OVERVIEW

The European Medieval Monumental Arts course is monographic; the specific theme to which the course is dedicated changes each year but the aim is always to critically investigate architecture, painting and sculpture in Italy, Europe and the Mediterranean between 1100 and 1400. Special attention is given to “dynamic” artistic phenomena of interrelation between artistic techniques and different geographical areas in terms of method and merit.

AIMS AND CONTENT

LEARNING OUTCOMES

The objective of the course is to tackle and analyse themes dealing with medieval architecture, figurative arts and applied arts in a European perspective with specific attention to “dynamic” artistic phenomena of interrelation between different cultural areas.

AIMS AND LEARNING OUTCOMES

The fundamental educational objectives of the teaching of Monumental Arts of the European Middle Ages are:

to guide students to face correctly and to understand a theme, a problem, a personality, an artistic phenomenon of medieval times in a historical and critical key;

to provide students with a wealth of specific knowledge in relation to a given topic and train them to use correct methodologies of approach, analysis, discussion, evaluation and historical contextualisation of medieval artistic documents;

to motivate students to study these documents, understood as certificates and monuments of civilization.

PREREQUISITES

General and specific knowledge and skills acquired in the course of Storia dell'Arte Medievale (History of Medieval Art).are required. Please, compare in detail the Teaching Form of the subject, within the Degree Course in Conservation of Cultural Heritage.

The ability to read and understand texts in English

TEACHING METHODS

The 9 cfu course is 60 hours long . Lectures normally use powerpoint presentations.

to enter the lesson channel, please use the following access code:

4568qmh

The 6 cfu course is 40 hours long and is divided into lectures and study surveys. Although the themes are the same, the bibliographical material is reduced.

Images used will be made available to students

SYLLABUS/CONTENT

Programma per 9 cfu

Nicola Pisano: le origini, la formazione e la prima attività fino al pulpito di Siena/ Origins, training and first activity up to the Siena pulpit

Nicola Pisano e il suo ruolo storico nella storiografia artistica italiana da Vasari a Cicognara/Nicola Pisano in historiography from Vasari up to Cicognara

Analisi dei documenti d’archivio/The documents

Aspetti del classicismo nella scultura del XIII secolo fra Europa e Italia/The classical style in European sculpture during the XIIIth century:

• Il contesto europeo: la scultura, la figura, la natura, il pathos, la realtà/European context: sculpture, figure, nature, pathos, reality
• L’Italia meridionale e il contesto federiciano/ The Southern Italy in the Age of emperor Frederick IInd
• La glittica come medium e modello/  Classical sarvings in hard stone as a medium and a model
• Il contesto toscano: modelli antichi, scultori lombardi e bizantini: 1200-1260/ Tuscany around 1200-1260: classical models, lombard an byzatine sculptors

Il “Castello dell’Imperatore” di Prato e il rapporto Apulia/Toscana ghibellina/ The "Emperor Castle" in Prato and the relationships between the Apulia and the Gibelline Tuscany

La Fontana di Piombino/ The Piombino Fountain

La “testa femminile” in pirite aurea di Palazzo Venezia: classicismo e sperimentalismo tecnico/ The Female piryte Head of Palazzo Venezia: classicism an technical experimentations

Il “visibile parlare”: Dante e le arti figurative/ The 'visibile parlare': Dante and visual arts

La lunetta e l’architrave del portale nord della Cattedrale di Lucca/ Nicola Pisano at Lucca Cathedral

Il pulpito del Battistero di Pisa/ The Pisa Papristery Pulpit

La Testa di Apostolo di collezione privata; la Testa del ‘Moro di Pisa’/ The Apostle Head and the 'Moro di Pisa Head': two problems

La bottega di Nicola Pisano a Siena/ Nicola Pisano's workshop in Siena

• Nicola architetto, fra Melano  e il ‘mondo cistercense’/Nicola as an architect, fra Melano and the 'Cistercian world'
• Siena e San Galgano/ Siena and San Galgano monastery
• I capitelli della navata/ The nave capitals of Siena Cathedral
• Le mensole figurate della cupola/ The figured shelves of the Siena Cathedral dome
• La Testa femminile coronata del fianco sud/ The Crowned female head in the southern side of Siena cathedral

I collaboratori/Nicola's collaborators in the Siena workshop: 

• Arnolfo di Cambio
• Fra Guglielmo da Pisa
• Lapo e Donato di Ricevuto
• Giovanni di Nicola Pisano

Esiti: Il pulpito della Cattedrale di Siena e l’arca di san Domenico a Bologna/ Outcomes: The Siena Pulpit and The St.Dominic Tomb in Bologna

Programma per 6 cfu:

Nicola Pisano: le origini, la formazione e la prima attività fino al pulpito di Siena/ Origins, training and first activity up to Siena pulpit

Nicola Pisano e il suo ruolo storico nella storiografia artistica italiana da Vasari a Cicognara/Nicola Pisano in historiography from Vasari up to Cicognara

Analisi dei documenti d’archivio/The documents

Aspetti del classicismo nella scultura del XIII secolo fra Europa e Italia/The classical style in European sculpture during the XIIIth century:

• Il contesto europeo: la scultura, la figura, la natura, il pathos, la realtà/European context: sculpture, figure, nature, pathos, reality
• L’Italia meridionale e il contesto federiciano/ The Southern Italy in the Age of emperor Frederick IInd
• La glittica come medium e modello/  Classical sarvings in hard stone as a medium and a model
• Il contesto toscano: modelli antichi, scultori lombardi e bizantini: 1200-1260/ Tuscany around 1200-1260: classical models, lombard an byzatine sculptors

Il “Castello dell’Imperatore” di Prato e il rapporto Apulia/Toscana ghibellina/ The "Emperor Castle" in Prato and the relationships between the Apulia and the Gibelline Tuscany

La Fontana di Piombino/ The Piombino Fountain

La “testa femminile” in pirite aurea di Palazzo Venezia: classicismo e sperimentalismo tecnico/ The Female piryte Head of Palazzo Venezia: classicism an technical experimentations

Il “visibile parlare”: Dante e le arti figurative/ The 'visibile parlare': Dante and visual arts

La lunetta e l’architrave del portale nord della Cattedrale di Lucca/ Nicola Pisano at Lucca Cathedral

Il pulpito del Battistero di Pisa/ The Pisa Papristery Pulpit

La Testa di Apostolo di collezione privata; la Testa del ‘Moro di Pisa’/ The Apostle Head and the 'Moro di Pisa Head': two problems

La bottega di Nicola Pisano a Siena/ Nicola Pisano's workshop in Siena

• Nicola architetto, fra Melano  e il ‘mondo cistercense’/Nicola as an architect, fra Melano and the 'Cistercian world'
• Siena e San Galgano/ Siena and San Galgano monastery
• I capitelli della navata/ The nave capitals of Siena Cathedral
• Le mensole figurate della cupola/ The figured shelves of the Siena Cathedral dome
• La Testa femminile coronata del fianco sud/ The Crowned female head in the southern side of Siena cathedral

I collaboratori/Nicola's collaborators in the Siena workshop: 

• Arnolfo di Cambio
• Fra Guglielmo da Pisa
• Lapo e Donato di Ricevuto
• Giovanni di Nicola Pisano

RECOMMENDED READING/BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bibliography  for 9 cfu

Bibliography for 6 cfu

Preliminary READINGS, recommended but NOT OBLIGATORY:

O. von Simson, La cattedrale gotica e il concetto medievale di ordine, Bologna, Il Mulino, 1988

R. Bechmann, Le radici delle cattedrali. L’architettura gotica, espressione delle condizioni dell’ambiente, Casale Monferrato, Marietti, 1984

A. Monciatti, L’arte nel Duecento, Torino, Einaudi, 2013

D. Kimpel, I cantieri, in Arti e storia del Medioevo. I, Tempi Spazi Istituzioni, a cura di E. Castelnuovo e G. Sergi, Torino, Einaudi, 2002, pp. 171-197

TEACHERS AND EXAM BOARD

Exam Board

CLARIO DI FABIO (President)

GIANLUCA AMERI

LESSONS

LESSONS START

Lesson start on TEAMS platform: Monday, October 5th

Class Schedule: Mondays and Tuesdays, from 11am to 1pm

To enter the Teams lesson channel, please use the access code (see here, 'Teaching Methods' Section)

Class schedule

MONUMENTAL ARTS OF THE EUROPEAN MIDDLE AGES

EXAMS

EXAM DESCRIPTION

The exam is oral.

The student is invited first to present and discuss a topic, a problem, a work of art of his choice (within the programme); the Commission will then invite him to recognise, identify and place chronologically one or more works of art (among those available on manuals and texts in adoption) and/or to treat a theme, a problem, a concept, a phenomenon, an artifact or a typology of artifacts, an artist, a field, always within the programme.

Each student will come to the exam with his/her own manuals and other textbooks, as well as images in USB flash drive)

ASSESSMENT METHODS

he exam is oral and includes the use of textbook images and those used in class, made available to students.

Evaluation concerns knowledge and skills.

The following will occur:

the ability to respond in compliance with and consistency with the proposed question;

the possession of specific language skills;

the specific knowledge of the topics covered;

the ability to read and decode images;

the ability to refer them to an artist and / or an era and to argue judgment;

the ability to correlate artistic products and historical-cultural phenomena, in the broadest sense of the term.

Based on the degree of achievement of this knowledge and skills, grades above the threshold of sufficiency will be assigned.


Regarding the attribution of the votes:

1. To achieve excellence (grades ranging from 28 to 30 with lode), the candidate must reveal, with excellent expressive skills: marked ability to recognize and classify the proposed artefacts; ability to discuss them, also with interdisciplinary links; availability and aptitude for analysis, in-depth and organic vision of the problems and topics covered by the course

2. an acceptable but predominantly mnemonic knowledge, a superficial analysis and a correct but not always appropriate language will lead to a satisfactory evaluation (good marks from 25 to 27 inclusive) and votes (from 23 to 24);

3. a sometimes incomplete knowledge, a superficial understanding, an intermittent ability to chronologically and historically discuss and place the proposed artistic documents and simplistic or approximate forms of expression may be considered sufficient (18-22);

4. obvious and extensive gaps in the preparation, inappropriate language, lack of reference points regarding the historical-formal location of the works and the topics presented in class will be evaluated negatively.

Exam schedule

FURTHER INFORMATION

Students are urged to register on AulaWeb as soon as possible. This is the only channel that enables teaching staff to immediately and directly contact all registered students for all eventualities, both teaching and practical (announcements, absence, emergencies, etc.).

Students must bring all the necessary material to the exam (texts, images on a usb drive).

Students and final year students are informed that when office hours coincide with exams, office hours are cancelled.