Bartolomeo Facio

[ITA] Le riflessioni sulla scrittura della storia elaborate alla corte aragonese di Napoli giunsero, alla fine del XV secolo, alla definizione di precise leggi retoriche con l’Actius di Giovanni Pontano, ma presero avvio nel 1447, con una infiammata polemica che vide contrapposti due tra i maggiori umanisti dell’epoca, Lorenzo Valla e Bartolomeo Facio. Quella polemica presentava molti elementi innovativi, sia dal punto di vista della strategia politica, sia da quello schiettamente retorico: la descrizione della contemporaneità e la riorganizzazione della memoria cercavano legittimazione attraverso una inedita regolamentazione professionale dell’analisi delle fonti e della forma retorica, per la quale non esistevano nell’Antichità latina modelli teorici specifici, adattati, invece, dall’oratoria giudiziaria. Insomma, la connessione tra descrizione della contemporaneità, riflessione retorica, esigenza di celebrazione e legittimazione della maestà regia trovò alla corte di Napoli un campo assai fecondo. Fu lì che trovò privilegiato spazio quel disciplinamento della scrittura storica che, ampiamente retribuita, portò al suo riconoscimento professionale e, successivamente, alla definizione di un preciso disciplinamento di argomenti, di forme e di metodi.

[ENG] At the end of the fifteenth century, in the Aragonese court of Naples, the reflections about the writing of history produced precise rhetorical laws, summarized in the Actius by Giovanni Pontano, but those reflections started up in 1447, with an inflamed controversy among two of the most important humanists of that time: Lorenzo Valla and Bartolomeo Facio. That controversy presented many innovative elements in the invention of political strategies and in the definition of rhetorical rules: the description of contemporaneity and the reorganization of memory found legitimacy through a new professional attention to the analysis of sources and to the use of rhetorical form. About these problems, latin antiquity did not offer specific theoretical models, which were instead adapted from the judicial oratory. In short, the connection between the description of the contemporary, the rhetorical reflection, the need to celebrate and legitimate the royal majesty found a very fertile field in the court of Naples. The discipline of historical writing found there a privileged space: there the historians were well paid, there they were professionally recognized and, subsequently, there they invented a precise regulation of arguments, forms and methods in the historical writing.

This article analyses the influence of Lorenzo Valla’s philosophy on his own grammatical conceptions. In particular, I argue that, in spite of the anti-normative claims of the Elegantiae, Valla’s philosophical assumptions led him to adopt normative and prescriptive stances that were harshly criticized by Bartolomeo Facio and Poggio Bracciolini. In light of an analysis of Valla’s polemics and of his grammatical works, I suggest that the contrast between anti-normative and normative traits in Valla’s grammar largely depends on whether the Elegantiae are considered from the perspective of their conception – with regard to classical Latin – or from the point of view of their reception – with regard to Humanist Latin.

This paper focuses on the Italian reception of the names of foreign painters during the 15th and 16th centuries, presenting specific cases that shed light on the process of incorporation, through which the pronunciation of Flemish names – some well-known, some still to be identified – was conveyed in writing by critics and collectors, treatises and inventories that give us the opportunity to reflect on the misspellings, adaptations, puzzling translations, as well as on the customs and meanings, concerning the response to both foreign sounds and competing stylistic schools from outside Italy.

Lustre in the dark: The perception of Early Netherlandish painting in renaissance Italy Variations in the effects of light are the reason why Northern and Italian art of the fifteenth century mimics reality in different ways. Italian artists attempted to define our concept of three-dimensionality by means of geometrical perspective and lume (= spatial lighting). Northern artists especially used lustro (= lighting, lustre). Glossy objects in the foregrounds of Flemish paintings helped to draw the scene closer to the beholder. Lustro was therefore even used in open-air daylight scenes. In Leonardo’s mind the glossy effect of the related Italian concept of splendore in the dark bestowed the scene with a certain gracefulness (grazia). This is what must have attracted 15th-century Italian art lovers to Northern art. Splendore was achieved by tonal transitions in layers of oil paint. Lustro, however, did not allow for any natural depth of field (focus). As a consequence Flemish masterpiec...

Lustre in the dark: The perception of Early Netherlandish painting in renaissance Italy

Variations in the effects of light are the reason why Northern and Italian art of the fifteenth century mimics reality in different ways. Italian artists attempted to define our concept of three-dimensionality by means of geometrical perspective and lume (= spatial lighting). Northern artists especially used lustro (= lighting, lustre). Glossy objects in the foregrounds of Flemish paintings helped to draw the scene closer to the beholder. Lustro was therefore even used in open-air daylight scenes. In Leonardo’s mind the glossy effect of the related Italian concept of splendore in the dark bestowed the scene with a certain gracefulness (grazia). This is what must have attracted 15th-century Italian art lovers to Northern art. Splendore was achieved by tonal transitions in layers of oil paint. Lustro, however, did not allow for any natural depth of field (focus). As a consequence Flemish masterpieces were negatively judged in 16th-century Florentine art theory. The Florentines experienced the meticulous rendering of details as disturbing.

Una comparación rigurosa entre el De vita felici y su modelo, el De humanae vitae felicitate de Bartolomeo Facio, prepara la aproximación al texto de Lucena dentro del contexto de la literatura doctrinal castellana del siglo XV. Hacia una definición del humanismo español anterior a Nebrija.