A history of Italian tiles - Infotile

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A History of Italian Tiles - Part III The Rinascimento (Part I) Man, The Measure of All Things By Garreth Cruikshank “When I first undertook [this work] I did not intend to compile a list of artists with, say, an inventory of their works... Those historians who are generally agreed to have produced the soundest work have not been satisfied just to give a bald narrative of the facts but have also... investigated the ways and means and methods used by successful men in forwarding their enterprises... the best historians have tried to show how men have acted... recognising that history is the true mirror of life, they have not simply given a dry, factual account of what happened... but have explained the opinions, counsels, decisions and plans that lead men to successful or unsuccessful action. This is the true spirit of history, which fulfils its true purpose in making men prudent and showing them how to live, apart from the pleasure it brings in presenting past events as if they were in the present... I have endeavoured not only to record what the artists have done but also note with some care the methods, manners, styles, behaviour and ideas of the artists. I have tried as well as I know how to help people who cannot find out for themselves to understand the sources and origins of various styles, and the reasons for the improvement or decline of the arts at various times and among different people” - Giorgio Vasari: Preface To Part II - Lives Of The Artists. “Eh, Garreth! Ciao. How are you How is the article going” Giovanni Favoriti, the brilliant young head chef at Baci Baci in Darlinghurst, came over and sat at my table. I was early and the restaurant hadn’t started to fill up yet. “I’m well Gio, but the article is taking longer than I hoped. There’s more to the Renaissance than meets the eye, let me tell you.” “You speak of the Renaissance, but this is not correct. ‘Renaissance’ is a French word to describe a great period of Italian history and culture. The French had nothing to do with it. You should use the Italian word - Rinascimento! Wait, I get something to drink.” ‘Rinascimento’. As I sat quietly repeating the word to get the pronunciation right, I recalled an earlier conversation, in Forli, with the old lady Signora Poletta. She had used the word too, as she slowly unravelled the story of the journals and their author - ‘Professore Bodkin’ from England. “It’s the same with food. The French did not know how to cook.” As he said this Giovanni plonked a bottle of Primo Estate ‘98 shiraz sangiovese, named Il Briconne, on the table. “This goes very well with Sicilian style food. Salute.” “Salute.” “When Catherine de’ Medici married Henry II of France, she took her Florentine cooks with her. French cuisine evolved from those cooks.” Despite his imperfect English, Gio spoke with passion and eloquence on this and other topics. If I told you that we discussed food and sex and women and love and art... would you be surprised A few more diners arrived. The proprietors, Anthony and Steve, greeted them. Giovanni took another sip of wine and rose from his seat. “What will you have” “What do you recommend” “Leek and pumpkin soup, with the pumpkin blossom tempura style. The duck liver spinach torta served with a rich rosemary sauce. To finish - balsamic vinegar ice-cream and handmade biscotti. I have just made a fresh batch.” Gio’s highly original desserts were becoming legendary, so I readily agreed to all his suggestions. With a grin and a “ciao”, this son of Lipari, the fifth member of his island family to become a chef, went back to his ‘cucina’. For Italians generally, but Sicilians particularly, traditions count. I sipped my shiraz sangiovese and waited for my meal. “The handsome, young professore would spend most mornings in his room reading and writing. After lunch, which I would take up to him, he would go to the library or visit one of the churches or palazzi to draw. His father was a vicar. Sometimes the signore would show me his drawings. Of course I was just a young girl in those days, but he was very patient when I asked him questions about his research on the Rinascimento. I was a little bit in love with him you see.” “In the evenings Signor Bodkin would usually be seen drinking and talking in one of the many bars or caffes that surround Piazza Saffi. Such places were popular with artists and intellectuals to meet and discuss art and politics.” “He was always travelling - Urbino, Ravenna, Mantova. On his many expeditions to the great cities of Tuscany he would sometimes visit an English lady living in Florence. I believe she was married to a local aristocrat. They discussed Rinascimento art and culture. She must have been a very learned lady.” At this point Patrizia, my friend and interpreter, and I rose to leave. We thanked Signora Poletta for her time and promised to return soon. We left her sitting there with her memories. Once we reached Piazza Saffi Patrizia and I parted, I heading back to my hotel and the journals of Professore Bodkin. It was clear to me from reading his notes that Bodkin’s first love was the Rinascimento, and his decision to open the third volume with a quote from Vasari’s Lives of the Artists (see above) was both apposite and, as we will subsequently discover, a trifle ironic. Like Vasari, Bodkin chooses to start his observations at a period not long after the death of Dante and Giotto - 1348, and Italy in the aftermath of the Black Death, which is estimated to have wiped out one third of the population. The consequences of this plague - economic, psychological, social and
figure B artistic were, in part, such that as the population fell demand for labour stabilised and inflation became minimal, which led to increased wages and a broader based social prosperity. Naturally, art historians have sought a link between this devastating event and ensuing artistic developments. Two theories that have emerged in the last few decades deserve some attention. The first presents the theory that the plague and the social chaos that followed resulted in a rejection of the avant-garde naturalism of Giotto and his disciples in the early 14th century and a return to an earlier, more traditional form, exhibiting spiritual, iconic images. However, another historian has argued that the increase in conventional pictorial styles could be explained by the expanding market for devotional artwork sought by emerging social groups who had hitherto been unable to afford them or disinclined to want them. Consequently workshop production became more organised and sophisticated, but as prices fell so too did the quality. Only during the early part of the quarttrocento did a smaller or more discriminating group of patrons express a taste for expensive and innovative works of art. Perhaps the most definitive portrait we have of a member of this emergent social group is provided by the letters figure C figure C. Hexagonal maiolica floor tile, circa 1465, from the duomo at capua. it shows a craftsman at work. of the wealthy 14th century merchant Francesco Datini, published in The Merchant of Prato by Iris Origo. In 1358 Datini, who had planned his house for many years, bought land in Prato, but progress was very slow. It was 1388 before the upstairs loggia was nearing completion. By summer the inner walls were plastered and the brick floors were being laid. An inventory drawn up in 1407 described it as “a large and handsome house... with a court and loggia and a cellar, all painted and fine,” and set its value at 1,000 florims. All Francesco’s downstairs rooms had vaulted ceilings - some of them painted - and “brick floors, carefully polished and waxed.” In this period the division between what we class the fine arts and the decorative arts did not exist. If anything the latter took precedence over the former and to draw a firm distinction between artists and artisans, or between high art and craft, will miss the true nature of both. For example, we now know that Sandro Botticelli’s painting of the ‘Primavera’ was once part of a freestanding or day-bed. At about this point Bodkin returns to the issue of a reaction to Giotto’s naturalism which he had noticed well before it was developed into a theory. He points out that in Naples and the north, where Giotto also worked, there was no discernable shift. Indeed his admiration for Giotto seems only slightly less than Vasari’s, whom he quotes here. “In my opinion painters owe to Giotto... exactly the same debt they owe to nature, which constantly serves them as a model and whose finest and most beautiful aspects they are always striving to imitate and reproduce.” Giotto (1266/7-1337) was apprenticed to Cimabue (1240-1302) and together they paved the way for the painters of the Rinascimento. As Vasari puts it, “In this work [the fresco for the hospital of the Porcellana] Cimabue broke decisively with the dead tradition of the Greeks, for whereas their paintings and mosaics were covered with heavy lines and contours, his draperies, vestments and other accessories were somewhat softer and more realistic and flowing.” In transactions with the artists who painted his house, we see Datini to be impatient and exacting and miserly when it came to pay. Almost all the orders for pictures from his branch office in Avignon specify the precise measurement required; the price of a picture largely depending on its actual size, and on the quality of the colours used. Figure B. the sienese she-wolf surrounded by the symbols of the allied cities completed originally in 1373 in marble mosaic it was recomposed by leopoldo maccari in 1864-65. it graces the floor of the nave in the cathedral of siena. the work symbolises the heritage of rome, and the ancient cities of etruria which are each depicted by a specific creature. Giotto was the greater of the two painters and eventually his reputation brought him to the attention of Pope Benedict IX, who ordered him “to decorate the interior of St Peter’s. First Giotto painted in fresco an angel fourteen feet high... The Navicella mosaic above the three doors of the portico in the courtyard of St Peter’s is also by Giotto; this is a really miraculous work, rightly praised by all discerning minds because of the excellence of the drawing and the grouping of the apostles who in various attitudes strain to guide their boat through the raging sea while the wind fills a sail which seems to be in such high relief that it looks real. I must have been extremely difficult to achieve with pieces of glass the harmonious composition shown in the lights and shadows of the great sail; even a painter working deftly with his
Page 1: figure a Figure A. De Sphaera manus
Page 5 and 6: comments on Giotto, above). Art for

A history of Italian tiles - Infotile

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