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During the Late Middle Ages, the myth of the Trojan War enjoyed a second lease of life. This article aims to analyse the artistic reception of the myth during the Late Middle Ages when it was reappraised through the lens of Christianity and related to the Crusades. This timeframe has been selected and merits further examination also considering what happened in the following age. In fact, since the sixteenth century, numerous artists and intellectuals dealt with this myth in a completely changed cultural context by mediating on the editio princeps of several literary texts. This article is focused on the literary traditions that inspired visual interpretations and, on the other hand, when these figural representations were instead dependent on a previous visual tradition. Specifically, this article argues against a recurrent idea in academic literature that sees Medieval and Early Modern iconographies as being inspired directly by famous classical texts such as Homer, Ovid, or Statius.

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A painting by Herman Han dated 1616 in the church of Klackeberga in Sweden shows the Annunciation to Mary. The painting is all that remains of a large, architectonically built altarpiece, originally containing five paintings by Han, that was taken as war booty in 1626 during King Gustav Adolf’s conquest of Braunsberg (Braniewo) in Prussia and in 1633 was installed on the high altar in Storkyrkan (St Nicholas Church) in Stockholm. After being replaced by another church altarpiece, from 1702 to c. 1820, it adorned the altar in Kungsholm Church (Ulrika Eleonora Church), Stockholm. In 1839, the largest of the altarpiece’s paintings, the Annunciation, was put up for sale and later donated to Klackeberga. The painting, which has long attracted the attention of Polish and Swedish art historians alike, has hitherto only mainly been known to them “second-hand” – through black and white photographs. However, thanks to some recently taken colour photos, the author of the present study has been able to identify some details that have escaped the attention of earlier writers on the subject, for example, that the Archangel Gabriel is wearing an episcopal outfit and not a pontifical one, as was hitherto surmised. Some objects denoting Mary’s domestic side have come to light through the colour photographs. They also show more clearly how Han used light to pinpoint the most important actors in the scene, the Dove of the Holy Trinity, the Virgin Mary, and the Archangel Gabriel. Of particular interest is how Han, by letting some of the light also fall on the archangel’s sandal-clad foot, directs the viewer’s eye there, perhaps referring to the winged sandals of the Greek messenger god Hermes, a subtle reminder of Gabriel being a messenger from God.

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In his multifaceted study of Italian painting, Roberto Longhi was particularly sensitive to the special role of eccentric, singular painters. One of these was Lorenzo Lotto, whom the Italian researcher considers a real artistic revelation of the first decade of the sixteenth century. Few painters evade scholarly “stylistic categorisation’ with as much adroitness as Lorenzo Lotto, whose work stands out as radically innovative. His individual style evolved under the influence of the painting traditions of Venice, but also Central Italy and Northern Europe. The article attempts to discuss another great, less known and clearly distinct artistic tradition contributing to the uniqueness of Lotto’s art – that of Venetian mainland, known as terraferma, with the Lombard cities conquered by Venice, Brescia foremost. Although Lorenzo Lotto was the heir of Giovanni Bellini and Antonella da Messina, the most recognisable features contributing to the uniqueness of Lotto’s art are rooted in the same ground as the art of artists from Brescia. The essay focuses on the singularity of Brescia’s painting and its affinity with Lotto’s artistic language.

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The essay illustrates the stormy relationship between Roberto Longhi (1890–1970) and Bernard Berenson (1865–1959), which started in 1912, when Longhi wrote to Berenson offering to translate his book, Italian Painters of the Renaissance (1894–1907), still almost unknown in Italy. In reality, Longhi never carried out the promised translation, but, starting from some indications from Berenson, he developed his idea of the Italian Renaissance, in which Piero della Francesca, rediscovered by Berenson, played a role of great importance also for Venetian painting. In subsequent works, particularly in Officina Ferrarese (1934), Longhi continued to contradict Berenson, above all in the field of connoisseurship. This produced a long break in the relationship between the two scholars. While Berenson soon stopped being involved in research and devoted himself, above all, to providing advice to museums and collectors, Longhi broadened his field of investigation to problems that nineteenth-century historiography had never dealt with to find a school full of students who continued their studies. Even if conducted indirectly, theirs was undoubtedly one of the most fruitful dialogues for studying art history in the twentieth century.

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