Between Renaissance and Neorenaissance. Tito Vespasiano Paravicini's Graphic Corpus.

Abstract

The importance of a comparative study on the Renaissance and its artistic, cultural and historical reception in the 19th century has been highlighted by several scholars, especially in recent times. Such a comparative approach is characterised by a sort of 'mirror game' in research that is useful not only for understanding the 19th-century perception and sensibility in transforming the Italian Renaissance into a framework for developing a national identity, but also for increasing knowledge of the material and immaterial culture of the Renaissance itself.This essay analyses the contribution that the study of the almost unpublished corpus - of around 1,000 drawings - by the Milanese architect Tito Vespasiano Paravicini (1830-1899) has made to the knowledge of specific episodes of Renaissance architecture in Lombardy. Paravicini's work is discussed here not in relation to 19th-century restoration theories or architectural practice (both topics that have been explored at length) but above all in his commitment to testifying to a series of architectures and a decaying landscape in Milan following the Italian unification of 1861. To highlight the importance of Paravicini's graphic collection as a source for the history of architecture, we focus on a selected number of drawings that are crucial for reconstructing important yet misunderstood episodes of the Milanese artistic culture between the 15th and 16th centuries.