RENAISSANCE INTARSIA - D - Gubbio

RENAISSANCE INTARSIA - D - Gubbio

When Duke Federico da Montefeltro had finished decorating his study in Urbino, he sent his workers over to his summer palace at Gubbio (a hill-town southwest of Urbino).
 

They (Francesco di Giorgio, Giuliano and Benedetto da Maiano, and perhaps Baccio Pontelli) in 1476 created a wood inlay studiolo for him there very like the study in Urbino.
This studiolo is no longer in Gubbio, however; the wood inlay part of it has been transported to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.  (See the museum's website and Olga Raggio's terrific pdf article posted there, or look at Luciano Cheles' Urbino studiolo book that includes Gubbio.)
          What I would like to explore here is how Gubbio fits into the chronology of one-point perspective inlay experimentation. After the Florentine sacristy intarsia is produced in 1436, the intarsia artists become more and more sophisticated in their ability to render trompe l'oeil (illusionistic) scenes on the walls so that, by the time the study in Urbino is completed, in 1476, they have a repertoire of lattice-work doors, cupboards with shelves and objects, benches, and even landscape glimpses that appear to mirror reality with one-point perspective.

 
With their increased skill comes confidence. The Gubbio studiolo is smaller, tidier, and more refined in its imagery than the Urbino study.

It includes a mazzocchio (hat-form) on a bench, musical instruments in the cupboards (cittern and drum), the garter of the Order of the Garter (a knighthood granted to Federico in 1474), scientific and writing implements, and even an attempt to render a ceramic mug in wood inlay (on left upper shelf.)

The benches are given more prominence here than in Urbino. The wall surface is entirely flat, but the illusion is that the benches project out from the wall of the picture plane. Mr. Theodore (Ted) Low, Director of the Education Department at the Walters Art Gallery in Baltimore, Maryland, used to say that, when he worked at the Met and led a tour into the Gubbio room, that inevitably someone would try to sit down on the benches in the study

and fall to the floor because there are no real benches, just the intarsia illusion of them. His story certainly speaks to the realistic quality of the wood inlay perspectives. The fictive light casting a shadow on the legs of the benches (in reality just darker wood set into the inlay) makes the bench appear to respond as a real bench would to light, even with the shadow changing direction slightly for refraction.

In this study are also sections of the benches where the sitting surface seems to be lifted up with lattice grillwork underneath.The illusion would have been even more believable when there was real light coming from the window of the palace into the room:

The benches in Gubbio are certainly good examples of FORWARD SPACE in inlay work, but, as in Florence and Urbino, the intarsia workers want new challenges, and the benches are something they already know how to do.
      The new problem the artists pose for themselves in Gubbio relates directly back to the Florentine sacristy candlestick that projected forward from the picture plane. In Gubbio the object they choose to set into FORWARD SPACE is a triangular-shaped lectern with specific printed pages of a book on it. The lectern is placed standing on one of the benches with its octagonal base forward of the cupboards.

The illusion is that the lectern rests on the bench; the shadow the lectern casts gives substance to the fictive air between the pole and the back wainscoting of the wall. When we look at the triangular top of the lectern, where the book rests and which has an open hole for reading rulers, the wood inlay illusion is not consistent, though. Instead of being placed forward of the wainscoting, the book and its support appear to slide back into the cupboard behind the lattice-work doors. What has happened to the intensely perfect one-point perspective of the rest of the study?
       The words written on the book pages of the lectern are a clue. The book is Vergil's Aeneid, 10: 635-84 and the pages displayed describe the death of Pallas, a beautiful youth who fought for Troy:
    Every man's last day is fixed.
    Lifetimes are brief and not to be regained,
    For all mankind. But by their deeds to make
    Their fame last: that is labor for the brave.
                   (Raggio, p.31, trans. R. Fitzgerald,1990, p.310)
These are words chosen deliberately to praise Federico and his deeds as well as the labor of the intarsists themselves.
The memento mori of Vergil's text reminds the viewer that everyone's life passes quickly and that great deeds (such as the creation of the studiolo) are needed to ensure that fame lives beyond death. The round mirror hanging above the lectern has an inscription, "G BALDO DX", the name of Federico's son, Duke Guidobaldo, his heir. The words set out on the fictive lectern reveal to the viewer that the end of the great era of intarsia work has come with the death of Federico, its patron. Federico dies in Ferrara in 1482 and these additions to the room were probably added after his death, not by request of his son, who was only 11 in that year, but probably by the request of Federico's closest advisor, the count Ottaviano Ubaldini della Carda. (Raggio, p.33). The lectern with Latin inscription replaces the lit candle of the Florentine sacristy with a similar object on similar stand. Instead of a positive eternal light for sacred services, though, the lectern provides an image of the inevitability of human death. The great deeds of Vergil's fame are visible in the work required to make a fictive lectern out of colored pieces of wood. The intarsists place wood words to speak of Federico's eternal fame, but as they do, they also leave a lasting impression of their own talent.

If we were unsure that the end of the wood inlay study were spelt out in this image, the exit door from the study would put the cap in place:

The book on the bench is closed rather than open, the musical instruments hung up, and the lute and collar of Ermine stick out of the cupboard door like tongues from the last gasp of an open mouth:


These afterthoughts are the end glimpses the viewer has of the study upon exiting. The art of one-point perspective for wood inlay studioli dies with Federico in 1482, even if the studiolo in Gubbio takes a few months more to be finished. The intarsia workers know they have exhausted the challenges along with the patronage. The illusions they have created for Urbino and Gubbio have reached a climactic finale that is never to be repeated. The developments begun in the Florentine sacristy are finished in Gubbio.
       After the Gubbio palace, the use of one-point perspective in wood inlay moves back into an ecclesiastical setting, into choir stalls produced in churches in the Italian peninsula, and never again do we have intarsia work on a scale or in such a creative burst as in Federico's two rooms.

       Like the musical instruments in wood inlay, an intimation of a lingering note remains. At first there seems to be a possible reference to the Christian faith in a small Tau cross hanging from one of the cupboards. Since the tau cross is associated with St. Francis and Francis is said to have tamed a wolf in Gubbio, the object may obliquely refer to that legend. But the object portrayed, after closer examination, is a tuning key for the harp, so the Christian reference is as slight as its shadow behind, and the tuning note that is meant to be literally hanging in the air is from secular music rather than church music.

                           















The rest of the study is filled with other images of the secular life of the palace; Federico's belief in the rational life, an intellectual life constructed after reading many texts from the classical past, is apparent in both studies, but most emphasized in Gubbio. While in Urbino there were still painted portraits of popes on the wall, in Gubbio, they are eliminated. The paintings that originally hung on the walls in Gubbio are of female figures of the Liberal Arts bowed to by knights who pay them homage.  Even the Latin inscription on blue background that winds around the area above the cupboards and ties the entire study together is a humanistic or pagan caption for the images of the Liberal Arts above it; it is devoid of Christian reference:
    
 "See how the eternal students of the venerable mother, men exalted in learning and in genius, fall forward, as supplicants with bared neck and flexed knee, before the face of their parent. Their reverend piety prevails over justice and none repents for having yielded to his foster mother." (Raggio, p. 31)

The female figure in each painting here is one of the Liberal Arts: Logic, Rhetoric, and Music, respectively. They are female because the noun in Italian is feminine: la dialettica, la retorica, and la musica. The men paying homage by kneeling on steps before the women (who are seated on thrones and seem to have crowns) are courtiers from the court of Federico, including Federico himself in Dialettica.  (Three paintings are lost - grammar, geometry, and math, two (music and rhetoric) are dispersed to London (National Gallery), and two (dialectic and astronomy) were destroyed in Berlin during WWII.
        The message Federico conveys in these paintings and in the Gubbio intarsia cupboards is unusual in the period in which he lived: men should honor and treasure classical learning exclusively; enrichment and survival of the soul can be provided through the areas of knowledge passed down to us from the classics only. No reliance on Christian stories or saints here. In the privacy of his own home, he feels free to express an almost heretical view:  knowledge of secular music, grammar, mathematics, and geometrical logic are essential to the life of the mind; piety should reside in those areas of "human" specialty, the trivium and quadrivium, the liberal arts. The trivium consisted of la grammatica, la retorica, and la dialettica (grammar, rhetoric, and dialectic (logic)). The quadrivium consisted of: l'aritmetica, l'astronomia, la geometria, and la musica (math, astronomy, geometry, and music). 
        Secular thought is celebrated here in his shrine to ancient wisdom. The duke presents for his young son as well as for himself, a vision of classical education within a study that stands witness to the power of human creation. Theology has no place in the paintings or cupboards.  Federico was captivated by the rational process of one-point perspective and his one-point perspective art here includes geometry, astronomy, rhetoric, math, and music. This Renaissance duke was sure that the logic of classical learning displayed in the Gubbio intarsia was no illusion.

RENAISSANCE INTARSIA - C - Urbino

RENAISSANCE INTARSIA - C - Urbino 
The use of one-point perspective in intarsia begins in the North Sacristy of the Cathedral of Florence in 1436, when Antonio Manetti displays his skills in creating illusions of liturgical cupboards:

The trompes l'oeil he created were so astonishing that patrons of the arts in other cities soon learned of the magical scenes produced with intarsia and wanted them for their own. It seems likely that the early intarsia artists in Florence either were hired by Duke Federico da Montefeltro or that they instructed others in the arts of intarsia for Federico. In either case the perspective knowledge on display in Florence by 1436 in wood inlay is transferred and even expanded by 1474 in Urbino in Federico's studiolo (study) in the Ducal Palace, a study finished in 1476.

Above spectators' heads Federico originally had installed painted images of famous men (no longer in situ), but on the walls below on every side of the studiolo, he commissioned intarsia work for his secular palace. To the sacristy motifs of cupboards ajar in one-point perspective with objects on shelves, he had the intarsia artists add benches with objects, a portrait of himself, and a closet full of his armor.He is a condottiere (mercenary soldier with a private army) which means he makes his living by defending city-states from attack; he was unusual in his time, however, because he could not be bought off, so if he gave his word that he would fight for one side, he honored the contract for its duration. What that meant is that he was sought-after by many wealthy city-states who paid him large sums to defend their cities with his army; just the knowledge that he was the defending commander would sometimes be enough to deter other armies.  The armor, spurs, and map in the intarsia image complement his portrait with a spear; his identity as a virtuous warrior is what has financed the studiolo and it is appropriate for him to present himself next to the armor in the corner.

        But the armor is hung up, unused, while he is at home, and his spear points down. In his portrait he wears a toga and faces away from the armor and out toward the study because he wants to show that his humanistic interests occupied him when he was away from war-making. He faces in the direction of an open book on a bench near one of the doors. With his new-found wealth Federico bought many books to establish a large palace library (after his death incorporated into the Vatican Library.)

The book towards which he looks is perched on the edge of one of the intarsia benches in forward space. The intarsia artists have rendered the book as though someone were flipping through the open pages or as if someone had just left the room after leafing through the book. But the book that is displayed is not a manuscript (hand written), as many of Federico's books were, but an early printed book (incunabulum -rare - a book printed before 1500). Much like someone showing off an I-pad in the year of its invention, 2010, Federico here is showing off his up-to-date knowledge of the latest revolution in book-making. The type on the pages is even, regular, and the intarsia displays page after page of regular, printed text, highlighting the new technology of Gutenberg's invention in 1452, the printing press, which made the production of books fast, efficient, and laid out in even lines. We know that Federico owned several printed books in his collection, including an Historia Fiorentina by Poggio Bracciolini printed in Venice in 1476. Could this book be that one? Bracciolini's son, Iacopo Bracciolini, dedicated his Italian translation of his father's Latin history in 1476 to Federico, and Federico's military exploits are mentioned in it (see pages 7 and 230 of the digital facsimile online). The wood inlay book's subject and author are not ascertainable because the inlay pieces are not individual letters, but Federico is clearly proud that he owns a book produced by printing. 

        Federico's palace in Urbino was a place much like that described by Baldassare Castiglione in Il Cortegiano later in 1508, a place of civilized conversation, reading, entertainment, dancing, and festivities. Some of the other riches of Federico's life are also on display in the studiolo intarsia:

         Music and musical instruments in the guitar and lute:

 

          Science and scientific instruments in the hour-glass, astrolabe, and armillary sphere:

Writing materials and mathematical tablet next to a wood hat-form, a mazzocchio:

The word "FEDE" is inscribed on the inkstand here; it is meant to be the beginning of the duke's name, FEDERICO, but it also represents his Christian belief as well as the "FAITH" he kept with the cities that hired him; his word is his security, his "fede".
            The range of interests even includes two caged birds and a pet squirrel:

For the most complete discussion of the iconography of the study, see Luciano Cheles, The Studiolo of Urbino An Iconographic Investigation (Pennsylvania State University Press, Univ. Park, 1986). But another scholar, Luca Trevisan, has understood the symbolic importance of the squirrel and the basket of fruit on one of the walls of the study. In his 2012 study of Renaissance Intarsia, (New York, Abbeville Press), p. 61, Trevisan sees the squirrel as representing providentia, the foresight to gather nuts before a harsh winter; the laden basket suggests abundantia, or abundance or plenty, the result of thoughtful preplanning. Setting the two together on a ledge with a landscape background would not necessarily connect them to Federico's virtue, but when the viewer looks closer, it is clear that the building in the distance of the wood inlay landscape is the Ducal Palace at Urbino in which the studiolo is built. The intarsia planners have had the foresight to set wood inlay pieces in the main projection in the room that represent a play within a play: the palace at Urbino within the palace at Urbino.

 

 

As with all intarsia
workers, they cannot stop there; their statement is even bolder than it appears at first.
 

Directly opposite the image of the faux squirrel in the faux landscape is the door of the studiolo (the one with the birds in the cage) that leads out to the uppermost balcony of the real palace and to what is a real landscape view, the countryside around Urbino. 

 
The intarsia artists are not just interested in the play within the play; they challenge the viewer at every turn to compare and contrast real musical instruments with intarsia ones, real benches with intarsia ones, real palace with wood inlay one, real landscape with wood inlay one. The illusion they create is one they hope is so real that the viewer will have to stop and look twice to make sure they have understood what is reality. It is the same sensation that Brunelleschi wished to give to his friend the Grasso legnaiuolo in 1409; he manipulated the space the carpenter moved in until his perspective changed. In the studiolo with all the doors closed, it is hard to know which doors are actual and which are wood inlay latticework doors. Which door ajar is an illusion and which will lead to the balcony? The perspective of the viewer is transformed into questioning reality because the intarsia artwork of one-point-perspective is so strongly convincing as reality. Is the cupboard door really open? Is that a book or flat surface?

 

When a visitor to Urbino drives over the Appenine mountains to the city from Borgo San Sepolcro, there are only slight glimpses of the ducal palace from hills as the visitor winds around the road that probably follows the route used by travellers in the Quattrocento from Florence. After hours of travel, the visitor comes around one last final curve, and there is the ducal palace revealed in its sunset pink glory, a magical fairy-tale castle with two turret towers and the balconies outlined in white.

The magical vision of a first encounter with the town continues in the wood inlay magic set within the confines of its ducal study. The condottiere knew the harsh realities of warfare, but when he came home, he wanted to be reminded of what is joyful about human civilization: its books, its music, and its art.