Dialogo.
8vo. 34 ff. Bound in modern morocco, raised bands on spine with gilt title; worming to corners and upper (blank) margin of a few leaves repaired, title page repaired at inner margin just touching text on verso; otherwise good.
Rare first edition of this Venetian ‘take’ on the painting of the middle of the Cinquecento, when according to the conventional periodizing view, Venetian painting hovered between High Renaissance and Mannerism: Titian was in the process of altering his style in the direction of emotionalism, the younger generation (Tintoretto, Paris Bordone and Bassani) were declaring for Mannerism, and Veronese was adhering to the earlier tradition.
On the question of Mannerism, Pino is mixed:
He has the proper Humanist feeling that the painter must be born with a natural talent for his art; and on his attitude on the matter of facility, to which the Mannerists attributed such importance, he is still on the side of the Renaissance, maintaining that great speed and great slowness are both to be avoided. On the other hand, he speaks more as a Mannerist when he demands that the artist shall display his virtuosity by ingenious foreshortening in his paintings. In another passage he hints at the theory of Eclecticism, when he says that if Titian and Michelangelo could have combined their talents they would have made the perfect artist. This is a maxim which constantly recurs in later Mannerist writings, and it is also reported as a maxim of Tintoretto.”—Blunt, Artistic Theory pp. 84-85.
* Cicognara 185; Houghton FA 3140.6*; Blunt, Artistic Theory in Italy, pp. 82-85; Schlosser Magnino pp. 239.
Price: $3,850.00