Littérature scientifique sur le sujet « Italian gothic sculpture »

Medieval Dubrovnik was rich in Romanesque figural and decorative sculpture but only a small group of fragmentary carvings has been preserved to date due to the fact that the town suffered a devastating earthquake in 1667. The earthquake completely destroyed the monumental Cathedral of the Assumption of the Virgin which had been considered “la piu bella in Illyrico” on the basis of its sculptural abundance. Archaeological excavations undertaken beneath the present-day Baroque Cathedral, consecrated in 1713, unearthed several thousand fragments of high-quality sculptures. Their analysis has confirmed the close connections between Dubrovnik and artistic centres in Apulia, which are well known from archival records. This article re-assesses the results of the excavations and the information from the primary sources in a new light and deepens our knowledge about the date, authorship and reconstruction of the thireenth-century pieces under consideration.The article opens with a discussion about the archival record informing us that Eustasius of Trani came to Dubrovnik in 1199 to work as a protomagister of Dubrovnik Cathedral. The document in question was the reason why art historians attributed to him a number of rather damaged, narrative reliefs which replicate the models and forms that can be seen on the portal of Trani Cathedral. Since the sculptor responsible for that portal was not known and given that the contract preserved in Dubrovnik referred to Eustasius as a son of “Belnardi, protomagistri civitati Trani”, the two artists came to be considered as the builders of the Cathedral of S. Nicola Pellegrino at Trani and of several other churches in the Terra di Bari. The sculptures produced by Eustasius and his father were convincingly deemed to display the artistic influence of southern and central France and the same can be observed in Dubrovnik. The article assigns the figure of Christ the Judge from a portal lunette depicting the Last Judgement, which has no parallels in Apulia, to the same group of sculptures and interprets the subject matter as being inspired by the iconography of numerous pilgrimage churches to which Dubrovnik Cathedral also belonged. The assessment of the formal qualities evident in all the carvings demonstrates that they are less refined than those on the portal of Trani Cathedral. Furthermore, the article separates the works of the father from those of the son and suggests that Bolnardus introduced the aforementioned French-style carving method, which had already taken root in Palestine, and that Eustasius followed it. The starting point in the proposed chronology was the Fall of Jerusalem in 1187 and the associated withdrawal of western master carvers alongside the Crusaders. During their stopover at Trani, around 1190, Boltranius was in charge of the carving of the portal of Trani Cathedral where he was helped by his son who left for Dubrovnik in 1199. Based on the visual characteristics of the fragments of architectural decoration, Eustasius is identified as being responsible for the building of Dubrovnik Cathedral according to Apulian taste which appealed to the local patrons as a consequence of their constant exposure to it through numerous trade links and the overall cultural milieu. In fact, Apulian taste was a symbiosis of Byzantine traditions and Romanesque novelties introduced by the Normans, and its allure was grounded in the fact that both the Terra di Bari and Dubrovnik acknowledged the supreme power of these two political forces albeit not at the same time and in unequal measure.The vernacular current in the Romanesque sculpture of Dubrovnik during the second quarter of the thirteenth century can be noted in a small number of works which influenced the decoration of Gothic and Renaissance public buildings. The source of this diffusion can be identified in the decoration of the Cathedral which epitomized the strong artistic connections with southern Italy from where typological and morphological models were borrowed. The redecoration of the Cathedral’s interior, especially the pulpit – recorded for the first time in 1262 – the archaeological remains of which reveal a polygonal structure resting on twelve columns, drew on those very models. Together with the ciborium above the altar in the main apse, the pulpit was praised by local chroniclers and foreign travel writers during the fifteenth century but also by the earliest church visitation records of the mid-seventeenth century. These two monuments belonged to a group of standard Apulian-Dalmatian ciboria and pulpits which also included those that can today be seen in the cathedrals of Trogir and Split but also in many south Italian churches. Some scholars have argued that the source model for this group can be found in Jerusalem but this article suggests that the ciborium from the church of S. Lorenzo fuori le mura in Rome, dated to 1148, presents a more likely option. Particular attention is given to the naturalistic workmanship of a polygonal capital from Dubrovnik Cathedral, which is assigned to the aforementioned pulpit. It is argued that the style of the capital inspired a series of capitals carved à jour on both sides of the Adriatic and that they display characteristics consistent with the manner of carving of Pietro di Facitolo seen at Bisceglie. The exceptional workmanship of the eagle from the same pulpit is attributed to Pasquo di Pietro who was recorded as a protomagister of the Cathedral from 1255 to 1282 and who well regarded as a master carver. His good reputation earned him the citizenship and an estate; he and his son were mentioned in the local documents as “de Ragusio”. The author of the article hypothesizes that Pasquo may have been Pietro di Facitolo’s son, with which he concludes the outline of the sculptural development of the Apulian Romanesque in Dubrovnik and Dalmatia in general.The final part of the article focuses on the only known work of Simeonus Ragusinus who signed himself as “incola tranensis” on the portal of the church of S. Andrea, that is, S. Salvatore at Barletta. The hybrid artistic expression of this eclectic sculptor with a limited gift, who gathered his knowledge from a variety of sources, reveals that he may have borrowed some iconographic motifs from Eustasius’ portal of Dubrovnik Cathedral or from the other two portals. Overall, the article corroborates several hypotheses that were previously expressed in the scholarship while dismissing and rerouting others. At the same time, it emphasizes the scarcity of solid evidence because of the fragmentary nature of the material. The main goal of the article is to present new research findings and widen our perspective on the issue. The article is a revised version of a brief paper presented at the international conference “Master Buvina and his Time” which was held at Split in 2014 and which will be published in a foreign language. I hope that with the addition of new comments and the scholarly apparatus the article will be a useful point of reference to Croatian researchers of similar topics and that it will contribute towards the creation of syntheses about the medieval art in the Adriatic.

This is a review of the book Zadar’s Sculptor and Builder Paolo di Vanuzzi da Sulmona by Emil Hilje, published in 2016 by the University of Zadar, in the “Zephyrus” edition of the Art History Department. In this monograph dedicated to the Dalmatian architect and sculptor of Italian origins, Paolo di Vanuzzi da Sulmona, the author has taken a systematic and research-based approach to supplement our present insights on the life and work of this Gothic master.

The article highlights the almost unexplored issue of the classification of architectural heritage sites. The authors define architectural heritage as a complex of buildings and structures that form the surrounding space and reflect the art of creating these buildings and structures. Pursuing the goal to create a regulating system of Russian architecture monuments, the authors of the article use the architectural style as the main sign of monuments. Reliance on scientific research, written and visual sources allows identifying and characterizing large typological groups of monuments. The first group includes monuments of Russian architectural tradition, created in the period of 11th and 17th centuries on Byzantine and Italian architectural basis. The Baroque style was introduced into Russian architecture in the 18th century. It is characterizes by the magnificence and decorativeness of the details, includes columns, pilasters, sculptural decorations. About a century later, the Baroque was replaced by a style of Classicism. An obligatory element of Classicism monuments is a triangular gable, which rests on columns. Such compositional components as bays, risalitas, and balconies characterize the style. Monuments of classicism form architectural ensembles in Russian cities. The most famous of them is Palace Square in St. Petersburg. Since the mid-19th century, architectural monuments of the Eclectic style have been created. It combines elements of Gothic, Classicism, and folk Russian architecture. Wooden monuments of eclecticism, richly decorated with carvings, make the main pride of Tomsk. At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, modern architectural monuments with their characteristic asymmetry of the layout, plant decor in the design of facades are created. Under the influence of the changes brought by the Revolution of 1917, the style of Constructivism spreads in Russian architecture. In the early 1930s, the laconic Constructivism was rejected, the order system returned to the composition of the buildings. They are decorated with stucco moldings and sculptural images. For a long time unnamed, now this style is known as Soviet Neoclassicism. In the late 1950s, monuments of Soviet Neoclassicism were accused of unjustified pomp and parade. In the second half of the 20th century, the trends of Neo-Functionalism and Postmodernism prevail in Russian architecture. The regulating system of architectural monuments proposed in the article allows to characterize objects of architectural heritage, provides continuity of cultural experience.

Questa ricerca nasce dall’esigenza di colmare le lacune storiografiche riguardo il fenomeno monastico verginiano e la sua produzione artistica in Campania e Basilicata, la cui conoscenza è ancora frammentaria e caratterizzata da scarsa organicità, prendendo in esame globalmente testimonianze monumentali spesso non sufficientemente frequentate dagli studi scientifici, accanto ad altre già sondate, ma quasi sempre per alcuni aspetti di particolare rilevanza, quali gli arredi liturgici o le sculture architettoniche. L’obiettivo è stato quello di una rilettura complessiva, sia storica che artistica, volta a una migliore comprensione delle ragioni che hanno determinato la nascita e lo sviluppo di questo patrimonio di architettura e arte monastica. L’indagine è proceduta per nuclei territoriali, prediligendo un criterio prima topografico e poi cronologico, così da poter evidenziare sito per sito la continuità di un fenomeno caratterizzato sul piano materiale dall’evoluzione delle forme insediative col passaggio dall’eremitismo al cenobitismo, e da una storia monumentale che contempla, per gli insediamenti di rientrati nell’orbita della congregazione sullo scorcio del XII secolo, restauri e ampliamenti nel costante mantenimento dei luoghi delle origini. La scelta dell’area territoriale è stata dettata dalla particolare concentrazione di esperienze monastiche in una regione che in età antica era attraversata dal tracciato della Via Appia, nella quale, in epoca medievale, rientreranno le diocesi di Avellino, Nusco, Conza della Campania e Rapolla, importanti avamposti della nobiltà normanna, che sempre vi eserciterà il suo controllo politico tramite una salda organizzazione vescovile, l’affidamento di alte cariche a uomini di fiducia, la gestione strutturata delle attività agricole ed economiche in genere, e, infine, attraverso gli enti monastici, spesso strettamente connessi al potere signorile. La ricerca ha affrontato, concentrandosi sulle fondazioni abbaziali, i secoli che vanno dalla seconda metà del XII alla seconda metà del XIV, evidenziando i cambiamenti che gli eventi storici, politici e religiosi determinarono nel rapporto tra monasteri e territorio e nelle strutture architettoniche. Il termine cronologico ultimo della trattazione coincide, per l’abbazia di Montevergine, con la fine del dominio angioino, che rappresenta l’avvio di una stasi nella produzione artistica, che riprenderà vigore solo in epoca rinascimentale. Per le fondazioni di Santa Maria di Fontigliano, San Salvatore al Goleto, Sant’Ippolito a Monticchio e Santa Maria di Pierno, monasteri fortemente condizionati dalle vicende della nobiltà normanno-sveva, la ricerca si ferma di fatto alla metà del XIII secolo, dal momento che nessun indizio, né documentario né architettonico- artistico, permette di ipotizzare una rinnovata vitalità dopo l’avvento degli Angiò, quando le loro sorti cominceranno inevitabilmente a decadere. Tuttavia, l’innesto dell’esperienza monastica francescana in Basilicata nel primo XIV secolo rappresenterà, con l’esempio del superstite chiostro del monastero di Sant’Antonio a Muro Lucano, un’ultima traccia di continuità col linguaggio espressivo maturato nell’orbita dell’esperienza verginiana. Le componenti culturali che caratterizzano i monasteri della valle dell’Ofanto e del Partenio danno vita, dalla metà del XII secolo all’età angioina, a un originale percorso creativo in cui a un latente substrato autoctono si sommano progressivamente elementi allogeni, spesso incoraggiati da scelte collegabili a peculiari situazioni politico- istituzionali o agli orientamenti della committenza. La rete di monasteri e dipendenze gravitanti attorno alle fondazioni di Santa Maria di Montevergine e San Salvatore al Goleto, in sinergia con i vicini insediamenti benedettini, si era fatta più o meno consapevolmente centro catalizzatore di maestranze di provenienza eterogenea, sparse su tutto il territorio lucano e campano, con propaggini nella Puglia garganica, oltre che vivace recettore del gusto più in voga in determinati contesti storico-geografici.