In the latest issue of Print Quarterly, vol. 39, no. 1, I review three publications — an exhibition catalogue from the Uffizi and two scholarly anthologies — around the Venetian writer, polemicist and literary activist Pietro Aretino (1492-1556), with a specific view to their treatment of Aretino’s relationship with prints and printmaking.
Aretino was involved in printmaking throughout his career, employing it as a way of self-promotion but also encouraging creative engagement in the medium on the part of his friends, not least Titian. In the review, I reattribute the design of an engraved portrait of Aretino of around 1534 by Jacopo Caraglio, and a woodcut frontispiece based on the same model, to Titian. Consult the issue at your local art library!
Publications reviewed: Anne Bisceglia, Matteo Ceriana and Paolo Procaccioli, eds., Pietro Aretino a l’arte nel Rinascimento, exh. cat. Florence, Uffizi, Florence 2019; Anne Bisceglia, Matteo Ceriana and Paolo Procaccioli, eds., “Pietro Pictore Aretino”: Una parola complice per l’arte del Rinascimento, Venice 2019; and Anne Bisceglia, Matteo Ceriana and Paolo Procaccioli, eds., Inchiostro per colore: arte e artisti in Pietro Aretino, Rome 2019.
Raphael Portraits at the National
Baldassare Castiglione, 1519
I gave a Facebook Live tour of the last room of the Raphael exhibition at the National Gallery the other night, devoted to the artist’s late portraits. You can see it here. You’re welcome!