DOI chapter:
Essays
DOI chapter:Gamberini, Diletta: The Poetry of the Portraits
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.70034#0076
The Poetry of the Portraits
gram for Masaccio, which adopted the topical format of the deceased’s direct ad-
dress to the beholder and recounted his most notable accomplishments within
the historical framework of the arts’ resurgence, or as Pietro Bembo’s Latin
epitaph for Raphael, in which the encomiastic topoi of the living artworks and of
art defeating nature were interwoven with basic biographical information on
the artist.16 And while subsequent biographical collections that featured artists’
portraits sometimes included poetic typologies that the 1568 Lives had generally
omitted (i. e., encomia of artworks and their creators], Vasari’s adoption of the
format and conventions of the funerary epigrammatic discourse established a
touchstone for the subsequent development of the genre. Verse epitaphs are thus
prominently present in the seventeenth-century artistic biographies by Ridolfi,
Soprani (see cat. 39] and Cavana, Bellori (see cat. 38], and Malvasia (see cat. 41],
where they complement an extensive and polyphonic lyrical production in praise
of their subjects.
An important aspect of the verse that accompanies such biographical prose
accounts is its limited interplay with the visual dimension of the printed portraits.
These compositions could record the inscription for a funeral monument that
featured the authentic likeness of the deceased, as is the case for the epitaph for
Beato Angelico’s Roman tomb in Santa Maria della Vittoria within Vasari’s
Giuntina.17 Still, unlike the prose, the poems usually avoided references to the
artist’s physical countenance or typical attire - that is to say, to two focal aspects
of pictures that aspired to be individualized and historically accurate. It was a
different, non-biographical genre that, in the context of publications encompassing
portrait series of artists, exploited the expressive potential of an integrated dia-
logue between poetry and image.
The work that paved the way for a more systemic cross-fertilization between
visual and verbal dimension was Dominicus Lampsonius’s Pictorum Aliquot Cele-
brium Germaniae Inferioris Effigies (1572]. For the twenty-three engraved portraits
of painters and sculptors, which had probably been assembled beforehand by
Hieronymus Cock, the Flemish humanist composed epigrams that displayed a
significant variety of motif and format. Along with texts that generically eulogize
the subject’s moral virtue or artistic talent, we thus encounter poems that focus
on biographical anecdotes or an artist’s specific artwork, innovative technical
accomplishment, individual stylistic features, or role in the development of Nether-
landish art. Modes of composition include the poet’s address to the subject or,
conversely, the latter’s allocution to the reader.18 What makes the Effigies espe-
cially relevant to the present discourse is the fact that several of Lampsonius’s
epigrams, inscribed below each likeness, tackle aspects of the accompanying il-
lustration. The poem on Hieronymus Bosch, for instance, offers a witty interpre-
tation of the artist’s rather gaunt countenance in the engraving (fig. 1]. The author
does this by asserting that the figure’s astonished gaze and pallid face were
69
gram for Masaccio, which adopted the topical format of the deceased’s direct ad-
dress to the beholder and recounted his most notable accomplishments within
the historical framework of the arts’ resurgence, or as Pietro Bembo’s Latin
epitaph for Raphael, in which the encomiastic topoi of the living artworks and of
art defeating nature were interwoven with basic biographical information on
the artist.16 And while subsequent biographical collections that featured artists’
portraits sometimes included poetic typologies that the 1568 Lives had generally
omitted (i. e., encomia of artworks and their creators], Vasari’s adoption of the
format and conventions of the funerary epigrammatic discourse established a
touchstone for the subsequent development of the genre. Verse epitaphs are thus
prominently present in the seventeenth-century artistic biographies by Ridolfi,
Soprani (see cat. 39] and Cavana, Bellori (see cat. 38], and Malvasia (see cat. 41],
where they complement an extensive and polyphonic lyrical production in praise
of their subjects.
An important aspect of the verse that accompanies such biographical prose
accounts is its limited interplay with the visual dimension of the printed portraits.
These compositions could record the inscription for a funeral monument that
featured the authentic likeness of the deceased, as is the case for the epitaph for
Beato Angelico’s Roman tomb in Santa Maria della Vittoria within Vasari’s
Giuntina.17 Still, unlike the prose, the poems usually avoided references to the
artist’s physical countenance or typical attire - that is to say, to two focal aspects
of pictures that aspired to be individualized and historically accurate. It was a
different, non-biographical genre that, in the context of publications encompassing
portrait series of artists, exploited the expressive potential of an integrated dia-
logue between poetry and image.
The work that paved the way for a more systemic cross-fertilization between
visual and verbal dimension was Dominicus Lampsonius’s Pictorum Aliquot Cele-
brium Germaniae Inferioris Effigies (1572]. For the twenty-three engraved portraits
of painters and sculptors, which had probably been assembled beforehand by
Hieronymus Cock, the Flemish humanist composed epigrams that displayed a
significant variety of motif and format. Along with texts that generically eulogize
the subject’s moral virtue or artistic talent, we thus encounter poems that focus
on biographical anecdotes or an artist’s specific artwork, innovative technical
accomplishment, individual stylistic features, or role in the development of Nether-
landish art. Modes of composition include the poet’s address to the subject or,
conversely, the latter’s allocution to the reader.18 What makes the Effigies espe-
cially relevant to the present discourse is the fact that several of Lampsonius’s
epigrams, inscribed below each likeness, tackle aspects of the accompanying il-
lustration. The poem on Hieronymus Bosch, for instance, offers a witty interpre-
tation of the artist’s rather gaunt countenance in the engraving (fig. 1]. The author
does this by asserting that the figure’s astonished gaze and pallid face were
69