Studies in Art History

STEFANO PIERGUIDI
STEFANO PIERGUIDI

The main objective of the course is to provide a basic knowledge of the history of artistic literature from the Fourteenth to the end of the Eighteenth century.
As regards specific objectives, students are expected to learn or assimilate:
a) awareness of the different parameters of judgment, historical and aesthetic, of past ages.
b) the ability to analyze the texts of the past ages in relation to their contemporary works of art.
c) an autonomous critical judgment on the literary sources.
In order to pursue these targets, during the course students will be asked to take part actively in the analysis of the written texts employing the basic critical categories necessary to their correct framework. The themes and topics of the course, such as the competencies and abilities to learn, are part of the core curriculum of the Study Programme in Art History Sciences.

The aim is to reconstruct the emergence and development of art literature in the early modern period, in direct relation to contemporary works and artists

No prerequisites required

The course intends to take into consideration all the major testimonies of artistic literature from the late Middle Ages to the sixteenth century (or, substantially, from Cennino Cennini to Luigi Lanzi), proposing to directly analyze the texts (among others) of Leon Battista Alberti, Giorgio Vasari and Giovanni Paolo Lomazzo, with a focus on the theoretical reflection of the Renaissance. The main threads of the broad examination will be the birth of the "historical consciousness of art in Italy" (according to the definition of Ferdinando Bologna), or the affirmation of the concept first of citizen autonomy and then of 'school', and the identification of critical categories created to describe and define the manners of the painters of the Renaissance and post-Renaissance canon (Michelangelo, Raphael, Tiziano, Correggio, Annibale Carracci).

Lessons Powerpoints with captions

Marta Nezzo, Giuliana Tomasella, Dire l’arte: percorsi critici dall’Antichità al primo Novecento, Padova, Il Poligrafo, 2020, pp. 77-43
Stefano Pierguidi, Gloriose gare. La coscienza storia delle scuole pittoriche italiane, Trento, Temi, 2020

Optional bibliography

Michael Baxandall, Pittura ed esperienze sociali nell’Italia del Quattrocento (prima edizione: Oxford, University Press, 1988), Torino, Einaudi, 1978, pp. 104-148.
Michael Baxandall, Giotto e gli umanisti. Gli umanisti osservatori della pittura in Italia e la scoperta della composizione pittorica 1350-1450 (prima edizione: Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1971), Milano, Jaca Book, 1994, pp. 163-184.
Stefano Pierguidi, Il “trattatello” di Guglielmo della Porta: l’antagonismo con Vasari e i plagi da Tolomei e Ligorio, in “Arte Lombarda”, 170-171, pp. 136-149.
Stefano Pierguidi, L’Antico nella trattatistica rinascimentale: il rapporto con lo studio dal naturale e con la "notomia", in “Pegasus”, XVII, 2015, pp. 33-64.
Stefano Pierguidi, "In tempo che 'l fratello aveva riportato a Bologna la buona maniera di Lombardia". I Carracci e Bologna al crocevia delle scuole pittoriche, in “Annali di critica d'arte”, VII, pp. 191-226.
Chiara Gauna, La “Storia pittorica” di Luigi Lanzi. Arti, storia e musei nel Settecento, Firenze, Olschki, 2003

Classroom lessons

Attendance is not mandatory but strongly recommended

Oral interview

Recognizing images e texts projected in class

When was Lodovico Dolce's 'Dialogo della pittura' published?

Before the first edition of Vasari's 'Lives'
After the second edition of Vasari's 'Lives'
Between the first and second editions of Vasari's 'Lives' (correct)