From the accumulation of objects to studiolos

Just as today it is difficult for us to imagine what the role of art will be in society, its function, its message, its purpose; Sometimes, it is also difficult to understand the reasons that humanity had at different times to value art and act as they believed indicated.

However, there are records of accumulation of art and other valuable objects since the times of ancient civilizations. This is because the worldview of several of these, such as the Chinese, the Egyptians and the Mayans, coincided not only in a life after death, but also in the need for company and utensils to assist the journey and permanence in eternal life. of the deceased, mainly a ruler. The tombs in which the bodies that received this treatment were found were full of precious ornaments encrusted with jewels, items that were used in life, clothing, servants – there were cases in which entire retinues of emperors or concubines died just after their master to continue serving him in the afterlife – as well as soldiers. The value of things was in their materials and not in their manufacture as such, which is why they were buried with objects made of precious materials, but then what use would jewelry, sculptures and beautiful articles be after death?, according to the status and the life that the deceased had, it was important to display power and wealth even in his next life.

Other cultures, such as the Greeks, also had a way of organizing things by their value, they came to make a separation between art and the importance given to it based on the material that constituted them and the work that represented their creation. Manual work did not yet have the prestige that it acquired in other times such as the Renaissance, therefore, the accumulation of works and crafts was organized by the structure within Greek culture, in which the prestige of art was not yet distinguished of the usefulness of crafts, and it continued to be inferior to other activities and professions, however, they had their place and this was the art gallery; a place made specifically for the display of works of art and literature that enriched the mind.

The history of accumulation and large collections would have no basis, body or essence if it were not told about the looting that took place throughout it. Among the first are the Roman war spoils. With the Romans, an appreciation for beauty and a taste for aesthetics began to be seen, focusing not only on the creations of the Greeks, but also on other cultures that were within their reach, and later, under their feet. Aesthetic pleasure begins to take shape since the works were not only found in temples, but in places as public as squares and hot springs, where we could perceive winks or beginnings to decoration, for which not only beautiful things were needed, but enough of these to appreciate them anywhere. However, with the onset of the Middle Ages, this would change again.

During the Middle Ages, education was an exclusive activity for members of the church and the nobility, therefore, the people were indoctrinated through visual resources. This can be seen in how the church commissioned sculptures and altarpieces that represented passages from the Bible with which parishioners were “educated” without needing to learn to read. Another type of accumulation that occurred was that of royalty, again the items were valuable due to the type of material they were made of, but there was also an inclination towards rarity. This can be seen in the interest in possessing objects that were known to them as bones of giants, horns of unicorns and corpses of dragons, when the lack of information in the Middle Ages actually made them buy and keep bones of dinosaurs, bones of narwhal and crocodile bodies respectively.

Religious devotion among royalty and aristocracy also led to a notable quest to own altarpieces, miniatures, and the famous books of hours. The latter, being really valuable since they were made personally for the person who commissioned them, were manuscripts with illustrations and some biblical passages. Owner of a notable number of items like the above was Queen Isabel the Catholic. However, the Duke of Berry is a little more historically important, who commissioned the book of hours titled “The Very Rich Hours of the Duke of Berry” and, in turn, collected numerous Gothic miniatures. An Italian also came to take a place in this account of collecting since, in his enormous possession of items, he saw the need to list them, which is how Oliviero Forzetta created the first catalog of a collection in the 14th century (approximately 1369).

Later, at the beginning of the Renaissance, the appearance of humanism created different interests, as well as different spaces. Learning and meditation regain the importance they had in ancient Greece, however, dedicating oneself to reflection and philosophy was not a path for the lords who had to support large and important families. The training and enrichment of these characters must have been vast, therefore, the number of books on each topic as well. The place that these took in the houses was called studiolo and was shared with other objects that deserved to be appreciated such as goldsmith's items, coins, small format paintings and some objects of natural science such as the famous but rare unicorn horns - which we now know they were actually narwhal bones - an example of these studiolos was that of Lorenzo di Medici, the most famous patron of the Renaissance, in his space more than 200 items were found in coins and medals alone, and many other items between books and small paintings.

Two factors that drove interest in the acquisition of art were Lorenzo's policy of prestige for art and later, the publication of the book of biographies of the artists (The Lives, 1550) by Giorgio Vasari, in which he exalted the greatness of each master who was under the patronage of the powerful Medici family and the noble work that this represented on their part. Lorenzo's policy was that the power of a family was represented not only by its money, but in how it was used, the donation of works to the church and the promotion of cultural development were hallmarks that the Medici left in history and their contemporaries had no doubt about the power of such a dynasty, and even less so when Lorenzo could commission his artists distributed in different important cities in Italy (such as Lisbon, Rome, Venice and Naples) to do any work at any time, whether for churches or to earn money, or a favor from some family. The power represented by the collection of ancient Roman sculptures that the Medici family owned not only added to their prestige for art, but also allowed them to create schools such as the famous sculpture garden where this art was taught and this where the first works of Michelangelo appeared. Therefore, the famous families of the courts of Urbino, Milan and Mantua could not lose in that situation, so from Urbino emerged another great patron of the arts, Federico de Montefeltro; while in Mantua, Isabella d'Este, who was widowed at a young age, dedicated her life and her wealth to commissioning and buying works, in several of which she could be seen posing, her collection count reaches the approximate number of 1600 pieces that made up the two studiolos that she had, one before she was widowed and the second in the house she moved to later.

As time went by, the artists who gave prestige would pass away and when Vasari's book reached the public, the importance they had would rise even more, since having a Raphael or a Da Vinci that will not be repeated and knowing that nothing can be commissioned from the artist made the works they had already left behind appreciated with greater awareness. They were no longer famous contemporaries, they were important and great masters of the past. And the influences of humanism on the powerful families of the time would not cause competition only between them, the power of a powerful institution could not be overshadowed by any family, since, as representatives of God on earth, the papacy would also be in charge of the acquisition of artistic works, among other riches.

In the continuation of this article, we will talk about the spaces that the Popes created for the accumulation of art and the spaces in which the first art collections as we know them existed.