In 1413, Guarino da Verona commented in a sharp, polemical tone on the erudite Florentine, Niccolò Niccoli:
“Neglecting the other aspects of books as quite superfluous, he [Niccolò Niccoli] expends his interest and acumen on the points (or dots) in the manuscripts. […] As to the paper, that is the surface, his expertise is not to be dismissed […]. What a vacuous way to spend so many years if the final fruit is a discussion of the shape of letters, the colour of paper and the varieties of ink […].”
This is a common criticism among his contemporaries. They doubted Niccoli’s humanistic activity as being too fond of detail and unproductive in general, an aspect that has partly obscured his role within the studia humanitatis in subsequent scholarship. Apart from that, however, the quotation also manifests the fascination of humanist circles for the visual and haptic aspects of the page. It is on this intersection of content and form, of word and script, of figurative language and iconicity of script that we want to focus.
The prevailing image of the 'humanists' is mostly derived from their activity as scholars, writers, poets and rhetoricians, that is: the study and writing texts closely tied to 'language' in a broad, but supposedly dematerialised sense. What then are we to make of their interest in materials and materiality? Especially around 1400 – as a new cultural elite established itself by deliberately staging the dawn of a new era – the book or manuscript was not just a medium by which the humanists disseminated their substantive work. Rather, as an aesthetic artefact, it was explicitly central to their material and visual interests. This can be seen, among other things, in the invention of the humanist minuscule by Niccoli and Poggio Bracciolini, which opened new possibilities for the translation of rhetorical concepts into visual effects though the layout of the page. This epistemological dimension of humanist book design provides the starting point for an analysis of the broader material sources of their work.
The growing art and coin collections as well as libraries were thinking spaces (Denkräume) for the studia humanitatis, in which the comparative reception of historical writings and artefacts occurred together, side by side. Furthermore, ancient statues and monuments with their epigraphy could be studied in the public spaces, as illustrated by Poggios’ (lost) Sylloge, a collection of ancient inscriptions, often with political connotations. At the same time, the likes of Ghiberti and Donatello were modernization the use of Capitalis in bronze and marble inscriptions at their sculptural workshops.
Lorenzo Ghiberti’s interest in the shape of letters becomes evident when he compares body and writing in a passage on proportion as the key to beauty in his Commentarii:
"Similarly a script would not be beautiful unless the letters are proportionate in shape, size, position and order and in all other visible aspects in which the various parts can harmonize." Visual markers of enthusiasm for and the reception of antiquity thus appeared beyond the boundaries of the book in works of visual art as well as in the staging of script and inscriptions in the urban space. Time and again, image and materiality went hand in hand, so that their aesthetics and historicization became themselves bearers of meaning.
In this workshop, we want to shed light on the close connections between the studia humanitatis, the collecting of ancient artefacts and books, and the emergence of a material and visual culture of humanism, with a central focus on translations of text into visual forms as well as adaptations and transformations of texts and objects.
Within this context, we look forward to contributions on the following aspects:
- Relationship between humanist book scripts and inscriptions in the visual arts / architecture
- Reception of classical inscriptions within the humanistic book culture
- (Material) staging of inscriptions, such as artistic-technical processes of transferring stone inscriptions into images
- Material supports and surfaces for and the framing of inscriptions
- Script as image and carrier of meaning in the material culture of humanism
- Materiality and iconicity of book pages, book scripts and inscriptions (on altarpieces, in mural cycles, as facade inscriptions and in urban spaces generally)
- Reception and modernisation or conscious historicization of historical examples of the iconicity of script
- Sacral/political connotations of inscriptions
- Design, legibility and reception
We further welcome contributions from the digital humanities, in which the interdisciplinary study of the material culture of humanism is supported and expanded by virtual and technical research as well as presentation possibilities and research tools.
With regard to time and cultural space, we are open to contributions that deal with humanism as a European phenomenon.
The workshop will be held online on the 22 and 23 of March 2023. We welcome abstracts for papers (20 min) as well as for object-related case studies or shorter presentations, to be discussed in a more open format. The contributions can be presented in German, Italian, French or English.
Please send your abstract (200-250 words) and a short CV in a single PDF to philippa.sissis@gmail.com, katharine.stahlbuhk@gmail.com and c.jentzsch@udk-berlin.de by 9 January 2023.
The workshop is intended as a prelude to a series of events (conferences, workshops, etc.), the aim of which is to build up an international network. In a broader framework the focus is on the knowledge cultures of humanism with an interdisciplinary approach inviting neighbouring disciplines such as the history of ideas, philology, palaeography, literary studies, history of philosophy, manuscript studies and history, etc.