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Oleum Olivarum: Stradano's Engraving and the New Art of Olive-Oil Making in Sixteenth-Century Tuscany
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 November 2024
Abstract
This article demonstrates the merited inclusion of Giovanni Stradano's olive-oil engraving in the “Nova Reperta,” a series showcasing postclassical inventions that Florentine nobleman and Alterati member Luigi Alamanni commissioned in the late 1580s. The image and accompanying inscription must be understood within their broader cultural, scientific, legal, political, and socioeconomic contexts. The print reflects olive oil's economic potential and the evolving dietary preferences in Medici Florence. It evinces the flexibility of the concept of invention. Rather than being technological, the novelties mirror ideas central to the Alterati academics around classical knowledge and the alchemical ability of humans to transform nature through artisanship.
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- Copyright © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Renaissance Society of America
Footnotes
I presented a first version of this manuscript at the Seminar in European Art, Newberry Library, Chicago (2021). My research benefited from fellowships at the Newberry (Charles Montgomery Gray Fellowship, 2019, and Monticello College and Andrew W. Mellon Foundations Fellowships, 2021–22) and the Warburg Library, London (Frances A. Yates Long-Term Fellowship, 2022–23). I would like to thank Lia Markey, Déborah Blocker, Carl Ipsen, Sara Miglietti, Aaron Hyman, Claudia Mesa, Tommaso De Robertis, Suzanne Karr Schmidt, and RQ's anonymous readers and editors for their generous suggestions and shared expertise.