On the Importance of Being an Individual in Renaissance Italy. Douglas Biow

      

      ON THE IMPORTANCE

      OF BEING AN INDIVIDUAL

      IN RENAISSANCE

      ITALY

      HANEY FOUNDATION SERIES

      A volume in the Haney Foundation Series, established in 1961

      with the generous support of Dr. John Louis Haney

      ON THE

      IMPORTANCE

      OF BEING AN INDIVIDUAL

      IN RENAISSANCE

      ITALY

      Men, Their Professions, and Their Beards

      DOUGLAS BIOW

      University of Pennsylvania Press

      Philadelphia

      Copyright © 2015 University of Pennsylvania Press

      All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations used for purposes of review or scholarly citation, none of this book may be reproduced in any form by any means without written permission from the publisher.

      Published by

      University of Pennsylvania Press

      Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-4112

       www.upenn.edu/pennpress

      Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper

      1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

      A Cataloging-in-Publication record is available from the Library of Congress

      ISBN 978-0-8122-4671-1

      ToSimone, Erica, and Giulia,because I promised them I’d dedicatemy next book to them,

      ToAnnabelle and Annamaria,because they came into my lifewhile I completed this book,

       ToDavid,because he would probablybe somewhat miffedif he weren’t in the dedication

      Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of me! You would play upon me. You would seem to know my stops. You would pluck out the heart of my mystery. You would sound me from my lowest note to the top of my compass. And there is much music, excellent voice, in this little organ, yet cannot you make it speak? ’Sblood, do you think I am easier to be played on than a pipe? Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me, yet you cannot play upon me.

      —William Shakespeare, Hamlet

      Reflection shows us that our image of happiness is thoroughly colored by the time to which the course of our existence has assigned us.

      —Walter Benjamin, Thesis on the Philosophy of History

      Brian (shouting to his followers): Look, you’ve got it all wrong. You don’t need to follow me. You don’t need to follow anyone. You’ve got to think for yourselves. You’re all individuals.

      Followers (shouting back in unison): Yes. We’re all individuals.

      Brian: You’re all different.

      Followers: Yes. We are all different.

      A male follower: I’m not.

      Another follower (hushing him): Shh, shh, shh.

      —Monty Python, Life of Brian

      CONTENTS

       Preface

       Introduction

       PART I. PROFESSIONALISM

       Chapter 1. Professionally Speaking: The Value of Ars and Arte in Renaissance Italy—Reflections on the Historical Reach of Techne

       Chapter 2. Reflections on Professions and Humanism in Renaissance Italy and the Humanities Today

       PART II. MAVERICKS

       Chapter 3. Constructing a Maverick Physician in Print: Reflections on the Peculiar Case of Leonardo Fioravanti’s Writings

       Chapter 4. Visualizing Cleanliness, Visualizing Washerwomen in Venice and Renaissance Italy: Reflections on the Peculiar Case of Jacopo Tintoretto’s Jews in the Desert

       PART III. BEARDS

       Chapter 5. Facing the Day: Reflections on a Sudden Change in Fashion and the Magisterial Beard

       Chapter 6. Manly Matters: Reflections on Giordano Bruno’s Candelaio, and the Theatrical and Social Function of Beards in Sixteenth-Century Italy

       Epilogue

       Notes

       Bibliography

       Index

       Acknowledgments

      PREFACE

      THIS BOOK REFLECTS ON THE IMPORTANCE OF THE NOTION OF THE INDIVIDUAL in the Italian Renaissance, with an “individual” understood as someone with a mysterious, inimitable quality, a signature style, and/or a particular, identifying mode of addressing the world. More specifically, it examines how the notion of the individual was important for a variety of men in the Italian Renaissance, both men who belonged to the elite and those who aspired to be part of it, as a way of understanding, characterizing, and representing themselves and others, both “real” and “fictional” others. At the same time, this book explores the individual in light of the new patronage systems, educational programs, and work opportunities that had come into place and in the context of an increased investment in professionalization, the changing status of artisans and artists, shifting attitudes about the ideology of work, technological advances, the collecting habits of people with significant disposable incomes, new dominant fashions among men, an increased concern for etiquette, and the eventual rise of court culture in the sixteenth century. Moreover, scholars, beginning with the cultural historian Jacob Burckhardt in his foundational essay The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy, have not—this book shows—always adequately