Francesca Bianca Sforza tra cultura umanistica e politica dinastica

Rilettura delle Muse cremonesi del Victoria and Albert Museum

Abstract

This article offers a new interpretation of the frescoed vault depicting Apollo and the nine music-making Muses, now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. The cycle—executed by Alessandro Pampurino around 1497–1500—is examined with regard to its architectural design, iconographic sources, and cultural context. Based on previously unpublished documents, patronage is reattributed to Francesca Bianca Sforza, Augustinian abbess and sister of Ludovico il Moro. Particular attention is paid to the cycle’s relationship to the model of the Mantegna Tarocchi, especially as regards the musical and celestial symbolism rooted in Neo-Platonic theories, as well as its formal and conceptual echoes of the ephemeral tiburio, erected in 1489 for the ducal wedding in Milan. By identifying the room’s original function as a studiolo and placing its decoration within the broader framework of humanistic culture, musical imagery, and the dynamics of the Sforza dynasty, this study sheds new light on the role of female monastic environments as agents of humanist patronage in late fifteenth-century Northern Italy.

https://www.lim.it/it/imago/7096-imago-musicae-xxxiv-97855435024.html#/2-tipo_prodotto-libro