A contribution to understanding of identity constructs regarding the painter Andrea Meldola / Andrija Medulić / Andrea Schiavone in the historiography and art

The topic of the paper are identity images of the painter Andrea Meldola (Meldolla) /Andrija Medulic/Andrea Schiavone (c. 1515-1563, Venice) in Italian historiography, from the time he lived in Venice until the XIX century. He belonged to a group of visual artists who were originally from the east coast of the Adriatic. Living in Italy they declared and signed their works as Schiavoni, also called Schiavoni in Italian sources. This paper explores the (pseudo) ethnic and other identity constructs regarding the painter Meldola based on humanistic theories about the origin of the Venetians (Henetism), the Illyrians or Slavs represented in Florentine, Roman and Venetian historiography in the period XVI-XVIII centuries. In a chapter of the book Le Meraviglie dell'arte ovvero le vite degli illustri pittori veneti e dello Stato (1648) dedicated to the painter Meldola, Venetian painter and historian Carlo Ridolfi finds in Meldola’s specific artistic expression a reflection of his nation's instinct. Venetian historian, painter and poet Marco Boschini in his poem La Carta del Navegar Pitoresco calls Meldola “this terrible Andrea, this great Schiaon”. The literary topoi applied by Ridolfi and Boschini to Meldola were repeated for centuries in Venetian and Yugoslav i.e. Croatian historiography. Indicatively, the painter's identity has been formed in art historiography based in large part on these topoi ever since. Among Ridolfi’s literary narratives on Meldola, the one on the difficulties in his career has had the longest effect. We will explore to what extent Meldola's graphic portrait, published in Ridolfi's book (along with the painter's fictional identity created by Ridolfi), influenced the portraits of Andrea Meldola in graphics, painting and sculpture ever since XVII century.