Inaug.-diss.--Freiburg i. Br. / Lebenslaug. "Literaturverzeichnis": p. 201-[210].

Inaug.-diss.--Leipzig. / Issued also without a thesis note. Lebenslauf. "Literatur": p. 56.

The Sack of Rome of 1527 was the greatest disruption to the history of sixteenth-century Italian art. Sufficient attention has been paid to its ramifications in terms of the diaspora of artists from Rome that disseminated "Mannerism" throughout Europe and monumental papal projects executed in its wake, including Michelangelo's Last Judgment (1534-41), Perino del Vaga's decoration of the Sala Paolina in Castel Sant'Angelo (1545-47), and the propagation of a more disciplined use of classicism in architecture and literature by the papacy of Pope Paul III. Focus on these consequences, of a grand scale, emphasizes the impact of the event for papal history but has obscured to some extent a set of works that was directly and immediately affected by the Sack of Rome: paintings by artists who were dispersed from Rome, produced in cities of exile. These paintings by displaced artists are the subject of my dissertation. Repercussions of the Sack disrupted the practice of painters who were forced to flee the ruined city, including Polidoro da Caravaggio, Perino del Vaga, Giovanni da Udine, Giovanni Antonio Lappoli, Vincenzo Tamagni, Parmigianino, Rosso Fiorentino, and Sebastiano del Piombo. The first post-Sack paintings of three of these artists, executed for private patrons (rather than under papal or imperial direction as in the cases of Giovanni da Udine and Perino), signal the disruption of the Sack through both marked stylistic innovation and iconographic manipulation: Parmigianino's St. Roch with a Donor in Bologna, Rosso's Lamentation at the Foot of the Cross in Sansepolcro, and Sebastiano del Piombo's Nativity of the Virgin in Rome. In these altarpieces, each artist exhibits a distinct change in his creative production and disturbs the iconography of a well-established sacred subject by inserting an aberrant and conspicuous reference to Rome. Together, these examples suggest that, while the artists do not illustrate the event of the Sack itself in their works, they mark their paintings as products of a specifically post-Sack context, in which the identity of the three painters as refugees from Rome was an essential component. This study raises the problem of the roles of historical trauma and of biography in art historical investigation. Chapter One examines contemporary writings about artists and the Sack and explores the extent to which an artist's association with the event was both a deeply personal issue as well as a public aspect of identity. The cases of Polidoro, Lappoli, and Tamagni are presented here as complementary cases to the chapter studies of Parmigianino, Rosso, and Sebastiano. Chapter Two investigates Parmigianino's production of the St. Roch altarpiece in Bologna, where his new monumentality and dramatic effect combine with an incongruous inclusion of antique costume to assert his artistic lineage to and recent departure from Rome. Chapter Three studies Rosso in Sansepolcro and the ways in which his Lamentation signals his distance from Rome - both physical and artistic - through appropriation of local culture and through his inversion of the figure of the Roman soldier. Chapter Four follows Sebastiano back to Rome after exile where he resumed the project for the Nativity that had been interrupted by the Sack. His emulation of the art of his former rival, Raphael, introduces an aberrant classical component that acknowledges at once the nostalgia for pre-Sack Rome inherent in his commission and the transformation, initiated as a result of the Sack, of the legendary site of the Nativity itself, at Loreto.

Cette thèse avance une hypothèse nouvelle à l’énigme du décor de la Galerie François 1er de Fontainebleau, teste son efficacité sur la totalité de ses 16 unités originelles, cadres compris, et argumente la question de sa vraisemblance. Elle repose sur l’analyse de l’unité décrochée de l’extrémité Ouest en 1639, le Bacchus et Vénus de Rosso, aujourd’hui au MNHA de Luxembourg. Ce tableau est un unicum qui relève des mirabilia . Sous le voile d’une scène érotique, il traite de façon sophistiquée un adage récent d’Erasme, ici écourté : sans Bacchus, Vénus se refroidit. Par art de mémoire plastique, il « mémorise » aussi le schéma de la Monarchie céleste, tel que figuré dans la Treschrestienne Cabale metrifiee (1519) de Jean Thenaud et commenté dans son Traicte de la Cabale (1521), deux manuscrits commandés par François 1er . Par trois motifs en bas du tableau, il indique son mode d’emploi discursif qui s’appuie sur Erasme, puis Cues, puis Bonaventure. Enfin, c’est une peinture fabriquée comme les images artificielles irradiantes du De triplici vita de Ficin, mais sans effet magique. Ce tableau est le centre d’un dispositif à la fois intellectuel, matériel, et pratique, qui relie les 16 unités originelles et invite les princes Valois-Angoulême à une réception spécifique pour verbaliser eux-mêmes le programme de discours organisé. La base intellectuelle de ce dispositif est théologique : elle repose sur le verset de saint Paul (1 Co, XIII, 12), et se réfère à Erasme, Cues, et Bonaventure. Sa particularité est de transposer les concepts mentaux de ces penseurs chrétiens à un décor peint et stuqué, et ce, par serio ludere alors très prisé, en termes d’inventions formelles et d’usages inédits des images, pour générer les discours du programme. Parmi ces inventions, la plus remarquable est la pratique plastique de l’art de mémoire suivant ses règles classiques, dans toutes les unités, cadres compris. Le programme expose la vérité du pouvoir de la monarchie-très-chrétienne, par trois analogies spéculaires au pouvoir de la Monarchie céleste. Il définit des valeurs morales princières, mais aussi deux ambitions politiques majeures, le pouvoir absolu et l’accès à l’imperium mundi par de nouveaux arguments. Il forme le « miroir du prince » secret de la nouvelle dynastie Valois-Angoulême. Ce « miroir » cite aussi le « théâtre » de Giulio Camillo acheté par le Roi en 1530 et éclaire son fonctionnement resté énigmatique. Nous proposons Jean Thenaud associé à Rosso comme concepteurs. / This thesis puts forward a new hypothesis concerning the enigma of the décor of the Francis I Gallery in the royal palace of Fontainebleau, tests whether this hypothesis works for all 16 of its original units, frames included, and considers the question of its likelihood. It is based on an analysis of the unit removed from the western end of the gallery in 1639, Rosso Fiorentino’s Bacchus, Venus and Cupid, now hanging in the MNHA in Luxembourg. This painting is a unicum that falls into the mirabilia category. Behind the erotic scene lies a sophisticated depiction of a recent - here shortened - adage of Erasmus: without Bacchus, Venus grows cold. Using the art of memory, it also “memorises” the paradigm of the heavenly monarchy portrayed in Jean Thenaud’s Treschrestienne Cabale metrifiee (1519) and commented on in his Traicte de la Cabale (1521), two manuscripts commissioned by Francis I. The three motifs at the bottom of the work indicate its discursive modus operandi, drawing on Erasmus, then De Cues, then Bonaventure. It is a painting constructed like the radiant images of Marsilio Ficino’s De triplici vita, but without magical effect. This painting is at the centre of a simultaneously intellectual, material and practical device, linking the 16 original units and inviting a specific reception from the Valois-Angoulême princes so that they can themselves express the organised discursive programme. The intellectual basis of this device is theological in nature: it is founded on the verse of Saint Paul (1 Corinthians 13:12), and refers to Erasmus, De Cues and Bonaventure. It is unique in that it transposes the mental concepts of these Christian thinkers to a painted, stuccoed décor, following the serio ludere maxim, very popular at the time, in terms of formal inventions and original use of images to generate the programme’s rhetoric. The most remarkable of these inventions is the plastic practice of the art of memory, following its classic rules, in all the units, including the frames. The programme exposes the truth of the power of the very-Christian monarchy, via three analogies to the power of the heavenly Monarchy. It defines princely values, as well as two major political ambitions, absolute power and access to the imperium mundi using new arguments. It forms the secrete “mirror for the prince” of the new Valois-Angoulême dynasty. This “mirror” also cites the “theatre” of Giulio Camillo bought by the King in 1530 and illuminates its enigmatic function. We propose Jean Thenaud, supported by Rosso, as the creators.