Julius von Schlosser. The Meaning of the Sources for the History of Art of the Modern Age (1892)

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Julius von Schlosser

The meaning of the sources for the history of art of the modern age

Supplement to the Allgemeine Zeitung, Munich, September 19, 1892

Portrait of Julius von Schlosser in an armchair., 1925. Photo by Theodor Bauer
Source: https://monuments.univie.ac.at/index.php?title=Datei:Julius_von_Schlosser.jpg

N.B.: On Julius von Schlosser, see in this blog also: Julius von Schlosser’s Italy, Edited by Loredana Lorizzo; The Celebrations in Vienna for the 150 Years since the Birth of Julius von Schlosser; Julius von Schlosser and Two Anthologies of Art History; Kunstliteratur – La letteratura artistica – art literature; Albert Ilg and Julius von Schlosser: Two Different Interpretations of Cennino Cennini in Austria-Hungary of 1871 and 1914.

On the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the birth of Julius von Schlosser (celebrated with a special conference and an exhibition in Vienna in these days [1]), we decided to publish the English translation of an article he wrote on the meaning of art history sources for the cultural supplement of the Allgemeine Zeitung on 19^th September 1892. The just twenty-six year old Schlosser provided an analysis of the role of sources in the fine arts and architecture, distinguishing between written sources and monumental sources and identifying the different use which can be made of them, depending on disciplines and historic periods. It is, on a closer inspection, the same subdivision implicitly proposed in the methodological premise of his masterpiece, Die Kunstliteratur [2], published in 1924, namely thirty two years later. In it, he wrote the following: "The very concept of a science of the sources needs a limitation: we are referring here to the written secondary and indirect sources; we are especially including, in the historical sense, the literary testimonies, that relate to art in theoretical sense, from a historical, aesthetic or technical angle” [3]. The primary sources are the works of art in their physicality, or better, with a typical nineteenth-century expression, the "monuments", which here encompass also paintings, and not only sculptures or architectures. The article of 1892 contains a reference to the publication, on the same year, of the Schriftquellen zur Geschichte derkarolingischen Kunst [4]. (Written sources on the history of the Carolingian art) which is included in the prestigious series of Quellenschriften für Kunstgeschichte und Kunsttechnik (Written sources of art history and art technique). Four years later Schlosser broadened his research with his Quellenbuch zur Kunstgeschichte desabendländischen Mittelalters [5], a book of sources dedicated to the whole western middle ages, published again in the same series.

Julius von Schlosser, Written sources of the history of Carolingian art (Vienna, 1892)

At the same time, the early work reveals the influence that positivism had, at that time, on the work of the young Austrian scholar (which discovered Croce's idealism only ten years after). It is also worth noting the great impact which his philological studies and the multidisciplinary path of his education had on Schlosser: archaeology, medieval studies, diplomatic, numismatic. Finally, the young scholar aims at reducing the methodological fractures that were then marking more and more the division between the study of art of the antique world, Middle Age and Renaissance/Baroque. Finally, art literature (Schlosser did not use that term in 1892) has always been regarded by the Austrian scholar as a discipline that is not an end in itself, but it is 'secondary': it is necessary therefore to always find a primary counterpart to the Art Literature in the scientific analysis of artworks. In this sense, it becomes now clear the difference between the Viennese stream of the study of art history sources, which Schlosser belongs to, inaugurated in mid-century by Eitelberger von Edelberg just as a necessary complement to the documentary study of the materials, and the Berlin stream of Guhl and Waagen, which also began in the mid-nineteenth century, and was all impregnated of idealism and based on the analysis of the artist's writings as a manifestation of genius and an original source of interpretation of their art. The article was published in the Supplement to the Allgemeine Zeitung (one of the major German newspapers of the time), a newspaper founded in Tübingen in 1798, but printed in Munich as from 1882. The Supplement to the newspaper was published every day and hosted contributions on culture. Schlosser’s original article is available in the online version of the Archive of the Bavarian State Library (BayerischeStaatsbibliothek).

Julius von Schlosser
The Meaning of the Sources for the History of the Modern Age
(Translation by Francesco Mazzaferro)

Unlike the majority of other scientific disciplines, the sources of both ancient as well as both more recent art history fall into two different groups: the monumental sources and the literary ones. It is a duality that has never been and is still not supportive for our studies. The history of our science offers in fact an exemplary image of what has just been said. The antiquarian investigation of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries - I think in this case of the large repertoires by Italian and French historians, like Montfaucon [6] (Monuments de la monarchie française), Cange [7] (Constantinopolis Christiana), Muratori [8], Maffei [9] - possessed a deep knowledge of the whole previous relevant literature, both of the learned one as well as the popular one, which makes those works also very useful today. It is understandable that, at that time, their knowledge of the monuments could not, however, be of the same quality. The works of art were reproduced through expensive copper engravings, collected in folio volumes for scholars. With few exceptions, these reproductions were remodelled in the style prevalent at the time, almost like a caricature. Finally, we must not forget that the spirit of the time was much more oriented to a scholarship based on the knowledge of written texts that on the direct observation of works of art. Nothing can prove this point better than the books on sacred paintings that were published after the Council of Trent, by Jan Vermeulen [10] or Archbishop Federico Borromeo [11] and others. Think also of those writings of the seventeenth century intending to explain painters why they were committing numerous errors and violations, such as, for example, the works of Jünger [12] and Rohr [13] in Germany, Pelletier [14] in France, and Ayala [15] in Spain*. The knowledge of the pictures by the authors was very limited. They were not able to mention more than a dozen real-life paintings and referred almost exclusively to literary material, taken from books.

The front page of the article on "The Meaning of the Sources for the History of the Modern Age."
Source:http://daten.digitale-sammlungen.de/~db/0008/bsb00085558/images/index.html?fip=193.174.98.30&seite=543&pdfseitex=

Everything has changed since, with the arrival of Winckelmann, the modern history of art has been based on a method. The credit goes especially to the even today exemplary Atlas of Agincourt [16], which has been enriched by the work of a man of great value, and today too little appreciated, like von Rumohr [17]. We must not forget von der Hagen [18], the first to have cultivated at the same time medieval art and history of culture. We owe to him, with regard to the modern era, the spiritually richest and best guessed technical term of the history of art: the expression 'Romanesque style', which arises from the parallel account in the development of language and art in early Middle Ages. From a single expression you can recognize a great scholar.

With the example of these men, it was possible to devote double ardour to the (so long neglected) study of the monuments, also because of the great advances in technology, such as the discovery of new ways to reproduce images such as lithography and then photography, and the ability to mechanically reproduce them in an unlimited number of copies. This made it possible to document the works of art faithfully and reliably. Even the enormous simplification in the possibility of making any travel generally contributed to the same result. If, therefore, scholars in the first third of this century (think of Fiorillo [19], whose History of the arts of design in four books constitutes a veritable treasure, from which materials are continuously being drawn often omitting to mention the source) could offer a vast panorama of reading both as regards the ancient art as well as about the more recent art, since then our knowledge of written sources has been regressing to an noticeable extent, in favour of a more and more complete availability of materials on monuments. To the point that it could be said that the citations contained in the most recent books are all from works of previous eras. Our profession has more and more devoted attention to the impersonal art sources, also based on the fact that each of them requires specific interest; passing of progress in progress, we have come to identify as a new research discipline the safeguarding of the artistic heritage.

And, in fact, we must attribute precisely to this research on the artistic heritage much of the methodological developments of our science. It is in some ways an obvious thing, since the monuments are the cornerstones of this science, and literary sources (due to their different usability, their uncertainty and sometimes their lack of clarity) can only play a secondary role, in comparison to them.

From a methodological point of view, the research on the artistic heritage has developed in three areas which are different from each other. Clearly forms of specialization and division of labour have begun to manifest. At least in our scientific discipline, we could apply – rightly so – to such specialisation the ancient expression of scepticism that Virgil himself devoted to the Greeks [20].

In the field of imitative arts (plastic and painting with all their variations) today a rift has been opened between two work areas: the so-called Middle Ages, also including the early Christian era (though with the exception of the study of the catacombs, which follow different paths) and the Renaissance, also including the Baroque. The method of medievalist sciences as a whole is clearly different - and this is not without important consequences - from that of the ancient art in epochs directly preceding Middle Ages, although they are closely associated. Not that the task is different: both here and there, it is the same expression of the human spirit. In its last and most general manifestation, the history of art is the history of the development of figurative ideas or their 'types', depending on their temporal, geographical, ethnographical and individual specificities: the analysis of monuments and the history of the artists simply form the preparatory steps for the discipline of art history. As to classical archaeology, the most important method is the analysis of the monuments (and in some areas also the history of the artists, following the model of Brunn [21]). In most cases, one must mainly try to explain the meaning of what is represented, thanks to an interpretation which must be objective, but at the same time be guided by feelings and artistic finesse. From this point of view, the history of medieval art benefits from better conditions and is closer to the goals of the history of art in general: the framework within which its concepts are developed, at least for the main aspects, are well defined and all themes are from the still today most fruitful book ever, the Bible. In the history of the Middle Ages, of this era dominated by common elements, by schematic aspects and by clear ethical boundaries, the attention is necessarily drawn to the many variations that the originating materials produce over time and thanks to different peoples. The history of art can take care here of one of its central themes: iconography. And here one can experience the affinity (not so much in substance, despite all the relevant elements, but in the method) with another new discipline: comparative history of literature, whose methodological proximity is beneficial to both emanations of the history of culture. In fact, as the types of images, also the materials of the sagas, the fabliaux [22] (which in many cases date back to the Hellenistic or even to the ancient East), circulated in the world thanks to the literature of the Middle Ages and the modern world. I remember for example the story of the widow of Ephesus, the novella of Apollonius of Tyre, the legend of the three dead and the three living and finally the many subjects of Shakespeare, Calderon, Moliere, to mention only the three largest. Yes, we cannot be surprised to find sometimes, in a Parisian comedy of our times, the same material as in the Gesta Romanorum [23], in the Imperial Chronicle [24], in the Novellino [25] and in the Decameron [26], in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales [27] and in the Heptameron by Marguerite de Valois [28]. We can find there the same subject without a conscious transmission, of course translated into the style of the boulevard literature of the end century. And yet, human nature in its deepest essence is always the same, like the naked body has remained the same despite all fashions and customs. Victor Hehn has already dealt with this issue in his book on Goethe's "Natural forms of human life" [29]. To choose a really unchallengeable example, the modern final outcome of the ancient farce of the deceived husband in the tower where the wife has been locked, takes two forms: that of the Roman de Flamenca [30], a novel in old French, and the comic parody Schneider Fips by August von Kotzebue [31].

The very nature itself of the monumental sources in the Renaissance produces the result that, instead, it is the story of the artists to become the dominant element. Here, where the formal group behaviour of the Middle Ages is contrasted by today’s individualism, you have to solve the no less important than difficult task to retrieve the artist's physiognomy from a blend of tradition, school and forgery. His portrait must therefore be entrusted to an attentive restorer, who must free it from all subsequent 'repainting' and the darkening of tints. And here the history of art coincides with a new and even more recent discipline, with which it shares history and method: the diplomatics, developed by von Sickel [32] with reference to the German imperial documents according to a very acute and rigorous systematic. Those who were able to benefit, as it happened to me, of the work of this master, whom nobody can be compared to, and be introduced by him to the study of the documents, will have experienced the enormous utility of practical activity in this discipline, which allows to progress in the consideration of the method and the general historical vision. Like the diplomatics, also the history of art aims to investigate originality, copy, imitation and counterfeit, truth and falsehood, and finally the degree of forgery, using a maximum use of insight knowledge. Thus both disciplines submit the materials to the most rigorous observation and classify them gradually in terms of value, following the example of the ancient numismatics, according to the following steps:

1. The 'true original' piece **.

2. An original that was stolen originality because of the work of groups of disciples.

3. An original falsified (by action or subsequent restoration of third parties).

4. A true copy.

5. A hand imitation of the school.

6. A falsified copy (which should raise the original impression).

7. An invented forgery.

The first question that you need to ask to the material to be examined will always be of historical-critical nature. In both disciplines the question to ask is the following: does the object belong to its time or not? The answer requires a broad knowledge of history and of all the works of art, and in fact this is also the way in which judgments on art works have been expressed, even in the most ancient times, by making use of all the baggage of our knowledge. But this method of recognition of the work, as in the case of Scheibler [33], of the Baron Liphart [34], who recently died in Florence, and of others, still suffers from an individual element, whatever may be the important results (I do not want to be misunderstood) that those men have achieved. It is ultimately not a scientific method in the strictest sense of the term, and above all cannot be transmitted through teaching. It is instead the personal result of great souls with artistic sense and broad culture, which exactly for these personal characteristics are more easily prone to errors, as long as new discoveries and new investigations bring into full light entire history periods. The era of natural science, however, has taught us that a great stroke of genius, even when it highlights completely dark areas and discovers new spaces for scientific research, bears no fruit without a laborious study, whether we like it or not to it call it in derogatory terms such as 'work of a longshoreman' or 'the underground search of a mole'. Similarly, those who make great geographic discoveries and find new ways are always followed by a pioneer and a settler with instruments to measure and weight, with a spade and a plow. The latter are escorting the former at a great distance, but they are those taking sure possession of the land, step by step. Without an artisanal investigation it is today impossible to perform any critical and rigorous science, even if obviously one has to protect himself from a too narrow and limited artisan spirit.

It is therefore necessary that the research on the styles (whose results are already manifest in the value classifications resulting from the earlier examination of whether objects belong to their time) confronts itself slowly and carefully with reality. A critical and reliable selection of the material is indeed possible thanks to a careful observation of the smallest details and the exterior elements. It is the attention or the neglect of their execution to betray the hand of the master or of a legitimate or criminal copyist. In this way, a professional palaeographer investigates precisely the traits of writing and signatures in the comparative analysis of manuscripts and not otherwise an expert analyses a text written in front of a court. The reader already knows where I'm going: to the Ivan Lermolieff’s method, i.e. the one by Giovanni Morelli [35], against which an incredible opposition was raised in his time. And yet, in itself and by itself, this method was not new and had been used for a long time in other disciplines, including for practical activities, as it can easily be seen. The merit of this man of genius was to have created the systematic basis for the study of the history of Renaissance art. Every great new thought bears within itself the germ of exaggeration, and therefore Morelli has in some cases gone far beyond his objective. But it would be really miserable to reproach him the equally contemptuous way with which he treated the new science in his last books, since in his time he practiced a spirit of modesty and loved to be called amateur. For a man who had his education in the natural sciences, all opposition must have seemed incomprehensible. He surely occupied himself of details, but not for this reached minor results. More and more, he explained, referring to his original background in science, that even the most modest work of art has its genesis in the maternal soil, such as a plant, and can only be understood in its own origin atmosphere. One must understand not only the language, customs and history of its environment, but also the character of the landscape in which it has grown. Thus, he abandoned forever the study of herbs.

Today, it is only a minority to consider ridiculous Morelli’s sentence that in intact artworks and especially in the drawings of the masters (which have therefore won a fundamental methodological meaning) the shapes of the hand and the ear may be as characteristic as that of writing traits. Leonardo had already made the observation that the artist normally uses his own hand as a model, in most cases in a completely unconscious way, because it is easier to imitate.

The method of architectural history is totally different. The conditions are in this case the most unfavourable. The basis for the development of the types of constructions can be obtained only through specialized investigations; they require technical skills that go far beyond the general education of the layman. It is therefore necessary that the historian bases himself on studies that may be made only by educated architects. And I would like to emphasize the adjective 'educated'. Because here the written historical sources, and in particular the original documents, get a very special meaning. Historically, the architect must have had a much broader education, on the technical knowledge, than an art historian can now gather in order to learn how to evaluate works. And, in fact, in today’s Italy only two professional architects were able to happily marry technical considerations and art history: Camillo Boito [36], also known and appreciated as a writer, and Cataneo [37], unfortunately recently deceased, author of a splendid job on the architecture of the early Middle Ages in Italy [38].

Also here, in the case of written sources, there was a division into three parts of monumental sources, albeit in different sections. However, there is no need to differentiate between sources of architecture from those of painting and plastic: the sources have the same essential characteristics. The Christian-ancient period, between the fourth and tenth centuries, differs from the real Middle Ages, in which the fourteenth century has a special status, similar to what happens in the previous stage for Byzantium and later on in the Renaissance for the Baroque.

Allow me, before describing more accurately the written sources, to refer to two risks involved in this issue. The first risk is the insufficient use of criticism, which should in fact - by the nature of most of the texts - be multiplied; the second is the insufficient knowledge of monumental sources. I would like to offer a few examples. The assumption, which is questionable by itself, of a Carolingian 'Renaissance', was strengthened in recent works from a passage that seems to be taken from the Chronicle of Lorsch [39], whereby the cloister [editor's note: of the Abbey of Lorsch] would be built 'more antiquorum et imitatione veterum’ (according to the ancient customs and their imitation). As Ramé [40] has shown, this is a wrong quote, which was copied from the introduction of the modern editor of the Chronicle, Helwich [41], and therefore is a statement of a seventeenth-century writer, and not of one of the IX or X century. The scholar Bock [42] stumbled in the mistake of attributing to Silius Italicus the remarkable description which Teodolph from Orleans [43] offers us of a metal vase with Herakles. Silius [44], however, was a completely unknown poet throughout the Middle Ages and was rediscovered only by the humanists. On the other hand, the pleasant legend about the artists that Ekkehard IV [45] tells on Tuotil of St. Gallen [46] has served as a base for scientific research up to the studies by Meyer von Knonau [47].

Morelli has already shown in a delightful way the above mentioned incongruity between archival research and the results of modern stylistic criticism in a fun conversation with an elderly gentleman of Via San Frediano [48], which is the introduction to his penultimate work on the galleries of Rome. The distinguished editor of Vasari’s Lives, Milanesi [49], had stumbled by incident (to use the humorous expression used by Morelli) in a document which contained the information that Fra Diamante, an insignificant assistant of Fra Filippo Lippi, had received the commission to paint the Returns of the keys in the Vatican. Immediately, he assigned one of the best works by Perugino to this minor painter, who belonged to a completely different landscape and school, without considering it necessary any comparison with those works of him whose authenticity had been confirmed. I believe that it is enough to allude merely to the man sins which have been made on the basis of the authority of Vasari, not only in the catalogues of the galleries.

What has been said perfectly highlights the secondary role of this kind of sources. And yet you cannot possibly ignore them. To translate their relative value, although it is always very large, the author of this piece has acted as Overbeck [50] did for the ancient art and Unger [51] started to do for Byzantium, beginning to create a collection of written sources for a well delimited period, the Carolingian one. It will be published in the new series of the Quellenschriften für Kunstgeschichte und Kunsttechnik [52]. It should not be seen as a sign of a lack of modesty, if the author thinks he knows in full the shortcomings, but also the difficulties of this enterprise.

ORIGINAL NOTES BY JULIUS VON SCHLOSSER

* Compare Piper, Einleitung in die Monumental Theologie, pages 704 and following.

** Obviously, this is a tautology. Truth is the broadest concept, which does not always correspond to the originality. A copy is in fact also true, when it is produced in the studio or from an original image. The original is always true.

NOTES

[1] The celebrations include a conference on 6-7 October at the Kunsthistorisches Museum (https://www.khm.at/erfahren/forschung/tagung-schlosser/) and an exhibition at the institute of art history at the University of Vienna, between 6 and 25 October

(http://kunstgeschichte.univie.ac.at/ueber-uns/institutsnachrichten/23-09-2016-150-geburtstag-von-julius-von-schlosser/). 

[2] Julius von Schlosser, Die Kunstliteratur, ein Handbuch zur Quellenkunde der neueren Kunstgeschichte, Vienna, A. Schroll, pages XVI-640.

[3] Julius von Schlosser, Die Kunstliteratur (quoted), page 1.

[4] Julius von Schlosser, Schriftquellen zur Geschichte der karolingischen Kunst, Quellenschriften für Kunstgeschichte und Kunsttechnik des Mittelalters und der Neuzeit, New series, No. 4, Vienna, Graser, 1892 (second edition in 1896), pages XVI-482.

[5] Julius von Schlosser, Quellenbuch zur Kunstgeschichte des abendländischen Mittelalters. Ausgewählte Texte des vierten bis fünfzehnten Jahrhunderts, Quellenschriften für Kunstgeschichte und Kunsttechnik des Mittelalters und die Neuzeit, New series, No. 7, Vienna, Graeser, Vienna, 1896.

[6] Bernard de Montfaucon (1655-1741), philologist, palaeographer, French antiquarian, author of Les monuments de la monarchie françoise, 5 voll., 1729-33, devoted to Middle Ages.

[7] Charles du Fresne, sieur du Cange, best known as Du Cange (1610-1688). Historian, philologist and linguist, he published in 1680 the Historia Byzantina duplici commentario illustrata (History of Byzantium illustrated with a dual commentary)... also known as Constantinopolis Christiana (Christian Constantinople).

[8] Ludovico Antonio Muratori, Italian historian and writer (1672-1750) was the initiator of the famous volumes of Rerum Italicarum Scriptores (Writers on Italian Issues).

[9] Scipione Maffei, historian and scholar, author of Verona illustrata (Illustrated Verona) (1732).

[10] Jan Vermeulen alias Molanus was the author of De Picturis et Imaginibus Sacris, pro vero earum usu contra abusus (On paintings and the sacred images, for their true use and against their abuse, (1570).

[11] Cardinal Federico Borromeo (1564-1631) was the author of De pictura sacra (On sacred painting) (1624).

[12] Johann Friedrich Jünger public in Leipzig in 1678 the De inanibus picturis (On void pictures).

[13] Philipp Rohr, author of Pictor errans in historia sacra (The painter wandering in sacred history) (1679).

[14] Jean Le Pelletier published in instalments his Remarques sur les erreurs des peintres (Notes on the errors of the painters)... in the Journal de Traxaux between 1704 and 1705..

[15] Juan Interian de Ayala authored the Pictor christianus eruditus sive de erroribus qui passim committuntur circa pingendas atque effingendas sacras imagines (The educated Christian painter or about the mistakes that are committed when producing paintings and sacred images) (Madrid, 1730).

[16] Jean Baptist Seroux d’Agincourt (1730-1814) authored the Histoire de l’Art par les monumens depuis sa décadence au IVe siècle jusqu’a son renouvellement au XVIe siècle (History of Art through the monuments from its decline in the fourth century until its renewal in the sixteenth century). His masterpiece was published in France in instalments, partially posthumously, during a thirteen-year period (1810 to 1823) and was also reprinted in full in six volumes in 1823.

[17] Carl Friedrich von Rumohr (1785-1843), was a key figure in German art history and a famous connoisseur.

[18] Friedrich Heinrich von der Hagen (1780-1856), was a German philologist.

[19] Johann Dominicus Fiorillo (1748-1821) was the author of five volumes of the Geschichte der zeichnenden Künste (History of the drawing arts) (1798-1808) and of the four books of the Geschichte der zeichnenden Künste in Deutschland und den vereinigten Niederlanden (History of the drawing arts in Germany and the Netherlands) (1815-1820).

[20] Schlosser makes reference to the verse of the Aeneid ‘Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes’ (I fear the Greeks even when they bring gifts).

[21] Heinrich Brunn, German archaeologist (1822-1894).

[22] Short stories in verse, usually of ironic nature, which were popular in France during the Middle Ages.

[23] Collection of anecdotes and stories in Latin, completed between the late thirteenth and the early fourteenth century.

[24] Chronic in verse of the mid-12th century, compiled in Regensburg, which covers the age between Caesar and Conrad III.

[25] Collection of short Tuscan stories from the late eighteenth century.

[26] The Decameron by Boccaccio was written around 1348-1353.

[27] The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer were dated between 1388 and 1400.

[28] The Heptameron is a collection of stories written by Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre, in 1546 and published posthumously in 1558.

[29] Victor Hehn, Naturformen des Menschenlebens, 1883.

[30] Medieval French novel in Provencal language.

[31] August von Kotzebue (1761-1819) was a writer and German dramatist, and the "Tailor Fips" one of his most famous parodies.

[32] Theodor von Sickel (1826-1908), German scholar of diplomatic.

[33] Ludwig Scheibler (1848-1921), German art historian.

[34] Karl Eduard von Liphart (1807-1891), German art historian and connoisseur.

[35] Giovanni Morelli (1816-1891), one of the most famous connoisseurs of the nineteenth century, used on several occasions the pseudonym Ivan Lermolieff. Schlosser is here referring to the so-called "Morelli" method. He explained the scientific nature of the method with the education of Morelli, who had graduated in medicine.

[36] Camillo Boito (1836-1914), Italian architect and writer.

[37] Raffaele Cataneo (1861-1889).

[38] It was L’architettura in Italia dal secolo VI al Mille circa (The architecture in Italy from the sixth century to around 1000), which was published a few months before his death.

[39] The Lorsch Abbey Chronicle, or more precisely the Chronicon Laureshamense, was written in Latin at the Benedictine monastery of Lorsch in Hesse, around 1170-1175, and described the history of the monastery in the form of annals 764-1167.

[40] Alfred Ramé (1826-1886), French historian and archaeologist.

[41] Georg Helwich published in 1640 in Frankfurt the Antiquitates Laurishaimenses.

[42] Franz Johann Joseph Bock (1823-1899), German art historian and archaeologist.

[43] Theodulf of Orléans (c. 750(/60) – 18 December 821) was a writer, poet and the Bishop of Orléans (c. 798 to 818) during the reign of Charlemagne and Louis the Pious.

[44] Silius Italicus lived around 25-100 AD.

[45] Ekkehard IV (c. 980 – c. 1056) was a monk of the Abbey of Saint Gall and the author of the Casus sancti Galli (The case of St. Gall) and the Liber Benedictionum (Book of the Benedictions).

[46] Julius von Schlosser, Quellenbuch zur Kunstgeschichte (quoted), p. 153 and f.f.

[47] Gerald Meyer von Knonau (1843-1931), Swiss historian. The studies in question were published in 1877.

[48] Giovanni Morelli recounts the episode on pp. 47-58 in the opening chapter (Basic concept and method) of Della Pittura italiana. Studii storico-critici. Le Gallerie Borghese e Doria Pamphili in Roma (On Italian painting. Historical and critical studies. The Borghese and Doria Pamphili Galleries in Rome), Milan, 1991: "The distinguished archivist [editor's note obviously Gaetano Milanesi], about whom I have just talked to you, had the bad luck, not many years ago, to get his hands on a document which shows that Fra Diamante, a second-rate painter of the fifteenth century, scholar and assistant of Fra Filippo Lippi, was commissioned to paint a fresco in the Vatican of the transmission of the keys to St. Peter. The enthusiastic archivist immediately shouted from the rooftops: "Do you see you connoisseurs how blind you are! All of you have assigned, since Vasari’s time to the present day, the great fresco of the Sistine Chapel to Perugino, and have believed to see your way, and you were all wrong. That beautiful mural painting does not belong at all to the Umbrian painter, but it is the work of our Florentine Fra Diamante. Do you snicker and shake your head and do not want to believe me? Here you will see it black on white! My written document certifies this as clearly as the sun, and any criticism and any controversy should cease before a written testimony '."

[49] Gaetano Milanesi (Siena, 1813 - Florence, 1895) was an Italian art historian. He edited the Vasari Lives edition, and founded the modern Italian scholarship of the Italian renaissance.

[50] Johannes Overbeck (1826-1895), German archaeologist.

[51] Friedrich Wilhelm Unger (1810-1876), German art historian.

[52] Schlosser is making reference to his Schriftquellen zur Geschichte der karolingischen Kunst, already mentioned above, published in the same year.