Page - 157 - in Der Arkadenhof der Universität Wien und die Tradition der Gelehrtenmemoria in Europa

one might call ‘restrained naturalism’, Mino emphasizes the horizontal furrows on the fore- head, the pronounced cheekbones and charac- teristic naso-labial folds. The bust is one of the most remarkable sculpted portraits of Renais- sance art.33 Vasari, who is the first to mention the bust, praises the heightened degree of skillful realism in the service of commemorative presen- tification: Mino lo ritrasse in pontificale, simile al vivo quanto sia possibile.34 In a conceptual twist, the traditional personifications of the virtues so common on Quattocento tomb monuments are given up in favour of a focus on the bishop’s pres- ence in a sculpted portrait: It is the bust itself that demonstrates inner virtue and wisdom as they manifest on the bishop’s face. This is in- deed the first sculpted portrait of a Renaissance humanist in the true sense of the word. Mino re- sponds to the artistic challenge of rendering vis- ible ‘personality’ and inner qualities in a block of marble by drawing forth (pro-trahere) a per- son’s character from underneath the surface of their appearance.35 The sparse use of common allegorical icon- ography on the tomb directs the observer’s attention to the bishop’s portrait, which is fur- ther accentuated by the way in which the bust is framed, sheltered by strong, beautifully carved consoles and set into a system of horizontal and vertical moldings and markers on the back wall (Fig. 1). Placed against a geometric composition reminiscent of a diagrammatic abbreviation of the human figure with outstretched arms, it ap- pears that the tomb also makes a reference to the crucified Christ, bearing eucharistic and eschato- logical implications. The bust, a classical pars pro toto object, references antiquity particularly by its slightly angular cut at the bottom; yet it al- so refers to the totus homo and, by means of its geometrically structured backdrop, the complete human body.36 While a bishop’s bust in an antique style and on a tomb monument would have been per- ceived as rather novel in the 1460s in Fiesole, Fig. 6: Andrea Arditi, Reliquary bust of San Zenobio, cir- ca 1331, silver, Cathedral Santa Maria del Fiore, Florence. The SaluTaTi Tomb in FieSole 157 33 The striking aesthetic qualities of the bust ‘qui est parmi les plus belles de cette période’ are emphasized by Angeli, Mino da Fiesole (cit. n. 13), p. 59. 34 ‘...e per questo gli fu allogato a fare nel vescovado di Fiesole, a una cappella vicina alla maggiore, a man dritta salen- do, un’altra sepoltura per il Vescovo Lionardo Salutati, vescovo di detto luogo, nella quale egli lo ritrasse in pontifi- cale, simile al vivo quanto sia possibile.’ G. Vasari, Le Opere (ed. G. Milanesi), 9 vols., Florence 1906, vol. 3, p. 122, as part of the vita of Mino da Fiesole. 35 For different concepts of portraiture from its beginnings to t hethe twentieth century see Porträt, 1999 (cit. n. 2). 36 The term totus homo originates from Pauline anthropology and appears in the Italian Renaissance above all in Gian- nozzo Manetti’s treatise De dignitate et excellentia hominis, where it is discussed in the context of the dichotomy of body and soul. It was first related to Renaissance portraiture by Lavin, On the Sources and Meaning of the Renais- sance Portrait Bust (cit. n. 6), p. 208s.