Artigiano delle riforme. Stile rustico e ricerca della sapienza nell'opera di Bernard Palissy (1510-1590).

This thesis proposes a new and up-to-date reading of the artistic, figurative and written works of Bernard Palissy, a French potter who lived between 1510 and 1590. This work is divided into five chapters, the first of which takes on the current knowledge about Palissy’s life and work and the status of historiography about this artist. A methodological analysis will be achieved by studying a meaningful sample of his craftsmanship, as well as reflecting upon three of his written works. The second chapter will examine the context in which the Reform influenced Palissy’s work. A definition of Reform is developed in this chapter both on a spiritual level, with the spread of Calvanism among the bourgeoisie, and French craftsmen and artists, and artistically, with the establishment of craftsmen as owners of a practical knowledge culminated in essays written in vernacular languages, of which the publications of our author are an example. The third chapter focuses on the notion of “rustic” that Palissy uses to describe his works, the rustiques figulines as well as the cave for the Constable of Montmorency. Starting from the architectural lexicon we try to locate the palissian lair in the artistic horizon where the taste for rustic was spreading on a Europe-wide scale. The fourth chapter is devoted to the description of Palissy’s garden, while trying to study in depth the nature of the publication itself, its possible sources and proposing new comparisons with other gardens of the time, raising the question of the religious dimension of the renaissance parks. Finally, the fifth chapter concentrates on the pottery and the link between science, religion and art that is created in the works of Palissy. Starting from the context for which they were created, namely that of the “art of the banquet”, we propose an interpretation of this objects as artefacts destined to the wunderkammern by virtue of a recurrent iconography and of specific techniques of realisation. With this final chapter is suggested a spiritual reading of the rustiques which is substantiated within the research and interpretations developed throughout the thesis.