Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 75-09(E), Section: A.

Adviser: Christopher S. Wood.

This dissertation explores the origins and the adaptations of the long printed image and the subject of triumph in the Renaissance. The triumph subject enjoyed enormous popularity in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries concurrent with the rise and expansion of prints made up of multiple sheets. The long, horizontal format of printed papers pasted together end-to-end was an ideal vehicle for the subject of triumphal procession; the format and subject spurred each other along. The spread and lower cost of print enabled the triumph iconography to spread across Italy and into Northern Europe. Artists could assume their viewer's familiarity with the triumph formula suggested by the format of the long multi-sheet print. The long print format itself provided the basis for adaptation, parody, invention, and satire.

Chapter One investigates the foundations of the triumph and the invention of the long multi-sheet print in the work of Andrea Mantegna, during the quattrocento triumph-mania sparked by Petrarch's long poetic work, I Trionfi. Mantegna's Battle of the Sea Gods, the first independent print over two sheets, takes an antique triumph as its inspiration. Mantegna's Triumph of Caesar stretches a triumphal procession across nine sequential canvases divided by pilasters; part of this project was translated into print by engravers working in his circle. All of these elements would prove foundational to later prints. Chapter Two explores the first three-block long print, Jacopo de' Barbari's woodcut The Triumph of Men Over Satyrs. This print, along with the Battle of Men Over Satyrs, offers a taxonomy of formats and a fantastical, humanist variation on Mantegna's Triumph. Elements of mild parody of the triumph mania and of Mantegna punctuate Jacopo's work, which also participates in the rise of the Venetian pastoral theme. Chapter Three explores Titian's Triumph of Christ , which began as a three-block long woodcut but was expanded into five blocks, showcasing the advantageous expandability specific to the format and the processional subject matter. Titian's lively, humorous variation on the triumph inserts several types of time, from narrative to eternity in his portrayal of theological history. Chapter Four returns to Mantegna through the work of Andrea Andreani, whose Triumph of Caesar after Mantegna is not a variation in iconology but a variation of medium as he translates the canvases, pilasters, and a sculpted bust of Mantegna into chiaroscuro print. An epilog points to the use of the long multi-sheet print in the North, using three examples to show that the triumph formula underpinned the long print even when the subject was not ostensibly a triumph. These examples are The Distribution of Fool's Caps attributed to Erhard Schon, The Peoples of Africa and India (The King of Cochin) by Hans Burgkmair, and The Manners and Customs of the Turk by Pieter Coecke van Aelst and his widow, Mayken Verhulst.

This study is not a comprehensive collection of all of the prints in multiple blocks in long format, but is a focused analysis of the rise of a particular genre in European art. It connects decisions of composition and media with iconography, issues often separated in the study of art history. In a shift from past scholarship, it argues that the long multi-sheet print should be distinguished from multi-sheet prints of larger proportions, given the different artistic decisions and limitations required to produce a long horizontal image over several sheets. The long multi-sheet print offers a case study in the interconnection between subject matter and format in the history of art.