International Workshop: SETTECENTO MALEREI: Cultural Transfer Phenomena Between Italy and the Habsburg Territories.

Languages: English, German and Italian
Funding: The Faculty of Historical and Cultural Studies at the University of Vienna, the City of Vienna, and the Austrian Academy of Sciences.
Organising institutions: The Department of Art History and the Vienna Center for the History of Collecting at the University of Vienna
Organisers:
Eleonora Gaudieri (eleonora.gaudieriunivie.ac.at)
Erika Meneghini (erika.meneghiniunivie.ac.at)

A livestream of the event will also be available. Please confirm your attendance in person or online via email to settecentomalereigmail.com by 19 October.
If you have any further questions, please contact the organisers:
Eleonora Gaudieri (eleonora.gaudieriunivie.ac.at) and Erika Meneghini (erika.meneghiniunivie.ac.at).

The beginning of the Settecento was characterised by a considerable expansion of the transalpine art market, driven by a strong interest in collecting Italian artworks. This phenomenon attracted numerous Italian artists, including many painters, to Vienna and its allies, the courts of the German prince-electors of Schönborn, Wittelsbach and others. At the same time, a number of Austrian painters were encouraged to further their training in Italy, where they were profoundly influenced by the local visual language. The high quality and renowned tradition of Italian painting, fostered by a dense network of international connections, enabled numerous artists of Italian origin, as well as Italians by adoption, to pursue successful careers at the Habsburg imperial court in Vienna. This phenomenon must be understood within the broader context of the diplomatic and artistic networks that connected Vienna with key centres on the Italian peninsula, such as Venice, Bologna, Rome and Naples.

The two-day workshop will provide a wide-ranging exploration of 18th-century Italian painting as a focal point for transfer phenomena between the Italian peninsula and the domains of the Habsburg Empire, with a special focus on Vienna as the imperial capital. The proceedings will open with the keynote speech by Cecilia Mazzetti di Pietralata (University of Cassino and Southern Lazio) titled “Vienna italiana. Forme e attori dello scambio culturale tra Sei e Settecento, tra immigrazione artistica e vocazione internazionale dell'aristocrazia europea”. The subsequent sixteen presentations have been organised into four sections, reflecting the variety of perspectives through which these historical and artistic phenomena can be approached: Collecting Italian Painting in the Habsburg Empire; Artworks and Material Objects as Vehicles of Cultural Transfer; Artists as Transregional Agents Between Italy and the Habsburg Regions; and The Role of Academies and Museums in the Transfer of Knowledge. The objective of this study day is on one hand to examine the meanings and functions of Italian painting within the socio-political and cultural context of the Habsburg imperial court in Vienna and its allied courts; and on the other hand, to explore the various dynamics that fostered the transfer of Italian painting and Italian artistic knowledge to Vienna and the territories of the then Habsburg Empire.

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PROGRAMME

DAY 1: Thursday, 23rd of October
Department of Art History, University of Vienna

9:00 Welcome and Greetings

9:30 Keynote: Cecilia Mazzetti di Pietralata (University of Cassino and Southern Lazio)
Vienna italiana. Forme e attori dello scambio culturale tra Sei e Settecento, tra immigrazione artistica e vocazione internazionale dell'aristocrazia europea

10:30 Coffee Break

SECTION 1: COLLECTING ITALIAN PAINTING IN THE HABSBURG EMPIRE
Moderator: Silvia Tammaro

10:50 Stefan Albl (Schloss Eggenberg & Alte Galerie, Graz)
Il dilemma della scelta. L'arrotino di Giacomo Francesco Cipper

11:10 Ilaria Telesca (University of Naples “Federico II”)
Arte e potere: la committenza artistica dei viceré austriaci di Napoli

11:30 Jiří Štefaňák (Masaryk University, Brno)
Non multa, sed multum. Italian Painting in the Collections of the Moravian Aristocracy at the End of the 18th Century

11:50 Discussion

12:30 Lunch Break

SECTION 2: ARTWORKS AND MATERIAL OBJECTS AS VEHICLES OF CULTURAL TRANSFER
Moderator: Eleonora Gaudieri

14:00 Ada Berktay (Sakıp Sabancı Museum, Istanbul)
Lepanto as Material Allegory. Naval Triumph and the Politics of Display in Italian and Habsburg Visual Culture

14:20 Tomáš Kowalski (Monuments Board of the Slovak Republic, Bratislava)
Baroque Illusion: Italian Settecento Frescoes in Slovakia

14:40 Beatrice Bolandrini (Università e-Campus; Accademia del Lusso, Milan)
Anton Giorgio Clerici ed Annibale Visconti, "consiglieri intimi" di Carlo VI e Maria Teresa, committenti di Giambattista Tiepolo e Mattia Bortoloni

15:00 Discussion

15:30 Coffee Break

15:50 Tomáš Valeš (Masaryk University, Brno)
Shared, "Recycled," Reinvented. Art of Venetian Settecento in the Hands of "Viennese" 18th-century Painters

16:10 Erika Meneghini (University of Vienna)
From Naples to Vienna and the Habsburg Lands: The Artistic Reception of Francesco Solimena’s Oeuvre Beyond the Alps

16:30 Discussion

19:00 Conference Dinner

DAY 2: Friday, 24th of October 2025
Department of Art History, University of Vienna

SECTION 3: ARTISTS AS TRANSREGIONAL AGENTS BETWEEN ITALY AND THE HABSBURG REGIONS
Moderator: Erika Meneghini

9:00 Francesco Ceretti (University of Pavia)
Pietro Bellotti. Da Venezia alle corti mitteleuropee

9:20 Eleonora Gaudieri (University of Vienna)
Daniele Antonio Bertoli: Traces of his Activity at the Habsburg Court in Vienna

9:40 Enrico Lucchese (University of Campania “Luigi Vanvitelli”)
I soggiorni viennesi e nei territori asburgici di Antonio Pellegrini (1675-1741)

10:00 Discussion

10:30 Coffee Break

10:50 Sanja Cvetnić (University of Zagreb)
Federico Bencovich as Transregional Artist

11:10 Laura Facchin (University of Insubria, Varese)
Angelica Kauffmann: Painter of the Habsburg Court from Milan to Vienna

11:30 Discussion

12:00 Lunch Break

SECTION 4: THE ROLE OF ACADEMIES AND MUSEUMS IN THE TRANSFER OF KNOWLEDGE
Moderator: Stefan Albl

13:30 Susanne Müller-Bechtel (University of Würzburg)
Figur – Pose – Wissen. Das akademische Aktstudium als epistemische Kunstpraxis in Rom, Wien und Mailand

13:50 Lorenzo Giammattei (Sapienza University of Rome)
The Antique in the Drawings of Austrian Artists in Rome in the Second Half of the Eighteenth Century

14:10 Paolo Pastres (Independent Researcher, Udine)
Vienna e Firenze nel Settecento: due modelli museali a confronto

14:30 Discussion

15:00 Coffee Break

15:20 Final Discussion

16:45 Optional: Visit to the Schönbrunn Chapel and the Blue Staircase

Contact:
Dr. Eleonora Gaudieri
Postdoctoral Researcher (APART-GSK funding programme, ÖAW)
Department of Art History, University of Vienna
https://kunstgeschichte.univie.ac.at/en/staff/projects/gaudieri-eleonora/

Dott.ssa Erika Meneghini MA
PhD Candidate
Department of Art History, University of Vienna
https://dshcs.univie.ac.at/en/about-us/research-cluster/art-history-and-visual-culture/doctoral-candidates/erika-meneghini/