Italian Baroque Research Articles

The Excess in Italian Baroque Poetry and Some Translation Techniques

The Excess in Italian Baroque Poetry and Some Translation Techniques

CAPRICCIO IN THE WORKS OF FRANCESCO BORROMINI

Giovanni Battista Passeri (c.1610-1679) who was an Italian painter, a poet and a priest, wrote Italian baroque artist’s biographies that contain the life of Francesco Borromini who was a one of the greatest architect of Italian Baroque.

Italian Baroque instrumental music

Italian Baroque instrumental music

Unfinished Poetry

Unfinished Poetry

The specificity of improvisation parts in Italian baroque aria da capo

Purpose of the Article. The main attention in the article is focused on the peculiarities of improvisation methods that were used in the third part and in the Cadenzas of aria da capo in baroque Italy. The characteristic features of vocal improvisation space in opera atr of Italian baroque have been explored and defined. In particular, the specificity of baroque ornamental improvisation in the aria's third part has been defined; the differences between baroque and renaissance improvisation have been clarified; the essence of the theory of affects (feelings, emotions) as an aesthetic and philosophical context of vocal art's existence in the baroque era has been defined; the peculiarities of an existing connection between the theory of effects and the main principles of the rhetoric of that time have been clarified; we have also found out how the rhetoric of the baroque era affected the disposition of Cadenzas in the context of musical structure's dramaturgy; the historical circumstances in which the genre discussed (that is, aria da capo) was formed have been described. Мethodology. We have used in our study as research tools the following methods: a comparative method (for comparing of improvisation stylistics of the renaissance and of the baroque era; of the Venice and Neapolitan operatic schools); a historical and stylistic method (for featuring of the historical context of the emergence and performing of arias da capo and of their Cadenzas and for characterizing of the essencial features of the epoch analyzed); an analytical and descriptive method (for the analysis of particular elements of improvisation in arias da capo, of the key principles of the theory of effects and their connection to baroque improvisation). Scientific novelty. The topic of the article is connected to the largely unexplored nowadays realm of music artists that, however, needs careful analysis and a systematic approach. The up-to-date research results in the sphere of vocal improvisation of the baroque era are presented and analyzed in the article. Conclusions. Improvisation in the space of aria da capo is a multidimentional, controversial, and ambiguous sphere of baroque vocal art. It cannot confine itself only by the sphere of performance but also deserves music scholars' regard.

Pedagogical Analysis of the Baroque Period Piano Repertoire: Example of Italy

The aim of this study is to access editions of Italian Baroque works in place; to examine the availability of these works in terms of gaining techniques for playing in piano education, to gain new works aimed at different pedagogical stages in the field and to acquire new but unknown works in piano education repertoire. This research was carried out with the literature review model. During the first three months of the research, 158 baroque period composers were found among 2173 Italian composers. 50 composers composing on keyboard instruments were reached among 158 baroque composers. For this research study, the library of Dipartimento delle Arti dell’Universita di Bologna the Sala Borsa library, the Giovanni Martini Conservatory library and international museum and library of music in Bologna were visited and the works of composers made on the keyboard instruments were found. The number of works performed by composer on keyboard instruments is quite high. However, according to the objective of the project, it is aimed to perform pedagogical analysis by selecting one work from each composer. For analysis, created to the work evaluation forms prepared by the researcher. 50 works analyzed according to this form. While 48 Italian works can be used in piano education, 6 Italian works are not suitable for piano education. However, in order to use these works in piano education, these must be arranged from organ to pianoforte. An example of this is presented in this study.

THE GROTESQUE AND MYTH IN GIAMBATTISTA BASILE’S IL PENTAMERONE

This paper, besides a short introduction concerning general information on themes and the structure present in the short story collection Lo cunto de li cunti overo lo trattenemiento de’ peccerille, written by the Italian Baroque author Giambattista Basile, whose masterpiece enjoyed great fame abroad much earlier than in Italy, is concerned with the analysis of fantastic and grotesque elements which generally characterise oral tradition, fairy tales and myths. The above-mentioned elements were identified in the fifty short stories which Basile wrote and included in his collection. Various sources were used in the analysis, relying on myths and fairy tales with the aim of explaining the presence of the grotesque. Besides its great literary value, this collection is also of great historical importance because, just like many other examples of oral tradition, it fosters a vast span of costumes and traditions that are typical of the Mediterranean folklore. From one tale to another, the collection slowly but surely reveals the Mediterranean identity of the people from the South of Italy and explains the function of the grotesque and its didactic purpose.

The specific character of the South Italian Baroque of Puglia of the XVII-XVIII centuries

The specific character of the South Italian Baroque of Puglia of the XVII-XVIII centuries

Evaluating the protecting effects of two consolidants applied on Pietra di Lecce limestone: A neutronographic study

Abstract In this work a combined laboratory-based and neutronographic investigation was carried out on a type of limestone, known as Pietra di Lecce stone, widely used in Italian Baroque as construction material. The limestone was treated with two different commercially-available coatings, namely nanosilica and nanolime, and artificially weathered by salt crystallization and temperature/relative humidity jumps. The aim was to provide an experimental evidence of the protective and consolidating effectiveness of the two treatments by looking at the water absorption process occurring inside the pore network of the analyzed stones. The analysis of the wetting front position revealed significant variations in the water absorption kinetics among the investigated samples, suggesting different mechanisms of interaction between the inorganic consolidants and the underlying bulk stone. Finally, a quantitative evaluation of the best effectiveness of the two products was addressed, particularly useful in view of an appropriate choice of restoration procedures to be applied to building materials.

Primer proyecto del Triunfo para la beatificación de san Fernando: Bernardo Simón de Pineda y Juan de Valdés Leal (1671)

La catedral de Sevilla, desde la baja Edad Media, puso máximo empeño en las celebraciones festivas de carácter religioso. Destacaron a lo largo de los siglos XVI y XVII las dedicadas al rey Fernando III de Castilla y León, cuyos restos conserva el templo hispalense. En este artículo damos a conocer un primer proyecto inédito del triunfo que se iba a levantar con motivo de la beatificación del rey, firmado por Juan de Valdés Leal y Bernardo Simón de Pineda, fechado en 1671. El proyecto no se realizó, pero serviría de guía al finalmente ejecutado, que guarda estrechas relacio­nes con el barroco internacional, tanto italiano como nórdico.

Clay Minerals in European Painting of the Mediaeval and Baroque Periods

Clay-based pigments are among the most traditional. Unlike other mineral pigments, they have never been fully replaced by synthetic analogues and are still used in painting today. Since their analysis requires a specific approach, detailed distinction of clay pigments has never been a part of routine chemical-technological research in fine arts—regardless of a great potential of clay minerals for determining regional provenance of the material. This review article maps and summarizes research on clay pigments in historical paintings that has been systematically pursued by authors since the beginning of this millennium. This rallying and interconnection of knowledge was an opportunity for a new reflection on the common aspects of these research projects, either methodological or interdisciplinary, since these findings are closely related to art-historical evaluation of artworks. It offers a comprehensive insight into the microanalysis of clay pigments with using powder X-ray micro-diffraction and complementary methods. Significant new findings come, for example, from research on the Italian Baroque. It becomes clear that cheap availability of raw material, pottery clays, could have played an important role in the change in painting technology at the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries.

Non-invasive mobile technology to study the stratigraphy of ancient Cremonese violins: OCT, NMR-MOUSE, XRF and reflection FT-IR spectroscopy

It is generally believed that the modern violin has emerged in Italy in the first half of the 16th century. The scientific study of its complex stratigraphy began approximately in the 1980's with invasive standard methods. Only since the last decade or so, the focus of diagnostic investigations has been increasingly shifted towards the use of non-invasive approaches in order to preserve the value and the integrity of these masterpieces.In this work, precious historical Cremonese violins made during the Italian Baroque period by the great master luthiers of the Amati, Stradivari and Guarneri families were non-invasively analysed for the first time by combining Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT), reflection FT-IR spectroscopy, X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF) and Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR-MOUSE). Portable instrumentation allowed non-invasive on-site analyses of the violins preserved at the Museo del Violino in Cremona. The aim of this wide multi-technique campaign, carried out within the MOLAB Transnational Access - EU H2020 Project IPERION CH, was the characterization of the stratigraphy from the innermost wood treatments to the outermost varnish layers. OCT provided information about thickness and number of layers, as well as detecting dispersed particles; FT-IR spectroscopy identified the molecular composition of the layered materials; XRF brought elemental information about finishing coats (i.e. pigments and fillers) and pre-treatment procedures; and the NMR-MOUSE investigated the wood density and elasticity, revealing wood treatments at the inner and outer surfaces of the plates. The collected results allowed one to gain deeper insight into the ancient processes adopted in the Cremonese violin making workshops during the considered period and subsequent restoration efforts.

『테일 오브 테일즈』에 나타난 이탈리아 바로크 미학

『테일 오브 테일즈』에 나타난 이탈리아 바로크 미학

Italian Baroque music

Italian Baroque music

Invertir en arte: la colección de pintura reunida por el comerciante estadounidense Richard Worsan Meade en Cádiz entre 1804 y 1820

Las guerras napoleónicas fueron una oportunidad para algunos comerciantes estadounidenses para comerciar con España. El comerciante estadounidense Richard W. Meade se estableció en Cádiz entre 1804 y 1820. En estos años consiguió acumular una importante fortuna. Su estancia en Cádiz durante la invasión francesa le permitió reunir una valiosa colección de obras de arte, sobre todo pintura barroca española e italiana. A través de los catálogos de subastas de la colección publicados en 1831 y 1853 y de los manifiestos de carga de los barcos llegados a Filadelfia conservados en la Custom House se ha podido conocer casi en su totalidad la colección de pinturas que Richard W. Meade trasladó a Estados Unidos.

Italian Baroque

Italian Baroque

Expanding the conversation: new recordings of Italian Baroque and galant repertory

The ubiquitous titans of late 17th- and 18th-century Italian string music—Corelli, Vivaldi, Tartini, Locatelli, Scarlatti, et alia—finally take a back seat in this recent spate of recordings in order to leave room for some of the lesser-known craftsmen to shine. The composers recorded here have attracted renewed musicological interest in recent decades, yet many of them have remained woefully underrepresented in discographies until now. Each of these albums presents a distinctive case for why recuperation is timely. Four of these albums constitute individual portraits of composers experimenting with the galant style. Their names will likely be unfamiliar to casual listeners, and a great many of the pieces on these recordings are in fact world premieres. This may be because these works had previously fallen into the gap separating the more familiar territories of ‘Baroque’ and ‘Classical’. It may also be because they demand a particular type of attention. Those thirsty for Baroque melodrama or narrative may find this music superficial or trifling, while those with a taste for Classical formalism or intellectual rigour might consider its schematic architecture lacking in complexity, even dinky. The artistry of this music resides at the surface, with focus directed towards the compositional craft with which all tastefully formed component parts have been balanced to one another. It is the musical answer to sprezzatura, that essential quality of ‘studied carelessness’ typical of the courtly environment whence it came—of a world in which appearance was everything.

Spirituality unites Ukraine – the Tenth International Passenger Assembly-2018 the ways of the overcoming of political and spiritual stagnation of society

Spirituality unites Ukraine – the Tenth International Passenger Assembly-2018 the ways of the overcoming of political and spiritual stagnation of society

The use of pottery clay for canvas priming in Italian Baroque – An example of technology transfer

Abstract In the Baroque European painting technology, various coloured clays had been used to prime canvases. These clays are generally considered to be carefully selected in terms of colour and other technological properties (adhesiveness, ductility etc.), as the painting represented the most delicate field of fine art. However, it seems that the availability of the material at a given place as well as its price often played a much more significant role than previously thought. It led to the usage of highly heterogeneous cheap pottery clays in painting, even though they often had to be additionally coloured. For the first time, a clear evidence is provided that a very similar pottery clay material was applied in three different technological ways: i) as a clay body of an unfired terracotta statue created in Florence or Bologna at the end of 16th century, ii) as a secondary putty on the Renaissance painting by Antonello da Saliba (1466–1535), and iii) as a preparation layer – ground – of an oil-on-canvas paintings attributed to Italian Caravaggists (17th century) or also to Carlo Maratta or workshop (1655–1713). The identity of the material was confirmed by mineralogical analyses as well as description of nannofossils, which enable to date the clay to Eocene – Oligocene.

Sacred and secular

Peter Philips (1560/61–1628) and Richard Dering (1580–1630) were English-born composers whose Catholicism forced them to spend most of their careers abroad, largely in the Spanish Netherlands. Philips travelled to Italy in 1582, settled in Antwerp in 1590, and in 1597 obtained a job as organist to the archducal court in Brussels, where he remained until his death. Dering followed a broadly similar trajectory 20 years later: he travelled to Italy in 1612, and by 1617 had obtained a job as organist at a convent of exiled English Benedictine nuns in Brussels, returning to England in 1625. Both composers therefore worked as organists in Brussels from 1617 to 1625, and they may well have known each other. Their careers also brought them into more direct contact with the stylistic innovations of the early Italian Baroque than most of their English contemporaries, and they adapted their own musical output to match, composing Italian-texted madrigals and Latin motets, some with basso continuo parts at a time when these were a rarity in England. Philips is well known to keyboard players due to the inclusion of several of his compositions and arrangements in the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book (his complete keyboard music, also edited by David J. Smith, appears in Musica Britannica vol.75). Dering is better known among viol players, though little of his consort music has been recorded. Some of his motets have entered the choral repertory, with Factum est silentium for six voices being particularly popular on record. Two recent volumes of Musica Britannica present sacred music by Dering (vol.98) and music for instrumental consort by both composers (vol.101), offering the opportunity to consider these expatriate musicians’ work in relation to each other and to their complex historical circumstances.