Fifteenth-Century Sculpture in Rome and Naples: Functions, Genres, Patrons, and Masters (Ordinario)

Seminar paper

Learning will be verified through a seminar paper presented by each student to the whole class, based on the presentation model offered by the teacher in his lectures.

The course is primarily intended for all students of Art History enrolled in either of the two undergraduate programmes. However, its second part may also serve as a foundational tool for doctoral candidates participating in the same seminar. Furthermore, due to the topics addressed, it may prove useful to both undergraduate and doctoral students in Medieval and Early Modern history. The course will be structured in such a way as to integrate effectively with the teaching approach of all seminars within the Classe di Lettere that focus on medieval and proto-modern civilisation. No specific prerequisites are required, not even for undergraduate students.

The course, designed both for students on the undergraduate programme and for those in the early years of the doctoral cycle, aims to explore and elucidate the development of fifteenth-century sculptural production—above all monumental sculpture—in the two major urban centres of Rome and Naples, as well as in the territories that came within their direct geopolitical orbit during that century. Attention will be devoted in equal measure to the four principal aspects set out in the title: functions, genres, patrons, and masters, with the purpose of presenting a broad-ranging social history of art. This diachronic account will be closely interwoven with the relevant bibliography on the subject and on the questions addressed in the lectures, as well as with a critical survey of the secondary sources on the monuments themselves (archival documents and early literary texts), in an essential and sustained conjunction of art history and the historiography of art.

Richard Krautheimer, ‘Rome: Profile of a City, 312–1308’, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1980, 1983 (2nd ed.), 2000 (third ed.); Italian edition, Richard Krautheimer, ‘Roma: profilo di una città, 312-1308’, Rome, Edizioni dell’Elefante, 1981, then 2009.

‘Roma del Rinascimento’, edited by Antonio Pinelli, Rome - Bari, GLF Ed. Laterza, 2001.

Joachim Poeschke, ‘Die Skulptur der Renaissance in Italien’, 2 voll., Munich, Hirmer, 1990-1992, vol. 1, ‘Donatello und seine Zeit’, 1990; English edition: Joachim Poeschke, ‘Donatello and His World: Sculpture of the Italian Renaissance’, New York, Abrams, 1993.

Michael Kühlenthal, ‘Memoria in Stein: das römische Wandgrabmal der Frührenaissance’, 2 vols., Munich, Hirmer Verlag GmbH, 2024.

Joachim Poeschke, ‘«All’antica»: Bauornamentik der Frührenaissance in Italien’, 2 vols., Berlin - Boston, Deutscher Kunstverlag, 2024.

‘A Companion to the Renaissance in Southern Italy (1350–1600)’, edited by Bianca de Divitiis, Leiden - Boston, Brill, 2023.

Francesco Abbate, ‘Storia dell’arte nell’Italia meridionale. 2, Il Sud angioino e aragonese’, Rome, Donzelli Editore, 1998.

Hanno-Walter Kruft, Magne Malmanger, ‘Der Triumphbogen Alfonsos in Neapel. Das Monument und seine politische Bedeutung’, in “Institutum Romanum Norvegiae. Acta ad archaeologiam et artium historiam pertinentia”, VI, 1975, pp. 213-305.

Other texts will of course be suggested in class.