Vite e carriere di pittori con sordità prelinguale attivi in Italia nel periodo 1590–1720

Abstract

This essay investigates the careers of prelingually deaf painters active in Italy in the period 1590–1720. By looking at early modern biographical accounts, archival documents, works of art, and Renaissance poetry, this contribution challenges the stereotype that presents people with deafness as outcasts and emphasises that the consideration of intersectional factors was essential to how early modern people responded to impairment. The present study retraces the evolution of the historical debate on the educability of deaf people and analyses interconnections between deafness and art practice. Through the careers of five artists, Ercole Sarti from Ferrara, Giuseppe Badaracco from Genoa, Filippo Ceppaluni from Naples, Aurelio Martelli from Siena, and Giovanni Lo Coco from Acireale, their artworks, and documents pertaining to their lives, the study explores how each of them asserted their own profession, identity, and social position via art practice.