Studi Tizianeschi VIII

2013 marked the Fondazione Centro Studi Tiziano e Cadore’s tenth year of activities operating from its historic seat in the Orator’s House in Pieve.  The foundation has worked towards making Titian a symbol of artistic culture in his home town.   It is an institution, which carries within it the soul of Pieve; a land rich in history, whose cultural intentions should be safeguarded and enhanced. Important studies on Titian’s atelier, on art in Cadore in the 16^th century, on Titian’s letters,  and on the 1508 Rusecco battle by Alessandra Cusinato have been sponsored by the foundation. Yet, the Centro Studio’s activities are especially noted for  Studi Tizianeschi yearbooks, the eighth issue of which was published by the  Fondazione Fratelli Alinari. It contains papers by Luba Freedman on Bacchus and Ariadne,  Roberto Contini and Claudia Laurenze-Landsberg on the Girl with a Bowl of Fruit and  Mattia Biffis on Di Zuan Paolo Pace, a seminarist and layman. The “Regesto per Orazio Vecellio” by Giorgio Tagliaferro (Warwick University) is particularly interesting: “a critical opportunity of substantial interest” due to the recent and renewed attention paid to Titian’s environment and personal relationships.  Activities related to the study of the Vecellio circle thus continue, already undertaken in the previous issue of this periodical with a contribution from Elia D’Inca and Gabriele Matino on Francesco Vecellio.  As a customary accompaniment to the articles, there is the appendices of the Titian documents and reviews of book and articles as well as reports on exhibitions and congresses, such as that by Bernard Aikema’s review of the exhibition Titian:  A Fresh Look at Nature held at the National Gallery in London and Linda Borean’s review of the congress held at St. Andrew’s University, in May 2011 on The Reception of Titian in Britain, 1769-1877. Excellent, as always, is the apparatus of images and elegant graphic layout, which lends the volume the value of a real book of art.