Bellin, Jörge
Heraldische Gesichter: Zur Funktionalisierung von Ähnlichkeit in habsburgischen Herrscherporträts um 1500 und in den Anfängen der Porträtgenese
For Jakob Burckhardt, "the question: to what extent portrait? to what extent ideal? [...] was one of the most graceful questions in Italian art history". It is indeed not only a central problem of Italian, but of the entire European history of portraiture and its research. Especially with regard to portraits of rulers, the aspect of physiognomic resemblance was marginalized again and again, despite its crucial significance to the concept and subject of the portrait, and the "individual" took a back seat to "type," "ideal," and "higher conception". The present study counters this with an interpretive model based on the concept of similitudo, which conceives the post-ancient 'rediscovery' of similarity as an effective and significant factor in political semiotics.
