Garcilaso de la Vega and the Material Culture of Renaissance Europe by Mary E. Barnard

Abstract

Reviewed by: Garcilaso de la Vega and the Material Culture of Renaissance Europe by Mary E. Barnard Núria Silleras-Fernández Barnard, Mary E. Garcilaso de la Vega and the Material Culture of Renaissance Europe. Toronto: U of Toronto P, Toronto Iberica, 2014. 226 pp. ISBN: 978-14-4264-755-8. Garcilaso de la Vega (1501?-1536), a canonical poet, courtier, and soldier in the army of Emperor Charles V was accustomed to enjoying the luxury objects that were on prominent display at the Spanish Habsburg court, including tapestries, paintings, books, relics, medals, coins, and exotic artifacts from the Americas. In 1532 he was forced into exile in Italy, where he went into the service of his friend, Pedro de Toledo, the Marquis of Villafranca and viceroy of Naples. This was an important experience for Garcilaso as a writer, in that this Mediterranean setting acquainted him with new texts and ideas, and with precious objects and Roman monuments, and gave him an opportunity to interact with local scholars and gain a clearer understanding of Classical culture. In Garcilaso de la Vega and the Material Culture of Renaissance Europe, Barnard analyzes how Garcilaso engaged with exotic and luxurious objects in the poems he wrote during his last years (1532-1536) – the period that he lived in Naples. Barnard reads Garcilaso's time in Italy as an "invitation to admire and dialogue directly with its material culture" (7), and considers the way the objects (some of which he must have certainly seen) feature in his poems as his particular response to the material culture of his time. For her, they constitute a fundamental element that readers must take into account in order to fully understand and appreciate his "new poetry." The book consists of an introduction, six chapters, and a very short epilogue (instead of a formal conclusion), which treat Garcilaso's Neapolitan poems as "a kind of a sixteenth century poetic imaginary" (13). Because Barnard considers these to be the poems that engaged the most with materiality, she has organized each chapter around a distinct set of objects. The first chapter, "Weaving, Writing, and the Art of Gift-Giving", studies tapestries, which were highly valued in the sixteenth century and considered indispensable signs of elegance and luxury. She connects these to Garcilaso's third eclogue, which comprises a lyric version of a figurative tapestry, in which nymphs weave a tapestry while the poet weaves his verse. The two are similar because both tapestries and poems have the potential of constituting elements of networks of patronage and gift exchange. The second chapter, "Empire, Memory, and History," examines the battle of Tunis (1535), in which Charles V's forces confronted those of the Berber pirate, Kheir-ed-Din Barbarossa, the admiral of Suleyman the Magnificent. The Emperor deliberately brought artists and humanists along to the battle so they could suitably and accurately commemorate his anticipated success over the Ottoman sultan. Garcilaso was there, as was the Flemish artist, Jan Cornelisz Vermeyen, who transformed his drawings of the combat into twelve tapestries that constituted a sort of official celebration of the victory. Barnard links these tapestries, along with a portrait by Titian, and a statue by Leoni to a set of Garcilaso's works, including his sonnet thirty-three, "A Boscán desde la Goleta", sonnet ten, "O dulces prendas por mi mal halladas", and his Latin "Ode to Ginés de Sepúlveda," which together presented the poet's more nuanced and fine-grained version of the episode. In the course of this, he addresses themes relating to history and memory while analyzing [End Page 295] the poems and artifacts. The following chapter, "Objects of Dubious Persuasion", examines the "ode ad florem Gnidi" – a poem with the agenda of trying to convince a reluctant Neapolitan noblewoman, Violante Sanseverino, to accept her suitor, Mario Galeota. This piece is assessed alongside material items including a lyre, a viol, a zither, a shell boat, a painting, and a statue. Chapter Four, "the Mirror and the Urn", comprises a close reading of the second eclogue, juxtaposed with a mirror and an urn, and considers the poem's connection to subjectivity and melancholy. Next, Chapter Five, "Eros...