III.Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum: Italian Renaissance

Humanism, the renewal of classical antiquity, is universally acknowledged as a key driving force behind Italy’s revitalization in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. In the popular imagination of the period, however, the literary origins of humanism, and thus of the Renaissance, have been eclipsed by Italian artistic achievements, political intrigue, and iconic figures. The idea for restoring glory to Italy by reviving the best features of its ancient ancestry was conceived by the poet Francesco Petrarch (1304-74). Equating language with civilization, Petrarch prescribed recuperating the pristine Latin of Imperial Rome, which, in his opinion, had been contaminated by barbarians after the fall of the Empire. Petrarch's vision was promoted by chancellors (chief bureaucrats) of the Republic of Florence, Coluccio Salutati (r. 1375-1406), Leonardo Bruni (r. 1410-44), and Poggio Bracciolini (r. 1453-49). Administrators by profession but scholars by choice, these “pen-pushers” obsessively collected, copied, and studied early manuscripts of neglected classical texts as models of language and learning. The poster boy of the humanist movement was the doctor of the church and translator of the Bible, St. Jerome (c. 342-420 CE). Plagued by guilt for his love of Roman authors, he dreamed that he was admonished for following Cicero rather than Christ. In short, Renaissance humanism was born of the pen and not the paintbrush or chisel.

The final part of this volume, Italian Renaissance Books, comprises manuscripts and early printed books exhibited at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. It centers on the humanist book as the foremost nexus of literary and visual culture in the Italian Renaissance. The following seven chapters chart the humanist book’s invention in Florence around 1400 to its apotheosis in Venice at the turn of the sixteenth century. “The Florentine Humanist Book” explores the all'antica manuscript, a new style of book designed by early humanists to preserve and elevate the ancient literature they recovered. The appropriation of humanist ideals and manuscripts by Italy’s elites is explored in three essays concerning the magnificent libraries they formed to promote their image as wise and virtuous rulers. “Italian Princely Libraries” showcases humanist manuscripts that belonged to popes, cardinals, and scions of dynasties. “Manuscripts of the Classics” and “Humanist Texts” present works by ancient and Renaissance authors who formed part of the humanist literary canon. Books that served communal and individual expressions of religious faith are explored in “Renaissance Liturgical Books” and “Italian Books of Hours.” The catalogue culminates in “Book Decoration & the Advent of Printing,” which illustrates how Venetian printers successfully combined the ingenuity of German printing technology with the artistic and literary forms of the Italian humanist manuscript to create masterpieces such as the celebrated Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (opposite), and innovations, most notably pocket-sized editions, which transformed publishing.

The exhibition at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum would be unimaginable without the spectacular trove of Italian Renaissance books in Boston-area collections. Highlights include the newly rediscovered prayer book of Pope Julius III (r. 1550-55) and a book used in preparing for Mass in the Sistine Chapel, both painted by the first official illuminator to the popes, Vincent Raymond di Lodeve (d. 1557) (cat. nos. 203 and 221). Not one, but two volumes from the famous set of choir books of the Benedictines of San Sisto in Piacenza are included (cat. nos. 225-26). Books of hours that belonged to Isabella, Queen of Naples (1424-65) and Isabella d’Este, Marchioness ofMantua (1474-1539), would have delighted Isabella Stewart Gardner’s fascination with historical art patrons who shared her name (cat. nos. 228, 232). Also paying homage to the founder of the museum hosting this part of the exhibition are a manuscript of the Divine Comedy created within a century of the death of Dante (Gardner’s favorite Italian author), the first two illustrated editions of the poem, and its first appearance in a portable format (cat. nos. 214, 247-49). All four books come from Gardner’s collection which was called Fenway Court Library during her lifetime.

If Harvard’s Houghton Library is the Boston-area’s Bibliotheca Apostolica Vaticana (described by a pope as “a sea into which all rivers shall flow”), Fenway Court Library is its Biblioteca Malatestiana. Like Malatesta Novello’s masterpiece, it is a rare surviving library of a single bibliophile, its book collection intact in its original arrangement, housed in an edifice of outstanding beauty designed as a temple to art and culture. In addition to hosting the exhibition Italian Renaissance Books, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum’s renowned Italian Renaissance art collection inspired the single focus on manuscripts produced in that era. It also furnished an installation evoking a studiolo, dominated by a painting, St. Jerome in His Study (loaned by Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum), with antique sculpture, medals, and autograph letters on the topic of books exchanged by humanists. 2 These letters show that Gardner viewed her book-collecting activities as a continuation of the tradition of great library-building in the Renaissance.