‘Ut pictura poesis’ in Giovan Battista Moroni’s “Portrait of Giovanni Bressani” (1562): modes and motifs

  • Federica Pich School of Languages, Cultures and Societies (LCS) University of Leeds
DOI: https://doi.org/10.6093/sigma.v0i1.5502

Abstract

The article proposes an interpretation of Moroni’s Portrait of Giovanni Bressani (1562, Edinburgh, National Gallery of Scotland) in the light of the verbal and visual tradition of ut pictura poesis. The iconotextual nature of the painting is explored by means of a close reading supported by comparisons with other portraits, literary texts, and treatises on art and poetry. The portrait’s specific combination of readable and unreadable inscriptions highlights the iconic dimension of words, undermining the conventional distinction between painting and poetry that the image seems to endorse, while continuing to posit poetry as ultimate ‘other’.

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Author Biography

Federica Pich, School of Languages, Cultures and Societies (LCS) University of Leeds

Federica Pich è Lecturer in Italian alla University of Leeds, dove co-dirige il Leeds Centre for Dante Studies. Dopo gli studi alla Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, le sue ricerche si sono concentrate soprattutto sulla poesia lirica, su Ariosto e sul rapporto tra letteratura e arti visive nel Rinascimento. Ha pubblicato una monografia, I poeti davanti al ritratto. Da Petrarca a Marino (2010), e curato l’antologia Poesia e ritratto nel Rinascimento (2008), in collaborazione con Lina Bolzoni. Il suo lavoro di ricerca intreccia un approccio interdisciplinare allo studio dei topoi e della storia della cultura con un forte interesse per la teoria e la storia dei generi letterari. Il suo attuale progetto di ricerca, Petrarch Commentary and Exegesis in Renaissance Italy (c. 1350-c. 1650), finanziato dall’Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), prevede una collaborazione tra le università di Oxford, Leeds e Manchester.

Published
2018-03-22
How to Cite
PichF. (2018). ‘Ut pictura poesis’ in Giovan Battista Moroni’s “Portrait of Giovanni Bressani” (1562): modes and motifs. SigMa - Rivista Di Letterature Comparate, Teatro E Arti Dello Spettacolo, (1), 393-425. https://doi.org/10.6093/sigma.v0i1.5502
Issue
No 1 (2017): The sense of an ending in contemporary fiction
Section
Varia

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