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‘To see ourselves as others see us’: Giovanni Francesco Zaninello of Ferrara and the portrait of Isabella d’Este by Francesco Francia
Author(s) -
Hickson Sally
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
renaissance studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.117
H-Index - 16
eISSN - 1477-4658
pISSN - 0269-1213
DOI - 10.1111/j.1477-4658.2009.00565.x
Subject(s) - portrait , surprise , art history , art , object (grammar) , humanities , performance art , philosophy , sociology , linguistics , communication
This paper traces the creation, dissemination and display of a portrait of Isabella d’Este made by Francesco Francia in 1511 from its origins in oral descriptions by Lucrezia d’Este Bentivoglio in Bologna to its status as an object of play within courtly social entertainments hosted by the collector Gian Francesco Zaninello in Ferrara. Such was the success of the Francia portrait that it was borrowed by Isabella to serve as inspiration for another portrait made by Titian (Isabella in Black, now in Vienna) assisted by the literary description of Isabella by Gian Giorgio Trissino, an associate of the Zaninello circle in Ferrara. In addition to introducing Zaninello as a collector, the article introduces new documents that attest to his use of Isabella's portrait as a constituent in dialogic games of surprise staged at dinners he hosted in Ferrara. The article therefore draws attention to the importance of spoken descriptions in the dynamics of portrait making as well as to the oral culture around portrait display in the courtly milieu.