Italian Frescoes: The Early Renaissance, 1400-1470. by Steffi Roettgen; Russell StockmanReview by: Sara Nair JamesThe Sixteenth Century Journal, Vol. 29, No. 3 (Autumn, 1998), pp. 791-793Published by: The Sixteenth Century JournalStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2543690 .

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Sixteenth CenturyJournal XXIX / 3 (1998)

Book Reviews Queries concerning books for review should be directed to Larissa Juliet Taylor, SCJ Book Review Editor, History Dept., Colby College, Waterville, ME 04901, USA. Phone 207-872-3267. Fax 207-872-3263. Internet ljtaylor(colby.edu. Comments made by reviewers are not necessarily those of the editors or the spon- sors of The Sixteenth CenturyJournal.

Italian Frescoes: The Early Renaissance, 1400-1470. Steffi Roettgen, trans. Russell Stockman. Newark, NJ:Abbeville Press, 1996. 452 pp. $125.00.

Steffi Roettgen's book is an exceptionally beautiful and comprehensive book on early fif- teenth century fresco painting. She presents twenty-one fresco cycles in chronological order. Her treatment of the frescoes is evenhanded; she does not choose favorites. Fine diagrams and full-wall photographs facilitate her presentation of the fresco cycles as integrated units, rather than following the old-fashioned treatment as a collection of individual paintings. Using the finest color photography available, she recreates a sense of the spaces as successfully as anyone could possibly do with still photographs. The 1 1-by-13-inch format facilitates clear resolutions of the photographs and enhances details, some nearly life-size, in which brush strokes and the subtleties of the fresco surface are visible. Full-bleed photographs (i.e., no borders), some of which cover two pages, give a sense of immediacy.

The organization is systematic and easy to follow. She initiates each fresco cycle with an essay addressing the artists, workshop practices, technical methods, patronage, subject mat- ter, local traditions, function of the paintings, explanation of the narratives, and the history of the cycles. Reference to related works, complete with smaller photographs, gives each fresco cycle a context. Following each essay Roettgen presents a clearly labeled diagram(s) and photograph captions on the left page; the right page depicts a full-wall view into the space. Images are logically arranged, left wall on the left page, right wall on the right; only figures 138-39 and consequently 140-41 are reversed; details follow.

Before discussing the individual fresco cycles, Roettgen begins with an introductory chapter entitled "'Lavoro in Muro': A Mythicized Medium." She addresses the process and the physical challenge of fresco painting, aspects of the medium which often are overlooked. Bearing in mind the title of the book, Roettgen states, without explanation, that she will call the frescoes "wall paintings ... for the virtue of simplicity." Whereas a fresco is a wall painting (or a mural), the reverse may not be true, as true fresco is rendered on damp plaster with a water-based paint. Roettgen then launches into a history of fresco connoisseurship and restoration, subjects which may interest the lay reader.

Roettgen states in her foreword that her most important goal is visual presentation, a goal which she achieves splendidly. Photographer Antonio Quattrone, a specialist in photograph- ing art, especially frescoes, has served Roettgen well; in fact, his work, along with the dia- grams, is the leading strength of the book. Other goals include presenting a wide geographic distribution; a variety of subjects, secular and religious; a variety of artistic approaches; and making available relevant documents and bibliography.

Noting from the start that Milan, Naples, and Venice would be necessarily underrepre- sented, Roettgen still manages to draw from a wide geographic area, from the Tyrol to Rome. Emphasis is on central Italy, where the fresco tradition was strongest. Roettgen pre- sents a surprisingly wide variety of subjects, especially when one realizes that in frescoes

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792 Sixteenth CenturyJournal XXIX / 3 (1998)

from the fifteenth century, religious subjects overwhelmingly predominate. Nor are all the fresco cycles old war horses. She does include Masaccio's Brancacci Chapel and Piero della Francesca's cycle in Arezzo; to omit them would be negligent. Roettgen incorporates lesser known works, especially ones outside ofTuscany, such as the charming Oratory of San Gio- vanni Battista in Urbino, and unusual, seldom-treated, secular cycles in Castello del Buon Consiglio in Trent, and the Palazzo Schifanoia in Ferrara. In Tuscany she treats the Hospital of Santa Maria della Scala in Siena and the Villa Carducci famous-persons program by Andrea del Castagno, which is no longer intact (divided between its original site in Legnaia and the Uffizi Gallery). Usually one finds only portions of the Castagno cycle; she does an admirable job of recreating the whole.

With her intent to be inclusive geographically and broad artistically, I am puzzled by her inclusion of several cycles by the same artist: three cycles by Benozzo Gozzoli, four on which Masolino worked, and two each by Fra Filippo Lippi and Andrea del Castagno. She had other choices, which include: the cycle of the True Cross by Cenni Francesco di Ser Cenni in Volterra; Lorenzo de Monaco's Barolinio Chapel, S. Trinita, Florence; or the seldom-treated (but damaged) ChiostroVerde, Santa Maria Novella, Florence, by Pollauiolo. Yet the dates which she chose do not necessarily represent the most abundant period of fresco painting in Italian history. From Assisi to the Black Death, roughly 1290-1348, and from the lower walls of the Sistine Chapel to the death of Raphael, 1480-1520, were richer periods. Roettgen has a forthcoming volume encompassing the latter.

From the beginning Roettgen states a nearly impossible goal: to compile a text which is both accessible to a general audience and useful to art historians, a balance which she man- ages well, but, understandably, with compromises. Unlike Eve Borsook's erudite, technical catalogue of the mural painters of Tuscany, which the author states is her guide, Roettgen's text is largely descriptive, with a superficial treatment of scholarly issues and technical aspects.Whereas Borsook is a meticulous scholar, Roettgen's documentation, except for the introductory chapter, consists of cursory, in-text parentheses. Roettgen does not build a strong continuity between chapters (or cycles); therefore she misses the opportunity to pull together the interesting evolution of fifteenth-century fresco painting, in style, technique, composition, and disposition on the walls. She cites Piero della Francesca as the first to use cartoons, but only in the first chapter does she mention the transfer process. She notes that Benozzo Gozzoli worked with Lorenzo Ghiberti on the second set of bronze doors for the Florence Baptistery (the Gates of Paradise), but she does not note the enormous impact of the master's innovative compositional style on the pupil's fresco designs. Nor, with three entries by Benozzo Gozzoli, does she trace the artist's stylistic development. She mentions the use of the expanded-field composition (which she does not explain) at Santa Maria della Scala in Siena, but does not tie this major innovation adequately to previous, contemporary, or subsequent practices. On the other hand, her fine handling of the St.John the Baptist Cycle in Prato, both in text and in photographs, demonstrates more clearly than ever before the unusual manner in which the continuous narratives of the unframed fresco compositions round the corners of the space. Moreover, she offers fresh ideas concerning Piero della Francesco's Arezzo cycle of the True Cross.

In spite of various unsupported conclusions and some errors (inevitable in a text of such broad scope), Roettgen adequately achieves broad appeal and all-encompassing treatment. For scholars, to have the variety of subjects, bibliography, diagrams, and fine photographs, especially the contextual, full-wall views, all under one cover, is worthwhile. For general art lovers, the book is more than another beautiful coffee table book. Roettgen creates a con- text that gives clear explanations, narrative, and diagrams. Without being either dense or

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Book Reviews 793

condescending, the author presents more challenging, interesting material than one nor- mally finds in such gorgeous, commercially produced art books. Sara Nair James .................. ........................... Mary Baldwin College

Kulturen, Identitaten, Diskurse: Perspektiven Europaischer Ethnologie. Ed. Wolf- gang Kaschuba. Berlin: AkademieVerlag, 1995.250 pp. n.p.

Kulturen, Identitdten, Diskurse suffers from insufficient editing.The volume contains a col- lection of thirteen essays originally delivered as lectures at the Institut fur Europdische Eth- nologie at Berlin's Humboldt University in cooperation with the Centre Marc Bloch in Berlin. According to the editor, the collection intends to open up new perspectives for the discipline in an exemplary way. The focus, however, seems rather narrow. Seven essays dis- cuss the construction of collective and individual identities in Europe-six of which focus on the nation state: Orvar L6fgren on Swedish interior design, Peter Niederm6ller on East- ern Europe, Miroslav Hroch on historiography in Czechia and Slovakia, Marc Auge on the crisis of the "other" in Europe,Werner Schiffauer on the use of body images in the xeno- phobic rhetoric of right-wing parties in Germany, France, and Britain; Maya Nadig on vio- lence and the constitution of the (masculine) self in Germany's right-wing youth culture. In contrast to these case studies, the remaining six essays by Wolfgang Kaschuba, Rolf Lindner, Ulf Hannertz, Angela McRobbie, Ina-Maria Greverus, and Hermann Bausinger discuss conceptual questions. They represent the ongoing debate about the discipline's own "iden- tity": its geographical, thematic, and methodological range as well as its political and cultural implications. Scholars who work within cultural studies will be well familiar with this debate.

After reading the volume, one questions just what are the new perspectives for anthro- pology? This impression has not so much to do with the individual articles, some of which are quite stimulating (Schiffauer, Nadig, Greverus), but seems to be the consequence of insufficient editing. Since the editor has refrained from grouping the articles into different sections, the order in which they appear seems accidental. Moreover, the introduction offers no discussion of the significance, function, and relationship of the terms "cultures," "identi- ties," or "discourses" for this volume-which, after all, are meant to serve as the conceptual framework of the collection-nor does it provide an explanation concerning its rather narrow thematic and methodological scope. Although some of the essays on national iden- tities are quite enticing, one wonders what other, possibly transnational cultures, identities, and discourses might be of interest for anthropology in Europe. In addition, the conceptual articles are rather repetitious.

As far as questions of methodology are concerned, the underrepresentation of feminist theory is highly disturbing.With the notable exception of Brigitta Hauser-Schdublin's article on reproductive technology and its influence on western notions of kinship, none of the articles is concerned with gender other than on a very superficial level on which gender means woman. None of the conceptual articles considers gender as an analytical category for anthropology. On the contrary, the semiotic conceptualization of culture favored in this col- lection-which draws on the works of men like Geertz, Clifford, and Rabinow-tends to silently deny the significance and function of gender for cultures, as if symbolic systems were not deeply structured and informed by notions of femininity and masculinity. For example: what about the function, constitution, and representation of gender in European national cultures? How do concepts of femininity and masculinity relate to and interfere with con- structions of national identities? And, on a more theoretical level: how does gender inform

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