La Fortuna cinquecentesca dell’amphibolia dipinta di Polignoto di Taso nel trattato De Sculpura di Pomponio Gaurico

THE USE of AMPHIBOLIA in POLYGNOTO OF TASO and in POMPONIO GAURICO’S DE SCULPTURA The Humanist and sculptor Pomponio Gaurico intended to offer other Humanists as well as amateurs d'art a new tool that until then had been lacking: a treatise addressing the ideal sculptor, the ancient and modern history of sculpture, and its rules. His model was Cicero, whose De Oratore, by describing the ideal orator and his education, detailed the means by which one might become eloquent and whose Brutus had recounted the history of eloquence in Greece and Rome. Pomponio Gaurico reuses the rhetorical term amphibolia in his most famous work: the treatise De Sculpture (Florence 1504). The reference appears in the section dedicated to perspective in the context of a precise reference to one of his works, a knight in bronze. This sculpture was created in imitation of a painting by Polygnoto discussed by Pliny in a passage cited by many Humanist treatises. According to Gaurico, the bronze knight offers a sculptural equivalent of amphibolia in Polygnoto.