Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dsjbd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-26T10:07:24.272Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Giorgione's Tempest, Studiolo Culture, and the Renaissance Lucretius*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Stephen J. Campbell*
Affiliation:
The Johns Hopkins University

Abstract

The invention of Giorgione's much-interpreted painting known as The Tempest can be explained with reference to the De rerum natura of Lucretius. Lucretius provides the essential connection between the main elements of the painting: a male 'wanderer,' a lightning bolt, broken columns, a naked, nursing female, and a landscape rendered according to momentary, fleeting appearances. The invention of the painting also responds to the way Lucretius was read around 1500, to the specific interests of the poet's Renaissance readers and imitators, and to forms of self-cultivation associated with the ownership of a studiolo.

Type
Studies
Copyright
Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 2003

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

I would like to thank Jaynie Anderson, Shane Butler, and Ann Kuttner for their invaluable help with this project.

References

Allen, Michael J. 1998. Synoptic Art: Marsilio Ficino on the History of Platonic Interpretation. Florence.Google Scholar
Anderson, Jaynie. 1997. Giorgione: The Painter of ‘Poetic Brevity.’ New York and Paris.Google Scholar
Bacchelli, Franco. 1998. “Science, Cosmology and Religion in Ferrara, 1520-1550,” in Dosso's Fate, 333-59.Google Scholar
Battilotti, Donata and Maria Teresa Franco. 1978. “Regesti di committenti e dei primi collezionisti di Giorgione.” Antichità viva, 4-5, 53-87.Google Scholar
Brown, Alison. 1997. “De-civilizing the Renaissance.” Renaissance Studies 15:412.Google Scholar
Brown, Clifford and Hickson, Sally. 1997. “Caradosso Foppa (ca. 1452-1526/27).” Arte Lombarda 119/1:939.Google Scholar
Brown, Patricia. 1996. Venice and Antiquity: The Venetian Sense of the Past. New Haven and London.Google Scholar
Campbell, Stephen. 1997. Cosme Tura of Ferrara. Style, Politics and the Renaissance City 1450-1495. New Haven and London.Google Scholar
Campbell, Stephen. 2000. “Mantegna's Parnassus. Reading, Collecting and the Studiolo.” Re-Valuing Renaissance Art. Ed. Gabriele Neher and Rupert Shepherd, 69-87. Brookfield, VT.Google Scholar
Carroll, Linda. 1992. “Giorgione's Tempest: Astrology is in the Eyes of the Beholder,” in Reconsidering the Renaissance. Ed. M. A. di Cesare, 125-40. Binghamton, NY.Google Scholar
Chambers, David and Brian Pullan, eds. 1992. Venice: A Documentary History, 1450-1630. Oxford.Google Scholar
Cioci, Francesco. 1991. La Tempesta interpretata died anni dopo. Florence.Google Scholar
Colie, Rosalie. 1973. The Resources of Kind: Genre Theory in the Renaissance. Ed. Barbara K. Lewalski. Berkeley.Google Scholar
Conte, Gian Biagio. 1994. Genres and Readers: Lucretius, Love Elegy, Pliny's Encyclopedia. Trans. G. W. Most. Baltimore and London.Google Scholar
Dempsey, Charles. 1992. The Portrayal of Love. Botticelli's ‘Primavera’ and Humanist Culture at the Time of Lorenzo the Magnificent. Princeton.Google Scholar
Dempsey, Charles. Dosso's Fate: Painting and Court Culture in Renaissance Italy. 1998. Ed. Luisa Ciammitti, Steven Ostrow, and Salvatore Settis. Los Angeles.Google Scholar
Dionisotti, Carlo. 1995. Aldo Manuzio. Umanista e Editore. Milan.Google Scholar
Egan, Patricia. 1959. “Poesia and the Fete champetre. “ The Art Bulletin 41:303-13.Google Scholar
Elkins, James. 1993. “On Monstrously Ambiguous Paintings.” History and Theory 32:227-48.Google Scholar
Emison, Patricia. 1997. Low and High Style in Italian Renaissance Art. New York.Google Scholar
Farago, Claire. 1992. Leonardo da Vinci's Paragone: A Critical Interpretation with a new edition of the text in the Codex Urbinas. New York and Leiden.Google Scholar
Ferriguto, A. 1933. Attraverso i “misteri“di Giorgione. Castelfranco Veneto.Google Scholar
Findlen, Paula. 1994. Possessing Nature: Museums, Collecting, and Scientific Culture in Early Modern Italy. Berkeley, London and Los Angeles.Google Scholar
Fowler, Alistair. 1982. Kinds of literature: an Introduction to the Theory of Genres and Modes. Cambridge.Google Scholar
Gaisser, Julia Haig. 1993. Catullus and his Renaissance Readers. Oxford.Google Scholar
Galand-Hallyn, Perrine. 1995. Lesyeux de Teloquence. Poétiques humanistes de I'evidence. Orléans.Google Scholar
Garin, Eugenio. ed. 1958. IIpensiero pedagogico dello umanesimo. Florence.Google Scholar
Garin, Eugenio. 1959. “Ricerche sull'epicureismo del Quattrocento,” in Epicurea in memoriam Hectoris Bignone, 217-37. Genoa.Google Scholar
Gilbert, Creighton. 1952. “On Subject and Non-Subject in Italian Renaissance Pictures.” Art Bulletin 34:202-16.Google Scholar
Gilbert, Felix. 1967. “Cristianesimo, umanesimo e la bolla Apostolki Regiminis del 1513.” Rivista storica italiana 79:976-90.Google Scholar
Goddard, Charlotte. 1991. “Pontano's Use of the Didactic Genre: Rhetoric, Irony and the Manipulation of Lucretius in Urania.” Renaissance Studies 5:250-62.Google Scholar
Goddard, Charlotte. 1993. “Lucretius and Lucretian science in the works of Fracasroro.” Res publica litterarum 16:185-92.Google Scholar
Godman, Peter. 1998. From Poliziano to Machiavelli: Florentine Humanism of the High Renaissance. Princeton.Google Scholar
Goldfarb, Hilliard. 1984. “An early masterpiece by Titian rediscovered, and its stylistic implications.” The Burlington Magazine 126:419-21.Google Scholar
Grassi, Ernesto. 1988. Renaissance Humanism: Studies in Philosophy and Poetics. Binghamton, NY.Google Scholar
Hadzsits, George. 1935. Lucretius and His Influence. New York.Google Scholar
Hale, John R. 1988. “Michiel and the Tempesta: The Soldier in a Landscape as a Motif in Venetian Painting,” in Florence and Italy: Renaissance Essays in Honor of Nicolai Rubinstein, eds. P. DenleyandC. Elam, 405-18. London.Google Scholar
Hochman, Michel. 1998. “Genre Scenes by Dosso and Giorgione.” In Dosso's Fate, 63-83.Google Scholar
Holberton, Paul. 1991. “Clutching False Gods.” Art History 14:126-29.Google Scholar
Holberton, Paul. 1995. “Giorgione's Tempest or ‘Little Landscape with the Storm with the Gypsy: More on the Gypsy, and a Reassessment.” Art History 18:383403.Google Scholar
Hope, Charles. 1983. “Poesie and Painted Allegories” in The Genius of Venice, ed. Jane Martineau and Charles Hope, 3537. London.Google Scholar
Howard, Deborah. 1985. “Giorgione's Tempesta and Titian's Assunta in the Context of the Cambrai Wars.” Art History 8:271-89.Google Scholar
Kallendorf, Craig. 1999. Virgil and the Myth of Venice. Books and Readers in the Italian Renaissance. Oxford.Google Scholar
Kaplan, Paul. 1986. “The Storm of War: The Paduan Key to Giorgione's Tempesta.” Art History 9:405-27.Google Scholar
King, Margaret L. 1986. Venetian Humanism in an Age of Patrician Dominance. Princeton.Google Scholar
Klein, Robert. 1970. “La Bibliotheque de la Mirandole et le Concert Champetre de Giorgione,” in La forme et Tintelligible, 193203. Paris.Google Scholar
Kraye, Jill. 1988. “Moral Philosophy,” in The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy, ed. Charles Schmitt, et. al, 303-86. Cambridge.Google Scholar
Lactantius, . 1964. The Divine Institutes. Trans. M. F. McDonald. Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Lactantius, . 1844. Divinae Institutiones. In Patrologia Latina, ed J. P. Migne. Vol. 6, cols. 0111a-0822A. Paris.Google Scholar
Lettieri, Dan. 1994. “Landscape and Lyricism in Giorgione's Tempesta.” Artibus et Historiae 30:5570.Google Scholar
Liebenwein, Wolfgang. 1977. Lo Studiolo: Die Enstehung eines Raumtyps und seine Entwicklung bis um 1600. Berlin.Google Scholar
Lucco, Mauro. 1989. Le tre eta dell'uomo. Florence.Google Scholar
Lucretius, Titus Carus. 1565. T. Lucretij Cari de rerum natura libri sex. Ed. Dionysus Lambinus. Paris.Google Scholar
Lucretius, Titus Carus. 1982. De rerum natura. Trans. W. H.D. Rouse; revised Martin F. Smith. Cambridge, MA.Google Scholar
Luzio, Alessandro, and Renier, Rodolfo. 1899. “La coltura e le relazioni letterarie di Isabella d'Este Gonzaga.” Giornale storico della letteratura italiana 33:162 and 34:1-97.Google Scholar
Mantuanus, Baptista. 1500. Contra poetas impudice loquentes [F Baptistae Mantuani, Carmelitae theologi, Aureum contra impudice scribentes opusculum], Gaspard Philippe for Denis Roce. Paris.Google Scholar
Manuzio, Paolo. 1560. Lettere volgari. Venice.Google Scholar
Massa, E.. 1992. L'eremo, la Bibbia e il medioevo in umanisti veneti delprimo Cinquecento. Naples.Google Scholar
Merchant Writers of the Italian Renaissance. From Boccaccio to Machiavelli. 1999. Ed. Vittore Branca, trans. Murtha Baca. New York.Google Scholar
Morelli, Giovanni Pagolo. 1956. Ricordi. Ed. V. Branca. Florence.Google Scholar
Muraro, Michelangelo. ed. 1987. La letteratura, la rappresentazione, la musica al tempo e nei luoghi di Giorgione. Rome.Google Scholar
Nova, Alessandro. 1998. “Giorgione's Inferno with Aeneas and Anchises for Taddeo Contarini.” In Dosso's Fate, 41-62.Google Scholar
Pagnoni, Maria R. 1974. “Prime note sulla tradizione medievale e umanistica di Epicure” Annali della scuola normale superiore di Pisa, Classe di lettere eftlosofia ser. 3, 4:1443–77.Google Scholar
Pino, Paolo. 1960. Dialogo di Pittura in Trattati d'arte del Cinquecento, ed. P. Barocchi, 3 vols. 1:95139. Bari.Google Scholar
Pio, Giovanni Battista. 1511. In Carum Lucretium poetam Commentarii a Ioanne Baptista Pio editi: codice Lucretiano diligenter emendato: nodis omnibus et difficultatibus apertis: obiter ex diversis auctoribus turn grecis turn latinis multa leges enucleata: que superior etas aut tacuit aut ignoravit. Bologna.Google Scholar
Poliziano, Agnolo. 1996. Silvae. Ed. Francesco Bausi. Florence.Google Scholar
Pontano, Gian Gioviano. 1513. Pontani Opera. Urania, sive de stellis libri quinque. Venice.Google Scholar
Pontano, Gian Gioviano. 1943. I Dialoghi. Ed. Carmelo Previtera. Florence.Google Scholar
Pontano, Gian Gioviano. 1948. Ioannis Ioviani Pontani Carmina. Ed. J. Oeschger. Bari.Google Scholar
Prete, Sesto. 1978. Studies in Latin Poets of the Quattrocento. Lawrence, KS.Google Scholar
Raimondi, Ezio. 1974. “II primo commento umanistico a Lucrezio,” in Tra latino e volgare: Per Carlo Dionisotti. 2:641-74. Padua.Google Scholar
Rava, A.. 1920. “II ‘camerino delle Antigaglie’ di Gabriele Vendramin.” Nuovo Archivio Veneto n.s. 39:155-84,Google Scholar
Reeve, Michael. 1980. “The Italian Tradition of Lucretius.” Italia medioevale e umanistica 23: 748.Google Scholar
Renaissance Venice and the North. Crosscurrents in the Time of Bellini, Dürer and Titian. 1999. Ed. Beverly L. Brown and Bernard Aikema. New York.Google Scholar
Robey, David. 1984. “Humanist Views on the Study of Poetry in the Early Renaissance.” History of Education 13:725 Google Scholar
Rosand, David. 1992. “Pastoral Topoi: On the Construction of Meaning in Landscape,” in The Pastoral Landscape, ed. John Dixon Hunt, 161-77. Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Scala, Bartolomeo. 1997. Humanistic and Political Writings. Ed. Alison Brown. Tempe, AZ.Google Scholar
Schmitter, Monika. 1997. “The Display of Distinction: Art Collecting and Social Status in Early Sixteenth Century Venice.” Ph. D. Thesis, The University of Michigan. Ann Arbor.Google Scholar
Serlio, Sebastiano. 1540. Regole generali di architettura. Venice.Google Scholar
Settis, Salvatore. 1990. Giorgione's Tempest: Interpreting the Hidden Subject. Chicago.Google Scholar
Sheard, Wendy S. 1983. “Giorgione's Tempesta: External vs. Internal Texts.” Italian Culture 4:145-58.Google Scholar
Stefanini, Luigi. 1955. Ilmotivo della ‘Tempesta’ di Giorgione. Padua.Google Scholar
Syson, Luke, and Thornton, Dora. 2001. Objects of Virtue. Art in Renaissance Italy. London.Google Scholar
Thornton, Dora. 1997. The Scholar in His Study. Ownership and Experience in Renaissance Italy. New Haven and London.Google Scholar
Trinkaus, Charles, 1970. In Our Image and Likeness. Humanity and Divinity in Italian Humanist Thought. 2 vols. London.Google Scholar
Tschmelitsch, G. 1966. Harmonia est discordia concors. Ein Deutungsversuch zur ‘Tempest des Giorgione I Un saggio d'interpretazione della ‘Tempesta del Giorgione. Vienna.Google Scholar
Tschmelitsch, G. 1973. Zorzo, genannt Giorgione. Der Genius undsein Bannkreis. Vienna.Google Scholar
Venturi, Lionello. 1908a.“Le Compagnie della Calza (sec. XV-XVI).” Nuovo Archivio Veneto n.s. 8, 16, pt. 2:161221.Google Scholar
Tschmelitsch, G. 1908b “Le Compagnie della Calza (sec. XV-XVI).” Nuovo Archivio Veneto n.s. 8, 17, pt. 1:140233.Google Scholar
Vespucci, Amerigo. 1992. Letters from a New World. Amerigo Vespucci's Discovery of America. Ed. Luciano Formisano, trans. David Jacobsen. New York.Google Scholar
Wind, Edgar. 1969. Giorgione's Tempesta. With Comments on Giorgione's Poetic Allegories. Oxford.Google Scholar
Wittkower, Rudolf. 1963. “L'Arcadia e il Giorgionismo,” in Umanesimo Europeo e Umanesimo Veneziano, ed. V. Branca, 473-84. Florence.Google Scholar
Zampetti, Pietro, 1981. “La Quiete dopo la Tempesta,” in Giorgione e TUmanesimo Veneziano, ed. R. Pallucchini, 1:275-92. Florence.Google Scholar