Multiple personalities in Francesco Villamena's portrait print of Giovanni Alto dedicated to Cassiano dal Pozzo

Abstract

In August 1622, two months after being admitted to the Accademia dei Lincei, the first modern European scientific society, Cassiano dal Pozzo presented to the academy's president a copy of his recently published book illustrating various bird species and the art of fowling in Italy. It was entitled Uccelliera, overo, discorso della natura, eproprieta di diversi Uccelli. ... Although the contemporary genre scenes with settings and figures were primarily drawn from an earlier publication, the printmaker Francesco Villamena produced a series of new ornithological plates for the volume.¹ The naturalistic images, which dal Pozzo later referred to as ritratti, or portraits, accurately depicted the most distinctive features of each species, reflecting a new emphasis on clarity and precision in scientific illustration.² A little more than a year and a half after the completion of this work, and less than nine months before the artist's death, Villamena dedicated to dal Pozzo a portrait print of the antiquarian Giovanni Alto. The engraved effigy combined the naturalism of the ornithological prints with a variety of other visual elements that skillfully reflected many of the ideas and interests of the dedicatee, the artist's longtime friend and patron (figure I). A careful reconstruction of the genesis of this well-known work and analysis of its constituent parts reveals the printmaker's ability to represent not only the physical likeness of the sitter, but also his desire to portray aspects of the intellectual personality of the individual to whom the engraving is dedicated. Such a complex image highlights the limits of traditional notions about the immediate association between appearance and identity in portraiture.³     

Untangling the knot: Garden design in Francesco Colonna's Hypnerotomachia Poliphili

Abstract

Poliphilus begins his voyage walking through a wood, a lonely figure overwhelmed by the shadow of tall trees, as he appears in the very first picture of the Hypnerotomachia (figure 1). He concludes his search at Cythera, having found his beloved companion Polia. The achieved and soon to vanish happiness is depicted in the last illustration of the first book, showing the garden of love, with the couple sitting on the lawn, entertained by nymphs playing music whilst offering crowns and bunches of flowers. The garden is enclosed by a trellis and encircled by a row of trees. Its layout is simple, dominated by a central hexagonal fountain next to Adonis' sepulchre and surmounted by a statue of Venus nourishing Cupid, covered by a pergola (figure 2). Although Poliphilus' journey can be seen as a mere passage from a locus terribilis to a locus amoenus through a series of scenes, the concluding setting takes place in a garden which is supposedly located on the island of Cythera, but has no real position on it. The garden of love is represented as the short-lived garden of Adonis, a construction of the mind evaporating as soon as the dreamer wakes up. However, in spite of its ephemeral quality, the illustration shows what seems to have corresponded to a Quattrocento garden prototype. The lack of internal subdivision of the lawn, the presence of a water feature as a centrepiece, of a pergola and sparse trees, correspond to the characteristics of the verzieri de le mezane persone (meadow garden for owners of average rank) described by Corniolo Della Cornia in his La Divina Villa (end of fourteenth to early fifteenth century), a simplification of Pietro De' Crescenzi's De' Giardini et mezolane persone et de grandi et mezane (c. 1305). Thus, it seems that the garden of Adonis in the Hypnerotomachia was an old-fashioned type, differing from the more innovative designs found elsewhere on the island of Cythera, which are the main object of discussion in the present study.     

Peter Milton's turn: An American printmaker marks the end of the millennium

Abstract

I sometimes regret that because I am primarily a printmaker I live necessarily outside the critically sanctioned center of the contemporary establishment. But this has proved in a great many ways to be a blessing; at least it has reinforced my move inward, which is, after all, not the worst place for an artist to be. (Peter Milton)     

Articulatory and voicing characteristics of adult dysarthric and verbal dyspraxic speakers: An instrumental study

The instrumental techniques of electropalatography and pneumotachography are used to examine details of tongue-palate contacts and VOT characteristics of three adult male subjects: two described as dysarthric and one as dyspraxic. A comparison is made between the subjects, and the results are compared with data from four normal speakers. The information is considered with reference to the neurological bases of these disorders of speech, and the advantages of an instrumental investigation over traditional auditory based assessments are exemplified. Some implications for therapy are also considered.     

Acquiring wanna: Beyond Universal Grammar

The wanna facts are a classic Poverty of Stimulus (PoS) problem: Wanna is grammatical in certain contexts (Who do you want PRO to play with?) but not others (Who do you want who to play with you?). On a standard analysis, “contraction” to wanna is blocked by some empty constituents (WH-copies) but not others (PRO). All empty constituents are inaudible, so it has been unclear how restrictions on them could be learned. Children’s reported knowledge of the wanna facts (Crain &; Thornton, 1998) has therefore been attributed to a principle of Universal Grammar (UG). In two experiments, we demonstrate that children’s use of wanna is not in fact adultlike and that error rates are modulated by the frequency of the embedded verb (play). These results suggest that if there is a UG principle, children appear not to know that it is relevant, raising important questions about what learning mechanisms enable children to circumvent the input’s apparent poverty.     

Making nature culture's other: Nineteenth-century American landscape painting and critical discourse

Abstract

Nature has long figured prominently in our understanding of nineteenth-century American culture. As physical presence, political actor, subject of spiritual, philosophical, and artistic inquiry, nature — both object and idea — has pervaded both popular and scholarly constructions of the American past. Scholars of American landscape painting (whether celebratory or critical) have for decades sought and explicated the meaning and prominence of the landscape within this putative context.¹     

Oral stereognosis and diadokokinetic tests in children and young adults

Data on oral stereognostic ability and lip and tongue diadokokinetic tests are presented for a range of ages from eight years to young adults. As anticipated, there is a general improvement in performance with age, but this is not a simple linear function except for the percentage of shapes correctly identified. No evidence could be found to support the theory that improvements in stereognostic skills are related to the onset of the adolescent growth spurt or the cessation of cranio-facial skeletal development. Sex differences for oral stereognostic ability suggest that ‘oral discriminatory function’ is superior in females, but diadokokinetic tests are apparently at odds with accepted thought; explanations for this are offered. ‘Normal’ values for the diadokokinetic tests (which form part of the Frenchay Dysarthria Test) over the age range studied are presented, information hitherto unavailable.