Opera Nomina Historiae

This paper is focused on the study of a medieval bell, recently discovered in the church of San Silvestro (Orte, Viterbo). Almost unknown to scholars, the bell is of great artistic and historical interest and allows not only to obtain a better understanding of the history of this church during the 12th century but also to improve our knowledge of Italian bell-production in the Romanesque age. Starting from the morphological analysis of the bell and from the study of the dedicatory undated inscription, which runs around the bell, some observations have been made, expecially with the aim of clarifying its chronology. The typological comparison between this example and other medieval Italian inscribed bells shows unmistakable connections with products belonging to the 12th century. Furthermore, this chronological hypothesis is confirmed by the meaning of the inscribed text recording the name of the priest who commissioned the work, thus allowing to establish a meaningful relation with another, still unedited inscription, coming from the same church, dated shortly before the middle of the 12th century, that also contains relevant information about the organization of liturgical spaces of the church during this period.

A rare medieval description of tombs was included in a treatise on ars dictaminis in the first quarter of the 13th century by Boncompagno da Signa. Why did Boncompagno describe tombs in an epistolary treatise? The paragraph lies at the end of two chapters depicting the traditions of mourning and funerals in different countries and ages. They can be considered as linked with the precedent chapter on letters of condolence. Boncompagno explains in others treatises that it is essential for a dictator to have good understanding of the culture of the recipient of the letter. Those chapters also show the peculiar and impartial curiosity of Boncompagno for alien people, and his fervent interest in antiquity. It is uncertain whether the prototype described by Boncompagno could eventually precisely correspond to real funerary monuments. However in the rare surviving or documented Roman tombs of the 11th and 12th centuries some elements of the Boncompagno’s description can be found. Nevertheless the author rejects the idea expressed by some art historians that the fresco of a commendatio animae discovered in the lower church of San Clemente could be part of a tomb. The author refuses as well to define this kind of scene, described by Boncompagno, as a particular judgment.

The paper considers the series of 13 epigraphs originally on the fourtheenthcentury walls of Florence. The study of the preserved inscriptions is accompanied by the examination of indirect and archive evidence. The common characteristics of the series are identified and related to similar examples in other Italian cities. Compared to contemporary examples in Bologna and Pisa, Florentine inscriptions are characterized by the absence of celebratory elements and for a standard format responding to practical and substantive needs.

The paper examines the role and the impact of the so-called panni tartarici (precious textiles coming from the vast Mongol Empire) in the European context at the end of the Middle Ages, focusing on their reception and perception in the occidental cultural horizon. Through the specific case of the vestments in the church of San Domenico in Perugia, presumably part of the Vatican treasure, it explores some forms of consumption and some habits of description of the Asian silks, their place in the luxury system and some practices of manipulation, applied to the exotic textiles when they were used in the West world. Moreover the reasons of the high degree of appreciation for these kind of objects are considered in relation with the contemporary tendencies of the Gothic art.

The main object of this essay is a Sienese chronicle attested by a single 15th century manuscript (Siena, Archivio di Stato, ms. D 153). The author is the painter and paint seller Bindino da Travale, who composed the text and dictated it to his two sons, Mariano and Giovanni, painters as well. Giovanni also decorated the book with penwork initials and one illustration. The essay is focused on two issues. First, I will show how Giovanni turns the codex into a memorial to his father and his work. Several initials hold portraits of Bindino, often in connection with an imaginary coat of arms; one of them even shows Bindino dictating the chronicle to Giovanni.
The second part deals with some peculiarities of the text, such as the frequent use of rhymes according to a specific metrical pattern, the ottava. Most likely, these stylistic features are due to the fact that Bindino resorted to contemporary political poems, the cantari, as main sources for his chronicle.

The article aims to investigate the artistic and cultural aspects related to the neglected funerary monument of the Patriarch Joseph II of Constantinople. The old byzantine Patriarch died in Florence during the final phase of the ecumenical Council of Ferrara-Florence (1438-1439) and was buried in Santa Maria Novella, the church where the theological debates between catholic and orthodox ecclesiastics took place. The architectural arrangement of the Patriarch’s tomb shows a particular combination of Gothic and Renaissance forms with the insertion of a fresco portraying the Patriarch alive, a peculiar feature of the late Paleologian funeral monuments. An important place is reserved to the long tombstone epigraph composed by the curial and humanist Maffeo Vegio, which shed light on the effort made by Joseph II in order to support the churches’ Union and, especially, on the ideological, historical, and cultural expectations related to the achievement of the union between Greeks and Latins.

A drawing in Montpellier attributed to Nicolas Poussin and representing eleven ancient objects has been variously interpreted by the studies: it has been thought to be a copy after engravings, or after drawings in Cassiano dal Pozzo’s Museo cartaceo, or rather a drawing made live, after objects belonging to Natalizio Benedetti or to Francesco Angeloni. This paper focuses on the relationships between the Poussin sheet and other two sets of drawings, one in Florence and the other one from the Museo cartaceo in London, in order to establish a correct chronology and provenance of the three sets and to give a new interpretation of the Montpellier folio. This work is now believed to be a draft made live by Poussin for an extended illustration of Angeloni’s collection, later realized by other artists. This complete set has to be identified with the one in Florence, probably once held by cardinal Camillo Massimo; the Dal Pozzo’s drawings are copies after the florentine series.

A document in the Archive of Pisa, so far unpublished, shows an interesting illustration of the ancient ‘Portus Pisanus’ located near the Basilica of San Piero a Grado, just south of the mouth of the Arno river. This document is most likely to date at the first half of the eighteenth century, being a transcription of an earlier document written by the hand of a copyist who signed as Antonio Lorenzo Magrini. It certainly reflects the scholarly tradition arised in the antiquarian milieu, inherent the ancient port of Pisa. According to historical sources and cartography, the port was thought to be located in a northern area, while the modern prevailing hypothesis uses to place it in Santo Stefano ai Lupi near Livorno. The iconography adopted for the representation of the port shows a conventional scheme for the fortified harbours, in which stands out the shape of the tower-lighthouse, recognizable also in two famous reliefs of the Piazza del Duomo.