Ludovico Ariosto

Author(s):  
Dennis Looney

Ludovico Ariosto (b. 1474–d. 1533), whose work links 15th-century humanism with the vernacular classicism that burgeoned later in the 16th century, is a crucial figure in the development of Italian Renaissance literary culture. An accomplished Neo-Latin poet whose earliest letter is a request for books on Platonism from the Venetian publisher Aldus Manutius (1498), Ariosto used his considerable knowledge of classical Latin literature to forge a literary corpus that blends ancient literary models with medieval ones to create an impressive example of vernacular classicism. No less than his contemporary Michelangelo Buonarroti did for art, Ariosto took the literary revival of Antiquity to new heights. Accordingly, Ariosto can be seen as a forerunner of Miguel de Cervantes and other vernacular prose artists whose critical recapitulations of medieval chivalric fiction under the influence of classical works and classicizing authors like Ariosto eventually led to the birth of the novel. For modern readers who are accustomed to the conventions of modern fiction, at times Ariosto sounds strangely familiar, even postmodern.

Author(s):  
James R. Banker

The reputation of the Italian Renaissance painter and mathematician Piero della Francesca (hereafter Piero) has risen dramatically from near oblivion in the Early Modern period to the present when he is judged as nearly equal to Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo Buonarroti, especially in regard to technical excellence and writing. In his paintings and his treatises Piero achieved the fullest expression of Quattrocento perspective, which he had derived from his capacious understanding of Greek geometry. Born into a family of artisans-shopkeepers of leather in the Tuscan town of Borgo San Sepolcro (today Sansepolcro) c. 1412, Piero began with several small projects in his native town in the 1430s. He served in Florence as an assistant to Domenico Veneziano in 1439 where he came in contact with the achievements of Masaccio, Donatello, Brunelleschi, and other artists in Florence, though he never became strictly a Florentine painter. He sojourned throughout central Italy in the 1440s and 1450s, receiving commissions in Ferrara, Ancona, Rimini, Arezzo, Rome, and Sansepolcro. After his two sojourns in Rome in the 1450s, Piero became increasingly interested in the representation of classical values and especially Roman architecture and in learning Greek geometry. In the decade of the 1470s he was often in the court of Federico da Montefeltro in Urbino, accepting commissions from the ruler and consulting manuscripts in his library. In the history of mathematics, he is now recognized as an indispensable participant in the revival of Greek geometry and as one of the few individuals in 15th-century Europe with extensive knowledge of both Euclid and Archimedes. In the last three decades of his life (d. 1492) Piero wrote treatises on commercial mathematics and geometry (Trattato d’abaco), perspective in painting (De prospectiva pingendi), and a reflection on several classical procedures and problems in Greek geometry (Libellus de quinque corporibus regularibus), as well as copying the Opera of Archimedes.


1980 ◽  
Vol 7 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 241-247 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Vincent Spade

Summary This paper argues that the 14th-century Oxford Carmelite Richard Lavenham was the author of the treatise De syncategorematibus that was used as a textbook in 15th-century Cambridge, a version of which was printed several times in the late 15th and early 16th centuries in the Libellus sophistarum ad usum Cantabrigiensium. The manuscript versions of this treatise differ significantly from one another and from the printed editions, so that the claim of Lavenham’s authorship needs to be carefully considered. The evidence for this claim is described briefly. The identification of the De syncategorematibus in the Cambridge Libellus as Lavenham’s provides the first real indication that Lavenham, whose works testify to the influence of other authors on logico-linguistic studies in late 14th-century Oxford, was himself not without influence as late as the early 16th century. On the other hand, the De syncategorematibus is not a very competent treatise, so that its inclusion as a textbook in the Libellus sophistarum is an indication of the decline of the logical study of language in England during this period. A brief analysis of the contents of the treatise supports this observation.


2010 ◽  
Vol 133-134 ◽  
pp. 1027-1032 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rabia Özakin ◽  
Ayten Erdem

The Ahi Çelebi Mosque, which is among Istanbul’s oldest mosques, is located on the shores of the Golden Horn in the Eminönü. This mosque, which was very probably built by Ahi Çelebi towards the end of the 15th century, was restored during the 16th century by Architect Sinan. It is a stone building with a rectangular plan, single dome, with a rear congregational area/son cemaat yeri in front of its main space, and a cut stone minaret at its right corner. Damaged by fires and earthquakes during its long history, this building, set on reclaimed land, was restored and strengthened at various times through the years. In the 1980s, the building was unfavourably affected by the construction of the new Galata Bridge; it began to sink and slide towards the sea, with the result that it had to be supported with steel girdles as a temporary measure and was abandoned. In 2000, the General Directorate of Foundations had concrete pillars added underground to stabilise the base, and the sea water around the foundations was pumped out. During the last restoration carried out in 2005-2006, the main dome and walls were strengthened, the minaret was rebuilt, and the interior plaster and decorations were redone. In this study we shall make a general re-evaluation of the restoration work undertaken on the 500 year old Ahi Çelebi Mosque. We shall determine to what degree the structural interventions and, in particular, the contemporary interventions have been able to maintain the original materials, shapes, workmanship and period additions, and whether or not these are distinguishable, reversible and suitable to the aesthetics of the whole.


Author(s):  
Rosa Barovier Mentasti

The most important age of Venetian glass began just before the middle of the 15th century, when Angelo Barovier invented crystal glass in his Murano glassworks. Some vessels of the late 15th and early 16th century were enamel decorated with patterns derived from Roman marble reliefs and fresco paintings. Starting from the mid-15th century, glassblowers developed new decorative techniques. Some of them were probably inspired by archaelogical glass findings, which were included in Venetian collections. Such techniques were ‘meza stampaura’ ribbing, glass filigree, application of stamped glass medallions and, perhaps, ‘rosetta’ rods.


2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 220-238
Author(s):  
Irina V. Fedorova ◽  

The repertoire of guidebooks to the Holy Land in the Old Russian literary culture of Muscovite Rus’ is significant and diverse. Its basis is texts translated from Greek and Polish. Using the example of the Old Russian translation of a monument preserved in handwritten lists of the 17th–18th centuries entitled “A Tale for the Benefit of Hearing and Reading About the Holy City of Jerusalem and its Surrounding Places”, the article discusses the content and narrative features of guidebooks to the Holy Land. The analysis showed that the studied Tale in terms of composition, principles of material selection and organization is close to similar monuments of the Byzantine tradition, which to one degree or another are associated with the 15th century proskynetarian Anonymous Allyatsiya. Comparison of the text of the Tale with this proskynetarian suggested that the original of its Old Russian translation was one of the alterations of this guide, dating no earlier than the 16th century, when the Turks mentioned in the text ruled Palestine. The relevance of guidebooks to Palestine for the Old Russian book culture is also demonstrated by the original monuments of this genre, the creation of which began in the 15th century. The article names and briefly describes several such texts of the 15th–18th centuries, found in manuscripts under the titles “The Wanderer of Jerusalem”, “The Legend of the Jerusalem Way”.


Author(s):  
Loredana Stănică ◽  

Published in 1993, the novel Bois rouge by Jean-Marie Touratier brings to life the history of the short-lived French colony of Brazil, the Antarctic France, whose existence, reduced to only five years (1555-1560), was described in the travelogues written in the 16th century by André Thevet (Les Singularitez de la France Antarctique - The New Found World, or Antarctike) and Jean de Léry (Histoire d’un voyage faict en la terre du Brésil – History of a Voyage to the Land of Brazil). Beneath the appearance of a simple story told by an ironic voice, sometimes even satirical towards the military leader of the French colony, the Knight of Malta Nicolas Durand de Villegagnon and his chaplain, André Thevet, future cosmographer of the kings of France, the novel delves into issues of great complexity, such as (the issue of) identity and the relationship to the Other (the American “savage”).


2021 ◽  
pp. 36-43
Author(s):  
Н.Е. Касьяненко

Статья посвящена истории развития словарного дела на Руси и появлению первых словарей. Затрагиваются первые, несловарные формы описания лексики в письменных памятниках XI–XVII вв. (глоссы), из которых черпался материал для собственно словарей. Анализируются основные лексикографические жанры этого времени и сложение на их основе азбуковников. В статье уделено внимание таким конкретным лексикографическим произведениям, как ономастикону «Рѣчь жидовскаго «зыка» (XVIII в.), словарям-символикам «Толк о неразумнех словесех» (XV в.) и «Се же приточне речеся», произвольнику, объясняющему славянские слова, «Тлъкование нεоудобь познаваεмомъ въ писаныхъ рѣчемь» (XIV в.), разговорнику «Рѣчь тонкословія греческаго» (ХV в.). Характеризуется словарь Максима Грека «Толкованіе именамъ по алфавиту» (XVI в.). Предметом более подробного освещения стал «Лексис…» Л. Зизания – первый печатный словарь на Руси. На примерах дается анализ его реестровой и переводной частей. Рассматривается известнейший труд П. Берынды «Лексикон славеноросский и имен толкование», а также рукописный «Лексикон латинский…» Е. Славинецкого, являющий собой образец переводного словаря XVII в. The article is dedicated to the history of the development of vocabulary in Russia and the emergence of the first dictionaries. The first, non-verbar forms of description of vocabulary in written monuments of the 11th and 17th centuries (glosses), from which material for the dictionaries themselves were drawn, are affected. The main lexicographical genres of this time are analyzed and the addition of alphabets on their basis. The article focuses on specific lexicographical works such as the «Zhidovskago» (18th century) the dictionaries-symbols of «The Talk of Unreasonable Words» (the 15th century). and «The Same Speech», an arbitrary explanation of slavic words, «The tlution of the cognition in the written», (the 14th century), the phrasebook «Ry subtle Greek» (the 15th century). Maxim Greck's dictionary «Tolkien names in alphabetical order» (16th century) is characterized. The subject of more detailed coverage was «Lexis...» L. Sizania is the first printed dictionary in Russia. Examples give analysis of its registry and translation parts. The famous work of P. Berynda «Lexicon of Slavic and Names of Interpretation» and the handwritten «Lexicon Latin...» are considered. E. Slavinecki, which is a model of the 17th century translated dictionary.


SAGE Open ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 215824401882449
Author(s):  
Noor-ul-Ain Sajjad ◽  
Ayesha Perveen

The article studies art, as presented in Orhan Pamuk’s My Name Is Red, as a heterotopia based on Michel Foucault’s six principles. After outlining the six principles of heterotopia as enunciated by Foucault, the study excavates heterotopia of crisis and deviation from the novel. Art as a medium of representation has cathartic potential creating heterotopia in societies dominated by public discourses against art. It provides the artist with a medium for personal and private expression, thus creating a desanctified space. The notion that art that is made public restricts such liberty for the artist is proposed and justified. In My Name Is Red, characters such as Elegant Effendi and Olive can be seen tormented by the conflict between the social and the heterotopic. True expression of their art makes both of them lose their place, albeit in different ways. This implies that if a heterotopia of deviation has to be made public, in most cases, the honesty of expression is tampered with by the artist, even if unconsciously, because of societal pressures. Heterotopia of deviation is not compatible with the public gaze and making it public will create a heterotopia of crisis for the honest artists. This is why the artist hides his real creative inspiration. If art could be accepted as a desanctified medium without any moral or hegemonic judgment, it might attain its desired impact which politicization of the medium restricts in many judgmental societies. Pamuk pens this dilemma down by taking his readers back to the 16th-century Istanbul while drawing a parallel to the present era.


Author(s):  
Craig Kallendorf

Civic humanism is one of the more interesting and important concepts in Renaissance studies, in part because of its unusually long afterlife, and in part because almost everything pertaining to it is controversial. There is general agreement that it involves a commitment to the active political life under the influence of classical models, but from that point on, scholarship divides. Are its origins in the political life of Florence at the turn of the 15th century or in the political thought of the 14th century? Does civic humanism predicate a commitment to the republic as we understand the term today, or only to active political engagement in general? When did it end: In Italy, in the 16th century? In England, in the 17th century? In the ideological debates of the American revolution? Or later? Since large blocks of postwar scholarship on the Italian Renaissance are a reaction to civic humanism, either directly or indirectly, any selection from among this much material becomes at least somewhat arbitrary, but the bibliography that follows should provide a basic orientation to the major issues involved, with an emphasis on how ideas about civic humanism have evolved rather than on restatements of earlier positions.


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