medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Jim, this sounds extraordinary modern in my ears.
Are you absolutely sure that the edition from 1860
by D. Salvi not is a free interpretation of the original,
or manipulated to suit the spirit of the 19th cent.?
[Are you quoting something from the french edition of the
'Lucula noctis' by R. Coulon from 1908? ]
Giovanni Dominici (John the Dominican, beatified 1832)
wrote his 'Regola del governo di cura famigliare' around
1400-1405, and if he makes reference to pictures of John
the Baptist as a child does it ring a kind of alarm bell
in me as an art historian. What kind of pictures did he
have in mind, showing 'movements and signs' of children?
There is an anachronism here. It was before any woodcuts
were available for sale on the open market, and long before
pictorial representation of children could be expressed
and conceived as showing natural gestures. Even in Florence
was it well before Masaccio. Fra Angelico could very well
have been inspired by such ideas, but it was also twenty
years after the death of Giovanni Dominici.
I am sceptical, mainly because it sounds too good to be
true! It sounds more like the ideas of the so-called
'Nazarenes' - 19th century painters with engravings after
Perugino, Raphael and Leonardo hanging on their walls in Rome.
By 1400 was there no engravings on the walls of a family home
in Toscana. And certainly no paintings of Saint John as a
child. Where can we find the original text in italian,
seen as it was, without any 19th century filters?
I am just really curious about this.
All best
Erik Drigsdahl
At 17:01 +0100 23/11/05, Jim Bugslag wrote:
>This may be a bit late for you, but at the beginning of the 15th century the prior of
>the Dominican convent in Florence, Giovanni Dominici, wrote his Regola del
>Governo di cura famigliare, in which he advised parents to have images of the
>Christ Child and infant saints, such as the young John the Baptist, in their homes to
>serve as models for their own children: "one should have in the home images of
>child saints, male and female, in which your infant, still in its diapers, can see their
>own likeness, for it is in this way that this can be accomplished between the infant
>and the infantile image, with the movements and signs that are typical of children."
>Sorry for the inelegant translation from the French. This has been published, in an
>edition by Salvi Domenico (Florence, 1861). Although later than Giotto, it certainly
>recalls aspects of St Francis's creche.
>Cheers,
>Jim Bugslag
>
_____________________________________________________________________
Mag.art. Erik Drigsdahl CHD Center for Haandskriftstudier i Danmark
Kapelvej 25B 3.tv Phone: +45 +35 37 20 47
DK-2200 Copenhagen N Email: <[log in to unmask]>
DENMARK http://www.chd.dk
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