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FA 48a Art and Architecture in Baroque Italy
Mandel Humanities Center G-11 Block V: T / Th: 5:10-6:30 pm
Professor Jonathan Unglaub 211 Mandel Humanities Center, ext. 6-2665,
Office hours: Mondays 3:00-5:00 pm; and by appointment
Scope and Format
This course examines the art and architecture of Italy from c. 1580-c.1730. It surveys the prominent artists and styles of the period and charts developments in painting, sculpture, architecture, urban design, and spectacle. Major figures, such as Caravaggio and Bernini receive in-depth consideration, while Carracci, Borromini, Guarini, Cortona, Poussin, dominate at least one full class period. Yet the course is more about ideas than individuals. The issues we will address include the ideology of the Counter-reformation Church, patronage and social identity, Urbanism and ideology, the position of the artist/ architect in Court society, art and sexuality, art and propaganda, art and everyday life, the devotional environment, art and mysticism. Rome will be the epicenter of the course, where the Papal Court commissioned the most ambitious projects and cultivated the supreme talents of the time, though we will also consider developments in Bologna, Turin, Naples, and Venice. Art and Architecture served as a public expression of power, whether that of the Catholic Church, the State actors, or individual ambition. At the same time, devotional practices and new genres of expression also encouraged an unprecedented intimacy in viewing a work of art. This was an era in which art and architecture aimed to speak to, even enrapture, its audience with the greatest sensual impact and rhetorical force. In no other period were body and spirit, sensual and sublime so closely intertwined. Architecture and painted and sculptural adornment often worked in concert to a single conceptual effect, what Bernini called the “bel composto.”This term, the course will benefit from eminent guest speakers on March 21 and 23.
Readings
For each meeting, readings have been selected to stimulate discussion. It is essential that you do the readings before the class for which they are listed and come to class prepared to grapple with them.
The readings include the two course texts, which are available at the bookstore.
Thomas, Troy,Caravaggio (London: Reaktion, 2016).
Wittkower, Rudolf, Art and Architecture in Italy 1600-1750, 6th ed., revised by Joseph Connors and
Jennifer Montagu (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999), vol. 2.
The remainder of the readings, various articles and book chapters, are posted on LATTE under the readings module, listed in the order they appear on the syllabus. Full references are given in the class schedule.
Study Guides and LATTE site:
Study guides will be distributed concurrent with the presentation of material in class. These will list the images, terms, and information you are required to know for the final exam. They will be posted on the course LATTE site, along with paper assignments and the syllabus.
Images and ARTSTOR:
Images correlated to the Study guides will be posted under a separate module on LATTE. These files will be ARTSTOR “off-line image viewer” (OIV) presentations. To open and view these files you will have to download the free OIV software. Instructions are posted on LATTE.
Requirements: Final Exam and Assignment:
There will be a final exam scheduled during the exam period. The format will include slide identifications with short-answer questions, and longer essays based on slide comparisons. Since there is no midterm, the exam will be cumulative. Near the end of the term, a reduced list of images from the study guides, and some guidelines for the essay questions will be distributed.
In addition to the final exam, three short papers will be assigned throughout the term. The first is a reading report examining the intersection of art and biography in articles on Caravaggio and Artemisia Gentileschi. The second is a consideration of one of two late sculptural projects by Bernini (Ponte Sant’Angelo or Sacrament Altar, Saint Peter’s), not covered in class, which takes the first-hand analysis of the sculptor’s terra cotta bozzetti(models) in the Harvard Art Museum as a point of departure. For the third paper, the class will be divided into groups to work on a different architectural monument of the period, not covered in class. There will be some basic research, and papers will be submitted individually. There will be group presentations on the monuments in the final class meeting.
Grade distribution:
Reading Report20%Tuesday, February 14th
Bernini Paper25%Friday, March31st
Architecture Paper25%Friday April 28th
Presentation 5%Tuesday, May 2nd in class
Final Exam25%Wednesday, May 10th 6-9 pm (tentative)
Attendance (After 1 unexcused absence, 2 points will be deducted from one’s overall
average for each additional absence, religious holidays excepted)
Museum Visits (dates tbd):
We will schedule a group visit to the Harvard Art Museums sometime in March, coordinated with the Brandeis shuttle, to view Baroque paintings and drawings, and providean opportunity study Bernini’s bozzetti for the paper. An optional visit to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA), to look at Italian Baroque paintings and sculpture in its collection will be scheduled at the end of the term.
Films (tbd):
After class on days to be announced we will order pizza and watch a film related to class material.
These films nights are optional, and there may be a small fee for food:
Caravaggio, directed by Derek Jarman, 1986.
Stefano Landi, Il Sant’Alessio, Les Arts florissants. Historically informed production of opera premiered in the Palazzo Barberini, Carnival, 1633.
If you are a student who needs academic accommodations because of a documented disability you should contact me, and present your letter of accommodation as soon as possible. If you have questions about documenting a disability or requesting academic accommodations you should contact Assistant Dean Beth Rodgers Kayin Undergraduate Affairs at 6-3470. Letters of accommodations should be presented at the start of the semester to ensure provision of accommodations. Accommodations cannot be granted retroactively.
Learning Goals:
- Visual literacy: be able to analyze works of art based on their formal elements such as space, line, color, light/ dark, and composition, and architectural elements (and terminology) as they relate to the urban environment.
- Visual rhetoric: understand how works of art and architecture were conceived and designed to tell stories and convey messages, through expression, dramatic action, allegory, and/or symbolism.
- Understand the historical progression of architecture, painting, and sculpture during the period; and the conventions and innovations that mark different genres and types.
- Understand the social, religious, and political contexts that give rise to major works of art and architecture in Italy between 1580 and 1730.
- Be able to write compellingly about works of art and architecture, analyzing their form and meaning.
- Be able to draw insightfully on the scholarship of the period.
Four-Credit Course (with three hours of class-time per week): Success in this 4 credit hour course is based on the expectation that students will spend a minimum of 9 hours of study time per week in preparation for class (readings, papers, discussion sections, preparation for exams, etc.).
Schedule of Classes, Readings, and Assignments
Week of January 16th
T: Introduction and the Papal Court in Rome
Haskell, Francis, “The Mechanics of Seventeenth-Century Patronage,” in Patrons and Painters:
Art and Society in Baroque Italy (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980), 3-23.
Th: Reshaping Rome in the Counter-Reformation
Magnuson, Torgil, Rome in the Age of Bernini, Uppsala, 1982, 16-37, 62-4, 115-146.
Montaigne, Michel de, Travel Journal, transl. D. M. Frame (San Francisco: 1983), 72-98.
Week of January 23rd
T: Reform of Art: The Carracci in Bologna
“Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent” in Holt, Documentary History of Art, v. 2, 63-65.
Freedberg, Sydney, “Annibale Carracci,” from Circa 1600: A Revolution of Style in Italian
Painting (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1983), 1-50.
Agucchi, Giovanni Battista, selections from Trattatodellapittura (c. 1615), in Engass, Robert and
Brown, Jonathan, Italian and Spanish Art 1600-1750: Sources and Documents(Evanston, 1999), 24-30.
Bellori,Giovann Pietro, “Idea”, “The Life of Annibale Carracci,” in The Lives of the Modern Painters, Sculptors and Architects, transl. A. Wohl (Cambridge, 2005), 57-64; 71-76.
Th: Annibale Carracci in Rome
Dempsey, Charles, Annibale Carracci: The Farnese Gallery, Rome (New York, George Braziller, 1995), 7-33, plus plates.
Bellori,Giovann Pietro, “The Life of Annibale Carracci,” in The Lives of the Modern Painters, Sculptors and Architects, transl. A. Wohl (Cambridge, 2005), 77-103.
Week of January 30th
T: Caravaggio’s Debut: Music, Love, and Deception
Thomas,7-55.
Cropper, Elizabeth, “The Petrifying Art: Marino’s Poetry and Caravaggio,” Metropolitan
Museum Journal 26 (1991): 193-212.
Th: Caravaggio’s True Grit: Roman Chapels and Altarpieces
Thomas, 56-115, 139-45, 176-85.
Puttfarken, Thomas, “Caravaggio’s ‘Story of St. Matthew’: A Challenge to the Conventions of
Painting,” Art History 21 (1998): 163-181.
Bellori, Giovanni Pietro, “Life of Caravaggio,” repr. in Puglsi, Caravaggio (London: 1997), 415-18.
Week of February 6th
T: Caravaggio: Pushing the Boundaries of Sacred and Profane
Thomas,116-138, 146-75, 186-98.
Puglisi, Catherine, Caravaggio (London: 1997), 201-46.
Th: Caravaggio: Murder, Sanctuary, Flight
Thomas, 199-240.
Stone, David, “Signature Killer: Caravaggio and the Poetics of Blood,” Art Bulletin 94 (2012),
572-93.
Th, February 9th, 6:30 pm: movie, Caravaggio, directed by Derek Jarman, 1986 (tentative).
Week of February 13th
T: Legacy of Caravaggio and Artemisia Gentileschi
Lives of Caravaggio by Baglione and Bellori,in Puglisi (Caravaggio), 414-18.
Sohm, Philip, “Caravaggio's Deaths,” Art Bulletin 84 (2002): 449-62.
Garrard, Mary, Artemisia Gentileschi: The Image of the Female Hero in Italian Baroque
Art (Princeton University Press, 1989), 13-23, 278-336.
Reading Report 1, due in class, Tuesday, February 14th
Th: Guido Reni
Spear, Richard, The Divine Guido: Religion, Sex, Money and Art in the World of Guido
Reni (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997), 19-37, 51-76.
Malvasia, Carlo Cesare, from Felsinapittrice: VitedeipittoriBolognesi, in Engass, Robert
and Brown, Jonathan, Italian and Spanish Art 1600-1750: Sources and Documents
(Evanston, 1999), 86-91.
Week of February 20thWinter Break
Week of February 27th
T: The Rhetoric of Style: Domenichino and Guercino
Ebert-Schifferer, Sybille, “‘Ma c’hanno da fare iprecettidell’oratore con quellidella
pittura?’ Reflections on Guercino’s Narrative Structure,” in Guercino: Master
Painter of the Baroque (Washington D.C., National Gallery of Art, 1990), 75-110.
Harris, Ann Sutherland, “Domenichino’s Caccia di Diana: art and politics in Seicento Rome,” in
Shop talk: Studies in Honor of Seymour Slive: Presented on his Seventy-Fifth Birthday
(Cambridge, MA: 1995).
Th: Marble in Action: The young Bernini’s Mythological Works and Portraiture
Wittkower, vol. 2,5-11.
Hibbard, Howard, Bernini (New York: 1965), 23-67, 89-96.
Baldinucci, Filippo, The Life of Bernini, transl. Catherine Engass (University Park, 1966), 6-14.
Week of March 6th
T: Theatres of the Soul: The Crossing of Saint Peters, The Cornaro Chapel
Wittkower, vo1. 2, 12-16.
Baldinucci, Filippo, The Life of Bernini, transl. Catherine Engass (University Park, 1966), 15-22, 27-35, 73-78.
Lavin, Irving, Bernini and the Unity of the Visual Arts (New York, 1980), 6-21, 77-91,107-24.
Th: Architecture and Adornment in Palazzo Barberini.
Waddy, Patricia, Seventeenth-Century Roman Palaces: Use and Art of the Plan (Cambridge,
Mass: MIT press, 1990), 1-13, 31-35, 61-66, 173-224.
Scott, John Beldon, Images of Nepotism: The Painted Ceilings of Palazzo Barberini (Princeton
University Press, 1991), 3-7, 11-18, 160-85, 202-3, 217-19.
After class, screening of opera, Il Sant’Alessio, by Stefano Landi (tentative).
Week of March 13th
T: Sacred Geometry: The Architecture of Borromini
Wittkower, vol. 2, 39-49.
Scott, John Beldon, “Sant’Ivoalla Sapienza and Borromini’s Symbolic Language,” Journal of
the Society of Architectural Historians XLI (1982): 294-317.
Th: Rome at mid-century
Wittkower, vol. 2, 27-29, 49-71.
Fehrenbach, Frank, “Impossible: Bernini in Piazza Navonna,” Res63/64 (2013), 229-37.
Connors, Joseph, “V.Spada’s Defense of Borromini,”Burlington Magazine 131(1989),76-90.
Mid March – Class visit scheduled to Harvard Art Museum, Friday PM (March 16th) or Sunday (19th)
or Prior week.
Week of March 20th Richard Saivetz’69 Lectures in Architecture
(Note: class may be held in a different room for these public lectures, speakers may suggest different reading)
T: Guest Lecture by Professor Joseph Connors (Harvard) on Borromini
Reading TBA
Th: Guest Lecture by John Beldon Scott (Univ. of Iowa) on Guarino Guarini
Wittkower, Rudolf, Art and Architecture in Italy 1600-1750, 6th ed., revised by Joseph Connors
and Jennifer Montagu (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999), vol. 3., 27-37.
Scott, John Beldon, “Seeing the Shroud: Guarini’s Reliquary Chapel in Turn and the Ostentation
of a Dynastic Relic,” Art Bulletin77 (1995): 609-33.
Week of March 27th
T: Rome under Alexander VII
Wittkower, vol. 2, 27-29, 33-38, 71-3, 104-5.
Baldinucci, Filippo, The Life of Bernini, transl. Catherine Engass (University Park, 1966), 35-44.
Krautheimer, Richard, The Rome of Alexander VII (Princeton, 1985), 3-14, 47-73.
Th:Legacy of Caravaggio: Naturalism in Naples
Wittkower, vol. 2., 160-66.
Brown,Jonathan, “Ribera,” in Painting in Spain 1500-1700 (New Haven, 1998),147-163.
Paper on Bernini Projects due FridayMarch 31st by 5:00 pm
Week of April 3rd
T: Poussin
Unglaub, Jonathan, Poussin’s Sacrament of Ordination: History, Faith, and the Sacred Landscape,
(New Haven, 2013).
Th: Landscape Painting: Poussin, Claude Lorrain and Salvator Rosa
Harris, Ann Sutherland, Seventeenth-Century Art and Architecture (Pearson, Upper Saddle River,
2005), 289-302.
Lagerlof, Margaretha, Ideal Landscape, (New Haven: 1990), 73-94.
Week of April 10th : Passover Break
Week of April 17th
Th: Legacy of Bernini: Later Painting and Sculpture in Rome
Wittkower, vol. 2., 121-31, 139-47.
Wittkower, Rudolf, Art and Architecture in Italy 1600-1750, 6th ed., revised by Joseph Connors
and Jennifer Montagu (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999), vol. 3., 52-61.
Optional MFA visit: Thursday, April 20th, after class, or Sunday, April 23rd
Week of April 24th
T: Late Baroque Architecture in Rome and Turin
Wittkower, vol. 2., 99-109.
Wittkower, Rudolf, Art and Architecture in Italy 1600-1750, 6th ed., revised by Joseph Connors
and Jennifer Montagu (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999), vol. 3., 7-15, 37-46
Pinto, John, “The Trevi Fountain and its Place in the Urban Development of Rome,”AA Files,
8 (1985), 8-20.
Th:Venetian Architecture in the 17th century
Wittkower, vol. 2, 111-117
Howard, Deborah, “Roman Renaissance,” and “Baroque,” in The Architectural History of
Venice, rev. ed. (New Haven and London, 2002), 190-233.
Friday, April 28th Architecture paper due by 5:00 pm
Week of May 1st
T:Architecture Presentations (May 2ndClass may be extended)
Final Exam: Tuesday, May 10th, 6:00 - 9:00 pm (tentative)