Reflections of Bosch in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Italy

This chapter is the first research that investigates the popularity of Bosch’s style throughout the Italian peninsula between the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries. The study shows how lively the circulation and reception of his visual motifs were across different Italian states, such as the Republic of Venice, the Duchy of Milan, the Duchy of Mantua, the Duchy of Sabbioneta, the Republic of Genoa, the territory of the former Marquisate of Saluzzo, the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, the Papal States, and the Kingdom of Naples. The chapter analyses various factors such as the role of the market of drawings and paintings; the artistic collections as well as the importance of the cabinets of curiosities, since the idea the representation of the complexity of the nature is reflected in Bosch’s art; patronage of Flemish artists, first, and Italian artists, later, who adopted Bosch’s peculiar style. The relations of certain patrons and collectors with Philip II and the Habsburg court in Brussels particularly favoured the assimilation of this artistic taste. In the course of the seventeenth century, there were further revivals of Bosch's style throughout the peninsula, thanks to an eclectic and international trend characteristic of the period. This research demonstrates the underestimated impact of Bosch’s style in Italy and the extent to which political, social and cultural links influenced the artistic taste of certain key figures of the period, and thus their social prestige. The chaper argues that Bosch's style was assimilated in a variety of ways and recreated in different forms, testifying to the great fortune of the artist in the Italian context, from the very early sixteenth century until the end of the seventeenth century.