Abstract
This article offers new insights into the relationship between science and art in the early modern period by focusing on the concepts and practices of disegno (meaning a physical drawing or a mental design) in two Roman academies around 1600: the Accademia di San Luca and the Accademia dei Lincei. The first president of the Accademia di San Luca, Federico Zuccari, developed an elaborate theory of art that centered on the concept of disegno. More than other contemporary art theorists, Zuccari explicitly connected the process of artistic production to that of knowledge acquisition, and he described his theory of disegno as belonging to natural philosophy. The first part of the article provides a more profound interpretation of the relationship between the theoretical and the practical parts of Zuccari’s theory than has hitherto been given. His views of the relationship between knowledge acquisition and artistic production play a central role in this interpretation. The second part shows how his theory of disegno informed his ideas for the step-by-step training program of the Accademia di San Luca. In the third part, Zuccari’s theory of art is used to analyze the functions of the disegni (drawings, woodcuts, and engravings) and the artists the Accademia dei Lincei employed for its scientific projects in the first half of the seventeenth century. Seen through the lens of Zuccari’s theory, it is possible to understand the images as well as the artists themselves as instruments in the Lincean investigation of nature and to explain the different categories— academic or non-academic—used to distinguish among the different levels of proficiency that artists could attain.
Highlights
Our understanding of the intimate relationship between the sciences and the visual arts in the early modern period has greatly improved over the past three decades
More than other contemporary art theorists, Zuccari explicitly connected the process of artistic production to that of knowledge acquisition, and he described his theory of disegno as belonging to natural philosophy
Romano Alberti’s descriptions of the meetings during the first years of the academy’s existence as well as archival documents pertaining to its educational activities during the same period reveal that Zuccari’s program was at least partially realized.39. This means that students participating in the artistic-educational practices of the Accademia di San Luca would have progressed from learning mechanical skills to developing their cognitive abilities
Summary
This article offers new insights into the relationship between science and art in the early modern period by focusing on the concepts and practices of disegno (meaning a physical drawing or a mental design) in two Roman academies around 1600: the Accademia di San Luca and the Accademia dei Lincei. The twofold aim of this article is, first, to provide a more profound interpretation of the relationship between the theoretical and the practical parts of both Zuccari’s theory and his academic curriculum than has hitherto been given His views on the relationship between knowledge acquisition and artistic production play a central role in this interpretation. Seen through the lens of Zuccari’s theory, it is possible to understand both as instruments in the Lincean investigation of nature and to explain why Cesi and his colleagues used different categories— academic or non-academic—of artists for different parts of their graphical production
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