engleski

Discovering Dalmatia - the week of events in research and scolarship / book of abstract

In his celebrated book (1772) about the lives of the most famous Venetian architects and sculptors of the 16th century, Tomasso Temanza writes under a single heading of Michele (1484- 1559) and his nephew Giangirolamo Sanmicheli (1513/15-1559). This is not surprising for it has been shown that Giangirolamo continued projects founded on joint work with his famed uncle with convincing mastery. But what are those basic premises in the work of Michele Sanmicheli that Giangirolamo also used? We should consider his models and contemporaries, in order to be able to recognize more easily the significance of the works on Zadar city gate in the context of the activities of the Sanmichelis. These are, primarily, Donato Bramante and Giuliano Da Sangallo, who were Michele Sanmicheli’s teachers in Rome. If we take the case of a slightly older contemporary of Sanmicheli, Giovanni Maria Falconetto, it is clear that the Zadar gate was created through a fusion of Falconetto’s composition and the classical Doric style that Sanmicheli interpreted with the rustication that imparts an impression of threedimensionality to the façade. In order to further highlight the importance of Dalmatian projects within the oeuvre of the Sanmichelis, the author will also present parts of her research on the Fortress of St. Nicholas in Šibenik, whose construction can mostly be credited to Giangirolamo Sanmicheli. She will point to a highly interesting frieze detail on the entrance of St. Nicholas’ Fortress: around the central triglyph are – so far overlooked in the literature – two lions in place of a decorative shield, both without a sword and aureole ; one holds an open, and the other a closed book. These motifs were sufficiently intriguing to warrant further study and interpretation, which is being conducted by the author during an investigation into the wider theme of Renaissance fortifications on the Adriatic within the Harvard University research seminar under the aegis of the Getty Foundation Connecting Art Histories initiative. Accordingly, the Sanmichelis’ military architecture is impressive not only from the viewpoint of its innovative structural concepts but also in its purely artistic component, and as a vehicle for symbolic meanings. This is well demonstrated by the fortified three gates of the Verona forts, the façade of the fort of S. Andrea in Venice, as well as the gates of Zadar and Šibenik on the Dalmatian coast.

Michele Sanmicheli ; St Nicholas Fortress ; Giangirolamo Sanmicheli ; decorative frieze ; lions - open / closed book ; Šibenik

sažetak javnog predavanja / public lecture summary, May, 20 2015