Tom Nichols

arte religiosa la rappresentazione dell'elemosina funziona normalmente come un luogo di risoluzione. Nel momento in cui le necessità materiali del povero sono soddisfatte dall'atto caritativo, lo sono anche quelle spirituali del ricco che cerca giustificazione agli occhi di Dio. Questo segno potente della soddisfazione del corpo e dello spirito è ampiamente rappresentato senza problemi nel contesto dell'arte cristiana. Esso esprime la virtù capitale cristiana della caritas, sia nel significato di amore per il proprio prossimo (amor proximi), sia in quello di amore di Dio (amor Dei). La rappresentazione della santa elemosina rimase molto forte per tutto il Rinascimento nell'arte italiana, anche se a volte fu attaccata nel nord riformato dopo il 1520 1. Tuttavia quando è staccata dal suo contesto religioso tradizionale, e collocata nel mondo moderno secolare, ad esempio nelle rappresentazioni commissionate da un potente Stato rinascimentale per mostrare la propria pietà, l'immagine dell'elemosina diventa più problematica. Nel momento in cui entra nella Storia ed è collocata in un luogo, in una società o un tempo particolare, la sua efficacia come immagine di risoluzione subisce una certa pressione. In questo nuovo contesto può entrare in conflitto con altre idee e narrazioni, come quelle che promuovono lo Stato come entità perfetta; l'immagine ideale dell'elemosina è compromessa da ciò che possiamo definire la sua "perdita" semantica di signifi

Local and Non-Local in Jacopo Bassano's Depictions of Peasants When considering Jacopo Bassano's depictions of peasants it is tempting to draw contrasts with the scenes of village life in Flanders by his great contemporary, Pieter Bruegel the Elder. Bruegel created a superb visual vocabulary of peasant life, but was nonetheless closely attached to the culture of the archprogressive, capitalistic metropolises of Antwerp and Brussels. Bassano, on the other hand, was born, lived and worked in the rural environs of the small agrarian town of Bassano del Grappa. When he painted peasants, Bassano perhaps had no need of the disguise that Bruegel was said to have worn on his village visits. 1 If it is no longer possible to understand the Flemish master as 'peasant Bruegel', then perhaps Bassano's contrasting rural identity might lead us to see him as 'peasant Bassano'. A number of art historians over the past few centuries have understood the master from the Veneto in precisely this light: as an innocent country painter who worked in isolation fromand perhaps even in opposition to-the sophisticated culture of the cities, simply painting what he saw around him in the vicinity of his home town. 2 But more recent studies have shown that many of his ruralised paintings featuring peasants and animals in the rolling wooded landscapes of the Bassano area were commissioned by patrons and collectors from beyond this immediate local scene. 3 Like the peasant works of Bruegel, those of Bassano were not typically made for peasant eyes, or to reflect details of

early commissions, such as the Adoration of the Magi and Saint Jerome, are followed by the artist's own critical remarks about the cultic veneration of images. The religious wars of the early sixteenth century are made vivid through mention of how the artist, even if only in his private writings, voiced criticisms most famously articulated by Martin Luther in the early years of the Reformation. The notes are spare and the bibliography tightly edited. This book is most suitable to those interested in a digestible overview of the artist that deftly draws together analysis of his major artistic projects while signaling at the myriad sources and preoccupations that so drove Leonardo's restless mind.

Le nuove prove esposte nei saggi pubblicati in questa raccolta in-novativa e di larga portata evidenziano la centralità culturale della ca-rità ed elemosina nella Venezia della prima età moderna, mettendo in una nuova prospettiva l'ampia gamma delle sue applicazioni pratiche e simboliche. Nelle mani di grandi istituzioni caritatevoli quali le Scuole Grandi, l'offerta di cibo, bevande, vestiti e immobili (spesso derivanti da lasciti caritatevoli) sembra avere avuto un effetto incisivo nell'alle-viare, almeno parzialmente, le più immediate sofferenze di parte dei poveri della città. Ma resta comunque il fatto che la carità e l'elemosina sostenevano, piuttosto che sfidare, lo status quo sociale ed economico di Venezia. Come in molte altre città dell'epoca, esse servirono ben poco a contrastare l'insorgere di una netta divisione tra i ricchi e i po-veri. In questo senso, carità ed elemosina non offrivano una risposta sostanziale o una reazione alle ineguaglianze e alle insidie del sistema capitalista oligarchico che aveva fatto nascere queste sofferenze. In ef-fetti, la costante esaltazione del concetto di 'carità' potrebbe addirittura essere servita a impedire l'insorgere di quei radicali mutamenti sociali necessari al superamento del problema della povertà. Il concetto-chiave di 'carità' rispondeva alle necessità dello status quo – sociale, economico e morale – soprattutto perché era largamente accettato come il princi-pale meccanismo attraverso cui l'anima di un ricco si poteva assicurare la vita eterna, mentre allo stesso tempo si pensava erroneamente che la beneficenza fosse sufficiente a soddisfare i bisogni materiali dei poveri. Lo scambio caritatevole aveva un ruolo centrale nell'economia so-ciale e morale della Venezia della prima età moderna, fungendo da ide-ale luogo di bilanciamento sociale e morale tra abbienti e non abbienti. Si è calcolato che nel xv secolo fino a due terzi della popolazione cit-tadina abbia dovuto affrontare condizioni di indigenza finanziaria e sia dovuta ricorrere ai meccanismi dell'elemosina. Si trattava quindi di un Tom Tom Nichols Il reale e l'ideale nella rappresentazione dell'elemosina a Venezia nella prima età moderna The new evidence presented in the essays published in this innovative and wide-ranging collection indicates the central cultural significance of charity and almsgiving in early modern Venice, bringing into new perspective the extended range of its practical and symbolic applications. In the hands of leading charitable institutions such as the Scuole Grandi, the giving out of food, drink, clothing and property, often in the fulfilment of charitable bequests, appears to have had an efficacious effect, relieving at least some of the immediate sufferings of a section of the city's poor. But it is nonetheless true that charity and almsgiving supported rather than challenged the social and economic status quo in Venice. As in many other cities of the period, it did little to counteract the development of sharp divisions between rich and poor. To this extent, it did not offer a fundamental answer or response to the inequalities and pitfalls of an oligarchic capitalistic system that had given rise to such suffering. Indeed, the constant elevation of the concept of 'charity' may even have served to prevent the development of the kind of radical social changes needed to overcome the problem of poverty. The key concept of 'charity' served the needs of the social, economic and moral status quo, especially given that it was widely accepted as the main mechanism by which the eternal life of the rich man's soul could be secured, while at the same time being falsely imagined as sufficient to supply the material needs of the poor. Charitable exchange played a central role in the social and moral economy of early modern Venice, functioning as an ideal site of social and moral restitution between the haves and have-nots. It has been calculated that as many as two-thirds of the city's population faced financial destitution at some point in the course of their lives during the sixteenth century, becoming dependent on mechanisms of almsgiving. It was thus an important means of maintaining the existing order, although this controlling function was rarely acknowledged in the legislation, literature or visual art of the period. These discourses focussed instead on the praiseworthy morality of the almsgiver, as also on the sufficienT

, have proved to be something of a triumph. These closely linked shows featured all but one of the thirteen Ceruti paintings discovered in the castle of Padernello near Brescia in the 1920s. Many of the Padernello works are currently in private ownership or hang in lesser known galleries in or around Brescia. The exhibition of them together has powerfully revealed their underlying artistic coherence, as well as their high artistic quality and their extraordinary expressive power. This review focusses on their display at the Getty over the summer: a show that had the virtue of setting them before the myriad eyes of a wide international audience. Supported by a superb catalogue, edited by the exhibition organizer and curator of paintings at the Getty, Davide Gasparotto, the Los Angeles manifestation of the project greatly enhances our understanding of the brilliance and originality of Ceruti's depictions of the impoverished people of his time. The Milan-born painter's interest in depicting street porters, spinners, cobblers, pilgrims, beggars, and other marginal types was to some extent a passing phase within his wider career. It did not persist long after his move from provincial Brescia to the glittering metropolis of Venice in 1736. From that point onwards, Ceruti turned to more usual eighteenth-century artistic productions, focusing on highly finished and brightly toned idealizing portraits of the social elite. It seems likelythough it is not finally confirmedthat the Padernello paintings originally hung together on the walls of an aristocratic country villa near Brescia. They are unusually large for genre paintings, and their tipped-up grounds suggest that they were originally hung high up on the walls and were thus made to be seen from a distance. The original patronage of these works is difficult to ascertain but is likely to have come from one or more family of the Brescian nobility, probably with active interests in social welfare and religious reform in a period of increasing poverty and deprivation in the local area. This possibility is closely discussed in the excellent catalogue to the Getty show, which includes three important essays by leading Italian scholars. Francesco Frangi and Alessandro Morandotti offer a fine profile of Ceruti's life and work; Roberta d'Adda and Gasparotto trace the artistic background to Ceruti's depictions of social marginals back to Caravaggio, via intermediaries such as Jusepe de Ribera, Georges de La Tour, the Le Nain, and the fabulously named (but little-known) 'Master of the Blue Jeans'. And finally, Lorenzo Coccoli offers an intellectually penetrating discussion of the context of Ceruti's work within what he describes as 'the universe of poverties' in the early modern period. Well-written, beautifully illustrated, and meticulously researched, these interpretative essays provide an illuminating backdrop to the painting-by-painting catalogue by Gasparotto that follows. Each entry is fully supported by a descriptive text, including details of provenance, exhibition history, and selected references from the bibliography. The Getty version of the exhibition was presented on a modest scale, with just 17 paintings displayed in a single room. The whole project might have been more extensively and ambitiously conceived, given the importance of its main theme. The inclusion of comparative works by certain of the artists mentioned above, or by leading north Italian genre painters among Ceruti's contemporaries, such as Giuseppe Maria Crespi, would have helped to generate a wider sense of the artistic context of Ceruti's works and therefore of their original meanings and functions. On the other hand, there was also something pleasing about the very precise and concentrated focus