Cosme Tura: The Life and Art of a Painter in Estense Ferrara.

Joseph Manca, Cosme Tura: The Life and Art of a Painter in Estense Ferrara Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2000. xvii + 15 pls. + 114 figs. + 268 pp. $125. ISBN: 0-19-817424-1.

Kurt Barstow, The Gualenghi-d'Este Hours: Art and Devotion in Renaissance Ferrara

Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2000. 27 pls. + ix + 101 figs. + 269 pp. $95. ISBN: 0-89236-370-3.

Recent scholarship on Ferrarese art has notably expanded and developed the fundamental late nineteenth and early twentieth century work of Adolfo Venturi and Roberto Longhi. A conference on The Court of Ferrara and its Patronage (ed. Marianne Pade, Lene Waage Petersen, Daniela Quarta) was held in Copenhagen in 1987. Adriano Franceschini transcribed and published, in three parts from 1993-1997, archives covering Ferrarese art from 1341-1516. Monographs on Tura (Campbell, 1997), Ercole de' Roberti (Molteni, 1995; Manca, 1992), Cossa (Bacchi, 1991), and others, as well as the exhibition of Ferrarese miniature painting held at the Palazzo Schifanoia in 1998, have also continued to keep the art of the city in prominent view.

A continuation of this flowering of Ferrarese studies can be seen in two new books: a monograph by Joseph Manca on Cosme Tura, a leading painter at the Este court in the late Quattrocento; and a study by Kurt Barstow of the sumptuous Gualenghi-d'Este Hours, now in the Getty Museum in Los Angeles.

Manca's book on Tura follows the traditional format of a catalogue raisonnee. Several introductory chapters place Tura's work in the context of his time and place in Ferrara and present a definition of his style. These essays are followed by a catalogue of accepted works (arranged according to their present location) a list of other attributions, a selection of documents, and a lengthy bibliography.

Manca's central purpose, as stated in his opening chapter, is to reassess the nature of Tura's painting, which, he claims, has been too long interpreted as "demonic," "tortured," "nervous," and "deformed." He hopes to establish instead the "otherworldly beauty, courtly charm, and spiritual richness of Tura's art" (13). Manca blames the negative views of Tura on several factors, including the traditional emphasis in art history on the standards of Florentine and Venetian painting, the fact that the study of Ferrarese art dates in large part from the anxiety-ridden twentieth century, and the general distaste in our democratic times for courtly art. His interpretation is most convincing in his chapter dealing with Tura in the context of Estense Ferrara, where the artist's varied activities for the courts of both Borso and Ercole d'Este are brought vividly to life. Tura's artistic production, according to the documents, included much more than the body of paintings by which he is best known today, embracing such projects as designs for tapestries, horse cloths, and silver vessels. Manca argues persuasively that Tura's style was not perceived as neurotic or agitated by his patrons and their circle, but rather as refreshingly novel and diverting, satisfying the desire of the court for art that was sumptuous and exotic. The next chapter, describing Tura's place in the wider realm of Quattrocento painting and manuscript illumination, again establishes Tura's art as appropriate to a culture that favored the fantastic and the capricious, without considering it deranged.

These two very interesting chapters are followed by one that describes the surviving paintings, concentrating almost exclusively on visual descriptions and questions of chronology. The discussion of each work is enlightening and the proposed datings convincing, but the chapter itself is confusing, since the works are presented in no immediately obvious order, beyond a broad division between sacred and secular, and a rough grouping together of works of similar subject matter.

A lengthy and detailed catalogue of accepted works, which will undoubtedly be very useful for future scholarship, follows the narrative chapters. Each entry includes information on provenance, condition, and bibliography, with a discussion that reviews earlier scholarship and occasionally, usually with many disclaimers, suggests new conclusions about style or iconography. The emphasis is again on questions of style, although the iconographical content of some of the works is outlined. The catalogue is arranged according to the present location of the works. While this is certainly a standard choice for organization, nevertheless, in the case of Tura, it often creates an artificial separation between works that originally belonged together. The reader is frequently forced to search back and forth among the pages as well among the illustrations to follow an argument. The catalogue is followed by a transcription of the majority of documents dealing with Tura's artistic life, some of them published here for the f irst time, all with brief English summaries.

Complementing Manca's book is the Getty Museum's publication of its magnificent Ferrarese book of hours, named after the 1469 Gualenghi-d'Este marital alliance which brought it into being. This small volume, part of the Getty's ongoing series of monographs on their illuminated manuscripts, reproduces, in actual size, the decorated pages and initials of the manuscript, which were done mostly by Taddeo Crivelli, with a few contributions by Guglielmo Giraldi. Each plate is accompanied by a brief descriptive text. The annotated illustrations are preceded by several interesting chapters that discuss the manuscript and its place in the context of devotional practices in Estense Ferrara. Author Kurt Barstow perceives the manuscript as simultaneously a luxury item reflecting the social status of its owners, a work of art, and an object meant to inspire piety. He emphasizes its use in prayer "as a vehicle that connected the physical and the spiritual worlds" (12) and proposes to address the profound question of the co nnection between artistic perception and spirituality, or, as in the subtitle of the book, the relation between art and devotion.

Barstow's description of the contents of the manuscript pays particular attention to its suffrages, a group of short prayers to individual saints. The Gualenghi-d'Este Hours is notable for its unusual number of suffrages (twenty-six) and their rich accompanying decorations (sixteen full-page miniatures). Barstow relates the style of the miniatures to many other artists of the time, particularly Belbello da Pavia, Pisanello, Mantegna, and Tura. While the number of examples presented seems somewhat excessive, they do establish a context for the book and its illuminations, and define its unique pictorial style, which Barstow sees as combining illusionism and linearity to create "devotional excitement" (86).

The most original contribution of the book comes in the two chapters that consider the religious nature of the illuminations within the fabric of Renaissance Ferrara, first as a group, and then through a case study of the image of St. Jerome Adoring the Crucifix. Barstow remarks on the connections of the suffrages to the widespread cultural phenomenon of penitential spirituality, which he sees reflected in this manuscript both in the choice of saints and in the ways in which those saints are represented, primarily in the act of prayer. He outlines, perhaps at greater length than necessary, the lives of four important figures that exemplify contemporary devotional practices, to clarify the attitudes and experiences of the patrons who commissioned and then used the book. He next proceeds to discuss the ways in which the visual qualities of the manuscript enhance their devotional quality. Not only the themes of prayer and incarnation, but also the realistic way in which pious behavior is depicted, Barstow believ es, encourage the viewer to join in. He highlights the veristic nature of Quattrocento art in general, seeing its naturalism as an invitation to deeper spirituality not just in this manuscript, but in the overall development of Renaissance art.

The final chapter of the book investigates in depth the image of St. Jerome Adoring the Crucifix, considering the local cult of the saint, contemporary texts, and other illustrations of the same subject. St. Jerome's relatively new presentation as a penitent, rather than a scholar, is emphasized, and likened to images of Mary Magdalen and St. Francis. The scene serves as an exemplar for Barstow's central theme that the images and the book of hours as a whole served as vehicles for direct communion with God. While the idea that a prayer book would be used to inspire inner piety is hardly surprising, Barstow's text suggests the means by which this may have happened in Renaissance Ferrara.

Both of these books are valuable contributions to understanding different aspects of the art of Estense Ferrara in the late fifteenth century. One provides the most thorough study available of the style and extant paintings of one of the city's most important artists. The other not only publishes an important manuscript, but also uses it to elucidate the religious practices of the time.