Description
TitleDevotion, patronage, and political propaganda
Date Created2017
Other Date2017-10 (degree)
Extent1 online resource (xvii, 413 p. : ill.)
DescriptionMy dissertation is a close study of the first major public work by the Renaissance master of bronze Andrea Riccio. The reliefs with the Stories of the True Cross and the related tabernacle doors are today in the Ca’ d’Oro Museum in Venice but were once assembled on an altar standing against the choir screen of Santa Maria dei Servi, mother church of the Servite order in Venice. Commissioned by the patrician Girolamo Donato at the turn of 1500 to commemorate a relic of the True Cross that he had donated to the Servites, the reliefs, as I argue, represent an important chapter in Venetian history regardless of their relatively small dimensions and their fragmentary status. Through an attentive examination of their complex iconography and a reconstruction of their original context, my dissertation shows how these bronze panels attest the past greatness of the Servite order in Venice, the crucial liturgical role of the altar that they decorated, and the archaeologically-oriented antiquarian language promoted by humanists of the caliber of Donato. Most importantly, the reliefs embody the multi-faceted character of the myth of Venice as a new Rome, new Constantinople, and new Jerusalem, in the wake of its development during the tumultuous years before the Cambrai wars (1508-1516). Each chapter focuses on specific aspects associated with the altar of the True Cross: its unprecedented format, its significant function, the audiences it addressed, and the political message that it was designed to convey. The ultimate goal of my study is to raise Andrea Riccio’s reliefs to the level of monumental art by demonstrating the pivotal position that they held in the artistic, cultural, and political context of Venice toward the end of the fifteenth century.
NotePh.D.
NoteIncludes bibliographical references
Noteby Eveline Baseggio Omiccioli
Genretheses, ETD doctoral
Languageeng
CollectionSchool of Graduate Studies Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Organization NameRutgers, The State University of New Jersey
RightsThe author owns the copyright to this work.
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