Written around 1501–3, during the last years of Giovanni Pontano’s life, the humanist dialogue Aegidius belongs to a period marked by an accumulating sense of loss. That process had begun more than a decade earlier with the death of his wife, Adriana Sassone, on 1 March 1490. Permission to construct the Pontano Chapel was grantedContinue reading “Hidden in Plain Sight II. The Pontano Chapel: Aegidius, Memorial and the Later Pontano”
Tag Archives: memory
Hidden in Plain Sight I: The Pontano Chapel. Architecture, Rhetoric and Memory
The Pontano Chapel stands on the Via dei Tribunali, one of the busiest and most historically dense streets in Naples. It is not hidden, yet it is remarkably easy to pass without understanding what it is. Its grey piperno exterior is austere, its Latin inscriptions are inaccessible to many viewers, and the intellectual culture thatContinue reading “Hidden in Plain Sight I: The Pontano Chapel. Architecture, Rhetoric and Memory”
Corot: A Girl Reading
A young woman sits absorbed in a small book, her head inclined towards its pages in quiet concentration. Corot has reduced the setting to little more than a subdued arrangement of warm browns and ochres, relieved by the white of her blouse and the open pages before her, while the deep red of her jacketContinue reading “Corot: A Girl Reading”
Inner Surfaces 