Dr. Dustin Gish Discusses the “Visual Rhetoric” of the Italian Renaissance
As your guide on this journey to Florence, Jewel of the Italian Renaissance, I’m very excited to talk with you about the history and textual legacy of this amazing city-state, from the statesmanship of the Medici family (Cosimo and Lorenzo il magnifico), and the epic poetry of Dante and Petrarca, to the works of the civic humanists and philosophers, Salutati, Bruni, Poliziano, Ficino and Pico. I lived in Rome, Italy, for ten years, and taught at several American universities, frequently leading trips to Tuscany and Florence. During that time, I came to love (almost!) all things Italian, and particularly the beautiful works of the Renaissance. The ancient worlds of both Greece and Rome formally constitute the focus of my academic areas of expertise, but my heart and soul has always been drawn to and inspired by the wonders of the Florentine Renaissance.
Over the years, I led students on trips across Italy to see the amazing artworks of the Renaissance, and I also taught college courses on the history, philosophy, and rhetoric of the Italian Renaissance. Given my special appreciation for Florence, let me offer a glimpse into one aspect of the class on this Jewel of the Italian Renaissance: “The Visual Rhetoric of the Florentine Renaissance.”
Why focus on Florence, as opposed to the Italian Renaissance, or the Renaissance in Rome?
Jacob Burkhardt, one of the finest scholars of The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy, once wrote that a new fact came into being in this place (Italy) at this time (during the Renaissance); namely, “the State as a Work of Art.” Throughout the Medieval era and Renaissance, indeed, until the age of Burckhardt himself in the mid-19th century, ITALY was not a nation. The peoples of the Italian peninsula were not unified, but they were also, to a surprising degree, free – free from feudal overlords and the sovereignty of a single monarch. Italy was not one, but many; composed of ancient cities that held sway over contested regions, each city ruled as a republic or a principality by a minor prince, or a despot: Naples, Rome, Siena, Pisa, Florence, Milan, Genoa, Venice. And what Burckhardt, and we, call “the State” in these cities emerged as the outcome of reflection and calculation. Rule was not just a matter of force alone, or a function of landed hereditary estates possessed by noble houses. The State came into being as the expression of a ruling ethos. And in the city-state of Florence, that emerging work of political art took magnificent shape.
Florence, as a State, was a Republic – a vibrant, commercial Republic – and one that thrived in the 15th century (which, in Italian, is called the Quattrocento, the 1400s). The State was not dominated by a powerful individual or by only one powerful family; the citizens of the Republic were free, and the State itself was ruled by means of a constitutional arrangement of offices and assemblies. The culture of the Florentine Renaissance, for this reason, as opposed to the Renaissance in Rome or Milan or Venice or Naples, was characterized by republican sentiments – by liberty, by citizen participation, and by competition. The Florentine Renaissance, in other words, has the distinctive characteristics (almost unique in Italy) of “a work of art” which has been informed by the nature of the republican state and brought into being by and for free citizens. This is what, I would argue, makes the visual rhetoric of the Florentine Renaissance so fascinating!
Now, what do I mean by “visual rhetoric”?
Rhetoric is the skill or ability to persuade. Aristotle defined “rhetoric” as the capacity, in any given situation, to discern all of the available means of persuasion. Rhetoric, then, is the art of persuasion. But what is visual rhetoric? The art of persuasive expression through a visual medium. The works of art and architecture that I am going to talk about this evening are of course visual masterworks; as such, these works of art have a language that is all their own – architecture, sculpture, painting. Sometimes the language of the arts is very technical, focusing on materials, or colors, or textures, or composition, or style. This is the language spoken by art historians. But what I want to call your attention to this evening is the way these works of art spoke within their original historical context. These works of art have a voice of their own; these works of art speak to us – and through them, across the ages, we can hear not only the voices of the artists that created them but also the voice of Florence itself, the visual rhetoric of the Florentine Renaissance.
Through the visual rhetoric of these works, we are being persuaded … of the greatness of Florence, and, in particular, of the greatness of republican Florence, and of the Florentine Renaissance during the Quattrocento (15th century) and Cinquecento (16th century).
The “Renaissance” in Florence, as we all know, represented a “re-birth” (as one says in Italian, rinascimento, though our English word derives from the French, renaissance). The visual rhetoric of this re-birth, this renaissance in Florence, speaks to us persuasively of Ideas and Concepts of Design which are literally and figuratively being represented right before our eyes in the works of art and architecture themselves. Ideas about what Beauty is, and how it is best seen through the human form and through principles of design; ideas about what it means to be human, and about our place in the world, as the maker and measure of all things; ideas about what it means to create – human making, bringing-into-the-world, and begetting representations of the Beautiful and of Justice; the visual rhetoric of the Florentine Renaissance speaks to us of the noble Idea that the human mind and hand, through works of architecture and art, can bring into being a city worthy of free human beings; it speaks to us about how the Florentines in the Quattrocento sought to create a city for themselves wherein their self-conscious conception of human nature would be enshrined within an outward temple worthy of its inner beauty and soul. Theirs was a Republic, at its best, striving for greatness and perfection – the idea of civic humanism represented in the visual rhetoric of the Florentine Renaissance. And, of course, these ideas represented in the visual rhetoric of the Quattrocento in Florence were inspired by and reflect the “re-birth” of Ideas first conceived, made, and cultivated in antiquity by the ancient Greeks and ancient Romans.
And what I want to bring to your attention, as one aspect of this 6-week class during the Fall at the Women’s Institute of Houston, is that the Visual Rhetoric of the Florentine Renaissance goes far, far beyond simply reviving antiquity, the Ancients – those Giants of the Past whose majestic ruins had dominated the medieval centuries. The visual rhetoric of the Florentine Renaissance proclaims itself through architecture and art to embody a greatness that strives against and rivals the Ancients. The visual rhetoric of the Florentine Renaissance, the monumental architecture and majestic work of painting and sculpture – by Brunelleschi, Ghiberti, Donatello, Alberti, Botticelli, Leonardo, and Michelangelo – see to surpass even the Ancients in excellence. And in doing so, the visual rhetoric of their striving for greatness even reached beyond their own times, into ours.
For a quick glimpse of these magnificent artworks, take a look at the images in this slideshow: Visual_Rhetoric_of_the_Florentine_Renaissance