Dr. Stefano de Bosio

Curriculum

Stefano de Bosio is lecturer in European Art History at the Freie Universität Berlin – FUBiS and the coordinator of the international research network “Logic of the Negative: Techniques and Metaphors of Imprinting”. His research focuses on the different facets of the notion of ‘orientation’, spanning from theories and practices of image reversal, especially in printmaking, to dynamics of cultural exchange in Europe during the early modern period. He is the author of “Frontiere. Arte, luogo, identità ad Aosta e nell'arco alpino occidentale” (Officina Libraria, 2021; awarded the Premio Giovanni Testori for Art Criticism); his second book “Patterns of Reversal” is in preparation. In recent years, Stefano has held fellowships at the IKKM – International Research Institute for Media Philosophy in Weimar, Villa I Tatti – The Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies (Florence) and the Kunsthistorische Institut in Florenz – Max-Planck-Institut.

Publications (selection)

“Master and Judge: The Mirror as Dialogical Device in Italian Renaissance Art Theory”, Dialogical Imaginations: Debating Aisthesis as Social Perception, ed. Michael Zimmermann (Zurich: Diaphanes, 2024): in press.
L’inventio e il suo corpo polimorfo. Inversione laterale dell’immagine e pratiche ecfrastiche nel ‘Domenichino affair”, The Silence of Images/Il silenzio delle immagini, ed. Claudia Cieri Via (Roma: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2023): 73–92.
Des deux côtés: The Lateral Reversal of Images as Aesthetic Strategy and Epistemic Concern in Early Eighteenth-century French Counterproofs and Prints”, Marginale Zeichentechniken: Pause, Abklatsch, Cut&Paste als ästhetische Strategien in der Vormoderne, ed. Iris Brahms (Berlin/Munich: De Gruyter, 2022): 145–159.
Frontiere: Arte, luogo e identità ad Aosta e nelle Alpi occidentali, 1490-1540. Roma: Officina Libraria, 2021
Butterfly Wings: Wölfflin, Kandinsky and the Role of Image Orientation in Pictorial Order”, Terms. Proceedings of the 34th Congress of Art History, eds. Shao Dazhen, Fan Di’an and LaoZhu (Peking: The Commercial Press, 2019): II, 272–278.

Research project: The Logic of the Matrix: Techniques and Metaphors of Imprinting in Early-Modern Europe

Imprinting is an action deeply rooted in the history of techniques, as well as of the human imagination. Across different civilizations, imprints have prompted reflections on presence and absence, reproduction and imitation, identity and difference. Focusing on the early modern period in Europe, my research aims to explore the cultural as well as aesthetic dynamics involved in the transmission of physical and, usually, visual resemblance to another object, upon which the imprint remains stored as memory. I am particularly interested in the constitutive but still-elusive duality linking the matrix and the imprint across techniques and technologies. In the context of the fellowship, I plan to work on the ways in which printing blocks and plates, despite being the very “sites of authority” and the repositories of physical labour, have long suffered from a kind of invisibility in both critical and theoretical discussions of Western printmaking. The 'generative' power of the matrix and the role played by the multifaceted imaginaries of pressure in early modern narratives on printmaking will represent the two main focuses of my research.

Research results: The Logic of the Matrix: Techniques and Metaphors of Imprinting in Early-Modern Europe

My stay at the CAS and the close exchanges with its remarkable group of fellows and permanent members were profoundly beneficial in deepening my understanding of how critical discourses and imaginaries of force can illuminate the study of early modern imprints. The CAS’s annual theoretical focus on the latency of forces proved instrumental in opening new conceptual avenues for exploring the relationship between matrix and imprint, a central theme of my research.

The printed oeuvre of Parmigianino (1503–1540) emerged as a particularly suitable context for examining the aesthetic as well as metaphorical implications of matrix-imprint dynamics. Special attention was given to Parmigianino’s drawing of a young man (likely a self-portrait) holding up a pregnant bitch (British Museum), which I explored as a testament to the “generative” power of the matrix/mother in both nature and art at a time when the artist engaged with printing techniques. This drawing also served as a springboard for a historical re-evaluation of the concept of “reproduction,” a term whose application to the visual arts appears no earlier than the 19th century. In contrast, early modern notions such as "copy" (from the Latin copia, implying abundance) point to a different conceptual framework significantly rooted in ideas of generative capacity.

A lexical study of early modern Italian writings on art further revealed the multifaceted roles that the matrix and its cognates assumed in this context. For instance, in the writings of Benvenuto Cellini, the term madre features prominently in discussions on coining, while forma is closely associated with casting. These examples underscore the need for a broader conceptual framework to understand the early modern matrix and highlight the importance of analyses that go beyond the confines of individual techniques and their specific critical literatures.