MILANO NOBILISSIMA
The Ducal Cucina of Milan "The legendary art historian M.G Van Renssenalaer, writing with his usual literary graces as subtly shaded as the Northern Italian painting he so much admired, summed up for the September 1881 issue of the American Art Review in the closing years of the 19th century the l'air du temps genius of Renaissance Italy. Pervasive and unified in world outlook, this mysterious concatenation of intellect came to define every princely or ducal court, and every court its condottieri, cavalieri, cancelliere and cuoco: "More nearly here than in any other place but Athens did art culture become, not only general, but homologous, -here in this now fully reborn modern world, in the Florence of Lorenzo, in the Rome of Leo, in the Urbino of Federigo, in the Milan of Ludovico il Moro, in the countless little cities with each its local Maecenas, its local need of fame, its local school, its local style and flavor", he wrote. In spite of these subordinate diversities this culture was really homologous in the best sense of the word, each great man's work expressing universal rather than personal ideas and feelings, typifying the spirit of the age more even than the soul of its creator.
I do not imply, of course, a uniformity like that of Egypt, where individual notes are crushed into one indistinguishable chorus. I speak, rather, of a symphony where each interpreter remains the mouthpiece of the race, but treats the general theme in his peculiar way, and joins in the general harmony with his own peculiar sweetness, force, or rarity of tone. The ceaseless voyaging of artists no less than humanists, their endless correspondence, their desire to know all that was to be known from Antwerp to Naples, the flux of students from studio to studio, of masters from court to court, the ramifications and relationships of the greater and lesser schools, all go to prove how great, in spite of the wonderful individuality of each artist, was his indebtedness to his fellow-workers, how much he owed the "spirit of the age."--Please see print edition for rest of article |
Above: Juan Sanchez Cotan, 1607
"The sumptuous, the expensive, the spectacular lavishness, excess, and everything that impressed: rich apparel, jewels, gold cloth; expensive tapestries, display of gold plate, with food covered in gold...At the banquet, two siniscalchi, in this case the young relatives Carlo Sforza and Ercole Bentivoglio, were deputed to the head table. Each carried a golden baton to mark his elevated status among the attendants, and brought to the seated guests a golden basket filled with cutlery and napkins[...]--On the origins of Milanese saffron risotto |