This chapter aims both to expand and to question traditional fixed categorizations of works of ar... more This chapter aims both to expand and to question traditional fixed categorizations of works of art and the medieval cultures around the central and eastern Mediterranean that produced them. Like the Serce Limani glassware, many works of art crossed political and religious boundaries between societies in which varieties of Christianity or Islam were dominant. The chapter then focuses on the model of transculturation, the ability of objects to share, or accrue, meanings across the cultural and confessional divide. The phenomenon of transculturation, however, is by no means exclusively modern but rather has existed throughout history and is manifest in a wide variety of medieval Islamic material culture. The chapter argues that peculiar historical, geographical, and cultural circumstances caused a surge in many different kinds of exchange within and across the realms of the court and commerce in the Mediterranean between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries
... illustrated copies of the astronomical treatise, the Book of the Fixed Stars by 'Abd al ... more ... illustrated copies of the astronomical treatise, the Book of the Fixed Stars by 'Abd al Rahman b.'Umar al-Sufi, the Gemini twins are ... and objects, which have been compared to the Fatimid nude especially in the context of similar body orna-mentation identified as tattoos.41 The ...
Bazaar to Piazza: Islamic Trade and the Italian Renaissance, 1300-1600, by Rosamond Mack. Berkele... more Bazaar to Piazza: Islamic Trade and the Italian Renaissance, 1300-1600, by Rosamond Mack. Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA and London, UK: University of California Press, 2002. ix + 188 pages. Notes to p. 222. Gloss. to p. 225. Bibl. to p. 240. Index to p. 257. $65. Reviewed by Eva R. Hoffman The Italian Renaissance had long been defined as an exclusive and singular moment of genius, signaling the discovery of new frontiers, and, at the same time, marking an irreparable rupture between East and West. Over the past decade, scholars' have countered this paradigm by viewing the achievements of the Renaissance in a broader global context, pointing to the crucial role of trade in shaping Renaissance identity, arguing for a more integrated and expansive definition of the Renaissance. Rosamond Mack's Bazaar to Piazza: Islamic Trade and the Italian Renaissance, 1300-1600, contributes to this paradigm shift by focusing on the decorative arts connected with the international luxury trade, in particular, the trade between the Islamic world and Italy. This is a splendid, lavishly illustrated volume with a strong visual emphasis that serves as a corrective for the neglected treatment of the Italian decorative arts and for the centrality of Islamic imports in the development of local Italian production. The focus on these marginalized arts from the Islamic and Italian spheres may take its cue from the newer literature, but the approach is a traditional, expository art historical one that steers clear of theory and interpretation. Mack divides her chapters by medium, devoting individual chapters to the media of "patterned silk," "carpets," "ceramics "glass "bookbinding and lacquer" and "inlaid brass." In these chapters, she systematically traces the stylistic and technical development of each medium. The fact that Mack often locates sources in the Islamic world, several hundred years before the year 1300, the official starting point of her study, indicates historical continuities to earlier Islamic portable arts dating well before the Renaissance. She draws excellent visual comparisons between the Eastern imports and their Italian adaptations. It comes as no surprise that the choice of media here parallels the leading media in the Islamic sphere and the organization of the book closely follows models of survey handbooks on Islamic portable arts. But while this organization may be commonplace to those of us who study the Islamic arts, it is still the exception in the literature on Italian Renaissance art, where, as Mack points out, the decorative arts have taken a back seat to the study of the fine arts. In her book, Mack rectifies this disparity and further shows that during the Renaissance, the decorative arts enjoyed a comparable status to the largescale works. When Mack turns to Italian Renaissance paintings in two chapters, "Oriental Script in Italian Paintings" and "The Pictorial Arts," she is not interested in these works as masterpieces of innovation in naturalism, illusionism, and human form but rather as documents recording the existence of actual luxury objects, which, like the paintings in which they are represented, filled, and defined the Italian interior spaces. To be sure, the presence of Islamic textiles and objects in Italian paintings had been noticed long before, but Mack lends particularity and concreteness to previous generalities and hunches. The book is at its best when it explores the lives of specific works, such as the "Alhambra Vase" (p. 53). The vase was made in Muslim Spain during the fourteenth century, where it embarked on a fascinating journey that took it from Venetian Cyprus to Sweden. While it was continuously misidentified, it nevertheless carried a specificity and aura of a coveted work, held in highest esteem by its highborn owners and viewers. It is puzzling that the author should still insist on using the term "oriental." She justifies the use of the term by saying that "Italians understood little about the different geographic and artistic origins of the foreign objects they admired in the contemporary context" (p. …
This chapter aims both to expand and to question traditional fixed categorizations of works of ar... more This chapter aims both to expand and to question traditional fixed categorizations of works of art and the medieval cultures around the central and eastern Mediterranean that produced them. Like the Serce Limani glassware, many works of art crossed political and religious boundaries between societies in which varieties of Christianity or Islam were dominant. The chapter then focuses on the model of transculturation, the ability of objects to share, or accrue, meanings across the cultural and confessional divide. The phenomenon of transculturation, however, is by no means exclusively modern but rather has existed throughout history and is manifest in a wide variety of medieval Islamic material culture. The chapter argues that peculiar historical, geographical, and cultural circumstances caused a surge in many different kinds of exchange within and across the realms of the court and commerce in the Mediterranean between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries
... illustrated copies of the astronomical treatise, the Book of the Fixed Stars by 'Abd al ... more ... illustrated copies of the astronomical treatise, the Book of the Fixed Stars by 'Abd al Rahman b.'Umar al-Sufi, the Gemini twins are ... and objects, which have been compared to the Fatimid nude especially in the context of similar body orna-mentation identified as tattoos.41 The ...
Bazaar to Piazza: Islamic Trade and the Italian Renaissance, 1300-1600, by Rosamond Mack. Berkele... more Bazaar to Piazza: Islamic Trade and the Italian Renaissance, 1300-1600, by Rosamond Mack. Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA and London, UK: University of California Press, 2002. ix + 188 pages. Notes to p. 222. Gloss. to p. 225. Bibl. to p. 240. Index to p. 257. $65. Reviewed by Eva R. Hoffman The Italian Renaissance had long been defined as an exclusive and singular moment of genius, signaling the discovery of new frontiers, and, at the same time, marking an irreparable rupture between East and West. Over the past decade, scholars' have countered this paradigm by viewing the achievements of the Renaissance in a broader global context, pointing to the crucial role of trade in shaping Renaissance identity, arguing for a more integrated and expansive definition of the Renaissance. Rosamond Mack's Bazaar to Piazza: Islamic Trade and the Italian Renaissance, 1300-1600, contributes to this paradigm shift by focusing on the decorative arts connected with the international luxury trade, in particular, the trade between the Islamic world and Italy. This is a splendid, lavishly illustrated volume with a strong visual emphasis that serves as a corrective for the neglected treatment of the Italian decorative arts and for the centrality of Islamic imports in the development of local Italian production. The focus on these marginalized arts from the Islamic and Italian spheres may take its cue from the newer literature, but the approach is a traditional, expository art historical one that steers clear of theory and interpretation. Mack divides her chapters by medium, devoting individual chapters to the media of "patterned silk," "carpets," "ceramics "glass "bookbinding and lacquer" and "inlaid brass." In these chapters, she systematically traces the stylistic and technical development of each medium. The fact that Mack often locates sources in the Islamic world, several hundred years before the year 1300, the official starting point of her study, indicates historical continuities to earlier Islamic portable arts dating well before the Renaissance. She draws excellent visual comparisons between the Eastern imports and their Italian adaptations. It comes as no surprise that the choice of media here parallels the leading media in the Islamic sphere and the organization of the book closely follows models of survey handbooks on Islamic portable arts. But while this organization may be commonplace to those of us who study the Islamic arts, it is still the exception in the literature on Italian Renaissance art, where, as Mack points out, the decorative arts have taken a back seat to the study of the fine arts. In her book, Mack rectifies this disparity and further shows that during the Renaissance, the decorative arts enjoyed a comparable status to the largescale works. When Mack turns to Italian Renaissance paintings in two chapters, "Oriental Script in Italian Paintings" and "The Pictorial Arts," she is not interested in these works as masterpieces of innovation in naturalism, illusionism, and human form but rather as documents recording the existence of actual luxury objects, which, like the paintings in which they are represented, filled, and defined the Italian interior spaces. To be sure, the presence of Islamic textiles and objects in Italian paintings had been noticed long before, but Mack lends particularity and concreteness to previous generalities and hunches. The book is at its best when it explores the lives of specific works, such as the "Alhambra Vase" (p. 53). The vase was made in Muslim Spain during the fourteenth century, where it embarked on a fascinating journey that took it from Venetian Cyprus to Sweden. While it was continuously misidentified, it nevertheless carried a specificity and aura of a coveted work, held in highest esteem by its highborn owners and viewers. It is puzzling that the author should still insist on using the term "oriental." She justifies the use of the term by saying that "Italians understood little about the different geographic and artistic origins of the foreign objects they admired in the contemporary context" (p. …
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