The international Gothic style in the city of Valencia: The altarpiece of Saint George of Centenar de la Ploma

MATILDE MIQUEL JUAN

This proposes offers a stylistic, formal and historic approach to the altarpiece of Saint George of Centenar de la Ploma, from the Victoria and Albert Museum of London. The altarpiece is studied along with masterpieces such as the notebook of designs of the Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe of the Uffizi in order to better understand the birth and development of the international Gothic style in the city of Valencia, and the artists that were privy to the diversity of Dutch, Saxon, Florentine, Sienese, Cypriot, Aragonese, Balearic and Catalonian influence at the beginning of the 15th century.

From Pietà to Our Lady of Sorrows. A Copy of Michelangelo donated by Innocenzo Massimo at the Royal Site of the Buen Retiro

DAVID GARCÍA CUETO

The presence from the 17th century until the Napoleonic invasion of a bronze copy of Michelangelo’s Pietà at the Royal Site of the Buen Retiro has been largely unnoticed by the art historiography. This paper presents the circumstances in which this singular artwork was sent from Italy as a diplomatic gift, placed once in Madrid in one of the chapels of the Buen Retiro. It underwent an interesting transformation to be adapted to the Spanish religiosity, becoming during the reign of Philip V the main image of the parish church in the Royal Site, under the invocation of Our Lady of Sorrows.

The staircase as agent of religious propaganda: The examples of the Monastery of San Martín Pinario

PAULA PITA GALÁN

In the second half of the 18th century the Benedictines of San Martín Pinario (Santiago de Compostela) started to build two monumental staircases in the main facades of their monastery. These remarkably original pieces not only were the last works of building process of this complex but also two urban scenes of Italian inspiration. The both stairs were thought as scenarios for the religious ceremonies of the community and were given a rhetoric meaning to celebrate the temporary and spiritual grandeur of the Order just at the beginning of its slow and steady decline.

An exotic Goya: His Majesty’s Great Ant-Bear

JAVIER JORDÁN DE URRÍES Y DE LA COLINA

In July 1776, a female giant anteater from Buenos Aires was presented to Charles III in the Palacio Real in Madrid. The King of Spain and the Indies ordered the transfer of the animal to the Buen Retiro and commissioned her portrait, which was painted under the direction of Anton Raphael Mengs, ‘primer pintor de cámara’. In this paper, the painting, which is now in the Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales in Madrid, is attributed to Goya based on the stylistic similarities with the landscapes of his tapestry cartoons. In addition, the author also considers the possibility that Goya worked as Mengs’s assistant in the ceiling fresco of the Apotheosis of Trajan at the Palacio Real, from November 1775 to June 1776.

Foreign influences on the architecture and town planning of the Instituto Nacional de Colonización

PABLO RABASCO POZUELO

The organisation Instituto Nacional de Colonización, founded in 1939, was responsible for bringing about an agricultural reform that involved the irrigation and settlement of large parts of Spain, and started with the construction of more than two hundred new settlements. The foundations for this transformation were based on the planning carried out during the Second Republic, diverse contemporary projects and on the study of examples from abroad. The truth is that we are before one of the most important historical events of 20th century Spanish architecture, which saw the involvement of prominent architects such as José Luis Fernández del Amo, Alejandro de la Sota and Antonio Fernández Alba. The aim of this study is to bring to light the influence that foreign examples, fundamentally from Italy and Israel, had on the architectural and town planning solutions employed on the establishment of these new settlements and development of rural land.

· Biblioteca ·

CARMEN MORTE GARCÍA — Damián Forment. Escultor del Renacimiento (Miguel Á. Zalama)

DIANA CARRIÓ-INVERNIZZI — El gobierno de las imágenes. Ceremonial y mecenazgo en la Italia española de la segunda mitad del siglo XVII(Maria Antonietta Visceglia)

JUAN JESÚS LÓPEZ-GUADALUPE MUÑOZ— Estudios sobre patrimonio escultórico (Raquel Novero)