Skip to content Skip to navigation
University of Warwick
  • Study
  • |
  • Research
  • |
  • Business
  • |
  • Alumni
  • |
  • News
  • |
  • About

University of Warwick
Publications service & WRAP

Highlight your research

  • WRAP
    • Home
    • Search WRAP
    • Browse by Warwick Author
    • Browse WRAP by Year
    • Browse WRAP by Subject
    • Browse WRAP by Department
    • Browse WRAP by Funder
    • Browse Theses by Department
  • Publications Service
    • Home
    • Search Publications Service
    • Browse by Warwick Author
    • Browse Publications service by Year
    • Browse Publications service by Subject
    • Browse Publications service by Department
    • Browse Publications service by Funder
  • Help & Advice
University of Warwick

The Library

  • Login
  • Admin

"Donna bella e crudele" : Michelangelo's Divine Heads in Light of the Rime

Tools
- Tools
+ Tools

Pericolo, Lorenzo (2017) "Donna bella e crudele" : Michelangelo's Divine Heads in Light of the Rime. Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes Florenz, 59 (2). pp. 202-233.

[img] PDF
3_Pericolo_Teste Divine_170823_doppia (1).pdf - Published Version
Embargoed item. Restricted access to Repository staff only - Requires a PDF viewer.

Download (628Kb)
[img] PDF
WRAP-donna-bella-crudele-Pericolo-2017.pdf - Submitted Version
Embargoed item. Restricted access to Repository staff only - Requires a PDF viewer.

Download (450Kb)
[img] PDF (Copyright agreement)
Copyright agreement.pdf - Other
Embargoed item. Restricted access to Repository staff only - Requires a PDF viewer.

Download (69Kb)
Official URL: http://www.khi.fi.it/5668493/mitteilungen_2017_1

Request Changes to record.

Abstract

Between the mid 1520s and 1533, Michelangelo executed a group of drawings conceived as gifts for Gherardo Perini and, in particular, Tommaso Cavalieri. Praising their exceptional craftsmanship, Giorgio Vasari refers to these drawings as "divine heads" ("teste divine"). In this essay, the author focuses only on three of these drawings (the so-called Cleopatra and Zenobia in Florence and the Ideal head in the British Museum, London), more specifically on those representing full-size heads or busts of beautiful women characterized by strange hair dresses and hairdos and by unusual pieces of armor. By stressing the links between lyrical motifs developed by Michelangelo in his love poems (Rime) and visual motifs present in these drawings, the author seeks to offer a new interpretation of Michelangelo's "divine heads". The essay intends to demonstrate that Michelangelo's imagery of the "donna bella e crudele" relies on a late fifteenth-century Florentine tradition to which numerous artists had contributed: from Piero di Cosimo to Botticelli and Verrocchio. Interpreting Michelangelo's lyrical output as an unaccomplished para-biographical trajectory modeled on Petrarch's Canzoniere, the author also clarifies in which ways Michelangelo's lyric poetry differs from previous and contemporary examples, and how the figure of the "donna bella e crudele" is replaced (in Michelangelo's final years) by a contemplation of Christ's divine body.

Item Type: Journal Article
Subjects: N Fine Arts > N Visual arts (General) For photography, see TR
N Fine Arts > NC Drawing Design Illustration
N Fine Arts > ND Painting
N Fine Arts > NX Arts in general
Divisions: Faculty of Arts > History of Art
Journal or Publication Title: Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes Florenz
Publisher: Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz ; Max-Panck-Institut
ISSN: 0342-1201
Official Date: October 2017
Dates:
DateEvent
October 2017Published
1 September 2017Accepted
Volume: 59
Number: 2
Page Range: pp. 202-233
Status: Peer Reviewed
Publication Status: Published
Access rights to Published version: Restricted or Subscription Access
Related URLs:
  • Other
  • Other Repository

Request changes or add full text files to a record

Repository staff actions (login required)

View Item View Item
twitter

Email us: wrap@warwick.ac.uk
Contact Details
About Us