<p>A semiminim is typically defined as a note value worth half a minim, usually drawn as a flagged or colored minim. That definition is one according to which generations of scholars have constructed chronologies and provenances for fourteenth- and fifteenth-century music and the people who created it. `Semiminims' that do not match this definition are often portrayed in modern scholarship as anomalous, or early prototypes, or evidence of poor education, or as peculiarities of individual preference. My intensive survey of the extant theoretical literature from the earliest days of the Ars Nova through c. 1440 reveals how the conceptualization and codification of notation occurred in different places according to different fundamental principles, resulting not in one semiminim but a plethora of related small note values. These phenomena were dynamic and unstable, and a close study of them helps to clarify a range of historical issues. Localized traditions have often been strictly bounded in scholarly literature; references to French, Italian, and English notation are commonplace. I explain notational preferences in Italy, England, central Europe, and the rest of western Europe with regard to these small note values but demonstrate that theorists educated in each of these places routinely incorporated portions of other traditions. This process began long before the `ars subtilior,' dating at least to the time of Franco of Cologne. Rarely were regional traditions truly isolated; the various aspects of semiminim-family note values were debated and adapted for decades across these cultural and geographical boundaries. The central theme of my research is to show how and why the theoretical conceptualization of these myriad small note values is key to understanding the continual merging of these local preferences into a more amalgamated style of notation by the mid-fifteenth century.</p> / Dissertation

L’imagerie morale connaît un essor considérable dans la péninsule italienne entre 1315 et 1415. Les ordres mendiants, notamment les franciscains, les dominicains et les augustins, sont les principaux promoteurs du renouveau de ce thème. Intégralement tournés vers l’étude et la propagation de la morale, ces trois ordres entrent en concurrence les uns avec les autres sur la question des vertus. Chez les laïcs, les villes mettent en œuvre une imagerie cohérente dressant le portrait de communes vertueuses destinée à légitimer les gouvernements et à dénoncer les régimes tyranniques. À partir d’un corpus iconographique riche (plus de 700 images), l’étude des vertus et des vices se propose de dégager la fonction et la signification des personnifications dans l’art italien à la veille de l’époque moderne. L’analyse des images met à jour les notions qui travaillent les figurations des vertus : les procédés artistiques consistant à figurer des valeurs morales ; la dimension édifiante et mnémonique des personnifications ; les échos et les écarts entre les personnifications et les exemplifications ; le phénomène de vulgarisation de la morale par l’image. / The moral imagery knows an exceptional development in the Italian Peninsula between 1315 and 1415. The mendicant orders, in particular the Franciscans, the Dominicans and the Augustinians, are the main instigators of the revival of this theme. Completely turned towards the study and the propagation of morality, these three orders are in competition on the matter of virtues. Among the laymen, cities initiate a coherent imagery drawing the portrait of virtuous communes intended to legitimate the governments and to denounciate the tyrannical systems. From a large iconographic corpus (more than 700 pictures), the study of virtues and vices intends to find the function and the meaning of personifications in the Italian art on the eve of Modern history. The analysis of pictures brings to light the notions that underlie the representation of virtues: the artistic processes consisting in representing moral values; the edifying and mnemonic dimension of personifications; the echos and gaps between personifications and exemplifications; the popularization phenomenon of ethics by the picture.

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

Horses were high status animals in the middle ages. Strong, costly, and used in war, they symbolized power and wealth. Yet in some Trecento Italian frescos, horses take on another role. Particularly through their eyes, ears, and body positioning they seem to communicate with each other regarding the religious scenes at hand. Additionally, horses are often the only beings paying attention to Jesus or God, or are the sole beings who break the fourth wall of an image to engage with the viewer. While the revolutionary use of gesture and eye movement has been examined in humans in these frescoes, horses (and other bovine animals) have been left out of the conversation. Why are these animals seemingly the most aware and mentally active beings? Particularly remarkable frescos incorporate horses in this way in Florence, Padua, and Assisi, and San Gimignano. Giotto di Bondone, Pietro Lorenzetti, Taddeo Gaddi, Andrea di Bonaiuto, Altichiero da Zevio, Lippo Memmi (and their schools and assistants), completed large scale fresco cycles in churches in these cities that retain their importance and magnificence today. Eight panels from these cycles will be examined for their treatment of horses as a vehicle for emotional communication, in chronological order.

This thesis sets out to probe the complex artistic contacts between Italy and Cyprus in the visual arts during the High and Late Middle Ages. The Introduction provides a critical review of the subject. Chapter I maps out the various types of links (with respect to trade, religion, warfare, art, culture) between Italy and Cyprus in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Chapters II and III examine the multifaceted artistic negotiations between southern Italy (mainly Apulia) and Cyprus in the thirteenth century, by closely examining a cluster of frescoes and panel paintings. Through a set of historical, cultural and artistic (stylistic and iconographic) approaches, these chapters aim to supersede the somewhat limited style-oriented analyses of previous contributions to this area of study. The hitherto unverified and convoluted relations between the two regions are revisited and affirmed within a new conceptual framework. Chapters IV and V investigate fourteenth-century cross-currents as seen in two cases that have formerly occupied a marginal position in discussions of intercultural exchanges between Italy and Cyprus. The first is the transplantation and manifestation of the cult of Saint Thomas Aquinas in Cyprus, and the second, the hybrid series of icons created by Italian painters working on the island. Both cases are appraised as a record of historical realities and not as the by-products of casual encounters. The thesis historicises these contacts and in doing so, contributes to a broader understanding of cultural transmission and convergence in the Medieval Mediterranean.

This thesis discusses the appropriation of antique art in Italy during the fourteenth century. In order to do that, it considers the surviving antiquities in late medieval Italian cities and examines their reception and perception by contemporary authors and artists. Following the introductory chapter, which sets out the aims of the thesis and provides a brief historical background of the period, this study is divided in two parts. Part I examines the awareness of ancient art in the Trecento by looking at late-medieval Italian texts. After an introduction of the relevant texts and a presentation of the biographical background of their authors, the chapters explore the reliability of the writers, their references to antique art and their particular interests towards antique art. They also examine the textual evidence on attitudes towards antiquity, contrasting the different approaches of intellectual and popular audiences, and discuss a number of surviving antique works that were placed in public places and were charged with ideological intent, meaning and power. Part II approaches the subject of the appropriation of antique art in the Trecento from a different angle and deals with the reaction of artists toward ancient art. It discusses the emergence of a new iconography that reflects themes arising from encounters with classical literary texts, explores instances of antique sculpture portrayed in fourteenth-century paintings, and examines the antique sources of various Trecento motifs and compositions. The Appendix is a detailed list of antique works of art that were visible in Trecento Italy, along with a discussion of their history and the relevant primary and secondary bibliography.