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Cardinal Pietro Bembo's accomplishments as a poet, linguist, philologist, and historian are well known, but his activities as an art collector have been comparatively little studied. In his writing, he directed his attention to the past via texts--Ciceronean Latin and Petrarchan Italian--for their potential to transform present and future ideas. His assembly of antiquities and contemporary art served an intermediary function parallel to his study of texts. In this dissertation I investigate Bembo as an agent of cultural exchange by offering a reconstruction of his art collection and, in so doing, access his thinking in a way not yet accomplished in previous work on this writer. Chapter One offers a historiographic overview of my topic and collecting as a subject of art historical study. Chapter Two maps the competition and overlapping interests of collectors who bought from Bembo's heirs. Chapter Three calls upon anthropological methodology for treating the study of material culture and applies it to Bembo's mission as a collector. Chapter Four concludes with a statistical analysis of subjects and object types to which Bembo was drawn. In the extensive Object Catalog individual works are examined in conjunction with one another and considered for what they reveal about Bembo's theoretical strategy. Appendix A is a timeline outlining Bembo's life. Appendix B is a chronologically ordered selection of accounts describing Bembo as a collector and descriptions of his collection and his properties. Appendix C is a Bembo family tree. Appendix D presents by location known repositories for traced objects that can be connected to Bembo's collection. The recovery of Pietro Bembo as a collector illustrates that his wide-ranging ambitions were intertwined. His museum was not a place fixed in geography but, rather, a dynamic mechanism for transmitting the analytic power and poetic potential he located in the visual. / Art History

Mémoire numérisé par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal.

Thesis (Ed.M.)--Boston University / PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis or dissertation. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / 2999-01-01

Boston University. University Professors Program Senior theses. / PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / 2999-01-02

This dissertation examines intra-racial colorism in works by writers who began their careers during the Harlem Renaissance, but whose writings span almost a century. In these writings, colorism; which can be defined as a bias directed toward an individual that is based on skin tone, is portrayed an intra-racial practice that results from the internalization of racist ideals. The practice relies on a hierarchy that most often privileges those closest to the color line. However, these depictions also show that the preponderance of skin tones can sometimes determine who is targeted. For the purposes of this study it is called reverse colorism when the bias is directed by individuals darker in skin tone toward those who are lighter. Consequently, the careful descriptions of the shades and hues of black characters becomes more than aesthetics and can be seen as a coded reference to experiential differences. While Alain Locke hailed the start of the Harlem Renaissance to signal the rise of The New Negro, the writings featured by female writers in this dissertation advance a less optimistic reality for women, who had to contend with both inter- and intra-racial bias because of their skin tone. Colorism is identified as a particularly prevalent presence in the lives of black women, who also saw skin tone subjectively and viewed themselves as darker than their male counterparts.

This thesis examines Andrea Mantegna's painting of Judith and Holofernes in the context of attitudes towards women, material culture, and the Middle East during the Italian Renaissance.

Marcus Antonius Muretus, qui inde ab anno 1526o usque ad 1585m vixit, modo Latine scribendi optimo insignis et apud aequales et apud posteriores, annis 1573o et 1574o duas in Platonis Rem Publicam habuit orationes. Quarum contextus in hoc opusculo editur commentariisque instruitur, quo facilius a lectoribus hodiernis sententiae Mureti legantur ac intellegantur. In praefatione quam huic opusculo adiunximus tractantur etiam res nonnullae quae ad Muretum et ad has orationes de Platone habitas pertinent: videlicet Mureti vita, sententiae eius ad artem rhetoricam pertinentes, controversiae Ciceronianae, studia Graeca, philosophia Platonica, denique ratio quam ad hanc editionem perficiendam adhibuimus. Marc-Antoine Muret (1526-1585), known for his excellent Latin style both in his own time and afterwards, gave two inaugural speeches on Plato's Republic in 1573 and 1574. This thesis contains an edition of these speeches together with a commentary aimed at readers comfortable in classical Latin but perhaps new to Muret and to Renaissance studies. In a preface to this edition and commentary, several subjects are discussed that are essential for understanding Muret and the context of these speeches: Muret's life; his views on rhetoric and the imitation of Cicero; Greek studies in the Renaissance; Platonic philosophy; and finally the text of the speeches and other matters specific to this edition.

Leonardo da Vinci's art and science have a dynamic relationship that can be used to better understand the role of the individual and the human body within his art. Leonardo believed that movements of the body were expressions of the soul. He also thought that the body was as a microcosm of the physical world. The theories, based in ancient tradition, would be challenged by his work with the human anatomy. By studying his notebooks it becomes evident that Leonardo held nature to be the highest creator of the world but as he worked to understand the human body and through extension the physical world, his ideas about nature and the divine became more incomprehensible. Leonardo's art reflects this turn of perspective as he becomes unable to define the physical world through the human body.

Italie phare selon les mots de Jacques Le Goff, Italie proie durant les invasions étrangères ou simple « expression géographique » selon le prince de Metternich, l’Italie a depuis son premier souffle offert à l’histoire du monde de nombreux visages. A ce titre, elle fait figure de véritable étrangeté dans le paysage européen actuel. Une Italie politique et religieuse dans une Europe intensément laïque. Une toute jeune nation au milieu de patries millénaires. Un pays où, encore aujourd’hui, politique et religion marchent main dans la main. Où les consciences s’éveillent à la messe comme dans l’isoloir. Un pays où l’humain cherche désespérément à toucher du doigt le divin. Où le divin lui-même devient humain en la personne des successeurs de Saint-Pierre, pendants aussi appréciés que redoutés des dirigeants temporels italiques. Or, si l’Italie occupe une telle place pour notre humanité, c’est avant tout du fait de la dichotomie qui l’a toujours habitée. Âme guerrière et conquérante autant qu’émanation sanctifiée de la religion catholique, elle est la terre qu’humain et divin se sont disputés pendant des décennies. Et c’est à la Renaissance que ce combat atteint son apex. Car temporel et spirituel furent animés d’une même tension créatrice dans leur âpreté à « faire l’Italie » et leurs affrontements incessants allaient façonner l’essence même de l’Italie d’aujourd’hui, lui donnant ce caractère bicéphale qui est probablement l’un des aspects les plus constitutifs de l’identité italienne actuelle. Et lui confère une spécificité sans pareille en Europe / Italy lighthouse according to Jacques Goff’s words, Italy prey during the French and Spanish invasions ou simple « geographic expression » according to the prince of Metternich ; Italy has since her very first breath given the world history many visages. As such, Italy is a true strangeness in our modern European landscape, deeply proud of still exposing today the two side of her personnality. A politic and religious Italy in a very secular Europe. A very young nation among millenial homelands. A country transcended by its stormy story, by its intrinsic fragilities. A country where today, politic and religious are walking together. Where the minds awakes during the mass or in the voting booth. A country where human is begging for divine. Where divine himself becomes human in the sanctified person of St-Peters’s successors, equivalent as appreciated as feared of Italic secular leaders. And whose power exceeds the Vatican confines to radiate in the whole world, making Italy a real beacon illuminating the whole planet. Or, if Italy occupies such a place in our humanity, it is because of the dichotomy who always inhabited it. Warrior soul and hallowed emanation of catholicity, Italy is the place that human and divine have fought about during centuries. And this quarrel reaches its climax during the Renaissance era. Where temporal and spiritual power were also guided by a same creative strenght in their acerbity to do Italy et their ceaseless quarrels were going to shape the very soul of modern Italy, giving her this two-headed dimension which is likely the most constituent aspect of Italian identity. And gives this Nation an unparalleled specificity in Europe