Gregorio Comanini. The Figino, or On the Purpose of Painting: Art Theory in the Late Renaissance.

Eds. Giancarlo Maiorino and Ann Doyle-Anderson. (Toronto Italian Studies.) Buffalo and Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2001. xxii + 158 pp. index, bibl. $50 (cl), $21.95 (pbk). ISBN: 0-8020-3574-4 (cl), 0-8020-8446-X (pbk).

The treatise by the Lombard canon, poet, and theologian Gregorio Comanini (ca. 1550-1607) entitled Il Figino overo delfine della Pittura (1591) had relatively little influence in its time, and to this day--aside from its often-cited evocations of Arcimboldo's paintings--it has yet to receive the scholarly attention it deserves. This first English translation of the treatise--based on Paola Barocchi's Italian edition (in her Trattati d'arte del Cinquecento, Bari, Laterza, 1962, 3:237-379)--is thus an especially welcome addition to the literature of Renaissance art theory and criticism.

The treatise is cast as a dialogue between three of the author's Lombard friends: the painter Ambrogio Figino, the poet Stefano Guazzo, and prelate Ascanio Martinengo. Guazzo and Martinengo introduce the overriding theme of the debate: Is the purpose of painting to delight or instruct? Guazzo argues the former, noting that, like art, games are based on various types of imitation; hence both ludic and artistic imitation aim at pleasure and entertainment. Martinengo cites philosophy to argue for moral improvement as the true aim of art. Less dogmatic than his contemporary Gabriele Paleotti, Comanini implies that both viewpoints are valid and compatible. This clears the way for discussions ranging from the nature of imitation to the function of allegory, from artistic decorum to the familiar paragone between painting and poetry.

Comanini's Figino, for all its erudition, is largely derivative of other works, from the ancients through such contemporaries as Jacopo Mazzoni, Tasso, and Paleotti; the author cribbed long passages from Mazzoni's Difesa della Commedia di Dante (1573). The Figino's importance lies less in its originality than in its comprehensive exposition of questions of artistic theory from the viewpoint of a churchman imbued with Tridentine ideas. Comanini apparently sees both pleasure and utility in art, yet he has Martinengo argue for the church's right to control--and censor--artworks and denounce vehemently the collecting of pagan sculpture.

Obviously this book will become a major resource for students, but even scholars at home in the original Italian will learn much from the extensive and erudite annotations with which the editors have furnished the text (these augment but do not attempt to replace Barocchi's still-essential apparatus). Their brief but thoughtful introduction provides an eloquent, introduction to Comanini's world and thought. It might have been useful

to illustrate some of the works of art discussed by the dialogue's interlocutors, but most of these are easily retrievable elsewhere.

The translation is, on the whole, reliable, lucid, and readable. That achievement, as the editors take pains to point out in their introduction, was won at the cost of certain liberties. Beyond the obvious expedient of breaking Comanini's breathless, stilted, Ciceronian sentences into smaller units (and converting dependent to independent clauses), the translators often recast and sometimes even prune back the luxuriant foliage of his prose. Because it is aimed at readability rather than word-for-word fidelity, the text at times verges on paraphrase rather than translation in the strict sense. It faithfully presents all the essential ideas of the original, but sometimes, as in this passage from the first paragraph, it runs roughshod over Comanini's highly colored, even bombastic, rhetoric:

   Figino's reputation had also attracted a gentleman from Pavia,
   Signor Stefano Guazzo, who has given birth to such learned,
   pleasant, and beneficial writings that his reputation for style and
   nobility extends far beyond the Alps (5).

   Vennevi ancor da Pavia nello stesso tempo, e per la stessa cagione,
   il Sig. Stefano Guazzo, del cui stile cavaglieresco e della cui
   nobilissima letteratura ormai non vive alcuno di qua dall'Alpi,
   overo ancora di la per lungo tratto di miglia, che non sia
   pienamente informato, per lo saggio datone co' suoi non men dotri
   che piacevoli scritti, i quail ha con tanta felicita partorito alia
   luce per giovamento degli uomini (Barocchi, 241).

Translating literary prose from this period inevitably begs the question of how much one can stem the tide of prolixity without losing the flavor of the original. The translators deserve to be commended for their success in walking this fine line with a dense and complicated text--one whose richness of thought and erudition they have made accessible to a new generation of readers.

LOUIS ALEXANDER WALDMAN

University of Texas, Austin