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The reviewed book's organization around themes reflects the domination of cultural history in the field of Renaissance Studies today.

The book reviewed depicts husband and wife, Francesco Gonzaga and Isabella d'Este, who worked together to direct the domestic and diplomatic affairs of Mantua far more than the scholarship on Isabella has usually assumed.

This project looks at two members of Florence’s Medici family, Cosimo il Vecchio (1389-1464) and Duke Cosimo I (1519-1574), in an attempt to assess how they used the patronage of art to facilitate their rule. By looking at their individual political representations through art, the specifics of their propagandist works and what form these pieces of art came, it is possible to analyze their respective rules. This analysis allows for a clearer understanding of how these two men, each in very different positions, found art as an ally for their political endeavors. While they were in power only one hundred years apart, they present uniquely different strategies for the purpose of creating and maintaining their power through the patronage of art.

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While scholarship often focuses on how early modern Italians used images in their devotions, particularly in the post-Tridentine era, little attention has been placed upon how laypeople engaged with devotional text during times of prayer and in their everyday lives. Studies of early modern devotional texts have explored their literary content, investigated their censorship by the Church, or concentrated upon an elite readership. This thesis, instead, investigates how ordinary devotees interacted with holy words in their material form, which I have termed ‘material prayers’. Since this thesis developed under the aegis of the interdisciplinary research project, Domestic Devotions: The Place of Piety in the Italian Renaissance Home, 1400-1600, it focuses primarily on engagement with these material prayers in domestic spaces. Using an interdisciplinary approach drawing from material culture studies, literary history, social and cultural history, and art history, it brings together objects, images and archival sources to illuminate how devotees from across the socio-economic and literacy spectrums accessed and employed devotional text in their prayers and daily life. From holy words, Biblical excerpts, and prayers to textual symbols like the Sacred Monogram of the Name of Jesus, this thesis explores how and why these material prayers were employed for spiritual, apotropaic and intercessory purposes. It analyses material prayers not only in traditional textual formats (printed books and manuscripts), but also those that were printed on single-sheets of paper, inscribed on jewellery, or etched into the structure of the home. To convey how devotees engaged with and relied upon these material prayers, it considers a variety of inscribed objects, including those sanctioned by the Church as well as those which might be questioned or deemed ‘superstitious’ by ecclesiastical authorities. Sermons, Inquisition trial records, and other archival documents have been consulted to further illuminate the material evidence. The first part of the thesis, ‘On the Body’, considers the how devotees came into personal contact with texts by wearing prayers on their bodies. It examines a range of objects including prayers with protective properties, known as brevi, that were meant to be sealed in a pouch and worn around the neck, and more luxurious items of physical adornment inscribed with devotional and apotropaic text, such as necklaces and rings. The second part of the thesis enters the home to explore how the spaces people inhabited and the objects that populated their homes were decorated with material prayers. ‘In the Home’ begins with texts inscribed over the entryways of early modern Italian homes, and then considers how devotees decorated their walls with holy words and how the objects of devotion and household life were imbued with religious significance through the addition of pious inscriptions. By analysing these personal objects and the textual domestic sphere, this thesis argues that these material prayers cut across socio-economic classes, genders, and ages to embody quotidian moments of domestic devotion as well as moments of fear, anxiety and change.

This study investigates the representation of Saracens in Boiardo's Inamoramento de Orlando and Ariosto's Orlando furioso, a subject that has attracted growing scholarly interest in recent years. Chapter I assesses the degree of realism in Boiardo's and Ariosto's portrayal of Islam and Islamic culture and locates the two poems in their historical context. Bringing to light unpublished archival material and other little-known historical sources, I argue that Boiardo and Ariosto drew inspiration from contemporary courtly culture which was characterised by openness towards the figure of the foreign prince. Chapter II explores Boiardo's engagement with earlier chivalric literature. It examines Boiardo's use of names and characters from earlier texts and evaluates the Saracens' contribution to the ideology that underpins the poem. It is shown that Saracens play an important role in promoting the ‘Arthurian’ chivalric ideals. Chapters III and IV analyse Ariosto's indebtedness to and departures from his predecessor, suggesting that there is a much greater continuity between the two Orlandos than is allowed by Cavallo and other scholars who are anxious to stress Ariosto's 'conservatism'. While chapter III is devoted to a wide-ranging analysis of the Saracen world in Ariosto, chapter IV deals with a topic that has recently generated much heated debate, namely the climactic confrontation between Rodomonte and Ruggiero and the ending of the Orlando furioso and how it should be understood, and I propose a new interpretation of the final canto by highlighting the concept of honour, a fundamental value for both Boiardo and Ariosto as well as for their early readers and for many chivalric authors alike. In my view, Rodomonte is the true winner of the duel. The significance of his 'moral' victory is examined in the study's final conclusion, where it is argued that it undermines Ariosto’s encomiastic project.

Set in 16th century Florence, Italy, "La Gioconda" takes you on the journey of Lisa del Gioconda, the woman behind one of the most recognized paintings in the world, The Mona Lisa. Married off at a young age, Lisa finds comfort in her secret love affair with Art. Her secret world crosses paths with an Art apprentice, Leonardo da Vinci, who takes her on as his student. Lisa tells her husband that she is at church praying while spending her afternoons with Da Vinci, mastering her craft and technique. A love affair begins to blossom and Lisa is forced to make a big decision in the end. Secrets begin to unravel including the truth behind Da Vinci's original painting of the Mona Lisa before it became what we all know it to be today.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the patronage of Piero de’ Medici and Lucrezia Tornabuoni. My aim is to discuss and place the patronage in the complex field of the renaissance as an active conjugal partnership between the two. The study is divided in three main chapters, the introduction part where an overview of the main issues in the field of renaissance patronage and a background of the people involved; one chapter where the two religious rooms are introduced and the specific patronage described; and finally a chapter where the different procedures are discussed, compared and combined into one joint conjugal patronage for the both of them. The evidence uncovered supporting the conjugal patronage is partly the similarities between the altar paintings in the rooms. They are both made of Fra Filipo Lippi and both are portraying the Adoration of Infant Jesus. The presence of the coat of arms of both the noble houses at the Camaldoli adoration and a series of lettres between Piero and one of his painters, Benezzo Gozzoli.

[pt] O sagrado refere-se ao que está relacionado ao divino, ao culto. As imagens também fazem parte do universo do sagrado. Durante a Idade Média e no movimento do Renascimento, o simbolismo que a religiosidade representa exerce significativa força no cotidiano. No movimento renascentista, a produção de imagens religiosas se intensificou, esse aumento indica uma intencionalidade da religião predominante no período. Esta dissertação se propõe a analisar as relações do mecenato da Igreja Católica em relação à duas pinturas produzidas pelo pintor Rafael Sanzio, do renascimento italiano. A força, a subjetividade, a potência de afetação são alguns dos elementos presentes nas imagens com a temática religiosa que precisam ser considerados como fundamentais para a compreensão da representação, funcionalidade e intenção das imagens. / [en] The sacred refers to what is related to the divine, to worship. The images are also part of the universe of the sacred. During the Middle Age and in the Renaissance movement, the symbolism that religiosity represents exerts significant force in everyday life. In the Renaissance movement, the production of religious images intensified and the increase indicates an intentionality of the predominant religion in that period. This work proposes to analyze the relations between the patronage of the Catholic Church and two paintings by the painter Rafael Sanzio, which was an artist of the Italian renaissance. The strength, subjectivity and power are some of the elements presented in the images with the religious theme, which must be considered as fundamental for the understanding of the representation, functionality and intention of the images.