Francesco di Marco Datini (c. 1335-1410) left his native city of Prato, near Florence, in about 1350 to become a successful merchant in Avignon, France. He returned three decades later to decorate his newly built private residence in the historic center of Prato. Under his patronage, frescoes of sacred and secular subject matter were executed in the residence from 1389-95. The artists that have been concretely identified, or suggested, as working in the Palazzo Datini include: Arrigo di Niccolò, from Prato; minor painters Dino di Puccio, Jacopo d’Agnolo, and Agnolo; Florentine artists Tommaso del Mazza, Bartolomeo di Bertozzo, and Pagolino d’Ugolino; and the master artists Niccolò di Pietro Gerini and Agnolo Gaddi. Many of the original frescoes were uncovered during renovations of the 1950s. Those in the entry hall and ground floor rooms survive in varied condition. This recovery is significant because the survival of large scale private works of this kind in Italy is rare. Datini’s legacy also comprises hundreds of ledgers, account books, and thousands of personal and business letters dating from 1363 to 1410. These are now contained in the Archivio Storico di Prato. Using the surviving visual and written material as a reference point, this thesis examines the contexts behind Datini’s choices as patron. In particular, the influence of predominant values in merchant culture will be considered. The frescoes are explored in comparison with the interior decoration in the palaces of contemporaries. Precedence is given to residences in Florence and other urban centers in Tuscany. Related paintings from Avignon are also considered, as Datini lived there for many years. Visual parallels can also be drawn between the Datini frescoes and manuscript illuminations, among other sources. The murals were influenced by Datini’s own interests, larger cultural values, and the painters, who derived from the Florentine tradition. This thesis seeks to examine the cultural and artistic environment in late Trecento Prato, Datini’s contact with the artists, the subject matter and style of the frescoes, and their reception. / Thesis (Master, Art History) -- Queen's University, 2010-10-25 16:44:10.326

Thesis (Revise). / Includes bibliographical references (p. 231-247) and index.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Universiteit van Amsterdam, 2004. / eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (p. 299-331).

Thesis (doctoral)--Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität, Bonn, 1977. / Spine title: Familienloggien. Includes index. Includes bibliographical references (p. 744-752).

No description available.

Giorgio Vasari naît le 30 juillet 1511 ; il s'éteint le 27 juin 1574. À la fin de l'année 1554, il entre au service de Cosme Ier de Médicis, duc de Florence, et se voit rapidement confier la responsabilité des travaux de transformation du Palais de la Seigneurie en Palais Ducal. L'artiste livre les clefs de lecture du cycle pictural déployé sur les plafonds et les murs du célèbre monument florentin, connu sous le nom de Palazzo Vecchio, dans une oeuvre peu étudiée : Ragionamenti del Sig. Cavaliere Giorgio Vasari, pittore et architetto aretino, sopra le invenzioni da lui dipinte in Firenze nel Palazzo di loro Altezze Serenissime. Rédigé entre 1558 et 1567, mais publié à titre posthume seulement en 1588, ce texte met en scène Giorgio Vasari et le prince François Ier de Médicis, fils aîné de Cosme Ier et d'Éléonore de Tolède. Sous une plume ekphrastique, au sein de laquelle le mot et l'image s'unissent, l'artiste compose un dialogue distribué sur trois journées et conduit dans trois lieux emblématiques du palais : le Quartier des Éléments, le Quartier de Léon X et la Salle des Cinquecento. L'intérêt de cet ouvrage réside dans les différents niveaux de lecture comme dans les différents "dialogues" qu'il suppose. Si la réécriture de certains épisodes mythologiques, mis en relation directe avec l'histoire de la dynastie médicéenne, participe du dessein officiel de l'oeuvre, à savoir la glorification ducale, le mythe prélude, en raison de son appartenance à un univers ésotérique, à une lecture dérobée du texte vasarien qui, au-delà de servir le règne médicéen, révèle une aura mémorielle nous invitant à appréhender I Ragionamenti de Giorgio Vasari comme un édifice de la Mémoire. / Giorgio Vasari was born on 30 July 1511 ; he died on 27 June 1574. At the end of 1554, he starts to be on the service of Cosimo I de' Medici, the Duke of Florence and he quickly sees himself entrusted with the transformation works of the seigneurial palace into a ducal one. The artist delivers the reading guides of the pictorial cycle deployed on the ceilings and the walls of the famous Florentine monument known as Palazzo Vecchio, in Ragionamenti del Sig. Cavaliere Giorgio Vasari, pittore e architetto aretino, sopra le invenzioni da lui dipinte in Firenze nel Palazzo di loro Altezze Serenissime, a little-known and little-studied work. Written between 1558 and 1567, but only posthumous published in 1588, this text stages Giorgio Vasari and Prince Francesco I de' Medici, the elder son of Cosimo I and Eleonora di Toledo. Under a descriptive hand, in which the word and the image unite, the artist composes a dialogue spread over three days and lead in three emblematic places of the palace: the Elements Area, the Leo X Quarter and the Cinquecento Room. The interest of this work lies in the different reading levels as in the different "dialogues" that it means to suggest. If the rewriting of some mythological episodes, directly viewed in relation to the history of the Medici dysnasty, contributes to the official aim of the work - namely the ducal glorification - the myth preludes, owing to its belonging to an esoteric world, a hidden reading of the Vasarian text that, beyond serving the Medici reign, reveals a memory aura inviting us to comprehend Giorgio Vasari's Ragionamenti as an edifice of Memory.

Queen Christina of Sweden (1626-1689)--one of the most celebrated, if controversial, converts of all times--settled in the papal city after her abdication in 1654. Her palace--the Palazzo Riario (today Corsini)--became one of Rome's leading cultural institutions: a site where learned, artistic, and elite culture converged. This study examines Christina's practice of collecting, and argues that her ambition was to create a center for learning and the arts in the Palazzo Riario modeled on the ancient Musaeum of Alexandria. While Christina's importance as a patron of art and learning has long been recognized, this dissertation offers the first comprehensive discussion of Christina's practice of collecting, and the architecture and ambience of her Roman palace. Based on both published and unpublished architectural drawings, inventories, household accounts, and contemporary travel descriptions, this dissertation establishes the contents and the display of Christina's collection, and the architectural plan of the Palazzo Riario. This study examines the intersection between objects and their display, issues of etiquette and decorum, and the social use of architecture in seventeenth-century Rome. It aims to contribute to the history of collecting and early museums, and to the broader field of seventeenth-century culture.

La villa tardoantica di Palazzo Pignano (CR) sorge nel IV secolo d.C. in un’area particolarmente fertile della Pianura Padana, caratterizzata dall’abbondanza di acque, non lontano da Milano. La villa, di particolare ricchezza è caratterizzata dalla presenza, oltre che della pars rustica, di un peristilio ottagonale e di una chiesa a pianta centrale. Nel V secolo la villa viene integralmente ristrutturata ed anche la chiesa viene dotata di un fonte battesimale, di un syntronos e di arredi liturgici che trovano confronti nell’area orientale dell’Impero. Dopo la “fine della villa”, mentre la chiesa continuerà a rimanere in uso fino all’XI secolo per essere poi sostituita da una pieve romanica, nell’area della villa sorgerà un villaggio di capanne che in parte riutilizzano le strutture della villa. Nel VII secolo nel sito è presente un gruppo di Longobardi e un esponente dell’élite di questo popolo, come dimostra il rinvenimento di un anello sigillare aureo con il nome ARICHIS. L’insediamento con la sua grande pieve diverrà una curtis di proprietà del vescovo di Piacenza e nell’XI secolo costituirà il nucleo di un districtus legato al fisco imperiale. Dati archeologici e fonti scritte dimostrano l’interesse che le élites laiche ed ecclesiastiche ebbero per il sito. / The late-antique villa of Palazzo Pignano (CR) was founded in IV century p.C. The villa is characterized by the presence, beside the pars rustica, of a eight-edged peristilium and of a church with circular plant. In V century the villa is wholly renovated and also the church is provided with a baptism-well, a syntronos and with liturgical furniture that can be compared with same furniture in the oriental area of the Empire. After the “vanishing of the villa”, while the use of the church will be preserved until XI century when it was re-placed by a Romanic parish, in the area of the villa rises a village of huts which use the structure of the villa. In VII century this site is also inhabited by a group of Langbards and by a leader of the élite of this people, as the discovery of a golden seal ring with the name ARICHIS proves. The settlement becomes a curtis of property of the bishop of Piacenza and in XI century constitutes the core of a districtus which was linked to imperial revenue authorities. Archaeological report and written sources confirm the interest that the laic and ecclesiastic élites show for the site.

Marguerite “Peggy” Guggenheim is best known for her legacy of collecting modern art in both Europe and the United States, but scholars have overlooked her importance as a patron of modern architecture, specifically the exhibition spaces that showcased her art collection. This thesis fills the gap of literature by tracing the architectural history of the collection. Guggenheim represented a catalyst for bridging the role of art and architecture by promoting modern art through three different spatial approaches: creating collaborative and didactic gallery workspaces at Galerie Guggenheim Jeune in London (1938-1939), establishing architectural spaces that employed unique display techniques at Art of This Century in New York (1942-1948), and instituting a final home-museum at Palazzo Venier dei Leoni in Venice (1949-present). Through the use of primary sources, such as Guggenheim’s autobiography, archival sources including familial correspondences, original black and white photographs, newspaper articles, and architectural drawings, I resituate Guggenheim as not only an art patron and collector, but also a benefactor of modern architectural spaces. / text

This study traces the genesis and development of the History of Constantine tapestries designed by Pietro da Cortona and woven on the looms established by Francesco Barberini shortly after his return from France in December 1625. The circumstances surrounding the creation of the series provide a foundation and a framework for exploring its meaning and purpose. Though inspired by an earlier Constantine suite of tapestries designed by Rubens, the "Cortona" panels should be read as an independent entity, the significance of which can only be fully appreciated within the context of the gran salone of the Palazzo Barberini, which I propose was their intended destination. This conclusion is supported by the many links between the tapestries and Barberini ideology, papal politics, the palace and the ceiling fresco in the Salone. Like the Divine Providence fresco, the "Cortona" series is a summa of the virtues and religious, political, intellectual and social initiatives of the family. The series emerges finally as a promotionally Italian endeavour, a showcase of Italian art and culture.