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9. Pinturicchio and assistants, painted ceiling, 1494, Sala del Credo, Appartamento Borgia, Vatican Palace, Rome. From: La Malfa, C., 'Pinturicchio's Roman Frescoes and His Role in the Formation of a New all'antica Style', Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, LXX, 2007, p. 134.
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The frescoes of the Egyptian story of Isis, Osiris and the bull Apis that were painted by Pinturicchio and workshop on ceilings in the Vatican Palace in 1493 have attracted attention, particularly since the rooms were restored in the late 1890s. That they were commissioned for Rodrigo Borgia (1431–1503) for a room, the Sala dei Santi, in his privat...
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In both Pāli and Chinese vinaya literature, there are various patriarchal lineages of vinaya transmission in which Upāli is honored as the first patriarch. These lineages that start with Upāli can be categorized into two types. The first type is found mainly in Indian vinaya texts, including two groups of texts: the Mohe sengqi lü 摩訶僧祇律 (Skt. Mahās...
Citations
The artistic program of the Borgia apartments in the Vatican museums has most often been interpreted as either celebrating the victory of Christendom over the Muslim threat, especially due to the fact that it was likely commissioned at the same time or shortly after the fall of Granada, or, as Fritz Saxl argued, as intending to mirror the Pope’s ‘constant endeavour to raise [his family] to even greater power’. A surge of scholarship on the subject of the Borgia apartments occurred during the 2010s, especially following the identification in 2013 by Antonio Paolucci of a group of native americans in the fresco of The Resurrection, located in the Room of the Mysteries of the Faith. A surge of scholarship also took place in the field of the history of science during the 2010s, focussing on the role of early modern art in the production and circulation of knowledge, described by Andrew Marr as a turning away from the ‘linguistic turn’ towards a focus on the visual culture of science. Lorraine Daston and Lüthy & Smets defined the images that held an active role in the production of knowledge as ‘epistemic images’, wherein for Daston these are ‘working object[s] of science’ that serve not only as a replacement for text but provide epistemic functions which are not provided by textual media, ‘translating abstract epistemological priorities into concrete pictures’. For Lüthy & Smets these are images that ‘that [were] made with the intention of expressing, demonstrating or illustrating a theory’. I argue that treating key artworks of the borgia apartments as epistemic images allows us to find in them iconographical meaning relating to conceptions of knowledge and the practice of learning. In addition to previous interpretations, the program of the apartments emerges as an “epistemic statement”, advocating for an approach to the production of knowledge and the practice of learning that emphasised naturalism and syncretism.It also gives us insight into the intellectual life and network of Rome in the late Quattrocento, and into the role of the artist and artisan in the production and transmission of knowledge.
