The Renaissance Court Artist

A symposium at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

Saturday 2 March 2002

Narratives about a Renaissance in the visual arts have relied on a
distinction between the progressive bourgeois art of great commercial
cities like Florence or Bruges, and the conservative "late Gothic" art
of courts like those in Paris, Milan and Ferrara. Such a view has been
challenged in recent scholarship on the court artist, which stresses the
possibility of social advancement offered by courts and claims that
employment in a princely household was essential to the conception of
the dignity of art and the emergence of art as a humanist practice. This
symposium will consider a range of issues surrounding the production of
art at Renaissance courts between 1300 and 1550. In conjunction with the
first ever monographic exhibition devoted to the painter Cosmè Tura and
his production for the Este court in Ferrara, the conference will
reconsider the roles of the court artist in fifteenth- and
sixteenth-century Europe.

The speakers will address not only the court arist's working conditions
(including administrative and ceremonial roles), but will also assess
how rulers influenced the artist's role and even the status of art
itself. How did the employment of artists compare with other court
functionaries, such as poets, musicians and humanists? How did
circumstances differ between Italy and Northern Europe? How could art
and artists be "ennobled" by work in the household of a prince? And to
what extent did court employment correwspond with the develoment of the
elevated characterisations of art that appear in art literature?

Evelyn Welch (University of Sussex), The Myth of the "Court ARtist"

Larry Silver (Univerity of Pennsylvania), Civic Courtliness: Albrecht D
rer, Lucas Cranach, and the Emperor

Ethan Matt Kavaler (University of Toronto), Margaret of Austria and the
Court Style

Luke Syson (British Museum), The Master of the Pala Sforzesco and
Milanese Painting in the Late Fifteenth Century

David Drogin (Harvard University), Artists at the Bentivoglio Court of
Bologna

Giancarlo Fiorenza (Toledo Museum of Art), Dosso Dossi and Celio
Calcagnini at the Este Court of Ferrara

C. Jean Campbell (Emory University), Simone Martini and the Court of
Avignon

Rebecca Zorach (University of Chicago), French and Italian Artists at
the Court of Fontainebleau

Reservations are recommedned as seating is limited. Tickets are US$20
per person; students are free with a valid ID. Please send a cheque made
payable to the Gardner Museum (or a photocopy of a current student ID,
if applicable) and a self-addressed stamped envelope to: Symposium,
Gardner Museum, 2 Palace Road, Boston, MA 01225, USA. For more
information, contact [log in to unmask]; tel. +1-617 278 5101.

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Marginal Retailing: Historical Approaches, 1500-2000

CHORD (Committee for the History of Retailing and Distribution),
University of Wolverhampton

24 April 2002

CHORD (the Committee for the History of Retailing and Distribution)
invites all interested researchers to a one-day workshop devoted to the
discussion of 'marginal' retailing and retailers, petty commerce and
penny capitalism in the distributive trades.

Speakers: Jane Holt, Margaret Ponsonby, Wendy Thwaites

The workshop will be held at The University of Wolverhampton. Fee: £ 7.
The fee will be waived for those not able to obtain institutional
funding. For further information, please contact:
Dr Laura Ugolini
Room MQ203/4
Quadrant Chambers
University of Wolverhampton
Wolverhampton WV1 1SB
UK
E-mail: [log in to unmask]

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Rupert Shepherd
Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Material Renaissance Project
Essex House
University of Sussex
Falmer, Brighton BN1 9QN, UK
Tel. +44 (0)1273 872544
[log in to unmask]
http://www.sussex.ac.uk/Units/arthist/matren/
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