Conference Session at the SRS conference in York, July 2010

Abstracts

Collecting & Display Working Group

Society for Renaissance Studies National Conference, York, July 2010

William Stenhouse (Yeshiva University, NY) 

Private and Public Collections in Excavation Records of the Late Renaissance

In the second half of the sixteenth century, antiquarians across Europe began to compose accounts, designed for publication and dissemination, of the discovery and excavation of antiquities: the best-known of these is probably Flaminio Vacca's 1594 /Memorie/ of the city of Rome, but shorter examples exist from other locations, including some in France and the Iberian peninsula. While scholars have mined some of these records for information about individual sites and objects, they have been less ready to consider them together and explore their wider purpose. In this paper I propose to examine these works to ask what they reveal about late renaissance collections, and particularly smaller, non-princely, collections for which detailed inventories do not now exist. In particular I want to consider how they reflect upon the public nature of antiquity collecting in this period. As these accounts document the transfer of objects from the ground into various collections, they reveal concerns about the accessibility and shared value of the material remains of Roman antiquity. I will suggest that antiquities, in these works, appear as the products of a shared past as well as adornments for private collections.

John Hoenig (Independent Scholar, Florence)

“Bound for Glory”. The Uffizi Collection of Drawings by Bernardo Buontalenti and his contemporaries

The Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi contains over two hundred unframed drawings in the hand of Buontalenti. Most are architectural working drawings commissioned by the Medici family with whom Buontalenti spent his entire career. Among the collection are also some theatrical designs for the Intermedi performed in the Teatro Mediceo for the wedding of Ferdinando de’ Medici to Christine of Lorraine in 1589. These works influenced the course of stage design thereafter. Although nearly all the above drawings are generally scaled technical and decorative designs - and many contain marginalia that tell much of the artist’s thought process and working practice - there are some works which are clearly intended for presentation.

There is a leather volume entitled “Volume I - Carri Trionfali delle Divintà”. This was bound together in 1565 for display in Cosimo de’ Medici’s private library and donated to the Uffizi in 1780. The second volume is in the Bilbioteca Nazionale di Firenze. Both contain designs for the Trionfo to celebrate the wedding of Francesco de’ Medici to Joanna of Austria in 1565. The designs are by Vasari for allegorical figures under the direction of Borghini. The actual drawings are by ‘Vasari and his disciples’. Various attributions have been made over the years. The styles vary considerably and further research is required by comparing and contrasting with known works by the contemporary artists - as well as referring to contemporary written accounts.

Roy Halstead (Museo Bellini, Florence)

From a Private Collection to a Public Museum: the Display of Renaissance Art in the Museo Bellini, Florence

Most of the large museums in the world display their treasures in total separation from the audience. This happens of course mainly out of concern for their security and preservation but it is in complete contrast to how these artworks would have been exhibited when they were first commissioned and collected during the Renaissance.

A place like the Uffizi has long since lost its aura of a place of marvels owned by the Medici family. Reorganised several times and depleted of many of its most intriguing objects in the eighteenth and nineteenth century, it has now become a blockbuster museum on the list of every traveller and tour group that has to be ticked off rather than be enjoyed. Whoeever comes to see the galleries now will agree that enjoyment is indeed not the first thing to come to mind when entering the topfloor corridor. This and the falling visitor numbers are now even being discussed in the Italian and international press.

The Museo Bellini is going a different way. A collection of major Renaissance artworks it is still owned by the family who brought these treasures together and located in the palace for which they were collected. Every piece is displayed without articficial barriers such as glass cases and alarms. The sculptures can be touched and visitors are encouraged to get as close to them as possible to get a “feel” for what it is like to handle artworks and discover the work of Renaissance artists close up.

This paper will be presented by two curators of the Museo Bellini who are also engaged with setting up a dedicated research centre that will bring the holdings of the museo in terms of artworks, library, and archives to the notion of a wider audience.

Adriana Turpin (IESA, Paris & Collecting & Display)

The Historical Creation of the Renaissance Interior: the Collecting and Display of Furniture from the 19th century to the Present Day

With the exhibition of At Home in Renaissance Italy at the Victoria and Albert Museum in 2006, attention focused on surviving works of art and representations of the material culture of the Renaissance interiors. In the area of furniture, one of the most important results of research into those objects was the re-appraisal of what could be considered to be truly from the 15th and 16th centuries, what had been altered to fit later collecting norms and what had been deliberately faked.

However, the concept of what the Renaissance interior looked like was formed by the collectors and dealers of the later nineteenth century, who created ensembles in the Renaissance style, based on surviving objects, well-known representations in art and in some cases, possibly an awareness of types found in documents and inventories. The aim of my paper is to examine the influence these early collections had on our appreciation and understanding of the Renaissance interior and to consider some of the underlying assumptions during this rediscovery of the Italian Renaissance. Obvious examples are our understanding of the cassone or the bed.

Thus the Florentine collections of Horne and Stibbert as well as those of the dealers Bardini (whose museum still survives) or Volpe at the Davanzati Palace will be used to throw up some of the problems surrounding our attempts to the use and display of furniture from the 15th to early 17th centuries. Furniture from museum collections traces the tradition of dealing in Renaissance furniture to the early 19th century. Placing these objects in their collecting history illuminates what British, American or German collectors wished to consider representative of Renaissance culture. This broadens the scope of the essay beyond the Florentine collections to those of other Italian cities, most notably Venice, Genoa and Rome.

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