Assenze e presenze di artisti nelle raccolte epistolari fra Cinque e Seicento: The presence and absence of artists in Italian letter collections from the XVI and XVII centuries

Abstract

Why are so few artists represented in 16th- and 17th-century letter-books? As of the 1530s the publication of letters in the Italian vernacular, in author depending letter-books or in miscellaneous volumes, grew into an important tool of (self-)fashioning for many professional categories, staying so all through the early seventeenth century. In this inclusive and fashionable genre the virtual absence of artists is striking, particularly since some of its major promotors, Pietro Aretino and Lodovico Dolce, actively tried to involve artists as well. This signals that in order to advance their professional, social and cultural position artists were less dependent on this new initiative, perhaps because they could rely on alternative tools for such advancement, notably Vasari’s biographical project, developed in the same years in which Aretino and his likes made the letter-book into a spectacularly successful editorial product.