Literature and Artistic Practice in Sixteenth-Century Italy

Angela Cerasuolo, Ph.D. (2012) Seconda Università di Napoli, is Restorer-conservator in the Museum of Capodimonte, Naples. She has published on history and theory of conservation and on painting techniques, including contribution on Raphael, Sebastiano del Piombo, Polidoro, Vasari, Leonardo.

• INTRODUCTION No Man’s Land – Technical treatises 1. “LIBRI DI BOTTEGA”: A COVERT TRANSMISSION 1.1.The background1.2.Among transcriptions and abridged versions: Leonardo’s writings, the multiform life of a never-to-be-born treatise 1.3.The underground circulation of Cennino Cennini’s Libro dell’arte1.4."My intention was to only write the lives and works of our artists, and not to teach the arts": the Introduzzione alle arti and techniques of painting in Vasari's Lives 1.5.Il Riposo by Raffaello Borghini: analysis of a text as a mirror of technical knowledge in the workshops at the end of the sixteenth century1.6.De’ veri precetti della pittura by Giovan Battista Armenini, a consciously "grammatical” approach1.7.The Treatises of Giovan Paolo Lomazzo and the legacy of Leonardo in Lombardy2. ISSUES AND FORMS2.1Disegno and invention: Schizzo, macchia, abbozzo, and the construction of the work of art2.2.Prestezza and diligenza as a key for interpreting the relationship between technique and style2.2.1. Armenini and Vasari: symptoms of discord2.2.2.Chiaroscuro and grotesque: prestezza in two characteristic techniques of the Maniera2.3.The Paragone: also a technical challenge2.4. Colour and the counterfeiting of Nature2.4.1.The beauty of colours2.4.2.The atramentum of Apelles 3.THE PROCESSES3.1.The technique of drawing 3.2.The preparation of cartoons. Transfer processes 3.3.Colours: pigments in treatises 3.3.1.Lists of colours in Borghini and Lomazzo3.3.2. Armenini’s «avertimenti» on pigments3.3.3.Mixing the colours: from the «mestiche» to the palette3.4.The myth of «true fresco»3.5. Tempera painting3.5.1. Vasari and egg tempera: revival of an outdated technique.3.5.2. Glue-size tempera: tüchlein, «guazzo», «chiaroscuro» 3.6. Oil painting3.6.1. Preparazione and imprimitura3.6.2. The execution of a painting: «bozze» and «finiture»3.6.3. Oil painting on wall3.6.4. Sebastiano del Piombo's «nuovo modo» - from wall to slate 3.6.5. Painting on stone from Sebastiano to Vasari and the artists of the Medici Court3.6.6. Paintings on copper - the beginnings3.7.Varnish and finishing3.7.1. The varnishes3.7.2. The glazes3.7.3. Finishes and retouching4.THROUGH THE PAINTINGS: A FEW SIGNIFICANT CASE-STUDIES4.1. Madonna del Divino Amore4.2. Madonna della gatta 4.3. «Per questa confusione di segni» Additions to the genesis of a painting: the small paintings and the Calvary by Polidoro da Caravaggio4.4. The Sacra Famiglia by Parmigianino4.5. The paintings by Sebastiano del Piombo in the Capodimonte Museum, NaplesIndex

“For the study of art theory, practice, and conservation science, and in delineating how to read the value and significance of technical texts in their historical context and in their in illumination of technique and style, text, and conception of art, Literature and Artistic Practice in Sixteenth-Century Italy represents a new achievement in the study of art history.”Shancheng Ma, Ningbo University. In: Renaissance Quarterly, Vol. 71, No. 1 (Spring 2018), pp. 236-237.