Verace maestro: Artistic Techniques between Fraud and Fiction in Trecento Chronicles and Novels

• In Event: Artists and Their Techniques in the Florentine Novella

Abstract

The chronicles of Giovanni and Matteo Villani, the poems of Antonio Pucci, or Franco Sacchetti’s novels frequently discuss the ruses of artists, the making of artworks and their impact on the perception – or even on the life – of the public. Often the authors counterbalance ancient topoi of illusion with an increasing attention to the technological fabrication of visual effects. My paper proposes to study how artists are shown playing with varied expectations, visual memories and imaginations of different groups of spectators – from the devoted or superstitious believers to the craftsmen and intellectuals. The authors themselves belong to both of the latter groups; well versed in techniques of persuasion and fiction themselves, they become the humorous critics and eloquent admirers of the potentials of art and forge an influential image of the artist as cunning technician and master of manipulation.

Author

• Wolf-Dietrich Löhr, Freie Universität Berlin and Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz