Disowning Contemporary Art

The Historiographical Reception of Nestore Leoni’s Transnational Work between 1890 and 1936

Abstract

Nestore Leoni (1862-1947) was a talented manuscript illuminator, once famous both inside and outside Italy although little known to contemporary scholars. Italian academics and critics from different backgrounds commented on his work while he was alive: from their writings comes everything we know about him. Nevertheless, such commentators hardly addressed the ontological characteristics of his artifacts, which were inspired by an ancient artistic practice but at the same time fully engaged in the modern visual culture. The dual identity of his works severely challenged the early modern art history interpretation method. Only after the 1930s did scholars developed an appropriate hermeneutical approach, owing to expertise gradually achieved by then in the realm of contemporary art critics. I problematise the critical reception of this artist’s work through a preliminary critical overview of Italian artistic sources of the early twentieth century, considering them from a revisionist perspective, and offering their first translation.