Hi, Huck,
Huck said:
True, Petrarca wrote all this much earlier, but the iconographical influence of the text seems to have started 1441 (which was discussed earlier). It seems, that the Trionfi-Petrarchism started in Florence, Naples-1465 was later and the 1490-Bentivoglio-chapel is very much later.
The iconographic tradition of Petrarch's
Trionfi started in in the 14th century, and was very widespread throughout the 15th century, including not only Continental but also many English examples. The poem was popular in manuscript form from around the time of his death in 1374. Here are some comments from Petrarch scholar D.D. Carnicelli.
For reasons unknown to us, the methods of the medieval and Renaissance artists who illustrated the Trionfi became crystallized as early as the late fourteenth century and remained substantially unchanged for some two hundred years. The conventional illustrations of the Trionfi depict the six triumphs described in Petrarch's poem, but, with the exception of the first triumph, the details of the illustrations have virtually nothing to do with the contents of the poem.
[...]
In any case, it is clear that the illustrators took from Petrarch's poem little more than the titles of individual trionfi and the allegorical figures; none of the illustrations are attempts to render graphically and realistically the actual characters and incidents of the poem.
[...]
By the fifteenth century, a completely symmetrical form had been given to the representations: each trionfo was assigned a chariot, each depicted an allegorical figure sitting atop that chariot, and each included throngs of victims surrounding the chariot.
[...]
In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the poem -- or, to speak more precisely, its subject matter -- pervaded virtually all areas of the graphic arts. In many of these representations the iconography is highly standardized and differs little from its predecessors; in many others there are minor but interesting variations on the standard iconography of the poem. The museums of Europe preserve thousands of paintings, drawings, miniatures, and assorted objets d'art whose subject matter was drawn from the themes of the poem.
The
Trionfi and their pictorial conventions didn't wait for the printed versions to become popular.
(As an aside, the printed versions were almost always accompanied by a long moralization -- several times longer than the poem! -- which was apparently a very significant element in the late-15th and 16th-century popularity of the
Trionfi. So the iconography and the commentary, neither quite in keeping with Petrarch's poem, were probably the biggest reasons for its popularity and influence.)
Huck said:
The wedding was 1487 a grandious spectacle, and attracted the excitement of all Italy. Likely not believable, that Costa ignored this event totally in his art.
So, any and every work of art that Costa did in that period would also include a reference to this wedding? Regardless of the nature of the commission or the subject matter depicted? Interesting theory....
On a related note, I mentioned that much of what passes for Petrarchian influence originates with the fact that his
Trionfi were the best known examples of some extremely commonplace subjects (the six personifications) and forms (the triumphal carts). Because of that, a brief mention of Petrarch is sufficient for most art historians to dismiss any further consideration of the didactic intent of a work. Art historians have other concerns beyond iconography. Among the most notable things that an art historian will try to identify are precisely such commonplaces subjects which they can attach to a prominent precursor, (it's Petrarchian -- let's move along now), and things (like the family figures in the Costa
Trionfi) that are historically noteworthy... along with, of course, provenance, artist and patron, style and execution, subsequent influence, place in the larger scheme of art history, etc.
None of that is particularly useful to the iconographic study of an allegorical work. Iconographically, details like the allusions to Petrarch are among the least informative observations one can make, precisely because they are commonplace. Unless the work in question actually is an illustration of Petrarch's
Trionfi, such allusions are background elements, stage-setting or decorative embellishment. It is in the large and the unique elements that we find meaning of a particular work. In the Costa
Trionfi there are four: the Fall and the world/wheel of Fortune; the
Triumph of Fame; the
Triumph of Death; and the soul's ultimate salvation. That is the context in which the Petrarchian (and other) elements have been used, i.e. re-used. Such recycling may or may not change the character of the individual elements, but it certainly tells a somewhat different story than the original.
Likewise, identifications relative to the patron, his family, events of the times, stylistic quirks of the artist, and so on, are usually uninformative with regard to the iconography of an allegorical work. These kinds of things are the most interesting to art historians, but the least informative to inconographers. What such things usually tell the iconographer is that the element in question can be ignored when looking at the big picture. They are essentially forced into the image, although usually in a thematically appropriate manner. They may, or may not, be illuminating details, but you can't start reading the picture from such commonplace or forced details.
Best regards,
Michael
P.S. It also needs to be noted that "iconographic tradition" is routinely a textual one rather than pictorial. In this case we are mainly concerned with actual illustrations, because Petrarch was not closely followed by the iconographic tradition that bears his name, but in many other cases, (as with the ermine banner), iconography refers to a textual source. What is discussed in a text often includes descriptions of how a scene looks, what the attributes of a figure are, how events take place, and so on. This is why a text like Petrarch's
Africa can be iconographically influential even in the absence of illustrated copies.
