Artists and diplomacy in Late Medieval Tuscany: the case of Giotto, Simone Martini, Andrea Pisano, and others

• Autores: Brendan Cassidy
• Localización: Gesta, ISSN 0016-920X, Vol. 51, Nº. 2, 2012, págs. 91-110
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • Although medieval artists traveled widely for work, political circumstances could determine where they went. The effects that war, peace, and diplomacy might have on artists’ movements and thus on the spread of artistic ideas have not been fully acknowledged in the literature. Endemic hostility among certain Italian cities in the later Middle Ages militated against cultural exchanges between them. Artists from predominantly Guelf towns such as Florence or Ghibelline towns such as Pisa tended to find employment in places of similar political persuasion. Occasionally, however, traditional enemies might reach a temporary accommodation, to combat a common threat, perhaps, or for their mutual economic benefit. These periods of rapprochement, although sometimes very brief, opened the way for artistic exchange. The Ghibelline lords of Milan used the occasion of a peace with Florence to call Giotto to their city. Simone Martini produced his most important altarpiece for Ghibelline Pisa during a period of truce between Pisa and his hometown of Siena. Florence, for its part, lacking a sculptural workforce of its own, took advantage of the opportunity offered by the decadelong peace with Pisa in the 1330s to employ Pisan sculptors and to initiate building projects in which sculpted decoration played a prominent part. Andrea Pisano and Giovanni di Balduccio transformed the character of the Florentine Baptistery, the cathedral bell tower, and Orsanmichele and helped train a number of native craftsmen. The presence of these distinguished artists in foreign towns, made possible by truces and treaties, had a profound effect on local artistic developments.