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Crusade propaganda in word and image in early modern Italy: Niccolo Guidalottos' panorama of Constantinople (1662) (review)

Faculty Advisor

Date

2017

Keywords

Crusades (Middle Ages) in art, Crusade propaganda in word & image in early modern Italy: Niccolò Guidalotto's panorama of Constantinople 1662 (book), Debby, Nirit Ben-Aryeh, Guidalotto, Niccolò

Abstract (summary)

In 1662 Fra Niccolo Guidalotto da Mondavio presented Pope Alexander VII with an enormous (6.12 x 2.58m) panorama of the city of Constantinople surrounded by allegorical figures bearing text and a pen and ink drawing on linen-backed paper, along with the manuscript of an explanatory text of seventy folios, the Parafrasi. Both were prepared by Guidalottos own hand and call for a crusade against the Turks. The Panorama was Book Reviews 205 housed in the Chigi archive in Rome, the family archive of Alexander VII, where it suffered decay and damage until the mid-twentieth century, and the Parafrasi remains now in the Vatican Library (Chigi D. 2, 22). Nirit Ben-Aryeh Debby has prepared in the present slender volume a wide-ranging introduction to Guidalotto’s Panorama and Parafrasi, setting both in the context of Mediterranean history, the visual and textual culture of the region from the Middle Ages to the seventeenth century, and the personal animosities of a well-traveled and visionary Franciscan. If she has not thoroughly covered all of the ground for investigation she has indicated, she has pointed out the direction further scholarship on Guidalotto’s productions must take.

Publication Information

Garstad, Benjamin, review of Crusade propaganda in word and image in early modern Italy: Niccolò Guidalottos’ [sic] panorama of Constantinople (1662) by Nirit Ben-Aryeh Debby. Toronto: Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies, 2016. The Sixteenth Century Journal 48 (2017) 204-6.

DOI

Notes

Item Type

Review

Language

English

Rights

All Rights Reserved