Pezzi bolognesi dalla "Storia romana" di Tito Livio

Influenced by engravings and book illustrations, between the end of the 15th and the beginning of the 16th century maiolica painters began to explore the possibilities of painting narrative subjects, developing a new style called “istoriato”. Livy is one of the classical authors rediscovered in that period and he immediately became a popular source for istoriato maiolica: from modern editions of his works, printed for the first time in vulgar, images were taken that reflected the interest of Renaissance society, in particular of aristocracy and nobility, who were looking for behavior’s models and means of social confirmation. The article aims to analyze some representative cases of istoriato, such as two pieces now at Museo Civico Medievale in Bologna, both representing the inspiring episode of the Roman patrician Marcus Curtius, as it is described by Livy: a beautiful dish, painted in Casteldurante around 1551 by Ludovico and Angelo Picchi for an aristocratic family and part of a luxury service with a celebrative function, reflecting the owner’s erudition and social standing; a smaller cup decorated by Andrea da Negroponte workshop between 1550 and 1560 and intended to bourgeois patrons. In both pieces it is possibile to recognize the practice of assembling different iconographic sources, among which Raphael’s inventions for the Vatican tapestries committed by Pope Leo X in 1515.