The art of failure. Leone Leoni idealises Charles V.

Ulrich Pfisterer: Director of the Central Institute for Art History Munich.
Introduction & moderation by Klaus Vondrovec, Director of the Coin Cabinet of the Kunsthistorisches Museum.

Monuments are not only becoming a problem today. With the bronze statue group of Emperor Charles V above the Furor (1549-1564), the Milanese Leone Leoni, court artist to the emperor, produced a spectacular personal monument. However, the work seems to have fallen through in the eyes of its patrons, as it subsequently disappeared from the scene for over 50 years.

In this lecture, Ulrich Pfisterer will examine why early monuments to persons were such a problematic category and why the transfer of art and culture in early modern Europe did not always work.