Giovanni Battista Armenini or Armanini (1530–1609) was an Italian art historian, critic, and academic. He was born and died in Faenza. His main contribution was the publication in 1587 of the theoretical treatise on the practice of painting, titled ''De veri precetti della pittura''. Armenini describes that he had the opportunity to travel through Rome, Naples, Milan, Genoa, Venice and other cities of Italy for nine years. In 1564, he became rector of the church of San Tommaso in Faenza. He dedicated his opus to Guglielmo Gonzaga, Duke of

Mantua Mantua ( ; it, Mantova ; Lombard and la, Mantua) is a city and '' comune'' in Lombardy, Italy, and capital of the province of the same name. In 2016, Mantua was designated as the Italian Capital of Culture. In 2017, it was named as the Eur ...

. In the first book, he speaks of major

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history The history of Europe is traditionally divided into four time periods: prehistoric Europe (prior to about 800 BC), classical antiquity (800 BC to AD ...

and

Mannerist Mannerism, which may also be known as Late Renaissance, is a style in European art that emerged in the later years of the Italian High Renaissance around 1520, spreading by about 1530 and lasting until about the end of the 16th century in Ita ...

painters of the past including

Raphael Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino, better known as Raphael (; or ; March 28 or April 6, 1483April 6, 1520), was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form, ease of composition, and visual a ...

, Michelangelo,

Titian Tiziano Vecelli or Vecellio (; 27 August 1576), known in English as Titian ( ), was an Italian (Venetian) painter of the Renaissance, considered the most important member of the 16th-century Venetian school. He was born in Pieve di Cadore, nea ...

, Antonio da Correggio, Sebastiano Veneziano,

Giulio Romano Giulio Romano (, ; – 1 November 1546), is the acquired name of Giulio Pippi, who was an Italian painter and architect. He was a pupil of Raphael, and his stylistic deviations from High Renaissance classicism help define the sixteenth-cent ...

, and Andrea del Sarto. He criticizes later painters like

Perino del Vaga Perino (or Perin) del Vaga (nickname of Piero Bonaccorsi) (1501 – October 19, 1547) was an Italian painter and draughtsman of the Late Renaissance/ Mannerism. Biography Perino was born near Florence. His father ruined himself by gambling, a ...

, Daniele da Volterra,

Domenico Beccafumi Domenico di Pace Beccafumi (1486May 18, 1551) was an Italian Renaissance- Mannerist painter active predominantly in Siena. He is considered one of the last undiluted representatives of the Sienese school of painting. Biography Domenico was bor ...

, and

Parmigianino Girolamo Francesco Maria Mazzola (11 January 150324 August 1540), also known as Francesco Mazzola or, more commonly, as Parmigianino (, , ; "the little one from Parma"), was an Italian Mannerist painter and printmaker active in Florence, Rome, B ...

. Contemporary theoretical books had been published based on writings of

Leonardo da Vinci Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (15 April 14522 May 1519) was an Italian polymath of the High Renaissance who was active as a painter, Drawing, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect. While his fame initially res ...

Giovanni Paolo Lomazzo Gian Paolo Lomazzo (26 April 1538 – 27 January 1592; his first name is sometimes also given as "Giovan" or "Giovanni") was an Italian artist and writer on art. Praised as a painter, Lomazzo wrote about artistic practice and art theory after ...

, and

Leon Battista Alberti Leon Battista Alberti (; 14 February 1404 – 25 April 1472) was an Italian Renaissance humanist author, artist, architect, poet, priest, linguist, philosopher, and cryptographer; he epitomised the nature of those identified now as polymaths. H ...

. The work was republished by Stefano Ticozzi in Milan in 1820.GB Armenini
''De veri precetti della pittura'', (1820)
Dalla tipografia di Vincenzo Ferrano contrada 5. Vittore e 40 Martiri. Milan In a more strictly philosophical way ( Aesthetics ) his work can be seen as a link between the previous authors of Italian humanism and the subsequent philosophers, such as Félibien des Avaux or the more known Batteux, considered the latter, probably generously, the real starter of modern aesthetics (

Kant Immanuel Kant (, , ; 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German philosopher and one of the central Enlightenment thinkers. Born in Königsberg, Kant's comprehensive and systematic works in epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, and aest ...

).
Armenini dedicated his treatise "to beginners, to scholars, and to lovers of fine arts",De veri precetti della pittura: Conclusion of the author: "a i principianti, a gli studiosi, et alli amatori delle belle arti" expression fine arts already used by

Sebastiano Serlio Sebastiano Serlio (6 September 1475 – c. 1554) was an Italian Mannerist architect, who was part of the Italian team building the Palace of Fontainebleau. Serlio helped canonize the classical orders of architecture in his influential trea ...

. Remembering as example of a complete artist "the painter, who was almost a miracle, that accompanied with Architecture, and with histories, the Painting, the Music, and the Poetry was first Gitto Fiorentino",De veri precetti della pittura: book III: "quel Pittore, che fu quasi un miracolo, che accompagnò con l'Architettura, et con l'istorie, la Pittura, la Musica, et la Poesia fu primieramente Gitto Fiorentino" Armenini shows an extraordinary modernity in the composition of the catalog "fine arts". Going on to analyze the meaning of "imitation" in fine arts he states that this is the selection of the best parts of the nature, as already said by

, and in their right composition to make a whole harmonious and natural: "So, in addition to seek the best things of nature, and most perfect, however we have to compensate using the good manner, and so going ahead so well, as you can judge that it's enough, in order that, accorded with the natural good, it becomes a composition of excellent beauty";De veri precetti della pittura: book II: "Concludasi dunque che oltre il cercar le miglior cose della natura, et più perfette si supplisca di poi tuttavia con la maniera buona, et con essa arrivar tanto oltre, quanto si può giudicar che basti, perchè accordata che sia quella col natural buono si fa una composizione di eccellente bellezza" and realizing that the artist should not make the bloomer of creating a not unitary forced sticky, as you might see in some works, "because they are composed of the same members, that are beautiful while seeing each one, from the good being picked, but when put together they seem to be unpleasant, and boring, and this because they are members of several beautiful figures, but not of these one".De veri precetti della pittura: book I: "poi che esse sono composte di quelle membra, le quali sono bellissime a risguardarsi da se ciascuna, per essere dal buono tolte; ma poste insieme poi si veggono essere spiacevole, et noiose, et questo non è per altro, se non perchè sono membra di più figure belle, non di queste una" And so the idea that the artist is going to represent the ideal of perfection, "so the Idea of man is the universal man, whose countenance are made then the men".De veri precetti della pittura: book II: "onde l'Idea dell'huomo è esso huomo universale, al cui sembiante sono fatti poi gli huomini" All these ideas will migrate along decades, and we find them almost identical in later theorists, as in the famed Batteux in his treatise "Les beaux arts réduits à un même principe"

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Armenini, Giovanni Battista 1530 births 1609 deaths People from Faenza Italian art historians Italian art critics