The Florentine Academy and the Early Modern State. The Discipline of Disegno

Abstract

s fascinating study of the first formal academy of art, the Accademia del Disegno in Florence, makes an invaluable contribution to our understanding of art institutions and their role in the emergence of the modern state.By considering the tripartite function of the Academy as lay confraternity, school, and guild, Barzman shows that within the cultural politics of the Grand Ducal state of the Medici the disciplinary practices of disegno contributed to the formation of a new social order.The Accademia del Disegno was founded on the guiding principle of disegno.As Barzman points out, the term disegno had multiple meanings in the early modem period.Although today we might translate disegno as "drawing" or "design," during the sixteenth century the concept of disegno was part of complex debates over the nature and status of art.Barzman' s characterisation of disegno in Foucaldian terms as a disciplinary discourse allows her to consider the socio- political consequences of the Academy s institutionalisation of the principle of disegno.Inspired by Foucault's interpretation of power in the modem era as producing individuals through practices that are codified within institutions, she explains how the varied activities of the Academy "constituted a discipline or form of social and intellectual management."