Par-delà règles et licences : les ajustements perspectifs dans la controverse Bassi-Tibaldi (1569–1572)

Abstract This article revisits the controversy reported on in Martino Bassi’s 1572 Dispareri, a pamphlet denouncing Pellegrino Tibaldi’s noncompliance with rules of perspective and architecture in adapting Milan Duomo to the requirements of Tridentine Reform. The inquiry involves a social, material, and technical approach to both the pamphlet and the Annunciation relief that lies at the heart of the controversy. Along with showing inconsistencies and deceit in Bassi’s account, this study explores the widespread, yet unconceptualized practice of perspectival adjustments that mediates conflicts between optics and geometry in image making. Findings suggest new ways to revise traditional understandings of naturalism in art history all while contributing to the historiography of perspective.