O Álbum das antigualhas de Francisco de Holanda

Abstract

The Álbum of Antigualhas from the Portuguese painter Francisco de Holanda brings together a series of drawings in which the author records works of art, antique and contemporary constructions, fortifications, places, people and events seen by him during a trip he made to the city of Rome between the years of 1538 and 1540, together with the Portuguese delegation of the ambassador Pedro Mascarenhas. This book of drawings has been read by most of the researchers who have studied the biography of Francisco de Holanda, as a travelogue. The trip to Rome also resulted in the writing of his treatise Da Pintura Antiga, and, the images that compose the Álbum of Antigualhas were used by various scholars of Francisco de Holanda‟s work of art as illustrations for the theoretical questions posed by him. Others have looked into the album interested in the drawings or constructions that no longer exist, seeking the historical record in it. This "diary", however, has not yet been examined as a whole, in its entirety. Despite the fact that the drawings record the antiquities seen by the author during his journey, these drawings were only organized in the format in which they are presented today, during the 1560s. For this reason, I believe that the album does not meet all the drawings by Francisco de Holanda at the time, but the most significant for the speech he intended to write to the constitution of this album. The research from which this thesis is the result searches this speech. This is the objective, analyze the choices made by Francisco de Holanda, which is the resulting speech of those choices and what this speech implies in terms of cultural membership, philosophical and/or ideological alignment. The drawings that compose the album were divided according to the themes they present. Two large thematic units are noticeable. The first contains the drawings which refer to the Classical Period. The second, despite an apparent inconsistency, brings together the drawings of fortress and curiosities, the visual account of his trip. Based on these two major axes and thinking about the pioneering role that Francisco de Holanda took it upon himself in the defense and appreciation of art in Portugal, I have analyzed the possible sub-themes that divide the two great axes, allowing a modernity reading that the author thought to Portugal.