Sprezzatura Revisited

A composite image of six painting from the Museum of Fine Arts in Lyon, France that demonstrate sprezzatura.

We recently went to the Museum of Fine Arts of Lyon (French: Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon). In general, can’t give this museum high marks (no pun intended). In general, loved the city of Lyon but the museums were okay, not great. We love museums and were looking forward to some great museum time in Lyon but that didn’t happen.

In the Museum of Fine Arts, the curation and layout of the pieces was too academic and not approachable. Explanations were mostly all in French. At first, they said we could use our phone to attach to museum’s free Wi-Fi and get our audio guides online with a QR code. Great! Unfortunately, neither the Wi-Fi nor the QR code worked. So, after 30 minutes of wasted time, we broke down and got the guide. It helped.

Then, to top it off, we had a bad experience at the museum café for lunch. We said we were there to eat, and they said fine. We waited 15 minutes before they came around to take our order. At that time, they said the kitchen was already closed. I blew a gasket, and we walked out. I wasn’t demonstrating much “sprezzatura” you can say, translated roughly as “a certain nonchalance which conceals all artistry and makes whatever one says or does seem uncontrived and effortless.”

We’ve talked about sprezzatura in the past in the posts:

• Sprezzatura – 50 Ways Italian Genius Shaped the World
• Baby, You’ve Got Some Sprezzatura – Renaissance Portraits
• Child Sprezzatura

I suppose one good thing about the Lyon museum visit is that we saw a few more portraits that fall in the sprezzatura category. The are in order:

Anonymous - Portrait of Guillaume de Montmorency (1520)
Attributed to Bartholomäeus Bruyn Le Viex - Portrait of a Man (1555)
Corneille de Lyon - Man with a Black Beret Holding a Pair of Gloves (1575)
Joos Van Cleve - Portrait of a Man (1520)
Louis Janmot - Flowers of the Field (1845)
Lucas Cranach l'Ancien - Portrait of a Saxon Lady (1534)

Five of the six paintings are of that Renaissance style - period, 1500s. The one painting outside the date range is the Louis Janmot painting "Flowers of the Field" (1845). But it seems like it fits in as the woman is wearing a vaguely Renaissance dress and expression.

Sprezzatura – 50 Ways Italian Genius Shaped the World

The term “sprezzatura” may not be familiar to everyone. The book Sprezzatura* – 50 Ways Italian Genius Shaped the Word even footnotes the definition on the front cover: * “the art of effortless mastery”. Of course our faithful 6 Travelmarx readers may recall that we have already mentioned this in previous posts Baby You’ve Got Some Sprezzatura and Child Sprezzatura. In those posts we defined it as a certain nonchalance that makes what one does seem uncontrived and effortless.

The book in question is by Peter D’Epiro and Mary Desmond Pinkowish. It consists of 50 short chapters or passages on different aspects of Italian genius. Mostly the genius is a person or persons, but a few cases the chapters deal with an entity like the Roman Republic or Venice. The book pretty much goes in chronological order but each chapter can be read in any order. (At Travelmarx we prefer to read starting from the back of the book. And in this case, this works well.)

The book reminds me a lot of the series Connections, because each chapter is like the start of a detective story. There are enough names and dates dropped in any given chapter to keep you researching for days. One detective story stood out for me is Chapter #31 Catherine de’ Medici: Godmother of French cuisine where we start with Catherine de’ Medici (1519 – 1589), talk about Platina’s Book – an Italian cookbook from 1474, the Sicilian Francesco Procopio and what he was doing in Paris, Café Procope, Maria de’ Medici (1575 – 1642) – another Medici French queen, and finally La Varenne (1618 – 1678) who worked in Maria’s kitchen.

Child Sprezzatura

Today I was in the Uffizi on a tour with the British Institute and remembered these portraits of young Medici who also display some sprezzatura. These portraits are all in Room 18 of the Uffizi which is called “The Tribune” and was built by Grand Duke Ferdinand I, one of the sons of Cosimo I. The room held the special items in the Medici art collection which naturally changed as tastes changed. Unfortunately, it is a poorly lit room and the way you have to go through it doesn’t make it conducive to viewing art. It’s a shame because there are some interesting paintings in it. There are quite a few by Agnolo Bronzino who was the court painter for Cosimo I. Here are two that Bronzino painted that are in the Tribune room: Portrait of Bia de’Medici 1542 and Portrait of Francesco I de’ Medici 1551.

Baby, You’ve Got Some Sprezzatura – Renaissance Portraits

The term “sprezzatura” was coined by Castiglione Baldassare in his famous work The Book of the Courtier in 1528. The book is structured around four evenings in the court of Urbino. Each evening a different character talks on a different aspect of being a courtier. Sprezzatura is mentioned in the third evening (on the behavior of courtier women) as a quality that a good courtier should have. Sprezzatura roughly translates to: “a certain nonchalance which conceals all artistry and makes whatever one says or does seem uncontrived and effortless.” [ref]

The Renaissance portraits of the late 1400s and early 1500s by Leonardo and Raphael, for example, show sprezzatura-in-spades. Take for example, the two portraits above; Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa 1502-1519 and Raphael’s Portrait of Maddelena Doni 1506. Note how the sitter really doesn’t look at you, but past you and looks almost bored. That’s sprezzatura. The Mona Lisa and Maddalena Doni have it. Do you? By the way, the strange body shapes for women - no shoulders, long necks, and barrel-shaped bodies - were a Renaissance ideal for female beauty. Portraits started off being side profiles, then front-on, and finally to a slight turn to give portraits more dimension and movement. Shown below are examples of each type.

Piero della Francesca’s Battista Sforza and husband Piero della Francesca’s Federico da Montefeltro 1472. In the earlier, side profile portrait style it's hard to tell if sprezzatura is there.


Ghirlandio’s Portrait of Giovanna Tornabouni 1488 and Raphael’s Portrait of Elisabetta Gonzaga 1504 (daughter-in-law of Federico da Montefeltro and a character in The Book of the Courtier).


Leonardo da Vinci’s Ginevra de’ Benci 1475 and Raphael’s Portrait of Angelo Doni 1506 (Maddalena's - shown above - husband; at least he looks at you).