Sunday, 9 May 2010

Urbino, the Montefeltro and Rimini 6-8 May

This visit was primarily in conjunction with the TMA2 question relating to Joos van Ghent's Communion of the Apostles altarpiece in the Palazzo Ducale, but naturally I picked up some other nuggets that may prove relevant to the ECA along the way:

1) Maso de Bartolommeo's portal for the Dominican church opposite the Palazzo, 1449-54, provides a useful stylistic comparison point for the Bruni (1440s) & Marsuppini (1450s) Santa Croce tombs I'm going to see next week in Florence.


Maso was a Florentine sculptor-mason brought to Urbino to fashion this wonderful Corinthian edifice around the west front of the chiesa, coadiuvato [assisted (?)] by fellow Tuscans Pasquino da Montepulciano and Michele di Giovanni da Fiesole, per the church's information board.





2) Any investigation into early Tudor Italian-English intellectual exchanges (e.g. Henry VII monument; Bishop Fox at Winchester; Layer Marney tombs; Wolsey's HC terracottas) must of course take into account the Urbinate writer and historian Polydor Vergil. I came across this Accademia Raffaello publication whilst there:
PolidoroVergili e la Cultura Umanistica Europea, 2003, ed. by Rolando Bacchielli

which was the fruit of a conference held in 2000 by the academy in Urbino. 50/50 split of Italian/English language papers. BL holds a copy.
3) The Tempio Malatesta in Rimini was mind-blowing! Architectural re-design, facade, and exterior side-tombs by Alberti (1440s) interior sculpture all by Agostino di Duccio (1450s). Again, relevant to any study of mid-quattrocento monumental humanist-inspired sculpture.










Simply amazing!

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