International Summer School (Medieval and Early Modern Studies)

2-9 Septembre 2017

Nicolas Bock

Nicolas Bock, MER, UNIL

Nicolas Bock, MER, UniL

Ana Marinkovich, pa, Université de Zagreb

Igor Fiskovic, po, Université de Zagreb

Jasenka Gudelj, pa, Université de Zagreb

Luka Špoljarić, pa, University of Zagreb

Lovro Kuncevic, Institute for Historical Sciences in Dubrovnik, Croatian Academy of Arts and Sciences

Ivan Foletti, pa, Université de Brno

 The Transition from Gothic to Renaissance: Pietro di Martino da Milano, Onofrio de la Cava, and the Trans-Adriatic Humanist Circles in Dubrovnik

The summerschool aims at bringing together specialists and doctoral students from various academic backgrounds, focusing on the transition between the Late Middle Ages and the Renaissance, notably on the humanist ideas and networks. The specific thematic focus of Dubrovnik workshop is the first appearance of Renaissance forms in art and architecture in Dubrovnik, that is, the work of two supposed pioneers of the new style in the eastern Adriatic republic – sculptor Pietro di Martino da Milano and architect/engineer Onofrio de la Cava. Pietro and Onofrio are central figures of the construction and design of Dubrovnik as a modern urban centre of quattrocento, having been involved in a series of important public works, notably, construction of the aqueduct with two public fountains and the rebuilding of the Rector's palace. In addition, Pietro was engaged in several church commissions, including the project for the Cathedral sacristy and sculptures for its choir screen, as well as the tabernacle for the church of St Blaise (all demolished in the 17th and 18th c.). Pietro has also been attributed several sculptural works in the Franciscan and Dominican friaries in Dubrovnik.

Croatian historiography has been ascribing to Pietro and Onofrio the introduction of Renaissance forms to the notoriously conservative Ragusan milieu during the 1430s and 1440s, supporting this assertion with the masters' links to a group of Italian humanists active in Dubrovnik in this period. However, recent research on the Onofrio's design of the Rector's palace, as well as the conservation works on the so-called Large Onofrio's fountain and the revalorisation of Pietro's part in these projects and of his Ragusan opus in general, have instigated reconsiderations of the beginnings of the Renaissance style in Dubrovnik. In addition, the preconceived notion of parallelism regarding the reflections of humanist ideas in art and architecture with those in other disciplines, such as literature, rhetoric, epigraphy or political thought, should be reconsidered as well.

The members of the Ragusan group of humanists – primarily Filippo de Diversis from Lucca, Nicola de Ciria from Cremona, Ciriaco Pizzicolli from Ancona, and Giovanni Lorenzo Regini from Feltre - were actively participating in the public life of Dubrovnik, and thus in the decades prior to mid-fifteenth century many features of Italian Renaissance humanism can be traced in Dubrovnik. But did the ideas promoted by the Italian humanists in Dubrovnik also affect forms of visual art and architecture, or was their impact limited to their iconographical and epigraphical aspect? How did visual artistic forms relate to the contemporary literary, rhetoric, eduational, political forms and ideas? Can one argue with certainty that the forms introduced to Dubrovnik by Onofrio and Pietro were reflections of the new Italian style? For example, can we claim that the architectural and sculptural appearance of Onofrio's and Pietro's Large fountain introduced the Renaissance style as did its inscription composed by Ciriaco, with the first use of the monumental all'antica capital script in Dubrovnik? Or, in the long and gradual transformation of Dubrovnik from a medieval to a modern city, a pluralism of styles existed under the hub of humanism, not only as a phenomenon of local artistic development (e.g. the so-called 'mixed' Gothic-Reniassance style), but also as co-existence of heterogeneous imported forms. Finally, the understanding of humanist ideas in art historical context shall be discussed, as well as the idea of „new" in art and architecture as perceived by the contemporary witnesses of the appearance of the new style.

These considerations will be elaborated through the comparative analysis of the works of Onofrio and Pietro before, during, and after their staying in Dubrovnik (in Milano, Genoa, and Naples), as well as the contemporary artistic practice in other Italian regions outside of main central-Italian centres of the Early Renaissance. The outlined problems shall also be approached from several historical disciplines' perspective, that is, the appearance and character of „innovations" and „transformations" shall be tackled in various segments of humanist activities in Dubrovnik.

In addition to lectures by experts in Ragusan, Dalmatian, and Italian quattrocento, the workshop includes fieldwork (work on the monuments and in the State Archives of Dubrovnik), and reading seminars (articles, published and unpublished sources are available in an online reader). The work shall focus both on the preserved monuments as well as on those documented in the archival sources. The participants will present supervised individual small assignments related to the general topic of the workshop (tentatively to be developed into papers for the final publication at the end of the three-year cycle).

PROGRAMME:

Centre for Advanced Academic Studies (CAAS), don Frana Bulića 4, Dubrovnik

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