The Splendor of Andrea del Sarto

Steven J. Cody, Associate Professor of Art History at Purdue University Fort Wayne and Roanoke College class of 2007, will offer a lecture drawn from research published in his book Andrea del Sarto: Splendor and Renewal in the Renaissance Altarpiece (Brill, 2020). This lecture is jointly sponsored by the Art History program and the Donald L. Jordan Endowment for the Humanities. Prof. Cody graduated in the first class of art history majors at Roanoke College and this lecture will also offer an opportunity to celebrate the successes of the art history major since it was first established at Roanoke College nearly twenty years ago.

Prof. Cody has provided the following abstract of his lecture: Andrea del Sarto (1486-1530) was one of the most celebrated painters of the Italian Renaissance. Over the course of his career, he created altarpieces rich in theological complexity, elegant in formal execution, and dazzlingly brilliant in chromatic impact. His most famous work is the Madonna of the Harpies (1517), a stunning panel originally executed for a Franciscan church. Steven J. Cody—a scholar of Italian art and culture—will speak about this intriguing painting at Roanoke College on [insert date and time].

Come and hear how Andrea del Sarto’s handling of form and the human figure privileges sixteenth-century debates about the nature of artistic excellence in different visual media; how his innovative treatment of light and color imitates theories of optical science, especially Leonardo da Vinci’s writings on lustro and splendore; and how Andrea’s artistic endeavors as a whole engage with Christian values of spiritual renewal. In this regard, Professor Cody’s talk offers new possibilities for thinking about the devotional function of Renaissance painting and the intellectual lives of Renaissance artists, broadly conceived.