Veronica Ricotta. 'Ut pictura lingua'. Lexical reflexions from Cennino Cennini’s 'Book of the Art'

Translation by Francesco Mazzaferro
CLICK HERE FOR ITALIAN VERSION

Veronica Ricotta
Ut pictura lingua. 
Lexical reflexions from Cennino Cennini's Libro dell’Arte 

Published in:

Studi di Memofonte 15/2015

The frontispiece of Studi di Memofonte 15/2015

Index of Studi di Memofonte 15/2015 

The most recent issue of Studi di Memofonte, the online magazine of the Memofonte Foundation, is dedicated to art and language [1]. Nothing surprising, if one considers the long-standing and meritorious attention which Paola Barocchi (the founder of the association) devoted to art terminology [2], and her decades-long collaboration with Giovanni Nencini, who used to be President of the Accademia della Crusca, the Italian society for linguists and philologists, for almost thirty years. The work jointly conducted by the Memofonte Foundation and the Accademia della Crusca, moreover, continues to bear fruit and the most visible sign of this is the recent publication of the online database dedicated to the treaties of art of the sixteenth century, a databasewhich can be consulted and contrasted online with Vasari’s keywords glossary [3].

Florence, Palazzo Vettori-Barocchi, the headquarters of the Memofonte Foundation

The contribution by Veronica Ricotta, published in the journal, is devoted to the examination of the terminology in the Book of the Art by Cennino Cennini. It is, in fact, the advanced publication of a forthcoming survey, given that the authoress herself is preparing a new Cennini edition which will constitute her PhD. We understand that, in this new edition (see footnote 66 at page 35), the authoress will depart from the traditional chapter numbering presented by the Milanesi brothers in 1859, making a brave decision, which was only recently adopted in the last version of the edition completed by Lara Broecke at the beginning of 2015 [4].

To be sincere, since the time of his Kunstliteratur (1924) Schlosser wrote:

"The Treaty of Cennini is also the first significant evidence of a terminology of artistic expression developed by the practice of the workshops and already sufficiently determined [...]. Without dwelling on particular technical expressions, I just want to briefly mention here some concepts of general value: 'disegno' [drawing], which Cennini already used in the way in which was used by the theoretical writers after him; it is in fact the ‘fondamento dell’arte’ (foundation of art) together with colore ('colour', chapter 4) and means, beyond the pure design, the inner form, determined by the theory: «(drawing with a quill)… will make you skilful, accomplished and capable of a lot of drawing of your own invention.»" (chapter 13 – [translation by Lara Broecke] [...]. While the term ‘esempio’ (chapter 8 and elsewhere) belongs to the medieval art terminology, those already mentioned of ‘rilievo’ (relief, chapter 9) for modelling, ‘naturale’ (natural, chapter 28, also included in the Book of the Athos Painters), ‘ignudo’ (nude, chapter 71), ‘sfumare’ (shade, chapter 31 and 71), ‘maniera’ (manner, chapter 27) are expressions that have been used in art language until now.” (p. 98)

The edition edited by Fabio Frezzato (2003)

In practice, since the first edition, innumerable glossaries were prepared to explain the technical terms used by Cennino. Yet, I can agree with Ms Ricotta when she says that, in substance, the Book of Art was not the subject of great attention from scholars of art terminology, so much so that most of glossaries were written by restorers. Then, when one returns to the arguments of Schlosser, it is easy to discover that he referred to Cennino’s language in an instrumental sense, namely to define an alleged "modernity" of his work (or, on the contrary, to state that his writing was already "obsolescent" when it was written).

Among the specific reflexions that the authoress will soon bring together, I have selected three examples, which are - in my opinion - a demonstration of how the study of language can grasp aspects that might be forgotten otherwise.

The spreading of the Book of the Art in the Sixteenth Century

In his treatise, Cennino uses the term "acquerella" (an Italian feminine gender noun). The author notes that the term "assumes its pictorial sense for the first time in Cennini, with reference to the aqueous hue but not to the resulting artefact" (this latter sense is established only later). As to the operation, Cennino advices to mix two drops of ink "in a walnutshell full of water" (chapter 10 – translation by Lara Broecke). In Il Riposo (The Rest) by Raffaello Borghini, published in 1584, Cennini’s ''acquerella" became a masculine gender noun, but the similarity with the requirements of the Book of the Art was impressive. According to Borghini, a watercolor is produced by "putting two drops of ink in as much water as it would be in a nutshell." Basically, we are faced with a replica which extends the number of scholars who were exposed to the possible circulation of the manuscript in the Sixteenth Century [5]. If, in addition, one considers that the famous statement on the role of Giotto who "translated the art of painting from Greek into Latin" (translation by Lara Broecke) permeated hundreds of later texts, starting from Vasari, one can formulate two hypotheses: either Cennino, as first author, brought on paper some "commonplaces" that were typical of the art world at the end of the fourteenth century, or the influence of his work on the treatise of the sixteenth century was much higher than anyone thought.

Not to mention, again, that, even in 1681, in the Vocabolario Toscano dell’Arte del disegno (Tuscan Vocabulary of the Art of Drawing), somebody like Baldinucci (who knew Cennino’s manuscript) defined watercolour as something you do "putting two drops of ink in as much water would be in a nutshell"(p. 30).

The edition of the Book of the Art by Lara Broecke (2015)

Language development

I find it extremely interesting to observe that the Book of the Art is the first to testify in a pictorial sense the expression "in fresco" (fresco painting, chapter 67) and it does it very often after the Italian expression “cioè”  ("that is")”: “working on walls (that is, in fresco)” (translation by Lara Broecke).  Now, we know that the realization of frescoes was fully tested at his time, and historically much of the success of Cennino’s treatise is precisely linked to the fact that his pages illustrate that technique (think - one for all - the early case of Mary P. Merrifield, who in 1844 translated into English the Tambroni edition, precisely to encourage the development of an English fresco school [6]. Yet Cennino speaks as if "in fresco" were a new expression, to explain to an audience that is instead used to “work on walls”. He was therefore defining the type of work (you paint on the wall when the plaster is fresh) and not the end product (the fresco as completed art creation is used by Baldinucci). Ms Ricotta wants therefore to stress that we are most likely in a moment of transition in the Italian vernacular language, in which 'in fresco' is replacing the work "on walls".

The frontispiece of the first printed edition by Giuseppe Tambroni (1821)

What is still missing

A lexicographic analysis can also lead to reasoning on the vocabulary that is not yet ripe. Absences may be as significant as presences. In the Book of Art, the term "quadro" (painting, in Italian the same as the adjective ‘squared’) is attested only in the geometric meaning (pp. 35-36). Without resorting to a classic like The invention of the painting by Victor Stoichita [7], the prevailing view is that the use of the term "quadro" to define a work of art is a phenomenon of the last years of the fifteenth century, which made much more progress in the sixteenth century. To check the absence of this word in the Book of Art is obviously an argument in support of this thesis, as it is important that even Leon Battista Alberti, in his vernacular edition of the De Pictura, did not speak of paintings, a few decades after the treatise of Cennino Cennini .

Those examples who I reported from Veronica Ricotta’s article in my view clarify that Cennino’s language was in itself neither "ancient" nor "modern", but instead corresponded to the material culture of a dynamic and changing society. I do not think, honestly, that it can help us figure out whether Cennino’s treatise was drafted on behalf of a guild, or (as I personally think most likely) was a spontaneous initiative of an artist in search of recognition of his own role in the court of Padua. Certainly, this analysis will permit us to learn more about a stage in the history of our language in which a previously oral lexical tradition, which was transmitted from workshop to workshop, ended up to be fixed in a piece of paper (or, more correctly, in a parchment) closing an era and opening another one which reaches up to the present day. We are therefore awaiting the work of Veronica Ricotta with great impatience.

NOTES

[1] The 15/2015 issue was published in the very first days of 2016; it was edited by Nicoletta Maraschio and can be consulted and downloaded online by clicking here.

[2] Please note, by way of example, the participation in the National Conference on the technical lexika of the seventeenth and eighteenth century (Pisa, the Scuola Normale Superiore, 1^st to 3^rd December 1980), whose proceedings have been published by Eurografica in 1981).

[3] This is the internet address of the database: http://memofonte.accademiadellacrusca.org/index.asp. The 14 artistic treaties included in the database are those published by Ms Barocchi in three volumes published by Laterza Publishers between 1960 and 1962; equally, the keyword glossary originates from the Bettarini-Barocchi edition of Vasari's Lives, first published by Sansoni Publishers, then by S.P.E.S. between 1966 and 1997.

[4] For a summary of all editions of the Book of the Art from the first printed version of 1821 onwards, I would like to refer to my Cennino Cennini and the “Book of the Art”: A Check-list of the Printed Editions, published in this blog. As for insights on individual issues, the critical success and the nature of the text referring instead to the index of articles published under the "Cennini Project".

[5] To date, this perimeter was essentially referred to Vasari and Vincenzo (not Raffaello) Borghini. See Giovanni Mazzaferro. The'Book of the Art' by Cennino Cennini (1821-1950): An Example of Dissemination of Italian culture in the World. in Zibaldone, Estudios Italianos, vol III, issue 1, January 2015.

[6] See Giovanni Mazzaferro. The 'Book of the Art' by Cennino Cennini (1821-1950): An Example of Dissemination of Italian culture inthe World, quoted.

[7] Victor Stochita, L’invenzione del quadro. Arte, artefici e artifici nella pittura europea. Rome, Il Saggiatore Publishers, 2004.