Above: Italian pietra dura, or hardstone, table top, Rome, early 16th century. Metropolitan Museum of Art. Photo credit: The Metropolitan Museum of Art
ARTIGINALE INTELLIGENCE
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THE MOST BEAUTIFUL STORE IN LOMBARDY The Stones of Ossola
"Alabastrum, id est, corpus hominis" Alabaster constituted a high-status sculptural material in many parts of Europe during the late medieval period (c. 1400-1450). It was used for tomb sculpture in England, France, Scandinavia, the Low Countries, the Iberian Peninsula, Bohemia and German territories.1 Alabaster altarpieces of this date are associated primarily with England. There is clear evidence, however, that alabaster altarpieces were also produced elsewhere in
Western Europe yet relatively little is known of their production or the craftsmen who specialised in carving them. As scholar Kim Woods has written, "the work associated with the Master of Rimini is exclusively of alabaster; no sculpture in another material has ever been attributed convincingly to the workshop". From the little that is known of its clients, the Borromei of Milan and probably the Malatestas of Rimini, the workshop catered to the upper end of the market. In other words, it may have belonged to a similar niche of luxury goods as a picture by Van Eyck. "The importance of this precocious export trade in carved alabaster", writes Dr. Woods, "has not been stressed enough"[...] Continued in print edition |
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A NEW ITALIAN SPORTSCAR IN THE CLASSICAL MODE Introducing the FF
In his 1928 essay, "Civilization on Wheels", American sociologist Harvey W. Peck prophesied: "Whether the people of the United States continue to pursue the purpose of Thomas Jefferson, or travel the broad highway to the same end as Assyria, Greece, Rome, and Carthage, or strike out into an uncharted domain of human experience in which vast material wealth is made to administer to human welfare, the modern motor car is one of the forces that make for an acceleration of the pace." His outlook was bleak, if not rather curmudgeonly: "Now industry has modified personal independence because of the growing interdependence of producer, distributor, and consumer. There is more opportunity for the man of talent and ability. Yet opportunity is more unequal. As a substitute for free land we have a system of public education; but this does not pro-mote Jacksonian equality, since students e varied in aptitude. And the increase in tuition and other educational costs are not in line with the democratic ideal. Further, the growth of large-scale production, the factory system, has necessitated the sale of goods over vast areas, and this "widening of the market," this industrial interdependence, has enlarged the scope of the governmental unit. Since it is the function of government to protect property, to regulate commerce, and to effect compromises between conflicting economic groups, the increase in size of the governmental unit has had to follow the expansion of the area of industrial interdependence. Hence, the
state government has gained in power over the local government, and the national government over the state government"[...} continued in print edition |