This research examines Giovanni Battista Bovicelli’s Regole, passaggi di musica (Venice, 1594), a Renaissance treatise on (vocal) ornamentation. By analyzing Bovicelli’s diminutions, this research aims to identify his characteristic stylistic elements as a composer and singer. Beyond defining these elements, the findings provide a solid foundation for comparing his style with that of Giovanni Bassano, previously studied, and for applying Bovicelli’s techniques in newly written diminutions. More broadly, this study contributes to a deeper understanding of late 16th-century Italian diminution practice. Bovicelli’s treatise offers information for singers about text placement, presents examples of diminutions for various intervals, cadences, and melodic contexts, and includes his own diminuted lines of well-known pieces of the time. This research focuses specifically on the examples of diminutions, analyzing them according to seven musical criteria: note values, range, intervals, melodic sequences, rhythmic patterns and/or sequences, standard figures such as trills and turns, and ficta application. Additionally, in cadences and melodic contexts, the extent to which the original melody is preserved is assessed. The results of this analysis are presented in tables and graphs for a clear overview. Additionally, the research includes a comparative analysis of Bovicelli’s and Bassano’s diminution styles, clarifying both their individual characteristics and, very carefully, broader trends in 16th-century Italian diminution practice. Furthermore, newly composed diminutions in Bovicelli’s style demonstrate the practical application of the findings. These diminutions are written on the well-known Anchor che col partire by Cipriano de Rore (1516-1565). keywords: 16thcentury, diminutions, historically informed performance

Madness, as one of the most controversial and challenging Renaissance topics, was not only deeply influenced by its mediaeval heritage but also the mediaeval perceptions of dominating masculinity and subordinating, vulnerable femininity. Thus, the numerous Renaissance treatises feverishly tried to explain various and, often identical, mental disorders. However, this was done with difficulty. The aim of this paper is to analyze and discuss the gendered perception of two of these mental disorders, namely female hysteria and male melancholy. Hysteria was primarily aestheticized and eroticized, while melancholy was intellectualized. As a man of his time, Shakespeare had surely been familiar with the gendered perception of madness. His portrayal of women in tragedies abounds in varieties due to his direct questioning of these categories. His first hysterical character, Ophelia, is unquestionably conventional while lady Macbeth challenges the established gender roles. King Lear, on the other hand, is a peculiar case of a man suffering from a female disease. Keywords: madness; hysteria; melancholy; Shakespeare; Ophelia; lady Macbeth; king Lear.

Our study aims to reconstruct the history and the appearance of the noble residence of Cetatea de Baltă from the sixteenth‑century mansion to the Jidvei company residence. The research is based on unpublished or scarcely exploited sources, such as the historical inventories of the estate. A manor house preceded the present castle, that in the sixteenth century belonged to the Patócsi and Kendi families, and later to noblemen from the princes’ entourage: Pongrác Sennyei, Menyhárt Bogáthi, János Petki, István Bethlen of Iktár. The latter commissioned the construction of the present castle from 1622 onwards, taking advantage of skilled craftsmen ‘borrowed’ from the princely court of his brother. In 1758, the estate was bought by members of the Bethlen of Beclean family. Miklós Bethlen conducted the Baroque‑style refurbishment of the castle: the construction of a new entrance hall and stairway, a gatehouse and a chapel on two levels in the rear part of the castle. The building has a compact, symmetrical Renaissance layout, without an inner courtyard, fitted with four round towers on the corners. Our sources reveal fresh details of the castle’s functions and interior decoration. The building stands out among the Transylvanian Renaissance residences for its exceptional height of five levels, recalling medieval donjons. The cellars and the ground floor served as storerooms, dungeon and chambers for some of the estate officials. The owners’ chambers were on the first and second floors, as well as the state rooms. The last floor served defensive purposes. The typology of the fortified castles with compact layout derives from Italian Renaissance treatises taken up and adapted north of the Alps, where the defensive elements, although not very effective, still dominated the appearance of the residences of this type. The closest analogies, that preceded the construction of Cetatea de Baltă, are Țopa, the ‘lower castle’ of Sânmiclăuș in Transylvania, and Dolná Mičiná and Kéked in the north of the former Hungarian Kingdom.

The paper aims to analyse the language and style of an Italian Renaissance treatise, Antonio Possevino’s Transylvania, which the author wrote in 1583 and revised for publication in the following years. Despite Possevino’s self-censorship, the publication of the book was stopped by the internal censorship of the Society of Jesus. The paper focuses on the direct tradition of the work, highlighting the language used by Possevino in the manuscripts studied and in the published editions, following the selection that the author makes at the morphological, lexical and syntactic levels. Its aim is to understand how and why Possevino adapts the form of his work to the informational content of the book.

New Books across the Disciplines

The Renaissance treatise De Re Metallica (Georgius Agricola, 1556) is one of the first works that deals in detail with the state of the art of metal mining, compiling the main techniques and mechanical devices used in this industrial activity at that time. An advanced knowledge of the human–machine set is observed in this treatise, from a mechanical and ergonomics point of view. The main objective of this work is to carry out an ergonomics analysis of one of the mechanical devices collected in the sixth book of this treatise. It is intended to show that there was a certain concern for ergonomics in the Renaissance, long before the first appearance of this concept. Specifically, a mine water extraction pump, powered by three different systems, is analyzed. Current ergonomics assessment methods have been used to perform this comparative analysis. The postural load has been assessed by the rapid upper limb assessment (RULA) and the rapid entire body assessment (REBA). The Check List OCRA (occupational repetitive action) has been used to perform the analysis of repetitive movements. The results have shown an evolution of the machine, not only on a mechanical level, but also in movements, postures, and safety of the operator for the three methods applied. It is, therefore, an example of practical and real ergonomics applied to machine design dating from the 16th century. In addition, this work may be a very interesting tool for teaching, since it allows showing examples of ergonomics in productive areas related to historical context.

<p class="VARAbstract">This paper addresses the challenge of digitally reconstructing ruined architectural sites and retracing their history, in order to virtually recompose their geometrical, stylistic and material integrity. To this end, the research team analyzed the ruins of the church of Santa Maria de Monasterio Albo, located in the ancient village of Misterbianco (Sicily) and destroyed (together with the entire hamlet) by the 1669 eruption of Mount Etna. In the last years, some excavation campaigns brought the church to the light, unveiling the remains of the main portal and six altars, which are one of the most remarkable examples of Mannerist art in eastern Sicily. This research aimed to three-dimensional (3D) reconstruct both the altars and the portal, ideally reviving their original 17<sup>th</sup> century configuration. This goal was achieved through an in-depth archival research (documents dating back to the years between 1300 and 1666 were consulted), an analysis of Classic and Renaissance treatises, and two integrated digital survey campaigns (laser scans and photogrammetry). The outcome is represented by the 3D models of the seven artifacts, which include surviving parts reconstructed as photogrammetric meshes, several fragments were placed in their likely early location through a virtual anastylosis, and NURBS (Non Uniform Rational Basis-Splines) surfaces (recreating the no longer existing elements). The latter were 3D modelled based on the treatises (which provided information on the correct proportioning) or in analogy with other coeval similar artifacts. Overall, the digital reconstruction was based on the ethical principles of transparency of the intervention, recognition of non-original additions and distinction between evidence and hypothesis, according to the London Charter and the Seville Principles. The experimentation provides a valid support for possible interventions in the real world and is the starting point to develop a digital archive of the site, which would make the different accuracy levels the reconstruction explicit.</p><p><strong>Highlights:</strong></p><ul><li><p>3D virtual reconstruction is effective to visualize and bring back to life ruined architectural artefacts.</p></li><li><p>Information about the artefacts original appearance was harvested through digital survey campaigns, archival documents, and comparisons with iconographic sources and coeval buildings.</p></li><li><p>The 3D reconstruction follows ethical principles of transparency and combines photogrammetric meshes (partly relocated through a virtual anastylosis) and NURBS surfaces.</p></li></ul>

Reviewed by: Signos vitales. Procreación e imagen en la narrativa áurea by Enrique García Santo-Tomás Xabier Granja Ibarreche García Santo-Tomás, Enrique. Signos vitales. Procreación e imagen en la narrativa áurea. Iberoamericana–Vervuert, 2020. 364 pp. ISBN: 978-3-96869-077-3. This monograph explores representations of childbirth and medical practices such as delivery, midwifery, and breastfeeding through the lens of social and literary codes in Spanish early modernity. Enrique García Santo-Tomás engages with scientific discourses framed by medieval and Renaissance expectations of comportment, [End Page 214] the honor code, as well as life and death. The book is structured around three sections that connect the figure of the midwife and changing gendered practices in the medical field throughout Spain's history. Specifically, regarding obstetrics, this volume explores the staging of birth in theatrical plays, as well as representations of midwives, nascency, breast milk, and gender dynamics in literary works by Miguel de Cervantes, Alonso Jerónimo de Salas Barbadillo, and Francisco Santos. The first section, "Contextos (1500–1586)", follows a historical thread about how the traditionally female dominated field of obstetrics gradually shifted towards men's control. Fueled by commonplace suspicions regarding women's sexual weaknesses and potential corruption by witchery, increasingly complex medical jargon arose to limit communication to male medical professionals. This slowly displaced women, who commonly lacked academic education, from the obstetric practices they had hitherto been performing. García Santo-Tomás connects this shift with discourses about the powers imbued in mothers' milk, the Council of Trent's prohibitions on nudity that affected artistic representations of lactating mothers, and considerations of societal status and the ideas of honor (and dishonor) they entailed. This gendered division pushed the Spanish crown to require midwifes to obtain licenses, which were issued by male doctors, thus further aggravating misogynistic interactions between these men and women. This contextual opening leads to García Santo-Tomás's interpretation of a reciprocal infusion between medicine and theology where "la teología se 'medicalizó' al tiempo que la medicina se teologizó" (81); as well as of the inquisitorial repression faced by the increasing number of medical manuals. The nation, as argued in this volume, progressed towards definitive regulations that were royally decreed in 1750 by Ferdinand VI and embodied a flourishing intersection between political ideals and biological discourses. The second section, "Intervenciones (1580–1670)", is centered around connections between eroticism and medical care, especially as they pertain to theatrical representations. García Santo-Tomás explores the potential erotic approaches to Renaissance treatises on anatomy, which by necessity often covered the bodily needs of a woman in labor. Paired with the mystery surrounding fertility and women's connections to witchery, the fascination with reproductive acts gave way to a conception of midwives as a feminine counter ideal within a complex relationship involving theatricality, sexuality and medicine. Men's curiosity regarding childbirth, viewed at times as a form of invasive contemplation, also lead to the rise of a "metáfora del embarazo masculino" (160), which served authors to present their works as a form of literary parturition made possible by intellectual conception. This section also explores incest as a crime and sin, returning to the Council of Trent to contextualize the norms that specified, among other details, degrees of tolerance in marriages between cousins. García SantoTomás examines representations of incest through their coeval early modern perception as a lower rank offense, similar to adultery and estupro in gravity but not as damnable as sodomy or bestiality. After engaging in this discussion through the lens of endogamy, the author closes this segment by evaluating the usefulness of transgression and taboos as vehicles to both reflect on social forms and ignite narrative drives. The third section, "Imágenes (1613–1698)", analyzes three specific works in detail: Cervantes's La señora Cornelia, Salas Barbadillo's Don Diego de noche, and Santos's [End Page 215] La tarasca de parto en el mesón del infierno. García Santo-Tomás approaches Cervantes's novela ejemplar through the transformative potential of maternity as a novelization of medical care as a transnational phenomenon (227...

This paper reports preliminary results of ongoing interdisciplinary research in digital humanities and animation. This research explores visualisation techniques (e.g., motion graphics, 3D animation, Non-Photorealistic Rendering) to empower the study of depicted objects in Renaissance treatises on architecture and engineering. The aim is to pioneer a method that can be adopted by both scholars in the humanities and practitioners in animation to 1) take advantage of available editions and scholarship via interactive online systems (e.g., Engineering Historical Memory); 2) map and decode visual information and knowledge embodied in manuscripts; 3) create philologically correct 3D models and storytelling to unfold narratives embedded in drawings. As a showcase, this paper used Francesco di Giorgio Martini’s drawings of the Corinthian capital in the manuscripts Ashburnham 361 (Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Florence) and Saluzzo 148 (Musei Reali, Turin).

Abstract This article contributes to the scholarly discussion of the relationship between cinema and dance using Giorgio Agamben’s understanding of dance as gesture. To render Agamben’s critical framework operative, however, one needs to consider his reference to the concept of phantasmata (images) taken from Domenico da Piacenza’s Renaissance treatise on choreography. Agamben returns to this treatise to support his argument that dance is concerned first and foremost with time and memory rather than space and the present. To notate dance as a sequence of moving images is not simply to make visible on screen a series of bodily movements in space. Rather, it means acknowledging that dancing is primarily a mental activity. Taking Agamben’s reflections on dance and using Maya Deren’s work on screen dance as a case-study, this article discusses how cinema and dance together prompt us to undo the economy of bodily movements, restoring the body to us transfigured.

U radu su analizirani novi nalazi renesansnih drvenih stropova u palači Petris-Moise u Cresu ukrašeni oslikanim pločicama i zidni oslici. Elementi konstrukcija tehnički su sofisticirani, izrađeni sukladno renesansnim traktatima o arhitekturi, primjerice kompozitna masivna greda tzv. trave leonardesca. Oslikane stropne pločice po načinu ugradnje i oslikavanja za sada su jedinstven nalaz na području Hrvatske, ali su srodne brojnim ciklusima oslika na stropnim pločicama iz razdoblja od 14. pa do polovice 16. stoljeća u plemićkim rezidencijama južne Francuske, Španjolske, Švicarske i sjeverne Italije. Po dimenzijama, korištenim pigmentima, načinu ugradnje i slikanja te zastupljenim motivima najsličnije su primjerima iz Furlanije. Razlika je u tome što creski primjeri skoro u cijelosti pripadaju likovnom jeziku groteski jer nastaju nešto kasnije, u vrijeme pune afirmacije te vrste dekorativnog repertoara. Konstrukcije i dekorativni elementi pripadaju renesansnoj pregradnji iz druge polovice 16. stoljeća kada su oslikani i zidovi. Temeljem analize grbova i zastupljenih motiva te usporedbe s povijesnim podacima o članovima obitelji Petris identificiran je naručitelj, carski zlatni vitez Ivan Juraj Petris, bliski rođak Frane Petrisa, a iznesena je i pretpostavka kako je ciklus oslika nastao pod utjecajem tog znamenitog renesansnog filozofa.

Reviewed by: Diccionario herbario de textos antiguos y premodernos by Thomas M. Capuano Steven N. Dworkin Capuano, Thomas M., compiler. Diccionario herbario de textos antiguos y premodernos. New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies, 2017. 495 pp. ISBN: 978-1-56954-158-6 Thomas M. Capuano has devoted his career to the study of the texts and the lexicon of medieval and early modern Spanish agricultural, medical, and botanical treatises. The starting point for this activity is his dissertation at the State University of New York, entitled "Agricultural Terminology in Spanish Medieval and Renaissance Treatises" (1986). His research has culminated in 2017 with two major publications, the Diccionario herbario de textos antiguos y premodernos (the work under review), and an edition of the Latin text of Saladino Ferro d'Ascoli's Compendium aromatariorum (ca. 1450) with Alonso Rodríguez de Tudela's El compendio de los boticarios, a 1515 translation of d'Ascoli's work. This edition, published as Volume 71 of Romance Philology (Spring 2017), includes an English translation of the Spanish text prepared by Capuano and Chelsea Firra, and a Glossary that repeats some of the material found in the Diccionario herbario. The Diccionario seeks to record and define those terms referring directly or indirectly to flora found in selected medieval and early modern texts dealing with agriculture, nutrition, and medicine. It does not purport to offer a complete list of all plant names recorded in texts from this period. The main sources range from two texts from the second half of the thirteenth century, the Libro de las formas y de las imágenes (of which only the lengthy Table of Contents has survived) and the cynegetic treatise Libro de Moamín, to Andrés Laguna's translation (1566) of Dioscorides's Materia medicina. The remaining medieval sources are Tratado de agricultura de Ibn Wafid, Los nueve libros de Valerio Máximo, Menor daño de medicina, Suma de la flor de cirugía, Libro de recetas, Compendio de medicina, Libro de los olios, Libro de Palladio, Recetas, Tratado médico, Corbacho, Tratado de la peste, Tratado útil, Compendio de la humana salud, Lilio de medicina, Sumario de la medicina, and Regimiento contra la peste, as well as the 1499 edition of the Comedia de Calisto y Melibea, and several early sixteenth-century editions of the Tragicomedia de Calisto y Melibea. To demonstrate the continued vitality of this lexical field, Capuano includes relevant examples from selected additional texts through the late eighteenth century (all identified in Apéndice I, pp. vi-viii). [End Page 126] The individual entries display a structure that will be familiar to readers who have consulted other dictionaries prepared by -or in collaboration with- the Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies, for example the Diccionario español de textos médicos antiguos (Herrera, 1996) or the Diccionario de la prosa castellana del Rey Alfonso X (Kasten and Nitti, 2002). The headword appears in modern Spanish spelling, followed by a definition in Spanish. In the case of names of plants, the definition is followed in parentheses by the appropriate Latin designation, following Linnaeus's binomial nomenclature. The entry next offers selected examples in context with the precise identification of the location in the text. In the case of words documented with a wide semantic range, the individual meanings are numbered and presented in separate paragraphs. I give here one example chosen at random: s.v. apretar, Capuano distinguishes five meanings, each of which he illustrates with appropriate quotations: 'apiñar estrechamente'; 'unir'; 'apiñarse estrechamente las uvas del racimo'; 'encogerse una planta o parte de ella, como por el frío o por el rigor del trasplante'; 'trepar una planta sobre otra ahogándola'. A separate section lists the forms in their medieval or early- modern orthographical garb as found in the texts and, when relevant, multi- word lexical units (unidades pluriverbales) involving the item in question. Capuano has not limited the dictionary entries to names of plants and herbs. He includes nouns, adjectives, and verbs that appear in the texts with meanings specifically related to the world of plants. The data on these specialized meanings may prove valuable in the preparation of future historical...

El peregrino indiano by Antonio de Saavedra Guzman incorporates new substances into the magic spell. In addition to La Araucana , there are ingredients that come from other discursive traditions: the Renaissance treatises of natural history, the Bible, bestiaries, emblematic literature, magic and grimoires.

. The counsellors in António Ferreira's tragedy, Castro, have often been regarded as scheming and corrupt. This article argues, however, that their arguments echo debates around the virtues of severity and clemency found in Seneca's De clementia and in many Renaissance treatises on kingship. Considering how two different, but equally valid, notions of what a ruler should do push against each other in the stichomythic battles of the play, I show that key terms of moral evaluation end up in flux, thereby rendering the ethical decisions in Castro much more fraught. A renewed focus on rhetoric and on Renaissance treatises on kingship also opens up a new approach to the character Prince Pedro, whose angry and uncontrolled speeches might have led early modern audiences to consider him the most wayward in the play.

The French theoretical thought and architectural drawings of the second half of the 16th– 18th centuries were influenced by Gothic heritage. In the treatises by Philibert Delorme, the features of the ribbed vault, along with pointed and keel arches were discussed, and the “French order” was mentioned. François Blondel notes harmonic proportions of the façade of the Milan Cathedral. Jacques Androuet Ducerceau develops the idea of combining Baroque and late Gothic details in the decoration of buildings; in the treatise The most excellent buildings of France, he reproduces architectural structures of the Late Middle Ages. In the creative work of Etienne Martelange, sketches depicting medieval churches are fundamentally important. Abraham Bosse uses Gothic motifs in his etchings. André Félibien reproduces the construction associated with the French crown. Bernard de Montfaucon in The Monuments of the French monarchy embodied the sculpture of the facades of Gothic churches. Seroux d’Agincourt publishes an essay on history of art meticulously reproducing the works of medieval art. French architectural graphics of the 16th–18th centuries are like a path from Renaissance treatises using Gothic details through the practical study of scientific illustrations, which generally reflects the attitude toward Gothic reminiscences and the main vector of developing graphical reproductions of buildings of this period.

The playful discussion of 'horsemanship' that opens Sir Philip Sidney's Defence of Poesie has been variously interpreted as a straightforward anecdote about the chivalric arts, or an oblique rhetorical flourish, or something in between. This essay suggests a new context for Sidney's exordium by focusing primarily on its affiliation to the genre of the 'Art of Poetry'. In Horace's Ars poetica and other classical, scholastic and Renaissance treatises, horse–men and other unnatural hybrids embody the tension between decorum and poetic liberty. Three major traditions inform this trope: by the Renaissance the centaur could be an allegory of reason's struggle with the passions, an emblem of the poetic imagination, or a figure for compositional hybridity associated, especially, with Lucianic satire. Reading Sidney in the light of these traditions, finally, this essay explores aspects of the centaur's significance in the Defence and the Arcadia, and suggests that this kind of attention to metaphor might provide a bridge between critical and creative modes of Renaissance poetic thought.

As is well known, the Aristotelian understanding of gender identity, dominant in the scholastic culture of this period, proposed a sharp dichotomy between the social roles of the two sexes and the sets of virtues thought proper to them. Aristotle regarded these differences as essential, in that they derived from the supposed biological differences between the sexes. Some Renaissance treatises rejected the old stereotypes and conventional models of female behavior, and we see a project of gender revisionism and a confutation of Aristotelian gender norms. At the end of XVI century Camilla Erculiani, Moderata Fonte, Lucrezia Marinelli engage with the task of refuting scholastic philosophical arguments for female inferiority.

The Rules of Riding: An Edited Translation of the First Renaissance Treatise on Classical Horsemanship. Federico Grisone. Ed. Elizabeth MacKenzie Tobey. Trans. Elizabeth MacKenzie Tobey and Federica Brunori Deigan. Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies 454. Tempe: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2014. xxii + 628 pp. $75. - Volume 68 Issue 3

Taking the case of a late Renaissance treatise on Huguenot architecture, this essay explores the potentials of collage as an expression of confessional contestation in the wake of the French Wars of Religion. The book's hybrid imagery bears a formal language of cutting, removal, and addition, which evokes the confessional violence that precipitated in this period at the scale of the built environment. Illustrated plates depict open-plan temples with their ceilings and floors cut away, as if to reenact pictorially the dismantling of rood screens and liturgical furnishings in Catholic churches during episodes of iconoclastic purification. The same pages feature Calvinist Psalms and pious sayings that were once chanted and sung by French Protestants, as well as inscribed and layered in abundance on the walls of their churches and homes. In this mixed verbal-visual form, the medium of early modern collage was operative in a plurality of sensory registers and at disparate physical scales.

Grisone, Federico. The Rules of Riding: An Edited Translation of the First Renaissance Treatise on Classical Horsemanship. An article from journal Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme (In Celebration of the Fiftieth Anniversary (I)), on Érudit.