The Italian Renaissance

by Peter Burke

  Whether the point was Donatello’s or Vasari’s, the moral is clear: works of art are not ordinary commodities, and artists are not ordinary craftsmen to be paid by the day.

  One is reminded of what the attorney-general said to Whistler about his Nocturne, and the artist’s reply: ‘The labour of two days then is that for which you ask 200 guineas?’ ‘No: I ask it for the knowledge of a lifetime.’ The point still needed to be made in 1878. However, the question was very much alive in Renaissance Italy. The archbishop of Florence recognized, as we have seen (p. 81), that artists claimed with some justification to be different from ordinary craftsmen. Francisco de Hollanda, a Portuguese in the circle of Michelangelo, argued still more forcefully that ‘Works of art are not to be judged by the amount of useless labour spent on them but by the worth of the knowledge and skill which went into them’ (lo merecimento do saber e da mao que as faz).117

  PLATE 3.8 PALMA VECCHIO: PORTRAIT OF A POET

  The same idea, that the artist is not an ordinary craftsman, may well underlie the behaviour of Pontormo (again according to Vasari) when he rejected a good commission and then did something ‘for a miserable price’. He was showing the client that he was a free man. Artistic eccentricity carried a social message.

  PLATE 3.9 GIULIO ROMANO: THE PALAZZO DEL TE, MANTUA, DETAIL OF A FRIEZE WITH SLIPPED TRIGLYPHS

  1 On problems raised by this method, Burke, ‘Prosopografie van der Renaissance’.

  2 For the composition of this group, see the names marked with an asterisk in the Index. No references will be given for information about individual artists derived from the Thieme–Becker Allgemeines Lexicon; about humanists from Cosenza’s Biographical and Bibliographical Dictionary; or about musicians from Grove’s New Dictionary of Music. Nor will page references be given for Vasari’s Lives, since the lives are short and the editions are many.

  3 Ettlinger, ‘Emergence of the Italian architect’. Cf. Pevsner, ‘The term “architect”’; Ackerman, ‘Ars sine scientia nihil est’; Murray, ‘Italian Renaissance architect’.

  4 Nochlin, ‘Why have there been no great women artists?’; Greer, Obstacle Race; Parker and Pollock, Old Mistresses.

  5 Tietze-Conrat, ‘Marietta, fille du Tintoret’, attempted some identifications.

  6 Niccoli, Rinascimento al femminile; Jacobs, Defining the Renaissance Virtuosa.

  7 Cox, Women’s Writing in Italy, p. xiii.

  8 Pesenti, ‘Alessandra Scala’; King, ‘Thwarted ambitions’; Jardine, ‘Isotta Nogarola’ and ‘Myth of the learned lady’; Cox, Women’s Writing in Italy, pp. 2–17.

  9 Lowe, Nuns’ Chronicles.

  10 Tuscany had 10 per cent of the population and 26 per cent of the elite; the Veneto, 20 and 23 per cent; the States of the Church, 15 and 18 per cent; Lombardy, 10 and 11 per cent. On the other hand, south Italy had 30 per cent of the population and 7 per cent of the elite; Piedmont, 10 and 1.5 per cent; Liguria, 5 and 1 per cent. For statistics on writers alone, Bec, ‘Lo statuto socio-professionale’, p. 247.

  11 Tuscany, 60 per cent visual (95 to 62); the Veneto, 55 per cent (75 to 62); Lombardy, 70 per cent (45 to 19); south Italy, 58 per cent non-visual (24 to 17); while the Genoese had four humanists to one artist.

  12 Urbino had a population of less than 5,000, but it included the historian Polidore Vergil, the mathematician Commandino, the composers M. A. Cavazzoni and his son Girolamo, and the painters Genga, Santi and Raphael. The architect Bramante was born nearby.

  13 Hall, Rome.

  14 Bridgman, Vie musicale, ch. 7.

  15 The known fathers of painters, sculptors and architects include 96 artisans and shopkeepers compared to 40 nobles, professional men or merchants. The known fathers of writers, humanists and scientists include 7 artisans and shopkeepers compared to 95 nobles, professional men and merchants. Cf. Bec, ‘Lo statuto socio-professionale’, pp. 248–9.

  16 Tagliaferro and Aikema, Le botteghe di Tiziano.

  17 Galton, Hereditary Genius.

  18 Gaye, Carteggio inedito d’artisti, vol. 2, pp. 43ff.

  19 However, the life of Brunelleschi attributed to Manetti and written some sixty years closer to the events records that Filippo’s father made no objection, ‘as he was a man of discernment’.

  20 Condivi, Vita di Michelangelo Buonarroti, p. 24.

  21 On Campano, D’Amico, Renaissance Humanism, pp. 14–15.

  22 The story is told by Ghiberti, Commentari, p. 32, followed by Vasari.

  23 Frey, Il libro de Antonio Billi, pp. 21–2.

  24 Kris and Kurz, Legend, Myth and Magic, ch. 2. Cf. Barolsky, Why Mona Lisa Smiles.

  25 Puppi, Andrea Palladio, ch. 1.

  26 On workshop training, Thomas, Painter’s Practice; Welch, Art and Society, pp. 79–102; Ames-Lewis, Drawing in Early Renaissance Italy, pp. 35–46. Cf. Ames-Lewis, Intellectual Life.

  27 Cennini, Libro dell’arte, p. 65. Cf. Cole, Renaissance Artist at Work, ch. 2; on Florence, Wackernagel, World of the Florentine Renaissance Artist, ch. 12, and Thomas, Painter’s Practice; on Venice, Tietze, ‘Master and workshop’.

  28 Goldthwaite, ‘Schools and teachers’.

  29 Talvacchia, ‘Raphael’s workshop’; Wallace, ‘Michelangelo’s assistants’.

  30 Gasparino Barzizza, quoted by Baxandall, ‘Guarino, Pisanello and Manuel Chrysoloras’, p. 183n. On drawings, Ames-Lewis, Drawing in Early Renaissance Italy, ch. 4, and Ames-Lewis and Wright, Drawing in the Italian Renaissance Workshop.

  31 Prager and Scaglia, Brunelleschi, pp. 65ff.

  32 Kagan, ‘Universities in Italy’; Black, ‘Italian Renaissance education’; Grendler, Schooling in Renaissance Italy and Universities of the Italian Renaissance; Belloni and Drusi, Umanesimo ed educazione.

  33 Since this book first appeared, there has been something of a boom in the history of universities in Italy and elsewhere, thanks to Verde, Studio fiorentino; Schmitt, ‘Philosophy and science’; Denley, ‘Recent studies on Italian universities’ and ‘Social function of Italian Renaissance universities’; Kagan, ‘Universities in Italy’; and the synthesis by Grendler, Universities of the Italian Renaissance. On Padua, Giard, ‘Histoire de l’université’.

  34 Rashdall, Universities of Europe, vol. 2, p. 54.

  35 Kearney, Scholars and Gentlemen; Kristeller, Renaissance Thought, ch. 1; Denley, ‘Social function of Italian Renaissance universities’; Grendler, Universities of the Italian Renaissance, pp. 199–248.

  36 Martines, Social World, p. 117.

  37 Ackerman , ‘Architectural practice’.

  38 Bridgman, Vie musicale, ch. 4.

  39 Ghiberti, Commentari, p. 2.

  40 Alberti, On Painting; and On Sculpture, bk 3, pp. 94ff.

  41 Filarete, Treatise on Architecture, bk 15, p. 198.

  42 Gauricus, De sculptura, pp. 52ff.

  43 Pevsner, Academies of Art, ch. 1, gives the traditional view. Vasari’s famous account of Bertoldo’s academy has been questioned by Chastel, Art et humanisme, pp. 19ff. Cf. Elam, ‘Lorenzo de’Medici’s sculpture garden’.

  44 Frey, Il libro de Antonio Billi, p. 31.

  45 Cèndali, Giuliano e Benedetto da Maiano, pp. 182ff.; Bec, Marchands écrivains; cf. Bec, Livres des florentins.

  46 Coor, Neroccio de’Landi, p. 107.

  47 Fumagalli, Leonardo; Reti, ‘Two unpublished manuscripts’, pp. 81ff.

  48 Petrucci, La scrittura.

  49 Rossi, Dalle botteghe alle accademie; Dempsey, ‘Some observations’; Bolland, ‘From the workshop to the academy’.

  50 Boase, Giorgio Vasari; Rubin, Giorgio Vasari, pp. 72–3.

  51 Palmieri, Vita civile, bk 1, p. 43.

  52 Poliziano, Panepistemon; Summers, Michelangelo, ch. 17.

  53 Only seven arts are distinguished here: painter, sculptor, architect, writer, humanist, scientist and composer, a classification which tends to play down the many-sidedness of the elite rather than exaggerate it. The eighteen men who practised three arts or more are Alberti, Aquilano, Bramante, Brunellesch
i, Filarete, Ghiberti, Giocondo, Francesco di Giorgio, Leonardo, Ligorio, Mazzoni, Michelangelo, Alessandro Piccolomini, Serlio, Tebaldeo, Vasari, Vecchietta and Zenale.

  54 Santillana, ‘Paolo Toscanelli and his friends’.

  55 Cole, Renaissance Artist at Work; Thomas, Painter’s Practice and ‘Workshop as the space’; Welch, Art and Society, pp. 79–101; Comanducci, ‘Il concetto di “artista”’ and ‘Organizazzione produttiva’; Tagliaferro and Aikema, Le botteghe di Tiziano.

  56 Chambers, Patrons and Artists, nos. 7, 11, 15.

  57 Marabottini, ‘Collaboratori’; Burke, ‘Italian artist’.

  58 On the persistence of the family workshop in Venice, Rosand, Painting in Cinquecento Venice, pp. 7ff.; Tagliaferro and Aikema, Le botteghe di Tiziano, pp. 152–91.

  59 Tietze, ‘Master and workshop’; cf. Fraenkel, Signature, genèse d’un signe; Matthew, ‘Painter’s presence’.

  60 Procacci, ‘Compagnie di pittori’.

  61 Schulz, Sculpture of Bernardo Rossellino, p. 11; Caplow, ‘Sculptors’ partnerships’; Sheard and Paoletti, Collaboration in Italian Renaissance Art. On the quarries, Klapisch-Zuber, Maîtres du marbre; Chambers, Patrons and Artists, no. 2.

  62 Wyrobisz, ‘Attività edilizia a Venezia’.

  63 Manetti, Vita di Brunelleschi, p. 77.

  64 Ricci, Tempio malatestiano, pp. 588ff.; Wittkower, Architectural Principles, pp. 29ff; Chambers, Patrons and Artists, pp. 181–3.

  65 Saalman, ‘Filippo Brunelleschi’.

  66 Lane, Venetian Ships and Shipbuilders; Concina, Arsenale della Repubblica di Venezia, pp. 108ff.

  67 MacKenney, ‘Arti e stato a Venezia’, ‘Guilds and guildsmen’ and Tradesmen and Traders; Motta, ‘Università dei pittori’.

  68 Gaye, Carteggio inedito d’artisti, vol. 2, pp. 43ff.

  69 Conti, ‘Evoluzione dell artista’, pp. 151ff.

  70 Dürer, Schriftlicher Nachlass, vol. 1, pp. 41ff.

  71 Muraro, ‘Statutes of the Venetian Arti’.

  72 Lord, Singer of Tales; Bronzini, Tradizione di stile aedico; Burke, ‘Learned culture and popular culture’ and ‘Oral culture and print culture’.

  73 Vespasiano da Bisticci, Vite di uomini illustri, especially the life of Cosimo de’Medici; De la Mare, ‘Vespasiano da Bisticci’; Martini, Bottega di un cartolaio fiorentino; Petrucci, ‘Libro manoscritto’; Richardson, Manuscript Culture.

  74 Lowry, World of Aldus Manutius, esp. ch. 1; Zeidberg and Superbi, Aldus Manutius and Renaissance Culture; Tenenti, ‘Luc’Antonio Giunti’.

  75 Branca, Poliziano e l’umanesimo della parola; Petrucci, ‘Biblioteche antiche’.

  76 Trovato, Con ogni diligenza; Grafton, Culture of Correction.

  77 Bareggi, Mestiere di scrivere; Larivaille, Pietro Aretino; Grendler, Critics of the Italian World and ‘Francesco Sansovino’.

  78 Quondam, ‘Mercanzia d’honore’.

  79 Bridgman, Vie musicale, ch. 2.

  80 Martines, Social World, p. 97.

  81 Of 103 humanists in the elite, 14 may be classified as extremely sedentary, 29 as fairly sedentary, 12 as fairly mobile, and 46 as extremely mobile, with two individuals unknown. On transient foreign humanists in Venice, King, Venetian Humanism, pp. 220ff.

  82 Wittkower, ‘Individualism in art and artists’; Wittkower and Wittkower, Born under Saturn; Kempers, Painting, Power and Patronage.

  83 Kristeller Renaissance Thought, ch. 1, a salutary reaction against some extremely vague conceptions of the humanist.

  84 Acciarini to Poliziano, quoted in Usmiani, ‘Marko Marulić’, p. 19.

  85 Dionisotti, Geografia e storia.

  86 On humanists as secretaries in Venice, King, Venetian Humanism, pp. 294ff.

  87 That Grazzini actually practised as an apothecary has been questioned by Plaisance, ‘Culture et politique’, p. 82n.

  88 Duby, Three Orders; Niccoli, Sacerdoti.

  89 Cennini, Libro dell’arte, vol. 2; Leonardo da Vinci, Literary Works, p. 91.

  90 Gilbert, ‘The archbishop on the painters’.

  91 Hartt, Giulio Romano, doc. 69.

  92 Dürer to Pirckheimer, 13 October 1506, Schriftlicher Nachlass, vol. 1, pp. 41ff.

  93 Castiglione, Cortegiano, bk 1, ch. 49; on Barbaro, Dolce, Aretino, pp. 106ff.

  94 Ghiberti, Commentari, p. 2.

  95 Chambers, Patrons and Artists, no. 104.

  96 Steinmann, Sixtinische Kapelle, vol. 2, p. 754.

  97 Conti, ‘Evoluzione dell’artista’, pp. 206ff.

  98 Anthon, ‘Social status of Italian muscians’; Bridgman, Vie musicale, ch. 2; Lowinsky, ‘Music of the Renaissance as viewed by Renaissance musicians’.

  99 Martines, Social World, a study of 45 humanists in the period 1390–1460.

  100 The 25 are as follows: Andrea Alciati, from Alzate in Lombardy; Ermolao Barbaro, from Venice; Filippo Beroaldo, from Bologna; Flavio Biondo, from Forli in the Papal States; Angelo Decembrio, from Lombardy; Mario Equicola, from Caserta; Bartolommeo Fazio, from La Spezia in Liguria; Francesco Filelfo, from Tolentino, near Ancona; Guarino Veronese; Pomponio Leto, from Lucania; Antonio Loschi, from Vicenza; Pietro Martire d’Anghiera, from Lombardy; Andrea Navagero, from Venice; Agostino Nifo, from Calabria; Antonio Panormita, from Palermo; Giovanni Pico, from Mirandola; Bartolommeo Platina, from Cremona; Pietro Pomponazzi, from Mantua; Giovanni Pontano, from Ponte in Umbria; Sperone Speroni, from Padua; Giorgio Valla, from Piacenza; Lorenzo Valla, from Rome; Maffeo Vegio, from Lodi; Pietro Paolo Vergerio the elder, from Capodistria; and Vittorino da Feltre from the Veneto.

  101 Mondolfo, ‘Greek attitude’.

  102 Leonardo da Vinci, Literary Works, p. 91.

  103 Ibid.

  104 Michelangelo, Carteggio, 2 May 1548.

  105 Condivi, Vita di Michelangelo Buonarroti, p. 45.

  106 Coor, Neroccio de’Landi, p. 10.

  107 Mather, ‘Documents’.

  108 Zilsel, Entstehung des Geniebegriffes.

  109 Rossi, Dalle botteghe alle accademie; Dempsey, ‘Some observations’.

  110 Wittkower and Wittkower, Born under Saturn; Zanrè, Cultural Non-Conformity.

  111 Bandello, Novelle, novella 58, dedication.

  112 Zilsel, Entstehung des Geniebegriffes; Klibansky et al., Saturn and Melancholy.

  113 Chambers, Patrons and Artists, no. 61.

  114 Straeten, Musique aux Pays-Bas, p. 87.

  115 Masaccio died in 1428, Uccello in 1475. Vasari could have learned about them from the oral traditions of the artists of Florence, but in Masaccio’s case this would have been more than a hundred years after the event. Readers can make their own assessment of the reliability of information transmitted orally over such a period.

  116 The story is best known from Vasari, but I quote a version current fifty years closer to Donatello’s day: Gauricus, De sculptura, p. 53.

  117 Hollanda, Da pintura antigua, 3rd dialogue, p. 59.

  4

  PATRONS AND CLIENTS

  Why do you think there was such a great number of capable men in the past, if not because they were well treated and honoured by princes?

  Filarete, Treatise on Architecture

  I cannot live under pressures from patrons, let alone paint.

  Michelangelo, Carteggio

  Systems of patronage differ. It may be useful to distinguish five main types. First, the household system: a rich man takes the artist or writer into his house for some years, gives him board, lodging and presents, and expects to have his artistic and literary needs attended to. Second, the made-to-measure system: again, a personal relationship between the artist or writer and his patron (‘client’ might be a better term in this case), but a temporary one, lasting only until the painting or poem is delivered. Third, the market system, in which the artist or writer produces something ‘ready-made’ and then tries to sell it, either directly to the public or through a dealer. This third system was emerging in Italy in the period, although the first two types were dominant. The fourth and fifth types – th
e academy system (government control by means of an organization staffed by reliable artists and writers) and the subvention system (in which a foundation supports creative individuals but makes no claim on what they produce) – had not yet come into existence.1

  This chapter is concerned with two problems: first, with discovering what kinds of people gave artists commissions, and why they did so, and, second, with assessing the extent to which it was the patron or client, rather than the artist or writer, who determined the shape and content of the work. In the background lurks the more elusive question to which the epigraphs above allude. Was the patronage system encouraging or discouraging to artists and writers? In other words, did the Renaissance happen in Italy because of the system or in spite of it?2

  WHO ARE THE PATRONS?

  Patrons may be classified in various ways. The division into ecclesiastical and lay is a simple and useful one, at least at first sight, contrasting (say) the monks of San Pietro in Perugia, for whom Perugino painted an altarpiece of the Ascension, with Lorenzo de Pierfrancesco de’Medici (not the famous Lorenzo, but his cousin), for whom Botticelli painted the Primavera. The Church was traditionally the great patron of art, and this is the obvious reason for the predominance of religious paintings in Europe over the very long term (from the fourth century or thereabouts to the seventeenth). In Renaissance Italy, however, it is likely that most religious paintings were commissioned by laymen. They might order the painting for a church (for their family chapel, for example); Palla Strozzi asked Gentile da Fabriano to paint his Adoration of the Magi to hang in the Strozzi Chapel in the church of Santa Trinità in Florence. Lay people might also commission religious paintings to hang in their own homes. The Medici did this, for example, as we know from the inventory of the contents of their palace.3 Just as the laity asked for religious works, so the clergy commissioned paintings with secular subjects, such as the Parnassus which Raphael painted for Julius II in the Vatican. It would be interesting to know whether the laity were more likely to commission secular works, or whether the gradual secularization of painting reflected a secularization of patronage, but the evidence is too fragmentary to allow such questions to be answered.