Caixas de espelho e pentes da Itália Setentrional do Trecento e do Quattrocento: Cópias ou variações?

Abstract

In medieval art, tradition and copy of models were side by side with an immense capacity for change and innovation, from the insertion of new contents and variations of styles. In this sense, we may think that medieval art was both copy and variation. The purpose of this article is to discuss this issue from some consideration on mirror cases and ivory combs carved in the last decades of the fourteenth century and the first of the following century. The prominence will be given to thosecarved in Northern Italy which have long been considered by the History of Artas coarser and less genial copies than their French models