Fenway Court: 1990-1991

Fenway Court 1990-1991

Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

Fenway Court

Published by the Trustees of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Incorporated 2 Palace Road Boston, Massachusetts 02115 Copyright 1992

Cover: Michelangelo, Pieta, black chalk

Contents

IMAGING THE SELF

lN RENAISSANCE ITALY

Introduction 7 Hilliard T. Goldfarb Mrs. Gardner's Renaissance 10 Kathleen Weil-Garris Brandt Alberti's Self 31 Michael Baxandall Images without Memory: Women's Identity and Family Consciousness in Renaissance Florence 3 7 Christiane Klapisch-Zuber "Fatto al Specchio": Venetian Renaissance Attitudes in Self-Portraiture Jennifer Fletcher Imaging the Self: The Religious and Rhetorical Framework john W. O'Malley Finding the Self in a Renaissance Palace Richard A. Goldthwaite

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The Sensitive Corpse: Body and Self in Renaissance Medicine Katharine Park The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Incorporated Sixty-sixth Annual Report for the years 1990-1991 Report of the President

Francis W. Hatch

Report of the Director

Anne Hawley

Report of the Chief Curator Membership Program Membership

100

103

Report of the Treasurer Trustees and Staff

114

107

61

90

92

Hilliard T. Goldfarb

97

77

45

Introduction Hillard T. Goldfarb Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

When I arrived at the Gardner Museum, a little over a year ago, an a pect of my mis ion was to assist our director in the restoration of Fen way Court to the active cultural stature it held during the life of Mrs. Gardner, a a dynamic, cross-cultural, and cross-di ciplinary center of idea and activities. These anticipated activities included a temporary exhibition program, publications, a multi-volume re-cata loguing of the collection, gallery re toration, climate control and relighting of the ga llerie , and programing initiatives.

For in piration I turned to the creator of this glorious building and collection, her elf.

As our coordinator for this first annual ympo ium, Kathleen Weil-Carri Brandt, di cusses in her introductory es ay, Mrs. Gardner' intellectual and aesthetic interests and patronage were remarkabl y encyclopedic. In literature they encompa sed, for example, classical writings, Dante, Henry James, T. S. Eliot, Japanese cla ical works, and tho e of Okakura Kakuzo. In music her tastes embraced both grand opera and chamber music, from Bach to Mozart to Wagner and Loeffler, as well as performers of the stature of Nellie Melba, Ignaz Paderewski, and the young Casals. In the visua l arts her collecting interests extended from ancient Egypt and China to the first work by Matisse to enter an American museum collection. Furthermore, as the evocative juxtapositions of objects, masterpieces, and bibelots, paintings, sculptures, textiles, and jewels in the galleries indicate, her vision was both subtle and synaesthetic.

Her travels in the nineteenth century extended well beyond Europe and the Middle East to encompass Java, Japan, China, and India. Her friends and correspondents literally included the leading intellectual lights of her age until the very end of her life.

I thus struck upon the idea of establishing annual symposia that would be distinctive from others in being interdisciplinary and

regularly cheduled. Each would have an internationally preeminent group of participants, and a free-wheeling, round-table exchange of ideas would play a major role.

Furthermore I esrabli hed a four-year, "Olympiad-like" calendar of rotation mirroring intere ts reflected in the col lection: Renai ance and Baroque Europe, the ear East and Orient, the Ancient and Medieval We tern world, and the European and American nineteenth and early twentieth centuries a four broad areas of focus.

Within each area a coordinator, elected by th e chief curator, would elect a pecific focus of timely interdi ciplinary interest and would choo e the speakers.

The first person to occur to me for this first sympo ium wa Kathleen Weil-Carri Brandt, whom I knew professionally and had also witnessed as an engaging, intellectua ll y demanding teacher and lecturer.

Currently profe or at New York Univeriry' In titute of Fine Art and consultant for Renai sance Art to the Vatican Museums, she has served a editor-in-chief of Art Bulletin. She i the recipient of numerou award , among them the Lindback for Di tingui hed Teaching and the Humboldt Prize, al o receiving Fulbright, N.E.H., and Guggenheim Foundation fellowships. H er many publications include books on Leonardo, sixteenth-century sculpture and Renaissance palaces, articles on problems in Renaissance painting, sculpture, architecture and their interrelationships, with particular focus on the works of Michelangelo, Raphael, and Leonardo. She is general editor of and contributor to the forthcoming four-volume Vatican report on the conservation campaign on the Sistine and the organizer of many international symposia. She ha been a scholar-in-residence at CASVA, the American Academy in Rome, and the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study among other sites.

7

Only about eleven months before the symposium date, in New York we started putting meat on the bones of this concept.

It is to her that I owe the wonderful group of participants for this first session - and the topic. She has been of great assistance in creating this keystone of our annual programming and the Gardner is enduringly in her debt. Our audience, which exceeded our conventional limit of 300 people in the Tapestry Room, its site, included scholars, students, and public from across this country, Canada, and Europe. Concurrent with the symposium I organized an in-house temporary exhibition of the same title, with a small catalogue exploring some related issues. We also scheduled a concert of Renaissance Italian music for the next day.

John Rosenfield, Abby Aldrich Rockefeller emeritus professor at Harvard University will coordinate next year's symposium on the topic: Competition and Collaboration: Hereditary Schools in Japanese Culture.

In 1994 Professor]. ]. Pollitt of Yale will coordinate the session: Myth and Allusion: Meanings and Uses of Myth in Ancient Greek and Roman Society. Professor Wanda Corn of Stanford University has agreed to coordinate the 1995 session on an American topic.

The breadth of Italian Renaissance holdings at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum is remarkable. Diverse media, personal and regional schools of art, and stylistic periods are represented in depth. In applying the theme of imaging the self to the interpretation of these works we find, unsurprisingly, that the search for the originating intentions and dispositions of artists in the formal expressions of their subjects is both complex and elusive, and often the works address us on several levels of meaning, in multiple syntaxes. Furthermore the interpreter must be vigilant to the mindset of the period he is studying to avoid impos-

ing a posterior language of meaning upon the subject. An artist expresses himself by the linguistic terms of a culture whose understanding of forms may vary as the culture does. Furthermore, the visual terminology itself may at any time function to convey several meanings simultaneously.

A case in point is the use of the Ganymede figure in the Renaissance, a homoerotic subject of rich classical and intellectual associations. It was appropriated by Michelangelo in his famous presentation drawings of Ganymede, Tityus, and the Risen Christ for Tommaso de'Cavalieri.

Michelangelo also adapted the figure for his depictions of Adam and the drunken Noah in the Sistine Chapel and in his earlier marble of David. In evaluating Michelangelo's use of the Ganymede figure, "are we then speaking of sexual anxiety, of Platonic transcendence, of typology, of an artistic paragone? What is most important is that they can be represented simultaneously ...."1 Objects simultaneously may impart religious, social, and political ambitions and may reflect both personal and public selves, intentionally and unintentionally.

Of course, the artists of the Italian Renaissance were themselves aware of the issue of self-projection into their creations, even into portraiture - especially into portraiture.

This awareness is documented both in their artistic creations and in what they had to say about themselves and each other.

One may assume that in certain cases the patron's choice of commissioned artist reflected, beyond any financia l considerations, some recognition of the individual style of the artist and its appropriateness for the sitter. In other words, the personal "stamp" of the artist, his self-imaging into a portrait by the very terms of his individual style, was appreciated in the selection of artists by the sitters. The public esteem in which the artist may have been held was itself a reflection of the increasing emphasis upon the individual and the enhanced 8

position of the artist that evolved during the period under study. In the literary context, Lorenzo Ghiberti's Commentarii, Ascanio Condivi's Vita di Michelangnolo Buonarroti (composed with the consultation of the artist), Giorgio Vasari's Le Vite, and Cellini's unfinished autobiography (distributed in manuscript by the artist himself among his friends) are among the more celebrated examples of artistic selfimaging in print.

Michelangelo is probably the most famous artist of the Italian Renaissance who consciously constructed the terms of his own public image. If the evidence of his drawings, paintings, and sculptures were not sufficient documentation of his self-conscious formulation of style in terms of self-imaging, Michelangelo left us extensive testimony of his neo-Platonically formulated reflections and speculations on imaging the self in his own poetry.

Since it's true that, in hard stone, one will at times make the image of someone else look like

himself, I often make her dreary and ashen [squalido e smorto spesso], just as I'm made by this woman; and I seem to keep taking myself as a model, whenever I think of depicting her.

I could well say that the stone in which I model her resembles her in its harsh hardness; but in any case I could not, while she scorns and destroys me, sculpt anything but my own tormented features.

So, since art preserves the memory of beauty through the years, if she wants to last, she will make me glad, so that I'll make her beautiful.2

that had spread in the previous century: nominalist philosophy, mystical religious tendencies and, in the case of Italy, humanism." 3 These currents led to the conflicting trends of exalting the individual specificity of the subject and his or her worldly, physical appurtenances, reflected in the origin of modern consumerism, while also seeking to emphasize noble conceptions of man inspired by the reappreciation of Classical, pre-Christian thought within a profoundly Christian community. Our participants explored these and related issues on February 1, 1992.

1 Leonard Barkan, Transuming Passion: Ganymede and the Erotics of Humanism (Stanford, 1991 ), p. 98.

2 The poem is datable to about 1540-44, and the translation is that of Saslow. For the text and the original Italian, see James M. Saslow, The Poetry of Michelangelo, (New Haven, 1991), no. 242, p. 409.

3 L. M. Sleptzoff, M en or Supermen? The Italian Portrait in the Fifteenth Century Oerusalem, 1978), p. 1.

L. M. Sleptzoff has noted that, "The originality of the artists of the fifteenth century was to stress the significance of man as an individual,'' and that their attitude itself, "was influenced by currents of thought 9

Mrs.

Gardner~s

Renaissance

Kathleen Weil-Garris Brandt Institute of Fine Arts, New York University

Introduction

Our distinguished speakers gathered here to contribute, not only to the study of the Italian Renaissance, but to take part in a contemporary Renaissance at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.

This symposium was the inaugural meeting of an annual series of interdisciplinary conferences, all related in different ways to Fenway Court and its creator, Isabella Stewart Gardner. The generosity of present day patrons of the museum, Mr. and Mrs. Charles Dickinson, made this project a reality. Thanks to their vision, the Gardner conferences can become a forum of ideas for scholars from different fields, for exchange among speakers, colleagues and students, between specialists and the audiences that support this unique institution.

By the same token, I wish to express my admiration to the director and staff of the Museum. Their intelligent and patient work was done with what that great Renaissance gentleman, Baldassare Castiglione, called sprezzatura: the grace to make the difficult seem easy.

The idea for these symposia and our topic lay, of course, ready to hand: the Venetian splendors of Fenway Court, its extraordinary collections of painting, sculpture, furnishings, and textiles brought together as the interior decor of a private residence.

Mrs. Gardner's combinations of disparate objects to create rooms, ensembles, views and moods went, for many decades, against the grain of modernist museology and taste, which sought to isolate works of art from aesthetic contamination by any external context.

Today, instead, Mrs. Gardner's museum appears, perhaps more than ever before, an image of important values and of the "discrete charms" of a special moment in

history when the house museum flourished. Anne Higonnet of Wellesley has done much to establish the importance of this phenomenon and to emphasize the role of women in it. The Gardner Museum, for instance, is specifically an achievement of woman's work and imagination: an extension of a traditional fema le task, the construction of interior space, into the public institutional world. By representing and arranging material objects and images from the European past in a setting of her own invention, Mrs. Gardner made Fenway Court her own work of art and a significant projection of her own image. With its European splendors, her creation embodies much of her own time and it reminds us that our image of the past is constantly being reinvented by the present. Mrs. Gardner's museum speaks today, in a way she could hardly have imagined and that would have been unlikely even twenty years ago, to a post-modern culture which practices and appreciates, assemblages and appropriation of the past in cultural collage.

Mrs. Gardner's way of giving meaning and function to objects in a social context was different from ours, but our seminar and its interdisciplinary mode also involve reconnecting the visual arts and material culture with the ways of life that produced them. This means that our interest in the epoch we call the Italian Renaissance is open-ended and extends forward from that epoch to include the changing ways it has been understood and valued through time.

Fenway Court is a living document of that history.

The Renaissance as Self-Image

The idea of the Italian Renaissance was already in vogue when Mrs. Gardner came on the Boston scene. She had first visited Italy as a girl but she began attending Charles Eliot Norton's Harvard lectures 10

on Italian literature and art in 1878,' the year that Jacob Burckhardt's Civilization of the Renaissance was translated into English. I do not know if or when she read hirn,2 but he articulates a vision of the Italian Renaissance which explains why it could become a fashionable instrument of great resonance and utility in an era of burgeoning capitalism. Concepts like "the development of the individual," "the discovery of nature and of man,'' and "the equalization of classes,'' projected an ideal of society that exa lted individual action and merit rather than traclitional hierarchies. For New World merchant princes, patrician or otherwise, the Italian Renaissance could serve - in a not unproblematic way- to justify their own actions as economic condottieri, and to sanction claims to social status acquired through conquest rather than inheritance. As it had been in the Renaissance, patronage of culture and art collecting served as the visible sign and legitimation of success. For Americans, culture became an increasingly important way of socially constructing the self - especially in relation to the European world to which they turned in so many and complicated ways.

In Burckhardt's Renaissance, it was only " in less polished circles, where society took the form of a permanent corporation, we meet with a system of forma l rules. " True aristocracy expressed itself through the cultured freedom of its social life in which men and women shared equally.

The drawing room helped to "spread interest in artistic production and an intelligent and critical public opinion." Ladies like Isabella d'Este "could become famous and illustrious without in any way compromising their reputation .... They were either irreproachable or their social fame threw into the shade whatever thay may have done arniss." 3 Burckhardt projected back onto the Renaissance the social attitudes he sought to propagate in modern

life, and his words make a remarkably good description of Isabella Stewart Gardner.

She belonged to Boston aristocracy by virtue of her marriage to John Lowell Gardner, but her perfectly respectable "foreign" New York origin long remained an obstacle to full acceptance. Wishing to "become" anything, was in itself unbecoming. In a sense she relived, in miniature, the clifficult relation of American society to the European elites. Mrs. Gardner mounted operations on severa l strategic fronts to display her husband's wealth and position and to draw attention to herself. She established social beachheads in the Old World and became an enthusiastic sightseer. She issued unrefusable invitations to brilliant occasions, launched into cultural activities and the patronage of scholars and artists, and, ultimately, became a great collector of earlier European art. In her early years, the very extravagance of her efforts made her suspect. She was challenging the codes that had led to her rebuff while, at the same time, she besieged the bastions of Boston society in order to enter it. H er exciting Paris outfits, her dashing public exploits, and friendships with artists were partly harmless social provocations, but also asserted claims of personal freedom against rigid limits of class and behavior.

The Renaissance offered a prestigious historical model for her effort at personal and cultural free enterprise; and by the 1880s, during the Boston Renaissance of culture, the local press could understand her actions in just this sense: Boston society consists of fossilized conventions. Mrs. Gardner has not failed to break down social barriers and evidence her belief in society as a vehicle for the cultivation of art, music, and intellectuality and to create a social renaissance.'

Mrs. Gardner's Venetian palace was and remains her self-image in the persona of a great Renaissance patroness of the arts, 11

1 Francesco Torbido (anributed to), Portrait of a Woman in a Turban (ca. 1520), Boston, Isabella Stewart Gardner Musewn.

2 Frans Pourbus Il, Isabella Archduchess of Austria, (ca. 1600), Boston, Isabella Stewart Gardner Musewn.

chatelaine, and presiding spirit of a court Fenway Court. Her famous injunction that the collection and the arrangement of the house were to remain unchanged after her death shows that they were her own monument, as does the magnificenza - befitting a Renaissance ruler - which made her leave her home as a museum "for the education and enjoyment of the public forever."

Collecting the Renaissance

From her collections and from her correspondence with Bernard Berenson we know that Mrs. Gardner did identify herself, quite consciously and unabashedly, with that great Renaissance patroness of art and culture, and creator of studioli, I~abella d'Este. Mr. Berenson in fact suggested that Mrs. Gardner buy the Portrait of a Lady in a Turban, today attributed to Francesco Torbido (fig. 1), not for its artistic distinction but because he thought it portrayed Mrs. Gardner's "worthy predecessor and patron saint," the Marchioness of Mantua! For good measure, Mrs. Gardner also appropriated the other reigning Isabellas of history, such as Isabella of Castile. Mrs. Gardner bought a portrait of the Infanta Isabella, Archduchess of Austria, in 1897 (fig. 2), and I wonder whether her acquisition of Matteo de' Pasti's medal of Isotta da Rirnini (fig. 3 ) is not also a modulation of the Isabella myth.

Born a Stewart, Mrs. Gardner was at least

equally eager to own paintings of, or having belonged to, the royal house of Stuart to fortify her claims to kinship with it.

Given her habit of collecting in her own self-image, is it only coincidence that Mrs. Gardner collected so many pictures whose subjects, patrons, or former owners were women? The great mosaic pavement at the center of the courtyard was thought to come from the House of the Empress Livia.

Mrs. Gardner bought her copy of Piero della Francesca's portrait of Battista Sforza, Countess of Urbino, directly from a dealer, not through an intermediary, during her Roman visit of 18 95. Battista had Ii ved in the Palazzo Barbaro in Venice, which was often Mrs. Gardner's home abroad and, as Philip Hendy pointed out, the cultivated countess of Urbino was renowned for the "cultured happiness and hospitality of her court... and the wisdom and clemency of her rule in her husband's absence." I note only that similar qualities are evoked by the device of elephant and roses on the reverse of the Isotta medal. 6

In the guise of an approved cultural appropriation, Mrs. Gardner's collecting seems to have been part of a strategy developed to win for herself as a woman, albeit a rich and powerful one in Victorian Boston, the freedoms, the self-definition, and crucially - the social and intellectual respect which she believed her Renaissance woman models to have enjoyed.

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3 Maneo de' Pasti, lsotta da Rimi11i (1446), Boston, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.

He had wangled this extraordinary honor with the intervention of both pope and emperor; he was the first artist to receive it, and wa bitterly criticized for his social presumption. 7 The greate t work of Renaissance sculpture in the collection i Benvenuto Cellini's bronze bust of Bindo Altoviti (fig. 5), the Florentine merchant banker and friend of artists like Raphael and Michelangelo. ellini himself had written about its place in the private study of the banker in Rome, which was, significantly, "a very rich room adorned with antiquities and other works of art," but where the lighting howed the sculpture to poor advantage.8 A large population of image of women, other than portraits, inhabits the collection .

Surely the most poignant is Michelanagelo's Pieta (cover), drawn for the noble and intelligent Vittoria Colorma, the artist's great friend and inspiration, the only woman for whom he claimed significance in his life. Mr . Gardner purchased the sheet in a lot, together with all her other Italian drawings, at the Robinson sale in 1902, but the drawing's patronage history, as well as its in cription quoting her beloved Dante, cannot have failed to appeal to her on many levels. The subject of the Pieta spoke as well to her more private experience. She, too, had known a mother's grief: the Gardners' infant son died in 1865 before the age of two.

Mrs. Gardner possessed a portrait which Bernard Berenson thought represented Michelangelo. It has a new interest for us as a self-presentation by the sculptor's archrival, Baccio Bandinelli (fig. 4). Bandinelli produced more self-images than any other Renaissance artist, and he always adjusted their features to resemble Michelangelo's.

The Gardner portrait further stresses Baccio's high intellectual and social aspirations, based on his mastery of disegno, his purportedly Herculean virtu, and his membership in the Noble Order of Santiago.

ellini had been trained as a goldsmith (by Bandinelli's father) and had worked for many years in France. Returning to Italy, Benvenuto eagerly sought to hed his reputation as a "mere" craft man for that of a creative artist working on a monumental scale. Thus his autobiography stresses that Michelangelo himself saw the bust in Palazzo Altoviti and that the master had written to Benvenuto as follows: "I have known you for many years as the greatest goldsmith of whom we have any information, and henceforward, I shall know you for a sculptor of like quality." No record of this letter exists outside Cellini's Autobiography, but it is clear that the Altoviti bust, like the Autobiography, was an instrument of self-imaging for the artist as well as the patron.

The purchase of the bronze was initiated

by Mr. Berenson. It would have been a great coup for any collector, but for the Gardners the famous Cellini bust also constituted an acquisition of the Renaissance in another sense. The bust had remained in the place for which it had been made, the Altoviti palace, until the building's destruction in 1889. The Boston Museum of Fine Arts was offered the sculpture first, and Berenson obtained it for Mrs. Gardner when this project came to naught.

13

4 Baccio Bandinelli, Selfportrait (ca. 1530), Boston, Isa bella Stewart Gardner Museum.

In his first letter about the portrait, Berenson judged that it "at least equals your Europa." He had first tempted her to buy Titian's masterpiece on the grounds that it had "once been intended for a Stewart [and] should at last rest in the hands of a Stewart." The wife of the president of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Mrs. S. D. Warren, had wanted the painting and so had the Berlin Museum but, thanks to Berenson, Mrs. Gardner had been able to spirit the Rape of Europa away.9 Now, two years later, her acquisition of the Cellini bust was, in an appropriately ladylike way, a second ravishment

of Europe and its treasures. Once again she had been able to outdo a Boston institution and to appropriate a Renaissance treasure of enormous reputation from its origina l aristocratic European home to her own.

In the same letter written to persuade his "dear friend" to purchase the sculpture, Berenson made sure to introduce his proposal in a deftly calculated fashion: "You know of course all about the great Florentine banker and protector of the arts in the age of Leo X, Bindo Altoviti."

Whether the assumption about Mrs.

14

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6 John Singer Sargent, fsabella Stewart Gardner (1887-88), Boston, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.

7 Italian, Fumishing and Garment Fabric (1 475-1525), Boston, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.

ninth, the picture we know, the finest ever painted by the artist. From Mrs. Gardner's point of view, Sargent was the instrWTient of her own artistic self-presentation.

Girt with pearls and rubies that would have aroused the envy of Eleanora da Toledo (fig. 8), Mrs. Gardner faces us directly in a poised, hieratic stance, her lips parted in a smile or on the edge of utterance. Her figure, decollete, curving white arms and interlaced hands (she was justly proud of all of them) are displayed to advantage by a notionally severe but elegant black dress. She stands at the central a.xi of the pattern of her WTiptuously red and gold brocade. Contemporaries like Henry Jame saw at once that the frontal, symmetrical po e and the textile pattern made the itter look "like a Byzantine Madonna with a halo." 12

The painting was shown the same year in Boston's St. Botolph Club at Sargent's first American exhibition under the title, "Woman, an Enigma;' apparently to protect the sitter's privacy. The picture was considered a great artistic success, but proper Boston and the critics saw in the iconic quality of the painting no Jamesian

16

8 Agnolo Bronzino, Eleanora da Toledo and Her Son Ferdinand 1 (ca. 1545), Florence, Uffizi.

9 John Singer Sargent, Madame X (Virginie Gaurreau) (1884), New York, Merropolican Museum of Art.

Madonna, but rather a dangerously erotic image; they decried the "Enigma's" daring dress and and its wearer in terms reminiscent of Pater's invocation to the Mona Lisa as an object of dread and desire.' 3 What was it that stirred up such a furor?

The uncompromisingly frontal pose and gaze were, of course, challenging. As Meyer Shapiro put it, in another context, The face turned outward is credited with intentness, a latent or potential glance directed to the observer, and corresponds to the role of "I" in speech, with its complementary "you:'

This communicative challenge was increased by the "speaking" likeness of the Enigma's face. 1â&#x20AC;˘ Neither the frontality nor the pose of the portrait were, however, new as individual motifs in recent painting. They had been explored in the preceding decades

by American painters like Whistler and Eakins, and they appear in Sargent's own portraits of the 1880s. Nonetheless, in the Gardner portrait, pose, gesture, costume, and the Renaissance textile conspired, in combination, to a provocative novelty.

The sensuousness of the figure itself is heightened by the reiterated and reciprocal curves of its pose, forms, and clothing, while the background patterns draw still more insistent attention to the sitter's hourglass charms. In piquant contradiction, the hieratic reserve of the image makes, at the same time, direct claims on the viewer for the sitter as a woman.

T he title Sargent gave the painting makes the same point: that contradiction is the Enigma of Woman. This was a dominant, even commonplace theme of late nineteenth-century European thinking about women in the abstract: 5 and would in itself have been unlikely to provoke such vehement response, even in Boston. What must have provided the critical mass for such an explosion was another supposed enigma, the identity of the sitter. The Art Amateur's review of the St. Botolph exhibition makes it perfectly clear that, at least two months later, everyone knew which "local leader of society" was depicted.

(The text of the review appears at the end of this essay.)

17

Sargent had already scandalized two continents with another portrait of a suppo edly anonymous lady, Madame X, whose identity a the American-born "profe ional beauty," Virginie Gautreau, wa known to all (fig. 9). In these circum ranees Sargent' title for the Gardner portrait appeared to comment on the character, not ju t of women in genera l, but of I abella her elf.

The Amateur report only that "discussion is still hot as to what [the sitter' J smile ignified or what it concealed." Boston' candal sheets, however, immediately linked the painting, with a toni hing ribaldry, to one of the lady' purported former flirtation .16 The Amateur wa a ew York journal subtitled, significantly: Devoted to Art in the Household. The Boston corre pondent took a co mopolitan atisfaction in the arti tic audacity of argent' ociety portraits howing "people in attitude and costume that were never een in eriou , co tly portrait before"- argent' dangerous ae thetic libertie threatened to devalue socia l hierarchy as well. For Bostonians, this wa not an art "devoted to the hou ehold " and the Gardner portrait seemed to epitomize all that this implied.

The story remind u how much vi ion is an historica l construction. Critics of tl1e late 1880s had no doubt that the addre s and body language of the picture projected a tantalizing mix of socia l and erotic cha llenge. In the intervening century, however, 'spontaneous' interpretations of the image seem to have undergone a dramatic change.

Writing in the 1960s, Mrs. Gardner's biographer, Louise Hall Tharp, de cribes the sitter as "a woman leaning forward, a little unsure of herself, not entirely happy, but not in the least arrogant." In an entirely unscientific survey, I found that colleagues and graduate students, both male

and fema le, today al o ee the picture in these term .

Bourget in Boston The mo t voca l and articu late of the nineteenth-century c mmentator on the Gardner portrait wa the con ervative French noveli t and critic, Paul Bourget.

Like American writer , he evoked the theme of fa cinati n and fear but gave them a different cu ltura l and ocia l per pective. A French critic had called argent' Madame X " l'idole," approving of the purity of the portrait' de ign. '- ow Bourget invoked the Gardner portrait as an "idole america111e." f r whose ervice man lab r , wh m he ha decked with the jewel of a queen, behind each f who e whim lie day and day pent in the ardent battle of Wall treet.

What fascinated Bourget most in the w1known itter of the Bo ton portrait wa : The head, intellectual and daring, with a countenance a f one who had under to d everything [stand befor ] the vaguely gi lded de ign f one of tho e Rena cence stuff . .. .The rounded arm ... are joined by the cla ped hand - firm hand , the thumb almo t too long, which might guide four hor e with the preci ion of an Engli h coachman. It i the picture of an energy ... at once delicate and invin ible, momentarily in repose.

The pa age is often quoted and is given in full at the end of thi e ay.

Modern writer point out that the epithet of "femme fata le" genera ll y leveled against our painting and Sargent's ca ndalous portrait of Madame X, which had preceded it, was in fact a coded re ponse to " the ascendency of the middle class to power that produced this monstrous female offshoot who now symbolized the degeneracy of mankind ."' 8 The citation from Bourget has also been interpreted in thi sen e, a a cathing criticism of the acquisitive, par-

18

enu iety of the e'"' \ orld. In fal:t, hO\ ever, the fn sons of old-world umdecn ic n and d1 ta re and the 1mocat1on of dee 1de11t Jread of rhe female v1brat1ng in B urger's de cnpnon of the Boston nigma rake on qu ire a d1ffcrenr meanmg \ hen rcad 111 the conte\.t of the book of wh1 h the were a p.lrt. I It 011tre-Mer: l111p ress1011s of America of 1894 appeared in an mencan edition rhe folio" mg car.

Bourger's med1rat1on~ on the argent portrait, fa r longer than the pa age u uall) qu red, end h1 chapter on mencan ~cx.1 ty (hem n "polite ociet) " ). He call~ the painting "ll1e mem:an Idol" bccau~c, f r him , it pit m17c "a "hole ~c ial order" and, qumr cnnall), the e\.traordinary chara ter and role of its" omen.

Repea ted ly he define the mcncan woman a a "highly fi111 hed per on, elfmade ... a mixture of fcm1111nc deltcacr and irile \ ill. " ommg from an author famed for hi dogman tradmonalt m, the e de ripti n might ea ii) b thought mi ogyni t comrnonpla cs ma kcd by alli polite e wer 1r not th r Bourget decl are him elf thrilled: . . . he anract , urpn e , ennce , comfort~ us. We re peer her and ~he mo, 路 e~ u~. e are gra teful ro her for e>..1 nng a one of the noble thing of the world; and we ould dream - o perfect i he - of ha\ mg her a part of our live a onfidanre . . .land] fncnd.

As an individual, the American woman " ... has moulded for her elf a haracter entirely in accord with her oetal po 1ti n and yet indi vidual and p culiar to her elf."

In that social erring, American women are " ... the delegate to luxury in thi utilitarian civilization. " Their mi sion i an ennobling transformation of ociery through culture in a new world of democracy and bu ine , " ... the money which is made in the office comes at last to them, and manipulated by their fingers is transfigured, blossoming

preuous decoranon , made 1nrellectual pla) of fanc - 111fact,111111ttl1zed."

into

\Xlnrren only four year~ before the publt anon of hor~rem chlen' heory of the Le1S11re (lasses, Bourget\ word~ re~onare "1th com1dcrahlc iron) 111 rwcnnerh ccnrur} cars bur, 111 terms of the 1-rench and I nglt h ac rhenc rheoncs he e pou ed, the crcanon of a "u de~~ beaut)" \\a the h1ghe~r pra1 e. I It~ Je1ficanon of mcncan cx.1cn "omen anJ rhe1r role ulnmatLh refb.: ~s <1 Ru k1111an, profoundly n:a non,1r) 'IC\\ of women ' place. Snll, 1r 1~ rcm.uk.1hlc rhar he 111\Crt~ rhc standard trope~ of ann -Am1.ncan 1.nr1c1~m then floun hmg 111 l urope. number of his f-rench colleagues a\\ rhc mdcpcndence and cul rural .11.:ql11~1t1\ eness of lad) \ 1 1ror from rhe , e\\ \X'orld as rhc epitome of the rnencan threat ro ruropc\ polmcal and c onom1c dominance and 1r oc1al and cultural 'aluc .

Bourget, on rhc contra[}, portray American 1 C) women a~ rhe redeemer of rhc defect~ and offcn~e~ of rhe1r " J\ age world." B> collecnng E:ur pean arr, rl1C) er arc and refine ulrurc. Thetr ncr. ou "ma culme" energ) 1 iomcd to e\.qu1s1re s n 1m IC) and 1s a 1g11 of moral excellen c.

In effect, Bourget rebur \ 1 ,,. rh n held on b th 1de f rhe rlannc deplonng the "femi111zanon" of oci C)', br ughr about by the acnviri of worn n on behalf of cu ltur . ' B urger' nthu ia rn for American w men be ome le urpri ing when we a -iare it with the cir um ranee rhar engender d it. In fact, he had known and courted argent' acquaintance in Lond n in th ci rcle of Henry Jame . B th riric and painter ymparhized with the Fren h decadents and with the Ae rhetic Movement in England, 21 and I wonder whether Bourger's p ychologi al nov I f 1885, rue/le Enigme, ould have in pired 19

Sargent' title for the Gardner portrait. Jn the year it was begun, 1887, Beren on had written approvingly to Mr . ardner about the French auth r's' ork ,u and it wa Jame who arranged for her to entertain him on the American vi it during which he wrote hi new book. Bourget hoped to ray with her whil doing o and he had announced fr m the fir t that the work would appear with an merican publi her.2 ' More telling till, he and hi ho re remained g d friend one the book wa publi hed.

It would appear that Bourget had trimmed hi ail t the intellectual breez of Bo ton. The Memorial History of Boston, publi hed in the early l 80 , in lud d a long chapter on the city' ' omen by 1r . dnah heney.-â&#x20AC;˘ Her portrait of the typical Bo tonian woman i cou hed in exactly the term that Bourget' a t empl y. h i a unique compact of d Ii a y, n rvou rrength, intellect, and cial re erve, paired with an independent and active will. he embodie both th Bo tornan traditi n f ideali t rebellion and it "mo t refined cultural ideal." Earlier till, the th me of ew W rid cultural redemption through women had been ounded by harle liot Norton, the mentor of 1r . ardner.2 n a more practical level, Bourget' idealization of American women wa per onally flattering to hi Bo ton hoste .2â&#x20AC;˘ The gallant fib he lid into hi account of the Gardner portrait certain ly had thi purpo e. He claim to have en the portrait in an exhibiti on and that it repre ented "a woman who e name I do not know."

Since the painting wa exhibited on ly before the critic' arriva l "outre-mer," he can only have seen it chez Gardner, and he clearly did know its ubject.r He had confected a literary equivalent of Sargent' "Enigma ." In fact, the critic' pages on the portrait appear as an homage, a ll the more powerful for its seeming discretion, to

the qualitie and a pirati n d are t to l abella' image of her elf. hen H nr Jame ,. rote hie; e ay The Amencan cene, after hi B ton vi it of J 905, he took up all Bourget' theme ' ith remarkable coincid nee of language and tone including the h roizarion f Mr . ardn r a an individual and a a pi neer f culture.''

If Bourg t offer not ju ta "<l cum nt of rec pti n" but a I r fleet the id a of the ardn r portrait' patron and paint r, hi ' ord invite ne\\ attennon. He id ntifie him elf full) \\'Ith the much admired arti t: " ... arg nt ha hown what I have tri d to pre ."Bourg t all the painnng "a p rtrait u h a the fifteenth-century ma t r pamted," and he p1 k up Jame ' characterization f It a a "Byzannne 1\ !adonna." Both epithet reflect the impre 1 n of \.OticI m and hi t rical di ranee which the picture al o mad n oth r when 1t wa fir t hown.

P11rs11111g the PL7St Bourget mitred an allu ion which truck n rican critic of the time and which occa ionall) till urfa e in de cripti n f the p rtra1t: it puzzlingly ian a llure. In part, i ual u f r thi r pon e c uld be f und in th portrait' frontal b dy and head. Meyer hapiro r mind u that Baud laire {avidly read by all con em d in our tory) had indi oluabl) joined the them of I king to the p netrating and intimate glance f the deiti of Oriental temple culpture.2' The orientali zing porn granat pattern of the portrait' Italian tex'tile confirmed thi impre i n. b ervers were le united, however, or perhap le s intere ted in I eating the poetic Orient more preci ly the Amateur of 1888 aw Indian nuance in the painting: Ithe itter's head i;J enclosed a by an aureole, in the Oriental arabesque of a dado,

20

against which she stands, as if in testimony of her devotion to the fash ionable Hindoo cult.

The author goes on to comment on the sitter's "mystic smile" hoping that "since the picture is said to be destined for the Paris salon, perhaps the clever Parisian critics may unriddle for Boston this Eastern mystery."

Ellery Sedgwick remembered " ... a background that might have been the heart of a lotus" 30; and, when I showed a photograph of Mrs. Gardner's portrait to a noted scholar of Asian art, he commented spontaneously on its "Buddhist" aspect.

H e remarked that the arrangement of Isabella's hands (and of the right thumb which had attracted Bourget's notice) actually conforms to the Buddhist gesture of meditation known as the Mudra of Concentration.3' In fact, the deliberation and composure of Mrs. Gardner's hands are unique in Sargent's depiction of such poses.

Like Sargent, Berenson, and nearly every one else in the 1880s, Isa bella was fascinated by oriental philosophy and culture.

The Gardners had taken a long Asiatic tour, including India, Japan, China, and Cambodia. They had visited Angkor Wat, where their companions hunted for "Buddha plunder:' 32 All these places abound with sculptures of frontal standing figures with smiling countenances, their hands joined, displayed before a round or flame-shaped mandala, who wear rosaries of beads and whose hips are defined by a drapery tied in front. As an icon of exotic intellectual and spiritual enlightenment, Isabella could be presented as a deity of a universal religion: that of art. Such associations would have been familiar to readers of modern French poetry. Leconte de Lisle's hymn to Brahma and his consort, Maya, for instance, sounds these motifs.

Bhagavat! Bhagavat! Essence des Essences, Source de la beaute, fleuve des Renaissances ... M aya, creatrice du monde, Espoir et souvenir, le reve et la raison, L' unique, l'eternelle et sainte lilusion

At the same time, however, appeal to eastern religions in the portrait also made a social statement. Certainly at least the association of "the fashionable hindoo cult" with social rank could be assumed in Boston. Byron had already spoken of "the highest caste - the Brahmin of the Ton," and Isabella's friend Oliver Wendell Holmes had written of "the Brahmin caste of New England." 33 Today, however, Sargent's clever allusion appears perhaps more ambiguous and more interesting. The modish aesthetic of international exoticism had defined the artists who appropriated it as free "outsiders" of society with a special "insider's" status in the lofty realm of art. In the Gardner portrait, the sitter, as an individual, is assimilated to this higher world of freedom but, at the same time, the appeal to "outsider" non-western cultures, might be seen, at least today, as a metaphor of colonial American claims to European aristocratic values and privilege.

Bourget, instead, preferred to describe the hieratic otherness of the portrait as "Byzantine," an allusion which allowed him to re-enlist Hemy James and ultimately Ruskin's heady melange of medievalism and the deification of woman. In following years, Sargent was to use such resonance between iconic body and aureole pattern in his Spanish Madonna and in his famous fresco for the Boston Library of Astarte, embodiment of the fema le principle and equated with both poles of her enigma: Artemis and Aphrodite. Mrs. Gardner liked to be flattered in these terms;â&#x20AC;˘ and she bought the oil sketch for the fresco.

21

10 Piero della Francesca, The Death of Adam, detail, Arezzo, San Francesco.

Bourget thought Sargent's absorption of other pictorial traditions could also be perceived in the portrait. The critic picked out Ravenna (was he thinking of the mosaic of the Empress Theodora?), Spanish painting and, finally, the "subtlety of the great Italians." He did not expand on this subtlety, and the Gardner portrait seems not to have reminded many other nineteenthcentury writers of Renaissance art. At the Paris exhibition of 1889, however, critics on both sides of the Atlantic affirmed that "Piero della Francesca can be seen" in the Portrait of Madame X. Sargent's friends Vernon Lee and Evan Charteris thought

so too, and they stressed that Sargent was then "tending entirely towards a return to fifteenth-century ideas." 35

Posing Questions and Questions of Pose Piero's name was invoked on Sargent's behalf again more recently when Albert Boirne related the hieratic pose of the Gardner portrait to a standing frontal figure in the Arezzo Death of Adam fresco (fig. 10).36 A few writers like Burckhardt, Crowe and Cavalcaselle, and John Addington Symonds37 voiced their appre22

11 Georges Seurat, Study for "Les Poseuses" (1886), Merion, The Barnes Foundation. (Photograph copyright 1992 by The Barnes Foundation.)

ciation for Piero della Francesca in the 1860s and 1870s, but he was not ranked in the canon of the greatest masters. Some years ago, Boime showed that a concerted vogue for Piero's art had developed in Paris, where Renaissance art had become a symbol, in liberal artistic circles, for social and artistic renewal. He linked the young Seurat to this Parisian milieu and concluded that the artist's often-noticed "spiritual affinity" with Piero actually reflected a conscious encounter with the quattrocento master's art.38 The frontal figure in Seurat's Poseuses of 1886-88 (fig. 11) was compared with Piero's Death of Adam, which Boime later associated with the Gardner portrait.

Actually, Isabella's pose more closely resembles Seurat's earliest studies for the Poseuses than its Renaissance forerunner.

It seems capricious to make this connection since Seurat and Sargent moved in Parisian circles whose artistic and political allegiances were at odds. Furthermore, the American was often away from Paris in this period and had moved to London before Seurat's painting was publicly exhibited!9 Did Sargent share the new taste for Piero's art? Could he have known something about

the preparatory studies for Les Poseuses before he left Paris for good? For the moment we are left with another "enigma."

In any event, Seurat's study makes an instructive, exactly contemporary comparison with the Gardner portrait. The frontal standing nude with hands joined belonged to the repertoire of poses assigned to live models in painters' studios of the 1880s both in Europe and America. Thomas Eakins made and used study photographs of such posed nudes in the early years of the decade. 40 Seurat's painting marked a turning point in a long tradition of paintings about art itself. The artist depicted his own studio where, surrounded by his paintings, his slender working-class models are seen from the front, side, and back, in a triad of immobile, paradigmatic poses.

The " real" female body, not idealized but shaped by the contingencies of modern life, becomes both the subject and instrument of a pure art. The title he gave the painting also reflects the tension between life and art. In French nineteenth-century speech, the word "poseuse" was unusual, and, although it could refer to a studio model, it also suggested attitudes "studied for effect," artificial or affected.41 From what I can gather, the stance of the poseuse was not limited to the studio setting; singers and performers adopted it, but it belonged also to the body language of socially correct deportment. In a formal photograph of 1905,42 it projected Mrs. Potter Palmer's well-bred composure and commanding presence, and much earlier, in the year of the Sargent portrait, Mrs. Gardner herself was photographed in this pose (fig. 12). Even in its details, the gesture is so close to Sargent's picture that I would like to think her habits in real life provided his point of departure.

Today we might see her portrait as depicting a poseuse in all the ambiguous senses of the word. Both her claim to social status and her challenges to its conventions are artificial, "studied for effect." By evoking 23

the contrary, that the picture is an homage to and a fully collaborative creation w ith, Mrs. Gardner. It revea ls, as nowhere else, how the Renai sance served simultaneously as a disguise and an expression o~,her . elf-image. Bourget had concl uded, She 1s like a living object of art" but perhaps the reverse is also true. In the portrait, the sitter' full identity and va lue are constructed externa lly, by the depicti on of materials which surround her. Art stands fo r, and creates, the person. the world of the artist's studio, however, the po e can evoke tacit associations with the body beneath the costume, auguring a tran cendence over the constraints of modern ociety in the timeless ideal of art' pure artifice.

Private and Public elves: a Creative ollaboration Whatever its intimate communication and scandalized public reception, the portrait wa , inititally, created to be een - but where? Both patron and painter expected it to launch the reputation of the artist in America and to celebrate the itter. Perhaps both originally hoped the picture wou ld pread their fame in European exhibition 4 1; but was public display of the portrait Mrs. Gardner' primary goal? It had, in all likelihood, been commi ioned, like most uch portrait , a "art in the home." In the dome tic erring of her Beacon Street hou e, the overt challenge the portrait had made in public wa muted. When he later tran po ed the painting to the Gothic Room 111 Fenway ourt, he reformulated 1t meanmg once agam. he kept the room pm ate until her death but she arranged it 111 the knowledge that it would one day be een b) the public. Her installation of the portrait has the force of a te tament and an mterpretanon.

It ha., hcen said that argent' attitude to hi., .,mer \\J., "m1sogyru r." I thmk, on

Both patron and sitter knew what was often said and written: Isa bella's attraction lay in her figure and vivid manner, not in her face. Isabella's life-long costuming and staging of herself may have originated in the inunemorial prescripti on of mothers to da ughters to corriger la fortune: to compensate for defects of bea uty th.rough charm and to deflect attention to your best features.

A few years later, Isabell a attended a ball dressed as "a na utch girl" in a clinging outfit but with her face covered, all but the eyes. This made it, o cruel gossip noted, "a most becoming headgear." 45 Isabella's parted lips enliven the rather harsh line her mouth took on in repose.

Thi may have been her characteristic way of 'wearing' her face and of talking as a form of disguise, for her mouth is open in most of her other portra its as well an d even in a photograph of 1907.46 The face in the Gardner portrait troubled the artist as well a the sitter, for it is the most reworked part of the paint surface.

In the end, Sargent left the features somewhat undefined so that the eye is led rapidly away to the arrangement of coreted curves and lustrou flesh below. It is ignificant that Isabella agreed to accentu ate her hip still further by tying a shawl tight around them. The painter consi derably enlarged the pattern of the textile o that its inuous, chia tic visual rhythms enhanced the mes age of the body with tartling di.recme . Mr . Gardner had 24

12 Isabella tewart Gardner (1888), Bo ton, l abella

Stewart Gardner Mu eum.

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The 1mJge bdong~ w thL reJlm ot Lulrun:, defined and umrrolleJ h' rhe p.nron. l kr blue g.ve u>mm,rnd ... u.... Rdu . . ing w lx mereh rhe p.,.,... 1, e oh1ed of '1..,1011, 'hL ummom che ..,~·Lr.Hor ro be looked .uh~ her. rJnJ111g before her porcr,lll, 1r 1. . L.l'>) co unJer.,r~rnd "h\ .ur hNon,111 . . roJ.n talk abouc gJ1e ,t,· .1 lor111 of .lLrt\ L 'j..,;1.11 dom111Jn1..e and .H.:qu1 . . 1non. \\ hu1 we ome 111ro l .1belb\ pre . . cnn·, ~hL ,1JJ., u... to her colleLnon.

ln \,1r~Lnr\ porer.lit, the . . dk 1., ,t 1.lorh ol honor like rhoo,t' ll'L'J ro dl· 1gn.ne dw .\ l,1do1111.1 or .1 prtllLl . ·1he tll' uou... un L ot 11 dc . . 1gn ae.nc nor JU r .1 h.110 hur l 111.rndorl.1 tor rhe l)<>Lh ,h ,1 "hok \nil, 111 1r... .th rr.1LC11m thl p.ln·l m ru1Ja dtl ll<>\.l) 11n.1gL' k . . oc1.1ll~ J.rngaou . l ro111 th · dM.1nr 1..ulrur.11 ... p.11.e ot rhe Rcn.11 111 c, rhl' I.id)\ kn<>\\ mgl~ 1..1mti •url'd 1..h.1r111 bt\.rnne pcrr111trcd ob1c..r.., of ld1111r Hl<Hl or l' en ot .1Jo 1 1011. tor rhc) tl.11..h Ru 1..111'.., k ...... on due ".111 tornh uf J1.k11mdcdg1..d lx.lllt) .Hl LOlllpo~J t ...lu t\l'h uf LUI'\ c...... ltL Jc>L·.., l ·1..1>11ll' ,tn 1Jol ol .1rr: .1 . .ore of p.Hron .line, L'H 11 .\ l.1Jonn.1 ot .1rr. [..,<ii 111' 111 r.1lbcion of her porrr.lll 111 the ( ,orhtL Room '>ll • •c r ch.H he rhou~hr of che p11..Cur1.. 111 th1 . . \lll l'. 1hl' 1..orncr of rhe roum be ·onK' .1 . . hnr1c. The: 1...1 \<lllL' lw plated bcne.Hh chl p11.turL' I ·..:ornc 1r. . 'L1.ul.1r tit.tr, Lllmpkte "irh hrnik . . oi ....1 reJ mus1L; .111d che de' .1nnn ol rhl' 1111.1gc on the ",111 nukt·.., 1~.1bdl.1 look dm' n "1rh hl.'nd11..L·nr 1nrcre.,t Jr rhc "l'X'd.1tor or pcti· noner. l 11..e rhc m1nculou . . \ LlJonn.1 . . of le.ii), ~hc L.1111..ome ali\e 111 re pon~e ro prayer\ for patronage ro work "onder. . for ,1 llC\\ Ren.11 ...ani.:c 111 Bo ... mn.

Thar pre em.e, like ic.., 'Lcting, t'> a Jeltberarel) arnfio.1l 1111Jge 111 "h1th her Jre,..,, ie,,·cl , and che Icalt.111 hrcx.1de, all 1..ollcLrcd on rnp abroad, ha' e dehn111g 1mporr.111ce.

The ame porenc comb111Jnon of arrnbuce . . wa famtl1ar, boch to [..,,1bella .111d )Jrgenc, from Bronz1110\ famou., porrra1c of Eleanorn dJ foledo, pJ1mh-born t1r t duch of Renat!>'>ance I lorence (fig. 8).'

Eleanora cho~e ro be buried 111 the dre-,., he wear 111 the p1crurc; and chc ab~tratc, unyield111g parrern of her dre h1dd and a imilare her body to an 111\ulnerable public image of rule. The ba !..ground f ab olur cele nal blue reiterate~ the inevitable, dinnely ancttoned nghme of her hegemony. ln the ardner portrait, the rol of the clothed figure and it background are rever ed o that the ymbol1c me age of the brocade i maintained bur rron formed.

I abella ha , literally and figuranvely, exchanged her own background for the

l he Renat'> .rn..:e had bccornc, for k1bdla, a S} mboltL thl.'ater wh1.. re .1rr .111J life, '1 . . ion and performanLe, ould be rrJn . . muted mto ead1 other on her 0\\11 rcm1 .... App.1rcnrl) the image of irgenr·~ porrra1t 1..onnnued to dme her 1mag111anon. Th1.. folio" 111g year, Isabella wenr to the BcNon m r~ fe rn al and To11•11 Topics reponcd her .1., "con p1cuou ly elegant ... in .1 Rc11.11~~.rncc.: 25

costume cut extremely d ecollete back and front." In 1889, Denis Bunker portrayed her in the "Venetian" costume she had worn to the ball (fig. 13).53 The conventional and rather unsympathetic portrait depicts only an evening dress in rather sketchy and listless Renaissance travesty.

Perhaps this is what Bunker thought of Isabella 's historica l charades. From her own tactical viewpoint, however, the Bunker portrait recorded a new maneuver to project explicitly the Renaissa nce image, which had only been implicit in Sargent's painting. In later years she continued to attend parties "done up a la Madonna," sometimes wearing "a jewelled sun on the back of her head." 54 It is important to remember how early the Sargent portrait was commissioned and painted. Mrs. Gardner was already supporting the young Bernard Berenson in his studies, but she had not yet begun to collect o ld master paintings. Years were to pass before she identified herself so decisively with Italian art under his guidance, and before Fenway Court took shape. In retrospect, Sargent's painting both figures and prefigures Mrs. Gardner's Renaissance.

Documents Greta, " Art in Boston: The Sargent Portrait Exhibition," The Art Amateur: Devoted to Art in the Household 18.5 (April, 1888): 110.

Boston propriety has not yet got over the start Mr. John D. [sic] Sargent's exhibition of portraits at the St. Botolph Club gave it.. ..

It is still undecided, I think, whether it was

insulted or delighted. Young Mr. Sargent, everyone knows, is a distinguished painter, even in Paris, and has two or three times produced the most ta lked-of picture in the Pari Sa lon. But it does not fo llow that Bo ton, which prides itself on an art culture of very different inspiration from that of the contemporary Sa lon, dating indeed from Athens and Flaxman's Outlines, will think the more of him for that. . . . or, of course, that there were any nudities or uch improprietie in the collection, but the spirit and tyle of the painter were so audacious, reckless and unconventional! He actua lly presented people in atti tude and costumes that were never seen in seriou , costl y portraits before, and the painting was done in an irreverently rapid, off-hand, dashing manner of clever brushwork .... But it was the portraits of loca l leaders of ociety that ca used the hubbub. One must admit that the young portraitist took some libenie ! ... the most das hing of fas hion's loca l cynosure who can order the whole symphony orchestra to her house for a private musica le, was presented in a demure though decollete black dre s, with her head enclosed as by an aureole, in the Oriental arabe que of a dado, aga inst which he stands, as if in re timony of her devotion to the fashionable Hindoo cult. The mystic mile - if smile it be - upon the quivering lips of this portrait was the prime tour de force of the whole exhibition, and the discussion is still hot a to what that smile signified or what it concea led. As the picture is said to be destined for the Paris Salon, perhaps the clever Pari ian critics ma y unriddle for Boston thi Eastern my tery.

Paul Bourget, Outre-Mer: Impressions of America. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons 1895: 106-109. ) Whether he seeks for a place in society, or is ambitious for artistic culture, or addicts herself to sport, or organizes "classes," as they say, for reading Browning, Emerson, or Shakespeare with her friends, whether she travels to Europe, India, or Japan, or remains at home to ha ve some young girl among her friends "pour" tea for her, be sure that she wiH be always and incessa ntl y active, indefa ngably acti ve, either in tl1e lines of " refinement" or of "excitement" ... daughter of a land of enterprise, [she] loves to excite continually in herself the sensation of overstrained nerves.

26

13 Denis M.iller Bunker, Isabella Stewart Gardner,

(1889), Bosron, Isabella tewarr Ga rdner Museum.

When y u ec ten, fifteen, thirty, fifty like thi , the character of ecc nm iry wh1 h you fir t found in them by compari on with the women of - urope, di appear . new type of feminme educn n 1 re ealed to you, le affe ting than irritating, enigmati and light! ambiguou by 1t indefinable blendmg of upple gra e and viri le firmn , by the alliance of cu lture and 1gor, by the mo t thrilling nervou en itivene and the turdie t health. The true pla e of u h a creature in thi ociety appear ro you al o, and the pr f und rea on why the e men, themsel all action, leave the e women free thu ro a r with r tal independen e. lf 1t 1 perm1ned to apply an old legal term ro crearure o ubtle, o delicate, the e women are the delegate to luxury in thi uriliranan 1vil1zation. Their mi ion i ro bring into it that whi h the Ameri an ha not rime ro reate and which he desire to have: The flower of elegan e, omething of beauty, and, maw rd, of an tocracy. They are the nob1liry in th1 land f bu ine , a nobility developed by the very development of bu ine , in e the money which i made in the offi e come at la r to them, and manipulated by their finger 1 tran figured, blo oming into pre i u de oration , made intelle rual play of fancy - m fact, unutilrzed.

A great arri t, f remo r of rhi epoch by the ardor of hi efforrs the con cienti u ne of hi rudy, and the incerity of hi vi ion, John argent, ha shown what l have tried ro expres , in a portrait which l aw in an exhibition, - that of a woman who e name I do nor know. lr is a portrait uch a the fifteenthcenrury masters painted, who back of the individual found the real, and back of the model a whole ocial order. The ca nvas might be called "The American Idol, " so repre enrative is it.

The woman is standing, her feet by her side, her knees close together, in an almost hieratic pose. Her body, rendered supple by exercise, is sheathed - you might say moulded - in a tight-fining black dress. Rubies, like drops of blood, sparkle on her shoes. Her slender waist is encircled by a girdle of enormous pearls, and from this dress, which makes an intensely dark background for the stony brilliance of the jewels, the arms and

houlder sh111e our with another bnlliance, that of flower-like fle h - fine, white fie h, through which flow~ blood perperually 1nv1gorared by rhe air of the country and the ocean. The head, 1nrellectual and daring, with a counrenan e as of one who ha understood ever)thmg, ha , for a Ort of aureole, the vague!> gilded de~1gn of one of those Rena cence ~ruff which the cnenan call sopra-nsso. The rounded arm , m ' h1 h the mu cle can hard!) be ecn, arc 1omed h> the cla ped hand~ - firm hands, the thumb :ilmo r too long, which might guide four hor e ''1th the pre 1s1on of an Engh h coa hman. lr 1 the p1crurc of an cnerg) at on e delicate and 111\ 111 1ble, momenranl 111 repose, and all the B> 1_annne ~ ladonna 1s m that fa e, w1rh 1r~ wide open eye .

Ye , chi oman 1s an idol, for who e rv1 e man labor , whom he ha decked w1rh JC\ cl& of a queen, bchmd each one of'' ho e whim lied y and da 路 pcnr 111 the ardent banle of Wall rreer. Fremy of peculanon 1n land, me undertaken and built by heer for e of million , trams laun hed at full peed O\er bridge built n Babel-like weep of ar h, the reakmg of cable a , the qui enng of elecm ar , hd111g along rhw wire ' 1th a era kle and a park, the d1.ZZ) a em f elevaror , 111 buildm~ rwenry tones high, 1mmen e wheat-field f the e t, 1r ranche , mm , ol al laughter-hou e all the f rmidable traffiL of th1 ounrry of effort and truggle, all 1t labor - the e are what have made po 1ble th1 woman, rh1 li ving orchid, une peered ma terpie e f th1 civi lization.

Did not the very pa1nrer con ecrate to her hi inten e roil? To be capable of uch a picture, he mu t have ab orbed ome f the ard r of the pani h ma ter , caught the ubtlety of the great Italian , under rood and practised the curio itie of impre ioni m, dreamed bef re the picture in ba ilica like Ravenna, and read and thought. Ah, how much of culture, of reflection, before one could fathom the ecret depths of one's own race. He ha expres ed one of the mo t essential characteristics of the race - the deification of woman, con idered nor a a Beatrice as in Florence, nor as a courre an as at Milan, but a a upreme glory of the

27

national spirit. This woman can do without being loved. What she symbolizes is neither sensuality or tenderness. She is like a living object of art, the last fine work of human skill, attesting that the Yankee, but yesterday despairing, vanquished by the O ld World, has been able to draw from this savage world upon which fa te has cast hin1 a whole new civiliza tion, incarnated in this woman, her luxury, and her pride. Everything is illuminated by this civilization, at the gaze of these fathomless eyes, in the expression of which the painter has succeeded in putting all the idealism of this country which has no ideal; all that which, perhaps, will one day be its destruction, but up to the present time is still its greatness - a fai th in the human Will, absolute, unique, systematic, and indomitable.

1 For Bostonian enthusiasm for the Renaissance, see B. Berenson and I. S. Gardner, The Letters of Bernard Berenson and Isabella Stewart Gardner 1887-1924, with Correspondence by Mary Berenson, Rollin van N. H adley, ed.

(Boston, 1987), pp. 35-38. Facts not otherwise foo tnoted derive from Philip H endy, European and American Paintings in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (Boston, 1974) and from further bibliography listed below. For the Renaissance portraits in the collection, see Hilliard Goldfarb, Imaging the Self in Renaissance Italy (Boston, 1992) . The most accessible source on Mrs. Gardner's life remains L. H .

Tharp, Mrs . Jack (Boston, 1965) . For the voluminous literature on Sargent see, for instance, the bibliography in P. Hills, ed., John Singer Sargent (New York, 1986) . To my lively regret, I was able to obtain Trevor Fairbrother's admirable dissertation on Sargent Uohn Singer Sargent and America [New York, 1986]) onl y when I had finished writing. H ad I seen his pages on the Gardner portrait earlier, I would have been spared the considera ble thought and labor it cost me to arrive at several of his insights.

I have tried to insert references to the major instances. For their unstinting help with the symposium and its aftermath, I should like to express my appreciation to the M useum's

director, Anne Hawley, and her staff: Hilliard Goldfarb, Troy Moss, Susan Sinclair, and their co-workers. To my colleagues, Jonathan H ay, Giinter Kopcke, Egbert H averkamp-Begemann, and Marvin Trachtenberg, my assistants, M ary Brand and Amanda Coulson, and the other graduate students who discussed Mrs. Gardner's portrait with me, go m y gra teful thanks.

2 E. Samuels, Bernard Berenson: The Making of a Connoisseur (Cambridge, 1979), p. 37, is not sure w hen Berenson first read Burckh ardt, although, from the first, he used the Cicerone (available in English since 1873).

3 ]. Burckhardt, The Civilization of the R enaissance in Italy, tra ns. S. G. C. Middlemore (New York, 1929), pp. 377-381, 389-395.

4 Quoted in M. Carter, Isabella Stewart Gardner and Fenway Court (Boston, 1925), p. 90.

5 Hadley, p. 50; A. B. Saarinen, The Proud Possessors: The Lives, Times, and Tastes of Some Adventurous American Art Collectors (New York, 1958), p . 31.

6 H endy, p. 184. T he medallic reverse is illustrated in C. C. Vermeule, W. Cahn, R . van N. H adley, Sculpture in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (Boston. 1977). pp. 131-132.

7 Goldfar b. pp. 34-36; K. W.-G. Brandt, "The Self-Created Bandinelli," World Art: Themes of Unity in D iversity: Acts of the XXVI International Congress of the H istory of Art (London, 1989), pp. 497-508 .

8 Vermuele et al., pp. 122-125 and Goldfarb, pp. 25-28.

9 H adley, pp. 54-56.

10 Mrs. Gardner loved to read Italian but the Autobiography had been available in English smce 1771. Berlioz's opera " Benvenuto Cellini" had its prem.iere in Paris in 1838.

1_1 From an unpublished memoir by Sargent cited m S. Olson, John Singer Sargent: H is Portrait (New York, 1986), pp. 141-142.

According to other versions of the story, painter and sitter had decided, independently of each other,_to use the textile. Both thought it was Venetian but this is difficult to establish. See A. S. Cavallo, Textiles: Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (Bo~ton, 1986), no. 125. A very simi-

28

Lu h.rnging L,1T1 .1lrL.Hh hL gltmp,c.:<l in .1 photo gr.1ph of '> .1rgc.:nr\ P.1rn 'rud10. '>L'L' R ( m1011<l, / 0 /111 \ 1111!<'1 \,1rg,·11t· J',1111t111g . . Dr,1w111(! . . \\ ,11<-rt 11/or. (I ondon, I •ro), hp.. I -; I .urhrothc.:r, /\.\ , 1986. p. I )6.

12 l11.1rp, pp. I 31 I 14, for orhc.:r 'ud1 u>111111t nr .

I 3 \\ . P.HL r, / /Jc /{.-11,u: .•111.-c \ t11ilic. 111 ,\rt

,111d Poctn ('-. L\\ 'f ork, 19091, pp 129I10. [ 1r' r puhl1'hc<l 1n I ·-1, 1r" 1mporr,111r tor rhL· rhc.:mm: .1<l<lrc"c<l ro rhc ( r.1rdnc-r porrr.ll[, nor onh 111 h" <lc1hL rnon of rhc ttllll k" oppo,1uo11 of \ l.ldonn.1 ,rnd '.1mp1rc hur 111 dd1n1ng rhc 1\1011<1 I 1,;.1 ''.1' rhc cmhod11m:nr of rhc old fanc:\, rhc "mhol ot rhL modern tdL~l. " I or uimm\;nr' ;in dlc 'hm1, '>.unncn, p. 2. , T h.1rp, p. I B. 14 \I. h.1p1ro, \\ ord · ,111d P1,t11rc~: 011 t'1c f lltr.il .ind the vmlml1c 111 the ll/11str,111011 o(,1Text (Thc l f.1guL, 19-) ),pp. 142 -141; I i1rhrorhcr )\ . I lJ\{6, p. I 0 3, tor rlw unprc' · >ton of 'pccch p.t\Lll h\ rhc porrr.rn.

I 5 . Bo1111c, "",,1rgcnr 111 P.1rn .111d I ondon: \ Portr.J1r of rhe \ rr1'r ,1, [ on.in Cr.J\, ·· 111 John 111ger \ .irgcut. P. 1 ltll,, c<l. c.;\\ 'f ork, 1986).

t 9), 22<>.

no.

2- I h.1rp, pp. 1-0 1-1. I k 't'1tt:d J<.,(, 111 l~rookl111l' .111d Jk, 1:rh. It "nor 1:1mrch lk.1r "hcrhcr Ill' ,,l\\ rhe ortfttrl.11 or ,1 phorogr.1ph.

28 \ .111u, pp. l lJ -21 , tor .1 dt'<ll 'ton ot j llllL' \ iJL',1'.

2'! lup1ro, p. W, thmb ltrndcl.1tr< \\ ,1' 111\ptrnl l ) fl<..Cll( .lfdl.ll"OlogtL.JI Jt\LO\L"rtl I or 1rn ,1nd I'>( I <>11 B.wJd.ltrL', 11.idb. pp. 1-, 20.

lo

I h.1rp. p. I E.

'I Prok "ir I l.11 rh111b dw ponr.rn look Ill t 1w.irh ( 1mhoJ1.rn. , .11 o, .1unda , /J.1 1111. :--1. im<..k. \111enc 111 l'urtr 11t11re 111 tl•t' (, r111i.i \ l.111m., (I " \ng< k , I <I · I , p. -1 .ind Ormond.

19-o, p. 4 t. L111 rlw p1 rurL· "BudJh.1 Ith ."

12 C irr.:r, p. -2: ll1.1rp, pp. •H.<14. ll1t'1 hroughr hrnnc ,1 lmk· lndr.1.

n 0 lord I nglt,h l>tdlOll.H). " lk1hm111," Iii nm, Du11 _/11.111 . II, I 111: I lolmc , / /. 1, \ 'c1111er. IS 'ilJ, 111 rh< nrlc.

14

.unmn, p. l 'i

11"'

l ~otlllt',

I'JS6, p ''J.

18 Bo1me, 1986, p. 9 3.

H 1. I .11rhrorhLr. ··I h< '>hod.: of john '>111gLr '>.ug.:nr·,. l.1<l.1111c C1.lU(rl llt.'" \rr. \1,1,'.1 rll<' 'i 'i ( 198 1), p. lJ 3 uinlur , unng j. Pcl.1don, rhcodon: ( htld, .rnd \ l·rnon l cl'. ( h.1rrcn • 192 3, p. 6-, .1~' th.ir .1rgenr htm'Clf .1dmmcd ro Ir.1 lt:rn 111 fl ucnu.

19 lbtcl ., pp. 92-9 3.

36 Botml, 1%6, p. lJ 1

20 '\ . L. Vance, " Recldintng 'Bmro111,111,"' 111 The Bosto111a11s: Pa111ters o{ ,111 I lega111 \ ge.

1870- 1930. T. I a1rbrorhc.:r, eel . (B<Mon, 1986), p. 21, er pa!>~ un and . Doug!J>, The h~111111wt 1cm of A m erican ult11 re ( C.:\\ York, 19--).

~- 1w11h1...Jnrh, '>1 moncl-. ( Is-- , 190 ', p.

234, "·"' Pi.:ro "rJ1'c<l h1111>elt .1bmc thL· nu' of hi-. c:onremp<>r.lrll"' .. h\ rhe .1loofne» .111J -.olcmn1n of h" .1rr. ':..1muel,, pp. 92 91, rh1nb BB ftr,t "Lilt m \ ro rn tor P1cro 111 1889 Ptc.:ro ,., nor mennonecl 111 BB\ 1:Jrh letter ro [',(i .

16 Th.J rp. 1p. 114 - 135.

1- O rmond, 1•ro, p. 32, .11,0 C. R.irLltff, Smger \ ,1rgc11t ( t\\ 'I or!.., 1982 ), p. 88; ra1rbrorher, / S, 1986,p.1 05.

f olm

21 Ison, j , pp. 63, I 06-108; Bo11ne, 1986, p. 95 ; Fa1rbrothcr, / , 1986, p. 105.

38

22 Hadley, p. 12.

23

. Ho1me, "Sl'urJt .Jncl Pino cldl.i I r.111ce..._,1,"

, \ rt 8 111/etm 4- ( I %'il, pp. 2 'i5-2 'i6.

arrer, p. 138 .

24 Vance, 1986, e pe 1all) pp. 24-30.

25 Quoted in aa nnen, p. 36.

26 Rebecca We t con 1dered him a " bootlicker," eve r eager ro acquire 111fluennal fri end .

See 01. on, j , 1986, p. 106; fo r his onnnuecl fri endship with I and BB ee Hadley, pp.

29

39 Comparisons of Seurat's chronology in Georges Seurat 1859-1891, R. L. Herbert, ed., (New York, 1991), pp. 402-407, with Sargent's activities in 1886-87, suggest opportunities and conceivable mutual acquaintance. Boime, 1965, p. 266, rightly saw that Seurat' hieratic monumentality路 and poses were more specifically indebted to Piero than to Puvis de Chavannes who had been adduced to "explain" them.

Although Puvis was extraordinarily influential, he is not usually mentioned in connection with Sargent.

40 G. Hendricks, The Life and Work of Thomas Eakins (New York, 1974), pp. 201217; L. Goodrich, Thomas Eakins (Washington, D.C., 1982), pp. 245-247.

41 Frarn;:oise Cachin in Herbert ed., p. 273.

42 Saarinen, pl. opp. p. 200. See also Eakins's Concert Singer of 1892 in the Philadelphia Museum of Art. 43 Because of the gossip it engendered, Sargent's later requests to show the picture in Paris were refused (Tharp, p. 134).

44Boime,1986,p.93.

45 Tharp, p. 197.

46 Carter, opp. p. 220.

47 Fairbrother, 1981, for the shock of Madame X. Hendy, p. 222, ISG later acquired an oil sketch of the sitter.

48 Describing a photograph of the homely creator of another house museum, Mrs. Henry Huntington, Anne Higonnet remarked, "she could afford to be the ugly one in order to be the one who looks" {lecture, Institute of Fine Arts, spring, 1992).

49 ISG acquired what BB thought to be a portrait of Eleanora by Bronzino [n 1898.

50 P. Bourget, Outre-Mer: Impressions of America ( ew York, 1895), p. 53.

51 An interesting secular example is the feast scene in the Hours of the Duke de Berry.

52 Ruskin, Modern Painters, vol. 2, pp. 237238.

53 Carter, pp. 103-104, Tharp, pp. 196,142, "in the costume of a Venetian lady of the Renaissance." For Bunker's artistic career see Fairbrother, Bostonians, pp. 48-50, 202-203.

54 Tharp, p. 196.

30

Alberti's Self Michael Baxandall

University of California, Berkeley

Leon Battista Alberti's last book, the clialogue treatise on government De iciarchia, of 1468, begins with this scene: I was coming down the hill from the church of S. Miniato at Florence, which I often used to walk up to - partly to satisfy religion, partly to fortify my health. On the way back, on the bridge over the River Arno .. .I met Niccolo Cerretani and Paolo Niccolini, prudent and moderate gentlemen, and well disposed towards myself.

Niccolo said: "For the last few days the great rains and importuning winds have kept us at home: today the cheerful sun invited us out. . . .We have been waiting for you here on the bridge and watching the river below already much in spate, as you see, and in the way to becoming more so."

I stopped and stood there with them, astonished to see how much and how suddenly the river waters had swollen.

Said Paolo: "How fortunate Florence would be if the Arno were always as full. You, Niccolo, used to be the city's Corrunissioner of Ships, so you could have the job of piloting sea-going galleys, fully laden, right up the river to here. What do you say, Battista?

Don't you think that would be a marvelous utility for our town?

"What I think, at the present moment, " I said, " is that we should get away from this spray and rush of water and discuss these things more comfortably by the fire."

We moved off and were just going into my house when a couple of my nephews came out and told us that the river had broken its banks in the flat land above the city and torn apart the great retaining wall that had kept it in its course. We were alarmed. I turned to Paolo and said: "Well, here is one utility produced by this enlarged river of yours !. ... I say that, in human life, no thing exceedingly enlarged or exceedingly increased was ever without disadvantage, both public and private, and little to be desired. "

This becomes the first theme of the book.

The pattern of thought in such a passage is a balancing of pairs of terms and concepts.

Spiritual exercise is in balance with physi-

cal exercise if one walks over and up to S. Miniato to make one's devotions. Or, the waters of the River Arno are (or are not) in proportion to the banks of the River Arno. Or, the convenience of not being flooded is complementary with the inconvenience of the river not being navigable; or vice versa.

Said the Flame to the Lantern which held it: "You dim my splendor! " Said the Lantern to the Flame: "Have a mind to this: when the wind blows and you are in danger of your liie, it is I who keep yo u whole. To avoid a greater annoyance must ever cost a lesser annoya nce."

A. is complementary with B.; or A. is in balance with B.; or A. is in proportion with B.; or, in another form, somewhere between A. and B. there is a proper mean conclition, C. And along with this goes a powerful analogical sense, material things being able to stand for other, immaterial things.

Alberti was the universal man of the early Renaissance. He was writer, mathematician, architect, archaeologist; he also painted and made sculpture. He wrote important books on architecture, on painting, on ethics and society, which were widely read for centuries after, often not as historical curiosities but as books of practical guidance. He wrote less important books on surveying, on training horses, on the proportions of the human body, on cryptography, on how to argue in political meetings, and on some other things, though most of these are quite short. He was a virtuoso Latin humanist but also, heroically, wrote the first systematic grammar of the vernacular Italian language.

Much of the time he was doing all this he was a civil servant, specifically an abbreviatore apostolico or drafter of non-standard letters and documents, in the papal Curia at Rome. But what distinguishes the universal man from the man with a butterfly mind? His friend Cristoforo Landino called Alberti a chameleon, which was

31

shrewd, since he changes color on diverse subject-matters but retains his intellectual form. This distinctive thing seems the possession of a universally transferable intellectua l equipment.

If he had not already chosen an excellent emblem - a winged eye - for himself, one would be tempted to symbolize the intellectual thrust of Alberti (in his youth an outstanding javelin-thrower ) by a javelin poised in a throwing-loop : Suppose you have a javelin. Consider three parts - the two ends, which is to say the steel pointed head at one end and the feathers at the other; and then thirdly the loop or thing in the middle for throwing the javelin with. . . .If this throwing-loop is placed exactly in the middle of the javelin's shaft, and if tl1e feather end weighs exactly the same as the steel head, both ends will hang evenly, equally poised. If, however, the steel head is heavier, the feather end will go up. But there will be a certain point along the shaft, further towards the heavy end, slipping the loop to which will bring the weights into balance again. And this will be the point at which the longer section of the shaft now exceeds the smaller in proportion as the smaller weight is exceeded by the larger. . . .Thus, if the steel head weighs three parts to the feathers' two parts, the section of the shaft between steel head and loop must measure two parts to the three parts of the section from loop to feathers. The loop is the mean, and by determining a mean any two terms can be bro ught into balance or proportion.

This was the principle behind Alberti's system of architectura l proportion - working with not only arithmetical ( C = A + B) 2 but geom etric (C =VAXJ3) and harm onic

g

(~ = = ~ ) means. It was also the

principle behind his preoccupation with lifting great weights: the principle of the javelin is that of the lever, the pulley, certain kinds of wheel, screw and worm. H e wrote a book on these. But in a denumeri-

cized nominalized form it was also the principle behind Alberti's most idiosyncratic and muscular thought about many things.

For instance, ta ke a picture, any picture, and assess it in terms of balance between, on the one hand, pleasura ble richness of conformation and, on the other, affecting a usterity. Trim, with modifiers like " diversity" and " composition," until the desira ble m ean is located : The first thing to make a painting pleasurable is profuseness and variety ... .I praise profu seness provided it is appropriate to the representation, for when the beholder lingers over examining the picture, the profuseness will gain favor. But I should wish this richness to be di versified by means of variety and to be tempered by a sense of dignity and restraint. I condemn painters who, because they want to make an impression of richness or wa nt to leave no inch empty, have no mind to composition. These scatter everything round in a confused, disjointed way. ... And indeed a painter particularly in search of dignity will perhaps want to cultivate a certain sparseness instead of richness.

Princes who want to be majestic are laconic: in painting too a limited sufficiency of objects makes for dignity. I do not like sparseness in painting; but I do not like richness without dignity either.

Alberti's thought is often an exasperated attempt to reduce concepts to equations, more algebraic than syllogistic.

It is an old vice of intellectual history to confuse sources w ith causes. Like most Renaissance thinkers, Alberti was using classical instruments. H e was using the Aristotelean doctrine of the m ean, the idea that a virtue is a m ean condition lying between vices of deficiency and excess - as courage lies between cowardice and rashness. H e was also using the doctrine of decorum, the idea that the propriety and effectiveness of anything is judged by its relation both to the other parts of the 32

whole it belongs to and to the external function of that whole. And he did all this within the balanced forms of neoclassical prose. But there were many other classical ideas he did not use. The question is: what is this hypertrophy of mean-and-decorum thinking? How did this tendentious and edgy recourse to these particular items from the common property of the age come about?

Sometimes the best way to describe intellectual tone is in terms of personality and its formation, academically disreputable though this may be. Alberti was never quite the Florentine humanist; he was in most ways always the outsider. He had been born in 1404, out of wedlock, in Genoa. His father's family, Florentine patrician merchants and bankers, were in exile from Florence at the time for political reasons and remained so until Alberti himself was twenty-four years old. He was educated, latterly in relative poverty- his father having died when he was seventeen - but in schools better than Florence could have offered, at Padua and Bologna. At some point in his middle twenties he had an undefined sort of mental illness, for which two kinds of cause are mentioned, the strain of his legal studies and persecution from his family. Doctors forbade the study of law, as too taxing on the memory, and so for a time he interested himself in mathematics and physics instead, as less so. The family persecution Alberti felt is hard to assess: there are hints of dishonest trustees and, later, even of attempted murder. When he finally arrived in Florence which tends to appear in his work as county of the mind, a never-never land heavily colored by nostalgic accounts from elderly relatives, heard as a child in Padua - he did not even know the language they spoke, as he said himself. He never fully settled there.

All this left marks. There is a short anony-

mous biography, apparently by a friend who had been well briefed by Alberti himself, which paints an intermittently frightening sketch: In his behavior he was always very careful to be in no way open to suspicion or blame. ... Art must be added to art so that norhing seem to be done artfully, when walking in the town or riding horse or talking - in these three things one must beware not to alienate people .... He felt the enmity of many wicked men and their secret hostility, both an affront and a burden, particuiarly the severe injuries and intolerable insults inflicted by his kinsmen. He lived amidst envy and ill will with modesty and poise .... But, in fact, when he was not present those who had pretended to love him the most slandered him with all kinds of calumny .. . .By nature he was disposed to anger and bitter in spirit, but he could restrain his growing indignation at once by exercise of the mind. Sometimes he avoided talkative and immoderate people because he could not restrain his irritation with them; at other times he elected to expose himself to them, to develop his capacity for patience .... His mind was never free of meditation and thought. He rarely spent time at home in private without deliberating on some matter or other; at meals he pondered between courses. So he appeared silent and solitary and sad-faced, but he was not morose in manner; indeed, with close friends, even discussing serious things, he was always pleasant and (while keeping his dignity) even cheery .... He possessed a ray within his mind, with which he was able to perceive good and bad intentions towards himself; simply by looking at anyone he could penetrate to their faults.

Alberti sounds formidable. From this and much else he emerges as a man directing much energy towards the control of chagrin and the maintenance of nervous poise. What is extraordinary is how closely this seems associated with the development of intellectual muscles and dispositon of a distinctive, a balancing kind.

He himself gives a systematic account of 33

particularly at night when my excited spirit holds me vexed and wakeful, in order to divert myself away from my bitter cares and drear anxieties, I work out and construct in my mind some new machine for moving or consolidating great objects. Sometimes, in this way, I have not only calmed my agitation but happened on valuable ideas. Then again, if I cannot think of some problem like this, I sometime design and build in my mind a very carefully composed building and arrange on it various orders and rhythms of columns with different capitals and novel bases, and combine with them an appropriate and original grace of cornices and paneling. With compositions like this I occupy myself till sleep takes me .... Above all, nothing is more helpful, nothing absorbs me so completely as mathematical problems, and particuarly when I am interested in putting them to practical use in life - just as Battista here worked out his first principles of painting, and his elements of mathematics, and his book on moving great weights ... .I confess, it has often happened to me that, beset by men envious of me, insolent, intoxicated, stinging and pricking me on every side, with different kinds of abuse, in order deliberately to provoke me to anger - still I have been in part of my mind so occupied by my internal intellectual investigations ... that I neither heard nor saw them."

the association in a strange dialogue written in the early 1440s, towards the end of his last extended stay in Florence, On Tranquillity of Mznd. It is a stoic manual in techniques for controlling bitterness and anger, and it opens with one more of Alberti'$ physical metaphors of soothing balance and proportion: I was walking with a friend in our Cathedral at Florence and we were talking (as was our habit) of pleasant things relating to knowledge and enquiry. Angolo Pandolfini, that majestic man... joined us.

"Well done, Battista!," he said. "I am glad to see you religious in frequenting this church. ... And indeed it embodies both grace and majesty. I have often thought that it is fine to see combined within it both a lithe gracefulness and a robust solidity. On the other hand, each part of it seems directed towards delightful beauty; on the other, we apprehend that it is all made for eternity. Here, one might say, there is always the mild air of spring. Outside there may be wind, ice, frost; here inside, sheltered from the winds, the air 1s warm and calm. Outside there may be the blazing heats of summer; here inside it is temperate and cool."

Grace in balance with robustness: mean stimulations to sense. Pandolfini, the dominant interlocutor, goes on to lay out ways of controlling oneself. The book is painful and disturbing, not just as the product of someone. dr.iven to devise ways of preservmg eqmhbnum that often seem weirdly elaborate, but because the distancing mechanism - the device of having Pandolfini say it all - is unstable, and finally breaks down in an astonishingly precise account of how to calm one's anger suffiCJently to get to sleep. Pondolfini is still speaking: "Nothing so well mends my vexation of spirit, nothing so well keeps me in a calm and tranq.uil state of mind, as engaging my thoughts m some worthwhile problem and d1ff1cult enquiry .... Often I set myself to thmk out some line of argument. Often, too,

Somewhere in this rather terrible glimpse into an inner life may lie a source of the energy behind the conceptual algebra, the relentless balancing and compensating ~ab1t of Alberti's mind: muscles develop ed m the course of handling person al misery can ~omehow be used to put a shape on architecture, painting, and the rest. And both the self-protective self-abstraction described in the last sentence, and the unstable Pandolfini(-Alberti) self-d isplacement of the sentence before, seem parts of the genera ting struggle.

When Alberti(-Pandolfini) says one of his soothmg exercises is to work out lines of argument, he does not mean philosophical

34

argument of a ratiocinative or syllogistic kind, which he did not much practise or esteem. But though his thinking is powerfull y analogical, it is not authentically inductive either. Indeed, in his satirical novel Momus he has savage fun with the Socratic method: I [says Apollo, sent down to earth by Jupiter to find a good philosopher] found Socrates in a cobbler's shop and, as is his custom, he was asking lots of questions .... As I remember, he was saying: Well, craftsman, when you intend to make a shoe of the best quality do you consider you need excellent leather for the job?

Yes, said the cobbler.

Do you, said Socrates, take for it the first piece of leather you happen on, or do you think it better to select one out of many?

Better to select, said the cobbler.

How, Socrates asked again, do you recognize it, this excellent leather? Do you perhaps fix in your mind a piece of leather you know from past experience to be excellent, and on the basis of comparison with that image in your mind note defects and virtues in the different pieces you are examining?

Oh, yes, said the cobbler.

Well, now, said Socrates, the tanner who made that excellent leather - did he remove all the defects from it by chance or by method?

Method, of course, said the cobbler.

Then, asked Socrates, what would his method have been, in setting about this? The method he had learned in the course of his experience as a tanner?

Sure, said the cobbler.

Perhaps, Socrates went on, he made the same sort of comparison in preparing the leather as you did in selecting it - comparing parts with parts, the whole with the whole, until the becoming leather corresponded in every particular with the image of leather he held in his mind?

Sure, said the cobbler.

But, now, said Socrates, if he had never seen leather made, how, then, would he have acquired this image of excellent leather he was using for comparison? ...

The cobbler did not reply. At this point I approached Socrates and he was glad to see me.

Alberti's analogical sense is not inductive but metaphorical. The world is full of emblems of relationship - rivers and banks, flames and lanterns, javelins, churches, heat and cold, as we have seen, but also one man and another man; his account of the social compact is in terms of a serial complementariness that is both functional and natural: Nature does not make all men of the same temperament, not all with the same talent, not all with the same desires; not all men can be clever, or be brave. On the contrary, in that which I am lacking, you mu t supplement me; and in some other particular you lack what that other man has. How is this? It is that I have need of you, you of him, he of yet another, and someone else, again, of me.

The grain of the intellectual style is so insistent that, in trying to describe it in terms of a human personality, it is hard not lapse into amateur diagnosis of neurosis - no part of my purpose here. (If it were, I would be pointing to the particular symptoms of the nervous breakdown of the mid1420s -which, by the way, were dizziness, hearing distant crashing and whistling noises, stomach cramps, and selective memory loss, particularly of friends' names. I would also be emphasizing the recurrent sense of motiveless malice and persecution, along with the rejection of institutionalized forms of rigorous reasoning, other than mathematical. I would be particularly concerned with the highly developed skills in detaching parts of himself, both removing himself into himself apart from intolerable things in the immediate environment malicious people, for instance - and himself from himself, so as to perceive himself as a third person - an exasperated selfirnaging. Here I would point to the man who modeled, probably, a self-portrait in profile, and above all who plays the intricate kinds of self-distancing and selfregarding games he plays with Pandolfini, and others. I would also attach to this such

35

self-analytical feats as Alberti's writing of the first grammar of the Italian language a specialized self-image of prodigious energy.) For the point about his peculiar mode of thought here is that, to the extent that it does seem a response to strain, it can only be seen as heroic and triumphantly productive self-therapy.

He had his own sense of the human elf, and of the difficulty of sustainjng per onal identity under pressure, and this is very relevant to any sense we have of him and his work: it was a part of his reflection on his predicament, and different from ours.

He gave various accounts. For instance, a man is a ship, not the usual Renaissance commonplace of a sailing ship buffetted and ometime di masted by the wind of Fortune, rather a galley propelled by oar and steered by a rudder. Oar are appetite and give movement; the rudder is rea on and directs. Between them there is a proper balance. Too much oar and too little rudder obviously means headlong uncontrolled progress: but too little oar and too much rudder means loss of steerage way just as much a loss of control.

The version to fiillsh this paper with is a myth, which, if Alberti reflected - perhaps between courses, or in bed, or in S. Maria del Fiore - on the self he must sustain to remain human, certainly represents part of the texture of his reflection. The nearest the satire Momus comes to having a hero is Charon, the level-headed and disenchanted ferryman of the dead over the River Acheron to Hades. Charon decides to take a holiday and visit the world of mortals he hears so much of from his passengers. As guide he takes Gelastus, a wretched figure of a philosopher without even the fare to cross the Acheron. Charon is eventuaUy exasperated by Gelastus's disingenuous vaporings: Said Charon: "Let a ferryman tell you about yourself, Gelastus. What I am going to tell you is not the philosopher's view - your phi-

losophy is ju t hair plitting and cavilingbut what I was told by a painter. In tudying the lineaments of human bodies he saw more than all you philosophers do, put together.

Pay attennon now. The painrer said that if the Creator of so great a work as man had thought carefully about the best material for making him with: ome ay he chose a mixture of mud and honey, other that ir was wax softened by kneading with the hands.

To this he applied mold , one for the front, the other for rhe back .... With other molds and other materials he made rhe animals. ow, when he had done thi , he noticed that some men were unhappy with the shape they had been given; so he left them free to transform themselves, if the) wanred, into any of the animals. Then he pointed out to them their appointed home, which could be seen high up on a mounrain, and urged them to climb up to it by the teep and traight path they could ee in fronr of them. They would find there abundance of good things, he explained, but they must rake care nor to stray on the way into any of the ide-paths; the straight one would eem laborius ar fir t but w uld get ea ier later. And, having aid this, he wenr off.

Well, the men began tog up to the mountain, but soon ome stupid ones found it better ro transform themselves - inro oxen, a es, and various such bea ts; and then, when they gor back to the traight path, d1ey were chased away by the surviving men, for being o hideou .

So these ought out material similar ro what they had fir r been made of and contrived masks or personae, like men. With practice they managed ro pa s as proper men, and only by looking closely through the aperture in them was it possible to see the beast beneath. But these personae only stood up nll they reached the River Acheron, becau e then, when they embarked on the water, they disinregrared on accounr of the humidity. So iris that nobody reaches the further bank without being revealed for what he i ."

"You're joking," said Gelastus.

"No I am not," aid Charon. "My cables are plaited from their hair, and I cau lk the seams of my boat with their clay."

36

Images without Memory: Women:Js Identity and Family Consciousness in Renaissance Florence Christiane Kla pisch-Zuber Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Socia/es, Paris

Family history, genealogy, and ancestral traditions are the topoi, the loci, where the self of men of the late Middle Ages constituted itself. Today, my question will be: was the position of women favorable to such an elaboration of their self within the family? Did women accede to those means, those tools, to constitute their own self?

I use identity in my title, rather than portraiture, because when Florentine women satisfied the image they had of themselves and the image they wanted to see recognized in their social world - Florentines would speak of "honor" - they were unable to assert by themselves an autonomous image of themselves. As for us, if we want to define the means available for women in search of identity, the ways they could follow to identify themselves with a familial, moral, or religious model, we can take advantage of various sources, but few of them are of female origin.

First the family writings, the famous ricordanze. But family writing is not reflexive, it is rather projective. Family writings are not writing about the self. Family writers care about a small group of people, its private and public extensions, its involvement in the social sphere. Therefore, they do not aim at distinguishing or isolating the self.

They do aim, instead, at consolidating social status and insuring the survival of the group. Theirs is a utilitarian, instrumental writing. It describes one's behavior insofar as that behavior would negatively or positively affect the survival of the narrator's group. It is not intended to describe nor be read for pleasure; rather its intention is to instruct its readers in the real world's dangers.

Of course, such writing is exclusively masculine. As pictorial portraits of the age, individual portraits produced by family literature come from a male perspective.

Female beauty, behavior, virtues, or utility

for the family group are looked upon through masculine eyes and values. We can hardly judge the formation, the consciousness, or the autonomy of female self by means of these portraits of male origin.

Can we rather, in a narrow and limited way, take advantage of other sources or indirect approaches? Direct sources such as ricordanze don't tell us much about the internal life of the wife and the sisters or daughters of the house, and there are no memoirs dictated by women. But in an indirect way, those masculine memoirs themselves may tell much about the models offered to women and about their own possibilities of choosing between these models. I would like to discuss here some characteristics of the naming processes, in a picture of Florentine usage largely drawn from the ricordanze, or family books.

If we know of no autobiographical memoir composed by a lay Florentine woman during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and of no genealogy built around a woman, there remain substitutes, as female correspondences exchanged with a husband or a son (as, for example, the letters between Margherita and Francesco Datini, Dora and Francesco or Ricciardo del Bene, etc.); and certainly those letters would illuminate reciprocal male and female images, as these images are reflected from man to woman, reverberated from woman to man. But here, I will rather examine another female testimony about the affective bonds and the genealogical ties in a particular family, or lineage, a testimony which was dictated by a woman to her son.

In order to know more about the affective universe of women, about their duties and engagements, their attachments, and social identities, one could finally consider female property. I am thinking of course of women's wills where old accounts are

balanced, future hopes expressed, and survivors involved in the general settlement. I am also thinking of the personal belongings a woman brought when she changed home and status, and which remained attached to her throughout the various events and experiences of her life: marriage, widowhood, motherhood, and death.

Thus I will examine some aspects of women's naming, of women's sense of familial past, and of women's properties, all these topics as producing female models, within and without the house. All of them reveal what was considered to be the desirable profile of a woman; they simultaneously suggest something about the internalization of these expectations by women. Thus, they contribute to the formation of the self and to the formation of the artistic images of women in art.

In the consideration of naming, we should try to distinguish between the inherited family name - the cognome - the patronymic chain of names that situate any individual within his or her own paternal line, and also the (single or multiple) personal name(s) attributed at baptism or acquired during one's lifetime.

It is clear that medieval and Renaissance Florentine or Tuscan women did not permanently possess what we call a family name. Whenever they bear one, it is definitely not as clear and unequivocal as for a man. Their cognome is in effect not their own attribute, but rather the attribute of a man whose own patronymic chain situates them. Thus, a girl would have following her personal name her father's name, her paternal ancestors' names, and possibly the cognome inherited by all those males.

In that case, the family name designates a group of people, a lineage that is essentially structured through the male line, and it remains permanently attached in a direct

way to the chain of male individuals. It only secondarily, subsidiarity, designates the girl born from those paternal antecedants. I stress that nobody, neither male nor female, is named with a chain of maternal ascendants or female names, that is, with the cognome of one's mother.

In Italy, the bride had to move from her natal kin and home to her husband's. The married woman may retain her old names, but usually she receives the anthroponymical characteristics of her husband and she is designated with his name, his ancestors' names, and possibly his cognome. In the same way as she was given the identity of her father, she is now named after the identity of her husband: in the house of her marital kin she apparently gets the situation of a daughter, versus her husband, as long as her quality of wife, "donna di," is not automatically specified. That new identification is borrowed and constructed like the first one, the single woman's identification. Apparently her ties with the familial group of her husband are not much firmer nor clearer than with her natal kin, as her identity has to go anyway through the identity of the man upon whom she is dependent.

Thus, women's names with all their components state their civil biography. They summarize their life cycle and always indicate that their temporary ties with a kin group lie upon the mediation of a male individual. Female naming may register up to three or four different situations: single, then married status, and successive various widowhoods. Women and those who have to characterize them, are obliged to record at least a double, and sometime a multiple anthroponymical memory.

In the pen of a conscientious scribe, those multiple designations apparently reflect a serious effort toward the individualization of any woman. However, they reveal the

38

uncertainty of family attachments for women. A provisional conclusion is that an Italian woman who is born to an established family (that is, in a family with a hereditary cognome and ancestors) and who marries into an equivalent family, could identify herself with various familial groupings. But that possibility does not necessarily open a wider field to her personality, because the new ties like the old ones set her into a dependent and temporary state.

However, she may bring into play one relationship against the other, one "name" against the other. In that case, the wife may seize the opportunity to have her own strategy and base it on her choice between two family identities. Florentine husbands and fathers were conscious of the dangerous mixture that resulted from too strong a social difference between spouses, coupled with the structural instability of women's familial position. They desperately sought to avert these threats while avoiding unions which seemed too unbalanced. But the system of matrimonial monetary allowances, which at that time was based on the dowry, made them very uncertain about their wives' behavior!

One should ask whether women had a better basis for their identity with their personal, baptismal names. I do not think so. On the one hand, the rules that regulated the transmission of familial first names brought by ascendants or bloodrelatives belonging to the male or female lines, were followed less rigidly and less steadily for girls than for boys. Elder daughters received the name of, first, their paternal and then their maternal grandmother (and sometimes the name of the first wife of their father!); but the younger daughters were not as frequently as their brothers related by their given name to a particular line. That was another way of asserting the importance of familial identi-

ty for men, and inversely its reduced influence for women.

On the other hand, the range, composition, and structure of the stock of first names chosen by Florentine parents between 1350 and 1530 differed considerably for girls and boys. References to saints were less frequent for girls, and baptismal female names were more open to fashion and personal preferences. Augurative or nice, courteous, literary, or historical names charmed parents' ears more easily when they had to choose a name for a daughter than when they chose one for a son. They hoped to bring the girl to her "perfect age" and were anxious about her beauty, health, and virtue, in order to marry her better. The sexual identity of a patron saint, even his anthroponymical integrity, seems to have been less of a consideration with homonymous girls: we find indeed very few Caterino, but a large number of Zanobia, and many more Vanna or Nanna than Nanni or Vanni on baptismal registers.

Thus imagination played a larger role for girls' naming. The prospective of marrying out the girl and establishing her outside did not induce parents to name her respectfully with a familial name or to "remake" dead ancestors or relatives as they did with their sons.

The name given at baptism did not really prompt girls or adult women to identify themselves with ancestors and familial values. On the contrary, their first names proposed to them a set of social and esthetic values that their parents had appreciated and that were immediately negotiable on the matrimonial market. Beyond parental preferences, those names reflected the fashions of the moment. First names again placed women into a realm of appearances and transitoriness; but they conferred to their brothers the substance of a social

reality, their lineage. Let me emphasize finally that the bonds of spiritual kinship acquired at baptism through godparenthood did not even bring to little girls prestigious feminine models and respectable substitutes for the mother. During the fourteenth and for most of the fifteenth century, Florentines used to choose numerous godfathers, but very few godmothers for their baptized children, either male or female. Godfathers were usually chosen in the same social milieu, or in a slightly higher social group. But godmothers are inevitably poor old women, midwives, or humble neighbors, even anonymous beggars. Parents must have hoped to avert threats of malocchio and evil spells when they selected that type of comari or godmothers in a spirit of Christian humility. Thus, if we suppose that godparents maintained specific relationships with their godchildren later on - which has still to be demonstrated - a boy could admire and be helped and honored by a prestigious and powerful godfather; while his sister had no chance of identifying herself with a godmother nor feed her ego with her image, considering the godmothers she had been given!

What of the genealogical memory? We ' should here take into account two aspects that contribute to structuring personality and to forging individual identities. On the one hand, family past may bring forth models of behavior, ideal figures with which any individual, either male or female, may be compared and with whom to compete. On the other hand, the very structure of a genealogy is proposed as a frame where roles, above all sexual or gender roles, are defined and values assigned.

In a very tendentious way, the genealogies compiled by Tuscan men show us their views about their main familial grouping, the lineage or casa, of which they bear the distinctive signs (names, heraldic devices).

Such nominal descriptions, such long series of generations of ancestors stress the purely male transmission of lineage identity, I mean of the group of men related in the masculine line through blood or common interests. No women appear in those enumerations of ancestors. Women only appear when the narrator widens his search for ancestors and includes allied people related by marriage. He is then obliged to include daughters and sisters given out in marriage and wives introduced into his own casa. T he typical attitude of a Florentine aiming to reconstitute the genealogy of his family, however, is to give up when he foresees a reconstruction of these allied networks. It results in schemas deprived of any positive female figures, because the sole women mentioned are women who contravened some familial norm.

Even if the memory related to women who were, according to the suggestive Tuscan way of saying, entrate or uscite in and out of the casa, is neglected or hidden from view rather than abolished and denied, the result is that, from the documentary point of view, we are lacking information about the width and the consistency of genealogical records when male informants speak about their wives' ascendants and the sisters' descendants. Some genealogists indicate that they interrogated elderly women relatives, who could remember facts that their male informants probably forgo t or to which they did not attach importance.

We can imagine that there did exist among women some kind of sleeping memory, but that memory was only rarely and partially entered into male writings. We really lost it, because the unilateral and biased reconstruction of ancestry by household heads was the only recorded in their family books.

A very valuable testimony however survives and relates what a mother must have 40

narrated to her son when asked about the history of the family, sometime after the Black Death. In the year 1366, Ser Lorenzo da Lutiano, a notary, began his Breve memoriale.1 Like many contemporaries, he opens the book with a reconstruction of the familial past. The Da Lutiano are a family of feudal origins which was established in the Mugello, north of Florence, but, at some point in the fourteenth century, the line of Ser Lorenzo chose to live in that city; he himself served as a notary to the bishop. The importance of the genealogical records of Ser Lorenzo results from his confession that most of them come from his mother's memory, then an octogenarian, because he lacked any other old relatives who might inform him, except his own older brother, who participated also in the job of reconstituting the genealogical network.

A first character, rather rare in Florence, distinguishes the casa of the Da Lutiano.

His mother, Manna Gemma, belonged also to the lineage of the Da Lutiano.

Maybe for that reason, our notary was so interested in his maternal line. It is difficult to isolate the precise genealogical link between both branches, but it was certainly situated beyond the third canonical degree. In the maternal line, the memory recorded by the Memoriale does not go further than two generations above Manna Gemma, while on the paternal side, that memory goes up to three generations above the parents of Ser Lorenzo. We can suggest that the mother has been the main informant in exploring her own side, while the elder brother brought more information on the paternal side. But that is only an hypothesis, and it is difficult to distinguish between the records from the brother and from the mother.

More interestingly, a lot of the information registered by Ser Lorenzo possesses an exceptional particularity. The records

resulting from the memory of Manna Gemma are more interested in alliances and sometimes are uniquely organized fo llowing the female lines. On Manna Gemma's side, forty-one persons are cited, and among them seven women, an important minority if we remember Tuscan habits of the time. The genealogical description and traversal through the hosts of names show that those women have a key role: they introduce the reader into the web of repeated marriages with members of important lineages of that region.

Monna Gemma remembers her female cousins and nieces, and also cousins and nieces of her own mother; around these key women she builds her enumeration of paternal and maternal relatives on her side. Such nodal points are also found on the side of Ser Lorenzo's father. Here again, daughters born as Da Lutiano allow us to unravel the network of related families, and, more importantly, memory goes down along female lines in order to detail allied o:: affine relationships. In the grand total, 133 persons are named, among them only sixteen men and twelve women Da Lutiano in both branches; among the affines - a good one-hundred-twenty women operate as keys in the same way.

Monna Gemma had forgotten many names, which Ser Lorenzo left as blanks in his writing. But the very frequently feminine articulations of the description and its general structure emerge with strength and originality out of her effort to remember.

Here we become aware that the old lady followed according to her own records and her affections the tangled web of ascendants and descendants, without ever enclosing her own memory in a patrilinear straitjacket, as male genealogists did.

That certainly is the main characteristic and most important trait of the Da Lutiano genealogy, more directly allied to a female memory when compared with 41

those of Donato Velluti, a contemporary of Ser Lorenzo, or of Buonaccor o Pitti, a little later, both being highly intere red in women and marriages. I mean that men of the casa to which the genea logi t belong do not con titute here the only nodal points in the genealogica l structure and description. Instead, women related to the she-narrator, often at a very di rant degree and born in other lineage , occup key positions and are selected in the proce of remembering.

Scholars who study female wills al o in i t on the diver ification of kin relation hip and of emotiona l tie maintained by women with relative of both exe , in contrast with the more trictly patriJineal intere t developed by mal t tator .

Thus, the kinfolk remembered by women form a more diffu e group, with more uncertain outline , than that included and severely controlled in the male lineage.

Because he didn't era e all memorable women from her recollection, a woman like Monna Gemma was able to isolate and di tinguish some remarkable female figures and propose them to her daughter as models. But we have kept no femini ne discour e about Tu can girl 'education, a in France the Cheva lier de la Tour Landry or Christine de Pizan left. Very tenuou , almost imperceptible hints of what wa transmitted from mother to daughter have to be gathered in the most variou fields.

Now, I would like to stress ome of the supports of such a pedagogy and recording of models, from one generation to the other.

Let us consider some of the objects that could support my hypothesis. When a bnde was transferred to her husband's house, she brought many items. Some were defined by custom, but most were adapted according to personal preferences and needs. Some were later transmitted to

their daughter leaving their fat her's home to marry ut. In rho e object and clothe a female a c ndancy was in cribed and perpetuated. The mem ry of ome che ri hed or re peered mother, grandmother, aunt, or i ter cou ld remain attached to th e token f affecti n. Female memory and remembered model of behavior would thu remain tied to object , to manipulation of them, to the wearing f clothe , fabric , fa hion , and even color which had b en typical of meb dy el e and were tran mitted to young r generation . The model [ peak of are therefore nor pre-e tabli hed m del according to ethical and cial norm , the are rather model forged in th very oncrete relationship with item of daily life evoking ther worn n.

Let me nly evoke the trou eau, whjch hould have ontinua lly a companied a woman from her nuptial to her death.

The dowry had no evo ative p wer in merchant fami lie f Florence becau e it wa on ly a matter of anonymou money or a ets, but the tr u eau wa highJy personalized. M reover, it very often included mall bje t of female daily life - a ewing ba ket, a dressing-ca e, pur e , a nd ca ket or boxes - which might have belonged t the very mother of the bride. pecially notable and frequent after 14 0 were the sma ll tatuette or doll of the hrist hild sometime brought along I ng before by the mother of the bride at her own marriage. The owner of uch a doll could learn and repeat maternal ge tures a nd attitudes while accompli hing ritual and devotional ge tures, and she then could teach them to her own children.

All those belonging that the bride introduced upon her marriage into her husband's house are all the more significant as they remained the exclusive property of the married or widowed woman. All presents offered to the bride by the husband 42

and his relatives were, on the contrary, expected to be returned sooner or later to the husband's side. All the objects - jewels, rings, fabrics, or cups - that were given to the bride at her nuptials or upon the birth of children didn't remain her possessions for long. They - or their equivalents were circulated among the husband's relatives in order to restore kinship ties anew.

As sumptuary laws prohibited ostentatious display as well as restricted the length of time that jewels or sumptuous clothing could be worn to certain ceremonies, women certainly were not encouraged to keep nor even to invest much of themselves in the gifts that were destined to be returned. Conversely, they could build a living and lasting memory around those gifts brought from their natal homes, and often given them by their mothers.

1 "Cronica ovvero Memorie dalla nobilissima famiglia de'Signori da Lutiano, estratte da un libro manoscritto intitolato Spogli di scritture antiche, esistente appresso i Signori Rosselli gia del Turco, aggiuntevi alcune annotazioni," in Giuseppe Maria Brocchi, Descrizione della provincia del Mugello (Fiorenze, Albizzini, 1748). This old edition is of course unreliable and very partial.

Of course, all this is more assumption than assertion. I am aware of the fragility of my discourse, as frail as those objects were fragile. In front of the strong pressure of male memory and of its efficacious tools and processes, those hints about a feminine memory should not be overvalued. It seems to me, however, that those minute belongings and deeds - trifles! Florentine husbands would say - might have maintained a hidden treasure of feminine images, maternal or familial, that escaped male selections and exclusions. That is not much for the historian to go on, but that was a world of broken remembrances and dreams for the Florentine woman who was not satisfied with the biased memory of her husband or father.

43

1 Giovanni Savold o, Selfportrait, Pa ris, Musee du Louvre.

44

''Fatto al Specchio~~: Venetian Renaissance Attitudes to Self-Portraiture Jennifer Fletcher

The Courtauld Institute of Art, London

The Italian words of my title are taken from the notes of the Venetian connoisseur Marcantonio Michie! who thought that he saw a self-portrait of Rogier Van der Weyden in 1462 in the collection of Giovanni Ram which he visited in 1531~ I am not argu ing that it is only Venetians who described self-portraits in such terms, rather I wish to draw your attention to questions of technique for Renaissance Venice was renowned for the manufacture of the finest mirrors which are essential to the production of elf-portraits. According to inventories and the correspondence of Titian's best friend, Pietro Aretino, portraits were quite often used to decorate mirrors.2 Aretino boasted that his face appeared on comb cases, majolica plates, and in the "ornamenti degli specchi." 3 Claudio Tolomeo in a letter to the Venetian painter Sebastiano del Piombo declares that he will use his portrait by that artist like a mirror in which he would see not only his own features but also the painter's.4 Women gazing into lookingglasses are an important subject in Venetian painting, as in Giovanni Bellini's last signed and dated work, The Woman at H er Toilet in Vienna. Bellini, according to Ligorio, actually owned a classical mirror which had been excavated on his own property in Rome.5 In Venice the paragone argument concerning the relative representation strengths of sculpture versus painting revolved around simulated mirror reflections if we are to believe Pino's account of a lost picture by Giorgione and the recycling of his description in Vasari's life of the artist. But while Pino, a Venetian, has a St. George reflected from different angles in two mirrors, Vasari, a Tuscan, makes do with one, armor and water providing the other reflecting surfaces. That the paragone argument found personal expression and demonstration via self-portraiture is proved by Savoldo's celebrated picture in the Louvre (fig. 1) which now thanks to a recently discovered

picture can be securely identified as the image of the artist.6 I have deliberately chosen to emphasize practical issues from the start because I do not see self-portraiture as a clear or uncomplicated indication of rising social status. The context in which it exi ts may be a proper subject for a tudy but the genre as a whole defies neat categorization since it is stimu lated by such diverse and unpredictable factors like the affection of friends and family, the desire to advertise one' talents, and iconography that may depend upon a name. Hence Bordone who was called Pari presents apples to both his wife and daughter.7 Different cities within Italy may have many different ways of honoring their great and factor which may at first appear to have little to do with portraiture can be extremely influential.

In the anti-personality cu lt Venetian Republic, statues were particularly suspect and official portraiture was confined to painting. Venice lacked a strong tradition of indigenous sculpture and the local bias towards painting is acknowleged in contemporary gu ide books even when they are written by Francesco Sansovino, the son of a great sculptor.8 Venetians do not appear to have favored death masks which Vasari writing in his life of Verrocchio claims were a regular feature of Florentine interior decoration that provided him with prototypes for many of the portraits in his own frescoes ? Despite considerable pressure from Aretino, Titian did not paint the likeness of the former's hero Giovanni Delle Bande Neri from the death mask that had been taken by Giulio Romano! 0 In Venice there was nothing to compare with Brunelleschi's death mask which was presented by his heirs to the Duomo in Florence. The only firm reference that I have found to masks is to two of Andrea Odoni in his brother's inventory.11 Andrea was a renowned connoisseur and appears 45

2 Bernardino Licinio, An Artist with His Pupils, Alnwick Castle, co llection of the Duke of Northu m路 berland. (Photograph courtesy of the Courtau ld Institute. Reproduced with the permisison of the Duke of North umberla nd. )

as such in Lotto's well-known portrait but he was not however a Venetian but came from Milan. I draw your attention to this curious drawing which represents Giovanni Bellini lying on his bier (fig. 2).

The spelling and wording of the inscription indicate that it was made by an artist from outside the Veneto who was attracted by the funeral in SS. Giovanni e Paolo which would have been a magnificent affair attended by members of Giovanni's confraternity, the Scuola Grande di San Marco, and the Guild of Painters.12 While it is hard to find representations of dead Venetian artists, they are almost equally elusive when alive for the very different role occupied by drawing both in the teaching and practice of Venetian Renaissance art when compared to that in central Italy means that there is very little recreational or casual drawing so that we are rarely allowed to see behind the scene or to watch an artist at work. There are no Q uattrocento Venetian equivalents to Maso Finiguerra's drawings in the Uffizi which often bear captions testifying to the aims and aspirations of the draughtsmen who made them or are shown within them! 3 It is to developments in domestic bourgeois portraiture that we owe the odd insight like that provided by Bernardino Licinio's group with an artist instructing his pupils (fig. 3). Licinio was a bachelor and this painting probably represents his brother and his brother's children. 14 It can be dated to the 1530s and may well reflect

familiarity with Agostino Veneziano's print of Bandinelli's Belvedere studio. It was made at a time when Venetians were beginning to value drawing more highly.

In 1535 the painter Mirosei left his studio properties to his apprentice excepting the "disegni vendareschi" which were to be valued by Serlio! s In Licinio's picture the dialect inscription on the youngest child's drawing reads "Oh look how good this drawing is" while written on the older boy's is "it is difficult this art."

Moving from a particular portrait group to the subject of the image of the Venetian artist in general it comes as some surprise to find that Venetian Renaissance painters rarely physically identify themselves with their patron, St. Luke, whose icons were much revered in the city where they formed the focus point of important processions. Pictures of St. Luke painting the Virgin are admittedly something of a northern speciality.16In Venice we are more likely to find images of painters at work in illuminations in Pliny's Natural History,17 and in a town in which family workshops were the norm, painter fathers rarely called their sons after the evangelist.18The reasons for the weakness of the association are many. Mark obviously had prior claim. The Guild although under Luke's protection was not permanently based at his church and in the Renaissance period moved to it from SS. Filippo e Giacomo and then on to the new headquarters founded by Catena at Santa 46

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4 Genti le Bellini, Procession in the Piazza of San Marco, detai l, Venice, Accademia. (Photograph co urtesy of ]. Bernasconi.)

No portraits have been attributed to Antonio and Bartolomeo Vivarini or to Cima . Most important of all was the capital that he made from his successful mission to paint the Sultan Mehmet in Constantinople following a peace treaty whose terms were humiliating to Venice.

Vasari, who had visited his heirs, even claims that Gentile capped his successful portrait of the sultan by doing one of himself at the latter's request; while Ridolfi invents an ambassadoria l-style report delivered on his return before the Senate!0 Gentile's paintings in the Great Council Chamber were burned in 1577 but, according to Francesco Sansovino, he appeared standing decorously beside a social equal and fellow citizen, the jurist ' Paolo Ramusio. Sansovino was the son of an artist and it is significant that his list of the portraits in the Great Council Chamber's cycle (which was central to Venetian self-esteem since it celebrated the reconciliation of a medieval pope with the Holy Roman emperor through Venetian diplomacy) differs from that published before the fire by the Venetian patrician Pietro ontarini in his Argoa Volgar. 11 The latter while listing hundreds of portrait does not mention Gentile's which is referred to twice in Sansovino's Venetia, first in his description of the Doge's Palace and secondly in the list of illustriou men portrayed in the cycle which form a special appendix. It is possible that a drawing

of Gentile Bellini in Berlin, which is usually associated with his tiny portrait in the Procession in the Piazz,a (fig. 4 ), was used in the Doge's Palace for it is pricked for transfer and its size (227 x 195 mm) corresponds far better with the larger sca le of these pictures.

Practiced in the Venetian habit of packing a narrative with portraits, Gentile is seen at least twice in his paintings for Venetian confraternities. H e lived at San Geminiano on the Piazza where he quite literally appears in his Accademia Procession with the Relic of the True Cross as a discreet head and shoulders standing behind someone much more important. If this is Giovanni Dario as Patricia Fortini Brown has argued, then the juxtaposition would indeed be telling since both Dario and Gentile were non-noble, and both were deployed by the Venetian state in missions to the Turks.32 I do not subscribe to the widespread belief that Gentile stands beside his brother Giovanni for w hen the face in question is seen as it were in the flesh in full color, it looks impossibly young, and the hair is also very blond.

The family likeness can be attributed to Gentile's limitations as a portraitist and by his tendency to pull out and point noses.

Gentile may have been just a face in the crowd at the Scuola of San Giovanni Evangelista but he appears as a prominent full-length figure, eye-catching in scarlet in

48

5 Gentile Bellini, St. Mark Preaching at Alexandria, detail, Milan, Pinacoteca di Brera.

6 Jacopo Sansovino, Door of the Sacristy of St. Mark, Venice.

the foreground of his St. Mark Preaching at Alexandria (fig. 5) which he began on his own initiative for his and his brother's confraternity in memory of their father whose paintings for this Scuola had recently been destroyed by fire. Gentile unlike Giovanni was very much a committee man and he was elected to various high offices within the Scuola. Durmg his term as Guardian del Matin, he would have organized real processions but here in art when he was Vicario he has departed from the order of seniority and under the cover of perspectival naturalism he has projected himself to the fore. He stands together with the Guardian Grande and his deputy right behind Venice's patron saint sporting the medal of the Sultan that he had designed (the three crowns of the constitutent kingdoms of the Turkish empire are clearly visible). The valuable chain might have been deemed inappropriate in a painting celebrating the miraculous power of a

Christian relic but in this elaborate visualization of Muslem Alexandria, Gentile considered it a fitting touch, exotic and honorific. It is clear from the terms of his will that completion of this cycle was of paramount importance for him and his family honor. His bequest of his father's drawing book to Giovanni is conditional on his finishing this picture. The will itself was administered by the same men who stood beside him in the painting, the head of the Scuola and his deputy.33 Even today, public portraits of Venetian artists are a rarity in Venice. It is Goldoni who presides at the Rialto while Bellini's name sells a cocktail. The exception to the rule was created by the Tuscan immigrant Jacopo Sansovino who included portraits of himself and his friends Aretino and Titian amongst the projecting prophetlike heads on the borders of his bronze door to the sacristy in St. Mark's (fig. 6).

49

employed artist and that Aretino, although he had no official role, did claim prophetic powers and had broadcast the advan~a!?'.es of living and working in a free republic m many letters including one addressed to Sansovino himself35 ; but in this period not even doges were buried in St. Mark's and the forceful Cardinal Zen who badly wanted a tomb in the main body of the church had to rest content with a chapel in the atrium. Sansovino's own patron, Rangone, was not allowed to put his statue on the facade of San Geminiano but was diverted to a less politically sensitive site at San Giuliano:36 The portraits on the doors must have been approved by the artloving procurator in charge of the commission, Federico Contarini. The order of the identifiable heads deserves comment.

Sansovino and Aretino, the two T uscans, confront each other at the top of the door.

Sansovino is on our left but to the right of the resurrected Christ with whom he clearly wishes to be associated. Titian below is not linked with St. Luke but with Mark in what must be a calculated departure from the biblical order. There is of course a tradition for marginal self-portrait sculpture.

In Venice itself legend has it that the nailbiting man with crutch at the bottom of the central portal of St. Mark's is the architect frustrated by the inadequacy of his own handiwork~ 7 Here however Sansovino would appear to be following Florentine precedent and in particular Ghiberti's inclusion of himself and his son on his Porta de! Paradiso which he must have carefully reexamined during a visit to Florence in 1540, five years before receiving this commission.

Surprisingly, the portrait content has caused little art historical concern apart from inconclusive attempts to identify the other three heads. 34 It is true that Sansovino was proto to the procurators of St. Mark and that he had devoted much energy to strengthening the fabric of the Basilica and that Titian too was a state-

That Sansovino's example was followed in Venice is demonstrated by the monument raised by Palma Giovane (fig. 7) to the common glory of himself, his great-uncle, Palma Vecchio, and Titian. It too is situated at the entrance to a sacristy, this time in SS. Giovanni e Paolo, a church closely associated with the state, being the usual 50

7 Monument to Palma ii Giovane, SS. Giovanni e Paolo, Venice. (Photograph courtesy of the Courrauld Institute.)

place for dogal funerals. The location is additionally appropriate for the church housed important masterpieces by both Titian and Palma ii Giovane whose greatuncle had been a member of the confraternity of St. Peter Martyr when he competed with Titian to paint its altarpiece. Besides the three busts this rather ugly monument consists of Palma Giovane's painting of Fame and Genius, each equipped with outsize punning palms. Titian's bust crowns the structure and he only inclines towards the high altar. Palma had completed Titian's last picture, his Accademia Pieta which was intended for his funeral chapel in the Frari and he was thus particularly aware how Titian's plans had miscarried.38 That he should want to right the wrong while simultaneously advertising the achievements of his own family is not surprising since he was a very image- and status-conscious artist. Jn his Brera SelfPortrait he literally leans over backward to show us that he has resurrected Christ. He is a post-Vasarian artist with a sense of history, with a strong commitment to his guild and to his family.39 His interest in artists' likenesses is proved by many pages in his Lugt Foundation sketchbook and it is possible that he intended to issue these drawings of artists heads as prints. 40 How Titian handled himself is central to my subject for not only was he a salaried painter to the Venetian state he was also an internationally acknowledged star of sixteenth-century portraiture whose relationship with Charles V gave rise to the most potent anecdote ever to be related to the genre. The emperor may not have actually stooped to pick up his brush but papal diplomats were certainly disconcert41 ed by Titian's closeness to the emperor.

Titian's fame stimulated such a demand for his image that it became both commercially viable and a valued collector's item.

He is the only true Venetian artist to feature in Giovio's Museum at Como;' 2 and he was the first to see his face in print.

Titian's awareness of his role as image maker to the most powerful monarch on earth was demonstrated when he sent a small picture of himself holding a portrait of Philip II to him as a gift in 1553. Before its destruction by fire early in the seventeenth century it hung opposite a self-portrait by Antonio Mor in the Royal Portrait Gallery in the Pardo Palace. Its appearance is reflected in a medal by Ardenti showing Titian holding his future in his hands in the form of his painter son Orazio and in a similar wax roundel attributed to Giovanni de Rossi ~ 3 This picture certainly boosted the status of portraiture and especially in Spain where it inspired Sanchez Coello to portray himself in the act of painting a portrait of Philip II and so Titian's painting became part of the iconographical prehistory of Velasquez's Las

Meninas -:4 There is little evidence to suggest that Titian was especially fascinated by his own features and other artists represented him far more often than he did himself. Lucas Cranach the Elder portrayed him for the Elector of Saxony who had himself sat for Titian, and, according to Van Mander, he was painted by Dirck Barentsen who had lived in Titian's house where he learned the Venetian dialect and was treated like a son ~ 5

Titian was portrayed in a wide variety of styles and media. Veronese painted him for his fellow artist Vittoria. Verdizotti, a Titian pupil and landscape specialist, drew him sitting under a tree, and the temperamental Leoni made his medal.46 According to Vasari he painted himself for his children and compared with many Renaissance self-portraits his own look anything but narcissistic. In his unfinished Berlin canvas he pretends to be the sitter not the painter and avoids eye-to-eye contact, his under-occupied brush hand impatiently drumming on the table top (fig. 8).

Jn his later Prado self-portrait he goes fur-

51

8 Titi an, Self-portrait, Berlin, Staatliche Gema ldega lerie.

ther and appears in that state of creative concentration that Palma Giovane so well described, "con i pennelli in mano a dipingere" just as Vasari had last seen him in 1566~ 7 The Berlin portrait was kept in Titian's house where it was seen by several artists.

The curious widespread pose was picked up and parodied by Jacopo Bassano in his London National Gallery Christ Cleansing the Temple where contrary to the usual highly flattering inclusions of Titian like that in El Greco's Minneapolis painting of the same subject he is shown as a moneylender. By this date Titian, whose greed for gain was well known, was safely dead although in all fairness he had already cast himself as a Jew in his Vienna Ecce Homo which was made for his Flemish merchant friend Hanna for domestic rather than public display. Here in a canvas packed with portraits, Titian, sharply profiled and wearing priestly robes, stands beside Caiaphas. His friend Aretino, who made so much of being born on a Good Friday, plays Pilate, hardly the noblest Roman of them all. Bassano was fascinated by Titian's image and lifestyle. His son Francesco who actually rented Titian's old house at the Biri Grandi, committed suicide from its upper window. Jacopo's own portrait in Vienna by his other son Leandro which is based on a self-portrait makes him look remarkably like Titian, skull cap and all, though much more provincial as he shows off his palette.

Titian has only been securely recognized when quite old. His image had the advantage of consistency, having been determined by his adoption of Venetian patrician everyday dress of the kind described in his relative Cesare Vecellio's costume book as being most frequently imitated by non-noble professionals, especially lawyers, physicians, and merchants~ 8 His only adornment being the chain of knighthood awarded to him by Charles V for the flattering transformation of his ugly face. Titian's costume would have met with Pino's approval, for in his Dialogue on Painting he recommends that painters wear well-designed clothes with "un che di gravira." This advice is actually given in the context of portraitur':! for Pino immediately goes on to tell painters how to entertain sitters with intelligent conversation on subjects that would interest them but not to talk too much lest they prove boring~ 9 Ridolfi also places emphasis on Venetian artists wearing Venetian dress.

He tells how Tintoretto having reached "a mature age" dons the toga to please his snobbish citizen wife and how Contarini was persuaded by a Venetian magistrate to abandon the short tunic, sword, and plumed hat that he had worn in Germany in favor of the toga:0 Titian is the only Venetian Renaissance artist who can be said to have had an image in anything like the modern sense of the word. I earlier indicated that portraits of him had commercial potential and this seems to have been first exploited by a German wood engraver, Giovanni Britto, who issued his print of Titian's portrait circa 1550. This is quite late when compared to engraved portraits of northern European and central Italian artists and it is possible that Titian, who must have provided Britto with the prototype, had been 52

influenced by the Florentine Doni who in a letter dated 1550 describes his buginfested Venetian apartment which is only redeemed from unbearable squalor by the prints that paper its walls representing illustrious men, "my friends and my enemies"; amongst these there was one of Michelangelo. 51 Britto planned to print this very large woodcut with an appended poem which he extracted from Aretino.

It advertises Titian's record as a portraitist by alluding to his paintings of the emperor, pope, and Philip II, and Aretino declares that here we see Titian's image in the bone and the flesh in "ii desegno e ii colore;' 52 in a calculated counterblast to criticism of Titian's ability to draw which had increased following his visit to Rome in 1545 and was part of the developing debate which was currently being absorbed into Venetian art theory.

It appears that Britto's print was not a great success as only four impressions are now known. Titian himself was probably annoyed by being shown drawing with the wrong hand as left-handedness was then regarded as a mark of the devil. In this polemical context the mistake could have provoked mockery which would have proved counterproductive.

Titian did however recognize the publicity value of this portrait in print for when he issued Cort's engraving after his Prado Gloria, he included his own very specific contemporary likeness. H e had featured much more ambiguously as a patriarchal biblical type in the painting and his sense of decorum is conveyed by his reluctance to include the portrait of the imperial ambassador to Venice at the latter's request in this same picture. In his letter to Charles V he assures him that any painter with a few strokes of the brush could cancel it.53 It is clear from Titian's application for copyright that he had high hopes that the print's circulation would increase his

reputation amongst artists and patrons.

He sent copies to Margaret of Palma, the Cardinal Farnese, and the Dutch humanist Lampsonius. The latter was heavily involved in art biography and had a particular interest in artists' portraits (he composed the inscription for Mor's Uffizi self-portrait). In his thank you letter he declared that as he was unable to shake Titian's hand he had kissed his face. 54 I have already indicated that pictures of Titian were much in demand and this brings me to an important context for Venetian self-portraiture - the private collection. By the early seventeenth century, artists' portraits could be considered a special category by a collector and in the illustrated manuscript catalogue of Andrea Vendramin's museum they are listed on a separate contents page which is illustrated with drawings of Giovanni Bellini and Titian's medal.5 5 Connoisseurs naturally liked to own rare works by famous artists and what better than to have works in which they had inserted themselves.

Several collectors received these gifts from artists grateful for services rendered. The Paduan Marco Benavides who stood as guarantor for Campagna with the Santo authorities was given his portrait painted

by Leandro Bassano. Benavides was particularly conscious of decor and he hung an engraved portrait of Michelangelo beside the latter's relief representing Melancholy?6 Caution is however advisable when reading inventories as Venetians were highly prone to project self-portraits into works in their possession and it is well to remember that while Michie! spotted two self-portraits by Flemish painters, Van der Weyden's and Memlings's, he only identified one Venetian picture of an artist, Jacopo Bellini's of his master Gentile da Fabriano which he saw in Pietro Bembo's Paduan house?7 Unfamiliarity with the style and chronology of Flemish art encouraged overly optimistic indenti53

fications of celebrated northern artists whose works were rare and very valuable although Michele Vianello's self-portrait of Van Eyck does not seem to have found general acceptance to judge by the poor price it fetched at auction in 1506.58 It is surely significant that Giorgione's appearance in his David with the Head of Goliath is first noted in a 1528 Grimani inventory.59 The Brunswick fragment may well be that portrait,60 but why should big George do himself as little David? Is it because this is such a triumphal subject?

Giorgione's own patron saint was after all an iron-dad dragon slayer. For an artist who specialized in pictures for connoisseurs, armor provided opportunities to display exciting highlights. It is also the simplest way of transforming oneself, and according to a poem by Giorgione's contemporary Andrea Navagero, it was fashionable to have oneself painted wearing armor even if one had no experience of battle, "Since in these troubled times anyone can carry arms." 61 In his book on The Tempest Settis notes that ca. 1501 Michelangelo signed an inscription on a drawing of David which read thus: "Davicte with the sling I with the bow." 62 In doing himself as David in a close-up contraction of the heroic biblical narrative, Giorgione might have been conscious that he was overturning that well-established Florentine tradition of David as an idealized athletic sculptural nude. Recent identification of Giorgione with the dead head is hard to accept, the role being so unflattering and the business of painting oneself with one's eyes closed immensely difficult.

That Caravaggio did himself as a severed head is no argument since according to Vasari Giorgione died for the love of a lady which should rule out homoerotic fantasy.63 This is not to doubt that Giorgione's art generated a vogue for selfportraiture. Has any other school of painting spawned a master of the self-portrait,64

and in what other city would a painter's self-portrait be exhibited annually long after his death, as Vasari says Palma Vecchio's portrait was during the Feast of the Ascension? 65 Giorgione might have made his own portrait on speculation as a demonstration of his power to involve the spectator, who is here frowned down upon. The refined connoisseur such as a high-ranking ecclesiastical Grimani could enjoy being a temporary Philistine although admittedly not in the modern sense of that word. That other young Venetians used self-portraiture for self-advertisement is explained

by Ridolfi who describes two pictures by Tintoretto, one of himself holding a relief, the other of his brother, a professional musician, with a lyre. These he exhibited in the Merceria, the main shopping street in Venice, where they attracted public attention and poems as both were set as night scenes ~6 Many Venetian collectors possessed the odd self-portrait, but Gabriel Vendramin, best known for his ownership of Giorgione's Tempest, seems to have deliberately aimed at acquiring them to judge from a series of inventories drawn up by well-known artists (Sansovino, Vittoria, Tintoretto, and Orazio Vecellio) several years after his death~ 7 Vendramin did not confine himself to Venetian artists, for he owned or believed he owned portraits of Raphael, Diirer, and the Vicentine Valerio Belli. As none of these is listed by Michie! who saw his collection in 1530, it may be that Vendramin was influenced later by Giovio's Museo which had a small section reserved for artists. The inventories mentioned above were compiled just as the illustrations destined for Vasari's second edition of the Vite were being transferred to the woodblocks by Coriolanus in Venice, which may explain why so many portraits of painters are listed of artists 54

back for not only did she feature in his collection, the Goddess of Love and Beauty was a constant theme in Titian's art.

9. Titian (attributed to), Self-portrait, private co ll ection . (Photograp h courtesy of the Courra uld Institute.)

who were friendly with Cosimo Bartoli who supervised the project for Vasari.68 At this period when self-portraiture must have been much discussed, the old hag in Giorgione's Accadernia Col Tempo, which still has the Vendrarnin arms on its frame, was rechristened the painter's mother. By far the most prestigious item in this section of Vendramin's collection was a selfportrait on a tondo by Titian in which he showed himself in the act of drawing (fig. 9). This painting, closely related to the Britto print, has been identified with a work once in the Kaufmann collection in Berlin which has recently resurfaced in Rome~ 9 That Titian should paint himself for Vendrarnin is understandable for he was close to this very rich patron whom he immortalized in the family group now in the London National Gallery. He witnessed a codicil in his will and he designed a painted setting for the classical busts and vases. The tondo was tailor-made to suit Vendramin's aesthetic interests. It twinned with another round painting (an unusual format for Titian) of the Ecce Homo and was displayed in a room devoted to Titian's pictures. It would have pleased Vendrarnin to see Titian drawing because, somewhat unusually for a Venetian collector of this period, he was particularly interested in graphic art and owned severa l books of drawings including Jacopo Bellini's now in the British Museum.7째 His other great passion being for the antique, he would have approved of the statuette of Venus upon which Titian has turned his

There is nothing random about Vendramin's collecting. He acquired images of artists whose work adorned his house.

For example he owned Raphael drawings as well as his portrait. In the case of the Venetian artists Titian and Bellini, he owned portraits by them and of them.

He had two portraits of the latter as well as a book of drawings by him of heads.

One of these portraits was by Giovanni's pupil Vittore Belliniano who was so devoted to his master that he even took his name. It can be identified with the moving portrait drawing dated 1505 which twinned with Vittore's own drawn selfportrait which was mounted with it in Vendramin's house and still hangs with it today in the museum at Chantilly.

One other collection with artist portraits deserves special attention for it was assembled by a distinguished sculptor, Alessandro Vittoria, who was continuously involved with portraiture being a superb bust and medal maker and incidentally one of those who had helped to draw up Vendrarnin's inventory.7' His concern with his own fame is documented by a series of wills in which he ordered his assistants to complete his sepulchral monument 72 (fig.

10). Childless, neurotic, and well aware of his master Sansovino's own elaborate plans for a tomb, he kept changing his mind as to its location, although in every will the church chosen to house it was obliged to display his favorite statuette of St. John the Baptist. He issued instructions concerning the quality of the lettering, the illumination of the monument, and its height from the ground. The centerpiece was his own bust and the fact that it was made from life is emphatically recorded in the inscription: ALLESSANDRO VITTORIA QUI VIVENS VIVOS DUXIT - E MARMORE VULTUS. It was surrounded 55

10. Alessandro Vittoria, Monument to Alessandro Vittoria, Venice, San Zaccaria.

11. Parmigianino, Sel(portrait, Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum.

by personifications of architecture, painting, and sculpture. Its iconography reflected a Vasarian view of art which is understandable for Vittoria was one of a select group of Venetians invited to join the Florentine Accademia de! Disegno and in a city where most artists specialized in one medium, he was an exceptional allrounder.

He is also unusual in that his accountbooks and inventories have survived, which allows us to visualize his luxurious house at San Giovanni in Bragora filled with portraits of friends and relatives .73 He had five of himself, two large and three small, done at different ages by different hands. One of these can be securely identified with Morone's Sculptor in Vienna. 74 He also owned portraits of the young Tintoretto, Veronese by his son, Titian by Veronese, and self-portraits by Palma Giovane, Maganza, and one of a Brescian, probably Morone. His interest in series is proved by his display in one room of seven

portraits of women, presumably his two wives and his sister. But pride of place went not to a Venetian painting but to a self-portrait by Parmigianino, that most explicit of all Renaissance self-portraits, the artist painted as though reflec~ed in a convex mirror (fig. 11). This work, which has one of the most complete provenances recorded by Vasari, was already a famous collector's item.75 It had been made by the young painter to display his talent to Pope Clement who presented it to Aretino who may have given it to Valerio Belli from whom it passed via Palladio to Vittoria, who from will to will awarded it almost like a prize for good patronage to whichever patron happened to be his flavor of the month. It finally ended up with Rudolph of Prague. In one will dated 1570, Vittoria proudly notes that it is mentioned in Vasari as being in his, Vittoria's, possession and since my subject is Venetian attitudes to self-portraiture it here seems opportune to suggest that the long and unusually sensitive passage devoted to the Parmigianino by Vasari (who so often denegrates portraiture) may be influenced by conversations with Vittoria for his wording, particularly when he describes the mirror, is close to that used by Vittoria in a will that predates the publication of the second edition of the Vite.76 56

12. Ti tian, Allegory of Prudence, Lo nd o n, ational Ga llery.

So at the end are the mirror of my beginning. Vittori a's ociabiliry i well documented and he mu t have often shown off hi treasure to admiring artist friends. It can hardly be purely coincidental that he owned a portrait of a woman by Titian in the form of a mirror, or that he hung it next to a mirror with an ebon y frame ..,., Renaissance artist may hold the mirror up to nature but in Venetian artistic circles reservations concerning the limitations of the mirror image are frequently expre sed.

In 1546 Aretino, that mo t experienced of sitters, returned a umptuous gift of " due specchi di cristallo " because "a I cannot see myself as I once was I do not wi h to see myself as I am now." Passing on Sansovino's praise of hi own portrait by Moretto he complimented him for representing more than the mirror which can only show what is in front of it.78 It remained to Titian whose exceptional longevity, lifelong experience with portraiture, and deep concern for the famil y practice allowed him to break with the mirror and its image fixed in time and place, when under the cover of Prudence he portrayed himself, his youngest son, Orazio, and a boy who may be his painter nephew, Marco, as incarnations of past, present, and future (fig. 12). The iconography has been brilliantly investigated by Panofsky.79 More recent commentators such as Tafuri may well be right to stress its vernacular features; the abundance of triple heads in Venetian art and the fact that Prudence is a very Venetian patrician virtue vital to the survival of the state.80 But perhaps the connections between the image and the local environment are even closer. There is a

particularly striking configuration of three head at the entra nce to Ga briel Vendramin's Santa Fo ca house. Titi an's nephew M arco, who may well appea r in the picture, later belonged to the tea m that painted Prudence, her snake terminated with identica l animal heads in the Sala del Scrutinio in the Doge's Palace. In this inti mate, almost autobiographica l context, Titi an is being even more personal than has hitherto been suspected. Hi own impre e consisted of a she-bea r licking her newly born cubs into hape, framed by the figure of T ime and Fame with the motto, "art i more powerful than nature." 81 The bear is the emblem of Prudence, whose ca reful nurturing produce virtuous offpring82 but Prudence's other attribute is of cour e the mirror, o essenti al to elfportraiture by which men may come to know them elve and o reflect upon their action .

1 Jaco po M orelli, Notizia d'opere di disegno, G. Frizzoni, ed. (Bologna, 1884 ), p. 206. The portrait in question may be the London ational Gallery Dirk Bouts (no. 943) which is dated 1462.

2 For combination of mirrors and portra it including Michiel's own portrai t, see Jennifer Fletcher, "M arcantonio !v'i.ichiel's Collection," Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 36 (1973), p. 385.

3 Pietro Aretino, Lettere sull'arte, E. Camesasca, ed. (Milan, 1957-60), vol. 2, pp. 14, 73-74.

4 For recent comment on this letter which confuses Tolomeo with Tolmei and incorrectly calls him a Venetian, see Richard Brilliant, Portraiture (London, 1991), p. 129.

5 Fo r Bellini's mirror see Jennifer Fletcher, "Harpies, Venus and Giovanni Bellini's Classical Mirror: Some Fifteenth-Century Venetian Painters Responses to the Antique," Rivista di archeologia, supp. 7 (1988 ), p. 172.

57

6 For the passages in Pino and Vasari, see P. de Vecchi, "La mimesi allo specchio," Giovanni Gerolamo Savo/do (Milan, 1990), pp. 59-64. For convincing arguments that the Louvre picture is a self-portrait, see Creighton Gilbert, "Newly Discovered Paintings by Savoldo in Relation to Their Patronage," Arte lombarda 96-97 (1991), pp. 41-44.

7 In his family portrait in the collection of the Duke of Devonshire.

8 Francesco Sansovino, Delle case notabili che sono in Venetia (Venice, 1561), ff. 16v-26v.

9 Giorgio Vasari, Le vite di piu eccellenti pittori, scultori ed architetti, G. Milanese, ed.

(Florence, 1906), vol. 3, pp. 373-375.

10 The portrait was finally painted by G. Pace: Harold E. Wethey, The Paintings of Titian, II: The Portraits (London, 1971), p. 173.

11 D. Battilotti and M. Franco, "Regesto di Committenti e dei primi collezionisti di Giorgione," Antichita viva 17 (1978-79), p. 81. Casts from death masks were used for the portraits of the Della Torre brothers on Riccio's monument in San Fermo, Verona.

12 I first published this drawing in the Sunday Times Magazine, December 14, 1975, p. 23.

Following a suggestion made by Howard Burns that the handwriting resembled Peruzzi's I then attributed it to that artist.

13 For perceptive comments on these drawings see Caroline Elam, Review of A. Angelini, Disegni italiani de! tempo di Donatello (Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi, Catalogo, no. LXV) (Florence, 1986) in The Burlington Magazine 129 (1987), pp. 191-192.

14 Louisa Vertova, "Bernardo Licinio," I Pittari bergamaschi: II Cinquecento (Bergamo, 1975), vol. 1, p. 410.

15 Pompeo Molmenti, La Storia di Venezia nella Vita Privata, 7th ed. (Bergamo 1927-29), vol. 2, p. 220.

16 For a general survey, see D. Klein, Lukes als Maler der Maria (Berlin, 1933).

17 For example, L. Armstrong, Renaissance Miniature Painters and Classical Imagery: The Master of the Putti and His Venetian

Workshop (London, 1981), and her "The Illustration of Pliny's 'Historia Naturalis' in Venetian Manuscripts and Early Printed Books," Manuscripts in the 50 Years after the Invention of Printing, Colloquium of the Warburg Institute (1982) .

18 This is supported by guild membership lists, see Elena Favaro, L'Arte dei pittori in Venezia e i suoi statuti (Florence, 1975), pp.

137-157. Cima and Veronese did however call younger sons Luke.

19 Ibid., pp. 107-116.

20 Molmenti, Storia di Venezia, vol. 1, p. 413.

21 Silvio Trarnontin, Culto dei santi a Venezia (Venice, 1965), p. 201.

22 Teresio Pignatti, Veronese: L'opera comp/eta (Venice, 1976), vol. 1, p. 125.

23 For the history of this picture see W. Noehles, La Chiesa dei SS Luca e Martina (Rome, 1970), p. 182.

24 For a Renaissance source on the doge's image in life and art see Sansovino, Venezia citta, pp. 467-491, 580 (for Tron placing his portrait on the silver lira). For a useful modern study see A. Tenenti, "La rappresentazione del potere," I Dogi (Milan, 1982), p. 83ÂŁÂŁ.

25 Favaro, L'Arte dei pittori, passim, and Agostino Sagredo, Sulle consorterie delle arti edificative in Venetia (Venice, 1856), passim.

26 Sansovino, Venetia citta, pp. 330-335.

27 For the duties of the painter to the palace, see Charles Hope, "Titian's Role as 'Official Painter' to the Venetian Republic," Tiziano e Venezia (Venice, 1980), pp. 301-305.

28 George Hill, Portrait Medals of Italian Artists of the Renaissance (London, 1912), pp. 14, 38-42.

29 Adolfo Venturi, "Jacopo Bellini, Pisanello und Mantegna in der Sonetten des Dichters Ulisse," Der Kunstfreund 1 (1885) cols.

259-262. ' 30 Vasari, Le vite, vol. 3, p. 167¡ Carlo Ridolfi, Le Maraviglie dell' Arte, von Hadeln, ed. (Berlin, 1914), vol. 1, p. 58. He mvents a similar official audience for Titian.

D.

58

11 P1l:rro ( onr.u1111, I '1\rgci.1 I o/g,ir (\'t:111u:, n.J.), book I, p.1"11n.

12 P,nnu.1 I ornn1 Bnl\\ n, \ 1c11cti.111 11rr.1twc r,1111/mg /II the \gc of ( .1r/hl(f/(} ( l'\\ 11.i\ l:l1 ,111J l onJon, 1988 ), pp. 65, 241.

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e d'artl' (Tunn .111J Romt:, 1892), p. I l

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3'i Pierro \n:rino, I t'ltcre. ,/ pr11110 t• ti Sl'(olldo lilm1, I . I lor.1, t:d. (I lcm:n1.c), p. 197. l6 I or /en, \l:l John Pope 1 luint:"~, It 1/i,111 Re11,11:,s.111a• 'imlpt11re (I on<lon, I 9'i8), p. Ho. h>r RJngont:, \l:C RoJollo (,,illo, ~conmbu111 ~u Jacopo <.,,111,0' 1110, •· \,1gg1 c 111t·1111mt' d1 ·10r11 del/'arfl• I ( I 9'i-), pp. 96 IO'i .

1- C1ulto Lorcnit:m, \ illtZl<I e ti~"'' es/1hmo 1980), p. 166. Jn'>m 1no\ rt:m31n' wac rc1nrcrre<l 111 rht: Bapri.,r1.n 111 Sr. \lark\ 111 1929, hJ\ 111g bct:n ,.1h .1g1.:J trom Im comb tll SJn Gi.:m1111.1110 \\ ht:n 11 \\ ,l\ <lt:mol"h1.:J 111 chi: '\iapolcon11. pcnoJ.

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38 I-or Palma·., 111\ oh cmcnr "1rh cl11' p1<..rurt:, cc Ti;:.11110, c h. car. (\'t:n11.c, 1990), p. --.

39 11. S\\ar1, "Palma (,1mani.: and I II\ Fam1h, Obwn anon., on omi.: Porrr.11c raw;ng.,," Master Dratl'lltgs 3 ( 1965 ), pp. 159f.

40 Jame Byam ha\\, D1seg1111•e11e/1 de/la collez1one I ugt ( c111cc, 198 I), pp. I I 1- 1 I 3, 148.

41 I-or a rran lanon of rhc Papal Legare Della a a' lerrer cc harb Hope, Titian (London, 1980), p. I 10.

42 L. Rovell1, Paolo 1ov10 e 1/ 11111seo de1 ntratt1 ( omo, 1928), p. 193. I le had poma1r~ of Michelangelo, Leonardo, dcl arro, Raphael, Bandinell1 , Valerio Belli, and Tinan.

43 harle Hope, "Tirian, Phil ip II and Mary Tudor," England and the on/mental Renaissance: Essays 111 Honour of). B. Trapp, E. haney amd P. Mack, ed . (London, 1991 ), pp. 59-60. For the wax roundel ee Ob1ects for a Wunderkammer, exh. cat. ( olnaghi, London, 1981 ), p. 138 and col. pl.

44 "iJnchu ( <><.:llo', p.1111nng I\ lt .. ct.:d Ill cl1L unpubll\hi.:d 111,1.ncor, of rhl \]an.JUI\ tk \ iilJnun .1 1n 16 H. I thank Dr. Peter ( hi.:rl) for ch" rckrt:nt..L'.

4 'i ( . Sd1uLh.1rd, I 11cus ( ru1i.1ch d. ,\ lelicn 1111d tccrkt (I c1p11g, 185 I J, \Ill. I, pp. 206-208; C \an \ l.111Jcr, D11td1 ,111d I le1111sh P,1mtcrs.

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dt dll«'f

l'

49 Paolo Pino, /)1.1/c1g<1 dt p1t111r<1, P.10!.1 B.1n><:Lh1, t:<l., r ra//,1/1 ,/'.irte def m1q11cce11tu (Ban, 1960), 'ol. I, p. I r.

50 R1Jolh, \ f,1r w1gl1L', \ ol. 2, pp. 69, 9-. 'i I P. I. 1rlnJkr, (nit( of the /1,1!ta11 \\'orld (Lon<lon, 1960 ), p. c;-

S2 I or Bnrrn·, pnnr, cc Da\ld Ro,3nJ anJ \ 1i1.hcl.111gclo \\uraro, T1::.t.1110 e /,1 s1/c1gr.1/i,1 1'e11e::.1t111J de/ 111q11ece11to (\ t:nt<..c, 1976), p. 120.

S3 "B. J\aka,cllc anJ J. rowc, Ti::.1<11w la s11t11•1/Je1 s11ut tempt (Horcncc, I 7--78), p. 18-.

54 ror cop1c of rhc pnnr cnr our b\ Tinan, sec Ja> n1c nder,on, "Pierro Arcnno ..111d acrcd Image!)," lnterpret.1::10111 l'e11e:::.1<m1: st11d1 dt storta del/'art 111 cmore d1 M1che/,111gelo Muraro, David Rosand, ed . ( e111ce, 1984), p. 286. For Lamp 0111us' lcrrer, ee G10' an111 aye, 0trtegg10 111ed1to d'.1rt1s/1 (1 lorence, L839-40}, vol. 3, p. 44.

59

55 British Library Sloane MIS 4004, £. lOr. For a facsimi le see Tancred Borenius, The Picture Gallery of Andrea Vendramin (London, 1923), p. 18.

56 I. Favoretto, "Andrea Mantova Benavides inventario delle antichira di casa Benavides 1695," Bollettino del Museo Civico di Padova 61 (1982), pp. 100, 124.

57 Morelli, Notizia, pp. 49, 194, 206.

58 C. M. Brown, Isabella d'Este and Lorenzo da Pavia: Documents for the H istory of Art and Culture in Renaissance Mantua (Geneva, 1982), p. 179.

59 Pio Paschini, "Le collezione archeologiche dei Prelati Grimani nel Cinquecento," Rendiconti dell Pontificia Accademia di Archeologia 5 (1927-28 ), p. 171.

60 J. C. Miiller-Hofstede, "Unterschungen iiber Giorgiones Selbstbildnis in Braunschweig," M itteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Instituties in Florenz 8 (1957), pp. 14-34.

61 Andrea Navagero, Opera omnia (Venice, 1754), p. 179.

62 Salvatore Settis, La "Tempesta " interpretata (Turin, 1978), p. 128 63 John Shearman, "Cristoforo Allori's Judith," Th e Burlington Magazine 121 (1979), p. 9.

64 For the Master of the Self-Portrait, see Johannes Wilde, "Die Probleme um Domencio Mancini," ]ahrbuch der Koniglich preussischen Kunstsammlungen n.£. 8 (1933), pp. 97££.

65 Vasari, Le Vite, vol. 5, pp. 246-247.

66 Ridolfi, Le Maraviglie, vol. 2, p. 16.

67 For these inventories, see Aldo Rava, "ll camerino delle antigaglie di Gabriele Vendramin," Nuovo archivo veneto n.s. 39 (1920), pp. 155-181, and Morelli, Notizia, pp. 214-223.

68 Vasari, Le vite, vol. 5, p. 441, and J. Bryce, Cosimo Bartoli (1503- 1572): The Career of a Florentine Polymath (Geneva, 1983), pp. 135-140.

69 Jaynie Anderson, "A Further Inventory of Ga briel Vendramin's Collection," The Burlington Magazine 121 (1979), p. 644. For its current location see Maurizio Mariani's Jetter, The Burlington Magazine 122 (198 0), p. 255.

70 Ra va, "U camerino," pp. 170-175; Morelli, Notizia, pp. 220-222.

71 Rava, "ll camerino," pp. 168, 175.

Veronese's family built up a similar collection, see G. Gattinoni, Inventario di un casa veneziana del secondo X II, la casa degli eccelenti Caliari, eredi di Paolo ii Veronese (M estre, 1914).

72 For relevant extracts, see Giuseppe Gerola, "Nuovi docurnenti veneziani su Alessandro Vittoria," Atti del R. Istituti Veneta di Scienze Lettere ed Arti 84 (1924-25), pp. 339-359.

73 Riccardo Predelli, "Le memorie e le carte di Alessandro Vittoria," Archivio trentino, fasc.

112 (1908), pp. 233££.

74 Mina Gregori, "U ritratto di Alessandro Vittoria," Paragone 319 (1976), pp. 91-100.

75 Vasari, Le vite, vol. 5, pp. 221-223.

76 Ibid.; Gerola, "Nuovi docurnenti, " pp. 345, 348.

77 Predelli, "Le memorie," p. 231.

78 Aretino, Lettere, vol. 2, pp. 126, 24.

79 Erwin Panofsky, Problems in Titian, Mostly Iconographic (New York, 1969), pp. 102-108.

80 M anfredo Tafuri, Venezia e ii Rinascimento, religione, scienza, architettura (Turin, 1985), pp. 18-21, fig. 12.

81 Wethey, Th e Paintings of Titian: III The Myth ological and H istorical Paintings, p. 464, pl. 240.

82 The bear symbolizing Prudence appears prominently on Pietro da Cortona's Barberini ceiling. See J. Beldon Scott, Images of Nepotism, the Painted Ceiling of the Palazzo Barberini (Princeton, 1991), p. 145.

60

Imaging the Self The Religious and Rhetorical Framework John W. O'Malley Weston School of Theology, Cambridge

The scholarship of the past thirty years has enormously enriched our knowledge and understanding of practically every aspect of the phenomenon we know as the Italian Renaissance. Complex though that phenomenon was, we have witnessed the emergence of an international consensus on any number of issues, most notably on that seemingly most protean and elusive of the realities characteristic of the era, 1 Renaissance Humanism. And within Humanism - or, better, within the studia humanitatis - we have come to recognize the central or crowning place enjoyed by rhetoric, the art of persuasion.

We have even made a lot of progress in our understanding of what religion was like in Renaissa nce Italy, thanks to the labors of many scholars like Charles Trinkaus, Barry Collett, Ronald Weissman, Christopher Black, Salvatore Camporeale, Roberto Rusconi, and many others. In few other areas did we so badly need correctives to the wisdom received from our forebears, who beginning with Burckhardt muddied the waters badly. The two ideas about religion in the Renaissance that leap off Burckhardt's pages are " immorality" and " paganism. " Even today and even in authors whom we might reasonably expect to know better, vestiges of Burckhardt and other nineteenth-century interpreters like Ludwig Pastor are still not altogether expunged.

The era of the Renaissance in Italy, for all its elegance, was without doubt rough and tumble, with lots of greed, lust, and ruthless violence at every level of society. The venality, worldly ambition, and otherwise unworthy lives of many members of the episcopate and college of cardinals were especially conspicuous. But along with most contemporary scholars, I do not see the period as any more immoral than many other periods of history before or since. I shall argue, indeed, that concern

about moral issues was characteristic of it, even if its ideals did not get translated into action with the degree of perfection we like to demand of times other than our own.

Nobody today subscribes to the paganism thesis. Even though enthusiasm for antiquity might have led some individuals to speak and behave in ways that showed more regard for the customs, rites, and mythology of classical Rome than others thought proper for Christians, there is no evidence that there was ever such a thing as a "pagan humanist." That is, there is no evidence that anybody seriously thought that Roman mythology was a better religion than Christianity. We know that a ometimes thin line separated piery from superstition and belief from folklore and that syncretistic tendencies were operative in certain circles, but, except fo r a small minority of Jews, everybody was Christian by baptism and culture, in name and at least to some extent in desire. That was the reality of the age, reflected in its art.

But it is at precisely this point that the real problem of interpretation begins. Just what did it mean to be a Christian ? Or, to put the question in the terms of this conference, how did religion impinge on the "imaging of the self"? There obviously is no one or easy answer to such a sweeping question. But I will try to fuJÂŁill what my tide promised, that is, to provide a framework that might be helpful toward a synoptic perspective on religion, even theology, in the Italian Renaissance.

What I want to do is try to tie together three phenomena that, for all their differences, have affinities and relationships not immediately obvious, that taken together indicate a fairly consistent religious and ethical outlook cutting across social class and levels of education, and that in some identifiable ways make Italian religion dif-

61

ferent from its northern counterparts. The three phenomena that I will try to relate to each other are the Scholastic theology of the mendicant friars, the Christianitas found in popular preaching and catechesis and lay piety, and finally the theoretical and religious aspects of the Humanist movement.

Although there were five orders of mendicants, the largest and most influential in Italy were the Dominicans and Franciscans, and they are also the ones about whom we know much more than we do about the Augustinians, Carmelites, and Servites. The mendicants were surely among the academic elite of their day and had an incomparably better education than most of their counterparts in the secular clergy, even though not all of them would have attended a university in the strict sense of the term.

The Dominicans were obliged by their own legislation to regard Thomas Aquinas as their master in theology. The Franciscans did not have such a clear directive, and in theory had severa l distinguished authors from whom to choose - with Bonventure and Scotus leading the list.

But, in contrast with northern Europe , where we find the theological enterprise marked by the rambunctious and often vicious rivalry among "the schools" Nominalists, Realists, Thomists, Scotists, Augustinians, Ockhamists, or marked at least by the contest between the Via Antiqua of the thirteenth-century theologians (especially Thomas and Bonaventure) and the Via Moderna of the later Nominalists Italy is relatively innocent of this strife.

One obvious reason for this situation is that unlike French, German, and English universities, there were no theological faculties in Italian universities. Another reason was the acknowledged primacy in theology of the Dominicans, both in their

Studium at Padua and in the Studium curiae Romanae, that is, in the papal court. As I have tried to show elsewhere, the great revival of Thomistic theology in the sixteenth century whose origin we attribute to the Universities of Paris and Salamanca had its counterpart in Italy and most especially in Quattrocento Rome, where it began almost a century before it culminated in the famo us decree of Pope Pius V in 1567 declaring Aquinas a "doctor" of the Church on a par with Augustine, Ambrose, Jerome, and Gregory.2 The Franciscans had no similar and welldocumented momentum for their Bonaventure and Scotus. But Bonaventure's canonization in 1482 by Sixtus IV was a noteworthy event in an age when canonizations were extraordinarily solemn and relatively rare occurrences. Bonaventure was the second Scholastic theologian ever canonized, preceded only by Aquinas a century and a half earlier. When Raphael placed Bonaventure in the Disputa, he was not only paying tribute to Julius II's Franciscan uncle who canonized him, but wittingly or unwittingly reflecting a theological preference of Italian Franciscans.

Even stronger among Italian Franciscans, however, was the influence of Scotus.3 The hegemony enjoyed certainly by Thomas in the education received by Dominican friars and by Bonaventure and Scotus in the education received by Franciscans has important implications for our subject. No Christian theologian up to Aquinas's time had argued and defended as positive an assessment of created reality as he. While of course affirming the doctrine of Original Sin, he interpreted it in a way that turned Augustine's pessimism about the world, the state, the fami ly, and other human institutions on its head. His was perhaps the most resoundingly optimistic vision of these realities in the history of philosophy and Christian theology.

62

The vision was even more optimistic about human nature. Aquinas's view of humanity was dominated by the verse from the Second Epistle of Peter (1:4): through the gifts of Christ' redemption "we are made partakers of the divine nature" (efficimini divinae consortes naturae). Aquinas took the ancient idea of the deification of human nature through grace as far as he could go within the tradition of Christian orthodoxy and stressed the compatibility of the natural and the supernatural as much as was possible without clearly falling into Pelagian heresy.

Bonaventure, though more hesitant, was essentially in the same camp. Scotus was unmistakably clear - what he was about in his theologizing was to attribute to created (and redeemed) reality the nobility that was its due. Scotus's expression is dazzling as in effect the motto of this classic phase of the Scholastic enterprise - dignificare naturam.4 Such an emphasis was not alien to the spirit of Francis himself or to the pastoral practice of the early Franciscans. Francis's "Canticle of Brother Sun," possibly the oldest extant poem in a modern European language, was set to melody by him, and he urged his brethren to sing it when they went out preaching. The Little Flowers of Saint Francis, early fourteenth century, was a popular correlate in the vernacular about the harmony between nature and grace enunciated by theologians on the abstract plane.

What impact did the optimistic undergirding of their theology and popular Franciscan literature have on the pastoral practice of the Dominican and Franciscan friars during the Renaissance? Their sermons have rarely been examined with this question in mind, but some studies done from different perspectives at least allow the inference that it influenced their presenta-

tion of doctrine and morality.5 One thing is certain for both the Dominicans and Franciscans: their preaching had to do to a large extent with "vices and virtues." The ninth chapter of the Rule of Saint Francis specified this aim for the Franciscans, but the Dominicans also early adopted it as their own.6 We are now beginning to move into the second point of my presentation, the Christianitas of popular preaching, catechesis, and lay piety.

On one issue, therefore, Burckhardt was essentially correct. The friars were preachers of repentance - they tried to dissuade from vice and persuade to virtue. In pursuing this end, they resorted to verbal pyrotechnics. They welcomed swoons, tear , and the renting of garments. They incited to dramatic renunciations of cosmetics, jewelry, and other worldly vanities, best documented for the Dominican Savonarola. They threatened the fire and brimstone of eternal damnation.

But did this mean that they essentially delivered an anxiety-inducing message of gloom, fear, and the ubiquitous presence of sin and corruption? This is the interpretation of fifteenth- and sixteenth-century religious feeling and pastoral practice that many scholars continue to propose, most notably argued and documented at present

by Jean Delumeau. The title of one of his massive volumes recently translated into English tells it all : Sin and Fear: The Emergence of a Western Guilt Culture, 13th-18th Centuries. 7 I am unconvinced that the title applies to Italy as it might apply to northern Europe or elsewhere.

One thing is certain for the Dominicans and others like the Jesuits later who took Thomas as their master: they concentrated their study on those parts of his writings dealing with human happiness and misery, with virtues and their opposing vices, that is, on the parts dealing with ethics or, bet-

63

ter, with the theological basis for ethics. It was from these issues, indeed, that Aquinas began the Summa theologiae in the first place~ In the pastoral practice of these folk, I see no evidence that happiness and depiction of the virtues, within the basically optimistic framework of the Thomistic and Scotist treatment, did not receive their due emphasis. The character and dignity of the virtues surely received superb exposition in both the Thomas and the Scotus that they studied. Besides the "Canticle of Brother Sun," Francis also composed his "The Praise of the Virtues," which lauds wisdom, love, simplicity, poverty, and obedience and stresses the basis of mortification and penance required to sustain and nourish them.

In 1576-78 Gregory Martin, the English recusant and translator of the so-called Douai-Rheims version of the Bible, was in Rome and described the preaching he heard. Although this is a late date, it in my opinion not only captures the reality but is consonant with earlier times:

'

And to heare the maner of the Italian preacher, with what a spirit he toucheth the hart, and moveth to compunction (for to that end they employ their talke and not in disputinge matters of controversie which, god be thanked, there needeth not) that is a singular joy and a merveilous edifying to a good Christian man ... what shal a man heare but rebuking of vice, and exhorting to vertue, the feare of gods Justice, the hope of his mercie, the love of his benefites?

But in the pastoral activity of the friar, the hearing of confessions was the other essential component.' 0 In the past several decades scholars have turned their attention to the many handbooks for confessors and penitents that were circulated from the thirteenth century on." Scholars have also begun to study catechisms, especially those that preceded or were practically contemporaneous with Luther's famous

Large and Small Catechisms of 1529, but they have not always realized how intimately related those two genres are. In the late Middle Ages, catechesis retained its relationship to the sacramental life of the Christian that it had had from the beginning of Christianty, but the sacrament to which it related was now not Baptism but Penance, that is, confession.

This relationship of catechisms to confession is crucial for three reasons. First of all, it puts the ethos of confession into a much larger and more positive context than do the confessionario's, which are basically lists of sins. Secondly, it explains why the Seven Capital Sins or, increasingly, the Ten Commandments were an essential and unfailing part of the materials of catechesis throughout Europe.

But thirdly and even more important, it determined the overall character and purpose of catechesis which, because of the religious controversies sparked by the Reformation, had begun gradually to be undermined at least in some parts of Europe late in the sixteenth century. In that latter phase, catechism started to become lessons about the truths of one's religion, weapons in one's arsenal of information. In the earlier phase, it was about how one lived one's religion - or, to use the vocabulary of the era, it was about Christianitas.

In his brilliant article published in the American Historical Review a few years ago, John Van Engen told us what Christianitas meant in the Middle Ages, that is, the practice of the practices of one's faith. 12 At least by implication he related it to formal or informal catechesis, but the connection is easily made explicit.

Ignatius Loyola was teaching catechism as a layman in Alcala in 1527 (that is, two years before Luther's catechisms), and he made this ministry a keystone of the order 64

he later founded. H e and his followers con istently de cribed that ministry as the teaching of Christianismum or Christianitas.'3The Jesuits did not in vent the terminology but simply reflected earlier and traditional u age.

Teaching Christianitas aimed more at forming a true Christian than in imparting theoretical truths. Along with the Capital Sins or Decalogue, the Apostles' Creed was another piece that was always present in catechesis of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. One of the few exta nt examples as to how the Creed was actually expo unded comes from India, 1546, from a " lesson " on it by the Jesuit missioner, Francis Xavier.14 What he does in effect is use the articles of the Creed as a series of hooks on which to hang a review of biblical history from the Creation accounts in Genesis through the gospels, during which he reflects on God's love and on both human misery and human dignity, which he then applies to those he is addressing. The very first line, not surprisingly, tells of the creation of humankind in God's image and likeness.

Catechisms always contained the Our Father, the Angelic Salutation (that is, the first part of what we know as the "H ail Mary" ), and perhaps a few other prayers.

They often contained the Eight Beatitudes - Blessed are the poor in spirit, Blessed are the peacemakers, Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for justice, and so forth .

They often contained the Seven Corporal and Spiritual Works of M ercy - feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the sick and imprisoned, instruct the ignorant, console the afflicted, and so forth. If the Capital Sins and the Decalogue indicated the negative side of the imaging of the Christian self, the Creed, the prayers, the Beatitudes, and the works of mercy indicated the positive side.

M y impression is that in Spain by the early sixteenth century the Beatitudes and the Works of Mercy were considered as indispensable in the teaching of Christianitas as were the Decalogue and the Creed, and they surely played a crucial role in Juan de Avila's catechism, perhaps the single most influential such publication south of the Alps.' 5 Avila's catechism also contained much other material, including the seven gifts of the H oly Spirit, the twelve fr uits of the Spirit, the cardinal virtues of justice, prudence, fortitude, and temperance, and a paraphrase of the twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew about Jesus himself being hidden in the hungry, the naked, the imprisoned, and in all of the wretched of this world.

This catechism of some twenty pages was intended as an ABC fo r teaching reading, was set to verse, and was mea nt to be sung - "Doctrina cristiana que se canta." It was in use by 1527 and possibly first publ ished at that time. In the mid-sixteenth century, the Jesuits translated it into Italian verse, taught children in Spain, Italy, and elsewhere how to sing it to other children and adults, and used it in their schools in Spain well into the seventeenth century. Its tone is conveyed by its opening words of advice to the teacher: "An ybody who is to teach this material must be very humble, kind and loving, and should manifest great joy with everybody. In dealing with children, the teacher should adapt to their mentality as far as possible so that they may love him . .. and he (or she) should regard the children as if they were his very own:' 16 In the scholarly literature on catechesis in the sixteenth century, Avila has been almost completely ignored except by one Spanish author.17 The approach taken by Avila and the early Jesuits seems to have been quite different from what was going on in northern Europe, especially in Lutheran Germany, at approximately the same time.18

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What about the teaching of Christianitas in Italy? In the past twenty years more information about it has turned up than we have ever had before, but until we get to at least the middle of the sixteenth century we really do not have a firm grasp on what was taught and how it was donel 9 Until we have evidence to the contrary, I think we are justified in assuming that well before the early sixteenth century Christianitas was being taught, however imperfectly and unsystematically, and that in content and emphasis it was not dissimilar to the Spanish tradition.

The institutional expression of the Beatitudes and the Works of Mercy was of course the confraternities - in Italian, compagnie, confraternite, scuole. In perhaps no other area of socio-religious history has recent scholarship provided us with more information and turned our understanding more completely around. It is now clear that, along with their many other ramifications, the confraternities, as well as the Third Orders, were in the cities and towns of Italy the institution far more central to the religious devotion of their members, vast numbers, than the parish or any other religious institution~0 ' By the late fifteenth century in the major Italian cities, confraternities had emerged as the major instrument of social assistance - to the poor, to foundlings (and later to orphans), to prisoners, to the sick, and to others in need. The image of the self thereby implied was a person of practical compassion, acting in consort with one's fellow Christians, which included the clergy even if the priest sometimes functioned as not much more than a hired hand.

I am inclined to stress this aspect of the motivation behind the works of compassion rather than their power as good works to buy or embezzle heaven.

While penance and penitence were essen-

rial aspects of the piety of the confraternities, charity, reconciliation, and fraternity were perhaps even more basic. Sin was perceived as social, consisting especially in relational aberrations like lying, betrayal, revenge, and hatred. 21 If the catechisms and confraternities are a clue, then the virtues (and vices) the Franciscans and Dominicans emphasized in their preaching were those related to human relationships.

This was a viewpoint fundamenta l as well to Dante's Commedia.

The humanist movement as primarily a literary phenomenon seems far removed from the "practical Christianity" of catechesis and confraternities, and to some extent it of course was. Nonetheless, the humanists and their disciples saw "good letters" as by definition didactic and, hence, by definition conducive to "good morals." From Petrarch forward, ethical issues of various kinds engaged the humanists, for the ultimate purpose of "good letters" was to enhance and make possible the most important of all the arts - the art of the happy life, ars bene beateque vivendi. A common synonym for that art and the consequent state of soul was pietas.

Contrary to the popular image of him that persists even today, Erasmus was a severe moralist and as contemptuous of worldly vanities as any mendicant friar. I mention Erasmus because he to a large extent codified humanist thinking that preceded him, largely in Italy, even as he moved beyond it. After about 1516, moreover, he was by far the most widely read author of his day on an international basis.

The humanist movement translated itself into one institution that had an incalculably great impact on Western civilization well into the twentieth century - the Latin School. Erasmus, echoing Quintilian and his Italian predecessors, saw pietas - the

66

formation of character (Bi/dung) and, in context, the formation of the Christian as the ultimate end of humanist schooling.

Pietas, with all its classical and literary overtones, is not Christianitas, but there is a strong affinity between them~2 That affinity consisted not only in what we might call their "formational" goals but also in the simplicity of the ethical and religious content found in both.

But from the early years of the Quattrocento in Italy, there was another aspect of the humanist movement that had immense influence on the imaging of the self at least in certain elitist circles. At about that time Pier Paolo Vergerio the Elder revolutionized public discourse by recovering for his own time the principles and practices of classical oratory, that is, of rhetoric in its primary meaning. 23 What this meant in effect was the recovery of the principles and practices of the epideictic genre of oratory, the art of praise and blame - ars laudandi et vituperandi.24 When occasion offered, the humanists and others who learned the skill let fly wondrous vituperation against their enemies and against all villainy. But the subjects to which the new oratory was generally applied were the recently deceased in funeral orations, the saints in panegyrics on their feast days, and, somewhat later in the Quattrocento, the beliefs of the Christian religion in sermons delivered at mass. Such subjects and occasions demanded more attention to the art of praise than to the art of blame.

Here is what I think happened in those circles where the new oratory was practiced, whether in Latin or in some vernacular adaptation. First, the art of panegyric provided the skills needed to extol virtue and the positive aspects of Christian teaching, and it thereby focused attention on them.

Secondly, this meant that ideas about human nobility found in other sources

could now be raised to an unmistakable theme, orchestrated to what sounded to contemporaries like a paeon. It was not the ideas that were new, for they often came directly or indirectly from medieval Scholastics like Aquinas and Scotus, but the way the new rhetoric made them resound.

Thirdly, since oratory was a function of public or civic life, it from the beginning had a bias towards public and civic virtue.

If I had to choose a line that sums up the "image" of the Christian proposed in this oratory, it would be: "we are not born for ourselves alone" - non nobis solum nati sumus.25 That line is from Cicero, not the Bible, but it invites the Beatitudes and Works of Mercy from Christianitas to be its practical articulation. In the sermons preached in the Sistine Chapel over a seventy-year period, Christian piety was consistently described in humane terms helping the needy, forgiving enemies, consoling the afflicted, visiting the sick, and, in general, ministering to others' needs. 26 Let me summarize, Two things are certain.

First, in the imaging of the self in the Italian Renaissance, religion and ethics were a crucial component. Secondly, we are still poorly informed about many aspects of those realities. I then proposed the following hypotheses: there were three major traditions that, for all their differences, converge in some significant ways relevant to the imaging of the self; those traditions were the Scholastic theology of the Dominicans and Franciscans, some aspects of Christianitas found in preaching, catechesis, and lay piety, and some aspects of Renaissance Humanism.

I have further proposed that in the imaging of the self, the virtues as practiced in the works of mercy receive at least as much emphasis as the vices, the dignity of the human person at least as much as the

67

misery of the sinner. I believe this is true for Italy, although it may not be true for other parts of Europe. I am not an art historian, but - to end on an ecumenical note - I suggest that these considerations may not be irrelevant to Renaissance portraiture and other works of art.

1 See Albert Rabil, Jr., ed ., Renaissance Humanism: Foundations, Forms, and Legacy, 3 vols. (Philadelphia, 1988).

2 See my "The Feast of Thomas Aquinas in Renaissance Rome: A Neglected Document and Its Import," Rivista di Storia della Chiesa in Italia 35 (1981), pp.1-27, and Paul Oskar Kristeller, "Thomism and the Italian Thought of the Renaissance," in Medieval Aspects of Renaissance Learning: Three Essays by Paul Oskar Kristeller, Edward P. Mahoney, ed. and trans. (Durham, NC, 1974), pp. 29-91.

3 Kristeller, "Thomism," p. 51.

4 See Paul Vignaux, Philosophy in the Middle Ages: An Introduction, E. C. Hall, trans. (New York, 1959), p. 213.

5 See Daniel R. Lesnick, Preaching in Medieval Florence: The Social World of Franciscan and Dominican Spirituality (Athens, GA, 1989) his "Civic Preaching in the Early Renaissa nce: Dominici's Florentine Sermons," in Christianity and the Renaissance: Image and Religious Imagination in the Quattrocento, Timothy Verdon and John Henderson, eds.

(Syracuse, NY, 1990), pp. 208-255, and my Praise and Blame in Renaissance Rome: Rhetoric, Doctrine and Reform in the Sacred Orators of the Papal Court, c. 1450-1 520 (Durham, NC, 1979).

6 See Leonard E. Boyle, "The Setting of the Summa theologiae of Saint Thomas," The Etienne Gilson Series, 5 (Toronto, 1982).

7 Eric N icholson, trans. (New York, 1990).

See Robert Bireley, "Two Works by Jean Delumeau, " The Catholic Historical Review 77 (1991), pp. 78-88.

8 See Boyle, "Setting of the Summa."

9 Roma Sancta (1581), George Bruner Parks, ed. (Rome, 1969), pp. 70-71.

10 See Boyle, "Setting of the Summa," and Roberto Rusconi, "Dal pulpito alla confessione: M odelli di comportamento religioso in Italia tra 1470circae1520 circa," in Strutture ecclesiastiche in Italia e in Germania prima delta Riforma, Paolo Prodi and Peter Johanek, eds. (Bologna, 1984), pp. 259-315.

11 See Pierre Michaud-Quantin, Sommes de casuistique et manuels de con( ession au moyen age (XIIe-XVIe siecles) (Lo uvain, 1962), and Roberto Rusconi '"Confessio genera lis': Opuscoli per la practtica penitenziale nei prirni cinquanta anni da ll'introduzione della stampa," in I Frati Minari tra '400 e '500: Atti del XII convegno internazionale, Assisi, 18-1 920 ottobre 1984 (Assisi, 1986), pp. 189-227.

12 "The Christian Midd le Ages as an Historiographical Problem," American Historial Review 91 (1986), pp. 519-552.

13 See chap~ers two and three of my forthcoming, "The First Jesuits, " H arvard University Press, 1993.

14 See Epistolae S. Francisci Xaverii aliaque eius scripta, Georg Schurhammer and Joseph Wicki, eds., 2 vols., Monumenta Historica Sociatatis Jesus, 67-68 (Rome, 1944-45), 1:348-370.

15 See Carlos Maria Nannei, La "Doctrina cristiana" de san Juan de Avila (C0ntribuci6n al estudio de su doctrina catequetica) (Pamplona, 1977). For Avila's text, see ibid ., pp. 213-235.

16 Nannei, " D octrina" de Avila, p. 233.

17 See Nannei, " Doctrina" de Avila, and Alvaro Huerge, "Sabre la catequesis en Espana durante los siglos XV-XVI," Analecta Sacra Tarraconensia 41 (1968), pp. 299-345.

18 See Gerald Stra uss, Luther's H ouse of Learning: Indoctrination of the Young in the German Reformation (Baltimore, 1978), and his "The Reformation and Its Public in an Age of Orthodoxy," in The German People and the Reformation, R. Po-Chia Hsia, ed. (Ithaca, 1988). See also Jean-Claude Dhotel, Les origines du catechisme modern d'apres Les premiers manuels imprimes en France (Paris, 1967), and

68

Paul F. Grendler, "Schools, Seminaries, and Catechetical Instruction," in Catholicism in Early Modern History: A Guide to Research, John W. O'Ma lley, ed. (St. Louis, 1988), pp. 315-330.

19 See Rusconi, "Dal pulpito"; Paul Grendler, Schooling in Renaissance Italy: Literacy and Learning, 1300-1600 (Baltimore, 1989), pp.

333-362; Miriam Turrini, "'Riformare il mondo a vera vita christiana': le scuole di catechismo nelJ'Italia del Cinquecento," Annali dell'lstituto storico italo-germanico in Trento, 8 (1982), pp. 407-489.

20 See, for example, Giancarlo Angelozzi, Le confraternite laicali: Un'esperienza cristiana tra medioevo e eta moderna (Brescia, 1978); Ronald F. E. Weissman, Ritual Brotherhood in R enaissance Florence (New York, 1982); Roberto Rusconi, "Confraternite, compagnie e devozioni," in Storia d'Italia: Annali 9, Giorgio Chittolini and Giovanni Miccolo, eds. (Turin, 1986), pp. 469-506; Christopher Black, Italian Confraternities in the Sixteenth Century (Cambridge, England, 1989); Konrad Eisenbichler, ed., Crossing the Boundaries: Christian Piety and the Arts in Italian Medieval and Renaissance Confraternities (Kalamazoo, 1991).

21 See Ronald F. E. Weissman, "Sacred Eloquence: Humanist Preaching and Lay Piety in Renaissance Florence," in Christianity and the Renaissance, pp. 250-271.

22 See my "Introduction " to volume 66 of the Collected Works of Erasmus (Toronto, 1988), pp. ix-li.

23 See John M. McManamon, "Innovation in Early Humanist Rhetoric: The Oratory of Pier Paolo Vergerio (the Elder)," Rinascimento, n.s.

22 (1982), pp. 3-32.

24 See my Praise and Blame, and John M .

McManamon, Funeral Oratory and the Cultural Ideals of Italian Humanism (Chapel Hill, 1989).

25 De officiis, I.7.22.

26 See my Praise and Blame, pp. 165-194.

69

Finding the Self in a Renaissance Pa/ace~:Richard A. Goldthwaite The johns Hopkins University, Baltimore

Of the many pleasures one enjoys on strolling through the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, one is the fascinating sense of ambiguity between our own past and present that somehow the place makes us feel.

Coming through its doors, we enter into what at first seems the remote world of the Gilded Age, with all of its marvelous excesses; but wandering around we also begin to sense, somewhat disturbingly, the roots of our own contemporary culture of consumerism. After all, the spirit that inspired the voracious and extravagant consumption of Isabella Stewart Gardner also aroused the consciousness of the consumer ethos that surfaced in its first critics - both in the elegantly convoluted and introverted ruminations of Henry James, and in the outright and muscular condemnation of the phenomenon Thorstein Veblen encapsulated in his concept of "conspicuous consumption." The ambiguity between present and past we feel in this place is also deeper and more personal: for if intellectual and moral instincts make us everfearful of being implicated in the culture of consumerism, with its commodity world of throw-away goods and fashion-ridden boutiques, let us not forget that we have in fact enshrined the very spirit of consumerism in great museums like this one, which are veritable temples to the luxury consumption habits of the past, where we worship as art one of the dynamics that not only gives life to the economic system of the West but provides the things with which modern people image themselves.

It is significant, in this respect, that Mrs. Gardner's consuming vision of the past focused on Renaissance Italy on the one hand and on her own house on the other; for it was in the Renaissance household that a major change took place in material culture, both in the sheer quantitative enlargement of the Italians' world of goods and in the seemingly infinite expansion of the range of goods they bought.

This material culture deserves to be brought into our picture of the Italian Renaissance on its own terms, without having to be glorified as art. It marks something new in men's behavior as consumers, a sharp break with the medieval past; and, even more, this consumption, in opening up an expansive material world, released a dynamic for growth and change into economic life that was fundamental to the subsequent development of the West, becoming eventually, in our own times, the most characteristic feature of our supply-sided economic system. Moreover, this new market behavior brought men into that kind of relation with things that anticipated the consumer culture of our own times.

In the early fourteenth century a rich contemporary of Dante and Giotto did not have many possibilities for spending money on what today are called durable goods. In the marketplace rich men like the Bardi and the Peruzzi probably behaved very much like the rich everywhere in Europe at the time, spending much for building, for clothes and personal adornment, and for liturgical furnishings and utensils. Early fourteenth-century Florence, with its cultura l scene -:lominated by the towering figures of Dante and Giotto and its economy driven by great international merchant-bankers such as the Bardi and the Peruzzi, was hardly a backward and undeveloped place; and yet, the world of goods was so confined that today it is hardly perceptible and a secular consumption model is difficult to perceive.

The earliest view into the Florentine home we have from inventories dates from around 1400, and there is no reason to think that things had changed much from the time of Dante and Giotto a century earlier. At this time even large homes with many rooms were sparsely furnished.

Domestic space seems to have been orga-

70

nized around the chamber of the master of the household that opened out through an antechamber to any number of other rooms. The chamber was a small multifunctional space that served primarily as the intimate core of the household, where furnishings and valuables were likely to be concentrated. The other rooms were generalized spaces that were sparsely furnished, and beds were scattered throughout most of them. The typology of furniture does not extend beyond the basic functions of eating, sitting, sleeping, and storage; and the analysis of interior domestic space leads only to vague generalizations about the multi-functionality of rooms.

This Florentine world of goods changed in the course of the Renaissance, and consumption took on the clear configuration of a coherent material culture. The process can be broken down into several developments: first, in the fifteenth century the chamber evolves as a richly decorated interior space; second, from the later fifteenth and throughout the sixteenth century the rest of the house begins slowly to fill up with furnishings; third, in this process of accumulation two things happen: furnishings evolve into more highly developed forms, and interior space becomes organized into more specialized functions.

Finally - and this is the ultimate goal of this enquiry- in this process of accumulation men changed their attitude about possessions, about goods in general - and about themselves.

The locus for the first phase in this process of accumulation was the chamber. Something of the attitudes of Florentines toward possessions in this room can be inferred from the way they kept track of their increased spending. Before the fifteenth century, expenses for furnishings have no particular identity in the private accounts covering their busy economic lives and often carefully kept in double-entry; and

one of the first manifestations of increased consumption in the fifteenth century is the appearance in many private account books of a separate account just for the furnishing of this one room, the chamber - an account invariably entitled "my chamber" (la camera mia). Some men went even further, opening separate accounts for the construction of individual pieces of furniture for their chamber, such as a great chest or a bed, and for the particular artisans who supplied them with household goods. Surely, all this detail- summarized on a single chamber account complete with cross-references to the more detailed subordinate accounts, kept with the discipline required by double entry accounting, and entered in the same books of permanent record where he also kept business accounts - reflects an attachment to possessions of a kind that can hardly be documented for an earlier period. Moreover, it is not at all unusual for Florentines to register the acquisition of important pieces of furniture also in their diaries along with the essential events in their lives, such as births, deaths, marriages, election to public office, and so forth. As the locus for a man's concentration of his most luxurious possessions, the chamber became in the course of the fifteenth century an elaborate decorative ensemble of furnishings.

For much of the fifteenth century significant consumption of household goods did not extend beyond the chamber, but before the century was over the Florentine world of goods underwent a second phase of change marked by an accelerated accumulation of furnishings that slowly filled up the other rooms in the home. Again, the account books record the process.

Whereas in fourteenth- and fifteenth-century account books most household expenditures were entered indiscriminately on a single account of general expenses, with the chamber account, as already mentioned, being the first to emerge with its 71

own identity, by the latter part of the fifteenth century, as acquisitions and expenditures mounted, more separate accounts appear to isolate expenses into various categories - for food, for clothing, for what are called "extraordinary expenses," for expenses of specific members of the family, and (finally) for household goods and furnishings. This kind of categorization of expenditures marked the new level of consciousness consumption had reached.

The rate of accumulation of household goods could be impressive. For instance, Bernardo Rinieri, a man of middling rank, began his household account on the third page of his first ledger opened in the mid145 Os on the occasion of his marriage, and the account grows and grows eventually to fill up twenty-nine densely written folios - one-third of the entire ledger.

The accounting record is not the only place where household possessions achieve their own identity. Alberti touches on the subject in his tract on the family. He makes the argument that furnishings are central to household management because they represent a very particular kind of wealth.

They consist of those kinds of material goods that assure the solidarity of affection and the bonds of blood, honor, and virtue; and therefore they lie at the material core of a family's very identity and existence, as the foundation of its reputation.

For Alberti, in other words, household furnishings came to signify a form of wealth with specific qualities: first, it is constituted by material possessions; second, these possessions have a strong moral quality about them; and third, they are to be preserved.

All this was not just the fantasy of an isolated intellectual. In a will drawn up about the time Alberti was writing, the merchantbanker Palla Strozzi gives specific instruction for the preservation in the family of his household furnishings, which include silver, tableware and several items of furniture - a cupboard and a number of chests,

simple enough forms but all presumably made with some attention to detail and therefore items of some prestige. Household furnishings, in short, became endowed with the values of a society that has begun to rationalize consumption as a major economic activity.

There are two striking features of these household accounts that Florentines opened in their ledgers to keep track of the accumulation of objects filling up their homes. First, with the quickened pace of accumulation the growing world of goods got out of the control of the detailed accounting procedures used earlier. As entries are made with ever-greater frequency and the account swells to altogether new proportions, there is a falling-off of the amount of information in the entries; entries become more generalized, and the account is reduced eventually to a monotonous non-descriptive list of acquisitions.

One has the impression that as these Florentines became greater consumers, accumulating a larger number of objects, they began to take their possessions for granted, thus losing something of that selfconsciousness about their possessions we can perhaps read into the careful attention to detail with which their grandâ&#x20AC;˘athers in the fifteenth century accounted for the fewer things they bought.

And yet they did not take this consumption for granted, for a second notable feature about the procedure used to keep the account of household furnishings is that it is never closed. In other words, at any one moment in the lifetime of our Florentine consumer he could know exactly how much he had spent up to that point for household furnishings simply by a glance at the account. And if on his death bed, in his last living moment, he had the desire and the lucidity - he could call for his ledger, open it to the household account, add up the total on the debit side, enter 72

this figure on the credit side, and so, finally, with a stoke of the pen, close out this life-time account, thus going on to a better life with the satisfaction that he had precise knowledge of just how much he had spent in his entire lifetime for all of his household furnishings - and, of course, had he a few more minutes to live and had he kept his older ledgers, as Florentines usually did (that is why so many survive), he would have had no difficulty whatsoever in taking stock of his entire life as a consumer by drawing up a complete list of his acquisitions.

For a Florentine, however, such a fina l accounting would not be a balance in a technical sense, for these ledgers reveal little about their income. For all their fame as proto-capitalist entrepreneurs with a completely rational system of accounting to keep track of their wealth, Florentines were much more attentive to the record of what they bought than how much they earned. As one great merchant-banker, Giovanni Rucellai, wrote: "I think I have given myself more honor, and my soul more satisfaction, by having spent money than by having earned it."

By the sixteenth century, with goods accumulating all around them, first concentrated in the chamber and then scattered throughout the house, Florentines were experiencing the slow emergence of a new kind of material culture, for accumulation did not mean just more - it was also a dynamic process of change. And this brings us to the third phase in the transformation of the Renaissance world of goods, largely a sixteenth-century phenomenon, which can be characterized as two corollaries to the process of accumulation: first, goods evolved into more complicated forms; and second, this evolutionary process eventually led to the redefinition of the space these goods were filling up.

The first corollary to the accumulation of goods was the morphological evolution of household forms as they became subject to variation, elaboration, refinement, and innovation. By the sixteenth century furniture has begun to evolve into a wide variety of types: storage pieces into elaborate chests, cabinets, credenzas, and armoires; benches evolve into chairs, and these in turn evolve into a variety of types. Whereas the 1418 inventory of the Medici palace mentions only six chairs, a seventeenth century inventory of the Strozzi palace specifies chairs with leather-covered arms, Genoese chairs, chairs with cushions, low chairs covered with velvet, stools with backs, stools without backs, little chairs, large chairs, great chairs - not to mention other chairs described in ways that defy translation.

The history of panel painting encapsulates this process as it evolved from decoration subordinated to furniture forms, and then as an independent decorative object hung on a wall set off by richly carved and gilded frames that could be made by artists as prominent as the painter himself and could cost as much as the picture; and then, as pictures accumulated through the sixteenth century, they themselves come to constitute a decorative ensemble in their very quantity.

Given the cult status art has achieved in our own time, we would probably consider the painted picture the highest evolutionary form any household object achieved in this process of accumulation.

The evolution of more mundane objects, however, was also complex. Pottery is a notable example. In the age of Dante and Giotto, at the beginning of the fourteenth century, wealthy Florentines, like everyone else in Europe who could afford it, ate off pewter and perhaps on grander occasions used silver display pieces; and any pottery they had around was of the simplest kind.

73

By the sixteenth century, two hundred years later, maiolica, or tin-glazed earthenware, had become one of the glories of Italian Renaissance craftsmanship: it was produced in a great number of centers all over Italy, each with its own characteristic production and all turning out products with a technical and artistic proficiency that has probably never been excelled since.

Moreover, Italians not only changed the kind of tableware they used, they needed a lot more of it to get through a meal. While other Europeans used few utensils at table and even ate off common plates "in the German manner" (as one writer put it), the Italians built up complete services of dishes in the modern sense, so that each diner had his own place-setting, with many dishes for specific uses; and dishes were changed frequently during a meal.

Today anyone who wants to buy a set of dishes is prepared for the vast array of items that constitute the complete place setting - serving plates, dinner plates, luncheon plates, bread-and-butter plates, salad plates, dessert plates; coffee cups, demitasse cups, chocolate cups, tea cups, mugs; and so on. One American manufacturer of wine glasses recently advertised ten distinct shapes - for Burgundy, Bordeaux, Chianti, pinot noir, riesling, chardonnay, sherry and three for different kinds of champagne! The Italians did not reach this degree of specialization, but it was in the Renaissance that the long and seemingly interminable process of proliferation of different kinds of tableware and other household forms began.

Along with this evolutionary process of the proliferation of objects, the other corollary to the accumulation of furniture and furnishings is the filling-up of interior space, and the specialization of room function - which is to say the spatial reorganization of domestic life. Throughout his life

in the second half of the fifteenth century Filippo Strozzi, one of the wealthiest merchant-bankers in Florence, bought only a few expensive pieces of furniture, described in a division among his sons as simply beds, chests, tables, and benches, the most expensive items being a selection of what are described as "beautiful wood furnishings from the chamber of Filippo"; and when his widow moved into his great palace, on its completion over a decade after Filippo's death, she did not have much furniture to take with her and she must have lived in only a few rooms in this vast house, the largest built to date in Florence. A century after this palace was begun, the family still occupied principally only one floor, the piano nobile, which was, however, now fully furnished with many kinds of things that had not existed at the time the building was put up. The next inventc,ry just a few years later, in 1611, shows how the living space, in addition to being filled up with furnishings, also was more functionally specialized.

The principal bedroom was described as an alcove and attached were a series of small service rooms, the entire ensemble being organized exclusively for sleeping and dressing, a far cry from the multifunctional chamber of the RePaissance.

Subsequently, other rooms take shape with specific functions for reception, for visitors, for games, for art works, for eating and sleeping, and - to our good fortune! - for the family archives. By the later seventeenth-century the house was quite a different place from the home Filippo had projected at the end of the fifteenth century: it was furnished and decorated with all kinds of goods that had not existed two centuries earlier, and these furnishings defined the functions of space more precisely.

The evolution of the Italian world of goods marked something new in the spending habits of the rich. Northern travelers to

74

Italy were struck by the distinctive world of goods they found there. In Venice Fynes Moryson commented on how much was spent on houses and furniture rather than on "diet and apparel"; and in general he was much impressed by the Italian passion for buildings, furnishings, and ornamental gardens: "for," he says, "they bestow their money in stable things, to serve their posteritie, where as [he adds, referring to the va lue the English put on feasting] our greatest expenses end in the casting out of excrements."

The argument here is that the cultural identity we attribute to Renaissance man resulted from the creative force generated by these new consumption habits. In inventing all kinds of new furnishings from pottery to paintings, in elaborating their forms, in refining their production, and in organizing them into new spatial arrangements within their homes, Italians discovered new values and pleasures for themselves, reordered their lives with new standards of comportment, communicated something about themselves to others - in short, generated culture, and in the process created identities for themselves. The key concept here is process. In this cultural development there was a dynamic for change that resulted from the interaction between man and physical objects.

This process, or dynamic, is most evident in the history of the painted picture, probably the highest form of any of the household objects that evolved in the Renaissance, as it came to be charged with a very particular and highly articulated cultural meaning in refining men's aesthetic sensibilities. Other objects were the occasion for refining one's mode of comportment.

The proliferation of dinnerware already referred to brought with it a profound change in the way Italians conducted themselves at table. Italians sought to impose rules on the use of all these things in the

organization of a meal, including the order of courses and the setting of the table; just as they rationalized the more studied consideration they gave to the preparation of food by relating it to the social virtues of elegance and good taste. And to those who have a healthy skepticism about reading ritual into normal quotidian behavior, suffice it to say that all these concerns about dining surfaced in the form of treatises and manuals Italians wrote on the entire range of subjects related to the activity of eating, from gourmet cooking to the folding of napkins at table.

This culture, in short, derived from material goods in an ongoing interactive process of consumption. It is in this sense that we can talk about a Renaissance culture of consumption, or, even, about an incipient consumerism; for in the final analysis, this culture was a rationalization for the very possession of goods in the sense of an objectification of self in possessions. The more intimate relation with objects sharpened one's appreciation of them for craftsmanship apart from the inherent value of materials and generated a self-conscious refinement of a sense of taste. Moreover, Italians pushed taste well beyond the confines of traditional material culture to generate demand for all kinds of new objects that simply had not existed earlier, from secular pictures complete with picture frames on the walls inside the home to glazed pottery on the dining room table and many of these things were thereby elevated to the status of art for the first time.

The Renaissance, after all, represents much more than just a change in style: it marked the very discovery of art and the imperial expansion of the realm of art throughout the world of goods.

Splendor is one word Italians repeatedly used in rationalizing the feeling of possessiveness, the sense of attachment to physical objects, by transforming them into 75

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76

The Sensitive Corpse: Body and Self in Renaissance Medicine Katharine Park Wellesley College, Wellesley

This paper addresses the following question: To what extent did the inhabitants of Renaissance Italy consider the human body an integral part of the human self? In order to clarify the issues, I will be dealing principally with the dead body, since this raises the problem in its starkest form: if the body is in fact integral to the person, then the corpse should retain some of the properties of self even when abandoned by the soul or spirit, to speak in terms of contemporary Christian doctrine. Was this in fact the case in the minds of Renaissance Italians? I will approach this broad question through a specific puzzle - one that first struck me last year when I was preparing an article on the early history of anatomical dissection.

M y puzzle has to do with the contrast between Italian and northern European attitudes toward the opening and dismemberment of the corpse in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Nowhere in Europe were these procedures taboo: as we will see, there is no truth to the myth that the spread of human dissection in the Renaissance involved a rejection of medieval Christian attitudes about the integrity of the body.1 But the procedures of opening and dismemberment themselves served entirely different social purposes, depending on geographical location, and, as I will also argue, they reflected profoundly different attitudes concerning the body and its relationship to self.

Let me begin with what I will call "northern Europe:' 2 There, opening the corpse had been a widespread part of princely and aristocratic funerary practice since at least the twelfth century. The dead body was regularly eviscerated and embalmed in order to preserve it for a state funeral, or it might under certain circumstances be dismembered. The latter technique - dismemberment, or the "division of the corpse," as it is often called - was used either to

transport the body long distances for burial (some of the earliest cases involved crusaders who had died in the Holy Land but wished to be laid to rest in ancestral territories), or to bury it in pieces in several different consecrated places (this permitted the dead person to benefit from the physica l proximity of severa l different sets of relics and the prayers of several different religious groups).3 The death of King Henry I of England in 1135 offers a vivid example of the division of the corpse. Although Henry died on the Continent, in Rouen, he wished to be buried at Reading. Accordingly, he was decapitated and his brain, eyes, and viscera were extracted and buried in Rouen or divided between Rouen and Caen, according to one account. The rest of his body was cut into pieces, heavily salted, and packed in an oxhide against the smell, which, in the words of a contemporary chronicler, "already infinitely affected those nearby." Despite these precautions, the long trip to Reading was a nightmare; Henry's attendants had continually to drain off what the chronicler called the " black and horrible fluid " seeping through his leathery shroud ~ Largely to avoid such unpleasantness, northern notables increasingly asked to have their bodies dismembered and boiled in water or wine; in this way, their flesh and entrails could be buried locally and their bones neatly transported to their resting places of choice?

As far as I can tell, this practice was never adopted by Italians, who referred to it explicitly as the "German custom" (mos teutonicus) 6 and who preferred to be buried quickly and whole, even if it meant resting (at least temporarily) far from home. The contrast appears vividly in the wills of Italian and northern cardinals from the decades around 1300. As a recent study has shown, the northerners asked to be dismembered, boiled, and

77

their bones repatriated, in the event that they passed away on foreign soil. The Italian cardinals, on the other hand, although they expressed a preference for burial in their place of origin, were content to settle for a local funeral if that would involve more than a short trip. (The maximum distance they were willing to be transported was typically about thirty miles, which would presumably require neither embalming nor dismemberment.7) In 1299, Pope Boniface VIlI gave dramatic expression to the general Italian distaste for northern funerary practices in a decree prohibiting the division of the corpse - a prohibition that, despite its vehemence, seems to have had relatively little effect.8

body, and the terms used by contemporaries to describe them (anatomia, dissecare) were often the same. How can we explain the geographical specificity of these customs? Why was there such apparent resistance to the division of the corpse in Italy and to human dissection in northern Europe? Clearly the answer to these questions cannot lie in the special commitment of one or the other culture to the integrity of the corpse, as is commonly claimed. Nor, for obvious reasons, can we invoke the effects of Pope Boniface's prohibition, which northerners chose to apply to dissection and Italians (as it was intended) to division. Instead, I want to hypothesize that this difference reflected a whole complex of contrasting attitudes toward th recently dead body that divided northern from Mediterranean Europe in the late Middle Ages and Renaissance.

This is nor to say, however, that Italians had a special investment in the integrity of the corpse. Beginning in the late thirteenth century Italians too began to open and dismember the dead body, but in an entirely different context: as part of the reform of medical theory and organization centered on Bologna, doctors began to perform human autopsies and dissections in the contexts of anatomical instruction, forensic medicine, and public health? The practice of dissection spread rapidly among the cities of northern and central Italy over the course of the fourteenth century, where it was taken up enthusiastically not only by medical faculties but also by municipal colleges of physicians and surgeons.

This was not the case north of the Alps, however. With the possible exception of the University of Montpellier, in southern France, there is little or no evidence of autopsy or dissection in France, Germany, or England before the late fifteenth century.

In the north, people seem generally to have accepted the idea that the intact, flesh-andblood body was integral to the self. As a result, physical death did not for them involve a radical cessation of being. It appeared rather as an extended process, corresponding to the slow decomposition of the corpse and its reduction to the skeleton and hard tissues - a process generally thought to last about a year. During this time the decaying body was treated as active or sensitive, possessed of a gradually fading life.' 0 It is important to emphasize that the selfhood of the corpse during this lirninal period did not depend at all on its remaining intact; as in the case of saintly relics, its personal identity and properties could inl1ere in its scattered parts as easily as in the whole.' '

My puzzle, then, is the following. The northern European funerary practice of division resembles in important respects the Italian medical practice of dissection.

Each set of procedures involved the evisceration and dismemberment of the dead

We find ample evidence of these ideas in various northern beliefs and practices.

They were reflected in the conviction, for example, that the hair and nails continued to grow for some time after death, as well as in the existence of religious shrines that 78

pecialized in the temporary revival of stillborn infants. 12 They appeared in literary accounts of corp e which sat up briefly on their biers or deathbeds to deliver themselves of accu ation or surpri ing prophecie . They survived well into the early modern period in the form of belief in "revenant " or vampire - recently buried corpse who refused to lie pas ively in their grave , but who cried out, turned over, gnawed on their own limbs, and occasionally rose from their tombs to torment those they had left behind.13 They found lega l expression in the Germanic principle of "bier-right"; premised on the belief that the body of a murder victim would begin to bleed in the presence of the murderer, this was used to solve homicides, in the ab ence of other proof, by allowing the dead per on to identify the murderer through a posthumous version of our police lineup.' 4 And they certainly account for the characteri tically northern European interest in drugs made from the fat or flesh of the dead, which still presumably retained a measure of vitality and healing power.' 5 It is important to emphasize that this belief in the continued life of the corpse - which in many respects fit uneasily with the Christian theological tradition - marked all levels of society. Not confined to popular or folkloric stories and practices, it was analyzed, debated, and defended, with copious erudite references, by learned northern writers on theology, medicine, and law.16 Such attitudes and practices had relatively little currency in Italy, where medical writers were considerably more sceptical concerning the healing powers of human body-parts, and bleeding corpses played little or no part in contemporary law. Bierright had no probative force for Italian judges; 7 and when the dead wandered, according to popular belief, they did so in the spirit rather than in the decaying flesh.' 8 In other words, Italians at every

level of society seem to have identified the person or self less with the body than with the spirit - the soul, in hristian theological term , or some generally immaterial entity that temporarily animated and inhabited the body but that left it for good at the moment of death.

In this Italian mental univer e, death correponded not to the gradual decomposition of the corpse but to the instant of separation of body and soul. In that in tant, the corpse became insensitive and inanimate, a not-self. This is not to say that it lost all importance but merely that it suddenly changed its tatu from ubject to object. o longer a per on, it became a memento that recalled or represented the person by virtue of long and intimate association. It functioned in this ense rather like the death masks and portraits of decea ed relatives that began to acquire currency in fifteenth-century Italy.' 9 In sum, although both Italians and northern Europeans prayed and offered masses for the souls of the dead, they differed on the role played by the body in the cult of the dead. While Italians treated it as an object of memory, centering therefore on the appearance of the intact or living person, northerners focused on the gradually fading personhood and vitality of the corpse itself, a expressed in the process of physical decay.20

If I am right about this difference between northern and Italian attitudes toward the recently dead body, it sheds some light on a number of discrepancies that historians have already identified - but never fully related - between northern and Italian cultural practices relating to the corpse. One of these is the relatively small place given to graphic representations of decomposing bodies in Italian funerary monuments, as compared to, for example, northern transis tombs,2 1 and the relative passivity of corpses in Italian iconography from this 79

period, compared to northern images of, say, the Dance of Death~2 Another index of these differences is the fact that northern Europeans moved much earlier than Italians to enclose the recently dead body.

Throughout the fo urteenth and fifteenth centur ies, Italian funera ls continued openly to display the corpse of the deceased, lying on a bier with its face exposed. In the north, on the other hand, they sewed it into a shroud, covering its face, and (increasingly) shut it in a wooden coffin both during the funera l procession and in the grave - practices that suggest a belief in a sensitive and potentially active corpse that must be both protected and contained ~3 At this point, I would like to return to the puzzle with which I began and to propose that these contrasts help us to w1derstand the different meanings of opening and dismembering the corpse in Italy as opposed to northern Europe. In the northern context the continuing identification of the person with the decomposing body would explain the relative prominence of embalming in northern funerary ritual, as an attempt to prolong a continuing presence and fading life. Furthermore, beca use the northern corpse was a magical and semianin1ate subject, still strongly identified with the self, its place of burial was of prime importance; in an age of primitive embalming techniques, to accede to the wishes of the deceased in this regard might well require division of the corpse. On the other hand, to open or dismember the body for doctors to inspect - an act of no conceiva ble utility to the deceased, now beyond all medical aid - was an act of obj ectification and a violation of personal honor.

The logic in Italy, I would argue, was reversed. Because the corpse was only a corpse, the cast-off of a self now definitely elsewhere, it made no sense to engage in laborious and unsavory efforts to preserve

it for distant burial. The person was no longer in the body, so that the significance of the particular place of buria l was less magica l - as long as it took place in consecrated soil - than commemorative and metaphorical: a symbol of religious allegiance, family solidarity, or social rank.

These purposes could be served just as well by wa iting a year for the corpse to decompose naturally before exhuming and reburying it in the family chapel or the church of choice.

The same assumptions governed the medica l practice of opening the body in Italy: a procedure related not to a gradually fa ding subject, but to an inanin1ate and self-less object now left behind , it served the interests of the living rather than the dead. This was the case not only for pu blic anatomical dissections, but also for a far more common practice in fifteenth-century Italy: private autopsies performed at the family's request in order to determine ca use of death. The motives behind such autopsies were various. Sometimes famil y members wished simply to reassure themselves that tl1ey could have done nothing further to h,elp their loved one or, conversely, to show that the doctors had bungled the case~â&#x20AC;˘ More commonly, parents wanted to protect their children from hereditary disease - hence the relative frequency of post-mortems of mothers and siblings.

Examples fro m fifteenth-century Florence include the young son of a local judge, autopsied "for the sake of the other children," as the presiding doctor put it 25 ; and Bartolomea Rinieri, opened in 1486 at her own request, "so that our daughter or others could be treated," in the words of her husband, should they come down with some version of her own uterine disorder ~ 6 In fact, one of the clearest signs of the Italian distinction between corpse and self appears in contemporary descriptions of the autopsies of patrician women. Italian

80

physicians inform us that male doctors rarely touched their female patients or examined them physically, especially in the genital area; for reasons having to do with ideas of female modesty and male honor, such examinations were usually carried out under the doctor's supervision by midwives or other woman practitioners. 27 Immediately after death, however, male doctors regularly performed postmortems - often in the presence of unrelated spectators - in which they felt free not merely to touch, but even to open and inspect their female patients' genitals and wombs, as in the case of Bartolomea Rinieri, whom I have already mentioned, or of Fiametta, the wife of Filippo di Matteo Strozzi, who died of complications of childbirth in 1478.

Fiametta's husband noted in his ricordanza: "I had her body opened. It was seen

by Maestro Lodovico [a prominent local doctor], among others, and he told me afterward that he had found her uterus full of putrefied blood and that this led to her death." 28 An even more extreme example of this unwillingness to apply traditional standards of feminine modesty to the female corpse appears in an anonymous account of the autopsy of the Blessed Margherita of Citta di Castello, who died in 1320.

Although she had led a life renowned for its fanatical chastity and its avoidance of all physical contact with men, her naked body was opened by two male surgeons before an attentive audience that included several laymen, and (as her anonymous biographer put it) "a multitude of friars."

Needless to say, all were gratified when the doctors found that her heart contained three stones, each bearing the image of a member of the Holy Family.29 Anatomical dissection appeared in late thirteenth-century Italy at almost exactly the same time as autopsy and was closely associated with it.30 Nonetheless, the social

purposes and circumstances of these two medical practices differed greatly. As we have already seen, the privately initiated autopsy served family interests and was performed in a domestic context.31 The fourteenth- or fifteenth-century anatomical demonstration, on the other hand, typically took place before an enthusiastic public of medical students, physicians, surgeons, and increasingly, visiting dignitaries and interested local notables.32 Even more to the point, dissection served the purposes only of doctors or their students; unlike autopsy, it involved no conceivable benefit to the family of the dissectee, while imposing on them significant social costs.

The special problem raised by dissection in Italy was in fact concern for the honor and feelings of the relatives and associates of the deceased, rather than for the deceased him- or herself, as we see in northern Europe. Not only was public dismemberment the dramatic penalty for particularly loathsome crimes, an association that would tarnish any family's reputation, but dissection -which, unlike autopsy, involved the complete disaggregation of the body - required significant alterations in the important family rituals of wake and funeral procession, both of which were centered in Italy, as I have already mentioned, on the semi-exposed object of the corpse:3 3 It is for this reason that municipal and ecclesiastical authorities protected the honor of respectable citizen families by requiring doctors to obtain their cadavers from two groups without local associations: foreign criminals and, increasingly, familyless patients from local hospitals. As the anatomist Alessandro Benedetti wrote in 1497, "By law only unknown and ignoble bodies can be sought for dissection, from distant regions without injury to neighbors and relatives!' 34 But these restrictions do not reflect a conviction that opening the body necessarily

81

involved an attack on personal indentity and a violation of the self, as is often claimed.35 The currency of autopsy among Italian patricians is sufficient proof. For the same reasons, we do not find in Italy the widespread popular resistance to dissection that has been documented in northern European countries such as England; there it culminated in the Tyburn riots of the mid-eighteenth century, in which Londoners protested violently at the gallows to deny surgeons access to the bodies of the hanged.36 It seems to me that this difference can be referred again to the difference I have postulated between northern and Italian attitudes toward the corpse. For northern Europeans, imbued with a sense of the selfhood of the recently dead body, dissection did indeed represent a personal violation and was understandably seen as punitive - a perception exacerbated not only by class antagonism but also by the fact that the surgeons' agents often tore bodies from their families' arms.

In Italy, by contrast, the whole issue bore considerably less charge. Italians accepted the dissection of hanged criminals and other foreigners with general equanimity, although they naturally objected when medical students, eager for cadavers, disrupted local funerals by snatching corpses from their tombs or biers.37 By the same token, Italian judges, unlike English ones, never used dissection - and rarely used posthumous dismemberment - as a way of aggravating the death penalty itself: because the dead body was no longer identified with the person, it made no sense to exact further revenge from an inanimate corpse~ 8

As you have no doubt gathered, my thesis about the Italian denial of selfhood and sensitivity to the corpse is speculative, and I have been able here to provide only a schematic account of a very complex and nuanced problem. I would like to finish by complicating my argument, in order to

give you at least a sense of the many interesting questions raised by this approach.

In particular, I would like to suggest that Italians did not think of all corpses in the same way, and that they identified certain categories of people more closely with their bodies than others. The most obvious examples are the Christian saints, whose bodies and selves continued to be closely linked even after death. On the model of Christ's own corpse, their relics remained miraculously active, in Italy as in the north; loci of sensitivity and of healing power, they bled, sweated oil, refused to be moved, or otherwise reflected the saints' spiritual power and desires. The principal index of this continuity between the living and the dead saint was the fact that his or her body typically refused to decay; fragrant and incorruptible - as Italian doctors were sometimes called to witness - it attested to the continuing presence of the holy self.39 Another group of people associated particularly closely with their bodies, living and dead, was women. This group overlapped and reinforced the former; thus saintly women, even more than men, somatized their spirituality. In life they suffered stigmata, catatonic seizures, and levitations, and in death they provided a disproportionate number of incorruptible cadavers and wonder-working relics.40 But the specia l identification between body and self applies to Italian laywomen as well. Not only do women appear exclusively as wives and mothers in prescriptive works such as Alberti's Books on the Family or Paolo da Certaldo's Book of Good Customs, but these books strongly emphasize the physical qualities of beauty, health, and fertility required to fill those roles satisfactorily. Alberti wrote of males as having bodies: he treated their physical attributes only as physiognomic clues to their moral character and emphasized their duty to tame and discipline the bodies they would soon leave behind ~ ' But he wrote of women 82

as their bodies, their principal social function of childbearing inescapably physical in nature. Paolo da Certaldo was even more specific, emphasizing the central role of women in the congenital transmission of disease: "Also," he warned, "take great care that the wife you take is not born from sickly stock, afflicted with consumption or scrofula or madness or ringworm or gout, because it often happens that some or all of the children she bears will suffer from some of these vices and defects:' 42 It is doubtless for these reasons that we find a preponderance of female private autopsies in fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Italy, as should be clear from the examples I have cited above~3 The sanctity of female saints was far more likely than that of men to be imprinted on their bodies, requiring the testimony of medical experts, as in the case of Margherita da Citta di Castello, opened in front of all of those Dominicans. 44 Ordinary women, such as Bartolomea Rinieri and Fiametta, enjoyed a more ambiguous posthumous physical survival in the disabilities and diseases they were thought to have transmitted to their children - diseases that the information gained from an autopsy might eventually help to cure.

I would like to conclude with a few reflections on the issue of historical periodization. There is nothing particularly "Renaissance" about the attitudes toward the body that I have posited in this paper.

The contrast between the northern European and Italian visions - between the corpse as subject and the corpse as object - is visible well before 1300 and persists well beyond the sixteenth century. It clearly belongs to the slowly changing realm of "mentality" that provides the deep foundation for shorter-term artistic or literary movements and achievements, and it is a salutary reminder of the power and importance of such submerged cultural

forces. Nonetheless, it has particular relevance for the Renaissance period, which was also of course the age of the Black Death. Beginning in 1348, a series of terrible epidemics racked Europe, devastating the population and lending enormous urgency to the physical fate of the body, which became the stage on which Italians played out a whole host of religious, moral, and social dramas, as Alberto Tenenti has shown~ 5 It may seem a little morbid to conclude a symposium on Italian Renaissance culture with a series of reflections on the grim reaper - rather like an inverted D ecameron, with the fun and games at the beginning and the bitter pill at the end. But it also reminds us that as historians we need from time to time to survey this period through what Savonarola felicitously called the "eyeglasses of death:' 46

1 See Katharine Park, "The Criminal and the Saintly Body: Autopsy and Dissection in Renaissance Italy,'' forthcoming in The R enaissance Quarterly.

2 The secondary sources do not yet exist that would permit a more precise definition of the cultural geography involved. My own impression is that one finds in southern France attitudes that resemble, at least in part, some of the Italian attitudes - note, for example, the relatively early presence of autopsy and dissection at Avignon and the University of Montpellier suggesting that it is, at the least, a transitional zone. I have not taken up the important and even more complicated issue of how areas with an Islamic heritage (Spain, northern Africa) might fit into this interpretation.

3 See Dietrich Schafer, "Mittelalterlicher Brauch bei der Dberfuhrung von Leichen,'' Sitzungsberichte der preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften (Berlin, 1920), pp. 478498; Paul Diepgen, "Uber Leicheneinbalsamierung im Mittelalter," Janus 26 (1922), pp.

91-94; Pierre Duparc, "Dilaceratio corportis," Bulletin de la Societe nationale des antiquaires

83

de France (19 1), pp. 360-372; R. . Finucane, " acred rp e, Profane am n: ocial Idea l and Death Rinial 111 the Later ~!iddle g ," in 11rrors of lortaltty: tud1es 111 the ooal HistOI')' of Death, Joachim \ hale), ed. ( ew York, 1982), h. 2; la111 Erlande-Brandenburg, Le rots est mart: elude sur /es f1111era1/les, /es sepultures et /es to111beaux des rots de I-ranee 111sq11 ·a la fin du ' llle siecle (Pan , I rS), h. 2.

4 Hen!) of Hunnngron, H1stonae A11glor11111, 1ted tn chafer, p. 49 'i; other ontemporal) account n pp. 495-496.

Thi pracnce, adopted b} ennan rO} alt) and nob1hC) beg111n111g in the late remh ennil), began to pread 111 ranee m the e ond half of the thmeemh centul): FIJnde-Brandenburg, p. 'O.

6 E.g. Ric ardo da an ermano, cited 111 hafer, p. 4 , and Buon ompagno da Firenze, c1red 111 h.Jfcr, p. 493.

tra refano Tempier e v1 enna: lntorno a un aggio d1 Elizabeth Br wn," tud1111ed1evali 28 ( J98 7 ), pp. laroline alker Bynum, "~ t a renal ont1nu1C), Per onal ur iva l and the Re urre non of rhe B d)': A h la ti Di cu ion 111 1t !ed1e,·a l and !odern nrex ,'' 111 her Fragme11tat1011 and Rede111pt1011: says 011 ender and the /-fuman Body 111 Med1eual Reltg1011 ( cw York, 199 I ), pp. 260-269; and Para\'1c1rn Baghan1.

9 ee Park, "The nm111al and the ai ntl)' Bod}"; 1 anC) . 1ra1 1, Taddeo Alderott1 and His P11ptls: Ttl'O Ge11erat1011s of ltalta11 Medical I eam111g (Princeton, l 8 J ), e p. pp. I 11 -112 and 2 -2 8; \ a lter Artelr, " 1e alre ren achn hren uber die ekn n men hh her l.e1chen 1m mmelalrerhchen benland," Abha11d/1111ge11 ::.11r esduchte der 1ed1z111 1111d der atum•1sse11schaften, H. 34 ( I 40 ); and (for general background) Janey . 1ra1 1, .Alediel'Lll 111d f 1rlv Re11a1ss 111ce 1ed1c111e: A11 lutroduc/1011 to K1;owledge and Practice ( h1cago, 1990), h. 4.

go r1110Para'1c1111 Baghan1, ·· rona de Ila c1enza e tona della mentahta: Ruggero Bae ne, B 111fa io \Till e la tcona della 'prolongano \ltae, "' 111 Aspett1 de/la letterat11ra lat111d 11el secolo I II: Att1 def pr11110 co1weg110 111ter11avon<7/e d1 stud1 del/'Assooa::.1011e per ti Med1oe1·0 e /' 111a11es1mo lat1111, laud10 l eonard1 and i0\-an111 rland1, eds. (Perugia, 19 6), pp. 244-250; ~ome Ita lian ard111ab asked for their kelerons to be rran ported ro a cho en place of bunal after the natural proce of decompo 1t1011 had taken 1t cour e. am uel K. ohn empha 11e the relame lack of arrennon given to the dead bod) 111 1ene e will from the penod, 111 h1 Death and Property 111 1ena, 1205- 1800: trateg1es for the Afterlife (Balnmore, 1988), e p. pp. 60-6 1, I 14. n Italian funerar) ritual, ee in genera l haron There e trocchia, "Buna l 111 Rena1 an e Florence, 1 0- l 00," Ph.D. d1 ., nl\ er ity f ahfomia at Berkeley, 198 1, e p. ch . I and .

n rhe per on ho d of relic , ee Patrick j. ea ry, Furta acra: Thefis of Relics in the entral Middle Ages, 2nd ed. (Pnnceron, 1990), ch . 1-2, e p. p. 34. r a eventeenthcenniry erman anecdote reinforcing thi point, ec Arie , pp. 356- 7.

8 Bo111fa e Vlll, Detesta11de fental1s, 111 Les reg1stres de Bo111face VII I, George Diga rd et al., ed ., 3 vol . (Pari , 1904-12), vo l. 2, coll.

576-577 (#3409). n the background to thi bull, ee Elizabeth A. R. Brown, " Death and the Human Body in the Later Middle Ages: The Legi lation of Boniface vm Oil the Divi ion of the Corp e," Viator 12 ( 198 1), pp. 22 1-270; Francesco Santi, " II cada vre e Bonifacio Vlll,

12 Pierrette Para\!)', "Angoi e collective er mira le au seui l de la mort: r ' urrection et bapteme d'enfanr morr-ne en Dauphine au XVe iecle," in La m art au Mayen Age: Actes du colloque des historiens n1edieuistes frtmfais, trasbourg, 1975 ( olmar, 1977), pp. 87-102; Jacque eli , "De lam rt a la vie: le · ancniaire a repit,' " Ethnologie franfaise, n.. 11 ( I 98 1), pp. 2 l1 -224.

I0 For an :J. count of the e idea , ee B)rnum, "i\ l:J.tenal onnnu1C)," p. 26 , a well a her "B <lil} ,\ li ra le and rhe Re urrecnon of the B di 111 rhe High i\liddle ge ," 1n Thoma K elman, ed., Beltef m f-f1stol')': 11111ouatJL1e Approaches to F-t1ropean and A111enca11 Re!tg1011 ( otre Dame, I 99 J), e p. pp. 74--5; and Philippe ne , The Hour of ur Death, tran . Helen eaver ( e\ York, J l ), pp.

H 5-361. Both h1 tonan focus on northern ource , and neither h1 r nan rake up the i ue of the geographical pecifi it)• f the e belief . lI

84

13 See Paul Barber, Vampires, Burial, and Death: Folklore and Reality (New H aven, 1988) .

14 H enry C. Lea, Superstition and Force: Essays on the W ager of Law, the Wager of Battle, the O rdeal, Torture (Philadelphia, 1878), pp. 315-321. I have not been able to consult Henri Platelle, " La voix du sang: le cadavre qui saigne en presence de son meurtrier,'' in La piete populaire au M ayen Age, Actes du 99e Congres national des societes savantes, B esan ~on, 1974 (Paris, 1977) , pp. 161-179.

15 Elfriede Grabner, "Der M ensch als Arznei: Alpenlandische Belege zu einem Kammer Schauermarlein," in Festgabe fur Oskar M oser: Beitriige zur Volkskunde Kiirntens, (Klagenfurt, 1974 ), pp. 81-95; Alfred Wiedemann, "Mumie als Heilmittel," Zeitschrift des Vereins fur rheinische und westfalische Volkskunde 3 (1906), pp. 1-38. The special preference for body-parts of executed crimina ls apparently relates to the belief that the bodies of people killed suddenly in the prime of life retained th e most vitality and efficacity.

16 See, for examp le, Aries's discussion (pp.

354-359) of Christian Friedrich Garmann's D e miraculis m ortuorum (Dresden and Leipzig, 1709 ), and the legal references in Lea, pp. 321 322. These issues m ay also lie behind the characteristically northern theological debates that preceded Boniface's decree; details in the references in note 8.

17 See, for example, Ippolito dei Marsigli's uncertain early sixteenth-century reference to bier-right in his Practica criminalis, cited in Peter Binsfeld, Tractatus de confessione maleficorum et sagarum (Cologne, 1623), pp. 111112. The northerner Binsfeld attributes Marsigli's confusion concerning the practice to his ignorance of the " doctores" or (northern ) legal experts.

18 See Gabriella Z arri, "Purga torio 'particolare' e ritorno dei morti tra riforma e controriforma: !'area italiana," Quaderni storici 50 (1982), pp. 466-497.

19 Eric M ad agan, "The Use of Death-Masks

by Florentine Sculptors," The Burlington Magazine 43 (1923), pp. 303-304; F. W. Kent, H ousehold and Lineage in Renaissance

Florence (Princeton, 1977), pp. 99-112, esp. p. 10. See Giorgio Vasari, Life of Verrocchio, in Le vite de' piit eccellenti pittori, scultori ed architettori, ed. Gaetano Milanese, 9 vo ls.

(Florence, 1878-85), vol. 3, p. 373, for a probably exaggerated acco unt of the contemporary penchant for death masks as items of household decoration.

20 I should state clearly that such questions were largely separa ted from theological issues concerning the immortality of the soul an d the ultimate resurrection of the body at the Last Judgment. Although these topics exercised natural philosophers and theologians, they seem to have been relatively w1problematic for most laymen and laywomen. Furthermore, the resurrection of the body, relegated to the Last Judgment and the end of time, was only tenuously related to the problem of the continuing sensitivity or personal identity of the recently dead and decomposing corpse, which was a phenomenon lasting only a few months. On bodi ly resurrection see Bynuni, "Material Continuity," and the literature cited therein.

21 Erwin Panofsky, T omb Sculpture: Four Lectures on Its Changing Aspects from Ancient Egypt to Bernini, ed . H . W. Janson (New York, 1964), pp. 56, 63-66, 78-79. Pietro Camporesi offers some profound and suggestive reflections on the significance of decay and decomposition in early modern culture, although I think he blurs many important historical distinctions; see his The Incorruptible Flesh: Bodily Mutation and Mortification in Religion and Folklore, trans. Tania Croft-Murray and H elen Elsom (Cambridge, 1988).

22 See the discussions of Italian representations of the legend of the meeting of the three living and the three dead, in Millard Meiss, Francesco Traini, ed . H ayden B. J. Maginnis (Washington, D.C., 1983), pp. 40-43, esp. n.

134; and Chiara Frugoni, "La protesta affidata," Quaderni storici 50 (1982), pp. 426-438, esp. p. 428. Also Alberto Tenenti, II senso della morte e l'amore della vita nel Rinascimento (Francia e Italia) (Turin, 1957), esp. ch. 5 ("La sensibilira macabra").

23 Aries, pp. 168-172; I see these practices not as a "denial of physical death," in Aries's interpretation (p. 172), but as the reflection of a

85

particular attitude toward physical death.

24 For a case of this sort, see Antonio Benivieni, De abditis nonnullis ac mirandis morborum et sanitationum causis, in L'inizio dell'anatomia patologica nel Quattrocento fiorentino, sui testi di Antonio Benivieni, Bernardo Torni, Leonardo da Vinci, ed . A. Costa and G. Weber (Florence, 1952), p. 636: "potius ut inscitiam medicorum detergerent quam morbi naturam cognoscerent. " 25 Bernardo Tomi, "A Fifteenth-Century Autopsy," trans. Lynn Thorndike, in Edward Grant, ed., A Source Book in Medieval Science (Cambridge, MA, 1974), p. 740.

26 Archi vio di Stato, Florence: Conventi soppressi-95, 212, fo l. 171r, transcribed in Katharine Park, Doctors and Medicine in Early Renaissance Florence (Princeton, 1985), pp. 53-54.

27 Helen R. Lemay, "Anthonius Guaineri us and Medieval Gynecology," in Julius Kirshner and Suzanne Wemple, eds., Women of the Medieval World (New York, 1985), pp. 323-324.

28 Archivio di Stato, Florence: Carte strozziane, ser. 5, 22, fol. 97r: "El dl sulle 21 hora Ii chomincio una doglia grande intorno al quore. Girossi sul letuccio e di qui si fecie portare ne' letto, ramarichandosi sempre grandemente de! chuore.

E per molti ripari vi si facessino per donne e per medici nulla govo. Che circha a hora 23 finl.

Fecy aprire ii chorpo e infra Ii altri vi fu a vederll o Maestro Lodovico, e disse me poi aver trovato la mau路icie piena di sange putrafatto, e che q uesto la fecie per ire."

29 Vita Beatae Margaritae virginis de Civitate Castelli, sororis tertii ordinis de paenitentia Sancti Dominici, Analecta bollandiana, vol. 19 (Brussels, 1900), p. 27: "Et coram omnibus astantibus brachia super corpus in modum crucis reposuit cooperiens sexum humane fragilitations." On saintly postmortems, see Park, "The Criminal and the Saintly Body."

30 Details and references in Park, "The Crimina l and the Saintly Body."

31 Such privately initiated autopsies differed considerably both from one initiated by the state, for forensic or public health purposes, and from ones initiated by doctors to answer

their own questions concerning pathology - the latter a practice that began to establish itself only at the very end of the fifteenth century. On the varieties of autopsy in Renaissance Italy, see Park, "The Criminal and the Saintl y Body."

32 For the sake of brevity, I do not deal here with the growing practice of private dissection for medical and, increasingly, artistic research.

For these developments see C. D. O'Malley, Andreas Vesalius of Brussels, 151 4-1564 (Berkeley, 1964), ch. 1; Levi Robert Lind, Studies in Pre- Vesalian Anatomy: Biography, Translations, Documents (Philadelphia, 1975), pp. 3-19; Giovanna Ferrari, "Public Anatomy Lessons and the Carnival: The Anatomy Theater of Bologna," Past and Present, no. 117 (1987), pp. 50-106; and Bernard Schultz, Art and Anatomy in Renaissance Italy (Ann Arbor, 1985).

33 See Strocchia, "Burials in Renaissance Florence," as well as her " Death Rites and the Ritual Family in Renaissance Florence," in Life and Death in Fifteenth- Century Florence, Marcel Tete! et al., eds. (Durham, NC, 1989), pp. 120-145.

34 Alessandro Benedetti, Anatomice, sive historia corporis humani (Paris, 1514), fol. lOv; translated as The History of the Human Body (1497), in Lind, p. 83. See also G. Martinotti, "L'insegnamento dell'anatomia in Bologna prima del secolo XIX," Studi e memorie per la storia dell'universita di Bologna 2 (1911 ), p. 242.

35 Cf. Jonathan Sawday, "The Fate of Marsyas: Dissecting the Ren aissance Body," in Renaissance Bodies: The Human Figure in English Culture, c. 1540-1660, Lucy Gent and Nigel Llewellyn, eds. (London, 1990), pp. 112135; Glenn Harcourt, "Andreas Vesalius and the Anatomy of Antique Sculpture," Representations 17 (1986), pp. 28-61; Devon L. Hodges, Renaissance Fictions of Anatomy (Amherst, 1985), esp. pp. 3-5. Such interpretations generally involve projecting very different northern European (especially English) attitudes toward the corpse onto fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Italians.

36 Peter Linebaugh, "The Tyburn Riot against the Surgeons," in Albion's Fatal Tree: Crime and Society in Eighteenth-Century England

86

(London, 1975), pp. 65-117. See in genera l Ruth Richardson, D eath, Dissection and the Destitute (London, 1988), esp. chs. 1 and 4; Thomas Laqueur, " Bodies, Death, and Pauper Funerals," Representations 1 (1983), pp. 109131.

37 Examples in Lodovico Frati, La vita privata di Bologna dal secolo X III al X VII (Bologna, 1900), p. 11 8.

38 On dissection as posthun1ous punishment in England, see Richardson, p. 76; Linebaugh, p. 76. Italian pitture infamanti, as the term implies, represented a posthumous assa ult on the honor rather than the person of the criniinal; see Samuel Y. Edgerton, Jr., Pictures and Punishment: Art and Criminal Prosecution during the Florentine Renaissance (Ithaca, 1985).

39 Andre Vauchez, La saintete en Occident aux derniers siecles du M ayen Age d'apres Les proces de canonisation et Les documents hagiographiques (Rome, 198 1), pp. 499-529.

See also M arie-Christine Pouchelle, " Representations du corps clans la Legende Doree," Ethnologie fran~ise 6 (1976), esp. pp. 294296. For an early seventeenth-century postmortem to certify the state of conserva tion of a proposed saint, see Giulia Calvi, Histories of a Plague Year: Th e Social and the Imaginary in Baroque Florence, trans. Dario Biocca and Bryant T. Ragan, Jr. (Berkeley, 1989), ch. 6.

may reflect the fact that medical writers and researchers tended to be more interested in and sensitive to male health pro blems, except where childbea ring was concerned. The infrequency of public anatomica l dissections of women, on the other hand, reflects onl y the relatively small number of women executed for capital crimes.

44 For two more examples of postmortems of female candidates for sainthood, see Park, "The Criniinal and the Saintly Body," on Chiara of M ontefalco; and Calvi, ch. 6, on Domenica da Paradiso. I have not yet found any autopsies of male saints before that of Filippo Neri in 1595.

45 Tenenti, pp. 50-51.

46 Girolamo Savonarola, Predica dell'arte del ben morire (1496) in Prediche sopra Ruth e M ichea, Vincenzo Romano, ed., 2 vols. (Rome, 1962), esp. pp. 378-382; see Donald Weinstein, "The Art of Dying W ell and Popular Piety in the Preaching and Thought of Girolamo Savonarola," in Marcel Tete! et al., Life and D eath , pp. 88-104.

40 Bynum, "The Female Body and Religious Practice in the Later Middle Ages," in Zone: Fragments for a History of the Body, Michel Feher and Ramona Naddaff, eds. (New York, 1989), pp. 161-219; and in general her Holy Feast and Holy Fast: Th e Religious Significance of Food to M edieval Wom en (Berkeley, 1987).

41 Leon Battista Alberti, I libri delta famiglia, trans. Renee N eu Watkins as Th e Family in Renaissance Florence (Columbia, SC, 1969), pp. 60-64, 166-170.

42 Paolo da Certaldo, Libra di buoni costumi, Alfredo Schiaffini, ed. (Florence, 1945), p. 84.

43 This is the case with autopsies requested by families or surrogate families (e.g. religious orders). Those initiated by doctors with medical rather than familial interests do not show this strong bias toward women; rather, the bias was reversed, as in Benivieni's De abditis. This 87

88

The Isabella, Stewart Gardner Museum, Incorporated Sixty-sixth Annual Report for the Years Nineteen Hundred Ninety and Ninety One

Report of the President

This report covers the years of 1990 and 1991, the last year of M alcolm Perkins's fifteen-year tenure as President of the Board and the first of my own. His was a watershed era for the Museum; 1990 was no exception when major new initiatives were in the planning stage or fres hly launched. A successful proposal to the N ational Endowment for the Humanities brought the M useum its first major federal funding, a $411,000 matching grant for the firs t phase of climate control installation throughout the Musuem. The match was completed in December with the proceeds from the Museum's first major fundraising event, the gala Tiffa ny Ball and by Trustee giving.

Galvanized by major trustee participation, the M useum introduced programatic innovations, such as the symposium described in this report, the artists in residence, and an educational outreach program were planned and nurtured in 1991. The Eye of the Beholder lecture series, talks by gifted members of the arts and professional worlds relating the Gardner's collection to their respective fields, was inaugurated that fall.

The wrenching tragedy of the theft of thirteen paintings and objects from our permanent collection M arch 18, 1990, was unquestionably the single most devastating event in Museum history. H owever, the leadership Mac and Director Anne Hawley exhibited during the frenzied days that followed has not been properly recognized.

Stabilizing our operation and rega ining momentum after the ensuing onslaught of publicity was an extraordinary feat.

M ac Perkins's contagious enthusiasm for Fenway Court hasn't waned with his election as a trustee emeritus at the annual meeting in March 1991. Mac still maintains a lively interest in our institution and in the people who work here.

John L. Gardner, godson of our founder and Museum treasurer since 1962, was elected chairman of the board in March.

We are lucky to have his extraordinary commitment to this institution. At that same meeting Donald M elville and Judge Julian H ouston were elected to the board.

Unhappily, there is nothing new to report about the theft. The investigation grinds on and we are assured by the Federal Bureau of Investigation that the case is still on the top of their priority list. We hired a special investigator last year to augment their efforts. The board is determined to do everything possible to return the missing paintings and objects to their rightful places in the collection. We will not rest until this is accomplished.

The first phase of the climate control program is now fully installed at a cost of $1,000,000. It includes a new doublepaned skylight to screen damaging ultra vi90

The courtyard skylight during the first phase of the climate conrrol insta llation.

olet light. The building was also equipped with a computerized environmental monitoring system to record temperature and relative humidity.

Conversion of the fourth floor of Fenway Court from a director's residence to staff offices was also completed in 1991. It is the first significant addition to staff space in nearly sixty years. Great care was taken to retain the original tone of the rooms Mrs. Gardner designed and decorated.

Except for the addition of an occasional desk and computer, the space is essentially unchanged.

During the past year we were fortunate to receive two major grams from the Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund and the Bauman Foundation to provide staff support for our pilot educational outreach project. We hope that this new relationship with area educational institutions and the community will be a national model.

A sweeping five-year long-range plan produced by the staff and trustees is in its final stages of preparation. It will be invaluable in setting priorities for the years ahead. In 1991 a board of overseers was created and Lawrence Lasser was installed as head of it.

A memorial concert for Rollin Van N. Hadley, our former director who died in February 1992, was held in March of 1992. He served this museum with diligence and fervor throughout his tenure as director from 1970 to 1988.

No report would be complete without thanking Anne Hawley, her staff, and the Trustees for their steadfast help throughout the past two years. This remarkable institution could not exist without them.

Francis W Hatch

91

Report of the Director

I am asked frequently, "Do you expect to get the museum's stolen pictures and objects back?" - a painful yet hopeful question. Painful beca use the theft of these irreplaceable cultural treasures from the collection was like a death in the family.

H opeful because the Federal Bureau of lpvestigation and the Museum are concentrated on the recovery of these works and I do believe we will find them. By now it is an all too familiar story. During the night of March 18, 1990, thieves disguised as Boston Police officers entered the Museum and took thirteen objects (see list}. The theft, was, in part, a legacy of the 1980's spiraling art market that made art an overly priced commodity and triggered art theft on an international scale where it is the most prevalent and lucrative crime after drug trafficking. It also forced all museurns to become more security conscious and to allocate greater resources to secure their collections.

In the face of this loss, the Museum, its

trustees, staff, and supporters are more determined than ever to secure Fenway Court and its collections from both theft, the ravages of time, and insure its place in the culture for the generations to come.

Our first goal is to install a climate control system that will protect the collection from the ravages of climatic changes. Our second goal is to rekindle the energetic and eclectic intellectual and artistic life that flourished at the Museum during Isabella Stewart Gardner's life. Fenway Court was then an international center of ideas and artistic developments; it will be that again.

The 1990s promise challenging times for museums. While public funding diminishes, the demands to provide educational programs escalate. Museums compete with commercial and home entertainment for audiences and new members while leisure time continues to shrink. This requires museums to adopt new roles and strategies: collaborating with other institutions, creating new ways to work with the per92

Director Anne Hawley with Declan McGonagle.

The holiday concert, 1991 .

manent collections, and taking more responsiblity for education.

Within this climate, the Gardner Museum completed 1991 by winning two major grants - one from the Lila WallaceReader's Digest Fund and one from the Bauman Foundation - to reorient the Museum's educational mission by using the collection in creative new ways.

During the last year we devised imaginative ways to use the Museum's collection to attract new audiences and to delight and stimulate our visitors to explore frequently the permanent collection. Paradoxically, the restrictions that the collection not be added to and the galleries not be permanently altered provides an opportunity to be creative in our programming.

While the collection is permanent, the ideas that can be explored are legion, crossing many cultures, epochs, and countries. In working with the collection we devised an integrated approach that emphasizes cohesive ideas to fulfill the Museum's traditional roles of scholarship, interpretation, art appreciation, and education. Thus the collection, which contains over 2,000 objects spanning thirty centuries and many cultures, will be used by scholars, educators, and artists-in-residence, to create interrelated public programs using ideas that are challenging yet accessible, topical yet universal.

This new "World of Ideas" program will begin in 1992. The first major theme will be various concepts of "Imaging the Self."

This subject grew from the strengths of the Renaissance collections and addresses its founder in the sense of Isabella Stewart Gardner's own creation of the Museum as a self-image. But "imaging the self" is a question relevant to all ages, particularly our own age. Our scholarly symposium in 1992 will explore how this idea is manifest in the Italian Renaissance. Selected concerts will feature music from the Renaissance.

The poet Martin Espada, our first artistin-residence, will use the Tomb Figure of a Spanish Knight located in the Spanish Chapel to explore issues of Spanish identi 路 ty in American culture. At the year's end after much planning the Lila WallaceReader's Digest Fund awarded $509,000 for this approach to programming at the Museum.

The Bauman Foundation simultaneously awarded the Museum $340,000 for the education component of the program.

Designed to work with neighborhood schools, the Gardner's education program will integrate aspects of the scholarly programs and the artists' residencies. It will also join forces with Harvard University's Project Zero which for twenty-five years has researched the range of cognitive abil93

itie , particu larly the c n tructi on and apprehen ion of mea ning thro ugh a rt.

The Gardner will in tegrate the e fi nding on vi ual learn ing into unit f rud y f r school a well a into guided explo ration of the ollecti n.

During the year the M u eum initiated a new lecture erie , The Eye of the Beholder, which brought lumina rie fro m pera, cience, and literature to give talk a b ut a particular o bj ect or picture to w hich each peaker had felt a p werful respo n e. The Mu eum welcomed Peter ella r , the theater and opera director, a uthor Jamaica Kinca id, H elen Vendler, the poet and critic, and paleontologist, writer, and ba eball fa n Stephen Jay Gould, all of w hom captivated their a udiences with their per pective and ideas on works fro m the collection. We were grateful to WG BH radio fo r broa dcasting these talk .

O ver the cour e of the la t two years the Museum worked o n a major collaboration with the ational Gallery of Art in Wa hington fo r the conservation of John Singer Sargent's El j aleo to be foll owed in the spring of 1992 by a majo r exhibiti on centered on El j aleo with Sargent's many and

va ried ket he for the painting t be hown to the nati n a t the atio nal Ga llery of Art. In onjunctio n with the at:onal Ga llery the ardner u eum received fu nding fr m the NYNE Fo unda tio n a nd ew England T elepho ne for the conervation of the picture, argent' earlie t ma terpiece, a nd for educa tional programs u ing the work a a foca l point. Thi fund ing wa th Mu um ' fir t major corpora te gra nt. The gift wa a nno unced hortl y after the theft a nd to have thi majo r grant d uring ur da rke t ho ur wa indeed a majo r affirmatio n.

The e new initia ti ves at the Gardner are made po ible by the tru tees' suppo rt and encouragement a nd the crea ti vity and diligence of the staff of the Mu eum who are L ted on page 114. During 199 1 the tru tee and taff intensively engaged in lo ng-range planning to esta blish a five-year plan for the Museum ' progra m , services and capital projects. We were fortunate to have the leadership of trustee Samuel Bodman and ta ff member Jennifer Brown to guide us through this planning. In 1990 the Museum crea ted the new staff position of directo r of finance, filled in August of that yea r by Susan L. Davy. Susa n brought to

94

NYNEXa nd ew England Telephone officials at the museum upon the return of El jaleo.

Maurice Sendak signs a book for a young admirer.

the Museum inspired and tested management skills needed for the updating of the Museum's systems, policies, procedures and communications. In 1991, Susan's responsibilities were expanded to include Museum operations; Phillippa WeechLloyd was hired to manage personnel and benefits, and accountant Mary Gattis joined the staff.

A new chief curator, Dr. Hilliard Goldfarb, also joined the Museum. His keen intelligence and creativity have launched a new program of scholarship and exhibitions at the Museum which are tied to the public programs. In his first year he has redefined the curatorial program, conceived a fouryear plan for scholarly symposia, curated an exhibition accompanied by a catalogue, supervised the creation of a five-year plan for conservation at the Museum, and planned a publishing program at the Gardner. He has overseen the work of the conservation departments and of the Museum archives; he reports on their activities later in this volume. H e attracted a talented assistant, Troy Moss, who also provided major contributions to this effort.

As the end of 1990 drew near, the Museum lost Robert MacKenzie, the head gardener for thirty years; he was sixty-six. Before he died he spoke of his confidence in his assistant head gardener, Stanley Kozak, who had worked with Bob for twenty years.

After Bob's death, Stanley became head gardener and during the year he has managed the green house, the staff, and the gardens beautifully. The four-member gardening staff maintained the spectacular year-long cycle of plants in the central courtyard that are an integral part of the Gardner Museum's aesthetics as well as a cultural asset of the community as a whole.

In addition, they participated in the New England Flower Show both years, and continued their work with the BostonFenway program by maintaining the Evans Way Park next door to the Museum. They once again pitched in to help with the planting of daffodils in the Fenway area. They have also kept up the tradition of plant sales and potting workshops.

In early spring of 1991 the Museum was fortunate to recruit Lynn Holstein to head a new development office at the Museum.

She brought a wealth of experience to this post and during her first year put in place an excellent staff of Peter Espanshade, membership coordinator, Douglas Kirshen, grants officer, and Whitney Romoser, special events coordinator, and Ilana Hardesty as assistant. During 1991 the Gardner Museum raised gifts and pledges totalling 3.3 million dollars which was a good beginning for a new development effort at the Museum.

95

b1ecrs -.rolen from rhe ~lu-.eum ~IJrd1 18, 1990 Vermeer, Tf; •Concert, od on L,111\ ,,., Rembr.111c.lt, l<1dv 111d ,1 ,e11tlc111111111 B/,1ck, oil on L.1ma-, Rembr:indr, The st"or111 Oii the \e 1 of (,,1/tlec', od on L~ln\ J\ Rembr,111dr, 'i elrPortr<11t, erch1ng H111ck, I a11dsc,1/1e 11•11/; <111 Ol1c/1sk, oil on p.111el ~ lJner, he::: Torto111, oil on 1.,111\ ,1, Deg.1 ' I.a orft(' du pcs.1gc. penul L. \\ Jtercolor on rarer [ ega~, ortef(e .wx c111•iro11s de Ilol'C'lln', renul .1nc.I "a~h c n rJper DegJ-., Tl rc•c \1 01111ted jockev , 1nk .inc.I" ,1-.h on p.lpLr [ eg.1.,, Prof(r<1111 for ,111 \ rt1 trc \01rec, d1.H ·0.11 on p.1per (rn o 'er~1om) Ku, h1nese, ·hJng [ \ na-.n, bron1e, 1200-1I00 B. . f 1111.11 111 rhe torm of .111 e.1gle, I re111.h, l ron7e ', 18 I j-14.

The dmure control pro1c.: r h,1-. requin:c.I both .111 .ir1.h1rc.: r .111c.I .1n Lng1neer ot rc.:-.rec.I e'l.pa1L'111.e ro r.11.kk· rhe L<m1ple\lnl' of 111-.tJll111g ,1 ·lim.He control .,, .. rem 111 rh1-. lr.1liJn p.11.1110. \\ e \\erL forrun.11e r 1 h.1\e rhe rru-.rL'L le.1c.Jn-,h1p nt \\ dli.1111 Poem u guidmg our\\ ork 111 ch" .ue.1 .rnd tl1L 1.11 enr-. of l andnurk I .11.dinL., ,roup and nn lxhJ \-, c 1,uc.:,. \ turrhc.:r .1Jdmnn m rhL r.1fi 1n rh1 f'L'riod "·" \\ dli.1111 I .1lk, \\'ho 1-. 111,rn.1g111g thl' in,rJll.mon ot che d1 mJre conrrol '"tl'll1 .H rhL (,.HJnLr. Bill bring' ,1 de .le.IL of e pt:riLnCL m.111.1g111g rhe dun.He uinrrnl .rnc.l con rruLC1on .H rhe \I u l'Ulll ol I 111L \rr-.. I k '" 1u-.r rhc.: right rxr on ro m.111.1ge rh1 comple' pm1L1.r. \\ hde rhi .. LOil rrucnon .111J prngr.1111 a1.rn1r. h.1-. m.1c.IL rlw \lu-.Lum .1 ll\l'h .1nd bu,\ enter of .lLCI\ 1r., John d.rnd hJ connnueJ ro nunagL rhL budd111g Jnd pl.111t "1rh h"' u-.u:il L' 1u1111m1n :ind rhoroughne ".1, hL h.1, -,111cL 19 )-. fhL '>l'Lltrl r. -.raff under l \ k 1rindk \ • hie le.id r ship h.1 .11 o kLpt Jp.1ce ot the: 111.111\ 111110' anon-, .111J ch.rngc 111,1Je .H rhe :---1 u. .eum.

1. .o c.lunng the tll11L' 1.m ereJ h\ 1h1.., rc.:porr the: mu~1 program "a . . re1m 1gor.ueJ unc.ler ·orr 11.krcn1 \ J1recnon. orr L.1111c.: rn the .arc.Iner a . . the ,1rtMil c.l1recmr for d1.1mbc.:r muo;1L Jt the ">rokro I c.:"m JI, a role.: he connnue-. ro hold. he .arc.Iner program 110\\ fearurc.:-, wec.:kl) concert'> of both haml-x:r ,\ !u'>IL .H the C.arc.lner anJ the h1ghl) ;ll.c!J1med 'loung rn'>t'>' )hcl\\La e. In 1991 .\l anannc.: ~l Derrnort\\as namec.J a'! ruhliL rrogr.1111<; COorc.J111,Hor anc.l 111 thi-, capJCll) '' orh clmc.:1) w1rh Scorr on rhc.: concert . Jll'>t over one-hundred concert were g1vm at the 1ar<lner during the: J 990-91 ~eason ....

l

In rhe . . ummer ot I 90, ~ !id1Jd 1h er ".1-. n.1mec.l l1L'.1c.I of rhe ,\ lu-.eum cafc and rhL· rL·,ulr-. hJ\l' lx:Ln .111 un JUJlifiec.l .,uc1.l''>S. ~I 1L.h.1d 1..1111e m the .:ire.Iner from rhc.: LJr-,r.11r ....H rhe Pudd1ng re'>tJurnnr 111 .1111l mlge. \\ 1th111 .1 \ e.ir, che ,arc.Iner L.1fe h.1J rhc.: h1ghe r 111comc.:-pc.:r-'>qu.1refo >C of .1m mu c.:um L.1fe 1n the counr11. \her lllc.:Lnng 1111n.1l Lnt1 ·al su --e o;, the L.lk ·nnr111uc.:'> ro lx: h1ghh popuLu \\ 1ch our membc.:r' ,1, "ell .1-. rhe gcner.11 public.

ThL \ tu ...L·um O\\ c-. J dehr of granruc.le rn Pegg\ ~tone .111d L 1.111e ,nffirh-., rhe org.1n11er of rhc I ncnJ-. oi rhe Jrdner \ 1u eum. Im group of mer fih) ewmplihc rh1. pc.:u.11 role 'oluntc.:er-. pla\ 111 c p.111J1ng rhc.: dtl'L.(I\ enc.:"> ot .1 mu c.:um \\ 1rh111 1r' commun1r.. \rrLnJ .1nce .1r the: \ lu eum mcallec.I I 16,, ~6 111 1990 .111J 128,2-- 111 ! 99 l.

FinJlh, ! \\ oulJ like ro p.n pc.:c1al mbure ro l orh rhe rru rec.:o; Jnd rhe '>tJ ff of rhe Ci.He.Iner \I uo;L'llll1. It hJ-. been ,1 Jaunnng pt·rioc.I ot borh Im-. .rnc.l unpn:cedc.:nrec.I grcm rh rh.1r h.1s required .1JJeJ reo;rons1hil1ue-. for .111111, oh ed. nh the enrhu~1.N11 .rnd lm.1lr. of rh1 '>pc.:~1.11 group of rcople 1.oulJ h,1\e L.,1meJ the ~ l u'>eum fow:irc.l 111r a ne\\ role 111 rhe commun1r.. \\ hile 1r rrul) has been rhe efforrs of all,· ! c.lo \\ ,111[ to clunk rc.:rsonJll) ,\ IJkolm Perk111 . . , I r.rnk 11.uch, and mold I Iiatr for the e'l.rrnorc.1111.111 helping bane.I the) gJ\C.: c.lunng rhe mo r difficult nme. uch c.le<l1c1t1on ,.., \\hat 111<,ures rhe furure. ////(!

96

f fc.111'/<!)•

Report of the Chief Curator

The past year has been one of tremendous activity for the curatorial, conservation, and archival departments, reflecting profound restructuring, the institutionalization of long-term planning, and many new initiatives. Probably the most apparent change to the public was the initiation of regularly scheduled temporary exhibitions with individual catalogues, formats, and essays. Exhibitions, drawn from the permanent collection, focused on Italian medals, early printed books, and drawings, and the diverse techniques and schools of textiles from a broad range of cultures. They were conceived in a series, "Exploring Treasures in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum," and included: Italian Renaissance Drawings, Medals, and Books (March 16-June 30) and Introducing the World of Textiles (August 6-January 5, 1992), the latter curated by Acting Conservator of Textiles Ada H. Logan. Catalogues were produced for each exhibition. At the close of the year we prepared our first exhibition organized in coordination with our first annual interdisciplinary symposium, "Imaging the Self in Renaissance Italy." The exhibition will encompass paintings, books, illuminated manuscripts, medals and sculpture, and drawings. Curatorial and conservation departments worked together with development and membership in lecrures and the attendant public activities.

The department also initiated the reinstallation and modest relighting of permanent galleries, most notably the Veronese and Titian Rooms and the Little Salon, but also including many other public spaces.

We initiated discussion on the relighting of galleries, a primary concern of our public.

The department also formed the goal of rerurning the galleries as nearly as possible to their 1926 appearance, the year in which a methodical photographic documentation of the galleries took place, depicting Mrs. Gardner's final realization

of the installation of Fenway Court.

During 1991 the plans and catalogue for the exhibition "John Singer Sargent's El ]aleo," co-sited at the National Gallery of Art and the Gardner M useum were completed. The exhibition will open 1 March 1992 in the East Wing of the National Gallery of Art. The handsome exhibition, organized by guest curator Mary Crawford Volk, also provides a catalogue text that constitutes one of the most comprehensive discussions of a single American painting.

The breathtaking results of the conservation of the painting, revealing once again the ravishing colors and spirited brushstrokes of the young master, were made possible for the exhibition by the generosity of NYNEX Foun dation and New England Telephone, which also supported the restoration of the frame.

The organization, supervision, and implementation of a five-year plan for conservation and curatorial departments, realized through the extraordinarily cooperation of the objects and textiles conservation departments, resulted in long-range visions, goals, and restructuring which also assisted in the planning of the annual budgets for the curatorial and conservation departments, both overseen by the chief curator. The changes included the elimination of an on-site position of paper conservator and creation of new positions.

These fifteen-hour per week positions, consisting of a carpenter/exhibition preparator and a seamstress/upholsterer, reflect the demands of our furniture and other decorative arts, as well as the needs of our exhibition program, and will serve us in good stead as we approach the extended process of restoration of the galleries to their 1926 appearances. We have negotiated a generous agreement for the ongoing conservation of major painting projects in our collection with the painting conservation department of the J. Paul

97

Getty Museum. Barbara Mangum, objects conservator, has been appointed Chief Conservator of the collection; she will return from a leave in France in July 1992.

The accomplishments of the conservation departments have been as many and as varied as the collection itself and are too numerous to record here. However, they included the completion of the cleaning and reinstallation of the Creeping Odysseus in the Courtyard and the cleaning of the Maenad Sarcophagus in the West Cloister. In the textiles conservation department, 1990 saw the return of the Amazons Preparing for a joust tapestry which had been undergoing treatment since 1978. In 1991 the department devoted untold effort to the textile exhibition, a process that required extensive research on the textile holdings. While it is tempting to single out such achievements as these, the importance of the ongoing care that the conservation departments devote to the collection can never be overemphasized.

The archives department also handled numerous tasks on a daily basis, including requests to examine archival materials from writers, researchers, and scholars from all over the globe, while also meeting in-house requests for exacting histories of various parts or functions of the Museum.

Susan Sinclair also managed to locate letters from Isabella Stewart Gardner in other collections and procure photocopies for the archives. She oversaw the work of a half dozen volunteers who transcribed letters and catalogued books.

The new dynamics of the curatorial office required the talents of an assistant with extensive museum and editorial experience. We were extremely fortunate to enlist the talents of Troy Moss, who came with extensive administrative and editorial experience from the Chrysler Museum and

the Walters Art Gallery. Troy Moss oversaw the reorganization of the photography department with efficiency and cost savings. The curatorial office also found itself with the urgent project of creating and organizing object files for the collection.

We initiated the rebuilding of the library.

This ongoing project includes the selection and ordering of several thousand dollars of books annually, necessary in updating a very outdated library of reference for the permanent collection and providing systematic coverage of critical reference material.

During 1991, we initiated the conceptualization and realization of a multiple-volume scholarly, comprehensive catalogue project of the collection. The first volume, on Italian art in the collection (paintings and drawings), is to be undertaken together with Laurence Kanter, Curator of the Lehman Collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, with a publication projection of 1995. We are also considering the production of collection highlights books.

Perhaps the most exciting and publicly stirring initiative came from the conception, organization, and realization of annual interdisciplinary symposia, evident in the articles published in this issue. The first symposium, Imaging the Self in Renaissance Italy, is attracting an oversold audience of over three hundred for an allday session, featuring world-renowned scholars from the United States, England, and France in a variety of disciplines. The next session, which will further refine the format and include a morning-after with invited graduate students from the region, will be on Japanese culture, coordinated

by John Rosenfield.

The chief curator and his assistant engaged in correspondence with and the reception of professional, curatorial, and scholarly 98

colleagues and touring with same. He also presented occasional lectures to visiting university classes and the public. He produced and oversaw the writing and production of language texts (English, French, German) for the incoming visitor with the cooperation of his assistant.

National and internationa l professional contacts in the museum and academic world served to enhance the perception of the Gardner Museum and staff activities and to initiate dialogue for fu ture joint projects. The chief curator completed a previously awarded two-month research travel grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, visiting over twenty cities in France, Italy, and England. He was also a contributor to the catalogue for the exhibition The Age of the Marvelous, which traveled nationally. H e also presented a lecture on Goya at the Memphis Brooks M useum.

None of these initiatives would have been possible without the alacrity and devoted efforts of Troy Moss, Valentine T alland, Ada H. Logan, Susan Sinclair, John N iland, the conservation departments, including in early 1991 Barbara Mangum, Jennifer Brown, and a long list of staff and volunteers. The director, Anne H awley, was a continuous source of encouragement and enthusiasm for our efforts.

Hilliard T. Gold(arb

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Membership Program

Calendar of Events 1990-1991 March 28, 1990 New Members ' Welcome March 31, 1990 Boston University Symposium on the History of Art April 4, 1990 Gallery Talk "The House that Mrs. Jack Built," Karen Haas, associate curator April 7, 1990 Gallery Talk "The House that Mrs. Jack Built," Karen Haas, associate curator April 11, 1990 Lecture "A Museum Family: The Mt. Vernon Street Warrens," Martin Green, English Department, Tufts University April 14, 1990 Memorial Service One-hundred-fiftieth anniversary of Mrs. Gardner's birth April 18, 1990 Lecture "Traditions in Old New England Church Buildings, I," Mariam Butts ' Museum of Fine Arts April 25, 1990 Lecture "Traditions in Old New England Church Buildings, II," Mariam Butts, Museum of Fine Arts April 26, 1990 Founder's Day Concert Jean-Yves Thibaudet, pianist, Joshua Bell, v10hrust, and the Ridge String Quartet

May 30, 1990 Lecture "Women of Vision: The History of the W hitney Museum of American Art " Jennifer Russell, associate director ' Whitney Museum of American Ar~ May 12, 1990 Potting Workshop Robert MacKenzie, head gardener May 17, 1990 Lecture "Mrs'. Gardner, Mr. Hearst, and the Amencan Museum Enterprise," Mtehael Conforti, chief curator Minneapolis Institute of Art ' May 19, 1990 Plant sale May 24, 19.'.?0 Lecture "Isabella Stewart Gardner: Victorian Traveler Abroad," Mary Petronella; JOlllt lecture with the Victorian Society May 26, 1990 New Members' Welcome Tour June 2, 1990 Mt. Auburn Cemetery Tour Walk for members led by Susan Smcla1r, archivist September 27, 1990 Lecture "Subsidy and Censorship in the Arts " Arthur Danto ' October 17, 1990 Garden Party

October 29, 1990 Lecture "A Tale of Two Museums," Susan Vogel, founder and director of the Center for African Art 100

Jamaica Kinca id, author of Lucy, published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

April 4, 1991 Chief Curator's tour Of the temporary exhibition April 8, 1991 Founder's Day Concert Marvis Martin, soprano April 14, 1991 The Eye of the Beholder Series Stephen Jay Gould, paleontologist and author

1 8

10..

December 6, 1990 George Stout Memorial Conservation Lecture "A View from the Sistine Ceiling," Kathleen Weil-Garris Brandt, Institute of Fine Arts, New York University December 1, 1990 Tiffany Ball

April 14, 1991 Memorial Service Church of the Advent April 19, 1991 Th e Eye of the Beholder Series Helen Vendler, Harvard professor and poetry critic for the New Yorker May 4, 1991 Lecture "What on Earth is a Garden?," John Dixon Hunt, director of studies in landscape architecture, Dumbarton Oaks; cosponsored with the Massachusetts Horticultural Society

December 14, 1990 Holiday Concert New England Conservatory Honors Brass Quartet and members of the Cantata Singers January 22, 1991 The Eye of the Beholder Series Peter Sellars, opera and theatre director February 28, 1991 The Eye of the Beholder Series Jamaica Kincaid, novelist

May 29, 1991 El ]aleo R eturns Unveiling of the newly conserved El ]aleo by John Singer Sargent, sponsored by New England Telephone and NYNEX

March 15, 1991 Members ' Preview "Italian Renaissance Drawings, Medals, and Books" exhibition

September 11, 1991 Members ' Preview "Introducing the World of Textiles" exhibition

March 23, 1991 Boston University Symposium on the History of Art

September 28, 1991 Exploring the Collection Hilliard Goldfarb, chief curator

101

Ellen Stewart

October 10, 1991 The Eye of the Beholder Ellen Stewart, fo under and artistic director, La Mama Experimental Theater Company, New York October 17, 1991 Lecture "New Directions in Contemporary Irish Art," Declan McGonagle, director, The Irish Muse um of Modern Art, Dublin October 19, 1991 Exploring the Collection Ada Logan, acting conservator of textiles November 6, 1991 The Eye of the Beholder Series Maurice Sendak, author and illustrator

November 16, 1991 Exp loring the Collection Valentine Talland, acting conservator of objects December 5, 1991 George Stout Memorial Conservation Lecture "The Conserva tion of Bierstadt's Lost Lake Lucerne," Ross Merrill, National Gallery of Art December 12, 1991 Holiday Concert Boston Shawm & Sackbut Ensemble, the New England Conservatory Honors Trombone Quartet, and New England Conservatory H onors Brass Quintet

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Members 1990-1991

President's Circle

Mr. and Mrs. J. P. Barger Mr. and Mrs. Stanley].

Bernstein Mr. and Mrs. Samuel W .

Bodman Mr. and Mrs. tanford Ca lderwood Andrew and Renee Ca rter Charles and JoAnne Dickinson Ms. Charlene Engelhard-Troy Mr. and Mrs. Fred Farmer Mr. and Mrs. Jo hn Fitzpatrick Mr. and Mrs. A. Alan Friedberg Mr. and Mrs. John L. Gardner Mr. and Mrs. George P. Gardner Dr. and Mrs. Tho mas Griffiths Mr. and Mrs. Graham Gund Mr. and Mrs. Francis W. Hatch Mr. and Mrs. Arnold Hi att Mr. and Mrs. Joseph lncand ela Mr. and Mrs. Gordon F. Kings ley Mr. and Mrs. James Lawrence Mr. and Mrs. Thom as H . Lee Mr. Leon Levy and M s. Shelby White Mr. and Mrs. Peter S. Lynch Mr. and Mrs. Yo Yo M a Mr. Donald M acDermid Mr. and Mrs. Joseph McNay Mr. and Mrs. Don ald R. Melville Mr. and Mrs. Robert A. G. Monks Mr. and Mrs. Malco lm D. Perkins Mr. and Mrs. Edward E. Ph illips Mr. and Mrs. Robert W. Pierce Mr. and Mrs. Wi ll iam Poorvu Mr. and Mrs. Rudy L. Ruggles Ms. Wend y Shattuck and Mr. Samuel Plimpton Mr. and Mrs. Lionel Spiro Mr. and Mrs . Ray Stata Mrs. Laurence H . Stone

Benefactors Mr. and Mrs. James B. Ames *Mr. Robert Amory Mr. and Mrs. Douglas Auchincloss Mr. and Mrs. Isaac Auerbach Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Auerbach

Ors. Jo rdan and Rh oda Baruch Mr. and Mrs. Bruce Beal Mrs. Richa rd Bennett Dr. and Mrs. Leo Beranek Mr. and Mrs. Robert F. Birch Mr. and Mrs. Donald Brown Mr. and Mrs. Ronald Brown Dr. and Mrs. Pa ul Bunenwieser Mr. and Mrs. Sa muel Coco, Jr. Mr. John F. Cogan, Jr., and Ms. Mary L. ornille Mr. a nd Mrs. I. W. Co lburn Mr. and Mr . j o hn L. Cooper Mr. a nd Mrs. Cha rles C. Cunningham Mr. and Mrs. John D. C urtin Mrs. Phil ip urler Mrs. Freder ick Deknatel Mr. Pa ul Dogue reau Mr. and Mr . Ronald Druker Mrs. Emily Cross Farnsworth Mrs. William Rodman Fay Dr. and Mrs. E. Garv in Fischer Prof. and Mrs. Elli ot Forbes M r. and Mrs. Ri chard M. Fraser Mr. a nd Mrs. Eugene Freedma n Mr. and Mrs. Marc F ri ed laender Mr. and Mrs. R. G. Fuller Mr. Rando lph H awthorne and Ms. Ca rliss Baldwin Mr. a nd Mrs. Amos B. H ostetter, Jr. Mr. Robert Hubbard Mr. and Mrs. F. Dona ld Hudso n M s. Rachel Jacoff Mr. Nicolas John son Mr. Willi am Krupman, Esq. M s. Chri stel McRae Noe Lai ne M s. Linda Noe La ine Mr. and Mrs. Philip Lehner Ms. Karen Lloyd Mrs. Ca leb Loring, Jr. Mr. and Mrs. Charles P. Lyman Mr. and Mrs. George Macom ber Miss Elizabeth Mallinckrodt Mr. Edward H . M ank Dr. and Mrs. Henry Mankin Mr. and Mrs. Robert O 'Block Mr. a nd Mrs. Charles A. Pappas Mr. and Mrs. And ra ll E. Pearson Mr. and Mrs. Jose ph P. Pell egri no

103

Count C. A. Pe cosolido Mrs. H ollis Plimpton Mr. Ralph B. Roger Mr. and Mrs. Jerome Rosenfeld Mr. Vincent j . Ryan and Ms. Carla Meyer Mr. and Mrs. Wa lter Schatz Mr. and Mrs. David Scudder Mr. a nd Mrs. Fra ncis P. Sears Mr. and Mrs. Frederic All en Sharf Ms. Elin or D. Shea Mr. and Mrs. j ohn Simourian Mrs. Dona ld P. Sinclair Dr. and Mrs. Wi ll iam D. So hier, Jr. Dr. and Mrs. Arthur K. Solomon Mrs. Helen Spau ldi ng Mr. and Mrs. Donald R. Stanton Mr. and Mrs. Ezra F. Stevens Mr. G. L Stewa rd , J r.

Mr. and Mrs. Jame L. Terry Mr. and Mrs. Sa muel Th orne Ms. Nancy B. Tieken Dr. Charles G. K. Warner

Patrons Mr. Morton Abrom on and M . J oan issman Mr. and Mrs. Ethan Allen Mrs. Robert Amory Mr. and Mrs. Rae D. Anderson Mr. and Mrs. David Auerbach Ms. Elva Bernat Mrs. Cha rles Bird lll * Mrs . Ra lph Bradley Dr. and Mrs. Tho rn to n Brown Mr. and Mrs. John G.L. Cabot Ms. Susan F. Child Mr. Landon T. Clay Bertram an d Rosa lie Cohen Mr. and Mrs. Marvin Collier Ms. Susan Davy and Mr. Don McKill op Mr. Robert W. Doran Mr. and Mrs. DeCo ursey Fa les, Jr. Mr. and Mrs. Ronald Lee Fleming H on. J. j ohn Fox Mr. j ohn N . Fulham, Jr. Mr. and Mrs. G. Pea body Gardner, Jr.

Mr. a nd Mrs. James H. Grew Prof. and Mrs. Mason H ammond Ms. Charlotte H arrington Mr. Hu yler H eld Mr. and Mrs. Weld Henshaw Mr. Horace H. Irvine Il Ms. Elizabeth Jones Mr. and Mrs. Carl Koch Mrs. Janet W .B. Lawrence Mr. and Mrs. j ohn F. Magee Mr. Stephen E. Mermelstein Mr. and Mrs. Richard P. Morse Mr. James X. Mu llen Mr. Rodger ordblom Ms. Joan orris H on. and Mrs. Lawrence T. Perera Mr. john B. Pierce, Jr. Ms. Helen Powell Mr. and Mrs. Irving W. Rabb Mr. and Mrs. David Rockefeller, Jr. Mr. Robert Romoser Mrs. Benjamin Row land Mr. Alford P. Rudnick Mr. A. H erbert Sa ndwen Mr. and Mrs. Donald L. Saunders Mr. and Mrs. David Squire Mr. Theodore E. Stebbins, Jr. Miss Elizabeth B. Storer Mrs. David D. Terwilliger Mr. Stephen Tilton Mr. and Mrs. George Vera Mr. and Mrs. Ralph B. Vogel Mr. and Mrs. Roger D. Wellington Mr. and Mrs. Bud Well man Mrs. Ed ith Weyerhaeuser Mr. and Mrs. Erwin N. Ziner

Contributors Mrs. Weston W. Adams Dr. and Mrs. Nile L. Albright Mrs. Esther D. Anderson Mr. Timothy Anderson Ms. Elin or Anderson-Bell Mr. and Mrs. Arthur C. Anton Mr. and Mrs. j ohn J. Arena Prof. Lilia n Armstrong Mr. Henry D. Babcock, Jr. Mr. and Mrs. David Bakalar Mrs. H ope Lincoln Baker Ms. Linda Baratte Mrs. Donna Berma n

Mrs. Helen Bernat Mr. and Mrs. Robert Birnbaum Ms. Bunny Black Miss Dorothy A. Brown Ms. Linda Brown Dr. and Mrs. John Bruner Mr. and Mrs. George B. Bullock, Jr. Ms. Nata lie D. Burch Mr. and Mrs. C. Russell de Burlo, Jr. Dr. and Mrs. Wayne J. Byrnes Dr. and Mrs. Edmund B. Cabot Mr. and Mrs. john R. Cabot Mr. and Mrs. Thomas D. Cabot Ms. Nancy Cahners and Mr. Arthur Hindman Ms. Sarah P. Carleto n Mr. Robert K. Cassatt Mrs. Lynne E. Chase Dr. F. Sargent Cheever Ms. Sarita B. Choate Mr. and Mrs. John W. Cobb Mr. and Mrs. Sidney H .

Cohen Prof. William A. Coles J. Linzee Coolidge Ms. Nancy R. Coolidge Mrs. J. Holland Cotter Mr. Charl es J. Cou lter and Ms. Margaret Logan Mr. and Mrs. Chester C. D' Autremont Ms. Susan Davies and Mr. Richard Talkov Mrs. Louise deCock Mr. Nathani el T. Dexter Mr. and Mrs. Thomas G. Dignan, Jr. Mr. Richard R. Downey Mr. Simon D. Eccles Mrs. Phillip Eiseman Mr. Joseph R. Falcone and Ms. Karri L. Kaiser Mr. Peter J. Fergusson Mr. and Mrs. George Fesus Mr. and Mrs. Newell Flather Mr. and Mrs. Richard Floor Dr. Margret Henderson Floyd Mr. Walter S. Fox, Jr. Ms. Florence Frances Mr. Walter Fraze Mr. and Mrs. Norbert L. Fullington Walter and Anne Gamble

Mr. Stephan L. Gardetto Mr. Robert G. Gardner Mr. William Leon Gardner, Jr. Mr. William A. Gifford Dr. and Mrs. F. Wm. Green Mr. Gale R. Guild Mr. and Mrs. Ernest J. Haa s Mr. Robert S. Hagge, Jr. Mr. and Mrs. Martin Hale Dr. and Mrs. Henry H a lko Mr. and Mrs. j ohn S. Haml en Mr. and Mrs. Cha rles W. H are Mrs. Vincent H. Hazard Mr. and Mrs. Harry W. H ealey, Jr. Mrs. David P. Heilner Ms. Linda H ewitt Mr. and Mrs. Austin Higgins Ms. Anne Hi gonnet Mr. and Mrs. Christian M. H offman Ms. Lynn F. Holstein Dr. and Mrs. Freddy Hom burger Mr. John A. Homsy Mr. Patrick]. Honan Mr. and Mrs. Richard H ou lih an Mr. Thomas M. H out Mr. and Mrs. William W. Howells Mr. and Mrs. J. Peter Hunsaker Mr. William Morris Hunt Mr. and Mrs. Roger B. Hunt Mr. and Mrs. John K. Hurley Mr. David S. James Mr. and Mrs. Robert F. Jasse Ms. Tay Ann Ja y Ms. Caro l R. John so n Mr. Mitchell Kapor and Dr. Ellen M. Poss Mr. and Mrs. Joseph M. Kelley Mrs. John M. Kingsland Mr. and Mrs. Ernest D. Klema Dr. George Kury an d Dr. L. Hedd a Rev-Kury Miss Rosamund Lamb Mrs. Lee Lamont Dr. and Mrs. H ayes C. Lamont Mr. Lawrence J. Lasser and Dr. Michelle Doyle Mr. and Mrs. H enry A. Laughlin Mr. Maurice Lazarus

104

Mr. and Mrs. H enry Lee Mr. and Mrs. R. Wi ll is Leith, Jr. Mr. and Mrs. Fraser Lemley Mr. and Mrs. Carlis le N. Levine Mr. and Mrs. Boardman Lloyd Ada and Norman Logan Mr. Robert Lyng and Mr. Alan Dipietro Ms. Shei la MacCre ll ish Mr. and Mrs. William Malamud Mr. Irving Marmer Dr. Pamela Marron Ms. Ellen M. McDermott Mr. and Mrs. Louis A. McMi llen Mr. and Mrs. Edward W .

Merrill Mr. and Mrs. Nicho las Mitropou los Ms. Nancy Ann Mondock Ms. Kristin Mortimer Mr. and Mrs. Robert L. Mortimer Mr. and Mrs. Michael Scott Morton Msgr. William Murphy Mrs. Edward R. Murrow Mrs. Mary S. Newman Mr. and Mrs. Albert L. Nickerson Mrs. Mary Ni les Ms. Belinda Norris and Ms. Barbara Bird Dr. and Mrs. Paul Oglesby, M.D. Mr. and Mrs. Hugh Pearson Ms. Sheila D. Perry Mr. Douglas H. Pike Mr. and Mrs. Robert E. Pirie Mr. and Mrs. John W . Pratt Mr. and Mrs. Albert Pratt Mr. and Mrs. Frank Prezelski Mr. and Mrs. Patrick J. Purce ll Mr. and Mrs . Perry T. Rathbone Mr. an d Mrs. Henry B. Roberts Mr. Thomas A. Robinson Ms. Les T. Robinson Mrs. Ra lph P. Rudnick Mr. Joseph M. Saba Mr. a nd Mrs. Roger A. Saunders Drs. Daniel and Joan Sax Ms. R. Penelope Scheerer and Mr. Jo hn R. Schwanbeck Ms. Kelly Scheint

Mr. Benjamin $chore and Ms. Kira Fournier Mr. and Mrs. Marvin G. Schorr Mrs. Mason Scudder Dr. and Mrs. John Sears Mr. and Mrs. George C. Sey bo lt Ms. Cordelia C. Sherman Mr. and Mrs. Robert A. Sinclair Dr. Sidney B. Smith Mr. and Mrs. G. Robert Stange Mr. Alexander J. Stevens and Ms. Christine L. Poitras Mr. and Mrs. John Stopfel Mr. Michael Straight Dr. and Mrs. Somers H. Sturgis Jacques and Linda Sultan Mrs. Cynthia H. Sunderland Dr. and Mrs. Irvin Tauhe Mr. Rick Tell er and Ms. Kathleen Rogers Mr. and Mrs. John Theroux Ms. Les E. Thiele Mr. and Mrs. W. Nicholas Thorndike Mr. and Mrs. j ohn H. Valenti ne Mr. and Mrs. Corneli us Vermeul e Mr. Arthur E. Vershbow Mr. and M rs. Eliot Vestner Dr. and M rs. Burton Waisbren, Jr. Mr. and Mrs. Eustis Walcott Mrs. Richard Wallace Mr. and Mrs. E. Denis Walsh Mr. Neale Wheeler Watson Mr. Mark B. Weiss Mr. and M rs. Stuart C. Welch Mrs. John W. White Mr. Frederick Winslow Mr. and Mrs. Oliver Wolcott, Jr. Mrs. Robert Lee Wolff Ms. Susa nn ah W. Wood Mr. and Mrs. Frederick L. Worcester Mr. George Wal lace Yo ung, Esq.

Friends Ms. Kathleen A. Armstrong Ms. Joyce lyn C. Austen Ms. Eliza beth F. Bach man

\k I lien C .ir1 Bell \k \1.rnhn l~l'l111l'tr \Ir .•rn<l \I r' R11.:h.tr<l ,\. lkrc:mon \k \l.i rgot \ B1rnh.1um \Ir\. ( .iroltnc Th,1\ l'r Bl.111d \tr\. Ph1ll" '>. Blo;>m \Ir .•rn<l \Ir,. Ch.trb R Bhrh \Ir . an<l \Ir,. I r.rnk Bol'' . \h . Caro l Bo,co \1' . 1'..uc lh.1d1 :-..1'. Jacqueh n . \ . Bm,011 \Ir, . Cerrrudc I . Bullock \Ir>. 5111"1 1' . BuraLk \Ir . an<l \I r,. Phdl1p BurJ;\c" \Ir . Ccrald I . ( ,1\,lllJUJ;\h \ h. '- a1ic1 Ch.1p111e \Ir . and \Ir' D.rn 1el '> hcc1cr \Ir . and \tr,. 1-rc·denc . ( hurLh, Jr. \ 1r,. Su,an ( oopcr Dr . •rnd \Ir, . j. I lol l.111d Correr ,\,Ir. a nd Mr\. ( h.irb 11. Da"s II \!;, . Jo.11111e Decker \Ir. Rich ard r. Deli a i\.h. Parnua A. Doran \In,. Panm ). Dukak" .'v1r. j ohn D. I ubanb I rcdemk and '>a rah I "aid ,\tr. Andrc11 J. I alendar \,Ir . Rurh 0. I allon M>. Cha rl orre I cllm.111 Mr. J. Thoma\ h ank lin and /vh. Leonie C,onJ011 Dr. and Mr\. Paul Frcmonr-Sm1rh Mr. T. tare 1-urrcr Mr. an d Mr>. 1 lerherr a ll agher Mr. a nd Ir,. Wilfred L Gardner Mr . Florence S. Ger\re1n Mrs. Teresa Gilman Mr. and Mr . Arrhur Gla;s M . V1rg1111a M. Gogan Dr. and Mrs. Dona ld P. Go ld rem

\t r .•111d \t r,. ( h.ulc' (,rl'co \tr. William\\ <.ro" \k \\11111 I l.1mel I' rot .111d \tr, . Do11.1ld R. I l:irlcm.111 \tr .111d \t r, I larn R 11.lll\cr \t r (,eorgc (, l lcrrtck \t r \X dltam I I loJ,r \\,. LJllc I lolr \tr. 1'.unck J 1lon.rn \tr .•111<l \I r,. \11drn1 It 1 lorgan Ill I Ion and \t r, Juli.in l lou,ron \Ir .•111J \t r,. \t1d1 .1el I lu1m \Ir,. ( h.trlc' lnche,, jr. \Ir .rn<l \Ir, . D.111d It l11gr.1111 \k \ kl111d.1 '> !er.mid \tr Bn.111 1' john,011 .111d \h. D.1rh1 Dr.1ft, \t r .111d \tr, R1durd I. John,on \k '>u,,111 1'.cnt Dok .rnd \I r Rohen I .Jthcr \k \ll l\on 1'.err \tr .•111d \I r-. John l . 1' 1ng 11 \ 1'. l cc \\ . 1'11ecnm \Ir .•111d \\ r,. '>rcphen T. 1'.u111an \1'. \l argarcr D. I .1k" \I >. Barb.ir.1 I Lco11.1rd \\, . ( 1 nth1a LI\ 1ng,ton \Ir . fhom .1' I onng .rnd \I,. 1'.arcn Tcnnl'\ Dr. and \tr-. Bcrn.1~d I m1 n \Ir. and \\r,. (,l'r.1ld I L) nch \Ir . Allan (. \l acDonald Dr>. Jame' and I 111.111,1 :-.tagu1rc J lcrbcrr and Bncrl1 \tal111 \\r\. 1'.etth . J\l ardcn M s. Judith \tcltLk ;\Ir. and Mr>. Rohl'rr \I. Mel7Cr \h. Parnc1a \,\1r,1gc.1' Mr. and /vtr;. Alan R. l\tor'c ,\1s. \tarr) I \,lier' .\h. Suzanne R. c11 ton ,'vtr. and Mr>. \X'1ll1am B. Q,good

J.1ml'' .ind judnh I' 1rkhtll \Ir,. Rohcrr I P.irn \tr and \Ir>. jack Pcn11n \Ir .111d \\r,. 1>.1n1cl 1'1c·r~c \1' . (,111gcr Pie 1co \Ir .rnd \\r,. D.1111d I . Power \k I Iden l'rl',tl \k \\Jngold R.111d.11l \\r, e1.1 \1. Re111er \k R.Khcl Reinold, \tr .rnd \Jr, . ( h.rndlt:r Rohh111' ff \1' ( hmt111c 11 Rmwll \tr .•111d \\r, '>.1nrnel Ruh1nm 1t1 \tr-. 1'.1thcnnc \\ Ru"cll \ h. .\udre1 '>.111101' k \ 1' I .l\ '>.irgc·nt \tr \n<lre11 \.111u I I '>chncllcr \tr rn<l \\r,. I lo\\ ir<l '>Lh\\ ,Jrr/ \tr Rohen \ '>hem oo<l .rnd \ h. 1'.Hhlccn I mnch .\tr .•111d \\r,. llcrrn.111 '>111Jcr \ h. \nn '>p.uro11 \tr .111d \Ir, . I rl'dcnck '>r.111' \ h. '>.lnL\ '>roke' \\r, Roberr (, '>ronc \tr \ l.1mn J '>ull11 .111 \Ir JnJ \\r, 1Lhoi.J, I T111.1 \tr .111d \I r,. D.n" f.11 lor \!tkc and C..Hh\ Tc·n111c.111 \h l.IJ1nc \ Thom.1' \Ir>. I lcnr) \\ crrer. jr. \I\. Pmull.1 \ \\ h1tl' .111J \tr. ~tiller I'. 1 ltl ron \tr. and \\r,. l l.1nc1 \X'. \\ ood Dr . .ind \,\rs. I .\t \X'oodruff \h . l mda l. \X 'ooltm Ra1 mon<l .ind l.oul\a ) oung \k \Jelle 711nbcl

•deceased

W e wish to thank o ur ma ny o the r upporter and member who e na me do no t appear here.

105

Corporate Giving January 1, 1990 through December 31, 1991

Corporate Sponsor ($25,000 and above) Anonymous Giorgio Armani Corporation New England Telephone/NYNEX NYNEX Foundation

Robert Mondavi Winery The Stride Rite Charitable Foundation

Corporate Fellow ($10,000 to $24,999) Arthur Andersen & Co. Clarke & Company Charrette Corporation Mullen Polaroid Corporation The Putnam Companies Tiffany & Co. Corporate Associate ($5,000 to $9,999) The Bank of Boston The Baupost Group The Boston Globe Coopers and Lybrand Dynatech Corporation Fidelity Investments The Henley League, Ltd. Jackson, Lewis, Schnitzler and Krupman Lily Transportation Corporation Palmer & Dodge Macomber Enterprises, Inc. Wellington Management Company Corporate Supporter ($2,500 to $4,999) John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Company Loews Theaters Texaco Foundation Corporate Friend (up to $2,499) Brown-Forman Beverage Company Fiduciary Trust Company General Cinema Corporation Louis Roederer Champagne The Pastene Companies Ltd. Paterno Imports, Ltd. The Print House 106

The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Incorporated Trustee Under the Will of Isabella Stewart Gardner Financial Statements as of December 31, 1991 and 1990 Together with Auditors' Report Statements of Financial Condition As of December 31, 1991and 1990 1991

1990

Assets Cash Recei va b!es: Accrued interest receivable Other receivables Total receivables Inventories Prepaid and Other Assets: Total current assets Investments: Bonds, at market (cost $9,252,305 in 1991 and $9,456,190 in 1990) Stocks, at market (cost $13,715,605 in 1991 and $12,473,575 in 1990) Stocks and bonds, at market Allowance for unrea lized appreciation Stocks and bonds, at cost Short-term investments, at cost which approximates market To tal investments, at cost Museum Property: Cafe Other M useum property Build ing improvements

$

163,879

$ $

226,274 18,824 245,098 177,476 78,208 664,661

$

Less: accumulated depreciation Contents of M useum build ing Greenhouse M useum building Land Capital projects Total Museum pro perty Total assets

$

20,989

$ $

268,431 21,085 289,516 176,8 05 90,092 578,212

$

$ 9,863,093 19,827,277 $29,690,370 (6,722,460) $22,967,910 1,667,353 $24,635,263

$ 9,513,091 15,032,920 $24,546,011 (2,616,246) $21,929,765 2,144,665 $24,074,430

$

191,846 278 ,668 490,485 960,999 (177,28 5) 783,714 4,015,000 458 ,963 286,400 181,544 682,333 $ 6,407,954 $31,707,878

$

194,723 228,692 423,415

$

556,508 28,467,345 2,234,851 25,759 $31,284,463 $31,707,878

$

189,452 203,291

392,743 (128,793) 263,950 4,015,000 458,963 286,400 181,544 478,035 $ 5,683,892 $30,336,534

Liabilities and Fund Balances Liabilities: Accounts paya ble and accrued expenses Deferred income Total liabilities Fund Balances: Operating (Note 3) Endowment Plant Plant Reserve To tal fu nd balances Total liabilities and fund balances The accompanying notes are an integral part of these financial statements.

$ $ $

107

$

165,745 52,000 217,745

636,598 27,856,184 1,510,789 115,218 $30, 118, 789 $30,336,534

Statements of Operations for the Years Ended December 31, 1991and1990

Income: Sa les and services: Admissions Museum shop Cafe Other receipts Total sales and services

Annual Support: Gra nts Membership and other Corporate events Annual appea l Total annual support Total income

Expense: Administration Collection care and interpretation Sales and visitor services Public programs Development and membership Corpora te events and advertising Building operations Gardens and grounds Pension (Nore 2) Deprecia tion Museum shop Cafe Tota l expenses

Plant

End owment

Operating

Pla nt Reserve

199 1 Total

1990 Total

$ 378,644 143,632 238,576 51,307 $ 812,159

$ 447,404 160,282 287,056 20,421

$

$

$

14,000

$ 447,404 160,282 287,056 34,421

$

915,163

$

$

$

14,000

$

929,163

$

322,551 192,308 168,233 40,615

$

$

$

663,664

$

986,215 192,308 168,233 40,615

$

$

90,420 148,475 264,023 33,479

723,707

$

$

$

663,664

$ 1,387,371

$ 1,638,870

$

$

$

677,664

$ 2,316,534

$ 536,397 $ 1,348,556

$ 625,9 10

$ 176,758

$

$

2,493

$ 805,161

$ 696,490

484,456 624,796 248,049

484,456 624,796 248,049

468,805 527,632 177,428

243,105

243,105

131,305

137,793 258,933 140,634 22,889 27,328 127,249 302,462 $ 3,243,604

137,793 258,933 140,634 22,889 27,328 127,249 302,462

150,812 229,917 173,996 15, 190 100,867 257,973

$

176,758

$

$

2,493

$ 3,422,855

$ 2,930,415

$(1,604,734)

$ (176,758)

$

$

675,171

$(1,106,321)

$ (1,581,859)

1,248,167

1,750,884

-

Operating surplus (deficit)

Endowment allocation and Plant Reserve Fund interest Surplus (deficit)

1,476,152

(235,909)

$ (128,582)

$ (41 2,667)

The a~companying notes are an integral part of these financial statements.

108

7,924 $

$

683,095

$

141,846

$

169,025

Statem nt of hang in Fund Balance for the Y ar Ended Decemb r 31, 1991 and1990 Balance, December I, 1989 et urplu (defi it) et rea lized g:un on inve tments ( ore l ) api ta l addition , net of dep re ianon Balance, December 3 1, 1990 et surplu (deficit) et rea lized gai n on investments ( ore 1) apita l additions, net of depre ianon Balance, December 31, 199 1

perating $ 7 16,365 (208,560)

Endowment $25,898,624 269,290 1,688,270

Plant $1,23 1,034

Plant Reserve $ 4 15,47 1 108,295

279,755

(408,548)

$1,5 10,789

$ 11 5,218 683,095

128,79 $ 636,598 ( 128,582) 48,492 556,508

$27,856, 184 (4 12,667) 1,023,828 $28,467,345

724,062 $2,234,85 1

$

(772,554) 25,759

Total $28,26 l ,494 169,025 1,688,270

$30, 11 8,789 14 1,846 1,023,828 $ l ,284,463

Statements of Cash Flow for the Years Ended December 31, 1991and1990 Cash Flow Provided by Ope rati o ns: et urplus Adju tment to reconcile net urplu s to cash pro vided by o pera ti o n Depreciatio n ( o re 1) Change in as ets a nd lia biliti e (Increa e) decrea e in acc ru ed inrere t receiva bl e (Increase ) decrea e in o th er receiva bl e (Increase) decrea e in invent ri es (Increase ) decrease in prepa id a nd o th er a et Increase in accounts pa ya ble a nd acc ru ed ex pen e Increa e in deferred income

1990

141 ,846

169,025

48,492

16,74 1

42, 157 2,261 (67 1) 12,694 28,978 176,692 3 10,603 452,449 $

T otal adjustments Net cash provided by operations Cash Flows Used for Inve ting Activitie : Capita l ex penditure Purchases of investments Proceeds from sal es o f inve tm ents

(772,554) (15,813, 157) 16,276, 152 (309,559) $ 142,890 20,989 163 ,879

$

N et cash used for investing activities Net Increase (Decrease) in Cash at Beginning of Year

199 1

ash

Cash at End of Year

The accompanying notes are an integral part of th ese finan cial statem ents.

109

(164,747) (9,565) 7,723 (26,931) 83,290 52,000 (4 1,489) 127,536 (408,548) (20, 126,22 1) 19,749,41 7 (785,35 2) (657,8 16) 678,805 20,989

Notes to Financial Statements December 31 , 1991 1 Summary of Accounting Policies The Isa bell a Stewart Ga rdner M useum , Incorporated (M useu m Corpora ti on), the so le trustee under the will of Isa bella Stewa rt Ga rdner, is th e owner of th e property that is loca ted at 2 Pa lace Roa d, Boston, M assachusetts, and M rs. Ga rdn er's art coll ection conta in ed therein . The M useum Co rporation operates th e Museum , which is open to the public, and which includes three fl oors of artwo rk, a ga rden, a ca fe and a gift shop. Th e more significa nt accou nting policies of th e Museum Co rporati on incl ude th e fo llowi ng: A Bas is of Presenta tion - Th e Mu eum Corpora tion prepares its fin ancia l sta tements on a n accrua l basis of accounting. Under th e accrua l meth od, income and expenses are recognized when ea rned or incurred.

B In vestments - The Mu eum Corpora ti on ca rri es in vestments at quoted market price, less an a ll owa nce fo r unrea lized app reciation. No cha nge in unrea li zed appreciatio n is recognized for fin ancial statement purposes. Ga ins and losses fro m sa les of investments are ca lculated on the fi rst-in, first-o ut bas is. Endowment income is recorded on the acc ru a l bas is. Short-term investments are reco rded at cost which approxi mates market.

C In ventori es - In ventories for the cafe and Muse um shop are va lu ed at the lower of cost or market on th e first-in, fi rst-out basis.

D Museum Property - Museum p roperty is stated at appra ised va lues establ i hed as of Dece mber 24, 1936. Addi tions made ubsequentl y a re stated at cost. Th e Museum Corpora ti on ca pita li zes th ose renovation an d oth er significa nt additi ons that materia ll y add to the va lu e of the related assets and extend their useful lives. Equipment and furni shings of relati ve ly small doll ar amounts a re expensed aga inst th e appropriate fun d.

The Museum Corpora ti o n fo ll ows the Financia l Accounting Standard s Boa rd 's requirement th at not-fo r-profit companies recognize depreciati on expense on major ca tego ri es of fi xed assets, excluding historica l treasures. The Museum Corporation deprec iates fi xed assets, prim aril y building improvements, on a stra ight-line basis over fi ve to ten yea rs, co mm encing when th e asset is ready fo r use. Accumul ated depreciation amounting to $177,285 a nd $128,793 fo r 199 1 and 1990, respecti vely, is includ ed in Museum property in the acco mpanying statements of fin ancial conditi on. Depreciation expense is included with th e expenses o f the related departments in th e accompanying statements of operati ons, except for depreciati on on ce rta in oth er Museum property and building improve ments, whi ch is shown separately. Constructi on in

progress is cl ass ifi ed on th e statements of fin ancial co ndition as "ca pi ta l proj ects." Depreci ati on fo r such costs begins upo n co mpl eti o n o f th e related project.

E Federa l Excise Taxes - On August 20, 198 7, th e Intern a l Revenue Se rvice determin ed th at the Mu se um Corpora ti on wo uld be trea ted as a publi c charity und er Secti ons 509(a)( l ) and 170( b)(A)(vi) of the Interna l Revenue Code, effecti ve Janu ary 1, 1982. Acco rdingly, the Museum Co rpora ti on does not reco rd a provision for inco me taxe .

F Fund Ba la nces - Th e Mu seum Co rporati on ma inta in s severa l fund s to ensure o bservance o f restrictio ns placed on the use of resources ava ilab le to it.

Operating Fund - represe nts unrestricted reso urces ava il a ble fo r th e support of Museum opera ti ons.

Endowment Fund (fo rmerl y th e Genera l Fund ) - include fund tha t are ubj ect to restrictio ns of gift instruments requi ring, in perpetu ity, th at the principa l be in vested. An amo unt, des ii;na ted by the Trustees, is used to suppo rt Muse um operati ons. The rema ining income, if any, rema ins in ves ted .

Plant Fund - represents restricted fund s rel ating to th e la nd a nd buildings . In 1991, the Trustees vo ted to utili ze th e Pl ant Fund, retroactive to Janu a ry 1, 1990, to acco unt for ca pita l imp rove ments.

Plant Reserve Fund (fo rmerl y the Capital Cam pa ign Fund ) - re presents reso urces restricted fo r capita l expenditures such as building impro vements.

G End ow ment All oca ti on a nd Plant Rese rve Fund Interest - Annua ll y, the Muse um Corpora ti on is a llowed to all ocate a portion of its end owment income to the Operating Fund to cove r Muse um o peratio n. The portion transfer red is based upon a percentage, determin ed by th e Trustees, o f th e three-yea r ro ll ing average of the end owment's marker va lue. An y excess di vid end and interest inco me earn ed by the en dowment ove r the amount tra nsferred to th e Opera ting Fund is shown as a n addition ro th e endowment fund . To th e extent th at di vidend and interest income earned does nor sat isfy the all oca ted porti on, rhe difference will be transfe rred from rea lized ga ins. Interest in come earned on a mounts in the Plant Reserve Fund is shown as an additi on to that fund .

H Federal Grants -During 1991, the Museum Corpora tion received approx im ately $586,000 in federal grant awa rds ro help defray the costs of certa in projects currentl y in progress. The

110

luseum orporat1on drew down approximately 41 1,200 to cmcr c'pcnd1rures 1n 1991, $194,700 of which 1; cla 1fied a'> deferred income 1n the a companying balance ;heer. Realization of rh1 deferred income 1 ;ub1ccr to certain marching conmbutton and grant1ng agency approval. In addition, early 111 1992, rhe Museum orporanon returned approximately I 13,000 of rhe 194,700 2 Employee Benefit Plans The Mu eum orporat1on has a defined benefit pen ion plan rhar CO\ er ub rant1ally all employee who meet certain age and employment requirement>. The 1u cum orporatton 's polt9 1 ro fund pension cost accrued.

The following table ser forth the plan's funded taru ar De ember 3 1:

199 1 Actuarial pre<,ent value of benefit obltgat1on : A cumulated benefit obligation, in luding ve red benefit of 923,000 in 199 1 and $809,000 in 1990

1990

$ (982,000)

(856,000)

Pro1ecred benefit obligation for erv1ce rendered ro dare $( 1,2 16,000)

( 1,113,000)

Plan as er at fair value, primarily lISted rocks and US Trea ury bond Plan asset 1n exce s of projected benefit obligation $

1,555,8 0

1,389,000

to rhe grant1ng agency while awamng acceptance of a propo'>al ro redefine the grant guidelines.

I Recla s1ficat1on - errain recla 1ficat1ons have been made to prior year balances, 1nclud1ng the ut1l1zatton of the Plant F-und ro account for capital improvements, ro conform with the current year presentation.

nrecogn i1ed ner (gain) los'> from pa r experience different from rhar assumed and effect\ of changes 1n assumpt1on

(73,227)

54,399

Remaining unrecognized net as er rhar wa e rabltshed at January l, 1989; sixteen-rear amorrizat1on

(293,342)

(31 ',907)

Accrued pem1on cost

(26,689)

(2,508)

66, 171

60,345

4,750

"'3,500

er pem1on cosr include'> rhe following component : ernce cosr-benefir earned during the period Inrere r cost on pro1ecred benefit obltgat1on crual rerurn on plan inve rmenr er amorrizanon and deferral er periodic pen ion co r

339,880

259,000

111

(104,175)

( 103,425)

(22,565)

(22,565)

24,181

$

7,855

Report of Independent Public Accountants In 1991 and 1990, the weighted-average discount rate and expected long-term rate of return on assets used in determ ining the actu ar ia l present va lue of th e projected benefit ob li ga tion was 7.5%. The rate of increase in future compensa tion leve ls was 6.0% and 7.5% in 1991 and 1990 respectively. ' Prior to fisca l 1991, th e Museum Corporation had a deferred compensation p lan for Museum empl oyees and made suppl ementary ann uity payments to former emp loyees not included in the above pension plan. Effecti ve Janu ary 1, 1991, th e Museum Corpora ti on amen ded th e pension p lan to include those emplo yees formerly not includ ed. Costs charged to opera tions were $15,190 in 1990.

3 Restrictions on Operating Surp lus The Trustees are directed, under the will of Isa bella Stewart Gardn er, to pay to certai n designated hosp itals any surplus of income which in th e op ini on of the Director and Tru stees, wJI not be needed for the proper and reasonable maintenan ce of the Museum. These amounts, if any, are payable at the end of success ive five-year periods, the most recent of which ended December 31 1989. In fiscal 1991, the Trustees determin ed' that any excesses are needed for the proper and reasonabl e ma inten ance of the Muse um.

4 Theft of Museum Works of Art In M arch 1990, thirteen works of art were sto len from the Mu seum. Desp ite extensive efforts by th e Federa l Burea u of In vestiga ti on (FBI) and Interpo l, the works of a rt have not been recovered. The Museu m Corporati on, the FBI and Interpo l are continuing their efforts to recover th e works of art.

To the Trustees of The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Incorporated, Trustee Under the Will of Isabella Stewart Gardner: We ha ve aud ited the acco mpan ying statements of financial con dition of THE ISABELLA STEWART GARDNER MUSEUM, INCORPORATED (a Massachusetts, not-for-profit corporation ), TRUSTEE UNDER THE WILL OF ISABELLA STEWART GA RDNER as of December 31 1991 an d 1990 and the related statem ents of ope~a足 tions, changes in fund balances and cas h fl ows for th e years then ended . These financia l statements are! the responsibility of the Mu seum Co rpo rati on's management. Our respons ibility 1s to express a n opinion on these financial statements based on our a udits.

We co nducted our a udits in acco rd ance w ith genera lly accepted a uditing sta nd ards. Those standards require that we pla n and perfo rm the a udit to obtain reasona ble ass urance a bout whether the financia l statements are free of materi al mi ssta t.ement. An audit inclu des exami ning, on a test basis, evidence supporting th e amou nts and disclosures in the fin ancial sta tem ents. An a udit also incl udes assess ing th e acco unting princ ip les used and signifi rnnt estim ates made bv ma nagement, as we ll as eva lu ating the overa ll fin ancia l statement presentation. We believe that our audits provide a reasonab le basis for o ur opinion.

In our opinion, the fin ancia l statements referred to a bove present fairly, in a ll materia l respects, the f111 anc1a l position of Th e Isa bel la Stewart Gardn.er Museum, In corporated, Trustee Und er th e W ill of Isa bella Stewart Gardner as of December 31, 1991 and 1990, and the resuirs of its operations, the changes in its fund ba l a n ce~ and its cas h fl ows for the years th en end ed in conformity with genera lly accepted accou~tin o prin ciples. " Arthur Andersen & Co. February 26, 1992

112

n ral and Project- pecific Operating Support Anonymou (3) ola And r on The Bar t w Fund Bo t n rt Lottery Timothy oyne harle and J Anne Dickin on G. Peabody and Ro e ardner haritable Tru t amue l H. Kre F undation Ma sachu ett ultural ouncil The Olin- ohen Tru t Amelia Peabody haritable Fund Polaroid Foundation The eth prague ducational and haritable F undation abina Trou dale

apital Contribution 600,000 Tru tee of the l abe ll a tewart ardner Mu eum 175,000 ational Endowment for the Art 411 ,000 ational End wment f r the Humanitie - ational Heritage Pre ervation Program

75,000 Tiffany &

o.

Up to 75,000 The Bo ton lobe Mr. J hn F. ogan and M . Mary L. ornille Mr. and Mr . I. W. olburn ooper & Lybrand harle and Jo nne Dickin on harrette orp ration Dynatech orporation Fidelity lnve tment Dr. and Mr . E. Garvin Fi cher Mr. and Mr . Richard M. Fra er Mr. and Mr . George P. Gardner The Henley League, Ltd. The Ri chard and atalie Jacoff Foundation Mr. and Mr . Thoma H. Lee Mr. Leon Levy and Ms. helby White Lily Tran portation orporation Mr. a nd Mrs. Peter S. Lynch Macomber Enterprises, Inc. Mr. and Mr . Robert O'Block Polaroid Corporation The Putnam Compan ie Ms. Wendy Shattuck and Mr. Samuel Plimpton Mrs. Hel en B. Spaulding Charlene Engelhard-Troy Wellington Management Company

113

Staff

Trustees':-

Staff

The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Incorporated, Sole Trustee under the will of Isabella Stewart Gardner

On regular d uty December 31st, 1990

The Isabella Stewart Gardner Musewn, Incorporated, Sole Trustee under the will of Isabella Stewart Gardner

On regular duty December 31st, 1991

President Malcolm D. Perkins

Elizabeth Bing, Jane Bodner, Kenneth Boutet, Thomas Boyden, Robert Brackett, Elizabeth Britton, Jennifer Brown, Carolann Butterworth, j udy Caradonio, Victoria Chapman, Rose Marie Ciampi, Jorda n Cohen, Corey Cronin, Jeremiah Crowley, Paul Daley, Cindy Daugherty, Kathleen Davis, Susan L. Davy, Joseph Dellea, David Desfosses, Cynthia Dieges, Stephen Dooley, Nancy Ellis, Jonathan Fan, Marjorie Ga las, Meryl Golden, Lyle Grindle, Karen H aas, Anne H awley, Charles H ealy, Greg H eins, William E. H erman, Charl ie Hinton, Clifton H olley, Elisa Jorgensen, Kelly Kamborian, Emily Kaplan, Bal Mokand Kapur, April Kelly, Edward Kingston, Douglas Kirshen, Aaron M. Kirtz, Elia Kirtz, Sta nley Kozak, Brian Krischke, lyoko Laffin, Thomas Larkin, Craig Lawler, Lisa Lesniak, Michael Levin, Dana Little, Ada H. Logan, Matthew Lyon, Robert MacKenzie, Barbara Mangum, Michael Manni, Joseph McGaffigan, Robert Mentzinger, Pasquale Morano, Joseph Mu lvey, Patrick Na ughton, j ohn F. Niland, Lawrence O'Brien, Beth-Rene Olsen, William Platt, Joseph Rajunas, Lisa Ransom, Heather Rowe, Karen SanGregory-Fox, Michael Silver, Susan Sinclair, Kristian Stanley, Valentine H.P. Tall and, Constance Trent, Frank Tully, Mark Viglas, Clarence Wojciechowski, Louis Yacherta, Tadao Yamanaka.

Chairman j ohn L. Gardner

Administration

Trustees:~

Vice-President and Treasurer john L. Gardner Secretary James L. Terry Samuel W. Bodman Elliot Forbes Ann L. Gund Mason Hammond, Emeritus Francis W. H atch Arnold Hiatt Mary Ford Kingsley James Lawrence William Poorvu Lionel Spiro Emily D.T. Vermeule *Status as of December 31st, 1990

114

President Francis W. H a tch Treasurer Donald R. Melville Secretary James L. Terry Samuel W. Bodman Elliot Forbes Ann L. Gund Mason Hammond, Emeritus Arno ld Hiatt The Honorable Julian T. Houston Mary Ford Kings ley James Lawrence Malcolm D. Perkins, Emeritus William Poorvu Lionel Spiro Emi ly D.T. Vermeule *Status as of December 31st, 1991

Director Anne Hawley Diredor of Long-Range Planning Jennifer Brown Dired or of Finance and Operations Susa n L. Davy Director of Development Lynn H olstein Manager of Construction William E. Palk, Jr. Executive Assistant Judy Caradonio Accountant Mary Gattis Office Manager/Personnel Phillippa Weech-Lloyd Public Programs Coordinator Marianne McDermon Administrative Assistant for D evelopment and Finance Whimey Romoser D evelopment Writer Douglas Kirshen Special Events Coordinator Carolann Butterworth M embership Coordinator Peter Espenshade Membership Intern Nikki DelCastillo Director of Music Scott Nickrenz Museum Shop Manager Beth-Rene Olsen Museum Shop Assistants H eather Rowe Susa n Breen Jessica Reid

Curatorial

Maintenance

Chief Curator Hilliard T. Goldfarb

Supervisor of Buildings John F. Nila nd

Assistant Curator Troy Moss

Maintenance Foreman Patrick Na ughton

Archivist/Librarian Susan Sinclair

Elizabeth Bing Bal Mokand Kapur Edward Kingston

Conservator of Objects Barbara M a ngum , on leave of absence

Visitor Service Representative Amy Kuemmerle

Gardening Head Gardener Stanley Kozak Gardeners Shannon Guthrie Charles H ea ly Edward Kozak

Security Chief of Security Lyle Grindle

Cafe

Assistant Conse1路vator of Objects Catherine Anderson

Senior Security Supervisor Cynthia Dieges

Cafe Manager and Chef Michael Silver

Assistant, Objects YunhuiMao

Security Supervisors Stephen Dooley Charlie Hinton Joseph McGaffigan

Assistant Manager Kathleen Meley

Acting Conservator of Objects Valentine H.P. TaUand

Acting Conservator of T extiles Ada H. Logan Assistant, T extiles Valeria Orlandini Conservator of Paper/Paint Elisa Jorgensen

Head Chef Meryl Golden

Watch Tho mas Boyden William Flynn M arjorie Galas Cra ig Lawler Mark Viglas Guards Robert Brackett Kathleen Brill Rose M arie Ciampi Jordan Cohen Susan Coley Jeremiah Crowley Paul Daley Richard Delphia Da le Freeman Michael Flynn Elizabeth Gallagher William E. Herman Geoffrey H aun April Kelly Iyoko Laffin Leo Loeb M a tthew Lyon Michael Manni Annabel Maitland Patrick McMahon Pasquale Morano William Platt Joseph Rajunas Arthur Tashtian Frank Tully Gerner Woreta Clarence Wojciechowski Lo uis Yachetta Tadao Yamanaka

115

Jane Bodner Kenneth Boutet Aaron Fa nnin Katherine Finneran Larry Paradiso Lisa Ransom Consta nce Trent-Allison Allison Tsoi

,\!11:e11111

Office

2 P.1l.1u Rn.id Bc),wn, \ L1' ,11.:hu~rr' 0211 .