‎Lina Bolzoni‎
‎Crystal Heart. Love, Poetry, and Portraiture in Renaissance Italy‎

‎, Brepols - Harvey Miller, 2026 Hardback, 340 pages, Size:220 x 280 mm, Illustrations:1 b/w, 84 col., Language: English. ISBN 9781915487506.‎

Reference : 71070

‎Summary In his Canzoniere, Petrarch evokes the image of the "crystal heart" as a metaphor for a correspondence between the inner self and external appearance. Expanding on the classical theme of the soul's open window, the metaphor of the crystal heart embodies the utopia of amorous transparency, conveying the desire to cast aside the barriers between interior and exterior, between emotion and expression, rendering love perfectly visible from the outside. Using this image as a heuristic tool, Lina Bolzoni takes us into an original investigation of Renaissance literature and portraiture. Focusing on and taking as a departure point Pietro Bembo's famous dialogue on love, the Asolani (first published in 1505), Bolzoni guides us into a meaningful exploration of love poetry and prose, letters, paintings, mirrors, and medals. Barriers fixed by the critical tradition fall along the way, for words, images, and objects, far from being relegated to their own spheres, refer constantly back and forth to one another, their interconnections woven together into refined and secret rituals that disclose the centrality of love in Italian Renaissance culture and society. Bolzoni's magistral book reveals not only the pivotal role played by a reflection on love in the creation of a new court society, and of the early-modern courtier, but also love's inextricable bond with friendship and the pleasures of interpretation. TABLE OF CONTENTS Translator's Preface Introduction Part One The Asolani: Themes, Games of Perspective, Life Choices Chapter One. THE THREE MAIDENS: THE OPENING SCENE AND ITS DIFFRACTION The Song of the Three Maidens Changes in Staging Mirroring Effects Chapter Two. THE COURT AND ITS PORTRAITS The Dedicatory Letter to Lucrezia Borgia: The Fascination of Absence The Court of Caterina Cornaro and its Various Portraits Chapter Three. LITERATURE AND ITS AUDIENCE The Mirror of the Text and the Framework of the Proems The Guide for the Traveler: Knowledge and Therapy of the Soul The Cracked Mirror: The Seduction of the Word Staging the Instruments of Dialogue The Poet as a Juggler and the Response of Readers Chapter Four. PICTURES FRAMED BY LITERATURE The "Amorous Painting," or, Why Love is a God Miracles of the Mind The Encounter with Narcissus "Where Flock the People of Dreams" Chapter Five. PLACES The Garden of the Queen The Hermit's Wood Chapter Six. BETWEEN THE HERMITAGE AND THE REALM OF VENUS The Company of Friends: A Fragile Utopia The Draw of the Hermitage Bembo as Ambassador of the Realm of Venus Part Two The Portrait between Words and Images Chapter Seven. THE TEXT BEFORE THE "EYE OF THE BEHOLDER" Proposal for an Experiment The Face of Words The Crystal Heart: The Myth of Amorous Transparency Imitation and Portrait The Double Portrait, or The Overturned Silenus Chapter Eight. THE SELF-PORTRAIT The Dialogues of the Asolani as a Self-Portrait "Every Painter Paints Himself": Leonardo da Vinci "Poi ch'i' t'ebbi nel cor pi di me vaglio": Michelangelo and the Self-Portrait of the Artist in Love Chapter Nine. POETRY AND PORTRAIT: THE NEGOTIATION OF BORDERS "Ma certo il mio Simon fu in paradiso": Petrarch and the Portrait of Laura "Ben veggo io, Tiziano, in forme nove l'idolo mio": The Face and the Heart "Agiongendo la voce alla figura": Dialogue with the Image "Ch ingannata ser a corsa la Morte": The Victory over Time "Fategli solamente doppio il cuore": The Miracles of Love "Tu m'hai vivo in catena e pinto in cassa": The Matter of the Portrait "Sono queste, Amor, le vaghe trecce bionde": The Canon of Beauties Part Three The Double Portrait Chapter Ten. DOUBLE PORTRAITS IN POETRY: ARIOSTO AND CASTIGLIONE A Portrait with Emblems: Ariosto's Canzone for Alessandra Benucci The Double Portrait of the Sorceress Alcina "I Am Sending You This Book as a Painted Portrait of the Urbino Court": Perspective Games and the Cortegiano The Mystery of the S, or The Impresa of Elisabetta Gonzaga Castiglione's "Sonnets of the mirror" Among Mirrors, Medals, Portraits Chapter Eleven. PORTRAITS WITH COVER OR WITH REVERSE, OR A PORTRAIT IN TWO INSTALLMENTS Images Grow with the Reader Piero della Francesca, the Dukes of Urbino and Their Triumphs Ginevra de' Benci: A Double Portrait between Leonardo and Bernardo Bembo The Face of Time The Couple Portrait: Jacometto and Raphael Lotto, the Bishop, the Sister The Mask and Pygmalion Titian: Three Faces for a Self-Portrait? Chapter Twelve. THE SPACE OF THE HEART The Book of the Heart The Portrait Painted in the Heart Part Four The Community of Friends Chapter Thirteen. BERNARDO BEMBO FROM THE COURT OF CHARLES THE BOLD TO THE FLORENCE OF LORENZO DE' MEDICI Chapter Fourteen. BERNARDO, GINEVRA DE' BENCI, AND THE CIRCLE OF FRIENDS: THE CONSTRUCTION OF A MYTH, THE PLEASURE OF INTERPRETATION Chapter Fifteen. VIRTUS ET HONOR: THE METAMORPHOSES OF THE IMPRESA BETWEEN CELEBRATION AND MEMORY Chapter Sixteen. THE SENSUAL PLEASURE OF MEDALS, OR A MEDAL IN DISPUTE Chapter Seventeen. DOUBLE PORTRAITS FOR THE ASOLANI List of Illustrations Bibliography Index‎