Abstract

The Game of Research

This article presents information on the book "Three Essays in Method," by Bernard Berenson. Scholarship, to Berenson, rather than being a contribution toward the advance of civilization. etc., is a game in which a trained sensibility is pitted against the enigma of the past, and it is the sport of the game, rather than the result, which is of importance. Bernard presents three essays describing game of research. The first essay or game is called "Nine Pictures in Search of an Attribution." These nine small panels, to Berenson, appeared closely related to one another. In the second essay the author restores to its rightful place a Botticelli of the Florence Academy whose legitimacy was long doubted. The third essay discusses a possible and an impossible Antonello da Messina. In this essay alone does Berenson rely on the connoisseur's as well as the archaeologist's eye.