Sharing Space: Double Portraiture in Sixteenth-Century Italy

My dissertation is a comprehensive study of a neglected aspect of Italian Renaissance art, the double portrait, as a document of Italian Renaissance life. I define the "double portrait" as a work in which two adults are represented for a secular purpose within the same frame. This is the first systematic study of the double portrait in scholarship on fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Italian art. The previous lack of attention to this topic is due in part to the comparative rarity of this portrait type. However, my research indicates that this type exists in sufficient number to offer an understanding of broader societal trends. The interactive dialogue between the two sitters in a double portrait is not only a visual representation of individuals but re-presents a type of cultural exchange within the picture plane. In other words, double portraits embody issues related to sixteenth-century society and artistic production. The minimal literature on Italian double portraiture focuses either on a single double portrait or on one particular artist's oeuvre. This close study of double portraiture in Italy questions what the genre can tell us about the general nature of Italian portraiture and the societal constructs of Renaissance Italy. I bring a thematic approach to the subject. By focusing on adult relationships of individuals with similar social status, I analyze themes of marriage, love and allegory, friendship, and commemoration. Because double portraits present a nexus of two individuals at a specific time for different situations, my study encompasses nuanced examinations of the genre in light of gender roles, same sex interpersonal relationships, economic status, and societal rank, among other cultural issues. In my study, the double portrait is shown to be a singularly revealing document of Renaissance courtly life.