Bellini

This essay offers a detailed account of Bellini’s Norma, focusing specifically on the title character. It describes the different facets of Norma: a priestess leader, a daughter, a mother, a friend and a woman scorned by her lover. It discusses the irony in Norma's status, showing that in each of the five facets that constitute her personality there are two opposing states: the noble- authoritative state versus the fragile-wounded state. All Norma's arias are analyzed with a special emphasis on how Bellini fit the different arias and ensembles to match Norma’s complex character and how Bellini’s music constructs Norma’s dramatic persona.

This essay offers a detailed account of Bellini’s Norma, focusing specifically on the title character. It describes the different facets of Norma: a priestess leader, a daughter, a mother, a friend and a woman scorned by her lover. It discusses the irony in Norma's status, showing that in each of the five facets that constitute her personality there are two opposing states: the noble- authoritative state versus the fragile-wounded state. All Norma's arias are analyzed with a special emphasis on how Bellini fit the different arias and ensembles to match Norma’s complex character and how Bellini’s music constructs Norma’s dramatic persona.

This essay offers a detailed account of Bellini’s Norma, focusing specifically on the title
character. It describes the different facets of Norma: a priestess leader, a daughter, a
mother, a friend and a woman scorned by her lover. It discusses the irony in Norma's status,
showing that in each of the five facets that constitute her personality there are two opposing
states: the noble- authoritative state versus the fragile-wounded state. All Norma's arias are
analyzed with a special emphasis on how Bellini fit the different arias and ensembles to
match Norma’s complex character and how Bellini’s music constructs Norma’s dramatic
persona.

A number of longstanding questions have surrounded the early life of the fifteenth-century Venetian artist Giovanni Bellini (d. 1516), generally believed to have been the son of Jacopo Bellini (ca. 1400–70/71) and the younger brother of Gentile Bellini (1429/35–1507). The artist’s year of birth and the legitimacy of his birth have been the subjects of debate for well over a century. By reevaluating Bellini-related legal documents under the relevant fifteenth-century Venetian civil laws, this article makes a case that Giovanni Bellini was not Jacopo Bellini’s son, but rather his half-brother, and that they were both sons of Nicol
o Bellini; that Giovanni was therefore Gentile Bellini’s uncle rather than his brother; and that he was born legitimate between the late summer of 1424 and 13 September 1428, several years earlier than the birth year of ca. 1435 (or later) favored by many contemporary Bellini specialists. The ramifications of situating Bellini’s birth year in the mid- to late 1420s are then considered.

In this abbreviated version of the Society of Renaissance Studies Lecture delivered at the RSA conference in Chicago 2017, I emphasise the synergy between the artistic and the Euclidian culture of Venice in the period between the arrival of Giorgio Valla in 1481 through to the publication of Luca Pacioli's 'Divina proportione' in 1509.  The lecture draws attention to the vital role of geometry and proportion in the paintings of Giovanni Bellini and Carpaccio, as well as in the pages of the printed book in the age of Jenson and Aldus Manutius.  This geometrical aesthetic has been unduly neglected in studies of Venetian art.

This essay challenges the easy categorization of the Renaissance altarpiece as object of study.  It shows that the physical boundary of the altarpiece, apparently limited by a frame, may be permeable.  In some cases the distinction within a chapel between altarpiece and narrative fresco cycle is not hard and fast.  In terms of nomenclature – whether "tavola", "ancona", or "pala" – a clear category only emerges rather late.  Altarpieces obviously existed in the Renaissance, yet as a category they are more difficult to isolate or define than is commonly assumed.  Teasing out this uncertainty enlarges our understanding of the religous art of the period.

In this groundbreaking survey of the fundamentals, methods, and formulas that were taught at Italian music conservatories during the 19th century, Nicholas Baragwanath explores the compositional significance of tradition in Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti, Verdi, Boito, and, most importantly, Puccini. Taking account of some 400 primary sources, Baragwanath explains the varying theories and practices of the period in light of current theoretical and analytical conceptions of this music. The Italian Traditions and Puccini offers a guide to an informed interpretation and appreciation of Italian opera by underscoring the proximity of archaic traditions to the music of Puccini.

Il contributo intende proporre un'indagine sulla militanza antiromantica che caratterizzò per circa un trentennio la produzione letteraria di Bernardo Bellini (1792-1876), attraversando il 1816 della , la breve stagione del «Conciliatore», le diatribe suscitate, nella seconda metà degli anni Venti, dal montiano e dai che lo videro contrapposto, nella Torino di Carlo Alberto, all'esordiente ma già affermato Giovanni Prati. In ognuno di questi scontri, il poligrafo comasco diede prova di una vivace e spesso spregiudicata vena polemica, rivendicando (talora con tardivo accanimento) le ragioni della propria fazione, anche attraverso lo strumentale coinvolgimento di riconosciuti rappresentanti della recente tradizione poetica italiana, come Vincenzo Monti, Ugo Foscolo e Giacomo Leopardi.
The paper aims to be an investigation into the anti-romantic engagement that characterized Bernardo Bellini's (1792-1876) literary production for about thirty years, going through the Classicist/Romantic quarrel (1816), the short season of the «Conciliatore», the diatribes aroused in the second half of the Twenties, from Vincenzo Monti's and from the by Tommaso Grossi, up to the early Forties, when, in Turin, Bellini collided with the young Giovanni Prati. In each of these controversies, the polygrapher demonstrated a lively and often unscrupulous polemic vein, claiming (sometimes with belated fury) the reasons for his faction, also through an instrumental involvement of distinguished exponents of the recent Italian poetic tradition, such as Vincenzo Monti, Ugo Foscolo and Giacomo Leopardi.

In this groundbreaking survey of the fundamentals, methods, and formulas that were taught at Italian music conservatories during the 19th century, Nicholas Baragwanath explores the compositional significance of tradition in Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti, Verdi, Boito, and, most importantly, Puccini. Taking account of some 400 primary sources, Baragwanath explains the varying theories and practices of the period in light of current theoretical and analytical conceptions of this music. The Italian Traditions and Puccini offers a guide to an informed interpretation and appreciation of Italian opera by underscoring the proximity of archaic traditions to the music of Puccini.

This essay reconstructs the history of the Pietà of Giovanni Bellini housed in the Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan. Starting from the issue of its first owners, the Bolognese Sampieri, it details how the painting arrived to its present location. Then, the essay provides a complete resume of the Pietà's critical history. From the first references up to present-day, it will be detailed when scholars dated the painting, and what they wrote of its fascinating imagery.