The Jacob Burckhardt Prize

The Jacob Burckhardt Prize was endowed by Rolf Becker, an honorary member of the Verein zur Förderung des Kunsthistorischen Instituts in Florenz (Friends of the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz); he worked closely with the directors of the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz (KHI) Prof Max Seidel and Prof Gerhard Wolf, who will in future be responsible for selecting candidates. Henceforth the prize is to be awarded every two years to up-and-coming researchers. As well as a three-month stay at the Florence-based institute to conduct research, prize winners will be invited to give a public lecture and to publish an article in the Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz (Proceedings of the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz).

The prize takes its name from the Swiss cultural and art historian Jacob Burckhardt (1818 – 97). His works such as “The Cicerone. A Guide to the works of art in Italy (1855), The Civilisation of the Renaissance in Italy. An Essay” (1860) and “The Architecture of the Italian Renaissance” (1867) have had an enduring influence on research in the arts. It is therefore primarily thanks to Burckhardt that from the second half of the 19th century onwards writers on art history in the German-speaking countries saw exploration of the art of the Italian Renaissance as their most important mission. This enthusiasm explains why the first German-established centre for the study of art history founded in Italy in 1897 was located in Florence.

The award ceremony

The Jacob Burckhardt Prize was awarded for the first time on 16th November 2004. The honour went to the Slovenian art historian and assistant professor Dr Stanko Kokole. The ceremony was held in the conference room at the institute and opened with a laudatory address by Gerhard Wolf. Stanko Kokole then gave a lecture entitled “La fortuna critica di un’insigne statua antica: appropriazioni, interpretazioni e valutazioni dell’efebo di Magdalensberg nella prima età moderna”. The evening closed with a performance by the violinist Marco Rogliano, who played Johann Sebastian Bach’s Ciaccona from the Partita No 2 in d-minor (BWV 1004) and six of Niccolò Paganini’s 24 Capricci (op. 1). Afterwards the guests enjoyed a drink and had an opportunity to talk to the prize winner and learn more about his research work.

Dr Stanko Kokole – the prize-winner’s background

Stanko Kokole was born in Ljubljana (Slovenia) in 1962. He began his studies of art history and classical philology at the local university. After receiving the France Prešeren Prize awarded by the University of Ljubljana in 1986 for his outstanding work, he completed his studies in 1988 with an examination of the “Style Profile of the Sculptor Giorgio da Sebenico”. Stanko Kokole continued his studies at the History of Art Department at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore between 1989 and 1998, where he won the Adolf Katzenellenbogen Memorial Prize in 1991. In 1992 the Johns Hopkins University awarded him a master’s (MA) and in 1998 a doctorate (PhD) for his thesis “Agostino di Duccio in the Tempio Malatestiano 1449-1457: Challenges of Poetic Invention and Fantasies of Personal Style”, which had been supervised by Charles Dempsey. From 1992 onwards numerous major institutions provided Stanko Kokole with financial support for his research, including the Charles S. Singleton Center for Italian Studies, Villa Spelman (spring 1992), the Samuel H. Kress Foundation (1992 – 94 at the KHI, and 1999/2000), the Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies, Villa I Tatti (1999/2000) as well as the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (2000/2001). In the spring of 2003 Stanko Kokole was Podhorsky Guest Scholar at the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. Since 2003 he has conducted research and taught as assistant professor for mediaeval and early modern art history at newly founded Primorska University (Univerza na Primorskem) on the Slovenian coast, in Koper/Capodistria. Central to his research are questions about Italian and Central European art from the mediaeval to the early modern period, and he has published his findings in monographs and essays in prestigious journals including Renaissance Quarterly, Wiener Jahrbuch für Kunstgeschichte and the Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz.

The Jacob Burckhardt Prize will allow Stanko Kokole to continue his research into the reception of classical antiquity in the Adriatic coastal area and its Alpine hinterland between 1400 and 1700.

Contact: stanko.kokole@zrs-kp.si

Summary of Stanko Kokole’s lecture “La fortuna critica di un’insigne statua antica: appropriazioni, interpretazioni e valutazioni dell’efebo di Magdalensberg nella prima età moderna”

The author’s research focused on the years between 1502 and 1534, and he described it as closer to cultural history than art history. At its centre was an ancient Roman bronze figure dating from the late Republic discovered in 1502 on the site of the capital of the classical Regnum Noricum, near today’s Sankt Veit in Carinthia (Austria), known as the Youth of Magdalensberg. It had only been made known to a wider public 32 years later in the soon-to-be famous and widely read compendium Inscriptiones sacrosanctae vetustatis by Petrus Apianus and Bartholomaeus Amantius. After 1551 the future Emperor Ferdinand I acquired the ancient statue and possibly gave it to his elder brother Karl V or his nephew Philip II as a gift. Under as yet unclear circumstances the Youth of Magdalensberg vanished at the beginning of the 19th century. Luckily there is a bronze copy today in the antiquities collection of the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.

In the woodcut of the Inscriptiones sacrosanctae vetustatis the youth is depicted with two objects: a battleaxe (that was already recognised in the 18th century as dating from the 16th century) and a circular disc-shaped object considered as originating from classical antiquity. The interpretation of the inscription on the disc is the starting point of the statue’s eventful history as told in the lecture using two source texts – a letter from Pietro Bonomo and a note that Stanko Kokole attributes to the inscription collector Augustinus Prygl Tyfernus.

Pietro Bonomo was the scion of a noble Trieste family devoted to the Hapsburgs. On 10th June 1502, just after his appointment as bishop of his home town, he sent a letter to King Maximilian I. In it he spoke of the recent discovery of a gilded bronze statue that had reportedly been found with a small shield, and on the side of which he had been able to decipher the following inscription:

M. GALLICINVS VINDILI. E. L. BARB. LL. PHILOTAERVS PR. CRAXSANTVS BARBI. P. S.

Bonomo interpreted the inscription as follows:

M[arcus] GALLICINVS VINDILI[cus] E[t] L[ucius] BARB[ius] LL. [legati] PHILOTAERVS PR[aeses] CRAXSANTVS BARBI[o] P[oni] S[tatuerunt]
(alternatively: P[o]S[uerunt]).

Bonomo added the following gloss: the legates Marcus Gallicinus Vindilicus and Lucius Barbius as well as Philotaerus Craxsantus, the Prefect of the Province Noricum, had the statue made in honour of Barbius.

A correct reading and interpretation of the inscription contradicts his gloss:

M(arcus) GALLICINVS VINDILI F(ilius) L(ucius) BARB(ius) L(ucii) L(ibertus) PHILOTAERVS PR(ocurator) CRAXSANTVS BARBI(i) P(ublii) S(ervus).

This version shows that the three people the inscription refers to were not important Roman officials but people of lower social rank: a certain Marcus Gallicinus, a Romanised provincial of Celtic origin and son of Vindilius, a freed slave of the Roman Barbii family named Philotaerus (perhaps the Barbii family’s commercial representative in the provincial capital) and Craxsantus, Publius Barbius’ slave. These three appear to have dedicated the statue to a deity who was worshipped in a temple on the Magdalensberg.

During his studies in Bologna and his long years as the ambassador of Maximilian I to the Court of the Sforza in Milan, Bonomo had acquired a good grounding in humanist education and forged close contacts with the most prominent humanists south of the Alps and in 1506 had been hailed by Konrad Peutinger as “bonarum literarum studiosissimu[s]”. It is therefore astounding that a man of his background should have decoded the abbreviations “LL.” and “PR.” wrongly. Therefore it is impossible to rule out that Bonomo indeed knew how to read the abbreviations correctly but that he simply could not reconcile the notion of common merchants – and certainly not a freed slave – endowing such a work of art. To a humanist of the early 16th century it therefore seemed logical that Barbius simply had to be of noble blood. It is striking that in his letter Bonomo is not adamant that Barbius had been an urban Roman patrician, but on the contrary, he argues forcefully that Barbius came from the provinces. An obvious reason for this assertion is that the letter was to King Maximilian I, the future Emperor and hereditary ruler of the Duchy of Carinthia. And Bonomo’s tone changes in the subsequent lines from objective and scholarly to obsequious. He seeks to flatter his sovereign and contrasts the Romanised Celts of classical antiquity with the Carinthians of the early 16th century. Moreover, he expresses his wish that the latter awaken from their sloth and rediscover their fortitude. The services rendered to the Roman Empire by the intrepid Barbius are depicted as an example which the Carinthians should follow in their dealings with Maximilian, the future Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. The early fortuna critica of the Youth of Magdalensberg (as described here) brings home how a newly rediscovered ancient statue was used for propaganda purposes and as an argument for a return to “prisca virtus”. Bonomo’s letter contains another extremely interesting detail. The author comments that his interpretation is not only based on reading of classical authors, but also on important observations of the remains of classical monuments between the Alps and Adria. To prove the claim that Barbius was from a noble “Noric-Carnic” family the humanist Bonomo points to Roman inscriptions in his home town of Trieste (Tergeste), in the prince’s palace at Graz and in Celje (Celeia). Bonomo however writes that he had recently read them (“legi nuper”), but his turn of phrase does not make it clear whether they are in situ on inscribed standing stones or a copy.

Bonomo’s most likely source for those epigraphic finds in Styria that he had not seen for himself, is the humanist and antiquarian Augustinus Prygl Tyfernus (likely dates 1470 – 1537), who was proven to be well known to the Bishop of Trieste. In 1865 Theodor Mommsen had gone so far as to call him the “Father of Epigraphy in Germany”. It is more than likely that Tyfernus was the first expert to see the bronze statue of the Youth of Magdalensberg with his own eyes. The statue had been discovered in 1502 in Carinthia and was able to give a report of it to his numerous humanist-educated friends on both sides of the Alps. Stanko Kokole therefore concludes that ultimately the contents of the brief Latin “find report” in the Inscriptiones sacrosanctae vetustatis can also be traced to Tyfernus (S.CCCXCVII).

What is striking about the commentaries on the Youth of Magdalensberg written by the humanists of the early 16th century is that although they dealt with questions relating to the inscription and iconography, at no time did they expressly comment on the clearly excellent quality of the statue. The briefly sketched fortuna critica of the Youth of Magdalensberg between 1502 and 1534 can be considered as an illustration of Erwin Panofsky’s observation about the reception of classical antiquity north of the Alps at the time of the Renaissance: “In the north the Rinascimento dell’Antichità was at first only a purely literary and antiquarian affair. Artists remained completely aloof and scholars, who were the true vectors of the movement, were not only unable to give aesthetic approval to the monuments, but even to view them aesthetically”.1