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irl Micliclnuy.ln, Bfitgcs Khiibnnti, Marble, 1503-1504.. Bruges, Church of Onzt Llcve Vromve.
Italian Sculptors and Sculpture Outside of Italy (Chiefly in Central Europe): Problems of Approach, Possibilities of Reception'
THOMAS DACOSTA KAUFMANN
By the W_six.ceeuch.centui!y Latinate culture as first introduced 111 rhe form of ItaJiart humanism provided a mod*] for grammatical instraction and rhetorical practice from Manila to Minsk.2 Uy the same time works o€ the visual arts possessing 11 definite Italiariate character had a Up expanded throughout cheglobe. The iconogr^hy oTnunian-ism, as evinced by author portraits and frbn'mpicces/'Was- spread in books by authors as widely disparate as the Mexican-bom Diego Valades and the Belorussian Fnnask Sbrina.-1 In the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries works comparable in form to those in the peninsula could be found in churches scattered from Macao or Goa (which contain paintings of the sixteenth century) to the highlands of the Andean region in South America, where Bernardo Bitti. a native of Camerino. was active in an area extending rrom Quito to Sucre during the later sixteenth Century, and where the Fleming known as Pedro de Game designed the Franciscan Church in Quito, which possesses a facade that recalls a triumphal arch.4
This essay deals with some of the best known and most striking instances of the spread of Renaissance (and later} visual forms, Italian sculptors and sculpture outside of Italy/ From antiquity Italy supplied a source of fine marble. The skill and training of Italians as stonecarvers and bronzecasters were also appreciated elsewhere. Thus Italian sculptors and their products were long in broad demand* especially from the fifteenth century. Yet familiar as the topic may be, this seemingly straightforward case of the expansion of the Italianate still remains to be integrated into a comprehensive picture of what the Renaissance and its consequences might mean outside Italy, as indeed do so many other examples of related phenomena.
For the possible historical significance of many such works, especially those found outside of Europe, is hardly acknowledged in Anglo-American art history. 5m^esj>f_the history of European art in the early modem period also continueJar^yjojgriore two thiT&TTpthe^cir]^ many major monuments are container!, namely the area
easToTthV Rhine, particularly after about 1530, as they also ignore the area_e.ast-ot.the Oder, in almost any period. Very few American art historians study the Iberi.in peninsula, especially before the so-called Golden Age of seventeenth-century Spain, for rhat matter. Despite the existence of objects located or nuide outside Italy that can be considered
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vT
wich™     term, of santoi ^firitiom ofthe «^^a^ggSg^ V «hat thev «nighi reveal about ^^br^fer^^ /whaTdwy mi^ perha? even imply for a rcconsidmtinn Ol ihr manfflLSphe '   conception, ahq 6«* «** cheV mjsfetJD^mgrcjEaOTlW abou^cult^-exchange
and interchange. , .
^ With"arrtirTWK'eriis that are voiced for a more comprehensive art history, and the extensive debate thev have provoked, newer trends in Anglo-Saxon art history hardly appear to have affected the discussion of these issues. Instead, many of the older orädien* and canons that had also determined the geographical boundaries and national concerns of the discipline of art history as it was "traditionally" practiced still stay in force," If the term "Renaissance" is used to indicate something more than merely the time period of the fifteenth co the seventeenth centuries, then little has changed in scholarship on the early modern period,
Wharever the ideal of the "Renaissance" may mean in regard to Italy, when applied to the visual arts elsewhere, the term is still usually taken to signify, even celebrate, wmethingjesmbed ^_qm^is£n^trom that in Italy. Both scholarship and teaching on cheg£ca^ effectively itül scands in tne United States for
the Renaissal^eoiiiside iTaTyrc^ncentrate almost exclusive]^ on Ne^erlanj^pjiinting in manuscript and on panel from Van Eyek to Brueghel, with attention also being given to German.paintings and prints, and some sculpture too, of the era of the. OldjGernjan mns^ejts_around Dürer. This "point of view is. found both in standard textbooks, and in supposedly newer approaches-7
There is. however, nothing new in the emphasis on Netherlandish painting up to Brueghel and German artists of the Durerzeit. The consideration of "Renaissance" art outside of Italy has demonstrably often involved a different set of assumptions than that which has governed the study of Italian "Renaissance1' art. Froin at least the_earjy nineteenth century, when art history became an academic discipline in Germany, art of tlie fifteentF"ancTsL\teenth centuries in the north has been understood as something different and distinctive from that in Italy.. The i%aiar5sinceT' Has beef), iftrfi Ja*ft»jy eiBier, to, fjgfing a jKonolö^öd period'." as it often "soil is, or else to^e^gnate„act-of a quality comparable to that of the ltalian_;nasters, but distinct from them.
This idea is found hi Literature c iSoo, as Wackfenroder and Tieck's Herzcrugiessutigeri ewes kunstiiebencdeu Klosterbruders suggests. It was developed by art historians in the formative years of the Gründerzeit of the mid-nineteenth century, und passed on by important figures in the field such as Heinrich Wölfflin and Georg Dehio. The idea of a national German Renaissance was even used for purposes of political propaganda, both during the 1914-1Ü war and the years of National Socialism. The notion of a distinctive Northern Renaissance; largely unrelated to and even contrasting with that in Italy, continues to recur in much recent writing, especially in English, where the local or native element is privileged, and the cosmopolitan, Italianate is..downplayed or-ignored.*1 The result has been" that like^näny related topics* the subject of Italian sculptors and sculpture outside of Italy not only remains to be integrated into the history of the renaissance, but also even to be adequately conceptualized. In response, £his_ paper will endeavor to strive towards this_proccss of inte^rariojLiuid con equalization. It will offer a critical review of prior treatments of the topic, and suggest some alternatives to them.
ITALIAN SCULPTORS AND SCULPTURE OUTSIDE ot
Earlier essays have a further interest in that they imply a view of the 1«, the history of European art during the early modem period. The Literature to'S**4* Qt reflects the general development of historiography of the Renaissance. A. crit^u^\^ fore has further relevance to a collection of essays that is devoted to a re conceptually of the Renaissance.
Broadly speaking, it would seem that the tendencies that have dominated the huerpret>idoji^oflltalian-sculpture...and..sculpton outside of Italy may be described as monofiraphiCv..natinnalistk...stylistic, and ajnic^ropological. First, a traditional monographic approach could easily ignore the problem of synthesis. One way of treating the presence of Italian sculpture or the work of Italian sculptors outside Italy was simply to regard such phenomena as examples of an artist's oeuvre. In this kind of account, as it has been evinced in historiography since Giorgio Vasavi, a work of sculpture is seen as the product of an individual master. From the lace eighteenth or early nineteenth century, writers on art also considered sculpture a product of genius. Sculpture might accordingly be regarded as the mark of biographical incident. In the approach that results, the historical scheme may thus consist of the linkage of a chain of works by individual masters, that are conjoined by bonds of personal association, or perhaps, as also described by Vnsan, by progress towards the achievement of some artistic goal. Other, later, treatments of Italian sculptors, for instance a history of sculptors in Poland, often take over this model even when they do not follow Vasari in other regards.9
^ A related perspective, namely that from the peninsula, may however open tip a different view. From this perspective, works by major Italian sculptors found outside Italv appear as scattered pieces of evidence of Italian genius. This view is anticipated by the way sculpture is handled in Vasari's account of the pieces by Verrocchio that Lorenzo de' Medici sent Matthias Corvinus in the fifteenth century.'" Yet many subsequent accounts - of such works as the marble Virgin and Child by Michelangelo (Figure 2.1) that, as Vasari also mentions, was acquired by a Bruges merchant in the early sixteenth century, or the bust of the king and the other projects that Bernini carried out for Louis XIV of France in the seventeenth century, or the works made by Roman sculptors for Mafra in Portugal in the eighteenth century - often do not differ substantially. In many studies of Italian art, such objects may be regarded as important documents of their artists' oeuvres. Nevertheless, they remain distinctive examples of individual genius, further isolated in that they are often unconnected to the milieus in which they were subsequently, or are now, found.
One merit of the most comprehensive series of studies directed to the work of Italians outside Italy was that it overcame this sense of individual isolation. This series treated the opcm of Italian artists, including sculptors, as examples not of individual genius, but of the genius of the nation or, it may be said, the race. The series thus appeared under the title Vopem dclgctiio itiiliitiio aU'cstero. The products of this genius were to be found throughout the ages and Throughout Europe, as presented in books devoted to ii genio Utitictnti in Spain, Austria, Germany, Hungary, Russia, and other countries In their emphasis upon the comprehensive, collective picture of the national genius of the Italians, these books do not. however, display much concern for local context elsewhere.
The collective approach taken in the series I/o/ww del gaih itotiaw «U*e$tero derives ultimately rather from the Romantic view of cultural products as expressions of the Geist
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or genius of peoples or Volkt.^ that is to be traced to authors such as Herder. In niueteenth-centurv histories of what is now most often calk J culture (KifJftwjjnc/nV/jfe}, "he view ofhi&orv as an e repression of a Volk was also spread by Hegelian thinking ab out art as a form of I yfes^'ist" These ideas were also familiar in Italy (through Benedetto Crocet among others), and it is significant that the series dedicated to ilgeuio italiatta was published under the imprimatur of ministries of the Italian government, at first of the Mussolini epoch- Some of the earlier volumes in the series bear dates measured in the reckoning of the Fascist era, when some of these ideas were given a foteful twist.|: Under Mussolini, I lie idea of Italian genius bringing art and civilization to Europe was one theme of fascist propaganda, that, remarkably enough, was in a way sail being promoted as, this series was eon tinned into the iaoos.12
A spirit-ngl^^i^imla^ often led to widespread neglect of
^talianate phenomejw-outside-Italy, and ' nationalistic presuppositions have also" been v^Slmo"otfier approaches. This tone of cultural nationalism has, however, fortunately been alien to much Italian historiography related to the topic, even when the clamor of tantpa$tiww still seems to resound in volumes devoted to ^ejrnpacc oj^ iodividuaj regions, such as those on the art and artists of the Lombard lakeland ^iri nationalistic prtsupposuions have also been woven into-other approaches to these questions. Ic is precisely the international or transnational aspect of artistic contacts that such chauvinistic or culturally nationalistic approaches ignore. Yet as significant as Italian sculpture and sculptors may be outside of Itajy^it is also true that what could similarly be called ilgruh Micro had a significant presence in Italy^o mention just sculpture in oneTterTrnr33fti6n foa host of bthYr latEer' minor;: tafenfcs from beyond the Alps, such major figures as Giovanni Dalmata in the fifteenth centuryh Giambotogna in the sixteenth, Francois Duquesnoy in the seventeenth or; at the end of that century- and the beginning of next, Pierre Legros. along with a flock of other French academicians, were all active in Rome, All these arristsH along with whom we should remember the presence in Rome of other important northern painters such as Claude Lorrainh Nicolas Poussin and Peter Paul Ruben*, give evidence that the process of artistic exchange was not one-sided, that there was not merely one source of artistic genius in European art.
Moreover, an alternative model has long existed, that developed alongsidethe attention given to the formulation and evolution ofc~oncepts orsryhsric periodization in artj history. This approach treats Italian artists ana" art outside of Italy in relation to the general course of development of artistic styles. In this perspective, the activity of Italian sculpture and sculptor^ and also of painters and architects, belongs to a continuing history of styles, which Italians convey to the north, in this way Italian artists are regarded not merely as translating works ot individual or national gen ins;, but as contributing to the evolution of style" epochs outside ofltaly. As in Italy, these are seen to progress from the Kenaissancet to Mannerism, to the Baroque, to neo-Classic ism.
It may even be said that this account has directed so many previous discussions that it has almost become a standard liner at least for older generations of scholars, Jan liialostocki articulated a position that has been adopted by many other art historians N whose opinion he may thus be said to represent. In numerous papers Binfostocki regarded die Renaissance ai^jt system of farms, qualities, artistic functions and themes which dominated art and architecture, decoration and design, atid which we call the Rtrtais-
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ITALIAN SCULPTORS AND SCULPTURE OUTSIDE OF fTALY 51
sance siyle^y iiiabstoeki treated this (and other styles) jss on the one hand, the product of individual Itaifan artists and, on the other, an indigenous response to them. And so when Uiatostocki says that the Renaissance came first to the north in eastern Europe, he means quite literally that Italian sculptors and masons of the Quattrocento came first to „ places like Hungary.1* In this viewjialian forms, including sculpture, were then taken up/f by local courts, used for particiulaT^pgrposeVand functions, and then spread more widely]^ by the local artists and craftsmen who responded to them.
Although it has many virtues, this approach has also created numerous problems, not the least of which is implicated in the very terms employed: the use~of stylistic terms m , describe unrelated phenomena in regions other than that for which'they were created has produced several difficulties. Thus many of the problems that the Florentine-Roman model "has entailed for studies of art and culture of the quattrocento and cinquecenro elsewhere in Italy itself seem to have been compounded when these conceptions have been applied to art outside Italy.j£ln the first instance, forms related to style epochs_such as the Renaissance and Mannerism that are "not" regarded as contemporaneous in Italy mav^ppear simultaneously in the_ north. Even where terms might seem to be suitable, a comparison of Italian with northern examples may also indicate the apparently belated or supposedly incorrect nature of stylistic manifestations in the north, thus slanting the interpretation. Moreover, when analyzed further, a term such as Mannerism in any event seems to have limited applicability to phenomena outside of Italy.1*
Even wEieu I to Hans made works in situ outside Italy, it was only exceptionally, at least j, in Central Europ^jhat the Italian artists who came north worked in modes similar to the . igrftrgrQ^ defmeci according to the
Florentine or RomSn paradigm. Many artists came from other~re^oj5^^j;aly^udi as . the^omBard lakes. The works they produced are different from those of Tuscan cla^c^sm>>miits^successorsT and may accordingly seem mannered in contrast, although the legitimacy of this description in this context is questionable,™
In answer tosojiie of^tlaese^o^ceD^l difficulties Biatostocki reformulated another heuristic notion*the local stylistic variamJHe opposed his understanding of the conception of Manneri sm a I kl u 131 e r 11 lterTHfto ual models to the national styles he otherwise also tried to define. Echoing earlier Polish and Czech art historians. Uintostocki identified a ^supposedly more local styje* which he distinguished from M.umerism. with which it mTghT^e^cm_tjjsed, He called this thelveniacAnalf! \i this"he fotlo\ve^f-m^^Bamier of the jfootivctikihtde of historians inch as Who^arrl^m^aTSKi l^iTMand and A mourn Balsanek in Soitemia7*mTidentifying various motifs as pertaining to the vernacular,
Although the examples of the vernacular that have hitherto been adduced are drawn largely from the realm of architecture* it might nevertheless seem that the more general characteristics used to describe the vernacular pertain particularly well to sculpture. In Biatosrocki's words these are a lack of interest in space composition, an enthusiasm for ornament, and lack of functional thinking - disruption of links between form and j    ' content that rake on a picturesque or fantastic character of their own.-11 But these feauires f   f are also npJL^o be identified with any characteristic fivmus toti of eastern Europe, as ^ 1*   BiaToltocki wo uki &S "TrT^n^i^n^^lTave"also been dec'la^erT'lcrb^TaTTsllflctly'^je'rniaii *    o r^rWimi-ffi-aTiy" even fTSttlcaT festfTffittn^tb^^ -$      cntly of the preseiiT^o^PSTi^
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2.2 (above) Boim Family Chapel. Lw6w (L'viv). 1609-1015. (Photo; The Institute of Art, Polish Academy of Stierices.)
S.J {opposite page) Main facade on the Calle <te Liberos, SaLmanc* University. C.i jao (Photo: Hikfordm- Foro M.irbnrg, courtesy <nf Art Resource.)
ITALIAN SCULPTORS AND SCULPTURE OUTSIDE OF ITALY
graffiti and gables thaj a« said to rjoark an indigenous Bohemian Renaissance arc likewise round frequently in Germany and Austria. F^hiTinorc, in the same time period that BiaJUMuilu 'fitl&^hflm in eastern Europe, a similar decorative inventiveness, and a tendency cowards the p Ian i form, are found for e\ajjip!e in Spanish and Spimh American sculpture'." TITe eouf^risbn oftEe poun Chap£J;^iL Lwow (LYiv, Lehibcrg; Figure 2.;) \vTtTTme portal to Salamanca University (Fifcfij-e^j) 'may be telling in this regard, but many works in Latin America* such as the facade'of the church at Tepoztlan (Figure 2,4), akp.AUfiS«t.similar deviations from the,classic norm.
The treatment of a particular material for sculptural details, namdy stuqra has. also been seen as the sign of vernacular style. But there is nothing particularlylocalized about the use ot mis medium, either. Thus one needs to tre^t with caution, if not skepticism,
2.4 (right)   Dominican Church, Tepotzlan. Mexico. Completed 1588, (Phoro: Instituto do Invcsdgaciortes Escccicas)
3.5 (below)   Houses of Mikiolaj and Krzy^tof Przybyia Family. Kazim:en: Dolny 1615. (Photo: The Institute of Art, Polish Academv of Sciences.)
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'ir§!^^^--^^—^----y- ^"osiocki t0 lhe *<ffect that the use of stucco, which is said to LmaracTerize the sculptors and masons of the Lublin school? Figure^;?): or the fattened fonns in plasterwork seen at Kazimierz Dolny (Figures 1.5 and 2/3), are vernacular.--1 Sitftiixrta^metf' pjasterwork forms are found* in interiors in other nortn^riT^liii^. ^ijVcllldttVg"13oheinia and England, where, as in Poland, they are ultimately tn he rrarr»d-jo Italian origins. The plasterwork figural decoration on the exterior of Nonsuch castle would^proljably not have been so dissimilar to Polish examples.-11
This search for a vernacular therefore seems to have produced exceedingly elusive results- Motifs that have been identified as vernacular in eastern Europe have also been
ideclared at" various times to be distinctly German, or Italian. Certainly none of these 1 rnotifs is urtiquV'to the specific regions in which iliey 'are"supposedly origm.illy located. j TtaETTalsol^^ry^ in Central Europe.
It is quite telling that Italians may in fact have^bee^ej^gcnT^ible for the origins of many of theHbrmT'diar. are regarded as veriT5c^a^Archi^uiral luoti^^Tii-rre^^D^rrassoci-atecTwith the eastern European vernaculars such as stepped gables, parapetjil^atricas, along with their constituent forms, come from northern Italy. One can point to the Venetian or northern Italian source of merlon cresting, the Paduan origins of the Krakow Cloth Hall, long attributed of course to Italians, and the north Italian origins of sgraffito decoration, hi sculpture, the use^pf stucco atso-derim from Italy (the Lublin masters actually came from the' Lombard lakes), and "it was spre^~toJ France by Italians at
2.6 Facade detail, house of Kryzstof Przybyia Kazimierz Dolny, 1615. (Photo: The Institute of Art, Polish Academy of Sciences,)
n'7,- LVIU\ofdw »deaW*' Church. UibUn. .603-1607. (IW The Institute of Art'
i'uliih Academy ot Sciences.)
ITALIAN SCULPTORS AND SCULPTURE OUTSlDEo^
Foiiti/mebleaii ajid thereafter by emulation to England; stucco was indeed
rnttny. countries an. I^lian.speculity2)I» another paper, Bialostocki raised the j^uiSftL chat what he elsewhere called the vernacular might be a local t^dac.quJi^£a^aioTc general stylistic form'.-* Rather than considering the phenomena adduced by evidence foTa cfenctlve" kind of vernacular, it might indeedjje better.jlo i;aH ihem. e>^mpl_es of jhe dialects of an AUtemadonaL-kngaa^eV comparable to variants such as types of American
Mt is worth dwelling on the proljlemjaf.the concej>a^Hzacipn ot the vernacular in distinction to the international" Itatfanate, because this way of treating supposedly local article HMThA iUuTlitnatK the difficulties that art history has in extracting itself from a discussion which is still ultimately grounded - better, troubled - by nationalist premises, This problem is presentee! By the conception of U genu* tfalidjio, and it also has many other manifestations in the historiography of Central European art. This sort of approach has indeed so dominated the discussion to date chat it has impeded the formulation of manv coherent alternatives, as well as developing other insights, such as Bialostocki s own idea of artistic dialect      ~ _L _
Nevertheless, another tmpBeTof diffusion. 1th at is anchored more firmly in anthropology, already exists (although it does not seVm to have been inspired by other, more recent, trends in "Ahglo-Saxon art history). This diftusionist model has been frequently
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i,8 Galcrie of Francois [. view [10111 the Vestibule of Honor, FoiiraiiiebleaLi. ij2#. (Photo: BUdarchiv Foto Marburg, courtesy of Art ResotinN?.)
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2.9   Giovanni Dalntata, Frjgrncuc of an alcarpiece Ifom Diosgyor. Stone, c. 1490. Budapest. Hungarian National Gallery. (Photo: museum.)   . .
* ^*
employed in discussions of the Renaissance outside of Italy by scholars other than art historians, and it has .begun to be utilized in art history as well.37 A model of cultural"! diffusion helps to bolster the msights^gained from an approach related to style history, ] i  without introducing problems stemming from a possible over-emphasis on novelty or ' 'w uniqueness, such as is often implied by style history. " In this_ difusibratt approach. questions .of.influence..arxd..u>tejca.cti<in - nctf those of origiiialgeiiiiis or invention, or those posed by a national problematic - are ac sta^The model of cukuriFaiffirsion, derived from the"anthropological conception of accultura-- don, makes it possible to deal with issues of cultural influence and intersection, without regarding Italian culture as superior, and hence in reaction needing to lay stress on local
identities or uanmial jdiarjcteristics. '      ~"-————^
T^cjX4£53aUJS, however, a further puibleBvin^Htekiy the idea of influence, namely that of underestimating the other side of the question, ^ecepjiftu-, A nj^ej^fjii flue nee that is related to acedtujat^ 9f a passive recipient, to
whjchj inH^ncTBows. If, however, a model oTdlnViolTts^^ iug^est a
~\ ^ajjergr"^^ the recipient/it may
■ ^«y«s be niTsleadmg. As Peter Burke has remarked specificallyiii"relatiorPtoThe ^L,^c,on of tbe^reception" or 'diffusion" of the Renaissance abroad, it may seem that "while the Italians were active, creative, and innovatory .. . the rest of Europe was passive ... a borrower eternally in debt to Italy."" Yet both the activity of northern artists m Italy, and the continuation of indigenous traditions, show that this was obviously not the case.
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The pt^reo^drcularion is certainly more complicated than a simple image would allow "of trafric irT~one direction, from Italy north. Careers of artists who came from abroad to work in Rome, and elsewhere in Italy, and then passed on (or back) 10 Central Europe, either to remain there or else to stay for only a limited time, evoke a more complex picture than that suggested by the notion of Italy us a source, even if it be desired to retain this notion tor limited cases. Giovanni Dalmota provides a good ^example. As his name implies, Dalmata, properly DuknovScFT, came from Trogir (Trau) in the present area of Daiinatia, Croatia. After working for the pope and other patrons in Rome, he moved on to the court of Matthias Corvinus in Hungary, where he executed the Madonna of Diosgyor (Figure 2.9). "* There are many other examples of the same phenomenon, of which the work of Pietro Francavilla or Adriaen de Vries towards 1600 are familiar.
It is time to consider other approaches. We might try to examine the other side of the coin, to see what the active aspects of reception were that led to the way in which Italian sculptors and sculpture were treated outside Italy. In this connection Burke has proposed that a model like that of literary reception (as used by some scholars of literature) is much more helpful.3,1 Not only should we look, as Burke says* at the presence of individual Italians abroad, and find out where they went, at what time, and even, as in Bialostoeki's account, for what purposes, but how they were received. Ultimately there thus ma; be involved a more subtle jprocess., as Burke suggests, of creative misinterpretation (one might also say^Teuitetpretarion). In the" exampte^considered here, Italian sculpture may thus be seen to have been assimilated, absorbed, reworked, domesticated, and transformed.^ - .
Furthermore,} other anthropological models than that g£j££uhurationtare available for adaptation in art history."These include that proposed by Marshall Sahlins.^ Sahlins presents examples illustrating how cultures interact, mutually misinterpret each other, and selectively adapt elements from each other in a fitstoricSl""maimer. 1 he use of such a nioctehlTiight lead to a more comprehensive conceptualization of the relation of the history of European art to broader considerations of European culture.
To stay with the particular subject of Italian sculpture and sculptors, outside Italy: one might thus rather wish to investigate what conditions or factors (to use this rather inadequate, but perhaps still necessary, term) there were that either facilitated, and thus created possibilities for, Italian sculpture and sculptors, or made problems (to use the {'"word in another context) for them. In this sort of investigation a foundation is uttered by the information and insights gained from other scholarly or interpretive approaches. Stylistic developments and individual accomplishments may consequently also be sec in relation to issues of taste and fashion, theoretical motivations, education, and other bases V for familiarity with Italian culture. Conversely other issues, including conditions of f   employment, of generic and technical limitation, of religious inhibition, and even ot competition not only from alternatives in the kind of forms and practitioners of sculpture, j but also from other mediators of I tali.mate fori] is, uii^hi be considered as "factors" that might impede reception of Italian sculpture and sculptors.
Uiatostoeki himself suggested that the Renaissance came to eastern Europe as a royal \ fancy, and the role of taste or fashion can be emphasized, even more than in his account, jn the adaptation of newer forms of art, and their spread." Following Jerzy Lozniski and
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Helena and Srefin Kozakiewicz. among other scholars, Btrfossocki suggests for instance how such a taste tor die Italianate, in sculpture as in other media, began at the Polish court and spread throughout the country.* But Poland is not unique in this pattern. Jolan Balogh and Gyöngy Törok have suggested chat a similar partem can be established tor sculpture in Hungary.-* [t miy also be argued (to contradict Biatosrocki, who regards che Habsburgs with their iiiukJnations empire as alien co the local tradition, while he deal* wich the Ja^ef Ion tans whose dynasty- was ultimately Lithuanian) that the Habsburgs as well as the Jaqelloriians set similar patterns, tor architecture and sculprure, not only for the Austrian lands, bur also for Bohemia. In Germany, too, the courts set the cone for patronage of Italians and the Italianate, as Frederick the Wise of Saxony's commissions for sculpture co Adriano Fiorentino, as well as his patronage ofjacopo de1 Barbari, surest. In all these instances a court center created a fashion that taised expectations for other rulers co follow if they wished to be an courattt.
fn fact, one of the best examples iu4i£LDlng-hrm^ forms in
_ architecture mid sculpture followed the demands of fashion is suggested by a self-q promotingTeccer that the Lübeck Town Council (Rm) received from the stceiüiotver Paul van Hofe in 154a. In it van Hofe announces his presence in the city "in order to make some buildings in the antique manner, which antiques one now considers as the highest art, but of which arc one finds nothing in the cicy.'1J* In Lübeck, as in much of the Baltic ji region, a Netherlander might stand for an Italian, buc the tetter also demonscrates the appeal of fashion in the adaptation of the antique style, of which Italian artists and artisans were *he purveyors p^r excellence.
Indeed che nilc ^i'lhiliana might often serve as a stand-in for those who desired something done in the "antique" style, the stik alVatrtka or alia Rmana^' Here especially Italians or Italian-made sculpture often assuaged a desire for the ancient. This is evinced in the area of collecting as well as that of patronage for, as we have known since Erwin Pa no Sky's essay on Dürer andjhe antique, ftftpr>lii>^y^U^jjujiiirjl the veil of the Italia —-
A treatise on how a Kiinstkimwier should be formed that Gabriel Kalremarkt drew up in 13S7 is noteworthy here. Kakemarkt gives first place to works of sculpture, and esteems antique statuary as the most desirable of all collectors' items. Among contemporary sculptors, however, he places Italians first. Significantly, Kakemarkt also mentions how copies can be made of ancient works, or casts taken from them.*' In this realm Italian sculpture again assumes a preeminent postiion. Kakemarkt almost seems co suggest that in this regard Florence equals if not surpasses Rome, since it is from Florentine workshops that good copies can be obtained. In any event, this may be why from the time of Filaretes copy of the equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius (Figure 2.10), which also belonged to the Kuastkmmer in Dresden where it is still to be found, copies of ancient works of art by Italians found their way into northern collections 411 This practice continued >" l^r centuries, as is evinced by the copies made by Giovanni Susi»«, Massimiliano Soldam Benzi, and other sculptors who made bronze* after ancient works for the Prince of Liechtenstein.1"
A taste for the antique can of course be related to several aspects of Renaissance culture, a huge and complicated subject to be sure. Even che revisionist critique of humanist education provided by Anthony Grafton and Lisa Jardine would allow for the
ITALIAN SCULPTORS AND SCULPTURE 'OUTSIDE OF^
i
1
2.10   Antonio Avcrlino, called Fitaretc. Marcus Aurelius on horseback. Bronze. 1465. Dresden , Staatliche Kunstsammlungen. (Photo: museum.)
impact of humanist educationp founded on ancient sources, on the formation of ethical notions, at least from the late fifteenth century,0 and it is striking how many future patrons of Italian sculptors were actually educated by humanists. To mention buc a few, in Poland these include notably kings Jan Olbracht and Sigismund Stan,1, who were tutored by Filippo Buonacorsi, and Piocr Tomicki, bishop of Krakow, who studied in Bologna with Filippo Beroaldo, among many other figures. In Hungary, outside of prelates who were actually Italian, the most noteworthy figure in this regard is Tomas Bftkoez, the patron of the Bäkoci Chapel, to whom Filippo Beroaldo dedicated his commentary on Apuleius^ In Germany Elector Augustus of Saxony was educated by the Vimivian translator Rivius; later Habsburgs such as Rudolf II received a thorough humanist education, buc che examples could be multiplied- Hence a newer motivation was articulated for the patronage of sculpture from the fifteenth century on. Among ocher notions revived or encouraged by humanist thought was the ideal of magnificence, which affected many endeavors. In his Ten Bwkt oil AJnhitiftutV (7^6),     B. Aiberci indicates how this conception might apply to statuary:
But, unless I am mistaken, the greatest ornament of all is the statue. It may serve as ornament in sacred and profane buildings, public and private, and makes a wonderful memorial to man or deed.44
Certainly contemporary humanist critics related patronage in Central Europe co themes including the ethic of magnificence, Politian's. remarks on Matthias Corvinus are note-
iL
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RE FRAMING THE RENAISSANCE
worthy here: "Yon also build the most magnificent palace by far, and adorn your court [ fonmi] with statues of every kindL either bronze or marble."" This text indicates that one leading humanist's assessment of a ruler's realization of the ideal of magnificence could thus hot be merely a theoretical desideratum, but a critical tool used to refer to a patron's actual use of sculpture.
Patrons did not need to learn from humanists how conspicuous consumption might be a sign of status or. as is now said, might help to constitute charisma. Nevertheless, humanist doctrine may have helped direct expenditure towards sculpture and thus may have affected patronage both in an ecclesiastical and in a secular setting. This suggests a more precise connection, and thus provides a better way of understanding the relevance of humanism to the reception of Italianate style than more general statements by scholars like Biatostocki to die effect that the history of fourteenth- and fifteenth-century humanism in Central Europe provides a background Co the arrival of Ttalianate forms there. It may even be chat the inculcation of doctrines led to a predilection for Italianate works. In other words, as humanist ideas percolated north* so did a need, or taste, for Italian sculpture.
On the other hand, the adoption of stylistic notions that we associate with the humanist ideal or"eloquence would also have played an important role in the assimilation of classicizing art. According to principles of rhetorical (and also poetic) decorum,, forms were matched appropriately with the concent they were meant to express, and with the audience to which they were directed. In this instance noble, magnificent forms that were endowed with the charisma of antiquity would have been appropriate for important monuments of sculpture.*1
Education and humanist theory were of course not the only conduits for Che spread of Italianate cultural idcals.-.Travel tyas another stimulus. This is such a familiar topic that it can be passed over briefly;-on£ need but recall Frederick the Wise's journeys through Italy, or Maximilian I Habsburg's Italian campaigns. One of the clearest examples of the impact of travel, though not necessarily on sculpture, involves the Bavarian Duke Ludwig X who, after visiting Mantua, had a place resembling it {to his mind) built in Landshut.
Other elemencs chan tasre and ;;bhion, or humanist ideals and education* contributed to the change in taste and fashion. The role of Italians in bronzecasting and in carving marble is obviously pertinent. Italian manufacture of terracotta sculpture is also worth mentioning/7 But despite Italian pre-eminence in these fields, none of these was exclusively an Italian preserve. QiLtfae other hand stucco was for a Large part of che early modem period demurely an Italian specially. The pn^nuiiancc^ÖfTljlJaJi SLUipwA in trfisTmedium throughout the region and throughout the era is well known if, as remarked above, sometimes forgotten in historical accounts that over-emphasjze indigenous work in other media. In the eyes of one sixteenth-century arcisc.^rfuceo . was, however, disciiicriyjin_Italian gift to Central Europe. Aberlin Tretsch, the designer of the Stuttgart :l*7i7rüjTwrote in 1501 that "handwork in stucco is among us a new craft, that Italians brought into the laud around 1540."^ Certainly Italian stucco in the Star Villa near Prague, or in Güstrow in Mecklenburg (Figure 2.11), or in the so-called lhilicmichcs B,u, in the Landshut residence built for Ludwig X would bear this observation out.*'
In contrast, it is useful to consider what conditions or elements might have impeded
ITALIAN SCULPTORS AND SCULPTURE OUTSIDE OF ITALY 63
2.11 Doonvay (detail) , entry of church, Sabino v (Ks^ebaO, Slovakia. Ston:1. (Photo: Institute * tor Art History, Slovak Acadey of Sciences, Bratislava, Slovak Republic.)
thC^p^tionjif ItalimsgyJRtujg Pi the employment of Italian sculptors. Biatostoeki has remarked on how the adoption of Italian Renaissance solutions was very selective, limited primarily to tomb sculpture of the variety set in niches.* By selectivity, Biatostocki means that, in comparison, ocher Italian Renaissance forms, such as intarsw or free-standing tombs, did not find their way to Poland. But the question is a broader one,
The broader issue of caste may work in a way which suggests why. conversely, Italian forms and sculpture could also have lost some of their popularity. When, for instance, in the late seventeenth and especially in the eighteenth century a taste for things French replaced that for the Italianate, French sculptors began to assume the places chat Italians had once occupied. But this does not entirely explain why from the beginning patrons or clients were more sensitive to Italians' endeavors in some areas, such as tomb sculpture or architectural ornament, than in others.
While in general Italians may have worked in the north in a variety of sculptural media including ma"řEle. stucco, or occasionally bronze, even though Donatello also worked in wood there was no continuing major tradition in lime^odjr oak in Italy to rival the thriving, use of these media in die-nortlwm- the-late., fifteenth century, la, the north theUocal tnidition of working in wood also remained a lively alee mauve well through the eighteenth century for altarpieees, pulpits, baptismal fonts, and even epitaphs. In certain areas of central Europe, including Silesia, Poland, and Upper Hungary (Slovakia), there may even have existed division of media, of sorts, in which some works were CBgflttSfl by Italians in stone, whereas retables remained tied to the loj^CJcaditiojv ol wot4imS in ^ti^i. This is seen in places like Sabino v in Slovakia, where Italians did the doorway in 'stone (Figure 2.12) while presumably Germanic sculptors worked on the altarpieees
Z,li (Opposite page) Master of th* Alters of St. Anne (follower of Parol z Levoea). Annunciation Altarpiece from Sabinov (Kisszeben). Potychromcd wood, c. 1515-iS-0. Budapest, Hungarian National Gallery. (Photo: museum,)
žij (lefc)   Master of the Altars of St. Anne (follower of Parol i Levoča). St. Anne Altarpiece froni Sabinov (Kisszeben). Polychromed wood.   1510—1515. Budapest, Hungarian National Gallery, (Photo; museum).
(Figures 2.13 and 2.14). The same phenomenon may be encountered through the eighteenth century elsewhere/1
There is also a social dime us ion to the question of artistic reception. Opportunities to obtain permanent positions as court sculptors were infrequent. Tints Italians, who might be called to work on individual projects, often m effect had to take on employment att hoc. Furthermore, workshop and guild restrictions would have otherwise inhibited
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REFRAMING THE RENAISSANCE
foreigners from settling in many cities or towns. In many places the qualifications needed to become a uiasrer would have included die demand that one be a citizen, and the qualifications for citizenship may have depended on ptoperry ownership or Iota] birch, or even religion in l^otcstantjreftions» thus excluding C^rhnlu- Tr^tinnt A< i5 we|l known, itineracywis thewfyhi a tenure of the career of many Italian sculptors. Ic is relatively rare th.it a continuing presence might be established in one place for long. The result was that there often existed extreme limitations to the lasting local impact of Italians.52
Religious beliefs also could have presented impediments. Religious differences per sc seem in genera) to have been less of an issue. Thus in Protestannnorthem Germany and Stan'din a via. I Lilian" stuccoists were" employed, as tfiey were in orthodox Russia. Yei in Russta"^other sorts of control could have been placed on the activity of sculptors. The prohibition against making graven images was interpreted in such a manner that opportunities for making statues were seriously reduced," Thus in Russia until the late seventeenth century Italians served more often as masons or architects than as sculptors.
In the end, tt may even be their very success that also restricted chances for Italians, Masons and sculptors who were drawn to Italy to be trained by Italian masters may in many instances have created competition for them. As van Hofe's letter suggests, many Netherlander^ often took up in places where Italians did not reach. This is suggested by the pupils of Giambologna, Nethedanders or Germans who had been trained by him in Italy. Moreover, indigenous traditions were often created to challenge Italian hegemony in some fields. And so by the early seventeenth century south German and Tyrolean stucco decoration was thriving in or not far from areas where Italians had earlier been involved in similar projects.
As these last remarks indicate, this essay can at best be considered merelv a sketch suggesting where further investigations may be pursued. Nevertheless* a good place to start refraining a more comprehensive view of the Renaissance is with the examination of Italian art and artists outside of Italy.
CHAPTER 3
"Vision Itself Has Its Histoty":
"Race," Nation, and Renaissance Art History
CLAIRE FARAGO
In the last two decades, the nineteenth-century epistemological foundations of art history have been the subject of great debate. Despite some fundamental disagreements over the nature of visual images, there is a general consensus on two major issues.1 First> most art historians now regard as problematic the assumption that all images are at base naturalistic: in fact, almost everyone recommends severing the link between images and nature that has historically been postulated by resemblance theories of representation. Secondly* it has been widely claimed that an adequate theory of representation must take into account the culturally specific circumstances in which visual images function. Yet current theoretical discussions stop short of specifying how we are to define these circumstances. What would be involved in drawing out the implications of our theorizing? How might we establish a relativistic epistemological foundation for art history that adequately defines what '"culturally specific circumstances" actually means?
With these issues in mind, the following essay explores the possibility of reconstruing our disciplinary paradigm based on national culture so that it focuses on cultural exchange instead. The history of our discipline has been written as a modernist enterprise. Most narrative accounts have been concerned with the formal features of theory at the expense of the cultural circumstances out of which accounts of artistic change emerged. An examination of these cultural circumstances reveals that some of our predecessors were challenged by problems similar to the ones we face today - to revise resemblance the ones of representation, to incorporate a multicultural framework, to overcome the Eurocentrisms of our inherited academic practices.
Moreover, the normative status of Italian art established within the discipline by Burckhardt, Michelet, Ruskin, and others played a catalytical role over several generations of art historical revisionist writing. If we treat the writings of our founding fathers as documents of cultural history, rather than purely theoretical contributions, we discover that nineteenth-century theories about the nature of artistic development on the collective or "cultural" level emerged in connection with widespread debates about the evolution of civilization. First, Social Darwinist theories of cultural evolutionism provided the leading paradigm. When Social Darwinism per st was no longer the issue. German National Socialism made new demands on art historians and other European