Battle of the Nudes

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ously he renders the limbs." 42 A close, unfortunately cropped, anonymous copy of the Louvre drawing (which includes the changes in the arm position of the right figure as well as the latter portion of the inscription in handwriting emulating the original), now in the British Museum (fig. 22), testifies to the veracity of the inscription through the homage paid to Pollaiuolo's skills by replication, albeit in a less accomplished, less nuanced hand. The choice of parchment as the support for the British Museum version is noteworthy for its durability, suggesting the desire to preserve this detailed copy as a model for future reference. 43 Numerous copies and adaptations of the figures in the Louvre drawing, used for specific projects or as a means of developing drawing skills, further substantiate the recognition of Pollaiuolo's portrayal of anatomy in the active nude male as exemplary. 44 In the first book of his Commentarii, Ghiberti extols the importance of drawing as fundamental to all branches of art, with the implication that the mastery of "disegno" (under the broader meaning of "design") liberated the artist from an at- tachment to a single manual skill and allowed him, as a generator of ideas, to approach a greater intellectual standing. Ghiberti used himself as an example of the significance of the artist's role as a maestro di disegno when he stated: "Also for many painters, sculptors and stone-carvers I provided the greatest honors in their works [for] I have made very many models in wax and clay and for the painters I have designed very many things." In fact, Ghiberti was specifically paid for his skill as well as his labor in producing cartoons for a stained-glass window of the Flo- rence Cathedral in 1438. 45 Pollaiuolo's ultimate legacy as a maestro di disegno was noted in his mid career by the Florentine patron Giovanni Ruccellai, who applied the term to both Pollaiuolo and his goldsmith colleague Maso Finiguerra as part of a list of the illustrious artists represented in his collection (c. 1471), 46 although the work he owned by Pollaiuolo was not specified. A key function of the maestro di disegno was to create images that could be reproduced and/or used by other artists working in a variety of media. Finiguerra worked primarily as a goldsmith. He de- 43
veloped a very consistent and lucid drawing style, predominantly figural and often based on live models; the resulting clear contours gently modeled in light wash reflect the legibility required of goldsmith work. Two of his rarer grand narrative compositions (the Deluge and Moses on Mount Sinai) were later reproduced as en- gravings by Francesco Rosselli (1448-1508/25?) in the 1490s after Maso's death, and certainly Finiguerra's drawing style has been recognized as influential in much of early Florentine printmaking. 47 Pollaiuolo's similarly goldsmith-like approach to drawing, in the emphasis on clear contour, revealed a more flexible approach in a dynamic pen line than that found in the more resolutely consistent pen over metal point approach in the Finiguerra workshop. Pollaiuolo was influenced, as described above, by his more diverse experience as a painter and sculptor, which in turn may have also helped him win more ambitious commissions than Finiguerra as a designer. 48 However, despite the significance of such commissions as the Hercules paintings, or the St. Sebastian altarpiece for his workshop, Pollaiuolo's reputation rested on his impact as a maestro di disegno, as evidenced by the enormous extent to which his figural works were copied and imitated; it was in this role that he made his most significant contribution to Italian Renaissance art. The sixteenth- century goldsmith and sculptor Benvenuto Cellini confirmed Pollaiuolo's influence as "a goldsmith and a draughtsman of such skill that all the goldsmiths made use of his beautiful designs, which were of such excellence that many of the best sculptors and painters also use them .. . [he] did little else but admirable drawing and always kept faith with that great disegno." 49 The broader relationship of the maestro di disegno to Florentine artistic prac- tice in general is widely acknowledged. The importance is specifically emphasized as a requirement for master goldsmiths—significantly, Pollaiuolo retained his mem- bership in the goldsmith guild and identified himself with the profession through- out his life, despite his endeavors in other media—in Biringuccio's treatise on metallurgy of 1540: Those who work in gold and silver must outdistance all other craftsmen in learning and achievement to the same degree that their materials outdistance all others in nobility. Therefore, it is necessary first of all to be a good designer, because design is the key that opens the doors not only to the goldsmith's craft but to all others. . . . There are, in short, three things . . . that are greatly es- teemed in this art: first, engraving and making figures or foliage in full or bas- relief; next, drawing out a vessel in silver or gold . . . and third, setting a gem accurately and gracefully. 50 It is in this light that scholars such as Leopold D. Ettlinger and Francis Ames-Lewis have been inclined to view Pollaiuolo's Battle engraving as a "demonstration" piece specifically created as a way to disseminate and lay claim to artistic ideas (specifically the anatomy of the male nude figure in action), despite the unprecedented na- ture of this kind of self-advertisement by an artist. 51 The extent of Pollaiuolo's role as a maestro di disegno is revealed in the range of copies and adaptations of his work, many through exchanges in graphic forms, but interwoven with associations with other media appropriate to Pollaiuolo's diverse talents—as indicated in his 44
Page 1 and 2: Battle of the Nudes POLLAIUOLO'S RE
Page 3 and 4: Pollaiuolo's print is also somethin
Page 6 and 7: 5). There also appear to be some re
Page 8 and 9: tance the image appears silvery gra
Page 10 and 11: difficult and time consuming to rec
Page 12 and 13: and eliminating the subtlety of mod
Page 14 and 15: were so enamored of them that they
Page 16 and 17: cution differs in the engraving, th
Page 18 and 19: interior modeling that suggests a s
Page 22 and 23: own inscription on the tomb of Sixt
Page 24 and 25: sponse to the crude interpretation
Page 26 and 27: attributed to Perugino's most famou
Page 28 and 29: the plate in an attempt to alter th
Page 30 and 31: visited Florence. And although wild
Page 32 and 33: plate was cut, that while the sheer
Page 34 and 35: Italian printmaker, possibly Paduan
Page 36 and 37: of the Pollaiuolo" (Ph.D. diss., Co
Page 38: 67. Martin Clayton, Raphael and His

Battle of the Nudes

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