"Una Principessa Guerriera" Eleonora Gonzaga-Nevers und die bildenden Künste in Wien in ihren direkten und indirekten Beziehungen zur römischen Kultur

A new consideration of the artistic landscape in the Vienna of Eleonora Gonzaga-Nevers, shaped above all by foreign painters, requires an analysis through the categories of the art literature of the time, at the crossroads between the classification of painting into regional schools and the proposal of a supranational language. Between the 1650s and 1680s, Flemish and Italian artists faced each other in Vienna, grappling with devotional themes promoted by the imperial court, from the Adoration of the Cross to the Death of St. Joseph, and with the challenge of reproducing paintings in print. Of particular note in all of this is Joachim von Sandrart, who stands among the most active. Through him, among others, echoes of Roman artistic culture were able to reach the empress. In this process, Abbot Filippo Maria Bonini and the Nuntius Mario Albrizzi are key figures of interest and therefore to be analysed in detail. The paper also explores other possible pathways through which Eleonora II could have received news of the most up-to-date Roman culture, and which finally led to her commissioning Carlo Maratta to create the Death of St. Joseph .Furthermore, the paper will also not fail to reflect on the empressʼ direct involvement in the visual arts as an amateur artist.