Anna Delle Foglie is an art historian specialising in 15th century Italian art. She obtained her PhD from Sapienza Università di Roma. Her research focuses on Late Gothic painting in Lombardy and Naples, the Early Renaissance, model book drawings and the history of illumination.
Host University: Université libre de Bruxelles, Belgium
Host research group or department: Département d'enseignement d'Histoire, Arts et Archéologie - HAA
Co-host University: Sapienza Università di Roma, Italy
Secondment institution: Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage (KIK-IRPA)
Advisor: Professor Valentine Henderiks
Co-advisor: Professor Francesca Manzari
Secondment mentor: Dr. Bart Fransen
My research
Michelino da Besozzo and the International Gothic style
The research project concerns a period in art history identified as the “International Gothic”, when, during the end of the 14th and the first half of the 15th century, a common artistic language, characterized by supreme grace and elegance spread in Europe.
This dynamic, transversal, and interdisciplinary phenomenon was developed in specific areas of diffusion including for the cities of Paris, Dijon, Bruges, Milan, Strasbourg, Cologne and Prague. The international gothic style was expressed in different fields of artistic production, from painting to illuminated manuscripts and from sculpture to jewellery created to best represent the aristocratic and bourgeois splendour of the court’s art.
This project intends to focalize the research on Italy, and in particular on one of the most important figures of International Gothic art: the painter and illuminator Michelino da Besozzo (1370 ca-1455 ca). One specific characteristic of his artistic personality was versatility and a delicate and refined taste for calligraphic linearism. Michelino da Besozzo worked in Pavia and Milan under the patronage of the Visconti family and he was celebrated by his contemporaries, especially by humanists.
This research aims to integrally redefine the figure of this artist, through a rigorous and complete reconstruction of his entire corpus of works: panel paintings and frescoes; illuminated manuscripts and drawings. The reconstruction of Michelino’s catalogue will be developed thanks to attentive archival research, verified attributions, and studies of historical and cultural context and the significance of allegorical and narrative iconographies.
A further objective is to bring focus to understanding the decisive role of Michelino da Besozzo’s relationship with Europe, in particular with French-Burgundian art, therefore investigating the Late gothic style as a phenomenon of extraordinary international cultural mobility of models and ideas.
This project for postdoctoral Civis 3i is structured entirely on interdisciplinarity because in addition to a specific sector of the History of medieval and modern art it includes the fields of: the History of books, of museum collections, of artistic techniques and library and archival Science.
Date started – Date End
15.11.2022 - 14.11.2024
