Matteo Chirumbolo

PhD student


Thesis: ‘Translating, Fashioning, Meaning: The Patronage of Girolamo Basso (1435?-1507) and Domenico della Rovere (1442-1501) between Turin, Savona, Loreto and Rome’

Supervisor: Dr. Scott Nethersole

Funded by CHASE/AHRC Doctoral Training Partnership

My thesis examines the art commissioned by two cardinal patrons, Girolamo Basso (ca 1440-1507) and Domenico della Rovere (1442-1501), to ask questions about how ideas and culture were communicated across the Italian peninsula in the fifteenth century.

Residing in Rome for the majority of their life, Girolamo and Domenico commissioned artworks in municipalities and communities as diverse as Turin (the soon-to-be seat of Savoy ducal power), Loreto (a ‘villa’ under direct control of the commune of Recanati, whose Marian Santuario della Santa Casa was renowned throughout Europe), and Rome itself. Their commissions involved important artists and architects, such as Pinturicchio, Andrea Bregno, Luca Signorelli, Melozzo da Forlì, Benedetto and Giuliano da Maiano, among others.

Shifting the focus from the analysis of the artistic commissions to that of the patrons and their networks, the thesis aims to cast new light on such artworks and their intellectual milieu. It seeks to define to what extent these were the result of the translation of cultural and stylistic models from Rome, as well as the encounter with local political, intellectual and artistic communities. Through the analysis of the patrons’ networks, and of the interaction between travelling masters, local artists and masons, the thesis asks questions about the meaning and translation of style, problematising scholarly notions of ‘centre’ and ‘periphery’.



Education

  • PhD Candidate, Courtauld Institute of Art (2018-present)
  • MA History of Art, Courtauld Institute of Art (2015-2016)
    Special option: ‘From Dante to Michelangelo: rhetoric, representation and identity in Italian art and literature, c.1300-1550’ Supervisors: Dr. Scott Nethersole, Dr. Federica Pich
    Dissertation title: Contracts, contexts and contents: Defendente Ferrari’s polyptych at Sant’Antonio di Ranverso
  • BA Classics and Comparative Literature, King’s College London (2011-2014)
    Dissertation title: The reception of Lucan’s political ideology in the works of P.B Shelley and G. Leopardi

Research interests

  • Early modern Italian painting, sculpture, and architecture
  • Quattrocento and early Cinquecento Patronage networks in Europe
  • Translation, (self-)fashioning, style
  • Art of Coastal Areas (especially Liguria and Marche)
  • Savoy, Piedmont and Turin in the Renaissance
  • Rome, antiquity and their visual reinterpretation

Conferences, seminars and workshops


Teaching Experience

  • The Courtauld Institute of Art, Short Course, Variations on a Theme: The Renaissance in Art and Music, Convener (with Tamsin Lewis)
  • The Courtauld Institute of Art, BA Degree, BA1 Foundations, Autumn 2022-2023, Blocks 1-3 (Classical and Byzantine Art, Renaissance Art, Buddhist Art), Teaching Assistant

Fellowships

  • Doctoral Fellow, Abteilung Gerhard Wolf, Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz (2022-2023)
  • Doctoral Fellow, Abteilung Alessandro Nova, Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz (2020-2022)

Publications

Citations