̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Italy

‘Altar tent’ discovery puts Islamic art at the heart of medieval Christianity

ta385 — Sat, 01 Feb 2025 06:00:00 +0000

A 13th-century fresco rediscovered in Ferrara provides unique evidence of medieval churches using Islamic tents to conceal their high altars. Dr Federica Gigante believes the 700-year-old fresco could be the only surviving image of its kind, offering precious evidence of a little-known Christian practice.

Astrolabe reveals Islamic–Jewish scientific exchange

ta385 — Mon, 04 Mar 2024 06:30:00 +0000

̽��ֱ��identification of an eleventh-century Islamic astrolabe bearing both Arabic and Hebrew inscriptions makes it one of the oldest examples ever discovered and one of only a handful known in the world. ̽��ֱ��astronomical instrument was adapted, translated and corrected for centuries by Muslim, Jewish and Christian users in Spain, North Africa and Italy.

Digital resurrection: bringing one of Italy's most important lost churches back to life

ta385 — Mon, 03 Aug 2020 11:30:00 +0000

Art historians have created a new app which allows users to roam around one of Florence’s oldest and most important churches, San Pier Maggiore, 240 years after it was demolished.

Animating objects: what material culture can tell us about domestic devotions

amb206 — Tue, 24 Oct 2017 06:21:48 +0000

It’s an enduring irony of history that the most commonplace objects from the past are those least represented in today’s museum collections. ̽��ֱ��more precious and expensive an object, the more likely it is to have survived. As a result, our perceptions are skewed towards items that belonged to the rich and powerful – objects that were perhaps rarely handled.

During Madonnas and Miracles, a recent exhibition of religious material culture at the Fitzwilliam Museum, one of the most ‘stopped at’ items of the objects on show was an exquisite rock crystal rosary. It was clearly crafted for an individual of outstanding wealth and status. Each bead features a scene from the New Testament; the drawings are incised into a layer of gold. Not surprisingly, the rosary is today one of the treasures held by the Palazzo Madama Museum in Turin.

But also attracting attention was a much less eye-catching slip of paper printed on both sides with prayers in Latin. This breve would have been sold cheaply on the streets of Italian cities. Its frayed edges suggest that it was folded and worn close to the skin in the belief that the prayers would protect the wearer from a host of disasters – from earthquake to plague. Thousands of brevi were produced, and carried as talismans against misfortune, but few have survived.

In 2013, three Cambridge academics from different fields of scholarship came together to throw fresh light on the ways in which Renaissance Italians worshipped within the privacy of the home. Historian Professor Mary Laven, literary specialist Dr Abigail Brundin and art historian Professor Deborah Howard were determined to explore material culture from modest as well as wealthy households through their ambitious research project, Domestic Devotions: the Place of Piety in the Italian Domestic Home 1400–1600, funded by the European Research Council.

During the research, which informed Madonnas and Miracles and a forthcoming book, the three stepped out of the ‘golden triangle’ of Florence, Rome and Venice, the major hubs of cultural activity in the Renaissance, to look at material culture from further afield – in Naples, the Marche and the Venetian mainland. In doing so, their study makes an important contribution to our understanding of domestic religious practice across the Italian peninsula.

̽��ֱ��Renaissance is often seen as a secular, less religious age in which interest in antiquity encouraged a more rational way of seeing the world. But the evidence from material culture paints a different picture. “ ̽��ֱ��wealth of devotional images and artefacts that we have discovered in Renaissance homes encourages us to view the period 1400–1600 as a time of spiritual revitalisation,” says Laven.

Household inventories show how even a relatively modest family could create a special place for prayer and meditation by setting objects such as a crucifix, candlesticks, holy books and rosaries on a table or kneeling stool. As a reminder of divine protection, religious pictures or statues might be found almost anywhere in or around the house.

“Acts of devotion, from routine prayers to extraordinary religious experiences, such as miracles and visions, frequently took place in the home and were shaped to meet the demands of domestic life with all its ups and downs – from birth to death,” adds Laven. “ ̽��ֱ��tight bond between the domestic and the devotional can be seen in the material culture of the period – in paintings, ceramics and more. These objects tell us how closely daily life intersected with religious belief.”

Young women often asked the Virgin Mary for intercession during childbirth. Representations of the Madonna embracing her healthy son were a feature of many bedchambers – and not just those of the wealthy. ̽��ֱ��Fitzwilliam Museum holds an example of a rustic terracotta figure of a solemn-looking Madonna and Christ child who is portrayed holding his mother’s naked breast. This rare object exemplifies the type of lower-end production available to less well-off consumers.

Household objects acted as reminders to Renaissance parents of their duties, and the Holy Family was a powerful model of how a devout family should live. An early 16th-century maiolica inkstand in the Fitzwilliam collection, for instance, takes the form of a nativity scene: the infant Christ lies before an adoring Mary and Joseph while a cow and ass look over a stable door, their placidity testament to the wonder of the moment.

In Renaissance paintings, the Madonna appears as an ideal mother and educator – a compelling role model. “A painting of Virgin and child with John the Baptist by Pinturicchio, held by the Fitzwilliam, is a wonderful example,” says Howard. “It shows the Madonna teaching the young Jesus to read. Seated on her lap and encircled by her arms, he is perfectly absorbed in a book. Meanwhile, a boyish and pious John the Baptist provides a model for devotion by young children.”

Everyday objects could literally incorporate the sacred. An earthenware bowl in the Fitzwilliam Museum decorated with an image of the Madonna of Loreto bears around its rim the inscription: CON POL. DI S. CASA. This abbreviated Italian text tells us that the clay from which it was made contains dust (polvere) from the ‘holy house’ of the Virgin Mary, supposedly carried from Nazareth to Italy in the 13th century. Behind the Madonna is an outline of the Santa Casa with its tiled roof and bell tower.

At a time when much of the population was illiterate, owning devotional texts was important for surprisingly large swathes of the population. Even when closed, or unread, they exuded beauty and spiritual value within the domestic sphere. Brundin explains: “Sacred words, by their very presence, could provide protection. Some authors even advised writing the words of certain psalms on the walls to keep the family safe and as a reminder to pray regularly.”

Texts can offer clues to their owners. Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Library holds a stunning hand-illustrated printed copy of the Meditation on the Life of Christ. Hand-written notes in its margins show that in 1528 it was given to a nun, Sister Alexia, by her uncle. Alexia’s annotations indicate that she read the work closely. She even added manicules (pointing fingers) next to passages of particular importance. ̽��ֱ��book was later owned by another nun, Teofila, whose own reading would have been guided by Alexia’s marks.

Objects accrue deeply personal meanings that are impossible to unravel fully. Careful investigation across disciplines can, however, offer a glimpse of the very human and very fragile hopes and fears embodied by objects, as Brundin explains: “A humble scrap of paper marked with a cross or a brief prayer, of no obvious artistic or literary merit, comes alive when we’re able to marry it with an archival record in which a devotee explains what it means to them.”

‘ ̽��ֱ��Sacred Home in Renaissance Italy’ by Abigail Brundin, Deborah Howard and Professor Mary Laven will be published by Oxford ̽��ֱ�� Press in 2018.

Inset image: This breve was probably folded and worn close to the skin around 500 years ago in the belief that the prayers would protect the wearer; Breve di S. Vincenzo Ferrerio contro la fibre, Civica Raccolta Stampe A. Bertarelli.

Rustic figurines of a resigned-looking Virgin clutching her child may have no obvious literary or artistic merit to us today. But understanding what they meant to the spiritual lives of their owners can offer a glimpse of the human hopes and fears that people have, for centuries, invested in inanimate objects.

̽��ֱ��tight bond between the domestic and the devotional can be seen in the material culture of the period – in paintings, ceramics and more. These objects tell us how closely daily life intersected with religious belief.

Mary Laven

Fitzwilliam Museum

This down-to-earth, glazed terracotta figurine of the Virgin could act as the focus of family prayers in a modest home

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

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Oscar-nominated documentary filmmaker comes to Cambridge

sjr81 — Tue, 09 May 2017 14:51:48 +0000

Rosi’s most recent documentary, 2016’s Fire at Sea, was an uncompromising look at the everyday life of six locals on the Italian island of Lampedusa, the first port of call for the hundreds of thousands of African migrants crossing the Mediterranean in search of a better life in Europe.

Fire at Sea won the Golden Bear award for best film at the 66th Berlin International Film Festival and was nominated for Best Documentary Feature at the 89th Academy awards in February.

During Rosi’s two-week residency (May 14-28), the Arts Picturehouse will screen the entirety of his work to date, with each screening followed by a Q&A with the director. Rosi will also connect directly with staff and students in the Centre for Film and Screen by delivering masterclasses and participating in a public symposium, Lands, Seas, Bodies: On the cinema of Gianfranco Rosi, on Wednesday, May 24.

International recognition of Rosi soared after Meryl Streep, the jury chair of the Berlin film festival, publically endorsed Fire at Sea as “a daring hybrid of captured footage and deliberate storytelling that allows us to consider what documentary can do. It is urgent, imaginative and necessary filmmaking.”

Dr John David Rhodes, Director of the Centre for Film and Screen and a specialist in Italian cinema, calls Rosi’s work “indisputably among the most important in the world.”

Audience numbers for documentaries have grown considerably in the last ten years, largely driven by audiences going in search of authenticity in the lived experience.

“It’s a rich moment for documentaries because they provide the ability to respond powerfully and flexibly to geo-political crises,” said Rhodes. “People are starved for contact with the real and with reality. People are trying to find ways to make contact with the world – documentary filmmaking is one way of doing that. It can produce knowledge and experiences that are otherwise closed to us.

“Rosi’s residency offers our students and the wider ̽��ֱ�� the opportunity to engage at close range a working filmmaker of the highest calibre. As was the case last year when we hosted Joanna Hogg (our first filmmaker-in-residence), Rosi’s residency brings to our community of film scholars and students of cinema the opportunity to think about film from the point of view of the film artist. It offers a vital opportunity to test practice and theory against each other, while getting to hang out with one of the most interesting people working in world cinema.”

More information about the screenings and public symposium is available on the Centre for Film and Screen’s website.

Tickets for the screenings including a post-film Q&A can be purchased from the Arts Picturehouse website.

Hailed as “one of the most important artists in any medium”, the award-winning and Oscar-nominated Italian documentary filmmaker Gianfranco Rosi is coming to Cambridge this month as filmmaker-in-residence at Cambridge ̽��ֱ��’s Centre for Film and Screen.

Rosi's work is indisputably among the most important in the world.

John David Rhodes

Still from Fire at Sea, the Oscar-nominated documentary by Gianfranco Rosi

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

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Arms and the man: how a culture of warfare shapes masculinity

amb206 — Thu, 31 Mar 2016 11:10:05 +0000

Brawls tend to take a familiar pattern. Verbal insults are traded and physical violence erupts. Something like this happened in the graveyard of a church in Florence on 30 March 1561. It began when a man named Niccolo di Piero Parenti called another man, Piero di Domenico, un asino (an ass). Both men soon drew their swords. Two others joined the fray – and Piero was wounded (his big toe was badly cut) leaving him unable to walk properly.

A remarkably detailed report of this encounter between a pair of hot-headed Florentines appear in the annals of the Otto di Guardia e Balia, records kept by the magistrates responsible for overseeing criminal affairs and law enforcement in Tuscany under the Medici, the dynasty which ruled this domain for close to three centuries.

Few scholars have investigated the archives of the Otto di Guardia which represent a vast and under explored historical source. But in 2015 Victoria Bartels, a PhD candidate in the Faculty of History, spent two months studying these hand-written records. It was an undertaking that required not just a grasp of 16th century Italian but the determination to track down the meanings of dozens of obscure or archaic terms – from verbal jibes to items of armour. She was amused to discover that the insult poltrone translates as ‘armchair’ and means something akin to slob.

Bartels’ research into the usage of weaponry in Renaissance Florence forms one strand of a dissertation in which she will explore the relationship between men and armour (as well as martial fashion trends) in the 16th century. Her quest to understand more about the ways in which men used these items as masculine signifiers during this period takes her on a voyage into art, literature and archival documents that have survived more than 400 years of history.

Late Renaissance Italian culture was characterised by warfare. ̽��ֱ��so-called Italian Wars involved much of Europe and a preoccupation with armed struggle and violence was reflected in pastimes (such as jousting) and in male deportment and dress. Weapons (like those drawn in the graveyard in March 1561) were prohibited in 16th century Florence in order to maintain peace. But exceptions could be made and the contents of the Otto di Guardia archives suggest that many were.

As well as holding records of thousands of incidents of violence, the Otto archives also contain a huge collection of letters called suppliche (supplications) that petition the Duke for exonerations, sentence reductions, or the granting of certain privileges. Among these documents are numerous letters in which men wrote to ask the Otto for permission to wear or carry, in public, weapons that were banned.

Speaking today, at the 62nd Annual Meeting of the Renaissance Society of America in Boston, Bartels will show for the first time how these letters shine a light on the ways in which Renaissance men used weapons and armour in their daily lives to promote a masculine image – and how entrenched the notion of honour was in early modern society. ̽��ֱ��supplications are rich in information not only about what offensive and defensive arms men sought to wear but where in town they wished to go and how they wanted to be seen.

“ ̽��ֱ��supplications are very specific in what they set out – and these details are what make them so valuable. In order to be given permission to bear arms a man had to specify with some precision what items he wanted to carry, when he wanted to be able to carry them, and why. ̽��ֱ��letters include a plea from a Portuguese priest who asks for permission to carry a dagger, and his man servant to carry a sword, for protection against a rowdy group of farmers and youths who are demanding his removal from a small parish church,” says Bartels.

“As a historian interested in the cultural history of arms and armour, it’s fascinating to hold in my hands letters that describe a whole range of situations and discuss both the usage and significance of these objects. ̽��ֱ��accounts written by notaries follow a template of sorts. However, each story is tailored to the individual behind the request. Although the level of detail varies, these documents provide historical information that we might not otherwise encounter. Every piece of material included, or withheld for that matter, assists us in our quest to understand period norms.”

Successful supplicants were awarded licenses by the Otto. Bartels’ research in the Archivio di Stato di Firenze led to the discovery of one such license – a copy of a document issued in March 1557. ̽��ֱ��license in question was granted to a painter called Maestro Giovanni Fiammingo Pittore. It gives his address and age (35 years) and describes his appearance (“black hair, black bushy beard, white in the face, medium stature”) and gives him permission to carry “an armed jacket, sword, and dagger”.

It is interesting that Maestro Giovanni was a painter and, as such, attuned to the powerful symbolism of arms and armour. ̽��ֱ��irony of portraying civilians equipped for combat was not lost on another artist. In 1584 Giovanni Paolo Lomazzo wrote that “merchants and bankers who have never seen a drawn sword and who should probably appear with quill pens behind their ears, their gowns about them and their day-books in front of them, have themselves painted in armour holding generals’ batons” (translation by Carolyn Springer).

Portraits and inventories reveal how a culture of warfare, tied up with notions of chivalry revived from earlier times, permeated deep into the male psyche and into male fashion – especially among the elite. An inventory of the guardaroba (wardrobe) of Lorenzo de’ Medici, as shown by Mario Scalini, itemised various pieces of armour including the de facto ruler of Florence’s leg armour that he wore around the city for decorative purposes.

Jousts, melees, and other tournament games were fabulous excuses for donning steel. ̽��ֱ��author Antonio Bendinelli recorded a tournament held in 1574 for Don Juan of Austria. Bartels says: “He discussed the appearance of each contestant over a span of 45 pages, commenting on the colour and material of their armour, clothing, and plumes. In contrast, he summed up the actual joust in just 20 lines, as historians Richard and Juliet Barker have pointed out.”

Looking manly, and impressing the opposite sex, meant adopting a martial style. ̽��ֱ��celebrated Florentine sculptor Benvenuto Cellini suggested that cavaliers wore mail armour to impress women and, in 1538, the artist himself is recorded as possessing an entire wardrobe of mail. However, being perceived as overly militaristic also had its drawbacks. In Baldassare Castiglione’s ̽��ֱ��Book of the Courtier (1528), a female character explains to a surly, overly militaristic man: "I should think that since you aren't at war at the moment and you are not engaged in fighting, it would be a good thing if you were to have yourself well greased and stowed away in a cupboard with all your fighting equipment, so that you avoid getting rustier than you are already."

For statesmen, the consequences of going without armour could be deadly. In 1476 a grim fate befell the Duke of Milan, Galeazzo Maria Sforza, who was assassinated in one of the city’s churches. “We know from a courtier’s account that the Duke had decided against wearing his corazina [upper body armour] the morning of his death because it made him look portly,” says Bartels. “His decision was a revealingly human, but fatal, trade-off between form and function. His desire to look slim and dashing in public may have cost him his life.”

16th-century notions of gender welded manhood and masculinity with arms and armour. In a letter written in 1572, Antonio Serguidi noted that Duke Cosimo I wept with pride when he saw his youngest son Giovanni kitted out in armour, and holding a pike and mace. ̽��ֱ��putting on of armour was a mark of adulthood – and, perhaps, was a rite of passage with no return. ̽��ֱ��showy masculinity of martial dress, however, trod a delicate line along a sliding scale – with restraint at one end and acts of violence at the other.

Citing the scholars Lyndal Roper and John Tosh, Bartels suggests that a man’s level of manliness was never fixed but existed in a state of flux. “Violence, albeit in appropriate circumstances, appears to have been one method of demonstrating one’s masculinity. Yet to receive the benefits of this cultural capital, violent acts had to be performed publically under socially agreed terms, and especially in front of other men,” she says.

“Arms and armour seem to have been visible manifestations of this concept. Even if men didn’t fight, the objects they carried made it look as though they would and likely influenced their comportment and behaviour. Today we see these items in static museum displays – but to those who saw them worn their potentially lethal function was never in doubt. However, these same objects simultaneously conjured up notions of civility and chivalry, making the symbolism of arms and armour somewhat contradictory, similar to the period’s understanding of masculinity itself.”

̽��ֱ��gaining and defence of honour – whether for an individual, for family or for state – was the ultimate goal of the Renaissance man. ̽��ֱ��Otto di Guardia’s archives in Florence reveal that Niccolo, who engaged in a brawl with Piero almost exactly 455 years ago, was the only person to be charged with a crime. He was ordered to pay a fine for the insulting word he used and for the injury to his opponent’s foot. Though others joined the fracas, they were let off.

As Bartels explains: “Niccolo was convicted because he sullied the honour of Piero. As seen in other parts of Europe at this time, the authorities were sympathetic to fighters who were provoked by the spewing of verbal insults.”

Victoria Bartels will give her talk, ‘Men of Steel‘, today at the 62nd Annual Meeting of the Renaissance Society of America in Boston. She is contributing to a session called ‘Encountering the Renaissance, Honoring Gary Radke III: Regulating and Shaping Gender and Sexuality’.

Inset images: Titian, Portrait of Francesco Maria della Rovere, Duke of Urbino, 1536-38 (Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence); Parrying dagger with scabbard, Italy or Germany, ca. 1590 (Wallace Collection).

̽��ֱ��trappings of violence were embedded into the culture of 16th century Europe. Victoria Bartels, a PhD candidate in the Faculty of History, has conducted research in a Florentine archive to show how, even at a time when the bearing of arms was prohibited, men negotiated ways to sport their daggers and swords in public.

Violence, albeit in appropriate circumstances, appears to have been one method of demonstrating one’s masculinity. Yet to receive the benefits of this cultural capital, violent acts had to be performed publically under socially agreed terms, and especially in front of other men.

Victoria Bartels

Left: Giovanni Battista Moroni, Portrait of a Gentleman with His Helmet on a Column, ca. 1555-56. Middle: Giovanni Battista Moroni, ̽��ֱ��Gentlemen in Pink, 1560, Palazzo Moroni, Bergamo. Right: Moretto da Brescia, Portrait of a Man, 1526, Oil on canvas.

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

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Fancy pants: skirmishes with the fashion police in 16th-century Italy

amb206 — Tue, 16 Sep 2014 12:00:00 +0000

On 15 September 1595, a Genoese man-about-town called Salvagio de Aste was spotted breaking the law. ̽��ֱ��record in Genoa's state archives describes with remarkable precision what Salvagio was wearing that autumn day as he strolled through the square of San Siro. He must have cut a dashing figure. He sported “an embroidered cap, a silk doublet of many colours with gold buttons on the sleeves, two rings with white stones on his fingers, a jerkin and embroidered hose in black silk”.

̽��ֱ��detail with which Salvagio’s attire was noted is no accident: his showy and costly clothing was his crime. His colourful and lavishly embellished costume had fallen foul of Genoa’s Magistrato delle Pompe, whose role it was to enforce the sumptuary laws that regulated what men and women could wear. Patrolling the streets and squares of the bustling city as arbiters of the level of ostentation that was deemed appropriate, the sumptuary magistrates were quite simply the Fashion Police.

̽��ֱ��role of these magistrates, and their (largely unsuccessful) attempts to moderate excessive spending, is one strand of research into clothing in early modern Genoa by Giulia Galastro, a PhD candidate in the History Faculty at Cambridge ̽��ֱ��. In particular, she is interested in the ways in which the materiality of fabric is interwoven with the fabric of society in Genoa – a centre of the Italian silk trade and a city famous for its production of sumptuous velvets and other luxurious textiles.

Sumptuary laws restricted the use of precisely these textiles, along with expensive decoration such as embroidery with gold and silver thread. It also covered jewellery and ostentatious modes of transport, such as the lady in a litter seen in this image taken from a travelogue (owned by Strahov Monastery) of a Bohemian nobleman, who visited Genoa at the beginning of the 17th century.

Italy wasn’t alone in having sumptuary laws – the obsession with legislating against costly clothes spread across Europe during the Middle Ages. In England, James VI and I abolished sumptuary laws in 1604 but continued to control dress by other means. “ ̽��ֱ��purpose of the laws is a matter of some debate. Their wording suggests concern that luxury goods could damage the morals of those who consumed them. Fashion itself was seen as immoral: its transitory nature stoked an acquisitive lust for new goods,” said Galastro.

Financial considerations were also at play. A 15th-century Genoese law bemoaned "a great quantity of money which is kept dead and wrapped up in clothing and jewels, [and] if converted into trade might bring great return and profits". Some scholars, such as the historian Jane Bridgeman, have argued that the laws were an indirect tax on wealth, working on the tacit assumption that the rich would be prepared to pay to get around them.

“Part of the problem is that not much evidence for how the laws were enforced has been preserved, so it’s difficult to know how – and whether – they worked in practice. That’s what makes the Genoese sumptuary records so special. ̽��ֱ��rare survival of notes kept by the sumptuary magistrates gives us a glimpse of the laws in action, and of clothes in use. We can begin to build up a picture of who was wearing what, when and where,” said Galastro.

̽��ֱ��records suggest that residents of Genoa routinely ignored the sumptuary laws. In the four years from 1594 to 1598, the magistrates recorded more than 560 contraventions of the regulations. ̽��ֱ��foppish Salvagio was among the repeat offenders. Three days after being admonished on 15 September 1595 he was back in San Siro, wearing exactly the same outfit. On 5 November he was there again, wearing a leather jerkin impregnated with musk.

̽��ֱ��sumptuary magistrates were caught up in a game of catch-me-if-you-can as Genoa’s dandies defied and subverted the rules. ̽��ֱ��feckless Salvagio broke the law at least a further four times, suggesting that whatever fine was imposed was no deterrent to a man determined to strut his stuff.

“It is likely that any fines imposed were modest in comparison with the cost of the offending garments. A whole outfit in silk velvet, embroidered with precious metal threads, could come close to the price of a sports car today: if you could afford to buy the clothes, you could afford to pay the fine – or the bribe,’ said Galastro.

In analysing the records of the Genoese sumptuary laws, Galastro made a startling discovery. She said: “Contrary to widely held beliefs, male offenders outnumber females. In terms of overall sumptuary offences, there are 289 men to 242 women. If we focus on offences concerning dress, however, the disparity is more striking: 269 men to 99 women. In other words, there were almost three times as many men breaking the law on clothing as women.”

Historians have often presumed that, where sumptuary laws mention men at all, it is for dressing too femininely, but Galastro’s research suggests something different.

“It’s interesting that the majority of the offences relate to an outfit of black silk - taffeta, satin or velvet - ornamented with some sort of precious metal stitching or with lace. Just such an outfit appears in a portrait of an anonymous Genoese nobleman by the artist van Dyck which, to modern eyes, looks relatively sober. But black was a clear status symbol in Renaissance culture. Black dye was one of the most difficult to fix effectively, so we should be careful how we interpret these apparently ‘plain’ portraits,” said Galastro.

Anthony van Dyck worked in Genoa for six years from 1621 and painted a series of exquisite portraits of the local aristocracy. These show the city’s elite wearing luxurious garments. He moved to London in 1632 where his portraits such as ‘Lord John Stuart and his brother Lord Bernard Stuart’, circa 1638, show men wearing much more colourful and flamboyant clothing.

Clothes are made to be worn and the wearing of them is a form of performance – seldom more so than on the streets of a fashionable Mediterranean city humming with life. “If you pair the sumptuary records with literary sources, it seems that what was disquieting to the sumptuary magistrates in Genoa was a particular form of vaunting, flaunting masculine dress,” said Galastro.

In his 1620 commentary on the Characters of Theophrastus, the Genoese writer Ansaldo Ceba describes the effrontery of the young man who will “when he is wearing breeches alla Spagnola, or an embroidered doublet, circulate around the city so sedulously that you can’t help bumping into him in church, in the square, or on the corner… You needn’t think of leaving until you have admired him from head to toe. Indeed he will compel you to do so, now by opening his cloak, now by planting himself in front of you like a bulwark”.

Infringements of the sumptuary laws weren’t confined to the elite: artisans too were under scrutiny. Some were caught by the sumptuary magistrates while making luxury clothes. On 20 May 1595, the wife of Gioannetino the cheese-maker was spotted sitting on her doorstep sewing a man’s silk shirt, dyed in costly crimson, with gold and silver braids three fingers’ thick. Later in the summer three tailors were also caught working on luxury items.

These artisans were caught in a dilemma: their livelihoods depended on making luxury goods. “It is estimated that some 60% of the Genoese population was involved in the production of textiles and clothing – from the women employed to unwind silk filament from cocoons through the dyers and weavers in their workshops to the hundreds of tailors and seamstresses,” said Galastro.

It was an era when people had a hands-on relationship with textiles, choosing and purchasing fabrics in consultation with their tailors with the arrival of new textiles and trimmings eagerly awaited. ̽��ֱ��vocabulary of fabrics and fashion was fabulously diverse – colours such as ‘incarnadine’ (the red of raw flesh) – most of these words lost to us today.

“What you wore, and how you wore it, was a matter of deep significance,” said Galastro.

Inset images: detail of equestrian portrait of Giancarlo Doria by Rubens, 1606 (Wikimedia); detail of litter from Bedrich z Donin travelogue (by kind permission of Strahov Monastery); Salvago de Este infringes the sumptuary laws on 15 September, 1595 (Archivo di Stato di Genova; detail of portrait of a gentleman by Van Dyck, 1624 (WikiArt) detail of painting of 16th-century Genoa (Biblioteca Nacional de Espana); the cheese-makers wife is spotted making luxury goods on 17 April, 1598 (Archivo di Stato di Genova).

With the autumn 2014 fashion shows in full swing, all eyes are on the top designers. In 16th-century Italy, the latest looks didn't always go down well with the authorities. Historian Giulia Galastro is researching the sumptuary laws regulating the level of opulence that could be paraded in public – and how the dandies of the day neatly side-stepped the rules.

̽��ֱ��purpose of the laws is a matter of debate. Their wording suggests that luxury goods could damage the morals of those who consumed them. Fashion was seen as immoral: its transitory nature stoked an acquisitive lust for new goods.

Giulia Galastro

National Gallery

Portrait of Lord John Stuart and his brother Lord Bernard Stuart by Anthony Van Dyck, c1638

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Bella Italia: an Englishman’s adventures abroad

amb206 — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 11:15:48 +0000

Samuel Butler (1835-1902) was a man who defied easy categorisation: he has been most commonly described as a polymath, maverick and iconoclast. He was a scholar and writer, artist and photographer, musician and composer, traveller and sheep farmer. Prodigiously talented and hard-working, he was also forthright and disputatious, famously arguing that the Odyssey was not the work of Homer but of an unknown female author from Sicily.

Above all, Butler was an enthusiast who immersed himself in subjects that ranged from devotional art to the concept of evolution. He is best known for his novel Erewhon – ‘nowhere’ spelt (almost) backwards – a satire on Victorian society that challenged the accepted doctrine of the church and wider establishment.

Tomorrow the Old Library at St John’s College, Cambridge, will host an exhibition titled ‘Adventures in Italy’ that offers a rare glimpse into Butler’s varied and immensely productive life, focusing in particular on his passion for Italy, a place he described as his “second country”. ̽��ֱ��exhibition is open to the public, free of charge.

Three talks taking place at St John’s the same day, also free of charge, explore different aspects of Butler’s links with Italy – including the way in which he was perceived by the Italian intelligentsia as a “great novelist and English biologist friend of Italy”.

̽��ֱ��artefacts on display in the exhibition are drawn from the extensive collection of Samuel Butler materials that were given to St John’s, where Butler was an undergraduate in the 1850s. Among these are photographs, watercolours, pen and ink sketches, maps and souvenirs, as well as a copy of Butler’s guide book to the Alps complete with descriptions of visits to historic buildings and conversations with local people. Also on display will be one of Butler’s passports, a document that for more than a century had been tucked away inside a small leather wallet, and has now been opened up and conserved.

Butler first visited Italy with his family aged eight. He returned many times as an adult, walking hundreds of miles between towns and villages from the rugged Alps in the north to the shores of Sicily in the far south. Wherever he went, he made sketches and took photographs using the latest techniques and equipment, which made snapshot photography possible for the first time during the 1880s.

By the time he was exploring Italy on foot, Butler was largely estranged from his family, who had intended that he would enter the church – something he found impossible after losing his faith. This development had prompted him to sail to New Zealand, where he established a sheep station in the early 1860s. It was there that he gathered the material for his first novel Erewhon, which was initially published anonymously.

A later novel, ̽��ֱ��Way of All Flesh, which attacks Victorian hypocrisy, was published after Butler’s death following his instructions that it should not appear during the lifetime of his sisters as it was based on his own family experiences.

̽��ֱ��Samuel Butler Collection was given to St John’s College in 1918 by Butler’s friend and biographer Henry Festing Jones. In July 2011, a generous grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund kick-started a two-year project to catalogue the collection and open it up to the public through special events and the creation of online resources.

Saturday’s event, the second of three Butler Days, is part of that project. It has been organised by Rebecca Watts, Butler Project Associate at St John’s College Library. She says that the task of cataloguing the collection, though substantial, has benefited from Butler’s unusually meticulous way of working: each of the thousands of glass plate negatives that arrived at St John’s as part of the Collection came in envelopes noting when they were taken and what they show. This allows researchers to pinpoint with accuracy the scenes and characters depicted.

A series of talks during the afternoon begins with a lecture by Cristiano Turbil, who will offer an Italian perspective on the reception of Butler and his works. This will be followed by an exposition by painter and art historian Clarice Zdanski, of how Butler has influenced her own work and teaching. Finally, Julia Powles, a graduate student at St John’s who last year undertook a series of epic walks along Butler’s routes through the Italian Alps, will take the audience along her journey with the aid of words and pictures.

̽��ֱ��‘Adventures in Italy’ exhibition in the Old Library at St John’s College is open to the public tomorrow (12 January) 10am to 4pm. ̽��ֱ��talks take place at 12 noon (Cristiano Turbil on ‘Samuel Butler, un Amico dell’Italia: ̽��ֱ��History of a Cultural Partnership’), 2pm (Clarice Zdanski on ‘Consigning the Old Masters to Limbo: Samuel Butler’s Influence on How I Teach Art and Art History’) and 3.30pm (Julia Powles on ‘Over the Range with Samuel Butler and Some Remarkably Persistent Gnats’), in the newly refurbished Divinity School, opposite St John’s Great Gate. To reserve a place at the talks contact Rebecca Watts on rew35@cam.ac.uk or telephone the Library on 01223 339362.

For more information on the Samuel Butler Project go to https://www.joh.cam.ac.uk/samuel-butler-project

A Butler Day at St John’s College tomorrow (12 January) celebrates the many trips to Italy undertaken by the polymath Samuel Butler, author of Erewhon. ̽��ֱ��event comprises an exhibition and talks which are open to the public and free of charge.

He was also forthright and disputatious, famously arguing that the Odyssey was not the work of Homer but of an unknown female author from Sicily.

By permission of the Master and Fellows of St John's College, Cambridge

Oil painting of Varallo, Italy, by Samuel Butler, 1885

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