This SAHGB - IHR seminar will be a hybrid event, taking place online and in person at the Institute of Historical Research, N304 (3rd Floor, North Block of Senate House, Malet St, London WC1E 7HU).
Raising of the Roman Notary’s Son (Wikimedia Commons)
Domenico Ghirlandaio’s frescoes showing the life of Saint Francis in the Sassetti Chapel, Santa Trinita, Florence, stand out for the prominence of contemporary elements within the historical scenes. Painted between 1483 and 1485 for Francesco Sassetti, the general manager of the Medici bank, the frescoes contain an unusual number of vivid portraits of contemporary Florentines. The two most visible episodes, positioned on the altar wall, are also set within recognisable Florentine piazzas, while others include views of cities at various distances. Since the publication of two pioneering essays by Aby Warburg during the first decade of the twentieth century, the chapel has been a topic of particular fascination, attracting numerous interpretations. This seminar will focus especially on the images of the city, considering how the frescoes combine different pictorial modes and technologies in order both to produce a new kind of painting and to shape and reflect upon the meaning of the urban environment itself.
Speaker Bio
Caspar Pearson is Reader in Art History and Director of Studies at the Warburg Institute, specialising in the art, architecture and urbanism of the Italian Renaissance. His research has focused particularly on architectural writing in the Renaissance, and Leon Battista Alberti especially. His current project is on the frescoes of the Sassetti Chapel.
Registration
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