Academic literature on the topic 'Art patronage – France – 14th century'

This article investigates the inventory of belongings owned by Clémence of hungary, queen of France. the inventory, created after her death, lists within 748 „items” the estates of Clémence, and the exact prices for which they were sold. among others, descriptions of various pieces of clothing, jewellery, religious and secular pieces of art, numerous horses and chariots, and even the royal tablewear are kept by this interesting source of 14th century culture history.

The music of Paris, BN fonds fr. 146 has long held a special place in medieval musicology as one of the most abundant records of musical taste and style in the early decades of the 14th century, particularly so in its famous version of the Old French satire of the Roman de Fauvel, interpolated with no less than 169 musical items. In the last decade, however, perspective on the manuscript has radically altered in a new climate of interdisciplinary research. If there was once a tendency for scholars to extrapolate information from the manuscript, to allow its abundant visual, musical, literary and political texts to speak of cultures exterior to the book's bindings, recent collaborative approaches have focused attention on how those different media work together within the boundaries of the parchment. One consequence of such an approach is to raise new questions about music's role in the book, most particularly about its relationship to the narrative into which it is cast. This study explores perhaps the most startling and perplexing aspect of music's position in Fauvel: the numerous occasions where music is uncued and unprepared in the narrative. I focus on the most famous moment of narrative disjunction brought about by the presence of song: the interpolated bifolio, 28 bis and ter, containing the lai Pour recouvrer alegiance. Long viewed by musicologists as an ill-conceived afterthought, it is suggested that the song's intrusion (narrative and bibliographic) may be interpreted poetically, as a moment of lyric suspension engineered by its singer, Fauvel, in der to defer his lady's final, deadly refusal of his marriage suit. That deferral occurs not just in an abstract moment of lyrical time, but in the real, unfurling space of the parchment: As time passes (the reader turning the folios), Fortuna's impatience finally becomes palpable as she dramatically enters the landscape of the song in its closing moments. Song may thus be understood to occupy not only time but also space; the manuscript, it is argued, is witness to a new form of music-making in France at the turn of the 14th century, music-making that is material as well as sonic.

The illustrated manuscripts of later Anglo-Saxon England are justly famed for their beauty. The expense lavished on the most elaborate of them is paralleled in Western Europe at the time only in late-tenth- and eleventh-century Germany. Neither France, Spain nor Italy can offer anything that is comparable to this sustained luxury production. Modern art-historical scholarship on the Anglo-Saxon material has not really attempted to explain this phenomenal industry beyond implying that the vast majority of these books were made in monastic scriptoria and for the use of the church. If this implication is correct, it begs the questions, ‘where did the money come from?’ and ‘whence the desire to spend it in this way?’ Perhaps the questions are not asked because the answers in general terms seem rather obvious. Expenditure on any particular luxury item is usually in part a question of fashion, and fashion in certain circumstances becomes a priority which determines that surplus money is directed towards its indulgence. Doubtless a response along these lines could be fleshed out by a discussion of the sources of income of the Anglo-Saxon church and of its aspirations to conspicuous display. But any exploration of monastic wealth and rivalry for prestige which attempts to explain book production at this period would be based on the assumption, and it is no more than an assumption, that the phenomenon is to be accounted for by ecclesiastical patronage. The arguments brought forward in this paper will be directed towards a different end: that many of the most famous English illuminated books of this period owe their creation to royal money, and that they were produced, sometimes without a particular recipient in mind, to be given as presents which would help cement allegiance to the crown and serve as an indication of the donor's piety. But what is the evidence for this upturn in the production ofde luxemanuscripts?

Parliament and foreign policy in the eighteenth century. By Jeremy Black. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Pp. xiii+261. ISBN 0-521-83331-0. £45.00.Art and arms: literature, politics and patriotism during the seven years' war. By M. John Cardwell. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2004. Pp. xii+306. ISBN 0-7190-6618-2. £49.99.The British Isles and the war of American independence. By Stephen Conway. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. Pp. vii+407. ISBN 0-19-820649-3. £60.00.Revolution, religion and national identity: imperial Anglicanism in British North America, 1745–1795. By Peter M. Doll. London: Associated University Presses, 2000. Pp. 336. ISBN 0-8386-3830-9. £38.00.Politics and the nation: Britain in the mid-eighteenth century. By Bob Harris. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. Pp. 392. ISBN 0-19-924693. £45.00.Parliaments, nations, and identities in Britain and Ireland, 1660–1850. Edited by Julian Hoppit. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2003. Pp. xii+225. ISBN 0-7190-6247-0. £15.99.Politik-Propaganda-Patronage. Francis Hare und die englische Publizistik im spanischen Erbfolgekrieg. By Jens Metzdorf. Mainz: Verlag Philip von Zabern, 2000. Pp. xv+566. ISBN 3-8053-2584-3. DM 114.00.Irish opinion and the American Revolution, 1760–1783. By Vincent Morley. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Pp. x+366. ISBN 0-521-81386-7. £48.00.Breaking the backcountry: the Seven Years War in Virginia and Pennsylvania, 1754–1765. By Matthew C. Ward. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2003. Pp. 329. ISBN 0-8229-4214-3. $34.95.The Jacobites and Russia, 1715–1750. By Rebecca Wills. East Linton: Tuckwell Press, 2002. Pp. 253. ISBN 1-86232-142-6. £20.00.It has never been possible to write the history of eighteenth-century Britain as that of an island entirely by itself. Over a century ago, the Cambridge historian, J. R. Seeley, famously insisted that the history of England (sic) lay as much in America and Asia as in England, whilst G. M. Trevelyan's classic narrative of England under Queen Anne (3 vols., 1930–4) was presented against the background of the War of the Spanish Succession. More recently, John Brewer's remarkable Sinews of power: war, money and the English state, 1688–1784 (1989) demonstrated the extent to which the British state, and its fiscal-political structures, were geared towards the mobilization of military power, primarily to be deployed against France. In The sense of the people: politics, culture and imperialism in England, 1715–1785 (1995), Kathleen Wilson revealed the importance of empire and imperial expansion in popular politicization, whilst Linda Colley's Britons (1992) showed just how central the struggle with France was to the development of eighteenth-century British national identity. At the same time, our understanding of the European and global state system in which Britain played such a prominent role has been illuminated by Hamish Scott's British foreign policy in the age of the American revolution (1990), together with many publications by Jeremy Black including British foreign policy in the age of Walpole (1985) and America or Europe? British foreign policy, 1739–1763 (1997).

In the first half of the 19th century in literature on art the term ‘Old Masters’ was disseminated (Alte Meister, maître ancienns, etc.), this in relation to the concept of New Masters. However, contrary to the widespread view, it did not result from the name institutionalization of public museums (in Munich the name Alte Pinakothek was given in 1853, while in Dresden the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister was given its name only after 1956). Both names, however, feature in collection catalogues, books, articles, press reports, as well as tourist guides. The term ‘Old Masters’ with reference to the artists of the modern era appeared in the late 17th century among the circles of English connoisseurs, amateur experts in art (John Evelyn, 1696). Meanwhile, the Great Tradition: from Filippo Villani and Alberti to Bellori, Baldinucci, and even Winckelmann, implied the use of the category of ‘Old Masters’ (antico, vecchio) in reference to ancient: Greek-Roman artists. There existed this general conceptual opposition: old (identified with ancient) v. new (the modern era).
 An attempt is made to answer when this tradition was broken with, when and from what sources the concept (and subsequently the term) ‘Old Masters’ to define artists later than ancient was formed; namely the artists who are today referred to as mediaeval and modern (13th–18th c.). It was not a single moment in history, but a long intermittent process, leading to 18th- century connoisseurs and scholars who formalized early-modern collecting, antiquarian market, and museology.
 The discerning and naming of the category in-between ancient masters (those referred to appropriately as ‘old’) and contemporary or recent (‘new’) artists resulted from the attempts made to systemize and categorize the chronology of art history for the needs of new collector- and connoisseurship in the second half of the 16th and in the 17th century. The old continuum of history of art was disrupted by Giorgio Vasari (Vite, 1550, 1568) who created the category of ‘non-ancient old’, ‘our old masters’, or ‘old-new’ masters (vecchi e non antichi, vecchi maestri nostri, i nostri vecchi, i vecchi moderni). The intuition of this ‘in-between’ the vecchi moderni and maestri moderni can be found in some writers-connoisseurs in the early 17th (e.g. Giulio Mancini). The Vasarian category of the ‘old modern’ is most fully reflected in the compartmentalizing of history conducted by Carel van Mander (Het Schilder-Boeck, 1604), who divided painters into: 1) oude (oude antijcke), ancient, antique, 2) oude modern, namely old modern; 3) modern; very modern, living currently. The oude modern constitute a sequence of artists beginning with the Van Eyck brothers to Marten de Vosa, preceding the era of ‘the famous living Netherlandish painters’.
 The in-between status of ‘old modern’ was the topic of discourse among the academic circles, formulated by Jean de La Bruyère (1688; the principle of moving the caesura between antiquité and modernité), Charles Perrault (1687–1697: category of le notre siècle preceded by le siècle passé, namely the grand masters of the Renaissance), and Pellegrino Antonio Orlandi writing from the position of an academic studioso for connoisseurs and collectors (Abecedario pittorico, 1704, 1719, 1733, 1753; the antichimoderni category as distinct from the i viventi).
 Together with Christian von Mechel (1781, 1783) the new understanding of ‘old modernity’ enters the scholarly domain of museology and the devising of displays in royal and ducal galleries opened to the public, undergoing the division into national categories (schools) and chronological ones in history of art becoming more a science (hence the alte niederländische/deutsche Meister or Schule). While planning and describing painterly schools at the Vienna Belvedere Gallery, the learned historian and expert creates a tripartite division of history, already without any reference to antiquity, and with a meaningful shift in eras: Alte, Neuere, and lebende Meister, namely ‘Old Masters’ (14th–16th/17th c.), ‘New Masters’ (Late 17th c. and the first half of the 18th c.), and contemporary ‘living artists’. The Alte Meister ceases to define ancient artists, while at the same time the unequivocally intensifying hegemony of antique attitudes in collecting and museology leads almost to an ardent defence of the right to collect only ‘new’ masters, namely those active recently or contemporarily. It is undertaken with fervour by Ludwig Christian von Hagedorn in his correspondence with his brother (1748), reflecting the Enlightenment cult of modernité, crucial for the mental culture of pre-Revolution France, and also having impact on the German region. As much as the new terminology became well rooted in the German-speaking regions (also in terminology applied in auction catalogues in 1719–1800, and obviously in the 19th century for good) and English-speaking ones (where the term ‘Old Masters’ was also used in press in reference to the collections of the National Gallery formed in 1824), in the French circles of the 18th century the traditional division into the ‘old’, namely ancient, and ‘new’, namely modern, was maintained (e.g. Recueil d’Estampes by Pierre Crozat), and in the early 19th century, adopted were the terms used in writings in relation to the Academy Salon (from 1791 located at Louvre’s Salon Carré) which was the venue for alternating displays of old and contemporary art, this justified in view of political and nationalistic legitimization of the oeuvre of the French through the connection with the tradition of the great masters of the past (Charles-Paul Landon, Pierre-Marie Gault de Saint-Germain).
 As for the German-speaking regions, what played a particular role in consolidating the term: alte Meister, was the increasing Enlightenment – Romantic Medievalism as well as the cult of the Germanic past, and with it a revaluation of old-German painting: altdeutsch. The revision of old-German art in Weimar and Dresden, particularly within the Kunstfreunde circles, took place: from the category of barbarism and Gothic ineptitude, to the apology of the Teutonic spirit and true religiousness of the German Middle Ages (partic. Johann Gottlob von Quandt, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe). In this respect what actually had an impact was the traditional terminology backup formed in the Renaissance Humanist Germanics (ethnogenetic studies in ancient Germanic peoples, their customs, and language), which introduced the understanding of ancient times different from classical-ancient or Biblical-Christian into German historiography, and prepared grounds for the altdeutsche Geschichte and altdeutsche Kunst/Meister concepts. A different source area must have been provided by the Reformation and its iconoclasm, as well as the reaction to it, both on the Catholic, post-Tridentine side, and moderate Lutheran: in the form of paintings, often regarded by the people as ‘holy’ and ‘miraculous’; these were frequently ancient presentations, either Italo-Byzantine icons or works respected for their old age. Their ‘antiquity’ value raised by their defenders as symbols of the precedence of Christian cult at a given place contributed to the development of the concept of ‘ancient’ and ‘old’ painters in the 17th–18th century.

L’action des conseillers du roi de France dans le domaine artistique, et notamment architectural, au tournant des XIIIe et XIVe siècles, a été abordée dans le cadre d’études monographiques, mais n’a jamais été envisagée dans un souci de synthèse. Recenser les bâtiments et les œuvres d’art réalisés à l’initiative de ces individus dans l’ancien royaume de France, les confronter avec les entreprises et les commandes royales permet de comprendre les motivations et l’impact d’un milieu alors en plein essor, celui des grands officiers royaux et des hommes de confiance qui assistaient quotidiennement le roi et l’aidaient à gouverner. L’époque retenue couvre les règnes des derniers Capétiens, Philippe le Bel (1285-1314) et ses trois fils (1314-1328). Il a semblé souhaitable d’étendre l’étude en amont au règne de Philippe le Hardi (1270-1285), afin de prendre en compte les prémices d’un véritable phénomène, par ailleurs très diversifié : lancement de projets architecturaux de grande ampleur destinés à l’usage propre du conseiller et de sa famille, embellissement d’édifices existants, participation à de grands chantiers en cours (cathédrales), commandes de tombeaux, d’œuvres d’art destinées à orner des fondations pieuses, réalisation d’hôpitaux ou d’édifices utilitaires ; beaucoup d’exemples témoignent de l’ambition comme de la piété de ces hommes. Dans les textes mais également dans le paysage monumental français actuel, il a été possible de retrouver de nombreuses traces de cette action, dont une typologie a été établie. L’étude a pour but de répondre aux questions suivantes : les conseillers du roi partageaient-ils le même mode de vie et avaient-ils des goûts communs ? Leur action fut-elle en tout point semblable à celle des membres de la famille royale et de la haute noblesse ? Peut-on mesurer la portée de ces réalisations ?<br>The action of the councillors of the French king in the artistic domain, particularly architectural, at the turn of the XIIIth and XIVth centuries, aroused a large number of monographic studies, but has never been envisaged in a concern of synthesis. Listing buildings and works of art commissioned by these individuals in the realm of France, confronting them with those patronized by the king, let us understand the motivations and the influence of an environment then in full development, that of the royal officers who assisted the king and helped him to govern. The chosen period covers the reigns of the last Capetians, Philip the Fair (1285-1314) and his three sons (1314-1328). It seemed worthwhile to widen the study area to include the reign of Philip the Bold (1270-1285) in order to take into account the beginnings of the phenomenon, besides very diversified : launch of large-scale architectural projects intended for the councillor and his family, embellishment of existing buildings (like cathedrals), production of gravestones, execution of works of art made to “decorate” pious foundations, construction of hospitals or utilitarian buildings ; many examples show the ambition as the devotion of these men. In texts but also in current French architectural landscape, it has been possible to find numerous traces of this action, a typology of which has been proposed. The study aims at answering the following questions : did the king’s councillors share the same lifestyle, the same tastes ? Was their action completely similar to that of the members of the royal family and the nobility ? Can we measure the reach of these creations ?

Caroline Bonaparte Murat created an identity for herself through the art that she collected during the time of her reign as queen of Naples as directed by her brother, Napoleon, from 1808-1814. Through the art that she both commissioned and purchased, she developed an identity as powerful politically, nurturing, educated, fashionable, and Italianate. Through this patronage, Caroline became influential on stylish, female patronage in both Italy and France. Caroline purchased and commissioned works from artists such as Jean-August-Domonique Ingres, François Gérard, Elizabeth Vigée LeBrun, Antonio Canova and other lesser-known artists of the nineteenth century. Many of these works varied in style and content, but all helped in creating an ideal identity for Caroline. In all of the works she is portrayed as a powerful woman. She is either powerful by her settings (in the drawing room, or with Vesuvius in the background), her vast knowledge in the arts and fashion, her motherhood, her sensuality, or the way in which she is positioned and how she is staring back at the viewer within the works. The creation of this identity was uniquely Caroline's, mimicking Marie de Medici, Marie Antoinette and Josephine and Napoleon Bonaparte, while adding her own tastes and agendas to the creation. Through this identity she proved herself to be as equally French as Italianate through dress and surroundings. She even created a hybrid of fashion, wedding the styles together, by adding black velvet and lace to a simple empire-waisted silhouette. Caroline proved herself as politician, mother, educated and refined woman, pioneer in fashion, and Queen through the art that she purchased and commissioned.

Margaret of Austria (1480--1530) ruled the Burgundian Netherlands for over twenty years and was an integral member of the joint Houses of Burgundy and Habsburg. She was also one of the most prolific patrons and collectors of her time. This dissertation examines Margaret's patronage in relation to her contemporary environment with the aim of extending and deepening our understanding of her commissions within the dynamics and discourses of the culture of the early sixteenth century.<br>Margaret of Austria was a highly conscientious patron and the art and architecture she commissioned intimately reflected her life. Chapter one introduces the historical facts of Margaret's life as well as issues affecting her patronage. Chapter two considers the monastery of Brou in Savoy as Margaret's architectural autobiography. Drawing on documentation and the building itself, it examines Margaret's involvement in Brou's creation. Chapter three looks at several of Margaret's other commissions such as her residence, the Palace of Savoy in Mechelen and the Convent of the Annunciate in Bruges. This chapter considers the potential goals of these projects, as ambitious as founding a capital city, embellishing her authority as a ruler, or attaining sainthood. Chapter four turns to Margaret's self-portraits, that is, images she commissioned of herself. Created in several mediums for a variety of audiences (including herself), Margaret's self-portraits portray her as everything from a widow to a goddess to a saint. Each image was designed for a specific audience and demonstrates Margaret's understanding of the function of images in negotiating a place in the contemporary world and history. Chapter five presents Margaret's view of herself as one of the rulers of a New World Empire with her pioneering collection of artefacts from the Americas. The conclusion considers the unique image of Margaret of Austria that emerges from her commissions.

Notre étude vise à interroger le goût artistique des financiers du xviiie siècle, à travers l'analyse de leurs comportements face aux différents acteurs du monde de l'art. qu'ils soient financiers collectionneurs, financiers amateurs, financiers artistes, ou encore financiers mécènes, ces manieurs d'argent, parfois jalousés, parfois adulés pour leur fortune, évoluent dans une sphère complexe, où rivalité et excentricité mondaine se mêlent aux codes de bienséance et de magnificence de la société nobiliaire. sévèrement critiqués au xviiie siècle, les financiers du siècle des lumières sont pleinement réhabilités dans la société, grâce, peut-être, à leur conformisme avec les us et coutumes de leurs contemporains. cherchant à égaler leurs semblables dans le paraître, nous pouvons nous interroger sur la manière dont les financiers, qu'ils soient fermiers généraux, receveurs des finances ou encore trésoriers, collectionnent leurs œuvres. ainsi, existe-t-il une manière ' financière ' de collectionner<br>Our study aims at questioning the artistic taste of the financiers of the eighteenth century, through the analysis of their behaviors vis-a-vis the different actors of the world of art. Whether financial collectors, financial amateurs, financial artists, or financial sponsors, these money handlers, sometimes jealous, sometimes adulated for their fortune, evolve in a complex sphere, where rivalry and eccentricity mundane mingle with the codes of decency And the magnificence of the noble society. Severely criticized in the eighteenth century, the financiers of the age of enlightenment were fully rehabilitated in society, perhaps thanks to their conformity with the habits and customs of their contemporaries. Seeking to equal their fellows in appearance, we may question the manner in which the financiers, whether general farmers, receivers of finance, or even treasurers, collect their works. Thus, is there a 'financial' way of collecting

This thesis examines the portraiture and patronage of Marie Thérèse Louise de Savoie-Carignan, the princesse de Lamballe (1749-1792). It is the first comprehensive and detailed study to be undertaken of the princess's activities as patron. Lamballe was Marie-Antoinette's longest-serving confidante and Superintendent of the Queen's Household. Through close formal analysis of the portraits combined with careful consideration of the sitter's personal circumstances and the wider cultural and historical context, the thesis challenges scholarly assumptions that the princess had only negligible influence as a sitter and patron. As a case study of an independent, professionally ambitious and childless widow, it identifies a wider range of motives and cultural meanings than has previously been ascribed to female court patronage of this period. The first chapter demonstrates that the early depictions of Lamballe as a docile and grieving princess were largely dictated by her father-in-law, an identity the princess subsequently discarded when she assumed a professional role at court. Chapter two examines portraits executed during the princess's rise to political and social prominence and shows that her attachment to the queen and the length of time she spent in her company and service, together with her publicly visible roles as freemason and salonnière, made her a figure of considerable renown and influence and thereby a highly significant patron at the French court. This was enhanced by the princess's international reputation as a talented amateur artist in her own right and by her financial and social support of aspiring artists and art institutions. The princess's engagement with the cult of sentiment and advocacy of women artists is allied to the sorority encouraged by Marie-Antoinette within the women of her select circle. Complementary chapters on the princess's previously unknown anglophile inclinations (discussed in Chapter three) and her private collections, library, and musical and literary patronage (considered in Chapter four) further reveal that Lamballe was an informed and cultivated female patron who operated at the very centre of Marie-Antoinette's circle.

En 1350, Pierre de la Jugie, neveu du pape Clément VI, est depuis trois ans sur le siège de Narbonne, à la tête d’un des archevêchés les plus riches du royaume de France, lorsqu’il décide de faire réaliser un pontifical à la hauteur de ses ambitions. Orné de 24 médaillons pour le calendrier, d’une pleine page, et de 61 lettres historiées encore en place (une vingtaine a été découpé), l’ouvrage est un témoignage exceptionnel, bien documenté, qui permet de comprendre les modalités de la commande des manuscrits liturgiques enluminés au XIVe siècle, et qu’il est possible de replacer dans un contexte politique, religieux et artistique bien déterminé. Le livre n’est qu’en partie fidèle au modèle de pontifical établi par Guillaume Durand. Outre un calendrier et des feuillets de comput, il contient aussi plusieurs textes additionnels, expressément ajoutés par Pierre de la Jugie pour certains d’entre eux, et accompagné d’une iconographie qui leur est propre. L’étude des textes, du calendrier au pontifical, et de l’iconographie choisie pour les illustrer, permet de mettre en valeur la forte implication du commanditaire dans la mise en place de ce livre. Les peintures qui ornent ces pages sont l’œuvre de quatre artistes qui, en dépit de leurs formations différentes (Catalogne, Sud de la France, Italie) ont collaboré et se sont mutuellement influencés. Le recensement des productions de chacun des enlumineurs permet enfin de mettre en valeur l’existence de réseaux d’échanges entre les artistes et les commanditaires ecclésiastiques appartenant à un même clan de prélats limousins<br>In 1350 , Pierre de la Jugie, archbishop of Narbonne and nephew of Pope Clement VI, decides to make a Pontifical that lives up to his ambitions. Decorated with 24 medallions for the calendar, a full page and 61 historiated letters, the book is an exceptional testimony, well documented, which helps to understand the ways liturgical illuminated manuscripts were ordered during the fourteenth century, and it can be replaced in a well-defined political, religious and artistic context. In addition to a calendar, and computus, this pontifical of Guillaume Durand also contains several additional texts, specifically added by Pierre de la Jugie for some of them, and accompanied by an iconography of their own. The study of the text and iconography highlights the strong involvement of the ecclesiastical patron in the creation of this book. The paintings that adorn these pages are the work of four artists who, despite their different backgrounds (Catalonia, southern France, Italy) have collaborated and influenced each other. The census of production of each of illuminators can finally highlight the existence of exchanges between artists and church patrons belonging to the same clan prelates Limousin networks

This dissertation examines the patronage of Marie de Brabant, queen of France (1260-1322), and how her commissions transformed the atmosphere of the late Capetian court. Bringing with her from her native duchy of Brabant an established set of cultural preferences strikingly different from those that the saintly Louis IX had promoted in Paris for the previous half century, she introduced a love of secular material and elaborate ceremony upon her arrival in 1274. Taking the form of manuscript illumination, sculpture, stained glass, and architecture, as well as literature, music, science, history, genealogy, ritual, and finery, Marie’s patronage set a trend for courtly consumption for the remainder of the medieval period. Nearly always political in nature, her commissions were nonetheless sumptuous to behold, whether secular or sacred in content and they announced her status as Carolingian princess and French queen. Analysis of the frontispiece of Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal Ms. 3142, a richly illuminated miscellany of fictional, historical, and didactic poetry is crucial for understanding Marie’s taste and priorities, and is complemented by study of her other commissions in Brabant and France. These commissions varied from large scale -- such as the addition of chapels to the east end of the church of Notre-Dame in Mantes or window programs for the chapel of St. Nicholas at the church of St.-Nicaise in Reims and her parent’s necropolis at the church of the Dominicans in Louvain -- to smaller format -- the châsse of Ste. Gertrude at Nivelles or the donor statues of the chapelle de Navarre at Mantes. Most numerous, however, are the manuscripts that made up her diverse library which included the secular romances of Adenet le Roi and the scientific treatises of Guillaume de Nangis as well as historical and religious texts all of which were illuminated by the most renowned and creative artists of the day. After an analysis of her patronage as queen and widow, I look to how her activities as patron and collector influenced other late Capetian royal women, many of whom Marie had raised and whose activities, in turn, complemented and complicated their mentor’s vision of queenship.<br>text

This article focuses on the last century and a half of the Ancien Régime. However, for art historians, one of the first and most important events in the history of the attempt to transfer the cultural sophistication of the Italian Renaissance courts to France, and in doing so to create a powerful sense of France as culture-state, occurred at an earlier moment with the policy of Francis I, first in the Loire valley and then, most intensely, at the hunting lodge/palace of Fontainebleau (1528 and after). At Fontainebleau, Francis enticed significant artists away from Italy and created the kind of complex architectural, decorative, and iconographic ensembles that he and his entourage knew from the grand courts of Renaissance Florence, thus setting a pattern for complex cultural–political intervention.

Germany, France, Italy: the attribution of the first woodcut images has long been debated between several countries, to gain the technological primacy of the invention of reproductive printmaking, before Gutenberg’s movable type printing. Today we know how difficult it is, if not impossible, to establish a place and a date of origin of image printing in Europe. Impossible and probably unimportant. Printing was a European phenomenon in the 15th century, and we may ask ourselves whether a northern woodcut beyond the Italian borders was intended as something different than an Italian one. The contrast between northern and southern prints, which has been claimed by art historians from Vasari until the half of the 20th century, seems to be denied by early modern Italian sources. For example, a German woodcut from the first decades of the 15th century and a Florentine painting from the end of the 14th century can coexist as models for the illumination of the same manuscript. This unpublished case study of two Florentine 15th-century illuminations shows how a European cultural horizon was more common than we think today, and how much woodcut has been a fundamental tool for this broadening of horizons, since its very beginning.