Gombrich on the Renaissance Book

Long legged Italy,
Kicked poor Sicily,
Right into the middle of the Mediterranean Sea..

That was a familiar schoolyard rhyme back in primary school days, days I used to spend in a tiny classroom with large maps on all the walls like so many colorful frescoes. The map of Europe dominated one entire wall with the boot shape of Italy featuring prominently. That brown boot, combined with the 'Long legged Italy' rhyme, convinced me that all Italians must be long-legged soldiers. I could see them clearly in my mind: musketeers in high-heeled boots marching across the map.

Another firm notion I had about Italy was that it was very 'ancient'. But a few years later I learned that the territory outlined on the school map only became unified in the nineteenth century, and that 'Italy' was really quite a modern concept. I was also learning Roman history by then and somehow the modern history got drowned out by the marching boots of ancient history, and I continued to think of Italy as always having been a unified territory, always representing the ancient in Europe, and always being over-run with soldiers.

Reading Alison Cole's account of Italian Renaissance Courts has helped to give me a better understanding of the effect of the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the fifth century, and how 'Italy' disappeared completely as a unified concept (although wasn't it still being thought of as 'Italy' by outsiders, by all those people who documented their travels in 'Italy' over the intervening centuries?)

Alison Cole however is primarily interested in what eventually emerged from the chaos of the post fifth-century period. She describes the rise of a number of republican city-states such as Florence, and of various princely courts such as Naples during the medieval period so that by the end of the fifteenth century the brown boot I remembered from the classroom wall was in fact made up of many different colored patches.



Having taken the reader neatly and quickly to the Renaissance era, Cole focuses on some of the princely courts, in particular Milan, Urbino, Ferrara, Mantua and, the largest court of all after Rome, Naples. She explains how such courts created powerful alliances by marrying off the daughters of the leading families where it best suited the ambitions of the court. Among those families were the Sforza and Visconti of Milan, the Montefeltro of Urbino, the Este of Ferrara and Modena, the Gonzaga of Mantua, the Malatesta of Rimini, the Bentivoglio of Bologna, the Cannegrande of Verona, the Medici of Florence, the Borgia and Delle Rovere of Rome, and the Aragonese dynasty based in Naples.

Such marriages allowed the smaller courts to grow stronger but there were advantages too for the larger courts like Venice and Naples. The dukes of some of the smaller courts were 'condottieri', highly trained mercenaries in command of large forces of armed men. The condottieri lent their armed strength to the larger courts, usually for monetary rewards - very large rewards, if they happened to be as skilled at military matters as Federico da Montefeltro of Urbino, for example. During the fifteenth century, these mercenary armies were constantly on the move throughout the multicolored boot of Italy. It seems my schoolchild imagination hadn't been completely wrong when it had associated Italy so completely with soldiers.

The main part of this book focuses on the treasures of art and architecture produced in the princely courts as they vied with each other to possess not only the most magnificent and well fortified palazzos but the most beautiful and elegant decor. Like many people, I'm familiar with the religious art produced during the Renaissance period for the Papal court in Rome, as well as for the churches of Florence and Venice, so it was refreshing to discover Alison Cole's many examples of secular fifteenth century art. And not only did I discover them in the beautifully illustrated pages of this book, but I also wore my boots out marching in Cole's footsteps from Milan to Mantua and Verona, from Bologna to Ferrare, from Rimini to Urbino. Her book is an ideal travel guide, and there were huge rewards at every point on the journey.

The artists she catalogues also travelled about from one court to another, seduced by the hope of ever better rewards. Sometimes they settled in one place for longer periods, as was the case of Andrea Mantegna who, in middle age, became the court artist of the Gonzaga family in Mantua where he lived until his death. This is a drawing by Mantegna of Francesco II Gonzaga, of Mantua, a seasoned condottiero who commanded the armies of the Republic of Venice:


The Ferrarese artist, Cosmè Tura, worked for the Este family in Ferrara for a number of years. This is his very fierce and military-looking Saint George doing battle with the dragon:



The early fifteenth century artist, Pisanello, was also associated with the Este family but he spent time at the Gonzaga court in Mantua too. He also worked at the courts of Verona, Milan and Rimini, as well as Rome, Venice and Naples. While in Mantua, he painted a giant fresco, crammed with soldiers engaged in fierce battle. The fresco covers several walls of one of the rooms of the Gonzaga Palazzo but unfortunately only patches of it remain intact. Still, it remains hugely impressive as this detail conveys:



Raphael, a native of Urbino worked in the service of the local Montefeltro court before moving on to Florence and Rome. Before he left, he painted this portrait of the son of the great military man, Federico da Montefeltro. Guidobaldo was a soldier like his father, in spite of fragile health. He married Elisabetta Gonzaga of Mantua, and theirs is the elegant court described by Baldassare Castiglione in The Book of the Courtier.



Piero Della Francesca moved between his home town of Sansepolcro and the courts of Ferrara and Urbino where he painted condottiero Federico da Montefeltro.
Montefeltro always chose to be represented in profile as he had lost the bridge of his nose in battle:


Piero also worked for another redoubtable condottiero, Sigismondo Malatesta of Rimini, a fierce enemy of Federico da Montefeltro. This fresco of Sigismondo, in full soldier regalia, is a perfect example of secular art in a religious setting.



The fresco is housed in the Tempio Malatestiano in Rimini, a temple-like church designed by the renowned architect Leon Battista Alberti, and which the battle-hardened Malatesta had ordered to be constructed as a monument, not to any sacred personage, nor even to his first wife, Ginevra d'Este, or to his second wife, Polissena Sforza, although they are both buried there, but to his favourite mistress, Isotta degli Atti, whom he eventually married. The Tempio caused both Sigismondo and Alberto to fall out of favour with the Pope of the day who pronounced the unfinished building more pagan than Christian.
Viewing Alberto's innovative Tempio, which was inspired by the classical architecture of pagan Rome, was a fitting way to round off my trip, reminding me of the continued presence of the ancient in the modern.