Designed to Impress: Guido Mazenta’s Plans for the Entry of Gregoria Maximiliana of Austria into Milan (1597): (Bridging Languages and Scholarship; Series in World History)

Soon after celebrating the appointment of Federico Borromeo to Archbishop, the city of Milan began planning elaborate festivities to celebrate the betrothal of Prince Philip, future King of Spain, to the niece of the Holy Roman Emperor, Gregoria Maximiliana. She was scheduled to travel through Milan in 1597 on her journey to Spain. Guido Mazenta, a private citizen, planned for the erection of five triumphal arches in strategic locations throughout the city. This volume includes studies of the author and his previously unrecognized importance in turn-of-the-century Milan, presents an analysis and transcription of his illustrated manuscript for the program (Biblioteca Nacional Ms. 2908), and fully examines the scope and expenses of the festivities in honor of royal visitors in the second half of the sixteenth century. Although Gregoria died before the planned celebration, many of its features were transferred to the entry in 1598 of her sister, Margherita, who married Philip soon after he ascended to the throne as Philip III of Spain. This celebration left a permanent mark on the city of Milan through the construction of the Porta Romana. Scholars of early modern European art and history will find a richness of new archival documentation, particularly those interested in the history of book and art collecting and in economic history. The essays in this volume bring to light the important role of a private citizen whose reputation was later deliberately obscured to cover the ignominy that led to his exile from Milan. Janis Bell and Stefano Bruzzese discuss the author and his activities, Silvio Leydi discusses the many elaborate festivities conducted for royal visitors to the city of Milan during the Hapsburg reign and the expenses involved in hosting their courts, and Elisa Ruiz Garcia presents a detailed examination of the program and the sources used by the author.

About the Author :
Janis Bell completed her Ph.D. in Art History at Brown University and taught for 12 years at Kenyon College, a four-year liberal arts college in Ohio. She received grants from the Fulbright Commission, the American Council of Learned Societies, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Harvard Center for Italian Renaissance Studies (Villa I Tatti), and the American Academy in Rome. Her principal field of study is early modern Italian art and theory, in which she has published on Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Caravaggio, Zaccolini, and Bellori. She serves on the board of a new international journal dedicated to Leonardo da Vinci. Her recent publications deal with the reception of Leonardo in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, among which is a forthcoming edition and translation of Zaccolini's 'Prospettiva del colore.' Stefano Bruzzese majored in Philosophy and received his Ph.D. in Art History and Criticism from the University of Studies in Milan. He has written numerous studies on art and literature from the fifteenth to the twentieth centuries. He edited an edition of the letters of Guido Cagnola, a Lombard collector who was close to Bernard Berenson (2012), and a critical edition of the earliest history of the Milanese school by Antonio Francesco Albuzi (written in the late 1700s). He has completed a monograph on the Mazenta family in the Milan of Federico Borromeo and is currently preparing a study of the correspondence between Austen Henry Layard and Giovanni Morelli. Silvio Leydi, Ph.D. studied in Bologna, Turin and Florence (Villa I Tatti). His main interests lie in the social and material history of the sixteenth century, with a focus on Lombardy and Northern Italy. He has collaborated on miscellaneous volumes and international exhibitions, in which he has contributed essays and entries on the workshops of Milanese armorers, sculptors, medalists, crystal makers. He has published books on the imperial image in Milan in the sixteenth century (1999) and on the Milanese families d'Adda di Sale (2008) and Annoni (2015). He is currently preparing an edition of the 'Memorie' of the Milanese notary Giovan Pietro Fossano (1512-1559).

Review :
The book is a clearly-structured and well-written account of the sources and context in which the Milanese Guido Mazenta planned the Triumphal Entry of Gregoria into Milan. It offers a transcription of MS 2908 made by Elisa Ruiz Garcia, an extremely interesting source material, with a useful introduction on the iconography of the project identifying the emblematic and allegorical sources used by to construct the program for the welcoming of Gregoria Maximiliana into Milan, a failed project by Mazenta. [...] Few comments on the possible public of this excellent work: the monograph can (and will) be of extreme interest to a fairly wide audience of scholars, as it is original and significant in its content. It is primarily directed to scholars of the Renaissance and Early Modern periods, historians, art historians and students of the sixteenth century. The book will also interest universities worldwide, especially in Europe and the United States, museums, libraries, booksellers, collectors and cultured readers. Prof. Dr. Barbara Tramelli Department of Humanities Ca' Foscari University of Venice, Italy