FRancisco de Holanda or the simulacrum of genius

Abstract

The universal dimension of Francisco de Holanda is an undisputed fact. In view of this axiom, there is an urgent need to free our vision from contraints and shortsightedness in our analysis of the real man, far from the historical and theoretical myth-making formulated in the many pages to which his fruitful writing of treatises gave rise. Holanda consciously associates himself with the role of Mannerist genius, whose detachment from theory presents no hindrance to artistic formulation — quite the reverse. Nonetheless, this posture is hard to square with the theoretical structure of the many treatises and manifestos that he produced. The Idea, a pure image free from any constraints, was to take on a preponderant role in the Mannerist set of ideas, with its self-denying anti-Classicism constituting a real insurrectionist challenge against the growing scientification of art. From his encounter with this discordant universe — from all-knowing genius to the uniqueness of the creative genius — Holanda was to combine within himself two paradoxical dimensions: a simulacrum of erudition, in clear opposition to the deforming and irreverent Terribilità of the Mannerist spirit.