Pittura infamante

Pittura infamante (pronounced [pitˈtuːra imfaˈmante]; Italian for "defaming portrait"; plural pitture infamanti) is a genre of defamatory painting and relief, common in Renaissance Italy in city-states in the north and center of the Italian peninsula during the Trecento, Quattrocento, and Cinquecento. Popular subjects of pittura infamante include traitors, thieves, and those guilty of bankruptcy or public fraud, often in cases where no legal remedy was available. Commissioned by governments of city-states and displayed in public centers, pittura infamante were both a form of "municipal justice" (or "forensic art") and a medium for internal political struggles.

According to Samuel Edgerton, the genre began to decline precisely when it came to be regarded as a form of art rather than effigy; the power of the genre derived from a feudal-based code of honor, where shame was one of the most significant social punishments. As such, pittura infamante has its roots in the doctrines of fama and infamia in ancient Roman law.

Pitture infamanti could appear in any public place, but some places were more frequently adorned with them; for example, the first floor exterior of the Bargello periodically contained numerous, life-size, pittura infamante frescoes. Florentine law required the podestà have such caricatures painted, and accompanied by verbal identification those held in contempt of court for financial offenses (bad debt, bankruptcy, fraud, forgery, etc.).Pitture infamanti were far more common in Republican Florence than in autocratic city states, whose rulers often deemed them to be sources of "disrepute."

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