Borgias

The Borgias: The Hidden History by GJ Meyer, 431 pages

Everyone knows that after Rodrigo Borgia became Pope Alexander VI, he commenced an orgy of depravity the likes of which Rome had not seen since the days of Caligula and Nero.  Together with his bastard children, Cesare and Lucrezia, Alexander organized a criminal campaign of self-aggrandizement on a massive scale, while still finding time for some recreational murder and incest.

It's a wonderful story, featuring the darkest corruption in the holiest of places, playing upon popular prejudice and prurience, and as such it has been told and retold, most recently in hit TV shows and novels.  The only problem, according to GJ Meyer, is that very little of it is true.  Most of it is based on rumors spread by the rivals of the Borgias, given added currency by growing Italian nationalism and the Spanish origins of the family, their undisguised ambitions, and the almost complete collapse of their power after the death of Alexander, all of which was taken up and amplified by anti-Catholic polemicists in the centuries following the Reformation, eventually becoming engrained in conventional history alongside the Black Legend.  Going further than merely pointing out the obvious problems with the Borgia legend - the obviously invented operatic scenes, the supposed poisons whose effects are different from every poison known to modern medical science, the many positive accounts of Rodrigo's character before his election and Lucrezia's character after his death - Meyer challenges the most deeply ingrained myth of all, presenting strong circumstantial evidence suggesting that Cesare, Lucrezia, and their siblings were not, in fact, the illegitimate children of Rodrigo Borgia, but the legitimate children of his nephew.

The Borgias is not merely a debunking of myths.  Meyer turns the true story of the Borgias into a compelling story of ambition and intrigue, all while admirably informing the reader on the politics and culture of Renaissance Italy, a haphazard collection of independent and semi-independent states continually forming alliances and feuds with each other and the French and Spanish empires beyond the peninsula.

Tintoretto

Tintoretto: Artist of Renaissance Venice, edited by Robert Echols and Fredrick Ilchman, 222 pages

Tintoretto seems to be one of those artists who needs to be rediscovered in every generation.  John Ruskin saw in him the perfect artist, Henry James claimed that he had reached the "uttermost limit of painting", yet he remains overshadowed by Titian, Veronese, and the Florentines.  The five hundredth anniversary of the artist's birth in 1518/9 gave a new generation their own opportunity to be surprised by Tintoretto's genius, with a joint exhibition in his native Venice and Washington, DC. 

For those of us unable to see the exhibition in person, there is the catalog, which is thoroughly excellent, with essays touching on every aspect of Tintoretto's life and art, demonstrating the remarkable degree to which he succeeded in his life's work of combining "the draftsmanship of Michelangelo and the coloring of Titian."

Altarpiece in Renaissance Venice

 The Altarpiece in Renaissance Venice by Peter Humfrey, 317 pages

As the title declares, in this book Peter Humfrey traces the development of altarpieces in the cultural sphere of Venice during a period roughly corresponding to the career of Giovanni Bellini.  It was a time rich in accomplishments in what he identifies as a unique genre, driven by liturgical changes, the burgeoning wealth of the Republic, and crises of war and plague.  Humfrey not only celebrates the work of artists including the Vivarinis, Cima, Carpaccio, Durer, and Titian, but also explores the nature of the genre, explicating the purpose of these works, how and by whom they were commissioned, and how they were conceived and realized.  The result is a solid if unspectacular guide to these works of surpassing beauty, created in a very specific time and place to serve a very specific function.

Painted Glories

Painted Glories: The Brancacci Chapel in Renaissance Florence by Nicholas A Eckstein, 208 pages

The frescoes painted by Masolino and Masaccio in the Brancacci chapel of Florence's Santa Maria del Carmine have been drawing admirers since they were painted in the early fifteenth century, although, as Nicholas Eckstein relates, their intended influence was not merely aesthetic, but simultaneously devotional, memorial, and didactic, shaped in both their conception and reception by a continually changing social and religious context.  Most notably, Eckstein contends, the chapel was transformed after Florence's defeat of a Milanese army in 1440, a victory that was attributed to the intercession of Sts Peter and Paul and the Florentine Carmelite Bl Andrea Corsini.

Little documentation of the creation of the Brancacci chapel has survived down to the present, leaving a number of intriguing mysteries which Eckstein attempts to solve with a combination of careful deduction and informed speculation.  The result is a vibrant portrait of Florence in the midst of the Renaissance.  If there is a major flaw to the book, it is that the focus sometimes seems lost, so that the art begins to disappear behind the history.

Fra Angelico

Fra Angelico: San Marco, Florence by William Hood, 123 pages

William Hood remarks that Bl Fra Angelico enjoyed an advantage rare among Renaissance artists - as a Dominican friar, he worked exclusively for the Order and therefore never had to worry about finding new commissions.  His frescoes for the cloister of San Marco have an advantage as well, remaining in their original context despite the transition of the building from convent to museum, a process completed by the departure of the last friars in 2014.  In addition to detailing the techniques employed, Hood carefully explicates the relationships of the frescoes to one another, to the daily life of the convent, to contemporary movements within the Order of Preachers, and to the political realities of Renaissance Florence, considerably enlarging the reader's understanding of the painter's radiant work.

How Catholic Art Saved the Faith

How Catholic Art Saved the Faith: The Triumph of Beauty and Truth in Counter-Reformation Art by Elizabeth Lev, 295 pages

Every Catholic knows (or ought to know, but, times being what they are, likely doesn't) about the great saints who led the Catholic Reformation customarily, but misleadingly, called the Counter-Reformation: Charles Borromeo and Robert Bellarmine, Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross, Thomas More and John Fisher, Philip Neri and Francis de Sales, Ignatius Loyola and Peter Canisius, and many others.  Along with this litany, however, there was a corresponding movement in the arts, which boldly reasserted the claims of the Catholic Church in the works of artists including Caravaggio and Bernini, Titian and Rubens, Guido Reni and Artemisia Gentileschi.  In How Catholic Art Saved the Faith, Elizabeth Lev demonstrates how the art of what she calls the Catholic Restoration incarnated doctrine and thus used beauty to convey truth.

Lev has an intimate familiarity with the great art of Rome, and this enables her to not only present the works themselves, but present them in their proper spatial and devotional as well as historical context.  This alone would make the book worthwhile, although her focus on Rome means that she omits a great deal of art produced elsewhere - notably in Spain - and her focus on the visual arts means that other arts are barely mentioned - St Philip's role in creating the oratorio, for instance.  Amusingly, where Catholic medievalists, mostly based in northern Europe, have tended to disparage the Baroque (and therefore the churches of Rome), Lev slights the Gothic.  The book is printed on high-quality paper with full-color illustrations liberally sprinkled throughout, but unfortunately some of these reproductions, taken from public domain sources, are disappointingly poor in quality.

A World Lit Only by Fire

Title: A World Lit Only by Fire: The Medieval Mind and the Renaissance: Portrait of an Age             Author: William Manchester            Paperback: 299 pgs.

     I picked up this book to learn more about the Middle Ages, but was somewhat disappointed.  The author writes mostly about the Renaissance, contrasting it with the worldview of what he considers the extremely benighted medieval era.  Evidently, Manchester thought the events of the Middle Ages weren’t worth writing about, as he makes the rather astounding claim that very little of significance happened in Europe during that thousand-year period (roughly 500-1500 A.D.).  He concedes that kings and popes died and new rulers took their places, that wars were fought and that natural disasters wreaked havoc on the population.  Yet it has little historical significance in Manchester’s estimation because the impact of these events on the masses, he says, was “negligible.”  In my view, the author overstates his case— I believe the Middle Ages weren’t as dark as he makes them out to be and that there were many significant events that took place during the era— but his very dim view of the Middle Ages is shared by some historians.

     It’s one thing to have a different historical opinion— an interpretation of the facts that happens to be at some variance with mine.  But it’s a more serious thing when Manchester makes demonstrably false claims in an attempt to show how wretched the Middle Ages were.  One example: he claims that there were no such things as clocks in the Middle Ages, yet the mechanical clock is known to have been invented in the late 1200’s.  I even found an article about a clock that is still intact built in the medieval era (I would guess that it’s not the only one).  Manchester also claimed that educated Christians at the time believed the Earth was flat, yet this claim has long been debunked.  Quotes from Christian intellectuals of the time, such as Bede, Isadore of Seville, Boethius, Hermannus Contractus and Thomas Aquinas, show that they clearly believed that the world was round.


    Manchester accurately describes how discoveries made during the Renaissance threatened cherished beliefs about the world (such as how Copernicus’ discovery of a heliocentric universe imperiled the medieval belief that the sun revolved around the Earth).  These beliefs were thought to be closely related to their Christian faith, though Christians today would not look at them that way.  When these beliefs were refuted, Manchester suggests that it caused most educated people during the Renaissance to turn completely away from Christianity.  This is simply not true; intellectuals did not, for the most part, abandon their faith.  In fact, pioneering textual criticism of the Bible by Renaissance Humanists actually helped lead to the Christian movement called the Reformation.  Educated people in the Renaissance may have been very divided in religion due to that great upheaval, but they still thought of themselves as Christians and found a way to reconcile their faith with the new discoveries.


     In spite of all the above criticisms, I have to admit that this is still a pretty compelling book, which is why I read it in its entirety.  For one thing, the book seems to be generally historically accurate.  Then, too, Manchester tells a great story.  The most fascinating part was the last section, devoted to Manchester’s favorite explorer, Ferdinand Magellan.  As you may remember, Magellan was the Portuguese explorer, sailing under the flag of Spain, who discovered the South American strait that bears his name.  More importantly, this discovery enabled his expedition to be the first to sail all the way around the world (Magellan himself died before his ships returned to Spain).  Reading Manchester’s thrilling account, I certainly learned some interesting things I didn’t know about Magellan.  For example, Manchester writes that he was considered a traitor by his countrymen because his expedition was sponsored by Spain.  The author also describes how Magellan overcame a mutiny during the expedition, showing what an extraordinary leader he was.


     Even though I didn’t learn about what happened during the Middle Ages, I did gain insight into the Renaissance and the mindset of the Middle Ages, in spite of Manchester’s errors.  I give it 3 out of 5 stars.  ⭐⭐⭐

 - John W.

Sculpture in the Age of Donatello

Sculpture in the Age of Donatello: Renaissance Masterpieces from Florence Cathedral, edited by Timothy Verdon and Daniel M Zolli, 185 pages

As the Duomo of Florence neared completion in the early fifteenth century, the decoration of the cathedral, along with its baptistery and bell-tower, became the field for an informal competition among the leading guilds of the city - like the buildings themselves, the art adorning them was designed both to honor God and proclaim the greatness of the city.  If anything can be said to mark the birth of the Renaissance, it was these projects.  Long since removed from exposure to the elements to the cathedral museum, in 2015 a major renovation of that museum created an opportunity for the works to travel to New York's Museum of Biblical Art for a unique exhibition showcasing works by Donatello, Brunelleschi, Nanni de Banco, and Luca della Robbia.  The catalog of the exhibition not only includes interesting pieces on these, but close examinations of Ghiberti's famous bronze baptistery doors, then in the midst of an extensive cleaning.

Giovanni Pisano, Sculptor

Giovanni Pisano, Sculptor by Michael Ayrton and Henry Moore, 192 pages

Together with his father Nicola, Giovanni Pisano stands on the border between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance - indeed, the authors of this book place that border between them.  Of course, this only highlights how insubstantial that border is - Giovanni's sculptures mark a turn towards expressive Renaissance naturalism but are animated by the Medieval imagination.

To properly appreciate Giovanni Pisano's accomplishments requires a considerable work of imaginative reconstruction, given how much of his output is lost, damaged, or altered in the name of "renovation".  For this labor, the assistance of guides such as Ayrton and Moore, not only art experts but working sculptors themselves, is both a source of pleasure and a cause for gratitude.

Medieval and Renaissance Treasures

Medieval & Renaissance Treasures from the V&A, edited by Paul Williamson and Peta Motture, 89 pages

This short book showcases 35 items from the Medieval and Renaissance Galleries at the Victoria and Albert Museum, from a pair of seventh century Anglo-Saxon brooches to pages from Leonardo da Vinci's notebooks.  The items are divided into three categories - "Status and Display", "Piety and Devotion", and "The Secular World" - although the reasoning behind the division isn't entirely clear.  Certainly all of the items from the first category could easily have gone into one of the others, and the boundary between the two latter categories was not as clearly drawn then as it now is (or seems to be).  Each category is introduced by a short essay, and each object gets a couple of pictures and a one page description, few of which provide much in the way of insight or illumination.  Compensating for this, the included objects are undeniably treasures, and largely speak for themselves.

Complete Poems of Michelangelo

The Complete Poems of Michelangelo by Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni, translated by Joseph Tusiani, 166 pages

     Love wakens us, and gives us wings for higher

     Heavens, ennobling our initial aim;

     Is the first step through which the soul, in shame

     And weariness, forgets the earth for its sire.

Yet it is precisely Michelangelo's earthiness that sets him apart from his Renaissance peers.  The poet refers again and again to the labor of sculpting, a hard reality far removed from Petrarch's bucolic pastorals.  Old age, night, and death are recurring themes, not usually as enemies but as friends.

     For one can only find

     Beauty when it is late, and one is dying.

Love and desire are the subject of most of the poems, but even here Michelangelo retains perspective and humor.

     Oh, your face is much sweeter than mustard,

     Fairer than turnip.  A snail has pushed its vehicle

     On it, and made it as it is - so lustered.

His earthly love and labor are dominated by frustration and disappointment, but are redeemed by the hope of a higher consummation.

     Oh, yes, my soul remembers its first love,

     And loves and honors its own great reward:

     Loving the servant, one adores the lord.

Ornament & Illusion

Ornament & Illusion: Carlo Crivelli of Venice, edited by Stephen J Campbell, 215 pages

Although, as the subtitle indicates, Carlo Crivelli was Venetian, he spent most of his career in the Marches, the semi-independent cities and towns on the Adriatic side of the Papal States.  Working outside the main centers of Italian art and culture, he was overlooked by Vasari, and despite acquiring fame in the late nineteenth century, critics of the twentieth tended to dismiss him as backward-looking and provincial.  The bulk of Ornament & Illusion is an argument against that conclusion.

It is readily apparent that Crivelli was a master equally adept at rendering the gorgeous and the grotesque.  The essays included here further explicate the ways in which his work combined the original and the traditional for deliberate affect, particularly his use of ornamentation to create a sense of interaction between the image and the viewer.

Laurels and the Tiara

The Laurels and the Tiara: The Life and Times of Pius II, Scholar, Poet, Statesman, and Renaissance Pope by RJ Mitchell, 237 pages

Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini led a life of struggle, conflict, and, finally, disappointment.  Born into an impoverished Sienese noble family, one of eighteen children of whom only three survived to adulthood, he rose to occupy the highest office in Christendom.  He was raised in a rural backwater but became famed for his urbanity.  He was so immersed in the literature of pagan antiquity that he likely chose the name Pius after Virgil's hero, "pius Aeneas", rather than the second century martyr St Pope Pius I, but he was also devout enough to walk ten miles barefoot through the snow while on pilgrimage in Scotland.  He was a key player at the renegade Council of Basel but repudiated the conciliar theory long before he became Pope.  He undertook to personally lead a crusade to liberate Constantinople despite the persistent illnesses that left him virtually crippled, only to see the project evaporate in the last months of his life.

The very human story told in The Laurels and the Tiara combines international intrigue, Renaissance culture, and high moral purpose, epitomized by a colorful College of Cardinals which included the notorious Rodrigo Borgia alongside famed scholars Basilios Bessarion and Nicholas of Cusa.  The biographer's task is greatly eased by the fact that Pius II wrote an extensive autobiography, supplying him with an abundance of material including a number of amusing anecdotes and revealing trivialities.  Throughout, Mitchell keeps his narrative moving briskly along, even when it might benefit from lingering, and unfortunately this ultimately results in the biography resembling a sketch more than a complete portrait.

Lyric Poetry

Lyric Poetry; Etna by Pietro Bembo, translated by Mary P Chatfield, 125 pages

Pietro Bembo was a man who could only have lived during the Italian Renaissance - after being trained as a Venetian diplomat, he became an accomplished humanist who helped restore the popularity of the works of Petrarch and Boccaccio, then the lover of Lucrezia Borgia, and finally a cardinal of the Holy Roman Church.  He embodies those traits which seem so puzzling or scandalous to so many in other times and places - particularly the combination of a genuine concern for virtue and a deep religiosity with casual hedonism.  His poetry - presented here as a translation of his own compilation, the Carminum libellus, along with works he omitted and works attributed to him and included in later editions - reflects this curious mixture, shifting between paganized hymns, comic insults, and lurid eroticism.  Also included in this volume is Bembo's dialogue Etna, a reconstruction of a conversation with his father retelling the author's exploration of the famous Sicilian volcano, in which he seamlessly combines classicism and scientific inquiry.

The Classical Heritage

The Classical Heritage and Its Beneficiaries: From the Carolingian Age to the End of the Renaissance by RR Bolgar, 393 pages

In this book Bolgar attempts to summarize the development of education in the classics from the late antiquity through to the Reformation.  This is largely the story of how classical education was adapted to fit the needs of successive eras, which in practice meant the long struggle to reconcile the pagan past with the Christian present.  Bolgar contends that the classical heritage is not only of historical interest, but that it can be adapted to today's needs as it was to yesterday's.  Indeed, writing in 1954, he fears that the decline of classical education in favor of technical training will result in a generation with a radically truncated idea of human nature, giving rise to a narrowness of outlook and cultural stagnation.

Even under the best circumstances, it would be a daunting task to survey the reception of ancient literature and thought over a thousand year span.  And the actual circumstances are far from ideal - records of how schools operated are few, and most of those are prescriptive rather than descriptive.  Bolgar is himself quite open about the fact that his study is incomplete.  That he was able to succeed to the remarkable extent that he did is a testament to the power of a lifetime of experience as a student and teacher.

Civilization of the Renaissance

The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy by Jacob Burckhardt, translated by SGC Middlemore, 394 pages

One of the classics of cultural history, Burckhardt's The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy was first published in 1860 in German.  In it, Burckhardt surveys the literature of Italy during that ill-defined period called the Renaissance, and identifies the Italian city-states, with their intellectual ferment, financial prosperity, incessant wars, political upheavals, and social mobility, as the incubators of the modern concept of individuality.

That Burckhardt forms his conclusions based upon the literature of the period inevitably causes problems - just as a history of the US in the late twentieth century that used the portrayal of life in cop shows and action movies as a major source might very well conclude that Americans lived in constant fear of attack by neo-Nazis and Russian terrorists, Burckhardt's sources sometimes lead him in the direction of overly dramatic declarations.  The author is fully aware of these problems - as shown in a section in which he compares the efficacy of actual poisons to the purported properties ascribed to poisons by Renaissance chroniclers - but he is not always able to overcome them - as when he claims the existence of a "nest of witches" near Nurcia on the evidence of a letter that itself reports claims that witches and demons congregate in a local cave as a mere rumor.  Meanwhile, in keeping with his time, Burckhardt saw nothing of value in the Counter-Reformation or the Baroque style that accompanied it.  The book is only passingly concerned with the visual arts, which will frustrate readers who expect a book on the Renaissance to focus on art history.

Burckhardt mastered a vast range and body of material, and his survey of Italian Renaissance culture is rich and compelling.  In many ways, some of the best works on the Renaissance since his time (Hiram Haydn's The Counter-Renaissance) have been explorations of features and perplexities he identified.

Politicizing the Bible

Politicizing the Bible: The Roots of Historical Criticism and the Secularization of Scripture 1300-1700 by Scott W Hahn and Benjamin Wiker, 566 pages

The historical-critical approach to the Bible - examining Scripture as a historically conditioned collection of texts - is generally considered a dogmatically and politically neutral approach which is rooted in the Enlightenment.  Hahn and Wiker trace its origins back 400 years earlier, to disputes over nominalism and realism at the end of the Middle Ages.  In the process, they reveal how the development of historical criticism was involved in the process of secularization, and how both were entangled in the rise of nationalism.  In addition to the expected (Machiavelli, Descartes, Hobbes, Spinoza, Locke), the authors manage to draw in figures that secularized history tends to undervalue and misunderstand (Marsilius of Padua, William of Ockham, Wycliffe, Luther).

Hahn and Wiker ably expose the manner in which a supposedly disinterested quest for truth is, in fact, a mission of disenchantment itself inspired by prior ideological commitments, enabled by the Averroistic doctrine of double truth and the Polybian conception of religion as a tool to control the unenlightened masses.  More than a simple study of one form of biblical scholarship, Politicizing the Bible, like A Secular Age and The Unintended Reformation, is an intriguing, enlightening exploration of the intellectual currents flowing into modernity.

Stones of Florence

The Stones of Florence by Mary McCarthy, 119 pages

Florence.  The home of Dante and Giotto, Donatello and Brunelleschi, Fra Angelico and Leonardo, Boccacio and Michelangelo, Machiavelli and Galileo.  The city where Savonarola preached and the first opera was performed.  The center of European culture for two hundred years.

Novelist and cultural commentator Mary McCarthy wrote The Stones of Florence in the mid-'50s.  She attempts to capture the spirit of the city, of the ways it remained the same and the ways it changed down through its history, from its Roman origins to its Italian present, with an understandable emphasis on its Renaissance golden age.  Although very different from The Stones of Venice, the author justifies her Ruskinian title with the book's central reflection, that "a terrible mistake was committed here, at some point between Giotto and Michelangelo, a mistake that had to do with power and megalomania or gigantism of the human ego."

The 1959 edition is lavishly illustrated, with a full page photograph facing nearly every page of text (it is my understanding that later editions did not include these photos).

The Medici Boy

The Medici Boy by John L’Heureux     328 pages

John L’Heureux’s novel about one of the world’s greatest artists who ever lived, Donatello, is a deeply complex and fascinating portrayal of life in Renaissance Italy. L’Heureux, who did much of the research for this story in Florence, takes readers on a fascinating trip to the 15^th century.

Most of the story takes place at Donatello’s bottega (workshop) and is narrated by Luca Mattei, the sculptor’s devoted assistant. Ultimately, the book is about art and sex, specifically homosexuality, and the undulating tides of both passions.

Luca, born illegitimately, discovers women and his artistic talent before he turns seventeen. Three years later, Donatello hires him as an apprentice. He goes on to become the workshop’s accountant.

Donatello’s work involves recreating Bibical scenes and saints in wood, marble, and bronze. His talent earns him favors from the most powerful man in Florence, Cosimo de’Medici. It’s Medici who commissions Donatello to create a five-foot statue of David, the giant killer. But it’s Donatello's obsession with a street urchin, 16 year-old Agnolo, who becomes his primary model, and part time rent boy, that I found the most fascinating.

Supposedly in his 30s at this time, Donatello is at his artistic peak. He has many commissions and a stable of artists working under him. As Angolo comes and goes throughout the story, the bottega is sometimes chaotic and sometimes calm.

But, although homosexuality was common in Florence during this time, I was shocked to the degree in which men were penalized for this behavior. Sodomy was against the law and had a varying degree of fines ranging from a cascading series of monetary charges to hanging to death by fire.

The novel is very well written and completely absorbed me. Not a fast read, but a plot that ebbed and flowed, much like Donatello’s passions. On the book jacket, there is mention of a murder, so on first glance, I thought this was to be a murder mystery. Instead, the book is more literary/historical fiction. The murder doesn’t occur until very late in the novel---which is why I give TheMedici Boy four out of five stars.

Medieval Foundations of Renaissance Humanism

Medieval Foundations of Renaissance Humanism by Walter Ullmann, 202 pages

 

In this book, Ullmann locates the origins of the Renaissance in the development of political science in the late Middle Ages, particularly in the legal faculty at the university of Bologna and in the work of St Thomas Aquinas and other scholastic philosophers influenced by Aristotle.  In these schools, there developed the idea of a secular realm where the natural man finds his proper sphere of activity, complementary to, but separate from, the religious realm.  This, in turn, prompted a reexamination of classical sources in a search for purely secular examplars.  The search for a pure understanding of classical philosophy, untethered from medieval interpretations and interpolations, subsequently served to inspire the quest for an ahistorically pure primeval Christianity which produced the Reformation.

 

This is a rather interesting study of the genesis of the Renaissance, though Ullmann is perhaps a bit too sweeping in his assertions that the early Middle Ages completely lacked any concept of secularity.  Despite this quibble, the book remains an erudite, compelling account of the gestation of the modern world.