New Renaissance technique, and new technologies for art history: Luca Della Robbia’s invention of glazed terracotta and 3D digital technologies.
Seminar
Dr. Federica Carta
BA + MA
BA KuWi 2 und MA KuWi 1
Donnerstag, 10-12.00 Uhr c.t.
A 072 and DigiLab
The seminar will be in English
Number of students will be limited to 15 for the session in the Digi-Lab
In the 1430s, the Florentine artist Luca della Robbia developed glazed terracotta, a technique celebrated by the artist and historian Giorgio Vasari as a “new, useful, and most beautiful art.” By merging the renewed interest in terracotta sculpture with the ceramic glaze techniques of archaic maiolica, della Robbia created a versatile medium, suited to small-scale and monumental works that flourished in Florence and beyond.
This seminar examines the diverse output of the Della Robbia workshop, its technical innovations, and its dialogue with contemporary artistic practices. Operative across three generations, the workshop’s later exponents, Girolamo and Luca the Younger, worked for the French court, serving Francis I, Henry II, and Catherine de’ Medici.
Though marginalized by 16th-century Classicism and further overlooked during the 18th-century Neoclassical revival, Della Robbia’s glazed sculptures experienced a resurgence in popularity during the 19th- and early 20th- centuries. This renewed appreciation led to the dispersal of works into private and public collections across Europe and the United States, a phenomenon we will critically assess.
As a starting point for a new Art History Digi-Lab, a part of the seminar will be devoted to 3D digital technologies for the study of sculpture, such as 3D scanning and photogrammetry. The use of 3D models will be presented in connection with a forthcoming exhibition on the Della Robbia at the Metropolitan Museum in New York (opening in August 2026). The seminar will include a two-sessions introduction, with hands-on experience, to photogrammetry.
Introductory bibliography
Cambareri, Marietta, Della Robbia: sculpting with color in Renaissance Florence, exib. cat. [Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, August 9 - December 4, 2016 and National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., February 5 - June 4, 2017]. Boston (Mass.), MFA Publications, 2016.
Gentilini, Giancarlo, I Della Robbia. La scultura invetriata nel Rinascimento, Firenze, Cantini, 1992
Gentilini, Giancarlo, ed. I Della Robbia: il dialogo tra le arti nel Rinascimento, exib. cat., [Arezzo, Museo statale d'arte medievale e moderna, 21/02-07/06/2009], Milano, Skira, 2009
Pope-Hennessy, John, Luca della Robbia, Oxford, Phaidon, 1980.
Sarnecka, Zuzanna, The Allure of Glazed Terracotta in Renaisance Italy, London/Turnhout, Harvey Miller/Brepols, 2021 < https://directory.doabooks.org/handle/20.500.12854/150929 >
