Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Pennsylvania, 1976. / "Authorized facsimile ... produced by microfilm-xerography." Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves xviii-xl).

Diss.--Ruhr-Universität--Bochum, 1987.

This dissertation presents the first full length study of Antonello da Messina's portraits. While Antonello has been justly acknowledged as the first Italian painter to consider the portrait an independent work of art, his portraits are often characterized as imitations of Netherlandish models, and they are rarely discussed outside of the context of Venetian or Netherlandish portraiture. This study reintegrates Antonello's portraits in the wider context of fifteenth century Italy and argues that his portraiture is deeply rooted in the interests of the most prominent early Renaissance theories of painting. Antonello is among the first Italian painters to claim the face as a locus for identification, and to answer the demand that painting capture both the physical and mental aspects of the sitter. The first chapter analyzes the recent literature on the portraits and demonstrates how they have been marginalized by scholarship despite being lauded as highly influential. The second chapter evaluates the portraits as a body of work from the standpoint of form and technique, and incorporating the most recent technical analyses, demonstrates how Antonello achieved certain effects to arrive at what may indeed be considered a wholly independent work of art. The third chapter relates how Antonello's innovations in portraiture corresponded with a growing desire for a new kind of painted portrait in the mid fifteenth century. It reconsiders the origin of the painted, three quarter view portrait in Italy and explains how ancient authors presented a challenge for the painted portrait that could only be met in fifteenth century Italy by an entirely new form and style, represented in the work of Antonello da Messina. The fourth chapter examines the portraits in the context of Venetian patronage, looking more closely at his only known portrait sitters, Alvise Pasqualino and Michele Vianello, and the social and personal identities of Venetian citizens and nobles. This chapter relates how the theoretical demands of humanists translated for real patrons and collectors, and clarifies Antonello's relationship to extant portraiture in Venice at during the last decades of the fifteenth century, particularly the work of Giovanni Bellini. Ultimately Antonello da Messina's portraits had far reaching influence because they addressed some of the fundamental problems and challenges of representation in the early Italian Renaissance, for the first time, in portraiture.

The purpose of this paper is to show the similarities between two authors, who both have been very successful in Italy and abroad. They are the 14th century writer Giovanni Boccaccio and the contemporary author Andrea Camilleri. I compare five short stories by Camilleri published in his books Gran circo Taddei and La regina di Pomerania and five short stories from Decameron. My aim is to show that they, although more than 600 years apart, have a common angle of approach when it comes to describing how women, seemingly subordinate and compliant, not rarely manage to achieve their aim even if it is trivial, low and not at all focused on changing the world. I also want to elucidate the fact that both writers not rarely let their female characters act as accomplices, that there is a female solidarity between them and that they seem to hav an energy and vigour that men seem to lack. The man on the other hand is often described as weak, as a false authority, who changes into a tool, a diversion in the hands of the woman. Besides this I make an analysis of the "false" short story by Boccaccio, Antonello da Palermo, written by Camilleri to see if it can fall into the genre of rewriting of classical works, which is typical of postmodernism, simply if it fulfills the criteria of such a rewriting.

(in English) The key theme of my thesis are venetian influences on the Boccaccio Boccaccino's work, who was one of the most important exponents of the Cremonese school of painters. Initially he worked in Genoa, Cremona and Milan and he was influenced by the painters as Leonardo, Bramantino and Boltraffio. In the years 1497-1500 Boccaccino is documented in Ferrara. In this period he executed so-called tondo Gronau, The Christ on the way to Calvary, The Virgin and Child, now in Boston, The Virgin and Child, now in Padua, The Adoration of the Shepherds, now in Naples and Dead Christ supported by an Angel. This works show the influence of Bramantino, umbrian school but also early influence of venetian art. In 1500 or 1501 he painted the altarpiece with Virgin and Child with Sts Peter, Michael, John the Baptist and John the Evangelist for the church of S. Giuliano in Venice. Models of this composition are the S. Cassiano altarpiece of Antonello da Messina and Virgin and Child with Saints which Giovanni Bellini executed for the church of S. Giobbe. Boccaccino's image in S.Giuliano is also inspired by Ercole de'Roberti and Lorenzo Costa. His colours show the influence of Giorgione. In 1506 is Boccaccino documented in Venice but also in Cremona. In the years 1500-1506 he stayed probably in Venice, but he...