Style, Clarity, and Artistic Production in a Courtly Center: Some Myths about Ferrarese Painting of the Quattrocento

Abstract

Among the regional centers of fifteenth-century Italy, the city-state of Ferrara is distinguished by particularly distinctive and noteworthy artistic styles. Unfortunately, a number of gen­eralizations have arisen that give a false idea of the nature of the local styles. These myths include the notions that Ferrarese art of the Quattrocento was particularly harsh and neurotic, that artistic production was unusually collaborative, and that the iconography was more complex than that found elsewhere in Italy. In addition, the overestimation of the role of particular artists there has given rise to a number of attributional problems, especially the idea that Cosme Tura provided drawings or cartoons for the most important surviving mural cycle of Quattrocento Ferrara, the Hall of the Months in the Palazzo Schifanoia.