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Ogni desiderio della marchesa è un ordine: i distici ritrovati di Giovan Giacomo Calandra sopra il ritratto di Isabella d’Este, opera di Lorenzo Costa

Diletta Gamberini

Published online:

04 Jun 2025

Abstract

Abstract

The article focuses on the analysis of four previously unpublished Neo-Latin epigrams penned by Giovan Giacomo Calandra, a leading officer and humanist serving at the court of Mantua, in celebration of Lorenzo Costa’s portrait of Isabella d’Este (1508). Art historians have long been aware that Isabella had solicited Calandra to supply her with a few elegiac couplets as a way of exalting one of the very few portraits of her which she actually liked. Equally well known is the fact that one of the epigrams was likely included as an inscription in Costa’s (now unidentified or lost) painting, but the texts had not previously been located. The article then contextualizes these rediscovered poems, relating them to the literary and artistic culture that flourished around the marquise of Mantua.

Other articles in this issue:

Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte Issues

Volume 88 (2025)
Volume 87 (2024)
Volume 86 (2023)
Volume 85 (2022)
Volume 84 (2021)
Volume 83 (2020)
Volume 82 (2019)
Volume 81 (2018)
Volume 80 (2017)
Volume 79 (2016)

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