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To date many scholars seem to have agreed that Cardinal Bessarion was a physical and spiritual exile from Constantinople who sought to preserve his national culture in the alien environment of fifteenth-century Rome. In this thesis I am seeking to re-open the debate about Bessarion's role and aspirations in western Europe as expressed through the mechanism of his cultural projects. I argue that, in his guise as a Roman cardinal, he endeavoured to establish a western identity for himself that furthered his political goals. Though he never rejected his Byzantine roots, the messages he seems to have conveyed through artistic and literary patronage suggest that he was working towards some sort of assimilation into his Italian environment. By examining key projects that the cardinal patronised I identify strong western characteristics in terms of style and message. His major fresco commission for his burial chapel in SS Apostoli, Rome was executed by Antoniazzo Romano, a local Roman artist, using stylistic and iconographic H vocabularies that were. current in quattrocento Italy. Bessarion then commissioned an icon from the same artist rather than from a Greek icon painter. In the literary sphere we can also recognise an effort to establish a library in the tradition of his Italian peers. And he even dabbled in the western technological advances in printing, becoming one of the first contemporary authors to have his work printed. This thesis seeks to re-focus a spotlight on Bessarion as an immigrant who was not compelled to leave his native land but who chose to relocate. It is proposed here that the cardinal's cultural projects reflected his efforts to integrate and to succeed in his adopted surroundings.

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This dissertation explores the understanding of origins in late medieval and Renaissance Florence as represented in art and in wider fields of literary and historiographic discourse. Its particular focus is a myth associating the foundation of Tuscany with Noah, which was promoted in a volume of forged texts published by Annius of Viterbo in 1498. Rather than focusing on Annius or his scholarly reception as other writers have done, the thesis attempts to set the myths that he publicised in the context of other stories about origins that circulated in Renaissance Florence. The central part of the thesis consists of three chapters each of which takes its lead from a particular science of origins: etymology, genealogy and archaeology. The topics discussed in them, however, range beyond the strict confines of these disciplines to include such themes as: the shifting narratives of the foundation of Florence; family history as recorded in Florentine ricordanze; portraits as an expression of patrilineal ideology; and the legend of the Florentine Baptistery as a former temple of Mars together with its influence on Renaissance architecture. A recurring theme in these chapters is that of the origin narrative as a myth that serves to justify present-day arrangements or identities. The final chapter develops the theme of origins to encompass ideas of historical recurrence and renewal. In a discussion that draws heavily on the writings of Machiavelli I attempt to show that Florentine cyclical conceptions of history relied on a model of returning to the origin. The chapter closes with a discussion of Renaissance artists who were either perceived as the re-embodiment of an artistic ancestor, a 'new Giotto' for example, or who actively strove to attain such a status. Finally, the conclusion attempts to draw connections between a number of the narratives discussed earlier in the thesis on the basis of a shared fantasy of autonomous male creativity

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This thesis aims to reposition the halo’s status within an artwork through arguing a reassessment of its activity 'as a sign' rather than acceptance of its passivity. This active state is further explored and expanded by a heuristic application of semiotic theory to interrogate its fluctuation between sign/non-sign and its oscillation between a seemingly real status and behaviour juxtaposed with its very consciously artificial “manifestation”. A variety of halo shapes are considered, together with texture contained in and on its surface, and this has revealed the Venetian and Venetan artistic innovation of “glass” and “silk” haloes, through artists’ utilisation of contemporaneous industrial practices and their application to halo appearance. Additionally, extant architectural vocabulary is translated and reformulated into internal halo motifs by Venetian and Venetan artists, further enhancing the halo’s somatic characteristics, contextualized by examination of halo representation in various media in Florence, Rome and Siena, and a consideration of haloes within other, mainly Italian, centres. Additionally, the fugitive and transient qualities of the nimbus are noted, with its mimesis of the dying corporeal body in its fading insubstantiality, a further factor in its inexorably reductive form as increasing realism in art challenges its ontological traits. Textual characters contained within the halo body are also examined in their many forms and languages and their contribution to an intertextual function espoused by the ideologeme. An adjunct to this function is the halo’s propagandist role presented by artists. It will be demonstrated how all these different strands of interpretation are imbricated in the changing theological, political and societal landscape, encapsulated within the halo.

Cette thèse de doctorat ne vise pas tant à questionner la pertinence de la formule d'École romaine (Scuola Romana) appliquée à un groupe de peintres et de sculpteurs actifs à Rome dans l'entre-deux-guerres qu'à tenter de comprendre le succès de cette étiquette jusqu'à nos jours. Différentes méthodes sont utilisées pour aborder les écrits de critique d'art et les discours scientifiques, mais aussi les productions textuelles plus liées à la fiction et au témoignage. D'autre part, ce travail analyse les carrières singulières des artistes ainsi que le devenir des œuvres afin de replacer l'École romaine par rapport à une histoire du goût en Italie et au-delà. L'étude suit une progression chronologique. Elle porte d'abord sur la réception de l'École romaine du temps de son activité, entre 1918 et 1945, puis interroge la place des artistes du mouvement dans l'Italie de l'après-Seconde Guerre mondiale, dans un contexte marqué par les divisions politiques. Enfin, à partir des années 1980, l'on assiste à une tentative de revalorisation marchande de l'École romaine sans précédent. Il s'agit alors d'évaluer les résultats de cette action et de comprendre ce qui l'a rendue possible. Les questions de la modernité artistique ainsi que celles des liens de la scène artistique romaine avec le fascisme puis avec la mémoire du régime sont au cœur de cette recherche, constituant des approches neuves pour étudier un objet encore mal connu en France. / This PhD thesis questions the label « Ecole romaine » (also known as Scuola romana) used to designate a group of painters and sculptors in Rome between 1918 and 1945. We aim to understand the reasons for the success of this expression until now. We use various methods in order to investigate the discourses of both art critics and scholars as well as more fictional texts, often written as testimonies. Furthermore, this work analyses the singular career of each artist and the reception of their works in order to consider the Ecole Romaine within a history of taste in Italy and abroad. Our study follows a chronological development. First, we analyse the reception of the School when active, between 1918 and 1945. Then, we examine the place of our artists in post-war Italy, in a context of great political divisions. Finally, we study how, in the early 1980s, various actors on the artistic scene tried to raise the value of the Ecole Romaine's works on the art market. What were the results of their attempt, and to what extent this renewal of interest had a lasting impact, especially in the museums field ? The questions of artistic modernity and of the relationship between the Ecole Romaine and the fascist regime are central in this research. These constitute new approaches to a theme which has remained relatively unknown outside of Italy.