PAOLO PINO'S 'DIALOGO DI PITTURA': A TRANSLATION WITH COMMENTARY (RENAISSANCE; VENICE; ITALY, ART THEORY)

This dissertation is an attempt to place this dialogue on painting--written by a Venetian artist and published in 1548--in relation to (1) the theory of painting in Central and Northern Italy since the fifteenth century, (2) the art critical and theoretical tradition of the Veneto from about 1500, and (3) the accomplishments of major Central and North Italian painters in the period 1530-1550. The Dialogo is the first treatise of its kind to be published in Venice--indeed in all of Italy during the first half of the Cinquecento. It came out before Vasari's Vite--but was written in the knowledge of their imminent publication--and it initiated a period of active Venetian contribution to art theory. It is informative and suggestive, and can stand for a whole class of historical documents which remains seriously underutilized in the analysis of Renaissance art.;The dissertation is in three chapters: the first provides a historical analysis of the background to the treatise, and seeks to apply the art critical language of the 1540s to the painting contemporary with it (Michelangelo's and Titian's above all); the second is the section-by-section commentary on the Dialogo (focusing on its relationship to (1) Alberti's De pictura, (2) the writings of Gauricus and Leonardo, (3) Castiglione's Cortegiano and the literature on beauty, (4) Aristotelian texts, and (5) the contemporary art literature by de Hollanda, Varchi, and Doni); the third is an English translation of the Dialogo, primarily based on the Paola Barocchi edition in Trattati d'arte del Cinquecento. The treatise has not been previously translated.