Renaissance Rivals: Michelangelo, Leonardo, Raphael, Titian by Rona Goffen (review)

REVIEWS 238 upon inadequate seventeenth-century editions of key works. And this is where editions exist at all. Dyson has contributed more than any other scholar to date to the edition and re-edition of the important texts relating to the dispute between Philippe and Boniface. In addition to the present volume, he has edited and translated four critical editions of tracts at the heart of the dispute21 and translated James of Viterbo’s De regimine Christiano.22 As Dyson’s bibliography implies (399), James’s work is another text for which no adequate critical edition yet exists. It is to be hoped that this excellent version of Giles of Rome’s key work is soon to be joined by a similar critical edition and revised translation of James’s treatise. CHRIS JONES, The Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies Rona Goffen, Renaissance Rivals: Michelangelo, Leonardo, Raphael, Titian (New Haven: Yale University Press 2004) 521 pp., 203 ill. Rona Goffen’s last work reads like a scandalous tell-all detailing the circumstances of production of some of the most famous works of Renaissance art and the aggressive rivalries of the period’s most renowned artists. While Goffen is not necessarily adhering to the art historical canon, almost all of the works she addresses are familiar, commonly reproduced images. These artists are the usual suspects with familiar stories, but the material is presented here with more extensive evidence and recounted in more detail than ever before. Goffen seeks to discuss these situations from the point of view of Renaissance contemporaries . Artists worked in an ongoing dialogue of competition and rivalry that permeated the actions of not only the artists but also their patrons, collectors, and contemporary writers, all of whom further contributed to this rivalry between the artists and one another. Consulting an impressive array of primary sources, Goffen reproduces the voices of the Renaissance through personal correspondences and biographies of the artists. The book is organized chronologically and roughly by artist, making the work a convenient enhancement or supplement to standard art historical textbooks . The first few chapters set the stage with the most classic examples of early Renaissance rivalries: Ghiberti and Brunelleschi’s competition panels for the commission of the East doors of the Florence Baptistery, the statues in the exterior niches of Orsanmichele, and the Sistine Chapel frescoes from 14751481 by some of the most well-known painters of the time. However, the main focus of this dramatic history is on the major stars of the Renaissance: Michelangelo , Leonardo, Raphael, and Titian. Goffen effectively traces their rivalries through their commissions. Their works often referred to one another’s and openly adopted visual devices from one another. These were not artistic quotations, Goffen argues with certainty; they were a part of an ongoing dialogue central to the seemingly progressive nature of the Renaissance. This was a period that sought not only to imitate the 21 Three Royalist Tracts, 1296–1302, ed. and trans. Robert W. Dyson (Bristol 1999); Quaestio de Potestate Papae (Rex Pacificus), ed. and trans. Robert W. Dyson (Lampeter 1999). 22 James of Viterbo on Christian Government, trans. Robert W. Dyson (Woodbridge 1995). REVIEWS 239 superiority of classical art but also to surpass them. Similarly, they sought to appropriate the superior techniques or compositions of their peers and to surpass them. Through prints and literary accounts, all artists of that time were made aware of each other’s works, and the publicity further fanned the flames of rivalry. Part of what makes this such an entertaining read, and Goffen herself must have surely taken pleasure in the very compilation of this book, is learning of the moments when things went beyond a friendly competitive spirit and came to, or very close to, blows. Michelangelo was openly acknowledged and heralded as a genius during his own lifetime, and it was against him that so many later artists would be measured . His constant challenge with his peers and models from antiquity distinguished his early works. Goffen’s proclaimed the “protagonist” of her book is Michelangelo, whose competitive nature and longevity allowed for him to significantly pick fights with all the other major artists of the Renaissance. For instance, Michelangelo’s...