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Authoritative Copies and Divine Originals: Lucretian Metaphor, Painting on Stone, and the Problem of Originality in Michelangelo’s Rome *

2013; Cambridge University Press; Volume: 66; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1086/671584

1935-0236

Elena Calvillo,

Historical Gender and Feminism Studies

Focusing on two painted Pietàs, this essay examines the means by which the artists Giulio Clovio (1498–1578) and Sebastiano del Piombo (1485–1547) simultaneously copied Michelangelo’s figures and made claims about their own pictorial mastery. Within the context of concerns about sacred images articulated in the Diálogos em Roma (1548) of Francisco de Holanda (1517–84), Clovio’s and Sebastiano’s painting techniques are discussed for their ability to approximate divine and semi-divine archetypes while signaling ontological difference and the authority of Rome. The metaphoric potential of Clovio’s and Sebastiano’s technical innovations, one invoking a Lucretian veil of atoms according to Holanda and the other a pictorial touchstone, also reveal the extent to which these artists ambitiously tied theory to practice.