe Baroffio, etc. From north to south, from Berlin to Munich, in large and small, secular or religious court cities, Italian architects drew the classical uniformity of palaces, churches, villas, and castles. Since the beginning of this macro-cultural process, Italians were utilized to evoke ancient Rome as an ideal reality for the consolidation of the royal power. Many court buildings of the intricate mosaic of states in the heart of Europe were based on Italian models, had spaces replicating Italian planimetries, and were adorned with objects imported from Italy. Formal similarities exist with Palazzo Té, Palazzo dei Diamanti, the Sforza Castle, or the Palace of Urbino. This is proven and relevant, nonetheless there is a deeper level of invisible similarity that consists of the functions and meaning of the buildings and their content. Every single one of them was a symbolic container, with its own style and features, but – as every container – it also had to be completed by a content of decorations, objects, and behaviors. Overall, the examples confirm the existence of a genuine trend in the German courts to make use of architects from the Italian courts or to have their dozens of castles and residences restyled in the classicist manner.22 And the pervasiveness of this trend was destined to increase in the next century, with dozens of architects flocking to German courts. These are maybe not famous names in Italy, but they are definitely protagonists of 22 See Hitchcock, German Renaissance.

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European architecture. And – as always happens – they attracted hundreds (thousands) of craftsmen and workers who escape the radar screen of the scholars, but who define the magnitude of what was really happening. These anonymous people also constitute a socio-anthropological mass that would shed further light on the phenomenon of the migration and export from Italy. It was not only the electors and secular and ecclesiastical princes of the empire who took part in this political game – irrespective of their creed – but even the emperor himself, to confirm his supremacy. In this intricate web of rival aspirations where ‘German courts displayed their cultural and confessional self-positioning, Italian mediators remained indispensable.’23 This explains the alternating leadership of Prague and Vienna in cultural conversion from the sixteenth to eighteenth century. We know of Rudolf II’s role, and this also puts in perspective the actions of Maximilian I, emperor from 1564, who ‘fetched artists and architects from Italy to rebuild the royal castles of Bohemia.’ Maximilian would also try, unsuccessfully, to bring Palladio to Austria.24 Johan Lukas von Hildebrand, born in Genoa in 1668 of a German father, worked in Vienna. After studying architecture in Rome under Carlo Fontana and military engineering in Piedmont, he reached the prestigious position of Hofburg Court Architect in 1723. At the other end of the continent, with the other branch of the Habsburgs, Charles V built a palace inside the Alhambra of Granada and his son, Philip, built the Escorial on the Madrid sierra. The first was a ‘sensationally Roman-style building that imitated the layout of Villa Madama and the ‘circular schema’ in ‘great fashion in Leo’s Rome,’ which his designer Pedro Machuca had probably visited. Apart from formal citations, the most striking theory suggests Baldassarre Castiglione played a mediating role as apostolic nuncio at Charles’ court, in ‘asking Giulio Romano for ideas for the emperor’s palace.’25 Work on the palace/monastery of Escorial, begun in 1563, involved the architect Giovan Battista Castello and, when it was completed, the painters Pellegrino Tibaldi, Federico Zuccaro, Giovanni Battista Crescenzi, and Luca Giordano had the task of decorating it. In the construction of the sub-urban palace of the Buen Retiro, adjacent to the monastery of San Jeronimo, the Italian painter and architect Crescenzi was appointed ‘superintendent of works’ reporting directly to Count-Duke of Olivares.26 23 Marx, ‘Wandering’, p. 212. 24 Trevor-Roper, Princes, p. 83. 25 Tafuri, Ricerca, pp. 256, 261, and 289. 26 See Brown and Elliott, A Palace, pp. 44–45.

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We have already mentioned France, from Francis I to the two Medici regents, so I will conclude with some examples of newly founded cities. Before the end of the sixteenth century, Freudenstadt was built and named. The designer was the architect Heinrich Schickhardt, who followed the layout of the city drawn up by Giorgio Vasari the Younger for the Medici family. The order to establish the new town on the border of the Black Forest was issued in 1599 by Frederick I, with the aim of providing a new, convenient residence for the Dukes of Württemberg.27 The assassination of Henry IV of Bourbon in 1610, prevented the city of Henrichemont being completed: it had been undertaken in his honor by the Duke of Sully just a year before. Its grid plan clearly followed the Italian experiments of the previous century. A few years earlier, in 1606, Charles I Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua and Duke of Nevers, founded Charleville, now in France, after Louis XIV’s conquest. The city followed the plan of Guastalla and Sabbioneta. After the siege of the Spanish troops in 1594, the city of Coevorden in the United Provinces was reconstructed the following century as an ideal city, similar to Palmanova. In 1715, Karlsruhe, the new capital of the margrave Carl Wilhelm of Baden, was planned following a Vitruvian layout. Even more numerous were the fortifications that drew on the geometrical forms conceived by Italian engineers of the Mannerist period. Perhaps more important was Zamość in Southern Poland, also built ex novo in accordance with the theories of the ideal city. Its founder, Jan Zamoyski, was a major political figure of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Before serving as Royal Secretary from 1565, Grand Chancellor from 1578, and Great Hetman of the Crown from 1581, he had received a cultured education in Italy, where – besides earning a doctorate from the University of Padua – he also had an opportunity to study architectural treatises. He appointed for his plan the Padua architect Bernardo Morando, who moved to Poland in 1569 and put into effect one of the purest examples of town planning modeled after Italian court cities. The layout of Zamość was an explicit quotation of the pentagonal shape that Vespasiano Gonzaga was implementing in Sabbioneta. The project was completed in 1598, two years after the death of Morando.28 Other ideal towns are Györ in Hungary and Nové Zámsky, erected in Slovakia from about 1562 by Ottavio Baldigara ‘a specialist in military engineering,’ designer, and restorer of tens of forts.29 The dozens of architects who entered the service of European sovereigns, and the artists who collaborated with them, were nevertheless only the 27 See Planstadt Kurstadt. 28 See Kowalczyk, Zamość. 29 Białostocki, The Art of, p. 71.

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means, and not the end, of what I am at pains to underline, quite apart from the many individual projects. All this was a manifestation of a much broader and elaborate phenomenon. From the mid-fifteenth century, with the flowering of theoretical treatises and the spread of classical aesthetics, the sovereigns of Europe recognized that the Italian courts possessed a new and more suitable vocabulary of political representation. They imitated individual buildings, reproduced their plans, and adopted their styles and symbols. In the culture of the time, modeling spaces and buildings following the classical orders was the ideological equivalent of designing a perfect society and, therefore, governing ethically. From the courts, these canons burst out socially and geographically, as, once the aristocracy had made them their own, they began to spread to secondary cities. All this, too, is an aspect of the ‘civilizing process.’ It was undoubtedly its material substratum. Space was equally and actively involved in connoting actions and their significance (and vice versa). The court was a highly significant space, the space where the politics/culture combination was closer, the space of ‘wonder,’ the space that fed the imagination and conditioned behavior, which, more than any other, was created to be read, in which even the formulas of its enjoyment had their own semantics. Architecture, in the end, defined a framework for, and in relation to, Renaissance-classicizing culture. That is why Italian architects were engaged, and why the form and decoration of Italian palaces were imitated. The new environments of the court created the physical conditions for replicating at home the places and practices of the Italian courts. In this sense, paradigmatic court spaces were the study, the theater, the audience room, the banqueting hall, the library, the garden, and the gallery. Let us take gardens, for example. Linked as they were to the reggia, the villa, and the castle, they were vital to political representation. They soon became a way of displaying royalty, starting a domino effect across Europe. Kings, emperors, and princes searched for talented botanists, designers, hydraulic experts, and craved a display of exotic plants to put on show. Through the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (1499), the Italian Renaissance gave the garden an architectural conception, based on measure, proportion, and harmony. From 1500 to 1534, the Neapolitan Pacello da Mercogliano created a garden at Blois that faithfully responded to these new principles. The Medici gardens, in particular, were considered a model, and Henry IV called the hydraulic expert Tommaso Francini from Tuscany in 1599.30 But Italians were considered specialist of gardens also for the entire seventeenth century. 30 Dubost, La France italienne, p. 67.

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One can see at a glance that many of them were following the form of Italian gardens, like the Medici park in the Pitti Palace or the Farnese Gardens in Rome. The materials for building the grotto in the garden of Grottenhof in Munich were sent from Florence in 1581. In the same period, an Italian garden was created in Vienna, and, once again, artists were called in from Florence. After working for Francesco I de’ Medici at the Villa of Pratolino, the Francini brothers founded a true dynasty of French fountain and waterworks designers. Tommaso was greatly appreciated as hydraulic engineer for the ballets given by Louis XIII. For his water displays and Medici-inspired mechanical devices, the garden of Hellbrunn (1613–1619), designed by Santino Solari for the prince-archbishop of Salzburg, was known as the ‘Pratolino of the North.’ There had been Italian gardens in England since the early sixteenth century, such as Cardinal Wolsey’s Hampton Court and that of the Duke of Buckingham. Domenico Trezzini, who had trained in Rome and already served the King of Denmark, was commissioned to create the palaces and park of Peterhof, Peter the Great’s Versailles, in 1714. The Buen Retiro park was composed based on Italian models, mostly by Cosimo Lotti who had worked at the Boboli garden in Florence. In June 1638, a Genoese gardener also arrived ‘as the escort of forty-four boxes of plants and trees.’31 The Hortus Palatinus of Heidelberg Castle, built for Frederick V, Elector Palatine, in 1614 (destroyed in 1693), was designed by the French architect Salomon De Caus, who had resided in Italy as a young man from 1595 to 1598, where he had studied the Medici parks.32 Here, too, De Caus, just as he had done at the courts of Brussels and London, imported from Italy ‘features such as elaborate mechanisms, waterworks and grottoes.’33 The giardino all’italiana (‘Italian garden’) is a typology that was particularly common in France and England. It appeared – with ancestors in ancient times – in Florence and Rome in the late fifteenth century and spread all over Europe, both with literal replicas and with partial borrowings, such as the introduction of cascades, fountains, topiary art, and grottoes. It is based in symmetry and on the principle of imposing human order over nature. In particular, French gardens were a direct derivation, starting with Charles VIII who brought garden designers from Naples. Gardens throughout Europe were also filled with antique statues, either originals from Rome or, more frequently, copies and molds carried out on the spot and placed in niches of greenery to adorn fountains, mark out paths, 31 Brown and Elliott, A Palace, p. 82. 32 See Zangheri, ‘Salomon de Caus’, pp. 35–43. 33 Nolde, Svalduz and Rio Barredo, ‘City courts’, p. 272.

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and with precise allegorical meanings. As well as working as an agent for Francis I, Cardinal Jean Du Bellay, Bishop of Paris from 1532, purchased 200 statues in Rome for his garden; and, in 1633, another cardinal – Richelieu – bought 130 for his château. Here, too, the Italian architects ensured the rule of geometry, on intimate terms with the antique. In Schönbrunn, at the Buon Retiro, in Aranjuez, Potsdam, or in King John III Sobieski’s Wilanów, the cycles and subjects were always the same. With its dozens of copies of Roman antiquities, Versailles and Marly, in turn, became a model for later royal parks. An extraordinary cycle with a mythological subject can be found along the waterfall from the upper to lower garden of the Palace of Peterhof.34 The garden was also a place for spectacles and social rituals – discoursing in the open air, flirting, dressing appropriately. Fireworks, hunts, masked balls, horse-riding, concertos, or simple walks, like those described by Saint Simon for Louis XIV, were also opportunities to make the garden a stage of majesty. Another ideal court space was the gallery. Historically, it derived from the ambulacrum and the loggia, and developed into an area for displaying works of art and antiques. In this case, too, places, objects, behaviors, and meanings went hand in hand. Everywhere, the models for collections were Italian. The collections of Roman popes and cardinals, of the Medici in Florence, and of the Gonzaga in Mantua were admired and emulated throughout Europe. Collections mushroomed to replicate the custom of ‘having a collection,’ for the need to comply to the doctrine of magnificentia, and for the necessity to furnish the new palaces that were being built. ‘The late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries may particularly be called a great age of princely collecting in central Europe.’35 Charles I of England endeavors and the Buen Retiro collection took shape in this same period. The latter included many exponents of the Roman Baroque school. In 1641, a payment was made ‘for having transported seventeen crates of paintings sent from Rome.’36 The greatest buyer of Italian paintings in Central Europe was for sure Rudolph II; his acquisitions included Leonardo, Titian, Correggio, and Parmigianino. Rudolf II’s collection was an expression of his imperial magnificence and it consequently received a disposition that emphasized his status. In an age of princely collectors, ‘Rudolf had a Kunstkammer that was worthy of his rank as Holy Roman Emperor, as first among European rulers: he was 34 See Peterhof. 35 DaCosta Kaufmann, Court, Cloister, p. 181. 36 Brown and Elliott, A Palace, p. 125.

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first among collectors.’37 From about 1590, a group of artists and artisans, ‘mainly of Italian origin, under the direction of Martino Gambarini and Giovanni Maria Filippi, built and decorated rooms for the collections.’38 Like the Studiolo of Francesco I de’ Medici in Florence, it was organized with an encyclopedic scope and was ceremonially showed to foreign dignitaries. Art collecting at court cannot be separated from its container: a collection served to create a gallery, a gallery was built to display a collection, and both contributed to the consecration of political power and social prestige. A list of all the galleries created for these purposes would be long: from Fontainebleau to Philip II’s collections at Escorial, from the Antiquarium in the Wittelsbachs’ Alte Residenz in Munich to Rudolf II’s collections in Prague and the Lusthaus in Dresden, planned in 1588–1589 by Giovanni Maria Nosseni. The frenzy to have one’s own gallery took hold of German princes especially from the mid-sixteenth century on, as a way of competing with imperial power. The wind of influence blew ever stronger among sovereigns to buy masterpieces and whole collections of works of art and antiquities. This was at f irst a ‘wholly Italian’ phenomenon, later becoming an ‘example for the rest of Europe.’39 ‘Italy played a major role as the alma mater of the collecting of paintings and antiquities but even more as the historical and uncontested holder of the dignity and nobility of a superior “aura.”’40 One of these models was the villa of Belvedere, built for Pope Innocence VIII in the late fifteenth century and included by Bramante in 1503 in the Vatican palaces, its long corridors designed to host sculptures. Pius and Clementine’s Museum was added to it a little less than two centuries later. The octagonal Tribuna Medicea, created in the Uffizi by Bernardo Buontalenti for Grand Duke Francis I between 1581 and 1583, became, in turn, one of the most famous and imitated rooms of the day. That Italy was still the model is also confirmed by the Galerie des Ambassadeurs, created in the Louvre between 1666 and 1671, and whose décor Louis XIV copied from the Farnese Gallery in Rome. This new display concept had an overwhelming impact, not only for the quantity and quality of the objects, but also for how they were arranged and the spaces decorated, as well as the origin of the sculptures. Charles I followed this practice in purchasing the Celeste Galleria of Mantua, which contemporaries saw as incarnating the symbolic capital of the Gonzaga. 37 38 39 40

DaCosta Kaufmann, ‘Remarks’, p. 23. Ibid., p. 23. Cieri Via, ‘“Galleria sive”’, p. VII. Baldriga, ‘The role’, p. 211.

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For the same reason, copies became more frequent, as well as prints and illustrated catalogs of the most prestigious galleries. Louis XIV was aware of it, commissioning Claude Mellon in 1669 to produce a series of engravings of antique statues displayed in the palace of the Tuileries to flaunt his success in transferring the grandeur of Rome to Paris. Francis I had done the same with the printmakers Antonio Fantuzzi and Domenico del Barbiere, in order to put his famous gallery of Fontainebleau on the same level as others in the courts of the day. The Benedictine Bernard de Monfaucon had a much more ambitious plan, which he carried out in 1719 with the five volumes of L’Antiquité expliquée, which allegedly collects all the images of antiquity existing in France. Publications of this kind were a genre and they conversed with each other, playing a role not so much to make the contents of individual collections known, as to popularize the practice and to show how they could be created. The Galleria Giustinianea (1631) is a two-volume print collection that reproduces the works of the Roman collection of the Marquis Vincenzo Giustiniani. He was following the example of Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel (who had become a friend of Giustiniani in Rome), who, in turn, sponsored the publication of Marmora Arundeliana (1628–1629). 41 Many other so-called paper museums were printed during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, with the aim of spreading the fame of their collections and of themselves. This category also includes the cabinets d’amateurs, the portraits that show the patrons in their collections, and we should also consider the social customs associated with them: entertainments, concerts, guided visits for guests, etc. There were also catalogs, anthologies of monuments and antiquities, in engravings and printed volumes: they, too, were megaphones of taste, reference points for purchasers, and vademecum for travelers. As well as Pirro Ligorio’s famous Delle antichità di Roma (1553), for the popular market Andrea Fulvio published Delle antichità della città di Roma (1543). Ten years earlier, Cassiano del Pozzo had completed his compilation of the Museo cartaceo, an illustrated anthology of antiquities in forty volumes. The proliferation of illustrative and written documentation (sketchbooks, diplomatic accounts, travelers’ memoirs, etc.) built up taste and elevated to an authentically European standard. In this field, too, a common practice was created that transcended borders and obstacles of any kind. The same goes for the court libraries, the performance rooms (later becoming genuine theaters), the stables, the chapels, studioli, or the armories. Here, just a short note on Cardinal Mazarin’s famous library (which later 41 See Ibid., pp. 197–201.

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became part of the Bibliothèque Nationale), on the Royal Library founded in 1648 by King Frederik III in Copenhagen, and on a letter to Borso d’Este (1454) in which Ladislao V Jagelion asks for ‘a sort of bibliography, of titles in short, to decorate my shelves.’ Ladislao ‘had personally appreciated the magnificence of the duke’s library and clearly regarded it as a parameter for his own.’42 With his successor, Matthias Corvinus, the contacts between Ferrara and Hungary became more frequent – Matthias’s and Ercole I’s wives were sisters – and the court library grew to become worthy to stand beside those of the Italian aristocracy. Court libraries were often built or decorated by Italians, contained quite a few Italian books, and were organized with Italian criteria. Between the fourteenth and the seventeenth century, they are necessary and intrinsic attributes of luster for any monarchy. Each of these spaces had its own precise function, just as each of them was the scene of specific activities: dancing, prayer, conversation, fencing, dining, horse-riding, etc. They were both a container and a stage. Italian courtly manners arrived with the architecture. In this sense, the spaces acted as a harbinger of cultural improvement. The ambiences, the furnishings, the social practices, the ceremonies, and even the clothes that were worn made up a single unity. The interactive harmony of spaces, objects, and behavior gives us the overall dimension of the phenomenon. If the collections of antiquities, artistic patronage, social rules, theatrical performances, and diplomatic protocol are separated from their spaces, they will not give us the sense of what was happening – which was adaptation to the Italian way of life. These different levels, with their dialectic interaction, clearly reveal what really happened in the Europe of the courts.

42 Venturi, ‘La corte’, p. 163.

8. Images By political iconography we mean the infinitely varied universe of images through which power and the powerful are represented. It is a language made up of symbols, allegories, and histories, suitable and modified to define the precise concepts whose understanding is available to a defined social circle. It matters little that it is explicated in dynastic portraiture, monumental sculpture, medals, or cycles of frescos and tapestries, in the open or inside the palatine spaces. It was a language that was set out on various semantic levels and whose alphabet developed in time. The triumph of ancient gods in Renaissance Italy and then in Europe occupies an immense place ‘in the art and literature of the sixteenth century.’ It is a ‘veritable invasion.’1 Italy is not merely the place where ancient gods first reappear, it is where they were first returned to their pristina forma (‘original form’). They were restored in their authentic aspects and attributes and from this profound discontinuity vis-à-vis the Middle Ages starts a new era of their parallel life with Christian symbolism. Reinvigorated by their new traits, they undertake a long journey – of over three centuries – in European political iconography, in poetry and in the imagination. It is ‘thus frequently by way of Italy that sixteenth-century Europe gains its knowledge of antiquity’; it is Italy that sends out the ancient gods ‘to the conquest of other peoples.’2 We can take the equestrian statue as an example. The genre was already widespread in the Italy of the Communes and signorie in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, but it was not till the following century that it crossed all boundaries. In any case, from the effigy of Niccolò III facing the cathedral of Ferrara (1431) to that of Peter the Great looking toward the Neva in St Petersburg (1782), the equestrian statue was ‘une pièce fondamentale dans les stratégies de représentation et de communication de la monarchie en Europe occidentale aux temps modernes.’3 The continental monarchies were inspired by the Italian model. The equestrian monument erected for the glory of the Roman emperors became a paradigm for affirming majesty in Renaissance Italy. And Italy was the model for European monarchs for two concurrent reasons: it was the place of the bronze Marcus Aurelius and of his many Renaissance princely emulations. Few art works have been more avidly copied in history for political reasons. 1 Seznec, The Survival, p. 219. 2 Ibid., p. 319. 3 Sabatier, Le Prince, p. 282.

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The Medicis played a key role in this process with their marriage ties to France, with their alliance with the Spanish crown, and with their two major artists – Giambologna and Pietro Tacca. An equestrian monument of King Henry IV was erected in Paris. The construction of the statue was the idea of his wife Marie de’ Medici. She commissioned Giambologna to produce it, and he started the modeling in 1604. After his death in 1608, the endeavor was completed by his assistant Tacca, and the bronze traveled from Florence to Paris in 1613. This would have been the first equestrian monument of a living French monarch, but the king was assassinated in 1610, and the statue became his memorial. Three years later (1616), an equestrian effigy of Philip III of Spain was again executed by Giambologna and Tacca in their foundry. Originally planned for the hunting estate of Casa de Campo, it was later placed in the more central Plaza Mayor in Madrid. The statue was commissioned in 1600 by Ferdinand I as a gift to Philip III. After receiving a portrait of the Spanish king, Giambologna worked on it between 1606 and 1608. Tacca finished the fusion in 1613 and the statue was shipped to Spain in 1615. Cosimo II commissioned Tacca to produce an equestrian statuette of Louis XIII in 1611, intending to give a gold version of it to his cousin, the new king of France. The statue was delivered in 1623. The two Florentine artists continued their activities, with an equestrian monument of Carlo Emanuele, Duke of Savoy (1621) for the Löwenburg Castle in Kassel. The last monument produced by Tacca’s workshop is Philip IV on a rearing horse (1640), which arrived in Spain in 1642 for the queen’s garden of the Buen Retiro palace. 4 At the time of Tacca’s death (1640), the equestrian model was already established as a symbol of monarchy derived from the ancient archetype. A new generation of local artists was also ready to continue the tradition into the next centuries and the genre proliferated in all the European absolutist states. After the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, a series of some twenty equestrian statues was planned by Louis XIV for the provincial towns of France. Clearly inspired by the Florentine artists, Hubert Le Sueur’s equestrian monument of Charles I (1633) was placed in Trafalgar Square in London. Cardinal Richelieu commissioned Pierre Biard to execute an equestrian monument of Louis XIII for Place Royal (now Place des Vosges) in Paris. The statue was erected in 1639 and was destroyed by the revolutionaries in 1792. Richelieu requested that the king’s portrait be mounted on a horse cast by Daniele da Volterra in 1565. Bernini’s model for Louis XIV (about 1670) was never executed in full scale because the king 4

For all these examples, see Camins, Glorious.

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preferred the more conventional solutions of François Girardon.5 Under the Sun King there was a real ‘politique de la statue’6 with the creation of a cliché developed by the Académie Royale. Looking forward in time, we find Etienne-Maurice Falconet’s Peter I (1782) posthumously commissioned by the tsarina Catherine the Great; Andrea Schlüter’s equestrian effigy of Great Elector Friedrich Wilhelm (1700) inspired by Mochi’s Farnese horses in Piacenza, still standing in front of Schloss Charlottenburg in Berlin; and the bronze of Joseph I of Portugal designed by Machado de Castro in 1775 to celebrate the reconstruction of Lisbon after the great earthquake. But the tradition continued down to recent times with the monuments of the Savoy kings – fathers of the country – marking the territory of united Italy, and crossed the Atlantic with the commemoration of revolutionary heroes – George Washington particularly – and the controversial monuments of confederate generals in the south of the United States. It continued until the automobile took the place of the horse. The equestrian statue was in harmony with the townscape, a dynamic and significant harmony as it was linked to the urban décor and rituals, and therefore a vehicle of political messages. Monuments of sovereigns on horseback marked ceremonial routes, defined strategic places, recalled victories and marked dynastic successions. They placed European cities under an absolutist symbol, constituting a homogeneous iconographic corpus. With columns and obelisks (brought back into fashion by Valeriano’s Hieroglyphica in the Rome of Sixtus V), busts, epigraphs, and fountains, the equestrian statue was another fundamental classicizing loan from the Italian courts and a feature that unified the urban landscape throughout Europe. In confirmation of how deeply rooted they were in the European imagination, they were reproduced in paintings, medals, engravings, jewelry, and carvings, and we find them on snuff boxes, tapestries, coins, armor, furniture, porcelain, and much else besides, over a period from the fifteenth to eighteenth century, and with the involvement of artists as varied as Velázquez, Rubens, Van Dyck, and Jacques-Louis David. Titian’s Charles V at Mühlberg (1548) – probably the most famous – celebrates the Emperor’s victory over the German Protestants in April 1547.7 We have followed one thread, but there are many others, as many as the ‘clothes’ connoting majesty. Nevertheless, the classical lexicon is dominant and there are innumerable Greek gods that burst into the iconography of power with the function of moral edification, of exempla, or as shells 5 Burke, The Fabrication, pp. 115–118. 6 Sabatier, ‘Le Prince’, p. 289. 7 See Panofsky, Problems.

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the sovereigns could inhabit. Anyone with the slightest familiarity with museums or historical buildings well knows how many ‘images’ convey these themes, how they are to be found everywhere, and how – in the end – they all resemble each other. Once again, let us take the figure of Hercules as a sample, with his epic labors and the other topical moments of his life as a tragic semi-god. His adventurous life, his extraordinary attributes, and his twelve labors made Hercules a particularly polyvalent symbol among pagan subjects and this explains his success in political representation. First and foremost, Hercules was a metaphor of strength and virtue. He was also associated with the apotheosis and – as he had been used by Augustus – he was a favorite of princes determined to emulate antiquity. The connection of Hercules with European dynasties was also cemented by the many claims to him as an ancestor – Spain, France, Portugal, etc. Finally, he was identified – in the labor of the Hydra – as a conqueror of discord, triumphing over all the rebels (religious and political) to the legitimate sovereignty. The political significance attributed to Hercules multiplied his imagery in every possible form. His long journey in the European imagination continued as late as the Jacobins’ revolutionary tableau with the ‘bold appropriation of a symbol that had been previously the preserve of the kings of France.’8 From antiquity, he rose again in pristine form in the Renaissance, and Italian princes habitually made use of his iconography. A decorative cycle depicting the Stories of Hercules, conceived by the humanist Fulvio Orsini and carried out by Annibale Carracci, is to be found in Palazzo Farnese in Rome. Hercules marks Medici power in opposition to that of the republic, remaining there right up to the end of the dynasty.9 The Savoys dedicated a grand scenic design to Hercules in the park of the Venaria Reale,10 and, from Ercole I on, the self-celebration of the ‘god Hercules’ is recurrent in the allegories of the whole of the Este family who bore that name. Around 1535, Ercole II had himself portrayed by Dosso Dossi as Hercules and the Pygmies. Pietro Andrea de Bassi, courtier of Niccolo d’Este wrote Le fatiche d’Ercole in 1420 for reasons of dynastic genealogy.11 For analogous purposes, Giovanni Battista Giraldi Cinzio, another author from the Este court, composed in 1557 the epic poem Dell’Ercole canti ventisei and the humanist Lelio Gregorio Giraldi wrote a Herculis vita in 1539. And we could continue. 8 Blanshard, Hercules, p. xiv. 9 See Ettlinger, ‘Hercules Florentinus’, pp. 119–142 and Herakles. 10 See the catalog of the recent exhibition, von Hase, Ercole. 11 Galinsky, The Herakles, p. 194.

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For every single ruler, in one way or another, starting in the fifteenth century with Italian signori, we can find personal and dynastic associations with Hercules. In his conversion to classicism, Matthias Corvinus was the first in line ‘of a number of Central European’ Hercules, the Hercules Hasburgicus, Saxonicus and Polonus.’12 Like the Roman emperors, he privileged the identification with Hercules Hungaricus (‘Hungarian Hercules’) in his struggle to enhance his royal profile, in the consolidation of his kingdom, and in the wars against the Turks threatening Hungary’s borders. Giovanni Dalmata carved a famous Hercules’ fountain, of which only fragments remain, for the Visegrád palace in 1450. The Hercules was meant to be an incarnation of the king succeeding at containing the Ottoman expansion. Matthias must have really liked the sculpture – or appreciated the allegory – if he favored Dalmata with a country house and, more importantly, the knighthood. With Henry IV, the Herculean myth acquired prominence in function of the absolutistic strategy and of the imperial ambitions to succeed Rudolf II. This new (ancient) symbol is combined with the more traditional Gallican doctrine brought back into vogue by jurists and, at the same time, with the inspiration of Cicero’s De natura deorum.13 The expansion of the myth of the Gallic Hercules and of the renewal of a golden age prophesied for the sovereign is discernible in an extensive literature. French encomiastic writings can be explained, in general, by the legend that ascribes to the demi-god progeniture of the Valois princely line. It was said that having recovered the herds stolen by Geryon in Spain, Hercules lingered in Gaul on his return journey, where his union with the daughter of a local king founded an indigenous dynasty, which was destined to preside over a vast empire. Royal imagery and ceremonials are, however, the main field of expression of the theme. The two columns were used for the entry into Lyons of Henry IV in 1595 symbolizing the ‘kingdoms of France and Navarre, and […] implying that the reconquest of those two ancestral kingdoms was the ultimate goal of Henry-Hercules.’ A Herculean allegory was set up for the triumphal entry of Marie de’ Medici in Avignon in 1600. For the occasion, Guillome Dupré struck a medal representing Henry IV as Hercules and the Jesuit André Valladier published the Labyrinth Royal de l’Hercule Goulois triumphant (1601) to celebrate Henry’s visit to Avignon.14 Given his popularity, it is no surprise that the discovery in Rome of the Farnese Hercules in 1546 created a sensation. The statue became part of 12 DaCosta Kaufmann, Court, Cloister, p. 45. 13 See Vivanti, ‘Henry IV’, pp. 176–197. 14 See Mamone, Firenze e, pp. 183.

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Alessandro Farnese’s collection and it was first placed in the courtyard of Palazzo Farnese before being moved to Naples in 1787. There are countless illustrations of the ancient statue and European sovereigns all sought copies of it. As a symbol of virtue or fortitude, the new, authentically antique Hercules thus crossed the Alps and animated the art of the ancien régime. After the watershed of the Renaissance, Hercules and the fables narrating his feats became one of the favorite icons of majesty throughout Europe. Mythographies, ballet, theater, the figurative arts, and opera all appropriated Hercules. Charles V, Henry IV, Cosimo de’ Medici, the kings of Poland and Portugal, and even Richelieu identified with him. Some of the painters who used him as a subject were David, Charles Le Brun, Dürer, Carracci, Boucher, Claude Vignon, Domenichino, Rubens, and – inevitably – Canova. Dubreuil painted ‘twenty-seven scenes from the life of Hercules in Fontainebleau,’ ‘Nicolas Poussin was commissioned a series of decorations for the Grand Galérie du Louvre’ taken from his stories, and ‘Lemoyne decorated the Grand Apartment of Versailles with a spectacular painted ceiling’ of his apotheosis.15 In 1634, Zurbarán was commissioned to paint twelve pictures representing the Labors of Hercules for the Hall of Realms, as part of the decorations of the Buen Retiro sub-urban palace of Philip IV. Only ten canvases were executed.16 Philip followed the path blazed by his grandfather, associated with the hero by the columnar impresa (‘device’). Also, for his funeral in Brussels in 1558, Charles V appeared allegorically as Hercules dominating monsters. But the classical hero was also associated with Philip II, who owned a series of tapestries with the Labors of Hercules. His feats also provided material for writings and operas by Ludovico Dolce, Molière, Heinrich von Kleist, Shakespeare, Handel, Bach, and Alessandro Melani in an opera composed for the wedding of Cosimo III de’ Medici in 1661. The figure of Hercules was, above all, endemic in French royal imagery. The French royal line was made to descend from Hercules gallicus and so he was a constant in the eulogistic literature and royal iconography. Francis I often identified with him, and an obelisk with bas-reliefs of his labors was erected for Henry IV’s entry in Rouen in 1596. Hercules’ ‘masculine iconicity’ features prominently in Hispanic royal foundational fiction,’ in particular in the seventeenth century mythological court dramas by Lope de Vega and Caldéron de la Barca.17 After all, ‘Hercules was considered a native son to Spain’, he had performed two of his labors 15 Blanshard, Hercules, pp. 85 and 146. 16 See Brown and Elliott, A Palace, pp. 156–161. 17 Fox, Hercules, pp. xiii and xxv.

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in Spain, and the ‘Spanish Hapsburg dynasty itself claimed descent’ from him.18 With its strong nationalistic connotations, the figure of Hercules was also associated with the representation of King Sebastian of Portugal (1554–1578), the last of the Aviz dynasty – he too, like his contemporary Elizabeth I, trying to build up a heroically chaste image.19 Ferrara’s being twinned with Saxony led to Lucas Cranach presenting the motif of Hercules in a series of canvases on Hercules and the Pygmies commissioned by Duke Maurice. The cycle for the new castle of Dresden drew on Dossi’s paintings and on Aciati’s Emblemata.20 Between 1704 and 1708, Andrea Pozzo, a lay member of the Society of Jesus, painted an apotheosis of Hercules in the room in his name in the summer palace of the princes of Lichtenstein in Vienna. A Hercules Salon was completed in the King’s Great Apartment when the court returned to Versailles in 1725. And a golden Hercules with the Nemean lion dominates the fountain of Peterhof. From the early sixteenth century, the iconography of Hercules spread to Poland with an anti-Ottoman role and was often used by the Jagiellon sovereigns. Eliseus Libaerts of Antwerp decorated the horse armor commissioned in 1562 by King Erik XIV of Sweden with stories of Hercules.21 But the list of candidates for the title of ‘new Hercules’ or of his descendants is long and also includes English and Russian sovereigns, the Habsburgs of Austria, German princes, and, of course, Napoleon did not want to be left out. The great hero inspired whole generations of poets and the greatest artists wanted to tackle his story. The Twelve Labors, interpreted overall as a progress in moral elevation, were offered as all too easy metaphors with which to celebrate the virtues of this or that sovereign: Hercules and the Hydra as an antidote to discord, Hercules and Cacus as proof of his strength, Hercules and the Nemean Lion as an attribute of courage, and so on. The Choice of Hercules was also understandably successful as a moral fable, in which the hero is shown between two female figures embodying Vice and Virtue. Hercules chooses Virtue and prepares to follow her on her steep and narrow path. This symbolism was authoritatively discussed by Erwin Panofsky almost a century ago.22 Like Hercules and just as much, Apollo, Mars, Venus, Jupiter, Diana, and Neptune were protagonists of political and cultural imagery and fixed in 18 19 20 21 22

Ibid., p. xiv. See Ibid., pp. 141–203. Marx, ‘L’ossessione’, p. 117. See Quondam, Cavallo, pp. 115–208. See Panofsky, Ercole al bivio.

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the European imagination, followed by a whole range of epic/mythological figures – the titans, Aeneas, Jason, Achilles, nymphs and fauns, Psyche, Perseus – from the inexhaustible repertoire of myths, feats, and ancient fables. The Olympian divinities and classical heroes were everywhere: painted on the vaults of salons, as protagonists of tragedies and operas, as garden statues, as figures in the moresca dance, in the emblems and treatises of mythography, on the obverse of medals, and on shields. And all this now represented in accordance with authentically antique attributes and styles, always the same from Lisbon to Warsaw, juxtaposed – but not in conflict – with biblical figures and devotional symbols, across time and space, like a breviary that anyone might know and recognize. There was also a return to the lives and exampla of great condottieri and emperors, of Cicero and Plato, a parallel world that permeated the visual language, ethical codes, the arts, and the very way Europeans thought in the ancien régime.23 The Italian courts also deserve credit for developing this vocabulary and exporting it. ‘The creation of paintings with Graeco-Roman myths as their subjects by Italian artists in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries marks a significant contribution to the development of European secular art.’24 Italian artists replicated ‘their classical antecedents’ based on the evidence of the humanistic study of the texts, and Europe looked at them as the undisputed masters in this endeavor and as their best chance to reconnect with antiquity. ‘Paintings of classical myths all’antica’ derived from the ‘study of ancient sculpture’ because they aimed to demonstrate ‘the congruity between the style of the rendered figures and the character of their images.’25 Precisely this ability to mark a discontinuity with Medieval imagery and to emulate the true forms of antiquity is what made Italian artists successful in Europe, and – along with this – the courts of Italy where they operated were perceived as tastemakers by sovereigns and aesthetes. This also meant that the great cycles of paintings drew on the same dictionary of symbols and repeated stories recognizable to all; it also meant that the virtues of strength, temperance, or prudence were identified in the same kaleidoscope of divinities, emblems, and feats. Virtù dipinta (‘painted virtue’), with the organic relation between image and word, flooded the ancien régime. In the throne rooms, galleries, studies, villas, and palace, between the fifteenth and eighteenth century, the same language of imagery was spoken, which, in turn, expressed a single system of values. Everyone 23 See Klieman, Gesta dipinte. 24 Freedman, Classical Myths, p. 1. 25 Ibid., p. 6.

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attributed the same ethical and political meaning to it. All Europeans know that a fresco, a bust, an equestrian or funeral monument, or an engraving is associated with a message, and we can still sometimes read it. With a change of register, let us turn from content to media. In this case, too, we are spoilt for choice: tapestries, porcelain, paintings, armor, furniture, prints, jewelry, etc. We will take medals, different from coins in that they are exclusively commemorative. Their origins can be dated to 1438 and their paternity is certainly that of Antonio Pisanello.26 Through their link with numismatics, antiquarianism, and humanism, which used them as a historical source, their appearance went hand in glove with the rediscovery of classicism. In this, medals were perhaps the most authentic form of innovation, as they were both a material and symbolic reworking of the antique. As such, they were greeted with enthusiasm – particularly in Italy, with its centers of production in Venice, Rome, Naples, and at the courts of Rimini, Milan, Florence, Bologna, Ferrara, and Mantua. Famous artists, like Francesco Francia, Benvenuto Cellini, Francesco Laurana, Leone Leoni, and Giovanni Bellini tried their hand at them, but the particular nature of the object – which can be in gold, silver, bronze, or copper – meant that goldsmiths, engravers, and foundrymen produced them as well. European sovereigns had already begun their love affair with medals by the mid-fifteenth century, partly as they were easily reproducible, but especially as they referred to the antique, which amplified their semantic effectiveness in celebrating the cult of fame and virtus, hence fulfilling the desire for immortality. In mid-sixteenth-century France, around 200 collections of medals and coins (ancient and modern) were listed, and when Henry II came to the throne in 1547, he created the position of ‘tailleur, graveur et sculpteur des cours de monnaie.’ A hundred years later, on his death in 1637, the antiquarian Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc left in his will a collection of 17,000 medals.27 Medals and coins were collected for reliable portraits of Roman emperors. As a support tool for this, Enea Vico and Sebastiano Erizzo published two important works – the Omnium Caesarum […] numismata descriptae in 1553 and the Discorso sopra le medaglie antiche in 1559, respectively – cataloging all the medals struck by individual emperors. There were also many sovereigns who tried to secure Italian artists to copy medals with a courtly theme. ‘There is little question’ – Stephen Scher states flatly– ‘that the medal was one form borrowed directly from Italy.’28 26 See Scher, ‘Immortalitas’, pp. 1–19. 27 McGowan, The Vision, pp. 68 and 81. 28 The Currency, p. 23.

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In his endless wanderings, the Neapolitan medalist and diplomat Giovanni Candida (1450–1504), modeled medals for Charles the Bold and Antoine of Burgundy, for Archduke Maximilian of Austria and Charles VIII of France. In 1556, Giampaolo Poggini, a Medici gem carver (and poet), left Florence for Brussels, where he worked for Alessandro Farnese and Cardinal de Grenvelle, and where he entered the court of Philip II, whom he followed to Madrid and who honored him with the nomination of Escultor del Re in 1563. For their part, Jacopo da Trezzo and Antonio Abondio from Milan established a highly sophisticated Italian medal style at the Habsburg courts, the former settling in Madrid and the latter traveling to Prague and Vienna. Trezzo also struck a medal for Mary Tudor. Benvenuto Cellini, too, was part of the trend, called to France by Francis I. The growing demand in Germany, France, England, Spain, and the Low Countries also involved artists such as Albrecht Dürer and Guillome Dupré, and led to the creation of mints in Nuremberg, Augsburg, Antwerp, Ghent, Heidelberg, and Lyon. All these measures were part of royal policy as the potentiality of medals to circulate their effigy linked – on the obverse – to coats of arms, allegories, and imprese (‘personal devices’) emblematized their eminence, placing them in direct succession to their ideal ancestors in the ancient world. A literature of and on images in support of these lexicons flourished, which served both for understanding them and creating them. Through encyclopedic catalogs, lives of heroes and emblem books, classical mythology moved from Italy to the Europe of the monarchies and aristocracies. The boom in mythography for the use of artists and patrons contributed to satisfying the demand for it. As usual, Boccaccio’s Genealogia deorum gentilium (1370) was a good starting point, a text that, as we have seen, had an enormous influence on European art, becoming almost a bedside book for men of letters and artists. Coluccio Salutati had written specifically on Hercules in his De laboribus Herculis, compiled between 1375 and 1406, and the first in a long series of works with mythographic content. Lelio Gregorio Giraldi from Ferrara also contributed to this genre with a life of Hercules (1539) and a treatise on stories of the ancient gods (1548).29 But the canonical text was Vincenzo Cartari’s, a protégé of the Duke of Ferrara, with his Le imagini con la sposizione dei dèi antichi (1556). A few years later, it was the turn of the poet and humanist Natale Conti; his Mythologiae (1567) are in ten books. The new features of the ancient gods were codified and multiplied by these ‘profane Bibles,’ manuals that captured their stories and images. The 29 See Giraldi, Herculis vita.

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mentioned trilogy was published in fast succession between 1548 and 1556.30 These three mythological encyclopedias – very much like the more famous tried Castiglione – della Casa – Guazzo – enjoys a sensational success. Giraldi’s manual had a widespread diffusion; between 1551 and 1627, Conti’s Mythology went through a total of nineteen editions and several translations; and Cartari’s text had twenty editions and multiple translations until 1631. They were addressed to poets and artists to furnish them subjects and stories, but ‘the number of editions justifies the conclusion that during more than a century, in Italy and in the rest of Europe, they had a place in the library of every […] men of letters.’31 Art and literature throughout Europe are deeply indebted with these manuals – they were on the desks of the poets of the Pléiade, were in the hands of those who engineered festivals and triumphs, were consulted by Elizabethan authors, and ‘found plenty of emulators in Spain and Germany.’32 Every erudite and cultivated gentleman owned or knew of them. An important strand in the standardization of mythological images was that of emblem books, inaugurated in 1531 by Andrea Alciati, ‘one of the founding books of European modernity.’33 It was followed by Cesare Ripa’s equally famous Iconologia (1593), reprinted ten times in Italy and with as many editions and translations abroad. Closely related to these treatises were those on imprese (‘devices’), where the text was a decisive element for understanding the visual message. After Paolo Giovio’s Dialogo dell’imprese militari e amorose was published in 1555, they became a genuine mania. There were also the lives: precious collections of well-organized biographies of epic and historical characters from which one could easily find hints and stories for figurative treatment. This time the genre was inaugurated by Petrarch, with his De viris illustribus (1337) commissioned by Francesco da Carrara, lord of Padua. The cycles of famous men maintained a close relation with the writings of humanists and Plutarch’s archetype. The lives, too, became a publishing success because they were handbooks organized for those seeking exempla for defining majesty in writing or images. The elogi (‘eulogies’) also deserve a mention, particularly the Elogi degli uomini illustri (1546) another work by Giovio. But the descriptions of Roman antiquities were also used and very fashionable, many of them drawing on Ovid’s Metamorphoses, 30 The History of the Gods by Lelio Gregorio Giraldi (Basel: Oparinus, 1548); the Mythology by Natale Conti (Venice: Aldus, 1551); and The Images of the Gods by Vincenzo Cartari (Venice: Marciolini, 1556). 31 Seznec, The Survival, p. 279. 32 See Ibid., pp. 310–317. 33 Quondam, La forma, p. 121.

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which had also been reintroduced to classicizing Europe by the translations of Ludovico Dolce (1553) and Giovanni Andrea dell’Anguillara (1565). One thing is certain: the Italy of the courts was both the forging house of texts listing the lives of heroes and ancient gods, and also the f irst image-factory for them. The ‘re-integration of classical form and classical subject’ took place in Italy and ‘from Italy Europe borrowed it.’34 In the sixteenth-century Italian courts, the volume of texts and artistic versions, and the outburst of innovation in evoking the ancient world brought about a genuine cultural industry. With the many works that left for European galleries, many artists also left Italy. An additional export was the alphabet – symbolic, mythological, allegorical – of Italian iconography. This syntax, which had been codified by the Italian treatise-writers between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries, thus became the lexicon by which the reigning European families would represent themselves. If everyone spoke the same language of images in Europe, we owe it above all to these works. Their goal was to create the ancient times anew. Art broke with the tradition of medieval Christianization of ancient myths to create an authentic rebirth that flanked Christian iconography. Through it, the ancien régime expressed and defined itself and came down to us from it as a coherent system. Art and the phrasebook of art created another of those meta-systems of signs that define the homogeneousness of European culture. Not just a visual culture, since, now as then, these images were entrusted with precise messages, since concepts and values corresponded to them, and since a shared heritage of knowledge and ethical and aesthetic codes depended on them.

34 Panofsky, Renaissance, p. 177.

9. The Performing Arts Spectacle, pageantry, and court entertainment is a much-studied field. And yet, a survey is needed, for at least two reasons. First, to honor our commitment to supply an overall and intelligible picture, and second, because, globally, it formed a substantial element of the diffusion of Italian cultural topoi. To be clear, I am referring to tragedy, Commedia dell’Arte, opera, ballet, and all their phantasmagorical combinations. Individually or integrated in multimedial productions, all these arts – with pyrotechnics, jousting, banquets, and much else – were part of the schedule for the lavish court celebrations of dynastic marriages, triumphs, coronations, or visits of foreign statesmen. They were different ambits, but they fundamentally obeyed the same rules and confirm the same underlying conjectures. They shared the same birthplaces, too: the courts of Ferrara, Mantua, Florence, Parma, Rome, and Naples. In this, the Italian princes were unrivaled, and that is why everything that was part of the economy of their magnificence was borrowed by European sovereigns. Theater of politics or politics of theater – whichever you prefer: this was the patrimony they drew on to represent their majesty. Take the marriage in Mantua, in April 1584, of Vincenzo I Gonzaga to his cousin Eleonora de’ Medici, or Charles V’s entrances in the various Italian cities, or even the Este celebrations of 1573 when Tasso’s work was staged, or the splendid papal ceremonies in Bernini’s Rome, to give a few examples. This category includes all those occasions in which teams of actors, cooks, architects, tailors, painters, musicians, sculptors, and others were called on to give of their best for the thousands of guests who had come to witness their fantastic creations: whether they were temporary triumphal arches, banqueting tables, comedies, choreographies, or whatever. There was particular admiration for the Florentine marriage, in 1589, between Ferdinando I de’ Medici and Christina of Lorraine.1 The festivities continued for more than a month and included the extraordinary scenic devices of Bernando Buontalenti, fireworks on the Arno, an equestrian ballet in the Boboli Gardens, naumachie (‘naval battles’) fought in the courtyard of the Pitti Palace, and tournaments and ‘hunts’ in Piazza Santa Croce. Hosts of engravers and memorialists did their utmost to provide written and visual accounts of these wonders to fix the Medici glory and provide the spectators with representations that would help them reproduce them at home. 1

See Saslow, The Medici.

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The multiplication and constant change in performance forms happened in the most varied ways: gemmation, combination, and metamorphoses. Music encountered play-acting, dance molded itself on music (and vice versa), and music, poetic words, and song merged into colossal opera productions. The multiplication of expressive solutions also applied to theatrical genres, whose names frayed into categories like ‘improvised comedy,’ ‘pastoral,’ ‘sacred performance,’ ‘tragedy,’ ‘learned comedy,’ ‘tragicomedy,’ with definitions and margins that were both genuine and porous. Some genres were constituted by bringing back to life real or supposed ancient canons, others were created through hybrids of one or more previous forms. The common denominator of this cosmos was the constant search for original solutions. Italian artists and genres were turned to, precisely because of their creative effervescence, and their capacity to surprise the demanding court public. Theater, opera, and ballet were the new offers of the Italian courts, the new models avidly reproduced everywhere. In the constant quest for more spectacular effects, antiquity was, in this case, too, an inexhaustible source of inspiration. This revival of Roman dramatic art began in the first half of the sixteenth century. Music and song, added to words, aimed to bring the theater close to ancient tragedy: opera was deliberately the fruit of the recovery of classical forms and experimentation. The plots were classical, and the protagonists taken from mythology or epic. The preferred authors were classical – Terence, Plautus, and Seneca, but also the Greeks – and the works that were restaged, were allegedly restored to their original state or subject to imaginative adaptations. Latin comedies were frequently reworked in new vernacular texts, and even the design of the theaters sought to imitate the classical world. Both classical and innovative, and therefore modern: this was the aim pursued on the basis of changing algorithms. In this sense, too, Italy invented forms. In the quest for the new, they also unscrupulously ransacked the popular repertoire. And so, the Commedia dell’Arte arrived at court, which quickly became a favored place for its patrons. In this way, the Renaissance popular theater encountered learned texts and migrated from the public squares to the Palatine salons. The confines between popular, erudite, and aristocratic became blurred. This applied to the scenarios of comedies and to opera libretti; both actors and poets wrote. The lavish productions at court did not exclude masques and jesting, and tragic texts shared the stage with improvisations. Everything went into a single, creative melting-pot: it all flowed into what would be called ‘entertainment.’ Despite their constant reduplication, all these expressions were part of one single great family – the court celebration in which the parts of public and performers were

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often confused. An account of the court of Munich in 1568 describes the performance of a ‘comedy all’italiana’ in which, as well as professional actors, numerous courtiers, and nobles performed, too. The European theatrical tradition was born in Italy. Early centers of its development were the late-fifteenth-century court of Ercole I d’Este, neighboring Mantua, where Angelo Poliziano produced the Favola d’Orfeo (1480), and Urbino, where Bernardo Dovizi staged the Calandria in 1513. Ariosto took part in this awakening, with the Cassaria staged in Ferrara in 1508, followed by authors like Ruzzante, Correggio, Albertino Mussato, Giraldi Cinzio, Nicolò Machiavelli, and many others. From the courts of Ferrara, Mantua, and Florence, but also of Rome and Naples, the companies – on permanent tour – took their shows to Paris and London, Vienna, Munich, Prague, and as far as St Petersburg. Italian theatrical art, constantly seeking original ideas, staged shows never seen before, which held the courts fascinated. In this sense, the actors’ eagerness to find good opportunities corresponded with that of the courts seeking to get hold of the best companies and guarantee themselves regular theatrical seasons. We have seen how the hegemony of Italian theater in the European courts lasted throughout the eighteenth century. The theater also lent itself to political use, and, in this case, too, as well as the importance of the actors, the genres, and the original works, mechanisms were set in motion to streamline them semantically to local circumstances. The Italian dramaturgic forms, in short, were acclimatized to each nation. Translations of literary works, appointments of stage designers, invitations sent to itinerant acting companies, and everything else entered the same logic. The theater that had been adopted by the Italian courts met with even more favor in the European ones as political meanings were given to the plots and personages. The Italian princes were thus examples and sources of supply for the European courts. Dynastic marriages, such as that in Lyon between Marie de’ Medici and Henry IV in 1600, were important unifying factors and events for the theatrical art abroad. There was much correspondence on the subject and, quite often, Italian lords acted as intermediaries, as in the case of Alfonso II d’Este, who took with him to Paris the Duke of Mantua’s clown, Marcantonio Sidonio, in 1559, who sponsored the tour of the company of the Fedeli to the courts of Prague and Vienna in 1627 and 1628, or of Alessandro Farnese, who did the same with comics from Parma for the coronation of Louis XIV.2 Not infrequently, individual artists or entire troupes accompanied the movements of sovereigns, as, for example, with 2 Ferrone, La Commedia, pp. 138, 159, and 163.

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Giovanni Tabarino’s company, which was part of the escort of Emperor Maximilian I to the Diet of Pressburg in 1569. Soon, there was a remarkable contiguity abroad as well between Italian actors and court entourages, between itinerant performers and monarchs. The theatrical companies were constantly on the move, more than other artists and often in groups. In particular, the Commedia dell’Arte was exported everywhere and its interpreters ‘crossed borders and became international.’3 Theirs truly was a Europe without borders, united through the circuit of the courts. To get an idea of it, we can take the case of the Neapolitan Tiberio Fiorilli (1608–1694), stage name Scaramouche, favorite of the French court along with Molière. Even leaving aside his nomadic life between the cities of Italy (a dozen or more), his was literally an existence ‘on the road,’ constantly back and forth across the Alps for Paris, where his presence is documented in 1640, 1647, every year from 1653 to 1659, again in 1662, 1666 (when he danced with Louis XIV), 1667, 1670, and – after a couple of excursions to London between 1671 and 1675, annually between Paris, his staging post in Bologna, and his farms in Tuscany until 1694. The most famous company was that of the Comici Gelosi of Francesco Andreini and his wife, the ‘divine’ Isabella (1562–1604), idol of the aristocracies. In 1589, she was in Florence for the wedding of Ferdinand I de’ Medici, ten years later in Paris for Henry IV, in 1601 we find her at the court of Mantua, and in 1603 in France, again. The company was permanently traveling for thirty years, from 1570 to 1604, performing their repertoire in Spain, Germany, and England, too. An actress of unequaled talent and admired singer, Isabella played the lead in Tasso’s Aminta at its premiere in Ferrara. On her death, at the end of yet another triumphal tour to the court of France, her son Giambattista founded the company of the Fedeli and took the eighteen plays he had written to the courts of Ferdinand II in Prague and Marie de’ Medici in Paris. Led by Andreini and made famous by the singer Virginia Andreini, from 1627 the company of the Fedeli was stationed at the Vienna court for almost four years. Under Tsarina Anna Joannovna, the first company of Commedia dell’Arte arrived in Russia in 1731, and in the decade 1730–1740, Italian theater reached the apex of its success in the country. In 1603–1604 and in 1607–1608, troupes of Italian commedianti (‘comedians’) performed at court for Henry IV and Marie de’ Medici. The first tournées of Italian actors in France, however, are from 1570: we are speaking about the famous Gelosi and Fedeli. The average length of their sojourns evolved from relatively short in the sixteenth 3 Brubaker, Court, p. 49.

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century to longer from the beginning of the following century. Alberto Naseli, known as Zan Ganassa, another actor-manager, performed in Mantua in 1568, but in the same year he was also at the Wittelsbach court in Munich, in 1569 in Paris, in 1574 in London, and, finally, journeyed to Spain, where he remained for a decade. The actors traveled in search of patrons, but also based on a regular seasonal calendar with its interruptions (Lent) and following annual festivities (Carnival) and dynastic anniversaries. The fortunes and misfortunes of the ruling houses marked their movements, but to mitigate the effects of their precariousness, they launched promotional campaigns and extended their range of action: the company associated with the Sacco family, for example, spanned from Portugal to Russia. Exporting these spectacles meant moving people, tools, materials, and expertise. Since the team took the place of the individual, going on stage in Vienna rather in London presupposed the presence there of numerous groups and many different abilities. The humanist could travel alone, as could the architect (perhaps with a few apprentices) and the painter, but not in this case. The Italians crossed Europe from one end to another in search of gain, as profits seemed greater abroad. We know this from the musician and actor manager Carlo Cantù in a note from Paris dated 1645, in which he claims: ‘My luck in France is not ordinary, which consoles me greatly: apart from gifts, the profit is four times more than what one gets in Italy.’4 The popularity of the Italian actors was such that, to ensure their presence, they were given legal privileges as well as high earnings, were awarded patents and received favors. ‘In 1723, the comics of the actor and playwright Luigi Riccoboni’ were ‘nominated by Louis XV Comédien Ordinaires du Roi, ‘with an annual salary of 15,000 livres.’5 A Théatre Italien was set up in Paris in 1661 and was operative until 1697. Riccoboni himself was later director of the reopened Comédie-Italienne from 1716 to 1731. Many of the European courts booked the exclusive services of a company for a season or even created permanent theaters for their performances. This simply extended the list of the arts involved, as now architects and painters were necessary, as well as set designers and special effects experts, and new professions emerged for a business that was constantly growing, and increasingly complex to manage. There was now the new figure of the impresario (another Italian) who was self-employed as an intermediary between actors and princes, with whom he had business relations and whose 4 5

Quoted in Ferrone, La Commedia, p. 182. Ibid., p. 208.

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taste he directed. For August II, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, Angelo Costantini recruited actors intended for the theaters of Dresden and Warsaw. Italian impresarios/managers ran the eighteenth-century London theaters, and professional agents procured contracts for the actors, taking pains to satisfy the needs of every court. These new profiles populated the European courts too. And partly thanks to them the migratory flows created a crucible of experiences that was an element of cultural uniformity. The regularity and frequency of the theatrical tours also ended up ‘determining a supra-national, shared theatrical language.’6 A substantial collection of 125 texts (scenarios and theater programs) ‘regarding the carnival performances of the Italian masques in the theaters of Dresden and Warsaw’ in mid-eighteenth century gives us ‘a valuable glimpse of theater life at the court of Frederick August’ and a specific date for the circulation of Italian texts abroad.7 A typical feature of this phenomenon was the integration of various arts and techniques in the same production, and this quickly became an entertainment industry that, already in the early seventeenth century, was also developing commercially for the paying public, with the Venetian theaters leading the way. Carpenters, painters, smiths, stars of the stage and comics, castratos, and custom designers all came together as a team. It was also no longer enough to excel in one art alone, but eclectic talents were required, and collaboration became the norm: the librettist and the composer, the choreographer and the composer, the stage painters and the engineers. The high costs and logistic complexity required new managerial and planning skills and new contractual formulas were also developed. The main companies – the Uniti, the Desiosi, the Confidenti and the Accessi – were all equally imitated. Many authors, famous and otherwise, were indebted to the Italians: from Lope de Vega to Molière, from Spenser to Marivaux, from Shakespeare to du Bellay. The troupes of the Commedia dell’Arte spread the new genre through their performances and with the works they wrote. Isabella Andreini herself was a prolific author and her contemporaries praised her both for her gifts as an actress and as a writer. She published plays and poetry, and for the international audience of her time, she was a ‘more revered celebrity than Shakespeare.’ Correspondence and ‘printed encomia attest the regard she commanded from Italian signories, the imperial court, French royalty, and […] the literary establishment. Tasso wrote verses on Isabella, and after she took second place in a poetry contest that he won, the learned academy of the Intenti in Pavia elected her 6 Ibid., p. 63. 7 Pieri, ‘La scena’, p. 192.

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a member and crowned her effigy with laurel, proclaiming her Petrarch’s heir and Tasso’s rival.’8 Above all, an appropriate place for these performances was needed, whatever genre was involved. New spaces were required, spaces the ancients had developed magnificently and that – now fallen into disuse – needed bringing back to life. First in Italy, and then everywhere else, the courts and the cities supplied themselves with a ‘performance room,’ a theater or an opera house. On the basis of Vitruvius’s teaching, from the Este courtier Pellegrino Prisciani (1435–1518) onwards, the theater became fashionable again and stage sets were invented for ‘theater all’italiana,’ which teams of artists and artisans collaborated in creating both in Italy and abroad. Under the direction of Ariosto, in the winter of 1528–1529, the first permanent theater was inaugurated on a loggia of the Este residence in Ferrara. Other famous examples were the Teatro Olimpico, which Andrea Palladio designed in Vicenza in 1585 and the Teatro Medici, created by Bernardo Buontalenti for the Florentine nuptials of 1589. Giambattista Aleotti built the Teatro degli Intrepidi in Ferrara in 1606 and, twelve years later, designed the Teatro Farnese in Parma, but court theaters were also inaugurated in Sabbioneta, Mantua, Urbino, and in the palaces of Roman cardinals. The fashion caught on throughout Europe, and theaters became one of the distinguishing features of the architectural identity of our cities. As part of the flourishing of theatrical invention, between the fifteenth and the seventeenth century, Italy in particular laid the foundation for the opera house and quickly spread the new building type throughout the rest of the world.9 Court theaters were built in Munich, Dresden, London, Madrid, St Petersburg, Prague, Vienna, etc. Mazarin had a theater and hemicycle built in Paris in his Palais Cardinal. A Salón de Comedias existed in the Alcázar of Madrid after 1561 and a fully fledged theater – called Coliseo – was built in a wing of the Buen Retiro after 1632. The texts and designs of Italian architects gave a decisive contribution on how to build theaters, which still meant re-exhuming the classics. Sebastiano Serlio designed the first theater modeled on those of the ancients in his second book of Regole generali di architettura (1545), but Scamozzi and Vignola, too, as well as Palladio and others, included the theater in their treatises. Their wide circulation was partly due to this, as they provided a goldmine of pre-prepared examples. In another way, we are, again, faced with the same dual stratification of levels, the first between theory and practice (architectonics and dramaturgy), and 8 Clubb, Italian Drama, p. 260. 9 See Johnson, Inventing.

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the second between different dimensions (spatial, performative, stylistic), all contributing to defining a single cultural and courtly topos. In the Old Regime, mostly rulers invested lavishly in these performing spaces and in stage technology. Between 1550 and 1650, Italians also developed new scenic techniques that changed the shape of European theater. With the use of sophisticated machinery and the introduction of special effects (volcanos exploding, characters flying, sea monsters, and so on). In Italy, the stage became more than a mere acting platform by matching and defining the setting of the action. Baroque opera depended, above all, on spectacle, the mobility of the backdrops, and the showiness of the costumes. Acquired from the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Cosimo Lotti was brought to Madrid in 1626. Lotti arrived as a fontanero (‘fountain builder’) for the garden of the Alcázar but ended up excelling in set design and theater machinery, working with, among others, Lope de Vega. His remarkable talent for perspectives and optical illusions earned him a lavish salary from Philip IV. Lotti had been assistant of Bernando Buontalenti in the building of Palazzo Pitti. He died at the end of ‘1643, but a worthy successor was found in the fellow-Florentine Baccio del Bianco’ sent to Spain in 1651.10 Del Bianco worked, in turn, with Calderón de la Barca, consolidating the marriage between Italian stage art and Spanish play writing. Among others, we find Girolamo Bon, in Russia between 1735 and 1745, mostly dedicating his time and talent to the scenarios and customs of the court theater. The most acclaimed Italian was nonetheless Giuseppe Valeriani, with a contract starting in 1743. The set designer Pietro Gonzaga, master of chiaroscuro and trompe l’oeil, invited by prince Yusupov (manager of entertainment at the imperial court), impressed his audiences with his genius for almost forty years (1792–1831). Gonzaga summarized his theories – particularly on l’optique teatrale (‘theater optics’) – in several books, all published in St Petersburg. This exceptional feature also contributed to opera’s success outside Italy. It was the breathtaking machinery of Giacomo Torelli that created a sensation in Vienna at the performance of Francesco Buti’s Orfeo in 1647, and ‘the Viennese production of Antonio Cesti’s Il Pomo d’oro was long considered the most lavish opera of all time.’11 Treatises sought to condense and give some order to this exuberance. Given that it was a world in constant change, and out of respect for a consolidated tradition, the experimentation was rendered in a flood of rules and regulations. As usual in the Italian forging-house, production and theory went 10 Brown and Elliott, A Palace, p. 207. 11 Coletti, Da Monteverdi, p. 80.

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hand in hand. New forms were developed empirically, constantly evolving, and, at the same time, genres and categories were classified. In this respect, architecture was no different from language, paintings, or the various accounts of good manners. Invention, imitation, codification, and building were simultaneous. While the actors walked the boards, Lodovico Caltelvetro theorized the separation of tragedy and comedy in La poetica di Aristotele vulgarizzata, published for the first time in Vienna in 1570. Guarini wrote a Compendio della poesia tragicomica in 1601 and Giovanni Battista Doni a Trattato della musica scenica in 1640. In 1638, Nicola Sabbatini published his Pratica di fabricar scene e machine ne’ teatri, a pioneering text, much used for its instructions on lighting and theatrical machinery.12 Its innovations created illusionistic effects, known as scènes à l’italienne, and became required reading for anyone wanting to understand the subject. All this was formed and perfected with Italian artists and expertise, but from here it soon became a shared body of knowledge. The treatises traveled and their ideas spread, tracing the guidelines of dramaturgy, the new inventions, the mobility of actors and theatrical repertoires, and the staging of plays and libretti. The outcome of this mixture of genres that would achieve greatest and most long-lasting popularity was undoubtedly opera (or melodrama). We have already discussed its eighteenth-century developments, and here we must take a step back. ‘Opera began as an experiment of groups in the intellectual avant-garde […] and as a court or palace spectacle, where they were first performed.’13 It was completely new, though the return to classicism and innovation went hand in hand. In this sense, it was an emblematic product of Baroque sensibility, it was ‘the theater of the extraordinary and the magnificent.’14 It all began in 1600 with Jacopo Peri’s Euridice, with a libretto by Ottavio Rinuccini, staged at the Pitti Palace for the marriage of Marie de’ Medici and Henry IV. The rest is well known: from here to Claudio Monteverdi’s Orfeo in Mantua (still called a ‘fable’), and from there – with unstoppable force – toward Venice, Naples, and Rome. This was to be the true novelty of the early seventeenth century, destined to take over the whole of Europe, down to our own day. Hundreds of musicians, stage designers, singers, actors, impresarios, artisans, librettists, and composers left Italy, carrying in their knapsacks scores and libretti to perform at even the most remote courts of the continent. The monopoly of Italian theater in music was evident everywhere, and the 12 See Sabbatini, Pratica. 13 Coletti, Da Monteverdi, p. 74. 14 Ibid., p. 18.

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fame of the new genre and the brilliance of its interpreters was ubiquitous. The Favola di Dafne by Rinuccini and Marco da Gagliardo was perhaps its prototype. In 1608, it was staged in Mantua, and, in 1627, already translated into German for the court of Dresden.15 Monteverdi’s Orfeo, too, was a sensational success abroad and it was performed mid-century at the court of Louis XIII. For his innovative use of machines, stage director Giacomo Torelli achieved a triumph at the Petit Bourbon theater in Paris in 1645. In the same year, Carlo Caproli performed the Nozze di Peleo et di Theti with a ballet in which Louis XIV danced. Francesco Cavalli’s operas ‘were at once performed in Paris and Munich too. One of the most dazzling seventeenth-century Italian melodramas, Antonio Cesti’s Il Pomo d’oro (1668), had its première in Vienna.’16 The court theater of Wladislaw IV Vasa (1632–1648), King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania, often housed Italian opera and ‘its most important librettist was Virgilio Puccinelli.’17 In 1662, Cardinal Mazarin summoned Cavalli to Paris to write an opera for the marriage of Louis XIV, and also sponsored Italian opera in Paris with the creation of the Académie royale de musique in 1669, thus making it ‘to all intents and purposes an appendage of the court.’18 Shortly before, the prolific composer Pietro Antonio Cesti entered the service of Archduke Ferdinand Charles in Innsbruck. In 1660, his career brought him to the papal chapel in Rome, only to move on shortly after to Vienna, where he became Vice-Kapellmeister from 1666 to 1669. He also composed an opera in Vienna, whose sets were designed by Lodovico Ottavio Burnacini, making the evening a remarkable event. Thanks to this colony of Italian composers and musicians, in the second half of the seventeenth century the Viennese court’s ‘operatic production […] became the most lavish in Europe.’19 Italian singers were the favorites at the German, Spanish, and Portuguese courts, and gradually in London, Warsaw and St Petersburg. The virtuosi singers made a decisive contribution to establishing Italian opera ‘as the regular and foremost entertainment of the upper classes in much of western and central Europe.’ Between about 1680 and 1750, this new form, was restricted almost wholly to courts. Italian opera imposed itself throughout Europe, and only France had its own (derivative) national opera. Despite that, to get an idea of the tone of the 15 Taraborelli, ‘Il teatro’, p. 471. 16 Coletti, Da Monteverdi, p. 194. 17 Źaboklicki, ‘La presenza’, p. 699. 18 Fabiano and Noiray, L’opera, p. xi. 19 Brubaker, Court, p. 117.

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welcome opera received here too, when Lully’s Alceste was staged in Paris in 1674, Madame de Sévigné wrote enthusiastically: ‘It is something unheard of […] it is a prodigy of beauty.’20 Many Italian composers worked abroad, but many foreign composers also became maestri in Italian opera, including Händel, Gluck, Mozart, and Hayden. Italian libretti and Italian poetry set to music outside Italy were the order of the day: Gluck’s normal librettist, for example, was Ranieri de’ Calzabigi. Opera became an international laboratory with different typologies and dynamics in the different countries. One of the results of this furnace of activity, the intermezzi (masque in England and ballet in France)21 for various phases of the interminable court feasts, had solutions and situations straight out of the Commedia dell’Arte,22 and through them opera buffa and pastoral were born. The latter, cultivated mainly at the court of Ferrara, was one of the most original inventions of late-sixteenth-century Italian drama, and it was by virtue of its novelty that ‘Italian Arcadian plays’ became canonical for the ‘developments in theater abroad.’23 As well as Tasso’s archetype, the Italian pastoral genre was staged, translated, and adapted, including dozens of authors and still more operas. It would be a long list, but, among them, Battista Guarini’s Il pastor fido (1585) was to become probably ‘the single most influential example of pastoral drama and of the calculated mixture of comedy and tragedy.’24 The ballet, too, started as an intermezzo, gradually acquiring a space and dignity of its own, thanks to the growing appreciation for it. It penetrated France first, where it developed remarkably at court. Between the last of the Valois and the first Bourbon, partly thanks to the two Medici queens, France became heir of the art of living of the Italian courts, and ballet was an intrinsic part of this. One of the most famous was the five-and-a-half-hour dance extravaganza called Ballet comique de la Reine by the Piedmontese Baldassarre di Belgioioso (Beaujoyeux to the French), performed in 1581 as part of the wedding celebrations for the Duke de Joyeuse and the Queen’s sister Marguerite de Vaudemont. Music was ubiquitous: in the chapel, at the opera, at table, and on the water. At the invitation of Beatrice of Aragon, Pietro Bono – one of the most gifted lute players of the fifteenth century – moved from Ferrara to Buda. Between 1600 and 1605, Ottavio Rinuccini comes and goes between Italy and France. Alfonso Ferrabosco played a key role in introducing the madrigal 20 Quoted in Braudel, Out of Italy, p. 108. 21 See the classics Yates, Astrea and Strong, Splendor. 22 Wilbourne, Seventeenth-Century, p. 6. 23 Clubb, Italian Drama, p. 158. 24 Ibid., p. 18.

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in England, where he arrived in 1562 and started working for Elisabeth I. The spreading of the form of the madrigal resembles what happened with the sonnet or the moresca dance. The centrifugal force of the Italian musical tradition continued throughout the eighteenth century. Italy exported music, musicians, and musical instruments: those perfected by Italian craftsmen were the guitar, the harpsichord, the violin, and the lute, the last of which was to accompany the dance. The phenomenon developed exponentially, with new forms devised in Italy that made the foreign public ever more demanding and sophisticated, which meant the capacity to surprise had always to remain fresh. The extraordinary innovatory momentum was maintained in song technique with the exportation to European courts of the frottola, the strambotto, and, above all, the madrigal, the great sixteenth-century Italian invention with an original combination of poetic text and instrumentation. It would be, along with melodrama, the basis for the shared European musical tradition. The frottola passed from Mantua in the early sixteenth century to the France of Francis I. The Gonzaga were one of the main promoters of Italian musical genres abroad, together with the Farnese, Este, and Medici families, quite often making use of their dynastic ties. The precarious mixture of music and poetry, which would be codified in the Florentine stile recitativo, led to the experimental possibilities of melodrama. More: Le nuove musiche, Giulio Caccini’s collection of monodies, published in Florence in 1601, would enjoy great popularity in foreign courts, partly by virtue of the introduction in which the author clearly described the correct performing techniques of the new genre. The ‘new music’ would be taken to France and perfected by Lully, translated into English in abridged form in the mid-seventeenth century, and (along with sacred music) reached Germany, too. Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (1525–1594) – a leading figure of the Roman school – had a long-lasting European influence, in particular in the development of the counterpoint. Regarding sacred music, the compositions of Palestrina established themselves at Philip II’s court in Madrid, and the pieces by the organist Andrea Gabrieli pervaded the music of Calvinist origin in France and were enthusiastically received at the Lutheran courts in Germany. These interchanges between Italy and Germany would be harbingers of fundamental musical developments and would see an intense interaction and movement of composers from one side of the Alps to the other, its main trait d’union being the Flemish Orlando di Lasso (1532–1594), who spent much time at the courts of Mantua, Rome and Cosimo I de’ Medici, before establishing himself as Kapellmeister with the Dukes of Bavaria. Here, too, the examples could suck us into a bottomless chasm of names

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and experiences of German composers who in ever greater numbers went to Italy to improve their knowledge, or of Italians, like Antonio Scandello, who exported the canons of profane music to the court of Dresden.25 Let us in any case remain in the circle of courts that found in music and in Italian musicians and genres, exactly what they needed to lift up their culture. It was with these aims and through these channels that the complex and dynamic world of Italian music advanced as a platform of a shared culture. By the mid-seventeenth century, Italian musicians were established as unrivaled everywhere. Just one example: the often-mentioned Lulli was a composer, instrumentalist, and dancer at Louis XIV’s court. He was brought to Paris by the chevalier of Guise at just fourteen years old. In Paris, the boy became an Italian conversation partner of Mademoiselle de Montpensier, but, by 1653, he had attracted the attention of Louis XIV (just one year older than him), who appointed him superintendent of the royal music in 1661. His instrumental and vocal compositions for operas and ballets gradually made him indispensable at court. Being both prolific and shrewd, his fortunes continued to grow, and he is also remembered for his association with Molière, which resulted in the new music form of the comédie-ballet. Italian models were essential in this case, too: the primacy of Italian artistic circles and their capacity to turn their products into consumer goods necessary at court and among the European aristocracies. The hectic consumption of Italian music is an integral part of power rhetoric. Italian artists excel at loading their works with political allusions. Ultimately, the protagonist of all entertainments is the sovereign. As in a game of mirrors, he sits in a prominent position in the audience, he is allegorically the focus of the representation, and he – not uncommonly – also plays an active role in the performance. More important than the representation itself is the methodical propaganda inherent to the spectacle. The glory of the ruling house was exalted by entertainments. Texts were related to the situation of the moment, their concepts and meanings were instead grounded on mythological themes, past historical realities, or moral systems in accordance with the spirit of the times. Beyond pure and simple amusement, precisely this political dimension granted celebratory events their actual importance. The understanding of the concepts was thus necessary as a key to gauge the aims of the authors and the true subject of the representation. And here, what to us is obscure and hidden, was, on the contrary, easily accessible to the audience of the time, thanks to their knowledge of the stories, and familiarity with the court and the semantics of the allegories. 25 For an overview on this topic, see Sberlati, L’ambiguo, pp. 247–266.

10. The Forma del Vivere Every piece in the mosaic is part of the overall forma del vivere (‘way of life’). Dance and equestrianism, clothes and table manners, conversation, and everything that comes under the heading of ‘politesse’ and ‘civility’1 belongs to the same general phenomenology. Leaving more general considerations for later, here we shall deal only with the practices and the rich, varied literature that deals with the specific forms of this subject. We have countless manuals, treatises, and instructions which the whole of Europe drew on, and on which it achieved its institutio, in the irreversible process of civilization through the adoption of practices of self-refinement and the creation of common ground for civilized coexistence. But that is not enough. Missing are the texts on the architectural orders, the descriptions of galleries, the numismatic catalogs and texts on poetics, the dictionaries, emblem books, and collections of imprese. Everything, in short, that contributes to defining the material dimension, the forms of performance, decorum, the suitability of spaces, as well as consumption and customs. It was mainly in sixteenthcentury Italy – a land of conquest for foreign powers – that this literature was produced and that set out a style of life that was admired and copied everywhere. The poet Girolamo Baruffaldi was still boasting of this primacy in 1745, writing that the ‘Italians have usually served those, who beyond the mountains have worked for their nations, adopting these good rules that were born and developed in Italy.’2 The ‘cultural models that spread throughout Europe and imposed the “best form” of the Italians’ were ‘developed just at the moment of maximum crisis in the system of the peninsula’s regional states.’ The historiography that, in these circumstances, saw the beginning of the ‘dominion of the great foreign powers’3 is the same as that which has been silent on this fundamental aspect. The years that passed between the edition of the Cortegiano (1528) and the Civil conversazione (1574) were ‘a frenetic phase of production that in the space of one hundred years helped modify European culture.’4 The works were unanimously regarded as the fruit of an exemplary culture. The endless proliferation of texts thus spread and solidified precise, shared social and political practices. In this context, there is no better way of 1 See Etiquette. 2 Quoted in Botteri, ‘I trattati’, p. 441. 3 Quondam, Cavallo, p. 88. 4 Idem, ‘La virtù’, p. 233.

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defining the Cortegiano if not as a great European book, ‘one of the few in the Italian literary tradition that became a strong, stable presence – and deep, above all – in the culture of the society of the ancien régime.’ This ‘classic of European literature’ was not only an absolute bestseller, but its destiny was interwoven ‘inextricably with the history of western culture, was involved, indeed, in constructing its form, its model.’5 Its watchwords cover the entire range of behavior that is the basis of the ‘true art’ of knowing how to live. How and when it circulated and was read are well known, and no text on aristocratic behavior fails to take the Cortegiano into account. Italian treatises on etiquette were decisive in defining social customs and aristocratic civilité. We have already seen how this manual, conceived and set in the tiny Montefeltro estate, was ‘read and adopted in the culture of the European courts as a sure model,’6 and, no less important, dictated codes of sociality on which the European identity would be formed. If the book remained the same, over time, however, its audience changed and – after serving for a gentleman’s self-improvement – it opened ‘la voie d’un universe clos à des hommes qui ne lui apartiennent pas.’7 The long journey of these codes crossed the culture of the ancien régime in place and time. The civilizing process that began in the court passed to the aristocracy and infected the bourgeoisie, reaching the civilité republicaine in revolutionary France, and then becoming politesse.8 In all its variants, the aristocratic ideal, firmly anchored in the discourse on honor and the practice of virtue, constituted the common root of the vir buonus (‘good man’). The Cortegiano was its turning point, was situated at the center and beginning of the process. Its precepts represent both the form and the substance of social distinction and politics, of that specific type of politics whose fulcrum was the court and that obeyed a culture sui generis. Della Casa’s Galateo came soon after Castiglione. We have seen how powerfully it imposed itself on the attention of courtiers and nobles throughout Europe. But its influence was also decisively helped by the fact that the good manners and duties of the good Christian found a meeting point and became part of the teachings in religious schools.9 As early as 1572, the Jesuit Michele Lauretano suggested making della Casa’s rules of ‘civil living’ part of ‘the educational program’ of the Collegio Germanico in Rome. Seven years later, 5 Idem, ‘Introduzione’, p. VIII. 6 Ibid., p. XXXVI. See also Burke, The Fortune. 7 Bury, Littérature, p. 62. 8 Chartier, Letture, pp. 53–59. 9 Botteri, ‘”Buona vita”’, pp. 25–26.

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Orazio Lombardelli, a teacher at the bishop’s seminary of Siena, linked the good customs that ‘belong to the health of the soul’ to the study of those one learns ‘principally in conversing with well-educated people and professors of courtliness.’10 Since 1601, the Galateo had been recommended as a book students ‘of the college of noblemen in Bologna should ensure they brought to the school,’ and similar recommendations were made beyond the Alps for its translations in French, Latin, Czech, German, Spanish, Portuguese, and English.11 With different titles, cuts, and additions in the various languages, the ‘compressed and simplified’ text of della Casa remained valid for at least three centuries as a manual of good behavior. It was ‘always ready to be adapted and adopted’ and constituted the ‘common denominator’ of a ‘culture able to overcome religious barriers and political frontiers.’ A canon of education deriving from Catholic, classicizing, courtly Italy was ‘regarded throughout Europe as the passe-partout of individual presentability and social honorability.’12 That is how the Jesuit Emanuele Tesauro saw it in his Filosofia morale (1634), and in the early eighteenth century the pages of A Gentleman Instructed in the Conduct of a Virtuous and Happy Life by the English Jesuit William Darrell are steeped in the Galateo. The progeny of the treatises on good manners traveled far. Della Casa even reached rustic Scotland with a manuscript by George Pigot of 1697 and was adapted to a ‘plebeian’ audience in the anonymous The Man of Manners or Plebeian Polished (1740), sold for the modest outlay of a shilling.13 The political situation caused a desperate demand for these teachings. The literature of institutio produced by the Italian courts was in the right place at the right time. It offered a whole spectrum of necessary skills, an exhaustive corpus of teachings in the form of exempla, proverbs, or sentences, in manuals or dialogs for the use of courtiers and the gentlemen who had replaced the knight. Now, it was at court that the games of power and prestige were played, and where the aristocracy concentrated on trying to obtain favors and benefices. These were the recipients, the readers, of this literature. The urban patriciate, too, flocked to court in search of ennoblement and – they too –had to show they possessed the requisites to belong to this new elite. The institutio frayed into strands for every type and rank of person and for every kind of behavior. There was one for the 10 Lombardelli, De gli ufizij, p. 29. 11 Botteri, ‘“Buona vita’”, p. 36. 12 Ibid., p. 37. 13 Woodhouse, ‘I manuali’, pp. 289 and 293.

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prince, for the secretary, for the diplomat, for women, and for the captain, and it extended to the dance, to conversation, riding, elegance of dress, and table etiquette, etc. The gradual fragmentation of these manuals also ended up providing instructions for every rank and duty of the courtier: masters of the house, chamberlains, pages, etc. It was a corpus of rules that – emerging from and practiced by the Italian courts – provided models to follow to improve one’s conduct. It was a necessary, understandable tool for learning everything needed to cut a good figure in society. It endowed the ancien régime with the categories it needed to tangibly mark out the confines between the different social orders. Grazia specifically consisted in many arts and facets. Conversation was one of the most important. Despite what is often asserted, conversation, with its linguistic implications and its intersecting with discourse on the gentleman, did not derive from the experience of the Grand siècle, but it, too, was an Italian model.14 The book by Stefano Guazzo (1574) was the first ‘modern’ work wholly given over to this subject. It, too, ‘began its long journey into European societies of the ancien régime’; societies for which status was fundamental and – therefore, claims Guazzo – ‘everyone should learn the form of conversing proper to his state.’15 Conversation was not only an aspect of high society, and concerned more than mere pleasantries, but its pertinence ‘was at once ethical […] and economic.’ It became a ‘constituent, elementary part of a whole culture.’16 In this sense, perfect conversation, like friendship – as discussed by della Casa in his Trattato degli uffici comuni tra gli amici superiori e inferiori (1564) –is only possible between two equals. In the end, it requires the participation of a gentleman, and so this is the figure the treaty addresses. Guazzo claims it is ‘necessary to the perfection’ of a gentleman and defines himself as such on the title page. Following the Italian lead, again, in his Discourse on Civill Life (1606) Lodovick Bryskett notes that his aim is ‘to frame a gentleman fit for civil conversation.’17 Conversation is one of the fundamental characteristics of European sociability. It is at the heart of practices of the way of life: knowing how to converse is equivalent to ‘knowing how to live.’ Equally, its roots grow out of classicism, and this directs us toward the Italians, as the mediators with the ancients were the humanists. They were responsible for these codifications of modern forms taken from Horace, Cicero, and Quintilian, just as Italians 14 15 16 17

This thesis is amply debated in Quondam, La conversazione. Quondam, ‘Introduzione’, p. XXIX. Ibid., pp. X and XXXI. Quoted in Lievsay, ‘Stefano Guazzo’, p. 213

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were the first recipients. Emulating them, then, corresponds, in this sense, to ‘going back to the common, shared origin of European cultural history.’18 Discussing conversation also means bringing to light the deep webs of sociability, identifying the grammar of civilized behavior, and revealing the codes of the European cultural identity. In this regard, the books of institutio were a ‘totality of texts organized into a system of active values in a thick web of ritual practices which are assigned the primary function of producing, preserving and transmitting a social group’s very identity, its cultural form.’19 As such, they were one of the pillars of European cultural typology. A gentleman should also be an experienced horseman. Italian courts in general, and the Neapolitan school of the sixteenth century in particular, were the absolute protagonists in the new art of horse riding and in teaching it to European aristocrats. Famous for their skills and manners, many Italian riding masters ‘were sought out by European’ courts.20 Besides the martial use of its techniques, horse riding was closely related to the birth of the courtier profile. Il cavallerizzo (1573) by Massario Malatesta, and, even more, Federico Grisone’s Gli ordini di cavalcare are its founding fathers.21 Grisone’s treatise – the first book on horsemanship published since the time of Xenophon – became an immediate bestseller; between 1550 and 1623, it was reprinted 21 times in Italian, and there were fifteen translations into French, seven in German, six in English, and one in Spanish. The true measure of its success, however, is given by the works that it would inspire in most European courts. Among others, it was taken up by Christopher Clifford in The School of Horsemanship (1585) and, previously, by Thomas Blundeville in The Four Chiefest Offices belonging to Horsemanship (1570).22 Ten years after Grisone’s manual, Blundeville published a translation as The Art of Riding and another The Art of Riding was printed by John Ashley in 1584. In the latter, the author openly acknowledges his debt to both Xenophon and Grisone. The year 1584 also saw a translation and adaptation of Claudio Corte’s Il cavallerizzo (1562). Grisone created a riding school in Naples in 1535 and became the founder and undisputed master of this art. His followers spread his teaching in France, and Gian Pietro Publiano did the same at the court of Vienna. 18 Quondam, La conversazione, p. xii. 19 Idem, ‘La virtù’, p. 237. 20 Tomassini, The Italian, p 5. 21 See Grisone, Gli ordini. 22 Domenichelli, Cavaliere, p. 214.

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In Northern Italy, counterparts of the Neapolitan school were established in Padua, Ferrara, and Mantua. The Ferrara one was founded by Cesare Fiaschi and flourished from about 1534 to 1580. Inspired by ancient literature, in 1556, Fiaschi published a Trattato dell’imbrigliare, atteggiare, & ferrare cavalli. The text went through multiple editions and translations. For Fiaschi, like for his contemporary Grisone, the equestrian art had an explicit social connotation and must conform to the ideal of grazia that governed the attitude of the gentleman. The two authors were the founders of Italian Renaissance horsemanship and were at the origin of the European aristocratic art of riding. A pupil of Fiaschi, Giovanni Battista Pignatelli, ‘was a pivotal figure in the history of equitation, a teacher of the nobility from all over Europe.’ In turn, Pignatelli disciples – La Broue and Pluvinel – brought the ‘Italian equestrian style to France,’ writing manuals and leading la Grande Ecurie du Roi.23 It is revealing of its scope that the school founded in Paris by Pluvinel included in its curriculum the teaching of poetry, dancing, music and painting, and that it inspired – now two generations after the Italian maestri – the Duke of Newcastle, who expanded the propagandistic type of the king on horseback. The art of arms – a form of gallantry – also solidified in treatises throughout Europe. Starting in the late fourteenth century, on the battlefields the use of the sword started giving way to firearms. At the same time, swordsmanship evolved into an activity of the gentleman and not of the cavalier. Castiglione himself explicitly noted that the courtier’s practice was first and foremost that of the arms. Like dance or conversation, duel and fencing thus entered the realm covered by the manners’ Decalogue. Theoretical treatises on swordsmanship already existed in the fifteenth century. However, by absorbing it into his book, Castiglione transformed it into an ‘art’, and regulated it as an aspect of grazia. Many texts categorizing the discipline as a duty of the well-bred man followed in Castiglione’s wake. Only three years after the publication of The Courtier, the Bolognese Antonio Manciolino gave to the press his Opera Nova where arms and letters, swordsmanship and sprezzatura, are already combined. ‘I will teach you how to enter the play’ – writes Manciolino – ‘so that fencers may not only be skilled in the offence and the defense but may also embellish their actions through graceful motions of the body.’24 Martial arts developed into a composite field in themselves that ended up including fencing, dueling,

23 Glorious Horsemen, p. 41. 24 The Complete, p. 95.

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equitation, wrestling, and jousting. Schools were also created at Italian courts and maestri started writing profusely and traveling extensively abroad. Other examples are works like Antonio Brucioli’s Dialogo del capitano (1526), and Il duello (1550), translated into French in 1561, and the later Il gentiluomo (1571) both by Girolano Muzio, which became part of a nobleman’s essential education. Camillo Agrippa’s Trattato di scienza d’arme (1553) was ‘reprinted in many languages’ for more than a century, becoming a necessary companion of any European gentleman. We might also cite Giacomo Grassi’s work on the Ragione di adoperar sicuramente l’arme (1570). The use of arms was separate from the field of war and became part of the courtier’s training. The change from knight to gentleman becomes particularly clear in this sector. Handling a sword was not done with violent intentions, but to display grazia. At the table, too, there was a new etiquette to be learnt, which imposed the use of new objects. Good manners took up much space in della Casa’s Galateo, and there are various treatises on the table that provide training for various categories of people and on the appropriateness of its staging. There was a propriety in eating, an etiquette by which one could show one’s savoir-vivre, and there was an aesthetic of the table.25 Preparing the table and knowing how to behave at table became constituent elements of the performance of power on the model of the Italian courts. There was a famous treatise by Christoforo di Messisbugo, master of ceremonies at the court of Alfonso I and at his son’s Ercole II d’Este from 1524 to 1548, on Banchetti, composizione di vivande e apparecchio generale (1549). The book, which discusses princely banquets, menus, recipes, and décor became a European milestone and was republished in many editions. His fame as an organizer of banquets earned him the title of Count Palatine conferred on him by Charles V in 1533. Many other printed cookbooks and treatises on table setting and manners were generated within the court, starting in the sixteenth century. What Elias describes for Versailles is an important sociological reading of ceremonial, but wrongly attributes Louis XIV’s court with developing rules that had come from the fifteenth-century Italian courts, later codified in treatises the following century. Elias also discusses the knife and fork,26 but other objects and ornaments are part of this elaborate ceremonial: the tablecloth, the napkins, the sugar and marzipan statues, the gold and silver salt cellars, the porcelain, the glass bowls for washing one’s hands, etc. Il 25 See Convivialité. 26 See Elias, The Court, ch. IV.

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Trattato sul modo di piegare ogni sorta di panni by Mattia Giegher (Mathias Jäger) appeared in Italy in 1629, and was only later translated and extended in German. In it, the technique of napkin folding developed at the courts of Northern Italy became a codified element of court banquets. As well as the decorative function, these so-called triumphs of the table also had a convivial role, as the diners were called on to guess the symbolism of the figures and initiate a conversation on it. Starched and folded in the most varied forms – birds, buildings, flowers – the napkin added something new to the exuberant ornamentation of the table to be marveled at. This ‘symbol of the feast’ marked out the different moments of the banquet with performances designed to entertain the guests in the pauses of the meal – ballet, dance, music (tafelmusik).27 And that the banquet was a festive spectacle is confirmed by the presence of an audience, sometimes paying, others invited, but always selected. The banquet constituted a ‘field of ideal experimentation because all the theatrical “genres” could figure in it.’28 Like any spectacle, the banquet, too, was stage-managed, and this was the work of the maestro di casa. Under him, an efficient aristocratic team ensured that everything followed the rules of refinement. The trinciante cut the meat on a small table before the diners, the scalco divided it into portions and placed the food on the table, and the coppiere oversaw the drinks. For each of these tasks there was a specialized manual. The list would again be long, from Eustachio Celebrino’s Opera nuova che insegna apparecchiare una mensa […] (1527) to Il Trinciante (1581) by Vincenzo Cervio, which was often reprinted in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It was a didactic treatise on the ‘elegant’ way of cutting meat, fish, birds, and fruit at the prince’s table, but also traces the guidelines of the guest at the theatrical moment. Cervio served at the court of Guidobaldo II da Montefeltro, from which he moved to that ‘of Cardinal Farnese, with whom he traveled in Europe,’ thus being able to share his art with the courts of France, Spain, the Low Countries, and Germany.29 The trinciante, too, had to be a gentleman, and had to follow the rules of grazia in dress and movement. As for the scalco, we learn how he decorated the dishes and poured the wine, how he folded the napkins, and – above all – about the ceremonial of the sovereign’s meal.30 All the court roles, particularly those who served the prince most closely, were subject to minute rules so that everyone took care of his dress, 27 28 29 30

Garbero Zorzi, ‘Cerimoniale’, pp. 76–78. Ibid., p. 82. Ricci, ‘Stare al segno, p. 76. See Acanfora, ‘La tavola’, pp. 53–66.

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personal hygiene, composure, and knowledge of the protocol to maintain decorum and respect the rank of those participating.

10a Dance Our rhapsodic overview of the composite realm of forma del vivere continues with a closer look at two more aspects of the system of rules: dance and dress. We will start with the dance, not because it is less studied, but because it is less frequently associated with canons of courtly living, and, so, also to give an idea of the latitude of the term. Dance is not the ballet, but only the trunk from which the latter developed, and with which it has much in common and is often confused. It is likely that the court began to attract the popular forms of dance in the early fourteenth century, and here they encountered their aristocratic variants. This, too, indicates the non-polarity between civic/republican and aristocratic/court culture. Once again, the court was the place in which these expressions are regulated. In this case, it repurposed the dance within its own codes and, so, manufactured another piece of that form that marks it and which every sovereign wanted (had to) appropriate. Courtly codification of the dance had already started in the fifteenth century, and there were three prominent figures in the process: Domenico da Piacenza, Guglielmo Ebreo da Pesaro, and Antonio Cornazano. All three were dancing masters at court (Milan, Urbino, and Ferrara), and so courtiers themselves.31 Domenico was the first to give artistic dignity to the dance, and the other two would follow in his wake. Each of them takes up ideas from the classics. The notion of measure guided by the principle of the golden mean derives from Aristotle’s Ethics; and the silent grammar of gesture from Cicero’s De oratore and Quintilian’s Institutio oratoria. The authors take these categories either directly from the Latin and Greek texts, or from their humanist filtrations in the works of Palmieri, Piccolomini, and Bruni. Dance, after all, was part of the humanist’s educational curriculum, just as the ‘belief that a person’s character’ was revealed by gestures was widespread among the humanists.32 Dance was an intrinsic part of the social practices of the cultural elite. ‘Dancing, self-fashioning and civility were closely interrelated.’ In addition, 31 The first wrote the treatise De la arte di ballare et danzare (1440/50), the second De pratica seu arte tripudii opusculum incipit (1463), and the third the Libro dell’arte del danzare (1465). 32 Nevile, The Eloquent, p. 87.

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this domain was regulated by Italian court models that ‘soon spread all over Europe through the bodies of dancing masters and courtiers.’33 Italian dancing masters not only helped spread choreographies and dance steps, but also aesthetic values that standardized the social eloquence of the body. Decorum in deportment was part of humanist and Jesuit pedagogy, which educated ‘the fashionable and cosmopolitan sons of Europe’s elite.’34 As such, the dance was a civilizing tool. Above all, it had the ability to inspire ethical behavior. Gugliemo states it explicitly: ‘This virtue of the dance is none other than an external action reflecting interior spiritual movements.’35 There is, then, a concinnitas (‘harmony’) of the dance, since it teaches us to control our movements. The dance is suited to the nobleman, but also – at the same time – it helps cultivate virtue and, thus, acquire distinction, whether individual or group. ‘The rules and postural codes of courtly dance were part of the mechanisms by which the court made itself appear superior and inaccessible to the rest of the society.’36 All three authors anticipated in this sense both Castiglione’s terminology and his concepts. Already in the fifteenth century, dancing was widespread at the court of Urbino, where Guglielmo Ebreo entered the service of Federico da Montefeltro, in 1473, and where his son, Pierpaolo, served as dancing master. In their lexicon, we already find the word grazia and they were already thinking in terms of sprezzatura when they advised against forzatura (‘abruptness’) in movements. In this case, Castiglione was taking up a pre-existing subject and including it in the behavior of his regula universalissima (‘universal rule’). These are his words: ‘Similarly in dancing, a single step, a single unforced and graceful movement of the body, at once demonstrates the skill of the dancer. […] Our courtier, therefore, will be judged to be perfect and will show grace in everything […] if he shuns affectation.’37 After metabolizing it in his discourse, Castiglione handed back the dance, elevated ethically and still more closely connected with the court, to sixteenth- and seventeenth-century treatises, which would later spread from Italy throughout Europe. We can feel Castiglione’s influence below the surface throughout the French treatises from the late sixteenth century on. His rules were still unescapable reference points a hundred years after 33 Nordera, ‘The Exchange’, pp. 311 and 325. 34 Ibid., p. 319. 35 Translation from Nevile, The Eloquent, p. 91. 36 Ibid., p. 45. 37 Castiglione, The Book, p. 70.

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his book, when, in his Apologie de la danse (1623) François de Lauze recommended ‘une certaine negligence’ in movements.38 There were, therefore, frequent instructions in the later manuals ‘on the posture’ to maintain ‘in different figures of the dance,’ and the dance could also teach ‘“good manners” and the rules of civil behavior.’39 Dance was one of the many versions of (self)discipline, which sought to regulate the gestures with which the gentlemen give proof of their adroitness, as a sign of superior virtue and condition. ‘Dancing taught people control over their bodies and over all their actions.’40 The precepts on dance, therefore, included how to walk, how to sit, how to bow, and – above all – the harmony in deportment itself. Like riding, singing, or table etiquette, the dance transforms the body into a mirror of knowing how to be in society. It is no accident that dancing, fencing, and dress often meet in the teachings of the treatises, and it speaks volumes that the dancing masters were usually fencing instructors, too. They are all doctrines for perfecting the individual to look well in public and they all regard the body, just as conversation regards words. They start from the individual as raw material and make of him an elegant person. Dance has every right to be considered part of the dictionary of the ‘arts’ required for life in court. There were endless dance manuals that elaborate this integration in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Italy. Filippo de gli Alessandri wrote the Discorso sopra il ballo (1620), whose subtitle reads eloquently: ‘The good manners necessary for a gentleman, & a gentlewoman.’ The text is a cut-and-paste of the previous Dialogo del Ballo (1555) by Rinaldo Corso, set in the small court of Correggio in the Po Valley. 41 The year 1581 saw the publication of Il Ballarino by the famous dancing master Fabrizio Caroso, also author of the later Nobiltà di dame (1600), dedicated to Ranuccio I Farnese, Duke of Parma and Piacenza. In it we read that through the dance ‘one may learn the noble movements of the person’ since ‘it is essential to one of good breeding.’42 The ghost of Castiglione hovers everywhere in its pages, in its invoking of the classics or its seeing the dance as an aspect of good manners, or in its insistence on grazia. The word recurs dozens of times in the text, and each time the reader is assumed to have memorized the meaning, and so no more than a hint is needed for him to be able to put it into practice. In the 38 Quoted in McGowan, Dance, p. 23. 39 Venturelli, Vestire, p. 18. 40 Nevile, The Eloquent, p. 45. 41 Arcangeli, ‘Discorrere’, p. 48. 42 Here we use Caroso, Courtly Dance, p. 87.

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dedication we read that ‘dance conjoins grace, beauty, and decorum in the eyes of the beholder,’ and again, in the part of the dialog between disciple and master – a genuine abacus of good manners, divided into 66 ‘rules’ – we find that one’s posture should ‘appear attractive and gracious,’ that during the obeisance one should ‘gracefully bend the knee,’ that moderation ‘contains all the grace and decorum,’ and that one should stand straight, sit and turn ‘gracefully.’ One should display such nonchalance in everything ‘that the observers comprehend the measure of the artistry involved’43 – this is sprezzatura. And, as if that were not enough, the note on how to avoid affectation is taken from a passage in the Galateo on ‘empty, delicate & superfluous ceremonies.’44 Caroso’s work was to circulate widely in various foreign editions, just like many of the Italian dancing masters called to the European courts. Through dynastic ties, Italian dancing had penetrated various foreign courts as early as the fifteenth century: the marriage of Bianca Maria Sforza offered the German guests the opportunity to dance with Milanese courtiers, and when Margaret of Bavaria, wife of Federico Gonzaga, paid her brother an official visit in Germany in 1463, she took with her not only her musicians and singers but also her ‘dancers trained in the Italian style, all of them well-ordered and well-dressed.’45 But it was in the following century that the figure of the dancing master came fully into his own. In Philip IV’s Spain the rules of the Italian treatises were still being followed. 46 Competing with the French models formed under the Valois, the Italian courts would continue to dominate the realm of the dance until the end of the seventeenth century. The first dancing school was opened in Milan in 1545. One of its students was Cesare Negri, author of Le Gratie d’Amore (1602), perhaps the most famous treatise on the theory of ballet dedicated to Philip III of Habsburg. Negri was born in Milan, where he studied dance with Pompeo Diobono, who left him his Academy. Here, Negri’s pupils included numerous princes of the day – Gonzaga, Medici, Este – and he trained many masters who were later active in various cities of Italy and Europe. He was in France several times from 1560 to 1587, in the service of the Valois. Negri was also the choreographer of the imperial court and the new Italian style, of which he was one of the greatest exponents, spread to the main European courts, making many proselytes. This is borne out by the Spanish translation of 43 44 45 46

Ibid., p. 111. Ibid., p. 140. Nordera, ‘Dance Cultures’, pp. 321–322. See Brainard, ‘The Role’, pp. 21–44.

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Le Gratie d’Amore in 1630 and his clear influence on later works, like the Maestro da ballo by Ercole Santucci (1614). Italian court dance models ‘soon spread all over Europe through the bodies of dancing masters,’ courtiers and manuals, 47 and, until the late seventeenth century, whenever dancing was mentioned, one spoke of stile italiano. ‘Italian dancing masters, like other artists and musicians, were attached to courts all over Europe’ and the manuals of Caroso and Negri ‘are to be found in the royal libraries of England.’48 Moreover, in his treatise Negri provides some useful information on fifty or so colleagues and pupils scattered with the highest honors and rewards through many European courts. 49 Five of them were in France, one at the court of Charles V (and then of Philip II), two in Flanders, one at the court of Poland, one taught Rudolf II’s sons in Prague, and one moved to Lorraine.50 Pompeo Diobono, the founder of the school Negri inherited, went to Paris, in 1554, where Henry II put him in charge of the education of his second son Charles, Duke of Orléans. At court he had a double stipend as a dancer and a valet, keeping his position for thirty years until the king’s death in 1589. His fame continued to grow under the next two sovereigns, from whom he obtained a pension of 1,000 francs, as well as honors and rich gifts. The instruction of the children of the nobility ‘received from the maestri di ballo was extremely important socially and ethically,’ as it ‘trained them in the patterns of behaviour and deportment essential for membership in the social elite.’51 Under James I, the dance was described in terms of Italian humanism in Thomas Elyot’s The Boke Named the Governour (1531), the first educational English treatise of statesmen. ‘Embedded in this vast discourse on civil, military and political virtues are half a dozen chapters devoted to dance’ that becomes ‘the medium through which ethical matters are directed toward practical political ends.’52 We mentioned that, after the late sixteenth century, Italy shared the supremacy in the area of dance and choreographic spectacles with France. However, the codification of the art started in Italy and was very much transplanted to France, where it evolved in new directions. Though studies have concentrated on reconstructing the choreographies rather than on the textual influences, we know that the Italian treatises (a dozen in all) 47 Nordera, ‘The Exchange’, p. 310. 48 Caroso, Courtly Dance, p. 2. 49 See Negri, Le Gratie, pp. 2–6. 50 Nordera, ‘The Exchange’, pp. 315–317. 51 Nevile, The Eloquent, p. 2. 52 McGowan, Dance, p. 55. See also Elyot, The Boke.

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had a profound influence in France. As in the case of architecture or opera, France quickly assimilated the Italian models, but was also the country that reworked them most intentionally. The French passion for Italian dancing began with Charles VIII: the fact that the king danced till dawn during his short visit to Siena caused a sensation, and – after him – in 1499, Louis XII brought back to France the manuscript of Guglielmo Ebreo’s treatise. But it was, above all, the spectacular career of Baldassarre di Belgioioso (in France since 1555) who illustrates how Italian dance was indispensable at court. Belgioioso was also in the household of Mary Queen of Scots and his services were requested by the Parisian bourgeoisie. In 1566, he entered the court of Charles IX, from whom he received a regular stipend. ‘Soon he became a property owner,’ partly from his position as the king’s valet de chambre, and acquired ‘a set of buildings with a garden, adjoining the Louvre.’53 At court, he was also ‘superintendent of music’ and Brantôme described him as ‘the finest violin in Christendom.’54 Negri’s pupils taught Henry II and Henry III to dance. For the period of Henry III (1574–1589), ‘[t]he size of the influx of Italians has been calculated: it shows an even balance of Italian and French performers for instrument players (47 per cent Italian), and a startling preponderance both of Italian violinists (76 per cent) and of professional dancers (100 per cent).’55 The fashion for dance in France continued with Marie de’ Medici, and Mazarin used set designers sent by the Duke of Parma to stage ballets de court in the king’s honor. Our analysis could extend to other countries, and everywhere we would find Italian texts, choreographies, and masters. We know its role for the Iberian monarchies and the princely courts of the Empire. The Savoy minister Filippo Aglié was an admired choreographer at many European courts, and Negri invented the ‘torch dance’ for the marriage of Isabella of Spain and Archduke Albert, celebrated in Munich in 1568. Italian dance was rooted in Dresden, and both learning its movements and participating in its staging was central to the entertainment and imagination of both the Habsburg and Nordic courts. Everywhere, the dance – which then grew into sumptuous ballets and pantomimes – became a powerful vehicle for expressing the theory of absolutism and for codifying social taxonomy, and was without fail part of the schedules for dynastic solemnities. 53 McGowan, Dance, p. 21. 54 Cit. in Braudel, Out of Italy, p. 103. 55 McGowan, Dance, p. 12.

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10b Clothes In dress, too, the Italy of the courts elaborated the terms of social distinction that Europe would make its own by reading texts, buying materials and clothes, and conforming to the rules of propriety.56 To understand the function and significance of clothing we may start once again with Castiglione, who recommended that the ‘courtier in all his clothes should have a certain conformity with modest elegance.’57 ‘Regulating’ dress was most obviously a matter of choosing the middle way as a canon of perfection; the ‘best form’ was to be found in the axiom of the ‘golden mean.’58 ‘Vicious extreme’ was thus someone who dressed extravagantly and showily. Excessive elegance (‘preciosity’) was reprehensible as it fell into that affectation that was the antithesis of sprezzatura. In addition, awkwardness in dress ‘contravened the pleasing simplicity that is so welcome to the human spirit.’59 Courteousness, therefore, included dress in its relation with the body – in the sense of the elegance with which something is worn and not for the material value of the clothing. When Francesco Patrizi claimed, in the mid-sixteenth century that ‘one notices grace mainly in the sweet, elegant movements of the body,’60 he was certainly thinking of Castiglione and dress. An analogy by della Casa also expresses the idea well: just as ‘no victuals, however healthy and wholesome, would please the guests if they had no taste or a bad taste,’ so ‘are sometimes people’s clothes […] if others do not season them with such sweetness, which, as I think, is called grace and elegance.’61 The basic rule on how to ‘regulate’ one’s dress consisted – in the words of Federico Fregoso in the Cortegiano – in ‘fitting in’ with the ‘custom of the majority.’62 And as the ability to conform to the ‘proprieties’ is a sign of nobility, dress was fully part of the codes by which the nobleman constructed his identity. Dress, ‘walking, laughing, looking,’ all that is ‘outside often gives information about the inside.’63 Castiglione advises the Courtier to ‘think about how he wishes to appear, and dress in a way which corresponds with the impression of himself he wishes to give, and see that his clothes help him to do so, even to people who cannot hear him speak or see him do 56 See Fantoni, ‘Le corti’, pp. 737–765. 57 Castiglione, The Book, p. 160. 58 Ibid., p. 159. 59 Ibid., p. 62. 60 Patrizi, Discorsi, p. 22. 61 Della Casa, Galateo, p. 126. 62 Castiglione, The Book, p. 157. 63 Ibid., p. 161.

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something.’64 Dress is a pedagogical tool of restraint and there is a different attire and conduct for every activity: for hunting, for riding, for worship, for dancing, etc. To maintain a graceful deportment, in dancing the gentleman is advised that ‘it is better, then, to wear gloves that are fairly loose rather than too tight’ as it has happened that ‘on trying to remove them with the teeth’ a gentleman had ‘one finger of the glove left in his mouth, while all in attendance at the party laughed at his behaviour.’65 But appearance and essence are the same thing. What is under discussion is not so much dress as the behavioral precepts connected to it: clothing is the means for polishing a gentleman. As such, it is a consubstantial element, not an accessory, of the civilizing process. This was also the logic of the increase in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries of the lists of costumes, in which every kind of person or people is identified by a precise type of clothing.66 The classification included the ancients and the moderns, all social degrees (from peasant to prince), priests and laity, men and women. They were samples that provided a precise semantics ‘of dress as a key for a socio-political reading of the human condition.’67 As regards the treatises, a leading role was played by Venice, where, from 1525 to the end of the century, at least 100 of the 140-odd books of known models were printed. In 1590, Cesare Vecellio’s (cousin of the more famous Titian) was, from this point of view, a genuine encyclopedia, which defined the relation between costumes and human types. This work and others were easy to consult, catalogues similar to and complementing the collections of lives and portraits, or the compilations of emblems and imprese, texts to consult alongside treatises on good manners and on the court. In the books of costumes, the emphasis was on clothes as an extension of the body. Body, dress, and movement constituted one inseparable whole. Dress, then, was a way of legitimating the highly elaborate hierarchy of the society of the ancien régime, a society ‘defined by orders and classes’ and that ‘ill tolerated the economy-driven simplifications of the last two centuries.’68 The dream of harmony in aristocratic society was made real through an all-embracing system of rules. The equation between dress, behavior, and the social condition of the person wearing the clothes defined 64 Castiglione, Il Cortegiano, book II, ch. 27. 65 Caroso, Courtly Dance, p. 135. 66 See Vecellio, Degli Habiti. 67 Buttazzi, ‘Repertori’, p. 7. 68 Mozzarelli, ‘Aristocrazia’, vol. IV, p. 330.

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an ethically based social nomenclature. The type of clothes and ‘grace’ in wearing them were not, therefore, expressions of a ‘civilization of appearances’ based on futile external shows. We are rather in the presence of works inspired by the principle of mimesis, by which the adoption of an item of clothing (habitus) expressed moral prerogatives. Once again, della Casa confirms this when he writes that being ‘well-bred and pleasing and with good manners’ constitutes ‘either virtue or something very similar to virtue.’69 This eliminated any dissimulation: it was not possible to seem to be what one is not as we are what our virtue enables us to seem. It was this external ‘coating’ that discharged the function of defining human nature, understood as the intimate essence of each individual according to his condition. Saba da Castiglione explains this subtly in his Ricordi (1554): ‘just as we know trees by their leaves and grass by its fronds: so clothes and dress demonstrate and display what the people of the world are.’70 Read in this key, the sumptuary laws themselves do not aim only to restrain luxury or discipline the social body, but are intended to prevent prerogatives of status being usurped and to establish certain criteria on which to base the distinction. Luxury consumption, on the contrary, constitutes a necessary adaptation to customs by which honor is defined. In addition, ‘not only do they want to be dressed in fine clothes’ – della Casa claims this time – ‘but men should try to follow as closely as possible the dress of other citizens’ and should not ‘resist common usage’, but rather ‘support it normally.’71 They should shun anti-conformism and apply Aristotelian mediocritas (‘moderation’). The recommendation that each item of clothing should be ‘fit your person and look well on you, so that you do not seem to be wearing another’s clothes, and above all it should all be suited to your condition,’72 is that of a society designed for codified rules. Again, in a civilized society, ‘each should go well dress according to his condition and his age, as otherwise he would seem to despise people.’73 The dirty and the clean were social categories, too. The cleanliness of garments in this sense a manifestation of hygiene, which is an indicator of prestige. The conventions of the time placed the emphasis on the ‘whiteness of underwear, the neatness of clothing, the cleanliness of the face and hands, the powdering of wigs, the abundance of perfumes and rouge.’74 Underwear 69 Della Casa, Galateo, p. 58. 70 Saba Da Castiglione, Ricordi, p.106v. The book went through 25 editions before 1613. 71 Della Casa, Galateo, p. 69. 72 Ibid., p. 128. 73 Ibid., p. 69. 74 Roche, Il linguaggio, p. 175.

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cleaned the body and was also a sign of wealth and good manners. Before getting round to books on medicine, bodily hygiene, and clean clothes were material for writers on la civilité. In the early eighteenth century, following the suggestions of the books of etiquette, Paris thus learnt not ‘to blow one’s nose’75 using one’s fingers, but a handkerchief, the possession of which was flaunted, as well as its whiteness, and the ease with which it was used was an expression of politesse. The discussion of clothing was an essential part of the development of cultural models. It was a way of being, by means of which distinction was legitimized, which – in turn – had an ethical value and root. Dress and good manners constitute, in this sense, variations of that regula universalissima that transcends geographical, political, and religious confines. Dress became fully part of the grammar of behavior that, once solidified in the cosmos of the Italian courts, was taken up in the sixteenth century as a model by the European nobility, and – later – by the patrician class. Just one citation on this last aspect – of Tomàs de Trujillo of the Order of Preachers in 1610, who denounced ‘pomp’ as an excess now no longer ‘only common to the Courts of Princes, and of the great,’ as it had ‘in these calamitous times of ours passed not only to the nobles and to the citizens, but to the artisans, and persons of every lowest office.’76 In books of court and etiquette, clothes perform a fundamental function in the elaborate repertoire of codes that defined (and had to be) the prerogative of a gentleman. The catalogs of clothes were on the same shelf as treatises on honor and good manners: they were books of institutio designed for the nobleman. Since one acquired nobility through constant practice, rules, and maxims ended up constituting a corpus of commonplaces for the use of readers. Within this argument, della Casa therefore recommended ‘well-bred persons’ to “take care […] in moving, in standing, in sitting, in acts, in deportment and in dress and in speech and in silence and in rest and in work.’77 In this field, too, the authority of the ancients was beyond dispute. Rome, Vecellio began, had primacy as ‘head of the world.’78 It was no accident that the antiquarian interests of Pirro Ligorio resulted in a manuscript in the 1560s, which – following Pliny, Livy, and Cicero – ‘discusses some varieties of dress of kings and Roman magistrates, private citizens, and other customs of 75 Ibid., p. 175. 76 Trugillo, Delle pompe, p. 27. 77 Della Casa, Galateo, p. 127. 78 Vecellio, Degli Habiti, p. 7r.

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various peoples.’79 Many would follow the path laid out by Ligorio, and this opens a huge chapter of portraiture, in which the dress is fixed as an icon, translating its semantics into iconographic stereotypes. In the chapter On clothing in his Pittura sacra (1624), Cardinal Federico Borromeo claims that ‘it is best to avail oneself of garments that are made for the person who uses them.’80 The norms regarding clothes spill over into the rules of orthodoxy. Images should conform with the rules of classical propriety, but – at the same time – should accord with Catholic morality. Thus, it is not enough to avoid the blasphemous incongruity of dressing ‘the saints in the clothes of gentility,’ but one should take the greatest care in choosing ‘those clothes that were proper to their state, and age, and most proportionate to the mystery they seek to express.’81 Breaches of decorum become acts of irreverence toward the sacred. Excess ornamentation and affected dress are to be condemned partly as ‘vainglory, which comes from pride proceeding from vanity.’82 In Christian society, ‘benignly founded on inequality,’ fashion openly underpinned the idea of civilité.83 In his Tropotipo, cioè a dire norma de costumi, published in Brescia in 1591, the writer Antonio Cella claims that, ‘[d]ressing above one’s condition; to make claims above one’s merits; contest primacy among others; is not only a political vice; but is absurd folly, and diabolical abomination.’84 The ‘good Christian,’ Saba da Castiglione had already ruled, appealing to Seneca, ‘should equally flee excess cleanliness, and excess filth.’85 The relation between care of the soul and of the body is married to manners in condemning preciosity of dress. The more one seeks to please men, the more one ends up displeasing God. Thus, the customary counsel, ‘let your garments be such, then, that they may bear witness of your virtue,’ Trujillo followed with ‘and of your solemnity, and Christian modesty; nor let diligence to adorn the body be such that the soul rests unadorned.’86 It was this very mix of classicism and Christianity that made the debate on dress pass unscathed through the Tridentine fracture, to be conveyed, without substantial variations, to the following centuries and – consequently – to the whole of Europe. Let us return, then, to the role of the courts in the 79 On Ligorio’s manuscript, see Cosmo, ‘Pirro Ligorio’, pp. 21–30. 80 Borromeo, Della pittura, pp. 26–27. 81 Idem, Delle vestimenta, p. 26. 82 Della Casa, Galateo, p. 82. 83 Roche, Il linguaggio, p. 55. 84 Cella, Tropotipo, p. 59. 85 Da Castiglione, Ricordi, p. 5r. 86 Trugillo, Delle pompe, p. 3.

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international circulation of the manners concerning dress, a field in which Italian primacy seemed unchallengeable. The texts dealing with dress and its etiquette gave force to shared, intercommunicating social models. As regards elegance, it may be worth starting from the famous episode of Francis I of France – we are in November 1515 – who insistently asked Isabella d’Este, through her son Federico Gonzaga, for ‘a doll dressed in blouse, sleeves, upper and lower clothes and the ornaments and styling of the head and the hair […] as His Majesty intends to have some of those garments made to give to French ladies.’87 And when, two years later, Isabella visited France, the apologetic tone of Giovanni Mussi, who accompanied her on her journey, was proof of the ‘wonder’ that the mere passage of ‘the fashion of Madame and her ladies’ could arouse. Equally revealing was Anne of Brittany’s fear of not being able to ‘compare with the Italian ladies’ on her journey to Italy in 1510, as – she mentioned in a letter – the Queen of France ‘considered the least of you superior to her’ in elegance.88 The style of dress in the Italian courts was welcomed in France and from there later returned to Italy. How long did this primacy last? One symptom of its resistance was certainly Catherine de’ Medici’s imposing the Italian line on Henry II’s court. Equally, as one interpretation suggests, the aim of the famous Libro del sarto (a Milanese manuscript dating from the mid-sixteenth century) was to formulate a language of dress and ceremony that was both European and imperial.89 In the sixteenth century, the taste for precious textiles came from Italy and gradually replaced expensive furs. Influence on fashion happened primarily at court, through traveling, diplomacy, and exchange of portraits. ‘Francis I ordered his ‘clothing, accessories and textiles from Milanese, Venetian and Florentine merchants.’90 Milan was certainly an important fashion emporium. As Giovanni Battista Rizzo writes, in 1590, the city was still playing the role of ‘inventor of the splendor and use of dress which it does with such richness and beauty and elegance that other cities seem to learn all these things from her.’91 The f igures on the exportation of yarns of silk in the late sixteenth century seem to contradict the theory of deindustrialization in the State of Milan under Spanish rule, particularly as regards luxury goods – some of the most 87 88 89 90 91

Luzio and Renier, ‘Il lusso’, p. 466. Ibid., pp. 466 and 467. See Mottola Molfino, ‘Introduction’, pp. 13 ff. Paresys, ‘The Dressed’, p. 250. Quoted in Venturelli, Vestire, p. 18.

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in demand from the ‘courts of all Europe for the richness of design’ and ‘the quality of dying.’92 As well as textiles, there were combs, mirrors, spectacle cases, balsam jars, clocks, and accessories of every kind and style. In 1666, Galeazzo Gualdo Priorato noted that the Milanese ‘wear most elegant gold silk brocade’ and their ornaments ‘are of great value.’ The merchants are ‘rich, their shops mainly consist in spun and beaten gold.’93 Priorato’s passage suggests various thoughts: above all, it reminds us that dress was a measure of nobility, and witnessed the state of health of the luxury economy. This is further attested by the presence of a prosperous merchant class in those very activities of textiles and clothing. There was no crisis and this primacy of the city lasted well into the seventeenth century, when, Italian luxury goods, targeted at the aristocratic milieu, seems to have set off an economic as well as cultural mechanism. In 1583, there were 249 tailors active in Milan, and one writer in the Spanish period tells how the city was ‘inventor of the splendor and use of dress.’ The princes of Northern Italy sought out the Milanese tailors, and – often – between 1571 and 1574, the Dukes of Bavaria, have clothes made and ask for a ‘whole pattern book of costumes and invite a tailor directly to Munich to work exclusively for the court.’94 Spain was most certainly the main customer of the Milanese workshops. While staying there in 1548, Philip of Habsburg (the future Philip II) required, for example, ‘an infinite series of orders for clothes, liveries, ornaments, trimmings and frills, both for himself and for [his] retinue.’95 But the young Philip’s wonder was proverbial in the face of the luxury ‘prepared’ for his triumphal entries by the ‘lords of the mature Italian Renaissance. He was accompanied by a court that in Genoa was still wearing rope-soled shoes like the apostles,’ as the Mantuan ambassador Annibale Litolfi noted in 1548. Litolfi, who had clearly become used to the style at the Gonzaga court, ‘insinuated that Philip and the Spanish dignitaries stayed so long with Andrea Doria [two weeks] not because of delays in setting up the town’s ephemera, but because the guests needed to get new clothes so as not to make a bad impression.’96 Perhaps, contrary to what has often been suggested, we should give greater credit to the theory of a Milanese influx of Spanish fashion.97 92 Bortolotti, ‘Abbigliamento’, pp. 401 and 406. 93 Gualdo Priorato, Relazione, p. 131 94 Venturelli, Vestire, p. 138. 95 Leydi, Sub umbra, p. 169. 96 Ibid., p. 154. 97 See Levi Pisetzky, ‘La moda’, pp. 879–927.

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But for other courts, too, the documents give the impression of mutual influence both following and ratifying political agreements and cultural processes. We know that the spread of fashions from across the Alps, for example, was an expression of the French and Habsburg supremacy in Italy and the adoption of national forms of dress was a way of showing one’s loyalty with one or other of the two monarchies. A famous passage in the Cortegiano regrets that ‘Italy does not, as it used to, have a form of dress that is known as Italian.’98 Francesco Sansovino echoes this point in lamenting that Italians, ‘following trans-Alpine fashions, have with their thoughts changed the habit of their person, wanting to appear now French and now Spanish.’99 In 1495, when Charles VIII entered Italy, a chronicler noted that in Ferrara people wore ‘berets and shoes in French style’ and explained the reason a year later: the ‘people of Ferrara almost all without exception are supporters of the King of France, and many go around dressed, shod and bonneted in French style, and, especially the courtiers.’100 But we also know how fascinated Charles VIII himself was by Italian art and refinement. Though princes, noblemen, courtiers, and even the bourgeoisie in Italy adapted to foreign fashion for reasons of political vassalage, the materials, tailors, cut, and taste of the clothing were of Italian origin. Italian authors in particular constructed rules of behavior and parameters of aristocratic elegance around dress, which acted as a model for the rest of Europe. Fashion, in the broadest sense of the term, also indicated that in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the paths of culture still passed through Italy. There were various currents, levels, and directions simultaneously, and the phenomenon was certainly linked to the changing circumstances of reception, political hegemony, and taste. It was an interchange and a mutual integration of goods and practices. Certainly, the Italy of the small principalities at the mercy of powerful European monarchies did not play a secondary or passive role in creating fashions. The Italian courts made a fundamental contribution to the culture of their masters and actively participated in homologating the socio-cultural models of which dress was one of the many elements. Dress, in short, was just a fragment of that way of life that included everything and that all were subject to. On the one hand, political Italy, and, on the other, cultural Italy. The politically subject exercised their cultural hegemony by dressing – in this case – but also by educating the Europe of their superiors in arts and manners. 98 Castiglione, The Book, p. 158. 99 Quoted in Mutinelli, Del costume, p. 91. 100 Quoted in Ricci, Il principe, pp. 52–53.

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As we have said, clothes mattered in themselves and for their corresponding to a class condition and to the grazia of those wearing them. It was not so much fashion that was codified in the Italy of the courts, then, as the general rules of proper self-control. Through dress, the strategy of appearance was activated. Castiglione devotes an extensive part of Book Two of the Cortegiano to the question of suitable attire. Clothes spoke of the gentleman even when he was silent; even before he had opened his mouth to speak. Significantly, a chapter was always set aside for dress in books of etiquette, from della Casa’s sixteenth-century archetype to Jean-Baptiste de la Salle’s Règles de la bienséance et de la civilité (1736), a bestseller of the French book trade. In 1750, more than two centuries after Castiglione, Lord Chesterfield could still remind his son that ‘it is by being well dressed, not finely dressed, that a gentleman should be distinguished.’101 Clothes served aristocrats ‘as cards played on the table of distinction.’102 If the natural body is nude, the social and political body was dressed. A section in the anonymous edition of Propreté en general, published in Blois in 1740, states that ‘[m]odesty constitutes an important part of decorum, and serves much to make known a person’s virtues and character.’103 Clothes were ‘formally part of a new, organic, overall cultural typology, along with all the other homologous, more or less concomitant elaborations of modern codes of behavior and relations.’ Like all these ‘modern and at once hyper-codified forms of appearance and the ephemeral, fashion too became part of the dynamics of formulating public judgment on someone’s qualities, and thus his reputation.’104 Luxury and elegance in dress are explained only partially in terms of conspicuous consumption, as the cost of the clothes corresponded only in part to the economic possibilities and the desire to display them. The symbolic value of clothes was often higher than their monetary cost. One last aspect worth noting is the role of clothes in defining majesty. In this case, too, clearly determined symbolic codes were being appealed to. Each individual element of the clothed person had a precise meaning. This would open another chapter of the international sharing of dress codes. The variety of the sovereign’s prerogatives translated into a multiplicity of ‘costumes’ that communicated his attributes mostly in ceremonials and portraiture. From both derived the identikit of the many senses of monarchic 101 Chesterfield, The Letters, II, p. 49. 102 Roche, Il linguaggio, p. 55. 103 Quoted in Ibid., p. 370. 104 Quondam, Tutti i colori, p. 151.

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power. The clothes made the prince. In Sforza Milan, the ambassadors of minor powers visiting the court could not meet the duke, but they were shown his clothes. The role of clothes as a sign of majesty was celebrated every day at Versailles with the ceremonies of the lever and coucher du roi,105 and, when Cosimo III died, all his sovereign’s ‘clothes,’ including those of Grand Master of the Order of St Stephen, were placed on his funeral bier in the Church of San Lorenzo. Apart from the regalia, we find all the canonical frills of power in clearly defined categories. There is, for example, the topos of the warlike prince, whose martial feats and virtues are defined in a varied repertoire of images in horseback, in armor, with the vermilion pallium of triumph fluttering on his shoulders, or in the poses and semblances of antique heroes, from Caesar to Alexander the Great. Italian princes still had themselves portrayed in monk’s habits or dressed as saints, confirming their specific piety and certifying that they governed in accordance with the dictates of the faith. The rediscovery of Vitruvius also led to frequent images of princes portrayed as architects, actual constructors of their cities and metaphorically of their ideal societies. We could continue with the prince as fair judge, philosopher, patron of the arts, etc. Each individual version of the ruler translated into as many clothes. Dress was chosen (and depicted) to be read: it went far beyond the usual formula of self-fashioning to a political ideology translated into visual terms. With the typical British sagacity, in 1745, Lord Chesterfield prefigured a transition. In his Letters to his son we in fact read: ‘Dress is a very foolish thing, and yet it is a very foolish thing for a man not to be well dressed, according to his rank and way of life’; the difference in this case, ‘between a man of sense and a fop, is, that the fop values himself upon his dress; and the man of sense laughs at it, at the same time he knows he must not neglect it.’106 The entire ethical nomenclature of the Ancien régime starts to break down and to give way to fashion and ‘conspicuous consumption.’ ‘While the middling ranks emphasized the importance of appearance in order to enter high society, the upper ranks saw it as a means of staying there.’107 Society becomes fluid and with the expansion of cultural consumption to a broader audience, court exclusivity slowly starts to fall apart. The canon of ‘gentility’ changes as well with a prevalence of appearance on birth and 105 See Elias, La civiltà, pp. 93 ff 106 Chesterfield, Letters of the, 19 November 1745. 107 Pears, The Discovery of, p. 9. For the notion of ‘conspicuous consumption”, see Veblen, Theory of.

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virtue. The middle class can now emulate the gentleman and this triggers new social dynamics. ‘Such imitation binds the imitator to the imitated in a relationship that confers mutual benefit, with the former possibly gaining the chance of rising in status and the latter being strengthened through recognition of an ideal.’108 With different speed and modalities, this is a European phenomenon, which also entails rural elites absorbing the standards of the urban culture, characterizing themselves with a veneer of sophistication. It is not the mere end of a world, but rather a metamorphosis of patterns that progressively embrace the entire society.

10c The Gentleman All these arts, taken as a whole, define the manners and status of a gentleman. Every ability – intellectual and physical – was to be codified, to be learnt, and expressed his distinction. The aim of the rules, of behavior, and of all their various fields of applications consisted in self-affirmation, in learning abilities and attitudes through which one might construct his identity. The gentleman is the f inal product, the f inal result, of the application of the whole range of codes and practices. He was the synthesis of all arts, precisely due to his grazia and the formulas of propriety. As construction of the self was a work, so behavior was an art. This happened within a framework where power and social superiority had to be visible and part of a cultural system. Individual honor and prestige coincided with the possession of superior virtues, which were expressed (and had to be expressed) so that they could be made visible in their actions. Whether it was table manners, conversation, dancing, fencing, or in dressing, everything was to be governed by sprezzatura. For the gentleman, it was essential to be able to dissimulate artifice. The correct application of the classicist dictates was to enable him to show (concealing it) an art that made his nature more beautiful. The status of a gentleman depended on the impression his customs created, depended on public opinion. In this hierarchical society, one was what others thought one was. And so conversation, elegance of dress, and anything else were part of knowing how to be in society, for which the training of the treatises on good manners supplied the rules. One became a gentleman only if one wore the ‘second dress’ of manners, and pursued virtue with study and practice. Being a gentleman required 108 Pears, The Discovery of, p. 16.

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learning, but also – and above all – constant exercise and a marked ability to imitate others. This is expressed in a French manual of 1649, in which we read that ‘the shortest way to become a gentleman consists in frequenting gentlemen and carefully observing how they behave.’109 In 1630, in his Honnête homme, Nicolas Faret was still counseling Aristotelian moderation regarding the politesse of the gentilhomme. We are in France 200 years after Castiglione and della Casa, but nothing has changed. As in the Cortegiano, there is still a dialectic equivalence between being and appearing: ‘extrinsic things often witness intrinsic things.’110 Everything regarding a gentleman’s external appearance indicates something about his soul. This is a discourse that lasted for centuries, spanning the entire arc of the ancien régime. It takes on a thousand different tones and moves in various directions, or models itself on different socio-political times and contexts, but this hardly matters. There are countless texts involved in developing the education and definition of a gentleman. It was an unprecedented phenomenon, a swelling sea of texts leading to the anthropological interiorization of a way of being. There were hundreds of treatises on the court and the gentleman: a very rough estimate would give us nearly 1,500 before 1625, without counting those on the gentlewoman.111 The development is modeled on the social metamorphoses from knight to courtier and gentleman, to homme du monde, to honnête homme, down to dandy and the ordinary man. In parallel, a range of behavioral categories was cataloged: starting from courtliness, and proceeding to good manners, politesse, gallantry, urbanity, amiableness, etc. The end point is conformity. But we are faced with a process that also determined social changes, both in aristocratic behavior, and in achieving a universal application of codes no longer considered for the exclusive use of a specific class, and from here to forms of sociability and of western civilization. The aim and the object remain those of giving a foundation to aristocratic society, giving it tools with which it might delineate its identity. One became a true gentleman, one was not born so. It was an achievement reached through constant work on oneself. The teachings introduced by and to the Italian courts taught precisely this, and, for this reason, were in great demand in the ancien régime. They helped in acquiring refinement. The training of a gentleman was a permanent exercise that ‘requires constant care and revision, and above the study of an art, as laborious to achieve 109 Quoted in Roche, Il linguaggio, p. 369. 110 Castiglione, The Book, II, 5.13. 111 See Kelso, The Doctrine.

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as it is concealed in its display.’112 The success of the texts and the debate they set off explain why the aristocratic ideals became uniform throughout Europe. Only one model for the gentleman’s ethos existed from London to Palermo, and from Lisbon to Warsaw. How much Europe owed the Italy of the courts is shown in a detailed study by Mario Domenichelli, which examines the debate on what a gentleman is and what one should do to become one. A thousand different voices took part in the process from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century. The gap left by the decline of chivalric literature was immediately filled by the new discourse on the gentleman. It was through this literature that there took place in the early sixteenth century ‘the divorce between the knight, in the sense of bellator, of soldier, and knight in the more modern sense of gentleman.’113 In this process of acculturation, the bourgeois followed the gentleman and the countryside came after the city. This very particular product of the ancien régime, like many others, is one of the many aspects of the socio-cultural standardization of Europe. There was just one kind of gentleman, one social type and one set of rules that defined his features. The Italian, French, German, and Spanish gentleman differ in nothing, one from another, but obey the same rules, are characterized by the same skills, share the same practices, dress in the same way, speak in the same verbal and gestural idiom, and participate in the same culture and mental dimension. The gentleman lives in residence with a similar sobriety, acquires the same objects of art and displays a similar aesthetic taste, reads works from the same canonical library of moderns and ancients, spends and consumes with similar objectives, applauds the same authors and singers, and admires the same spectacles. There are no confines between them, and they all recognize each other and recognize the same values. Gentlemen travel as ambassadors, courtiers, or tourists of the Grand Tour, speak to each other and write to each other, marry among themselves, frequent the same circles, and meet on the same terrain of prestigious fetishes. Whatever their differences, in all the European cities with a court, there were deep-seated features of homogeneousness by which the gentleman would feel always at home. It was from this mold, seemingly distant in time and dimensions, that the material which formed the social and cultural identity of the moderns came down. This model and those teachings are the source for the identity of civilized man in the present.

112 Quondam, ‘Introduzione’, p. LIII. 113 Domenichelli, Cavaliere, p. 104.

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Leopold D. Ettlinger, ‘Hercules Florentinus’, Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz, XVI (1972), pp. 119–142. Marcello Fantoni, ‘Le corti e i “modi” di vestire’, in Storia d’Italia, Annali 19, La moda, ed. by Marco Belfanti and Fiorella Giusberti (Turin: Einaudi, 2003), pp. 737–765. Siro Ferrone, Attori Mercanti Corsari. La Commedia dell’Arte in Europa fra Cinque e Seicento (Turin: Einaudi, 1993). Siro Ferrone, La commedia dell’arte. Attrici e attori italiani in Europa (XVI–XVIII secolo) (Turin: Einaudi, 2014). Kurt Forster, ‘Il palazzo di Landshut’, in Giulio Romano (Milan: Electa, 1989), pp. 512–515. Dian Fox, Hercules and the King of Portugal: Icons of Masculinity and Nation in Calderón’s Spain (Lincoln, NE, and London: University of Nebraska Press, 2019). Luba Freedman, Classical Myths in Italian Renaissance Painting (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011). Karl Galinsky, The Herakles Theme: The Adaptations of the Hero in Literature from Homer to the Twentieth Century (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1972). Elvira Garbero Zorzi, ‘Cerimoniale e spettacolarità. Il tovagliolo sulla tavola del principe’, in Rituale Cerimoniale Etichetta, pp. 67–83. Glorious Horsemen: Equestrian art in Europe, 1500–1800 (Springfield, MA: Museum of Fine Arts, 1982). Lelio Gregorio Giraldi, Herculis vita […], (Basel: Michael Isingrinius, 1539). Lelio Gregorio Giraldi, De deis gentium varia et multiplex historia […] (Basel: Johannes Oporinus, 1548). Federico Grisone, Gli ordini del cavalcare di F. G., gentil’huomo napoletano (Naples: Giovan Paolo Sugamappo, 1550). Galeazzo Gualdo Priorato, Relazione della città, e Stato di Milano […] (Milan: Lodovico Monza, 1666). Stefano Guazzo, La civil conversazione, ed. by Amedeo Quondam (Modena: Panini, 1993). Jan Harasimowicz, ‘Il Rinascimento fuori dal limes romanus, in Il Rinascimento italiano, I, pp. 415–438. Friedrich Wilhelm von Hase, Ercole e il suo mito (Milan: Skira, 2018). Herakles: Passage of the Hero through 1000 Years of Classical Art, ed. by Jaimee P. Uhlenbrock (New Rochelle: Edith C. Blum Art Institute, 1986). Henry R. Hitchcock, German Renaissance Architecture (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993). Ruth Kelso, The Doctrine of the English Gentleman (Urbana, IL, University of Illinois Press, [1929] 1964). Julian Klieman, Gesta dipinte. La grande decorazione nelle dimore italiane dal Quattrocento al Seicento (Cinisello Balsamo: Silvana Editoriale, 1993)

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Jerzy Kowalczyk, Zamość. Città ideale in Polonia. Il fondatore Jan Zamoyski e l’architetto Bernardo Morando (Wrocłav: Orsolineum, 1986). Eugene J. Johnson, Inventing the Opera House: Theater Architecture in Renaissance and Baroque Italy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018). Italian Culture in Northern Europe in the Eighteenth-Century, ed. by Shearer West (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999). Rosita Levi Pisetzky, ‘La moda spagnola a Milano’, in Storia di Milano (Milano: Fondazione Treccani, 1957), pp. 879–927. Silvio Leydi, Sub umbra imperialis aquilæ. Immagini del potere e consenso politico nella Milano di Carlo V (Florence: Olskhi, 1999). Alessandro Luzio and Rodolfo Renier, ‘Il lusso di Isabella d’Este marchesa di Mantova: Il guardaroba d’Isabella d’Este’, Nuova Antologia, XXXI, XI (1896), pp. 1–112. Margaret M. McGowan, Dance in the Renaissance: European Fashion, French Obsession (New Haven, CT, and London: Yale University Press, 2008). Barbara Marx, ‘L’ossessione della genealogia. Incontri rinascimentali fra Ferrara e il mondo germanico’, in Corti rinascimentali a confronto. Letteratura, musica, istituzioni, ed. by Barbara Marx, Tina Matarrese and Paolo Trovato (Florence: Franco Cesati, 2003), pp. 109–143. Barbara Marx, ‘Wandering Objects, Migrating Artists: The Appropriation of Italian Renaissance Art by German Courts in the Sixteenth Century’, in Cultural Exchange, IV, pp. 178–226. Giuseppe Mazzacurati, Il Rinascimento dei moderni. La crisi culturale del XVI secolo e la negazione delle origini (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1985). Alessandra Mottola Molfino, ‘Introduction to a Book with no Name’, in A Tailor’s Book from the Fondazione Querini Stampalia in Venice (Modena: Panini, 1987), pp. 1–70. Cesare Mozzarelli, ‘Aristocrazia e borghesia nell’Europa moderna,’ in Storia d’Europa (Turin: Einaudi, 1995), IV. Fabio Mutinelli, Del costume veneziano (Venice: Tipografia di Commercio, 1831). Cesare Negri, Le Gratie d’Amore di Cesare Negri Milanese detto il Trombone, professore di ballare […] (Milan: Pacifico Pontio e Gio. Battista Piccaglia, 1602). Jennifer Nevile, The Eloquent Body: Dance and Humanist Culture in Fifteenth-Century Italy (Bloomington and Indianapolis, IN: Indiana University Press, 2004). Dorothea Nolde, Elena Svalduz and Maria José del Rio Barredo, ‘City Courts and Places of Cultural Transfer’, in Cultural Exchange, II, pp. 227–285. Marina Nordera, ‘The Exchange of Dance Cultures in Renaissance Europe: Italy, France and Abroad’, in Cultural Exchange, IV, pp. 308–328. Amedeo Quondam, ‘La virtù dipinta. Noterelle (e divagazioni) guazziane intorno a Classicismo e Institutio in Antico regime’, in Stefano Guazzo e la Civil conversazione, ed. by Giorgio Patrizi (Rome: Bulzoni, 1990), pp. 227–395.

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Amedeo Quondam, ‘Introduzione’, in Castiglione, Il Libro del Cortegiano, pp. VII–XLV. Amedeo Quondam, ‘Introduzione’, in Guazzo, La civil conversazione, pp. IX-LXX–VIII. Amedeo Quondam, Cavallo e cavaliere (Rome: Donzelli, 2003). Amedeo Quondam, Tutti i colori del nero. Moda e cultura del gentiluomo nel Rinascimento (Costabissara: Angelo Colla, 2007). Amedeo Quondam, La conversazione. Un modello italiano (Rome: Donzelli, 2007). Amedeo Quondam, La forma del vivere. L’etica del gentiluomo e i moralisti italiani (Bologna, il Mulino, 2010). Erwin Panofsky, Renaissance and Renascences in Western Art (New York and London: Routledge, 1960). Erwin Panofsky, Problems in Titian, Mostly Iconographic (New York: New York University Press, 1969). Erwin Panofsky, Ercole al bivio. Altri materiali iconografici dell’antichità tornati in vita nell’arte moderna (Macerata: Quodlibet, [1930] 2005). Francesco Patrizi, Discorsi […], ed. by Danilo Aguzzi-Barbagli (Florence: Olschki, 1970). Peterhof Petrodvorets: Palaces and Pavilions, Gardens and Parks, Fountains and Cascades, ed. by Abram Grigorʹevič Raskin (Leningrad: Aurora Art Publishers, 1978). Marzia Pieri, ‘La scena italiana e il Nord Europa. Sulle tracce di un mito’, in Corti rinascimentali, pp. 187–200. Planstadt Kurstadt Freudenstadt. Chronik einer Tourismusstadt, 1599–1999 (Freudenstadt: Stadtarchiv Freudenstadt, 1999). Isabelle Paresys, ‘The Dressed Body: The Molding of Identities in Sixteenth-Century France’, in Cultural Exchange, vol. IV, pp. 227–257. Francesco Repishti, ‘L’idea di un’architettura universale’, in Il Rinascimento italiano, I, pp. 475–488. Giovanni Ricci, Il principe e la morte (Turin: Einaudi, 1998). Piero Ricci, ‘Stare al segno. Ovvero la graziosa gestualità del trinciante’, in Etiquette et politesse, p. 75–89. Daniel Roche, Il linguaggio della moda. Alle origini dell’industria dell’abbigliamento (Turin: Einaudi, 1991). Earl Rosenthal, ‘The Diffusion of the Italian Renaissance Style in Western European Art’, Sixteenth Century Journal, IX, 4 (1978), pp. 33–45. Nicola Sabbatini, Pratica di fabricar scene e machine ne’ teatri (Ravenna: Pietro de’ Paoli e Giovanni Battista Giovannelli, 1638). Gérard Sabatier, Le Prince et les Arts. Stratégie figurative de la monarchie française de la Renaissance aux Lumières (Seyssel: Champ Vallon, 2010).

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James M. Saslow, The Medici Wedding of 1589: Florentine Festival as Theatrum Mundi (New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press, 1996). Stephen K. Scher, ‘Immortalitas in nummis: The Origin of the Italian Renaissance Medal’, Trésor Monétaire, supplement 2 (1989), pp. 1–19. Jan Seznec, The Survival of Pagan Gods (New York: Pantheon Books, [1940] 1953). Dmitry Shvidkovsky, Russian Architecture and the West (New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press, 2007). Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield, Letters of the Earl of Chesterfield to his Son (London: 1929). Roy Strong. Splendor at Court: Renaissance Spectacle and the Theater of Power (London: Houghton Mifflin, 1973). Manfredo Tafuri, Ricerca del Rinascimento. Principi, città, architetti (Turin: Einaudi, 1992). Giorgio Taraborelli, ‘Il teatro del Rinascimento’, in Il Rinascimento italiano, I, pp. 459–474. Hugh Trevor-Roper, Princes and Artists: Patronage and Ideology at four Habsburg Courts, 1517–1633 (London: Thames and Hudson, 1976). Giovanni Tomassini, The Italian Tradition of Equestrian Art (Franktown, CO: Xenophon Press, 2014). Tommaso Trujillo, Delle pompe ò vero degli abusi del vestire. Discorsi varii raccolti dalla Sacra Scrittura, e da diversi Auttori […] (Venice: Presso Gio. Battist. Ciotti, 1610). Thorstein Veblen, Theory of the Leisure Class (New York: MacMillan, 1988). Cesare Vecellio, Degli Habiti Antichi, et Moderni di Diverse Parti del Mondo […] (Venice: Presso Damian Zenaro, 1590). Paola Venturelli, Vestire e apparire. Il sistema vestimentario femminile nella Milano spanola (1539–1679) (Rome: Bulzoni, 1999). Anna Rosa Venturi, ‘La corte di Buda e quella di Ferrara. Due mondi a confronto al tempo di Mattia Corvino’, Quaderni Estensi, III (2011), pp. 163–168. Corrado Vivanti, ‘Henry IV, the Gallic Hercules’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institute, XXX (1967), pp. 176–197. Arthur Voyce, The Moscow Kremlin: Its History, Architecture and Art Treasures (Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 1954). Evelyn Welch, ‘Between Italy and Moscow: Cultural Crossroads and the Culture of Exchange’, in Cultural Exchange, IV, pp. 59–99. Emily Wilbourne, Seventeenth-Century Opera and the Sound of the Commedia dell’Arte (Chicago, IL and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2016). Friedrich Wilhelm von Hase, Ercole e il suo mito (Milan: Skira, 2018). John Woodhouse, ‘I manuali di cortesia tra l’Italia e l’Inghilterra. La morte del vir perfectus e la nascita dello snob’, in L’Europa delle corti alla fine dell’Antico regime, ed. by Cesare Mozzarelli and Gianni Venturi (Rome: Bulzoni, 1991), pp. 279–306.

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Frances Yates, Astrea: The Imperial Theme in the Sixteenth Century (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1975). Krzysztov Źaboklicki, ‘La presenza della letteratura italiana in Polonia, in L’Italia fuori d’Italia (Rome: Salerno Editrice, 2003), pp. 695–707. Luigi Zangheri, ‘Salomon de Caus e la fortuna di Pratolino nell’Europa del primo Seicento’, in La fonte delle fonti. Iconologia degli artifizi d’acqua, ed. by Andrea Vezzosi (Florence: Alinea, 1985), pp. 35–43.

IV. Common Denominators

Abstract What, ultimately, are the common denominators of this long and geographically extended process? Let us try to summarize them. European cultural transmission happened from court to court and was essentially tied to a radical refashioning of the absolutist political language. Court culture is the root of modernity, which Europe imported from Italy. Especially in the Baroque age, Europe appropriated classicism – the fundamental matter of this phenomenon – through the mediation of Italian courts. In this context, Italian courts produced a systemic impact on the formative process of European identity. Keywords: cultural transmission, classicism, modernity, European identity

Fantoni, M., Italian Courts and European Culture. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press 2022 doi: 10.5117/9789463729420_ch04

Conclusion It is time to take stock. Most of the examples cited were widely known, but – as I have said several times – the point was not so much to bring new evidence, as to put together an overall picture that was as coherent as possible. We also knew about the huge sales of the Cortegiano, of the art trade, the circulation of aesthetic and behavioral codes, and the mobility of artists. This is already one first thing to consider: the information was (is) under everyone’s eyes. And it is also true that, in certain disciplinary sectors, some scholars had already suggested partial interpretations. But I do not think I was knocking on an open door. First, because there was no overall theory, however sketchy. Second, because it was a matter of outlining a seemingly heterogeneous cosmos of facts that was organic. Finally, because interpretations persist that refuse to take this evidence into account. Clearly, many different pieces needed to be assembled. To do this, I have combed every text I could get my hands on. And yet, I have barely scratched the surface of an immense, multifaceted universe. The examples I could (or should) have brought go far beyond what a single book can hope to treat. More important than the piles of data, however, was realizing that their importance lay not so much in their mass as in how they combined and interacted. On the same principle, though the various manifestations of culture follow their own courses, what matters is that they are dialectically interrelated, and that they make up as many facets of one single macrophenomenon that is articulated on various planes. Like the many ingredients of a cake, each has its own flavor, but on their own they give no sense of the whole and leaving out even one compromises the overall result. In short, tout se tien. The question can and should be posed in other terms, then. If we want to grasp the meaning of what happened, we need to take a distant look that can take in the variables without ever losing the common denominators. The many pieces, if put together, give life to a mosaic that can be read only if we stand slightly removed from it. Only the whole picture brings out the centrality of the Italian courts and provides a solid platform for insisting on their cultural primacy. Starting from here, we can see the role they played in

Fantoni, M., Italian Courts and European Culture. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press 2022 doi: 10.5117/9789463729420_conc

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defining the characteristics of a shared European civilization. The courts, not cities – and for a long time, and not just in the Renaissance. The courts in a far-reaching network, with a culture that was at first exclusive, but then extended to the whole social spectrum. We started from the myths that still needed partly debunking. The first is that of seeing the republicanism of the medieval city-states as the main ancestor in the genealogy of modernity. We have seen how this paradigm is the fruit of a precise ideological tradition. Not only does the opposition republics-principalities seem less marked, but long before the supposed ‘crisis of the early Renaissance,’ the political geography was also showing a strong majority of signorie and principalities. Many Italian states – large, small, and tiny – from the fourteenth to the eighteenth century were founded on the court as the political, social, and cultural center. It was this network of courts – from the Alps to Sicily – that constituted the polycentric, but homogeneous, backdrop to the Renaissance’s great artistic-cultural flourishing. This brought consequences both for historical interpretations in general, and for the theories put forward in this book particularly. With its many clear elements of dialectic, the scenario that emerges shows a substantial uniformity of cultural registers and brings out what the courts were like where new cultural models developed and the main points from which they were propagated in Europe. Accepting this new reading means questioning the very roots of modernity, which Europe imported from the Italy of the courts in the Early Modern Age, rather than from the municipal culture of the Middle Ages. Undoubtedly, we feel more at ease relating to ancestors who resemble us, in a ‘comfortable past’ modeled on our own image. Although there has been an immense labor to prove the opposite, we derive from something different from our present. We derive from what we have wanted to put behind us as allegedly inconsistent with what we say we are. We certainly do not derive from the past we would like to have had. From here we come to another myth, that of Italian ‘decadence’ during the Counter-Reformation – a theory that is difficult to sustain in this new perspective. First, because absolutism and everything pertaining to the court civilization in which it is centered suggests anything but a culturally opaque world. Second, because the apogee of this civilization coincided with the Age of the Catholic Reformation. As we have seen, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the court was an effervescent laboratory of cultural experimentation, production and innovation. In this schema, the Renaissance can be characterized as the initial phase of a new era that reached its acme in the Baroque. Hence, what used to be depicted as a

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period of decline, now seems bursting with vitality. Likewise, the Baroque was also when Italy was exporting its culture as never before. Italy too, then, had its Siglo de oro or Grand siècle, centered in the courts, which became the moment when classicism, of which it was the uncontested source, was most widespread. The Italian court has never been so much the center of Europe as then. Thus, we are describing a new chronology that embraces Renaissance and Baroque, which become two segments of one single age that was protracted well after the age of the ‘crisis of the European mind.’ A long age of the courts, then, marked (apart from inter-dynastic ties) by a homogeneous cultural substratum: a continuity that was not even interrupted by the end of religious unity. In this scheme, the Reformation was not followed by a passing of the baton from the Catholic south to the Protestant north. In the exchange between these two universes, it is clear ‘that exports prevailed for the south,’ at least until the middle of the eighteenth century, while the north imported much more than it exported. We can give two beginnings to this process: one toward the mid-fourteenth century and the other almost exactly a century after. The first consisted in the flowering of humanism and the affirmation of the signorie, and the second coincided with the stabilization of the principalities decreed by the Treaty of Lodi (1454). This again leads us to the Renaissance of the courts, on which was grafted the subsequent process of cultural irradiation. This, in turn, began with the season of foreign invasions initiated by Charles VIII (1494). Two years after America, Europe discovered Italy. Just when the armies of northern ‘barbarians’ were invading the peninsula, its culture began its inexorable conquest of Europe. What had been labeled as the finis italiae thus became the moment when its splendor was discovered. In turn, the emulation of Italian court culture shows an impressive continuity between the times of Petrarch and Metastasio. It culminated specifically from the 1530s to the end of the eighteenth century: from the concomitant codification of the ‘perfect courtier’ and the imperial renovatio, down to the competition of French fashion (itself a child of Italian influence). The thrust of the Italian canon was not exhausted, however, until the end of the ancien régime. In this way, we can see a longue-durée revolving around and defined by the centrality of courts, a pervasive, ubiquitous, and yet kaleidoscopic variety of dialectically inter-related institutions. If we wanted, we might argue that its progeny continued to the Napoleonic period and even as late as the Restoration – a European identity by virtue of what had taken form in the ancien régime and what survived of it unscathed as it underwent the caesura of revolution.

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Within these temporal boundaries, there were, predictably, various internal divisions – staggered in time and proceeding at different speeds depending on the country, its cultural expressions and the historical circumstances. It was not a wholly smooth process but had successive waves and different combinations. Architecture was one of the first to look abroad and was one of the last to lose its appeal. Courtly sociability was added in the mid-sixteenth century, while for the performing arts we must await the next century. Some of them, like opera, were the last offshoots of a phenomenon that came down almost to our own day. Nor should we overlook the early work of the humanists, which prepared the ground for the adoption of classicism, or their interaction, which also constituted a solid network of intellectual communication. Added to which was the overflow of courtly characteristics from the Kingdom of Aragon after the conquest of the south (1443) and the Muscovy of Ivan III (1462–1505). The leading exponent of this phase, however, was Matthias Corvinus (1458–1490), who reigned over both Hungary and Bohemia, was Duke of Austria, and governed Moravia, Silesia, and Lusatia. The next leap came in the early sixteenth century and – as we have seen – was connected with the first expression of the courtier’s doctrine and the welding of classicism with imperial renovatio. But the impact of Charles V (1519–1556) made itself felt far beyond Spain, extending to all the Empire’s territories. In its wake, Francis I (1515–1547) was one of the first to understand its extraordinary political potential, followed by Elizabeth I (1558–1603) and the Emperor Rudolf II (1576–1612), continuing in the next century with Philip IV of Habsburg (1621–1665) and Charles I Stuart (1625–1649), down to Peter the Great (1682–1725) and Gustav III Vasa (1771–1792). Sigismund I (1506–1548) introduced the Italian model to eastern Europe (he was both King of Poland and Grand-Duke of Lithuania), and from Spain it penetrated Portugal, particularly in the period when the two crowns were united (1580–1640). Interspersed with these, there were also the German princes (in Saxony, Bavaria, Silesia, Mecklenburg, etc.), the Archdukes Albert and Isabella in Brussels (1584–1621), dukes, high-ranking prelates, powerful ministers, Italian queens and regents, and aristocrats of every rank and region. Italian court culture irradiated in ever broader waves with increasing resonance, reaching the furthest perimeters of the continent inside and outside the limes romanus, in lands of Orthodox and Protestant faiths. Classicism’s horizons were broader than those of classical age itself. Cultural transmission almost always took place from court to court. Princely residences became increasingly important sites for exchange, frequently more important than cities. The courts were almost always both points of departure and arrival: they were consumers of Italian court culture.

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The new trends spread ‘outwards from court to court, through networks of marriage, diplomacy, commerce, from Italy’ and ‘downwards from royal courts to noble houses’ to ministers, secretaries, financiers, grandees.’1 The contribution of the Italian Renaissance to European civilization happened through the courts, and the element of unity in the ancien régime proved, in the end, to be the ideological and symbolic baggage they shared. By osmosis or emulation, the influxes extended from these nerve centers to the aristocratic class to later affect the whole of society. In the same way, they were ramified geographically and penetrated ever more ‘peripheral’ regions. There were horizontal and vertical cultural transfers: the former was spatial, the latter social. But the two were connected and happened synchronically: cultural exchange was an important factor of social change. For much of the period that concerns us, leaving aside the political fragmentation, the wars and the crumbling of religion, there was a substantial cultural unity whose barycenter was in the courts. In a context marked by a heterogeneous homogeneity, the courts were – more than republics – an interrelated system and the motor force of the civilization of the ancien régime. Dynastic ties, diplomatic relations, traveling armies, artists, and courtiers, the copious circulation of objects, and the adoption of similar social customs created a web of relationships and a consistent cultural milieu. The first metaphor that comes to mind to describe the Europe of the courts is that of an archipelago of islands, islets, and atolls scattered over a huge area, but all belonging to the same ecosystem. An archipelago of imperial, royal, papal, princes’, and lords’ courts that – from Moscow to Lisbon and from London to Naples – were structured and functioned in the same way. An archipelago in which – wherever he found himself – no gentleman could feel himself to be truly a stranger. There are also shared reasons that sparked the process and allowed it to take place. In the specific case, my conclusion is that their matrix was (mainly) political. The irradiation of Italian culture happened because its codes were adopted to activate a refashioning of the categories and lexicon of socio-political representation. In this sense, the Italian ‘forms’ – courtly and classicizing – provided valid alternatives to the Burgundy-knightly register, marking a sharp discontinuity with it. The arrival of Italian archetypes always marked a turning point everywhere, which consisted in the innovation of a return to antiquity. Pietro Aretino spoke acutely of concepts ‘anciently modern and modernly ancient.’2 Politics was both the spark and 1 Trevor-Roper, Princes, p. 9. 2 Aretino, Lettere, p. 885.

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the catalyzer; it constituted the principle motive of cultural transmission. It was power that acted as the driving force for spreading the cultural models. That is why the macro-process of cultural circulation and amalgamation passed through the courts. The foundation (or refoundation) of the European monarchies also passed through adopting and adapting to these models. It was a system that went beyond the individual sovereigns. The result was a domino effect that led the European crowns, one after another, to go down this road, partly driven by mutual competition and by precise political programs. Of course, there were circumstantial reasons too. The Grand Duchy of Muscovy unified as a Third Rome, Marie de’ Medici needed credibility, Philip II was claiming a hegemonic role for Spain, and Francis I was trying to stem Charles V’s power by emulating it. In particular, the classicizing choice on which the renovatio was founded set off a chain reaction by which, one after another, the sovereigns were dragged into similar enterprises. Many different routes, but just one mechanism. The constitution of new states and dynasties led to the countries of eastern Europe feeling the ‘need to lean on the prestige of the Italian Renaissance, which had bestowed an elite and curial style.’3 From the mid-fifteenth to the nineteenth century, apart from their territorial contiguity, there were dynastic relations that led to a sharing of politico-cultural initiatives in an extensive area of central-eastern Europe. We have also noted that from 1530 to 1649 (from the coronation of Charles V as emperor to the beheading of Charles I Stuart), Spain, France, and England converted to similar imperial designs. Rudolf II, Elizabeth I, Philip II, and Henry IV operated in this chronological arc. In particular, from Philip II’s ascent to the throne in 1556 to Rudolf II’s death in 1612, the reigns of these four great ancien-régime sovereigns overlapped in the late sixteenth century (from 1589 to 1598). Each of them – with other contemporaries – literally donned the clothes of the ancients and identified with them. The exempla of the ancients were archetypes of what they felt and wanted to represent. Identifying with them, surrounded by them, acting like them, re-enacting their feats – real or mythical – they constructed ideological shells for themselves through which, blended with sacred symbolism, they legitimated their maiestas and defined the categories of autocratic power. The ancien régime was marked by this combination of cultural and political elements and separating the two terms would mean compromising our understanding of them. The Italian cultural models were functional to the development of state centralization and the consolidation of monarchical 3

Sberlati, ‘Il Rinascimento’, p. 671.

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power. In the hands of European intellectuals, they were uninhibitedly manipulated for practical political application. The Italy of the courts supplied European monarchies with the themes and languages of a radical renewal of political representation. It matters little whether it was Tasso’s epic, the madrigal, or architectural designs: what we have is fundamentally a phenomenon of conversion to new forms for defining sovereignty and social self-fashioning. Bembo’s teaching refined the tools for initiating a regulatory system and linguistic centralization with explicit political aims. Italian language and literature were an indispensable support to the grandeur sought by the Tudor dynasty as they pursued their ambitions for hegemony. The same considerations apply to the spread of rhetorical doctrines and poetic theory in codifying national literary canons. Far beyond its immediate ends, the manuals in these sectors became tools of ideological formation. In this sense, we can also understand why there was this attention to esthetic and dramaturgical theory. It all served and was part of the framework of adaptation to the requirements and peculiarities of the individual royalties, with the aim of enhancing the political effectiveness of the cultural models. This was combined, with equal importance, with the new discipline of civilized behavior, and the whole, just as it was constructed on classicist bases, continued to develop in this tradition. The mere presence of Italian intellectuals and artists gave luster to the European courts, and their contributions, of whatever kind, provided significant support for legitimating their power. It has been written that patronage was ‘un hommage que rend le pouvoir à la culture’ (‘a homage that power pays to culture’). 4 I would say, rather, that patronage was culture in the service of power; culture became one and the same thing as power. Through culture and the arts, the government found enormous vigor in Europe, and Italy itself supplied its materials and instructions for use. Art fulfilled the vital political need to glorify monarchy. The ‘policy of beautifying’ was politics. The infatuation of European sovereigns for the Italian courts arrived in the most various ways. Only in some cases did they have direct experience of Italy. The circulation happened in great part through the mobility of a myriad of individuals who left Italy to place their talent at the service of foreign sovereigns and aristocrats. This occurred amidst military and religious conflicts, across political and confessional borders. Not only did one buy from Italy, but one employed whole armies of artists from that country. We have seen how many Italians moved abroad, how different they were one from another, how varied their destines, and how various their expertise. It 4 Poncet, Mazarin, p. 86.

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was, socially and culturally, a high-profile emigration, spread across an arc of more than 300 years – a constant exodus of individuals who presented themselves as cultural mediators. Relations were created with these agents of exchange, and the cultural osmosis consolidated. As well as people, objects carried the infection with them too – an enormous catalog of paintings, furnishings, antiquities, medals, sculptures, armors, etc. It initiated and kept alive the art market, the beauty market, which constituted a significant aspect of the Baroque economy. But their principal value was symbolic. Objects decorated rooms and tables, embellished galleries and – in the end – defined the decorum of spaces and the status of their proprietors. Objects were not inert goods but participated semantically in defining spaces and people. Furthermore, the enormous volume of artifacts (spanning styles and art forms) influenced taste, fashion, manners, behavioral codes, and language. And books, manuals, treatises, pamphlets, scenarios, and libretti continued to circulate, disseminating ideas, knowledge, and rules. We have not only an infinite number of individual elements, but of categories, too: aesthetic codes, architectural design, literary genres, performing arts, and – last, but not least – the many versions of good manners. Yet, each individual fragment was part of a single phenomenon. But what held this apparently eclectic entity together? Here, too, we could use different, but legitimate criteria of classification. We might say that in any case there was a desire to appropriate the Italian form, both in the sense of fashion and of ways of being – lifestyle. But we might also find a common thread in the desire to appropriate beauty, not as a mere aesthetic, but as an ethical essence, and so as an aspiration to good. There was a hunger for the beautiful and the new, and there was a hunger for the old. The European princes wanted courts, cities, and palaces like the Italian ones. They wanted the decorum, the manner, and the objects that would put them on the same level as the Italian courts and define them, too, as emulators of the ancients. Foreign sovereigns looked at their Italian equals (or subordinates), aware that they had to adapt to their customs and consumption to fill a cultural gap. Another way to try and circumscribe this material is to think of everything as innovation. For Europe, Italy meant technical, aesthetic, and cultural innovation. If, as we shall see, classicism is the raw material, innovation is the ability to rework it. Innovation in every field: architecture and the rules of civil living, the canons of the Commedia dell’Arte and of melodrama; Petrarchan sonnets and Guazzo’s art of conversation. But innovation was also much else: military engineering, topiary art, the use of bricks instead of wood in building, the glazed terracotta of della Robbia in Paris, parade

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armor, emblem books, goldsmithery, chivalric epic and the art of riding, music and song, equestrian statuary, and intermezzi. Innovation was the fusion of fresco and stucco introduced in Fontainebleau by Rosso Fiorentino, the decoration of graffiti and grotesques invented by Andrea Cosimo Feltrini (1477–1548); and the rustication that became fashionable after Palazzo Tè was built in Mantua. The Italy of the courts showed a marked propensity for experiment, an extraordinary creative effervescence, in an attempt to be always in the avant-garde, to satisfy the incessant demand for splendor. This guaranteed that its forms were always relevant and useful, and on this a genuine cultural industry was constituted. We can also imagine one last approach, by which the behavior, the spaces, and objects interacted in a dialectical concert of the material, the social and the cultural. We have hinted at it, speaking of galleries, libraries, theaters, and gardens as canonical spaces of power. Each of them was linked to a precise category of objects: books, antique statues, clothes, napkin and fork, furniture, and various accessories. These spaces constituted both the setting where conversation or dancing took place, or in which one displayed mastery in the use of one’s body. And so, to complete the picture, we can add etiquette, grace, ceremonial, and the typologies of entertainment. In the European courts, purchasing goods or adopting forms of behavior was designed to reproduce this polysemic globality with the intention of recreating the refined environments of the Italian courts. To create politically significant spaces from the fifteenth to the eighteenth century, we might say – the European sovereigns needed designs, or the styles and rules of the Italians to reproduce their patterns of socio-political representation. In all this, one fixed point remained the imitation of the way of life, where ‘form’ meant the whole spectrum of artistic, behavioral, and performative experiences. It was a circularly interconnected system of consumption and customs, of ethics and aesthetics, of the material and the intellectual – all with their own rules and with specific socio-political meanings, as substance, not appearance, in defining status. The way of life constitutes everything that distinguishes a gentleman – the individual who is refined by the practice of grazia, and we can also consider it as the totality of proprieties and good manners. It was a doctrine and a practice of perfecting oneself, which covers all that pertains to the individual’s behavior in society. It was what Castiglione calls the ‘civil wisdom to gather themselves into cities and the knowledge to live with civility.’5 It regulates co-existence, but also reflects the individual’s virtues and human qualities. ‘Living with civility’ depends on 5 Castiglione, The Book, IV, 11.

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the ‘qualities of the soul’ in Guazzo’s words. It is not mere external conduct. The form is here intimately connected with the substance; form and virtue, form and status, are linked by a dialectic circularity. Not for us, but for the individuals of that period, they were not separate f ields ‘but rather interdependent knowledge that made up a system.’6 Being and seeming virtuous were two sides of the same coin, and the beautiful and the good, too, had a one-to-one correlation. This was the cultural typology through which the warrior was transformed into a gentleman. This institutio, whose end was to ‘teach and learn the expertise suitable for being able to live with civility,’7 inaugurated the civilization process in early-sixteenth-century Italy. Italy gave form to European form; Europe recognized Italy as having better form and – willingly – initiated the great enterprise of its own cultural conversion, which made it become an ‘adult civilization.’8 The teachings of Italian treatises were not adopted by whim, but because a compendium was needed that would spell out the grammar of behavior in public: and so, in the prefaces or opening dedications, they speak of guides ‘very necessary and profitable for young Gentlemen’ or ‘not just beneficial and in good taste: but necessary.’9 The rules and practices arrived both via people and via texts, which, as we have seen, had such a vast circulation. The science of civilité was grafted onto Italian models, and its pedagogic project constituted one of its principal expressions, taking up the terminologies, drawing on the same sources, and repeating the principles of the Italian works. The authors gave a clear and final arrangement to these educational formulas. It was a literature that molded itself on social changes and itself molded those changes. The three great books this material derives from and that journeyed together were the Cortegiano, the Galateo and the Civil conversazione. They are what Amedeo Quondam calls ‘the family of our great classical moralists,’ the ‘founding fathers of the modern ethical tradition in the Italian model.’10 These canonical texts – published in quick succession: 1528, 1558, and 1574 – were followed by a long list of epigones and emulators in the next two centuries. They remained, however, classicist treatises because they derived from the Cicero of De officis and De oratore, but also centered on Aristotelian ethics. In little more than half a century, a doctrine of interpersonal relations 6 Quondam, La forma, p. 27. 7 Ibid., p. 215. 8 Gent, ‘Introduction’, p. 12. 9 Quoted in Burke, The Fortune, pp. 73–74. 10 Quondam, La forma, p. 253.

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was born. The way of life, founded on Castiglione’s grazia, ‘governed the whole ambit of human experience’; it was ‘an art of self-government and self-representation.’11 Good manners were both ‘ways of doing the things,’ and ‘ways of structuring and interpreting the social world.’12 Even today, our daily conduct still depends on metabolizing the discourse on good manners and on the ideology of civility. Innovation and antiquity were correlated (we might say they were the same thing) and innovation and antiquity together constituted the ingredients of the way of life. The import of the new Italian classical language is at first a pure elite and royal undertaking. In a way, it is a virtuous circle, the elite learned in humanism are the first to understand the potentials and to embrace the novelty. Antiquity was the raw material that infused with itself every single nuance of this universe: in poetry, as in the plastic and figurative arts, in architecture as in morality, in drama as in social practices. Italy was, in the eyes of Europeans, classicism itself: it was so for being the greatest deposit of its traces, for the sophisticated ideological resignification that it made of it at its courts, and for the development of customs by which it sought to identify with it. Italy was the land of the ancients, and the courts were the places of their return. Beyond the babel of inexhaustible examples and multiple typologies, the basic ingredient of every single cultural expression was classicism. Beyond Serlio, Tasso, and the rest, beyond conversation or the art market, we are faced with a process by which Europe appropriated classicism, which had (re)flowered in the Italian courts. The ‘re-integration of classical form and classical subject’ took place in Italy, and from Italy Europe borrowed it.13 The courts were the incubators of a revitalization of the classical that they consigned to modern Europe. It was, however, a classicism that did not involve (the subject deserves attention) any attenuation of the Christian component. The transition from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance in Italy was followed in this sense by the discontinuity of the European adoption of the Italian model. Italy, above all in its courts, was a crucial junction in classicism’s becoming a key element of European civilization. That same classicism that would also become the core of modernity. It was a culture projected toward the past, and any innovation was based on retrieving that past. Modernity descended from this world that was looking to the antique. Classicism, with ‘its long, fluid, dynamic, unstable history’ passed 11 Quondam, La forma, p. 536. 12 Bryson, From Courtesy, p. 20. 13 Panofsky, Renaissance, p. 177.

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through the ancien régime, was the ‘system and cultural typology’ of the ancien régime, from Petrarch to Canova,14 and – in some respects – many of its elements passed unchanged through the revolutionary earthquake, thus contributing to constructing the foundations of Western Civilization. The assimilation of classicism was not, however, a ‘triumphal process, acclaimed all along its way,’15 and it never quite supplanted the indigenous culture wholly. We rarely come across linear processes of penetration and often reception was controversial. We should not forget that classicism came from outside and was not introduced to a cultural void but transplanted onto autochthonous traditions with which it sometimes clashed. The arrival of classicism did not immediately translate into total domination. We know, however, that, in the long run, it became the hegemonic language as it was taken up by the monarchies and educated elites who seized on its semantic potentialities. In the end, classicism reached everywhere, and was the first real (and only) international model. Having said this, it was received in the most varied ways. There is much that could still be said and understood on the subject. The forms of reception were dictated by the most varied circumstances. To start with, each country followed its own paths and timescale. In England, there was an Italianization that proceeded alongside and in conflict with an aversion for Roman Catholicism. The ‘devil is responsible’ for the infiltration of Italian books in England. But the same man that said this – Roger Ascham, author of the Schoolmaster (1570) – was a student of Italian himself. In Russia, the Orthodox Church and pan-Slavism selected the stylistic influences they wanted. Spain and Italy, by contrast, were closely linked and formed an osmotically interdependent bloc. In post-Reformation Germany, religious conflicts and political competition between princes that were part of the Empire explain the many different formulas of reception. In France, nationalism dominated in determining attitudes of rejection and reworking of the Italian codes – all of which was linked to the dynamics at work between the center and the provinces (Paris is not France), and between monarchy, aristocracy, and urban bourgeoisie. Different arts had different alchemies. Opera enjoyed an immediate, sensational success, and the same can be said for the luxuriant cosmos of pageantry, whose cornerstones were theater, ballet, and music. Architecture was less clear-cut, partly because it can be broken down into building techniques and styles, into theory and practice. The theoretical treatises and the building work had different destinies: the ideal city and the creating of 14 Quondam, Cavallo, p. 102. 15 Gent, ‘Introduction’, p. 6.

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court spaces. Sebastiano Serlio in France and Andrea Palladio in England exemplify this duality of solutions. The architectural career of the former was not significant compared with the enormous influence of his treatises, while Palladio’s destiny was quite the opposite, where the impact of Palladianism was such as to profoundly change the history of English architecture. We could continue with the reception – for example – of rules of behavior or the plastic and figurative arts. There is a bit of everything, but it is all part of a system that needs to be approached holistically. There is Lully, for example, a Florentine at the court of Paris, who forged the French musical canon and made himself paladin of its purity against the pollution of the tendencies imported from Italy. There were frequent cases of hostility toward the cumbersome political power of the Italians (i.e. the Medici queens in France) and equally frequent (almost the rule) were the cases of Italians who played a fundamental role as cultural agents because of the esteem they enjoyed: Jacopo Strada, John Florio, the poet Marino, or Ferrante Gonzaga, for example. Similar considerations apply to those who traveled in the other direction, to the foreigners in Italy, who were suspicious of its vices, but fascinated by its wonders and eager to learn its secrets. Culture never penetrated without interaction or replaced anything without the active involvement of those on the receiving end. Reception can also be selective. This is connected to educational level and familiarity with the antique, but also to the pursuit of different politico-social ends. Certainly, more or less everywhere, the arrival of the new lexicon found terrain whose fertility depended on the social classes. In England, court theater and aristocratic tastes differed from those of the bourgeoisie, and this was so elsewhere in varying degree. It was so in France with the Italian theater and the varying attitudes of the court and the people. The most striking example remains the love-hate relationship between anglican England and catholic Italy, which still did not prevent the nobility and educated in the British Isles from looking to Italy with admiration mixed with a sense of inferiority. The hegemonic classes were more inclined to adopt classicism, as they saw in it an effective tool for maintaining their supremacy. Sovereigns and nobles found in it a weapon to ‘bolster their place’ in politics and social hierarchies.16 In general, it was the courts (and everyone orbiting around them) that were the most receptive terminals of the most authentic formulas of Italian court culture. Usually, the court blazed the trail of the new cultural registers. There were frequent hybridizations. There were no passive recipients; appropriation was in some way always active. There were many different 16 Gent, ‘Introduction’, p. 14.

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gradients and typologies of effects. But, amid rejection and enthusiasm, hostility and porousness, assimilation proceeded irreversibly. There were often processes of reinterpretation and recontextualization. There was always a joint involvement, a cohabitation and mixing of cultures, a cultural métissage. The Italian models set down roots without wholly uprooting the local culture. It was not a question of ‘Italian genius,’ as one strand of nationalistic historiography has tried to depict, but an interaction – like that in the field of dramaturgy between Italy and Spain with Lope de Vega and Tirso de Molina, or what happened with Inigo Jones, whose blend of classicism and vernacular idiom would become a distinguishing feature of English architecture from 1550 to 1650.17 All the diatribes led to a new status quo, however, by which there were infusions, influences, hybridizations, adaptations – in short, it was metabolized in various ways with varying degrees of intensity. In any case, there were discontinuities. There was a broad range of cases of idiosyncrasies from attraction to repulsion. Sometimes, there were clear prejudices, at others chauvinistic reactions, as happened with the Pléiade in France. On this great whirligig, some arrived first and others later, some expressions were slow to take root and others had immediate success; some were wrenched out of joint more than others. The ride was not always a smooth one. National pride, religious faith, linguistic misunderstandings, and much else frequently caused partial or distorted interpretations. But, once a society had been exposed to the antique, in one way or another the contagion became irreversible and chronic. Often, the first flush of cross-fertilization was linked to the individual strategy of a sovereign. We have seen it happen many times: from mid-fifteenth-century Hungary to late eighteenth-century Sweden. In every case, they were precise projects of consolidating or founding monarchic regimes. We could continue, but – I repeat – despite all its meanders and gaps, the process did not stop and it makes no difference that the forms of culture that ended up prevailing were invariably those developed in Italy. The true legacy of Italy to European civilization is this uninterrupted thread originating from courts. In the end, what was exported was the court and the aristocratic way of life. The Italy of the courts represented for the cultivated classes in Europe the source from which they could draw lessons to imitate. In this sense it founded an overall intellectual approach.18 The rules codified in Italy guided and commanded the behavior of individuals in society, helped them to cut out a ‘second suit of clothes.’ This was the civilization 17 Howard, ‘Classicism’, pp. 29–50. 18 See Sberlati, L’ambiguo primato.

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process. The Italy of the courts produced a lasting systemic impact on the formative process of European culture and identity. The cultural typologies of the Italian court took the place of the chivalric ethos. Their predominance began where the role of the Burgundy state was exhausted, but – unlike it – did not evaporate in the course of time but went on to constitute the stable core of western civilization. On the other hand, in this centuries-long development, the Italian courts anticipated and flowed together in that ‘civilization process’ that Elias associated with the Versailles of the Sun King. It follows that the process of refining the medieval warrior described as ‘disciplining’ takes on more of the features of self-refinement and voluntary acculturation. After discovering Elias in the 1980s and being inspired by his theories, while criticizing their historical accuracy, we ironically go back to a somewhat different, yet court-centered ‘civilization process’ that started in Italy. Courts contributed to constructing and codifying the ensemble of knowledge and practices that over time solidified in an authentic, shared civilization.19 In sum, as an alternative process to the cyclical returns of the republican ideology, the classicist culture of the courts seems to play a pre-eminent role in shaping our present cultural traits. This was a supranational dimension made up of shared experience and dialectical mixing that did not recognize geographical, political or religious frontiers. The opera is European, as is architecture, and as are the theater and civil proprieties. If so, many particular histories have been carved out, we owe it to the nineteenth-century need to legitimize national identities. What I have described is not a phenomenon pertaining to France rather than Italy or Spain, but an authentically European history, made up of a uniform stratum of culture that knows no confines. It is a history of cultural typologies that – despite local nuances – is molded on shared topoi. However far it is in space, the courts have never been far from each other. For an artist, moving from Milan to Florence was not so very different from going from Rome to Paris. They were always courts. Classicism, courts and networks of relations made Europe one extended family that recognized itself in the same culture. Here, we have tried to indicate how much and what in this system has survived and what remains of it in the genetic heritage of Europe and of modernity. I would go further, saying that however great or small it is, we should in any case revalue these elements to reinforce the texture that links us in one community. The culture developed by the Italian courts presented itself as the embryo of a new European culture. But is there a European identity? And if there is, 19 See Smith, Norbert Elias.

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what does it consist of, and through what processes? There is no reasonable consensus on these points. I believe that this identity exists and that it is also a positive factor, and one that should be revalued in the face of divisions and dangerous decline. I am convinced of this as I see a collective sensibility, a cultural cohesion, and a common alphabet of symbols, behaviors, and intellectual and artistic traditions deriving from our controversial past. Despite the divisions and the local specificities, this Europe existed and perhaps we need only rediscover it, and not only in the study. Precisely because I believe this, I have dared to contribute to the discussion, offering my own theory – one among many.

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John Eglin, ‘Venice on the Thames: Venetian Vedutisti and the London View of the Eighteenth Century’, in Italian Culture in Northern Europe in the Eighteenth Century, ed. by Shearer West (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp. 101–115. The Eighteenth-Century Diaspora of Italian Music and Musicians, ed. by Reinhard Strohm (Turnhout: Brepols, 2001). Lewis Einstein, The Italian Renaissance in England (New York: McMillan, 1902). William Eisler, ‘The “Impact” of the Emperor Charles V upon the Italian Visual Culture, 1529–1533’, Arte Lombarda, 65 (1983), pp. 93–110. Keir Elam, ‘“At the cubiculo”: Shakespeare’s Problems with Italian Language and Culture’, in Italomania(s), pp. 111–122. Norbert Elias, The History of Manners (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, [1935] 1978). Norbert Elias, State Formation and Civilization (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, [1939] 1982). Norbert Elias, The Court Society (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, [1969] 1983). Thomas Elyot, The Boke Named the Governour (1531), ed. by S. E. Lehmenberg (London: Dent, 1962). Etiquette et politesse, ed. by Alain Montandon (Clermont-Ferrand: Publications de la Faculté des Lettres et Sciences Humaines, 1992). Leopold D. Ettlinger, ‘Hercules Florentinus’, Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz, XVI (1972), pp. 119–142. Robert Evans, Rudolf II and his World: A Study in Intellectual History, 1576–1612 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1973). Paolo Fabbri, ‘Caterino Mazzolà e l’opera italiana a Dresda’, in Corti rinascimentali a confronto. Letteratura, musica, istituzioni, ed. by Barbara Marx, Tina Matarrese, and Paolo Trovato (Florence: Franco Cesati, 2003), pp. 201–217 Andrea Fabiano and Michel Noiray, L’opera italiana in Francia nel Settecento. Il viaggio di un’idea di teatro (Turin: EDT, 2013). Marcello Fantoni, La corte del Granduca (Rome: Bulzoni, 1991). Marcello Fantoni, ‘The Grand Duchy of Tuscany: The Courts of the Medici, in The Princely Courts of Europe, 1500–1750, ed. by John Adamson (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1999), pp. 255–273. Marcello Fantoni, ‘Carlo V e l’immagine dell’imperator’, in Carlo V e l’Italia, ed. by Marcello Fantoni (Rome: Bulzoni, 2000), pp. 101–114. Marcello Fantoni, Il potere dello spazio. Principi e città nell’Italia dei secoli XV–XVII (Rome: Bulzoni, 2002). Marcello Fantoni, ‘Le corti e i “modi” di vestire’, in Storia d’Italia, Annali 19, La moda, ed. by Marco Belfanti and Fiorella Giusberti (Turin: Einaudi, 2003), pp. 737–765. Marcello Fantoni, ‘La corte di Carpi’, in Storia di Carpi, II, La città e il territorio dai Pio agli Estensi (secc. XIV–XVIII) (Modena: Mucchi, 2009), pp. 49–68.

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Péter Farbaky and Péter Sárossy, ‘Chimenti Camicia, a Florentine WoodworkerArchitect, and the Early Renaissance Reconstruction of the Royal Palace in Buda during the Reign of Matthias Corvinus (ca. 1470–1490)’, Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz, 50, 3 (2006), pp. 215–256. Péter Farbacky, ‘Florence and/or Rome? The Origins of early Renaissance Architecture in Hungary’, in Italy and Hungary, pp. 345–367. Nicolas Faret, L’honnête homme ou l’art de plaire à la Cour, ed. by M. Magendie (Paris: PUF, 1925). Michele Feo, ‘Petrarca e l’Europa’, in Il Rinascimento italiano e l’Europa, II, pp. 33–69. Wallace K. Ferguson, The Renaissance in Historical Thought: Five Centuries of Interpretation (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1948). Ferrante Gonzaga. Il Mediterraneo, l’Impero (1507–1557), ed. by Gianvittorio Signorotto (Rome: Bulzoni, 2009). Siro Ferrone, Attori Mercanti Corsari. La Commedia dell’Arte in Europa fra Cinque e Seicento (Turin: Einaudi, 1993). Siro Ferrone, La commedia dell’arte. Attrici e attori italiani in Europa (XVI–XVIII secolo) (Turin: Einaudi, 2014). Rózsa Feuer-Tóth, Art and Humanism in Hungary in the Age of Matthias Corvinus (Budapest: Akadémie Kiadó, 1990). Susan Foister, ‘Holbein, Antonio Toto, and the Market for Italian Painting in Early Tudor England, in The Anglo-Florentine, pp. 281–306. Kurt W. Forster, ‘Il palazzo di Landshut’, in Giulio Romano (Milan: Electa, 1989), pp. 512–515. Kurt W. Forster, ‘From “Rocca” to “Civitas”: Urban Planning at Sabbioneta’, L’Arte, II (1969), pp. 5–40. Dian Fox, Hercules and the King of Portugal: Icons of Masculinity and Nation in Calderón’s Spain (Lincoln, NE and London: University of Nebraska Press, 2019). Hilary Fraser, The Victorians and Renaissance Italy (Oxford and Cambridge: Blackwell, 1992). Luba Freedman, Classical Myths in Italian Renaissance Painting (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011). Giuseppe Galasso, ‘Charles Ier et Charles II d’Anjou, princes italiens’, in Les princes angevins du XIIIe au XVe siècle. Un destin européen, ed. by Noël-Yves Tonnerre and Élisabeth Verry (Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2004), pp. 85–97. Karl Galinsky, The Herakles Theme: The Adaptations of the Hero in Literature from Homer to the Twentieth Century (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1972). Elvira Garbero Zorzi, ‘Cerimoniale e spettacolarità. Il tovagliolo sulla tavola del principe’, in Rituale Cerimoniale Etichetta, pp. 67–83. Lucy Gent, ‘Introduction’, in Albion’s Classicism: The Visual Arts in Britain, 1550–1660, ed. by Idem. (New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press, 1995), pp. 1–18.

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Angela Nuovo, The Book Trade in the Italian Renaissance (Leiden: Brill, 2013). Konrad Oberhuber, Poussin: The Early Years in Rome. The Origin of French Classicism (New York: Hudson Hills Press, 1988). Giuseppe Olmi, ‘La corte nella storiografia italiana dell’Ottocento’, in La corte nella cultura, pp. 65–93. The Origins of the State in Italy, 1300–1600, ed. by Julius Kirshner (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1996). Gabriele Paleotti, Discorso sopra le immagini sacre e profane, diviso in cinque libri […] (Bologna: Alessandro Benacci, 1581). Roberto Pane, ‘Gli scambi con la Spagna: scultori e architetti’, in Il potere e lo spazio. La scena del principe (Florence: Centro Di, 1980), pp. 105–116. Erwin Panofsky, Renaissance and Renascences in Western Art (New York and London: Routledge, 1960). Erwin Panofsky, Problems in Titian, Mostly Iconographic (New York: New York University Press, 1969). Erwin Panofsky, Ercole al bivio. Altri materiali iconografici dell’antichità tornati in vita nell’arte moderna (Macerata: Quodlibet, [1930] 2005). Isabelle Paresys, ‘The Dressed Body: The Molding of Identities in Sixteenth-Century France’, in Cultural Exchange, vol. IV, pp. 227–257. Francesco Patrizi, Discorsi […], ed. by Danilo Aguzzi-Barbagli (Florence: Olschki, 1970). Giorgio Patrizi, ‘La “Civil conversazione” libro europeo’, in Stefano Guazzo e la Civil conversazione, pp. 9–23. Ian Pears, The Discovery of Painting: The Growth of Interest in the Arts in England, 1680–1768 (New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press, 1988). Il “Perfetto Capitano”. Immagini e realtà (secc. XV–XVII), ed. by Marcello Fantoni (Rome: Bulzoni, 2001). Peterhof Petrodvorets: Palaces and Pavilions, Gardens and Parks, Fountains and Cascades, ed. by Abram Grigorʹevič Raskin (Leningrad: Aurora Art Publishers, 1978). Alan Phipps Darr, ‘Pietro Torrigiani and his Sculpture in Henrician England: Sources and Influences’, in The Anglo-Florentine, pp. 49–80. Stuart Phyrr, Heroic Armor in the Italian Renaissance: Filippo Negroli and his Contemporaries (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1998). Marzia Pieri, ‘La scena italiana e il Nord Europa. Sulle tracce di un mito’, in Corti rinascimentali, pp. 187–200. Susanna Pietrosanti, ‘Ben venga Carlo Imperatore. Il trionfo senese di Carlo V’, Archivio Storico Italiano, IL, 3 (1999), pp. 553–583. Giovanni Battista Pigna, Il Principe […]. Nel quale si discrive come debba essere il Principe Heroico […] (Venice: Francesco Sansovino, 1561).

288 

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Valery Rees, ‘Marsilio Ficino and the Rise of Philosophic Interest in Buda’, in Italy & Hungary. Humanism and the Arts in the Early Renaissance, ed. by Péter Farbaky and Louis A. Waldman (Cremona: Villa I Tatti, 2011), pp. 127–148. Eustache Refuge, Trattato della Corte del Signor di Refuge […] (Venice: Dal Ciotti, 1621). Volker Reinhardt, Il Rinascimento in Italia (Bologna: il Mulino, 2004). Francesco Repishti, ‘L’idea di un’architettura universale’, in Il Rinascimento italiano e l’Europa, I, pp. 475–488. Luisa Ricaldone, Vienna italiana (Gorizia: Editrice Goriziana, 1987). Giovanni Ricci, Il principe e la morte (Turin: Einaudi, 1998). Piero Ricci, ‘Stare al segno. Ovvero la graziosa gestualità del trinciante’, in Etiquette et politesse, pp. 75–89. Fabrizio Ricciardelli, The Myth of Republicanism in Renaissance Italy (Turnhout: Brepols, 2015). Brian Richardson, ‘La stampa’, in Il Rinascimento italiano e l’Europa, II, pp. 138–155. Cesare Ripa, Iconologia, overo, Descrittione di diverse imagini cavate dall’antichità […] (Rome: Lepido Facij, [1593] 1603). Daniel Roche, Il linguaggio della moda. Alle origini dell’industria dell’abbigliamento (Turin: Einaudi, 1991). Dennis Romano, In the Likeness of Venice: A Life of Doge Francesco Foscari (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007). Earl Rosenthal, ‘The Diffusion of the Italian Renaissance Style in Western European Art’, Sixteenth Century Journal, IX, 4 (1978), pp. 33–45. Pio Rossi, Convito Morale. Per gli Etici, Economici, e Politici (Venice: Guerigli 1672). Nicolai Rubinstein, The Government of Florence under the Medici (1434 to 1494) (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966). Nicolai Rubinstein, ‘Florence and the Despots: Some Aspects of Florentine Diplomacy in the Fourteenth Century’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 2 (1952), pp. 21–45. Guido Ruggiero, Violence in Early Renaissance Venice (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1980). Nicola Sabbatini, Pratica di fabricar scene e machine ne’ teatri (Ravenna: Pietro de’ Paoli e Giovanni Battista Giovannelli, 1638). Gérard Sabatier, Le Prince et les Arts. Stratégie figurative de la monarchie fraçaise de la Renaissance aux Lumières (Seyssel: Champ Vallon, 2010). Leo Salinger, Shakespeare and the Traditions of Comedy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1974). Francesco Sansovino, Il simulacro di Carlo V imperatore […] (Venice: F. Franceschini, 1567).

290 

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James M. Saslow, The Medici Wedding of 1589: Florentine Festival as Theatrum Mundi (New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press, 1996). Francesco Sberlati, ‘Il Rinascimento italiano nei paesi dell’Est’, in L’Italia fuori d’Italia. Tradizione e presenza della lingua e della cultura italiana nel mondo (Rome: Salerno Editrice, 2003), pp. 671–694. Francesco Sberlati, L’ambiguo primato. L’Europa e il Rinascimento italiano (Rome: Carocci, 2004). Stephen K. Scher, ‘Immortalitas in nummis: The Origin of the Italian Renaissance Medal’, Trésor Monétaire, supplement 2 (1989), pp. 1–19. Rudolph Schnitzler, ‘The Viennese Oratorio and the Work of Ludovico Ottavio Burnacini’, in L’opera italiana a Vienna, ed. by Maria Teresa Muraro (Florence: Olschki, 1990), pp. 217–237. Tom Scott, The City-State in Europe, 1000–1600 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012). Herbert Seifert, ‘La politica culturale degli Asburgo e le relazioni musicali tra Venezia e Vienna’, in L’opera italiana a Vienna prima di Metastasio, ed. by Maria Teresa Muraro (Florence: Olschki, 1990), pp. 1–15. Hans Semper, Carpi. Ein Furstensitz der Renaissance (Dresden: Bleyl & Kammerer, 1882). Shakespeare’s Italy: Functions of Italian Locations in Renaissance Drama, ed. by Michele Marrapodi (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1993). Jan Seznec, The Survival of Pagan Gods (New York: Pantheon Books, 1953; first ed. 1940). Dmitry Shvidkovsky, Russian Architecture and the West (New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press, 2007). Signorie in Umbria tra Medioevo e Rinascimento. L’esperienza dei Trinci (Perugia, Deputazione di Storia Patria per l’Umbria, 1989). Gianvittorio Signorotto, ‘Modena e il mito della sovranità eroica’, in La corte estense nel primo Seicento. Diplomazia e mecenatismo artistico, ed. by Elena Fumagalli and Gianvittorio Signorotto (Rome: Bulzoni, 2012), pp. 11–49. Pilar Silva Maroto, ‘La escultura clásica en las colleciones reales. De Felipe II a Felipe V’, in El coleccionismo de escultura clásica en España (Madrid: Museo Nacional del Prado, 2001), pp. 11–41. Jean Charles Léonard Simonde de Simondi, Histoire des républiques italiennes du moyen age (Paris: Furne et C., 1807–1818). Jan Ŝlasky, ‘Baronio, Botero e Tasso in Polonia e nella Slavia orientale’, Europa Orientalis, 6 (1987), pp. 37–57. Angelantonio Spagnoletti, Principi italiani e Spagna nell’età barocca (Milan: Mondadori, 1996). Angelantonio Spagnoletti, Le dinastie italiane nella prima età moderna (Bologna: il Mulino: 2003).

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Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield, Letters of the Earl of Chesterfield to His Son (London: 1929). David Starkey, ‘Intimacy and Innovation: The Rise of the Privy Chamber, 1485–1547’, in Idem, The English Court from the War of the Roses to the Civil War (London and New York: Longman, 1987), pp. 71–118. Theodore E. Stebbins, The Lure of Italy: American Artists and the Italian Experience, 1760–1914 (New York: Harry Abrams, 1992). Lawrence Stone, ‘The Market for Italian Art’, Past and Present, 16 (1959), pp. 92–94. Jacopo Strada, Epitome thesauri antiquitatum (Lyons: Strada and Thomas Guerin, 1553). Roy Strong, Splendor at Court: Renaissance Spectacle and the Theater of Power (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1973). John Addington Symonds, The Renaissance in Italy (London: Smith Elder, 1875–1898) (1, The Age of the Despots, 1875; 2, The Revival of Learning, 1877; 3, The Fine Arts, 1877; 4, The Catholic Reaction, 1886 and 5, Italian Literature, 1898). Michaël Szanto, ‘Gli itinerari della pittura dall’Italia alla Francia nel primo Seicento: dalle vie diplomatiche ai circuiti bancari’, in The Art Market in Italy, 15th–17th Centuries, ed. by Marcello Fantoni, Louisa C. Matthew and Sarah Matthews Grieco (Modena: Panini, 2003), pp. 413–421. Giovanni Tabacco, Egemonie sociali e strutture del potere nel medioevo italiano (Turin: Einaudi, 1979). Manfredo Tafuri, Ricerca del Rinascimento. Principi, città, architetti (Turin: Einaudi, 1992). Raffaele Tamalio, ‘Vespasiano Gonzaga al servizio del re di Spagna in Spagna’, in Vespasiano Gonzaga, ed. by Ugo Bazzotti, Daniela Ferrari and Cesare Mozzarelli (Mantova: Accademia Virgiliana di Scienze Lettere e Arti, 1993). Maria Tanner, The Last Descendant of Aeneas: The Hapsburgs and the Mythic Image of the Emperor (New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press, 1993). Victor L. Tapié, Barocco e Classicismo (Milan: Vita e Pensiero, [1957] 1998). Giorgio Taraborelli, ‘Il teatro del Rinascimento’, in Il Rinascimento italiano, I, pp. 459–474. Torquato Tasso, Il Malpiglio overo de la Corte, in Dialoghi, ed. by Ezio Raimondi (Firenze: Sansoni, 1958), II, pp. 547–565. Alberto Tenenti, ‘La corte nella storia dell’Europa moderna (1300–1700)’, in Le corti farnesiane di Parma e Piacenza 1545–1622, I, Potere e società nello stato farnesiano, ed. by Marzio Achille Romani (Rome: Bulzoni, 1978), pp. IX–XIX. Giovanni Tomassini, The Italian Tradition of Equestrian Art (Franktown, CO: Xenophon Press, 2014). Hugh Trevor-Roper, Princes and Artists: Patronage and Ideology at four Habsburg Courts, 1517–1633 (London: Thames and Hudson, 1976).

292 

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Tommaso Trujillo, Delle pompe ò vero degli abusi del vestire. Discorsi varii raccolti dalla Sacra Scrittura, e da diversi Auttori […] (Venice: Presso Gio. Battist. Ciotti, 1610). Giorgio Vasari, Vite de’ più eccellenti pittori scultori e architetti (Florence: Davide Passigli, [1550] 1838). Cesare Vasoli, Alberto III Pio da Carpi (Carpi: Assessorato ai Servizi Culturali, 1978). Thorstein Veblen, Theory of the Leisure Class (New York: MacMillan, 1988). Cesare Vecellio, Degli Habiti Antichi, et Moderni di Diverse Parti del Mondo […] (Venice: Presso Damian Zenaro, 1590). Paola Venturelli, Vestire e apparire. Il sistema vestimentario femminile nella Milano spanola (1539–1679) (Rome: Bulzoni, 1999). Anna Rosa Venturi, ‘La corte di Buda e quella di Ferrara. Due mondi a confronto al tempo di Mattia Corvino’, Quaderni Estensi, III (2011), pp. 163–168. Franco Venturi, ‘L’Italia fuori d’Italia’, in Storia d’Italia, III, Dal primo Settecento all’Unità (Turin: Einaudi, 1973), pp. 985–1481. Pasquale Villari, Niccolò Machiavelli e i suoi tempi (Florence: Le Monnier, 1877). Maurizio Viroli, Dalla politica alla Ragion di Stato. La scienza del governo tra XIII e XVII secolo (Rome: Donzelli, 1994). Corrado Vivanti, ‘Henry IV, the Gallic Hercules’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institute, XXX (1967), pp. 176–197. Friedrich Wilhelm von Hase, Ercole e il suo mito (Milan: Skira, 2018). Arthur Voyce, The Moscow Kremlin: Its History, Architecture and Art Treasures (Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 1954). Roberto Weiss, ‘Italian Humanism in Western Europe. 1460–1520’, in Italian Renaissance Studies, ed. by Ernst F. Jacob (London: Faber & Faber, 1960). Roberto Weiss, Spread of Italian Humanism, (London: Hutchinson University Library, 1964). Evelyn Welch, ‘Between Italy and Moscow: Cultural Crossroads and the Culture of Exchange’, in Cultural Exchange, IV, pp. 59–99. Shearer West, ‘Introduction: Visual Culture, Performance Culture and the Italian Diaspora in the Long Eighteenth Century’, in Italian Culture in Northern Europe, pp. 1–5. Emily Wilbourne, Seventeenth-Century Opera and the Sound of the Commedia dell’Arte (Chicago, IL and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2016). Rodolf Wittkower, Palladio e il palladianesimo (Turin: Einaudi, 2007). John R. Woodhouse, ‘I manuali di cortesia tra l’Italia e l’Inghilterra; la morte del “vir perfectus” e la nascita dello “snob”’, in L’Europa delle corti alla fine dell’Antico regime, ed. by Cesare Mozzarelli and Gianni Venturi (Rome: Bulzoni, 1991), pp. 279–306.

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Index Abondio, Antonio 206 Acanfora, Elisa 220 Acaristo, Alberto 166 Ady, Cecilia 26, 39, 139 Aglié, Filippo 236 Agricola, Rudolph 60 Agrippa, Camillo 229 Alamanni, Luigi 68 Alberoni, Giulio 110, 113 Albert V (Albrecht), duke of Bavaria 122, 124 Alberti, Leon Battista 33, 39, 87, 151, 154, 179, 186 Alberti, Matteo 99 Alciati, Andrea 69, 154, 207 Aleramici, Corrado 38 Alexander the Great 79, 246 Alighieri, Dante 37, 83 Allardyce, Gilbert 19 Altavilla, family 36 Altavilla, William II 36 Altavista, Clara 40 Altichiero 37 Amigoni, Jacopo 99 Ammannatini, Manetto 63 Anderson, Christina 42 Andreasi, Ippolito 77 Andreini, Francesco 71, 212 Andreini, Giovan Battista 117 Andreini, Isabella 214 Andreini, Virginia 212 Andrelini, Publio Fausto 59 Anjous, dynasty 37 Anjous, Charles I 29, 37 Anna Joannovna, tsarina 212 Anne of Brittany 242 Anne, queen of England 86, 167 Anne of Hungary 186 Annibale, Pietro 183 Antoine of Burgundy 206 Apelles 116 Apollo 68, 137, 147, 203 Appiani, family 41 Aragon, family 35, 37, 62, 63, 65, 120, 135, 262 Aragon, Beatrice 61, 62, 64, 109, 219 Aragon, Eleanor 63 Aragon, Ferdinand I 181 Aragon, Ferrante 63 Arcangeli, Alessandro 233 Arcimboldo, Giuseppe 119, 141 Aretino, Pietro 67, 83, 116, 162, 164, 166, 263 Arienti, Sabadino degli 39 Ariosto, Ludovico 68, 82, 83, 89, 112, 113, 152, 162, 166, 211, 215 Arrigoni, Francesco 62 Arundel, earl of 143, 195

Ascham, Roger 156, 270 Ascher, Abraham 181 Ashley, John 227 August II, elector of Saxony 100, 214 Augustus, emperor 43, 75, 76, 78, 200 Aviz, dynasty 203 Bathory, Stefan 184 Bach, Johan Sebastian 202 Bachelier, Nicolas 130 Baldigara, Ottavio 190 Baldriga, Irene 194 Bandello, Matteo 68, 162 Bandini, Francesco 62 Barberini, Francesco 136 Baroffio, Guseppe 188 Baron, Hans 20, 23, 45 Baroni, Leonora 71, 119 Baronio, Cesare 46 Barozzi da Vignola, Giacomo 67, 68, 119, 153, 215 Baruffaldi, Girolamo 223 Beaufort, Henry (cardinal) 58 Beaufort, duke of 145 Beccafumi, Domenico 75 Bellini, Giovanni 130, 205 Bellori, Gian Pietro 128 Bellotto, Bernardo 99 Bembo, Pietro 30, 164, 166, 265 Benigno, Francesco 93 Bentivoglio, family 26, 39, 43, 59, 139, 181, 185 Bentivoglio, Giovanni II 39 Berecci, Bartolomeo 183, 184, 185 Bernini, Gian Lorenzo 71, 118, 124, 128, 198, 209 Beroaldo, Filippo 59, 60 Berruguete, Alonso 130 Bertali, Antonio 102 Bertelli, Sergio 33, 38 Bertinazzi, Carlo 104 Bessarione, Roberto 110 Białostocki, Jan 183, 190 Biard, Pierre 198 Biondi, Giovanni Francesco 89 Biondo, Flavio 69, 129 Blanshard, Alastair 200, 202 Blum, Hans 154 Blundeville, Thomas 227 Boccaccio, Giovanni 36, 37, 58, 68, 83, 154, 162, 166, 206 Bocchi, Francesco 78, 79 Bon, Girolamo 135 Bonacolsi, family 38 Bonfatti, Emilio 156 Bonfidi, Antonio 62

296  Bono, Pietro 219 Bonomini, Giovanni Pietro 149 Boone, Rebecca 113 Borromeo, Federico 132, 241 Borgia, family 43 Botero, Giovanni 155, 175, 290 Botteri, Inge 54, 55, 156, 159, 223, 224, 225 Botticelli, Sandro 64 Boucher, François 202 Boulogne, Jean de (Giambologna) 78, 99, 128, 133, 136, 198 Bourbon, Pierre de 65 Bracciolini, Poggio 58, 61 Brainard, Ingrid 234 Bramante, Donato 132, 194 Branca, Vittore 58 Brathwaite, Richard 158 Braudel, Fernand 12, 13, 56, 219, 236 Bronzino, Agnolo 136 Brown, Alison 17 Brown, Jonathan 136, 142, 143, 167, 189, 192, 193, 202, 216 Brucioli, Antonio 229 Brueghel, Jan 131, 132, 133 Brunelleschi, Filippo 63 Bruni, Francesco 163 Bruni, Leonardo 59, 231 Bruno, Giordano 83, 85, 89 Bryskett, Lodovick 226 Bryson, Anna 269 Buckingham, duke of 117, 143, 192 Budé, Guillome 130 Bullant, Jean 133 Bullen, James B. 19 Burckhardt, Jacob 19 Burke, Peter 71, 136, 199, 224, 268 Buonaccorsi, Filippo (Callimachus) 59, 183 Buonamente, Giovanni Battista 95 Buonarroti, Michelangelo 131, 132 Buontalenti, Bernardo 146, 194, 209, 215, 216 Burnacini, Lodovico Ottavio 95, 175, 218, 290 Bury, Emanuel 224 Buti, Francesco 216 Buttazzi, Grazietta 238 Bylivert, Giacomo 146 Caccini, Giulio 220 Caesar, Julius 68, 69, 74, 75, 79, 142, 144, 246 Caglioti, Francesco 63, 81 Caiadus, Hermicus 60 Caldara, Antonio 95, 101, 102 Camicia, Chimenti 63 Camins, Laura 198 Canaletto 99 Canavesi, Girolamo 184 Candida, Giovanni 206 Candido, Pietro (Peter de Witte) 128 Canova, Antonio 202, 270 Cantarella, Glauco Maria 38

Italian Courts and European Culture

Cantimori, Delio 93 Cantù, Carlo 213 Cappelletti, Leonardo 184 Caproli, Carlo 218 Caradosso (Cristoforo Foppa) 63 Caratti, Francesco 188 Caravaggio 75, 131, 133, 142 Cárdenas, Alonso de 143 Carlone, family 98 Carlone, Carlo Martino 188 Carlone, Michele 124 Carl Wilhelm, margrave of Baden 190 Carmeliano, Pietro 59 Caro, Annibal 84 Caron, Antoine 68 Caroso, Fabrizio 233, 234, 235, 238 Carracci, Annibale 200, 202 Carriera, Rosalba 99 Carstens, Asmus Jacob 134 Cartari, Vincenzo 154, 206, 207 Casimir IV, king of Poland 59 Castellamonte, Carlo di 41 Castello, Giovanni Battista 120, 189 Castelvetro, Iacopo (Giacomo) 165, 166 Castelvetro, Lodovico 89 Castiglione, Baldassarre 28, 30, 33, 36, 41, 44, 53, 55, 57, 67, 71, 82, 84, 88, 112, 115, 116, 117, 118, 121, 124, 156, 157, 158, 159, 161, 162, 165, 168, 169, 174, 177, 189, 207, 224, 228, 232, 233, 237, 238, 244, 245, 248, 251, 267, 269, 274, 276 Castiglioni, Giovanni Battista 165 Castille, Isabella 59 Castrucci, Cosimo 147 Castrucci, Giovanni 147 Catherine II, tsarina 100, 101 Cattini, Marco 44 Cavalli, Francesco 218 Cecchini, Isabella 137 Cecchini, Piermaria 117, 138 Celebrino, Eustachio 230 Cella, Antonio 241 Cellini, Baccio 63 Cellini, Benvenuto 66, 67, 69, 119, 125, 126, 205, 206 Celtis, Conrad 60 Cervantes, Miguel de 130, 162 Cervio, Vincenzo 230 Cesti, Antonio 95, 216, 218 Chalcondylas, Demetrius 60 Charlemagne 79 Charles I, king of England 54, 57, 71, 76, 80, 81, 86, 87, 88, 91, 118, 126, 136, 141, 142, 145, 148, 190, 193, 194, 198, 262, 264 Charles III, king of Spain 105, 119, 148 Charles V, emperor 41, 44, 56, 57, 60, 66, 68, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 90, 91, 93, 112, 113, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 124, 130, 132, 139, 145, 152, 154, 170, 184, 189, 199, 202, 209, 229, 235, 262, 264, 280

297

Index

Charles VIII, king of France 55, 60, 64, 65, 73, 106, 145, 192, 206, 236, 244, 261 Charles IX, king of France 109, 116, 236 Charles XII, king of Sweden 105 Charles the Bold 57, 206 Chartier, Roger 161, 224 Chastel, André 67, 153 Checa Cremades, Fernando 73, 75 Chesterfield, Philip Dormer Stanhope 158, 245, 246 Chittolini, Giorgio 26, 28 Christian I, duke of Saxony 144 Christina, queen of Sweden 105, 143 Christina of Lorraine 209 Christine of France 120 Cicero 85, 129, 201, 204, 226, 231, 240, 268 Cieri Via, Claudia 194 Cimarosa, Domenico 101, 119 Clement VII, pope 56, 75, 77, 183 Clerici, Roberto 103 Clifford, Christopher 227 Clouet, François 72 Clough, Cecil H. 40 Clovio, Giulio 131 Clubb, Louise George 84, 88, 89, 215, 219 Cochrane, Eric 19 Coebergher, Wenzel 132 Colbert, Jean-Baptiste 72, 134 Cole, Alison 39 Colet, John 60 Coletti, Vittorio 101, 216, 217, 218 Colin, Jacques 69 Colombo, family 98 Colonna, Lorenzo Onofrio 141, 171, 267 Colreuter, Gismondo 166 Columba, Luca Antonio 188 Cometa, Antonio 188 Concini, Concino 71, 113, 125 Conradin, emperor 37 Constantine, Palaiologos 110 Conti, Francesco Bartolomeo 102 Conti, Natale 154, 206, 207 Conversini, Giovanni 32 Copernicus, Nicholas 60 Cordier, Nicolas 133, 147 Cordova, Consalvo de 79 Cornazano, Antonio 231 Correggio, family 41, 43, 233 Correggio, Antonio da 41, 71, 132, 133, 138 142, 193, 211 Corso, Rinaldo 233 Corte, Claudio 227 Corvinus, Matthias 57, 61, 62, 63, 64, 95, 109, 118, 136, 169, 170, 180, 181, 183, 186, 196, 201, 262 Costantini, Angelo 214 Cousin, Jean 72 Cranach, Lucas 119, 203 Crescenzi, Giovanni Battista 121, 189

Crisolora, Manuele 59 Cromwell, Oliver 80 Cucci, Domenico 72, 147 Cuci, Pietro 188 Cuppini, Giampiero 100 Cusa, Nicholas of 60 Croce, Benedetto 20, 93 Cybo, family 31, 39, 43 Cybo, Alberico 39 Da Borgomanero, Bernardino 182 Da Caravaggio, Polidoro 75 Da Carcano, Alvise 182 Da Carrara, family 23, 37, 38, 43 Da Carrara, Francesco 207 Da Castiglione, Saba 239, 241 Da Cortona, Domenico 65 Da Cortona, Pietro 71 Dacos, Nicole 133 DaCosta Kaufmann, Thomas 61, 62, 63, 187, 193, 194 Da Gagliardo, Marco 218 Da Gattinara, Mercurino 113 D’Agostino, Guido 179 D’Alembert, Jean-Baptiste le Rond 104 D’Allio, Domenico 188 Dalmata, Giovanni 64, 201 Da Maiano, Benedetto 63, 64, 145 Da Maiano, Giovanni di Benedetto 81 Da Mercogliano, Pacello 191 D’Ancona, Ciriaco 61 Daniel, Samuel 151 Da Palestrina, Giovanni Pierluigi 220 Da Panicale, Masolino 63 Da Piacenza, Domenico 231 Da Polenta, family 38 Da Ponte, Lorenzo 101 Darius 136 Da Rovezzano, Benedetto 81, 124 Darrell, William 225 Dasenbrock, Reed Way 82, 83, 163 Da Tola, Benedetto 119 Da Tola, Gabriele 119 Da Trezzo, Jacopo 206 Da Varano, family 43 Da Verona, Guarino 60, 151, 164 David, Jacques-Louis 199, 202 Da Vinci, Leonardo 67, 68, 115, 118, 121, 130, 193 Da Volterra, Daniele 198 De Barbari, Jacopo 119 De Bassi, Pietro Andrea 200 De Boulogne, Jean 133 De Boulogne, Valentin 133 De Calzabigi, Ranieri 102, 219 De Castro, Machado 199 De Caus, Salomon 192 De Chaules, Pierre 37 De Gatti, Giovanni Theobaldo 103 De gli Alessandri, Filippo 233

298  De Haro, Luis Méndez 143 De Herrera, Juan 126, 128, 132 De la Barca, Calderón 202, 216 De la Broue, Salomon 228 De Las Casas, Cristobal 166 De La Tour, Georges 133 De Lauze, François 233 Del Barbiere, Domenico 195 Del Bianco, Baccio 216 D’Elia, Anthony 39 Della Casa, Giovanni 54, 55, 82, 84, 88, 115, 158, 159, 168, 177, 207, 224, 225, 226, 229, 237, 239, 240, 241, 245, 248 Della Casa, Niccolò 69 Della Francesca, Piero 39 Della Mirandola, Pico 60, 113 Dell’Anguillara, Giovanni Andrea 155, 208 Della Palla, Giambattista 145 Della Porta, Giovan Battista 84 Della Porta, Guglielmo 75 Della Robbia, Girolamo 68, 226 Della Rovere, family 36, 43 Della Rovere, Francesco Maria 38 Della Scala (Scaligeri), family 37 Della Scala, Cangrande 37 Della Stella, Paolo 186 De L’Orme, Philibert 70, 72, 129, 130, 153 Del Pozzo, Cassiano 195 Del Sarto, Andrea 142 Del Vaga, Perin 75, 123 De Maddalena, Aldo 34 De Monfaucon, Bernard 195 De Pario, Francesco 186 De Pario, Jacopo 185 De Pluvinel, Antoine 228 De Rambouillet, Jean de Vivonne 71, 115 De’ Rossi, Francesco 131 De Sanctis, Francesco 93 De Siloe, Diego 132 Desprez, Louis-Jean 106 De Toledo, Eleonora 131 De Toledo, Juan Bautista 120, 132 De Toledo, Pedro 112 Detti, Riccardo 188 De Vaudemont, Marguerite 219 De Vega, Lope 152, 153, 202, 214, 216, 272 Di Belgioioso, Baldassarre 116, 219, 236 Di Lasso, Orlando 220 Di Lorenzo, Gregorio 63 Diobono, Pompeo 116, 234, 235 Di Ricciardo, Giovanni 38 Dolce, Ludovico 157, 202, 208 Domenichelli, Mario 158, 161, 227, 249 Domenichino 202 Doni, Giovanni Battista 217 Doria, Andrea 41, 47, 243, 282 Dossi, Dosso 200, 203 Dovizi, Bernardo 84, 211 Draghi, Giovanni Evangelista 76

Italian Courts and European Culture

Du Bellay, Jean 163, 193, 214 Du Bellay, Joachim 163 Dubost, Jean-François 66, 69, 114, 118, 124, 191 Dubreuil, Toussaint 202 Du Cerceau, Androuet 130, 153 Dupré, Guillome 201, 206 Durastanti, Margherita 117 Du Refuge, Eustache 158 Dürer, Albrecht 93, 119, 128, 130, 202, 206 Duvet, Jean 134 Ebreo, Guglielmo 116, 231, 232, 236 Eglin, John 99 Einstein, Lewis 82 Eisler, William 74, 76 El Greco 126, 131, 132 Elias, Norbert 23, 33, 158, 229, 273 Elisabeth of York 81 Elizabeth, queen of Hungary 59 Elizabeth, tsarina 100 Elizabeth I, queen of England 57, 59, 80, 81, 82, 83, 85, 88, 89, 115, 121, 126, 152, 165, 203, 262, 264 Elliott, John H. 167, 189, 192, 193, 202 Elyot, Thomas 158, 235 Erasmus from Rotterdam 59, 130 Erik XIV, king of Sweden 203 Erizzo, Sebastiano 205 Este, Alfonso II 33, 79, 211 Este, Borso 196 Este, Ercole I 60, 63, 211 Este, Ercole II 229 Este, Ippolito 64, 67 Este, Isabella 113, 242 Este, Luigi 116 Este, Niccolò 200 Ettlinger, Leopold D. 200 Evans, Robert 123 Fabbri, Paolo 100 Fabiano, Andrea 101, 103, 104, 170 Fabri de Peiresc, Nicolas-Claude 205 Facconi, Giovanni 188 Falconet, Etienne-Maurice 199 Fancelli, Domenico 73, 120 Fancelli, Luca 186 Fantoni, Marcello 33, 41, 73, 237 Fantuzzi, Antonio 195 Farbacky, Péter 62 Faret, Nicolas 156, 159, 165, 170, 248 Farinelli 99, 103 Farnese, family 41, 45, 76, 78, 119, 144, 220 Farnese, Alessandro 76, 111, 113, 131, 132, 202, 206, 211 Farnese, Elisabeth 105, 109 Farnese, Margherita 41 Farnese, Odoardo 109 Farnese, Ottavio 41 Farnese, Pier Luigi 41

Index

Farnese, Ranuccio I 33, 233 Farnese, Ranuccio II 76 Federighi 166 Feltrini, Andrea Cosimo 267 Feo, Michele 68 Ferdinand I, emperor 80, 91, 122 Ferdinand I, king of Naples 109, 181, 186, 187 Ferdinand II, emperor 77, 95, 110, 119, 212 Ferdinand III, emperor 95 Ferdinand VI, king of Spain 121 Ferdinand Charles, archduke 218 Ferguson, Wallas K. 18 Fernández de Navarrete, Martin 132 Ferrabosco, Alfonso 89, 219 Ferrone, Siro 104, 165, 211, 213 Feuer-Tóth, Rózsa 62 Fiamma, Galvano 135 Fiaschi, Cesare 228 Fichet, Guillaume 60 Ficino, Marsilio 61, 62 Filarete, Antonio 62, 154, 181, 182, 186 Filelfo, Francesco 61 Filippi, Giovanni Maria 194 Fioravanti, Aristotele 181, 182, 183 Fiorentino, Francesco 183, 184 Fiorentino, Jacopo 120 Fiorilli, Tiberio (Scaramouche) 124, 212 Fisher von Erlach, Johan 128 Flaxman, John 134 Florio, John 85, 86, 89, 115, 116, 151, 165, 166, 167, 271 Florio, Michel Angelo 85 Floris, Frans 133 Foggini, Giovan Battista 146 Fogolino, Marcello 75 Foister, Susan 81 Fonseca, family 133 Fontana, Carlo 128, 189 Formoser, Alexander 64 Forster, Kurt 40, 187 Foscari, Francesco 42, 49 Fouquet, Jean 65 Fox, Dian 202 Fra’ Giocondo 65 Franceschini, Marcantonio 144 Francia, Francesco 39, 205 Francini, Tommaso 191, 192 Francis I, king of France 53, 55, 57, 66, 68, 69, 72, 80, 88, 91, 112, 116, 117, 118, 120, 134, 136, 140, 141, 145, 167, 190, 195, 206, 220, 242, 262, 264 Francis III of Lorraine 104 Franco, Battista 131 Franqueville, Pierre 128 Franz Joseph, emperor 21 Fraser, Hilary 22 Free, John 60 Frederick II, emperor 37 Frederick II, duke of Piast 186

299 Frederick III, emperor 59, 112, 116 Frederick IV, king of Denmark 99, 105 Frederick V, elector palatine 192 Frederick August, duke of Saxony 100, 214 Frederick the Wise, duke of Saxony 119 Frederick Wilhelm, great elector 199 Freedman, Luba 204 Fregoso, Federico 237 Frisoni, Donato Giuseppe 188 Fugger, family 122, 148 Fugger, Jacob 122 Fulvio, Andrea 129, 184, 195 Gabrieli, Andrea 220 Gaguin, Robert 59 Galasso, Giuseppe 29, 120 Galinsky, Karl 200 Gallini, Giovanni Andrea 103 Galuppi, Baldassarre 102 Gambarini, Martino 194 Garbero Zorzi, Elvira 230 Gargioli, Giovanni 186 Gentileschi, Artemisia 119 Gentileschi, Orazio 117 George I, king of England 99 George II, king of England 117 Getty, family 107 Ghirlandaio 81 Giampetro, armourist 66 Giaquinto, Corrado 121 Giegher, Mattia (Mathias Jäger) 230 Gilardi, Antonio 181 Giolito de’ Ferrari, Gabriele 149 Giordano, Luca 121, 133, 189 Giotto 37 Giovio, Paolo 42, 76, 79, 84, 150, 154, 207 Giraldi, Giovanni Battista 89, 151, 200, 211 Giraldi, Gregorio 154, 200, 206, 207, 211 Girardon, François 71, 140, 199 Gisleni, Giovanni Battista 185 Giunti, Domenico 40, 140 Giunti, Giacomo 149 Giunti, Lucantonio 149 Giusti, Annamaria 146 Giustiniani, Vincenzo 195 Gluck, Christoph Wilibald 102, 103, 219 Goldoni, Carlo 72, 100, 101, 103 Goldthwaite, Richard 137 Gonzaga, family 31, 32, 33, 38, 39, 40, 43, 76, 82, 112, 127, 141, 142, 144, 166, 168, 181, 187, 193, 194, 220, 234, 243, 275 Gonzaga, Carlo II 44 Gonzaga, Cesare 95 Gonzaga, Charles I 190 Gonzaga, Eleonora 95, 110 Gonzaga, Federico II 77, 234, 242 Gonzaga, Ferrante 40, 112, 113, 117, 169, 271 Gonzaga, Francesco I 44 Gonzaga, Francesco II 112

300  Gonzaga, Guglielmo 113 Gonzaga, Ludovico (cardinal) 59 Gonzaga, Pietro 98, 101, 216 Gonzaga, Vespasiano 40, 112, 113, 190 Gonzaga, Vincenzo I 33, 88, 131, 138, 142 Gonzaga-Nevers, family 39, 190 González-Palacios, Alvar 146, 147 Gorse, George 42 Gough, Melinda 70 Goujon, Jean 72 Gozzano, Natalia 136 Gracián, Baldasar 158 Grassi, Giacomo 229 Greene, Robert 152 Grenvelle, cardinal de 206 Grillo, Paolo 29 Grimani, Marino 131 Grisone, Federico 166, 227, 228 Grocin, William 60 Guarino, Giovanni Battista 60, 151, 164 Gualdo Priorato, Galeazzo 243 Guazzo, Stefano 57, 84, 85, 113, 158, 159, 160, 164, 177, 207, 226, 266, 268 Gucci, Santi 183, 184 Guercino 40 Guerzoni, Guido 137 Guicciardini, Francesco 167 Guicciardini, Lodovico 85 Guinigi, Paolo 40, 45 Gustav III, king of Sweden 105, 106, 128, 140, 172, 185, 186, 262 Hale, John 82, 84 Hamilton, duke of 143 Händel, Georg Friedrich 93, 103, 130, 219 Hannibal 79 Harasimowicz, Jan 110, 184, 186 Harlequin 71, 104 Haskell, Francis 68, 72, 135, 139, 140, 141, 144 Hawthorne, Nathaniel 20 Haydn, Joseph 219 Hazard, Paul 96, 97 Heinemann, Michael 132 Henrietta Maria, queen of France 136 Henry II, king of France 68, 69, 70, 109, 136, 139, 151, 154, 205, 235, 236, 242 Henry III, king of France 167, 236 Henry IV, king of France 69, 70, 109, 190, 191, 198, 201, 202, 211, 212, 217, 264 Henry VI, king of England 59 Henry VII, king of England 59, 81 Henry VIII, king of England 81, 119, 1`50 Hercules 56, 75, 77, 78, 139, 140, 200, 201, 202, 203, 206 Herrera, Juan de 126, 128, 132 Hitchcock, Henry 188 Hoare, Henry 143 Hoby, Thomas 130, 156, 158, 165 Hogenberg, Nikolas 77

Italian Courts and European Culture

Hohenstaufen, family 37 Holbein, Hans 81 Hollyband, Claude 86 Horace 55, 226 Huizinga, Johan 58 Hulpeau, Charles 138 Innocence VIII, pope 194 Isabella, archduchess 57, 132, 145 Ivan III, tsar 57, 61, 110, 119, 180, 181, 182, 262 Ivan IV, tsar 183 Jabach, Everhard 143 Jagiellon, family 183, 203 James I, king of England 82, 89, 165, 167, 235 Jansen, Dirck Jacob 122, 123 John III Sobieski, king of Poland 193 John Albert I, king of Poland 184 Johann Adam, prince of Liechtenstein 144 Johnson, Eugene G. 215 Jommelli, Niccolò 102 Jones, Inigo 82, 87, 89, 93, 130, 133, 167, 272 Jones, Philip 17, 25, 26, 27 Jonson, Ben 82, 85, 89 Joseph I, king of Portugal 99, 199 Joyeuse, duke de 219 Julius II, pope 38 Jupiter 75, 203 Juvarra, Filippo 41, 105 Kanduth, Erika 95 Kelso, Ruth 248 Kempe, Will 89 Kent, Neil 106 Kent, William 132 Klieman, Julian 76, 204 Kochanowski, Piotr 153 Kohl, Benjamin J. 23, 32 Koršunova, Milika 101 Kowalczyk, Jerzy 190 Kristeller, Paul Oskar 59, 60, 129 Ladislao II, king of Poland 184, 186 Ladislao V, king of Poland 196 La Fontaine, Jean de 152 Lamberti, Aloisio 125 Lanfranco, Giovanni 41 Larner, John 25 Laurana, Francesco 120, 205 Lauretano, Michele 224 Lawrence, Jason 130, 151, 164, 166, 167 Le Brun, Charles 202 Lefèvre d’Étalpes, Jacques 60 Lescot, Pierre 72 Louis XII, king of France 55, 65, 68, 112, 236 Louis XIII, king of France 109, 113, 153, 192, 198 Louis XIV, king of France 69, 70, 71, 72, 82, 105, 111, 113, 134, 140, 141, 147, 190, 193, 194, 195, 198, 211, 212, 218, 221, 229

Index

Lecoq, Anne Marie 66 Leo X, pope 22, 33, 60, 112 Leoni, Giacomo 87 Leoni, Leone 40, 56, 78, 116, 117, 140, 205 Leoni, Pompeo 87, 117 Lescaut, Pierre 133 Le Sueur, Hubert 198 Levi Pisetzky, Rosita 243 Leydi, Silvio 74, 76, 77, 78, 243 Libaerts, Eliseus 203 Lievsay, John L. 85, 159, 226 Lightbown, Ronald 142 Ligorio, Pirro 129, 195, 240, 241 Ligozzi, Jacopo 146 Lione, Antonio 99 Lippi, Filippino 39 Lippi, Filippo 63 Lipsius, Justus 131, 134 Livy 85, 240 Locci, Agostino Vincenzo 185 Lomazzo, Giovanni Paolo 157 Lombardelli, Orazio 225 Lorrain, family 104, 105 Lorrain, Claude 131, 133 Lorrain, Christina 209 Loschi, Antonio 61 Lotti, Cosimo 192, 216 Lotti, Ottaviano 115 Louthan, Howard 123 Lubkin, Gregory 40 Lucchese, Filiberto 188 Luder, Peter 60 Ludovico il Moro 182 Ludwig X, duke of Bavaria 129, 187 Lulli (Lully), Giovan Battista 72, 103, 104, 125, 129, 219, 220, 221, 271 Lurago, Anselmo 186 Luzio, Alessandro 242 Machiavelli, Niccolò 22, 155, 211 Magalotti, Lorenzo 167 Maggi, Baldassarre 188 Maggiorotti, Leone Andrea 121 Maino, Juan Bautista 128 Maire Vigueur, Jean-Claude 28 Malaspina, family 39 Malatesta, family 39, 43 Malatesta, Massario 227 Malatesta, Sigismongo Pandolfo 39 Malatesta dei Sonetti 38 Malvezzi, Virgilio 115 Mamone, Sara 70, 201 Manciolino, Antonio 228 Manetti, Giovanni 139 Manfredi, family 31, 38 Manfredini, Giuseppe 101 Mantegna, Andrea 39, 74, 142, 144 Manuel I, king of Portugal 119 Manuzio, Aldo 113, 149

301 Manzoni, Alessandro 93 Marcolini, Francesco 199 Marcus Aurelius 75, 197 Marescotti, Giorgio 149 Margaret of Austria 119 Margaret of Bavaria 234 Maria Anna of Spain 126 Marie Therese, empress 186 Marini, Giovanni Ambrogio 153 Marino, Giovanni Battista 68, 71, 117, 121, 129, 153, 271 Marrapodi, Michele 162 Martin V, pope 37 Martinelli, Tristano 71 Martini, Simone 58 Marx, Barbara 123, 144, 186, 187, 189, 203 Mary, queen of Scots 114, 126, 236 Mary Tudor, queen of France 206 Masaccio 63 Matarrese, Tina 164, 165, 166 Matthias, emperor 95 Maurice, duke of Saxony 119, 187, 203 Mauro, Luciano 140 Maximilian I, emperor 39, 109, 119, 189, 212 Maximilian II, emperor 39, 119, 121, 122, 131 Maximilian, archduke of Austria 60 Mazzacurati, Giancarlo 29 Mazzolà, Caterino 100 McGowan, Margaret M. 65, 67, 74, 130, 134, 139, 205, 233, 235, 236 Medici, family 26, 33, 35, 38, 41, 43, 45, 70, 76, 78, 99, 104, 110, 112, 115, 119, 120, 133, 136, 147, 166, 190, 191, 192, 193, 198, 200, 206, 209, 215, 219, 220, 234, 255, 271 Medici, Anna Maria Luisa 104 Medici, Catherin 69, 70, 71, 109, 123, 136, 242 Medici, Cosimo the Elder 26, 181 Medici, Cosimo I 76, 136, 202, 220 Medici, Cosimo III 33, 202, 246 Medici, Eleonora 209 Medici, Ferdinand I 41, 130, 146, 198, 209, 212 Medici, Ferdinand II 146 Medici, Francesco I 146, 192, 194 Medici, Gian Gastone 104 Medici, Giovanni 78 Medici, Lorenzo 22, 26, 64, 109, 136 Medici, Marie 70, 71, 109, 113, 117, 125, 128, 137, 198, 201, 211, 212, 217, 236, 264 Melani, Alessandro 202 Melani, Atto 71 Mellon, family 107 Mellon, Claude 195 Mendoza, family 133 Messisburgo, Cristoforo di 116, 166 Metastasio, Pietro 94, 95, 99, 101, 102, 103, 117, 164, 261 Mezzatesta, Michael P. 75, 78 Michelet, Jules 19 Milton, John 130, 153, 167

302  Mirabelli, Domenico Nani 150, 155 Miseroni, Dyonisio 147 Miseroni, Ottavio 147 Missaglia, family 138 Missaglia, Francesco 138 Mitelli, painter 141 Molho, Anthony 20, 23 Molière 71, 93, 129, 162, 202, 212, 214, 221 Monfasani, John 59 Montaigne, Michel de 85, 130, 134, 167 Montefeltro, family 38, 43 Montefeltro, Federico 232 Montefeltro, Guidobaldo 116 Montefeltro, Guidobaldo II 230 Monteverdi, Claudio 101, 216, 217, 218 Montpensier, mademoiselle de 221 Morando, Bernardo 190 Moritz, elector of Saxony 187 Moritz, landgrave von Essen 132 Mosca, Giovanni Maria 184 Mottola Molfino, Alessandra 242 Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus 101, 102, 219 Mozzarelli, Cesare 22, 24, 35, 36, 127, 238 Muir, Edward 20 Mumford, Lewis 94 Mussato, Albertino 211 Mussi, Giovanni 242 Mutinelli, Fabio 244 Muzio, Girolano 229 Nalbach, Daniel 101, 102 Napoleon III, emperor 211 Naseli, Alberto (Zan Ganassa) 213 Nassaro, Matteo del 66, 67 Nebrija, Antonio de 60 Negri, Cesare 234, 235, 236 Negroli, family 138, 139 Negroli, Filippo 78, 139 Neri, Ferdinando 84 Nevile, Jennifer 231, 232, 233, 235 Nicolas V, pope 63 Noiray, Michel 101, 103, 104, 218 Nolde, Dorothea 192 Nordera, Marina 115, 232, 234, 235 Nosseni, Giovanni Maria 123, 144, 194 Nosseni, Mario 188 Novello, Francesco 38 Novi, Aloisio (Novyi) (Aloisio da Milano) 125, 182 Nuovo, Angela 148 Oberhuber, Konrad 133 Olivares, count-duke 143, 167, 189 Olmi, Giovanni 21 Orange, William of 80 Orsini, Fulvio 200 Ottheinrich, count palatine 187 Ovid 85, 155, 207

Italian Courts and European Culture

Pacelli, Matteo 121 Paisiello, Giovanni 101 Paladino, Giovanni Paolo 69 Palearo, Giacomo 119 Paleologo, family 31 Paleotti, Gabriele 78 Palladio, Andrea 82, 86, 87, 126, 130, 132, 134, 153, 179, 189, 215, 271 Pallavicini, Stefano 99 Palmieri, Matteo 231 Pane, Roberto 120 Panini, Giovanni Paolo 99 Pannonius, Janus 60, 61, 62 Panofsky, Erwin 77, 199, 203, 208, 269 Paoli, Giovanni 149 Papione, Michele 182 Parmigianino 41, 77, 132 Patrizi, Francesco 237 Patrizi, Giorgio 160, 172 Paul I, tsar 138 Paul III, pope 41 Peake, Robert 83 Pears, Ian 90, 245 Pellegrini, Antonio 99 Penci, Andrea 127 Penny, Nicholas 68, 72, 140, 141 Pergolesi, Giovan Battista 103 Pernestein, Wratislao from 147 Perugino 39 Peruzzi, Baldassarre 75, 76, 154, 179 Pescatori, Laura 110 Peter I (the Great), tsar 57, 91, 99, 100, 119, 124, 183, 192, 197, 199, 262 Peter III, emperor 101 Peter Leopold, grand duke 104, 105 Petrarch, Francesco 37, 58, 68, 69, 74, 83, 118, 129, 151, 164, 165, 166, 207, 215, 261, 270 Petrucci, Pandolfo 40 Pettie, George 150, 159 Petty, William 143 Philip II, king of Spain 28, 80, 90, 111, 112, 113, 117, 119, 120, 121, 126, 128, 132, 139, 145, 194, 202, 206, 220, 235, 243, 264 Philip III, king of Spain 198 Philip IV, king of Spain 44, 80, 81, 88, 90, 91, 115, 126, 130, 133, 136, 141, 143, 145, 167, 168, 198, 202, 216, 234, 262 Philip V, king of Spain 109, 113, 144 Philip the Fair 119, 139 Philip the Good 138 Phipps Darr, Alan 81 Phyrr, Stuart 139 Piccinni, Niccolò 103 Piccolomini, Enea Silvio (Pope Pius II) 59, 231 Pico, family 41, 43 Pico, della Mirandola 60, 113 Pieri, Marzia 100, 214 Pietrosanti, Susanna 76

303

Index

Pigna, Giovan Battista 79 Pignatelli, Giovanni Battista 228 Pigot, George 225 Pio, family 41, 43 Pio, Alberto III 112, 113, 176 Piranesi, Antonio 99 Piranesi, Francesco 106 Piranesi, Gian Francesco 106 Pisanello, Antonio 37, 205 Piso, Jacobus 62 Pius IV, pope 126 Plato 204 Plautus 85, 210 Pliny the Younger 63, 85, 240 Plumb, J. H. 20 Plutarch 75, 207 Poggetti, Francesco 148 Poggini, Giampaolo 206 Poliziano, Angelo 60, 211 Pollack, Martha 41 Pollaiuolo, Antonio del 63 Poncet, Olivier 71, 265 Pontano, Giovanni 62, 135 Pope-Hennessy, John 99, 121 Pourbus, Frans 131 Poussin, Louis 129 Poussin, Nicolas 133, 152, 202 Pozzo, Andrea 203 Primaticcio, Francesco 67, 68, 124 Prisciani, Pellegrino 215 Publiano, Gian Pietro 227 Puccinelli, Virgilio 218 Quadrio, Giovanni 185 Quarenghi, Giacomo 98, 100 Quatremère de Quincy, Antoine-Chrysostome 106 Quevedo, Francisco de 167 Quintilian 226, 231 Quondam, Amedeo 20, 22, 93, 138, 139, 151, 155, 156, 158, 160, 161, 203, 207, 223, 226, 227, 245, 249, 268, 269, 270 Rabelais, François 129, 130 Raphael 71, 112, 121, 130, 131, 142, 184 Rasi, Francesco 95 Rastrelli, Francesco 100, 124 Rees, Valery 62 Régnaud, Nicolas 138 Regnier, Nicholas 133 Reinhardt, Volker 43 Renier, Rodolfo 242 Repishti, Francesco 153, 182 Reuchlin, John 60, 130 Reusmer, Elias 160 Ribera, Jusepe de 133 Ricaldone, Luisa 102 Ricardo, Antonio 149

Ricci, Giovanni 244 Ricci, Piero 230 Ricci, Sebastiano 76 Ricciardelli, Fabrizio 17 Riccio, David 114 Richard II, king of England 54 Richardson, Brian 69 Richelieu, cardinal 193, 198, 202 Riccoboni, Luigi 213 Ried, Benedict 183 Rinaldi, Antonio 100 Rinuccini, Ottavio 217, 218, 219 Rio Barredo, José del 192 Ripa, Cesare 32, 154, 207 Rizzo, Giovanni Battista 242 Robert Guiscard 36 Roche, Daniel 240, 241, 245, 248 Rockfeller, family 107 Romanelli, Giovanni Francesco 71 Romani, Marzio Achille 44 Romano, Dennis 42 Romano, Giulio 67, 74, 75, 76, 119, 121, 123, 142, 187, 189 Romanov, dynasty 21 Ronsard, Pierre 93, 163 Rosa, Salvator 135 Roscoe, William 22 Rosenthal, Earl 65, 124, 187 Rosselli, Domenico 64 Rosselli, Francesco 64 Rossi, Aniello 121 Rossi, Don Pio 35 Rosso Fiorentino 67, 69, 115, 116, 117, 267 Rouillé, Guillaume 69 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques 103 Rubens, Peter Paul 39, 54, 93, 128, 131, 132, 133, 138, 142, 143, 167, 199, 202 Rubinstein, Nicolai 17, 26 Rudolf II, emperor 57, 81, 91, 112, 118, 119, 122, 123, 131, 138, 141, 145, 147, 186, 189, 193, 194, 201, 235, 251, 262, 264 Ruffo, Marco (Marco Friazin) 125, 181 Ruggiero, Guido 27 Ruzzante (Angelo Beolco) 211 Sabatier, Gérard 197, 199 Sabbatini, Nicola 217 Sacco, family 213 Sadeler, Egidio 77 Sagredo, Diego de 154 Saint Simon, Henri de 127, 193 Salieri, Antonio 102 Salinger, Leo 84 Salutati, Coluccio 59, 148, 206 Salvi, Antonio 130 Salviati, Francesco 76 Sanford, James 85 Sanford, John 86

304  Sangallo, Antonio da 75, 131 Sangallo, Giuliano da 65, 184 Sannazzaro, Jacopo 83, 89, 115, 153, 164, 166 Sanseverino, family 41 Sansovino, Andrea 119 Sansovino, Francesco 79, 244 Santucci, Ercole 235 Sanvitale, family 41 Sanvitale, Galeazzo 41 Saslow, James M. 209 Savoy, dynasty 22, 33, 41, 44, 114, 199, 200, 236 Savoy, Carlo Emanuele 198 Savoy, Eugene of 11, 113 Savoy, Vittorio Amedeo 120 Sberlati, Francesco 69, 93, 158, 264, 272 Scala, Flaminio 84 Scamozzi, Vincenzo 87, 104, 179, 180 Scarlatti, Domenico 101, 103 Scher, Stephen K. 205 Schlüter, Andrea 199 Schute, John 132 Schütz, Heinrich 132 Scipio 79 Scott, Tom 25 Scotti, family 95 Scotti, Pietro 188 Sebastian, king of Portugal 203 Seifert, Herbert 95 Semper, Hans 112 Seneca 210, 241 Sergel, Johan Tobias 105 Serlio, Sebastiano 53, 57, 67, 69, 72, 83, 86, 87, 121, 122, 153, 154, 179, 215, 269, 271 Sévigné, madame de 219 Seznec, Jan 197, 207 Sforza, family 40, 43, 58, 63, 119, 127, 138, 182, 246 Sforza, Alessandro 38 Sforza, Bianca Maria 109, 234 Sforza, Bona 109, 110, 183 Sforza, Francesco 40, 138, 182 Sforza, Galeazzo Maria 33, 48, 181, 285 Shakespeare, William 54, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 89, 151, 159, 162, 167, 202, 214 Shvidkovsky, Dmitri 181 Sidney, Philip 83, 130, 162 Sidonio, Marcantonio 211 Sigismund, king of Hungary and emperor 59 Sigismund I, king of Poland 57, 109, 119, 129, 181, 183, 184, 185, 262 Sigismund II, king of Poland 158, 184, 185 Sigismund III, king of Poland 185 Signorotto, Gianvittorio 38 Silva Maroto, Pilar 144 Sittico, Marco 95 Sixtus V, pope 199 Ŝlasky, Jan 152 Smith, Dennis 273 Sophia (Zoë) Palaiologina 110, 181

Italian Courts and European Culture

Solari, Pietro Antonio 182 Solari, Santino 192 Solombrini, Leucadio 67 Spagnoletti, Angelantonio 29, 43, 113 Spenser, Edmund 82, 83, 152, 163, 214 Speroni, Sperone 164 Spranger, Bartholomeus 130, 141 Stampiglia, Silvio 95 Starkey, David 89 Stebbins, Theodore E. 19 Stecchi, Domenico 148 Stone, Lawrence 142 Strada, Jacopo 121, 122, 123, 141, 271 Strada, Ottavio 122 Stradano, Giovanni 27 Stradová, Kateřina 122 Strong, Roy 75, 83, 88 Stuart, dynasty 81, 93, 119, 142 Suttermans, Justus 133 Svalduz, Elena 192 Symonds, John Addington 19, 22 Szanto, Michaël 137, 138, 144 Tabacco, Giovanni 25 Tacca, Pietro 99, 136, 198 Tafuri, Manfredo 189 Tamalio, Raffaele 113 Tanner, Maria 80 Tapié, Victor L. 71, 124 Tassi, Agostino 131 Tasso, Torquato 32, 40, Tenenti, Alberto 45 Terence 85, 210 Tesauro, Emanuele 225 Terzio, Francesco 188 Tessin, Nicodemus the Younger 105 Theti, Carlo 114 Thomas, William 85, 86, 166 Thomas Howard, earl of Arundel 195 Thorvaldsen, Bertel 133 Tibaldi, Pellegrino 117, 189 Ticonia, Paolo Andrea 138 Tiepolo, Giovanni Battista 98, 99, 117, 152 Tiferna, Gregorio 60 Tintoretto, Jacopo 152 Tiptoft, John 60 Titian 39, 57, 71, 77, 116, 121, 126, 131, 132, 136, 142, 145, 193, 199, 238 Tomassini, Giovanni 227 Tomicki, bishop of Cracow 184 Torelli, family 40 Torelli, Giacomo 216, 218 Torelli, Giuseppe 102 Torrentino, Lorenzo 149 Torriano, Giovanni 86 Torrigiani, Pietro 81 Tóth, István György 62 Toto, Antonio 81, 170, 281 Trevano, Giovanni Battista 185

305

Index

Trevor-Roper, Hugh 54, 132, 133, 145, 189, 263 Trezzini, Domenico 100, 124, 192 Tribolo, Niccolò 75 Trinci, family 40 Trissino, Gian Giorgio 60, 89, 116, 153 Trujillo, Tommaso 240, 241 Tudor, dynasty 80, 81, 93, 115, 206, 265 Turchi, Ludovico 137 Ubaldini, Petruccio 165 Ulric I, duke of Württemberg 186 Valeriani, Giuseppe 136 Valeriano 199 Valladier, André 201 Vanderbilt, family 107 Van Dyck, Anthony 82, 131, 199 Van Heemskerck, Maerten 77, 131, 133 Van Horthorst, Gerrit 133 Van Laer, Peter 133 Van Schoorel, Jan 133 Van Veen, Otto 132 Van Wittel, Caspar 129 Van Wittel (Vanvitelli), Luigi 105 Varadi, Peter 62 Vasa, dynasty 185 Vasari, Giorgio 76, 145, 157, 185 Vasari, Giorgio the Younger 190 Vasoli, Cesare 112 Vazquez, Lorenzo 132 Vecellio, Cesare 238, 240 Velasquez, Diego 133, 141 Venturelli, Paola 233, 242, 243 Venturi, Anna Rosa 196 Venturi, Franco 19 Verdi, Giuseppe 101 Vergerio, Pier Candido 61, 118, 152 Vergerio, Pier Paolo 59 Verrocchio, Andrea del 64, 136 Vico, Enea 205 Victoria, queen of England 21 Vigarani, Carlo 103 Vigarani, Gaspare 103 Vignon, Claude 202 Viroli, Maurizio 22 Visconti, family 23, 36, 39, 40, 135 Visconti, Gian Galeazzo 39, 109, 182

Vitelli, family 31, 40 Vitéz, Jónas 32 Vitruvius 154, 180, 215, 246 Vladislav II, king of Bohemia and Hungary 183 Von Hagen, Heinrich 144 Von Hase, Friedrich Wilhelm 200 Von Hildebrand, Johan Lukas 189 Von Kleist, Heinrich 202 Vouet, Simon 131 Voyce, Arthur 180, 183 Wals, Goffredo 131 Washington, George 159, 199 Weiss, Roberto 58, 60 Welch, Evelyn 181, 182 Welser, family 148 Wesley, John 159 West, Shearer 96, 97, 98, 99 Wilbourne, Emily 219 Wilhelm V (William), duke of Bavaria 128 Winkelmann, Johan 139 Wladislaw IV, king of Poland 218 Wolf, John 149, 164, 166 Wolsey, Thomas 192 Woodhouse, John R. 164, 225 Wright, Louis Booker 89 Württemberg, duke of 190 Wyatt, Michael 59 Wyatt, Thomas 83, 163 Wynn, Richard 142 Xenophon 227 Yates, Frances 74, 80, 83, 85, 86, 88, 89, 115, 219 Young Kim, David 125 Yusupov, prince 216 Źaboklicki, Krzysztov 218 Zamoyski, Jan 190 Zangheri, Luigi 192 Zeno, Apostolo 102 Zerner, Henri 67, 72 Zorzi, Andrea 26, 29 Zuccaro, Federico 117, 121, 124, 126, 132, 180 Zurbarán, Francisco de 133, 202