Carlo Cesare Malvasia's Florentine Letters: Insight into Conflicting Trends in Seventeenth-Century Italian Art Historiography

1988 ◽  
Vol 70 (2) ◽  
pp. 273 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giovanna Perini
1989 ◽  
Vol 103 (4) ◽  
pp. 181-222 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hessel Miedema

AbstractPhilips Angel's Lof der schilder-const (In Praise of Painting, 1642) is one of the few pieces of writing we have as a source of notions on the theory of painting in the Netherlands. Yet it was not intended as an art-theoretical treatise: Angel read the text at a St. Luke's feast as part of the activities that were being undertaken to acquire guild rights for Leiden painters. In order to assess the value of the theoretical notions on which the paper is based, it is therefore necessary to analyse as far as possible the circumstances of its writing. First the Angel family is examined. Orginally from Antwerp, the Angels moved north in the 1590s, probably because of the Eighty Years' War, settling in Middelburg and Leiden. They were fairly prosperous middle-class citizens, mostly schoolteachers, painters and small shopkeepers. Both the Middelburg and Leiden branches produced painters called Philips Angel. The Middelburg Philips, almost certainly identical with a painter called Philips Angel who was active in Haarlem, is known to have produced quite a lot of paitings. Only one small etching by the Leiden Philips has survived; nothing is known of any paintings by him. The Leiden Philips, the author of Lof der schilder-const, had a turbulent career. He joined the painters who pressed for guild rights in Leiden, to which end he held his speech in 1641. As early as 1645, though, he gave up painting and travelled as an employee of the United East-Indian Compary to Indonesia. From there, promoted to the high rank of chief merchant, he was sent to Persia. He was dismissed on grounds of embezzlement, but managed to procure the post of court painter to the Shah. By 1656, however, he was back in Batavia (Jakarta), where he again obtained a number of highly regarded positions. Fired again for mismanagement and defalcation, his end was inglorious. The Lof der Schilder-const shows evident signs of a general tendency among Dutch painters of the mid-seventeenth century to claim a higher status for their profession. The text is duly meant less as a theoretical treatise than as a rhetorical amplificatio of the painter's profession. The author seems to have been reasonably well-read, although by no means scholarly; nor was he very conversant with the Italian art theory of his day. Scrutiny of the text reveals his superficial and undiscerning paraphrases of the few sources at his disposal (mainly Karel van Mander's Schilder-boeck and the Dutch translation of Franciscus Junius' De pictura veterum). Much of his eulogy is a summing-up of the distinguished characteristics a painter ought to have. The remarkable thing is that not one of those characteristics provides specific insight into the professional practise of the Leiden painters around 1641. As far as they are at all relevant to what was being painted in Leiden at that time - take the Leiden 'Precise School' of Gerard Dou's circle -, his remarks provide little more insight than a superficial consideration of the paintings would arouse in any layman.


2007 ◽  
Vol 35 (103) ◽  
pp. 108-137
Author(s):  
Carsten Sestoft

Romanens status i det 17. århundredes Frankrig The hesitations of a genre: The status of the novel in seventeenth-century FranceIn answering the question: What was the novel in seventeenth-century France? – this article provides insight into some important points of the early history of the genre. The contradiction between its non-existence in official (Aristotelian) poetics and its existence as a popular commodity on the book market was, in the course of the seventeenth century, reconciled in the emergent category of belles lettres as a plurality of genres mainly defined by their public of honnêtes gens, while attempts at legitimizing the novel as belonging to such Aristotelian genres as epic or history generally failed; and at the end of the century a number of convergences – between epic and novel, between the designations roman and nouvelle, and between the ‘high’ and ‘low’ forms of the novel – seem to point to the fact that the social existence of the genre had been strengthened, even if it was the English novel of the eighteenth century that could be said to reap the profits of this stronger position. Using historical semantics and cultural sociology to study the status of the novel in seventeenth-century France thus leads to a clearer understanding of the specificity of the novel as a literary and cultural genre.


Perichoresis ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-75
Author(s):  
Matthew S. Harding

ABSTRACT Throughout the bulk of the Reformed Tradition’s history within both Europe and the United States, most scholars have dismissed pastor and theologian Moïse Amyraut as a seventeenth century French heretic whose actions and theology led to the demise of the Huguenots in France. However, upon further introspection into Amyraut’s claims as being closer to Calvin (soteriologically) than his Genevan successors, one finds uncanny parallels in the scriptural commentaries and biblical insight into the expiation of Christ between Calvin and Amyraut. By comparing key scriptural passages concerning the atonement, this article demonstrates that Reformed theologian Moïse Amyraut in fact propagated a universal atonement theory which parallels Calvin’s, both men ascribing to biblical faithfulness, a (humanistic) theological method, and similar hermeneutic. As such, both Calvin and Amyraut scripturally contend that God desires and provided the means for the salvation of the whole world. Further, the article demonstrates that Calvin’s successor, Theodore de Beza, could not in fact make the same claims as Amyraut, this article demonstrating that Beza went beyond Calvin’s scriptural approach to Christ’s expiation. Therefore, this article supports a more centrist approach from within and outside the Reformed tradition by demonstrating that Calvin and Amyraut concentrically held to God’s gracious provision in Christ for the saving of the whole world, for those who would believe in Christ for salvation.


2020 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-33
Author(s):  
Gregory D. Dodds

Abstract Henry Care and Roger L’ Estrange fought a bitter battle in the public press in Restoration England. Exploring the ways in which each employed the writings and reputation of Desiderius Erasmus provides insight into the deep fault lines dividing English society in the decade from 1678 to 1688. Their divergent uses of Erasmus demonstrate how late-seventeenth-century interpretations of the early sixteenth-century Reformation became critical points of conflict in the most significant political and religious debates of the period. Paying attention to the reception of Erasmus also helps explain how these two bitter enemies eventually joined William Penn in supporting James II’s Indulgence for Liberty of Conscience.


Author(s):  
Vivian Salmon

Recent studies of John Wilkins, author ofAn essay towards a real character, and a philosophical language(1668) have examined aspects of his life and work which illustrate the modernity of his attitudes, both as a theologian, sympathetic to the ecumenical ideals of seventeenth-century reformers like John Amos Comenius (DeMott 1955, 1958), and as an amateur scientist enthusiastically engaged in forwarding the interests of natural philosophy in his involvement with the Royal Society. His linguistic work has, accordingly, been examined for its relevance to seventeenth-century thought and for evidence of its modernity; described by a twentieth-century scientist as “impressive” and as “a prodigious piece of work” (Andrade 1936:6, 7), theEssayhas been highly praised for its classification of reality (Vickery 1953:326, 342) and for its insight into phonetics and semantics (Linsky 1966:60). It has also, incidentally, been examined for the evidence it offers on seventeenth-century pronunciation (Dobson 1968).


2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 133-162
Author(s):  
Vanessa R. de Obaldía

In May 1696, a devastating conflagration spread through Galata causing great damage to Latin Catholic ecclesiastical properties, and most significantly the destruction of the Conventual Franciscan church complex of St. Francis. The land was subsequently seized by the Ottoman state and the remaining structure was converted into the imperial mosque of Galata Yeni Cāmiʿ by the reigning sultan’s mother. This study examines the history and shared functions of these two places of worship through the mosque’s endowment deed (vaḳfiye) and additional Ottoman and European contemporary sources. Moreover, local and regional historical contextualisation provides an insight into how both European-Ottoman political relations and internal socioreligious tendencies influenced Ottoman policy towards Galata’s most prominent Latin Catholic church during the late seventeenth century.


1990 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 118-146 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lotte Mulligan ◽  
Judith Richards

Debates about poverty in mid-seventeenth-century England have, for some years, been a staple of historical studies. In our own time, where the numbers of the dispossessed continue to challenge the success of current modes of social and economic organization, such an interest is understandable and to be welcomed. But the relevance of studies of past problems and solutions and their applicability to present purposes is more complex than is usually recognized.The immediate benefit of studying discussions for change in mid-seventeenth-century England is that they provide an unusual insight into how members of that society conceived of it. In particular, their observations about the problems of poverty and the role of the poor offer us an understanding of the perceived social structure, the ethical bases for social differentiation, and the degree to which the future could be envisioned as differing from the past or present. Such understandings of proposed social change are invaluable for historians wishing to grasp the underlying assumptions on which past thought and action was predicated.Past proposals for social reform, however, have also been the focus of a significantly different enquiry by historians. In order to render those past programs more comprehensible (and more directly “relevant”) to modern readers, they are often placed on a “conservative” versus “radical” continuum, one end of which has sometimes been marked “extreme left wing.” This article argues that any such classification inevitably leads to misunderstandings of the authors and of their programs and, consequently, misrepresents both to the present.


2014 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-85 ◽  
Author(s):  
HUIB J. ZUIDERVAART ◽  
MARLISE RIJKS

AbstractA special interest in optics among various seventeenth-century painters living in the Dutch city of Delft has intrigued historians, including art historians, for a long time. Equally, the impressive career of the Delft microscopist Antoni van Leeuwenhoek has been studied by many historians of science. However, it has never been investigated who, at that time, had access to the mathematical and optical knowledge necessary for the impressive achievements of these Delft practitioners. We have tried to gain insight into Delft as a ‘node’ of optical knowledge by following the careers of three minor local figures in early seventeenth-century Delft. We argue that through their work, products, discussions in the vernacular and exchange of skills, rather than via learned publications, these practitioners constituted a foundation on which the later scientific and artistic achievements of other Delft citizens were built. Our Delft case demonstrates that these practitioners were not simple and isolated craftsmen; rather they were crucial components in a network of scholars, savants, painters and rich virtuosi. Decades before Vermeer made his masterworks, or Van Leeuwenhoek started his famous microscopic investigations, the intellectual atmosphere and artisanal knowledge in this city centred on optical topics.


Author(s):  
Valentina Fraticelli

The collaboration between Joseph Archer Crowe and Giovanni Battista Cavalcaselle led to the publication of numerous printed works, to achieve which the two scholars developed a method of study and investigation of absolutely innovative works of art. Their private archives, preserved at the National Art Library of London and the Biblioteca Marciana of Venice, represent the most complete and precious collection of reproductions of works of Italian art from the Middle Ages to the seventeenth century. In the funds, several drawings of works of art of the Veneto – reflecting also a personal interest as well as scientific rigour – and the artistic history of the region from the Middle Ages to the seventeenth century can be traced, with an interesting deepening on the figure of Titian.


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