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Aby Warburg's ‘Costumi teatrali’ (1895) and the Art Historical Foundations of Theatre Iconography

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2009

M. A. Katritzky
M. A. Katritzky
Affiliation:
M.A. Katritzky is Senior Research Fellow atWimbledon School of Art.
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Extract

In 1895, Aby Warburg drew attention to ways in which information of theatre historical significance can be gained from visual images, in an article which outlines a clear methodology for their evaluation as historical documents, based on a comparative approach in the context of the surviving documentation concerning the event under investigation as a whole, the Florentine intermedi of 1589. ‘Probably the most described theatrical production in history’, these intermedi were especially devised to embellish dramatic performances by professional commedia dell'arte actors (La Zingana and Pazzia of Isabella) and amateur players (La Pellegrina) which were intended by the Medici as the greatest attraction of the celebrations in honour of the wedding of Ferdinande I de'Medici to Christine de Lorraine, and recognized by both contemporaries and historians as a highpoint of European court festival.

Type
Articles
Information
Theatre Research International , Volume 24 , Issue 2 , Summer 1999 , pp. 160 - 167
Copyright
Copyright © International Federation for Theatre Research 1999

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References

Notes

1. Warburg, Aby, ‘I Costumi teatrali per gli intermezzi del 1589.1 disegni di Bernardo Buontalenti e il Libro di Conti di Emilio de' Cavalieri’, Atti dell'Accademia del Regio Istituto Musicale di Firenze, 1895: Commemorazione della Riforma Melodrammatica, 23 (1895), pp. 133–6Google Scholar. Warburg's previously unpublished German language original (from which it was translated into Italian) was included, with the Italian version and numerous additional footnotes researched by Bing, Gertrud, in Gesammelte Schriften, I (Die Erneuerung der Heidnischen Antike: Kulturwissenschaftliche Beiträge zur Geschichte der Europäischen Renaissance), 2 vols., edited by Rougemont, F. and Bing, G. (Leipzig & Berlin: Teubner, 1932), pp. 259–300 & 394–438.Google Scholar

2. Paul Kafno (quoted in Freedman, Peter, ‘At Last the 1589 Show’, Evening Standard, 14 12 1990, p. 47).Google Scholar

3. Botti, Giovanna, ed., Biblioteca teatrale (‘Immagini di teatro’), 36/37 (1996)Google Scholar; Erenstein, R. L. and Senelick, Laurence, eds., Theatre Research International (‘Theatre and Iconography’), Vol. 22, No. 3 (Autumn 1997).Google Scholar

4. Saslow, James, The Medici Wedding of 1589, Florentine Festival as ‘Theatrum Mundi’ (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996), p. 3Google Scholar; Fischer-Lichte, Erika, ‘Theatre Historiography and Performance Analysis: Different Field—Common Approaches?’, Assaph, 10 (1994), pp. 99–112 (111).Google Scholar

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6. Gombrich, , Ideals and Idols, pp. 57–8, 118–20.Google Scholar

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8. Gombrich, , Ideals and Idols, p. 151.Google Scholar

9. As Elam, Caroline (Editorial: ‘Art History or Kunstgeschichte?’, The Burlington Magazine, 129 (1987), pp. 643–4)Google Scholar points out, in Germany, the quest for new methodologies does not challenge the common ground of this discipline, which continues to be accepted as its professional foundation. As highlighted by Fischer-Lichte, Erika (‘Thoughts on the ‘Interdisciplinary’ Nature of Theatre Studies’, Assaph, 12 (1997), pp. 111–24Google Scholar; ‘Theatre Historiography’), this unity of approach contrasts with the situation in German theatre studies.

10. Holly, Michael Ann, Kaufmann, Thomas Dacosta, Wood, Christopher, ‘Visual Culture Questionnaire’ (1996), pp. 39–41, 45–8, 68–70 (69).Google Scholar

11. A point discussed by Forster, Kurt [‘Aby Warburg: His Study of Ritual and Art on Two Continents’, pp. 5–24 (16)]Google Scholar, in the same issue of October.

12. Pace Moxey, who suggests that the way forward for visual studies is to make aesthetics their ‘keystone of disciplinary focus’(‘Visual Culture Questionnaire’ (1996), p. 58).

13. ‘What Help from Art?’, Times Literary Supplement (7 April 1966).

14. Rabb, Theodore K., ‘The Historian and the Art Historian’, Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 4 (1973), pp. 107–17CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rabb, , ‘The Historian and the Art Historian Revisited’, Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 14 (1984), pp. 647–55CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rabb, and Brown, Jonathan, ‘The Evidence of Art: Images and Meaning in History’, Journal of Interdisciplinary History (1986), pp. 17, 1–6 (5)Google Scholar; Rabb, , ‘Historians and Art Historians: A Lowering of Sights?’, Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 27(1996), pp. 87–94(88).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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16. Gombrich, E. H., Aby Warburg, an Intellectual Biography, (Oxford: Phaidon, 1986 [1st ed. 1970]), p. 140Google Scholar: ‘Trüffelschweindienste / the services of a pig in rooting up truffles’.

17. Warburg/Bing, Gesammelte Schriften, pp. 267, 273n.Google Scholar

18. Warburg/Bing, Gesammelte Schriften, pp. 423–4.Google Scholar

19. Elam, , ‘Art History or Kunstgeschichte?’, p. 643.Google Scholar

20. Erenstein, R. L., ‘Theatre Iconography: An Introduction’, Theatre Research International, 22, 3 (1997), pp. 185–9 (185).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

21. Zorzi, Ludovico, ‘Figurazione pittorica e figurazione teatrale’, in Storia dell'arte italiana (Torino: Einaudi, 1979), I, pp. 419–62Google Scholar; quoted by Molinari, Cesare, ‘Sull'iconografia come fonte della storia del teatro’, Biblioteca teatrale, 36/37 (1996), pp. 19–40 (20)Google Scholar, and by Guardenti, Renzo, ‘Il quadro e la cornice: iconografia e storia dello spettacolo’, Biblioteca teatrale, 36/37, (1996), pp. 61–74 (65).Google Scholar

22. Kowzan, Tadeusz, ‘Iconographie-iconologie théâtrale: le signe iconique et son référent’, Diogènes, 130 (1985), pp. 51–68Google Scholar (67–8); Guardenti, , ‘Il quadro e la cornice’, p. 66Google Scholar; Molinari, , ‘Sull'iconografia’, p. 26Google Scholar; Balme, Christopher, ‘Interpreting the Pictorial Record: Theatre Iconography and the Referential Dilemma’, Theatre Research International, 22, 3 (1997), pp. 190–201CrossRefGoogle Scholar (193); de Vries, Lyckle, ‘Iconography and Iconology in Art History: Panofsky's Prescriptive Definitions, and some Art-Historical Responses to them’, in Heck, T. F., ed., Picturing Performance: The Iconography of the Performing Arts in Theory and Practice (Rochester University Press, forthcoming).Google Scholar

23. Exceptions include Brandstetter, Gabriele, TanzLektüren: Körperbilder und Raumfiguren der Avantgarde, (Frankfurt: Fischer, 1995)Google Scholar; Botti, Giovanna, ‘Presentazione: Immagini di teatro’, Biblioteca teatrale, 36/37 (1996), pp. 13–17.Google Scholar

24. Herrmann, Max, Forschungen zur deutschen Theatergeschichte des Mittelalters und der Renaissance (Berlin: Weidmann, 1914), part D, pp. 273–500Google Scholar; Corssen, Stefan, ‘Das erste Standardwerk der Theaterwissenschaft: Max Herrmann und die Forschungen zur deutschen Theatergeschichte des Mittelalters und der Renaissance’, in Kotte, Andreas, ed., Theater der Region – Theater Europas. Kongress der Gesellschaft für Theaterwissenschaft (Basel: Theaterkultur, 1995), pp. 201–9Google Scholar; Corssen, , Max Herrmann und die Anfänge der Theaterwissenschaft (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1998).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

25. Zampino, M. Daniela, ‘Gli studi teatrali e il “Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes’”, Biblioteca teatrale, 18(1977), pp. 1–44(2).Google Scholar

26. Zampino, , ‘Gli studi teatrali’, pp. 14, 20.Google Scholar

27. Molinari, Cesare, ‘L'altra faccia del 1589: Isabella Andreini e la sua “pazzia”’, in Garfagnini, Giancarlo, ed., Firenze e la Toscana dei Medici nell'Europa del '500, 3 vols. (Florence: Olschki, 1983), II, pp. 565–73Google Scholar; Andrews, Richard, Scripts and Scenarios: The Performance of Comedy in Renaissance Italy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), p. 235CrossRefGoogle Scholar; MacNeil, Anne, ‘The Divine Madness of Isabella Andreini’, Journal of the Royal Musical Association, 120 (1995), pp. 195–215.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

28. Of which the most substantial are Bing's addenda to Warburg, and the monographs of Matteini, Annamaria Testaverde, ‘L'officina delle nuvole. Il Teatro Mediceo nel 1589 e gli Intermedi del Buontalenti nel Memoriale di Girolamo Seriacopi’, Musica e Teatro (Quaderni degli amici della Scala), 11/12 (1991)Google Scholar and Saslow, , The Medici Wedding of 1589.Google Scholar

29. For English translations of diary entries by the German Barthold von Gadenstedt and an anonymous Frenchman (published in the original by Kümmel, Werner Friedrich, ‘Ein deutscher Bericht über die florentinischen Intermedien des Jahres 1589’, Analecta Musicologica, 9 (1970), pp. 1–19Google Scholar and Monga, Luigi, ‘Voyage de Provence et d'Italia: MS.fr.5550-B.N. Paris, édition, introduction et notes’, Biblioteca del Viaggio in Italia, 49 (Genève: Slatkine, 1994)Google Scholar and a transcription and translation of a Bavarian report, see Katritzky, M. A., ‘Aby Warburg and the Florentine intermedi of 1589’Google Scholar (forthcoming); for possible iconographie representations of members of the Gelosi troupe in 1589, see: Katritzky, M. A., ‘Eight Portraits of Gelosi Actors in 1589?’, Theatre Research International, Vol. 21, No. 2 (Summer 1996), pp. 108–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

30. Fruth, Mary Ann, ‘Research with French Festival Books: An Introduction’, Theatre Studies, 18 (1971–1972), p. 8Google Scholar; Shearman, John, ‘The Florentine Entrata of Leo X, 1515’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 38 (1975), p. 146CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Watanabe-O'Kelly, Helen, ‘Festival Books in Europe from Renaissance to Rococo’, The Seventeenth Century, 3 (1988), p. 181.Google Scholar

31. Balme, Christopher, ‘Cultural Anthropology and Theatre Historiography: Notes on a Methodological Rapprochement’, Theatre Survey, 35 (1994), pp. 33–53CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Balme, , ‘Kulturanthropologie und Theatergeschichtsschreibung: Methoden und Perspektiven’, in Fischer-Lichte, Erika, ed., Arbeitsfelder der Theaterwissenschaft (Tübingen: Narr, 1994)Google Scholar; Katritzky, M. A., “The Mountebank: A Case-Study in Early Modern Theatre Iconography”, in Twining, William & Hampsher-Monk, Iain, eds., Evidence and Inference in History and Law: Interdisciplinary Dialogues (Northwestern University Press, forthcoming).Google Scholar

32. Kümmel, , ‘Ein deutscher Bericht’, p. 6.Google Scholar

33. Nagler, A. M., Theatre Festivals of the Medici 1539–1637, (New Haven & London: Yale, 1964), pp. 74, n. 11, 75.Google Scholar

34. Nagler, , Theatre Festivals, p. 75Google Scholar; Gascoigne, Bamber, World Theatre, an Illustrated History (London, 1968), p. 145Google Scholar; Saslow, , The Medici Wedding of 1589, pp. 82–3Google Scholar & fig. 7.

35. Monga, , ‘Voyage de Provence’, p. 113.Google Scholar

36. Moxey, Pace, ‘Visual Culture Questionnaire’, p. 58.Google Scholar