Abstract: Interprets the visual clues in Vasari's Portrait of Six Tuscan Poets, commissioned by Luca Martini in 1543, to uncover the literary and cultural issues at play in the painting. "In the choice of sitters and their arrangement, Vasari and his patron collaborated upon an invenzione which offers a remarkably sophisticated and self-conscious account of literary preeminence and genealogy." Dante is notably placed in the foreground of the painting and is the only seated figure. His placement, his gestures, the objects before him, and his physical relationship to the other figures in the painting -Petrarch, Boccaccio, Guido Cavalcanti, Cino da Pistoia and Guittone d'Arezzo -all testify to Dante's importance to Martini and his circle. Moreover, his evident preeminence over Petrarch refutes Bembo's contemporary assessment of Dante's inferiority to the later poet and thus constitutes an intervention in the Cinquecento debate over literary standing. Finally, the inclusion of Cino da Pistoia and Guittone d'Arezzo, and the prominent laurel wreath worn by Guido Cavalcanti, emphasize the contributions of these earlier poets to the Tuscan literary patrimony. Vasari and Martini demonstrate an understanding of the ways that literary reputations are constructed.
Abstract from the American Dante Bibliography 1998
Reproduced by courtesy of the Dante Society of America