Rondinini paintings rediscovered: A self-portrait by Paul Bril and a ‘witchcraft’ by Pieter van Laer

2018 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 333-341
Author(s):  
Cristiano Giometti ◽  
Loredana Lorizzo

Abstract The Rondinini family is important for having developed a well-defined taste in collecting during the fifteenth to eighteenth centuries, with an interest in ancient sculpture and painting staged in their palaces and villas in Rome and its surroundings. The most eminent artists active in seventeenth-century Rome worked for them. The paintings presented here are the most relevant examples of a great number of works that have re-emerged during a collaborative research project conducted by the universities of Florence and Salerno on the family’s contributions to the history of collecting. The first is a signed self-portrait by the Flemish artist Paul Bril, a pioneer amongst the landscape painters active in Rome between the late 1500s and early 1600s – a work of large size for the artist (110.0 x 81.5 cm); the second is a ‘witchcraft crowded with figures’ painted by Pieter van Laer, an eminent Dutch painter and leader of the group of masters called the ‘Bamboccianti’.

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Caroline Evans

Today’s fashion film is often assumed to be an entirely new form that emerged in the digital age, but in fact it has a long history going back to the time of the first film, around 1900, and this lecture will bring together examples of both to tease out some connections. It draws on methods from “media archaeology” to argue that fashion film is a multi-layered construction in which past and present are interwoven in what Michel Foucault called “a history of the present.” The talk is drawn from Caroline’s collaborative research project “Archaeology of Fashion Film.” The project is based at Central Saint Martins (University of the Arts London) in collaboration with Winchester School of Art (University of Southampton).


2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 272-307 ◽  
Author(s):  
James White

AbstractOne kind of reader’s note that has received minimal attention in scholarship to date is the poem. This article suggests that the verses added by readers to manuscripts can reveal information concerning the social and intellectual history of reading communities, the history of collecting, and the reception of literary works. I examine an appendix of unattributed poems that were added by a group of readers to a holograph copy of Ibn Sūdūn al-Bashbughāwī’s (d. 868/1464) Nuzha (Bodleian Library MS. Sale 13), most probably in northern Syria in the seventeenth century. I identify the poems and their authors, study their manipulation in the Sale manuscript, and offer some initial conclusions as to what they can tell us about the social and intellectual contexts in which MS. Sale 13 was stored before it came to England.


2014 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 683-707 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kelly Kistner

ArgumentBetween 1838 and 1863 the Grimm brothers led a collaborative research project to create a new kind of dictionary documenting the history of the German language. They imagined the work would present a scientific account of linguistic cohesiveness and strengthen German unity. However, their dictionary volumes (most of which were arranged and written by Jacob Grimm) would be variously criticized for their idiosyncratic character and ultimately seen as a poor, and even prejudicial, piece of scholarship. This paper argues that such criticisms may reflect a misunderstanding of the dictionary. I claim it can be best understood as an artifact of romanticist science and its epistemological privileging of subjective perception coupled with a deeply-held faith in inter-subjective congruence. Thus situated, it is a rare and detailed case of Romantic ideas and ideals applied to the scientific study of social artifacts. Moreover, the dictionary's organization, reception, and legacy provide insights into the changing landscape of scientific practice in Germany, showcasing the difficulties of implementing a romanticist vision of science amidst widening gaps between the public and professionals, generalists and specialists.


2020 ◽  
Vol 54 (4) ◽  
pp. 403-431
Author(s):  
Bulat R. Rakhimzianov

Abstract This article explores relations between Muscovy and the so-called Later Golden Horde successor states that existed during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries on the territory of Desht-i Qipchaq (the Qipchaq Steppe, a part of the East European steppe bounded roughly by the Oskol and Tobol rivers, the steppe-forest line, and the Caspian and Aral Seas). As a part of, and later a successor to, the Juchid ulus (also known as the Golden Horde), Muscovy adopted a number of its political and social institutions. The most crucial events in the almost six-century-long history of relations between Muscovy and the Tatars (13–18th centuries) were the Mongol invasion of the Northern, Eastern and parts of the Southern Rus’ principalities between 1237 and 1241, and the Muscovite annexation of the Kazan and Astrakhan khanates between 1552 and 1556. According to the model proposed here, the Tatars began as the dominant partner in these mutual relations; however, from the beginning of the seventeenth century this role was gradually inverted. Indicators of a change in the relationship between the Muscovite grand principality and the Golden Horde can be found in the diplomatic contacts between Muscovy and the Tatar khanates. The main goal of the article is to reveal the changing position of Muscovy within the system of the Later Golden Horde successor states. An additional goal is to revisit the role of the Tatar khanates in the political history of Central Eurasia in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.


Author(s):  
Tom Hamilton

This chapter explores the material culture of everyday life in late-Renaissance Paris by setting L’Estoile’s diaries and after-death inventory against a sample of the inventories of thirty-nine of his colleagues. L’Estoile and his family lived embedded in the society of royal office-holders and negotiated their place in its hierarchy with mixed success. His home was cramped and his wardrobe rather shabby. The paintings he displayed in the reception rooms reveal his iconoclastic attitude to the visual, contrasting with the overwhelming number of Catholic devotional pictures displayed by his colleagues. Yet the collection he stored in his study and cabinet made him stand out in his milieu as a distinguished curieux. It deserves a place in the early modern history of collecting, as his example reveals that the civil wars might be a stimulus as much as a disruption to collecting in sixteenth-century France.


Author(s):  
Karel Schrijver

This chapter describes how the first found exoplanets presented puzzles: they orbited where they should not have formed or where they could not have survived the death of their stars. The Solar System had its own puzzles to add: Mars is smaller than expected, while Venus, Earth, and Mars had more water—at least at one time—than could be understood. This chapter shows how astronomers worked through the combination of these puzzles: now we appreciate that planets can change their orbits, scatter water-bearing asteroids about, steal material from growing planets, or team up with other planets to stabilize their future. The special history of Jupiter and Saturn as a pair bringing both destruction and water to Earth emerged from the study of seventeenth-century resonant clocks, from the water contents of asteroids, and from experiments with supercomputers imposing the laws of physics on virtual worlds.


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