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Renaissance Rivalry (Part 1)

Elaine Ruffolo, Renaissance art historian 

Rivalries can be dangerous and frustrating, but they can also fuel great works of art. Renaissance masters were in constant competition to prove who was the best artist of their time, and sometimes the consequences were tragic. Patrons were in large measure responsible for setting up artists against each other in order to force them to outdo their rivals and thereby to surpass themselves, while making steady progress with the commissions at hand. Competition comes with a moral price tag, for it often goes hand-in-hand with envy, jealousy, and hatred; it can also lead to lying and deceit. In academic circles, a word that is inescapable when discussing Renaissance art is paragone. Paragone translated from Italian, generally means “comparison” and this theme of comparison was the backbone for much of the Italian Renaissance. Paragone was a major topic of debate during the early modern period, pitting artists, philosophers, and humanists against one another as they discussed the merits of differing topics. Whether it was the paragone between different arts like painting and sculpture, different fields like painting and poetry, or the comparison between different artists, artists and patrons relied heavily on comparison to fuel the development of art. The core of paragone was competition. Whether it was artists competing or different fields of art competing with one another, the Renaissance was fueled by this on-going competition. 

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