[Sca-cooks] Villa Farnesina Art
Johnna Holloway
johnnae at mac.com
Fri Sep 18 14:10:19 PDT 2009
While answering the other post earlier today, I came across this article
on the Villa Farnesina and paintings there of maize and squashes.
http://www.agriculture.purdue.edu/agricultures/past/fall2008/Features/Feature%205.html
The first European images of maize can be found in Rome on ornate
ceilings in the Villa Farnesina, created between 1515 and 1518 by
Italian painter and architect Giovanni da Udina. The same ceiling
shows a mixture of cucurbits such as melon, bottle gourd, watermelon
and cucumber from the Old World as well as squash and gourds unique to
the New World.
The villa is preserved as part of Rome’s rich architectural and
artistic history, but to Jules Janick, a Purdue University
horticulture researcher for more than 50 years, it’s part of an
agricultural timeline. A plant geneticist and breeder, Janick has long
been interested in horticulture history. He’s dedicated the latter
part of his distinguished career to piecing together the history of
horticulture crops through antiquities from the art world.
-------------
There is an academic paper on the subject.
The abstract is here. In part it reads:
The Cucurbit Images (1515–1518) of the Villa Farnesina, Rome
JULES JANICK and HARRY S. PARIS
• Background The gorgeous frescoes organized by the master Renaissance
painter Raphael Sanzio (1483–1520) and illustrating the heavenly
adventures of Cupid and Psyche were painted between 1515 and 1518 to
decorate the Roman villa (now known as the Villa Farnesina) of the
wealthy Sienese banker Agostino Chigi (1466–1520). Surrounding these
paintings are festoons of fruits, vegetables and flowers painted by
Giovanni Martini da Udine (1487–1564), which include over 170 species
of plants. A deconstruction and collation of the cucurbit images in
the festoons makes it possible to evaluate the genetic diversity of
cucurbits in Renaissance Italy 500 years ago.
• Findings The festoons contain six species of Old World cucurbits,
Citrullus lanatus (watermelon), Cucumis melo (melon), Cucumis sativus
(cucumber), Ecballium elaterium (squirting cucumber), Lagenaria
siceraria (bottle gourd) and Momordica balsamina (balsam apple), and
two or three species of New World cucurbits, Cucurbita maxima, C. pepo
and, perhaps, C. moschata (pumpkin, squash, gourd). The images of C.
maxima are the first illustrations of this species in Europe.
http://aob.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/97/2/165
Interesting, eh?
Johnnae
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