Books by Tanja Jones
Renaissance and Reformation Renaissance et Réforme 45, no. 2, 2022
Comitatus, 2022
Book Review
Women Artists in the Early Modern Courts of Europe (c. 1450-1700), 2021
This volume presents the first collection of essays dedicated to women as producers of visual and... more This volume presents the first collection of essays dedicated to women as producers of visual and material culture in the Early Modern European courts, offering fresh insights into the careers of, among others, Caterina van Hemessen, Sofonisba Anguissola, Luisa Roldán, and Diana Mantuana. Also considered are groups of female makers, such as ladies-in-waiting at the seventeenth-century Medici court. Chapters address works by women who occupied a range of social and economic positions within and around the courts and across media, including paintings, sculpture, prints, and textiles. Both individually and collectively, the texts deepen understanding of the individual artists and courts highlighted and, more broadly, consider the variety of experiences of female makers across traditional geographic and chronological distinctions. The book is also accompanied by the Global Makers: Women Artists in the Early Modern Courts digital humanities project (www.globalmakers.ua.edu), extending and expanding the work begun here.
Dissertation by Tanja Jones
This study examines the formal and ideological origins of the earliest Renaissance cast portrait ... more This study examines the formal and ideological origins of the earliest Renaissance cast portrait medals, created by the artist Pisanello (Antonio di Puccio, c. 1394-1455). It focuses on three courts and objects produced at each that are central to understanding the emergent sculptural form. Chapters are devoted to the Constantine and Heraclius medallions created for the Valois prince Jean, Duc
Papers by Tanja Jones
in New Technologies in Medieval and Renaissance, ed. by Matthew Evan Davis and Colin Wilder, 279-304 (Toronto: Iter), 2022
Women Artists in the Early Modern Courts of Europe (Amsterdam University Press, 2021)
Jones provides an introduction to the topic of women artists in the Early Modern courts, consider... more Jones provides an introduction to the topic of women artists in the Early Modern courts, considering issues of historiography, terminology, and the state of related literature. She also addresses the value of the digital humanities – and network mapping/visualizations in particular – to the study of the topic, introducing the multi-faceted project Global Makers: Women Artists in the Early Modern Courts.
Predella, 2018
This paper focuses upon the three extant medals (c. 1448-1450) that Pisanello designed for Alfon... more This paper focuses upon the three extant medals (c. 1448-1450) that Pisanello designed for Alfonso I of Naples (Alfonso V of Aragon), offering new insights into the range of meanings that the sculptures likely conveyed to viewers in Italy and beyond. Here the medallic iconography is considered against the backdrop of Alfonso's heritage, larger territorial claims, and commercial interests; appropriation of triumphalist iconography, crusade panegyrics, and prophetic traditions; and personal piety and reaction to papal calls for crusade. In this context, Pisanello's medals, designed for replication and dissemination, emerge as dynamic agents within an arsenal of propagandistic imagery that would have resounded with Christian audiences
across the Mediterranean.
This chapter addresses a largely overlooked aspect of Pisanello's medallic oeuvre: the artist's a... more This chapter addresses a largely overlooked aspect of Pisanello's medallic oeuvre: the artist's adoption, manipulation, and origination of heraldic or para-heraldic imagery. Particular attention is given to the function such imagery served in advancing the political, religious, and familial agendas of the artist's seigneurial patrons. Sustained consideration of Pisanello's debt to heraldic visual traditions and grants of arms reveals that, even as the medal celebrated the individual whose portrait appeared on the obverse (i.e. the titular subject), it identified him/her as part of a larger community - dynastic or ideological - thereby partaking of medieval representational systems grounded in notions of belonging. Recognizing the important role that heraldic iconography played in the function of medals for conveying messages regarding identity, legitimacy, dynastic aspirations, and authority suggests the social function of Pisanello's medals - and the need to amend views of early medals as, primarily, emblems of the individuals whose visages appeared on their obverses.
Künstlerinnen: Neue Perspektiven auf ein Forschungsfeld der Vormoderne, eds. Birgit Münch, Andreas Tacke, Marwart Herzog, and Sylvia Heudecker, Künsthistorisches Forum Irsee, 2017
As the call for the conference upon which this volume is based reminded us, the groundbreakin... more As the call for the conference upon which this volume is based reminded us, the groundbreaking work of scholars in the early 1970s inaugurated a more widespread effort to consider the role of female artists within the history of art than existed previously. Never the less, significant areas of need remain. This chapter addresses one such lacuna, the study of women artists in the early modern courts of Europe. The following pages offer a consideration of the state of existing literature dedicated to the topic and propose a series of methodological approaches as avenues to advancing discourse in the field
Conference Presentations by Tanja Jones
![Research paper thumbnail of Vivified Heraldry: On Pisanello’s Medallic Imagery [Heraldic artists and painters in the Middle Ages / Peintres et artistes héraldistes au Moyen Age (Poitiers, 10-11 April 2014)]](https://a.academia-assets.com/images/blank-paper.jpg)
Analyses of the earliest cast portrait medals, produced by Pisanello from the late 1430s through ... more Analyses of the earliest cast portrait medals, produced by Pisanello from the late 1430s through the 1440s, often focus on identifying ancient numismatic sources for the imagery found on the small, sculpted works of art, a pursuit consonant with the traditional identification of the objects as reviving antique traditions of personal commemoration. Less considered is Pisanello’s adoption, manipulation, and vivification of heraldic insignie in medallic imagery. Focusing on medals produced for Ludovico Gonzaga of Mantua, Sigismondo Malatesta of Rimini, Filippo Maria Visconti of Milan, and Alphonso I of Naples, this paper examines Pisanello’s employment of heraldic elements in emblematic and narrative imagery to forward identification of patrons with contemporary political and religious concerns. Particular attention is paid to the Gonzaga medals and their incorporation of heraldic insignie granted to the rulers of Mantua by the Emperor Sigismond in 1432. Sustained consideration of the text of the imperial charter, the concurrent modification of the Gonzaga arms, and the medallic imagery offers new avenues for addressing the range of Pisanello’s visual sources as well as the function that medals, as bearers of a complex, visual language, conveyed to contemporaries.
Giovanni Badile’s frescoes (1443-44) in the Guantieri Chapel at Santa Maria della Scala in Verona... more Giovanni Badile’s frescoes (1443-44) in the Guantieri Chapel at Santa Maria della Scala in Verona pair images chronicling the life of St. Jerome with depictions of Pisanello’s portrait medals dedicated to John VIII Palaeologus, the penultimate Byzantine Emperor; Leonello d’Este of Ferrara; Sigismondo Malatesta of Rimini; and the condottiere Niccolò Piccinino. This paper identifies the imagery as a unified ensemble referencing the reunion of the Latin and Greek Churches, made manifest at the Council of Ferrara and Florence (1438-39). Each of the individuals included in the frescoes via Pisanello’s medallic imagery was identified with the Council or calls for military efforts to protect the Byzantine Empire from Ottoman aggression. Recognizing the unified religious and political message of the fresco program offers new insights into the range of functions and meanings that the earliest cast medals conveyed to period viewers.
Pisanello’s medals created ca. 1447 depicting Ludovico Gonzaga, second marchese of Mantua (r. 144... more Pisanello’s medals created ca. 1447 depicting Ludovico Gonzaga, second marchese of Mantua (r. 1444-78) and his father, Gianfrancesco (r. 1407-44) were among the earliest cast portrait medals, a form invented by the artist in the late 1430s. This paper defines the objects’ dynastic and political value, their iconographic relationship with Pisanello’s Arthurian frescoes in Mantua, and their function as part of an innovative program of self- and familial-fashioning initiated by Ludovico. Considerations of historical context and the literary and visual culture of the court demonstrate that the medals, like the frescoes, affirmed the subjects’ military prowess, piety, and right to rule. Produced in multiples, the medals transmitted the Gonzaga “brand” beyond the palazzo walls to an international audience, forming an essential part of the earliest visual program produced by a single artist that coordinated medallic imagery with a monumental, painted commission.
CFP by Tanja Jones
CFP for Renaissance Society of America Conference (RSA), Boston, 20-22 March 2025
Proposals are ... more CFP for Renaissance Society of America Conference (RSA), Boston, 20-22 March 2025
Proposals are invited for a session (or sessions) dedicated to Renaissance medals and exonumia proposed for the annual Renaissance Society of America meeting Boston, 20-22 March 2025.
As small-scale, sculptural objects intended for circulation and dissemination, Renaissance medals represent one of the most abundant surviving forms of early modern material culture. Intended for a wide range of audiences, medals and related objects served a range of purposes beyond commercial exchange. In addition to the portraits that traditionally appeared on their obverses, medals bore texts and imagery that included original inventions as well as those drawn from antique and contemporary sources, allegory, heraldry, or narrative.
Proposals that address the imagery on medals and the intersection of this with other media – including painting, other sculpture, and architecture as well as print- and bookmaking – are particularly encouraged. So too are those addressing political and social aspects of the creation, collection, and exchange of the objects.
Please submit abstracts of no more than 200 words with titles of 15 words max, along with a c.v. (PDF or Word doc) and a list of keywords to Arne Flaten [[email protected]] and Tanja Jones [[email protected]] by Saturday, 10 August 2024. Please feel free to contact us with any questions.
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Books by Tanja Jones
Dissertation by Tanja Jones
Papers by Tanja Jones
across the Mediterranean.
Conference Presentations by Tanja Jones
CFP by Tanja Jones
Proposals are invited for a session (or sessions) dedicated to Renaissance medals and exonumia proposed for the annual Renaissance Society of America meeting Boston, 20-22 March 2025.
As small-scale, sculptural objects intended for circulation and dissemination, Renaissance medals represent one of the most abundant surviving forms of early modern material culture. Intended for a wide range of audiences, medals and related objects served a range of purposes beyond commercial exchange. In addition to the portraits that traditionally appeared on their obverses, medals bore texts and imagery that included original inventions as well as those drawn from antique and contemporary sources, allegory, heraldry, or narrative.
Proposals that address the imagery on medals and the intersection of this with other media – including painting, other sculpture, and architecture as well as print- and bookmaking – are particularly encouraged. So too are those addressing political and social aspects of the creation, collection, and exchange of the objects.
Please submit abstracts of no more than 200 words with titles of 15 words max, along with a c.v. (PDF or Word doc) and a list of keywords to Arne Flaten [[email protected]] and Tanja Jones [[email protected]] by Saturday, 10 August 2024. Please feel free to contact us with any questions.
across the Mediterranean.
Proposals are invited for a session (or sessions) dedicated to Renaissance medals and exonumia proposed for the annual Renaissance Society of America meeting Boston, 20-22 March 2025.
As small-scale, sculptural objects intended for circulation and dissemination, Renaissance medals represent one of the most abundant surviving forms of early modern material culture. Intended for a wide range of audiences, medals and related objects served a range of purposes beyond commercial exchange. In addition to the portraits that traditionally appeared on their obverses, medals bore texts and imagery that included original inventions as well as those drawn from antique and contemporary sources, allegory, heraldry, or narrative.
Proposals that address the imagery on medals and the intersection of this with other media – including painting, other sculpture, and architecture as well as print- and bookmaking – are particularly encouraged. So too are those addressing political and social aspects of the creation, collection, and exchange of the objects.
Please submit abstracts of no more than 200 words with titles of 15 words max, along with a c.v. (PDF or Word doc) and a list of keywords to Arne Flaten [[email protected]] and Tanja Jones [[email protected]] by Saturday, 10 August 2024. Please feel free to contact us with any questions.
Conference: “Challenging Empire: Women, Art, and the Global Early Modern World”
Conference dates: March 1 – 2, 2024
Deadline for submissions: September 1, 2023
Acceptance notification: September 15, 2023
Venues: The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL, and the Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham, AL
The symposium “Challenging Empire: Women, Art, and the Global Early Modern World”, part of the project Global Makers: Women Artists in the Early Modern Courts of Europe and Asia (www.globalmakers.ua.edu), is intended to extend and expand knowledge of cultural production by and for early modern women – particularly those associated with the courts – on a global scale. While numerous conferences, symposia, and resulting publications in the past several decades have addressed women as producers, consumers, and subjects of European art during the early modern period (c. 1400-1750), less consideration has been given to women’s roles in the courts – particularly as informed by the steadily increasing cross-cultural interactions (i.e. between Europe and Asia, the Americas, Africa, etc.) that characterized the period. This symposium aims to address this lacuna whilst simultaneously de-centering the traditional Euro- centric model of study in the analysis of women’s cultural production, presentation, and consumption surrounding courts and empires (institutions associated with ruling power). The goal is to encourage a more equitable view of early modern women’s experiences of and with art globally, across traditionally held national and continental boundaries.
We invite paper submissions from scholars (including advanced graduate students) whose work addresses topics including, but not limited to:
early modern (court) women’s roles in:
- transcultural artistic production, movement, and/or collecting across geographic and/or temporal spaces (across or between Asia, Europe, Africa, and the Americas);
- moments of cultural exchange, intersection, and/or reciprocity.
those that, in relation to early modern women’s roles in artistic production:
- problematize and/or challenge long-held notions surrounding early modern gender, “court”, and “empire” as hegemonic and culturally conditioned concepts; encourage consideration of cultural differences in the definition, production, or reception of visual and material culture;
- address issues of colonialism, imperialism, and/or patriarchy;
- approach concepts of the body, exoticism, and/or gender performance across cultures;
- address the movement of people, ideas, and/or objects;
- incorporate emerging methods in the study of early modern (esp. court) women and art on a global scale (including digital humanities tools such as mapping and/or social network analysis).
While identifying the “early modern” as the period from c.1400 to 1750, we recognize this datation as a Euro-centric, historiographic concept; therefore, we encourage papers addressing the central themes of the symposium, but with dates that may deviate slightly, especially those problematizing epochal differences in varied geographical and cultural contexts in Asia, Europe, Africa, the Americas and beyond.
Following the conference, a selection of papers will be chosen by the organizers for inclusion in a proposed edited volume. A limited number of travel subsidies will also be available for advanced graduate student presenters. This symposium is made possible by the generous support of the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, the Birmingham Museum of Art, the College of Arts and Sciences at The University of Alabama, and the Alabama Digital Humanities Center.
To submit a proposal, please send the following by email to the symposium organizers by
Friday, September 1, 2023:
In one PDF:
• Paper title
• Paper abstract (250-word maximum)
• CV with your full name, institutional affiliation (if applicable), title, and email address
Dr. Tanja L. Jones, The University of Alabama, [email protected] Dr. Doris Sung, The University of Alabama, [email protected]
Rebecca Teague, PhD student, University of California, Riverside, [email protected]
CFP: Renaissance Medals and Exonumia
Proposals are invited for a session (or sessions) dedicated to Renaissance medals and exonumia to be held at the annual Renaissance Society of America meeting Dublin, 30 March-2 April 2022.
As small-scale, sculptural objects intended for circulation and dissemination, Renaissance medals represent one of the most abundant surviving forms of early modern material culture. Intended for a wide range of audiences, medals and related objects served a range of purposes beyond commercial exchange. In addition to the portraits that traditionally appeared on their obverses, medals bore texts and imagery that included original inventions as well as those drawn from antique and contemporary sources, allegory, heraldry, or narrative.
Proposals that address the imagery on medals and the intersection of this with other media – including painting, other sculpture, and architecture as well as print- and bookmaking – are particularly encouraged. So too are those addressing political and social aspects of the creation, collection, and exchange of the objects.
Please submit abstracts of no more than 150 words with titles of 15 words max, along with a brief c.v. and a list of keywords to Arne Flaten [[email protected]] and Tanja Jones [[email protected]] by Thursday, 5 August 2021.
Annual Conference 2020 (Philadelphia)
CFP: Renaissance Numismatics, Medals, and Exonumia
Proposals are invited for a session (or sessions) dedicated to Renaissance numismatics, medals, and exonumia to be held at the annual Renaissance Society of America meeting in Philadelphia, 2-4 April 2020.
As small-scale objects intended for circulation and dissemination, Renaissance coins and medals represent one of the most abundant surviving forms of early modern material culture. Intended for a wide range of audiences – from the illiterate tradesman, to the humanist collector, to the nobility – coins, medals, and related objects also served a range of purposes not limited to commercial exchange. In addition to the portraits that traditionally appeared on their obverses, coins and medals bore texts and imagery that included original inventions as well as those drawn from antique and contemporary sources, allegory, heraldry, or narrative.
Proposals that address the imagery on coins and medals and the intersection of this with other media – including painting, sculpture, and architecture as well as print- and bookmaking – are particularly encouraged. So too are those addressing political and social aspects of the creation, collection, and exchange of the objects.
Please submit proposals to Arne Flaten [[email protected]] and/or Tanja Jones [[email protected]] by 31 July 2019 [DEADLINE EXTENDED FROM JULY 20].
Boston, 31 March – 2 April 2016
Even as significant contributions have been made to our understanding of women as patrons for and subjects of early modern art, analysis of their roles as “hands-on” makers of the rich variety of visual and material culture that characterized the courts remains challenging. The goal of this session is to encourage sustained consideration of women as artists/makers in the courts of Europe between c. 1350-1700. Topics might include, but are not limited to, considerations of a particular artist/maker or a class of objects; historiographic or institutional challenges to this line of inquiry; the traditional rubric for defining the court “artist” and product (painter/painting; sculptor/sculpture); or categories of production traditionally marginalized in art historical consideration, such as needlecraft or miniature painting.
By 8 June 2015 (note: this is a revised deadline), please send paper title, abstract (150 word maximum), and a short CV (300 word maximum) to session organizer Tanja L. Jones, University of Alabama ([email protected]). Please put “RSA 2016” in the subject line of emails.
ed. by Adrian BREMENKAMP and Sarah K. KOZLOWSKI
Introduction
Adrian BREMENKAMP
Renaissance Made in Naples: Alfonso of Aragon as Role Model to Federico da Montefeltro
Tanja L. JONES
The Mediterranean Context: Pisanello’s Medals for Alfonso I of Naples
Philine HELAS
The Triumph of Alfonso of Aragon in Naples: From Living Images to Pictorial Representations
Teresa D’URSO
Una Resurrezione del Maestro delle Ore Tocco al Brooklyn Museum: sulle tracce dei corali quattrocenteschi di San Domenico Maggiore a Napoli
Emanuele ZAPPASODI
Per la giovinezza di Giovanni da Gaeta
Virginia CARAMICO
La Madonna del Cucito: un affresco nel contesto del presbiterio di Santa Chiara a Napoli
Leah R. CLARK
Objects of Exchange: Diplomatic Entanglements in Fifteenth-century Naples
Sarah K. KOZLOWSKI
Jan van Eyck’s Saint George and the Dragonbetween Bruges and Naples
MISCELLANEA/MISCELLANY
FIGURE
Chiara FRUGONI
Novità sui Volti Santi di Lucca e Bocca di Magra
Piero DONATI
Sul Volto Santo di Bocca di Magra
Monica BALDASSARRI
Il Volto Santo e la monetazione lucchese nel XIII secolo
Clario DI FABIO
La Santa Croce dei Lucchesi a Genova: l’immagine di un Volto Santo perduto
CORNICE
Barbara BAERT
Pygmalion and creative enthusiasm
Gemma ZAGANELLI
Hildebrand critico della scultura cubista. Il caso degli Amanti di Raymond Duchamp-Villon
Silvia GIORDANO
An everlasting experience: the issue of preservation and communication of the ephemerality of performing arts
CUSPIDE
Veronica TULLI
La Centauromachia di Michelangelo e il sarcofago A 13 est. del Camposanto di Pisa
Lara SCANU
Alcune notizie sugli artisti fiorentini presso l’Arciconfraternita di san Giovanni Decollato in Roma e una precisazione per Jacopo Zucchi
Riccardo SPINELLI
I cistercensi del “Cestello”fiorentino, da Borgo Pinti in San Frediano: le “tre chiese”del nuovo complesso conventuale e i progetti di Gherardo Silvani, Pier Francesco Silvani, Giulio Cerruti
IN LIBRERIA
Gabriele FATTORINI
Antonello e i suoi mondi, di ieri e di oggi. Una monografia esemplare e le mostre di cassetta
Neville ROWLEY
Un nouveau livre sur Paolo Uccello
Franco PALIAGA
La Gioconda di Leonardo secondo Martin Kemp e Giuseppe Pallanti