Output details

Le botteghe di Tiziano

Tagliaferro was sole author of chapters I.1: 'Gli esordi della bottega…' (pp. 27-53); I.2: 'La casa-bottega a Biri Grande' (pp. 57-71); I. 3 ‘Bottega e impresa di famiglia' (pp. 73-109); I.4: 'Assistenti al lavoro…' (pp. 111-131); II.1: 'Composizione e organizzazione della bottega…' (pp. 153-191); II.2: 'L’ascesa di Orazio Vecellio' (pp. 193-221); II.3: 'Una fabbrica di immaginii' (pp. 223-272); II.4: 'Il clan Vecellio…' (pp. 275-315). This amounts to his being sole author of two-thirds of the book.

This volume is the outcome of a 5-year project sponsored by the Fondazione Tiziano e Cadore. Through intensive study of paintings and extensive archival research, its aim was to examine the partnership between the master and the hitherto neglected assistants. It emphasises Titian’s artistic entrepreneurship. It examines how replicas, variants, and copies function in the dynamics of his system of production. And how this system involved the continual variation of Titian’s hallmark colour and composition by a workshop whose constituent membership was itself constantly changing. As such, the book offers a new conception of authorship, which has significance for the broader understanding of studio practice.

This book, which arose from an international research project, examines Titian’s market strategies, production system, and entrepreneurial skills from economic, social, and technical points of view. Drawing on unpublished documents, and analysing a large body of replicas etc., it sheds light on the role played by Titian’s assistants in the mutually informative processes of invention and execution. In revealing their contribution to the brand associated with the name of Titian, it supplants received ideas about the painter’s authorship with a more nuanced account of the activity of the workshop as a whole, and of its flexible response to different circumstances.