georges didi huberman, confronti... - lensbased.net

Notes 305manuscript of which dates from 1437; the text was probably written around 1390. See J.von Schlosser, La Littérature artistique, 126–32 [The Craftsman’s Handbook: The Italian ‘‘IlLibro dell’Arte, trans. Daniel V. Thompson Jr. (c. 1954; New York: Dover, 1960)]. Note thatthe bibliography on Cennini is very small compared with that concerning Vasari. Cennini’spainted oeuvre is all but unknown; some art historians think of him, for this reason orthat, before anonymous frescoes, most of them badly damaged. As a recent example, seethe exh. cat. Da Giotto al tardogotico: Dipinti dei Musei civici di Paadova del Trecento e dellaprima metà del Quattrocento (Rome: De Luca, 1989), no. 62 by E. Cozzi, 84–85.149. Theophilus, Essai sur divers arts, 15–16.150. Cennini, Il libro dell’arte o trattato della pittura, 1 (there is more in the same toneon p. 2). But the first lines of the handbook are answered near the end: ‘‘Praying that GodAll-Highest, Our Lady, Saint John, Saint Luke, the Evangelist and painter, Saint Eustace,Saint Francis, and Saint Anthony of Padua will grant us grace and courage to sustain andbear in peace the burdens and struggles of this world’’ (131).151. Theophilus, Essai sur divers arts, 16.152. Cennini, Il libro dell’arte o trattato della pittura, 1 and 2.153. Theophilus, Essai sur divers arts, 15.154. Cennini, Il libro dell’arte o trattato della pittura, 1 [translation altered].155. As André Chastel does in his 1977 article ‘‘Le dictum Horatii quidlibet audendi potestaset les artistes (xiiie–xvie siècle),’’ in Fables, formes, figures (Paris: Flammarion, 1978),1:363, where his gloss on the entire passage consists of: ‘‘Nothing more commonplace.’’But nothing in Cennini’s text—or in fourteenth-century painting—authorizes what follows:‘‘We must not conclude from this a particularly pious attitude.’’ In reality, theproblem here is that of articulating the tendency toward the autonomy of pictorial art,present even in Cennini (and his famous formula si come gli piace, which Chastel rightlyemphasizes), with the religious context of all of his thought. Here we see a neo-Vasarianart historian discounting the second element to safeguard the first, whereas what is neededis a dialectical understanding of their relationship to each other. In a classic study firstpublished in 1961 (and tellingly not mentioned by Chastel), Ernst Kantorowicz showed theway toward such a dialectical analysis. See E. Kantorowicz, ‘‘The Sovereignty of the Artist:A Note on Legal Maxims and Renaissance Theories of Art,’’ in Essays in Honor of ErwinPanofsky (New York: Millard Meiss, 1961), 267–79; reprinted in Kantorowicz, Selected Studies(J. J. Augustin: Locust Valley, N.Y., 1965), 352–65.156. Cennini, Il libro dell’arte o trattato della pittura, chaps. 9, 10, 23 [translation altered].157. For instance, Saint Thomas Aquinas defined science as ‘‘the assimilation of theintellect with the thing through an intelligible guise that is ‘the resemblance of the thingunderstood.’ ’’ Summa Theologiae, ia.14.2. Furthermore, ‘‘science’’ was thought to be oneof seven gifts of the Holy Spirit emanating directly from God (ibid., ia–iiae.68.4). And inthe end all of this of course returned to the given of faith: ‘‘The gifts of the intellect andof science correspond to faith’’ (ibid., iia–iiae.1.2).158. On the materialis manuductio before Suger, see J. Pepin, ‘‘Aspects théoriques dusymbolisme dans la tradition dionysienne: Antécédents et nouveautés,’’ in Simboli e simbologianell’alto medioevo (Spoleto: Centro italiano di studi sull’alto medioevo, 1976), 1:33–66.On Abbot Suger, see Panofsky, ‘‘Abbot Suger of St.-Denis,’’ in Meaning (1946), 108–45.159. ‘‘Accord your will with that of God / And your every desire will be realized. / Ifpoverty constrains you or if you feel pain, / Then seek Christ’s succor at the Cross.’’These four verses from the manuscript Ricciardiano 2190 were omitted from the Frenchtranslation as well as from the English translation.160. Cennini, Il libro dell’arte o trattato della pittura, 131.