Quaderni di Venezia Arti

«Sua Maestà lascia a Vostra Eminenza l’ordinare l’historia e figure che stimerà più a proposito». I Barberini e doni diplomatici ai reali inglesi nel Seicento

crossmark logo

Abstract

Paintings and sculptures have always populated European royal collections, and the English one is no exception. What was the political function of these artworks? The article considers, as case studies, two paintings – Bacchus and Ariadne by Reni and the Wedding of Paleo and Teti by Romanelli – sent to Charles I Stuart by Francesco Romanelli as a diplomatic gift. He had guessed correctly that the gift of his masterpieces would have been an excellent way to obtain the attention of the royal court, mainly as he aspired to convert the English crown to Catholicism. This episode sheds new light on how images can define and redefine paintings’ role in political propaganda during the 17th century.


Open access

Presentato: 19 Ottobre 2021 | Pubblicato 13 Maggio 2022 | Lingua: it

Keywords European art • Art and power • Diplomatic gift • Baroque • History of collections

Copyright © 2022 Flaminia Ferlito. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

Permalink http://doi.org/10.30687/978-88-6969-588-9/009


leggi questo capitolo