A Region of Artistic Exchange? The Painter Bartlme Dill Riemenschneider and the Arts in Southern Tyrol in the First Half of the Sixteenth Century

• In Event: Artistic Exchange in Unexpected Quarters: Art, Travel, and Geography in the Renaissance I

Abstract

In the late fifteenth century, the artistic landscape of southern Tyrol was characterised by a unique synthesis of Northern 'late Gothic' and Southern 'early Renaissance' forms, exemplified in the works of Michael Pacher and his workshop. Traditionally, scholars have postulated a similar convergence in the oeuvre of Bartlme Dill Riemenschneider, the region's most important artist of the next generation. However,this paper will argue that Riemenschneider, apart from using faience technique in his tiled stoves, did not directly refer to contemporary Italian art. Rather, he brought the Renaissance to southern Tyrol from the North, at a time when no Italian artists were active in the region. Thus, in a time of increasing Kulturpatriotismus (cultural patriotism) and Welschenfeindlichkeit (hostility towards Romance-speaking people), it seems that in the first half of the sixteenth century, the German-Italian language frontier acted much more as a cultural frontier than in the centuries before.

Author

• Hanns-Paul Ties, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München