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 Art in Rome in the Eighteenth Century

i
ART IN ROME
IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

Edited by Edgar Peters Bowron and Joseph J. Rishel

Philadelphia Museum of Art

in association with

MERRELL
Paperback published by Philadelphia Museum of Art, Coordination — Philadelphia: Publishing Department This book accompanies the exhibition
Box 7646, Philadelphia, PA 19101 of the Philadelphia Museum of Art: George H. The Splendor of 18th-century Rome at:

Marcus, Director of Publishing; Jane Watkins,

Hardback first published in 2000 by Senior Editor; Nicole Amoroso, Catalogue Philadelphia Museum of Art
Merrell Publishers Limited Bibliographer; Jane Boyd and Vanessa J.
Silberman, March 16-May 28, 2000
42 Southwark Street Catalogue Coordinators
London sei iun The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
www.merrellpublishers.com Coordination — Loncion: Matthew Taylor, Project June 25-September 17, 2000
Manager; Dr Helen Langdon, Consultant Editor;
Distributed in the USA and Canada by Rizzoli Lucinda Hawksley, Editorial Administrator; Michael The exhibition The Splendor oj i8tfi-Ccntury Rome was
International Publications, Inc., through Bird, Susan Haskins, Celia Jones, Kim Richardson, organized by the Philadelphia Museum of Art and
St. Martin's Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, lain Ross, Eleanor van Zandt, Copyeditors; Avril The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, with generous
New York 10010 Bardoni, Kate Clayton, Jenny Coates, Stella Cragie, funding from the National Endowment for the Arts
Tom Geddes, Judith Hayward, Simon Knight, and the National Endowment for the Humanities,

Text ©
2000 Philadelphia Museum of Art Pamela Marwood, Jenny Marsh, Shelley Nix, and and an indemnity from the Federal Council on the
Compilation © 2000 Philadelphia Museum of Art Helen Stevenson, Translators Arts and the Humanities.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may Design; Matthew Hervey In Philadelphia, the exhibition is made possible by
be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any with the assistance of Tom Dalton, Steven Raw, the generous support of ADVANTA
means, including photocopy, recording, or any and Kate Ward and American Water Works Company.
other information storage and retrieval system,
without prior permission in writing from the
publisher.
ADVANTA
American Water Works Company, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Art in Rome in the eighteenth century / edited by Major support was provided by The Pew Charitable
Edgar Peters Bowron and Joseph ). Rishel. Trusts, the Connelly Foundation, the Teresa and
p. cm. H. John Heinz III Foundation, The Women's
Catalog of an exhibition held at the Philadelphia Committee of the Philadelphia Museum of Art,
Museum of Art, Mar. 16-May 28, 2000, and The the Robert Montgomery Scott Endowment for
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, June 25-Sept. 17, Exhibitions. Helen B. Alter, and other generous
2000. individuals; in-kind support was provided by IBM
Includes bibliographical references and index. Corporation. NBC 10 WCAU is the media sponsor.
ISBN 1-85894-098-2 (cloth) US Airways is the official airline.
ISBN 0-87633-136-3 (pbk.)
1. Art. Italian - Italy - Rome - Exhibitions. 2. Art,
Modern - 17th— 18th centuries - Italy - Rome -
Exhibitions. I. Bowron, Edgar Peters. II. Rishel.

Joseph J.
III. Philadelphia Museum of Art.
The Museum of Fine
IV. Arts, Houston.
N6920 .A7 2000
709'45'632074748n-dc2i 00-024655

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

Art in Rome in the eighteenth century
1. Art, Italian - Italy - Rome - Exhibitions
2. Art, Modern - 17th— 18th centuries - Italy -
Rome - Exhibitions
3. Architecture - Italy - Rome - History -
18th century - Exhibitions
I. Bowron, Edgar Peters
709.4'5632'o9033

Printed and bound in Italy

Jacket/cover illustrations:
from: Giovanni Paolo Panini, detail of Interior of an

imaginary Picture (iallcry with Views oj Ancient Rome,

1756-57 (cat. 275)

Back (hardback only): The Oceans' Coach, 1716 (cat. 62)

Frontispiece: Pompeo Batoni, Allegory oj the Arts,

1740 (cat. 162)

ISBN 87633 136 3 (paperback)

ISBN 1 85894 098 2 (hardback)
 Contents

Preface u

ANNE D'HARNONCOURT AND PETER C. MARZIO

Foreword 13

EDGAR PETERS BOWRON AND JOSEPH J. RISHEL

The Entrepot of Europe i7

CHRISTOPHER M. S. JOHNS

Arcadian Rome, Universal Capital of the Arts 47

LILIANA BARROERO AND STEFANO SUSINNO

Key Figures in Eighteenth-Century Rome 77

ORNELLA FRANCISCI OSTI

Chronology i 05

JON L. SEYDL

Catalogue

Architecture 113

Decorative Arts 157

Sculpture 211

Paintings 29s

Drawings 461

Prints 561

List of Sources Cited 592

List of Exhibitions Cited 621

/ndex 626

Acfenow(c4?ments 627
 International Honorary Committee

Mrs. Philip I. Berman (Dr. Muriel M. Berman)

His Eminence, Anthony Cardinal Bevilacqua, Archbishop of Philadelphia

The Honorable Lee P. Brown, Mayor of Houston

Mrs. George W. Bush, First Lady of Texas

The Honorable Anna Brigante Colonna, Consul General of Italy in Philadelphia

The Most Reverend Joseph A. Fiorenza, Bishop of Galveston-Houston

The Honorable Thomas M. Foglietta, United States Ambassador to Italy

The Honorable Edward G. Rendell, Former Mayor of Philadelphia

Mrs. Tom Ridge, First Lady of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania

The Honorable Francesco Rutelli, Mayor of Rome

His Excellency, Ferdinando Salleo, Ambassador of the Italian Republic

Prof. Dott. Mario Serio, Direttore Generale,

Ufficio Centrale per i Beni Archeologici, Architettonici, Artistici e Storici,
Ministero per Beni e i le Attivita Culturali, Rome
The Honorable John F. Street, Mayor of Philadelphia

Prof. Dott. Claudio Strinati, II Soprintendente,

Soprintendenza per i Beni Artistici e Storici, Rome

Exhibition

Edgar Peters Bowron

Joseph J.
Rishel

Organizing Committee

Maria Giulia Barberini

Liliana Barroero

Malcolm Campbell

Alvar Gonzalez-Palacios

Christopher M. S. Johns

Anna Lo Bianco
Ann Percy

John Pinto

Jon L. Seydl

Stefano Susinno

Dean Walker
 Lenders to the Exhibition

AUSTRALIA GERMANY Milan

Melbourne Private collection (1) Gabinetto dei Disegni dellAccademia
National Gallery of Victoria Bayreuth di Belle Arti di Brera
Neues Schloss Naples
AUSTRIA Berlin Museo di Capodimonte
Private collection (1) Staatliche Museen zu Berlin Museo Nazionale di San Martino
Vienna Stiftung Archiv der Akademie der Padua
Graphische Sammlung Albertina Kiinste Musei Civici
Kunsthistorisches Museum Dessau Piaccnza
Anhaltische Gemaldegalerie Dessau Istituto Gazzola di Piacenza
CANADA Dresden Pistoia

Montreal Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden Biblioteca Capitolare Fabroniana

Canadian Centre for Architecture Dusseldorj Rome
Montreal Museum of Fine Arts Kunstmuseum Diisseldorf im Ehrenhof Accademia Nazionale di San Luca
Ottawa Frankjurtam Main Associazione Bancaria Italiana,

The National Gallery of Canada Stadelsches Kunstinstitut Palazzo Altieri

Quebec Gotha Biblioteca Casanatense
Musee de la Civilisation, Fabrique Schlossmuseum Chiesa di Santa Francesca Romana
Notre-Dame de Quebec Munich (Santa Maria Nova)
Toronto Bayerisches Nationalmuseum Chiesa di Santa Maria dell'Orazione e
The Art Gallery of Ontario Bayerische Staatsgemaldesammlungen Morte
Nurnberg Chiesa di Santa Maria in Vallicella

DENMARK Germanisches Nationalmuseum (Chiesa Nuova)

Copenhagen Potsdam Gabinetto Comunale delle Stampe
Det danske Kunstindustrimuseum Stiftung Preussischer Schlosser und Galleria Borghese
StatensMuseum for Kunst Garten, Berlin-Brandenburg Galleria Corsini
Thorvaldsens Museum Stuttgart Galleria Nazionale dArte Antica,
Staatsgalerie Stuttgart Palazzo Barberini
FRANCE Istituto Nazionale per la Grafica
Private collections (2) IRELAND Fabrizio Lemme, Fiammetta Luly-
Angers Dublin Lemme
Musee des Beaux-Arts National Gallery of Ireland Museo del Palazzo di Venezia
Chartres Museo di Roma
Musee des Beaux-Arts ITALY Obra Pia, on deposit at The Spanish
Compiegne Private collections (12) Embassy to the Holy See
Musee Antoine Vivenel Ascoli Piceno Carlo Odescalchi
Lyon Pinacoteca Civica di Ascoli Piceno (from Chiesa dei SS. Apostoli)
Musee des Beaux-Arts Bologna Pinacoteca Capitolina
Montpellier Roberto and Titti Franchi Principe Aldobrandini
Musee Fabre Pinacoteca Nazionale Principessa Pallavicini
Paris Cantalupo Scnigallia

Collection Frits Lugt, Institut Vincenzo Camuccini Palazzo Comunale

Neerlandais Fa no Turin
Institut de France, Musee Jacquemart- Pinacoteca Civica di Fano Musei Civici di Torino
Andre Florence Tursi (Matera)

Musee du Louvre Galleria Palatina di Palazzo Pitti Cattedrale di Muro Lucano

Rouen Galleria degli Uffizi Vatican City
Musee des Beaux-Arts Lucca Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana
Valence Museo Nazionale di Palazzo Mansi Venice
Musee des Beaux-Arts Malclica Musei Civici Veneziani. Museo Correr
Versailles Chiesa di San Filippo Neri Vctralla

Musee National des Chateaux de Chiesa di Sant'Andrea

Versailles
NETHERLANDS London The Sarah Campbell Blaffer
Amsterdam The British Museum Foundation
Rijksmuseum Chaucer Fine Arts, Ltd. Indianapolis

The Hague Colnaghi Indianapolis Museum of Art

Koninklijk (Cabinet van Schilderijn Philip Hewat-jaboor Kansas City
Mauritshuis Holyrood Palace, Royal Collection The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
Trust Los Angeles
POLAND Sir John Soane's Museum The Getty Research Institute for the
Warsaw Derek Johns History of Art
The Royal Lazienski Museum National Gallery The J.
Paul Getty Museum
National Portrait Gallery Los Angeles County Museum of Art
PORTUGAL Trinity Fine Art, Ltd. Minneapolis
Lisbon Victoria and Albert Museum The Minneapolis Institute of Arts

Museu Nacional dos Coches, Lisbon Walpole Gallery New Haven, Connecticut
Museu de Sao Roque, Santa Casa da Longniddry, East Lothian Yale Center for British Art
Misericordia de Lisboa The Earl of Wemyss and March New York
Norwich Avery Architectural and Fine Arts
RUSSIA Norfolk Castle Museum Library, Columbia University
Moseow Romsey, Hampshire Cooper-Hewitt National Design
State Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts Lord Romsey, Broadlands Museum, Smithsonian Institution
St. Petersburg Sevenoaks, Kent The Ivor Foundation
The State Hermitage Museum Chevening Estate The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Stamford, Lincolnshire Pace Master Prints
SPAIN The Burghley House Collection The Pierpont Morgan Library
Sotogrande Wakefield, West Yorkshire Malcolm Wiener
Mrs. Juliet M. E. Hambro The National Trust, Nostell Priory, Philadelphia

St. Oswald Collection Philadelphia Museum of Art

SWEDEN Wells-ncxt-the-Sea, Norjolk Pittsburgh

Stockholm The Earl of Leicester, Holkham Hall Dr. Alfonso Costa

Nationalmuseum Windsor Carnegie Museum of Art
Eton College Library Ponce, Puerto Rico

SWITZERLAND Windsor Castle, Royal Collection Museo de Arte de Ponce

Private collection (1) Providence

Lausanne UNITED STATES Museum of Art, Rhode Island School

Musee Cantonal des Beaux-Arts Private collections (4) of Design
Mendrisio Robison Collection Richmond
Massimo Martino Fine Arts & Projects Baltimore Virginia Museum of Fine Arts
Zurich The Walters Art Gallery St. Louts

Kunsthaus Zurich Boston The Saint Louis Art Museum

Boston Athenaeum San Francisco
UNITED KINGDOM Museum of Fine Arts The Fine Arts Museums of San
Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II Brunswick, Maine Francisco
Private collections (8) Bowdoin College Museum of Art Sarasota

Bakewell Cambridge, Massachusetts The John and Mable Ringling Museum

The Duke of Devonshire, Chatsworth Fogg Art Museum, Harvard of Art
Barnard Castle, Durham University Art Museums Toledo
The Bowes Museum Chicago The Toledo Museum of Art
Birmingham Vincent Buonnano Washington, D.C.
Birmingham Museums and Art The Art Institute of Chicago The Corcoran Gallery of Art
Gallery Cleveland National Gallery of Art
Value, Wiltshire The Cleveland Museum of Art The Woodner Collections (on deposit
Trustees of The Bowood Collection, Detroit at the National Gallery of Art)
Bowood House The Detroit Institute of Arts Worcester, Massachusetts

Cambridge Fort Worth Worcester Art Museum

The Fitzwilliam Museum Kimbell Art Museum
Edinburgh Greenville, South Carolina
National Gallery of Scotland Bob Jones University Collection
Glasgow Hartford
Glasgow Museums Wadsworth Atheneum
Ickworth Houston
Ickworth House and The National Trust The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
This book is dedicated to the memory of Anthony Morris Clark
 Preface

When the twenty-one-year-old Benjamin and diverse as the exhibition itself. To the century Rome, and who it was felt must be
West set sail from Philadelphia in 1760 National Endowment for the Humanities, given the largest representation in the show.
bound for Rome and his education as an artist, which supported essential years of research They were Carlo Maratti, Pier Leone Ghezzi,
the youthful painter may not have envisioned and preparation with a planning grant, fol- Corrado Giaquinto, Pompeo Batoni, Giovanni
his glory days as president of the Royal lowed by a handsome grant for implementa- Paolo Panini, Anton Raphael Mengs, Angelika
Academy in London thirty-two years later, tion, we have been grateful from the start. The Kauffmann, Pierre Subleyras, jacques-Louis
but he ensured by his voyage that his work NEH has been very generously joined by a mix David, and Giuseppe Cades. It will be quickly
would bear the stamp of exposure to the of public and private support from The Pew noted that of these ten, one is German, one
greatest combination of influences —from Charitable Trusts, the Theresa and H. John Swiss, and two French, while the others are
Antiquity, the Renaissance, and the art of his Heinz III Foundation, the Connelly from places that marked them in the Papal

contemporaries — to be had anywhere in the Foundation, Helen B. Alter, and several anony- States as "foreign" —from Venice, Naples, and
Western world. mous individuals, The Women's Committee of Lucca —with only one artist born in Rome:
It is an honor for two American museums the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Robert Pier Leone Ghezzi. This demonstrated early
to present this panoramic view of one of Montgomery Scott Endowment for on one of the exhibition's central premises:
the most profoundly international "art scenes" Exhibitions, and the National Endowment for Rome, like Paris in the nineteenth century and
of any century, just as this exhibition of the Arts. An indemnity from the Federal New York in the twentieth, acted as a mag-
eighteenth-century Rome ushers in a new Council on the Arts and the Humanities will netic center for the training, making, and
century in our respective cities, and, in the assist substantially with insurance costs. To export of art and artistic ideas.

case of Houston, a new museum building. our corporate sponsors goes a particular vote That small group of friends was sharply
Even for generations now accustomed to the of thanks for not only supporting this major aware of their bias toward painting and
contemporary wonders of air travel, telefax, cultural endeavor for the year 2000, but for drawing, and it was soon decided that it was
and e-mail, let alone digital imagery transmit- helping to spread the word to a broad audi- necessary to be sufficiently ambitious to
ted by satellite, the visit to a great international ence through their own marketing and media include the other arts, which played an equally
exhibition where works of art made in Rome outreach. Advanta and American Water critical role in the Roman artistic dominance
but now separated by oceans or continents Works Company have taken the lead in of the eighteenth century. John Pinto, from
rejoin each other briefly in our presence is a corporate sponsorship of this project in Princeton University, was recruited to select
dazzling experience. For their sympathy with Philadelphia, and IBM Corporation has objects and write about architecture: Malcolm
the profound scholarly and public purposes of assisted with in-kind support. NBC 10 WCAU Campbell, from the University of
this project, and their willingness to part with is the media sponsor in Philadelphia, and Pennsylvania, was asked to form a selection
treasured objects on its behalf, we are enor- US Airways is the official airline. on printmaking with, inevitably, Giovanni
mously grateful to some 200 lenders in sixteen This exhibition and the accompanying cat- Battista Piranesi as the star. The decorative arts
countries. Without the wholehearted support alogue have been long in the making. In June must clearly be given a proportionately large
of the Italian Ministry of Culture, the Hon. 1991 a group of friends met for a weekend in presentation and we quickly turned to the
Giovanna Melandri, and her distinguished the house of Stefano Susinno in San Casciano long-established expertise of the connois-
associates Prof. Dott. Mario Serio, Direttore dei Bagni (in Tuscany) to outline a long- seur/scholar Alvar Gonzalez-Palacios, whose
Generale, Ufficio Centrale per Beni i discussed exhibition that would survey all the research and publications in this field have
Archeologici, Architettonici, Artistici e arts made in Rome through the eighteenth established a new level of insight. Dean
Storici at the ministry, and Prof. Dott. Claudio century. With Susinno as host, the party con- Walker from the Philadelphia Museum of Art

Strinati, Soprintendente, Soprintendenza per sisted of Ann Percy, Liliana Barroero, Edgar gallantly accepted responsibility for sculpture
i Beni Artistici e Storici di Roma, this project Peters Bowron, and Joseph Rishel. A car in the show, one of the least researched yet

which has depended so deeply on the enthusi- trunkful of books had been borrowed from central aspects of Roman artistic production.
astic cooperation of so many museums, the University of Rome and in a leisurely Nearly all of these people had been
churches, and collections in Italy, would never fashion, befitting the place and the season and attracted to the subject of eighteenth-century
have been possible. We are profoundly grate- very much the subject at hand, essential ideas Rome through the scholarship and hugely
ful to them, and to their courteous and helpful emerged that would govern the specific engaging personality of Anthony Morris
colleagues in the official Italian cultural com- selection of the exhibition. Inclusions and Clark, who by the time of his untimely death
munity at all levels. rejections were debated, but a remarkable in 1976 had made this area very much his own
The panoply of generous sponsors and consensus was soon formed as to what made "campo," winning over established scholars
contributors to this project is as substantial Roman art Roman, in that most polyglot and and students alike to the delights ami demands
cosmopolitan city. For drawings and paintings of Settecento Roman studies. Ann Percy, with
(opposite) detail of Cristoforo Unterperger, Study a core of ten figures was established, those Ulrich Hiesinger, had published in 19S0
for "Composition with Ignudi and Grotesques and an artists who by collective agreement were at Clark's drawing collection, which had been
Allegory oj Sculpture" (cat. 298) the center of picturemaking in eighteenth- bequeathed to the Philadelphia Museum ot

11
Art by his estate. Pete Bowron as Clark's liter- Department has been in charge of gathering Registrar of the Philadelphia Museum of Art,
ary executor edited his essays and in remark- all images required for this book, a trying job Irene Taurins, for her deft maneuvering of
ably swift order published Clark's proposed that she has done perfectly. such a varied and large number of objects
book on Batoni, left only in note form at his From that first meeting in 1991 was clear
it across the seas and a continent. Carl Brandon
death. Three other colleagues soon became that asmany colleagues as possible must be Strehlke in Philadelphia and Florence has also
central to the organization of the show: involved in the project, much in the spirit of been an essential friend of the project since its

Christopher M. S. Johns, from the University Clark's energetic and encompassing interests, conception, helping to shape its organization
of Virginia, who had already demonstrated his but also to reflect fairly the completely inter- and attending to many critical details.

particular skill at balancing archival investiga- national aspect of Roman studies at the Finally, at the turn of the millennium
tions with achieved monuments through his present moment. The large number of which is, of course, the jubilee year of Rome
work first on the patronage of Pope Clement contributing authors writing here some — itself, we very much hope that this exhibition

XI Albani and then Antonio Canova; Ornella sixty-nine scholars writing in nine different will be received in the spirit of this celebratory
Francisci Osti, whose knowledge and nimble languages —amply suggests the burgeoning moment, a spirit that prompted the making of
wit were required to select and evoke the per- and diverse growth of the field. We owe them much that is on view here.
sonalities who truly characterized the sophis- all a great debt of thanks.
tication of that place at that moment; and (on The organizing team of the exhibiton has
Seydl, who moved to Philadelphia as a gradu- depended daily on the kindness of a wide
ate student at the University of Pennsylvania array of colleagues and friends: diplomats, Anne d'Harnoncourt
in 1994 and was hired as the coordinator of the scholars, librarians, art packers, translators, The George D. Widener Director
complex business of loan negotiations and as editors, installation designers, and prepara- Philadelphia Museum of Art
overall exhibition coordinator. Seydl has tors. We have attempted to name some of
played a vital role in the entire enterprise these people in the acknowledgments at the Peter C. Marzio
and has provided the illustrated chronology. end of this book, but it would be remiss of us Director
Jennifer Vanim in the European Painting not to single out the efforts of the Senior The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

12
 —

Foreword

Few cities in the world have experienced such pittori, scultori et archhetti moderni, did much to Wallis, who went to Rome in 1788 as the
tumultuous and significant changes over the establish in the modern mind the basic protege of Lord Warlock.
centuries as Rome. From bucolic village, concept of Roman art as the product of a long The critical fortunes of many of the artists
kingdom, republic, capital of an empire, seat and constant deference to, and defense of, the featured in the 1959 exhibition followed a
of the papal court and center of Christendom, doctrines of ideal beauty, the antique as the familiar pattern. Their works, acclaimed by
to kingdom once again, Rome is now capital model of excellence, and the Grand Manner. contemporaries and generally admired
of a modern republic as well as the adminis- Inevitably, twentieth-century interest in throughout much of the eighteenth century,
trative base for one of the world's largest seventeenth-century Roman art led to curios- were censured and eventually neglected in the

religions. Yet in the popular imagination and ity about the artistic activities of the city in the nineteenth, only to be gradually revalued and
in fact, Rome has maintained a remarkable aftermath of the Baroque. In many instances, appreciated once again after 1900. From the
continuity for two and a half thousand years however, such studies still deferred to the 1950s, Roman eighteenth-century art found
during its evolution from a settlement on the apparently more heroic (more "modern" increasing appeal among European museums,
Palatine to the capital of the Italian state. for some) doings of the seventeenth century, collectors, and connoisseurs, who recognized
Rome's perpetual ability to regenerate itself, a view exemplified in Rudolph Wittkower's its quality and value. In the 1960s and 1970s,
to foster cosmopolitan and innovative soci- canonical survey Art and Architecture in Italy in part owing to the influence and enthusiasm
eties, and to seek and attract the finest talents 1600-1750. Although he thrust his interest of the American scholar and museum director
in many fields of human endeavor, has always in the seventeenth century forward into the Anthony Morris Clark (1923-1976), art
accorded the city huge historical and artistic Settecento, there is a noticeable lack of museums in the United States bought (often
importance. Whether the ancient Roman's interest in the Roman art and artists sub- incredibly cheaply) exceptionally fine works
caput mundi, Goethe's "Haupstadt der sumed under the rubric "Late Baroque." But in from the period, and even a few American art

Weltangelangt," or — as the popular cliche 1959, the year after Wittkower published the historians were encouraged to concentrate
would have it —the place to which all roads first edition of his magisterial book, an extra- their studies in this historical period.
lead, Rome's heritage has inspired and fasci- ordinary exhibition devoted to l! Settecento Unfortunately for the average museum
nated generations of artists and architects, a Roma was held in Rome at the Palazzo visitor, eighteenth-century Rome remains
both native and foreign. delle Esposizioni, the cavernous Renaissance terra incognita, and the work of even its finest

At the beginning of the last century, the art Revival exhibition hall erected on via Nazionale painters, sculptors, and architects, strange and
of Italy was best understood, almost to the in 1878-82, which laid the foundation for a unfamiliar, with the possible exception of
exclusion of all other aspects, for its achieve- new appreciation of this splendid chapter in Giovanni Battista Piranesi and Giovanni Paolo
ments during the Renaissance in Tuscany. the city's artistic history. Panini. It is difficult to see fine examples of
Only in the when a small group of
1920s, Organized by the "Associazione Amici dei their work in the original outside Rome and
Italian and German scholars began to Musei di Roma" under the leadership of Emilio even there, the closure of the Villa Borghese
reconsider Italian art of the sixteenth and Lavagnino, Nolfo di Carpegna, Carlo Pietrangeli, (until recently), the Museo di Roma, and the
seventeenth centuries, did Rome regain and a host of Italian and European scholars, Settecento collections of the Palazzo
center stage as a center of creativity and the show contained 2,656 items, including Barberini — not to mention the vagaries of
patronage. Following the Second World War paintings, sculpture, drawings, prints, books, Roman churches and palaces
access to
these interests blossomed into a full-scale manuscripts, maps, plans, musical scores, has meant that Roman Settecento painting,
reevaluation of the art of the Counter- historical documents, medals, furniture, sculpture, and decorative art, even in the
Reformation, which elevated Rome over decorative arts, and tapestries. More than 600 city of their origin, are difficult to appreciate
Florence, Venice, Milan, Naples, and other paintings alone composed an extraordinary except for the most persistent and privileged
Italian centers in terms of culture, political survey of the pictorial efforts of nearly observer.
power, and artistic production. every Italian, British, German,French, Nonetheless, the scholarship devoted to
Seventeenth-century studies found fertile and Scandinavian painter resident, however Roman Settecento art has developed rapidly in
ground in Germany, Italy, Great Britain, and briefly, in the Eternal City in the eighteenth scope and sophistication since the 1959 exhibi-
America, and burgeoned, evolving with century. There were omissions, of course tion. During the past Four decades, an astonish-
tremendous vitality through publications, (Pietro Bianchi, Vincenzo Camuccini, the ing amount of information has been published
restorations of works of art, and exhibitions. subject paintings of Pier Leone Ghezzi), but on a wide range of individual artists, patrons,
Just as this exhibition opens in Philadelphia, as a survey the exhibition was remarkable collectors, and institutions such as the
for example, an equally ambitious and innova- and encompassed such well-known pictures Accademia di S. Luca. and the boundaries
tive show will take place in Rome, examining as Batoni's double-portrait of the Holy Roman of the field have been enlarged in many
the influence of the seventeenth-century Emperor Joseph 11 and His Brother Leopold /, Grand directions. Gradually, our understanding of
critic, antiquarian, and tastemaker Giovan Duke ofTuscany in Vienna (cat. 172) and what happened Rome during this
in the arts in

Pietro Bellori (1615-1696). It was Bellori who. those obscure as a landscape by the little- period is increasing. A number of important
through his artistic friendships and his Vitc de' known Scottish painter George Augustus Roman painters, for example —
Pompeo
Batoni, Jan Frans van Bloemen, Giuseppe Art, Rhode Island School of Design, was British, French, German, and Russian prede-
Cades, Felice Giani, Jakob Philipp Hackert, entitled The Age of Canova. A decade later, rel- cessors seeing these works for the first time in

Hendrik Frans van Lint, Andrea Locatelli, ishing his skills (and growing international Rome some two hundred years ago.
Anton Raphael Mengs, Giovanni Paolo Panini, reputation) as a provocative impresario of all But in an exhibition of such size, scope,
Pierre Subleyras, Francesco Trevisani, and things Roman and Settecento, he organized and expense we also felt it necessary — in the

Gaspar van Wittel among them —have been with John Maxon and Italo Faldi a landmark spirit of Tony Clark's pioneering enthusi-
the subject of authoritative scholarly mono- survey. Painting in Italy in the Eighteenth Century: asms — to challenge certain accepted beliefs
graphs or catalogues raisonnes. One might Rococo to Romanticism (1970; Chicago, and values about the history of later Italian

wish that the work of these artists were Minneapolis, and Toledo; catalogue edited by art (not to mention the history of modern
admired a littlemore for its intrinsic aesthetic Joseph Rishel and Anselmo Carini), in which Europe) and aggressively to promote Rome as
quality, often wondrous state of preservation, he presented to a larger audience his strong one of the liveliest cultural and artistic centers

and historical merit than strictly for its prox- Roman predilections. The present exhibition in eighteenth-century Europe, the preeminent
imity to or remoteness from Neoclassicism, is, in a variety of ways, a continuation of Tony international school of art, and the place
however: David's Oath of the Horatii (1784; Clark's work, particularly since so many ideas where new ideas were most often hatched,
Musee du Louvre, Paris), the textbook presented here (and so many of the people nurtured, developed, and launched into inter-
example of the Neoclassical style, represents involved in the research and writing for this national circulation. In other words, we have
neither the goal nor the pinnacle of nearly a project) can be traced directly to his generous sought to reinforce Clark's belief that in the

century's effort on the part of dozens of scholarship, ample gifts for friendship, and eighteenth century "Rome was still the great-
painters in eighteenth-century Rome, but enthusiasm for the Roman Settecento. est European city, the most artistically wealthy
the interest of too many writers on the period Thanks to Clark's efforts and those of city, and the Mecca both of every young artist

continues to hinge upon this proposition. several other scholars of his generation, and of every cultivated person."
This is not to deny the significance of notably Giuliano Briganti, Andrea Busiri Vici, From the start it was our intention to view
Neoclassicism, the dominant movement in Italo Faldi, Olivier Michel, and Sir Ellis Settecento Rome and its artistic achievements
European art and architecture in the late eigh- Waterhouse, the view that Rome declined as an not solely through the eyes of the British
teenth century and early nineteenth. In fact, artistic center in the late seventeenth century Grand Tourist or, say, a pensionnaire at the
renewed attention to the new Neoclassical and the eighteenth has been reevaluated. A French Academy at Rome, but to examine less

ideas of "noble simplicity and calm grandeur," look around the walls of this exhibition familiar subjects. In both the essays and the
notably the work of Anton Raphael Mengs, should expunge any doubt about the aesthetic individual entries in this catalogue, we have
Antonio Canova, and jacques-Louis David, has quality of Roman art and architecture in the asked our contributors not only to remind us
furthered the notion of Rome's importance as eighteenth century. Surely, in this assemblage of the often dazzling artistic significance of
an artistic center throughout the eighteenth of works drawn from around the globe, it the works at hand but also to examine them in

century, even and perhaps especially in the should be possible to understand why, the light of the most recent research and of the
fields of architecture and the decorative arts. throughout the eighteenth century, nearly interests of scholars around the world. Thus,
This interest, prompted by the writings of every European artist of significance made the reader of this catalogue will be introduced
Mario Praz just after the war, was the subject a pilgrimage to Rome to study its artistic to the Accademia dell'Arcadia, the Concorso
of a vast Council of Europe exhibition in heritage and to view at firsthand the latest pro- Clementino (a student competition in the
London in 1972, The Age of Neo-Classicism. The ductions of its painters, draftsmen, sculptors, Accademia di S. Luca named in honor of Pope
degree to which Rome served as the crucible printmakers, architects, and craftsmen. Clement XI), church restoration and urbanism,
for Neoclassicism, in spite of the pan-European Our purpose here is thus both confirma- pietism and hagiography, the Chinea and
nature of the movement and its efflorescence tional and subversive. We profoundly believe Lateran possesso festivals, archaeology,
in London, Paris, Berlin, Stockholm, and that the artistic creations of eighteenth- the Accademia del Nudo, Roman libraries

St. Petersburg, remains striking. century Rome are worth examining, if only and museums, canonization and beatification
The art of Settecento Rome, in all of its ide- for the enormous aesthetic pleasure they apparati, questions of iconography, liturgy,
ological forms and stylistic inflections, was provide. The accounts of foreign visitors to the and theology, the revival of early Christian art,

fervently embraced by Anthony Morris Clark, city are filled with details of the delight, even ephemeral architecture, patronage and col-

to whom this catalogue and exhibition are ded- rapture, they experienced when viewing the lecting, aristocratic families and the clerical

icated. Having gone to Europe from Harvard latest efforts of the city's leading artists. elite, and political and economic issues, to

just after the war as a painter, he fell in love Tourists' itineraries at the time often included mention but a few of the subjects examined
with Rome and became a joyous and passion- visits to artists' studios, where, pleased by the by the authors in this panoramic survey of
ate advocate of both the city and its cultural works on view, they commissioned paintings eighteenth-century Roman art and architec-
and artistic achievements in the eighteenth and other works of art. Among the criteria of ture. Goethe, in his rambles around the "hub
century. Clark returned to America after selection for the works in the exhibition, artistic of the world," found that "in every corner
several years in Rome with firm beliefs quality has always remained at the forefront, there are magnificent things which are almost
about the importance that Roman eighteenth- and nothing would please the organizers never mentioned." We are pleased to illuminate
century art and culture held for Europe as a more than if our visitors were to respond to a few of them.
whole. His first exhibition on the subject, what they see in Philadelphia and Houston
which he organized in 1957 at the Museum of with the same unabashed enthusiasm as their Edgar Peters Bowron and Joseph j. Rishel

14
 Contributing Authors

kas Katrin Achilles-Syndram, Staatliche PC Philip Conisbee, Senior Curator of mo Magnus Olausson, Associate Professor

Museen zu Berlin European Paintings, National Gallery of and Senior Curator of the Royal Castle
sa Sergej Androsov, The State Hermitage Art, Washington, D.C. Collection, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm
Museum, St. Petersburg fc Fintan Cullen, University of Nottingham aoc Anna Ottani Cavina, Professore,

la Luciano Arcangeli, Ministero per Beni i CF Chiara Felicetti, Predazzo, Italy Universita degli Studi di Bologna

Cultural! e Ambientali, Rome pf Peggy Fogelman, Associate Curator, fp Fiorella Pansecchi, Rome
ab Andrea Bacchi, Universita di Trento, Italy Sculpture & Works of Art, The J. Paul Getty ap Ann Percy, Curator of Drawings,
mb Malcolm Baker, Deputy Head of Museum, Los Angeles Philadelphia Museum of Art
Research, Victoria and Albert Museum, ofo Ornella Francisci Osti, Rome jp John Pinto, Howard Crosby Butler

London dga Donald Garstang, Colnaghi, London Memorial Professor of the History of

mgb Maria Giulia Barberini, Curator, Museo agp Alvar Gonzalez-Palacios, Rome Architecture, Princeton University

del Palazzo di Venezia, Rome dg Dieter Graf, Bibliotheca Hertziana, Max- alp Anne L. Poulet, Russell B. and Andree
lb Liliana Barroero, Dipartimento di Studi Planck-lnstitutfur Kunstgeschichte, Rome Beauchamp Stearns Curator of European
Storico-artistici, Archeologici e sulla sg Stefano Grandesso, Rome Decorative Arts and Sculpture Emerita,

Conservazione, Universita di Roma Tre, jh James Harper, Department of Fine Arts, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Rome Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut jr Joseph J.
Rishel, The Dennis and Gisela
CB Charles Beddington, London sh Seymour Howard, Research Professor, Alter Senior Curator of European Painting

SB Sylvain Bellanger, Curator, 19th-century University of California at Davis and Sculpture before 1900, Philadelphia
European Painting, The Cleveland Museum cmsj Christopher M. S. Johns, Professor of Art Museum of Art
of Art History, University of Virginia, spvr Simonetta Prosperi Valenti Rodino,
SBE Silvana Bessone, Directora, Museu Charlottesville Universita della Tuscia, Viterbo

Nacional dos Coches, Lisbon cj Catherine Johnston, Curator of European sr Steffi Roettgen, University of Munich
db David Bindman, Professor of the History Art, The National Gallery oj Canada, PR Pierre Rosenberg, President-Directeur.

of Art, University College London Ottawa Musee du Louvre, Paris

DEB Dilys E. Blum, Curator of Costume and jkb John Kenworthy-Browne, London smcr Stella (Margaret Camp) Rudolph,
Museum of Art
Textiles, Philadelphia ek Elisabeth Kieven, Bibliotheca Hertziana, Florence

EPB Edgar Peters Bowron, The Audrey Jones Max-Planck-lnstitut fur Kunstgeschichte, is Isabella Schmittmann, Munich
Beck Curator of European Art, The Museum Rome as Almuth Schuttwolf, Kustos

of Fine Arts, Houston pk Patrick Kragelund, Director, Schlossmuseum, Gotha, Germany

mlb Melissa L. Bryan, Visiting Assistant Kunstakademiets Bibliotek, Copenhagen jls Jon L. Seydl, European Painting and
Professor, Rochester Institute of Technology sl Sylvain Laveissiere, Conservateur en chef Sculpture bejore 1900, Philadelphia

EC Emilia Calbi, Dipartimento delle Arti au Departement des Peintures, Musee du Museum of Art
Visive, Universita degli Studi di Bologna Louvre, Paris ss Stefano Susinno, Dipartimento di Studi

mc Malcolm Campbell, University of rl Rossella Leone, Museo di Roma Storico-artistici, Archeologici e sulla

Pennsylvania, Philadelphia alb Anna Lo Bianco, Soprintendenza Beni Conservazione, Universita di Roma Tre,
rjc Richard J. Campbell, John E. Andruslll Artistici e Storici di Roma Rome
Curator of Prints and Drawings, The tjmcc Thomas J. McCormick, Professor rv Roberto Valeriani, Rome
Minneapolis Institute of Arts Emeritus, Wheaton College, Massachusetts dw Dean Walker, Henry P. Mcllhenny Senior
mtc Maria Teresa Caracciolo, Chargee de jpm J.
Patrice Marandel, Curator, European Curator of European Decorative Arts and
recherche, C.N.R.S. Universite Lille Painting and Sculpture, Los Angeles County Sculpture, Philadelphia Museum of Art
vc Victor Carlson, Senior Curator, Prints & Museum of Art sw Stefanie Walker, Assistant Professor. Bard
Drawings, Los Angeles County Museum of fm Frank Martin, Deutsche Graduate Center for Studies in the

Art Forschungsgemcinschaft, Bonn Decorative Arts, New York

ac Allan Ceen, Professor of History of OM Olivier Michel, Paris dhw David H. Weinglass, Professor of English.

Architecture, The Pennsylvania State vhm Vernon Hyde Minor, Projcssor of Art University of Missouri-Kansas City

University, Rome Program History and Humanities, The University of rw Robert Wolterstorff, Director, Victoria

ic Irene Cioffi, London Colorado at Boulder Museum. Portland. Maine

anc Angela N. Cipriani, Accademia )M Jennifer Montagu, Warburg Institute,

Nazionale di San Luca, Rome London

jc Jeffrey Collins, Assistant Professor of Art tm Teresa Morna, Museu de Sao Roaue,
History, University of Washington, Seattle Lisbon

15
 The Entrepot of Europe: Rome in the Eighteenth Century

CHRISTOPHER M. S. JOHNS

Living in the shadow of the Baroque has not What historical process has all but effaced separate Venice from the Eternal City in the
been easy for eighteenth-century Roman art. their memory from the western cultural con- contemporary art-historical imagination. But
Long judged by aesthetic, formal, and icono- sciousness? As Sir Joshua Reynolds predicted historical significance is augmented by this
graphic categories invented to describe, clas- in his Discourses on Art, the names of Batoni exhibition's desire to present works of art of
sify, and explain the art of the seventeenth and Anton Raphael Mengs, his contempo- very high quality to an American public, a
century, Roman art of the Settecento (the raries, soon fell into the same oblivion where goal readily attained because of the high stan-
Italian designation for the eighteenth century) the painters of the previous generation dards of eighteenth-century academic instruc-
has often been relegated historically to a sec- (Sebastiano Conca, Placido Costanzi, tion and the period's extremely competitive
ondary, inferior position. This attitude has Francesco Fernandi, called Imperiali, and market. To achieve this goal, some conceptual
been especially true of non-Italian scholarship Agostino Masucci) now reside.' In fact, we problems must first be addressed.
and is more frequently encountered in the might add to Reynolds's mean-spirited list The two major historiographical problems
history and criticism of painting and sculpture every painter and sculptor included in the confronting a sustained reconsideration of
than of architecture and printmaking. Indeed, present exhibition, with the sole exception of eighteenth-century Roman art are the long-
the magnificent scale and urbanistic ambition Canova. believe that
I much of the "oblivion" standing popularity of Settecento Venetian
of such monuments as the Spanish Steps populated by Roman eighteenth-century painting, above all among the British, and the
(cat. 19) compare favorably to such Baroque artists has been constructed on ignorance of traditional status in art-historical literature of
architectural initiatives as the Piazza Navona, the art itself, a problem the present exhibition the eighteenth century as an appendage to or
while the astonishingly high quality and will partly resolve. The relative rarity (outside afterthought of the Baroque. Public and
fame of the prints of Giovanni Battista Italy) of the cultural production of eighteenth- private collections in Great Britain have long
Piranesi (see Prints section of the Catalogue) century Rome is the culprit in this case. More preserved many splendid examples of works
overshadow the achievements of the insidious is the modernist prejudice against by artists of the Serene Republic of Venice.
previous century. all academically inspired art, which was This phenomenon has marginalized Rome in
With sculpture and especially painting, considered compromised and tainted by the the abbreviated survey books of eighteenth-
always celebrated in the canon of art-histori- institutions that helped to create it. But in a century Italian art and in the few galleries
cal scholarship and teaching, it is a different postmodern world, the championship of devoted to the period. This pattern has been
story, however. The emphasis on Baroque art "originality" over "rationality" is no longer widely repeated by American museums and
in the Western canon is in large part histori- in play, and we may finally revisit the art of private collections. Arguably, the view paint-
cally determined. The nepotistic, aggressive, eighteenth-century Rome and evaluate it ings of Antonio Canaletto have impressed
and aggrandizing building and decorative pro- on its own terms. themselves on the consciousness of scholars
grams of the seventeenth-century papal fami- There are many problematic aspects of the and art lovers even more than the Grand Tour
lies and their associates provided myriad historiography of the art of the Baroque and of portraits of Batoni as the characteristic exam-
opportunities for painters and sculptors that the eighteenth century that have tended to ples of Settecento Italian painting.' While
were not nearly so numerous in the next minimize the distinctiveness and historical undeniably important and often of exception-
century. And there was certainly no dearth importance of the latter while trumpeting the ally high quality, Venetian vedute enjoyed very
of talent. Such names as Caravaggio, the accomplishments of the former. In addition, little aesthetic or intellectual prestige in the
Carracci, Guido Reni, Domenichino, Pietro patterns of scholarship of eighteenth-century eighteenth century and their popularity was
da Cortona, Gianlorenzo Bernini, Claude art have tended to spotlight Venetian painting a sore point to many historical painters. The
Lorrain, Nicolas Poussin, Salvator Rosa, while denigrating (or largely ignoring) con- genre of history painting, however, was not
Giovanni Battista Gaulli, and many others temporary painting at Rome. The history of undergoing an identity crisis in Rome as it was
feature prominently in most major museum eighteenth-century sculpture before Canova's in contemporary France, primarily because it

collections and enormous sums

still fetch definitive move to Rome in 1780 has largely still had a flourishing foreign market and con-
when their works infrequently appear on the been the history of French sculpture, and only tinued to enjoy tremendous prestige (and
art Of their Settecento successors,
market. in recent years has British and Italian sculp- numerous commissions) in Rome, through-
only Pompeo Batoni and Antonio Canova are ture received much scholarly attention outside outItaly, and beyond the Alps. Many painters

well known today, and they are certainly not Italy.

1
Fortunately, architecture and printmak- in Rome received impressive commissions
so highly esteemed as their illustrious Baroque ing have helped keep Roman art in the canon, from Grand Tourists for mythological, histori-
predecessors. But in their own time these now but only in a relatively limited way. Thus, one cal, allegorical, and religious subjects, but this
neglected eighteenth-century artists were of the goals of the present exhibition is to pattern ol patronage has been relatively unap-
household names all over Europe. present eighteenth-century Rome and its cul- preciated because of the mania for portraits
tural production as part of an art-historical and painted views as the "typical" acquisitions
"period" unto itself. Similarly, greater empha- from contemporary artists by priv ileged visi-

(OPPOSITE) detail of Pierre Subleyras, I'npc sis on historical importance, as opposed to tors to Rome. Mengs's Aiigu^tus and Cleopatra
Benedict XIV Lambertini, 1740 (cat. 284) mere aesthetic preference, is necessar) to of c. i~s«. commissioned by Sir Richard Colt

INTRl -.I'D I Ol I liROH

 Hoare for his estate at Stourhead, is a good Parnassus from the Villa Albani, are very briefly historical categories, and believe
I it would be
11

example. 4 Sculptors of various nationalities considered. In fact, the subtitle "Baroque" tells counterproductive to attempt to invent a new
also received important commissions from the story — this book also makes the funda- designation.
visitors for works besides potboiling portrait mental assumption that the Italian eighteenth A final problem confronting a more bal-
busts, although these were also popular. John century is a Baroque afterthought, a quiet art- anced evaluation of the artistic achievements
Flaxman's celebrated Fury of Athamas, commis- historical eddy, of interest only to specialists of Settecento Rome is the dearth of "big name"
sioned by the eccentric Frederick Hervey, Earl and lovers of Venice. artists, especially in comparison to the
of Bristol and Bishop of Derry, is a monumen- Given the fact that the pedagogy of art "giants" of the seventeenth century. With
tal sculpture that could only have been com- history demands taxonomic categories into few exceptions, even the names of the leading
missioned in Rome, despite the fact that both which the art of a period may be placed, it is artists of the Roman school in the age of the
sculptor and patron were English. Such 5
was important to note that Roman art of the first Enlightenment are known outside Italy only
the cultural influence of the entrepot of sixty years of the Settecento cannot be organi- to specialists. In the art-historical canon today
Europe. cally positioned in any canonical period desig- Rome has no rival to Canaletto, Tiepolo,
Another problem facing a more positive nation. This phenomenon has also worked Hogarth, Gainsborough, Watteau, Fragonard,
evaluation of art in eighteenth-century Rome against the integration of eighteenth-century David, or Goya. The paucity of high-profile
is chronological in nature. Academic curric- art into the teaching narratives of post- artists, in terms of the modern art market, has
ula, especially in the United States, rarely Renaissance Italian art. Since the Rococo is an not only reinforced the traditional scholarly
include courses on the eighteenth century admittedly problematic stylistic designation neglect afforded the period but has inhibited
except as add-ons or afterthoughts to surveys for much of the era's cultural production, more public-oriented attempts to familiarize
of the Baroque. My own undergraduate expo- given the general perception, however erro- a broader audience with cultural practitioners
sure to the Italian eighteenth century was less neous, that it is an exclusively French and who were highly acclaimed in their own time.
than three lectures in a semester course that south German phenomenon, the Italian word This neglect has been followed in both the
spent almost a month on Bernini and, alas, barocchctto has been substituted. This has had a market, where few Settecento Roman paint-
this situation is not much improved two highly negative influence on the critical recep- ings and drawings attract significant attention,

decades later. And even when an independent tion of early Settecento Roman art. The Italian and, predictably, in the collecting patterns of
course on the eighteenth century is in place, suffix -ctto signifies diminution; thus, baroc- many major museums. While such prominent
its chief focus is France and Britain; the cover- chctto essentially means "little Baroque." Given institutions as the Metropolitan Museum of
age afforded Italy is limited almost entirely to the notion of grandeur of scale as one of the Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the
Venice and, perhaps, a Grand Tour portrait by compellingly positive qualities of Seicento Los Angeles County Museum of Art, among
Pompeo Batoni. Because the post- Baroque art, the "little" version of this style others, have acquired pictures by Batoni,
Renaissance, pre-modern curriculum exten- can only be interpreted as being inferior and Giuseppe Bartolomeo Chiari, Mengs, and
sively privileges the seventeenth century, few essentially derivative. The same may be said of others in recent years, major Roman painters
textbooks seriously consider the Settecento. 6 the less pejorative but still condescending are still either underrepresented or ignored
Indeed, the chronological bifurcation of the term "Late Baroque." Moreover, like the tradi- altogether in many American and British

eighteenth century in Rudolf Wittkower's oth- tional descriptions of the French Rococo, museums. It is significant and telling that

erwise splendid Art and Architecture in Italy \6oo Italian barocchetto implies an art of easy grace, Washington's National Gallery of Art declined
to 1750 has done much to inhibit reconsidera- charm, and "feminine" elegance. 9 to acquire Batoni's spectacular Grand Tour
tion of the Settecento as an independent era." Although grace, charm, and elegance are Portrait 0/ William Knatchbull-Wyndham (cat.

The year 1750 means nothing, art-historically accurate and helpful words to describe much 169), even though the gallery has no picture by
speaking, to Italy. Wittkower's treatment of early Settecento Roman art, our culturally Batoni in its collection and in spite of remark-
Italian architecture of the first half of the determined prejudice reacts negatively against able recent public interest in the Grand Tour
century is, predictably, excellent, but his dis- such formal characteristics, which we tend to and its images. That a supposedly representa-
cussion of painting and sculpture is no more gender as feminine. Gender stereotyping tive national collection would spurn such a

than cursory. Fifty years of the Roman school deeply if subconsciously, colors our reaction picture is evidence of an enduring prejudice
of painters are represented by only four to and reception of Baroque and eighteenth- against eighteenth-century Roman art that the
objects, one painting each by Conca, Marco century art. In gendered language, the present exhibition hopes to overcome.
Benefial, Giovanni Paolo Panini, and Batoni. Baroque is either dynamic and triumphant or A particularly fruitful strategy for reassess-
The rather atypical Achilles and Chiron from the rational and balanced, depending on what ing Roman art of the Settecento entails a
Uffizi represents the oeuvre of the century's type of Baroque art is under consideration, reconsideration of the notion of the "foreign"
most famous painter. One cannot help but while such terms as coy, suave, and decorative What does the adjective "foreign" actu-
artist.

come to the conclusion that its date, c. 1746, are employed to characterize the art and archi- mean in the context of eighteenth-century
ally

was the deciding factor for its inclusion. Thus, tecture of most of the following century. In a Rome? This question has two major aspects:
the chronological constraints of Wittkower's largely unintentional but nonetheless real way, whether or not non-Roman Italian artists
influential book, widely used even today as a barocchetto has marginalized and stigmatized should be considered "aliens" and whether or
textbook for Baroque surveys, have ham- pre-Neoclassical art in accordance with the not this designation should be extended to
strung attempts to study the Settecento as a broader stream of phallocentric cultural cri- transalpine artists who spent most or all of
discrete century. Another frequently encoun- tique. Once it is acknowledged as biased and their careers working in the papal city.

tered textbook, Julius S. Held and Donald arbitrary, such a term can no longer be Canova, Batoni, Alessandro Galilei, and
Posner's 17th- and iHlh-Century Art: Baroque instructively employed in period narratives. Piranesi, among others, are examples of the
Painting, Sculpture, Architecture, devotes a For my purposes, "eighteenth-century art" is first group, while Pierre Subleyras, Gavin
chapter lo the Italian Settecento, but only two sufficient to describe the period, since it can Hamilton, Angelika Kauffmann, and Charles-
Roman works, a Batoni portrait and Mengs's never fit comfortably into any preexisting art- Louis Clerisseau, among many others, fit the

18 ENTREPOT OF EUROPE
 —

second case. Historically, very few important Apostle statues in St. John Lateran were exe-
artists were actually of Roman origin, but cuted by French sculptors is a case in point.

because of the remarkable degree of cos- Pietro Stefano Monnot received the prize
mopolitanism during the eighteenth century, commissions for the Saint Peter and Saint Paul

Rome was of crucial significance not only as a directly from Pope Clement XI, while the

cultural site but also as the promoter of a vig- more famous Pierre Legros provided Saint

orous school for artists of widely different Thomas and Saint Bartholomew (fig. 1). The nave
nationalities; being from Venice or Paris of St. John Lateran became a spectacular
makes an artist no less "Roman" in conse- museum of contemporary sculpture repre-
quence. Unfortunately, many artists who are senting the work of artists from many regions
Roman in this context are considered only in of both France and Italy." The construction of

the narratives of "national" schools, a phe- two Roman churches, S. Claudio dei
nomenon fueled in scholarship by the acutely Borgognone and SS. Nome di Maria, by the
nationalistic world view of the nineteenth and French architect Antoine Derizet, is another
twentieth centuries. The encyclopedic, noteworthy example. Similarly, even a rela-

school-oriented impulse of most modern tively unknown British painter such as

museums (above all the Musee du Louvre and William Kent could receive a modest commis-
the national galleries of Great Britain and the sion for a ceiling fresco in the Belgian national
United States) has also facilitated the "repatria- church, S. Giuliano dei Belgi, while the promi-
tion" of many artists who should be inter- nent Gavin Hamilton enjoyed considerable
preted primarily in a Roman context. The patronage from visiting tourists. John Parker,
present exhibition ably demonstrates a viable primarily known as a landscape painter, also
school that is both Roman and international. provided an altarpiece for the church of Fig. 1 Pierre Legros II, Saint Bartholomew. 1705-12,

Indeed, few in the eighteenth century would S. Gregorio al Celio, the type of commission marble; St. John Lateran, Rome
have seen this as a contradiction. one would not expect a Protestant painter to

The lack of appreciation for the romanismo receive, Jacobite though he was. Several
of numerous foreign painters, sculptors, and objects in the present exhibition owe their often even politically influential. These elite
architects of the eighteenth century is closely origins to Roman commissions to foreign visitors often included in their entourage cul-
related to the mistaken notion that artists artists; while the context is usually acknowl- turally and intellectually prominent figures,

came to Rome only in order to study antiqui- edged, the strength of the local art economy in usually from the middle classes, who helped
ties, ruins, and the monuments of the High Rome is generally downplayed in favor of the enrich the Roman milieu. King Louis XV and
Renaissance and early Baroque periods. While Old Master/antiquities connection as the only his remarkably accomplished mistress,
Rome's historical attractions — including the one of real interest in the history of Italian Madame de Pompadour, believed that an
Belvedere Courtyard, which displayed world- patronage. Foreign artists who stayed in Rome extended trip to Italy was absolutely essential
famous classical sculptures such as the Apollo for a few months, a few years, or a lifetime to the cultural and intellectual formation of a
Belvedere and Laocoon, Raphael's famed were well aware of the vitality of the modern young, parvenu aristocrat who was to become
murals in the Vatican Stanze, and the ceiling school of art flourishing all around them. The the "arts czar" of mid-eighteenth-century
frescoes in the Palazzo Farnese by Annibale fact of their presence is an eloquent testimony France; Pompadour's brother, the Marquis de
Carracci and his students —were all but irre- to the ubiquity of professional opportunity Vandieres (later the Marquis de Marigny), was
sistible, it many
should also be noted that not always found in the more restricted art the king's choice for the powerful post of
foreign artists were also prominent members economies of their native places. Surintendant des Batiments du Roi (surveyor
of the Accademia di S. Luca and were active in The considerable professional benefits of the king's buildings). His cultural tutelage in

the attempt to attract both local and visiting accorded foreign artists in the Roman market Italy, in the company of the academic critic

patrons.'" Surprisingly, their competition with should be weighed in relation to the advan- Charles-Nicolas Cochin and the architect
established local artists caused much less fric- tages that accrued to established practitioners, Germaine Soufflot, reflects the widely held

tion than might be imagined, evidence of a despite the increase in competition that came belief that an extended experience ot Italy

broad consensus of the cosmopolitan nature with the newcomers. It is undeniable that the and especially Rome was vital to Europeans
of the art world in Settecento Rome. Such an presence of so many foreign, transalpine artists of social, political, cultural, and intellectual

attitude stands in sharp contrast to the nation- in the papal capital helped attract larger ambition. This belief fueled the mania for the
alistic howls of protest from most British and numbers of Grand Tourists, but it is even more Grand Tour, which will be discussed in due
French artists when a choice commission was significant that their presence encouraged course, but it is important to remember that
awarded to a foreigner. connoisseurs, amateurs, aesthetes, and middle-class amateurs and intellectuals
To an artist working in eighteenth-century modest collectors to venture southward, usually accompanied their more privileged
Rome, the practice of making art in London, people who might made the trip had
not have patrons, and that these people greatly con-
Berlin, Madrid, St. Petersburg, or even Paris it not been for the established community of tributed to Rome's artistic and intellectual
must have seemed parochial in comparison. sympathetic compatriots they expected to find development. One last case in point is the
In Rome, on the other hand, some of the most there. Such visitors could not but be a boon to Rococo painter Jean-Honore Fragonard. who
spectacular public and private commissions of the local artists. came to Rome in the entourage of the wealthy
the century went to artists who were neither Social class is an important issue in this bourgeois |ean-Claude Richard, the abbe de
Roman nor even Italian (although the distinc- context. The large majority of those we desig- Saint-Non. Fragonard executed some of his
tions are of relatively little consequence, as nate "Grand Tourists" were exactly that finest drawings for Saint-Non's Voyagt pit-

noted above). That four of the twelve colossal grand, wealthy, socially well connected, and roresijiu' and some ot his most accomplished

I N K
I I I'O 1 Ol I 1 1 ROPI-
 —

landscape paintings in Rome and its environs, century." Cultural competition among fami- appeal to the good opinion of Catholic (and
IJ
above all at Tivoli (cat. 348). lies of reigning popes and those of past pon- even Protestant) Europe, promoting the role
In the final analysis, many bourgeois tiffs, along with others who aspired to see one of the institution as a guardian of monuments
members of the eighteenth-century cultural of their own occupy the throne of Saint Peter, and works of art that were almost universally
elite gravitated to the Eternal City and either was the defining characteristic of Baroque art regarded as fundamental to Western traditions.
found permanent employment — for instance, patronage, and it continued to be important in As responsible caretakers, the popes initiated

Johann Joachim Winckelmann, who became the following century, if to a much lesser an unprecedented program of restoration,
Cardinal Alessandro Albani's librarian at the degree.' 4 The phenomenon of unabashed focusing both on early medieval churches
famed Villa Albani, seen here in the view nepotism that made the lavish scale of familial such as S. Clemente and S. Maria Maggiore
painting by Jakob Philipp Hackert (cat. 229) patronage possible during the Seicento, (cat. 9), buildings rich in Paleochristian associ-
or remained long enough to enrich signifi- however, was radically altered in the atmos- ations, and on the monumental legacy of
cantly the cultural life of the city, such as J.
W. phere of reform and greater accountability ancient Rome, including such undertakings
von Goethe and Angelika Kauffmann, among promoted by a new breed of pontiffs at the as the raising of the column of Antoninus Pius
others. My point here is that the presence of dawn of the Enlightenment. Indeed, nepotism and, under Pope Benedict XIV, a major
such luminaries, both aristocratic and middle- was so thoroughly entrenched in the Roman restoration of the Colosseum. While these
much to enliven and even define the
class, did way of doing things that it took widespread projects have often been labeled "heavy-
character of Roman cultural production in all European disapproval to provoke a vigorous handed" by modern scholars, they were con-
media. Panini's close connections to the response to what was generally perceived as a sidered circumspect and even scientific by
French Academy (he was the brother-in-law crisis of public confidence. contemporaries. Indeed, compared with many
of Nicolas Vleughels, the director) and his On )une 22, 1692, Pope Innocent XII Renaissance and Baroque renovations, the
position as professor of perspective there Pignatelli promulgated a bull abolishing the eighteenth-century initiatives were remark-
constitute just one of many examples of the enrichment of papal relatives by rewarding ably restrained.
advantages enjoyed by Roman artists because them with highly lucrative but egregiously Closely connected to the increasingly ratio-
of the city's international milieu. Thus, it is untaxing ceremonial offices and the place- nalistic emphasis in the restoration of both
ultimately impossible (and unhelpful) to sepa- ment of family members in sensitive financial pagan and Christian monuments in Rome
"
rate the native from the foreign. Both elements positions in the Curia that facilitated corrup- was the papal encouragement of scholarship. 1

were necessary to make Rome what it was: the tion and venality. Surprisingly, the bull was Scholars had always been a major presence in
cynosure of eighteenth-century European highly effective for most of the eighteenth Rome and had often been supported and
cultural life. century, a phenomenon that may be largely encouraged by the popes (many of whom
attributed to the emergence of the reforming wereintellectuals in their own right), but a

zelanti faction of cardinals in the Sacred much more active promotion of scholarship,
BAROQUE AND SETTECENTO ROME:
College.The zelanti were literally those zealous especially in the context of pontifically spon-
CONTINUITY AND INNOVATION
pope and the states of
for the interests of the sored academies, characterizes the eighteenth
In recognizing the critical and historical the Church, as opposed to those who favored century. Clement XI and Benedict XIV enjoyed
factors that have relegated Roman art of the broad concessions to the Catholic dynasties. a European reputation as scholars, and the
eighteenth century to an inferior position vis- Several Settecento popes sympathized with strong financial support for research and pub-
a-vis the Seicento Baroque, it is necessary to zelanti aims of political independence from the lication in such diverse fields as archaeology,
keep in mind the many essential links — stylis- Catholic dynasts of western Europe and a ecclesiology, and the natural sciences did
tic, iconographical, pedagogical, political, thorough reform of the spiritual mission of much to foster a more sympathetic view of
spiritual, social —between the two centuries. the Church. The zelanti astutely recognized the the papacy among Europe's cultural elite.

Conversely, there are also highly significant relationship between nepotism and foreign The most famous instance of this new interna-
innovations and new departures that influence, and they worked tirelessly for its tional intellectual regard is Voltaire's enthusi-

absolutely justify the consideration of the suppression. Their triumph was complete asm for Benedict XIV, with whom he
Settecento Romano as a discrete art-historical with the election of Cardinal Gian Francesco corresponded, somewhat to the pope's
"period." Among the societal factors that Albani of Urbino in November 1700 as Pope embarrassment. All in all, consistent papal
remain relatively constant are the dual func- Clement XI. As a cardinal, he had authored support for scholarship did much to promote
tions of the papacy as both a sacred and a Innocent XII's bull of suppression of nepo- Rome as a center of intellectual tolerance and
secular institution, the slow ebb of the politi- tism." A new era had dawned in the history relatively free inquiry, a fact that has been
cal and spiritual influence of Rome and the of papal art patronage. largely overlooked by many modern scholars
Catholic Church in Europe, and the growing Beginning with Clement XI, in the after- who wish to portray Rome as obscurantist
global reputation of the Eternal City as the math of the abolition of nepotism, a new atti- and priest-ridden. In comparing the freedom
cradle of Western culture and civilization. tude emerged that emphasized cultural of expression possible in Rome with that of

While the present exhibition acknowledges and initiatives as glorifications of the institution Paris of the philosophes, Goethe claimed that

makes visually manifest many of the connec- of the papacy, rather than as propaganda for France was stifling and that in Rome even a
tions of ancicn regime Roman art to its glorious individual papal families —the traditional role pope could be publicly criticized (up to a
"
past, it is the essential differences between the of culture. This development was connected point) without fear of reprisal.
1

two centuries that are necessarily underscored. to Counter-Reformation notions of the Ecclesia Prospero Lambertini (later Pope Benedict
As Francis Haskell has ably demonstrated, Triumphans. but it was understood less as a cel- XIV), while still archbishop of Ancona, wrote
popes, their relatives, and a relatively small ebratory act than as a rationalistic justification a letter to Giovanni Gaetano Bottari, one of
number of noble Roman families dominated of the continued secular role of the papacy in Italy's leading scholars and a confidant of the
art and architectural patronage in Rome and European society. Increasingly, Settecento Corsini family and Pope Clement XII, stating
the Papal Stales during the seventeenth popes used culture and art patronage to the vital importance of scholarship to papal

I.NTKI.I'OT Ol I UROIM;
rule. His words later set the tone for his own libraries and render existing ones more acces-
pontificate: "The duty of a Cardinal, and the sible. Early in the century Cardinal Girolamo
greatest service he can render to the Holy See, Casanate founded the famous Biblioteca
is to attract learned and honest men to Rome. Casanatense, near the church of S. Ignazio,
The Pope has no weapons or armies; he has to with strong pontifical encouragement from
maintain his prestige by making Rome the Clement XI. The cardinal's full-length portrait

model for all other cities."' 8 As pope, Benedict statue by Pierre Legros still adorns the Great
did everything in his power to bring eminent Hall of the library. The Albani pope also helped

scholars to Rome and to facilitate the publica- promote the establishment of the Biblioteca
tion and circulation of their works, even when Lancisiana in the hospital complex of S. Spirito
these publications were thought to be in con- in Sassia in 1714, a scholarly resource of enor-
flict with Church orthodoxy and in the face of mous value initiated by Clement's physician,
often intense conservative opposition. The Giovanni Maria Lancisi. 1

" Clement XII and his

official Roman rehabilitation of the reputation nephew Cardinal Neri Corsini employed the
of Lodovico Antonio Muratori, Italy's most scholar Bottari to restructure their important
celebrated scholar and the founder of the library in the Palazzo Corsini in Trastevere, and
discipline of Italian medieval history, was Benedict XIV was personally responsible for

among the Lambertini pontiff's most notable saving for Rome the vast collection of books
achievements. and incunabula belonging to Cardinal Pietro
Lambertini also encouraged scholarship by Ottoboni by purchasing the lot for the Vatican
establishing a number of informal academies Library. In this treasure trove are the remarkable

to complement the large number of such intel- series of caricatures of notable contemporaries Fig. 2 Rene-Michel (called Michel-Ange) Slodtz,
20
lectual entities already existing in Rome. by Pier Leone Ghezzi (cats. 352-56). Many monument to the Marchese Alessandro Gregorio
These included a revival of Giovanni pontiffs also encouraged bequests to the papacy Capponi, 1745-46, marble; S. Giovanni dei
Ciampini's celebrated Accademia Fisica- of books and works of art as part of a campaign Fiorentini, Rome
Matematica, which had lapsed earlier in the to raise the public profile of the institution,
century; another group dedicated to the study rather than the traditional practice of currying The importance of the papacy to the intel-

of Church history that met in the convent of official favor, although that less altruistic motive lectual life of eighteenth-century Rome and
the Oratorians near the Chiesa Nuova, where continued in a more subtle fashion. The learned Europe was fundamental, and, complemented
Cardinal Baronius had written the Annals Marchese Alessandro Gregorio Capponi is a by the vitality of various expatriate communi-
during the Counter-Reformation; and an case in point. In 1746 he left his impressive col- ties, a picture of an intellectually ambitious
academy for the study of antiquities that met lection of pagan and Paleochristian antiquities European capital emerges that directly contra-

on the Capitoline Hill, supposedly to revive to the Museo Kircheriano (so called after the dicts such recent scholarly assertions as those
the tradition of Livy. Benedict XIV was careful Jesuit polymath Athanasius Kircher, who helped of Hanns Gross, whose book Rome in the Age of
to associate leading cardinals and patricians establish this important collection in the Enlightenment: The Post-Tridentine Syndrome and
with these new academies; for example, Vatican Palace in the seventeenth century), and the Ancien Regime claims that Rome was in a

Cardinal Portocarrero was the protector of an he also bequeathed his famous library to the precipitous decline during the Settecento. This
academy devoted to religious rites and cere- Vatican Library. Capponi's advanced cultural book, the only one of its kind in English, has
monies (no inconsiderable thing, given the orientation is seen to advantage in his innova- many of the out-
unfortunately perpetuated
mania for historical precedent so crucial to the tive tomb memorial in S. Giovanni dei moded stereotypes of Rome as enervated,
claims of both the Church and the long-estab- Fiorentini (fig. 2), designed in the early 1740s by reactionary, and backward, especially in terms
lished, absolutist Catholic dynasties), while the the prominent expatriate French sculptor Rene- of its cultural and intellectual life. The diagno-

Gran Conestabile Lorenzo Colonna served as Michel (called Michel-Ange) Slodtz. The restraint sis that the city was suffering from "post-
protector of the academy of ancient studies, of the ensemble, its relatively small, even inti- Tridentine syndrome," whatever that may be,
the forerunner of the Accademia Pontificale mate scale, and the emphasis on such classi- is yet another instance of the unfair, ahistori-
d'Archaeologia established later in the cizing elements as the flattened obelisk and cal, and inappropriate comparison of the eigh-
century.The most important academies were the use of a medallion portrait of the deceased teenth century to the era of the
the Accademia di S. Luca for artists and the instead of a "real" representation of the aristo- Counter-Reformation (initiated at the Council
Accademia dell'Arcadia for writers and poets, crat anticipate many elements of Neoclassical of Trent in the sixteenth century, from which
but there were myriad others. Rome's leading funerary monuments. !l
Subsequent pontiffs, the term "post-Tridentine" derives). The chap-
scholars, including Nicola Maria Antonelli, especially Pius VI Braschi, continued earlier ters on art and architecture are marred by
Giuseppe Bianchini, Giovanni Gaetano programs of support for the Vatican Library factual inaccuracies and a dependence on out-
Bottari, Niccolo Panzuti, and Antonio Baldani, and encouraged the establishment of smaller, of-date secondary sources, while the charac-
were associated with Benedict's scholarly private libraries with greater access to the terization of Rome's intellectual life as stilted,
efforts. Benedict XIV was truly called the international community of scholars. The limited, and derivative is simply erroneous.
"scholar's pope," a sobriquet coined by no less most important of this group was the splendid The chapters on Rome's economic life paint a
a personage than Montesquieu; his Rome library assembled by Cardinal Alessandro bleak, if more accurate, picture, but no one
valued the life of the mind highly, a phenome- Albani sumptuous villa outside the
at his questions the validity and vitality of contem-
non that had a considerable influence on the Porta Pia. The
fact that one of Europe's porary French art, culture, and intellectualism
pope's art patronage. best-known scholars. Winckelmann, was in an era in which the Bourbon monarch)'
In addition to supporting scholarship, the cardinal's librarian assured it of inter- actually achieved bankruptcy in 1788, a dismal
many Settecento popes were eager to establish national celebrity. prospect visited on the States of the Church

ENTREPOT OF EUROPE 21

4
only by the Napoleonic invasion of 1797-98. Similarly, the emergence of the zelanti faction exercised decisive influence in the elections
The point here is that economic lassitude and of cardinals in the Sacro Collegio radically for the entire century. The first few weeks of
an essentially precapitalist society have rarely altered the politics of the Curia. The result of the conclaves were almost always indecisive
been major impediments to artistic and intel- both trends is that eighteenth-century popes because no serious canvassing could be initi-

lectual life.'
1
In this regard, eighteenth-century (elected by a majority of the cardinals) were ated without the presence of foreign cardinals,
Rome was no exception, and it should be very different kinds of men from many of their usually the representatives of the courts, from
its own terms rather than by the
judged on Renaissance and Baroque predecessors. The fear of provoking the Catholic monarchs.
standards of modern bourgeois liberalism. throne of Saint Peter was occupied by a suc- While every eighteenth-century pope was
The dual role of the Roman popes as the men of good char-
cession of relatively modest well educated, highly cultivated (the exception
spiritual leaders of international Roman acter who were much more interested in here is the monkish Benedict XIII Orsini), and
Catholicism and the secular rulers of an exten- preserving the status quo (which meant con- moderately conservative, their pontificates
domain in central and northeastern Italy
sive tinuing to enjoy the many immunities, prerog- usually had very distinctive characteristics.
makes the context of Roman art unique. It atives, and privileges on which much of their It is in the cultural initiatives and patterns of
also endangered the papacy politically authority and most of their income were art patronage that Settecento popes left their
because these two roles were often in conflict, based) than in expanding their secular domain most conspicuous mark on the city of Rome,
and at no time was this more apparent than in or improving their family's social and financial and understanding something of the character
the eighteenth century. Art and culture, like status, with the partial exception of Pope Pius of these undertakings is crucial to a compre-
other forms of politics, became hotly con- VI at the end of the century. Eighteenth- hensive reassessment of Roman art and archi-
tested arenas as a result. While it is true that century popes were especially interested in tecture at the end of the ancien regime. The
the popes had always employed culture as a showcasing the city of Rome as a museum of following brief survey attempts to contextual-
tool of statecraft, it was not always true that the Western tradition, and it was in this notion ize many of the objects in the exhibition
the papacy lacked military and political clout. of commonality, rather than political particu- and to help explain why Rome exercised
The eighteenth-century papal army and police larism or nascent nationalism, that the city's such profound cultural influence on
force, unlike their predecessors, were often rulers placed their trust. Indeed, who would contemporary Europe.
inadequate even for domestic purposes. The dare attack such an international city? Or at
continuing evolution of the Catholic nation least that was the thinking until the anticleri-
CLEMENT XI ALBANI (17OO-I721)
states (France, Spain, Portugal, Piedmont, cal occupation by the French and the estab-
Naples, and the Habsburg empire) increas- lishment of the short-lived Roman republic in Gian Francesco Albani of Urbino was elected
ingly precluded real papal influence outside 1798. The ensuing systematic sack of the city's pope in the highly troubled conclave of 1700,
Italy. Papal prerogatives and pretensions were museums, churches, and palaces ended the an election that was overshadowed by
often in conflict with the growing nationalist century of cosmopolitanism as surely as the Europe's greatest crisis since the Thirty Years'
spirit characteristic of the last phase of eigh- sack of 1527 ended the High Renaissance.' 4 The War —the death of the childless King Charles
teenth-century absolutism, so there were papacy was eventually restored, but its cul- II of Spain. There was a general expectation of
myriad points of contention between the pon- tural authority never recovered. Eighteenth- a continental dynastic war to determine the
tiffs and the secular rulers, in fact, Catholic century popes, usually affable, mild, and succession, since there were claimants from
sovereigns did everything in their power to benevolent, ultimately could do nothing to both Bourbon France (the eventual King
limit or eliminate papal authority in their avoid being drawn into European conflicts, Philip V) and Habsburg Austria (the Archduke
dominions (an authority that had shaken despite official positions of neutrality, and this Charles). Clement XI's relative youth (he was
thrones in the not-so-distant past), even was their undoing." But the cultural initiatives fifty-one when elected) and zelanti political

though the moral authority and traditional of these underestimated popes gave Rome and proclivities were deemed essential for the new
privileges they enjoyed were ultimately insep- the entire ancien regime a brilliant twilight it pope at such a trying time. Despite Clement's
arable from those of the Church. This inter- might not otherwise have enjoyed. efforts, the War of the Spanish Succession
connectedness was clearly seen during the Eight men occupied the Holy See during devastated large areas of the Papal States and
Revolution and its aftermath, when both the eighteenth century, beginning with northern Italy and brought papal political

throne and altar shook and fell, and not only Clement XI Albani in 1700 and ending with influence to its nadir. This calamity was occa-
in France. Pius VI Braschi, who died a political prisoner sioned by the fact that Clement had initially

Painfully aware of declining political influ- in France in 1799. These pontificates ranged in backed the Bourbon claimant but was forced
ence and increasingly attacked as an obscu- length from about three years (Innocent XIII) to declare for the Archduke Charles after the

rantist spiritual force by certain aspects of to almost a quarter of a century (Pius VI); the emperor threatened to occupy Rome in 1709.

F.nlightenment discourse, the Settecento pon- average was about twelve years. Thus, there Thus, the pope was trusted by neither party
tiffs increasingly turned to cultural promotion was relative stability and continuity in policy and the peace treaties ending the conflict in

and patronage of the arts as a political strat- compared with earlier periods (with the 1713 and 1714 were highly unfavorable to
egy. And even though such a program was of exception of the Jesuit issue, which will be papal interests. 26
limited practical influence in European affairs, addressed in due course), although many of Albani assiduously employed cultural poli-
it completely transformed Rome in its own, the conclaves (the papal election process) were tics to help bring the pontifical position to
and in international, perception. For this excessively long because of the increased European notice and consideration. Paintings
reason if for no other, Roman Settecento art interference of the distant Catholic rulers who such as The Allegory of the Reign of Clement X/ in

and culture have to be evaluated in a separate wished to exclude candidates unfavorable to the Museo di Roma, which is sometimes erro-
context from that of the seventeenth century. their views, even if they were unable to influ- neously attributed to Giuseppe Chiari, often
The decline <>l nepotism in the papal ence the election of a candidate in their direct employed papalist iconography to celebrate
administration had a decisive effect on art interest. All Settecento popes were compro- European peace treaties (such as those of
patronage in Rome, as has been noted. mise candidates, and only the Albani family Utrecht and Rastatt that concluded the

l-.NTRhl'Or Of I.UKOI'I.
 —

Spanish war) and underscored the spiritual especially since the chapters on art and culture
role of the pope as a mediator, an office that in in Ludwig von Pastor's History of the Popes does
practice was much The Museo
less efficacious. this admirably, certain projects should be con-
di Roma picture shows the pope and a female sidered. As has been mentioned, the greatest
personification of Ecclesia worshiping at the single initiative of Clement XI was the decora-
altar of peace, while the Virgin and Child tion of the nave of St. John Lateran with twelve
above oversee the expulsion of a personifica- colossal marble statues of the Apostles,
tion of war from the scene. Clement XI simi- accompanied by large oval paintings of a
larly used the arts to encourage the formation dozen Old Testament prophets. ;
" Benedetto
of a Holy League of Catholic rulers to expel the Luti's Isaiah, represented in the exhibition by
Ottoman Turks from the Balkans, hoping a the splendid modello (cat. 243), is an outstand-
common enemy would heal the wounds of ing representative of this group of paintings in

Christian conflict and revitalize the unifying the restrained tension of the pose and the broad
papal role in European affairs. One example monumentality of the draperies. In addition,

among many of this type of papal propaganda the elegant stucco surrounds of each painting,
is a drawing by the architect Giuseppe in the form of palm fronds, are of exception-
Marchetti, who in 1716 won the second-class ally high quality and represent an underex-
Concorso Clementino in architecture (a plored but very significant aspect of Settecento
student competition in the Accademia di S. cultural production. Stucco artists were also
Luca named in honor of Clement XI) with a effectively employed in the decoration of the
design for a triumphal arch for the Capitoline Albani funerary chapel in S. Sebastiano fuori
Hill that was to celebrate a Christian victory le Mura. Fig. 3 Agostino Cornacchini, Equestrian Monument to

over Islam." Luckily for Albani, a great victory Albani was also an important promoter of the Emperor Charlemagne, 1720-25, marble; St. Peter's,

was gained over the Turks at the Battle of Roman urbanism, ordering the creation of the Vatican City
Peterwardein in Hungary, but the Catholic spacious Piazza Bocca della Verita, the partial
triumph was short-lived, since the Spanish clearing of the Piazza della Rotonda (the
declared war on the Habsburgs in the same Pantheon), and the construction of a superb death in 1724 prevented a more concerted
year, 1716, hoping to capitalize on their old fountain, as well as the building of Alessandro offensive against the society, delaying any
enemy's weakness in the aftermath of the Specchi's Porto di Ripetta (cat. 33) on the Tiber, a papal attack on the order until the pontificate
Turkish war. public monument combining architectural of Clement XIV. Reflecting a greater sense of
Despite Clement XI's signal failures in distinction with economic utility. Albani's political accountability inherited from the
foreign policy and the political crisis occa- greatest contribution to Rome's urban fabric, Albani pontificate, Innocent XIII put Cardinal
sioned by the War of the Spanish Succession, however, was his pursual of lapsed projects for Giulio Alberoni on trial for treason for his role
his pontificate was remarkable for the range of the Spanish Steps, the Trevi Fountain, and a in the breakup of the Holy League alliance in

its cultural initiatives and the new emphasis new sacristy for St. Peter's, all of which are 1716." Although Alberoni was acquitted, he
on the papacy as a venerable institution. Many visuallydocumented in the present retired temporarily from political life and his
of these undertakings were directly connected exhibition."'Although none of these under- trial established an important precedent.
to the flowering of Paleochristian studies, an takings was completed in his lifetime, all three The brief reign of Innocent XIII was not
intellectual movement that sought to restore were realized by the end of the eighteenth characterized by remarkable cultural initia-
equanimity to a parlous era by holding up the century. The Spanish Steps and the Trevi tives, but he continued to oversee projects
early Church in all its supposed simplicity as a Fountain are still two of the city's most inherited from the Albani pontificate, includ-
panacea for modern ills. Early Christian inter- popular and beloved monuments. Had ing the completion and installation of
ests prompted an unprecedented attention to Clement XI not pursued these projects, Agostino Cornacchini's colossal equestrian
the restoration and embellishment of many of Rome's modern appearance might be remark- Charlemagne (fig. 3) in the left side of the
Rome's oldest churches, and many medieval ably different today. narthex of St. Peter's and the continuing work
mosaics were more sensitively restored than at on the mosaic decorations of the Baptismal
any time in their previous history. The famed and Presentation Chapels in the basilica/' In
INNOCENT XIII DE' CONTI
apse mosaic in S. Clemente, the site of a major 1723 Innocent XIII ordered the beginning of
Clementine intervention, is a case in point,
(1721-1724) AND BENEDICT XIII construction on both the facade of St. John
ORSINI (1724-1730)
and the large ceiling fresco executed by Chiari Lateran and the Spanish Steps on the Pincio,
for the venerable basilica also celebrates The death of Clement XI on March 19, 1721, but his death delayed the facade project for
another aspect of the Early Christian revival ended one of the papacy's most controversial several years." One important accomplish-
the glorification of the early martyrs, espe- and troubled eras. Political and spiritual prob- ment of Innocent's patronage was the execu-
cially the papal ones. 2 * Saint Clement in Glory is lems of European importance, however, con- tion of the two grand acquasantierrc (holy water
not only an apotheosis of the martyred first- tinued into the pontificate of Albani's stoups), one each for the first two pilasters
century pontiff but also honors his long-suf- successor, Innocent XIII. A fat, jolly, even- flanking the nave of St. Peter's, polychrome
fering who had undergone his own
namesake, tempered, and peace-loving man, Pope marble monuments that give a sense of scale
kind of martyrdom during the War of the Innocent was the first pontiff to address openly to the immense church while simultaneously
Spanish Succession. the mounting wave of criticism of the Society maintaining the human relationship of the
While it would not be appropriate here to of Jesus, having formed a highly unfavorable visitor to the sublime scale of the architecture.
compile an exhaustive list of all the artistic opinion of their activities while he was papal The work of the sculptors Cornacchini.
endeavors of the various Settecento pontiffs, nuncio (ambassador) in Lisbon. Only his Francesco Moderati, Giuseppe Lironi, and

ENTREPOT OF EUROPE 23
 Fig. 5 Marco Benefial, modcllo for Saint Margaret of

Cortona Discovering the Body oj Her Lover, c. 1728-32, oil

on canvas; Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica, Rome.

Palazzo Barberini

and The Death of Saint Margaret of Cortona, a new

eighteenth-century vision of religious experi-
ence may be seen that underscores a "you are
there" sensibility for the life of this reformed
"fallen woman" that is remarkably prescient
of such nineteenth-century artists as Gustave
Fig. 4 Pier Leone Ghezzi, The Final Session oj the Lateran Council, 1725, oil on canvas; North Carolina Museum of Courbet. Saint Margaret of Cortona, a woman
Art, Raleigh who, in the thirteenth century, lived openly as
a nobleman's mistress and who became a
Franciscan penitent after his murder, was a
Giovanni Battista Rossi, they were largely damaged papal prestige and
spoils), severely notable caretaker of the sick and poor. Her
complete by 1724 and amaze and delight
still campaign against the eleva-
interests. Coscia's canonization, along with numerous others,
visitors; indeed, they are among the most tion of Monsignor Lorenzo Bichi to the cardi- reflects the eighteenth century's increasing
popular attractions in the entire church. nalate, even though it was customary to emphasis on the utility of the religious life and
The severe and Dominican friar
ascetic elevate papal nuncios to important Catholic the virtues of asceticism, as well as rationalist
Pietro Francesco Orsini was seventy-five years courts, so infuriated King John V of Portugal opposition to the contemplative orders, which
old when he became Pope Benedict XIII in that the monarch expelled all papal subjects were viewed by many as socially useless. During
May 1724, much against his personal desires. from his dominions and closed the nuncia- the French Revolution the contemplative orders
As archbishop of Benevento, he led an exem- ture. This action arguably influenced the were the first to go, while nursing and teaching
plary life but had tended to delegate the details growth of anticlericalism, especially anti- orders were tolerated for much longer.
of administration to subordinates, many of Jesuitism, in a traditionally staunchly Catholic The Beneventan connections of Benedict
whom were unworthy of his trust. Chief kingdom. Even at the Lateran Council of 1725, XIII created a great professional opportunity
among these was Niccolo Coscia, whom he the most important conference of bishops of for the architect Filippo Raguzzini, who was
brought to Rome and elevated to the purple in the eighteenth century, memorialized in Pier continually employed in Rome during the
the teeth of the vigorous protests of the Sacred Leone Ghezzi's monumental The Final Session Orsini pontificate and who designed one of
College. Until Benedict's death in 1730, Coscia oj the Lateran Council (fig. 4), Coscia's venality the city's most charming squares the Piazza —
set a new standard for corruption, graft, greed, seriously compromised papal interests.' 4 di S. Ignazio. Although the pontiff had little
and cronyism. Indeed, Romans complained of As a deeply observant friar, it is unsurpris- direct influence in the commission,
a sede vacante (the term applied to papal inter- ing that Benedict took great interest in reli- Raguzzini's association with Coscia and
regnums) because the pope refused to attend gious affairs, especially ceremonies, and one others undoubtedly was crucial to his selec-
10 his responsibilities as a ruler, preferring to of his canonizations, that of Saint Margaret tion. Creating a highly decorative space in

perform only ecclesiastical functions. The of Cortona in 1728, prompted some of the front of the stark, monumental Baroque
naive and diplomatically inexperienced century's greatest religious art." In 1729, in a faqade of the seventeenth-century Jesuit
Benedict XIII left everything to Coscia. As a chapel dedicated to the new saint in the civic church, Raguzzini erected a small, pavilion-
result, a concordat (a formal treaty between church of Rome, S. Maria in Aracoeli on the like building with irregular cornices and sur-
the papacy and a secular power) with Capitoline Hill, Marco Benefial installed two faces and beveled the edges of two flanking
Piedmont, achieved with an unprecedented pictures of intense spirituality in which two buildings to create one the most overtly
amount of bribery of Coscia and his events of the saint's life arc portrayed in a Rococo spaces in the city, rivaled only by the
"Beneventan gang" (a cohort of corrupt highly naturalistic manner more closely view of the undulating, highly ornamented
cronies who attached themselves to Orsini related to genre painting than to traditional facade, sometimes attributed to Giuseppe
while he was still archbishop of Benevento hagiographic glorification. In Saint Margaret oj Sardi, of the nearby church of S.Maria
and who followed him to Rome for greater Cortona Discovering the Body of Her Lover (fig. 5) Maddalena.'" In addition, Raguzzini executed

24 ENTREPOT OF EUROPE
a number of ecclesiastical commissions, Succession during the reign of Clement XI,
including the diminutive, almost hyper- pitting France and Spain against the
elegant, fac,ade of the church of S. Filippo Neri Habsburgs and their German allies, with Italy

in via di Monserrato, a building now unfortu- as one of the chief theaters of conflict. Again,
nately in ruinous condition. the territory of the Papal States was violated
In the final analysis, the short reigns of with impunity by the warring armies, since it

Innocent XIII and Benedict XIII had a rela- stood between the belligerents and the terri-

tively limited impact on Roman art and tory of theKingdom of Naples. The inhabi-
culture, despite a few notable achievements. tants of theMarches and Umbria suffered
Part of this evaluation is based on the aggres- acutely from the depredations of the maneu-
sive building programs and numerous, sus- vering armies. Clement XII was helpless to
tained cultural initiatives of the two following resist the intrusions or to mediate the conflict
pontificates, reigns that not only revived the and, at the war's conclusion in 1738, massive
ambitious cultural policies of such earlier territorial changes occurred in Italy without Fig. 6 Alessandro Galilei, facade of St. John Lateran,

pontificates as that of Clement XI but that also the pope's consent. The king of Spain was Rome, 1731-36
witnessed the flowering of Rome as a cultural especially punitive towards the papacy, suc-
cynosure of unrivaled international signifi- cessfully demanding recognition of his son's
cance. The dramatic infusion of foreigners new title as king of the Two Sicilies and major troubled pontificate. Among the many artis-
into Rome from the 1730s radically altered concessions of a financial and ecclesiastical tic, urbanistic, and architectural projects initi-

Roman art and culture. If there ever had been nature, such as the gift of benefices (clerical ated during the Corsini pontificate and with
a "Late Baroque," it was dead by 1730. appointments with stipulated incomes that the direct or indirect involvement of the pope
could often be held by members of the laity and Neri Corsini, the most notable are the
and were frequently used to reward support- erection of the facade for St. John Lateran
CLEMENT XII CORSINI (1730-1740)
ers or curry favor) previously enjoyed by the (1731—36), the building of the Palazzo della
The aged Cardinal Lorenzo Corsini. scion of pope. r In addition, the ambitious Queen Consulta in the Piazza del Quirinale (1732-38),
a distinguished Florentine family, inherited Elisabetta Farnese forced Clement to name her the construction of the sumptuous Palazzo
a bleak financial and political situation when eight-year-old son Don Luis as archbishop of Corsini in Trastevere (1732-55), and the execu-
he became Pope Clement XII on July 12, 1730. Toledo, and bullied the pope into making him tion of the splendidly restrained Corsini
One of his first acts was to set up a series of a cardinal the next year, despite canonical Chapel in St. John Lateran (1732-35). These
courts of inquiry to punish Cardinal Coscia impediments to such an elevation in effect undertakings made major contributions to the
(who had been excluded from the conclave) since the Council of Trent. There were even embellishment of the city and to the imposi-
and the "Beneventan gang" of the previous challenges to traditional papal competence in tion of an almost Neoclassicizing monumen-
pontificate; Coscia was given a ten-year prison purely religious matters, such as the Parlement tality that largely rejected the fantasia and
sentence and had to forfeit a large part of his of Paris's refusal to register the decree of can- bizzarria of much Roman architecture of the
ill-gotten fortune. Much of Corsini's waning onization of Vincent de Paul, !S since the papal previous generation, above all the style repre-
energy (he suffered terribly from gout and document praised the new saint's resistance to sented by Raguzzini in the Piazza di S. Ignazio.
was blind by 1732) was spent in trying to repair was a
the early Jansenists (the Parlement Both the Lateran facade and the Palazzo della

the damage caused by six years of governmen- stronghold of the banned ideology). Only the Consulta had a significant impact on the city:

tal neglect under Benedict XIII. The increasing direct intervention of Cardinal Fleury, Louis the former was a major site of pilgrimage on
demands and insults of the Catholic powers XV's prime minister, annulled the Parlement's Rome's southern boundary and the latter con-
continued apace. In 1731, on the death of the decree; Fleury was one of the few statesmen of tinued the development of the piazza in front
last Farnese ruler, the Duchy of Parma and the period sympathetic to papal interests. of the primary papal residence during the
Piacenza was seized by Spain and presented On a final note of challenge to papal Settecento, the Palazzo del Quirinale.
to the son of King Philip V and his Italian wife, authority, the first lodge of freemasons The idea of providing the Lateran basilica,
the ruthless and intelligent Elisabetta Farnese, appeared in Rome in 1735. This group, which the pope's church as bishop of Rome and the
without reference to the issue of papal investi- stressed "natural" morality over Christian second most important church in the city,

ture that had been observed for centuries. dogma and encouraged the secret collabora- with a worthy facade goes back at least to the
This is only one example of the bitter war tion among individuals of widely different reign of Innocent XII, when the basilica's arch-
between absolutism's claims to total power spiritual beliefs, grew in importance as the priest, Cardinal Benedetto Pamphili, left a

within a realm and the universal, spiritual century progressed and posed a major threat legacy of 60,000 scudi for its construction.
authority that had been claimed by the papacy to the papacy's system of government. Seriously considered during the Albani pon-
for centuries. Similarly, the traditional papal Clement XII's encyclical In cminenti of 1738 con- tificate (it even was the subject of a Concorso
role as mediator in conflicts between Catholic- demned freemasonry and the Roman lodge Clementino in architecture), it was delayed in

states fell into open contempt, as when the was closed, but the problem did not go away. favor of completing the decoration of the nave.
Republic of Genoa insolently spurned the Limited by his age and infirmities from too Innocent XIII had shown keen interest in the
offer made by Clement XII to mediate in the active a role in papal government, Clement XII project, but it was a decade later that the final

republic's conflict with its rebellious Corsican relied heavily on the judgment and energy of decision was made and an architect selected.
subjects. his nephew Cardinal Neri Corsini. Neri was The monumental, and colossal two-
severe,
Rome's severest trial, however, was during one of the most politically acute and culturally story facade was designed by the Florentine
the War of the Polish Succession, which broke ambitious cardinals of the eighteenth century, Alessandro Galilei, a fellow countryman of the
out in 1733. This dynastic war resembled, and his activities as an art patron gave a pope and Cardinal Corsini The cam-
(fig. 6).

mutatis mutandis, the War of the Spanish certain splendor to Corsini's otherwise deeply panilismo (the practice of favoring people from

KNTRITOT Ol IUROPK 25
 The Corsini family already possessed a Fortitude by Giuseppe Rusconi. Temperance,
splendid palace in Florence, but Cardinal represented in the exhibition by the terracotta
Corsini also required a large Roman residence, modello (cat. 158), with its quiet languor and
and his choice was the Palazzo Riario, across suave insouciance, helped establish the sculp-
the street from the Villa Farnesina. The palace, tor as a leader of the generation of artists who
formerly inhabited by Queen Christina of would see the rise of Neoclassicism. 4 Indeed, '

Sweden, was bought from the Riario family it is one of the finest accomplishments of the
for 70,000 scudi, and immediately underwent a Roman school of sculpture between Bernini
major interior renovation and the provision of and Canova.
a large, highly reductive facade by Fuga. As
imposing in its own way as the Lateran facade
BENEDICT XIV LAMBERTINI
by Galilei, the Palazzo Corsini facade also
(174O-I758)
bears an affinity to Renaissance domestic
architecture, especially to such buildings as The damaged prestige and declining political

the Palazzo Cancelleria in Rome and to the fortunes of the papacy had a partial recovery
Palazzo Strozzi in Florence. The chief alter- during the long pontificate of Benedict XIV, a
ation of the interior was the provision of a seasoned diplomat and administrator who
capacious library for Neri's notable collection had been archbishop of both Ancona and
of books, replete with a series of ceiling fres- Bologna before his election as pope after the
coes representing various aspects of philoso- lengthy conclave of 1740. Unlike Clement XII,
Fig. 7 Alessandro Galilei, Corsini Chapel, St. John phy and pedagogy. Giovanni Gaetano Bottari, who was a strong advocate of culture and
Lateran, 1732-35; general view the leading Roman representative of Jansenist scholarship but who was no scholar himself,
thinking and one of Italy's most prominent Benedict XIV enjoyed a pan-European reputa-
intellectuals, served the Corsini as librarian. tion as a canonist, Church historian, and
one's own home town, that is, those who live The Corsini palace was the largest papal resi- general man of letters. Among his correspon-
near the same church tower or campanile) dence built in Rome until the Palazzo Braschi dents were some of the leading figures of the
manifested in the choice irritated many local was constructed in the last quarter of the European Enlightenment, including
architects. The sobriety of the structure and its century. Its magnificent gardens were one of the Montesquieu, Catherine II, and Frederick II.

commanding travertine figures of Christ, the major attractions for the city's elite visitors. 42 Voltaire dedicated his play Mahomet to the
two Saint Johns, and other saints atop the ped- The single monument that best embodies pope and wrote to him frequently, although
iment were judged a universal success and the artistic sensibility of the middle decades of Benedict was justifiably wary of praise from
refocused attention on the architectural the eighteenth century and that most clearly this quarter.

achievements of Michelangelo and Bramante. foretells the rise of Neoclassicism in the 1760s Benedict's primary concern was with the
Indeed, the style has been labeled "neo- is probably the Corsini family chapel in rehabilitation of the papacy's political reputa-
Cinquecento," and it certainly has strong St. John Lateran (fig. 7). The construction and tion, and he wished to adapt the Church to the
affinities to much Renaissance architecture. 40 decoration of papal chapels had not played a realities of modern circumstances. To this
As a symbol of the pope's episcopal authority, major role in Roman art since the seventeenth end, he made impressive concessions to the
the facade must also be judged a resounding century, the superbly modest Albani chapel in Catholic powers, believing it better to concede
triumph. S. Sebastiano fuori le Mura that had been as much as possible in order to preserve the
Since the sixteenth century the chief papal completed in 1712 notwithstanding. The essentials of the faith. An example of his rela-
tribunal, the sacra consulta, and the office of the grandeur, elegance, and restraint of Galilei's tive liberalism was the papal recognition of
secretary of briefs (a glorified amanuensis to design are perfectly complemented by the the royal title for the margrave of
the pope who usually became a cardinal) had tasteful combination of materials —bronze, Brandenburg, usually called the king of
been housed in a dilapidated and inadequate marble, and stucco. Designed as a Greek cross Prussia, a designation that had been tena-
building next to the Palazzo Rospigliosi, near with an exceptionally high ceiling and lighted ciously resisted by Benedict's immediate pre-
the Palazzo del Quirinale. Clement XII by a small cupola, one enters the chapel from decessors. In addition, he distanced the
decided to raze the old structure and commis- the left side-aisle of the basilica. On the pontifical court from that of the Stuart Old
sioned Ferdinando Fuga to design a new chapel's altar is a mosaic copy of Guido Reni's Pretender, the so-called fames III, whose
palace. The interior of the Palazzo della Ecstasy of Saint Andrew Corsini, a tribute to the claims to the British throne had been sup-
Consulta has been completely remodeled, but family's most illustrious ancestor. To the left is ported by the Holy See since Clement XI
the imposing horizontal facade, composed of the tomb of Clement XII with a bronze figure established the Stuarts in Rome at the begin-
two low storeys and articulated by three of the pontiff executed by Giovanni Battista ning of the century. 44 The attempts at rap-

portals, looks much as it did in the Maini flanked by marble allegories sculpted by prochement with the Hanoverian dynasty
Settecento.4 '
The imposing escutcheon of the Carlo Monaldi. Neri Corsini's funerary monu- made by Benedict XIV intensified after the

Corsini family, flanked by graceful travertine ment, also designed by Maini, is on the oppo- victory over the Jacobites at the Battle of
genii sculpted by Pietro Benaglia, is still site wall and includes an especially fine Culloden in 1746, and made it much easier for
visible. This restrained, elegant structure has allegory of religion next to the representation British travelers in the states of the Church. Its

a commanding view of the dome of St. Peter's, of the deceased cardinal. The corners of the impact on the flowering of the Grand Tour
and its progressive design was perhaps partly chapel are articulated with classicizing niches was considerable. Deeply scholarly and very
intended to represent a new dedication to containing statues representing the cardinal hard-working, the Lambertini pope was easily
more efficient papal administration, a goal virtues. Temperance is by Filippo della Valle. the most illustrious of the Settecento. Horace
that was, alas, largely unrealized. Prudence by Cornacchini, Justice by Lironi, and Walpole, the British resident in Florence, char-

26 ENTREPOT OF EUROPE
acterized him as "a censor without severity, attained prominence during the Corsini pon- including door and window frames. 47 The
a monarch without favorites and a pope tificate, was selected as architect. The interior unusually dynamic facade, consisting of
without a nephew, a man whom neither wit of the basilica was regularized, including the concave and convex elements that recall

nor power could spoil." provision of bases for the nave columns that Borromini, is articulated by a large central

The Lambertini pontificate, like those standardized the elevation of these spoils opening crowned with an oval window. The
before it, also had to intervene in the tiresome from ancient buildings. Small, shallow side- surface is divided into three parts by engaged
Jansenist controversy in France. After the tem- chapels were provided along the flanking composite pilasters on exceptionally high
porary exile of the archbishop of Paris, walls, adorned with altarpieces by major bases, the ensemble crowned by a balustrade

Christophe de Beaumont, by the Parlement of Roman painters, including Batoni's oval with travertine figures of saints and angels.
Paris, Louis XV asked the pope for yet another Annunciation and works by Placido Costanzi, The facade is, in fact, only a screen for a spa-
letter of condemnation of the heresy. The Stefano Pozzi, and others. In addition, the cious oval vestibule that forms one of the most
archbishop had ordered priests not to admin- famous Early Christian mosaics above the unusual and airy spaces in Rome. The interior

ister the sacraments to unrepentant Jansenists nave walls and the grand apse mosaic by renovation included the provision of a new
or to any who rejected the bull Unigenitus, even Giacopo Torriti of 1295 were restored, while ceiling and a baldachin over the high altar, as

if the sacrament in question were extreme Fuga also provided a grand porphyry bal- at S. Maria Maggiore, and the construction of
unction. Since Jansenism still had many sym- dachin above the high altar. Francesco new walls around the nave that screen the pre-
pathizers in the Parlement, the edict of exile Mancini's splendid Nativity, his masterpiece, existing walls, which had to be preserved. New
was not surprising. As an indication of the was placed in the apse below the imposing windows allowed for additional lighting for

moderation and pliability of Benedict XIV, he thirteenth-century mosaic. Benedict's atten- what is still a very dark interior. The
issued the encyclical Ex omnibus in 1756, reaf- tion to S. Maria Maggiore was prompted not Neapolitan painter Corrado Giaquinto was
firming Unigenitus as both the law of the only by the church's decayed condition but commissioned to paint a large fresco, The Holy

Church and the law of France, but allowed the also by the was a major site of pil-
fact that it Cross in Glory, which was completed in 1744-45,

sacraments to be administered to recusants grimage and one of the most important build- along with two frescoes of Old Testament sub-
unless they could be identified as "public ings in Rome with early Church associations. on the curved wall of the apse. The
jects

sinners," a caveat that gave the king some While many would now find the restoration restorationby Benedict XIV of S. Croce in
leeway in punishing opposition. To celebrate heavy-handed, few at the time thought it any- Gerusalemme fitted in well with general
the papal intervention, Cardinal Domenico thing but a respectful refurbishment of a ven- pontifical goals of glorifying the Church's
Corsini commissioned Batoni for a history erable Paleochristian basilica. 4 " Fuga's highly Paleochristian inheritance and enhancing
painting of the event as a present for the pope. innovative design for the facade (cat. 9) stacks the city's beauty for less spiritually motivated
Benedict XIV Presenting the Encyclical "Ex omnibus" two deep loggias, creating a narthex below foreign visitors.
to the Comte de Choiseul of 1757 (cat. 168) is one and a gallery above. One of the requirements Although the restorations at S. Maria
of Batoni's most important history paintings of the commission was that the medieval Maggiore and S. Croce in Gerusalemme were
and underscores the growing importance of facade mosaic be preserved and left visible by the mostsignificant contributions made by

scenes of contemporary history in Settecento the new structure; thus, the open gallery Benedict XIV to Roman art and architecture,
art. Accompanied by a personified Ecclesia at above provided an ideal solution and indicates he was by no means limited to those initia-
left and a female figure of Divine Wisdom at a remarkable sensitivity to preexisting monu- tives. The Lambertini pontificate was one of

right, the entire scene is watched over by Peter, ments. Carlo Fontana had earlier rebuilt the the great eras of church construction, which
Paul, and the dove of the Holy Spirit on a cloud facade of S. Maria in Trastevere (1702-4) with comprised both complete renovations and the
at the upper right. The most remarkable the same stipulation — to preserve the pre- building of new churches. Fuga's eerily impos-
aspect of the picture, however, is its natural- existing facade mosaic. The cost of the S. ing S. Maria della Consolazione e Morte,
ism, seen in the veracity of the portrait of the Maria Maggiore project was over 300,000 behind the Palazzo Farnese; the small, engag-
papal protagonist, the emphatic legibility of scudi, much of which was supplied by moneys ing church of the Bambino Gesu, also by Fuga;
the text of the encyclical, and the minute collected from the lottery, which had been and the raising of the German collegiate
visual description of the costumes. Choiseul's restored by Clement XII after its suppression church, S. Apollinare, are only three of the
portrait is imaginary, as is the elegant pavilion by the moralizing Benedict XIII. most important examples. The pope provided
seen beyond the balcony in the Vatican The other major renovation of a hallowed 15,000 scudi from his privy purse to pay for
gardens, perhaps a reference to the Coffee Paleochristian basilica undertaken by Fuga's high altar baldachin in S. Apollinare.
House at the Palazzo del Quirinale, where the Benedict XIV was the reconstruction of the and despite his coolness towards the Stuarts,
encyclical was actually presented to the church of S. Croce in Gerusalemme (1741-44), he gave 18,000 scudi for the cenotaph of Queen
ambassador. 45 reputedly built at the command of the Maria Clementina Sobieski in St. Peter's, a

Benedict XIV continued urban beautifica- Christian Empress Helena, the mother of monument designed by the architect Filippo
tion initiatives inherited from the pontificate Constantine, in the fourth century. The basil- Barigioni with figures by the prominent
4S
of Clement XII, including much of the actual ica was especially sacrosanct owing to the Academy sculptor Pietro Bracci.
construction of the Trevi Fountain. His major importance of its relics — it possessed a rela- The Sobieski cenotaph was only one of the
project, however, was the restoration of the tively large fragment of wood believed to be sculptural projects in St. Peter's supported by
basilica of S. Maria Maggiore and the erection part of the True Cross brought back from the pope, either through contributions or
of a grand new facade. The most important Palestine by Saint Helena. The architects encouragement to other potential patrons.
church in Rome dedicated to the Virgin Mary, selected for the renovation were Domenico The Founders series, initiated by Clement XI
the basilica had long been associated with Gregorini and Pietro Passalacqua, the former to adorn the many niches of the colossal piers
Christian victories over paganism and with being a protege of Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni of the basilica with statues of the founders of
major dogmas related to the Virgin's role as and the latter serving as Gregorini's collabora- the religious orders, continued under
the Mother of God. Ferdinando Fuga, who had tor in several minor details of the design, Lambertini. Among the statues to make their

l-NTRl l'OT 01 l UROl'i:

 modern preconceptions notwithstanding. In it is perhaps surprising to learn that Benedict
1741 Benedict acquired the famed Hellenistic XIV was a rigorous moralist and as ardent a
genre group Boy Struggling with a Goose (fig. 8) defender of the Ecclesia Triumphans as any of
and presented it to the Musei Capitolini; it is his Counter-Reformation predecessors. In his
still one of the museum's most popular objects. jubilee bull of 1-49 the pope outlined the
At the instigation of the cardinal secretary major benefits that would accrue to pilgrims
of state (the pope's prime minister) Silvio to Rome the following year, citing above all a
Valenti Gonzaga, Lambertini decided to estab- pilgrimage as the opportunity to witness the
lish a picture gallery at the Museo Capitolino splendor of the capital of Christendom. His
to complement the collection of antique characterization of the triumph of Christian
statues. Begun in 1747 and expanded in 1752, over pagan Rome would have satisfied even
Benedict's Pinacoteca Capitolina housed a such ascetic popes as Sixtus V and Innocent XI:
number of important pictures purchased
from private collections, often to prevent their Here [at Rome] we see the former rule of
export. These included paintings from the col- superstition buried in oblivion ... we see the

lections of Cardinal Pio da Carpi and the sanctuaries of false gods razed to the ground

Sacchetti family (the latter was especially rich . . . how the monuments of tyrants lie pros-
in Venetian Renaissance and Bolognese trate in the dust . . . how the precious works
Baroque works). In total, the pope bought over intended for the honouring of Roman pride
two hundred paintings for the museum, some are used for the embellishment of churches;

of which are still highlights of the collection. how the memorials erected in thanksgiving
Pietro da Cortona's Rape oj the Sabine Women, to heathen deities for the subjugation of

Fig. 8 Boy Struggling with a Goose, Hellenistic, one of the most famous pictures in Rome in provinces, now. purged of their godless

c. 180 bc. marble: Musei Capitolini, Rome the eighteenth century, is among the notable superstition, bear on their summits . . . the

examples. Benedict's picture gallery was an victorious symbol of the unconquerable

important precedent for the Pinacoteca cross. 50

debut during the pontificate of Benedict XIV Vaticana, established in the early nineteenth
were john of God and Teresa of Avila by Filippo century by Pope Pius VII Chiaramonti. It is always important to remember that the
delta Valle, Vincent de Paul by Bracci, and the Benedict XIV also concerned himself with flowering of antiquarian culture in eighteenth-
justly celebrated Bruno Refusing the Miter, com- the further development of a number of small century Rome had a Christian subtext, and
pleted in 1744. by the French artist Slodtz. museums (properly called cabinets and usually that the seemingly profane interests of schol-
Slodtz's success in the highly competitive limited to a single room) in the Vatican Palace ars, collectors, patrons, and visitors usually
—
Roman art market he executed the Capponi that had been neglected in earlier pontificates. recognized the importance of antiquity in the

monument previously discussed (fig. 2) while Chief among these was his revival of the mori- Christian frame of reference outlined in
he was working on the Bruno, among many bund project for a museum of Christian antiq- Benedict's jubilee bull.
other projects —and his influential position in uities, a project initiated by the polymath The pope's intervention at the Colosseum,
the Accademia di S. Luca are strong evidence Francesco Bianchini under Clement XI. He long used as a quarry, a barracks, a manufac-
of the international character of Roman appointed the learned Francesco Vettori as tory for saltpeter, or a secluded spot for illicit

patronage and the city's importance for the curator (Vettori presented his outstanding col- rendezvous, is a case in point. Many eighteenth-
development of contemporary European, and lection of Paleochristian artifacts to the century pontiffs had attempted, with varying
not just Italian, art. museum in appreciation), and the new museum degrees of success, to preserve the monument.
In addition to his activities in church flourished. The pope purchased the collection Lambertini transformed the site into a marty-
restoration and urbanism. Benedict XIV was of Cardinal Gaspare Carpegna. which largely rological shrine (a notion that had earlier
also a major promoter of Roman museology. comprised objects from the catacombs that manifested itself in a proposal by the architect
His chief focus in this respect was the Musei had been published by the Early Christian Carlo Fontana to build a martyrological basil-
Capitolini, which had been established as the scholar Filippo Buonarotti. and also added ica inside the amphitheater) by erecting inside
first publicly accessible museum in Europe by Cardinal Alessandro Albani's collection of the building a large cross and small chapels
Clement XII. The Capitoline Hill, the site of the imperial coins, bought for 12,000 scudi, to the dedicated to the Stations of the Cross. During
city's legendary foundation in AD753, was rich collection. Other groups of objects were also Lent the newly established Confraternity of the
in historical associations and, following added by bequest, including the extensive Lovers of Jesus and Mary led penitents through
Michelangelo's brilliant intervention in the numismatic collection of Clement XII. The the Stations every Friday and Sunday.
Cinqueccnto, had become one of Rome's chief scholars Scipione Maffei and Giovanni Dedicating the Colosseum to the sufferings of
attractions . The Lambertini pope was particu- Gaetano Bottari encouraged the pope in Christ and the martyrs, the famous preacher
larly assiduous in procuring antiquities for the his efforts on behalf of the Paleochristian Leonardo da Porto Maurizio harangued
museum, including numerous objects bought museum as an aid to the sacred sciences, immense crowds, proclaiming the sacredness
from the impecunious Francesco III d'Este, where scholars were freely admitted. This of the site. In 1756 Cardinal Guadagni cele-

Duke of Modena, who was selling off his col- museum, like the Capitoline, was an impor- brated a mass in the Colosseum in which
lections from the splendid Renaissance villa at tant precedent for the ambitious expansion several thousand people participated."' So
Tivoli. The pontiff was motivated by a desire of the papal collections later in the century. 4
"
much for the notion of religious indifference

to keep the sculptures in Rome, and he recon- Considering his contemporary reputation in Settecento Rome.
firmed previous papal edicts against export of as a ruler of moderate views who had a cau- Benedict's pietistic interests also extended
works of art that were largely effective, tious appreciation of Enlightenment thought. to hagiographv. As a young cleric he had been

28 ENTREPOT OF EUROPE
active in canonization processes and had been butions to Roman cultural and artistic life
entrusted by Clement XI with the cases of were highly remarkable. It is unfortunate that
Catherine of Bologna and Pope Pius V Ghislieri, there is no sustained study of his art patron-
who were canonized in 1712. His activities age. But the relative tranquillity of Rome

earned him the title Promoter Fidei from during the Lambertini reign was to be short-
Clement XI. While archbishop of Ancona he lived; the problem of the Jesuits, in incubation
published a treatise on beatification and can- since the reign of Innocent XIII, was soon to

onization that is still used, and as pope he con- dominate papal affairs and have a profound
tinued the scrutiny of the list of saints to remove impact on both art and culture.

legendary figures and to make hagiography as

scientific as possible. Given Lambertini's inter-
CLEMENT XIII REZZONICO
ests in hagiography, it is surprising that there
(1758-1769) AND CLEMENT XIV
was only one canonization ceremony in his
GANGANELLI (1769-1774)
long pontificate. On the feast of Saint Peter and
Saint Paul (June 29) in 1746, Benedict XIV pro- Shortly after the election of the Venetian
claimed five new saints." Two of these, Camillo Cardinal Rezzonico, bishop of Padua, as Pope
de Lellis and Caterina de' Ricci, inspired two of Clement XIII, the Portuguese court began a
the finest religious paintings of the century. determined campaign against the Society of
Pierre Subleyras's Saint Camillo de Lellis Saving Jesus, ultimately calling for the complete sup-
the Sick oj the Hospital of Spirito Santo from the pression of the order. This scabrous issue
Floodwaters of the Tiber in 1598 (cat. 287) depicts dominated both the Rezzonico and the
the founder of the Camillans and patron saint Ganganelli pontificates. There were numerous Fig. 9 Pompeo Batoni, The Sacred Heart of fesus,

of hospitals and the chronically ill bearing a reasons for the war on the Jesuits: their sup- c. 1765-67, oil on copper; II Gesu, Rome
lame man from a dormitory hall in the hospi- posed wealth; their control over the upper
tal of S. Spirito in Sassia to escape rising flood levels of the educational system in most
waters. Painted in warm earth colors and with Catholic countries; their arrogance; and the the cult of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, a devo-
a keen eye to naturalism seen also in works by fact that so many Jesuits were confessors to tion closely associated with the Jesuits since
Benefial, the dignity and plastic quality of the sovereigns, positions that gave them consider- the early eighteenth century. Sacred Heart
figures elicited praise from Canova. Commis- able political influence. But their greatest sin images showing Jesus holding the heart,
sioned from the Camillans (also known as the was the fact that they represented an interna- which is encircled by a crown of thorns, topped
Fathers of the Good Death) as a present for the tional power (and a spiritual one at that) with with a small cross and radiating light, appeared
pope, Subleyras's picture quickly became one allegiance to a "foreign" sovereign — the pope. everywhere in Europe and the colonies. The
of the most admired modern works in Rome. 5 ''

Such a force was unacceptable to both abso- archetypal image, The Sacred Heart of jesus (fig. 9),

The French painter's other canonization lutist rulers and progressive Enlightenment a small oil on copper painting by Pompeo
canvas, The Mystic Marriage of Saint Caterina de' ideology. Voltaire was one of their leading and Batoni commissioned by Monsignor
was commissioned by the Dominicans,
Ricci, most fat, and indeci-
effective critics. Short, Domenico Calvi for the mother church of the
the august order to which the new saint sive, Clement was nonetheless tireless in
XIII Jesuits, II Gesu, soon became widely dissemi-

belonged, as a present for the pope. Unlike the his defense of the society and resisted all nated." In addition to its ubiquity in Jesuit
frank naturalism of the Camillo de lellis, this attempts to force its suppression. In 1765 he (and many other) churches, ephemeral repre-
painting is suffused with an apparitional light promulgated the constitution (a position sentations of the image on canvas, paper, and
of divine intensity, while the saint, in her white paper, as opposed to a bull or a brief) other cheap materials led penitential proces-
Dominican habit, kneels before the Risen Apostolicum pascendi munus as an undisguised sions and heightened a form of devotion that
Christ, who proffers a ring." The golden 4
light defense of the Jesuits and as praise for their ran counter to much Catholic Enlightenment
and the metaphysical transcendence are effortson behalf of the Church. The tenacity sensibility, recalling mystical Baroque devo-
appropriate to the subject and are far removed of Clement XIII roused the ire of most of the tions of the seventeenth century. A large
from the mundane empiricism of the Camillian Catholic courts and, in turn, Portugal, France, Sacred Heart banner was set up in the interior
offering to the pope. These two works are a Spain, Naples, and Parma expelled the Jesuits of the Colosseum near Benedict XIV's Stations
good example of academic notions of from their territories and colonies and confis- of the Cross, an act that scandalized the
decorum that governed different types of cated their property, which was not nearly so ambassadors of the Bourbon courts and
pictures and that must caution against con- extensive as they had hoped. Rezzonico's Portugal. Significantly, Sacred Heart images
noisseurship as a sole means of determining combative attitude also lost the papacy its ter- were removed from churches in countries

attributions and dates of eighteenth-century ritorial enclaves in France (Avignon and the where the Jesuits were suppressed almost as
paintings. Venaissin) and the Kingdom of Naples soon as the places were occupied by the secular
Despite the continuing decline of papal (Benevento and Ponte Corvo). Although these authorities. Such was the power of images.
political influence in Europe and the increased territories were temporarily restored to the The early years of the Rezzonico pontifi-
pressure brought to bear by the Catholic pope after the suppression of the Jesuits, cate witnessed the culmination of the compe-
dynasts against ecclesiastical privileges and loyalty to the society cost the papacy dearly. tition between Batoni and Mengs in the realm
influence in an increasingly secularized Rezzonico's pro-Jesuit sympathies, of portraiture, a friendly rivalry seen to great
society, the pontificate of Benedict XIV must however, had a profound influence on the advantage in their official portraits of Clement
be considered the high point of the Settecento visual arts, both positive and negative. In 1765, XIII. Batoni's three-quarter-length portrait in
papacy. Respected by many of the philosophes the same year in which he published the con- the Palazzo Corsini in Rome (fig. 10) repre-
and even some Protestants, Benedict's contri- stitution in support of the society, he ratified sents the corpulent Clement standing beside a

ENTREPOT OF EUROPE 29
 Albani in the summer of 1763. His antiquarian
interests were hamstrung by a misdirected

sense of modesty; he ordered nude statues in

the Vatican to be covered, and even Cardinal
Albani supposedly draped the genitals of
statues in his own collection during the pon-
tifical visitation. Clement XIII even went so far

as toemploy the painter Stefano Pozzi to con-

tinue Daniele da Volterra's work of painting
over several passages of nudity in

Michelangelo's Last judgment in the Sistine

Chapel. Winckelmann, who had been
appointed commissioner of antiquities by the
pope, remarked on Clement's prudery: "This
week the Apollo, the Laocoon, and the other Fig. 11 Dove Mosaic, Roman, first century bc; Musei
statues in the Belvedere are going to have Capitolini, Rome
lattens [thin sheets of metal] tied on to them
by means of wires fastened round their hips;
I suppose the same thing will happen to the Cardinal Lorenzo Ganganelli had to assert his
statues in the Capitol [the Musei Capitolini]. belief that a pope could suppress a religious
Rome could hardly have had a more asinine order if he thought its continued existence
government than the present one." Clement 5'
deleterious to the peace of the Church. In
Fig. 10 Pompeo Batoni, Clement XIII Rczzonico, XIII did, however, make a few remarkable response to the intense pressure placed on
c. 1760, oil on canvas; Palazzo Corsini, Rome donations to the Vatican and Capitoline col- him by the Catholic courts to suppress the
lections, notably the famed Dove Mosaic (fig. 11) society, the pope vacillated, acquiescing only
purchased from the estate of Cardinal Giuseppe in 1773 to promulgate the bull of suppression,
desk holding a paper, rather timidly offering Alessandro Furietti and a number of antique Dominus ac redemptor. The papal suppression
his benediction to the beholder. The soft pink statues excavated at Hadrian's Villa. was greeted enthusiastically by progressive
flesh of the face and hands and the rather shy The most important contribution to opinion in Europe, and not only in Catholic
glance perfectly embody the character of the Roman art and culture by Rezzonico was his countries. Ganganelli's public image became
pontiff as described by contemporaries. The support and encouragement of Giovanni that of a benevolent and liberal old man
warm hues and soft lighting underscore the Battista Piranesi, the most favored artist at the whose humble origins (his father had been a
mood of benevolent paternalism that perme- pontifical court. Several of the Venetian surgeon) were to his advantage as the Vicar of
56
ates the image. artist's works were dedicated to the pope or to Christ. In a popular print the pope was shown
Mengs's seated portrait of Clement XIII, members of the Rezzonico family, including on horseback in the Roman Campagna with a

now in the Pinacoteca Nazionale, Bologna the world-famous Delia magnificenza ed arehitet- remarkable degree of informality that signaled
(cat. 255) also represents the pontiff in three- tura de' Romani, published in 1761. Like Mengs, a move away from the pomp of the past. More
quarter length but the mood is entirely differ- Piranesiwas honored by a papal title of nobil- typical is the intelligent severity seen in
ent. Evenly and rather coldly lit, the image is ity —
membership in the order of the Golden Christopher Hewetson's marble bust of the
much more formal and The splendor
forceful. Spur (Speron d'Oro). The pope's nephew pontiff now in the Victoria and Albert
of the throne and vestments, which are care- Giovanni Battista Rezzonico commissioned Museum (cat. 130). Traditionalists and espe-
fully rendered according to pattern, texture, his fellow Venetian to oversee the renovation cially the zelanti, however, were stunned by the
and color, gives the pope a sense of aloof of the church of S. Maria del Priorato in the suppression of the Jesuits, recognizing in it an
dignity absent in the more humanized por- papal nephew's capacity as grand prior of the admission of the subordinate status of the
trait by Batoni. Romans were little interested order of Saint John of Malta. The highly imagi- papacy to the secular monarchies that did not
in portraiture except for the necessary papal native fac,ade, the expressive and inventive use bode well for the future, especially in light of

images (usually commissioned after an acces- of architectural ornament in the interior, and the increasing attacks on Church doctrine,
sion and often copied for diplomatic distribu- the profoundly visionary high altar make
all practices, and privileges that framed a major
tion), and the market was dominated by Piranesi's only executed building a memorable part of Enlightenment discourse.
foreigners. But the naturalism and emphasis many ways, the church on the
one. 58 In The health of Clement XIV was undermined
on physiognomic likeness seen in both Aventine Hill is a monument to the architect by the anxiety of the Jesuit question and the
Batoni's and Mengs's portraits of Clement XIII and to the idea of Roman grandeur and mag- ultimate realization that the suppression had
help underscore the vast differences between nificence as much as it is a glorification of the done little to improve the position of the
the papal form of monarchy and the dynastic Maltese order, and Piranesi chose to be buried papacy in relation to the Catholic states, other
model prevalent elsewhere in Catholic Europe, The high favor shown Piranesi by
there. than the promises of Naples and France to
except Spain. Clement XIII and his family partly help to return occupied papal territories. Ganganelli
Although Clement XIII was not as cultur- revise the perception of the Venetian pontiff as died only thirteen months after Dominus ae
ally ambitious as his two immediate predeces- indifferent to art and culture. redemptor was published. Such a short and pro-
sors, he did enjoy the fruits of their labor when The Jesuit controversy that had been foundly troubled pontificate would normally
he dedicated the completed Trevi Fountain in brewing for over a decade finally came to a not be propitious for cultural and artistic

a ceremony that took place on May 20, 1762. head during the reign of Pope Clement XIV patronage, but the major initiative of
I le also visited t he newly completed Villa Ganganelli. In order to achieve election, Ganganelli's reign forever altered the papacy's

I.NIKI I'OI Ml I UROI'I

relationship to art. Urged on by his treasurer, Braschi's fiscal policies and blind adoration
Cardinal Gian Angelo Braschi, Clement XIV of his nephew Luigi Braschi Onesti (later Duke
initiated the systematization of the Vatican of Nemi), led to an unfortunate recrudescence
collections that eventually became the Museo of nepotism and a number of embarrassing
Pio-Clementino (named for Braschi, who scandals, the most important of which was
became Pius VI in 1775, and his predecessor Luigi's acquisition of 12,000 acres of land in

Clement XIV, who had initiated the vast the Pontine marshes that had been drained at
undertaking). The dazzling museological government expense. Initially hailed as an
now arrayed in the large halls and
display enlightened project in the spirit of the phys-
chambers of the Vatican Palace took much of iocrats, much of the actual economic benefit
its definitive form in the last three decades of of the draining accrued to the papal nephew.
the century, and many of the embellishments Greatly enriched by his connection to the
and displays there were originally proposed by pontiff, Duke Luigi employed the architect
Clement XIV and Cardinal Braschi. The reor- Cosimo Morelli to construct a grand new
ganization of the existing collections into a palace near the Piazza Navona, an extremely
more coherent whole and the acquisition of expensive undertaking that became the talk of
prized objects to be displayed in the newly the town."" Morelli's expansive staircase and
constructed wings captured the imagination massive facade are imposing in the extreme,
of Europe and made it more difficult than ever and the Palazzo Braschi was the last of its type
to export important works of art and antiqui- to be built in Rome by a papal family. Despite
ties, much to the chagrin of the hordes of priv- his good looks (he was popularly acclaimed il

ileged tourists who wished to augment their bel papa) and initial popularity, the widespread
collections. Clement's motivation was new pope was severely
approbation of the
undoubtedly an appeal to the historical and compromised by the favoritism shown to his Fig. 12 Anton Raphael Mengs. The Allegory oj History,

cultural traditions of the papacy for the benefit unworthy nephew. It was only Pius's deposition 1772, fresco; Musei Vaticani, Vatican City, Sala dei

of influential visitors to Rome, a notion and death in exile at the hands of revolution- Papiri

embodied in Mengs's famous fresco The Allegory ary France that rehabilitated his reputation.
of History on the ceiling of the Sala dei Papiri Before the outbreak of revolution in France
(fig. 12).
55
A pragmatic benefit, however, was the in the spring of 1789, Pius VI had already been Working through the bishop of Pistoia,
preservation and display of significant compo- confronted with some serious political chal- Scipione de'Ricci, Grand Duke Leopold
nents of the cultural patrimony. Assuming the lenges, above all from the Habsburg Empire and attempted to secularize much of the ecclesias-
curatorship of its patrimony in so systematic a the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. After the death tical administration and even summoned a
fashion set an example for other nations of the pious Empress Maria Theresa in 1780, council of bishops to address the issue of
(notably France and Great Britain) and aroused her son Joseph II ruled alone, and he had very reducing papal influence. The resulting Synod
the admiration of Europe. France's envy resulted different ideas concerning the role of the pope of Pistoia passed radical decrees enhancing the
in the sack of the museum during the occupa- and the Church in his dominions. In a policy power of bishops at the expense of that of the
tion of 1798-99, the culmination of cultural usually called Josephinism by historians, the pope.'" When the people of nearby Prato
hostilities over a century old. emperor began the systematic subordination heard a rumor that the synod had decided to
of the administration of ecclesiastical proper- curb popular "superstition" by removing the
ties and endowments to the secular authorities. famed relic of the Virgin's girdle from the
PIUS VI BRASCHI (1775-1799)
He greatly limited the pope's ability to inter- cathedral, three days of rioting ensued, culmi-
The short, parlous pontificate of Clement XIV fere in internal affairs, even in such religious nating in the sack of the episcopal palace. The
was followed by a much longer and even more issues as divorce and the promulgation of grand duke had to send troops to restore
disastrous reign, that of Pius VI Braschi, the bulls, briefs, encyclicals, and constitutions. order. All things considered, the systematic
Ganganelli pontiff's former treasurer. Many religious establishments were suppressed and coordinated attacks on papal authority by
Overcoming the intense opposition of the and their revenues confiscated. By 1782 the sit- Austria and Tuscany, coming in the wake of
Portuguese, Braschi emerged as a compromise uation was so acute that Pius took the the suppression of the Jesuits at the insistence
candidate after an exceptionally long conclave. momentous step of actually going to Vienna of the Bourbon powers and Portugal, left the
Although in his late fifties when elected, he to meet the emperor. Although hailed as a Holy See in an isolated position to face the
reigned for twenty-four years, the longest great breakthrough in relations between the challenges posed by the French Revolution.
pontificate since the quarter-century of rule empire and the Holy See, in fact little of a sub- Rome's initial response to events in France
attributed to Saint Peter. While the Jesuit ques- stantial nature was accomplished. Only the in 1789and 1790 was cautious and highly
tion had been the defining feature of the two emperor's death in 1790 brought about a tem- guarded. Only in mid-1790, when the conven-
previous pontificates, it was the French porary amelioration of the situation.''
1

tion passed the Civil Constitution of the

Revolution and its aftermath in Italy that made The Grand Duke Leopold, the younger Clergy(a law that made the Church a depart-

Pius VI's reign so difficult, and the chief events brother of Joseph II, also sought to obtain ment of state and allowed the people to elect
of the period may be conveniently divided into greater mastery over the Church in Tuscany their own bishops without reference to the
—
two parts the period before 1789 and the and to limit the power of the pope to intervene pope), was Pius forced condemn
it. As the
to
period from 1789 until Pius's death in 1799. in Tuscan disputes. Interestingly, both Joseph revolution became more radical, the position
Difficulties with France would also be the and Leopold are represented in a double por- of the Church became untenable, and the
plague of Pius VI's successor, Pius VII trait t>y Batoni painted in commemoration of massive persecutions of nonjuring clergy
Chiaramonti. their brief visit to the papal capital (cat. 172). plunged France headlong into civil w ar bv

1 NTR1 1'O I 01 1
1 1 ROl'l
 France, where he died
in Valence on August Palazzo del Quirinale in 1786, facing Clement
The precarious military situation in
29, 1799- XII's Palazzo della Consulta and enhancing the
Rome and the spoliation of the museums and facade of the major papal residence. Long a
churches effectively ended the age of the symbol of Roman triumph over Egypt and,
Grand Tour, and not even the restoration in subsequently, Christian triumph over pagan-
1814 could return Rome to its undisputed posi- ism, obelisks served as important reference
tion as cultural capital of Europe. Although points for visitors and were often aligned with
defeated in war at Waterloo in 1815, France tri- other obelisks, forming a legible urban
umphed over Rome in the culture wars, and grammar. The Quirinale obelisk was set up
European art was forever changed. in conjunction with the famed Horse Tamers,
In spite of serious financial and political believed by many to be Greek sculptures by
crises during most of his pontificate, Pius VI Praxiteles, helping to draw attention to one
nonetheless pursued an ambitious program of the city's celebrated antiquities." The 5

of new building, urban beautification, and Quirinale project elicited one of the most
augmentation of the papal art collections, splendid decorative objects of the entire eigh-
although he was a much less active patron of teenth century —the silvergilt inkstand with
contemporary Roman painters and sculptors the obelisk and Horse Tamers, studded with
than many of his Settecento predecessors. The semiprecious stones, commissioned by
fact that Antonio Canova received no papal Marchese Ercolani from the metalsmith
commission from 1780 until the fall of the Vincenzo Coacci as a gift for Pius VI (cat. 82).
papacy eighteen years later is telling in this In 1789 Pius ordered the elevation of an obelisk
Fig. 13 The Capiwline Brutus, Roman, c. 140 bc, context, although it should be pointed out at the top of the Spanish Steps in front of the
bronze; Musei Capitolini, Rome that the Venetian sculptor was not elected a church of SS. Trinita dei Monti, a reassertion

member of the Accademia di S. Luca until of papal authority in an area of the city long
1800, owing to professional jealousy. Braschi's identified with French interests. Finally, in
late 1792. The papal enclaves of Avignon and most important ecclesiastical commission 1792, an obelisk was raised in the square in

the Venaissin were occupied, never to return was for the building of a grand new sacristy front of the Palazzo Montecitorio, a papal
to Roman The crisis became so acute
rule. for St. Peter's, a project that had been under administration building and key landmark
after the execution of LouisXVI and Queen consideration since the reign of Clement XI. near the column of Marcus Aurelius. Had not
Marie-Antoinette that Italy was invaded and The project was entrusted to the architect problems with France intervened, it seems
the pope forced to declare war on France. Carlo Marchionni, the designer of the Villa clear that Pius would have continued such
General Napoleon Bonaparte's attack on Albani, and work began in 1776, less than a projects as a conscious use of ancient monu-
the Papal States in 1796 detached the legations year after Pius VPs election. The new sacristy ments to glorify the papal present.
of Bologna, Ferrara, and Ravenna from the was dedicated in 1784. The pope doubtless Braschi's most ambitious undertaking,
pope and joined them to the newly created hoped to leave a personal mark on Rome's however, was the vast expansion of the papal
Cisalpine Republic, the capital of which was most important church, but he also encour- museum complex in the Vatican Palace that he
Milan. Shortly afterwards, Bonaparte pene- aged a stylistic eclecticism in Marchionni's began during the pontificate of Clement XIV.
trated further into papal territory and forced design that embraces the neo-Cinquecento Named the Museo Pio-Clementino, this insti-

the pontiff to accept the Armistice of Bologna, currents seen in Galilei's Lateran facade (the tution made a significant contribution to the

which resulted in the humiliating Treaty of source of which is ultimately Michelangelo) formation of modern museums in the follow-
Tolentino signed the next year. To save Rome and the full-blown Baroque elements attribut- ing century and immediately became one of
from occupation, Pius agreed to pay France able to Carlo Maderno. Significantly, both styl- the wonders of Europe. Employing the archi-
15,000,000 scudi in gold, to disarm his troops, istic trends are seen in St. Peter's itself, and tects Michelangelo Simonetti and, later, Pietro
to allow the French free passage through his Marchionni was careful not to violate the Camporese, Pius VI created a monumental
territories to attack Naples, and accepted the architectural integrity of the entire complex. 64 museum worthy of Rome's cultural heritage.

unprecedented cultural properties clause The political dimension of the stylistic choices In a remarkably systematic fashion, Pius had
calling for the cession of a hundred works of is also important, for in an era of decreased important ancient works assembled from sites

art, to be chosen by French commissars. The papal influence, Pius and Marchionni con- all around the city, consolidating many previ-
inclusion of a cultural spoliation clause in a sciously recall grander eras of the past associ- ously neglected and isolated works under one
peace treaty was shocking to moderate ated with such pontiffs as Julius II, Leo X, and roof. In addition, the excavations in progress

European opinion, but the pope had no choice Paul V. This staggeringly expensive project did everywhere in the city and its environs were
but to agree. Eventually, many of the most much to further the disarray in papal finances, carefully monitored, and the papacy reserved
famous works of art in Rome went to Paris, but the pope was undeterred. the best finds for the new museum. The great
but only the Capiwline Brutus (fig. 13), so The Braschi pope was also a major contrib- expense of these excavations gave rise to the

beloved of the revolutionaries, was specifically utor to the embellishment of the city of Rome, practice of speculative collaboration. Such
named in the treaty.'" The next year, using the a phenomenon encouraged by the enormous archaeological entrepreneurs as the Britons
pretext of the assassination of the French increase in the popularity of the Grand Tour Gavin Hamilton, Thomas Jenkins, and Robert
General Leonard Duphot during an anti- in the last quarter of the century. Pius's major Fagan and the Italians Nicola Lapiccola and
French riot, French troops occupied Rome, addition to the urban fabric was the erection Domenico de Angelis, among many others,
deposed the pope and established the short- of three Egyptian obelisks at important applied for excavation licenses from the
lived Roman The octogenarian
republic. focuses in different parts of the city. The first Reverenda Camera Apostolica (the financial

pontiff, confused and ill, was carted off to obelisk was placed in the square in front of the office of the papal administration), agreeing to

ENTREPOT OF EUROPE
submit their discoveries to official scrutiny.

The excavators shared the expenses with the

landowners where the digs took place and
sometimes even with art dealers, restorers,

and wealthy amateurs interested in such enter-

prises. The Pio-Clementino's appropriation of
the best works available fueled a market for
pastiches composed of less important frag-
ments, and a number of dealer-restorers rose
to prominence in the art market as a result.

Vincenzo and Camillo Pacetti, Pietro Pacilli,

Giuseppe Angelini, Giuseppe Franzoni, and

many others prospered in the manic market
for antiquities."" Moreover, many of the works
of art reserved for the Museo Pio-Clementino
were in need of restoration, so there was no
dearth of work for those willing to do it.

Much of the decline in sculptural patronage

for new works in the last quarter of the
Settecento was offset by the huge demand
for antique restorations.

In addition to the extensive architectural Fig. 14 Benigne Gagneraux, Pius V/ Braschi and King Gustav III of Sweden Touring the Musco Pio-Ckmentino, 1785,
additions to the Vatican Palace and the oil on canvas; Nationalmuseum, Stockholm
restructuring of existing spaces to house the
horde of objects selected for public display,

Pius VI also commissioned a number of new an artistic patrimony unmatched in both century Rome was the second largest city in
works to decorate the galleries. These included quantity and quality in contemporary Europe, Italy, smaller only than Naples and larger than
sculptural stemme (coats-of-arms) that every- it became essential to the popes to be seen as Turin. Venice, Milan, and Florence." At any
where in the architecture proclaimed the responsible curators of the works of art in given time, especially after mid-century, the
pope's munificence, and ceiling paintings, their dominions, especially since Europe local population was augmented by the influx
such as Tommaso Maria Conca's Triumph of viewed Rome as the cultural cradle of western of tourists and pilgrims, so that many neigh-
Apollo, which was executed on the ceiling of civilization. The promotion of culture borhoods, above all the area around the
the Sala delle Muse. A lively sketch drawing of through scholarship, museology, urban beau- Piazza di Spagna and via del Corso (Rome's
the composition is included in the exhibition tification, and an aggressive program of art most fashionable street), were crowded and
(cat. 339). Important objects from Roman and architectural patronage increasingly came uncomfortable. Many modern ideas about life
churches were gathered in the new museum, to be seen as one of the chief responsibilities in Rome in the Settecento come from the
often over the vigorous protests of their of the popes. In addition, support for such cul- myriad travel accounts published by tourists,
former proprietors. The colossal porphyry tural institutions as the Accademia di S. Luca, many of which were deeply unsympathetic to
sarcophagus of the Emperor Constantine's the Accademia dell'Arcadia, the Virtuosi al the city's customs, mores, and form of govern-
daughter Santa Costanza, brought from the Pantheon, the various libraries, and the infor- ment. Contradicting these dyspeptic views are
eponymous church, is a notable case in point. mal private academies helped integrate Rome sympathetic descriptions and diary accounts
The unprecedented collection of ancient and the papacy into the broader current of penned by more tolerant foreigners and the
statues of various animals, assembled impres- European intellectualism. The rise of the Romans themselves. A balanced evaluation of
sively in the Sala degli Animali, quickly Grand Tour and the birth and dissemination such contradictory evidence is essential to
became a public favorite. 67 Indeed, the entire of Neoclassicism similarly positioned Rome understanding Rome's peculiar character, and
museum became the focal point of visitors to on the center stage of Europe, helping to any attempt to describe daily life there in the
Rome and was even the site of the "accidental" create the cosmopolitanism so essential to the eighteenth century must take into account the
meeting of Pius VI and King Gustav III of pope's redefined role in European affairs. The habits of the people, the cultural and spiritual
Sweden, a cultural and diplomatic event cele- papacy's keen advocacy of all forms of culture impact of religion, and the social hierarchy of
brated in Benigne Gagneraux's commemora- was the single most significant factor in the inhabitants. The picture that emerges is

tive painting (fig. 14)."* All things considered, making eighteenth-century Rome the entrepot radically different from that of any other con-
the Museo Pio-Clementino must be seen as of Europe. temporary European capital. Indeed. Rome
the most significant manifestation of the cult was, and still is, unique.
of antiquity in eighteenth-century Rome, and Settecento Rome was ruled, political!)' and
TALES OF THE CITY: DAILY LIFE IN
its conception was fundamental to the socially, by a clerical gerontocracy. Ecclesiastical

museum
SETTECENTO ROME
mentality that now informs the rela- government permeated every aspect of daily
tionship between the typical tourist and t he- By 1700 Rome's population had reached life; religion was not only a spiritual exercise

Roman patrimony. approximately 135,000; it grew to about but produced the rhythm of the days. Sundays
From an institutional perspective, it could 175,000 by the early 1790s, after which period and feast days were holidays, and one of the
be argued that the papacy was the most tena- the population fell dramatically as a result of frequent Enlightenment criticisms of the city
cious and successful promoter of visual the French invasions and the suppression of was thatit lost economic productivity because

culture in eighteenth-century Europe. With the papal government. Throughout the of the numerous feast days, when many types

ENTREPOT 01 EUROPE
oflabor and almost all forms of commerce rary sermons, edicts, diaries, and letters. Even the ecclesiastical bureaucracy were not actu-
were forbidden. The households of the popes so prominent a figure as Cardinal Alessandro ally fully ordained priests and often did not
and the leading cardinals employed large Albani became a subject of social scandal behave in a priestly manner. Monsignor
numbers of people, some Roman and others because of his losses at card parties. An entry Pittoni, a relatively high official in the papal
who were family dependants who were in Valesio's Diario di Roma dated October 14, household, is a case in point. Valesio's Diario
brought to Rome (or came on their own, 1729, recounts Albani's loss of 2,000 scudi (a diRoma recounts that Pittoni died on the
hoping for employment) from the popes' places very large sum) to an Umbrian nobleman morning of April 4, 1729. His younger brother
of origin. Few members of the upper echelon while gambling at an evening salon held at the the painter Flavio Pittoni had to bring charges
of the Church knew exactly how many people palace of the Principessa di S. Bono. Such mis- against the deceased's natural son Vincenzo
they actually employed, and petty forms of fortunes doubtless had an impact on his col- Onori, who was arrested with the cleric's valu-
fraud against employers by their dependents lecting activities. Another Valesio diary entry ables in his possession. The denouement of
were commonplace and expected, partly as a of January 1730, repeats the rumor that
21, this squalid story occurred at Pittoni's funeral
compensation for very low wages. These petty losses at the gaming table had forced the cardi- in S. Maria Maggiore, where he held a canonry
peculations were augmented by the ubiquity nal to sell two antique cameos to someone at (an official of the basilica's chapter who had
of mancie (tips), often for the most perfunctory Academy for 700 scudi/"
the French few duties but usually received a substantial
of services, from members of the household An anonymous pamphlet sent to Pope income from the church's investments), when
and especially from visitors and suppliants. Benedict XIII in 1724 denounced the spread of a wit characterized the dead prelate as "a priest

Failure to provide the expected mancia could social conversazioni (the Italian name for who never said Mass, a canon who never sat in
have dire consequences for those unfamiliar evening parties that prominently featured the church's choir, a bishop who never carried
with the system. conversation, gaming, and light refresh- a mitre and a father who never had a wife.""
2

The households of the nobility were also ments), blaming them for most of the ills of Clerics who led irregular lives had always been
very much at the mercy of their servants, contemporary Roman society: the subject of gossip, but the greater moral cri-
whose numbers far exceeded the requirements tique of the eighteenth-century Church by
for domestic labor. Foreign visitors to aristo- Until now it has been the habit, and it society made such incidents more public and
cratic residences frequently commented on increased greatly in the last pontificate helped to discredit the institution.
the large numbers of people, in and out of [Innocent XIII], that every evening many, By far the largest number of Romans
livery, simply hanging about, all expecting a many prelates, including bishops and arch- belonged to the urban working class or else

tip. A defining feature of Roman life was the bishops, go to conversation parties hosted were a part of the city's unemployed poor.
relative informality among
of social relations by women and they make the rounds
, to six Workers included innkeepers, shopkeepers,
all phenomenon also
classes of society, a or more palaces in an evening, consuming grocers, coopers, blacksmiths, policemen
remarked upon by more class-conscious almost the entire night, either in games of (called sbirri, a type of paid who was uni-
thug
foreign visitors. The Roman nobility varied in chance or in watching others play cards in versally detested), and the body of arti-
large
."'
social prestige and degrees of antiquity; some a fashion that can only cause scandal . . sans employed in construction and the luxury
families claimed very ancient (even mytholog- trades. Visitors often remarked on the large
ical) origins, such as the Colonna, the Orsini, The text goes on to argue that this social number of idle poor and the ubiquity of
and the Conti, while others were relative new- practice is a great impediment to sacred duties beggars, attributing their presence to bad
comers who owed their status to the election and that it ought to be curtailed. While the government and widespread sloth. In fact,

of an ancestor as pope. These included the monkish Benedict XIII may have been sympa- beggars were an accepted part of daily life and
Barberini, the Borghese, the Albani, the thetic to the complaint, there was little he reveal Rome's tolerant attitudes towards those
Altieri, and many others. Since most noble could do about it, and the conversazione contin- less fortunate. In a Christian society that

families lived in well-established palaces built ued to grow in social importance as the valued good works as an essential component
and decorated in earlier periods, the culturally century progressed. of salvation, beggars performed a valuable
ambitious focused on the development of Clerical influence was also deeply felt social function in allowing the faithful to give

their collections and the establishment of among Rome's middle and professional alms, and were usually found near the
informal salons that had both intellectual and classes. The various papal bureaucracies entrances to churches. Pompeo Batoni enjoyed
social functions. These noble palaces were the required large numbers of clerks, lawyers, and a considerable reputation as a pious almsgiver,
meeting places of the clerical hierarchy, the scribes, and these men formed the majority of and the city's mendicants used to wait daily
patriciate, and privileged visitors to the city. It the city's bourgeoisie. So clerical was the tone for him to emerge from church, requesting a
was quite common to see a number of cardi- of government that even many laymen small coin. Rather than take steps to end men-
nals, bishops, and other ecclesiastics enjoying donned the garb of an abbate (the Italian dicancy (many beggars were members of reli-
card parties and excursions to the theater version of the French abbe, a person in minor gious orders), which would never have
(especially the famous Teatro Argentina), but orders supported by a clerical income) in occurred to the government, it was carefully

a pope was almost never seen in this context, order to blend in better with their colleagues regulated: Clement XI, for example, issued a
unless it was a formal diplomatic reception. and superiors. Similarly, many widowed or decree in 1718 forbidding begging inside the
The integration of the clerical and patrician unmarried women of all social classes either churches and within ten feet of their portals."
hierarchies in Rome was complete; to be sure, took minor orders as nuns or at least dressed Beggary and the desire to alleviate the dis-

few noble families did not have relations well in a modified habit. Such self-fashioning tress of the poor encouraged the formation of
placed in the papal Curia. was unique and did much to give Rome its several new lay confraternities, associations of
The easy, informal interaction between the clerical tone. a paraliturgical character devoted to the
clerics and the laity predictably led to problems, Unfortunately, many who donned clerical pursuit of Christian charity and good works
some real, others imagined. The "decline" in garb did not follow the prescribed manner of among the disadvantaged. One of the most
public morality was a leitmotiv of contempo- living. A large proportion of those involved in important was the Arciconfraternita

I N I Kl I'O I Ol l-.UROPf:
 "

s
dell'Immacolata Concezione, whose patron di Spagna and the Piazza del Popolo, and Lenten season of penance and abstinence.
was Saint Ivo, the advocate of the poor. the via del Babuino, which connects the two The Chinea ceremony, the ritualized payment
Centered on the church of S. Carlo ai Catinari squares, was (and still is) famous for its art gal- of the feudal dues of the Kingdom of Naples
in a working-class neighborhood, this arch- leries and antiquarian shops. Artists of all (as a vassal of the pope) in the form of a bag of
confraternity became a sort of free legal aid nationalities mingled freely and became inte- gold borne on the back of a white donkey (the
society to the poor. Members of the gral parts of the larger community, although chinea), took place until 1787, when Naples
Confraternita di S. Eligio visited the sick and the French, because of the institution of the refused to continue to recognize its status as a

brought them food and comfort, while the French Academy, were often somewhat more papal fief. Held in either the Piazza Ss. Apostoli
Arciconfraternita della Pieta de' Carcerati isolated and were viewed by the Romans as or the Piazza Farnese, the focal point of the
visited prisoners and assisted their families, rather clannish. In this cosmopolitan artistic Chinea was a large ephemeral macchina (con-
all the while calling for greater awareness of world artists were friends, rivals, habitues of struction with movable parts) often designed

the role of poverty in the formation of crimi- the same cafes and trattorie (family-style eating by leading architects and put together at con-
nals in society, ideas that echo those of Cesare houses), often members of the same academy siderable expense. The Colonna family, repre-

Beccaria and contemporary Enlightenment and not infrequently related by marriage. Kingdom of Naples,
sentatives of the
ideology. 4
In sum, far from indicating a back- When the Welsh landscape painter Thomas coordinated the activities. The general appear-
ward and priest-driven urban culture, Rome in the autumn of 1776,
Jones arrived in ance of the Chinea macchine is preserved in fine
eighteenth-century Rome embodied the ideas he immediately went to the Cafe Anglais in the engravings that were distributed widely as
of its religion and should be judged accordingly. Piazza di Spagna (with its famed murals by publicity for the event and for the Colonna
Because of a clement climate, popular life Piranesi) and fell in with William Pars, Jacob family. Louis Le Lorrain's The Temple of Minerva

in Settecento Rome centered on cafes and More, John Robert Cozens, and many others, (cat. 13) of 1746 and Nicola Michetti's Jupiter and
informal meetings in the city's many squares. including non-Britons. Artists of various Minerva in the Forge of Vulcan (cat. 17) are two
Not only were these piazzas popular places of nationalities witnessed one another's mar- excellent examples of the iconographical com-
rendezvous, conversation, business transac- riages and stood as godparents to one plexity and inventiveness of the Chinea
tions, and gentle exercise, but their fountains another's children, such as the painter Stefano engravings. The prints, often produced before
provided water for personal consumption and Pozzi and the sculptor-restorer Giovanni the construction of the macchine themselves,
cleaning. The busy life of a Roman piazza was Angeloni. The Tyrolese painter Cristoforo are highly mediated and were scrutinized as

frequently commented upon by visitors and is Unterperger married Filippo della Valle's works of art in their own right. They were
seen to advantage in Aureliano Milani's Festival daughter, while Panini's son Giuseppe wed the often used as cultural favors and mounted in
in the Piazza della Bocca della Veritd, showing a architect Fuga's daughter. Panini himself was luxurious frames, although the vast majority
large square in front of the venerable basilica the brother-in-law of Nicolas Vleughels, direc- of their audience never saw the actual con-
of S. Maria in Cosmedin that had been regular- tor of the French Academy at Rome. There structions on which the prints were suppos-
ized and given a new fountain during the reign were four Pozzis in the Accademia di S. edly based. As John Moore, the leading
of Clement XI. 75 Piazzas were also the sites of Luca —the painters Stefano and Giuseppe, historian of the Chinea, has written: "Prints
public executions and whippings, events that Andrea the sculptor, and the engraver Rocco. lent the individual imagination a structure on
attracted large crowds who, unlike their coun- Agostino Masucci and his son Lorenzo were which to fashion a mental image, a structure
terparts at penal spectacles in Britain, usually both members and attended meetings nuanced by education and common cultural
prayed for the victim and offered assistance to together. Panini held a professorship at the codes, and necessarily altered by personal
his (and rarely her) relatives. Vendettas among French Academy, while the Florentine painter experience."" 9 The actual festivals were, of
the lower orders were not uncommon; the Benedetto Luti became the teacher of course, an important part of Rome's self-pre-
preferred tool of assassination was a knife Domenico Piastrini of Pistoia and taught the sentation to Europe and to its own citizens, a
with a long, narrow blade (much like the English painter William Kent. Rocco Pozzi form of participatory spectacle that integrated
modern stiletto). And although the criminal engraved the works of his cousin Pietro rulers and ruled in a highly organic manner.
code of papal Rome allowed the death penalty Bracci." Understanding these familial and In addition to the strongly politicized festi-

for a long list of offenses and whippings for a professional networks and not underestimat- val of the Chinea, Rome enjoyed the Lateran
host of others, in practice drastic punishments ing the power of amity or enmity in Rome's possesso (literally the pope's taking possession

were relatively rare. Commuting death or ban- artistic culture are absolutely essential to even of the basilica of St. John Lateran as bishop of
ishment sentences allowed the popes to show a basic comprehension of how things worked. Rome), a cavalcade in which a newly elected
Christian mercy to the malefactors and set an In sum, artists and the art industry (for such it pontiff traversed the city from the Palazzo del
example of charity and forgiveness. Having was) occupied an important social and eco- Quirinale to the Lateran, underscoring his
such laws on the record, however, allowed the nomic niche in Settecento Rome, and the cul- authority as both head of the Universal
government to be ruthless when it felt threat- tural and artistic cosmopolitanism Church and as the local episcopal authority.
ened, or when the crime was egregious or the characteristic of the era began at a fundamen- Each possesso included a large, ephemeral tri-

criminal recidivist." 6 tal personal level. umphal arch erected somewhere on the Sacra
Artists and architects, both Roman and The most conspicuous intersection of Via in the Roman forum under which the cav-
foreign, were a vital part of the urban tapestry. popular and official life in eighteenth-century alcade passed (cat. 7). The Farnese family, in its

Artists' studios were popular attractions and Rome was that of the festival. These urban capacity as representatives of the Dukes of
the more successful practitioners employed events, replete with fireworks, street perfor- Parma, was responsible for the cost of the
many part-time laborers, especially porters, mances, processions, ephemeral architectural arches, since Parma was technically a papal
janitors, and lower-level studio assistants. displays, and the distribution of food and fief (although a hotly debated one as the
Prominent artists often became wealthy and wine, enlivened the Roman year in a way century progressed, and the dukes were
were socially identified with the upper middle similar to the celebrated Carnival, a week-long increasingly disinclined to acknowledge papal
class. Many lived in the area around the Piazza event leading up to the beginning of the suzerainty) and the arches were a traditional

I N I Kl I'OI 01 I UKOI'1
part of their f eudal dues to their papal over- Panini, the son of the famous painter Giovanni competing social and political ambitions of
lords. The highly classicizing arch erected for Paolo; the elder Panini's large view painting of foreign personages and the local aristocracy,

the possesso of Pius VI in 1775 is a typical the event is an important document for the among many other causes, created an expec-
example, and the engravings made after the celebration/' Rising from a tall base decorated tation of urban spectacle unimagined else-

ephemeral arches, like those for the Chinea with plaster statues, the central pavilion con- where, with the possible exception of Venice.
macchine, were widely circulated. *" 1

tains mythological figures that symbolize the The festivals were not only ways of appeasing
The Braschi cavalcade was vividly wedding of the heir to the French throne to a (and pleasing) the poor, but were also impor-
described by an eyewitness, Dr. )ohn Moore, Spanish princess. This pavilion is crowned by tant tourist attractions in their own right. Any
who published a three-volume account of his a small cupola from which a tall obelisk serious consideration of the Grand Tour needs
Grand Tour in 1792. As a guest of Prince springs. Panini's close connections to the to take these ephemeral events into account
Giustiniani, he viewed the procession as French Academy and to the French embassy and, arguably, important Grand Tourists
it ascended from St. John Lateran to the doubtless account for his and his son's became a type of public spectacle in their own
Capitoline Hill on the way back to the involvement. Given Rome's status as an inter- right. The arrivals of foreign grandees, often

Quirinale. In order of procession he lists the national city and the capital of the Catholic traveling incognito in order to avoid court
Horse Guards, the Swiss Guards, the Roman Church, foreign ambassadors competed with protocol but always dispensing largesse to the
nobles and their retainers, archbishops, one another to put on increasingly spectacular people, were frequently marked in Rome by
bishops, and canons followed by the cardinals public festivals, and the beneficiaries were the impromptu street dancing, private balls, fire-

and finally the pope, mounted on a white city's poor, who were both fed and entertained. works, and the distribution of food. Such
mule. Once atop the Capitoline, the pontiff Finally, the festivals and ceremonies associ- august visitations increased dramatically in

was given the keys to the city by the senator of ated with the elevation of cardinals and the the last third of the century and gave a brilliant
Rome, the leading lay magistrate; after having elections of popes (it was customary for the luster to the twilight of the aneien regime.
assumed episcopal authority at the Lateran, people to sack the residence of a cardinal upon
the pope claimed secular power at the Palazzo receiving news of his election to the papacy, so
ROME AND THE GRAND TOUR
dei Conservatori (City Hall). After descending papabili judiciously removed valuables from
the Capitoline Hill, Pius was greeted by the their palaces before entering the conclave) Heads of state rarely visited foreign capitals in
chief rabbi of the Jewish community, who pre- were often great public occasions, and mar- the eighteenth century, with the exception of
sented him with a parchment scroll with the riages and births among the Roman aristocracy Rome, and even high-ranking aristocrats
Ten Commandments in Hebrew. Aftergra- were also publicly celebrated. On a reduced seldom ventured beyond their own borders,
ciously accepting the document while inform- scale, even bourgeois births and marriages except to go to The list of politically and
Italy.

ing the rabbi that he rejected the Jewish were occasions for widespread rejoicing. On a socially important Europeans who came to
interpretation, the delegation retired and the more somber note, it should be remembered Rome during the Settecento is truly remarkable,
cavalcade continued on its way. Moore, who that funerals of political and ecclesiastical as even an abbreviated survey shows. The visit

was very captious about Catholic practices, figures, both local and foreign, were public of King Gustav III of Sweden has already been
could not resist mentioning that the modern events and were frequently commemorated by mentioned, but the diplomatic difficulties the

possesso was no fit successor to the past tri- the erection of grand catafalques placed in the visit occasioned, while unusual, indicate the
umphs of the ancient Romans. He also criti- churches where the obsequies took place. types of problems these incognito "state"
cized the illuminations (the display of Often designed by leading architects, these visits could generate. Hearing of the Swedish
tapestries from windows and the draping of structures were usually engraved and helped monarch's arrival on Christmas Day, 1783, Pius

columns in red damask hangings) of the spread Roman architectural ideas throughout sent his secretary, Vincenzo Catenacci, to
Capitoline palaces, stating that it disgraced Europe. The catafalque of Pope Innocent XII greet him. However, when Catenacci pre-
1

Michelangelo's architecture. *'

But the caval- erected in St. Peter's for the pope's funeral in sented himself at the Porto del Popolo, he
cade occasioned much rejoicing among the 1700, designed by the renowned architect unexpectedly encountered Emperor Joseph II

Romans, and the pomp and display of the day Giovanni Battista Contini, gives an indication of Austria,who was traveling as the Count of
were concluded by public fireworks and enter- of the ambition of the ceremony and the Falkenstein and who wished to take the pope
tainments in the traditional fashion. inventiveness of the architect in making a by surprise. Joseph II and Gustav III loathed
Although the Chinea and the Lateran pos- design that he knew would be widely circu- one another, so the pope was left in a rather
sesso festivals were Rome's most anticipated lated. Arranged as a grand altar reached by a precarious diplomatic position. Fortunately
popular entertainments, there were numerous tall staircase, and bearing a medallion profile for Pius, the emperor stayed less than a week,
political events abroad that led to spectacular portrait of the deceased pope, the ensemble is continuing on to Naples on December 29 to
public festivals of a celebratory nature in crowned with the papal tiara.
Si
Metaphorically, visit his sister Queen Caroline. 84 He returned
Rome, usually centered on the foreign Contini made a direct equation of the pope for a few weeks in the new year, after the
embassies. Royal marriages and births were and the Church, and the portrait hovers above departure of the king of Sweden.
often commemorated with appropriate festiv- the altar almost like a suspended Host. The During the reign of Pius VI, the French
ities that usually included food and wine for central element of the composition is flanked ambassador in Rome was Cardinal Francois-
the crowds and always ended with fireworks. by paired, elongated obelisks bristling with Joaquin de Bernis, whose embassy near the
The ambitious fete held in the Piazza Farnese tapers. When lit, the catafalque must have been Piazza di Spagna became a grand reception
in 1745 to celebrate the marriage of the French a sublime sight in the interior of the cavernous center for Rome's illustrious visitors of all
dauphin (son of Louis XV and Marie Leczinska Vatican basilica. nationalities. The correspondence between
and father of the future Louis XVI) is a charac- Celebratory festivals were not unique to the directors of the French Academy and the
teristic example of numerous similar events. Rome in the eighteenth century, but their fre- Surintendants des Batiments du Roi are
The centerpiece of the festival was a grand fire- quency, given the need to commemorate reli- important documents for the list of visitors
works display, probably designed by Giuseppe gious holidays and jubilees, and to dignify the and the staggeringly expensive entertainments

I.NTRI.I'OT ()l I.UKOIM.

provided by the French cardinal.** Bernis's Rome, while the Austrian Archduke Ferdinand, visited Rome in 1776) stayed for several weeks
dinners were legendary, and the amount of governor-general of Milan, came for a brief in 1780 as the Comte and Comtesse de Joinville.
food distributed to the city's residents on such visit in the same year. In 1783 the Elector Both were granted a rare private audience by
occasions made Louis XVI's ambassador very Palatine stayed in Rome as the guest of his the pope. The abbe de Bourbon, a natural son
popular. Much of Bernis's hospitality was diplomatic agent, Marchese Antici. The arrival of Louis XV, toured the city for several months
prompted by his desire to show France as the of the intelligent and culturally enlightened in 1785-86, and in 1790, after the outbreak of
premier Catholic power, despite the fact that Dowager Duchess Amalie von Weimar in 1788 the French Revolution, Rome began to fill

the lavishness of his hospitality almost bank- was a boon to the German artistic community; with emigre aristocrats, chief among them
rupted him. Few high-ranking visitors to Rome her itinerary had been planned by no less a Louis XVI's aunts the Princesses Victoire and
did not pass through his salon, a fact well personage than Goethe, who left Italy shortly Adelaide, popularly known as the Mesdames
known to artists, ciceroni (well-informed cul- before Amalie's arrival. She visited Rome de France. 8 ' All were received according to their
tural docents willing to guide visitors through again in 1789 on her way home from Naples. rank by the pope, and one only wonders how
the city's museums, churches, and monu- Among the many eastern European nota- Pius VI had any time to carryon the business
ments), and art dealers, who made their services bles to visit the papal city were the Russian of government. Little did anyone suspect that
known to the elite visitors through the cardinal's Grand Duke Paul and his German wife, Sophia in just a few years, Rome as an oasis of peace
generosity. Bernis's crucial influence on pat- Dorothea of Brunswick, who employed the and the cultural entrepot for Enlightenment
terns of art patronage in the last two decades incognito titles of the Conti del Nord. They Europe would disappear forever with the
of the eighteenth century needs further study. were lavishly entertained by Bernis, Pius VI, arrival of the revolution in Italy.

Although many aristocrats had come to his nephew Luigi, and many Roman patri- Among the numerous social and cultural
Rome before the election of Pius VI, it was cians. Their engagement with the city's monu- factors that encouraged the growth of the
only after 1775 that the stream of visitors ments and was exceptional, and the grand
art Grand Tour and Rome's pride of place on it
became a flood. In the summer of 1775 the duke commissioned a Holy Family from Batoni, was the city's mystique and its privileged place
Archduke Maximilian of Austria, the brother now in the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, in the imagination of Europe. 9 " As a cultural
of Joseph II, came to Rome as the Count of among other works of art. Pius presented phenomenon of remarkable complexity and
Burgau. In addition to the obligatory dinner them with mosaics, tapestries, and profound significance for western traditions,
with Cardinal de Bernis, the archduke was a suite of Piranesi prints as a remembrance of the Grand Tour flourished in the twilight of
feted by Prince Sigismondo Chigi and enter- their visit.*" The Polish Princess Lubomirski the ancien regime and provides the most elo-

tained by a fireworks display in the Piazza arrived in 1785; she commissioned a full-length quent testimony to the cosmopolitan character
Colonna. Anton von Maron, Mengs's brother- marble portrait of her son, Prince Henry of the eighteenth century. The Grand Tour has
in-law and an important painter in his own Lubomirski as Cupid, from the young Canova, received much attention from scholars in the

right, served Maximilian as cicerone, his native awork that is still in the family's possession. last decade and has been the subject of a major
command of German being much in his favor While the number of titled Britons who recent exhibition.'" but there has not been a
in such a capacity. Pius VI even illuminated the came to Rome throughout the century is too sustained attempt to describe and document
dome of St. Peter's in the archduke's honor, a great to list in detail, the unprecedented visits visually both the Roman and the international
rare distinction even for visitors of the highest of members of the Protestant royal family repercussions of this unprecedented degree of
rank. Other members of the Habsburg clan should be noted.* The first of these royal tours cultural and artistic cross-fertilization, one of
also visited, including the Archduchess Maria was that of Edward Augustus, Duke of York, the chief goals of the present exhibition.
Christina (sister of Queen Caroline of Naples who came in 1763 at the end of the Seven Rome had long attracted the gaze of
and Queen Marie-Antoinette of France) and Years'War and sat for a portrait by Pompeo Europe as a city of art, tradition, and even sal-
ss
her husband, Duke Albert of Saxe-Teschen, Batoni. The Duke of Gloucester, son of King vation, but only in the Settecento did it achieve
whose famed collection of Old Master draw- George III, came to the papal capital for the cult status. Roman cultural institutions, espe-

ings became the Albertina in Vienna and who third time in 1786, accompanied by his wife cially the Accademia di S. Luca, the

was also the patron of Canova's justly cele- and a large retinue. Four years later, another Accademia dell'Arcadia, and the Virtuosi al

brated Monument to the Archduchess Maria royal couple, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, Pantheon, did a great deal to foster the inter-
Christina of Austria. Although the couple came the brother and sister-in-law of George III, national republic of letters that was the chief
"'
to Rome in strict incognito, Pius still honored also came to Rome. The removal to Florence desideratum of the European intelligentsia.

the archduchess with the order of the Golden of the remnant of the Stuart Pretender court Even a summary perusal of the membership
women.
Rose, the highest papal distinction for greatly facilitated visits by members of the rosters of these academies proves the point.
In addition to the Habsburgs, many Hanoverian dynasty and also encouraged Although London, Paris, and arguably Naples
German rulers and members of their families ( rther loyalist aristocrats who no longer had were more important intellectual centers.
ventured south to the Eternal City. In the fall to worry about accidental meetings with the Rome was the intellectual entrepot, the cul-

of 1775 Prince Leopold of Brunswick arrived, Pretender or his entourage that could be mis- tural clearing house, and the academy of

accompanied by the amateur and art theorist interpreted back in Britain. Europe." As has been mentioned, the foreign
1

Gotthold F.phraim Lessing, who served him as The aristocratic visitations by the French presence in Rome, however that may be
cicerone. A few weeks later, the heir to the never matched the enthusiasm of the Brit ish in defined, substantially shaped the cultural
Duchy of Brunswick, the Margrave of terms of numbers, but several members of the and artistic lile ol the citv. and its impact on
Ansbach-Bayreuth, joined his compatriots. In Bourbon royal family visited Rome, especially antiquities and archaeology, on the art market
1777 Landgrave Friedrich of Hcssc-Kassell and The expenses incurred on these
after 1780. and modern professional practice, and on
Prince August of Saxe-Gotha were received by occasions by Cardinal de Bernis led him to patterns of European art collecting cannot
the pope. The pace of princely visitations complain bitterly about the mania for travel. be overestimated.
accelerated in 1780 with the Duke and The cousin of Louis XV, Louis-Philippe, Due Any attempt to reconstruct late eighteenth-
Duchess of Courland spending six months in d'Orleans, and his duchess (who had already century Europe's idealized vision ol Rome

i n 1 ki ro 1 01 1 UROIM
 Fig. 16 The Portland Vase, Roman, first century bc.
glass, sardonyx and cameo; British Museum,
London

ate member of the Royal Society of

Antiquaries in London. Itsmost celebrated
visualization, however, is Henry Fuseli's
drawing The Artist Moved by the Grandeur of
Ancient Ruins of 1778-79 (fig. 15). Indeed,
Fuseli's artistic circle in Rome was the most
important locus of Piranesi's almost meta-
physical vision of Roman antiquity."
6

Piranesi's fantasy became a type of reality

for many Grand Tourists, and on no national
group did his visualization have a greater
Fig. 15 Henry Fuseli, The Artist Moved by the Grandeur of Ancient Ruins, 1778-79, red chalk and sepia wash on impact than on the British, who were the main
paper; Kunsthaus Zurich purchasers of his engravings.
Our single most valuable source for docu-
menting Europe's obsession with Settecento
must begin with the prints of Giovanni Piranesi deliberately selected a di sotto in sii Rome is travel literature. An extraordinary
Battista Piranesi. In such publications as Le (worm's-eye) perspective and literally fabri- number of travel accounts were penned by
vedute di Roma, Le antichita romane (1756), Dclle cated an enormous pile of cut stones to give tourists of both genders and almost all nation-
magnificenze (1761), and Campo Marzio (1762), an impression of overwhelming grandeur and alities from a remarkable variety of social,
among others, Piranesi's matchless engravings monumentality (cat. 438). In part reflecting the spiritual, intellectual, and political perspec-

gave Europe a thrilling visual image of the artist's sublime sensibilities, the print also tives. Published accounts appeared in the form
ancient and the modern city as a sublime place serves to make the polemical point about the of collected letters to family and friends or as
of monumentality, decay, urban splendor, and peerless magnificence of scale and design that personal diaries, but most authors wrote with
romantic fascination." 4 In fact, many visitors Piranesi championed in ancient Roman art as a wider public in mind, particularly fashioning
to the city had been so swept away by the a superior conception to the more diminutive their narratives to reveal taste and erudition.
Venetian architect's vision of Rome that they scale and restrained expression of Greek art Many, of course, were intended as guides for
were disappointed in the actual scale of the promoted by Winckelmann, Mengs, and those who would follow them to Rome."" By
ancient monuments when they saw them, not Cardinal Albani." 5
far the most common feature of these books is
quite understanding Piranesi's artistic license Sublimity reaches megalomania in the their attention to the description of canonical
as chief apologist for Roman grandeur as frontispiece to U Campo Marzio dell'antica Roma, works of art and conspicuous monuments,
opposed to Creek simplicity (the greatest aes- a visionary "reconstruction" of the area of the although these rarely rise above the level of
thetic debate of the late Settecento). Two ancient city between the Pantheon and the cliche. Some tourists, such as Charles-Nicolas
examples may serve as cases in point. In View mausoleum of Augustus. The audience for Cochin, made numerous comments on works
of the Foundations of Hadrian's Mausoleum (the such a vision is hinted at in the inscription, in of art elsewhere in Italy but gave up on Rome
Castel S. Angelo) from Le antichita romane, which Piranesi identifies himself as an associ- as being beyond description, both in number

38 ENTREPOT OF EUROPE
of noteworthy monuments and in their high churches; the ancient monuments; aristocratic restored works the patina of age, and he oper-
s
quality. "
The reaction of the English visitor and other private collections; and, after 1736, ated a cameo factory that produced objects
Thomas Gray in a letter of April 2, 1740, to his the Museo Capitolino and, later, the Museo that were sold as genuine antiquities to unsus-
"4
mother exemplifies the awestruck reaction of Pio-Clementino. Only in the eighteenth century pecting tourists. 1

Charles Townley, who

so many tourists: "As high as my expectation did the distinction between museums and amassed one of the largest collections of
was raised, I confess, the magnificence of this private collections take on its modern meaning, antique sculpture in eighteenth-century
city infinitely surpasses it. You cannot pass the museum becoming increasingly associated Britain, often used Jenkins as his agent. The
along a street but you have views of some with the notion of public accessibility. Before dearth of high-quality ancient sculpture in the
palace, or church, or square, or fountain, the 1750 such "public" museums were primarily Townley collection, celebrated in the famous
most picturesque and noble one can imagine.""'' an Italian phenomenon (examples existed at painting by John Zoffany, is excellent evidence
Many observers, however, were willing Turin, Verona, Naples, Cortona, and even of the vigilance of the Roman government.
both to praise and to blame, andmany of their Volterra, in addition to those at Rome). These Byres seems to have concerned himself
commentaries, flush with juicy anecdotes, collections privileged ancient sculpture, and with the picture trade more than with the sale
have done much to form the modern concep- the rise of the museum as the essential strategy of restored antiquities, and he had some singu-
tion of Settecento Rome. Dr. John Moore, of display of institutionalized culture is closely lar successes. In 1764 he arranged the sale of
whose account of Pius VI's Lateran possesso linked to the secularization of European elites, Nicolas Poussin's Assumption of the Virgin, now
cavalcade has already been discussed, is an even in papal Rome."' no surprise to learn
!
It is in the National Gallery in Washington, from
especially informative source. As a physician that the Grand Tour put great demands on the the collection of Count Soderini to Brownlow
and cultural adviser to the Duke of Hamilton, Roman cultural establishment for edifying Cecil, 9th Earl of Exeter. He was probably the
Moore belonged to the intellectually elite entertainment, and the establishment and earl's cicerone in Rome, a role he had also
bourgeoisie that had such a crucial impact proliferation of museums were predictable played for Edward Gibbon, among many
on the Roman cultural milieu. In addition to consequences. other cultural celebrities. Byres's most famous
remarking on the better-known monuments The urge to acquire works of both high and acquisitionwas the Portland Vase (fig. 16), a
and repeating local gossip, Moore described decorative art was strong among most visitors cameo and glass object from the first century bc
events that give great insight into life in the to SettecentoRome, but only the richest and purchased from Donna Cornelia Barberini-
eighteenth-century city. His story of a Scottish most culturally ambitious could purchase Colonna, who needed cash to pay gambling
Presbyterian's abuse of the pope during a cere- major works of art, and then often with con- debts. In 1783 Byres was able to sell it to Sir
mony in St. Peter's (the disturbed fanatic had siderable difficulty. A number of agents active William Hamilton, and the vase eventually
gone to Rome especially for the purpose of in Rome could help those with enough money entered the collection of the British Museum.
converting Pius VI to the Scottish Kirk) is to buy second-rank, often heavily restored, In his apartment near the Piazza di Spagna
entertaining evidence for the relative freedom ancient statues. Bartolomeo Cavaceppi's Byres displayed numerous works by contem-
of speech enjoyed in the papal capital.""' Lansdowne Diskobolos, an antique fragment porary artists, and since he was frequently
Moore also praised the skills of the Vatican restored in 1772-76, is an above average found at home by his clients, he had the
mosaicists in preserving astonishingly faithful example of the types of ancient statues opportunity to connect patrons to practicing
copies of the oil on canvas masterpieces in tourists were actually able to export from artists. He owned Gavin Hamilton's Cupid and
St. Peter's that were being transferred to more Rome (cat. 121). Many collectors were frus- Psyche, View of the Ponte Mollc by Jacob More,
salubrious locations.'"' Even in his descriptions trated by the inalienability of the most impor- The Origin oj Painting by David Allan, and
of celebrated antiquities, Moore often reveals tant works, regardless of whether they were a Giuseppe Cades's The Origin of Music, along
something a bit out of the ordinary. Describing part of the "public" patrimony or in Roman with paintings, pastels, and portraits by
the Farnese Hercules, he singles it out as a private collections, since papal anti-exporta- Nathaniel Dance, Hugh Douglas Hamilton,
model of masculine strength (typical enough), tion edicts were surprisingly effective, despite Batoni, Maron, and Henry Raeburn, and
but adds that many women did not like it, the modern notion that rich British tourists graphic works by Fuseli and Piranesi, among
finding in it "something unsatisfactory, and picked the city clean during the heyday of the many others.' ""
even odious." He relates the reaction of an Grand Tour. In fact, papal edicts set the tone The nefarious extraction of Poussin's cele-
unnamed lady with whom he visited the for similar legislation elsewhere in Europe brated Seven Sacraments from the Bonapaduli
Palazzo Farnese who turned from the statue during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries collection and their private sale to the Duke of
in disgust, saying it reminded her more of a and are good indicator of how effective the
a Rutland for £2,000 was Byres's most spectac-
crude giant and a ravisher of women than "the government could be when dealing with such ular professional achievement as an art dealer.
gallant Hercules, the lover of Omphale.""" a vital issue.'" 4 New excavations were the best This shocking fraud led Joshua Reynolds to
Such language underlines the importance of resource for foreign collectors, but even then expose it to Rutland, saying that it would likely

gender to cultural response. the pope had first refusal of the finest works be repeated, given the difficulty of exporting
Most eighteenth-century visitors to Rome unearthed, and rarely did a first-rate antiquity important works of art from Rome. The
came to see the sights, enjoy church ceremonies, elude the papal net. Bonapaduli had tried to sell the seven pictures
witness popular festivals, meet compatriots of Among the many agents who assisted many times but had never been able to secure
social and political influence, and purchase tourists in augmenting their art collections, an export license. Byres saw to it that each of
souvenirs of various types, including small the Britons Thomas Jenkins and James Byres the paintings was copied in great secrecy and
mosaics (usually framed), cameos, coins, enjoyed the greatest success. Jenkins, who like that the copies slowly replaced the originals,
medals, prints (usually views of the city and its Byres also doubled as a cicerone, kept which were hidden. By November i~Ss Byres
environs), and, occasionally, a picture or a small Cavaceppi, Bracci, and other sculptors occu- possessed all the originals and by the follow-
statue. On the Roman itinerary were the studios pied with antiquities restorations. Jenkins ing summer they were in England, probably
of the most important established Roman condoned such dubious practices as staining legally exported as copies. While it is likely
artists, above all Batoni and Canova; the major new marble with tobacco juice to give the that kev officials were bribed. Bvrcs was

I N I Kl TO I Ol 11 IROIM
 him because of his mercurial personality. In of this exhibition, however, was its emphasis
addition to the Fury of Athamas (fig. 100), which on historical documentation that often over-
he commissioned from John Flaxman, proba- looked questions of artistic exchange and
bly at Canova's instigation, he was also a major quality. The result was a major contribution
patron of Jacob More, and ordered more than to Roman antiquarianism that had little impact
a dozen landscapes for his new mansion, on the broader field of Italian art history and
Ickworth, in Suffolk. "" Finally, Gavin
1

did little to assimilate eighteenth-century

Hamilton's Death of Lucretia (cat. 231) was com- Rome into the sequence of period "styles."
missioned by Lord Charles Hope: its depiction Moreover, ll Settecento a Roma failed to have a
of a scene from ancient Roman hi story significant impact on the public's conscious-
encouraged many other artists to pursue com- ness, and the art of the era remained an art-

missions for paintings of historical themes in historical footnote.

addition to the ubiquitous portraits and view Subsequent exhibitions have also been
paintings that were so much in demand. problematic, if in different ways. Painting in
Angelika Kauffmann's conspicuous interest in Italy in the Eighteenth Century: Rococo to
painting scenes from ancient history and litera- Romanticism, the title of a 1970 exhibition seen
turewas arguably encouraged by the success of in Toledo, Chicago, and Minneapolis, was an
such artists as Hamilton in attracting foreign attempt to overview Settecento Italian art by
patronage for such subjects."" dividing it into "local" schools. " Despite this
1

Major commissions from Grand Tourists exhibition's emphasis on works of high quality,

for sculptures, history paintings, and altar- it had many conceptual problems. First of all,
pieces from Rome's large colony of artists Rococo and Romanticism are highly problem-
helped to create a flourishing cultural entre- atic terms for characterizing eighteenth-
Fig. 17 Anton Raphael Mengs, Pmcus and Andromeda, pot that highly valued history painting and century Roman art, and the limitation to
1777, oil on canvas; The State Hermitage Museum, sculptures on historical themes. This phe- painting, while understandable, did little to
St. Petersburg nomenon stands in stark contrast to com- stake out a broader context for the arts in
plaints from French and British artists back general. As a result of the exhibition catalogue's

home about the dearth of commissions for being divided into regional sections, such
nonetheless able to take clients to see the subjects that ranked in the highest category artists as Sebastiano Conca and Corrado
"
"Poussins" in Palazzo Bonapaduli without in the academic hierarchy of the genres. 1
Giaquinto, to name only two of the most
""
blushing.
1

It should be noted, however, that History painting and monumental sculpture obvious, were discussed only in the Neapolitan
the export of Old Master paintings by such werealive and well in eighteenth-century school, although they were also obviously of
artists as Salvator Rosa, Claude, Poussin, Rome. Indeed, it was to Rome that Jacques- great significance to Rome. And no non-Italian
Dughet, and others, especially if they were Louis David returned in 1784 to execute The artists were included at all, a fact that greatly

landscapes or genre paintings, was much less Oath of the Horatii (fig. 18), a picture that limited the exhibition's ability to present a
difficult than works by Raphael (which were became a manifesto of a formally innovative, convincing picture of the international char-
coveted above all others, leading to a cottage politicized Neoclassicism that absorbed and acter of the Roman eighteenth century.
industry in fakes) and the Bolognese, which transmogrified Roman traditions, ironically Finally, The Academy of Europe: Rome in the

were vigilantly watched as a vital part of the helping to create a new type of painting that 18th Century, an exhibition organized by the
Roman patrimony. would be substantially independent of the clas- University of Connecticut in 1973, attempted a
In addition to the numerous portrait com- sicizing traditions represented by Rome. It was broader, multi-media overview of Settecento
missions from visiting foreigners given to such the beginning of the end of Roman supremacy Rome while paying special attention to the
Roman artists as Maratti, Chiari, Trevisani, in the arts in the European imagination. cosmopolitan character of cultural production.
Masucci, Batoni, and Mengs, and to resident This exhibition showcased graphic art, both
Hugh
foreigners such as Subleyras, Hewetson, drawings and engravings, as pedagogical tools
CONCLUSION
Douglas Hamilton, and many others, com- and tokens of memory. The catalogue entries
missions from elite Grand Tourists for works In order for its significance to be fully under- are still useful in reconstructing the historical
in other genres were also vital to the Roman stood, and its goals evaluated, the present context in which the exhibited objects were
artistic community. Three examples may exhibition needs to be placed in the historical created. A small budget and a peripheral venue,
stand for numerous others. Sir Watkin sequence of exhibitions devoted to Settecento however, precluded foreign loans and the
Williams-Wynn, an extremely wealthy Welsh Italy and to Rome. The first comprehensive inclusion of large-scale works, impediments
baronet, commissioned Bacchus and Ariadne exhibition of Settecento Roman visual culture that greatly diminished the exhibition's public

from Batoni and Mengs's Perseus and occurred in 1959, under the auspices of the profile. It also helped perpetuate the antiquar-
Andromeda (fig. 17) , arguably the Saxon Associazione Amici dei Musei di Roma." This !
ian approach manifested on a more ambitious
painter's masterpiece. Now in the Hermitage, pioneering show included objects in many dif- scale in the 1959 Rome exhibition. And while
Williams-Wynn unfortunately never saw ferent media and was especially important for subsequent exhibitions devoted to individual
Mengs's picture, since the ship on which it was its attempt to integrate the so-called minor arts artists, particular types of art, and broader cul-
being transported to Britain was seized by a (prints, metalwork, vestments, furniture, and tural currents have done much to increase our

French privateer.'"" Frederick Hervey, Earl of so on, objects now referred to more accurately knowledge of eighteenth-century art, until

Bristol and Bishop of Derry, was also an active- as material culture) into a visual narrative that now there has been no opportunity to view
art patron with an immense fortune, although historically had privileged painting, sculpture, Settecento Roman art in a synthetic and com-
few artists had fully satisfactory dealings with and architectural design. One major problem prehensive manner.

40 KNTRKPOT OF I.UKOJ'F
 have perpetuated the shadow of the Baroque
over the eighteenth century (Enggass 1976).
5 No exhibition of eighteenth-century Roman art
to date can compare to such ambitious efforts
as the Metropolitan Museum of Art's 1989 exhi-
bition of the works of Canaletto (see Baetjer and
Links 1989). The vast bibliography included in
this splendid exhibition catalogue (only the
most sumptuous of many such publications
devoted to the Venetian view painter) gives a
fair indication of modern interest in the artist.
It is arguable that more has been written on
Canaletto in English than on all the major
artists of Settecento Rome combined. am I not
arguing that Canaletto is unworthy of the atten-
tion, but only that his intense popularity among
scholars and the public has created a distortion
of his historical importance. On a smaller scale,
the same could be said of Canaletto's compa-
triot Pietro Longhi.
4 For Mengs's popularity among the British visi-
tors to Rome, both as a historical painter and as
a portraitist, see Roettgen 1993, with additional
bibliography.
5 The best source for Hervey is still Ford 1974,
"The Earl-Bishop," pp. 426-34. See also the
detailed entry in Ingamells's magisterial study
(Ingamells 1997, pp. 126-30), with considerable
notations of primary source materials both
published and unpublished.
6 Some eighteenth-century survey courses have
adopted the rather breezy overview by Levey
1966, which has been reprinted by Oxford
University Press. Levey's purpose was not
to produce a comprehensive survey, but his

Only the remarkable growth in scholarship Notes neglect of Rome has been detrimental to the
desire for a more balanced evaluation of
devoted to the Settecento Romano in the last Sources listed in the notes are meant to be helpful references
Settecento Italian art and to the inclusion of
two decades has made such an ambitious to additional information on the topics under discussion and
Roman material in eighteenth-century survey
exhibition as the present one possible, a sine should be complemented by the more complete bibliographic
classes.
references accompanying the catalogue entries and the other
Wittkower 1982.
qua non predicted by such pioneers as Ellis 7
essays. I would like to thank Edgar Peters Bowron, Fred
Waterhouse and Anthony Morris Clark, 8 Held and Posner 1971. Another characteristic-
Licht, Mary D. Sheriff, Jeffrey L. Collins. Richard
feature of this text is the inclusion of Pierre
among others." 4 In specialized studies too B. Wright, Maurie D. Mcltmis, Elizabeth Moodcy. Karin
/.
Subleyras in the chapter on eighteenth-century
numerous to mention scholars have initiated Wolfe, Paul Barolsky, Tommaso Manfrcdi, and Jon Scydlfor
France, even though Subleyras spent his entire
a systematic historical and cultural recon- assistance and encouragement. All translations are my own career in Rome. A recent text (Craske 1997)
unless otherwise indicated.
struction of Settecento Rome that has done refreshingly foregrounds Rome as the center of
much to establish the century as an indepen- 1 Sir Joshua Reynolds, "Discourse XIV," in
European culture and academic ideology, but
2nd ed.. edited by Robert R.
Discourses on Art,
largely ignores contemporary Roman artists
dent "field" of art-historical inquiry. Quite fit-
Wark (New Haven and London: Yale University and architects, with the predictable exception
tingly, this has been an international effort. of Batoni. The same could be said of Boime
Press, 197s), pp. 248-49. The text reads "I will
And although there is still much to be done,
venture to prophecy, that two of the last distin-
1987.

the emergence of anew cadre of younger guished Painters of that country [Italy], I mean 9 The chief apologist in English for barocchctto is

Robert Enggass (see Enggass 1972. pp. 81-86).

scholars who have decided to make the Pompeio Battoni. and Raffaelle Mengs. however
great their names may at present sound in our
Enggass does not limit the term's application
Roman Settecento their home is encouraging.
ears, will very soon fall into the rank of
to Tiepolo and Venice. See my critique of baroc-
What has been lacking until now, however, is a Johns 1993. pp. 206—7, and passim.
chctto in
Imperialc. Sebastian Concha. Placido
synthetic vision, the type of definitive state- Constanza, Massuccio. and the rest of their Ornament and decoration were of profound
ment that will take the level of intellectual dis- immediate predecessors; whose names, though importance to eighteenth-century art, and they
renowned in their lifetime, are now were viewed positively (see Bauer 1962). For a
course in this emerging field to a new level. Art equally
what is little short of total oblivion." provocative study of the organic relationship
fallen into
in Rome in the Eighteenth Century approaches between
Discourse XIV was delivered to the Royal art and decoration in a French context,
that definitive statement, in the sense that it si'c Scott K. 1995, although this study docs not
Academy on December 10, 1788, and is an
embodies the current state of thinking on the attack on the work of the recently deceased
deeply concern itself with gender issues.
topic and charts a course for future research. Thomas Gainsborough, although in the guise 10 Charles Poerson. director of the French

of a eulogy. Academy at Rome, actually became Principe

This "definitive" character is, hopefully, only
2 Two books deserve mention here: Bindman and (President) of the Accademia di S. Luca after the
of the moment. The overriding purpose is to death of Carlo Maratti See Johns 1988,
in 1-14.
Baker 199s. and Minor 1997. Robert Enggass did
provoke reaction and reexamination and, pp. 1-23.
much to promote the study ol Settecento
above all, to present a vital and intensely influ- Roman si ulpture, but the book's limited 11 In an attempt to encourage peiisiomiaircs to

ential century of Rome's cultural and artistic chronological span and emphasis on stylistic
returnhome alter their studies in Rome, the
description, based on Baroque descriptive French Academy frowned upon students
history to an audience now equipped to evalu- cate-
gories (Bernincsquc. bawcchetto, and so on), accepting local commissions without permis-
ate it on its own terms. sion. Pierre Lcgros's major work for the chapel
ol S. Ignazio in 11 Clesu in the Kmjos irritated his

I NIK POI I Ol 1 t'ROPI

 .

academic superiors. For the chapel see Levy hoping to new patrons. Tiepolo's extended
find 28 For the Paleochristian revival generally and the
1993. ForLegros's activities in Rome, see Bissell sojourns Wurzburg and Spain are similar
in restoration of the basilica of S. Clemente in par-
1997. The prominence of French sculptors in the cases in point. Rome, on the other hand, was ticular, see Johns 1993, pp. 39-54, and 94-117.
series of statues for the nave of St. John Lateran flourishing in the same era. Few major Roman 29 The decoration of the nave of St. John Lateran
is discussed in Johns 1989, pp. 279-85. artists expatriated themselves for economic was an extremely expensive undertaking, 5,000
12 For Fragonard's activities and around Rome,
in reasons during the eighteenth century, while scudi being required for each of the Apostle
see Rosenberg 1988, pp. 61-70, which includes a many outsiders came to Rome with the expec- statues and 800 scudi for each of the Prophet
useful chronology. For Saint-Non and the tation of patronage. Indeed, Pompeo Batoni paintings. Clement XI very resourcefully
Voyage tpittorcsquc, see the excellent study by Petra refused an invitation to become Frederick the secured money from many Italian and foreign
Lamers (Lamers 199s). Great's court painter in Potsdam, and a number prelates and dignitaries by appealing to their
13 Haskell 1971, especially pp. 38-62. Haskell's of important Neapolitan artists worked also in Catholic sentiments while holding out the pos-
briefand highly negative view of Roman paint- Rome, Francesco Solimena and especially sibility of future political consideration. For this
ing in the early Settecento is related to his iden- Corrado Giaquinto being prominent among innovative way of financing cultural initiatives,
tification of a "decline" of Roman patronage in them. How the old stereotypes about the see Johns 1993, pp. 82-83. In this way, Clement
the wake of anti-nepotism. In a more positive decline of art patronage in Settecento Rome XI was able to save the money left by Cardinal
light, would emphasize the different nature of
I can continue to be repeated in the face of over- Pamphili for the erection of a much-needed
patronage before and after the bull suppressing whelming contrary evidence is still a mystery. fac,ade, an undertaking completed by Alessandro
nepotism, while declining to privilege one or 24 For an eyewitness account of the deposition of < Galilei for Clement XII in 1736. Elisabeth
the other in relation to my own aesthetic Pius VI and the sack of the city in 1798-99, see Kieven's long-awaited study of Galilei should
preferences. Duppa 1799. The spoliation was both system- shed new light on the financing of the facade.
14 An excellent case study of the importance of atic, as in the selective looting of the Vatican 30 For an overview of Roman urbanism during the
nepotism to Seicento papal families is found in Museum and the Museo Capitolino and the Albani pontificate, see Johns 1993, especially
Scott J.
thank Professor Scott for many
1991. 1 summary confiscation of the property of the chapter 8. For the Trevi Fountain, see Pinto

illuminating discussions about this and related Braschi and Albani families, and spontaneous, 1986, and for the Spanish Steps, see the still fun-
issues. as in the looting of the Vatican Library. Chilling damental Lotz 1969, pp. 39-94. For the Porto di
15 For the zelanti, Cardinal Albani, and the bull of stories of illuminated manuscript pages scat- Ripetta, see Marder 1975.
suppression of papal nepotism, see Johns 1993, tered through the Borgo where looters had cast 31 Alberoni, who was a close advisor to King
pp. 15-19. Ironically, Albani had been made car- them aside, interested only in the gold lettering Philip V and Queen Elisabetta Farnese of Spain,
dinal by Alexander VIII Ottoboni, whose spec- on the vellum bindings, are characteristic of this encouraged them to attack Sicily and Sardinia,
tacular nepotism did much to provoke rather sensationalized account. Church fur- possessions of the Habsburg monarchy, while
Innocent XH's reaction. nishings and vestments, medals, and any the imperial armies were fighting the Ottomans
16 Johns 1993, especially chapter 2. portable object of value were among the chief in the Balkans. The surprise invasion forced the
17 The positive evaluation of intellectual life at mounted on the backs of
losses. Smelters Austrians to settle with the Turks so that their
Rome is a frequent theme of Goethe's Italian wagons made their way from church to church, armies could turn to Italy to meet the Spanish
journey of 1786 to 1788 (Goethe [1788] 1982). melting down patens, chalices, gospel book threat. This perfidy (the Spanish were in alliance
While not diminishing the importance of his covers, croziers, processional crosses, and other with the empire) ended Clement Holy XI's
evaluation of Rome, Goethe's intense franco- objects fashioned in precious metals. The loss League and the papacy was accused by Austria
phobia should be kept in mind when assessing to the Roman artistic patrimony is incalculable. of being in collusion with the Spanish invasion.
his statements about France. Both Rome and 25 The best study of the political vicissitudes of the Alberoni's trial was partly an appeasement of
France in theory had strict censorship of pub- Settecento papacy Chadwick 1981. Volumes
is Austria and partly an attempt to punish a cardi-
lished and spoken words, but in both places it 30-40 of Pastor's monumental History of the nal who had so damaged papal diplomatic cred-
was only sporadically effective. Popes are still fundamental, although the papal- ibility.

18 Quoted in Pastor 1938-53, vol. 35, pp. 182-83. ist agenda is everywhere evident (Pastor 32 For the St. Peter mosaics, see DiFederico 1983,
For additional sources on Benedict XIV and the 1938-53)- PP- 59-72. with additional bibliography.
arts, see especially Biagi Maino 1998. 26 Chadwick observed that "more
(1981, p. 274) 33 The entry for August 16, 1723, in the Diario
19 Johns 1993. pp. 26-28, with additional bibliog- calamities happened to the Papacy during this Ordinario di Roma, popularly called Chracas,
raphy. pontificate [that of Clement XI] than under any records Innocent's intentions vis-a-vis the
20 Pastor 1938-53, vol. 35, pp. 223-25. Ottoboni's Pope since the Reformation." For a discussion Lateran facade and the Spanish Steps: "Our
library included theformer papal libraries of of Albani and the daunting political problems Lord [the Pope] . . . has ordered that the facade
Pope Marcellus II and Alexander VII, that of he faced, see Johns 1993, pp. 1-6, with additional of the Sacrosanct Lateran Basilica be erected . .

Cardinal Ascanio Colonna, Duke Giovanni bibliography. and similarly the staircase of the Minims at
Angelo Altemps, and the enormously impor- 27 The subject of the first class in architecture for Monte Pincio. and many other things" (entry
tant collection of Queen Christina of Sweden, the Concorso Clementino of 1716 was a project no. 967). Among these "other things" was a gift
whose antiquities had unfortunately already left for a church to be erected in gratitude for a of 3,000 scudi fora restoration of the church of
the city to enter the royal collection in Madrid. victory, a theme Holy
also closely related to the S. Eustachio; De' Conti had been born in this
In total, there were more than 3,300 manu- League activities of the pope. In fact, Clement parish. The high altar painting of the restored
scripts in Greek, Latin, and Hebrew in addition XI and subsequent pontiffs often used the church (not completed until the 1730s) is The
to hundreds of printed books. Benedict's inter- Accademia di S. Luca student competitions as Martyrdom of Saint Eustace, the masterpiece of
est in the Vatican Library was also manifested in "laboratories." in Hellmut Hager's phrase, for Francesco Fernandi. called Imperiali. This
his decision to begin the colossal inventory of projects under consideration. For the architec- neglected painter is better known as Batoni's
the collections, something for which all schol- tural Concorso of 1716, see Hager 1981, teacher. See Associazione Culturale Alma
ars must be thankful. pp. 86-95. For Marchetti's entry in the context Roma 1997, vol. 1. p. 21.

11 for the Capponi monument, see Levey 1993, of Albani's plans for the Capitoline Hill, see 34 For Ghezzi, the son of the Accademia di S. Luca
pp. 113-15, with additional bibliography. Johns 1993, pp. 190-94. Related projects of life secretary Giuseppe Ghezzi and godson to
22 Gross 1990. See my review of this problematic Clement XI include the installation of a papal Carlo Maratti, see Martinelli 1990 and, more
book in Johns 1991, pp. 204-5. portrait gallery in the Palazzo del Quirinale of recently, Lo Bianco 1999.
23 Baroque Antwerp and Settecento Venice are marble busts of pontiffs who had been active in 35 The most notable saints canonized by Benedict
only two examples of flourishing cultural and anti-Ottoman activities and the erection of XIII were Margaret of Cortona and Toribio of
intellectual centers in dramatic economic and Alessandro Specchi's triumphal portico in the Lima, a New World saint who joined his com-
political decline. It is perhaps significant that courtyard of the Palazzo dei Conservatori on patriotRose of Lima, who had been canonized
many of the leading artists and intellectuals of the Capitoline Hill. For Fontana's designs for the by Pope Clement X Altieri (1670-76). Orsini also
these two cities had to seek patronage abroad. papal bust gallery, see Braham and Hager 1977, authorized the inclusion of the office of Pope
Venetian patronage was severely
in particular pp. 156-58, and Johns 1993, pp. 8-10. For Gregory VII into the Roman breviary, an act
limited in the eighteenth century, and even Specchi's arch, see especially De Felice 1982, that infuriated the Catholic monarchs, who
Canaletto spent a number of years in Fngland, with additional bibliography. viewed it as a reassertion of papal authority

I.N I Kl POT Ol LUKOPI.

 over secular rulers, recalling the papal excom- supported by subsequent pontiffs, became a also wished to stress the continuity of papal
munication of Henry IV. Such was the power of center of espionage and intrigue, in particular rule through a chronological sequence of pon-
history in the eighteenth-century imagination. before the Jacobite risings in Scotland in 1715 tifical coins, medals, and medallions from
36 For Raguzzini. see especially Rotili 1982. See also and 1745-46. The unhappy marriage produced Adrian I (772-95) to those of his own reign.
the useful study of Settecento Roman architec- two sons, Charles James Edward, known as the 50 Quoted in Pastor 1938-53, vol. 35, pp. 327-28.
ture through the pontificate of Benedict XIV by Young Pretender or Bonnie Prince Charlie, and 51 Pastor 1938-53, vol. 35, pp. 172-73. Benedict
Nina A. Mallory (Mallory 1977). The use of the Henry, Duke of York, who became a cardinal extended the discipline of the Stations of the
term Rococo for Settecento architecture is and styled himself Henry IX after the death of Cross to the Universal Church, and Leonardo da
problematic. his childless elder brother. Cardinal York was Porto Maurizio set up over 500 stational sites.

37 For the complex territorial exchanges made at the last of the Stuart line. While continuing to He was canonized in the nineteenth century by
the end of the War of the Polish Succession, see pay lip service to Stuart legitimacy, Pope Pius IX.

Sutton ). 1980, with additional bibliography. Benedict XIV came to an amicable agreement 52 Pastor 1938-53, vol. 35, pp. 312-14. The other
38 Vincent de Paul, who died in 1660, was a partic- with the Hanoverians, paving the way for semi- three saints canonized by Lambertini were the
ularly appealing candidate for sainthood in official visits by members of the royal family to Capuchins Fidelis of Sigmarigen and Giuseppe
Settecento Rome. A charismatic overachiever Rome and allowing British tourists to come to da Leonessa, and the Franciscan Pedro
who moved easily among the wealthy and pow- the city without fear of accusations of Jacobite Regalato. Benedict had beatified Camillo de
erful (he was a close advisor to Anne of Austria, sympathies. Before mid-century the activities of Lellis on April 7, 1742.
the widow of Louis XIII), he also had spectacu- British visitors to Rome were carefully moni- 53 For the Camillian painting, see Michel and
lar success in his ministry to the poor and sick, tored, and reports of contact with the Stuart Rosenberg 1987, pp. 307-13. The red cross worn
especially in areas ravaged by war. As the court were sent by such agents as Philipp von on the habits of the Camillian brothers is still

founder of the Lazarists he set an example for Stosch to the British resident in Florence, associated with hospitals and healing.
disinterested Christian service (Lazarists were Horace Mann, since there were no official diplo- 54 Michel and Rosenberg 1987, pp. 317-18.
not allowed to accept ecclesiastical prefer- matic ties between London and Rome. For the 55 For the importance of the Sacred Heart to Jesuit

ments), and he also established the Sisters of Stuart court as a center of political and cultural devotions and for Batoni's painting, see Johns
Charity, the first order of uncloistered women espionage, manifested above all in the person of 1998, "That Amiable Object," pp. 19-28, with
dedicated to nursing and teaching. The the collector, antiquarian, and spy Stosch, see additional bibliography.
Lazarists and Sisters of Charity were objects of Lewis 1961, with additional bibliography. 56 For Batoni's portrait of Clement XIII. see Clark
admiration even for the philosophes, because of 45 For Batoni's painting, see Clark and Bowron and Bowron 1985, p. 279.
their social utility. Such a canonization was also 1985, p. 269. 57 Translated in Pastor 1938-53, vol. 36, p. 183;
a notable political gesture toward Louis XV. 46 For Fuga's activities at S. Maria Maggiore, see taken from Justi 1923, vol. 2, p. 15.
39 Many controversies surround the (ansenist sect. Matthiae 1952, pp. 29-30, and 33-38. See also 58 For Piranesi's activities for Giovanni Battista
It was named for the seventeenth-century Pane 1956, pp. 73-94- Rezzonico and the church of S. Maria del
Dutch bishop Jansen, who promoted a severe 47 For Gregorini and Passalacqua and the renova- Priorato, see Jatta 1998. thank John Wilton-Ely
1

form of Augustinian theology that was widely tion of S. Croce in Gerusalemme, see especially for allowing me to accompany him on a tour of
interpreted as anti-authoritarian in both the Mallory 1977, pp. 145-70, with additional bibli- the Aventine exhibition Piranesi sull' Avctino in
ecclesiastical and political sense. Jansenism also ography. Mallory presents a convincing case for September 1998 and for so graciously answer-
favored a quasi-Protestant form of predestina- Gregorini as the primary architect, and appo- ing my many questions.
tion that directly challenged traditional Catholic sitely notes the combination of earlier Rococo 59 For Mengs and for the Vatican Allegory of History
dogma. Endemic in France and the Low elements into the new monumentally in Roman fresco, see especially Roettgen 1980,
Countries but influential almost everywhere, by architecture estalbished under Clement XII by pp. 189-246, with additional bibliography.
the early eighteenth century the ideology was and Fuga.
Galilei 60 For the Palazzo Braschi and the dealings of
considered a threat to the sacred and secular 48 Benedict XIV was able to extend his patronage Pius VI with his nephew, see Collins 1995, espe-
authorities, and Clement XI condemned it, at through the encouragement of others. The cially chapter 4. Professor Collins is currently
Louis XIV's insistence, in the bull Unigenitus of Marchese Girolamo Teodoli's reconstruction of preparing for publication a book on the art
1713, easilythe most controversial papal docu- the small church of Ss. Pietro e Marcellino. with patronage of Pius VI.
ment of the century. Many progressives its small but exquisite high altar painting of the 61 For the ecclesiastical disputes between Joseph II
embraced Jansenism as a means of subversion martyrdom of the titular saints by Gaetano and Pius VI and the issue of Josephinism, see
of the absolutist system and of Jesuit influence. Lapis, is a case in point. Like many previous especially Chadwick 1981, pp. 411-18, with addi-
While the French government and various pontiffs, Benedict urged cardinals titular to pay tional bibliography.
popes were ultimately successful in eradicating attention to the state of repair of the churches 62 See Chadwick 1981, pp. 418-31, with additional
Jansenism as a viable movement, it was entrusted to their care and to see to their bibliography.
absorbed into the Enlightenment critique of embellishment. The renovation of the church 63 For the Treaty of Tolentino and the cultural
both institutions and was arguably an impor- of S. Michele in Borgo was achieved in this spoliation of Rome, see Johns 1998, pp. 172-75,
tant precedent for much revolutionary thought. manner. One other project should be men- with additional bibliography.
The bibliography on Jansenism is vast. See espe- tioned in this context —
the reorientation and 64 For Pius's sacristy, see especially Collins 1995.
cially Chadwick 1981, pp. 273-78, which may embellishment of the basilica of S. Maria degli chapter 5. with additional bibliography. The
serve as a useful introduction. Angeli in the Baths of Diocletian. At best discussion of Marchionni is still Gaus 1967.
40 For the design process for the Lateran facade Lambertini's orders, the architect Luigi Clement XI's competition for designs for a new
and especially for Fuga's ideas, see Kieven 1988, Vanvitelli reoriented the church built by sacristy, held in 1715, was an important source
p. 41. Michelangelo and created an enlarged transept for Marchionni, and a number ol the models
41 For Fuga's designs for the Palazzo della out of what had been the nave. In addition, he survive (sec Hager 1970). Nicola Michetti's
Consulta, see Kieven 1988, pp. 43-46, with addi- presented a number of important altarpieces design is included in the present exhibition.
tional bibliography. from adorn the new transept,
St. Peter's to 65 For the Braschi obelisks, see Collins 1997, with
42 Fuga's work at the Palazzo Corsini is described including Subleyras's grand Mass of Saint Basil additional bibliography.
in Kieven 1988, pp. 51-54, with additional bibli- and Batoni's controversial Fall oj Simon Magus. 66 For an enlightening discussion o! collaborative
ography. See also Manfredi 199s, pp. 399-411. The Sublcyras altarpiece had been replaced by a excavations in Rome, see Wilton and Bignamini
43 For Fuga and the Corsini Chapel, see the appro- mosaic copy in the Vatk an basilica, which was 1996, pp. 2o)-5. « ith additional bibliography.
priate sections in Matthiae 1952, and Pane 1956. notorious for its dampness. Many of Benedict's Unfortunately, in two major instances the pope
For Della Valle's Temperance, see Minor 1997, ecclesiastical projects were geared towards was not able to prevent the export of celebrated
pp JO—35, with additional bibliography.
1
improving the city's churches in anticipation of antiquities. In 1775 the Grand Duke ol Tuscany
44 The marriage of the Old Pretender to a Polish the jubilee year of 1750. decided to transfer the major works Irom the
princess, Clementina Sobieski, was arranged by 49 Pastor 1938-5!. vol. 35, pp. 219-22. As a scholar, Villa Medici in Rome (grand ducal property) to
Clement XI, who provided a subsidy for the Benedict was aware ol the usefulness of an Florence. Twelve years later, in 1-8- most of the
maintenance of the Stuart court in Rome's inventory lor such a collection, and he commis- antique marbles in the Palazzo arnese w ere
I

Palazzo Muti in Piazza Ss. Apostoli. This court, sioned one from Vettori I I1.1t is Still in use. He removed to Naples, including the lamed

ENTREPOT Ol I UROPI
 Farnese Hercules. Although Pius VI pleaded with alone were forbidden the festivities), often in 88 For Batoni's portrait of the Duke of York, see
their owners to allow the works to remain in transvestite costume, engaging in confetti bar- Clark and Bowron 1985, pp. 294-95, with addi-
Rome, the rulers of Tuscany and Naples were rages and throwing sugared almonds at one tional bibliography.
also promoting agendas that called for cultural another. The main event was the race of the 89 Pastor 1938-53, vol. 39, pp. 108-9.
accumulation in the respective capitals. For this Barbary horses, a competition of riderless 90 Rome's almost magnetic attraction to Europe's
transfer of works of art from Rome, see Pastor horses spurred on by barbs attached to their imagination is the subject of a series of essays
1938-53, vol. 39, pp. 85-86. flanks by pieces of rope; the horses ran from entitled Rome dans la memoire ct {'imagination de
67 Braschi's fundamental role in the establishment the Piazza del Popolo toward the Palazzo di I'Europc(Fumaroli 1997), although the texts are
of the Museo Pio-Clementino is conveniently Venezia, often causing injury and mayhem in not limited to the eighteenth century.
summarized in Collins 1999. For a detailed dis- their wake. Sometimes the fireworks used to 91 The handsome catalogue of the Grand Tour
cussion of the architectural development of the encourage the horses started and the race fires, exhibition held at the Tate Gallery in London
museum, see especially Consoli 1996. with addi- was the subject of extensive wagering and fre- has been the most ambitious study to date, and
tional bibliography. 1 am grateful to Professor quent brawls. On the evening of Shrove contains many valuable insights, but is little

Consoli for discussing the topic with me. Tuesday revelers holding candles (moeeoli) went concerned with the interaction of visiting
68 The supposedly casual encounter between the about contriving to keep their taper lit while tourists and artists with the Roman cultural and
pope and the Swedish monarch took place in blowing out those of others, a game that artistic establishment. Kirby 1952 is still a useful
the museum on New Year's Day, 1784, a happy intrigued and delighted visitors. Private evening introduction. For the historical context of the
"accident" that allowed a Protestant sovereign balls often punctuated the week's activities, but development of the Grand Tour among the
to meet the head of the Roman Catholic Church all came to an abrupt end before the beginning British, see Chaney 1998, especially chapter 8,

without the limitations traditional protocol of Lent, and Tuesday's bacchanalians became pp. 203-14. Chloe Chard's forthcoming book
would have dictated. Both rulers were Wednesday's penitents in a remarkable trans- on the Grand Tour, which deals with such
impressed with one another, and presents were formation. For vivid ancecdotes about the eigh- largely neglected issues as spectacle and specta-
eventually exchanged. Gustav III agreed to teenth-century Carnival, see especially torship. class, and gender, will be a major con-
allow the public celebration of Mass in Sweden Andricux 1968, pp. 141-47. For a general view of tribution to our understanding of the
for the first time since the Reformation and Roman society in the Settecento, see especially phenomenon.
eased legal restrictions on the Swedish Catholic Silvagni 1883-85. 92 For the Virtuosi al Pantheon, see an excellent
minority. Art had often been used as diplomatic 79 For the Chinea, see Moore J. 1995, pp. 584-608. recent study. Bonaccorso and Manfredi 1998,
"camouflage" in the past, and this is an impor- The passage in the text is quoted on p. 589. with additional bibliography.
tant modern example of the practice. For 80 For the Lateran possesso cavalcades and the 93 Iborrow the apt phrase "academy of Europe"
Gagneraux's painting, see Laveissiere et al. 1983, accompanying engravings of the ephemeral from an exhibition catalogue, Broeder 1973. To
pp. 98-100. The major figures in this large his- arches, see Cancellieri 1802. my knowledge, this is the first scholarly exhibi-
torical painting, including many contemporary 81 Moore 1792, vol. 2, pp. 42-46. tion held in the United States devoted exclu-
artists, are identified on p. 99. This catalogue is 82 For the festival in the Piazza Farnese and sively to the art of eighteenth-century Rome.
a major contribution to our understanding of Panini's painting, see especially Fagiolo 1997, 94 For the perception of Rome filtered through the
artistic life at the French Academy in the last vol. 1, p. 240, with additional bibliography. For prints of Piranesi that was widespread in eigh-
years of the ancien regime. Panini's activities as a recorder of Roman festi- teenth-century Europe, see especially Wilton-
69 For a detailed analysis of the population of vals generally, sec Arisi 1986. Ely 1983, pp. 317-37. Wilton-Ely's numerous
both Rome and the Papal States during the 83 Fagiolo 1997, vol. 2, pp. 38-39, with additional authoritative publications on Piranesi and eigh-
eighteenth century, see Gross 1990, pp. 55-87, bibliography. teenth-century Rome are fundamental to
with additional bibliography. 84 Pastor 1938-53, vol. 39, pp. 104-8. Gustav III modern understanding of the artist. Piranesi's

70 Valesio [1770] 1977-79, vol. 5>PP- 126-27, 165. returned to Rome on March 10, 1784, after visit- publications, especially the Vasi. candelabri. cippi

For purposes of comparison, it should be noted ing Naples, and remained until April 19. During ... of 1778. were also extremely influential on
that in less than one season's gambling, Albani his second visit Pius VI decorated him with the European design during the Neoclassical era.

lost half the money necessary to fund one of the order of the Golden Spur, a singular distinction 95 For an excellent brief summary of the Greeks
colossal marble statues for St. )ohn Lateran, monarch. Gustav's
for a Protestant, even a versus Romans debate, see Honour 1968,
thought to be exceptionally costly at 5,000 scudi younger brother the Duke of Ost Gothland had pp. 50-62.
each. A full-length portrait by Batoni cost come to Rome in 1776 and was afforded royal 96 For the Swiss painter's Roman sojourn and the
about 600 scuiii. honors by the papal court, a favor that must impact of Rome on his art, see especially Pressly
71 Quoted in Giuntella i960, pp. 304-5. have predisposed King Gustav in Pius's favor. 19-9. Most of Fuseli's artistic contacts in Rome

72 Valesio [1770] 1977-79, vol. 5, pp. 44~45. The last Swedish sovereign to visit Rome had were with British travelers and visiting artists,
Monday. April 4, 1729. been Queen Christina in the late seventeenth and despite his nationality he was a founding
73 Fiorani 1970, p. 226. century, but she came only after her conversion member of the British Royal Academy and one
74 Fiorani 1970, p. 241. to Catholicism and subsequent abdication. The of the most influential history painters working
75 For the Albani project for the Piazza della Bocca Lutheran Christian IV of Denmark had planned in eighteenth-century London.
della Verita, also called the Piazza di S. Maria in a trip to Rome during the pontificate of 97 Typical examples of the travel accounts under
Cosmedin, see Johns 1993, pp. 175-79. Clement Clement XI, but only got as far as Venice. The discussion are Beckford 1805; Knight 1905; and
XI also commissioned a major fountain in the visit of a Protestant king to papal Rome opened Miller 1777. For a highly useful study of travel
Piazza della Rotonda. in front of the Pantheon, anew era of relations between the Church and literature focusing on the French parlcmentaire

the chief ornament of which was a red granite many non-Catholic nations. Had it not been for De Brasses, see Harder 1981, with additional
Egyptian obelisk. the allure of art and culture, this thaw might bibliography.
76 For crime and punishment in Settecento Rome, have taken a very different historical trajectory. 98 In Cochin's words: "Je n'ai pu faire aucune note
see especially Andricux 1968. pp. 90-104, with 85 Several references in the letters from Rome to sur les belles choses qu'on voit a Rome, a cause
additional bibliography. Paris are informative in this regard. See de leur quantite, qui est en quelque fac,on
77 These instances of interconnectedness and Montaiglon 1887-1912, vol. 14, pp. 275, 279, 284, innombrable je crus devoir employer le
. . .

many others arc described in an excellent essay 297, and passim. sejour que je pourrois faire dans cette ville, a

by Olivier Michel (Michel 1996, Vivre ct peindre, 86 Pastor 1938-53, vol. 39, pp. 102-3. dessiner. Au reste. les curiosites qu'on voit a
pp. 75-84, with additional bibliography). 87 The exhibition catalogue Pompeo Batoni and His Rome, sont plus universellement connues que
78 The Carnival season officially began after the British Patrons, published in conjunction with celles qui sont dans le reste de l'ltalie; &
of the Epiphany (January 6) and continued
feast the exhibition held by the Iveagh Bequest, d'ailleurs il y a toujours tant d'artistes de toute
through Shrove Tuesday, the day before Ash Kenwood, London (Bowron 1982), provides an nations dans cette ville, qu'il est facile a tout
Wednesday, but the week was the culmina-
final impressive list of visitors, a virtual who's who amateur de se faire accompagner de quelqu'un
tion of the popular festivities. The center of the Grand Tourists to Rome.
of upper-class d eux." See Michel 1991, Vivre ct peindre, p. 129.

public spectacle was via del Corso, where Although not everyone of social importance Cochin was in the suite of the Marquis de
crowded carriages paraded in confused proces- who came was painted by Batoni, a surprisingly Vandieres, who had been sent to Italy by his
sions. People of all classes mingled (prostitutes large number were. sister Madame Pompadour and Louis XV as

IMKII'OI Ol I UkOPI
 preparation for assuming the office of ranked the various types of painting (and some-
Surintendant des Batiments du Roi. The archi- times also sculpture, as in the case of grand
tect Germaine Soufflot, future builder of the tunerary monuments) according to the amount
Pantheon in Paris, was also in the marquis's of imagination necessary to visualize a given

party. topic or subject. The representation of a text, for

99 Quoted in Kirby 1952, p. 76, no. 3. example, requires abstract reasoning and the
100 Moore 1792, vol. 1, p. 273. The physician's para- felicitouscombination of many figures in con-
phrase of the denunciation is worth reading: figurations that more or less correspond to the
"O thou beast of nature, with seven heads and narrative. At the other end, still-life painting
ten horns! Thou mother of harlots, arrayed in required mere "copying" of nature, and thus
purple and scarlet, and decked with gold and was little esteemed intellectually. History paint-
precious stones and pearls! Throw away the ing, including allegory, mythology, scenes from
golden cup of abominations, and the filthiness the lives of the saints and the Bible (with
of thy fornication!" The unfortunate zealot was Apocrypha), antique and, by the late eighteenth
briefly imprisoned but the pontiff intervened, century, medieval history, and, increasingly,
thanking him for his good but misguided inten- representation of contemporary events of his-
tions and paying for his return passage to importance, had pride of place in all
torical
Scotland. See Kirby 1952, p. 83. European academies. After history was portrai-
101 Moore 1792, vol. 2, pp. 38-39. Part of this ture, with portraits having mythological or his-
passage worth quoting: "The finest of all the
is torical referents outranking simple likenesses,
ornaments [in St. Peter's] have a probability of and depictions of important people being more
being longer preserved than would once have esteemed than others. Generally speaking, full-
been imagined, by the astonishing improve- lengths were more prized than half-lengths or
ments that have of late been made in the art of busts. Portraits were followed by the broad cate-
copying pictures in mosaic ... By this means, gory of genre painting (scenes of everyday life),
the works of Raphael, and other great painters, with landscape and still life a distant fourth and
will be transmitted to a later posterity than they fifth. This hierarchy, like the hierarchy of
themselves expected: and although the beauty society,was eroded and largely deconstructed
of the originals cannot be retained in the copy, by the end of the eighteenth century.
it would be gross affectation to deny that a great 112 Settecento 1959. Unfortunately, this catalogue is

part of it is. How happy would make the real it quite rare.
lovers of the art in this age, to have such speci- 113 Maxon and Rishel 1970. The section "Rome and
mens of the genius of Zeuxis, Apelles. and other the Papal States" (pp. 163-216) was edited by
ancient painters!" Anthony Morris Clark.
102 Moore 1792, vol. 2, pp. 34—35. A sustained study 114 Two articles from the 1970s by scholars inter-
of gendered response to antiquities, above all to ested in the Roman eighteenth century when it
male and female nude statues, would be a fun- was very much out of fashion served as a
damentally important contribution to our metaphorical call to arms. See Waterhouse 1971,
understanding of the eighteenth century. pp. 19-21, and Clark 1975. pp. 102-7. These short
103 For the cultural transformation of the private articles rejected modern views of the derivative
collection to the public museum, and Italy's and "second-rate" (the phrase is Francis
primacy in the process, see especially Pomian Haskell's) quality of Roman art and pointed out
1993, pp. 9-27, with a useful bibliography. how little essential archival, analytical, and syn-
104 Francis Haskell has pointed out that very few thetic work had been done on this important
important antiquities were actually alienated era. The two essays were fundamental to my
from Rome before the calamitous sack of decision to investigate the eighteenth century in
1798-99. See Wilton and Bignamini 1996, Rome as a graduate student, and am grateful I

pp. 11-12. to Ellis Waterhouse for his encouragement and

105 For Jenkins, see especially Ford 1974. "Jenkins," generosity.
pp. 416-25, with additional bibliography. The
sculptor Joseph Nollekens is the source for
Jenkins's cameo factory, and no less a person-
age than Goethe called himThe a scoundrel.
dealer was by the Jacobite court,
also loathed
who accused him of being a Hanoverian spy.
106 For Byres, see especially Ford 1974, pp. 446-61,
with additional bibliography.
107 The sad story of the Poussin Seven Sacraments,
now on loan to the National Gallery of Scotland
in Edinburgh, is recounted in Ford 1974,
pp. 458-59.
108 For Williams-Wynn, see especially Ford 1974,
"Williams-Wynn," pp. 435-39, with additional
bibliography. The Perseus and Andromeda is dis-
cussed on p. 436.
109 For the Hervey's activities in Rome, see Ford
1974, "The Earl-Bishop," pp. 426-34, with addi-
tional bibliography. The Englishman's addiction
to travel is documented in the presence of
hotels named Bristol in many Italian cities.

110 For Kauffmann and history painting in the

Roman context, see Roworth 1998, with addi-
tional bibliography.
111 The hierarchy of the genres, the academic sine
qua mm since the late seventeenth century,
 —

Arcadian Rome, Universal Capital of the Arts

LILIANA BARROERO AND STEFANO SUSINNO

In the eighteenth century, at least until its star officially instituted on October 6, 1690, in the matter throughout the century, keeping
was temporarily eclipsed by the Napoleonic garden of the convent of S. Pietro in Montorio. alive the fortunes of Ovid and Horace,
occupation, Rome continued to play a dual Among the fourteen founder members, Apuleius and Virgil, and giving a classical

role, as mother city of universal Catholicism prominent roles were taken by Giovan Mario veneer to the burgeoning sentiment of
and as a center for the transmission of the Crescimbeni, who was appointed custode gen- pre-Romantic Europe.
culture of classical antiquity to modern times. erate (custodian, a position he held until his The vital contribution made by the
As well as meeting the challenges posed by death), and Gian Vincenzo Gravina, who in Accademia deU'Arcadia to the definition of

new ideas and changing political alliances in 1696 drafted the regulations. In governing the eighteenth-century Roman culture (and to
Europe, the popes were responsible for the academy, the custode was assisted by a savio col- that of other parts of Italy and Europe) has
government of the Papal States, though there legio of eminent Arcadians. 1
been underlined by recent studies/ It is not
was not necessarily a conflict between the Arcadian rationalism was based on a few just that many artists belonged to the
various spheres of secular activity and their key concepts: balance between nature and academy; 9 the Arcadia also played an impor-
religious basis. Against this background, the reason in the name of "good taste," between tant part in unifying the literary and artistic

arts continued to communicate and express imagination and intellect, and between poetic spheres, which had never before been so com-
the ideological identity of both Church and invention and verisimilitude, in the name of plementary and interactive.'" Any attempt to
city in ever new forms. The artists resident "good sense." Finally, to Baroque "extrava- characterize Roman art in the early eighteenth

in Rome, whatever their nationality, formed gance" and "wantonness" it opposed the century must take this fact into account.
with complex subdivisions,
a distinct class, authority of "national" literary tradition and "Arcadian classicism" is certainly a more
around which much of Rome's cultural life the Church. The academy adopted the Infant appropriate label than the now obsolete and
turned, to an extent unmatched in other Jesus as its protector, and the late Queen unsatisfactory, albeit widely accepted, "baroc-
Italian and European centers. Through the Christina of Sweden, to whose intellectual chetto romano" or the more awkward
various artistic institutions in which they were circle the founder members belonged, was "proto-Neoclassicism." It certainly defines
active, they played a leading role in the life of proclaimed its basilissa (a title used in the the aspirations of the artists, scholars, patrons,
the city, and reports of their activities occu- Byzantine court to refer to the queen). The and sponsors in the small but universal city, a

pied an ever-growing place in contemporary name Arcadia was a reference to the region of fact confirmed retrospectively by the appear-
accounts of public affairs. The Accademia di ancient Greece associated with the mythical ance in 1819, during the Restoration period, of
S. Luca and the French Academy were the offi- Golden Age. It had been celebrated as such in the prestigious Giornale Arcadico di Lettere ed

cial centers of artistic activity, but other orga- the fifteenth century by Jacopo Sannazaro (in Arti. The periodical was self-consciously
nizations — public and private, local and his poem Arcadia) and in the sixteenth century opposed to Romantic culture, which was felt
foreign-based —also contributed to give the by Torquato Tasso (in his Aminta). The to be remote and foreign to the cultural identity
city a coherent, albeit highly diversified, members of the academy, known as pastori that Rome still sought to defend."
artistic identity. (shepherds) and pastorelle (shepherdesses), Some types of subject matter, though
This unity in diversity, over so wide a field each assumed a name borrowed from Greek, rooted in the history of the Church, were
and so long a period, was ensured by an insti- Latin, or Italian bucolic literature and took up given renewed emphasis and ritual signifi-

tution which had influenced the entire cul- symbolical residence in a district of the cance in Arcadian circles, from the key image
tural scene since its foundation in 1690: the province. 4 The cornerstone and driving force of the Good Shepherd (Pasce oves meas) to the

Accademia dell Arcadia, which was still ener- of Arcadian reform was the doctrine of the cult of the Infant jesus. This tendency was sup-
getically promoting reform along classical "Idea" formulated by Giovan Pietro Bellori, a ported by the Arcadian Cardinal Piermarcellino
lines at the end of the following century and friend and confidant first of Poussin then of Corradini, who around 1735 commissioned
beyond.' In the final decade of the seventeenth Carlo Maratti. Bellori provided the fullest defi- the decoration of the reconstructed church of
century, the concept of ut pictura poesis put nition of the aesthetic theory that the academy the Bambino Gesu in via Urbana and was also
forward by the ancient Roman poet Horace ,
existed to promote: 4 the concept of the "Idea," behind the building of a church promoting the
whereby painting and poetry were seen as however variously discussed and interpreted, same cult in his home town of Sezze. More
sister arts,
1
was realized in the privileged was to inform all artistic activity, expressed than a hundred years later, the most intellectual
setting of this academy, which was essentially most importantly in drawing as the common of the Roman artists of his time, Tommaso
a literary institution founded to promote a foundation of all the arts. Similarly, the term Minardi, expounded the theories of "purismo
reform in taste in accordance with classical pensicro (thought), deriving from this same a desire to recapture the simplicity of fifteenth-
precepts. The "Ragunanza degli Arcadi" was concept, was chosen by Felice Giani for his century art — in a speech he delivered to the
Accademia de' Pensieri in the 1780s," and Luigi academy entitled "Painting the Nativity,"
Sabatelli published images which he referred renewing one of the most characteristic
(OPPOSITE) detail of Antonio Canevari, Perspective to as pensieri in 179s/ Moreover, the academy's themes * >l t he \rcadian sensibility.
View of the Garden of the Accademia deU'Arcadia (the literary repertory was consistently reflected
fiasco Parrasio) on the Janiculum, c. 1725 (cat. 5) in artists' and patrons' choice of subject

ARCADIA
 —

THE ARCADIAN IDEOLOGY The legacy of classicism —such a distinctive protected the Arcadians was that pope's great-
element in the artistic idiom of Rome' 8 — est weakness. The Accademia dell'Arcadia,
The academy functioned throughout the became increasingly influential throughout wrote Foscolo, had been founded for:

eighteenth century as a meeting place for Europe. It reached the height of its authority
artists, or rather those artists most interested around 1770, in a confrontation that took a not unworthy purpose; but for many years
in theoretical concerns, and for representatives place far from Rome itself, in the Palacio Real it had been a disgrace and a nuisance, filling

of the world of letters, science, and antiquarian in Madrid, where the Arcadian classical vision Italy with its shepherds and affiliated

and religious scholarship. An understanding of Mengs was preferred to the late Baroque colonies, to which any blockhead capable of
of Arcadian thought will therefore lead to a illusionism of Tiepolo.'" Equally indisputable producing a sonnet and a sequin gained
better understanding of the development of is the status of Rome, from the Counter- ready admittance, was granted the title of

Roman art from the pontificate of Clement XI Reformation until well into the nineteenth poet, a pastoral name and a plot of land in

Albani to that of Pius VI Braschi. "Auch ich in century, as the source of a series of major works some romantic region of ancient Arcadia.
Arcadien!" ("Et in Arcadia ego") were the words of art — from the entire sculptural and decora-
adopted by )ohann Wolfgang von Goethe as tive panoply of cathedrals to simple altar- Only a need to affirm the criteria of literary
the epigraph to his Italienische Reisc.'
2
Guercino pieces, from history paintings to portraits modernity could have caused so forthright an
and Poussin's famous motif recurs in Roman which found their way to almost all the capi- attack on the institutions of the past. Mocked
landscape paintings and drawings in the latter tals of the Catholic world and beyond. It is for its classical literary and artistic roots,

decades of the eighteenth century, when con- possible to study the distribution of such com- Arcadianism was also prone to criticism from
temporaries were very aware of the role of the missions in the provinces of the Papal States, other directions in the nineteenth century.
papal city as a cosmopolitan melting-pot. in other Italian and European states, in Russia, Ludovico di Breme, who in 1818 had jeered at

The artists and intellectuals of Rome consti- and in the Americas in terms of a system of "Arcadian childishness," 22 the following year
tuted an important social and cultural pressure patronage based, in the case of the most published a well-received satire in /!

group closely linked with the civil and ecclesi- specifically "Roman" religious art, on relations Coneiliatore, the official organ of the Milanese
astical authorities. Throughout the century, between the Curia and the Catholic world. Romantic movement, in which an Arcadian
they managed to maintain and strengthen then- However, it has only recently become pos- was represented holding a censer and carrying

position in the city as the idea of "Rome, capital sible to demonstrate the links between the cul- a beggar's haversack.
21
The censer symbolized
of the arts" took hold — a concept that lasted tural power of Rome and the rise of the predominance of the clerical class, to
well into the nineteenth century. The influence Neoclassicism, in order to prove the central which — it has to be said —much of the
of the artist class can be appreciated by examin- role played by the papal capital in the diffusion enlightened element of eighteenth-century
ing their social and family ties and by exploring of the new style. Its role was greater than that Italy's governing class belonged. The beggar's
the biographical and economic evidence. But envisaged by even relatively recent studies haversack stood for the way in which all intel-

it is also borne out by that masterpiece of (with the exception of the groundbreaking lectual, literary, and artistic activity was strictly

eighteenth-century cartography, work of Anthony Morris Clark). Individual conditioned by patronage and authority.
Giovambattista Nolli's plan of Rome (1748; instances of the dissemination of Roman Under the ancien regime this situation was
The evidence in the plan of the close
cat. 18)." works of art are certainly well known, but they indeed widespread, and not only in the Papal
relationship between artists' dwellings and have generally been studied in relation to a States. However, these old arguments should
studios and the various residential, commercial, specific area, rather than interpreted in terms not be allowed to prejudice our view of eigh-
and industrial districts of the city provides of their overall significance. Before trying to teenth-century Roman art. The reality is that
plenty of material for a new approach to the assess the influence of Rome throughout it was the Accademia dell'Arcadia which first

subject. Also of great value are surviving inven- Europe, and before making any ultimate aes- provoked the reaction against the late Baroque,
tories giving detailed accounts of the homes and thetic judgments, however, it is important to and later against the occasionally insipid pret-

possessions of many major and minor artists. examine the motivation and the material con- tiness exhibited in its own circles. The
The various documents reveal a fabric of ditions behind artistic activity in Rome itself grandiose aspirations of the academy pene-
family ties, marriage alliances, and relationships during the eighteenth century. 2 " trated all aspects of culture and were inherited
of a "sacramental" nature (determined by cul- One of the prime aims of Italian and strongly emphasized by the promoters of
tural traditions which were not threatened until Romanticism was to destroy the Accademia Neoclassical taste. 24
modern times). Godfathers and witnesses at dell Arcadia by making it appear ridiculous. In 1776 Voltaire wrote to the sculptor
weddings were sometimes princes or prelates The writers, particularly from Lombardy, who Franqois-Marie Poncet, addressing him as
who were also patrons or collaborators involved laid the foundations of a literature open to "dear brother in Arcadia," 2
'
and this moniker
in decorative schemes, festive displays, and even modern European influences by fostering the is by no means the only sign of the esteem in

major monumental projects. Thus they were ideals of liberty and the secular state that were which the Roman institution was held by even
protectors and associates concerned as much to underpin the Risorgimento saw the academy the most progressive elements in French
as the artists themselves with matters of iconog- as one of the structures most supportive of the culture (the French naturalist Buffon was also
raphy and style. Important examples of this ancien regime that they sought to undermine. a member). Olivier Michel has analyzed this

kind of patronage were Niccolo Maria Their judgments therefore seem to be unan- relationship,
2 ' 1

identifying a number of factors

Pallavicini, u cardinals Pictro Ottoboni, 15 swerable condemnations of a sclerotic and that serve as a corrective, at least in part, to

Alessandro Albani, and Silvio Valenti politically reactionary classicism. In 1819, for the persistent conviction that the French
Gonzaga,"'and princes Abbondio Rezzonico, 17 example, Ugo Foscolo published his Vita di Pio were little interested in the Italian "republic
Foscolo was a poet whose original was a lack of interest,
2 '
Marcantonio Borghese, Sigismondo Chigi, and VI.
2
'
classi- of letters." If there it

Paluzzo Allieri. And these figures provided a cal inspiration had become tinged with was more evident in the last three decades of
model for most ol the enlightened and cultured Romanticism as a result of foreign contacts. the century, when the tendency for artists to
members of the European aristocracy. For him, the fact that Pius VI had tolerated and stay for shorter periods in Italy prevented

Al<( AIMA
them from putting down roots there, and doneme the kindness, without my asking it, A vivid picture of the close relationship
when the Enlightenment was instrumental in me a vacant seat, increasing their
of offering between the literary Accademia dell'Arcadia

bringing about a renaissance in French litera- number in my favor, as is expressed in the and the most highly regarded master of Roman
ture. Even so, as late as 1804 Madame de Stael, letters patent they have granted me. This painting at the turn of the eighteenth century,
who in Corinnc ou I'ltalie provided Europeans academy is called Arcadia: I have been given Carlo Maratti, is contained in a description of
with the key to a sympathetic if somewhat the name Timant, because each academician an imaginary visit by a number of young
stereotyped understanding of Italian culture, must take the name of a shepherd." women to the artist's studio. Following
spoke of the academy with greater respect and the conventions of the academy, the young
consideration than many of Italy's own Admittance to the academy, then, helped women, all of noble birth, are represented as
Enlightenment figures had done. make a name for themselves and, at a
artists woodland nymphs. As a friendly gesture, they
An analysis of the nine thousand or so timewhen academic careers were becoming have also included in their group Faustina, the
names on the academy's eighteenth-century more institutionalized, was often an impor- artist's daughter, a distinguished poet in her
membership lists'* yields a small but by no tant step on the ladder of success. Even if they own right. The painter himself is depicted as
means negligible number of artists, accounting lacked exceptional talent, artists could take an elderly shepherd, surprised in his rustic

for approximately 3% of the total. However, advantage of their literary leanings and social hut. This is of course his studio, in which are
40% of the artists of real merit resident in contacts to obtain positions, if not in Rome displayed some of his most celebrated works.
Rome were academicians, and this percentage then in the provincial academies of Florence, The text is effectively a critical interpretation

rises to 90% if only artists of the top rank are Bologna, Bordeaux, Lyon, Marseille, and else- of Maratti's work as a painter during that
taken into account. Many of the artist members where. Fifty years later, according to the report period. It was written by the current custodian
were foreigners, the French forming the most of one keen French observer, the Accademia of the Accademia, Giovan Mario Crescimbeni,"'
substantial group. What then were the criteria dell'Arcadia —and with Roman it art and and describes some of the artist's most signifi-

for admittance to the Bosco Parrasio, the culture generally — had suffered a loss of inter- cant paintings, selected for their adherence to
venue for meetings of the Arcadians? 2
" The national prestige. In 1767 Charles Duclos wrote the aesthetic and ideological canons of the
first and most obvious qualification was the that Rome "is greatly in need of regeneration. academy. Of the various themes of Maratti's
office of director of the French Academy, Literature, the sciences and arts, with the excep- work — mythology and fable, history, love,

housed in the Palazzo Mancini. (Poerson and tion of music, are languishing . . . The Arcadian beauty, immortality achieved through art and
Menageot were Arcadians, as were Natoire, Academy, with its deluge of sonnets, is a mere poetry —one appears to pervade eighteenth-
The only exception was
Vien, and de Troy. parody of true learned societies.'""1 century Roman culture perhaps more than all

Lagrenee, though his wife and youngest Later, however, the desire to acquire prestige the others put together: religious sentiment.
daughter were admitted as pastorellc.) But the within their own class overrode all reserve on When the shepherdesses arrive, the elderly
overriding criterion for full acceptance as one the part of foreign artists admitted to the artist, now reaching the end of his long career,

among equals was familiarity with the craft of academy in the last decades of the century. In is busy painting an altarpiece of the Assumption,
writing.'" Among the French artists are such those years, under the leadership of Gioacchino a quintessentially Roman and Catholic subject.
major names as Jean Barbault, Hubert Robert, Pizzi (until 1790) and Luigi Godard, the insti- This had been commissioned in 1703 by Pope
Pierre Subleyras," Rene-Michel Slodtz, and tution underwent something of a revival, Clement XI, an early member of the academy

Claude-Joseph Vernet. The architect Soufflot, admitting to its circles representatives of and now its most ardent supporter, for his
for example, had translated some of the works empiricism and early northern Romanticism. family chapel in Urbino Cathedral.
of Pietro Metastasio, while the sculptor It is amusing to note the astuteness of a Crescimbeni's choice of paintings provides
Jacques Saly had written two short pamphlets butcher's son from Carlisle, Guy Head, who a useful introduction to a series of subjects
in 1771 describing his monument to Frederick had received honorary membership in local and images that recur in different forms
V in Copenhagen.' The personal libraries of
2
academies at every stage of his journey to Rome throughout the eighteenth century. These
these artists, where they have been examined, (Accademia Clementina, Bologna, February images are of course not exclusive to the
reveal a substantial number of Latin and Greek 1787; Accademia delle Belle Arti, Parma, July Roman school, but their wide distribution in
classics, historical works, plays, novels, and 1787; Accademia di Belle Arti, Florence, Italy and the rest of Europe nevertheless reflects
biographies. Being an Arcadian was a mark September 1787). On arrival in Rome in 1788, the school's figurative heritage, and represents
of distinction and offered an entree into society. he consorted with the vast and often turbulent the continuing importance of the Horatian
Membership tended to be combined with crowd of artists from his native land. As he principle of ut pictura poesis. As Stella Rudolph
other honorary distinctions: if the king of remarked to the 4th Earl of Bristol: "All the has observed,' taken together. Maratti's paint-
France awarded a French artist the cross of English artists in Roam [sic] were most infa- ings offer a vision so in keeping with the task-
St. Michael, Rome tended to respond with the mously debauched with respect to women." 35
and poetic principles of the early Arcadians
titles of accademico di S. Luca and pastore d'arcadia Having become a close friend of the sculptor that it is worth reviewing them in detail, begin-
("shepherd of Arcadia"). In a letter to the Duc Vincenzo Pacetti, in whose house he lived in ning with the mythological subjects borrow ed
d'Antin, Poerson congratulated himself on the the strada Felice, the English painter became from Ovid's Metamorphoses. In Venus and the Rose.

privileged social relations to which his mem- an Arcadian (alios Clistene Epireo) and, at the Venus, pricked by a thorn, is depicted coloring
bership had opened the way: cost of being considered a snob, limited his the barely opened lower with I a drop ol her

social contacts to Flaxman and Canova. By blood, while being consoled by Cupid. Il is sig-

Here, sire, there is an academy famous virtue of this careful image management, he nificant that the picture, only recently redis-
for the fine minds of those who belong lo il. was soon admitted to the Accademia di S. Luca. covered, was described by Giovan Pietro Bellori
among whom are twelve or thirteen cardi- Similarly, Frederick Rchbcrg enhanced his as a "poesia." 1
" Crescimbeni lays emphasis on
nals, several princes, and other learned reputation as an elegant painter in the Greek the presence in the background of "a beautiful
persons. As I have the honor to he known to a style by posturing as a privileged friend in the Adonis," who is torn between his hunting (his

good number of these gentlemen; they have international salon of Angelika Kauffmann, dogs are straining at the leash) and his love of

\K< KDIA
 —

Lastly, Crescimbeni describes a painting a solemn prizegiving ceremony for young

that sums up so much of the Arcadian poetic. artists held on April 24, 1704, on the Capitoline
It is an allegory, a genre that some years later Hill, where poets were traditionally crowned.
Gian Vincenzo Gravina claimed to be the most On this occasion the pope decorated Maratti
complete form of poetic expression, and it fea- with the insignia of knight of the Order of
tures the painter and his patron and fellow- Christ, as if to emphasize that this charismatic
member the Marchese Niccolo Maria figure was the focal point of the papal program
Pallavicini, here depicted ascending in true of reform in the arts.

Arcadian style to the summits of civic virtue

(fig. 19). To represent such complex conceits,
EARLY EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY
Maratti composed a vast apparatus, in which
ARCADIANISM
contemporary reality consorts on equal terms
with classical mythology. Niccolo Pallavicini Even the fraught problem of finding a suitable
enters stage left, sumptuously dressed in clas- place for the academy's poetic meetings, and
sical garb. He is addressed by Apollo, wearing of what the Bosco Parrasio should look like

the poets' laurel crown, who points to the provides important clues to the dynamics and
"temple of Glory" in the distance, rising on development of contemporary Roman art. It

the high, rocky slopes of Mount Helicon. also involved individuals such as cardinals
There the marchese is awaited by a personifi- Pietro Ottoboni and Benedetto Pamphili, who,
cation of Virtue, depicted as a winged angel. In as patrons or organizers of large-scale public
the background Minerva, goddess of wisdom, projects, exerted great influence on Roman
dictates Pallavicini's name to History, who artistic life. Crescimbeni, who published the
inscribes it on a bronze shield to perpetuate first volume of his Vite degli Arcadi illustri in

Fig. 19 Carlo Maratti, Allegorical Portrait of The his memory. The other half of the composi- 1708,-" subsequently devoted a great part of
Marchese Niccolo Maria Pallavicini and Carlo Maratti, tion is occupied by a self-portrait of Maratti, his literary efforts to illustrating the history

1692-95, oil on canvas; Stourhead, Wiltshire seated "in the splendid finery he used to wear and restoration of sacred buildings with roots
when not working," sporting the insignia of in Early Christian churches. His writings can
cavaliere and depicted in the act of drawing be read as a parallel to Arcadian pleas for the
Venus (Cupid points to the wounded goddess). in other words performing the function central need to recover the heritage of Rome's golden
The scene is set in a primitive natural landscape to the recovery of good taste governed by centuries, and as a response to the initiatives of
exemplifying "the symbiosis of woodland and honesty and truth that was identified with aca- Pope Clement XI, who, despite the political and
pastoral genres which constituted — at least demic art. He is shown representing the same financial difficulties facing the Papal States, did

for the Roman adherents —the quintessential scene, of which he is a privileged witness, not give up promoting often extremely costly
habitat of the mythical Arcadian race." 1 ''
while the Graces, mediators of beauty, stand building works when the Catholic powers were
Another of Maratti's paintings described by around him in a circle, two of them contem- prepared to support his endeavors. Having
Crescimbeni, also of a mythological subject, is plating his work, the third encouraging the concerned himself with S. Giovanni a Porta
The Judgment of Paris (1708). Here the theme of marchese to overcome difficulty and win the Latina (1716), S. Salvatore in Lauro (1716),
Beauty victorious and triumphant could well promised crown of glory. Fame, in the form S. Maria in Cosmedin (1719), and S. Anastasia
be an allusion to the privileged role of the arts. of ZLgenietto, holds out the crown and trumpet (1722), in 1723 Crescimbeni wrote about the
Love, poetry, and nature are also treated in ready to celebrate the merits of both protago- greatest project of church decoration under-
Apollo and Daphne (1681; see fig. 104), while The nists. An amalgam of the centrally planned taken in the early decades of the eighteenth
Seasons concerns the theme of passing time. A republican Temple of Vesta in the Foro Boario, century: the renovation of the interior of
natural development of this sequence would St. John Lateran, cathedral church of Rome
4!
the temple of the Sybil on its rock at Tivoli,

have been history, the importance of which as and the Pantheon of Agrippa, the "temple of and the whole Catholic world. All of Catholic
a source of ethical models was stressed by the Glory" in Maratti's painting found a modern Europe, from the Elector of Mainz to King
breakaway Arcadia Nova (which became the counterpart in the gallery of famous men begun John V of Portugal, contributed financially,
Accademia Quirina), which emphasized the at the end of the sixteenth century around the making common cause in the decoration of
virtues and memorable deeds of the ancient tomb of Raphael in S. Maria ad Martyres (once the majestic nave.
Romans. In Maratti's Cleopatra, however, it is the Pantheon) and enlarged in the eighteenth The project had begun with the monumen-
sentiment that prevails in the figure of the century, where many artists were elevated to tal statues of the Apostles in Borromini's niches,
unhappy queen, while the virtue of other heroic status. Elsewhere, the same model was for which the architect Carlo Fontana had left

famous women, such as Lucretia or the vestal used to celebrate national figures (a concept precise instructions. Bernini's virtuosity was
Tuccia (also depicted by Maratti in a celebrated alien to the cosmopolitan spirit of Rome), as ruled out; the guiding principle was to be "the
series of figures in natural settings), is the in the tcmpietto commissioned by Lord model established by the great men of antiq-
theme of the sonnets of Faustina (alias Aglauro Burlington for his park at Chiswick, near uity," and it must be possible to discern "the

Cidonia), the painter's daughter. 4 " Maratti, as London (1724),

41
or the neo-Grecian Walhalla outlines of the nude" beneath the draperies. 44
"primo dipintor d'Arcadia," to quote at Regensburg (1830-42). Unity was to be achieved on the basis of draw-
Crescimbeni, fulfills the function of transmit- Maratti's paintings illustrate with extreme ings prepared by Maratti. though not all the
ting to later generations of artists compositional clarity the artistic and cultural climate in artists accepted the subordinate role implied
models rooted in the tradition of the "grand which the Arcadian ideology gained ascen- in this arrangement. In the decorative scheme
manner," from Annibalc Carracci to Francesco dancy, partly as a result of his own contribu- of St. John Lateran, it is Maratti who forms a
Albani and Domenichino. tion. The role he played was confirmed during bridge between mature seventeenth-century

AK( ADIA
 S

classicism and the Arcadian classicism of the branches and flowers," in the words of the rated the central nave of S. Clemente.'" In this

new century. It was he who set the noble tone superintendent of the seventeenth-century project, undertaken by the same pope in honor
for the figures of the Apostles Matthew and James restoration, Monsignor Virgilio Spada. In of his patron saint immediately after his elec-
the Great, sculpted by Camillo Rusconi in 1715 Borromini's plan they had been intended to tion but not carried out until around 1714, the

and 1718 respectively,^ and his influence is frame, "like a jewel in a ring," sections of the painters worked side by side on the scaffold-

clearly apparent in the Prophet Obadiah, painted brick walls of the original Constantinian basil- ing, transferring their subjects from prepara-
by Giuseppe Chiari between 1716 and 1718. The ica. 49 Giuseppe Chiari (responsible for Obadiah), tory cartoons.'" In such circumstances, sharing
archpriest of the basilica was Benedetto Andrea Procaccini (Daniel), and Giovan Paolo and comparing ideas was inevitable. The
Pamphili (alias Fenicio Larisseo), who in those Melchiorri (Ezekiet) had all been pupils of painters therefore formed a more homoge-
years was writing libretti for Handel and who Maratti (who had recently died) and still neous group, brought together under the aegis
tackled a didactic allegorical subject in his ora- shared in his reflected glory. But another of the Accademia di S. Luca. The dominant

torio The Triumph of Time over Repentant Beauty. protege of the academy was the virtual begin- figure in this case was Giuseppe Bartolomeo
The cardinal chaired the committees appointed ner Pier Leone Ghezzi (the creator of Micah), Chiari, assisted by his less gifted brother
by the pope which were supposed to decide son of Giuseppe Ghezzi, another painter and Tommaso, while most memorable
the
on the content of the work in St. )ohn Lateran Arcadian, who had defined the institution's single contribution was Pier Leone Ghezzi's
and supervise its execution.-"
1
Other Arcadians ideology in speeches, delivered on the Martyrdom of Saint Ignatius of Antioeh. The dra-
engaged on this project were the French sculp- Capitoline and subsequently printed, at official matic scene in which the saint is thrown to
tors who had chosen Rome as their main field prize-givings. 4 " Whereas Francesco Trevisani the wild beasts was well suited to the artist's
of activity: Pietro Stefano Monnot (who in 1695 (Baruch) was an Arcadian shepherd in his own realism: here "Arcadian" took on the sense
had portrayed Don Livio Odescalchi, protector right (alias Sanzio Fcn^ano)/' Benedetto Luti ascribed to it by Gravina, with the emphasis
of Gravina, on a medal all'antiea),-
1'
creator of (Hosea) and Sebastiano Conca (Jeremiah) — on naturalism and verisimilitude, even to the

Saint Peter (1706) and Saint Paul (1708), and his "created" respectively by Don Livio Odescalchi detriment of outward decorum. sK
younger colleague Pierre Legros II, who was and Cardinal Ottoboni — also moved in As for secular decorative schemes in private

responsible for Saint Thomas (1711) and Saint Arcadian circles and shared the academy's buildings, the ceilings of the appartamento nobile
4,s
Bartholomew (171 2). ideals. The "ecumenical" character of the of the palazzo built by Livio de Carolis present
The paintings are even more interesting Lateran restoration committee, however, also an anthology of the art of these years. The
as a cross-section of the different tendencies resulted in the inclusion of the most authorita- merchant turned marchese " chose 5
for his
in Roman art brought together by this great tive opponent of the academic monopoly, palazzo the kind of allegorical subjects fashion-
project. These were the years in which the Marco Benefial, a protege of Cardinal able in the major aristocratic residences, com-
Accademia di S. Luca, in drawing up new Pamphili, who was to spend the rest of his missioning a series of canvases that were
statutes under the aegis of Pope Clement XI career paying for the stubborn position he had painted in the artists' studios and then mounted
(1715), sought to establish its hegemony over adopted in the anti-academic revolt. Giovanni on site. Apart from Ludovico Mazzanti, all the
the management of public commissions and, Odazzi (Hosea) represented a late but modified artists concerned were already engaged on the
more generally, over all institutional policy Baroque style, inherited from his teacher Lateran project. It would appear that the "ecu-
relating to the arts. In the mind of the reform- Gaulli, while Luigi Garzi (Joel) could claim a menical" attitude of the new marchese was
ers, this action may have been seen as a neces- classical pedigree deriving from Andrea modeled on that of the pope and Benedetto
sary attempt to promote professionalism and Sacchi. The others were the Sienese Giuseppe Pamphili, with the result that again different
accountability in the true interests of art. But it Nicola Nasini (Amos), who also contributed to schools and tendencies here rubbed shoulders.
was immediately who tended
resisted by those the salone of the Palazzo della Cancelleria," It was in any case common, throughout the
to defend ancient privileges and freedoms now and the Bolognese Domenico Maria Muratori eighteenth century and during the early decades
threatened by the desire of the papal authori- (Nahum), "virtuoso"" of Cardinal Giuseppe of the nineteenth, for artists regarded as rivals
ties and the two major academies (the French Renato Imperiali. Spurred on by their rivalry, to be deliberately contrasted in this way, and
Academy and the Accademia di S. Luca) to Chiari and Procaccini, Luti and Trevisani, the interest and curiosity that such real or sup-
regulate the arts. The intention of the reform- Garzi and Muratori, Conca and Benefial posed rivalry arouses seems to have been a

ers was to entrust such management to a qual- prepared sketches and bozzetti to perfect the deliberate feature of the decorative display. This
ified, self-renewing body, pursuing excellence "movement" of their models, with an eye to strategy is further proof that the Roman school
and achieving legitimacy as the only true rep- rhetorical elegance of gesture, the fall of the saw its identity as consisting in a well-ordered
resentative of the Roman school. As in the draperies, striking light effects, and combina- diversity of voices and accents, as well as in
case of the Accademia dell'Arcadia, where the tions of colors. The monumental subjects respect for the classical heritage. Mutual emu-
superior prestige of the pope served to over- were intended to recall illustrious precedents, lation, together with the perennial and always
come contradictions and crises, sometimes from Michelangelo to Domenichino, and to problematic conflict between ancients and
by forced mediation, some of the seats on the focus the attention of the public and of con- moderns, were the structural characteristics
Lateran committee were allocated to represen- noisseurs on figures poised between history of an inherently composite artistic reality. The
tatives of the protest movement, who in any and myth, balanced on clouds yet each power- same aspiration to a reconciliation of conflicts
case could rely on the protection of powerful fully occupying its own space.' Papal munifi-
1
and programmatic differences seems to have
cardinals. Consequently, the great Prophets cence was particularly evident on June 2s. 1718, been behind the policies of the orthodox branch
cycle brought togetherworks by painters who in the public ceremonies organized to cele- of the Accademia dell'Arcadia. and was reflected
were openly antagonistic to one another, and brate the nativity of Saint John the Baptist, in those of the the Accademia di S. Luca and
not only because of rivalry over quality. when the artists were presented with medals the French Academy at Rome. It also explains
The painters were asked to provide canvases coined for the occasion their temporary merging from 1-04 to 1
- 1

to fill the oval openings, which were edged Somewhat different w as the experience ol under the leadership of so committed ami
with sculpted garlands of "palm and laurel those artists who a few years earlier had deco- conformist an Arcadian as Charles Poerson.

ARCADIA
 In the decoration of the Palazzo de Carolis, front rank and was practiced mainly by spe-
the achievement of noble status by the exer- cialists — precisely the people who felt threat-
cise of virtu is depicted allegorically, and ened by the rigid regulations set out in the

mythological figures give a timeless dimen- statutes of 1715. Prince Francesco Maria
sion to the themes of agriculture and labor, Ruspoli, a protector of the Arcadia, personally
the flow of the hours and seasons, and the supervised the work of the various artists,

importance of the arts and literature in human who were set a program linking the ground-
affairs. No doubt the subject matter was also floor rooms of his palazzo with the natural
chosen to suit the functions of the various world in all its aspects. The decision to apply

rooms. For instance, Andrea Procaccini's Dawn this kind of treatment to an apartment that,

(which dates at least part of the cycle as being with its formal throne room and gallery of
pre-1720, the year of his final departure for statues, still served as the reception area of a
Spain) was particularly fitting for the bedroom, princely urban residence, may have been influ-

as was Benedetto Luti's Diana. Ludovico enced by the new perception of the garden as a
Mazzanti's Zephyrs Driving Away Winter and setting for poetry. This concept was very real

Spring allude to the changing seasons, while to the prince, who had shown his munificence
Giuseppe Bartolomeo Chiari's Bacchus, Venus, by renting the Ginnasi Garden on the Aventine
and Ceres and Luigi Garzi's Chariot of the Sun for Arcadian assemblies. The Palazzo Ruspoli
symbolize summer and autumn, and serve as rooms therefore featured marine and hunting
a reminder of the marchese's previous activi- scenes, bambocciate, and views of the family
6
ties. " More intriguing is Francesco Trevisani's feuds. Where figure painting was included,
"moral fable' of Minerva Saving Adolescence from it was limited to Michelangelo Cerruti's Sala
the Blandishments oj Venus'" a subject previously delle Ninfe. In 1715 the Mercurio Errante described Fig. 20 Stefano Pozzi, Alpheus and Arethusa, c. 1745,

painted by Pietro da Cortona for the Palazzo seeing here "various classical fables, such as oil on copper; private collection, Rome
Pitti in Florence. It is one of a series of con- Diana bathing, Mount Parnassus and others
temporary exhortations to virtue in which of that sort" — a strictly woodland and pas-
Hercules or Minerva is called to counter the toral mythology in a setting enhanced by the and the Arno symbolizing Latin and Italian

wiles of Venus, no doubt as a warning to the playing of a fountain. 6 '

poetry, then, on the first level area, a seated

eldest son of the household. The whole deco- statue of Apollo holding out a laurel crown
rative scheme is epitomized by Sebastiano and, with his other hand, pointing to a com-
ARCADIAN ICONOGRAPHY
Conca's Allegory (described by Lione Pascoli memorative inscription recording the "munif-
as The Triumph oj Virtue), in which Virtue is A great opportunity for the Roman Arcadians icence of the benefactor and the gratitude of
depicted seated among the Arts (Painting, to give concrete form to what until then had the beneficiaries." The symbolic layout, of
Sculpture, Architecture), while Liberality been no more than a figment of their poetic which Vittorio Giovardi has left a detailed
(represented as agenietto) pours out the cornu- imaginations arose as a result of the generosity description (1727), continued with a statue
copia of Abundance and, on the other side of of John V of Portugal. Elected to the academy of Alpheus (founder of Greek lyric poetry),

the picture, History, backed by Fame and Poetry, in 1721 (alias Arete Melleo), to the seat formerly installed in a grotto dripping with water, while
triumphs over Time. Among these varied occupied by Pope Clement XI, the Portuguese Syrinx was represented by her instrument, the
styles and expressive trends, the clearest con- king donated 4,000 scudi to buy a plot of land panpipes, repeated on the capitals of the
trast is that between the dignity and decorum on the slopes of the (aniculum and to trans- pilasters. Finally, crowning the summit was
of Chiari, who produced a quadro riportato, form it into an area suitably laid out for the a statue of Pegasus, the winged horse of
based on a canonical scheme of three main academy's assemblies. Its character as a recre- Parnassus, striking the rock with his hoof to
figures, and Luti's airy nocturnal scene, viewed ation of the mythical Bosco Parrasio in which produce a spring of water, the constant flow of

from below, in which delightful girls —one a the "shepherds" could meet regularly was to which was a reminder of the easy flow of verses
sleeping nude, another clothed in contempo- be neither that of a suburban villa, nor that of and ideas expected in Arcadian assemblies.
rary style —form a circle around the virgin a garden, nor that of rustic countryside, but No trace of these sculptures has survived,
huntress and embody two contrasting con- rather a combination of all these elements. 64 and there is no definite proof that they were
cepts: one nobly rhetorical, the other sweetly The totally new combination of architecture ever actually carved. However, the description
intimate. and landscape they envisaged was planned by by Giovardi of this complex is the most elabo-
The decoration of the ground-floor apart- Antonio Canevari (cat. 5), who designed the rate surviving testimony to the way the poetic
ment of the Palazzo Ruspoli (1715) differs from surrounding buildings and sculptural decora- myths were represented, in the manner
the schemes typical of the residences of the tion and selected and arranged the various reestablished by Maratti and continued just
great Roman families.'" The paintings, exe- The entrance from the city was
species of trees. as expressively by his eighteenth-century dis-

cuted in more delicate gouache, were intended flanked by two service buildings. From here, ciples. The themes of the Bosco Parrasio, at

to provide a link with the adjacent garden, stairways and fountains hidden among thick- the very center of the Roman figurative tradi-

exhibiting a lightness and escapism more ets and hedges of laurel (the sacred plant of tion, can be traced back to one of Maratti's
suited to a suburban villa. This setting was Apollo) led to the summit of the hill, where masterpieces, the Apollo and Daphne in Brussels
appropriate for the so-called "minor" genres, therewas an open-air amphitheater to accom- (fig. io4).'
,s
They were developed in Giuseppe
in particular landscape and hambocciatc (little modate the Arcadians and their guests (only Bartolomeo Chiari's interpretations of Ovid

pictures of genre scenes), exactly the type of cardinals were allocated individual seats). The for the Galleria Spada (four episodes from the
art that, in the hierarchy of genres advocated sculptures along the way were obvious in their Metamorphoses), Filippo Lauri's tempera wall
by the Accademia di S. Luca, was not in the significance: first, the river gods of the Tiber paintings in the Palazzo Borghese, and, toward

ARCADIA
Fig. 21 Sebastiano Conca, The Allegory oj the Arts,

1724, oil on canvas; private collection

the mid-century, in Stefano Pozzi's coppers

of Pan and Syrinx and Alpheus and Arcthusa
(fig. 20)
6 ''
—possibly the most perfect depic-
tion of Arcadian grace until Mengs's interpre-
tations of the theme (which retained its vitality

until well into the nineteenth century).''"

Is there such a thing, then, as a specifically Fig. 22 Pompeo Batoni, Mercury Crowning Philosophy Fig. 23 Henry Fuseli, The Second Allegory of Painting,
Arcadian iconography? One way of answering Mother oj the Arts, 1747, oil on canvas: 1777, pen and ink over pencil: private collection
this question might be to take Gravina's text The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg

Delle antichefavok (1696) and see how the fables

in question were treated in the figurative arts,

particularly in the cultural circles presided ticular social and economic resonance. These and Domenico Corvi (1764)."" An interesting

over by the central figure of Cardinal Pietro include another work by Conca, The Allegory of variant on the theme is Francesco Caccianiga's
s
Ottoboni. This will help to place the many the Arts (1724; fig. 21), painted for the Elector of Painting Scorned by Ignorance (1736), '

in which a
"'
paintings featuring Diana and Endymion or Mainz, Philipp Franz von Schonborn; 1
distinguished antiquarian, Giovanni Battista
Mercury and Argus, the fable of Leto or the Mercury Crowning Phi/osopfiy. Mother of the Arts Furietti,*' is ridiculed in the guise of Harlequin.* 1

drama of Pyramus and Thisbe, the constant (1747; fig. 22) by Batoni;"" The Arts Led by The frequency with which Batoni painted
proliferation of which cannot be adequately Mercury to the Temple oj Glory (1750) by Placido these subjects is explained by his closeness to
explained by their general suitability for deco- Costanzi" 1

(in both canvases, the presence of Arcadian circles. His first biographer (1757)

rative purposes. Even Winckelmann said he Mercury is a reminder of the importance of was in fact the Arcadian Francesco Benaglio,
regarded Gianvincenzo Gravina's Ragion poetica the art trade for the papal capital); and many of whom Batoni had painted a portrait (Clark
as superior to any other treatise on aesthetics allegories of Painting as representative of art and Bowron 1985, p. 269, n. 201). Batoni was
and, in a letter dated June 9, 1762, recommended in general. (Not until the end of the century, also responsible for one of the most signifi-

to Friedrich Reinhold von Berg that he read it in the reign of Pius VI, did Henry Fuseli first cant images of a pastorclla. in the portrait of
and commit its contents to memory. detect a reversal of roles in favor of Sculpture, Giacinta Orsini Boncompagni Ludovisi (alias

Bearing in mind how Gravina explicitly bearing witness to what was then no more Euridice Aiacense), 1757-58 (Clark and
identified allegory as the Arcadian form par than a vague inkling in his disturbing allegori- Bowron 1985. pp. 271-72, n. 206). Batoni's own
excellence, it may be useful to examine the cele- cal drawing of a sculptor armed with a chisel, daughter Rufina. a musician and poet, was an
bration of the arts as another theme closely driven by a wind issuing from the Braschi Arcadian with the name ot Corintea. Having
related to the Arcadian ideal. An example coat-of-arms, overthrowing a painter lost in died young, as recorded in the Diario Ordinario
from the early years of the century is Sebastiano meditation (fig. 23,).
71
Meanwhile, Felice Giani (no. 982 of May 29, 1784), she was commemo-
Conca's ceiling for one of the rooms in the was still celebrating Painting as the art favored rated by the academy on March 20, 1-84 (Clark
Palazzo de Carolis (c. 1720), part of a decora- by the gods (1784),"' and Michael Koch was and Bowron 1985, p. 59, n. 14). Another illustri-
tive scheme intended to legitimize the newly depicting Time. History, the Genius of Painting and ous pastorclla was the Marchesa Margherita
acquired social prestige of a corn merchant of Architecture around the Hcrm oj Raphael.)"
4
A list Sparapani Gentili Boccapaduli, whose portrait
who had rightly identified the celebration of of works celebrating the primacy of painting was painted in 1777 by Pecheux (fig. 24).

the arts as an appropriate strategy to this end. reads like a roll-call of the great masters of the It is against this background that the
Then, some fifty years later, there is the deco- profession, in a line going back through allegories ol Mengs should be interpreted,
ration of the main reception room (Salone Maratti '
to the origins of eighteenth-century although they were on a very diftercnt intellec-
d'Onore) of the Palazzo Borghese, in which a Roman classicism in the Carracci brothers. It tual level. In the ceiling Mengs painted tor
patron of the caliber of Prince Marcantonio IV includes the allegories already referred to by Cardinal Albani in 1-61, he depicted Apollo
chose the arts, symbolized by noble female Sebastiano Conca (who incidentally delivered surrounded by the Muses (cat. rS). and he
figures, to frame the heraldic emblems of his an important discourse on artistic principles produced the Allegory 0/ / iistory lor the Stanza
illustrious house."" Between these two works, to the Accademia di S. Luca), " and allegories dei Papiri ot the Museo Sacro Vaticano in 1772.
many key examples can be found of a similar ot Painting by Batoni (1740), Francesco This complex of literary and antiquarian allu-
celebratory nature, which in Rome had a par- Mancini (c. 174s). '* Corrado Giaquinto (c. 1750),
""
sions was most fully developed by lommaso
 Fig. 25 Tommaso Maria Conca, The Triumph of Apollo Fig. 26 Pompeo Batoni, The Choice of Hercules, c. 1750,
over Marsyas, 1782-87. fresco; Museo Pio Clementino, oil on canvas; Galleria Sabauda. Turin

Rome, Ceiling of the Sala delle Muse

acquired by Benedict XIV from the Sacchetti familiar that variants with a completely different
family. This room later became the setting for meaning were created, and yet were recognized
the large bronze Hercules which since the early as being based on earlier models. A good
Fig. 24 Laurent Pecheux, Marchcsa Margherita years of the sixteenth century had been on example is the self-confident and worldly
Sparapani Gentili Boccapaduli (Scmira Epicense), 1777, oil show in the Palazzo dei Conservatori, a gift painting Garrick between Tragedy and Comedy,
on panel; private collection from the popes to the people of Rome. Some which, on his return from Rome, Sir Joshua
twenty years later, the same statue provided Reynolds dedicated to the actor David
Giuseppe Bottani with the model of a young, Garrick. 94 Here Garrick is poised like Hercules
Maria Conca in the ceiling of the large Sala delle beardless Hercules for his vast canvas of choosing between the muse of tragedy and
Muse of the Museo Pio-Clementino (1782-87), Hercules on His Way to the Temple of Virtue. The that of comedy, and the most cultured of the
where, around the victorious figure of Apollo, painting was intended for the ceiling of one of English painters shows him smiling and yield-
the literary themes of classical antiquity are the state rooms of the Palazzo Pamphili, deco- ing to the more seductive prospect. 95
interwoven with parallel evocations of art and rated in 1768 to mark the marriage of Andrea IV It was during this period that the new
archaeology (fig. 25). The scenes that exalt Doria Pamphili and Leopoldina di Savoia custodian of the Accademia dell'Arcadia,
poetry as the inspiration of the arts are The Carignano."" Meanwhile, the image of the Gioacchino Pizzi, published his Ragionamento
Triumph oj Apollo over Marsyas, in the central mature Hercules derived from the Farnese sulla tragica e comica poesia (1772), in which he
panel, Mercury among the Sages of Ancient Greece, Hercules (which was sent from Rome to Naples encouraged a new openness to the literature
and The Inspiration of Homer and the Greek Poets* 4 in 1787 together with the Farnese antiquities of other countries, which was to be a feature
In this setting, where Pius VI brought together inherited by the Bourbons) never went out of his tenure and which led to a general
some of the Vatican collections' key works, of fashion. After a series of faithful reproduc- reawakening of interest in the institution. In
there is again a hint of the growing importance tions as academic exercises (Sergei) or scaled- any case, Rome, the theme of the dilemma
in

of sculpture, which painting and poetry are down versions for the art market (Righetti, of choice between two options represented by
called to celebrate.* 5 Zotfoli), it was given a new lease of life and allegorical female figures soon reappeared in
Parallel to these glorifications of the god of new gestures in Cristoforo Unterperger's a picture by Angelika Kauffmann (a bridge
poetry, which centered around the cult of the ceiling for the Villa Borghese (1784), and figure between Roman and London art
Apollo Belvedere in the Belvedere Court, was found its final expression in Canova's colossal circles),"' in
1
which this artist, loved by men of
another very Roman development: the casting marble Hercules and Lychas,"' undertaken for letters,"" shows herself torn between Music and
s
of Hercules as the prototype of a modern Onorato Caetani in 1795. Painting (cat. 234)." The subject of virtuous
hero, making virtuous decisions to reach the These are examples of Hercules' appearance choice was also treated by Kauffmann in a
heights of a moral or social Olympus. Again, in prestigious, large-scale works that were modern story very familiar to a northern
classical statuary, such as the Farnese Hercules undoubtedly the subject of contemporary European public, Henry of Navarre, Head of the
or the Capitoline Hercules, provided the formal The crowning example must
artistic debate. Huguenots, Persuaded by His General Philippe de
models, while there was a well-known prece- be Mengs's reworking and enlargement of his Mornay to Abandon His Lover Gabrielle d'Estree
dent for the figure of the thoughtful hero torn teacher Benefial's composition for the to Pursue Glory."" Returning to the iconography
between vice and virtue in Annibale Carracci's Conversation Room in the Palacio Real, Madrid of Hercules, the Palazzo Farnese Choice of
Hercules at the Crossroads, in the camerino of the (1776).'" But Hercules also featured in many Hercules was the model used by the romanized
Palazzo Farnese 86 — a model that was frequently paintings, drawings, and sculptures showing Neapolitan Paolo de Matteis in interpreting
copied. 87 In 1744, for example, Marco Benefial scenes from his life, from the Labors to the Rape the instructions he received from Lord
painted an Apotheosis of Hercules, now lost, for a of Deianeira (Bianchi, Pecheux). In these, as in Shaftesbury 1
"" and by Batoni for a picture
room in the Palazzo di Spagna,™ commissioned the other cases cited, it is not simply the he painted around 1750 for the Piedmontese
by a fellow Arcadian, 8 ' Cardinal Troiano iconography that shows how deeply Hercules Count Girolamo Malabayla (fig. 26)."" Here
Acquaviva. In 1748 a new room was inaugurated was a part of contemporary culture, but the the hero's pose is borrowed directly from
in the Museo Capitolino, designed by fact that such themes lasted so long and were When, in 1785,
Annibale's prototype.
Ferdinando Fuga to house the paintings so common." The iconography became so
1
Domenico Corvi was asked to paint a

S4 ARCADIA
self-portrait for the Uffizi collection, he ARCADIA AND THE CHURCH Pascoli's account of the reception by the
depicted himself painting a Hercules lost in academy of an artist so profoundly anti-classi-
thought —not so much a perfect example of As part of the general development of intellec- cal in style as Giuseppe Ghezzi, on the occa-
an academic nude as an example of the tual life in eighteenth-century Rome, a number sion of the first centenary of the Accademia di

artist-philosopher heroically championing of bodies were founded to study church matters: S. Luca (1695):

his own professional activity (cat. 204). Here the Accademia dei Concili, the Accademia dei

the figure of Hercules is also a reminder of the Dogmi, and the Accademia di Teologia. He delivered a learned and elegant oration
artist's Arcadian pseudonym, Panfilo Eracleate Frequented by aristocratic churchmen, they which won the universal applause of the
(the second name indicates that Hercules was were intended to train the governing class of audience, and many of the prelates and cardi-

Corvi's role model and also alludes to his the Papal States, and had a profound impact nals present wanted to congratulate him,
native town of Viterbo, said to have been on both literature and the arts. In particular, especially Cardinal Albani, who then took
founded by Hercules). large-scale ecclesiastical commissions for the him under his protection and continued to

In the literary sphere, Giacomo Casanova decoration of churches were linked to a protect him after he had ascended the papal
""
(whose brother Giovanni, a pupil of Mengs, renewed cult of the early Church,'"" the devel- throne. 1

went by the Arcadian name of Saurio Procense) opment of Christian archaeology, and the
chose Hercules for the subject of a sonnet need to use art to reemphasize the centrality Ghezzi's status as papal protege is clear,

recited at the prizegiving ceremony for pupils of the universal Church in opposition to the no doubt encouraged by the fact that the artist

of the Accademia di S. Luca in 1771. 102 The Jansenist and Ultramontane influences that and his principal admirer were both from the
ceremony was held on the Capitoline Hill, the were sapping its foundations. The College of Marches. But Pascoli insisted on his well-
most appropriate meeting place, apart from Cardinals, which reflected the opposing politi- rounded character as painter and man of
8
the Bosco Parrasio, of the Arcadian and art cal tendencies of the different European letters:'"

worlds. Such prizegivings, solemnized by courts, used its vast network of ecclesiastical
public speeches composed and declaimed appointments, nunciatures, legations, protec- He introduced his speech [on the arts] in

by the Arcadian shepherds, were held there torates of monastic orders and national good order, and subsequently enlarged on
throughout the eighteenth century, in a churches, recommendations, and benefices of his theme in the same orderly fashion . . . and
setting dominated by the bronze Hercules of all kinds to influence even the autocratic will contributed greatly to the celebration of the
heroic dimensions mentioned earlier and the of the pope. The power they wielded was man- arts. He adorned and sprinkled the grand hall

allegorical portrait of the emperor Commodus ifest in the urban fabric of Rome and in sacred of the Campidoglio with learned and witty
in the same guise. In the early years the cere- buildings and monuments in which evidence words. . . . Recognizing his talent and spirit,

monies included simple orations, pronounced of papal patronage was intermingled with that the Arcadians admitted him to the academy.""

on several occasions by Giuseppe Ghezzi of the munificence of cardinals and princes.

(elected to the academy in 1705, alias Afidenio The fact that even an ascetic with little A hundred years later, the orator for the
Badio);"" by the last three decades of the interest in literature and the arts such as Pope second centenary was the secretary of the
century they had become ever more institu- Benedict XIII was able to become an Arcadian Accademia di S. Luca, the architect Francesco
tionalized high-profile, public celebrations does not necessarily mean that membership Navone (alias Edrasto), who spoke on lpregi

of the arts. The proceedings were reported in of the academy was automatic or simply a delle belle arti, both on the Capitol and at the

official pamphlets published by the Arcangelo matter of form. It almost always implied a real Accademia di S. Luca, then presided over by
Casaletti printing house, the favored publisher belief in the founding principles of the institu- "il signor cavaliere Tommaso Maria Conca"
of Arcadian texts, and in the Giornale delle Belle tion, the constitution of a unitary and supra- (alias Demofilo Imerio). His words inevitably
"4
Arti.
1

Indicative of this close relationship national "republic of letters" consisting of free echoed those of Prince Baldassarre Odescalchi,
between the literary and art worlds was the and equal men associating on the basis of who four years earlier, on the occasion of the
funeral oration in praise of Mengs pronounced talent but dominated by the Roman ecclesias- first centenary in 1791 of the Accademia
on May 11, 1780, by Giovanni Cristoforo tical class. It is therefore easy to understand dellArcadia itself, had praised the Arcadians
Amaduzzi (alias Biante Didimeo), scholar, why the princes of the Church, and the pope for having restored "the pure style of the
antiquarian, and professor of Greek at the himself, accepted the literary fiction of a sym- Ancients," with the result that "poems some-
Archiginnasio della Sapienza (Discorsofunebre bolic pastoral region as the setting in which times worthy of the century of Augustus"
in lode del cavaliere Antonio Raffaele Mengs recitato government policy could be transmitted to were heard in the Rome of Pius VI."" Among
nella generale Adunanza tenuta nella sala del serba- They were
the learned classes of civil society. the good deeds of Giuseppe Ghezzi, Pascoli
toio d'Arcadia il di 11 maggio 1780), in which not merely members of the Accademia stressed his having begun the collection of
Amaduzzi defined the arts as "favorite daugh- dellArcadia. They were also teachers at La portraits of members of the Accademia di
ters of genius and reason and fortunate pupils Sapienza (the University of Rome), directors S. Luca,'" memorializing those who attended
of freedom.""' This good example of a lit-
s
is a of church colleges, artists, and men of science. the oratorical performances of Navone or
erary exposition stressing some of the main Firmly based in their own institutions, they Odescalchi. A distinct group of canvases
points in the eighteenth-century critical regarded the Bosco Parrasio as a meeting by Anton von Maron depicts them in noble
debate on the function of the arts and their ground where, in the name of poetry, they costume and attitude, without the usual para-
role in promoting freedom of mind. As such, could form rewarding relationships, the phernalia of their trade such as paint brushes,
it is a contribution, with its own particular purpose of which was not solely utilitarian. chisels, or compasses. They include the sculp-
emphasis, to the wider European debate. Moreover, although the Arcadia could not tor Vincenzo Pacetti (alias Telefane Foceo), the

elevate its members to noble rank, it did away doyen of the Spanish artists in Rome,
with class differences by assigning them Francisco Preciado de la Vega (alias Parrasio
poetic names and granting each a rural estate Tebano), with his wife, Caterina Cherubini
in the land of myth. Here for instance, is Lione (miniaturist and pastonlla F.rsilia Ateneia),

ARl \DI \
Navone himself, and finally Maron (alias artistic and religious piety, financing and
Melanto Sicionio), one of whose self-portraits" 2
erecting monumental statues of their founders.
was described by the Abbe Giuseppe Carletti It was an undertaking that breached the time
(alias Eumenide Ilioneo) in the Giomalc delle constraints of any normal commission: the
Belle Arti in terms that convey more effectively redecoration of St. Peter's, planned at the time
than any sociological analysis the self- of the Counter-Reformation (though actually
ennobling strategies of the eighteenth-century begun under Clement XI), continued,
artist: "The great painter is depicted seated in a unchanged in motivation and stylistic vari-

pearl-colored satin housecoat, his feet warmed ants, into the twentieth century.
12 '

by the Muscovy fox furs

finest Clearly maintaining the policy of earlier
Like Clement XI, Benedict XIV (Prospero popes, Benedict XIV emphasized "a constant
Lambertini) was an Arcadian before his eleva- and intense reminder of the authority of the
tion to the papal throne. Bestriding the middle Vicar of Christ"' 22 and was energetic in pro-
years of the century, he has often been seen by moting academic institutions, especially those

modern historians as an Enlightenment pope, devoted to the study of canon law and Church
in friendly dialogue with contemporary history. These were indeed places of scholarly
philosophers and scholars on the strength of historical research, but not, as is often unwisely
their common participation in the "republic asserted, in the modern sense of adapting to
of letters." In fact, the former archbishop of Enlightenment criteria of interpretation;
Bologna built on the foundations laid by his rather, they "combined the sophisticated
predecessors in strengthening an image of the culture of the Roman Curia with a clearly
Church that relied on the practice of the defined political and religious objective." 12 '

Christian virtues as the best defense against Recent historical studies stress the "specific
the secularization of the contemporary character of the Roman social and cultural
world."- While, to quote a recent
4
and very illu- Fig. 27 Giuseppe Lironi, Virgin and Child, 1742; structure, setting aside the constrictive con-
minating definition, charity was adopted as a S. Maria Maggiore, Rome, facade statue ceptual paradigm dominated by a uni-direc-
method of government,"' it was piety toward tional idea of modernization." Instead, they

the visible signs of Early Christian Rome that emphasize "faithfulness to tradition as the first
guided the pope's policy in the arts. In this he years earlier, which represent the Savior priority, whilst always revealing a high degree
continued and confirmed a tradition dating between Saint John the Baptist and Saint John of elasticity, a capacity ... for innovation in

back to the Counter-Reformation; the chroni- the Evangelist, and the Doctors of the Greek continuity, mostly concerned with using the
cles of his pontificate describe him visiting and Latin Church. " 1

former to confirm and strengthen the latter."'

24

building sites, consecrating new projects, To emphasize the connection between the A similar assumption lies behind the hieratic
and distributing the relics of Early Christian two basilicas, the pope opened up the wide fixity of the timeless image of the pontiff,
martyrs to altars and chapels, parishes and avenue running from the Lateran to S. Croce, designed by Giacomo Zoboli and translated
basilicas, in and outside Rome. On September and presented the Milanese Gioacchino into the perennial medium of the mosaic,
14, 1744, for example, he went to say Mass at Besozzi, the titular cardinal of the basilica, which Pietro Paolo Cristofari (1744) created
the basilica of S. Croce in Gerusalemme (from with 650 trees to create one of the first shaded for the pope's native city.'
25

which he derived his title as cardinal). Coming walks on the fringe of the city. Though to the In his arts policy, Benedict XIV could rely

out of the church, where he had taken the inattentive modern visitor these groups of on the competence and well-informed taste

opportunity to admire the new ceiling by the statues may appear essentially decorative, of his secretary of state, Cardinal Silvio Valenti
Cavaliere Corrado,"" the pope engaged in con- to the Catholic faithful making pilgrimage to Gonzaga. It was undoubtedly Gonzaga who
versation with the architect Domenico Rome they were a visual materialization of the was responsible for improvements to the
Gregorini (alias Silvasio Gnidio) and, before doctrinal foundations of the faith. Of similar Musei Capitolini (which became, like the

returning to his carriage, turned to survey the significance are the lofty statues surmounting Museo Pio-Clementino, a model for all similar
new facade. Designed "with a new architec- the facade of S. Maria Maggiore, also erected European institutions) and for the inaugura-

tural concept no less natural than exact,""" the during the pontificate of Prospero Lambertini tion there of a "Scuola del Nudo." At least one
facade, with its adjacent portico, presented its (again the architect was an Arcadian: building, however, was specifically created by
luminous, gently convex surface to the setting Ferdinando Fuga, alias Dedalo Ipodromiaco). Pope Benedict: the Coffee House, or
sun, crowned with a triumphal array of statues These represent the Virgin with the popes Caffehaus, 12 " in the Quirinal Gardens.
which blazed in the evening light: Constantine who founded the basilica (fig. 27) — a powerful Commissioned by the pope shortly after his
,2 ~
and Saint Helena, the four Evangelists at their and highly visible symbol of the renewed cult electionand built between 1741 and 1743, it
sides, all turned toward the towering cross at of Mary, a distinctive feature of the Roman was intended to serve as a venue for informal
1 he center of the group, it too made of blond Church setting itself against all ancient and receptions not governed by court protocol,
Roman travertine, with two angels kneeling modern heresies."" And while the Roman which inevitably emphasized the holiness of
8
in admiration at its foot." The composition, skyline was being redefined by this heavenly the pope's person. This should not be seen as
so in harmony with the almost domestic host of new and striking statues, which com- an attempt on the part of the pope to avoid the
forms of the facade, seemed to recreate in plemented the seventeenth-century array of ceremony sanctioned by a thousand-year-old
Stone the ephemeral decorations created for Christ, Peter, Paul, and the rest of the apostles tradition, but as indicating that in order to pre-

the Easter ceremonies. In its celestial iconog- and saints crowning the facade and colonnade serve the sacred aura of the presence of the
raphy, it is similar to the statues on the attic of St. Peter's, inside that building also the reli- Vicar of Christ in his official residences and
story of St. John Lateran, put in place a few gious orders continued their work of combined the great basilicas, a special place needed to

ARCADIA
be set aside for private audiences. The iconog- Almost as a natural corollary to this interest vast classical erudition, was Ennio Quirino
raphy of the decoration of the Coffee House in the culture of antiquity, the Accademia Visconti, whose observations on the Stato
had therefore to indicate clearly to the visitor dell'Arcadia recognized Gustav III as a brother. attuale della romana letteratura. presented in 1785
the basis of papal authority, and the enduring Warmly welcomed on April 12, 1784, under to Prince Sigismondo Chigi," s
raise points of
principles of the pope's political and adminis- the name of Anasandro Cheroneo, the king central importance to art history. These
trative functions. The paintings in the two side kept up his relationship with the Arcadia, even include his condemnation of the uncritical
rooms off the central portico allude to the sending it a copy of his state portrait four years adoption of "ultramontane models," to which
mission of the Church and the powers of the later."
1

The Arcadians took delivery of the paint- should be preferred "the study of the great
pontiff. On one part of the ceiling of the ing, presented by Fredenheim, at one of their Greek and Latin originals, together with a
Coffee House is Pompeo Batoni's The Delivery of assemblies in the Bosco Parrasio. The event reading of the modern classics of the cultivated

the Keys to Peter. Here Batoni returned to the was recorded in a watercolor by Jonas Aker- European languages." In terms of landscape
old-fashioned symmetrical arrangement used strom (fig. 52),"' which is one of the most valu- painting, this position seems to support that
by Perugino in his fresco of the same subject able eyewitness accounts of the life of the of De' Rossi, who in the Mcmoric continued to

in the Sistine Chapel, yet softened by a natu- academy during the custodianship of regard the canonical seventeenth-century
ralism inspired by Raphael. On another part is Gioacchino Pizzi, a time when even the king's exemplars —from Claude to Dughet, Poussin

Agostino Masucci's Christ Entrusting His Flock sister Sophia Albertina visited Rome. to Salvator Rosa — as a vital touchstone,

to Saint Peter. The frescoes are surrounded by although he was also open to the modern
ovals containing respectively the four evange- interpretations of Jacob More, Jakob Philipp
THE ARCADIAN LANDSCAPE AND
lists and the four major prophets: Isaiah, Hackert, Nicolas-Didier Boguet, or Abraham
PRIVATE DECORATION
Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel. On the walls, Ducros. And the so-called "antiquarian"
among allegories of Fortitude, justice, Mercy, Antiquity and landscape, and the way they culture — which Visconti still defined as the
and Kindness, are Jan Frans van Bloemen's were interwoven in classical literary culture, "faculty which presides over belles lettres,

vast landscapes, where the figures painted by were the most obvious components of the guides the arts, and is the torch of history"" 6 —
Placido Costanzi, of the Good Samaritan and Arcadian outlook in the latter decades of the provided a stimulus to the discovery of
Christ and the Canaanite Woman, allude to century. The connections between the cul- antique sites to bring to the attention of the
the virtues of Charity as the basis of the tem- tural climate of northern pre-Romanticism public and to celebrate in sometimes unusual
poral government of the Church. Opposite and that of late eighteenth-century Arcadian views. This notion is confirmed by the way in
these, Giovanni Paolo Panini celebrated the Rome are revealed by Riccardo Merolla's syn- which landscape painters tended to be inspired
more recent magnificence of papal Rome with thesis of the literary "history and geography" by the discoveries of scholars. Good examples
views of the Piazza del Quirinale and the new of the Papal States produced in 1988.'" Among are the expedition to the valley of the Licenza
facade of S. Maria Maggiore. This venue the figures he mentions are, first and foremost, in search of Horace's villa, or the search for the
Benedict XIV chose, on November 3, 1744, to the abbe from Rimini, Aurelio de' Giorgi home of Maecenas at Tivoli, or Bonstetten's
receive Charles III of Bourbon, as if to empha- Bertola, who served as an intermediary account (1806) of his quest for the places men-
size through painting the ancient feudal rights between modern German culture and Roman tioned in the last six books of the Aeneid, an
of the Holy See over the kingdom of Naples. Arcadian circles, not just on account of his undertaking repeated on a grander scale by
The event is recorded in lively style in other well-known translation of Gessner's Idyllen but the Duchess of Devonshire in 1819."" In the

paintings by Panini, now in the Museo di also by virtue of his historical essays, notably first case, Hackert's famous expedition with
Capodimonte, depicting two episodes in the L'idea della poesia alemanna (1779), L'idca della bella his brother and their advisor, Reiffenstein —an
king's visit to the pontiff (cats. 271-72). letteratura alemanna (1784), and his Elogio di excursion also mentioned by Goethe —which
These paintings can be compared with Gessner (1789). These texts were of course took them to the places later immortalized in

another pictorial account of a memorable visit widely disseminated Rome, where a sensual
in the ten tempera paintings housed in the
to Rome: that of Gustav III of Sweden, who with Arcadian aesthetic ideal had grown up, the Goethemuseum in Diisseldorf, was inspired
_
the gentlemen of his court met Pius VI in the central tenets of which weregrazia, naturalezza, by the publication in Rome, in i 6^, of Bertrand
Museo Pio-Clementino in 1784. The Lutheran eleganza. and melodia. These same concepts Capmartin de Chaudy's volume la decouverte de

king had no real political or diplomatic reason dominated the critical ideology of Giovanni la maison de campagne d'Horace. The tempera
to meet the pontiff. He was in Rome thinly dis- Gherardo de Rossi, according to Merolla paintings and engravings that resulted consisted
guised as the "Count of Haaga," effectively "almost the only figure of any importance in of a series of views of the valley of the Licenza
making the Grand Tour. Interestingly, there the dense ranks of minor personalities of the and its neighboring towns, sites admired for
was a strong polemical vein in the northern late Roman Arcadia." In his writings, De Rossi their wild beauty, never previously drawn or
protestantism of Swedish circles at this time, (alias Perinto Sceo) sought to redirect the ele- painted, now observed, explored, and repro-
which found expression in the satirical —even gance of the style along more strictly duced through the eyes of a traveler. As has
blasphemous —anti-Catholic drawings of "Neoclassical" lines, even attempting a "philo- been noted with regard to the places associated
Johan Tobias Sergei. These factors may have sophical" systemization of concepts based on with Tibullus and the landscapes of Nicolas
influenced Benigne Gagneraux's large painting "common sense" and rational moderation. He Didier Boguet, "there appeared, in the latter
of the event, which also contains a portrait of took up and passed on the original "esprit de decades of the century, a new interest in Latin

Sergei.'
29
Pope and king are depicted together geometrie"of the Accademia dell'Arcadia, poets — in particular Virgil, Horace, and
without distinction of rank, while the Swedish applying it to his interpretation of paintings Tibullus — who had celebrated the Arcadian,
gentlemen and Roman prelates engage in infor- and sculptures on which he commented in idyllic values of the countryside, of a simple,
mal conversation. The setting, however, with the Mcmoric per le Belle Arti. published monthly natural lifestyle (echoing Rousseau), in con-
its collections of antiquities, suggests that the between 178s and 1788."' trast with the worldly, artificially comfortable
;V
two central figures have something in common: The other outstanding intellectual of the and wealthy ways of the big city."' An
a shared enthusiasm for classical statuary."" late nineteenth century, renowned lor his example of this was the expedition of Sir

U*( APIA
 Richard Colt Hoare (in Italy between 1785 and of his subject. Classical critics often returned
1791), who followed the route from Rome to to this concept of ideal beauty ("bello ideale")

Brindisi described by Horace (Satires, I. v). He in landscape, which was seen as complement-
was accompanied by Carlo Labruzzi, who ing the ideal beauty of the figure. More is again
painted more than four hundred watercolors praised by the Memorie for his correct "choice
en route, even though the journey had to be of site" in a commentary on two large land-
cut short at Capua."" scapes painted for Lord Breadalbane. The peri-
Returning to eighteenth-century sources, odical stressed times of day or season as
it is evident that the paintings they refer to as criteria of verisimilitude, while asserting that
cornerstones of contemporary taste were the artist must not be a slave to "accidents."
soon to lose their significance and interest in In the same year, the Memorie reported on
the eyes of critics; and that the condemnations an instance of moral content, or exemplum vir-

and hasty judgment of the many observers tutis, being injected into landscape painting to
who, in the name of the Romantic myth of lend it historical dignity. The occasion was the
nature and natural truth, decreed the demise exhibition in Rome of Jacques-Louis David's Fig. 28 Johann Christian Reinhart, Et in Arcadia ego,

of Arcadian and ideal landscape, were equally Oath oj the Horatii in August 1785, on which the 1786-87, gray and blue-gray watercolor; Hessisches
misguided. A good example is the artist Memorie commented extensively. The idea of Landesmuseum. Darmstadt
praised by Joshua Reynolds as the greatest of moral exemplariness was approved by Pierre-
modern landscape painters, the Scotsman jacob Henri de Valenciennes, who in his treatise of
More, who spent the last twenty years of his 1800 took it as the theoretical basis for watercolors, in which a poet's tomb attracts

life in Rome (1773-93). Strangely, the where- reassessing the place of the historical landscape the thoughtful gaze of a small following of
abouts of some of his major works remain in the academic hierarchy. With reference to a nymphs and shepherds (fig. 28). Translated
unknown to this day —works that made him painting (also now lost) by Abraham-Louis- into modern dress and set in the evocative
so famous as to permit the far from modest Rodolphe Ducros depicting Cicero before the grounds of the Protestant cemetery near the
self-portrait he painted for the Uffizi, in which Tomb of Archimedes, Having Had it Cleared of Pyramid of Gaius Cestius, the same subject
he appears al naturale, seated with the Tivoli Brambles,' 42 De Rossi explicitly praised the recurs in one of the most famous of Jacques
44
grottoes in the background.' 4 " In this same choice of a historical subject, maintaining Sablet's pictures, Roman Elegy (1791; fig. 29),' in

collection of portraits, Raphael had been that "landscape painters should always choose which two travelers are depicted in quiet med-
content to depict himself in a more discreet subjects of this kind to make their works more itation beside a memorial stone decorated
mezzobusto, but in those years the proud Scot important and more useful." At the same time, with a laurel crown.
was so highly regarded as to fear no adverse he deplored the repetition of purely decorative An unusual personality at the center of an
comparison, not even in presenting himself subjects, which implied that "Arcadian" might international network of scholars, poets, and
mode and almost life size. Of Mores
in heroic simply mean light and frivolous. The adoption artists with a common interest in antiquity and
many paintings that have disappeared from of this position by the most authoritative open to Christian and oriental influences was
view, one of the saddest losses is his vast Roman art periodical is important, because the eminent Danish archaeologist and philoso-
Landscape with Apollo and Daphne, painted for such reservations regarding the generally per- pher Georg Zoega, a disciple of Winckelmann.
Prince Marcantonio Borghese, who had also ceived banality of the Arcadian world already His features are familiar from a symbolic por-
entrusted More with the task of transforming indicate the essential reasons for its inevitable trait by Carlo Labruzzi (alias Antifilo
much of the park of the Villa Borghese into an decline in the face of the pressing demands of Naucrazio),' 45 in which Zoega is depicted
English garden. The picture, which occupied pure natural truth, on the one hand, and dressed in classical style with the Roman forum
one wall of the room that displayed Bernini's Romantic subjectivism reflected in nature, in the background, leaning against a sarcopha-
Apollo and Daphne, forming a background to on the other. gus decorated with the figure of Minerva
this masterpiece,
14 '
was removed in 1891. The return of landscape painters to breathing life into Prometheus's man of clay.
Together with many of the paintings and fur- Poussin's theme of Et in Arcadia ego is a confir- The poet Friederike Brun, who spent time with
nishings that had made the Villa Borghese the mation that the late-eighteenth-century him during her visits to Rome, regarded Zoega
epitome of Roman Neoclassical taste, it was Arcadian spirit was anything but mawkish as a reincarnation of Diogenes, while Cardinal
included in a notorious sale held to save the and affected. Many of these artists were north- Stefano Borgia (alias Erennio Melpeo), an early
Roman princely family from the conse- ern Europeans and regarded modern Italy as collector of the Italian primitives, drew on
quences of a financial crash. The painting had the ancient land of myth,where not only the Zoega's knowledge in cataloguing his collection
been discussed in the Memorie per le Belle Arti of landscape but even the people's costumes and of Egyptian coins. His natural environment was
September 1785. The editor, Giovanni bodies had been less corrupted by via Felice, between the studio/salon of Angelika
Gherardo de' Rossi, gives an impressive ana- civilization.' 41 The themes of the transience of Kauffmann and the rustic Villa Malta, a

lytical description of More's work and sets out life, and of death the leveler, together with the stronghold of German pre-Romanticism.
his criteria for judging landscape painting, myths of Apollo and Orpheus, lent them- Here another Dane, Asmus Jakob Carstens,
which he shared with the connoisseurs of the selves to a melancholy approach that blended pursued his personal revolt against the Berlin

time. He analyzes the general composition of easily with nascent Romantic sensibilities. academy in his imaginative drawings, which
the painting, which is primarily an exposition Artists such as Cristoph Heinrich Kniep and recreate a mythical golden age (see cat. 332).
of the fable of Daphne's transformation into a Johann Christian Reinhart, who journeyed to This act links him with an Arcadian tradition

laurel bush, and considers the faithful study Italy in their youth to make a career in land- that was continued in the following century
required of an artist before he can arrive at a scape painting, came to share Goethe's vision by Joseph Anton Koch. Although Koch, with
free reinterpretation of the endless variety of at the end of the 1780s and gave it substance his painting of Apollo's Music Civilizing the Rough
natural phenomena in creating an ideal image in a series of works, particularly drawings and Shepherds ofThessaly (1792),' 4 " had first given

58 ARCADIA
 ship of the "republic of letters" treated him as
an equal, paying visits to his house as well as
inviting him to theirs. On the upper floor of
the villa, the Virgilian story of Dido and
Aeneas was entrusted to another Arcadian,
Anton von Maron (alias Melanto Sicionio),
while Domenico Corvi (alias Panfilo Eracleate)
painted the vaporous figure of Dawn for a
small bedroom and also proved his excellent
knowledge of anatomy in restoring Giovanni
Lanfranco's ceiling of the loggia, to which he
added a series of splendid own nudes of his
One of the major
invention for the lunettes.
sculptors, alongside Tommaso Righi and

Fig. 29 Jacques Sablet, Roman Elegy, 1791, oil on Fig. 30 Pietro Ferrari, Frugoni in Arcadia, 1760, oil on Agostino Penna, was Vincenzo Pacetti (alias

canvas; Musee des Beaux-Arts, Brest canvas; Galleria Nazionale, Parma Telefane Foceo), who carved the bas-reliefs of
Homeric gods accompanying Gavin Hamilton's
cycle of paintings in the Helen and Paris

symbolic expression to the educational func- an important part. Moreover, the eighteenth- Room.'" The other artists who worked on
tion of art and poetry, there had nevertheless century decoration of the Villa Borghese can the Villa Borghese ceilings — Mariano Rossi,

been a significant precedent in a painting that be seen as the culmination of a vast program Laurent Pecheux, Giuseppe Cades, Francesco
the first minister of Parma, Du Tillot, had of patronage on the part of the Borghese Caccianiga, Felice Giani, Pietro Antonio
ordered from Pietro Melchiorre Ferrari in family, who in the immediately preceding Novelli, Domenico de Angelis, Pietro Angeletti,

1760. A manifesto of the Arcadian outlook, it years had devoted their efforts to their palazzo Gavin Hamilton, Cristoforo Unterperger,
depicts Carlo Innocenzo Frugoni, Metastasio's on the Ripetta and the church of S. Caterina da Benigne Gagneraux, Filippo Buonvicini, the
successor in eighteenth-century lyric poetry, Siena in via Giulia. The renovation of the animal painter Wenceslas Peter, and the trompe
clad in skins, standing by the River Alpheus in church had begun in 1766 to plans drawn up by l'ceil specialist Giovambattista Marchetti H4 —
theshadow of a herm of Pan and reciting the architect Paolo Posi (alias Minete Calidonio), were not actually pasxori, although many were
poetry to a happy gathering of nymphs and under the aegis of Cardinal Scipione Borghese members of the Accademia di S. Luca and so
shepherds (fig. 30).'^ This important painting, as representative of the most prominent Sienese had close connections with Arcadian circles.
"
commissioned by the reforming minister of family resident in Rome.' 5
The relationship between Marcantonio
the little Bourbon court of Parma, gives a clear On the ground floor of the Villa Borghese Borghese and the group of Anglo-Roman
indication of the extension of Arcadian influ- on the Pincio, Tommaso Maria Conca (alias intellectuals and artists was built on the
ence, through the academy's colonies, to Demofilo Imerio) was responsible for the dec- complex affinities between Britons such as

the whole of Italy,' 4 * and therefore of the oration of two rooms which posed special Gavin Hamilton and the Venetian cultural
unifying function of the "republic of letters" problems of classical scholarship. Particularly environment represented by Piranesi, Volpato,

centered in Rome. was his treatment of the Egyptian

successful and Canova. A key figure in this respect was
The cultural complexity of the three main Room, which develops aspects of Piranesi's Don Abbondio Rezzonico, the favorite nephew
commissions for large-scale decorative pro- Caffe degli Inglesi, created in the 1760s, or of of Clement XIII, whom the pope made a
jects during the papacy of Pius VI can be the same artist's Diverse maniere di adornare i Roman senator, the highest civic dignity under
ascribed largely to the sponsors' Arcadian cammini. His motifs from ancient Egyptian art the ancien regime. In 1766, aged twenty-five,
connections. The restructuring and redecora- take up the subjects and antiquarian interpre- Rezzonico had a formal portrait of himself
tion of Marcantonio Borghese's villa on the tations of the Borghese collection of Egyptian painted by Batoni,'" in which he appears
Pincio was directed by the architect Antonio which the room was dedicated.
statues to majestic in his purple robes, with the symbols
Asprucci (alias Agatereo Rodio), but many of Conca must have been helped in his task by of Rome and of legislative authority. The venue
the more significant artists called to execute long familiarity with scholarly problems, for these Anglo-Venetian contacts —apart
the vast complex of history paintings, land- a familiarity mentioned in the oration at his from the Palazzo di Venezia and the adjacent
scapes, genre scenes, ornamental sculptures, funeral, probably composed by Melchiorre church of S. Marco, the traditional centers of
and bas-reliefs that gave renewed splendor to Missirini in 1823 and preserved at the the Serenissima in Rome — may well have
the villa's interior were Arcadians and at the Accademia The author of this text
di S. Luca.'
si
been the apartment in the Palazzo Senatorio
same time prominent members of the points out that the work on the Villa Borghese on the Capitol where Abbondio (alias Crisandro
Accademia di S. Luca. It is not known exactly must have been the most satisfying time of Prieneo) had assembled choice elements from
who drew up so elaborate an iconographical Conca's life, when, aged about forty, he enjoyed the family art collection, in particular some
program, which required both an allusion to the esteem and companionship not only of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Venetian
the many classical sculptures in the collection, colleagues and men of letters such as Nicola paintings. In an architectural setting created
and a celebration of more modern renderings Spedalieri, Ennio Quirino Visconti, Vito Maria by Quarenghi and Piranesi and decorated by
of ancient myths (for instance, Bernini's Apollo Giovinazzi, and Giovanni Gactano Bottari (all Giuseppe Cades hung state portraits of the
and Daphne and Aeneas and Anchises),' 4 but ''
it is Arcadians), but also of cultured churchmen pope, a masterpiece by Mengs in a sumptuous
reasonable to suggest that, in addition to the such as cardinals Domenico Maria Orsini silver-gilt frame (cat. 255). and of his brother
prince and the cultured artists of his (alias Stagildo), Giuseppe Rinuccini (alios Dallo Cardinal Giovanni Battista (by Angelika
entourage, his brother Cardinal Scipione Geliastense), and Scipione Borghese himself, Kauffmann), as well as the portrait of
Borghese (alias Melissono Elatense) played who on account ol their common member- Rezzonico painted by Batoni.

ARCADIA
 A far more unusual figure was Prince
Sigismondo Chigi (alias Astridio Dafnitico), a
man of letters and a student of economics with
an interest in classical antiquity and modern
painting. 14 " Ludwig Guttenbrunn depicted him
in a dressing-gown embracing a statuette of
Lycian Apollo, ir while Gaspare Landi painted
him on horseback on his farm at Castel
Fusano.' * But it was on his ancestral estates
4
in

the Ariccia area that the prince found an outlet

for his interest in art and nature, celebrating
the literary glories of ancient Greece and
modern Italy in the pictorial decoration of the
seventeenth-century villa, and transforming Fig. 32 Villa Borghese, Rome, Sala degli Imperatori,
the park into an unspoiled pastoral site. While 1780
nature was left to its own devices to recreate
the setting of a fabulous Golden Age, art was
used to elevate poetry as the loftiest dimen-
sion of human existence (the prince normally Antonio Concioli, Stefano Tofanelli, and
enjoyed the company of literary figures such Antonio Cavallucci,'" 5 younger artists who all
as Vittorio Alfieri and Vincenzo Monti), cele- reinterpreted the style of Batoni or Mengs with
brating both the poetry of antiquity and an emphasis on their roots in seventeenth-
Ariosto's fables. The artist chosen for the inte- Fig. 31 Paolo Posi, Monument to Maria Flaminia Chigi century art. At almost the same time (1787),

rior projects at Ariccia was Giuseppe Cades,' 4 ''

Odescalchi, c. 1772, marble and bronze; S. Maria del not far from the Palazzo Altieri, Antonio
who had also produced a decorative scheme Popolo, Rome Canova was unveiling his monument to
with figures of the Muses (1784; destroyed)'"" Clement XIV in the church of Ss. Apostoli,
for the prince's city residence. In 1763, to mark a commission obtained through the good
the marriage of Sigismondo Chigi and Maria over a period of thirty years, the Salone d'Oro offices of GavinHamilton and Giovanni
Flaminia Odescalchi, this palazzo had acquired of Palazzo Chigi, the Sala degli Imperatori on Volpato. While the Abbe Giovinazzi, on the
one of the most sumptuous of all Roman inte- the ground floor of the Villa Borghese (fig. 32), other side of via del Corso, was inveighing
riors. The Salone d'Oro, designed by Giovanni and the Gabinetto Nobile of the Palazzo against Canova's work "in a great assembly
Stern under the supervision of the bride- Altieri form a trio of decorative masterpieces of princes" 1
"" (as Altieri's architect, Giuseppe
groom's uncle. Prince Emilio Altieri, was dec- combining the aura of antiquity with modern Barberi, records in one of his caricatures),
orated with stuccowork by Tommaso Righi, grace — a result that could only have been in the pages of the Memorie per le Belle Arti

paintings by Niccolo Lapiccola, and other late achieved by virtue of the Roman Arcadian Giovanni Gherardo de Rossi was greeting the
eighteenth-century works skillfully attuned to poetic. event as one likely to initiate "some fortunate
thenew setting, such as necromantic land- A wedding was again the occasion for the revolution in the Arts."'"" Here again, the main
scapes by the Fleming Jan de Momper and redecoration of the apartment in the Palazzo protagonists in the debate were two celebrated
Gaulli's sensual Endymion."" The memorial Altieri: Paluzzo, son of Prince Emilio, was representatives of the "republic of letters."
that Chigi erected in the church of S. Maria marrying Marianna of Saxony (alias Nicori Another precept of Gian Vincenzo Gravina's
del Popolo for his wife, who died in childbirth Amantutea) and on the former Jesuit
called Ragion poetica proved very much to the point
when aged little over twenty in 1771, is both an scholar Vito Maria Giovinazzi to draw up in one of the best critical interpretations of
epitome of his own taste and a display of plans for the decoration. Giovinazzi referred Canova's Venus and Adonis, sculpted in the years
Roman princely dignity. In its structure, it is back to an early sixteenth-century manu- 1789 to 1794 for the marchese Berio of Naples,
based on the heraldic arms of the Chigi and script, Li nuptiali, composed by another which was described in painstaking detail by
Odescalchi families, both of which had pro- member of the Altieri family, Marco Carlo Castone della Torre di Rezzonico (alias

duced popes (fig. 31). As well as Sigismondo Antonio,"" in search of marriage allegories Dorillo Dafneio),'"* who grasped the overall
and Flaminia herself (a competent poet, alias based on ancient history and, in particular, the significance of the work. As for Gravina the
Eurinome Elidea), the architect Paolo Posi was alliance of Romans and Sabines. The model of Farnese Hercules was enhanced by "the distinct
also an Arcadian and undoubtedly consulted the Palazzo Pamphili, in which biblical alle- expression of muscles, veins and nerves," 16 " so
with the prince in planning the monument. was therefore super-
gories predominated,'" 4 Rezzonico grasped in Canova's sculpture the
The result was a polychrome composition seded by one based on Roman history and meaning of action, its effects, and the story it

combining the specialist skills of the figure mythology. This was inspired not so much by recounts.
sculptor Agostino Penna (the putti, portrait, an interest in examples of virtue, an interest About a year after Baldassarre Odescalchi
and drapery), the animal sculptor Francesco developed by the French pensionnaircs at the had celebrated the restoration of the Bosco
Antonio Franzoni (the eagle, lion, and rocks), Palazzo Mancini, but by a scholarly enthusi- Parrasio, marking the academy's first cente-
and the silversmith and bronzeworker asm for local tradition. To the familiar names nary, Giuseppe Valadier had the idea of laying
Bartolomeo Burone (the oak tree and other of von Maron, Cades, Gagneraux, out another great gathering space on a hill, at

metal features)."'' Admired by Canova in his Unterperger, Tommaso Maria Conca, and the other end of Rome. Valadier's initial plans
youth, the monument shows some continuity Giani (all employed by Marcantonio Borghese for the Piazza del Popolo date from 1792-94,
with the Baroque style, soon to be superseded on his villa or city residence), must now be signaling the conclusion of eighteenth-century
by the return to classical antiquity. Created added those of Marcello Leopardi (fig. 33), developments in the arts and the beginning of

ARCADIA
 " .

Beginning with the generation of artists

born in the seventeenth century and active in
Rome in the early years of the eighteenth, the
truth is that very few of them can accurately
be defined as native Romans. Of these, only
the following can be described as major
figures: Giuseppe Bartolomeo Chiari (though
his father was a Florentine), Giuseppe Passeri,

Giovanni Odazzi (who had a Milanese father),

Andrea Procaccini (also undoubtedly of

Milanese extraction), and Marco Benefial (son
of a French father and Roman mother). The
others came either from the Papal States

Fig. 33 Marcello Leopardi. Hecuba Giving the Infant Fig- 34 View of the Piazza del Popolo, Rome (Maratti and Giuseppe Ghezzi), or from other
Paris to One oj Her Servants, 1791, oil on canvas; Italian states, such as the dukedom of Milan
Palazzo Altieri, Rome (Camillo Rusconi, Pietro de' Pietri, Carlo
Fontana) or the Spanish-ruled Kingdom of
the Two Sicilies (such as Giacinto Calandrucci
a new century, when the square was eventually the period of his maturity, when the artist has from Palermo and Sebastiano Conca from
laid out in a different form during the French carved out his niche in the market, often rein- Gaeta). Benedetto Luti, Luigi Garzi, the sculp-
occupation. Harking back to the precedent of forced by the ties contracted through marriage tor Giuseppe Mazzuoli, and the architect
the Arcadian site on the Janiculum. the new or the choice of godparents for his children.' Giovan Battista Contini were subjects of the
square's sculptural decoration,combined with Then there were family systems associated with Grand Duke of Tuscany, while the sculptors
architecture and landscape gardening, takes up the topography of Rome and places of resi- Pietro Stefano Monnot and Pierre Legros were
the themes of mythology, the changing seasons, dence, with patronage linked to common French. Even this short list serves to show that
and the evocation of Roman power, and national origins, and with the passing on of artistic activity in Rome was anything but

embodies them in the vast natural amphithe- artistic specialities from one generation to the homegrown, and this continued to be the case
ater offered by the wooded slopes of the Pincio next. Other relationships depended on methods in the following decades. But it also reveals a
(fig. 34). The square, which welcomes the trav- of production, in particular the monumental general similarity of status, with all these
eler from the north, is in perfect keeping with projects which brought together groups of artists belonging to a fairly homogeneous class,
the epigraph celebrating the happy and auspi- artists from similar backgrounds to form the neither aristocratic, nor working-class in the
cious arrival of Christina of Sweden, the cul- teams that carried out vast and complex true sense, nor even what was then described
tured queen who was appointed basilissa of the schemes for churches and residences in Rome as civile, which presupposed a certain standard
Accademia dell'Arcadia. and elsewhere in Italy, as well as throughout of living and the ownership of property. Of
Europe. Professional success was reflected in those already mentioned, the most favored by
financial success, and the acquisition of posses- birth would seem to have been Maratti, whose
A COMMUNITY OF ARTISTS
sions that can be verified by wills and invento- Dalmatian parents had invested their capital in

In history it is common to focus on what ries; it was reflected also in a degree of upward property in the district of Ancona, Andrea
appears new, innovative, and different from the social mobility. An artist might first be admit- Procaccini, born "of comfortably off parents."
past, and thereby to stress changes, new trends, ted to a mutual-aid organization such as the so that "his parents instructed and educated
or outright revolutions in taste and style. Congregazione dei Virtuosi al Pantheon,'"' and him in accordance with their civil status and
However, in examining the artistic life of a city later to the more selective Accademia di S. Luca, wealth," and, even more than the other two,
such as Rome, where painters, sculptors, archi- and his growing prestige be acknowledged by Giuseppe Ghezzi, son of the painter and archi-
tects, and their dependants were a constant the granting of the rank of Cavaliere or, in rare tect Sebastiano Ghezzi, with whose work the
presence and formed an identifiable and quan- cases, a higher title of nobility. The artist's tomb King of Portugal had been "so satisfied that . .

tifiable class, what immediately strikes the can also be a significant clue, ranging from a he granted him a rich cross, making him and
observer is the continuity, the recurrence of simple memorial plaque (better than burial in his descendants cavalieri to the third genera-
structures, mechanisms, and traditional career a common grave, as was the general practice) tion. Having grown up with that noble title,

patterns. An investigation of the eighteenth to a monument or even a family chapel, as in he had his son educated in the aristocratic

century and the careers of individual artists the case of Maratti at Camerano. " 1
manner and, while sending him to school to
working in Rome provides concrete examples The sources used for reconstructing the grammar and rhetoric, instructed him
learn
that explain the condition of the artist and his careers of individual artists are singularly con- in drawing." This elevated social status seems
position in a network of relationships that sistent in providing this kind of information. always to have been an important factor in

encompasses the entire economic, social, and Nicola Pio 173 and Lione Pascoli,' •*
for example, Giuseppe Ghezzi's complex social relation-
cultural fabric — in short, the history —of the who wrote their collections of biographies in ships, and subsequently in those of his son
time. This kind of research is based on data the early decades of the eighteenth century, Pier Leone, who was also a Cavaliere in his

such as the geographical origin of the artist always describe the circumstances of the own right,
1
" and played an important part in

(local or foreign), his status at birth (reflected birth, the family's social position and, when his acceptance within the academic environ-
in the profession of father and family), and the possible, the network of family members, ment. Lower down the social scale, most prac-
terms of his apprenticeship. It is then neces- friends, and neighbors which, together with titioners were sons or heirs of artists who
sary to examine the early stages of his career, financial information, provides the clearest expected to make a career in their fathers'
the structure of his relations with patrons, and picture of each artist's start in life. workshops (Passeri, Rusconi, Legros. Monnot.

AR( A DI A
 depicted Valadier's wife, Caterina della Valle,
as Latona and gave their two children, Giuseppe
and Clementina, the attributes of Apollo and
,x
Diana (cat. 190), " in a travestimento classico nor-

mally reserved for members of the aristocracy.

Evidently this was not regarded as excessive
for an artist who, thanks to his privileged rela-
tions with the Chigi and Borghese families,
had attained the highest social position.

Both paintings also serve as a reminder that

artistic traditions were handed down within
families. Carlo Chiari became a painter (albeit
not a particularly famous one);'* Giuseppe 1

Valadier went on to become the architect and

town planner of Neoclassical Rome.
Incidentally, Caterina della Valle was the

daughter of the sculptor Filippo della Valle

(her sister Ottavia married Cristoforo
Unterperger and another sister, Petronilla,

married the French painter Gabriel Duran).' 8z

As well as the Chiari and Valadier "firms,"
Fig. 35 Giuseppe Bartolomeo Chiari, Self-portrait with there were the Bracci (Pietro, a sculptor, and
the Artist's Family, 1716, oil on canvas: Museo di his son Filippo, a painter); Ignazio, Ludovico,

Roma, Rome and Vincenzo Stern; the brothers Stefano and

Giuseppe Pozzi; Vincenzo, Camillo, and Fig. 36 Johan Tobias Sergei. Self-portrait with the
Michelangelo Pacetti, who maintained a family Artist's Wife. Anna Rella, and Her Son Custav, pen and
Fontana, Contini), or were of humble condi- tradition as sculptors, restorers, and art dealers; brown ink; Nationalmuseum, Stockholm
tion and hoped to make their way in the art Pompeo Batoni and his children Domenico,
world. For example, Chiari was the son of an Romualdo, and Benedetta Maria, a celebrated

innkeeper; Benefial's father was a weaver; De' miniaturist; Giovanni Battista and Francesco Valle, who married artists of French or Austrian
Pietriwas the cousin of a wine merchant; and, Piranesi, the well-known engravers; Giuseppe origin, Maria Felice Tibaldi (cat. 283) married
according to Pascoli, Sebastiano Conca was of and Mariano Vasi, also engravers; the mosaic the French artist Subleyras; Blanchet the daugh-
humble birth and studied with the support of specialists Fabio and Pietro Paolo Cristofari; ter of the engraver Dies; Sergei a Roman
an uncle who was a priest.' " Finally, Giovanni the gemstone engravers Antonio, Giovanni, woman, Anna Rella (fig. 36); and Giuseppe
Battista Gaulli is recorded as having been and Luigi Pichler; the Fidanza family land- Ceracchi a young Austrian woman, Teresa
"without support, without substance and scape painters . . . and so on throughout the Schliesahan of Vienna.'* The case of Mengs 4

without hope of gaining any," being of a century.Workshops and techniques, equip- was also repeated on numerous occasions: to
wealthy family that had fallen on hard times ment and customers were handed down from marry his model, Margherita Guazzi, "a most
86
and been decimated by the plague. However, generation to generation, both in the "major" beautiful, modest, but poor young girl,"' the
one common thread emerges from all these arts, and in the crafts. Protestant painter from Saxony had to over-
biographies: discipline in the exercise of the Kinship ties within the artistic community come the opposition of her family by convert-
artist's craft, which was lived as a form of could also be a strategic consideration in ing to Catholicism (as his sisters did also). The
worship. In the case of Pietro de' Pietri, Pascoli increasing clientele or strengthening a domi- marriage, which proved to be a happy one,
sums it up in a few eloquent words: "He nant position (Anton von Maron, for instance, was celebrated in the summer of 1749- Twenty
greatly venerated his profession, and always married the miniaturist Terese Mengs, sister of years earlier, Batoni, too, had married a
feared God." 177 the charismatic Anton Raphael Mengs). woman from an inferior social class. Caterina
A self-portrait of Giuseppe Bartolomeo Sometimes, the strategy adopted was less Setti was the daughter of the caretaker of the
Chiari (1716; fig. 35)'"* shows him with his wife, direct but nonetheless effective. To take one Farnesina, with whose family (of Tuscan origin)

children, and brother Tommaso, another significant and subtle example, the wife of the young painter was lodging. His patrons
painter. As well as explaining the identity of all Placido Costanzi, Anna Maria Barazzi, was back in Lucca stopped his living allowance on
the members of the family his wife: Lucrezia — the sister of Francesco Barazzi, who is known account of this decision and Batoni, in later life,

Damiani, and children Stefano (the eldest), to have had close links (as a renter of rooms, confided to his pupil Johann Gottlieb Puhlman
Carlo, and Teresa — Pascoli recounts their guide, and consultant on antiquities) with that he now saw his first marriage as a youth-
*"
social success, no doubt owing to their father's English tourists and with the clientele of ful error.
1

In contrast to this mingling of

status. Stefano became a canon of S. Maria in Batoni;'*' and it is reasonable to assume that nationalities and social classes, many artists still
Cosmedin, Carlo followed in the footsteps of this may have given rise to an exchange, if not preferred to take wives from own region
their
his father and uncle as a painter, while Teresa of commissions, at least of information and and community. For example, the Sicilian
'**
married a "rich jeweler."' " Even higher social contacts between the two celebrated painters. painter Gioacchino Martorana married the
status, in this case with sophisticated intellec- Also fairly common among artists in Rome daughter of the engraver Giuseppe Vasi, also

tual connotations, is revealed in a group por- were marriages between Italians and members of Sicilian origin.
trait (1766) of the family of the famous of other national communities. In addition to In other cases kinship was of a sacramental
silversmith l.uigi Valadier. Giuseppe Bottani the Roman-born daughters of Filippo della nature, with ties formed on such occasions as

ARCADIA
 "

baptisms or confirmations. The godfather, exercise of their profession owing to illness,

—
whose role was should the need arise — to spent their last years in poverty, in some cases
act on behalf of the child in place of the supported by a compassionate patron. A
natural parents, might be an aristocrat with signal, if not tragic, example is Benefial, blind

whom the artist dealt on an equal footing. and without means of support, who relied on
Such was the case of Maratti and Niccolo the generosity of his benefactor Niccolo
Maria Pallavicini: the Marchese Pallavicini Soderini."' Benefial
;
showed little skill in man-
acted as godfather to the first child of Faustina, aging his affairs, whereas Corrado Giaquinto
the beloved only daughter of the most cele- and Placido Costanzi showed great skill in

brated painter of his day.'

Sfi
But when an artist administering theirs."" In addition to luxury
undertook to take care of the child of another items such as silverware and jewelry, paintings
artist-Lambert Krahe was sponsor at the con- and sculptures, and signs of rank such as
firmation of Luigi Subleyras; on his deathbed swords, guns, and wigs alia cavaliera, the inven-
Filippo della Valle entrusted the care of his tory of Costanzi's assets'" 4 lists luoghi di monte
underage children to Luigi Valadier-the mech- and real estate that gave the painter a solid
anisms involved were similar to those still financial foundation. He even owned a vine-
current today: affinities of class, wealth, and yard with a house on via Nomentana (at
culture led to the formation of pacts and rein- Pratalata, now Pietralata), bordering the prop-
forced cooperation. erties of aristocrats such as the conti Bolognetti
The best way to determine the status and the marchesi Nunez. The estate of

achieved by an artist, after he had gone through Giovanni Pichler"" reflected the activity of a
all the stages of his training, made contacts self-sufficient family firm, which ran a private Fig. J7 Pierre Subleyras, The Painter's Studio, 1748, oil

with patrons (almost always through the master academy (evidenced by the stool and lamps on canvas; Gemaldegalerie der Akademie der
in whose workshop he had served his appren- provided for the models) and produced — in Bildenden Kunste, Vienna
ticeship), and exercised his profession for a addition to the incised gemstones for which
longer or shorter time, is by reference to such Pichler was famous — history and figure paint-

tangible and unforgiving documents as wills ings. For this purpose, they owned many als, tools, and instruments, this studio would
and post-mortem inventories of property left prints, pattern books, manuals, and academic seem to have been the best-equipped center
to heirs. Lists of customary household artifacts, life drawings compiled by Corvi and Batoni as for the restoration, production, and export of
descriptions of garments and their condition, well as Pichler himself. sculpture in eighteenth-century Rome.
the presence or absence of valuables and works In addition to paintings by masters as diverse Cavaceppi intended that it should become a
di monte,'*" debts and
of art, details of luoghi as Rubens and Maratti, Lanfranco and Corvi, public school run by the Accademia di S. Luca
sums owed, and descriptions of studios and Pichler 's house also contained fifty or so land- but, owing to a combination of unfortunate
libraries all provide an extraordinarily rich scapes, marines, and cloud studies ("nebbie") circumstances, the whole corpus of drawings,
mine of information, which often confirms by Fidanza (the inventory does not say whether sculptures, and plaster casts became dispersed
the assessments given by the early biographers. Francesco, Giuseppe, or Giacomo). This col- throughout Europe within a very short space
Pascoli and Pio often provide accurate informa- lection highlights another activity frequently of time.
tion as to the importance of the estate, or engaged in by artists who, by virtue of their Because of their unusual specifications,
record those rare instances in which the artist profession, came into direct contact with an studios were often handed on from one artist
was not interested in accumulating wealth. The often foreign clientele: that of art dealer. For to another. In Costanzi's former studio,
apartment of Giuseppe Passeri, according to some, this activity became an alternative pro- between Piazza del Popolo and Piazza di

Pascoli, was "worth seeing on account of its fession, and in this respect the British artists Spagna, David painted and subsequently
rarity, taste and cleanliness"; on the other hand, held a privileged position on account of their exhibited his Oath oj the Horatii. Pierre
he reports that Pietro de' Pietri cared little for contacts with their wealthy fellow-country- Subleyras's studio in the Casa Stefanoni in via
comfort and wealth, "lived like a philosopher," men making the Grand Tour. Gavin Hamilton, Felice (now via Sistina) —
known from the cel-
and left "little capital" to his brother. for example, frequently acted as an intermedi- ebrated painting now in Vienna (fig. 3~) was —
Quite different was the lavish establish- ary for the sale of archaeological artifacts and successively occupied by Domenico Corvi
ment suggested by the inventories of Carlo classical and modern works of art, and there is (17S1-S2), Anton Raphael Mengs (1753-57), and
,s
Maratti (who died in 1713) and his spouse, an inventory dated 1790 describing the rooms Gavin Hamilton (1758-62). Study of docu-
Francesca Gommi."" This situation may seem occupied by James Byres near Piazza di ments such as stati dellc anime (Easter censuses
natural given the painter's status, his percep- Spagna which is more indicative of commer- of each dwelling made by parish priests)
tion of himself, and his glorification during his cial activity than an interest in collecting. As shows that artists tended to be concentrated
lifetime as a master to whom popes and sover- well as carved and gilded furniture and in certain districts of the city, which led to the
eigns paid homage. But it is not so obvious, marble-topped tables, there were so many sharing and handing on of studios and work-
given the financial situation of another major antique busts, copies of classical masters, and shops. From the seventeenth century, and
artist, Pompeo Batoni, who on his death in works by contemporary English artists that even earlier, painters seem to have favored the
17S6 did not even leave enough to keep his much of the contents can only have been area between via Felice and via Paolina (nov
family in a degree of comfort."" Being recog- intended for sale."'" via del Babuino), where the workshops of anti-
nized as a great artist did not therefore always A unique case is the studio of Bartolomeo quarians and inns for travelers were also situ-
result in becoming part of the elite who could Cavaceppi in via del Babuino, of which there ated. Sculptors were also present in the Campo
live off unearned income. There were cases of are engravings as well as very detailed invento- Marzio area,""' while storerooms (one owned
famous artists who, unable to continue the ries.
1
" From the extensive apparatus of materi- by Piranesi) and the workshops of stonecut-
 —

ters and marbleworkers tended to be found at appear that Placido Costanzi — unlike his "mechanical" condition, still based on the per-
Macel de' Corvi, where Michelangelo had lived brother Carlo, Arcadian and gem engraver, ception that it was a manual activity. Knightly
in the sixteenth century and where it was rela- known as "Hunchback Costanzi" 2 '"
—was status and membership of the Accademia,
tively easy to obtain materials, because of the never granted the title of Cavaliere. This dis- involvement in society salons and Arcadian
proximity of the Roman forums. tinction was very much sought after by artists, assemblies, the practice and teaching of
The inventory of the possessions of Placido and those who had been so ennobled tended drawing were the factors that enabled
Costanzi, referred to earlier, provides an to depict the insignia in their self-portraits and Domenico Corvi, virtually on the eve of the
insight into two other aspects of an artist's refer to the title in their signatures and on French Revolution, to depict himself in his
career: attendance at a private academy, and every other possible occasion. In the seven- self-portraits with the confident, haughty air
strategies for acceding to noble rank. From the teenth century the fact that Gaspare Celio was of a nobleman. Corvi's self-portraits are
highly detailed description of all the rooms in awarded the distinction rather than Orazio perhaps the most explicit indication of the
the house, which was subsequently left to the Borgianni seems to have led to Borgianni's striving of a whole profession to achieve
Accademia di S. Luca (except for the rooms premature death. According to Casanova, parity of esteem with the upper echelons of
occupied by his widow, which passed to the "when someone wrote to Mengs [in Madrid] society in the name of the arts and sciences
academy only after her death), it emerges that without mentioning the title of cavaliere in the (cat. Toward the end of the century,
204).
"" "s
Costanzi used part of the house as his studio. 2
address ... he was mortally offended." when established society was being overtaken
It was subdivided into a "studio grande," a It therefore seems strange that an artist at by political events, Pius VI nevertheless

"studio superiore," and a "studio dei giovani," the center of social and intellectual life, such as decided to raise Vincenzo Pacetti to the rank
in which the art expert Filippo Evangelisti Francesco Trevisani, several times declined the of "count palatine." 2
" Even though the advent
"9
(better known for his long partnership with distinction from both popes and sovereigns, 2
of bourgeois ideology might seem to have
Benefial than as a painter in his own right) eventually accepting it from Pope Benedict frustrated the age-old struggle of artists to
recorded the presence of finished paintings The cross of the Order of Christ was only
XIII. achieve higher status, when the social parame-
and preparatory studies by Costanzi himself, bestowed for special services. Not even ters of the ancien regime were to some extent
cartoons by Trevisani and Domenichino, Maratti was granted it until late in his life, in restored in Rome during the Restoration
portfolios of life drawings, a lamp for illumi- 1704, from the hand of Clement XI. Many of period, the title of marchese — never previ-
nating the model, adjustable wooden dummies, the painters and sculptors responsible for the ously bestowed on an artist —was granted to
whole plaster casts and fragments (heads, images of Prophets and Apostles in St. John Canova, prince of his profession.
arms, busts . . .), "collections of prints by Lateran (including Odazzi and Rusconi, The poverty or worldly success of an artist

various authors," as well as the usual panoply among others) were dubbed cavalieri in recog- tended to determine whether he was buried in

of paints, easels, palettes, brushes, cloths for nition of their work The youngest of them was obscurity or in solemn state. The latter was the
covering paintings, and even the maulstick Benefial. Others had already been granted case for the Sicilian painter Agostino Scilla,

on which the artist supported his arm while noble rank by foreign sovereigns: Benedetto whose funeral was celebrated in Rome in 1700
painting. Not even the Maratti inventory Luti by the Habsburg Emperor Charles VI, with the participation of the academicians of
(though it lists plaster casts, cartoons, and "who placed a crown in his coat-of-arms to S. Luca, the Virtuosi al Pantheon, and many
pattern books), nor that of the Ghezzis, gives him the distinction of ancient nobility";
give artists.
2 '
4
Similar treatment was accorded to

so complete a picture of the teaching process. and Giuseppe Nicola Nasini by Joseph Angelika Kauffmann, who lay in state sur-

The lamp for lighting the models indicates the I. Sebastiano Conca was made "cavaliere rounded by her pictures and was attended by
practice of drawing from the nude, 2 '"
the di Cristo" in 1729 at a sumptuous ceremony a host of aristocrats, cardinals, and ordinary
plaster casts the study of the antique, the in S. Martino ai Monti by Cardinal Pietro people such had not been seen for many
Domenichino and Trevisani cartoons the Ottoboni, who wanted to bestow a personal 2
years. " An artist might be buried in his own
importance of "classical" and modern models, honor upon him. 21
" To this distinction was parish without any special mark of distinction
the pattern books and prints the study of the added the title of nobility conferred on Conca (Giovanni Battista Gaulli, Pierre Subleyras,
"bella e esatta maniera," while the many unfin- by the Bourbon King Charles III in 1757, with Pompeo Batoni) or with a simple memorial
ished canvases — specifically mentioned as the right to hand it on to his descendants until stone in a church (Giuseppe Bartolomeo
being by Costanzi's own hand —suggest that the third generation. Batoni and Mengs were Chiari at S. Susanna, Giuseppe and Pier Leone
the "giovani" were also employed on the also made cavalieri of the Order of Christ and Ghezzi at S. Salvatore in Lauro, Antonio
master's works. Other artists' houses received noble titles from a foreign sovereign, Cavallucci at S. Martino ai Monti), with a
those of Pietro Stefano Monnot in via delle in their case Maria Theresa of Austria. monument erected by his children (Agostino
Carrozze,"' of Pietro Paolo and Fabio Francesco Mancini, on the other hand, had to Masucci at S. Salvatore ai Monti), prearranged
Cristofari in the Borgo,
2 '"
of Piranesi in the intrigue for several years to be granted any by the artist himself (Carlo Maratti at S. Maria
Palazzo Tomati, "" and of Giovanni Pichlerin sort of distinction.
2
" Even more interesting is degli Angeli , Filippo della Valle at S. Susanna,
via dei Pontefici 105 (belonging respectively to the case of Corrado Giaquinto, who accumu- Giovanni Battista Piranesi at S. Maria del
21
a sculptor,two celebrated mosaicists, the lated enormous assets partly with the aim of Priorato), " or paid for by a patron (Mengs in
21 "
century's most famous engraver, and the most acquiring a feudal estate worth 80,000 ducats. S. Michele in Borgo), but this funerary hier-
successful carver of gemstones) — include His ambition was still not realized at the time archy did not always correspond to the degree
workshop areas (Monnot in particular needed of his death, but in the meantime, as if in of success achieved by artists during their life-

premises suited to the production of large- anticipation of the event, the painter and his time. In any case, was nullified by the series
it

scale sculptures), but in none of them are there sons, in Spain and in Naples, had already of portraits in the Accademia di S. Luca, which
rooms so obviously devoted to the functions adopted the lifestyle of wealthy aristocrats. 2 ' 2
placed all artists on an equal footing, only the
of schooling younger artists. 2 " 6 Insisting on the nobility of the profession profession of their art conferring any special
Despite the wigs alia cavalicra scrupulously and its liberal character was the only way dignity. The ultimate accolade was a bust in
listed together with cups and china, it would under the ancicn regime to free art from its the Pantheon, the "temple of glory" —the

AR( APIA
 Fig. 39 Facade of the Scolopite College, L'viv,
Ukraine, c. 1764

artists involved. At Mafra the Portuguese

monarch's intention was to create his own
idealized Rome, and he relied mainly on the
architect who had planned the Bosco Parrasio,

Antonio Canevari. But despite his efforts and

the enormous capital investment, the results

Fig. 38 Vincenzo Pacetti, Marco Benefal, 1784, were patchy: not all the artists grasped the Fig.40 Luigi Vanvitelli, Chapel oj St. John the Baptist,

marble; Protomoteca Capitolina, Rome importance of the commission, and some 1742-47; Museo di Sao Roque, Lisbon
responded with a less than wholehearted
commitment, leaving much of the work to
posthumous distinction accorded to Camillo assistants. This is certainly true of Giaquinto, was undoubtedly the Romans who ensured
Rusconi, Pietro Bracci, Benefial (fig. 38), though Pietro Bianchi gave one of his best per- the unity of the whole and transformed the
Mengs, Angelika Kauffmann, Pichler, formances. 222 Nor were the artists all of the cathedral into the most impressive gallery of
8
and Piranesi.
2 '
same high standard. As well as the masters eighteenth-century Italian painting. The cycle
already mentioned, to whom can be added begins in the chapel of S. Ranieri with a striking
Francesco Mancini, Sebastiano Conca, and masterpiece by Benedetto Luti, a Florentine
ARCADIA OUTSIDE ROME
Etienne Parrocel (and the sculptors Giovanni who had trained in Rome under the influence
When his patrons insisted that the architect Battista Maini, Carlo Monaldi, and Filippo of the prince Livio Odescalchi and was there-
Nikolaus von Pacassi design the Gardekirche della Valle), they included hacks such as fore more attuned to the doctrinal outlook of
in Vienna "in the Roman manner," they were Emanuele Alfani. This disparity undoubtedly Gravina's academy. In 171 2 Luti delivered The
merely reiterating, in a far more prestigious also reflects a different system of supervision. Investiture of Saint Ranieri (fig. 41), which con-
situation, the request made at the end of the At Pisa a painted model of the planned work tains in germ many of the compositional
sixteenth century by the Vecchiarelli, the most was automatically required and put on display motifs evident in the canvases that follow,
prominent family of Rieti, a small town in the in a public museum,
22
and when the final
'
right through to Antonio Cavallucci's
Papal States, who had asked Carlo Maderno to version arrived it was also exhibited before its Investiture of Saint Bona (cat. 197), delivered
build their new palazzo "alia romana e alia final installation, giving the opportunity for eighty years later and painted with the advice
grande," specifically mentioning the residences public comment, comparison, and, if appro- of the Arcadian poet and philosopher Appiano
he had designed for Cardinal Salviati and the priate, criticism. However, when supervision Buonafede. 22 " It has the same melodic compo-

21
Marchese Crescenzi. " Similar tastes were was exercised directly by the architect in charge, sition, the same delicate flesh tones, the same
behind the building of a church in Potsdam in as was the case with the chapel of St. John the solemnity of presentation and extraordinary
the mid-eighteenth century, the faqade of which Baptist in the church of Sa Roque in Lisbon, perspective effects in the depiction of vest-
224
is a direct copy of the facade of S. Maria designed by Luigi Vanvitelli (fig. 40), the ments and costume that had characterized
Maggiore, or the elevation of the Scolopite quality of the workmanship, from the paint- Luti's opening work. The series had continued
College at L'viv, Ukraine, which is modeled on ings by Agostino Masucci to the tiny mosaics in 1719 with a Carracci-style painting by the
St. John Lateran (fig. 39). Specifically Arcadian and silverwork, tended to come up to the Romanized Bolognese artist Domenico Maria
influence two large-scale projects
is evident in expectations of the patron. Muratori, Saint Ranieri Freeing a Demoniac,
outside Rome: the complex commissioned by The great pictorial project intended to then — after a fruitless request to the most
John V of Portugal at Mafra in the 1730s and complete the decoration of the ancient cathe- famous of the painters then working in Rome.
1740s,"
1

and the pictorial decoration of Pisa dral of Pisa was promoted by the local Arcadian Francesco Trevisani, who refused on the
Cathedral. The first is instructive in that it colony. 215 The existing decorative scheme grounds of his advanced age — in 1730 with
employed the full range of techniques, from included episodes from the life of the Virgin, Saint Ranieri Resurrecting a Young Girl, by Felice
architecture to the decorative arts, the second to whom the church was dedicated, and the Torelli, another Bolognese. These were fol-

in its continuity, covering the whole of the city's patron saints. This program was reorga- lowed in i~4(> by Francesco Mancini'sThc
eighteenth century and carrying over into the nized and extended with large-scale canvases Blessed Gambacorti Instituting His OrJer. again
next. The two projects are also very different commissioned from the major artists of the modeled 011 the Carracci but softened by the
in terms of the commitment required by the Tuscan, Bolognese, and Roman schools, but it influence ol Correggio, ami in 1-4S by one ol

VR< VDIA (1 S
 virtues praised by the cultured abbe were bust of Augustus, and in 1757 modern busts
Corvi's personal qualities and his adherence to of Epicurus, Pythagoras, and "Czar Peter of
the criteria of Arcadian taste in those years: "a Moscow" 2
'*
(possibly also by Della Valle).
pictorial imagination . . . full of spirit and But Delia Valle's most important work for
enthusiasm but also disciplined and selective, an English client was undoubtedly his noble
as a result of which his compositions are ani- interpretation of the sculpture of Livia in the
mated by an expression all his own. His color- Vatican, ordered by Horace Walpole for the
ing is extremely soft, mellow, fresh, beautiful, tomb of his mother, Lady Catherine (1743), in
unique to himself, and in a style somewhere Westminster Abbey. The major commis-
2
"'

22 '
between Mengs and Maratti." sions included both copies and originals,
While Corvi's style was immediately virtually without distinction.
adopted by the Pisan Giovambattista Tempesti As if wanting to recreate around him the
in his canvas of Pope Eugenius 111 Celebrating spirit of ancient Rome, Stanislas II Augustus
Mass, 2 "'
his lesson of ideological rigor was of Poland ordered copies of the classical statues
Fig. 41 Benedetto Luti, modetio for The Investiture of taken up by one of his most brilliant pupils, he most admired from the principal sculptors
Saint Ranieri, 1712. oil on canvas; Museo di San Pietro Benvenuti, who ensured that Corvi's then active in the city (all Italians, except for
Matteo, Pisa professional legacywas carried over into the Andre Le Brun). Tommaso
his "pensioner"

next century. Between 1802 and 1804 Righi made him a marble copy of the Vatican
Benvenuti painted a Martyrdom of the Blessed Cleopatra; Lorenzo Cardelli of the Medici Vase
24 "
Conca's mature and most nobly "academic" Signoretto Alliata, to replace an unrealized work (1786); Vincenzo Pacetti of the Wounded
compositions: Urban VI Approving the Rule of the by Giuseppe Cades. 2
" The Arcadian influence Amazon (1789); Giuseppe Angelini of Calliope
Blessed Gambaeorti. After a Tuscan intermezzo in the modern decoration of the "Greco- (1792) and the Farnese Hercules (1793), to which
in the form of Gian Domenico Ferretti's Barbarian" cathedral at Pisa is reflected in the he added a Euterpe of his own invention (1792);
Transfer of the Relies of the Blessed Guido della comment of the Roman Giornalc delle Belle Arti: Carlo Albacini of the Farnese Flora (1793) and a
Ghcrardesca (1752), Rome is again dominant in "Of the many ornaments of this building, the head of the Vatican Athena (1795); Antonio
Giaquinto's Birth of the Virgin (1753) and in the vast paintings hung on the walls are certainly d'Este of the Apollo Belvedere; and Agostino
final work of Placido Costanzi's glittering unusual and unique, all executed by the best Penna of Silenus with Bacchus as a Child from the
career, The Martyrdom of Saint Torpe, not deliv- and most famous practitioners that Italy has Borghese collection. Sculptors of lesser repu-
ered to the cathedral until after the master's produced." 2 '2
tation were constantly employed in making the
death in 1759. (The commission had originally From a reexamination of the biographical Polish king Bacchuses, Venuses, and Apollos. 241
been assigned to Batoni, who refused because and documentary sources of eighteenth- and In 1786 he asked Canova for a group of Venus
he was too heavily engaged elsewhere.) nineteenth-century scholarship, " 2
it is possible and Adonis (never completed) and the small-
As the project in Pisa continued, and regard- to assess not only the very important economic scale plaster casts of Henrick Lubomirski, Theseus,

less of the intentions of individuals, it emerged aspect of the export of works of art from and a number of heads, while from Giovanni
ever more clearly as an anthology of the excel- Rome, but also the importance and wide influ- Volpato he commissioned a series of his cele-
lence of the various schools of Italian painting, ence of the Roman school in those parts of the brated biscuit figurines. 242 Some time earlier,
represented by theirown acknowledged western world that maintained an uninter- on the initiative of Lord Malton, Wentworth
masters and especially by those who had culti- rupted dialogue with Rome. Before attempting Woodhouse in south Yorkshire had been filled

vated the precept of the primacy of drawing. to identify the deep-seated historical and cul- with copies of antique statuary carved by
The Veneto was not represented by Ricci or tural reasons for this phenomenon, it is sculptors of various nationalities, especially
Tiepolo, but rather by Giambettino Cignaroli perhaps worth mentioning a few, albeit dis- Giovanni Battista Maini, Filippo della Valle,

from Verona (The Discovery of the Head of San parate, examples. They range from the twelve and Bartolomeo Cavaceppi. 24 '

Torpe, 1766), and Bologna by Gaetano Gandolfi statues and eight bas-reliefs produced by Pietro In subsequent years, export licenses and
(The Blessed Domenico Vernagalli Founding the StefanoMonnot in the second decade of the contemporary chronicles provide evidence of
Orphan Hospital, 1788). But the immense cycle century for the Marmorbad at Kassel in the growing number of foreign artists resident

of canvases concluded on a Roman note. Germany (see cats. i39-4o) 2!4 to the great in Rome. They ranged from Sergei, who in 1778
Laurent Pecheux may be regarded as Roman, marble altarpiece sent by Camillo Rusconi to dispatched portraits and classical groups (Mars
even though his painting of The Baptism of the Philip V of Spain for the Madrid monastery of and Venus, Cupid and 1
Psyche), "^ to Francois-
Son of the King of the Balearic Islands was delivered Las Descalzas Reales between 1723 and 1727. 2 '5
Marie Poncet, who in 1784 packed a Venus for
from Turin in 1784, while Domenico Corvi's In the second half of the century many works shipment to France and an Adonis for
21 '
Santa Ubaldesca among the Sick is effectively a of sculpture were sent to England, whither England, :4S together with sensitive copies of
paradigm (albeit soon forgotten) of a manner Rusconi had already dispatched a copy of the two famous Capitoline groups, Cupid and Psyche

of painting reformed not along doctrinaire Farnese Hercules. In 1756 Bartolomeo and Bacchus and Ariadne, after a recurrent deco-

and antiquarian Neoclassical lines, but by way Cavaceppi exported works of his own and rative scheme adopted by, among others,
of a return to a tradition of naturalism based some by Carlo Monaldi (including a Diana Carlo Albacini, for a chimneypiece for the Earl
on the sciences of perspective and anatomy, Hunting !! " and a Venus on a Dolphin), and their of Bristol. 24 " Of the more convincing recre-
with dramatic light effects that hint at melo- example was followed by Filippo della Valle, ations of antique statuary, sticking faithfully
drama. The painter from Viterbo was singled whose relations with patrons in Britain appear to classical canons, the Memorie per le Belle Arti

out by the Pisan Abbe Ranieri Tempesti, a to have been longlasting and lucrative. The mentions, between 1786 and 1788, the four
member of the Colonia Alfea, on account of agent in these transactions was often the Arcadian Seasons in the form of gods sculpted
the "correctness, precision, and elegance of his Marchese Girolamo Belloni,
237
who in 1752 dis- by the young Wurttemberg "pensioners"
H
drawing, truly, as they say, di Scuola."" Other patched a copy of the Capitoline Flora and a (ohann Heinrich Dannekerand Philipp (akob

66 ARCADIA
 patronage, with artists supplying large altar
paintings (and also sculptures and furnish-
ings). Good examples of the first category
were the canvases Conca, Masucci (cat. 250),

Francesco Fernandi (called Imperiali), and

Giaquinto created for the Palazzo Reale in

Turin,where the large-scale decorative

schemes were also entrusted to artists trained
in Rome, such as Beaumont and Pecheux or

the sculptors Ignazio and Filippo Collino; or

the full-scale reproduction of Raphael's
Vatican Logge for the Winter Palace of
Catherine II in St. Petersburg, together with
Fig. 42 Pietro Stefano Monnot, Monument to the 5th copies of the most famous statues from the
Earl of Exeter, 1704, marble; St. Martin's Cathedral. Museo Pio-Clementino.
Stamford, Lincolnshire. U.K. This second category included commissions
for the Papal States,' 54 which naturally looked
to the capital in artistic matters (though

Scheffauerd, which were immediately sent to Bologna could boast a no less prestigious tra-

Stuttgart to adorn the library of Schloss dition), and for other states in the Italian
"

Hohenheim. 24 peninsula where there were close relations

But the true productive capacity of the between the Roman Curia and local courts

Roman art industry is best measured by com- and peripheral ecclesiastical structures, which Fig. 43 Giuseppe Angelini, Monument to Archbishop

missions for large-sale funerary memorials in any case all had their own representatives in Carl F. Mennander. 1790. marble; Uppsala Cathedral,

combining classical monumentality with tra- Rome. The unifying cultural function of the Sweden
ditional excellence in the difficult themes of Accademia dell'Arcadia and its offshoots played
allegory. The 5th Earl of Exeter ordered his a part in spreading Roman influence in the Neoclassical Lombardy: The Holy Family with
own tomb from Monnot, which was shipped form of art, as did the system of "pensioners" Saints Elizabeth, Zacharias, and the Infant John the

from Rome in 1704 and installed in the church sent by the academies in other European cities Baptist, painted by Batoni between 1738 and
of St. Martin (Stamford, Lincolnshire; to perfect their craft in Rome, who thereby 1740,
256
and The Departure of Saint Paula for the
248
fig. 42). End-of-century exports include: acquired a prior claim to fulfill major artistic Holy Land, painted by Giuseppe Bottani in
the Baldwin monument made by Christopher commissions from their places of origin. A i745. 2S ' When the church was converted into
!4 "
Hewetson for Trinity College, Dublin; few examples will amply illustrate the magni- a theater in 1796, this anthology of "philo-
Giuseppe Angelini's cenotaph for Archbishop tude of a phenomenon which, seen as a whole, sophical and reformed" painting from the
Carl F. Mennander in Uppsala Cathedral isbound to bring about a profound change in early years of the pontificate of Benedict XIV
(fig. 43);"" the complex of marbles, bronzes, modern perceptions of Italian art history, was transferred, as a stylistic model, to the
2sS
and mosaics designed by Vincenzo Pacetti in shifting the center of gravity of cultural pre- Accademia di Brera.

1766 for the grand master of Fonseca in the dominance in the eighteenth century very def- In any case, from the late 1730s to the 1780s
cathedral in Malta;"' the monument to Prince initely in favor of Rome. many "exemplary" paintings found their way
Gabriele Lancellotti di Torremuzza for the The export of the "correct" style to from Rome to Milan and the rest of
Palermo Pantheon of S. Domenico, created Lombardy dates from the time when the Lombardy, 259 for instance Batoni's altarpieces
252
by Canova's disciple Leonardo Pennino; and gewlamini of Milan decided to commission forS. Maria della Pace in Brescia, the first

Giuseppe Ceracchi's aborted Van de Capellen the paintings for their church of Ss. Cosma dating from 1735-36, the second some ten
monument for Antwerp, fragments of which e Damiano from most renowned of the
the years later, ""
2
and his Blessed Bernardo Tolomci
now adorn the avenues of the Giardino del Roman classicists. The renovation began in for S. Vittore al Corpo in Milan, painted in
261
Lago at the Villa Borghese. Gottfried Schadow's 1738, and Subleyras was the first contributor 1745. Also deserving of mention is Domenico
tomb for Count von der Mark, in Berlin with a depiction of Saint Jerome, "a magnificent Corvi's Hero and Leandcr, which, according to
25!
(1790), carved shortly after the return of anatomical study . . . painted with all the skill the Giornalc dclle Belle Arti of November 19, 1785,

the artist from Italy, can also be described as acquired by the artist during the years spent "is soon to be sent to Milan to adorn one of the
"Roman," with its echoes of Michelangelo's at Palazzo Mancini." 255 Again in response to most important residences."
ceiling for the Sistine Chapel. orders from the abbot, Paolo Alessandro Two shipments of altarpieces to Lombardy
The influence and presence of Roman Serponti, the driving force behind the eigh- in the final decade of the century exemplify
art across the rest of Italy and Europe, then, teenth-century redecoration of the church, the workings of a phenomenon that involved
depended not only on Batoni's portraits and Subleyras subsequently sent from Rome a both acknowledged masters and relative
Panini's vedute. Roman
was distributed art severe Crucifixion, dated 1744. Writing in his beginners. Angelika Kauffmann, who enjoyed
through two main channels. First, owing to Nuovaguida di Milano, printed in 1787, Carlo enormous international acclaim, was asked to
the prestige of the Roman school and its artists, Bianconi refers to the painter as "more Roman paint a Holy Family with the Infant Saint }ohn for
it was collected by celebrities making the than French, on account of his studies and the Colleoni Chapel in Bergamo, while the
Grand Tour or exploited by rulers who wished long stay in the city." Also from the "universal young Giovanni Battista dell'Era, her devoted
to conduct their cultural policy along the lines capital of the arts" came the other paintings disciple, a native of Treviglio, near Bergamo,
ofcl assical magnificence. Secondly, there was that complete this decorative scheme, an who was paid a modest allowance to study in
the traditional channel of ecclesiastical important testimony to "Roman" art in pre- Rome by his local community, was awarded

\R( \Dl.\
 his first major commission in the shape of an Virgin Enthroned with Saints. 168 Messina also to the examples already mentioned for the
altarpiece of Esther before Ahasuerus for the began to receive major Roman works at an Palazzo Reale in Turin, Roman imports include
262
parish church of Alzano Lombardo. early stage, including a painting by Trevisani, an impressive series of works for ecclesiastical
Where theKingdom of Naples is con- while Benefial worked for the church of the projects planned by juvarra. The career of this
cerned, distinctions need to be made between Crocefisso at Monreale (1724-27), and in 1763 architect from Messina was determined on the
the capital city, the mainland regions, and the Filippo della Valle sent a large bas-relief of The one hand by political events, and on the other
island of Sicily. In Naples itself and at the royal Last Supper to Syracuse Cathedral. The close by his Roman connections. In his native city
palace in Caserta, Roman paintings were often relationship between the Sicilian and Roman he had come into contact with the Savoy
a feature of major building projects, such as art worlds was clearly identified by the monk family during the brief period in which the
the choir of the cathedral, renovated by Paolo and painter Fedele da San Biagio (also an northern dynasty ruled the Kingdom of Sicily
Posi in 1744 on the orders of Archbishop Arcadian, author of a large number of paint- (1714), trained in Rome, then worked in Turin
Cardinal Giuseppe Spinelli. Here Stefano Pozzi ings for San Lorenzo Nuovo, the town created and Spain, between times reestablishing his
was called to fresco the ceiling with a Choir of near Viterbo by Pius VI), who in his Dialoghi links with the papal capital by way of commis-
Angels and paint one of the large canvases for (1788) defined the Sicilian school of painting sions he had promoted, always with a concern
the side walls depicting Saint Gennaro Liberating as the "daughter" of the Roman. for excellence. In the Turin church of S. Filippo
21
the City from the Saracens, " while the canvas many distinguished Sicilian
There were (which already housed Maratti's Virgin and
opposite, representing The Transfer of the Relics practitioners active in Rome who sent works Child with Saints and which Juvarra recon-
of Saints Acuzio and Eutichietes, by Giaquinto, to their native region, from Salvatore Monosilio structed in 1715 after its collapse) and in the

was sent down from Rome. " 4 Together with 2

to Gaspare Serenario, from Vito d'Anna to adjacent oratory, the outstanding Roman con-
Filippo Juvarra, Giaquinto and Conca were the Gioacchino Martorana, from Mariano Rossi to tributions are Francesco Trevisani's Martyrdom
outstanding artists from southern Italy who the Manno brothers. But the tendency to of Saint Lawrence and Sebastiano Conca's The
had won fame and fortune in Rome, and insti- choose Rome-based artists for the most ambi- Immaculate Virgin with Saint Philip Neri. Conca is

tutional patrons were therefore more likely to tious commissions is best exemplified at also represented in other churches in the city
turn to them. Giaquinto, for instance, painted Catania. The decoration of the Benedictine and, with Trevisani again, in the chapel of the
many works for his native Puglia region, 265 church of S. Niccolo all'Arena, a monastic royal hunting lodge (1724). In the sacristy of
while Conca painted the altarpiece for the complex second in size only to that at Mafra S. Filippo is a painting by a Palermo painter
royal palace in Caserta, as the architect Luigi in Portugal, was begun in the late 1780s and was of the school of Maratti, Giacinto Calandrucci,
Vanvitelli considered there was no one in not finished until the 1830s with the arrival of a but the most surprising result of Sicilian-
Naples "who could do so good a job." 266 neo-Cinquecento-style canvas by the most Roman collaboration in the Piedmontese
Having both been made cavalieri, Giaquinto famous Roman painter of the day, Vincenzo capital is work which Juvarra was
a powerful
and Conca could count on a large following of Camuccini. The church embraces an anthology allowed to commission "for his personal devo-
pupils, often of southern origin, to whom they of styles expressing the wide range of tenden- tion" for an altar in the same church. He
2 "'

naturally tended to pass on Roman styles, cies to be found in Rome during the pontificate asked Conca, in Rome, to paint an image of
subject matter, and production techniques. of Pius VI. The first work to arrive was a painting Saint John Nepomuk, to which was later
Giaquinto, by virtue of his relations with the by the Calabrian artist Niccolo Lapiccola, who, added the figure of the "Madonna della Lettera"
Bourbon court, was chosen to fresco the like the Sicilian Mariano Rossi, author of three (protector of the city of Messina), painted in
Palacio Real in Madrid, and there consolidated later contributions, had worked successfully 1733 by Corrado Giaquinto. Giaquinto was
his already conspicuous fame. Conca was also on projects for the Borghese family. Subsequent then working in Turin on the decoration of
able to send works to the Spanish court contributors were Antonio Cavallucci, the royal residences, for which his series of
(Alexander the Great in the Temple at Jerusalem) Bernardino Nocchi, and Stefano Tofanelli. With episodes from the Aeneid is one of his highest
"
by the same channels. In relations between the addition of the names of Marcello Leopardi achievements. 2 2

the courts of Naples and Madrid, the Roman (who during the same period also painted a Rome's most important export in the years

art world tended to be an essential point of ref- cycle of canvases for the Minorite church in immediately following was intended for a
erence, not only for history painting and large- Catania) 2 "'2
and Tommaso Maria Conca, who provincial town. "This vast painting raised his
scale decorative projects, but also for such in 1804 sent The Miracle of Saint Clare for the reputation to new heights," commented the
"
genres as portraiture and landscape painting. church of the same name, this represents the Memorie per le some fifty years later,
Belle Arti,
2

Mengs and Angelika Kauffmann were called main stylistic trends in Roman painting of the recalling the excitement aroused by the exhi-
on to paint the official portraits of the period: from the "severe style" of Lapiccola to bition in the Roman church of S. Maria
Neapolitan royal family, and Gaspare Rossi's monumentality, which looks back to dell'Anima of an immense canvas painted in

Vanvitelli's legacy of vedute (view paintings) Pietro da Cortona. 2 "" The influence of Angelika 1737 by Pierre Subleyras on behalf of the regular
was later taken up by the Roman Giovanni Kauffmann and her circle is represented by canons of the Lateran for the refectory of their

Battista Lusieri, who migrated to Naples, Cavallucci, while the legacy of Mengs is reflected convent of S. Maria Nuova at Asti. In his Banquet
where natural curiosities and archaeological in the work of Nocchi, who was from Lucca. The in theHouse of Simon, which measured a good
discoveries were attracting a large interna- style of Tofanelli, also from Lucca, shows the 23 feet (7 m) across, the Rome-based French
tional clientele.
'

rigorous German influence of Philipp Hetsch, artist featured twenty-six figures (and a dog),
Though Sicily had less obvious links, Johann Heinrich Tischbein, and Heinrich harmoniously arranged to lead the eye toward
Roman painting was represented in the island Fiiger, while the figurative taste of Leopardi the heart of the composition: the figure of the
as early as 1695 by Maratti's masterpiece The can be traced back to Batoni and is akin to that Magdalen drying Christ's feet with her hair. To
Virgin of the Rosary for S. Zita in Palermo. The of the younger members of the Accademia de' display the painting before it was dispatched to

city also received The Holy i

:
amily (1716) by Pensieri such as Giani, Landi, and Dell'Era. Asti, the canons, though resident in S. Maria
Giovanni Odazzi, for the church of S. Teresa The Kingdom of Sardinia also owes a debt della Pace, preferred the vast open spaces of
alia Kalsa and, around 1720, Conca's very fine to eighteenth-century Roman art. In addition the adjacent S. Maria dell'Anima. It was

68 ARCADIA
common for connoisseurs — artists, men of example, the authorities established and dis- sent in 1769 to the chapel of the University

letters, members of the aristocracy — to gather seminated the official iconography of Saint of Salamanca to represent the dogmas of
in Roman churches, which were used for exhi- Turibio, bishop of Lima,
2
" the Spaniard Saint Catholicism in the place appointed for the
bitions as well as for worship, to view impor- John of the Cross, and the young Polish Jesuit training of Spain's ruling class; Batoni's seven

tant paintings and engage in passionate Stanislas Kostka. These were followed in 1734 altar paintings for the basilica of the Sacred
discussion of their strengths and defects by the French Jesuit Jean-Franqois de Regis, Heart, at the Estrela in Lisbon, painted
before the works were finally sent on their way. and Vincent de Paul, spiritual director of between 1781 and 1786; the Deposition that

A high point of Roman artistic influence in Jeanne-Franc_oise Fremot de Chantal (canonized Giuseppe Cades painted, through the media-
Piedmont was a project undertaken by Cardinal in 1767, together with the Pole Jana Kantego). tion of the Jesuit priest John Thorp, for the

Carlo Vittorio Amedeo delle Lanze, com- Meanwhile, in 1746, was the turn of the
it private chapel of the 8th Lord Arundel at

mendatory of the Abbazia di Fruttuaria at San German Fidelis of Sigmaringen, and another Wardour Castle in Wiltshire in 1787; 28 " and
Benigno Canavese, not far from Turin. This Spaniard, Pedro Regalato, both Franciscans. Tommaso Sciacca's Holy Family, sent to Poland
prelate, an Arcadian (alias Parmenide Sireo) From preliminary research, " it would seem 2
in 1792 for the parish church at Petrykozy.
and honorary member of the Accademia di that a complex hierarchy of artists was involved, Meanwhile, for the cathedral of Solothurn
S. Luca, influenced in his education by Cardinal from the often famous authors of paintings in Switzerland, on the frontier between the
Alessandro Albani and also a friend and corre- done for the pope himself to the more modest Catholic world and the strongholds of
spondent of Giovanni Gaetano Bottari, had disseminators of religious prints. Calvinist iconoclasm, from 1773 to 1778
founded the new abbey church and procured This situation also needs to be taken into Domenico Corvi painted the most provoca-
from Rome the relics of Early Christian martyrs account when considering the financial issues tively explicit and symbolically perspicuous
for its various altars. He took St. Peter's as his involved. Anthony Morris Clark and Olivier representations of the doctrinal foundations
model and used painting to express his Michel have already done useful research on of the Roman Church: The Institution of the
^
Jansenist, anti-Jesuit inclinations,
2 4
in a sym- this aspect of the work of artists such as Batoni Eucharist.'** Pentecost. The Incredulity of Saint
"
bolism centered on the cult of the saints of the and Giaquinto, 2 s
but it still remains to conduct Thomas, and The Coronation oj the Virgin. One
old monastic and preaching orders of an overall survey of the effect of the export of could also mention Roman projects in
Augustinians, Benedictines, and Dominicans. contemporary works of art on the economy of Spoleto 2 *"
and Ravenna, 20 " Gubbio 20 and '

The cardinal, who had consolidated his links eighteenth-century Rome and the Papal States, Pisa,
292
Cagliari
2
"' and Pontremoli, 294 or point
with Rome during the conclaves of 1769 and and make comparisons with other art-export- out isolated but no less significant works of art
1774, engaged artists of varying merit and ing centers such as Venice or Paris. Such a in capital cities and remote abbeys, cathedrals,
prestige, some of them young or little known, survey would also provide a better understand- and oratories from Dublin to Warsaw, Croatia
possibly because he wanted to keep the costs ing of the temporal and geographical relation- to Franche-Comte, and farther afield. But the
down. They included important names such ship between works painted in the earlier and important thing is to establish the unity of this
as Mariano Rossi (active at the royal tapestry later parts of the eighteenth century (though impressive phenomenon of the presence of
works in who painted a canvas
Turin since 1771), thephenomenon, rooted in the Counter- "Roman" art beyond the confines of the
far

of The Annunciation, and the young Cades, who Reformation, was still significant well into the city or the tiny state of which it was the tem-
was responsible for the surprisingly Rubensian nineteenth century) and sent to so many parts poral capital. Its predominance extended
Martyrdom of San Benigno, but also the young of Europe (and later the Americas). through time and space, spanning long
Sardinian "pensioner" Angelo Giacinto In the first half of the eighteenth century, periods of history —periods that modern
Banchero and a number of minor figures. many important works found their way beyond developments seem set to contract and negate.
Despite the particular doctrinal leanings of the borders of Italy, and some by Maratti even The return to classicism in the figurative
Cardinal delle Lanze, the export of religious journeyed as far as Siam. 2 ""
Paintings by arts of Enlightenment Europe and the increase
paintings from Rome was normally a guarantee Francesco Trevisani were sent to the French in the number of art academies, which were
of Catholic figurative orthodoxy which Rome — cathedrals of Avignon, Besanqon, and important disseminators of the influence of
was obviously in a position to impose by Carpentras, *"
to Prague Cathedral and other
2
the Roman school, also led to the temporary
exploiting the organic relationship between Bohemian churches, such as Oppocno and or permanent emigration of many of its
the ecclesiastical authorities and cultural insti- Zamberk *'; Pietro de' Pietri also sent works to
2
leading exponents to European courts and
2fi2
tutions (the Accademia dell'Arcadia perfectly Besanc,on and to Citeaux (another painting reformed academies. They were well aware of
exemplifies the continuity of this connec- with obvious doctrinal content, The End of the their superiority, proclaimed, according to a
tion) —and of a certain style. This trend became Schism of Anadetus, done for the Cistercians); late but reliable source, by Mengs, who is sup-
more evident as the century progressed, espe- Giovanni Odazzi to Segovia; Benedetto Luti to posed to have said that "the lowliest practi-
cially as the Church promoted new subjects of Malta;
2
*'
Placido Costanzi to Beaume-les- tioners in Rome were the foremost in other
*4 2*5
veneration and raised altars (adorned with Dames 2
and as far as Lima in Peru; Stefano parts of the world." And there is no need to
2 "5

images as the Roman authorities devised) 275

Parrocel to Marseille;
2 *"
and Sebastiano Conca cite a long series of names and circumstanc es,

to the new saints of the Catholic world. Solemn to various destinations in Germany. To give an beginning with Johannes Widewelt's dissemi-
canonizations in St. Peter's were followed by idea of an artist's reputation, Pascoli often nation of Winckelmann's gospel and spanning
the dispatch of large-scale images to the new refers in summary fashion to works executed the whole century, to confirm "the continual
saints' places of origin (and elsewhere). These for a wide range of European countries, from example of sovereigns who in this emporium
were intended to speak to the hearts and minds Spain to Poland, as in the cases of Odazzi, sought court painters and heads of academy,"
of the people of Russia and Portugal, Chile and Ghezzi, Luti, and Chiari. During the second as Lanzi expressed it in the conclusion to his
Poland, Asti, and Messina. And, as well as the half of the century the examples are so numer- chapters on the Roman school.'"" It is interest-
religious and historical message, they would ous that listing them would be irritatingly ing that Sebastiano Conca. Pompeo Batoni.
draw from them an epic poetry expressed in repetitive. Some, however, cannot be passed and Gaspare Landi declined so honorable a
the most noble figurative language. In 1726, for over: Francesco Caccianiga's four canvases conclusion to their careers, not w anting to

\ri \ni.\
 Fig. 44 Anton Raphael Mengs, Giuseppe Franchi, Fig. 45 Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein. Konradin of Swabia in Prison BeingTold of His Condemnation,

c. 1772-73, oil on canvas; private collection 1784, oil on canvas; Schlossmuseum. Gotha

abandon the strong position they had "those who do not approve of the word school which "pensioners" generally concluded their
achieved in Rome, while others refused the prefer university, or some other term for a period of study) that so many had become
opportunity "from religious zeal," 29 " such as place where painting is taught and practised."'"" "men of worth" as a result of visiting Rome,
Pietro de' Pietri, who turned down an invita- This was no less true of sculpture, as is clearly or rather could not "appear such to the world
tion to transfer to the English court, where he evidenced by the cases of Nollekens (in Rome unless they had Rome's approval."
had been offered the tempting "salary of two from 1760 to 1770), Poncet, Hewetson, and From the time of Maratti at the beginning
hundred scudi a month." In the field of sculp- particularly Flaxman, who found there, of the century to that of Canova at its end,

ture, which was about to achieve primacy on between 1790 and 1794, fertile soil for the cre- artistic developments in Rome expressed ideas
the eve of the nineteenth century, at least in ation of two great masterpieces: the groups of and feelings that only partially outlived the
was continuity in the fact that
Italy there Cephalus and Aurora and The Fury of Athamas (see great leap into the modern world. The Holy
Giuseppe Franchi was appointed to the chair fig. 100). To these young northern artists City, adorned and embellished by artists,
of the Accademia di Brera in 1775 on the seeking to establish their reputations, Rome stood on a faultline between two eras that
strength of his Roman experience. In the por- also offered the language and setting in which were gradually but irreversibly drawing apart.
trait of the sculptor painted in Rome by Mengs, they could develop a new Romantic iconogra- Art is undoubtedly the key to a rediscovery of
there is an explicit reference to his preference phy to express the myths, history, and literary the treasures of this lost Atlantis. In the eigh-
for a severe style in the head of Homer resting themes of their countries of origin. This was teenth century the wonderful remains of clas-
on a copy of his poem (fig. 44). This was the certainly the case for Johann Heinrich Wilhelm sical art were an education to contemporary
period when Arcadian literary figures such as Tischbein, who in 1784 drew on elements from artists, and "the nations flocked to the common
Melchiorre Cesarotti and Vincenzo Monti were antique statuary to produce his dramatic mother of the fine arts, bringing a variety of
attempting to translate Homer's epics. Franchi depiction of Konradin of Swabia in Prison (fig. 45). notions and tastes that were clarified by this
was succeeded, at the end of the century, by The young prince has the looks of the Apollo meeting, making the public of this city one of
Camillo Pacetti, nephew of Vincenzo, who Belvedere, while the features of the judge, the most enlightened in Europe" (Ennio
took with him to Milan from Rome an allegory Roberto da Bari, are modeled on a head of Quirino Visconti, 1785)."" For the modern
of the origins of statuary: his noble version of Vitellius. Similarly, in 1788, Jean-Pierre Saint- viewer, as well as recovering a sense of Rome's
Minerva, shown breathing a soul into the stat- Ours set his idyllic reconstruction of German predominance, it is important to understand
uette of Prometheus she has just formed. 298 Nuptial Rites''"' in a kind of pastoral Greek land- her message, a task that requires the simplicity
Teaching methods and equipment —the scape. Even earlier, the Irish painter James and openness with which a young nobleman
collections, drawings, and plaster casts of the Barry had produced his first masterpiece, The from Ferrara, Leopoldo Cicognara, arriving in

Real Academia de S. Fernando in Madrid, the Temptation of Adam,'" while working in

2
Rome the city one year after Goethe with the inten-
Dusseldorf academy, or the Accademia between 1767 and 1770. The rendering of the tion of becoming an artist,'" 4 wrote to his father:
Braidense in Milan — also confirmed the pres- nudes is in a truly classical style, and the artist faced with Rome, "you must forget all that is

tige of the Roman school in setting standards was evidently more strongly influenced by small, base, vile, and plebeian. Everything
for the return to antiquity on which progres- Milton's Paradise Lost than by the biblical text. radiates greatness, a bewitching greatness."'"'
sive eighteenth-century aesthetics were According to Lanzi, it was because of the con-
based."''' But to call it a school is perhaps to tinual circulation of artists and such funda-
understate the truth. According to Luigi Lanzi, mental works as these great test pieces (with

70 ARCADIA
Notes diary of Vincenzo Pacetti (Giornali di Vincenzo with low-relief portraits by Rusconi (Rudolph
Pacctti riguardanti li principali ajjari, e negozi del 1979)-
1 For a short history of the institution, see
suo studio di scultura, ed altri suoi inlcrcssi particolari, 46 Two separate committees were responsible for
Graziosi and Tellini Santoni 1991, pp. 181-92,
incominciato dall'anno 17^3 jino all'anno 1803, the project at St. John Lateran: for the sculptures,
which contains a useful list of documents and
Biblioteca Universitaria Alessandrina, Rome, Benedetto Pamphili, Carlo Fontana, Orazio
printed sources.
MS 321), generous extracts of which have been Albani, and Curzio Origo (Broeder 1967;
2 On this subject, see Rensselaer W. Lee, Ut Pktura
published on various occasions, and periodicals Conforti 1980): for the Prophets. Benedetto
Pocsis: The Humanistic Theory oj Painting (New
such as Antologia romana, Memorie per le Belle Arti Pamphili, Carlo Stefano Fontana, the Lateran
York: W. W. Norton, 1967).
and II Giornale dcllc Belle Arti, which are referred canons Monsignor della Molara and Monsignor
3 The disagreements that soon arose between
to below. A useful list of printed sources (chron- Vico, and Father Diodato Nuzzi, vicar-general
Crescimbeni and Gravina led to a split in 1711.
icles, diaries, "notices"), covering the first forty of the Augustinian order, see Negro 1993.
Gravina subsequently founded the Accademia
years of the century, is to be found in Matitti 47 On this portrait, now in the Musee du Louvre,
Quirina (1714), but this body was virtually dis-
1995, pp. 170-73- see Loire 1998, p. 228. Livio Odescalchi, heir by
solved four years later, on the death of its
21 Foscolo 1978, pp. 23-24; Izzi 1994. way of Cardinal Azzolini to the collections of
founder, even though its membership included
22 Izzi 1994, p. 441. Christina of Sweden, commissioned from
some very prestigious Arcadians, such as Pietro
23 Izzi 1994, pp. 441-42. Pietro Stefano Monnot a monument to his
Metastasio.
24 Merolla 1988, p. 1084. uncle Pope Innocent XI, based on a drawing by
4 Merolla 1988. pp. 1060-65.
25 "Mon cher confrere de Lyon et d'Arcadie" (letter Maratti (the drawing was discovered in 1701 and
5 Giovan Pietro Bellori's discourse 'L'idea del
dated February 6, 1776; see Theodore the monument completed soon afterwards).
pittore, dello scultore c dell' architetto scelta dalle
Besterman, ed., Voltaire's Correspondence [Geneva: For Odescalchi, Monnot had also made various
bellezze naturali superiore alia natura was delivered
[nstitut et Musee Voltaire. 1965], vol. 93, p. 86). low on mythological subjects (the terra-
reliefs
at the Accademia di S. Luca in May 1664 and
26 Michel 1996, Vivre et peindre, pp. 96-107. cotta models are kept in the Louvre). The medal
printed as an introduction to his Vite de'pitwri.
27 Bonora 1994, p. 8. portrait of Livio (Bershad 1984) is in an austere
scultori e architetti moderni (Bellori [1672] 1976).
28 Giorgetti Vichi 1977. "republican" style, eschewing modern dress,
6 On this subject, see Rudolph 1977.
29 Initially accommodated in the Farnese Gardens based on antique coins or a gem. The oval was
7 Paolozzi Strozzi 1978, "II Sabatelli."
on the Palatine and then in the Ginnasi Garden mounted in a frame of verde antko with a stand
8 The most serious and carefully researched of
on the Aventine, the academy eventually found of yellow marble.
these studies are the essays of Stella Rudolph.
a permanent site on the Janiculum, thanks to 48 The authors of the other sculptures were
Interest in this subject is also evident in many
the generosity of John V of Portugal (Ferraris Lorenzo Ottoni (Saint Thaddeus, 1712), Angelo
recent articles, Griseri 1982, and in the papers
1995)- de' Rossi (Saint james the Less, 1715), Giuseppe
presented to the Convegno di Studi (Arcadia:
30 The same is true to some extent in the English Mazzuoli (Saint Philip, 1715). and Francesco
Atti del Convegno di Studi per il 111 centenario, Roma
Society of Dilettanti, whose members, accord- Moratti (Saint Simon, The enormous
1718).
15-18. maggio 1991) marking the third centenary
ing to Elizabeth Einberg (in Wilton and cost of the sculptures was borne by Peter II
of the academy.
Bignamini 1996, p. 292), came from all political of Portugal, his son John V, Cardinal Lorenzo
9 See the names listed in Giorgetti Vichi 1977.
parties. Here gentlemen of relatively modest Corsini (the future Clement XII), Cardinal
10 Significantly, the pamphlets printed by the
means could mix on equal terms with some of Benedetto Pamphili. Cardinal Portocarrero,
Accademia di S. Luca in 1706 to mark the com-
the most wealthy men in England, united by a Elector Max Emanuel of Bavaria, the prince-
petition of that year are entitled Le belle arti in
common enthusiasm for the arts and the bishop of Wtirtzburg, and the grand master
lega con la poesia.
classical world. of the Teutonic Knights, Leopold of Lorraine
11 Further evidence of this continuity is provided
31 For more information about Subleyras and his (Broeder 1967).
by the large paintings that some Neapolitan
relations with cultured Roman circles, see 49 The diaries of Monsignor Virgilio (Oratorian
artists painted while in Rome and sent home
Michel and Rosenberg 1987. pp. 96-97. and brother of Cardinal Bernardino) have been
to their patrons as trial pieces. These include
32 Produced between 1761 and 1764. For further published by Heimbiirger Ravalli 1977, and
Shepherds oj Arcadia by Filippo Marsigli. exhib-
information about Saly. his stay in Rome, and Giithlein 1979.
ited in 1830 at the Real Museo Borbonico, and
his work in Denmark, see Majo, Jornaes, and 50 For this aspect of Ghezzi's activity and the role
the Pastor Fido, a scene from Giovambattista
Susinno 1989, pp. 35-37. he played, see Rudolph 1988-89. particularly
Guarini's poem of the same title, painted by
33 Montaiglon 1887-1912, vol. 4, p. 139. pp. 239-40, n. 59: De Marchi 1999, "Ghezzi,"
Camillo Guerra in 1835 (Museo Archeologico
34 Hersant 1988, p. 496. pp. 64-75.
Nazionale, Naples).
35 Ingamells 1997. pp. 479-80. 51 Pascoli (1981) makes a point of Trevisani's quali-
12 Goethe 1816.
36 Giovan Mario Crescimbeni's text (1708) has ties as a poet. But see also Griseri 1962.
13 An excellent edition of Nolli's plan was pub-
been analyzed and commented on by Stella 52 Regarding the significance of the decoration of
lished in Bevilacqua 1998.
Rudolph (1994). As in many of her earlier writ- the "gran sala" of the Palazzo della Cancelleria,
14 The character of this extraordinary collector
ings, she examines Maratti's role in in which Ludovico Sergardi set out to celebrate
was brilliantly brought to light in Rudolph 1995.
Clement XI's program of reform for the arts. the pontificate of Clement XI. see Rudolph 1978.
15 See Edward ). Olszewski's preliminary studies
37 Rudolph 1994, pp. 393-94. 53 That is, official painter.
of the Ottoboni collections. In anticipation of
38 Bellori [1672] 1976, p. 645. 54 Each stage of the creative process is well docu-
his completed work on worth
this subject, it is
39 Rudolph 1994, pp. 395, 406. fig. 4. A picture cor- mented in the case of Benefial's jonah, with
consulting Matitti 1994, "Santa Genuinda," and
responding to Crescimbeni's description is drawings (now in Berlin) of the nude, the
Matitti 1995. For an in-depth study of the rise of
listed in the inventory of Maratti's effects draped figure, and the final composition, and
the Ottoboni family in Roman society, see
(Bershadi985,p.78). the hozzctto (McCrindle collection: see Clark and
Menniti Ippolito 1996.
40 Romano Cervone 1994. Bowron 1981. p. 72).
16 Cormio 1986; Prosperi Valenti Rodino 1996.
41 For the idea of the English garden as an 55 Diario Ordinario di Roma. June 11, 1718 (no. 166).
17 Noc 1980; Pavanello 1998. with additional
Arcadian Calvano 1996, p. 53.
setting, see An example of the medal coined for the restora-
bibliographical references.
42 The biographies, printed by Antonio de' Rossi, tion of St. John Lateran, formerly in the
18 The first research on the continuity of the
continued to be published until 1751. Anthony Morris Clark collection, is kept at the
classical style in eighteenth-century Rome was
43 Baldeschi and Crescimbeni 1723. Philadelphia Museum of Art (Hiesingerand
conducted by Italo Faldi (Faldi 1977).
44 Conforti 1980, p. 254. Percy 1980, p. 135, no. 123).
19 Rudolph 1984. in particular the conclusions on
45 Rusconi also sculpted the statues of .Saint 56 On the S. Clementc frescoes, see Gilmartin 19^4.
p. 320.
Andrew (1709) and .Saint John the Evangelist (1712). and Seicento e Settecento 1998. pp. 47-63.
20 Essential sources for a knowledge of artistic-
The close relationship between Rusconi and 57 The cartoon was the final full-scale drawing,
activity arc the Dian'o Ordinario di Roma, first
Maratti. attested to by Pascoli, is best illustrated used for transposing the composition to the
published by the Chracas printing house in
in the chapel that Maratti had built tor himself canvas or the newly plastered wall. In his biog-
1718, and that of the abate Francesco Valesio
in the church ol Camerano, his
S. Faustina at raphy of Giuseppe Chiari, Nicola Pio mentions
(edited by Gaetana Scano, 1977). For the final
hometown. His funeral monument and that of the cartoons produced by the artists who
years of the century, see the as yet unpublished
his wife. Francesca Gommi. are both decorated painted the Prophets in St. John Lateran.
 Ponfredi (in Bottari and Ticozzi 1822-25, vol. 5, 72 Private collection (Schiff 1973, fig. 493). 91 Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna, Rome;
PP- 5—39) mentions Benefial's cartoons for 73 See Ottani Cavina et al. 1979, pp. 11-12, no. 8. according to Alessandro Verri (1796), the work
S. Gallicano and his Episodes jrom the Life of Saint 74 Ottani Cavina 1998, p. 499, fig. 10. was intended for the King of Naples (Colucci
Lawrence at Viterbo in the collection of Count 75 Carlo Maratti, Allegory of Painting (Palazzo 1998, p. 70, n. 33).

Soderini. Corsini, Rome). 92 There is a preparatory drawing at the National

58 The name of Pier Leone Ghezzi does not appear 76 Conca 1981, pp. 396-99. Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh (Roettgen 1993,
in academy membership lists. However, the 77 Pinacoteca, Dresden; Clark and Bowron 1985, pp. 130-31).
painter himself declared in the margin of a p. 219, no. 39. For other examples of the same 93 Another example is Sebastiano Conca's paint-
drawing depicting the Bosco Parrasio (after 40-48 on pp. 219-22.
subject, see nos. ing of Hercules Crowned by Fame before the Temple of
1726), "sono anch'io Arcade" (Lo Bianco 1985, 78. Lemme collection, Rome; Loire 1998, p. 202, Glory (Sestieri 1994, vol. 2, fig. 299).

p. 23). Also attributed to Pier Leone Ghezzi is a no. 77. 94 Some years later, the Roman sculptor Giuseppe
Portrait of Cravina (Lo Bianco 1999, p. 120, 79 Szepmuveszeti Muzeum, Budapest. Ceracchi, on his return to Rome from England,
cat. no. 24), which would tend to confirm a rela- 80 Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore. The picture painted a portrait of Reynolds, which is men-
tionship between the two men. His caricatures was painted in 1764 for Palazzo Reale, Turin. tioned in the Giornale delle Belle Arti (see Ceracchi

include sketches of Crescimbeni and Gravina. Tscherny 1977-78. 1989, p. 49, cat. no. 1).

59 was the fourth son of a corn

Livio de Carolis 81 Formerly in the Schneider collection, 95 Wind 1986, fig. 32.

merchant from Pofi, one of the Colonna estates Cleveland, Ohio; Rudolph 1998, p. 119, fig. 5. 96 In 1791 Angelika Kauffmann painted the por-
in the Ciociaria region. In 1726, he acquired the On this painting, later given by the artist to traits of two leading figures in Roman literary

title of marchese from the Altieri family, Marcantonio IV Borghese, and the episode that and social circles in the allegorical guises of
together with the Prossedi estate, but in 1714 led to its composition (a dispute over payment Tragedy and Comedy (Nationalmuseum,
began building his own residence in Rome for a canvas for the church of Ss. Celso e Warsaw). Her subjects were Domenica, daugh-
based on a plan by Alessandro Specchi Giuliano), see Memorie per le Belle Arti (Rome) ter of Giovanni Volpato and wife of Raffaello

(Giuggioli 1980). He also immediately acquired July 1786. Morghen, both renowned engravers, and
a country house, described in the Mercurio 82 He was famous for having found the two Maddalena, daughter-in-law of the former.
Errante of 1732. In aspiring to noble rank, he con- Centaurs (Musei Capitolini, Rome) at Hadrian's 97 For the English poet George Keate, in May 1790
tracted enormous debts, and in 1750 his heirs Villa. Angelika Kauffmann painted "an Arcadian
were obliged to sell the residence. 83 An allusion to the fact that Furetti came from scene inspired by an Arcadian poet written by
60 The subject of Chiari's fresco seems to refer to Bergamo, with which the character of the said poet." It featured the cult of tombs and
the De
Carolis coat-of-arms: two eight-pointed Harlequin was associated. A similar idea (merit the rather more cheerful subject of a pastoral
starsand two doves pecking two ears of corn. not duly esteemed) may be behind the portrait wedding (Kauffmann 1998, p. 52).
61 Trevisani painted a second canvas for the of Paolo de Matteis (formerly owned by 98 Pushkin Museum, Moscow.
Palazzo de Carolis, Venus in Vulcan's Forge, dated Anthony Morris Clark), in which Pier Leone 99 Voralberger Landesmuseum, Bregenz.
1725 (iriarte 1989, pp. 91-no). Ghezzi depicts him painting an allegory of 100 Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (Wind 1986, p. 66,
62 Michel 1996, Vivre et peindre, pp. 587-97. Fortune crowning an ass while not noticing the fig. 22). The relationship between philosopher

63 The paintings for the Palazzo Ruspoli apart- noble horse in front of her. and painter dates from the period when
ment have not survived. Their style can be sur- 84 According to the Memorie per le Belle Arti, the Shaftesbury was writing A Notion oj the Historical
mised from the decoration of the Palazzo idea for this program came from Draught or Tablature of the Judgement of Hercules
Rospigliosi at Maccarese. See Negro 1996. Giovambattista Visconti. This is confirmed by (first published in 1712, in French, in the journal

64 On the transfer of the Bosco Parrasio from the a Vatican document discovered by Gian Paolo des Scavants).

Palatine to the Aventine and then to the Consoli (1996, pp. 37-38). 101 Galleria Sabauda, Turin; see Clark and Bowron
Janiculum, see Predieri 1990, pp. 39. 85 On the Museo Pio-Clementino, see Consoli 1985, p. 257, no. 173.
65 Musees Royaux, Brussels. 1996; for the "new" artists engaged on the picto- 102 Giacomo Casanova, Storia della mia vita, edited
66 Private collection, Rome (see Pacia and Susinno rial decoration (from Lapiccola to Nocchi), see by Piero Chiari and Federico Roncoroni (Milan:
1996, p. 157,11.47). Rudolph 1985. Arnoldo Mondadori, 1989), vol. 3, pp. 787-88,
67 Until the time of Leopoldo Cicognara, who 86 Museo Capodimonte, Naples. The canvas,
di 1115-16.

devoted a chapter of his essay Del hello to the mounted in the ceiling of the camerino and 103 On Giuseppe Ghezzi and the academy, see De
subject of "grace" (Pisa 1808, now in Barocchi depicting episodes from the life of the hero, Marchi 1999, "Ghezzi," pp. 79-90.
1998, pp. 33-99)- interestingly described by Bellori ([1672] 1976, 104 The academy's custodian Gioacchino Pizzi was
68 This commission was entrusted to Ermengildo p. 47) as "Images of Virtue," was removed in a frequent speaker: In lode delle belle arti, 1758,

Costantini, who drew inspiration from Pietro 1662 and transferred to the Farnese residences published by Marco Pagliarini (another impor-
da Cortona's ceiling for the Palazzo Barberini in in Parma. It subsequently went to Naples with tant printing house: see Barroero 1996,
depicting the Borghese coat-of-arms upheld by the rest of the painting and sculpture collec- pp. 678-79, n. 8), Ipregi dell'architettura nel solenne

a winged figure in the presence of the Figurative tions. However, it was very well known from a concorso delle belle arti celebrato in Campidoglio dal-
Arts, Music, and Poetry. Above them flies the multitude of engravings. i'insigne Accademia del Disegno di San Luca, Rome,
figure of Liberality and, in the bottom part of 87 Two episodes from the life of Hercules were Angelo Casaletti, 1768, and Lafortuna: canto di

the composition, is depicted the defeat of painted in fresco by Federico Zuccari in a room Gioacchino Pizzi recitato in Campidoglio in lode delle

Ignorance. The central part of the fresco was in his palazzo in via Gregoriana. A plaster cast belle arti per il concorso dell'anno MDCCLXXI,
painted in 1767-68, but Constantini did not of the Farnese Hercules features several times in Rome, Arcangelo Casaletti, 1771. His speeches
complete the figures of the Liberal Arts and paintings of the where it has a
artist's studio, for the prizegivings of the years 1773, 1775, 1777,

Virtues until 1773-74. See Fumagalli 1994, p. 141. dual significance as formal model and philo- 1779, 1781, and 1783 are extracts from his poem (1

69 Schonborn collection, Pommersfelden; this sophical point of reference (Lecoq 1983, tempio del Buon Gusto.
work is the pendant to a Triumph of Love (Atalanta pp. 7-8). 105 Donato 1996, pp. 71, 241. For Amaduzzi's role
and Hippomenes) painted in 1723. See Maue and 88 Hercules was regarded as the founder of the in the academy "between Christianity and

Brink 1989, pp. 408-9, no. 314. Conca often Spanish Bourbon monarchy (Roettgen 1993, Enlightenment," see Rosa 1999, pp. 142-44,
painted this subject, on canvas (the two small- p. 130). 290-93, and passim.
scale Allegories of the Arts and Music in the 89 Benefial was elected to the academy with the 106 This was a continuation of the process initiated
Galleria Spada, Rome) and in fresco (Allegory name of Distanio Etneo in 1743. A preparatory by the Oratorian Cardinal Cesare Baronio in the
of the Sciences, Palazzo Corsini, Rome). drawing for the decoration has survived time of Clement VIII (1592-1605) and pursued
70 Hermitage, St. Petersburg (Clark and Bowron (Hiesinger and Percy 1980, p. 41, no. 28). throughout the seventeenth century, with
1985, p. 240, no. 110). 90 Susinno 1978. In the same palazzo, thegalleria greater intensity in jubilee years.
71 Location unknown. Sec Sestieri 1994, vol. 2, overlooking via del Corso, built by Gabriele 107 Pascoli 1992, p. 652.

fig. 369. Another interesting work by the same Valvassori in the 1730s, was frescoed with 108 The contemporary biographer Nicola Pio
artist is the hozzctto for The Arts Triumphing over Episodes from the Life of Hercules by Aureliano (c. 1724) also describes Giuseppe Ghezzi as
Time (Leicester collection, Holkham House, Milani. "painter and orator."
Norfolk; see Sestieri 1994, vol. 2, fig. 362). 109 Pascoli 1992, p. 652.

ARCADIA
 —

no Paratore 1994, p. 17. and its rival, the Giomalc delle Belle Arti e della and seventeen episodes from Ariosto's Orlando
111 [ncisa della Rocchctta 1979. Incisione Antiauaria, Musica c Poesia, see Barroero jurioso.These scenes were replaced (1788) by
112 Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. 1999- Cades's tempera paintings on the same subject
113 Giomalc dcllc Belle Arti, June 23, 1787. 135 Visconti 1841. (for further details and an exhaustive profile of

114 On this subject, see the observations of 136 Visconti 1841, pp. 43-44. Sigismondo Chigi. see Di Macco 1973-74).
Elisabeth and Jorg Garms (Garms and Garms 137 Nappii997. 160 Caracciolo 1992, p. 53.

1998). For Benedict XIV and the new theories 138 Fusconi 1984, p. 8. 161 Lefevre 1973, p. 182; Guerrieri Borsoi 1993, p. 145.

of the wider Catholic Enlightenment, see Rosa 139 Another such original explorer was Marianna For Tommaso Righi's stuccos, see Zeri 1985.
1999. PP- 149-84- Candidi Dionigi, who in 1809 published her 162 Gonzalez-Palacios 1998.
115 This is the title of Piccialuti Caprioli 1994. own short treatise on antiquarian topography 163 Speroni 1990. A recent edition of the poem
116 The "cavaliere" in question was of course entitled Viaggio in alcune citta del Lazio che diconsi (Altieri [1873] 1995) was edited by Massimo
Corrado Giaquinto. For the precise dating of fondatc da re Saturno ("Travels to towns in the Miglio.
his work, see Vasco Rocca 1985. Lazio region said to have been founded by 164 On
the decoration of the apartment, see
117 The report in Chracas (no. 4236) seems to show King Saturn"), which contained extraordinary Susinno 1978 and Cappelletti 1996.
some reservation, which was also shared by the descriptions of unspoiled places still belonging 165 Others involved were the painters Saint-Ours,
pope, if it is really true that he referred to the to the realm of myth, seen through romantic Francesco de Capo, and Giuseppe
new facade as a "porcaria moderna" ("modern eyes. Campovecchio, and the sculptor Raffaello
rubbish"). 140 Wilton and Bignamini 1996, p. 70, no. 26. Secini.

118 The sculptors concerned were Agostino 141 The pendant to it was a similar landscape by 166 Debenedetti i997,"Giuseppe Barberi,"
Corsini, Bernardino Ludovisi, Carlo Carlo Labruzzi. The appearance of the room pp. 205-6, n. 17.

Marchionni, Pieter Verschaffelt. Pierre Lestache. is known from a watercolorby Charles Percier 167 March 1787.
Tommaso Brandini. and Giovanni Battista (Institut de France, Paris). Gonzalez-Palacios 168 He was the author of the important Discorso sul
Grossi. On the projects of this kind promoted 1997- disegno (1772) and Elogio aell'abate Carlo Innocenzo
by Pope Benedict XIV, see Michel 1998. 142 Painted for the Earl-Bishop of Bristol (Memorie Frugoni (1770). His comment on Canova's work
119 Work on these sculptures was in hand by 1735. per le Belle Arti, March 1785, p. 55). Not long after- can be read in his Lettera a Diodoro Delfico

The authors included Paolo Benaglia, wards, Pierre-Henri de Valenciennes painted (Saverio Bettinelli: see Barocchi 1998, pp.
Bartolomeo Pincellotti. Agostino Corsini, the same subject in a picture now in the Musee 51-56). On the relationship between Frugoni.
Bernardino Ludovisi, Giovan Battista de' Rossi, des Augustins, Toulouse. Della Torre Rezzonico, and Godard, and the
Pierre Lestache, Pascal Latour, and a number of 143 Charles-Nicolas Cochin, 1774. in Michel C. 1993, academy's openness to "European" influences
lesser names. Benedict's XIV's policy of conti- p. 411. under the custodianships of Gioacchino Pizzi
nuity was also evident in his choice of sculptors. 144 Musee Municipal, Brest. worth noting
It is that and Luigi Godard, see Dionisotti 1998.
120 As with the Lateran portico, the bas-reliefs are Sablet had been elected to the Accademia 169 Gravina 1973, p. 309.
part of the same doctrinal program (Michel dellArcadia. 170 For these types of "sacramental" relationships,
1998). The sculptors were again Carlo 145 The portrait of Zoega (for details of which, see characteristic of Catholicism, see Signorini 1981.
Marchionni, Carlo Monaldi, Agostino Corsini, Majo, Jornaes, and Susinno 1989, p. 144, no. 10) 171 On the role of the Congregazione dei Virtuosi
Bernardino Ludovisi, Pieter Verschaffelt, and is kept at the Museo di Roma. (for the years 1700-1758). see Bonaccorso and
others including Pietro Bracci, Filippo della 146 Watercolor, Berlin. Manfredi 1998, pp. 17-52.
Valle, Giovanni Battista Maini, and Michel-Ange 147 Galleria Nazionale, Parma (Ceschi Lavagetto 172 Rudolph 1979.
Slodtz. 1990, p. 246, fig. 10). 173 The manuscript of Nicola Pio, "dilettante
121 NoeV. 1996. 148 There were eighty-six Arcadian colonies in the romano" (Rome 1673-1736), was published
122 Garms and Garms 1998, p. 398. eighteenth century (see list in Giorgetti Vichi in 1977 by Catherine and Robert Enggass (Pio

123 Garms and Garms 1998, p. 396. 1977. pp. 406-8). [1724] 1977). On the portraits and self-portraits
124 Caffiero 1992, p. 369. 149 From the first full description of the villa after of artists and his collection of drawings, see
125 Vasco Rocca and Borghini 1995, pp. 522-23. the interventions of Marcantonio IV (Visconti Bjurstrom 1995.
126 The name was normally spelled Caffehaus in 1796), would seem that the thinking behind
it 174 Lione Pascoli (Perugia 16-4-Rome 1744) pub-
the eighteenth century, particularly in docu- the program was due to Asprucci himself, with lished his Vite aVpittori. scultori ed arehitetti
ments relating to the casino (lodge) on the instructions from the prince. As regards the moderni in two volumes, in 1730 and 1736 respec-
Quirinale. decoration of the Salone d'Onore with its exal- tively. The work (republished with a commen-
127 Pantanella 1993; Stoschek 1998. tation of the Borghese family in the person of tary, in 1992) was dedicated to Victor Amadeus
128 Charles III Visiting the Basilica of St. Peter's, Rome Furius Camillus, Carole Paul (1992) convinc- II of Savoy. Pascoli had intended to complete the
(174s); King Charles III Visiting Pope Benedict XI V at ingly argues that the source was a speech work with a section of biographies of the great-
the Coffee House. Palazze del Quirinale, Rome L'amor della patria —
delivered by Francisco but this remained in manu-
est living artists,
Quirinal Gardens (1746). Preciado, Arcadian and chief of the Accademia script and was not published until 1981.
129 Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, 1785. The king di S. Luca, to mark the Capitoline prizegiving of Whereas, in the case of the older artists, he
asked Gagneraux to paint a second version May 19, 1777. drew freely, and sometimes uncritically, on
(1786), which was given to Pius VI (now in the 150 Borghini 1984. earlier sources, from Bellori to Baldinucci and
National Gallery, Prague). Regarding the first 151 Michel 1996, Vivre ct peindrc, pp. 292-94. Nicola Pio (which is why Bottari had reserva-
version, see Laveissiere et al 1983, pp. 98-99, 152 Ferrara 1974-75. tions about his work), for his contemporaries
no. 26; for the second, Wilton and Bignamini 153 Ferrara 1954. and Ferrara Grassi 1987. he could often count on direct or indirect testi-
1996, pp. 81-82, no. 38. Massimiliano Laboureur, Lorenzo Cardelli, and monies from the artists themselves (diaries,
130 The previous year, using the good offices of Carl Luigi Valadieralso contributed to the sculptural information from family members, etc.). He
Fredrick Fredenheim, the king had appointed decoration. tended to show greater appreciation for the
Francesco Piranesi as his agent in order to 154 For the decoration as a whole, see Petereit more modern artists as promoters of "progress
acquire classical marbles in Rome. Fredenheim. Guicciardi 1983. For the relationship with antiq- in the arts." He was also innovative in his ability
incidentally, was the chief patron of Giuseppe uity, see Herrmann Fiore 1998. to recognize the value of still-lite and landscape
Angclini (Caira Lumetti 1990, p. 38). 155 Pavanello 1998. painting.
131 Kept at the Museo di Roma, Rome. The king 156 For further information, see Caracciolo 1997. 175 According to Nicola Pio, Pier Leone "was
also donated a series of medals commemorat- 157 Private collection: reproduced by Rudolph 198). deservedly dubbed cavaliere by the Duke of
ing his reign. They are still kept at the fig. 331- Parma on his own merits" (1710).
Accademia di S. Luca, together with a profile 158 The painting dates from 1785. There is another 176 Moiickc 1752-62, vol. 4, pp. 247-57.
portrait sculpted by Pacetti after Sergei. version by Teodoro Matteini, signed and dated 177 Pascoli 1992. p. 312.
132 Institut Tessin, Paris. 1792- 1^8 Museo di Roma, Rome; Susinno 19^4.
133 Merolla 1988, particularly pp. 1056-91. 159 Caracciolo 1992. p. 104. Also active on this pp. 232-35. n. 25.
134 For details of this periodical, probably funded project was Nicola Lapiccola, who in i~8i and 179 Pascoli 1992. p. 290.
"clandestinely" by Prince Abbondio Rezzonico, 1782 painted a picture of Apollo ami the Muses 180 Museo di Roma. Rome (Susinno 1976),

ARCADIA
181 Pascoli 1992, pp. 299-300, n. 50. ity, but was refused because at that time he had 231 Bozzetti at Pisa and Baltimore; other artists
182 Minor 1989. not distinguished himself by any special acts of involved were Gaspare Landi (who refused the
183 Information about these kinship ties was sup- merit.He was eventually made Cavaliere by commission) and, in the following century,
plied by Maria Grazia Lavalle, who is doing Benedict XIV (information kindly provided by Giuseppe Collignon and Giuseppe Bezzuoli.
research for her degree thesis on the social Luciano Arcangeli, who is writing a monograph 232 Giornale delle Belle Arti, July 1787, pp. 199-200.
status of Placido Costanzi. On Francesco on this painter). 233 In addition to the Diario Ordinario, the Memorie
Barazzi, see Zinzi 1994. 212 What amounts to a projection of Giaquinto's perle Belle Arti, the Ciornale delle Belle Arti, and

184 The close ties between Batoni and Costanzi are determination to achieve noble status is evident Vincenzo Pacetti's Giornale, the writings of
confirmed in various circumstances: their work in his portrait of the singer Farinelli, who also Antonio Bertolotti (1875, 1878, 1879, 1880) are
and
as figurists for the Orizzonte landscapes belonged to a particularly mobile social cate- a mine of useful information.
their collaboration on important commissions gory. Giaquinto's strategies also included 234 Loire 1998, p. 228.
(the Quirinale Coffee House) and public pro- lending large sums to such eminent personali- 235 Pascoli 1992, p. 369. The large bas-relief, still in
jects (Costanzi took over from Batoni on one of ties as the empress Maria Theresa to meet her its original location, depicts The Glory of the
the paintings for Pisa Cathedral). expenses in the Seven Years' War. Blessed jean-Fran(.ois de Regis.
185 Scheurmann and Bongaerts-Schomer 1997, 213 In reporting the news, the Diario Ordinario di 236 Bertolotti 1880, p. 83. An example of this type of
vol. 1, p. 209. Roma (no. 2194) of January 9, 1796, pointed out sculpture is Vincenzo Pacetti's Diana, formerly
186 Bianconi 1998, p. 253. thatno artist had previously been honored with owned by the Borghese family and now in the
187 Clark and Bowron 1985, p. 16. this title. Ruffo collection. At Syon House, decorated by
188 For details of the relationship between Maratti 214 Susinno 1974, pp. 243-44. Robert Adam for the Duke of Northumberland,
and Niccolo Maria Pallavicini. see Rudolph 215 De Rossi [1811] 1970, pp. 104-5. there is still a Ceres signed by Bartolomeo
1995. 216 The robed by Giuseppe Angelini
figure sculpted Cavaceppi.
189 Bonds that paid an annual sum of interest. (1780) replaced the candelabrum that Piranesi 237 Belloni was also a powerful banker, and as such
190 Bershad 1985. himself had wanted for his tomb. Inspired, looked after the interests of Mengs's son (Michel
191 Clark and Bowron 1985, pp. 20-22. according to Leopoldo Cicognara, by a statue of 1996, Vivre et peindre, p. 418, note 65).
192 This is attested to by his pupil Giovanni Battista Zeno, it is reminiscent of models with which 238 Bertolotti 1880, p. 83.
Ponfredi, 1764 (in Bottari and Ticozzi 1822-25, Angelini may have become familiar during his 239 Other works produced by the sculptor for an
vol. 5, p. 24). stay in London (1770-77), in particular Giovanni Minor 1989
English clientele are mentioned by
193 Regarding the social and financial success Battista Guelfi's monument to James Craggs Syon House and Wentworth Woodhouse).
(at

of Giaquinto, see Michel 1996, Vivre et peindre, (1727) in Westminster Abbey. (Guelfi was a pupil 240 As well as some marble chimneypieces
pp. 297-318. of Rusconi who had been taken to England by (Mankowski 1948, p. 80).
194 The inventory, mentioned by Cordaro (1987) is Lord Burlington.) About ten years later, echoes 241 Mankowski 1948, pp. 9-21.
due to be published soon by Cinzia Maria Sicca. of the statue of Piranesi are evident John in 242 Mankowski 1948, pp. 21, 80-81.
195 The inventory of Pichler's effects was drawn up Bacon's monument to Samuel Johnson in 243 Whinney 1988, pp. 259-60.
with the expert help of Giuseppe Lovera for the St. Paul's Cathedral. For sculpture in England, 244 Bertolotti 1878, p. 301.
paintings, Carlo Albacini for the sculptures and seeWhinney 1988, pp. 160, 308. 245 For details of these and other sculptures, see
Alessandro Cades for the gems [casts], tools, 217 The tomb was carved by Vincenzo Pacetti at Michel 1996, Vivre et peindre, pp. 255-65.
and equipment. the expense of Cardinal Gianmaria Riminaldi. 246 Copies of these were made by Laboureur,
196 Ingamells 1997, p. 171. Byres was responsible for 218 In 1786 a bust of Poussin by Andre Segla was Carradori, Albacini, and others.
the fraudulent sale (1786) of Poussin's The Seven also included. Around 1820
there were about 247 Now at Schloss Ludwigsburg. Scheffauerd
Sacramentsfrom the collections of Cassiano del sixty of them, mostly of artists. They were sculpted Spring and Winter, Danneker Summer
Pozzo and then owned by Boccapaduli. removed by order of Pius VII and are now kept and Autumn. See Hoist 1987, pp. 125-32,
197 Cavaceppi 1768-72; Gasparri and Ghiandoni in the Protomoteca Capitolina. cat. nos. 14-15.
1993 (Inventory 1802), pp. 14-48, 257-95. 219 See Fenici 1990, p. 118. 248 Whinney 1988, p. 146.
198 Michel and Rosenberg 1987, p. 96. 220 This was the subject of a lecture (soon to be 249 1771-83. See Nicola Figgins in Ingamells 1997;
199 Bonfait 1996; Scheurmann and Bongaerts- published) by Richard Bosel at the Istituto the monument is also referred to in the Giornale
Schomer 1997, vol. 2, pp. 209-11. Antonio Storico Austriaco in Rome. delle Belle Arti.

Canova's own workshop was in via delle 221 Vasco Rocca and Borghini 1995; joanni V 250 The bishop was the father of the sculptor's prin-
Colonnette. Magnifico 1994. cipal patron. For details of this tomb, see
200 So did Giuseppe and Pier Leone Ghezzi 222 Now in the Escola Pratica de Infantaria (Joanni V Francesco Leone (forthcoming).
(Corradini 1990). Magnifico 1994). 251 Michel 1996, Vivre et peindre, pp. 236-37.

201 On academic drawing and studies from the 223 Sicca 1990, pp. 273, 282, n. 113; Sicca 1994. 252 The di Roma (no. 2126) of May
Diario Ordinario
nude, see Bowron
Susinno 1998, Susinno
1993; 224 For details of this project, see Garms 1995. 16, 1795, announced that the monument to the
1999 and the biography contained therein. 225 The project was promoted by Prior Orazio prince, a well-known writer and scholar, was on
202 1733; see Fusco 1988. Felice Delia Seta, who had been elected to the display in the sculptor's studio at Trinita dei
203 Guerrieri Borsoi 1991. academy in 1691 (alias Algido Tricolonio), and Monti (previously occupied by Subleyras,
204 Rome, Archivio di Stato, Michelangelo Clementi, was one of the founders of the "Colonia Alfea" Hamilton, and Corvi).
vol. 32, pp. 611-99, 1778. (Sicca 1990, which also contains details of work 253 Dorotheenstadtische Kirche; reproduced in it
205 Giovanni Pichler's inventory is mentioned by by other Roman artists in Pisan churches). original form by H.W. Janson. See H.W. Janson,
Palazzolo 1996. 226 Roettgen 1979. Nineteenth-century Sculpture (London: Thames &
206 Workshop equipment was often dispersed 227 Commissioned in 1786, delivered in 1787. Hudson, 1986), fig. 58.
when a family "firm" went out of business. 228 Letter to the cathedral deputies; Curzi 1998, 254 For examples of the "good government" of
For example, on the closure of Agostino and pp. 45-46. Pius VI and the promotion of architectural
Lorenzo Masucci's studio, the Diario Ordinario di 229 The concept of "enthusiasm" as the driving works in particular, see Collins 1995.
Roma (no. 1106) of August 6, 1785, announced a force of intellectual activity (Lord Shaftesbury) 255 Michel and Rosenberg 1987, pp. 244-45, no. 66.
sale of "paintings, prints, plaster casts, and was developed in Italyby Melchiorre Cesarotti, 256 Clark and Bowron 1985, p. 217, note 29.
drawings by famous authors." Cristoforo particularly in the Ragionamenti with which he 257 Perina 1961.
Unterperger's equipment was sold by his son prefaced his translation of Voltaire's tragedies 258 Scotti 1979. In 1809 the painting was transferred
Giuseppe. (1762). to the Pinacoteca, where it can still be seen.
207 Pirzio Biroli Stefanelli 1984. 230 Tempesti had been a pupil of Placido Costanzi 259 Regarding the fortunes of the Roman school in

208 Casanova 1997, vol. 2, p. 51. in Rome and had certainly also studied with Milan, sec Morandotti 1996, p. 87. To recon-
209 Pascoli 1981, p. 34. Corvi (whose Scuola del Nudo he attended). struct the pattern of these relationships, it is

210 Pascoli 1981, p. 159. In The Death oj San Ranicri (installed in 1747), the also vital to read Verri for information about
2 1 1 In 1737. lor example. Mancini asked the commu- Pisans Francesco and Giuseppe Melani made the Lombard cardinals Archinto, Carrara,
nity of Sant'Angelo in Vado, his native town, to every effort to adapt their pictorial idiom to that Riminaldi, and Stoppani.
have him entered in the ranks of the local nobil- of the "Roman" paintings already in situ.

ARCADIA
260 Clark and Bowron 1985. pp. 211, 238, notes 5, in an architectural setting renovated by
106. Valadier. For the spread of Roman works and
261 Bona Castellotti 1980. models in Umbria, see Casale et al. 1976;

262 Rodeschini Galati 1996, p. 476, no. 1. Barroero et al. 1980; Casale 1990, "La pittura."
263 Pacia 1996, pp. 128-29, n. 12-13. 290 Church of the Maddalena: canvases by
264 Pozzi and Giaquinto were occupied, with Tommaso Sciacca, Mariano Rossi, Domenico
Batoni and some Neapolitan painters, in pro- Corvi, and Marcello Leopardi.
ducing cartoons for the tapestries for the royal 291 Church of S. Benedetto, "carried out under . . .

palace at Caserta. the supervision and to the design of Count

26s Paintings for Molfetta, Bari, Terlizzi, etc. Berardi, a cavaliere well known in aristocratic

266 Michel 1996, Vivreetpeindre, p. 274. circles, and in the literary republic of science
267 However, for the role of Naples in the first half and letters" (Pascoli 1981, p. 162), with canvases
of the century, see Norci Cagiano de Azevedo by Gaetano Lapis, Pietro Bianchi, and
1997. Sebastiano Conca (1730s and 1740s).
268 Conca painted many other altarpieces for 292 Conca, Zoboli, Benefial, and Trevisani in
churches in Palermo (See Conca 1981). S. Matteo.
269 Siracusano 1983-84. The canvases, three in 293 Canvases by Pietro Angeletti for the cathedral.
number, were sent between 1793 and 1795, the 294 Giuseppe Bottani in the cathedral of
year of Leopardi's death. They represent The S. Francesco.
Death of Saint Joseph, Saint Agatha Interceding jor an 295 Diario Ordinario di Rorna (no. 2194) of January 9,

End to the Plague and Saint Francesco Caracciolo. 1796.

The preliminary sketches are kept at the Museo 296 Lanzi 1809, vol. 1, pp. 431-32. As well as the
di Castell'Ursino in Catania. signal examples of Mengs and Giaquinto, it is

270 For details of this painter, see Michel 1989. One worth mentioning Giuseppe Bottani, called to
of the preliminary sketches for S. Niccolo Mantua by Maria Theresa of Austria in 1770 to
all'Arena is in the Lemme collection in Rome direct the first reformed academy in the
(Martyrdom oj Saint Agatha: see Loire 1998, p. 274, Lombardo-Venetian kingdom; Laurent
pi. 117). Pecheux, who worked in Turin; Marcello
271 Conca 1981, p. 210, cat. no. 63. Bacciarelli in Poland; and Germans such as
272 Now in the Quirinale, Rome. Fuger and Tischbein, who were qualified by
273 February 1786, pp. 28, 34. their Roman experience to reform the acade-
274 On the cardinal and the significance of his mies of Vienna and Naples.
project, see Castelnuovo and Rosci 1980, 297 Pascoli 1992, p. 312. Similarly, Pichler's wife
pp. 159-69- opposed her husband's wish to move to
275 Casale 1990; Casale 1997; Casale 1997, England, because she did not want to live in a

"Addobbi"; Casale 1998. non-Catholic country (De Rossi 1792,

276 The most celebrated image of this saint was pp. 22-23).
painted by Sebastiano Conca (Miracle oj San 298 1804; Accademia di Brera, Milan (Musiari 1995,
Turibio, Pinacoteca Vaticana, Rome), from p. 11). A similar intention to celebrate sculpture
which several copies were made. is evident in the placing of Niccolo Stefano
277 Casale 1990. Traverso's Genius of Sculpture beside a classical
278 Of special interest in this respect is the Memoria bust of Vitellius in the Galleria delle Statue
dellcpiture [sic] in which Angelika Kauffmann (now Galleria degli Specchi) of the Palazzo
recorded details of works, patrons, and prices Reale, Genoa. Traverso was sent to Rome as a
(see Kauffmann 1998). "pensioner" in 1775. The work, according to Dr.
279 According to Pascoli (1992, p. 206), the paint- Simone Frangioni of the Soprintendenza ai

ings in question were two Virgins. Beni Ambientali e Architettonici in Genoa, was
280 Trevisani painted a Holy Family for Avignon, a definitely in place by 1798.
Crucifixion for Besanc,on, and Saint Lawrence and 299 Many of the Madrid drawings came, via Andrea
Saint Sijjrein before the Virgin for Carpentras. Procaccini, from the estate of Carlo Maratti. The
281 Pascoli (1981, p. 45) mentions a Magdalen "in Dusseldorf drawings were collected in Italy by
a church of the Fathers of Saint Pantaleon in Lambert Krahe in the mid-eighteenth century.
Germany." 300 Lanzi 1809, vol. 1, p. 259.
282 Brejon de Lavergnee 1987. 301 Both works are discussed in the Memorie per k
283 Mary Magdalene, 1721, in S. Caterina degli Belle Arti (April 1788 and January 1785 respec-

Italian!. tively).

284 After the destruction of the abbey during the 302 The National Gallery of Ireland. Dublin. See
French Revolution, the two paintings, dating William L. Pressly. James Barry: The Artist as Hero
from 1758,were transferred to the church of (London: Tate Gallery Publications, 1983),
S. Francesco Saverio in Besanqon (Brejon de pp. 51-52, no. 1.
Lavergnee 1987). 303 Visconti 1841, p. 28.
285 According to Nicola Pio (c. 1724), this was a 304 In his memoirs, published by Vincenzo
"large painting" for the Dominicans depicting Malamani (Memorie del Conic l.copoldo Cicognara
The Virgin oj the Rosary and All the Saints of the trattc dai documenti originali, [Venice, 1888]. vol. 1,

Dominican Order. p. 32), Cicognara recalls his apprenticeship with

286 1739, Saint Jean-Francois de Regis Praying for an End Vincenzo Camuccini, Luigi Sabatelli, and Pietro
to the Plague, for the Jesuit church. Benvenuti —great artists who in the early nine-
287 Caracciolo 1992, p. 207, n. 36. teenth century determined the course of Italian
288 For the significance of the cult of the Eucharist Neoclassical art in Rome, Milan, and
and the Sacred Heart in the strategy of the eigh- Florence — at the private academy of Domenico
teenth-century Church, see Rosa 1999, pp. Corvi (Curzi 1998, p. 36; Susinno 1998, pp. 1- ;,

17-109. 189, n. 63).

289 In the 1780s and 1790s, Spoleto Cathedral was 305 Now in Barocchi 1998. p. 113.
decorated with altar paintings by Untcrpcrger,
Nocchi, Cavallucci, Corvi, and Pietro Labruzzi,

ARCADIA 75
 —

Key Figures in Eighteenth-Century Rome

ORNELLA FRANCISCI OSTI

Acquaviva d'Aragona. Francesco, Cardinal Albani. Family of Albanian origin established Winckelmann. By 1728 sold the King of
(Naples 1665-1725 Rome). Papal nuncio to in Urbino in the mid-fifteenth century. Poland thirty of the most valuable statues
Spain until 1706. Intensely loyal to Philip V; Orazio (1576-1653), ambassador of Duke in his collection, and in 1734 Clement XII
sold silverware to help the king during the Francesco Maria II della Rovere to Rome, con- bought an important series of busts, later

War of Spanish Succession, and secured the cluded the treaty incorporating the duchy of donated to the newly founded Museo
safety of Philip's first wife, Luisa Maria Urbino into the Holy See, thus attracting the Capitolino. A large number of bronzes, most
Gabriella of Savoy. Appointed minister and favor of Pope Urban VIII Barberini, who from Hadrian's Villa, were sold to Ludwig of
protector of Spain at the papal court by appointed him to the senate (1633). The Bavaria, after being looted by Napoleon's
Philip V; in 1714 used his influence to achieve Albani family now enjoyed the protection invading forces. Arcadian alias Chrisalgus
the Spanish monarch's second marriage, to of the Barberini family, and Carlo became its Acidanteus. A collection of epigraphs, coins*'

Elisabetta Farnese. Cardinal bishop of the majordomo. Carlo's sons were Giovan (catalogued by Ridolfino Venuti), and medals
church of S. Cecilia, Rome, and responsible Francesco (the future Pope Clement XI), was seized by the French, but no record of
for restoration work there, completed by his Orazio (whose own sons were the cardinals these has survived. Built up an important
nephew Troiano. Annibale and Alessandro), and Carlo; the lat- library by acquiring libraries such as that of

ter married Teresa Borromei and was father Cardinal Federico Cesi and employed
of Cardinal Giovan Francesco and Giulia Winckelmann as his librarian. De Brasses
Acquaviva d Aragona, Troiano, Cardinal Augusta, who married Agostino Chigi in 1735. described him in his Lettre LIV thus: "He loves
(Atri 1694-1747 Rome). Nephew of Cardinal In 1719 Carlo bought the Palazzo alle Quattro gaming, women, entertainments, literature

Francesco. In 1732 titular cardinal of S. Cecilia, Fontane from the S. Maria della Pieta asylum and the fine arts, of which he is a great con-
Rome, where he is buried. From 1732 acted as for the poor and mentally sick which, after noisseur" (De Brasses 1977, vol. 2, p. 345).

representative of the Infante Charles, son of considerable alteration, became the family Countess Francesca Gherardi Cheruffini, his
Philip V of Spain, at the Holy See. Appointed residence (now known as the Palazzo del lover from about 1740, held a salon with con-
Spanish legate in 1735, and took up residence Drago, currently the seat of the British certs and music. Alessandro had two daugh-
at the palace in the Piazza di Spagna; as Council). Princes of the Holy Roman Empire ters by Countess Gherardi Cheruffini, to
protector of the Kingdom of Naples in the after 1710, this branch of the family became whom he was godfather. One of the daugh-
Sacro Collegio advocated the marriage of the extinct in 1852 on the death of Prince Filippo, ters, Vittoria, married G. Lepti and is said to
thirteen-year-old Maria Amalia of Saxony to whose possessions were divided between have been immortalized by Mengs in his
the Infante Charles (King of Naples as Charles Maria Antonietta Albani Litta and Agostino Parnassus. A portrait by an anonymous artist

VII from 1734; King of Spain as Charles III Chigi Albani (son of Sigismondo Chigi), who hangs in the Vatican Library.

from 1759); also in 1735 arranged sumptuous became the founder of the Chigi Albani line.
festivities for the annual festival of the
Chinea. Granted rich ecclesiastical livings and Albani, Annibale, Cardinal (Urbino 1682-1751
appointed to the lucrative archbishopric of Albani, Alessandro, Cardinal (Urbino Rome). Elder brother of Alessandro. In accor-
Monreale by Philip. Handsome and intelli- 1692-1779 Rome). Son of Orazio, younger dance with the wishes of his uncle
gent, a grand seigneur according to De Brasses, brother of Cardinal Annibale, nephew of Clement XI studied at the Jesuit Collegio

Troiano held well-attended twice-weekly Clement XI, and uncle of Cardinal Giovan Romano and began his ecclesiastical career in
receptions in Rome, at which there would Francesco. Followed a military career (in 1708 1703. Appointed apostolic nuncio to Vienna
occasionally be gaming, sometimes music, led the papal cavalry, defeated by the imperial (1709), became a cardinal under Innocent XIII
but at which "quantities of chocolate besides troops at Comacchio), but by 1718 had already in 1712, and sought to mediate in the great
... delicious cinnamon-flavoured sorbets" begun his dazzling ecclesiastical career. Made conflicts between the Holy See and France
would invariably be consumed (De Brasses cardinal by Innocent XIII in 1721, was after Clement XI issued the Unigenhus bull

1977, vol. 2, p. 196). Extremely influential, he extremely active in politics and diplomacy. (September 1713) condemning the (ansenists,
helped to secure the election of Pope Benedict Involved in various concordats with the king- but did not succeed in preventing their
XIV and in 1746 was responsible for ousting dom of Sardinia (1727, 1741) and the Austrian excommunication (1718). Did his utmost to
the prime minister of Naples, Montealegre. Habsburgs (1741, 1743, 1745); anti-French and ensure that the Church recognized Frederick
Vico dedicated the definitive edition of Scienza anti-)acobite, was de facto — if not officially Augustus of Saxony, King of Poland
nuova (1744) to him. the British government's diplomatic represen- (Augustus III), who had already publicly
tative after Philipp von Stosch had left Rome. abjured Lutheranism in 1^12. Described by De
Ambitious and unscrupulous, and a passion- Brasses as "very highly regarded for his abili-

ate antiquarian and patron of the arts. His ties, hated and feared to excess; without faith
(opposite ) detail of Giovanni Paolo Panini, King villa, completed in 1763, was designed to and principles, an implacable enemy even
Charles III Visiting Pope Benedict XIV at the Coffee House, house the collections of antiquities assembled when he appeared to be reconciled; a great
Palazzo del Quirinalc. Rome, 1746 (cat. 272). for the most part with the help of Stosch and genius in business ..." (De Brasses 1977, vol. 2,

KEY FIGURES
 p. 344). Probably in the pay of the French, (1647) Camillo Pamphili. When the Pamphili are preserved in various Italian libraries. Left
through their minister Guillaume Dubois. He line became extinct (1760), the Aldobrandini his library, including interesting collections of
became chamberlain in 1719 and his word car- fortune passed to the Borghese family. journals, to Savignano. Among the surviving
ried great weight in the various conclaves. Was autograph works are an unfinished history of
a discerning patron, to the benefit of Urbino: the Villa Giulia, and diaries of his travels in

appointed Pietro, the son of Alessandro Alfieri, Vittorio (Asti 1749-1803 Florence). central and northern Italy, with descriptions
Scarlatti, Maestro di Capella in the cathedral; Author and poet. A. was the greatest and of monuments, libraries, and archives.
erected monuments; encouraged glass and most imaginative playwright of the last
printing industries; financed a chair of the quarter of the eighteenth century, and is best
Greek language at the university. In 1733 remembered for his life and work in Rome Anfossi, Filippo (Taggio, Imperia 1748-1825
included modern works for the first time in between 1781 and 1783, though he first visited Rome). Dominician. Taught for many years in

the legislation governing works of art. Henry Rome in 1766. He had a passionate love affair the order's colleges in Liguria and Piedmont,
Stuart, Cardinal of York, inherited a consider- with the Duchess of Albany (Louisa Stolberg- and preached and wrote against rationalism,
able number of his positions and livings. Gedern), the wife of Charles Stuart; she the Enlightenment, and Jansenism. Called to
became his lifelong companion and A. dedi- Rome in 1803, he became the official defender
cated most of his Rime (Poems) to her. The of the papal bull of 1794, in which Pope Pius
Albani, Giovan Francesco: see Clement XI. premiere of his Antigone (1776) was performed VI condemned the Synod of Pistoia. Was an
in Rome in 1782 in the private theater of the intransigent supporter of the Curia's conserv-
Spanish ambassador and A. read Virginia ative political, doctrinal, and philosophical
Albani, Giovan Francesco, Cardinal (Rome (1777-83) in the salon of Maria Cuccovilla attitudes.
1720-1803 Rome). Augustus III of Poland per- Pizzelli. He also took part in the commemo-
suaded Benedict XIV to make Giovan ration in Arcadia for the death of P.

Francesco a cardinal in 1747, although his Metastasio, which Sigismondo Chigi also Angelucci, Angelo. Brother of Liborio
uncles Alessandro and Annibale were already attended. His tragedies were banned in Rome Angelucci.
cardinals. Succeeded Annibale as protector of on June 18, 1790.
Poland in 1751, supported the election of
Clement XIII, and was a member of the con- Angelucci, Liborio (Rome 1746-1811 Rome).
gregation responsible for deciding the fate of Altieri, Livia: see Antici, Tommaso. Surgeon and obstetrician to the French
the Jesuits. Initially favored the suppression colony in Rome. As friend of V. Monti, in 1791
of the order: changed his mind in the con- published a monumental version of the Divine
clave of 1769 and became a zealot, opposing Altieri, Vincenzo Maria, Cardinal (Rome Comedy, edited by Fra Baldassarre Lombardi
the election of Clement XIV and refusing to 1724-1800 Rome). Youngest son of a noble and dedicated to Cardinal D. C. Carafa. Friend
collaborate with the Holy See. Supported the family, appointed cardinal in 1780. At the of Basseville and disseminator of revolution-
election of Pius VI. When the French proclamation of the Roman republic in 1798, ary ideas, was accused of having plotted to
Revolution broke out, called for the armed renounced the cardinalate, but retracted a few assassinate Pope Pius VI, but after Cardinal
defence of the Papal States. Held responsible days before his death. Buried in the Altieri Carafa's intervention was released from the
for the death of Basseville after the killing of Chapel in S. Maria sopra Minerva. Castel S. Angelo. In 1797 arrested again, and
Duphot; fled Rome for Naples in early 1798; forced into exile. On returning to Rome, then
the French later devastated his villa and con- under French occupation, became prefect of
fiscated his assets. As cardinal dean, chose Amaduzzi, Giovanni Cristofano (Savignano the victualing board, then consul of the Roman
Venice as the seat of the conclave, and was di Romagna 1740-1792 Rome). Scholar. republic. Once in power, he overturned these
appointed by Pius VII as his legate to precede Settled in Rome in 1762 and dedicated himself expectations, maintaining the good will of
him to Rome and govern the Papal States. to the study of oriental languages and law. In the French and strengthening his family's
contact with many writers, artists, and schol- financial position. Fell from public favor,

ars, also the Italian Jansenists and noncon- resigned the consulship, and became a sena-
Albany. Ancient place name for some areas formists such as G. G. Bottari, P. F. Foggini, tor. After the fall of the Roman republic in
of Scotland. For the Countess of Albany, see M. Compagnoni Marefoschi and, in particu- 1799, followed the French to Paris, then Milan,
Stolberg-Gedern, Louise; for the Duchess of lar, S. de' Ricci. In the last years of his life was where he was a surgeon. Returned to Rome
Albany, see Stuart, Charlotte. persecuted for sympathizing with the in 1809, when the city was again occupied by
Jansenists. The brief suppressing the Jesuits the French, but never regained public office.
is attributed to him; supported the religious
Aldobrandini. Noble Florentine family, policy of Clement XIV, whose confidence
which took up residence in Rome in the sev- he enjoyed. Became professor of Greek at La Antici, Tommaso (Recanati 1731-1812
enteenth century; family members held very Sapienza (1769) and at the Collegio Urbano di Recanati). Prelate. A born intriguer, he was
high offices in the Curia, particularly Ippolito Propaganda Fide (1780). Was appointed super- agent of Stanislas Augustus of Poland, of
(1536-1605), who became Pope Clement VIII intendent of the Propaganda Fide printing the electors of the Palatinate and Bavaria, and
in 1592. Cardinal Ippolito (1592-1638), the last house in 1770, and published numerous protected by Livia Altieri and various cardi-
of his line, left his assets to the second-born ancient alphabets. Wrote many scholarly nals. Initially an anti-Jesuit, after their sup-

son of his niece Olimpia (1623-1682), Princess works, and collaborated on the Florentine pression (1773), but later changed sides.

of Rossano, who married (1638) Paolo Novcllc letteraric and Annali ccclesiastici; the Appointed cardinal in 1776. In 1797 encour-
Borghese (see Borghese family) and later liffemcridi letteraric di Roma and Antologia romana;
and the Palermo Notizic de' letterati; his letters

78 KEY FIGURES
aged surrender to the French. When the L. Vinci in the performance at the Palazzo 1784 as plenipotentiary minister). Was partic-

French occupied Rome, renounced his office. Altemps given by Cardinal de Polignac in ularly skillful at dealing with the expulsion of

Retired to Recanati, where he died. honour of the birth of the dauphin. Recorded the Jesuits from Spain; was also a famous
in Rome again in 1731 at the Teatro Alibert, scholar in contact with authors such as A.
subsequently in Venice, Genoa, and Milan Verri and artists including A. R. Mengs (on
Antonelli, Bernardino (1725-1809). Keeper of (where he sang Gliick's Artaxerxes), in Vienna, whom he published a work in two volumes
the fortress of Senigallia. Brother of Leonardo and in Eumene by Jommelli, performed in in 1780) and A. Canova. After 1800 Giuliana
Antonelli. In his youth he attended the private Bologna in 1742. Member of the Accademia Falconieri Santacroce was his mistress and
academy of Domenico Corvi, of whom dellArcadia. followed him around Italy and to Paris.

Leonardo was a patron.

Assemani. Family of orientalist scholars of Balsamo, Giuseppe, alias Alessandro

Antonelli, Leonardo, Cardinal (Senigallia Lebanese origin. Giuseppe-Simonio Cagliostro (Palermo 1743-1795 San Leo).
1730-1811 Senigallia). His progress in the (71687-1768 Rome) was brought to Rome as Adventurer. Born into a family of modest
Church was the reward for intelligence and a child and studied there at the Maronite col- means, educated at the seminary of S. Rocco
reliability, although his uncle Cardinal Nicola lege. Was soon able to write school books in in Palermo. In 1756 became a novice at the
Maria helped him gain entrance to Roman Arabic on Syrian grammar and collaborated monastery of the Fatebenefratelli at

circles. Appointed cardinal in 1775 and prefect on a historical treatise on the Fathers of the Caltagirone, where he probably learned the
of the Propaganda Fide in 1780, was responsible Eastern Church. Ordained in 1710, he entered basic elements of chemistry and medicine.
for relations with Russia, Ireland, and France. the Vatican Library as a scribe for Syrian and This knowledge, together with his great
Voted against the Treaty of Tolentino, but Arabic. In 1715 commissioned by Clement XI power of suggestion and his hypnotic charac-
remained in Rome when Pius VI fled. to bring oriental and Greek manuscripts back ter as a healer and magician, secured his

Was arrested and exiled. Later took part in from Egypt. Traveled throughout the eastern fame. In 1768 married the beautiful Lorenza
the election of Pius VII at the conclave held Mediterranean, collecting Coptic, Ethiopian, Feligiani, daughter of a foundryman, and with
in Venice and, on the pope's return to Rome, Arabic, Persian, Turkish, and above all Syrian her began his life as an adventurer and confi-
was one of the most strenuous opponents of manuscripts. On return to Rome devoted dence man, marked by great successes, swin-
the French concordat. Attended the corona- himself to cataloguing this material and pub- dles, sudden flights, and arrests. In London in

tion of Napoleon, who is nevertheless said to lished the four folio volumes of the Bibliothcca 1776 established a new masonic lodge — the
have ordered his arrest (1808). Died in exile in orientalis (1719, 1721, 1725, 1728). First non- mystic Egyptian Rite —which, shrouded in

his home town. Western to be custodian of the Vatican mystery, was enthusiastically embraced across
Library (1739). On the orders of Clement XII Europe by noble and intellectual circles. In

presided over the national synod of the Paris was implicated with his protector,

Antonelli, Nicola Maria, Cardinal (Pergola, Maronite Church in the Lebanon (1736-38), Cardinal Louis de Rohan, in a 1785 scandal
Urbino, 1698-1767 Rome). Studied civil and accompanied by his nephew Stefano Evodio, involving the queen: imprisoned in the Bastille;
canon law in Rome. Became privy chamber- but was unable to settle all the liturgical and later found innocent but expelled from France.
lain to Clement XII. Noted for intelligence and legal controversies. According to De Brasses Returned to England, where his arguments
culture, in 1730 was appointed librarian at the he refused an offer to come to Paris to orga- with Theveneau de Morande led the Frenchman
Collegio Urbano and three years later became nize the oriental section of the Royal Library. to reveal B.'s true identity, an event that began
prefect at the archives of Castel S. Angelo. In In 1766 was ordained bishop of Tyre. his undoing. Tried in 1789 to introduce an
1741 Benedict XIV appointed him to the com- Giuseppe Luigi (Tripoli, Syria, 1710-1782 Egyptian Rite lodge at the Villa Malta on the
mission whose task it was to reform the Rome), nephew of Giuseppe-Simonio, in Pincio in Rome but, denounced by his wife,
Breviary; later secretary of Propaganda Fide. 1737 taught Syrian at La Sapienza university was arrested and convicted in a symbolic
Became cardinal in 1759, but continued to in Rome, and oriental liturgies from 1749. attack against masonry by the Church (his
produce scholarly work, including the Stefano Evodio (Tripoli, Syria, 1711-1782 books and masonic implements were burned
Sermones S. Patris lacobi of 1756. Prefect of Rome), nephew of Giuseppe-Simonio, attend- in the Piazza della Minerva). His sentence of
the Congregation of the Indulgences in 1760, ed the Maronite college inRome (1720-30). death was reduced to life imprisonment: he
he succeeded Cardinal Passionei as secretary Became titular archbishop of Apamea (1738). died under strict watch and harsh treatment,
of papal briefs. Left his vast library (some of Sent to Florence (1741) by Clement XII to pro- just before the French troops arrived.
which had belonged to Queen Christina of mote the beatification of Joseph Calasanz.
Sweden, and afterwards Cardinal Ottoboni) Wrote and published the catalogue of oriental
to his nephew Leonardo, who later donated manuscripts of the Biblioteca Medicea- Basseville, Nicolas-Jean-Hugon (Hugou) de
them to the library of Senigallia. Domenico Laurenziana, edited by the Florentine scholar (Abbeville 1753-1793 Rome). Diplomat.
Corvi was his protege, and painted two por- A. F. Gori, and worked on the catalogue of Destined for the Church, but become tutor to
traits of him (Galleria deHAccademia di Belle the codices of the Biblioteca Ricciardiana. the Morris family of Philadelphia. Dedicated a
Arti, Naples; Biblioteca Antonelliana, In 1782 was appointed chief custodian of the history of the French Revolution to Lafayette,
Senigallia). Vatican Library. and was later secretary at the embassy of
Louis XVI in Naples. In 1793 lived in Rome at

the house of Stefano Mout (commercial

Appiani, Giuseppe (Milan 1712-1742 Azara, Jose Nicolas de (Barbuhales, Aragon agent, fanatic, and intriguer), where he met
Bologna), alias Appianino. Counter-tenor. His 1730-1804). Spanish diplomat and man of let- men of letters and artists such as V. Monti and
first success was in Rome in 1729 in the Contesa ters. Sent to Rome in 176s as general agent for G. Ceracchi. Secured the release of French
dci Numi, libretto by Metastasio and music by Clement XIII, where he stayed until 1797 (from artists from prison. Was attacked by the

Kl Y FIGl RES
crowd on January 13, 1793, during riots in (died Rome, 1806), son of Girolamo, was one understand what it meant to be Pope; he was
front of Palazzo Mancini on the Corso, where of the lovers of Margherita Sparapani Gentili not interested in the affairs of State, only reli-

the French Academy wanted to raise the Boccapaduli. Without male heirs, he left the gious ceremonies, rites, baptisms, consecrat-
republican flag. Died the next day. Satires and bank (in 1793) to Ferdinando Acquaroni, leav- ing churches and altars, blessing church bells,

sonnets were published praising the murderer, ing the Torlonia family to dominate the eco- ensuring that clothes were clean and fresh ..."

among them Monti's La Bassvilliana, which he nomic scene in Rome. A few years later the (P. Giannone, Vita, edited by F. Nicolini
retracted in 1797. Bologna line of the family also became extinct. [Naples, 1905], p. 127; quoted in DBI, vol. 8,

p. 387). Modern historians concur with this

judgment and explain his behavior as induced
Bassi Veratti, Laura (1711-1778). Scientist Benaglio. Francesco (Treviso 1708-1759 by his immediate circle (including Cardinal

from Bologna. Taught philosophy and physics Padua). Polymath. Initially a follower of Jesuit Coscia), the members of which, except for
at the University of Bologna; also wrote poetry. teachings, attended courses by D. Lazzarini at Cardinal Fabrizio Paolucci di Calboli, his sec-

Gained international acclaim and advised the university in Padua and in 1725 embraced retary of state, were self-seekers. His policies
Prince Archbishop of Augusta to take Lazzarini's rationalism, love of Greek and were unsuccessful, because of the economic
Giovanni Ludovico Bianconi as his physician. Latin classics, and Aristotelian ideas about decadence of the Papal States and the political

poetry and theater; subsequently spent all his situation in Europe. The Church proved
life trying to collect and publish Lazzarini's unable to maintain the balance between the
Batoni, Rufina (d. 1794). Daughter of the work. In Venice met Marco Foscarini, who Habsburgs and Bourbons, and to curb the
painter Pompeo Batoni. Despite her prema- took him to Rome (1736-40) as his secretary, long-running conflict between the govern-
ture death, was well known for her interest in a position subsequently held with Francesco ments of Sicily and Turin. Remembered for
mathematics, singing, and poetry. Member of Venier (1740-43). Here he came into contact commissioning F. Raguzzini from Benevento
the Accademia dell'Arcadia. with the alias with men of letters and admired the natural to build the hospital of S. Gallicano in Rome.
Corintea, and the dedicatee of many poems attractions and works of art in the city. Canonized many saints during his papacy,
under that alias. Took part in musical acade- Became a member of the Accademia including Margaret of Cortona, Luigi
mies held by Cardinal de Bernis. dell'Arcadia with the alias Timbreo Tinariano. Gonzaga, Stanislas Koska, John of Nepomuk,
Traveled with Venier to the Middle East and John of the Cross.
(1745-49). Returned to Rome as librarian to
Belli. Giuseppe Gioacchino (Rome 1771-1863 Prospero Colonna. In contact with artists

Rome). Poet and secretary to Stanislas and men of letters he wrote and translated Benedict XIV. Pope (Bologna 1675-1758
Poniatowski. Abbozzo di vita non finita, dedicating it to Batoni Rome). Born Prospero Lambertini. Studied in

in exchange for a portrait. Also engaged in Bologna with the Somaschi Fathers and from
correspondence with Bettinelli: though he did 1688 in Rome, obtaining a doctorate in theol-
Belloni. Family of merchants and bankers not believe Bettinelli to be the author of the ogy and law in 1694 at the Collegio

from Codogno in Lomellina. First established Lettere Virgiliane, he stayed with him in Naples Clementino. Worked in various congrega-
in Bologna, they prospered in trade, obtain- at the house of the Duchess of Ligneville. tions and undertook to simplify the complex
ing state contracts for processing and selling post-Tridentine legislation; successful in con-
tobacco. Giovanni Angelo came to Rome in cluding difficult negotiations with various
1710-11, obtaining the contract for tobacco Benedict XIII, Pope (Gravina 1650-1730 European states. Became a cardinal in 1728
and aqua vitae. Having summoned his Rome). Born Pierfrancesco Orsini. Despite and archbishop of Bologna in 1731. His main
nephew Girolamo (died Rome, 1760), opened the disapproval of his family and his uncle interests were the growth of parochial activi-

a bank in the Piazza Fiammetta. Girolamo Cardinal Virginio Orsini, in 1668 became a ties, the duty of residence of the clergy, the
traded on the principal foreign markets, often Dominican friar in Venice, taking the name sound administration of convents, and the
acting as agent for the Stuart family. In 1730 Vincenzo Maria. Renounced his feudal inheri- usefulness of missions (supported Leonardo
became director of the general custom office tance in favor of his brother Domenico, and di Porto Maurizio and Paolo della Croce). At
and strongly influenced the economic policies took his vows in the monastery of S. Sabina the conclave of 1740 was elected Pope only
of the Vatican, a position consolidated under in Rome. Ordained in 1671 and in the same after six months of conflict between the car-
Pope Benedict XIV. Shortly after 1740 bought year was appointed reader of philosophy in dinals appointed by Benedict XIII and their
a large palazzo in via del Governo Vecchio Brescia. On becoming a cardinal in 1672 adversaries led by Cardinal Annibale Albani
(also the castle of Prossedi, with title of obtained several offices and livings as bishop and foreign powers. Strongly opposed to
marchese, from Michele de Carolis), later sold of Siponto (1675), and reformed the way of life nepotism, forbade his family to come to
to purchase Villa Verospi from the Altieri of the clergy by imposing the duty of resi- Rome unless he summoned them (which he
family (since destroyed), and the estates of dence, overseeing the customs of priests, and never did). Although his papacy was much
Oliveto and Posta at Sabina from the Santa reorganizing the assets of the diocese. In 1678 criticized, he was tolerant and ecumenical,
Croce. In 1750 printed the highly successful set up an experimental system of agrarian and opposed the Curia's Counter-Reformist
Del commercio with the Pagliarini brothers in credit but provoked great controversy, result- leanings. Proclaimed his opposition to the
Rome, dedicating it to the pope, who had made ing in his transfer to the diocese of Cesena in new veneration of the Sacred Heart of Jesus
him a marchese. The family also had manu- 1680; also behaved in the same manner at the and recommended "disciplined veneration"
facturies (wool at Ronciglione). They support- archdiocese of Benevento in 1686. Was elect- of images of saints and the presence of the
ed the publication of the map ofRome by G. ed pope on May 29, 1724, with the support of crucifix in churches. In 1-40 banned burials
B. Nolli, were interested in archaeological cardinals who had connections with the in churches and public floggings. Interested
excavations, collected paintings, and were Bourbons and the Habsburgs. Considered to in the eastern churches, and persisted in pro-
active in contemporary society. Francesco be politically inexperienced. "He did not hibiting vernacular languages and reading the

KEY FIGURES
Bible. Surrounded himself with outstanding favor of her husband. Metastasio asked P. L. Capitoline Hill in front of the statue of
advisors, such as Cardinal Valenti Gonzaga, Ghezzi to paint a portrait of her, but only a Marcus Aurelius. French troops were billeted

the banker Belloni, Cardinal Guerin de Tencin, drawing in ink and a sketch remain. However, in the Vatican, at the monasteries of Minerva,
S. Maffei, L. A. Muratori, R. Boscovich, B. de Ghezzi was not allowed to make an engraving S. Agostino, and the Ss. Apostoli, at the hous-
Fontenelle, and F. Algarotti, among others. of her for a work to be published in England es of the Jesuits in the Piazza del Gesu, in the

Ordered a revision of the Index of Prohibited on musicians and singers. courtyard of La Sapienza, in the palace of
Books in 1753, advocating that the accused be St. John Lateran, the Piazza di Spagna, the
allowed to defend themselves, but did not pre- Piazza S. Maria Maggiore, and at the Palazzo

vent L'Esprit des lois by Montesquieu (a work Benvenuto, Tito: see Appiano Buonafede. Doria (seat of the chief of staff), while republi-
defended by Cardinal Passioniei, among others) can flags (black, white, and red) were raised
from being included. Passionate about exotic above the Capitoline Hill and the Quirinale.
objects and Chinese porcelain, in an attempt Bernis, Francois-Joaquin de, Cardinal (St. After staying at the Villa Mellini, he moved
to persuade the ambassador of Portugal, Marcel dArdeche 1715-1794 Rome). Educated, to the Villa Poniatowski (spiteful rumors sug-
E. Pereira de Sampajo, to present him with cheerful, witty, and amusing; his poetry (ele- gested this was closer to a quicker exit from
two pieces B. had them "stolen." Under his gant but not outstanding) ensured him the Rome). On February 20 Pius VI left for Siena

papacy culture flourished Rome. Founded in protection of Mme. de Pompadour until 1752, and on February 23 a former Scolopian father,

many academies, including the Accademia del when he was sent to Venice as ambassador. Faustino Gagliuffi, commemorated the death
Nudo at the Capitoline Hill (1754) and one for Became a minister of state, then foreign secre- of Duphot in St. Peter's Square. On
history and antiquities; built up the collections tary in 1757, but found this post tedious and February 24 the people's representatives
of the Capitoline palaces and founded the asked to be replaced; thanks to Mme. du requested the protection of the French repub-
Museo di Antichita Cristiane (1755). During Barry's influence became cardinal in 1758. lic. Berthier then made his entrance through
his papacy writings by R. Venuti, G. Vasi's Le At the conclave of 1769 informed Cardinal the Porta del Popolo on horseback, with a
magnificenze di Roma, and G. B. Piranesi's Ganganelli of his election as pope large following of the populace and soldiers,

Antichita romane were published, and the col- (Clement XIV) at the behest of Austria and and took possession of the city, following a
lections of the Vatican Library grew consider- Spain, and as a reward was appointed ambas- route past the Capitoline Hill, St. Peter's, the
ably.Between 1749 and 1752 he commissioned sador to Rome (1769-91). Set up house in the Forum, and back to the Piazza del Popolo
excavations of Roman catacombs, and set in Palazzo de Carolis on the Corso, near the (Pope Pius VII entered Rome in triumph by
train the reform of the universities of Rome Palazzo Doria and the French Academy in the same gate on July 3, 1800). Was responsi-
and Bologna (a museum of anatomy was the Palazzo Mancini. Known as "the French ble for establishing the new structure of the
founded and the Institute of Sciences received pope," he looked favorably on freemasons, republican state, based on the French model,
his personal library, opened to the public in including G. Balsano, and lived a luxurious and initiated the secularization of the admin-
1756). Among the buildings restored in Rome, life; his receptions were renowned and his istration, in Rome and in the Papal States.

often with the financial assistance of King banquets lavish (his guests included
John V of Portugal, were the Colosseum, S. A. Kauffmann and E. Vigee-Lebrun). Enjoyed
Maria Maggiore, S. Maria degli Angeli, and academies for singing, with poetry, refresh- Bettinelli, Saverio (Mantua 1718-1808
the Pantheon; the Trevi Fountain was also ments, and entertainments, though dancing Mantua). Jesuit polymath. Taught in various
completed. In 1748 beatified Joseph Calasanz was forbidden in a cardinal's residence. The northern Italian cities and and visited Paris

(1558-1648). There are numerous portraits by beautiful Giuliana Falconieri, wife of Switzerland, where he met Rousseau and
Subleyras. Santacroce and sister of Costanza Falconieri, Voltaire. In Germany was tutor to the
acted as his hostess. Later devoted himself to Hohenlohe princes (1755). When the Jesuits
assisting the French clergy. Died in his palace were suppressed in 1773, settled in Mantua.
Benti, Maria Anna, Romanina (Rome
alias La and was buried in S. Luigi dei Francesi. There Author of poems, tragedies, free verse, and
1684/86-1734 Rome). Opera singer. is a portrait in the cathedral of Albano; and a rhyme, he became famous on publication
In Genoa, Venice, and Naples she sang operas portrait of Giuliana Falconieri Santacroce by of the Lettere Virgiliane in 1757, and anthology
by contemporary composers, but is famous Angelika Kauffmann, in the Museum with prefaces by various authors (Algarotti,
because she was the first of three women Narodowe, Warsaw. Frugoni, and himself). In this work Virgil is

named Maria Anna to have a relationship imagined as a judge of Italian literature. In

with Metastasio, whom she discovered in fact, Bettinelli was very critical of Dante (sig-

1721. Made her debut in 1724 in Naples, Berthier, Louis-Alexandre, General nificantly, publication of the Divine Comedy
singing in his Didone abbandonata, to music (Versailles 1753-1815 Bamberg). After the was banned in Rome), and this resulted in a

by D. Sarro. moved to Rome with her

In 1727 French ambassador, Joseph Bonaparte, had strong public reaction. His Dodici lettere in^lc\i.

husband, Domenico Bulgarelli. Unable to per- left Rome and General Duphot had fallen at sopra van argomenti e sopra la letteratura italiana

form because of the anti-women regulations the Porta Settimiania, was sent to Rome to Of-1766 is an interesting work in which he
of the Holy See, she coached actors and kept avenge Duphot 's death and establish the wrote as a foreigner who likes Italy and is

a very lively salon, frequented by singers, men Roman republic. On Februrary 9, 1798, his unimpressed t>y the great English writers and
of letters, and aristocrats; this salon was par- troops occupied Monte Mario, and on Newton; his writing seeks to glorify minor
ticularly important for Metastasio, who February 10 Castel S. Angelo surrendered writers, simultaneously belittling the great
moved into her house on the Corso with his and the French invaded the city with the com- ones, always on a light level. His contribu-
parents and siblings. When Metastasio left, pliance of the people of Rome, as requested tions to worldly and courtly literature include
she continued to promote his interests and he by secretary of state G. Doria Pamphili Landi. Lettere XX di una dama . . . suite belle arti (179?)

was nominated as the sole beneficiary of her The republic was proclaimed on February 15 and Diuloij/ii sull'amorc (1796). Clever and ambi-
will, though he renounced his inheritance in and the tree of liberty erected on the tious, though somewhat lacking in originali-

KEY FIGURES
ty, he was neither philosopher nor historian. one of its eight foreign associate members. and, at the end of his life, also in European
His reappraisal of the Middle Ages (Del From 1730 was president of antiquities in economics and trade. When he died, was
Risorgimcnto d'ltalia . . . dopo il Milk, 1775) is Rome, and decreed that no finds from excava- about to publish a new edition of the polyglot
interesting, although he cannot be considered tions could be removed without his written Bible and was working on the Greek version
the creator of neo-Guelph historiography. consent. Also established the custom of pub- of the Book of Daniel, which he wished to
A Jesuit by choice, a man of the world by lishing the results of the excavations annually. dedicate to the King of Naples.
nature, his letters are the most coherent and Solved the problem of erecting the Antonine
effective expression of the Jesuit exploitation Column (1705), which was hailed by the play-
of literature in the eighteenth century. ing of whistles and drums and salvoes from Bianconi, Carlo (1732-1802). Painter, sculptor,
Contributed to a reawakening of Italian cul- cannons. Traveled in France (1712) and architect, and writer. Brother of Giovanno.
ture, fought against pedantry, and had a good England (1713), where he met Swift, Halley, Winckelmann stayed at his house in Bologna
understanding of art. Admired S. Valenti and Newton, who gave him a copy of his on his first visit to Italy. Carlo was a printer in
Gonzaga, whose biography he wrote, and Opficfes (now in the Vatican Library). He loved Rome from 1777 to 1778 at his brother's house
shared his enthusiasm for astronomy and the England so much that he learned English in and in 1778 director of the Accademia di

optical sciences in particular. 1720 from Maria Clementina Sobieska and Brera.
was an assiduous visitor at the Stuart court.

Increasingly interested in geography and

Bianchini, Francesco (Verona 1662-1729 astronomy, his work was disseminated by Bianconi, Giovanni Ludovico (Bologna
Rome). Scientist. Studied in Bologna with the E. Manfredi and used by many, including 1717-1781 Perugia). Physician and writer.

Jesuits and with Giuseppe Ferroni, a follower R. Boscovich. Simultaneously published His uncle Giovanni Battista, a theologian
of Galileo. In 1680 wrote the Dialogo jisico- important historical and philological works and scholar, taught him humanities but he
astronomico contro il sistema copernicano, so he (the first three volumes of the Liber pontificalis was more interested in medicine and in 1741

was able to speak authoritatively about was completed by his nephew Giuseppe), and obtained a degree in philosophy and medi-
Galileo's theory, which was prohibited, and works about mathematics and astronomy. Became a famous physician and on the
cine.

the same year he went to Padua to study the- Also devised the Carte dagioco nelle quali vien recommendation of Benedict XIV and the
ology; there met Geminiano Montanari and a eomprendersi I'isXoria universale, published in Bolognese scientist Laura Velati Bassi was
other scientists, and became interested in sci- Rome in 1765. On his death was found to be employed as personal physician to the Prince-
entific historiography studying archaeology, wearing sackcloth. bishop of Augusta in 1744. In Leipzig pub-
and numismatics. In 1684 gained protection lished the journal des Savants d'ltalie (1748-49)
of Cardinal Ottoboni in Rome, became his to inform German readers of scientific and
librarian, and catalogued manuscripts in the Bianchini, Giuseppe (Verona 1704-1764 literary achievements in Italy. Was an affiliate

cardinal's library and in the Palazzo della Rome). Scholar. Nephew of Francesco, most of the Academy of Sciences of Berlin from
Cancelleria, living there until 1707. Made a of whose unfinished work he completed, 1750 and in the same year at the court of
sundial for Cardinal Ottoboni. Attended the including the Liber pontificalis and Historia Dresden became physician, chief advisor, and
Accademia Fisica-Matematica at S. Agnese in ecclesiastica. Expert in ancient manuscripts librarian to the elector of Saxony, the King of
Agone, and worked also on the application of and particularly interested in Christian antiq- Poland, Augustus III, and it is due to B. that
the principles of mechanics to medicine (in uities, studying the manuscripts whose cata- Raphael's Sistine Madonna is in Dresden.
Verona at the Accademia degli Aletofoli). logue had been published by S. Maffei. Owing During the Seven Years' War left Dresden
Began drafting a Storia universale, to restore the to difficult relations with Maffei and the local and stayed in Bavaria. In 1736 his Letters to

authority of the Scriptures on the evidence of clergy Verona and moved to Rome, where
left Marchese Filippo Hercolani were published
scientific data, thereby anticipating Vico's in 1732was admitted to the congregation of in Lucca, and recorded with the "peculiari-
Scienza nuova. Traveled frequently to the north the oratory of S. Filippo Neri. Compiled the ties" of Bavaria and other German states.

of Italy and Naples, and was in contact with catalogues of the Biblioteca Vallicelliana, and From 1764 was minister for Saxony in Rome
the more progressive members of scientific a collection of manuscripts referring to and encouraged interest not only in medicine
circles. Appointed privy chamberlain to Roman monuments. Studied other Roman but also in literature and archaeology. In 1772
Clement XI; lived in the Vatican palaces. In libraries and established an international net- promoted the Effemeridi letterarie, which gave
1700 founded the Academy of Alexandrine work of scholars with whom he collaborated news of new literary works, followed by the
Antiquarians, as a tribute to Alessandro to continue the work started by his uncle. In Nuovo Giornale dei Lettcrati Italiani; also collabo-
Albani, nephew of his protector. Was secre- 1738 the oratory asked him to continue rated on the Anecdota litteraria and the
tary of the congregation for the reform of the Annales ecclesiastici of C. Baronio, but did not Antologia romana from 1775 to 1785, whch
calendar (1701), though not able to complete it complete this task. His research gave new reported scientific advances. Among his last

as accused of sympathizing with "heretics." In impetus to Bible studies: collected all the works were the Elogio storico del cav.

S. Maria degli Angeli,

1702 built the sundial at Latin versions prior to Saint Jerome and even- Giambattista Piranesi of 1779 and the important
which was admired (by Leibnitz among oth- tually published the famous Evangeliarum Elogio storico di A. R. Mengs in 1780. His

ers) but also criticized. Deciphered the tables quadruplex. For the holy year of 1750 planned Descrizione dei circhi e deigiochi in essi celebrati

and the Easter cycle of 112 years on the statue to publish Dcllc magnificenzc di Roma antica e was published posthumously in Rome in 1789

of Saint Hippolytus (now at the entrance to modcrna in ten volumes illustrated by G. Vasi, by Carlo Fea.
the Vatican Library); by combining astrono- but it was not completed until 1761. From 1740
my and archaeology managed to reconstruct was granted a monthly salary of ten scudi for a
the Julian calendar, and communicated his copyist. In 1755 persuaded Benedict XIV to Bichi, Vincenzo, Cardinal (Siena 1668-1750
astronomical observations regularly to the found the Museo di Antichita Cristiane at the Rome). Studied in Rome, became nuncio in

Academic des Sciences, and from 1706 was Vatican. Interested in physics and mechanics Switzerland (1703-9), then in Portugal. John V

ki;y FIGURES
ordered him not to leave Portugal unless majestic propylaea at the entrance. The sec- and Daphne at the center of the room with the
raised to the purple by the pope. After much ond son of Marcantonio IV, Francesco base remodeled by V. Pacetti, using pieces of
hesitation (also because B. had caused (1776-1839), Prince Aldobrandini, inherited the original. Renovated the ground floor

a scandal with the sale of indulgences) the title of Prince Borghese on the death of gallery in the palace in Campo Marzio, the
Clement XII finally made him a cardinal (1731) his brother Camillo. Francesco reorganized Borghese Chapel in S. Maria Maggiore, and
following intervention by Fonseca de Evora; the museum and assets of the family and in the casino in Pratica di Mare. After the Treaty

B. entered Rome in great pomp, paid for by 1833, after compiling catalogues of works that of Tolentino (1797) was forced to send his
John V. could not be sold, a new trust was set up. most precious paintings and classical sculp-

Francesco and his wife, Adelaide de tures to Paris. During the French occupation
Rochefoucauld (1793-1877), had several sons, carried out important excavations on the
Boccapaduli, Giuseppe: see Sparapani with Marcantonio V (1814-1886) inheriting Pantano estate and put the finds in the

Gentili Boccapaduli, Margherita. the title of Prince Borghese, Camillo Gabinio museum, which was sold to the
(1816-1902) that of Prince Aldobrandini for French. Married Marianna Salviati, the last

himself and his heirs, while Scipione heir of her family, whose assets and titles

Boncompagni, Pier Gregorio: see Ottoboni, (1823-1902) became Duke Salviati. passed to the Borghese.
Pietro.

Borghese, Camillo (Rome 1693-1763 Rome). Borghese, Maria Virginia (1642-1718).

Boncompagni Ludovisi, Antonio: see Eldest son of Marcantonio III and Flaminia Noblewoman. Daughter of Paolo and Olimpia
Orsini, Giacinta. Spinola. Decorated the Villa Taverna in Aldobrandini, sister of Giovanni Battista (see
Frascati magnificently. His wife, Agnese Borghese family). Married Agostino Chigi,
Colonna (1702-80), an educated and intelli- who used her dowry to improve the standing
Borghese. Family originally from Siena. gent woman, was responsible for cataloguing of the Chigi family in Roman society.

Giovanni Battista (1558-1609) was brother of the Borghese family's assets, which had been
Camillo (Pope Paul V, 1552-1621), governor of looted by French merchants. This task took
Castel S. Angelo and father (by Virginia Lante) her almost twenty years, and the Borghese Borghese, Scipione, Cardinal (Rome
of Marcantonio II (1601-1658), whose only archive can now be consulted at the Vatican 1734-1782 Rome). Third son of Camillo and
son (by Camilla Orsini) was Paolo archives. Her children included Scipione and Agnese Colonna. Began his ecclesiastical

(1624-1646). Paolo married Olimpia Marcantonio IV. career under the protection of his maternal
Aldobrandini, only daughter and heir of uncle, Cardinal Girolamo Colonna.
the princes of Rossano, and niece of Chamberlain to Clement XIII and supported
Clement VIII: their son Giovanni Battista Borghese, Marcantonio III (Rome 1660-1729 him in his defense of the Jesuits. Clement XIV
(1639-1717) thus inherited from his mother Rome). Son of Giovanni Battista and Eleonora appointed him cardinal in 1770 and entrusted
the Aldobrandini principality of Rossano. Boncompagni. Married Flaminia Spinola him with the legation of Ferrara, which he
Olimpia's second marriage was to Camillo (1691). Famous for lavish receptions, such as administered meticulously. Responsible for
Pamphili and when the Pamphili line became the one given in 1698 for which an ephemeral restructuring the university and initiating
extinct in 1760 the Aldrobrandini fortune was castle was built in the country near Carocceto public works. Also expropriated, sold, and
inherited by the Borghese. Giovanni Battista in honour of Innocent XII, who was en route seized the assets of the Jesuits (Jesuits
married (1658) Eleonora Boncompagni, niece to survey the work at the port of Anzio. On expelled from Portugal, South American
of Gregory XIII. Maria Virginia (1642-1718), his father's death Marcantonio inherited titles colonies, and Bourbon states had sought
sister of Giovanni Battista, married Agostino and high offices, and his lifestyle became refuge in the area). In the 1775 conclave,
Chigi, who was also Prince Farnese and even more worldly and lavish at the Villa opposed the election of Pius VI. Although Pius
nephew of Alexander VII. Giovanni Battista's Pinciana (now the museum at the Villa supported the restoration of the Jesuits, he
sons were Marcantonio III and Scipione. Borghese). In 1721 was appointed caretaker allowed Scipione to continue to administer the
Marcantonio III married Flaminia Spinola viceroy of Naples, much to the delight of the legation of Ferrara. In 1778 returned to Rome.
and their children were Camillo and Neapolitans. In the fourteen months of his
Francesco Scipione (Rome 1697-1759 Rome), office one of his tasks was to protect the king-
cardinal of S. Pietro in Montorio from 1729, dom from the plague, which had broken out Borgia, Stefano, Cardinal (Velletri 1731-1804
and protector of Germanic lands. in Marseille in 1720. Left Naples in 1722, and Lyon). Prelate, writer, and collector. Member
Marcantonio IV, son of Camillo and Agnese withdrew to his villa in Rome. Among his of the Accademia Etrusca of Cortona, the
Colonna, married Marianna, the last heir of sons were Camillo and Francesco Scipione. Colombaria of Florence, and the academy
the Salviati family; thus the assets and titles of Fermo. Was in Rome from 1^56, and when
of the Salviati were added to those of the rector at Benevento (1759-64) published three
Borghese. Of their children, Camillo (Rome Borghese, Marcantonio IV (Rome 1730-1800 volumes of Mcmoric storichc ... di Benevento
1775-1832 Florence) married Pauline Rome). Son of Camillo and Agnese Colonna. from 1763 to 1769. From 1764 in Rome was
Bonaparte in 1803, but died without heirs. Was chiefly responsible for the present-day secretary of the Congregation of Indulgences
In 1818 Camillo purchased the Virgin by appearance of the Villa Borghese and the and was ordained in 1765. In 17^0 became sec-
Sassoferrato (now in the Galleria Borghese) modernization of the park. Commissioned retary of the Propaganda Fide and was thus
and Correggio's Danac, bought in Paris in the architect A. Asprucci to redesign the inte- able lo collect exotic objects lor his museum
1827, but was forced to sell the Louvre 344 rior in a Neoclassical style, in harmony with at Velletri, as well as medals (taken by Murat
objects. Camillo enlarged the park of his the previous late Baroque decor. Was also to the Museo Nazionalc in Naples) and manu-
villa as far as the Porta del Popolo and placed responsible (1785) for placing Bernini's Apollo scripts (from 1902 in the Vatican Library).

KEY FIGURES
including the famous Mexican illuminated scholars. In 1760 visited Greenwich, Oxford, confluence with the Nera (1746). In 1735

manuscript, the Codex Borgianus. Employed and London, where he published the poem De Clement XII ordered him to establish the rich
Protestant scholars in his printing press at the solis ac luna defcctibus, and was admitted to the Corsini library (one of the very few in Rome
Propaganda Fide for detailed studies on the Royal Society, which entrusted him with the still in its original state) and appointed him as
collections; and G. Zoega was one of his task of observing the transit of Venus from his privy chamberlain. In 1736 Clement XII
assistants. Driven by great religious zeal, and Constantinople; arrived there too late but ordered a new edition of Roma solterranea by
carried out his missions intelligently, enter- stayed on for six months. Went next to A. Bosio from him. On appointment as deputy
taining good relations with sympathizers of St. Petersburg in 1762 with the English ambas- custodian of the Vatican Library (1739), gave
the Roman Jansenists, including G. C. sador J.
Porter, and from Poland returned to up teaching at La Sapienza University.
Amaduzzi, despite his strenuous defense Rome (1763). His Giornalc di un viaggio da BenedictXIV helped him to become a member
of the temporal interests of the Church. Costantinopoli in Polonia was reprinted in 1966. ofnumerous Roman academies and bestowed
Appointed cardinal in 1789 and governor of Published Sul prosciugamento dcllc paludi pontine on him the canonry of S. Maria in Trastevere
the city of Rome, became a member of the e di vari problcmi d'ingegncria idraulica in 1764. (where he is buried). After 1740 became more
Congregation of State, which was responsible Taught at the University of Rome (1764-68) reformist and sympathized with the Jansenists;
for the foreign policy of the Holy See, and and built the Brera Observatory in Milan. Due nonetheless, he accepted the pope's condem-
supported resistance against the French to the to the intrigues of his confreres, was forced to nation of Jansen and disapproved of the dis-
bitter end. Was imprisoned and exiled in 1798. resign (1773) and the dissolution of the Jesuits obedience of the Church of Utrecht. Had
Took part in the Conclave of Venice, and prompted him to accept an offer from Paris, French books sent from Paris and supported
accompanied Pius VII to France for the coro- where from 1773 to 1781 he was involved in the Roman printer N. Pagliarini in the transla-
nation of Napoleon, but died in Lyon. Left developing the achromatic telescope for the tion and dissemination of Jansenist literature,

numerous writings on many subjects, includ- navy. Returned to Italy and settled in Bassano but was careful not to promote secularization.
ing the history of art. with the Remondini family of printers until Opposed the 1750 banning of Montesquieu's
1785. Became insane before his death in Milan. L'esprit des lois, but insisted on some abridge-
ment. During the expulsion of the Jesuits

Boscovich (Boscovic), Ruggero Giuseppe from Portugal Neri Corsini was protector of
(Ragusa [now Dubrovnik] 1711-1787 Milan). Bottari. Giovanni Gaetano (Florence the country, but the ambassador of Portugal
Jesuit scientist and scholar. Son of a Serb 1689-1775 Rome). Man of letters and privy and Minister Pombal were in contact with
merchant, his mother came from Bergamo. chamberlain to Clement XII. Benedict XIV, Bottari. The Italian translation, which he
Studied with the Jesuits and in 1725 was a and Clement XIII. Versatile and genial, he suppported, of the catechism of Francois-
novice at S. Andrea delle Fratte in Rome. made important contributions in the fields of Philippe Mesenguy, published in Naples and
Became a teacher, published writings on civil engineering, hydraulics, and port design, Venice (1758-60; 1761) provoked further con-
mathematics, astronomy, geodetics, and as well as in the practice of astronomy and demnation (1761). He never dared openly to
mechanics, reworking the ideas of Newton optics. His wideranging interests (including defy the Holy See, and in 1761 was promoted
and his English and French followers. On Tuscan literature, medieval and modern art, to chief custodian of the Vatican Library. His

taking his vows in 1744 and joining the and Christian archaeology), his thirst for numerous writings on history of art reveal an
Accademia dellArcadia under the name of knowledge, the anti-Jesuit feelings he harbored interest in conservation and restoration
Numerius Anigreus, was already well known (which intensified over the years), and his col- methods, sources, illustrated records, and
in Europe. In Rome was supported by cardi- laborations with other scholars were signifi- theoretical works. Published Vasari's Vite with
nals Passionei, Albani, and Valenti Gonzaga. cant in the context of eighteenth-century Italy, an introduction and commentary (1759-1760)
His plan for reinforcing the dome of St. Peter's while still contained within his own strict and the Raccolta di lettere sulla pittura . . . serine

with metal bands, executed by Luigi Vanvitelli, interests. Studied in Florence, where in the da'piu celebri personaggi ... dal sec. XV al XVI/ (7
brought him worldwide fame. Professor of 1710s he directed the printing house of the vols., Rome 1757-73) —written with the assis-

mathematics at the Collegio Romano, he also grand duke and frequented anti-Jesuit circles. tance of Count G. Carrara — considered
is still

wrote on archaeology and (in verse) scientific The date of his ordination is unknown but a seminal work. Edited the last revised edition

subjects, such as eclipses, the refraction of was certainly while in the service of the (1763) of the Studio della pittura, scoltura et

light, infinitesimal analysis, and even Arcadian Corsini family: his fame as a linguist was so architettura nella chiese di Roma by F. Titi. In the

mythology. An affiliate of the French Academy great that the Accademia della Crusca asked Dialoghi sopra le tre arti del disegno (Lucca, 1754)

(1748). he refused the invitation of John V of him to edit the new edition of the dictionary his narrators were Maratti and Bellori: a pleas-

Portugal to go to Brazil and map the country, (1729-37). In 1725 went to Rome (and Naples) ant essay that gently mocks "modern" artists.

preferring to compile a map of the states of for the first time and became involved in the-

the Church (1750-52), which enabled him to ological and Jansenist matters. Lived in the

measure the arc of the meridian between Palazzo Corsini Rome. His handsome face,
in Braschi, Giovan Angelo: see Pius VI.
Rome and Rimini. In Vienna (1758) published keen glance, and great stature helped him to
Philosophiae naturalis thcoria but despite his establish a very animated group of intellectu-
friendship with Newton was not completely als (the Burchiello club) in the Palazzo, which Braschi Onesti, Luigi (Cesena 1745-1816
faithful to the spirit of the Englishman's theo- was less seditious than the Archetto circle, Rome). Duke of Nemi, son of Girolamo
ries in his attempt to give global synthesis to a founded in 1749. In 1730 obtained a canonry Onesti and Giulia Braschi, sister of Pius VI.
unique formula. In 1759 went to Paris, proba- at the Collegiata di S. Anastasia from Clement In 1780 came to Rome to be betrothed to
bly on a diplomatic mission for Clement XIII XII, also the chair of ecclesiastical history at Costanza Falconieri, whom he married in 1781

and l ather L. Ricci. His letters record numer- the University of Rome. A palatine prelate, in in same year he and
the Sistine Chapel. In the
ous contacts there, from Mme. de Pompadour 1732 he carried out a survey of the Tiber with his brother Romualdo were adopted by

to the queen, the Jesuits at court and the E. Manfredi from below Perugia as far as the Pius VI, who appointed him Duke of Nemi,

KEY FIGURES
having purchased the title from the ing care of the education of Pio, son of his for what is beautiful" (Croce 1949, p. 229). But

Frangipane family. Within a few years he brother Luigi. Left 10,000 scudi for the monu- according to other scholars, he was excep-
became extremely wealthy, by buying assets ment by Canova of Pius VI in St. Peter's. tionally well versed in doctrine, and far supe-
cheaply from the Jesuits, receiving presents of rior in intellect to Baretti (Giulio Natali, Storia

reclaimed land in the Pontine marshland, and letteraria d'ltalia: II Settecento [Milan: Dottor
engaging in unscrupulous commercial specu- Broschi, Carlo, alias Farinelli(i705-i782). Francesco Vallardi, 1936], vol. 2, p. 1147).

lation. The duke and duchess were immortal- Singer. See Metastasio, Pietro, and Vinci,
ized by V. Monti (their secretaryand possibly Leonardo.
father of the daughter Giulia) in La bellezza del- Byres, james Townley (Aberdeen 1734-1817).
I'universo, and also in numerous lampoons; Antiquarian. A Catholic Jacobite Scot record-
according to G. G. Belli in Quattro miracoli of Brosses, Charles de (Dijon 1709-1777 Paris). ed in Rome from 1758 to 1790, he wished to
1835 the last miracle of Saint Peter was the lav- Author, advisor, and from 1741 president of study painting with Mengs but was more suc-
ish Palazzo Braschi. Appointed prince of the parliament of Burgundy. Studied history, cessful in his architectural studies, winning
Holy Roman Empire on accompanying Pius VI archaeology, and languages. His most impor- third prize for architectural draftsmanship

to Vienna (1782). Charles IV made him a tant work is Histoire de la republique Romainc in 1762 at the Accademia di S. Luca, where
Spanish grandee, the king of Sardinia dans le cours du Vile siecle of 1777, intended as he was elected honorary academician in 1768;

bestowed on him the order of Ss. Maurizio e a critical reconstruction of Sallust's Historiae. a portrait of him hangs there, attributed to

Lazzaro, and Louis XVI the order of Saint Stayed in Italy at the houses of aristocrats and von Maron. Was the perfect antiquarian and
Esprit. In 1797, on behalf of the pope, negoti- high-ranking prelates; his letters, published guide. He varied his rates if he personally
ated with the French at Tolentino. In 1798, posthumously (1799) as the Lettres historiques ct accompanied the tourist or instructed the

when the French entered Rome, the Palazzo critiques sur I'ltalie, reveal an erudite, witty, and student and ranked his tours based on the
Braschi was besieged, but he managed to flee unprejudiced view of contemporary Italian satus of persons involved. In 1766 was one of
and preceded the pope to Siena. Forced by the life, particularly in Rome. the first to visit the underground tombs of
French to leave Tuscany, sought shelter in Tarquinia. Remembered by contemporaries
Venice, only returning to Rome in the retinue as pleasant and communicative, but also
of Pius VII; accompanied him to Paris in 1804 Bulgarelli, Domenico: see Benti, Anna pedantic and litigious. Though not as famous
for Napoleon's coronation. In 1809 became Maria. as Thomas Jenkins, he also illegally sold works
mayor of Rome under the French, and was of art for noble families, providing them with
excommunicated by the pope. An obedient . copies (also traded in fakes). Among the most
collaborator, though not particularly intelligent Buonafede, Appiano (formerly Tito famous works that he removed from Rome
or well educated, on the occasion of the birth Benvenuto) (Comacchio 1716-1793 Rome). were Poussin's Assumption (National Gallery,
of the king of Rome B. led the Roman delega- Scholar and cleric. Notorious for the most Washington) and the Portland Vase (British

tions, and in 1814 welcomed Murat at the aggressive and scandalous literary dispute of Museum, London) and the Boccapaduli series
Capitol. Eventually received a pardon from the eighteenth century, in which he virtually of Poussin's Seven Sacraments for the Duke of
Pius VII. Buried in S. Maria sopra Minerva. forced G. Baretti, the Italian scholar and Rutland. Owned a valuable collection of pre-
author of the Frusta lettcraria into exile. He cious stones and paintings by contemporary
entered the congregation of Celestine British artists. Often depicted in contempo-
Braschi Onesti, Romualdo, Cardinal (Cesena Benedictines, who —though followers of Pope rary conversation pieces.
1753-1817 Rome). Son of Girolamo Onesti and Celestine V —were known for their sociability
Giulia Braschi. In Rome from 1778, embarked and worldly philosophy; and visited several

on an ecclesiastical career at the wish of his monasteries in Italy, making friends among Caetani, Francesco (1738-1810). Duke of
uncle Pius VI, who adopted him and his scholars. In 1771, as procurator-general of the Sermoneta. Brother of Onorato Caetani; his

brother Luigi in 1781. As apostolic legate congregation, moved to Rome under the pro- wife, Teresa Corsini, was niece of Cardinal
at theFrench court, obtained the abbey of tection of Clement XIV. In 1754 was admitted Neri Corsini.
Choage in the diocese of Meaux from Louis to the Accademia dell'Arcadia under the alias

XVI (at 5,000 scudi a year). Prefect of the holy Agatopisto Cremaziano. Appointed 1777 pre-
palaces, grand prior of the order of Malta in fect-general of his order and was obliged to Caetani. Onorato (Rome 1742-1797 Rome).
Rome (1784), and cardinal in 1786. Kind and live inMorrone near Sulmona, but returned Prelate. A keen scholar of classics, science,
gentle, scholarly and tolerant, he remained in in 1782 to Rome, where he lived in the and modern languages at the Collegio
Naples in 1797, on the occasion of a visit to monastery "as much a man of the world as Nazareno with the Scolopian Fathers, thus
request aid against the French, but later he appears ascetic in his work" (G. B. Salinari. able to read Voltaire, Wolff, and Pope in the

sought refuge in Venice, where he was instru- "Buonafede, Appiano," in DBI, vol. 15, p. 103). original. Graduated in law from La Sapienza.
mental in electing Pius VII from Cesena as Appreciated the splendors of Rome, enjoyed Between 1760 and 1770 attended meetings of
pope in 1800. After returning to Rome, he did sketching, took part in the performance at the the Archetto circle, where celebrities such as
not receive the highest offices, but rather was Istituto di Bologna of an Orazione per le tre arti, Foggini and Bottari fostered his anti-curial-
a strenuous opponent of Cardinal Consalvi. and dedicated sonnets to various artists ism, which particularly emerged at this time,
Was in the pope's retinue for the coronation (Mengs, Batoni, Cavallucci), who consulted partly because he never received honorific
of Napoleon in Paris, but the French forced him about subjects for their works. According posts from the Curia. Disagreed with elder
him into confinement in Cesena in 1809. to B. Croce, he possessed "the intellect of a brother Francesco on financial matters, but
After the restoration, returned to Rome, tak- jobbing preacher ... with a task to carry was commissioned by him to build a library
out ... an enemy to defeat ... never distracted in his palazzo on via delle Botteghe Oscure.
either by the search for the truth or admiration which became notable lor its collection ol

kn I It, I Kl s
texts annotated by famous people. This com- poetry) to the Vatican Library, where twenty- Cheruffini, Francesca: see Gherardi
plex task brought him into contact with emi- one volumes of his The cata-
letters are kept. Cheruffini, Francesca.
nent librarians and cultural figures (including logue published in 1747 bears a motto by
P. B. de Felice), whom he also met on his jour- Seneca, found on Etruscan vases and
neys round Italy (in 1774 published his obser- inscribed in his library: non refcrt quam multos Chigi. Family originally from Siena, whose
vations on Sicily). His interests were amateur- scd quam bonos habeas. most illustrious member was Agostino the
ish, but he formed a famous collection (now Magnificent (Siena 1465-1520 Rome), an
lost) of coins with images on reverse sides, immensely wealthy banker and generous
and was noted for his interest in scientific Capponi Cardelli, Anna Maria: see Capponi, patron of the arts; in Rome he left the villa
research, including the study of electricity Alessandro. alia Lungara (later villa Farnesina) and the
and collaboration on the construction of an chapel at S. Maria del Popolo. The fortunes of
observatory on his palazzo. the Chigi family rose again under Fabio (Siena
Carafa, D. C, Cardinal. Fra Baldassarre 1599-1667 Rome), who in 1655 became Pope

Lombardi dedicated his great Divine Comedy to Alexander VII. His nephew Agostino, from
Cagliostro, Alessandro: see Balsamo him in 1791, published by Liborio Angelucci. whom the Roman branch of the family
Giuseppe. descends, received the titles of Prince Farnese
(1658), Prince of the Empire (1659), Prince of
Carandini, Filippo, Cardinal (Pesaro Campagnano (1661), and Duke of Ariccia
Capece (Capeci), Carlo Sigismondo (Rome 1729-1810 Modena). Accused Sigismondo (1662). Agostino married Maria Virginia
1652-1728 Polistena, Calabria). Man of letters Chigi of trying to poison him. Borghese, daughter of Paolo and Olimpia
and a celebrity in the opulent environment of Aldobrandini, who in 1658 sold her son-in-
Roman theater between the late seventeenth law, for 41,314 scudi, the palace in the piazza
century and early eighteenth (Ariella Carestini, Giovanni, alias II Cusanino Colonna that still name Chigi today,
bears the
Lanfranchi, "Capece [capeci], Carlo (Monte Filottrano, Ancona 1705-1760 Monte while the Borghese dowry was used purchase
Sigiamondo, in DB1, vol. 18, pp. 408-11), Was Filottrano). Singer. At age twelve moved to the duchy of Ariccia from the Savelli family.

secretary of Italian and Latin letters to the Milan and enjoyed the protection of the Their son Augusto (1662-1744) became mar-
Queen of Poland Maria Casimira. Cusani family (hence the Soon became
alias). shal of the church in 1712 and permanent cus-
one of the most famous castrati and made his todian of the conclave (an office inherited by
debut at the ducal theater in Milan in 1719. all the first-born sons of the family). The son
Capponi, Alessandro Gregorio (Rome Recorded in Rome in 1721 at the Teatro of Augusto, Agostino (1710-1769) married
1683-1746 Rome). Antiquarian, bibliophile, Capranica in Griselda by A. Scarlatti, also in Giulia Augusta Albani and they had a son,

and collector. Last of the Roman branch of a 1727 at the Alibert in Catone in Utiea by L. Sigismondo Chigi. Sigismondo's son
noble Florentine family, buried in the church Vinci. A soprano castrato at the Hofkapelle in Agostino (1771-1855, see Albani family) took
of S. Giovanni dei Fiorentini. Initially collect- Vienna (1723-25) he performed in the most the family name and arms of the Albani and
ed paintings and engravings (Durer, Lucas important theaters in Europe. Engaged by became founder of the Chigi Albani line
van Leyden, also Maratti, Panini); later, Handel in 1733 at the Haymarket Theatre in when the Albani line died out in 1852.
encouraged by F. Ficoroni, became interested London and sang in many works; also per-
in archaeological finds (commissioned Vasi formed in Dresden, Berlin, and St. Petersburg.
to engrave a Roman fresco, discovered in a Sang with the greatest contemporary maestri. Chigi, Sigismondo (Rome 1736-1793 Padua).
columbarium on via Appia, copied by Hasse declared that those who had not heard Prince Farnese, Marshal of the Holy Roman
P. L. Ghezzi). Also collected precious stones, his singing would never know perfect style. Church, man of letters and patron of the arts.
coins, and inscriptions for their decorative According to contemporaries, the strong Son of Prince Agostino and Giulia Augusta
effects rather than for philological study. vibrant soprano of his early years became one Albani. C. studied in Siena, showing talent
His friendship with Clement XII brought of the richest, deepest, and most beautiful of for literature. Returned to Rome, becoming a
him official positions. Was responsible (with counter-tenor timbres. Tall and handsome, he member of numerous academies; his alias in

architect G. Teodoli) for the restoration of the was also a great actor. the Accademia was Astridio
dell'Arcadia
Arch of Constantine by F. Barigioni and Dafnitico. As marshal of the Holy Roman
P. Bracci. In 1733 purchased the sculpture Church and custodian of the conclave, in 1774
collection of Cardinal Alessandro Albani on Casanova, Giovanni Giacomo (Venice was obliged to return to Rome from Lucca to
behalf of the pope and mounted the display 1725-1798 Dux, Bohemia). Adventurer who fill this position. Meanwhile, wrote on several

in the Museo Capitolino, of which he became wrote about his life in Rome in his Memoirs. subjects. His violent satire Del conclave dcll'anno
president for life. Was also in charge of MDCCLXXIV (1774) ran to at least ten edi-
restoration of the Arch of Augustus at Rimini tions, and forgeries and anonymous transla-

(i733 _ 34) and numerous excavations in Rome, Casanova, Paolo Girolamo: see Leonardo da tions of it were made. In the holy year 1775
leaving the finds to Father C. Contucci so they Porto Maurizio. welcomed Maximilian of Austria and com-
could be assembled Museo Kircheriano,
in the missioned P. Camporesi to create a spectacu-
now the Museo Nazionale Romano. Left his lar "fire machine" representing the forge of
sister Maria Anna, who was married to Cesarini, Angelo (d. 1810). Canon: see Stuart, Vulcan. In 1767 married Flaminia Odescalchi,
Antonio Cardelli, the palazzo on via Ripetta Henry Benedict Maria Clement. who died in 1771 giving birth to their son
with statues, inscriptions, and paintings. Agostino. His second marriage (1776) was
Bequeathed his fine collection of manuscripts to Maria Giovanna Medici d'Ottaviano from
and Italian literature (mainly language and Naples and for their wedding the Salone

KI.Y FIGURES
d'Ore was decorated at the Palazzo Chigi. considered, but never solved. Restored the S. appointment of Cardinal Coscia. Established
Between 1777 and 1780 C. devoted himself Michele complex in Rome as a rehabilitation the lottery (1731) and the free port of Ancona
successfully to archaeology, horses, and art center for juveniles, who were trained as to replenish state funds; in 1731 appointed V.

(planned to have all the paintings of the Siena craftsmen (the school of tapestry was note- Bichi as cardinal, thereby restoring diplomatic

school engraved); he was also interested worthy). Founded the oriental section of the relations with Portugal. In Rome, he gave
in science and economics (in 1781 published Vatican Library, financed excavations, and princely honors to Maria Amalia of Saxony,

a poem entitled L'cconomia naturalc c politica attempted to safeguard archaeological finds; who came to marry Charles Bourbon (see

anonymously in Paris and dedicated it to restored the Raphael Stanze and Pantheon. Acquaviva d'Aragona, Troiani, and Vaini.
the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Pietro Leopoldo). The erection of the Antonine Column was Girolamo), but abolished feudal rights of the
Corresponded with Metastasio, frequented made possible after a calculation by his pro- Church (for example, in Parma and Piacenza).
literary salons in Rome (including that of tege F. Bianchini; the obelisk in Piazza del The King of Sardinia earned the favor of the
Maria Cuccovilla Pizzelli), where he met Pantheon was erected; early Christian basili- papacy by tricking P. Giannone into coming
V. Alfieri and V. Monti. F. Milizia dedicated cas were restored and refurbished with the to Savoy, where he was arrested and left to die

Iprincipi di architettura (1783) to him. help of funds supplied by John V of Portugal, in prison. In 1733 set up a congregation to
Commissioned E.Q. Visconti and C. Fea to and La Sapienza was renovated. C. typified control crime: the In supremo iustitiae soho
organize his library. As his wife produced no the inexperience of the Curia at that time and (1735) renewed the ban on carrying arms of
heirs, C. sent her to Naples. In 1790, when the inability to keep pace with profound any kind, limited the capacity to grant mercy,
Cardinal Carandini accused C. of intending to changes in society, states, and the Church. Of and abolished ecclesiastical sanctuary. In 1738

poison him, it was thought that C. wanted Counter-Reformation inclinations, his vision condemned the freemasons (In eminenti bull);

revenge because his wife was Carandini's mis- was of a triumphant Catholicism, based on in 1733 limited inclusion of local rites into

tress. She was never allowed to return to the distinction (already obsolete) between Catholicism overseas, which the Jesuits
Rome. C. was exiled, but the intention was Ecclcsia romana and Ecclesia universalis. In 1712, favored. The cultural mark of C. on Rome was
possibly to punish him for sympathizing with with extraordinary pomp, canonized Pius V considerable. In the palace at Piazza Fiannetta
freemasons and illuminati, and for satires Ghilsieri, the Theatine Andrea Avellino, the systematically arranged his uncle's library,
against the economic policies of the govern- Capuchin Felice da Cantalice, and Catherine making it available to scholars; the Corsini
ment. Not wishing to undergo the trial of Bologna. family moved to the Palazzo Pamphili on
(September 1, 1790) he Rome, after having
left Piazza Navona in 1713, where the Accademia
emancipated his son Agostino (Rome dei Quirini reconvened; the library grew by
1771-1855 Rome), son of his first marriage, Clement XII. Pope (Florence 1652-1740 absorbing other collections; the cardinal-
who had served in the republican and papal Rome). Born Lorenzo Corsini. From a noble nephew transferred it to the palace, where it

administrations and had twelve children by and ancient mercantile family, from 1667 is found today (formerly Riario alia Lunghara).
Amalia Carlotta Barberini. studied in Rome at the Collegio Romano with Commissioned F. Fuga to enlarge the Palazzo
the Jesuits. Protected by his uncle Cardinal Quirinale. constructed the Palazzo della
Neri Corsini, who refused (1670) to become Consulta, the faqade of St. John Lateran, and
Clement XI, Pope (Urbino 1649-1721 Rome). archbishop of Florence in order to influence the Corsini Chapel in the basilica. The Vatican
Born Giovan Francesco Albani. Son of Carlo and foster his nephew's ecclesiastical career. Library made important accessions, and A.
Albani. Studied in Rome at the Jesuit Collegio When Neri Corsini was obliged to accept the Capponi enlarged the collections of the
Romano. Created cardinal and deacon in cardinalate (1672) Lorenzo went to Pisa, grad- Museo Capitolino (assisted by legacies from
1690, on October 6, 1700, celebrated his first uated, and on returning to Florence attended the Albani family), which was opened to the
mass, and on November 23 was elected pope, to his family's affairs. On the death of his public. De Brasses, while declaring him "If

supported by the zelanti and public consensus. father, Bartolomeo (1678), decided to return to plus magnifique seigneur" of Rome and the Holy
Jovial and tolerant, he lacked international Rome and pursue an ecclesiastical career, like College (De Brasses 1977, vol. 2, pp. 128-46),
experience and had to face a difficult period, his brother Ottavio. Was victualing officer could not resist recording (De Brasses 1977,
marked by famines and the complex War of (his brother was head of the Annona, the gra- vol. 2, pp. 69-90) that the pontiff, attempting
Spanish Succession (1700-1714), resulting in nary of Rome), and in 1690 Alexander VIII to lift as much as 14-15 pounds in bed. gave
serious misappropriations of lands belonging granted dispensation (as C. was not yet himself a large hernia.
to the government or under papal protection ordained) and appointed him archbishop of
in Ferrara, Bologna, and Naples. His pontifi- Nicomedia and papal dignitary. Received
cate was full of contradictions and complexi- major orders in 1690, became bishop and in Clement XIII. Pope (Venice 1693-1769
ties. Supported James Stuart; was sympathet- 1695 treasurer and general collector of the Rome). Born Carlo Rezzonico. His family w as
ic to the French and had excellent relations apostolic chamber, also governor of Castel from Como, entered in the Golden Book of
with well-known characters such as S. Angelo. Implemented profound economic, Venetian nobility in 1687 on payment of
F. Fenelon and O. Pianciatici, but his bull agrarian, and monetary reforms (promoted 100,000 ducats. Studied in Bologna with the
Unigenitus (1713) was decidedly anti-Jansenist liberalization of corn trade but also restricted Jesuits and at the University of Padua, and
and evoked intense opposition. Opposed imports). Created cardinal in 1706, refused the entered the Curia in Rome in 1716. The
nepotism, yet supported two nephews who appointment as legate to Ferrara (1^09), and Spanish ambassador wrote that Cardinal
were cardinals (Alessandro Albani and in 1710 became chamberlain and member of Neri Corsini received 30,000 scudi from
Annibale Albani). Horrified by the ignorance various congregations of cardinals. In the Rezzonico to persuade Clement XII to make
of the populace, promoted education and conclaves of 1721 and 1724 was a candidate for him a cardinal in 1-5- Became bishop ot
sponsored missions. The fragmentation of pope and in the conclave of 1730 was eventu- Padua in i~4 3. and Benedict XIV while consid-
estates, facilities for agrarian credit, educa- ally elected unanimously. The earliest years of ering him politically naive, later described
tion, price control, and roads were all issues his papacy were marred by the unwise him as "the most worthy prelate that we have

kh FIGl RES
 in Italy. He lives off his assets and spends his becoming its director in 1740. Created a cardi- some consider him a weak character influenced
income only on the poor and the Church ..." nal in 1759, he dressed as a friar with red hat by stronger men, while others see him as a
(L. Cajani and A. Foa, "Clement XIII," in DBI, and stockings. His views on the philosopher, willing to embrace important
vol. 26, p. 329). The conclave of 1758 elected Englightenment are not known, though a changes. During his papacy he supported the
him pope after pressure by Austria as well as report written by him, and read before the canonization causes of Odorico di Pordenone,
by those who criticized Benedict XIV for pope in January 1760, condemned the anti- Angela da Foligno, Antonio Lucci, Clemente
allowing the jurisdiction of state to impinge semitic demonstrations in Poland and made A. Sandreani, and J.
Palafox y Mendoza.
on ecclesiastical matters, and those opposed accusations of ritual murders. Elected pope
to the pecuniary interests of religious orders, in 1769 after a stormy conclave (February 15

in particular the Jesuits. His papacy was to May 19); on pressure by the Spanish cardi- Coccia, Maria Rosa (born Rome 1759).
undoubtedly the most disheartening of the nals who expected C. to suppress the Musician. First woman to request admission
eighteenth century. He refused to contem- Jesuits —
which did happen after much hesita- to the Accademia di S. Cecilia and be accept-
plate any internal criticism or reform of the Took possesso of the Lateran basil-
tion in 1773. ed (1774), though the examiners declared she
Church; at the time of his death the suppres- ica on November 26, the last pope to ride was accepted "out of kindness, because she
sion of the Jesuits was imminent, and would there on horseback (he fell off at the Arch of was a woman" (B. M. Antolini, "Coccia, Maria
lead to their exile from many European states Septimius Severus and continued on a litter) Rosa," in DBI, vol. 26, p. 509). Was also admit-
(Portugal, France, Naples, Malta, Parma). His through the Capitol with all the windows ted to other prestigious academies: the
papacy was also marred by a financial crisis decked out, and the Forum decorated with Filarmonica of Bologna (1784) and one of the
so serious as to deplete half of the 3 million magnificent ephemeral arches (the one Forti in Rome. Her compositions include six

soidi that Sixtus V had deposited in Castel S. facing the Farnese Gardens was given by King sonatas for harpsichord, dedicated to Charles
Angelo by 1762 in order to address the Ferdinand IV of the Two Sicilies and made by II (1772); the oratorio for four voices, Daniello,
drought and subsequent famine of that year. Panini). Political intervention during his diffi- performed at the oratory of S. Filippo; and
Clement made the cult of the Sacred Heart of cult papacy was often negative. Important the Isola disabitata with libretto by Metastasio
Jesus official, urged on by the Jesuits though events were the first partition of Poland in (never performed). In 1832 requested a subsidy
opposed by the Jansenists. His painful death 1772, conflict with the Spanish court about from S. Cecilia, on account of having com-
from apoplexy prompted the rumor that he the Jesuits, and inconclusive negotiations for posed, taught, and kept her parents and sis-

had been poisoned by the Jesuits. On this, the the restitution of Avignon to the Holy See; ters all her life (see Donna e ... : I'universo fem-

letter from the ambassador of Spain, Azara is however, essentially he wanted to curb the minile nelk raccolte casanatensi [Milan: Aisthesis,

revealing: "the Pope was praying to all the spreading of the ideas of the Enlightenment, 1998], pp. 218, 224).
blessed, begging for prayers to be said for him as can be shown by the number of books
by nuns and friars, handing out vast quanti- placed on the Index. The conflict between the
ties of alms, so that God would illuminate Jesuits and their opponents was the origin of Colonna, Agnese (1702-1780). Noblewoman.
him, (...) but the God that would speak the "prophesies" that began to circulate in Daughter of Fabrizio, Prince of Paliano, who
through 'all these blessed activities' was the 1773, suggesting that he would die before the married Camillo Borghese in 1723.

ex-Jesuit Father L Ricci" (cited in Cajani and jubilee of 1775; there were also tales of the
Foa, in DBI, vol. 26, p. 336). In the arts, he is miracles he performed, followed by the
remembered only for having completed the rumor that he had been poisoned. Some of Colonna, Girolamo, Cardinal: see Borghese,
Trevi Fountain, covering the nakedness of the the less depressing episodes in his papacy Scipione.
Vatican statues, and because his funerary included the award of the order of the Golden
monument in St. Peter's by Canova was paid Spur to Mozart (in the Sistine Chapel; during
for by his nephew the cardinal C. Rezzonico. the holy week of 1770 Mozart heard G. B. Colonna, Prospero, Cardinal (Rome
In the nineteenth century Catholic historians Allegri's Miserere, which he quickly tran- 1707-1765 Rome). Son of Francesco and
compared him to the greatest popes of scribed). Also ordered the reform of the Vittoria Salviati, he embarked on an ecclesias-

Christianity, but this has been called into University of Rome, carried out by his friend tical career. As prefect of the victualing office
question by recent research. There are portraits G. C. Amaduzzi; and encouraged publishing (1739), promoted the liberalization of the corn
by Mengs (Pinacoteca Nazionale, Bologna and relations with the eastern churches. The trade. Cardinal deacon of S. Giorgio al

(cat. 255); Batoni, Palazzo Barberini, Rome; Vatican Library's collections were enlarged Velabro (1743) and prefect of the Propaganda
and Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, Milan), and a and the Sala dei Papiri was frescoed by Fide, he used influence to procure the return
good sketch likeness at Stratfield Saye, U. K. Mengs. E. Q. Visconti persuaded him to intro- of Spanish Franciscans to Cochin China, from
Duke of Wellington Collection. He canonized, duce laws to limit the export of works of art where they had been expelled and replaced by
among others, the piarist Joseph Calasanz. from the Papal He reorganized the
States. French lay priests and Jesuits. As protector of
museum that came to be called the Museo France played an important part in the 1758
Pio-Clementino. He liked the English: in conclave that elected Clement XIII. His deci-
Clement XIV, Pope (S. Arcangelo di 1772 received the Duke of Gloucester and two sion not to publish in France the pope's speech
Romagna 1705-1774 Rome). Born Giovan years later the Duke of Cumberland and the suppressing the right of national parliaments
Vincenzo Antonio Ganganelli. Studied with Duchess of Kent, but was reluctant to recog- to expel Jesuits, and his decision not to reveal
the Jesuits in Rimini and in 1723 entered the nize the Young Pretender (Charles Stuart). in Rome the decree suppressing the Jesuits by
Franciscan monastery at Mondaino (Forli), Loved Castel Gandolfo and studying natural Louis XV, now seem highly debatable.
taking the name of Lorenzo. His career was history, especially botany. His monument in

provincial and limited to scholastic duties and Ss. Apostoli, by Canova, was paid for by Carlo
internal affairs of the order. In Rome (1728-31) Giorgi, a merchant from the country. The
studied at the C ollegio di S. Bonaventura, extensive literature on him is still divided:

88 KEY FIGURES
Compagnoni Marefoschi, Mario, Cardinal Contucci, Contuccio (Montepulciano Corsini, Andrea, Cardinal (Rome 1735-1795
(Macerata 1714-1780 Rome). Son of Francesco 1688-1768 Rome). Jesuit. Prefect of the Museo Rome). Son of Filippo di Bartolomeo
Compagnoni and Maria Giulia Marefoschi. Kircheriano in Rome, and compiler of its cat- (1706-1767). His education was the responsi-
His uncle Cardinal Prospero Marefoschi pro- alogue (1763-65). He was admired by such bility of G. G. Bottari, who appreciated the

cured his admittance to the Collegio intellectuals as L. Muratori, S. Maffei, and young man's determination and impartiality,

Nazareno of the Somaschi Fathers and nomi- Winckelmann, and was appreciated because then of his great-uncle Neri Corsini and
nated him as sole beneficiary of his will in he was not preoccupied with publishing, and P. F. Foggini; under their influence he became
1732, on condition Mario renounced his was happy to offer advice. a perfect Jansenist and a leading light of the
father's surname. It is not known precisely Archetto circle at the Lungara. Was in close

when he entered the Church, but from 1740 contact with the Portuguese minister F. de
he was a prelate, and as protege of Benedict Corelli, Arcangelo (Fusignano 1652-1713 Almada, and the Roman printer N. Pagliarini;

XIV quickly made a career, although his fer- Rome). Musician. Most of his career as violin- supported the appointment (1780) of S. de
vent anti-Jesuit stand caused difficulties. ist and composer was spent Rome but
in Ricci as bishop of Prato and Pistoia. On the
The Jesuits declared that as secretary of the studied in Bologna before 1675. Was one of orders of Benedict XIV traveled throughout

Propaganda Fide Congregation in 1750, he the four violinists engaged for the patron Europe, then returned to Rome. Made apos-
used his position to encourage anti-Jesuit ele- saint's celebration at S. Luigi dei Francesi in tolic protonotary in 1758 and cardinal in 1759

ments. Affiliated to the Archetto circle (which Rome in 1675. His solo performances were (by Clement XIII, who had to compensate the
included Bottari, Foggini, and Passionei), had much appreciated (described by G. Muffat as family for the support of Neri Corsini in his
close links with the Jansenist church of the "Orpheus of Italy" for the violin), but was election). Ordained in 1769, protector of
Utrecht. Made a cardinal in 1770 and titular also an excellent conductor of compositions England in 1773, he was given a considerable
cardinal of S. Agostino (where he is buried), that required extremely complex orchestral pension by the Portuguese, who desired his
in 1771 became prefect of the Holy arrangements. G. M. Crescimbeni recalled intervention with the pope in favor of the
Congregation of Rites. In addition to the that he was "the first in Rome to introduce suppression of the Jesuits. Became a member
Archetto, frequented the Oratorians, and symphonies, and in such great numbers and of the special congregation that published the
was the object of ferocious criticism and with so many instruments that it was almost brief confining L. Ricci to Castel S. Angelo,
lies. Neither pure Jansenist nor enlightened impossible to believe that they could be con- and apportioning the assets of the Jesuits,
Catholic, he was a strict Augustinian and ducted without great difficulty, particularly thusbecoming the target of threats. It is not
within the Catholic hierarchy played an because of the accord of wind and string known what his actual responsibility was
important role mediating between the sup- instruments, which often exceeded one hun- toward Father L. Ricci, although he did every-
porters and opponents of austerity. dred" (Notizie storiche degli arcadi morti [Rome, thing he could to leave the implementation of
1720]). Queen Christina of Sweden and the decisions to the secretary of state.
Cardinal P. Ottoboni were his patrons, and he Cardinal F. S. Zelada. As bishop of Sabina
Concina, Daniele (Cauzetto, Udine, 1787-1756 was in the service of Ottoboni from 1689, (1776) and cardinal of York, he devoted him-
Venice). Dominican and theologian. after being music master at the Palazzo self to pastoral work with great zeal. A stren-
Tenacious adversary of the Jesuits who also Pamphili. Dedicated the twelve sonatas, Opus uous defender of the power of jurisdiction of
wrote tracts on the immorality of the theater, 2, to Cardinal B. Pamphili. His Sonate a tre for the pope over the whole of the Church, after
supported by P. F. Foggini. two violins, bass, and harpsichord, and his the murder of Basseville, the Grand Duke of
church music (organ as basso continuo) were Tuscany asked him to request Pope Pius VI to
the highest expression of this kind of music; reestablish diplomatic relations, but Pius
Consalvi, Ercole, Cardinal (1757-1824). Close the first four series (Op. 1-4) were published remained opposed to this. On December 10,
friend of Cardinal H. B. Stuart, heir and between 1681 and 1694, followed c. 1700 by a 1793, was appointed vicar-general for the dio-
executor of his will. fifth series of sonatas (Op. 5), which includes cese of Rome. Buried in the Corsini Chapel at
the famous Folly. Was admitted to the St. John Lateran.
Accademia dell'Arcadia in 1706, with A.
Conti del Nord. Name used by Paul I, Czar Scarlatti and B. Pasquini. Shy and retiring, he
of Russia, nominal son of Catherine II (his abandoned all public performances after 1708 Corsini, Lorenzo: see Clement XII.
natural fatherwas Count Soltykov) and his and spent his final years reworking and per-
wife from 1773, Wilhelmina of Hesse- fecting the only orchestral music he com-
Darmstadt, on their journey round Europe posed, the twelve concerti grossi (Op. 6), pub- Corsini, Neri, Cardinal (Florence 1685-1770
in 1781-82. In Italy they visited Venice. Naples, lished posthumously in 1714 by his favorite Rome). Son of Filippo (1647-1705), brother
Rome, Florence, and Turin, and returned to pupil, Matteo Fornari, to whom he of Clement XII. Assisted by his elder brother
Rome, staying at the Locanda di Londra in bequeathed his manuscripts and violins. An Bartolomeo, viceroy of Sicily, between 1709
the Piazza di Spagna in 1782. Pius VI gave admirer of painting, he collected works by G. and 1713. he traveled with the aim ot making
them a warm welcome, and had a portrait Dughet, F. Trevisani, and C. Maratti, as contacts in European diplomatic circles but
of Paul painted by Batoni; they were accom- recorded in the inventory of his house at the also occupied himself with his family's com-
panied by Prince Nikolai Yussupov. Paul was Tritone. Buried in the Pantheon. mercial interests, continually writing letters
crowned in 1796 and murdered, with the con- to his cardinal uncle with news of the War
sent of his son and heir, Alexander, in 1801. of Spanish Succession and political and reli-

Corilla, Olimpica: see Morelli, Maria gious matters in France. Hoped to be entrust-
Maddalena. ed with a diplomatic mission by the grand
duke but only represented him (1716) on the
accession ol Louis XV to the throne. Belore

ki;v I It. I RI S
1718 he wrote several papers on the right of protests, was a favorite of the pope, who of the Church, and was the author of pioneer-
the grand duke to choose the succession to spoke to him in Beneventan dialect and gave ing works on Italian literary history, writing

the throne of Florence, and the liberty and him money that C. had notoriously stolen. in a style that was sophisticated and worldly.
independence of the grand duchy. Fought Certainly sold positions and livings, but was Undoubtedly the savior of the Accademia
against Spanish interests by supporting the not alone in this, and with others was respon- dellArcadia.
English. Returned to Italy in 1725, realizing sible for the indebtedness of the state and for
that Gian Gastone de' Medici did not appreci- negotiating with the Sicilian monarchy and
ate his work, and went to Rome as the secre- the house of Savoy. When the pope fell ill in Cuccagni, Luigi (Citta di Castello 1740-1798
tary of his uncle, who in 1730 was elected the summer of 1729, Coscia began to send Rome). Prelate. Studied in Rome and, by
pope as Clement XII, partly as a result of "objects and pictures" to Benevento, and after virtue of his acquaintances with P. F. Foggini
Neri's use of bribery and corruption. Made February 1730, when chamberlain Annibale and M. Compagnoni Marefoschi, was
cardinal in 1730, protector of Ireland in 1737, Albani forced the "Beneventans" out of the appointed rector of the Collegio Irlandese in

of Portugal in 1739, and secretary of the Holy sacred palaces, fled from the furious crowds, 1772, control of which had been removed
Office. Helped to appoint (1733) Cardinal seeking refuge in Cisterna with the Duke of from the Jesuits. In 1773 called Pietro

Giuseppe Firrao as secretary of state, while Sermoneta. M. Caetani accompanied him to Tamburini (Brescia 1737-1827 Pavia) to the

retaining control of all government activity. Rome, to take part in the conclave, but an college: Tamburini was an ardent Jansenist,
Often ineffective, despite his political experi- anonymous pamphlet circulated, accusing but the two men soon fell out and Tamburni
ence,De Brasses described him as "a man Coscia of crimes ranging from murder, rape, left Rome to teach in Pavia from 1778 to 1792.
whose capacities were less than mediocre" and sodomy to usury. The newly elected In the Vita di S. Pietro principc degli apostoli (1777,

(De Brasses 1977, vol. 2, p. 71). Was over- Clement XII started legal proceedings against 1781) Cuccagni attempted to prove he was not
whelmed by the conflict between the reli- him, so he sought shelter in the kingdom of pro-Jansenist, and published numerous docu-
gious interests of the state and the interests of Naples, placing himself under the protection ments in defense of the primacy of the pope
his family, the War of Polish Succession, and of the emperor. His movables and library, over the universal Church. His religious
by the breakdown in relations between kept at Castel S. Angelo, were sold and he for- "diplomacy" was based on compromise
Madrid and Naples (his brother Bartolomeo feited his livings. On returning to Rome in and dissimulation, and he even accepted
was a viceroy of Sicily). In the 1740 conclave 1733was condemned to ten years imprison- the wordly ideals of Cardinal de Bernis. With
was instrumental (with P. Guerin de Tencin ment in Castel S. Angelo, to excommunication, the support of F. T. M. Mamachi, directed the
and the French) in the election of Benedict restitution of everything he had misappropri- weekly Giornale Ecclesiastico di Roma, which
XIV, whom he soon opposed. Carefully fol- ated, a fine of 100,000 ducats, and suspension opposed the more radical periodicals of
lowed the problems of the Jansenists through from the conclaves. After so many humilia- Florence and Pistoia. Assisted by the Holy
his French contacts, and proteges and friends, tions, in 1734 the pope annulled his excom- See, the Giornale achieved a wide circulation,

such as G. G. Bottari, P. F. Foggini, and the munication and restored his right to take part and regional editions were published in

entire Archetto circle in the Palazzo alia in conclaves. Participated in the conclave of French (1787) and German (1788). His prudent
Lungara, purchased in 1736 from the Riario 1740, which elected Benedict XIV, who restored stance was greatly undermined by the
family and restored by F. Fuga; no expense all of his positions, except the diocese of Supplcmcnto to the Giornale, whose twice-
was spared on the vast library inherited from Benevento. Retired to Naples, where he died, monthly pamphlets were written by the Abbe
his uncle in 1733, which, after enlargement, leaving houses and land to his brother, and Marchetti, and showed a marked preference
was opened to the public in 1754. Studied his- furnishings in his chapel to various churches. for the Jesuits and violent opposition to the
tory and wrote poetry. His relations with bishop of Pistoia, The general
S. de' Ricci.

Clement XIII were very poor, as he was con- political situation and the triumph of the
sidered protector of the Jansenists, though Costanzi, Giovanni Battista, alias Giovannino French Revolution caused Cuccagni to be less

controlled by the Jesuit supporter Cardinal L. da Roma or Giovannino del Violoncello tolerant of the independence of local churches;

M. Torrigiani. Despite his fame, as secretary (Rome 1704-1778 Rome). Musician in the ser- however, he did openly declare that the pope
of state of the Holy Office, condemned De I'e- vice of Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni. From 1755 should concern himself less with territorial

sprit by Helvetius, even the Lucca edition of was master of the Capella Giulia at the Vatican. interests and concentrate on religion. (To rally

the Encyclopedia. Buried in the magnificent popular support in defense of the Church, the
Corsini Chapel, which he and his uncle Giornale even reported miracles.) Wrote that

Clement XII built in St. John Lateran. Crescimbeni, Giovan Mario (Macerata the Catholic Church was ready to support

1663-1728 Rome). Man of letters. Studied monarchies, as this religion was the most
law at university; in 1679 moved to Rome. suitable for all forms of government. In 1798

Corsini, Ottavio: see Clement XII. Attended the popular academies of the time the Collegio Irlandese was suppressed and on
(the Umoristi, Intracciati, and Infecondi). In June 30 of the same year the last edition of the
1690 was one of the fourteen founders of the Giornale Ecclesiastico was published.
Coscia. Niccolo, Cardinal (Pietradefusi, Accademia dellArcadia, becoming the first

Avellino 1681-1755 Naples). From a family of custodian (1711) and taking the alias Alfesibeo
modest means, he was introduced to ecclesi- Cario; his leadership of the Accademia was Cuccovilla Pizzelli. Maria (Rome 1735-1807
astical life by the archbishop of Benevento, marred by ferocious arguments with G. V. Rome). Patron of culture. Beautiful, erudite,
the future Benedict XIII. A papal dignitary in Gravina, eventually won by Crescimbeni. with an interest in science, she held her liter-

1725, was made cardinal in the same year. Led Made canon in 1705 and dean of the basilica ary salon in the Palazzo Bolognetti (later

the Beneventan clique, described by of S. Maria in Cosmedin in 1719; toward the destroyed), frequented by scholars and
Montesquieu as nobodies who brought their end of his life entered the Society of Jesus. poets such as R. Boscovich. A. Verri, and
influence to bear on a weak pope. Despite Conducted serious research into the history V. Alfieri.

KI.Y I K.UKI.S
Cusanino, II: see Carestini, Giovanni. Duphot, Leonard (Lyon 1769-1797 Rome). Falconieri Santacroce, Giuliana (born
Soldier. Made a general after notable heroic Rome 1761) Sister of Costanza Falconieri: see
service in Spain, he followed Napoleon to Bernis, Francois-Joaquin de. A portrait of her
Doria Pamphili Landi, Giuseppe, Cardinal Italy in 1796, and in 1797 arrived in Rome, by A. Kauffmann is in the Muzeum Narodowe,
(Genoa 1751-1816 Rome). Son of Prince where Joseph Bonaparte was installed as Warsaw. See also Azara, Jose Nicolas de.

Giovanni Andrea Doria and Eleonora Carafa ambassador of the French republic in the
d'Andria. In 1761 moved to Rome with his Palazzo Corsini alia Lungara. Eugenia Clary,
family, first studying with the Jesuits. As the the ambassador's sister-in-law, was his Fantuzzi, Gaetano, Cardinal (Gualdo
Doria were Spanish grandees, when the fiancee. When Bonaparte refused to give the 1708-1778 Rome). From a patrician family
Jesuits were expelled he completed his studies Roman "patriots" protection, Duphot tried to from Ravenna, he received an erudite educa-
with the Somaschi Fathers, then at La calm the angry crowds but was killed by tion in humanities, studying at Pisa and grad-
Sapienza. Graduated in 1771, taking his vows them before Porta Settimiana in Trastevere. uating in law at Ravenna (1730). On taking
in the same year. Traveled to Madrid as spe- On February 23, 1798, the former Scolopian minor orders, moved to Rome and joined
cial nuncio to deliver the holy bands to the Father F. Gagliuffi held a memorial service several academies, gaining an excellent repu-

newborn infanta. Became bishop of Madrid in St. Peter's Square. Eugenia Clary married tation as a jurist. Appointed as a judge of the

in 1773 and went to Paris as nuncio. His diplo- General Bernadotte in 1798, becoming queen Rota for the city of Ferrara in 1743 and
macy was tested during the conflict between of Sweden. ordained in 1745, he became a cardinal in
France and Rome over Avignon, and the new 1759 and in 1768 became titular cardinal of
French administration. In 1783 presented the S. Pietro in Vincoli, where he is buried.

holy bands sent by Pius VI to the son of Falconieri, Costanza (born Rome 1766). Noteworthy because of his passion for study-

Louis XVI,who bestowed on him the abbey Aristocrat. Daughter of Mario and Giulia ing and his spartan lifestyle, rare among
of Gource in Lorraine (in Rome received the Mellini. Her marriage (1781) to L. Braschi Roman cardinals. An academy of law and the-

abbey of the Tre Fontane). Made cardinal in Onesti, Duke of Nemi, was celebrated in the ology was organized at his house. Although
1785 and returned to Rome. As legate to Sistine Chapel by Pius VI, the bridegroom's anti-Jesuit, he believed that the suppression of
Urbino, he was instrumental in improving the uncle. Though not particularly beautiful, she the Jesuits was the root cause of the misfor-
state's economy and administration. On his was elegant and ably represented in Roman tunes of the Church. A member of many con-
return to Rome in 1794, he took a conciliatory society the family of this pope, who personal- gregations (Good Government, Bishops and
attitude to France, but the counter-revolution- ly established the ceremonial for receptions at Regulars, the Correction of Books of the
aries mocked him, calling him "le bref du the Braschi residence. On the anniversary of Eastern Church, etc.). The first protector of
Pape" on account of his small stature, and the pope's election, Roman and foreign aris- the noble Collegio dei Drogheri della Citta di
saying he was "smaller in intellect than in tocrats and the ambassadors and members of Roma, and obtained the approval of its
stature." (M. Formica, "Doria Pamphili Landi, the Sacro Collegio were obliged to pay byelaws (1760) from Clement XIII. Took part

Giuseppe," in DBI, vol. 20, p. 478). As secre- homage to her; all the grandees and authori- in the 1769 and 1774-75 conclaves, and had

tary of state (1797-99), after the assassination ties who came to Rome had to pay her com- good chances of election. The appointment of
of Duphot, he was forced to give Joseph pliments. She also had the duty of providing Cardinal Braschi as Pius VI upset him so
Bonaparte permission to leave Rome, offend- gifts for births (such as the holy bands) and much that he retired to his villa in Albano. A
ing B. by his lack of support; under Berthier marriages of European royalty. The bands for passionate scholar, was interested in science,
he celebrated a solemn Te Deum of thanksgiv- the dauphin were displayed for eight days in numismatics, and musical instruments; grew
ing with thirteen other cardinals for the the jlorcria in the apostolic palace so that peo- herbs, and on recommendation of the canon
French restoration of the freedom of the ple could admire the embroidery, decoration from Pesaro G. A. Lazzarini, collected pic-
Roman people. Shortly afterward, however, of pearls, and miniatures painted by tures from all periods. After his death, every-
he was arrested and exiled. He joined Pius VI Clementine Subleyras. F. was recompensed thing was moved from the villa at Albano to
in Siena, and went to Venice for the conclave. with two bracelets bearing portraits of the Gualdo (now the Villa Ginanni Fantuzzi),
In 1800 accompanied Pius VII to Rome and king and queen, and a clock with the portrait which, though destroyed during World War II

thereafter actively sought to establish good of the dauphin surrounded by diamonds. with most of its contents (including the
relations with Napoleon and France. Buried Her alias in the Accademia dell'Arcadia, library and archives) has since been rebuilt.

in S. Cecilia a Trastevere. Egeria, symbolized beauty, while her husband

was known Aldemonte Cleoneo, symboliz-
as
ing strength. As the family's poet-in-resi- Fantuzzi, Marco (Rome 1740-1806 Pesaro).
Dubois, Guillaume (Brive-la-Gaillarde dence, V. Monti composed La bcllezza dell'uni- Scholar. Educated in Ravenna, then Rome,
1656-1723 Versailles). French minister and vcrso for her wedding and attended her salon and from 1754 lived at the house of his uncle
cardinal. Chamberlain for foreign affairs to (one of the most exclusive in Rome). Monti Gaetano, where he met scholars and men of
the regent Philippe of Orleans, later foreign was believed to be her lover, and was possibly letters. Studied the history of Ravenna, and
secretary from 1718 and prime minister in the father of some of her children. She con- was especially interested in agriculture and
1722. Intelligent and unscrupulous, in religion tinued to be a leading society hostess during hydraulics. On his return to Ravenna (1765)
opposed Jansenism and supported the the papacy of Pius VII. was given positions of responsibility, and
Roman Catholic Church. Made cardinal in hoped that Clement XIII would order a
1721 by Innocent XIII; see also Annibale reorganization of the state. The election
Albani and Pierre Guerin de Tencin. of Pius VI led to a f urther distancing from
Rome: the pope ordered him to write the his-
tory of the Braschi family (De (iente HotUStia,
p86) and appointed him superintendent-gen-

kl V l K.t'RI s
eral of finances and customs in Romagna, an tures). A founder member of the Accademia Foggini. Pier Francesco (Florence 1713-1783
honorary post that he held for ten years, and di Archeologia, he was responsible for many Rome). Theologian and scholar. Son of sculp-
which enabled him to reestablish contacts excavations and restorations, published his tor Giovanni Battista Foggini. Graduated in
with Rome and the Curia. In 1796, as general own and others' discoveries. Was the first to Pisa and Florence, and began to write on the-
commissioner of the army of Romagna, he declare the Diskobulos. now at the Museo ology and Tuscan antiquities. Dc primisflo-
was in favor of negotiations with the French, Nazionale Romano at the Palazzo Massimo, renlinorum apostolis (1740) provoked immediate
aware of the army's total disorganization. a Roman copy of the original by Myron. outrage, as it contested the popular tradition
Was ignored and after the defeat, though still according to which Florentine saints were dis-

governor of the province, took the exchequer ciples of Saint Peter. His defense was to pub-
and documents to Ancona, then Rome, and Felice, Placido Bartolomeo de, name in religion lish the early sources. In 1741 was invited by
went into voluntary exile in Venice at the Fortunato Bartolomeo (Rome 1723-1789 G. G. Bottari to visit him in Rome at the

time of the Roman republic. Spent his final Yverdon). Scholar. Studied at the Collegio Palazzo Corsini and join the circle of Tuscans
years writing Memorie cconomkhc c politichf Romano with the Jesuits, then in Brescia with led by Cardinal Neri Corsini, who formed the
(1799-1800) and works on a variety of sub- the reformed Friars Minor. Ordained in Rome lively Jansenist community of the Archetto.
jects (some of the manuscripts are at the villa (1746), was called to Naples by Celestino Opposed the beatification of R. Bellarmine
in Gualdo). Galiani on a special mission to teach ancient (who only became a saint in 1930). Promoted
and modern geography. Despite his great skill the translation and publication of religious
as a teacher, hewas forced to leave Naples, French literature, and as theologian to
Farinelli, nickname of the singer Carlo Broschi. having abducted Agnese Arquato, wife of Cardinal Neri Corsini and his nephew
See Metastasio, Pietro, and Vinci. Leonardo. Count Panzuti. On settling in Bern (1757), Andrea, secretaries of the Holy Office, pre-
became a Protestant and was excommunicat- pared the speeches for their congregation.
ed. In Yverdon set up a printing house, pub- Increasingly rigorist, he supported D.
Fea, Carlo (Pigna, Nice, 1753-1836 Rome). lishing and disseminating the latest Italian Concina in his writings (mostly anonymous)
Scholar. Came to Rome to study, first at the and Swiss works to an international reader- against the theater. As deputy custodian of
Collegio Romano, then at La Sapienza, and ship: in 1770-80 published a new edition of the Vatican Library (1768), promoted the
graduated in 1776. Ordained in 1781; also stud- Diderot and d'Alembert's Encyclopedic in Italian translation of F. P. Mesenguy's cate-
ied law. In 1783 Sigismondo Chigi appointed which he rewrote the religious entries from chism (Naples 1758-61), which was placed on
him assistant librarian to E. Q. Visconti; in the Protestant viewpoint. Corresponded fre- the Index. However, his religious views on
the same year wrote Progctto per una nuova edi- quently with Onorato Caetani. culture and life condemned both the French
zione dell'architettura di Vitruvio, followed by parlement (which wanted to expel the Jesuits)
other projects, none of which was published. and the Lucca edition of the Encyclopaedia.

Soon became famous for his edition (praised Ficoroni. Francesco de' (Lugnano [now Labico] After the expulsion of the Jesuits, became
by Goethe) of Winckelmann's Storia delle arti 1664-1747 Rome). Antiquarian and scholar. responsible for Father L. Ricci and the admin-
del disegno pressogli antiehi (1783-84). Was the Expert in numismatics and author of many istration of the Collegio Irlandese, previously

first to claim that the "barbarians" were not controversial works on archaeology, including run by the Jesuits. Assisted Cardinal Andrea
responsible for the destruction of ancient Osservazioni di F. de' Ficoroni sopra I'anticfiita di Corsini during a visit to his diocese of Sabina.
monuments in Rome, but that these should Roma pubblicato dal Padre d. Bernardo de which has remained exemplary in the annals

be attributed to natural disasters and neglect Montfaucon (1709), Le memorie piu singolari di of the Church. On becoming chief custodian
(following the transfer of the capital to Roma e le sue vicinanze (1730), and J piombi antichi of the Vatican Library in 1782, he retired.

Constantinople) and to the Renaissance. (1740). A great friend of Cardinal Alessandro Supported Jansenist bishop of Prato and
Before the Treaty of Tolentino (1797) wrote Albani, he gave his collection of lead seals to Pistoia, S. de Ricci, and urged him to modera-
anti-French pamphlets, exhorted the Italians the Museo di Antichita Cristiane. The tion. Buried in S. Giovanni de' Fiorentini.
to prevent their works of art from being loot- Ficoroni cista, discovered at Lugnano in 1738
ed, and insisted that foreign powers should and donated by him to the Museo Kircheriano,
return everything they had removed. Lo sper- is in the Museo Nazionale of Villa Giulia, and Fonseca de Evora. )ose Maria de (Evora

one d'oro al pattriotismo romano, attributed to another part of his collection is kept at the 1690-1752 Oporto) Friar Minor. Came to

him, exhorts the Roman aristocracy to make Museo Nazionale in Naples. Described by Rome in 1712 with the Marques de Fontes.
financial restitution to the Papal States for the English literature as a "guide" and "pope" of the Energetic and cultivated, he took it upon him-
great benefices received. After the assassina- antiquarians, always read to sell something to self to improve relations between the Church
tion ofDuphot, and the arrival of Berthier, the English and sometimes falling foul of the and Portugal, broken off after the refusal of

was obliged to seek shelter in Florence; on his law, he acted as agent for the Earl of Leicester Clement XI to make nuncio Vincenzo Bichi

return, was arrested several times: by the and Lord Carlisle. a cardinal, though was done by
this

Neapolitan, French, and papal forces. During Clement XII. Became ambassador in 1735
the restoration, became commissioner of and stayed in Rome until 1741. the year of his
antiquities (1801), a post he held until his Firrao. Giuseppe. Cardinal (Castello di appointment as bishop of Oporto. A digni-

death. Also succeeded Visconti (who had Luzzi Sila 1667-1744 Rome). Described by de tary of the Accademia Etrusca of Cortona.
taken refuge in Paris) as president of the Brasses as a skillful diplomat. Was made car- probably responsible for commissioning
Museo Capitolino and prefect of the Chigi dinal due to intervention by Cardinal Neri Italian artists (including A. Masucci,
library. In 1802 a hand-written papal docu- Corsini, secretary of state of Clement XII. F. Trevisani) for work at Mafra and
ment banned the export of all archaeological Portuguese artists for work in Rome, in par-

finds from the Papal States (F. was the first to ticular the ephemeral decorations at the
set export duties for old masters and sculp- church of S. Maria in Aracoeli. of which he

KI.Y I IdlJkl.S
was titular, and in which he restored the Gagliuffi,Marco Faustino (Ragusa 1765-1834 Gonzaga, Luigi (1745-1819). Prince: see

Savelli Chapel (with an altarpiece by Novi Ligure). Scolopian brother.In 1784 was Morelli. Maria Maddalena.
Trevisani), later consecrated by Benedict XIII, admitted to Arcadia as Chelinto Epirotico; on
and commissioned splendid decorations for February 23, 1798, commemmorated the

the canonization of Saint Margaret of death of L. Duphot in St. Peter's Square; dur- Grant, Peter (Moray 1708-1784 Rome).
Cortona. Responsible for Franciscan church- ing the Roman republic participated in the Scottish Jesuit and antiquarian. From the

es, in particular the church and monastery of National Institute and Tribunate. From 1801 1730s, with Jenkins and Byres, acted as guide
Palazzola, where he laid out the magnificent was in Paris, then returned to Genoa. Main to English visitors; showed them works of art,
gardens round the Lake Albano (subsequently activity was printing. See also Berthier, L. A. introduced them to important people, and
destroyed by English religious in favor of the sold them works of art, sometimes illegally.

Gothic Revival). A great friend of the Corsini Was considered a traitor to his own country,
family (he appears in a conversation piece Ganganelli, Giovan Vincenzo Antonio: see as he was in the service of the Stuarts; was
with Neri Corsini, Clement XII, M. Passeri, Clement XIV obliging and useful, in the absence of an

and Cardinal A. F. Gentili by A. Masucci; English ambassador to Rome, acting as a

Biblioteca Nazionale, Rome); built a magnifi- spy and in other dubious capacities.
cent library at Aracoeli, destroyed when the Gentili, Antonio Saverio, Cardinal (Rome
monument to Victor Emanuel II was erected. 1680-1753 Rome). Great-uncle of Margherita
There is a portrait bust by C. Monaldi at the Sparapani Gentili Boccapaduli, who appears Gravina, Gian Vincenzo (Roggiano, Cosenza
Collegio Romano and others at the in a conversation piece with Fonseca de 1664-1718 Rome). Man of letters. Settled in

Portuguese Istituto di S. Antonio. Evora, Neri Corsini, Clement XII, and Rome in 1689, and acted as agent for Cardinal
M. Passeri. Francesco Pignatelli; the following year was
one of the founders of the Accademia
Fontes, Rodrigo Anes de Sa e Meneses dellArcadia. Taught canon and civil law at

(Lisbon 1676-1733 Lisbon), Marques (later Gherardi Cheruffini, Francesca (1709-1778). La Sapienza and published several books on
Marques de Abrantes). Portuguese ambas- Countess. In 1733 married Count Ranuccio these subjects. A great scholar of Dante, he
sador, political and artistic advisor to John V, Cheruffini (died 1757); mistress of Alessandro also wrote poetry and many tragedies.
special ambassador in Rome in the entourage Albani, held a literary salon popular with the Opposed Jesuit morals and casuistry; defend-
of ). M. de Fonseca de Evora. English providing concerts and musical enter- ed Cartesianism and asserted that the rules
tainment (also mentioned by G. Casanova) at for poetry should be "reasonable," not
the palazzo Rondanini on the Corso, in the imposed by tradition, a stance that made him
Fornari. Matteo. Musician: see Corelli, piazza della Pilotta, and in the former Palazzo many enemies among scholars and the clergy.
Arcangelo. Orsini at Monte Giordano. On the appointment of Crescimbeni in 1711 as

chief custodian of the Accademia dellArcadia,

accused him of reducing the academy to
Foscarini, Marco. Venetian ambassador in Giannone, Pietro (Ischitella, Foggia "delighting in fatuous and affected pastoral
Rome. F. Benaglio was his protege. 1676-1748 Turin). Historian. Studied in poetry," (quoted in N. Merola, "Crescimbeni,
Naples and became known for works such as Giovan Mario," in DBI, vol. 30, p. 675), which
lstoria civile del regtw di Napoli (1723) and Trircgno resulted in a serious division in the academy.
Furnese, Robert (1687-1733). Antiquarian. (published posthumously in 1895). Fought Lost his battle with Crescimbeni, as the Curia
In Rome in 1706 purchased paintings from courageously for independence of the lay did not intend to adopt a more austere policy,
F. Ficoroni for 2,000 scudi. Also acquired state and against abuse by ecclesiastical and looked favorably on refined entertain-
engravings and three statues by Soldani in authorities. Was persecuted for his ideas and ment. His Ragion poctica (1708), a bible of
Florence. In 1758 a Furnese sale of old masters forced to leave Naples, and later Vienna, Neoclassicism, was translated into all the
included works by Guido Reni and Carlo where he had taken refuge. Arrested by European languages. Also wrote Rcgolamcnto
Maratti. Piedmontese authorities in 1736, died in jail degli studi di nobile e valorosa donna and was
(during imprisonment wrote Vita scritta da lui interested in a wide range of subjects, with
mcdesimo); see Benedict XIII and the exception of natural sciences. Pietro
Gabrielli, Caterina (Rome 1730-1796 Rome). Clement XII. Metastasio was his protege and heir.

The daughter of a cook, hence her

Singer.

nickname, La Cochetta; she was the most

famous singer of the second half of the eigh- Gigli, Girolamo (Siena 1660-1722 Rome). Guattani, Giuseppe Antonio (Rome
teenth century. Made her debut in Lucca in Author and playwright. Published criticism 1748-1830 Rome). Archaeologist and scholar.
1747, and performed in all the European and satire about the Florentine Accademia Son of Carlo (1709-1773), famous surgeon of
courts; was much admired by Parini and della Crusca; on losing his post as reader of the Ospedale di Spirito Santo in Rome. Was
invited by Metastasio to Vienna, becoming "Florentine language" in Siena, settled in prefect and secretary of the Pontificia
chief singer at court. Protege of Agnese Rome, working as tutor to the Ruspoli family. Accademia di Archeologia. also of the
Colonna, wife of Camillo Borghese, with His best-known works are: Vocabolario caterini- Accademia di S. Luca, superintendent of
whom she had a rich correspondence. ano (1707), Don Pilone (1711), and La sorellina di archaeology and antiquarian to Augustus III

Don Pilone (1719). Also wrote libretti for ot Poland. A prolific writer, his publications

operas; see Scarlatti, Domcnico. include (he seven volumes of MoNimu'iiri

aiitiehi c incdili (1-84-80), complementing

Kl V I K.liRI S
work by Winckelmann, and the eighth and (1698-1710), where he arranged the marriage Villa d'Este, Villa Montalto-Negroni).
last volume of the Museo Pio-Clementino descrit- of King John V of Portugal and Maria Anna of Employed restorers such as Carlo Albacini,
to (1808). Austria in 1708. His reports on the court of pupil of Cavaceppi, and Lorenzo Cardelli,
King Peter II of Portugal and the coronation both of whom helped to "discover" archaeo-
of John V are most revealing. Created cardinal logical finds: the so-called Jenkins Vase
Guerin de Tencin, Pierre, Cardinal in 1706, was protector of Portugal (1709-12). (National Museum of Wales, Cardiff) was
(Grenoble 1679-1758 Lyon). Thanks to his sis- Succeeded Clement XI in 1721. Attempted to probably a wellhead from the Carafa collec-
ter Mme. de Tencin, mistress of the minister appease Spain, and in 1723 absolved Cardinal tion in Naples. Also a great friend of Batoni
G. Dubois, he quickly made his fortune. In Alberoni, which Clement XI had refused to and Mengs. Even founded a bank. His clients
1721 was the conclavist of Cardinal de Bissy do, and invested Charles VI with Naples and included Angelika Kauffmann, who painted a
and charge d'affaires of France; until 1724 arch- Sicily, gaining the approbation of the Chinea portrait of him with his niece Anne Marie
bishop of Embrun; from 1724 to 1726 French but not a concordat. Also appeased the (National Portrait Gallery, London) and
ambassador in Rome. A cardinal in 1739, in French court by appointing G. Dubois cardi- bought a carriage from him. The Raccolta di

Lyon in 1740, and a minister of state nal in 1721 and condemning the pro-Jansenist disegni di vari autori incisi da artisti diversi was
in 1742, he left the court in 1751. Was a favorite cardinals. However, afforded no special pro- dedicated to him in 1764, and in 1775 La verita-

of Benedict XIV, who wrote to him, without tection to the Jesuits (though appreciating the ble guide des voyagcurs en Italic was published.
realizing that his letters were being sent Chinese rites). Totally honest and energetic, The political situation forced him to leave
immediately to Paris; their correspondence is he was also "serious and majestic, magnifi- Rome in 1798, and he died shortly after
fundamental for an understanding of the cent, with great respect for the dignity of his returning to Britain. Portraits by von Maron
eighteenth century. According to De Brasses, office; he was also extremely (1791), and by Richard Wilson (Pierpont
he was very hospitable, in fact, he and P. H. fat, which resulted in awkwardness" (Moroni, Morgan Library, New York).
de Saint-Aignan, French ambassador to Rome 1840-61, vol. 97, p. 193). Moroni described the
(1732-40), were "the only great lords of "summer holidays" of this pope in the Villa

Rome" (De Brasses 1977, vol. 2, p. 73, which Catena of the Conti family in Poli (Moroni John V, King of Portugal (Lisbon 1689-1750
also describes his clothes, and the excellent 1840-61, vol. 97, p. 194). During his papacy Lisbon). Son of Peter II. Never visited Rome,
French wines at his table). In Letter L/V De the administration of the Papal States was but his desire for the court of Lisbon to equal,
Brasses reported that he "carried the Holy particularly enlightened. if not outdo the court of Rome, led him to
Spirit in his pocket" (De Brasses 1977, vol. 2, p. spend vast amounts of money. Believing that

55). Was very influential in the conclave, and America had been discovered by the grace of
on the death of Clement XII, had already Jenkins, Thomas (Devon 1721-1798 God, thought it fitting to send gold from
decided who the next pope would be. There Yarmouth). Painter and antiquarian. Went Brazil to Rome. On his death, entire rooms
is a caricature by P. L. Ghezzi. to Italy in 1751 with Richard Wilson to study at the palace of Terreiro do Paco were found
painting; visited Venice, Bologna, Florence, to be full of models of Roman churches and
and Rome, where he settled before 1763 (in palaces, maps, drawings, engravings of
Guglielmi, Pietro Alessandro (Massa 1761 became a member of the Accademia di facades, obelisks, and triumphal arches. An
1728-1804 Rome). Composer, son of the S. Luca). His commercial activities are better absolute monarch, he invited many Italian

Maestro di Capella of A. Cybo, Duke of documented than his painting; was such a artists to Portugal, and collected Italian works
Massa. Studied in Naples, where he per- good businessman that, according to contem- of art. Also financed refurbishing of Roman
formed his first known work, Don Chichibio, poraries, he was the richest and most influen- buildings; his piety was matched by his love

in 1737. Had already performed his works in tial person among the British in Rome in the of the spectacular (such as the statues for
Rome, at the Teatro Capranica in 1759 and the second half of the eighteenth century. His St. John Lateran, the renovation of S. Antonio
Tor Nona in 1762, when he was commis-
di on the Corso was lavish, and equally
lifestyle dei Portoghesi, and elaborate ephemera made
sioned to compose Tito Manlio in 1763 for the magnificent was his villa at Mondragone a by the most famous artists of the day). A con-
Teatro Argentina. Also visited Venice, Turin, Castel Gandolfo from 1775, where he was vis- noisseur of refined taste, he greatly appreciat-
Milan, and London (1772); in Naples from ited by Goethe. Offered hospitality not only ed music (Niccolo Jommelli, dedicated an
1776 to 1793. A dispute with G. Paisiello and to English painters staying in Rome (who opera and a mass to him; Domenico Scarlatti

D. Cimarosa was so violent that the king often accused him of wanting to ruin them) was his court musician). Also collected
had to intervene. From 1793 was Maestro di but also to aristocrats, whom he introduced Roman antiquities and rare objects. The close
Capella at St. Peter's and S. Lorenzo in Lucina. into Roman society (was also considered a contacts between his family and the Jesuits
Member of numerous institutes and acade- government spy against the Jacobites); are reflected in the floors of the church of the
mies, he wrote a dozen comic operas which poached clients from Peter Grant and James Gesu in Rome (2,000 scudi) and the improve-
gained international success and were part of Byres. Wrote to London, providing detailed ments to S. Roque in Lisbon. The plans for
the repertoires for several decades, also two descriptions of archaeological finds, and pro- the chapel of St. John the Baptist, drawn up
oratorios, Mortc di Oloferne, and Debora e Sisara, moting his interests with visitors. Suggested by the leading Roman artists of the time
the performance of which in 1798 at the that Winckelmann be admitted to the Society (Luigi Vanvitelli, N. Salvi, A. Masucci), were
Teatro Argentina was halted because it was of Antiquaries; the latter in turn proposed J.
kept at the house of Alessandro Gregorio
feared it could be considered anti-French. as an agent for the sale of the collection of Capponi so the pope could bless them. His
precious stones belonging to Philipp von proteges among the Roman artists included
Stosch in 1763. Considered a favorite of Carlo Fontana, whom Peter II had made
Innocent XIII, Pope (Poll 1655-1724 Rome). Clement XIV, whom he described as a patron knight commander of the order of Christ.
Born Michelangelo Conti. Nuncio first in of archaeological excavations; handled the The splendor and expense of the convent
Switzerland (1695-98), then Lisbon sale of important collections (Villa Mattei, and church of Mafra (the plan is a copy of

KEY FIGURES
S. Ignazio in Rome) were famous throughout refused by various monasteries, on the piety and fervor; believed in the exercise of the

Europe. Spent 4.000 scudi on the Bosco grounds of mental instability. In 1770 left for three theological virtues, to inform the mind,

Parrasio in Rome and the plan by G. Canevari Italy, believing that on his journey he would the memory, and the will, and opposed senti-

for the new seat of the Accademia find the solitude denied him by the monaster- ment. Benedict XIV approved highly of him,
dell'Arcadia, which was opened in 1726 ies. A holy vagabond, he deliberately cultivat- as did the Due de Saint-Aignan, the French
(Ghezzi immortalized him as patron of the ed his lack of cleanliness, and lived in the ambassador in Rome, who had a copy made

Accademia, of which he was pastore from 1721, open, wearing a ragged tunic, a novice's by his jeweler of the crucifix this Franciscan

inheriting the alias Arete Melleo from scapular, and carrying a sack that contained wore round his neck, and asked Subleyras to
Clement XI). His agents and ambassadors the Imitation of Christ, the New Testament, and paint a portrait of the reclusive friar (Saint-

spared no expense to glorify him, and after the Breviary. Visited Loreto, Assisi, Naples, Aignan returned to France with three por-
1748 he received the title of Rei Fidelissimo. F. and Bari several times, also Einsiedeln and traits). Beatified in 1796 and canonized in 1867.

Vieiramade drawings of the arrival of the Santiago di Compostela. From 1777 lived in

ambassador De Fontes in 1716, accompanied Rome on charity, and devoted himself to the
by Carlos Gimac; Gimac was scene painter, most popular religious rites (the Via Crucis,
designer of carriages, architect, poet, and the forty hours' devotion, the Sacred Heart).
scholar, who described religious and civic This earned him the disapproval of Giovanni
buildings of Rome in his diary. De Fontes, Cristofano Amaduzzi, who called him
Lepri, Amanzio. Nobleman. His inheritance
was shared by his grand-daughter Marianna
with Luigi Braschi Onesti.
"a

later Marques de Abrantes, lived in such devout lice-infested sluggard," while the
splendor in Rome that even the court in French Jansenists considered him the antithe- Lepri, Giuseppe: see Albani, Alessandro.
Lisbon complained. In 1731, when the former sis of worldly pomp and ceremony. The
nuncio V. Bichi was made cardinal by house he died in is now the Centro Pro
Clement XII, the king offered him 25,000 Sanctitate, with a sanctuary and reliquaries, Luci Benloch, Cassandra: see Poniatowski,
cruzados for a majestic entry into Rome. next to the Madonna dei Monti, where he is Stanislas.

buried. His fame grew after his death and

prophesies were attributed to him, though
Jommelli, Niccolo (Aversa 1714-1774 Naples). these occurred after the events in question. Mamachi, Tommaso Maria. Erudite
Composer. Began his career in Naples as Canonized in 1881. Portrait by Dominican. Also librarian and theologian
Maestro di Capella for the Duke of Avalos. A. Cavallucci (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston). at the Biblioteca Casanatense, secretary of the
His operas were performed all over Europe Index, Master of the Sacred Palace. Supported
and in Rome his Rkimero re de' Goti (1740) and the appointment of L. Cuccagni as editor of
Astianatte (1741) were successful; also com- Lambertini, Prospero: see Benedict XIV. the Giornale Ecclesiastico of Rome.
posed music for Cardinal de la Rochefoucauld
in honor of the marriage of the dauphin to
Maria Josepha of Saxony (1747). Between 1750 Leonardo da Porto Maurizio, Saint (Porto Manfredi, Eustachio (Bologna 1674-1739
and 1753 was assistant at the Capella Pontificia Maurizio [now Imperia] 1676-1751 Rome). Bologna). Scientist. Also poet (member of the
and a member of the Accademica di Born Paolo Girolamo Casanova. Attended the Bolognese branch of Arcadia); see also
S. Cecilia. Settled at the court of Stuttgart Collegio Romano from the age of twelve, then Bianchini, F., Bottari, G. G., and Maratti, F.

as Kapellmeister for Karl Eugen of the oratories of the Caravita and Filippini in
Wurttemberg, and composed his best works the city. Became a friar minor in 1697 at

here. Returned to Italy in 1769, but found his Ponticelli (Rieti) and took the name of Fra' Maratti, Faustina (Rome c. 1680-1745 Rome).
music unappreciated, so concentrated on reli- Leonardo, soon entering the retreat of Beato Poet. Daughter of Carlo Maratti. A noted
gious music, composing his famous Miserere Bonaventure on the Palatine. Ordained in beauty, she married the poet G. F. Zappi
for two voices and orchestra. Gave great 1702 and responsible for teaching philosophy (Imola 1667-1719 Rome), who dedicated many
importance to dramatic and theatrical expres- and preaching missions in Italy; renovated poems to her. A member of the Accademia
sion, and was one the best interpreters of and founded many retreats, and preached dell'Arcadi. her alias was Aglauro Cidonia.
poetry by Metastasio, whom he had met in complete seclusion. The missions he taught From 1704 she celebrated the heroines of
Vienna in 1749. His music was innovative and (339 are recorded) were in the Papal States, ancient Rome in her verse, trying to raise the
an important contribution to the develop- the grand duchy of Tuscany, the republic of profile of women from "precious" to "heroic."
ment of serious Neapolitan opera, combining Genoa, and the kingdom of Naples; all were In Volume 3 of the Prose dcgli Arcadi (1718) she
the harmony of J. A. Hasse with grace and preceded by elaborate preparation, lasting ended a dispute between Petronilla Paolini
elegance. A painting by G. P. Panini at the fifteen to eighteen days, followed by a week Massimi and Prudenza Gabrielli Capizzucchi,
Louvre shows the interior of the Argentina in which he devoted himself to confessions. by asserting the superiority of platonic love.
during a performance on July 15, 1747, of Promoted the placement of the monogram of The salon she held at her house was attended
a cantata by ). with libretto by F. Scarselli and Christ on house doors, and was so devoted to by famous Arcadians, and also by many
sets by G. Panini. the Via Crucis that permission was given for devoted admirers, such as scholar P. J.

them to be set up in non-Franciscan churches: Martello, scientist E. Manfredi. and composer

that erected at the Colosseum in 1750 (subse- A. Corelli. Much of her poetry alludes to an
Labre, Benoit-Joseph, Saint (Amettes, Pas-de- quently destroyed) was paid for by attempt by Giangiorgio Sforza Cesarini to
Calais, 1748-1783 Rome). Anchorite. Eldest of Benedict XIV, who also approved of the abduct her. Portrait by Carlo Maratti (Galleria
fifteen children of poor country peddlers, was Confraternita di Gesu e Maria, for which Nazionale d'Arte Antica, Rome).
taught Latin by his uncle, a clergyman. At six- Leonardo was responsible. Writings reveal
teen decided to become a Trappist, but was his knowledge of doctrine, as well as his great

KEY I IGUR1 S
 —

Marefoschi, Prospero, Cardinal: Biblioteca Nazionale, Turin). Also put on M. A. Benti in 1721, for the birthday celebra-
see Compagnoni Marefoschi, Mario. plays at the Teatro Capranica. Was awarded tions of Elisabetta Farnese, wife of Philip V,
the Golden Rose by Innocent XII, and was organized by the viceroy of Naples,
very charitable. Her Christian devotion can Marcantonio III Borghese. From then on,
Maria Casimira, Queen of Poland be seen in her relations with Poland; she an intense artistic collaboration and a close
(c. 1641-1716 Blois). Daughter of Henri de la brought nuns of the Adoration of the friendship developed between him and Benti.
Grange d'Arquien, she went to Poland in the Sacrament to Rome, donated the body of In 1730 settled in Vienna, and became court
entourage of Maria Luisa Gonzaga, wife of Saint Justine to the Capuchins of Monceau, poet;was the protege of Marianna Pignatelli
Ladislaw IV. In 1658 married Jan Zamojski; and in 1705 went to Naples for the miracle of (widow of Conte dAlthan and lady-in-waiting
after his death married John III Sobieski, King Saint Januarius. In 1714, settled in France to the empress), who died in 1755; an uncon-
of Poland (1674), and after his death (1696) left brought there The church of
in a papal galley. firmed rumor suggested that they were secretly
Poland. An account of her journey to Rome, SS. Nome di Maria, built in 1738, was to be the married. Died at the house of Giuseppe and
where she arrived in March 1699, was written seat of the archconfraternity, and was used to Marianna Martinez, who had been a pupil of

by A. Bassani and dedicated to Carlo Barberini, celebrate the victory over the Turks and the Benti's and, according to Stendhal, "knew full

protector of Poland. In Rome on the occasion liberation of Vienna by John Sobieski. This well how the human voice could win hearts"
of the 1700 jubilee, she was accompanied by church was also used for the funerals of those (Stendhal, Vies de Haydn, de Mozart, et de

her father, who, despite his age, had been cre- who had died in these wars and to celebrate Metastase, [1814 Paris: Le Divan, 1928]). Is con-
ated cardinal in 1695. Was joined by her sons the victory of the Battle of Lepanto. sidered the father of Italian melodrama. His
Giacomo (later father of Maria Clementina canzonette are perfect examples of eighteenth-
Sobieska), Costantino, and Alessandro. century Italian literature, and his works
Alessandro died in Rome in 1714 and was Martello, Pier Jacopo (Bologna 1665-1727 were —according to Letter LI of De Brasses
buried in the Capuchin church of S. Maria Bologna). Man of letters. In Rome between "pleines d'esprit," rich in interesting features
della Concezione e Morte in via Veneto. There 1708 and 1718. Arcadian and author of the and situations, and coups-de-scene (De Brasses

is a monument to him by C. Rusconi in the Canzoniere (1710), tragedies, comedies, and 1977, vol. 2, p. 302). According to Stendhal, his

church, also a portrait of him dressed as a various critical works. In Rome frequented verse, accompanied by music written by the
Capuchin (the sumptuous ornaments and literary salons, including the one held by greatest contemporary composers (such as
vestments in the church on the occasion of F. Maratti. Hasse, Mozart, Cimarosa, and Pergolesi) were
his funeral were paid for by Clement XI, and perfect in clarity and purity of thought and,
appear in an engraving by Alessandro although totally naturalistic, kept the sad real-

Specchi). Roman chronicles of the time Medici d'Ottaviano, Maria Giovanna: ities of life The simple language,
at bay.

record the presence of mother and sons at see Chigi, Sigismondo. respect for poetry, balance of music and verse,
religious ceremonies, and of her sons in bois- combination of heroic and lyrical style, and
terous society gatherings. In December 1700 the elegance and decorum of the dialogues
the young men received the Cordon Bleu of Mello e Castro, Andre. Portuguese pleased both Leopardi and Rossini. The cere-
the order of the Saint-Esprit from Louis XV in ambassador of John V. In Rome between mony in Arcadia mourning his death includ-
the church of S. Luigi dei Francesi, followed 1707 and 1728. ed such diverse and international figures as
by a reception in the Palazzo di Spagna. A. Kauffmann, G. B. Piranesi, G. Hamilton,
Initially they lived in the Palazzo Odescalchi J.
H. W. Tischbein, J.
Zoega, and V. Altieri.

in the Piazza Ss. Apostoli, then at the Palazzo Metastasio, Pietro (Rome 1698-1782 Vienna).
Zuccari (now the Bibliotheca Hertziana); this Poet. Son of Felice Trapassi, a soldier in the
building still bears the family's arms on the papal army. Godson of Cardinal Ottoboni. Morelli, Maria Maddalena (Pistoia 1727-1800
tempietto-loggia, attributed to Juvarra, built From 1710 was the protege of Gian Vincenzo Florence). Poet. Her Accademia dellArcadia
around 1711 (in 1702 it had a wooden bridge Gravina, who gave him his Greek surname, alias was Corilla Olimpica. Was court poet
built to link the Palazzo Zuccari with the was responsible for his literary and philo- (1765-75) to the Grand Duke of Tuscany and
Villa Torres on via Felice-Sistina, where M.'s sophical education, adopted him, and left him crowned at the Capitol in 1776, after sunset
father lived). "I was born a simple hen of a (1718) his Roman estate, including an impor- so as not to cause s.corn and anger among
cockerel/I lived among the chickens and then tant library. In 1717, after taking minor orders, the people, though this did occur, as she was
as queen/I came to Rome a Christian, not he published his first poetry. His debut was considered an enemy of the Jesuits and the
Christina" (Valesio [1770] 1977-79, vol. 4, almost certainly in the serenade Angelica e opposing faction wished to bring its influence

p. 428). This pasquinade reveals the disap- Mcdoro to music by N. Porpora, sung by the to bearon Pius VI. At this time, her lover and
pointment of the Romans with this queen, young Farinelli; a lasting friendship devel- patron was the young prince Luigi Gonzaga,
who they believed could not compare to oped between the two, and the many letters who persuaded the senate to raise her to the
Christina of Sweden. Nevertheless, she was a they wrote to each other over a lifetime allude Roman nobility. The Am della incoronozaionc di
pastora in the Accademia dell'Arcadia, taking to themselves as "twins," with similar des- Corilla Olimpica and all the poetry written for
the alias Amerisca Talea in 1710. Her secretary tinies. Joined Accademia delTArcadia as the occasion (except for the pasquinades)
was C. S. Capeci whose alias was Metisto Martino Corsario in 1718. He settled in Naples were published by the printer G. B. Bodoni.
Olbiano. She also had a theater built at the after Gravina's death in 1718. In Naples aban- Was the mistress of princes and clergymen,
Palazzo Zuccari, where her son Alessandro doned the scholarly circles he had been intro- visited several courts, and was expelled from
(an Arcadian from 1709) worked with Juvarra duced to by Gravina, in favor of the company a number of cities but her improvised recita-
on the sets for the melodramas by Capeci, set of poets, singers, and actors. Wrote the words tions, with her hair flowing loose, her eyes
to music by Domenico Scarlatti (many to the Orti alle Espcridi, a cantata to music by
designs and twenty sketches are kept at the Porpora which, it is reported, was sung by

KEY FIGURES
raised to the heavens, and her pleasant voice, in 1689. In 1710 made protector of France by Congregazione dei Passionisti, officially

attracted the public. There is a portrait bust Louis XIV, which caused relations between approved by Benedict XIV in 1746. Excellent

by Christopher Hewetson. Venice and France to be broken off until 1720. preacher; considered one of the greatest mira-
Not ordained until 1724; in 1738 was appoint- cle workers of his time. Clement XIV was
ed bishop of Ostia. Died during the conclave very fond of him. At the time of his death,
Morison, Colin (1732-1810 Rome). Scottish that elected Benedict XIV. A magnificent in the retreat of Ss. Giovanni e Paolo in
painter and antiquarian. Came to Rome in patron of the arts and literature, his great Rome, the congregation (which, from 1770
1754 to study drawing at the school of Mengs, library (of which Francesco Bianchini was also accepted communities of nuns) had
turned to sculpture, and in 1778 declared he was acquired by the Vatican Library.
librarian) twelve monasteries in Italy and quickly
wished to become an antiquarian. Competed is demonstrated by the works
His grandiosity spread worldwide. Canonized in 1867.

with James Byres, Thomas Jenkins, and Peter commissioned by him, which include the sep-
Grant for the title of cicerone of Rome. His ulcher of his great-uncle in St. Peter's

contemporaries considered him "learned, (1706-15), designed by C. A. di San Martino, Parker, Mark (Florence 1698-1775 Paris).

accurate and ingenious," with "such a prodi- and the refurbishing of S. Lorenzo in Damaso Antiquarian. Son of an English intendente
gious quantity of body that it would require at and the Palazzo della Cancelleria, where he in Florence and a German Catholic mother,
least two souls to animate it" (Ingamells 1997, lived with his erudite court. Virginio Spada he served in the papal navy; his daughter

pp. 679-80). Among the many celebrities he was his majordomo and maestro di camera. Virginia Cecilia (born Rome 1728) married the
conducted on guided tours of Rome was James Godfather to Metastasio, friend of Corelli, and French artist J.
Vernet in Rome (1745). Was
Boswell, who followed the course with such protector of the Congregazione di S. Cecilia. known as an antiquarian and had fine collec-

intensity that he "began to speak Latin" with- Often held musical and theatrical evenings (in tions in his houses in Florence and Rome,
out noticing (Ingamells 1997, p. 680). There 1709-10 Juvarra built a theater on the second such as the one at the Villa Cybo. Considered
are many records of requests for him to give floor of his residence). For the birth of the a spy for the British government, in 1749 the

his professional opinion on paintings and dauphin in 1729, in competition with Cardinal Inquisition forced him to leave Rome. From
classical sculptures, which he often restored. de Polignac, ordered a performance of Carlo 1754 lived in France with his daughter and
Magno, a drama that he had written to music son-in-law. There is a portrait in the
by G. B. Costanzi, a composer and cellist in Akademie der Bildenden Ktinste, Vienna.

Odescalchi, Flaminia: see Chigi, his service from 1725. Despite reputedly
Sigismondo. fathering over sixty illegitimate children
(according to Montesquieu), he was the last of Passionei, Domenico, Cardinal
his line. The daughter of his brother Marco, (Fossombrone 1682-1761 Rome). Studied in

Orsini, Giacinta (Naples 1741-1759 Rome). Maria Francesca, was his sole heir; she mar- Rome from 1694 at the Collegio Clementino
Poet. Daughter of Domenico, Duke of ried Pier Gregorio Boncompagni, the first and chose a diplomatic career in Paris (1706),

Gravina, and Paola Erba Odescalchi. In 1757 Ottoboni duke of Fiano. where he was in contact with men of letters
married Antonio Boncompagni Ludovisi and scientists, and frequented Jansenist cir-

(Rome 1735-1805 Rome) and her dowry was cles. A representative of the pope at Utrecht
so great that Benedict XIV had to make an Pagliarini. Family of Roman printers, (1712-13), nuncio (1721) and
in Switzerland
exception to the bull of Sixtus V, which pro- the most notable members being Nicola Vienna was appointed secretary
(1730), in 1738
hibited excessively large dowries. A member and Pietro; see Belloni: Bottari, G. G., of briefs and cardinal. From 1741 was proto-
of the Accademia dellArcadia, with the alias and Corsini, A. librarian and prefect of the Vatican Library.
Euridice Aiacense, was sorely missed by her Rustic appearance and brusque manner belied
fellow Arcadians after her early death in his intelligence and culture. As well as his
childbirth. Beautiful and intelligent; Goldoni, Pamphili, Benedetto, Cardinal (1653-1730). official residence at the Palazzo della Consulta,
who was her guest, dedicated his Vedova spiri- Patron of the arts; see Corelli, A. had a splendid mansion at S. Bernardo alle

tosa to her. When Mme. du Boccage, a poet Terme. According to Winckelmann, his
known to the Arcadians by her alias Doriclea, library was one of the greatest in Rome: in
addressed her as the goddess of Rome, she Paolini Massimi, Petronilla (Tagliacozzo 1763 it was purchased by the Augustinians
replied "The Romans have always taken their 1663-1726 Rome). Poet. Became wife of the with the help of Clement XIII and is now part
gods from foreigners." Her poetry is collected Marchese Francesco Massimi at age ten. of the Biblioteca Angelica. His collection of
in the Rime degli Arcadi. Deserted her old and brutal husband to enter engravings is now in the Albertina in Vienna,
a convent and pursue her studies. Called "the and his medals at the Museo Pio-Clementino;
poetess of Rome," she composed sacred ora- part of his collection of classical sculpture
Orsini, Domenico. Duke of Tolfa. tories and drama set to music; was praised by was sold to antiquarians, but some pieces
See Benedict XIII. G. Crescembeni, L. A. Muratori, and found their way into museums (Vatican
F. Maratti. Museums. British Museum and Sir John
Museum. London). From
Soane's 1^36 began
Orsini, Pier Francesco: see Benedict XIII. to visit the hermitage of the Camaldoli
Paul of the Cross, Saint (Ovada 1694-1775 (Frascati) which, at the time of Paul V, was
Rome). Born Paolo Francesco Danei. Of noble already a favorite retreat for privileged per-
Ottoboni, Pietro, Cardinal (Venice 1667-1740 origin, from childhood he exhibited a passion sons; gathered an "army" of artists and crafts-
Rome). Son of the scholar Antonio di for Jesus on the cross, and renounced his men to carry out the decorations (F. Fuga, P. L.

Agostino and great-nephew of Pope inheritance to devote himself to this vocation, Ghezzi, Heldmann) and collected valuable
I.

Alexander VIII, who appointed him cardinal inspired by mystic visions. Founded the sculptures and literary works, in addition to

KEY FIGURES
laying out magnificent gardens. Supported vestry of St. Peter's from Carlo Marchionni, of the dauphin (1729), turned his palace into a

the Italian Jansenists; died of a bout of completed the museum (planned by Clement theater, for a performance of La coniesa dei

apoplexy, caused by his fury at being forced XIII and continued by Clement XIV) later Numi, with libretto by Metastasio and music
by Clement XIII to condemn the catechism of known as the Museo Pio-Clementino. Among by Leonardo Vinci; decorated the Piazza
F. P. Mesenguy, which was translated by thosewho worked on this project were Navona in the style of ancient Rome after a
Bottari. Acquainted with Montesquieu and Winckelmann and Ennio Quirino Visconti, design by P. L. Ghezzi, for a grand firework
corresponded with Voltaire and Rousseau. who illustrated and published the project. display. The Te Deum was sung in S. Luigi dei

Also up the obelisks in the Piazza del

set Francesi in the presence of the Sacro Collegio,
Quirinale (1787) and the Piazza Montecitorio while Berber horseraces along the Corso were
Pereira de Sampajo, Emmanuel (Lagos, (1792), and the one at Trinita dei Monti, all provided for the populace. Intelligent and elo-

Algarve 1692-1750 Civitavecchia). Portuguese erected by the architect G. Antinori. His quent, in 1704 succeeded J.
B. Bossuet at the

ambassador in Rome (1739-50); buried at papacy was an economic disaster; heavy French Academy. Montesquieu, during his

S. Antonio dei Portoghesi. See Benedict XIV. debts were incurred by the draining of the visit to Rome, was keen to report his opinions
Pontine marshes and natural calamities of P. His collection of marbles was purchased
(earthquake and floods in 1785), which were by Frederick of Prussia, and his name appears
Piccolomini, Enea Silvio, Cardinal (Siena exacerbated by famine, and revolt connected on the most important inscription on the
1709-1768 Rome). Descendant of the great with the French Revolution. Despite the first flight of steps leading up to Trinita dei Monti,
humanistic pope. In 1730 refused a prebend issue of paper money (1787), in 1788 he together with that of Louis XV.
in order to pursue his ecclesiastical career in removed 36,000 pounds of silver from the
Rome. Honorary chamberlain to Clement XII S. Casa di Loreto. Dared to indict Nicola

andin 1736, as canon and secretary of Latin Bischi for embezzlement. Bischi was a specu- Poniatowski, Michael (1736-1794). Cleric.

letters, read the funeral oration for the pope. lator, general administrator of corn supplies, Brother of Stanislas Augustus, King of
Appointed prefect at the state ecclesiastical and husband of one of Clement XIV's nieces. Poland. Educated by the Theatines of Warsaw
archive by Benedict XIV. Made governor of However, the papacy was a period of peace, and intended for an ecclesiastical career. His
Rome, cardinal deacon (though never official- during which important visitors traveled to first visit to Rome was in 1754. Ordained in

ly ordained), and apostolic legate (1766) to Rome; received by Costanza Falconieri 1761; in 1773 became bishop of Plock and pri-

Ravenna by Clement XIII. Often in the com- Braschi, these visitors included Joseph II, the mate of Poland Known for his reform
in 1784.

pany of titled women, Italian and foreign; Conti del Nord, Gustav Adolfus of Sweden, of the University of Krakow. A freemason and
they are said to have beseeched him to throw and the Elector Palatine. Forced to abandon an avaricious and suspicious character. Was
off his cardinal's robes for a military career. Rome and the Papal State on February 20, the guest of Tommaso Antici in Italy; Pius VI
The most famous was the Florentine singer 1798 (on February 15 the Roman republic had gave him a silver-gilt chalice decorated with
Vittoria Tesi. Vittoria only came to Rome to been proclaimed). Taken by the French to lapis lazuli and enamel, made by Luigi
see P., and she particularly loved the atmos- Siena, then went to the charterhouse in Valadier (cat. 79). Like his brother, loved to be
phere of Trinita dei Monti. In her letters, Florence and finally to Valence, France, where surrounded by Italian artists, and his villa at
written between 1736 and 1742, she requested he died. body was taken to Rome
In 1801 his Jablonna was restored by Domenico Merlini
gloves, bonnets, and beads, though she did and in 1822 Canova's statue of him in prayer and Antonio Bianchi. A portrait by Marcello
not wish to receive them as gifts. was placed in St. Peter's, thanks to his nephew Bacciarelli is at the Accademia di S. Luca.
Romualdo.

Pius VI, Pope (Cesena 1717-1799 Valence). Poniatowski, Stanislas (Warsaw 1754-1833
Born Giovan Angelo Braschi. Handsome and Pizzelli. Maria: see Cuccovilla Pizzelli, Florence). Polish aristocrat. Son of Casimir,
vain (proud of his white hair and his feet in Maria. the elder brother of Stanislas Augustus and
was a superficial and ostentatious
old age), he Michael. A spendthrift (Frascati, his villa near
patron who championed the reclamation of Warsaw, was famous for its beautiful park),
the Pontine marshes (once drained the land Polignac, Melchior de. Cardinal (Puy-en- and a charming liar, handsome and wealthy.
became the property of his family). From Velay 1661-1741 Paris). Patron of the arts and Educated in Europe, in 1776 visited Rome for

1766 treasurer to Clement XIII, residing in the scholar. A conclavist in Rome in 1689, and the first time. Interested in natural sciences,
Palazzo of Montecitorio. As cardinal was sup- again in 1692, was ambassador to Poland mineralogy, English fashions, and social
ported by A. Albani, and despite opposition (1695), but unable to achieve election of Prince reform. In 1785. returned to Italy, visited

from the anti-Jesuit camp, was unanimously Francois-Louis de Conti as king; exiled to Bon Calabria and Sicily; met Angelika Kauffmann,
elected pope in 1775 (the sixth pope crowned Port and there wrote the Anti-Lucretius, sive de who painted his portrait; attended a meeting
by Albani). His interest in outward appear- deo et natura (published posthumously in 1745). of Polish freemasons in Rome. In 1786 went
ances also resulted in blatant nepotism, as he Was auditor of the Rota in Rome (1706), then to Florence and from there returned to
wanted his family to be considered equal to plenipotentiary at the Congress of Utrecht Poland. Political situation in Poland forced
royalty. Brought his sister's sons to Rome, (1712). Created cardinal in 1713, he came to him to leave in 1791, and, after staying in
creating Romualdo cardinal and Luigi Duke Rome for the conclave of 1721 and remained, Vienna, settled in Rome (1792). Described Pius
of Nemi. Built the last of the great Roman as French charge d'affaires, until 1732, distin- VI, who had received the Young Pretender
palaces (Palazzo Braschi, now the Museo di guishing himself as a compromising though before him, as "discourteous, lacking in
Roma) for his nephew. Tried to usurp the firm negotiator. Lived in the Palazzo Altcmps etiquette and subject to rages like those of a
inheritance of the Lepri family and give it to (now part of the Museo Nazionale Romano), sixteenth-century friar" (Andrea Busiri Vici,
his nephews, but the resulting scandal forced where his receptions were renowned, depict- 1 Poniatowski c Roma [Florence: Edam, 1971].

him to compromise. Commissioned the ed in engravings and paintings. For the birth p. 159). In 1794 attended receptions in Arcadia

KBY FIGURES
and in 1795 traveled to Vienna. Returned to that the Company was to be suppressed, R. nities in Rome with churches and hospitals:
Rome in 1801, and with the help of Luigi was taken to Castel S. Angelo and accused of see Leonardo da Porto Marizio; and Vaini,

Valadier bought a building in via della Croce. having concealed Jesuit assets. Though Girolamo.
Cassandra Luci Benloch became his mistress acquitted of this offence, R. was never freed,

and they married in 1830, after the birth of not even under Pius VI, who looked favorably
five children. Commissioned architectural upon him. His brother Corso was a canon Salviati. Marianna: see Borghese,
works from Valadier, was an eclectic collector whose ideas were the exact opposite of R.'s, Marcantonio IV.

(intaglio gems, ethnographic collections, and who left his library to Scipione de' Ricci.

paintings and prints, gesso works), and was

advised by Augustus Moszynski (his collec- Santacroce, Giuliana:
tions were sold by Christie's in London in Ricci, Scipione de' (Florence 1641-1810 see Falconieri Santacroce, Giuliana.

1839). Was a member of the Accademia di Florence). Cleric. Despite opposition from his

S. Luca and an Arcadian; acquainted with mother, Luisa Ricasoli, after studying in Pisa

archaeologists and freemasons who were he took holy orders and became an auditor at Scarlatti, Alessandro (Palermo 1660-1725

connoisseurs and collectors; Piranesi the nunciature in Florence. Through his stud- Naples). Composer. Came to Rome aged
dedicated his plan of Hadrian's Villa to him ies and friends, he entered Jansenist circles. twelve, and probably studied with Francesco
and Seroux d'Agincourt left him his library in In 1780 was appointed bishop of Pistoia and Foggia or Bernardo Pasquini. Soon revealed
1814. Buried at S. Marco, Florence. Prato and became the focal point for opposi- his exceptional talent, and became Maestro
tion to the Jesuits. Employed by Leopold (1678) at S. Girolamo della Carita. In 1679 his

Habsburg, Archduke of Tuscany, as a mouth- first opera, Gli eauivoci nel sembiante, was per-
Renazzi, Filippo Maria (Rome 1742-1808 piece for his ecclesiastical reforms. formed at the Teatro Capranica, and was very
Rome). Jurist and professor at La Sapienza. Suppressed the cult of the Sacred Heart, well received.Was in the service of Queen
Published four volumes of Elementa juris destroyed altars, removed reliquaries, and Christina of Sweden (godmother to one of his
criminalis (1773-81), and, following C. Beccaria, introduced a new Jansenist catechism. His daughters); his music was much appreciated
tried to reduce the subject of crime and ideas were forcefully expressed at the Synod by the Spanish ambassador at the Vatican,
punishment to a scientific system. This work of Pistoia in 1786, convened to "purge the Gaspar de Haro y Guzman, who took him to
procured him invitations from Catherine the Church of filth," and Pietro Tamburini drew Naples when he was made viceroy of the city.
Great (to reorganize criminal law procedures up the decrees of this synod. Public reaction From 1684 was chief musician at the Cappella
in Russia), and from the universities of Pavia forced him to abandon
his see and seek shel- Reale and Teatro Reale in Naples, where his
and Bologna, but he preferred to stay in Rome. The proposals of the
ter in Florence (1791). melodramas were performed (over thirty
Synod of Pistoia had already been disowned before 1702). Failed to enter the service of the
by the Tuscan bishops, and were condemned Grand Duke of Tuscany, Ferdinand III de'
Rezzonico, Carlo; see Clement XIII. outright by Pius VI in his bull Auetorem fidei Medici, so returned to Rome and became
(1794). In 1799 he was arrested as a French deputy maestro di cappella at S. Maria
sympathizer. While support of Jansenism Maggiore. During this second Roman period,
Rezzonico, Carlo, Cardinal (Venice faded in Italy, abandoned to the fortunes of before returning to Naples (at the end of 1708
1724-1790 Rome). Nephew of Clement XIII. war, his last years were very unhappy. became music master at the court), mainly
Bishop of Porto and S. Rufina, published for composed cantatas, liturgical music, and
his diocese the Regole et istruzzioni delle scuole oratorios; was a close friend of Cardinal
pie delle zitelle. Russel, James (c. 1720-1763 San Casciano dei Ottoboni, who wrote a Latin epigraph on
Bagni). English artist and antiquarian. In Rome his tomb in the Neapolitan church of

from 1740, studied painting at the school of Montesanto. Also in the service of Queen
Rezzonico, Giambattista (1740-1783). Francesco Fernandi (called Imperiali) and later Maria Casimira. Dedicated the Missa
Venetian nobleman. Nephew of Clement XIII, acted as a guide for English visitors to Rome Clementina U (1706) to Clement XI, which
steward of the Curia, cardinal (1770), grand and elsewhere in Italy. His first years in the gained him the award of the Golden Spur:
master of the order of Malta, and protector of city are recorded in letters home (James was admitted to the Accademia dell'Arcadia
D. Corvi and Piranesi. Russel, Letters from a Young Painter Abroad to His with Corelli. Visited Rome once more
Friends in England, 2 vols. [London: W. Russel (1717-21), and composed new melodramas for

1748]), in which he described the excavations the Teatro Capranica. A composer

prolific
Ricci, Lorenzo (Florence 1703-1775 Rome). at Herculaneum. Known for trading in antiq- who left his mark on the melodrama, particu-
General of the Jesuits. Entered the Society of uities and paintings, some by contemporary larly the aria, the most elaborate expressive
Jesus in 1718 and taught in Siena and Rome, artists. His pictures sold at auction by element of this medium. His many children
where he was spiritual father in the Collegio Christie's in 1769 included works by Raphael, became musicians and singers: his eldest son.
Romano. Became secretary-general of the Titian, Poussin, and Guercino. Pietro (1679-1750), was music master at
Jesuits in 1755, and was appointed provost- Urbino Cathedral, under the patronage of
general in 1758. The favor shown him by Cardinal Annibale Albani.
Clement XIII, a strenuous defender of the Saint-Aignan, Paul Hippolyte de
Jesuits — to such an extent that he did not Bcauvillier, Due de (1684—1776). Diplomat.
want to accept even minimal changes to their French ambassador in Rome (1732-40). Scarlatti. Domenico (Naples 1685-1757
rule — provoked the wrath of his enemies. On Collector and patron ol the arts, worked to Madrid). Composer. Sixth child of
receiving the brief Dominus ac Rcdemptor in provide the Burgundian and Breton commu- Alessandro. who wanted him to pursue a

1733. during the reign of Clement XIV, stating musical career. In a letter to the Grand Duke

KEY FkiURHS
 of Tuscany in 1705, his father wrote "This son Muti, and after her funeral at the Ss. ApostolL Spinola, Flaminia:
of mine is an eagle whose wings have grown. was carried across the city to the Vatican in see Borghese, Marcantonio III.

He cannot remain idle in the nest and I can- state; her cortege, which was composed of
not stop his flight" (Kirkpatrick, 1953, p. 21). confraternities and regular clerics, was led by
maestro di capella for Maria Casimira and her a cavalcade directed by the captain of the Stolberg-Gedern, Louise (Mons 1752-1824
Rome, and produced several
children in Swiss Guards. There were commemorations Florence). Countess of Albany. Wife of the
melodramas (1709-14) in the theater of the all over Italy; poems in eighteen different lan- Young Pretender, Charles Stuart. From 1777
Palazzo Zuccari. In 1715 composed the music guages were read and printed in magnificent mistress of V. Alfieri, and after his death, of
to Hamlet (to a libretto by C. S. Capeci) for the publications by the Propaganda Fide. In Rome the artist F. X. Fabre, who left assets from the
Teatro Capranica, and the satire-intermezzo alone two monuments were raised to her: one Stuart and Alfieri families to the Fabre
La Dirindina by the playwright Girolamo Gigli. at the Ss. Apostoli by F. della Valle (1737), where Museum in Montpellier.

From 1714 to 1719 was maestro at the Cappella her heart is buried, and the other in St. Peter's

Giulia in St. Peter's, but the circle of Cardinal to a design by F. Barigioni, with her portrait
Ottoboni provided the most stimulating envi- in mosaic after a design by L. Stern, made by Stosch, Philipp, Baron von (Kiistrin,

ronment for his developing career; through F. Cristofori. A portrait by P. L. Ghezzi is in Brandenburg, 1691-1757 Florence). Collector,
the cardinal he met Corelli and Handel, who the Muzeum Narodowe, Warsaw. antiquarian, and diplomat. Studied theology
was in Rome between 1707 and 1710, and with in Frankfurt-an-der-Oder. Began a career as
whom he formed a lasting friendship. numismatist in London, probably accompa-
Overwhelmed by his father's strong personali- Sobieski, Alessandro (1677-1714): nying Prince Eugene of Savoy. Came to Rome
ty, he began to make a career for himself only see Casimira, Maria. in 1715, granted a pension by Clement XI, and
when he left Italy in 1720. After a visit to became a friend of Alessandro Albani, work-
London, in 1721 Domenico was invited to the ing on his collections with Winckelmann.
court of John V in Lisbon. Maestro to the Sobieski, Costantino (1680-1726): From 1719 was royal antiquarian in Dresden
Infanta Maria Barbara of Braganza, Domenico see Casimira, Maria. for the elector of Saxony, but in 1722 settled
traveled to Seville and Madrid when she mar- in Rome, in the service of the British govern-
ried Ferdinand, future King of Spain. In ment, receiving payment for information
Portugal and Spain composed Sobieski, Giacomo (1667-1737): about the Stuart court and the political ideas

religious music and sonatas for harpsichord, see Casimira, Maria. of many British travelers. Despite
which show to best effect the ingenuity and hispseudonym (John Walton), the Jacobites
brilliance of his work, a perfect balance forcedhim to leave Rome ten years later.
between geometry and passion. Sparapani Gentili Boccapaduli, Margherita From 1731 lived a life of luxury in Florence in
(died Rome 1820). Daughter of Antonio Maria a house full of treasures. His collection of
Sparapani, nobleman of Camerino, and over 3,000 precious stones with intaglio dec-
Sobieska. Maria Clementina (Macerata Costanza Giori, niece of Cardinal A. S. Gentili oration was catalogued by Winckelmann
1702-1735 Rome). Wife of James Stuart, the and his brother the Marchese Filippo, from (Description of the Intaglio Gems Belonging to the

Old Pretender. Daughter of Giacomo Sobieski whom she inherited the family title and estate Late Baron von Stosch, 1760). Also employed
and Edvige Pfalz-Neuburg, born in Macerata (the Villa Gentili, now Villa Dominici, by the young artists to copy erotic paintings to sell

in the palace of Cardinal Marefoschi (uncle of Aurelian walls between the Porta Tiburtina to tourists. Unfortunately, his rich correspon-
Cardinal Compagnoni Marefoschi). One and via di Porta S. Lorenzo). In 1754 married dence was lost at sea in 1863 on its way to the
of the richest princesses in Europe, her father Giuseppe Boccapaduli, their uncles and mag- Prussian archives. His books, maps, drawings,
negotiated her marriage. The wedding took istrates guaranteeing the nobility of their and engravings were sold in Vienna; and the
place by proxy at Bologna in 1719 (depicted blood and the authenticity of their family's Vatican Library recovered manuscripts and
in a miniature by Angelo Tosi in the Archivio relics. The Boccapaduli were titulars of the books previously belonging to the library.

di Stato, Bologna). She came to Rome as chapel in S. Maria in Aracoeli dedicated to There is a caricature by P. L. Ghezzi; a medal
Mme. de Saint George, wife of the "king of Margaret of Cortona, canonized by Benedict by G. B. Pozzo (1727; Palazzo Venezia, Rome),
England," and entered the city at the Piazza XIII, which contains two paintings, by and a portrait bust by Bouchardon (Berlin).

del Popolo, escorted by cardinals F. A. M. Benefial and F. Evangelisti. In 1747

Gualtieri and F. R. Acquaviva. When the Boccapaduli had been made a knight of the

Old Pretender's attempt to return to England papal guards. The couple were childless and Stuart, Charles Edward Louis Philip Casimir,
failed, he asked her to join him at their adopted daughter married Urbano del the Young Pretender (Rome 1720-1788 Rome).
Montefiascone, and on September 10 the Drago in 1814, and inherited the Gentili estate. Eldest son of James Stuart and Maria
bishop officiated at their church wedding in Their palazzo, restored between 1726 and Clementina Sobieska. Received an education
the cathedral. Her marriage was not a happy 1729, with entrances on via dei Falegnami and that reflected the insecurity of his parents:
one, and the couple disagreed over the educa- was the location for one
the Piazza Costaguti, first from the Jesuits, then the Protestants,
tion of their children, whom James wanted to of the many Roman literary salons, and and later the Jacobite militia. At fourteen
frequent Protestant circles. In 1727 she sought Margherita was responsible for the prolonged fought at the siege of Gaeta (1734), then took
shelter in the convent of S. Cecilia in visit to Rome of Alessandro Verri, with part in several unsuccessful Jacobite cam-
Trastevere for a short time. Abbe Volpini da whom she attended physics lessons at La paigns: the last of which ended in defeat at
Piperno criticized her and the pope in a pam- Sapienza. Francesco Belloni was her lover. Culloden in 1745. While dissolute by nature,
phlet, and was beheaded for this in 1720 at he had a vivacious personality and a particu-
Campo Vaccino. In contrast to her unhappy lar talent for music. His performance (with
life, died in a saintly manner at the Palazzo his brother) at Christmas 1740 of a concerto

IOO KI.Y I K.UKI-.S

by A. Corelli was specifically noted by De the Cancelleria. Resided in the Villa Muti and services were sung in all the churches and
Brasses. Traveled around Europe. With the Palazzo della Rocca at Frascati, restored basilicas of the city. Even thoughit was

Clementina Walkenshaw he had a daughter, by the Polish architect T. Kuntz after 1775. Carnival, the theater was suspended and all

Charlotte. On his father's death, returned to Rebuilt and maintained the seminary, which the lights dimmed, as had been done on the
Rome but pope refused to recognize his
the included a printing house. His vast library, death of his wife. In 1718 Antonio David was
right to the throne, removed the royal coat of consisting of books, manuscripts, and scores, appointed court artist and the Old Pretender

arms from the door of the Palazzo Muti, and eventually became part of the Vatican Library. was painted by many artists, including
insisted on calling him "Count of Albany." A vivacious character, sensitive to any oppo- Trevisani (1720) and Liotard (1737); a contem-

On Good Friday, 1772, married Louise sition to his wishes. When the Young porary commented that he had "the look of
Stolberg Gedern at Macerata, in the palace of Pretender died (1788), he wished to be called an idiot, particularly when he laughs or prays;
Cardinal Marefoschi, and entered Rome in "His Royal Highness, Most Eminent and Most the first he does not often, the last continual-
grand style: a medal was struck for this occa- Serene," and had medals struck depicting ly" (Ingamells 1997, p. 549). Buried in the grot-
sion. In 1774 moved to Florence and bought himself as King Henry IX of England, toes of St. Peter's; in the left nave of the
the Palazzo Guadagni in 1777 (the year when France, and Ireland. At the time of the Treaty basilica is the monument (1817-19) by Canova
his wife began her friendship with V. Alfieri. of Tolentino, sold his jewelry to help the to the last of the Stuarts, commissioned by
She described her husband as "the most pope. One of the most radical and vigorous Pius VII and paid for by the British govern-
insupportable man that ever existed, a man opposers of the Roman republic, he prohibit- ment: a stele with busts of James and his two
who combined the defects and failings of all ed the clergy who had supported the republic children; P. Bracci designed a monument
classes as well as the vice common to lackeys, from officiating. In 1803 became chamberlain (pen-and-ink drawings, Art Institute of
that of drink" (Ingamells 1997, p. 199). In 1780 at the Sacro Collegio. Very attached to the Chicago and Canadian Centre for

Louise Stolberg returned alone to Rome, and future cardinal E. Consalvi, and appointed Architecture), which was never built.

lived in the Cancelleria with her brother-in- him executor of his will and beneficiary of
law Henry Stuart. The marriage was dissolved 6,000 scudi. Another beneficiary was canon
in 1784. After she moved to Florence to live Angelo Cesarini, who lived in the villa at Tencin, Pierre: see Guerin de Tencin, Pierre.

first with Alfieri and, on his death in 1803, Frascati. His funeral was held at S. Andrea
with the artist F. X. Fabre, the prince returned della Valle and he was buried in the
to Rome in 1785, and also lived with Henry Vatican grottoes. Tesi, Vittoria (1700-1775). Singer. Born in

Stuart at the Palazzo Muti. In 1787 he was Florence, daughter of a servant to the musi-
described as "drunken Silenus more asleep cian De Castris, favorite of Ferdinando
than awake." (Ingamells 1997, p. 200). On his Stuart, James Francis Edward, the Old de'Medici. Not beautiful, but with a mar-
death the British government contributed Pretender (London 1688-1766 Rome). Son of velous contralto voice, T. was a superb actress
towards Canova's monument to the last of the James II and Maria Beatrice d'Este. His father with excellent speaking voice and a very good
Stuarts in St. Peter's. Portraits by A. David, had to abandon the throne at his birth and teacher; was also appreciated by Metastasio,
R. Carriera, J.
E. Liotard. sought shelter in France, where Louis XIV sang all over Italy, in Poland, Madrid, and
supported his cause and helped him in vari- Vienna, where aged fifty took up residence
ous attempts (all unsuccessful) to regain the with Prince Saxe Hildeburghausen; T. was
Stuart, Charlotte (Liege 1753-1788 Bologna). throne. In 1717 accepted the invitation of also the mistress of Cardinal Enea Silvio
Duchess of Albany. Daughter of Clementina Clement XI, who recognized him as the right- Piccolomini.
Walkenshaw and the Young Pretender, ful sovereign (James III) and offered him the
Charles Stuart, whom she assisted in his later Palazzo Muti in the Piazza Ss. Apostoli, in

years. In Florence she had great success in addition to the Palazzo Savelli at Albano Torrigiani, Ludovico Maria, Cardinal
society and may well be the beloved Carlotta and a large annual pension. Married Maria (Florence 1697-1777 Rome). Pro-Jesuit,
of V. Monti in Florence. Clementina Sobieska in 1719 at made cardinal in 1753 by Benedict XIV and
Montefiascone. The birth of their son Charles secretary of state to Clement XIII.
Edward was celebrated with salvoes
in 1720

Stuart, Henry Benedict Maria Clement, from the cannon at Castel S. Angelo and pub-

Cardinal, Duke of York (Rome 1725-1807 lic celebrations in Arcadia. The little Stuart Trapassi, Pietro: see Metastasio, Pietro.
Frascati). Second son of James Stuart and court celebrated his birthday on the first —
Maria Clementina Sobieska. In 1747, after —
day of the year along with a mass on St.
the Stuarts had failed in several attempts to George's Day (April 23) in Ss. Apostoli and Vaini, Girolamo, Prince of Cantalupo (Rome
regain the English throne, he was created car- with a formal visit to the pope before his 1674-1744 Rome). Nobleman. His father,
dinal and made titular cardinal of S. Maria in departure for the country in May. In 1725 a Guido, was obsessed with princely ostenta-
Campitelli, engaging B. Galuppi (1750) as cho- second son, Henry Benedict, was born. Royal tion, and had reputedly bought his title from
rus master there. From 1749 relations with his privileges accorded to James Stuart included the pope. Appears very frequently in Roman
father became difficult, because of his exag- being allowed to take communion without chronicles of the times, partly due to his
gerated intimacy with his chamberlain, Father fasting, to appoint a cardinal and the bishops eccentricity. Tormented Cardinal de Polignac
Lercari, who was persuaded to move to of Ireland, and to have a privileged position at in order to receive the Cordon Bleu of the
Genoa in 1752. Bishop of Corinth in 1758, his entertainments. On Clementina's death (1735), order of Saint-F.sprit, which was accompanied
appointment was celebrated in magnificent the Old Pretender led an increasingly solitary by a considerable living, but finally received
style in Ss. Apostoli by Clement XIII. Bishop life in his villa at Albano. When he died, his award at S. Luigi dei Francesi in 1737 from
of Tuscolo in 1761 and deputy chancellor from Cardinal G. F. Albani, protector of Scotland, the French ambassador in Rome, Paul
1763, he maintained a court of 150 courtiers at officiated at the requiem mass and memorial Hyppolite de Beauvillier. Due de Saint-

kn 1 1 ( . 1
1

R 1 s 101
 Aignan, "with extraordinary pomp" Centrale, while his magnificent collection Was one of the first to translate Shakespeare
(De Brosses 1977, vol. 2, p. 93); the ceremony of prints was acquired by the marchese into Italian (Hamlet, 1768; Othello, 1777);
was painted by Subleyras. In 1738, with Francesco Saverio Leonori of Pesaro. translated the Iliad (1789) in summary form
Saint-Aignan, received Maria Amalia, and in prose, and wrote novels: Le avvenlurc di

daughter of Augustus III of Saxony, King of Safjo, poetessa di Mitilme (1782) and Notti romane
Poland, at Monterotondo, in order to take her Venier, Francesco. Venetian nobleman. al scpolcro dcgli Scipioni (1792, 1804, 1967), which
to Gaeta, where she was to meet Charles, Ambassador to Rome (1740-43) and brought him fame.
King of Naples, whom she had married by protector of F. Benaglio.
proxy in 1737. Maria Amalia was accompanied
by her brother Friedrich Christian, the prince Vinci, Leonardo (Strongoli, Calabria,
elector (a portrait by Subleyras of him in Venuti. Family of scholars from Cortona. 1696-1730 Naples). Composer and musician.
Rome in 1739 hangs in the Staatliche Ridolfino, archaeologist and printer (Cortona Considered the greatest composer of serious
Kunstsammlungen, Dresden). 1705-1763 Rome), preceded Winckelmann as opera in the new melodic style, which differed

prefect of Roman antiquities under Benedict from that of Alessandro Scarlatti, by giving
XIV, and left essays on different subjects, rang- importance to poetry, melody, and vocal skills,

Valenti Gonzaga, Silvio, Cardinal (Mantua ing from geography to ethnography, topogra- thus making a significant contribution to the
1690-1756 Viterbo). Alter studying, traveled phy and art, such as Antiqua numismata Neapolitan school. De Brosses remembered
in Italy, Sicily, and abroad. In 1730 was made (1739-44), Accurata e succinta descrizionc him as one of the most important composers
cardinal and legate at Bologna, then nuncio in topograjica dcllc antichita di Roma (1763). and working in Rome, and contributed to spread-
Madrid. Returned to Rome for the conclave Accurata c succinta descrizione topograftca c istorica ing his reputation as a gambler and libertine,

that elected Benedict XIV. Appointed secre- di Roma modcrna (1766). Postulated that what is who may have been poisoned because of his
tary of state, prefect of the Propaganda Fide beautiful should not be reserved solely for the many love affairs. Made his debut with musi-
(1745), and bishop of Sabina (1754). An erudite rich and powerful in his catalogue (1750) of cal comedies in Neapolitan dialect, but after
man with an inquiring mind; advisor to the museum of antiquities at the Palazzo dei 1722 composed many opere serie, performed by
Eugene of Savoy on his collections, studied Conservatori. His brother Filippo (Cortona the most famous singers of the day, such as
the monuments of Rome, introduced stricter 1709-1769 Cortona) was a priest and lived Farinelli and Carestini. Succeeded Scarlatti as

laws governing the trade of works of art (even in France for eleven years. A member of the deputy maestro di cappella at the Cappella Reale,
contemporary ones) in 1750, and established a Academie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres Naples; in 1728 became Maestro di Capella at

public archive. An honorary member of the in Paris, he translated many works from the the conservatory and taught Pergolesi, among
Accademia di S. Luca (1742), Arcadian with French, and was esteemed by Voltaire and others. His operas performed in Rome include
the alias of Fidalbo Tomeio. Supported the Montesquieu; also one of the founders (1726) Didone abbandonata (Teatro Alibert, 1726), the
Giornalc dei Letterati (1745-56); had F. Titi's Guida of the Accademia Etrusca of Cortona. Contesa dei Numi (Palazzo Altemps, 1729) for
di Roma on his recommendation
reprinted; Another brother, Niccolo Marcello (Cortona Cardinal de Polignac, and Artaserse (Teatro
Ruggero Boscovich was asked to strengthen 1700-1755 Cortona), was interested in the Alibert. 1730), all based on poetry by
the dome of St. Peter's. Encouraged the pope antiquities of Cortona and Tuscany, carried Metastasio, who appreciated the elegance,
to promote conservation and restoration of out excavations and published (1748) news of expression, and fluency of his music.
basilicas and early Christian churches, to the first discoveries at Herculaneum; his son
reopen the Scuola del Nudo (1749), and com- Marcello (1745-1817) was director of the
plete the Trevi Fountain. His villa, between porcelain factory at Capodimonte. Visconti, Ennio Quirino (Rome 1751-1818
the Porta Pia and the Porta Salaria, comprised Paris), Archaeologist. Son of the archaeologist
a sixteenth-century mansion and a new one, Giovanni Battista (Venice 1722-1784 Rome).
which was incomplete on his death, probably Veratti Bassi, Laura: At fifteen had translated Euripides' Hecuba.
thework of Panini, J. P. Marechal, and P. Posi. see Bassi Veratti, Laura. Was librarian at the Vatican, while continuing
With the help of Saverio Bettinelli and Abbot archaeological studies (according to Leopardi,
Wood, set up a scientific museum in the base- he was unequaled in this subject), also philol-

ment. Was extremely proud of the "magic Verri, Alessandro (Milan 1741-1816 Rome). ogy and literature. In fact, his poetry was
table," used to lift food and drink from the Author. Studied with the Barnabites, joined often an inspiration for V. Monti, whose
kitchens to the first floor, and the machinery the recently established Accademia dei Pugni, Italian translation of the Iliad was edited by
to set the fountains in motion, which was and was actively involved in the monthly lit- him. Commissioned by Pius VI to publish the
concealed among his exotic plants (he was He supported a
erary journal Cafje (1761-66). Museo Pio-Clementino descritto (vol. 1, 1782).

the first to grow pineapples in Rome). A con- more modern concept of literature, in oppo- Although published as the work of his father,

noisseur of exotic objects, the walls of his sition to the purists. Also advocated reform of this was mostly the work of Ennio, as were
many rooms were decorated with Chinese the judicial system; during these years wrote the following six volumes. A conservator at

paper, and his shelves were full of porcelain. an essay on the history of Italy (unpublished). the Museo Capitolino from 1784, he examined
On his death, the villa was bought by After visiting Paris and London, in 1767 set- and described the newly discovered monu-
Cardinal Prospero Colon na" of Sciarra. tled in Rome and fell in love with Margherita ments. With his father persuaded Clement
The residence, now the Villa Paolina (where Sparapani Gentili Boccapaduli. Gradually XIV to impose strict laws on the export of
Pauline Bonaparte lived), is now the French abandoned his enlightened views and adopt- works of art from the Papal States. In 1798

embassy at the Holy See. Most of his precious ed a more gloomy and fatalistic attitude to became head of the ministry of internal
library, collected during his travels, was human destiny, reflected in his descriptions affairs, and championed the Roman republic.

absorbed into the Biblioteca Nazionale of archaeological landscapes and a return to Sought refuge in France, and when Rome was
classical style, sometimes quite extreme. invaded by Napoleon, was appointed curator

102 KI.Y FIGURES

at the Louvre. As a member of the Institut de medal collection. Visited Rome again in 1783,
France, he published many important works and converted to Catholicism; the protege of

in French. In 1815 was asked to examine the Stefano Borgia, whose collection of ancient
Elgin Marbles in London, which he deemed Egyptian imperial coins he catalogued. An
to be of great value. exceptional scholar, he was one of the great-
est archaeologists of the post-Winckelmann
generation. From 1790 studied Egyptian
Walkenshaw, Clementina. Mistress of obelisks (De usu el originc obeliscorum, 1797).

the Young Pretender, Charles Stuart, With E. Visconti, was employed in the

and mother of Charlotte Stuart. Servizio di Storia e Antichita (1798). His

incomplete work Li bassirilievi antichi di Roma
(1808) is considered of great importance,
Walton, John: see Stosch, Philipp von. although limited to the Albani collection.
Many of his manuscripts are now in the

Kongelige Bibliotek, Copenhagen.

Winckelmann, Johann Joachim (Stendal
1717-1768 Trieste). Archaeologist. In Rome
from 1756, as librarian for Cardinal

Alessandro Albani. helping him to build

up an important collection, which was
displayed in his villa on via Salaria. As
prefect of Roman antiquities and librarian

at the Vatican, was the first to write a history

of ancient art (Geschichte der Kunst des

Alterthums, 1764), later translated into Italian

by C. Amoretti (1779) and annotated by

A. Fumagalli and C. Fea (1783-84).

York, Duke of: see Stuart, Henry Benedict

Maria Clement, Cardinal.

Yussupov, Nikolai. Russian prince.

Ambassador (1783-89) in Turin, Venice,

and Naples. A man of great taste, Y. was

patron of A. Canova and J.
L. David, also
artistic advisor to Catherine the Great.
Possessed one of the most important
collections in Russia of eighteenth-century
Italian and French works of art. Accompanied
the Conti del Nord to Rome.

Zelada, Francesco Saverio, Cardinal (Rome

1717-1801 Rome). Secretary of state to Pius VI
from 1789 to 1796 (see Andrea Corsini). As a
keen archaeologist, Z. reviewed and added to
the Kircher collection; published at his own
expense descriptions of the most important
antiquities, including copies of inscriptions,
hieroglyphics and the Ficoroni and Capponi
collections. Portrait of by Mengs in the

Art Institute of Chicago.

Zoega, Jurgen (Dahler 1755-1809 Rome).

Archaeologist. From a poor Danish family,
studied in C.ottingen. His reading of Homel-
and Winckelmann encouraged him to come
to Rome in 1766. Earned his living as a tutor,
but in 1782 was asked to catalogue the royal
 .

Chronology

JON L. SEYDL

CLEMENT XI 1704 Clement XI condemns Jesuit 1709 Clement XI surrenders to Austrian

(Giovan Francesco Albani) missionary practice in China, demands for free passage through
1700-1721 in which the Jesuits incorporate papal territory, recognizes
born: July 22. 1649 Chinese ancestor cults into Habsburg claims in Spain, and
elected; November 2j. 1700 Christian rites. accepts disarmament, marking the
possesso: October 10, 1701 end of the pope's military role in

died: March 19, 1721 Developments along the Tiber Europe.

follow three disastrous floods since
1700 Jubilee year. 1700: a floodgate is constructed on The Bourbon King Philip V of Spain
the river, and Alessandro Specchi breaks ties with the Papacy.
Giovan Mario Crescimbcni pub- and Carlo Fontana design the Porto
lishes La bellczza delta volgarpoesia, a di Ripetta. An influenza epidemic strikes Rome
text articulating the principles of the during a brutal winter.
Arcadian movement. Domenico de Rossi and Paolo
Alessandro Maftei publish Raccolta The first mosaic replacements for

1701 The War of the Spanish Succession di statue anhehe e moderne. painted altarpieces damaged by the
begins, with Bourbon France fight- humidity in St. Peter's are

ing Habsburg Austria (joined by 1705 The first performance of the commissioned.
England. Prussia, the Netherlands, oratorio of Santa Maria Maddalena
Portugal, and Savoy) over the succes- de'Pazii at the Collegio Clementino 1711 Schism in the Accademia dell'

sion to the throne of Spain. In the in Rome, with music by Alessandro Arcadia led by Gian Vincenzo
major war between Catholic
first Scarlatti, setting a text by Cardinal Gravina. who founds a rival
Fig. 46 Pier Leone Ghezzi, Pope Clement XI kingdoms since the Reformation. Benedetto Pamphili. reaffirms institution, the Accademia dei
(Giovan Francesco Albani), oil on canvas; Clement XI leans toward France. Rome's role as a key European Quiriti.

Walpole Gallery. London center for sacred music.

Clement XI issues an edict prohibit- Repeated earthquakes strike Rome.
ing the exportation of statues, The public granaries at Termini
bronzes, gems, and paintings from in the Baths of Diocletian are 1712 Canonization of Andrea Avellino,
the Papal States, one of many actions expanded, to designs by Domenico Catherine of Bologna, Felice da
to protect the artistic patrimony of Fontana, an example of the pope's Cantalice, and Pius V Ghislieri.
Rome (followed by another in 1704 interest in fostering economic
to protect stuccos, mosaics, docu- reform. 171 ; Clement XI issues the bull Unigenitus,
ments, and inscriptions). condemning Jansenists as heretics.
1706 Clement XI creates twenty new
Clement XI initiates the Founders cardinals, including the future popes Plague strikes Rome.
series, a project aiming to line the Innocent XIII and Clement XII.

nave of St. Peter's with large statues The treaty of Utrecht ends the
depicting the founders of each reli- A severe drought in central Italy War of the Spanish Succession
gious order. leads to serious food shortages. with Habsburg victory: the Duchy
of Milan, the Kingdom ol Naples,
1702 Francesco Branchini installs the Clement XI initiates the Lateran and Savoy all pass to Habsburg
Linea Clementina, the meridian line Apostles series, involving the Austria; England assumes Canadian
used to ensure accurate charting of leading sculptors in Rome, with territories from France and
the calendar, on the floor of S. Maria the last works installed in 1718. Gibraltar from Spain: the Bourbon
degli Angeli: it exemplifies Philip V becomes king of Spain.
Clement's support for empirical, 1707 Austria conquers Naples during the
scientific research. War of Spanish Succession. 1-14 After the death of Queen Anne.
the elector of Ham wer ascends the
The first Concorso Clementino is Georg Friedrich Handel debuts his throne of England as George I; the
held at the Accademia di S. Luca. oratorio /I Irionfo del tempo e del Stuarts assert their claim to the
Fig. 47 Robert Audcn-Aert, The Barbcrini disinganno, with a libretto by throne in exile, leading to an upris-
Faun, 1704, engraving; from Raccolta di statue 170 j Earthquakes destroy three arches Cardinal Benedetto Pamphili, in the ing the following year.
antichec moderne, by Domenico de Rossi and of the Colosseum and damage the Palazzo della Cancelleria in Rome.
Paolo Alcssandro Maffei Quirinal. St. Peter's, and S. Lorenzo. Giovanni Giardini publishes his
Giovanni Battista Gaulli frescoes influential patternbook for

A prison for young men is estab- The Apotheosis oj the Franciscan Order mctalwork Disegni divcrsi . .

lished at S. Michele. the first of many on the ceiling of Ss. Apostoli, his last
public facilities to fill the social major work. Arcangelo Corclli's last collection

welfare complex along the Tiber. of works. Opera sesta. is published

1708 Clement XI declares war on Austria: posthumously, with dedications
Clement XI acquires Carlo Maratti's papal defeat at Comacchio. to Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni and
extensive collection of Renaissance |ohann Wilhclm, the Elector Palatine.

and Baroque drawings, which

remains in Albani hands until 1762.
when bought by George III of
England.
(OPPOSITE) detail of Domenico Corvi, The
Miracle oj Saint Joseph Calasanz ResusciWaing a

Child in a Church at Frascati, 17A7 (cat. 205)

CHRONOLOGY IOS
 1-15 Louis XIV of France dies; Philippe 1719 The restoration of S. Clemcntc con- BENEDICT XIII
d'Orleans assumes power as regent cludes, the climax of the pope's many (Pierfrancesco Orsini)
until the fifteen-year-old Louis projects celebrating the early Church. 1724—1730
Bourbon turns twenty-one. born: February 2, 1649
Clement XI marries Maria elected: May 29, 1724
Giuseppe Maria Lancisi founds a Clementina Sobieska of Poland to possesso: September 24, 1724
school of medicine, surgery, and James Stuart, the "Old Pretender" died: February 21, 1730
anatomy in the Hospital of to the British throne.
S. Spirito. having established a 1724 Cardinal Melchior de Polignac is

medical library there the previous In Paris, Bernard de Montfaucon named French ambassador to Rome
year. Lancisi also publishes the publishes the first volumes of and moves to the Palazzo Altemps.
medical texts Dissertatio de recta VAntiquite expliquee, a work meant
medkorwn studiorum rauonae to illustrate every known antique Excavations at Hadrian's Villa
instiiucnda and Dissertatio historica dc sculpture: the text becomes the begin in earnest, under the aegis of
bovilla peste, exemplifying the social standard sourcebook for ancient Giuseppe Fede, Liborio Michilli. and
welfare projects and scientific learn- art well into the nineteenth century. Francesco Antonio Lolli (they last

ing promoted by Clement XI. until 1742).

1720 Scbastiano Giannini publishes the

The Accademia di S. Luca modifies works of the architect Francesco Nicola P10 completes the manu-
its statutes, intending to establish Borromini, evidence of the script Le vile di pitton. sculiori et

itself as the dominant artistic force continued Settecento interest in flrchitctti, a crucial compilation of Fig. 48 San Michelc Manufactory. Pope
in Rome: all must have
public works Baroque art and architecture and the biographies of seventeenth- and Innocent XIII (Michelangelo Conti), tapestry
the Accademia's approval, and dominating influence of Borromini. eighteenth-century artists; Pio fails, designed by Pietro Fcrloni, after Agostino
private academies are banned however, to find a publisher and sells Masucci; Musei Lateranesi, Rome
unsuccessfully. The Giustiniani collection of ancient the portrait drawings commissioned
marbles is sold to Thomas Herbert, as illustrations in 1714-15; Gregorio
1716 The Papal States repel Turkish Earl of Pembroke, in the first of the Capponi later buys the manuscript.
attacks on the Adriatic coast, eighteenth-century sales of major
in concert with Venice. Austria. Renaissance and Baroque family In Amsterdam Phillip von Stosch
Spain, and Portugal. Eugene of collections: later sales include the publishes Gemmae antiauac caelate.
Savoy secures a Habsburg victory Odescalchi (1724). Chigi (1-28), and
over the Turks at Peterwardein. Mattei (1770) collections. 1725 Jubilee year.

Clement XI extends the feast of the Key construction projects include

Rosary to the Universal Church in INNOCENT XIII the Spanish Steps (by Francesco
honor of the victory over the (Michelangelo Conti) de Sanctis), the restoration of
Ottoman empire. 1721-1724 S. Cecilia in Trastevere and
born: May 13. 1665 S. Gregorio al Celio. the portico of
1717 The renovation of the Piazza della elected: May 8, 1721 S. Paolo fuori le Mura (by Giacomo
Bocca della Verita begins, an possesso: November 18. 1-21 Antonio Canevari). the Hospital of
example of the pope's interest in died: March 7, 1724 S. Gallicano (by Filippo Raguzzini),
linking urban beautification projects and the equestrian statue of
to the restoration of Early Christian 1722 Louis XV Bourbon is crowned King Charlemagne (by Agostino
monuments, economic improve- of France. Cornacchini) for the portico of Fig. 49 Pietro Bracci. Pope Benedict XIII
ments (a major new marketplace, St. Peter's. (Picirojranccsco Orsini), 1-24, terracotta:

the Foro Boario), and public health The Chinea. the annual symbolic Museo del Palazzo di Venezia, Rome
schemes (a new fountain designed celebration in Rome of papal Peter I Romanov ol Russia dies;
by Carlo Bizzachieri). sovereignty over Naples, resumes. the supreme privy council
subsequently emerges.
Giuseppe-Simonio Assemani brings In London. Jonathan Richardson
an extensive cache of ancient publishes An Account of Some of the Benedict XIII convenes the Lateran
manuscripts back from Egypt, Statues, Bas-Reliefe, Drawings and Council, marking the pope's com-
Cyprus, Syria, and Libya for the Pictures in Italy, one of the influential mitment to ecclesiastical reform.
Vatican Library. texts promoting the Grand Tour.
The French Academy moves from
TheTeatro Capranica produces the 172 j In Naples. Pietro Giannone pub- the Palazzo Capranica to the Palazzo
tragicomedy Pino, with music by lishes Istoria civile, an influential anti- Mancini on via del Corso.
Francesco Gasparini and text by curial text calling for the extrication
Apostolo Zeno. of the Papacy from Italian political The Trarwto tcologico de U'autorita cd

affairs; the book is placed on the m/allibi/itii dc'papi is published, the Fig. 50 Jean Barbault. View of the Basilica of

A concordat with Bourbon Spain Index the following year. first Italian translation of the 1724 San Paolo fuori le Mura, engraving, from Lcs
restores diplomatic relations broken French tract by Mathieu Petit-Didier. Plus Beaux Monuments de Rome ancienne. ...
by the War of the Spanish Succession. a major treatise arguing for papal 1761, by Jean Barbault
infallibility and attacked by
1718 A crop failure in the Papal States lansenists.
leads to serious food shortages and
brings 8.000 refugees to Rome.

Fig. 51 Agostino Masucci. Saint John oj the

Cross Saved by the Virgin. 1726, oil on canvas;

Pinacoteca Vaticana, Vatican City

106 CHRONOLOGY
 1726 Canonization of Agnese di 1731 The state lottery, banned under 1736 The Trevi Fountain is inaugurated.
Montepulciano, Giacomo della Benedict XIII, is reinstated in an
Marca, Luigi Gonzaga, ]ohn of the attempt to control the mounting A financial crisis and currency
Cross, Pellegrino Laziosi. Stanislas deficit. shortage hits Rome.
Kostka. Francisco Solanus. and
Toribio Alfonso de Mogrovejo of 1732 The Teatro Argentina, designed by Work begins on major church
Lima. Girolamo Teodoli. is inaugurated decoration projects, illustrating the
during Carnival with a production common eighteenth-century prac-
Diiione abbandonata, with music by of Berenice by Domenico Sarri. tice of working in teams: the sculp-
Leonardo Vinci and text by Pictro tural decoration of Galilei's Corsini
Metastasio, debuts in the Teatro Nine models and twelve drawings Chapel in St. John Lateran by Adam.
delle Dame. for the facade of St. |ohn Lateran are Rusconi, Cornacchini, Della Valle,
Fig. 52 Jonas Akerstrom. Meeting in rhe Bosco displayed at the Palazzo del Maini. Monaldi. Lironi, and
Parrasio. 1788. watercolor on paper: Institut The members of the Accademia dell' Quirinale, marking the start of the Montauti: and the renovation of
Tessin. Paris Arcadia hold their first meeting in major architectural projects fostered Ss. Celso e Giuliano, including
the Bosco Parrasio on the Janiculum by Clement XII. paintings by Batoni. Caccianiga,
Hill, designed by Antonio Canevari Lapis, Triga, and Valeriani.

and funded with a 1722 gift from Lione Pascoli publishes Testamento
John V of Portugal. politico, marking a shift in Roman After Rome breaks with Bourbon
economics from traditional mercan- Spain. Spanish agents coerce Roman
1-:- Filippo Raguzzini begins restructur- tilism to an advocacy of free trade, citizens into Spanish military service
ing the Piazza S. Ignazio, a key mon- currency reform, and a reduction of and maraud the city, leading to riots

ument in the development of Roman state monopolies. to liberate Romans sequestered in

urban design, completed in 17 j6. the Palazzo Farnese. Clement XII
The War of the Polish Succession does not act to stop the disturbance,
1728 John V of Portugal demands that begins on the death of Augustus II; enraging Philip V of Spain.
Benedict XIII automatically nomi- Stanislas I Leszczynski is elected
nate all Portuguese nuncios to the King of Poland, with the support of 1737 The annual Salon exhibition
College of Cardinals; Benedict XIII France, Savoy, and Spain; Austria, revived in Paris.
refuses to halt further encroach- Prussia, and Russia support
ments on papal power, leading to a Augustus 111 of Saxony. Gian Gastone de' Medici,
break in relations until his successor, the last Medici grand duke, dies;
Clement XII. relents in 1731. Cardinal Niccolo Coscia is con- Francis II Habsburg assumes
demned to ten years in prison in the seat of Tuscany.
Canonization of Margaret of Castel S. Angelo for alleged financial

Fig. 5 j Marco Benefial. The Torture of Saint Cortona. abuses during the pontificate of Canonization of Catherine Fieschi
John of Nepomucene. c. 1729. black chalk on Benedict XIII; Clement XIV annuls Adorno of Genoa. Juliana Falconieri,
paper; Staatliche Museen zu Berlin Benedict XIII extends the feast of the sentence in 1742. Vincent de Paul, and Jean-Francois
Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Saint Gregory VII (a papal saint who de Regis.
Kupfcrstichkabinett represented pontifical power 1-34 The Museo Capitolino is founded
triumphing over secular kings) to under the direction of Alessandro Giovanni Gaetano Bottari publishes
the Universal Church; the papacy Gregorio Capponi. with 408 antique the first volume of Sculturee picture
ignores the strenuous objections of marbles acquired the previous year sagrc estrartc dai cimiterj di Roma. The
the Austrian, French, and Venetian from the Albani collection; Cardinal text reveals continued interest in

governments. Alessandro Albani begins his Early Christian art and architecture,
SSSt second collection of antiquities. extolled by Corsini intellectual
1729 Canonization of John of circles for their purity and honest
Nepomucene. An Essay Concerning Human expression.
Understanding, by the English
The birth of the dauphin to Louis XV philosopher John Locke, appears 1738 The Peace of Vienna marks the end
of France and his queen, Maria on the Index. of the War of the Polish Succession;
Leczinska. is celebrated widely in Augustus 111, Elector of Saxony, is

Rome with events organized by The Bourbons reconquer Naples recognized as king of Poland:
Cardinal dc Polignac. from the Habsburgs and, after Austria loses Naples and Sicily and
installing Charles VII (the future gains Parma and Piacenza.
Charles III of Spain) on the throne
CLEMENT XII of Naples, demand recognition of Clement XII issues the anti-masonic
(Lorenzo Corsini) the new king from Clement XII. bull In eminent!.

1730-1740
born: April 7. 1652 1735 Work begins on Alessandro Excavations at Herculancum begin
Fig. 54 Filippo della Valle, Pope Clement XII elected: July 12, 1730 Galilei's facade of St. John Lateran, in earnest.
(Lorenzo Corsini), marble; Biblioteca possesso: November 19, 1730 Ferdinando Fuga's Palazzo della
Corsiniana. Rome died: February 6, 1740 Consulta. and Giuseppe Sardi's 17 39 Theerucial Renaissance architec-
church of the Maddalena. tural treatise by Jacopo Barozzi da
1^30 Lione Pascoli publishes the first Vignola Regola delli cinque ordini di det-

volume of Vile de'pittori, scultori, ed t'architettura appears in a new edition.

architctti modemi, a key collection of
biographies of seventeenth- and The important medical treatise

eighteenth-century artists. Deluciiazioni fisko medkhe tcnaVriti

,1 1 ii human- la mcJicina parka alia
John V of Portugal initiates a prcziosa purita in cui la loscto Ugamdt
massive sculptural commission for Ippocrate, In 1 »ii inigi Andrea
his new palace and basilica in Mafra, Sancassani. is published
involving Rome's leading sculptors, posthumously.
including Monaldi, Lironi, Giuseppe
Rusconi, Maini, Della Valle, Bracci,
and Ludovisi, as well as artists from
Fig. ss PierLeone Ghczzi, The Death of other Italian cities.
Saint (auliana Falconieri, 1737, oil on canvas;
Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica. Rome,
Palazzo Corsini

CHRONOLOGY 107
 1740 Frederick II (the Great) ascends the C45 Jacobite rebellion in Britain. 1749 Ruggcro Giuseppe Boscovich
throne of Prussia. instigated in large pan through publishes De detcrminanda orlnla
the Stuarts in Rome. planetae ope catopricac. illustrating the
Charles VI Habsburg of Austria dies; leading role of Jesuit scientists in the
Maria Theresa succeeds him, pro- Church reform stipulates that boys < ollegio Romano in the study of
voking the War of the Austrian ordained before the age of sixteen Newtonian physics and astronomy.
Succession, which will last until must now decide for themselves

1748. Although it begins as a conflict whether to take a vow of celibacy The Pinacoteca Capitolina. a public
between Austria and Prussia over at seventeen. This practice prevents museum of Vatican paintings, opens
Silesia, the war expands as England parents from placing unwilling sons with a core of 187 pictures purchased
and the Netherlands join Austria, in the priesthood. from the Sachctti collection.
while Spain. France, and Bavaria
join Prussia. Benedict XIV weakens the ban on 1750 Jubilee year. Fig. 56 Giovanni Paolo Panini. Pope Benedict
usury. X/ V Prospero Lambertini) and Cardinal
( Silvio

Leonardo da Porto Maurizio Valeria' Conzaga. oil on canvas;

BENEDICT XIV 1 -4(1 The Jacobites are defeated at establishes the Stations of the Cross Museo di Roma. Rome
(Prospero Lambertini) Culloden in Scotland. in the Colosseum, a centerpiece of
1-40-1758 the jubilee that firmly establishes the
born: March 31. 1675 Canonization of Fidclis of cult.

elected: August 17, 1740 Sigmaringen, Giuseppe da Leonessa.

possesso: April 30. 1741 Camillo de Lcllis. Pedro Regalato. John V of Portugal dies and Peter II
died: May j, 1758 and Caterina de' Ricci. assumes the throne. Sebastian Jose
de Carvalho, first Marques de
1740 Benedict XIV announces a special Secular reform restricts use of the Pombal. ascends in Portugal as

jubilee in honor ol his papacy. title of nobilis romanos to 187 families. prime minister.

1-41 Benedict XIV reaches a concordat 1-4- The chapel of St. |ohn the Baptist, Girolamo Belloni writes Del comcrcio.
with Savoy, initiating his policy of designed by Luigi Vanvitelli for an influential treatise on economic
conciliation with secular rulers. S. Roque in Lisbon (with paintings reform.
and decorative arts by a team of

Construction begins on Fcrdinando Rome's leading practitioners), is 1751 Stefano Zucchino Stefani publishes
Fuga's facade of S. Maria Maggiore. unveiled and temporarily mounted Lo specchio del disinganno per conoscere Fig. 57 Ferdinando Fuga, exterior of the
inside the Palazzo Capponi-Cardelli la deformita del moderno costume, an Coffee House del Quirinale, Rome
Giovanni Gaetano Bottari with Piero for the approval of the Portuguese example of the strict moral reform
Francesco Foggini publishes the first ambassador before shipment in toto that accompanied the spiritual

volume ol ancient sculptures in the to Lisbon. revival of the jubilee.

Museo Capitolino, with engravings

based on drawings by Giovanni Baptism no longer required of 1752 The ancient Greek erotic novel
Domenico Campiglia. Jewish children in Rome, an De' racconti amorosi di Chcrea e Calliroe.

indication of increased tolerance by Chariton, appears in a new

1742 Economic reform: the pope reaffirms of Roman Jews. translation by Michele Angelo
the peasants' right to glean fields. Giacomelli.
Giuseppe Vasi publishes the first

1-4; The Coffee House in the Quirinal volume of Dclk magnificenze di Roma Benedict XIV issues a special brief
Gardens opens, designed by untied c modema. condemning the philosophes;
Ferdinando Fuga, with interior Charles-Louis Montesquieu's
paintings by a team that includes 1748 The War of the Austrian Succession Esprit des lois and Diderot's
Batoni, Panini, Pier Leone Ghezzi, ends with the Treaty of Aix-la- Encyclopedic appear on the Index. Fig. 58 Pierre Subleyras. The Mystical
Costanzi, Van Bloemen, and Chapelle and Prussian victory, Marriage of Saint Caterina de' Ricci. c. 1746, oil

Masucci. establishing Prussia as the leading 1753 Annibale Carracci's frescoes in the on canvas; private collection, Rome
European power; Maria Theresa Palazzo Farnese are published in

Benedict XIV creates twenty-six new confirmed as empress of Austria. Acdium Farnesiarum tabulae ab An.
cardinals, including the future Pope Caracci depictac. a C. Cacsio aeri
Pius VI. Pompeii is discovered. insculptae alque a L. Philarchaeo

explicationibus illustratae.

Benedict XIV initiates tax reform to Giambattista Nolli publishes his

reduce a serious deficit. map of Rome. Niiovii piiititii Ji Roma 1754 Etienne-Francois. Due de Choiseul,
data in luce. is named French ambassador to
Major restoration of the Rome.
Colosseum begins. Giovanni Battista Piranesi publishes

Vedute di Roma, which would be Another earthquake strikes Rome.

1744 Charles VII Bourbon of Naples reissued with numerous editions,
enters Rome to meet with the pope substitutions, and changes The Accademia del Nudo opens
after six months of war in the Papal throughout the artist's career. on the Capitoline Hill, with Stefano
Statesbetween Habsburg Austria Pozzi as first director.
and Bourbon Spain and Naples. The Vatican purchases the Ottoboni
library, the most important Roman 1755 An earthquake levels Lisbon.

The author and adventurer Giovanni collection of books and manuscripts

Giacomo Casanova arrives in Rome. in private hands, part of the pope's The Teatro Tordinona presents
commitment to expanding the papal II vecchio bizzoro, by the Venetian
Benedict XIV fixes the limits of collections. playwright Carlo Goldoni, the
Rome's rioni (districts), and dominant voice ol eighteenth-
Bernardino Bernardini publishes the The controversial restoration of the century Italian theater.
results in Dcscrizionc del nuovo dome of St.Peter's by Luigi Vanvitelli
riparlimcnlo de' rioni di Roma. and Giovanni Poleni concludes.

10X ( IIKONOI.OGY
 1756 France and Austria agree to the first 1762 TheTrevi Fountain is finally com- 1766 James Stuart, the "Old Pretender,''

Treaty of Versailles, paving the way pleted: waters rush in from the Aqua dies in Rome.
for the Seven Years' War, which pits Vergine, a major source of Rome's
England, Prussia, and Denmark water since antiquity. Gotthold Ephraim Lessing publishes
against France, Austria, Russia, Laokoon, oder. Ubcrdie (renzen der
Saxony. Spain, and Sweden (the first Elizabeth I Romanov oi Russia dies Malerei und Poesie, an influential
Bourbon-Habsburg alliance in three and is succeeded by Catherine II (the theoretical treatise on the
centuries). Great). distinction of the visual arts
from literature.

L'Antigono, composed in Rome by Francesco Algarotti publishes Saggio

Christoph Willibald Cluck, setting sopra I'opera in musica and Saggio sopra Piranesi completes the remodeling
a text by Pietro Metastasio. receives lii pittura, tracts that condemn of S. Maria del Priorato, the church
its first performance in the Teatro Rococo and Mannerist excesses of the Knights of Malta on the
Argentina. and theater and urge
in art, music, Aventine Hill.

adherence to High Renaissance aca-

Piranesi publishes Leantiehila romane. demic principles. 1767 Charles III Bourbon expels the
Fig. 59 Ottonc Hamerani, Pope Clement Kill Jesuits from Spain and Naples.
(Carlo Rczzonico). bronze; Philadelphia 1757 Giovanni Gaetano Bottari publishes Mengs publishes Gcdanken ubcrdie

Museum of Art, Bequest of Anthony Morris the first volume of Raccolta di kttere Schonluit und ubcr den Geschmack in dcr Canonization of Joseph Calasanz,
Clark sulla pitttira, scultura e architettura, an Malercy, reaffirming Giovanni Pietro Jeanne-Francoisc Fremot de
influential compilation of corre- Bellori's seventeenth-century notion Chantal, Joseph of Copertino,
spondence on art from the of ideal beauty and valorizing Jana Kantego, Girolamo Maini.
Renaissance forward. Raphael, Titian, and Corrcggio as and Serafino da Montcgranaro.
the prime exemplars of buon gusto.
The Salone d'Oro at the Palazzo
CLEMENT XIII 176; The Treaty of Paris and the Treaty of Chigi is completed for the wedding
(Carlo Rczzonico) Hubertusberg end the Seven Years' of Don Sigismondo Chigi and
1758-1769 War with the victory of England and Donna Maria Flaminia Odescalchi:
born: March 7. 1693 Prussia: Prussia emerges as one of this influential interior design

elected: )uly 6, 1758 Europe's key powers and British project by Giovanni Stern.
possesso: December 12, 1758 primacy in North America and India Tommaso Righi. and Luigi Valadier

died: February 2, 1769 is assured. marks a departure from the

Fig. 60 Anton Raphael Mengs, Parnassus, prevailing Rococo style in favor of
1761, fresco; Villa Albani, Rome 1758 Esposizione del simboio dclla jede cat- Excavations begin along the Tiber the new classicism.
tolica, the Italian translation of to improve navigation.
Francois-Philippe Mesenguy's 1768 The Accademia di S. Luca initiates

Jansenist catechism, is published, Pagliarini publishes the annotated the Concorso Balestra.
marking the escalation of collabora- fifth edition of Filippo Titi's Nuovo
tion between religious reformers studio di pittura, scuhura cd arcliitcttura Bartolomeo Cavaceppi publishes the
and secular Italian rulers; the work nelle chicsc di Roma, the primary first volume of Raccolta d'antiehe statue
is placed on the Index in 1761. guidebook of eighteenth-century . . . restaurate da Bartolomeo Cavaceppi,
Rome. romano.
1759 With the urging of prime minister
Pombal, Peter II of Portugal expels 1764 Louis XV expels the Jesuits from Clement XIII condemns and annuls
the Jesuits, beginning the suppres- France. the anti-ecclesiastical actions of the
sion of the order. duke of Parma in the bull Monitorum,
Cesare Beccaria anonymously arguing that the papacy has supreme
Marco Pagliarini publishes a new publishes Dei oVIitti e dcllc penc, a authority in all Church-related
version of The Lives of the Artists, by hugely influential proposal for matters: European monarchs
Giorgio Vasari, with illustrations criminal justice reform based on universally ignore the bull.
and corrections by Bottari. rational principles and rejecting
the death penalty: the book is
1760 George II of England dies and is suc- placed on the Index in 1766.
ceeded by his son George III.

Johann Joachim Winckelmann

The publisher Niccolo Pagliarini is publishes Geschichte dcr Kunsl des
arrested for printing anti-)esuit liter- Akertums.
ature anonymously.
The drought of 1763-64 leads to
1761 Anton Raphael Mengs reveals his massive grain shortages and hunger
fresco Parnassus in the Villa Albani, in Italy. Clement XIII establishes

hailed as a pivotal statement of the shelters and food distribution

Fig. 61 Giuseppe Cades, The Ecslacy of new classicism. centers, but the cost of importing
Saint joscph ofCopcrtino, 1779, oil on canvas; grain provokes an economic crisis.

church of Ss. Apostoli, Rome Jean Barbault publishes l.es plus beaux

monuments de Rome aneienne. 1765 Clement XIII approves the Feasl and
Mass of the Sacred Heart, the first

Piranesi publishes Dclla magnificenza broad official papal recognition of

cd architettura del romani, promoting the popular cult.
the notion of the originality and
artistic autonomy of Roman art Clement XIII issues the bull

from that of ancient Greece. Apostolu 11m pascendi mumus in

support 11I the Jesuits, resisting
strong pressure from Bourbon
Spain and France.

(TIRONOICH.Y 1O0
 CLEMENT XIV 1773 Clement XIV abolishes the Jesuit 1777 Construction work begins on the 1782 Pius VI visits Joseph II of Austria
(Giovan Vincenzo Antonio order in his brief Dominic ac Linea Pia. a hydraulic drainage canal in Vienna, attempting to forestall
Ganganelli) redemptor. running along via Appia designed Habsburg ecclesiastical reforms;

1769-1774 by Gaetano Rappini; this project state visit of the pope to Venice.
born: October 31, 1705 Filippo Maria Renazzi publishes the leads to the successful reclamation
elected: May 19, 1769 first volume of Elcmcnta juris aiminalis, of the Pontine Marshes southeast of The play Antigone, by Vittorio Alfieri,
possesso: November 26, 1769 a notable work of the Roman Rome for agriculture, the most is performed as a private reading in
died: September 22, 1774 Enlightenment, proposing to notable Roman engineering the Roman salon of Maria
systematize Roman criminal law accomplishment of the latter half Cuccovilla Pizzelli, marking the
1769 Clement XIV announces a special according to rational principles. of the century. birth of Italian tragedy, a form that
jubilee for the Papal States. would grow to dominate Italian

Cardinal Francois Joachim de Pierre Pius VI initiates a wide swath of theater in subsequent decades.
Gavin Hamilton and Piranesi initiate de Bernis named French
is economic reforms (for taxation,

new excavations at Hadrian's Villa, ambassador to Rome. currency, agriculture, industry, Giovanni Battista and Ennio
uncovering some of the most sensa- and commerce) that results in Quirino Visconti publish the first

tional antiquities of the eighteenth 1774 Louis XV Bourbon of France dies; mixed success. volume of (I Masco Pio Clementino

century, including the Warwick Louis XVI ascends. descritto.

Vase; many objects are exported Severe flooding of the Tiber in

out of the country, to the alarm of Mariano Rossi is commissioned December continues into 1778. 1783 Gustav III of Sweden and Joseph II

the pope. to fresco Marcus Curius Camillas of Austria make celebrated visits to
Expelling the Gauls in the entrance 1778 Maria of Portugal and the papacy
I Rome.
Leopold Habsburg. Grand Duke of hall of the Villa Borghese, the reach a concordat, restoring the
Tuscany, begins to move the Medici capstone of the influential interior religious authority of the pope in Carlo Fea publishes the first volume
collection of antiquities from Rome decoration scheme of the villa. Portugal and marking the decisive of an edited Italian edition of
to Florence. end of the rift that began with Winckelmann's Gcschichte derKunst
minister Pombal. des Altcrtums, hotly contested among
Factions opposed to the Jesuits PIUS VI Italian scholars of antiquity.
promote the canonization of the (Giovan Angelo Braschi) Mengs exhibits his last major work.
Mexican anti-Jesuit hero Juan de 1775-V99 Perseus and Andromeda, in the artist's An impressive engineering feat by
Palafox y Mendoza with a new born: December 27, 1717 studio at the top of the Spanish Giovanni Antinori moves the
Italian translation of his seven- elected: February 15, 1775 Steps; the work's sensational enormous Dioscuri on the Piazza del

teenth-century treatise /I pastore possesso: November 50, 1775 reception announces the full Quirinale to their present position;
della notte. died: August 29, 1799 triumph of the new classicism. in 1786 the obelisk —discovered in

pieces near the Mausoleum of

1770 Clement XIV honors the fourteen- 1775 Jubilee year and apogee of the Grand 1779 Luigi Valadier mounts the Vatican Augustus in 1^81 —
will be moved

year-old Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Tour: Archduke Maximilian of cameo collection. to its present position between the
as a knight of the Golden Spur. Austria; William Henry. Earl of statues.
Gloucester and brother of George III 1780 During Carnival. Domenico
The Museo Clementino opens to of England; Leopold of Ansprach- Cimarosa performs his first opera The Treaty of Paris marks the
stem the tide of ancient art exported Bayreuth; the princes of Brunswick: seria. Caio Mario, with a libretto by formal end of the American War
from Rome; major restructuring of and Charles Theodor, the Elector Gaetano Roccaforte, at the for Independence.
the Vatican antiquities collection Palatine, all come to Rome. Teatro della Dame.
begins. 1784 To popular and critical acclaim.

L'arte della pittura, a new Italian Maria Theresa Habsburg of Austria lacqucs-Louis David exhibits
In England James Hargreaves translation of the treatise on art dies, succeeded by Joseph II. The Oalh of the Horatii in his Roman
receives a patent for the spinning by Charles-Alphonse du Fresnoy. sttidio near the Spanish Steps
jenny, marking the onset of the appears, dedicated to Cardinal Carlo 1781 Girolamo Adelasio publishes before he ships the work to Paris.

Industrial Revolution. Rezzonico. De eletricitate, an example of the

important scientific studies coming Giavambattista Occhiolini publishes
1771 Clement XIV announces another 1776 The festival of the Chinea ends out of Rome under Pius VI, Mcmoria sopra il meraviglioso frutlo

special jubilee. because Pius VI refuses to name promoted especially by Cardinal americano ehiamato volgarmcntc patata
Serafino Filangieri. the new, Francesco Saverio de Zelada. ossia pomodi terra, a treatise on the
Giovanni Cristoforo Amaduzzi. anticurial archbishop of Naples, potato, an example of the scientific
head of the Congregazionc di a cardinal. Francesco Milizia publishes Dell'artc studies linked to commercial enter-
Propaganda Fide press, begins di vedere nclle belle arti del disegno prises encouraged under Pius VI.

publication of an important series The Declaration of Independence secondo principi

i di Sultzcr f di Mengs.
of ancient and eastern alphabets is signed in Philadelphia. Giornale dcllc Belle Arti, one of the
{Alphabetum vcterum Etruscorum, German philosopher Immanuel chief art periodicals of the eigh-
Hcbraicum, Craecum, and Major architectural projects begin Kant publishes The Critique ofPure teenth century, begins publication;
Brammhamaun sen Indostanum). at the Vatican, signals of the new Reason. it continues to 1787.
pope's vigorous revival of papal
1772 Giovanni Ludovico Bianconi begins cultural power; they include the 1785 Earthquakes strike the Papal States
the Ejffcmcriiii letterarie, the first of the new sacristy of St. Peter's (by Carlo and Rome endures particularly
prominent intellectual journals to Marchionni) and two branches of severe flooding of the Tiber.
emerge in late eighteenth-century the Museo Pio-Clementino.
Rome. Pius VI creates fourteen new
The installation in the Pantheon cardinals.
The first partition of Poland is of honorific, sculptural portraits
carried out by Austria, Russia, honoring Italian artists begins Thomas Jenkins makes his
and Prussia. with the bust of Pietro Bracci by celebrated purchase of the Villa
Vincenzo Bracci; (he series Montalto-Negroni collection.
continues until its relocation in
the Capitol in 1820. The first issue of Giornale licclcsiastico

di Roma appears: the pro-papacy.

anti-Jansenist publication, led by
Luigi Cuccagni, continues to 1798.

IIO CMKONOI.OGY
 1786 Giovanni Volpato, Raphael 1792 Gustav III of Sweden is assassinated 1797 French troops invade the Papal
Morghen. and Costanzo Angelini inStockholm by a disgruntled States: Joseph Bonaparte becomes
publish I'rtncipj del disegno tratti dalle nobleman. ambassador of Rome: churches
piu ecellcnti statue antiche. induced to sell property to pay
Austria, Spain. Portugal, and Prussia French reparations from the
Pius VI makes his nephew unite against France, which defeats Armistice of Bologna.
Romualdo Braschi Onesti a cardinal, the coalition decisively five years
announcing the full-scale revival ol later. In the Treaty of Tolentino Pius VI
nepotism. renounces Avignon, Bologna, and
1793 A Roman mob kills the French Ferrara: the Papal States must pay a
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe visits lacobin diplomat Nicolas lean indemnity and release 500
vast cash

Rome for the first time. Hugou de Basseville after the important manuscripts and too
revolutionary flag is raised at the major antiquities and other works
Giovanni Volpato opens the papal Palazzo Mancini: a riot leads to of art to France.
porcelain works. general attacks against the French
and |ews in Rome. Prussia declares General Mathieu Etienne Duphot is

Scipione de' Ricci organizes the war on Austria: coalitions form killed attempting to quell a riot in

synod of Pistoia, an expression ol across Europe. front of the French ambassador's

the continued support for Jansenist house.
theology: foseph II of Tuscany Prussia and Russia agree to the
supports the movement, leading second partition of Poland. 1798 On January 11 General Louis-
toward schism. Alexandre Berthier occupies Rome
Fig. 62 Giuseppe Ceracchi, Pope Pius VI Tommaso Piroli publishes and secures the city within a month.
(Goran Angelo Braschi), marble: Galleria di 1787 Charles VII removes antiquities engravings after drawings by The pope is exiled. On February 15
Palazzo Rosso. Genoa from the Farnese collections to John Flaxman for a new edition of "L'Atto del popolo sovrano" is read
Naples. Homer's Iliad, a crucial vehicle for in the Forum, proclaiming the
the severe, classicizing, contour line Roman republic and officially
Antonio Canova unveils his drawing style. ending the existence of the
monument to Clement XIV in Papal States.
Ss. Apostoli, an influential Jacobin terror in France.
classicizing departure from 1799 The Directory in France ends;
Baroque sculpture formulae. 1794 Economic reforms under Pius VI Napoleon declares himself first
change course, concentrating now consul: the Roman republic col-
Carlo Fea revises and publishes on agricultural improvements lapses. Austria. Prussia, England,

Operc. by Mengs. one of the most instead of the earlier focus on Portugal, Naples, and the Ottoman
significant texts of art theory and industrial development. empire form a second coalition
criticism of the eighteenth century. against France, which will last

Giacomo Panacci publishes the until 1802.

Aristodemo. a tragedy by Vincenzo Eserrizio della Via Cruris, leading to the

Monti, dominates the theatrical beatification of Leonardo da Porto Pius VI dies in Valence; Pius VII
Fig. 63 Francesco Manno, Study for "Carlo season at theTeatro Valle. Maurizio in 1796. restores papal rule in Rome the
Marchionni Offering his Project for the New following year.
Sacristy of St. Peter's to Pope Pius VI," 1788, The American constitution is Pius VI issues the bull Auctorem fidei,

oil on canvas: Fabrizio Lemme. Rome approved. condemning thirty-five of the

propositions of the t~86 synod of
1789 The French Revolution erupts. Pistoia.

Severe flooding of the Tiber. 1-95 Asmus Jakob Carstens holds an

influential exhibition of drawings
1790 After the death of Joseph II of in his via Bocca di Leone studio.
Austria his brother Leopold leaves
Tuscany to take the throne. Poland disappears from the map.
following the third partition by
Pius VI announces a special jubilee Austria, Russia, and Prussia.
of eight days for the city of Rome on
May 8. Luigi Lanzi publishes the first

volume of Storia pittorico della Italia.

Fig. 64 Alessandro Mochetti, The Departure Sigismondo Chigi is accused of

of Pius V! Pope Braschi from Rome in 1-98, 1801. attempting to poison Cardinal 1796 Napoleon's invasion of Italy begins
engraving from a design of G. Beys: Filippo Carandini. Nothing is proven with victories in northern Italy
Museo di Roma. Rome but Chigi is exiled, an event perceived against the armies of Austria and
as a blatant attempt of the Braschi Savoy: the French invasion of the
family to seize Chigi property. papal territories of Bologna and
Ferrara follow. After the Armistice
_
i qi Pius VI condemns the actions of the of Bologna, talks between Pius VI
National Assembly in Paris, putting and France fail.

the papacy in official opposition to

the progress of the French Ennio Quirinio Visconti publishes
Revolution. Sculturc del Puliizzo della Villa Borghese.

Construction begins of the Palazzo

Braschi. designed by Cosimo
Morelli. the last palace constructed
by any pope.

Fig. 65 Felice Giani, The Roman Republic Pius VI announces (on

(Study for the Letterhead of the Consulate of the November 24) another special jubilee
Roman Republic), pen and wash on paper; of eight days for the city of Rome.
Museo Napoleonico, Rome

( I IKONOI 0(,V
 —

Architecture and Urbanism

JOHN PINTO

The eighteenth century was a period in which others."' By comparison with the developing 1680 and 1750. The second half of this volume
patrons, artists, and architects furnished Rome nation-states of northern Europe, the power consists of richly documented entries on 464
with many of its most admired monuments and authority of the papacy had drastically architects active in Rome during this period. 7

and shaped the city's cumulative urban coun- declined. In spite of the efforts of eighteenth- These are the figures, who, although often in

tenance. It is evident not only from single century popes —notably Clement XI and bitter competition with one another, gave final

images, such as Giambattista Nolli's plan of Clement XII — the economy of

to foster trade, shape to papal Rome.
1748 and Ciuseppe Vasi's panoramic view of the Papal States languished. 4 Diderot's assertion Architects practicing in eighteenth-century

1765, but also from compilations of prints, that Rome's dominant position in the arts was Rome were heirs not only to the accomplish-
such as Piranesi's Vedute di Roma and Vasi's no longer absolute is certainly accurate, but it ments of their seventeenth-century predeces-
Magnificenze, that it was during the eighteenth failed to acknowledge the central role she con- sors, but to the traditions and artifacts of what
century that papal Rome received its definitive tinued to play as the school of Europe and the Paolo Portoghesi aptly termed an "architectural
form, which endured until the city's transfor- contributions her most outstanding architects civilization" extending back through the
mation into the capital of unified Italy in 1870. were making at the very time he was writing. Renaissance to the monuments of classical
8
At the same time, it was a period when, Diderot's Enlightenment attitudes, con- antiquity. The case of Filippo Juvarra provides
through the countless prints as well as the sciously stressing secular notions of progress an instructive illustration. When Juvarra
experiences of several generations of aristocrats and unconsciously expressing the cultural entered Carlo Fontana's studio in 1704 he was
on the Grand Tour, an awareness of Roman values of France, exerted a powerful influence set to drawing buildings by Michelangelo; his

monuments, ancient and modern, spread on the scholarly reception of Italian art and sketchbooks also contain numerous drawings
throughout Europe. The impressive series of architecture of the eighteenth century for two after the masters of the Roman Baroque
prints by Falda, Vasi, and Piranesi collectively hundred years. Until relatively recently, art Bernini, Borromini, Pietro da Cortona, and
illustrate the city's highly textured and densely historians tended to accept a destiny-fulfilling Carlo Rainaldi — as well as sketches of ancient

layered urban structure. When Vasi published view of the eighteenth century that considers Roman monuments."
his panoramic view, he could count on an French art more advanced and qualitatively
international audience for whom the identifi- superior. Historians of Italian art have focused
URBANISM
cation of monuments such as St. Peter's, the on the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, to
Capitoline Hill, Castel S. Angelo, and the the relative neglect of the eighteenth century, In general, the scale of urban interventions
Pantheon was unnecessary, and who would when the arts were thought to be in decline in Rome became more modest during the
also recognize a contemporary building such compared with their glorious past. The criti- eighteenth century, resembling rather more
as the Palazzo Corsini, which occupies a cism of Francesco Milizia and other rationalists, the model of Pietro da Cortona's piazza in front

prominent place in the foreground. Vasi's who condemned what they considered to be of S. Maria della Pace than Bernini's enormous
panorama of Rome viewed from the Janiculum the excesses of Baroque designers," also con- St. Peter's Square. Taken together, however, the
Hill captures in a single image the majestic tributed to the neglect of Roman eighteenth- efforts of eighteenth-century architects and
setting of the city framed by the Sabine and century architecture. planners may be said effectively to have trans-
Alban Hills, what Garibaldi, the defender of With relatively few exceptions, intensive formed the outward appearance of the city.

the Janiculum heights, would later call "the scrutiny of eighteenth-century Roman art and The first major eighteenth-century adjust-
greatest theatre in the world." 1

architecture began only in the last generation. ment to the urban fabric was the Porto di

Goethe's enthusiastic remarks upon his Rudolf Wittkower's Art and Architecture in Italy, Ripetta, the city's upper river port near the
arrival in Rome in 1786 illustrate the extent to 1600-1750 appeared in 1957. Wittkower's book, Mausoleum of Augustus (fig. 66)."' Designed
which the city had become the cultural prop- together with the 1959 exhibition Jl Settccento a in 1703 by Alessandro Specchi, the Porto di
erty of all Europe: "Now, at last, I have arrived Roma, demonstrated the richness and variety
in the First City of the world! ... All the of Roman art in the eighteenth century and
dreams of my youth have come to life provided an invaluable point of reference for
Diderot's entry on Rome in the Encyclopedic, scholars. Wittkower's call for monographic
written around the middle of the century, studies of major artists, architects, and monu-
presents a more critical assessment: "It is true ments did not go unheeded, and in the last
that from the days of Julius II and Leo X until several decades the publication of a number of
the middle of the last century Rome was the specialized works has expanded and deepened
center of the fine arts, but it has rapidly been our understanding of the period." The work of
equaled by some of them and surpassed in synthesizing the scholarship of the last forty
years has yet to occur, but for architecture an
important step was taken in the exhibition
(opposite) detail of Filippo Juvarra, Central-plan catalogue In urbe architectus (1991), devoted to
Church Project, 1707 (cat. 11) the architectural profession in Rome between 66 Alessandro Specchi, Porto
Fij>. di Ripetta, 1703

ARCHITECTURE
 Fig. 68 Ferdinando Fuga, Palazzo della Consulta,

1733-37

Fig. 67 Nicola Salvi, Trevi Fountain, 1732-62

Ripetta introduced a theme —the imaginative was initially conceived as a monument to the
use of curving stairs to express movement from glory of the French monarchy and was paid
one level to another — that would be further for out of the bequest of a French diplomat. Fig. 69 Filippo Raguzzini, Piazza S. Ignazio, 1727-35
developed in the Spanish Steps and in such Politically and visually, the steps relate to the

painted compositions as Hubert Robert's French church of the Trinita dei Monti above,
Capriccio of 1761. Specchi's print representing rather than to the Spanish embassy below. In fig. 69)." Working within the existing street
his own design captures the bustling activity the 1660s the French went so far as to solicit a pattern, Raguzzini constructed five apartment
focused on the sinuous steps ascending to the design for a permanent staircase on the hill- blocks that defined a square in front of the
preexisting church of S. Girolamo degli sidewhere so many ephemeral displays had great Jesuit church dedicated to St. Ignatius.
Schiavoni. The improvement of the port facili- been built. This staircase would have had as its The buildings are related to one another by
ties and the construction of a custom house was centerpiece an equestrian monument of means of three tangent circles which generate
one of the initiatives taken by Clement XI to Louis XIV. The erection of such a monument their curving ground plans and facade
encourage commerce in Rome and the Papal in the heart of papal Rome would have elevations. The delicate, cursive forms of
States. Specchi's scenographic arrangement, constituted a visual affront to the pope and Raguzzini's structures are in conscious contrast
displaced by the Tiber embankments in 1890, a thumbing of the Gallic nose at the embassy to the monumentality of Orazio Grassi's
counts among the most serious losses to the of their arch-rivals, the Spanish. As such, it colossal Baroque facade, to which they do not
city's inventory of eighteenth-century buildings. was not sanctioned. relate in scale, materials, or pretensions.
The Spanish Steps, constructed between After a hiatus of several decades, Pope The traditional relationship between a
1723 and 1728, provided a visual link between the Clement XI revived the project, favoring a major architectural monument and its urban
seventeenth-century Barcaccia Fountain at the design by Alessandro Specchi. The French setting has been reversed. Raguzzini's square
base of the Pincian Hill and the sixteenth- Minims preferred to employ their own archi- does not exist primarily to set off the church,

century church of the Trinita dei Monti above." tect, Francesco de Sanctis, and since the French which cannot in any case be viewed comfort-
Since the seventeenth century the embassy of controlled the purse strings they eventually ably from within its confines; rather, it is from
the Spanish crown has fronted on the piazza at prevailed. Significantly, De Sanctis's executed the ample stairs of the church that the observer
the bottom of the hill, giving it the name of design betrays the clear influence of the propos- is invited to view the domestic structures
Piazza di Spagna. The church of the Trinita dei als of Bernini and Specchi.'Through the sinuous defining the piazza. The audience has been
Monti at the top of the hill belonged to a French play of reentrant curves de Sanctis effected a invited on stage, as it were, to enjoy the specta-
religious order, the Minims, and had been fluid civic armature that facilitates movement cle of city life, which takes place in the stalls

associated with the French crown since the early but also encourages passers-by to pause and and boxes that Raguzzini, with consummate
sixteenth century. During the seventeenth and admire the spectacle of the city or engage in skill, carved out of the surrounding urban
eighteenth centuries, as these two Catholic- conversation. In this respect, the Spanish Steps fabric. It is precisely Raguzzini's inversion of
powers vied with one another for dominance are overtly scenographic in nature, providing the accepted relationships in Baroque plan-
in Europe, the hillside became a hotly con- a dignified urban stage on which the drama of ning that gives the Piazza S. Ignazio its charm
tested space. daily life continues to be played out. and compelling interest."

The English name given to the staircase is Following closely on the construction of In the course of the eighteenth century the
misleading, for in spite of its vicinity to the the Spanish Steps, Filippo Raguzzini designed surroundings of the papal summer palace on
Piazza di Spagna and the Spanish embassy, it the exquisite Piazza S. Ignazio (1727-35; the Quirinal were developed into a monumen-

114 ARCHITF.O URF

tal complex providing for the needs of the papal The enormous scale of the Trevi in relation

household and government offices. In 1721-24 to its urban environment constitutes another
Alessandro Specchi began to define the Piazza characteristically Baroque feature of its design.
Monte Cavallo with the construction of the Like the facades of so many seventeenth-
papal stables. Ferdinando Fuga added the century churches, the sheer mass of the Trevi
magnificent Palazzo della Consulta (i733~37; dominates the square, an effect compounded
fig. 68) and extended the Palazzo del Quirinale by the way in which the fountain proper
along strada Pia with the addition of the Manica moves out from the facade to occupy most of
Lunga and the Palazzina delle Cifre (1731-33)- In the area comprising the piazza. Moreover, the

1766 Paolo Posi further expanded the Quirinal disparity in scale between the Trevi and the
complex with the construction of the palace surrounding buildings is increased by their
for the papal famiglia and the First Datary. 14 proximity to one another. The immediate Fig. 70 Alessandro Galilei, St. John Lateran, 1732-35
Three other squares were embellished in visual impact of the fountain is in large part a

the eighteenth century. In 1711 Clement XI function of its particular urban setting, which
had the Piazza della Rotonda in front of the Salvi accepted, adapting his design to exploit

Pantheon cleared, and commissioned Filippo the peculiarities of the site so that, in his own
Barigioni to erect a small obelisk over the pre- words, "this irregularity may serve in some
existing fountain designed by Giacomo della way as an adornment of the whole work."' 6
Porta.' 5 In the mid-i730S the approaches to
Palazzo Montecitorio were embellished with
CHURCH RENOVATIONS
new buildings, and the Piazza di Trevi was
transformed by the construction of Nicola In the course of the eighteenth century the
Salvi's great fountain. fabric of the city was greatly enriched by the
The Trevi Fountain is perhaps the most erection of numerous new church facades that
overtly scenographic of all examples of provided visual accents to preexisting streets
Baroque city planning (fig. 67). Not only does and squares:'" via Giulia, for example, was
its architecture function as a grand urban enlivened by three new facades: Fuga's S. Maria Fig. 71 Ferdinando Fuga, S. Maria Maggiore, facade,
scaenaefrons (scenic frontispiece), but the stairs dell'Orazione e Morte, Posi's S. Caterina da 1741-43

leading down to the fountain serve to accom- Siena, and Alessandro Galilei's S. Giovanni
modate an audience. The sculptural figures dei Fiorentini.

appear to enter upon the rustic stage com- After the virtual completion of the exterior and overtly Baroque design (fig. 71)-'" Fuga was
prised of the scogli, or imitation marine reefs. of St. Peter's by the end of the seventeenth constrained by the need to preserve and main-
The marble figures enact an event —the adven- century, successive popes turned their atten- tain visible the medieval mosaics on the preex-
tus of Oceanus — that has close parallels in tion to the embellishment of the other major isting facade. His solution, a two-story facade
contemporary dramatic compositions. basilicas. In 1725 Alessandro Specchi added a with a portico below and a benediction loggia
Salvi conceived and executed the design for portico to the facade of S. Paolo fuori le Mura, above, in its open transparency allows the
the Trevi Fountain in consciously theatrical but this was only a modest intervention com- mosaics to be admired from below. More suc-
terms. Pietro Bracci's mythological figures move pared to the construction of a magnificent cessfully than in any other of his buildings,
out aggressively from the plane of the facade new facade for St. John Lateran undertaken Fuga established a rhythmic play of
toward the audience gathered to observe the during the first years of the pontificate of chiaroscuro effects and contrasting relation-
continuing spectacle. The water over which Clement XII. A great many architects com- ships of mass and void. On both levels the
Oceanus rides in his shell chariot is sonorous peted for this commission, including Nicola pediments carried by his two superimposed
and constantly moving, which attracts specta- Salvi and Luigi Vanvitelli, but the project was systems of orders project upward into attic

tors, thus engaging them as active participants eventually entrusted to Alessandro Galilei. levels, thus introducing vertical accents that
in the scene. Salvi's exquisite choreography Galilei's facade, employing a colossal order of culminate in Giuseppe Lironi's statue of the
blurs the traditional barriers separating illusion pilasters and engaged columns (fig. 70), con- Virgin and Child (see fig. 27). The tension
and reality by uniting sculpture and architec- sciously incorporates features of Maderno's between vertical and horizontal elements,
ture, which climax in the central cascade. design for the facade of St. Peter's. In its rigor- and between curving and prismatic forms, as
The success of Salvi's grand theater is in ous interlocking structure of vertical and hori- well as the superb rhythmic scansion of Fuga's
large part the result of the total environment zontal elements, the facade also reflects facade for S. Maria Maggiore clearly distinguish
he created. While the architectural backdrop, Galilei's close study of Renaissance architec- it from the restraint of Galilei's more severe
sculpture, and water naturally dominate, the ture (notably the work of Michelangelo) and a and monumental work on the Lateran. Fuga
|S
observer's attention is further focused by the general interest in Vitruvian classicism. also renovated the interior of the basilica for
enveloping scogli and the embracing concavity Galilei was also responsible for the Corsini the holy year of 1750, collaborating with Pietro
of the stairs facing the main prospect. It is an Chapel in the Lateran (begun in 1734), which Bracci on the elegant high altar canopy.
important distinction that the Trevi is set provided the architectural framework for The restoration of the fourth major basilica,
off —but not cut off— from the piazza and the many of the most talented sculptors practic- S. Croce in Gerusalemme, was also commis-

neighboring streets. The bollards and elegant ing in Rome at this time." sioned by Benedict XIV. Domenico Gregorini's
railings provide a sense of security to observers Clement XII's successor, Benedict XIV, sinuous facade and oval atrium of 1-41-44
below but present no visual barrier to passers commissioned Ferdinando Fuga to erect a new (fig. 72) recall the work of his master. Filippo
by, who then succumb to the fountain's seduc- facade for the basilica of S. Maria Maggiore Juvarra, as well as several unexecuted projects
tive atmosphere of calm and refreshment. (1741-43), perhaps the architect's most spirited for the Lateran facade/' The atrium is one of

ARCHITECTURE US
 ——

Fig. 72 Domenico Gregorini and Pietro Passalacqua, Fig. 75 Filippo Raguzzini, Hospital of S. Gallicano,

S. Croce in Gerusalemme, 1741-44 1724-26

Fig. 73 Carlo Marchionni, St. Peter's, Sacristy, Fig. 74 Francesco Fontana, S. Maria ad Nives, 1706-8 Fig. 76 Gabriele Valvassori, Palazzo Doria Pamphili,

1776-84 1731

the most dynamic interior spaces of eighteenth- palace to the basilica. The relatively low pro- During the eighteenth century there was
century Rome. files of Marchionni's twin corridors only mini- also a marked increase in the quantity and
Many other churches were restored and mally interrupt the view of Michelangelo's quality of the city's charitable institutions. In
transformed internally, notably S. Clemente, imposing cliff face of masonry. Much as he the course of the century the hospice of
Ss. Giovanni e Paolo, and S. Marco. No less sig- had done earlier in designing the casino of the S. Michele along the Tiber was expanded
nificant was the construction of monasteries, Villa Albani, Marchionni adapted notably by Carlo Fontana under Clement XI
convents, and oratories. Notable among these Michelangelo's formal vocabulary, effectively and by Ferdinando Fuga under Clement XII

are the imposing Jesuit college centered on integrating his own design with that of its dis- to form an enormous centralized complex of
Fuga's S. Apollinare and Vanvitelli's tinguished Renaissance predecessor. Within buildings serving the needs of Rome's poor. In
monastery associated with S. Agostino. the octagonal core of the sacristy, Marchionni another quarter of Trastevere, Benedict XIII
The major eighteenth-century contribu- continued his synthetic approach, drawing on commissioned Filippo Raguzzini to erect the
was the con-
tion to the fabric of St. Peter's motifs from the work of Borromini and Pietro Hospital of S. Gallicano (fig. 75). Raguzzini's
struction of the sacristy between 1776 and da Cortona, which are integrated into a spare plan incorporated the most advanced views
1784 (fig. 73). The need to provide an adequate and planar geometric matrix characteristic of regarding hospital design, particularly where
sacristy and suitable lodgings for the canons the later eighteenth century. ventilation was concerned. In 1742 Benedict XIV
of the basilica had long been recognized, and commissioned Ferdinando Fuga to expand the
earlier in the century had prompted competi- hospital of S. Spirito; significantly, both
numerous designs and
tions that resulted in
RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENTS AND hospitals continue to function today.
CHARITABLE INSTITUTIONS
models, such as those of Filippo (uvarra and
Nicola Michetti." Apart from the expense of The prints in the seventh and eighth books of
PALACES
the enterprise, the need to adapt the sacristy Vasi's Magnificenze illustrate numerous minor
to the vast scale of the basilica posed daunting religious establishments that were erected in The construction of private palaces, many
problems. Pius VI Braschi, who had been a the course of the eighteenth century. Modest on a grand scale, continued throughout the
canon of St. Peter's before becoming pope, though many of these were, they offered century. To cite only three notable examples,
entrusted the Roman architect Carlo important opportunities for patronage. New via del Corso was aggrandized through the

Marchionni with the task of building the oratories were also constructed to serve many construction of Alessandro Specchi's Palazzo
sacristy.
2 '
of these religious communities. Among the de Carolis (1714-24) and Gabriele Valvassori 's
Marchionni drew inspiration from the most outstanding are Francesco Fontana's Palazzo Doria Pamphili (1731; fig. 76), while
earlier sacristy projects in designing a free- S. Maria ad Nives (fig. 74), the oratory of the SS. along via della Lungara Ferdinando Fuga erected
standing block crowned by a dome. Following Sacramento in Piazza Poli, and the oratory of the Palazzo Corsini (1736-54). In marked con-
the lead of juvarra and Michetti, he used corri- the SS. Annunziata associated with the church trast to the almost unrelieved flatness of the
dors to connect the sacristy and canons' of S. Spirito in Sassia. long street facade, the rear elevation of the

116 AKCHrn-cTURi;
Fig. 77 Nicola Michetti, Palazzo Colonna, 1732—33

Fig. 79 Cosimo Morelli, Palazzo Braschi, 1791-93

Large family palaces continued to be con- VILLAS AND GARDENS

structed until the end of the century, and the
imposing Palazzo Braschi (fig. 79), built for the Nolli's plan, Vasi's panorama, and Diderot's
Fig. 78 Alessandro Dori, Casa Giannini on Piazza family of Pius VI, is perhaps the most outstand- description all record the remarkable extent to
Capranica, 1744-46 ing late example. The palace, begun in 1791 to which the densely built-up quarters of Rome,
the designs of Cosimo Morelli, was structurally concentrated in the bend of the Tiber, were
complete by 1793; however, work was inter- surrounded by open countryside. A close
Palazzo Corsini (visible in the center fore- rupted by the French occupation of Rome, and examination of the two prints reveals that,

ground of Vasi's 1765 panorama) projects boldly was only completed between 1802 and 1811. The contrary to Diderot's critical remarks, much
toward the extensive gardens that extend to trapezoidal plan adapts creatively to the of this peripheral area consisted of a garland
the summit of the Janiculum Hill, embracing complex site at the confluence of via Papale and of villas and their associated gardens. Many
the landscape and drawing light into its interior the Piazza Navona. Within, the grand staircase of these had been laid out in the seventeenth
in a way few Roman palaces can rival. The Michelangelo Simonetti's work in
recalls the century, but in the course of the next hundred
library of the Palazzo Corsini, its contents Museo Pio-Clementino of the Vatican. years significant additions were made to Rome's
intact and arranged according to a rich pictorial As well as the palaces of princely and papal green belt of villas, notably the Villa Corsini
program, remains one of Rome's most perfect families, a new domestic building type began and theVilla Albani. While the Villa Corsini

eighteenth-century interiors. to appear. The palace block consisted of a series was swept away during Garibaldi's defense of
In 1732-33 Nicola Michetti added a new of private apartments appropriate to the social the Janiculum heights, the Villa Albani survives
facade to the Palazzo Colonna facing Piazza status and financial means of middle-class substantially intact."
Ss. Apostoli, which provided a scenographic functionaries serving in the growing papal In 1756 Cardinal Alessandro Albani com-
frame for the ephemeral structures erected by bureaucracy.' 4 These blocks eventually became missioned Carlo Marchionni to build a casino
the Contestabile Colonna to celebrate the festi- so numerous that they changed the external on the suburban property he had acquired a
val of the Chinea (fig. 77). The interior of the aspect of the city. Important early examples are short distance outside the Aurelian walls along
southern facade pavilion is perhaps the light- the Casa Giannini in Piazza Capranica (fig. 78) via Salaria. " The main pavilion was designed
est and most delicate eighteenth-century and the neighboring Palazzo del Cinque, to to display the cardinal's remarkable collection
space in Rome. Unlike contemporary Rococo which may be added later examples, such as the of ancient sculpture, and Marchionni's draw-
interiors in France and Germany, however, wing of the Palazzo Doria facing the Piazza ings reveal that he devoted considerable atten-
Michetti's pavilion displays an emphatically Venezia and a palace in via dei Prefetti designed tion to their placement. Cardinal Albani was
tectonic approach to architecture. Not only by Giovanni Stern. the leading antiquarian scholar and collector
do exquisitely molded scagliola columns project in Rome, and with his librarian |ohann [oachim
boldly from the wall surface, but every detail Winckelmann, paved the way for Neoclassicism;
of the ornamentation serves to heighten an Anton Raphael Mengs's Parnassus, painted on
awareness of the continuing tension of load the vault ol the main salonc in 1761, provides a
and support, both real and perceived. pictorial distillation ol the new style.

ARCHITECTURE 117
 In contrast to the rich and inventive inter-

iors, the exterior of the main pavilion appears

to be relatively muted and retrospective, playing
variations on sixteenth- and seventeenth-
century models, notably Michelangelo's
Palazzo dei Conservatori and the loggia of the
Villa Mondragone at Frascati. By far the most
striking architectural features of the Villa
Albani are the pavilions in the form of temple-
fronts that project from the lateral wings of the
main pavilion. Here the new taste for Greek
art championed by Winckelmann in his publi-

cations is evident, although in a hybrid form

more reminiscent of Piranesi's nearly contem-
porary Pareresu I'architettura.

Much as the Villa Albani provided the

setting for antiquarian debate, the exquisite
garden of the Accademia dellArcadia on the
slopes of the Janiculum Hill furnished an
appropriate background for recitation of pas-
toral verse. Laid out by Antonio Canevari, a
member of the Arcadians, the so-called Bosco
Parrasio resembles nothing so much as a
rustic version of the Spanish Steps, which
were nearing completion in 1725 when ground
was broken on the Janiculum site. The curving
ramps leading up to the oval ampitheater
where the Academicians met to recite their
poetry express the metrics and imagery of the tant consequences for the development of through one of its windows the wooden beams
Arcadians admirably: graceful, free from pon- museums abroad, from Stockholm and used to provide temporary support for its vault
derous rhetoric and oppressive structure, and St. Petersburg to Paris and London. The reor- are visible. To the right, masons on the scaf-
fully integrated with nature. ganization and display of antiquities in the folding are engaged in raising the walls of the
Most of the great Roman gardens of the Museo Capitolino under Clement XII and Sala a Croce Greca, which suggests a date of
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries received Benedict XIV, and the creation of the Museo 1782-83. 28 The painting, for which there is a
new pavilions and landscape features in the Pio-Clementino in the Vatican along new, more preparatory drawing in the Albertina, Vienna,
course of the eighteenth. Valvassori's additions rational, and systematic lines must count as provides revealing insights into an eighteenth-
to the Villa Doria Pamphili, Fuga's Coffee House one of the signal contributions of eighteenth- century construction site, similar to those
in the Quirinal Gardens, and the transforma- century Rome to Western culture. offered earlier in the century by Michetti's
tion of part of the Villa Borghese into a land- The buildings in which such collections drawing of the interior of S. Apostoli under
29
scape garden all'ingkse at the hands of Mario were housed were intended to be an integral construction (cat. 15). At the right materials
Asprucci, Cristoforo Unterperger, and others part of the display. In the Vatican the architec- are being winched to the top of the scaffold,
are three notable examples. Unterperger's sham ture, together with its accompanying pictorial while in the middle ground are piles of poz-
ruin in the form of a Temple of Antoninus and program executed by Tommaso Maria Conca zolana (volcanic dust) and sand (some of which
Faustina (1792) and Asprucci's Temple of Diana and others, provided a coherent structure and is being passed through a screen) and a large
(1789), together with the Giardino del Lago and well-illuminated environment ideally suited to quantity of bricks fresh from the nearby brick-
its Temple of Asclepius, illustrate the influence the study of art. The sequence of halls newly yards of via delle Fornaci. ! " The group at

of Sir William Chambers's restructuring of constructed for the purpose, including bottom center includes the architect Simonetti

Kew Gardens. Michelangelo Simonetti's Sala delle Muse, Sala kneeling before Pope Pius VI, who is depicted
Rotonda, and Sala a Croce Greca, are among the visiting the site. The verdant slopes of Monte
most magnificent museum interiors ever Mario are visible in the distance. ! '

MUSEUMS
created. Simonetti placed fragments of ancient
The collections of ancient sculpture assembled architectural ornament and sculpture and
during the Renaissance in the Belvedere Court mosaic into his design to provide a rich setting
of the Vatican and on the Capitoline Hill in the consistent with the objects on display; for
Palazzo dei Conservatori may be said to have example, egyptianizing telamones from Tivoli
constituted the foundation of the modern were used to frame the portal leading from the
museum, and these collections were emulated Sala a Croce Greca to the Sala Rotonda.
by princely families such as the Albani, A remarkable painting by the Austrian
Borghese, Colonna, Giustiniani, and Ludovisi, artist Michael Wutky illustrates the Sala a

who gradually built up extensive holdings. The Croce Greca and the Sala Rotonda while they
display of works of art, and especially antiqui- were under construction (fig. 80). " At center,
ties, in Roman collections would have impor- the Sala Rotonda is structurally complete;

l8 Al<( lll l I ( I IJKI

 l

THE ARCHITECTURAL PROFESSION: purge his style of its native Sicilian decorative capacity as a stimatore supervising work on the

ACADEMY AND STUDIO tendencies. 16 There must have been some site and evaluating the work of masons and
formal instruction too, probably based on the contractors alike. r Michetti's association with

Like so many Roman artists and architects of program of the Accademia di S. Luca, of which Raguzzini in the mid-i720S is also significant

the eighteenth century, Pietro and Virginio Fontana was elected Principe in 1686. What for what it reveals about the diversity of archi-

Bracci were profoundly influenced by the seems to be clear from comparing Fontana's tectural styles coexisting in Rome at this time.
Accademia Some of Pietro Bracci's
di S. Luca. drawings with those of his pupils is that Raguzzini and Michetti were both influenced
early architectural drawings may be related instruction and learning must have taken place by Borromini, whose work, through publica-
to printed sources and to monuments that in the course of the design and construction of tions and the renewed study of his buildings
figured prominently in courses of instruction commissioned buildings. From the 1680s on, by Bracci and others, was enjoying a revival of

at the Accademia. His studies after Borromini Fontana always had in hand a number of vast sorts.
(S
Yet how different was the approach of
and Pietro da Cortona, informed by such projects which necessitated a large but well- such architects as Bracci and Michetti to
architectural publications as Domenico de organized and disciplined studio, all working Borromini's legacy from that of Raguzzini.
Rossi's Studio, conform to the curriculum of within a common style, using proven working Bracci and Michetti employed a rational process

the Accademia." In the case of Bracci's son procedures and standardized graphic conven- of selection acquired in the Accademia di

Virginio, his prize-winning entry in the 1758 tions. Prevailing conventions, including the S. Luca and Fontana's studio, while Raguzzini
competition exists, as does a later revision of placement of scales of measurement, the responded more spontaneously, with the open
the same project. Virginio's unexecuted design preparation of plans, elevations, and sections eye of a provincial architect trained outside the
for a central-plan church recalls earlier to the same scale, the presentation of various Roman tradition and attuned to the potential
Accademia projects, notably (uvarra's of 1707 design alternatives by means of flaps, and the for introducing movement to the spare style

and Vittone's of 1733, which would have been use of three-dimensional models may be of Benevento.
known to him from the Accademia archive traced back to Fontana's studio practices and It is important to emphasize the role of
(cats.n,39,and 40). to instruction at the Accademia di S. Luca. Rome as a meeting place where different styles
The architectural curriculum of the and traditions of architecture were discussed,
Accademia di S. Luca was strongly influenced assimilated, and frequently combined, not as
PATRONAGE AND STYLE
by Carlo Fontana, through whose studio passed a battleground over which revolutionaries and
many of the most outstanding architects of In spite of its near monopoly on formal artistic reactionaries were locked in a bitter ideological
the next generation. From the capitals of instruction and theoretical discourse, the The fact that both classical and
struggle.
northern Europe came architects such as Gibbs, Accademia di S. Luca was powerless to affect the Rococo elements can be detected in most
Tessin, Hildebrandt, and Fischer von Erlach, crisis in architectural patronage that occurred buildings designed in Rome during the 1720s
who all played an important part in trans- under Benedict XIII. During Benedict's reign and 1730s makes it difficult to agree with the
forming the architectural appearance of their members of the Roman architectural estab- view that an extremely complex situation can
native lands. " Within Italy, a younger genera- lishment were systematically excluded from be explained in terms of a simplistic polariza-
tion of Fontana pupils, among whom were the salaried positions and commissions that tion of conflicting artistic ideologies.™ Indeed,
juvarra and Giovanni Battista Vaccarini, was many of them had either long relied upon or the rhetoric of this imagined conflict seems to
instrumental in spreading the Roman Baroque looked forward to as a means of support and have been manufactured postfacto and can
style the length and breadth of the peninsula. a potential springboard to success. To the scarcely be detected in the theoretical literature
Others, such as Antonio Canevari and Nicola outrage of native Romans, Benedict XIII saw of the time. 4 " What comes closer to the truth is

Michetti, carried the idiom of the Roman High to it that for the duration of his pontificate the the fact that in eighteenth-century Rome, as had
Baroque, as synthesized by Fontana, to even most important papal commissions were also been true in the Renaissance, the peculiar
more distant and Rome
alien lands. Within awarded to his kinsman from Benevento, nature of papal patronage meant that each new
itself, a host of Fontana-trained pupils, among Filippo Raguzzini. Moreover, Raguzzini occu- pontiff favored different artists and architects.
whom Alessandro Specchi was perhaps the pied not one but two of the most desirable Such was certainly the case with Clement XII
most outstanding, continued to work at reno- salaried architectural positions in eighteenth- Corsini, a Florentine who favored his country-
vating the face of the city well into the eigh- century Rome, through which a steady volume men Galilei and Fuga but also saw merit in the

teenth century. Indeed, Fontana's influence on of work was channeled: Architetto del Popolo work of such Romans as Salvi, Vanvitelli, and
the formation of subsequent generations of Romano and Architetto della Reverenda Michetti.
architects continued long after his death; two Camera Apostolica. So long as Benedict lived, As Florentines, members of the Corsini
sketchbooks by Bernardo Antonio Vittone in most architects experienced hard times
then, entourage were naturally looked upon by the
the Musee des Arts Decoratifs in Paris contain and eagerly waited for the day when the hated Romans as outsiders. The first architectural
many copies of Fontana drawings, probably beneventani would be swept out of office. competition initiated under the new pope,
done in Rome in 1732. !4 It is indicative of Raguzzini's command of which was won by the Florentine Alessandro
It is difficult to describe Fontana's studio the major sources of patronage at this time Galilei, confirmed the worst suspicions of the
practice and its organization, and how these that Nicola Michetti, a respected architect Roman architects. Galilei's design for the
may have influenced his pupils." There are of who had recently returned to Rome from facade of St. John Lateran, particularly in its

course a few anecdotes that cast some light on St. Petersburg, where he had designed projects original conception, projected an austere
Fontana's methods, and these suggest that he of enormous scale for Czar Peter the Great, monumentality that breaks with the more
was not particularly innovative as a teacher. was reduced to working as Raguzzini's assistant exuberant Roman Baroque (fig. ~o). Its pla-
The immensely talented and already fully on one of his major architectural commissions, narity, its emphasis on trabeated forms, and
trained Filippo juvarra was told, upon entering the Hospital of S. Gallicano in Trastevere. From above all its insistence on a horizontal crown
Fontana's studio, to draw after Roman monu- the building accounts it is clear that in 1726-27 for the facade all reflect Galilei's close study of
ments, particularly those by Michelangelo, to Michetti functioned in a relatively minor Vitruvius and Michelangelo. In contrast. Salvi's

\R( III l lc l l
1

K
 design for the Lateran faqade appears more Salvi's synthesis of classical and Baroque Villa Albani and the sacristy of St. Peter's, have
sculptural and stands directly in the tradition forms was no doubt one of the factors con- already been discussed. The failure of
of the Roman Baroque (cat. 31). tributing to the close study devoted to his Clement XIII Rezzonico to execute Piranesi's
It is natural, therefore, that Salvi, and to work by architects practicing throughout remarkable projects of 1764 for the tribune of
a lesser degree Vanvitelli, should have been Europe. Salvi counted a Moravian architect, the Lateran is revealing (cats. 22, 23). Equally
championed by the Roman camp in this debate Franz Anton Grimm,among his students. The significant is the modest scale of the one design
over taste. It is probable that Salvi won the many drawings Grimm executed under Salvi's Piranesi succeeded in building, the renovation
competition for the Trevi not merely because direction, including academic exercises in of S. Maria del Priorato on the Aventine (cat. 24).

of his superior design but because the award addition to measured drawings after such While some buildings of quality were built in
to a Roman was intended as a belated act of Roman monuments as the Trevi, suggest that Rome during the second half of the eighteenth
artistic diplomacy on the part of the Corsini. may have become the successor
Salvi's studio century — for example Simonetti's work in the

Salvi's architecture constituted an acceptable of Carlo Fontana's as a training ground for Vatican Museums — Roman architecture had
compromise between the reforming style of architects. In addition to Grimm, we know lost its role as a model. 4 " During the last decades
Galilei favored by the Corsini and the tradition that other foreign architects, including Carl of the century, the city came to be admired less

of late Baroque classicism espoused by the Harleman, Simon-Louis du Ry, Jacques- for the relatively few additions to its urban fabric

Roman architectural profession. Not that Salvi Germain Soufflot, James Gibbs, William and more for its value as an open-air museum
consciously set about formulating a personal Chambers, and Robert Adam, paid close documenting the history of architecture.
style that would appeal equally to the divergent attention to Salvi's architecture.
tastes of his patrons and the Roman public, Giovanni Battista Piranesi, too, greatly
admired the
ROME AS AN INTERNATIONAL
but his training and theoretical principles Trevi, which he represented
CENTER OF ARCHITECTURAL
naturally led him to design in a way that would repeatedly throughout his career as a print-
DISCOURSE AND EXCHANGE
be appreciated by both groups. maker. When Piranesi first visited Rome in 1740
An important component of Salvi's train- Salvi's master mason and contractor, Nicola Throughout the eighteenth century Rome
ing was his close study of Vitruvius and Giobbe, served as his guide. Giobbe's learning functioned as a magnet attracting architects
Michelangelo. As a member of the Accademia was unusual in his profession; his will reveals from every major European center. While some
dell'Arcadia he was naturally predisposed to that he owned a library of twelve thousand spent only a short time there, others passed
temper the excesses of Baroque imagery titles, including all the standard architectural years becoming familiar with the monuments
and metaphor and to value the example treatises, as well as a collection of some three of classical antiquity and the more recent past.
of Renaissance models. At the same time, hundred paintings and prints. 44 Piranesi's Foreign institutions such as the French
however, Salvi's association with the Arcadia heartfelt dedication of the Prima parte di architet- Academy brought a distinguished series of
led him also to explore and master a range of tura e prospettive expresses his debt to Giobbe, architects to Rome, many of whom interacted
irregular, picturesque forms analogous to who introduced him to the most outstanding with their Italian counterparts, for example
pastoral imagery that are so expressively Roman architects, including Salvi and Vanvitelli. Piranesi's influence on the pensionnaires of the
embodied in the scogli of the Trevi. Moreover, Piranesi was certainly impressed by the academy in the mid-i750S, the same period in
Salvi highly esteemed the great Roman archi- many building projects underway in Rome at which he also exerted a formative influence on
tects of the seventeenth century, from whom the time of his first visit, most of them initi- Robert Adam. 4S Gilles-Marie Oppenord spent
he learned how to use the classical orders to ated by the Corsini pope. Under Clement XII's seven years in Rome (1692-99) measuring
achieve bold sculptural effects. successor Benedict XIV, however, the scope of ancient buildings and drawing works by the
That the patronage of the Corsini pope and architectural patronage was to decline dra- masters of the Roman Baroque, especially
his family represented a return to many of the matically. This was partly the result of the new Bernini and Borromini. A generation later,
values of classicism has long been noted. pope's lack of interest in expensive architectural Jacques-Germain Soufflot traveled to Rome,
Giovanni Bottari, the secretary of the pope's projects. A letter written in 1743 captures where he spent several years before becoming
influential cardinal-nephew, made this very Benedict's attitude; in it, he refers to the large a pensionnaire of the Academy (1734-38). While
clear in his treatise on the fine arts, which was sums expended on building by his predecessor there, Soufflot devoted intense study to the
written during the early 1730s. 41 It would be a as "two million [scudi] won from the lottery and Roman Baroque, especially Bernini. His draw-
mistake to read too much into this critical atti- employed in stones."
45
Benedict's own interests ings and observations made in Rome formed
tude, however. The Corsini were unusual not tended more towards historical and literary the basis for theoretical discussions in the
so much in fostering the classical strain of studies. The pope's austere architectural academy of Lyon after his return to France. In

Baroque art by their patronage, as in articulat- program also reflected the harsh realities of 1751 Soufflot made a second trip to Italy; sig-

ing, through Bottari, their own definition of the papal economy in the aftermath of the nificantly, on this visit he appears to have been
classical art with such clarity. Classicism, after War of the Polish Succession, and during more attentive to antiquities, for he traveled to
all, is an important component of Baroque art Benedict's reign architectural projects were Herculaneum and Paestum, as well as Hadrian's
and particularly in Rome was always present, undertaken only when absolutely necessary. 4 ''
Villa, where he left his signature in the crypto-

even in the most exuberant Baroque composi- In 1750 Ferdinando Fuga and Luigi Vanvitelli portico of the Peristyle Pool Building. In 1765
tions." It is simplistic to argue that architects left Rome for Naples, attracted by opportunities Hubert Robert also visited Hadrian's Villa,

such as Salvi and Vanvitelli were anti-Baroque. 4 '

to build on a scale no longer possible in Rome, where he inscribed his name on a niche set into
To be sure, classical principles of clarity and and the death of Nicola Salvi in the following the north flank of the Circular Hall. While there
utility (as defined by Bottari) are prominent in year further impoverished the Roman archi- he devoted careful study to the axial extension
their work, but the increased prominence of tectural scene. Among the more notable archi- of the Scenic Triclinium, which influenced his
the classical component in their art only tects practicing in Rome after 1750 were Paolo project for enlarging the Grande Galerie of the
tempers, and does not deny, their essentially Posi, best known for his ephemeral designs, Louvre (1796) and his painting of the same
Baroque character. and Carlo Marchionni, whose designs
''

for the gallery in ruins. 4

120 AK( IIIM.( [ UK I.

 In addition to contributing to the formation stylistic pluralism ("diverse maniere"), con- artists, however, returned to his native country

of Italian architects, the Accademia di S. Luca tributed to a spirited international debate. 55 to practice on the scale of Fontana's pupils.

34 \yittkower1967, pp. 165-72.

provided more-or-less formal instruction in
35 The principal body of evidence documenting
architecture to a wide range of foreign-born Notes
Fontana's atelier, his design process, and the part
who competed with their Italian
architects, 1 "Sul teatro delle maggiori grandezze del mondo, played by his students in it is Fontana's corpus of
counterparts. " Among the competitors for the
5
nell'Urbe"; quoted in Trevelyan 1908, p. 2. more than one thousand drawings. See Braham
Goethe and Hager 1977, especially pp. 19-23.
Concorsi Clementini were many foreigners 2 [1788] 1982, pp. 115-16.
3 Denis Diderot, Encyclopedic ou Dictionnaire raisonne 36 See the biographies of Juvarra by Scipione Maffei
from France, Spain, Poland, and South
and another, anonymous, author, both
Germany — including Cosmas Damien Asam, des sciences, des arts et des metiers (Stuttgart-Bad

Cannstatt: Frommann, 1966), vol. 14, p. 348. published in Rovere, Viale, and Brinckmann
who won first prize in painting in 1713. These 4 See Gross 1990, pp. 88-151. 1937, pp- 19. 23.

students were attracted by distinguished teach- 5 Milizia 1781. Milizia's Memorie, first published in 37 Rome, Archivio di Stato di Roma, Ospedale di
an important statement of rationalist S. Gallicano, Busta 91 (Giustijicazioni Diverse,
ers, among whom were Domenico Martinelli, 1768, is

attitudes towardBaroque architecture, most of 1724-1728, nos. 61 (11/17/26), 72 (12/23/1726), and

Filippo Juvarra, Antoine Deriset, and
which he condemned for excess of ornament 116 (12/1/1727).
Giovanni Paolo Panini. and unwarranted license in the use of the Orders. 38 Connors 1991, pp. 204-13.
Some foreign architects, such as Johann 6 For a comprehensive bibliography of studies 39 Portoghesi 1966, part 2.

Conrad Schlaun, acquired their familiarity with dealing with eighteenth-century Roman 40 The best survey of the literature remains the
architecture, see Contardi and Curcio 1991, chronological list of architectural publications
Bernini, Borromini, and other Baroque archi-
from 1700 to 1800 in Meeks 1966, appendix A.
while on study trips. When Clemens PP- 477-501.
tects
7 Contardi and Curcio 1991, pp. 313-459. 41 Bottari 1772.
August of Bavaria became prince-bishop of 8 "Scoria di una civilta architettonica": the subtitle 42 Blunt 1980, pp. 61-80.
Paderborn and Miinster in 1719 he appointed of Portoghesi 1966. 43 Benedetti 1972, pp. 337-91.

Schlaun to the position of land surveyor of 9 Millon 1984, p. xvii. 44 Brunei 1978, "Recherches," pp. 77-146.
10 See Marder 1980, pp. 28-56; Spagnesi 1997, 45 "Un pajo di milini vinti al lotto, ed impiergati in
Miinster and provided him with themeans to
sassi." Morelli 1955-84, vol. p. 101.
pp. 19-26. 1.
travel in order to broaden his horizons beyond "Roman Architecture," p. xv.
11 Lotz 1969, pp. 39-94. 46 Kieven 1993,
Westphalia. A significant part of Schlaun's 12 See Metzger Habel 1981, pp. 31-65. 47 Kieven 1993, "Roman Architecture," p. xx.
three-year Studienreise (1720-23) were the 13 For an alternative interpretation of the Piazza 48 Harris 1967, pp. 189-96.

months he spent in Rome in where he

1722, S. which does not view it in sceno-
Ignazio, 49 MacDonald and Pinto 1995, p. 235.

graphic terms, see Connors 1989, pp. 292-93. 50 Millon 1984.

drew not only after the acknowledged masters
14 Kelly 1992, pp. 816-57. 51 Kieven 1995, pp. 135-71.
of the Roman High Baroque, but also buildings
15 Marder 1974, pp. 310-20. 52 Ciofetta 1991, pp. 214-28.
by his contemporaries, including Giovanni 16 "La surnominata irregolarita servisse in alcuna 53 Carta and Menichella 1996, pp. 230-33; Oechslin
Battista Contini and Antonio Canevari. As 51
maniera per adornamento di tutta l'Opera," 1996, pp. 189-206; Salviucci Insolera 1996,

already seen, other architects were drawn to Vatican Library, Cod. Lat. 8235, 23. A revealing pp. 207-14.
example of Salvi's sensitivity to the urban 54 Connors 1991, pp. 204-13.
the studios of such established Roman archi-
context of the Trevi is the way the axis of via 55 Wittkower 1938-39, pp. 147-58; Wilton-Ely 1972.
tects as Carlo Fontana and Nicola Salvi. della Stamperia, paralleled by the retaining wall,
determines the right edge of the fountain's space
and hence that of the basin itself.
PAPER ARCHITECTURE 17 These include S. Brigida, S. Francesco delle
Stimmate. S. Maria in Cosmedin, S. Clemente,
Architecture in its two-dimensional, graphic
S. Paolo alia Regola, Bartolomeo
S.
form travels easily, and one measure of the dei Bergamaschi, S. Claudio dei Borgognoni,
importance of eighteenth-century Rome as Ss. Celso e Giuliano, S. Maria della Quercia,
a cultural entrepot is its role as a center for S.Maria del Priorato, the SS. Nome di Maria, the
Maddalena, S. Trinita degli Spagnoli.
architectural publications. The various editions
S. Quaranta, and Ss. Bonificio ed Alessio.
of Domenico de Rossi's Studio d'architettura civile,
18 Kieven 1987, pp. 255-75; Kieven 1991, "II ruolo,"
providing architects with measured drawings
pp. 78-123.
of the latest Roman monuments, circulated 19 Kieven 1989, pp. 69-95.
widely in northern Europe." Andrea Pozzo's 20 Pane 1956; Pietrangeli 1988, pp. 247-52.
21 Varagnoli 1995.
treatise Pwspettiva de'pittori e architetti (1693-1700)
22 Hageri970.
was immediately translated into German,
23 Gaus 1967, pp. 67-110; Benedetti 1989,
French, and Latin." An English edition came pp. 247-57; Kieven 1992, pp. 910-17.
out in 1707, to which Hawksmoor, Vanbrugh, 24 See the essays in Debenedetti 1994, and
and Wren, among others, subscribed; by Debenedetti 1995.
1737
25 Eleuteri 1996, pp. 109-24.
there was even a Chinese edition. Sebastiano
26 Gaus 1967, pp. 19-66; Cassanelli 1985,
Giannini's publication of the work of
pp. 167-210; Roettgen 1987, pp. 17-83.
Borromini (1720 and 1725) contributed to the 27 Formerly attributed to Claude-Joseph Vernet.
revival of interest in this seventeenth-century Wutky was in Rome from 1771 to 1801.
28 Pietrangeli 1985, p. 68.
architect's work both in Rome and abroad."
29 Garms 1972, no. 513.
Although best known for his antiquarian pub-
30 Giustini 1997.
lications, Piranesi's polemical works, especially }1 For Simonetti. see Mancini 1983, pp. 10-16.
the Pareresu larchitettura (1765), contested the 32 Millon 1984.
rigorous functionalism of Fremin, Cordemoy, 33 Bernini's studio had attracted many foreign
and Laugier, with their emphasis on purist rigor sculptors, among them the German brothers
Schor, and the Frenchmen Claude Poussin,
and slavish imitation of the Greeks. Piranesi,
Niccolo Sale, and Michel Maille. None of these
who exalted instead artistic freedom and

ARCHITECTURE 121
 consent. This iswhat leads me to busts representing Pope Innocent XII
believe that he who makes the and Cardinal Fabrizio Paolucci, which
worst model and has the most he carved for Ss. Giovanni e Paolo in
powerful supporters will prevail 1725. Following Paolucci's death only
over all others; this is what one one year later, his nephew commis-
sees all the time in Rome judging sioned a monument from Bracci for
from the poor works that are built the family chapel in S. Marcello. The
in these days (cited on Roserot Paolucci monument was Bracci's first

1908, pp. 30-32). exercise in the design and execution of

a wall tomb for a family chapel, a
In certain respects Bouchardon's theme on which he would continue to
design anticipates the fountain on rue produce variations throughout the
de Grenelle in Paris, which he began in rest of his career. The principal com-
1739, after his return from Rome. ponents of the monument are a winged
Common to both are an embracing personification of Fame holding up an
concavity and the governing role oval portrait of the deceased, set off
played by architecture in determining against the background of a pyramidal
the placement and composition of the cenotaph.
statuary. Specific details of In 1730 King|ohn V of Portugal
Bouchardon's early design for the commissioned the most outstanding
Trevi, such as the bas-reliefs set above Roman sculptors to provide statues
the waterline and the reclining river for the ambitious sculptural program
gods with vases, have close counter- of the basilica of Mafi a. The followers
parts in the later fountain. of Camillo Rusconi, including Bracci,
Bouchardon's approach to fountain Giovanni Battista Maini, and Filippo
design was more restrained than that della Valle, are especially prominent
of his Italian counterparts. His distinc- among this group. Bracci's two monu-
tively French classicism was appreci- mental statues representing Saint
ated by Charles de Brasses, who saw Peter Nolasco and Saint Felix of Valois
Bouchardon's model a decade later and display animated drapery that recalls
considered it to be superior to Salvi's his master's Apostles in the Lateran
design.Marcus Tuscher, an architect nave, but their complicated silhou-
Bv - . >*»...>• « , _ from Nuremberg who was in Rome in ettes and delicacy of surface modeling
1 1728-30, appears to have responded illustrate his growing independence.
to Bouchardon's design for the Trevi; In 1732 Bracci contributed a relief to
EDME BOUCHARDON sculpture, and architectural backdrop among Tuscher's drawings in the decoration of the Corsini Chapel

CHAUMONT-EN-BASSIGNY are concentrated at the center of the Copenhagen is one for a public build- in the Lateran. In the same year he was
1698-1762 PARIS new Palazzo Conti facade and are ing employing an order of his own also engaged in the restoration of

For biography see Sculpture section framed by its two projecting wings. invention (the Norico) that is partially sculpture on the Arch of Constantine.
The clarity and restraint of inspired by Bouchardon's model. [)p] In later years he restored important
Bouchardon's design as well as its high antiquities for Cardinal Alessandro
1 quality distinguish it from many of the Albani. In 1733 he began work on a

Edme Bouchardon other projects for which drawings PIETRO BRACCI monumental seated statue of Clement
survive, and lend support to the artist's ROME I7OO-I773 XII in marble, which was sent to
Unexecuted Project for the Trevi contention that his model was the most Ravenna. Three years later another
beautiful of those submitted to the Pietro Bracci received his first artistic seated statue of the Corsinipope was
Fountain
pope. Bouchardon's use of a spare instruction from his father, Bartolomeo commissioned from Bracci, this time
1730 Tuscan colonnade erected on a concave Cesare, who was a woodcarver. Later by the representatives of the Roman
Red chalk on paper plan to provide a setting for the foun- he studied drawing with Giuseppe municipal government. In 1740
\6'/i" x \iV" (425 x 325 mm) tain and to accentuate the recessed Chiari and sculpture with Camillo Bracci's bronze statue was placed in
provenance P. J. Mariette; Louis Corot; center of the palace facade is particu- Rusconi. Bracci's drawings reveal that the Palazzo dei Conservatori on the
Georges Bougarel (1922)
larly successful. The centerpiece of between 1718 and 1722 he also studied Capitoline hill, where it stood until its
BIBLIOGRAPHY Roserot 1908, pp. 17— 37; Bouchardon's fountain is a statue per- architecture. He appears to have con- destruction in 1798. At the same time
De Brasses 1931, vol. 2. p. 58; Pinto 1986,
sonifying Rome, below which recline tinued his apprenticeship with Rusconi Bracci was engaged in producing the
pp. 109-13
two river gods; silhouetted against the until 1724, when he opened his own two statues of Clement XII, he was
Musee Antoine-Vivenel, Compiegne,
sky is the escutcheon of Clement XII. studio on the Piazza della Trinita dei also carving a statue of Clement's pre-
France
Bouchardon described his model in Monti. This is confirmed by Bracci's decessor, Benedict XIII Orsini, for his
from Rome to
a letter of 1731, written own list of works, the earliest of which tomb in S. Maria sopra Minerva. Work
Among the many architects who his father: dates to 1725. At this time Bracci won began in 1734 and the finished monu-
entered the competition for the design two distinctions marking the end of ment was unveiled one year later.
of the Trevi Fountain sponsored by I constructed my model in two his academic study and the beginning In 1739 Bracci secured the presti-
Pope Clement XII in 1730 were two different ways. The first: I con- of his intellectual and artistic maturity: gious commission to carve the monu-
pensionnaircs of the French Academy formed to the site and related the in 1724 he was admitted to the ment of Maria Clementina Sobieska
at Rome, Lambert-Sigisbert Adam architecture and ornament to the Accademia dell'Arcadia, and in 1725 for St. Peter's. Maria Clementina had
and Edme Bouchardon. Both sculptors palace, which has already been he won first prize for sculpture in the married lames Stuart, the exiled Old
prepared elaborate models, which, built according to a very Concorso Clementino of the Pretender on whom English Catholics
along with some thirty others, were mediocre design. The second: I Accademia di S. Luca. vainly pinned their hopes. Bracci also
displayed in the Palazzo del Quirinale. lollowed my genius: may say
I From 172s until his death Bracci's projected a monument for the Old
While Bouchardon's model (like all the thai it would be one of the most activity as a sculptor is documented Pretender, intended for the pier oppo-
others) has been lost, two chalk draw- beautiful things of this type in by an impressive list of securely dated site his wife's tomb, but his design was
ings appear to record his design: this Rome, but since half ol the palace works. According to the list of sculp- never executed. Also in 1739 the arch-

one from Compiegne and another at would have to be demolished to ture compiled by the artist himself, his bishop of Naples commissioned Bracci
Waddesdon. Bouchardon's fountain, build it. the Prince would never first independent works were two to adorn the high altar of the cathedral

122 AK( III I l.( I UKI.

with a marble statue of the Assumption shadows of the niche behind. Bracci's

surrounded by a host of adoring angels surviving wooden model and numer-

and putti in stucco. Bracci remarks in ous preparatory drawings for the

his diary that the composition was monument shed light on the evolution
inspired by Bernini's gloria above the of his design. He probably presented
altar of the Cathedra in The
St. Peter's. the model to the Accademia
finished monument, which was com- Clementina of Bologna in 1763, when
pleted by early 174?. demonstrates the he became a member.
artist's ability to orchestrate sculpture In the history of Italian sculpture,

on a grand scale, as well as his Bracci occupies a prominent position

command of dramatic light effects. between Bernini and Canova. Unlike
No doubt reflecting the critical these two commanding figures, Bracci
success of his major works of the late did not effect a fundamental transfor-
1730s, Bracci was admitted to the mation of the medium in terms of style
Accademia di S. Luca as an accademico and iconography. Working within tra-
iii merito in 1740. Over the next two ditional genres, however, he executed
years he executed sculpture for the exquisite variations on familiar themes
facade and narthexofS. Maria such as the portrait bust, the narrative
Maggiore. In 1741 he began work on bas-relief, the private memorial, and
the monument of Cardinal Giuseppe the papal monument, consistently
Renato Imperiali in S. Agostino. This realizing works of the very highest
is one of Bracci's most successful quality.[(P]

compositions, employing a rich range bibliography Domarus 1915; Gradara

of colorful materials and brilliant sil- Pesci 1920: Zamboni 1964; Pinto 1986:

houetting. In 1748 he received the Novara 1992; Kieven and Pinto 2000
commission for the monument of
Cardinal Leopoldo Calcagnini in
S. Andrea delle Fratte, the last of his 2
distinguished series of cardinals'
Pietro Bracci
tombs. As part of the ongoing efforts
to renovate S. Maria Maggiore for the Preparatory Study for the
holy year of 1750, Bracci executed the
Monument of Benedict XIV in
crowning features of the canopy over
Fuga's high altar, including four St. Peter's
marble angels clad in bronze drapery, 1763
the whole perfectly scaled to the Signed in lower left corner: Petr. Bracci /riven.
restricted vertical dimensions within Inscribed: Palmi Romjni: scale = 30 pa/mi
which he had to work. In 1753 Bracci
Pen and black ink, brown wash and gouache
received another distinction, election highlights over graphite on laid paper
to the Virtuosi al Pantheon. Three 16V4" x 10 V" (414 x 268 mm)
years later he was elected Principe of provenance Bracci family archive:
the Accademia di S. Luca, an indica- Duke Arturo Pini di San Miniato
tion of his respected position within bibliography Gradara Pesci 1920,
the Roman artistic establishment. pp. 72-75: Kieven and Pinto 2000, cat. no. 51 expense of the cardinals he personal qualities of the pope, whose
In 1759 Bracci began work on the Collection Centre Canadien created. Having announced a intellectual interests were in canon
main sculptural component of the d'Architecture/Canadian Centre for competition, they chosemy law and the history of the Church and
Trevi Fountain, which was completed Architecture, Montreal design and appointed me as whose neglect of worldly concerns
three years later. In this project he was sculptor and architect of this was apparent.
obliged to follow the full-scale stucco Unlike his predecessors, Benedict XIV endeavor. I fashioned a wooden No fewer than eleven drawings by
models installed by his predecessor, did notmake provisions for his own model of my design, painted and Bracci record the evolution of his
Giovanni Battista Maini, but he intro- sepulchral monument. His unpreten- gilded; carved the pope as
I project for a papal monument, but only
duced a number of important modifi- tious character and ironic self-depre- standing giving a benediction five are directly related to the Benedict
cations. A colossal figure of Oceanus cation endeared him even to such with one hand while the other XIV tomb. This drawing is very close
is represented skimming over the critics of the Church as Voltaire. As rests on the arm of the chair: I to the executed version of the monu-
water in a rocaille shell chariot pulled Benedict had not bestowed great favors also carved one of the lateral ment, departing from earlier studies
by a pair of winged sea horses accom- on his family, his heirs had no wish to statues representing sacred in the spareness of the portal surround
panied by tritons. Together with the commission an expensive memorial. Wisdom; the other statue repre- and the decidedly non-illusionistic
action of the water that rushes out Thus, it was left to the cardinals created senting Unselfishness. I had treatment of the niche. As the position
between them, these superb figures during Benedict's reign to provide for carved by the sculptor Sibilla. and attitude of the two allegories cor-
animate the vast composition of the the erection of a monument. In 1758 (Gradara Pesci 1920, p. 108) respond to the executed monument,
Trevi with movement and vitality. the pope's remains were provisionally this drawing is obviously intended as
If Bracci's monumental sculpture stored in a niche in the south aisle of an alternative study for the treatment
for the Trevi Fountain constitutes his the basilica. Not until May 1764 was the The crucial step in Bracci's conceptual of the pedestal. This design also records

most outstanding secular commis- commission definitely decided upon process was his introduction of a the change in the pope's attitude, and
sion, the directive to erect a monu- and given to Pietro Bracci. In 1765 work standing figure of the pontiff which must, therefore, have been made after
ment to Benedict XIV in St. Peter's, was underway and the finished monu- represented a break with tradition. In The "modelletto" that Bracci
the model.
which he received in 1763, was the ment was unveiled in the north aisle addition to the unusual posture mentioned in his diarv was given bv
capstone of his long career as a sculp- of the basilica in June 1769. This is how depicted, the design introduced a new him to the Accademia Clementina in
tor in the service of the Church. Bracci recorded the commission in his allegorical message. The traditional Bologna upon his being elected hon-
Bracci's executed design for the mon- diary: tomb allegories of faith and cc. Icm.i
1 orary member in 1^6; and is preserved
ument departed from tradition by are replaced by representations of in the academy collection. [ 1
k]
introducing a standing figure of the Tomb of Pope Lambertini I )ivine Wisdom ami \ Inselfishness.
pope, cast into full relief by the deep erected in St. Peter's at the They allude far more directly to the

AR( HITECTURE
 When Bracci chose to represent the
king as a life-size standing figure, he
Pietro Bracci
adhered to a new type of Roman tomb
Elevation and Ground Plan of a sculpture that had only two predeces-
sors: the statue of Cardinal Neri Corsini,
Monument for James III, the
executed in 1734 by Giuseppe Maini in
Old Pretender, in St. Peter's the Corsini Chapel in the Lateran

c. 1766 basilica, and his own statue for the

Signed in brown ink on the lower left side

tomb of Pope Benedict XIV, still
(Virus Bracci Rom.F. underway in 1766 (cat. 2). For the royal

Inscriptions: Jacobus //(in brown ink on the monument Bracci used the scheme of
base of the statue; at the bottom: Scala di jo "honorary statues," such as the one
I'almi Romani representing Henry IV of France in the
Pen and brown ink with gray and brown Lateran and that of Philip IV of Spain
wash highlighted with white gouache over in S. Maria Maggiore, which depict
graphite on paper
kings in the guise of Roman emperors.
lb'/" x <)/" (412 x 251 mm); flap on lower
This had also served as a model for the
part
funeral exequies of Augustus II of
provenance Bracci family archive; Duke
Poland in 1753. By introducing this dif-
Arturo Pini di San Miniato
ferent typology, Bracci found a way to
exhibition Montreal 1993, cat. no. 8
distinguish the royal monument from
bibliography Denison, Rosenfeld. and
those of popes, princes, and cardinals,
Wiles 1993, pp. 12-14; Kieven and Pinto
2000, cat. no. 53 clearly marking the difference in hier-

Collection Centre Canadien archy but in keeping with the style and
d'Architecture/Canadian Centre for appearance of the other monuments
Architecture, Montreal in St. Peter's.

Allegories of Strength and Religion

flanking a sarcophagus provide a
In St. Peter's, monuments were origi- stable base for the standing figure of
nally reserved for saints and popes. It the king in the niche above. In a pre-
was Pope Urban VIII who extended to liminary version, preserved under the
Catholic sovereigns the privilege of flap, the sarcophagus was omitted and
interment in St. Peter's; in 1633 he had instead an allegorical figure, a putto,
the body of Countess Matilda of and a lion appear as part of the sculp-
Tuscany transferred from Mantua and tural ensemble. Above, standing on an
commissioned Bernini to design her inscribed pedestal, the king appears in
tomb. Queen Christina of Sweden, armor, assuming the attitude of a vic-
who had converted to the Catholic torious warrior. In his right hand he
faith and died in Rome in 1689, was the holds a scepter, which projects boldly
next to be so honored. The continuous from the niche. The king's elegant
loss of political power and influence figure emerges from the dark back-
that the papacy suffered during the ground into the light that falls from
eighteenth century is visibly expressed one of the smaller domes of the side
modeling, composed of delicate strokes in the Stuart monuments, the last aisle. The washes and the strong high-

of black chalk, brilliantly casts the royal tombs to be erected in St. Peter's. lighting with white gouache are char-
Pietro Bracci
figure into relief. The drawing is com- The royal tombs occupy the narrow acteristic of Bracci's drawing technique
Study for the Figure of Divine posed of two sheets of paper, joined bays of the side aisles in St. Peter's, and demonstrate his intention to

along the line of the figure's neck and thus differing in width from the wider convey graphically the three-dimen-
Wisdom on the Monument of
wrist. In its original form the figure aedicules of the papal tombs. The nar- sionality of executed sculpture. The
Benedict XIV in St. Peter's was probably more frontal, with her rowness of these bays stands in contrast of strong shadows and bright

c. 1765
head facing the observer. Bracci most marked contrast to their height, which light enhances the dynamic impres-
Black chalk on two sheets of bluish paper likely inserted a new head and hand in was predetermined by the colossal sion of a truly Baroque movement.
an effort to relate Wisdom more engaged columns that flanked the bays It is not known whether Bracci's
14/4" x 9 V" (368 x 242 mm)
provenance Bracci family archive; Duke closely to the statue of the pope. and formed the given framework for designs were commissioned by
Arturo Pini di San Miniato The foreshortened view, especially every design. The tomb for James Cardinal Henry Duke of York, the king's

bibliography Kieven and Pinto 2000, evident in the treatment of the head, Stuart was intended to be erected in the second son and archpriest of St. Peter's,

cat. no. 134 effectively captures the impression of south aisle across from that of his wife, or whether Bracci presented his draw-
The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. Gift of an observer looking up at the actual Maria Clementina Sobieska. which ings on his own initiative. In any event,
the Duke and Duchess Pini di San Miniato monument. The angle of the light also Pietro Bracci had executed in 1739 after Bracci's proposal was never executed.
indicates that Bracci was seeking to the design of Filippo Barigioni. The Although Pope Clement XIII supported
capture the effects of light falling from death of the Pretender in 1766 proba- the idea that James III should be
This detailed study for the statue of the dome above the monument. This bly prompted proposals for an appro- interred in St. Peter's, he was not
Divine Wisdom for the Benedict XIV rare finished drawing illustrates the priate monument to his memory. favorable to the political ambitions of
monument, which was executed care and discipline Bracci devoted to The drawing on display belongs to a his sons. A triumphal monument to
according to this design, is perhaps the refining his designs for sculpture. It set of four presentation sheets, formerly James Stuart would have caused
most beautiful of all Bracci's figural forms the end of the long process of in the Bracci archive in Rome, all drawn diplomatic repercussions with the
drawings. In an exceptional way this designing, shaping, and reworking a to scale and obviously intended as an British government. The execution of
sheet demonstrates the best of Bracci's work of sculpture until the message- array of different solutions. This a memorial to the Stuarts in St. Peter's
draftsmanship: the subtle, controlled it convey finds coherent formal
is to drawing and another one are now in the fell to another sculptor, Antonio
but infinitely graceful movement of expression and it is effectively linked collection of the Canadian Centre for Canova, whose Neoclassical monument
the figure, which reclines relaxed but to the other figures composing the Architecture; a third is in the Montreal was not unveiled until 1819. [|p/ek]
with poise, turning her head aloft and monument, [jp/ek] Museum of Fine Arts and the fourth is

resplendent with divine radiance. The in the Art Institute of Chicago.

AR( HITECTURE
 as their permanent meeting place. including Giovanni Battista Piranesi.
This is Canevari's masterpiece, in Giuseppe Vasi, Nicola Salvi, and Luigi
which the curving ramps and oval Vanvitelli. Piranesi's Crottcsc/ii have
ampitheaterare perfectly set within been related to the poetry of the
the contours of the site. The sponsor Arcadians, and Salvi's association
for the garden was the Portugese king, with them probably led him to
and Canevari's successful completion explore and master a range of irregu-
of the Bosco Parrasio in 1725-26 led to lar, picturesque forms analogous to
his being called to Lisbon, where he pastoral imagery that are so expres-
lived between 1727 and 1732. Little of sively embodied in the scogli of the
his work there, including the clock Trevi Fountain. The Arcadians' inter-
tower of the royal palace, survived the ests in the reform of poetry inter-

disastrous earthquake of 1755. sected with the visual arts in other

Canevari's departure after five years ways, notably in their literary celebra-
was motivated by the failure of his tions of the fine arts recited at the
design for the aqueduct of Aguas award ceremonies on the Capitoline
Livres, intended to supply Lisbon. Hill for the Concorsi Clementini of the
During Canevari's absence from Accademia di S. Luca.
Rome, his pupil Nicola Salvi carried In keeping with their name, the
forward the commissions that were Arcadians convened out of doors in

already underway, notably a ciborium garden settings, and for the first three
for the abbey of Montecassino. Six and half decades of its life the
years after his return and failure in the Accademia had no fixed meeting place;
competition for the Lateran facade of for a while they met in the Farnese
1732, Canevari left Rome permanently Gardens on the Palatine. In 1721, after
for Naples, where he served as archi- the death of Pope Clement XI, the
tect to the King of the Two Sicilies. Arcadians had the inspired idea of
There he worked on the hunting naming King John V of Portugal to fill
lodge of Capodimonte, the royal palace the vacancy left by the pope. In accept-
of Portici (1738-59), and other ing a place among the Arcadians the
commissions until his death, [jp] king effectively became the protector
bibliography Pio [1724] 1977; Milizia
of the academy, and two years later he
1785; Golzio 1958. pp. 464-66: Pane 1959, provided funds for the purchase of
pp. 193-235; Hager 1970. pp. 38-42; Venditti land to provide a permanent meeting
1973. pp. 358-65; Ferraris 1995. "Canevari." place; on October 9, 1^25, the first stone
pp. 57-66 was laidon the slopes of the
)aniculum.The Arcadians naturally
chose one of their own members to
5 survey the site, design the garden, and
supervise construction: Antonio
Antonio Canevari
Canevari. who had joined their ranks
Perspective View of the Garden in 1716.
Canevari's design for the Bosco
of the Accademia dell 'Arcadia
Parrasio, recorded in this perspective
(the Bosco Parrasio) on the drawing and in an accompanying
4 ground plan, was for the most part
Janiculum
followed quite closely in execution.
ANTONIO CANEVARI church, S. Francesco delle Stimmate, c. 1725 The garden fits beautifully into a diffi-

from Giovanni Battista Contini, exe-

Pencil, pen, and brown ink with gray wash cult triangular site defined by via di
ROME 1681-1764 NAPLES on paper
cuting the facade and spirited bell Porta S. Pancrazio and the wall of the
Antonio Canevari's career admirably tower to his own designs; the church 44 V" x 29X" (1130 x 740 mm) Palazzo Corsini gardens. The central
bibliography Crescimbeni 1-12; Rinaldi
illustrates the extent to which, by the was consecrated in 1719. axis connects the entrance at the
1990, pp. 485-504; Ferraris 1995. pp. 137-48
eighteenth century, many Roman In 1713 Canevari became a member bottom with the most important
Accademia Nazionale di San Luca, Rome
architects sought employment beyond of the Congregazione dei Virtuosi al ceremonial space (an oval ampitheater
the boundaries of the Papal States. Pantheon. Three years later, he was where the Arcadians met to recite
Canevari studied with the architect admitted to the Accademia dell' The Accademia dell'Arcadia, a presti- their poetry) at the top by means of
Antonio Valeri and with Pierfrancesco Arcadia. Election to the Accademia gious literary society, was established gracefully curving ramps set into the
Garolli, who taught perspective at the di S. Luca followed in 1724. Under in 1690 as an offshoot of Queen contours of the hillside. In a number
Accademia di S. Luca. In 1703 his design Innocent XIII, Canevari prepared a Christina's academy, which had met of ways the Bosco Parrasio appears
for a papal palace won first prize at the design for the faqade of the Lateran in the Palazzo Riario gardens below to be a rustic version of its more
Accademia. Along with his master basilica, which incorporated the Janiculum Hill. In reaction to the polished urban cousin the Spanish
Valeri, Canevari was one of the entrants Borromini's intentions (1724-25); he artificial and complex literary compo- Steps, which were still under
in the 171s competition for the sacristy subsequently entered the competition sitions of the Baroque, the Arcadians construction at the time Canevari
of St. Peter's; his model survives. of 1732 sponsored by Clement XII. self-consciously sought to return developed his design.
Like many of his contemporaries, By 1722-23 Canevari had entered poetry and drama to simpler themes Certain features in the drawing
Canevari participated in the renova- the service of King John V of Portugal, of a pastoral nature. As they sought to were never executed, notably the twin
tion of Early Christian basilicas to whom he sent measured drawings temper the excesses of Baroque gate pavilions (withinwhich the
encouraged by Clement XI. Canevari of the Vatican complex, the basis for a imagery and metaphor, the Arcadians Arcadians could shelter in case of
was engaged in the renovation of large-scale model. In 1723 he became also reasserted the example of rain)and the profusion of sculpture.
Ss. Giovanni e Paolo (1714-18) and architect of the Accademia dell' Renaissance models. Pietro Metastasio. The sculptural program was, predica-
later restored the portico of S. Paolo Arcadia, and in this capacity he unquestionably the greatest Italian lit- bly, very carefully thought out. Two
fuori le Mura in 1725. Around 1717 he designed the exquisite garden on the erary genius of the century, belonged, pairs of statuesabove the portal repre-
took (wer the construction of a new slopes of the janiculum Hill (hat served luil so did artists and an hitci is. sent the Arcadians (Pan and Syrinx) and

ARCHITECTURE
 literati {Athena and Mercury). Occupying
the lowest level of the garden are
colossal personifications of the Tiber
and the Arno, the sources of Latin and
Tuscan literature. Above, and on axis,

is Apollo holding a laurel crown. Set

into a fountain grotto at the rear of the
middle terrace is a statue of the River
Alpheus, representing Greek poetry.
Crowning the entire garden is the figure
of Pegasus, whose presence was
intended to identify the site with
Mount Helicon, the abode of the muses.
Even without its sculptural compli-
ment, the Arcadian garden remains an
enchanting site, overgrown and shaded
by towering umbrella pines. Within
its confines the spirit of Settecento
Rome lives on. [jp]

CARLO FONTANA
RONCATO, COMO 1638-1714 ROME

One of numerous architects, engi-

neers, and masons from the Ticino
who gravitated to Rome, Carlo
Fontana was a distant relation of
Domenico Fontana, the celebrated
engineer of Pope Sixtus V. By the early
1650s Fontana was established in
Rome, where he worked with Pietro
da Cortona and Gianlorenzo Bernini.
Fontana assisted Bernini in the capac-
ity of Misuratore e Stimatore della
Camera Apostolica from 1664 on,
and in 1666 he was named Misuratore
della R. Fabbrica di S. Pietro; in 1697
he became architect of the basilica.
Fontana had a distinguished acade-
mic career. In 1667 he joined the
Accademia di S. Luca as accademico di
merito, and he served for many years as

Principe. After the reorganization of

the Accademia instigated by Clement
XI in 1702, Fontana was replaced as
Principe by Carlo Maratti, but retained
authority over architectural matters.
Among Fontana's earliest indepen-
dent works were the faqades of
Ss. Faustina e Giovita (c. 1664) and
S. Biagio in Campitelli (c. 1665). In
1669-71 he built the Teatro Tor di
Nona, which he also provided
for
set designs.This was followed by the
commission for the Ginetti Chapel in
S. Andrea della Valle (1671-84) and his

spirited baldachin for the high altar of

S. Maria in Traspontina (1674), above
which angels support a crown in the

shape of a cupola.
Several of Fontana's most signifi-

cant designs date from the decade of

the 1680s. Foremost among these is

the facade of S. Marcello al Corso

(1682-84), a distillation of late Baroque
classicism. Fontana also constructed
the Cybo Chapel in S. Maria del
Popolo (1682-84), with its rich poly-
chromy and fusion of architecture,
painting, and sculpture. In this period
he also designed the imposing central-
plan sanctuary of St. Ignatius at Loyola

AK( iin i.cturi:

 6 facade was a critical monument for
the younger generation of architects
Carlo Fontana
who trained in Fontana's studio and
Study for the Facade of came into their own during the first
two decades of the new century, and
S. Marcello al Corso
traces of its influence may be
1682 observed throughout Europe. This is

Graphite, pen, and brown ink with brown particularly evident in the work of
wash on paper
Filippo (uvarra, notably in the early
13X" x 9" (340 x 230 mm) design for the facade of S. Brigida in
EXHIBITION Stuttgart 1993, cat. no. 62
Naples and the executed facade of
bibliography Hager 1973, pp. 58-74; S. Cristina in Turin. [)p]
Wittkower 1973, pp. 373-75: Jacob 1975,
pp. 85-86; Kieven 1993, pp. 178-79
Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Kunstbibliothek
7
Carlo Fontana
The fac,ade of S. Marcello al Corso
(1682-84) provides an excellent Study for an Ephemeral
example of Carlo Fontana's synthesis
Triumphal Arch for Pope
of the essentials of the Roman Baroque
style. The facade follows a concave Clement XI
plan, but unlike Borromini's S. Carlo 1701
alle Quattro Fontane and S. Maria dei Signed at bottom in Fontana's hand: lo cav.e
Sette Dolori, its curving surface does Carlo fm.co pntana hofatto di ppa memo
not interact dynamically with the space Pen and brown ink with gray wash on
before it, nor is its organization so paper
densely active and full of tension. In 17/i" x (456 x 290 mm)
the tradition of the Roman aedicular provenance Pacetti Collection

faqade, there is at S. Marcello an bibliography Erffa 1963. pp. 335-70;

increase in activity, depth, and Jacob 1975. p. 86; Kieven 1993. pp. 182-83;

chiaroscuro effects towards the center, Fagiolo 1997, vol. 2, pp. 20-22

which is the result of a measured Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Kunstbibliothek

concentration of basic architectural

elements, and not an aggressive The design of ephemeral structures
expression of architectural energies. provided valued opportunities for
The important role played by sculpture many architects in eighteenth-century
in this facade also ties it to the Roman Rome. Among the most prestigious of
tradition of facade design from such commissions were those for the

m Maderno's S. Susanna onwards, but, festive arches honoring newly elected

like their architectural framework, the popes on the occasion of their proces-
6
statues seem contained and content to sion to take possession of the Lateran
in Spain (1681), the first example of volume on the history of St. Peter's, play their parts within the limits basilica, the so-called possesso. Fore-
Fontana's architecture for export. the Templum Vaticanum of 1694, set new defined by framing columns and sup- most among these were the arches
In the 1690s Fontana's studio con- standards for the publication of archi- porting pediment. It is precisely the erected by the Farnese dukes of Parma
tinued to dominate the architectural tectural monographs. His role as a clarity and controlled subordination opposite Vignola's gateway to their
profession in Rome, providing teacher also deserves particular note. of elements in the facade that caused gardens on the Palatine. From the
designs for the Casanatense Library His studio attracted architects from Wittkower to remark of it that "Here Vatican the procession wended its

(1690-92) and the adaptation of the within Italy (notably (uvarra and everything is unequivocal, proper, way along via Papale to the Capitoline
Palazzo Ludovisi into the Curia Michetti) as well as from abroad easily readable" (Wittkower 1973, Hill, from which it passed through the
Innocenziana (Palazzo di (James Gibbs and Fischer von Erlach, p. 373); and same clarity that
it is this Campo Vaccino, the site of the ancient
Montecitorio, 1691-1700). Under for example). Through the work of made Fontana's style so communica- Roman forum. Following the path of
Clement XI. Fontana was involved in these and other Fontana students, late ble and easily assimilated. ancient triumphal processions, but in
many projects, of which the Albani Baroque classicism became a truly This drawing represents an early reverse, the pope and his retinue passed
Chapel in S. Sebastiano (1706-12) and international style that flourished for preparatory study by Fontana, which under the festive arch of the Farnese
the reformatory (1703-4) embedded in much of the eighteenth century in was subsequently developed in another before going throtigh the Arch of Titus
the hospice of S. Michele are particu- major European centers from the drawing for a print issued in 1683. For on their way to the Lateran.
larly worthy of mention. After shores o( the Baltic to the island of this reason, the facade differs in a Throughout his long career Carlo
Fontana's death in 1714, his pupil Malta, from London to Dresden. [)p] number of important respects from Fontana was active in providing
Nicola Michetti supervised the com- bibliography Fontana 1694; Fontana's preparatory study. This is designs for ephemeral structures
pletion of the three large-scale build- Coudenhove-Erthal 1950; Hager 1967-68, most evident in the sculptural compo- appropriate to a variety of different
ings his master had underway at that pp. 189-506; Hager 1968. pp. 299-314: nent, and the treatment of the window functions. In 1692 he had designed a
time: the reconstruction of Ss. Hager 1975, pp. 58-74; Hager 1973. "Carlo at the center of the upper story. The similar arch for the Farnese celebrat-
Apostoli, the completion of the
Fontana." pp. 319— 57: Hager 1974. pp. 47-61:
statues of Pope Marcellus and ing the possesso of Innocent XII. The
Hager 1975, pp. 344-59; Braham and Hager
Palazzo di Montecitorio. and the Saint Philip Benizi to the left and right arch he designed for the procession
and Hornedo 1991;
1977: Eguillor. Hager.
hospice of S. Michele. of the portal are placed within niches of Innocent's successor, Clement XL
Hager Hager 1993.
1991, pp. 155-203:
Carlo Fontana was extremely effec- on the facade itself. The statues on the resembles his earlier effort in several
pp. 123-55; Hager 1995-97. pp. 337~6o
tive as a publicist of his own work, but upper story representing Faith and important respects, notably in the use
his numerous publications arc signifi- Hope (on the pediment) and two saints of standing allegorical figures ot
cant also in the degree of historical ol the Servile order; Gioacchino da virtues set at the level ol the column
engagement they bring to such build- Siena and Francesco Patrizi, were bases. Fontana's spirited sketch,
ings as St. Peter's and the Colosseum, installed only in 1703. which was preparatory to a print by
as well as such topographical sites as Although designed late in the sev- his pupil Alessandro Specchi. pro-
the Montecitorio. His monumental enteenth century, the S. Marcello vides sufficient detail to allow the

ARC HITFXTURi:
 Francesco de Sanctis's design for the Corsini (1736-54) Fuga was obliged
Spanish Steps, which were then under to incorporate an earlier structure,
construction. the Palazzo Riario, into his design.
In 1726 Fuga was called to Naples by In marked contrast to the almost
Cardinal Nicola del Giudice, thus initi- unrelieved flatness of the long street
ating the first of his two extended facade, the rear elevation reaches out
periods of activity in southern Italy. toembrace the extensive gardens
While there, he executed his first inde- which extend to the heights of the
pendent design, a chapel (1726-27) faniculum.
undertaken along with other additions Benedict XIV commissioned Fuga
to the Palazzo Cellamare in Naples. By to erect a new facade for the basilica of

1729 Fuga was evidently in the service S. Maria Maggiore (1741-43), perhaps
of the King of Naples, because in that the architect's most spirited and
year he was sent to Sicily to design a overtly Baroque design. Also in 1741,
bridge over the River Milicia. The elec- Fuga designed the Coffee House in the

Lorenzo Corsini
tion of the Florentine
to the papacy as Clement XII brought
Fuga back to Rome.
Fuga's appointment as architect of
the papal palaces in 1730
beginning of his artistic
Under the pontificates of Clement XII
and his successor Benedict XIV, Fuga
was awarded numerous commissions
which, both in scale and importance,
were remarkable in Rome during this
gardens of the papal palace on the
Quirinal. The Coffee House has been
interpreted as an anticipation of
Neoclassical architecture, but such a
marks the viewpoint misconstrues Fuga's histor-
maturity. ical position. There is no evidence to
suggest that he was theoretically
disposed to emulate the architectural
principles of ancient Greece, any
more than he was familiar with spe-
Greek monuments. Rather, Fuga
cific

period. It is likely that Fuga's Florentine stands as a transitional figure, whose

origins played a part in securing him synthesis of earlier Baroque architec-
his papal appointment, for Clement XII ture led him, especially in secular
openly favored Florentines. In the early buildings, to designs of increasing
years of Clement's pontificate, Fuga austerity and reductive simplicity.
was concerned almost exclusively The third major building project
with enlarging the papal palace on the in which Fuga was engaged under

Quirinal (1732-37) and with the Benedict XIV was the church of
construction of new buildings in its S. Apollinare, which was begun in

Between 1730 and 1732 he

vicinity. 1742 and dedicated in 1748, just three
extended the Manica Lunga further years before his departure for Naples.
along strada Pia and added the This substantial edifice was built to
Palazzina del Segretario delle Cilre as serve the German and Hungarian
its terminus. Of far greater interest is which it is incorporated.
College, in
the Palazzo della Consulta (1732-37), Throughout S. Apollinare, but espe-
s diagonally opposite the main entrance cially in the sanctuary, Fuga utilized
to the Palazzo del Quirinale, which the full repertoire of Baroque orna-
provided accommodation for the ment, but subordinated it to clear and
virtues to be identified: Charity, designed by another artist), he was secretaries of the Consulta and the distinct structural divisions, a mark of
Religion, Justice, and Prudence. In the profoundly influenced by Fontana's Brevi, as well as lodgings for two his growing classical restraint in the

attic, reclining figures of Saint Peter design, [jp] small corps of papal guards. years following the facade of S. Maria
and Saint Paul are accompanied by Between 1733 and 1737, at the same Maggiore.
other allegorical figures and trumpet- time as Fuga was occupied with the In 1750 Ferdinando Sanfelice and
ing fames. Crowning the arch is an FERDINANDO FUGA Palazzo cjella Consulta, he also was Domenico Antonio Vaccaro, the two
orb surmounted by the cross, host, FLORENCE 1699-1782 ROME building the church of S. Maria most distinguished Neapolitan archi-
and chalice, symbolizing the triumph dell'Orazione e Morte (1733-37) on via tects of the first half of the eighteenth

of Religion over the world. Ferdinando Fuga studied with the Giulia. In its longitudinal oval plan century, both died. In the following
Although Fontana's effective use of sculptor and architect Giovanni Fuga brilliantly integrated the sinuous year Charles III, King of Naples, pre-
shading contributes to an impression Battista Foggini in Florence before continuity of mural structure in vailed upon Fuga and Luigi Vanvitelli
and permanence, docu-
of solidity departing for Rome in 1718. Francesco Borromini's S. Carlo alle to leave Rome and enter his service.
ments reveal that such arches were Henceforward, his long and productive Quattro Fontane with the muted axis While Vanvitelli was given the com-
constructed of painted canvas and professional career was divided of Gianlorenzo Bernini's S. Andrea mission to build the royal palace at

stucco laid over wooden armatures, between Rome and Naples, which, al Quirinale. The rich relief of the Caserta, Fuga was called upon to
and were dismantled soon after the with Turin, constituted the principal fac,ade and the paired columns set design the Albergo dei Poveri
conclusion of the festivity. More centers of architectural patronage in into recessed compartments recall (1751-81), an enormous poorhouse
enduring were the prints that were eighteenth-century Italy. Fuga's first the highly sculptural designs of intended to provide for some eight
issued to provide a record for distin- Roman sojourn, between 1718 and earlier Tuscan architects, notably thousand needy persons. Thus began
guished participants in the proces- 1726, was a period of intense study Michelangelo, Bartolomeo the final period of Fuga's professional
sion, onlookers, and those who were and assimilation of the city's architec- Ammannati, and Pietro da Cortona. career. This vast undertaking occu-
unable to attend. Collectively, these tural heritage. Three unexecuted In 1736 Fuga was elected to mem- pied him for the last thirty years of his
prints constitute an impressive scries, designs survive from this period: a bership in the Roman Accademia di life, and although work continued
which was consulted by later archi- project for the facade of St. John S. Luca, over which he would preside long after his death, only a fraction of
tects when upon to provide
called Lateran (1722), a proposal lor the Trcvi as Principe from 1752 to 1754. The the building was completed. Even in

new designs. Twenty years later, for Fountain and another for the
(1725),
example, when Pietro Bracci drew facade of S. Maria sopra Minerva
proposals for the possesso arch of (172s). The Trcvi design shows the
Innocent XIII (which was eventually young architect's awareness
lastmajor building Fuga undertook its incomplete state, however, the
during the pontificate of Clement XII Albergo dei Poveri must be counted
was the family palace on via della among the most ambitious architec-
of Lungara. In building the Palazzo tural projects of the eighteenth

2X AIU III I l.( TURF.

 —

i %M f 9

play of water. Fuga's project shows a frustration it was covered over only
modest basin of irregular outline, five years later by the present foun-
above which recline two statues rep- tain, and crowned not by their family
resenting personifications of local arms, but by those of the reigning
rivers, the Tiber and the Erculaneo. pontiff, Clement XII Corsini. [jp]

The water of the Acqua Vergine flows

OI.VFCN0 M IONTANA
— r i
U1TREVI
from a vase set between these two
figures and, after washing over the
ornamental rockwork, falls into the
Ferdinando Fuga
basin below.
century, rivaling even the Utopian fan- 8 The upper portion of Fuga's design Portico and Benediction Loggia
tasies of Etienne-Louis Boullee. Fuga functions independently of the foun-
Ferdinando Fuga of S. Maria Maggiore, Sections
was responsible for other important tain at its base. Fuga's great mostra, or
buildings in and around Naples, among Unexecuted Project for the Trevi architectural display, of the Trevi is
1741

which were the Villa Favorita at Resina overtly scenographic in character, Pen and brown ink with gray, blue-gray,
Fountain in Rome, Elevation and pink washes on paper
(c. 1768) and the great public granary recalling contemporary festival
undertaken in his last years.
Signed and dated 1723 designs. The high basement, angled
23" x 35/4" (585 x 895 mm)
(1779)
Pencil, pen. and black ink with gray wash exhibition Stuttgart 1993. cat. no. 99
Together with Vanvitelli, Fuga con- staircases, and festive facade resemble
on paper bibliography Bianchi L. 1955, p. 67; Pane
tributed to the formulation of an designs for fireworks displays, such as
imported, classicizing court style
25" x 22/s" (635 x 580 mm) those celebrating the Chinea cere-
1956, pp. 84-92; Kieven 1988, pp. 61-63:

provenance Stanza del Borgo. Milan

Kieven 1993. pp. 264-65
in Naples, reflecting contemporary mony, as well as other ephemeral
bibliography Bareggi and Pino 1972. Ministero per i Beni e le Attivita Culturali.
developments not only in Rome, designs made by Fuga himself later in Istituto Nazionale per la Grafica. Rome
p. 34; Pinto and Kieven 1983, pp. 746-49;
but also in France. Parallels between his career. The archway and
central
Pinto 1986. pp. 90-93; Kieven 1988. p. 42
Fuga's work and French architecture projecting attic carrying an inscrip-
Staatliche Museen zu Berlin,
around 1750 suggest that there may tion also recall the temporary tri- S. Maria Maggiore, one of the seven
Kunstbibliothek
have been a reciprocal exchange of umphal arches erected in the Campo basilicas of Rome, was a fourth-
ideas in this period. At the end of his Vaccino on the occasion of the papal century foundation. In the twelfth
career, stimulated at once by the utili- The abandonment of Bernini's ill- possessi, two of which Fuga designed century its faqade was enriched by
tarian nature of his major commis- fated project of the 1640s for the Trevi later in the century. The staircase, a portico with mosaics above. The
sions and the taste prevailing at court, Fountain prompted numerous pro- with its sharp, angled turns reveals portico had been restored for the
Fuga's style became increasingly posals for the fountain's embellish- Fuga's awareness of the Spanish Steps jubilee year of 1575 and to the east Pope
simple and classical, a process that ment. This remarkable series of (1723-26), which were under con- Paul V had added a structure for the
had already begun before his depar- drawings, which constitutes a highly struction at the time his project for canons. By 1735 the old portico was
ture from Rome. Nonetheless, as is instructive compendium of Baroque the Trevi was drafted. threatening collapse and Ferdinando
evident in the oval atrium of the Villa fountain designs, comprises many Four statues personifying the Fuga was called in to design a replace-
Favorita in Resina, Fuga's work con- projects from the first three decades seasons flank the central arch. Above, ment, but with the depletion of the
tinued to embody Baroque features. of the eighteenth century, before the and placed between two allegorical papal treasury on other projects and
Ferdinando Fuga may be character- final construction of the fountain in statues of Fames, an inscription the distractions of the War of the Polish
ized historically as a transitional 1732. Among these, Ferdinando Fuga's plaque records the date and patron of Succession, was not constructed.
it

figure, whose early work represents proposal of 1723 offers one of the most the commission: Pope Innocent XIII Five years later, under Benedict XIV.
a creative synthesis of late Baroque striking solutions. This elevation cor- Conti. Between the inscription and Fuga was asked to furnish designs for
forms which, after mid-century, give responds in every detail to a ground the split pediment of the arch rests the a more ambitious project, a new
way to an ever more rigorous and plan in the Gabinetto Nazionale delle papal escutcheon. In 1723 the secular facade that would unify the disparate
academic classicism. [)p] Stampe in Rome, which has long been branch of the pope's family acquired structures composing the south front
BIBLIOGRAPHY Milizia 1785, vol. 2,
recognized as one of his early designs. property behind the fountain, and of the basilica. Two other requirements
pp. 287-91; Matthiac 1952; Bianchi L. 1955; The relatively low level of the Fuga's project is the first of a series of were part of the program: it was nec-
Pane 1956; Hager 1964; Blunt 1975, Acqua Vergine, which feeds the Trevi, unexecuted designs for the Trevi con- essary to maintain the visibility of the
pp. 169-72; Pinto and Kieven 1985, made it difficult to produce a spectac- ditioned at least in part by the Conti twelfth-century mosaics w hile pro-
pp. 746-49; Kieven 1987, pp. 255-75;
ular display of water, so naturally in family's desire to incorporate the viding a benediction loggia on the
Kicven 1988
Fuga's design for the fountain the fountain into a new palace facade. second story. Fuga was thus severely
monumental character of the archi- The Conti succeeded in erecting a new constrained in preparing his design tor
tecture dominates the sculpture and palace facade in 1-28, but to their great l he new Lk ade. 1 he >M poi Ik o w.is
1

ARCHITECT! R 1

I L29
 demolished in January 1741, and the and the masters of the Roman Baroque, with particular reference to La Granja at San Ildefonso. This design
foundation stone of the new facade was especially Bernini, Borromini, and S. Marcello al Corso, by his Roman was executed after Juvarra's death in
laid in March of the same year. By 1743 Pietro da Cortona. master Carlo Fontana. The votive 1736 by his assistant Giovanni Battista
construction was complete; as architect The one significant design Juvarra church of the Superga (1716-31) recalls Sacchetti, who also succeeded in
of the chapter of S. Maria Maggiore, succeeded in building in Rome is the his 1707 presentation drawing for the building a reduced version of his
Fuga continued to work inside the Antamoro Chapel in S. Girolamo Accademia di S. Luca. His model for master's royal palace design.
basilica until the jubilee of 1750. della Carita (1708-10), on which he the Castello di Rivoli (1718) incorpo- Rome was crucial to the formation
Fuga's solution to the problems pre- collaborated with the sculptor Pierre rates a system of ramps that were of Juvarra's style. Although he never
sented by the faqade was to design a Legros. The chapel reveals Juvarra's clearly inspired by his reconstruction succeeded in winning a major com-
two-story scaenaefrons (or scenic fron- mature command of lighting and sil- of the ancient Capitoline Hill. mission there, he effected a highly
tispiece) with a portico at the ground houette, as well as his familiarity with Although Juvarra's design for the original synthesis of Roman architec-
leveland an open benediction loggia the altar designs of Bernini and Pozzo. faqade of the Palazzo Madama (1718) tural design that infused his work
above, through which the old facade In 1709 Juvarra's antiquarian interests draws on French precedent, particu- elsewhere in Italy and abroad. In his

mosaics would be visible. The drawing, were directed towards a large presen- larly the model of Versailles, the grand great Piedmontese monuments espe-
presenting both a longitudinal and a tation drawing intended for the visit- staircase within reflects his original cially, the tradition of Michelangelo,
transverse section of the portico, ing King of Denmark; this fusion of decorative elements from Bernini, Borromini, and Cortona was
reveals this arrangement with reconstructed the Capitoline Hill in Cortona and Borromini. Among the instilled with new vigor and projected
admirable clarity. Particularly inter- antiquity, depicted its eighteenth- major undertakings of his later years into the eighteenth century, [jp]
esting is Fuga's proposal to wash the century condition, and projected its in Piedmont are S. Andrea in Chieri bibliography Rovere, Viale. and
medieval mosaics with light dropped transformation into a grand Baroque (c. 1728), the Palazzina di Stupinigi Brinckmann 1937; Accascina 1957,
from oval windows hidden behind the space. Between 1708 and 1714 Juvarra outside Turin (1729-35), and the pp. 50-62; Accascina 1957, "Juvara III,"

facade. In spite of the fact that they have furnished set designs for Cardinal church of the Carmine in Turin pp. 150-62; Viale 1966; Pommer 1967; Hager
1970; Viale Ferrero 1970; Boscarino 1973;
faded somewhat, Fuga's masterful use Pietro Ottoboni's theater in the (1732-36). The oval salon of the royal
Carboneri 1979: Pinto 1980, "Juvarra."
of colored washes is clearly evident, [jp] Cancelleria and other Roman the- hunting lodge at Stupinigi is the real-
pp. 598-616: Millon 1984; Millon 1984,
aters.These demonstrated his mastery ization in concrete form of Juvarra's "Filippo Juvarra," pp. 13-24; Gritella 1992:
of scenography and explored themes earlier set designs. Barghini 1994; Comoli Mandracci and
FILIPPOJUVARRA in his ephemeral set designs that During his two decades in Piedmont, Griseri 1995; Bonet Correa, Blasco

would emerge in his built archi- Juvarra traveled extensively. Shortly Esquivias, and Cantone 1998
MESSINA 1678-1736 MADRID later

tecture. Toward theendofhis Roman after his arrival in Turin he returned to

Filippo Juvarra was the most accom- sojourn Juvarra taught architecture at Rome to participate in the competition
plished architect of the first half of the the Accademia di S. Luca. for the Vatican sacristy; his model of 10
eighteenth century. Born into a family In 1714 Victor Amadeus II of Savoy, 1715 survives, but his design was not
Filippo Juvarra
of silversmiths, he studied for the also King of Sicily, called Juvarra to executed. A later visit in 1732 also
priesthood and was ordained in 1703. Messina to provide designs for com- failed to yield a major commission. In Project for a Royal Palace For
The next year he traveled to Rome, pleting the royal palace there. Later in 1718-20 Juvarra was away from Turin
Three Important Persons
where he studied with Carlo Fontana. the same year Juvarra arrived in Turin, for extended trips to Paris, Portugal,

and London. For King John V of 1705

Juvarra's gifts as a draftsman were which, in the course of the next
twenty years, he transformed with Portugal he made designs Pen, brown ink. and gray wash on brown
immediately evident, and as early as for the port
paper
1705 he won first prize in the Concorso numerous buildings of his own and a royal palace with adjacent
x 43" (471 x 1084 mm)
iSVi"
Clementino. Two years later he was design. Among the many projects of church, none of which was executed.
provenance Pacetti Collection
elected to membership in the his first years in Turin, three stand out In 1735 Philip V of Spain requested
bibliography Rovere, Viale, and
Accademia di S. Luca. In this period as being of special significance and his relative Charles Emmanuel III of
Brinckmann 1937, pp. 119, 160; Jacob 1975,
he produced hundreds of drawings, illustrating the fruits of his period of Savoy to grant Juvarra permission to
p. 145; Hager 1981, pp. 32. 34; Millon 1984.
both original designs and studies after study in Rome. In the faqade of travel to Madrid in order to design a pp. 313-14; Millon 1984, "Filippo juvarra,"
Roman architectural monuments S. Cristina on Piazza S. Carlo (1715) new royal palace. Juvarra arrived later pp. 13-24; Kieven 1993, pp. 200-1

spanning the period from classical Juvarra played an exquisite variation that year and immediately set to work Staatliche Museen zu Berlin,

antiquity through the High Renaissance on the theme of the aedicular faqade, on the garden faqade of the palace of Kunstbibliothek

3Vr

I '

m I 1

in p.

4<) ARC (H I F.( TURF.

Juvarra's perspective is closely sents the ground plan as if it were

related to his three drawings in the drawn on a separate sheet of paper

Accademia di S. Luca that won first superimposed on the elevation and
prize in the Concorso Clementino of partially rolled up, a convention
1705. The program for the competi- repeated by other architects, for
tion was to design "a royal palace as a instance Piranesi. At the center

villa for the pleasure of three important appears a medallion with the Albani
personages, [to be] equally divided" arms resting on crossed palm frond.
(Millon 1984, p. 313). Juvarra's anony- Albani escutcheons with the papal
mous biographer relates that in addi- tiara and keys appear on the two bell

tion to presenting the required plans, towers. Juvarra's project continued to

elevations, and sections, the architect exert a powerful influence on archi-

also prepared a supplementary per- tecture well into the century, as is

spective rendering, which corre- evident in Bernardo Antonio Vittone's

sponds to this drawing. Accademia project of 1732. []p]

The plan of the palace is generated

by an equilateral triangle, which in

1705 the Accademia adopted as an 12

emblem symbolizing the unity of the
Filippo juvarra
three visual arts. Three identical rec-
tangular blocks connected by round "Deliziosa": Design for Act II,

vestibules or salons are grouped

Scene XI, of "Tito e Berenice"
around a central hexagonal courtyard.
extended 1713
The motif of the triangle is

pyramidal lanterns of the salon Pen and brown ink with gray wash and
to the
black chalk over graphite on laid paper
cupolas and to the angled parterres of
7

the surrounding formal garden.

7 /t" X7I4" (200 x 192 mm)
provenance Collection of Count Enrico
Above the palace, at the center of a
Cibrario, Turin
blank banderole, are the arms of
exhibition Montreal 1993. cat. no. 1
Clement XI.
bibliography Viale Ferrero 1968.
Juvarra's perspective rendering is
pp. 11-20; Viale Ferrero 1970, pp. 272, 372;
an illusionistic tour de force, a demon-
Denison, Rosenfeld. and Wiles 1993.
stration within the Accademia of his
pp. 3-6
superior talents. The anonymous Collection Centre Canadien
biographer reported that on seeing d'Architecture/Canadian Centre for
Juvarra's drawings the Accademia's Architecture. Montreal
Principe, Carlo Maratti, attempted to
exclude them from the competition,
remarking that the Concorso was During the second half of his Roman
intended for beginners, not for n sojourn (1709-14), Filippo Juvarra was
masters. The matter was resolved active as a set designer. In this capacity
when Francesco Fontana, a professor 11 emerged as a major theme and was he worked mainly for Cardinal Pietro
of architecture at the Accademia, tes- addressed by successive generations Ottoboni's theater in the Cancelleria,
Filippo Juvarra
tified that Juvarra had been studying of practicing architects and theoreti- but he also provided designs for per-
in Rome for only six months. Within Central-plan Church Project cians. Juvarra's design, like his formances in other Roman theaters.
two years of the competition, Juvarra
1707
Concorso Clementino palace design One of these was the Teatro
was elected a full member of the of two years earlier, represents a mas- Capranica, located just northeast of
Pen, gray ink, and gray wash on paper
Accademia, effectively joining the terful synthesis of historic precedents the Pantheon within the fifteenth-
39X" x 27 7" (1000 x 710 mm)
ranks of the teaching faculty. He provenance Pacetti Collection;
while displaying his own originality. century palace of the same name. It

taught there from 1707 to 1709, and Accademia di San Luca, Rome The use of flanking bell towers to opened in i6"*8 and continued to func-
from 1711 to 1712; significantly, during bibliography Rovere. Viale, and frame a domed rotunda, for example, tion until 1698, when the edict of
the second period his instruction Brinckmann 1937. p. 119; Jacob 1975, p. 146; recalls Bernini's efforts at St. Peter's Innocent XII closed Roman theaters.
focused on perspective. Hager 1981, pp. 141-45; Millon 1984, and Rainaldi's at S. Agnese in Agone. After a hiatus of more than a decade,
The academic nature of the compe- pp. $11-12; Kieven 1993, pp. 204-5 The bell towers themselves betray the it reopened in 1711. Two years later
amply reflected
tition is in Juvarra's Accademia Nazionale di San Luca. Rome influence of Borromini's campanile Juvarra is recorded as having made
drawing. The program — a royal for S. Andrea delle Fratte. By dispens- improvements to its stage, and during
palace for three —bears little relation- Artists who entered the Accademia di ing with pendentives Juvarra pro- the carnival season of 1714 he provided
ship to the realities of the architec- S. Luca through recommendation
a duced a vertically unified interior, the set designs for a performance of
tural profession, especially in Rome. from a member to the
Principe and expressed on the exterior by the steep drama based
Tito e Berenice, a historical
The eclecticism of Juvarra's design is subsequent nomination and election profile of the dome and the tall loosely on Roman history. The libretto
also consistent with the prevailing in a meeting were known as accademia lantern. In these respects this 1707 for this performance survives (it w as
culture of the Accademia. Allusions to di merito. In recognition of the honor, project may be seen as leading to edited by Cardinal Ottoboni). and the
earlier architecture abound, including they were expected to donate an Juvarra's executed design for the last scene of the second act is described
references to the work of Juvarra's example of their work to the Superga in Turin a decade later. The as a dcliziosa. or palace of delights. This
Roman master, Carlo Fontana, and a Accademia, and this church project is design is overtly scenographic in the is the si cue that is probably recorded
number of foreign architects such as Juvarra's presentation of 1707. There way its component elements arc in this drawing. Of the ten scenes
Fischer von Erlach, Le Vau, and Le arc a number of autograph variants arranged like a screen animated by mentioned in the libretto, [uvarra's
Pautrc. At the same time, Juvarra's of his design, and this elevation rich and varied silhouetting. Within, drawings tor six have been identified.
originality shines through in the mon- has a counterpart in the Berlin the openness ol the plan is evident, For Juvarra. as for many of his con-
umentality, coherence, and clarity of Kunstbibliothek, which maybe inviting vistas along the cross axes temporary architects, the theater was
his conception. a slightly later elaboration. and into the diagonal chapels. both a laboratory in which new ideas
I Hiring the Renaissance the central- In a virtuoso display ol draftsman- could be tested and an opportunity
ized church with dominating dome ship, Juvarra illusionisticallv repre- to project fantastic structures that no

A RCHITLCTURF. 131
 David Le Roy's Les Ruines des plus beaux
monuments dc la Grece, a crucial text of
international Neoclassicism published
in 1758. To judge from a drawing by Le
Lorrain depicting monumental build-
ings along the Seine (Canadian Centre
for Architecture, Montreal), the artist
appears to have remained in close

touch with Gabriel, whose project

for the Place de la Concorde it

resembles.
Le Lorrain was also active as a
designer of furniture in the Neoclassical
style, producing designs that are
decidedly architectural in character.

One piece from a suite of ebony furni-

ture designed in 1756-58 for Ange-
Laurant de La Live de Jully survives in
the Musee Conde in Chantilly. Le
Lorrain's furniture for La Live made
an important contribution to the for-

mation of the goutgrcc. the new style

that replaced Rococo in France during

the 1750s.
In 1758 Le Lorrain moved to
St. Petersburg, where Empress
Elisabeth appointed him to be the first

director of the newly founded

academy of arts, although his hopes
of pursuing a career as a furniture
designer in Russia were dashed when
a shipment of furniture was captured
in transit by English pirates, [jp]

bibliography Eriksen 1961. pp. 340-47;

Eriksen 1963, pp. 94-120; Harris 1967,
pp. 193-94: Erouart 1976, pp. 201-15;
Denison, Rosenfeld. and Wiles 1993,
pp. 152-54; Sassoli 1994. pp. 114-15

13

Louis-Joseph Le Lorrain
The Temple of Minerva: The
Second Chinea Macchina of
patron's resources would ever be suffi- scenic effects of diagonal recession. eight years. While there he profited
cient to build, Juvarra 's deliziosa, while As a result, the pleasure pavilion's from the company of Joseph-Marie 1746
drama set in
figuring in a historical faqades converge on the corner and Vien and produced designs for the 1746
ancient Rome, could not be more exu- appear to pass behind its projecting annual Chinea festival in 1745, 1746,
Etching
berantly eighteenth-century in its convexity to reemerge as the splayed and 1747. which illustrate the powerful
isX" x 18X" (401 x 476 mm)
formal vocabulary, particularly the towers framing the entrance. The influence of Giovanni Battista
bibliography Harris 196^. pp. 193-94;
play of convex and concave forms resulting X-shaped intersection, with Piranesi. Le Lorrain collaborated with Inventairc du fonds fiungaU: graveurs iu dix-
composing its multi-tiered entrance. the diagonal arms emerging from a Piranesi, etching vignettes for the title huitieme siklc. Paris: Bibliotheque Nationale.

Juvarra gave free rein to his fantasy, convex core, calls to mind Juvarra's pages of Piranesi's Opere varic (1750) 1977, vol. 14, no. 9; Denison. Rosenfeld. and
and was less constrained by the desire later designs for the central pavilion of and Lc magnificenze di Roma Wiles 1993. pp. 152-54; Sassoli 1994.
(1751).

to produce appropriately classical set- the palace at Stupinigi, outside Turin. Together with Piranesi. Le Geay, pp. 114-15
Ministero per Beni e le Attivita Culturali.
tings for the action than he was in []>'] Challe. and other artists working in
i

Istituto Nazionale per la Grafica. Rome

earlier plays set in ancient Rome for Rome, Le Lorrain made early and fun-
which he provided the scenery. The damental contributions to the forma-
grand edifice, so full of movement, is LOUIS-JOSEPH LE LORRAIN tion of international Neoclassicism. The series of prints documenting the
exquisitely framed by the arching PARIS 1715-1759 ST. PETERSBURG On his return from Rome, Le ephemeral structures erected as part of
boughs of trees in a surrounding park Lorrain was agree ("accepted") as a his- the celebration of the Chinea constitute
and adorned by symmetrically dis- Le Lorrain practiced extensively as a torical painter at the Academic Royale a remarkable record of cross-currents
posed fountains surmounted by painter, architect, furniture designer, in 1-52 and admitted to full member- in the history of eighteenth-century
statues, which are represented silhou- and engraver. After studying painting ship in that institution four years later. Roman architecture. Nicola Michetti's
etted in the middle ground. Some of with Jacques Dumont, he won the prix Among his influential patrons was the designs for the 1733 festival (see cat. 17)

the same conventions appear in the dcRome from the Academic Royale de Comte de Caylus, who recommended were the ones made for five years,
last

garden scenes Juvarra designed for the Peinture in 1739. With the support of the artist to Count Carl Gustav Tessin because of the change of government
1711 performances of Ciunio Bruto and the architect Anges-Jacques Gabriel of Sweden, whose country house at in Naples following the War of the
Teodosio il (Aovane. he was granted permission to travel Akero Le Lorrain decorated with illu- Polish Succession, as a result of which
Juvarra presented the deliziosa as a to Rome and take up residence at the sionistic Doric columns in 1754. To Austrian rule was replaced by that of
scenapcr angolo, which allowed him to French Academy in 1740. Le Lorrain Caylus, Le Lorrain also owed the com- the Bourbons. When the series of
exploit two vanishing points and the remained in Rome as a pensionnaire for mission lor the illustrations in |ulicn- Chinea designs resumed in 1738,

ARCHITECTURE
Michetti was no longer responsible Temple ofMinerva with a festival struc-
and for the next six years figures pre- ture for the Piazza Farnese designed in
dominated in compositions that are the previous year by Giovanni Paolo
pictorial rather than architectural. Only Panini to celebrate the wedding of the
in 1745 did the character of the festival dauphin and Maria Teresa of Spain. Le
structures revert to the architectural. Lorrain etched the plate recording
The macchine of the following year Panini's spirited Baroque design, so he
maintain the emphasis on architec- certainly knew it. In place of the
ture, but with a marked shift in style weighty solidity and sparing use of
away from the late Baroque classicism ornament in Le Lorrain's Temple oj

of Michetti and towards Neoclassicism. Minerva, Panini's two-story circular

A crucial agent in this transformation building (crowned somewhat implau-
appears to have been the French sibly by an obelisk) is embellished by a
painter Louis-Joseph Le Lorrain, whose profusion of sculpture calculated to
Temple oj Minerva of 1746 introduces fea- yield a light and airy silhouette. Le
tures that would subsequently be taken Lorrain seems consciously to have set
up by artists and architects practicing out to correct Panini's Baroque exu-
in the Neoclassical style in the decades berance by providing an alternative
of the 1750s and 1760s. Le Lorrain grounded in a more rigorous and ele-

arrived in Rome in 1740. and like other mental approach to classicism, [jp]

pensionnaires at the French Academy,

seems to have fallen under the influ-

ence of Giovanni Battista Piranesi, GIOVANNI BATTISTA

himself a recent arrival in Rome. MAINI
Le Lorrain's temple appears to be a CASSANO MAGNAGO 160O-I752
stripped down version of the rotunda ROME
in Piranesi's Campidoglio aniko, one of For biography see Sculpture section
the plates that appeared in the Prima teenth- and early eighteenth-century lighter and more gently curving
pane of 1743. practice in Rome, Salvi also provided forms, and the warm tonalities of the
The basic geometrical forms of Le 14 a governing design that the sculptors red chalk.
Lorrain's temple — cubic its the core,
Giovanni Battista Maini
responsible for executing the statuary Maini's composition differs
cylindrical portico, and the hemi- were expected to follow. As early as markedly from Salvi's more architec-
spherical dome — emphasized
are Study for the Central Sculptural 1734 Salvi began to engage sculptors, tural view of the Trevi sculpture,
both by the dramatic play of light and and in August of that year Giovanni which is known from other drawings.
Group of the Trevi Fountain
shadow and by the sparing use of Battista Maini received his first In Salvi's scheme the overall effect is

ornament, particularly evident in the C. 1735 payment for a wax model of the rather Hat and relief-like, lacking a
lower levels of the edifice. Le Lorrain Red chalk on coarse paper Oceanus group. It seems likely this strong volumetric dimension; the
introduced a frieze of sacrificial figures 30X" x 16V/' (772 x 420 mm) Berlin drawing represents one ol figures, rather than projecting from
forming a band around the base of the BIBLIOGRAPHY VoSS 1910; PilltO 1986, Maini's small bozzetti set against Salvi's the facade, seem spread out along it.
dome, an inspired invention without pp. 205-H large wooden model. The composi- occupying a shallow foreground plane
Roman precedent. From an altar at the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin.
tion is emphatically volumetric and of their own. The architecture ol the
Kunstbibliothek
center of the frieze a plume of smoke- sculptural: figures spill out into the fountain, like a ^ lassical scenic fron-
rises, blurring the bulbous profile of foreground plane, while others lead tispiece, determines the choreography
the dome and forming a cloud-like The sculptural program of the Trevi the eve back in depth across a consid- ol the sculptural figures. These differ-
pedestal for the statue of Minerva that Fountain was devised by its architect, erable distance. Here, indeed, arc ing visions ol the correct relationship
crowns the edifice. Nicola Salvi, whose detailed memo- manifested all ol the characteristic ele- between architecture and sculpture
The dramatic shift in Le Lorrain's randum explaining the iconography ments of Baroque sculptural compo- inevitably led to conflict later on.
style can be seen by comparing the survives. In keeping with late seven- sitions, softened onlv bv the use of What is sinking is the role plaved by

ARCHITECTURE
 I

models, architectural and sculptural, NICOLA MICHETTI

throughout the design process. ROME 1672/81-1758 ROME
In April 1739 the large wooden
model of the fountain was taken to Nicola Michetti's architectural prac-
Maini's studio, no doubt to assist him tice, which extended over a period of
in designing the full-scale stucco more than fifty years, can be conve-

models of the figures composing the niently divided into five periods. In
centralgroup of sculpture, which the first of these, roughly between
were installed by the summer of 1740. 1704 and 1713, he was involved in pro-
The appearance of Maini's models evi- jects that were outgrowths of his
dently displeased Salvi, and by training in the studio of Carlo Fontana.
September of the same year it was Michetti's earliest known design is an
public knowledge that a controversy unexecuted project for the Trevi
had broken out between sculptor and Fountain (1704), which shows clearly
architect. In a letter of that month, The most
the influence of his master.
Cardinal Felice Passerini, who as significant early commissions he
Presidente delle Acque was responsi- received were chapels for two Roman
ble for the work on the Trevi, wrote patrons, the Rospigliosi family (1710-19)
that "because of the disagreement that and Cardinal Giuseppe Sacripante
has arisen between Salvi and the (1712), in which architecture, painting, 15

sculptor Maini over the central group, and sculpture are orchestrated to
its execution in marble still has not create illusionistic compositions that which were recorded in prints. In 1729 BIBLIOGRAPHY Costanzi [1729] 1987;
begun. Maini is obliged to make a new have their source in the work of he designed the elaborate sets for a Crabar 1909; Lo Gatto 1935, vol. 2,
model in reduced scale quite different Gianlorenzo Bernini. Also during this play entitled Carlo Magno, which was pp. 50-52; Lavagnino 1942, pp. 139-47;
Pansecchi 1962, pp. 21-31; Voronikhina
from the large one, since Salvi says time Michetti furnished designs and performed in Cardinal Ottoboni's
1972, nos. 21, 24-26, 44-54, 60-62; Pinto
that Maini made many mistakes in its supervised work on festival decora- theater in the Cancelleria, and
19^6: Pinto 1977. pp. 853-57; Pinto 1979,
composition" (Rome, Biblioteca tions for Cardinal Ottoboni. between 1730 and 1733, as architect of
pp. 375-81: Pinto 1980, pp. 289-322;
Corsiniana, Cod. Cors. 1160, fol. 67). In a second period, between 1713 the Colonna family, he was responsi- Voronikhina 1981, pp. 62-86: Tancioni
At some point late in 1740 or early and his departure for Russia in 1718, ble for six large-scale fireworks dis- 1988; Curcio 1989, pp. 65-80; Curcio 1991.
disagreement between
in 1741, the Michetti was engaged in two large-scale plays for the Chinea festival. pp. 401-3; Kelly 1991. pp. 57-67: Pinto 1991.
Salvi and Maini over the design of the projects: an oval-plan church erected After 1733 and until his death pp. 50-57; Pinto 1991, "Sagrestia,"

large models was resolved through Zagarolo (1717-23) and the prepara- Michetti held two pp. 58-69; Pinto 1992. vol. 2, pp. 526-65;
in salaried positions as
Morganti 1995. pp. 303-12; Millon 1999,
outside arbitration. Maini, writing tion of amodel of his St. Peter's sacristy architect of both the Camera
pp. 533-34. 562-63; Pinto 1999,
on April 1, 1741, about his work on the design (171s), which was not executed. Apostolica and the Theatine order, "Architettura"; Pinto 1999, "Michetti"
"Fontana Eterna" as he bitterly called Both of these designs bear comparison which demanded most of his atten-
it, noted that he was currently with the work of Michetti's great con- tion. The spare and utilitarian
engaged in altering the models on the temporary Filippo Juvarra, who was Polveriera, or gunpowder magazine,
siteand would be finished by the end one of Michetti's competitors in the he built just inside Porta S. Paolo in 15
of the month (cited by Colombo 1966, Vatican sacristy competition. Between 1752 characterizes his work for the
Nicola Michetti
pp. 37—38). A memorandum drawn up iti8 and 1^23 Michetti was in Russia, papal administration, while the apart-
in the summer of 1741 by the painter where he worked for Peter the Great, ment building adjacent to the Interior of Ss. Apostoli under
Agostino Masucci explains how he primarily in the new imperial capital of monastery of S. Andrea della Valle
Construction
was appointed by Cardinal Neri St. Petersburg. In the service of the czar, (1755-57) is representative of his activ-
Corsini to effect a compromise Michetti erected two imposing summer ity in service of the Theatines. c. 1706

between architect and sculptor, and palaces, at Tallin in Estonia (1718-20) Michetti's respect for the classical Signed on plaque in left foreground: Nicola
Michetti
that he had recommended certain and Strelna near St. Petersburg orders and his predilection for sceno-
Pen and ink. chalk, and gray wash on paper
changes intended to satisfy all parties (1720-23), and laid out extensive graphic compositions remained con-
19%" x 28 '/;" (498 x 725 mm); two sheets
concerned. gardens in the French style at Peterhol stant through his career, and
joined vertically
As a result of Masucci's diplomacy, Other unexecuted projects
(1719-23). constituted the essence of his style. At
provenance Pope Clement XI; Cardinal
work on the sculpture resumed, but at are known from his drawings in the the same time, he showed himself to
Alessandro Albani; George III (1762)
a slow pace. During the summer of Hermitage Museum, one of which be unusually receptive to a variety of
BIBLIOGRAPHY Zocca 1959. pp. 59-65;
1742 workmen were still engaged at was for a monumental lighthouse influences, both native and foreign, and
Pinto 1976. vol. 1, pp. 20-24: Braham and
the fountain in dismantling Maini's over five hundred feet tall. capable of incorporating them into an Hager 1977. p. 178
first set of stucco models, and The ten years following Michetti's imaginative synthesis that reveals the The Royal Collection, Her Majesty Queen
throughout the following year Maini return from Russia, especially those richness and complexity of late Elizabeth II

labored to perfect their replacements. between 1729 and 1733, were his most Baroque design. Such a synthesis is

These models are the statues

full-scale productive. In recognition of his evident in an early work such as the
that were unveiled on July 4, 1744, stature as architect of the czar, Rospigliosi Chapel, which betrays his The Early Christian basilica of
when the Trevi was inaugurated by Michetti was elected to the Accademia study of Bernini and Andrea Pozzo, as Ss. Apostoli had long shown signs of
Pope Benedict XIV, an event recorded di S. Luca in 1725. Between 1731 and well as in a mature design, such as the structural decay. On
September 22,
in a painting by Giovanni Paolo 1732 he built an imposing new facade monumental plan for the gardens at 1701, a committee of architects headed
Panini. Maini died without installing for the Palazzo Colonna, perhaps his Peterhof, so profoundly influenced by by Francesco Fontana reported that,
permanent marble statues on the most successful design. The free- Andre Le Notre and Jean-Baptiste- in spite of earlier repairs, the roof and
Trevi; these were carved by his succes- standing corner pavilion of the palace Alexandre Le Blond. Michetti also its supporting walls were leaning
sor, Pietro Bracci, and unveiled in contains one of the finest secular actively contributed to the dissemina- towards the piazza and the entire
1762. In general. Bracci followed the spaces of eighteenth-century Rome. tion of the grand Roman tradition of church was in need of rebuilding.
compromise design agreed upon by Its airy lightness, scenographic effects architecture; along with Fischer von Francesco Fontana, Carlo's son, had
Salvi and Maini. while introducing a of mural transparency, and exquisite Erlach, James Gibbs, Lucas von inherited the post of architect of the
number of minor changes. [ji>] stuccos bear comparison with con- Hildebrandt, and other pupils of Carlo convent from Carlo Rainaldi, who had
temporary designs by Juvarra in Fontana, he played a major role in died in 1691. After the state of the early
Piedmont. At the same time Michetti exporting what might be called an church had been documented, demo-
was also producing ephemeral international style of late Baroque lition work began under the younger
designs for festivals and the theater, design to northern Europe. ||P] Fontana's direction in the area of the

Al« HI I l < I I ) K
nave, and the foundation stone was of the actual state of the building at 16 Giovanni Battista Vanelli. an iiitii^liii-

set in place by Pope Clement XI on any given time; rather, Michetti seems tore, was paid for work on a model that
Nicola Michetti
February 27, 1702. Work proceeded to have illustrated various operations corresponds in every particular to the
rapidly on the nave and side aisles, in the construction process. To this Model for the Pallavicini Museo di Roma model. The models of
which were vaulted by the summer of end he subordinated the appearance
Rospigliosi Chapel in
the Rospigliosi Chapel were intended

1705. In 1706 the task of decorating the of the edifice, omitting the southern to aid architect, sculptor, and patron
nave and the chapels of the side aisles, aisle altogether and slicing through S. Francesco a Ripa to assess proposals for its decoration.
following the model that Fontana had show its structure.
the nave vault to c. 1715
This larger model, complete by 1713,
prepared, was begun. In the following More than twenty-five workmen are Wood and plaster with wax and papier represents the masonry structure of
year Giovanni Battista Gaulli agreed to engaged in various operations at dif- mache: painted in imitation of the chapel substantially as it was built,

fresco the vault "according to the ferent levels of the church, working marble revetment and was fashioned so as to permit
design already made" (Rome, Archivio on scaffolding, climbing ladders, and 66/4" x 44'A" x yjVi" (1700 x luo x 960 mm) smaller models (such as one in the
del Convento dei Ss. XII Apostoli, operating machinery. The centering provenance Pallavicini Rospigliosi Pallavicini collection) to be inserted
Libro dei consigli del conto de Ss. Apostoli of the arches supporting the north Collection within its framework, thereby pre-
[1697-1727], fols. 61-74). Throughout aisle is still in place and two wind- exhibition Rome 1959, cat. no. 1000 senting a number of different design
this first phase of the construction the lasses are being used to hoist mortar bibliography Settecento 1959, p. 237; options.
tribune of the Constantinian church to the upper levels, presumably to lay Pansecchi 1962. pp. 21-31; Negro 1987, Around 1716, or shortly thereafter,
had been left standing, and it was not the vaults. At the center a group of pp. 157-78; Pinto 1991, pp. 50-57; Millon the composite model with its variant
1999. pp. 562-63
until the spring of 1708 that it was men operating another windlass is must have been submitted for
laterals
Museo di Roma, Rome
demolished to make way for the new lowering a block of cut stone into approval to the client, who. after con-
chancel and apse. Work had just place to form one of the pilasters sidering it in all its particulars, arrived

begun on the tribune when, on July 3, facing the nave. In the foreground The Pallavicini Rospigliosi Chapel in at a decision to incorporate or delete
1708, Francesco Fontana died. other architectural elements, includ- the church of S. Francesco a Ripa was specific elements. In the altarpiece in

One week later the aging Carlo ing a column base, lie waiting to be set the first important commission exe- the model, the Virgin and Child
Fontana was elected to complete his in place. cuted by Nicola Michetti. Among the appear in a miraculous vision to the
son's design. However, work pro- To the left of center in the drawing most significant evidence bearing on two Franciscan saints, while in the
gressed slowly, and the tribune was is a group of four standing men, one the history of the chapel is this vault fresco God the Father is repre-
still unfinished at the death of the of whom (the architect?) points remarkably well-preserved model, sented in the midst of a heavenly choir
elder Fontana in 1712. In a meeting on towards the workmen engaged in which is complemented by another of angels. In the chapel as executed,
September 12, 1712, the congregation arming the aisle vaults. As the smaller model belonging to the the decorative program has been sig-
resolved to entrust the completion of drawing illustrates work in progress Pallavicini family, and numerous nificantly reduced and simplified: God
the church to Nicola Michetti, remark- in the area of the nave and aisles, and drawings (four of them signed by the Father has descended, as it were,
ing on "the great services Michetti not the tribune, it is reasonable to Michetti) in the Vatican Library. to take the place of the Virgin and
has rendered to the congregation, for assume that the architect depicted is The chapel opens off the right Child in the altarpiece and gilded
when the Cavaliere Francesco Fontana Francesco Fontana. And, since it is transept of S. Francesco. The first ornamental stuccos have replaced the
was still living he daily supervised known that he assisted daily on the impression is of the altar wall, where fresco above. Moreover, the oval bas-
work on the nave and aisles of the site from the very beginning, it is two columns of verde antico crowned reliefs in the pendentives of the model
new church without ever receiving shown
likely that Michetti, too, is by gilt bronze capitals frame have been replaced by painted alle-

any payment" (Libro dei consigli del conto among this group, which may also Giuseppe Chiari's altarpiece repre- gories by Tommaso Chiari, and the
de Ss. Apostoli [1697-1727], fol. 104). The include Carlo Muggiani, the master senting Peter of Alcantara and two statues of angels seated on the
minutes of this meeting go on to make mason who contracted with Francesco Pasquale Baylon, the two Franciscan cornice flanking the baldachin have
it quite clear that Michetti had contin- Fontana in 1702 to provide the labor saints to whom the chapel is dedi- been eliminated altogether. The four
ued to direct the construction of the and materials for the new church. cated. Only upon entering the chapel twisted columns of verde antico boldly
church under Carlo Fontana, "who This drawing illustrates how much are the rich sculptural decorations on projecting into the chapel interior in
because of his age had been unable to there was for a young architect to the lateral walls and the gilded stuccos the model have been replaced in exe-
visit the site for many months" (Libro learn on a site such as Ss. Apostoli, and painted ovals in the vault com- cution by two fluted Corinthian
dei consigli del conto de Ss. Apostoli and how much there was for him to pletely visible. On the right wall is columns recessed into the altar wall.
1 1697-1727], fol. 104). For the most do. Not only were there drawings to the monument of Maria Camilla This dramatic reduction of the role
part. Michetti appears to have been be made and piecework to be orga- Pallavicini, in which the sculptor of sculpture above the cornice height-
content to execute Francesco nized and supervised; there was also Giuseppe Mazzuoli represented ens the importance of the sepulchral
Fontana's designs, which are known the laborious task of inspecting and Prudence and Charity, flanking the monuments on the lateral walls. The
from the plan and elevations pub- evaluating work. Bills submitted by central casket. Facing this is the primary function of the chapel was
lished by De Rossi in 1721. Only in the contractors and masons had to be memorial of Stefano and Lazzaro to be a memorial to members of the
area of the tribune vault did Michetti scrupulously itemized, checked, and Pallavicini, also by Mazzuoli. At the Rospigliosi family, so the reductive
feel the need to depart from Francesco corrected. This work constituted one lower level, flanking the central casket character of these alterations is both
Fontana's model, there making rela- of the most time-consuming tasks of as in the other monument, Mazzuoli logical and justified.
tively insignificant structural alter- eighteenth-century architects, and placed allegorical figures of Fortitude In preparing his design for the
ations. The most important aspect of was one that was to occupy Michetti and Justice, while above are oval bas- Rospigliosi Chapel. Michetti appears
Michetti's activity in the construction throughout his career. Finally, it was relief portraits of the two prelates. to have studied Bernini's Alaleona
of Ss. Apostoli is not his positive influ- among the contractors and masons The first reference to work on the Chapel of 1649 in Ss. Domenico e Sisto.
ence on the design, but rather the with whom a young architect such as chapel occurs in 1710, when the struc- The architectural enframement of the
experience he must have gained in Michetti worked in his early years that ture of the enclosing walls was begun. altar walls in both chapels is almost
directing work on a large-scale project. he made the contacts that served him Work on the framework of the chapel identical and the relationship of the
This signed pen and wash drawing well in numerous other building continued until the summer of 1713, sculptural group of Christ and the
by Michetti shows the interior of enterprises. [|i>] presumably supervised by Michetti. Magdalen to the angels hovering above
Ss. Apostoli under construction. It who at this time was the salaried is similar to that uniting the altarpiece
provides a rare glimpse of the appear- architect of the Rospigliosi family. and stUCCOS in the Rospigliosi Chapel,
ance of a building site in early eigh- The earliest mention of architectural Michetti's use of an arch of gilded
teenth-century Rome and gives a models relating to the chapel dates rosettes set within panels forming the
good idea of the kind of practical from this period. Six documents of upper frame of the altar wall also
experience Michetti acquired while in 1711-12 record payments in connec- derives from the earlier chapel.
Fontana's studio. It seems unlikely tion with more than one model 1 epre In 1710 the reputation of Andrea
that the drawing represents a survey senting the chapel, and in 1712 Pozzoas a designer of monumental

ARCHITECTURIi
 17
Nicola Michetti
Design for the Second Chinea
Macchina of 1733
1733

Pen and brown ink with brown and gray

washes on paper
15X" x 14//' (398 x 378 mm)
provenance Acquired from Trinity Fine
Art Ltd.. London
bibliography Rome, Archivio Colonna,
I. A. 218, nos. 254, 324: Pinto 1980, pp.
308-13; Sassoli 1994. pp. 54, 101; Moore J.

1995. pp. 584-608: Fagiolo 1997, vol. 2,

pp. 42-55
The Pierpont Morgan Library, New York

By far the greatest number of firework

displays in eighteenth-century Rome
were organized by the Contestabile
Colonna, the representative of the
King of Naples. Each year on the feast
of Saint Peter and Saint Paul the King
of Naples made the symbolic gesture
of giving the pope a white horse
(called chinea in Neapolitan dialect)
to acknowledge his obeisance to the
papal authority. This was the origin
of the Chinea ceremony, the festival
aspect of which was expanded in 1722
by the presentation of fireworks on
the evenings before and after the
horse was escorted to the Vatican. For
the next sixty years, with few excep-
tions, two large fireworks macchine
were presented annually, constituting
a series of designs of considerable
importance to the study of eighteenth-
century Roman architecture and
ephemeral design. As permanent
records of these ephemeral spectacles,
the Colonna family commissioned
prints that were distributed to foreign
dignitaries, as well as prominent
figures in Rome. Michetti's drawing
for the second of the two fireworks
macchine presented in 1-33 provided
the design for the print etched by
Domenico Mariano.
In 1731 Michetti succeeded Gabriele
Valvassori as architect to the Colonna,
for which he received a monthly
stipend as a member of the household.
Later in the same year he signed a con-
tract to design and supervise the con-
struction of the west facade of the
family palace toward the Piazza
Ss. Apostoli. the public space in which
the Chinea fireworks macchine were
displayed in the 1720s and 1730s.
Another of his responsibilities was to
provide designs for the Chinea festival

and documents in the

structures,
Colonna archive confirm that he was
altar surrounds must have rivaled, it pictorum atquc architectorum (1702). In scale, complexity, and richness neces- responsible for the six macchine pre-
not actually surpassed, that of Bernini. the architectural frame for the altar by the private nature of the
sitated sented in three successive years:
Not only was it firmly based on his two in his model, Michetti used twisted commission, the Rospigliosi Chapel 1731-1733- These same documents
great Roman altars in the transepts of columns and sculpture in a way that may be interpreted as an act of record payments for the 1733 macchine
the GeSU and S. Ignazio, but the clearly recalls Pozzo's great altar sur- homage paid by the young architect (all approved by Michetti) to others

designs ol these and other altars were rounds in the Gesu and S. Ignazio. In to the great Jesuit designer. engaged in executing his designs,
published in his treatise. Perspectives spite of the noticeable reduction in including the painter Giovanni

136 ARCHITECTURE
 .

tecture. The degree to which festival borrow from the Forma urbis the graphic
structures transformed familiar urban device of distinguishing public monu-
spaces on a regular basis should also ments from the rest of the buildings.
be noted; over time they came to be Even before its publication Nolli's
closely bound up with the identity and plan was used to support other
function of major Roman squares, projects. In 1744 Count Bernardino
including the Piazza di Spagna, the Bernardini published a book describing
Piazza Farnese, the Piazza Navona, the redrawing of the boundaries of
and the Piazza Ss. Apostoli. [jp] Rome's fourteen rioni (administrative
which he was responsible
regions), for
as Priore dei Caporioni of the city. In it

GIAMBATTISTA NOLLI he acknowledged his debt to "the new

MONTRONIO, COMO 17OH756 plan of Rome, drafted exactly by Signor

ROME Giovambatista Nolli, from Como, well-

known Surveyor, and Architect
Little is known of Nolli's background (Bernardini [1774] 1978, pp. 13-14). Near
except his birthplace and the fact that the end of the book a foldout map with
he apparently trained as a surveyor. the new none boundaries is signed
He is known to have been engaged in Car[lo] Nolli, Giambattista's son and
that trade in Milan in 1722 and in the collaborator on the main map project.
Kingdom of Piedmont and Sardinia in These rionc boundaries are later faith-

1729, and his work seems to have been fully recorded as dotted lines on the
of high quality. His decision to go to Pianlagrande. In 1747 Giuseppe Vasi
Rome may have been influenced by published the first of his ten-volume
his future patron Cardinal Alessandro Delle magnificenze, in which he depicted
Albani, who was the papal representa- the gates and the walls of the city, and
tive in Piedmont when Nolli was at the end of this volume he included

working there. A letter dated August a list giving "The Measure of the dis-
1736 grants him papal permission to tances from one City-gate to the next
enter "all the basilicas, churches . . . provided to the Author by the
. .

and convents, even those of Cloistered Architect, and Surveyor Sig. Gio.
Angelo Soccorsi and the contractors relatively solid base that provided the Nuns, in order to make necessary Battista Nolli from Como" (Vasi
Antonio and Nicola Giobbe. At this support for both macchine, the super- measurements" (Faccioli 1966, 1747-61, vol. 1, p. 73). This link between
time the elder Giobbe, together with structures were made of stiff canvas pp. 421-22). This was the beginning the two printmakers suggests that Vasi
his son Nicola, were serving as general supported by a wooden armature that of the twelve-year task of accurate also used Nolli's map as a principal
contractors for the new wing of the was covered by a gesso coating and measurement, drawing, engraving, source for the numerous views of the
Palazzo Colonna as well as for the then painted. Both the 1733 macchine and printing that resulted in the publi- city in the other volumes of the
neighboring Trevi Fountain; it was are raised up on a high arched base- cation of the Nuova pianta di Roma in Magnificenze.
Nicola Giobbe who befriended ment standing isolated at the center of 1748 (known as the Pianta grande). Nolli's collaboration with Piranesi
Piranesi when the Venetian first the square and are not attached to the In 1742 Nolli was also commis- must have occurred shortly before
arrived in Rome and to whom the Palazzo Colonna, as was usually the sioned, with the architect Ferdinando the publication of the Pianlagrande.
Prima parte di architetture e prospettivc case, because the center of Michetti's Fuga. to mount the surviving frag- Included with the large map were two
(1743) is dedicated. new palace wing was still under ments of the Forma Romac in the
urbis smaller ones. One was a reduction
Both of the 1733 macchine employ construction. The recently completed Museo del Campidoglio. This was the issi plan-map of Rome by
of the
mythological themes to extol the southern corner pavilion projects early third-century marble plan of Leonardo Bufalini, which Nolli
reign of Charles VI, the Habsburg behind and to the left of the fireworks Rome acquired by Pope Benedict XIV acknowledged as the direct predeces-
emperor whose authority extended apparatus. The arch of the macchina Lambertini in 1741. Only ten percent sor to his own. The other was a reduc-
to Naples. The second macchina depicts frames a temporary wine-dispensing of the Forma urbis survived, so Nolli tion of the Pianta grande itself on to a
Jove and Minerva enthroned in the fountain that provided refreshment to made no effort to arrange the pieces single sheet. This is inscribed Piranesi e

midst of martial standards as they the crowds that gathered. The seven- inone overall topographical map. Nolli incisero. Clearly Nolli supplied the
consult with one another concerning teenth-century Palazzo Bonelli is set Instead they were organized arbitrarily map while Piranesi drew the capriccio
how best to maintain the peace. In a back further behind the festival struc- in twenty rectangular panels disposed of the Baroque city below it. This col-
cave opening into the side of the ture. At the extreme right is visible the on the walls of the museum's laboration did not prevent Piranesi
mountain on which they sit is the forge profile of the church of the SS. Nome main stairway. from taking Nolli to task later for mis-
of Vulcan, where a number of figures di Maria, which had recently been This project was later criticized by taking the orientation of the Theater
are engaged in the manufacture of demolished and was under construc- Piranesi, who reproduced the frag- of Pompey on his large map, and in his

arms. This theme accurately repre- tion in 1733. ments in his 1756 Leantichita romane, in (1 Campo Mai'zio of 1762 Piranesi men-
sents the contemporary political situ- Even studied at one remove through which he said that some of the smaller tioned Nolli by name below a repro-
ation in Europe, where England, the medium of graphic reproductions, fragments had not been recognized as duced map section showing the area
France, Spain, and Austria were arming designs for eighteenth-century parts of larger ones (Giovanni Battista of the theater, describing and correct-
in preparation for the War of the Polish ephemeral architecture delight and Piranesi, Le anticliita romane (Rome: ing the error (Piranesi. II Campo Marzio
Succession, which would begin before charm the observer. The scale and Stamperia di Angelo Roti, 1756), vol. 1. dell'antica Roma [1762I. pi. XVI).
the year was over. Michetti's macchine volume of the work produced, much of fol. 7). Indeed, Nolli does not seem to Nolli dedicated the completed map
for the Chinea of 1733 were the last ones it by first-rate artists, are remarkable, have used the topographical informa- to Benedict XIV. and presented the
made for five years. and the designs display an imagination tion provided by the orma urbis frag-
f first two copies to him in April 1^48.
important to remember that
It is and daring that could never have been ments for reconstructing antiquities Despite the pope's approval and that
although the surviving prints and incorporated in structures built of on his own Pianta grande. A fragment of important scholars, the map was
drawings naturally emphasize the more Through prints
lasting materials. bearing a semicircular plan marked not a financial success: by nso only
appearance of the Chinea macchine as these designs circulated widely and (th)eatr(vm)marc(elli) should have three hundred ol the 18-4 copies
large-scale environmental sculpture, once reduced to a two-dimensional prevented him from making the printed had been sold. Nonetheless
they were designed to be blown up in format became, tor all practical pur- mistake of reconstructing the theater the Pianta grande remained the model
a thunderous pyrotechnic blaze of poses, indistinguishable from graphic ol Marccllus in elliptical form. for most of the plan-maps of the city
color. Documents reveal that abov e a representations ol permanent archi- 1 lowever, for his Pianta grande Nolli did for the next two centuries.

ai« hitf.cturf:
 )

i8

On his large map the artist signs NUOVA TOPOGRAFIA / Dl ROMA / OSSEQUIOSA- 1748, only five are plan-maps. The the same landmarks. Only Alberti's
himself Giambattista Nolli Gcometra MENTE OFFERISCE E DEDICA / L'UMILISSIMO earliest of these was the 1551 plan by measurements survive; his map, if
e Arcfiitetto, and as an architect he SERVO / GIAMBATTISTA NOLLI COMASCO Leonardo Bufalini, which is also the ever drawn, does not. Nolli comple-
designed the layout of the gardens for Etching first known plan-map of Rome since mented this technique with numerous
the villa of Cardinal Alessandro Albani, 70" x 108" (1778 x 2743 mm). the early third century Forma urbis. triangulations in the field. This is illus-

and the church of S. Dorotea in 12 sheets combined

Despite its large and uneven distor- trated at thebottom right of the Pianta
Trastevere (1751), in which he was bibliography Ehrle 1932; Frutaz 1962; tions, Nolli recognized Bufalini's map grande by the two putti measuring
Zanker 1973, pp. 309-42; Pinto 1976,
buried in 1756. [ac] as the most important antecedent to distances with a surveyor's folding
"Origins," pp. 35-50; Ceen 1984; Ingersoll
bibliography Bernardini [1774] 1978; his own, and acknowledged his debt "chain" and by the putto recording
1986. pp. 21-23; Borsi 1995: Bevilacqua 1998
Faccioli 1966, pp. 415-42; Zanker 1973,
Pace Master Prints. New York by republishing this pioneering plan the results on a plane-table (swiveling
pp. 309-42; Rykwert 1977; Ceen 1984: Ceen together with his own large and small board on tripod); upon this rests an
1990. pp. 17-22; Bevilacqua 1998 plans of the city. alidade for taking sightings, which
The fame of Giambattista Nolli rests Bufalini in turn relied in part on the were traced directly on to a sheet of
solely on the great plan-map of Rome Renaissance ichnographic plan tradi- paper affixed to the table.
18 (Piantagrande). Of the many maps of tion best exemplified by Leonardo da This technique was integrated with
the city, his stands out as the most Vinci's plan of Imola, which itself alignments taken with a magnetic
Giambattista Nolli
innovative, informative, and influential. drew upon Leon Battista Alberti's compass. The importance of the
Plan of Rome Historic maps of Rome can be divided technique of city measurement compass or bussola to Nolli's plan is
into two groups: the view-maps, which through the use of polar coordinates. evidenced by its appearance on the
( Nuova piantadi Roma
present a bird's-eye view of the city, Interestingly, it was in Rome that date block with two putti gesturing to
1748 and the plan-maps which are ichno- map above. This linkage
Alberti developed this system by it and to the
Signed and dated, to right of dedicatory was way of indicating
graphic (orthogonal) plans of the city. taking angular measurements Nolli's the
inscription: Misuriitii dclin. cd a proprit Spcx
Up to Nolli's lime, the view-maps had between sightings of major landmarks unusual orientation of his map: north
data in luce da Giambatt.a Nolli (kom.a ed
Arch.o I'Anno 1748
predominated because they were of the city from the highpoint of the instead of the traditional east. He was
easier for most visitors to the city to tower on the Capitoline Hill's Palazzo also the first Roman mapmakerto
Dedicatory inscription: ALU santita / Dl
NOSTRO SICNORE / PAPA / MiNl.DFTTO XIV / I.A
grasp. Of over fifty maps of the con- Senatorio, and plotting these against note the distinction between true and
temporary city between 1400 and distances measured from the tower to magnetic north. This is recorded in

l}8 ARCHITECTURE
the only change between the first and

second state of Nolli's print, which is

the compass rose added to the space

in front of the Lateran basilica, and an

accompanying "Avvertimento" on the
right edge of the map, which explains

this distinction.

Like Bufalini, Nolli includes recon-

structions of ancient buildings, but
distinguishes between existing (black)

and missing (white) parts. He also

shows the interiors of churches and
major buildings in plan, though in far

more detail than Bufalini's purely

schematic interiors. In this he appears

to have been drawing on the graphic
convention of the Forma urbis of con-

trasting public and private spaces. In

doing so Nolli has produced what

architects call a "figure-ground" plan
of the city. All public space (streets,
squares) and semi-public space
(courtyards, covered passageways,
church and theater interiors) is shown
in white. Hatching is used to fill in the
rest of the city's structures. The result

is a clear depiction of the spatial con-

tinuum that constitutes the public city.

Passage through the city on this map is

aided by a 1320-item index correspond-

ing to the numbers inscribed on it.

What makes Nolli's work stand out

from that of his predecessors is the
sheer quantity of precise detail he
was able to depict. Every church
and palazzo, every twist and turn of
Rome's complex urban fabric, is accu-
rately drawn. Lesser elements, such as
columns, stairs, fountains, arches,
even sewer openings are included.
Nolli even included two tiny dots
on Gianlorenzo Bernini's St. Peter's

Square, which are the centers of the

two circles used to generate its oval
form. The map is a perfect tool for
studying Rome's rich urban relation-
ships. Bernini's use of the axis of 19

Borgo Nuovo as a major determinant

in defining the right arm of the colon- 19 tion between the early sixteenth- but his basic scheme was adapted by
nade of St. Peter's Square as well as the century streets occupying the flood De Sanctis in his executed design. It is
Giovanni Paolo Panini
Scala Regia and the corridor leading plain of the Tiber below, and the radi- significant that Sanctis had served as
up to it, is easily readable on the map. The Spanish Steps ating system of streets Pope Sixtus V architect of the Minims, the French
The larger figures in the bottom C.
laid out at the end of the century on the order that controlled the funds used
1757
margins allegorically depict a vibrant hillsabove. The church of the Trinita to build the steps, since 1715. This posi-
Inscribed in pen and brown ink on verso:
personification of the Church on the g. p. panini, and N.o no dei Monti and the adjacent monastery tion gave him an advantage ewer the
couched among resplendent
right,
Watercolor, over black chalk on paper of the French Minims had stood in a other entrants in the competitions of
contemporary monuments (St. Peter's, ljX/'x u'A" (348 x 293 mm) commanding position on the Pincian 1717 and 1723, both of which he won,
the Capitoline Hill, and St. John provenance Jacques-Laure Le Tonnelicr Hill since the early sixteenth century; even though Pope Clement XI pre-
Lateran) triumphing over a sad personi- de Breteuil (1786); (ean-Baptiste-Pierre its twin-towered facade was com- ferred the designs of his own architect.
fication of the pagan past on the left, Lebrun (1791); Marquis de Lagoy; Maldwin pleted in 1570. At the foot of the steps Alessandro Specchi. Unlike Bernini.
seated among the crumbling but still Drummond (1970) water issues from the Barcaccia De Sanctis wisely separated pedestrian
noble ruins of the city. This relation- BIBLIOGRAPHY LotZ 1969, pp. 39-94; Fountain, executed in 1627-29 by traffic from horse-drawn carriages.
ship can be thought of as symbolizing Gillies 1972: Arisi 1986. p. 465; Bean and Pietro Bernini, who was probably Thelatter were accommodated by the
Griswold 1990, no. 1 s 1
Nolli's greater interest in the contem- assisted by his son Gianlorenzo. ramp ascending the Salita di
porary city than The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New which
in the ancient one. In the 1660s Bernini provided S. Sebastianello. is not visible
York, Rogers Fund
[AC] designs for a monumental ramp in Panini's sketch. This crucial deci-
leading up to the Trinita dei Monti, sion ensured thai the Spanish steps
The Spanish Steps, constructed which would have celebrated the would (unction as a theatrical setting
GIOVANNI PAOLO PANINI between 1723 and 1728 following the French presence in the papal capital, for those who wished to be seen and
PIACENZA 1691-1765 ROME designs of Francesco de Sanctis, consti- most notably through the inclusion of to participate in the passing spectacle

For biography sec Paintings section tute the most important eighteenth- an equestrian monument to Louis XIV of urban life, as well as facilitating
century addition to the urban armature as its centerpiece. For political reasons movement from one part ol the city
of Rome. They effect a graceful transi- Bernini's design was nev er realized. to another.

ARCHITECTURE 139
 prominently just behind the facade.
The chapel was also designed by
Galilei, and was under construction

at the same time as the facade. Within,

the subordination of the sculptural

component to Galilei's governing
architecture offered a new and more
sober approach to the integration of
the arts. Piranesi's caption gives full

credit to Galilei for providing the ven-

erable basilica with a monumental
facade. His print may thus be seen as
representing an engagement with the
architecture of his own day that com-
plements the emphasis on antiquities,
which figure in so many of the prints
in the Vciiute series. In this regard it is

worth noting that the facade figures

in one of the vignettes of Giambattista
Nolli's contemporary plan of Rome as
a symbol of both Roma sacra and Roma
moderna, in contrast to the other
vignette of ruins representing Roma
projana and Roma antica. Granted the
date of issue, it is likely that Piranesi,
who always had an eye on the market,
was looking forward to the Holy Year
of 1750, which would attract pilgrims
20 particularly interested in representa-
tions of the patriarchical basilica, [jp]
most important respects,
In GIOVANNI BATTISTA each newly elected pope travels from
Panini's veduta. which can be dated to PIRANESI the Vatican to take possession of the
around 1757, corresponds closely to MOGLIANO DI MESTRE 1720-1778 Lateran. In the eighteenth century the 21
the appearance of the steps today. The ROME Lateran was also the goal of many pil-
Giovanni Battista Piranesi
escutcheon of the king of France For biography see Prints section grims, who were also attracted by the
above the church portal has been presence of the Scala Santa, housed in Study for the Reorganization of
removed, and the obelisk that Pope the building at the extreme right in the
the Pantheon Attic
Pius VI erected in front of Trinita dei 20 print. The was believed to
staircase
Monti in 1786 does not appear. The have been brought from Pilate's 1756
Giovanni Battista Piranesi Black and red chalk, pen and brown ink,
low range of buildings to the right of palace in Jerusalem by the Emperor
View of the Basilica of St. John sepia wash
the church facade has been replaced Constantine's mother. Saint Helena.
by a multi-story modern building, but Dominating the composition is the
13%" x 10" (340 x 256 mm)
Lateran bibliography De Fine Licht 1968, p. 125;
the Palazzo Zuccari continues to facade of the Lateran, which had only
1746P-48? Marder 1989. pp. 628-45; Kieven 1993.
anchor the skyline at the top of the recently been completed following the
Etching pp. 332-33; Pasquali S. 1996, pp. 68-119
steps. At the base of the steps the two design of Alessandro Galilei. In 1732
Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vatican City
leading bollards have been removed to From Vedute di Roma (Rome, before i~8) Pope Clement XII Corsini had orga-
facilitate the flow of traffic. The spare Signed below image, lower right nized a competition for the commis-
eighteenth-century casamento to the Inscription below image (center): Veduta sion, in which numerous architects Above all other Roman monuments,
della basilica di S. Giovanni
right of the staircase served as John had entered. The selection of an out- the Pantheon was the most univer-
Lateranoj Architcttura di Alessandro Gallilei
Keats's residence before his death sider, the Florentine Galilei, by a Tuscan sally admired for its structural daring
Inscription below image (left and right):
there in 1821. pope was viewed critically by the and proportional harmony. This is
1. Cappella fabrkata da Clemente XII.
There is no known painting by Roman architectural establishment. not to say that it was above criticism,
Corsini/ z. Palazzo fabrkato da Sisto V. ora
Panini that isolates the Spanish Steps, Corner, di ZiteHe/3. Scale Santa/4. Guglia
Galilei's design, executed between 1733 however. From the Renaissance
but the sketch corresponds closely to Egiziaca giacente/;. Mura della Cina/Presso and 1735, is a brilliant exercise in mon- through the eighteenth century, archi-
one of the painted vedute of the I'Autorc a Sttada Pelke ncl Palazzo Tomati vkino umental classicism. It upon the
builds tects had raised questions about the
Scalinata that appear in two versions alia Trinita de' Monti. A paoli due e mezzo precedents of Michelangelo and atticzone of the interior, in which
of Panini's Vedute di Roma moderna, 15X" x 21V2" (390 x 545 mm) Maderno at St. Peter's while introduc- they perceived disjuncture between
both of which can be dated to 1757. bibliography Focillon 1918, no. 790: Hind ing a more austere and measured rigor the classical Orders below and the cof-
The painted version is more vertical 1922, "The Views of Rome." no. 8 iii/vi; evident in the treatment of the Orders fering of the dome above. As can
Kieven 198^: Kieven 1989: Campbell 1990,
in format and eliminates both the and the emphasis on interlocking right- clearly be seen in Panini's depiction of
Piranesi, no. 4; Kieven 1991: Wilton-Ely
casamento and the right-hand base of angled relationships. In this respect, it the interior (cat. 266). the pilasters of
1994. vol. 1, no. 139
the steps. In spite of these minor dif- also expresses a revival of interest in the attic interrupted the vertical align-
Philadelphia Museum of Art, Gift of
ferences, it seems clear that Panini
Lessing ). Rosenwald
Renaissance models, such as ment of lower columns and the ribs
made the sketch as part of his prepara- Michelangelo's unexecuted design for defined by the coffering of the dome.
tion for executing the paintings the facade of S. Lorenzo in Florence, as After the holy year of 1750 Pope
depicting a gallery of Roman views. This view of the Lateran was one of well as an expression of a new, more Benedict XIV sponsored the restora-
The drawing's earliest recorded owner, the earliest of the Vedute di Roma to be Vitruvian classicism. tion of the attic and vault of the
)acques-Laure Le Tonnelier de Bretcuil, issued by Piranesi, an indication of the Piranesi's choice of an oblique Pantheon. In the course of 1756-57,
ambassador of the Sovereign Order of importance of the site. The Lateran is viewpoint casts the facade, which the architect Paolo Posi removed the
Malta to the Holy See from 1758 to the cathedral of Rome, presided over encloses a narthex and a second-story ancient marble revetment and replaced
1777, probably acquired it in Rome. by the pope in his role as bishop. benediction loggia, into bold relief. It it with the system of alternating square
I>] As such, it is the goal of the solenne emphasize the Corsini
also serves to plaques and rectangular openings
possesso, 1 he ritual procession in which Chapel, the dome of which appears crowned by triangular pediments that

140 ARCHITECTURE
exists today. Posi's solution satisfied cal works, especially the Parere, argue
those who, inclining towards passionately for the creation of new,
Neoclassicism, objected to the license non-traditional forms. Piranesi had
of the attic pilasters. At the same time, few opportunities to put this attitude 22 23
it offended another group who believed into practice, but the ornament he
Giovanni Battista Piranesi Giovanni Battista Piranesi
that such a hallowed monument designed for the church of the priory
should be respected, some because of the Knights of Malta on the Presentation Drawing Relating Presentation Drawing Relating
they cast themselves in the traditional Aventine is stunning in its novelty.
to the Sanctuary of St. John to the Sanctuary of St. John
role of custodians of antiquity, others Piranesi's design takes its point of
because the compositional liberty departure from the pilasters of the Lateran: Transverse Section Lateran: Longitudinal Section
represented by the ancient attic ancient attic, but casts them into bold
through the Choir Showing the South Wall, with
licensed freedom for their own cre- sculptural relief, arranging them in

The foremost spokesman for

ativity. triadic clusters. The rectangular niches Transept and Beginning of Nave
1764
the value of complexityand contra- of the attic are used to frame statues, 1764
Inscriptions: Cav. G.B. Piranesi f. (at lower
diction in Roman architecture and its and a continuous ornamental frieze
right); Inscriptions: Cav.r G.B. Piranesi fece (at lower
legacy in the architecture of his own works its way around the niches and
Elcvctzione orlografaa delta Tribuna, e del
right):

day was Giovanni Battista Piranesi. behind the most boldly projecting Sezione ortogmfica di fianeo della Tribuna del
Prespiterio della Basilica Lateranense eorrispon-
Piranesi's drawing is perhaps best pilasters, effectively knitting the layered dente alia Pianta. ed alia Sezione, delineate nelle Presiriterio, c dcll'Esedra della Basilica Lateranense
-
understood not as a concrete project composition together. Other motifs, Tavole XH.XIU.XIV (at top); Immaginati con architcttura corrisponJeme a
quellagran Nave, e de' la\\. (at top);
competing with Posi's, but rather including a strigilated frieze and fan- Scala di palmi Romani (at bottom, just to

drawn right of center) Palmi Romani (under scale lop);

as a critique after the fact. shaped reliefs, animate the attic, illus-
.11

Significantly, Piranesi depicted the trating Piranesi's ability to employ Pen and brown ink, with gray and brown 1. Uno de'CoreUi da mosrrar le Saere Reliquic.

washes 2. Com ie'Muad della Cappella (at bottom

lower zone of the Pantheon and the familiar forms in striking new ways.
center)
upper one of the dome using broad Piranesi viewed the diversity and inven- 35//' x 22 V;" (897 x 572 mm)
Pen. gray and brown ink. with gray and
brushstrokes of wash, reserving pen tive power of the ancients as an inspi- provenance Arthur M. Sadder
brown washes
and ink for the detailed rendering of ration for creative design in his own Arthur M. Sackler Collection, Avery
Architectural and Tine Arts Library,
21%" X 35/»"(S56 x 895 mm)
the attic. Like its ancient predecessor, day; paraphrasing Sallust, he dismissed
Columbia University in the City ol New provenance Arthur M. Sackler
Posi's attic is essentially two-dimen- his critics by proclaiming, "They
York Columbia University. Avery Library
sional; in contrast, Piranesi's attic despise my novelty, I their timidity"
BIBLIOGRAPHY Nyberg 1972. pp. 46-49;
design is a richly layered three-dimen- (Piranesi, Parercsu f'archirettura [Rome.
Piranesi 19^5. pp. 48-?); Wilton-Fly 199:,
sional composition. Piranesi's archae- 1765], pi. 6). Piranesi's graphic medita-
pp. 57-s8. pis. 21-22: Wilton-Ely 1995,
ological publications document his tion on the Pantheon attic reveals the pp. 63-85
interest in Roman architectural orna- brilliance of his novel approach to Arthur M. Sackler Collection.
ment from the norms of
that departed architectural ornament. [)t'l AveryArchitcctural and l ine Arts Library,
Vitruvian classicism, and his theoreti- Columbia Univcrsiiv in tin- Citvol New York

ARCHITECTURE 141
 These two sheets belong to a set of affinity with Borromini's esteem
twenty-three drawings presenting for the variety and novelty of ancient
proposals for the sanctuary of St. John architecture. In distinction to the
Lateran that Piranesi, with assistance nave, the tribune is vaulted and
from members of his studio, prepared covered with a profusion of ornament
in 1764. The drawings were probably that recalls Piranesi's contemporary
prompted by the commission he stucco work in S. Maria del Priorato
received in 1763 from his countryman on the Aventine. Piranesi's hand is
the Venetian Pope Clement XIII for a most evident in the area of the sanctu-
new high altar for the basilica. The ary; he also appears to have height-
commission seems to have stimulated ened details of the nave elevation with
Piranesi to propose much more brown ink.
ambitious schemes involving the The transverse section offers a
transformation of the entire apse frontal view of the high altar set within

and choir zone of the Lateran. These the apse. This is the finest drawing of
grandiose designs were never executed, the series, with dazzling virtuoso tonal
and once Piranesi realized the com- effects achieved through Piranesi's
mission had been abandoned he mastery of layered washes. As so often
adapted them for presentation to occurs in Piranesi's prints, light slants
Cardinal Giambattista Rezzonico in in dramatically, here illuminating the
1767. Piranesi elaborated five schemes papal altar framed by colossal cande-
for the tribune, each distinct but also labra. Above the altarpiece and pro-
related to the others,one of which is jecting into the frieze Piranesi sets a
illustrated by the two drawings on panel with the iconic image of the
display. While the two sections are Savior, watched over by the Lamb of
one another, they
closely related to God, which reclines on the Bible.
do not correspond precisely and each Piranesi has embellished the original 24 obtaining this commission. As prior
contains unique features not present presentation sheet with other decora- of the Knights of Malta, the pope's
Giovanni Battista Piranesi
in the other. tive flourishes. The paper on which the nephew Cardinal Giambattista
Piranesi's longitudinal section section is drawn appears to curl over Study for the High Altar of Rezzonico saw to it that the project
clearly reveals the three major phases on either side while ribbons and gar- was awarded to Piranesi. The account
S. Maria del Priorato
of renovation within the Lateran lands enrich the borders. At the bottom book detailing expenditures on the
basilica: Borromini's 1650 transforma- appears a brilliant vignette composed 1764-65 church preserved in the Avery Library,

tion of the nave appears at the left, the of an open book, quill pen, and the Black chalk with pen and brown ink on Columbia University, shows that work
paper
renovated transept dating from 1600 serpent of eternity superimposed on was carried out between 1764 and 1766.
at center, and Piranesi's 1764 proposal an architect's scale, which may express 13X" x 7%" (340 x 187 mm) Several preparatory drawings for
bibliography Jacob 19^5, p. 169: Wilton-
for the apse on the right. In order to Piranesi's recognition that his creative the high altar survive, which shed
Ely 1976. pp. 214-2?: Wilton-Ely 1978,
provide a visual link between the nave designs would survive through his light on Piranesi's conceptual process.
p. 108: Kieven 1993, pp. 336-37: Wilton-Ely
and the apse, Piranesi proposed to publications rather than his buildings. The Morgan Library possesses a more
1993. pp. 106-?: Jatta 1998
continue Borromini's system of Had they been executed, Piranesi's
Staatliche Museen zu Berlin.
summary preliminary sketch and a
colossal pilasters. He also carried designs for the Lateran tribune would Kunstbibliothek second, more finished drawing that
over other elements from Borromini's have provided both a powerful visual focuses on the architectural portions
nave: the pilasters frame aedicules at climax to the interior and a compelling of the altar. The Berlin drawing illus-
floor level while above are paintings synthesis of the venerable basilica's Piranesi's renovation of the small trates the crucial step Piranesi took in

set within oval frames. The frieze architectural history. There seems church of S. Maria del Priorato on the introducing the great orb providing
carried by the pilasters echoes that of little doubt that Piranesi's tribune Aventine Hill constitutes one of his the base for the sculptural group rep-
Borromini's nave, but in the tribune would also rank as one of the out- rare executed architectural designs. resenting the apotheosis of Saint Basil
area its ornament, including the tower standing architectural achievements His Venetian origins normally put of Cappadocia. The original priory
and cross of the Rezzonico arms, of the eighteenth century. [)!'] Piranesi at a disadvantage in compet- church in the Forum of Augustus had
allude to Piranesi's patron. Piranesi ing with Roman architects, but the a painted altarpiece representing Saint
even repeated the distinctive capitals election of his countryman Carlo Basil, and Piranesi translated the subject
with inverted volutes inspired by Rezzonico as Pope Clement XIII in into the three-dimensional medium of
Hadrianic originals, revealing his 1758 undoubtedly gave him an edge in sculpture. Using black chalk. Piranesi

142 ARCHITECTURE
 Piranesi's polemical engagement 26
with the Villa Albani had to do with
Giovanni Battista Piranesi
his advocacy for the primacy of
Roman art over that of the Greeks, and Francesco Piranesi
for whom Winckclmann had become Plate U of the Plan of the
the most eloquent exponent. Piranesi
repeatedly used works from the Surviving Buildings of
villa's collections as evidence
Hadrian's Villa
against Winckelmann and his fellow
1781
Philhellenes; no fewer than thirty-four
Etching
examples appear in Piranesi's graphic
work to illustrate the variety and cre- One of six plates, each 17V" x ioVi"
(705 x 519 mm)
ativity of Roman artists. Recent
BIBLIOGRAPHY Pinto 1993, PP- 63-84;
research has revealed that Piranesi
Wilton-Ely 1994, vol. 2, no. 1009;
contributed also to the villa's
MacDonald and Pinto 1995, pp. 246-65
ornament, designing a frieze for the
Robison Collection
Hall ol Parnassus and a fountain for
the gardens. Thus, in depicting the

25 Villa Albani, Piranesi was also During the last decade of his life

representing his own work. Piranesi devoted himself to docu-

brilliantly captured the saint's flutter- 25 Situated a short distance outside menting the extensive remains of
ing drapery and picturesque silhouette. the Aurelian walls along via Salaria, Hadrian's Villa near Tivoli, one of
Giovanni Battista Piranesi
Pen and ink are employed to study the Cardinal Albani's magnificent subur- the richest archaeological sites in the
richly detailed surfaces of three super- View of the Villa of His ban estate was the last in a distin- environs of Rome. Piranesi's printed
imposed forms reminiscent of ancient guished line of great Roman villas views of the villa are well known, but
Eminence Cardinal Alessandro
Roman sarcophagi, as well as the extending back to the sixteenth the culmination of his study was a
octagonal tabernacle surmounted by Albani, outside Porto Salaria century. Laid out between 1756 and large plan based on a detailed survey
the paschal lamb. 1762 by Carlo Marchionni, the main of the entire site. The plan was only
1769 casino of the Villa Albani stands
Piranesi's altar design plays varia- issued in 1781, three years after
tions on themes and motifs that were Etching opposite a pavilion, the semicircular Piranesi's death, by his son Francesco.
already introduced in other parts of From Vcdutc di Roma (Rome, before 1778) form and name (Canopus) of which A large drawing in Naples is a
the scheme, effectively linking it deco- Signed below image, lower left were intended to evoke one of the preparatory study, drawn to the
ratively (as well as scenographically) inscription Vcduta delta Villa dcU'Emo. Sig.r pavilions of Hadrian's Villa at Tivoli. same scale as the published plan. It
into the cumulative experience of the Card/Alcsandro Albani fitori di Porta Salaria The close integration of architecture was well advanced by the time of
site. The oculus cut into the altar table, vjV" x 27V/' (443 x 698 mm) and sculpture at the Villa Albani also Giovanni Battista's death in 1778
the scroll-corbels at its sides, and the bibliography Focillon 1918, no. 853; Hind recalls Hadrian's Villa, the source of (the second sheet is dated 1777) and
flame-like striations all repeat motifs 1922, "The Views of Rome," no. 89 i/iii; many of the finest works in the cardi- substantial passages are by his hand.
introduced on the facade of the church. Gasparri 1985; Roettgen 1987; Campbell nal's collection. Nowhere is this so Piranesi's plan, entitled Pianta delle
1990, Piranesi. no. 90; Bevilacqua 1993;
Within the oculus is faintly sketched evident as in the Hall of Antinous, jabbrkhc esistenti nclla Villa Adriana, is
Wilton-Ely 1994, vol. 1, no. 222; Gasparri 1996
the chi-rho monogram, a symbol that where the celebrated relief bust of printed on six folio sheets, and these,
National Gallery of Art. Washington. D.C..
appears within a roundel on the vault. Hadrian's favorite unearthed at the when mounted together, extend over
Mark J.
Millard Architectural Collection,
The pointed features projecting from acquired with assistance from The Morris
Villa Adriana in 1735 is given pride of nine feet in length. The large scale
the base of the uppermost sarcopha- and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation place over the mantlepiece and Paolo of the plan (1:1,000), together with
gus form are rostra (the bronze beaks Anesi's frescoes depict fanciful recon- Piranesi's unparalleled etching
of ancient warships, intended to allude structions of the imperial villa. technique, permitted him to delineate
to the Sovereign Order's victories in Piranesi's inclusion of the Villa Albani Marchionni's architecture owes every component of the villa in detail.

naval battles), a motif that is introduced in the series of the Vcdutc di Roma was more to Renaissance than to ancient Sophisticated conventions — solid
in Piranesi's portal to the priory. motivated by a number of considera- architectural precedent, however, and lines for existing structures, lighter
As executed by Tommaso Righi, a tions —pragmatic, polemical, and per- appears relatively conservative and ones for missing features — allow
specialist in stucco sculpture, the sonal. By the time he issued this print in static. Piranesi's oblique point of view, distinctions to be made between veri-
altar departs only marginally from 1769, the Villa Albani had become a stressing diagonals, together with his fiable remains and conjectural recon-
Piranesi's design. The octagonal major center of antiquarian studies. expressive use of contrasting light and structions. Piranesi also employed
tabernacle relief, which is blank in This was in large measure the result of shade, serve to introduce a measure of dotted lines to distinguish between
the drawing, represents the Virgin the display there of the extensive col- drama into Marchionni's decidedly the elaborate system of subterranean
with Christ and Saint John, the patron lections of classical art amassed by its planar casino. Far more innovative roads, corridors, and chambers and
saint of the order.
John Wilton-Ely owner, Cardinal Alessandro Albani, are the projecting frontispieces the ground-level structures.
correctly observed that the highly together with the influential publica- incorporating ancient fragments into The entire plan appears to be
original combination of geometric tions of his librarian, Johann Joachim unprecedented new combinations inscribed on a long marble slab, its
forms composing the altar was antici- Winckclmann, who had died only one that resemble compositions in worn and irregular borders secured
pated in Piranesi's frontispieces for year earlier, in 1768. By 1766, the date contemporary polemical
Piranesi's to a wall by metal cramps. This is an
the Antkhita romane (published some of Ridolfino Venuti's influential guide- publications.A short distance from obvious reference to the great marble
ten years earlier) and also bears com- book, a visit to the Villa Albani had the main building Marchionni plan of ancient Rome, the Forma labis
parison with the use of basic geomet- become obligatory for antiquarian constructed a ruined temple Romac. fragments of which inspired
rical forms by such Neoclassical and Grand Tourist alike, both groups composed of disparate fragments, Piranesi's site descriptions alter 1756.
designers as Claude-Nicolas Ledoux Piranesi targeted in expanding the which underscores the enduring file apparently thick edges ol the slab
in the following decade. A number audience for his prints. Venuti's remark relation between ruins and landscape. play against the regular borders of the
of decorative motifs evident in the that he remained undecided for a long Piranesi's veduta admirably captures plates comprising the Pianta, enhanc-
drawing for the priory church time about whether to include the Villa the vistas extending in all directions ing the illusion that the plan is incised
also appear in Piranesi's nearly Albani in his volume on ancient Rome out over the Roman Campagna, on marble rather than printed on
contemporary drawings for the or in the one devoted to modern Rome which could be enjoyed from the paper. Piranesi further emphasizes
Lateran tribune. [)i>] reveals the extent to which the villa villa until the modern city grew up this effect by the superimposition ol

appealed to modern as well as to anti- around it. [|i'| other fragments, such as the dedica-
quarian sensibilities. tory inscription and brickstamps (at

ARCHITECTURE
 27 of the Acqua Virgine (the aqueduct
and Trivia
that supplies the Trevi)
Giovanni Battista Piranesi
showing Agrippa's scouts the source
View of the Large Trevi of the water. In actual fact, what
appear to be statues and reliefs are the
Fountain, Formerly Called the
provisional chiaroscuro paintings by
Acaua Vergine Antonio Bicchierari that decorated

i746?-48? the fountain for sixteen years, from

Etching 1744 to 1760.

From Vedutc di Roma (Rome, before 1778)

The central figure of Oceanus holds

Signed below image, lower right both of his arms relatively close to his

inscription Vcdula delta vasta Fontana di

body and maintains a well-balanced

Trevi anticamcntt data I'Acqua stance, his feet firmly planted on the
Vergine./ Architccltura di Nicola Salvi/Prcsso edge of the seashell. A voluminous
I'Autorc a Strada Felice ncl Palazzo Tomati vicino mass of drapery, the shaded folds of
alia Trinita de' Monti. A paoli due e mezzo which serve to set off the powerful
19X" x 21X" (401 x 552 mm) limbs of the deity, reinforces this
National Gallery of Art. Washington. D.C.. impression of strength and solidity.
Mark ). Millard Architectural Collection,
From his elevated position on top of
acquired with assistance from The Morris
the scqg/i Oceanus gazes upward,
and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation
ignoring the action below him and
1985.61. 19
leading the viewer's eye outward and
away from the composition. The
deaths of Salvi and Maini in 1751 and
28 1752 respectively made it inevitable
that, in providing the Trevi with
Giovanni Battista Piranesi
permanent marble statues, changes
Frontal View of the Trevi would be introduced to the sculptural
program.
Fountain
Piranesi's frontal view of the Trevi,
1773 issued in 1773, depicts the permanent
Etching sculpture by Pietro Bracci, Filippo
From Vedutc di Roma (Rome, before 1778) della Valle, and others that had been
Signed below image, lower left
placed on the fountain in 1758-62.
inscription Veduta in prospcttivu dcllagran Comparing Maini's Oceanus to
Fontana dellAcqua Vergine delta di Trevi,
Bracci's statue a number of small
Architcttura di Nicola Salvi
but nonetheless significant changes
18%" x 28" (474 x 711 mm)
become apparent. The most obvious
bibliography Focillon 1918, no. ->34;
change introduced by Bracci is the
Hind 1922, "The Views of Rome.'' no. 104
Pinto 1986, pp. 162-63; 211-14:
right arm of Oceanus, which now
i/iii:

Campbell 1990, Piriinesi, pp. 51, 112-13;

projects boldly from the central niche.
Wilton Ely 1994. vol. 1, no. 237 Bracci's Oceanus looks down and to
National Gallery of Art. Washington, D.C.. the right, his gaze directing attention
26 Mark |. Millard Architectural Collection, to the sculpture below him and effec-
acquired with assistance from The Morris tively closing the composition. Bracci
the bottom of plates and II) and the
I Piranesi applied principles he first
and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation also makes a more limited use of
Doric column drum and base began to formulate in the mid-i750s. drapery, which appears far less
inscribed with the compass points (at He applied his archaeological method Piranesi's two views of the Trevi substantial, and his Oceanus stands
the bottom right of plate IV), on top of developed in the course of compiling Fountain, issued more than twenty further back on his heels in a more
the main slab. the Atiticfiita romane to his survey of years apart, provide valuable insights transitory pose. Furthermore, his legs
The wealth of graphic information the villa. No longer was he content to into the history of its sculptural are not spread so far apart and occupy
on Piranesi's plan is greatly comple- represent the exteriors of individual program. The oblique view depicts different planes, with the result that
mented by an extensive commentary buildings, as in the Vedutc; he fleshed the fountain as it appeared in 1751, the triangular stability of Maini's
of 434 entries, which provide identifi- out ruined or vanished structures by with Giovanni Battista Maini's revised Oceanus gives way to a more elegant
cation and analysis of almost every means of conjectural plans and when- stucco models of the main sculptural ftgura scrpentinata.

villa feature. The commentary also ever possible employed ancient liter- component in place. The large format Also visible in the frontal veduta are
records the find-spots of works of art ary sources, as in the commentary. of the veduta allowed Piranesi to the lateral statues of Abundance and
such as Cardinal Furietti's celebrated Most important, he brought all of include a wealth of detail: moreover, Health by Della Valle, which replaced
dove mosaic and basalt centaurs, later thesemeans to bear on his ultimate the oblique viewpoint helps to clarify the painted representations of
acquired by Pope Benedict XIV for the end, a complete reconstruction. [|p] the three-dimensional relationship of Agrippa and Trivia called for by Salvi's
Museo Capitolino. Piranesi's com- the different figures in the central iconographic program. Above, real
mentary far surpasses the earlier group of sculpture. The two triton bas-reliefs narrating the fountain's
descriptions of Ligorioand Contini, groups are placed in the same plane history have replaced Bicchierari's
and constitutes the most complete parallel to the facade, and Maini's provisional chiaroscuro paintings,
analysis of the villa written before the commanding figure of Oceanus both set in place in i~62. The one on
twentieth century. appears very clearly at the center. The the left representing Agrippa was
Piranesi's Pianla constitutes an lateral niches appear to be occupied carved by Andrea Bergondi, while
important document in the history of by statues of two figures associated its counterpart on the right, depicting
archaeological site description, signif- with the early history of the Trevi: Trivia, is by Giovanni Grossi.
icant as much for how it interprets the Agrippa and Trivia. Above these Piranesi's two vedutc of the Trevi
evidence as for what it records. With statues appear to be bas-reliefs, which also capture its overtly scenographic
far greater rigor and authority than in depict events in which they figure: character. The oblique view stresses
any of his earlier antiquarian studies, Agrippa supervising the construction the dialogue between the fountain

A Kf HITWTURK
 —

imented with sophisticated illusionis- 29

tic effects that fused painting, stage-
Andrea Pozzo
craft, and architecture.
Pozzo's undisputed Roman master- Study for the Altar of S. Luigi
pieces are in the two great Jesuit
Gonzaga in S. Ignazio, Rome
churches of S. Ignazio and the Gesu.
For S. Ignazio he painted the fictive
c. 1696-97

dome Red chalk on cream laid paper

(1684-8S), nave vault (1688-94),
and choir (1685-88; 1697-1701), as well 10X" x 8lA" (273 x 218 mm)
as designing the altar of S. Luigi provenance Andrew Ciechanowiecki
(1973); Anthony Morris Clark
Gonzaga (1697-99). For the Gesu he
designed the altar of St. Ignatius exhibitions New York 1976. not cata-
logued; Philadelphia 1980, cat. no. 2
Loyola (1695-99) fusing architecture,
bibliography Pozzo 1693-1700, vol. 2,
sculpture, and painting: a set piece of
pp. 64-65; Hiesinger and Percy 1980,
Baroque religious art, the influence of
pp. 11-12; Contardi 1991. pp. 23-39;
which extended well into the eigh- Contardi 1996, pp. 97-120; Millon 1999.
teenth century. In the 1690s, perhaps pp. 558-61
encouraged by the success of his two Philadelphia Museum of Art, Bequest of
great altars, Pozzo began to engage Anthony Morris Clark
directly with real three-dimensional
architectural projects. These included
several proposals for the faqade of This drawing is of special interest
St. John Lateran that acknowledge because it appears to be a preparatory
his debt to Francesco Borromini. In study for the altar of S. Luigi Gonzaga
1699- 1700 Pozzo furnished designs in S. Ignazio. While it bears certain
for the Jesuit church in Dubrovnik similarities to Pozzo's altar of
and the cathedral of Ljubljana. In S. Ignazio in the Gesu, the colossal
1700- 02 he sent designs to Trento order of Corinthian pilasters framing
for the church of S. Francesco Saverio. the aedicule proves that the setting for
and in 1701-2 designed the Jesuit the design is actually the transept of
church in Montepulciano. S. Ignazio. On the basis of documen-
In 1703 Pozzo left Rome for Vienna. tary evidence, the drawing is unlikely
There, until his death in 1709, he was to have been executed before the fall

engaged in a number of important of 1696. It bears a close resemblance

projects, including the Universitats- to the model for the S. Luigi Gonzaga
kirche (1703-9), the frescoes of the Altar in the collection of the Museo
Marmorsaal of the Liechtenstein Nazionale di Castel S. Angelo.
garden palace (1704-9), and the cibo- In preparing this design for the
rium of the Franziskanerkirche (1706). Gonzaga altar, Pozzo clearly used the
While in Vienna, Pozzo trained a earlier S. Ignazio altar as a point of
number of followers who extended departure. The sketch repeats the
28 his work geographically into central central motif of a freestanding statue
Europe and chronologically well into of the saint set within a niche flanked
faqade and that of the seventeenth- as a lay brother, a vocation that he fol- the eighteenth century. by two columns with straight shafts.
century church of Ss. Vincenzo e lowed throughout his life. After a Pozzo's treatise Perspective! pictorum Pozzo may have borrowed the statues
Anastasia diagonally opposite The
it. three-year novitiate in Genoa, Pozzo et architcctorum, published in two of Virtues flanking the columns from
two monuments appear to call and to transferred to Milan, where, from 1668 volumes (1693 and 1700), greatly another project for the S. Ignazio altar:

answer one another, creating a visual to 1681, he lived in the Casa Professa of enhanced his influence. It was rapidly Sebastiano Cipriani's design of 1696.
counterpoint across the resonant space S. Fedele. The Jesuits recognized translated into the major European The drawing is also related to the
of the piazza that is metaphorically Pozzo's skill as a painter early on, and languages and became a sourcebook designs for the Gonzaga altar that
echoed by the pairs of trumpeting at S. Fedele he produced a series of for many eighteenth-century archi- appear in Pozzo's treatise. In plate 64
Fames perched above the two facades. highly acclaimed ephemeral decora- tects and designers. Not only did it of the second volume, which the artist

Both prints reveal the sunken basin and tions.While based in Milan, he exe- provide practical instruction and a described as his "prima idea." there are
the gently curving stairs protected by cuted important works in other north rich repertory of forms, but it also statues of Virtues and spiral columns,
bollards and handsome wrought-iron Italian centers, notably the church of codified an essentially scenographic but no central niche. Much closer is the
railings that lead down to it. The steps S. Francesco Saverio at Mondovi and approach to architecture that would design illustrated in plate 65. which
not only effect the transition between the Jesuit church in Turin (1678). flourish in Rome for the next century. contains the Virtues as well as a free-
street level and the basin but double as In 1681, on the advice of Carlo For Pozzo, the practice of architecture standing statue of S. Luigi Gonzaga
seating for passing spectators who Maratti. Padre Giovanni Paolo Oliva. involved the pictorial — and graphic kneeling on his reliquary casket, an
choose to pause a while and enjoy the the general of the order, called Pozzo representation of illusionistic space as arrangement that resembles the sculp-
aquatic spectacle. [|pj to Rome. Among Pozzo's first works much as it did the shaping of three- tural group at the center of the drawing.
after his arrival were the frescoes in dimensional space. Pozzo claimed an As executed, the design ol the altar is
the corridor outside the rooms occu- independent reality for architectural further removed from this sketch: the
ANDREA POZZO pied by Saint Ignatius in the Casa drawings; in his treatise they function Virtues are eliminated, the number of
TRENTO 1642-1709 VIENNA Professa of the Gesu (1681-86) and as distinct entities, in no way subordi- columns doubled, and the magnificent
the fictive dome and baldachin in the nate to built structures. Architecture, bas-relief by Pierre Legros II replaces
Andrea Pozzo was perhaps the most Jesuit church at Frascati (1681-84). hi for him. was ultimately a system of the freestanding sculptural group.
imaginative Italian painter, architect, 1682 he designed the first of several representations, ,111 intellectual and The drawing appears to have been
and theoretician practicing in the last ephemeral structures that trans- optical abstraction rather than an executed in several stages. Using
decade of the seventeenth century and formed the interior of the Gesu on the arrangement of concrete forms. [|p| draftsmen's instruments. Pozzo drew
the first of the eighteenth century. He occasion of the fortieth anniversary BIBLIOGRAPHY Pozzo 1695-1700: Korber in the outlines ol the existing architec-
si tidied painting in Trento, and in 166s devotions. In these designs for sacred 1971; De Feo 19X8; Pascoli 1992. pp. 691-715; ture and the dimensions ol the niche
he joined the Society of Jesus in Milan. theatrical performances Pozzo exper- Andrea Pozzo 199(1: De Feo and Martinelli 1996 to serve as a guide. Working freehand.

AK( I II I I ( I I'KI
 tecturalframework was complete, and 30
by death in 1751 the ornamental
Salvi's
Nicola Salvi
rock formations and full-scale models
of most of the sculpture were in place. Fireworks Apparatus
During the course of his work on the 1728
fountain Salvi's health failed, perhaps Etching by P. Pannini (draftsman) and
because of the long hours he spent Filippo Vastoni (etcher)
supervising work in the subterranean 18V2" x 24X" (470 x 620 mm)
aqueducts that feed the fountain. bibliography Moschini 1929, pp. 345-47;
Salvi's poor health severely limited Schiavo 1956, pp. 33-36; Pinto 1986,
his architectural activity after 1744, pp. 122-23
and he executed no other designs Biblioteca Casanatense, Rome
approaching the scale of the Trevi.
However, several smaller buildings
attest to the range and quality of his Nicola Salvi's first independent archi-
work. Among the most important of tectural commission was ephemeral
these is his remodelling of the interior in nature, a large firework apparatus
of S. Maria dei Gradi in Viterbo. which celebrating a double wedding between
was much admired by William the royal houses of Spain and
Chambers. In 1742 King John V of Portugal, which was erected in the
Portugal commissioned Salvi and Piazza di Spagna in 1728. In all likeli-
Luigi Vanvitelli to design the chapel of hood, the commission came to Salvi
St. John the Baptist in the church of through Antonio Canevari, in whose
S. Roque, Lisbon. The chapel was exe- studio he trained. Canevari had left

I cuted in Rome and then shipped to Rome the year before to become court
Portugal. Salvi was also responsible architect of King John V of Portugal,
for the expansion of Bernini's Palazzo and it is probable that he recom-
Chigi-Odescalchi in Rome in 1745, to mended his pupil to his new master.
which he added additional bays Salvi's grandiose firework apparatus
repeating Bernini's facade treatment. is depicted by two prints, one of which
Although he was less productive records its placement in the Piazza di

than his better-known contempo- Spagna. The enormous scale of the

raries Vanvitelli and Fuga, Salvi's structure is immediately evident, for it
't
command of architectural theory, his stood more than 150 feet tall, rising

abilities as a teacher, and the outstand- considerably higher than the recently
29 ing quality of his design for the Trevi completed Spanish Steps, the lower
Fountain made him a figure of consid- portions of which are just visible
he then rendered the architectural recorded that he spent nine years erable stature. Among those attracted beneath the clouds to the right of the
members of the aedicule in perspec- deciding on which career to pursue. was the Moravian
to Salvi's studio apparatus. Such large-scale, temporary
tive, introducing strong passages of In this period he attended classes at architect Franz Anton Grimm, who architectural structures, made of wood,
shadows that cast the projecting ele- the Accademia di S. Luca given by the studied with Salvi between 1739 and and painted canvas and
plaster,

ments of the altar into relief. Finally, painter Nicolo Ricciolini, who directed 1740, copying many of his master's designed to be blown up, were fre-
he shifted his concern to the design his interest toward architecture and drawings. Salvi's accomplishments quently employed to celebrate special
and placement of the sculpture. The introduced him to Antonio Canevari. received pfficial recognition in 1733, occasions in eighteenth-century Rome.
study represents an interim stage in While training in Canevari's studio, when he was elected a member of the The caption identifies the imposing
the conceptual process, especially Salvi studied Vitruvius particularly Accademia di S. Luca, and again in edifice rising illusionistically from a
striking in its spontaneity and rich in closely and is said to have committed 1745, when he was admitted to the cushion of clouds as the palace of
itspower of suggestion. Because of its the latter's treatise to memory. He also Congregazione dei Virtuosi al Hymen, who appears enthroned
strength and the lightit casts on the drew after ancient monuments as well Pantheon. Salvi's biographers claim within the central arch. The sources of
planning stages of the Gonzaga altar, as the acknowledged masterpieces of also that his dedication to the Trevi this design provide a revealing indica-
it constitutes a significant addition Renaissance and Baroque architecture. Fountain led him to decline several tion of the comprehensive study Salvi

to the corpus of drawings by or In 1727, after Canevari's departure to positions, including offersfrom the devoted to historical monuments
attributed to Pozzo. [jp] Portugal, Salvi took charge of his courts of Turin and Naples and from while in Canevari's studio. The
master's Roman studio, and his first the governing body of Milan Cathedral. first story is a free variation on
identifiable designs date from this Like his great contemporary and Borromini's facade of S. Agnese in

NICOLA SALVI time. The most interesting of these friend Vanvitelli, Salvi's historical sig- Agone and Pietro da Cortona's recon-

ROME 1697-1751 ROME was the large temporary structure of nificance rests largely in his ability to struction of the sanctuary of Fortuna
1728 in the Piazza di Spagna that cele- express the scenographic potential of Primigenia at Palestrina. The first story
Salvi showed an early interest in phi- brated a royal marriage between the architecture and in his more tempered, also anticipates certain aspects of
losophy and mathematics, studied houses of Spain and Portugal. Other classicizing interpretation of tradi- Bernardo Antonio Vittone's design for

medicine and anatomy, and also projects from this period include the tional Baroque forms. Perhaps, as a central-plan church submitted to the
wrote verse. In 1717 he was admitted baptistry of S. Paolo fuori le Mura Francesco Milizia wrote, the Trevi Accademia di S. Luca in 1733 (cat. 40);

to Rome's most prestigious literary (destroyed in 1823), the ciborium of Fountain is the finest eighteenth- the second story was probably
society, the Accademia deH'Arcadia. the abbey church at Montecassino, century building in Rome; it is cer- inspired by one of Fischer von Erlach's
Under the influence of the Arcadians, and the choir of S. Eustachio. tainly Salvi's masterpiece, [jp] published designs for a garden pavil-
he came to value Renaissance models In 1732 Salvi participated in both of BIBLIOGRAPHY Florence. BibliOteca ion. The overall composition also
and to explore irregular, picturesque the great architectural competitions Nazionalc Centrale, Niccolo Gabburri, betrays the influence of similar
compositions in his designs; he also organized by Pope Clement XII. His Vitc, p. 1975 Ms. cod. Pal. E.B.9.5, iv, ; Vatican ephemeral designs published by
esteemed seventeenth-century projects for the facade of St. John City. Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, cod. Andrea Pozzo in his influential trea-
Lat. 823s. 10-14V; Milizia 1827, pp. 376-80;
Roman architecture, from which he Lateran were unsuccessful, but he won tise. Salvi's design owes much to its
Schiavo 1956. pp. 5-24; Pinto 1986,
1

learned how to use the classical orders
to achieve bold sculptural effects.
Salvi's biographer Niccolo Gabburri
the commission for the Trcvi Fountain. seventeenth-century precursors, but it
pp. 121-27; Kieven 1987, pp. 255-75; Kicvcn
Its construction was extremely pro- is nonetheless a creative synthesis of
1991. pp. (15-87; Pinto 1999. pp. 22-24
tracted, but as early as 173s the archi- the sources, not a pastiche.

146 ARCHITECTURE
 Nicola Salvi was one of many archi-
tects who participated in the 1732
competition for the facade of the
Lateran basilica.He entered three pro-
jects,two of which are known from
copies, and one from this handsome
autograph drawing he presented to
the Accademia di S. Luca upon his
election in 1733. All of Salvi's projects
for the Lateran exhibit a restrained
classicism; in this drawing his

manipulation of the Orders is at once

confident, bold, and sculptural. His
composition builds to a powerful
climax at the center of the benediction
where pairs of freestanding
loggia,
columns frame a niche with a coffered
vault recalling the central feature of
the Trevi Fountain, which he designed
a few months later.

Unlike Alessandro Galilei in his

winning design for the Lateran, Salvi

did not propose to employ a colossal
order to unify the two stories of the
facade. Instead, he designed a double-
tiered facade based on a creative
reevaluation of fifteenth-century
examples, especially Michelangelo's
model for the facade of S. Lorenzo in

Florence. Salvi's rhythmic grouping of

bay units and his extensive use of
bas-reliefs attest to his close study of
Michelangelo's design. So too does
the way in which his central aedicular
motif supported by paired Corinthian
columns is framed by lateral bays.
Another feature of Salvi's project is
modeled on Michelangelo's design for
the Capitoline Hill; the Ionic columns
carrying flat lintels that frame the
entrances to the narthex of the
Lateran basilica are juxtaposed with
larger composite columns carrying
the main entablature in a way that
deliberately recalls the portico of the
Palazzo dei Conservatori. Nonetheless,
he used his Renaissance models
creatively to generate original solu-
tions specific to the problems posed
by the Lateran commission, notably
the monumental scale and four aisles
of the basilica, which were dif ferent
from those Michelangelo had to over-
come in the more modest facade of
S. Lorenzo. In the clear definition of
30 its component parts and the classical
rigor governing its composition,
The relationship between architec- fountain. Even the clouds that appear 31 Salvi's facade is tempered by
ture and sculpture in Salvi's fireworks to support the palace of Hymen Renaissance precedent: at the same
Nicola Salvi
macchina appears to have provided the resemble the rustic scqgli, or marine time, however, it possesses a unity
point of departure for his design of reefs, at the base of the Trevi. In both Unexecuted Project for the and a dynamic tension that are char-
theTrevi Fountain four years later. of Salvi's designs sculpture is subordi- acteristically Baroque.
Facade of St. John Latcran
The central statue of Hymen set nated to architecture, its role and The jury charged with evaluating
within a niche 1732 numerous designs submitted bv
is paralleled by that of placement clearly defined by the the
Oceanus at the Trevi. The figures of Pen and brown ink with gray and black
system of classical Orders, [jp] the architects vying for the Latcran
washes on paper
Castor and Pollux with their rearing commission initially favored the
horses set diagonally below the center
26//' x ]]A" (670 x 860 mm)
projects of Nicola Salvi and Luigi
BIBLIOGRAPHY Mattlii.U' 1954, pp. 16] 70\
prefigure the tritons accompanied Vanvitelli. In the end. however.
Schiavo igs6. pp. J7~6i; Jacob 1972.
by sea horses at the Trevi. The four Alessandro Galilei was proclaimed
pp. loo i": Maaoni, Cipriani, ami Valcriani
statues crowning the attic of the winner of the competition in the
1974, vol. 2, no. 2172; Lorcnz 1981, pp. 183-87;
macchina and the trumpeting Fame set Pinto 1986, pp. 123-23; Kievcn 1987, pp. summer of 1732. The subsequent work
within the central arch of the lantern 255-75; Kieven 1991, "II ruolo," pp. 78-12; ol Salvi, Galilei, and Vanvitelli —and
also have their counterparts on the Accademia Nazionale tli San Luca, Rome to a lesser degree that ol Ferdinando

ARCHITECTURE
 tially from the fountain as executed. Roman buildings erected in the
Salvi's depiction of the statuary, too, seventeenth and early eighteenth
contrasts with what is seen today. The century, notably Domenico de' Rossi's
basin is smaller than at present, .Studio d'archilctlura civile (1702-21).

meeting the facade at the midpoints Early in his career he furnished plates
of the lateral pavilions, while as built it for Carlo Fontana's monograph on
embraces all but the outermost bay of St. Peter's (1694), and it was in Fontana's

each wing. Since Salvi's rendering is studio that Specchi received his archi-
an orthogonal projection, it is difficult tectural training, working on such
to judge accurately the three-dimen- projects as the renovation of the
sional development of the scogli Teatro di Tor di Nona (1700). Later in

without a plan corresponding to his and Filippo

his career. Specchi
elevation. Although Salvi repeatedly Barrigioni (another Fontana student)
altered his design as work progressed, assisted their master in executing the
at least one feature of the scogli must Albani Chapel in S. Sebastiano fuori le

have been planned from the outset: Mura (1706-12).

the drawing shows several plants, the Specchi's masterpiece, the Porto di
flora eventually carved by Giuseppe Ripetta, no longer survives, but is well
Poddi and Francesco Pincellotti, known from prints and early pho-
sketched on the surface of the scogli tographs. Undertaken in 1703 as part
and against the rusticated basement of of Pope Clement XI's program of
the fountain. The most prominent works directed at revitalizing the
feature of the scogli as they appear in economy of the Papal States, the
Fuga —ensured that late Baroque arch replete with a projecting attic Salvi's drawing is the central cascade, docking area along the banks of the
classicism would prevail as an archi level, Salvi dominance of
assures the the surface of which is covered with Tiber was one of the most important
tectural style until well past the the fountain. At the same time, by scalelike facets, dropping directly into civic spaces of eighteenth-century
middle of the century, [jp] continuing the colossal order across the basin from beneath the shell Rome. Specchi's design, employing
the two wings Salvi effectively binds chariot of Oceanus. fipl sinuous, wave-like ramps, effected a
palace and fountain. The component dynamic relationship between river
32 parts of Salvi's executed design inter- and shore. In expressing movement

Nicola Salvi
penetrate to an extent that makes it a ALESSANDRO SPECCHI through the use of dynamic curving
difficult exercise to distinguish one ROME 1668-1729 ROME forms Specchi drew upon his knowl-
Elevation of the Trevi Fountain from the other. edge of the work of Francesco
With the exception of the pilaster Specchi belonged to the generation of Borromini, and he employed similar
1733

Pen. gray and brown and brown

inks, gray
base at the right corner, which is not artists and architects that came of age design principles in his unsuccessful

washes, with pencil under drawing on shown to be crumbling, Salvi's ren- in the decade following the death of competition entries (1717 and 1723) for
heavy cream-colored paper dering of the architectural component Bernini. A gifted architectural drafts- the staircase of the Trinita dei Monti,
15%" x 21/s" (397 x 557 mm) of the fountain corresponds in every man and engraver, he contributed the so-called Spanish Steps. Francesco
Inscribed: Scala di Palmi Romiim along the detail to the Trevi as it appears today. large numbers of plates to a series of de Sanctis's executed design for the
bottom border: scale = 240 palmi The basin and the artificial marine publications that provided views and staircase is clearly indebted to
provenance Bequest of Contessa Anna reefs, or scogli, however, differ substan- measured drawings of important Specchi's proposal.
Laetitia Pecci-Blunt. 1971

exhibitions Rome 1959. cat. no. 1140;

Rome 1976, cat. no. 37

BIBLIOGRAPHY SettCCCtUO 1959. p. 265;

Incisa della Rocchetta 1976. p. 19; Pinto

1986. pp. 60-63: Kieven 1991. pp. 68-70
Gabinetto Comunale delle Stampe di

Roma. Rome

Since the 1640s the Trevi Fountain had

languished in a pitiful condition, with
water issuing from the unfinished
foundations laid by Gianlorenzo
Bernini. Despite many proposals, the
Trevi still awaited completion in 1730,

when Pope Clement XII sponsored a

competition aimed at its embellish-
ment. The competition was pro-
and not until 1732 was the
tracted,
awarded to Salvi. Salvi's
project
winning design appears to have
embodied all the essential characteris-
tics of the fountain as executed. II not
the actual presentation sheet, this
autograph drawing by Salvi is cer-
tainly the earliest and closest reflec-
tion of his design, which, just as the
executed fountain, fuses the architec-
tural forms with sculpture and water
into a monomorphic unity. By simpli-
fying the architecture of the center- 1 C"--^ L-

piece into the form ol a triumphal

AR( III! I.( I UK I.

 Specchi enjoyed considerable bibliography Ashby and Welsh 1927, the other a view over the new port Specchi's port structure opened
success in the field of palace design, pp. 237-48: Marder 1978, pp. 62-70: Marder structures toward the Prati di Castello the city up to the river and the fields
1980, pp. 28-56: Marder 1980, "Specchi," and Specchi also recorded of the Prati beyond, as evident in
including the rebuilding of the St. Peter's. is
pp. 30—40: Manfredi 1991. pp. 445—48;
Palazzo Pichini on Piazza Farnese the visit of Pope Clement XI to the site the detailed view at the lower right.
Spagnesi 1997
(1705-8) and the Palazzo de Carolis in 1704; the Albani pope appears just It provides an opening halfway along
(1713-28) on the Corso. Late in his to the right of center admiring the one of Rome's major urban axes, via
career he designed the stables facing inscription set into the curving terrace di Ripetta and its continuation via

the Palazzo del Quirinale (1722) and 33 wall,which carries his name. della Scrofa.Not only could passers-
projected the extension of the papal Comparison with the view of the by pause to view the activity of the
Alessandro Specchi
summer palace known as the Manica pre-1703 condition of the port shows busy port, beautifully captured in one
Lunga (1721-24). In 1715 Specchi View of the Porto di Ripetta how Specchi's ramp system, by of Piranesi's Vedute di Roma, but they
designed the high altar of the
1704
replacing a muddy slope, greatly facil- could also watch the progress of the
Pantheon, which was not completed itated the unloading of river boats. ferry that crossed over to the Prati,
Etching in bound volume
until 1727. As architect of the Colonna 26/s" x 17" (665 x 430 mm) (left): Specchi centered the ramp on the pre- visible in the small view in Specchi's
family, he provided designs for the existing church of S. Girolamo degli print and also on Nolli's plan. Later,
26//' x 18X" (665 x 467 mm) (center);
Chinea festivals in the period 1722-27.
26%" x 16X" x 428 mm) (right)
Schiavoni, much as the Spanish Steps Specchi's Porto di Ripetta scheme was
(663
Throughout his career Specchi held would later be aligned with the Trinita adapted by Nicola Michetti for an
bibliography Ashby and Welsh 1927,
a number of appointed positions in dei Monti. To anchor the upstream ornamental lake in Peter the Great's
pp. 237-48; Marder 19-8. pp. 62-70; Marder
which he supervised and initiated 1980, pp. 28-56; Spagnesi 199". pp. 19-26 end of the port Specchi built a custom summer palace at Peterhof, and of
architectural activity: Architect of the Vincent ). Buonanno. Chicago house, which in the print partially course it profoundly influenced the
Tribunale delle Strade (1702-28), blocks the unfinished facade of design of the Spanish Steps. The
Architect of the Popolo Romano S. Rocco. This dogana is a reminder picturesque qualities of the Porto di
(1713-29), and Architect of the Fabric The demolition of the Porto di Ripetta that the port project was part of an Ripetta were naturally appreciated by
of St. Peter's (1708-29). He was also in 1889 removed one of the most ambitious program devised by painters, and it inspired one of Hubert
elected to membership in the important eighteenth-century contri- Clement XI, aimed at stimulating Robert's most spirited architectural
Congregazione dei Virtuosi al butions to the urban development of commerce in the Papal States. Visible capriccios. painted in Rome in 1761.
Pantheon (1702) and the Accademia di Rome. As a result of this loss, the on the curving terrace extending in In Robert's painting the Pantheon
S. Luca (1711). In 1728 Specchi was taken appearance of Rome's northern river front of S. Girolamo is a fountain with replaces S. Girolamo degli Schiavoni
seriously ill and ceded several of his port can only be studied through rustic blocks in the shape of montt crowning feature of a monu-
as the
salaried positions to Filippo Raguzzini view-paintings and early photographs, crowned by a star, the escutcheon mental staircase that wraps around
before his death in November of the and prints by Piranesi and Vasi. of the Albani pope. The fountain a convex terrace wall as it descends
following year. Specchi contributed Alessandro Specchi, the architect who survives and has been moved to a lo a quay, an arrangement clearly
greatly to the definition and diffusion designed the port in 1703, was also a new position in front of the river suggested by Specchi's ramps. [|i>]

of the image of eighteenth-century
Rome through his graphic representa-
tions of the city's architectural
ments and his own buildings. His
masterpiece, the Porto di Ripetta.
exerted a powerful influenceon sub-
sequent design both within Rome and
abroad, as far afield as Czar Peter the
master print maker, and he clearly
extended himself in documenting
monu- most significant executed
separate plates preserved in the
Calcografia were etched to produce a
composite image, including
tive view of the port from the
a plan of the ramp system, and two
loggia of the Palazzo Borghese, which
his dominates the right-hand portion of
work. Three Specchi's large perspective view. GIUSEPPE VALADIER
Standing opposite the custom house ROME 1762-1839 ROME
and anchoring the southern end of the
a perspec- upper terrace is what appears to be a Giuseppe Yaladicr was born into a
river, chapel, its portal crowned w ith the family of distinguished goldsmiths.
Albani arms. In fact, this was a modest Ilis grandfather Andrea had emigrated

Great's summer gardens on the shores smaller views, one providing a view of house decorated to look like a church, from Provence to settle in Rome in
of the Baltic, [jp] the site as it appeared before 1703 and but which never functioned as one. i~i4, and his lather. Luigi, took charge

ARCHITECTURE 149
 ——

of the workshop in 1759; he directed it

until his death in 1785. Giuseppe

demonstrated an early interest in
architecture and at the age of thirteen
was awarded a prize in the Concorso
Clementino of 1775. By 1781 he was
appointed Architetto dei Sacri Palazzi,
in which capacity he assisted Carlo
Marchionni on the construction of the
Vatican sacristy. In 1786, following the
death of Marchionni, he was named
Architetto Camerale, in which capac-
ity Valadier was responsible for exten-
sive restoration work in the Papal States
following a disastrous earthquake in
1786, including the rebuilding of the
Urbino Cathedral. In Rome, Valadier
prepared designs for the Palazzo
Braschi (1790), the last of the great
papal family palaces, and his plans for
the reorganization of Piazza del Popolo
(1793) influenced his later proposals
for Rome's grand urban frontispiece.
Valadier adapted readily to the
French occupation in 1798, and actively
served his new imperial masters as well
as Pius VII, especially after the corona-
tion of Napoleon by the Chiaramonti
pope in 1804. Among his important
works from this period two stand out:
the superstructure of the Ponte Milvio 34

(1805) and the facade of S. Pantaleo

(1806) In 1810-11 he prepared drawings
. the end of the eighteenth century. His 34 occasion provide essential back-
for a number of unexecuted urban designs show strong affinities with ground to Giuseppe Valadier's pro-
Giuseppe Valadier
projects, including the clearing of the those of Claude-Nicolas Ledoux and posal of 1793, recorded in this print.
Piazza di Trevi, the Piazza della Etienne Boullee, particularly in their Project for the Piazza del Popolo Valadier's project was prompted by
Rotonda, and the demolition of the emphasis on pure geometric forms. the desire of Pius VI to erect perma-
c. 1794
which
so-called spina of the Borgo, There is also a strong element of
Etching by Vincenzo Feoli
nent barracks for papal troops in
would have provided a monumental another international movement in the Piazza del Popolo. The caption
21X4" x 30/5" (552 x 773 mm)
avenue leading to St. Peter's. his work: neo-Palladianism. A late work bibliography Marconi 1964, pp. 87-92;
stresses the project's function
The grandest of the French schemes such as the S. Rocco faqade owes a Ciucci 1974. pp. 87-119; Marconi, Cipriani, barracks for infantry and cavalry
envisioned the reshaping of the profound debt to Palladio and is related and Valeriani 1974, vol. 2, pp. 2700-725; and papal patronage. A drawing by
eastern and western sides of Piazza as well to the Renaissance master's Kieven 1991, p. 141 Valadier in the collection of the Museo
del Popolo and its integration with eighteenth-century followers, such as Cabinetto Comunale delle Stampe di di Roma is preparatory to Feoli's print.
extensive public gardens laid out on Tommaso Temanza in Venice, Giacomo Roma, Rome Other drawings in the Accademia di

the Pincian Hill. This project occupied Quarenghi in Russia, and Sir William S. Luca, including plans and eleva-
Valadier from 1811 through 1824, with Chambers in England. Valadier's sen- Since the mid-seventeenth century, tions, flesh out Valadier's project.
results that may still be admired. The sitivity to northern European theory when Carlo Rainaldi embellished its The porticos of Carlo Rainaldi's
execution of Valadier's vast design for and practice, remarkable as it was in southern end with two nearly identi- twin churches dramatically frame
Piazza del Popolo dramatically Rome during this period, did not Popolo
cal churches, the Piazza del Valadier's perspective, which looks
reshaped the city and is rightly con- him from the historical devel-
isolate had functioned as the grand scenic north to the Porta del Popolo. To the
sidered his masterpiece. opment of Roman architecture. Indeed, frontispiece to the city. At its center east and west, Valadier's Neoclassical
Following the restoration in 1714, in his works the classical strain evident stood the Egyptian obelisk erected in porticos, composed of two superim-
Valadier continued to serve Pius VII in in the designs of Carlo Fontana, Luigi the sixteenth century by Domenico posed Doric colonnades, provide a
Rome and throughout the Papal States. Vanvitelli, and Giovanni Battista Fontana, and to the north the gateway severe contrast with Rainaldi's Baroque
Within the capital he was actively Piranesi was continued well into the and the adjacent church of S. Maria churches. To the right of the portal,
involved in the restoration of ancient nineteenth century. Valadier published del Popolo. To the east and west, Valadier replaced the fifteenth-century
monuments, including the Colosseum many books, including a collection of however, the piazza lacked definition, facade of S. Maria del Popolo with a
(1820), the Arch of Titus (1819-21), and his lectures at the Accademia di S. Luca and was closed by low, undistinguished Neoclassical temple front, balanced by
the Temple of Fortuna Virilis (1832), as (1828) and two volumes that were buildings that formed the long arms a symmetrical counterpart on the other
well as such churches as S. Maria ai devoted to his own work: Prqgetti of a narrow trapezoid, clearly visible side of the gate. Valadier's porticos give
Monti (1828-29), and S. Andrea in via architettonid (1807) and Opcre di architet- on the Nolli plan. powerful architectural definition to a
Flaminia (1829-35). Valadier partici- tura (1833). [jp] The earliest recorded proposal to funnel-shaped shaft of space that opens
pated in the debates surrounding the mm iograi'HY Valadier 1807; Valadier define the east-west axis of the piazza out from the angled intersections of
restoration of S. Paolo fuori le Mura 1828-39; Valadier 1833: Schulze-Battmann with symmetrically placed buildings the streets converging on the south-
after its destruction by fire in 1823, but 1939; Marconi 1964; Hoffmann 1967: appeared among Lione Pascoli's ern end of the piazza, via del Babuino
hisrecommendations were not fol- Debenedetti 1979; Three Generations 1991; recommendations for improving and via della Ripetta. While establish-
Kicvcn 1992
lowed. His last major work was the commerce in the Papal States, pub- ing a transverse axis (marked by the
facade of S. Rocco (18)4), completed lished in 1733. Four decades later, the projecting elements at the centers of
shortly before his death. Accademia di S. Luca set the adorn- the two porticos, and the martial arms
Valadier was the most distinguished ment of the Piazza del Popolo as the silhouetted against the sky), the bar-
exponent of French Revolutionary theme of the Concorso Balestra. The racks effectively enclose the piazza,
Neoclassicism practicing in Rome at academic projects produced on this giving it a decidedly urban aspect.

ISO ARC! I I IKI

 km

After the French occupation of Rome major commission to bestow: the tion of which occupied him for over a 35
in 1798, Valadier's early proposal for port structures relating to the harbor decade. This vast complex includes a
Luigi Vanvitelli
the Piazza del Popolo was set aside as of Ancona, and this was given to scenographic staircase and extensive
he drafted new, more ambitious plans Vanvitelli, who designed the pentago- waterworks, the latter supplied by an Unexecuted Project for the
aimed at linking the piazza both visu- nal lazarettoand the Arco Clementino impressive aqueduct of Vanvitelli's
Church of the Gesu in Ancona,
ally and physically to the gardens of at the head of the mole (1733-38). devising. Within Naples, Vanvitelli
the Pincian Hill. Valadier's executed While directing the work in Ancona, undertook many projects as court Longitudinal Section
design,begun in 1811 during the French Vanvitelli also designed the Jesuit architect, among which his designs c. 1739
occupation and completed in 1824 fol- church (1739-43). In his capicity as for the Foro Carolino (now Piazza Pen and brown ink with gray and brown
lowing the restoration of papal author- architect of the Camera Apostolica, Dante) of 1758-63 and the church of washes over traces of graphite on laid

ity, effectively gave the piazza the shape Vanvitelli supervised work on SS. Annunziata (1761-82) are particu- paper
it has today, including the grand system many buildings in Umbria and the larly noteworthy. 19X" x 27//' (493 x 691 mm); borders dam-
of ramps that climb the Pincio. [jp] Marches, notably the monastery of At the time of his death Vanvitelli aged
Montmorcino in Perugia (1739-62). was recognized as one of the domi- provenance Bracci family archive

During the 1740s Vanvitelli was nant architectural figures in Europe. Collection Centre Canadien

LUIGI VANVITELLI more actively engaged in Rome itself. His fame and his style were spread by d' Architecture/Canadian Centre for
Architecture, Montreal
NAPLES 1700-1773 CASERTA Between 1742 and 1747, as architect of his followers, notably his son Carlo in
St. Peter's, he collaborated with the Naples, Carlo Murena in Rome and
Luigi Vanvitelli was the son of the mathematician Giovanni Poleni on St. Petersburg, Giuseppe Piermarini in
Dutch view-painter Gaspare van the consolidation of Michelangelo's Lombardy, and Francesco Sabbatini in 36
Wittel and a Roman mother. Soon dome. In this period he also collabo- Spain. Vanvitelli's Neapolitan build-
Luigi Vanvitelli
after his birth the family moved to rated with his colleague Salvi on the ings reflect the new Neoclassicism
Rome, where Luigi was trained as a expansion of the Palazzo Chigi- while retaining his deft command of Unexecuted Project for the
painter and an architect, studying Odescalchi (c. 1745) and on the design massing, expressive use of concave
Church of the Gesu in Ancona,
with Antonio Valeri. Cardinal of the chapel of St. John for the church surfaces, powerful displays of
Annibale Albani employed him in of S. Roque in Lisbon which was pre- columns, and rich decorative vocabu- Transverse Section
the decoration of the family palace fabricated in Rome between 1743 and lary, much of it derived from C. 1739
and chapel in Urbino (c. 1729). 1745 before being shipped to the Borromini. [|p] Pen and brown ink with gray wash over
Around 1730 he designed the Portugese capital. For the Augustinians bibliography Vanvitelli i~s6: Fichera 1937; traces of graphite on laid paper
Vermicino aqueduct and fountain Vanvitelli designed the sacristy and De Fusco 197?; Garms 19"?; Garms 1974, 18 V:" x 14" (469 x 356 mm); borders
near Albano. monastery of S. Agostino (1746-56), pp. icr-90; Convcgno VatmtelUano 1975: damaged
Vanvitelli participated in both of as well as churches in Sienaand Vanvitelli i9"s: Strazzullo 1976-77; Carreras
provenance Bracci family archive
the great architectural competitions Ancona. For the Carthusians he 1977; De Seta 19^8. pp. 40-46; Luigi Vanvitelli
BIBLIOGRAPHY Carreras 19", pp. 101-13;
i9~>9; Pasquali 1980; Hersey 198?: Garms
sponsored by Pope Clement XII, for remodeled the church of S. Maria degli Bosel 198s. pp. 19-29
1993, "Annunziata," pp. i96~429: Marinclli
the facade of St. John Lateran and the Angeli. which Michelangelo had set Collection Centre Canadien
1993
Trevi Fountain, neither of which he within the Baths of Diocletian, reori- d' Architecture/Canadian Centre tor
won. His surviving designs for these Architecture. Montreal
enting its entrance and enriching its

competitions reveal a monumental interior with scagliola columns.

classicism closely resembling the style In 1750 Vanvitelli was finally given These drawings are the only known
of his friend and fellow competitor the opportunity to build on the records of Vanvitelli's preliminary
Nicola Salvi. In 1753,no doubt on the grandest possible scale when the king design lor the [esuit church in
basis of his strong showing in these of the Two Sicilies. Charles III Bourbon, Ancona. In the 1730s the Adriatic port
1w impetitions, he was admitted to
1 1 1 called him to Naples. Within one year of Ancona was being developed as
the Accademia di S. Luca as accadanico he completed the planning of the part o) a systematic program aimed
di merito. The Corsini pope had a third royal palace at Caserta, the construc- at stimulating trade in the Papal

ARCHITECTURE 1 SI
States. Vanvitelli designed important
structures related to the harbor,
including an arch at the end of the
mole and a lazaretto for the quaran-
tine of plague victims. Vanvitelli's
activity outside of Rome was by no
means unusual; in the eighteenth
centurymany architects based in
Rome actively sought commissions
outside of the capital. It can be assumed
that Virginio Bracci came into posses-
sion of these drawings when he
worked as an apprentice in the studio
of Vanvitelli and Carlo Murena.
In 1733 the Jesuit college in Ancona
was partly destroyedby fire. Luigi
Vanvitelli received the commission
for the rebuilding of the college in the
same year. In 1738 plans to rebuild the
adjacent church were discussed. The
construction of the church began in

1739, but was interrupted in 1740

because of financial problems;

however, by 1743 the fabric was fin-

ished. The church was executed

according to the present plans with
the exception of the cupola. The
financial difficulties of 1740 obviously
forced the Jesuits to execute a reduced
version without a drum. 37 respected the fenestration and skyline in Vanvitelli's design, which is primar-
Vanvitelli had to respect the site and of the existing facade, which resulted ily architectural in character. [|p/ek]
Luigi Vanvitelli
structure of the old church.The build- in severalawkward compromises, the
ing was placed on the slope of a Unexecuted Project for the Trevi most obvious of which is the break in
mountain and overlooked the harbor
Fountain, Elevation
the entablature to the left and right of GIUSEPPE VASI
of Ancona. He created a concave center so as not to interrupt the CORLEONE, SICILY I7IO-I782 ROME
facade with a portico that accords c. 1760 second-story windows.
with the building's prominent posi- Drawing by Virginio Bracci Vanvitelli proposed using engaged Giuseppe Vasi is first recorded in 1736
tion. The small site did not permit the Pen and gray-black ink; pencil under- pilasters to articulate the architectural as a printmaker in Palermo, where he
drawing, gray and blue washes on paper
construction of aisles, and for this backdrop of the fountain, which contributed ten views to La reggia in

reason the transverse nave has the

20" x 29" (510 x 735 mm) curves gently at the center, taking trionfo, a book celebrating the crown-
same depth as the two side chapels, provenance Bracci family archive
advantage of the recessed space ing of Charles 111 Bourbon as King of
which line the main nave on both bibliography Gradara Pesci 1920,
between the two wings to provide a the Two Sicilies. That same year Vasi
pp. 76-80; Pinto 1986, pp. 114-15; Kieven
sides. Vanvitelli's use of trabeated shallow segmental concavity against moved to Rome, where he established
1988, p. 109; Garms 1993, pp. 65-77
columns and pilasters to unify the which to set off the Antonine Column. his own workshop; the move must
Ministero per i Beni e le Attivita Culturali,
interior also places a strong emphasis The column itself would have been set have been agreed to by the king
Istituto Nazionale per la Grafica, Rome
on the crossing, where
the columns at the center of the basin and well in because Vasi never lost the patronage
are doubled and the drum enlarges front of the facade. The intervening of the royal family.
the structure. The elegance of the This elevation and a corresponding space, in the form of an oval, would Among the earliest of his works
restrained architectural vocabulary is plan of Luigi Vanvitelli's project for have provided an elevated viewing produced in Rome are three prints

apparent and corresponds to the excel- the Trevi. also in the collection of the platform out over the fountain acces- of Filippo Juvarra's designs for a mau-
lence of draftsmanship in the drawing. Gabinetto Nazionale delle Stampe in siblefrom the interior of the palace. soleum for the king of France, and one
The careful orchestration of Rome, once belonged to the Bracci This terrace would also have allowed of the fresco of the Virgin and Child with
repeated elements is visible in the archive. The inscriptions on the the close inspection of the celebrated Saints by Sebastiano Conca from the
design of the altar, where the concave facade elevation carry the date 1730, on the sides of the pedestal of
reliefs chapel of S. Nicola in the church of
movement of the wall is reminiscent but the draftsmanship of both sheets the Antonine Column. S. Lorenzo in Damaso. Although Vasi
of that of the facade. The altarpiece appears unlike Vanvitelli's hand. The column itself was to have been could not have had direct contact with
and the altar are not singled out but Rather than autograph originals, they crowned by a statue representing the Juvarra. who died in Portugal the year
united with the general architectural are accurate copies of Vanvitelli's Virgin and Child, an iconographical that Vasi reached Rome, it is clear that
setting and incorporated into the design by his pupil Virginio Bracci. theme going back to Bernini's seven- he did make contact with Conca, who
architectural order. The ornament is Another set of drawings after teenth-century proposal for the Trevi. was and working in the
living city, and
fully integrated into the tectonic Vanvitelli's project has recently been One of the inscriptions on the facade who contributed the drawing for the
structure. The design also illustrates identified on the art market in Milan. records the dedication of the column frontispiece of Vasi's masterwork Dellc

Vanvitelli's superb sense of balance Relative to other entries in the 1730 to the Virgin, while the other com- magnificcnzc di Roma antica e moderna.
and scenographic effects, [jp/kk] competition for the Trevi, Vanvitelli memorates its excavation under Pope Early ties with contemporary archi-
would have aggrandized the fountain Clement XI. The remaining sculpture tects came in 1738, when Vasi made
at the expense of the Palazzo Poli is ranged around the base of the etchings from Luigi Vanvitelli's draw-
facade.Comparison with projects column, raised on rustic rocks. Two ings of the port and lazaretto of
from the first phase of the competi- reclining river gods, probably repre- Ancona, and in 1740, when he etched
tion shows how the central mostra, senting the Tiber and the Nile, are Ferdinando Fuga's design for the
from being confined within the two accompanied by their respective catafalque for Pope Clement XII
projecting bays of the palace, has now attributes, the wolf suckling Romulus Corsini in S. Giovanni dei Fiorentini.
expanded laterally to overlap the first and Remus, and a lion. Both sculpture Later, he was to make prints of works
bay of each wing. However. Vanvitelli and water play relatively modest parts by Alessandro Galilei, Paolo Posi, and

ARCHITE< l UK I.
Giuseppe Palazzi. An early patron in parish churches, monasteries, con- are really views of the Forum from the 38
Rome was the nephew of Clement XII, vents for women, colleges and hospi- Capitoline Hill (Lateran), the Aventine
Giuseppe Vasi
Cardinal Neri Corsini, whose library tals, villas and gardens. These from the port of Ripa Grande (S. Paolo),

in Palazzo Corsini contained an contextual perspective views provide the river and Borgo (St. Peter's) and via View of the City of Rome
extensive collection of books of the perfect third dimension to Nolli's Felice from Quattro Fontane (S. Maria
(Prospetto dell'alma citta di
prints. This collection, which included two-dimensional Nuova pianta di Roma. Maggiore).
many views of Rome, including works In 1747 Vasi dedicated the first At the bottom of the Prospetto is a Roma)
by Falda and Specchi, provided Vasi volume of the Magnijicenze to Charles numbered index with 390 items corre- 1765
with models for his own Roman views III, and went to Naples to participate sponding to numbers on the view Signed and dated in the dedicatory inscrip-
in the Vedute sul Tevcre, published about in celebrations for the birth of the itself. This list is labeled "Index of tion, lower left: Giuseppe Vasi . . . MDCCLXV
1743, and in the later Magnijicenze. king's heir. There he prepared nine notable items divided into eight days." Dedicatory inscription: prospetto d[ell']
Vasi's connection with Piranesi, plates for the publication commemo- The eight days refers to the divisions ALMA / CITTA DI ROMA VISTO DAL MONTE
/

who worked in the Vasi studio during rating this event, perhaps as a result of in a guidebook Vasi had published in G1ANICOLO / E SOTTO GL1 AVSPIC1 / DELLA
his early days in Rome, ended in acri- which, in 1748 he was awarded apart- 1763, entitled Itinerario istruttivo diviso in
SAC.MAESTA CATTOL. / DI CARLO III RE /

DELLE SPAGNE PROMOTORE ECCELSO /

mony for reasons not recorded. Henry ments Bourbon-owned Palazzo
in the otto giornate per ritrovare confacilita tutte
/

DELLE SCIENZE E BELLE ARTI / DISEGNATO E

Millon found a convincing relation- Farnese, to which he also transferred le antichc e modernc magnijicenze. Of the
1NCISO E DEDICATO / ALLA MAESTA SVA /
ship between some of the views in his printshop. Vasi was invariably long series of guidebooks on Rome, DA GIUSEPPE VASI CONTE PAL. / CAV. DEL-
Vasi's 1739 Vedute sul Tevere and picked to prepare etchings of the elab- this is one of the most successful. In L'AVLA LATERAN. / NELL'ANNO MDCCLXV
Piranesi's 1748 Antkhild romane and orate temporary apparati set up in the introduction Vasi explained "I Etching
suggested that some of the plates for Roman piazzas by Charles on occa-
III arranged form of an itinerary
it in the 40//' x io'/s" (1025 x 264 mm),
the latter were carried off by Piranesi sion of the annual presentation to the divided into eight days and in each 18 sheets combined
from Vasi's studio on his departure pope of the Chinea. The same applied section have placed numbers corre-
I BIBLIOGRAPHY Vasi 1747-61, Vol. lO, pp. 4,

(Millon 1978, p. 350). More amicable to numerous other ephemeral apparati sponding to the plates of the ten 41-42; Casamorata 1925, pp. 175-78;
was Vasi's connection with commissioned by Charles, such as the volumes [of the Magnijicenze]." He Petrucci 1941. pp. 11-22: Petrucci 1946,

Giambattista Nolli, who, even before p. 93; Frutaz 1962; Scalabroni 1981,
triumphal arch in the forum designed republished the Itinerario the same
pp. 50-32; Coen 1996. p. 22
publishing his own Nuova pianta di by Fuga for the possesso of Pope year as the Prospetto, changing the title
Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles
Roma (cat. 18), used it to supply Vasi Clement XIII Rezzonico in 1758. to Indice istorico del gran prospetto di

with measurements between gates in Vasi also dedicated the largest image Roma, thus interlinking his three
the Aurelian city walls for the first he was to produce (1765) to Charles III.
—
major works probably in an effort At the time that he published his great
volume of the Magnijicenze (Vasi This was the Prospetto dell'alma cittd di to provide a comprehensive descrip- was well established in
Prospetto, Vasi

1747-61, vol. 1, index page). Roma, a comprehensive panorama of tion of Rome, and possibly with an Rome and renowned for his numer-
The most ambitious of Vasi's efforts the city viewed from the Janiculum Hill eye to sales. ous detailed prints of the city's indi-
was the ten-volume series of the (cat. 38). It is not only an all-embracing While half of the ten volumes of vidualmonuments. With this new
Magnijicenze, with 220 prints and summation of Vasi's Magnijicenze, but the Magni/icerize are dedicated to the and ambitious work he moved into
extensive explanatory text, published also a visual paean to his adopted city. Bourbon circle, the remaining five and the field of view-maps. In this he fol-
irregularly betweenand 1761. This
1747 He had promised to produce this view many of Vasi's single prints bear dedi- lowed in the footsteps of Giovanni
work provides the most comprehen- in the preface of the last volume of the cations to other princes and to power- Battista Falda, who, a century before,
sive and faithful visual record of the Magnijicenze (Vasi 1747-61, vol. 10, p. 4). ful cardinals. This, coupled with his had published in both fields and pro-
eighteenth-century city available. Four large prints (39X" x 27 V8 ") titles of Conte Palatino and Cavaliere duced one of the major view-maps of
Unlike the more dramatic plates of designed to accompany the Prospetto, dell' Aula Lateranense, gives the seventeenth-century Rome, entitled
Piranesi's Vedute di Roma (published two published the same year and two in impression of Vasi as a well-estab- Nuova pianta el alzata della citta di Roma
contemporaneously), which concen- 1771, can be thought of as illustrations lished and successful artist at both (1676). However, although Va\i
trate on the ancient and monumental, of parts of the city that did not stand royal and papal courts. His epitaph in produced a map oi the city directly
Vasi's prints give a capillary view of the out on the large panorama. The unify- S. Caterina della Rota, near his home derived from the Falda in i~Si (Nuova
city, penetrating into its every corner. ing theme of these four impressive in Palazzo Farnese. bears this out. [ac] pianta di Roma in pmspettiva), the
Thus his ten volumes successively views is that of the four patriarchal BIBLIOGRAPHY PctrUCCi 1940, pp. 8-15; Prospetto is of a different type. It has a
portray city walls and gates, piazzas, basilicas, but in two cases (the Lateran Petrucci 1941. pp. 11-22; Petrucci 1946: closer kinship with the vertically com-
basilicasand "ancient" churches, and S. Paolo fuori lc Mura) the churches Millon i<;-8. pp. 545-62; Scalabroni 1981; pressed view of Rome by Antonio
palazzi and streets, river and bridges, play a marginal role in the image. They Coen 1996 Tempesta (iS9i). Vertical compression

ARCHITECTURE iSs
in a view-map simulates the perspec- dome of S. Agnese), the dome of
tive effect of reality. As in Tempesta, the Pantheon, S. Andrea della Valle
the vertical compression is less in the (directly above Palazzo Corsini and
lower half than in the upper half of the Palazzo Farnese), the island on the
Prospctto. with the result that more can Tiber, the Aventine Hill, and finally
be seen of the built-up part of the city the Aurelian walls with the pyramid
in foreground, while the emptier of Caius Cestius. Vasi accentuates the
section (still within the Aurelian whole sweep of the river, which is not
walls) is played down. Vasi also fol- readily seen from this viewing point.
lowed Tempesta in rotating the whole He also emphasizes the rectilinear
of Borgo clockwise so that more of sequence of via Flaminia and the
St. Peter's can be seen. Corso from Ponte Milvio almost to
The vantage point of the Prospetto whose stair and cordonata
the Capitol,
has been identified correctly by Paolo form a V to the right of center. Moving
Coen as the Casino Corsini on the up from the island, an oddly dimin-
Janiculum Hill in the gardens of ished Colosseum can be seen con-
Palazzo Corsini. In the 1748 plan of trasting with the enlarged towers of
Rome by Giambattista Nolli (cat. 18) the transept facade of St. John Lateran.
the casino appears just inside the The Prospetto was reprinted in 1829.

Baroque walls as a hatched square in (in twelve rather than eighteen sheets)
line with the main avenue of the and imitated by later printmakers, but
gardens of Palazzo Corsini. The back was never equalled in either size or
of this palazzo. home of Vasi's early completeness of the urban panorama.
patron Cardinal Neri Corsini, appears [AC]
clearlyon the Prospetto above the coat
of arms of Charles III. In the last
volume of his Magnificcnze Vasi BERNARDO ANTONIO
referred to "that high point from VITTONE
which all Rome and its Campagna can TURIN 1702-1770 TURIN
be seen admirably, and from which I

plan to make the promised view of the Bernardo Antonio Vittone, a native of
city so as to complete this work." The Turin, extended the tradition of the
view from where the casino once Piedmontese Baroque established by
stood, now Piazzale Garibaldi, is his predecessors Guarino Guarini and
indeed comprehensive, and except for Filippo Juvarra into the later eigh-
intervening trees, today yields much teenth century. He may have studied
the same panorama as the Prospetto. architecture with his uncle Gian
Inevitably Vasi made some adjust- Giacomo Plantery and appears to
ments and distortions so as to high- have designed a number ot relatively
light select monuments and sites. modest churches in and around Turin 39

The two framing elements of the before leaving for Rome in 1731. In
panorama, St. Peter's on the left and Rome he entered the Accademia di This potential is evident in a series long tradition extending back to the
the Acqua Paola on the right, are S.Luca, where he won first prize in the of highly original church designs exe- Renaissance. Vittone's theory was
somewhat turned on the print so as to Concorso Clementino of 1732. The fol- cuted in the five-year period between rejected by his younger contempo-
be more clearly visible. The entrance lowing year he was elected to mem- 1737 and 1742, which include the chapel raries, who also turned their backs on
gate to the Bosco Parrasio of the bership in the Accademia, offering a of the Visitazione at Valinotto (1738), his brilliant spatial illusionism in their
Accademia dell'Arcadia (no. 1193 design for a central-plan church as his S. Bernardino in Chieri (1740), and zeal for Neoclassical rigor. Viewed in a

on the Nolli map), to which Vasi presentation piece (cat. 40). Vittone's S. Chiara in Bra (1741). These buildings historical context, however, Vittone's
belonged, stands out on the lower drawings of his Roman period reveal introduce themes that Vittone pursued executed designs represent at once a
right even though it could not be seen that he effected a synthesis of early throughout the rest of his career, highly personal interpretation of
from that viewpoint. Nonetheless, a eighteenth-century architecture, notably the exploitation of concentric space-molding architecture and a
visit to the spot where the nobile casino especially the work of Carlo Fontana structures nested within one another, synthesis of strains — Roman late

once stood discloses the fidelity of the and Filippo Juvarra, and that he became the scenographic effects of screening Baroque classicism, Piedmontese
Prospetto to the view. Sightings from intimately acquainted with ancient elements through which other por- open structures, and central European
that vantage point reveal the radial architecture and ornament, through tions of an interior may be glimpsed, planning — that effectively summarize
alignments of domes and palazzi on both direct study of its substantive pierced shell-like vaults, and the and conclude a grand tradition. []p]
the print to be remarkably accurate in remains and familiarity with publica- manipulation of light from hidden bibliography Vittone 1760-66; Vittone
most cases. Exceptions are the dome tions such as Fischer von Erlach's sources. These themes are still evident 1766; Portoghesi 1966. Bernardo Vittone:

and facade of the Chiesa Nuova, Entwurf finer historischen Architefetur in the hexagonal church at Borgo Carboneri and Viale 196^: Oechslin 1967,

which on the Prospctto arc shown ver- (1721). Vittone frequented the library d'Ale. under construction at his death. pp. 167-73; Pommer 1967; Oechslin 1972;
Vittone Convcgno 1972
tically aligned, while in actuality the of Cardinal Alessandro Albani, who Although Vittone was also active in
dome appears to the left of the facade. subsequently recommended him to the realm of civil architecture, his
As already noted, Vasi compresses the House of Savoy. designs for public buildings are con-
the vertical distances less in the lower In 1733 Vittone returned to Turin, siderably less original and striking.
half of the print so as to diminish the where he may have assisted juvarra Vittone published two architectural
masking effect of the buildings in the until the latter's death in 1736. In the treatises, the Istruzioni elementari of
Campo Marzio and adjacent areas. period 173s— 37 Vittone prepared the 1760 and the Istruzioni diverse of 1766.
Thanks to this technique, moving text ol Guarini's architectural treatise, These offer insights into his theory of
from left to right from St. Peter's the the Architcttura civile for publication, architecture (much indebted to
whole of Castel S. Angelo can be dis- and this experience undoubtedly Guarini), his sources (including
cerned (with cannon smoke billowing heightened his awareness of the cre- Vignola. Borromini. and Bernini), and
from it), the horizontal space of ative potential inherent in Guarini's his own works. In advocating a system
Piazza Navona (accented by the open structures. of musical proportions he stood in a

ARCHITECTURE
40 (elevation) 40 (plan)

Vanvitelli built a triumphal arch at the obelisk fountain in the center fore-
39
head of a new mole and a pentagonal ground may also reveal the influence
Bernardo Antonio Vittone
lazaretto offshore, [jp] of Fischer's treatise, the Entwurf eincr
Design for a City Surrounded historischen Arcliitefeturof 1721, in which
similar antiquarian motifs abound.
by the Sea
40 Vittone's design no doubt also alludes
c. 1732 to the fountain in front of the Pantheon,
Pen and colored washes on paper
Bernardo Antonio Vittone
which Filippo Barigione had embell-
29K" x 21/4" (740 x 550 mm) Design for a "Temple of Moses" ished with an obelisk in 1711.
bibliography Oechslin 1972, pp. 15-32; Vittone's 1733 design introduces the
1733
Hager 1981, pp. 108-15
Pen and wash on paper
theme that courses through his later
Accademia Nazionale di San Luca, work: the central-plan church. As
21%" x 31" (550 x 790 mm) (elevation);
Rome
21%" x 31" (550 x 790 mm) (plan) Wittkower noted, Vittone's mature
bibliography Oechslin 1967, pp. 167-73;
work united both the "bizarre" and
Vittone arrived in Rome in the fall of Oechslin 1972, pp. 147-57; Wittkower 1973, the "sober" traditions in Italian archi-
1731, after practicing independently as p. 424; Hager 1981, pp. 162-65 tecture, linking him to Borromini and
an architect in Turin. He enrolled in Accademia Nazionale di San Luca, Rome Guarini on the one hand and Palladio,
the Accademia di S. Luca, and in 1732 Bernini, and Carlo Fontana on the
this design for a city surrounded by other (Wittkower 1973, p. 431). To
the sea won first prize in the Concorso ]ust as Filippo Juvarra had done a these Vittone added a profound
Clementino. This general plan is one quarter century earlier, in 1733 awareness of contemporary develop-
of five drawings he submitted; the Bernardo Antonio Vittone presented ments throughout Europe, notably in
others represent details of the scheme: a set of drawings to the Accademia di Germany and Austria, but also in

a plan of the central piazza, an eleva- S. Luca upon being accepted as a France and England. The sceno-
tion and section of one of the four member. Vittone's elevation closely graphic quality of his design also
churches fronting on the piazza, and resembles an engraving in one of the connects him to Palladio by way of
an elevation of the piazza's center- two architectural treatises he later Juvarra. [jp]

piece, a fountain crowned by an published: the lstruzioni dementari of

equestrian monument. 1766. The published text explains that
The detailed program set for the the church is dedicated to Moses, and
contestants left little room for creative functions as a scenic frontispiece to a
invention, stipulating a lengthy list of college, portions of which extend
details, including a harbor defended behind the left flank in theground
by two fortresses at its entrance, a plan. The plan appears drawn on
to be
central avenue, a majestic piazza sur- a sheet of paper that has been illusion-
rounded by eight buildings with iden- istically rolled back to reveal the archi-
tical faqades, a magnificent fountain, tect's drawing instruments.
and much more. The overriding sym- Appropriately for its intended acad-
metry and crystalline geometry of emic audience, Vittone's church
Vittone's ideal scheme harkens back design draws on a wide range of his-
to the Renaissance and the visionary torical sources extending back to such
Utopias of Filarete, Fra Giocondo, and seventeenth-century examples as
Cattaneo. It was frequently the case S. Agnesc in Agone and the Collegiata
that the themes set for the Concorsi dell'Assunta in Valmontone, as well as
Clcmentini, for all their apparent Juvarra's 1707 accademico di mcrito
detachment from reality, were drawings. Vittone's project also
informed by an awareness of concrete reflects his knowledge of more
enterprises under consideration in recently executed designs, such as
Rome and the Papal States. Such was Juvarra's for the church of the Superga
the case in 1732; within a few years, at outside Turin and Fischer von Frlach's
the Adriatic port of Ancona, Luigi lor the Karlskirche in Vienna. The

ARC HI F.CTURi:
I ISS
 Open Queries: Short Notes about the Decorative Arts in Rome
ALVAR GONZALEZ-PALACIOS

These short notes are conceived as an incen- We know that Giuseppe Maggiolini, in Madrid as a favorite at the court of Charles IV

tive for further study and not as a complete Lombardy's greatest furniture maker, sent and his queen, Maria Luisa of Parma. Several of
overview of the subject. It is my intention to pieces to Naples, because the name of the his signed pieces and others that can be attrib-

draw attention to several little-known aspects Queen of Naples, Maria Carolina, appears in uted to him date to this period.
2

of recent research in the field, to new areas of drawings concerning furniture made for her. Besides Francesco Abbiati, the above-men-
investigation, and to some rather singular facts But his name has never been connected with tioned Memorie per le Belle Arti of 1788 records
about the period. My primary source is anything in Rome, even though he may well another furniture maker, the German Gaspare
Chracas's Diario Ordinario di Roma, which, have made furniture for that city. However, Seiz, of whom even less is known. However, I

although the best-known publication of the Francesco Abbiati, a furniture maker who can came across a payment in the account books
period, is actually referred less than is often be considered close to the style and technique of the Vatican dating to April 1774, stating,
thought. In fact, much of the information pre- of Maggiolini, sold several pieces in Rome. "[paid] to Gaspare Saix for a commode con-
sented here has never before been published. Although, unfortunately, it is not known sisting of two drawers and shaped like an urn,
where they are today, two of the most impor- with a plaque in the center above, of a reddish
tant publications of the period speak of them violet color, with incised, carved, and stamped
FURNITURE
in glowing terms. Both the Giornale delle Belle embellishments, in a purple color, and a table
After thirty years of study of the history of Arti (May 5, 1787) and the Memorieper le Belle top in the same manner" ("A Gaspare Saix per
furniture in Rome, can honestly say that
I a lot Arti (1788) mention a mechanical table, oper- un commo a due tiratori fatto ad urna, con suo
more remains to be discovered about the subject ated by ingenious devices, that the Queen specchio in mezzo di color violetto rosso, con
sometimes —sometimes, indeed, the unknown of Naples bought in 1783. Some time later, suo frescio di color paonazzo, interziato, con-
is more considerable than what is more or less Abbiati exhibited in his workshop in Campo tornato, bolinato e suo coperchio lavorato
known —and this is true even of a period such Marzio, near the Palazzo di Firenze, two nella stessa maniera").'

as the Settecento, which is relatively well important commodes, which were inlaid with One of the greatest masterpieces of furni-
investigated. I would therefore like to bring such skill that the marquetry resembled relief ture inRome, which, because it was not widely
attention to a few interesting points that might decoration. However, Abbiati's basically accessible even in its own time, had no influ-

help open up new avenues of research. The Lombard manner does not seem to have found ence on local styles, is a magnificent altar
first is that in the Settecento quite a number of complete favor in Rome, as in 1791 he is recorded frontal, donated by Carlo Vittorio delle Lanze,

furniture makers came from abroad. Recently

I identified several works of the Breton Yves
Livinec, about whom only the barest facts Fig. 81 Pietro Piffetti. Altar Frontal Given to Pope Benedict XIV by Cardinal delle Lanze (detail), 1747-48, mother-of-

were familiar to a handful of scholars, such as pearl, tortoiseshell, precious woods, ivory, and gold; Vatican City
Olivier Michel and Luciana Ferrara. Livenec is

known above all for his collaboration with the

century's greatest silversmith, Luigi Valadier,
with whom he made two pairs of commodes
for Prince Borghese, one for the palace in the
city and the other for the villa on the Pincio.'

The name of Giovanni Ermans, possibly a

relative of the German furniture maker jacopo
Herman, active during the pontificate of
Alexander VII (1655-67), has been known for
some time. Ermans had workshop on the a
Piazza Rondanini. A document of February 25,
1764, which calls him a Roman, states that he
executed a "noble altar," designed by the archi-
tect Melchiorre Passalacqua, "completely
veneered with burr walnut" ("un nobile altare
tutto impelliciato di radica di noce"). Many years
ago I found payments to Ermans for work done
for Cardinal Flavio II Chigi, who owned an
exquisite small piece exhibited here (cat. 52).

(opposite) detail of The Oceans' Coach, 1716 (cat. 62)

I 'I ( OK A I I V I \Kls
 — —

from Turin, to Benedict XIV, the pope who a cabinet of the Barberini family, obviously
had nominated him a cardinal in 1747 (fig. 81). constructed from rare woods. 7
Inlaid with extremely precious mother-of- wss
pearl, ivory, tortoiseshell, and gold, this piece
LACQUER
is among the most important works of Pietro
Piffetti,who learned many aspects of his craft European interest in the Orient has several,

in Rome, and who returned specially from distant beginnings, but in the Settecento two
Turin to install this altar in the Palazzo del artistic forms —porcelain and lacquer (fig. 82)

Quirinale. In 1990 I was extremely lucky seem to compete for attention. As early as 1616

to track it down in the storerooms of the a traveling English painter, William Smith,
Sistine Chapel. 4 wrote to Lord Arundel about how in the previ-
One area that merits much more attention ous two years he had been employed in Rome

is the relationship between architecture and by both princes and ecclesiastics, "in works
furniture, and architects' role in designing fur- after the China fashion w[ch] is much affected
niture. Documents can help resolve this issue, here." It is thought that these works, which
as can also the Diario Ordinario. On April 9, imitated oriental models, involved lacquer
1735, for example, this publication records the painting. In any case, Roman interest in China
role of the architect Filippo Barigioni in the is not to be doubted, and one of the greatest
construction of the new choir stalls of the stylists of the Italian language and a curious
church of S. Marco in Rome, although, unfor- man, the Jesuit Daniello Bartoli, published a
tunately it does not mention the name of the book on the subject, Delia Cina, in 1663. Four
cabinetmaker. Eight years on December later, years later another Jesuit, Father Attanasio
7, 1743, the Diario relates how Friar Vincenzo Kircher, issued a book on the same theme, in

Rossi da Fermo, "expert in doing fine work which it is explained that in Europe lacquer was Fig. 82 Chest of Drawers, mid-i8th-century, gilt chi-

in walnut," was preparing, on the commission known and highly valued thanks to the numer- noiserie on dark green lacquered ground, marble
of the Lambertini pope, Benedict XIV, similar ous lacquer boxes and furnishings arriving from top with a gilt-bronze border; present location
choir stalls for The
the cathedral of Ancona. the Orient. In the same text Kircher affirmed unknown (formerly Princess Henriette Barberini

Diario explains how the pope, when he was that many artisans sought to imitate this tech- collection)

archbishop of Bologna, had commissioned nique, but that decent results were obtained
the friar to make choir stalls for the collegiate only after the arrival in Rome of the
church of nearby Cento. But if in 1735 the name Augustinian Father Jamart, who had a reliable ("varj scrigni, tavole, mense, casse e piatti

of the cabinetmaker is not mentioned, in these recipe, which Kircher described point by point. 8 di vernice del Giappone, piatti e urnette di

later cases it is the name of the designer that is In any case, there are many examples cuoio").
11
In 1743 a certain Monsignor Barzia
left out. s Could it have been the friar himself? of donations, shipments, and purchases of gave to Pope Benedict XIV Lambertini "a
It is not well known that in the Settecento lacquer works arriving in Rome in the eigh- Chinese desk and case made of enameled
antique furniture was also collected. Cardinal teenth century. In 1720 Clement XI (Albani) tombac [an alloy of copper and zinc] and a
Acquaviva bought pieces from the estate of received from China a "piombo" (a screen, tray in the Chinese style" ("una scrivania di
Cardinal Pico, whose audience hall contained derived from the Spanish word biombo) "of tombaca smaltata con custodia della Cina e
much-admired brocade hangings, and a bal- sciald wood . . . completely painted in the uno schifo alia cinese").' 2

dachin and seat covers in the same material. 6 Chinese style with such intense and beautiful Filippo Bonanni, author of a small treatise
One would need almost unlimited time to colors that art could not do more. The fore- on paints and varnishes, asserted that in 1720
organize and publish all the documents on ground depicts different rocks, mountains, in Rome there lived on via dei Coronari a
furniture making in the Roman archives. One and plains with ships, boats, flowers, trees, master capable of decorating tables and boxes
would also like to find some of this documented Chinese-style houses, with around it a grace- with what seems to have been this type of
furniture. I have frankly never been able to ful arabesque" ("di legno Sscialo . . . tutto painting." Little survives, but there exists a
discover anything that fits the description of dipinto alia cinese con colori cosi vivi e belli microscope with the Barberini arms deco-
a large cabinet made in 1697 for the Barberini che l'arte non puo fare di piu. La parte anteri- rated in this manner and signed by the Jesuit
by the carver Giovanni Sebastiano Giorgetti, ore rappresenta diversi marassi, monti e piani Paolo Maria Petrini. 14
which is said to have included in its rich sculp- con navi, barche, fiori, alberi, case alia maniera The inventory drawn up on the death
tural decoration carved eagles, cupids, and, cinese, con intorno un vago arabesco").' in 1750 of the Portuguese minister in Rome,
most obviously, the family's heraldic bees. Another curious piece of information con- Pereira de Sampajo, lists numerous lacquered
The embellishments on Roman furniture cerns a gift given by Prince Ruspoli to the pieces of furniture, such as a sofa painted in the
consisted of the most various materials: family of the pope on December 22, 1725: Chinese style and even a wood chimneypiece
marbles and stone, glass, and even textiles. "a painted Indian tray with a porcelain set for with Chinese-style flowers. Even Pope Benedict
And it was necessary to call upon many differ- chocolate and coffee" ("uno schifo indiano di XIV's secretary of state, Cardinal Valenti
ent specialists for a single piece of furniture vernice con suoi servizi di porcellana per cioc- Gonzaga, who died six years later,
cabinetmakers, woodcarvers, carpenters, colata e caffe").
1
" A few years later two priests collected porcelain, chinoiseries, and
painters, gilders, and even silversmiths. In this returning from China brought Pope Benedict lacquered goods.
regard I would like to note one further docu- XIII Orsini gifts from the emperor, among Until a few years ago a trace of this taste
ment, which records how in 1731 a well-known which were "several writing desks, tables, survived in the papal villa of Castel Gandolfo,
goldsmith named Giovanni Paolo Zappati tabletops, cases, and plates of Japanese lacquer where there are now only a few lacquered
made a series ol six silver capitals to ornament as well as plates and small vases in leather" pieces. In 1747, however, in the Diario Ordinario

,X DI-.COKATIVK ARTS
Fig. 83 Project for a Carriage for a Member of the Crescenzi Family, c. 1720; Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, Kupferstichkabinett

Chracas reports Benedict XIV's pleasure in CARRIAGES attribution to juvarra of a group of drawings
visiting the main gallery and the adjoining in Dresden for a carriage design (fig. 83),

large room, which were specially decorated Carriages, one of the great feats of the figurative but the problem is fascinating, even if not
for him in the Chinese manner. 15
In the small arts in the Roman Settecento and a grand yet completely solved. From my point of view,
Chinese rooms, which still exist in the Palazzo example of the fantasy of the period, are still in the drawings are Roman and curiously close
Sciarra, there seems never to have been furni- need of new research. In this field Rome was to those by Giuseppe Bettati, that flamboyant
ture with chinoiseries, to complement the wall unsurpassed by any other European capital: the collaborator of Luigi Valadier's. The carriage
decorations in that style — that is, if one manufacture of carriages, together with that of Dresden drawing shows many decidedly
in the

believes the inventory of the palace drawn silver and mosaics, represents one of the city's Roman characteristics, such as winged masks,
up at the death in 1765 of its owner, Cardinal greatest moments of artistic accomplishment. female heads placed on architectural fragments
Prospero Colonna di Sciarra.
16
Because of various involved circumstances, in a whimsical manner (the espagnolettes, as the
Many records survive concerning works of today we possess, on the one hand, a few French and Terrier call them), and intricate
this type, even if the terminology is not always superb carriages that cannot be documented profiles that are intentionally irregular. What
the same. Several documents from the Chigi and, on the other, an endless series of docu- particularly concerns me is the stylistic simi-
family dating to around 1769, for example, ments no longer
that speak of vehicles that larity of this sheet not only with several of the
speak of decorations by the artisan Pietro survive.The present author published some of works in the Museu Nacional dos Coches in

Rotati "ad uso di porcellana," a phrase that these papers in which several new names Lisbon (I am thinking in particular of the so-
probably indicates, as in France, lacquer.'" "A of Roman artisans working for Portugal before called carriage of John V, which is not always
white poplar bureau made in the English style 1720 were discovered.
|K
From these one can better thought to be Roman) but also with furniture
and decorated with small prints and varnished understand how the work was divided up. The that is undoubtedly Roman.
in the Chinese manner" ("un burro di albuccio ornamental parts of the vehicles were given I can only cite a few examples here. The
fatto all'inglese guarnito con cartine e vernici- over to a carver, who, however, divided his work first is the large organ in the church of S. Maria
ato sopra alia cinese") refers to still another with a sculptor. Unfortunately, was not ableI Maddalena in the Campo Marzio, for which,
20
technique, a rather inexpensive process, some- to ascertain on exactly which carriage a certain unfortunately, no artist has been identified.
times known as arte povera, in which the piece Francesco Tibaldi, the woodcarver, and one In this one finds several points of comparison:
is decorated with cut-out prints, glued on to Tommaso Corsini, the sculptor, worked. the small heads poised on the ostentatious
the wood surface, and then lacquered. This Several years ago a penetrating article by moldings of the frame and the extensive open-
object was the property of Cardinal Giovanni the late Max Terrier was published in my peri- work ornamentation. The second example,
Battista Rezzonico in 1783. odical Antologia di Belle Arti,'" which gave rise which is in the present exhibition (cat. so),
to much discussion. do not agree with all of
I is a console from the Palazzo Accoramboni.
Terrier's conclusions, particularly with his In the catalogue entry discuss 1 how this piece

1)1 ( OR A 1 1 VI ARTS 1 s>)

 1

Fig. 84 Console Table, second quarter of the 18th century; Grimsthorpe and Drummond Castle Trust, U.K. Fig. 85 Carriage of John V (detail); Museu Nacional dos
Coches. Lisbon

resembles other tables in Grimsthorpe Castle mental works, however, there arose a process again hardly just snuffboxes. It was usual to

(fig. 84), the Getty Museum, and the Palazzo of production, based in many private artists' put these works in gilded copper and bronze
Corsini in Rome. The three-dimensional heads studios, devoted to creating luxury objects frames, which were often the work of select
that decorate it are close to both the drawing in mosaic, frequently intended as souvenirs, goldsmiths such as Giuseppe Spagna. 2 '

in Dresden and the carriage of John V (fig. 85). depicting views, ornamental compositions, However, when Queen Maria Amalia of Naples
This is certainly not chance relationship. The small animals, and genre scenes, that were passed through Rome from her native Saxony
association between the major arts and car- incorporated in little boxes, tabatieres, and to meet her bridegroom, Don Carlo of Borbone,
riages (and also furniture) is much closer than even jewelry. This fashion —derided with little the pope sent her a pair of Cristofari's mosaics

is generally believed. For example, on April 20, sense of humor by Goethe —began in the late depicting Christ and the Virgin, now at
1748, the Diario Ordinario of Chracas mentions eighteenth century and continued through the Aranjuez, sumptuously framed by Francesco
the young Cardinal of York's new gilt carriage whole period of the papal dominion of Rome. Giardoni, a famous silversmith and caster. 24
decorated with paintings by a well-known Mosaics were used for the popes' diplomatic On the other hand, nothing is known
artist, Ignazio Stern. 21 gifts, of which the most sumptuous is the about the "mosaic image of great value depict-
magnificent double portrait of the Emperor ing the most Blessed Virgin" ("un quadro di

Joseph II and Grand Duke Leopold of I mosaico di gran valore rappresentante la

MOSAICS
Tuscany, his brother, painted by Batoni (cat. Beatissima Vergine"), that Benedict XIII sent
In the Settecento, Rome became famous 172) and done in small tesserae by Bernardino to the Grand Princess of Tuscany in 1725.

worldwide for its mosaics, at first for those Regoli. Now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum have not been able to track down this piece
large-scale mosaics that, already in the of Vienna, it was sent in a luxurious frame, as a in Florence, but since it was made for Violante

Seicento, had been produced to counter gift from Clement XIV to the Empress Maria of Bavaria, it is possible that she, the widow of
the humidity of the holy sites in the Vatican, Theresa, mother of the two sitters. the Grand Prince Ferdinando, bequeathed it to

where paintings were often damaged. This The King of Portugal had three large altar- one of her German relatives."

factory, located at St. Peter's, was called the pieces made by the mosaicist Mattia Moretti in I was already aware of a pair of mosaic

Studio del Mosaico. Its most famous director Rome for the decoration of an extremely rich images, practically identical to the one belong-
(soprintendente) was also a great artist, the chapel for his capital on the Tagus.
22
It became ing to Maria Amalia of Saxony, which belonged
Cavaliere Pietro Paolo Cristofari (after his a custom for the popes to give important visi- to V of Portugal, because was able to
John I

26
death in 174?, the painter Pier Leone Ghezzi tors to Rome mosaics that were neither too identify them in Portugal many years ago.
took his place). In addition to these monu- large nor too small — not altarpieces, but then However, did not then know that John V also
I

l6() DF.( OKATIVI. ARTS

 owned other Roman mosaics. Chracas relates (cat. 160), and the Righetti (cat. 147) families.

that a certain Marchese de' Cavalieri, brother The high quality of their productions over-
of the papal nunzio in Portugal, sent the king comes the customary negative associations
"two most graceful mosaic life-size portraits with works of reproduction. Francesco

by the virtuous Sig. Cavalier Cristoforo [sic], Righetti and his son Luigi also knew how to
one depicting his royal personage, and the produce full-scale casts, as did Luigi Valadier,

other that of the queen, decorated with two as can be seen in the cast of Canova's Napoleon

very beautiful arabesque gilt frames, the work in the courtyard of the Brera in Milan and the
of the virtuous Signor Francesco Giardoni, colossal equestrian statues of Charles III and
and of Sig. Bianchini" ("due vaghissimi ritratti Ferdinand IV in front of the Palazzo Reale in

di mosaico al naturale, in due quadri lavorati Naples. Long before such late works, however,
egregiamente dal virtuoso Sig. Cavalier Francesco had already proved to European
Cristoforo [sic] l'uno rappresentante la sua collectors, starting with the Czarina Catherine

Real persona e l'altro quello delta Regina, ornati II, the perfection of his products.

con due bellissime cornici arabescate, e fogliate Another artist of the period, Francesco
di metallo dorato, opera del virtuoso Signor Giardoni, was among the leading bronze-
Francesco Giardoni e del Sig. Bianchini")." It workers in European, and many documents
is, unfortunately, probable that these extraor- also attest to his activity as a silversmith. We
dinary objects were lost in the terrible 1755 know from Chracas of an important lost
Lisbon earthquake in which, we know for work: on September 4, 1745, the writer reported
sure, many Settecento Roman masterpieces that Giardoni had executed a group of candle-
were destroyed. sticks, ten palmi high, and a silver-gilt cross for
export to Portugal. 2S Giardoni must have been
skilled in many different fields, as he created a
METAL 29
firework display for the pope in August 1751.

Roman silver now enjoys universal fame As a metal caster he obtained sublime results,
because of the high quality of its manu-
largely as can be seen in the table in the Musei
facture and because its design, the expression Capitolini, for which his authorship has been
of a great figural and ornamental culture, can established here (see cat. 42).
be counted among the most elegant manifes-
tations of the genre anywhere in Europe
TAPESTRIES
(fig. 86). Unfortunately, the Napoleonic Wars
had disastrous consequences for the history of Roman tapestries have not in general been
precious materials in Rome and elsewhere; in much admired, even though some of them are
fact, after the Treaty of Tolentino of 1797, thou- worthy of attention. In Rome itself tapestries
sands of irreplaceable works were destroyed. have always been collected, and, indeed, the
But the French troops did not reach Sicily, history of the city's princely houses could not
where there is an important altar frontal by be understood without taking tapestries into
Angelo Spinazzi in Syracuse Cathedral and account. In several palaces and, in particular,
another by Luigi Valadier in Monreale Cathedral. in the Quirinale, which throughout the entire
Nor did they go to Lisbon, where, despite the period served as the papal residence, tapes-
1755 earthquake, the entire chapel of St. John tries were necessary in rooms that would oth-
the Baptist, commissioned by John V, survives erwise have had little adornment. Obviously,
intact with all its silver ornaments, among the these tapestries were not always of local man-
most exquisite works of this kind. ufacture; there were examples from all over
The fame of Roman silverwork is in large Europe in the city, and several princely fami-
part due to the monumental study of Fig. 86 Agostino Cornacchini and Angelo Spinazzi, lies could boast highly desirable series. Many,
Costantino Bulgari (Argentieri, gemmari e orafi Angel with Torchere, 1735, bronze, partly gilded: however, have been dispersed during in the

d'halia, 1958) that gave rise to modern investi- St. John Lateran, Rome, Corsini Chapel last two centuries and are now in foreign

gation of Italian decorative arts. More recently, museums and collections.

I sought to examine the versatile talents of the In the Settecento popes often donated
Settecento's most accomplished goldsmith, and made of ancient colored marbles.
settings tapestries, particularly those made at
Luigi Valadier, on the occasion of a mono- Valadier also knew how to create table center- S. Michele, to important personages: On
graphic exhibition (L'oro di Valadier: ungenio pieces (deser). These complex objects, in which October 2s, i~ss. Benedict XIV gave to an oth-
ncllaRoma del Settecento, Rome, 1997). This artist archaeology and fashion interacted, soon erwise unknown Count of Worth two tapestry
was not only a gold- and silversmith, but also found their way on to the tables of royalty and depictions of Saint Peter and Saint Paul in

a designer and maker of both bronze and stone of the greatest families of Europe. beautiful frames. Three years later, on August
objects. Moreover, among his other achieve- The reduction of ancient sculptural proto- 19, 1758, the French ambassador, the bishop of
ments, Valadier was one of the first to perfect types into small bronze statuettes has its Laon, received a framed tapestry of Saint
small-scale reproductions in bronze of classi- origins in the Renaissance, but in Settecento Peter: and on 26 August the Imperial ambas-
cal masterpieces, which in his hands became Rome this art reached its greatest height, sador. Monsignor Antonio Clerici. received a
precious objects, embellished by decoration thanks to Giuseppe Boschi (cat. 83). the Zoffoli tapestry depicting Saint Paul."'

I)I(C)R.VH\I \Kls
 Fig. 87 Giuseppe Folli, Saint Pius V Ghilsieri, 1780,

tapestry with carved frame by Pasquale Marini

bearing the arms of Pope Pius VI; Kunsthistorisches Fig. 89 Francesco Righetti, Frame with a Profile Portrait

Museum, Vienna of Saint Pius V Ghilsieri and a Smaller Portrait of Pope Pius
VI (by Giovanni Pichler), jasper ground with gilt-

Fig. 88 Giuseppe Folli, Cleopatra, c. 1775, tapestry bronze and silver frame; Sotheby's (formerly
In the account books of the papal palaces with frame bearing the arms of Pope Pius VI; Chateau de Groussay)
there are many payments for both tapestries present location unknown
and their frames. On September 6, 1784,
Giuseppe Folliwas paid for tapestries of Saint
Cecilia, the Persian Sibyl, and Cleopatra." Two enumerate his works, would
I like to mention boxes with gold fittings, all from Saxony.'" On
years previously the same artist consigned to that, working under the direction of the archi- July 19, 1755, a German princess, the Margravine
the Floreria Vaticana (the papal wardrobe) two tect Pietro Camporese, he made the decora- of Bayreuth, sent a Roman gentleman a clock
framed tapestries of Lucretia and a Sybil "to tions for the entrance to the Museo with a Meissen porcelain encasement, also
be used when necessary" ("da valersene all' Pio-Clementino and some table bases for the with gold fittings, painted with landscapes and
occurenza"), implying that they would be kept apartments of Pius VI, of which several were figures in green."* In the Vatican account books
until a decision was made as to how to use adorned with the head of Hercules. for November 1776 there is mention of several
them as papal gifts. 32 dozen porcelain coffee cups from the Ginori
I take this opportunity to illustrate two factory at Doccia, near Florence, with round-
MISCELLANEOUS MATERIALS
examples of this type of tapestry: the first, in shaped handles and a decorative pattern of

the Kunsthistorisches Museum of Vienna, rep- Porcelain manufacture did not exist in Rome, roosters in gold and red.' 9
resents Saint Pius V Ghilsieri (fig. 87), with except for the rather modest products of Rome was not a city where pietre dure, semi-
a richly carved frame containing the arms of Filippo Coccumos, and, toward the end of the precious stones, were often employed in the
Pius VI; the second (fig. 88), whose present century, the small-scale biscuit copies of clas- decoration of furniture and objects (fig. 89),
location is unknown, shows Cleopatra, based sical statuary made for Giuseppe Volpato. The whereas in Florence there was a manufactory
on a picture by Carlo Maratti, in a very rich most important families at the papal court sponsored by the Medici and afterwards by
frame crowned, in a rather unorthodox treasured Saxon porcelain, which was actively the family of Lorraine, their heirs. However,
manner, by the arms of Pius VI, as he used collected and prized as gifts. In December pietre dure were used for important architectural
them at the beginning of his reign, in 1775. 1741, for example, the pope sent a chalice in schemes. To cite a single example, Chracas
Documents in the Vatican dating to the this material along with a gold paten as a gift notes how in November 1735 the architect
1780s often mention works of this sort. They to the charterhouse of Bologna. 54 A few years Dalmazzoni adorned the main chapel of
were usually framed by Pasquale Marini, who later Cardinal Albani brought the pope the S. Gregorio al Celio with precious marbles,
seems to have been the papal court's most able King of Poland's gift of three Meissen porce- lapis lazuli, and gilded bronze.-"' Gifts of pietre

carver, and gilded by Alessandro Ricchebach. lain services, for tea, coffee, and chocolate, dure are also known: the Marchese Gambuccini
Three payments to Marini concern frames for adorned with gold fittings and the papal arms.' 5
gave to Cardinal Passionei a small pietre dure

small tapestries depicting Saint Pius V in 1784 Cardinal Orsini presented another service to box, which had been presented to him by the
and 1786 as well as an earlier one of 1780," the Marchesa Nari on the occasion of a family Grand Duke of Tuscany, "of the most perfect
which must be for the frame illustrated here. baptism,"' and Cardinal Albani gave the pope manufacture and of great value". 4 Years '
later

It appears that Pasquale Marini was a very able a porcelain bust of Saint Francis de Sales, and another grand duke, Francois de Lorraine,
artisan, and, although this is not the place to an entire porcelain desk set and two snuff husband of Maria Theresa, sent the pope a

162 DIX ORATIVi: ARTS

 the Vallombrosan monk Enrico Hugford. A on dark green, that have a Borghese provenance.
rather curious speciality was the small-scale They are signed by Lorenzo Molinari, an artisan
about whom very little is known. Besides these
reproduction in cork of antique monuments.
lacquered pieces, there are also painted ones, for
The best-known artisans specializing in this example one by Sebastiano Conca, which pub- I

technique were Augusto Rosa (a descendant lished (Gonzalez-Palacios 1984, fig. 192).

of the painter Salvator Rosa), Giovanni Altieri 18 Gonzalez-Palacios 1993, pp. 111-14.

(whose beautiful reduction of the Temple of 19 Max Terrier, "La mode des Espagnolettes,
Oppenord et Juvarra," Antologia di Belle Arti,
CO <"/>
Vesta is in the Soane Museum in London), and
no. 27-28, 1985, pp. 123-46.
above all Antonio Chichi, whose work is well 20 Giovanni Battistelli, et al., Organi e cantorie nelle
"
represented in the museum in Darmstadt. 4 chiese di Roma [Rome: Istituto Poligrafico e Zecca
The Vatican Computisteria (account book) dello Stato, Libreria dello Stato, 1994]. p. 104. The
musical works of 1735-56 are by the Tirolese
contains a record dated December 18, 1781, of a
Johann Konrad Werle. The name of Giovanni
considerable sum paid to Carlo Sartori for his Domenico Barbiani has been suggested as the
work in decorating "a very rich miter made of carver, whereas think that the gilding of the
I

pearls and stones taken from miters and other choirswas executed in 1758 by Alessandro
objects in the Papal Sacristy". The list of gems Ricchebach, who is mentioned later in this intro-
duction.
and their sources is mind-boggling. They came
21 Diario Ordinario, April 20, 1748, no.4797, p. 9.
from papal tiaras, one of which had belonged 22 Gonzalez-Palacios 1984. figs. 365-67.
to Paul III, miters of Urban VIII, Cardinal 23 Alvar Gonzalez-Palacios, "Cornici di Pio VI,"

i J Buglione, and Cardinal Roma, nine crosses of in Studi di storia dell'arte in onore di Mina Gregori

varying quality, brooches, ferrules, valuable [Milan: Cariplo, 1994], pp. 348-59.
24 Gonzalez-Palacios 1993, p. 175.
Fig. 90 Carlo Sartori, Project for a Miter, c. 1780; purses, and a notable series of silver candlesticks
25 Diario Ordinario, June 16, no. 1725, 1227, p. 2.
4*
Artemis Group, London. The stones came from the and bells, as well as saucers, plates, and paxes. 26 Gonzalez-Palacios 1993, p. 177.
Vatican Treasury, and the drawing is part of a series Directly related to this miter are three drawings, 27 Diario Ordinario, January 16, 1740, no. 3503,

from the workshop of Luigi and Giuseppe Valadier. now the property of the Artemis Group in pp. 4-5-
28 Diario Ordinario, September 4, 1745, no. 4386, p. 8.
London, from the workshop of Valadier (fig. 90).
29 Diario Ordinario, August 28, 1751, no. 5322, p. 4.
30 Diario Ordinario, no. 5973, p. 8; no. 6414, p. 6;
pietra dura mosaic picture of which all that is Notes no. 6417, p. 13.

known is that it depicted figures. 42 In her will 1 Gonzalez-Palacios 1993, pp. 224-25, 338. 31 Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Sacri Palazzi

the last of the Medici, the Palatine Electress Gonzalez-Palacios 1993, pp. 350-59. Apostolici, Computisteria, f. 389, c. 199.
2
Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Sacri Palazzi 32 Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Sacri Palazzi
Anna Maria Luisa, bequeathed to the pope an 3
Apostolici, Computisteria, f. 378, c. 156.
Apostolici, Computisteria, 908.
Ecce Homo in an ebony and lapis lazuli frame, f.

33 Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Sacri Palazzi

4 Gonzalez-Palacios 1991, cat. no. 101. See the
which the pope later donated to the church of Apostolici, Computisteria, f. 366, c. 14.
entry in this catalogue for Pierre Daneau, refer-
the Monache Barberine. 4'
ring to his possible contacts with Piffetti (cat. 41). 34 Diario Ordinario, December 9, no. 1741, 3801, p. 5.

Gifts to the pope could also be unusual, 5 Chracas. Diario Ordinario di Roma, 2759, April 9,
35 Diario Ordinario, May 18, 1743, no. 4026. p. 4.

December 7, 1743, p. 7. 36 Diario Ordinario, August 8, 1744, no. 4218, p. 6.

bizarre, and magnificent. In 1741 Cardinal 1735, no. 2759, p. 2;
6 Diario Ordinario, December 7, 1743, no. 4113, p. 16. 37 Diario Ordinario, May 8, 1745, no. 4335, p. 5-
Giudice gave Benedict XIV an amethyst set
38 Diario Ordinario, July 19, 1755, no. 5931, p. 18.
7 Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Archivio
into a gilded metal sphinx, as well as a cup Barberini, Computerista, 39 Vatican City, Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Sacri
f. 420, c. 8.
made of narwhal tusk decorated with dia- 8 Ronald Lightbown, "Oriental Art and the Palazzi Apostolici, Computerista, f. 912.

monds. 44 While work on the commissions of Orient," The journal oj the Warburg and Courtauld 40 Diario Ordinario, November^, 1735.no. 2852, p. 5.

and passim. 41 Diario Ordinario, August 16, 1738, no. 3283, p. 5.

the King of Portugal was underway, Benedict Institutes, vol. 32 (1969), p. 262
9 Diario Ordinario, June 28, 1720, no. 462. 42 Diario Ordinario, December 29, 1753, no. 5688,
XIV was rewarded with several exceptional p. 2.
10 Diario Ordinario, December 22, 1725, no. 1308,
objects, including a gold chalice by Francesco 43 Diario Ordinario, June 1, 1743, no. 4032, p. 3.
p. 17.
Giardoni, immediately donated to St. Peter's, 44 Diario Ordinario, July 1, 1741, no. 3732, p. 17.
11 Diario Ordinario, October 4, 1727, no. 1585, p. 7.
Diario Ordinario, August 3, 1743, no. 4059, p. 2. 45 Diario Ordinario. July 7, 1742, no. 3891. p. 5.
which bore bas-reliefs in rock crystal, and the 12
46 Diario Ordinario, July 21, 1742, no. 389^, p. 11:
papal and regal arms. 4S
Gifts from exotic places 13 Huth 1967, p. 336. In 1683 a certain Giovanni de
Pedibus, "painter in the Indian style on the October 6, 1742, no. 3930, p. 6.
also entered the papal collections. In 1742 the 47 On Hugford, Rosa, and Chichi, see Vernon Hyde
Coronari" ("pittore all'indiana ai Coronari"), fur-
bishop of Cartagena sent a gilt-bronze bas-relief nished the Colonna with a set of chairs painted Minor, "References to Artists and Works of Art
of the Virgin against a blue ground, with a black in the Indian manner and decorated with gold.
in Chracas, Diario Ordinario 1760-1785," Storia

This may, in be the painter mentioned by dell'Arte, vol. 46 [1982], pp. 217-77 (especially
frame, and a "porcelain" cup made in the West fact,

Bonanni. See Eduard Safarik, Palazzo Colonna, pp. 240, 246, 255). Chracas discusses certain
Indies, which had a silver-gilt base. In October work done by the architect Chichi for Catherine
[Rome: De Luca, 1997], p. 256.
that year there arrived a portrait of the pope in namely miniatures of the Vatican Logge, exe-
14 Among other things there is a small lacquered
II.

copper and two vases, each one mezzacanna in chest with silver decorations that has the stamp cuted by Cristoforo Untcrperger. See also Anita

height and made Roman silversmith who Buttner, Korktnodclle von Antonio Chichi [Tubingen.
ofboccaro, a type of red clay of the Filippo Tofani.
obtained his license in 1735. An even earlier piece Germany: Kunsthalle Tubingen, 1975).
used by the Indians of the Spanish colonies,
is the portable shrine, depicting a procession 48 Archivio Segreto Vaticano. Sacri Palazzi
which was often decorated in pietre dure with Apostolici, Computisteria,
during the pontificate of Clement XI, most f. 376, c. 67.
myths of those peoples. 4 ''

recently seen in the exhibition Fa.vto romano.

From what can be deduced from the 15 Diario Ordinario, June 10, 1747, no. 4662, p. 11.

archives, Rome does not seem to have produced 16 Carlo Pietrangeli. Palazzo Sciarra [Rome: Istituto
much made in imitation of
scagliola, a paste Nazionaledi Studi Romani, 1987].
17 I know of a set of two commodes, two sofas, and
marble. However, we know that in 1771 Clement
Other seals, lacquered with chinoiseries in gold
XIV was given a picture in scagliola made by

DECORATIVE ARTS
41 The table has a pendant, now in ity: "... aneau Parisien". The maker can example the Flemish
foreigners, for
another private collection: the motifs thus be identified as Pierre Daneau, a Leonardo van der Vinne (died 1713)
Pierre Daneau
inlaid on the frieze are alternated, a Parisian cabinetmaker working in and a Frenchman whose work still
Console Table practice usual in pairs of furniture, Rome in 1731. remains little known, Richard Lebrun

1731
while the pictorial marquetry on the Pierre Daneau was the son of a cab- ( died after 1730; called Riccardo Bruni

Veneered and inlaid with various woods

working surface includes a scroll with inetmaker also called Pierre Daneau in Florence). This was the situation in
and ivory the Barberini arms, which plausibly (or Dasneau), who was working in the early eighteenth century, and it

}6" x 73" x 32" (91.5 x 187 x 82 cm) demonstrates that both the pieces Paris at the beginning of the eighteenth clearly had a bearing on the career of
provenance Barberini princes were made for a member of that family. century. In 1702 the latter had as an the younger Daneau.

exhibition Rome 1991, Fasto romano,

The marquetry that decorates this apprentice the famous cabinetmaker The quality of the marquetry exhib-

cat. no. 92 piece is unusual in Rome, where Gilles Joubert and in 1705 was ited here reveals the presence of an
Private collection simple floral motifs or spirals are described as "fleuriste en marqueterie experienced artisan, not so much in

much more common. However, the de pieces de rapport" ( Daniel Alcouffe. the form of the piece itself as in the
structure of both tables, especially the communication with author, May superb execution of its decoration.
The table's bun feet rest on reversed shape of the legs, much in
has 1991). In an act of July 3, 1751, it appears It is not known whom the commis-
obelisk legs joined by a curvilinear common with other known Roman that the man who was certainly the sioner of this piece (and its pendant)
stretcher. A scalloped apron hangs models. Both pieces appear to be younger Pierre Daneau had been could have turned to for the design
from the fricz.c, which has a concave signed, although the signature of the absent from Paris for twenty-six years, of such an extraordinary decorative
profile tapering towards the bottom, cabinetmaker is not easy to decipher: having left France in 1725, when he was program, but whoever the artist was,
containing two large drawers. The top these inscriptions are written on about age sixteen (communication he must have been aware of the
has concave sides, and the front is on the back, below the
labels stuck with author, November 1991). In 1751 it models then in vogue in Florence and
convex in the middle. It is covered working surfaces. On the one with the was not known where he was living. Paris, notably the tables by Van der
with a rich decoration of floral and Barberini arms the label is clearer, The type of marquetry used here Vinne and those not documented (but
foliar marquetry, with a mask on the being protected by a sliding panel: Fail still contains echoes of work done in probably by Van der Vinne) now in
apron and some domestic animals at Par Moy Pierre I Da... Parisicn a Rome/ France in the reign of Louis XIV by the Villa della Petraia and in a private
the sides of the drawers. The top pre- Fan De Grase 1731 ("Made by me Pierre/ such cabinetmakers as Pierre Gole collection (Enrico Colle, ed., J mobili &
sents various decorative motifs in a Da. . . Parisian in Rome/ the year of and Andre-Charles Boulle. It should Palazzo Pitti: i\ periodo dei Medici,
tracery of spirals, flowers, and leaves, grace 1731"). On the table exhibited not be forgotten that in Italy — in 1537-1737 [Florence: Centro Di, 1997],
two-handled vases, scrolls, shells, and here the label is not protected and so Florence — marquetry-decorated fur- pp. 31-43). It is also evident that the
fantastic animals; on the right can be is hard to read, the only words still niture was being created that rivaled craftsman in question must have
seen some playing cards, one of which comprehensible being part ofthecab- the best work being done in France. In made other pieces comparable to the
bears some illegible writing. inel maker's surname and his national- this case too the makers were mainly table shown here, and they should be

!)[.( ORA I IVI. ARTS

41 (lop)

sought among those of the same taste 42 tables of antique floor mosaics from the most magnificent metal feet,
and style that still remain unattributed the Villa Adriana now measuring which he had had made by the cele-
Francesco Giardoni
(see Maddalena Trionfi Honorati, eight palmi by four, with richly deco- brated Francesco Giardoni, Fonditore
"Ipotesi peril Piffetti," Antichita Viva, Console Table rated metallic supports displaying the Pontificio e Camerale" before sending
vol. 35, no. 1 (1997), figs. 14-17. 21). 1742
arms of the reigning pope by whom them to the Capitol. This was
An intriguing aspect of the question
Bronze and ancient mosaic
they were donated." the very year in which Giardoni com-
of attribution is the fact that Italy's Until now nothing was known pleted the restoration of the Mithridates
4o/8 " x 74" x 40//' (102 x 188 x 103 cm)
most famous cabinetmaker of the about the manufacture of these two Vase given by Benedict XIV to the
bibliography Settecento 1959,
eighteenth century. Pietro Piffetti, nos. 2653-54; Pietrangeli 1964 extraordinary pieces, which provide a Capitoline Museums (as pointed out
must have been associated with the Pinacoteca Capitolina, Rome felicitous conjuncture of classical (the by Bulgari 1958-74, vol. 1, p. 533;

same general context from which this monopod lions) and Baroque forms, Barberini 1996).
console table comes. In November anticipating the taste of Giovanni The unusual design of these pieces
1730, when he had beenRome for in One of a pair, this table has four sup- Battista Piranesi. It is obvious that was bound to influence the Roman
some time, he was summoned to Turin ports in the form of winged monopod they must have been designed by an furniture of the time (see cat. 43) and
as furnituremaker to the King of lions that terminate in fluted plinths. architect, while the bronze elements was copied in a pair of consoles for
Sardinia. Piffetti asked for a period The lions' chests are encircled with must have been the work of one of the the Palazzo del Quirinale in Rome
of delay in which to complete some garlands, and the plinths are linked bronze casters active in Rome at that (Alvar Gonzalez-Palacios, with the
pieces he was in the process of making, by a slightly arched X-frame stretcher time. And indeed this was the case. A collaboration of Roberto Valeriani.
including some tables. By June 1731 decorated with leaves and grotesque brief entry (overlooked until now) in ( mobili itiiliiitii [Milan: BNL, 1996],
Piffetti was in Piedmont, and it was masks, and bearing in the middle the the Diario Oniinario of Chracas pp. 170-73)- [agp]
precisely in that same year, 1731, that arms of Benedict XIV surmounted by (March 31, 1742, no. 3849, p. 10) states
Pierre Daneau signed the table exhib- the papal keys and tiara. The frieze that the pope had had the two mosaic
ited here and its companion. Could surrounding the table top is decorated table tops in question "enriched with
Piffetti have worked in this Parisian with inverse corbels and a female head
cabinetmaker's Rome workshop or in a shell, from which flow festoons of
42
have had some sort of contact with oakleaves. The rim comprises an egg-
him? The circumstance is plausible, and-dart molding female heads at the
since four tables certainly by Piffetti corners. The table tops are covered in
are known, one of which is an exact antique mosaics.
derivation from that exhibited here In De musivis (Rome, 1752. pp. 53-54),
(Palazzo Madama, Turin; illustrated Cardinal Giuseppe Alessandro
in Giancarlo Ferraris and Alvar Furietti mentions mosaics he recov-
Gonzalez-Palacios, with the collabo- ered from a floor during excavations
ration of Roberto Valeriani, Pietro at the Villa Adriana, which he gave to
Pijjctii cgli ebanisti a Torino, 1670-1838 Pope Benedict XIV (elected in August
[Turin. Italy: Allemandi, 1992], 1740). That the mosaics on these tables
PP- 32-33. 50-51. 110-11). [agp] are indeed the ones from the Villa

Adriana is proved by the illustrations

in De musivis (see plate no. IV). The
tables are also mentioned in a list of

monuments of the
the statues and
Museo Capitolino, dated May 2, 1742:
"in the middle ot the Gran Said arc two

Dl ( OK Al [VI ARTS I OS
 43

43 antiquity. Small tables with such feet painted with a representation of the called Virgin of Savona, and refers

can be seen even in the frescoes of the Virgin Mary appearing to a peasant specifically to the miraculous appari-
Bench
Raphael Logge in the Vatican, and the against a landscape background. tion that occurred in the cityon
Mid-eighteenth century ideawas taken up later by painters The scene depicted upon this March and was twice
18, 1536,
Carved, painted, and gilded wood such as Poussin, becoming immensely domestic shrine alludes to the so- repeated before the end of the six-
33/2" x 58//' x 16//' (85 x 148 x 41 cm) popular in the late eighteenth century.
exhibitions Rome 1991. Fasto romano, The bench seen here was once part of
44
cat. no. 100; Rome, Palazzo Braschi. Mostra
a set of four, two of which were smaller.
nazionale dell'antiquariato. 1996, pi. 181
[AGP]
Private collection

The bench stands on four lion's-claw 44

feet naturalistically carved and joined
Cabinet with "The Miracle
along the front by an elaborate swag
of leaves and flowers with a female of Savona"
head in the middle; vegetal motifs Second quarter of the eighteenth century
also appear on the seat rails and on Painted pearwood with carved and gilded
the armrests and their supports. ornament; painted terracotta ornamenta-
This design of backless seat with tion; internal back panel, oil on wood
arms was not uncommon in Rome 39//' x 39" x 22/2" (99.7 x 99 x 57 cm)
throughout the eighteenth century, Dr. Alfonso Costa, Pittsburgh
and the upper part of the piece is

typical of many examples (Lizzani

1970, pp. 96-97). This particular work The cabinet is supported on scroll-
shows a surprising richness of imagi- shaped feet holding the heads of
nation in the support, which exhibits cherubs. It has three glazed doors sep-
proto-Neoclassical ideas unknown arated at the corners by pilasters. These
before this time, and was probably bear secondary pilasters tapering
designed by an architect. The inspira- downward, with female heads, cascades
tion comparable to that of the
is of foliage and capitals at the top. Carved
bronze table in the Musei Capitolini vegetal motifs with stylized cartetie on
bearing the arms of Benedict XIV the bases counterbalance the arches
(cat. 42) made in 1742. on the facade. A pedimental feature of
The idea of standing a piece of fur- double volutes is further embellished
niture on animal feet goes back to by angels and foliage. The interior is

166 DECORATIVE ARTS

teenth century. The place where the 45
miracle occurred was regarded as
Commode
holy, and the incident led to the
founding of a famous sanctuary that Mid-eighteenth century

was soon embellished by significant Rosewood veneer with gilt-bronze

mounts, marble top
works of art such as Gianlorenzo
35" x 64X" x 25K" (89 x 165 x 64 cm)
Bernini's bas-relief of The Visitation of
Private collection
the Virgin to Saint Anne. The cult of the
Virgin of Savona also gave rise to
numerous paintings similar to this Sheathed in bronze and shaped like

one that could be found the length goat hooves, the feet of this commode
and breadth of Italy. flow into the body and continue
The cabinet that contains the paint- upwards as bronze mounts on the hands, while the Barberini piece 46
ing, which is attributed to Paolo Anesi, outer edges. The front has two has no moldings on the sides.) The
displays features of construction (such drawers contained within a single commode that turned up at the
Tommaso Umani
as the tapered pilasters not unlike the bronze molding with ornamental Christie's auction has had handles Clock
lacquered prie-dieu, cat. 56) and and molded escutcheons (or
scrolls added at a later date and the bronze Mid-eighteenth century
carving that suggests connections not keyhole covers) on the upper and moldings around the drawers are cer- Inscribed on the face: Tomasso Umani f.

only with other pieces of Roman fur- lower drawers. A larger plaque in half- tainly not original. Contrary to usual Roma
niture but also with the work of gold- shield shape forms the centre of the Roman practice, the marble is set Kingwood, copper, and gilt-bronze
smiths, from which it imitates the apron. The side panels, to which the within a bronze border in all exam- 24X" x 19X" x 9" (65 x 50 x 23 cm)
delicately and intricately tooled veneer was applied in mirror-image ples apart from the one in private Private collection
quality of the applied elements. One is quarters, are edged with bronze mold- hands. The overall shape of the
also reminded of the late-seventeenth ings. Cartouches with complex pat- commode and the arrangement of
century inventions of Filippo terns of volutes and foliage decorate the bronze mounts are both unusual, The clock rests on four feet modeled
Passarini (cat. 90), particularly in the the front corners. The marble top is while the quality of the veneering and in the shape of plumed harpy heads.
volutes that crown the whole piece. enclosed within a bronze border. the workmanship generally suggests The upright members on the front
The outsize capitals surmounting the Three further examples of this the work of a northern European cab- take the form of pilasters that narrow
pilasters closely echo those flanking design are known, all evidently from inetmaker active in Rome around the towards the base, on which gilt-
the marble bas-relief in the crypt of theworkshop of a single cabinet- middle of the eighteenth century. The copper festoons with various attrib-
the sanctuary itself. maker and all of the highest quality. quality of the bronzework, too, which utes are applied. The niched sides are
The success enjoyed in Rome by The first belonged to Prince Urbano is similar in all the recorded pieces, arranged diagonally in relation to the
images associated with a Ligurian cult Barberini (Lizzani 1970, fig. 208), the reveals that the cabinetmaker used the front, with a centered glass door and
may well have owed something to the second is in a private collection, and same supplier throughout, and that he other ornaments with stylized foliate
presence in the capital of Genoese the third appeared, with some refur- must have been a metalworker of motifs. The sloping top has four putti
families such as the Spinola and bishment, at a Christie's auction (Sale unusual talent, [agp] on the corners representing the
Giustiniani. [rv] catalogue, Christie's, Rome, October Seasons and a handle with figures.
20, 1981, lot 19?; considered then to be The face, which bears both roman and
north Italian). The dimensions of arabic numerals, is supported by an
these pieces and of the one exhibited ornament representing Time.
here are all similar. The veneering This clock is ol a design not infre-
technique and the wood are the same, quently found in Rome around the
as is the magnificent bronzework. mid-eighteenth century. Nations
(The design ol the apron below the examples are known, signed by
drawers is on the Barberini
different Francesco Portii, Domenico Crudeli.
commode and the one in private Agostino Ajmunier. Giovanni Battista

DECORATIVE ARTS 167

 Vespasiani, and Giovanni Battista 47 lower parts, from the heavier seven- 48
Alberici. Unfortunately thesemecha- teenth-century style of decoration, all
Armchair Prie-dieu
nisms have not been firmly dated, and perfectly symmetrical. Similar exam-
suggested datings are based on the Mid-eighteenth century ples can be found in many European Third quarter of the eighteenth century

stylistic appearance of the cases con- Carved and gilded wood palaces, but those with original Veneeredin rosewood with banding in

55/4" x 30H" x 24X" x 78 x 62 cm) rosewood and giallo angiolino (maple)

taining them and on the extremely (142 upholstery, such as this one, are rare.
rare dated examples. The latter Obra Pia. on deposit at the Spanish In Rome there is a set in the Casa 34//' x vjV" x 23/4" (87 x 69 x 59 cm)

include a clock with a mechanism Embassy to the Holy See, Rome Massimo (see Gonzalez-Palacios 1991, Private collection

signed by Agostino Ajmunier, dated cat. 99) and in Naples a pair of arm-
1734, and an architectural case similar The chair's feet are cabriole-shaped, chairs in the Palazzo Reale, the latter The plinth and prie-dieu rest on short
to the clock shown here but simpler the seat rails curved; the armrests are certainly made by a local craftsman incurved legs and have a decorative
and possibly older (Enrico Morpurgo, set back on S-shaped supports; the and signed Gennaro Arata (see Civiha edge molding. That around the prie-
Dizionario degli orohgiai italiiini [Milan, back, linked to the seat by foliate del '700 1979-80, vol. 2, no. 436). In dieu is convex, while the plinth has a
1974], p. 251). Other works by volutes, is waisted in the middle and both cases the armchairs are similar concave molding. Attached to the
Tommaso Umani, the clockmaker swells outwards at the upper corners. to the one exhibited here, and a third plinth is a table-like element standing
whose signature appears on this The carving, of foliate design, is sym- Roman example is to be found in the on cabriole legs with goat's-hoof feet.

example, are known. One is almost metrical and includes rocaillc decora- Palazzo Patrizi, though the upholstery A drawer is set into the frieze. The sur-
identical to the clock displayed here, tion and corollas on the shoulders of in this instance is not original (see faces are bordered by rosewood
both in size and in its metal embell- the back. Two cartouches filled origi- Lizzani 1970, fig. 175). banding.
ishments (Gonzalez-Palacios 1984, fig. nally with latticework decoration are This type of chair continued to The Roman prie-dieu was usually
194). At least one of these ornaments, placed on the apron and the toprail enjoy a degree of favor throughout the made in the form of a small commode

that of the Time/Atlas that supports respectively. The red velvet upholstery nineteenth century. In the Palazzo del attached to a prie-dieu, such as that by
the face, is of French derivation, in the is decorated with gold galloon. Quirinale, for example, where there Giovanni Ermans (cat. 52), or was
style of Andre-Charles Boulle. An One of a notable set now number- are several dating from the eighteenth sometimes simpler, such as the lac-
almost identical figure in gilt-bronze ing twenty-one, this armchair is a century, there are also copies or vari- quered example below also exhibited
is to be found on a clock by Martinott Roman version of the formal French ants of designs first made a hundred here (cat. 56). More elaborate versions
Balthazar, now in the Ecole prototype known as a la Reinc, years earlier (Alvar Gonzalez- were made, however, such as the prie-
d'Horlogerie at Dreux (Tardy 1967, intended to be ranged around the Palacios, with the collaboration of dieu from Palazzo Doria Pamphili
vol. 1, p. 119). [a(,!'| walls of drawing rooms. It echoes Roberto Valeriani, I mobili italiani (photograph in the Gabinetto
famous examples of early eighteenth- [Milan: BNL, 1996], nos. 106-8, 136, Fotografico Nazionale E 45493 and
century Parisian chairs, here overlaid 138, and 139). [ac;i'[ illustrated in Gonzalez-Palacios 1984,

with restrained but reasonably sub- fig. 144). Like the one on show, all these
stantial carved decoration not far pieces follow the style of the period for
removed, especially as regards the commodes. The present example has

168 DECORATIVE ARTS

 50 The same workshop was also
responsible for three similar pieces,
Console Table
two of which were probably con-
Second quarter of the eighteenth century ceived as a pair: a table in the Getty
Carved and gilded wood; top veneered Museum that was purchased in Paris
with afriamo marble
several years ago (Clarissa Bremer-
36" (37X" with marble top) x 79'A" x 35" David et al 1993, no. 322); another in
(91.5 [96] x 216 x 89 cm)
Grimsthorpe Castle (see Gervase
Private collection
Jackson-Stops, "Grimsthorpe Castle,"
Country Life (December 3, 1987, fig. 6);

The console stands on four supports. and a third in the Palazzo Corsini that
These are composed of curves that is almost identical to the other two
meet to form an external projection (published when it was wrongly
on which rests a female head, and removed to the Palazzo Barberini, in
have richly decorated inner branches. Alvar Gonzalez-Palacios, ll mobile nei
The which undulates in a
stretcher, secoli [Milan: Fabbri, 1969], vol. 3,

similar manner, is ornamented with fig. 27). As already mentioned, this

scrolls, lambrequins and, in the center, piece is very similar to the other three,
another winged female head. The even in its dimensions, but there are
whole is composed of sinuous motifs, differences. The position of the heads
broken volutes, and stylized botanical on the front uprights, which in this
ornaments, including the frieze, instance are facing outward, is differ-

which has a mask in the middle. ent, while the stretcher connecting the
Eighteenth-century furniture feet replaces a double scroll crowned
seldom displays the exuberance of with small heads with a larger, impos-
the basic shape of a small, graceful table ments. The upholstery is in crimson Baroque equivalents because after the ing winged head; in the three exam-
whose cabriole legs are ingeniously velvet (antique but not original), death of Gianlorenzo Bernini forms ples mentioned, the middle of the
supported on bases not dissimilar to attached to a drop-in seat and back. tended to become lighter in response apron is occupied by a female head,
those of decorative statuettes. Since The outline of this piece is very to the more refined taste developing while in the one we have here it is dec-
no analogous piece is known, this similar to that of chairs made for the in northern Europe (particularly in orated by a large grinning mask.
prie-dieu is believed to be unique, [agp] villa of Cardinal Flavio II Chigi in via France and Germany) that would This console first belonged, accord-
Salaria, around 1768-69, by such arti- become known as Rococo. This unconfirmed tradition, to the
ing to
sans as the woodcarver Nicola console table exhibits some of these Roman branch (there was also an
49 Carletti. Those are the only known new tendencies while retaining total Umbrian one) of the Accoramboni
and documented chairs of this date symmetry of ornamentation; there family, which died out at the begin-
Chair
(this problem is discussed in Gonzalez- are still allusions to the more florid ning of the nineteenth century and
Third quarter of the eighteenth century
Palacios 1991, no. 121, and Alvar shapes of the late seventeenth century. of which Virginia Pepoli, widow of the
Carved and gilded wood Gonzalez-Palacios, with the collabo- Stately in its dimensions and style, this last marchese, Filippo Maria, was the
40" x 22" x 19%" (113 x 56 x 49 cm) ration of Roberto Valeriani, / mobili piece is certainly the product of a par- partial heir (she subsequently married
Private collection italiani [Milan: BNL, 1996], no. 109). ticularly skilled workshop of carvers, a member of the Poggiolini family; see
The example exhibited here, and the design is irrefutably the work Baldassare Capogrossi Guarna, Ricordi
This chair has cabriole legs and scroll however, displays more sober sculp- of an architect. The execution would storici della famiglia Accoramboni [Rome,
feet. It is decorated with carved foliate tural decoration, in a taste that con- have required a carpenter to provide 1896], passim).
motifs, with scrolls in the upper part forms to the then prevalent the basic construction, a carver for the As the introduction explains, the
that flow directly into the seat rail. This symmetrical decoration Rome, for in decoration, and a sculptor to provide furniture in this group shows such
is decorated with a mixture of straight which an obvious comparison is pro- the more expressive figurative details close similarities to the decoration of
lines and curves with a scallop shell in vided by the armchairs preserved in (the five female heads carved in the two royal carriages (now in the Museo
the centre.The back, supported by the Palazzo Patrizi (Lizzani 1970, round). Once they had finished, the dos Coches, Lisbon) that it seems
double volutes, has a smooth frame, fig. 175). This example, part of a larger gilding was applied by a master likely all these splendid pieces came
trimmed with moldings, that narrows suite that also included armchairs and capable ol exploiting all the different from the same Roman workshop. The
in the middle and rises for the cresting. sofas, probably comes from the gradations and shades of gold, while a console is still accompanied by two
Concise stylized foliate embellishments Palazzo Barberini and was dispersed marbleworker dealt with the magnifi- carved and gilded curtain hooks that
decorate the horizontal framing ele- before the Second World War. [agp] cent slab of africano marble. form part of the same set. [agp]

D ECO R AT V A RTS I i : 1 69
 51 1984, figs. 195, 197). The second piece
is completely decorated with inlays in
Writing Desk
giallo angiolino, while Bargilli's, which
c. 1765 does not include this type of decora-
Veneered and inlaid with rosewood and tion, is more bombastic in shape and
giallo angiolino (maple) with gilt-bronze
not adorned with any metalwork. The
mounts
piece exhibited here, therefore, appears
31/2" x 69//' x 34%" (80 x 176 x 88 cm)
to provide a conceptual demarcation
Private collection
between early eighteenth-century
taste and the new French models arriv-
The legs are slightly cabriole with ing from Paris after the middle of the
inlays using botanical motifs, feet century. In Rome the writing desk was
with curly sabots in gilt-bronze, and an to become lighter, with curved legs;

angular chamfer towards the top. The wood were abandoned,

inlays in light
body, with rectilinear sides, holds and greater use was made of metal
three drawers and supports a writing mounts, as in a desk from the Chigi
surface with protruding wavy edges. family attributable to the cabinetmaker
Small inlays decorate the corners of Andrea Mimmi and datable to around
the central writing area, which is sur- 1765-70 (Gonzalez-Palacios 1984,
mounted by two side drawers. figs. 147-48). Very similar to the piece 52 Chigi's accounts for the works in his
This piece exemplifies well the exhibited is a small table auctioned in villa on via Salaria, from
is a long bill
Giovanni Ermans
development of eighteenth-century Rome in the 1980s (Sale catalogue, the cabinetmaker Giovanni Ermans for
Roman cabinetmaking. In the first Finarte, Rome. October 3, 1989, no. 54). Prie-dieu a series of works carried out between
half of the century it was perhaps Unusually, the writing desk shown 1765-66 December 15, 1765, and October 20,
Dutch influence that brought about here still has the small drawers situated 1766. Mentioned among these are this
Veneered and inlaid with various woods;
the use of inlaid decorations contrast- above the working surface. According ornaments in gilded wood and gilt-bronze; exquisite piece and its pair:
ing a pale wood (bois dair), here the so- to recent investigations, the writing marble top
called giallo angiolino, with a dark desk attributed above to Mimmi simi- 54" x 26X" x 13X" (137 x 67 x 35 cm) N. 2 comodini con suoi sportelli
ground. In the piece exhibited here larly had two drawers on the working provenance villa of Cardinal Flavio II e crociata sotto che fa inginoc-
this type of decoration is maintained surface, [agp] Chigi on via Salaria chiatore tutti impillicciati di
(in reverse, with dark inlays on a pale exhibition Rome 1991, Fasto romano, legno di Portogallo con suoi
ground) only on the legs, while the cat. no. 123 fondi violetto pavonazzo con
other surfaces are veneered with BIBLIOGRAPHY Gonzalez-Palacios 1984, interziature di legni di vari colori
exotic woods such
kingwood and
as fig. 149 lavorati puliti ricercati e rinettati
rosewood, adapting to a more Private collection affenimento ed allustrati che
modern style. The shape of the legs considerata la gran fattura si

seems to conform to French models, This small commode has tall cabriole valuta scudi 3s. Per averci fatto
abandoning the reversed obelisk or legs with goat's feet in gilt-bronze. On alii sudetti comodini le due
volute supports employed earlier. The the sides and the slightly convex front testierine sopra tutte contornate
use of gilt-bronze sabots also derives there are satinwood panels inlaid with sopra intagli di foglie rabescate;
from French models. spiralsand festoons; on the corners con fiori e pelle di legname di

There exist a few dated or datable- gilt-bronze cascades pour out of tiglio con sue tavolette dentro il

pieces that make it possible to deter- shells. On the lower part a foldaway battente ove viene messo il

mine when this desk was made: section serves as a prie-dieu. Resting parato assumiglianza della
namely a table signed by the cabinet- on the piece is a panel in a gilded stanza il tutto rinettato e ricer-
maker Nicola Bargilli in 1751 and a frame enriched with carved volutes, cato a fenimento con pulizia che
bedside table or small commode by leaves, and flowers. considerato la sua fattura si

Giovanni fialtista Barnabei, from In the Chigi Archive in the Vatican valuta scudi 6. ("Two bedside
Centocellc. of 1758 (Gonzalez-Palacios Library, among Cardinal Flavio II tables with their doors and

17f) DECOR ATI VI-. AKTS

 54

branches. The interwoven vegetation

expands into the apron below the
mixtilinear top. The oak was one of
the heraldic emblems of the papal
Chigi family. The tables come from

—>v the villa of Cardinal Flavio II Chigi on

via Salaria, which was completely fur-
nished between 1765 and 1769. They

i i may be recorded in that cardinal's

dei conli diversi (Chigi Archive in the
Filza

Vatican Library). Among the requests

for payment addressed to the cardinal
are those from the woodcarver Nicola
Carletti, already known as the maker

53 (one of a pair) of other pieces of furniture (Gonzalez-

Palacios 1984, p. 67), who in 1768 was
crosspiece below, which makes They always contained a piece of fabric preparing a set of small tables for one
a prie-dieu all veneered in the same as that used on the walls of of the rooms in the villa. These pieces
Portuguese wood with its the room; usually some sacred image were part of this group. The request
peacock violet ground with was mounted on this panel. These reads: "For preparing five small scal-
inlays of woods of various colors pieces of furniture remained in the loped tables with frames, carved, three S4 (detail)

worked cleanly, examined, and
corrected to perfection and pol-
ished; which considering the
good workmanship is
For having made
35 scudi.
aforesaid bedside tables the
two headboards above all
surrounded above carvings
of leaves decorated with
arabesques; with flowers and
skins of limewood with
stretcher behind the frame,
where is placed the fabric
ness to one used in the,
whole recleaned and reexamined
to perfection; which considering
its workmanship is valued at
6 scudi.")
Villa Chigi until about i960, [agp] of them with oak branches and acorns
and pelle and leaves, with their crossed 54
stretchers scalloped and an oak branch
Commode
valued at 53 in the middle and likewise at the foot
for the and the top." Mid-eighteenth century
at
Nicola Carletti, Angelo and Veneered and inlaid with various kinds
When the carving was finished, the
of wood: gilt-bronze mounts;
Alessandro Clementi, and tables, likemost of the valuable fur-
top veneered in marble with bronze borders
nishings of the villa, were passed into
Pietro Rotati 35X" x 50X/' x 26" (90 x 29 x 66 cm)
1
the hands of the gilders Angelo and
Pair of Corner Tables exhibition Rome 1991, Fasto romano,
Alessandro Clementi and those of the
cat. no. 116
its
1768-69 painter Pietro Rotati, many of whose
Private collection
Carved, painted, and gilded wood, accounts from the year 1769 are still
in like- with marble tops preserved. The idea behind these
room the Each 37X" x 27/2" x 9/2" (96 x 70 x 24 cm) pieces of furniture, in Rococo style, The outline of the piece is defined by
provenance Villa Chigi, via Salaria, dates back to an earlier era, the the splayed feet that continue upwards
Rome Baroque: they can be compared with in a sinuous curve to create an elegant
bibliography Gonzalez-Palacios, Alvar. a group of drawings from the circle of bombe appearance and narrow slightly
"Tre tavoli important!." In Scritti in onoredi Bernini and the Austrian Giovanni into a throat just beneath the top. The
Giuliano Briganti. Milan: Longanesi. 1990, Paolo Schor (Gonzalez-Palacios 1984, front, divided by two drawers, is

p. 257
Giovanni Ermans seems to have fig. 181). One of these drawings actually slightly bowed while the sides are
been not only a cabinetmaker but also Private collection, courtesy Massimo shows the trunk of an oak tree with concave. Front and sides are both dec-
Martino Fine Arts and Projects, Mendrisio,
a carver, seeing that was he himself
it acorns, the heraldic motif, as men- orated with inlaid panels in geometric
Switzerland
who supplied the frames around the lioned earlier, ol the ( higi family. [
,u;r] designs surrounded, as are the legs, by
back panels. Other works of carving banding of kingwood. The whole
by him arc mentioned in the same The tables both rest on a socle painted piece is trimmed with bronze mounts,
account. The cabinetmaker's bill also to resemble marble; the base is shaped and the same material has been used
makes it possible to understand the into the form of a rock, with flowers on the keyhole escutcheons, the feet,
way in which the little panels on top and leaves; from this rises the trunk of the centre ol the apron, and the tops
of this type of furniture were finished. an oak that forks into a maze of leafy ol the sides. The marble top and its rim

Pit OR A I I VI ARTS 1-1

 of chased gilt-bronze are not original of theshell elements on the aprons,

but are nevertheless of the same period. and particularly the asymmetrical car-
The imposing shape of this touches in the center of the latter and
commode can be compared to that of the stretcher that joins the supports.
other Roman furniture of the period, This is therefore a work that,
such as the pair of commodes in the although from the second half
it dates
Palazzo del Quirinale (Alvar Gonzalez- of the century and exhibits the new
Palacios, with the collaboration of ornamental taste derived from the
Roberto Valeriani, J mobili italiani French, still retains an older shape
[Milan: BNL, 1996], pp. 74-75) and the typical of the Roman taste, which has
one inlaid with floral motifs in the little inclination towards lightness. Two
possession of Prince Odescalchi pieces of furniture that, despite being
(Lizzani 1970, fig. 202). The piece more elaborate than this example, have 56 Filippo Bonanni, author of a small
exhibited here is particularly interest- many of the same characteristics are book on varnishes, states that in 1720
Commode with Prie-dieu
ing for its unusual inlay and mar- worth mentioning here: a table for- there lived in via dei Coronari in Rome
quetry and the wonderful quality of merly in the possession of Count Mid-eighteenth century a master skilled in decorating lacquered
the gilt-bronze mounts. The embell- Magnelli (Lizzani 1970, fig. 128) and Carved, painted, lacquered, and partially tables and caskets (Huth 1967, p. 336).
ishments, of unique design and hand- another in the Palazzo del Quirinale gilded wood At two incontestably Roman
least
somely crafted, include a golden (Alvar Gonzalez-Palacios, with the
33/2" x 33" x 27/2" (85 x 84 x 70 cm)
works decorated in lacquer are known:
dragon and three truncated gold collaboration of Roberto Valeriani, exhibition Rome 1991, Fasto romano,
a microscope with the Barberini crest,
cat. no. 104
bands, representing the heraldic / mobili italiitni [Milan: BNL, 1996], signed by the Jesuit Paolo Maria
Private collection
devices of the princes of Boncompagni cat.no. 53). However, these two works Petrini (1707-1773; Huth 1967, p. 336),
Ludovisi, descendants of popes and other similar ones have two fea- and a casket with stamped silver fit-
Gregory XIII and Gregory XV. [agp] tures typical of the Rococo Roman This piece has concave sides, marked tings by Filippo Tofani (who received a
console table that are noticeably absent at the corners by pilasters and inverted silversmith's license in Rome in 1735).
here. Their feet scroll inwards, and the obelisks. At the bottom, a section with A curious lacquered object dating
55 space between the apron and the lower concave sides serves as a prie-dieu. from the pontificate of Clement XI
stretcher leaves a gap that is not entirely The main body contains four drawers (1700-1721; see Gonzalez-Palacios
Console Table
successful. Here, by contrast, the solu- and is decorated with gilded chinois- 1991, no. 180) is also known.
Third quarter of the eighteenth century tion is clearer and this piece is more eries on a dark green ground. Finally it must be said that furniture
Carved and gilded wood; top veneered convincing and less weak as a result, In its structure the piece resembles definitely lacquered like this piece is
with f\nr di pesco edged by marble
despite being poised uncertainly a typical early eighteenth-century listed in eighteenth-century invento-
35/2" x 58/1" x 27'A" (90 x 148 x 69 cm) between two antithetical styles, [agp] Roman chest of drawers with the ries: namely those of the Portuguese
provenance Colonna family addition of a projecting part. Even minister in Rome, Pereira de Sampajo,
Private collection
constructed in this way, however, this and of Benedict XIV's Secretary of
type of furniture is not wholly unusual. State, Cardinal Silvio Valenti Gonzaga,
The supports have a triple curve devel- The lacquer decoration is fairly rare; who died in 1750 and 1756 respectively.
oping from feet scrolling outwards and although less popular than in Venice A few pieces of furniture (as yet
are joined by a crosspiece with rocailles and Turin, it was used in Rome more unpublished) have decoration very
in the center. Similar elements, joined often than is generally believed. By the similar to the piece exhibited here. It

to corollasand scrolling motifs, form early seventeenth century it appears appears they are signed by a certain
the apron below the table top and fill that lacquered objects were already Lorenzo Molinari, who was working
the entire structure. Although it retains in fashion in Rome (see pp. 158-59 for the Borghese family toward the
a solid, still Baroque, layout, this rare above), while inventories from the middle of the eighteenth century, [agp]
example of a console table draws on the second half of the century (Pamphili)
Rococo repertory, as is demonstrated listed furniture termed aU'indiana
by the whimsical profusion of flowers ("Indian fashion"), which probably
on the uprights, the irregular course indicates a type of lacquer. In any case,

172 DK( 'OR ATI VI-. ARTS

 58 important works. An example is the
bronze table with caryatids made by
Console Table
Alessandro Algardi and substantially
Last quarter of the eighteenth century modified by Luigi Valadier in 1773-74:
Carved and gilded wood, with alabaster top the caryatids support the Borghese
39X" x 63" x 26*A" (100 x 160 x 68 cm) arms but only the eagle is present
Private collection (Gonzalez-Palacios 1993, pp. 44-45).
There are other examples of the
The tapering fluted legs of this console eagle appearing alone on furniture
table, standing on foliated feet, have made for Prince Borghese. In 1780, for
acanthus ornamentation at the top example, the gilder Carlo Palombi sent
that spreads to support a circular him an invoice for four pier-glasses
plinth carrying eagles carved in the decorated with only an eagle and
round. The frieze is pierced and carved vegetal festoons (Gonzalez-Palacios
with a variety of alternating botanical The catalogue of objects
1993, p. 256).
and stylized floral motifs; it terminates from the Palazzo Borghese and Villa
57 disappears from the Borghese in a dado at each corner. A central Borghese auctioned in 1892 lists, in

accounts, but immediately afterwards, panel at the front bears a relief carving addition to the four pier-glasses
Lucia Landucci
from 1783, that of Lucia Landucci of a carriage drawn by a bird and driven already mentioned, a fifth pier-glass

Chair begins to appear frequently. In fact on by a locust. Beneath the alabaster slab and a console table embellished with

1784
February 27, 1784, she was paid for this are two moldings, one spiral and one eagles alone, and another table with
Carved and gilded wood chair and its companions, destined for foliate. only the heraldic dragon (Borghese

39%" x 10V4" (100 x 26.9 cm) the stanza di Monsu Cristofano (as the This table is a fine example of 1892, lots 327-30, 388, 601, 646).

bibliography Gonzalez-Palacios
painter of this room, Cristoforo Roman Neoclassical workmanship. It A console table very similar to the
1993,
pp. 241-42, fig. 475
Unterperger, was then called) in the can be dated to the middle years of the one on show was auctioned some years
Galleria Borghese. Rome Villa Borghese. Lucia Landucci's origi- pontificate of Pius VI (1775-1799) not ago (Sale catalogue. Saiga, Rome,
nal account specifies that the chairs only by the ornamental motifs but November 21, 1975, lot 66). The only
were "alia crusca ossia Gothica . . . con also by the shape of the legs, which differences lay in the shape of the
The chair's legs are composed of la Stella ad uso di scuola di Raffaello" shows a marked resemblance to furni- lower part of the legs and the design
sabre-shaped reeded bands, which ("Crusca style, in other words Gothic ture commissioned by Prince on the frieze, which was carved
engage with the smooth seat The rail. . . . with the star as used in the school Marcantonio Borghese. instead of being pierced, [agp]
deeply concave back is supported by of Raphael"). The chairs would then The piece is architectonically con-
leafy clusters and is formed by a rec- have been passed on to a gilder, who ceived, but scope has been allowed for
tangular compartment centered by a at that time was often Pietro Francini. sculptural finishing touches. The top
ring in which sits a star-shaped patera It is possible that the well thought-out rests on a deep frieze, which is light-
with sixteen points. All the rails and and elegant design of this magnificent ened by pierced panels and has in the
uprights are decorated with a bead- piece of furniture was the brainchild center an exact copy of an ancient
and-reel molding. of the architect of the Villa Borghese picture from Campania (the buried
Being considered a typical expres- itself, Antonio Asprucci. This chair ancient cities near Naples) reproduced
sion of Neoclassicism in Rome, this design evidently enjoyed a certain in Le antichita di Ercolano.
chair has been much publicized and popularity, as the Museo di Roma An eagle and a dragon together
appears to be perfectly documented contains exhibits that appear to be form the armorial bearings of the
in the Borghese Archive in the Vatican. versions of the one on show here Borghese family. But although both
It was made in 1784 together with (Lizzani 1970, fig. 174). [agp] these heraldic beasts are seen in the
another nine pieces by a craftswoman sumptuous pair of tables made for
whose name was until recently entirely Marcantonio Borghese in 1773 by
unknown, Lucia Landucci. She was Antonio Landucci and now in the
probably the widow (or daughter) of Palazzo del Quirinale (Alvar
Antonio Landucci, who was for many Gonzalez-Palacios, with the collabo-
years the head woodcarver in the ration of Roberto Valeriani. I mobili
service of Marcantonio Borghese. In ilaliani BNL, 1996]. pp. 184-85),
[Milan:
1782 the name of Antonio Landucci they sometimes occur singly, even in

DF.CORATIVK ARTS 173

 —

VINCENZO PACETTI obelisks, with marble sides out of had commissioned him to produce a finishings in gesso, glue, and fine gold,

ROME C. 1746-1820 ROME which rise the torsos of draped and full-size model for a table intended for "to simulate metal on two tables in
For biography see Sculpture section winged caryatids and atlantes. Three- the gallery of the Villa Borghese. Dated new antico marble with very elaborate
dimensional festoons of flowers hang soon afterwards, in the household carving . . . with four figures requiring
below the deep apron, which is inset accounts of Prince Marcantonio much labor . . . for the ground-floor

59 with marble and framed by beading. Borghese, occur entries referring to gallery of Villa Pinciana" (a name fre-

The oval medallion in the center of the Casimiro Ponziani, the marbleworker quently used in the eighteenth
Vincenzo Pacetti, Casimiro
apron shows an allegorical figure who usually dealt with all the prince's century for the Villa Borghese).
Ponziani, Carlo Palombi, (possibly Summer) in gilt-bronze on requirements where marble was con- Shortly afterwards an invoice was
a mosaic ground of blue tesserae. The cerned, which mention that the marble received from Carlo Palombi for the
Antonio De Rossi, and
marble top is framed by an edge required (bianco new di Aquitania) for
e two companion tables.
Paolo Tozzi molding with several registers of gilt- one of the tables was purchased on The magnificent bronze decora-
bronze leaves, ovules and pearls. March 8, 1780. Another entry, for tions on the tables are also well docu-
Console Table
This console table —and its three November 22, 1780, records a payment mented. Wax models for the four
1780
companions, only one of which has to Pacetti "for the wax models of eight medallions representing the Seasons
Carved, painted, and gilded wood;
been identified, in a private collection caryatids and assistance to the wood- were supplied, as already mentioned,
marble top; mosaic
35" x 57" x 32 V" (89 x 145 x 82 cm)
in Rome —was well documented by carver . for the wax models of four
. . by Pacetti, but the casting was
the the present writer (some other medallions and to Paolo Tozzi,
. . . entrusted not to Luigi Valadier, the
provknanck Villa Borghese
documents were also found by mosaic-worker, for the marble tables famous bronze founder and gold-
exhibition Rome 1991, fasxo romano,
Luciana Ferrara Grassi; see Ferrara for the ground-floor gallery." It is pos- smith to whom the Borghese family
cat. no. 1 ji
The ear-
Grassi 1987, p. 247, n. 39-40). sible that the wood-carver (or sculp- usually turned, but to a hitherto
bibliography Gonzalcv.-Palacios 1993,
liest mention of the pieces was by the tor) assisted by Vincenzo Pacetti was obscure brazier, Antonio De Rossi,
pp. 217-18
sculptor Vincenzo Pacetti in his as yet Antonio Landucci, who at that time, who was paid for all the bronze deco-
Private collection
unpublished journal (Rome, Biblioteca and until his death, was constantly rationand the medallions of the
Alessandrina, MS. 321), where there is working for the prince. Seasons. The ground-floor gallery
The table's four legs, rising f rom foli- an entry for February 12, 1780, stating At the end of December 1780 the (now called Sala degli Imperatori, "Hall
ated feet, are conceived as inverted that the architect Antonio Asprucci gilder Carlo Palombi was paid for the of the Emperors") was left intact

174 DM ORAM VI: ARTS

60 (one of a pair)

apart from the classical statues which the corner tables exhibited here, being
were sold, together with the antiquities inlaid with marbles with a star in the
of the Villa Borghese, to the French by center). Also the frieze of this large
Camillo Borghese in 1808 — until table is decorated with a carving
around 1892, when the Italian state depicting various gods on chariots
acquired the villa and all its collections drawn by animals.
except the furniture, which was It is probable that the designer of
deemed at the time to be of no artistic the whole set was Giuseppe Barberi,
interest. [agpI who directed the works on the apart-
ment prepared for the nuptials of
Palazzo Altieri (see cat. 61). These two 6l of the ancien regime. Although the dec-
60 tables (as well as the largest one in the oration is complex, the design is clear-
Chair
set) suggest some connection with the cut and extremely elegant, a happy
Pair of Corner Tables
ideas of Piranesi, who restored a can- 1790-93 combination of classical and more
1790-93 delabrum that later entered the collec- Carved and gilded wood whimsical motifs. The dragons' heads
Carved and gilded wood, tops veneered tion of Sir Roger Newdigate and is 34>8" x i7Vg" x i47s" (88 x 45 x 38 cm) and the star are probably heraldic allu-
in alabaster and marble with rims in Rome
now in the Ashmolean Museum in exhibition 1991. Fasto romano, sions to the Altieri family and the
gilt-bronze no. 135
cat.
Oxford (Wilton-Ely 1994, vol. 2, house of Saxony. The quality of the
38" x 37" x 26X" (96.5 x 94 x 68 cm), A.B.l.-Associazione Bancaria Italiana,
pp. 988, 989), and which also has sup- carving and the gilding, which shows
including tops Rome
ports in the form of storks. One of gradations of depth and engraved
bibliography Gonzalez-Palacios 1991,
Piranesi's contemporaries, the grounds, is impeccable.
p. 186

A.B.l.-Associazione Bancaria Italiana,

Frenchman J. G. Legrand, wrote that The circular seat rail is adorned with This chair was part of the new fur-
Rome the great artist was a friend of leaves and a ribbon pattern. The nishings ordered for a suite of rooms
Giuseppe Barberi, who worked as his curved legs are of different design in the palace, where it has remained
assistant on at least one occasion, and front and back, the front ones with ever since. The apartment was being
The tables rest on a central support who provided useful advice (Brunei claw feet, the back ones with scroll refurbished for the use of Don
composed of three tiers of acanthus 1978, p. 286). [agp] feet. The apron shows a head sur- Paluzzo Altieri, Duke of Monterano.
sprays rising from a leafy circular foot rounded by leaves. The concave back heir to Prince Altieri. and his intended
on which stand two storks. Two fes- has an oval frame of laurel leaves bride. Marianna Lepri. whom he was
toons of flowers and fruit connect the attached to the seat by carved acan- due to marry in i~88. The elaborate
stem with corollas placed at each end thus leaves: the lyre-shaped splat is refurbishment was well advanced
of the deep apron, occupied almost formed by two facing dolphins, their before the wedding was canceled. Five
entirely by a bas-relief frieze depicting tails ending in rams' heads and further years later, in 1793. Don Paluzzo
agod and a goddess on a chariot extended by dragons' heads. Above married Princess Marianna of Saxony.
drawn by storks. The tables form part them is a star on an engraved ground. The overseeing works was in
of the
of a set of four designed en suite with a This chair, one of a set of ten, is the hands of a bizarre architect and
large console table supported by tela- probably the most beautiful of all decorator. Giuseppe Barberi. who
mons (and with a top unlike those on those made in Rome towards the end designed the whole project and super-

DHC'ORATIVE ARTS 175

 62

vised a large team of craftsmen that 1960-62; Pereira 1987; Quieto 1990; Vasco still in the tradition of Bernini, that raguaglio, printed in Rome in 1716. It
included well-known artists such as Rocca, Borghini, and Ferraris 1990; make up the front and rear panels of refers to The Oceans' Coach
the sculptor Vincenzo Pacetti and the Bessone 1993; Vasco Rocca and Borghini each of the vehicles.
1995; Calvet de Magalhaes. Garret Pinho,
and Giuseppe
painters Felice Giani The importance that this embassy that with the two previous
and Bessone 1996
Cades (Schiavo i960, p. 34, and took on capped a long process of formed a single grouping.
Museu Nacional dos Coches, Instituto
passim). Unfortunately permission diplomatic relations intended to Because this was only possible
Portugues de Museus, Lisbon
was not granted us to study eighteenth- obtain the title of Church and thanks to the Portuguese discov-
century documents in the family Patriarchal Basilica for the royal ery of the connection between
archives, where, presumably, the The Oceans' Coach is one of only three chapel in Lisbon and the conciliation the two Oceans, this deed as nec-
names of those responsible for design- extant examples of eighteenth- of the relationships with the Holy See essary as memorable was por-
ing and making this piece and the rest century ceremonial vehicles con- concerning the so-called "Chinese trayed allegorically on the rear
of the furniture in the apartment are structed in Rome to take part in the rites" tolerated by the Portuguese mis- panel of the vehicle where there
recorded. A comparison with other opulent processions that regularly sionaries in the Orient. Special atten- were two dolphins set on
designs known to be by Barberi, enlivened the pontifical They fol-
city. tion was therefore given to the enlarged volutes that formed the
however, indicates that he was in all lowed the imposed for
strict etiquette preparations so as to present a com- supports of the tailpiece. Each of
probability the artist concerned. the public entry of the ambassadors manding demonstration of the them carried on its back a half-
[agp] and representatives of European mon- grandeur of Portugal and the effective- naked old man with long hair
archs into the courts of His Holiness ness of its royal power in the expan- and beard and crowned with
the Pope. It was built by order of King sion and defense of the values of the aquatic plants; the one who
62 John V of Portugal to be part of the Catholic faith. This was likewise offers his right hand with confi-
entourage of his extraordinary demonstrated in the naval assistance dence as a sign of a new friend-
The Oceans' Coach
ambassador to the Holy See, Rodrigo supplied by the Portuguese in the fleet ship and association represented
1716 Anes de Sa Almeida e Meneses, the sent against the Turks in the defense of the Atlantic Ocean, the other
Carved and gilded wood; silk; and iron Marques de Fontes, for the audience Corfu in the same year of 1716. being the Indian Ocean, aston-
11' 9" x 8' x 22' 2" (358 x 245 x 677 cm) granted by Pope Clement XI on July 8, The ambassadorial procession thus ished not only by the grandeur
provenance Museu Nacional dos Coches, 1716. This ceremonial vehicle, as well proclaimed the glorious deeds of the of the first, but also by the fact of
Lisbon
as the two other examples that were Portuguese nation in the decorative it being crossed by completely
bibliography Chracas 1716; Simoes, part of this embassy (also belonging program of the three coaches. The unknown ships. Between them
Augusto Filippe. A exposicao rctrospectiva de
to the Museu Nacional dos Coches first was dedicated to "navigation and protruded a rock beaten by the
arte ornamental portugueza c hcspanhola cm
collection), comprise an outstanding conquest," and the second to the waves as a symbol of the Cape of
Ihboa. Lisbon: Typographia Universel de
T, Quintino Antunes, 1882; Corns nobrey.
grouping of Italian Baroque magnifi- "coronation of Lisbon, capital of the Good Hope that separated them,
arreios de tiro c cavallaria aprcslos des lorneio. cence, which is displayed not only in empire." The third coach, which com- formed by the base of the tail-
2d ed. 1 isbon: Repartiflo, 1905; the architecture of the boxes, but pleted the group, was described by piece upon which rested the ter-
Hotto 1909; I reire 192s; Ayres de Carvalho principally in the sculptural groups, Luca Antonio Chracas in the Distinto restrial globe with two winged

176 DECORATIVE ARTS

 Spirits, symbols of the two poles. wheels and is partially decorated with FILIPPO COCCHI 63
(Luca Antonio Chracas quoted in alettes, various foliage, and shell- ROME 1740/1750-1818 ROME
C. Filippo Cocchi and
Calvet de Magalhaes, Garret shaped motifs. From these last motifs
Pinho, and Bessone 1996, p. 104) emerge the braces for the coach box A member of a well-known family Giuseppe Spagna
on the front panel dominated by two of mosaicists (he was the son of
Poetry
Although the overall design of the life-size, female figures representing Alessandro Cocchi and brother of
Winter and Autumn, on the and 1785, 1790
processional coaches remains an area left Vincenzo), Filippo Cocchi appears to
have worked Vatican mosaic Inscription on recto: Philippus Cocchi
of some controversy and uncertainty, the right, respectively, of the coach. in the
Romanus hanc tabulam musivam fecit anno 1785
its iconographical scheme could only The first of these figures has a brazier workshops from 1762. He was respon-
Mosaic; bronze and copper, chased and
have been planned by Portuguese and a full cape, which covers her head. sible for restoration and worked with
gilded
artists, or by foreigners who had lived The second is crowned with fruit and his brother on the triangular sections
43 Y»" x 35 Vs" (110 x 91 cm)
for some time in Portugal and thus has more fruit in her lap. A small of the dome in the Gregorian Chapel
exhibition Rome 1997, Valadier,
were responsive to the intention of cherub hovers above and to the rear in St. Peter's, depicting the Doctors oj
cat. no. 101
the message and of portraying it sym- of each of these figures. In the center the Church after cartoons by Nicola
bibliography Zahlen 1966; Gonzalez-
bolically. The Marques de Fontes on a higher level is the coachman's Lapiccola. For the Loreto Congregation
Palacios, Alvar. Mosaic) e pictrc dure: mosaici a
himself, about whom all the chroni- seat with a brown leather cushion he made The Archangel Michael after piccole tesscre, pietre dure a Parigi e a Napoli.

cles are unanimous in stating that he covered with velvet. The original cover Guido Reni, Saint Francis after Milan: Fabbri 1981, vol. 1; Bertelli, Carlo, ed.

had highly developed artistic gifts and was lost; it has been replaced by a Domenichino, The Last Supper, after II mosaico. Milan: Mondadori, 1988, p. 272;

a thorough knowledge of painting, replica of extant examples from other Simon Vouet, and Saints Charles and Gonzalez-Palacios 1994

sculpture, and principally architec- contemporary vehicles. On the front Emidius after Anton von Maron. In 1806 Det danske Kunstindustrimuseum,

ture, could have been the creator, if panel are two elegant and imposing he obtained a contract for a fourth Copenhagen

not of the plan, at least of the decora-
tive scheme. Chracas supports this
hypothesis when he refers to the role
of the Marques in the presentation of
the procession "as well as the perfect
exhibition of the ideas and allegories
designed and idealized by the great
mind of His Excellency" (Chracas,
quoted in Calvet de Magalhaes, Garret
Pinho, and Bessone 1996, p. 67). The
presence in the entourage of the
Marques de Fontes in Rome of the
painter Vieira Lusitano and of the
Maltese architect Carlos Gimac,
had for years lived in Lisbon and
worked on triumphal arches con-
structed for the marriage in 1708 of
King )ohn V to Maria Ana of Austria,
suggests that they too were connected
with the plan for these vehicles.
The Oceans' Coach has an open box
with a trapezoidal profile with a reverse
curved indentation on the side panels,
volutes that function as the support part of the mosaic version of
board for the coachman. Caravaggio's Deposition after a cartoon This mosaic, signed and dated by the
On the front wheel are repetitive by Vincenzo Camuccini (completed in famous mosaic maker Filippo Cocchi
decorative plant motifs. The spokes of 1814 and now in the Vatican vestry). in 1785, is mounted in a frame of gilt-
the wheels are made of double volutes His later works include two altar bronze and copper composed of a
oriented in opposite directions forming frontals for St. Peter's, [rv] deep molding with a laurel wreath
two concentric circles. Encircling the bibliography Branchetti 1982, p. 44?; and a beveled fascia. It is trimmed
outer rim of the wheel is an iron band and Cornini 1986, p. 168
Alfieri. Branchetti, with various motifs and crowned
with regular breaks and with hemi- with two putti and two figures of
spheres of the same metal designed to Fame flanking the arms of Pope Pius
give better traction. GIUSEPPE SPAGNA VI. The object was given by the pope
On the rear panel of the coach, ROME 1765-1839 ROME to Princess Sofia Albertina of Sweden
which would have been the most in 1793 (see Zahlen 1966), though it
who obvious portion when it was in a pro- Giuseppe Spagna was the son of the was made slightly earlier than this date.
cession, are five outstanding, life-size silversmith Paolo Spagna (1736-1788; Newly discovered documents show
sculptured figures arranged on two master's certificate awarded 1771), that this mosaic by Cocchi was pur-
levels. In the center of the upper level who had a studio in via del Pellegrino chased on March 10, 1788, three years
is the semi-nude figure of Apollo and worked for the papal court, exe- after it had been made (Archivio
shown with his lyre. With his right cuting important commissions such Segreto Vaticano, Sacri Palazzi
arm raised, pointing upward, he seems as the Golden Rose, a special gift from Apostolici, Computisteria, fol. 406,
to emerge from the terrestrial globe the pope to queens or cities (1781 and c. 69). However, the payment to
that occupies the lower half of this 1784), frames for mosaics, and house- Giuseppe Spagna, silversmith to the
panel, on which two winged
sit spirits. hold silver. After his father's death, Apostolic Palaces, for the frame itself

each of which has a square door that On each side of the sun god are Guiseppe obtained his license in 1791 dates only to February 18, 1790
opens only inward by means of a Summer and Spring which, like the and shortly thereafter moved the (Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Sacri
strap. Posts extend up at the corners other two seasons of the year, are rep- studio from via del Pellegrino, a street Palazzi Apostolici, Computisteria,
of the box upon which rests the rec- resented by female figures. Summer is where most of the goldsmiths' work- fol. 418, c. 67). This detailed document
tangular roof — a simple valance of shown with a sheaf of wheat and a shops had been located since the six- mentions that the lower right-hand
velvet, finished on top with four knobs plant crown. Spring holds a cornucopia teenth century. He opened another on putto at the top of the frame originally
resembling flames. The outside of the of flowers and wears a floral crown. via del Corso, where he remained until held a laurel wreath. On completion
box, the top, and the knobs are covered These two figures are likewise accom- at least 1811. He continued his father's the work appears to have been put
with crimson silk velvet embroidered panied by two cherubim. work for Pius VI, executing a few into store in the Floreria Apostolica,
with ornate plant-shaped designs in On the lower level, two figures of bronze frames for mosaics (cat. 63) but the mosaic may have been
gilt silver thread. The inside is covered venerable old men shake hands in a and numerous pieces of silver for the damaged, because a payment entry
with silk brocade embroidered in powerful image representing the papal table. In 1792 he completed the made on April 23, 1791, states that
semi-fine gold. joining of the Atlantic and Indian commission for a Golden Rose. another mosaicist, Lorenzo
This cloth covering, on both the Oceans, discovered by the Portuguese, In 1812 Spagna moved to the build- Roccheggiani, had made some
inside and outside, was in a very poor and comprising the main theme of the ing belonging to his brother-in-law unspecified corrections to the work
state of preservation. During a recent allegorical presentation of this coach. Giuseppe Valadier Babuino
in via del by Cocchi (Archivio Segreto Vaticano,
restoration project it was taken out and The rear axle is similar to a column and managed the studio with his son Sacri Palazzi Apostolici, Computisteria,
replaced by a replica of the original with capitals of acanthus and a shaft Pietro Paolo. In 1806 he cast two new fol. 425, c. 103). Gonzalez-Palacios
cloth produced in France by the decorated with low-relief plant motifs. bells for the Capitoline Hill, commis- found the design by Giuseppe Spagna
company Tassinari & Chatel on The slightly concave wheels are identi- sioned by Pius VII. In 1828 he executed for the frame of this work among
eighteenth-century looms according cal to those of the front, but larger. the bronze decorations for the bap- drawings from Valadier's workshop
to the traditional techniques and The Oceans' Coach is thus an excellent tismal font in S. Maria Maggiorc, based (belonging to the Artemis Group in
copying the patterns documented example of the magnificence with on the designs of Adamo Tadolini. He London).
from the original fragments. The which the king invested his reign, and produced these in collaboration with Cocchi found his inspiration tor the
cloth that was removed was retained of how he made the image of Portugal Giuseppe Valadier, from whom he subject of this mosaic — Poetry — in a
as part of the museum's collection. renowned throughout Europe and — finally bought the studio in 1827. [rv] painting by Francesco Fcrnandi (called
As for the structure of the coach, —
beyond in the eighteenth century. bibliography Bulgari 19S8--4, vol. 2.
Impcriali) in the collection ot the
the box rests on a longitudinal beam [SB] p. 426; Gonzalez-Palacios 1997. Valadier, Duke ol I lamilton .11 1 ennoxlove (.is

that connects the rear and front pp. 246-48 pointed out by Timothy Clifford). [.u;p|

DECORATIVE ARTS
 6?

178 DECORATIVE ARTS

64 GIACOMO RAFFAELLI
ROME 1753-1836 ROME
Pompeo Savini

Tripod Table Giacomo Raffaelli belonged to a family

of glassworkers who since the second
1788
half of the seventeenth century had
Carved and gilded wood; mosaic top
provided vitreous materials for the
35/2" x 35" x 28//' (90 x 89 x 72 cm)
mosaics for St. Peter's, firing their work
bibliography Manoric per le Belle Arti,
in the kiln in via Cappellari. The kiln
vol. 4 (1788), p. ccxxiv: Ferrara 1968
was still in use in the nineteenth
The Royal Lazienski Museum, Warsaw
century. Giacomo was probably the
most celebrated of the craftsmen who
This table has three cabriole legs, worked as suppliers to the Studio
resting on cloven hoof feet, terminat- Vaticano del Mosaico, the Vatican's own
ing at the top in rams' heads on acan- mosaic workshop, and sources reveal
thus leaves with garlands hanging that he was the first to make small
from their sides. A stretcher with leaf mosaics with extraordinarily subtle
carvings is centered by a vase with a spun enamels. In 1787 his fame brought
fluted body. The frieze has beaded him to the notice of King Stanislas II

borders that enclose scrolled foliage Augustus of Poland, who conferred the
interrupted by medallions with title of "Polish Nobleman" on him and
antique heads in profile. The top in appointed him artistic adviser. His
mosaic, with bronze rim, bears in the workshop was in Piazza di Spagna, but
center a bull enclosed in a Greek key in the early 1800s his studio was in via

frame and surrounded by a band of del Babuino, in a building designed by

scrolling foliage and a ribbon frame. Giuseppe Valadier that was also par-
The Memorie per le Belle Arti (the tially residential. Around 1804 he pro-
most noted periodical about Rome's duced a magnificent deser (now in the
artistic activity of the epoch) asserts Villa Carlotta, Como) for a nobleman,
that in 1788 the mosaicist Pompeo Francesco Melzi, viceroy of Milan, and
Savini had completed the mosaic top shortly afterwards moved to the capital
of this occasional table, which was at the invitation of the new viceroy,
sent to the Polish king, Stanislas Eugene de Beauharnais. While in Milan
Augustus Poniatowski, through he produced the great mosaic version
Marcello Bacciarelli, a Roman painter of Leonardo's Last Supper that was sent
in the king's service. The work is to the Minoritenkirche in Vienna. Also
described thus: in 1804 he made a pendulum clock and
a chimneypiece, both in mosaic, as gifts

This is a small round table 3 palmi from Pius VII to Napoleon. (The latter,
romani, 1 once in diameter (about stripped of its mosaics and stones, is

27/2" or 70 cm), in the middle of now at Malmaison.)

which, in a circle surrounded by When Raffaelli returned to Rome
a meander, is seen a very fine bull after the Restoration he set about pro-
[the king's arms] with some ducing a great variety of articles. The
birds above in a very graceful inventory made after his death
manner and round about it a included pictures, plaques, boxes,
circle of very elegant foliage, all jewelry, domestic artifacts and table
from the painting by the famous tops all decorated with mosaic, as well
Wenceslas Peter, excellently as other items in bronze, marble, or
carried out in extremely minute pietra dura, such as vases, parts of table
little prisms, identical in size top centerpieces, and chimneypieces,
and bottom. some encrusted with mosaics. Several
of these works were later acquired by
the Russian royal family and are now
So the mosaic was designed by in the Hermitage. Among them is a
Wenceslas Peter, a Bohemian painter pair of tables sculpted in marble with
active inRome, who specialized in the pietre dure inlay and small mosaic
portrayal of animals and whose panels. After the fire in St. Peter's in

designs were often used by the Roman 1823 Raffaelli was commissioned for
mosaicists of the period. The top's the replacement of the mosaic surface
middle frieze is based on a spiral deco- completely covering the arch at the
ration of classical origin, not dissimi- top ol the nave, know n as l'Lic idia's

lar to those chosen for various altar arch. To do this, he experimented

frontals in St. Peter's made about the with a new and laborious technique
same time at the request of Pope 64 (top) of detaching the mosaic from the wall.
Pius VI. Giacomo's son Vincenzo, also a
The wooden part of the piece Clement XIII's nephew Giovanni maniere d'adornarc cammini (1769).
i The mosaicist, was invited to Russia several
derives from models by Giovanni Battista Rczzonico, now divided table now in the Lazicnki Palace is times by the czar, who asked him to
Battista Piranesi, as is the case with between museums Amsterdam and
in very similar to the one exhibited 111 found a factory in Moscow, [rv]
much Roman decorative art in the last Minneapolis, while the rail, composed Gonzalez-Palacios 1991, no. 130. [acp] bibliography Gonzalez-Palacios 1984.
quarter of the eighteenth century. In of a frieze of spirals interrupted by pp. 143-4S; Altieri. Branchetti, and Cornini
fact, the legs of this occasional table shields with profiles, can be compared 1986. with previous biblioyiaphv:
recall those of the ones made for with plate XI in Piranesi's Diverse Valcruni 1995

DIa'ORAT IVI AR I S
65 Studio, who at the same time were
involved in much larger-scale works.
Giacomo Raffaelli
The contents of Raffaelli's factory,
Circular Plaque demolished after his death (Valeriani

1800 1993), included a large number of

plaques of this type, both individual
Signed on the back: Giacomo Rajjaclli

jcci in Roma 1800 plaques and examples mounted on

Mosaic; gilt copper stone boxes or in enamel. Those

Diameter i'A" (7.5 cm) known today are always of a very high
quality, often exemplified, as in the
HIBI [OGRAPHY Rome lggi. Faslo romano,

cat. no. 20J work shown, by edges executed with

Private collection tesserae. These were individually
composed of more colors, adopting
the ancient technique of murrinc (a bar
A dove with a red ribbon, resting on of glass, composed of smaller bars; its

a shrub, stands out against a dark blue sections showed the different colors
background. It is surrounded by a of the components). In addition, the

border decorated with butterflies. The subject matter, which illustrates

metal rim is engraved with tiny undu- various favorite themes of
lating motifs. Neoclassical ornamentation, excels in
Giacomo Raffaelli's studio appears and composition, often
variety
to have specialized primarily in the showing an unusual originality of
adaptation of mosaics to small design, [rv]
plaques that could be mounted on
various types of boxes, as in this
example. This sort of marketing of a
certain type of manufactured article,
specifically mosaics, which were
usually large and costly, popularized
the Roman market. This brought
about a proliferation of studios
belonging both to private individuals
and to mosaicists from the Vatican
 . .

66 the papal residence, such as inkstands

and chalices. In 1703 he executed the
Unknown artist metalworks for the church of S.
Three Plaques Giovanni in La Valletta, and in 1707
the bronze decoration surrounding
Late eighteenth century
the image of the Madonna del Fuoco in
Micromosaic on copper
Forli Cathedral. A porphyry and gilt-
Diameter of each iV" (7 cm)
bronze reliquary (Schatzkammer,
exhibition Rome 1991. Fasto romano,
Vienna) containing a reliquary cross
cat. no. 211

Private collection
made by the Roman goldsmith Pietro
Paolo Gelpi was made in 1711. In 1684
Giardini executed a rapier sent to the
These three micromosaics depict the King of Poland by Alexander VIII, and
Pyramid of Cestius, a swan with a in 1716 made a second rapier for
quiver, and Pegasus. They are all the Clement IX to send to Eugenio of Savoy.
same size and are mounted on metal In 1712 Giardini entered into a con-
plaques, the borders of which form tract with a Bohemian printer,
narrow frames. These are typical of Massimiliano Giuseppe Limpach, to
work produced in the micromosaic publish a book of engravings, Discgiu
workshops that flourished in late diversi, in 1714.The volume was
eighteenth-century Rome. The plaque reprinted in 1750 under the title

was usually mounted on a box made 67 Promptuarium artis argentariae. In 1720

of marble, pate de verre, and occasion- he cast the bell for the clock tower of
ally tortoiseshell. Similar work signed band of mosaic decoration featuring GIOVANNI GIARDINI the Palazzo del Quirinale, the official
by the mosaic worker Giacomo pairs of drinking griffins. The beasts FORLI 1646-1721 ROME papal residence outside the Vatican
was mounted on boxes
Raffaelli are separated by ovals containing Palaces, [rv]
whose frames bore the stamps of miniature temples and surrounded by A goldsmith and bronze founder, BIBLIOGRAPHY Bulgari 1958-74. vol. 1,

foreign jewelers. It is not known festoons, skulls, birds and butterflies. Giardini served his apprenticeship in p. 529: Grigioni 1963; Honour 1971.

whether these mounts were commis- The narrow neck and the cover of the Rome in the workshop of the silver- Goldsmiths, pp. 114-21: Lipinsky 1971:

sioned by the purchaser or whether vase are decorated with bands of leaves. smith Marco Gamberucci from 1665 Gonzalez-Palacios 1995: Rudolph 1995,
p. 111. and passim: Montagu 1996. pp. 117-32
the Roman mosaic workers used com- These two unusual pieces are the to 1668 and obtained his master's cer-
ponents acquired in France. combined work of a marble carver tificate in 1675. The following year he

Plaques such as these usually depict and a mosaicist. The latter may have took over his teacher's workshop in
scenes of ancient Roman buildings (as been the same Nicola de Vecchis who, partnership with Marco Ciucci. 68
here the Pyramid of Cestius) copied according to a document in the Although the partnership was dis-
Giovanni Giardini
from popular late eighteenth-century Vatican Mosaic Studio archive, in 1795 solved in 1680, Giardini stayed in the
engravings such as those by Pronti, or made two vases with mosaic decora- workshop, conceded to him by the Disegni diversi inventati e
may show vignettes inspired by antiq- tion "in the Etruscan style" to his own former owner, and took on his brother
delineati da Giovanni Giardini
uities with a combination of elements design.The document in question was Alessandro to help him. Throughout
from Roman paintings and sixteenth- unearthed by Gonzalez-Palacios and his career he held important offices in da Forli . .

century grotesques and imaginary associated with two vases similar to the Roman silversmiths' guild. In 1698 Engraved by Maximilian Joseph Limbach
scenes in the prevailing "Etruscan" the ones on display here, except that he was appointed official bronze 1714
style. Other subjects include antique they had handles and antique marble founder to the Reverenda Camera Bound volume 15//' x 21" (38.7 x cm)
53
statues and, more unusually, species inlays: Selections from the Gilbert Apostolica ( the papal administra- exhibition Rome 1999, cat. no. 165a
of animals reminiscent of the taste for Collation [Alvar Gonzalez-Palacios, tion), and in this capacity produced a
bibliography Bulgari 1958-^4. vol. 1.

the paintings of Bohemian artist The Art of Mosaics: Selections from the great variety of works, ranging from Grigioni 1963. passim: Honour
p. 259;
Wenceslas Peter, who is known to have Gilbert Collection [Los Angeles: Los the bronze decoration for the bap- Goldsmiths 19^1. pp. 115-21; Gonzalez-
been involved, in at least one celebrated Angeles County Museum of Art, 1977] tismal font in St. Peter's to the casting Palacios 1984. passim; Montagu 1996.

case, in mosaic design (see cat. 64). [rv] The same scholar noted on this occa- of armaments for Castel S. Angelo. p. 11": Rudolph 1995. p. 111 and passim

sion that two vases of a similar type In 1700 Giardini was responsible The Getty Research Institute for the History
of Art. Research Library, Los Angeles
featured in the inventory of the for the plaque and other gilt-bronze
67 Empress Josephine at Malmaison. decoration for the tomb of Queen
The imperial residence also boasted a Christina of Sweden in St. Peter's. In In this magnificent set of plates
Nicola de Vecchis
chimneypiece and a clock, decorated 1702 he produced a holy water stoup Giovanni Giardini, Rome's most
Pair of Vases with Lids using the same technique, which can in silver, gilded copper, and lapis lazuli famous silversmith of the late seven-
Late eighteenth century be attributed with certainty to the cel- presented by Pope Clement XI to teenth century and early eighteenth,

Statuary marble, micromosaic ebrated mosaicist Giacomo Raffaelli. Giovanni Battista Borghese, ambas- assembled the Baroque era's vastest
Height 22 V»" (58 cm)
As well as the vases on display here sador extraordinary to Philip V of repertory of church and secular silver-

exhibitions Vatican City. Mosaici mirmti

and those illustrated in the Los Spain (Metropolitan Museum of Art. ware. The volume won such renown
wmani del '700 e deU'800. 1986, fig. 32;
Angeles exhibition catalogue, it is also New York). Another holy water stoup. that it earned a second edition many
Rome 1991, Fasto romano, cat. no. 206 worth mentioning a pair, not previ- decorated with the figures of |ustice years after the death of its author, who
bibliography Gonzalez-Palacios, Alvar. ously studied, at the Residenz in and Charity, was produced in 1709 and was considered one of the greatest
Mosaici e pictre dure: mosaici a piccole tessere Bayreuth. These are also made of sent by the pope the following year to Roman masters of his art. and in i~so
pictre dure a Parigi c a Napoli. Milan: Fabbri, white marble carved with foliage the Emperor (Residenz. Munich). the Promptuarium artis argentariae,
1982, vol. p. 19
1,
motifs, and are decorated with oval Silver-mounted articles commis- which reproduced unaltered the
Private collection
mosaic plaques featuring birds, [rv] sioned from Giardini by the adminis- engravings of Giardini and I.impai h,

tration of the pontifical palaces was published.

Each vase stands on a porphyry plinth include caskets containing sw addling As has been pointed out by Jennifer
that supports a circular foot consist- bands blessed by the pope and sent by Montagu. Giardini sometimes had to
ing of a wreath of laurel leaves and him to the crowned heads of Europe call on the help ol other artists for the
decorative pods (baccclli). The fluted for their children (for example, the execution of the more conspicuous
body of the vase, covered with over- heirs of the French and Spanish mon- naturalistic details that appear on many
lapping leaves, is interrupted by a archs) and also decorative objects for ol the items in the volume, such as the

1 'I ( OR \ I 1 \ I \R I S
 example nos. 23, 52, 60). Among the
designs for sacred objects is one for a
tabernacle showing a Pieta (no. 17),

though different from the one shown

here. A model for the latter, or for the
Pax exhibited here, was listed in the
inventory of Giardini's possessions
after his death on February 10, 1722:

Trinity Fine Art, Ltd., London

"A large ornament in wood that served
68 as a model for a metal cast; within it an
unfinished bas-relief in copper repre- I

recurrent figures of putti or angels; of Sweden; Fagiolo 1997, vol. 2, p. 121). The Picta stands on a kind of altar, the senting the Picta" (Grigioni 1963, p. 91).

this aid can be deduced from the series There are also numerous ornamental surface of which opens into large and [AGP]
of original drawings in Berlin on table stands of every sort, intended to small beanpod motifs. The altar is
which the engravings are based, and be exhibited on their own or as sup- enclosed on either side by scrolls with
in some of which the hand of the ports for other furnishings: these cherubim and surmounted by archi-
painter Benedetto Luti is believed to include some notable pyramidal con- tectonic features. The heart-shaped
be recognizable, above all in the figu- structions, used to display chocolate pediment has a shell in the centre

The collection of
rative details. pots and teacups, or to show off the flanked by two festoons of bay. The
engraved models in the volume can elaborate vases that sometimes goldsmith's mark (a basket of flowers)
also be seen as one of the most extra- accompanied large console tables in and the town mark of Rome, perhaps
ordinary testimonies of the formal the Baroque style. Equally noteworthy the one in use in 1720, are found both
development of Baroque silver- are the designs for table fountains, on the base and on the plinth (Anna
smithing between the seventeenth decorated with allegorical figures, and Bulgari Calissoni, Maestri argentieri
and eighteenth centuries. It includes the design for metal finials to be set on gemmari c orafi di Roma [Rome:
an extremely diverse array of church the top of ceremonial chairs. The col- Palombi, 1987], no. 81).

ornaments (such as lamps, reliquaries, lection concludes with designs for Giovanni Giardini was certainly the
chalices, and monstrances), as well as door handles and bell pulls. most famous silversmith in Rome at
secular objects that provide substan- The objects depicted often bear the the end of the seventeenth century
tial information not only on stylistic arms of the papal families, including and the beginning of the eighteenth.
matters but also on the uses and the the Albani, Rospigliosi, and Chigi. Many of his works are now lost, but
diffusion of certain standard forms. It There is, in fact, no certain evidence the two volumes containing roughly a
contains, for instance, many examples that any of the silverware marked in hundred of his designs, both for eccle-
of the great incense burners that, this way was ever made for
really siastical and lay use, give some idea of

according to a practice common from these houses. However, it is known the breadth of his creative imagina-
at least the sixteenth century, were that the Marchese Niccolo Maria tion (Giovanni Giardini, Disegni divcrsi.

used during gala banquets (see the whose arms appear on

Pallavicini, itivctitati c ddincati, 2 vols. [Rome, 1714];
seventeenth-century drawing by the various engravings, was one of the sil- see cat. 68). Decorative features seen
Swedish artist P. P. Sevin, depicting a versmith's main clients (Rudolph 199s). here on the Pax occur also in many of
banquet offered to Queen Christina [RV] the plates in these volumes (see for

l82 DF.( ORATIVI. ARTS

70 ANGELOSPINAZZI
PIACENZA C. 1700-BEF0RE 1789
Unknown artist
ROME
Pair of Candelabra
Spinazzi received his master's certifi-
c. 1723
cate in Rome in 1721 and set up his
Gilt-bronze
workshop in via del Corso. He held
Height 27//' (70 cm)
various offices in the Congregazione
bibliography Tesori d'arle 1975,
degli Orefici (the goldsmiths' guild)
cat. no. 514

Famiglia Odescalchi
but relinquished them in 17S5, when
Pope Benedict XIV sent him to
Bologna. By 1758 he was back in Rome.
The triangular stem consists of a He is reported to have been absent in
series of volutes that, starting from 1767, but according to sources he had
the double volute that forms the base, returned by 1785. In 1789 he is reported
alternate with architectural motifs to to have died (that year or earlier).
form a central decorative feature and Spinazzi's long and prolific service
culminate in a baluster-shaped sconce to the papal palaces seems to have
with nozzle. The decoration consists begun in 1732 with a series of silver
of small vegetal and beanpod motifs ware for the dining table and dressing
and garlands with different types of table as recorded in accounts of the
gilding. The front of the base bears the papal court. The Golden Rose was
joint arms of the Odescalchi and commissioned in 1740. Earlier, in
Borghese families, while the other 1732-34, he executed an altar frontal
sides bear in relief the censer that based on models by Camillo Rusconi
forms part of the Odescalchi arms. for the church of the Ascension in

These two candelabra belong to Siena. Ledger entries beginning at this

a set of six that graces the chapel of time indicate a series of works in silver

St. Anthony of Padua in the basilica and bronze for the Corsini Chapel in

of Ss. Apostoli. This saccllum was St. John Lateran, including two torch-
acquired by Prince Livio Odescalchi as bearers in the form of angels, based
a family chapel, but by his death in 1713 on models by Agostino Cornacchini.
it appears that little work of any impor- the choir screen, a pyx, and various
tance had been carried out. Prince articles of altar furniture. In 1736 he
Livio's will stipulated that his nephew cast a lion in bronze for the monument
and heir Baldassarre Erba Odescalchi to Cardinal Innico Caracciolo in the
should build the chapel, and church at Aversa. An altar set for a
Baldassarre later commissioned the church in Fiorenzuola d'Adda, which
work from Ludovico Rusconi Sassi. In is said to be based on a design by
a doctoral thesis by Cathie Cook Kelly Giovanni Paolo Panini.
(Kelly 1980, pp. 80-103) the author lists For the church of S. Roque in
the payment orders made to the crafts- Lisbon he designed a set of large can-
men responsible for each feature of dlesticks and a cross, only two items
this splendid chapel, filled with marble 70 of which he made himself, the rest
(carved by Francesco Maria Perini) being entrusted to Tommaso Politi and
and sparkling with gilt The
metal. Friedrich Noach, Das Dcutschtum in on wooden details of the altar in the Giovanni Felice Sanini. In 1752 he exe-
payments include one made on July 10, Rom sett dem Ausgang des Mittelahers basilica of S. Maria in Cosmedin under cuted a great altar front for Syracuse
1723, to "Ferdinando Reiffi, sculptor of [Aalen, Germany: Scientia, 1974], Filippo Raguzzini. In 1724 Cathedral, [rv]
metals, for work completed." Details vol. 2, pp. 475-76). Ferdinand Reiff Giovannelli —who made decora-
also bibliography Bulgari 1958-74, vol. 2,

of the work done by Reiff (who came (died 1750) is known to have taken tive objects and carriages made — Rodrigues 1988, pp.
p. 4ii; 127, 248:
from a German family) have been part in various Concorso Clementino some sets of wooden candlesticks for Gonzalez-Palacios 1995, p. 105:

traced (Rome, Archivio di Stato, architectural competitions in the early the Odescalchi family to decorate the Montagu 1996. passim

Archivio Odescalchi, XIV, B 1, n. 81), eighteenth century and to have church of the Palo. He also supplied a
which describe each single fixture in designed ephemeral constructions. "model in carved wood ... to be cast
copper (capitals, ciborium, frames), It is also known that he produced a set in iron and placed inside fireplaces."
though the movable decorative objects of designs in 1733 for the Nunciatura This is presumably a reference to the
are not mentioned. However, it is pos- building in Madrid. plaques with the family coat of arms
sible that the candelabra were com- The design for these candelabra, that were used to protect the base of
missioned from the same bronze with their distinctive decoration of chimneys.
founder some time after completion broken volutes, is strongly reminis- The arms on the foot of the cande-
of the decorative work, on the evidence cent of the ornamental taste propa- labra are those of the client, Baldassarre
of receipts discovered made out to gated by the engravings of Giovanni Erba Odescalchi, and the family of his
"Ferdinando Reiffi" (and "Francesco, Giardini (Prompiuarium artiis two wives: Flaminia Borghese, whom
his uncle") as late as 1724. argentariac, published in Rome in 1714); he married in 1717, and her sister Maria
Ferdinand Reiff is a relatively in fact, a similar treatment to the one Maddalena Borghese, who became his
unknown sculptor and architect. He shown here can be seen, for example, wifeon her sister's death, [rv]
was a member of a German family that in plate 30 of Giardini's book. The
included Peter Paul Reiff (his father), name of one Domenico Antonio
who was active around 1700 on the Giovannelli recurs in the Odescalchi
altar of St. Ignatius in the church of accounts during the years the chapel
the Gesu (see F.nggass 1976, pp. 107-8), was being built. This craftsman
and the latter's brother Francis, who described himself as a woodcarver
appears to have been a goldsmith (see and is known to have worked in 172s

DECORATIVE ARTS
 72 style, with undulating borders deco-
rated with scrolls, flourishes, and deli-
Leandro Gagliardi
cate applications of flowers, leaves,
Altar Set and cherubs.
1776
All the works exhibited here were
Cast, engraved, and gilded bronze exhaustively documented in Cardinal

and copper Flavio II Cardinal Chigi's Filza di conti

Candlesticks 2o/»" (51.2 cm); Crucifix diversi (Vatican Library, Chigi private
36X" (93.7 cm); Saint Peter 19V/' (48.7 cm); archive, folder 911, c. 113). On May 30,
Sm'nt Paul \g'A" (so cm); Saint Andrew 1776, a very specific invoice listing all
20//' (52.5 cm); Saint John 19X" (48.7 cm)
the articles comprising the altar set
Mass cards 17//' x 19X" (43.7 x 48.7 cm)
was settled in favour of the founder
and \i'/> x 9" (31.8 x 23 cm)
and silversmith Leandro Gagliardi.
provenance Cardinal Flavio II Chigi
The document specifies that the arti-
bibliography Gonzalez-Palacios 1993,
cles in question were "gilt copper very
pp. 185-87. with previous bibliography
finelyworked and engraved," while
The Art Institute of Chicago, David Adler
the statuettes were "individually cast
and European Decorative Arts Funds,
Mary Waller Langhorn Endowment, and in a single piece with their bases with
Gift of the Antiquarian Society the arms of His Eminence." Detailed
descriptions are then given of the
making of the cardinal's crest, he
The altar set comprises four figures of being a member of one of the most
saints based on the Apostles series in distinguished papal families, which
St. John Lateran. The famous marble boasted Alexander VII among its

originals date from the reign of Pope ancestors. At this time Cardinal Chigi
Clement XI (1700-1721) and constitute was furnishing his house on via
one of the most typical images of Salaria, which contained some of the
eighteenth-century Rome. The figures finest pieces of Roman furniture of
of Saint Peter and Saint Paul are based the period. In 1961 pieces that had
on statues by Pietro Stefano Monnot. been identified by the eminent scholar
In the case of Saint Paul, the posture is Giovanni Incisa della Rocchetta as the
copied faithfully enough with only the models in carved and gilded wood for

71 1740. These pieces are outstanding for drapery modified, whereas Saint Peter this altar set were placed in the chapel
the excellence of their execution, the has been changed more visibly by of the via Salaria villa. There is no spe-
Angelo Spinazzi
elegant restraint of their ornament, bringing the hand with the book
left cific documentation to prove that the
Teapot and the sturdy compactness of their and keys closer to the body and lower- gilt-bronze set was designed for the
shape, [agp] ing the right. Monnot's Saint Peter, half villa; while such a hypothesis is possi-
After 1728
a century older than Gagliardi's, had ble, it is also possible that the cardinal
Silver-gilt

9%" x &%" x 4X" (23.8 x proved popular and was used on intended them for his apartment in
21.7 x 12 cm)
bibliography Gonzalez-Palacios 1993,
LEANDRO GAGLIARDI other occasions as well, for example the city, [agp]

pp. 103-4, % 158 ROME 1729-1798 ROME by Luigi Valadier for his considerably
larger silver figure on the altar of
Museen zu Berlin,
Staatliche
Kunstgewerbemuseum Gagliardi was a member of a family of Monreale Cathedral, dated around VINCENZO BELLI
bronze founders and silversmiths, of 1770 (Winter 1991-92, p. 92). TURIN I7IO-I787 ROME
which his father, Giuseppe, was the This Saint John takes as its model
Angelo Spinazzi, from Piacenza, most distinguished. He learned his Camillo Rusconi's original. The The first references to Vincenzo Belli
was one of the finest silversmiths and craft with Filippo Tofani, with whom, general lines of the composition, in Rome date from around 1740. when
castersworking in Rome during the according to documents, he was including the lift of the head and the he was registered as an apprentice. At
second and third quarters of the eigh- working as an apprentice in 1748. The position of the right hand, have been that time he was living with his father-
teenth century. This piece, which following year he was awarded his retained, though the eagle has been in-law, Bartolomeo Balbi, who was
bears his mark, has some elements master's certificate. repositioned. The Saint Andrew, sur- also a silversmith. In 1741 Belli
that are slighly antiquated in style. It Together with his father he executed prisingly, echoes Rusconi only in the obtained his master's certificate
can be compared to the incense burner work for the Portuguese royal family lower half of the body: the head and (patente), at which occasion several sil-

supported by torch-bearing angels, commissioned by Commendator torso, although reversed, aremodeled versmiths from Turin vouched for his

based on models by the Tuscan sculp- Sampajo. In 1749 he made replicas of on a famous, much older figure by honesty, affirming that he had worked
tor Agostino Cornacchini, which the censer and incense-boat originally Francois Duquesnoy in St. Peter's (for in their studios in his native city from
Spinazzi cast in patinated and gilt- made by Antonio Gigli for Lisbon but the Lateran Apostles, see Enggass an early age. Between 1742 and 1749 he
bronze in 1735 for the Corsini Chapel presented, at the monarch's request, 1976, vol. 1, passim, and vol. 2, pis. had his workshop and home near the
John Lateran. The style of those
in St. to the pope (now in Bologna, Tesoro 30-32, 35-39, 57-59; also Broeder church of S. Luigi dei Francesi, while
incense burners is entirely consonant di S. Pietro). He also made four reli- 1967). from 1757 he seems to have moved to

with that of the Berlin teapot, whose quaries, now lost, for Lisbon, [rv] Slightly taller than the figures, the near the Teatro Valle. His seems to
spout rises from a very similar female bibliography Bulgari 1958-74, vol. 1,
four candlesticks (like the foot of the have been one of the busiest and best-
head. Two trays stamped by Spinazzi p. 483; Rodrigues 1988, passim; Gonzalez- crucifix) are in the Roman Baroque known workshops, judging from the
have been identified that were Palacios 1993, passim; Montagu 1996, passim tradition, given a lighter feel by the quantity of works that survive, the
undoubtedly part of the same silver- addition of flowers, shells, and pierced fact that at the master's death the
gilt service as the teapot. Like this, work, symmetrically arranged. (There workshop counted around twenty
they are engraved with a cardinal's is a group of gilt-bronze candlesticks workers, and that fact that the dynasty
crest, that of the papal family of Carafa. very similar to these in the basilica of of craftsmen founded by him contin-
It is very likely that the crest is that of S. Marco in Rome, donated by ued to be active until the late nine-

Cardinal Pierluigi Carafa, created car- Clement XIII [1758-69] towards the teenth century.
dinal in 1728. He was an important end of his pontificate for the Cappella Besides the works executed for the
figure who was later highly influential del Beato Gregorio Barbarigo, built in King of Portugal exhibited here,

al the conclave of Benedict XIV in 1765.) The Mass cards are in a freer another ewer with a basin (Museo di

DECORATIVE ARTS
72

Palazzo Venezia, Rome), bearing the in silver and bronzework that first response to a request from the chapel of the bulgesupported by two angels
coat of arms of Cardinal Francesco developed in Rome in the seventeenth administrator. Now the last two docu- and three medallions representing
Antamoro, is particularly worthy of century. These are works of unprece- ments do not coincide with the first, Christian symbols: specifically, the
mention, [rv] dented artistic quality, never sur- because they specify a larger number Passion and Purity; Christ and the
bibliography Bulgari 1958-74. vol. I,
passed in Italy. Although on the one of pieces" (Viterbo and DAlameida, Virgin: and Faith and Justice. On the
p. 126; Scttcccnto 1959, nos. 2095-96; Palazzo hand these objects faithfully reflect a p. 27).Some of these silver items were handle are stylized floral elements
Braschi, Rome. Aigenti romani it trc sccoli nelle transitional period when the first returned, but it is not known what entwined with a graceful female
raaolte private. Rome: De Luca. 1970. p. 19; hints of a Neoclassical visual language became of others, such as, for figure. The basin is oval in form, with
Honour 1971, Goldsmiths, pp. 199-201; Tesori
were startingto emerge, on the other example, two cruets in silver-gilt also a polylobate rim around which repre-
d'arte 1975, p. 143; Faranda, Franco. Argentieri
hand they clearly embrace an inspira- made by the goldsmith Vincenzo Belli. sentations of angels alternate with the
e argenteria sacra in Romagna: dal nu- Jioevo al
XVIII secolo. Rimini. Italy: Luise, 1990, p. 219
tion drawn from the great genius of The design of this particular ewer is figures of the four Evangelists. The
the Baroque —
Gianlorenzo Bernini classical in appearance, with the royal central area has a decorative border
(Montagu 1996, p. 180). arms of King John V on the lower part composed of volutes, garlands of
Even though the St. John the Baptist
73 Chapel treasury comprises a magnifi-
cent collection, it is no longer as
Vincenzo Belli
opulent as when it was first assem-
Ablution Set: Ewer and Basin bled. Various pieces are missing,

c. 1745
including some of great importance
Engraved silver-gilt
not only for their artistic value but

Ewer 8" x 1 2" x 5/2" (30 x 20 x 14 cm); also for the value of their raw material.
Basin 17" x n'/," (43 x 54 cm) The main reason for these gaps in the

provenance Museu de Sao Roque, collection can be found in the French

Santa Casa da Misericordia, Lisbon, army's intervention in Portugal and
St. John the Baptist Chapel Collection the decree of February t, 1808. order-
exhibition Lisbon, Pavilhao da Santa Se ing the Portuguese churches and reli-
da Expo '98. Fons vitac, 1998 gious bodies to hand over their silver
bibliography Rodrigues 1988, p. 152; to the Mint. The records of the Mint
Viterbo and DAlmeida 1997. p. ji
reveal that on February 15, 1808, there
Santa Casa da Misericordia, de Lisboa,
was, "a note of the silver [pieces] deliv-
Museu de Sao Roque, Lisbon
ered there that came from the chapel
of St. john the Baptist, but shortly
The works in metal belonging to the afterwards there was a notice dated
St. [ohn the Baptist Chapel Collection March 26 ordering them to be pre-
in the church of S. Roque. Lisbon, served andlater, on October 4,

mark the end of the Baroque tradition another notice concerning the

DECORATIVE ARTS 185

flowers, festoons of laureland acan-
thus, vine leaves,bunches of grapes,
and ears of corn. This frames two oval
medallions and two cartouches repre-
senting the Miracle of the Loaves and
Fishes, the Risen Christ Appearing to
Mary Magdalene, Saint John
Preaching in the Desert, and Saint
Peter Receiving the Keys of Heaven.
The finest silversmiths of the day
were contracted to fill the large and
sumptuous order placed for the
St. John the Baptist Chapel Collection
in the church of S. Roque, namely
Giuseppe Gagliardi, Antonio Gigli,
and Vincenzo Belli. Belli, who is con-
sidered one of the most exceptional
Italian goldsmiths of the eighteenth
century, founded a dynasty of silver-
smiths that remained celebrated until
the middle of the following century
(Nuna Silva, Fons vitae [Lisbon, 1998],

p. 110). 74

The goldsmith received 976 escudos

and 27 bajocos for this set. of which 128 attributed to Vendetti. They include a taken from Brazil, Portugal enjoyed a provides evidence of the king's vigor-
escudos were for the silver, plus an chalice in the church of S. Spirito in period of great ostentation and mag- ous interest in all kinds of artistic and
additional 8 escudos and 27 bajocos, with Sassia, in Rome. The Diario Ordinario nificence in every sphere of life, intellectual expression.
180 escudos for the gilding and 660 for by Chracas recorded on May 17 1749, including religious worship. Imbued The set of artifacts exhibited here,
his workmanship. The case to accom- a new censer made by Vendetti in the with this spirit, King John V was a par- the designs of which were approved
pany the silverware cost 10 escudos. shape of a temple for the bishop of ticularly ostentatious monarch, open in 1745, is made up of three Mass cards
Belli also made two cruets with a dish Braga in Portugal, [rv] to the influence of other European that were commissioned in Rome in
in silver-gilt, which unfortunately bibliography Bulgari 1958-74. vol. 2. courts, especially the French court of about 1742 and arrived in Lisbon on
have not survived to the present day p. 253; Tesori d'anc 1975, p. 133; Louis XIV, with which he was September 1, 1747. The central Mass
(Viterbo and DAlmeida, p. 32). [tm] Montagu 1996, pp. 166-68 fascinated. card, traditionally known as the Great
The Italian St. John the Baptist Mass Card, has an elegant rectangular
Chapel was brought to Portugal frame and a medallion in low relief on
ANTONIO VENDETTI 74 accompanied by a fabulous treasure the architrave that depicts the institu-

COTTANELLO, ITALY 1699-1796 of liturgical objects comprising items tion of the Eucharist with the sym-
Antonio Vendetti
ROME worked in gold and sets of vestments bolic figures of Aaron and
Set of Mass Cards in a variety of colors as well as lace Melchizedek, flanked in turn by the
Between 1713 and 1717 Vendetti was Central Mass Card 25" x 21" x 4" and books. The king's decision to theological virtues Charity and Hope.
employed in the workshop of (64 x 54.5 x 10 cm); Gospel Mass Card proceed with this commission was There is an allegorical depiction of
Giovanni Francesco Arrighi (a member 17X" x 14" x iYi" (45 x 35.5 x 7 cm); partly due to his great admiration for Faith seated on a throne on the upper
of one of the most renowned families Epistle Mass Card 18" x 14" x 2X" the Society of Jesus, an order whose part, flanked in turn by allegories
of Roman silversmiths in the seven- (45.5 x 35-5 x 7 cm) house he visited frequently. The depicting the pontificate and the
teenth and eighteneenth centuries). c 1745 Italian priest Father Carbone, who Church. This ensemble is decorated
He obtained his master's certificate Chased, cast, and engraved silver-gilt exercised great influence at court in with eucharistic symbols composed
(patente) in 1737 and setup in via del provenance Museu de Sao Roque, both religious and worldly matters, of grapes and wheat. The bottom of
Santa Casa da Misericordia, Lisbon,
Pellegrino, a street in which by tradi- was entrusted with the task of over- the text, which is engraved on a silver
St. John the Baptist Chapel collection
tion the majority of silversmiths' work- seeing the project and immediately plaque, is adorned with the
exhibitions Rome 1990, Lusitana,
shops were concentrated. In the 1740s began to correspond with Portugal's Portuguese royal arms surrounded by
cat. no. 86; Brussels 1991, cat. no. 1168;
Vendetti held important positions charge d'affaires in Rome, the angels, volutes, and cherubim.
Lisbon 1993, cat. no. 1168
within the Congregation of Goldsmiths Comendador Manuel Pereira de The Gospel Mass card is also sur-
BIBLIOGRAPHY Bulgari, 1958-74, vol. 2,
and later moved his workshop to the Rodrigues 1988, pp. 111-19; Montagu Sampajo, to whom he gave the main rounded by a rectangular frame with
p. 523;
prosperous Banco di S. Spirito district, 1996, pp. 166-67; Viterbo and DAlmeida instructions with regard to how the the text engraved on a white silver
near Castel S. Angelo. In 1756 two of 1997, p- 34 scheme was to be carried out. The aim plaque. The central medallion, which
his colleagues confirmed, in connection Santa Casa da Misericordia. de Lisboa of this minutely detailed correspon- crowns the text, represents Saint John
with his provision of liturgical vessels Museu de Sao Roque. Lisbon dence, begun on October 26, 1742, was the Evangelist flanked by putti with
for John V of Portugal, was not
that he to lay down guidelines for the Roman the Paschal Lamb above him, and the
able to design or model the works This set of three Mass cards forms artists to follow in their work. All the symbol of God at the top. At the
himself, but had access to other crafts- part of the majestic collection of litur- preliminary sketches and designs were extremities of the upper register there
men in case of necessity. Three years gical objects commissioned in Rome submitted for the approval of the are figures of prophets proffering
later Vendetti gave up his workshop in the third quarter of the eighteenth Portuguese court, which stage they
at mystical vessels. The pelican appears
to a silversmithfrom Perugia, but he century to adorn the celebrated were sometimes amended. The opinion in the lower medallion, which is also
seems, despite his advanced age, to St.John the Baptist Chapel in the of the architect Joao Frederico flanked by angels. The remaining dec-
have resumed work suddenly, with church of S. Roque in Lisbon. Ludovique also had a strong influence orations are dominated by cherubim,
his son Angelo, in 1781, moving to via The John the Baptist Chapel is
St. on the project's general outline. shells, and garlands in the Rococo style.
Giulia,where he died at the age of a valuable example oi religious archi- This priceless heritage, which has The Epistle Mass card is identical in

nearly one hundred. tecture that bears witness to the great survived to the present day accompa- shape and depicts the Lord of the
Apart from his two sets of mass economic prosperity Portugal experi- nied by a valuable collection of works Green Branch (or Aaron's rod) flanked
cards (cartaglorie) from Lisbon, which enced during the reign of King John V, of art, withstood the 175s earthquake by putti and crowned by the New
remain his most important works, "the Magnanimous." Thanks to an that destroyed a number of monu- Testament scene of Pilate Washing
only a few objects can still be definitely abundance ol gold and precious stones ments of King John V's reign. It now His Hands, which is depicted in the

DECORATIVE ARTS
 GIOVANNI BATTISTA LUIGI VALADIER
PIRANESI ROME 1726-1785 ROME
MOGLIANO DI MESTRE 172O-I778
ROME Luigi Valadier was the son of Andrea
For biography see Prints section Valadier, a Frenchman who had
settled in Rome in 1714; there he
learned the silversmith's art. In 1732

75 Andrea owned a workshop in the

Piazza S. Luigi dei Francesi, and in

Giovanni Battista Piranesi
1744 made some bronze railings for
Design for Sconces the patriarchal church in Lisbon.

c. 1769
Some of the payments relating to this

Red chalk over black chalk on paper

commission were signed by the young
Luigi, evidently already involved in his
g'A" x s'A" (23.3 x 13.2 cm)
father's business. Together they made
bibliography Gonzalez-Palacios 1984,
fig. 263; Wilton-Ely 1993. fig. 120 a set of gilt-bronze candlesticks for

The Pierpont Morgan Library. New York the church of S. Apollinare in 1748
and, two years later, some of the
bronze fittings for the papal altar of
On bottom left of the page is a
the S. Maria Maggiore. same year
In the
sconce with two arms arranged to Luigi was awarded a prize in the
resemble three stems tied with a Concorso Clementino for an architec-
ribbon, the middle of which is the tural drawing. In 1754 he seems to
stem of an open The other two
rose. have been in Paris to perfect his skills
sketches show sconces with three and as a goldsmith, but must have
four almost identical arms shaped like returned to Rome in 1756, when he
twiggy branches rising out of horns of married the daughter of the sculptor
plenty. As Wilton-Ely noted, the Filippo della Valle.
drawing at the bottom right is a After his father's death in 1759,
preparatory sketch for the sconce pic- Valadier managed the workshop with
tured top left in a plate of the famous his brother Giovanni. In the early 1760s
Diverse maniere d'adornare i cammini, he began to work for the Borghese
which Piranesi published in 1769 and princes, who subsequently gave him
which also shows a console table sup- regular commissions. He made the
ported by fantastic beasts. Two exam- bronze decorations for the altar of the
ples of this table are still in existence, Borghese Chapel in S. Maria Maggiore,
one at the Minneapolis Institute of including the set of Mass cards that
Arts and another in the Rijksmuseum can still be seen there. In 1764 he
in Amsterdam. At the base of this obtained his silversmith's patent. He
engraving is the following note: "This separated from his brother and moved
tableand other decorative works to be Between 1760 and
to via del Babuino.
found scattered throughout this 1764 he was commissioned for three
volume are to be seen in the apart- large chandeliers for the sanctuary of
ments of His Excellency Monsig'. Santiago de Compostela. In 1766 and
a
D. Gio. Batt. Rezzonico, nephew 1767 he made the gilt metal fittings for
and steward to His Holiness Pope a new apartment in the Palazzo Chigi,
Clement XIII." It may therefore be pre- recently redecorated by Giovanni
75 sumed that the piece was made with Stern: embellishments to the mirrors
the intention that it would be used in in the Salone d'Oro —garlands of
central medallion above the text. the St. John the Baptist Chapel collec- the furnishing of apartments for the flowers spilling over on to the
At the top there are representations tion was put on display to the public nephew of Pope Clement XIII in his plinth — the decoration of two fire-
of the Sun and Moon and figures of for the first time; they are now in the capacity of steward to the pontiff. As places, firedogs, wall lights, door fur-
archangels appear at the extremities Museu S. Roque. The set of silver-gilt the pope's steward, Monsignor niture, fittings for marble tabletops,
of the upper register. The phoenix mass cards was intended for use Rezzonico had to live in one of the and other decorative features. For the
appears in the lower medallion, which during Mass on high days and holi- papal palaces, but he later moved to Chigi he also made other items in
is also flanked by angels. The remain- days, while the gilt-bronze set was for the Palazzo Senatorio on the silver, now dispersed, including a
ing decorations follow the same low Masses. Capitoline Hill, where his brother dressing-table set and one for a
outline as in the previous pieces. The Although there is no doubt that this Abbondio, a senator, lived (Clark 1965). writing desk. In i~68 he was responsi-
ensemble is dominated by a distinctly work was executed by Vendetti, evi- There is nothing elsewhere in ble for the (still surviving) silver
architectural structure in which the dence of other goldsmiths shows that Piranesi's graphic work that resembles ornaments for the altar of Monreale
language of the Baroque, now Vendetti never executed any works of these sketches for wall lights, natural- Cathedral, including low reliefs and
showing clear signs of exhaustion, great importance or magnificence but istically designed to look like almost large statues. His reputation with
combines harmoniously with the first confined himself to minor pieces. In leafless branches; however, as pointed foreign clients in these years is con-
symptoms of Neoclassical influence. fact, owing to his inability to draw and out by Gonzalez-Palacios, there is a firmed by a commission for a church
The goldsmiths made a set of silver- model, he resorted whenever necessary similarity here with designs by Luigi in Mexico (1767): a silver ostensory
gilt Mass cards for the St. John the to designs and models executed by spe- Valadier for certain works for the with twelve thousand white topazes,
Baptist Chapel for 3,515 escudos and 17 cialists, such as Luigi Landinetti and Salone d'Oro in the Palazzo Chigi, followed a year later by candles! icks
bajocos (the cases for which, now lost, Lorenzo Morelli (Bulgari 1958-74, vol. 2, where the silversmiths and founder and chalices decorated in similar style.
apparently cost 18 escudos), and p. 523). There are also references to the prepared naturalistic decoration for Meanwhile, he was casting replicas
another set in gilt-bronze for 1,208 fact that this work received a number the mirrors (sec Gonzalez-Palacios of antique statues for the Puke of
escudos and 20 bajocos. On August 15, of alterations, and that the goldsmith 1997, Valadier, p. 22). [rv] Northumberland (1^65. now at Syon
1898, they were exhibited in the sac- replaced over twenty-three pieces House), and in i"2 he supplied the
risty of the church of S. Roque when (Montagu 1996, pp. 168, 245). (tm) bronze fittings for a Carlo Albacini

DECORATIVE ARTS
 —

76

fireplace for Penrice Castle, the resi- he was working on two of the four There are various drawings from 77
dence of Thomas Manse! Talbot. In cabinets for the Vatican Museo the workshop of Luigi Valadier and
Luigi Valadier
the same year he cast the statue of Profano, intended to display archaeo- his son Giuseppe (mostly belonging to
Saint /olm the Baptist for the baptistry logical finds. In 1783 he completed a the Museo Municipale in Faenza and Design for a Dressing Table
of St. John Lateran. The following year centerpiece (now in the Louvre) for the Artemis Group in London) featur-
Service
he cast scaled-down bronze versions the pope's nephew Duke Braschi, and ing designs for Mass cards, but until
of the Apollo Belvedere and the was working on a grandiose silver now only one of these has been identi- 1765-70

Callipigian Venus, for Madame du dinner service for Prince Borghese, fied with an actual surviving work inscription Scala di palmi 4 di Passetto

(with various other inscriptions

Barry in Paris (see cat. 80). the appearance of which can be part of the liturgical equipment for
to indicate the objects)
In the early 1770s he received even reconstructed from the many surviv- the Borghese Chapel, which Prince
Pen, brown ink, gray and light blue washes
more orders from the Borghese ing workshop drawings. He commit- Borghese ordered from Luigi Valadier
on paper
family. Although the many items of which possibly
ted suicide in 1785, in 1762 (Gonzalez-Palacios 1997,
ii/4" x 16'A" (30.3 x 40.9 cm)
gold- and silverware have been lost, suggests that, despite its extraordinary Valadier, nos. 33-34).
exhibitions Florence and London 1991,
the castings he made for the remod- activity and prestigious commissions, This drawing is more akin to another
no. Rome
cat. 81; 1997, Valadier, cat. no. 73
eled Palazzo Borghese have survived: his business had run into difficulties. sheet from the same collection, attrib-
bibliography Gonzalez-Palacios 1993,
the head of Bacchus for a marble The workshop nevertheless continued uted to Giovanni Bettati (c. 1700-1777), fig. 418
herm, and bronze adornments for in production under his son featuring two designs for a Mass card, Private collection
tables of precious marble. He also Giuseppe, [rv] which has many similarities with the
restored and modified a celebrated bibliography Gonzalez-Palacios 1997,
one displayed here (Winter 1991, fig. 4).
table supported by bronze figures Valadier, with previous bibliography Giovanni Bettati was a silversmith and The scale at the bottom indicates that
designed by Alessandro Algardi. ornament maker who must have had the longer sides of the dressing table,
Valadier's production during this connections with Luigi Valadier which is shown with rounded corners,
decade was and very varied,
prolific 76 (among the Valadiers' papers are some are roughly three feet in length. The
evidencing the Europe-wide reputa- sixty sheets of drawings done by inscriptions are as follows: Spechio in
Workshop of Luigi Valadier
workshop employing large
tion of a Bettati). He is also known to have acted due eontorni da ealarc c alzare ("a mirror
numbers of artisans skilled in differ- Design for a Mass Card as a consultant in various controver- with two shapes of frame to be raised
ent techniques, including marble and
c. 1760
sies surrounding the liturgical items and lowered" — that is to say, the frame
pictra dura work. In 1777 he completed
Pencil, pen, and brown ink with light blue
made by the Roman silversmith is shown in two different
effectively
the bronze and silver lamps for Lord wash on paper Antonio Vendetti for the chapel of forms and comes to be shaped on a
Arundel that can still be seen at 19/4" x 25/s" (50 x 65.7 cm) St. John the Baptist in the church of piece of stuck-down paper, so it can
Wardour Castle, and in 1778 com- provenance Artemis Group. London S. Roque in Lisbon, commissioned be lifted): immediately to left and
posed a centerpiece for a table that
Philadelphia Museum of Art, Purchased by John V. It is therefore interesting right are two seatole p polvereple mani
attracted a great deal of attention: it with the ). Stogdell Stokes Fund tocompare this design with Bettati's ("boxes for powder for the hands")
included scale models of ancient drawings and the Mass cards made by and twogaraje p aquc di odore ("ewers
buildings and obelisks made of rare Vendetti for the Lisbon chapel, which for perfumed water") flanked by two
marbles, cups and sparkling embell- The Mass card rests on scroll feet seem to have been composed to a seatole grandi ("large boxes"). Below

ishments in gilt-bronze. This piece with cherubs, supporting a frame similar architectural design, featuring these items are two cornucopi da alzare
was acquired by the Knight- with curved sides that widens out a pediment, aedicule, and putti crown- c ealarc ("chandeliers, which may be
( immander de Breteuil and, on
( his towards the top, and is surmounted ing a similar, albeit more rigid, flared raised or lowered") and between them
death, sold in Paris to the King of by a broken pediment. Festooned structure (cat. 74). [rv] a scatola c euscino p le spille ("pinbox and

Spain (it is still in the Palacio Real in cherubs uphold the swelling sides of cushion"). On either side of the pinbox
Madrid). 1 lonored in 1779 with the the frame, while freestanding putti are two seifetto ("trays"), seatole p fettuecc

title of Cavaliere by the Pope, who also with palm leaves are seated on the e altro ("boxes for ribbons and other
appointed him superintendent of reversed corbels on the top of the side items"), and a scatola p scopcttini c scopetta
cameos in the papal museums (some pieces of the pediment, which rises in ("box for brushes"), separated by two
' 'I this 1
1 illei in in is now in the Louvre), the middle to form an aedicule with stuccio ("cases") and a coltcllino con altri p
in that year he exhibited a scale replica the risen Christ in an oval at the la polvcre ("small knife, with others, for
of Trajan's Column (Schatzkammer. center. At the base is another plaque powder"). In the bottom row, in the

Munich) and four casts of ancient depicting a pelican, a symbol of center, are two scijetti phi grandi ("larger
statues for the ( bmtc d'Orsay. In 1781 Christ. trays"), with between them a scatola p

I XX DI.COK ATI VI-. ARTS

mosconi ("box for beauty spots") and This service is kept in a brass-studded
two spolettep nodetti ("spools"). On black leather case with brass fittings,

either side is the circular shape of a lined with blue velvet. Only recently
pianino con bicchiere p sciaquare ("small identified by Renato Ruotolo, it is
plate with rinsing glass") and the rec- clearly one of the finest works by Luigi
tangular shape of a scatola mezzana Valadier. The gilding is of excellent
("medium-sized box"). Below these are quality and is in perfect condition; each
spaces for garafe ("ewers"). In the bottom detail of the decoration is particularly

left is a scrivania con suoi pezzi ("small fine, with motifs ranging from themes
desk and inkstand") and. in the bottom typical of Louis XVI, such as ribbons 78 (chalice) 78 (ewer)

right, a cabare con bichiere c chicara per and garlands, to Rococo elements.
cocolata inguisa di digiune ("tray with Drawings by Luigi Valadier in unknown location (for example, there zling career, receiving all kinds of
glass and cup for chocolate"). London and Faenza include several are two sheets at Wardour containing honors. He was always a favorite of
The collection of drawings from the designs that are connected with this models that are very reminiscent of his sovereign, who became in 1759
Valadier workshop also includes indi- pontifical service. The drawings are the Muro Lucano ewer and basin). Charles III of Spain, and of the minis-
vidual illustrations of the various types not exactly preparatory studies for the There is some doubt whether all the ter Tanucci and of the new king of
of object grouped together here. It is pieces on display, but there are certain components of the service can be Naples, the very young Ferdinand IV.
evident that, in the mid-eighteenth similarities. First and foremost, a dated to the same year. As the crafts- for whom he acted as ambassador in
century, a sumptuous dressing table sheet in Faenza, signed and dated manship is of oustanding quality and Rome. His role was instrumental in

service of this kind comprised a wide Rome, 1779, shows a basin, ewer, precision, it is somewhat surprising several conclaves, particularly in 1769,
range of items, more in number and spoon, and bell with religious motifs. that there should be a lack of consis- when Clement XIV was made pope.
variety than are found in comparable The bowl and spoon bear little rela- tency in some of the less important Orsini died in the conclave of 1789.
services from the Baroque period (see tion to the service from Muro Lucano, motifs, which should be identical As cardinal deacon, he was not allowed
the description of the silver dressing —
but the ewer and the bell in particu- throughout. For example, while the to celebrate Mass, and it is not known
table service owned by Maria Mancini. lar — are almost identical. This discov- bases of the pyx and chalice are identi- when he was ordained: this date would
niece of Cardinal Mazarin, who in 1661 ery is important not only because it cal (in various sections with garlands certainly be of assistance in determin-
married Prince Colonna, in Eduard A. throws light on the techniques used of vegetation in the centre of each ing exactly when the Muro Lucano
Safarik, The Colonna Collection of by Valadier, but also because it helps section), the bases of the pax and service was made. Also significant for
Paintings: Inventories. 1611-1795 [Munich: to date these wonderful pieces. The stoup are different; moreover, the the dating is the fact that the Orsini
K.G. Saur, 1996], p. 380). There is doc- drawing is detailed and complete, and cruets have yet another decorative arms in these pieces are surmounted
umentary evidence of a large service though it was probably a design for motif of pointed leaves, a theme that by the canopy and keys of Saint Peter,
of this kind made by Luigi Valadier for another service, it must also have also appears on the central section of symbols of the scde vacanle or interreg-
Princess Chigi in 1767, costing the vast been used for the Muro Lucano pieces. may suggest that the
the bell. This num, with the cross of the order of
sum of more than 700 scudi (Gonzalez- Other drawings at the Pinacoteca items were made at different times, for San Gennaro below, [agp]
Palacios 1997, Valadier, p. 24). [rv ]
Civica in Faenza show an oval and a reasons that have not yet been estab-
circular salver for one set. The latter lished. The chalice, pax, and pyx seem
even has the same armorials, which to be slightly earlier than the bell and
78 appear on several of the other pieces ewer. However, these factors are not
in the service: the reed and leaf deco- necessarily indicative, as chronology
Luigi Valadier
rations of the border in exquisite and style are not always consistent in

Pontifical Service same in the

Neoclassical style are the Luigi Valadier's work.

c.
beautifully executed works on a par- Ruotolo has established that this
1779
All items bear both stamps of Valadier tially engraved ground. Even if these princely set belonged to Cardinal

Silver-gilt
sheets at Faenza correspond exactly to Domenico Orsini, who (as Moroni
Two plates, diameter 10/:" (26.5 cm): ewer,
the silver service, in other drawings in reveals in his biography [Moroni
height 11X" (jo cm); salver, diameter 16//' London and in a private collection the 1840-61, vol. 49, pp. 171-72]) was the
(42 cm); salver, diameter 12X" (32.5 cm); model appears less well defined. One grand-nephew of Pope Benedict XIII
paten, diameter 1'/" (9 cm); chalice, height of these is a preliminary study for the and was born in Naples in 1^19 into
11 V" (28.5 cm); bell, height 4/2" (11.5 cm); cruets, and in part, for the ewer. the family of theDukes of Gravina.
cruets, height iV" (6 cm); stoup, height
Another sheet is a preliminary Cardinal Orsini was awarded the
Wf (11 cm); holy-water sprinkler, height
study for the stoup, and is perhaps order of San Gennaro, created by
8%" (22.5 cm); pyx. height 8 '/" (21.5 cm);
67" even more beautiful than the end Charles ol Bourbon: after the death ol
pax. height (17.5 cm)
bihi 10CRAPHY Bulgari 1950-74 nos.
product; the decoration of reeds in the his wife (a member of the Odescalchi
1055-56; Ruotolo, R. Argenti in Basilicata.
central panel ismore detailed and the family), Orsini was made a cardinal

Rome: Salerno. 1994, pp. 58-61; Gonzalez- shape ol the handle more naturalistic. deacon by Benedict XI V in 174?, as a
Palacios 1997, ViilaJicr, cat. no. 55 It appears highly likely that several I! ibule in Ucncdii 1 \II1. who had been
Cattcdrale di Mum Lucano, Tursi (Matera), studies were made for the final version, his pi oiei tor and made him a cardinal.
Italy
and may still exist today, in some Cardinal Orsini embarked on a daz-

DECORATIVE ARTS
 —

worth adding that Michael was arch- 80

bishop of Gniezno, not Krakow,
Luigi Valadier and/or
though he was responsible for the
affairs of the Krakow diocese during Giuseppe Valadier
the illness of the incumbent).
Apollo Belvedere, Callipigian
Michael Poniatowski (1736-1794),
younger brother of the King of Poland, Venus
visited Rome in became primate
1754, Late eighteenth century
of Poland in 1784, and was appointed Patinated bronze
archbishop of Gniezno in February Height Apollo: 40X4" (103.5 cm);
1785. In 1789 he made another journey Venus: 39/4" (101 cm)
to Italy, arriving in Rome in December Private collection
and staying there for a time before
moving on to Naples. Chracas's Diorio
GIUSEPPE VALADIER enamel backgrounds, against which Ordinario for February 20, 1790 (n. 1580, These scaled-down replicas of famous
ROME 1762-1839 ROME are placed bas-reliefs — the Sermon in p. 15), reports his arrival in the city and classical sculptures (the Apollo stands

For biography see Architecture section the Garden, the Meeting with Veronica, records some of his doings, including in the Belvedere Courtyard in the
and the Lament over the Dead Christ visits to the Vatican Library and the Vatican, hence name, while the
its

surmounted by pairs of putti. The Museo Pio-Clementino. He stayed Callipigian Venuswas originally in the
79 stem is composed of an oval knop until the following May. Farnese collection in Rome and is now
between two narrowing bottlenecks. Assuming that the chalice did in fact in the Museo Nazionale in Naples)
Luigi Valadier and/or
The different sections are separated by belong to Michael Poniatowski, it is were cast in Luigi Valadier's workshop
Giuseppe Valadier further rows of beading. On the knop, impossible to say at present whether it in Rome. Valadier made a number of
plaques depicting Christ, the Virgin, was given to him in Warsaw, when he copies of both works. For example, a
Chalice and Paten
and Saint John on enamel backgrounds was appointed primate in 1784, when version of the Venus, smaller in size
c. 1785-90 are accompanied by vine leaves. The he was made archbishop in 1785, or than this and gilded, fashioned in 1773
Silver-gilt, lapis lazuli, and enamel cup is similarly decorated with fes- whether he received it during his visit and now in the Metropolitan Museum
Chalice: height 9/4" (25 cm): paten: toons. The upper part is smooth, while to Rome in February-May 1790. In the in New York, adorns a candelabrum
diameter 5X" (14.8 cm)
the lower part is adorned with plaques latter case, the chalice would have from the Palazzo Borghese (Gonzalez-
provenance Michael Poniatowski (?),
similar to those of the base, sur- been made by Giuseppe Valadier, who Palacios 1997, Valadier, no. 27), while a
Countess Tyskiewicz, Prince Talleyrand
mounted by fluttering putti. The reliefs had been running work-
his father's full-size version of the Apollo (there-
exhibitions Paris 1994, cat. no. 12; Rome
depict Christ Washing the Disciples' shop for the previous five years and fore much
larger than the one exhib-
1997, Valadier, cat. no. 38
Feet, the Sacrifice of Isaac, and the continued to use his father's silver- was made in 1780 for the
ited here)
BIBLIOGRAPHY Bottineau. Yves. Muxe dc
Supper at Emmaus. The piece bears smith's stamp. Comte d'Orsay (now in the Musee du
Louvre ct Musce de Cluny: Catalogue dc
lorfevrehc du XV/ Je, du XVille. et du XIX siecle.
Luigi Valadier's stamp. The chalice should be compared Louvre, Paris).

Paris: Editions des Musees Nationaux, 1958, The only clue to the history of this with a drawing from the Valadier After Luigi Valadier's death, the
no. 347; Busiri Vici 1972, Poniatowski, pi. 39; sacred artifact, traditionally known as workshop papers (the part of the col- workshop was run by his son Giuseppe,
Gonzalez-Palacios 1984, fig. 236 the Poniatowski Chalice, is a card that lection kept at the Museo Civico in who in 1810 drew up a registro of his
Musce du Louvre, Paris, Dcpartemcnt des accompanied it when it was donated Faenza), which exhibits similar design entire stock. The Apollo and the Venus
Objets d'art to the Louvre in 1930. The card states features, in particular the bas-relief are both mentioned several times in
that the piece was presented to Prince medallions. Another drawing from the this long document, as he owned

The chalice stands on a circular base, Joseph Poniatowski, archbishop of collection, now in London, depicts a models and finished versions of several
the sides of which are formed of a Krakow and primate of Poland, by ciborium with base and cover adorned sizes, made of various materials.
concave molding between two rows Pius VI, and subsequently passed to with circular bas-relief plaques The pieces exhibited here arc almost
of lapis lazuli beads separated by Stanislas Poniatowski, King of Poland. Hanked by pairs of putti. [rv] identical to a pair in the Louvre, which
gilded elements. Around the base are This statement contains an error, in were made by Luigi Valadier in 1773.

three small plaques with shallow that the primate of Poland was The Louvre bronzes (Gonzalez-
arc her and translucent dark blue Michael Poniatowski, not Joseph (it is Palacios 1997, Valadier, no. 48) were

190 DECORATIVE. ARTS

 —

a certain disposition towards lavish, 82

profuse forms. Two examples that can
Vincenzo Coaci
be dated to the 1770s include a chalice
by Bartolomeo Boroni in the basilica Inkstand in the Form of the
of S. Paolo fuori le Mura (Tesori d'arte
Quirinal Monument, with
1975, no. 223), and one in Forli

Cathedral, made in Rome by Antonio Leather Case

Vendetti around 1765 (Franco Faranda, 1792
Argentieri c argenteria sacra in Romagna: Inscriptions Vincentis Coacius fecit Roma
da\ medioevo a\ XV/// secolo [Rimini, 1792 and Vincenco Coaci Argentierc
Italy: Luise, 1990], no. 132). The latter Silver, silver-gilt, lapis lazuli, and marble;
example displays the same formal leather case with gold tooling

arrangement as the Cardinal Pamphili 26//' x 20/2" x 14/4" (67.9 x 52.1 x 37.5 cm)
chalice, [rv] exhibition London 1972. cat. no. 1753

bibliography Parsons 1969 (with

previous bibliography)
VINCENZO COACI The Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Gift of
The Morse Foundation
MONTALBODDO 1756-1704 ROME

A native of a village near Senigallia in This group of the Quirinal Monument

the Marches, Vincenzo Coaci is docu- on a base supported by sphinxes
mented in Rorpe in 1782. Several con- stands on a plinth supported with
temporary sources record that he was foliar feet, garlands of pearls, and a
also active in Luigi Valadier's work- panoply at the front. One of the
shop. Disputes with the Roman gold- hidden drawers contains trompe l'oeil

smiths' guild, which judged his engravings of Coaci's visiting card, an

silversmithing activities to be unlawful, archer from a print by Salvator Rosa, a
were resolved in 1783 with the granting musical score, and a scene showing a
of a master's certificate or patente. Little Rosone Antico nel Foro di Nerva. The
is known about his work, except for tooled leather case is in the form of a
the few pieces of information reported building with ramparts and crenel-
by Bulgari regarding disputes with the lated domes, with a column in the

Universita degli Argentieri and one of center.

his projects to reform the system of This extraordinary object is a
acquired by Louis XV's favorite, tions, with three sides defined by refining gold and silver. It seems that reduced-scale version in precious
Madame du Barry, through the archi- architectural elements and additional Coaci's son Achille carried on the materials of the obelisk erected in
tect Charles de Wailly in Rome. The cherubs, shells, and other symbols business, after Vincenzo's rather pre- front of the Palazzo del Quirinale by
pieces on display here may be slightly alluding to Christ. The upper part of mature death, in a workshop near the the architect Giovanni Antinori
later in date, toward the end of the the chalice is plain and supported by a Palazzo Ercolani; the Ercolani family between the two colossal statues of
eighteenth century, but the magnifi- cup ornamented like the base. On the had protected and supported the Dioscuri, which had been stand-
cent patinas and the excellence of the underside of the support is an engrav- Vincenzo in his youth. ing on thefor centuries. The
hill

castings are indicators that they also ing of the Pamphili family coat of arms Among Vincenzo Coaci's known obelisk came from the Mausoleum
came from the Valadier workshop. with a cardinal's hat. The leather case works is a chalice in the treasury of of Augustus, near the Tiber, and was
Note the correction on the left side is tooled in gold; the inside is lined in the basilica of S. Maria Maggiore, with taken to the papal palace on the
of the Apollo, intended to enhance the light blue velvet with narrow golden putti executed in the round on the orders of Pius VI. Antinori made some
surface of the bronze, which dates braid. It mark
bears a heavy S-shaped base and a stem in the shape of a cir- preliminary designs in 1782, while the
from the period when the statuette and the stamp of the city of Rome. cular small temple. This is fairly stonecutter Giuseppe Giovannelli
was made, [agp] The craftsman's mark affixed on similar to one kept in the treasury of completed the necessary restoration
the chalice appears to identify it as St. Peter's that is said to have been the work. In 1786, after the giant statues
work of Pietro Scirman, a silversmith gift of the Marchese Ercolani to Pope had been placed in a more suitable
8l active in Rome who became licensed Pius VII, as well as to another in position on either side of the ancient
to practice as goldsmith in 1772 Ravenna Cathedral, [rv] Egyptian obelisk, the work was almost
Pietro Scirman
(Bulgari 1958-74, vol. 2, p. 590). At bibliography Bulgari 1958-74, vol. 1, complete, though the large basin in
Chalice with Leather Case that time the only cardinal who could p. 299; Palazzo Bracshi, Rome. Argenti oriental granite from the Campo
wear the Pamphili arms was Pietro romani di tre sccoli ncllc raccolte private. Rome: Vaccino (which figured in Antinori's
1772-80?
Colonna, son of the prince of the same De Luca. 1970, pp. 2?, 24; Tesori d'arte 1975, design) was not moved there until 1818
Chased, embossed, and gilded silver;
p. 90; Faranda, Franco. Argentieri e argenteria
leather case with gold tooling name, but who received the Pamphili by the architect Raffaele Stern
sacra in Romagna: da\ medioevo al XVIII secolo.
Height io/»" (27.5 cm); 12X" (32 cm) prelature that had been established in (D'Onofrio 1965, pp. 256-67, with pre-
Rimini. Italy: Luise. 1990. p. 234
with case his family since the preceding century vious bibliography).
provenance Cardinal Pietro Pamphili; (Moroni 1840-61, vol. 14, p. 309). Born A dispatch sent on December 8,
Schwarzcnberg princes in 1723, he became cardinal under 1787, by the minister of Lucca at the
Private collection Clement XIII in 1766 and died in 1780. Holy See, Lorenzo Prospero Bottini.
This exceptionalwork of craftsman- contains a description of a work
shipwas thus probably executed which may be the one exhibited here:
The base, the outline of which is between 1772 and the date of the car-
formed of complex curves, has a dinal's death. It still displays all the The silversmith Vincenzo Coaci
stepped profile broken by cherubs stylistic characteristics of taste typical . . . has completed by order from
shown in relief. Other cherubs shown of the height of the eighteenth century the Marchese Ercolani a superb
in full relief rest between scrolls that and is made with a delicate, refined inkstand, presented to His
stand out against an engraved back- engraving indicative of great skill. Holiness without the name of
ground and contain symbols of the Works of this type often continued the donor being known. This
Passion alternating with bands of vine to illustrate — in the early years of the silver object represents the new
tendrils. The stem is divided into sec- development of Neoclassical motifs obelisk and ils <>ian( statues.

1)1 t OK Al l\ I AK1\
 .

horses, fountain and other

details at the Quirinal,on the
same large scale as the plaster
model inside the base are
. . . . .

drawers for writing materials,

and simply by touching a lion's
head the two horses return to
their original position. The
whole work is executed with
great precision and skill and its

value is enhanced by the gilding

and base in lapis lazuli and the
decoration. (Giovanni Sforza,
"Episodi della storia di Roma
nel secolo XVIII," Archivio Storico
Italiano, 4th ser., vol. 20, no. 60
[1887], p. 426)

However, contrary to what has been

written by modern scholarship, the
inkstand was given to Pope Pius VI
not by the Marchese Ercolani but by
an anonymous donor not mentioned
in Bottini's dispatch. Ercolani was a
protector and patron of Vincenzo
Coaci, who mentioned him in his will
and inventory. Bottini's letter seems to
imply that Ercolani was not the donor,
merely the agent for another party.
On April 14, 1792, in his Diario

Ordinario, Chracas reports that

Vincenzo Coaci had finished a work
with (another) reduction of the
Montecavallo obelisk "made entirely
of silver, many parts gilded, in differ-

ent colors, with a base of lapis lazuli,

the whole work being an exact scale
replica of the original." In this version
it was also possible to move the horses

by pressing a lion's head, and the base

concealed different sections to
contain writing implements. On one
of the two pull-out shelves were seen
decorative papers engraved in the
silver. Chracas added that there were
"four sphinxes on the base . . . each
with a vase of flowers on its head and
when the vase is removed the
sphinxes can be used as candlesticks."
Another mechanism was set in
motion by a spring causing two flies
to move round the inkwell. 82 (case)

On publishing news of this object

when it was acquired by the Museum with adjacent fountains, still to any reference to Pius VI (as would be is presumably when he was making
of Minneapolis, Merribel Parsons be built. A similar model, already usual for such an important gift) or his first copies of ancient statues,
mentioned a chronological discrep- approved by His Holiness, could pre- the papal arms (only at the top of the which was the practice in the most
ancy between the two descriptions viously be seen in his antechamber." obelisk is the pope's heraldic device famous studios of sculptors in bronze,

of 1787 and 1792, but thought they It is hardly surprising that some rich visible; it corresponds, however, to such as those of Valadier, Righetti, and
referred to the same object. However, man would want to replace the stucco that represented on the actual ancient the Zoffoli. In a letter from Charles H.
the 1787 description does not mention or scagliola model in the pope's apart- obelisk), [agp] Tatham to Henry Holland (architect to

the sphinx "candlesticks" nor the fine ments with a similar but far more pre- the Prince of Wales) dated Rome July
engravings that decorate the drawer, cious version. 179s, the writer states that Boschi was
only stating that the inkstand was The report by Chracas of 1792 does GIUSEPPE BOSCHI being paid less for his figures and can-
given to Pius VI, which seems to cor- not mention whether the inkstand, ROME C. 1760-AFTER l821 ROME delabra (cat. 83) than Righetti and
respond to the date when the obelisk which is described in minute detail Valadier. though in support of the
was completed in 1786. An earlier dis- and (he date of which is identical to A founder and bronzeworker, Boschi quality of Boschi's work he quotes tes-
patch from lioitini (Sforza, p. 415 see the one exhibited here, was ever given is first recorded in 1783, when he won timonials by Angelika Kauffmann,
above) points out that on December to the pope. Thus, it seems likely that a prize at the Accademia di S. Luca for Antonio Canova, Ennio Quirino
31, 1785, Antinori had presented to a two inkstands were made that were a relief of Abraham with Thnx Angels. Visconti, and other influential figures
group of cardinals and ambassadors very similar but probably not identi- Roman sources record his work in in the art world. Also mentioned is a
"a model in scagliola of the obelisk to cal. This new theory appears credible 1786 in the parish of S. Andrea delle pendulum clock for Lady Spencer,
be erected in the Piazza del Quirinale because neither the Minneapolis mas- Fratte, in which he is described as a which has only recently been identi-

between two horses placed at an angle terpiece nor its magnificent case bears sculptor aged twenty-six. This period fied (Althorp, Earl Spencer Collection).

192 DECORATIVE ARTS

82 (inkstand)

ni:< orativi \ris

 At the same time Boschi was rises the fluted stone stem flanked at

working as a goldsmith, though he did the base by three storks. From it emerge
not have a license until 1806. In 1805 three arms with foliar motifs and a
he cast the bronzes for a table center- sconce in the form of a large bud.

piece commissioned by the Spanish These two candelabra (from a set

ambassador in Rome after models by of four and almost identical to another
the Catalan sculptor Damia Campeny pair at the Palazzo Pitti supported by
(Galleria Nazionale, Parma). Boschi sphinxes) are by the Roman bronze-
married a sister of Vincenzo Pacetti, worker and goldsmith Giuseppe
who enabled him in 1805 to become Boschi. They match one of his designs
a member of the Congregazione dei (and even more so the corrected
Virtuosi al Pantheon, and mentioned version of this design by Charles
him often in his unpublished journal. Heathcote Tatham, agent to the Prince
In 1808 he made a large-scale copy in of Wales in Rome). Boschi's imagina-
bronze of Antonio Canova's Hebe, [rv] tive and free design was skillfully

bibliography Honour. Hugh. "Boschi, adapted by Tatham, who commis-

Giuseppe." In DBI, vol. 13, p. 167 (with previ- sioned four such pieces on behalf of
ous bibliography); Gonzalez-Palacios 1993, the prince, a fact revealed in a letter he
pp. 318-19; Goodison, Nicholas. "Minerva wrote on July 10, 1795, to Henry
and Pupils." Furniture History, vol. 29 (1993),
Holland, architect to the future
pp. 144-46
George IV (this letter and the two
designs are in the Victoria and Albert
Museum collections, under
83 D 1498-1500-1898). Referring to the
designs in his letter, Tatham mentions
Giuseppe Boschi
were obtained
that "the candelabra
Pair of Candelabra from Giuseppe Boschi, an obscure
Late eighteenth century
Artist here, whose designs as well as
Marble, patinated bronze, and partly gilded
prices, both for merit and reasonable thereby conceive that the work care and attention, the Candelabra in

bronze demand induced me to procure of G. Boschi will be proportion- particular closely copied in every part

Height 20/1" (51.5 cm) them." Tatham points out that the ably defective, for, from the from the antique." The architect is
EXHIBITION Naples, Museo di
estimates he requested from the more Authority of Madame Angelica referring here to a marble cande-
Capodimnntc a Palazzo Reale. Civiha famous bronzeworkers, Righetti and [Kauffmann], Zucchi her labrum, a composite work completed
dcW'Onacenlo. 1997, cat. no. 6.115 (wrongly were significantly higher
Valadier, husband, Canova, Visconti & by Giovanni Battista Piranesi, who
attributed to Pietro Mertz) than Boschi's figure: Bonomi, have every reason
I to sold it to Sir Roger Newdigate (now in
bibliography Gonzalez-Palacios 1984, assure you is not the case. the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford;
p. 141, fig. 283 (for the identical pair in the extraordinary difference in engraved in Vasi, candclabri, cippi, sar-
the Palazzo Pitti. Florence)
the estimates and the only Tatham provided assurances that cofagi [Rome, 1778]).
Museo di Capodimonte, Naples
manner in which can account I the candelabra ("the gilding with the Nothing is known of the fate of the
for it, is that the latter is himself best sicane ... in the manner of the candelabra mentioned by Tatham.
Each candelabrum has a three-sided the Artist, and not a principal, french. the bronze ... in the best However, it is curious that the Museo

base supported by lions with theatrical which inables him to afford colour") would be ready by March is, diCapodimonte actually has four of
masks in (he central panels, the base them as specified, that is as 1796, and adds: "The Drawings and them, though their provenance
culminating in rams' heads, from it much cheaper. You must not mc (dels have been studied with great remains a mystery, [agp]

194 OKATIVI-. ARTS

CARLO ALBACINI
1735-1813?
For biography see Sculpture section

84
Workshop of Carlo Albacini
Elephant
c. 1805
Patinated and gilded bronze.
colored marbles

Height 22V" (58 cm)

exhibition Naples, 1980. cat. no. 543

bibliography Gonzalez-Palacios 1993.

pp. 324-31
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna,
Kunstkammer

An elephant bearing a group of three

sirens, which are holding oval cameos
depicting members of the Neapolitan
royal family, stands on a high plinth of
alabastro jiorito orientale a occhio with
borders of verde antico and giallo antico
bearing inscriptions on the sides. This 8s (ducal hat)

curious object is part of a deser (or

table centerpiece) made about 1805 PROCIDENTIA AUGUSTA / SALUS 85 erudizione storico-ecclesiastico [Venice,

at the workshop of Carlo Albacini in PVBUCA I H1LARITAS VN/VERSA. 1854], vol. 70, pp. 39-61). Together with
Francesco de Martinis,
Rome for Maria Carolina of Austria, The models of the trophies are the Golden Rose, which was usually
Queen of Naples and wife of the accomplished work of Mr Flavio Sirletti, Francesco sent to queens or cities, the sword was
Ferdinand IV of Bourbon. The com- Filippo Albacini, a young and the greatest expression of papal
Banchieri, Sebastiano
plete work comprises many different talented sculptor. benevolence. It was an especially valu-
pieces of colored marble from excava- Porena, Francesco Ambra, able and highly regarded article that

tions, bronze, and other materials. It Filippo Albacini was Carlo's son. involved the work of numerous crafts-
Giovanni Battista Moranti,
stands on a mosaic plinth (19 />"x Domenico Venuti's son Ludovico, an men because of the complexity and
33 /»"; 49.7 x 85.5 cm) and has an exact artist of no particular talent, also con- and others richness of its composition. The sword,
replica in miniature of the three Greek tributed some designs of urns for the which was furnished with a sheath
Ducal Hat, Belt, Scabbard,
temples at Paestum at the center. The centerpiece. Gonzalez-Palacios has and belt and enclosed in a bag, was
work was conducted under the watch- identified a sketch for the whole piece and Case accompanied by a hat with tails. This
ful eye of Cavaliere Domenico Venuti, in the Gabinetto dei Disegni e Stampe 1725 was referred to as the berre none ducale,
at a time when the erudite Tuscan at the Museo Nazionale di Hat: leather, silk, applied pearls and gar- sometimes also known as a pileus or
archaeologist had been exiled from Capodimonte in Naples. It is possible nets: belt: silk embroidered gilt and silver- morione and bearing an embroidered
the court in Naples, where he had that the drawing in color work is the gilt thread, silk applique, buckle in silver- dove alluding to the Holy Spirit. The
directed the royal porcelain factory of the younger Venuti, who was devel- gilt; scabbard: wood, silk with silver coat of arms of the pope presenting
thread, enameled gold: case: leather with
for many years. Venuti also edited the oping the ideas of his father and of the sword was represented in many
gold tooling
slim volume / temp) di Pesto deser ese- Queen Maria Carolina. The original places on the weapon itself and its fin-
Hat: 11X4" (30 cm); belt: 70/" x 2/4"
guito d'ordine di Sua Maesta la Regina delle idea for the work is attributed to the ishings. With the Dresden scabbard,
(180 x 7 cm); scabbard: 42 V" (107.5 cm)
Due Sicilie dal Cav. Domenico Venuti for queen, possibly in courtly deference. the gold and silver thread embroidery,
bibliography Haenel, E. Kostbare XVaffen
the publisher Pagliarini in Rome in The beautiful cameo portraits of
aus der Dresdener Riistkammer. Leipzig,
silver finishings of the belt, and the
1805. It is the only surviving source members of the royal family of Naples Germany: Hiersemann, 1923, pi. 66; leather case containing the hat all bear
of information about this magnificent borne by sirens are not documented. Thurman 1975, no. 112; Baumel 1986, the coat of arms of Benedict XIII
work of art, except However, they may be the work of the _ The
for a long article by PP- 133 39: Baumel 1990; Pod jcdna korona: Orsini. inscription Benedictus Xill
Giuseppe Guattani published in 1806 renowned stone engraver Filippo Kultura w czasach unit polsko-saskicj.
i sztuka Pont: Max: was engraved on the blade,
Warsaw: Zamek Krolewski w Warszawie.
in the famous Roman art yearbook of Rega, who worked for many years in with the inscription Am: MDCCXXV.
1997, cat. no. 27
the time, the Memorie Enciclopediche Naples in the royal pietre dure work- Pontij. Sui anno 11 on the back. As
Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden,
Romane. Guattani gives a detailed shop, or of Teresa Talani, who has left described at length by Jutta Baumel.
Riistkammer
description of the elephants. several signed works of this type. this rare ensemble was sent to Warsaw
Early in 1806 the Bourbons were in August 1726 by Benedict XIII to the
The most important part of the forced to leave Naples and take refuge During the mid-nineteenth century heir apparent of Saxony and Poland.
decoration, the most poetic and in Sicily when the city was invaded by the scholar Gaetano Moroni composed Frederick Augustus (reigned
allusive, is a bizarre notion of the French. There is no record of the an impressive series of volumes on the 1733-1763), delivered by the legate
trophies two elephants (an
. . . date when the centerpiece (which was history, personalities, and every other Vincenzo Santini. A report from the
animal often seen on medallions granted an export license from Rome aspect of the Catholic Church. In this same year mentions the event, and
of Paestum) ... each bears a by Antonio Canova as papal inspector work he describes in great detail the even Moroni, in the previously cited
group of three Neapolitan sirens, of fine arts on January 19, 1805) meaning and history oi the papal work, recalls how the same pope had
seated and intertwined, holding reached the south of Italy, if indeed it sword, or stocco, a weapon consecrated earlier presented a sword to the Grand
up cameos with portraits of the ever did, since by 1808 it is documented by the pope in a solemn ceremony cel- Master ol Malta, and in i-.'(> he also
Neapolitan royal family. The in Vienna as a gift from the court of ebrated on the night or morning of presented a sword to the Prince of
panels on the base bear the fol- Naples. [ac;p] the Nativity. It was then scnl to princes Saxony, who in 1717 had made public
lowing inscription in gold on as a gesture ol thanks or to exhort them his ow n conversion to Catholicism
silver: TEMPOR17M REPARATIO / in defend the Church (Dizkmario di five years before.

DFCORATIVF ARTS H)S

 . ..

The costly finishings of the ensem-

ble even include enamels on gold set
on the hilt of the blade and pearls
embroidered in the shape of a dove.
Flavio Sirletti (1683-1737), a renowned
goldsmith and gemstone engraver,
contributed to these details. His item-
ized bill specifies:

On December 20. 1725, for the

manufacture of four large coats
of arms, the two largest placed
on the pommel of the sword,
enameled in gold of various
colors, with the depiction of the
office of N.S. ... for the introduc-
tion of gold in the largest coat of
arms of the sword pommel . .

8s (detail of scabbard) for the introduction of gold in

the coat of arms for the hat . .

In order to understand the con- for the purchase of forty-four

struction stages of this unique ensem- pearls, and delivery to the
ble today, it is essential to bear in mind embroiderer for the sword hat.
that the sword and Golden Rose were
usually made each year, but not neces- In addition,on the back it is specified
sarily sent after being completed. that in this instance,sword and hat
Frequently, these items were sent were transferred to the wardrobe in
after having been made several years March 1726 (ivi, b. 502/3).
earlier. Among the many documents The embroiderers' names to which
found by the author is a bill from the the goldsmith alludes are indicated in
spadaro (sword maker) Lorenzo a bill from the previously mentioned
Boccalari. who on February 18, 1725, silk weaver, Chelucci. On November
removed from a blade the coat of 26 he provided the embroiderers with
arms of the pope who had died two "pale crimson rose-colored velvet" to
years previously (Innocent XIII Conti. make the flaps and tails of the hat. The
whose coat of arms bears an eagle). craftsman signing the delivery receipt
The bill specifies that the craftsman 8; (detail of belt) is Francesco Banchieri, although from
"removed two eagles from a broad other bills it is known that these arti-
blade and removed the name of tails,which you will line inside Francesco Antonio Fedele (or Fedeli). sans formed part of a group of palace
Innocent and made there the name with a crimson light silk fabric, who on February 26, 1725, provided embroiderers (referred to elsewhere as
of His Holiness" (Rome, Archivio di which will be delivered to you the crimson silk ribbon and two bows the suppliers). This group was com-
Stato. Camerale 1, Giustificazioni di ... by the above-mentioned "to tie together the sword bag and hat" posed of Stefano Gui, Marcantonio
Tesoreria.b. 500/3). Merchant you will trim . . . . . (ivi, b. 509/18), and subsequently pale de Romanis, Giovan Battista Salandra.
A few months later, on December in narrow gold braid which crimson velvet and light silk fabric and Giuliano Saturni. the last two well
20, 1725, the silversmith Francesco de will be delivered to you by the "for the cover of the scabbard" known for taking part in the manufac-
Martinis (1661-1^40) presented the bill Lacemaker of the Palace ... for (November 26). On December 14, still ture of furnishings intended for Lisbon.
for "the sword lining, guard and the sword that Holiness wants to to Porena, he delivers "narrow braid Immediately afterwards. Chelucci
buckle, and ferrule" (later specifying present to the Grand Master of . . . gold fringe ... to attach it to the provided the box maker Carlo
that the design was included). On Malta . . . December 20, 1725. tails" for the hat (ivi, b. 502/8). Fedele's Antonio Taddini with the taffeta

February 11, 1726 (ivi), the work was bills also show the names of the box containing the entire
to line the
assessed by another well-known sil- However, on the back of the form, a upholsterers and tailors {banderari) ensemble (ivi, b. 503/3). Although it
versmith. Stefano Bartalesi. The note dated April 2, 1726, indicates this who made sacred vestments, accou- is evident that not all those involved
number of craftsmen involved in the work's intended fate: "I . . . Wardrobe trements for worship and anything were mentioned, it is likely that the

manufacture of this type of object Keeper of His Holiness hereby bear else possibly requiring the use of tex- same embroiderers and upholsterers
means that the records branch off witness that the above-mentioned tiles. On October 27, 1725, he provided took part in the set seen here. Finally,
in many directions, as well as being was made and consecrated by His
. . . Filippo Ambra and Giovanni Battista among the suppliers to Benedict XIII.
incomplete, but Dc Martinis's involve- Holiness, was placed in the wardrobe Moranti (or Morandi) with crimson mention should be made of the wood-
ment in the Dresden sword is borne in place of that given last year by His light silk fabric for the lining of the carver Giovanni Tommaso Corsini. In
out by the fact that was inspected it Holiness to the Grand Master of bag and scabbard, along with velvet 1724 he worked jointly with the silver-

only in February 1726. Another Malta" (ivi, b. 507/17, followed by the and taffeta for other related pieces (ivi. smith De Martinis, providing him
invoice from the hat maker detailed bill of manufacture). b. 503/3). Finally, on November 29, with designs for a frame and folding
Sebastiano Porcna was even more Therefore, an old sword, perhaps that 1725. he provided "gold fringe ... to stool in silver.
explicit. Among the orders sent in on which the papal coat of arms was decorate the sword belt" (ivi. b. 502/8). Immediately after finishing this

172s is the following: changed, had been sent to Malta (the On November 26. Morandi and work, all the craftsmen mentioned
expenses for that journey date back Ambra both presented their bill for here became involved in the creation
You will make a hat of Spanish to February 1725), and the one finished the bag ("a bag for the sword, of of a new sword, the fate of which
wool, called the Pileus, which recently was in the storage rooms of crimson light silk fabric lined with red remains unknown. In addition to the

you will cover in rosc-colorcd the papal palace in time to be sent lace ... the sword sheath lined with swords made in i~26 and 1727,

velvet to be delivered to you by later to Warsaw. crimson light silk fabric . . . the belt Francesco de Martinis added the fin-

Biagio Chelucci, Merchant, Other bills partially make up the lined with embroidered satin for the ishing touches to a case sent by the
fabric weaver of the above-men- long list of names of those involved above-mentioned sword ... decorated pope empress "with the root of
to the
tioned Holy Palace, with flaps, a in the undertaking. The lacemaker here and there with Venetian gold lace Jansen,"and in 1728 made the Golden
small belt, and embroidered (trinarolo) alluded to by Porena was trimming." ivi. b. 509/18). Rose for Urbino Cathedral, [rv]

OR ATI VI. ARTS

86

86 York. Bequest of Elizabeth U. Coles, in 1798, the period of Napoleon's occu- some forty-six tapestries inherited
memory of her son William F. Coles pation of Rome, by Filippo Percioli. from his great-uncle Pope
San Michele Manufactory
San Michele remained the official Alexander VII, others woven in Brussels
Erminia and the Shepherd The closing of the great tapestry man- tapestry works of the Vatican until the during the mid-seventeenth century

1733
ufactory under the private patronage unification of Italy in 1870, when it that Ottoboni purchased from
Designed by Domenico Paradisi between of the Barberini family in the 1680s became a state-run school, before various sources, and a set that he
1689 and 1693; one from the original set of Rome without a tapestry work-
left finally closing in 1928. The manufac- commissioned from the San Michele
fifteen depicting scenes from Gerusalemme shop until the founding in 1710 by tory's production was primarily papal tapestry workshop. Ottoboni's redec-
Liberala Pope Clement XI of the tapestry work- commissions, ranging from small- oration of the Palazzo delta Cancelleria.
Wool and silk shop of the Ospizio Apostolico de' scale works, such as portraits of the his official residence after being nomi-
il' 11" x 15' (362.8 x 456.7 cm) Poveri Fanciulli di S. Michele a Ripa popes and images of the Virgin, to nated cardinal and vice-chancellor of
provenance Possibly acquired in Italy by under the sponsorship of the Vatican. larger-scale church baldachins and the Church in 1689. included the
the 10th Duke of Hamilton; though not This hospice, which housed an sets of tapestries, usually with a reli- embellishment of the walls of his
included in the 182s inventory of Hamilton
orphanage, churches, and workshops gious subject matter and frequently palace apartment with imitation
Palace, possibly among the "Pieces of fine
for the poor, trained orphan boys in copied from works by great masters tapestries painted on canvas (arazzi finti).
large TapestryWork" listed in additions
made between 1835 and 1840; seen by Dr. painting, carving, pictra dura work, and such as Guido Reni, Guercino, and These illustrated the histories ol Tasso
Waagen at Hamilton Palace, 1850; sold by The staff of the
tapestry weaving. Maratta. Lady Pomfret, an and were painted between 1689 and
the 12th Duke of Hamilton at Hamilton tapestry workshop included its direc- Englishwoman visiting the workshop 1693 by Domenico Paradisi. possibly
Palace by Christie's, June 17-20, 1882; tor, the Parisian weaver Jean Simonet, in 1741, commented on the high assisted bv Mich.ielangclo Ricciolini.
Elizabeth U. Coles; bequeathed to The a painter of tapestry cartoons, Andrea quality of both the weaving and tapes- a figure painter, and Francois Simonot
Metropolitan Museum of Art. 1892
Procaccini, and three weavers. try designs, noting particularly the (also known as Francesco Borgognone),
bibliography Waagen, G. Treasures of Art
F.
Simonet was succeeded in 1717 by exceptional likeness between the car- a landscape painter. The arazzi finti not
in Great Britain. London, 1854, vol. 3, p. 305;
Pietro Ferloni and upon his death in toons and the finished works. only served as decorative wall cover-
Olszewski 1982; De Strobel 1989, pp. 51-78;
1770 by GiuseppiFolli. From 1790 to Included in the tapestry collection of ings in the palace but also appear to
Petrucci F. 1995
The Metropolitan 1796 was directed by Filippo and
it Pietro Ottoboni, the last of the cardinal- have been used in the same manner as
Museum of Art, New
Girolamo Cettomai, and from 1796 to nephews, and patron of the arts, were the woven tapestries, for street and

HI ( OR \l 1 V I ARTS 10-
 church decoration on special occa-
sions such as feast days. One of these
sets of painted cloths included scenes
taken from Tasso's heroic poem
Gerusakmmc Liberata. This poem, par-
ticularly the story of Rinaldo and
Armida, was frequently used as a
source for themes by painters during
the seventeenth century in both
France and Italy. In the 1730s and 1740s
the poem enjoyed a revival of interest,
the most notable examples being the
Tasso cycles painted in Venice by
Giambattista Tiepolo (c. 1742) and
Gianantonio Guardi (c. 1745-50).
Between 1732 and 1739 Ottoboni
commissioned the San Michele work-
shop to reproduce fifteen of Paradisi's
arazzifinti from Tasso as woven tapes-

tries, using the original painted ver-

sions as the cartoons for their weaving
on a high warp loom. The arazzifinti
themselves were later sent to decorate
one of Ottoboni's villas. The subjects
of these tapestries were taken from
the poem's first seven cantos: the
tapestry seen here is from Canto 7 and

shows Erminia and the Shepherd. It

was one of the first from this series to
be woven. According to the 1740
Ottoboni inventory, the name P. Ferloni
and date 1733 were originally woven
into the tapestry's outer guard borders,
which are now missing. The pagan
princess Erminia, daughter of the
King of Antioch, hearing the sound of
a shepherd's pipe, comes upon an old
man with his three young sons seated
among his flock of sheep and goats,
and the baskets he is weaving.
Erminia, wrapped in a cloak and
wearing armor she has borrowed
from Clorinda, a warrior maiden, has
removed her helmet, which she holds
in her right hand, revealing to the
frightened boys that she is indeed
awoman. The upper border of the
tapestry shows a central female mask
and the inscription ma cli salvia
erm/na/e doixemente/gl affida, e gl
OCCHI SOPRE/E / BE/ CR/N D'ORO ("But
Erminia saluted them and sweetly
trustedthem and uncovered her eyes
and her beautiful golden hair"; Canto
7, stanza 7). Each of the side borders
contains a herm on a carved support,
each of which is unique in its design.

The lower borders include central

male masks and beribboned cornu-
copias overflowing with fruit, flowers,

and leaves. The masks

both the in

upper and lower borders are identical

to those found in another set, with
scenes from Genesis after ceiling
paintings in the Vatican Logge, woven
at San Michele between 1733 and 1734,
the same years as the first tapestries in
the Tasso suite, [deb]

198 DECORATIVE ARTS

87

Fillippo Gabrielle

Passion Curtain for the Central

Painting

C. 1744

Silk grosgrain embroidered with silver-gilt

12'8"X7'2" (386x218 cm)

provenance Museu de S. Roque, Santa
Casa da Misericordia, Lisbon, St. John the
Baptist Chapel Collection
bibliography Rodrigues 1988, pp. 168,
207; Viterbo and D'Almeida 1997, pp. 51. 94

Santa Casa da Misericordia de Lisboa,

Museu de Sao Roque, Lisbon

In addition to its celebrated treasure

comprising examples of the gold-
smith's art, the St. John the Baptist
Chapel Collection is further enriched
by a magnificent set of hangings and
vestments made by the greatest Italian

craftsmen of the day. Sousa Viterbo

has every reason to say that the work-
shops where these rich silks were 88 (chasuble front) 88 (chasuble back)

woven and the ecclesiastical vest-

ments embroidered are no less worthy have covered the two side panels 88 provenance Museu de S. Roque, Santa
of mention than the goldsmiths' on the same occasion. These depict Casa da Misericordia, Lisbon, St. John the
Cosimo Patrenostro Baptist Chapel Collection
workshops. There are records to show Pentecost and the Annunciation, the
that tapestry-makers, silk-weavers, latter embroidered by Giuliani Ceremonial Vestments bibliography Rodrigues 1988, pp. 202,
206-7; Madeira Rodrigues. Maria Joao.
vestment-makers, and embroiderers Saturni. In all three cases the central c. 1744 "Coleccao de S. |oao Baptista." In Dirioniirio
were employed to execute the various image surrounded by evocative
is
Chasuble for the violet vestment cm Portugal. Lisbon: Presenca,
de arte barroca
textile items in this collection (Viterbo motifs drawing their inspiration from 48" x 29//' (122 x 75 cm); 1989; Viterbo and D'Almeida 1997,
and D'Almeida 1997, p. 51). These tex- plant forms and forming part of a pre- Chalice cover for the violet vestment pp. 58, 94
tiles alone shows how intent King dominantly Baroque visual language. 30" x 29/2" (76 x 75 cm);
Santa Casa da Misericordia, de Lisboa,
V was on demonstrating In addition to this curtain, which Missal cushion for the violet vestment
John his Museu de Sao Roque, Lisbon
20V2" x 24" (52 x 60 cm);
great reverence for liturgical cere- cost 1,323 escudos, Fillippo Gabrielle
Burse for the violet vestment 14//' x 15%"
mony, and he expressed his obsession also executed the gold embroidery of
(37x40 cm);
with worship by placing numerous a hanging in green silk lame, half of a
Stole for the violet vestment
This group represents part of the
orders with Italian artists. tabernacle curtain in the same color. 12" x 98" (30 x 249 cm); magnificent set of ceremonial vest-
The vestments in the collection are He embroidered in gold on violet Maniple for the violet vestment ments embroidered with gold in high
divided into sets for High Mass in two anvers and also executed the embroi- 12" x 39/2" (30 x 100 cm) relief on violet lame for the St. John
liturgical colors (red and white) with a dery in silk on the vestment of violet Cloth of silver embroidered with gold the Baptist Chapel in the church of
cloth of silver ground completely anvers and on another green vestment
embroidered with gold; sets for Low (Viterbo and D'Almeida 1997, p. 94).
88 (chalice cover)
Mass on high days and holidays in five The curtain was exhibited in the
liturgical colours (red, white, purple, sacristy of the church of S. Roque on
green, and pink) with a cloth of silver August 15, 1898, when the St. John the
ground embroidered with gold, sets Baptist Chapel collection was put on
made of linen embroidered with gold public display for the first time. It is

and silver, sets made of silk grosgrain currently in the Museu de S. Roque
embroidered with silver-gilt, and sets reserve collection, [tm]
of vestments for everyday use in five
liturgical colours (red, white, purple,
green, and black) with silk or silk
grosgrain grounds embroidered with
twisted silk (Rodrigues 1988, p. 168).
This curtain stands out from the
rest, not only for the materials used
for the ground but also for its format.
It is rectangular in shape with a semi-
oval extension in the upper edge,
designed to cover the central panel
in the Chapel of St. John the Baptist
during Holy Week. The mosaic on this
panel represents the Baptism of Christ
by Saint john the Baptist, which is why
the symbols of Christ's Passion are
depicted in the central area. The set
also includes two which
side curtains,
arc rectangular in shape and would

DIX'ORATlVi: ARTS 199

 88 (missal cushion) S. Roque in Lisbon. This sumptuous by scrolling forms and small sections
ensemble executed by the embroi- patterned with rosettes revealing the
derer Cosimo Patrenostro, every item persistence of a certain Mannerism in

of which is completely covered with a predominantly Baroque visual lan-

evocative embroidery, shows all the guage. It should be remembered that
splendor of religious ceremonies when King John V commissioned this
during high days and holidays. At the collection, Roman art was beginning
same time, it offers evidence of what to lose the originality it had acquired
Italian workshops were producing in in the previous century and that during
the mid-eighteenth century in this period it was trying to achieve a
response to the increase in orders synthesis of Baroque cultural tradi-
from Portugal for vestments and litur- tion with the new, recently imported
gical accoutrements, known for the Rococo forms (Rodrigues 1988, p. 427).
most part from correspondence with According to references in the doc-
King John V's representatives in umentation of the John the Baptist
St.

Rome. Chapel Collection assembled by Sousa

The decorative motifs are basically Viterbo and Vicente d Almeida, it was
the same in all the various pieces in Cosimo Patrenostro who embroi-
this group, although they arc arranged dered the rich violet vestment and one
differently in response to the shapes of the violet curtains of the chapel's
of the individual objects. Motifs with a two lateral paintings (Viterbo and
88 (maniple) plant theme predominate, governed D'Almeida, p. 94).

200 DE< !( >K ATI VI. ARTS

 outset the production of small tapes- nacles and cases, monstrances, a bap-
tries such as the one exhibited here, tismal font, stands for crucifixes, can-
which were often intended as gifts dlesticks, reliquaries, a catafalque, an
from the pope to important persons. organ, and some pulpits. After these
The subjects were often taken from comes a series of domestic furnish-
paintings by the most celebrated ings, notably console tables with
artists of the seventeenth century; in frames primarily composed of vigor-
such cases a contemporary painter ous scrolls and corollas. There are
would undertake to prepare a cartoon various designs for table legs, from
of the required size for the weaver; in balusters through wide cartouches
the case of the work exhibited here, with swags to naturalistic figures of
the paintermay have been Stefano crouching Turks and war trophies.
Pozzi. Anna Maria de Strobel reports There is also a wide variety of clocks,
the existence of a tapestry similar to ranging from the architectonic (plate
The only items anywhere in 89 the work shown here but reversed, 15) to the fantastic and bizarre, with
Portugal that rival the vestments in which is at present in the collection of sculptural motifs based on the themes
San Michele Manufactory
the St. ]ohn the Baptist Chapel the Principi Colonna. [rv] of Time, Death, and Fate topping
Collection are those of the basilica Salvator Mundi cases decorated with swags in a
of Mafra, which date from the same c. 1750
complex, open, richly detailed style
period and were also commissioned
Tapestry; silk warp; silk and wool weft; 90 that foreshadows the Rococo. Plates
on behalf of King John V. With good framed in carved and gilded wood 18 to 25 show carriages and other vehi-
Filippo Passarini
reason, the consecration ceremony of 23" x 16" (58.5 x 41.5 cm) cles either with details of embroi-
the basilica of Mafra was considered BIBLIOGRAPHY Rome 1991. Fa.sto ronumo,
Nuove inventioni d'ornamenti deries and buckles or as a whole, with
the most magnificent in the kingdom. cat. no. 173 great sculptural features ornamenting
d'architettura e d'intagli diversi
In spite of the unparalleled opulence Private collection the front and back.The final plates
that distinguishes all the vestments in utili ad argentieri intagliatori show beds, cradles, and prie-dieux fol-
the St. John the Baptist Chapel collec- lowed by a fountain topped by a
ricamatori et altri professori
tion, this set was nonetheless designed This tapestry shows the young Christ statue of Neptune.
for an essentially utilitarian purpose, with the globe in his hands. It is delle buone arti del disegno Nothing is known about the author
namely for use during an act of mounted in its original carved and
inventati ed intagliati da
of this extraordinary catalogue (who
worship in a Catholic church. Yet the gilded frame, which bears a wax seal may have died was pub-
the year it

ascendancy of pomp and luxury that on the back with the interlaced letters Filippo Passarini lished, 1698) accounted one of the
marked the reign of King John V and CM. As was stated at the time of its first 1698 most comprehensive graphic antholo-
the European courts of the eighteenth publication (De Strobel 1989), this del- Bound volume gies of Italian furniture and decora-
century was such that it ultimately icate devotional image for domestic 14" x 35" (56 x 89 cm) tion of the period. Up to now only one
outweighed the practical purposes use was woven in the San Michele EXHIBITION Rome 1999. cat. no. 164
design of all those shown is known to
for which most of these objects were tapestry workshop set up in Rome in BIBLIOGRAPHY Gonzalez-Palacios 1984.
have been realized, a pair of torch
originally intended. Even so, Madeira 1710. On the basis of a stylistic exami- figs. 28, 124. 128, passim bearers with breastplates and palms in
Rodrigues emphasizes that, in order nation of the original frame, the The Getty Research Institute for the History the church of S. Maria della Vittoria
to grasp the full significance of the writer identified its period of execu- of Art. Research l ibrary, I.os Angeles (Maria Grazia Bernardini, ed.. Gian
St. John the Baptist Chapel Collection, tion as mid-eighteenth century and I orenzo Bernini: regista del barocco
it is necessary to bear its practical pointed to a lost painting done by [Milan: Skira, 1999]. no. 132).
liturgical uses in mind (Rodrigues Guido Reni lor Cardinal Gozzadini as The book contains thirty-two plates. This latter type ol decoration, relat-
1988, p. 426). [tm] the probable model on which this The first four are designs tor altars ing to the events of war (in this case
tapestry was based. complete down to the last liturgical the victory over the Turks cemented
The San Michele workshop (De detail and crowned with monstrances. by the capture ol Belgrade in 1688).
Strobel 1989, pp. si-""4), which was These are followed by a kind ol the- was obviously ol particular inspiration
managed by Pietro Ferloni from 1717 atrical scene (plate s). in which a to the author, as seen, for example, in
to 1770, while it also produced wcav- chariot with Faith is chasing Heresy plate 28, which shows a bed covered
ings on a larger scale, favored from the off stage, and then bv a group ol taber- by a military-style awning or pavilion

DECORATIVE AIM S 201

 9i (single sheet)

202 IM-.COKATIVL ARTS

held up by captured slaves that even on the binding of this
crescents)

form part of the accompanying pric- album (and its companion, not exhib-
dieu. The finished pieces that most ited here) enabled the provenance of
closely resemble these designs are the the work to be identified. It was very
consoles in the gallery of the Palazzo famous in the eighteenth century and
Colonna, which were made at the was described by a number of travel-
beginning of the eighteenth century ers and scholars. The portable collec-

(Gonzalez-Palacios 1984, fig. 125; tion, which is virtually unique,

Eduard A. Safarik, Palazzo Colonna: belonged to a member of the famous

[Rome: De Luca, 1997], fig- 4)- Strozzi family from Florence, who
The fortune of the catalogue, also lived in Rome in a palace near the
whose designs for furniture found an church of the Ss. Stimmate (rebuilt in

echo in Roman furniture of the early the nineteenth century; now the seat
eighteenth century, must have been of the Besso Foundation in the Piazza
longlasting, thanks to the variety of its della Torre Argentina).

decorative ideas, which, as noted with Monsignor Leone Strozzi

regard to the tables, included a range (1652-1722) was a prelate, collector, and
of motifs that followed the Berninian erudite scholar who held a number of
taste for vigorous naturalism as well high offices in the academic world and
as more innovative, and more the Church. A close friend of many of
abstract, ideas that found favor with the savants of the times (including the
goldsmiths and carvers in the first diarist Francesco Valesio, the anti-
years of the new century, [rv] quarian Francesco Ficoroni, and the
painter Pier Leone Ghezzi), Strozzi
was particularly well versed in the

91 history of colored marbles and pietre

on which he wrote several works,

dure,
The Strozzi Stone Collection
though none was published. The few
Late seventeenth century to
passages made known by R. Gnoli
early eighteenth
make it all the more regrettable that it
Pietre dure, rare marbles, vellum, leather,
is not possible to read the whole man-
gilt copper
13//' x io>8" x cm)
uscript. Strozzi was particularly well
(33.5 27

bibliography Montfaucon 1702, p. 284;

known for his splendid collection of

Ficoroni 1744, pp. 190-90; Marangoni 1744, cameos and intaglios, many of which
p. 342; Venuti, Ridolfino. Rortiii moderna. were illustrated by the notorious Baron
Rome, 1767, vol. 1, p. 661; De Brosses 1858, Philipp von Stosch in a magnificent
vol. 2, p. 83; Montesquieu, Charles volume published in Amsterdam in
Secondat de. Voyage d'halie. Bordeaux,
1724, Pierres antiques gravies sur lesquelles
1894-96; Gnoli 1971, p. 78; Gonzalez-
lesgraveurs ont mis leurs noms, illustrated
Palacios, Alvar. Mosaici e pietre dure: mosaiet a
with beautiful prints by Bernard Picart.
piccole tessere, pietre dure a Parigi e a Napoli.

Milan: Fabbri, 1982, vol. 2, p. 20;

Eleven plates show the gems of the
Gonzalez-Palacios 1993, pp. 414-19 Strozzi collection. These include, of 92 important bindings of this type had
Hewat-Jaboor. London course, only the signed pieces, such as already been produced. Despite the
Philip

the Medusa of Solon and the sardonyx

Unknown artist influence of the prevailing French
with Germanieus of Epitincanus, while Bookbindingfor Pope fashion in bookbinding, which was
Each of the two albums has a leather none of the anonymous masterpieces extremely ornate and magnificent
Innocent XIII
binding with mounts of green por- mentioned by many connoisseurs of (these bindings were called a lajanfare),
phyry on the covers, the mounts held the period is shown. Innocent XIII. Epistolae ad principes vims
Italian bindings were generally per-
ct alios
in place by fine gilt metal laurel The album on display here (and the fectly proportioned and tended
c. 1722
wreaths and crescents. Inside, irregu- companion volume) fascinated many toward an imposing, monumental
Tooled red morocco binding
lar laminae of marble and pietre dure famous scholars, such as Montfaucon approach.
are mounted and numbered on eight (who mentions it in his Diarium 16/4" x 11" (41.1 x 28.1 cm) This work was usually carried out
sheets of vellum, each specimen italkum in 1702), Montesquieu, Ficoroni,
bibliography Michelini Tocci 1977,
by expert binders but was also under-
no. 253
accompanied by its name in Italian. Charles de Brosses ("you could not taken by suppliers of books and
Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vatican City
On the inner cover of one album is a find another collection of stones more graphic materials, often employing
large cartouche in pen and ink con- and easy to handle"),
beautiful workers whose names were not
taining the arms of the Strozzi family; Marangoni, and Ridolfino Venuti. This volume is a manuscript of 180 recorded unless they were celebrated
in the other album the corresponding Unfortunately, in 1746 most of the pages that bears the arms and illumi- masters. At the end of the seventeenth
sheet is painted brown and forms the Strozzi collection in Rome, which at nated portrait of Pope Innocent XIII century Nicolas Lhullie and his son
background for an ornate frame deco- the time was the property of Princess Conti (elected 1721, died 1724). The were working in Rome, and one ot the
rated with drapery suspended from a di Forano Strozzi, was stolen. After covers in red morocco are decorated decorative motifs typical of their
lion's jaw with a quotation from that all trace was lost of these very with a filleted double border sur- bindings appears to have been a small
Ariosto in the center: "Ne mirabil vi rare incunabula until Gonzalez- rounding a central panel containing vase of flowers, similar to the ones
son Ic pietre sole / ma la materia e l'ar- Palacios identified them in 1993 in the arms of the pope. There are urns shown here.
tificioadorno / contendon" ("And London, the provenance being an in the inner corners exuding elaborate Bookbinding also required the
priceless worth not in the gems auction in Stockholm, [agp] scrolling foliage and stars and small skills of other craftsmen, namely a
alone/Resides, but an observer scarce urns at the outer corners, while the specialized metalworker who would
can say/ Which of these two his judg- inner edges of the board and spine are provide clasps and rivets at a later
ment more enthrals:/ The craftsman- decorated with leaves. stage: the binder also used tools,
ship or substance [of these walls]"). The art of fine bookbinding made wheels, and panels prov ided by a seal
The presence of the three crescents great progress in Rome from the early engraver. Shortly before the end of the
from the Strozzi coat of arms (gold sixteenth century on. By the seven- reign of Pope Innocent XIII the name
with a red band bearing three silver teenth century some ol the most of Agostino lasolo appears in the

DECORATIVE ARTS 20?

 .

93

accounts of the Vatican: in 1724 he 93 1761 (the year of his death). Passionei 94
was paid for "gilding two books was one of the most erudite men of
making the embellishment, corner
. .

Unknown artist the period, in contact with savants

Unknown artist
decorations, and arms of His Bookbinding for Pope from all over Europe, and a collector Bookbinding for Pope Pius VI
Holiness" (Rome, Archivio di Stato, of antiquities.
Benedict XIV Jean Baptiste Faure. Miscellanea di scritti
Giustificazioni di Tesoreria, b. 501/1). The style of this binding, though dedicato a Pio VI
At the same time Filippo Farinelli, a Roberto Sala. Index librorum imprcssorum
elaborate, shows that even in the Late eighteenth century
Bibliothecac Alcxandrino-Vatkanac ...
paper merchant, was making more heyday of Roman Rococo there was a Light calf binding
c. 1755
modest bindings in parchment or tendency to use decoration that was 11X" x 8" (28.8 x 20.2 cm)
Brown morocco binding
pigskin (this work was in the so-called elegant without being overelaborate. bibliography Michelini Tocci 1977, no. 266
16/4" x 10//' (423 x 277 cm)
"Paduan style," whereas the more The decoration of the binding bears a Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vatican City
elaborate bindings were "in the French bibliography Michelini Tocci 1977, no. 258
noticeable similarity to motits
Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vatican City
style"). Other craftsmen who special- employed in contemporary embroi-
ized in leather work for different pur- dery. From the seventeenth century This manuscript on paper consists
poses also occasionally made bindings. The manuscript dates from and 1723 on, one of the major sources of inspi- of 186 pages. The covers have a raised
At the time it was the custom to cover contains 222 sheets with marbled ration for tool- and blockmakers was border with rounded inner corners
many types of furniture with tooled edges. The gold tooling on the cover the pattern books used by embroider- containing four circular flowered
leather,and the style of the ornament contains a double outer border, with ers, widely available throughout Italy, bosses flanked by two cornucopias;
on the books was the same as that motifs backed by fillets. An inner which gave rise to the term a dcntellcs, these extend in spirals of vegetation
used for tablecloths, cushions, and border is composed of an outer band frequently used with reference to separated by masks in the center on
carriage upholstery, [rv] analogous to the previous ones, with bookbinding, [rv] each side. The central panel contains

an inner band of dentillation. Double- the arms of Pope Pius VI Braschi

handled urns and acanthus leaves are (elected 1775; died 1799). The spine
placed at an angle The
in the corners. and edges of the board feature tooled
front cover bears the arms of Pope foliar decoration.

Benedict XIV Lambertini, and the The elegant design of this decora-
back cover the arms of Cardinal tion shows a clear adherence to the
Domenico Passionei, which enable Neoclassical style. However, other
the binding to be dated to between bindings with the arms of Pius VI are
175s (the year Passionei was appointed known with flower motifs that are
director of the Vatican Library) and more Rococo in style; this work may

204 OKATIVI. ARTS

 .

95 96

therefore date from the late 1780s, 95 The Burghley House Collection, Stamford, he wrote a brief but informative
especially since an identical binding is Lincolnshire, U.K. account of them in the form of letters
Johann Friedrich Winckelmann
known (at the Casanatense Library) to himself. Goethe, a
that bears the arms of Cardinal Reiffenstein The notes attached to the reverse, few years later, recorded that "the wide
Romualdo Braschi Onesti in the which indicate the subjects of the two vault of an old kitchen of Reiffenstein's
Endymion
center. The cardinal was the pope's reliefs and their maker, seem to be in lent itself admirably to the purpose"
nephew, who was raised to the purple 1764-c. 1768 the handwriting of Brownlow Cecil, and described the procedure of melting
in 1786 (Piccarda Quilici, Legature
Inscription on the reverse: Endimion from an
9th Earl of Exeter (1725-1793), who and molding used, according to him,
ancient Bas Relief in the Villa Albani near Rome.
antiche e di pregio [Rome: Biblioteca visited Italy twice, stopping in Rome to produce small decorative objects.
This oval was made in imitation of the Antient
Casanatense, 1995], no. 1173). on both occasions, first in 1763-64, In this case there were indeed two
Rormui Pastes by Mr Reijfensten Counsellor of the
In works such as this a notable
Langrav of Hesse Cassel; Hebe feeding jupiter . .
and later in 1768-69 (Ingamells 1997, demanding processes, which resulted
made _
feature is the use of impressions
Pate de verre in carved and gilded wooden PP- 343 44)- It was possibly on his first according to the writings (which were
almost exclusively with large panels, frame visit that he made the acquaintance of not wholly accurate, inasmuch as
limting the use of small tools to only a 6X"x 4/2" (17 x 11.4 cm) without frame: Reiffenstein, thefamous guide and Ganymede is mistaken for Hebe) in

few elements, [rv] 12X" x 9>g" (31.5 x 25 cm) with frame agent to various European courts, reproductions of two of the most
bibliography Valeriani, Roberto. who was living in the city from 1762 famous antique bas-reliefs of the
"Reiffenstein, Piranesi e i fornatori romani (Friedrich Noack, Dtis Deutschtum in period: the Sleeping Endymion now in
del Conte di Exeter." Antologia di Belle Arti, Rom [Aalen, Germany: Scientia, 1974], the Musei Capitolini (but previously in
no. 55-58 (1998). pp. 145-54
vol. 2, pp. 476-77). His interest in the Albani collections; see Stuart [ones
The Burghley House Collection, Stamford.
ancient techniques made him famous, 1912, p. 219) and the Ganymede Feeding
Lincolnshire, U.K.
particularly for what he knew about jovc in the Form of an Eagle, still in the

encaustic painting. Both Winckelmann Villa Albani. [rv]

and Goethe, to whom was

Reiffenstein
96
very close, recorded his attempts to
Johann Friedrich recreate ancient cameo glass, of which
Reiffenstein
there existed in Rome at that time some
of the most famous examples, such as
Ganymede the Barberini Vase (now better known
1764-c. 1768 as the Portland Vase, British Museum,
Pate de verre in carved and gilded wooden London) and a bacchanalian scene from
frame the Carpegna collections, which at that
6/4" x 4/2" (17 x 11.4 cm) without frame; time was in the Vatican collections
12X" x g'A" (31.5 x 25 cm) with frame (now in the Louvre, Paris: see Gonzalez-
bibliography Valeriani. Roberto. 7). According
Palacios 1997, Valadicr, no.
"Reiffenstein, Piranesi e i fornatori romani toWinckelmann's own written record,
del Conte di Exeter." Antologia di Belle Arti.
these experiments by Consigliere
nos. 55-58 (1998), pp. 145-54
Reiffenstein began around 1764 and

DECORATIVE ARTS 205

 .

tation as a dealer in archaeological

finds, which were restored in his shop
in via Sistina, visitedby all the great
personalities passing through Rome,
and were often assembled in imagina-
tive compositions that represented the
height of the fashion for a return to the
classicism of antiquity. This pedestal,
like other famous works, seems to be
the result of a process of combination
of disparate elements, incorporating a
funerary urn (the central body with
the inscription) a cornice and a cover,
both almost entirely reconstructed,
and a base with sphinxes and scrolls, a
fairly similar version of which is found

again on another pedestal illustrated

in the volume of Vasi dedicated to the

Consigliere Reiffenstein and now in

Kassel (Oleg Neverov, "Giovanni
Battista Piranesi, der Antikensammler,"
Xenia, vol. 3 [1982], pp. 71-90, fig. 21).

The relationship between Piranesi 98

and the count was probably mediated
by James Byres and Thomas Jenkins, entrusted them to artisans of proven
who, according to the correspondence expertise to produce inlaid table tops
still preserved at Burghley, suggested or vases of various kinds. The stone
modern paintings and excavation used in this piece is so rare that it takes
works to the count even after his visits its name from the vase itself, granito
to Rome, [rv] verde minulo borghesiano. It probably
came from Gebel Dukhan in Egypt's
western desert (Gnoli 1971, p. 134).
GUILLAUME-ANTOINE The large amphora was carved
GRANDJACQUET from a single block of stone by
REUGNEY 1731-1801 ROME Grandjacquet, a specialist in this very
arduous kind of work who produced
very fine articles much admired by his
98 contemporaries such as Ennio
Quirino Visconti. Italo Faldi has noted
Guillaume-Antoine
that the payments to Grandjacquet
Grandjacquet mentioning a vase made of so-called
granito basahino are dated 1785, the year
Amphora with Lid and Stand
in which work was carried out at the
1785-87 Helen and Paris Room in the Villa
Granito verde minuw borghesiano; red porphyry Borghese, for which was intended
97 it

Height 30%" (78 cm); diameter 15X" and where it remained for many years.
(40 cm)
97 a frontal tympanum terminating in The amphora was apparently only
bibliography Faldi, ltalo. Galleria
rosettes with two birds in the middle. placed in that room in 1787.
Unknown artist Borghese: \e sculture dal secolo XVI al XIX.
This marble is depicted in plate 46 It should be noted that
Rome: Istituto Poligrafico dello Stato, 1954,
Pedestal of the volume Vasi, candelabri. cippi.. Grandjacquet's fame in his day was
no. 52; Gonzalez-Palacios 1993. fig. 462
disegnati e incisi dal Cav. Gio. Ban. Piranesi originally specifically technical. While
c. 1765 Galleria Borghese. Rome
Marble (Rome, 1778) accompanied by the dismounting ths vase for this exhibi-
caption PiedestaUo che si vede in Inghiherra tion, it was possible to study the inside
34K" x lS'A" x i8/»" (88 x 46 x 46 cm)
presso sua EcceUenza Milord Exeter This has a fluted foot with the lower of the piece, which has been reduced to
BIBLIOGRAPHY Wilton-Ely 1994, vol. 2,

p. 1009: Valcriani. Roberto. "Reiffenstein. ("pedestal on view in England at the rim sinuously curved and the upper a thickness of only about half an inch,

Piranesi e i fornatori romani del Conte di home of His Excellency Lord Exeter"). beaded. The ovoidal body has flat dec- an almost prodigious achievement
Exeter." Anwlogia di Bclk Arti, no. 55-58 The pedestal, made in Piranesi's work- orative pods and
(baccelli) at the top with such a hard granite as the one
(1998), pp. 145-54 shop, belongs at present to the art col- bottom and is encircled by a wide band employed here. The support of the
The Burghley House Collection, Stamford, lection in Burghley House, the home of stylized leaves and flowers. Two amphora, also made by Grandjacquet,
Lincolnshire, U.K.
of the Earls (later Marquesses) of Exeter, short handles connect to the neck with has had a double plinth (veneered
and its inclusion in that collection came a scroll, which has a small Egyptian with other types of marble) added to
On four animal paws rests a step par- about through two visits to Italy by head in the centre. The handle of the it, probably in the nineteenth century:
tially concave and fluted; higher up is Brownlow Cecil, 9th Earl of Exeter, who fluted lid is decorated with masks. The this will now be removed, [agp]
a band decorated with scrolls with was in Italy between 176? and 1764, then vase is on its original stand, octagonal
four sphinxes at the corners support- again in 1768 to 1769. On one of these in section, with the same rare stone
ing an upper section, its faces deco- occasions Exeter acquired the fire- and red Egyptian porphyry.
rated with festoons of oak knotted in places — also from Piranesi's workshop, This vase is evidence of an obsession,
the middle, from which hang snakes. in statuary marble and rosso antico — that dating from the days of the ancient
On the front is written d.m. quintiae is still in the stately home (illustrated Roman empire, with stones that were
SATURNINAE / C. VALERIUS TERMINALE in plate 1 of Diverse manicrc d'adornarc i both rare and extremely hard to work.
CONIUC SUAE CARISS1MAE. Above a cammini, published by Piranesi in 1769). In Rome during the late Renaissance
molding with dentils surmounted fame as an archaeologist
Piranesi's such materials were most eagerly
by palmettes is a fluted coping with and engraver was equaled by his repu- sought by collectors, who then

2()6 DECORATIVE ARTS

AGOSTINO PENNA
C. 1703-180O ROME

Agostino Penna was one of the most

famous and esteemed sculptors and
antiques restorers in Rome during the
second half of the eighteenth century,
but few of his biographical details are
known today. He received consider-
able official recognition: in 1768 he
became a member of the Accademia
di S. Luca and in 1787 he was elected

its Principe. In 1796 he was appointed

regent of the Congregazione dei

Virtuosi al Pantheon. Among his
sculptural works that can be dated
with certainty is his involvement in

1771 in the collegiate church of

S. Eustachio, to designs by the archi-
tect Meichiorre Passalacqua. His con-
tribution to the tomb of Flaminia
Odescalchi Chigi, to designs by Paolo
Posi, in S. Maria del Popolo in Rome
also dates from that year.
In 1776 Penna executed a chimneyp-
iece in rosso antico for Prince

Sigismondo Chigi and around that

date he started a series of works for the
Villa Borghese, including restorations
of marble antiquities as well as new
creations. In the gallery of the Villa
Borghese, for example, between 1778
and 1779 he prepared four of the putti
on the doors, some of the bas-reliefs
on a mosaic ground set on the
pilasters, and two stucco bas-reliefs.
His numerous restorations include the
famous relief in the entrance hall of
the villa, showing Marcus Curtius
throwing himself into the chasm. In 99
1782, for the upper rooms of the villa,

Penna produced one of his chimneyp- 99 ration. Visconti records the large
ieces in rosso antico and in the same pedestal, square and isolated, com-
Agostino Penna
year the bas-reliefs for the pedestal of pletely clad in noble alabasters and
the Gladiator (cat. 99) and the statues Two Boxers other precious mixtures, with a richly
of Paris and Helen completed in 1784 1782
carved molding in white marble. The
(in the Ruffo della Scaletta collection). four sides were further adorned with
Marble
Among his last works for the provenance Villa Borghese, Rome four marble bas-reliefs, in which
Borghese family was the nymph set at figure the exercises of ball play,
bibliography Hubert 1964, Sculpture,
the side of theTemple of Esculapius in Ferrara Grassi 1987, Gonzalez- wrestling, the contest of boxing, and
p. 57; p. 265;
the garden of the Villa Borghese. The Palacios 1993, p. 251; Gonzalez-Palacios, that of the gladiators, the composi-
bust of Cardinal Henry Stuart, Duke Alvar. "La stanza del Gladiatore." Antologia tions and work of Agostino Penna.
of York, now at Frascati, is not dated. di Belle Arti, no. 43-47 (1994) The carved decoration on the
[RV] Musee du Louvre, Paris, Departement des pedestal, according to a further con-
Sculptures temporary source, was the work of
bibliography Ferrara 1954; Hubert 1964,
Sculpture, pp. 56-57, figs. 8-11; Ferrara Grassi another decorative sculptor, Lorenzo
1987; Gonzalez-Palacios 1993, p. 251, no. 27, In Ennio Quirino Visconti's descrip- Cardelli, who also contributed to
passim; Paardekooper, Ludwin. "The
tion of the Hall of the Gladiator in the other details in the hall.
Monument to Maria Flaminia Chigi
Villa Borghese, (Scuhure del Palazzo della Together with the other marbles
Odescalchi, 1771-72." Lahyrinthos, no. 29-32,
Villa Borghese, Rome, 1796), when it belonging to the Borghese family, the
[1996-97], pp. 261-315
was newly decorated in the program Gladiator was among the sales carried
of modernization and reorganization out by Prince Camillo to Napoleon in

of the villa ordered by Marcantonio IV 1807. Thus it went to the Louvre,

Borghese, he expressly mentions this where, possibly early in the twentieth
marble panel and the other three that century, its base was removed and dis-

accompanied it on the base of the mantled. The four bas-reliefs by

antique statue of the Gladiator. This Penna, two circular and two oval,
was placed in the centre of the room were rarely exhibited after that and
(the history of which is reconstructed have sometimes been erroneously
in Gonzalez-Palacios 1994), and its attributed to Vincenzo Pacetti. [rv]
subject determined the choice of
some of the other statues collected
there as well as the new pictorial deco-

DECORATIVE ARTS 207

 lOO

GIOVANNI VOLPATO several excavations in different areas Princess Pallavicini. By 1801 he had ware, the quality of the porcelain

ANGARANO C. 1735-1803 ROME of Rome, commissioned by the pope also established an English-style demonstrates that this statuette

and private individuals. During this earthenware factory in Civita undoubtedly came from the kiln of
The uncertainty of Volpato's date of same year he welcomed the young Castellana. His death in 1803 was that manufacturer. In the catalogue
birth is compounded by the curious Antonio Canova, who had just arrived shortly followed by that of his son. printed in French (Victoria and Albert
fact that he adopted the surname of in the city. He continued to produce The factory, which had been turned Museum, London) that lists the pieces
his maternal grandmother. As a young other publications, including many over to Francesco Tinucci, already on sale from Volpato, there appears a
man, he completed his training at the prestigious commissions, which cul- head sculptor, continued Volpato's "Gladiateur mourant etendu du
famous printworks of Giovambattista minated in the visit of King Gustav III enterprise until 1831, with the death Museum Capitolin" costing six gold
Remondini in Bassano. In 1762 he of Sweden to his studio in 1784. An of the founder's grandson, [rv] zecchini. This refers to a reduced
moved to Venice to work in the studio influential figure in the circle of Roman bibliography Morazzoni i960, version of a famous ancient sculpture
of Francesco Bartolozzi, where he artists, scholars, antiquarians, and pp. 192-94; Honour 1967; Biavati 1977; first recorded in 1623, when it

executed several works after paintings merchants, he knew and associated Tittoni Monti 1983; Marini 1988; Gonzalez- appeared in the collection of the
by Jacopo Amigoni. He then began to with Goethe, Gavin Hamilton, and Palacios 1993, pp. 321-25; Di Castro 1996 Princes Ludovisi and had perhaps
collaborate with the painter Francesco Angelika Kauffmann. been found some years earlier when
Maggiotto and worked extensively in In 1785 Volpato opened a porcelain the Ludovisi Villa was being built on
the printworks of Joseph Wagner. factory near the church of lOO the remains of the Sallustio gardens
Alongside this activity, he also S. Pudenziana. The following year (Haskell, and Penny, 1981, no. 44). Its
Giovanni Volpato
managed to work as an agent for the Pius VI granted him a privativa, a fame made it the subject of numerous
Remondini family in Venice, where he him a
license that effectively allowed Dying Gaul reproductions in various materials
came into contact with painters, col- city monopoly for the production of Late eighteenth century
and sizes, [rv]

lectors, and scholars living or passing such material. The output included
Bisque
through the By the end of the
city. adaptations of classical prototypes
Height 5/s" cm)
(13
1760s Volpato's fame as a printer was executed in biscuit porcelain. The FiXHIBItions Rome 1959, cat. no. 2051;
confirmed by his collaboration with pieces were small and generally bore Bassano del Grappa, Italy. Museo
Bodoni in Parma and his appointment the mark G. Volpato. Rome. A printed Bibliotheca Archivio; Rome, lstituto
as an honorary member of the acade- list of these in French was sent by Nazionale per la Grafica. Giovanni Volpato.

mies of Verona and Parma. Charles H. Tatham to Henry Holland, 1998

By 1771 he was in Rome, where he architect to the Prince of Wales. This BIBLIOGRAPHY Mottola Molfino.
began his 1 elebrated series i >l engrav- list provides information on the Alcssandra. Lane dclla porcellana in Italia.

Busto Arstizios, Italy:Bramante. 1977,

ings of Raphael's frescoes in the variety of figures and shapes that, as it
vol. 2, fig. 95: Tittoni Monti 1983, fig. 12
Vatican Loggc. These were collected in expressly points out, could be com-
Pinacoteca Capitolina, Rome
three volumes produced between 1772 bined to decorate tables and fireplaces.
and 1777. While actively working as an Only a single example is known to date:
engraver, he also spent time research- a table centerpiece originally from the Although not bearing the mark that
ing antiquities. In 1779 he started ( higi family and today belonging to usually identifies Volpato's biscuit-

208 !)!( OKAT IVI. ARTS

 —

Pacetti's work, but he is perhaps the Musei Capitolini (Marini 1988, p. 39).
most likely author of this small piece. It is simplicity itself to combine diverse

[AGP] items in a single porcelain group. There

is another example of this piece in the

Cini Collection in the Musei Capitolini

102 in Rome. Iagp 1

Giovanni Volpato
101 and an entrepreneur who himself never
sculpted) with the models for the many The Rape of Europa
Unknown artist
biscuit pieces his factory began to turn End of the eighteenth century
Model for "The Rape of Europa' out in 1785. All we know is that the
inscription G. Volpato Roma.
End of the eighteenth century workshop's chief model maker,
Bisque
Terracotta
Francesco Tinucci (or Finucci), married
Height io'A" (26.2 cm)
Height nYs" (29 cm)
the widow of Giuseppe Volpato
bibliography Mottola Molfino,
bibliography Gonzalez-Palacios 1993,
Giovanni's son and successor —who Alessandra. L'arte della porcellana in Italia.

fig. 556
died in 1805, two years after his father. Busto Arstizio: Bramante, 1977, vol. 2,

Private collection However, it is impossible to say whether fig. 97; Gonzalez-Palacios 1993, fig. 555
this Tinucci (or Finucci), who managed The Minneapolis Institute of Arts, The
the factory until his own death in 1818, Ethel Van Derlip Fund

This terracotta depicts the famous made the models himself.

episode from classical mythology in It is certain that Vincenzo Pacetti The French catalogue of Giovanni
which Jupiter disguises himself as a sold at least one terracotta model to Volpato's factory (a copy of which is

young Europa. It
bull to carry off the Senator Ginori, owner of the cele- kept in the Print Room of the Victoria
was certainly used as the model for a brated Doccia porcelain factory near and Albert Museum, among the
biscuit group produced at the Roman Florence, and this model must cer- Tatham papers, n.D. 1479/17-98) men-
factory of Giovanni Volpato, two tainly have been used by the tions, together with groups of varying
examples of which are known to us: Florentine factory. Pacetti was closely sizes, "une Europe sur le Taureau,"
one at the Minneapolis Institute of acquainted with Giovanni Volpato, as which could be bought for nine zecchini,
Arts (cat. 102), the other in the Cini is evident from several entries in the not a modest sum. There are few dif-
Collection of the Musei Capitolini in sculptor's (as yet unpublished) ferences between this biscuit group
Rome (Morazzoni i960, vol. 2, pi. 277; journal, though his dealings with and the preceding terracotta (cat. 101).
Tittoni Monti 1983, fig. 14). Not only Volpato were mainly concerned with The only obvious one is the cupid
does it correspond almost exactly to classical marbles. But we also know running along beside the bull, of which
the porcelain pieces, but it is slightly that Pacetti made some wax figurines there is no trace on the original model,
larger, proving that it was the original to be used for a or table centerpiece nor on its base. It is iherelorc probable
model, rather than a copy (porcelain (deser). It is at least possible that that this little putto was added at the
figures are always smaller than the ter- Vincenzo Pacetti made models that time of manufacture, using (as was
racottas on which they are modeled). could have been used by a porcelain often the case) a preexisting figure. Ii

Nothing is known of the sculptors factory. This is not to say that the ter- may be a slightly altered version of a
who supplied Volpato (an engraver racotta on display here is definitely little cupid that can be seen in the

1)1 ( Ok \ I I Y I \ K I S 2(H)
 An Introduction to Sculpture in Rome in the Eighteenth Century

DEAN WALKER

1700-1760 the century were sculptors belonging to three for life in 1765. Banks arrived in the 1770s.

age groups. Jean-Baptiste Theodon, a resident Among the French artists, Clodion and
In 1772, in a book intended for circulation Frenchman, and Giuseppe Mazzuoli, from Francois Poncet, born in the 1730s, were in
throughout Europe, the sculptor Bartolomeo Siena, were both born in the 1640s. The latter, Rome in the 1760s, and Poncet remained until
Cavaceppi proclaimed Rome to be the "regina an assistant of Gianlorenzo Bernini in the 1775. Born in the 1740s, Johan Tobias Sergei
citta del mondo."' His confidence may surprise 1670s, continued to be active and evolve artis- and Houdon were also in Rome in the 1760s,
many today, particularly regarding sculpture. tically until his death in 1725. The important and Sergei left only when obliged to, in 1778.

The primacy of Counter-Reformation Rome sculptors Pietro Stefano Monnot and Camillo Artists born in the 1750s include Giuseppe
in European sculpture of the 1600s has been Rusconi were born in the late 1650s; Pierre Ceracchi, Camillo Pacetti, and Canova (in

accepted for decades. But the importance of Legros II and Bernardino Cametti in the late 1757)- Their foreign contemporaries, whose
the city as a center for sculpture in the follow- 1660s; and Angelo de' Rossi in 1671. All of Roman years overlapped, include Friedrich
ing century has had few champions. The 2
these artists were in the flower of their careers Wilhelm Eugen Doell, Flaxman, Joseph

number of such scholars has been growing, around 1700 and were the dominant figures Chinard, and John Deare, who arrived in 1785
however, as demonstrated by the catalogue during the first third of the eighteenth century. and remained until his death. The most
commentaries that follow. It does not require A younger group —Agostino Cornacchini, important events for sculpture in Rome in the
much reflection to why there is as
understand Giovanni Battista Maini, Bernardino Ludovisi, last decades of the century were Canova's set-

yet no satisfactory overview of this Roman and Antonio Montauti, born in the 1680s to tling there in December 1780, and Flaxman's
sculpture: it is because the subject itself is so early 1690s —would all be active by the 1720s, stay from 1787 to 1794.
vast. To understand the first half of the century although Montauti did not come to Rome From this brief overview it is clear that
requires appreciation of the late phases of until 1733. the two halves of the century involve different
Baroque art. After 1750 the main themes Around the turn of the new century so groups of artists with a period of transition
involve the intertwined emergence of many sculptors were born that it is possible occurring in the central decades. Until mid-
Neoclassicism and Romanticism. Related to speak of the generation of 1700. This group century many artists enjoyed long careers,
to both halves of the century, and especially includes Filippo della Valle, Pietro Bracci, and and younger artists obtained commissions
important for Neoclassicism, is the subject Carlo Marchionni, and the French artists Edme at a reasonable rate. Then, until the emergence
of antiquities and the rise of an international Bouchardon, Lambert-Sigisbert Adam, and of Canova, it is hard to follow the Italian artists

taste and avid market. Finally, to understand Michel-Ange Slodtz. The Frenchmen would in Rome. More distinct, these days, are the
the role of the city fully, it is necessary to spend only part of their careers in the city, the revolving groups of foreign sculptors sojourn-
include the activities of foreign artists and former two from 1723 to the early 1730s, while ing there. The introductory essays by Professors
patrons, more numerous than at any previous Slodtz remained longer, from 1728 to 1746. Sussino and Barroero and Professor Johns
time. Each of these topics remains challenging, Della Valle and Bracci emerged with early reveal Rome to have been an active place, but
even for specialists. successes in 1725. Along with the older Maini, one whose fortunes fluctuated considerably
It is also true that few of the sculptors are they became the most influential Roman during the eight pontificates that span the
well known today. In this exhibition Antonio sculptors into the 1760s. Cavaceppi, Innocenzo century. Even the preceding simple presenta-
Canova is probably the only famous Italian Spinazzi, Jacques Saly (contemporaries of tion of sculptors' dates reflects the changing
name. The other figures likely to be familiar Piranesi and Winckelmann), born between needs and opportunities of the eighteenth-
to museum visitors are the French or English 1716 and 1720, and Tommaso Righi, born in century city. A consideration of some notable
artists jean-Antoine Houdon, Clodion, and 1727, would begin to work toward mid-century. sculptures and major projects confirms this
John Flaxman, who spent only portions of their After the first third of the century, there is impression.
lives in Italy. Because so much about eighteenth- an increase in the number of future sculptors The year 1700 saw the election of Pope
century sculpture in Rome is currently obscure, born. Each decade produced artists, whose Clement XI, who initiated two of the most
it is practical to begin with an introduction of Roman careers would necessarily coincide in conspicuous sculptural projects of the century.
the artists arranged by generation. This will the decades after 1760. Italian sculptor Carlo In 1706 Pierre Legros completed the figure of
establish a basic outline of the succession of Albacini was born in 1735; Giuseppe Angelini, Saint Dominic, the first of the statues intended
sculptors for the course of the century. Giovanni Volpato, Francesco Righetti, and for the empty niches inside the basilica of
In 1700 the most prominent sculptor in Vincenzo Pacetti in the 1740s. Their foreign St. Peter's. These prominent spaces were
Rome was Domenico Guidi, a prolific, influen- contemporaries belong to the stream of visi- reserved for saints associated with the origins
tial but uneven artist who died the following tors to Rome in the last third of the century. of the holy orders, known as the Founders.'
year. At work in Rome in the first decade of Three British sculptors —Thomas Banks, Nineteen sculptures in the series were finished
Christopher Hewetson, and Joseph by 1767. This project was superseded immedi-
Nollekens — were all born in the mid-i730s. ately by another commission to fill the empty
(opposite) Camillo Rusconi, Giulia Albani degli Abaii The latter became a member of Cavaceppi's niches designed by Francesco Borromini in
Olivicri, c. 1719 (cat. 152) studio in the 1760s. Hewetson settled in Rome the 1640s for the nave of St. John Lateran, a

SCULPTURE 211
 church second in importance only to facial expression, and avoidance of details. His
Under the direction of the architect
St. Peter's. carving technique for rendering the striated
Carlo Fontana and the painter Carlo Maratti, veil is especially assured. The whole figure is

sculptors were asked to submit models, most unified by an exceptional understanding of the
of them based on Maratti's designs. The statues play of light over white marble. The result is a
were intended to demonstrate the noble dignity monumental work without heaviness and a
of the academic late Baroque style, a reaction portrait that is at once serious and refined.

to what was seen then as the exaggerated These qualities, expressed on a larger scale, also
manner of Bernini. To achieve the colossal distinguish another masterpiece by Rusconi,
statues, seven artists explored various traditions the tomb of Gregory XIII in St. Peter's.

from ancient sculpture and the works of Rusconi's example as a portraitist was
Michelangelo to contemporary paintings. The important for Bracci, who won notice with
Apostles, carried out between 1703 and 1718, his bust of Cardinal Paolucci in 1725 and, in

confirmed the stature of Monnot, Legros, and time, became the leading papal portraitist into
especially Rusconi. the early 1760s. Nevertheless, in his best works
Two statuettes in this exhibition, each one senses a different personality than
probably made for a foreign donor who paid Rusconi's, one in which a greater attention to
for a colossal statue, demonstrate the stylistic the details of appearance convey suggestions
extremes of the Lateran project. Rusconi's about character or temperament, as with the
Saint Andrew (cat. 150) is a variation on Francois unusually fully realized bust of Benedict XIV
Duquesnoy's famous statue at the crossing of (cat. 109).

St. Peter's. (The nature of the solution for each This was not the only current in portrai-
figure was determined in response to its archi- ture. Cametti, in his bust of Giovanni Andrea
tectural setting.) Rusconi's figure is less heroic Muti (cat. 110), demonstrates a brilliant tech-

in physique, its more restrained,

drapery is nique that revels in the crisp rendition of
and above all, Andrew's mood, instead of details of physiognomy and costume. In strik-

being directed outward, is an intense inward ing contrast is Bouchardon's bust of Lord Fig. 91 Alessandro Algardi, Saint Leo the Great and
meditation on the cross, the instrument of his Hervey —represented here by the preparatory Attila. 1653, marble; St. Peter's, Vatican City

martyrdom. The saint's rapt gaze is clearer terracotta model (cat. 107). This is one of
from the proper left side, which presents an several portraits from the 1720s that were
especially beautiful view. By contrast, unmistakably intended to recall antiquity. masterpiece of the genre was, rather, the Saint

Mazzuoli's Saint Philip (cat. 135) is the only one The style became standard decades later for Leo the Great and Attila relief in St. Peter's by
of the Apostles in a Baroque style indebted to portraits of antiquarians, scholars, and artists. Bernini's rival Alessandro Algardi (fig. 91). This
Bernini. Saint Philip, who vanquished a great In yet another style is Slodtz's bust of Nicolas impressive composition provided the proto-
serpent through the power of the cross, is Vleughels (cat. 157), a subtle study, naturalistic type for the large marble altarpiece, a format
depicted as an active victor. Mazzuoli and quietly perceptive. Generally, portrait that enjoyed a vogue in Rome in the late 1600s,
employed a dynamic composition in which busts, aside from papal likenesses, appear to primarily through works by Domenico Guidi,
the figure strides and leans forward implicating have been rather rare in Rome, and the memo- and into the early eighteenth century.
the space in the nave, and the saint confronts rable ones were often not carved by Italian Many forms of relief, mostly on religious

the viewer dramatically. Thereby, Mazzuoli Among the superior busts produced
artists. subjects, were required during the first half
manages to overcome the lateral restrictions in Rome from the 1720s and 1730s, work by the of the century. These works could be ordered
of the niche and the imposing, but distracting, French sculptors Bouchardon and Slodtz have in series for exterior and interior projects, or
verde antico columns and pilasters with their long been prominent. When portrait busts function as elements within more decorative
elaborate capitals. Although not influential in emerged number after 1765, the
in greater schemes. A relief sculpture appears at the

Rome and often neglected by historians, the best-known Roman specialist was the Irishman center of four eighteenth-century papal tombs
statue is successful in its own terms. Hewetson (see cat. 130), who settled there. (cat. 134). Not surprisingly then, the require-
Until his death in 1728, Rusconi headed Although a prominent figure in the artistic ments of reliefs varied according to the nature

the most important sculpture studio in Rome, life of the city, he drew most of his sitters from of particular commissions. For some projects,
which attracted many of the leading artists of among the foreign visitors. Does this mean such as the reliefs for St. John Lateran around
the future, including Delia Valle, Bracci, and that sculpted portraiture was unfashionable 1735, sculptors were encouraged to create their

Maini. Rusconi's achievements would remain with the Romans themselves, or are there many own individual compositions. Hence the
influential into the middle of the century. His busts in private collections currently unknown? variety in their solutions. This approach was
tomb sculptures with their superior effigies These few objects introduce the range of followed at S. Maria Maggiore and in works by
are especially memorable. One of these mas- styles, sometimes contemporaneous, from a Roman sculptors for the Chigi Chapel in Siena

terpieces is the half-length figure of Giulia period of considerable demand for sculpture. in 1748. Elsewhere a unified look was desired,
Albani degli Abati Olivieri (cat. 152). The type In the current exhibition the best demonstra- as in the stucco decorations at Ss. Luca e
more frequent in late seventeenth-
itself, tion of this point is found in relief sculpture. Martina, S. Marco, and the vault of SS. Nome
century tombs, was employed into the 1720s. It is fitting that this sculptural type was so di Maria. For some of these projects, only

The orientation of her gaze, folded book, and prominent: the period was dominated by a information from documents allows us to
hand on her breast, as seen here, are established pictorial aesthetic and was critical of Bernini, identify the contributions of individual artists.
elements of the type. Characteristic for Rusconi relief sculpture being a type to which he made Reliefs tested a sculptor's intellectual

are the clear composition of the figure, calm no substantial contribution. The acknowledged ability to interpret subjects and his practical

212 SCULPTURE
 place, especially in the execution of the many
decorative works in stucco that are so impor-
tant to Roman interiors.

Three objects in this exhibition give an

indication of the variety to be seen in relief
sculpture in the years around 1700. One is
related to a masterpiece of Italian relief sculp-

ture, Legros's Saint Luigi Gonzaga in Glory, the

centerpiece of a huge altar in the crossing of
S. Ignazio, completed in 1699. The relief draws

on earlier Baroque devices by artists including

Bernini and Melchiorre Cafa, but the resulting
vision of elegant sentiment is Legros's own
distinctive creation. The intimate mood seen
here is to be found in much early eighteenth-
century religious art Rome, although it is
in

rarely depicted somemorably as in this marble.

Legros establishes an atmospheric background
from which project the central figure and
groups of angels above and below him. The
saint's expression is introspective, but through
the positioning of his head, it is possible for a
viewer far below to experience a moving con- Fig. 93 Bernardino Cametti, The Annunication, 1729,

nection with the saint. A terracotta prepara- marble; La Superga, Turin

tory model shows the composition in an

advanced stage (cat. 132). Later in the prepara-
tion process, full-scale plaster models were makers are not to be confused. It is also
commonly used by sculptors before they set important to realize that these same artists

to work on marble (cats. 134, 155). Although successfully undertook very different kinds
such works were usually destroyed, Legros's of sculptures, including the Lateran Apostles
plaster for this relief was saved and installed in only slightly later in date.

another chapel in S. Ignazio. The mid-i7ios and the 1720s were years
Fig. 92 Pierre Legros II, Youth Holding a Bas-reliej, Legros's carving skill was exceptional, but rich in new talent as younger sculptors
detail from The Arts Paving Homage to Clement XI, in general the technical dexterity of the sculp- emerged. In the 1720s, when the Founders

1702, terracotta; Accademia di S. Luca, Rome tors active after 1700 was markedly superior to series was taken up again, Maini and
that of their elders, a point not made often Cornacchini each contributed a grand and
enough. The new standard can be appreciated vibrant statue, very different from the aes-
skill in controlling the balance of figures and in De' Rossi's marble Christ in the Garden of thetic of the Lateran Apostles. (Rusconi's
spatial recession. These challenges were judged Olives (cat. 149). Sculptures of this scale and design, based on his small model, was carried
as appropriate for the important competitions format are sometimes found in pairs flanking out by his assistant Giuseppe Rusconi, not a
for student sculptors at the Accademia di larger religious images in altar decorations. relative.) Cornacchini's ability was soon
S. Luca (cat. 144), Rome's most prestigious art Interestingly, De' Rossi's style appealed to arti- appreciated. It is demonstrated in this exhibi-

academy. Hence, a relief appears in the hands sans, and was adapted successfully by silver- tion in the Deposition group, usually dated
of the youthful sculptor in Legros's depiction smiths to their objects/ Another type of relief around 1714-16 (cat. 128). Here Cornacchini
of the arts rendering homage to Clement XI was the traditional one of the representation expands the confines of the relief form by cre-
for establishing the Concorso Clementino of the Virgin and Child, which became some- ating a work that must be viewed from 180°
(fig. 92). Also, sculptors newly admitted to the thing of a specialty of Monnot. In one such for all its composition and details to be under-
academy usually presented one of their terra- composition (cat. 138), a finished preparatory stood. In this active composition, intertwined
cotta relief models as their required gift to the model, the tender grouping of the Holy Family figures project into space in a way unlike the
organization. 4 is situated in a contemporary interior. Finished reliefs just discussed, or earlier pieces such as
One of these donations was Maini's The marbles on this scale could be the focus of Legros's and Theodon's marble figural groups
Archangel Michael Presenting the Shield Inscribed private worship or be placed in galleries along- on the Saint Ignatius altar in the Gesu, or the
"Charitas" to Saint Francis of Paola (cat. 133), a side paintings that they closely resemble. reliefs by these artists in the chapel of the Monte
relief more freely executed than most and The objects presented here indicate some di Pieta. An extremely pictorial aesthetic is

appealing for its demonstration of the artist's of the richness of relief sculpture from the involved here. Jennifer Montagu compares the
easy control of malleable clay. The develop- years around 1700. They have some qualities Deposition to fully three-dimensional compo-
ment of such an assured skill in modeling was in common. All are accomplished in the ways sitions found in Florentine and French bronze
a basic requirement for sculptors. Generally, in which they solve the problems of rendering groups. Cornacchini's figures can be related to
however, sketchier preparatory works were numerous figures, spatial recession, and inci- the restless poses of the statues of Hope and
not preserved, finished models being valued dental details; and all depict intimate moods Chant) by Cornacchini and Cametti.
1
in the
as more instructive. Nevertheless, the kind of comparable to paintings of the same time. Monte di Pieta, which extend outward rom f

fluid dexterity seen here had an important However, the artistic personalities of their their niches. In the late 1720s these sculptors

SCULPTURE 213
went on to carve their astonishing reliefs host of cardinals surrounding him, rather than
at the Superga in Turin (fig. 93). Exuberant being set off above supplicant figures like the

figures defy the limitations of their necessary pontiffs in several earlier reliefs. This image of
background plane in these densely populated condescension and community appears
Baroque altarpieces, carved with bravura. between statues representing Purity and
Scholars have long observed that the Humility, unusual choices for papal allegories,
papacy of Pope Clement XII Corsini (1730-40) above which an effigy by Bracci is posed in a

saw the rise of a distinctive style in art, strikingly original way (fig. 94). Turned away
expressed in ambitious projects carried out from the viewer, Benedict XIII falls to one knee
all over Rome. This was also the period of the and addresses the altar in unmistakable adora-
commission of King John V of Portugal, in tion of the painting of the Virgin appearing to
which Roman artists created a virtual Roman Saint Dominic.
interior for Mafra in Portugal.'' Some Roman In this world, different styles coexisted as

commissions produced unexpectedly novel they had before, although their differences
effects in sculpture, such as the allegorical were rarely jarring. Such a situation challenges
figures and trophies that enliven the monu- contemporary art historians both to identify
mental facade of the Palazzo della Consulta. styles and to chart their changing courses,
These sculptures possess a freedom generally which are seldom abrupt. Even in an ensemble
associated with stucco sculpture or ephemeral as unified as the sumptuous Corsini Chapel
decorations.Under this pope, the landmark some variations in styles are discernible. In

Trevi Fountainwas commissioned with public Maini's celebrated full-length portrait of Neri
competitions for both the architecture and Corsini senior and the adjacent standing
its sculptural decoration, an indication of the Fig. 94 Carlo Marchionni and Pietro Bracci, tomb weeping angel on the cardinal's tomb, for
importance of the project and, perhaps, that monument of Pope Benedict XIII. 1734-39, marble; example, there is a marked degree of clarity
the choice of the artists to carry it out was not S. Maria sopra Minerva, Rome and naturalism that recall the classicizing
foreordained. In 1730 a group of artists submit- Baroque of the seventeenth century. These
ted thirty models for the project. According to concerns were not unique to Maini, since they
tradition, the sculptoral component was ment with less content, such as the figures of can be seen in works by other artists from the
awarded to the French artist Lambert-Sigisbert Religion and Fidelity on the tomb of Sir mid-i730s and into the next decade.
Adam. However, both he in this project and Thomas Dereham. For the statues added to the Founders series,

Bouchardon in the design for a Corsini tomb Bracci, Delia Valle's contemporary, whose sculptors did notabandon refinement, but
in St. John Lateran were to be replaced by art is the more vigorous of the two, responded Maini, Monaldi, and Montauti each created an
Italian sculptors. These events raise interesting to this style around 1741 in his figure of image of a famous religious leader with a new
questions about the opposition of established Strength for the tomb of Renato Imperiali, look. Their approach is at work, as well, in some
Roman sculptors to outsiders for important designed by Paolo Posi (cat. 108). Her seated figures on the facade of S. Maria Maggiore,
commissions and, also, about the reluctance pose and attributes are traditional. This tran- one of the major schemes of Pope Benedict
of French officials to permit their young sculp- quil, unaccented figure possesses a seamless XIV, from 1742. This is especially clear if these

tors to stay in the city for a long time. beauty which may appear to us today as wholly statues are compared with the looming saints
In many of the Corsini projects, artists independent of the figure or its symbols. To on the Lateran portico. One such example, the 1

from the family's native Florence had an people more accustomed to the high Baroque figure of Della Valle's Blessed Niccola Albergati,
important share, and there is a general refine- of the seventeenth century, such a figure may seen out of context and in miniature form in

ment and lightness and a more sedate move- appear bland to the point of meaninglessness. the statuette exhibited here, may not register
ment that differ from the styles of the However, in the context of the tomb, her shad- as especially remarkable (cat. 159). However,
preceding decades. One statue that has served owed face and lassitude express strength in the full-scale statue, situated prominently on
as a touchstone for this style is Temperance, in abeyance, in contrast to the activity of a the portico, possesses a striking pose and a
the Corsini Chapel in St. John Lateran, by pendant figure of Charity, who gestures as she portrait-like head. The result is a convincing
Della Valle, who is usually officially referred to turns to witness a winged figure of fame dis- individual likeness of a person famous for his

as Florentine, although his career was Roman. playing the portrait of Imperiali. Thus a dis- humility. The sculptor was, no doubt, respond-
A terracotta model of the figure is included tinction is established between the two virtues. ing to the pope's special interest in this figure,
here (cat. 158). Her demure appearance, grace- Similar observations can be made about as Vernon Hyde Minor writes. Nevertheless,
fulmovement, and gentle folds of her gar- aspects of the stucco relief of Benedict XIII by the statue is not unique in the project: four of
ments express this subject beautifully. Marchionni, a work especially admired when the exterior figures here have far more distinc-
The viewer does not question the efficacy of it was temporarily installed in 1737 (cat. 134). tive appearances than usual.
her action of pouring water to dilute the wine, Romans must have appreciated the way the In his well-known book on Italian Baroque
7
although her attention is elsewhere. Her facial composition, depicting the meeting of the art and architecture, Rudolf Wittkower wrote
expression and pose appropriately reduce any Lateran Council called by this pope, showed about the disintegration of allegory, noting the
erotic appeal from the detail of her bared mastery of Algardi's prototype from the tomb new emphasis on genre-like aspects in sculp-
8
breast. Indeed, the figure as a whole is subtly of Pope Leo XI and included even more figures ture near mid-century. This current can be
metaphorical. That sculptures of this period carved in a lower relief. They would have detected in many objects in which the artists
can contain such meaning has generally not remarked, as modern spectators do, that aim to make the meaning more narrative and

been admitted. And it is true that Della Valle here the blessing pope, though enthroned, is direct. Saly's pensive head of a little girl

could produce allegories of the greatest refinc- shown sitting at nearly the same level as the (cat. 154), less a portrait than a description

SCULPTURE
 ing. This situation is evident in the sculptural standing portrait or effigy, a tradition that

decoration of the Trevi Fountain, conceived in begins with Legros's splendid statue of
1730 and completed in 1762. Part of the Girolamo Casanate, which presides over his
problem has to do with the scale of the figures library.) Important marble sculpture by the
within the monumental architecture. Delia best artists was rarely required for fountains,

Valle's two female allegories are inflated to fit and there are few large-scale independent
their niches and their gracefulness is impaired marble figures or groups. The exceptions
as a result. The Oceanus is the largest figure in include Cametti's Diana of 1716-24, at the
the design, but he appears small in relation to Staatliche Museen in Berlin, installed as a

the opening of the large arch behind him. With fountain decoration for an interior; Guidi's
limbs pulled in various directions to look active Andromeda of 1700, at the Metropolitan
from any view, his pose is a distorted stance Museum of Art; and Mazzuoli's freestanding
that feigns movement. He is not enlivened by Adonis of 1709, at the Hermitage. It is hard
the drapery that billows around him. Below, to know for what sort of placement Monnot
the tritons and sea horses move freely, as do intended his statues of mythological figures
the figures of Fame flanking the Corsini shield (cats. 139, 140), conceived over a twenty-year
on top of the The decorative standing
cornice. period. They were eventually installed as an
allegories are charming enough in their sub- ensemble in a garden pavilion, the
sidiary role, although rather small in propor- Marmorbad in Kassel. Montauti's Pieta group
tion to the rest of the sculpture. These of 1733-40 was commissioned for the crypt of
criticisms notwithstanding, it is necessary to the Corsini Chapel.
admit that there is an ideal viewpoint for the The status of sculptors in the Roman art
monument. If a spectator stands in the center world after 1700 is in need of study. Before
at the lowest level near the water facing 1760 the leading sculptors —Rusconi, Maini,
Oceanus, all the sculpture falls into the correct Delia Valle, and Bracci —were honored by
scale within the facade, and the whole takes on their colleagues by being elected Principe of
an impressive life that curiously dissipates when the Accademia di S. Luca. From 1730 to 1736,
viewed from other directions. How a viewer Lione Pascoli wrote biographies of sculptors,
reacts to this fountain may be determined by then recently deceased, for Guidi, Rusconi,
Fig. 95 Innocenzo Spinazzi, Saint joseph Calasanz, preferences and expectancies about the rela- Legros, De' Rossi, Mazzuoli, and Monnot. The
1755, marble; St. Peter's, Vatican tionship of sculpture to architecture or sculpture contrast of their careers with that of Bernini,
within architecture. described in thelife published by his son in

The issue of the architectural setting for must have made some sculptors wonder
1713,

of a mood, can be related to this movement. sculpture here is a reminder of how often this about the changing fortunes of their art. The
So can works by Delia Valle, even though his matter was important in eighteenth-century frequency of projects in which sculptors fol-
style does not dramatically alter in the course Roman art. The Saint Ignatius altar after 1695, lowed painters', or architects' designs — a tra-
of his career. In the 1740s, nevertheless, he the niches of St. John Lateran, the niches of the ditional practice —needs more attention, as do
takes pains to create more naturalistic infants nave of St. Peter's, and the locations for papal the prices paid for their work. Although it

for the figure of Charity in his tomb of _ tombs all involved settings in which sculptors was not customary for sculptors to sign or
Innocent XII. A deeper exploration of a new faced challenging tasks that, no matter what date their objects, it is interesting that Monnot
sensibility occurs in his Saint John of God, one their talents, were difficult to surmount and in signed several reliefs in 1699 and inscribed his
of the Founders series, said to have been based which their creations were bound to function name twice on his tomb of Innocent XI.
on a model by Bianchi, finished in 1745. The as elements of a larger whole. A number of Rusconi's inscription on the tomb of Pope
saint displays and supports a dying man, these spaces also required colossal figures, a Gregory XIII refers to his status as a knight
whose pose beautifully echoes a Pieta, with particularly demanding sculptural type. These and claims the role of inventor and sculptor of
a cloth soon to be his shroud. Slodtz's more were the projects that gave sculptors their the monument. Monaldi in 1738 and Slodtz in

famous Saint Bruno Refusing the Miter, from greatest opportunities. But the results can be 1744 signed their statues of Founders in St.

1744, is a more immediately striking composi- curious, as with Legros's marble tableau of the Peter's, as did Francesco Vergara, Pietro Pacilli,

tion. The gesture of his left hand seems more dying Stanislas Kostka, and Cornacchini's and Spinazzi in the 1750s. At present it is diffi-

one of surprise than refusal, a feature that equestrian statue of Charlemagne, a sculpture cult toknow what significance, if any, these
detracts from the essential meaning of the whose merits are overwhelmed by its setting actions may have had.
saint's renunciation of the bishop's miter and and its cruel placement opposite Bernini's Nevertheless, Roman sculptors in the first
his embrace of a skull — indicative of a Constantine." half of the century attracted some international
hermit's life. The most severe of the Founder Otherwise, certain kinds of sculpture clients. In addition to sculptures ordered by
saints and also the simplest in composition is diminished in importance in the first half of foreigners for placement in Rome, a number
Innocenzo Spinazzi's statue of Saint joseph the century. Tombs, generally, became smaller. of works were acquired by collectors in England
Calasanz, after a model by Maini, completed Independent portrait busts were not nearly as and, of course, Portugal."' Rusconi had a
in 1755 (fig. 95). This statue stands midway prevalent as in the seventeenth century, and Spanish commission and was also invited to
between the naturalism of Algardi and the three-dimensional effigies on tombs were provide a model for an equestrian monument
realism of the nineteenth century. gradually replaced by portraits, either in relief in Russia. Monnot's statues, mentioned above,
In some mid-century sculpture, the coexis- or painted. (It is paradoxical then that one of created a complete Roman ensemble for
tence of various styles is uneasy or unsatisfy- the new sculptural types should have been the Kassel. Sculptors in Rome also provided

SCULPTURE
 —

objects for other Italian locations, and, for rich aristocrats and gentlemen, as well as there, too. This collection was much admired
following tradition, for their native towns heads of state. Many of the works that went and, eventually, imitated. In the late 1740s the
or districts as well. through the market were not of high quality, rich Abbot Farsetti of Venice —aided by his
and few of the most important antiquities left influential uncle the future Pope Clement XIII

Rome by sale. However, it was a serious matter set about creating a similar collection for his
THE REVIVAL OF ANTIQUITY
when, in 1769, the Medici began to send to native city and for the academy in Bologna.
In the second half of the eighteenth century Florence the family's antiquities previously The restoration of antiquities was a tradi-
the production of sculpture changed substan- kept in Rome, or when Charles VII removed the tional part of a Roman sculptor's activities. By
tially for various reasons. The most striking Farnese collection to Naples in 1787. Thereby a long custom, fragmentary or damaged pieces
shift of emphasis was the rise, steadily through group of the antiquities most admired since were repaired and restored to look complete.
the century but sharply from mid-century, of the sixteenth century left Rome forever. It was not unusual for a young sculptor to
the taste for ancient sculpture, which reached The popes tried to counter the exodus of make copies or restore sculptures as part of
a level of prominence it had not hitherto antiquities in several ways. In 1701 Clement XI his training. French pensionnaires, for example,
attained in the European consciousness. In passed legislation to prevent the export of were usually required to copy an ancient work
recent years aspects of this revival have been statues, bronzes, and gems from the Papal for eventual placement in royal buildings in

studied by a number of scholars. A compre- States. They also added to collections them- France. Lambert-Sigisbert Adam's experience
hensive presentation of the subject can be selves. In 1734 Clement XII acquired over 400 of studying the Laocoon is clearly reflected in
found in Taste and the Antique, by Francis statues from Cardinal Albani. These became his head of Dolore, presented to the Accademia
Haskell and Nicholas Penny." Classical culture the basis for the Museo Capitolino, which, di S. Luca (cat. 103). Lesser artists might con-
in the form of ancient Roman history was the with the attached Pinacoteca, constituted tinue to specialize in routine copies and
common property of every educated European. Rome's only collections open to the public. restorations. However, to be entrusted with
Ancient sculpture was of interest to many for Benedict XIV bought a number of antiquities a famous work, such as Bracci's restoration
its relation to the history and literature of the in the 1740s and conceived the Museo Cristiano of a statue of Antinous belonging to Cardinal
Roman empire and to the early Catholic at the Vatican, completed in 1756. Clement Albani, was an honor as it had been in the six-

Church. Montfaucon's ambitious L'Antiquite XIV, encouraged by the future Pius VI, acquired teenth century, when artists were consulted
cxpliquee of 1719 made a large repertory of important pieces from the Mattei collection, over works such as the Laocoon, and in the sev-
images available in print form. Only later did after which the new Museo Clementino was enteenth century, when Bernini, Algardi, and
the subject take on the concerns of nascent art founded. Until Clement XIV the collections at Duquesnoy all restored important statues.
history, most famously with Winckelmann's the Vatican included the old Antiquario in the Among the most important Roman sculptors,
Geschkhte der Kunst des Alterthums, published Belvedere, unchanged since the sixteenth Rusconi, Maini, and Delia Valle made copies
in Dresden in 1764, and in an Italian edition in century, and the Vatican Museum, the library of antiquities for English patrons. At the end
1783-84, which sparked intense debate over of which comprised sacred and profane sec- of his life Rusconi, then the leading sculptor
the merits of Greek versus Roman art. tions. In 1776 plans were drawn up for two in Rome, took great care over the carving of
Since the Renaissance, antiquities had been branches of the future Museo Pio-Clementino. the statuette of a Faun (cat. 153), after an antiq-
the most prestigious of sculptures to collect, The new museum was opened in the 1780s. uity, as a unknown friend.
present for an
and the most important holdings were papal, A catalogue of its collection was published in In the 1740s, when a number of antiquities

royal, or princely. This pattern continued in seven volumes from 1782 to 1807. acquired by the pope were in need of restora-
the eighteenth century with the dispersal of The study of famous antiquities, either tion, the main sculptor employed was
famous Roman collections. The Giustiniani from drawn or modeled copies, was a funda- Bartolomeo Cavaceppi. He gradually trans-
collection was acquired by the Earl of mental part of the education of artists. The formed the previously mostly anonymous
Pembroke in 1720. The Odescalchi collection opportunity to learn from them was, indeed, activity into a lucrative international business.

was bought by the King of Spain in 1724. The the principal reason for young artists to attempt In time, he acquired a palace to house his work-
Chigi collection was purchased by Augustus a sojourn in Rome. The international growth shops and vast collections, which came to be
the Strong of Poland in 1728. The collection of interest in academies and art schools rein- an attraction for foreign amateurs. Cavaceppi's
of antiquities formed by Cardinal Polignac in forced the primacy of study after the antique ambitions to open his own academy did not
Rome in the 1720s was acquired by Frederick across Europe. In Rome, however, it could be come to fruition, but his studio served as the
of Prussia in 1742. Later, in the 1770s, the sale difficult for artists to obtain permission to training ground for sculptors, some of whom,
of the Mattei collection brought a large study pieces in private collections. Hence the such as Nollekens and Albacini, became
number of pieces on to the market. This importance of the Capitoline, which was important artists. In the 1760s, when general
decade marked the high watermark of interna- readily accessible, and the Vatican collections. economic problems may have prompted him
tional interest in collecting antiquities. Finally, For much of the century plaster casts were a to prepare to dispose of some of his already

in 1785 Thomas Jenkins, the English dealer rarity. It required influence to persuade numerous works of art, Cavaceppi published
established in Rome, bought the entire Villa owners to allow molds to be taken from origi- three volumes of his illustrated Raccolta. The
Montalto-Negroni collection. nal works, and the casts themselves were firstvolume contained pieces he had already
In addition to collections that changed expensive to make. For these very reasons, one sold: mostly to England, although some had

hands, new pieces were discovered through of the most important places for young artists been sold to Germany and Russia as well; the

excavations, which continued to be under- in Rome was the French Academy, housed in second volume consisted entirely of pieces
2
taken. Projects at Hadrian's Villa at Tivoli, the Palazzo Mancini after 1725. Installed there, identified as for sale.'

carried out from 1724 to 1742 and again in 1769, for the primary benefit of French students, was This exhibition contains a selection of
produced many works for sale. There were the only collection that assembled plaster casts works by Cavaceppi. Included are two terra-
enough pieces to support an international after all the most admired antiquities. Artists cotta models, retained in his studio, which
demand so that opportunities to collect existed of other nationalities were allowed to draw were made in relation to restoring antiquities

16 SCULPTURE
 — —

(cats. 117, 122). Presumably, they were shown to must have known that theirs was neither an
prospective clients as well. Much of his old nor a unique object. These transactions

studio's activity was devoted to the produc- illustrate the potential value of the making
tion of portrait busts of ancient Romans. The of copies and versions, for which there was
marble busts of Faustina the Younger and The a potentially wide market. Far less expensive
Emperor Caracalla, shown here, are rarities, were the bronze reductions of famous antiqui-
being signed and exceptionally well-carved ties that began to be cast —some after models
copies (cats. 119, 120). Versions of favorite by sculptors such as Vincenzo Pacetti — in the

models were turned out by Cavaceppi's assis- 1760s, first by Giacomo and Giovanni Zoffoli
tants in varying quality and in considerable and then by Righetti (cats. 147, 160). These
numbers. Heads of the Faustina, for example, pieces were usually purchased in groups to

can be found in eighteenth-century collec- be displayed together, as on a chimneypiece.

tions from Liverpool to St. Petersburg. Agents, After 1785 statuettes of similar dimensions
architects, or collectors often ordered such were produced in porcelain by the Volpato
copies in quantity for decorative purposes. factory (cats. 100, 102). These high-quality
However, purchasers must have been frequently items, intended for tourists, found ready

misled about the authenticity or the amount of buyers to the end of the century.
restoration involved in their acquisitions. It is one of the concepts most alien to the Fig. 96 Pietro Bracci, tomb monument of Pope
One of Cavaceppi's most interesting modern mind, which prizes originality in a Benedict XIV, 1769. marble; St. Peter's, Vatican

restorations is the Myron's Diskobolos Restored work of art, that copies were so esteemed and
as Diomedes with the Palladion in this exhibition sought after. Sculptors of two generations
(cat. 121). Most museum visitors will immedi- gained considerable fame as well as fortune current, seen in the representation of saints
ately recognize the pose of the figure as that of from these works. Eventually, Cavaceppi was that makes it memorable among the papal
the Discus Thrower. However, the correct, com- succeeded as a restorer by his former assistant monuments in St. Peter's.

plete composition was not understood until Carlo Albacini. His Flora (cat. 104), after one of Within the traditional type of the single
later in the eighteenth century. As Seymour the most admired female statues from antiq- statue of a saint, Houdon's Saint Bruno, of
Howard has written, it was the painter Gavin uity, demonstrates the finesse of his carving, 1766-67, is Rome. Even
unlike anything else in
Hamilton who found this fragment in 1772, through which the original models are subtly if the sculptor learned from the monumental-
and who probably provided Cavaceppi with transformed into particularly elegant variants. ity of Spinazzi's Saint Joseph Calasanz, Houdon's
the idea for restoration of the torso as the figure The positive attitude towards copying figure possesses a striking and unique self-

who stole the idol of the gods from the temple changed only toward the end of the century. containment. This quality is even visible in the

of Troy. In his letter to a knowledgeable client, Canova was in a minority, in 1779, in his disap- plaster statuette that probably preserves
Lord Lansdowne, Hamilton offered the statue proval of copying antiquities. Nevertheless, he Houdon's original model (cat. 131). The natu-
as a potential pendant to another marble figure grew to admire the craftsmanship displayed in ralism of the quiet colossus is not a matter of
already in Lansdowne's collection, by propos- copies by Cavaceppi and Angelini. Moreover, superficial appearance but of concept and
ing that they would form a pair — a Greek hero itwas the strength of this established taste that structure. Houdon has meditated about the
to join a Roman one, Cincinnatus. The need to led to the interest in similar kinds of works by form most appropriate for the founder of the
identify the subject of just such a fragment contemporary artists and provided the models Carthusians, an order that requires a vow of
must have been a source of constant interest against which their sculptures were judged. silence. Also, Houdon applied lessons learned
in learned circles in Rome, and it was essential, from his radical study of anatomy, which led
of course, before restoration could be under- to his famous ecorche of 1766-67, in creating
1760-1800
taken. Hamilton's reference to Greece in this the head of the saint." The final statue is
instance —correct in style, if not in subject In the two decades following the completion expressive in a concentrated way that is
would have been especially meaningful given of the sculpture of the Trevi Fountain there almost symbolic.
the direction of informed taste of the day. were few notable commissions of public Two other monuments demonstrate differ-
Cavaceppi sold other kinds of pieces as sculptural monuments in Rome. Nevertheless, ent approaches to another kind of artistic
well. From his studio issued the Boy on a Dolphin a small number of conspicuous works point to problem, designs of an overtly theatrical
(cat. 141), an eccentric composition that was creativity of different kinds and the emergence nature. Giovanni Battista Piranesi's composition
surprisingly popular in the 1760s. Versions of a new stylistic direction. demon-Bracci from the 1760s for the altar with the glory of
were produced in several sizes for English, strated interesting innovations in his tomb of Saint Basil (cat. 24) demonstrates his eclectic
Irish, French, and Russian clients. In his Raccolta, Benedict XIV, from 1769 (fig. 96). The progres- and synthetic approach to the art of the past,
Cavaceppi claimed that the design was by sive features include the handsome, spare which here transforms the altar form. The
Raphael and executed by Lorenzetto, the six- architectural setting, the notable allegorical design combines ancient sarcophagi, a tender
teenth-century sculptor known to have carried subjects, Wisdom and Disinterestedness, and image of the Virgin and Child and Saint John,
out some of the painter's compositions for the pope's stance, which has struck most and putti worthy of Delia Valle in a dynamic
sculpture. (Sculptures by Michelangelo and writers as unstable. Nevertheless, Bracci depiction of the saint, realized in a combination
Mannerist artists such as Giambologna were brought his skills as a portraitist to his render- of stucco and marble. Another theatrical cre-
of increasing interest to foreign artists and vis- ing of the pope's features, and the standing ation is Agostino Penna's monument to Maria
Seymour Howard's research
itors after 1760.) pose is a fresh interpretation of the traditional Flaminia Chigi Odescalchi, from around 1771
shows that Nollekens was known to be the blessing gesture of the pontiff. It is not a solemn in S. Maria del Popolo. a project designed by
executant of the example shown here as well or noble figure; rather, it has a degree of con- Paolo Posi, which presents, uniquely, the aes-
as other versions, so some of the purchasers vincing liveliness — following the fashion then thetic of a temporary decorative "machine."

sculpturi:
 Perhaps because these were works created to Describing the attractive status possible for an
submit to the Accademia di S. Luca for compe- English artist residing in the city, John Deare
titions, they reflect a conservative side of wrote home "I live like a gentleman."
Roman art. It is interesting, as well, to see that Rome could also serve to launch careers
another Roman style attracted the attention of from afar. Nollekens conceived his bust of
a newly arrived French sculptor Poncet. An Laurence Sterne (cat. 143), modeled while the

artist who had already executed precocious, famous writer visited Rome, as a piece to be
Neoclassical work in France, Poncet created in sent to London for exhibition. It made
1773 a relief of a Holy Family (cat. 146) that Nollekens's reputation, as John Kenworthy-
must have been intended to demonstrate his Browne observes. French artists had tradition-
understanding of the style of Delia Valle, who ally used the Roman sojourn to prepare works
had died in 1768, as seen most prominently in to show at the academy's Salon upon their
his large marble relief of the Annunciation return, a crucial event for an artist. Officials in
from 1750. These works, by artists little known Paris and Rome involved in administering the
outside Italy, are instructive about the range of French Academy at Rome normally monitored
Roman sculpture and the potential for conti- the progress and promise of the pensioners in
nuity or renewal of Roman styles that existed Italy with thoughts to future employment on
in abundance at the beginning of the last royal projects. However, during the third
quarter of the century. quarter of the century, French, Swedish, and
These sculptures also make the impact of Russian connoisseurs kept an eye on the
Angelini's statue for the tomb monument of promising young French sculptors while they
Piranesi of 1780 more appreciable (fig. 97). were in Rome or met them there, so that there

Here the naturalistic head of Piranesi, based was more potential for commissions for the
on the portrait in this exhibition (cat. 142), in students and for early recognition. Gerard
Fig. 97 Giuseppe Angelini, tomb monument of a style comparable to ancient Roman portraits, Hubert's concise survey details how interna-
Giovanni Battista Piranesi, 1780, marble; S. Maria is joined to a classicizing togated body. The tional the foreign population of artists was
del Priorato, Rome may not seem remarkable today.
result during these decades.' 6
However, when unveiled, this statue resonated Two of the most appealing of the foreign
in the city's artistic circles as the first demon- sculptors, Clodion and Sergei, were friends.

but one executed in the costly, noble materials stration of a correct Neoclassicism. Angelini's Clodion, who arrived in Rome in 1762, enjoyed
of marble and bronze. The two monuments then much-admired style is apparent, as well, an early success with his small models, said to
have remarkably different effects. The Piranesi in the allegorical group of Spem alit Prudentia have been purchased "even before they were
altar looks part monochrome apparition, part given by the sculptor to the Accademia di by important collectors, Italian,
finished"
large, provisional model, enhanced by its loca- S. Luca in 1789 (cat. 105). German, and Russian, as well as French. In
tion in the architect's unusual, all-white interior While the complexities of the Roman the reclining figure of the River Rhine of 1765
of S. Maria del Priorato. The Odelscalchi mon- sculptural scene after mid-century are only (cat. 124), the sketchy surface suggests a
ument has a different unexpected impact as a now beginning to be appreciated, the work preparatory model. Nevertheless, no full-scale
secular-looking decorative composition carried of visiting young foreign artists has received project for the figure is known, and Clodion
out lavishly and on a large scale, with great more attention. The chronological tables in made several versions of the sculpture during
attention to detail, and unquestionably the Dictionary of British and Irish Travellers to Italy his Roman years. Soon the sculptor developed
intended for permanence. contain statistics revealing why the phenome- a degree of finish not far from Cavaceppi's
The marked individuality of these works non of visiting artists needs to be reckoned models, but with a degree of delicacy and sub-
sets them apart from the approach visible in with after mid-century.' In the 1740s twenty-
s
tlety that transformed the terracotta into
pieces by three artists, then emerging, in this four British artists visited Italy, whereas in the sculpture meant to be appreciated as a finished
exhibition. In the model of Achilles and 1750s and 1760s the number doubled. From object. This intention is reinforced by the pres-
Penthesilea, from 1773, Vincenzo Pacetti clearly 1770 to 1780 the number of visiting artists rose ence of Clodion's signature and a date on some
adapted the famous ancient Pasquino group to seventy-five. In the 1780s fifty-two visited, objects, not normally found on traditional
for his basic pose (cat. 145).
14
The contrasting and even in the turbulent 1790s forty-four are preparatory terracottas. Today, the number
treatment of the sexes and their expressions recorded. Of course, other British and Irish of marble works created by Clodion in Rome
reflect contemporary interests to be found in travellers came to Italy as well. The phenome- isunknown. The only such statuette certainly
works by other sculptors, such as Sergei. non of the Grand Tour transformed the nature commissioned in Rome was ordered in 1768
Nevertheless, it is interesting how Pacetti gives of the traditional Italian sojourn for artists. for Catherine the Great by the Russian envoy
weight to different elements, essentially main- Then, they could meet potential clients, earlier Shuvalov, most likely after he saw the small
taining the legacy of Baroque art while admit- in their careers and often more easily than in model shown here (cat. 127). The marble was
ting innovative features. The relief of judith England. For sculptors, sometimes, works that in a commission to four young
one object
Showing the People the Head oj I lolofcrncs, by might never have left the model stage were French sculptors at the French Academy at
Camillo Pacetti, from 1775 (cat. 144), is an chosen to be carried out in marble, or were Rome. It is a tribute to Clodion's inventiveness

ambitious exercise in the Baroque style, purchased from the sculptor's studio by and craft that, even when such compositions
aspects of which go back to reliefs of the 1730s, English visitors fired by the possibility of exer- have classical prototypes, they are not imme-
only there is here an increased attention to a cising their taste and means. Artists who settled diately thought of as copies or reductions. The
genre-like description of reactions among the in Rome were often engaged in the sale or marvelous small vase in Chicago (cat. 126) is

witnesses to Judith's shocking triumph. commission of objects for their countrymen. also related to a terracotta model.

18 SCULPTURE
 racottas remained in his studio, Clodion Nicolai Abraham Abildgaard, and Henry
intended his to be sold, as has been men- Fuseli, whose influence is especially clear in the
tioned. In Rome terracottas must have been passage of the entwined figures of Thetis and
common, if mostly in sculptors' studios. At her nymphs. The lyrical aspect of the compo-
the Accademia di S. Luca there was the collec- sition —not to be found on ancient reliefs — is

tion of models by students submitted for com- certainly pictorial, but it may be indebted, as
petitions and the gifts from members (cats. well, to compositions on ancient engraved
105, 133, 144, 145).
1
"
By mid-century gems, as Malcolm Baker suggests. These are
Bartolomeo Cavaceppi had a collection of too brave creations, treating demanding literary
terracottas in his possession. Around 1750, in subjects, chosen by the and worked up
artist

Rome, Abbot Farsetti assembled a group of model without the

to the scale of the finished
200 terracottas, now mostly at the Hermitage, assurance of a secure commission. Banks
Fig. 98 Johan Tobias Sergei, Infant Bacchus Riding for his museum in Venice, which functioned found patrons to order three of the composi-
a Goat, 1770s, terracotta; Nationalmuseum, partially as an academy. One Delia Valle tions in marble, but he was badly treated about

Stockholm model in this exhibition (cat. 158) was pur- payment, notably by the Earl of Bristol and
chased from Rome for an English collector in Bishop of Derry, who ordered and then can-
the 1740s, and other Englishmen were espe- celed this project. By the early 1780s Sergei,

Sergei—who had studied previously in cially interested in sixteenth-century material Clodion, Doell, and Banks had left Rome, and
Paris and —began working
attracted notice there after the 1760s. Several interrelated issues are few of their works are known to have
in Rome in the mid-i76os by concentrating on involved here. There is the collectors' interest remained in the city. Although there is still

drawings, and, in the 1770s, went on to create a in acquiring exquisite reductions of notable much to be learned about the artistic genesis
number of terracotta models of single figures sculptures or preparatory models, some by of their objects, the cross-influences among
and groups, choosing dramatic subjects from acknowledged Old Masters. The new
taste for these acquaintances are intriguing, as Nancy
the Iliad and Odyssey (cat. 156). Around 1770 he sculptures in the material of preparatory Pressly's study of the Fuseli circle has demon-
became famous for his Reclining Faun, much models is another matter. Artists, meanwhile, strated.' 9 No one can overlook that these cre-
admired for its vibrant naturalism. Versions explored the preparatory process —more or ations were inspired by the challenges and
of the small statue were ordered by the Bailli less conventionally, according to their tem- possibilities that arose from the artists' syner-
de Breteuil (who owned an example of perament —and some, such as Clodion, getic Roman experiences.
Nollekens's Boy on a Dolphin) and the King of created pieces in terracotta that were intended In 1779 Antonio Canova visited Rome from
Sweden. The full-scale plaster of Mars and Venus as the finished works of art. These clay objects Venice, and by the spring of 1781 he had settled
more ambitious composition,
(cat. 155) is a might possess the customary finish of pieces there.With the completion of Theseus and the
worked up from a small model in Rome, but for presentation, or retain the sketchiness of Minotaur in 1783, Canova became the most
the carving was not completed until after working models. interesting sculptor in Italy, and his tomb of
Sergei's return to Stockholm. (Initially Sergei The 1770s saw a remarkable transformation Clement XIV, finished in 1787, established his
had planned to execute this group on a colossal of the ambitions of relief sculpture. The style reputation as the finest sculptor of his time.
scale.) The intensity of the group is enhanced of Doell's Minerva Handing Pegasus over to This great artist is still in the process of being
by the compression of the figures, which Bellerophon is astonishingly advanced for its date rediscovered, and this deserved attention
anticipates the form of the marble block, so of 1774-75 (cat. 129). An artist in the circle of makes it all the harder to a reconstruct a com-
different from the traditional, hellenistically antiquarian connoisseurs Winckelmann and prehensive view of sculpture in the city he
live in. " Like other artists from
2
derived composition of Pacetti. Sergei's plaster Johann Friedrich Reiffenstein, Doell created chose to
also carries to the final dimensions the here an image of striking Neoclassical purity. outside Rome, Canova was considered a for-
impetuous sketchiness of his small model, a The nude male figure of Bellerophon is an eigner. This situation could have some advan-
feature that was effaced in the final marble. adaptation to a relief format of the famous tages, as it did for Canova, since the Venetians
Both Sergei and Clodion also created dis- bronze statuette the Idolino in Florence.
18
The in Rome included his generous and sympathetic
tinctive terracottas in relief. Sometimes incorporation of three-dimensional figures to protectors, Ambassador Girolamo Zulian and
Clodion combined various techniques in the the demands of relief explains the awkwardness Prince Abbondio Rezzonico. Certainly, Canova
same work. In the relief Three Maenads Dancing in the positioning of Pegasus and the weakness encountered more hostility because he was
based on the Borghese Dancers,
(cat. 125), freely of the central gesture. Nevertheless, this male such a successful outsider: the fact that he was
as Anne Poulet has shown, assured graphic nude did not have a clear successor until not elected a member of the Accademia di
passages are joined to modeled areas of a high Canova's first Roman statue, Apollo Crowning S. Luca until 1800 reveals the degree of Roman
finish, skillfully manipulated throughout to Himself, of 1781, at the J.
Paul Getty Museum. rivalry he inspired. Thiswas after he had com-
appear spontaneous. The relief, which once The other important marble reliefs from the pletedtwo papal tombs, an honor not
had a pendant, is signed and dated. Sergei mid-i 770s were executed by Thomas Banks, achieved by a sculptor since Bernini, and was
must have known just such pieces by Clodion. who had carved reliefs, now lost, earlier in acknowledged throughout Europe as the pre-
In his own reliefs he employed the same England. In Rome he created four composi- eminent sculptor. His international clientele
means, but the resulting works possess a char- tions recognized, then as now, as the first epic exceeded Bernini's own considerably. Canova
acteristic vigor and rough freshness, equiva- Neoclassical reliefs by an English sculptor. The even received a commission for a tomb monu-
lents in clay of his sketchy drawings (fig. 98). relief in this exhibition (cat. 106) demonstrates ment in Philadelphia in 1-94. a project that

Terracottas by these two artists belong several sides of Banks's artistic personality, the unfortunately did not proceed beyond the
to an interesting phenomenon, the increased study of ancient sarcophagi for the nude figure stage of a small model (fig. 99).
importance of this material for artists and col- of the grieving Achilles and the interests of a Excellent treatments of Canova's life and
lectors. Although most of Sergei's known ter- like-minded group of friends including Sergei, career can be found in short and longer forms

SCU1 PTURE
 —

passionate examination and attention to detail of Clement XIII and Clement XIV. Canova
that are found in Winckelmann's writings on achieved this while often treating intimate or
antiquities. internalized emotion. The seated Clement XIV
The breadth of Canova's artistic personal- has a weighty symbolic presence with his arm
ity can be seen in his attraction to many media, outstretched, while the kneeling Clement XIII
including his idiosyncratic drawings and is a compelling figure even though he is

paintings. The searching side of his creative absorbed in prayer, with his head lowered.
process is apparent in his three-dimensional When not facing a specific intended location,
models. Three of them are included here to Canova generally fixes the viewer's attention

give some indication of their variety. The through subtle, often stylized, but original,
Cupid and Psyche (cat. 112) is a sketchy composi- poses for his figures. These often enhance the
tional study in which the combined poses of meaning or narrative of the subjects and are
the figures are largely worked out and the formally rich, creating many interesting view-
opposing nature of their facial expressions is points, even though a figure or group may
suggested. The unsystematic scoring of the have a pronounced frontal orientation.
surface is interesting, since some of the strokes From an early stage Canova chose original
Fig. 99 Antonio Canova, model for a tomb that help establish the three-dimensional subjects or interesting ways of approaching
monument to an unknown friend of Frank Newton, forms, after which clay was added or smoothed familiar themes. This is especially evident in

1794, plaster; Museo Civico, Bassano del Grappa in some areas, also enliven the surface. The the reliefs from the late 1780s and early 1790s,
resulting degree of graphic animation is which were never carried out in marble. They
expressive of both the speed of execution and include the classical frieze of The Departure of
in various sources. This essay will consider the violence of the subject. (A beautiful, disci- Briseis, the stately procession of The Trojan
only some general issues and a few works of plined use of overall scoring appears on the Women, the violent Death of Priam, a gentle
art. To begin with, it is essential to acknowl- plaster group of Adonis Crowned by Venus at Homecoming of Telcmachus, the joyful Dance of the
edge the number and ambition of the artistic Possagno.) Antigone Mourning the Dead Eteocles Sons of Alcinous —remarkable for their extremely

problems he undertook. In the 1780s Canova and Polynices (cat. 115), from just before 1800, is varied approaches to composition and their
created a range of sculptures, including the a study with a greater range of surface treat- explorations of many poses, emotions, and
single male nude figure, a group with two ments. There are schematic, efficiently exe- details. The lack of stylistic unity and variations
male figures, two designs for papal tombs, a cuted abstract forms in the outstretched arm in format made the reliefs an unconventional
pair of compositions of seated lovers, and a on the ground, but also well worked-out inter- series by normal decorative standards.
series of narrative reliefs. In the 1790s he pro- locking figures, suggestions of grieving expres- Nevertheless, as Giuseppe Pavanello has
duced three compositions of lovers (standing sions, and an attention to details such as hair shown, sets made up of varying numbers of
and reclining in motion), numerous tomb and a helmet — in all, a number of competing reliefs were acquired by important Venetian
designs, including several in the form of a elements pursued at the same time and kept in families." In 1796 Canova demonstrated a very
stele, various Christian subjects, and a stand- balance. A third kind of model, is the statuette different approach in the reliefs of Teaching the

ing figure of Perseus. He explored the theme of Piety or Meekness (cat. 111), an idea for a figure Ignorant and Feeding the Hungry (cat. 113) by
of standing figures in motion in the graceful for the tomb of Clement XIV. This is a figure reducing the number of figures and concen-
single figure of Hebe and the violent group of in which the earlier stages have been refined, trating on the symbolic nature of the subjects.

Hercules and Lichas. approaching their final form. Although the That Canova attracted an international
From the beginning of Canova's career in face is simplified, the figure's stance, hands, patronage by the late 1780s is a tribute to his
Rome, his work was admired as rivaling or and drapery are impressively realized. genius. However, this is only explicable
surpassing antiquity. As Seymour Howard Normally Canova would carry out a finished because he came to attention in Rome, the
notes, Canova intended to create new classics. full-scale plaster model before carving was center of the market for ancient marbles, and
For all his consultation of earlier objects, he begun. That Canova fired his clay models and because his sculptures appealed to that already
was considered, as he intended to be, a modern retained so many —parting with them usually well-established taste. Eventually, to satisfy
artist. This can be seen in the Giustiniani Stele only to friends or acquaintances he admired the demands for his sculptures, he faced prac-

(cat. 114), an ancient type revived by Canova, point to the importance he attached to objects tical problems rather like Cavaceppi's, and he
designed according to his proportions, and produced during the process of creation. 21
certainly employed numerous well-trained
whose seated personification of Padua does Several aspects of Canova's art stand out as assistants. However, unlike the restorers of
not copy an ancient model. The stele is full of particularly significant in an overview of eigh- antiquities, he was scrupulous about attending
distinctive elements, including the rendering teenth-century Roman sculpture. One of his to the finishing touches of his works himself,

of drapery, the angel mostly hidden by the finest qualities was his ability, when required, even when it was a matter of a repetition.

inscription, and the owl represented in flight. to deal with the existing spaces for which his A good example is Cupid and Psyche (cat. 116).
The artist's letters and other sources testify to works were destined. Not since Bernini had a The group takes up aspects of two previous
the range of art he studied. In this he was not Roman sculptor been so sensitive to the set- works. Psyche is derived from a single figure
unusual. However, the unpredictability, rich- tings of his works. However, whereas Bernini which Canova created in 1789. The theme of
ness, and originality of his art are notable. The managed through his grasp of proportion to standing, embracing lovers he had explored
degree of refinement in the lines and forms of involve the space around his figures or com- beginning in the same year, with Venus and
his sculpture, the rendering of the smallest ele- positions, Canova created discrete works that Adonis, who gaze into each others' eyes. In 1796

ments, and the astonishing surfaces, which exist in, but are not compromised by, their he conceived the idea of making a standing
rival aspects of paintings or any earlier sculp- surroundings. By their perfection they can group of Cupid and Psyche to symbolize inno-
ture, must have been intended for the kind even dominate their locations, as in the tombs cence, as a pendant to the group of Cupid

220 SCULPTURE
embracing a reclining Psyche, which symbolizes for which the full-scale model was completed
lust. The central gesture of the standing group by April 1796. Flaxman's greatest fame,

consists of Venus placing a butterfly, symbol however, was not derived from these works
of the soul, into the palm of her lover's hand, but came about from his drawings (cat. 345),

and it is the butterfly they both contemplate. intended as ideas for relief sculpture, that illus-

Innocence is conveyed by the adolescent body trate subjects from the Iliad and the Odyssey.

types and the direction of their gazes, but sen- The designs, consisting of simple outlines
timental and erotic implications are present derived from vase paintings to suit the Homeric
nevertheless, if very subtly expressed, in the subjects, were hailed universally as authenti-
poses and the sensuously worked surface of the cally antique when engraved in 1793. They
marble. This Cupid and Psyche group exists in would be put to a seemingly endless variety of

two marble versions, of which the one shown decorative purposes. In a short span of years,
here is the second, acquired by Empress between them, Canova and Flaxman made the
Josephine. (It and the earlier example at the greatest sculptural contributions to the end of
Louvre are based on a full-scale plaster model one century and beginning of the next.

that Canova kept in his studio.) In executing his For the years around 1780, the decoration
repetition, Canova slightly refashioned the of the Villa Borghese is the project that reveals Fig. 100 John Flaxman, The Fury of Athamas, 1790-94,
heads and faces of his lovers, and made a the situation of sculpture by Roman artists marble; Ickworth House, Suffolk

number of changes and refinements in the most clearly." The conditions governing the
figure of Psyche and her garment, enhancing commissions were traditional with sculptors

the delicate expression of the group overall. sometimes working in teams, sometimes pro- isons to set off the originality of Canova's
This is just the process described by Quatremere viding their own models, but sometimes being Theseus and the Minotaur. Sculptors were also put
de Quincy, which he said justified calling the given models or drawings to follow. This to other tasks at the villa, restoring antiquities,

later versions "original copies." Seeing the first explains the wide range of styles to a degree, devising sculpture for fountains, carving pre-
version some years after it was finished, Canova although diversity was certainly an overall cious materials for fireplaces, and executing
recut some passages to improve it, as well. aim. The predominant role of the architect models for furniture elements. A good example
All of these aspects of Canova's art point Antonio Asprucci was emphasized in E. Q. of the unexpected affinities to be found in

to the caliber of his creativity and his high Visconti's contemporary guidebook to sculp- Roman work around 1780 are the figures
standards as a craftsman, through which ture.
26
From 1776 to 1778 come the Dance of the Vincenzo Pacetti provided for the console table
modern sculpture affirmed its independence Corybantes in the Room of the Gladiator and (cat. 59) for the villa, which demonstrates a
from a subsidiary role. The recognition of the reliefs for the Room of the Vase, by Vincenzo continuity of sixteenth- or seventeenth-century
new value of sculpture was not only aesthetic Pacetti, who based his designs on antiquities, classicism rather than a Neoclassical approach.
but monetary. Hugh Honour has commented although the effects are different, one resem- Now that the restoration of the villa is complete,
that sculptors were able to ask higher prices in bling a Wedgwood plaque and the other a the brilliant, imperial elegance of the interior
the 1790s than in the decade before, because heavy composition by Gavin Hamilton. 27 can be appreciated anew. However, although
of Canova's example. 2
' However, Canova was The team of sculptors that decorated the large the activity of eighteenth-century sculptors
not alone in the 1790s in extending claims for Room of the Emperors around 1780 created was apparent and was described in Visconti's

sculpture. Especially in the eyes of English narrative stuccos in a surprisingly Baroque book, only in the Room of Paris and Helen, on
connoisseurs, a rival existed in Flaxman. style, although the smaller lozenges on the the second floor, did works by Pacetti and
Luckily, Flaxman enjoyed the protection of pilasters below are more classical. It is hard to Penna provide the entire sculptural decora-
rich patrons, so he was able to execute various know what stylistic name to apply to the four tion, and were the only contemporary pieces
projects concurrently around 1790. For Thomas translucent vases by Laboureur of 1785. The illustrated by Visconti, in comparison with the
Hope he created a model for the restoration of form of the vases is essentially classical. many antiquities and Bernini's creations
the Belvedere Torso as a Hercules, to which he Running around the vases are friezes of chil- installed throughout the main galleries.
added a diminutive figure of Hebe. His two- dren, representing the activities of the seasons, Two later projects by Pacetti point to the
figure group of Cephalus and Aurora bears com- like those on ancient gems, but the back- almost bewildering diversity that existed in

parison with Canova in that the male nude grounds are filled out with landscape details. decorative sculpture then. For the Palazzo
looks back somewhat to the Apollo Crowning The most clearly Neoclassical sculptures in Altieri's Gabinetto Nobile, in 1789-91, he exe-
Himself and the Aurora precedes the figures the villa are the four reliefs in yellow marble cuted the charming marble frieze with children
of Hebe and Victory, but the sculpture is truly of seated deities, from 1782 to 1784, in the depicted in ancient games, under the direction
innovative as a group of two figures in motion. Room of Paris and Helen, again by Pacetti. of the architect Giuseppe Barberi, and perhaps
Although it is easy to criticize as derivative These are probably based on designs by Gavin after drawings by Felice Giani. 2
" And for
today, The Fury of Athamus was yet more ambi- Hamilton, who executed the ceiling painting. S. Salvatore in Lauro, under the architect
tious (fig. 100). In this survey of eighteenth- Originally the room contained two marbles Asprucci, Pacetti produced the glory of stucco
century sculpture the group has a significant by Agostino Penna, of Paris and Helen, proba- angels with marble heads of cherubs. As one
place as the first freestanding colossal marble bly also designed by Hamilton. 2
" The statues, of the last exercises in a frankly Baroque style,
of four figures depicting violent movement although based on ancient models, have elon- it is not an original work. It is, however, a
that directly sets out to rival the most famous gated proportions and swaying stances of an beautifully executed, satisfying decoration. And
Hellenistic sculptures, such as the Niobids and almost Mannerist elegance. They look closer it serves as a final reminder of the suitability of
the so-called Paetus and Arria. 1 * Canova was to figures in paintings by Hamilton or Mengs the Baroque for certain kinds of sculpture for
considering this problem in 1795 in his aston- than to sculptures. They, with the Pacetti reliefs which Neoclassicism would have no compara-
ishing and powerful group of Hercules and Lichas, in the same room, provide the best compar- bly successful solutions.

SCULPTURE 221
 In this period that witnessed grand artistic sculptors continued around the political
ambitions, not all projects were successful. turmoil. Richard Westmacott won a first prize
Ceracchi, who returned from a sojourn in at the academy in 1795, aided by Pacetti. Bertel

England, searched in vain for support in his Thorvaldsen arrived in 1797. In 1800 he
schemes for monuments to famous political received the commission for a statue of Jason
figures. He lost four years from 1785 to 1789 that allowed him to stay, an event that set the

to the project for a monument to the Dutch stage for a rivalry with Canova that dominated
republican sympathizer Baron van der Roman sculpture for the first two decades of
Capellen, the designs for which are like the nineteenth century.
Neoclassical reformulations of papal tombs. Despite this artistic activity, Rome was
Four of the large figures — the effigy, two alle- shaken by historical events in a way it had
gories and the Batavian lion — are to be seen not seen since the sack of 1527. The Papal States
in the gardens of the Villa Borghese, with out- were dissolved in 1798, and the pope was exiled

sized, vigorous poses, executed with perhaps in the same year. The ultramontane reverence
too much confidence. Ceracchi's political of Italian antiquities and works of art produced
ideals and ambitions would lead him all over its most brutal tribute of admiration in the
Europe and to the emergent United States. confiscation by French authorities of master-
In Philadelphia, he portrayed a number of pieces from 1796 to 1798. Around 1798 Moitte
the Founding Fathers, including George carefully copied two famous reliefs from the
Washington (cat. 123). Although Ceracchi's Arch of Titus (cats. 136, 137). A much-admired
hopes for a colossal monument to Liberty draftsman, Moitte had already designed deco-
were not to be realized, his portraits have real rations for the festivals of the republic, and he
artistic merit as well as historic interest. Over would continue to do so under Napoleon. It is
the years he would vary his approach to the an indication of a bizarre, new relevance of
features of Washington, some versions ancient masterpieces that he studied these
looking distinctly idealized. The bust shown objects when he did. The Despoiling of the Temple
here is the most careful likeness, more accu- is a most apposite choice in relation to Moitte's

rate than Houdon's, especially in the rendering actual administrative responsibilities while in
of Washington's mouth. The excellent likeness, Rome. He was there to supervise the selection
when joined with the heroic ancient style bust and shipments of famous antiquities to send
and Roman hair, however, did not please to France as a result of the Treaty of Tolentino
American eyes, which preferred the more of 1797. He returned to Paris, presumably with
natural bust form of Houdon. the reliefs shown here, for the official festival
The impact of the French Revolution had in which famous works from Rome were pre-
devastating effects on Rome, beginning in 1793. sented in a parade in the ancient style.
Among artists, the French pensionnaires were Pride of place was given to the antiquities
naturally affected first. Chinard, who sympa- (still in their packing cases), which included Fig. 101 Joseph Chinard, model for a Candlestick with
thized with republican ideals, was denounced works beginning, by then, to be out of favor Figures of Apollo Crushing Superstition, 1791, terracotta;

and imprisoned briefly in 1792. His designs for with connoisseurs. 1 " Nevertheless, the Musee Carnavalet, Paris

candlesticks substantiated the claims. One Neoclassical style nurtured by their study
model depicted Reason in the form of Apollo had been adopted by then throughout Europe.
trampling a figure labeled Superstition, with Projects for George Washington, Pitt the Elder, they inspired. Although the Baroque style,

the chalice and cross, symbols associated with Clement XIII, Catherine the Great of Russia, after many still little-known permutations,
Religion, a standard papal allegory (fig. 101). and soon for Napoleon indicate the wide was replaced by the antique taste, a moment's
The rendering is as exquisite as a Clodion. application of the style." The most famous reflection reemphasizes the degree to which
However, the attenuated proportions are highly artist in Europe was a sculptor, Canova. that revolution was nurtured by a host of past
personal and represent a marked change from Neoclassical marble statues were the most styles. The High Renaissance, Mannerism, the
the sculptor's earlier mythological groups, desirable modern objects. The universal ideal styles of the Seicento, even art before
probably encouraged by the candlestick form. acceptance of this taste made it impossible to Raphael, and the ever-present model provided
Some artists stayed in Rome throughout appreciate much earlier eighteenth-century by nature — these styles existed in monuments
the decade, while others remained until events Roman art, especially outside the city, a situa- throughout Rome which were there to be seen
forced them away. Flaxman had trouble tion that still prevails to some extent. A subse- afresh by new eyes. The subsidiary role of
evading French troops and encountered delays quent revolution, of course, submerged the sculpture within architectural projects largely
on his return to Britain. Canova left Rome for universal fame of Canova, in its turn. came to an end through the reestablishment
Possagno and Venice in 1792. In 1797 he briefly The continuous sculptural activity of sculpture as an independent work of art,
considered going to America; and in 1798 he sketched here involves objects produced for and in the diminution of a unified interior aes-
traveled to Vienna and other central European many reasons. But overarching changes tran- thetic in which new sculpture was a large

cities.By November 1799 he was back in the spired. The waning of the papacy as the component of the decoration. The local

city and welcomed Pacetti, then Principe of leading patron of important sculpture is one Roman school gradually embraced
the Accademia di S. Luca, to his studio, an of the principal currents of the century. It is Neoclassicism by the end of the century, and
event that led to an invitation to Canova to matched in significance by the rise of a pan- finally adopted Canova. The presence of foreign
join the academy. The arrival of young, foreign European audience for antiquities and the art sculptors continued.

s< 1 j i.i' 1 1 ; k 1
 The eighteenth century is a period of great a Roma (Milan, 1996) deals with the seventeenth 24 For these likely sources, see Haskell and Penny
century (see Bacchi 1996). However, he includes 1981, pp. 274-78, 282-84.
richness, achievement, and change for European
a number of artists who continued working after 25 The most useful photographs of sculpture at the
sculpture. Of course, not everything of artistic
1700, for whom the biographies are very infor- Villa Borghese are to be found in Pergola 1962.
importance or historic significance in European mative. The photographs are superb, although 26 Visconti 1796.
sculpture occurred in Rome. However, as the eighteenth-century sculptures are not included. 27 For Vincenzo Pacetti, the best sources are

preceding pages show, the sculpture made in A recent book in which sculpture figures in a Honour i960, "Pacetti," and Honour 1963,
contextual study of the art of early eighteenth- "Pacetti."
the city is remarkably varied, beautiful, and
century Rome is Christopher M. S. johns's Papal 28 For illustration of Penna's statues and on this
interesting. This is not generally admitted, and
Politics, Rome in the Age oj Clement
Art and Cultural room generally, see Ferrara 1954.
the importance of the Roman scene in relation
XI,Cambridge. 1993 (see Johns 1993). 29 For this room, see Schiavo i960.
to activities in other countries is not often 3 For the Founders series, see Rocchi Coopmans 30 See Haskell and Penny 1981, pp. 108-24.
appreciated. No other city, however, contained de Yoldi 1996, pp. 305-437. 31 The best introduction to Neoclassicism in many
4 For terracottas associated with the academy, see of its forms The Age of Nco-Classicism exhi-
is still
or produced such a range of sculpture or
Golzio 1933. For the names of student sculptors bition catalogue of 1972 (see Arts Council 1972).
equaled the prestige of Rome. For sculpture,
and the subjects of their submissions for the
the city fulfilled a role not to be matched else- academy's Concorsi, see Cipriani and Valeriani
where. Modern art historians still look at this 1988-91, vols. 2-3.

central place with many biases, usually without 5 Montagu 1996, pp. 129, 148, 151-54.
6 Vasco Rocca and Borghini 1995.
confronting it directly. The information pre-
7 In addition to his entry in this catalogue, see
sented in the catalogue entries contains many Minor 1997, pp. 29-43. This recent study is one
of the new thoughts of the leading figures in of the few monographs in any language on an
the field. To everyone else, most of the sculptures important eighteenth-century Roman sculptor.
be unfamiliar. 8 Wittkower 1973, pp. 293-95.
selected for inclusion here will
9 Other potentially interesting subjects, beyond
Nevertheless, we trust thatnew admirers will
the scope of this essay, are tomb sculpture,
emerge in response to their many attractions sculpture designed to ornament gardens, and
and merits. small sculptures made for interior decoration.
The wide range of names given by scholars in

Notes
this century to various artistic styles in Rome is
too complicated and debatable a subject to try
1 Cavaceppi 1768-72, vol. 3. to present concisely here.
2 There is no detailed survey of eighteenth- 10 Honour 1958.
century Roman sculpture in English. The most 11 Much of the following information is derived
important contribution to the subject is the from book. Haskell and Penny 1981.
their
monograph by Robert Enggass, Early 18th-century 12 Cavaceppi's first two volumes were published
Sculpture in Rome (University Park and London, in 1768 and 1769 respectively. The third volume,
1976). Enggass concentrates on the sculpture of cited in, note 1, published in 1772, also includes
the first third of the century, providing illumi- architectural fragments and ornaments and bas-
nating general introductory chapters, artists' reliefs, a number of which are identified as in
biographies, catalogue entries, and very good Cavaceppi's possession.
photographs. (The lack of good photographs of 13 Houdon's ecorche became a standard feature in
sculptures remains a large stumbling block for artschools in Europe and America; see Arts
the advance of the subject.) In this essay that Council 1972, pp. 251-52, no. 389, and Arnason
period is abbreviated because interested readers 1975. pp. 13-14-
can consult Enggass's book (see Enggass 1976). 14 The subject is now often identified as Menelaos
Rudolph Wittkower's Art and Architecture in Italy, and Patroclus; see Haskell and Penny 1981,
1600-1750 (Harmondsworth, 1973) is the classic
pp. 291-96.
survey of this large subject (see Wittkower 1973). 15 Ingamells 1997.
A new edition has just been published with new 16 Hubert 1964, Sculpture, pp. 38-53.
notes and bibliography. The few pages on the 17 On traditions of collecting terracottas, see
late Baroque and Rococo are written from the Walker 1998, pp. 14-29.
point of view of the High Baroque and Bernini's 18 For the Idolino, see Haskell and Penny 1981,
art in particular. Wittkower's observations are
pp. 240-41.
often interesting and provocative, but the book 19 Pressly 1979.
does not provide the basis for an unbiased 20 The catalogue for the great Canova exhibition of
approach to eighteenth-century Roman sculp- 1992 (Pavanelloand Romanelli 1992) had editions
ture. Readers will find references to writings by in Italian and English. With its essays by a
Hugh Honour in this essay and elsewhere in the number of scholars, fine photographs, and bibli-
catalogue. Everything he has written about eigh- ography, it is the most useful single publication
teenth-century Italian art is solid, perceptive, on the artist. L'opera complcta del Canova (Milan,
and helpful. A recent general treatment, Bruce 1976),by Mario Praz and Giuseppe Pavanello
Boucher's Italian Baroque Sculpture (London, 1998). (Pavanello and Praz 1976) remains an essential
contains a chapter on the transition from the late reference, as are all of Hugh Honour's studies.
Baroque to Neoclassicism (sec Boucher 1998). For Canova's two papal tombs, see Johns 1998,
Antonia Nava Cellini's La scultura del scttccento "Canova." A recent monograph carries studies
(Turin, 1982) begins with two chapters on sculp- of Canova's patronage into the nineteenth
ture in Rome (see Nava Cellini 1982). She does century: Johns 1998.
not include many foreign sculptors or proceed 21 The best concise discussion of Canova's tech-
much beyond the mid-i78os, but the book is full nique is Honour 1992. Also perceptive about
of learned and sensitive observations and is Canova's preparatory models is the' chapter on
highlyrecommended. Although not richly illus- that subject in Licht 1983, pp. 224-41.
book has well-selected and useful
trated, the
22 Pavanello 1984.
photographs. Andrea Bacchi's .Scultura del '600 23 Honour i960, "Pacetti."

SCULPTURE 223
 LAMBERT-SIGISBERT ADAM affinity for the sculpture of Gian- brother, whose mature style is never- The representation of Dolore as an old

NANCY 1700-1759 PARIS lorenzo Bernini. theless distinct, and for hisnephew man bitten by a serpent follows the
Upon his return to France, Adam Claude Michel, called Clodion, whose traditional iconography as depicted in
Lambert-Sigisbert Adam (called Adam obtained a number of commissions works demonstrate an understanding Cesare Ripa's konologia. Adam identi-
lainc) was born on October 10, 1700, from the crown, princely patrons, and of Baroque style despite their exquis- fied the subject by carving the title on
the son of Jacob-Sigisbert, a sculptor. the Church. This may explain why his ite Rococo classicism, [dw] the plaque below the bust. In style, the
After training with his father and a morceau de reception for the Academie bibliography Calmet [1751] 1971. bust reflects directly Adam's two prin-
sojourn in Metz in 1718, Adam moved Royale, Neptune Calming the Waters, a Lami 1910, vol. 1, pp. 2-9;
cols. 7-16; Lugts, cipal sources of inspiration: ancient
the next year to Paris, where he worked variation of Bernini's Neptune, Frits. Les Marques ic collections de dessins & d'e- sculpture, in the form of the head of
of although modeled was not stampes: marques estampiUees et antes de collec-
in several ateliers, including that in 1734, Laocoon, the central protagonist in
Dumont. he won the tions partkulieres et publiques. Amsterdam:
Franqois In 1723 presented until 1737. For royal gardens, the famous sculptural group at the
Vereenigde Drukkerijen, 1921, vol. 1, pp. 1-2;
first prize for sculpture at the his figures for the cascade at St. -Cloud Belvedere, and the art of Bernini,
Souchal 1973; Fusco 1975; Souchal 1996
Academie Royale and traveled to (i733 _ 34) were followed by the Triumph specifically, the marble head of the
Rome. There he was not always fortu- oj Neptune and Amphitrite, in lead, for Damned Soul, then at the museum in

nate in his commissions. He produced the Bassin de Neptune at Versailles the Palazzo dei Conservatori.
models for a series of statues of French (1736-40), the most Baroque fountain 103 The expression of Dolore is the most
rulers intended to decorate the Spanish in the park and the most successful of extreme of any of Adam's surviving
Steps, a project canceled in 1725. An French eighteenth-century monu-
Lambert-Sigisbert Adam early works. For Fusco, this may
important contact for Adam in Rome ments Baroque style. Private
in the Dolore reflect the reception pieces of sculptors
was Cardinal Melchiorde Polignac, patrons were also soon interested in for the Academie Royale, which Adam
1733
appointed ambassador to the Holy See his work. For the sumptuous interiors
Inscribed, on the front: dolore; on the would have known from his years in
in 1724. Polignac purchased Adam's of the Hotel de Soubise, Adam pro- vertical edge, proper left side of the bust: Paris. Adam's generalized treatment
marble busts of Neptune and Amphitrite vided four stucco reliefs for the salon LEM.t SIGLSBERT ADAM/eOTARINGIE F.t [?] of the chest area of the bust sets off
(now in Potsdam; terracotta models in oval on the ground floor. For the royal 1733 the ferocious biting snake's head. The
the Los Angeles County Museum of chapel at Versailles, Adam executed a Marble tousled hair and beard actively frame
Art and the Art Institute of Chicago), bronze relief of Saint Adelaide in 1742. 27/*" x 14X1" x 13%" (71 x 36 x 34 cm) both the man's contorted forehead,
which were specifically said by his Figural groups representing Hunting provenance presented by the artist to the and open
carefully described eyes,
early biographer Dom Calmet to have and Fishing, created for La Muette, Accademia di S. Luca, Rome, January 1733 mouth, and the polished form of the
been made by Adam en etude, that is, were sent by Louis XV to Frederick the exhibition Rome 1959, cat. no. 3 serpent coiled around the man's neck.
without being commissioned. Great in 1752. Despite his many com- bibliography Fusco 1978 Adam did not choose to imitate the
Polignac employed Adam and his missions, Adam's most ambitious Accademia Nazionale di San Luca, Rome smooth eyeballs of Laocoon, and every
brother Nicolas-Sebastien, who came bids for the king's favor did not aspect of the bust is more detailed
to Rome in 1726, in the restoration of succeed. He was asked to take back an In the summer of 1732 the Due d'Antin, than the worn surface of the classical
antiquities. The cardinal also obtained allegorical portrait bust of the king superintendent of royal buildings in head. Dolore is, also, a more complex
permission for Adam to copy the with the attributes of Apollo, and his France, forbade Lambert-Sigisbert creation than Bernini's famous rendi-
Ludovisi Mars in July 1726. Adam's model for a complicated allegory of Adam to undertake new work in tion of an instantaneous expression.
personal collection eventually con- France and Louis XV was not chosen Rome, where the sculptor had been Because of Adam's rendering of the
tained drawings and ancient sculp- to be executed on a large scale. In living since 1723. Nevertheless, Adam eyes, in particular, his head may
tures formerly belonging to Polignac, 1750-52, for Mme. de Pompadour, carved this bust for the Accademia di impress most viewers more as an
pieces probably received by the sculp- Adam carved a figure of Lyric Poetry, S. Luca in the short interval between image of physical pain and suffering,
tor in payment own work.
for his and a statue of Abundance for her was November 16, 1732, when his name perhaps even terror, than the emotions
Additional aspects of Adam's Roman incomplete at the time of the artist's was proposed and accepted for mem- of grief, sorrow, and regret — all possi-
activity can be gathered from the death. For private collectors he also bership in Rome's most prestigious ble English translations of "dolore".
inventory after the sculptor's death, completed groups on a smaller scale, artists' academy, and late January 1733, The exact nature of Laocoon's pain
in which certain objects are identified such as the Boy Bitten by a Lobster when he left the city. This unusual and the appropriate ways to depict it
as having been made by Adam in the (c. 1750). A series of sculptures for reception piece has been the subject in art were themselves central issues

city. In 1730 he won one of the most the high altar of Reims Cathedral was of a study by Peter Fusco, from which of debate for eighteenth-century
prestigious commissions of the unfinished when Adam died of an most of the following information artists and aestheticians.
century, for the sculpture of the Trevi apoplectic attack on May 13, 1759. derives. In producing such a forceful bust in

Fountain, the result of a competition Adam possessed a significant collec- Normally, after joining the a short time, Adam certainly demon-
ordered by Pope Clement XII Corsini. tion of drawings (identifiable by the academy, sculptors presented terra- strated his sculptural prowess, which
Although the model he submitted is artist's prominent signature), prints, cotta models, and bas-reliefs were pre- included, as Fusco has noted, carving
lost, a verbal description and a and sculptures —both his own models ferred. Usually, the sculptures were the bust, base, and socle from a single
drawing survive (Pinto 1986). going back to the beginning of his pieces that sculptors already had on piece of marble. Adam's biographer
However, the project was delayed, career and terracottas by Bernini and hand. Adam could easily have submit- Niccolo Gaburri, with whom the
and the sculpture was eventually exe- Duquesnoy, and a group of antiquities. ted such a work since he had com- sculptor stopped in Florence on his
cuted by Roman artists. Adam was In 1754 he published seventy-three pleted a relief of the Virgin Appearing to return trip to France, wrote that Adam
included, along with most of the finest prints of his statues, busts, and reliefs, Saint Andrea Corsini for the Corsini wished Dolore to demonstrate his

sculptors in Rome, in the decoration mostly antique sculpture but including Chapel in St. John Lateran in 1732, for extreme sorrow in having to leave the
of the Corsini Chapel at St. John a few of his own works as well. which his terracotta model survives at city in which he had so delighted. Chief
Lateran, for which he carved, after Posterity has long had a skewed the Musee des Beaux-Arts, Nancy. He among his regrets must have been the

May 1732, a marble relief of The Virgin view of the gifted, aggressive sculptor chose, however, another sculptural loss of the major commission for the

Appearing to Saint Andrew Corsini. In and his place in French art. This is type with which he was familiar, an sculpture of the Trevi Fountain.
November 1732 Adam was elected to undoubtedly due to the change in allegorical bust. Previously during his Although the history of the project
the Accademia di S. Luca, for which taste toward classicism, already appar- Roman sojourn, Adam had created fall of 1730 to 1732 is far from
after the
he carved the marble head of Dolore. ent during Adam's life in the partisan busts of Neptune and Amphitrite, complete, scholars usually say that the
According to his death certificate, support of the influential triumvirate Achillesand Ulysses, and the elements, decision to shift attention away from
the sculptor was also a member of the the Comte de Caylus, P.-J. Mariette, in the form of two pairs of male and the Trevi Fountain to the Lateran
Accademia Clementina in Bologna. and C.-N. Cochin for F.dme female figures from mythology. facade was the result of intrigue

The experience of almost ten years in Bouchardon, Adam's near contempo- The head of Dolore was calculated among Adam's Roman colleagues,
Rome was essential for the formation rary, a shift that became increasingly to stand out from the othergifts to the who did not wish to see the project
of Adam's character as an artist, one dominant after mid-century. Adam's academy, and Adam surely intended it awarded to a foreigner. In the sculp-

that is especially marke d by his great art was influential for his younger to be appreciated on several levels. tor's ceuvre, this head demonstrates

224 SCULPTURE
 Napoleonic occupation of Italy. large studio below the Porta del Popolo,

Albacini worked with both the noted the tourists' north gate to Rome. This
Scottish painter, excavator, and antiq- workshop, with its many antiquities,
uities agent Gavin Hamilton and, copies, and casts, became a place of
especially, the powerful English great attraction and was visited by
painter, banker, and papal confidant Pius VI, Goethe, and Antonio Canova,
Thomas Jenkins. (Albacini restored among many other artists and nota-
Bernini's Neptune and Triton, sold by bles, native or on the Grand Tour.
Jenkins to Joshua Reynolds.) Jenkins Although Canova in general
together with Townley, whose collec- despised the profession of restorer
tion helped to found the British and copyist, he much admired the work
Museum, favorably reviewed and pro- and facility who
of his friend Albacini,
moted much of Albacini's work, as is restored many of the most important
known from their correspondence antiquities renovated during the last
and personal accounts. quarter of the eighteenth century.
During the 1760s Albacini worked Canova's audacious originals,
mature style of Cavaceppi,
in the acclaimed as "new classics," initially

which he and such other assistants as and in essence stemmed from the
Cavaceppi's younger brother Paolo improvisatory, classicizing, eclectic,
probably helped to develop. He shared and pastiche methods of restorers
with his master a consummate facility informed by recently excavated antiq-
in matching, cutting, polishing, and uities (especially from Hadrianic and
finishing, but moved further from Pompeian sites) and by fashionable
Cavaceppi's Baroque residuum of scholarly archaizing in the arts. Their
plump and ductile coloristic form to works directly influenced the vision
a harder bisque surface and taller pro- and production of Canova and his
portions with a long refined sweep and admirers.
delicate rigidity of line, illustrating a Albacini was a well-connected
full assimilation of Winckel-mann's leader among the scores of sculptors
ideals of whiteness, purity, grace, and in his profession, in a time when
beauty — and effecting a porcelain-like antiquities still far outsold "original"
charm and delicacy that characterized productions. His copy of the famous
the evolution of Neoclassical style. Capitoline Flora is a fine example of
After 1770 Albacini began to work work from his studio, with its subtle
for the new Vatican museum, the Pio- trend toward a Neoclassicism
Clementino, established partly with the informed by antiquity and changing
aid of works from Cavaceppi's studio. contemporary taste at the end of the
During the last quarter of the century Enlightenment. In 1838 Albacini's son
Albacini also restored and copied and assistant Filippo sold his father's
works for collectors in Germany, large collection of 225 casts of ancient
Russia, and Spain: for example, portrait busts —based on his own
Frederick II of Kassel, Catherine the work, that of Cavaceppi. and other
Great, and Anton Raphael Mengs's sources — to the trustees of the
protector Cardinal Nicolas de Azara academy, Edinburgh: 154 now survive.
(Prado, Aranjuez). Before 1781 he sold [SH]
various copies to Count (and General) bibliography Townley, C. Townley
Johann Ludwig Walmoden of Papers. London. British Museum.
Hanover, son of George II of England. Department of Classical Antiquities, manu-
In the 1780s, through the agency of script; Chracas, Diario Ordinurio di Roma,
Goethe [1788]
Adam's preparedness for future works CARLO ALBACINI the dealer and scholar Johann Friedrich
178;, no. 922;
405-10: Goethe 1805. p.
1982,

pp. 55"; Riccoboni

such as Neptune Calming the Waves, his 1735-1813? Reiffenstein, Albacini sold antiquities
1942, pp. 315. 327. 373. 384-86; De Franciscis
reception piece for the Academie and copies to Catherine the Great and 1946; Bianco. Antonio. Museo del Prado:
Royale, and the exuberant fountain As a noted and sought-after restorer obtained commissions from her for Catdlogo de la sscultura, I. Madrid, 19s",
decoration of Neptune and Amphitrite at and copyist of antiquities among the original works —
monuments dedicated passim; Pietrangeli 1958. pp. 96. 1)7, passim;
Versailles; its power inevitably invites many contemporary practitioners of to Mengs and Giovanni Battista Piranesi Bassi 19S9. pp. 32-33. 103, 138-39; Honour
speculation, too, about what he might that trade, Carlo Albacini was second (St. Petersburg). In the same decade 1959. "Canova," esp. p. 244; Honour i960;
Walker Art Gallery: Foreign Catalogue.
have created for the Roman landmark. only to his master, Bartolomeo Vincenzo Pacetti, directing extensive
Liverpool: Merseyside County Council.
Adam exhibited a terracotta Cavaceppi. From 1756, at age twenty- renovations for the Villa Borghese,
1977, nos. 6537, 6538, 6900, 9106; Howard
version of Dolore, probably his finished two, until 1759 Albacini lived in enlisted Albacini for restorations.
1982, pp. 14, 23, 29, 84, 97, 112, 153-54, 192.
model, in the Paris Salon of 1740. This Cavaceppi's household in the artists' In 1783 Albacini was elected to the 198, 223: Hertel 198); Pinelli 1983; Howard
work is most likely to be identified, quarter of Rome. He apparently Accademia di S. Luca. In the 1790s he 1990, pp. 68, 76, 86. 106. 128, 151, 253, 255,

also, with the head of Doulcur listed remained in the immediate circle of supplied mantle reliefs in Berlin to 258, 274-75, 277, no. 30; Davies 1991.
(no. 75) in the inventory of the sculp- his master during Cavaceppi's heyday Frederick Wilhelm von Erdmannsdorff, Howard 1991: Smailes 1991: Vaughan 1991;

made after his death, Howard 1997. pp. 218, 225-26, 323, 341. SSi
tor's belongings through the 1760s until the early architect-decorator for the Duke of
for which the medium is not recorded. 1770s, by which time Albacini was Anhalt-Dcssau; both were partly
[dw] independently making restorations trained by Winckelmann and
for English clients and dealers in Cavaceppi in the 1760s.

Rome who were also dealing with Albacini's most notable commis-
Cavaceppi: Charles Townley, William sion, 1786-1800, was the restoration
Blundell, the Earl of Lansdowne, many Farnese antiquities in
of the
Thomas Manscl-Talbot, James Smith Rome before their removal to the col-
Barry, and others. This commerce lectionsol Ferdinand IV in Naples.
continued intermittently until the These works were refurbished in his

SCULPTURE 225
 among the earliest such arrivals in thin, elegant, and formally abstract,
Germany during what, in England, approaching a refined porcelain
Adolf Michaelis happily termed "The bisque purity and fragility associable
Golden Age of Classical Dilettantism," with the growing Neoclassical style.

a time when the Indianapolis Flora was Canova, who later employed
apparently also made for another of Albacini's son Filippo, reported with
Albacini's English clients. admiration that one of Albacini's many
Soon after its supposed discovery at assistants told him it took nineteen
Hadrian's Villa and acquisition for the months to complete a copy (perhaps
Museo Capitolino (1743-44), the now in Liverpool) of the Borghese
Capitoline Flora became the rival of large portrait bust of Lucius Verus. As
the famous Farnese Flora (later decor, such perfected marble copies
restored by Albacini, c. 1800). It was of famous antiquities were often
frequently reproduced in copies and preferred to the much-mutilated and
casts, as well as in bronze statuettes of much-restored second-rate antiquities
ancient favorites by Giovanni Zoffoli then available for sale, [sh]

and by Francesco Righetti (Giovanni

Zoffoli, Serie di figure fane, e dafarsi in
bronzo dell ahizza di un palmo e mezzo GIUSEPPE ANGELINI
bono romano, and Francesco Righetti, ROME 1742-1811 ROME
Aux amateurs dc I'antiquite ct des beaux
arts, 1764 [Victoria and Albert Museum Very known about the training
little is

Print Room, D.1479-1898, p. 7]; see of this Roman sculptor. Tradition has
Haskell and Penny 1981, pp. 342-43, it that he studied drawing with Niccolo
nos. 13, 38). It was among the works and sculpture with
Ricciolini
of art transferred to the Louvre by Bartolomeo Cavaceppi. but there is no
Napoleon between 1797 and 1815. record of him in the Accademia del
Restored by Carlo Monaldi, a student Nudo in those years, nor in the com-

of Camillo Rusconi, the Capitoline petitions periodically announced by

Flora was so extensively and inventively the Accademia di S. Luca, a central

cut, or recut. with fantastic outer reference for artistic training in Rome.
drapery, in a then-fashionable baroc- Certainly important for the young
chetto manner, that its antiquity has Angelini was his attendance at the
been rightly questioned, as has the studio of Giovanni Battista Piranesi
restored subject. It has been variously (Wilton-Ely 1976, "Nollekens"), because
identified by Winckelmann, E. Q. of its cosmopolitan environment and
Visconti, and others as Primavera. for the opportunity it gave him to meet
Juno, Polyhymnia, Sabina, or simply artists and collectors. Above all he was
a young woman with flowers. (The introduced there to British artists such
flowers recall restorations on the as the painters Thomas Jenkins and
famous Albani Antinous Relief, found Gavin Hamilton, and the sculptor
at Hadrian's Villa in 1735.) Joseph Nollekens (whose stay in Rome
Cavaceppi, who was Monaldi's col- was crowned by winning first prize in
104 In 1968 this signed, half-sizedcopy of league at the Capitoline during the the Concorso Balestra of 1768, run by
the Capitoline Flora was displayed in 1740s and exported a fine restoration the Roman academy). It was probably
Carlo Albacini
an exhibition on Angelika Kauffmann by him to Holkham Hall. Norfolk, at not coincidental that Angelini moved
Flora and listed as owned by the Heim the time of his death (1799), owned to England in 1770, the year Nollekens

After 1770 Gallery, London. In 1972 it was adver- several copies of and improvisations returned home. In 1772 Giuseppe

Signed: carlo albac/ni fecit tised for sale by Heim as acquired in on the Capitoline Flora in marble, — Angelini was enrolled in the Royal
England and as possibly a copy from plaster, and terracotta. With a sketch Academy. In the years immediately
Marble (probably from Carrara)
40/2" x 13/2" x 10"
the Walmoden collection, partially of the Cesi Juno, three of these terra- following he worked for Nollekens and

(102 cm x 54.3 cm x 25.4 cm) dispersed in England. In 1979 in a cata- cotta copies of Flora are now in the then for Josiah Wedgwood, with whom
provenance art market. England: Heim logue of the Walmoden collection in Palazzo di Venezia. One was once he stayed in touch even after his
Gallery, London, \g~r, Indianapolis Art Hanover, a slightly more severe virtual whitewashed, apparently to simulate London visit, during the 1780s. doing
Museum twin copy appeared, identically auto- porcelain or marble. Another is a half- work on commission but also helping
exhibitions Bregenz and Vienna 1968. graphed but on a rectangular, not sized quietened version of the young sculptors such as Henry Webber
cat. no. 104; London 1972, Pointings, oval. base. It and an unsigned copy of Capitoline Flora, marked with punteUi and others, whom he invited to Rome
cat. no. 32
the Capitoline's Cesi Juno, which was for reproduction. Its head is based on to complete their artistic education. In
BIBLIOGRAPHY Lucatelli 1750. pp. 46-47: restored by Cavaceppi's master Carlo the Capitoline Younger Faustina bust, 1777 in London he had found himself
Ficoroni 1757. p. 136: Stuart (ones 1912,
Antonio Napolioni, were there pub- which Cavaceppi restored and which in difficulty and obtained a grant from
p. 353. no. 14, pi. 87: Helbig 1966,
lishedand illustrated as a pair by was several times copied in his studio. the Royal Academy, but his English
pp. 239-40: Vorarlberger Landesmuseum
1968, no. 104, fig. 358; Heim Gallery 1972, Albacini; both had been listed in a These works were surely known to experience was by then drawing to a

p. 20, no. 32; Archaologisch.es Institut 1979. 1781 inventory of sculptures in the Albacini; he perhaps even contributed close. In this period and in the follow-

pp. 15, 20, nos. 7-10, 12-19, 25. 3'. Hanover collection, with three other to their manufacture. ing decade he traveled to Paris and
pp. 96-98, nos. 53-54: Haskell and Penny copies by Albacini, and nine by In Albacini's copies of the Naples, but by the end of 1778 he w as
1981. p. 215, nos. 40-41, fig. 112: Howard Cavaceppi. Count [ohann Ludwig Capitoline Flora, as in Cavaceppi's ter- definitely in Rome, where, between
1982. pp. 32, 44, 153, 426, appendix 5
Walmoden, son of George II of England racotta one of the same size, the jowly 1779 and 1780, at the request of
nos. 202, 1063, M49. M121. M154. M164, C67,
and the Countess of Yarmouth, began barocco original is flattened and made Francesco Piranesi. he found himself
C261; Barberini and Gasparri 1994. pp. 22,
his collection of antiquities in Rome, more svelte and linear, creating a replacing Vincenzo Pacetti in charge
71-76, csp. p. 74, 85-114, nos. 7, 10, 25

Indianapolis Museum of Art. The Orville

between 1756 and 1757, buying restored restrained Neoclassical ensemble of the funeral monument for Piranesi.

A. and I Ima I). Wilkinson lund works and copies mainly from illustrating the ethos, aesthetics, and The uneral statue of Piranesi
f that

Cavaceppi, but also from other sculp- decor of the generation of Robert Angelini consequently made for the

tors. Sent to Hanover, these were Adam. Albacini's copies are even more church of S. Maria del Priorato in

226 SCULPTURE
 —

Rome is a full-length figure of the themselves, which matured in the

architect, in classical dress, holding open artistic atmosphere of Rome,
his architectural instruments and a and which were expressed artistically
plan of the Temple of Neptune at in David's Oath of the Horatii and

Paestum, in a pensive attitude, resting Canova's monument to Clement XIV.

his right elbow on a herm of the From the mid-i790s Angelini
double-headed (anus. This was an increasingly devoted himself to his
important work at the time because public responsibilities, rejecting offers
of the fame of its subject, and for the of work from Swedish patrons so
implications of the son's choice, cul- firmly as to suggest that he developed
tural and artistic. It is recorded that religious scruples about having made
afterJanuary 1779 Giuseppe Angelini the funeral monument of a Protestant
invited Vincenzo Pacetti to his studio prelate. A more credible hypothesis,
to show him the progress of the however, is that he sensed that his

Piranesi statue, asking for his opinion, works, however advanced in compari-
but probably primarily anxious to son with the late Baroque context, had
overcome any ill-feeling harbored by lost touch with the current artistic

the colleague originally given the debate, and in the last years of his life

work. At this time it was a common he gave more attention to his own
habit among artists to visit each public role, concentrating mainly on
other's studios for frank discussion the restoration of ancient treasures for
of work in progress. In November of the museums of Rome, a job to which
that year the young Antonio Canova he devoted himself with rare knowl-
recorded that he had visited Angelini's edge and true passion, [anc]
studio and seen the newly made model bibliography Settcce nto 1959; Pepe 1961;

for the statue. By 1780 the work was Hubert 1964. Sculpture, pp. 55-56, 65, 67-68;
finished and the comments of his con- Pyke, E. J.
A Biographical Dictionary of Wax

temporaries were quite favorable. Modellers. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973,

p. 7; Wilton-Ely 1976, "Nollekens"; Caira
The following year, at the request
Lumetti 1990; Gross 1990; Gonzalez-
of Don Abbondio Rezzonico, a public
Palacios 1991. p. 112: Wilton-Ely 1993
comparison was arranged between
Angelini and Canova, one sculpting
a Minerva, the other an Apollo Crowning
Himself. This episode was the basis for 105
the tradition of viewing the two as
Giuseppe Angelini
champions of two different ways of 105

conceiving and executing sculpture, Spem alit Prudentia

a tradition maintained today by those but decisive tread. The veiled figure statement that perfectly describes
1789
who see Angelini as "Canova's main Inscribed on front of base: spem ai.it
represents Prudence, her head turned Angelini himself, essentially prudent
rival" (Gross 1990, p. 423). prljdkntia; signed on right of base: to encourage Hope, who leans on her. in his decisions, attentive to the critical
It is obvious now that the young Ph:joseph:angelini aut.or 1789 Prudence holds a serpent and what is own qualities and to
evaluation of his
Canova and the established Angelini, Terracotta probably the handle of a mirror, the moral honesty of his own choices.
well-known as the sculptor to 27/2" x 12/2" x 10/2" (70 x 32 x 27 cm) according to the iconography of Formally the two figures are perfectly
St. Peter's, and superintendent of provenance gift of the artist to the this Virtue, who from Cesare Ripa balanced in space. The barely suggested
the Vatican and Capitoline museums, Accademia di S. Luca onwards has usually been represented movement of the step forward and the
had two different concepts of antiquity. exhibition Rome 1991, Fasto Romano, as a woman looking at herself in a soft spontaneity of the gestures prevent

two decades of the century,

In the last cat. no. 15 mirror and holding a snake twisted any "heroic" or "declamatory" reading
for example, King Gustav of Sweden, bibliography Nava Cellini 1988, round her arm. The act of looking at of the composition. The dialogue
-
pp. 59 67; Gonzalez-Palacios 1991,
through his emissary Fredenheim, herself symbolizes self-recognition, between the two protagonists, further
approached Angelini to value some pp. 113-14, no. 15
the need to know one's own defects emphasized by the slight curvature of
collections of antique pieces that came Accademia Nazionale di San Luca. Rome in order to regulate one's actions. The the body of the right-hand figure, is
from Francesco Piranesi and Vincenzo serpent, which when it is attacked calmly stated. Without being forced,
Pacetti, and consulted him as critic and Giuseppe Angelini submitted this ter- coils itself around its own head, exem- classical models are adapted here to
connoisseur in the important purchase racotta group to Rome's Accademia di plifies the need to use all available express contemporary meaning. The
of the Minerva Pacifera for the museum S. Luca on November 15, 1789, in resources against the blows of Fate. arms and heads naturally guide the
of the Royal Palace, and also as an support of the proposal put forward by The other female figure is identified spectator's gaze to a reading of the
original sculptor of specially devised their principal, the sculptor Agostino as Hope by the anchor she leans on, group with slowed rhythms. The per-
statues. Penna, to elect him a member of the which helps in Fate's moments of fection of the anatomy, the skill ren-
In 1789 Angelini executed another academy. The minutes of this meeting greatest danger. dering the various textures of the
work for Fredenheim, the funeral record: "After the usual prayers we The personifications of the two draperies, and the absence ol any form
monument to his father, Archbishop proceeded to pass round the ballot box Virtues, joined in dialogue, translate of emphasis or dramatic accentuation
Menander, in Uppsala Cathedral, for Signor Giuseppe Angelini, sculptor into sculptural terms the theme transform this group into incontro-
noteworthy for its modern pyramidal of the Rev. Fabbrica di S. Pietro, who in inscribedon the base. It is Prudence vertible proof of a clear, conscious
structure and the intrinsic equilibrium the last assembly had been proposed as who sustains and feeds Hope who, interpretation of Neoclassicism,
of the figures. In the following years accademico di merito and in the current without her, could become vain, in entirely independent of what Canova
he added numerous busts — family one exhibited judgment of the
to the danger ol tripping over the anchor was expressing in the same period, but
from antiquity
portraits or copies assembled Professors a group modeled that should support her. no less significant for all that.
same patron. The Swedish
for the by him, upon which Signor Angelini Angelini's choice of this theme for This group is one of the most con-
acceptance of Neoclassicism was thus was received as accademico di merito with the group with which he faced the vincing examples of Angelini's work,
part of an acceptance of Roman "aca- full marks" (Rome, Archivio S. Luca, judgment of the academic ians reveals and also one of the last in terracotta,
demic" culture at the end of the vol. 54, fols. 103-103V). a good deal about his artistic person- an academic custom that was shortly
century, rather than resulting from an The two female figures forming the ality. Apart from being a work of to disappear. In 180S it was decided to
appreciation of Neoclassical ideas, in group are shown advancing with slow sculpture, the group is a philosophical "notify to Bertel Thorvaldsen, also to

SCULPTURE 227
 the Illustrious Signor Antonio Canova ability in marble carving "in which,"
— form . . . classically beautiful" 106
and to Signor (Joseph Charles] Marin, as he remarked in a letter of 1774 to (Flaxman 1838, p. 291). In the absence
that in past times the Gentlemen Nathaniel Smith, "the Italians beat of the Cupid, the surviving reliefs con-
Thomas Banks
Academicians admitted gave one of us hollow" — certainly seems to have stitute themost substantial evidence Thetis and Her Nymphs Rising
their works not in plaster but rather in benefited from some training with of Banks's activity in Rome, although
from the Sea to Console
terracotta so that they will please not Giovanni Battista Capisoldi, who had his daughter recorded that he also
deviate from the custom" (Rome, earlier worked in London with Joseph modeled many terracotta figures, Achilles for the Loss of
Archivio S. Luca, vol. 56, fols. 77V-78). Wilton. On the other hand, the com- perhaps including those in Sir John
Patroclus
Elected in 1801 and 1806 respectively, positions of the figures and reliefs Soane's Museum, London, and the
the twoartists had submitted works in carved by Banks during his seven Achilles Arming (terracotta; Victoria
Begun 1777-78: finished 1805-6

plaster,which the academy had reluc- years in Rome grew out of a continu- and Albert Museum, London). As well Marble
36" x 46X" x cm)
tantly accepted. Whereas in the "new" ing dialogue with these particular as showing how the sculptor had (91.4 118.7

sculpture, classical forms and materi- foreign artists, all of whom were interacted with Fuseli and Sergei to provenance given by the sculptor's
daughter Lavinia Forster to the National
als were used with different meanings, working with similar subjects, espe- develop a relief style distinguished by
Gallery, London, 1845; transferred to the
Angelini upheld history, using classi- cially those drawn from Homer. its clear contours and muscular, elon-
Tate Gallery shortly after 1900; lent to the
cism as an ideal instrument for the Although the chronology of Banks's gated male nudes and high finish, Victoria and Albert Museum, 1936; formal-
objective interpretation of modernity. work in Rome is not entirely clear, his these works above all prompted ly transferred to the Victoria and Albert
He was thus assuming a clear position first major undertaking was a relief of Reynolds to describe Banks as "the Museum. 1984
in the contemporary debate, one that The Death of Germanicus, probably first British sculptor who has pro- EXHIBITIONS London, British Institution,

was sustained by a deep knowledge of commissioned by Thomas William duced works of classic grace." 1806, cat. no. 46; London, International

his profession but was difficult to Coke, later 1st Earl of Leicester (of the In 1779, beset by financial difficulties. Exhibition, 1862 (plaster cast exhibited in

Rome class 29); London 1951. cat. no. 671; London

interpret and little adapted for the second creation), while visiting Banks and his wife spent a month in
1959, cat. no. 466; London. Tate Gallery,
wider public appeal that the new between April 1772 and April 1774. Naples with Maria Hadfield and others
New Hang, no catalogue, 1990
century demanded, [anc] Although possibly conceived as a and then departed for England. After
bibliography The Director, vol. 1

pendant to the Mannerist relief that two years he went St. Petersburg, (February Cunningham
7, 1807), p. 78:
it pairs in the hall at Holkham Hall, where he sold the Cupid to Catherine 1829-33, vol. 3, pp. 100-1; Flaxman 1838,
THOMAS BANKS Norfolk, the composition seems to the Great and hoped to succeed p. 292; Illustrated London News, February 21,

LONDON 1735-1805 LONDON have been based on a combination of Etienne-Maurice Falconet at her court, 1846, p. 132: Cunningham, P. 1863, p. 5;

Poussin's painting of the same subject but returned in 1782. Thereafter his Bolton 1919, p. 3; Bell 1938. pp. 35, 40-41;
Irwin 1966. p. 56; Keutner 1969, p. 333,
Banks was the son of the steward to the (Minneapolis Institute of Art) and fortunes in England changed with his
pi. 232; Whinney 1971, p. 128; Stainton 1974,
4th Duke of Beaufort at Badminton, Gavin Hamilton's Andromache Mourning election as an associate of the Royal
"Banks," pp. 327-29; Pressly 1979,
Gloucestershire. After attending the Death of Hector (1761; Hunterian Academy in 1784 and a series of com-
pp. 51-52; Bryant 1985. pp. 62-63;
school in Ross-on-Wye, Herefordshire, Museum, Glasgow). Another ambitious missions for busts and monuments. Whinney 1988, p. 324
he was apprenticed to the London marble relief of Caractacus be/ore Claudius Yet, although in his last twenty years Victoria and Albert Museum, London
mason William Barlow. Having already (Stowe, Buckinghamshire) was com- he carved a dramatic Falling Titan

spent some time in the studio of Peter missioned between 1774 and 1777 by (Royal Academy, London) when made
Scheemakers, where he had become George Grenville, later 2nd Earl a full academician in 1786, exhibited This relief represents the passage in

acquainted with Joseph Nollekens, he Temple, who later placed it opposite an eight foot plaster model of Achilles Book XVIII of Homer's Jliad in which
attended life classes at the St. Martin's Christophe Veyrier's Darius before Mourning in 1784, and six years later the Greek warrior Achilles, grief-
Academy and in 1763 won the first of Alexander in the hall at Stowe. But in executed a marble of Thetis Dipping stricken at the death of his friend
four premiums awarded by the this case Banks encountered what was Achilles in the Styx (Victoria and Albert Patroclus, is comforted by the nymphs
Society of Arts. During the 1760s he to be a familiar problem for artists in Museum, London), his reputation as summoned from the deep by his
was also exhibiting at the Free Society Rome, when Grenville paid him only "one whose mind was ever dwelling mother, the goddess Thetis, who (in
of Artists and by 1769 was apparently half the requested sum of £200. The on the ancient Greeks" (Cunningham Alexander Pope's translation) "Heard
to be found employed in the studio of relief of Alcyone and Ceyx (Lotherton 1829-33, vol. 3, p. 86) rested primarily his loud cries, and answered groan for

the sculptor Richard Hayward, whose Hall. Leeds, Yorkshire) was also prob- on those ideal works executed in groan." As Banks's daughter Lavinia
listscompiled between 1753 and 1775 ably commissioned by a patron who Rome between 1772 and 1779. [mb] Forster recorded when she gave the
form an important source about visi- failed to pay, prompting Banks first to bibliography Cunningham 1829-33, work to the National Gallery in 1845,
tors to Rome. Banks was admitted to exhibit it at the Royal Academy in 1775 vol. 3. pp. 82-121; Flaxman 1838. pp. 271-94; the model "was made by my Father
the Royal Academy schools in 1769 and then in 1779 to have it offered as a Bell 1938; Irwin 1966, pp. 55-57; Hassall and during his residence in Rome, where it
and in 1770, having shown two models prize in a raffle. Penny 1977; Pressly 1979. pp. 48-53; Bryant was ordered to be executed in Marble
1983; Whinney 1988. pp. 321-36; Bryant
of Aeneas and Anchises, was awarded The patron who caused Banks (and by the Right Rev.d Earl of Bristol and
the Royal Academy's gold medal for many other artists) most disappoint-
1996; Ingamells 1997, pp. 47-48
Bishop of Derry but being subse- —
his relief of the Rape of Proserpine. None ment, however, was the bishop of quently countermanded, Mr Banks
of these early works survives. Although Derry, who had commissioned from brought it with him to England in 1779,

he failed to be elected as an associate the sculptor a figure of Cupid with the marble being only roughly 'got out',

then, in 1772 he won the academy's Psyche Alighting on His Wing, two heads, and it was finished at a later period"
three-year traveling stipend and, as and a relief that may be identified as (London, National Gallery Archives,
the first sculptor to receive this, set off cat. 106. When the heads were "quite MS NG5/60). Along with the figure of
with his wife for Rome, where he was finish'd"and the others "almost com- Cupid and two heads, this relief must

to spend seven years in all. pleated," all these were then "return'd have been commissioned by the
In Rome, Banks became acquainted on his hands," the figure "with the bishop (later the 4th Earl of Bristol)
with many British artists then in the frivolous excuse of its being Improper after he arrived in Rome in November
city, among ihem James Northcote, for a Bishop to have a Naked figure in 1777 and canceled before November
Prince Hoare, James Jeffreys, Maria his house" and the others without any 1778, when Banks was murmuring in
Hadfield (who later married Richard stated reason (Bell 1958, p. 34). The his fever about his ill usage by George

Cosway), and, especially, Ozias ( upid (formerly Pavlovsk Palace, Grenville, adding, "Oh, the Bishop,
I [umphrey. But even more important Russia) was singled out by Flaxman as thou also has a hand in it" (Bell, p. 36).

for his sculpture were his close con- "highly interesting to the mind by its Having been brought to England on
nections with various foreign artists, philosophical allusion to the power of Banks's return, the marble (according
most notably the Swiss Henry Puscli, love, divine or natural, on the soul," its to a report in The Director in 1807)
the Dane Nikolai Abildgaard, and the "outline . . . finely varied in the differ- "remained till after his death, when it

Swede Johan Tobias Sergei. Banks's ent views" and "the sof tness of the was finished from the original model."

228 SCULPTURE
 potential by collaborating with the
German engraver Georg Martin
Preissler, who in 1732 published prints
after them.
To meet the requirements made of
sculptor pensionnaires, Bouchardon was
expected to execute a copy in marble
of an antique sculpture; in his case
this was the Barberini Faun
(Glyptothek, Munich). Because of the
original's condition, the sculptor was
not permitted to take a plaster cast
from which he could work but instead
produced in 1726 a terracotta model,
making the marble on which he
worked until 1730 (Louvre, Paris) a
free interpretation rather than a close
copy. For the Comte d'Angivillier
forty-eight years later this marble was
the proof that it was possible to make a
copy more beautiful than the original.
The unusually long time taken over this
copy after the antique was in part the
result of Bouchardon's involvement in

anumber of other projects. In 1728 he

produced a model for the tomb of
Clement XI, with the encouragement
of Cardinal Albani. But despite this
support, the commission was in 1730
given to an Italian sculptor, just as an
Italian was eventually to be chosen
instead of him or Adam for the other
major public project, the Trevi
Fountain, for which Bouchardon sub-
This plaster (not terracotta) model, being carved as a concave oval. EDME BOUCHARDON mitted a proposal in 1731. While both
which had appeared in the posthumous Although the carving of the figures chaumont-en-bassigny Bouchardon and Adam were being
sale of May 22, 1805 (lot 76), was of the nymphs varies from very low 1698-1762 Paris seriously considered for such
acquired by Sir John Soane and remains relief to high relief, the latter demand- schemes, Vleughels's attempts to
in Sir John Soane's Museum, London. ing the retention of supports linking Bouchardon received his initial train- secure prestigious public commissions
Banks's choice of a Homeric subject individual limbs with the background, ing as a sculptor under his father, for French sculptors seem to have
is but one example of the attraction that the way in which much of the carving Jean-Baptiste, with whom in 1719 he been less successful than those of his
the Iliad had for artists in Rome from lies below the raised edge of the oval executed the relief of The Martyrdom of predecessors a generation earlier.

the 1760s onwards, beginning with gives it something of the quality of an Saint Stephen forSt.-Etienne, Dijon. As While Bouchardon may have failed to
Gavin Hamilton's large history paint- engraved gem, hugely enlarged. a result he seems already to have had a emulate the earlier success enjoyed by
ings and continuing in the 1790s with Despite the undercutting, the relief's well-established familiarity with Pierre Legros or Pietro Stefano Monnot
Flaxman's illustrations of Homer. But form and composition ensure that the sculptural techniques before under- with major ecclesiastical or urban
the sculptor's interpretation of these substantial, almost monumental taking any formal training as an artist works, his period was nonetheless
texts was not so much an individual forms are contained within a linear in the French academic system. In 1721 extremely productive as far as other
enterprise as a collaborative exchange, pattern. Perhaps it was this quality, as he came to Paris, where, having begun types of sculptural patronage were
which also involved Johan Tobias much as the treatment of the subject, to study with Guillaume Coustou, he concerned. Between 1727 and his
Sergei, Nikolai Abildgaard, and Henry that appealed to Flaxman, who com- won in 1722 the prix de Rome for his return to Paris in 1733 he executed not
Fuseli, all of whom were engaged at mented that this "is of the epic class, Gideon Choosing His Soldiers. In the fol- only various portraits of ecclesiastical
the same time with common subjects. . . . the sentiment and character is lowing year he traveled to Rome, along sitters that attracted much attention
As Pressly has shown, Sergei had by beautiful and pathetic, the composi- with his fellow sculptor Lambert- but also a series of busts that through
June 1777 already executed a sketch tion is so unlike any work ancient or Sigisbert Adam, who had won the prix the adoption of a severely classical
that was perhaps based on an earlier modern, that the combination may be de Rome Under the direction
for 1723. mode gave this familiar genre a new
version of Banks's relief, while Achilles' considered the artist's own" (Flaxman of Francois Poerson and then, after seriousness.
pose closely resembles that of Saul in 1838, p. 292). [mb] 1725, Nicolas Vleughels, Bouchardon The first of these busts was the
Fuseli's Saul and the Witch of Endor devoted himself to drawing antique marble he executed in 1727 of Baron
(Victoria and Albert Museum, sculpture with a quite exceptional Stosch (Staatliche Museen, Berlin),
London), dated September 1777. The commitment and energy. As well as which was engraved, like Bouch-
exaggerated angularity of Achilles' being significant for the classicizing ardon's drawings, by Preissler. As well
pose and the emotional intensity this features of his later sculpture, these as acting as Cardinal Albani's librar-
carries strongly recall other works by drawings played an important role in ian, Stosch had close links with the
Fuseli, but some of the latter's drawings establishing and maintaining his rep- Pretender's court and Jacobite visitors
in their turn suggest his response to utation as an artist. Highly esteemed by to Rome, on which he secretly
Banks's reliefs, especially this example. collectors such as Mariette. his draw- reported to the British government,
Like the marble relief of Alcyone and ings prompted M.-F. Dandre-Bardon and Bouchardon's portrait of him
Ceyx (Lotherton Hall, Leeds, Yorkshire), to comment that if Bouchardon 's probably prompted commissions lor
from the rectan-
the Thetis relief differs sculptures equaled the achievements busts in a similar antique manner
gular Death of Cermanicus (Holkham of the ancients, his drawings surpassed from John Gordon in 1^28 (on deposit
Hall, Norfolk) or the Caraclacus before them. Already in the 1720s Bouchardon at Inverness Museum, Scotland) and
Claudius (Stowc, Buckinghamshire) in seems to have been aware of their Lord Hervey in 1729 (cat. 107). In 1730

SCULPTURE 229
 —

both draftsman and sculptor were of the Imagery of the Family in

formed, [mb] Funerary Monuments of the Period

bibliography Caylus 1762; Roserot 1908; 1720-1760," Westfield College, London,
Roserot 1910: Mctz and Rave 1957; Bouchardon Ph.D. diss., 1992, p. 161) refers to Fox
1962; Vetter 1962: Weber 19A9: Harrison coming across a noble bust of Hervey
1996; Sherf 1999; Baker and Harrison 2000 in the sculptor's workshop. Implicit in

this satire may be a contrast between

the rigorous mode of classicizing bust
107 being developed by Rysbrack and the
more refined manner employed by
Edme Bouchardon
Bouchardon.
John, Lord Hervey Portrait busts showing sitters in

1729
classical dress based on ancient Roman

Terracotta
models seem to have become popular
Height without base 24//' (62 cm)
with British sitters by the 1720s, but
provfnance presumably commissioned Bouchardon's version of this conven-
by Lord Hervey in 1729 and sent to tion was innovative and distinctive.

[ckworth; by descent to his sons, the 2nd, While Pietro Stefano Monnot had
3rd and 4th Earls of Bristol, and thereafter already in 1701 represented the 5th
to successive marquesses of Bristol; surren- Earl of Exeter in Roman armour and
dered with [ckworth in lieu of death duty
drapery resembling a toga (Burleigh
in 1957 and passed to the National Trust
House Collection, Stamford,
bibliography Halsband 1973, p. 82 (as a
Lincolnshire), the bust still has a
"plaster replica"); Kerslake 1977, p. 141;
Baroque fullness. By contrast,
Jackson-Stops 1985, p. 312, no. 237; Baker
2000; Baker and Harrison 2000 Bouchardon's busts in the antique
Ickworth. The Bristol Collection (The manner, beginning with that of Baron
National Trust) Stosch (1727; Staatliche Museen, Berlin)
and continuing with those of John
Gordon (1728; on deposit at Inverness
Lord Hervey, eldest surviving son of Museum, Scotland) and Hervey, draw
the 1st Earl of Bristol, sat to Bouchardon more directly on a first-century ad
when he was in Rome between April type, with bare chest and one draped
and June 1729 and his portrait bust shoulder, so creating an effect that was
107 belongs to a series of male portraits at once more authentically antique as
predominantly of British sitters — that well as more modern. One starting
he carved a portrait of Lady antique models to formulate a new initiated a new mode of portrait point for Bouchardon's formulation
Lechmere, pairing Filippo della Valle's severe convention that was already sculpture in a severe classical mode. may have been the ivory
of this type
bust of her husband, Sir Thomas being used on a smaller scale in This terracotta was recently found at and wax medallions being produced
Robinson (Westminster Abbey, Giovanni Pozzo's ivory reliefs of the Bristol family's seat at Ickworth by by Giovanni Pozzo, which show sitters
London), and produced drawings for same sitters who com-
several of the Alastair Laing, who convincingly in profile and wearing antique dress;
a classicizing statue of the prince de missioned busts from Bouchardon. identified it as the model for the these include portraits of both Stosch
Waldeck. never executed because of Such commissions were not viewed marble, signed and dated 1729, formerly (1717; Staatliche Museen, Berlin) and
the prince's death. In the following very sympathetically by the Due at Melbury House (collection of Lady John Gordon (1728; Victoria and Albert
year Bouchardon produced portraits dAntin, Surintendant des Batiments Teresa Agnew). The terracotta was Museum, London) pre-dating or con-
of Cardinal Polignac (Musee Bossuet, du Roi, who commented that "it is not presumably used as the basis for the temporary with Bouchardon's marbles
Meaux), Cardinal Rohan (private col- to enrich foreign countries that the later marble copy, which had earlier of the same subjects. No Pozzo medal-
lection, Strasbourg) — both Rome in King spends so much on his Academy" been considered Bouchardon's origi- lion of Hervey is recorded but an agate
for the election of the successor to (Roserot 1908, p. 36). and perhaps in nal. The Melbury marble was seen in relief by Johann Lorenz Natter (private

Pope Benedict XIII— and bust of the

a response to such comments 1762 by Horace Walpole at Redlynch, collection, England), working in the
newly elected Pope Clement XII (ter- Bouchardon returned to Paris in 1733, the house of Stephen Fox (later Lord same circle as Pozzo, shows him in
racotta, De Young Memorial Museum, having carved in the previous year a Ilchester), who had accompanied similar antique mode. Although
San Francisco; marble, Palazzo bust of Madame Vleughels (Louvre, Hervey to Italy and nursed him Bouchardon's portrait of Hervey
Corsini, Florence). As the sculptor Paris). There he collaborated on the through his illness there. The bust employs the same format as that used
recorded in a letter to his father, this sculpture on the Bassin de Neptune at seems to have been commissioned by for Stosch, the drapery is now drawn
last work created much excitement, Versailles (1735-40) and from 1736 until Hervey as a token of friendship for tightly around the truncation of the
prompting a commission for a por- his death produced designs for medals Fox, who was probably his homosex- sitter's left arm, so playing with the
trait from the Duchess of Buckingham struck by the royal mint. However, his ual lover and had shown him, in his inherent artificiality of the bust form
(private collection, England), the ille- most important commissions in France own words, "an affection and friend- as well as alerting the viewer to the
gitimate daughter of James II, who consisted of the fountain made for the ship 1 am as incapable of forgetting, as way the antique convention is being
had "never ceased labouring to restore city in the rue de Grenelle (1739-45), any nature but his is incapable of inflected. The mode of this particular
the house of Stuart" (Horace Walpole, the statue of Cupid Cutting a Bowjrom feeling" (Lord John Hervey, Some image may have carried some homo-
Reminiscences, edited by Paget Toynbee Hercules' Club carved for the Salon Materials towards Memoirs of the Reign of erotic significance for Hervey and Fox,
[Oxford, 1924], p. 92). d'Hercule at Versailles (completed George 11, edited by Romney Sedgwick but its classical connotations were
In the portraits of Clement XII and 1750), and the bronze equestrian figure [London, The terracotta
1931], p. 974). more overt and evidently continued to

the two cardinals Bouchardon was of Louis XV, cast after the sculptor's was presumably retained by Hervey have meaning as the bust was repro-
drawing on a tradition of ecclesiastical death and finished by fean-Baptiste himself when the marble was given to duced (albeit in an abbreviated form)
portraits established by Bernini and While these major
Pigalle in 176;. Fox. It is conceivable, however, that the as the frontispiece for the 1778 edition
Algardi, although he heightened still French commissions show most clearly second marble version at Ickworth was of Letters between Lord Hervey and
further the subtlety of the surface Bouchardon's achievement in com- carved in London by Michael Rysbrack Dr MiMeton concerning the Roman Senate.
carving, as he did on the Buckingham bining antique models with a bold as a verse published in the Grub .Street The antiquarian Conyers Middelton
marble, a bust of comparable scale anatomical naturalism, the nine years Journal for September 20, 1736 (cited by himself had his medallion portrait
and ambition, lor the other busts, on spent in Rome can be seen as the period Matthew Craske, "The London carved by Pozzo in an antique manner
the other hand, the sculptor drew on in which his distinctive qualities as Sculpture Trade and the Development while in Rome in 1724. [mb]

230 SCULPTURE
 lection sits on a pedestal representing 109
the ground, and leans with her right
Pietro Bracci
hand on the column; beneath her feet
is a recumbent lion. The marble figure Pope Benedict XIV
has no pedestal nor either of the alle- c. 1750-53
gorical attributes of Strength; she is
Carrara marble
seated, leaning on the sarcophagus Height without base 16/2" (42 cm)
with her legs hanging down. These provenance purchased Florence for
in
differences are probably not acciden- the Konigliche Museen. Berlin. 1873
tal and may well have been made at
exhibitions Rome 1979, cat. no. 129;
the last moment at the client's wishes, Worlitz and Stendal 1998, cat. no. 1. 15

to alter the allegorical meaning of the bibliography Bode. Wilhelm. and Hugo
female figure. This supposition is sup- von Tschudi. Konigliche Museen zu Berlin:
ported by the fact that in Bracci's diary Besthreibung der Bildwerkc der ehristlichen

the figure has a double name: Constancy Epoche. Berlin: E. A. Spemann. 1888. p. 79.
no. 272, pi. XVI; Breck 1913, p. 276;
of Spirit or Strength (la Costanza dAnimo
Schottmuller 1913, p. 193, no. 440;
sia Fortezza) (Gradara Pesci 1920, p. 103).
Domarus 1915, p. 41, no. 36; Gradara Pesci
Pietro Bracci should be considered
1920, pp. 66-67, 86-87; /taiicnischc
not only the most influential, but also Sfeulpturen im Kaiser Friedrich Museum. Berlin:
the most interesting, of all the sculp- Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, 1933, no. 91;

tors in Rome in the middle of the eigh- Schottmuller 1933, pp. 228-29, no. 345;

teenth century. It was entirely logical Taylor 1952, p. 232, pis. 5-6; Honour 1971,
p. 622; Nava Cellini 1982, pp. 51, 55, pi. 2;
for him and him alone to be entrusted
Schlegel 1988. p. 30; Penny. Nicholas.
with such important commissions as
Catalogue of European Sculpture in the
the figure of Oceanus in the Trevi Ashmolean Museum: 1540 to the Present Day.
Fountain and the tombs of popes Vol. 1. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992, p. 27,
Benedict XIII (church of S. Maria nos. 22-25; Achilles-Syndram 1998
sopra Minerva) and Benedict XIV Museen zu Berlin,
Staatliche
(St. Peter's). Bracci's works make their Skulpturensammlung
great impression primarily through
internal tension and hidden power, With the election of the Bolognese
their ultimate expressiveness being Prospero Lambertini as Pope
achieved by quite simple means, as the Benedict XIV in 1740 a cultured yet
Allegory of Strength also shows. This is very cheerful personality gained the
io8 one reason why Bracci should be con- Holy See. During his eighteen-year rule
sidered the sculptor who anticipated he astonished his contemporaries with
PIETRO BRACCI until the 1989 exhibition at the and, to a certain extent, paved the way popular appearances and a quick-

ROME 1700-1773 ROME Hermitage. The terracotta figurine of for Neoclassicism towards the end of witted humor. The contemptous char-

For biography see Architecture section the Farsetti collection
study for a similar figure
monument for the tomb of Cardinal
108 Giuseppe Renato Imperiali, which
Bracci carried out for a project
Pietro Bracci
architect Paolo Posi in the church of
Allegory of Strength S. Agostino in Rome. According
is a preliminary the eighteenth century. acter sketch made of the pope by the
made as a The interest in Cardinal Imperiali's German archaeologist Johann
tomb shown by the young Antonio Joachim Winckelmann does not do
Canova soon after he arrived in Rome justice to the pope's farsighted diplo-
by the may not be coincidental. In spite of macy, his enlightened and sharp way
the fact that the name of the church is of thinking, and his cultural achieve-
to missing from Canova's notes for ments. His writings on the history of

c. 1741
Bracci's own diary, he began this work November 23, 1779, Hugh Honour's law set new standards; his promotion
Terracotta
in 1741 (Gradara Pesci 1920, pp. 50, 52). suggestion that he was writing about of the natural sciences was exemplary.

The foot of the right leg and head of the

The cardinal's remains were interred the tomb of Cardinal Imperiali seems As an admirer of the antique he pro-
lion are missing; the foot of the left leg is
at tomb on August 21, 1745, before
the very convincing: "Entrassimo poi tected the Colosseum from further
badly damaged; the figure shows signs of work on it was fully completed nella chiesa de. . . . vi era un deposito demolition, arranged excavations, and
previous restoration (Mallory 1974, p. 170). It therefore che sta anco in casa Farsetti quello che enlarged the Capitoline collections
21//' x 13X" x 10//' (54 x 34 x 26 cm) follows that the terracotta figurine at tiene il ritratto in pittura" ("We went through generous donations. But his
exhibitions St. Petersburg 1989, the Hermitage probably dates from into the church of . . where there was
. interests were not limited to Greek and
cat. no. 31; Rome and Venice 1991, cat. no. 30 around the year 1741. a monument to the same man of whom Roman antiquities: he also founded a
bibliography Museo della casa 1788, p. 24; Judging from its relatively large size there is a painted portrait in the Casa museum for Egyptian art and a picture
Petrov, P. N. Sbornik materialov diva istorii
and details in the work, the Farsetti Honour 1994, pp. 63, 91).
Farsetti"; gallery on the Capitol. Furthermore,
imperatorskoy S.-Peterburgskoy Akademii
collection figurine is one of the final One might add that, besides Strength, for the opening of the Museo Sacro in
Khudozhest v. St. Petersburg, 1864, p. 600;
Trcu, G. Ukazatel' skul' plurnago muzeya
variants of the model. This kind of there is another work in the Farsetti the Vatican he started an extensive

Imperatorskoy Akademii Khudozhest v: Skul' modellino was, it seems, quite often collection related to the same monu- program in which numerous Early
ptura XIV-XV1U stoktii. St. Petersburg, 1871, presented to the client for approval. ment. It is mentioned there as "Il Christian sarcophagi were restored.
p. 51, no. 723; Androsov 1991, p. 79, no. 30; Even so, the terracotta figurine retains Deposito del Cardinale Imperiali a His greatest love, however, was for the
Honour 1994, pp. 63, 91 the freshness and naturalness of the S. Agostino in Roma" (Museo della casa contemporary arts, and Benedict XIV
The State Hermitage Museum. original. Despite, therefore, the diffi- 1788, p. 19). Although this terracotta improved the education of young
St. Petersburg
culty of making comparisons with figurine was classified as a part of the artists by installing a classon the
similar works by Bracci, the author- "Modelli di Bassirilievi", it may well be Capitol that was devoted exclusively to
In the Farsetti collection catalogue, ship of the sculpture is beyond doubt. amodel for the entire composition, the depiction of the nude. Pietro Bracci
was entered under the
this figurine This is borne out by the shared fea- which has not survived. It was obvi- himself was a teacher at this institution.
name Fortezza sedente col Leone, c scudo, tures of the terracotta figurine and the ously this model, or the figure of The life-size marble portrait shows
del suddetto
\
Bracci ]. G. Treu mentions final statue executed in marble. The Strength described here, that Canova Benedict XIV in frontal view. His full
it copy of Bracci's original. In the
as a posture of the marble figure is almost was referring to when he mentioned face is enclosed by the camauro, by his
Hermitage inventory it was entered as same as the Hermitage
exactly the the tomb at Farsetti's house, [sa] hair at the sides, and by the smooth
Minerva or Allegory of Strength by Pietro model although their spatial position- collar tinder his chin. The shoulders
Bracci; the figurine was not displayed ing differs. Strength in the Farsetti col- arc cut in a narrow way so that the

SCUl.l'TURF.
 have provided Joseph Claus with a Canonization of Saint Ignatius on the
model above-mentioned bust
for the right side of the St. Ignatius Chapel
in Oxford, which is dated 1754. in the Gesu in Rome, completed

Unfortunately, the portrait journal between 1695 and 1698. He, together
kept by Bracci is incomplete, and with many of his talented contempo-
several papal busts have been included raries, participated in this most
in the catalogue of his works without important collaboration of sculptors
convincing stylistic arguments. at the end of the century. The basic
Serious work on this issue is still to composition for the Canonization,
be done. Of the busts of Benedict XIV which had been predetermined by
attributed to Bracci and listed by the supervising painter-architect,
Domarus and Schottmuller, the one the Jesuit Andrea Pozzo, shows Pope
in the Castello Sforzesco in Milan is Gregory XV enthroned handing a
the closest to the Berlin marble por- scroll to two kneeling Jesuits among
trait, especially in thephysiognomy onlookers and putti hovering above.
and in the ornamentation. The attri- But it was Cametti who imbued the
bution to Joseph Claus for the Milan relief with vigor and drama through
bust, proposed by Nicholas Penny, is deep undercutting, strong outlines,
therefore difficult to understand. On and by adjusting figures slightly to
the other hand, the pope's bust in the streamline the design. The carefully
museum of Grenoble differs in the flat considered combination of decorative
and undifferentiated ornamentation detail and strong plasticity gives the
of the stole. While the character of work its verve while preserving its

this portrait is still similar to the clarity, even in its high location. As
Berlin bust, the marble portraits of noted by Schlegel (1963, p. 49). Cametti
Benedict XI V in Assisi and New York retained this basic approach in all of
show no artistic relationship to it. his future reliefs.

Bracci's funeral monument for During the first two decades of the
Benedict XIV in Rome
St. Peter's in eighteenth century a steady stream of
(completed 1769) has been criticized commissions came Cametti's way,
often as an old-fashioned work, still chiefly for tombs with portraits and
attached to the Roman Baroque tradi- attendant figures, as well as various
tion. The Berlin bust of Benedict XIV, reliefs of religious or historical sub-
by contrast, shows that Pietro Bracci, jects. Cametti was knighted by Pope
a brilliant portrait sculptor, was Clement XI Albani between 1704 and
capable of combining true expression 1706 and was accepted into the
full of directness and vitality with a Accademia di S. Luca in 1719, yet all
calm and classicizing form, and of the major works of this period, the
adjusting his personal style to the relief of the Navicella (1703) in Frascati,

taste of the new era. [kas] the tombs of Taddeo and Antonio
mozzetta is completely covered by the 1872-73, exploring the local art Barberini (1704) in Palestrina, the Glory
The decoration of the latter is
stole. market. As the grandezza of Roman of Angels (1714-18) in Orvieto, and the
dominated by the papal coat of arms, Baroque art was not generally to BERNARDINO CAMETTI large marble statues of the evangelists
which stands in contrast to the rough Bode's taste, the simple, intimate aura ROME 1669-1736 ROME Saint Luke and Saint Mark in Bologna
background. Because of the small size of the portrait must have appealed to (1716), were destined for places outside
of his chest, the different elements of him. It was published in 1888 as an Bernardino Cametti received his first of Rome. Therefore, although the artist

the arms, such as the striped cartouche anonymous work around 1750, but it training under Lorenzo Ottoni, in apparently never left the city for long
and the tiara over the papal keys, are was Frida Schottmuller who con- whose atelier he remained for a full periods, carving his sculptures there
striking and impressive. The specta- nected it in 1913 with thename of fifteen years (Enggass 1976, vol. 1. before shipping them abroad, he con-
tor's eyes are attracted immediately to Pietro Bracci. Kurt von Domarus con- pp. 149-50). It is likely that the younger tributed significantly to the dissemi-
the carefully modulated physiognomy, firmed this attribution, although the sculptor worked independently or on nation and influence of Roman late

with its rich and colorful play of shades. piece was not mentioned in the sculp- advanced projects towards the end of Baroque sculpture in northern Italy.

The virtuoso relief carving gives the tor's journal, started in 1725. In the this period, since he soon outshone Among his works in Rome, the
eyes a vivid and sparkling expression. scanty literature on the Berlin bust his master. Various sources (Enggass tomb of Gabriele Filipucci in St. John
The soft but sharp-edged lips are Bracci's authorship has been mostly 1976, vol. 1, p. 150) mention that Lateran (after 1706) is a variation of

slightly opened and suggest the move- accepted. Gerald Taylor's attempt to Cametti assiduously studied the stan- the type derived from Bernini and
ment of breathing around the chin, attribute it to the South German dard models for young artists, the ultimately Raphael (Chigi Chapel,
while the nose reveals its character sculptor Joseph Claus is not convinc- sculpture of Antiquity and the paint- S. Maria del Popolo), which Cametti
primarily in the profile view. The artist ing, as the comparison with his signed ings of Raphael, and more signifi-— had already employed in his highly

has captured with psychological sen- marble portrait of Benedict XIV in the cantly —
that he worked in the studios successful Barberini monuments of
sitivity and some humor the spirit of Ashmolean Museum in Oxford of the French Academy at Rome. The about two years earlier. In all three,

this complex personality a person- — demonstrates. French influence on Roman painting the composition is anchored by a tall,

ality who urges the sculptor or painter Pietro Bracci, kept in good favor and sculpture, which reached its apex flattened pyramid, symbol of eternity.
to represent him in a solemn, idealized by several popes, was considered an in the 1680s and 1690s, is evident At the foot of the pyramid a winged,
attitude. expert in papal portraits. In the jubilee throughout Cametti's oeuvre, more so heavily draped personification of
This portrait bust, purchased in year of 1750 he received from the than any mannerisms he might
stylistic Fame draws attention to the portrait

1873, was one and most

of the first Confratcrnita dei Pellegrini in Rome have adapted from his teacher Ottoni. of the deceased. While the Barberini
remarkable acquisitions of Wilhelm the commission to carry out a small Nonetheless, Cametti developed a dis- tombs show Taddeo and Antonio as

vi >n Bode, who was appointed in 1872 marble monument Pope for tinct style that synthesizes his own imposing, lively busts projecting out
as an assistant director of the Benedict XIV, which was completed in Roman background with French of oval niches. Filipucci appears more
Kdnigliche Museen in Berlin, and who 1753. During this time, between 1750 influences. remote, a portrait medallion in high
laler was director-general. Bode trav- and 1753, Bracci may have also exe- Cametti first came to public notice relief. The mourning attendant figure

elled through Italy for the first time in cuted the Berlin bust, which seems to with the marble relief of The holding it is now the central focus of

232 SCULPTURE
 Bernini's masterwork Apollo and HO
Daphne (1622-24; Galleria Borghese).
Bernardino Cametti
The original commission for Cametti's

mythological statue is unknown, but Giovanni Andrea Muti

itwas admired by Nicola Pio between c. 1725
1716 and 1724 while still in the sculp- Marble
tor's studio and stood in the Palazzo
Height without base 30/*" (78.5 cm): with
Orsini at Monte Savelli until 1896 as base 38//' (97.8 cm) (base is separate piece
part of a fountain arrangement of marble)
(Schlegel 1963, "Cametti," pp. 151-63; provenance Edouard Kann, Paris,

Schlegel 1978, pp. 101-10). Like before 1942

Cametti's Apostle figures mentioned bibliography sale catalogue. Hotel

earlier, the Diana is also related to a Drouot, Paris. May

7. 1942. lot 56, pi. XIV

contemporary series of similar

(as French, anonymous, seventeenth-
century); Schlegel 1978, p. 100; Raggio 1991,
mythological statues by Monnot
pp. 241-42, fig. 19; Souchal 1993, vol. 1,
carved in Rome for the Marble Bath Due de
pp. 222-23, no. 116 (as Coysevox,
in Kassel (Walker S. 1995, p. 288).
Montausicr, private collection)
Cametti's final commission was The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
also his most prestigious: two large Purchase, The Josephine Bay Paul and
marble reliefs of The Annunciation C. Michael Paul Foundation, Inc., and the

(1729) and The Blessed Amadeo oj Savoy Charles Ulrick and Josephine Bay

Asking the Virgin's Intercession (1733), Foundation, Inc.

which decorate the church of the

Superga in Turin. They were ordered The decisive turn of the sitter's head
by King Victor Amadeus II of Savoy, and shoulders out of a frontal position
who was so pleased with Cametti's toward his right animates all the parts
work that he issued a royal patent in of the bust and makes the portrait
1729 declaring him his court sculptor come alive. The mantle wrapping the
(Schlegel 1963, "Cametti," pp. 173-83). right shoulder and lower rim of the
In their execution the two monumen- bust, the wavy edges of the open coat,
tal reliefs show a love of detail and and even the twist of the necktie
surface sensibility that bespeak respond to the figure's motion. The
French influence, as well as the bril- writhing, deeply cut curls of the man's
110 liant drillwork, vigorous movement, generous wig seem to take on a life of
and decisive modeling that are their own, as they frame his face and
the composition. The efficacy and Apostle statues in the Lateran but his Cametti's own. cascade on to his back and forward on
popularity of Cametti's compositional Saint Rasius in the Pantheon (1717 or Cametti creatively adapted compo- to his right shoulder. His features and
formula are demonstrated by a number 1723-24), the Charity in the chapel of sitions and artistic approaches of steadfast gaze into the distance
of later tombs by Filippo della Valle the Monte di Pieta (1721-24), and the Roman sculptors, such as Ercole convey both formality and a certain
(Emanuele Pereira de Sanpaio, 1759; Saint james and Saint Simon (1722) in Ferrata and Domenico Guidi, from benevolence through the brows fur-
S. Antonio dei Portoghesi; Girolamo Orvieto clearly prove that he was the post-Bernini generation, as well rowed over a large but noble nose and
Samminiati, 1733; S. Giovanni dei capable of creating figures on a com- as Monnot, Legros, and Theodon. As the narrow, slightly smiling mouth
Fiorentini) and Pietro Bracci (Cardinal parable scale and of equal complexity. Schlegel noted (1963), impulses for with its distinctive, drawn upper lip.
Fabrizio Paolucci, 1729; S. Marcello; Certain aspects of the poses and com- Cametti's distinctive figure types and Although the bust is neither signed
Cardinal Renato Imperiali, 1741-45; plicated rippling and wrapping of the the painterly effects in his reliefs were nor dated, the identity of the sitter, the
S. Agostino; Carlo Leopoldo Cakagnini, draperies in each of these statues frequently derived from Carlo Maratti, artist, and the probable occasion for

1749; S. Andrea delle Fratte). Cametti's combine influences from successful the most influential painter of late sev- this forceful portrait have been deter-
work as a portraitist reached its high- French sculptors, particularly Jean- enteenth-century Rome. Numerous mined. The work represents the
point with the mature monuments for Baptiste Theodon and Pierre Legros works by later sculptors, such as Della nobleman Giovanni Andrea Muti the
Giovanni Andrea Muti and Maria Colomba the Younger, who both also con- Valle and Bracci, testify to Cametti's Younger (1663-1722) and is undoubt-
Vicentini in S. Marcello al Corso (1725). tributed to the chapel of the Monte di own contribution, which was less that edly a mature masterpiece by the late
There the pyramid was abandoned in Pieta. The Saint james and Saint Simon of an innovator than a successful syn- Baroque sculptor Bernardino Cametti
favor of staging the couple (who were were by the Lateran
clearly inspired thesizer of various sources of inspira- (Schlegel 1978, p. 100). The attribution
related but not married) in arched bal- figures of the French-born Pietro tion. Cametti's sculptures still results from a comparison with a
conies,emerging above prayer benches Stefano Monnot and the Roman resonate with the pathos and rhetoric marble half-figure bearing the same
and gesturing or leaning towards the Camillo Rusconi. The composition of of the late Baroque; they are more striking physical features in the Muti
altar in "eternal adoration" (Bruhns Cametti's Saint james recalls Monnot 's energetic and less focused on an Bussi Chapel at S. Marcello al Corso in
1940. pp. 408-9). The extremely lifelike Saint Peter and the Saint Simon his Saint overall elegance than other contem- Rome. Documents and inscriptions
half-figures in luminous white marble Paul; Cametti strove for but did not porary works. Rich compositions, prove that the tomb in S. Marcello was
are set off against the surroundings of quite match the grand rhetoric of dramatic contrasts of light and completed by Cametti in 1725 at the
colored stones and carved with utmost Rusconi's Saint john, Saint Matthew, shadow, and proudly displayed tech- behest of Giovanni Andrea's heir,
attention to the texturing of different and Saint james. nique make Cametti's oeuvre memo- Innocenzo Muti Bussi (Enggass 1976,
facial features, hair, laces, and A notable exception from Cametti's rable and celebrate the virtuosity of vol. 1, pp. 156-57). The posthumous
draperies. From his early terracotta usual fare of portraits, tombs, and reli- his chisel, [sw] portrait shown here was probably
bust of Taddeo Barberini in the Museo gious works was his dazzling Diana as BIBl loc.RAl'HY Bruhns 1940, pp. 408-9, made at the same time and may w ell
di Roma (1704) to the marble bust of a Huntress (1716-22; Staatliche Museen. 414, figs. 330-32; Pericoli 196s; Schlegel have stood in the family palace of the
Giovanni Andrea Muti (1725) in the Berlin), a lifesize figure of the fleet- 1963; Schlegel 1965, "Cametti": F.nggass Muti Bussi, which still exists in via
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New 1976, vol. 1, pp. 148-58. and vol. 2,
footed goddess accompanied by a Aracoeli (Raggio 1991. p. 242). While
York figs. 147-56; Nava Cellini 1982. pp. 20-25:
(cat. 110), the rich palette of light leaping hound. While close to classical the half-figure in S. Marcello has long
Barroero 1990. "Interventi," pp. 295-96
and shadow in Cametti's portraits models, Cametti's Diana is full of been recognized as a major work by
demonstrate his mastery as a carver. Baroque dynamism, deep undercutting, Cametti, this portrait is less well
Cametti was not invited to con- fluttering draperies, and narrative known but ol equally fine quality.
tribute to the series of monumental details in an attempt to emulate Although the bust lacks the tomb

SCULPTURE
 figure's overtly theatrical elements, Canova 's meteoric rise to interna-

such as the gesturing arms and tional celebrity began with the unveil-
bending upper body, it retains its lively ing of his first major Roman sculpture,
presence through Muti's expressive These us with the Dead Minotaur, which
face, noble carriage, dfad flowing wig. was thought to rival the antique in its

The portrait bears all the hallmarks ideal beauty and quiet dignity. The
of Cametti's vigorous and technically success of his debut led immediately
accomplished manner. In its formality to thecommission for the tomb of
and the conventions of the sitter's dress Pope Clement XIV Ganganelli, com-
the piece evinces the influence of pleted in 1787. This controversial
French sculpture, in particular the monument to the pontiff who had
marble busts of Louis XIV and other suppressed the Society of Jesus utterly
royal family members by Antoine transformed the Baroque traditions of
Coysevox from the later seventeenth papal tombs best represented by
century. Coysevox's formula for this Bernini in St. Peter's. To the indigna-
portrait serieswas widely copied and tion of the established sculptors of the
adapted, for example the windswept Accademia di S. Luca, Canova also
curls, the head turned to one side, and landed the commission for a second
the carefully arranged cravat. This pontifical monument, the tomb of
work was even once thought to be by Pope Clement XIII Rezzonico, this
Coysevox, but it differs from his style time for St. Peter's; it was unveiled to
in the distinctly Italian brio of its wide acclaim in 1792. The enmity of
carving and differentiation of surface the cultural establishment towards
textures. The folds turn crisply, the the "modern Phidias" was manifested
drilling is deeper, the undercutting by his exclusion from membership in
more decisive, and the modeling of the the Accademia until 1800.
more pronounced. The composi-
face While papal tombs brought Canova
tion and inherent vitality of Cametti's considerable fame and professional
rendition bear a close comparison to enmity, his reputation as Europe's
the portrait of Carlo Maratti (1704-8; greatest artist was established largely
S. Maria degli Angeli, Rome) by by his graceful mythological figures in
Francesco Maratti (Enggass 1976, vol. 2, marble, of which the recumbent Cupid
p. 116, fig. 82). Stylistically, the master- and Psyche now in the Louvre is the
fully executed bust of Giovanni Andrea most famous example. By the 1790s
Muti by Cametti represents a transi- demand for Canova's mythological
tional moment at the close of the late figures far exceeded the supply, and
Baroque before the onset of a more patrons had often to wait several years
severe Neoclassicism in Roman por- to receive their commissioned works.
trait sculpture, [sw] The sculptor's professional dealings,
above all with the British, were
severely hampered by the wars with
ANTONIO CANOVA France that lasted from 1792 until the
POSSAGNO 1757-1822 VENICE fall of Napoleon in 1815. Nonetheless,

a steady stream of gleaming, nacreous

Born a subject of the Serene Republic marble gods, goddesses, and heroes
of Venice in a hill town nearTreviso, flowed from Canova's chisel during
Antonio Canova rose to heights of this parlous time, including Perseus gies, Canova also continued to work willingly offered political allegiance
fame undreamed of in Venice
cultural Head of Medusa, purchased
with the in the epic mode of the funerary mon- only to the republic of Venice (over-
since the Renaissance. His paternal by Pope Pius VII, Paris and The Three ument, and from 1798 to 1805 created thrown by Napoleon in 1797) and to
grandfather, Pasino Canova, a provin- Graces, executed for the Empress his masterpiece in the genre, the the Papacy. He was conservative,
cial stonecarver, taught his grandson Josephine, and Psyche, acquired by deeply moving tomb of the Catholic, and anti-French, although
the rudiments of his future profes- the Venetian count Giuseppe Mangilli. Archduchess Maria Christina of the politics of the Napoleonic period
sion. Canova fortunately attracted the Canova's celebrity as the sculptor of Austria. Erected in the Habsburg often compelled him to suppress his
attention of a patrician, Giovanni feminine grace par excellence led him to Augustinerkirche in Vienna and paid true feelings. After the Battle of
Falier, who enabled the young sculp- accept in 1795 a challenging Neapolitan for by the archduchess's widower, Waterloo, Canova went to Paris to
tor to come to Venice to study with commission for Hercules and Lichas, a Duke Albert of Saxe-Teschen (founder oversee the return to Rome of works
the leading local sculptor, Giuseppe horrific subject executed on a colossal of the Albertina), the pyramidal tomb of art seized by the French, for which
Bernardi. After the successful exhibi- scale. Completed almost two decades approached by a procession of figures vital service he was made Marchese
tion of Orpheus, Eurydice, and Daedalus after its original conception, the group to be identified as a reified humanity d'Ischia by a grateful Pius VII. While
and Icarus, juvenilia remarkable for sculpture was purchased by the Roman is a vital monument to the syncretic in Paris in the fall of 1815, he made a
their Rococo naturalism, Canova banker Giovanni Torlonia. Throughout notions of the Neoclassicists relating short trip to London, where he was
journeyed to Rome in 1779 to study his career Canova was eager to execute to death, the monument, and immor- favoured by the prince regent (later

collections of modern sculpture and works in a variety of modes in rivalry The sculptor also produced
tality. George IV) and by the Royal
feted
antiquities.He remained there for with the masterpieces of antiquity. This more modest funerary memorials for Academy. During his visit Canova
several months and through the inter- competitive mentality was only bourgeois consumers, including the examined the Elgin Marbles and testi-
vention of the Venetian ambassador increased by the removal of the major monument to Giovanni Volpato in the fied to a parliamentary committee on

to the Papacy, Girolamo Zulian, was masterpieces of ancient sculpture from narthcx of the Ss. Apostoli in Rome, a their worthiness for purchase for the
awarded a pension from the Venetian the papal, civic, and patrician collec- forerunner of the modern tombstone. nation. He also accepted a number of
senate, an unprecedented gesture of tions of Rome by the French in 1798-99 Often associated with Napoleonic- lucrative commissions, including Mars
confidence and esteem. He returned and again in 1808-14, a cultural spoli- patronage, Canova was, however, never and Venus for the prince regent and a
to Rome in 1781 and remained there, ation the artist resented bitterly. a court artist of the regime (unlike his second version of The Three Graces
with only infrequent absences of Finding renown and fortune with rival in painting, Jacques-Louis David). ordered by the Duke of Bedford. Later,

short duration, until his death. the popularity of his marble mytholo- He refused all court positions and he also agreed to sculpt the cenotaph

234 SCULPTURE
of the last Stuarts for St. Peter's, a work dictum of "model with fire, sculpt

that commemorated the end of Stuart with phlegm." In addition to provid-

pretensions to the British throne. ing valuable insight into the artist's

Disillusioned by the ultra-conserv- working procedure, Piety is an excel-

ative reaction prevalent in Rome after lent example of Canova changing his

the restoration of Pius VII, a phenom- mind. Not only is the identity of the
enon that was hostile to the classiciz- allegory altered for the final tomb, but

ing culture of late eighteenth-century the conception of the marble figure is

Neoclassicism to which Canova was radically different. Temperance,

so deeply committed, the artist focused whose languid, mournful, leaning
on his many British com-
his attention pose is the perfect embodiment of
missions and on the construction and Neoclassical mourning (she leans
decoration of a grand church, the gently upon the top of the papal sar-
Tempio, on a mountain top in his cophagus and holds a metallic bridle,

native Possagno. An architectural her traditional attribute, in her right

melding of the Pantheon and the hand), inhabits a different world from
Parthenon with a traditional Christian the almost mystical, deeply moving
apse, the Tempio stands as Canova's Piety. The sense of the artist's touch on

greatest religious monument and a the surface of the clay and the sense of
vivid affirmation of his traditional creative immediacy, typical of most of
Catholic sentiments and local patrio- Canova's terracotta modelli, is what
tism. During its construction Canova's made them much more popular to the
health began to fail and he died, rather twentieth-century modernists than important collections of ancient Gipsoteca Canoviana at Possagno, is

suddenly, during a visit to his beloved his "finished" marble sculptures, sculpture outside Italy. It is possible closely related to the Correr bozzetto.
Venice. Probably no artist had risen to which were all too frequently charac- also that the religious intensity of Piety Such traditional mythological
such a level of celebrity and popularity terized as "erotic frigidaires." appealed to Blundell's Catholic sensi- themes as Cupid and Psyche, Venus
in their own lifetime, and few fell into The Ganganelli tomb, begun in 1783 bilities, [cmsj] and Adonis, Hebe, Venus and Cupid,
near oblivion so quickly. Only with and unveiled to an enraptured public Cephalus and Procris and many
the demise of modernist criticism of in 1787, along with the Theseus and the others were highly attractive to the
classical, academic art and highly fin- Dead Minotaur of 1781-83, confirmed 112 young Canova, who had recently
ished marble sculpture in recent years Canova's reputation in Rome as the established his studio inRome. His
Antonio Canova
has Canova reemerged and taken his most promising Neoclassical sculptor. connections to the British community
place as the most important artist of The tomb was highly controversial, Cupid and Psyche of artists and Grand Tourists, facili-
European Neoclassicism. [cmsj] both for its radical departure from c. 1787
tated by the Venetian ambassador to

bibliography Missirini 1823; Quatremere Baroque stylistic precedents and also Terracotta
the Holy See, Girolamo Zulian. did
de Quincy M. 1834: D'Este 1864; Malamani because Ganganelli had suppressed 9/2" x 16/2" x 11" (24 x 42 x 28 cm) much to create Canova's international
1911; Pavanello and Praz 1976; Licht 1983; the Society of Jesus in 1773 with the
provenance given to G. Zardo Fantolin
reputation. The suave, languid, and
Pavanello and Romanelli 1992; Honour brief Dominc ac Redemptor. The monu- engagingly erotic mythological sub-
by Giovanni Battista Sartori-Canova
1994; Johns 1998
ment's success helped Canova receive around 1823; Domenico Zoppetti jects favoredby the sculptor were
the commission for the tomb of Collection from 1847: bequeathed to the enormously appealing to his contem-
Clement XIII in St. Peter's from the Museo Correr in 1849 poraries, and the closest parallels to
111 Rezzonico family; the modello for the exhibitions Rome 1959; London 1972, such works are the small terracotta
figure of Religion in that monument cat. no. 308; Venice 1978. cat. no. 112;
table-top sculptures by such French
Antonio Canova Venice and Possagno 1992. cat. no. 79
has similar formal affinities to Piety, artists as Clodion and the small-scale,
Piety bibliography Pavanello and Praz 1976,
but none of its intense pathos. intimate erotic genre paintings of
p. 98
1783
Henry Blundell, a wealthy Roman Jean-Honore Fragonard.
Musei Civici Veneziani, Museo Correr, 1

Terracotta
Catholic squire from Lancashire, pur- In the studies for Cupid and Psyche,
Venice
Height 15//' (39 cm)
chased the modello directly from Canova explored various composi-
provenance Canova, probably in about 1789, when tional placements for the protago-
gift of the artist to Henry
Blundell of Ince Blundell Hall, c. 1791; he commissioned the marble Psyche, As Giuseppe Pavanello has convinc- nists. In the Correr bozzetto, Cupid
private collection which is still in the family collection ingly demonstrated, this bozzetto is a seems to be attempting to break away
exhibitions London 1972, cat. no. 306; at Ince Blundell Hall and for which he preliminary sketch for the celebrated from Psyche's yearning embrace. In
London 1998, cat. no. 67 paid the considerable sum of £300. It recumbent Cupid and Psyche now in the the definitive solution in the Louvre
bibliography Pavanello and Praz 1976, was probably also at this time that Louvre. Begun in 1787, the year the marble sculpture, Canova achieved a
p. 93. no. 26; Ingamells 1997. pp. 101-2 Canova gave Blundell the modello for sculptor began work on the tomb of perfect synthesis of erotic engage-
Private collection. England Theseus and the Dead Minotaur, the Pope Clement XIII Rezzonico in ment and emotional longing in the
marble statue having been sold to the St. Peter's, the marble sculpture was thrillingly interlocking forms while
Piety is a model for Canova's first idea Viennese Count Josef von Fries and initially a commission from a Scottish giving Cupid the physically dominant
for the allegorical figure on the left removed to the Austrian capital. The patron, Colonel John Campbell (later position, unlike his initial exploration
side of the tomb of Pope Clement XIV fact that the artist gave the terracotta Baron Cawdor). In all likelihood, the of the languid Cupid and aggressive
Ganganelli in the Roman basilica of model for the work that firmly estab- Correr bozzetto was made in the year Psyche. The rapidity of execution is

the Ss. Apostoli. The figure was even- lished his reputation (and which sub- the commission was given 1787. — clearly evident in the textural mark-
tually changed to a personification of sequently changed the course of the Financial problems and the outbreak ings in the clay, and a comparison of
Temperance. On a commission from history of modern sculpture) to of war between the French republic the bozzetto and the finished work pro-
Carlo Giorgi, a confidant of the Blundell must indicate a high level of and Great Britain (which made ship- vides an excellent illustration of the
deceased pontiff, Canova was chosen personal esteem. Roman Catholics ment between Rome and the British dictum: "Sketch with fire and execute
for the project by the celebrated were barred from both political and Isles risky) caused Campbell to relin- with phlegm." [cmsj]
Roman engraver Giovanni Volpato, military service in Great Britain, so quish the statue, and it was eventually
who had been asked by Giorgi to art collecting and cultural patronage acquired by Napoleon's brother-in-
select a suitable sculptor. The small, became avenues into the public law General Joachim Mural (later king
heavily draped and veiled erect female sphere for such rich gentlemen as ol Naples), but not directly from
figure is highly expressive in its forms Blundell and his friend Charles Canova. Another sketch for the
and embodies Canova's working Townley, who formed one ol the most Louvre Cupid and Psyche, now in the

SCULPTURE
 in 1843), and at the Istituto Finlandese Canova to replace Girolamo
di Cultura in Rome. A pair formerly in Giustiniani's portrait with that of
the Palazzo Sambonifacio in Padua is Napoleon Bonaparte, but he refused,
recorded in the possession of Antonio agreeing only to leave the tablet blank
Piazza in the early nineteenth century. for whatever inscription the Paduans
In 1972 Honour commented that the preferred. Nothing happened until the
reliefs in Dijon and Possango appeared Austrian annexation the following
from the same molds, to
to be cast year, when the decision was made to
which Pavanello (Pavanello and Praz change the stele into a monument for
1976) added those in Venice and Padua. Girolamo's uncle Nicolo Antonio
In 1978 Pavanello discussed the popu- Giustiniani, who had been bishop
larity of Canova's plaster reliefs with of Padua from 1772 until his death in

the patrician families of Venice, [dw] 1796.The bishop was the founder of
the Ospedale Civile, where the monu-
ment was erected in a special tcmpietto
114 in 1821 under Canova's supervision.
The Giustiniani Stele is the proto-
Antonio Canova
type of many of Canova's relief stele
Giustiniani Stele funerary monuments, including the

1796-97 more famous Volpato Monument,

Inscribed on the tablet:ws-nicol. ant.
and was also a formative influence on
T/NIANO / PONTIFICl / NOSOCOMil AUCTORI later freestanding sculptures of seated
/ ME / CRATES MEDITANTEM UNUS / SCULPAT women, especially Letizia Ramohno
CA NOV Bonaparte and Marie-Louise of Parma as
I Marble The stele's iconography is the
Concord.
73/4" x 50" x 4X" (186 x 127 x 12 cm) most complex ever attempted by
"3 provenance commissioned by the city Canova in relief format. Seated on a
of Padua and delivered in 1801; set up in curule chair, the female personifica-
markedly different from the range Palazzo Congregazione di Carita, 1806:
tion of Padua
113 are is completing the last
transferred to Ospedale Civile, 1821; moved
of styles Canova had explored earlier letter of Canova's name on a tablet
Antonio Canova to the Museo Civico, 1896
in the nine reliefs of 1787-92 depicting that rests on a caduceus that has been
exhibitions London 1972, cat. no. 135;
Feeding the Hungry themes taken from ancient literature. placed on her thigh. She is aided in
Venice and Possagno 1992, cat. no. 114
1795-96
In 1824 Leopoldo Cicognara approved this endeavor by a winged putto.
bibliography Bratti 1917, pp. 325-30;
Plaster
the severity of the later relief style "by Pavanello and Praz 1976, pp. 101-2, no. 96
Padua's elegant, severe, classicizing

x 50" x U7 cm) virtue of its superb simplicity." This

Assessorato Cultura del Comune profile and the gentle folds of her
45 Y," (115 alia di
style is echoed in the small vignette of Padova-Musei Civici. Padua draperies clearly identify the antique
provenance Antonio Cappello. Venice;
Teodoro Correr, Venice, before 1830; the mythical founding of Padua that sources of the artist's inspiration. The
Palazzo Correr, Venice. 1830-1922; Museo appears on the Giustiniani stele of coiffure is styled and is held
all'antica,

Civico Correr. Venice, from 1922 1796-97 (cat. 114). Commissioned from Canova by the city in place by a fillet and crowned by a
exhibitions Venice 1978, cat. no. 92; The simplicity of Feeding the Hungry fathers of Padua in 1795, the Giustiniani crenellated tower, a reference to
Venice and Possagno 1992. cat. no. 113; and its pendant is deceptive, and of Stele, like many other monuments Padua's august medieval past. This
London 1994, cat. no. 288 the two compositions the relief created during the tumultuous 1790s, venerable motif appears later in the
bibliography Arts Council 1972, pp. 213- included here is the more richly sug- has a complex history. Padua, a celebrated monument to Vittorio
24, no. 330; Pavanello and Praz 1976, p. 101,
gestive. The statuesque woman at left provincial capital in the Venetian Terra Alfieri in Florence as an allusion to
no. 93,fig. 93; Bassi 1978. pp. 67, 73;
has aspects of the traditional figure of Ferma, originally approached Canova Italy.The rather curious medallion
Pavanello and Romanelli 1992, p. 207,
nos. 112-13; Martineau and Robison 1994. Charity; one of her breasts is bared, for a portrait bust or herm portrait of hanging from Padua's left elbow is

p. 415, no. 288, fig. 288 and she holds a sleeping child. Charity Girolamo Giustiniani, a Venetian the seal of the city, and her footstool

Musei Civici Veneziani. Museo Correr, is often attended by two children, so patrician who had served as captain is adorned with a relief showing the

Venice the girl receiving the bread could be a and vice-podesta of Padua earlier in founding of Padua by the Trojan hero
creative adaptation of the familiar the century. Disliking portraits per se, Antenor, a bit of civic pride appropri-
theme. Another demonstration of the sculptor declined, but offered ate for the Paduans, who rejoiced that
This relief is a pair with Teaching the charity appears in the boy who guides instead to execute a work in relief and, their city was much older than Venice.
Ignorant, also at the Museo Correr. In the blind old man. Together they rep- after rather tiresome negotiations, he An owl, attribute of Minerva and
1804 these subjects were described as resent two ages of man and the cycle began work, completing two models associated with Antenor, flies in from
representing two acts of mercy. The of care by one and dependence of the (one with the seated female figure at the upper right. The owl as a tradi-
date for the completion of the reliefs other, like the young woman and the right, the other with her at left) by tional symbol of wisdom, however,
is provided in Teaching the Ignorant, in baby. These are but several of the allu- May 14, 1796. Knowing where the might also be a reference to the
which the tablet held by the little boy sions worth considering in this com- commissioners wished to place the University of Padua, one of the oldest
is inscribed A.C./P0S./1796. The reliefs position, which is more complex than work, Canova rejected the right-facing and most distinguished in Europe.
are said by Pavanello (Pavanello and its short frieze-like format would ini- was later used for the
modello (this It is generally acknowledged that

Praz 1976) to have been commissioned tially suggest. As most writers have monument to Giuseppe Nicola de the stele format, replete with a pedi-
by the Roman senator Prince noted, Canova used the figure of the Azara and is still preserved at the ment adorned with a garland and a

Abbondio Rezzonico on the basis of old man again in his tomb monument Gipsoteca Canoviano at Possagno) banderole and crowned by palmette
C. L. Fcrnow's comment, published in for Maria Christina of Austria because of the lighting conditions at acroteria, is a direct imitation of a
1806. that plaster reliefs of these sub- (1798-1805) in the Augustinerkirche the site. In the original version, the classical Greek funerary form. This
jects were placed in a free school in in Vienna. sculptor included a profile relief por- particular type of ancient sculpture
the environs of Bassano near which Canova never carved marble ver- trait of Giustiniani within the inscrip- was Rome, where the sculptor
rare in
Rezzonico had a large villa. Prince sions of the reliefs of the two acts of tion on the tablet prominently livedand worked, but much more
Rezzonico had earlier commissioned mercy. However, in addition to the displayed by the female personifica- prevalent in his native Venice, which
C'anova's Apollo Crowning Himself of reliefs at the Museo Correr, other pairs tion of Padua, but this was later had for centuries ruled large areas of
1781-82 and the tomb of Pope in plaster are to be found at the effaced. After the occupation of the the Greek mainland, the Peloponnese,
Clement XIII (Rezzonico) of 1787-92. Gipsoteca at Possagno, at the Musec entire Vcncto by the French in 1797, and, until the late seventeenth century,
The reliefs survive in several sets. They dcs Beaux-Arts in Dijon (first recorded the new Jacobin government asked Athens itself, where so many grave

SCUI.PI UKI.
 115

Antonio Canova
Antigone Mourning the Dead
Eteocles and Polynices
c. 1798-99
Terracotta
7
6X" x 15X" x g A" (17 x 40 x 25 cm)
provenance gift of Giovanni Battista
Sartori-Canova to G. Zardo Fantolin,
c. 1823; Domenico Zoppetti Collection,
1847; bequeathed to the Museo Correr in

1849
exhibitions Venice 1978, cat. no. 119;
Venice and Possagno 1992, cat. no. 83

bibliography Pavanello and Praz 1976,

p. 103

Musei Civici Veneziani, Museo Correr,

Venice

Although the date of this bozzetto

is uncertain, it bears close stylistic

affinities to such sketches as Hercules

Killing His Children, probably executed
about 1798-99 (Museo Correr, Venice).
Further evidence for the 1798-99
dating lies in Canova's choice of
Themes of mad passion, death,
subject.
and mourning dominated the sculp-
tor's creative imagination during this
parlous period in his professional life,

and he known to have made a series

is

of clay and wax bozzctti at this time. It

was also at this time that he made
numerous drawings and models for
themonumental Hercules and Lichas,
Canova's best-known essay on the
theme of heroic insanity. The most
important painting by the artist in this

genre is the large Mourning the Dead

Christ executed for the high altar of the
parish church in Possagno in 1799.
This impressive picture was retouched
around 1820 and relocated to the high
altar of the Tempietto, Canova's superb
architectural tribute to his home town
of Possagno. Both Canova and his half-
brother Giovanni Battista Sartori-
Canova (who inherited Antigone
Mourning the Dead Eteocles and Polynices
after the artist's death in 1822), are
buried in the church, which was built
entirely at the sculptor's expense.
Canova's preoccupation with
funerary themes in a mythological or
literary context in the last four years
of the eighteenth century was occa-
sioned by the cataclysmic events of
the French invasion of Italy. Beginning
in 1796, the Army of Italy, led by the
brilliant young Napoleon Bonaparte,
swept down into the peninsula, over-
throwing the existing governments
stelae originated. At the time he exe- Giustiniani Stele, the Volpato Stele, the and sacking the churches, museums,
cuted the Giustiniani Stele, Canova monument to Giovanni Falier, and and many private collections in Milan,
was also involved in the reinstallation the monument to Angclo Emo. |cmsj] Parma. Modena, Bologna. Urbino,
of Venice's public collection of antiq- Perugia. Koine, and Venice, among
uities in the Biblioteca Marciana in the other Italian With the deposition
cities.
Piazza S. Marco.
It is probably no acci- ol Pope Pius VI Braschi in 1798 and the
dent that a number of Canova's funer- establishment ol the short-lived
ary stelae were executed for. or in Roman republic. Canova tied from
honor of, Venetians, including the Rome to his native Possagno. then

SCULPTURE 237
 —

under Austrian control. While in the 116

Veneto, he worried constantly about
Antonio Canova
his Roman studio and the future of his
professional practice. In addition, he Cupid and Psyche
lamented the spoliation of so much of c. 1800-1802
Italy's cultural heritage and was Marble
depressed by the constant political
Height 58//' (148 cm)
riots, battles, and the disruption of
provenance commissioned by Col. John
artistic activity all over the peninsula. Campbell, later 1st Baron Cawdor, and
This caused him considerable anxiety ceded in 1803 to Josephine Bonaparte; pur-
and led to a highly depressive and pes- chased from Josephine's heir, Eugene de
simistic state of mind. was during It Beauharnais. by Czar Alexander I in 1814;

property of the Russian state from 1918

this exile from Rome that he went to

Vienna and accepted the commission exhibition Rome 1991, Canova

for the monument to the Archduchess bibliography Kosareva 1961; Pavanello

and Praz 1976, p. 102; Hubert 1977
Maria Christina from Albert of Saxe-
The State Hermitage Museum,
Teschen, which he completed and
St. Petersburg
installed in the Augustinerkirche in
1805.
The story of Eteocles and Polynices The mythological theme of the love of
is taken from Aeschylus' tragedy Seven Cupid and Psyche was one of the most
Against Thebes. This canonical literary popular ancient fables during the
source had earlier inspired Vittorio Neoclassical period, its literary source
Alfieri's play Polynices, which was ultimately deriving from Apuleius's
completed in Rome in 1781, shortly The Golden Ass. It was essayed by
after Canova moved from Venice to Canova on at least three occasions
the papal capital. Canova later executed the celebrated recumbent version in
the tomb of the great poet in the the Musee du Louvre, a standing
church of S. Croce in Florence. Placed version also in the Louvre, and the
on an oval base, the sculptor displays Hermitage version, which was acquired
the bodies of the two brothers, who from the Chateau de Malmaison by
have one another in combat,
killed Alexander shortly after the death of
I

while their sister Antigone mourns the Empress Josephine in 1814. Cupid
over their bodies, accompanied by and Psyche was commissioned by
their faithful tutor. Antigone's pose Canova's impecunious but indefatiga- statues and wished to commission to Canova and allowed him to receive
recalls that of the figure of Temperance ble Scottish admirer ]ohn Campbell, something from their creator. In patrons in his own establishment,
who leans over the sarcophagus of the who had a history of ceding commis- about 1803 Campbell agreed to let rather than the traditional (and rather
deceased pontiff in Canova's tomb of sions to other patrons who could Josephine have his second version, humiliating) practice of "waiting upon"
P< >pe Clement XIV Ganganelli afford to pay for them. Josephine's perhaps because of the difficulty in them in their palaces and offices. In

(1783-87; Ss. Apostoli, Rome). The statue was the second version of delivering works of art to English addition, the task of making replicas
expressive modeling and the rapidly Canova's creation; the first had been patrons during the Napoleonic Wars. of a single model allowed Canova to
executed, highly generalized forms completed on commission from Canova often created variants of train and employ numerous stone-
are typical of Canova's style for small Campbell in 1797 but had also gone to marble statues based on an original carvers and professional sculptors,
bozzctti of this type. |cmsj] aFrench collection that of Joachim — plaster model, but he always added and this helped his studio to flourish.
Mural Napoleon's brother-in-law. In
,
fresh touches and usually executed The love of Cupid and Psyche had
1802, at a fete honoring the first consul the more detailed work himself. In traditionally been interpreted in a

at Murat's Chateau de Villiers. both fact, potential patrons visiting his Christianized context as a metaphor
the recumbent and standing versions Roman studio were confronted by of Christ's love for the Church. The
( >l ( lipid and Psyche were on display numerous plaster models from which Neoclassicists, however, were much
(Murat acquired neither sculpture they could select a work that could more interested in such notions as
from Canova, but purchased
directly then be transferred into marble. This sensual innocence and platonic love.
them from their original owners). a la carte menu gave a significant Indeed, many artists and patrons were
Napoleon and Josephine admired the amount of professional independence obsessed with adolescent sexuality.

238 SCULPTURE
and the smooth, rounded muscles of and his mentor. Soon after, Cavaceppi Throughout the 1750s and 1760s
Cupid in the Hermitage sculpture began working with Bianchi on an Cavaceppi worked on restorations for
suggest a state of physical develop- equal footing. In 1743 the two sculptors a number of Roman collections, but

ment somewhere between childhood obtained a commission for the restora- in 1761 Cardinal Albani commissioned
and maturity. Francois Gerard's Cupid tion of a herm, as a trial piece (Rome, an original work, the first known. This
and Psyche of 1798, a celebrated paint- Archivio Capitolino Roma, Fondo was the statue of Saint Norbert, to be

ing that owes a debt to Canova's Cardelli). placed in a niche facing the entrance
essayson the theme, is a particularly In 1744 the prestigious patronage of to the basilica of St. Peter's. However,
important example of the phenome- the Marchese Capponi, the first curator the work was rejected by the chapter
non, although the erotic potential in and director of the Museo Capitolino, of the order and replaced in 1762 with
Gerard's painting is decidedly more won for the two young sculptors a a sculpture by Pietro Bracci, a protege

pronounced. In Canova's statue commission to restore the Faun in of Pope Clement XIII. In the same
Psyche, who innocently proffers a but- "Rosso Antico", a work from the decade Cavaceppi produced a group
terfly (her traditional attribute, and a Hadrianic period and a copy of a Greek of original works, including a series of
symbol of the Christian soul) to her bronze. The record of payment shows Diana, and a Venus,
bozzetti for a Flora, a

platonic lover, is semi-draped and how the work was divided between the and three portrait busts, including
even the view of her budding breasts two: Bianchi was a good worker of Frederick II (Rome, Archivio Stato

is partly obscured by her right hand. marble, while Cavaceppi was responsi- Roma, Nicolaus Ferreus.Testamcnta,
The softened forms, the composi- ble for all the preparatory models, casts, fol. 801 r, 1799).

tional compactness, and the place- and the final cleaning (Vatican City, In 1768 Cavaceppi traveled to Berlin
ment of Cupid's head and right hand Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Codice with Winckelmann, a journey that he
on Psyche's shoulders suggest frater- Capponi 293, Pitture e anticaglie, MS. recorded in the Collection of Ancient

nal attachment much more than 92, 190, 200, 1717-46). Statues, Busts, Bas-Reliefs and Other
carnal desire; the passion and kinetic In 1746 Capponi died and was suc- Sculptures Restored by Bartolomeo

energy of the recumbent Cupid and ceeded as director of the Museo Cavaceppi, Roman Sculptor, an unofficial
Psyche in the Louvre is altogether a dif- Capitolino by Giovan Pietro Lucatelli. catalogue of sales written and pub-
ferent conception. This sculpture was Lucatelli continued to add sculptures lished by Cavaceppi. The marble
exhibited, with Josephine's permis- to the collection, and in 1748 the bust statues he restored eventually became 117

sion, at the Salon of 1808, where it of a Faustina was restored, probably by part of the collections of Catherine II

generated favorable comment, [cmsj] Cavaceppi; in 1749-53 Bianchi and of Russia, at St. Petersburg, and 117
Cavaceppi restored fifteen statues Gustav III of Sweden.
Bartolomeo Cavaceppi
from the Villa d'Este at Tivoli (Vatican Cavaceppi became a member of the
BARTOLOMEO City, Archivio Segreto Vaticano, SPA, Accademia di S. Luca in 1782, and Three-bodied Hecate
CAVACEPPI Computisterio, vol. 259, 1750); and in toward the end of his career was c. 1750
ROME 1716-1799 ROME 1750 Bianchi requested payment for engaged on important commissions Height 17" cm)
(4?
the restoration of four statues at the for the Chigi and Borghese families,
Terracotta
Cavaceppi's apprenticeship is uncer- Capitoline. and the sale of ancient sculptures and
provenance studio of Cavaceppi, after
tain; according to his own account, he Cavaceppi also worked for Cardinal tombstones on behalf of the Museo 1750; Torlonia collection, 1802; collection
was apprenticed to the French sculp- Alessandro Albani, who was again Pio-Clementino. After his death he of Evan Gorga, 1900: Museo di Palazzo
tor Pietro Stefano Monnot from 1729. enlarging his collection, and had left his studio and collections to the Venezia, 1948
Survivingdocuments mention a started on the construction of his villa Accademia —over one thousand exhibition Rome 1994. Cavaceppi,
number of other names, certainly less on via Salaria. At this time also ancient marble statues, clay models, cat. no. 9

celebrated, of sculptors involved in Cavaceppi met the German archaeolo- modern sculptures, casts, and an bibliography Rome, Biblioteca Istituto

the busy and growing trade in excava- gist Johann Joachim Winckelmann, and enormous collection of drawings Archeologia e Storia Arte. Libro delle scul-
ture della collezione Cavaceppi che sono in
tion and restoration of antiquities. It their discussions about the museum (about 8,000), sold in 1843 to the
societa delli signori Marchese Torlonia,
was to these artists and to their techni- of statues gave rise to the idea that "as Museum of Berlin. However, the will Vincenzo Pacetti, e Giuseppe Valadier. 42
cal skills that Cavaceppi owed his far as possible it would be advisable to was contested by Cavaceppi's wife and Tripod con tre dee scudi 10, 1802; Stuart
initial training, which took place in a adapt these ancient marble statues to heirs, and eventually the collection (ones 1912, vol. 1, p. 228; Rome. Palazzo
very dynamic cultural milieu that fos- the site and to the use for which it was purchased by the Marchese Venezia. Catalogo collezione Gorga. 112
tered collecting, dealing in antiquities, appeared they had been made" (quoted Giovanni Torlonia for 10,000 scudi. Ecateogruppo in terracotta: copia dall'an-
and lucrative commissions. in Salvatore Settis, ed., Memoria dell'an- The marble sculptures and some of tico, 1948; Gasparri and Ghiandoni 1995.
p. 280; Barberini and Gasparri 1994. p. 94
In 1732, at the age of fifteen, tico neti'arte italiana [Turin, Italy: Giulio the small bronzes remain in the
Cavaceppi was working at the Einaudi, 1986], pp. 232-36), a concept Torlonia family collection, while the
Museo del Palazzo di Venezia, Rome
Accademia di S. Luca, although it is that Cavaceppi fully endorsed. collection of clay models was dis-
uncertain who introduced him to the His friendship with Winckelmann persed in the early twentieth century. The sculptural model for this small
Concorso Clementino. In 1738 he won introduced Cavaceppi to the circles of [mgb] statue was probably the Three-Bodied
second prize in the sculpture class on General Wallmoden-Gimborn (illegit- bibliography Lucatelli 1-50; Cavaceppi Hecate of the late Antonine period
the subject Joseph and Potiphar's Wife. imate son of George II) and Margrave 1768-72;. Stuart Jones 1912; Giuntella 1958; (Palazzo dei Conservatori, Rome).
During these years he frequented the of Bayreuth, which gave him access to Scttcccnlo 1959, pp. 454-46; Pietrangeli 1961. This terracotta study, made with a
studio of CarloAntonio Napolioni the royal house of Prussia, for whom n. 12; Haskell and Penny 1981; Picon 198): good clean impasto. is a light tan
near the church of Gesu e Maria on the Gasparri 1985, pp. 211-19, no. 17; Howard
he restored marble statues in the royal color. After being modeled on a lathe,
1988; Palma 1992; Barberini 1991, pp. 24-32;
Corso. Napolioni's particular skill was collection at Potsdam and Sanssouci. it was sculpted with a wide serrated
Franceschini 1991. pp. 73-80; Barberini
in working different types of stone, In the 1750s Cavaceppi requested spatula, then smoothed over with a
1994: Barberini and Gasparri 1994:
which won
including rare materials, permission to export antique statues Petrucci F. 1998; Weiss 1999 cloth to soften the hard edges. The
him such prestigious commissions as to England, dealing directly with Lord result is a sculpture of great formal
the restoration (1737) of the two Furietti Anson and Lyde Brown, and made elegance, both balanced and flowing,
centaurs made of bigio morato marble, friends with Gavin Hamilton, a pupil which recalls the work of Clodion.
found at Hadrian's Villa. of Agostino Masucci who conducted a The heads were deliberately omitted,
Napolioni died in 1742, and left his flourishing trade in paintings and as evidenced by the clearly visible cuts
studio to hisnephew Clemente antiquities as well as being a history made by the and the same is true
wire,
Bianchi, a young man the same age as He also became acquainted
painter. of the hands, which in the marble
Cavaceppi, who also received a modest with Thomas Jenkins, another busy version hold the torch. Hecate's
legacy, proof of the bond between him dealer in antiquities. symbol, as she lights the wav for

SCULPTURE 239
Persephone on her exit from Hades.
The distinctive shape of the base sug-
gests that the work was made to order
and was intended for decoration.
book the Hecate
Curiously, in Pacetti's
iscombined with the Tripod, as if the
two sculptures were superimposed in
some whimsical invention, [mgb]

ll8

Bartolomeo Cavaceppi
Tripod
c. 1750
Terracotta

On the breast of one of three griffins: 42

Height \S /" (48 cm)
7

provenance studio of Cavaceppi, c. 1750;

Torlonia collection, 1802; collection of
Evan Gorga, 1900; Museo di Palazzo
Venezia, 1948

exhibition Rome 1994, Cavaceppi,

cat. no. 8

bibliography Rome, Archivio Stato

Roma. Nicolaus Ferreus, Testamenta,
fol. 728 v, 1799: Rome, Biblioteca Istituto

Archeologia e Storia Arte. Libro delle scul-

ture della collezione Cavaceppi che sono in

societa delli Signori Marchese Torlonia.

Vincenzo Pacetti. e Giuseppe Valadier, 42
Tripode con trc dee scudi 10, 1802; Stuart

(ones 1912, vol. 1, p. 349, and vol. 2, p. 87;

Rome. Palazzo Venezia. Catalogo
collezione Gorga, 249 Tripode con tre grifi

alati in terracotta, secolo XIX, 1948;

Barberini and Gasparri 1994, p. 93
Museo del Palazzo di Venezia, Rome

This terracotta is a reduced-scale

version of the sculpture in marble
from Luini (near Carrara) in the Museo
Capitolino (Sala del Galata), restored
by Cavaceppi in 1754, as shown in a

receipt (Vatican City, Archivio Segreto

Vaticano, SPA, vol. 273, c. 192). The
document gives a detailed description
of the restoration carried out on the
bowl of the vase and the rim, the
heads of the griffins and their wings.
In the terracotta version, it is evident
from the incisions in the unfired clay

at the joins that the heads and the feet

were modeled and fired separately.
There are two possible explanations
for this: it was either done for a techni-
cal reason connected with the drying
of the clay and its consequent shrink-
age, or because the heads and feet

were ideal reconstructions.

It can be assumed that this is a

studio model executed before the life-

size version,from which the plaster

cast would be made. In the 1750s
Cavaceppi and Bianchi had a system
of sharing and organizing work.
Bianchi was chiefly expert at prepar-
ing and assembling marble statues,
which was indispensable if the work
was to be successful and to guarantee
the perfect integration of the restora-
Cavaceppi was the sculptor,
tion.
making models and plaster casts and
carrying out the final cleaning. His
 —

inventive qualities enabled him to bust type no doubt derived from its

obtain commissions for work where forceful evocation of ancient history

creative restoration was required (or as well as its obvious aesthetic appeal,
pieces that were missing. which [ohann Joachim Winkelmann
All the models that follow, cata- ranked as being worthy of Lysippus
logued by Camillo Pacetti on (Winckelmann 1783-84, vol. 2, p. ;i). 1

Cavaceppi's death, passed into the Furthermore, Caracalla was elected

Torlonia collection. However, they emperor at York, creating a circum-

were sold in the early nineteenth stantial connection with England that
century and part of the collection was may have influenced eighteenth-
acquired by a famous opera singer, century British patrons (see Fleming
Evangelista Gorga, the first Rodolfo in and Honour, 1968, p. 511).
Puccini's La Boheme (Turin, 1896). His Cavaceppi seldom signed his copies

collection was wide-ranging and after the antique. Among his other
included ancient weapons, fossils, rare, signed copies are the bust of
toys, and works of art. Gorga ran into Faustina the Younger in the Philadelphia

debt because of his mania for collect- Museum of Art (cat. 120) and the bust
ing and eventually left his entire col- of the Blind Homer in the Wallmoden
lection to the state; part of it was then collection (Boehringer 1979, pp. 94-96,

placed in the Museo di Palazzo no. 52). The prominence of the artist's

Venezia. [mgb] signature on the front of the Getty

bust may indicate his pride in the
quality of its carving, which is excep-
119 tional within Cavaceppi's ceuvre.
Other versions of Caracalla's portrait
Bartolomeo Cavaceppi
by Cavaceppi include: a marble bust of
The Emperor Caracalla Caracalla, possibly identifiable as the
Getty bust, in the sculptor's posses-
c. 1750-70
Signed on the front, proper right side,
sion when he died ("Libro delle scul-

at the bottom edge of the cuirass: bar- ture della collezione Cavaceppi che
tolomevs/cavaceppi/fecit sono in societa delli Signori Marchese
Marble Torlonia. Vincenzo Pacetti e Giuseppe
28" x 21/2" x 13" (71.1 x 54.6 x 33 cm) Valadier," no. 982, published in

provenance Private collection. New York Gasparri and Ghiandoni 1993, p. 277;
(sold, Sotheby's, New York. |une 6, 1994. the possible connection between the
lot 112); Daniel Katz. Ltd., London Getty bust and this inventory item 119

bibliography Sale catalogue, Sotheby's, was first made by Maria Giulia

New York. June 6, 1994, lot 112; Sale cata- Barberini [correspondence, surfaces of the face and neck, would had leftthe Roman palace by around
logue. Sotheby's, London, December 7,
November 8, 1994, Getty Museum seem to belong to Cavaceppi's early 1570, making it unavailable to later
1995, lot 96; The ). Paul Getty Museum.
- 1994." The ]. Paul Getty
files]); a reduced model after the years, before the end of the 1760s. artists, and had been replaced by a
"Acquisitions
Museum journal, vol. 23 (199s). p. 121,
antique, identified by Carlo Gasparri However, this conclusion has no doc- second marble bust of Caracalla in

no. 100; Bassett and Fogelman 1997, p. 25; as one of the "Dodici Cesari in bustini" umentary basis, and a more specific which the costume and orientation
Fusco 1997, p. 15 listed in Cavaceppi's studio and now and accurate date may not be possible were reversed (Jestaz 1993, pp. 37-41).
The J.
Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles in a private collection (Gasparri 1993, without further information on the Nonetheless, other ancient portraits
p. 39, fig. 39; Gasparri and Ghiandoni commission and provenance. of Caracalla that accurately followed
1993, p. 282); and a restored antique The prototype for Cavaceppi's Cardinal Alessandro 's marble could
The bust of The Emperor Caracalla, bust of Caracalla made for Charles marble and similar copies has tradi- be seen by Cavaceppi in Rome. For
signed by Cavaceppi, copy of an is a Townley. now in the British Museum, tionally been identified as Cardinal instance, a very good marble bust of
ancient portrait of Marcus Aurelius London (Townley Gallery 1836, vol. 2, Alessandro Farnese's bust of Caracalla, Caracalla was in the Vatican collection
Antoninus (ad 188-217). nicknamed p. 51); attributed to Cavaceppi by which stood in the family's Roman and, considering Cavaceppi's position
Caracalla, who ruled the Roman Howard 1982, p. 226). In this last palace in the mid-sixteenth century as primary restorer of antiquities for
empire from ad 211 until his assassi- example the head, purportedly exca- and is now in the Museo Archeologico Cardinal Albani and the pope, would
nation. Busts of Caracalla were popular vated in Rome in 1776, is much more Nazionale. Naples (Inventory no. 6033; have been easily accessible (see
in the eighteenth century, and the frontal than in the Getty example and Bernoulli [1882-94] 1969, vol. 2, p. 50; Wiggers 1971, p. 70). Cavaceppi had a
Getty marble is one of many contem- the modern chest differs in its drapery Hekler 1912, p. xlv, fig. 290; Wiggers plaster cast of a Caracalla bust in his
poraneous copies after the antique and truncation. 1971, p. 70; Haskell and Penny 1981, studio when he died, and it can rea-
for example, those executed for The dating of the Getty bust p. 172; for the Farnese provenance see sonably be assumed it was the same
Woburn Abbey (see Avery 1988, fig. 4), remains problematic. According to Ministero della Pubblica Istruzione portrait type as that represented by
Ince Blundell Hall (see Walker Art the stylistic chronology suggested by 1878, vol. 1, p. 73; Riebesell 1989, p. 58, the Vatican bust and copied in the
Gallery, Supplementary Foreign Catalogue: Seymour Howard, as Cavaceppi no. 10). The Farnese Caracalla gained a Getty marble (see Howard 1991. p. 210,
Paintings, Drawings. Watcrcolours, matured his restorations and copies reputation, lasting centuries, as the no. 219). [pf]
Sculpture, Prints, Photographs [Liverpool: became more constrained in their primary, most beautiful ancient
Merseyside County Council, 1984], volumes, shallower in their modeling, example of this portrait type. Although
p. 37.no. 10336; Fejferi99i, p. 246. homogeneous in the finish of their many scholars now doubt its ancient
and Finchcocks, Kent which
pi. 10), — and suppressed in their col-
surfaces, origins, eighteenth-century antiquari-
derive from the same or similar proto- orism (Howard 1982, p. 226). On the ans upheld the Farnese Caracalla as the
types. Characteristic of these portraits, other hand, Cavaceppi's earlier works archetypal antique representation ol
inwhich Caracalla dons the cuirass exhibit deeper modeling and a contrast that Roman emperor; Jonathan
and toga of a Roman soldier, are the between polished and matt surfaces. Richardson, for instance, took for
simple, compact volumes, strong turn Stylistically the Getty bust of Emperor granted its unchallenged authenticity
of the head, furrowed brow, tense Caracalla. with its deep drillwork and (Richardson 1722. pp. so, 150, 282).
J.

facial features, and almost scowling carving of the hairand beard creating Bertrand Jestaz recently asserted that
expression. The fascination with this dramatic contrasts with the smooth Cardinal Alessandro Farnese's marble

SCUI.PTURK
 the mouth is rendered with unusual Younger's historical identity, the
delicacy.The superior quality of the style of the bust appealed to nascent
carving and the presence of the carved Neoclassical taste. The oval shape of
inscription are evidence that the face, its bland expression, bisque
Cavaceppi attached exceptional texture, and linearity (characteristics
importance to the commission. defined by Howard) were aspects of
Howard mentioned four other busts Hadrianic sculpture admired by such
at Syon as copies by Cavaceppi after leading tastemakers as Cardinal
antiquities, and his statue of Ceres in Albani and Winckelmann. Howard
the Great Dining Room is also signed detected the influence of the subject's
in full by the sculptor. facial type elsewhere in works by
Published references to the collec- Cavaceppi, and M. G. Barberini recog-
tion history of the Philadelphia bust nized that this bust was Cavaceppi's
after Syon have been incomplete
it left source for the head on a terracotta
or mistaken on one point or another. version of the Capitoline Flora in the
The bust was sold at auction at Museo del Palazzo di Venezia. [dw]
Sotheby's to the Heim Gallery in 1967.
Anthony Morris Clark bought it in

1968 for his own collection, not, as 121

often reported, for the Minneapolis
Bartolomeo Cavaceppi (?)
Institute of Arts, where he was then
director. The bust was given to the and Gavin Hamilton
Philadelphia Museum of Art by the
Myron's Diskobolos Restored as
estate of Mr. Clark along with a
notable collection of eighteenth- Diomedes with the Palladion
century Roman drawings and medals. c. 1772-76
Cavaceppi and his assistants pro- Marble
duced a number of copies of the Modern: both arms and attributes, both
ancient bust of Faustina the Younger. legs from below the knee, trunk support
The best-known are those acquired by and plinth, neck; patches on the ancient
English collectors, the sculptor's most torso, thighs, head, and left shin

enthusiastic clients. The Philadelphia Height 65" x 39" x 40" (165 x 99 x 102 cm)

bust is currently the earliest version exhibitions London 1930, cat. no. 61;

known to have been purchased for London 1983. not catalogued

England. The bust at Broadlands was bibliography Dallaway 1800, p. 337;

Michaelis 1882, pp. 467-68, no. 89; Smith

probably acquired by Viscount
1889, pp. 43-44, 77-78, no. 89; Christie,
Palmerston in 1764. A version for-
Manson and Woods 1930, pp. 94-95;
120 This portrait bust is a copy of an merly at Ince Blundell Hall, and now Howard 1962; Picon 1983, no. 1; Vaughan
ancient one traditionally identified as at the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool Howard
Bartolomeo Cavaceppi 1992, pp. 44-45, figs. 7. 11; 1993,
Faustina the Younger (c AD 125/30—175) (Ince no. 201), could have been bought P- 245
Faustina the Younger in the Musei Capitolini, Rome (Stanza by Henry Blundell in 1777 at the earli- Trustees of the Bowood Collection, Calne,

Probably 1761-62 degli Imperatori 32, inv. 449). The est. The 1802 inventory after Wiltshire
subject was the daughter of Roman Cavaceppi's death, published by
Inscribed, on the back, on the edge of the
marble below the shoulders of the bust, at emperor Antoninus Pius and Faustina Gasparri and Ghiandoni, includes two
center: bartoeomevs cavaceppi fecit rom. the Elder and became the wife of marble Faustinas (nos. 310 and 624) More than most, this restoration illus-

Marble Emperor Marcus Aurelius. The bust in and one plaster cast (no. 109). A trates the creative fancy of Neoclassical

24//' x 14/4" x 10/4" (61.4 x 37.5 x 26.2 cm) Rome was presented to the Museo detailed list of existing versions was sense and sensibility. Its ancient torso
provenance probably ordered by James Capitolino in 1748 by Pope Benedict published by Howard in 1972. Other fragment one of over twenty extant
is

Adam in Rome, before July 1762; Hugh XIV. Bartolomeo Cavaceppi has been copies of the bust are to be seen in ancient copies of Myron's celebrated
Smithson, Duke) of
Earl (later credited with restoring the ancient Gustav Ill's museum of antiquities Diskobolos. Two marble torsos of this
Northumberland, Syon House, Middlesex, known and restored before
bust in the 1740s. The form of the in the royal palace, Stockholm, the type were
England; by descent to the 10th Duke;
Sotheby's. London, December
modern supports — produced by Yusupov Palace, St. Petersburg, and at this one, which was found by Gavin

lot J7: Heim Gallery, London; Anthony

15, 1967,
Cavaceppi — with narrow plaque
a Pavlovsk. In 1778 Johan Tobias Sergei Hamilton in his excavations at Ostia

Morris Clark, April 18, 1968; Bequest to the

above a round socle is the same on bought in Rome a bronze copy of the in 1772. One was restored in a cen-

Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1978 both busts. bust for Gustav III. This work is prob- trifugal composition as a Fallen

exhibitions New York 1978, Crosscurrents, The Philadelphia bust probably ably to be identified, according to Warrior by the Franco-Roman sculptor
not in catalogue (shown only in New figured among the sculpture that Anne-Marie Leander Touati, with a Pietro Stefano Monnot shortly before
York); Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and James Adam acquired in
architect sculpture at the Nationalmuseum, it was acquired for the Museo
Minneapolis 199s, not in catalogue (shown Rome in 1761-62. These purchases Stockholm (NM Sk 294). Additional Capitolino in 1734; there it served as a
only in Philadelphia)
were packed for shipment to England examples are likely to be recognized companion to the Dying Caul.
tacit
BIBLIOGRAPHY Hussey, Christopher.
by July 1762. Among the then clients as studies of eighteenth-century col- The second was restored as the hunter
English Country Houses: Mid-Georgian,
of his more famous architect brother lections of antiquities progress. Enciymion supported by his dog and
1760-1800. London: Country Life Limited.
and partner Robert, was the Earl of For mid-eighteenth-century collec- hiding from Selene; it was re-restored
1956; Fleming 1962; Howard 1970, pp.
128-52, n. 10-12, fig. 8; Howard 1982; Picon Northumberland, the owner of Syon tors, the identification of the subject after mid-century as a Fleeing Niobid

198s. pp. 66-67; Fejfcr and Southworth House, which Robert Adam was of the bust as a member of the Roman Boy for the large Niobid group in the

1991, p. 46, n. 2; Gasparri and Ghiandoni remodeling. Photographs taken around imperial family certainly contributed Villa Medici, before the sculptures
i99j; Barberini and Gasparri 1994, p. 111,
1930 show the bust in place in the ante- to its desirability, although Faustina were transferred to the Uffizi.
no. 25; Ingamells 1997; I.eanderTouati
room at Syon, one ol Robert Adam's was not herself an interesting histori- Clearly the subject was still a puzzle
1998, p. J9
grandest Neoclassical interiors. cal figure. Henry Blundell described to Hamilton, who was painting scenes
Philadelphia Museum of Art. Bequest of
This bust is one ol the rare works her as "the wife of Marcus Aurelius, from the Iliad, wherein the theft of the
Anthony Morris Clark
bearing Cavaceppi's name. In this but a woman of indifferent character" Palladion by Diomedes precipitates
version, the locks of the complicated (quoted in Howard 1970, p. 132, n. 12). the fall of Troy. Reference to the
coiffure are notably well defined, and I lowever, aside rom Faustina the
I Diskobolos type later reappeared in

242 S( Ul.l' I UKI

 his Death oj Achilles (1^84). On March 25,

1776, Hamilton expressed his enthusi-

asm and rationale for the completed

restoration in a revealing letter to the
Earl of Shelburne, who bought the
statue for Lansdowne House in
London:

1 have never mentioned to your

Lordship one of the finest things
1 have ever had in my possession,
as was not sure of getting a
I

license to send it out of Rome.

Now that have got it safe on I

board the Felucca for Leghorn,

I have ventured to recommend
it to your Lordship as something
singular and uncommon. It is a
Diomede carrying off the
Palladium. Your Lordship when
in Rome mentioned to me par-
ticularly subjects of this sort as
interesting to you, but besides
the subject, give me leave to add
that the sculpture is first-rate, and
exactly in the style and size of
the Cincinnatus [a Lysippic Jason]
to which mean 1 it as a compan-
ion, being a Greek Hero to match
the Roman. The legs and arms are
modern, but restored in perfect

harmony with the rest. He holds

the Palladium in one hand, while
he defends himself with the right
holding a dagger. Your Lordship
will ask me why suppose this I

statue to be a Diomede. answer 1

because it would be to the last

degree absurd to suppose it any-
thing else, as I believe your
Lordship will easily grant when
you see it. Every view of it is fine
and could wish
1 it to be placed
so as to be seen all round. With
regard to the price, I have put it

at £200, but as 1 have made so

many draughts of late, I shall
suspend every view of interest
till it arrives and meets your
Lordship's approbation. All I beg
is that it may be placed near the
Cincinnatus. The contrast will
add beauty to each. Your Lordship
will excuse the liberty 1 have
taken, as my principal motive is
to increase your collection with

something entirely new and

uncommon. (Smith 1889,

PP- 43-44. 77-78, no. 89;

Christie, Manson. and Woods
1930, pp. 94-95)

Hamilton apparently acted as an

iconographer for his restorer, most
likely Cavaceppi, with whom he had

dealt since 1760, after taking over the

agency in Rome of the architect
Matthew Brettingham the Younger.
The restoration methods and much
of the minutiae in this finished com-
position point to Cavaceppi's work
and the restorative dentistry performed

SCULPTURE 243
 ments held up without external sup- to the Farnesina, the Italian Ministry
ports and painted bronze, the better of Foreign Affairs, [mgb]
to simulate current views about
Myron's original composition, [sh]
GIUSEPPE CERACCHI
ROME 1751-l8oi PARIS
122
Although raised in Rome, Ceracchi
Bartolomeo Cavaceppi
led a markedly peripatetic life, spend-
Molossus ing much of his career traveling from
capital to capital in pursuit of what he
perceived to be his best opportunities.
Terracotta
Height 13X" cm)
The son and grandson of goldsmiths,
(37
he studied with the sculptor
provenance studio of Cavaceppi, after
1750; Torlonia collection. 1802; collection
Tommaso Righi, and was active in the
of Evan Gorga, 1900; Museo di Palazzo Roman Accademia di S. Luca. In 1773
Venezia he moved to London, where he exhib-
exhibition Rome 1994. Cavaceppi, ited at the Royal Academy, met with
cat. no. 15 particular success as a portraitist, and
bibliography Cavaceppi 1768-72, vol. 1, refined his Neoclassical style.
Rome; Archivio Stato Roma.
pp. 6-9; Though he met with particular
Nicolaus Ferreus, Testamenta. fol. 801 r.,
success as a portraitist, Ceracchi's
1799; Rome, Biblioteca Istituto Archeologia
ambition was to sculpt major monu-
e Storia Arte. Libro delle sculture della
collezione Cavaceppi che sono in societa
mental groups. In pursuit of this goal
dell i Signori Marchese Torlonia, Vincenzo he designed a monument to William
Pacetti, e Giuseppe Valadier, 17 Cane scudi Pitt the Elder, which, although he
1.50, 1802; Rome, Palazzo Venezia. exhibited a model for it in 1779, failed
Catalogo collezione Gorga. 119 Cane seduto
wake of this
to attract a sponsor. In the
in terracotta: copia dall'antico, 1948;
and other disappointments, the sculp-
Howard 1982, p. 55, fig. 117; Picon 1983,
tor traveled to the Netherlands and
pp. 81-82: Gasparri and Ghiandoni 1993,
p. 180: Barberini and Gasparri 1994, p. 100;
Prussia, eventually settling in Vienna
Petrucci F. 1998 for several years. In 1785 he married

Museo del Palazzo di Venezia, Rome Therese Schliesshan and took her with
him to Rome, reestablishing his studio
there. During that same year Ceracchi
This is a reduced-scale model of traveled to Amsterdam, accepting a
Molossus in marble, a Roman copy major commission for a monument to

of a lost Greek original, possibly in Baron Derk van der Capelien, a Dutch
bronze. The marble statue was proponent of liberalism and democ-
by his studio and circle after the 1750s: at Hadrian's Villa in 1791. Despite restored by Cavaceppi between 1748 working
racy. Ceracchi spent four years
additions attached at strong recut the evidence of the Massimi (now and 1756 and was purchased by Henry on this monument in his Roman
curving joins, a bisque-like reworked Lancelotti) example — identified in Jennings from the sculptor's studio. In studio, only to be disappointed when
surface, use of a cowl to join the 1783by the archaeologist Carlo Fea as April 1778 the statue became the the political position of his Dutch
antique but anachronistic Pergamene by Myron, on the basis of descriptions Duncombe of
property of Charles patrons dissolved with the return of
baroque head of a Gaul(?) also resem- —
by Lucian and Quintillian both were Duncombe Park in Yorkshire. The William V to The Hague in 1787. In
bling Hellenistic fragments from restored with heads looking forward, Jennings Molossus was famous 1789, inspired by the French
Sperlonga, and the more archaeologi- heightening the relief-like character of throughout the eighteenth century Revolution, Ceracchi began to
cally circumspect imitation of fifth- the composition. In 1794 the noted and was praised by Winckelmann and commit himself increasingly to
century peplos figures for the Athena collector Charles Townley, who Nollekens, who declared he had also politics.

statuette. The relief-like silhouette of already knew of the Diomedes and the seen versions of it in wax and in In early 1791, continuing his quest
the Neoclassical composition is Paliadion through Hamilton and even- plaster. The Molossus appears in for a project that would assure the
more compatible with the
clearly far tually owned drawings of all the Cavaceppi's Collection, with an attribu- immortality of his reputation, the
original Greco-Roman fragment and statues, bought the better-preserved tion to Phidias, and inspired his artist traveled to Philadelphia to seek
Myron's classic design of about 460 BC of these fragmented copies (now in restoration of the Dionysus now at the commission for a monument to
than with the passe Baroque restora- the British Museum) from the notori- Petworth House. American sympa-
liberty. Politically

tion made by Cavaceppi's master ous antiquities dealer, banker, and The Ferri inventory of 1799 men- thetic to the young republic and its
Monnot. But for its historicizing the- one-time painter Thomas Jenkins. tions that there was a plaster model in leaders, Ceracchi threw himself at the
by antiquarian
atricality, legitimized After a misleading correspondence Cavaceppi's studio, probably used for opportunity, presenting an extraordi-
references, the "Diomedes" restora- with Townley, Jenkins directed its restorations of other ancient copies. narily ambitious concept for a
tion well illustrates the compatibility restoration by Carlo Albacini, The work reads:
receipt for this hundred-foot monument capped by
between modern Neoclassical form Cavaceppi's student, who attached an "Today have received from His
I an equestrian figure of George
and that of the ancient Greco-Roman ancient but alien head with the aid of a Excellency Prince Ghigi [sic] sixty-five Washington (later replaced by an alle-

neo-classical copy of Myron's bronze modern neck insert, creating two payment of the restoration of a
scudi in gorical figure of Liberty) and popu-
of the Classical period. Adam's apples. The other figure, in hound carried out by myself and I lated by a rich supporting cast of
The torso's original subject was the Vatican Museum, was restored by declare that I am satisfied, signed July allegorical figures. In the pithy formu-
not known until a complete copy was Albacini for the learned curator Ennio 7 1783/65 scudi - Cav. Bartolomeo lation of James Madison, Ceracchi was
found buried at the Villa Massimi with Quirino Visconti, with a modern Cavaceppi" (Vatican City, Biblioteca "an enthusiastic worshipper of liberty
its head attached, looking backward "Myron" signature and a new head Vaticana Apostolica, Archivio Chigi, and fame and his whole soul was bent
to the discus as the figure leans into and other missing parts, based on the no. 2485). This copy, which became on securing the latter by rearing a
the throw. Townley example and its pose. state property after the sale of the monument to the former" (quoted in
Interestingly enough, two fairly Twentieth-century "restorations" now Palazzo Chigi, was placed in the col- Gardner 1948, p. 190). In an attempt to
well preserved copies of the figure reconstruct the figure with plaster lections of the Gallcria Nazionale win over key members of the govern-
without their heads were later found casts taken from selected ancient frag- d'Arte Antica and is currently on loan ment, the sculptor modeled portraits

244 SCULPTURE
of them, in many cases offering these tiseon the potential invasion of Italy
as gifts to the sitters. During this was helpful to Napoleon in the plan-

period Ceracchi portrayed a number ning of his Italian campaign, and won
of the American founding fathers, the sculptor his friendship and admi-
including Benjamin Franklin, ration. Bonaparte sat for two portraits

Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, George by Ceracchi, and invited him to be the
Washington. John Adams, Thomas "first sculptor" to the French state, an

Jefferson, and James Madison. offer that the sculptor declined.

After returning to Europe by way Ceracchi's friendship with

of Amsterdam, Ceracchi traveled to Napoleon soured as the first consul

Munich, where Elector Karl Theodor moved away from republican princi-
von Wittelsbach commissioned him ples in favor of increasingly imperial

to design a monument to the unifica- ambitions. Eventually, the sculptor

tion of Bavaria and the Palatinate. This entered into a conspiracy with several
project was doomed, however, as the others, plotting the assassination of

elector's attention and funds were Bonaparte. When the first plan (in

soon diverted to the Napoleonic- which Ceracchi was to kill Napoleon

Wars. Back in Rome by the end of during a portrait sitting) failed, the

1792, Ceracchi set to work translating conspirators resolved to assassinate

his American portraits from terra- him at the opera. Arrested prowling
cotta into marble, and connected with the loge with a loaded pistol in each
the radical republican and Jacobin ele- pocket, Ceracchi was tried and sen-
ments in the city. His studio became a tenced to death along with his compa-
gathering place for them, and the triots. Napoleon, who clearly valued
sculptor the object of suspicion to the Ceracchi's artistic talents, offered
papal government. Eventually, in the clemency on the condition that the
wake of the assassination of the sculptor renounce his anti-
French minister de Bassville, Ceracchi Bonapartist stance. Ceracchi, perhaps
was expelled from Rome. His work insane and certainly committed to his
interrupted, he left for Florence, only principles, refused and was guil-
to find himself unwelcome in the lotined on January 31, 1801. Reports
grand duchy as well. By way of Munich, that he rode to the scaffold in a

Vienna, and Amsterdam the sculptor chariot, dressed as a Roman emperor,

made hisway again to Philadelphia, are probably not true: nevertheless, it

arriving in the fall of 1794 to renew his is who

easy to imagine Ceracchi,
efforts to secure the commission for inserted such strong Roman rhetoric
the monument to American liberty. into his art, thinking of Roman exem- Washington, D.C., National Portrait already enjoyed a reputation as one
When it became clear that Congress plars in the last moments before his Gallery. George and Martha Washington: of Europe's great portraitists, having
Portraits from the Presidential Years. 1999
was in no position to apportion the own "virtuous death" (see Smith J. sculpted busts of Pope Pius VI,
sum of money necessary and Johnston bibliography Montanari 1841, p. 19;
considerable 1828, vol. 2, pp. 116-18 Cardinal Albani, Frederick the Great
Johnston 1882. pp. 170-71: Gardner 1948;
for Ceracchi's project, his supporters 1882, pp. 170-71): yet Jean Duplessis- of Prussia, the Holy Roman Emperor
Desportes 1963; Desportes 1964; Hubert
(including George Washington Bertaux's sketch of the conspirators Joseph II, Prince Elector Karl Theodor
1964, pp. 24-37
himself) instituted a campaign to raise at the scaffold (illustrated in Ceracchi of Bavaria, and Sir Joshua Reynolds.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New
the money by private subscription. 1989, p. 84) shows the conspirators York, Bequest of John L. Cadwalader
Eager, however, to try his hand at the
This effort was not successful, garbed in contemporary dress, [jh] creation of a major public monument,
however, and Ceracchi became bibliography Demerville 1801; Desportes Ceracchi went to Philadelphia and
increasingly disillusioned with his 1963: Desportes 1964; Vasco Rocca and In this marble bust Giuseppe Ceracchi presented an ambitious project featur-
American experience. Before depart- Caffiero 1979; Ceracchi 1989 created a stern, intense vision of the ing an equestrian figure of Washington
ing Philadelphia for the last time he first president of the United States. surrounded by complex allegorical
dispatched several angry letters to the Possessing strong revolutionary senti- groups. While Congress weighed his
president and other members of the 123 ments himself, Ceracchi had a sympa- proposal, the artist set to work model-
government and attempted to collect thetic admiration for the protagonists ing Washington's features in clay. At
Giuseppe Ceracchi
payment for various sculptures he had of the American Revolution. Formed the same time he went about energeti-
presented as "gifts." This brash move George Washington in the artistic ambient of Settecento cally seeking to win over anybody in
attests to Ceracchi's cupidity, a recur-
1794- 95
Rome, he naturally called upon the a position to influence the govern-
ring theme in his biography, and his
Signed and dated on reverse: Ceracchi
examples of Roman antiquity to glorify ment's decision, employing his skill

embitterment over the failure of a faciebat Philadelphia 1795 these modern heroes, anachronistically as a portraitist to curry favor.
project so close to his heart. Marble garbing his sitters in ancient costume. Ceracchi took his clay likeness of
Unable to return to Rome, Ceracchi 287s" x 23V4" x 12" x x cm) Ceracchi certainly idealized aspects of Washington back to Europe and in
(73.3 58.9 30.5
sailed for France, and reached Paris by provenance purchased from the artist by
Washington, who wears his exagger- 1794 began to carve this marble
July 1795. There, he swiftly gained Josef de Jaudenes y Nebot. Cadiz (Spain), c. ated curls bound with a fillet in the version. On returning to America
entry into the highest Jacobin circles, 1795- 1812: Richard W. Meade, Philadelphia, manner of an ancient emperor or god. later in that year, he altered it on the
befriending the painter Jacques-Louis c. 1812-28; Mrs. Richard W. Meade. On the other hand, the artist inter- basis of several more sittings with the
1828-52: Governor Kemble, Cold Spring,
David. Still eager to create a career- preted the features of the sitter's face president. Upon completion (the bust
New York, 1852-75; Kemble Estate,
defining statue group, Ceracchi made with an accuracy and psychological is signed and dated Philadelphia 1795)
1875-1904; John L. Cadwalader 1904-14;
a model for a monument to the penetration that led such discerning the artist attempted to present ii to the
bequeathed to The Metropolitan Museum
French Revolution, reusing ideas from
of Art, New York, 1914 critics as Thomas Jefferson to praise president and his wife as a gift. When
his failed American project. His ambi-
exhibitions New York 1831; New York this portrait for its faithfulness. the Washingtons refused the offer on
tions in this period were not only in 1853, cat. no. 55; New York 1889. cat. no. 94; Ceracchi was drawn to America by ethical grounds, the insistent artist
the field of sculpture: he also sought New York 1932: New York 1942; the prospect of winning the commis- asked them to "store" the bust tem-
to enter into political circles and Philadelphia 1976, cat. no. 39; Athens and sion for a commemorative monument porarily. Thus the portrait was dis-
offered thegovernment his services as New York 1979, cat. no. 6; Northampton to the American Revolution. When he played in the presidential residence
an expert on Italian matters. His trea- 1980, cat. no. 6; Rome 1989, cat. no. 2;
arrived in Philadelphia in 1791 he lor several months.

SCULPTURE 245
 By May 179s support for Ceracchi's CLODION (CLAUDE MICHEL) Boucher. Clodion's decision to prolong received one major royal commission
staggeringly expensive monument, in NANCY 1738-1814 PARIS beyond th j
his stay in Italy six years during his long career. In 1778 the
which a chariot-riding figure of Liberty three years funded by the academy Comte d'Angiviller, superintendant
had replaced the equestrian Claude Michel, called Clodion, was may have been the result of his succ ss of buildings to the king, chose Clodion
Washington, had evaporated. Clearly one of the most inventive and versa- inRome. His biographer wrote: "Hi to do the seated figure of Montesquieu
embittered by the experience, the artist tile French sculptors of the second charming productions, some insp d 1 (Musee du Louvre, Paris), one of the
prepared to depart again for Europe. half of the eighteenth century. Born by the antique, and others by this ti >te series of Famous Men intended to deco-
Surprisingly, he wrote to the various into a family of artists in Lorraine, he for the pleasantand graceful genre rate the Grande Galerie of the Louvre.
influential Americans to whom he was the tenth child of Thomas Michel that was natural to him, were much The plaster model (lost) exhibited at
had presented "gift" portraits, request- and Anne Adam. His maternal uncles sought after. They were bought even the Salon of 1779 was severely criti-
ing payment. Washington, although were the famous sculptors Lambert- before they were finished" (Dinge cized for its vaguely antique costume
irritatedby the audacity of Ceracchi's and
Sigisbert, Nicolas-Sebastien, 1814, pp. 1-2). and partial nudity. In the final marble
request and the exorbitant asking Fran<;ois-Gaspard Adam, and it was Clodion returned to Paris in the version of 1783, Clodion showed the
price, responded with genuine sympa- to Lambert-Sigisbert's studio in Paris spring of 1771. He was accepted as a philosopher in a historical costume
thy, offering to purchase the bust at a that Clodion went for his initial train- candidate for membership in the with his books and pen in hand, and
price determined by an outside expert. ing before the spring of 1756. His uncle Academie Royale in May 1773, and he it met with a far more enthusiastic

In the end, though, the artist sold the had spent nine years in Rome, where exhibited at the Salon for the first time reception.
Washington bust to the Spanish he was deeply influenced by antique in August of that year, presenting a There was a constant demand
ambassador. sculpture as well as by Roman figure of Jupiter as the model for his among famous collectors, financiers,
This is not the only portrait bust of Baroque art, particularly that of morceau de reception as well as a number ministers, and aristocrats for Clodion's
Washington by Ceracchi; rather, it is Bernini. He also owned an important of his Roman works such as Le Fleuve small terracotta and marble figures,
one of several versions that he sculpted collection of antique marbles that had du Rhin separant ses eaux (cat. 124). vases, and reliefs from the 1760s until
on the basis of his original clay like- belonged to Cardinal Polignac, a cata- Anxious to prove himself a master the revolution, and they were the
ness, now lost. One, a more abstracted logue of which he published in 1755. not only of small decorative terracotta mainstay of his career. From about
colossal head (Musee des Beaux-Arts, Clodion was to absorb these influ- and marble sculptures, but also of 1795 he created a series of ambitious
Nantes) is probably a full-scale model ences, which would mark the rest of monumental works, Clodion received terracotta Neoclassical groups of
for the head of Ceracchi's projected his career. commissions for two funerary monu- extremely high quality, which were
equestrian statue. Life-size copies, Following the death of Lambert- ments in 1772, only one of which, that collectedby the returning emigres and
apparently based on this variant, Sigisbert in May 1759 Clodion was for theComtesse d'Orsay, was com- newly rich in Paris.
survive in Charleston (Gibbes Art briefly the student of Pigalle until the pleted (Poulet and Scherf 1992, Under the consulate and the empire
Gallery), Baltimore (Washington fall of that year,when he won the prix pp. 150-56). In 1773 he was chosen to the demand for Clodion's sculpture
Monument) and Washington (the de Rome. In December he entered the execute several sculptures for Rouen diminished. Nevertheless, he pro-
White House). The Metropolitan Ecole des Eleves Proteges, where the Cathedral (Poulet and Scherf 1992, duced a number of important and
Museum bust, however, is Ceracchi's painter Carle van Loo was director pp. 164-79). Between December 1773 innovative works. In an effort to prove
most faithful and direct portrait of and Michel-Franc,ois Dandre-Bardon and July 1774 Clodion returned to Italy to Napoleon and to the artistic estab-
Washington and the only one to reflect was professor of history. In prepara- to choose the marble at Carrara for lishment that he was able to create
the second set of sittings. tion for his stay at the French the Rouen commission as well as for monumental sculpture in the taste of
The bust is of particular impor- Academy at Rome he studied Greek four large allegorical sculptures the time, he exhibited at the Salon of
tance for the iconography of and Roman history and mythology, as ordered by Abbe Terray, superinten- 1801 a life-size plaster group entitled
Washington, as Ceracchi was one of well as drawing and modeling after dent of buildings to the king, for his Scene of the Flood. Despite its critical

only two sculptors to have modeled life and plaster casts. He left for Rome new Paris hotel. While in Rome, success, it did not lead to the commis-
the first president's features from life. in the fall of 1762, arriving at the Clodion seems to have made a careful sion of a marble, as Clodion had
Many of those who knew Washington French Academy on Christmas day. study of Baroque monuments, as is hoped (Poulet 1991, pp. 51-76). In 1804
preferred Ceracchi's likeness to that of Clodion was to spend nine years reflected in his statue of Saint Cecilia he did, however, receive the commis-
the other, by Jean-Antoine Houdon: in Italy (from December 1762 until for Rouen Cathedral, which recalls sion for a statue of Cato of Utica for the
the sources seem to agree that March 1771), and while there he Duquesnoy's Santa Susanna in S. Maria new Salle des Seances designed by the
Ceracchi more realistically captured studied the major collections of di Loreto, as well as in the relief of The architect Chalgrin for the senate in the
the set of Washington's mouth. antique sculpture, many individual Death of Saint Cecilia, which echoes the Palais de Luxembourg, as well as for
Houdon's portrait, however, received items of which were to have a pro- composition of Domenichino's fresco several busts in plaster and in marble.

greater circulationand became the found influence on his work for the of the same subject. In 1802 Alexandre Brogniart, director
most authoritative and iconic rest of his career. Charles-Joseph Between 1776 and the French of the porcelain factory at Sevres and
sculpted image of the first president. Natoire, the director of the French Revolution Clodion enjoyed a highly son of the architect who had collabo-
The viewer should, however, mind the Academy, encouraged students study- successful collaboration with the rated with Clodion before the revolu-
words of the early American painter ing sculpture to make copies after the architect Alexandre-Theodore tion, hired the sculptor to design a

John Trumbull, who cautioned that antique in clay rather than drawing Brogniart, who designed a number of column for the Olympic Service.
anyone who says that Ceracchi's bust them (Montaiglon 1887-1912, vol. 11, luxurious new houses and interiors in Clodion was also involved in creating

does not resemble Washington means p. 97, no. 5113), which may partially Paris for which Clodion created deco- other decorative models for ceramics.
really to say that it does not resemble explain why there are no known rative reliefs, vases, and sculptures. By his death in 1814 his sculpture had
Houdon's Washington. drawings attributable to Clodion. Among the most famous of these col- fallen from favor, [alp]

In the context of the Roman Following the example of his uncles, laborative projects is the Salle de Bains bibliography Dinge 1814; Thirion 1885;
Settecento, the bust fits in a continuum Clodion also familiarized himself (Musee du Louvre, Paris) of the Hotel Guiffrey 1892; Guiffrey 1893; Guiffrey 1893,
with the classicizing works of with Italian Baroque sculpture, partic- de Besenval at 142 rue de Grenelle, built "Clodion"; Lami 1911, pp. 142-59; Guiffrey

Hewetson and Cavaceppi. Through his By had Baron de Besenval, and com- 1912, pp. 210-44; Poulet 1984; Poulet 1991;
ularly that of Bernini. 176s he for the
Scherf 1991; Poulet and Scherf 1992
American portraits, and even through perfected a type of highly finished pleted in 1782 (Poulet and Scherf 1992,
his failed monument to American small terracotta sculpture that was in pp. 228-51). Clodion carved for the
liberty, Ceracchi was a key figure in demand from an international clien- bathroom two large reliefs executed in
the introduction of Neoclassicism to tele, including Catherine II of Russia limestone, Venus and Cupid and Leda and
America. With its classical grandeur and the Due de La Rochefoucauld, as the Swan and Pan Pursuing Syrinx while

and faithfulness to life, the portrait well as famous amateurs such as La Cupid Watches, two pairs of vases, and
not only records Washington's fea- Live de Jully, Jean de Julienne, and a large female figure of The Fountain.
tures, but also documents the taste of Jacqucs-Oncsyme Bergeret. Natoire Despite his academic training,
his time and the transfer of Settecento himself had several works by Clodion Clodion never became a member of
style to the New World. in his collection, as did Francois the Academie Royale and only

246 SCULPTURE
124 subject was one of particular signifi-
cance in mid-eighteenth-century
Clodion (Claude Michel) France since the duchy of Lorraine on
The River Rhine Separating the west side of the Rhine had
returned to French control when the
the Waters
dethroned King of Poland Stanislaus
1765 Leszczynski, who was also the
Inscribed in clay before firing in center brother-in-law of King Louis XV of
of rockwork on back: Clodion. /176s France, became Duke of Lorraine in
Terracotta 1738. He held a brilliant court in
10X" x 18'A" x 12//' (27.2 x 46 x 31 cm); Lorraine until his death in 1766.
length of base 13/4" (33.8 cm)
Clodion, who was a native of Nancy,
provenance The provenance of this ter- one of the most important cities of
racotta is unclear. It may be identical with
Lorraine, would have been especially
the sculpture exhibited by Clodion at the
Salon of 1773, no. 245. "The River Rhine
aware of the contemporary relevance
Separating the Waters, terracotta sketch. of this subject, [alp]
16 inches wide" (Collection des Livrets des
Aniiennes Expositions depuis 16^3 jusqu'au
1800: Exposition dc 1773 (Paris. 1870], p. 44). 125
or it may have stayed in Clodion's studio
until his death and be the sculpture listed Clodion (Claude Michel)
in his inventory after death as, "a terracotta
sketch representing a river, priced 1 Franc" 124 Three Maenads Dancing and
yules-Joseph Guiffrey, "Inventaire apres
Holding Hands
deces de Clodion (30 avril 1814],, Archives de Achelous (Lambert-Sigisbert Adam. After his return to Paris in 1771
['Art Francais, n.s., vol. 6 [Paris, 1912], p. 234). Collection de sculptures antiques grecques, Clodion exhibited a number of his 1765

The sculpture was purchased on the et wmaines. trouvees a Rome dans les mines Roman works at the Salon of 1773. Signed and dated at lower right corner:
London art market by the Kimbell Art Clodion/ 1765
des Palais de Neron. et de Marius [Paris: Among them was a terracotta sketch
Museum in 1984 Terracotta
Chez Joullain, 1755], pi. 22) from the of the same subject (see Provenance
exhibitions possibly exhibited at the
uYs" x fA" (28.9 x 20 cm)
collection of Cardinal Polignac, for above). The river god in the present
Paris Salon of 1773, no. 245; possibly exhib-
which his uncle Lambert-Sigisbert terracotta, who reaches with his right provenance This relief is probably one
ited at Paris, Exposition Univcrselle, 1900,
of a pair sold at the Vente du Cabinet de M.
no. 4719; New York 1984. Clodion. cat. no. 1
was "curator" and "restorer", and later hand to separate into two distinct
M[orelle et autre], Paris, April 19, 1786
bibliography "Livret du Salon de 1773." owner. Clodion often found inspira- streams the flow of water from the
(postponed to May 3, 1786), lot 436, as
In Collections des Livrets des Ancienncs tion in this collection. In this case, the overturned urn above his head, corre- "M. claudion. Two bas-reliefs, in terracotta,
Expositions depuis 1673 jusqu'au 1800. Paris, diminutive size of the antique marble sponds to the Salon description in each comprising three women dancing:
1870, p. 44. no. 245; Paris. Bibliotheque (31" long, or 78.1 cm), the attributes of material, subject matter, and size. both pieces are finely and pleasantly exe-
Nationale. Collection Deloynes, vol. 10, cuted. Height inches, width 8 inches";
a bearded figure with a crown of reeds Furthermore, the sculpture is covered 11

p. 83. no. 147; Paris. Bibliotheque Nationale. it may, however, be identical with a relief
in his hair, the use of rockwork with with tool marks and has a very freely
Collection Deloynes, vol. 10, p. 77, no. 148; sold at the Hotel Drouot. Paris, May 23-24,
Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale. Collection
water gushing over it on to the base, modeled surface, which makes its
1872, lot 406, under "Terracottas", "Clodion.
Deloynes, vol. 10, p. 468, no. 156; Dinge and the drapery loosely placed under description as a sketch appropriate.
Fine bas-relief representing nymphs danc-
1814. p. 3; Augin 1875, p. 304; Bellier de la the nude male figure and wrapped There are two other versions of this ing"; sale of the collection of M. E.
Chavignerie and Auvray 1885, vol. 2, p. 86; around one leg, all appear in Clodion's sculpture of similar size, finish, and Secretan. Galerie Sedelmeyer, Paris,
Thirion 1885, pp. 263-64, 266, 269; sculpture. quality, one in the Fine Arts Museums vol. July 4, 1889, lot 219, "Terracotta: bas-
Guiffrey 1893, p. 415; Obser 1908, p. 36; relief vertical format, by Clodion (signed
The dynamic pose of Clodion's of San Francisco (signed and dated
Lami 1911, p. 145; Varenne 1913, p. 39; and dated 1^65). It depicts three nymphs
river god, however, with his arms 1765) and the other in the Victoria and
Brinckmann 1923-25, vol. 3, pp. 126-27. dancing and holding hands. Height 29 cent,
169; Kalnein and Levey 1972, p. 159; Poulet
stretched over his head grasping an Albert Museum in London (signed but
width 11 cent sale of the Elizabeth Parke
";

1984, pp. 7-8; Kimbell Art Museum, Fort overturned urn, his splayed legs, and not dated). The latter differs from the Firestone Collection, Christie's, New York,
Worth, Texas. In Pursuit of Quality; The the impression of cascading and others in that the streams of water fall
March 22, 1991, lot 849; acquired at the sale
Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth. Kimbell swirling water over rockwork surely from the lip of the vase to the base, by Daniel Katz. Ltd.. London; purchased
Art Museum, 1987, p. 250; Poulet and owes its greatest debt to Bernini's and the oar has a one-lobed rather from Daniel Katz. Ltd., by Malcolm Wiener
Scherf 1992, pp. 22, 53, 125-28. fig. 71
in October 1993
famous Fountain of the Four Rivers in the than a double-lobed blade. The three
Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, Texas bibliography Thirion 1885, pp. 398-99;
Piazza Navona in Rome, particularly versions are so similar, however, that
the figure of the Ganges (Rudolf it is impossible to identify which was Lami 1911. p. 15 7 Laverack, Peter, ed. Daniel
:

Katz Ltd.. 1968-1993: A Catalogue Celebrating

This terracotta figure of a river god, Wittkower, Gian Lorenzo Bernini, 2d ed. shown at the Salon of 1773.
Twenty-Five Years of Dealing in European
executed three years after Clodion's [London: Phaidon, 1966], pp. 219-22, Even though the present terracotta
Sculpture and Works of Art. London: Daniel
arrival at the French Academy in no. 50, pi. 78). That Bernini's fountain appears to be a preliminary sketch, Katz Ltd.. 1992. pp. 121-23; Poulet and
Rome, is among the sculptor's earliest was held in high esteem at the French there no record of Clodion having
is Scherf 1992, pp. 337. 443
dated works. It reflects his studies in Academy in the 1760s is indicated by executed a larger-scale or more fin- Malcolm Wiener Collection
Paris with his uncles Lambert-Sigisbert the fact that the director, Charles- ished version of a river god, or ever
Adam and Nicolas Sebastian Adam, Joseph Natoire, owned a terracotta having been commissioned to do so.
both of whom had worked in Italy and described in the sale after his death as, It would seem, rather, that he was This terracotta relief of three dancing
passed on to their nephew their "a preliminary idea for the fountain in experimenting with the genre of the female figures is among the sculptor's
knowledge of Roman antique and Piazza Navona at Rome, by Bernini" Baroque sketch, and that the work was earliest dated works. Clodion had won
Baroque sculpture. When Clodion (Natoire sale, Paris, December 14, 1778, sufficiently pleasing that he was asked the prix de Rome in 1759. and after the
first came to Paris from his native p. 17, no. 68). It is interesting to note to do it more than once. requisite three years at the F.cole des
Nancy, he worked in the studio of that Natoire also owned three terra- The subject of the River Rhine Eleves Proteges, he arrived at the
Lambert-Sigisbert, who had executed cotta figures by Clodion (Natoire sale, Separating the Waters is rare. Taken French Academy at Rome on
monumental figures of the Seine and p. 18, nos. 75-76). While the general from Germania by the Roman historian Christmas Day, 1762.
Mame rivers for the cascade at Saint- composition of the terracotta reflects Tacitus(rev. ed. [Cambridge: Harvard There are no known drawings by
Cloud in 1734 as well as the Fountain the influence of Bernini, the modeling University Press, 1970]. p. 129), written Clodion. and the present relief is a fine
of Neptune for Versailles in 1740, a of the torso reveals Clodion's careful in ad 98, it represents the Rhine River example of his ability to sketch or
work strongly influenced by Bernini. study of the Laocobn, a plaster cast of separating the territory of the Gauls draw in clay. The raised arm of the
Clodion would also have known well which was recorded in his inventory on the west bank from ill. 11 ol the figure in the left background is literally
a small marble figure of the river god after his death (Guiffrey 1912, p. 234). ( icrnKins 011 the east bank. This drawn into the surface of the clay with

SCULPTURE 247
24X SCULPTURE
a stylus, as are the lowered arm and probably dating from the late 1770s,

tambourine of the dancer on the takes up the theme of the Borghese

right. The twenty-four-year-old sculp- Dancers, and repeats the central and

tor deftly handles the transitions right dancers from the present relief,

between low and high relief, creating with only minor changes (see Poulet
an impression of depth and move- and Scherf 1992, p. 341, fig. 180). In
ment with great subtlety. 1803 Clodion was given a commission
Like most of Clodion's Roman ter- to create a column for the Surtout

racottas, this relief was conceived as a Olympique, an elaborate table decora-

finished work rather than a prepara- by his friend Alexandre-
tion designed

tory model and was probably destined Theodore Brongniart for the Sevres
for the sculptor's growing clientele of porcelain factory. Once again, he
collectors. His biographer Dinge found inspiration in the Borghese
wrote: "His charming productions Dancers, modeling a series of six grace-
were sought after, both those inspired ful female dancers in high relief, their

by the antique, and those inspired by joined hands alternately raised and
his natural feeling for this pleasing lowered, around the base of a column
and graceful art form. They were (Poulet and Scherf 1992, pp. 337-42,
bought even before they were fin- no. 71).

German, and
ished. French, Italian, This relief corresponds in dimen-
Russian amateurs sought to employ sions and subject matter to two terra-
him" (Dinge 1814, pp. 1-2). cottas sold from the collection of
The terracotta sculptures that date "M. Mforelle]" on May 3, 1786 (see
from Clodion's nine-year stay in Italy above). If identical with one of these
reflect his study of a wide range of reliefs, then it had a pendant, also rep-

antique prototypes. In this case it is resenting three female dancers. They

clear that his inspiration was taken may have been acquired directly from
primarily from the first-century Clodion in Rome by Monsieur
Roman neo-Attic marble relief of Morelle. Unfortunately, nothing is yet
dancing female figures then in the known about this collector, [alp]

Borghese collection (now in the Musee

du Louvre; see Haskell and Penny 1981,

pp. 195-96, no. 29). In the eighteenth 126

century the Borghese Dancers were
Clodion (Claude Michel)
among most admired of Roman
the
antiquities. The poses and drapery of Vase Decorated with a Relief 126

the dancers in the center and left of

of Five Women Sacrificing
Clodion's relief are quite close to those European Schools X/V-X/X Century Since he had a steady stream of inter-
of two of the Borghese figures; 1766 [London: Phaidon, 1976], pp. 106-8, national amateurs and collectors
however, the sculptor interprets his Signed and dated on the edge of the lip of no. K1672, fig. 182). Several other buying his sculptures, it may be that,
the vase: clodion-mich inventil etfe. in
model quite freely. He has transformed marbles that probably date from his having admired a sculpture in Clodion's
Roma 1766.
rhythm of the Borghese
the staid, quiet years in Italy are mentioned in eigh- studio, a collector would commission
White marble
women, whose joined hands are teenth-century sale catalogues, but a copy for himself. In the case of this
14X" x 7)4" (diameter 7'A") (36.4 x 19.8 cm;
lowered, to a more animated, even their present location is unknown marble vase, because of the cost of the
diameter 18.3 cm)
frenzied dance in which the figures (Poulet and Scherf 1992, pp. 102-5). material, it is likely that it was com-
provenance The provenance of this vase
overlap and their joined hands are These early marbles are small in scale, missioned after the terracotta.
isnot known before 1930, when it was
lowered on the left and raised on the catalogued in the collection of George and often copied after or derived from In the mid-eighteenth century the
right. Clodion has given his figures Florence Blumenthal (Stella Rubinstein- antique prototypes, and of extremely creation of vases, whether drawn,
the attributes of maenads, women Bloch, Catalogue oj the Collection of George and high quality. Carved with great deli- painted, or sculpted, became a preoc-
who were in the entourage of Bacchus Florence Blumenthal, vol. 5: Paintings. cacy and subtlety, they attest to the cupation of a number of French artists
and whose wild dancing —wearing Drawings, Sculptures. XV///th Century [Paris.
1950], pi. LV III). It was purchased on the
young Clodion's skill with a chisel. and a primary means of expression of
animal skins, with clinging drapery, Prized by major collectors, such as the Neoclassical style (Svend Eriksen.
London art market in 1987 by The Art
loosened hair, and holding tam- M. le Bailli de Breteuil, they brought Early Ncoclassicism in France [London:
Institute of Chicago
bourines —was often depicted on exhibitions New York 1935 cat. no. 99;
comparatively high prices at auction Faber, 1974], pp. 33-44, 171-84, 195-255)-
Roman sarcophagi, altars, and cande- Paris 1992, cat. no. 7
in the eighteenth century. The present vase reflects Clodion's
labra (see Phyllis Bober and Ruth bibi.iocraphy Rubinstein-Bloch 1930, There are two terracotta versions awareness of both antique and contem-
Rubinstein, Renaissance Artists and pi. LV III; Poulet 1989: Scherf 1991, pp. 51, 58, of this vase, both of which are signed porary prototypes. Its classical shape
Antique Sculpture: A Handbook of Sources n. 5i: Poulet and Scherf 1992, pp. 94-105, and dated 1766, one in the collection of and subject of vestals sacrificing recall
[New York: Oxford University Press, cat. no. 7 the Louvre and the other in the Detroit vase designs and paintings by [oseph-
1986], pp. 120-22, nos. 86-89a). The Art The George
Institute of Chicago. F. Institute of Arts.They are slightly Marie Vien, a leading exponent of the
was often Clodion's practice to
It Harding Collection by exchange. The larger than the marble and are deco- Neoclassical style in France (Thomas \V.

return to themes and compositions Harold Stuart Fund

rated with the same frieze of sacrificing Gachtgens and Jacques Lugand, Joseph-
first treated in Italy for his later sculp- female figures; however, the Louvre Marie Vien: Peintre du roi ( 1716-1809)
tures. The central female figure of the In the course of his career Clodion vase, like the marble, has five figures, [Paris: Arthena, 1988], cat. no. 80,
present relief is repeated with only produced a relatively small number of while the Detroit vase has a sixth pp. 175-92), whose work had a marked
slight changes in the treatment of the works in marble. This vase, signed and figure added.The quality of these ter- influence on the young Clodion. The
hair and the addition of a thyrsus in a dated 1766, is the earlier of two dated racotta vases very high, and there is
is poses and distribution of the five female
terracotta relief of The Triumph of marble sculptures known from the no indication that one has been cast figures seem to be based, in part, on
Ariadne dating from the late 1770s artist's Roman period. The second is from the other; they appear to be fin- those in the foreground of Boucher's
(Petit Palais, Paris; see Poulet and a figure of a Vestal of 1770 in the ished works rather than preliminary composition of Psyche Refusint; I )ivine
Schcrf 1992, pp. 200-203, no. 37). National Gallery of Art, Washington, models. During his years in Rome Honours, which Clodion could have
Another relief representing a frieze D.C. (Ulrich Middeldorf, Sculptures Clodion sometimes repealed a com- known in Rome from Phillippe-Louis
of Six Dancing Maenads and a Putio, also from the .Samuel H. Kress Collection: position, such as the river god (cat. 124). Parizeau's engrav ing after it.

SCULPTURE 249
 of the collection of Thelma Chrysler Foy, vestals by Vien of the 1750s and early
Parke-Bernet Galleries, New York, May 1760s, which were admired by influ-
22-23, 1959, p. 94 (as one of a pair): it was ential critics such as Diderot and col-
then in the sale of the inventory of French
lected by distinguished amateurs such
& Co., Parke-Bernet Galleries, New York,
as Mine. Geoffrin. In Vien's painting
November 14, 1968. lot 135 (as one of a
pair); acquired by The Carnegie Museum of of A Priestess Burning Incense on a Tripod,
Art, Pittsburgh in 1968 with funds given by executed for Mine. Geoffrin in 1762,
the Women's Committee of the Museum of there is a tripod altar decorated with
Art, inv. no. 68.33.1 rams' heads and feet, on which a
bibliography Thirion 1885, pp. 398, 401; young priestess pours a libation that
Lami 1911, p. 150; Comstock 1940; closely resembles Clodion's tripod.
Middeldorf Ulrich. , Sculptures from the
The painting enjoyed considerable
Samuel H. Kress Collection. London: Phaidon,
success at the Salon of 1763. Diderot
1976, pp. 107-8; Poulet 1984, pp. 9-11, no.
4; Poulet and Scherf 1992, pp. 25-27, wrote, "How redolent all of that is of
446-47, fig. 6 the antique style!" (Thomas W.
Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, Gaehtgens and Jacques Lugand, joseph-
Museum Purchase, Gift of the Women's Marie Vien: Peinlre du Roi ( 1716-1809)
Committee [Paris: Arthena, 1988], pp. 171-72,
figs. 184-85). The painting was
One of the recurring subjects treated engraved by J. J.
Flipart in 1765 and
by Clodion during his years in Rome exhibited at the Salon of the same
is that of the vestal. Vestals were atten- year. Since Natoire and the students at
dants of Vesta, the Roman goddess of the French Academy at Rome followed
fireand the domestic hearth, whose the events at the Salon closely, it is

cult was widespread in antiquity. In quite possible that Clodion knew of

Rome girls between the ages of six and the success of this picture and saw an
ten were elected to serve as vestals for engraving of it in Rome.
a period of thirty years. Sworn to Two earlier terracottas of vestals by
chastity, a vestal learned her duties of Clodion, which must have been quite
maintaining the sacred fireand the similar in composition, are recorded
temple during her first decade of in sale catalogues. They indicate his
service; during the second she per- early interest in the subject and the
formed them, and during the third she popularity of vestals with collectors.
instructed others. Clodion's interest in One was owned by the famous
thistheme seems to have been stimu- amateur Jean de Julienne and
latedby antique Roman sculptures described as "a crowned priestess
and sarcophagus reliefs as well as by pours libation on the altar," sold in
127 paintings and prints by French con- 1767 (sale after the death of Jean de
temporary artists, especially the Julienne, Paris, March 30, 1767, lot 1304).
The scene of women pouring liba- 127 works of Joseph-Marie Vien. Another, in the collection of M. Fortier,

tions on an altar depicted on the vase This terracotta represents a stand- is described as "a vestal garlanded
Clodion (Claude Michel)
can be associated with the cult of ing vestal wearing a tunic of fine cloth with flowers, holding a vase in one
Vesta, the Roman goddess of the A Vestal Sacrificing with a peplum over her torso and a hand, leaning over a tripod, and in the

hearth and home. Young girls, sworn 1768

long, heavy outer garment that also other hand holding a patera . . . made
to chastity, had the responsibility of Signed and dated on drapery in back:
covers her head. She holds in her left by Clodion in Rome, in 1766" (sale

keeping the altar flame burning. Here Mi. CLODION. In Roma 1768 hand a vase decorated with laurel after the death of M. Fortier, Paris,
Clodion has shown two veiled young Terracotta leaves, while she holds in her right April 2, 1770, no. 84). The combination
women, one pouring oil from a patera Height 18)4" x 7/4" x 6X" hand a patera from which she pours of the chaste and moral attendant of
on to an altar and the other kneeling (47.6 x 18.4 x 16.2 cm) oil onto an altar fire. Clodion has Vesta with the charming young
in supplication with her arms reach- provenance probably identical with the taken his inspiration for this figure female figure proved particularly
ing around its sides. The other three terracotta sold with the collection of M. from an antique marble in the Galleria appealing to patrons.
women hold sacrificial animals, a ram [Lenglier], Paris. April 24, 1786, lot 150, degli Uffizi, Florence, which was In 1768 General Shuvalov commis-
and two birds. Scenes of vestals sacri- under "Terres cuites. Claudion": "Une engraved and published as a Vestale in sioned Clodion to execute a marble
vestale en terre cuite, petit modele de la
ficing were popular with artists and 1734 (A. F. Gori, Museum Fiorentinum, figure of A Vestal Sacrificing for the col-
figureque cet artiste a executce en marbre,
patrons in the eighteenth century, as vol. 3 [Florence, 1734] and F. A. David, lection of Catherine the Great of
pour l'lmperatrice de Russie. Hauteur 18
were allegorical portraits of women pouces" (sold to Lebrun for 24s livres); it
Le Museum de Florence, ou Collection des Russia. In a letter of April 20, 1768,
as vestals, since they allowed artists then appeared in the Vente du cabinet de Pierresgravees, statues, medailles et pein- Natoire states that Clodion, Boizot,
to depict attractive young women in M. Lebrun, Paris, April 11, 1791, lot 361, tures [Paris, 1798]). Clodion may have Boucher, and Bauvais have each been
chaste poses and fashionable under "Terre cuite. Clodion": "Une Vestale seen the sculpture on his way to Rome asked to do a figure in marble about
Neoclassical garb. theme to
It is a
voilee et couronnee de fleurs, tenant de la
from Genoa in December 1762, but it four feet high for the Empress of
main droite une patere, et de la gauche un
which Clodion would turn more than is likely that he worked from the Russia. It seems virtually certain that
vase. Pres d'elle est place un trepied de
once during his years in Rome (cat. 127). engraving when he created this terra- this marble is identical with the Vestal
forme antique. Cette belle terre cuite fut
[ALP] executee avec etude recherchee par cet cotta in 1768. While he used the same Sacrificing signed and dated 1770 that
artiste, dont les productions de ce genre pose as that of his antique model as is now in the National Gallery of Art,
sont toujours precieuses aux amateurs de well as a similar placement of drapery, Washington, D.C., since it corre-
I'art: Hauteur 18 pouces: largeur. 7 pouces" he has softened the movement of the sponds in size and date to the com-
(sold for 456 livres to Nadet): it may be drapery and added ornamental details mission and has a Russian
identical with the sculpture sold in the
such as the crown of roses, the vase, provenance. Furthermore, this is the
"Vente apres deccs de la comtesse de
and the altar in the form of a tripod only known large marble figure by
Montesquieu-Fezensac," Paris. January
decorated with swags and rams' heads. Clodion that dates from his Roman
29-31, 1872, lot 121: "Terre cuite — par
Clodion — signee. Belle statuette de Vestale, These embellishments recall those years. Its superb quality and subtle
debout pres d'un autel a trepied" (sold for found in the Neoclassical paintings of modeling indicate, however, that the
4,100 florins); the sculpture was in the sale charming young priestesses and young artist was as gifted as a carver

50 SCULPTURE
 —

of marble as he was a modeler of clay. While still in Foggini's studio, the electress palatine in Florence 128
It is equally probable that the
Cornacchini had come to the attention (here too Sergardi was involved). Both
Agostino Cornacchini
Pittsburgh terracotta of A Vestal of the patron and collector Francesco works display an almost spiky liveli-

Sacrificing is a highly finished model Maria Niccolo Gabburri, who com- ness in contrast to the more fluid The Descent from the Cross
for the marble. Not only is the compo- missioned the sculptor to make stucco grace sought by his contemporaries, a 1714-16?
sition of the figure the same as that of decorations for his palace, and also, in highly individual approach that antici- Marble
the Washington Vestal, but it is also 1711, for the chapel of S. Giovanni pates the Rococo. Between 1725 and x 28/>"x x x 43 cm)
i6/«" (104.5 72.5
described in a sale catalogue of 1786 as Gualberto in S. Trinita; both these 1727 Cornacchini remade the arms for provenance Cardinal Carlo Agostino
"a vestal in terracotta, a small model Florentine decorations were destroyed the Laocoon, which is unikely to have Fabroni
of the figure that this artist executed in in the nineteenth century — although, been his only restoration of an exhibition Detroit and Florence 1974,
marble for the Empress of Russia. as for the ephemeral works of this antique statue. Most likely toward the cat. no. 5

Height 18 inches" (Vente du Cabinet de Florentine period, some drawings end of the decade he carved the busts bibliography Florence, Biblioteca
M. [Lenglier], Paris, April 24, 1786, no. remain (Cannon-Brookes 1976). In of Cardinals Ferdinando d'Adda and Nazionale. Raccolta Rossi Cassigoli,

150). The height corresponds exactly 1712 Gabburri took him to Rome. On Luigi Omodei for S. Carlo al Corso ms. cas. XII.V.2; Tolomei 1821, pp. 89-90;
his departure in 1714 Gabburri the (Rome), and probably during that Keutner 1958, pp. 36, 38, pi. 2; Lankheit
to that of the Pittsburgh figure. Its left
1962, pp. 189, 225 (doc. 13); Faccioli 1968,
identity is confirmed by the more sculptor in the care of his uncle decade he made a now destroyed
pp. 434-35; Enggass 1976, vol. 1, pp. 194-95:
detailed description in the Lebrun sale Cardinal Carlo Agostino Fabroni, a recumbent Blessed jean-Francois de Regis
Nava Cellini 1982, pp. 23-25; Pratesi 1993,
"a veiled and garlanded vestal, holding powerful member of the Church hier- for Madrid. In 1622 he received the
vol. 1, pp. 42, 75, and vol. 2, pi. 117; Rocchi
in her right hand a patera and in the archy, who took him into his palace, commission for an Archangel Michael, Coopmans de Yoldi 1996, p. 349
left a vessel. Near her is an antique where he remained from 1714 to 1720; and a Guardian Angel for the cathedral Biblioteca Capitolare Fabroniana, Pistoia
tripod altar" (sale of the cabinet of M. after Fabroni's death in 1727 of Orvieto, finished in 1727 and 1729
Lebrun, Paris, April 11, 1791. lot 361). Cornacchini was commissioned to respectively.

During his years in Rome, Clodion carve his tomb-slab in S. Agostino in By 1730 Cornacchini had completed The Descent from the Cross and its com-
enjoyed a great success among an Rome (lost, if it was ever made). It was a relief of the Nativity of the Virgin for the panion piece, The Nativity (more accu-
international group of patrons with for Fabroni that he executed the Superga in Turin, and was immediately rately The Adoration of the Shepherds),

these figures inspired by antique pro- marble group exhibited here, but the commissioned to carve another, of the representing the death and birth of
totypes. Like Vien's paintings, they only other known works of this Pieta, accompanied by the two marble Christ, were carved for Cardinal
satisfied the Neoclassical taste of col- period are a terracotta copy of the putti now in Raleigh (North Carolina). Fabroni and adorned the apartamento
lectors while also appealing to their Uffizi seated boar, signed and dated In 1731 his statue of Saint John of Ncpomuk nobile of his palace in Rome, so it is

eighteenth-century sensibilities. His and a bronze Sleeping Endymion,

1716, was up on the Milvian Bridge in
set reasonable to suppose that they were
biographer wrote, "He had an original made by 1717, of which the terracotta Rome and in 1733 he signed a contract carved while Cornacchini was living
talent, which he augmented and per- model is in Boston, another bronze for marble sculptures for the chapel there. Keutner assumed that they were
fected without perverting it. He pre- cast in Moscow, and a version in the Florentine Pope Clement XII was made between 1714 and 1716 (Keutner
ferred some failings, redeemed by a marble in Cleveland. building in the St. John Lateran: these 1958, p. 38, no. 6), and although he gives
native talent and grace, to those cold By 1720 Cornacchini must have were a relief of The Battle of Anghiari, no reason, this has been generally
and silent beauties that are as close to acquired some reputation, for with the and a statue of Prudence accompanied accepted. However, there are notable
the antique manner as death is to life" help of Lodovico Sergardi he obtained by two putti, one of four personifica- differences between the two groups,
(Dinget8i4, p. 1). [alp] the commission for the marble eques- tions of Virtues in the chapel; he also the Descent from the Cross tending more
trian Charlemagne, finished in 1725, a provided the models for the two markedly toward the rather stylized
counterpart to Bernini's Constantine at elegant candle-bearing bronze angels. physiognomies and taffeta-like folds

AGOSTINO CORNACCHINI the opposite end of the portico of Cornacchini was further commissioned that characterize the sculptor's mature
PESCIA 1686-1754 ROME? St. Peter's. Cornacchini lavished much to carve a seated statue, Clement XII, for works. What both pieces share is a
careon the preparation, borrowing the portico of the basilica, but almost highly unusual approach to the sculp-
Agostino Cornacchini was eleven when books of engravings of equine immediately the pope gave it to tural group, which is not to be found
his father Ludovico moved from Pescia anatomy, and obtaining casts of Ancona, where it survives, much muti- in any other Roman sculpture of this
to Florence, and in the same year he horses by Giambologna and the legs lated and restored. time. This could be regarded as a devel-
entered the studio of Giovanni Battista of the horse of the antique statue of After this active and successful opment from the high relief, or as a
Foggini, the leading sculptor in Marcus Aurelius, and engravings of career (in 1724 he was elected to the transference into marble of the com-
Florence, and Architetto Primario of horses by Tempesta, as well as studying Accademia Clementina in Bologna, in positions that can be found among
Cosimo III de' Medici. Cornacchini's living horses, and making nude studies 1733 to the Accademia del Disegno in the Florentine small bronzes
earliest known independent work was for the figure. Yet the result was a Florence; his marriage in 1727 to Maria although such groups were a rather
a mask of "the King of France" (Louis thoroughly theatrical piece of Rococo Angelica Papi brought him consider- later development.
XIV?), for which in 1709 he attempted sculpture, much criticized ever since able wealth, so that in 1750 he was able Like reliefs, these marbles involve
to secure the payment. This was pre- its unveiling. For the interior of the to provide his daughter with the hand- complex compositions of several
sumably related to a carnival or the- basilica he modeled the holy-water some dowry of 2,000 scudi, without figures engaged in narrative scenes,
atrical performance; indeed, most like stoups and carved one of the support- harming the interests of his two sons), in the case of the Nativity including an
Florentine artists, Cornacchini was ing putti (1724-25), and the strongly no further sculptures are known, until architectural setting, and both were
much involved in such enterprises: in Michelangelesque Saint Eli/ah (1725-27), in February 1754 Cornacchini received designed to be set against a wall. But
1712 he made the drawing for an the putative founder of the Carmelites, the relatively minor commission for a all the figures are carved in the round,
engraving by C. Mogalli of the opening for the series of the Founders of travertine statue of Saint Ursula for the and they involve none of the compli-
scene of an opera staged at the Teatro Religious Orders. Further proof of colonnade of St. Peter's to replace one cated mixture of real and illusory
della Pergola, and in the same year Cornacchini's interest in the past is a destroyed by a thunderbolt. By the space typical of the high-relief form.
produced one of the figures, Zeal of small encaustic painting of a sleeping endoftheyearhewas dead. [)m] Moreover, although they were clearly
Religion, for the celebration of the can- Christ Child (Victoriaand Albert bibliography Keutner 1957-58; Keutner intended for viewing from the front,
onization of Pius V. In 1609 he was Museum. London), dated 1727 and 1958; Lankheit 1962. pp. 188-89, 225 they make logical, if not aesthetic-
employed to make drawings after proudly signed as a "new invention," (doc. 13); Faccioli 1968; Cannon-Brookes sense when viewed from other
sculptures for John Talman, which, to but clearly intended as a revival of a 1976; Corbo 1976;
Nava
Enggass 1976. vol. 1,
angles — indeed, in the Descent from
the Englishman's annoyance, he was classical technique. pp. 193-206; Cellini 1982. pp. 23-3};
the Cross it is only from the right side
very slow to produce. Enggass 1983; Pratesi 1993, vol. 1. p. 41.. md
The statue of Between 1721 and 1724 Cornacchini that the man (Nicodemus or Joseph
vol. 2, pp. 74-75, figs. 105-18: Rocchi
Clement XI in Urbino, frequently carved the figure of Hope for the ol Arimathea) whose head is behind
Coopmans de Yoldi 199ft. pp. 347-53
ascribed to Cornacchini and incorrectly chapel of the Monte di Pieta, and in Christ's left elbow, but whose hands
dated 1710, is a documented work of 1722 made a bronze group o(Judith and are visible from the front, can be seen,
Francesco Moratti (Negroni 1986). Holofernes (now in Birmingham) for and it is only from this side that Saint

SCULPTURE
 which successfully rivals contempo-
rary painting both in its composition
and in its highly charged emotional

drama, accurately described by

Gabburri as "executed with great ani-
mation, intelligence, diligence, and
love" (Keutner 1958, p. 38).
On May 26, 1726, Cardinal Fabroni
drew up a deed of donation, giving his
extensive library to his native city of
Pistoia and stating that the books were
to be accompanied by these two
marbles. After his death on September
19, 1727, the books were sent from
Rome, although nothing is said of
transporting the sculptures; however,
they have remained together ever since
in the library that bears his name, [jm]

FRIEDRICH WILHELM
EUGENDOELL
VEILSDORF, THURINGIA 1750-1816
GOTHA
After a five-year apprenticeship with
the modeling master Wenzel Neu in
Fulda, Friedrich Wilhelm Eugen Doell
worked at the Veilsdorf porcelain
factory as a modeler. Through the
agency of Friedrich Melchior von
Grimm, the representative of the dukes
of Gotha in Paris, in 1770 he entered
the service of the crown prince (later

Duke Ernst II of Sachsen-Gotha-

Altenburg). It was at this time that he
produced his first portrait busts, still

essentially Baroque in style.

When )ean-Antoine Houdon visited
Gotha in 1771, in connection with a
design for the tomb of Duchess Luise
Dorothee, the crown prince sent Doell
back to Paris with him to continue his
training. Little is known about Doell's
activity there, although during the
fourteen months he spent with Houdon
he also attended lectures by the
anatomist Then the crown prince
Tetier.

sent him to Rome, where he was able

to continue his artistic education from
1773 to 1782 under the supervision of
Johann Friedrich Reiffenstein, who
had been appointed a councilor to the
court of Gotha in 1772. (Gotha,
Germany, Thuringisches Staatsarchiv
Gotha, Geheimes Archiv, E XIII/A/7,
Reiffenstein's letters to Duke Ernst II

of Sachsen-Gotha-Altenburg from
3.3.1773 to 27.4.1782; Reiffenstein kept
John's action is wholly intelligible. although similarly adventurous groups duced this highly pictorial sulpture: the duke informed in great detail
In this respect also it might be consid- had been produced in France. As an the cross is carefully carved to imitate regarding Doell's training.) Until 1776
ered more advanced than the Nativity. example of an attempt to create three- wood (the bark visible at the sides), Doell worked under the protection of
Although both Giovanni Battista dimensional groups that rival paint- and the skull that gave its name to the sculptor Giuseppe Franchi, mainly
Foggini and Massimiliano Soldani had ings in the depiction of figures in their Golgotha (it may also allude to the copying antique models. He made
c reated bronze groups that were more landscape or architectural setting grave of Adam) lies on the rocky copies in terracotta and marble, such
complex and spatially expansive than there is the set of four small silver and ground. The swirling draperies suggest as the heads of Sappho and the Medici
those of their Florentine predecessors hardstonc reliquaries Soldani made that the angel at the left is rising Venus, the Farnese Flora, the relief ot
(with the exception of Giovanni forS. Lorenzo about 1690, although upward in twisting flight, and — most the Borghese Warrior, and works of his
Francesco Susini), it was only with the very elaborate groups made in sugar strikingly "pictorial" — the almost own based on classical antiquity, such
the series ofbronzes made for the elec- (trionji in Italian) to decorate banquet- ungainly body of Christ is seen in sharp as the group of Theseus Dedicating a
tress palatine in the early 1720s that ing tables should not be lorgotten. foreshortening, while, of course, his Picture of Venus to Apollo (1774) and the

they really broke new ground in what All such works may have been in head is clearly presented to the viewer. bas-relief of Minerva Handing Pegasus
is traditionally regarded as sculpture. Cornacchini's mind when he pro- It is a tourdc force of intricate carving, Over to Hcllerophon (1774-75).

252 SCULPTURE
 ;

After the return of Anton Raphael became the curator of the Friedenstein of Leibniz for Hanover, and one of edged breastplate with the gorgon
Mengs to Rome from Spain in 1777, collection of casts established in 1779. Lessing for the library in Wolfenbuttel identify the woman as Minerva. The
Doell continued his training under In 1792 he was also appointed to the ("Doell" 1913). A monument by him snake crawling up the helmet must be
Mengs's aegis. To Reiffenstein's office of keeper of the Kunstkammer. with a marble bust of the astronomer regarded as Doell's invention. Turned
delight he constantly improved his The first casts of antique sculptures Johannes Kepler (1808) was erected in toward the goddess on the right
ability to work in the spirit of the from Italy had reached Gotha in the Regensburg. Various casts of Doell's stands a naked youth in classical con-
Greeks, overcoming the "modern 1770s as a result of Reiffenstein's activ- works were sold by the Leipzig art trapposto. His softly modeled body
French style" (Letter from Duke Ernst ities. Doell himself had made some dealers Rost; these include a Vestal with slightly elongated limbs is well-

II of Altenburg, June 25, 1774)- Apart casts for the collection while in Rome, Virgin carrying the sacred flame, formed, and almost immaculate. He is

from the copy of a Genius in the Museo such as a Dancing Faun, and the head which was made after the statuette of framed by a short cloak, the chlamys,
Pio-Clementino in Rome for a Russian and statue of the Apollo Belvedere. a vestal virgin by Houdon dating from which billows across his left shoulder,

count and a Bust of Corinna (both 1779). To judge by written sources, Doell's c. 1768, which used to be in Gotha. He falls down over his back in folds, and
he made busts of Bacchus, Ariadne, and oeuvre was very extensive. However, also ran a factory in Altenburg which is draped over his lower right arm. His
Faustina (all The artist created the
1781). only a relatively small proportion of produced some of his works head is turned to the right and his gaze
allegorical marble group Gratitude for his many portraits, statues, funerary (Schneider 1987, vol. 1, p. 113). directed towards Minerva's left hand.
the Russian Count Shuvalov, along monuments, and decorative works day Doell was regarded in
In his The scene depicted comes from the
with his portrait medallion (1779-80) made for the courts in Gotha, Weimar, Thuringia as a sculptor of distinction. myth of Bellerophon, who was the
and the life-size statue of Catherine 11 Meiningen, and Anhalt-Dessau, and He received public recognition son of Glaucus and Eurymede and the
as Minerva (1780-81) for Count for various institutions in German through his nomination as an hon- grandson of Sisyphus. He rejected the
Tshernyshev. On his own account he cities, has survived. orary member of the Berlin Academy love of the wife of Proetus of Tiryns.
made the outstanding portraits of From Ernst IPs successor, Duke in 1788. [as] who avenged herself by accusing him
Anton Raphael Mengs and johann August of Sachsen-Gotha-Altenburg, bibliography Beck 1854, pp. 241-61 falsely. Proetus then sent him to his

Joachim Winckelmann (both 1779-80), Doell received only a few meager W. 1940: Zeller and
"Doell" 1913; Muller father-in-law, King Iobates, in Lycia

now in the Schloss Gotha. commissions. On the other hand, he Steinmann 1956; Bechtoldt and Weiss 1996. with instructions that he should be
Having failed to persuade did receive commissions from other pp. 201-4, 242, 244, 404, 411 killed. Like Proetus, the king could
Bartolomeo Cavaceppi to undertake members of the court at Gotha and not carry out the deed and instead
a bust of Winckelmann, Reiffenstein from the Gotha middle classes. He sent Bellerophon to fight in the most
asked his protege to produce several created several noteworthy portraits 129 dangerous places. Out of pity the gods
variants of the portrait of the great of members of the ducal family, the
Friedrich Wilhelm Eugen sent —
him Pegasus with Minerva
archaeologist. (Reiffenstein had taken court at Gotha, and other eminent herself putting on the bridle. In this
over the role of his friend figures in the Greek manner (particu- Doell composition Minerva is handing
Winckelmann, who had been murdered larly noteworthy are: Ernst /J and Pegasus's bridle to the young hero,
Minerva Handing Pegasus
in 1768, as an art cicerone in Rome.) In August of Sachsen-Gotha-Altenburg, who can tame the war horse and
1781 Doell's new, colossal bust of Hans Wilhelm and Moritz August von Over to Bellerophon avail himself of its miraculous
Winckelmann, commissioned by Thiimmel, johann Benjamin Koppe, the 1774-75
strength so as to triumph over the
Reiffenstein. was installed in the mathematician Kastner, and juilane Inscription with signature and date on the challenges he encounters (Hiller
Pantheon (now in the Albergo Franziska von Buchwald, after Houdon's pedestal of the block of stone: Doell. inv. 1970, pp. 9-13: Hederich [1770] 1996,
dell'Orso). A development not only bust of the vestal virgin), as well as Roma. 1774 cols. 533-38).

of the Gotha marble portrait, but also busts of prominent persons in Carrara marble The construction of the nearly
of a drawing by Giovanni Battista modern dress. (Examples include: 41" x 45//' x 5//' (104 x 115 x 14 cm) square-format relief is characterized
Casanova (produced under Mengs's Prince Emile August and Prince Friedrich provenance Rome. 1775: Schloss by great clarity, in line with
supervision and executed in bronze of Sachsen-Gotha-Altenburg and Friedenstein. Gotha, 1780 (Schlossmuseum Winckelmann's principles. The
by Louis Valadier [Muller W. 1940; Christian Friedrich Samuel Hahnemann; Gotha. Vcrzeichniss der antique n Abgusse, figures appear in three-quarter
director's copy [1845], fol. 24, no.ji, wrongly
Zellerand Steinmann 1956]), this Schuttwolf 1995, pp. 159-67, 196-201). profile, the heads in full profile. The
described as a gift from Leopold Doell)
bust became the definitive image of Doell also produced some impos- two forms in the foreground, worked
exhibition Duisburg and Gotha 1987,
Winckelmann. Along with Doell's ing reliefs for the interiors and exteri- almost half in the round, and the
cat. no. 95
previous portraits of Winckelmann, ors of buildings, such as the sculpted flatter form of Pegasus in the middle
BIBLIOGRAPHY Beck 1854, p. 243;
it brought the young sculptor to the decorations in the rooms occupied by ground convey the impression of
Wolfgang. Eduard. Vcrzeichniss der Sammlung
attention of the Roman art world and the ducal family at Schloss spatial depth through the layering
der Abgusse im Herzoglichen Museum zu Gotha.
established his reputation as a Friedenstein and Schloss Belvedere in Gotha, 18S4. vol. 4, no. 55: Zeller and of the relief. The surface is carefully
portraitist. Weimar. He also made the bas-relief Steinmann 1956. p. 33: Hebecker, Michel, handled. Bellerophon's finely modeled
During his time in Italy Doell Meiningen
Castor with Pegasus for and Wolfgang Steguweit. Von der Kunst flesh and the sensitively worked wings
received only a few commissions from c. and supplied the court at
1782 Kammer zum Museum: Plastik aus dem and body parts of the horse proclaim
Schlossmuseum Gotha/DDR. Duisburg,
his patron, the duke. After Houdon's Dessau with two busts of the reigning Doell's skill as a craftsman. Although
Germany: Wilhelm-Lehmbruck-Museum.
mausoleum of the late
project for a Princess Luise von Anhalt-Dessau Minerva's richly structured cloak,
1987, cat. no. 95; Schuttwolf 1995,
Duke and Duchess of Gotha came to (1789), a sandstone bas-relief with cat. no. 66 with its sharp-edged folds, produces
nothing in 1774 because of Gustavus Adolphus on horseback Schlossmuseum Gotha a somewhat agitated effect, the sculp-
Reiffenstein's criticisms, the intention (1785), and twenty-two designs for ture as a whole reveals a great affinity
was that Doell should be entrusted stucco reliefs depicting the history to antiquity. The figure of Minerva
with the task. But apart from the relief of the art of riding (1790-95) for the A female form in a peaceful, upright suggests the influence of seated
of Minerva and Bellerophon, he made only prince's riding school in Dessau. attitude sits majestically above a figures on Greek tomb stelae or dedi-
a Mercury (1777) for the temple in Around 1797 he designed the gable narrow strip of ground on a ribbed catory reliefs. It has not been possible
Gotha Park and an urn (1780) for the relief Minerva Settling the Quarrel between block of stone. She is wearing a peplos to ascertain whether, in devising the
tomb of the crown prince for his the Muses and the Sirens for the portico tied with a belt and a cloak that lies work, Doell adapted the scene from
employer while in Rome. of the Pantheon at Worlitz and created over her right shoulder and cascades a now-unknown antique relief or
Before returning to the Thuringian all the Egyptian-inspired sculptures down her back to the ground, enfold- adapted single figures to create a
capital, Doell visited in 1781 the cities for its cellar. In 1801 he made the relief ing her legs. Her right foot is rest ing set piece. A model for the form of
of Naples, Bologna, Venice, Vienna, for the tympanum at the Temple to on a footstool. With her outstretched Bellerophon was the figure known
Prague, and Dresden. After his return Flora in Worlitz (Bcchtoldt and Weiss hand she holds the bridle of a
left as Idolino in the Museo Archeologico
Duke Ernst II appointed him professor 1996, pp. 201-4, 242, 244, 404, 411). powerful and fiery winged horse, in Florence (Beck, Bol, and Buckling
of fine arts in 1782. Four years later Before 1796 Doell executed the which stands out from the ground of 1990, p. 361), which itself is probably
Doell opened a drawing school in the marble group Faith. Love, Hope for the the relief with its left forefoot raised. derived from the famous statue of
palace at Gotha and at the same time (ohanneskirche at Luneburg, a statue The Corinthian helmet and the snake- Doryphoros by Polvclitus. Doell

SCULP UR1 I
 National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin),
and Frederick Hervey, bishop of Derry
(c. 1770; National Portrait Gallery,
London). Commissions for busts of
other collector clients of Jenkins fol-
lowed. Among these were Thomas
Mansel Talbot (1773; Victoria and
Albert Museum, London), who in
the same year purchased a version
of Hewetson's celebrated portrait of
Clement XIV, commissioned in 1771
and John Campbell, 1st
(cat. 130),

Baron Cawdor (c. 1784; National

Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh), who
was shortly afterwards to commission
the Cupid and Psyche group from
Antonio Canova. During the 1770s
and early 1780s Hewetson continued
to carve portraits of British sitters vis-
Rome, some of whom also sat to
iting

Pompeo Batoni; these included the

Duke of Gloucester (1772; Royal
Collection, Windsor Castle, Berkshire),
Thomas Gascoigne, Henry and
Sir

Mary Swinburne (all c. 1778; bronze

versions by Luigi Valadier; Lotherton
Hall, Yorkshire), and the author of the
Geneological History of the House of the
Stewarts, Andrew Stuart (c. 1789;
Signet Library, Edinburgh). But his
reputation extended far beyond the
circle of British Grand Tourists,
attracting patrons as varied as the
Spanish ambassador, Jose Nicolas de
Azara (1778; Bibliotheeque Mazarine,
Paris), the Polish magnate Franciszek
Salezy Potocki (c. 1782; Lancut Castle,
adopted both the body pattern and opportunity to make a thorough Bellerophon taming Pegasus at the and Grand Duchess Maria
Poland),
the standing pose as well as the head study of three different types of moment when a spring wells up Fyodorovna of Russia (1783; location
of hair from this sculpture of Idolino. nature; he is now executing the most where the ground has been struck unknown). Though primarily occu-
The object in his left hand may be the successful combination he made in by the horse's hoof, [as] pied with portrait busts, he was in
result of a misunderstanding. Doell clay in exactly the same size as he 1773 commissioned to produce the
could have referred to a 1680 set of intends to sculpt it in marble, in order monument to Provost Baldwin that

engravings by F. Bartoli publicizing to be able humbly to lay such a piece CHRISTOPHER was exhibited in Rome in 1783, before
the tomb of the Nasoni discovered at at the feet of your Ducal Excellency HEWETSON being shipped to Dublin and set up in

that time. Among the wall paintings next year, as proof of his progress." THOMASTOWN, CO. KILKENNY Trinity College. Hewetson's descrip-
reproduced there is a composition Reiffenstein also reports that initially C. 1736-1798 ROME tion of themonument, with its com-
showing Bellerophon between two the sculptor thought of making the ments on both the materials and the
women. Here too the youth holds a relief in the form of an upright oval Hewetson was born into a Protestant imagery, is one of the few known such
similar attribute in his hand that in the size of an imposing chimneypiece family in County Kilkenny, the son of accounts by a sculptor about his own
the original was no doubt a sword (Letter from Reiffenstein to Duke a lieutenant in a troop of horse. After work. In 1783 Hewetson was commis-
(see Hiller 1970, p. 41). Ernst II of Sachsen-Gotha-Altenburg, an education at Kilkenny College, he sioned to execute the monument to
At the beginning of his study August 30, 1774), and "after many nec- went to Dublin and probably trained Cardinal Giambattista Rezzonico
period in Rome Doell created his own essary changes in the composition as with the leading sculptor then active (S. Nicola in Carcere, Rome), nephew
subjects, based on antique mythology, well as in the forms themselves" in the city, John van Nost the Younger, to Clement XIII, but by this date his
as bas-reliefs in clay under the guidance (Letter from Reiffenstein to Duke for whom he worked in the late 1750s reputation was beginning to wane,
of Giuseppe Franchi and Anton von Ernst II of Sachsen-Gotha-Altenburg, on statues for the rotunda gardens. In following the arrival of Canova in Rome
Maron in order to acquire confidence November 2, 1774) arrived at the exist- 1765 he is recorded inRome, along in 1779. Despite the earlier success of

in handling anatomy and perspective ing format. Because of its clearly clas- with the painter Henry Bainbridge, Hewetson's bust of Clement XIV, it
(Gotha, Germany, Thuringisches sical formal vocabulary and the from Philadelphia. There, with the was Canova who was to gain the com-
Staatsarchiv Gotha. Geheimes Archiv perfection of the craftsmanship, the support of the influential agent and missions for the monuments to both
F.XIIl/A/7, Reiffenstein's letters to work was well thought of among the dealer Thomas Jenkins, he soon estab- him and Clement XIII. Yet, though
Duke Ernst II of Sachsen-Gotha- artists in Reiffenstein's circle. After lished himself as an admired sculptor unsuccessful in the competition for
Altenburg, January 25, 1774). A letter Duke Ernst had approved the pur- of portrait busts and became patron- these projects, Hewetson responded
written by )ohann Friedrich chase of a block of marble, Doell was ized by prestigious and wealthy visi- generously by giving a dinner in

Reiffenstcin to Doell's patron, Ernst II able tomake a start on converting it tors from all over Europe. honour of Canova, who long after-

of Sachsen-Gotha-Altenburg, reveals into stone in June 177s. He completed Hewetson's earliest busts include wards referred to the Irish sculptor's
that (he young artist himself selected the work in December 177s, but those of three sitters who were impor- work with respect.
the subject of Minerva and another five years went by before it tant patrons of artists working in Hewetson's busts make use of a
Bellerophon for conversion into was sent to Gotha. Twenty years later, Rome in the 1760s and 1770s: the anti- range of conventions and formats.
stone: "A beautifully clothed figure, in the course of alterations to the inte- quary Charles Townley (1769; private Some, such as the portrait of the
a youthfully naked heroic figure, and rioroi (he Schloss at Gotha, Doell collection); the Welsh collector Duke of Gloucester, are cut quite high
the winged horse here give him the created a stucco relief showing Sir Watkin Williams Wynn (1769; across the chest and shoulders, with

254 SCULPTURE
the sitter represented in a combina- us both marks of the most conde-

tion of classical and contemporary scending distinction" (Ingamells 1997,

dress. Increasingly, however, p 327). Another version (Gorhambury,
Hewetson drew on different antique Hertfordshire), dated 1772 (like the one
bust types, including the severe herm exhibited here), was given to Edward
type used for his portrait of the painter Walter by the pope, who also gave an
Gavin Hamilton (1784: Hunterian Elsheimer to Walter's daughter Harriet.
Museum, Glasgow). Common to all The fourth, dated 1773 (Victoria and
his busts is the careful carving of the Albert Museum, London), was pur-
hair and facial features, and these chased from Hewetson by Thomas
qualities no doubt attracted his many Mansel Talbot — a valued client of

patrons, directed to his studio by an both Thomas Jenkins and Gavin

influential circle of supporters. But his Hamilton — for £140, some £72 more

responsiveness to the potential offered than the sum paid to the same sculptor
by the forms of antique busts, already for his own bust. A further unsigned
exploited by Edme Bouchardon marble (Yale Center for British Art, New
(cat. 107) in the late 1720s and Joseph Haven) differs in the details on the stole

Wilton working in Florence in the and is probably a workshop replica.

mid-i750S, also allowed him to offer The close connections between the
a distinctive and relatively novel type sitter and English dealers and visitors

of Neoclassical portrait bust to sitters may account for the fact that three of
who had for some time admired the the four known versions were
classicizing elements in Batoni's acquired by British collectors. There
paintingand were to appreciate the isno evidence, on the other hand, that
innovations of Canova. Although the present example was originally
Hewetson's work has usually been dis- bought by (or given to) a British
cussed within the context of British or visitor, and its French provenance

Irish sculpture, both his career and may suggest otherwise. Nonetheless,
the range of his portrait busts are best despite the way in which the British
understood in terms of his significant seemed keen to include a bust of the
position in the Roman art world pope among their own collections of
during the 1770s and 1780s. For a antique and modern marbles, the form
decade at least he was the leading por- of this sculpture sets it apart from
trait sculptor working in the city, Hewetson's other images of contem-
though, as Berry remarked on a visit porary sitters. While the meticulous
to his studio in April 1784, "Rome is carving of the lines around the eyes
not the place to admire modern busts" SO and the pouches of skin on the cheeks
(Mary Berry, Extracts of the journals and recalls the subtle effects of marble
Correspondence of Miss Berry, from the 130 Hewetson made his name known to a carving already found in Joseph
Year 1783 to 1852, edited by Lady far wider circle of international patrons. Wilton's busts in the 1750s, the image
Christopher Hewetson
Theresa Lewis [London: Longmans, As well as being larger in format than is perhaps best understood in terms of
Green, & Co., 1865], vol. p. 104). 1, His Pope Clement XIV his earlier busts, this impressive its relationship to recent papal images,
close association with Thomas
1772
example of a papal bust — a class of most notably Pietro Bracci's marble of
(enkins, reflected in the latter's
Signed and dated: Christophorus Hewetson
sculptural portrait with a distinguished Benedict X/lf (Thyssen-Bornemisza
bequest to the sculptor of money for a Feet 1772 history — provided Hewetson with the Collection, Madrid), probably carved
ring to commemorate their friend- Marble opportunity to demonstrate his ability posthumously between 1762 and 1773,
ship, led John Deare to refer to them Height 24)4" (63 cm) (with socle) as a virtuoso carver of marble, seen or Bernandino Ludovisi's Benedict X/V,
as "those thieves the antiquarians and provenance said to have been bought by here in both the vividly executed face a version of which had been paired
monopolizing artists" (London, the 4th Baron Hylton in Paris beween 1815 and such details as the embroidery on with the present bust when in Lord
British Library. MS Add. 36.496, fol. and 1835; by descent to John Twyford the stole and the knotted cord. Hylton's collection (Christie's sale,
307 [1794]). But the commissions for Joliffe, Ammerdown Park, Somerset; sale, The pope probably came to agree to London, December 13, 1990, lot 47).
busts also came about through Christie's. December 11, 1990, lot 48. when sitto Hewetson through the influence Such comparisons allow Hewetson
purchased by the National Gallery of
Hewetson's connections with many of Thomas Jenkins, who had sold him to be seen as a Roman sculptor.
Scotland
other figures, including Hamilton and much antique sculpture for his planned In its characterization of the sitter,
bibliography Hodgkinson 1954; De
Anton Raphael Mengs. Similarly, their extension of the Vatican galleries (now as well as in its qualities of carving,
Breffny 1985, p. 55, no. 2c; Jackson-Stops
production sometimes involved col-
1985, p. 270; Honour and Westin-Lewis theMuseo Pio-Clementino), although this portrait must rank as one of
laboration with the bronze founders 1995, P- " Father Thorpecommented that this Hewetson's outstanding achieve-
Luigi Valadier and Righetti. Although National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh had come about "by means of the all- ments. Its status was implicitly
on occasion signing himself powerful Abbe Grant" (Ingamells acknowledged by Canova, when he
diristophoms Hewetson Hibernicus, he It is uncertain whether
1997, p. 495). employed a plaster version (Museo
never returned to Ireland and, apart The bust of Clement XIV, of which the imagewas commissioned or Civico, Bassano) as the basis for his
from two visits to Naples, remained this is one of four signed and dated undertaken by Hewetson as a specula- own image of the pope on the monu-
in Rome until his death, [mb] versions, played an important role in tive venture. Of the four signed ver- ment in St. Peter's, the commission
bibliography Esdaile 1947; Hodgkinson establishing Hewetson as the leading sions,one was bought directly from that he gained in competition with
1954; Honour 1959, "Canova"; De Breffny sculptor of portrait busts active in Hewetson and another given as a gift Hewetson. [mb]
1985: Barnes 1996; Ingamells 1997 Rome during the 1770s. From his by the pope himself. The earliest of
Rome in 1765 the Irish sculp-
arrival in these, dated 1771 (Beningborough Hall.
tor had succeeded in obtaining com- Yorkshire), was probably acquired by
missions for portraits from various who visited
Giles and Margaret Earle.
influential British sitters as well as the Rome between November 1770 and
support of Thomas Jenkins and Gavin September 1771 and stayed in Cardinal
Hamilton. But was probably through
it Albani's villa at Castel Gandolfo,
this more ambitious image that recording that the pope "has show n

SCULPTURE 255
 JEAN-ANTOINE HOUDON Houdon's reputation as a portrait measure and model a bust of Bibliotheque Nationale, Collection

VERSAILLES 1741-1828 PARIS sculptor was established with a bust Washington. The full-length marble Deloynes, 17A9: Sentiments sur les tableaux
exposes au Salon. Paris, Bibliotheque
of the Enlightenment philosopher and statue was not delivered until 1796. As
Nationale, Collection Deloynes, 1769;
Unlike many French sculptors of the Denis Diderot. The bust
cncycloped isle in the case of Washington, Houdon's
Lellre

adressee aux auteurs du journal encyclopedique

eighteenth century, Houdon did not was admired for its striking likeness to works often established the accepted
au sujet des ouvrages exposes au Salon du i.ouvre
come from a dynasty of artists. His the sitter and for its intelligent, lively image of his sitters. en 1769. Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale,
father held the modest position of expression. Its sober antique Roman In the years immediately following Collection Deloynes; Dicrks 1887, pp. 25,

concierge at Comte de
the hotel of the style, depicting the sitter nude and the French Revolution,Houdon had 116; Aldenhoven 1911, p. 142; Reau 1923,

Lamotte in Versailles. When he was without a wig, was seen as the perfect few commissions and turned to mod- pp. 43-46, 49-50, 52; Brinckmann 1923-25,

eight, Houdon's family moved to expression of Diderot's thought and eling busts of members of his family vol. 3, pp. 152-33; Giacometti 1929, vol. 2,

26, vol. 3, pp. 218-19; Schwark 1930, p. 49,

Paris, where his father became personality. Despite this success, and which he achieved a
friends, in
pi. 40.1; Lindeman 1942. pp. 228-35; Reau
concierge at the Ecole des Eleves major commissions did not material- freshness, intimacy, and informality
1945, pp. 96-98; Mansfeld 1955, pp. 28-32,
Proteges, a school created to prepare ize, and Houdon turned to patrons that were to influence the work of
no. 2; Bogyay 1964, p. 113; Reau 1964, vol. 2,
artists who had won the prix de Rome outside of France, traveling in 1771 and sculptors such as David d'Angers and p. 16, no. 18; Arnason 1975, p. 12, pi. 7;
for their studies in Italy. In a memoir again in 1773, to work at the court of Carpeaux. Under the directory and Schuttwolf 1995, pp. 132, 173, no. 46
of 1794 Houdon wrote: "Born on the Saxe-Gotha, where he executed por- the empire he executed a number of Schlossmuseum Gotha
doorstep of the academy, so to speak, traits of Duke Frederick III, Duke portraits of prominent figures such as
I have produced sculpture from the Ernest-Louis, and Marie-Charlotte Lavoisier, the Marquis de Pastoret, and
age of nine" (Reau 1964, vol. 1, p. 99). de Saxe-Meiningen, as well as other Marie-Joseph Chenier, as well as those This plaster sculpture of Saint Bruno
In 1758 he registered as a student at family members. During the 1770s of Napoleon and Josephine, adapting is a small-scale version of, and
the academy, with the sculptor Michel- he also received commissions from his style to the fashions of the time perhaps a cast of the original model
Ange Slodtz listed as his teacher. Russia for two funerary monuments while maintaining a very high level of for, Houdon's over life-size marble
Three years later he won the prix de for the Galitzin princes and a large quality in the depictions of his sitters. statue of Saint Bruno in the church
Rome with a relief of The Queen ofSheba marble bust of Catherine the Great, He exhibited for the last time at the of S. Maria degli Angeli in Rome.
Bearing Gifts to Solomon (now lost). executed for Count Strogonov. Salon of 1814, and fell into mental The Saint Bruno, along with a statue
Houdon then was enrolled at the Houdon was very proud of the fact illness at the end of his life, [alp] of Saint John the Baptist, was commis-
Ecole des Eleves Proteges from 1761 to that after he returned to Paris he mas- bibliography Lami 1910. pp. 408-36; sioned by Dom Andre Le Masson, the
1764 under the director. Carle van Loo; tered the technique of bronze casting Giacometti 1929; Mansfeld 1955: Reau 1964; French procurator-general of the
there his very limited education was and set up his own foundry. Arnason 1975 Carthusian order of friars in 1766

expanded to include history, mythol- Houdon became a member of the from the twenty-five-year-old
ogy, and religion, as well as technical Academie Royale de Peinture et de Houdon, who had arrived as a prix de
training in the carving of marble. Sculpture in 1777 with his marble of 131 Rome winner at the French Academy
After arriving at the French Morpheus, submitted as his reception in Rome in late 1764. Representing the
Academy in Rome on via del Corso piece. Although trained to work for
Jean-Antoine Houdon patron saint and the founder of the
in November 1764, Houdon became a the French crown, he received only a Saint Bruno order, the statues were to occupy two
diligent student whose intense study few commissions from the king, the Probably 1766-67 niches flanking the vestibule of the
of Renaissance, Roman Baroque, and most important of which was the Plaster
church, which was the seat of the
classical sculpture, combined with marble statue of the Marechal de 33//' x 12X" x cm)
Carthusian order Rome. Natoire,in
(84.4 32.5
that of anatomy, were to be the foun- Tourville, one in the series of Great director of the FrenchAcademy,
provenance Brinckmann states that this
dation of all his later work. Under the Men, ordered in 1789. His most and other plasters by Houdon came from wrote to Marigny on July 16, 1766:
directorship of Charles-Joseph Natoire, famous works — the large marble the estate of the court sculptor in Gotha, "One of our sculptors, named Oudon
he became adept at sketching and Diana, dated 1780, first intended as a F.W.E. Doell (Brinckmann 1923-25, p. 133), [sic], has undertaken to produce two
modeling in clay as well as in carving garden sculpture for the court of and Reau states that this Saint Bruno is the statues for the Carthusian church in
marble. Natoire did not believe that Saxe-Gotha, but later acquired by "original plaster model presented by the Rome. The French procurator-general
artist to the due de Saxe-Gotha" (Reau
sculptors needed to draw, and there Catherine the Great, and the marble of the house, who knows the young
1964, vol.2, p. 16). but there is no docu-
are no known drawings that can be Sealed Voltaire, shown at the Salon of
mentary evidence to substantiate either
artist, told me about his project and
convincingly attributed to Houdon's 1781 and commissioned by Voltaire's claim. The earliest mention of the sculp- of his intention to avail himself of Mr.
hand. As a result of his Roman studies niece, who gave it to the Comedie ture in the surviving inventories of the Oudon. very much approved of his
I

of anatomy with the surgeon Seguier, Franchise —

were not done for the court of Saxe-Gotha is in the idea and assured him of the merit of
he created his famous Ecorche, plaster crown. While he did execute some Schlossmuseum Archive, "Catalog der his choice, with the result that the

casts of which were acquired by art garden sculptures, reliefs, and reli- Sammlung der Gips-Abgiisse" [manu- young sculptor has set to work and
script]. 1845. under "Kleinere Statuen,"
academies throughout Europe. His gious sculptures, the focus of made a very good model, which he is
no. 54. "Saint Bruno (von Goudon [sic] )";
sculpture of Saint John the Baptist, com- Houdon's work after 1771 was on por-
it is listed in subsequent inventories:
now executing full-size. I believe this
missioned along with a sculpture of traiture, and his sitters were the great Schlossmuseum Archive, as "Verzeichniss opportunity could be the making of
Saint Bruno (cat. 131) by the Carthusians figures of the Enlightenment such as der antiquen Abgusse" [manuscript], writ- him." ( Montaiglon 1887-1912, vol. 12,

for the vestibule of S. Maria degli Voltaire, Rousseau, Buffon, and Schlossmuseum
ten before 1851, no. 54; p. 119). The colossal marble statue of
Angeli, was based on the figure of the d'Alembert, as well as aristocrats, Archive, "Verzeichniss der Abgusse antiker Saint Bruno was completed and
Ecorche. These two colossal figures magistrates, military figures, writers,
und moderner Bildhauerarbeiten im installed in its niche in 1767.
Herzogl: Antiken-Cabinet zu Gotha"
were highly accomplished works and actors, actresses, and children. His Houdon's Saint Bruno is a remark-
[manuscript], 1857, no. 61; Schlossmuseum
established Houdon's reputation as a American sitters included Jefferson, able achievement for a young sculp-
Archive, "Journal fur die Sammlung der
master of monumental religious sculp- Franklin, Governor Morris, Robert Abgusse antiquer Bildwerke" [manuscript], tor. It was certainly conceived as a
ture. Also dating from his Roman Fulton, and George Washington. 1858, no. P2H; and Edouard Wolfgang, stylistic alternative to the dramatic
years is The Priest of the l.upcrcalia, a Jefferson wrote to Washington in "Verzeichniss der Sammlung der Abgusse neo-Baroque marble figure of the
running Bacchic figure that reveals his December 1784, "I find that a Monsieur im Herzoglichcn Museum zu Gotha" same saint executed by Houdon's
(Gotha, 1869), p. 23, no. 37
study of Bernini's Apollo and Daphne Houdon, of this place, possesses the teacher Michel-Ange Slodtz in 1744
exhibitions Paris 1769, Salon de 1769, not Rome. In contrast to
group, and a figure of a Vestal inspired reputation of being the first statuary for St. Peter's in
catalogued; Berlin 1955. no number:
by an antique statue of Pandora in the of the world" (Reau 1964, vol. 1, p. 57), the twisting figure of Slodtz's Saint
Duisberg and Gotha 1987, cat. no. 85
Museo Capitolino. and recommended that Houdon do Bruno, who gestures with his left hand
bibliography Lcttrc sur [exposition des
Following his return to Paris, a the portrait of Washington for the to refuse a bishop's miter and staff
ouvrages de peinture et de sculpture au Salon
selection of Houdon's Roman works state of Virginia. Houdon then traveled du Louvre. Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale,
offered by a putto while pointing to
was shown at the Salon of 1769, where to the United States with Benjamin Collection Deloynes, 1769; L'anncc Htterairc. a skull with his right hand, Houdon's
they received modest critical praise. It Franklin in September 1785, and Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale, Collection robed figure stands motionless and
was at the Salon of 1771, however, that stayed three weeks in order to Deloynes, 1769; I'avant-courcur. Paris, introspective, without attributes, his

256 SCULPTURE
 arms folded across his chest, and his

eyes lowered. Contemporary critics

praised the figure for embodying the
humility, faith, and vow of silence
associated with the Carthusian order.
Avoiding all narrative detail, Houdon
has distilled these qualities in his
monumental figure of the saint.
From the memoirs of a fellow
student at the French Academy, Johann
Christian von Mannlich,it is known

that in 1766 Houdon was studying

anatomy by dissecting corpses under
the tutelage of a French professor of
surgery named Seguier at S. Luigi dei

Francesi in Rome (see Johann

Christian von Mannlich, Histoirede ma
vie [Trier: Spee, 1989], vol. 1, pp. 260,
269). From these studies he composed
his famous Ecorchi, which served as a
model for the statue of Saint John the
Baptist and the head of which also
served as a model for the head of Saint
Bruno. One senses the body of the
saint under his heavy robes, and the
ideal proportions of the figure, as well
as his pose recall those of famous clas-
sical statues familiar to Houdon, such
as the Antinous in the Museo
Capitolino. The style of the Saint Bruno,
which was the result of the sculptor's
close study of anatomy combined with
an equally careful study of classical
prototypes, was to characterize all

of Houdon's later work.

Two small terracotta statuettes in
Hamburg (see Christian Theuerkauff
and Lise Lotte Moller, eds., Die Bildwerke

des 18. jahrhunderts [Braunschweig,

Germany: Klinkhardt & Biermann,
l 977], PP- 280-83, nos. 164-65) have
been attributed convincingly to
Houdon and seem to be preliminary
studies for the figure of Saint
Bruno.
Inone the saint is depicted holding an
open book, and in the other his hands
are clasped in front of him in a slightly
more active pose as he looks down to
his right. The plaster here, which is

virtually identical to the marble, is

simpler and more columnar in com-

position, and the saint, who has his
eyelids lowered in contemplation, is

conceived to fit quietly into the space

of a niche.
It is possible that the reduced
plaster version of the Saint Bruno that
Houdon exhibited at the Salon of
1769, following his return to Paris,
is identical with this version. Other
examples of his work from the Roman
years were shown at that Salon (Reau
1964, vol. 1, p. 26), and of them four are
in the collection of the court of Saxe-
Gotha. Perhaps when Houdon made
his second trip to Gotha in 1773 he
took the plasters of the four sculptures
with him. Eighteen plaster casts of
sculptures by him appear in the court
inventory of 1845, but their dates of
acquisition are not mentioned, and
earlier inventories have not survived.
[ALP]
PIERRE LEGROS II tiate of S. Andrea al Quirinale. The Algardi, but completely bypass his Gesu just a few years earlier. From an
PARIS 1666-1719 ROME luminous, almost sickly white of the immediate predecessors, Antonio engraving after an early design, it is

dying young saint's skin is paired with Raggi and Domenico Guidi, and only known that Pozzo provided the first

Pierre Legros must be considered deep black for his habit and striped occasionally take up compositional idea for the composition, but Legros
the most important French sculptor ocher for the bedcover. The highly motifs from Ercole Ferrata or felt free to alter it substantially. Taking
working in Rome during the last years polished marbles strike the visitor, Melchiorre Cafa. inspiration from the Saint Catherine of
of the seventeenth and first two who approaches the recumbent figure With Jean-Baptiste Theodon and Magnapoli relief by Melchiorre Cafa
decades of the eighteenth century. without any barriers, simultaneously Pietro StefanoMonnot, Legros was from 1667, Legros united Pozzo's sepa-
Much like his compatriot Nicolas as shockingly realistic and strangely one of the prominent and influential rated elements — the statue of the
Poussin two generations earlier, Legros removed. members of the French school of saint, the upper and the lower groups
came to Rome to study but ended up Legros's statue of Cardinal Girolamo sculptors that held sway in Rome until of angels — into a single, monumental
settling there for good. He became, for Casanate (1706-8; Biblioteca the definite reestablishment of Roman marble picture. In the terracotta, as in
all intents and purposes, a Roman Casanatense, Rome) ushered in a new hegemony under Camillo Rusconi and the marble, the young saint, rising up
sculptor, although his works reveal his type of sculptural full-length portrait his students. The fact that Legros was tall and slender, dominates the scene,
French roots. Legros arrived in Rome whose grand, elongated figure has been never patronized by Clement XI Albani, although his head is modestly bowed.
in 1690, after having received his first compared to paintings by Philippe de who favored Rusconi, is indicative of His quiet, introverted meditation,
training in France from his father, Champaigne (Nava Cellini 1982, p. 10), the pope's deliberate support of a emphasized by his hands pressed to
Pierre Legros 1, a capable, though not but whose relaxed authority and self- native artist over a foreign-born one, his heart, stands in marked contrast
outstanding member of the team of confidence bespeaks the greater infor- in spite of the latter's proven abilities to the swirling clouds and busily
sculptors decorating Versailles. The mality of the eighteenth century and and success. Legros's rarified surface engaged angels and putti. The lower
younger Legros attended the inspired Giovanni Battista Maini's aesthetic had no lasting following in group, which provides a kind of base
Academie Royale in Paris and was Cardinal Ncri Corsini (1733-34; Corsini Rome but was promulgated in France, for the saint to kneel on, has as its

sent as a pensionnaire to Rome to com- Chapel. St. John Lateran). Legros was for example by his student Guillaume main protagonist a prominent larger
plete his education. His extraordinary one of only three sculptors invited to Coustou. Modifying the Roman angel in the lower left, holding a lily

talent was soon recognized, and he createmore than one statue for the Baroque, Legros's unusual and brilliant (his arm is missing in the terracotta).

garnered notable commissions, for great Apostles series in St. John works constitute an interlude in early His glance and gesture are recipro-
example in 1695 the large marble Lateran. Unlike most of the others eighteenth-century Rome that heralds cated by his counterpart in the upper
group Religion Overthrowing Heresy for involved, neither Legros's Saint Thomas, the sensibilities of the Rococo, [sw] group, who holds a wreath of flowers
the Chapel of S. Ignazio in the Gesu, (1705-11), nor his Saint Bartholomew, bibliography Enggass 1976, vol. 1. (also broken in the terracotta). The
the mother-church of the Jesuits in (1705-12), derive from drawings by pp. 124-48, and vol. 2, figs. 93-146; Nava two angels form part of a long diago-
Rome. Perhaps Legros's best-known the supervising painter Carlo Maratti, Cellini 1982, pp. 9-12; Souchal 1993, vol. 2,
nal that visually connects the ends of
work, it conveys the dramatic narra- underscoring the sculptor's reputa- pp. 273-99. and vol. 4, pp. 145-50: Bissell the tall relief and leads the viewer's eye
1997
tive of a painting or relief, although tion and independence. For large, offi- to concentrate on the saint in the
it lacks a background. The figures, cial works, such as the Lateran center. Indicated in the terracotta but
arranged on a sharp diagonal, are not Apostles, Legros employed a rhetori- even more apparent in the marble are

just statues on huge

a pedestal: the cal grandeur and overt pathos related 132 the different surface textures that
personifications of Hatred and Heresy to Bernini and other Baroque masters, Legros employed with great mastery.
Pierre Legros II
tumble over architectural elements but most of his statues exude a more The entire figure of Saint Luigi, in his
rather than being supported by them, restrained, intimate, even introverted Saint Luigi Gonzaga in Glory simple, unadorned habit, was given
while the putto ripping leaves from a attitude with sweet faces and large, such a gleaming polish that he stands
c. 1699
heretical book braces it against a con- heavy-lidded eyes that belong to the Terracotta
out in startling white against the more
veniently located volute. In 1697 Legros spirit of the new century. 34" x 16" (86.4 x 40.6 cm)
roughly stippled clouds and less shiny

won the competition for the life-size Beginning with his early Pius V
provenance Bartolomeo Cavaceppi,
angels. This makes the viewer experi-
silver statue of Saint Ignatius above the on His Deathbed (1697-98; S. Maria Rome, before 1791; Villa Torlonia, Rome, ence the heavenly radiance that illu-

altar of the same chapel with a model Maggiore) and Saint Luigi Gonzaga in by 1802: Kurt Glaser, Berlin; Schaeffer minates the saint's body as a symbol
chosen among twelve rival entries. Glory (1698-1700; S. Ignazio), Legros's Galleries. Inc.. New York of his inner purity. In his statue-cum-
The artist's brilliant career continued reliefs must have astonished contem- exhibition Detroit 1965. cat. no. 61 pictorial relief Legros effectively com-
with an uninterrupted succession of poraries. The Pius is a very shallow bibliography Richardson 1942; bined features of both sculpture and
substantial and innovative works that relief in glittering gilt bronze with a Cummings, Frederick J., and Charles H. painting (Bissell 1997, p. 45), an
covered all categories of sculpture. largely linear, yet extraordinarily pow- Elam. eds. The Detroit Institute of Arts achievement that his contemporaries
Illustrated Handbook. Detroit: Wayne State
Among his large single figures, the erful depiction of the deceased, while greatly admired, as is proven by
University Press. 1971, p. 113; Kerberi97i,
Saint Dominic, 1701-6, in St. Peter's the Saint Luigi pushed pictorial effects numerous copies on paper and in
p. 184; Enggass 1976, vol. 1, p. 135; Contardi
and, even more so, the Saint Francis in sculpture to new limits. In the Tobit
1991, p. 39:Souchal 1993. vol. 2, p. 282,
sculpture (references compiled in the
Xavier, 1702, in S. Apollinare show an Lending Money to Gabael (1702-5; no. 10b; Barberini and Gasparri 1994, curatorial files of the Detroit Institute
approach to composition that was chapel of the Monte di Pieta) and the pp. 130-31, fig. 118; Contardi 1996. of Arts).
fundamentally different from that of late Saint Francis of Paola Interceding jor pp. 96-114; Bissell 1997, p. 45, n. 3, The Detroit terracotta documents a
preceding or contemporary Italians. the Sick (1716-19; S. Giacomo degli cat. no. 10A particular stage in the typical process
Legros conceived his figures less Incurabili) the narrative remains effec- The Detroit Institute of Arts. Founders of creating a large marble relief.

anatomically — from the inside out, complex composi-

tive despite the
Society Purchase, General Membership
Fund
Expensive and complex, such a work
so to speak — but rather in the reverse tions with numerous figures. In the required careful deliberations, espe-
direction. Keeping the poses simple Tobit relief the actions of the protago- cially when more than one artist was
and natural, he invested most of his nists in the foreground remain clear This terracotta represents a prepara- involved. As mentioned above, Pozzo
creative energy in the surface, the amid rich draperies, detailed furnish- tory model for one of Legros's most prescribed the basic parameters of the
sculptural "skin," which he chiseled ings, and other decorative elements. innovative early works, the Saint Luigi work, which Legros would have refined
into extremely subtle patterns, The detailed and minutely modeled Gonzaga in Glory. The large marble relief in a series of sketches. A drawing in the
ranging from small, flickering patches physiognomies of the figures in the forms the centerpiece of the Lancellotti Musee du Louvre (Inv. 30495) is dis-

to large, deep zones of light and dark. Saint Francis relief are particularly Chapel in the right transept of the puted among scholars as to its attribu-

While this surface sensibility and love expressive and moving, as is the soft Jesuit church of S. Ignazio. The tion to Legros (Kerbcr 1971, p. 184;
ol detail are essentially French, Legros flesh of an ailing child, which is con- painter-architect Andrea Pozzo, Contardi 1991, p. 26; Bissell 1997, p. 45.

also absorbed Bernini's models of the- trasted with the more sharply drawn himself a Jesuit, oversaw the design n. 1). An architectural model by Pozzo
atrical presentation and use of colored muscles of the adult sufferers. and construction between 1697 and of the entire chapel with a painted
marbles, for example, in his Saint Stylistically, Legros's reliefs owe more 1699, collaborating with Legros, as he rendition of the central relief is pre-
Stanislas Kostfea, 1702-3, in the novi- lo Bernini and especially Alessandro had on the altar of S. Ignazio in the served in Castel S. Angelo, Rome. In

SCULPTURE
 lection of Baroque models is known
to have owned this piece in the late
eighteenth century. That this master
of Neoclassicism thought so highly of
Legros's work is testimony to the
lasting fascination with his innovative,
proto-Rococo art. [sw]

GIOVANNI BATTISTA
MAINI
CASSANO MAGNAGO 1690-1752
ROME

Born in a small town in Lombardy,

Maini probably received his first train-

ing in Milan, before entering the studio

of Camillo Rusconi; he lived with his
teacher (together with Giuseppe
Rusconi) from 1709, and the contract
of 1721 for Camillo's altar of St. Jean-
Francois de Regis in Madrid specified
that, in the event of his death, it

should be completed by either Maini

or Giuseppe Rusconi. On his marriage
in 1725 to Margarita Scaramucci,
Maini moved to his own house (where
Filippo della Valle lived with him until
he too married). Rusconi's influence
was profound, and Maini adopted
many of Rusconi's mannerisms, such
as his liking for broad planes and
drapery stretched over outreaching
arms, and followed his modified
Baroque style, which owed more to
Algardi than to Bernini.
Maini's first known work, the
angels, putti, and glory over the high
altar of S. Agnese in Rome (contract

1724), was designed by the architect

Domenico Calcagni, and F. S.
Baldinucci stated that Camillo Rusconi
designed Maini's tomb of Innocent X
same church, completed in 1729,
in the

though this is improbable. By 1730,

when the authorities in Foligno com-

missioned Maini to provide the model
for the gilt-bronze and silver statue of
their patron Saint Feliciano for the
him "the fore-
cathedral, they called
most sculptor in Rome" (M. Faloci
Pulignani, / priori dclla Cattedrale di

Foligno [Perugia, Italy, 1914], p. 332).

Camillo Rusconi was to have made-
stucco emblems of the Evangelists in
the pendentives of the Accademia di

S. Luca's church of Ss. Luca e Martino:

after his death in 1^28 Giuseppe
Rusconi followed his model for the
Saint Matthew, and this, or Camillo's
drawings, provided the basis for
132 Maini's Saint John and Saint /.nice, and
Dclla Valle's Saint Mark. Pietro Bianchi
consultation with the painter-designer, only minor deviations from the final Smaller sculptural works, such as provided designs for several sculptors,
Legros would have prepared a number work, and the unusual scalloped shape this terracotta were avidly sought by and is said to have made that for
of wax or terracotta bozzetti, smaller, of the terracotta which corresponds to fellow artists, who kept them in their Maini's Saint Francis oj Paolfl among ( he
quick, three-dimensional sketches, that of the executed relief. The modcllo in models by admired masters
ateliers as statues of the Founders ol Religious
none of which appears to survive. grandc, a large-scale prool in plaster or and tools for study and inspiration. Orders along the nave ol St. Peter's,
These would have culminated in a stucco, was the last step before carving Only in (he eighteenth and nineteenth completed in 1732. But normally Maini
modcllo that represented the agreed- the marble, for the Saint Luigi relief it centuries did they begin to be seen as designed his own work, and his inven-
upon, more or less final composition. still exists in the Ccreria of S. [gnazio works of art and became connoisseurs' tive capacity can be judged from his
That this piece is in fact such a modello and was used to test lighting effects collectibles. The sculptor Bartolomeo many line drawings, mainly in private
is proven by its finished surface, the and correct perspectival distortions. ( avaceppi. who amassed a huge col- collections.

SCULPTURE 259
 Four statues for the church of Mafra,
.Saint Gabriel (1751) and Saint Michael

(1732), Saint Clare and Saint Elizabeth of

Hungary, established Maini's reputation

in Portugal. By the early 1730s he had
completed his stuccos for the altar of
Saint Francis of Paola in S. Andrea delle

Fratte in Rome. In 1733 he signed the

contract for his best-known work, the
tomb of Cardinal Neri Corsini in
St. John Lateran; the figure of the car-
dinal is indebted to paintings such as
Philippe de Champaigne's Cardinal
Richelieu, and the figure of Religion
beside him owes much to Camillo
Rusconi's tomb of Leo XIII. Maini also
made the model for the bronze figure
of Clement XII on his tomb in the same
Corsini Chapel, and, in the portico of
the basilica, a relief of Saint john
Preaching. From 1734 to 1737 he produced
his second statue for the nave of
St. Peter's, Saint Philip Neri, this time
certainly from his own design.
From 1734 dates Maini's involvement
with the Trevi Fountain. Disputes with
the architect Niccolo Salvi, the deaths
of popes, and shortage of funds
dragged the work on until after Maini's
death, when his work was abandoned,
to be replaced by remarkably similar
statues of Oceanus and a pair of Tritons
with their seahorses by Pietro Bracci.
By 1741-43 Maini was one of many
sculptors employed on the facade of
S. Maria Maggiore in Rome (Virginity

and Saint Cclasius Burning the Heretical

I

Books), and in 1742 he made the stucco

decoration for the altar in the left

transept of the cathedral in Civita

Castellana, surmounted by almost
slinky personifications of Faith and
Charity. In 1744 he began his extensive
work for Lisbon: the models for a
1

bronze relief of the Virgin ana Child and

a silver Virgin of the Immaculate

Conception for the destroyed Patriarcate,

and models for some of the silver altar
furniture for the church of S. Roque.
For Rome, he made the Angels over
the altar in the right transept of
S. Maria della Scala (before 174s) and
probably in 1745-46 the stucco altar
and allegorical reliefs in the Ristretto
degli Angeli of the oratory of the
Caravita. He modelled the stucco
Annunciation in the dome of the
SS. Nome di Maria (1746) and the 133

stuccos of the altar of Saint Anne in

S. Andrea delle Fratte (begun 1749). In (largely destroyed) and in the same prises, but his contributions stand Bracci, but his manner was carried on
1749 he contracted to make the tomb year signed the contract for the marble out for their originality, sometimes by pupils such as Pietro Pacilli and. in

of Scipione Santacroce in S. Maria in relief of the Death of the Virgin for the showing little interest in spatial his earlier works, Innocenzo Spinazzi.
Publicolis, which was finished in the decoration of the Chigi Chapel in the norms, and reducing the setting to a [JM]
following year. From 1750 dates the cathedral of Siena (terracotta in Berlin). few symbolic elements (as in the Death bibliography Golzioi91i; Riccoboni
seated statue of Pope Benedict XIV in the Other works, some destroyed, some of the Virgin in Siena). The simplified 1942; Colombo 1966; Colombo 1967;

convent of S. Agostino, and the stucco at least projected, are attested to by his planes of his draperies are broken by Fleming and Honour 1967: Colombo 1968;
decoration in the vault and transepts drawings, and, like all sculptors of the sharply angular folds, or are set bil-
Lavallc 1981, pp. 276-504; Nava Cellini 1982,

pp. 54-56: Montagu 198s, pp. 587-88;

of St. by the windows of the
Peter's, time, Maini made copies of ancient lowing out against the laws of nature
Montagu 1995; F.nggass 199s, pp. 425-58;
nave, and on the inner facade; two gilt marbles for British Grand Tourists, such (as in the Annunciation in SS. Nome di
Montagu 199s, pp. 586-90; Montagu 1996:
stucco reliefs in (he grotto below the as the Callipigian Venus at Wentworth Maria or Cclasius I in S. Maria Montagu 1996, "Statue"; Rocchi Coopmans
high altar were probably also made for Woodhouse (Lngland) of 1749-50. Maggiore). Maini was possibly less do Yoldi 1996, pp. 5S9-64; Marchionne
the holy year. In 1748 he sent a marble Also typical of the lime was Maini's successful, and certainly less well (aimer 1997
statue of Charles III lo Monlecassino involvement in collaborative enter- known than his younger rival Pietro

260 SCULPTURE
 E

Minims. The stucco is to the left of the tion of omnicompetence that was about 1750. By then Alessandro Galilei
133
window in the arch over the altar; on more widespread in the Renaissance was dead, and Luigi Vanvitelli and
Giovanni Battista Maini the right is Pietro Bracci's stucco relief and Baroque periods, he eschewed Ferdinando Fuga had left for Naples.

The Archangel Michael of the three crowns that were seen over specialization: he was painter, sculp- Having worked for years for the Albani
the head of the kneeling saint during tor, architect, scenographer, designer, family, he was a natural choice as
Presenting the Shield Inscribed
mass. The archivault above is covered and a draftsman of the highest order. architect of the new villa built for
"Charitas" to Saint Francis of with heavy decorative stuccowork, His six hundred ormore surviving Cardinal Annibale Albani. The design-
incorporating cherubim that may well drawings run the gamut from archi- ing of the Pallazinawas begun in 1755,
Paola
have been modeled by Maini. Over the tectural ground plans, elevations, and the interior decorations were
After 1728 altar-frame is a group of five cherubim designs for sculpture, plans for festive completed by 1762. It has often been
Terracotta supporting the Cross: the clouds, three events, to landscape sketches, carica- pointed out that Marchionni may have
The extensive and serious cracks have been stucco cherubim, and one cherub head tures, even calling cards. He studied been in some ways the least appropri-
restored for the exhibition.
are Maini's own figures, but for the two under the architect Filippo Barigione ate architect for Cardinal Albani, whose
2lY»" x 17" (57 x 43 cm) (who also provided designs to sculp-
holding the Cross he incorporated, and love and knowledge of antiquity are
BIBLIOGRAPHY Golzio 19!?. PP- 33> S'i
presumably completed, two unfinished tors) and won the first prize for archi- nowhere reflected in the actual design
Riccoboni 1942. P- 287;
Fleming and
marble putti by Bernini that had tecture in the Concorso Clementino at of the villa. However, there are numer-
Honour 1967. pp. 255, 258; Rocchi
remained in the family after the sculp- the Accademia di S. Luca in 1728. His ous decorative touches on the interior
Coopmans de Yoldi 1996. p. 359
Rome tor's death, and which were still there prize-winning drawing shows an that are inspired by ancient Roman,
Accademia Nazionale di San Luca.
in 1731 (see Marchionne Gunter 1997). arcaded belvedere arranged as a hemi- Greek, and Egyptian sources, and if

The frame of the altarpiece (a standing cycle or exedra that anchors a port- Marchionni had any role in the design-
On August 8, 1728, Maini was elected figure of the titular saint) is supported side piazza. This may have captured ing of the two Greek temples (one of
to the Accademia di S. Luca, together by two gilt stucco angels, also by Maini. the attention of Cardinal Annibale which was built as a ruin), then he was
with Giuseppe Rusconi and Giacomo The chapel of Saint Francis of Paola, Albani, who used Marchionni as the satisfying the taste for the antique.

Cioli. On September 5 all three took in the right transept of the church, architect of a seaside villa at Anzio. In the 1770s Marchionni held
the customary oath, and Rusconi and was built between 1726 and 1736, to Marchionni's sculptural activity several positions with the Fabric of

Cioli presented a terracotta and an the designs of Filippo Barigioni, with was mostly restricted to the years St. Peter's. First he was Architetto
architectural drawing as their respec- the active support of the undersac- 1730-48. He was not of the caliber of Revisore (an architectural "auditor"
tive reception pieces; Maini, however, ristan, Fra Giulio Casali. In 1749 Casali Delia Valle, Bracci, or Maini; nor did or reviewer of projects), and chief
"not having any model," was allowed was to initiate the altar of Saint Anne he compete with them. Although the architect in 1773. There he undertook
six months to provide one (Rome, in the opposite transept, where Maini corpus of his sculptural production is the daunting task of building a sac-
Archivio dell'Accademia Nazionale was responsible for all the stucco in fairly slight, his relief of the Lateran risty. Because of the great scale of the
di S. Luca, Congregazioni, vol. 49, the arch above, which follows the Council of 1725 (cat. 134) demonstrates adjacent basilica, Marchionni had to
fol. 37V). There appears to be no same general design. both a remarkable facility in the make a monumental statement in a

record of his doing so, but this terra- No documentation recording the arrangement of a complex relief nar- building that does not normally
cotta has always been assumed to be history of the construction of the altar rative and significant skills in cutting require much size or grandeur. The
the reception piece that, presumably, of Saint Francis of Paola has been pub- marble. In addition to collaboration main part of the building is a large,
he did present, since he remained in lished; nor did Bracci include his com- on the tomb of Benedict XIII, he domed octagon, with subsidiary
good standing in the academy, and panion stucco relief in the diary of his designed the architecture for the spaces clustered about the center.
even became its Principe in 1746. sculptures, which lists only those in tomb of Cardinal Gian Giacomo Millo Since the papacy of Clement XII,
The wording of the entry, "II S.r marble and bronze. While it is normal (1760; sculpture by Pietro Pacilli) for there had been considerable work
Gio. Batta Maini, non avendo alcun to begin the decoration of an altar the church of S. Crisogono, statuary carried outon the harbor at Ancona.
modello . . .
,"
suggests that, rather from the top, in this case it may have for the facade of S. Maria Maggiore, Clement felt that he could improve the
than make something special for the been prudent to postpone the stucco a half-figure of Benedict XIV for papal economy by making Ancona a
academy, newly elected members modelling over the altar until the S. Croce Gerusalemme, a figure of
in free port. He largely succeeded in cre-
would give a previous work basic building work had been com- Saint Ignatius for S. Apollinare, and ating the port and renewing the urban
(Congregazioni, vol. 49, fol. 37V). pleted. If so, this might explain why busts of Founders (c. 1745) in the fabric nearby, but as an economic
In this case, the terracotta is closely themodel was available only after Collegio di Propaganda Fide (all in strategy it was a disaster. Natural
related to the stucco half-lunette over August 1728. Rome). He also sent outside of Rome resources departed by the port, and
the chapel of St. Francis of Paola in Stylistically, it is clearly an early reliefs showing the life of the Virgin wool, leather, and silk —goods that
S. Andrea delle Fratte in Rome; indeed, work, with none of the eccentricities (1747) for the chapel of S. Roque in directly competed with Italian pro-
apart from the angels at the upper left that mark Maini's fully developed Lisbon and a statue for the chapel of duction — entered, free of tax.
and the tree just below them, filling manner, and which are so evident in the Madonna del Voto (1748) in Siena. Nonetheless, once the harbor at

the area added to the composition to the stuccos of the opposite transept. Marchionni was perhaps more at Ancona became busy, it needed atten-
turn it into a rectangle (in the stucco The composition has been compared ease in his smaller constructions than tion. Marchionni worked on the
the rays from the shield overlap the to Camillo Rusconi's relief of Saint in the larger ones. The half-figure of wharf and other architectural projects
frame), it would seem to correspond Jean-Francois de Regis in Madrid, and the Benedict XIII (S. Croce in in Ancona off and on throughout the
almost exactly. The only other notice- easy flow of the composition and the Gerusalemme), who seems to be later years of his career, including the
able differences from the stucco are broad planes of the drapery are emerging from his own pedestal, at church of S. Domenico (1763-86). and
the smaller proportions of Saint derived from Rusconi, but the curling first seems an ungainly and unlikely after his death, his son Filippo carried
Michael, and the position of the three end of the angel's robe at the right is a presentation of a blessing pope. His on the projects into the next century.
infant angels on the ground, who are more personal touch. It is modeled over life-size figure of Saint Ignatius Although he was connected to the
slightly further to the right in the throughout with great sureness, and (S. Apollinare) is more successful and grand tradition ol the Baroque through
stucco. Most probably this is a copy the high degree of finish in many of is reminiscent of figures by such his apprenticeship with Barigioni (who
derived from the models Maini must the details does not lessen its lively French sculptors active in Rome in was a student ol Carlo Fontana and
have made for the relief. spontaneity. |jm] the early eighteenth century as Pierre Mattia de Rossi, both disciples of
This represents the miraculous Lcgros and Michel-Angc Slodtz. Bernini). Marchionni spent most ol Ins
appearance of Saint Michael (to whom Marchionni's sculptural style is some- artistic career in the centurv ol good
Saint Francis of Paola was particularly CARLO MARCHIONNI where between the refinement and taste and, eventually. Neoclassicism.
devoted), bearing a radiant shield elegance ol the francese and the weight- both and
ROME 1702-1786 ROM In his architec ture Ins s< ulp-
inscribed with the word Charitas ier late Baroque style of Camillo ture hecompromised among the
("Charity"), which the saint was Carlo Marchionni was an unusual Rusconi. various modes open to him. creating a
instructed to take as his own emblem, eighteenth-century Roman artist Marchionni labored in the shadow not unpleasant melange ol styles. I ike
and that of the order he founded, the because he did everything. In a tradi- of more successful architects until many other half-forgotten artists, his

sculptori:
 —

H4

talents outstripped his accomplish- human deceit was nearly absolute. He lectual level of the listeners, and on arrangement and architectural setting
ments, yet he left behind an interesting left the management of papal affairs the necessity of annual visits by for the tomb of Benedict XIII. Pietro

body of works that deserves further to Cardinal Niccolo Coscia, infamous bishops to their dioceses. Benedict is Bracci sculpted the marble portrait of
study within the circumstances of a for his perfidiousness and cunning (he also shown discoursing on the choice Benedict and the allegorical figure
complex period of shifting values and was excommunicated and imprisoned and quality of vicarigenerali —the of Religion (on the left). Bartolomeo
power structures, [vhm] by Benedict's successor Clement XII deputies of bishops —and on the just Pincellotti made the figure of Humility

bibliography Berliner 1958-59; Gaus [De Caro 1966]). distribution of benefices and housing who turns modestly away from the
1967; Polichetti 1975: Gambardella 1979; Nonetheless, Benedict recognized for priests, the keeping of inventories, pope, while trampling a crown and
Cousins 1981; Hager 1981; Roettgen 1982; human vanity when he saw it, and the proper life of an ecclesiastic, the embracing a lamb. Although
Arcangeli 1985; Debenedetti 1988; Garms railed against the worldliness of the and the
sanctification of festivals, Marchionni's relief received more
1992; Kieven 1996
clergy. With much from the
resistance need for provincial and pastoral coun- attention in the eighteenth-century
elegant cardinals, he forbade them wigs cils every three years. The participants Roman press, today Bracci's figure
(their perukes, he objected, hid the (although there were thirty-three car- tends to attract more attention. It is an
134 tonsure). In 1725, once again against dinals present, and eighty other eccle- exceptionally unflattering yet deeply
the wishes of the cardinals, he called siastical dignitaries, Marchionni moving image of a pope who is half
Carlo Marchionni
the provincial council, depicted here, shows mostly bishops) were certainly kneeling but fully enraptured by his
The Lateran Provincial Council seeking to clarify and reassert the thoroughly lectured during the two devotions. His right hand pushing
duties of bishops and parish priests. and a half months of the council; they into his heart intensifies the pope's
of 1725
Benedict was known for his stub- also received, as recompense for their trance-like emotional state. In a spiri-
1737 bornness, which is evident in the dutiful attendance, a personal indul- tual sense, he is far removed from the
Signed: C Mar Arch s Roma je Anno 1737 details of the relief. The conference gence from the pope and the right of immediate spaces surrounding him.
Patinated stucco report reveals that the opening dis- a funeral in the cathedral of Rome, Cardinal Alessandro Albani (in
Height 18X" (48 cm): top measurement course lasted up to three quarters of St.)ohn Lateran. whose household Marchionni was
51//' (138 cm); bottom measurement 39"
an hour (Diario del Concilio romano ccle- Although there is little likelihood employed) and Duke Domenico of
(99 cm)
brato 1725 [Rome, 1728]). Marchionni's that Marchionni attended the council, Gravina, the pope's nephew, absorbed
provenance exhibited with the completed
relief represents both the opening we know in fact there was an artist the expenses and oversaw the designs
monument in the chapel of S. Domenico,
speech, and in proleptic form, all sub- present, Pier Leone Ghezzi (Thieme and construction of the funerary
S. Maria sopra Minerva from 1737 until
1739; Palazzo Orsini; Orsini sale, Galleria
sequent addresses and sermons. The and Becker, vol. 13, p. 540). Like monument. The preparatory model for
S. Giorgio, Rome, 1896, no. 429 sculptor stressed the pope's demure- Marchionni, Ghezzi was an inveterate the tomb was in place by 1733 (Chracas,

bibliography Chracas. Diario Ordinario ness by showing his head lowered, but sketcher,one who made some of the Diario Ordinario di Roma, August 11,
diRoma, August 11, 1736, no. 2969; Chracas, with Benedict's rising hand there can most entertaining and revealing cari- 1736, no. 2969); by 1737 the work was
Diario Ordinario di Roma, August 10, 1737, be little doubt that the bishops and catures and portraits of the eighteenth- completed, except that Marchionni
no. 3124; Chracas, Diario Ordinario di Roma, cardinals received his message. century Roman cast of characters. He inserted this stucco relief in the space
February 28. 1739, no. 3365; Domarus 1915,
Marchionni introduced a remarkable completed a painting (now lost) of the intended for the marble version
pp. 19-21; Gradara Pesci 1920. pp. 35-37,
degree of detail into the relief so that Provincial Lateran Council of 1725 (Chracas, Diario Ordinario di Roma,
99-100; Gaus 1967, pp. 132-35; Nava Cellini

1982, pp. 52-54 the observer can read gestures and (probably for Cardinal Lercari, August 10, 1737, no. 3124). Nearly two
Private collection
expressions and conjecture the reac- Benedict's Secretary of State; Pascoli years went by before Marchionni
tions to Benedict's commands. The 1730-36, vol. 2, p. 206), and it seems completed the slightly larger redaction

sculptor also demonstrated his skill highly likely that Marchionni con- of the relief, now in marble. Thus the
Pietro FrancescoVincenzo Maria at rilicvo schiacciato, "crushing" the sur- sulted it for his relief (Lercari was one stage was set for the ceremonies
Orsini was pope from 1724 to 1730 faces so as to create a sense of impres- of those present at the dedication of attending the placing of Benedict's
with the name Benedict XIII. He died sionistic background detail and the funeral monument in 1739). body in its final resting place.

on February 21, and for a while word significant depth, one far greater than Marchionni captures that sense of the Chracas's Diario Ordinario records the
ol his demise was kept from Rome's the actual pitch of the relief. anecdotal that was also a hallmark jof service in some detail (Chracas, Diiirio

carnival revelers. When finally in the There were a number of good Ghezzi's history paintings. Ordinario di Roma, February 28, 1739.

evening of the same day his death was results from the council (see Pastor For a somewhat restricted and no. 3365). The journalist explains that
announced, the theaters emptied and 1938-53, vol. 34, pp. 162-64). New shallow space in the chapel of on that —
same day February 28 and —
everyone returned home, honoring guidelines were developed that per- S. Domenico in the church of S. Maria the same day of the week a Sunday —
the man perhaps more than his tained to the instruction of young sopra Minerva, Marchionni (perhaps six years earlier the body of Benedict

papacy. Although a prelate of great boys,on how sermons should be with the assistance of the painter had been brought from the Vatican and
humility and piety, his ignorance of adapted to the interests and the intel- Pietro Bianchi) designed the basic placed in a temporary tomb in the

62 SCULPTURE
 —

chapel of the Magdalen. Now, with his family for assistance, providing the tional, deeply religious style of the 135
the completion of Marchionni's relief initial terracotta models and retaining ageing master, as exemplified by
Giuseppe Mazzuoli
(which all of Rome "applauded"), the overall supervision of the execution Mazzuoli's Dead Christ and Kneeling

body could be put into its own tomb. (Butzek 1988; Butzek 1991). Angels, in S. Maria della Scala, Siena, Saint Philip
The earthly remains of Pope Benedict The sculptor kept equally busy in made in Rome about 1673, a late c. 1715
XIII await his salvation in a memorial Rome, although he usually contributed Baroque model frequently copied well Marble
far more lavish than anything he to larger projects as a subcontractor, into the eighteenth century (Schlegel
Height joX" (78 cm)
would have wished. The stucco modello rather than as the main responsible 1978, p. 73). In spite of their often com- provenance Prince-Bishop )ohann
was then presented to the Orsini artist. In this manner he created, for heavy proportions,
plicated stance, Philipp von Greiffenclau, Wurzburg, about
family, who kept it in their Roman example, the large marble figure of and voluminous garb, the broad and 171s; Pickert Collection, Nuremberg, before
palazzo until selling it at the end of Clemency, in about 1684, for the tomb sweetly smiling faces of Mazzuoli's 1912

the nineteenth century, [vhm] of Clement X in St. Peter's, designed female figures have crisply carved BIBLIOGRAPHY Pascoli [1730-36] 1965,
by Mattia de' Rossi, and, between 1678 edges and draperies that are deeply 2. p. 482; Brinckmann 1923-25, vol.
vol. 4.

p. 6, fig. 2; Schlegel 1967, fig. 3: Bott 1989

and 1690, provided the Saint John the excavated and break in sharp folds.
Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nurnberg
GIUSEPPE MAZZUOLI Baptist and Saint john the Evangelist Some see in his fine, if anachronistic,

VOLTERRA 1644-1725 ROME flanking the high altar of Gesu e Maria, late work a certain reflection of current
Rome, designed by Carlo Rainaldi. trends, such as a concern for decora- Although he rests his weight on his

Giuseppe Mazzuoli stemmed from a Very briefly, after the death of Ferrata tive, rather than expressive, considera- right leg, Mazzuoli's Saint Philip gives

distinguished Tuscan family of archi- in 1686, Mazzuoli was given the hon- tions in the design of the drapery (Nava the impression of impending dramatic

tects, sculptors, and artisans who orable task of instructing the students Cellini 1982, p. 8) and the use of increas- action. With his bent body and right

settled in Siena, and of which he was at Accademia Fiorentina in Rome,

the ingly hard, sharp curves (Schlegel arm stretching forward, he seems
the one to achieve the greatest fame. before it was closed in the same year. 1978, p. 73). The issue of defining intent to step not only on but over
He probably was initially trained in Around the turn of the eighteenth Mazzuoli's style is confused by the the vanquished dragon whose head he
Siena by his elder brother Giovanni century the sculptor created a number fact that he taught his Roman manner tramples underfoot. Yet in a counter-
Antonio (/I. before 1644-after 1706) of smaller works, including two pairs to his prolific family in Siena, so that point to this directional thrust, the
and participated in the busy work- of portrait busts of Pope Alexander the many smaller, unsigned works in long cross cradled in his left arm leans
shop manned by a number of his rela- VII and Cardinal Sigismondo Chigi, marble, plaster, and terracotta that away from him to the right and is
tives. Some time after the election in now in the Palazzo Chigi of Ariccia survive in Siena and collections world- firmly placed on the dead beast.
1655 of Pope Alexander VII, who also and the Vatican Library (c. 1680; see wide often pose intractable attribution Though cross and dragon are attributes
came from Siena as a descendant of Angelini 1995), a pair of Kneeling Angels problems. The pieces from the large specific to this saint, they would also

the powerful banking family of the for the main altar of S. Donato in Siena family workshop may range widely in have been read as a general symbol of
Chigi, Mazzuoli decided to make the (1695; see Draper 1994). as well as two quality, but they document the validity religious victory, Faith triumphing over
move to Rome. He hoped — correctly, terracotta reliefs with Scenes jrom the of Mazzuoli's late Baroque, which was Heresy, a common theme of the time.
as it turned out — to gain the protec- Life of Saint Galganus, made for Cardinal so influential in Siena and typical of Saint Philip's gaze down toward the
tion of his papal compatriot and was Flavio Chigi (1701; see Butzek 1993). the generalized, tempered Bernini lifeless monster and the open gesture
patronized above all by Alexander's The major documented works of style that was the norm in most of of his right hand convey wonder at his
nephew Cardinal Flavio Chigi. Mazzuoli's late phase fall into the last Europe for roughly the first half of the deliverance and invite the viewer to
Mazzuoli was certainly active in two decades of his life. In 170s, or eighteenth century, [sw] contemplate the evidence and impli-
Rome before 1667, as he is mentioned shortly thereafter, he was commis- Bibliography Suboff 1928; Pansecchi cations of this miracle. The
and rich
as having studied under the leadership sioned with his most prestigious inde- 1959: Schlegel 1967; Schlegel 1972; Salerno varied drapery adds further dynamic
of the short-lived but influential pendent work, the Saint Philip in the 1974, Cappella; Westin and Westin 1974; impulses to the already complex com-
Melchiorre Cafa in the large work- nave of St. John Lateran, which was Schlegel 1978, pp. 70-77; Nava Cellini 1982. position of the pose. One broad swath
shop of Ercole Ferrata (Schlegel 1978, completed by Maria pp. 7-9; Butzek 1988; Genitlini and Sisi,
creates a diagonal over the saint's
1715 (cat. 135). In S. left
1989, passim; Butzek 1991; Butzek 1993;
p. 70). Executing the personification in Campitelli, Rome, he contributed knee, designed to produce a greater, if
Draper 1994; Angelini 1995: Fagiolo
of Charity for the tomb of Alexander the fine, restrained portrait busts of dell'Arco and Petrucci 1998. pp. 80-84,
somewhat unmotivated, sense of
VII in St. Peter's (c. 1673-75) provided Prince Angelo Altieri and his wife, cat. nos. 16A. 16B movement. Another band flows over
Mazzuoli with the opportunity to Laura Carpegna, and four mourning the left shoulder and curls around the
work directly for Gianlorenzo putti for the family chapel in about stem of the cross in an adaptation of
Bernini, whose art and style he had 1709. For the grandiose and colorful the independently furling drapery of
already imbibed in Ferrata's studio. Rospigliosi-Pallavicini Chapel in Bernini's Saint Longinus in the Crossing
Although he resided mostly in S. Francesco a Ripa, Rome, designed of St. Peter's, which was certainly an
Rome, Mazzuoli continued to deliver by Nicola Michetti, Mazzuoli created important point of reference for
sculpture to his home town. In the late four stately seated personifications Mazzuoli (Enggass 1976, vol. 1, p. 40).
1660s and early 1670s he worked on Prudence and Charity. Strength, and Heavy folds ripple over the right arm
the decoration of the chapel of the Justice — flanking the two huge family and propped knee, while the high
Cross in S. Vigilio and three altars in funerarymonuments and dated forehead, deep set eyes, and wavy hair
S. Martino, Siena, at the behest of the between either 1710 or 1715 and 1719. and beard complete the impression of
De' Vccchi family, whose ancestors Two busts of Pope Clement XI and agitated pathos.
Pietro de'Vecchi and his wife, Giulia Pope Innocent XII in S. Cecilia in This sculpture faithfully copies the
Verdelli (d 1633), he portrayed in Trastevere, Rome, are attributed to much larger statue Mazzuoli carved
posthumous busts (Angelini 1995). him and dated 1723-25, but Mazzuoli's between 1705 and 1715 as part of the
During the decade between 1679 and final masterpiece is his large and grand series of Apostle figures deco-
1689 he completed a series of large complex figure of Charity in the chapel rating the niches of the nave of
marble Apostle figures for the nave of of the Monte di Pieta, Rome (1721-23), St. John Lateran. Like most of the
Siena Cathedral, which were removed which he signed a year before his other sculptors involved in this
in 1890 and are now installed at death, giving his age as seventy-nine project, Mazzuoli was supplied with .1

Brompton Oratory, London. This (Salerno 1974, Cappella). drawing by the painter Carlo Maratti.
group is remarkable for its date, which A comprehensive, analytical mono- who, together with the architect Carlo
precedes the better-known series in graph on the artist is still outstanding, Fontana, served as an artistic adviser
(he Lateran by roughly twenty years, but most scholars consider Mazzuoli to the committee of cleric-- overseeing
and given the fact that all the statues a last holdover of the Bernini school in the commission. However, as also can
can be attributed to one artist, but the early eighteenth century. His art be shown lor many of his colleagues.
Mazzuoli must have relied heavily on was shaped decisively by the emo- Mazzuoli was by then a senior, well-

SCU1 PTURE
 —

JEAN-GUILLAUME MOITTE In about 1782 Moitte was commis-

PARIS 1746-1810 PARIS sioned by the architect Pierre Rousseau
to execute statuary, bas-reliefs, and
Moitte ranks among the leading mon- ornaments for the Hotel de Salm-
umental sculptors in France during Kyrbourg (now the Palais de la Legion
the period 1780-1810. He obtained d'Honneur) in Paris. The following
patronage from each successive year, he was received as an agree (pro-
regime from Louis XVI to Napoleon I. visional member) of the Academie
Unfortunately, his public sculpture Royale in Paris; however, he never
reflected the political agendas of the submitted his marble reception piece,
and
ancien regime, the republic, A Sacrifice, and never became an acad-
Napoleon's empire. Works produced emician. In 1783 Moitte made his
for Louis XVI were destroyed in the debut at the Paris Salon with a plaster
revolution of 1789. His masterpiece, figure Orestes, a portrait bust of
the blatantly republican bas-relief The Madame Rousseau: Wife of the Architect,
Fatherland Crowning Virtue and Genius a terracotta bas-relief The Festival in
for the Paris Pantheon, was covered Honor of Pales, and the drawings Bacchic
over during the empire and demol- Pete and The Four Seasons. The critics
ished under the Bourbon restoration. observed that his bas-reliefs and draw-
His bas-relief The Fatherland Summoning ings proved the extent of his genius.
its Children to its Defense, destined for The 1780s proved to be a highly
Palaisdu Luxembourg during the productive decade for Moitte. His
directory, never proceeded beyond the commissions included stucco sculp-
plaster model. Moitte did fare tures of the Virgin and Child and Saint
extremely well during the empire in Rieul and ornaments for the choir of
terms of regular and extant commis- the cathedral at Senlis (1784); a marble
sions, ranging from the tomb of monument to Bossuet and Fenelon
General Desaix in the hospice of Grand for the Palais Peyrou at Montpellier
Saint-Bernard to the bas-relief History (model completed 1785; never exe-
Inscribing the Name of Napoleon for the cuted); statues and bas-reliefs for the
Cour Carree of the Louvre. With the notorious Barrieres (1784-87) of Paris
bicentennial of the French Revolution under the direction of the architect
in 1989, Moitte and his generation Claude-Nicolas Ledoux; and a marble
so long forgotten —came to be statue of the astronomer Dominic
reassessed and newly appreciated in Cassini for a prestigious royal com-
the wake of new scholarship. In 1993 mission for the Great Men of France
Gisela Gramaccini published her series (1788), intended to be installed
definitive and comprehensive cata- in the Louvre.
135 logue raisonne (Gramaccini 1993). Apart from his sculptural ceuvre,
The artist was the son of the profes- Moitte was a brilliant and prolific
established artist and appears to have token of gratitude from the supervis- sional engraver and Royal Academician draftsman. He provided revolutionary
taken broad liberties with Maratti's ingcommittee or the sculptor himself. Pierre-Etienne Moitte and his wife, and much admired designs for furni-
now lost design. The resulting statue There are two parallel cases known of Marie Vitray. In 1761 he entered the and ornaments for the
ture, vessels,
is from all of the rest of
quite different fine, small copies that may have been studio of Jean-Baptiste Pigalle. In 1768 goldsmith Henry Auguste, and exe-
the seriesand has much more in intended as presents to sponsors of he was awarded the prix de Rome for his cuted designs for prints of allegorical,
common with other works by the the large figures and are attributable bas-relief David Bearing the Head of mythical, and historical subjects. He
sculptor than with any by the painter. to the originating artists. One is the Goliath in Triumph, and subsequently also produced book illustrations for
As has been noted by other scholars, bronze Saint Andrew by Rusconi attended the Ecole des Eleves Fenelon's Les Aventures de Telemaque
Mazzuoli's composition —
not wholly (cat. 150), formerly in the collection of Proteges, under the tutelage of the (1785) and Racine's Thcbaicfe (1801)
successful in every respect — is an the bishops of Salzburg and now in sculptor Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne. In published by Didot. During the revo-
affirmation of late Baroque traditions the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna October of 1771 Moitte arrived at lution he designed ephemeral works
rooted in the works of Bernini, to (Johann Kronbichler, ed., Meisterwerke Rome, where he executed numerous for the various ceremonies, including
which Mazzuoli remained faithful europdischer Kunst: 1200 jahre Erzbistum drawings after such ancient monu- reliefs for an arch raised for the festival

throughout his career. In comparison, Salzburg [Salzburg, Austria: ments Arch of Titus, as well as
as the of the Federation in 1790, which
his Saint Philip seems oddly out of step Dommuseum zu Salzburg, 1998], statuary and artifacts but succumbed depict the destruction of the Bastille,

with the more progressive Apostle p. 184). The other is a marble version to a severe fever, brought on from the and the triumph of law. In 1794 the
statues of the younger Camillo of Saint Bartholomew, of comparable adverse effects of the warm Italian sculptor executed a drawing for a
Rusconi, Pierre Legros, and Pietro size to the Saint Philip, in the climate. This eventually led to a colossal statue in honor of the French
Stefano Monnot. Through its reduc- Metropolitan Museum of Art, New nervous breakdown, and Moitte was people, to be erected on the Pont-
tion in size and softer surface textur- York, which, in the light of the other constrained to abandon his beloved Neuf. Like so many projects during
ing, however, the statuette tones down two figures, may now be given with Rome and to return to Paris at royal this period, the statue was never pro-
the larger figure's somewhat lumber- greater confidence to Legros. A expense. There no documentation
is duced. Similarly, in 1794 Moitte ren-
ing grandeur and pathos. number of copies and adaptations for sculptural works during this first dered a terracotta model for a statue
Recent study has confirmed Lione of Mazzuoli's Saint Philip in terracotta Roman sojourn. Moitte was back in of Jean-Jacques Rousseau intended for

Pascoli's report that Mazzuoli himself and porcelain suggest the broader Paris by July 1773, where he gradually the Champs-Elysees; which never pro-
created the present copy for the impact and later influence of this recovered his health. At this time, he ceeded beyond Moitte's plaster model,
prince-bishop of Wurzburg around figure, and specifically this statuette, worked mainly in terracotta and now lost.
171s (Bott 1989). Johann Philipp von on German artists such as Johann produced a significant number of During the consulate and empire,
Greiffcni lau supplied the funds for Joachim Kandlerand Johann Peter drawings that reflect the most Moitte received many commissions,
the carving of the l.ateran statue — the Wagner (Bott 1989). [SW] progressive, classicizing aspect of including a marble bust of Leonardo da
Apostle is his namesake, it should be the Louis XVI style. In 1776 he became Vinci, a marble statue of General
noted — and probably received the a member of the Paris Academie t ustine, and a bas-relief for the tomb
smaller version as a memento or de St. Luc. of General Leclerc. Between 171)11 and

SCULP URL I
1798 Moitte returned to Rome in the
capacity of an arts commissioner
authorized to confiscate artistic mas-
terpieces for display at the Louvre.
In an obituary for Moitte, Antoine-
Chrystome Quatremere de Quincy,
the theorist, patron, and friend of the
artist observed: "At the very outset of
his career, Moitte distinguished
himself with a plethora of drawings
which simultaneously display his own
taste and also exude the air of antiq-

uity, of which he revealed himself a

disciple" (Quatremere de Quincy 1810,

pp. 495-96). [rjc]

bibliography Hubert 1964, Sculpture;
Herding 1973; Campbell R. 1982; Kleiner
1992; Gramaccini 199!

136
Jean-Guillaume Moitte
The Triumph of Titus
c. 1798
Terracotta

13/4" x 24" (35 x 61 cm)

provenance Heim Gallery. London;
Gallery Carrol, Munich; purchased by the
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1986
bibliography Herding 1973. p. 29;
Proschel 1977, no. 37; Campbell R. 1982,

p. 249, n. 69; Gramaccini 1993, vol. 2,

pp. 91-92. n. 217.1, 217.2

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art;

Gift of Camilla Chandler Frost

137
Jean-Guillaume Moitte
The Spoils from the Temple of
Jerusalem
c. 1798

Terracotta

13/4" x 24" (35 x 61 cm)

provenance Heim Gallery, London;
Galerie Carrol, Munich; purchased by the
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1979
exhibition Munich 1977, cat. no. 37
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art,
Purchased with funds provided by Camilla
Chandler Frost
137

Moitte's terracottas are copies of the 71.Titus, bearing Jupiter's scepter and through a triumphal arch en route to Freedom or Death (1795). The reliefs,

bas-reliefs the Triumph of Titus and the a palm branch, stands in a chariot Vespasian's Temple of Peace, where then attributed to Moitte, were in a
Spoils from the Temple ofJerusalem that drawn by four horses. He is flanked they were to be displayed. The temple private collection in London. The
adorn the central bay of theArch of by an allegory of Victory who crowns spoils include a golden, seven- attribution was confirmed in 1982.
Titus, situated on the Velia, the hill in him with a laurel wreath. The bare- branched lamp, an incense burner and based on stylistic similarities with a
the Roman Forum (see Pfanner 1983; chested Genius Populi Romani and an acacia-wood table overlaid with terracotta relief executed by Moitte in
Kleiner 1992, pp. 183-91). This tri- the toga-clad Genius Senatus accom- gold for the Sabbath shewbread and 1783, Festival in Honor of Pales, exhibited
umphal arch commemorates the con- pany the emperor on foot. (The the long trumpets that summoned the at the Paris Salon of the same year
quest of (udaea by the Emperor inscription on the attic of the arch faithful to prayer or battle. In the (Grammacini 1993. vol. 2, p. 19s.
Vespasian and his son Titus and the indicates that the monument was background two soldiers bear on fig. 103). The genre of the bas-relief

capture of Jerusalem in AD 70 by the erected by the people of Rome and poles tablets inscribed with the names was Moitte's forte; he was also a gifted
latter. It was erected in ad 81 during the the Senate in honor of the divine Titus, of the conquered cities of Judaea. draftsman. The Pales terracotta is mul-
reign of the Emperor Domitian. The son of the divine Vespasian). The These bas-reliefs of the Arch ol Titus tiplanar, rhythmically linear, and fun-
arch is located on the Via Sacra and the quadriga is led by the goddess Roma. are deemed masterpieces of Flavian damentally pictorial in conception.
reliefs arc oriented toward the Temple In the background, twelve lictors epoch sculpture. Significantly such "pictorial illusion-
of Jupiter on the Capitoline Hill —the bearing fasces escort the emperor. Herding described the reliefs as ism" has been traditionally asso( iated
destination of Roman conquerors. The second relief represents Roman exercises in sculpture comparable to with Flavian-era reliefs. Also, the ren-
The first relief depicts the triumphal soldiers carrying the sacred utensils, such "theses in painting" as David's dering ol the physiognomies with the
procession of the Emperor Titus in ad scizxd from the Temple of Jerusalem, Oalfi of the Horatii (1785) and Regnault's right-angle noses, the squarish leel

SCULPTURE
 and toes, and the crisp fastidious PIETRO STEFANO MONNOT Representing his monumental have completed for the recently
modeling of the drapery folds are con- BESANCON 1657-1733 ROME Saint Paul (1704-8; St. John Lateran), deceased Domenico Guidi. The huge,
sistent with Moitte's documented ter- as a preaching orator, Monnot experi- marble funerary monument again
racottas. Gramaccini compared the Of the three preeminent sculptors mented with gestures from ancient shows the earl and his wife in Roman
rendering of the bare-chested Genius in Rome at the beginning of the statues and drapery motifs from dress. They lie on a sarcophagus, but
Populi Romani in the Triumph of Titus eighteenth century — Pietro Stefano Renaissance and Baroque masters to are propped up on pillows and alert,
relief to figural drawings executed by Monnot, Pierre Legros II, and Camillo arrive at his own complex and highly as if in animated conversation. Lacking
Moitte during the 1790s, especially in Rusconi — Monnot is in many ways idiosyncratic solution. A sign of his any overt religious motifs, the memo-
the modeling of the thorax. the most interesting. Several factors high reputation, Monnot was called rial is constructed in front of a soaring
Moitte first came to Rome in 1771 as of his life and development as an artist to complete and execute the statue of pyramid and flanked by allegorical
a pensionnaire of the French Academy, did not fit the usual mold: unlike his Saint Peter, 1708-11,which had been figures of Minerva as Wisdom or
and diligently applied himself to contemporaries Jean-Baptiste left unfinished in the modeling stage Nobility and the Artsmourning the
drawing after the antique. A pen, ink, Theodon or Legros, Monnot was not by Theodon. Once more, Monnot was The compositional
loss of her patron.
and wash drawing after the relief on the educated in the royal academies in required to consult with the ageing formula of Monnot's Exeter tomb as
Ara Pacis Augustae in the collection Paris and Rome, but arrived in the city Maratti, although the true extent of well as numerous individual motifs
of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris, and in 1687, thirty years old and already a their collaboration is unclear. and poses had an enormously invigo-
a series dating 1772-73 of sanguine fully trained sculptor. He had been Nonetheless, the sculptor produced rating impact on eighteenth-century
studies of figures on Trajan's Column, taught first by his father, a successful one of the most commanding images English funerary sculpture and
conserved at the Musee Tavet, docu- woodcarver from Besancon, and con- of the "Prince of Apostles": combining inspired such artists as James Gibbs,
ment this phase of his activity tinued his studies with Jean Dubois, Baroque pathos and classical simplic- Peter Scheemakers, Michael Rysbrack,
(Grammacini 1993, vol. 2, pp. 168-69, the leading Baroque sculptor in Dijon, ity, the grand upward sweep of the and Henry Cheere (Walker S. 1995,
172-73, figs. 37, 40, 48-52). As noted before leaving for Rome. It is unclear saint's right arm, his powerful gaze, pp. 141-57)-
above, the effects of the climate debili- for or with whom Monnot may have and the rich repetition of deep parallel Monnot's career culminated in the

tated Moitte's health and hindered his worked initially, before he rose to curves in his robe and mantle became completion of a lifelong project close
execution of sculpture. public prominence in 1695, although exemplary for later, more classicizing to his heart, which involved a singular

Between 1796 and 1797 Moitte archive references and a few earlier, figures. series of large mythological statues
returned to Italy as an arts commis- signed and dated works prove that he Monnot was also an excellent por- after Ovid's Metamorphoses and other
sioner in the service of the French was patronized by Livio Odescalchi, traitist; however, his best works in this classical sources. The earliest works,
Ministry of the Interior. In the after- the nephew of Pope Innocent XI, and genre were sent or made abroad at the Leda and the Swan and Bacchus, date
math of Napoleon's victory at Areola was already fairly well-off financially behest of his two most important from 1692, but it took Monnot until

in 1796 and the subsequent treaty of before this date. foreign patrons. For John Cecil, 5th Earl 1714 finally to find a sponsor in
Tolentino in 1797, arts commissioners Without following in the footsteps of Exeter, he created the first entirely Landgrave Karl of Hesse-Kassel, who
followed in the wake of the French of any single older sculptor. Monnot romanizing bust in 1701, with a short, was willing to purchase and even
army to confiscate works of art in adapted artistic principles and motifs Caesarean haircut and cuirass which, expand the entire ensemble. Known
Italy to be transported back to Paris. from several different artists and com- displayed at Burghley House as the Marmorbad, or Marble Bath, a

By November 1796 Moitte had arrived
in Italy; he traveled to Turin, Milan,
and Modena and reached Rome by
April 1797. Works were seized from
the Capitoline and Vatican
Moitte also supervised the seizure and
packing of the Apollo Belvedere (Tutey
1910). It is known that Moitte
models of antiquities during
period (Campbell R. 1982). Moitte was
aided in this enterprise by the Italian
bined them with his own preferences (Lincolnshire), found wide imitation simple garden pavilion was trans-
to create a highly effective stylistic in England. Equally innovative was the formed by Monnot into a dazzling
synthesis according to the nature of matching portrait of Exeter's wife, proto-Rococo pantheon, creating a
the commission at hand. His exuber- Countess Anne, which shows her unique memorial for the Landgrave as
museums. ant Angels Holding the IHS Monogram, coiffed with long, curling tresses and a well as for himself. Working in Kassel
1695-97, over the central niche of the bun over a thin, belted chemise. In both for almost fourteen years, Monnot
altar of St. Ignatius in the Gesu, Rome, cases, Monnot balanced these classical decorated the interior of the small
made follow a design by Andrea Pozzo, but motifs with very sensitive and surpris- building at Schloss Orangerie with
this improve the prescribed basic pose ingly unidealized renditions of the pastel-colored marble incrustations
with the sculptor's own gentle, beatific faces. In 1714 the sculptor portrayed around a large octagonal (non-func-
facesand buoyant draperies. For his the Landgrave Karl of Hesse-Kassel tional) marble basin, twelve statue

marble cutter Mariano Giosi, a most prestigious commission, the and his wife, Maria Amalia of Kurland, groups, eight mythological reliefs,

foreman at the Museo Pio-Clementino, tomb of Pope Innocent XI, 1697—1701, intwo magnificent marble busts as well as medallion portraits of the

who accompanied the commissioners in St. Peter's, Monnot was asked to (Hessisches Landesmuseum, Kassel) princely couple over chimneypieces
back to Paris (Hubert 1964, Sculpture, execute a rather conventional design based on the late Baroque idiom of and allegorical reliefs on the ceiling.
p- 147). by Carlo Maratti, although the sculp- French ruler portraits — a large wig The freestanding statues in particular
On July 28, 1798, Moitte and his tor had proposed another, much more and contemporary armor for the man; are among Monnot's very finest
fellow commissioners assembled on innovative composition, which is pre- jeweled curls and an ermine mantle works. Spanning his entire career,
the Champ-de-Mars to present to the served in a terracotta sketch in the over lacy flounces for the woman. they display the evolution of his cre-
members of the directory the spoils Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence Here Monnot succeeded in combining ative classicism, a refined play of refer-

taken from Italy. Such masterpieces (Walker S. 1995, pp. 124-28). Like the elegance and formality of French ences on classical as well as Baroque
as the Medici Verms, the horses from Maratti himself. Monnot adopted two effigies with the Italianate sensation of models, which thrilled later

St. Mark's Basilica, the Laocoon and the distinctly different stylistic modes: a a living, breathing bodily presence. Neoclassicists, such as Bartolomeo
Apollo Belvedere were paraded in a grander, more formal one for more The same patrons also gave Monnot Cavaceppi, who even referred to

public fete inspired by depictions of public or official, large works, such the opportunity, unfettered by the Monnot as "mio Maestro" (Walker S.
Roman triumphal processions such as as the papal tomb, and a gentler, more current Roman conditions of collabo- 1995. PP- 288-89). Although installed
the reliefs on the Arch of Titus, [rjc] intimate one for more private, reli- rative projects and committee deci- outside of Italy, the Marmorbad decora-
gious, and generally smaller works. two of his most
sions, to create most remarkable
tions constitute the
This "private" manner is evident, influentialand authentic works. The ensemble of secular sculpture from
among others, in the Adoration of the tomb of John, 5th Earl of Exeter, and the early eighteenth-century Rome and,
Shepherds and Flight Into Egypt, 1695-99, Countess Anne (1699-1704; church of with their elongated proportions,
in the Capocaccia Chapel of S. Maria St. Martin, Stamford, Lincolnshire) was small heads, and wavy, tapering
della Vittoria, Rome, and the Virgin Monnot's most elaborate work for fingers, herald the figural aesthetic

and Child with the Young Saint John the Exeter, in addition to a small religious of the coming decades, [sw]
Baptist (1709; Wardour Castle Chapel, relief, two mythological fountains, BIBLIOGRAPHY Enggass 1976. vol. I.

Wiltshire) and is one of the sculptor's and a large Andromeda and the Sea pp. 77-88, and vol. 2, figs. 20-59; Schlegel

most remarkable contributions (see Monster (Metropolitan Museum of 1978, pp. 87-93; Fusco 1988; Bacchi 1994;

Art, New York) which Monnot may Walker S. 1995; Burk 1998
cat. 138).

266 SCULPTURE
 the considerable sum of 12 silver scudi 139
by the sculptor Bernardino Ludovisi
Monnot 's
Pietro Stefano Monnot
in the inventory taken after
death in 1733 (Fusco 1988, p. 75, n. 71; Venus and Cupid
Walker S. 199s, Another
pp. 383-84). c. 1708
marble relief of the Virgin and Child Terracotta
group, excerpted from the larger com- Height 26" (68 cm)
position, now in an English private
Private collection
collection, is also mentioned in the

inventory (Fusco 1988, p. 74, no. 62),

but should be considered a good 140
workshop copy, while both the Boston
and Berlin reliefs are authentic.
Pietro Stefano Monnot
Within Monnot 's oeuvre, his small- Narcissus and Echo
scale religious reliefs form a distinct
c. 1708
group that bears a special relationship
Terracotta
with contemporary painting. The fairly
Height 28" (72 cm)
sizable number of surviving examples
Private collection
in marble and terracotta are the main
exponents of the artist's "private"
manner, an equivalent in sculpture to These two terracottas, which still
the works produced by such leading retain their original patina and
early eighteenth-century masters as gilding, are the small preparatory
Francesco Trevisani and Benedetto models for two monumental marble
Luti. Like them, Monnot picked up groups sculpted by the artist. One is

on the sweet, almost sentimental type the Venus and Cupid signed and dated
of Virgin and Child images originally 1708 and the other the Narcissus and
propagated by Carlo Maratti in the Echo signed and dated 1712, both
1680s. The Maratteschi, such as sculptures housed in the Marmorbad
Ludovico Gimignani and Trevisani, pavilion in Kassel. The terracottas
chose idyllic domestic and landscape present a remarkable degree of finish,
settings for their religious paintings, intended to convey not only the char-
preferring contemplative, peaceful acteristics of the compositions but
family scenes, and in this sense also the differing qualities of the sur-
Monnot can be included among them faces, rendered with admirably skillful

38 He first experi-
as the earliest sculptor. subtlety. This suggests that they are
mented with this mode in the larger models intended to be shown to a
138 sketchy angel entering through the Capocaccia reliefs of the Adoration of client, to whom they would have been
door in the background, are muted. As the Shepherds and Flight Into Egypt able to suggest a fairly precise notion
Pietro Stefano Monnot informal as the rendition may seem, Maria della Vittoria), but of the works to be realized marble.
its (1695-99; S. in
The Holy Family with the composition is thoughtfully calibrated was more successful on a smaller scale Nor is there any reason to doubt that
and focuses on the Christ child and his with his Virgin and the Sleeping Christ they are effectively preparatory
Young Saint John the Baptist
mother at the center. Their mirrored Child (1700; Burghley House, studies, and therefore precede execu-
and His Parents faces and paired gestures he reaches — Lincolnshire), a documented, but lost tion of the statues. In addition to the

Between 1700 and 1710 under her chin as she cradles him in Rest on the Flight into Egypt, from 1706, highly sensitive quality of the model-

Terracotta her arms —

emphasize their close and and the Virgin and Christ Child with the ing, this is confirmed by the numer-
x nVs" x special bond. The Virgin's humbly Young Saint )ohn the Baptist (1709; ous important differences evident in
i&'A" (71.4 56.8 cm)
provenance Antonio Valeriani. Rome, bowed and loving pose shields her son Wardour Castle Chapel. Wiltshire), comparison with the marbles, partic-

1733; Heim Gallery, London, 1985 and separates them both from the among others. These works give the ularly the Narcissus. In fact, in the

bibliography Schlegel 1974; Heim other onlookers. Contemplating them timeframe for the dating of the present Kassel work the sculptor has intro-
Gallery. Portraits and Figures in Painting and quietly are Joseph at the right, holding piece, which somewhat surprisingly duced a drapery that covers the back-
Sculpture, 1570-1870. London: Heim Gallery, his attribute of the miraculously flow- lacks any signature or date by the ground tree and part of the young
no. 29; Fusco 1988, pp. 75-76, n. 71, fig. 6; ering staff, and, on the left the elderly artist. Trevisani's Holy Family in the man, who is there accompanied by a
Walker S. 1995, pp. 161-65 Zachary and Elizabeth, the parents of Cleveland Museum of Art provides a cupid, while in the terracotta there is a
The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Gift of
the young Saint John the Baptist, who striking parallel to Monnot's in style, young woman who can be identified
Randolph J. Fuller
offers a roll of swaddling. Carefully atmosphere, and even certain motifs, as Echo, the unfortunate girl who tell
executed details, such as Joseph and suggesting strongly that the two in love with Narcissus. So originally
The setting for this image of the Holy Zachary 's benign heads, Elizabeth's artistsknew each other's works well. Monnot had evidently thought of
Family is charmingly anachronistic: soulful glance upward, and the child- By 1702 Monnot was known to adhering more closely to Ovid's text,
while the protagonists wear the famil- ish eagerness of Saint John give the English travelers as "a man who makes placing beside Narcissus the figure of
iar, timeless, vaguely classical robes, the relief added conviction and profun- fine tables" (Walker S. 1995, p. 355), and Echo helplessly watching the Uagk
group is assembled modern interior
in a dity despite its small size. one of his was included among
reliefs end of he young man as he admires
1

with a coffered ceiling, glazed window, The terracotta appears to be a the paintings Pier Leone Ghezzi his own image reflected in the water
curving mantle over the fireplace, and preparatory model for a marble version exhibited at S. Salvatore in Lauro as (Metamorphoses, vol. 3, pp. 491-sio).
tiled floor. Even the carved table and with square proportions, now in the early as 169; (Walker S. 199s, p. i"i). Later, possibly because the actual
central cradle, albeit simplified and collection of the Staatliche Museen in The pictorial quality ol his sculptures structure of the block ol marble
perhaps idealized, recall contemporary Berlin (Schlegel 1978, pp. 89-92). Yet was taken literally and highly prized imposed a different structuring ol the
furniture. Together the surroundings the Boston relief was clearly considered for its uniqueness. Indeed, the intimacy composition, he introduced the cupid.
help to create an intimate, cozy atmos- an artwork in its own right, since it is of his superb Virgin and Child from who attempts to distract Narcissus
phere suitable to this interpretation of mentioned in Monnot \s will as a this Holy Family is comparable in a late h orn his vain contemplation.
the religious topic. The relief intention- bequest to one of his executors, Baroque idiom to the peaceful seren- It is possible that the two very
ally stresses genre-like domesticity, Antonio Valeriani, and was valued, ity ol Renaissance Virgins by Raphael similar models were executed
while divine aspects, such as the together with another similar piece, at or Rossellino. [sw] contemporaneously and that they

SOU .PTURE I
 —

139 140

can therefore be dated no later than he was the architect. The pavilion holds it was the Roman architect Giovan Mercury and the Apollo and Mars 1698,
1708, the year in which the first twelve mythological figures, eight large Francesco Guarnieri (see Contardi and the Venus 1708, the Latona and the
marble group of for the Marmorbad reliefs of scenes from the Metamorphoses, Curcio 1991, pp. 387-88), who was in Narcissus 1712, the Faun and the
was created. It is also entirely probable and two reliefs above the fireplaces Kassel from 1701 to 1713, actually in Bacchante 1716, and the Paris 1720. It is

that the two models should be identi- featuring the Landgrave Karl of Hesse the service of the landgrave, who also obvious that the dates of the last-

fied as two terracottas that were in the and his consort, Maria Amalia of introduced Monnot to Karl of Hesse. mentioned works must be reconsid-
sculptor's Roman workshop in 1733. Kurland, accompanied by a series of A long letter only recently discov- ered since all ten statues are
The inventory of these objects, drawn and the decoration of the
allegories ered, which was written by Monnot mentioned in 1715 as being "done,
up the day after his death, includes a cupola with the Seasons and the Four to the landgrave on January 2, 1715, studied and finished front and back
considerable nucleus of maquettes Elements. What helps to give unity to reveals how at this time a very detailed with the ultimate lightness and deli-

thatappear to be connected with the this complex is the extraordinary project had already been designed for cacy that the style of sculpture can
Marmorbad figures, none of which was display of the different materials. The a sumptuous bathing apartment permit him."
known until now (see Fusco 1988, walls are lined entirely with marbles (Burk 1998, pp. 123-24). Monnot was What has still to be explained is

p. 73). Among them is a "Venus with of different colors toned round a few already in Kassel and the decoration the genesis of all these statues, which
a arm 3p" and "a nude
cupid by the dominant ones giallo antico (antique involved the execution of five large Monnot had mostly sculpted before
figure grouped with another 3 palme" yellow), brocatello (yellow and purple reliefs for the walls (in the event ten he had any contact with the land-
(three Roman palmc correspond to or reddish with a little white), verde were made, eight with scenes from the grave. In fact, the reason why Monnot
26", or 67 cm). The indications of the antico (green and gray), pavonazzetto Metamorphoses and two devoted to the had over the years made so many
subjects and the dimensions suggest (white with purple markings) and landgrave and his consort) and eight marble statues apparently without
that these models can be recognized black. In the cupola the various reliefs for the cupola. Another fact destination remains unknown.
as the terracottas exhibited here. If figures (Seasons and Elements) are clearly emerging from the letter is that Not even what Lione Pascoli had
Peter Fusco had thought that the constructed by the application of thin the sculptor also offered the landgrave to say on the subject is convincing,
description of the Venus in the inven- layers of Carrara marble on to the "ten marble figures made by me being although he knew Monnot directly.
tory alluded to a small model for the giallo antico marble background. The at present in my studio in Rome" He in fact wrote that Monnot had
Kassel marble, the second quote oldest evidence of Monnot's associa- (Burk 1998, p. 123, doc. 1). He meant been all set to do work since
this great
would have remained more enigmatic, tion with the landgrave remains the the figures of Bacchus, Leda. Paris, Venus, the 1690s, working no pay,
on it "for
since it did not correspond to either of marble portraits of him and the land- Narcissus, Latona, Apollo and Mars, or when he was not busy on other
the marbles; today's rediscovery of the gravine (Staatliche Museen, Kassel) Mercury, a Faun, and a Bacchante. pressing things or when he was bored
terracotta where the figure of Echo signed and dated by the sculptor in Together with the Minerva and the with these and wanted a change"
appears beside Narcissus makes sense 1714. As for the circumstances that Aurora, which the sculptor made (Pascoli 1992, p. 946). In reality no
of thai description. brought about the Marmorbad com- much towards the end of his
later, life, sculptor of this period would have
Many questions still remain regard- mission, there is no evidence that all these statues were to be sited in the undertaken such a task without a
methods by which
ing the date and Monnot and the landgrave had met Marmorbad. They were made over a precise commission. Probably Monnot
Monnot completed the monumental before 1701, when the latter visited very long period of time, the Bacchus himself said nothing to Pascoli about
undertaking of the Marmorbad, of which Italy. It seems a reasonable guess that and the Leda being dated 1692, the the circumstances, but it is very prob-

268 SCULPTURE
 .

able that the marbles, all of whose own account. His work was bought (1793; Philadelphia Museum of Art) 141
subjects were drawn from the by William Weddell (Newby Hall, demonstrates his particular weakness:
Joseph Nollekens, after
Metamorphoses, were initially intended Yorkshire) through the none-too- the eyes are not really convincing.

for Livio Odescalchi, who was the honest Thomas Jenkins, and by Thomas Cunningham summed up Nollekens's Bartolomeo Cavaceppi (?)

greatestcontemporary patron of the Anson (Shugborough, Staffordshire) portrait style: "unaffected and elegant;
Boy on a Dolphin
sculptor and who had died in 1713, just through James Stuart. For Thomas the best are simple without weakness,
Anson he carved a fine copy of the and serene without austerity 1764-66
one year before Monnot came into . . . there
dignity, but much Marble
contact with the Saxon court. 'lldefonso' Castor and Pollux (1765-67, is little truth ... the
and Albert Museum, London). want of dignity and sen- 14" x 23X1" x 12//' (35.5 x 60 x 31 cm); base
The hypothesis that the marbles Victoria chief defect is
and tablet sVj" (14 cm)
were devised and carried out for Livio Nollekens's earliest portrait bust timent" (Cunningham 1831, vol. 3,
bibliography Cavaceppi 1768-72, vol. 1,
is a more convincing one than was commissioned early in 1764 by p. 170). In funeral monuments, the
pi. 44: Howard 1964; Howard 1967, p. 224,
Pascoli's suggestion. It is not difficult David Garrick; the payment, 12 figures and bas-reliefs often represent
Ridgeway 1970, p.
pi. 61, fig. 5; 95;
to imagine these figures in the context guineas, suggests that it was in terra- allegories that are classical and tradi-
Kenworthy-Browne 1979, figs. 2-3;
of the extraordinary collection of cotta, but a marble version came to tional, but the sentiments conveyed Roettgen 1981, pp. 139-41, n. 45, 49, 59;
ancient marbles assembled by Lord Spencer by 1768 (Althorp, are very simple. Some monuments are Neverov 1984, p. 40, n. 8s-86, pi. 7. fig. is:

Odescalchi, and it is relatively easy to Northamptonshire). On July 4, 1764, large works with portrait statues. That Ost 1984, pp. 112-is. figs. 44-46; Montagu
comprehend the many sophisticated James Martin "saw busts done by Mr to Mrs Howard (1800; Wetherall, 198s, pp. 3, 11, n. 16, p. 238, n. 15, figs. 2, 8;

Soldner 1986. vol. 2, p. 382, n. 11; Grassinger

references to classical statuary, which Nollekins. Those of the Duke of York, Cumberland), with Religion comfort-
1994. pp. 111-12, 116-18, pis. 6-7, no. 40,
make them in some sort a Roman Mr Wodehouse & Mr Richards are ing the mother dying in childbirth,
figs. 3, 6, 217-19
response to the classicism of the very like ..." (MS. journal, private col- was thought by Benjamin West supe-
Lord Romsey
sculptures at Versailles, [ab] lection). The only other busts that can rior to works by Canova.
confidently be given to Nollekens's Mythological figures by English
Rome years are of the young Earl of sculptors were hard to sell, but The history of this statuette admirably

JOSEPH NOLLEKENS Carlisle (1768; Castle Howard, Nollekens made four early statues of illustrates, in capsule, mysteries and

LONDON 1737-1823 LONDON Yorkshire) and those of Sterne goddesses for Lord Rockingham (J.
Paul machinations in mid-eighteenth-
(cat. 143) and Piranesi (cat. 142). They Getty Museum, Malibu, and Victoria century Neoclassical taste and dealing.
Nollekens. the son of Joseph Francis are intimate, lively portraits, different and Albert Museum, London), and On August 2, 1764, Gavin Hamilton
Nollekens, a painter of genre, was from the grander style that the artist two statues for Lord Yarborough wrote to Henry Temple, 2nd Viscount
born in Soho, London, and at the age developed after 1770. Certain works, (Usher Art Gallery, Lincoln). These Palmerston:
of eleven was apprenticed to the including portraits and the Castor and ideal statues lack vigor and sentiment; "Mr Nolekins is making a new
sculptor Peter Scheemakers; he learned Pollux marble, were sent to London, according to John Flaxman, Nollekens model of his Boy & Dolphin, much
drawing at Shipley's school in the where James Stuart arranged to show "wanted mind." Nonetheless, he made better than his former, & hope he will
Strand, and studied at the Duke of them with the Free Society of Artists. a fortune and died worth £200,000. do himself honour with regard to the
Richmond's gallery of casts in From 1764 Nollekens shared lodg- John Thomas Smith, a one-time pupil finishing of every individual piece . .

Whitehall. Between 1759 and 1762 he ings with the Irish painter James and lifelong friend, was disappointed your Lordship may depend upon my
won six prizes at the Society of Arts Forrester in via del Babuino, near of his promised legacy, and in retalia- watchfullness that nothing be slighted
for modeling, drawing, and carving, Cavaceppi's studio. In 1768 he entered tion spent five years writing his ..." (Broadlands MSS, Hamilton to
totaling some £134, and in the words the Concorso Balestra with a terra- famous biography, which ridiculed Palmerston correspondence, cited in

of the judges he had "eminently distin- cotta group, Jupiter, Juno, and lo, and Nollekens's appearance, his general Howard 1964, p. 177). He subsequently
guished himself." His prize-winning won the gold medal. In June 1770 he ignorance, imbecility, and the squalid, states (February 10 and April 12, 1776)
objects were shown in the Society's was made a member of the miserly habits in which he was excelled that the group is finished with
great room, with the exhibition of the Accademia di S. Luca at Florence. In by his wife, Mary Welch. As a result of "honour," and on its way to England.
Free Society of Artists in 1761 and October 1770 Nollekens started his Smith's book the sculptor has become Hamilton, a favored part-time antiqui-
1762. With enough money to travel to journey home, and reached Dover on a figure of fun. From other sources, ties agent, was also planning an origi-
Rome, he left London after May 21, December 24. He was already well however, particularly from Joseph nal history painting for Broadlands.
1762 (the day he received his last known in London, not only for his Farington's Diary, it seems that and the putto figure is reflected in his
prize), and passing through Paris, exhibited sculpture but also in the Nollekens was a conscientious acade- work at the time.
Lyon, Turin, and other Italian cities, City, having made investments mician, and that his opinions on the The roughly finished "former"
reached Rome on August 11. totalling some £20,000. antique were respected by connois- model to which Hamilton referred
Scheemakers and his supporter )ames In 1771 Nollekens still had forty-six seurs.He was also highly professional; was apparently a terracotta sketch of
"Athenian" Stuart no doubt gave him working years ahead. At his first Royal no complaints are known for bad work, the composition (untraced) made in
advice from their own experience. Academy exhibition, May 1771, he excessive prices, or late delivery, [jkb] Rome in 1763-64 for the actor David
At Rome Nollekens joined the studio showed two models, probably made BIBLIOGRAPHY Smith [1828] 1920; Garrick.who had already promoted
of Bartolommeo Cavaceppi, who at Rome, and a marble bust of Lord Cunningham 1831, vol. j. pp. 122-99; thework of Nollekens in London.
worked for Cardinal Albani, and he Holland. He was elected an associate Whitley 1930, pp. 40-41; Howard 1964; Nollekens then also made a copy of
became acquainted with the circle of of the academy in 1771 and a full Howard i9"3: Garlick. Macintyre, and Cave the group in marble for Lord Spencer
1978-84; Kenworthy-Browne 1979;
the Villa Albani, which included Gavin member the next year, and he exhib- (Althorp, Northamptonshire). These
Kenworthy-Browne 1979. "Nollekens";
Hamilton and Thomas jenkins. In 1764 ited regularly until 1816. His facility in amateurs and their entourage made an
Whinney 1988; Ingamclls 1997, pp. 709-11:
Hamilton found Nollekens commis- modeling heads and his fine carving attractive Grand Tour society lionized
Kenworthy-Browne 1998
sions to reproduce a curious group, of the marble revived a fashion for in Rome and Naples, as noted by
Boy on a Dolphin (Hermitage Museum, busts that had slumped in the 1760s. Winckelmann and Cardinal Albani.
St. Petersburg), which then belonged to His portrait busts number more than Nollekens rendered still another copv
Cavaceppi. The magnificent full-size 150, and he was busiest in the years (larger) for their fellow-member of the
copy that Nollekens made for Lord after 1800. His more popular busts Society of Dilettanti, Brownlow Cecil.
Exeter demonstrates his skill in carving were repeated many times, particu- Earl of Exeter (Burghley House,
(Burghley House, Lincolnshire), and larlytwo he made of Charles James Lincolnshire), and yet another, through
small versions were made for Lord Fox (1791; Hermitage Museum; and Hamilton in 1^66, for Frederick Harvev.
Palmcrston (Broadlands, Hampshire, 1800; Woburn Abbey, Bedfordshire), bishop of Den y and Earl of Bristol, lor
cat. 141) and Lord Spencer (Althorp, and one of William Pitt (1806; "Ireland's Blenheim." Downhill (now
Northamptonshire). Dalmeney House, Scotland). Busts of at Ickworth, Suffolk). A replica is also
Besides restoration work for women are less numerous than men, recorded in the Chinese Palace
Cavaceppi, and for Piranesi, Nollekens but they seem of a more consistently Oranienbaum. St. Petersburg.
worked for other dealers and on his high standard. That of Frances Knighl Nollekens probably made others

SCULPTURE
 —

which significantly affected and

reflected historicizing contemporary
taste in form and sentiment, combin-
ing Neoclassical antiquarianism with
vestigial Rococo and early Romantic
interests, [sh]

142
Joseph Nollekens
Giovanni Battista Piranesi
Probably c. 1765-70
Inscribed on the name plaque: cavaijere
G.B.PIRANESI / architetto (partly
obscured by modern brass)
Marble
23/1" x n7«" x 9//' (60 x 30 x 23 cm)
provenance commissioned by the
Accademia di S. Luca. Rome; recorded ai

the Accademia in 1779 (Bianconi 1779)

exhibitions London 1978, cat. no. 283;
London and Rome 1996. cat. no. 153
bibliography Bianconi 1779, p. 284;
Smith [1828] 1920, vol. 2, p. 74; Wilton-Ely
19^6. "Nollekens"; Kenworthy-Browne
1979. p. 1848, fig. 8; Wilton and Bignamini
1996, p. 206. no. 153

141 Accademia Nazionale di San Luca. Rome

during his stay in Rome (1760-70) and thrilling story, provenance, and subtly and inventions;
antico copies, fakes,

afterward. insinuating form and sentiment? and sculptures with grandly inflated In 1761 Piranesi was elected a member
The group reproduces a composi- Designed to be viewed from all sides, attributions — such as a Pierino da of the Rome Accademia di S. Luca,
tion illustrated in Bartolomeo the piece swivels on a dowel, inducing Vinci relief ascribed to Michelangelo. which asked for his portrait. The
Cavaceppi's Raccolta as the work of mild vertigo. In this context, it is It seems unlikely that he would sculptor of this bust was unknown for
Raphael, executed by Lorenzetto, his important to observe that through feature an invention by his underling many years, and it has been attributed
sculptor-aide, who rendered life-size Hamilton, and together with other and imitator Nollekens as a work of to Giuseppe Angelini, merely because
Raphael's design for the vaguely sources from Cavaceppi and Pompeii, Raphael, although reference to the of its general resemblance to the 1779
similar jonah and the Whale in the Chigi it directly influenced the love-death famous sculptor-restorer Lorenzetto, statue in S. Maria in Priorato, Rome,
Chapel, where Cavaceppi had earlier masculine attachments in Canova's who rendered Raphael's designs in the church designed by Piranesi.
studied while preparing for competi- first fully fledged Neoclassical compo- marble, may make a droll allusion to Angelini, like Nollekens, worked for

tions at theAccademia di S. Luca. The sition, Theseus and the Minotaur (1781; himself. Carlo Albacini, assessor of Cavaceppi and Piranesi; in about 1770
Raccolta group was owned by the Victoria and Albert Museum, London). Cavaceppi's estate (1799), called his he came to London and remained
Maltese ambassador to the papal The composition in fact alludes to cast of the Boy and Dolphin "modern," there for some eight years, working
court, Baron Breteuil, who had other various ancient visual and literary like nearby works by his master. partly as assistant to Nollekens.
ostensible Raphaels in his collection. sources that influenced works by Records of plaster casts of the work In his biography of Nollekens. ). T.

In 1779 was published by Lyde

it Renaissance. Baroque, and in the collection of Anton Rapheal Smith listed a portrait bust of
Browne of Wimbledon, director of the Neoclassical artists. In a sizable litera- Mengs and in the estate of Nollekens "Peranesi. J. B." Some twenty-five
Bank of England, in a list of antiquities ture, scholars have attributed its cre- (1823) do not mention Raphael either. years ago Professor Wilton-Ely found
sold to Catherine the Great, along ation to each age —even antiquity. The For all their interest in such work, that Nollekens's lost bust was none
with many other sculptures once in initial and long-sustained attribution Cavaceppi's close colleagues Mengs other than that at the Rome
Cavaceppi's studio and now in the to Raphael followed upon the then and Hamilton did not connect it with Accademia. The reference to it is in

Hermitage Museum. recent discovery of a letter briefly Raphael, and Winckelmann did not the biography of Piranesi by J. G.
The group's narrative is a sentimen- mentioning a putto (but no dolphin) even mention it, which probably indi- Legrand, compiled from the reminis-
talmelodrama by the second-century sketch by him. as well as the group's cates that it is an eclectic fusion of cences of the artist's children; the
ad anthologist and moralist Aelian vague similarities to work from sources, like other pastiche inventions manuscript is preserved in the
the Sophist elaborating on earlier Raphael's studio, such as the jonah and of Cavaceppi. Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris: "J.-B.

accounts. A dolphin loved a beautiful Farnesina Galatea. An untraced marble For many reasons the group may be Piranesi was actually associate of
youth from the nearby gymnasium Boy and Dolphin once in the Ludovisi ascribed to Cavaceppi: the finish and several academies: that of St. Luke at
and eventually coaxed the boy to collection, made between 1625 and characteristic handling of such minu- Rome was eager to have him as a
mount, ride, and frolic with him in the 1631 by Giulio Cesare Conventi, tiae as the eye, and base; charac-
fins, member and asked for his portrait
sea, until one day the exhausted child teacher of the Baroque classicist teristic confoundings as in the which the English sculptor Nolickings
fell on to his erect spinal fin and was Alessandro Algardi, whose Sonno fish-scaled but mammalian dolphin [sic] made, a very good likeness and

mortally wounded. The blood-soaked (1635-36) resembles this child, seems a with human-looking teeth; and its well characterized" (Erouart and
dolphin, overcome by remorse, bore more likely candidate for the original. similarity to work once in his studio, Mosser 1978, p. 236). The only other
the boy to shore, where both died In the nineteenth century the Boy and such as the Hermitage Boy Riding a suriving portrait made of Piranesi in

an example of masculine (and thinly Dolphin was already viewed as an Dolphin and a semi-reclining Boy on a his lifetime is the 1750 etching by
veiled homoerotic) love and devotion eighteenth-century invention and was Hippoeamp formerly in the collection Felice Polanzani, which appeared as

teasingly applauded by the author {Dc reproduced as a sentimental motif in of the Marquess of Rockingham at frontispiece to Piranesi's Opcrc varie,

natura anitnalium VI. 15). various decorative arts. Wentworth Woodhouse. Cavaceppi's and was reissued in 1756 for Le antichita

What aspiring fledgling collector- Cavaceppi advertised a wide gamut authorship is, however, hardly certain. romane. Polanzani's inscription reads:
enthusiast "who saw with his cars" of works in his Raccolta: massively and Even if not by his hand, the Boy and G/O. BAT. P/RANESI / VENET. ARCH/TEC-
(Cavaceppi's phrase [Cavaceppi modestly restored antiquities as well Dolphin can be viewed as his "ready- tus. Like that on the bust, it recorded
1768-72, vol. 2, n.p.j) could resist this as unrestored fragments; his own made." selection and promotion of his architectural and not his graphic

270 SCULPTURE
achievement, even though Piranesi's portraits begun in 1779, are clearly Croft-Lyons, who presented it to the pointed out that the picture was not.
only executed works in architecture based on the Nollekens bust rather National Portrait Gallery. London, 1920 probably, a commission, but painted
were not then built: the church than the etching by Polanzani (see exhibitions London 1951, cat. no. 25; as a speculation (Kerslake 1977. vol 1.,

S. Maria in Priorato, and the Piazza Wilton-Ely 1976, "Nollekens"). London 1991. Portrait, cat. no. 30 Reynolds had engraved in
p. 261). it

de' Cavalieri di Malta, which leads Nollekens had great ability in mod- bibliography Kerslake 1977, vol. 1,
mezzotint by Edward Fisher; at the
pp. 265-67, and vol. 2. pi. 770; Pressly W.
to it (1764-66). eling heads; and yet thisone is not like Free Society of Artists in 1761 both
1978; Cash 1985-86, vol. 1, pp. 311-13. and
The bust was probably made the rest. None of his other works is so painting and engraving were exhib-
vol. 2, pp. 239-40. 535-54
towards the end of Nollekens's time at animated, so perceptive, so incisive. ited, and prints were sold for five
National Portrait Gallery. London
Rome, between 1765 and 1770, and is The evidence for his having modeled shillings. Nollekens, who exhibited
more or less contemporary with Piranesi's portrait in clay can hardly atthe same show, would certainly
Piranesi's works at S. Maria in be doubted, but, conceivably, the Laurence Sterne was the son of an remember this.
Priorato. and his publication Diverse carving could be from another hand. impoverished infantry ensign. After Sterne suffered from tuberculosis
maniere d'adornare i cammini (1769). It In fact the treatment of the back and education at Cambridge, paid for by a and went abroad from 1762 to 1764 for
is in the manner known as a ('antique, the rough "combed" surface left by the cousin, he took orders and became his health. In 1765-66 he made a tour
which imitates an ancient Roman claw-chisel are not like any other of vicar of Sutton, prebendary of York, of France and Italy, which included
format, with close-cropped hair and his busts, [jkb] and in 1760 perpetual curate at visiting Rome and Naples between
bare neck and chest. The hair, stylized Coxwold, Yorkshire. Always a popular December 25, 176s, and April 17, 1766.
like classical Greek sculpture, may be preacher, he suddenly became famous In Rome he had an introduction from
compared with the more natural hair H3 in 1759 with his whimsical and rather Sir Horace Mann to Cardinal Albani,
on Nollekens's bust of Laurence bawdy novel The Life ami Opinions of which suggests one way he might
Joseph Nollekens
Sterne (cat. 143). Piranesi was Tristram Shandy, the success of which have met Nollekens. Sterne was not
described in 1779 by his first biogra- Laurence Sterne was such that by 1765 Sterne had well-off and is unlikely to have com-
pher, G. L. Bianconi, as "rather large in
Modeled 1766: the marble probably 1767-70 expanded it from two to eight volumes. missioned the bust. Nollekens. it

person, of dark complexion, with very

Inscribed on the back: sterne The comic character in Tristram seems, wanted his portrait bust to
lively eyes that never closed." He went Marble
Shandy is Parson Yorick. whose name repeat the success of Reynolds's
on with a curious remark, that "if our derives from Shakespeare's jester: "a canvas, and that is more or less what
19/4" (including 4"socle) x 12" x 7" (50.2
successors think they can see his
[including 10.2 cm socle] x $0.5 x 19 cm) fellow of infinite jest, of most excel- happened.
image in a bust that is at the Academy provenance sculptor's collection;
lent fancy" (Hamlet, act V, scene 1). In In 1-6- Nollekens sent the bust
. . . they will be wrong because it does Nollekens's sale, Christie's, July 4. 1X2), later books, his sermons, and the to London to be shown at the Free
not resemble him at all" (Bianconi bought by Mrs. Russell Palmer for 58 Sentimental Journey (1^68), Yorick was Society of Artists: number 309 in

1779. P- 284). Other evidence, guineas: Mrs. Palmer sale, Christie's. the pseudonym of Sterne himself. show was a "Busto of the Rev. Dr.
however, contradicts Bianconi. March 27. 1847, lot 266, bought Graves, 37 Joshua Reynolds's remarkable portrait Stern." The material was not stated; he
guineas; Brodcrip sale. February •\ 1.X-2
Angelini's statue, and an oil painting of Laurence Sterne conveys all his wit may have shown the terracotta model
(266). bought Heugh; Amor, St. James's
by Pietro Labruzzi (Palazzo Braschi, and impishness (1760; National (see below), but Kerslake thought .1
Street. London: bought by Lt.-Col. G. B.
Rome), both of them commemorative Portrait Gallery. London). Kerslake plaster cast more likely. One surviving

SCULPTURE 271
 copy of the printed catalogue does not CAMILLO PACETTI the models left by the family to the establish his own artistic personality,
include the bust, which suggests that ROME 1758-1826 MILAN Accademia di Belle Arti in Milan is one drawn ever more closely to an
it arrived late. A reason for delayed a little terracotta of Perseus and explicit Neoclassicism, but never
arrival could be that the sculptor com- A Roman sculptor and restorer, son Andromeda, probably the bozzetto for lacking harmony or grace. In Milan
pleted a marble version. This was the of Andrea, an engraver of precious the lost model from the competition Pacetti created a flourishing school,
first of Nollekens's portrait busts to be stones, and younger brother of the in question. The sculpture was to thanks also to the important monu-
exhibited in England, and it made his sculptor Vincenzo, Pacetti grew up in illustrate faithfully the story Ovid tells mental commissions of the
reputation. As ). T. Smith wrote, "With the environment of Rome's academic in his fourth book: "Perseus having Napoleonic period.When he left
this performance, Nollekens continued culture. He worked in Rome until the slain the sea monster and delivered Rome he took with him many gesso
to be pleased even to his second child- age of forty-seven, when he was invited the virgin Andromeda from the rock, models he then had in his studio,
hood, and often mentioned a picture to teach sculpture at the Accademia di carries heraway as was already including the group of Minerva Instills

which [Nathaniel] Dance had made of Belle Arti di Brera in Milan, a post he promised at his victory, to make her his Automaton of Prometheus, an
Life into the

him leaning upon Sterne's head" held for nearly twenty years, promot- bride. Equal in them both is content, interesting work in terms of both its
(Smith [1828], 1920, vol. The 1, p. 7). ing the formation and spread of a more honesty, and the desire to celebrate subject and its formal qualities; in
portrait survives (Forbes Magazine modern view of sculpture in the con- the wedding," and it is easy to imagine 1807 this underwent a political trans-
Collection); William Pressly convinc- temporary debate. The earliest infor- how Pacetti's training may have formation to become Napoleon
ingly attributed it to John Francis mation about Pacetti's training goes guided him — as the judges clearly also Animates Italy with the Saered Flame and
Rigaud, about 1772. back to September 1771, when he won thought — towards formal and poetic the Call to Greater Destinies. In 1810

Seven weeks after the sculptor's third prize for sculpture in the choices exactly halfway between the Pacetti undertook to direct the faqade
return to England, on February 12, Accademia Capitolina del Nudo, refined grace of the early eighteenth of Milan Cathedral and, in 1812, the

1771, plaster casts were advertised by directed in that session by the sculptor century and the austere classicism of Arco del Sempione, working person-
Sterne's publisher friend Thomas Andrea Bergondi. He took part in the the later part. This same balance, char- ally on certain statues for the cathe-

Beckett at one guinea each, and six same competition the following March, acteristic of the artistic climate in dral and some bas-reliefs for the arch.
shillings extra if marbled or bronzed. again carrying off third prize, and yet Rome in the late eighteenth century, is Also dating from this second decade
No plaster versions are known today, again in March 1773, when he came reflected in other works by Pacetti of of the nineteenth century are his por-
but in addition to the present marble first, while that September, he entered this period, in which there is a gradual traits of Giuseppe Bossi and the
bust, Kerslake listed four others (one the drawing competition and won first acceptance of Neoclassicism, based painter Andrea Appiani in the
is at the Henry E. Huntington Library, prize in the first class. Two years later mainly on the fashion for direct study Accademia di Brera. Among his last
San Marino, Calif.), and another is Pacetti was the only contender in the of antiquity, fed by new archaeologi- works was the Ganymede of 1819, an
now at Sterne's house, Shandy Hall, first class when he presented himself cal finds, and even more by the need essentially Neoclassical work that is
Coxwold, Yorkshire. Most versions are atthe Concorso Clementino to restore those finds. Linked to these nevertheless tinged with naturalism,
copies made by Nollekens in London, announced by the Accademia di finds was the enormous demand from a blend that had by then become his

but the present bust looks like an early S. Luca; his bas-relief of Judith Showing illustrious foreign patrons for restored hallmark.
work, carved in Rome. The chest is Her People the Head of Holofernes (cat. 144) antique pieces, or else plaster casts In 1822 Pacetti was struck with
unusually low; the light tooling of the was awarded second prize. or copies for their gesso museums. paralysis and four years later he died.
back and slightly tapered central shaft There has been little study of Pacetti accordingly worked almost During his time in Milan, a time of
are not typical of his London works. Pacetti's early career on which to base exclusively as a restorer, yet in his political upheaval, he had made an
(The socle seems to be later, and the any authoritative evaluation of his application to the Accademia di S. Luca important contribution to the diffu-

inscription looks mid-nineteenth attitude to antiquity in the latter part of in 1793, to be accepted as an academi- sion of the modern Neoclassical artis-

century.) This bust was kept by the the eighteenth century. He probably cian, he presented himself as a sculptor tic language, not only within the
sculptor and was sold with his prop- worked a good deal with his brother who held open studio in Rome and had traditionalist circles of the Fabbrica
erty in 1823. Also at the sale, lot 22 on Vincenzo, however, who by then exhibitedsome of his works for public del Duomo, but throughout
July 5, was "A terracotta bust of Sterne enjoyed considerable fame in Rome assessment in various Roman churches. Lombardy. [anc]
. . . done at Rome. This Bust first— as a sculptor, but even more as a con- The harmony that the young bibliography In lode delle Belle Arti 1775,

brought Mr. Nollekins into repute, as a noisseur and restorer of antique sculp- Canova brilliantly achieved between pp. x, xvi; In lode delle Belle Arti 1786, pp. 6-7;
Sculptor." It was bought by Agar Ellis ture. And Vincenzo's manuscript the classical world and eighteenth- Discorsi letti in occasione delta puhblica dis-

Baron Dover) for 44 guineas, but diary does provide indirect informa- century grace did not come easily to tribuzione de premi fatta daS.E.il sig. Ministro
(1st is

now lost. tion about Camillo's activity. was in Pacetti, who, at the turn of the century,
dell' Interno ilgiorno XXIV digiugno an.
It
MCCMV nell' Accademia Nazionale di Milano.
The bust is in an "antique" format, fact the elder brother who sent Camillo seems to have had little work: in 1801
Milan, 1805; Colzio 19J3; Golzio 1939;
with short matted hair and naked to work with the sculptor and restorer his brother records: "I have sent a statue Honour i960, "Pacetti"; Hubert 1964.
neck and chest, the raised right shoul- Francesco Antonio Franzoni, who to Camillo for restoration to help him Sculpture, p. 59; Caramel. Luciano, and Carlo
der suggesting movement. Though provided advice and instruction during as he is without work" (Rome, Pirovano, eds. Galleria d'arte moderna: opere
serious, it is animated and conveys his first independent professional Biblioteca Universitaria Alessandrina, dell' Oltocento. Milan: Electa, 1975,

something of Sterne's convivial good jobs, from the stuccos for S. Lorenzo "II Giornale di Vincenzo Pacetti" pp. 653-54; Mostra dei maestri di Brera,

1776-1859. Milan: Centro Grafico Linate,

nature and wit; it has his sharp nose in 1783 to the "glory of stucco outside [July 14, 1801], ms. 321). However,
1975, PP- 80-84; Nava Cellini 1988;
and comical look. A bust with so much Rome" in 1784, the "putti di Altieri" in eventually his restoration work and
Germano Siracusa 1996
detail was surely more recognizable 1788 (Rome, Biblioteca Universitaria the friendship and advice of Canova
than Reynolds's generalized portrait. Alessandrina, "II Giornale di Vincenzo himself enabled him to free himself
"When Sterne's remains were exhumed Pacetti," ms. 321), and the stuccos in from his youthful, slightly Baroque
in London in 1969 for reburial in S. Nicolo da Tolentino, which style and from the influence of his
Coxwold, the skull was identified in Vincenzo turned down in favor of his brother, and to move towards
part by location,
by an in part brother because he himself had too Neoclassicism. Through the interest
anatomist's demonstration that it per- much work, as well as the restoration of Canova, who clearly appreciated
fectly matched the Nollekens bust" of the Melpomene in 1789 and the Pacetti's professional ability, he was
(Cash 1985-86, vol. 2, p. 239, no. 44). Hermaphrodite in 1794. appointed in January 1805 to the chair
[jkb] The terracotta group that Pacetti of sculpture at the Accademia di Belle

made in 1786 for the Concorso Balestra Arti di Brera. In the spring of that year
of that year won him second place he accordingly moved both his family
behind the victor, Joseph Chinard, but and his studio to Milan. The radical
ahead of J. G. Schadow, amid much change of political climate and the
argument over his delay in submitting particularly lively cultural atmosphere
the work because of damage sustained in which he consequently became
during firing. Still conserved among involved finally spurred him on to

272 SCULPTURE
 appears an end in itself — as in the

barely engraved relief on the architec-

tural background, or in the crowd of
bystanders — while the prostrate
figure with clasped hands in the
centre of the scene lacks the impor-
tance needed to function as the pivot
and meeting point of the entire scene.
The articulation of the story imposed
by the complex iconography patently
fails to find a unifying rhythm, either
stylistic or narrative. The male figures
on the left, rigidly restrained and
almost squashed by their vertical
arrangement, fail to interact with the
female figures arranged on the right in

a brief arch that emphasizes the hor-

rific apparition of the severed head of
Holofernes.
Apart from Camillo Pacetti,

however, no other young sculptor

who was in Rome in that year was
inclined to take on the proposed
theme, calling as it did for difficult
narrative constraints to be translated
into convincing formal solutions. It

was quite a different story in the

second and third classes of the com-
petition, however, where much
simpler themes were stipulated,
144 resulting in the announcement of
three prize winners in the second

144 classicist treatment is obvious, but they were connected, but useful for class and four in the third, [anc]
a more modern approach might introducing a sense of movement.
Camillo Pacetti
suggest a less intimate and introspec- The treatment of the group on the left,
Judith Showing Her People the tive rendering of the figure of Judith although showing inventiveness and VINCENZO PACETTI
than in the seventeenth century. Here skillful control of the various levels of ROME C. 1746-1820 ROME
Head of Holofernes
the heroine, no longer accompanied relief, seems to be based on a knowl-
1775 by the single maidservant, is to be rep- edge of the balanced dynamism of the A sculptor, restorer, and collector,
Terracotta resented together with the people previous century. The figures on the Vincenzo was the son of the gem
22/2" x 31/2" (57 x 80 cm) who will benefit by that death. To right, from the half-kneeling woman engraver Andrea, and the elder
provenance Concorso Clementino, 1775; express the idea that her action may with the child, to the maidservant brother of Camillo, another sculptor.
Accademia di S. Luca, Rome be the execution of a higher will, it is leaning over the shoulder of the pro- He received his training in the Rome
exhibition Rome 1959. cat. no. 405 suggested that halt the people be tagonist, are precise reiterations of environment, probably between his
bibliography In lode dellc Belle Arti 1775,
shown "in the act of thanking God" many similar seventeenth-century father's workshop and the Accademia
p. 16; Golzio 1933, pp. 25-26, 44-45, 64;
(In lode delle Belle Arti 1775, p. 10). The models, reproduced with a compla- del Nudo on the Capitoline Hill,
Settecento 1959. p. 158, no. 403
proposed text emphasizes the realism cent and overt sensibility that is where he studied from 1762 to 1770
Accademia Nazionale di San Luca, Rome
of the narrative, recommending the entirely eighteenth-century. The diag- under the direction of Tommaso
placing of lights around the heroine onals in each of the two parts, sug- Righi. Andrea Bergondi, Paolo Pacilli,
The announcement of the Concorso so that the onlookers, even at a dis- gested by lances and torches, which and Francisco Preziado, winning
Clementino, proclaimed in the holy tance, can recognize the head of neatly frame Prince Ozia on the left various prizes and distinguishing
year of 1775, asked the competitors in Holofernes that is being shown to and Judith on the right, relate to an himself as one of its most brilliant
the first class of sculpture for a terra- them, and reminding the sculptor of even more rigidly academic scheme. pupils. In 1766, 1768, and 1773 he
cotta bas-relief representing "Judith in the need to draw attention to the now The urban landscape, explicitly entered the competitions held by the
the piazza of Bethulia in a prominent empty sack that had contained it. required, is summarily indicated in Accademia di S. Luca, winning prizes
place oron the steps of some public The scene to be represented is the less raised part of the background, of considerable value to a young man
building surrounded by torches, therefore of necessity crowded with more drawn than modeled. needing to attract the attention of
showing the severed head of figures. The young sculptor, just The judges' laconic appraisal, potential patrons. In the Concorso
Holofernes to the people and the turned seventeen, tackled the work "seeing that there is only one competi- Clementino of 1766 he was awarded
nobles of the city, among whom their by dividing the scene into two, creat- tor in the first class, and he does not third prize in the first class: the com-
prince Ozia must be distinguished. ing a depth, by making the figures in deserve the first prize either for the petition required a bas-relief illustrat-
Some of the bystanders shall be in the the centre less prominent, that bas-relief or for the overall effect . we ing a passage from Genesis: Pharoah
act of thanking God, and some in acts enabled him to give the necessary award him the second" (Rome, Seated on His Throne Receiving Jacob Led
of exultation and applause for [udith, emphasis to the figure of Judith on Archivio S. Luca, vol. 53, fol. 64V), is by I lis Son Joseph. Two years later he
at whose feet shall be seen the sack in the right and, at the same time, to justified by the uncertainties, hesita- took part in the first Concorso
which she had concealed the head of make the head of Holofernes clearly tions, —
and incoherences both formal Balestra with a group in terracotta
the dead Holofernes" (In lode delle Belle recognizable. The suggestion of the and poetic — that are apparent in the that was to represent the episode from
Arti 1775, p. 10). The choice of theme is steps, at the top of which Judith's work. There is clear evidence of the the first book of Ovid: Juno. Jove, and a
suggestively Baroque, as was the gesture can be seen by all the people, rich experience Pacetti gained during Cow Teased l>v a Cloud. His work was
subject proposed for copying in the is achieved by giving them a curved his early working years, in his explicit awarded second prize, behind thai ol
third class, "a model of the statue of layout, curiously incongruous in rela- quotations of classical, antique, and Joseph Nollekens but ahead of the
lain) Bibiana by Bernino [sic]" (In lode tion to the space defined by the recti- contemporary prototypes. However, f renchman Siefano d Antonio and the
dellc Belle Arti 1775, p. 10). The lure of a linear bases of porticoes with which the display of technical ability often Swiss Vincenzo Mazzctii. In the same

scui.pturi:
 competition in 1773, he was at last assembled numerous works in his
awarded the first prize, together with studio for sale to Roman prelates and
Giuseppe Martini from Lucca. The princes, and to foreigners. His archae-
theme of this competition required ological philosophy was largely
entrants to depict The Meeting of derived from Winckelmann, whose
Achilles and Pcnthcsiled,Queen of the ideaswere propounded mainly by
Amazons. Whom He Has Mortally Cavaceppi. This philosophy sanc-
Wounded (cat. 145). tioned the combination of antique
worked as a
In these years Pacetti pieces that were unrelated as long as
restorer of ancient marbles under the they were compatible, and seems to
guidance of Pacilli and Cavaceppi. In have been shared by Canova himself,
1775 he applied unsuccessfully to though later he developed a different
become an academician of S. Luca, but approach (Nava Cellini 1988. p. 61).
won unanimous election only four Many foreign artists and collectors
years later, in 1779. Gradually, though, visited Pacetti's studio, including
which combined a thor-
his sculpture, Hamilton, Kauffmann. Jenkins, Head,
ough technical knowledge with an and many others, but through the
instinctive ability to reconcile the pre- mediation of Francesco Piranesi a
vailing late Baroque style with the special rapport was established
renewed interest in classicism, found between and the Swedish
Pacetti
ever wider approval in the form of court, for whose new museum the
numerous requests for his work, offi- "Pacetti collection" was acquired in
cial recognition from Rome's major 1794, supported by the expertise of
artistic institutions, and the friendship Giuseppe Angelini and Ennio Quirino
of artists, writers, and other intellectu- Visconti.
als. The brief handwritten notes that A sculptor of classicism still

comprise his diary offer an intimate imbued with eighteenth-century

picture of Vincenzo Pacetti's progress grace, closer to the style of Mengs
in the Roman environment, the center than of Canova, in his later years
of European culture. He was several Pacetti witnessed the end of the
times regent of the Congregazione dei culture to which he had made such a
Virtuosi al Pantheon, and served major contribution. One emblem of
several terms as Principe of the the new cultural climate was the cer-
Accademia di S. Luca in the difficult tificate that he asked the Accademia di MS
years between 1^06 and 1801. when he S. Luca to sign in May 1809. confirm-
demonstrated his ability as a mediator ing the decorum with which he exer- Golzio 1939; Settcccnto 1959. no. 405; Amazons having come to the aid
as well as his concern for Rome's cised his "profession of distinguished Honour i960. "Pacetti"; Honour 1963, of the Trojans, the young Achilles
"Pacetti," pp. 368-^3; Hubert 1964, Sculpture,
greatest artistic institution. He was also head sculptor of both school and the encounters their queen. Penthesilea.
p. 59: Mostra dei maestri di Brera. 1-76-1859.
appointed director of the Accademia studio that was named after him, not in battle and mortally wounds her; he
Milan: Centro Grafico Linate, 19-5; Nava
del Nudo on several occasions, and subcontracting to other professors to
Cellini 1988; Caira Lumetti 1990: Gonzalez-
takes off her visor, is stunned by her
enjoyed the opportunities this offered execute works not his own" (Rome, Palacios 1991. pp. 110-11; Germano Siracusa beauty and falls in love with her, then
both for teaching and contact with Archivio S. Luca, vol. 56. fol 84V). 1996 is tormented with pain as he watches
young people. Some years later, in December 1815, her expire in his arms" (In lode delle

Pacetti's artistic career began for- when the Roman academy decided to Belle Arti. p. 7, see above). The sources
mally in 1774. directly after his victory mark the return of the works of art by 145 quoted are particularly scholarly:
in the Concorso Balestra, with the the French with marble busts of the Quintus Smyrnaeus's sequel to the
Vincenzo Pacetti
commission for the funeral monu- pope, Cardinal Camerlengo, the cardi- Iliad and the book of Pausanius.
fifth

ment of the Grand Master Emanuele nal secretary of state, and the Achilles and Penthesilea The entirely Baroque theme of the link
Pinto de Fonseca in Valletta Cathedral Marchese Antonio Canova, other between love and death is treated here
1773
in Malta. In 1776 he began his collabo- sculptors were commissioned to in a manner already imbued with a
Terracotta
ration with the architect Mario execute them, but not the elderly cava- pre-Romantic temperament.
26/4" x 18/2" x 16//' (68 x 47 x 42 cm)
Asprucci on the complex work of dec- liere Vincenzo Pacetti, although he was
provenance Concorso
Unfortunately the only known sculp-
Balestra, 1773;
orating first the Casino Borghese and still alive and active, [anc] Accademia di S. Luca. Rome tural interpretation is Vincenzo
then the Temple of Esculapius in
little bibliography Orazione e componimenti exhibitions Rome 1959. cat. no. 403;
Pacetti's terracotta, as the entry sub-

the same which took them over

villa, poetiti in lode delle Belle Arti. Rclazione del Rome 1991. Fasto romano. cat. no. 13 mitted by the other prize-winning
ten years. He showed his skill as a dec- solcnnc concorso e della distribuzionc de'premi bibliography In lode delle Belle Arti. sculptor, Giuseppe Martini from
orator in the reliefs for the Romulus celebrata sul Campidoglio dall'lnsignc Accademia Orazione e componimenti poetici. Rclazione del Lucca, has been lost. The group here
del Disegno in S. Luca di 24 novembrc 1-66.
Room in the new apartment of the il
concorso de'prcmj distribuiti in Campidoglio stands on a low base of rocks sug-
essendo Principe di essa il Sig. D. Francesco dall' Insigne Accademia del Disegno in S. Luca
Palazzo Altieri (1789-91), and in reliefs gested schematically by masses articu-
Prcziado alia Scmtita Ji Nostra Signore Nobil
di 27 Aprile 17-3 secondo I'isrituzione del
for numerous churches both in Rome
il
lated by parallel strokes. The helmet
Clancntc XIII. Rome. 1-66; In lode delle Belle
Uomo Carlo Pio Biilcstra. essendo principe
and elsewhere. But he was also an effi- Arti. Orazione e componimenti poeiici. Rclazione and breastplate lying on the ground
dcll'Accadcmia il Signor Andrea Bergondi scul-
cient portraitist, as demonstrated by del concorso c de'prcmj distribuiti in Campidoglio torc. Rome: Casaletti, 1773; Brinckmann before the two characters are some-
the bust of Mengs in the monument in dall' Insigne Accademia del Disegno in S. Luca.
1923-25, vol. 2, pp. 122-23; Golzio 1933,
what sketchy in form, more graphic
di 24 novembrc i~68 per nuova istiiuzione del
Ss. Michele c Magno, and those of Il
pp. 24-25, 50; Golzio 1939; Settecento 1959. than plastic, to indicate that they
nobil uomo Carlo Pio Balestra essendo principe il
no. 403; Honour i960. "Pacetti." pp. 174-81; belong to a woman, in contrast to the
Pietro Bracci, Benefial, Pope Pius VI.
signor Andrea Bergondi scultorc. Rome. 1768; Nava Cellini 1988; Gonzalez-Palacios 1991.
and many other leading figures in the weapons of Achilles, depicted in detail
In lode delle Belle Arti. Orazione c componimenti no. 13
Roman society of his time. Above all, poctici. Rclazione del concorso c de'prcmj dis-
with a strong, impressive head of
Accademia Nazionale di San Luca, Rome Medusa, which are on the ground
he was an intelligent restorer of classi- iribuiti in Campidoglio dall' Insigne Accademia
cal remains, many of them only del Disegno in S. Luca. Il di 2~ aprile 177? secondo behind them. The figures entwine
recently cscavated, intuitively selecting l istituziotU del nobil uomo Carlo Pio Balestra In the second Concorso Balestra, in an embrace structured along two

the most interesting pieces. Working csscndi) 1'rmcipc dell 'Accademia il Signor Andrea announced by the Accademia di strong diagonals: the one extending
Bergondi scultorc. Rome, 1773; Brinckmann down arm. which sup-
often in collaboration with the sculptor S. Luca in 1773, the theme assigned Achilles' right
1925-25. vol. 2, pp. 122-23; Golzio 1955:
Francesco Antonio Franzoni, he to the young sculptors was: "The ports Penthesilea's limp body and

274 SCULPTURE
continues along her inert left arm. this is a competition entry, the most a Drowned Girl, and a statue of in 1780. It provoked great debate,
isbalanced by one running from the convincing hypothesis is that Pacetti Artemisia Weeping over the Urn being considered too "Italian" for
slanting drapery on the left side of the wanted to demonstrate the full range Containing the Ashes of Her Husband, French taste, with its great pyramid,

hero's chest, through the clothes ability, combining in

of his expressive Mausolus. These three sculptures have sepulchral urn in antique style, and

softly slipping over the queen's lifeless a single group the heroic and the dra- been lost, but the last is known from the statue of justice inspired by the

body. The visor of the warrior's valu- matic styles, the desire for the ideal an engraving by Angelo Campanella. Medici Niobc. The tomb was pulled

able helmet, and the curls that frame simplicity of the classic, and the taste After nearly fifteen years in Rome, apart during the French Revolution.

his face, create an unusual effect of for the involved and emphatic narra- Poncet decided to try his luck in Two engravings of it have survived,
light that emphasizes his pained and tive, the revival of the antique and the France. In an ambitious move he went together with the eagle, sculpted in
questioning expression, a light spread modern tradition. The resulting com- to Ferney to make a bust of Voltaire. blue stone, by Francesco Franzoni,
over his broad chest, while a more position is original in its introduction In Lyon at the end of 1775, he was now in the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in
modulated half-light softens as it of "classical" elements drawn from the elected a member of the academy, Paris. Poncet then traveled to London
conveys the flimsiness of the tunic antique, but still too Baroque in style making a show of his origins and his to sculpt statues of George III and
over her breast, which is the true and implication to mark a decisive title of piistor of the Accademia Queen Charlotte, before returning to

focus of the group. A stability both step towards classicism, [anc] dellArcadia, awarded in Rome in 1771. Rome for a final period from 1786 to
physical and visual is conveyed by the He spent several weeks at Ferney in 1789. The only surviving work from
rendering of the half-bent leg against 1776, and presented a plaster model this last sojourn is a bust of a young

which the dying woman leans as in FRANCOIS-MARIE PONCET of the portrait to the academy in Lyon, girl dated 1788 (Daniel Katz Gallery,
the most celebrated ancient models. LYON 1736-1797 MARSEILLE where it remains. There are six known London, 1996). Poncet was forced to

The key to the interpretation of the marble copies (three signed replicas in leave Rome for good in 1789, at the
given theme that Pacetti seems to be Poncet is often regarded as being from the former collection of Tony Dreyfus, time of the Cagliostro affair. He was
offering lies in this counterpoise Lyon, and occasionally as being from Museums of Dijon and Dunkirk, three probably a freemason, and may have
between the softness of the limp body Marseille; in fact he had a foot in both unsigned, in private collections, found himself compro-
politically

and the vigor of the heroic nude. The cities, since his family were from including that of Theodore Besterman). mised. He fled to Florence, where he
first is treated in almost sentimental Chazelle-sur-Lyon, where his grand- He went to Paris and applied to sculpt was admitted to the Accademia del
terms, dwelling on the careful render- father Pierre was a court clerk and a bust of D'Alembert, who refused, Disegno in 1792 and copied the head
ing of the drapery, the ribbons, and schoolmaster. Pierre died young, but was accepted by Turgot and by of The Death of Alexander in the Uffizi.

the ruffled folds disrupting the con- and Benoit, his son, went to seek his Charlotte, Duchess of Albany, then He finally resurfaced in Marseille, in

nection between breast, neck, and fortune in Marseille, where he became at school in France. According to the 1796, where he signed a petition for
shoulders, and reducing the head to a domestic servant. In 1736 he was Lyon poet Chassaignon, Poncet also the "confiscation" of further works
a triangular shape to accentuate the employed in the service of the ambas- went to Versailles to make busts of the of art from Italian collections.

angle of vertex of the right shoulder. sador to the king of Naples, Charles king's two brothers and of Marie- Poncet died in Marseille on August
The ample drapery that clothes the VII of Bourbon, on a visit to Paris. Antoinette. Except for the bust of 24, 1797. In 1800 a number of his works
hero's left shoulder and right side, Thus Franc,ois-Marie Poncet, born in Voltaire, none of these works is were sold in Paris, probably those
still Baroque in its expressionistic Lyon on September 9, was by chance known today. It is curious to note that recovered from his studio in Rome
swelling, recalls earlier, more classical reunited with his origins. He acquired Houdon was sculpting the same sub- by the beneficiaries to his will; they
approaches. The face is classical, his artistic training at the Academie jects during the same period (compe- provide a useful resume of his career,
arranged in a way very similar to that des Beaux-Arts in Marseille, founded between the two men tilted in
tition which was principally centered
of the Laocoon, as are the positions of in 1752, and was awarded a prize in Houdon's favour with the Voltaire around the copying and imitation of
his arms: the left, now missing its 1754; his masters must have been the bust of 1778). antique works of art, including the
hand, is reminiscent of analagous obscure Bertrand and )ean-Michel However, the Voltaire bust did serve Antinous, Bacchus, Ceres, Flora, the
poses of antique statues of Apollo fil- Verdiguier. He then went to Paris, as a springboard for Poncet, and he is Hermaphrodite, the Venus Pudica, and
tered through Bernini's reinterpreta- where he joined the studio of Etienne still known for this work. Replicas were the Callipigian Venus, [om]
tions, while the right, supporting the Falconet and was twice given the no doubt sold, and by the time he bibliography Michel 1984; Michel 1996,
body of the dying queen, quotes antiq- "term" prize (awarded four times a returned in 1777 to where he was
Italy, Vivrc ft pcindrc

uity with an ease possible only for one year): second prize in 1757 and first elected a member of the Accademia
with long experience of copying. Less prize in 1759. He was turned down, Clementina in Bologna, he seems to
elegant, but very important to the however, for the prix dc Rome. In 1759 have gained financial security; he I46
group's physical and visual stability, thiswas won by Clodion, and in 1760 moved into a huge studio, later visited
Francois-Marie Poncet
is the left leg, extended to support the by Martin-Claude Monnot. When the by Gustav III in the company of Sergei.
abandoned body, which very effec- young Houdon entered for it in 1761, During this second period in Rome, Holy Family Worshiped by
tively echoes the manner of Poncet withdrew and set off for Rome from 1777 to 1784, he enjoyed great
Angels
Michelangelo. at his own expense. There he applied success and worked for French, English,
Brinckmann read this work as the to the French Academy for lodgings, and Russian collectors. Although 1773

announcement of victory over the but was refused. He appears to have these collectors have not been identi- Signed (in the reverse: F. Poncet in. Ji t it Rome
1773
Baroque. According to him, it was distanced himself from the academy fied, it is known that he worked for
Terracotta
Pacetti who, with this work, introduced from this point on, mixing rather with Nicolas de Montribloud and Imbert-
classicism into Italian sculpture, not artists associated with Mengs and Colomes, both from Lyon, and that he Diameter 22/4" (56.5 cm)
Canova, who was then only sixteen. Winckelmann, who were arguing made a Lueretia and a Virginia for the provenance Parisian collection: London,
Gallery "Romulus" (Mr (an |. Millner)
Golzio had already rejected this strongly for a return to antiquity. Due de Montmorency (now lost). There
BlBl IOGRAPHY Michel 19S4: Michel 199(1.
hypothesis, stressing that the Baroque These included Laurent Pecheux from is Musee Cognacq-Jay in
a Venus in the
Vivre el pcindrc
is undeniably present in this terracotta, Lyon and Francois-Joseph Lonsing and dated 1778), executed
Paris (signed
Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica. Rome.
from the flexible and sinuous outline from Belgium, both painters, and the for an unknown patron, and an Adonis
Palazzo Barberini
of the base to the composite, contorted sculptor Etienne Dantoine, another (1784) in the National Gallery. Dublin,
architecture and the fluttering former pupil, like Poncet, of the commissioned by Lady Saint-George
draperies. Santangelo, in the historic academy of Marseille. Usher. During this period he The origin ol this work is unknown:
k;s<) exhibition, Roman Art in the The earliest surviving works by employed young artists from Lyon when it appeared on the London art
Eighteenth Century, emphasizing the Poncet arc two bas-reliefs in terra- and the Danish sculptor Nicolas Dajon market it was unattributed. the signa-
extremely fine execution, pointed to cotta, the Artemisia Fainting (Musee in his studio. He spent the years 1784 ture on the reverse having been
the artist's classicizing approach, Historique, Lyon) and the Holy Family to 1786 in Paris, installing a large concealed. Dated 1773. it was made

evident despite the technically relaxed of 177? (eat. 146). During his first stay funerary monument for Louis de toward the end of Poncet "s first stay in
and expressive but still Baroque work- inRome, which lasted until 17-s. he Boullenois dc Blasy in the Eglise des Rome, about which relatively little is
manship. Considering, however, that made a copy of the Callipigian Venus. Cannes, Place Maubert, a work begun known. le arrived in -hi to discover
1
1

SCULP 1 1 1 RI
 Carnavalet, Paris), on some of which
Poncet himself probably worked.
The graphic character of this bas-
relief is particularly noteworthy.
Although none of this sculptor's
drawings have survived, two of his
contemporaries, Gabriel Bouquier
and Chassaignon, reported that he
was an exceptional draftsman, [om]
seurs fortwo centuries, they held
particular appeal to theGrand Tour
market. The vogue for such objects
can be attributed in part to the spiral-
in^ prices of real antiquities in the
eighteenth century. This, combined
with tightening papal control over the
excavation and export of archaeologi-
cal material, placed the acquisition of

choice artifacts beyond all but the

very wealthiest collectors. Artists
FRANCESCO RIGHETTI such as Righetti and his competitors
ROME 1749-1819 ROME Giovanni and Giacomo Zoffoli
obliged and fed demand for the
As and bronze
a sculptor, silversmith, bronze miniatures, while other artists
founder, Francesco Righetti worked did similar work in terracotta or
on large-scale projects for popes and biscuit porcelain.
monarchs: he is best remembered, Like any metal-casting project,
however, for his small bronze stat- Righetti's enterprise was collabora-
uettes after famous antiquities. tive. Aside from maintaining a work-
Righetti trained in the workshop of shop staff that included his son Luigi,

the leading Roman sculptor-silver- Righetti is known to have employed

smith of the day, Luigi Valadier. and other artists to sculpt for him.
emerged from his training as a versa- Documentary sources indicate, for
tile artist-craftsman in his own right. instance, that the sculptor Camillo
Righetti's first major independent Pacetti copied antiquities for Righetti
commission came in 1781, from the in 1785.
English banker Henry Hope. Hope In 1794 Righetti published a cata-
146 requested twelve full-sized lead repli- logue-style price list of the miniature
cas of famous sculptures, which were statues available from his workshop,
antique sculpture and study the classi- certificateand the parish register it is to be painted white to simulate a document that attests both to the
cal works of the seventeenth and early known that he was a Catholic, and a marble. The group, intended to deco- scope of his production and to his
eighteenth century, such as those by practising one, and that he observed rate a country home, included not promotional talent. The offerings
Pierre Legros, as well as by his own the requirement to take communion only copies of antiquities but also of included seventy-eight single figures,
contemporaries, in particular Filippo every year at Easter. Curiously, criti- works by Giambologna and twenty-five figure groups, forty-six
della Valle, whose influence can be cism by Parisian jounalists of the mau- Duquesnoy. Righetti's refined metal- busts, and various vases, trophies, and
detected here in the typically soleum for Boullenois in 1786 at the work soon attracted the highest level animal sculptures. Although most of
Florentine elegance of the figures. The Eglise des Carmes in the Place Maubert, of patronage. For the famous Grand the advertised bronzes were after noted
classical feeling of his work is also focused on his lack of religious Tourist Frederick Hervey, Bishop of antiquities, the catalogue also lists

reminiscent of Mengs and Batoni. He feeling, and his undue attachment to Derry and Earl of Bristol, Righetti copies of modern works, including
signed his first, fairly conventional pagan antiquity. It is true that his fashioned two bronze candlesticks, four statuettes after Bernini and five

work in 1769, a bas-relief in terracotta entire work was based on the copying the design of which incorporated after Giambologna. In the same docu-
showing Artemisia Fainting (Musee and imitation of antique models, but antique figures. In 1786 Catherine ment the sculptor expressed his will-
Historique, Lyon), and his progress does this necessarily imply that he the Great of Russia commissioned ingness to do custom work, offering
over four years can be judged from the personally was lacking in spiritual Righetti to create a marble model of to copy statues of the buyer's choice
fine treatment of the faces and the del- depth? It is true, too, that he was a bon Mount Parnassus, which he populated either in miniature or in full scale.
icacy of the modeling, as well as from vivant, and that Chassaignon, the with bronze statuettes of Apollo, the Significantly, the 1794 price list is

the technique of sculpting drapery writer from Lyon, spoke critically of Muses, and the winged horse Pegasus. written in French, suggesting that
which became significantly richer and his excesses, but does this necessarily With the exception of Pegasus, the Righetti conceived the miniatures
more supple. have any bearing on his work as a figures were all reduced-scale versions for a foreign clientele.
The Virgin is seated on a rock at the sculptor? The artist adapts to the work of a celebrated statuary group in the In 1801 the newly elected Pope Pius
center of a circular composition, with in hand as an actor does to his role. Vatican's Museo Pio-Clementino. To VII paid Righetti the unusual honor of
the infant Jesus asleep on her lap. To In fact, Poncet was far from igno- such connoisseurs as the empress and visiting the artist in his workshop.
her left stands Joseph, behind the rant of religious sculpture, which he her agents, the imitative nature of such Admiring his work, the pope commis-
central rock, holding a rod in his right first encountered in his early days in art enhanced rather than detracted sioned a gilt bronze set of altar fur-
hand, facing toward the central group, Paris. The bas-reliefs he created for the from the value of the bronzes: the nishings as a gift for the church of
with his left hand placed on his chest, prix dc Rome competition in 1759 have admiration of such specifically identi- S. Giorgio Maggiore in Venice. Two
as though in a gesture of prayer. On not survived, but they are known to fiable antiquities as the Vatican Muses years later Righetti created a pair of
the right side of the relief two kneeling have depicted Absalom Has His Brother was a signal of taste and cultivation. miniature obelisks commemorating
angels contemplate the child; the first Amon Killed at a Banquet (17S9) and The The rearrangement of the miniatures, the marriage of Prince Camillo
angel holds the edge of the cloth on Sacrifice oj the Israelites on the Recovery of whether on a specially commissioned Borghese to Paolina Bonaparte, the
which the child lies. Above the scene the Arkjrom Philistine (1760). Further- marble Parnassus or on the chimney- sisterof Pius VII's nemesis, Napoleon.
the heads of four cherubs are seen, more, he would have been working in piece of an aristocratic studio, was a That same year, almost certainly at the
lightly sketched in the middle of falconet's atelier while the latter, aided further exercise in cultivation. commission of the king of Naples,
clouds. This may be a simple adoration by Pajou and Huez, was creating a During the 1780s Righetti estab- Righetti and his son produced a set
scene or a Rest on the flight Into ligypt, series of sculptures for the church of lished himself as a producer of bronze of Apollo and the Muses (Capodimonte,
but since such traditional elements of St.-Roch, from 1753. These included a miniatures after famous antique pro- Naples) that recalls the Parnassus
the latteras date trees laden with fruit Virgin Annunciate (17SS), Christ in the totypes, a genre of sculpture that group carried out seventeen years
are absent, the simple descriptive title Garden of Olives (1757; the only surviv- developed in the second half of the before for Catherine the Great. Again
of / loly family Worshiped by Angels has ing piece ), the Angel of the Annunciation eighteenth century in response to the the models were the Vatican statues,
been preferred. of 1758, and a Calvary group (1760), burgeoning art market. While such although instead of the marble moun-
This is the only surviving religious known today from the painting by bronzes had enjoyed popularity tain, lour classicizing architectonic
work by I'oncet. from his baptismal Nicolas-Bernard Lepicie (Musee among Italian collectors and connois- bases provide the ambient for the

276 SCULPTURE
 revelry; meanwhile, the knobby club sculptors from the city of Aphrodisias
in his left hand indicates the centaur's (Haskell and Penny 1981, p. 178; the
potential for violence, a potential fre- original inscription uses the c shown
quently realized in the ancient legends. here instead of the more conventional
Righetti's bronze is a small-scale Greek sigma). Aside from Righetti's
copy of one of the Furietti Centaurs, a imperfect command of Greek, there
pair of statues excavated in 1736 by are other aspects of the sculpture that
Monsignor (later Cardinal) Alessandro are typically Settecento. Righetti's
Furietti on the site of Hadrian's Villa very selection of the Furietti Centaurs
at Tivoli. The life-size centaurs, carved depends on their attractiveness to a
in an exotic red basalt, are generally period eye. Moreover, the original
regarded as second-century copies marble centaurs were extensively
after Hellenistic bronze originals. restored shortly after their discovery,
With their imperial provenance and and thus inevitably reflect the taste of
dramatic composition, the centaurs the restorer. Finally, very subtle hints
were a sensation at the time of their of Settecento style may be identified
discovery, and entered immediately in Righetti's interpretation of his
into the canon of the most celebrated model, most notably a slight

Roman antiquities. sweetening of the centaur's facial

The fame of the by

statues, reflected
Righetti's selection of them as models
for his bronze miniatures, grew over
the course of the century. Monsignor
Furietti contributed to this
commissioning Nicolo Onofri and
Pompeo Batoni to design engravings
of his centaurs. Pope Benedict XIV
himself coveted the statues but was
unable to persuade Furietti to part
with them: Clement XIII finally
acquired them in 1765 for the stagger-
expression.
The method of production of such
bronze miniatures as Righetti's Centaur
began with a sculptor studying the
himself by original and fashioning a reduced
version in terracotta or wax. Righetti
sometimes collaborated with other
artists in the sculpting of these models:
a 1785 entry in the diary of Camillo
Pacetti's brother mentions that Camillo
was making "alcune copie per Righetti
il Metallaro" (Honour 1963, p. 199).

ing price of 13,000 scudi. He immedi- From the model, a reusable mould
147 ately presented them to theMuseo would be formed from which multiple
Capitolino, Rome's oldest public art bronze casts could be produced.
bronze figures. The king later com- some of the most important European museum, and regarded the transac- When the bronze had cooled, the
missioned Righetti to make a set of and American collections, [jh] tion as such an accomplishment that would chase the surface,
artist

altar furnishings for his great votive bibliography Righetti 1940; Righetti he had a medal struck to celebrate it. working to sharpen details and give a
church in Naples, S. Francesco di Paola. 1941; Bulgari 1958-74, vol. 2, p. 540; Honour Francesco Righetti produced multi- uniform polish. The statuettes were
While Righetti's copies of antique 1963; Gonzalez-Palacios 1976; Hiesinger ple statuettes of both Furietti Centaurs, occasionally gilded. Righetti's training
statuary reflect the artist's desire for and Percy 1980; Haskell and Penny 1981: which collectors could purchase singly as a silversmith was important to the
Luchs 1996; Gonzalez-Palacios 1997. Valadier
faithful reproduction, his decorative or as a pair; a pair exists, for instance, success of his production, and con-
work shows another side of his per- in the collection of the Victoria and noisseurs delighted in the fineness of
sonality. In vases, candelabra, tripods, Albert Museum in London. The the work, [jh]
and other projects Righetti drew from 147 Centaurs were part of the line of
the influence of his teacher Valadier bronze miniatures that the Righetti
Francesco Righetti
and from the capricious eclecticism of workshop marketed to connoisseurs ANGELO DE' ROSSI
Giovanni Battista Piranesi. In his more Young Centaur and northern European Grand GENOA 1671-1715 ROME
flamboyant works Righetti mingled Tourists, and they appear in Righetti's
1787
exoticizing Egyptian sources, classical
Signed and dated: F.RIGHETTI.F.ROMAE.1787. 1794 printed list of available statues Angelo de' Rossi, with his remarkably
motifs, and vegetal forms, treating all
on base: apicteacrai riAniAC
Inscribed
and ornaments. Nor was Rightetti the original style, was a central figure in
with an imaginative sense of grotesquerie. A*R0AE1CCIC [sic] only artist to offer miniature versions Rome's art world in the early eighteenth
Righetti also worked on the casting Bronze of the Furietti Centaurs: his rivals century. He received a distinctly
of large-scale bronzes, and in 1805 15%" x 9/2" x (39.7 x 24.2 x 12.4 cm) Giacomo and Giovanni Zoffoli pro- Baroque training, which he referred to
Pope Pius VII appointed the artist to duced similar versions in their slightly in a letter written on February 8, 1702,
provenance The Drawing Shop, New
succeed Giuseppe Valadier as director York; purchased by Anthony Morris Clark less expensive line of statuettes, and to Antonio Pellegrino Orlandi. It

of the Vatican foundry. In 1809, in his in 1969; by bequest to the Philadelphia models and biscuit porce-
in plaster appears that around 1680, while still a
capacity as a bronze founder, Righetti Museum of Art in 1978 lain are also known. Displayed on the child, he joined the workshop ot the
collaborated with Antonio Canova to exhibition Philadelphia 1980, cat. no. 112 chimneypieces, dining tables, and side great Genoese sculptor Filippo Parodi
produce the giant bronze figure of bibliography Hiesinger and Percy 1980, tables of a stately home, such objects and stayed with him for about eight
Napoleon (Brera, Milan) for Prince p. 126 would serve —much as the Canalettos years, a period that largely coincides
Eugene de Beauharnais, the French Philadelphia Museum of Art, Bequest of on the wall — as mementoes of the with Parodi's years in Veneto; it seems
viceroy of Italy. In 1819 Righetti and Anthony Morris Clark owner's voyage to Italy and symbols that during the 1680s he was employed
his son Luigi cast Canova's monumen- of his status and cultivation. in Venice, mainly as official sculptor
tal equestrian Charles III, which still The centaur, a stock creature of Although Righetti was typically to the Morosini family, as well as in
stands before the royal palace in Greco-Roman mythology, combines very faithful in his reproduction of Padua, where his work included the
Naples. After Righetti's death later the attributes of man and horse. antiquities, the inscription that appears thorough renovation of the Cappella
that year, the family enterprises in Dwelling in the wilderness, centaurs on the base of the exhibited bronze is delle Reliquie in the Santo.
Naples and Rome continued under represent the wilder side of the human incorrectly copied from that of the De' Rossi is first documented in
the direction of his son Luigi Righetti psyche, and are often associated with original. The inscription on the Museo 1692,when he was already in Rome
and grandson Francesco Righetti the Bacchus, the god of wine. The dancing Capitolino marble in fact reads and won first prize in the first class of
Younger. The works of the family, movement of this lively specimen, his APICTEAC KAI MANIAC A<l>ROAEICEIC, sculpture at the Accademia di S. Luca
highly prized and for the most part arm thrown up in abandon, conveys indicating that the original statue was with his relief The Three Young Men
easily portable, are distributed in an appropriately bacchic sense of produced by Aristeas and Papias, Thrown into the Furmiu' by

SCULPTURE 277
 — U

Nebuchadnezzar, beating among others Papaleo from Palermo, who, accord- generally believed to be a reduction Rome). Thirteen preparatory draw-
Giovanni Baratta, Francesco Maratti, ing to the documents, had already and now in the Hermitage (Enggass ings are known, however, as well as
and Bernardino Cametti. It is thought, made the full-size models when he 1976, vol. 1, p. 160; Bacchi 1996, vol. 1, several variants in different materials
however, that another group may date was replaced by De' Rossi (Franz- pp. 839-40). taken from a plaster cast that Giovanni

from even earlier, the marble Little Duhme 1986, pp. 61-62, 152, 204). De' Rossi's most impressive Battista Maini took from the original
Satyr Holding a Bunch of Crapes, The undertaking of the papal tomb achievement in the field of statuary (Franz-Duhme Montagu 1996,
1986;
recorded by Carlo Giuseppe Ratti should have sealed Angelo de' Rossi's remains his Saint james the Lesser for p. 242, no. 120): Museo di Palazzo
(Ratti 1797, p. 239) as being in the fame, but in fact he managed only to St. John Lateran, commissioned in Venezia, Rome (stucco); Museo Lia, La
Palazzo Durazzo (now the Palazzo complete the marble relief on the 170s but executed between 1710 and Spezia (terracotta); Bologna Cathedral
Reale) in Genoa. There was a signed pedestal (Alexander VIII Canonizing Five 1711 (Franz-Duhme 1986, pp. 217-20) (silver). Finally, there is the initialled
version in bronze of this composition, Saints), which was done by 1703. Praised and placed, together with the other relief exhibited here with Christ in the

belonging to Anton Loews of Troppau by Ratti as "the most excellent bas- Apostles by Rusconi, Legros, Monnot, Garden of Olives (cat. 149). Although the
(Bohemia) in the early twentieth relief," it is now in St. Peter's (Ratti Mazzuoli, Ottoni, and Maratti, in the effigies of many contemporary figures
century (Franz-Duhme 1986, p. 181). 1797, p. 238). It became remarkably nave of the basilica. The most highly appear, above all in the Vatican relief,

De' Rossi's first public work, famous, even among French sculp- debated problem relating to this cycle nothing is known of any documented
however, was his bronze relief tors; there is a plaster cast of it in the concerns the role played by Carlo work by De' Rossi in this field.

cast by Adolf Gaap —depicting Saint French Academy at Rome, another is Maratti, the artist whom the pope Nevertheless, the bust of Arcangelo
Ignatius Healing a Man Possessed by a recorded in the Paris workshop of the placed in charge of the project and who Corelli (Protomoteca Capitolina,
Devil made for the base of the altar of Slodtz family, and Mariette declared it produced a series of drawings that were Rome), although not documented, is

St. Gesu in Rome. On

Ignatius in the "a masterpiece which serves as a then passed to the sculptors. In the unanimously recognized as his. [ab]
February 14, 1696, he was paid for the model for all sculptors to study for case of De' Rossi both the documents BIBLIOGRAPHY Ratti 1797, pp. 235-40;
model, which was inspired by a paint- this part of their art" (Mariette and the style of the finished work leave Enggass 1976, vol. 1. pp. 159-67; Franz-
ing by Andrea Pozzo. It seems that in 1851-60, vol. 5, p. 16). As regards the no doubt as to his intelligent adherence Duhme 1986; Pascoli 1992. pp. 377-78;

1697 he was commissioned to do two other parts of the tomb, it is recorded to the drawings supplied by Maratti, Bacchi 1996, pp. 839-40

putti for the same project which, cast that by 1706, when the pope's body designs that the sculptor nevertheless
in bronze by Carlo Spagna, were to be was transferred to its new resting had to rethink for himself in a series of
placed on the altar rail. In the mean- place, De' Rossi appears to have com- sheets now in Diisseldorf I48
time, by September 1695 De' Rossi pleted, apart from the relief, only the (inv. nos. 2970, 3278 r. and v., 3279) and
Angelo de' Rossi
had signed a contract to make a great full-size models in stucco for the statue in a terracotta bozzetto in the Hermitage.
marble relief of Paul III Approving the of the pope (for which there also In the program of radical renova- Pope Alexander VI
jesuit Constitution, for the same chapel, exists the terracotta bozzetto; cat. 148) tion of the Pantheon interior pro- c. 1700
intended to be placed to the left of the and for the two allegorical figures moted by Clement XI, De' Rossi was Terracotta
altar as a pendant to a similar relief Religion and Prudence. The tomb was entrusted with the new high altar. He 18" x 11" (46 x 28 cm)
entrusted to Bernadino Cametti. It not completed until 1725, ten years planned monumental relief in
a
provenance J.
Pierpont Morgan,New
took De' Rossi almost four years to do after De' Rossi's death; the figure of bronze showing the Assumption of York; French and Company Inc., New York,
this work, and the relief was installed the pope was cast, according to Ratti. the Virgin. He first made a terracotta acquired by the museum, 1937
on May 6, 1699 (Enggass 1976, vol. 1, by a Giuseppe Bertosi, while it remains bozzetto that, according to Ratti, "much bibliography Martinelli 1959; Franz-

p. 160). In June of the same year De' the subject of discussion (see Franz- pleased His Holiness; and it is still Duhme 1986, pp. 213-14; Bacchi 1996, p. 839

Rossi went to Macerata, according to a Duhme 1986) how much part De' kept in the ground-floor rooms inside The Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco.

note written on the back of a signed and Rossi actually took in the execution of the Vatican palace" (Ratti 1797, p. 239). Museum Purchase by exchange, M. H. de

dated terracotta, Saint John the Baptist his two marble allegories. Ratti attrib- He then produced the life-size model Young Endowment Fund
(private collection; see Bacchi 1996). uted them to one Gagliardi, otherwise in stucco that was placed above the

The works for the Gesu. although unknown. Records have shown that altar in the Pantheon, but which, The story of the creation and con-
done by a sculptor who was still aged the relative blocks of marble were according to Ratti. aroused jealousies, struction of the tomb of Pope
under thirty, did not go unnoticed and already in De' Rossi's workshop in so that its translation to bronze was Alexander VIII, which stands in
were decisive in ensuring De' Rossi's 1707, but the rather disappointing postponed, and after the artist died St. Peter's, is complicated (the authori-
fame as an unchallenged master in the quality of these figures, which not only even the stucco model was removed. tative text, including numerous
field of reliefs. It is therefore not sur- fit awkwardly into the group but are Other works include the youthful unpublished documents, is that by
prising that in 1698, before he had unconvincing even when looked at bronze relief of the Pieta, recorded by Franz-Duhme 1986, pp. 204-13).
even finished the Paul ///, he was taken individually, suggests that his role in Ratti as being with Giorgio Doria in Commissioned by the pope's nipole
into the circle of Cardinal Pietro this part of the monument was limited. Genoa and rediscovered by Franz- Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni, the monu-
Ottoboni, who paid him a salary and In the early years of the eighteenth Duhme (Franz-Duhme 1984) in a ment was planned by an amateur
provided him with accommodation century De' Rossi was asked to make a private collection. There is also a ter- architect, Count Carlo Enrico di San
in the Palazzo della Cancelleria, monumental statue of the new pope, racotta of thesame subject in a private Martino, who had close ties with
where, as vice-chancellor, he lived. But Clement XI Albani, perhaps commis- collection (Helga Nora Franz-Duhme, Ottoboni. Early on, in 1695, a Sicilian,

most importantly Ottoboni entrusted sioned from him by Cardinal Ottoboni, "Zum Reliefstil von Angelo de Rossi Pietro Papaleo, was commissioned to

to De' Rossi the execution of the as it was intended for the chancellery. (1671-1715)." Jahrbuch der Berliner carry out the sculptural part, and
sculptures for the monument to his Ignored by authoritative sources, the Musccn, n.s., vol. 29-30 (1987-88), within about three years (the final

great-uncle, Pope Alexander VIII, statue is mentioned in a poetic com- pp. 218-21) and a gilded bronze (Rau payment is dated July 31, 1698) he had
planned for St. Peter's. The design position by Giovanni Battista Collection, Marseille), which Jennifer made the full-size models of the
for the monument had already been Brancadoro (Enggass 1976, vol. 1, Montagu identified as the work various figures, including that of the
worked out by Carlo Enrico, Count of p. 160). The marble statue sculpted is quoted in early eighteenth-century pope. A payment dated February 13,
San Martino, the cardinal's right-hand now lost, but it is believed that a terra- inventories as executed by Giovanni 1699, to a carpenter, Gregorio
man, commander of the papal troops cotta in the Berlin museum is its model by De' Rossi
Giardini after a Bonarelli, for works carried out in

in Romagna, poet, engraver, and also preparatory bozzetto (Schlegel 1978, (Montagu 1996, pp. 129-31). connection with the "models of the
amateur architect (the most complete pp. 94-100). It appears that Angelo de' An equally famous composition figures made on the orders of Monsieur
biographical reference is in Schcdc Rossi also made a second statue of the was The Adoration of the Shepherds, the Theodone and Signor Pietro Beletti,"
vesme: I arte in I'kmontc dal XVI al XVIII Albani pope, this time in bronze, at terracotta original of which was suggests that in 1699 the Frenchman
secolo [Turin: Socicta Piemontesedi 1 he request of Niccolodel Giudice, donated in 1711 to the Accademia di Jean-Baptiste Theodon was involved
Archcologia e Belle Arti, 1968), vol. 3, household steward and prefect of the S. Luca, on the occasion of De' Rossi's in the enterprise. At this point Angelo
pp. 960-61). Three years earlier, in Palazzi Apostolici. This too has been admission as accadcmico di mcrito. Of de' Rossi had also been involved in the
1695, Ottoboni had entrusted the cre- lost and is known today only through the original reliel only fragments project for almost a year, for on April
ation of the sculptures to Francesco a print by B. Farjat and a small bronze remain (Musco di Palazzo Venezia, 18, 1698, he ordered "five pounds of

SCULPTURE
 .

with Francesco Bertos, a famous spe- 149

cialist in bronze sculpture working
Angelo de' Rossi
during the same period mainly,
though not exclusively, in the Veneto. Christ in the Garden of Olives
The small terracotta model exhibited c. 1700-1705
here was first connected (by Valentino Signed: A.R.F
Martinelli) with the statue in St. Peter's
Marble
(Martinelli 1959). Nevertheless, the 29" x 25" (75 x 65 cm)
documents published in 1986 by provknanck donated by the Theodor
Franz-Duhme concerning an original KJopfer Museum, Munich, 1900
model made between 169s and 1698 bibliography Ratti 1797, p. 239; Pascoli
by the Sicilian sculptor Papaleo, do 1992, p. 377; Bacchi 1996, p. 840
not, in theory, exclude the possibility Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Munich
that this terracotta model, which is

certainly not identical to the bronze

in St. Peter's, might be by him. It is In his Life of Angelo de' Rossi, published
also true that, compared with the ter- in 1730, Lione Pascoli, after having
racotta, the bronze appears animated listed the sculptor's most important
by a tension more explicitly Baroque, public works, wrote "He made many
as indicated by the wider gesture of private works for various people . .

benediction and the more lively flow and especially for Arcangelo Corelli a
of the drapery. Nevertheless, the attri- bas-relief representing Jesus Christ in
bution of this sculpture to De' Rossi the Garden, which he then gave to
remains the most convincing. The Cardinal Ottoboni; because the price
small model, although more did not suit him" (Pascoli 1992, p. 377).
restrained and less emphatic, corre- The relief was later recorded by Ratti
sponds too closely to the bronze in without mentioning Corelli, simply as
St. Peter's. Furthermore, it seems hard having been presented by the sculptor
to imagine that Papaleo's models, to Ottoboni (Ratti 1797, p. 239).
rejected by Ottoboni, could have been Subsequently all trace of the work was

so close to the definitive solution later lost and, as Franz-Duhme has pointed
conceived by De' Rossi. Its interest lies out, no mention of it appears in any
in the powerful originality of De' known Ottoboni inventories (Franz-
Rossi's rethinking of the great proto- Duhme 1986, p. 228).
types of seventeenth-century papal The hypothesis that it can now be
statuary, particularly Bernini's identified as this marble is confirmed
Urban Vlll (St. Peter's, Rome) and both by the signature A.R.F. incised
Alessandro Algardi's Innocent X (Palazzo above the angel's foot, and, most
iron wire needed for the statue for the (Ratti 1797, p. 238). Less than two years dei Conservatori, Rome). It retains importantly, by the work's style and
Tomb" (cited in Franz-Duhme 1986, later, on February 18, 1706, Francesco their monumentality, but in place of technique. The narrative and compo-
p. 143). It was probably at this time Valesio wrote in his diary, "the body of their heroic quality there is a different sitional focus of the scene is the
also that the relationship began Pope Alexander VIII was solemnly feeling into which a detail — for chalice brought to Christ by the angel
between De' Rossi and Ottoboni, who transported from the place where he example the imperfectly centered papal who, with one foot already on the
arranged for the sculptor to live in his layby way of a tomb ... to the new tiara — impinges an entirely eighteenth- ground and the other about to touch
household at the Palazzo della tomb The new tomb remained from
. . . century note of subtle irony, [ab] it, bursts sorrowfully onto the scene

Cancelleria and paid him a salary. that day unveiled, and has turned out with draperies still agitated by the
"Concerning the tomb of Pope magnificent with the statues of the flight. With one hand he offers the

Alexander VIII the idea of the architec- pope and the two Virtues in stucco, chalice, with the other he points
ture Count S. Martino's, the order of
is which will later be made, the first in upward to where three cherubs are
His Eminence is that must make the I bronze and the other in marble" (above playing with the cross among the
figures all accordingly"; these are the quotations cited in Matitti 1995, p. 209). clouds. The clouds around him allude
words, not lacking in pride, that the It appears therefore that De' Rossi had to his celestial origin, and behind him
young sculptor, then thirty-one, wrote already executed the models for Religion a young angel, stupefied and discon-
on February 8, 1702, to Pellegrino and Prudence and completed the relief certed, presses close to him. clasped
Antonio Orlandi, who was collecting of Alexander VIII Canonizing Five Saints. hands against his cheek, the lower
information about contemporary But he did not survive to see the tomb part of his body entirely covered by
artists. In the records of the basilica finished. He died in 171s. and it was the clouds. Christ, kneeling, turns
his name appears on an undated doc- not until ten years later, in 1725, that towards the angel, pointing to the
ument in which a master builder, the two completed marble allegories chalice. The strongest expressive
Nicolo Zaballi, is paid for having "spe- were placed in St. Peter's, according to element of this figure is the cloak that
cially made the bridge for the use of by "a certain Gagliardi." Jennifer
Ratti, covers him. The border, stiff and deco-
Signor Angelo, sculptor, for the other Montagu has mentioned the presence rated in an almost abstract way, is

statue of the Pope in the said tomb in in Rome at that time of the goldsmith articulated down a long diagonal,
place of the one that has fallen to Giuseppe Gagliardi, of whom it is which seems to oppose the movement
pieces." On May 31, 1704, the new written in the records of a lawsuit that of the angel. In the background, behind
model in stucco for the statue was he "practised the study of sculpture" two palm trees with elegantly waving
moved into St. Peter's, and the docu- (Montagu 1996, pp. 172, 246, no. 100). fronds, are the armed men who have
ments reveal that De' Rossi's colleague It is also on the basis of Ratti's testi- come to capture Christ. The artist's
was the sculptor Simone Giorgini. The mony that the casting of the pope's ability to articulate the different planes
model was 114/," (2.9 m) high and after statue was also attributed to an other- of the scene results in a surprising
the tomb was completed it was moved wise unknown artist. Giuseppe Bertosi depth of field and is combined with a
"into the salon of the Palazzo Fani, near (Ratti 1797, p. 237), unless Ratti's singular virtuosity in modulating the
to the church of S. Lorenzo in Lucina" Giuseppe Bertosi can be identified surface of the marble, to evoke the

SCULPTURE
 who then gave them to Charles III of
Spain. Jennifer Montagu has suggested
identifying The Dead Christ Mourned by
the Angels with a relief in the Rau
Collection in Marseille, a replica of
which is in the Museo degli Argenti in
the Palazzo Pitti in Florence, and
which can be related to a terracotta
relief in a private collection in Rome,
attributable to Angelo de' TheRossi.
document is of great importance both
because it testifies to this composi-
tion's great fame, and because it sup-
plies a useful chronological deadline
for the dating of this marble, [ab]

CAMILLO RUSCONI
MILAN 1658-1728 ROME

At the age of fifteen Camillo began his

training as a sculptor in the workshop
of Giuseppe Rusnati, who not long
before had come back to Milan after
several months in the Roman work-
shop of Ercole Ferrata, one of the
most gifted peers of Gianlorenzo
Bernini.Thus the young Rusconi was
exposed to the most modern develop-
ments in Roman Baroque sculpture.
Rusnati recognized his pupil's talent
and recommended him to Ercole
Ferrata.
In 1684 Rusconi is for the first time
documented in the Roman workshop
of Ferrata, who seems to have called
on this new assistant to collaborate in
various running projects, such as the
group of Saint Elizabeth for the chapel

of the same name in the cathedral of

Wroclaw (Breslau), Poland, and a few

other small-scale figures, such as the
Infant Hercules that recently appeared
on the art market, and a terracotta
group representing wrestling boys
that could be the one now in the
Hermitage in St. Petersburg. Ferrata's
death in 1686 prompted Rusconi to
open his own workshop in Rome, and
his first years of artistic independence
were spent mainly on minor commis-
sions, usually for works in stucco. His

services were enlisted for the four

various textures of clouds, tree a different position. He did not with a simplified background, with no Virtues in the Ludovisi chapel of
trunks, angels' wings, and the tender- connect directly to this tradition but soldiers advancing on Christ, and S. Ignazio. His collaboration is, more-
ness of the flesh. his own training with Filippo Parodi above only the faces of the angels can over, documented in the stucco deco-
These were the stylistic and techni- made him a follower of Bernini. He be seen. (Garuti 1992, pp. 86-145, par- ration of the Roman churches of
cal elements that must have impressed thus attempted to give life Baroque
to ticularly pp. 120-21). Jennifer Montagu S. Silvestro in Capite, S. Salvatore in
the Romans in Paul III Approves the reliefs, as exemplified by this work. (Montagu 1996, p. 129) pointed out Lauro, Ss. Vito e Modesto, S. Maria
Jesuit Order (1695-99), the work by this The angels, for example, in their palpi- that in the inventory of the belongings dell' Orto, SS. Trinita dei Pellegrini,
sculptor which is closest to this relief. tating presence, recall examples by of the goldsmith Giovanni Giardini, and S. Maria in Vallicella. the so-called

The most likely dating is the early Caffa and Legros, while the sharp drawn up on February 10, 1711, are Chiesa Nuova. One of his first inde-
years of the century. outline of Christ's mantle is close to mentioned "two bas-reliefs in gilded pendent works is to be found outside
In Baroque Rome,
if there was one models deriving from Bernini, such metal measuring about two spans, Rome, in Montefalco, where he exe-
which Bernini could not boast
field in as thoseby Antonio Raggi. one representing Our Lord taken cuted the altar of St. Onofrius for the
of complete supremacy, it was the The composition, although intended down from the Cross with a gloria of church of S. Chiara. The first official

lield of reliefs. First Algardi and then became an

for a private collector, putti, and the Eternal Father, and the commission that gave Rusconi the
Melchiorre Cafa had produced immediate success. A version in marble other Christ in the garden with a chance to work with marble was for
absolute masterpieces of relief sculp- of very similar dimensions to those of background of lapis lazuli . . . made by the two angels above the door on the
ture. It was by them, above all, that the original housed in S. Nicolo at
is the hand of Angelo and fin-
de' Rossi wall to the right of the altar of
Pierre Legros, the great eighteenth- Carpi. Undoubtedly eighteenth- ished by Monsu Germano" (Montagu St. Ignatius in the Gesu in Rome, which
century practitioner of the genre, was century, it repeats the composition 1996, p. 238, no. 61). In 1744 the two date from the last years of the seven-
inspired. But Angelo de' Rossi took up with remarkable lidelity, although reliefs were acquired by Benedict XIV, teenth century.

280 SCULPTURE.
 Rusconi's marble works of this the tomb of the Polish crown prince
early Roman period were otherwise Alexander Sobieski, which Rusconi
the result of private commissions. On executed for the church of S. Maria
these occasions, Rusconi executed della Concezionein Rome. The com-

tombs for Giuseppe Paravicini in pletion of other works was halted by

S. Francesco a Ripa and for Raffaele Rusconi's death on December 9, 1728.
Fabretti in S. Maria sopra Minerva. At that time, a marble statuette of A
He also produced a relief portrait of Faun (Skulpturengalerie. Berlin), a
Francesca Gommi, the wife of Carlo colossal statue of Saint Ignatius

Maratti, in S. Faustina. Camerano, and (St. Peter's), and a relief for one of the

another of Giuseppe Eusanio. which is pendentives in the church of Ss. Luca

part of Eusanio's tomb in S. Agostino, e Martina were unfinished and had to
Rome. To establish his reputation be completed by his longtime pupil
Rusconi also executed various small- and collaborator Giuseppe Rusconi.
scale sculptures during these years. Since 1727 Rusconi had been Principe
The bust of the Virgin in Houghton of the Accademiadi S. Luca, whose

Hall. Norfolk, may date from this members were present when he was
period, as may the silver statuette buried with great pomp in S. Maria
of Saint Sebastian in Fumonc, for which della Concezione in Rome. Among
Rusconi probably provided the model. his pupils were the most prominent
Also among these smaller sculptures sculptors of Roman sculpture of the
were copies after such famous antique second and third quarter of the eigh-
works as the Famese Hercules, the teenth century, including Pietro
Apollo Belvedere, and the Belvedere Bracci, Filippo della Valle, and
Torso, which he reproduced in terra- Giovanni Battista Maini. [hm]
cotta as well as in marble. These bibliography Bottari and Ticozzi
small-scale sculptures seem to have [1822-25] 1976, vol. 2, pp. 310-23, and vol. 6.

allowed him to establish contacts with pp. 178-83. nos. 41-42: Elkan 1924;

important patrons, among whom Wittkower 1926-27: Ladendorf 1935:

Baumgarten 1936-3^: Webb 1956; Lavin
became the
Niccolo Maria Pallavicini
1957: Honour 1958, pp. 223-24; Schlegel
most important. Rusconi made for
1963, pp. 74-75: Schlegel 1969: Enggass 1974:
him the four marble putti represent- Baldinucci 1975, pp. 88-99: Montagu 1975;
150

ing the seasons, today in the Royal Bershad 1976; Enggass 1976. vol. 1,

Collection at Windsor Castle. pp. 89-106; Conforti 1977. pp. 274, 278-80, 150 first payment for the modetto ingrande.

Rusconi seems to have been intro- 382-90, 409-30; Nessi 1978; Rudolph i9"9: which small-scale terracottas must
Dunn 1982, pp. 613-14; Schlegel 1988,
Camillo Rusconi
duced to Pallavicini by Carlo Maratti, have preceded. The terracottas, on the
pp. 16-21; Tamborra Androssov 1991,
who had become his artistic mentor 1988;
The Apostle Andrew other hand, are unlikely to date before
cat. nos. 58-59, 66-68; Androssov 1991,
in Rome. It was Maratti too who pro- 1705
1703, when the first references to the
"Maderno Olsen 1992; Pascoli 1992,
":
c.
vided the design for the statues of the Apostle series appear.
pp. 359-7o: Androssov and Enggass 1994: Highly finished bronze with a different sur-
twelve Apostles in the nave of the Rudolph 1995. pp. 82-85, 143, 159, 212, 224; face for the statuette's garments, brownish The hypothesis that the Viennese
Lateran basilica, which marked the Bacchi 1996. pp. 841-43: Martin 1996; Noe patina bronze statuette was executed during
turning point in Rusconi's career. 1996, pp. 349-60: Rocchi Coopmans de Height 28//' (72 cm) Rusconi's work on the colossal statue
Initially entrusted with the statue Yoldi 1996, pp. 365-70;Minor 1997, provenance Kunsthistorisches Museum. is also plausible in the light of the
"Rusconi": Martin 1998; Wardropper 1998.
of Saint Andrew, on which he began Vienna. 1891; probably from Salzburg Lateran statue commission. The series
cat. nos. 32-33
working in 1705, Rusconi was promptly exhibition Salzburg 1998, cat. no. 102 of Apostles for the basilica's nave were
given the commission for the statue of bibliography Schlosser 1910. pi. 45; part of Francesco Borromini's plan to
Saint John, and was then commis- Brinckmann 1923-25. vol. 2, p. 110; reshape the space, undertaken during
sioned to do the statues of Saint Planiscig 1924, p. 183, no. 298; Wittkower the pontificate of Innocent X. The
1926-27, pp. 9-12; Sctteccnto 1959, p. 204;
Matthew (1712-15) and Saint James the nave was reopened to the public for
Conforti 1977, pp. 230-31, no. 13
Great. When he finished in 1718, he the holy year of 1650, but its niches
Kunsthistorisches Museum. Vienna,
was the only sculptor to have realized remained empty until the early eigh-
Kunstkammer
more than two of the colossal statues. teenth century, when the project was
By then, he had almost reached the completed under Clement XI. Clement
peak of his career. The pope had The statuette was first published met the most pressing problem, financ-
honored him by visiting his workshop by Julius von Schlosser, who rightly ing, by recruiting patrons among the
twice and conferred on him the title noted its dependence upon Rusconi's kings and princes of the Church
Cavaliere di Cristo, one of the most colossal marble statue in the nave of throughout Europe. The expenses for
prestigious titles for artists at the time. St.John Lateran. The correspon- the statue of the Apostle Philip, for
In the years following his work on dences in attitude and drapery are in example, were assumed by Prince-
the Lateran Apostles Rusconi accepted fact striking, with differences in style Bishop Johann Philipp von
only the most renowned commis- almost entirely ascribable to differ- Greiffenclau, who, in order to under-
sions.He was entrusted with the tomb ences in size and material. The change stand what he was paying for, got a
of Gregory XIII in St. Peter's, and with in the portion of the Apostle's small-scale marble copy of the colos-
that of Giulia Albani, the pope's aunt, garment at the right hip, however, sal statue (Germanisches
ol which only the portrait bust has may attest to the bronze having Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg; cat. 135).
survived (Kunsthistorisches Museum, derived from a small-scale model exe- A similar situation may have obtained
Vienna). A monumental relief repre- cuted during the statue's genesis. An in the case of Camillo Rusconi's Saint
senting the apotheosis of Saint Jean- unpublished terracotta Musee
in the Andrew, as its sponsor, [ohann Ernst
Francois dc Regis was commissioned des Beaux-Arts in Nimes has some- Thun, Prince-bishop ot Sal/burg, may
by King Philip V of Spain for the times been connected with the also have wanted an author's copy for
Iglesia del Noviciado in Madrid (today Viennese bronze statuette. This would his Salzburg residence. In tact, a
church of Las Descalzas Rcales).
in the allow a date for the bronze of around bronze statuette representing the
Another royal commission was for 1705. the year Rusconi received the Apostle Andrew is listed in the i-~6

SCULPTURE
 151 a drawing of an early design stage of
the tomb (collection of the heirs of
Camillo Rusconi
Vincenzo Bonello, Valletta, Malta),
Pope Gregory XIII and a description of it in the July 1715
1715-18 contract have also survived. The

Inscribed in ink in a later hand on the

drawing shows the earliest design

figure's back: Camillo Rusconi fee: Gregorio stage, indicated by its different
XIU a St Pietro program and also by certain details,
Terracotta such as the absence of the liturgical

V" (30 x 21 x 17 cm)

uYs" x SYi" x 6 pallium that hangs around the pope's
kxhibition Rome 1959, cat. no. 567 neck in both terracottas and in the

bibliography Riccoboni 1942, p. 268; marble figure. Thus, the terracottas

Martinelli 1953, pp. 258-39; Montini 1957, seem to represent later but different
p. 338; Schlegel 1963, p. 75; F.nggass 1976, stages in the tomb's genesis. Whereas
vol. 1, p. 103. fig. 71; Di Gioia 1990, in the St. Petersburg model the cha-
pp. 18-20; Olsen 1992, p. 256. no. 25; Bacchi
suble is held under the pope's left
1996, p. 842; Martin 1998, p. 86, fig. 7
hand, forming a voluminous bowl,
Museo di Roma, Rome
in the Roman modctto it hangs in the

manner shown in the marble statue.

The statuette depicts the enthroned The Roman terracotta is therefore the
Pope Gregory XIII invested with amice, most similar to the marble statue and
chasuble, and tiara and with his ele- thus might have been executed not
vated right arm blessing. It corresponds long before Rusconi began work on
in almost every detail to the colossal the modello ingrande. As the
marble figure of Gregory XIII that St. Petersburg model differs from the
Camillo Rusconi executed between contract description, it must be dated

1715 and 1723 for the pope's tomb in after July 1715. The same should be
St. Peter's. There, Gregory sits above true for this terracotta, as it represents
a sarcophagus flanked by allegorical a version nearer to the marble figure.

figures representing Religion, on his Yet both must have been finished
right, and Magnificence, on his left. before 1718, when Rusconi set to work
The establishment of the Gregorian on the Carrara marble.
calendar is represented in the relief Nothing is known of the terracotta
on the front of the sarcophagus, from figure's whereabouts before 1936,
beneath which a dragon crawls, in when was purchased for the Museo
it

allusion to the pope's coat of arms. di Roma from a private Roman collec-

The statuette seems to have been tion. It may once have belonged to

151 created during the tomb's genesis. Filippo Farsetti, one of the most pres-
Supporting this hypothesis is the ter- tigious collectors of sculpture in
inventory of the collection of the Francois Duquesnoy's Saint Andrew in racotta's rough surface, the result of eighteenth-century Italy. In the oldest
prince-bishops of Salzburg and again the crossing of St. Peter's (1629-1640). the artist's quick handling of the mate- inventory of the Farsetti collection,
in the 1805-6 inventory of the gallery Duquesnoy's saint is designed to be rial. Concentrating on his composi- dating from around 1788, two works
of their residence in Salzburg. Thus, it seen from the front, however, and tion, the sculptor attended mainly to are noted that relate to the tomb of
may be assumed that the bronze stat- Borromini's projecting convex niches the figure's attitude and certain Gregory XIII. One is a model of the
uette of Saint Andrew once belonged to in the Lateran required Rusconi to details, rather than defining the fabric whole monument ("deposito di
the collection of Johann Ernst Thun. create a statue to be seen from three of the pope's amice. Moreover, he Gregorio XIII. del Rusconi"), the

and that it was ordered from the creator sides. With this particular situation neglected the parts that would not be second a model of the pope's figure

of the colossal statue by its sponsor. in mind, Rusconi bent his Apostle's seen in the marble monument, such as ("Papa Gregorio XIII. del Rusconi").
Rusconi's Saint Andrew may have torso to the left, changing not only the the undergarment to the left of the The first is almost certainly the terra-

derived from a drawing by Carlo emotional state of the figure, who now pope's left foot, which was to be cotta in St. Petersburg, where the
Maratti, who was engaged to provide seems to accept his imminent death hidden behind the drapery raised by majority of the Farsetti collection was
designs for the series of the Lateran by embracing almost tenderly the Magnificence in order to reveal the sold. There is, however, no trace of the
statues. It is documented that Rusconi instrument of his martyrdom, but also relief on the front of the sarcophagus. second model in St. Petersburg. The
owned a Maratti drawing representing the statue's alignment, which now There are stylistic differences between heirs of Filippo Farsetti may have sold
Saint Andrew, but as nothing is known offers different aspects depending on the terracotta and the marble statue, itelsewhere, and it may thus be the
about this drawing, it is difficult to the viewing point. Rusconi conceived for example in the chasuble to the model that reappeared in 1936 and
examine the painter's influence on the his Saint Andrew, in other words, as a right of the pope's right leg, which has was purchased by the Museo di Roma.
statue. Nonetheless, the Lateran Saint freestanding sculpture that can best been smoothed in the marble version, [FM]
Andrew follows the classicizing style of be seen when walking around the and in the outstretched arm, which is

Maratti's paintings. The statue's small-scale bronze statuette, [fm] more elevated in the tomb figure.

drapery, for example, suggests the These observations argue for the stat-
body underneath, rather than uette as a model for the marble figure,

expressing the figure's emotions as rather than as a copy of it. In addition,

would have been the case in Bernini's the throne's back does not appear in
sc. ulptures. In effect, the statue exem- the statuette, f urther identifying it

plifies late Baroque classicism, which as a modello. There can be little doubt,
pervaded Roman sculpture in the therefore, that the statuette is by
decades after Bernini's death. Camillo Rusconi.
Rudolf Willkower provided the Given this, the terracotta's role
mosl sensitive characterization of in the tomb's genesis merits further
Rusconi's Saint Andrew. le noted how I attention, as another terracotta repre-
Rusconi's work refers to the other senting the whole of the tomb's com-
colossal Roman statue of the Apostle, position (Hermitage, St. Petersburg).

282 SCULPTURE
152
Camillo Rusconi
Giulia Album degli Abati

Olivieri

c. 1719

Marble
Height pX," (96 cm)
provenance S. Domenico, Pesaro;
Almerici family. Pesaro; by descent to
Carandini family, Pesaro; sold by Mr.
Eppstein to the Kaiserlich-Koniglich Oster-
reichischcs Museum lur Kunst und
Industrie (later Osterreichisches Museum
fur Angewandte Kunst), Vienna; trans-

ferred in exchange to the Kunsthistorisches

Museum, 1940
BIBLIOGRAPHY PaSColi 1730-36, vol. I,

pp. 265-64; Bologna. Italy, Biblioteca

Comunalc. Marcello Oretti. "Pitture nella
citta di Senigaglia ed alcune nella citta di
Pesaro." 1777. Ms. B165, part 2. fol.229:

Becci 1783. p. 68; Pesaro, Biblioteca

Oliveriana. Domenico Benamini, "Uomini
illustri di Pesaro." ms. 1063; Gradarini 1821.

p. 45; Bottari and Ticcozzi 1822-25, vol. 2,

p. 319; Osterreichisches Museum 1929,

p. 13; Montagu 1975; Brancati 1978; Santi

1980-81, vol. 2, p. 109: Nava Cellini 1982.

pp.4. 14-15
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna,
Kunstkammer

According to the early biographies of

Rusconi, it was while he was working
on the tomb of Gregory XIII that the

reigning pope, Clement XI Albani,

came in 1719 to see the model. The pope
was delighted with it, and commis-

sioned the tomb of his aunt, who had

died on March 28, 1718. Despite the
recorded inscription on Giulia Albani's
tomb, which says it was set up by her
son Cardinal Fabio Olivieri, the pope
is the more likely patron, for his own
mother had died when he was one year
old, and he had been brought up by his
aunt, and the deep and lasting affection
between them is well attested.
Giulia Albani was born in 1630
into a noble family of Pesaro, married
Giovanni Andrea degli Abati Olivieri,
and passed all her life in the city, before
being buried in the church of
S. Domenico there, with a ceremony
and subsequently published oration
held in the church of S. Ubaldo on the
day after her death. She was renowned
for her piety and the excellence of her
writing: her letters display "such force 152

and solidity in their reasoning, such

elegance in their style, delicacy in their This is the book that she holds in an bly attributed to Ceruti. In this paint- never seen) that proclaims Rusconi's
thoughts, nobility in their sentiments, engraved portrait by Benoit Farjat. in ing the face closely resembles that of authorship. Typical of his style is the
wisdom and piety in their maxims, that which she is clearly younger than in the bust, the age is right, and, although use of space, twisting the traditional
one could scarcely find anything more Rusconi's bust; obviously the same all show similar clothing,
three images bust "in eternal adoration" (of the
perfect" (Lafitau 1752, pp. 4-5). To this woman, although much older, is here comes closest to the bust; she
it altar) to a three-quarter angle, project-
was added a "superiority of courage, depicted in an anonymous painting even holds a closed book in her left ing into the viewer's space. Typical
which raised her above her sex" in the Castelbarco Albani collection at hand. Of all the painted portraits, this also is the treatment of the surface,
{Reboulet 1752, pp. 5-6). It was she who Villa Impcriale (incorrectly identified is the only one to approach Rusconi's ranging from the high polish of her
persuaded Clement XI to erect an altar asClement XI's mother, who died achievement in conveying the aristo- face and hands to the daring raw-cut
to the local beata, Michelina of Pesaro, in young in childbirth), but what may well cratic dignity, piety, wisdom, and gen- marble of her veil. Similar diagonal
the church of S. Fancesco, and to her have been Rusconi's model is a paint- tleness of Giulia Albani. poses can be seen in his Apostles in the
that Anton Maria Bonucci dedicated his ing sold at Sotheby's New York on It is not only the skill in conveying Lateran. particularly the Sami lames [lie

Vita della (i. Michelina da Pesaro in 1708. ( )ctober 13, i<;8<; (lot 202 A), implausi- the character (of someone he had Great, and in the tomb of Gregory XIII

SCULPTURF. 2S4
in St. Peter's, where the marks of the one of the rooms of Villa Albani,
claw chisel give a variety of textures where it was less accessible.
to the statues. Therefore, the question arises where
According to Baldinucci, the bust Rusconi could have seen the antique
was set up on a pilaster, but it was Faun,and why he might have made a
more probably on the side-wall of a copy of it. It has been suggested that
chapel. In 1778-79 when the existing Rusconi may himself have been the
church of S. Domenico was destroyed, restorer of the Albani Faun, of which,
the bust passed to the descendants of in fact, only the torso is antique.
the Olivieri family, the Almerici. From Adding legs, arms, and head to the
them it passed by marriage to the figure could have been the occasion
Carandini family, who presumably forRusconi to make a marble copy.
sold it to Eppstein; Brancati made the Such a copy would have demon-
convincing suggestion that Eppstein strated his ability to deal with the
confused "Carrandini" with the better- antique, equally, a copy of an exquisite
known "Contarini", for it was as a little-known antique statuette would
member of the Contarini family that certainly have been a sophisticated
entered the Vienna Museum fur
it gift for the mysterious "dear friend"
Angewandte Kunst, or applied arts to whom Pascoli alluded, [fm]
museum, in 1864. Art historians
would not look there for sculpture,
and most ignored the bust; but artists ]EAN-]ACQUES-JOSEPH SALY
recognized its aesthetic merits: Franz VALENCIENNES 1717— 1776 PARIS
Xavier Pawlik reproduced it in a pla-

quette, and in 1900 Gustav Schragle Jacques Saly was born in Valenciennes,
painted an artist in his studio, with where his first teachers were Antoine
what must have been a cast of this Gilles and Antoine Pater. At fifteen he
bust behind him. Only in 1970 was moved and became the
to Paris
it put on exhibition in its new home, student of Guillaume Coustou. After
and subjected to serious study, [jm] winning a second prize in 1737 and a
first prize in 1738 at the Academie
Royale, he was sent in 1740 to Rome,
153 where he remained until 1748. His ear-
liest surviving work is a vigorously
Camillo Rusconi
modeled terracotta portrait of Pater,
Faun dated 1738 (Valenciennes).
In Rome, Saly worked assiduously
1728
Signed under the figure's left foot:
and was appreciated by the director,
EQV.f ES J/CAMIU.[VS J/RVSCONI Jean-Franqois de Troy. Although
Marble marble was then scarce for French stu-
Wrist of the left hand broken and repaired; dents, and the practice of carving
slight chip to forefinger copies of famous antiquities was
Height }o'A" (77 cm) beginning to be considered unneces-
provenance purchased from the art mar- sary because of the number of such
ket in 1986 in Ss. Luca e Martina were unfinished whose sons mythologists consider copies that existed already, Saly finished
bibliography Elkan 1924, p. 49; Donati when Rusconi died; in the case of the fauns to be. Fauns are associated with an Antinous begun by Lemarchand and
1942, p. 556; Sale catalogue. Sotheby's, New Faun the few touches that, according a love of music and revelry, as well as copied Bernini's Saint Susanna. In 1746
York, June 10-11, 1983, Schlegel 1988,
lot 115;
to Pascoli, remained to be made in with unbridled lust, hike Rusconi's Saly engraved a set of his own designs
pp. 17-21, cat. no. 4; Tamborra 1988, p. 50;
order to get the sculpture finished were figure, they are often depicted with of vases, which he dedicated to de
Schlegel 1989, p. 27; Olsen 1992, p. 257;
attended to by Giuseppe Rusconi, flat noses, pointed ears, and disheveled Troy, prints significant for the history
Pascoli 1992, p. 362: Bacchi 1996. p. 842;
Martin 1996
Camillo's longtime pupil and collabo- hair, which may combine with laugh- of early Neoclassicism. The set was

Museen zu Berlin,
Staatliche
rator, who Pascoli says completed the ing mouths to achieve uncontrolled reissued later in Paris. This project has

Skulpturensammlung work. Thus, Pascoli's Vita is important facial expressions. Unlike Rusconi's been related to the interests of young
for dating the statuette, as it suggests Faun, they are usually shown balanc- architects, the first group to be sent to

the Faun was completed around 1728, ing on tiptoe in order to express their the French Academy in Rome. The
Before 1983, when the statuette first the year Rusconi died. This hypothesis unstable, unrestrained character. designs for the prints could be con-
appeared on the art market, its loca- is supported by the inscription; the An antique statue in the Villa nected, as well, to an idea of Philibert
tion was unknown. The only source term equcs indicates Rusconi began Albani, Rome, sheds further light on Orry, superintendent of royal build-
testifying to its existence was Lione the figure after September 1718, when the genesis of Rusconi's Faun: not only ings in Paris. In 1741 he wrote to de
Pascoli's life of Rusconi, which he became a Cavaliere di Cristo. Once is the antique statue shown as if Troy that if the students made good
described the figure's genesis thus: before, on the tomb of Gregory XIII in walking instead of balancing on tiptoe, drawings of vases perhaps they could
"Among other things he had begun 1723, Rusconi had used the title, but also its right hand holds a bowl be executed in marble. On a visit to
a Faun three spans high, which he signing in nearly the same manner: and its raised left hand once held, Naples, Saly modeled an elephant
wanted to give to a dear friend of his; equ/ esj.camil/ lus]. rusconi. according to late eighteenth-century from life. More importantly, in Rome
and he had already practically finished medioi.anen[ms].inven[itJ.et. description, a bunch of grapes, instead Saly created the models for the sculp-
it, because he only had to give it a few SCULPfSlT]. of the rabbit it now holds. Thus, the tures that made his reputation on his

more touches, when he began a little Although primarily human in two statues resemble each other in return to Paris and for which he is best

wax model of .Saint Ignatius, and form, a faun, silenus, or satyr often almost every detail and there can be known today — the Faun with a Kid and
another for the stuccos in the angle has a bestial aspect. In the case of little doubt that Rusconi's Faun is a the bust of a Young Girl. He exhibited
of the cupola of the very beautiful Rusconi's figure, it is apparent in the copy after the antique. Yet the Albani the plaster model of the former and a

temple of S. Martina" (Pascoli 1992, goat-tail, thedewlap on the throat, Faun was much less famous than the marble version of the bust along with
p. 362). The statue of Saint Ignatius at and the horselike ears. They under- other antique statues the artist copied, other pieces, including a portrait and
St. Peter's and one of the pendentives score a relationship to the god Pan, and the first mention of it, in 178s, is in three terracotta sketches of tombs, in

SCULPTURE.
 .

the Paris Salon of 1750. These compo- 1775. A member of the academies Getty marble demonstrates study
sitions have been associated with three of Florence, Bologna, Marseille, and from a model rather than a classical

projects, respectively, for the Comte St. Petersburg, he died unmarried a prototype. The beautiful surface of

de la Marche (formerly in Saint-Roch, year later, [dw] this small-scale work also reveals

M. de Valory (in Quesnoy), and bibliography Lami Saly's high standards of execution
Paris), 1911, pp. 321-26;
one ordered by Pineau de Luce (in Thorlacius-Ussing 1942, pp. 281-310: early in his career, when he had rela-

Tours). The Faun with a Kid was selected Kalnein and Levey 1972, pp. 80-83 tively little experience in carving

to be carved in marble as Saly's recep- marble. The naturalism of the bust is

tion piece for the Academie Royale. set off by the classicizing plaque and
Presented in May, 1751. it was given by 154 base of the socle. Here caution is nec-
the academy to Christian VII of essary since bases can be easily
Jean-Jacques-Joseph Saly
Denmark in 1768. Traditionally, this changed. This one is close to the

statue has been identified with the Young Girl design that Bartolomeo Cavaceppi
version in the Musee Cognacq-Jay in used for ancient heads in the 1740s,
c. 1744-48
Paris; however, distinctly finer is the and it appears earlier on busts with
Marble
one (ex-Emile Galichon and the an antique savor.
18/2" x 2o/«" (47 x 51 cm) with base
baron du Teil) acquired by the J. Paul Saly's bust cannot, however, be
provenance )ean-Francois de Troy
Getty Museum. (1679-1752), Rome, by 1748; acquired in
considered solely by itself. Recently,

Warmly recommended by De Troy, Rome by Thiroux d'Epersenne, in his pos- Bernard Black has related this head to

Saly was soon employed in projects session in Paris by 1753. until 1767; by a bust of a boy wearing a turban that
related to the crown. A standing statue bequest to his sister-in-law Mme. Thiroux has an identical base (The Huntington
d'Arconville, in 1767, to before 1789; David-
of the king was erected in Valenciennes Library, San Marino). This sculpture
Weill collection, Neuilly-sur-Seine, by 1945;
in 1752 (destroyed 1792; fragments in was carved by Louis-Claude Vasse, a
private collection, Paris
Valenciennes). Much discussed at the fellow pertsionnaire of Saly's, in Rome
exhibition Paris, August 1750. Academie
time and recorded by Pierre Patte in Les from 1740 to 1745. Could the Vasse
Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture, no. 147
monuments eriges en France a lagloire de (probably this sculpture) bust be the portrait of de Troy's son
Louis XV, this statue was judged bibliography Mariette 1851-60, vol. 5, mentioned by Edmc Bouchardon in

harshly by P. -J. Mariette. Also in 1752, p. 168, notes after August 1753; Benisovich
a letter of 1742? If so, does this

Saly was at work on busts of Louis XV 1945, p. 35, fig. 5; Beaulieu 1955; Babelon Alexandrine d'Etiolles, the daughter strengthen the identification of the
and Mme. de Pompadour. For her, he 1964; Levey 1965, p. 91; Freytag 1976; Black of Mine, de Pompadour, an idea little girl as the daughter of de Troy
carved statues of Hebe and a Cupid. 1994; Gaborit, |ean Rene, et al. Sculpture dating to the 1870s and repeated every and, perhaps, encourage a slightly
/rancaise: (/. Renaissance et temps modernes.
In 1753, on the recommendation of so often, without any factual basis. earlier dating of the bust? In Thiroux
Paris: Reunion des Musees Nationaux,
Edme Bouchardon, who declined the Michael Levey has proposed a plausi- d'Epersenne's collection, these pieces
1998, vol. 585; Trusted, Marjorie,
commission, Saly — still in his mid-
2, p.

Deputy Curator of Sculpture. Notes. ble candidate for the model in the were paired, according to documents
thirties —was invited to Copenhagen Victoria and AlbertMuseum. Department daughter of Jean-Franqois de Troy, published by Babelon. Compositionally.
to execute the bronze equestrian of Sculpture. London described by the painter in 1745 as they are not obvious mates so the
statue of Frederick V. Saly remained Private collection "fort jeune." Her mother died in 1741, commissions may have been succes-
there for twenty years. In 1754 he was and the girl herself predeceased her sive, like the Vleughels busts, or the
named director of the Kongelige father. Mariette's words suggest that two busts could have been acquired
Danske Akademi for de Sjonne Among the submissions in his 1750 the bust could have been a commis- and paired by d'Epersenne, who liked
Kunster. The model of the statue was debut in the Paris Salon, jacques Saly sion from the director of the academy. small sculptures. Clearly, more evi-
completed by 1764, and the bronze exhibited a single work in marble, the A precedent for such private work can dence is needed before these ques-
was installed in 1768. In that year, at head of a Young Girl. In 1753 Pierre-Jean be found in the marble busts of tions can be resolved. Nevertheless,
the request of Christian VII of Mariette wrote about it in his Vleughels and his wife ordered by the the bustsdo make meaningful pen-
Denmark, Louis XV awarded Saly the Abccedario: "he [Saly] was in Rome painter himself when he was director dants.The little boy's face is open, ani-
order of Saint-Michel and raised him when he made there for M. de Troy a of the French Academy in Rome. mated, and engaged in observation:
to the nobility. In 1769 a group of Saly's pretty head of a girl, in marble, which Later generations have dubbed the the little girl's is withdrawn, almost
works was exhibited at the Salon of M. Thiroux d'Espercennes [sic] . . girl La Boudeuse ("The Pouting or expressionless, and avoids interaction.
the Copenhagen academy. Related to brought back from Italy and which he Sullen Girl"), but these descriptions Levey has observed that if she is de
the project for the equestrian statue are keeps in his study. It is one of the most are questionable. The girl is posed Troy's daughter she may well have
two publications by Saly, Description de pleasing pieces that Saly will ever frontally, her head tilts downward at been his only living child at the time.
la statue equestre que la Compagnie des make" (Mariette 1851-60, vol. 5, an extreme angle, and her eyes are The comparison is telling, as well,

Indes orientales de Dannemarc a consacree a words have proven

p. 168). Mariette's almost closed, making her expression about the relative talents of the two
lagloire de Frederic V, avec lexplication des to be has become one
true. This bust difficult both to see and to interpret. sculptors. Although possessing real

motifs qui ont determine sur le choix des dif- of the most famous sculptures of a The bust blurs distinctions between charm, the Vasse bust is not memo-
ferent partis qu'on a suivis dans la composi- child, reproduced innumerable times. genres: it appears to represent an indi- rable as Saly's is: it contributed to his
tion du monument (Copenhagen, 1771) This example, the finest known, is vidual, but the singular pose and early success in Paris and was soon
and Suite de la Description du monument probably Saly's original. Another description of a mood override the appropriated by other artists (see
consacre a Frederic V par la Compagnie des marble, always dated to the eigh- conventions of portraiture. This Beaulieu's list), notably Franqois
Indes de Dannemarc pour etre jointe a lex- teenth-century, is at the Victoria and sculpture is essentially a study after a Boucher. In 1756 this painter repre-
plication des motijs qui ont determine sur le Albert Museum. Both are unsigned. model, but one that is unusually con- sented the bust in the center of an alle-
choix des diffcrens partis qu'on a suivi dans la The early history of the bust cannot vincing in suggesting an interior life. gory of sculpture, an overdoor tor
composition de ce monument, et dans laque- be reconstructed completely. That In doing so, it goes beyond such tradi- Christian VII of Denmark, as a tribute
lle Ton rend comptc des differentes etudes et Saly's careful autograph list of works tional precedents as the much to Saly, who had recently arrived in
observations faites d'aprcs des chevaux, ainsi carried out between 1748 and 1752 admired infants of Francois Copenhagen to take up the presti-
que des moyens dont on s'est servi pour exc- docs not include the bust is important Duquesnoy. although it bears com- gious commission for the equestrian
cuterle monument (Copenhagen, 1773). evidence that the sculpture was fin- parison with his head of the Putto with monument of Frederick V. [nw]
While in Copenhagen, Saly made por- ished earlier, in Rome, as Mariette a Bow in Berlin, of which some exam-
I rails of Frederick V, Senator says. D'Epersenne certainly already ples exist in bust form (see Freytag). In
Wasserschlebc, and two of Count owned the sculpture by 1753. its truthful observation, the girl's head
Adam Gottlieb de Moltke. The subject of the sculpture is never tan be related to the principal project
After returning to Paris, Saly was named in the eighteenth century. Il is of Saly's Roman period, the figure ol
awarded an atelier in the Louvre in impossible to identify the girl as the Faun, whose lithe body in I he

SCULPTURE
 JOHAN TOBIAS SERGEL the more true-to-life in his work. With Chevalier Hamilton said 155
STOCKHOLM 1740-1814 a sequence of monumental pieces recently, in my presence, to
johan Tobias Sergei
STOCKHOLM such as The Faun (1770-74), commis- Monsieur d'Angiviller that Sergei
sioned in marble by the French was not only the foremost sculp- Mars and Venus
The work of [ohan Tobias Sergei marks ambassador to Naples, the Baron de tor now working in the whole
1771-72
the beginning of a truly Swedish sculp- Breteuil, and Diomcdes (1771-74), exe- world, but that he was also the
Plaster
ture. Until the mid-eighteenth century cuted in marble for the Englishman greatest since the days of
Height 36X" (93 cm)
the eminent sculptors in Sweden had Thomas Mansel-Talbot, Sergei became Michelangelo. In its beauty of
provknancl artist's estate 1814; pur-
all been foreign immigrants, and one of the pioneers of early expression and purity of form he chased by the Swedish government from
sculpture as a whole was sparsely rep- Neoclassical sculpture, without degen- ranks Amor and Psyche among the his heirs in 1815
resented. Stockholm was almost erating into a rigid purism. Other most significant sculptural bibliography Neergaard 1804, p. 189;
entirely lacking in public sculptural masterpieces from his years of study groups to have been produced in Molbcch 1814-17, vol. 2, p. 214; Gothe 1898;
monuments; there was effectively abroad are Mars and Venus modern times. He went on to say Brising 1914, pp. 154-57; Gothe 1921, p. 43;
only one site with any significant Amor and Psyche that for the sculptor to devote Antonsson 1936, pp. 83-86; Antonsson
(1771-1775/1804),
1942, p. 214; Josephson 1956, vol. 1,
sculptural embellishment: the newly (1774-1778/1786) and Otryades (1778-79). himself to the sublime in art and
pp. 184-92
built royal palace, completed in 1754. Many of these sculptures share the not to lose his refinement of
Nationalmuseum, Stockholm
It was here that Sergei took his first common compositional device of a taste he should be allowed to
steps in sculpture. contrast in movement, skilfully cap- continue to work in Rome for
Sergei's artistic apprenticeship turing the transition from perfect the rest of his life in order to be There are few sculptural works from
spanned the transition from Rococo repose to active motion. able to execute there the works Sergei's Rome period that produced
to early Neoclassicism. He was influ- Sergei's significance for European that Your Majesty would desire, such prolific preliminary studies,
enced by contemporary French art sculpture of the period is a difficult and have constantly before him whether in the form of drawings or
both through the work of Jean Eric question. He moved primarily among the beautiful sculptures of of sculptural models, as the Mars and
Rehn and his own principal teacher, a group of artists of many different Classical antiquity. (Olausson Venus group. It can be assumed that he
Pierre-Hubert L'Archeveque, a French nationalities and was admired by 1990, pp.83) was engaged on this new subject
sculptor summoned to the Swedish foreign connoisseurs, not least the directly before, or possibly in parallel
court. The young Sergei was at times British. Many of these were very posi- On his return to Sweden in the with, the creation of another major
so close to L'Archeveque in style and tive about him, as is evidenced by Sir summer of 1779 Sergei's artistic devel- piece, Diomedes, from the autumn of
subject matter that scholars have William Hamilton's eulogy to the opment took a totally different course 1771 to the spring of 1772. The two
found difficulty in distinguishing the deputy head of the Academie Royale, from that which Creutz had envisaged. works are closely related in concept.
work of the pupil from that of his the Comte d'Angiviller (see below). Gustav III certainly had a very high The primary task of the two male pro-
master. It was not only a feeling for Later research has also revealed opinion of Sergei as an authority on tagonists is to protect a goddess, Venus
the tasteful composition or graceful Sergei's direct influence on the devel- artand kept company with him in an and Athena respectively, and they are
ornamentation of French style that opment of European Neoclassicism. unconventional way that shocked both prepared for a surprise attack. The
Sergei adopted; he was also pro- and not only in the case of the English many contemporary observers, but sculptor has based his work on the
foundly inspired by his teacher's inci- sculptor Thomas Banks. Elvy O'Brien the works which he commissioned same anatomical model, but despite
sive realism, which found expression is probably right to state that Sergei's were not to be based on the great obvious similarities of detail and
not least in L'Archeveque's portraiture. Diomcdes was even of significance for Homeric themes. Gustav's first assign- gesture he has given the figures differ-

Enormous hopes were raised for
the young Sergei in the highest quar-
ters. When he received a scholarship
to study abroad from the
building committee, his patrons had
in mind primarily the completion of
the restoration of antique works.
fragment of a diskobolos, for instance,
was turned into a Diomedes with the
royal palace Palladion by Gavin Hamilton and
Bartolomeo Cavaceppi (cat. 121) and
made its way into the ownership of
A ment for Sergei was characteristically
a bust of himself. Then followed com-
missions either related to great patri-
otic and historical subjects or of a
decorative architectural nature. The
royal as well as privatecommissions
ent characters and ages. Diomedes is
the bold and vigorous youth, Mars the
irasciblegod of war, the mature man.
Sergei's inspiration was Homer's
description of Diomedes wounding
Venus's wrist with his lance in battle.

the sculptural adornment of the palace Lord Shelburne, an admirer of Sergei. amounted to a total of forty busts and The goddess of love is borne away
itself. Few could have foreseen that Sergei's increasing renown aroused almost two hundred portrait medal- from the tumult by Iris, the messenger
during his studies in Rome (1767-78) fear in Sweden that he would not lions, which together constituted a of the gods, and then tended by Mars.
Sergei would break away entirely from return to his homeland. This, together disappointing end to the sculptor's In his first sketch, clearly visualized as

the French style of architectural, deco- with an inflammatory chauvinistic career. And if the king was partly a sculptural group, Sergei merged the
rative Rococo classicism. His campaign against his teacher responsible for Sergei's artistic decline separate events into one, with Mars
encounter not only with the classical L'Archeveque, finally led to his recall in Sweden, the purchase of the sculp- appearing in the role of Iris. The lack
sculpture of antiquity but also with les by King Gustav III in 1778. The tor's remaining work by the Swedish of fidelity to the original text was due
grands mahrcs was such an overwhelm- remarkable feature of these events state in 1815, after his death, led to an partly to the fact that Sergei encoun-
ing experience that he completely dis- was the king's protracted passivity, unfortunate concentration of his tered the stories of the Iliad in the form
tanced himself from the artistic ideals which forced his brother Duke Fredrik sculptures in Sweden and Stockholm, of the Comte de Caylus's versions, and
of his former teacher. His reaction was Adolf and his traveling companion a factor further contributing to the partly to his excessive attachment to
so vehement that he even employed Baron Evert Taube, the royal chamber- relatively insignificant place accorded his sculptural prototypes, the Apollo
such hyperbolic phrases as "that lain, to act in the king's name during to Sergei in most international surveys Belvedere and one of the Dioscuri on
abominable French affectation" their visit to Rome to prevent impor- of Neoclassicism, despite the inherent Monte Cavallo, an ideal of manliness
(Stockholm, Stockholm Royal Library, tant works by Sergei being sold to quality of his work and his demon- so venerated by the Neoclassicists.
Sergei's autobiography [manuscript], other prospective buyers. As Sergei strable significance for his contempo- The enormous girth of the torso and
1785) to express this repudiation. The was leaving Rome in the spring of 1778 raries in Rome, [mo] the pronounced compartmentaliza-
French Academy in Rome, where the Swedish ambassador to the French bibliography Neergaard 1804; Molbcch tion of the physique, as well as the vig-
Sergei was to study both plaster-cast court, Count Gustaf Philip Creutz, 1814-17, vol.2; Gothe 1898; Brising 1914; orous bulging of the muscles of the
and living models, was equally influ- wrote to Gustav III that it would be best Gothe 1921: Moselius 954: Antonsson 1936;
1 arms and legs, provided paradigms for
ential. Paradoxically, it was the literary if Sergei were to stay in Italy, where his
Antonsson 1942; Josephson 1956; Sergei's Mars. Yet it would be wrong

Bjurstrom 1976; O'Brien 1982; Cederlof composed this and

picture collection of a Frenchman, the contact with the great works of classical to think that he
and Olausson 1990; Olausson 1990
Tableaux tires d'Homcrc el dc Virgile of the art would mean that he could continue other classically based sculptural
Comtc dc Caylus, with its themes from to execute masterpieces for the king. In groups in a purely mechanical manner.
the Iliad, that was to inspire his choice particular, Creutz cited the opinion of In a humorous and anecdotal contem-
of subjects during his time in Rome. the great connoisseur and collector porary drawing Sergei portrayed his

Some years of intensive study led to a Sir William Hamilton in Naples: Danish friend the artist Peter
fusion of the ideal classical form and Brunnichc as having fallen half-naked

286 SCULPTURE
 In the main, Sergei's sculptures
were intended to be seen from a single
viewpoint, but Mars and Venus is mani-
festly meant to be seen in the round,
as can be noted in the representation
of the war god's cloak, where the folds
are so thoroughly and subtly executed
and where no single element has a
simply decorative function but all

form an integral part of the dynamic

of the group. In fact the multifacial

quality of Mars and Venus is inherent in

the richly contrasting sense of move-
ment that is its fundamental composi-
tional idea, [mo]

156
Johan Tobias Sergei
Achilles at the Shore

1775-76
Terracotta
12>«" x xyV" (32 x 44 cm)
provenance artist's estate 1814: pur-
chased by the Swedish government from
his heirs in 181s

exhibition Stockholm 1990, cat. no. 200

BIBLIOGRAPHY Gothe 1898, pp. 98, 103;
Gothe 1921, p. 48: Antonsson 1936, p. 89;
Antonsson 1942, pp. 191-93: Josephson
1956, vol. I, pp. 224-34

Nationalmuseum, Stockholm

In the mid-i770s Sergei's desire to

experiment seemed to grow stronger.
His striving for new forms of expres-
sion manifested itself both in his
sculpture and in his drawing. The
linesbecame sketchy and summary,
scribbled on the paper at impatient,
almost breakneck speed. Even his
wash-drawing technique gradually
took on dramatic qualities, with great
contrasts between light and shade.
Gone too was the perfection of form
that had previously characterized his
sculpture. There was a clear corre-
spondence in his works between this
artistic boldness and a new and pro-
nounced emotional content, full of

sorrow and desperation. Some influ-

ence on Sergei's change of direction
has been ascribed to his Danish artist

155 friend Nikolai Abraham Abildgaard

and later to the Swiss painter and
out of bed with an equally naked sculpt aman who was merely heroic, In his first terracotta (now in the writer Henry Fuseli. It was thus not
woman; it is not intended as an erotic but rather to create one who also dis- Konstmuseum, Gothenburg) Sergei entirely unexpected that during his
scene: the two figures must have been played tenderness toward the woman has let Mars hold the distressed Venus Sturm und Drang period in Rome Sergei
models for Mars and Venus who lost he was protecting: in other words, two in his arms as she falls helpless across should come closer to painting, an
their balance and fell off the podium. gods showing fuller and more complex his knee. In his second terracotta observation summarized by his coun-
Looking at Sergei's first sketches, it emotions. Having come to a decision model and in his scale model (both tryman Louis Masreliez: "It seems to
is easy to see that he was not satisfied through a series of different sketches Nationalmuseum, Stockholm) he has me that our modern sculptors are far
with his positioning of the figures. In as to how he would finally solve the increased the dramatic charge of the too keen to be painters" (Moselius
terms of composition and expressive- problem of form, Sergei again chose group by giving greater emphasis to 1934, p. 24). Even though Masreliez's
ness it is not entirely successful. Instead his model from classical antiquity, the Venus's falling movement. The overt criticism was intended as extremely
he moved events forward to try new Dying Gaul. It is even possible that he play on the antithesis between their negative, he was correct in his judg-
possibilities, accentuating the goddess's was inspired by representations of a physical union and their contrasting ment on Sergei's new artistic direction,
lamentation and surrender to pain. He classical love story about the passion- emotions contributes no small
in not least as applied to his sculpture.
chose the moment when the seated ate feelings that arise between Achilles measure to the expressive power of Throughout i~ s and into the fol-
Mars receives Venus as she falls to her and Penthesilea, queen of the the group. Mars represents a concen- lowing year Sergei evidently tried to
knees in a daze and beseeches him for Amazons, when the hero's sword tration ol strength, while Venus looks render in plastic form some of the
help. Sergei's intention was not to pierces her breast. all the more defenseless. subjects that Abildgaard was simulta-

SCULPTURE 287
 neously working on. including former two compositions are both on Slodtz's need for time to improve he carved Saint Bruno, the most striking
Philoctetes and Achilles. But only Achilles drawings, though in one version himself; he had had little experience of the Founders series. For the cathedral
Appealing to His Mother, Thetis, after the Sergei has added a plinth, which carving marble before Rome. Slodtz's of Vienne he produced the monument
Loss ofBriseis, usually called Achilles at points to the possibility that at least slow execution and high standards of to Cardinal deTour d'Auvergne and
la

the Shore, seems to have been com- one was realized in terracotta. Achilles finish would prove to be serious liabil- Archbishop Montmorin, a splendid
pleted. The hero lies half in the sea, Consoled by a Maiden may have been ities in his career. Probably about the tableau that is indebted, in part, to
hair streaming, wild-eyed and open- one of the terracottas that he inadver- time he left the academy, Slodtz carved Pierre Legros's statue and tomb of
mouthed, arms outstretched and tently left behind in Paris at the end of his first portrait bust, that of Vleughels Cardinal Girolamo Casanate. Finally,

fingers splayed. Sergei is depicting his stay there in 1778-79, and which he (cat. 157). he executed the tomb of Marchese
here a howling, raging grief of unin- was never to see again. So Achilles at In 1736 Slodtz set up an independent Capponi in S. Giovanni dei Fiorentini.
hibited emotion. The well-composed the Shore is one of the few extant exam- studio in Rome, taking on students, (On the issue of Slodtz as the designer
torso bears witness to Sergei's study ples of Sergei's new expressive form including the sculptor Jean Tassaert. His of this monument and his relationship
of the Belvedere Torso and of course to from his later years in Rome, [mo] activities for the next ten years form to the architect Fuga, see Souchal
works by Michelangelo, an influence one of the most interesting chapters in 1967). In its combination of colored
he had in common with Abildgaard. eighteenth-century Roman sculpture. marbles, beautifully carved figures,
The summary treatment of the sea and RENE-MICHEL (called He carved portraits of Frenchmen or and control of scale in relation to the
of the shield and drapery reinforces MICHEL-ANGE) SLODTZ people with relation to France. Perhaps site, it is one of the most distinctive

the fundamental painterly quality of PARIS 1705-1764 PARIS following Lambert-Sigisbert Adam's and successful of eighteenth-century
the sculpture, as does the depiction of example, he produced the paired heads Roman tomb monuments.
the manneristically extended limbs. Rene-Michel Slodtz was the youngest of a Greek priest and Roman priestess, After returning to France in 1746,

Achilles' hands are somewhat mutilated of three sculptor brothers, sons of Chases and lphigenia (1737; Lyon) and a Slodtz did not achieve a success equal
in this terracotta model, but it maybe Sebastien Slodtz, a sculptor active at striking group of Diana and Endymion to his Roman one. Opinion was
assumed that they originally resem- Versailles and the Dome des Invalides (1735-40; private collection, Geneva). divided about his monument to
feet. The ten-
bled the condition of the and involved also in the production of The busts and the marble group were Languet de Gergy (1757) in Saint-
dency towards elongated extremities ephemeral decorations for the Menus acquired from Slodtz's studio by two Sulpice. This Baroque tomb is strikingly

was increasingly to characterize Plaisirs du Roi. Although he won only collectors from Lyon. Around 1740 reminiscent of late seventeenth-
Sergei's sculpture and to culminate in two second-place awards in Rome Slodtz participated on teams executing century works, as if Slodtz had medi-
the final production of his years abroad, prize competitions, the young sculptor decorative projects forS. Maria della tated on elements from various
Olryadcs. It contributed also of course was sent to the city in 1728 and attracted Scala (1738), SS. Nome di Maria (1740), monuments by Domenico Guidi but
to the expressive power and lack of the attention of the director, Nicolas and S. Maria Maggiore (1741-42), in achieved a more successful composi-
formal perfection in his work. Vleughels. In Rome, Slodtz began to be which his work is very close to that of tion. Slodtz abandoned his projected

Sergei produced other variations on called Michel-Ange, a name he used his Italian colleagues. In 1741, upon his reception piece and so never joined
the Achilles theme: the group compo- for the rest of his life. Slodtz remained election to the Accademia di S. Luca, the Academie Royale. Nor did he
sition Achilles' Grief on the News of at the French Academy longer than Slodtz contributed his terracotta finish commissions for Mme. de

Patroclus' Death and Achilles Consoled by usual. While there, he carved several modello for the relief of The Ecstasy of Pompadour or for Frederick the Great.
a Maiden. The latter in particular copies of antiquities, including The Saint Theresa, part of the altar decora- He was much involved with his broth-
shows the same violence of emotion Knucklebone I'layer (1733-39) and a copy tion in S. Maria della Scala. ers in projects for the Menus Plaisirs.

as the lone Achilles at the Shore, with a of Michelangelo's Christ in S. Maria Also in the 1740s Slodtz undertook He also undertook the modernization
boldness of line and form thai almost sopra Minerva (1731-36; Dome des I he three monuments on which his of the interior of Bourges Cathedral,
threatens (o dissolve the image. The Invalides, Paris). Vleughels remarked fame principally rests. For St. Peter's provided reliefs for the exterior of

288 SCULPTURE
 .

Saint-Sulpice, and two reliefs for would imitate). Slodtz surely com-
Ange-Jacques Gabriel's buildings for posed his bust to be a subtle mate to

the Place de la Concorde (after 1758). Mme. Vleughels's portrait, even imi-

Although his Parisian years were tating the form and smooth finish at

rather disappointing, Slodtz was esti- the back of Bouchardon's bust. The
mated among the finest sculptors by gaze of Mme. Vleughels is directed to

the crown, and in 1760 he declined an her left, and husband meets
that of her

invitation to Germany to work

go to it as his head turns The
to his right.

for Frederick. Among his many pupils steady glance and furrowed brow give

were the important sculptors Jean- Vleughels a slightly solicitous expres-

Antoine Houdon and Louis-Simon sion that unites the paired busts in a

Boizot and the painter Hubert Robert. happy and affecting variation on the
Three of Slodtz's terracotta models traditional subject of unequal lovers.

were formed by the

in the collection (Vleughels was sixty-three and his

discerning La Live de Jully.Without a wife was twenty-eight at the time of

doubt, the range of styles in which their marriage.)

Slodtz demonstrated his mastery is In general, Vleughels emphasized

a testament to the depth of his talent the study of nature in many forms and
and to the complexity of art in both defended the usefulness of portraiture.
Rome and Paris in the decades of the Did he infer from Slodtz's drawings
artist's maturity, [dw] that theyoung sculptor might have
bibliography Lami 1911. pp. 358-43:
The Vleughels
talent in that direction?

Souchal 1967; Acanfora 1996; Souchal 1996, bust must have been appreciated since
"Slodtz" the marechal d'Harcourt commis-
sioned a portrait from Slodtz during a
visit to Rome in the winter of 1736, as
157 did Cardinal Neri Corsini, nephew of
Pope Clement XII and a friend of
Rene-Michel (called
The similarities of
Vleughels, in 1737.
Michel-Ange) Slodtz the Vleughels bust to the posthumous
bust of Marco Benefial by Vincenzo
Nicolas Vleughels
Pacetti (1783-84; Protomoteca
1736 Capitolina) suggests, at least, a possible
Marble distant significance of Slodtz's marble
23X" x 22/s" (60 x 58 cm) bust as a prototype for another artist.
provenance Nicolas Vleughels, until [dw]
1737; his widow, nee Marie-Therese Gosset,
Palazzo Mancini, Rome (died 1756); proba-
bly inherited by their son Bernardin; pur-
chased by Mme Andre, in Italy, in the early
FILIPPO DELLA VALLE
20th century; Musee (acquemart-Andre, ancestry played a role in Vleughels's jacket, from which is attached the FLORENCE 1698-1768 ROME
Paris interest, as is often repeated, the order of Saint-Michel the award of—
BIBLIOGRAPHY Souchal 1967, pp. 208-9, painter'scomments in correspondence which caused much jealousy among As an artist, Filippo della Valle was
660-61. no. 149, pi. 18b; Hercenberg 1976, with the Due d'Antin show him to have Vleughels's artist contemporaries) and fortunate in his birth. His mother was
p. 54, cat. no. 2, pi. 2, fig. 2; Scherf 1999 been attentive to and admiring of an outer mantel covers one shoulder. the sister of Giovanni Battista Foggini,
Institut de France, Musee Jacquemart- Slodtz's talent. The sculptor, who This image is unlike the formal relief the most prosperous sculptor and the
Andre, Paris
arrived at the academy in 1728, was medallion that Slodtz carved later for leader of the largest sculptural studio
permitted by Vleughels to stay until Vleughels's tomb, after the latter's in Florence (he also had been appointed
The painter Nicolas Vleughels was the 1736, well beyond the three or four unexpected death in 1737. Although it by the court as First Sculptor and First

successful co-director (1724) and later years normally allowed for sculptors. is not an extremely informal image, Architect) during the reigns of the last
director (1727-37) of the French While this bust bears no inscription, the bust belongs generally to the well- Medici, Cosimo III and Gian Gastone.
Academy in Rome and improved the it is usually dated 1736, around the established French portrait type of the Florence at the turn of the eighteenth
academy's program for young time Slodtz left the academy to set up artist represented en neglige. This form, century enjoyed the stability that came
prizewinning French artists remark- his own premises in Rome. Pierre-Jean known in French sculpture since the with Cosimo Ill's regime, which was

ably. In teaching, he emphasized Mariette notes that the bust of seventeenth century, but rarer in Italy, also accompanied by the continuation
drawing by establishing classes using Vleughels was commissioned as a is treated by Slodtz with a directness of a fairly rich artistic culture. But
the nude model, encouraged the study pendant to one of Mme. Vleughels unlike the animation or inflated scale Florence was no longer an intellectual
of landscape as well as Old Masters of carved by Edme Bouchardon in 1732, of slightly earlier works by sculptors or artistic "center," as it once had been
various schools, and supported stu- a bust acquired recently by the Louvre. such as the Le Moynes. The Florentine seventeenth and eigh-
dents in their original work. He was From research into the collections of This bust — the earliest sculpted teenth centuries are, in Eric Cochrane's
an adroit diplomat, working harmo- theacademy in Rome, there is no evi- portrait by Slodtz —does not show terms, the "forgotten" centuries (Eric
niously with his superior the Due dence that the busts of Vleughels and obvious debts to French or Italian Cochrane, Florence in the Forgotten
d'Antin (then superintendent of royal his wife ever belonged to that institu- artists. In its strong grasp of form Centuries, 1527-1800: A History 0/ Florence
buildings in France)and establishing tion. Therefore, the busts would have and likeness it is rather similar to the and the Florentines in the Age oj the Grand
relations with important Romans. It been private property. This idea is artist's portrait drawing of his con- Dukes [Chicago and London: The
was Vleughels who found the Palazzo supported by the unofficial nature temporary Tremolliere. The features University of Chicago Press, 1973]).
Mancini on the Corso to house the of the portraits. Bouchardon shows —
of Vleughels a man far from hand- Delia Valle, like his uncle before
academy and made it a prominent Mme. Vleughels with short hair, some — are described as accurately as him (who had studied with Ciro Ferri
showplace for visitors. wearing a chemise with a hint of a Pier Leone Ghezzi's caricature of the and Ercole Ferrata), followed the path
Although he also promoted the mantle, a beautifully rendered natu- sitter. However, Slodtz's broad render- to Rome. There, in Hugh Honour's apt
sculptorsEdme Bouchardon and ralistic image. In Slodtz's portrait ing of the contours of Vleughels's face phrase, he was soon to discover a
Lambert-Sigisbert Adam, Vleughels Vleughels's wig is not completely sets off the individuality of the fea- St. Martin's summer of papal patron-
was especially sympathetic to Slodtz. dressed, his shirt open at the throat
is tures and makes the whole face more age with the election of Clement XII,
Whether or not their common Flemish (although he wears an unbuttoned youthful (a combination Houdon Lorenzo Corsini (Honour 1959).

SCUl.PTURi:
 Despite his early training and old palazzo on the Monte Cavallo that Once Filippo della Valle found his style, 158
undoubted competence, Delia Valle had been restored by Paul V, was torn he stuck with it, producing elegant,
Filippo della Valle
had still to seek the support and down and replaced by Ferdinando temperate, and tranquil monuments
authorization of the Accademia di Fuga's Palazzo della Consulta. Delia for an age dominated by kindly, gentle, Allegorical Figure of
S. Luca, for this was the institution that Valle ordered more than fifty carts of and good-humored popes: Maurice
Temperance
acted as gatekeeper for ecclesiastical marble from Carrara, sculpted and Andrieux cites an ambassador's
commissions. Although not yet a built sets of military trophies that sur- remark that "in Rome everyone gives 1732-34

—
member in 1725 his first year in mount the lateral doors, and provided orders and nobody obeys them, and Terracotta

—
Rome he entered the competition allegorical representations of Justice really things work well enough" Height 25//' (60.4 cm)

sponsored by the Accademia for and Religion over the main door. (Andrieux 1968, p. 30).
provenance purchased in Rome by
agents of Henry Howard, 4th Earl of
young artists, and shared first prize During the early years of the pontif- Although Della Valle was fortunate
Carlisle, probably in the 1740s; Castle
with Pietro Bracci for his terracotta icate of Benedict XIV, Della Valle was in his birth, his large family (eleven
Howard, Yorkshire (sale, November u, 1991,
relief of Josiah, King oj Judah, Giving hired to assist in the renovation of children survived into adulthood) and
part of lot 47: "an Anglo-Flemish terracotta
Money for the Temple (ll trionfo dclle Trc S. Maria Maggiore. In addition to the the generally impecunious ways of Allegorical Figure of a Woman, late 17th
Nobili c Belle Arti . . . Mostratc nel statue of the Blessed Nicola Albergati ecclesiastical and noble patrons meant century, standing heavily draped next to a
Campidoglio ... I'Anno Giubileio, (see cat. 159), he was called upon to that he did not luxuriate in riches. In vase decorated with swags")

MDCCXXV [Rome, 1727]; for Delia carve the Holy Spirit on the Loggia 1750 Lord Malton advised his father the Correspondence in Castle Howard
Archives suggests that the earl generally
Valle's life and a catalogue raisonne della Benedizione and several heads 1stMarquess of Rockingham that he
bought from Michcle Lopez Rosa. Belisario
of his works see Minor 1997). of putti, placed above entranceways. had ordered copies of antique statues
Amidei, and Francesco de Ficorini
Soon after proving his mettle in It was during the 1740s also that Della (at leasttwo of which were by Delia
exhibition New York 1995, cat. no. 111
the Accademia's concorso, Delia Valle Valle contributed two statues to the Valle), which were to be sent to
bibliography Yorkshire, Castle Howard
moved to the studio of Camillo Founders series in St. Peter's, Saint John Wentworth Woodhouse in Yorkshire.
Archives F1/1. Probate Inventory of Henry.
Rusconi, then Rome's eminence grise of God (1745) and Saint Teresa (1754)- And He commented that "I have been 4th Earl of Carlisle, "Furniture from
of sculptors and old friend of Foggini. working from a wooden model pro- obliged to take up £200 to advance the London continued. Antiques etc., contin-
After Rusconi's death in 1728, the vided by his old colleague the architect others money which is scarce here, the ued: A Small Female Figure in Plaister the

Englishman John Breval wrote that Ferdinando Fuga, he erected the People so poor that so large a work as Arm lost. "; Yorkshire, Castle Howard
"Icannot leave Rome, without taking exquisite tomb of Innocent XII in 1746. these that if one did not advance Archives, II 2/2/;, Catalogue of Statuary,
Bronzes etc., at Castle Howard, compiled
some Notice of so eminent a Man in In 1750 Della Valle's monumental money, the Greatest Sculptor here
by John Duthie, 1881. "Long Gallery, 101,
his Way as the late excellent Sculptor relief of the Annunciation in the church would starve before it was finished"
small statue of a Female, terracotta 23 inch-
Camillo Rusconi. saw him I at his of S. Ignazio was completed. The dedi- (Honour 1958, p. 224). Nonetheless, es high, repaired."; Yorkshire, Castle
Chisel, with several young Eleves cation of this piece was described in Delia Valle didmake a career of sculp- Howard Archives, II 2/2/5, 1917 Inventory,
about him, who express'd a generous singular detail by the Roman weekly ture and was very much part of the "101. Small terracotta statue of a Woman,
Emulation" (Enggass 1976, vol. 1, p. 91). journal, Diario Ordinario di Chracas, artistic establishment in eighteenth- 2j inches high, £20."; Honour 1959, p. 175;

The young Filippo, certainly among which wrote that "one observed the century Rome. For a total of four Souchal 1967, pp. 226-27; Caraffa 1974,
pp. 301, 307-8; Kieven 1989, pp. 79. 80. 82,
Rusconi's pupils, had by this time Holy Father's great satisfaction, not years (1752-53, and 1760-61) he was
86-88, 94; Minor 1997, pp. 130-35
completed his extended apprentice- only for the sumptuous decoration, Principe of the Accademia di S. Luca.
Trinity Fine Art, London
ship,and became a full member of which was complemented by a por- He also served as Reggente of the
the Accademia in June 1730. He subse- trait of his Beneficence ... but also for Congregazione dei Virtuosi al

quently became one of the two or the new and most noble Chapel of the Pantheon in 1747, 1757, and 1762 (he Already old and infirm when he was
three most sought-after sculptors in Holy Annunciation, which had been joined in 1744). And at least from the elected pope in 1730, Clement XII
Rome. In addition to his numerous unveiled with great effect, having just 1740s hewas inscribed in the turned over much of his artistic

commissions for funeral monuments been brought to fine completion, Accademia dell'Arcadia as Prassino program to his nephew Cardinal Neri
and portrait busts, he was called upon within which was to be commended, Ateniense. In a book published the majordomo,
Corsini. In his capacity as
to contribute to nearly every important among other things, the relief which year Della Valle died, the anglophile Neri supervised two substantial cam-
sculptural campaign from then until forms the altarpiece, by the sculptor (and former Arcadian) Joseph Baretti paigns at the patriarchal basilica of
the end of his career in the early 1760s. Sig. Filippo Valle" (Chracas, Diario wrote that Della Valle was considered St. John Lateran in the 1730s.

A listing of these undertakings pro- Ordinario di Roma, February 28, 1750, the leading sculptor of Rome and that Alessandro Galilei erected the Corsini
vides a catalogue of the major public no. 5088). Rome remained a city that he was looked upon as "tolerably inge- Chapel and rebuilt the facade of the
works carried out during the papacies reveled inceremony and display, a city nious," did not "betray servile imita- old basilica. According to a contem-
of Clement XII, Benedict XIV, and in which daily life and the witnessing tion," and demonstrated "some power porary lampoon, Clement commented
Clement XIII. Life was especially good of works of art could hardly be sepa- of invention" (Baretti 1768, vol. 1, when he was elected to the papacy
for a Florentine artist during the rated from ancient practices of ritual. pp. 275-76). In 1766 Filippo della Valle's that "the higher I rise the lower 1 get. As
papacy of Clement from the noble
XII. Delia Valle continued his vigorous awocato, displaying none of Baretti's a priest I became a bishop
was rich. I

Corsini family of Florence. The pope activity through the later 1750s and adopted British understatement, wrote and was comfortably off. became a I

so favored his fellow Tuscans that into the early 1760s, although at some at the top of the sculptor's last will cardinal and was poor. Now am Pope I

Filippo Juvarra, an architect from point — probably around 1765/6 — he and testament: Celebris in hac alma urbe I am ruined" (Chadwick 1981, p. 313; see

Messina, was moved to protest that in suffered a stroke and worked no more. sculptor, [vhm] also Fagiolo M. 1957, p. 197). He was, in
Rome "Tuscany exalts and laughs!" The last great public project for the bibliography Moschitii 1925: Honour other words, a notorious spendthrift,
(Rovere, Viale, and Brinckmann 1937, Florentine sculptor was the prepara- 1959: Minor 1997 and no monument gives greater cre-
p. 96). The first of the undertakings tion and erection of two colossal dence to that charge than his family's

that were to benefit the Tuscan artists statues of Health and Fertility in the funeral chapel, kept private by the
was the Corsini Chapel in the patriar- final phase of the long and tortuous Corsini family to this day.
chal basilica of St. John Lateran (see campaign for the completion of the Above each of the four doors set

Clement also supported the

cat. 158). Trevi Fountain. For the figure of into the base of the chapel is a sar-

refurbishing of the church of Fertility, he revisited his earlier statue cophagus for a member of the Corsini
S. Giovanni dei Fiorentini in the mid- of Temperance for the Corsini Chapel. family. In the niches above the tombs
1730s, with Delia Valle providing a Although he inflated the figure con- stand statues of the four cardinal (or
relief for the facade (and allegorical siderably and exaggerated the tension platonic) virtues. In addition to Delia
figures over the main door; although of its dramatic twists and turns, Delia Valle's Temperance, there are Giuseppe
these were added toward the end of Valle paid homage work
to his earliest Rusconi's Fortitude. Giuseppe Lironi's
the 1740s), and a funeral monument in Rome and put to rest any assump- Justice, and Agostino Cornacchini's
with a bust of the pope inside the tion thai a major artist must show Prudence. There also is a bronze figure
church. At about the same time, the growth and development in his style. of Clement Xll, modeled by Giovanni

O SCULPTURE
 a preparatory figure but a "presenta- was about to collapse upon itself,

tion" piece. A figure done as a modcllo to fix the roof, which allowed water
would anticipate the final statue but to pour through the ceiling when it
would not have all the details worked rained, and to rebuild the stairs imme-
out. As a copy made afterward, it diately behind the portico. Ferdinando
would be an effective gift, probably Fuga, named Architetto del Capitolo
given out during the dedication of the di S. Maria Maggiore during the reign
chapel in 1735, perhaps to a member of of Clement XII, had been making plans
from Filippo
the Corsini family as a gift for nearly five years. As soon as the
della Valle, or to some other honored great friend of the papacy and liberal
guest. According to the information patron of the arts John V of Portugal
in the CastleHoward inventories, this offered 20,000 scudi in seed money,
terracotta was purchased sometime in Fuga was ready to proceed.
the 1740s. [vhm] Benedict, especially devoted to the
Blessed Virgin Mary (he promoted the
Feast of the Immaculate Conception,
159 which was made dogma in the follow-

ing century by Pius IX), vigorously

Filippo della Valle
supported the rebuilding and refur-
Niccola Albergati bishing of the church, and before he

1740s
was done had spent enormous sums
Terracotta
preparing the venerable basilica and —
Height 25" (63.5 cm) indeed much of Rome — for the holy
year of 1750. The travertine statue of
provenance Heim Gallery. London;
purchased by the Museum, 1981 Niccola Albergati was a small but

bibliography Jones 1986, vol. important part of Benedict's plans.

1, p. 275;
Minor 1997, pp. 187-94 The pope took the unusual position

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, of specifying that Albergati be included
Purchased with Funds Provided by the as part of the iconographic program,
Mary Pickford Foundation and Museum even though he was neither saint,
Purchase Funds apostolic father, nor pope. Although
he had been an archpriest at the
Niccola Albergati (there are variations church, what was of more immediate
on the spelling of his first name), car- importance to Benedict XIV, was that
dinal and bishop of Bologna, was born Albergati had been a fellow country-
in Bologna in 1357 and died in Siena in man — a Bolognese —and it was
1443. He had become a Carthusian Benedict's intention to canonize him.
monk in 1394 and was zealous in his In fact, in his brief on the "Causa can-
reform of the clergy and religious onizationis B. Nicolai Albergati"
orders. He also was a great friend of Benedict specified that he wanted a
learned men. As legate of Pope statue of Albergati on the facade of the
Eugenius IV, he began discussions with church (Anselmi 1990). Moreover, he
the Greeks in anticipation of the great wanted it directly on the Loggia della
meeting on the union of the Orthodox Benedizione, the place from which
and Western Churches that was to be the pope blesses the city and the
held in Ferrara and Florence. Because world. Only two other churches in
Albergati was known for his humility Rome have such a loggia — St. Peter's

and austerity, Eugenius named him and St. |ohn Lateran.

Grand Penitentiary just before his The question remains as to the exact
death. Ludwig von Pastor wrote that function of this terracotta. This kind
"When created a cardinal, in his of figure (that is, a terracotta copy in

humility he assumed no armorial miniature of a monumental statue)

bearings, but simply a cross, an has long been regarded as a bozzetto or
example which was followed by his preparatory model, one employed by
old companion Parentucelli, on his an artist to work out proportions and
elevation to the Papacy" (Pastor general features of the final work.
1938-53, vol. 1, p. 268). Upon his elec- Because this has been finished to such
tion to the throne of St. Peter, a high degree and also because it does
158 Parentucelli honored his old mentor not differ significantly from the final

by adopting the name Nicholas V. piece, it is unlikely to have been some-

Battista Maini, who also sculpted the calm twists and torsions of her body, When Albergati was an archpriest thing used by Della Valle to represent
figure of NeriCorsini. and the shallow, slightly crinkled folds at S. Maria Maggiore in the first half his first thoughts on the statue of
This figure of Temperance pours in her garment, Temperance embodies of the fifteenth century, some parts of Albergati. It seems more likely that
water into wine, so as to demonstrate the virtue of moderation. the basilica were already a thousand this piece, and many others like it, was
(as Saint Thomas Aquinas had main- Because this terracotta follows in years old. The southeast portico had made as Signe Jones has argued either
tained) that temperance is not absti- most of its detail the original statue been most recently rebuilt under Pope as a presentation piece (as discussed in
nence but "just measure." Plato had —
and except for damage to the arm Eugene 111 in the twelfth century. In the entry on cat. 158) or directly for
written in the Laws that "the temperate —
and vase bears a very close resem- 1750 the canons of S. Maria Maggiore what appears to have been a fairly husk
life is in all things gentle, having gentle blance to Count Seilern's terracotta lobbied Clement XII to repair the art market. Such small terracottas
pains and gentle pleasures" (Plato, The (now in the Princess Gate Collection, basilica, but to no avail. Within days would have been most desirable pur-
Dialogues of Plato, ?d ed., trans. Courtauld Gallery, London; each of Benedict's elevation to the papac J
chases for local and foreign collectors,
Benjamin Jowett [Oxford: Clarendon figure stands approximately 25"; late in 1740, the canons urged him to and as an added interest, there must
Press, 1892], vol. 5, p. 116). With the 63.5 cm), it is likely not to have been repair the facade, which they feared have been considerable curiosity and

SCULPTURE
 his brother. As the two worked so among other works (the list is pub-
closely together, and because the lished in full in Honour 1961, p. 205).
younger doubtless received his train- The promotional list also offered copies
ing from the elder, it is not surprising work of
after the sixteenth-century
that their styles are almost indistin- Giambologna, and busts of the Italian
guishable. The difficulty of specific literary figures Petrarch, Dante, Tasso,
stylistic attribution is compounded by and Ariosto.
their regular use of the abbreviated Bronze is an inherently collaborative
signature C. Zoffoli. medium, and it is not clear to what
Giacomo trained not as a sculptor extent the figures that the Zoffoli
but as a worker in precious metals. He signed were created by Giovanni and
was active in the Roman goldsmiths' Giacomo themselves. Certainly they
professional guild, the Universita dei maintained a workshop of craftsmen
Lavoranti, and served as the deputy of to assist production. There is also doc-
that organization from 1758 to 1760. umentary evidence that on at least two
By this time, though, he was gaining occasions Giovanni Zoffoli commis-
a reputation as a sculptor of bronze sioned the sculptor Vincenzo Pacetti
miniatures after famous antique tomodel the terracotta scale replicas
statues. His talent in this area won the from which the molds for the bronzes
admiration of Pope Clement who
XIII, were taken (Honour 1961, p. 199).
in 1763commissioned him to produce However, once the bronze was cast,
a smallbronze after the Capitoline the metalworking talents of Giovanni
Marcus Aurelius, the most famous or Giacomo came into play: each
equestrian statue to have survived sculpture was chased, carefully worked
from antiquity. Presented by the pope to bring its surface to refined polish and
to the Elector of Saxony, the piece sur- high resolution of detail. The finished
vives in Dresden. objects were prized by connoisseurs,
Giacomo Zoffoli built a thriving and entered some of the most distin-

business marketing small copies of guished princely collections of Europe.

famous statues to Italian connoisseurs Charles Heathcote Tatham, acting
and especially to wealthy foreigners as an agent for the Prince of Wales in
who visited Rome on the Grand Tour. gathering furnishings for the redeco-
At the same time he continued to ration of Carlton House during the
produce silver plate and vessels for 1790s, purchased ten statuettes from
ecclesiastic and domestic use, and Zoffoli's list. Writing back to England,
received in 1775 the prestigious title of Tatham expounded on the superiority
Master Silversmith. Zoffoli also partici- of the Italian bronzes to contemporary
pated in the modeling and casting of French production. Recommending
larger-scale sculpture, and is docu- the former, he informed his corre-
mented as having collaborated with spondent that "the bronze used by the
Tommaso Righi on a bust of Pope Italians is of the best metal, with what
Pius VI for the city of Montecchio they call a patina, meaning the outward
(nowTreia). color, of good nature above all their
. . .

In or before 1766 Giacomo Zoffoli execution is superlatively good,

married Gertrude Tofani, and in 1784 having artists employed who study the 1

the couple was recorded as living in the antique with attention and model with
parish of S. Andrea delle Fratte with great ingenuity and taste" (quoted in
their four daughters and infant son. Honour 1961, p. 201). The Zoffoli often
The following year Giacomo died and sold their bronzes in groups, some of
Giovanni Zoffoli succeeded to the which are still intact: a set of ten
direction of the Zoffoli sculpture acquired by the Duke of Northumber-
workshop; he eventually moved into land survives at Syon House; a group
the studio floor of Giacomo's house of five, now at Saltram House, Devon,
and remained there until his own was probably purchased by Lord
death in 1804. Giacomo continued to Boringdon to decorate a chimneypiece
add to the stock of available bronze at this country seat; another group of
miniatures, and promoted the business five, now in Stockholm, were probably
by circulating printed lists of his offer- acquired by King Gustav III himself,

159 ings. A list that survives from around who made his rounds in Rome in the
1795 gives an indication of the scope company of the Neoclassical sculptor
enthusiasm among the holy year pil- GIACOMO ZOFFOLI of Zoffoli's production; it catalogues Johan Tobias Sergei, [jh]

grims concerning the newest statues (c. 1731-1785) and GIOVANNI miniature versions of many of the most bibliography Bulgari 1958-74, vol. 2,
to grace such an important Roman ZOFFOLI (c. 1745-1805) famous antiquities in Italian collec- p. 558; Honour 1961: Hiesinger and Percy

From Rome, selections include 1980; Sutton 1982, p. 31; Wilton and
building. [vhm| tions.
Bignamini 1996. pp. 280-81
Relatively little is known about the the Apollo Belvedere, the Vatican
lives of Giacomo and Giovanni Antinous, Vatican Cleopatra (now known
Zoffoli. two Roman sculptors and as Ariadne), the Laocoon, the Furietti
metaismiths who were among the Centaurs, Capitoline Dying Gaul, and
leading producers of bronze statuettes Capitoline Spinario. From outside of
during the second half of the eigh- the papal city, the list includes the
teenth century. Giacomo, the elder Medici Venus, the Uffizi Faun with
of the two, was probably the uncle of Cymbals, the Farncsc Callipygian Venus,
Giovanni, although he may have been Farnese Hercules, and Farnese Flora,

292 SCULPTURE.
i6o
Giacomo or Giovanni
Zoffoli

Seated Roman Matron

{'Agrippina")

c. 1780-90
Signed: g.zoffou.f

Bronze
11%" x 11%" x 4" (28.9 x 29.5 x 10.2 cm)

provenance The Eighteenth Century

Shop,New York; purchased by Anthony
Morris Clark in 1956-57: by bequest to the
Philadelphia Museum of Art in 1978

exhibition Philadelphia 1980. cat. no. 113

bibliography Honour 1961: Hiesinger

and Percy 1980, pp. 127-28

Philadelphia Museum of Art, Bequest of
Anthony Morris Clark

This bronze is a miniature of a life-size

Roman marble from the celebrated
Farnese collection. During the first half
of the eighteenth century the original,
thought to represent Nero's mother,
Agrippina, decorated the semi-public
Farnese Gardens on the Palatine Hill.
Later it was removed from Rome to
Naples by King Charles III, the heir
of the Farnese family. A second, very
similar, version, also an original Roman
antiquity, Rome, in the
remained in

Museo Capitolino. The fame of the so-

called "Agrippina" led Zoffoli to copy it

in reduced scale and include it in the

line of bronze miniatures that he

offered to Italian connoisseurs and to
the cultivated foreign amateurs who
visited Rome on the Grand Tour.
In its scale, its exquisitely worked
finish, and its classical subject the
"Agrippina" is a typical example of the
miniature production of the Zoffoli.
It is difficult, however, to attribute this

undated piece more precisely, as the

signature reads simply G. Zoffoli F. of the bronze miniature "Agrippina" woman, back in her villa after the "Agrippina" was appreciated as a
While the F is an abbreviation forjkit derives from the notoriety of the first attempt on her life and knowingly possessable simulacrum of one of
(Latin for "made it"), the G could indi- subject's story. According to the awaiting the second. Looking at the the world's most famous sculptures.
cate either Giacomo or Giovanni. ancient historian Suetonius, the quietly reflective pose of Zoffoli's Above all, however, the miniatures
Since these two kinsmen collaborated empress Agrippina murdered her figure, with its bowed head, one may were regarded as artworks in their

closely and since in many cases they husband Claudius with a poisoned dish join Mrs. Starke in imagining the "mild, own right, admired for their beauty
finished sculptures cast from the of his favorite mushrooms. The same pathetic, deep despair" that filled the and technical virtuosity, [jh]
same set of molds it seems imprudent historian, whose passion for the scur- imperial lady's final hours (quoted in
to attempt a more specific attribution. rilous made his Twelve Caesars such Haskell and Penny 1981, p. 134).
In 1795 Giovanni Zoffoli issued a popular reading (translations in various The quiet, restrained compositional
printed catalogue list of the fifty-nine languages were published throughout style of the "Agrippina" attracted admi-
miniature bronze sculptures available the eighteenth century), reported ration during the last quarter of the
from his workshop. The "Agrippina, Nero's "lecherous passion" for his eighteenth century, a period in which
Madre di Nerone" is the fifth entry on mother. Eventually the capricious a stern Neoclassicism was coming
the list, where it is offered for a price of emperor turned against his mother and into fashion. Antonio Canova paid
15 Roman zecchini. The exhibited resolved to have her killed. Attempting the sculpture the highest compliment
bronze is a multiple rather than a at first to have her drowned in a staged when he followed it closely in his life-

unique object: another Zoffoli boating accident, Nero dispatched his sizemarble portrait of Napoleon's
"Agrippina" survives as part of a five- assassins to her villa, where they mother; "Madame Mere" must have
piece garniture de cheminee at Saltram clubbed and hacked her to death. been flattered enough by the compari-
House, Devon. There it is paired with While modern scholars agree that son to an ancient Roman empress to
a seated figure of Menander, a juxta- the marble (and hence the exhibited overlook the more negative aspects
more to do with
position that has bronze) does not represent Agrippina, of Agrippina's reputation.
symmetry and decorative balance Settecento viewers did not question For the Grand Tourist the display of
than with meaning. the identification. The travel writer such pieces was meant as a sign of the
Yet meaning was often important to Mariana Starke felt that the statue owner's worldly cultivation. For many
the buyer, and part of the desirability captured the mood of the doomed connoisseurs, an object such as the

SCULPTURE 293
 —

Painters and Painting in Settecento Rome

EDGAR PETERS BOWRON

tradition of classical painting affected every

painter who visited the city.
In 1700 the most influential artist in Rome
indeed, it might be argued, in all of Europe
—was Carlo Maratti. Appointed f; rst painter
to the King of France and to seven popes, and
having received the title of Cavalier of the
Order of Christ in 1704 from Pope Clement XI,
Maratti's successes were prominent. He enjoyed
extensive local and foreign patronage and was
besieged for portraits as well as religious and
mythological paintings. In Rome alone,
Maratti supplied major altars for S. Andrea
al Quirinale, S. Carlo al Corso, S. Croce in

Gerusalemme, the Gesu, S. Giovanni in

Fonte, S. Giuseppe dei Falegnami, S. Isidoro,

S. Marco, S. Maria sopra Minerva, S. Maria in

Montesanto, S. Maria della Pace, S. Maria del

Popolo, S. Maria dei Sette Dolori, S. Maria in

Vallicella, and St. Peter's. His frescoed ceiling

in the salone of the Palazzo Altieri illustrating
TheTriumph of Clemency (1674; fig. 102), based on
a program devised by the art theorist and anti-

quarian Giovanni Pietro Bellori, introduced the

Fig. 102 Carlo Maratti, Triumph of Clemency, 1674, "Grand Style" to Rome, the style that, in Ellis

fresco; Palazzo Alteri, Rome Waterhouse's phrase, "was to become for a

century the idiom of cultured court art in

Europe." 2
"The seminal center of artistic ideas in Italy Well before the first years of the new
in the eighteenth century," 1

Rome throughout century, Maratti had created an effective style Fig. 103 Carlo Maratti, Saint john the Evangelist

the Settecento was a melting pot for hundreds that synthesized the classical and the Baroque Expounding the Doctrine of the Immaculate Conception to

of painters from all over Europe. A wonderful trends of Roman Seicento painting into a Saints Gregory, Augustine, and john Chrysostom, c. 1686,

variety of pictorial styles was to be found manner that commanded the attention and oil on canvas: Cybo Chapel, S. Maria del Popolo,
there: "Late Baroque classicism," "barocchetto," respect of nearly every young painter in Rome. Rome
"High Baroque Classicism," "proto-" or "early- Maratti's great achievement as a painter was to
Rococo," "Rococo," "proto-Neoclassicism," incorporate the kinetic, spatial, and naturalistic
"Neoclassicism", "neo-Cinquecentismo," achievements of the High Baroque into a clas- Guido Reni, Giovanni Lanfranco, and Pietro
"neo-Mannerism," "proto-Romanticism," sical framework, resulting in a brilliant fusion da Cortona, led to a new grandeur and nobility
"Romanticism," are a few of the terms art his- of the predominant modes of Roman Baroque in Roman painting that reverberated through
torians have employed to describe the stylistic painting. The strongly formalized, classicizing the century'
diversity of painting in the city. But Rome was works of Maratti's maturity — Saint John the It is difficult today to appreciate adequately
also where artists, patrons, and collectors Evangelist Expounding the Doctrine of the Immaculate the authority that Maratti, this modern "Apelles
gathered to admire the art of the ancients, of Conceptiopn to Saints Gregory, Augustine, and john of Rome," exercised on the European artistic

Raphael and of the Bolognese painters Annibale Chrysostom (c. 1686, fig. 103), The Virgin and Child imagination in the early decades of the eigh-
Domenichino, Guido Reni, and their
Carracci, with Saint Francis and Saint James the Great teenth century. No monograph of his ceuvre
numerous students and followers. No other (1686-89; S. Maria in Montesanto, Rome), The exists; he has never been the subject of an
European city possessed this classical heritage, Death of the Virgin (c. 1686; Villa Albani- exhibition; and major paintings from his hand
and Rome's classical grandeur, the archaeo- Torlonia, Rome), and The Baptism of Christ are almost non-existent in public collections
logical enthusiasm of the era, and its vibrant (1699, S. Maria degli Angeli, Rome) —provided outside Italy. 4 But for several generations of
inspiration to scores of painters. The ennobled, painters from the 1670s to the end of the
idealized figures in these dignified composi- eighteenth century, Maratti was the embodi-
(opposite) detail of Corrado Giaquinto, Saint tions, which Maratti himself had developed ment of the ideal classical artist and the chief
Nicholas of Bari Blessing the Soldiers, 1746 (cat. 226) from the works of Raphael, Andrea Sacchi, exemplar of the tradition of Roman painting

PAINTINGS
 — a

beginning of the Settecento, judging from

the evidence of the works of its members,
the academy encouraged a simplification of
expression, a reasonable and serious use of
imagery, and an avoidance of fantastic
Baroque elaboration. Periodically, rebellious

painters in the city attempted to subvert the

academy's authority, but the institution main-
tained its influence over the vast majority of
its members and enforced the academic notion
that classically "correct" history painting —
broad term that embraced sacred themes,
scenes from legend and literature of a morally
edifying kind, and actual historical events
was the painter's proper pursuit. It should be
noted, however, that although landscape and
Fig. 104 Carlo Maratti, Apollo and Daphne, 1681, oil on topographical view painters, and even still-life

canvas; Musees Royaux, Brussels painters and bambocciatc, flourished in

Settecento Rome, they generally received
short shrift from the Accademia di S. Luca.
that began with Raphael. Nearly every painter Another Roman academic institution,

who encountered Maratti's works was affected the Accademia dell'Arcadia, fostered a similar
profoundly, and subtly reoriented his art reaction to the Baroque style that proved Fig. 105 Michele Rocca, Toilet of Venus, c. 1710, oil on
thereafter toward new ideals of formal dignity, influential in many avenues of contemporary canvas; Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of
nobility, purity of contour and silhouette, and culture. Although the Arcadia was concerned Design, Providence
compositional clarity. The Neapolitan artist principally with the reform of poetry —which
Francesco Solimena, who experienced a it sought to make more rational and less artifi-

radical change in the direction of classicism cial — the notions of natural expression, sim- and culturally sophisticated elite in Rome and
after he entered the orbit of Maratti during a plicity, and the elimination of bombast that abroad. Intended for domestic rather than
one-month trip to Rome in 1700, is a case in gained favor in Roman intellectual circles were ecclesiastical settings, cabinet-sized devotional

point. 4 Even decades after Maratti's death, paralleled by changes in the visual arts in the images and Old and New Testament scenes
reflections of his grandiose and decorative early Settecento. The Arcadian style, a mode (see, for example, cats. 198, 242) were deliber-

style are visible in Anton Raphael Mengs's of painting that flourished in small, intimate ately created for connoisseurs and collectors,

fresco ceiling of 1757-58 in S. Eusebio, Rome, cabinet pictures, both sacred and profane, and practically burst with painterly artifice and
and in his Parnassus (1760-61; Villa Albani- allowed painters a greater degree of freedom exquisite pictorial effects. Often painted on
Torlonia, Rome; see cat. 387). than in large-scale, public works of art. They copper supports to enhance their preciosity,
Maratti's dominion in the Roman art world could experiment with a personal artistic pastoral Arcadian scenes such as Sebastiano
was maintained by a very large and flourishing manner, explore a wider range of pictorial Conca's Rest on the Flight into Egypt announced
studio with a great number of painters (the so- effects, and look to non-Roman sources such simultaneously a new aesthetic and a mode of
called Maratteschi) who carried his artistic idiom as the paintings of Correggio and the Venetians religious sensibility characteristic of the
into the new century. They inherited his privi- as models of inspiration. In the emerging aes- Roman Settecento.
leged position with successive popes, and suc- thetic of Arcadianism, Maratti here, too, played The emergence of Arcadianism around
ceeded to his leadership role in the Accademia a crucial role. His Apollo and Daphne (1681; fig 1700 also stimulated a new interest in secular
di S. Luca. Elected to membership in 1662, 104), executed for Louis XIV, was one of the paintings for the collector's cabinet and enabled
Maratti served as the academy's Principe in most celebrated works of the time, praised by artists of the first rank — Giuseppe Bartolomeo
1664-65 and again from 1700 to 1713. In 1701 Bellori for its expression of the affetti and of Chiari, Benedetto Luti, Sebastiano Conca, and
he received the unprecedented honor of being ideal beauty in the secular realm. Maratti's Francesco Trevisani — to conduct a thriving and
named Principe for life. Maratti wielded his small-scale cabinet pictures of devotional lucrative trade in small-scale cabinet pictures
power and influence within the academy to subjects —which earned him the nickname to local patrons and foreign clients alike." That

establish the authority of his stylistic creation, "Carluccio delle Madonna" and express in Roman painters shared the general eighteenth-
which many art historians have designated their tenderness, innocence, and grace an century ideals of grace, elegance, and suavity
"late Baroque classicism," and most of its entirely new sensibility —held great signifi- is confirmed by Chiari's famous set of four
members seem to have accepted both the terms cance for the history of Settecento Roman Ovidian themes painted in 1708 for Cardinal
of his pedagogy and the implications of his art. religious painting. Fabrizio Spada (Galleria Spada, Rome).
The Accademia di S. Luca neither engen- The new treatment of traditional religious Mythological cabinet pictures were ideal for

dered a specific style, nor attempted to set subjects such as the Virgin and Child (see, for a painter with a light touch and a predilection
forth a clear, systematic statement of artistic example, cat. 293), the Holy Family, and the for the coyly erotic, such as Michele Rocca
intent. Under the influence of Maratti, however, Rest on the Flight into Egypt (cat. 199) show (fig. 105). Such pictures, as has been pointed
the institution advocated a respect for the how profoundly Arcadianism influenced out, are not simply reductions of designs for
Roman classical tradition, the codification of Roman painting in the early decades of the large historical compositions — their daintiness,

approved models, a reliance on reason, and a Settecento. Paintings of non-narrative reli- elegance, and mannered movements, acceptable
well-defined sense of decorum. From the gious themes found great favor with a refined on a small scale, would have looked silly if

PAINTINGS
 They represent
translated into the scale of life." Disegno was more highly prized in Rome
a new development in painting in Rome, one than elsewhere in Europe, and young artists

that became so powerful that Trevisani's inter- from all corners of the Continent flocked to

national reputation, it can be argued, depended the city for the opportunity to draw with an
more on his Arcadian mythologies and "his experienced master. By the middle of the
porcelainy children, who frequent his compo- century it had long become an established
and out of season," 8 than on such
sitions in European tradition for artists to travel to Rome
magnificent and moving public commissions to complete their education.The city remained
as The Ecstasy of Saint Francis (fig. 106), which are unrivaled as a training ground for young

among the greatest paintings produced in painters, a place where they could imbibe the
Europe during the eighteenth century. "true" sources of the Roman school: nature,
The artistic and stylistic independence antiquity, and Raphael. In Rome they could

encouraged by the Arcadian movement improve their ability to draw, and the city
notwithstanding, a respect for traditional became the "Academy of Europe" in great
"Roman" painting was strongly impressed measure because of the opportunities it offered

upon painters in the Eternal City from the ear- in life drawing. Artists could study from the
liest moments of their professional training. model two "official" academies, the
at the

When a young artist in eighteenth-century French Academy and the Accademia di S. Luca;
Rome became the protege of a master, he (and, they could draw at the Accademia del Nudo,
rarely, she) learned the technical procedures established by Pope Benedict XIV in a large

for preparing and mixing colors and priming room below the Pinacoteca Capitolina in the
canvases, as well as other rudiments of the Palazzo dei Conservatori; they could enroll in

painter's art. But, above all, the student received one of the local evening drawing academies
hours, months, even years of instruction in held by Rome's leading masters; and they
drawing, for only by constant practice could could —and often did—organize their own
a young painter gain the ability to draw in the independent life-drawing classes." Fig. 106 Francesco Trevisani, The Ecstacy of Saint

accepted Roman style, grasp the fundamen- For many eighteenth-century Roman Francis, c. 1722, oil on canvas; Ss. Stimmate di
tals of disegno, and acquire the giustezza d'occhio painters, life drawing was such an indispens- S. Francesco, Rome
possessed by every great painter. And only by able element of their training that they contin-
drawing continuously could the apprentice ued to draw from the nude well into maturity,
gain mastery of such technical problems as both to maintain and sharpen their skills as S. Andrea della Valle, and his Scourging of Saint

proportional accuracy, foreshortening, draftsmen and to show off their abilities in Andrew, and Guido Reni's Saint Andrew Led to

detail-mass relationships, and the creation The academy drawings of Domenico

this field. Martyrdom in the Oratorio di S. Andrea,
of convincing volumetric and spatial form. Corvi, for example (cat. 340), one of the chief S. Gregorio Magno. Works by the other
Most painters in eighteenth-century Rome exponents of the Roman classical tradition in acclaimed masters of classicism of the early
followed a path of instruction similar to that the second half of the eighteenth century, were Seicento were also studied assiduously and
of Antonio Cavallucci, a painter from avidly sought by his contemporaries and, sketched. Utter familiarity with these master-
Sermoneta who spent most of his life in the according to the contemporary historian Luigi pieces of Roman painting impressed upon
papal capital. One of the artist's contemporary Lanzi, were valued even more highly than his young artists the importance of Roman disegno
biographers described how the artist arrived paintings. Lanzi praised Corvi's incomparable in the conventions of invention, expression,
in Rome at the age of fourteen and advanced command of anatomy, perspective, and design, composition, and anatomy.
under the direction of Stefano Pozzi —copying but in fact almost all the painters represented The influence of Maratti, the authority
profiles, heads, hands, feet, and other details in the present exhibition achieved in their best of the Accademia di S. Luca, emphasis upon
of the body from drawings and engravings; works a similar exactitude, precision of drawing, and absorption of the earlier Roman
studying the entire figure perse through outline contour, and finish and shading. Put more classical painters left a deep imprint on young
drawings; and representing three-dimensional bluntly, painters trained in Rome became artists in Rome and hastened their transfor-
objects, usually plaster casts of classical sculp- better draftsmen than artists elsewhere, at least mation into truly "Roman" painters. This
tures (both Costanzi's and Mengs's studios until the end of the century, when the methods explains why, in Clark's words, the Roman
were renowned for their collections of casts), and training conducted there became available Settecento "is generally considered one of the
before undertaking the live model. The goal through the establishment of academies hardest moments in any European school to
was to develop accuratezza, diligcnza, and natu- throughout the major cities of Europe. distinguish individuals, and it is true that the
ralezza in drawing, and the attainment of these Novice painters in Rome were also ordered basic artistic agreement was exceptional
technical skills was considered so indispensable to study the grand models of disegno in order strict." " In
1

the case of artists from outside

to artistic success that those not trained in to learn articulation of musculature, modula- Rome, their experiences in the city quickly
history painting —landscape painters, for tion of light and shade, and construction of resulted in a conversion of their pregiudizzi and
example —remedied shortcomings with
their drapery. This meant endless sketching before a waning of their biases in favor of regional
a period of instruction from a recognized Raphael's frescoes in the Vatican Stanze and styles and local heroes of painting "back home."
figure painter. Andrea Locatelli, who drew the Villa Farnesina, Annibale Carracci's frescoes This was never more true than in the case of
the human figure under the direction of Biagio in the Farnese Gallery, Domenichino's Scenes David, who consciously abandoned the "bad"
Puccini, for example, and Panini, who spent jrom the Lije oj Saint Cecilia in S. Luigi dei Francesi, Rococo French manner of his training. But in
drawing with Benedetto Luti, are
several years his Death of Saint Jerome in S. Girolamo della shedding their earlier artistic predispositions,
two of many examples of this phenomenon. Carita, his pendentives of the Four Evangelists in most Roman Settecento painters gained a new

PAINTINGS 297
 —

mastery in their ability to express gestures,

attitudes, and expressions and a deeper under-

standing of ideal beauty, decorum, and the
other principles of the Grand Manner, which
had, after all, provided the theoretical under-
pinning for much European art since the time
of Raphael.
But because the ablest painters from else-

where in Italy and beyond — Luti and Bottani

from Florence, Batoni from Lucca, Conca and
Giaquinto from Naples, Subleyras from Paris,
Mengs from Dresden, Maron from Vienna
Rome, both the spirit and
arrived daily in
content of Rome's classicism evolved continu-
ously decade after decade. "Romanization"
was not a conservative process but a highly
creative action, one that would be reiterated
again and again by many significant eighteenth-
century artists, native and foreign, who worked
in Rome. Even a cursory glance at the works in

the exhibition reveals the transformation of

Settecento Rome's classical inheritance into a
fresh and original pictorial manner that at
once honors the traditional while simultane- Fig. 107 Corrado Giaquinto, Moses Striking the Rock, Fig. 108 Corrado Giaquinto, Moses and the Brazen

ously offering something unmistakably new. c. 1724, oil on canvas; National Gallery, London Serpent, c. 1724, oil on canvas; National Gallery,

Marco Benefial, to cite one example, was a London

master of a variety of styles and could produce
devotional works in the manner of Guercino,
or mythological pictures such as the Pyramus oil paint, artists in Rome had few rivals, in Italy patrons of the less intellectual sort," in Ellis

andThisbc (cat. 177) in a classicizing version of or elsewhere, in leaving an appealing freshness Waterhouse's observation, "and it was from
the style of Giovani Battista Gaulli." Half a and sparkle of touch. Virtuoso handling and such that Roman artists were increasingly to
century later, Giuseppe Cades turned heads the ability to impart in oils effects of richness earn their living."
15

with his seemingly effortless ability to paint and sensuousness seem to have been prized in Given the fluency with which Roman
and draw in every style from Neo-Mannerist the ateliers of Rome and were not unnoticed artists could manipulate oil paint, it is not sur-
to Baroque to Romantic (cats. 193-95, 324-28), by contemporary critics. The manipulation of prising that oil sketches, bozzetti, and modelli

revealing along the way his inspiration from paint ranges from the "florid, nervous vivac- played a significant role in their working
Raphael and the Roman High Renaissance, ity" of Conca's Rest on the Flight into Egypt" to methods. Although oil sketches in the eigh-
Giulio Romano and Mannerism, Veronese and the smooth surfaces, minute finish, and pol- teenth century are often associated primarily
the Venetians, Rubens and Van Dyck, and ished detail of Luti's Saint Charles Borromeo with Venice and Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, in

Guercino. Administering Extreme Unction to the Victims of the context of contemporary Roman practice,

With the arrival and establishment of the the Plague (cat. 241) and Batoni's Benedict XIV painters from Luti (cat. 243), to Giaquinto
innovative young northern artists who gath- Presenting the Encyclical "Ex Omnibus" to the Count (cats. 224, 225), to Antonio Cavallucci (cat. 197),

ered in Rome around Henry Fuseli and Johan de Choiscul (cat. 168), to the spontaneous to Cades (cat. 195) relied equally on prepara-
Tobias Sergei in the 1770s, the sources invigo- brushwork and liquid handling of Giaquinto's tory sketches in oils for a variety of purposes.
rating Roman painting widened even further. brilliant modelli for S. Croce inGerusalemme For most of these painters, the physical act of
Strongly opposed to Mengs and the fashionable (cats. 224, 225), to Cades's virtuoso brushwork painting was effortless, and they were content
artistic circles in Rome, Fuseli sought inspira- in the altarpiece for the cathedral in Ascoli to rework and alter their designs on canvas
tion from Hellenistic sculpture, Michelangelo, Piceno (cat. 194). until satisfied. For some, such as Marco
and Mannerism. "It was no longer recourse to The ease with which such painters as Pierre Benefial, it is apparent that by relying upon a
recognized models but experimentation with Subleyras (cats. 283-87) or Antonio Cavallucci series of rapidly painted oil sketches blocking

the possibilities of their own pictorial imagi- (cat. 197) could wield a brush and leave impasto out and highlighting the forms, accenting the
nations and an ironic questioning of reality highlights, sensuous surfaces, and softly lights and shadows, it was possible to preserve
6
and tradition which determined the new brushed forms on their canvases is an the spontaneity of their original inspiration.'
approach," as Steffi Roettgen has put it." inevitable by-product of their training and Of course, highly finished models in oils

The works shown here reveal several unify- skills as draftsmen. Batoni, for example, who served the traditional function of providing a
ing pictorial qualities common to Roman was arguably the finest draftsman among all patron an indication of the finished appearance
painting from the beginning to the end of the eighteenth-century portrait painters, employed of a design or composition. Giaquinto's large-

eighteenth century: polished drawing, precise a precise and controlled method of working in scale oil sketches for the choir walls of
handling, luminous color, idealization of oils — varied, but certain, direct, and confi- S. Croce in Gerusalemme in the National

nature, and, often, an acuity of perception dent — that his contemporaries admired." His Gallery, —
London (figs. 107, 108) which were
and observation that approaches naturalism, polish and high finish were "qualities which not lent to the present exhibition because of
judged strictly by their ability to manipulate have always appealed to the richest level of art their pristine preservation on original, unlined

I'AINTINGS
 —

canvases —show how finely wrought and bril- demands of the genre often required him to

liant such paintings could be. And given the dilute his initial free and spontaneous obser-
alterations to the original appearance of vation with the details of costume, acces-

Giaquinto's frescoes in Rome from the effects sories, and setting.

of humidity and unsuccessful restorations in Naturalness, immediacy, and directness

the nineteenth century, the brilliance of his were not, however, restricted to portrait paint-
achievement in S. Croce can be appreciated ing. There is a rich vein of dramatic naturalism
more satisfactorily today in these exquisitely that runs through Settecento Roman painting
finished preparatory sketches than in the and explains why, for instance, in the realm of

actual finished works in situ. sacred painting, scenes from the life of little-
Most will find surprising the luminosity known saints of the period appear so remark-
and color of so many Roman Settecento paint- ably convincing to a modern audience.

ings. One of the most sophisticated colorists Beginning with Benedetto Luti, Roman
of the early century was Benedetto Luti, who painters devoted considerable skill and effort

translated to oils the rich chromatic effects of toward making the drama of the fictive scene
his justly famous pastels. Luti managed to before the observer a real and present event.
infuse the great traditions of Roman classicism Three paintings in the exhibition especially

with the luminosity and color of the paintings Luti's Saint Charles Borromco Administering
of Federico Barocci and the Florentine Baroque, Extreme Unction to the Victims of the Plague (cat.

and works such as his great canvas of 1712 241), Pier Leone Ghezzi's Miraculous Intercession

depicting the Investiture of San Ranieri (Pisa of Saint Philip Neri on Behalf of CardinalOrsini, the
Cathedral; see fig. 41) revealed a color scheme Future Benedict XIII (cats. 220-21), and
so vibrant that it changed the course of Roman Fig. 109 Anton Raphael Mengs. Cardinal Francesco Benefial's Vision of Saint Catherine Fieschi Adorno
painting. Luti employed a lighter palette than Saverio dc Zclada, 1773-74, oil on panel; Art Institute of Genoa (cat. 178) —convey the special style of

many of his contemporaries, and his abrupt of Chicago Roman eighteenth-century religious painting.
juxtapositions of high-keyed hues and irrides- Each in a slightly different way encourages the
cent pastel tints resulted in stunning visual emotional involvement of the observer by
effects. He was a virtuoso in the painting of for making a striking likeness of everyone he means of a rational presentation of sacred
silk and satin, and his preference for sherbet paints," wrote Father John Thorpe, the Jesuit drama in a convincing narrative manner.
pastels of green, white, orange-yellow, and priest and antiquarian,"' and his sitters were Depiction of sacred scenes with such vivid
violet, all tinted in a much higher key with almost always pleased with this aspect of their degrees of concreteness, suggesting to the
white (derived in part from Guido Reni's portraits. Accurate likenesses were highly beholder the illusion that the scene is being
paintings of the late 1620s and 1630s), left its valued by Batoni's clients, but his portraits enacted before his eyes, is one of the achieve-
mark on his Roman contemporaries. were more than accurate; they were also vivid ments of the Roman Settecento.
Luti's Allegory oj the Enthronement of Pope and powerfully compelling: Stephen This humanization of the emotion of reli-
Martin V in Palazzo Colonna, c. 1718-22, mod- Beckingham's portrait was so memorable that gious experience gathered steam at the end
ulates and juxtaposes hues, tints, and shades a stranger, upon being introduced to the sitter of the previous century in Maratti's late altar-

with a virtuosity equal to any French painter at a dinner party in London, recalled seeing pieces, such as the Virgin and Child with Saint
of the Rococo. The vibrant luminosity and the picture several years earlier in an Italian James and Saint Francis (1689; S. Maria di
high-keyed hues and irridescent pastel tints custom house, where it had turned up after Montesanto, Rome), continuing a trend in

of lilac, lemon, lavender, pink, and gray-green being nearly lost at sea."' Italian painting that began during the Catholic
that mark Pompeo Batoni's magnificent Mengs, too, could create expressive and Counter-Reformation a century and a half
Sacrifice of lphigcnia (cat. 163) underscore the highly individualized likenesses of great vivid- earlier. Intimacy between spectator and painting
influence of both Reni's later works and Luti's, ness and immediacy (cats. 253-55, 259). The is the norm in Roman Settecento religious
which Batoni would have studied as he pre- liveliness of expression and intensity and the painting, above all in themes related to ecclesi-
pared his own decorations for the same spontaneity of his work in oils and pastel are astical and papal history and in the growing
ceiling.
1
'
Giaquinto's vivid and luminous epitomized by the memorable portrait of genre of scenes from contemporary religious
canvases (cats. 223-26) also reveal a luxuriant Cardinal Francesco Saverio de Zelada, 1773-74 life: ceremonies, rites, the promulgation of
palette of transparent greens, blues, violets, (fig. 109). The cardinal, who played a signifi- important bulls (cat. 168), royal and aristocratic
reds, pinks and grays that raises the inevitable cant role in the dissolution of the Society of marriages (Agostino Masucci, The Marriage oj

comparison to the art of Francois Boucher, Jesus during the reign of Pope Clement XIV Prince James Francis Edward Stuart and Princess
one of the most important French Rococo and, as Secretary of State, served as an inter- Maria Clementina Sobieska [Scottish National
painters to study in Rome. ' 1

mediary between the papal state and revolu- Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh]) and baptisms
Many Roman painters in the eighteenth tionary France, sat to Mengs in 1773. The (Pier Leone Ghezzi, The Baptism of Prince Charles

century possessed the ability to create strik- portrait was hailed in the Diario di Roma of Edward Stuart [Scottish National Portrait
ing, memorable images; for example, Batoni April 22, 1780, as "one of the most beautiful Gallery, Edinburgh]), Tc Deum masses for mili-
and Mengs in their portraits. Batoni's portraits ever done by the immortal Cavalier Mengs;" 21 tary victories and advantageous peace treaties,
command attention by the freshness of their its subtle modeling of flesh tones, intense illu- and papal elevations. As Christopher Johns
coloring, precision of drawing, and polish of sionism, and vivid coloring result in a tour de has pointed out, "Even in more traditional
handling. Very few contemporary portrait force of portraiture. Mengs, like Batoni, could types of sacred art the presence of swarms of
painters could match his ability to produce endow any of his portraits with an extraordi- angels, hosts of airborne saints, and dramatic
an accurate likeness. Batoni "values himself nary degree of naturalness, although the shafts of golden light is often underplayed in

PAINTINGS
 was perhaps the first occasion on which topo-
graphical paintings were treated as serious
works at such an exalted level.
2
*
Individual
popes of course had their artistic favorites:
Clement XI consistently honored Chiari with
important commissions; the esteem Benedict
XIV held for Francesco Mancini resulted in the

commission of the high altarpiece in the

newly renovated S. Maria Maggiore for the
jubilee year of 1750; Pius VI called Antonio
Cavallucci "il Raffaello dei nostri tempi." 29
The decoration of altars and chapels in

churches throughout the city and its environs

was enormously remunerative for painters in
Rome. From S. Silvestro in Capite, which in
the late Seicento provided significant employ-
ment to several painters who would attain
Fig. no Giovanni Paolo Panini, Piazza Santa Maria Fig. 111 Giovanni Paolo Panini. Piazza del Quirinale, great prominence early in the new century
Maggiorc, 1742, oil on canvas; Coffee House, Palazzo 1742, oil on canvas: Coffee House, Palazzo del (Chiari. Giuseppe Ghezzi. Luigi Garzi, and
del Quirinale, Rome Quirinale. Rome Andrea in Subiaco, which
Trevisani), to S.

was erected by Pope Pius VI and decorated

by Cavallucci, Pietro Labruzzi, Marcello
favor of more matter-of-fact representations as he purchased works by Veronese, Tintoretto, Leopardi, Laurent Pecheux, Pietro Tedeschi,
with relatively limited casts of characters." 22 Domenico Fetti, and Anthony van Dyck. and Cristoforo Unterperger at the end of the
This new informality, characterized by a The notion that Rome declined as an artistic century, churches in Rome and the Papal States

naturalistic description of setting and figures, center from about 1700 is, as Waterhouse provided exceptional opportunities for the
and by a lively interest in anecdote, also per- observed thirty years ago, almost wholly an city's painters. In fact, the continuous refur-

vaded secular painting in eighteenth-century invention of the twentieth century. 26 Rome bishment of the interior of Rome's churches
Rome. The tendency is exemplified by the was a destination for the most ambitious constitutes at least as great an urbanistic
work of Pier Leone Ghezzi, appearing first young artists in Europe, not only for its achievement as the more visible official pro-

in his six small scenes from the life of Pope educational opportunities but also for its jects that make the city visually memorable
Clement XI (1712-15; Palazzo Ducale, Urbino), extraordinary promise of patronage. No today, such as the Spanish Steps and Trevi
painted for the salone of the papal palace at other European city offered such unparalleled Fountain. The interiors of existing churches
Castelgandolfo. 25 However, it is Ghezzi's support for its painters. This breadth and diver- continued to be remodeled, the vaults covered
recorative fresco cycles painted for Cardinal sity of patronage in Rome is one of the reasons over, and elaborate decorative schemes
Alessandro Falconieri in the castle of few successful painters ever left the city (as devised to proclaim the authority of the
Torrimpietra (1712-32), and in the Villa opposed to the situation in Venice, for example, Church. The interiors of nearly all of the city's

Falconieri at Frascati (1724-34) that present whose painters criss-crossed the Continent churches were altered in some way during the

most successfully his brand of precise, seeking employment), although even Giaquinto eighteenth century, but many —including
descriptive, witty realism. The figures are (in 1753) and Mengs (in 1761) could not resist Ss. Apostoli, S. Cecilia, Ss. Claudio e Andrea
fashionably dressed, and for the most part the call of the wealthy Spanish court. de' Borgognoni, S. Clemente, S. Gregorio al

drawn from life, providing a vivid picture of The Church and the curial world of papal Celio, and S. Maria in via Lata owe their pre-
the society of the time, at once Roman and patronage were the most prestigious sources dominant decorative character to the efforts

cosmopolitan, papal and libertarian. 24 of pictorial commissions and made Rome the of the architects, painters, sculptors, and
The didactic piety of paintings such as center of religious painting in Europe. The order craftsmen in this exhibition.

Luti'sand Trevisani's small-scale devotional for an altarpiece for St. Peter's, or one of the Individual members of the Roman ecclesi-

pictures on copper (cats. 242, 290, 295) is patriarchal basilicas, was among the highest astical hierarchy, acting outside their capacity

one link in a chain that stretches from Guido honors an artist could obtain in eighteenth- as officials of the Church (a distinction not
Reni's Virgins through Batoni's Sacred Heart century Rome and a sign that he had entered always easy to recognize), emerged among
of Jesus (II Gesu, Rome), one of the most the circle of papal favor. The plan of Pope the most active patrons in eighteenth-century

revered images in the Roman Church, 2

'
to Clement XI to decorate the clerestory level Rome. Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni. great-nephew

the nineteenth-century religious oleograph. of the nave of St. John Lateran with large, of Pope Alexander VIII, made the Palazzo
Nonetheless, it must be emphasized that this oval paintings of twelve prophets (cat. 243). Cancelleria the center of the most influential

type of religious painting was not intended for for example,was the most important single patronage in the city early in the century and
"
the delectation of the simple-minded. One papal commission of the early Settecento. 2
the repository of inestimable treasures of
measure of the reception accorded such pictures But papal patronage also extended significantly silver, tapestries, pictures, antiquities, books,
in the early Settecento is the enthusiasm of to the secular realm, as in the decoration of and manuscripts. He was the chief protector
such sophisticated collectors as Augustus III, the Coffee House in the Quirinal Gardens, of Trevisani, who painted his portrait (cat. 291)

Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, whose built for Benedict XIV by Ferdinando Fuga in and produced for him one of the greatest
agent acquired a Mater Dolorosa (Gemaldegalerie 1743. Masucci and Batoni were given the major Roman Settecento landscapes. The Rest on the

Alte Meistcr. Dresden) with a pendant Blessing roles, but the commission to Panini for a pair Might into Egypt, (c. 1715; Gemaldegalerie Alte
Christ (destroyed 194s) in 1742, at the same time of splendid historicizing views (figs. 110, 111) Meister, Dresden: fig. 112). The breadth of

30O PAINTINGS
 ——

Fig. 113 )an Frans van Bloemen, called Orizzonte, Fig. 114 Jan Frans van Bloemen, called Orizzonte,
Roman Landscape, oil on canvas; Palazzo Rospigliosi- View of Rome with the Colosseum and the Arch of

Pallavicini, Rome Constantine, oil on canvas; Palazzo Rospigliosi-

Fig. 112 Francesco Trevisani, The Rest on the Flight into Pallavicini, Rome
Egypt, c. 1715, oil on canvas; Gemaldegalerie Alte
Meister, Dresden patrons, eventually acquiring some eight Girolamo II Colonna, majordomo to Benedict
hundred paintings by Italian and northern XIV, made major additions to the palace,
painters that included not only subject pictures which involved Stefano and Giuseppe Pozzi.
Ottoboni's taste is demonstrated by the faci by Trevisani, but bambocciate, still lifes, topo- The 1763 inventory of his collection contained
that he not only patronized Roman painten graphical views, and landscapes, including a numerous works by many of the major pro-
such as Gaulli, Chiari, Conca, Luti, and splendid pair by Claude-Joseph Vernet tagonists of contemporary Roman painting
Trevisani, but also brought Sebastiano (cats. 300, 301). But many lesser-known clerics Conca, Trevisani, Costanzi, Agostino Masucci,
Ricci to Rome from Venice and around 1712 also proved a fruitful source of patronage, Giaquinto, and Batoni —and reveals that he
commissioned Giuseppe Maria Crespi to paint such as the abbot Domenico Martelli, the scion too shared his family's traditional enthusiasm
his great series of the Seven Sacraments, also of an old and distinguished Florentine family, for landscapes and vedute, with fifty-seven pic-
today in Dresden. who lived in Rome almost uninterruptedly tures by Vanvitelli, twenty-five so-called
Arguably the most famous instance of car- from 1698 until his death in 1753. His collection, boscarecce of Van Bloemen, fifty-eight paesaggi
dinalate patronage to an eighteenth-century vestiges of which remain in the family palace, by Andrea Locatelli, who in 1741 had executed
Roman painter was Mengs's famous fresco of consisted essentially of religious paintings and a series of decorations in "sughi d'erba" in the
Parnassus on the main ceiling of the landscapes of small format by the most repre- palace. 5
'
A pair of Van Bloemen's greatest and
villa-museum built for Cardinal Alessandro sentative painters of the Roman school: Paolo most classicizing landscapes a la Poussin
Albani, the most celebrated Roman collector Anesi, Benefial (cat. 176), Pietro Bianchi, Jan Ideal Landscape with the Vatican Belvedere and View
of antiquities in the eighteenth century (see Frans van Bloemen, Conca, Costanzi, of Rome with the Colosseum and the Arch of
"
cat. 378). But Albani's influence reached much Giaquinto, Masucci, and Gaspar van Wittel. 1
Constantine (figs. 113-14) were commissioned
further in the local art world; he was a close The Roman nobility numbered many con- by the Colonna family.
friend and correspondent of Sir Horace Mann, noisseurs and collectors who provided a fruit- The most important secular commission
British representative at Florence for nearly ful source of support to the city's painters. One involving Roman painters early in the century,
fifty years, and thus a valuable contact both of Rome's leading patrons was Marchese the ceiling decorations in Palazzo de Carolis,
for British artists in Rome and for British Nicolo Maria Pallavicini, one of Carlo Maratti's was provided by Don Livio de Carolis. The
patrons in search of works of art in Italy. He closest friends and greatest supporters, who leading painters in Rome were invited to paint
was, moreover, charge d'affaires and imperial commissioned nearly twenty pictures from the allegorical and mythological scenes,
minister-plenipotentiary in Rome for Maria him, including a large allegorical self-portrait including Chiari, Conca, Garzi, Luti, Domenico
Theresa of Austria, who was Britain's ally, and celebrating the relationship between painter Maria Muratori, and Giovanni Odazzi. A
as such he "protected" British interests in the and patron (c. 1705; Stourhead, Wiltshire, lucrative stream of projects throughout the
city. He knew in advance of the arrival of most National Trust; see fig. 19). Pallavicini shared eighteenth century resulted in some of the
British visitors to Rome, many of whom sought with other collectors from Rome's privileged most sumptuous interiors of the era, such as,

his advice and protection, and he often directed families a great enthusiasm for still lifes and notably, Gabriele Valvassori's Galleria degli
them to the studios of Batoni and Mengs, landscapes, which he commissioned from Specchi in the Palazzo Doria Pamphili with
among other artists, antiquarians, and dealers. artists such as Van Bloemen, Christian Berentz, its mythological ceiling frescoes by Aureliano
A complete record of contemporary and Trevisani. Milani, 1732-33. Domenico Corvi also deco-
Roman churchmen who provided significant The Casa Colonna proved a potent source rated the Palazzo Doria Pamphili in celebra-
patronage to the city's painters would be fof patronage in the eighteenth century: Don tion of Andrea Doria's marriage to Leopolda
extensive. Figuring large on thislist would be Fabrizio Colonna, succeeding his father in 1714 of Savoy-Carignan, with a huge fresco of David
the influential Cardinal Giuseppe Renato as constable of the Kingdom of Naples, con- and Abigail and a ceiling painting of the
Imperiali, the patron oflmperiali (cat. 215), tinued the family tradition of artistic patronage Apotheosis oj Andrea Doria, that survives only
Cardinal Antonio Felice Zondadari (cats. 180, centered on the family palace in Rome, where as an oil sketch in the Minneapolis Institute
206), Cardinal Domenico Orsini (cat. 168), and commissions to Chiari, Luti, Pietro Bianchi, of Arts. At the Palazzo, almost all rooms of the
Cardinal Silvio Valenti Gonzaga, secretary of Batoni, and Mancini furthered the ambitious ground floor were redecorated with subjects
state to Benedict XIV. Valenti Gonzaga architectural and decorative schemes begun from classical mythology by Gioacchino
emerged as one of the city's great ecclesiastical by his father and grandfather. Cardinal Agricola, Francesco Caccianiga, Gaetano

PAINTINGS 301
 Lapis, Laurent Pecheux, and Mariano Rossi. the invitation of Frederick II, King of Prussia,
In the vaulted ceilings in the rooms in the to Potsdam in 1763.)

upper floor of the Casino Borghese, now the Among these energetic new art patrons
Borghese Gallery, in the Villa Borghese, several were men such as the Palatine Elector Johann
painters supplied mythological compositions Wilhelm, the aristocratic and elegant prince of
between 1784, when the modelli were described the Holy Roman Empire, who created a collec-
by the Giornalc dclle Belle Arti, when
and 1786, tion of pictures that eclipsed all other
the finished ceilings were commented upon eighteenth-century collections. The 384
by the Memoric per le Belle Arti. A measure of paintings listed in the late eighteenth-century
the importance of such works is given by inventory of the prince-elector's famous
Cristoforo Unterperger's Apotheosis of Hercules gallery in Dusseldorf, the majority of which
(fig. 11s), cited as one of the most significant have passed into the Bavarian state collections,

achievements of Roman classicism toward the Fig. 115 Cristoforo Unterperger, Apotheosis oj Hercules, contained masterpieces by Rembrandt, Rubens,
end of the eighteenth century,' which appro- 2
after 1786, oil on canvas; Villa Borghese. Rome and Van Dyck. But Johann Wilhelm also had a
priately derives its general arrangement from taste for Italian painting, stimulated by Giorgio
some of the vaults in Raphael's Loggie and even Maria Rapparini, a Bolognese painter and
influenced Canova's colossal marble Hercules Percy, later 1st Earl of Northumberland, in 1752 writer who had studied under Maratti, and so
and Lichas (Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna, for full-size copies of their most celebrated 34 " 2
— in addition to paintings by Raphael, Titian,

Rome), begun in 1795. The commissions to several of the best-known Barocci, and Domenichino —he acquired
Rome's wealthy older families also played a history painters in Rome of the time, Batoni, works by contemporary painters, including
sustained role in the restoration and refurbish- Costanzi, Masucci, and Mengs, through the Luti's Saint Charles Borromeo Administering
ing of Rome's parish churches, a source of mediation of Cardinal Albani (who played a Extreme Unction to the Victims of the Plague
patronage for altarpieces and other pictorial decisive part in the selection of the works to (cat. 241) and the Education of the Virgin

decorations. In the restoration of the decayed be copied), underscores both the tenacity of (Alte Pinakothek, Munich).

medieval parish church of S. Maria in belief in the study of proven classical models To list the European monarchs, royal fami-
Monticelli in 1715, for example, Pope Clement XI and the influence of British purchasers and lies, and aristocrats who either visited Rome
relieved the pontifical treasury of expense by patrons in the second half of the Settecento. or employed agents to keep them abreast of
soliciting individuals to underwrite the costs The British preference for an academic, classi- current artistic developments in the city is

of decorating various side chapels and permit- cally moderated style, adorned with rhetorical pointless, except as a reminder of the prestige

ting them to place familial crests in them in effects, as Roettgen observed, "encouraged the Roman painters commanded throughout
acknowledgment of their contributions. The emergence of an ideal of taste which was in Europe in the eighteenth century. They
Roman aristocracy played a major role in the many respects identical with what is now included: Leopold I, Grand Duke of Tuscany;
project, and members of the Albani. Ottone, called Neo-Classicism." 15 Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor (cat. 172);
Mandosi, and Massimi families commissioned But the British were hardly the only game Frederick II (cat. 167); Philippe II, Due d'
chapel altarpieces by the painters Jean-Baptiste in the field of Italian artistic patronage, which Orleans; Catherine II, Empress of Russia;
van Loo, Stefano Parrocel, Giovanni Battista had changed dramatically at the end of the Maria Theresa, Archduchess of Austria and
Puccetti, and Odoardo Vicinelli." This was a seventeenth century, as Francis Haskell Queen of Hungary; Augustus III, Elector of
common practice, and dozens of examples demonstrated years agoJ" The traditional Saxony and King of Poland; Prince Karl
could be cited to underscore the abundance of sources of support widened with an influx Wilhelm Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick and
patronage to Rome's painters, such as Giovanni of collectors and their agents from Berlin, Liineburg, Prince Nicholas Yussupov, Grand
Battista Rospigliosi's endowment of a family Dusseldorf, Madrid, Munich, Paris, St. Duke Paul I (cat. 175), and Grand Duchess
memorial chapel dedicated to the Rospigliosi Petersburg, Stockholm, and Vienna. The Maria Feodorovna of Russia, each of whom
and Pallavicini families in S. Francesca a Ripa, German ecclesiastical and secular princes of either bought or commissioned works from
built between c. 1710 and 1725 by Niccolo the HolyRoman Empire, in particular, provided painters in this exhibition.
Michetti, with sculptural decorations by an important new source of artistic benefac- Given the breadth of pictorial freedom and
Giuseppe Mazzuoli and paintings by Giuseppe tion. Having recovered from the effects of the the abundance of available patronage, Rome
Bartolomeo Chiari, one of the finest church Thirty Years' War, which had devastated their in the eighteenth century was by any measure
interiors of the early Settecento (cat. 15). cities, impoverished their treasuries, and driven an enviable milieu for a painter of talent. The
By mid-century Rome had become the away native artists and architects, the German papal city was cosmopolitan, open-minded,
main focus of the Grand Tour, which brought rulers turned to Italy as a source of artistic and culturally innovative. Painters in the

to the city an enormous gathering of influen- endeavor. From the 1690s the Wittelsbachs, Settecento enjoyed a wealth of opportunity
tial patrons and collectors, notably the milordi Schonborns (see cat. 244), Liechtensteins, the and a creative freedom unparalleled in the

inglesi. British patronage of painters in eigh- Margraves of Brandenburg (cat. 167), and others city's history. Their professional status rose
teenth-century Rome has been so widely and employed not only Italian painters, sculptors, dramatically, too, during the century, in part
thoroughly examined over the past half and architects, but also Italian musicians, a legacy of Carlo Maratti's exalted position in

century in articles, monographs, and exhibi- singers, and dancers. Numerous German prin- the artistic and social life of Rome. His social
tions it scarcely requires discussion here. It is cipalities were wealthy enough to attract the standing is indicated by his ownership of a
worth reiterating, however, the reverence by attention of the leading Italian painters, a Roman palazzo and a country house at

the British for the art of Raphael, Annibale number of Romans among them. (Of course, Genzano and a large art collection. Moreover,

Carracci.and Guido Reni and the other earlier their inducements to leave Rome were usually his professional activities were not centered
exemplars of the classical ideal. This is epito- ignored by the more successful and established exclusivelyupon painting: Pope Innocent XI
mized by a famous commission from Hugh Roman painters, such as Batoni, who refused appointed him keeper of Raphael's Vatican

302 PAINTINGS
 —

Stanze; he was active as a restorer, commis- number around 15,000 items. The long list of 7 Waterhouse 1971, p. 10.

Roman who dealt included 8 Waterhouse 1971, p. 14.

sioned to restore the Raphael frescoes in the painters in art
9 See Bowron 1993.
Villa Farnesina and in the Vatican and those Maratti, Pier Leone Ghezzi, and Jan Frans van
10 Clark and Bowron 1981, p. 92.
by Annibale Carracci in the Palazzo Farnese; in Bloemen. Giuseppe Ghezzi owned an impor-
11 Waterhouse 1971, p. is.
1702 he was appointed Director of Antiquities tant collection of drawings and his son a dis- 12 Roettgen 1993, p. 36.

in Rome; he was active as a designer of sculp- tinguished quadreria that included paintings 13 Clark and Bowron 1981. p. 3.
notably the series of life-size by Veronese, Scipione Pulzone, the Carracci, 14 Clark and Bowron 198s, pp. 23, 40. The Italian
tural decorations,
critic Comte Leopoldo Cicognara called Batoni's
marble Apostles for St. John Lateran; and he Guercino, Nicolas Poussin, and Guido Reni. 4 °
polished finish his "laboriosa finitezza olandese."
was consulted by Italian and foreign collectors The Scottish painter Gavin Hamilton aug- 15 Waterhouse 1971, p. 18.
r Although the mented his income by dealing in antique
as a connoisseur of ancient art. 16 See Clark 1966.

honors and prestige enjoyed by Maratti were sculptures, sixteenth- and seventeenth- 17 Clark and Bowron 198s, pp. 216-17.
18 Wittkower 1982, p. 465.
unmatched by any other Roman eighteenth- century paintings and copies. From the early
19 Clark and Bowron 198s, p. 30.
century painter, many prospered in Rome's 1760s he acquired and sold paintings, visiting
20 Clark and Bowron 198s, p. 31.
open cultural climate and also mingled daily many parts of Italy himself, accompanied by 21 Roettgen 1970, p. 65.
with popes and cardinals, aristocrats and an artist to make copies of the altarpieces that 22 Johns 1993, p. 202.

patricians, juggling a variety of artistic and he hoped to buy. His most important pur- 23 Raffaella Bentivoglio Ravasio, "Pier Leone
Ghezzi," in DA, vol. 12, p. S5 3-
social activities in addition to their purely chases of Renaissance paintings included
24 Lo Bianco 1997, p. 65.
professional pursuits. Giuseppe Ghezzi, for Raphael's Ansidei Madonna in 1764 and
25 See Johns 1998, "That Amiable Object."
example, coordinated the prestigious annual Leonardo's Virgin of the Rocks in 1785 (both now 26 Waterhouse 1971, p. 7.

exhibition of paintings at S. Salvatore in Lauro National Gallery, London). In 1773 he published 27 See Johns 1993, pp. 87-91, for the most recent
volume of engravings of discussion.
and the Pantheon, counseled popes and Schola italica pieturae, a
28 Waterhouse 1971, p. 18.
ambassadors, advised Rome's most prominent sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Italian
29 Chracas, Diario Ordinario di Roma, September 19,
art collectors, and restored Old Master paint- paintings, designed to stimulate interest among 1789, no. 1536.
ings. Benedetto Luti also moved easily among theyoung noblemen and dilettanti on the 30 Civai 1990.
the amateurs and collectors whose taste char- Grand Tour of Italy. Hamilton also undertook 31 Eduard A. Safarik, with the assistance of Cinzia

acterized the early eighteenth century archaeological excavations with great profit, Pujia. Italian Inventories 2: The Colonna Collection of

Paintings. Inventories. 1611— 1-95 (Munich: K. G.

Cosimo III de Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany the most important and lucrative of which
Saur, 1996), pp. 612-28.
(in whose Roman palace he lived), Grand was that of Hadrian's Villa at Tivoli in 1769-41. 4
'

32 Federico Zeri, Italian Paintings in the Walters Art

Prince Ferdinando de Medici, Pierre-Jean These brief biographical notes provide Gallery (Baltimore: Walters Art Gallery, 1976),
Mariette, Pierre Crozat, and Thomas Coke, 1st merely a hint of the richness of Settecento vol. 2, p. 538: Felicetti 1998, pp. 206-8.
Johns 1993, pp. 124-31.
Lord Leicester. Pier Leone Ghezzi was a noted Roman artistic life. An entire book could be 33
34 Clark and Bowron 1985. pp. 262-63; Roettgen
man about town, a witty and amusing conver- writtenon the artistic milieu of eighteenth-
1999. pp. 189-96.
sationalist, and an accomplished musician, century Rome, but until such a volume appears 35 Roettgen 1993. p. 9.
dancer, fencer, and equestrian. In 1708 those interested in the subject will be quite 36 Haskell 1971, pp. 199-202.

Clement XI appointed him painter of the stimulated by an essay by Oliver Michel, "La 37 Mena 1996, p. 374.
38 See Fagiolo dell'Arco and Pantanella 1996, for
Camera Apostolica, which involved oversight vie quotidienne des peintres a Rome au dix-
Gaulli's collection of paintings and sculpture.
42
of the Vatican collections and supervision of huitieme siecle," which distills a lifetime of
39 Richardson J. 1722, p. 182.
decorations for ceremonial occasions and the thinking and writing about painters and paint- 40 Martinelli 1990 and De Marchi 1999, "Ghezzi."
manufacture of papal tapestries and mosaics. ing in the Eternal City during one of its happi- 41 Irwin 1962, pp. 87-92, 98-102.

All of this, of course, in addition to his principal est moments. 42 Michel 1996. Vivrc et pcindre, pp. 41-64.

"professional" activities as painter, draftsman,

engraver, scenographer, and archaeologist. Notes
Later in the century Stefano Pozzi was Waterhouse
1 1971, p. 8.
appointed Custode delle Pitture di Raffaele in 2 Waterhouse 1937, p. 35.

the the Vatican Palace, and Nicola Lapiccola 3 Johns 1993, p. 201, has pointed out that "Any
Custode ed Antiquario del Campidoglio. convincing history of Settecento Roman paint-
ing must begin with a careful reevaluation of the
Foreigners in search of works in Rome contribution to the arts of Carlo Maratti."
inevitably ended up in the studios of local 4 The best brief overview of Maratti's life and
painters, many of whom shrewdly sensed the work is Mena 1996, with further bibliography.
need for appraisers and intermediaries in the 5 Ferdinando Bologna, Francesco Solimena, L'arXe

tipografica (Naples, 1958), p. 94, described this

sale of works of art and adjudicators in matters
change as the "accademizzazionc del barocco."
of connoisseurship and expertise. Moreover,
6 Lo Bianco 1997, p. 6s: "The gradual rise of a
many of the painters in the exhibition assem- middle and upper-middle class gradually altered
bled important collections of their own."' the city's urban configuration. The residences of
With a reputation as the "best connoisseur in these emergent classes were the new palazzi of
five or six floors, typical examples of a dignified
Rome,"' "Benedetto Luti was one of the princi-
modern type of building still standing between
pal dealers on the Roman art market (he was the Corso, Piazza di Spagna. and via del Babuino.
involved in the sale and dispatch of Queen The constraints of living space created a demand
Christina's famous collection of paintings to lor pictures of relatively small dimensions that
Philippe II, Due d'Orleans, in Paris) and not were less "ambitious" in subject portraits, land-
stapes, topographical views, bambocciate, and
coincidentally amassed a private collection of
small Arcadian scenes, sacred and profane."
drawings estimated by one contemporary to

PAINTINGS
 —

NICOLAI ABRAHAM its monarchs. Beginning with its Amalienborg Palace

residence, the in l6l
ABILDGAARD "modern," final section, which cele- Copenhagen.
Nicolai Abraham
COPENHAGEN 1743-1809 brated the tricentenary of the ruling With the withdrawal of royal
SORGENFRI dynasty, Abildgaard finished the first patronage, Abildgaard turned to new, Abildgaard
ten canvases and fifteen soprapporte by bourgeois customers, for one of whom
Philoctetes
Nicolai Abildgaard's father was an 1791, but the works were then brought he built a city residence (Nytorv 5,

employee at the royal archives in to a halt, never to be resumed; all but Copenhagen) in Palladian style: the 1775

Copenhagen who from the 17SOS to three panels (still at Christiansborg) piano nobile is decorated with illus-
Signed, lower right, in Greek: Nicolai, the

son of Seven, from Copenhagen, painted tin's

the 1770s traveled Scandinavia drawing were destroyed in a fire that gutted the trations (1798-1803; in situ) of one of
Oil on canvas
ancient monuments. His son inherited palace in 1794. What survives reveals a Voltaire's "Roman" tragedies, Le
drawing and an enduring The tragic theme prepared 48%" x 68X" (123 x 173.5 cm)
a gift for remarkable control of the grand form. Triumvirat.

interest in bookish pursuits. When While allegories in the antechamber the way for a series with four scenes provenance painter's estate; acquired
for the Royal Collection of Paintings. 1849
studying in the 1760s at the Kongelige represented The History of Europe as a from The Cirlfrom Andros (1801-4;
exhibitions Copenhagen 1778, cat.
Danske Kunstakademi he met kindred histoirc philosophique reaching from dark Statens Museum for Kunst,
Copenhagen 1809,
no. 173: cat. no. 28;
ideals. His teachers, including the age superstition to modern enlighten- Copenhagen) by the ancient Roman
Copenhagen 1990, cat. no. 1; Los Angeles
sculptor Johannes Wiedewelt. admired ment, the panels of the Great Hall rep- playwright Terence. With its illusion- and New York 1993. cat. no. 1

the so-called patriarchs of resented the history and geographical istic setting in an idealized classical
bibliography Rosenblum 1967, pp. 12-13;
Neoclassicism, the Comte de Caylus, extension of Denmark. The styles context (Athens, Rome, and Fischer 1976; Argan. Giulio Carlo. Da
Anton Raphael Mengs, and Johann range from traditional allegory at Neoclassical Copenhagen provided Hogarth a Picasso: I'artc moderna in Europa.

Joachim Winckelmann. In young either end of the series to the modern the architecture) and its striking adap- Milan: Feltrinelli, 1983, p. 148; Kragelund
Abildgaard they discerned a gift for realism of its central panels, which tion of mask figures from Roman 1999, vol. 1, pp. 210-24

philosophical allegory and history reminded contemporaries of a manuscripts as well as from the paint- Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen
painting. A royal grant enabled Nicolai Benjamin West. ings of Pompeii, the series is a complex
to study in Rome from 1772 to 1777. In the public sphere Abildgaard statement of artistic principle. By During his stay in Rome (1772-77)
Here he copied what was expected, soon became a well-known, contro- depicting himself with his wife and Abildgaard's teachers and supervisors
and much else besides: Raphael (for versial figure. His enlightened outlook new-born child among the comedy's atthe Kongelige Danske Kunstakademi
whom his admiration was profound), and skeptical attitude toward estab- dramatis pcrsonae. the whole seems a would from time to time ask for
Giulio Romano, and the Carracci lished religion left a clear impact on new departure. Like most of reports about his progress and for
brothers, but also ancient sculpture, his work. Through the prints by his Abildgaard's late work, it was painted samples of his work. In 1774 the time
Titian, and Michelangelo; the latter's friend Johan Frederik Clemens, his for his private lodgings, now celebrat- had come for a full-size painting.
influence was to endure. His lifelong Adam and Eve, Socrates and his Demon, ing his private happiness. The work of Although initially planning to paint
friendship with Johan Tobias Sergei Ossian, and became widely
Niels Klim this late period is characterized by a a copy of a Titian (when studying,
gave him numerous British and known. A series of anonymous politi- joyful immersion world dominated
in a his teachers had copied Mengs and
German contacts, among them Henry cal satires from 1787 spoke emphati- by the from Apuleius's
erotic. Motifs Poussin), Abildgaard at some point
Fuseli, in whom he found a kindred cally in favour of enlightened reform. The Golden Ass, from Homer's Odyssey, abandoned this project in favour of
impatience with the Neoclassicism The French Revolution gave his from the Greek love lyrics of Sappho a far more daring venture: an original
advocated by Winckelmann; now, outlook a radical turn. In 1790, when (embracing one of her beloved girls), composition depicting the wounded
his fascination with the "sublime" in suggesting an iconography of freedom and from Anacreon (admiring his Philoctetes.
drama and poetry came to the fore. for the final panel in the Great Hall, lover Bathyllos), all executed between Given the admiration with which
From then. Shakespeare, Homer, and the painter fell out with his royal 1808 and 1809 (Statens Museum for his teachers regarded Johann Joachim
Ossian became lifelong influences. His employer, and was eventually fired. Kunst, Copenhagen), seem to celebrate Winckelmann. this motif was almost
illustrations of Ossian (whom he seems But his appeal for a Column of Liberty the transforming power of love. by definition controversial. In the
to have been the first continental (1792-97) in Copenhagen to celebrate The influence of the Danish pictor owned a copy of
Laocodn (the painter
artist to illustrate), of the Norse Edda, the recent Danish emanicipation of philosophus on his German pupils the first from 1766) Gotthold
edition
and the medieval historian Saxo the peasants met with strong public Philipp Otto Runge and Caspar David Ephraim Lessing had contrasted the
Grammaticus anticipated his future support; his medal to celebrate the Friedrich has yet to be determined; on violent pathos of this hero with
work on national history. Danish ban on the slave trade (1792) Asmus Jakob Carstens it is well docu- Winckelmann's ideal of "noble simplic-

Abildgaard's PhUoctctcs (cat. 161) illustrates the impact of the events in mented, but often forgotten, and on ity." As Lessing (whom Abildgaard
gives him a position in the pre- France, and so does his michelange- Bertel Thorvaldsen it was profound: revered) had objected, the Greek heroes
Romantic avant-garde, but lesque tricolor allegory of Jupiter Abildgaard, according to Thorvaldsen, of Homer and Sophocles were violently
Michelangelo's pathos would never Weighing the Fates of Mankind (from "never said much, but his verdicts on extrovert; and in the so-called "Fuseli
obliterate his profound admiration for 1793; Kunstmuseum, Ribe). Outside art I have treasured as were they from circle" to which Abildgaard belonged,
Raphael's disegno. Dreams, ghosts, and France, Abildgaard seems to have the Holy Bible itself" (quoted by others must have expressed their
sublime terror are prominent themes been the most prominent pro-revolu- Thorvaldsen's friend Christian Fsedder impatience with Winckelmann's
in his imagery, but as a dedicated sup- tionary among European painters. Hoyer in "Nicolai Abildgaard," in subdued vision of Greek pathos. To be
porter of the Enlightenment he was at With the fall of Robespierre (July Rakctten [Copenhagen, 1833], vol. 1, sure, Winckelmann's pupil Stefano
the same time a firm believer in the 1794) came political disillusion; while p. 83). [pk] Raffei had recently published a treatise
ideals of art's philosophical mission remaining faithful to his political bibliography Riis 1974; Fischeri976; on a Filottete addolorato ("Wounded

and regarded history painting as the creed — as evidenced by a satirical Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen. Philoctetes") in the Villa Albani. This
most eminent genre of all. The Triptycon from 1800 (Statens Museum N. A. Abildgaard: Tcgningcr. Copenhagen: was another of the authorities that
"realism" of portraits and landscapes for Kunst, Copenhagen) Statens Museum for Kunst, 1978; Pressly Abildgaard consulted, but to him it

1979;Kragelund 1983; Kragelund 1987;

was beneath his dignity (here as else- Abildgaard's political stance gave rise mattered little that Raffei had repeated
Honour, Hugh. The Image of the Black in
where there are clear parallels with to friction with court officials; in 1802 Winckelmann's injunctions: that in
Western Art. Cambridge and London:
Fuseli and William Blake). His line and he complained that political censor- the visual arts the pathos permissible
Harvard University Press, 1989, pp. 77-78;
color are sometimes highly mannered, ship made his work impossible. Other Kragelund 1989; Kragleund 1991; Fischer in literature should be avoided, and
even after 1790, when his ideals became factors contributed further to his 1992 that the painter instead should strive
more uniformly classical. move away from serious painting. to emulate the Greeks by displaying
On his return from Rome in 1777 The fire of Christiansborg destroyed classical restraint in suffering.

Abildgaard was appointed royal history gave him new

his paintings, but also Abildgaard's hero utterly "flouts ...

painter, and from 1778 to 1790 he dec- tasks.From 1794 to 1798 his royal the idea of Greek nobility in suffering"
orated the Great Hall at the royal patrons demanded a redecoration (Rosenblum 1967, p. 13). As opposed to
palace of Christiansborg with a scries (complete with paintings and Winckelmann's Laocodn, who suffers
depic I ing the history of Denmark and Ncoi lassical furniture) of their new in silence, uttering no more than an

304 PAINTINGS
 —

inaudible sigh, this hero is "on the verge essays datable to his years in Rome, or as the Gaul Killing Himsclj in the rating and engraving precious metals
of crying out loud" (Fischer 1976, p. 87) soon after, he would again and again Ludovisi Collection and Laocoon in the in his father's workshop, but in 1727
and his tormented figure seems on the return to the subject of the desperate Belvedere Court in the Vatican), and left his native city to study painting
verge of bursting out of the narrow and outcast hero. His Hamlet Seeing the the tense, almost vibrant diagonal of in Rome. In the years 1727-30 he
picture frame. The parallels with the Ghost oj His Father (1778; Statens his body contrasts strikingly with the engaged in the usual activities of newly
ignudi of the Carracci (in whose Galleria Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen) is cubic solidity of Atys' tombstone. arrived artists, drawing the antique
Farnese Abildgaard had copied) seem strongly influenced by Fuseli. It was Once again, the contrast to sculptures in the Vatican collections,
to highlight the contrasts. The impres- described by a contemporary Winckelmann's idea of Greek nobiblity copying Raphael's Stanze frescoes and
sion is one of unbearable tension Romantic poet as a sublime master- seems deliberate; instead, Adrastos Transfiguration, Annibale Carracci's
between frame and body, as well as piece.The prince is, unusually, depicted gives in to feelings of guilt that he Palazzo Farnese ceiling, and other
between aesthetic doctrine and artis- with his tense back turned against the cannot endure. acknowledged masterpieces of
tic truth. By signing his work in Greek spectator. Thereby he involves the One parallel seems illuminating: modern painting, and drawing from
on the surface of the rock behind spectator in his dilemma, as he hovers the suicide of Goethe's Werther (1774) live models in the private academies
Philoctetes, the young painter is, as it uneasily between his father's demands caused a stir throughout Europe. In of local artists. His drawings after the
were, insisting that he has depicted an and his mother's insistence that what Denmark the Church demanded that antique came to the attention of British
example of true Greek heroism. he sees is but a "coinage of your brain" the novel be banned, since suicide antiquaries and collectors in Rome
It speaks well of his professors' toler- (Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 4). defies God's will. That autumn Fuseli and provided him with both a source
ance that, when receiving this provoca- Adrastos Killing Himsclj at Atys's Crave received in Rome a copy of Werther. of income and the beginnings of an
tive canvas, they recommended that (c. 1775; Kunstmuseum, Aarhus) is And at roughly the same time artistic reputation. The most important

Abildgaard be appointed royal history also datable to his years in Rome. The Abildgaard chose to depict one of the of these clients was Richard Topham,
painter. At the Copenhagen Salon in motif (which illustrates the range oi least edifying of classic suicides, [pk] who owned fifty-three drawings by
1778 it must have caused a stir; and for Abildgaard's learning) is from Batoni (Eton College Library. Windsor).
more than a generation it remained Herodotus' history of Adrastos, These drawings, nine of which are
hismost widely appreciated painting. whose misfortune it was to kill his POMPEO BATONI signed, are among the most beautiful
Then a reaction set in, and it was only benefactor. King Croisus' son, by acci- LUCCA 1708-1787 ROME: surviving reproductions ol antique
with the advent of a new interest in dent. Since this was what Fate had sculpture in Roman collections of the
the painters of the "sublime" that this ordained, Croisus refused to punish Pompeo Girolamo Batoni was born in time (see cats. }io—13).
astonishing debut regained its original Adrastos —but the hero could not live Lucca on January 2s, 1708, the son of a Beginning in the 1730s, Batoni
status, in and outside Denmark. with his guilt and "slaughtered himself" distinguished local goldsmith named painted altarpieces for Roman
Philoctetes is Abildgaard's first great at his friend's grave. The heroic suicide Paolino, and his wife. Chiara Sesti. He churches in a strongly classicizing
achievement, but in a number of minor owes much to ancient sculpture (sue h achieved a local reputation for deco- style that proved immediate!) populai

PAINTINGS 305
 and anticipated the Neoclassicism of Marco Benefial, Antonio David, and the institution, he was never elected bibliography Verzeichni.v.v dcr offentlkh aus-

the later eighteenth century. By 1740 Agostino Masucci. Nevertheless, Principe. His major participation in gcrtclltc n Kunsl-Gcgcnslande des Stadel'schen

the artist's reputation was firmly Batoni surpassed them in the freshness the affairs of the academy involved Kumr-lnstituts. Frankfurt, 188}. p. 87, no. 56;
Weizsacker, Heinrich. Catalog der Gemalde-
established as a history painter, for of his coloring, the precision of his the "Accademia capitolina del nudo,"
Galleric des Stadelschcn KunstinstitUtS in
both private patrons and the Church draftsmanship, and the polish of his established by Benedict XIV in 1754
Frankfurt am Main. Frankfurt, 1900,
(cat. 168). His colossal altarpiece for handling. No contemporary painter to permit instruction in life drawing
pp. 27-28. no. 56; Voss 1924, p. 650;
St. Peter's, The Fall of Simon Magus in Rome, or elsewhere in Europe, under the supervision of such painters Emmerling 1932, p. 128, no. 169; Belli
(1746-55; S. Maria degli Angeli, could draw more incisively than as Batoni (cats. 317-18). Barsali 1964, p. 74, fig. 1; Verzeichnis der

Rome), represents the climax of his Batoni, and very few could match his In spite of Batoni's considerable Gemalde aus dem Besitz des Sladelschen

development in this regard. Enormous ability to produce an accurate likeness. contemporary fame, after his death KunstinstitUtS und dcr Stadl Frankfurt.

Frankfurt, 1966. p. 14; Borroni Salvadori

and complex, rich in varied attitudes, Batoni "values himself for making a on February 4, 1787, his reputation
1974. p. 36 (citing the 1767 exhibition in
gestures, and expressions, the painting striking likeness of everyone he paints," diminished. By 1800 the descendants
Florence); De Juliis 1981, pp. 61, 66 (as
was exhibited in St. Peter's in 1755, but wrote an English visitor to Rome, and of his famous British patrons ignored described in an inventory of 1752, no. 20,
within a year the project to translate it his sitters were almost always pleased his art, which was virtually unknown "rappresenta le Arli liberali "); Clark and
into mosaic was abandoned, and in with this aspect of their portraits. to the general public. His portraits, on Bowron 1985, p. 220. pi. 45, no. 41

1757 the rejected canvas was trans- A striking feature of Batoni's por- which such a substantial part of his Stadelsches Kunstinstitut. Frankfurt
ferred to S. Maria degli Angeli. traits was the emblematic use of antiq- fame had depended, had been shipped am Main
Batoni did not give up history uities and views of Rome to establish on completion straight to England,
painting thereafter, but he never both the sitter's presence in the city Scotland, and Ireland to hang in the The personification of various Arts as
again produced a major altarpiece for and his status as a learned, cultivated, home either of the sitter or of a rela- beautiful young women in half- or full-
a Roman church, nor did he pursue yet leisured aristocrat (cat. 169). Batoni tive, where most of them have length formats was a popular theme
private commissions for subject pic- popularized the portrait type of a remained ever since, unseen except by in Batoni's oeuvre to which he returned
tures with anything like his previous casually posed sitter in an open-air the occasional privileged visitor. Only He
several times during his career.
vigor. The result was that his history setting, surrounded by classical statu- one painting seems to have been was enamoured early in his
especially
paintings became extremely expensive ary and antique fragments, and often shown publicly in London in the career with comely depictions of the
and were commissioned almost exclu- set against the backdrop of a classical artist's lifetime, and none in Great musical, literary, and visual arts,
sively by the Church, European sover- building. Among the objects that Britain in the late eighteenth century which he represented in various guises
eigns (cat. 167), and visiting nobility, or Batoni employed most often as acces- or the nineteenth. in accordance with the descriptions
the occasional British Grand Tourist sories in these portraits were the most Batoni's critical fortunes began to and attributes provided by Cesare
(cats. 163, 174). Nonetheless, certain of famous and admired antique marbles revive in the twentieth century with Ripa's Iconologia, the standard icono-
Batoni's history paintings, notably in eighteenth-century Rome (cat. 171), the increasing general and scholarly graphical source book for European
Saint Mary Magdalene and Saint John the although a host of lesser-known interest in Italian painting of the sev- artists since the Counter-Reformation.
Baptist (both c. 1742-43; Gemaldegalerie antiquities also appear, included pre- enteenth and eighteenth centuries. Around 1740 he produced a number
Alte Meister, Dresden, destroyed 1945) sumably at the sitter's request. The The exhibition ll Settecento a Roma of allegorical compositions featuring
were among the most famous in backgrounds of his portraits present (1959) brought the work of Batoni the arts that appear to have been initi-

Europe in his day. glimpses of such famous antique mon- to the attention of a generation of ated by his early Lucchese noble
It was during the 1740s, when uments as the Colosseum and the younger scholars. A monographic patrons, such as Francesco Conti;
Batoni was at his most productive as a Temple of the Sibyl at Tivoli. exhibition devoted to the artist was one of the earliest and most original
history painter, that he forged his con- among the
Batoni's reputation held in Lucca in 1967; a second, focus- is Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture
nections with British (primarily Irish) international travelers who visited ing on his patronage by the British, (c. 1740; Gemaldegalerie Alte Meister,
visitors to Rome with dramatic conse- Rome in the second half of the eigh- was held in London in 1982; and the Dresden; Clark and Bowron 1985,
quences for his career as a portrait teenth century was highest among the monograph and catalogue raisonne pp. 219-22). Batoni was at his best in

painter. He began slowly with the British, and for nearly half a century of his art by Anthony Morris Clark, pictures such as these, which call for

emerging British clientele, producing they offered him a sustained and who brought the painter's brilliance a display of grace and charm, as
only half a dozen portraits during the intensely fruitful source of patronage. to the attention of museum curators, Hermann Voss observed seventy-five
decade, notably Joseph Leeson. 1st Earl of His virtuosity in depicting British gen- collectors, and art historians in years ago (Voss 1924, p. 646), and few
Milltown (1744; National Gallery of tlemen on the Grand Tour was highly Europe and North America, was pub- of his Roman contemporaries could
Between 1750 and
Ireland, Dublin). admired: james Bruce's acclamation lished in 1985. [epb] compete with him in combining the
1760 he produced nearly sixty portraits that he was "the best painter in Italy," bibliography Boni 1787; Benaglio 1894; light and refined character of the

of British sitters alone, including such and Lady Anna Riggs Miller's declara- Emmerling 1932; Belli Barsali 1967; French Rococo with traditional Roman
sensitive and beguiling images as john, tion that he was "esteemed the best Puhlmann 1979; Pascoli 1981, pp. 178-89; restraint and decorum.
Lord Brudenell, Later Marquess of portrait painter in the world" (quoted Bowron 1982; Clark and Bowron 1985; Seated in the center of the Frankfurt
Barroero 1990, "Batoni"
The Duke of
Montficrmer (1758; in Clark and Bowron 1985, p. 42) are composition is a personification of

Buccleuch and Queensberry, Boughton typical of contemporary estimations Painting as a beautiful young woman
House, Northamptonshire). During of his talent. holding a palette, brushes, and mahl-
this decade Batoni painted only about Batoni, one of eighteenth-century 162 stick in her left hand. She points with
twenty subject paintings, and he Rome's most notable citizens, was the brush held in her upraised right
well known to residents and visitors
Pompeo Batoni hand to a canvas on an easel on which
maintained a similar ratio over the
following two decades, continuing alike. He was created a Cavaliere by Allegory of the Arts there is an unfinished painting of
to concentrate on portraits. Pope Benedict XIV and ennobled by Mercury, god of eloquence and reason,
1740
Batoni's fame as a portrait painter the Archduchess Maria Theresa, and in flight. She appears to converse with
Signed and dated at lower right: Pompcjus
was quickly established as firmly on had received in his studio popes
Battonius Lucensis pinxit.j An. D. mdccxl
a personification of Poetry, who is
the Continent as in Britain, and a great Benedict XIII, Clement XIV. and beautifully dressed in a rich white
Oil on canvas
number ot royal and sovereign sitters Pius VI; the Holy Roman Emperor 68/»" x 54X" (174.8 x 158 cm)
mantle and crowned with laurel. Poetry

visited his studio (cat. 172). His
output, however, remained his por-
gentlemen on the
traits ol British
Grand Tour. He did not invent the
major (cat. 172), the Grand Duke of Russia; holds a lyre, the symbol of Apollo, the
provenance commissioned in 1740 by
and many other distinguished visitors. god of lyric poetry. Sculpture is seated
Marchcse Vinccnzo Riccardi, Florence;
He was, however, largely indifferent to at the left on the dais, her figure bared
Medici-Riccardi collection. Florence, until
Rome's artistic officialdom and to the 1806; purchased by Johann Friedrich Stadel to the waist, her right hand resting on

Grand Tour portrait: nearly all the fea- Accademia di S. Luca, of which he was in 1818 from Francesco de Bandinelli for the knee of Painting; their fingers are
tures associated with his portraiture the oldest and most famous member 2,soo florins intertwined. She holds a mallet in her
had been anticipated in the preceding at his death. Batoni was elected to the EXHIBITION Florence, SS. Annunziata. right hand; beside her on the floor is a

decades by the Italian painters academy on December 19, 1741, and, Opcrc de' piu aareditati Ark-fid nclla bust of Hadrian, chisel, and drill. On
Francesco Trevisani, Andrea Casali, although he held various offices within Ari'/iili'llura. Pitlura. c Statuaria. 1767. no. 4 the floor opposite are two books,

6 PAINTINCS
 163
Pompeo Batoni
The Sacrifice of Iphigenia
1740-42
Oil on canvas
6o'/>" x 75" (153 x 190.6 cm)
provenance commissioned by John
Blackwood for Thomas. 2nd Lord Mansell:
purchased by David Wemyss, Lord Elcho;
in the possession of the Wemyss family by
1771: thence by descent at Amisfield and
Gosford House; on loan to the National
Gallery of Scotland from 1978

exhibition London 1982, cat. no. 44

bibliography Holloway 1980. fig. 35;

Russell 1985: Clark and Bowron 1985,

pp. 224-26, no. 59, pi. 55 (erroneously

captioned), col. pi. Ill; Russell 1988, p. 854

The Earl of Wemyss and March

The Sacrifice oj Iphigenia is one of

Batoni's most arresting history paint-
ings and the masterpiece of his early
career. His paintings of the early 1740s
are remarkable for their coloring,
clear, firm draftsmanship, and emo-
tional expression, and they reveal how
successfully Batoni could treat scenes
from legend and literature in a grand
and noble manner. His works from
this period are marked by a new sensi-

bility that derives from his absorption

of the rhetoric, energy, and realism of

the early Seicento into his own idiom.
One of the artists Batoni studied with
close attention in these years was
Guido Reni, and his paintings were
praised in the eighteenth century for
their Guido-like qualities. The pro-
portions, gestures, and expressions
of the female figures in the Sacrifice of

Iphigenia emulate Guido's grace and

ideal of beauty, and the blond coloring
of Guido's later paintings is an impor-
tant source for Batoni's own luminous
palette, with its high-keyed hues and
iridescent pastel tints of lilac, mauve,
pale green, and pink.
In a letter to one of his patrons in
1^40. Batoni described the visual ren-
dering of the affetti, the emotions of
the human soul, as the true purpose
of painting. He had neither the theo-
of Anton Raphael
retical inclinations

inscribed omhpos (Homer) and v/rgi/ turned out well," but in a letter of setting and several minor details, such Mengs nor the programmatic aid of
UVS (Virgil). A personification of December 17 he apologized to Sardini as Sculpture's tools in the lower left an intellectual such as the historian
Architecture is enthroned behind, for not attending to his commissions corner (Clark and Bowron 1985, and antiquarian Johann Joachim
holding a pair of dividers in her right for him because he still needed to pp. 219-20, pi. 48, no. 40). This sketch, Winckelmann, but he was nonetheless
hand, a T-square in her left. At the "perfect" the painting for Marchese which vividly reveals the artist's grace deeply committed to the f undamental
right of the composition stands a per- Riccardi (Clark and Bowron 1985, of handling, was owned by one of tenets of classical art theory. The ges-
sonification of Music, holding a double p. 220). The 1752 inventory published Batoni's most enthusiastic patrons at tures, attitudes, and expressions of the
flute as an allusion to Pan. by Giuseppe de Juliis listed two addi- the time, Count Cesare Merenda of figures in the Sacrifice oj Ipliigcnia reveal
The Frankfurt Allegory of the Arts is tional works by Batoni in the Riccardi Forli (see cat. 165), suggesting that the depth of his commitment to the
first mentioned in a letter of July 29, collection that cannot be traced: a early in his career the young painter notions of ideal beauty, decorum, and
1740, from Batoni to one of his Santa Conversazione and a Virgin and maintained quite close relations with other tenets of the Grand Manner,
Lucchese patrons, Lodovico Sardini, Child with Saint John oj Ncpomuk. his patrons outside of Rome. A w hich, since the days ol Annibale
in which he expresses the hope that Batoni produced a modello in oils preparatory study for the head of Carracci, had been an important pre-
the painting for Marchcse Vincenzo that establishes the basic composition Poetry in red chalk is in the collet tions occupation of painters in Rome. A
Riccardi will be finished within a of the finished painting, with its har- of the Statens Museum for Kunst, comparison with Batoni's works of
month. In a subsequent letter of monious and rational placement of Copenhagen (Clark and Bowron 198s, the previous decade discloses the effort
October 22, Batoni writes that he figures, although he left to a later stage p. 380,056). [kpb] he has made to signify and individual-
has finished the canvas, "which has the final disposition of the architectural ize each figure in this composition.

PAINTINGS 307
 and to express its purpose by means an apartment near strada della Croce. A letter of October 23. 1741, from No other reference to Batoni's
of studied gestures. Of course, Batoni Mansell commissioned the Sacrifice of Clephane at Rome to Lord Mansell employment of clay models is

has transformed this heritage into his Iphigenia from Batoni before his depar- suggests the difficulties Batoni's recorded, although there were prece-
own highly individual manner, and ture for Venice, where the party patrons experienced in getting him to dents for their use in the Renaissance
the minute finish and polished detail; attended the Ascension Day finish his commissions and offers evi- and Baroque periods (notably by
the freshness and spontaneity of han- celebrations (Ingamells 1997, p. 215). dence of his compositional practice: Nicolas Poussin) and by Batoni's con-
and the luminosity of tone and
dling; The painting, Batoni's first major "Pompeo is a sad dog & ought not to temporary Pietro Bianchi Batoni .

atmosphere that imbue the Sacrifice of English commission, was evidently be employed; I really believe we shall often worked from life in adjusting
Iphigenia are inimitable. only "little advanced" at the time at last be obliged to have recourse to the pose of various figures in his com-
The references to the Sacrifice of Mansell and Clephane left Rome. A the Governour for order to recover positions, but, as Francis Russell has
Iphigenia among the papers of Dr. John letter from Blackwood to Clephane the money he has already received; observed, it is surprising that only one
Clephane published by Francis Russell of June 10, 1741, suggests that Batoni a month ago came I to an agreement drawing for so elaborate a composi-
make one of the most fully docu-
it had not made much progress in the with him; he was to begin working tion survives. Batoni produced an oil

mented of all Grand Tour commis- interim: "Pray what is Pompeya doing, afresh & for every figure finisht, was I sketch for the Sacrifice of Iphigenia
sions. The picture was commissioned if you find my picture as little advanced to order him 4 Sequers; since the day (Clark and Bowron 198s. p. 224.
for Thomas, 2nd Lord Mansell.by his as when you left it, let it drop for I think of agreement I have seen nothing more no. 58, pi. 54), which he himself

stepfather, John Blackwood, the the money may be laid out to more of him ... I shall be ... if Pompeo do retouched in 1742, with the result

Scottish-born picture dealerand col- advantage — at least with more cer- not finish his, because it will be [the] that it serves as much as an autograph
lector.The third party in the commis- tainty . . .
."
(Russell 1988, p. 8S4). On Devil & all to recover the money reduction of the larger composition
sion was Clephane. who served as the March 23, 1742, Clephane "paid thirty already paid, yt is p & really like . . . I as an actual bozzctto. Other versions of
intermediary between a number of C n IWTIS to P. Batumi on the picture of the picture: the Story seems well told. the subject sold in the eighteenth
English patrons and the Roman art Iphigenia," (Russell 1988, p. 8S4) and & tho' the Colouring will always be century suggest, however, that Batoni
world. In 1739 Clephane accompanied left the matter of obtaining the finished dryish, yet the light & attitudes seems produced additional compositional
l ord Mansell as a tutor on his Cirand picture with a Frenchman, Pierre to be well understood, from his taking sketches in oil.

Tour, and in early February 1740 the Berton, whom he and Blackwood all from Clay-models as you remem- The sacrifice of Iphigenia is one
pair reached Rome, where they took employed as agent. ber his way" (Russell 1988, p. 854). of the most famous episodes of the

308 PAINTINGS
Trojan War and derives from Ovid's the back of the canvas may indicate a

Metamorphoses (XII. 25-28). Iphigenia, provenance from Charles Turner, of

daughter of Agamemnon, King of Yorkshire, who visited Rome in 1751
Mycenae, was sacrificed to appease and was painted there by Sir Joshua
the goddess Diana, whom her father, Reynolds in several caricature groups
the leader of the Greek forces against that included Joseph Leeson and John

Troy, had offended by killing a stag Woodyeare. both of whom sat to

sacred to the goddess. When Diana Batoni (Clark and Bowron 1985,
prevented the Greek expedition from nos. 87, 139; Ingamells 1997, p. 956).
sailing by sending unfavorable winds, [epb]

he consulted a seer, who told him that

he must sacrifice his daughter as an
act of propitiation. Iphigenia. ashen 165
and shaken in the center of the com-
Pompeo Batoni
position and surrounded by weeping
attendants, swoons before an altar The Virgin and Child in Glory
attended by a bearded priest, robed 1747
and cowled, at the left. The gesture Oil on canvas
and expression of the grief-stricken 40" x 24" (118 x 61 cm)
Agamemnon, fearfully gazing upwards provenance Merenda family, Forli (house
at the statue of Diana, is worthy of the lists, nos. 116. 176), and thence by descent
theme, which aroused powerful emo- until about 1958; P. & D. Colnaghi & Co..
tions in ancient writers such as Cicero, London; purchased by the Toledo Museum
and in 1963
Quintilian, Pliny the Elder,
Valerius Maximus. [epb] bibliography Calzini 1896. p. 130;
Casadei 1928, pp. 381-82; Marcucci 1944.
pp. 95, 98. no. 5 (c. 1743); The Toledo
Museum of Art, Ohio. European Paintings.
164 Toledo: The Toledo Museum of Art, 1976,

Pompeo Batoni p. 20. pi. 31: Bowron 1982. p. 10. fig. 5; Clark
and Bowron 1985, p. 240, no. 112, pi. 108:
Saint Luigi Gonzaga Quieto 1988. pp. 101-2
The Toledo Museum of Art. Purchased
C. 1744
with funds from the Libbey Endowment.
Inscribed on a nineteenth-century English
Gift of Edward Drummond Libbey
exhibition label on the back of the canvas:
C. A. Turner/ S. Aloysus/ Raphael Mengs. 164

Inscribed on another label: The Property One of the artist's most beautiful
oj Sir C. Turner, and on another: aehete a general mood of gentleness and inno- Church, who afterwards testified to devotional paintings, The Virgin and
Bruxelks par Marquis de Sagcnzac en 1925.
his holiness. Beatified by Paul V in 1605,
le
cence prevails throughout Batoni's Child in Glory exemplifies the outstand-
Oil on canvas sacred paintings of this decade; in this canonized by Benedict XIII in 1726, ing level of quality Batoni attained in
31/s" x 26//' (81 x 67 cm)
representation of the patron saint of and declared patron of youth in 1729, the 1740s, the period of his greatest
PROVENANCE possibly Sir Charles Turner. Roman Catholic youth, it is particularly the saint was interred in a magnificent production of history paintings. The
Kirkleatham, Yorkshire; Marquis de
appropriate. The painting marks one urn of lapis lazuli wreathed with fes- provenance of the Toledo oil sketch
Sagenzac, Brussels, 1925:M. & C. Sestieri
of Batoni's earliest uses of the half- toons of silver in the right transept of prompts mention of the man who
and Alberto di Castro, Rome, 1968; from
whom purchased by the owner in 1968 length oval format, which he was to the church of S. Ignazio. Rome. The acquired it from the artist. Count

exhibition New York 1982. cat. no. 6

employ with such phenomenal success enormous marble relief above the altar Cesare Merenda (1700-1754), one

bibliography Clark and Bowron 1985. twenty years later in The Sacred Heart oj by Pierre Legros, 1698-99, depicting of the most active contemporary col-

p. 234, no. 89. pi. 89 Jesus (II Gesu, Rome; see fig. 9 above). the glorification of the saint, is one of lectors of Roman Settecento paintings.
Private collection. New York In the artist's day, it was one of his the masterpieces of late Baroque Merenda and his brother Don
best-known religious paintings and sculpture in Rome (Enggass 1976. vol. 1, Giuseppe (1687-1760), scions of one
perhaps the most venerated sacred pp. 49-50, and vol. 2, figs. 99-105). of the oldest patrician families in Forli,
Batoni obviously possessed an innate image produced in the eighteenth The celebration there of the saint's owned numerous paintings by con-
gift for producing compelling visual century. feast day, June 21, is now an occasion temporary Roman artists, including
images, and it is known that his con- Once his cult was approved by the of supplication for and remembrance Paolo Anesi, Giuseppe Chiari.
temporaries noticed and admired this Catholic Church in 1621, the immensely of AIDS victims. Sebastiano Conca, Corrado Giaquinto,
talent. The religious easel pictures popular saint Luigi Gonzaga Saint Luigi Gonzaga, the finest of the Andrea Locatelli, Agostino and
produced by Batoni in the first half of (1568-1591) was a mainstay of Jesuit known versions by Batoni of the Lorenzo Masucci, Paolo Monaldi, and
the 1740s are especially remarkable for iconography around the world. The subject, can be dated to 1744 on the Pierre Subleyras. What really distin-
their quality and visual intensity. The eldest son of the Marquess of basis of a painting produced for guished the Merenda collection,
bold composition, precise draftsman- Castiglione and his wife, who was Francesco Buonvisi of Lucca and now however, were the more than thirty
ship, and vivid palette of Saint Luigi lady-in-waiting to the Queen of Spain. untraced (Marcucci 1942. p. 16, no. 9, canvases by Pompeo Batoni and a
Gonzaga exemplify Batoni's small Gonzaga renounced a military voca- citing the artist's letter of July 4, 1744, similar number by Hendrik Frans
devotional paintings. Works such as tion and entered the Jesuit novitiate to Bartolomeo Talenti in the Archivio van Lint (Bowron 1987).
ihis satisfied a powerful undercurrent of S. Andrea al Quirinale in Rome in di Stato in Lucca, Italy). Batoni has Merenda's enthusiasm for the work
of taste for sentimental and emotional 1585, against his father's will. He made depicted the young saint according to of Batoni led him to become one of
religiosity that remained undimin- his vows in 1587 and nursed the sick in traditional iconography, dressed in the the artist'smost important Italian
ished in Rome from the Counter- the Jesuit hospital of S. Maria della white surplice of the Jesuit novitiate patrons, and he eventually acquired
Reformation throughout most of Consolazionc e Morte, opened during and adoring a crucifix in the prcscm e some three dozen of his works in the
the eighteenth century. an epidemic of the plague in Rome in of a skull, symbols of his ascetic life; late 1730s and early 1740s. These
By the early 1-40S Batoni was an 1691, where he contracted a fever from the lily, a symbol of purity, is a usual included one of the paintings most
artist fully matured and fully con- which he never recovered. During his attribute of virgin saints. responsible lor B, Horn's fame outside
scious of his own beautiful drawing, sickness he was ministered to by Saint The "C. A. Turner" identified as Italy in the eighteenth century, the
superlative handling, masterly sense Robert Bellarmine. the celebrated car- an owner of the painting in an inscrip- Dresden Saint Marv Magdalene, and its
of tone, and very pretty poetry. A dinal, theologian, and Doctor of the tion on a nineteenth-century label on companion and
Saint )ohn the Baptist,

I'AINIINCS
 166

Immaculate Conception (Revelations of details in the composition — the

12: 1-5, 11). In contemporary invento- head of the Child and two of the angels
ries of the Merenda collection, the at the Virgin's right — is in the Witt
Toledo Virgin and Child was described Collection, Courtauld Institute
as "uno la concezzione [sic] in Gloria." Galleries, London (D101). Other draw-
A second La concezione listed in the ings recording from life the figure of
Merenda inventories and house-lists the Virgin, and studies of her hand
is identifiable with a small oil sketch in and drapery (Dm), studies for the

The Art Museum, Princeton University drapery of the angel with a violin at the

(Clark and Bowron 198s, p. 240, no. 111). right (D160), and studies of the hands
The Princeton sketch, identical except of the music-making angels (D104),
for discrete changes in the attitudes of remain untraced. [epb]
165 the music-making angels and putti
surrounding the Virgin and for the
looser and softer handling of paint, 166
bears a dated authentication in Batoni's
Pompeo Batoni
the well-known series of Apostles that Forli firmly in mind, because not only hand on the back of the canvas
are now scattered throughout the are the majority of works of roughly (orig [ina] k dc Pompeo Batoni/ 1747). Cardinal Prospew Colonna
United States, England, and Italy (Clark equivalent scale and dimensions, they The existence of six sheets of red
di Sciarra
and Bowron 198s, nos. 60-61, 76-85, are also consistently framed. Nearly chalk drawings on yellow prepared
passim). The Toledo Virgin and Child in all of the frames on the canvases by paper related to the Toledo painting c. 1750
Inscribed on the front of the letter held by
Glory defines Merenda's taste, and it is Batoni, for example, are uniformly attests to the care and precision with
the sitter: All' Emin e Rev"'" Prine/ il Card
clear that he preferred paintings carved and gilded in the style of what which Batoni continued to develop
Colonna dc Sdaf
marked by minute finish and polished are commonly referred to as "Salvator his final composition after the elabo-
Oil on canvas
detail, freshness and spontaneity of Rosa" or "Carlo Maratti" frames, which ration of an initial painted sketch.
59/4" x 29X" (100.7 x 75.4 cm)
handling, and luminosity of tone and had originally appeared in the seven- Clark identified a red chalk drawing
PROV ENANCE Colonna di Sciarra family
color. Like many eighteenth-century teenth century. in the National Gallery of Scotland as
(?). Rome: Don Marccllo Massarenti. Rome:
Italian collectors, he preferred smaller The Virgin and Child in Glory was a study for the angel playing he t
Henry Walters, Baltimore, acquired with
and more intimate pictures, and a clue conceived either as a devotional picture recorder at the left (Clark and Bowron the Massarenti collection in 1902;
lo his sensibility is provided by the or as a modcllo for a larger, unexecuted 198s. no. D58); he himself owned, and bequeathed by Walters with his collection

number of devotional works in his altarpiece. Batoni has transposed (he bequeathed to the Toledo Museum of to the city ol Baltimore in 1951

collection. I le appears to have been Virgin and Child, with variations, into Art, studies of the pointing angel at EXHIBITIONS New York. Wildenstcin.

collecting with the picture gallery in the traditional imagery ol the the upper left (D218). A sheet of studies Treasures of the Wallers Art Gallery. 1967,

PAINTINGS
 —

cat. no. 2; Chicago, Minneapolis, and has invested Cardinal Colonna di

Toledo 1970, cat. no. 68. Sciarra (identified by the letter held in
bibliography Clark 1964-65. pp. 50-54; the figure's left hand) with the dignity
Zeri, Federico. Italian Pointings in the Walters and restraint appropriate to his posi-
Art Caller): Baltimore: The Walters Art Church hierarchy. To
tion within the
Gallery. 1976. vol. 2, pp. 526-27, pi. 272.
concentrate attention on the subject,
no. 415: Clark and Bowron 1985. pp.
Batoni often showed no background,
248-49. pi. Hi. no. 140
and here he has eliminated the stan-
The Walters Art Gallery. Baltimore
dard Roman ecclesiastical portrait
accessories — curtain, table, inkstand,

Although the numerous likenesses of bell, and book. The cardinal's pose and
British Grand Tourists loitering among gesture offer the impression that he has
Roman antiquities are Batoni's best- been momentarily interrupted while
known works, the clerical portraits reading, his attention fixed outside the

are among the finest and most serious painting upon the spectator.

of his productions. The traditional Like all successful portrait painters,

conventions of official ecclesiastical Batoni subtly underplayed the physi-
portraiture in Rome certainly limited cal imperfections of his sitters while
Batoni's pictorial inventiveness, but at commemorating them with a distin-
the same time the genre provided an guished and, in the case of his ecclesi-
exceptional opportunity for the display astical sitters, almost direct likeness. 167

of his extraordinary technical skills, Batoni's works are full of elegance and
with the result that the portraits of beauty of form, and the richness of his 167 9th Earl Marischal, in Rome in March
Cardinal Prospero Colonna di Sciarra palette and polish of his handling are 1756, together with a companion piece
Pompeo Batoni
and other clerics are among the most evident in the Walters portrait. By by Placido Costanzi, Apollo and Daphne
memorable images he created. The placing the cardinal before a neutral The Marriage of Cupid and 1757; (reproduced in Gemaldegalerie,
Walters portrait may be more modest background he dazzles the viewer p. 414, see above), and a pair of
Psyche
in format and less ambitious in con- with the brilliance of the scarlet and mythological paintings by Mengs.
some of Batoni's other white costume, highlights his mastery 1756 The commission coincided with
ception than
cardinalate representations Cardinal of the details of ecclesiastical dress, Signed on the base of the bed: PcmPeo. the onset of the Seven Years' War, and
Batoni Pire A. 0. 1756. Roma.
/can-Francois Joseph dc Rochechouart and reminds the onlooker that such Batoni sent his finished painting in
Oil on canvas
(1762;The Saint Louis Art Museum; portraits are supreme exercises in 1756 to Frederick in his Dresden
33//' x 46/«" (85 x 119 cm)
Clark and Bowron 1985, no. 251), for craft. The cardinal's attire inspired a winter quarters during the Prussian
example —but it is equally beautifully bravura display of brushwork in the
provenance commissioned
II, King of Prussia,
for Frederick
in 1756; Picture Gallery,
occupation of Saxony. The king is

controlled and exquisitely executed. description of the cardinal's shimmer- reported to have taken the picture
Potsdam-Sanssouci, 1763-1830; Kaiser
Prospero Colonna di Sciarra ing, scarlet watered-silk mozzetta and
Museum, Berlin, 1830-1945;
Friedrich
with him on his travels throughout
(1707-1765), the son of Francesco cassock, and the exquisitely painted Bodemuseum, Staatliche Museen. Berlin, the duration of the war. Frederic k
Colonna and Vittoria Salviati, belonged lace rochet. Clark observed that 1945-90S; Gemaldegalerie, Berlin, 1998 authorized the inspector of his new
to a secondary branch of the famous Masucci, as Batoni's immediate prede- exhibitions Bregenz and Vienna 1968: picture gallery. Matthias Oesterreich,
Roman Colonna family and held the cessor as the leading Roman por- Munich 1992, cat. no. 32 to pay Batoni 400 ducats for the paint-
title of Prince of Carbognano. He traitist, "would have designed his bibliography Clark and Bowron 1985, ing in 1763when peace was declared.
studied at Rome, Parma, and Padua, portraits as carefully, severely, and pp. 268-69, no. 198. pi. 182; Gemaldegalerie Itwas hung in the finished gallery as
and began his rise in the papal court powerfully" as the Walters portrait, 200 Masterpieces. Berlin: Staatliche
Berlin:
the only example of a living painter's
Museen zu Berlin Preussischer
in 1730, when Pope Clement XII "but not as delicately nor with such a work; Costanzi's pendant was found
Kulturbesitz, 1998, p. 414
appointed him among the protono- fine visual sense of color and texture" unsatisfactory and relegated to the
Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. Preussischer
taries of the Holy See; in 1733 he was (Clark 1970, p. 168). Neues Palais; the war prevented
Kulturbesitz. Gemaldegalerie
named Consultant of the Rites. After A version of this portrait of the car- Mengs from completing and dispatch-
having been appointed Chierico di dinal was engraved by Johann Georg ing his order. Frederick unsuccessfully
Camera in 1739 and president of the Wille in 1754 (Clark 1964-65, fig. 3) By the 1750s Batoni's paintings of invited Batoni to Potsdam in 1763 to
Tribunal of the Grascia,Colonna was and is extremely close to the Walters classical and religious subjects had become his court painter, and at the
made Pope Benedict XIV's Maestro di portrait, although the letter is not become too expensive for the average same time ordered from him three
Camera in 1740. He was created cardi- inscribed. The needs of an important wealthy visitor to Rome, and such pic- from
large paintings with subjects
nal on September 9, 1743, and later cardinal would have included a number tures as The Marriage of Cupid and Psyche Greek and Roman history and
received many important appoint- of replicas of his portrait, the prime were commissioned almost exclusively mythology. Only one of these com-
ments, including the prefect of the version being kept by the cardinal's by the Church, European sovereigns missions, Alexander and the Family oj

Segnatura and of the Propaganda Fide. family and other versions or copies and visiting nobility, and the excep- Darius (1775; (Neues Palais, Potsdam-
In 1758 Louis XV appointed him going his religious establishments in tionally wealthy British Grand Tourist. Sanssouci; Clark and Bowron 1985,
Protector of the French Crown in Rome. or beyond Rome. Batoni himself pre- Frederick the Great probably learned no. 382), was ever completed,
Batoni fully understood the con- pared superb replicas and supplied of Batoni from Count Francesco although the king managed to acquire
ventions of the Roman tradition of less expensive studio replicas, specified Algarotti, who in 1751 attempted to an earlier biblical work (The Finding of
state portraiture, based on official as such, of considerable quality, and arrange a commission for him. The Moses 1746; Clark and Bowron 1985,
portraits from the time of Raphael, yet apparent as studio work. Wille king heard more of Batoni's reputation no. 99) from the artist through one
established in the early seventeenth made his print in Paris, presumably from his sister, Wilhelmine. Margravin of his agents in Rome.
century by such painters as from a version of the portrait sent by of Bayrcuth, who in 1755 had traveled |ohanti Gottlieb Puhlmann, a young
Domenichino, and refined more the cardinal to the French king that to Italy with her husband and visited Prussian painter who was Batoni's
recently by Carlo Maratti, Giovanni has not been identified. Marcello Rome and Naples. On May 23. 1^55, she pupil and assistant from —
4 until
1

Battista Gaulli, and Jacob Ferdinand Massarenti could have acquired the wrote to her brother: "Batoni. too, is ,1 1^83. described Batoni's painting in an
Voet. Austerity, sophistication, and present portrait, which is either the great painter and not at all expensive: 1805 inventory of the picture gallery at

strong likenesses characterized this prime version or a very good auto- he is by far superior to [Antoine] Pesne" Sanssouci as follows: "Venus gives her
tradition, and portraits of popes and graph replica, during the dispersal of (Erich Schleier in Gemaldegalerie, p. 414, consent to the union ot Cupid and
cardinals were necessarily more con- the Sciarra collection in the late nine- see above). The commission for the Psyche, whom Hymen joins in mar-
servative and severe in style than those teenth century, [epb] Marriage oj Cupid and Psyche was riage while Xephvr watts a cooling
of rich Protestants on holiday. Batoni arranged through George Keith. breeze" (Erich Schleier in GemaMegiilerii'.

PAINTINGS
 a

sented. The portrait of the ageing

Benedict XI V is intended as an accu-
rate likeness and sensitively represents
a man who had been a great patron of
the artist. In 1742 the pope had com-
missioned from Batoni decorations
for the ceiling of the Coffee House in

the garden of his residence, Christ

Delivering the Keys to Saint Peter and The
Four Evangelists; in 1743 he asked Batoni
to paint one of a series of oval paint-
ings, the Annunication, as part of his

campaign to refurbish the interior

of the ancient basilica of S. Maria
Maggiore; and in 1746 he commis-
sioned for the Capella Clementina in

St. Peter's one of the largest and most

important subject paintings produced
by theartist, The Fall of Simon Magus

(Clark and Bowron 1985, nos. 62-66,

86,184).
The painting was almost certainly
commissioned by Cardinal Domenico
Orsini d'Aragona as a pendant to an
allegorical painting by Placido
Costanzi (Clark and Bowron 1981,

p. 64, fig. 71), which represents

i68 Benedict XIV settling a dispute
between Austria and the Republic of
p. 414, see above). On the left Venus, ishingly pretty coloring, that made troubles in France between the Venice. Cardinal Orsini had presented
seated in a chariot drawn by a pair of Batoni's works so appealing to wealthy Gallican Church, the schismatic the picture to Benedict XIV in 1752,
doves, motions to her son Cupid to visitors to Rome during the third and the popular parliament.
Jesuits, and it and the Minneapolis painting
place the ring on Psyche's finger. quarter of the century, [epb] These problems were of great impor- show the two main diplomatic efforts

Hymen, the god of marriage, holds tance, and the activities of the parlia- of the pope and of Cardinal Orsini,
Psyche's hand with its outstretched ment against the Church and weak one of the principal diplomats of his
ring finger.Venus and the two gods l68 royal opposition were in a real sense reign. The Diurio Ordinario records a
float on clouds, whereas Psyche, a the first act of the French Revolution. number of visits by Cardinal Orsini
Pompeo Batoni
mortal, stands on the base of the An encyclical, or letter, addressed to to the pope in 1757, the year in which
nuptial bed. According to Puhlmann, Pope Benedict XIV Presenting the French bishopswas the result of Batoni painted the cardinal's daughter,
Psyche was modeled on Batoni's wife, Choiseul's embassy on October 16, Princess Giacinta Orsini
the Encyclical "Ex Omnibus"
Lucia, reputedly one of the most beau- 1756; the document is shown in the Buoncampagni Ludovisi (Clark and
tiful women in Rome in her youth. to the Comte de Choiseul painting inscribed with its prelimi- Bowron 1985, no. 206), either upon
The Marriage of Cupid and Psyche is 1757
nary lines. The count, whose hat is her marriage in April or upon her
one of Batoni's masterpieces and con- Signed with initials and dated on the col-
shown on the floor in the Minneapolis death in November. At the time of the
firms the importance and quality of umn base at right: p. B. 1757 painting because he has just kissed daughter's marriage, unspecified pre-
both his subject pictures and portraits Oil on canvas the pope's toe, wears the cordon bleu of sents were exchanged between the
during the 1750s. In its incisive 50X/' x 70K" (128.9 x 179.5 cm) the Order of the Holy Spirit which he Orsini family and the pope, and it is

drawing, rich, well-balanced compo- provenance painted for Cardinal received from his king on January 1, probable that the Minneapolis picture
sition, brilliant colors, and subtle Domenico Orsini as a gift to Pope 1756. His is not a true portrait, even was a gift to Benedict XIV before the
chiaroscuro modeling, it is typical of Benedict XIV: Dr. Gustave Fall, Vienna, though and blue court dress
his gold pope's death in 1758.
his finest paintings during this decade. by descent to Dr. Greta H. Van
1931: is shown accurately. No commission Ellis Waterhouse observed the
Fenema and Dr. Frederick Fall, known and
The elegant and gracious figures sum- from Choiseul to Batoni is "meticulous naturalism" (Waterhouse
Washington, D.C.. until 1961: from whom
marize the Roman classical tradition the French ambassador's only known 1971, p. 19) of the figures in the
acquired by the Minneapolis Institute of
from Raphael to Annibale Carracci to
Arts in 1961
patronage of a Roman artist was of Minneapolis painting, which is the
Carlo Maratti, and anticipate the Panini in 1756 and 1757 (cats. 265, 275). result of Batoni's obsessive devotion
exhibitions Dallas Museum of Fine Arts.
Neoclassicism of Anton Raphael Four Centuries of European Pointing. 1951, The enthroned pope, Benedict XIV to drawing from the life model —
Mcngs. whose Parnassus ceiling in no. 57; Chicago. Minneapolis, and Toledo Lambertini, is flanked by graceful trait conspicuous in the works of the
the Villa Albani was painted only four 1970, cat. no. 69: New York 1982. cat. no. 14 female personifications of Religion later 1750s. This is confirmed by the
years after Batoni's work. The charm- bibliography Schaffran 1931; Minneapolis and Divine Wisdom; two putti at existence of several sheets of studies
ing, idealized setting of the Cupid and Institute of Arts. European Paintings in tin- the left hold symbols of the papacy. for various details of the composition
Minneapolis Institute of Arts. Minneapolis: Before a view of St. Peter's, the patrons Musee des Beaux-Arts
Psyche, its deliberate prettiness, and in the at
Minneapolis Institute of Arts, 1970,
refinement of ornament and drafts- of the Holy Church of Rome, Saints Besanqon. the Minneapolis Institute
pp. 440-41, no. 235; Waterhouse 1971,
manship have led more than one critic Peter and Paul, appear on a cloud of Arts, and elsewhere (Clark and
p. 9, 19: Brigstocke 1983. p. 214: Clark
to characterize Batoni's work as an and Bowron 1985, p. 269, no. 200, pi. 185
below the Holy Ghost, which is shown Bowron 1985, nos. D40, D53, D132,
exemplar of the Roman Rococo rather The Minneapolis Institute of Arts. The The canopy is
inspiring the pope. D316, D318).
than a precursor of the Neoclassical William Hood Dunwoody Fund embroidered with the papal arms and Batoni painted an oil sketch for the
style: for example, Michael Levey the date of Benedict's reign (XVII: that composition that appeared as lot 500
(Levey 1966, p. 176) described the is, 1757). The garden casino in which in the Orsini sale, Rome, March 12-23,

picture as "a perfectly charming, Etienne-FrancxMS Stainville, Comte the scene takes place would be in the 1896. [epb]
perfumed vision." It is precisely the and later Due de Choiseul, was sent as Vatican gardens and is imaginary; it

polish and finish of such paintings as an ambassador to Rome by Louis XV may be based on the so-called Coffee
the Berlin mythology, however, com- al the end of 1754 to gain a papal deci- House of the Palazzo del Quirinale,
bined with exquisite drawing and rav- sion that would alleviate the religious where the encyclical was actually pre-

2 PAINTINGS
169
Pompeo Batoni
SirWyndham Knatchbull-

Wyndham, Baronet
1758-59
Oil on canvas
g\Y" x b]V" (233 x 161.3 cm)
PROVENANCE by descent in the family
of the sitter at Mersham Hatch. Kent; pur-
chased in 1994 through Simon Dickinson.
Ltd.. London

exhibition London 1982, cat. no. 14

bibliography Bolton. A. T. "Mersham

Hatch, Kent." Country Life (March 26, 1921).

p. 373: Russell 1973. p. 1610, fig. 8: Clark and

Bowron 1981. pp. 114-15. fig- 150; Clark and
Bowron 1985. pp. 275-76. no. 218. pi. 199;
Tutsch 1995, p. 141. n. 66;; Redford, Bruce.
Venice and the Grand Tour. New Haven and
London: Yale University Press, 1996,
pp. 86, 89, pi. 33

Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Gift

of the Ahmanson Foundation

This splendid full-length is the por-

trait with which, as Francis Russell
remarked. Batoni attained his major-
ity as the painter of the Grand Tourist,
and it remains one of his master-
pieces. The painting epitomizes the
artist's ability to transmute the
Baroque portraits of Sir Anthony van
Dyck into a sophisticated and subtle
hybrid that lies between the Rococo
and Neoclassicism. The sitter

was the only son of Sir

(1737-1763)
Wyndham Knatchbull-Wyndham,
5th Baronet, whom he succeeded in
1749, and his wife, Catherine Harris.
Educated at Oxford, Sir Wyndham,
like many of Batoni's portrait sitters,
made his Grand Tour upon leaving
university, in 1757-60. He arrived in
Florence in August 1758 and in Rome
in December. In March 1760, while
still in Italy, Sir Wyndham was sug-
gested by the Kent Whigs as a possible
House of
candidate for a seat in the
Commons. He came back to England
on June 18,1760, and
for the election

was returned unopposed. He held

the seat until his sudden death on
September 26, 1763.
From our knowledge of Sir
Wyndham's travels, it is clear that
the Los Angeles portrait was begun
between October 1758 and April 1759,
when the sitter had arrived in Venice.
That the painting had not been fin-
ished by the time Sir Wyndham left 169

Rome known from a message that

is

Winckelmann, the German archaeol- In surrounding the fresh-complex- Augustus, 5tli Earl of Berkeley (1-65: fashionable men and women was
ogist and art historian, sent him in ioned. twenty-two-year-old English Clark and Bowron 1985, no. 287) and quite common in the i~4()s and was
1759, saying that, as he had not seen aristocrat with the columns and cur- employed with subtle variations in popularized in English portraiture
the work completed, he should know tains that were the deliberate trappings many other compositions. In showing by Thomas Hudson. Its appearance
by Batoni could be
that his portrait of the grand manner, Batoni has cap- Sir Wyndham attended by his grey- in Batoni's paintings may have derived
considered as one of the best in the tured the Baroque spirit also expressed hound. Batoni was also following a from his connection w ith Thomas
world and that one could hardly by the flamboyant pose (intended to convention of Van Dyck portraiture, Jenkins, the cicerone, or guide, to Roman
imagine anything more beautiful evoke the Apollo Belvedere), and by the although many British Grand Tourists visitors, who was a Hudson pupil. The
(Winckelmann 1952-57, vol. 2, p. 53, Sir Wyndham's Van Dyck costume. brought their dogs with them to Italy. vogue lor Van Dyck dress w as to last
letter of November 28, 1759, to Philip His debonair stance w as later repealed The wearing of a "Van Dyck" for over forty years, but it is perhaps
von Stosch). by Batoni for a full-length of Frederick costume as a masquerade dress by hardly surprising that relatively lew

PAINTINGS 313
 —

sitters chose to wear it for portraits extremely discolored varnish has of her husband, Charles, 3rd Earl Stanhope, Louisa Grenville, who looks consider-
painted in Rome, probably consider- revealed a surprisingly subtle and by his first marriage, to the 7th Earl ably older than her actual age of three
ing it inappropriate for their role as silvery color scheme that contrasts
Stanhope, by whom Chevening was years, is shown in a dress of apricot
bequeathed to a private charitable trust
Grand Tourists. Sir Wyndham's plain with the bolder, high-keyed palette that silk. As girls of this period left off their
(the house is now an official residence of
silk suit, with the lace collar fastened Batoni usually employed for his Grand infant frocks at about this age, this is
the Foreign Secretary)
at the neck with a button and tassels, Tour portraits. Now the play of light exhibitions London 1965, cat. no. 40;
probably her first semi-adult dress;
is similar in style to that worn by other around and through the composition, London 1982. cat. no. is; Washington, D.C. the scarlet, flat-heeled child's shoes
Batoni sitters (Clark and Bowron 1985, the way in which it enters the picture 1985, eat. no. 199 contrast with its delicacy and light-
nos. 177, 197, 357, 438), and one wonders in subtle layers and degrees, defining bibliography Portraits and Busts in the ness. The puppy she holds was pre-
whether the artist might have kept highlights and shadows, can be appre- Priruipii! Rooms at Chevening. London. 1859, sumably brought with the family
such a costume for those who wished ciated as Batoni intended. Fronek has p. 10; Tipping, H. A. "Chevening — III: Kent, from England and appears to be either
to be portrayed in it, altering the made a number of observations about Seat of Earl Stanhope." Country Life (May 1,
a Maltese or Havanese terrier or possi-
1920), p. 590. fig. 7: Bowron 1981.
Clark and
details slightly for each sitter. Batoni's technique that contribute to bly a Lowchen (information from
p. 115, fig. 144; Clark and Bowron 1985,
The so-called Temple of the Sibyl, an understanding of his method of Barbara Kolk, The American Kennel
p. 282, no. 258, pi. 221, col pi. VII
or Temple of Vesta, at Tivoli in the working. He painted on a canvas Club Library, letter of April 27, 1999).
The Board of Trustees of the Chevening
background was one of Batoni's primed with a thick red ground left — Estate
The elaborately carved giltwood
favorite motifs, and was first employed exposed and visible in many areas of Rococo frame, shaped to the canvas
in this full-length of Sir Wyndham. the canvas — that helps to mute and and composed of a wreath of feathers,
The depiction of the temple is quite unify the colors. Batoni's deft brush- Louisa Grenville (1758—1829) was the was supplied after the painting had
accurate, both by comparison with work is now highly visible, and his only child of the Hon. Henry Grenville, reached England. There are apparently
other eighteenth-century representa- direct application of paint onto the MP, a former governor of Barbados, no feathers in the arms of either the
tions and with the ruin as it still exists. canvas and the resulting surface and Margaret Eleanor, daughter of Grenville or the Stanhope families,
Tivoli was a powerful image to the texture can be admired with the Joseph Bankes, of Revesby Abbey, none of the other picture frames at
contemporary Englishman, both unaided eye. The variation in Batoni's Lincolnshire. In 1781 Lousia Grenville Chevening is at all similar, and there
because of its classical associations handling can be seen, for example, in married Charles Stanhope, Viscount are no feathers on other furnishings
and because was familiar as the
it the contrast between the sketchy Mahon, later 3rd Earl Stanhope, who or objects in the house. The symbolic
sketching ground of the seventeenth- manner in which he created the was painted in turn by Allan Ramsay, or emblematic significance, if any, of
century landscape painters he most shadows on the floor and the thicker Liotard, Prud'hon, and Gainsborough. the feathers is unclear. However, as
admired, Claude Lorrain and Gaspard application of paint in long, sinuous In 1786 he inherited Chevening and Paul Mitchell and Lynn Roberts have
Dughet, as Anne French has remarked strokes to define the white drapery initiated signifcant alterations to the suggested, if the necklet of pearls at

(Anne French, Gaspard Dughet . Called over Sir Wyndham's arm. (Batoni has house, which had been acquired by the top of the frame is seen as inno-
Gaspar Poussin, 1615-75: A French employed glazes only minimally: the the 1st Earl in 1715. cence (see the medieval English poem
Landscape Painter in Seventeenth-Century purplish shadows of this white drapery Louisa's father was appointed Pearle), then the feathers might be
Rome and His Influence on British Art are not created by glazes but by ambassador to the Porte of symbolic of spring (from the associa-
[London: Greater London Council, directly applied paint.) Constantinople in 1761 and immedi- tion of birds and spring), like the

1980], p. 17, n. 74). Batoni incorporated Batoni appears to have begun the ately left England with his wife and florets spaced at intervals around the
the Temple of the Sibyl into nearly a painting with Sir Wyndham's face, the daughter for Turkey, visiting Italy on frame, and thus indicative of the sitter's

dozen of his portrait compositions of foundation of which is a layer of green the way. They arrived in Turin on youth. The dove and the phoenix can
Grand Tourists in the 1760s and 1770s paint. The blue sky is painted around October 16. and were presented at also represent chastity.
(Clark and Bowron 1985, nos. 295, 305, the face; the white collar is painted court the next day. Shortly thereafter Contemporary Rococo picture and
336, 338, passim). after the flesh and sky. but the white the family must have departed for looking-glass frames are frequently
The bust at the left is another of clouds were executed after the collar. Rome, because the portrait can be shaped in a similar way, and are also
Batoni's most common portrait acces- The architecture appears to have been dated on the basis of a letter of both in drawings and in the objects

sories, derived from the full-length
marble Minerva Giustiniani, a
adaptation of a bronze original of the
fourth century bc, today in the Vatican
Museums. Batoni first
statue in a subject painting of 1737, The
laid in before the sky, and the curtains November 27, 1761, from the cicerone themselves — created of sinuously
Roman after the architecture and the sky. Thomas Jenkins to Sir Henry arranged natural forms, but these are
Batoni was very deliberate in the Mainwaring, for whom he had acted almost exclusively vegetal forms:
assembly of his compositions, in Rome: "Pompeo Batoni has made palms, rushes, or attentuated acan-
depicted the although changes of intention, or pen- a pretty Picture of Miss Grenville, its thus leaves. The single example using
timenti, are occasionally visible. Here intended for Lord Temple" (Dunham feathers appears to be a much later

Triumph of Venice (The North Carolina several slight adjustments are visible Massey MSS; information from Francis Hepplewhite chairback, dating from
Museum of Art, Raleigh: Clark and to the naked eye, including the hind Russell). The Grenvilles were in Naples 1788, and in that instance the feathers

Bowron 1985, no. 13), but it was as a legs of the dog, the outline of Sir from November 17, 1761, to January 24, are not elegant quills, as here, but
table-top bust rather than as a full- Wyndham's head, and the front leg 1762, when they embarked for the curled Prince of Wales feathers. The
length statue that the Minerva of the chair (information from Joseph Levant (Ingamells 1997, p. 429). Chevening day book and inventories
Giustiniani appears in more than a Fronek, letter of January 7, 1999). [epb] The outstanding feature of this have not been published, or even
dozen of his portraits of visitors to sympathetic portrait —one of Batoni's apparently much studied; they may
Rome during the next three decades rare portraits of children — is, as hold the answer in the form of an
(Clark and Bowron 1985, no. 177, 170 Anthony Clark pointed out, its order or invoice for the frame. A
passim). Haskell and Penny (1981, beautiful and simple presentation: possible answer to the source of this
document the
Pompeo Batoni
"as if a plain statement by Hogarth unique design may be that the little
pp. 269-71, fig. 140)
particular enthusiasm of the English Louisa Grenville, Later had been perfected by Fragonard" girl herself was known as "Feather"
lor the Minerva Giustiniani, recording (Clark and Bowron 1985, p. 282). The to her family, or that she always wore
Countess Stanhope
an anecdote of Goethe's, who was told closely orchestrated color and tonal feathers on her cap or her dress (letter

1761 from Paul Mitchell Lynn Roberts,

by the custodian of the Giustiniani scheme, with the child's silhouette set to
collection that the English worshipped Inscribed on reverse of original canvas off against the gray-green background May 5,1999).
(relined in 19S4 during cleaning): Louisa hung
the statue and kissed one of its hands by the precise manipulation of con- By 1859 this portrait already
Grenville/ Pompio Ratume/ pirurit/ Roma.
so frequently that it was whiter than trasting hues and tones, anticipates in its present place in the recess of the
Oil on canvas
the rest ol the marble. two of Batoni's most successful por- drawing room, [epb]
41" x 26//' (104.2 x 67.) cm)
Batoni's brilliant handling of paint traits of Englishwomen, Georgiana,
PROVENANCE painted tor, or for presenta-
in his portraits is vividly evident fol- Countess oj Spencer (1764; The Earl
tion to, Richard Grenville, 2nd Earl Temple,
lowing the cleaning of the Los Angeles Spencer, Althorp, Northamptonshire;
I lie siller's uniJc; presumably returned to
painting by Joseph Fronek in 1994. the siller, and by descent through the issue Clark and Bowron 1985, no. 269) and
The removal of several layers of Lady Mary Fox (1767-68; cat. 173).

PAINTINGS
171

Pompeo Batoni
Count Kirill Grigoriewitsch

Razumovsky
1766
Signed and dated on the sculpture base at

the left of the sitter's feet: pompeil/s batoni

pinxit/ romae./ anno 1766

Oil on canvas
9/2" x 77X" (298 x 196 cm)
provenance by descent to the sitter's son,
Andrey Kirillovitsch Razumovsky (trans-
ferred to Vienna in 1791); in 1836 to his sec-
ond wife. Countess Constantina-Domenica
von Thurhcim. Thurheim Castle,
Schwertberg; Count Camillo Razumovsky,
Schloss Schdnstein, near Troppau, Opava,
c. 1890-1946; thence by descent to the pre-
sent owner
exhibitions Rome 1959, cat. no. 44;
The National Trust, Waddesdon Manor,
Buckinghamshire, 1997-99; Frankfurt
1999, Mchr Licht, cat. no. 11

BIBLIOGRAPHY Vasil'cikov. The Razumovsky

Family. St. Petersburg, 1887, vol. 4, p. 401;
Mikhailovitch, Grand Duke Nicholas
Romanoff. XVIlk et XIXe
Portraits russcs dcs

sikles. St. Petersburg, 1906, vol. 2, no. 13,

pi. 13; Antonov 1977, pp. 351, 353, n. 6;

Rudolph 1983, pi. 57; Bowron 1985, p. 29,
fig. 4; Clark and Bowron 1985, pp. 303-4,

no. 299, pi. 274; Pinto S. 1991, pp. 350-51, 356

Private collection

One of the most memorable features

of Batoni's portraits is the emblematic
use of antiquities and views of Rome
to establish his sitters' presence in the
Eternal City and to depict them as
learned, cultivated, yet leisured aristo-
crats. Batoni employed a whole
anthology of motifs alluding to Rome
and Roman civilization, but what is

surprising in his oeuvre is the rela-

tively infrequent appearance of the
half-dozen ancient marbles most
highly esteemed in the eighteenth
century, notably the Apollo Belvedere,
Belvedere Antinous, Laocoon, and
Vatican Ariadne. This portrait of Count
Kirill Razumovsky, unrivaled in its

grandeur of conception and matched

in size among Batoni's portraits only
by two other whole-lengths, features
all of these antique sculptures.
Count Kirill Razumovsky
(1728-1803) was the younger brother
of Empress Elizabeth's morganatic
husband, Alcxey Razumovsky. He
was sent abroad at the age of fifteen
to study at Konigsberg with the Swiss
mathematician Leonhard Euler, and
also at Strasbourg, and returned to
Russia completely europcanized.
Elevated to the nobility bv the empress
in 1744, he was appointed a royal
c hamberlain the following year. A
large landholder, Razumovsky served
as Grand Hot man of the Cossacks
from 17SO which time
to 1764. during
he carried out economic
a series of
and administrative policies on behalf
of the Ukrainian nobility, including

PAINTINGS 315
 restrictions of the free movement of
peasants and the institution of a pop-
ulation census. For his role in planning
the palace revolution of 1762, which
brought Catherine II to the throne, he
was made a senator and adjutant
general. In 1764. when the hetman
was abolished in the Ukraine,
rule
Razumovsky was appointed a field
marshal general; he later served as a
member of the council of state,
1768-71. A man of considerable
learning, he was president of the
St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences
from 1746 until 1765. He brought to
Russia the Italian architect Antonio
Rinaldi, and initiated the construction
of the cathedral of St. Andrew in Kiev
(1747-67) by the Moscow architect
I. F. Michurin on the designs of

Bartolommeo Francesco Rastrelli.

Razumovsky traveled abroad in the

years 1765-67 and in the spring of 1766

visited Rome. In addition to commis-
sioning his portrait, he acquired from
Batoni a Choke oj Hercules (1763-65; The
Hermitage, St. Petersburg; Clark and
Bowron 1985, no. 288) and a Holy Family

that remains untraced. In the portrait

Razumovsky is shown wearing on his

coat the and badge of the
star, sash,

order of Saint Andrew, which he

received from Catherine II in 1745; as
the "house-order" of the Romanov
family, this was the highest civil deco-
ration in czarist Russia. On his breast
he wears the Polish order of the White
Eagle. He is shown elegantly, if casually,

leaning against a chair (itself a studio

prop that Batoni actually owned) in a

cross-legged pose that was standard

in eighteenth-century portraiture and
that Batoni repeated with variations
throughout his career. In this instance,
however, the combination of the pose
and background results in a tour de
force that ranks as one of the greatest
of all Batoni's portraits.
The collection of marbles assembled
in the background gives the picture its
greatest distinction: only in the portrait
of Thomas Dundas, Later 1st Baron
Dundas The Marquess of
(1764;
Zetland, Aske Hall, West Yorkshire;
Clark and Bowron 1985, no. 278) did
Batoni present such a panoply of "the
most beautiful statues," the ancient
marbles that so hypnotized the great
princes and sovereigns of Europe and
that made a visit to Italy such an
important part of the education of the
cultured eighteenth-century gentle-
man. (For this subject, see above all
Haskell and Penny 1981). Razumovsky
directs the viewer's attention to the
Vatican Ariadne just behind him. In an be no doubt that they were included at and connoisseurs was
artists, "Cleopatra" (as the sculpture was
aedicule at the rear, the fictitiously the request of Razumovsky, who pre- immense. The Vatican Ariadne (Musco known until the late eighteenth
arranged sculptures include, from left sumably was not content with the Pio-Clementino, Rome) is a case in century) was taken to a room adjoin-
to right as in the Dundas portrait, the m< >re general allusions to the taste for point. The statue was acquired early in ing the courtyard and again set up as a

Apulia Belvedere, the l.aocodn,and the the antique which appear in most of the sixteenth century by Pope Julius II fountain in a niche, where it remained
so-called Belvedere Antinous. These Bah mi's Grand Tour portraits. and installed as a fountain on an until the creation of the Musco Pio-
sculptures were among the most 'File lame ol these antique sculp- antique marble sarcophagus in the Clementino (Haskell and Penny 1981,

famous of all antiquity, and there can tures among contemporary writers, Belvedere courtyard. Later the pp. 184-87, fig. 96). Batoni capitalized

316 PAINTINGS
on the current enthusiasm for the

sculpture and employed it in several

portraits, notably in that of Thomas

William Coke (1774; Viscount Coke,
Holkham Hall, Norfolk; Clark and
Bowron 1985, no. 377). in which the
statue's features were associated at

the time to those of Louise Stolberg-

Gedern, Countess of Albany, wife of
the Young Pretender with whom ,

Coke was said to have had an affair.

Razumovsky's second son, Count
Andrey Cyrillovich, was a celebrated
Russian statesman, art collector,
musician, and patron of music. He
served as Russian ambassador to
Vienna and, athough retired, as

main representative at the

Russia's
Congress of Vienna in 1814. Friend
and maecenas of Beethoven, it is this

Razumovsky whose name is associ-

ated primarily with the string quartets

Opus 59, in which the composer
introduced Russian folk themes in his
patron's honor, [epb]

172
Pompeo Batoni
Roman Emperor
The Holy
Joseph II and His Brother
Leopold I, Grand Duke of
Tuscany
1769

Signed and dated on table at lower right:

POMP.BATONl.LVCENSJS/ ROMAE. AN. 1769./
DVM PRAESENTES ESSENT. P/NC.

Oil on canvas
68/7' x 48" (173 x 122 cm)
provenance commissioned by Maria
Theresa, Archduchess of Austria and
Queen of Hungary and Bohemia; in the
Kunsthistorisches Museum collections
from 1824
exhibitions Vienna 1930, cat. no. 93;
Stockholm, Nationalmuseum. Konstkatter
/ran Wien. 1948, cat. no. 76; Rome 1959,
cat. no. 46; Stockholm 1948, no. 76; Rome
1959, cat. no. 46
bibliography Clark and Bowron 1981,

pp. 105, 116, fig. 145; Clark and Bowron

1985, pp. 315-17, no. 332, pi. 302 (with docu-
mentary references); Ferino-Pagden. Silvia,

Wolfgang Prohaska, and Karl Schutz. Die

Gemaldegalerie des Kunsthistorischcn Museums
in Wicn: Verzcichnis der Gcmaldc. Vienna:
Christian Brandstatter, 1991, p. 29. pi. 186

Kunsthistorisches Museum. Vienna,

Gemaldegalerie

One of Batoni's most important por- dominions but had little authority. In this respect, he was typical oi the on April 10 on his way to Vienna.
traits of a European sovereign is this Following his mother's death in 1880. "enlightened despots" of the eighteenth The brothers spent almost all their
image of Emperor Joseph II Joseph initiated far-reaching reforms century, but he differed from other time visiting the sights of Rome and
(1741-1790) and his brother Leopold I, toward the abolition of hereditary contemporary rulers in the fanatical attended a number of public and
Grand Duke of Tuscany (1747-1792). and ecclesiastic privileges, and the intensity of his beliel in the power of private entertainments held in their
[oseph was the eldest son of Maria creation of a centralized and unified the state when directed by reason. honor. In spite of their active sched-
Theresa of Austria and Francis state administeredby a civil service Joseph II arrived in Rome during ule. Joseph and his brother sal to

Stephen, Duke of Lorraine, the future based on merit and loyalty rather than the conclave to elect a successor to Batoni in his studio on six consecutive
Emperor Francis I. After the death of birth. He initiated a series of fiscal, Clement XIII on March is. 1769, and mornings for the portrait. On April
his father in 1765, Joseph became Holy penal, civil, and social laws intended resided with his brother at Villa 10, following Joseph's return from
Roman Emperor and was made co- to establish some measure of social Medici until March jo, when he Naples, he and his brother visited the
regent by his mother in the Austrian equality and secularity lor the masses. departed for Naples, returning briefly studio for an hour to examine the por-

l'AINTINGS
trait, and on that occasion presented Kunstgewerbe, Kunsthistorisches
Batoni with a gold snuffbox, a neck- Museum, Vienna, executed in 1772 by
lace, and a gold medal. The sittings, Bernardino Regoli on the order of the
presents, and "great marks of favour" pope as a gift to Maria Theresa (Clark
shown by Emperor Joseph II to Batoni and Bowron 198s, p. 317, pi. 303). The
were widely noted, and Father John fame of Batoni's original portrait is
Thorpe compared the emperor's confirmed by the nearly two dozen
patronage to Charles V's patronage copies of it that exist today in various
of Titian (letter to Lord Arundell of formats. (For a three-quarter length
April 15, 1769; quoted in Clark and replica painted by Batoni for Maria
Bowron 198s, p. 317). Theresa in 1769-70, see Clark and
The portrait was executed with Bowron 1985, pp. 318-19, no. 337;
exceptional speed, and Father Thorpe reproduced in Rudolph 1983, pi. 58.)

reported in a letter of June 6 that The Vienna portrait of the Holy

Batoni's studio was "crowded every Roman Emperor and his brother
day, like a theatre, by persons of all underscores why, after the 1760s,
ranks coming to see the picture." Batoni emerged as incontestably the
The Lucchese envoy Rome, Filippo
in most distinguished portraitist in
Maria Buonamici, reported on June Rome. "Just as Alexander the Great
10, 1769, that the canvas was to be would allow himself to be painted by
shipped that evening to Florence no artist other than Apelles, so, too,
on its way to Vienna. The following Batoni may take pride in the fact that
morning, however, the portrait was almost all of the princes and crowned
shown to Clement XIV at the Palazzo heads who visited Rome in his time
del Quirinale. The enthusiastic recep- were pleased to be portrayed by him,"
tion of the portrait by the pontiff and was the opinion expressed by Batoni's
by the visitors to Batoni's studio antic- contemporary and biographer,
ipated the dowager empress's Onofrio Boni, in the Ekgio he dedi-
response in Vienna. In September, her cated to the artist in 1787 (Boni 1787,
envoy in Rome, Baron Saint Odile, p. 47). [epb]
presented Batoni with a letter dated
July 26, 1769, expressing her pleasure
with the portrait, together with a 173
diamond ring and twenty-six gold
Pompeo Batoni
medals worth 3,000 scudi. On April 7,
1770, Saint Odile presented Batoni Lady Mary Fox, Later Baroness
with a patent of nobility from the
Holland
empress signed by Chancellor Wenzel
Anton von Kaunitz. 1767-68

Joseph and his brother held a true Inscribed on the back of the canvas: P. B.
from Marseille to Naples with his inscribed date of 1767 on the reverse
Rome and 1767. Inscribed lower right in a
affection for each other, which Batoni mother, his younger brother Henry, of the canvas, the portrait apparently
later hand: Mary/Baroness Holland.
conveyed by means of their clasped and his cousin Clotworthy Upton. remained unfinished after the sitter
Oil on canvas
hands. The emperor, dressed in a In Naples they joined his father, Lord had returned home from Italy. In an
48" x 36" (121.9 x 91-4 cm)
black coat and gold waistcoat, wears Holland, his younger brother Charles, an undated letter, written from Rome
provenance by descent in the family of
the jewel of the order of the Golden and his cousin Lord Offaly. According before January 7, 1769, Gavin
the sitter at Holland House. London, and
Fleece, the sashand star of the order
at Melbury House, Dorset
to his mother, Stephen sufferedfrom Hamilton mentioned the painting to

of Maria Theresa, and the star of the deafness and shyness and his size was Lady Mary's father: "Agreeable to your
exhibition London 1982, cat. no. 25
order of Saint Stephen. He is shown "enormous," but Lady Mary, on whom Lordship's desire I have desired Sigr
bibliography Steegman 1946, p. 60,
leaning his left arm on a reduced
no. 45; Ribeiro 1985, p. 107, pi. 64: Clark
Stephen doted, grew "more amiable Barazzi [Francesco Barazzi, the
version of a statue of Roma, at the base and Bowron 198s, p. 315. no. 323, pi. 294, every day" (Ingamells 1997, Roman banker] to speak to Pompeo
of which are several books, including col.pl. IX pp. 378-79). At the end of February him to finish immediately
to induce
Montesquieu's L'esprit des lois, writing Private collection, England 1767 Lady Mary and Stephen left the Lady Mary Fox's portrait, we have
implements, and a map inscribed Plan rest of the party in Naples, intending accordingly his solemn promise to
de Rome. In the distance is a fictitious to see Venice, Genoa, and Livorno deliver it finished in a few days and
view of the Castel S. Angelo and The subject of one of Batoni's most (Ingamells 1997, pp. 378-79). The hope he will be as good as his word."

St. Peter's.The grand duke, whose attractive portraits of a woman, Lady couple arrived in Rome early in March Batoni kept his word, and Gavin
likeness is exceptionally finely drawn Mary Fox (1746-1778) sat to the artist 1767 and stayed there long enough for Hamilton was able to write again on
and sensitive, is shown in a white coat on her wedding tour in Italy. She was Lady Mary to sit for her portrait to January 7, 1769, referring to the dis-
and scarlet waistcoat; he also wears the eldest daughter of John Fitzpatrick, Batoni and to make the acquaintance patch of Batoni's portrait of Lady
the jewel of the order of the Golden 1st Earl of Upper Ossory, and Lady of Piranesi, who later dedicated to her Mary (information from Sir Brinsley
Fleece and the sash of the order of Evelyn Leveson-Gower, eldest daugh- a plate in the Vasi, Ford; Clark and Bowron 1985, p. 313)-
Maria Theresa. ter of John, 1st Earl Gower. In 1766 candelabri, cipri, sarcophagi (1778). Lady Mary is shown before a russet
On June 18, 1769, Clement XIV Lady Mary married the Hon. Stephen Batoni's reputation for dilatoriness curtain holding a spaniel, of the sort
commissioned Batoni to paint a Fox, MP, and from 1774 2nd Baron is dominant and recurring theme in
a that appears to be an early ancestor of
replica of the painting to commemo- Holland, but she died of consumption accounts of his work. "He never keeps what is known in England as the King
rate the visit to Rome of the two sov- in 1778 at the age of thirty-two, leaving his promise," lamented Sir Horace Charles spaniel. She wears a gray trav-

ereigns. In September he ordered a two children. Called "the most Mann to Horace Walpole (Walpole eling costume called a German habit

lull-length replica; the fate of these
commissions remains unknown, but
Batoni presumably produced a replica
amiable person that ever lived" and _
1937 74. vol. 22, p. 255), and certainly or Brunswick. This was adapted from
was
praised for her elegance, she the time Batoni required to complete a male riding clothes and consisted of
highly admired by Horace Walpole painting varied widely. Batoni's sitters and a
a jacket, here fitted to her body,

of sorts, which was used as the model (Walpole 1937-74, vol. 33, p. 22). frequently had to leave Rome without skirt, usually of a matching fabric,
for the mosaic copy today in the In the fall of 1766 Lady Mary and their portrait in hand and to prod the in this case a gray silk. With its wrist-

Sammlung fur Plastik und her new husband traveled overland artist to finish it. In spite of the length sleeves and hood, this is a prac-

PAINTINGS
 —— .

tied and yet feminine costume. It has

pink and white striped ribbons at the
elbow, and ruched decoration, pinned
and
into the lace jabot at the neck,
trimming the By the
lace headdress.

middle of the century such costumes

had replaced for English women trav-
more masculine riding
elers the earlier,

dress. This type of attire is, however,

unique in Batoni's work, and is only
rarely portrayed by other artists, the
exception being Francis Cotes in a
number of portraits of the 1760s.

In his portraits of British women,

Batoni generally discarded the usual
Grand Tour trappings, and the presen-
tation here is simple and direct. The
portrait is very English in feeling,

perhaps coming closest in its reti-

cence and delicacy, both of coloring

and of mood, to the female portraits
of Allan Ramsay (who had spent time
in Batoni's studio as a young painter).
Indeed, English prototypes were
clearly in Batoni's mind at this period,
for his portrait of Georgiana, Countess
Spencer (1764; The Earl Spencer,

Althorp, Northamptonshire; Clark

and Bowron 1985, no. 269) is closely 174

modeled on a composition by
Thomas Hudson, [epb] Oratorian church of S. Maria della sketch had been begun. He had previ- is strong assurance of his doing
Pace, Brescia (Clark and Bowron 198s, ously advanced Batoni some money it before August and be at an end;
no. 4); a copy by Vincenzo Robigliard on account, and, according to the con- because now he is to paint some
174 after the full-length portrait of Senator tract, he expected the painting to be part of it every week, on condition of
Abbondio Rezzonko (Clark and Bowron finished within eight months: "His receiving 30 or 40 crowns each week
Pompeo Batoni and other works that he agreement to paint a picture repre- that he does so. He hitherto keeps his
1985, no. 297); is

The Appearance of the Angel believed to have been painted by senting Agar her son & Angel in a word & and the picture begins to
Batoni. Lord Arundell's agent in Rome country scene of 6 palms long and 4 come on admirably" (Clark and
to Hagar in the Desert
was Father John Thorpe, whose corre- high which is 4X feet by 3 do Eng. Bowron 1985, p. 342). The elaborately
1774-76 spondence is an important source of measure for the sum of two hundred finished canvas was completed before
Signed and dated on rock at lower right: information concerning Batoni's sequins about a hundred pounds." September 1776 and proved to be one
POMPEO DE BATON// P. ROMAE. 1776
artistic activity from 1769 until 1787 Father Thorpe informed Batoni that, if of the most elegant and refined of
Oil on canvas
(Ingamells 1997, pp. 939-42). Father the painting were delivered within the Batoni's late subject paintings.
39X" x 59X1" (100 x 151 cm)
Thorpe's negotiations with the artist allotted period, Lord Arundell would Batoni had proposed The Sacrifice
provenance commissioned by Father
on behalf of his patron were fre- order a companion picture. Thorpe of Abraham "as a proper companion
John Thorpe for Henry. 8th Lord Arundell;
quently difficult, and the fate of requested Batoni to suggest a subject to the Agar," (Clark and Bowron 198s.
thence by family descent at Wardour
certain commissions, for example a and then proceeded himself to recom- p. 342) but in the end the negotiations
Castle. Wiltshire; sale, Christie's, May 20,
1953, lot 142; purchased in London by the pair of ancestral portraits that Lord mend "Jacob's bargain with old Laban for a pendant fell through. Father
Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica in 1953 Arundell wanted copied, remains for his fair daughter Rachel" (informa- Thorpe had suggested the Old
exhibitions Rome 1959, cat. no. 52; Paris unknown. tion from Brinsley Ford Archive; Testament subject of the Return of
i960, cat. 61; Lucca 1967, cat. no. 55; The Appearance of the Angel to Hagar in Clark andBowron 198s, p. 341). the Prodigal Son, but Batoni objected,
Leningrad, The State Hermitage Museum. the Desert is one of Batoni's rare subject The painting was evidently in "because the son must be an emaciated
Pittura italiana del SeUecento. 1974, cat. no. 1;
pictures to have entered a British col- progress by May 1774, but delays con- figure, & meanly clad. The drapery of
London 1982, cat. no. 53
lection during the artist's lifetime and Lord Arundell was
tinued, must also be [illegible].
the old father
bibliography Clark and Bowron 1981,
although British collectors readily informed by his agent on March 18 The whole scene affords him no place
p. 106. fig. 131; Rudolph 1983, pi. 62; Clark

and Bowron 1985, pp. 341-42, no. 396,

purchased religious pictures by Old of the following year: "Your Agar . . for brilliancy of coloring; he proposes
pi. 357, col. pi. XIV Master painters, only a Catholic unfinished, and if Batoni goes to the the Sacrifice of Abraham, or

Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica. Palazzo patron would have commissioned Vatican to paint the Pope [Pius VI], she Pharoah's daughter finding Moses.
Barberini, Rome such work
a large-scale religious may prolong her weeping, for he will Your Lordship has a fine piece of the
from a contemporary artist. The other then have an excuse for neglecting first subject by Poussin, & it is not a
history paintings commissioned by her,which admits of no reply" (Clark history that becomes agreeable by
Henry, 8th Baron Arundell British patrons from Batoni, for and Bowron 198s, p. 342). The paint- being too often repeated" (Father
(1740-1808), was, according to Horace example, mostly represent subjects ing was still unfinished a year later Thorpe to Lord Arundell, November
Walpole, "a devout Catholic Lord" from classical history and mythology when Thorpe wrote on May 11, 1776, 20, 1776; quoted in Clark and Bowron
(Walpole 1937-74, vol. 21, p. 309), and The Sacrifice of Iphigenia (cat. 163), Hector's that he had considered a request 198s. p. 342).
this must account for the unique col- Farewell to Andromache. Diana unci Cupid, "to have something changed in Agar, The following year Father Thorpe
lection of religious compositions and and Bacchus and Ariadne (Clark and which however as it may not displease observed Batoni's reuse of the model
portraits by or after Batoni that he- Bowron 1985, nos. 222, 235, 353). other eyes I shall not attempt to for Hagar in a similar pose in The
assembled over the years. He visited Batoni appears to have turned his disturb" (Clark and Bowron 1985, Preaching of Saint John the Baptist (1777;
Rome in 1759, and subsequently attention fully to the commission in p. 342). On July 1 3 he informed Lord S. Antonio Abate, Parma; Clark and
acquired for Wardour Castle, in addi- 1774, when Father Thorpe reported in Arundell: "Pompeo once again has Bowron 198s, no. 397) and informed
tion to the present painting, an oil a letter of March 21 that, following the not kepi his promise ol finishing Agar Lord Arundell, "Your Lordship's
sketch for the high altar of the artist's recovery from a brief illness, a belorc the end ol June; however, there Agar — but without her tears — is

PAINTINGS 319
 introduced in the Altarpiece going to purchase them must pay more
Parma, & is the most engaging figure in than a high price. (Clark and
it" December 10, 1777; quoted
(letter of Bowron 1985, p. 343)
in Clark and Bowron 1985, p. 342).
Batoni painted another picture for Batoni's contemporary and biogra-
Lord Arundell that remained untraced pher Onofrio Boni described the
until its acquisition in 1Q98 by The Art Hermitage painting as a pendant to
Institute of Chicago, An Allegory of The Marriage of Saint Catherine with Saint
Peace and War. The painting was jerome and Saint Lucy (1779: Palazzo del
described by Father John Thorpe in Quirinale, Rome; Clark and Bowron
the postscript to a letter of September 1985, no. 421), which remained unsold
24, 1776, to Lord Arundell: "[Pompeo] and in the possession of the artist's

has finished his picture of two figures heirs until at least 1802. Cracas
representing Peace & War: it is surely a reported the purchase of the Holy
masterpiece, & shows powers perhaps Family for the enormous sum of 1500
superior to any master who ever zecchini by Grand Duke Paul, later
painted at his time of life: it has all the Emperor Paul I, at the time he sat to
perfection & brilliancy of his best & Batoni for his own portrait in March
favourite performances" (Clark and 1782 (Clark and Bowron 1985, no. 431),
Bowron 1985, p. 369). [epb] remarking that all of the "connois-
seurs" who had seen the canvas found
it to be the most beautiful painting the
175 artist had made to date (Chracas,
Diario Ordinario di Roma, March
Pompeo Batoni 23,

1782, no. 754, pp. 3-5; see also Clark

The Holy Family with Saint and Bowron 1985, p. 343). The com-
mission for the portraits of the grand
Elizabeth and the Infant Saint
duke and his wife, Maria Feodorovna,
John the Baptist was arranged through the collector

1777
and connoisseur Prince Nikolay
Signed and dated on the hem of Saint Yussupov, who had acted as agent for
Elizabeth's dress: pompeo de batoni pinxit Catherine in Italy and bought or
II

ROMAE 1777 commissioned for Russia many paint-

Oil on canvas ings from contemporary artists. He
89" x 587«" (226 x 149.S cm) was surely responsible for advising
provenance bought from the artist in the grand duke to acquire the Holy
1782 by Grand Duke Paul of Russia for I Family from Batoni, but the failure to
1500 zechini; presumably given by him to acquire the pendant Marriage of Saint
Catherine II, probably in 1783; transferred
Catherine, which was also in the artist's
to the Hermitage in 1789
studio at the time, is unexplained.
bibliography Boni 1787, p. 49: Waagen,
A black chalk study for Saint
G. F. Die Gemaldesammlung in der Kaiserlichen
Munich:
Elizabeth reaching upward to take
Ermitage zu St. Petersburg. F.

Bruckmann, 1864, p. 98, n. 326; Somof. A. 17s the Christ Child in her arms is in the
Ermitage Imperial: Catalogue de la Galerie des Staatliche Graphische Sammlung,
Tableaux. St. Petersburg: La Companie gradually modified his art as he grew works from about the same period, Munich (Clark and Bowron 1985,
d'Imprimerie artistique, 1899, vol. 1, p. 20, older. During the next three decades such as Alexander and the Family of p. 384, no. D140, pi. 359). The painting
no. 326; Voss 1924, pp. 413, 648: Emmerling
he slowly progressed toward the pic- Darius, commissioned by Frederick II was engraved by James Walker in 1788
19J2, pp. 114-15. no. 88: Fomicieva, Tamara.
torial qualities of his late style, a devel- in 1763 (1775; Bildergalerie, Sanssouci; with a dedication to Empress
"Paintings by Pompeo Batoni in the
Hermitage [text in Russian]." Trdy
opment that is readily evident in a Clark and Bowron 1985, no. 382), the Catherine II. [epb]

Gosudarstvcnnogo Ermitazha, vol. 1 (1956).

comparison between the Wedding of Holy Family is especially noteworthy
p. 90-91. fig. 9: Tischbein, Johann Cupid and Psyche (cat. 167) and the for the treatment of expression and
Heinrich. Aus memem Leben. Edited by Kuno St. Petersburg Holy Family. The charm- movement in the individual figures.
Mittelstadt. Berlin: Henschelverlag, 1956, ing, idealized setting of the earlier The painting was described by the
p. 0246; Antonov 1977; Clark and Bowron mythology, deliberate prettiness, and antiquarian Father
its Jesuit priest
198s. pp. 342-43. no. 398, pi. 360
and refinement of ornament and John Thorpe in a letter of December
The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg
draftmanship, have been transformed 10, 1777, from Rome to his patrol,

in the later work by a powerful under- Henry 8th Baron Arundell:

By the middle of the eighteenth tone of restraint and gravity. Not only
century Batoni's paintings of biblical, has the composition become simpler [Pompeo's] Holy Family is his
allegorical, and mythological subject and narrower in depth, dominated by own & every one's favorite piece.
matter had become too expensive for vertically, and the forms more faintly It is indeed a fine picture, & at his

the average wealthy visitor to Rome, colored, but the opulence and sump- age to be done with so much
and such pictures were acquired tuousness are restrained, the handling freedom of pencelling and bril-

almost exclusively by the Church, is softer, and the incidental pictorial liancy of colour, is a surprising
European sovereigns, and visiting effects subdued. The increasing elon- performance. All the figures are
nobility, as well as the occasional gation ol Batoni's figures, the "intense, as large aslife & composed with

British Grand Tourist. The Hermitage almost tottering spiritualization" that more dignity than is observed in
Holy Family is among these late paint- Anthony Clark observed (Clark and most paintings of this subject by
ings acquired by patrons of excep- Bowron 1981, p. 111), marks the flower- the greatest masters. This picture
tional means and one of the loveliest ing of a quite new personal style and is, as he says, made for his own
works of the artist's maturity. Having imparts to the Holy Family a monu- keeping, like the other of Peace
established a basic style in his subject mentality that was unique in Rome & War [1776; The Art Institute
pictures of the 1740s, Batoni only at the time. Like Batoni's other great of Chicago]. Thus whoever will

20 PAINTINGS
 — .

MARCO BENEFIAL ity and tradition. This has led the monumental, exalted Assumption Giuseppe Dupra, John Parker,

ROME 1684-1764 ROME Benefial's work to be described — not with Saint Terence and Saint Mustiola Giovanni Battista Ponfredi,
always opportunely or consistently from the Pesaro Cathedral and the Ermenegildo Costantini, and Pietro
Benefial was born in Rome into a as a precursor of Neoclassicism, or outstanding Saint Matthew Baptizing the Labruzzi. [lb]

family of French origin. His mother, even nineteenth-century Realism. In Queen of Ethiopia in S. Matteo in Pisa. bibliography Soderini. Niccolo. Leuaadi
Maria Mattei, was Roman and his reality, as shown by recent critical Other important religious works un amko ad un Accademico di S. Luca. sopra

Gascon father, Francesco, was a works, including those of Anthony include The Death of the Blessed Giacinta alcuni decreti di quell'Accademia conlro al sig. cav.

Morris Clark (Clark 1966) and Giorgio The Vision Marco Hcncfiale Romano. Livorno, Italy 1757;
veknaro or weaver of light weight Marescotti (1736; see cat. 320),
Bottari and Ticozzi 1822-25; Paponi 1958;
fabrics (Petraroia 1980, p. 372, n. 7-8). Falcidia (see the bibliography), he was oj Saint Catherine Fieschi Adorno of Genoa
Falcidia 1965; Falcidia 1964; Paolini 1965;
Giovanni Battista Ponfredi, first neither a forerunner of Neoclassicism (1737; cat. 178), The Martyrdom oj Saint
Borea 1966; Clark >9bt>; Falcidia 1966; Calbi
Benefial's pupil and subsequently his or other revolutionary stylistic trends Agnes (1750; S. Trinita degli Spagnoli.
1978; Falcidia 1978; Petraroia 1980; Falcidia
biographer, wrote that from around nor a simple receiver of academic for- Rome), and The Vision of Saint Anthony 1983-84; Barroero 1990, "Benefial": Calbi
1698 to 1703 the young Marco studied mulae (another characterization). oj Padua (1755; S. Filippo, Macerata), all 1994; Scstieri 1994: Rangoni 1998
painting under Ventura Lamberti da Rather, he was a tireless experimenter, of them distinctive, dramatic works. A
Carpi, a former pupil of the Bolognese continuously seeking a direct relation- similar vitality can be seen in Benefial's

painter Carlo Cignani, with whom he ship between the great legacy of the historical, mythological, and biblical 176
collaborated in the creation of decora- pictorial tradition and the truth of subjects, such as The Massacre oj the
Marco Benefial
tive work for the cupola of the objects and events represented. This Innocents (1730; Gallerie, Florence),

Cappella del Sacramento in St. Peter's unflagging commitment to experi- The Expulsion of Athaliah (Galleria The Vision of Saint Philip Neri
(Bottari and Ticozzi 1822-25, vol. 5. ment and artistic inquiry is evident in Nazionale d'Arte Antica, Rome),
1721

pp. 5-39; Petraroia 1980). None of the looking at Benefial's artistic develop- Hercules and Omphalc, Pyramus and
Signed on the arched lintel of the doorway
works mentioned by sources regard- ment chronologically, from the four Thisbe Adam and Eve before God
(cat. 177), at the right: marci/benefial. f

ing his early Roman activity has sur- canvases on the subject of Christ in (cat. 179), and Adam and Eve Cast out of Oil on canvas
vived.Only the design for a Monreale (church of the Crocefisso, Paradise (all Galleria Nazionale d'Arte
39X" x 25%" (100 x 651 cm)
competition at the Accademia di commissioned in 1722 by Archbishop Antica, Rome), as well as in his pro- provenance purchased in 1721 in Rome
S. Luca (1702) documents this early Francesco Giudice, then residing in lific and varied series of portraits. In by the Abate Domenico Martelli: inherited

stage of his career. From 1711 he col- Rome, and in situ from 1724 to 1727) to addition to the two self-portraits in by Paola Martelli in 1950: sold (after 1963)

laborated with the painter Filippo the three paintings for the church of the Uffizi and Faldi collections (which on the antiques market
Germisoni. a partnership in which the Ospedale di S. Gallicano in Rome clearly inspire the bust sculpted in bibliography Clark 1966. pp. 23. 26;

according to Ponfredi, almost all the (1725-26), to the Scenes jrom the Lijc 1784 by Vincenzo Pacetti for the Clark and Bowron 1981, pp. 72-73, 76;
of
Fagiolo, Marcello, and Maria Luisa
paintings were by Benefial (including Saint Lawrence for the cathedral of Pantheon, today in the Capitoline
Madonna, eds. Roma 1300-1875: 1'arte degli
The Vision of Saint Nicholas, formerly in Viterbo (c. 1720-27; partially lost but Protomoteca), these include The Orsini
anni santi. Milan: Arnoldo Mondadori 1984;
S. Nicola ai Cesarini, and, alter the also documented by the related Family (1746; Museum of Rome), The Civai 1990. pp. 74. 99. n. 13: Calbi 1994. p.!3
demolition of the church, in the sketches in the premises of the Cassa Princess Giacinta Riupoli Marescotti
Private collection. England
Carmelite convent of S. Alberto). di Risparmio). Other particularly Orsini (Fondazione Cini, Venice), and
Benefial is chiefly notable for his notable examples include the chapel the disconcerting and long misunder-
innovative power and rigor,and he dedicated to Saint Margaret of stood Missionary's Family (Galleria It is due to Anthony Clark that this
stands outside the stylistic trends and Cortona in S. Maria in Aracoeli in Nazionale d'Arte Antica, Rome). painting has been brought to the
schools of the time. Similarly, the ear- Rome (Margaret of Cortona Finding the The 1740s were probably Benefial's attention of the public as an example
liest of his remaining works, executed Body of Her Lover and The Death of Saint most productive years. In 1743 he was of the "manners and methods" used
during the second and third decades Margaret of Cortona. 1729-32). admitted to the Accademia by Benefial for his oils on canvas
of the century, and in which Benefial's After his early collaboration with dell'Arcadia with the name of Distanio examined. It can be considered a mas-
Bolognese cultural origins are domi- Germisoni, it is not clear why, at the Etneo, and this association may have terpiece of the early eighteenth-
nant, are never the dull reworkings of end of 1718, Benefial formed a second served to strengthen his relations with century Roman school, with its

Maratti's vision that were so common artistic partnership, this time with the the great families of the Roman aris- "graceful and good color .... poetry. .

during the first twenty years of the painter Filippo Evangelisti, a protege tocracy — the Orsini, Ruspoli, and delicate and very strong" (Clark and
century. These works include The of Cardinal Piermarcellino Corradini. Massimo. He also was commissioned Bowron 1981, p. 73). The Abate
Martyrdom of Saint Saturninus for the This partnership, puzzling since to create frescoes (The Apotheosis of Domenico Martelli (1672-1753: son of
church of Ss. Giovanni e Paolo (1716); Benefial himself was valued and pro- Hercules, 1744) for the Sala Regia in the the senator Nicolo Martelli and Teresa
jonah for St. John Lateran (1718), which tected by the Pamphili family, lasted Palazzo di Spagna (lost but known by Gerini) bought the painting from the
won him the title of Cavaliere; The until 1754 and because of the agree- one study now in Philadelphia artist, and it is first recorded in his

Virgin Offering the Child to Saint Anthony ment to an 'equal partnership' many [Hiesingerand Percy 1980. p. 41, picture gallery as "The Ecstasy of Saint
of Padua (1718), formerly in S. Giovanni of Benefial's Roman works were for a no. 28]). Benefial's relations with Philip Neri with many figures four
a Porta Latina and now in the modern long time credited to his less gifted the Roman academic environment, palmi high" on December 30, 1721
monastery of the Turchine; and the companion. This is clearly not the however, were less friendly and, (Civai 1990, pp. 74, 99, n. 13). It was the
Mater Dolorosa with Angels Bearing the case for the paintings executed for or despite his prestige and fame, it was first of Benefial's works to be acquired
Symbols oj the Passion (1721) in the in other cities, such as The Ecstasy of not until 1741 that he was admitted to by this high-ranking prelate, who
monastery of S. Maria dei Sette Saint Francis (1723) for the Capuchin the Accademia di S. Luca. Moreover, came from an ancient and renowned
Dolori.From the knowledge gained church of Bagnoregio, the Sibyls fres- in 1755 he was expelled from this Florentine family, and lived in Rome
from Lamberti and the legacy of Carlo coes in the Palazzo Chigi-Zondadari group because of his contemptuous almost uninterruptedly from 1698 to
Maratti, Benefial returned instead to in Siena (1733), The Miracle of Saint attitude towards his colleagues. his death. (Martelli also acted as artis-
the origins of the great classical and Fiorcnzo in the collegiata of In the last decade of his life, blind- tic advisor to Violante of Bavaria and
Baroque traditions, from the Carracci Fiorenzuola d'Arda (1741), the frescoes ness made it impossible for Benefial to Gian Gastone dc' Medici; information
to Lanfranco and from Guercino to of the Palazzo Massimo in Arsoli paint,and he was supported by a sole on him and his collections can be
Andrea Sacchi. This is exemplified in (1749), or those, distinguished by a sin- patron and main collector, Count found in Civai 1990. pp. 73—81, and
the two lunettes of S. Maria delle gular, intense, crude naturalism, in the Niccolo Sodcrini, who had an entire Rudolph 1995. p. 146.) Other paintings
Fornaci (The Preaching of Saint }ohn the cathedral of Citta di Castello (1747-49). room in his own palace dedicated to by Benefial acquired by Martelli and
Baptist and The Beheading of Saint john The Virgin of the Carmine Giving the Benefial's works, around the "magnifi- meticulously recorded in his docu-
the Baptist), where the ideas expressed Scapular to Saint Simon Stock, sent I mm cent self-portrait by the artist himself
"
ments include the Saint Joseph with the
by Sacchi in his cycle in the baptistry Rome to Savignano (Forli), which (( hracas Dmric Ordinaric di Roma Infant fesus (i~2i). Mora (also 1721; possi-
of St. John Lateran are reinterpreted shows a luminous, refined range of November 16, 1782, no. 822). He had bly alluding to the Arcadian alias
with passion and vigour, and charac- colors, is from 1740. Two other works his own school, also frequented by the Floralgo), and Pallas and Venus (these
terized by an interaction of authentic- are perhaps contemporary with this: young Mengs. His students included works "of three spans" were acquired

PAINTINGS
 —

the detailed account that can be read at this early date of 1721 by the twenty-
in the Acta sanctorum, while celebrat- seven year old "cavaliere," who
ing Mass, Philip levitated several feet despite the respect in which he was
into the air and a little girl immedi- held — was obliged to share work with
ately turned to her mother and Filippo Evangelisti. This painting
exclaimed that the man was possessed shows affinities with Luti, Trevisani,
by the devil ("Arreptitium hominem Conca, and Mancini (masters whose
istum opinor!"). Her mother told her works were also displayed in the col-
to be quiet: this was a saint in ecstasy lection of the Abate Martelli), though
("Vir sanctus est. atque extasim Benefial's work good if not
is just as
patitur"; see "Vita II S. Philippi superior to theirs, as Anthony Clark
Nerii, "Acta Sanctorum XIX, Mail V/ remarks (Clark and Bowron 1981,
[Paris and Rome: Victorem Palme, p. 73)- Clark also praises the technical
1866], p. 584, paragraph 359). Benefial and use of color: luminous blues
skill

includes characters who are alleged to and warm tones of red and gold,
have witnessed his visions, such as which convey the splendour of the
Cardinal Cesare Baronio (the prelate vision and the spontaneous evocation
praying, behind whom some of the celebration of mass, [lb]
Oratorians appear) and gentlemen
who are devout followers of the saint
(the biographies record Fabrizio 177
Massimo and Francesco della Molara,
Marco Benefial
among others). A lady dressed in dark
clothes, possibly Anna Borromeo, is Pyramus and Thisbe
almost a full portrait, while the
1730-40
servant bears a clear resemblance to
Oil on canvas
Francesco Maria Tarugi, the founder
85X" x 53K" (218 x 135 cm)
of the Congregation of the Oratory
provenance collection of Count Nicolo
with Philip Neri. Unlike the depictions Soderini: Torlonia donation, 1892
of ecstasy in famous paintings by exhibition Chicago. Minneapolis, and
Guido Reni, Guercino. and Pietro da Toledo 1970, cat. no. 72
Cortona (all in S. Maria in Vallicella) bibliography Bottari and Ticozzi
in which the saint is alone in the pres- 1822-25, vol. 15, p. 15; Piaola guida artislica

ence of the divine apparition — in the del Palazzo di Montcritorio. 1930; Falcidia

fresco by Pietro da Cortona the only 1966; Palazzo Montecitorio 1967, pp. 3, 397;
Maxon and Rishel 1970. p. 176. no. 72;
other figures are Oratorians, peering
through a door standing ajar —and Mochi Onori
vol. 1. p. 26:
1988. p. 47; Sestieri 1994,
Vodret 1994, p. 396
which Benefial certainly knew, this
Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica. Palazzo
painting is treated as a public and Barberini, Rome
choral event. The lively "orchestra" of
angels is a clear allusion to the oratorio
176 (sacred musical drama) and to the The painting, with its companion
many occasions in which Philip Neri piece Hercules and Omphale (Galleria
in 1724). Also commissioned on Paolo, near Rome. On her death (1965) "listened to angelic music," as Nazionale d'Arte Antica, Rome)
behalf of his brother Bishop Giuseppe the painting was sold on the antiques described in the description of a belonged to Count Niccolo Soderini.
Maria was a large Death oj Saint Joseph market (Civai 1990, p. 99, n. 13) and painting by Cristoforo Roncalli in the whose collection is described by
(1722), which is still in the family's was believed to have been lost, but in church of the Vallicella. To these Ponfredi in 1764 (Bottari and Ticozzi
palace in Florence, with a Noli me the meantime it had been acquired by supernatural manifestations the por- 1822-25, vol. 5, p. 26). It is not clear
langere (1741). inscribed with the artist's the current owner, who, as Anthony trait-like features provide a vivid his- whether Benefial executed the painting
name. Besides the works by Benefial Clark remarks, attributed it to Benefial torical account that has nothing in for him directly or whether the count
(which Martelli clearly held in high even before cleaning revealed the common with the more stereotyped acquired it later. Soderini was the
esteem), the collection contained artist's signature (Clark and Bowron, "vision" as painted by Conca or maternal uncle of the Marchese
paintings of landscape and figures 1981, p. 78, n. 12). The help of Edgar Tiepolo. This vein of realism certainly Camillo Massimo, and commissioned
by the most important artists of the Peters Bowron is gratefully acknowl- influenced the work of artists in Rome Benefial to paint the vault of the salon
Roman school, including Chiari, Luti, edged here for having discovered that who were overt realists, such as Pier of the Palazzo Massimo at Arsoli (a

Van Bloemen, Conca, Costanzi, this painting was part of the Martelli Leone Ghezzi, but even the more tra- sketch for this vault is listed in the

Bianchi, Locatelli. Paolo Anesi, Luigi collection, and this information has ditional artists of classical leanings, Soderini inventory). He defended the
Garzi, Giaquinto, Masucci, Van been crucial for the reconstruction of such as Placido Costanzi, in his Miracle artist when he was expelled from the
Wittcl. Van Lint, and Michele Rocca. its history. oj Saint Joseph oj Copertino (Galleria Accademia di S. Luca, and was proba-
This collection of contemporary Biographies of Saint Philip Neri go Nazionale d'Arte Antica. Rome), for bly the anonymous author of a Lettcra

works began with two large architec- into lavish detail about the numerous example, shows awareness of apologetica, probably published in 1756,

tural views by Viviano Codazzi, which apparitions of the Virgin Mary to him Benefial's Saint Philip Neri, which is contesting the decision (Petraroia 1980,
he inherited from his cardinal uncle during the celebration of mass, while probably due to the fact that his paint- p. 37, n. 3-4). Soderini owned several
and was probably well known in
(1717) praying in his room, and when he was ings were also part of the collection at of Benefial's paintings: about thirty,

Rome before it was moved to the resi- ill. Benefial's painting seems to want that time (Pio [1724] 1977, p. 195, according to his inventory (1779)- The
dence in Florence in 1753; the Saint to evoke all these apparitions and for specifically mentions that Costanzi Diario Ordinario di Roma records that
Philip Neri remained in the family col- this reason it is quite different to the was active "for Cardinal Martelli's "in the Palazzo Astalli under the
lection until 1950. Despite the evi- numerous other versions of this nephew"). Aracoeli we observed the open aristo-
dence of the signature of Benefial, it subject. The event shown in the fore- A comparison with the "account"' cratic apartment of Monsignor
was subsequently attributed to Pietro ground took place in the Roman of another vision, the Saint Catherine Soderini ... whose large chamber is
da Cortona and was inherited by Paola church of S. Girolamo della Carita, Fieschi Adorno of Genoa (cat. 178), decorated with pictures by the cele-

Martelli, a cloistered nun in the where Saint I'hilip lived before S. Maria painted sixteen years later, shows brated painter Cavaliere Benefial: in

Benedictine convent of C'ivitella San in Vallicella was built. According to great mastery of expressiveness even the middle of the room is the artist's

2 PAINTINGS
 one overturning the torch the clas- — and culture, gifts that made her a
sical symbol of death the other — prominent figure in Genoese high
lifting up the bloodstained cloak, the society. On March 20, 1473, at the age
discovery of which has caused the of twenty-six, following a visit to her
tragedy. sister, a nun at the church of S. Maria
Benefial was apparently aware of delle Grazie. she had a vision of Christ
Pagani's treatment of the story. This is carrying the cross. In her own autobi-
shown by the setting, with the cypress ography, she wrote that it appeared as
trees in the background, as well as by if the entire house was flooded with
the relationship between the figures, the blood that poured from his
which have obviously lost any late wounds. Her life changed radically
Mannerist contrivances, to give life to after this event. She dedicated herself
a more 'classical' representation to works of compassion, especially to
(Clark correctly mentioned Guido helping the sick, and wrote several
Reni here). No preliminary drawings important spiritual treatises. She was
have so far been located for Pyramus canonized by Pope Clement XII on
and Thisbe, although two are known June 16. 1737. along with saints Vincent
for the Hercules and Omphale (Cleveland de Paul. Jean-Franqois de Regis, and
Museum of Art, TR 11156/63; see Giuliana Falconieri.
Maxon and Rishel 1970, p. 176, no. 72; Benefial's painting, which depicts
for the finished study for the figure of the moment when Christ appears to
Hercules, now in the Cabinet des the noblewoman, was executed for
Dessins in the Louvre, see Falcidia the supporter of the canonization,
1966, p. 68; Legrand and d'Ormesson- Cardinal Neri Maria Corsini, nephew
Peugeot 1990, p. 115, no. 117). A very of the pope. The work is now dis-
beautiful reclining nude today in played in the Galleria Nazionale
Berlin may be seen as a first idea for d'Arte Antica along with the collec-
the figure of Pyramus, although it tion given to the Italian government
may have been intended for the lover by Prince Tommaso Corsini in 1883

of Saint Margaret of Cortona in the (Alloisi 1984; Borsellino 1996). It is

Boccapaduli Chapel (Van Dooren mentioned for the first time in an

1989, no. 203). This also seems to inventory of the Palazzo Corsini in
confirm the dating suggested by Clark 1^50 (Magnanimi 1980, p. 106, no. 221).
for this canvas (1730-40), as does the At that time the cardinal had other
similarity — allowing differencesfor in pictures by Benefial: a Saint Andrew
technique — between the of figure Corsini (bequeathed to him by the will
Thisbe and the frescoed Sibyls of 1733 of the Sienese Cardinal Pier Maria
in the Palazzo Chigi-Zondadari in Pieri, and a Virgin with the Christ Child

Siena, [lb] and Saint Catherine by Carlo Maratti,

described in a note by Bottari as "the
last of his work finished by Marco
178 Benefial" (quoted in Magnanimi 1980,
p. 105). Mentioned in the 1808 inven-
Marco Benefial
tory of Prince Tommaso Corsini, in
Vision of Saint Catherine addition to the preceding pictures, are
Saint Giuseppe da Leonessa Presenting a
Fieschi Adorno of Genoa
Renegade to the Pope, "an original by
magnificent self-portrait" (Chracas, (Uffizi, Florence) and Jacopo Vignali 1737 Benefial" and Saint Catherine of Verona
Diario Oramario di Roma, November 16. (Rospigliosi collection, Pistoia) in the Signed on the bottom right, on the foot- [sic] "by Benefial" (Magnanimi 1980,
stool: EQ.ES MARCVS BENEFIAL
1782, no. 822). Nearly all of these works early seventeenth century and by "Inventari," pp. 103, 109). It is con-
became the property of the Torlonia Oil on canvas cluded from this that Benefial was
Pietro Bianchi in the eighteenth
78//' x 115X" (200 x 294 cm)
family and are mentioned in their (Sestieri 1994, vol. 2, fig. 109). The also involved in the canonization of
inventory from 1814 (Vodret 1994). story, a kind of ante litteram Romeo provenance collection of Cardinal Neri
Giuseppe da Leonessa. celebrated in
Maria Corsini: acquired for the Italian State
They subsequently entered the collec- and Juliet, tells of two young 1-46 under Benedict XIV.
in 1883
tion of the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Babylonians who belong to warring As explained by Vittorio Casale in
exhibition Rome 1997, cat. no. A54
Antica in 1892. Both Hercules and families and are thus forced to meet his works on beatifications and can-
bibliography Voss 1924, p. 641; Falcidia
Omphalc and Pyramus and Thisbe were secretly outside the walls of the city. onizations celebrated in the Seicento
1964. p. 20; Falcidia 19-8. p. ;8: Magnanimi
given on consignment to the Camera Thisbe, arriving at the meeting place and Settccento (Casale 1990: Casale
1980. p. 10s: Rudolph 1985, fig. 71; Barroero
dei Deputati in the Palazzo di first, is attacked by a lioness and flees, 1990. "Benefial." p. 621; Casale 1990, 1997; Casale 1998). these ceremonies,
Montecitorio. Only after 1980 were dropping her cloak. Pyramus, finding pp. 553. 564, 575. fig- 818: Sestieri 1994, in which 'heroes' of the Christian faith
they returned to the Palazzo Barberini. only her bloodstained cloak and vol. 1. p. 26; Borsellino 1996, p. 4- fig. 24; were honored, were opportunities for
The Pyramus and Thisbe
stories of thinking her dead, kills himself with Casale 1997, p. 140. fig. 24: Fagiolo 1997, important commissions involving
248. no. A54
and Hercules and Omphale are both his own sword. Like all the other p.
artists in every medium. These
treated as allegories of love: the painters who treated the subject, Galleria Corsini. Rome included the architects who created
former shows death as a result of love, Benefial portrays its conclusion, when the ephemeral decorations in
while the latter depicts the triumph of Thisbe. returning to the original tryst- Caterina Fieschi was born and lived St. Peter's, where the main ceremony
love over force. The tragic talc of ing place, pulls out the sword from in Genoa, where she died in 1510. She took place, and in the churches of the
Pyramus and Thisbe — recounted the breast of her dying lover and lets belonged to one of the most important religious orders, as well as the painters
in Ovid's Metamorphosis — was often herself fall on it. plunging it into her families of the city (her father. who provided standards with the lives
depicted in paintings which the
in heart. The blood of the two unfortu- Giacomo, was viceroy of Naples under of the saints,from the preliminary
story of the young lovers takes on a nate lovers turns the berries of the Robert d'Anjou). Married to the design to the final completed work.
color of languid eroticism. Examples mulberry tree a dark red. Two cupids nobleman Giuliano Adorno. she was Also invok ed in the ceremonies were
include works by Gregorio Pagani provide a commentary on the event, celebrated for her beauty, intelligence. engravers, embroiderers, goldsmiths.

PAINTINGS
 178

and sculptors, and churches, chapels, reclaims the authorship of this mas- woman, who wrings her hands 179
and altars dedicated to the new saints terpiece for its true creator. Benefial expressively. The angels turn both
were also erected. The most renowned
Marco Benefial
also executed the drawing for an toward the protagonists of the scene
painters executed paintings intended engraving (perhaps corresponding and outward, as if entreating the Adam and Eve Before God
for the pope and cardinals. It was to a lost painting) portraying the saint A maid moves
observer to participate. 1750-60?
therefore a sign of great distinction in the act of writing her mystical away the curtain, behind which Oil on canvas
that Benefial was requested to paint treatises, where the explicit indication another maid can be seen absorbed in x 52X" x cm)
55/x" (142 133
a picture for the cardinal, which was Marcus Benefial invenit appears. The her work, a return to the calm activi-
provenance collection of Count Nicolo
displayed together with others of the engraving was created for Giovan ties of daily life. Christ is a luminous Soderini, Torlonia donation, 1892
same type in an antechamber of the Carlo Allet; a copy is in the Istituto and perfect male nude figure. exhibition Chicago, Minneapolis, and
Palazzo Corsini at Lungara. and Nazionale per la Grafica, Rome. Catherine and the women of the Toledo 1970. cat. no. 73

henceforth known as the "antecham- Probably attributed to this engraving house are dressed fashionably. The bibliography Maxon and Rishel 1970,
ber of the canonizations" (quoted in is the drawing for the figure of Saint cushion and the elegant seat not only p. 178, no. 73; Faldi 1971, p. 568; Falcidia
Magnamini 1980, pp. 106-7). The Margaret now in Berlin (Kdz IS893; allude to the central character's social 1978, pp. 35, 48; Sestieri 1994, vol. 1, p.26;

Palazzo Corsini at Lungara, the cardi- Clark 1966, n. 6; Van Dooren standing but also serve to illuminate Vodret 1994, pp. 594-95
1989,
nal's residence, had been rebuilt for no. Diisseldorf there the darkness of the surroundings with Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica. Palazzo
p. 107, cat. 155). In

the Corsini by Ferdinando Fuga, is a preliminary drawing for the figure shades of rose and red, in which the
Barberini, Rome
having previously been the Palazzo of the saint, already perfectly charac- celestial light cuts a path that follows
Riario, the residence of Christina of terized in posture, bearing, and style the progression of the Savior. The This picture, together with its com-
Sweden. of dress, and executed with that painting is both an accurate portrayal panion piece portraying Adam and Eve
The picture was painted by Benefial simultaneously concise and complex of the religious narrative and an Cast Out of Earthly Paradise, comes from
during the period of his collaboration technique so characteristic of his expression of the artist's other "reli- the Torlonia collection. Both paint-
with Filippo F.vangclisti, between the graphic art during this period. gion" — a genuine and direct relation- ings formed part of the collection of
Adoration of the Shepherds in the church The painting is an exemplary illus- ship with the fundamentals of Niccolo Soderini; they are not
of the Bambino Gcsu (1733-36) and tration of the painter's lyrical quality painting, [lb] expressly mentioned by Ponfredi,
the Baptism of Christ in S. Maria della and style. The harmony between the who limits himself to listing only six

Quercia (1738). Precisely because of story and its visual depiction is of Benefial's works "among the many
the artist's "equal partnership," these absolute, with no additional orna- that [Soderini] has of this worthy
two works were for a long time attrib- mentation. The figure of Christ, seen man" (Bottari and Ticozzi 1822-25,
uted to Evangelisti. In the case of The from behind, descends from the vol. 5, pp. 24-26; see also the entry for
Vision oj Saint Catherine, however, the clouds, bent under the weight of the Pyramus and Thisbe, cat. 177)- However
signature, affixed in full and bearing cross. Walking on bis own blood, he they are described in the Soderini
the I ilk- of "cavaliere," proudly makes his way towards the young inventory (1779) and then in the extent

324 PAINTINGS
 lish a chronology. In 1724 Bianchi mation of Maratti's and Luti's bel

completed a painting left unfinished disegno brought him commissions

by Luti representing The Archangel from the Roman ecclesiastical com-
Gabriel with Saints Sebastian, Roch and munity and aristocracy, but he was
Eusebius (untraced), which Filippo never satisfied with his work and cor-
Juvarra had commissioned for the rected and recorrected it to excess.
chapel at the Venaria Reale, near He was known to have destroyed
Turin, but which Bianchi sold to King entire pieces in order to rework them,
John V of Portugal, for the church of so that like his master Luti, his output
S. Vicente de Fora in Lisbon. Bianchi is sparse. In the eighteenth century it

(cat. 181), along with Sebastiano was already observed that his paint-
Conca, Giovanni Odazzi, and Placido ings were singularly beautiful but dif-
Costanzi (cat. 206), contributed to the ficult to find.

series of paintings depicting scenes Although (acques Lacombe wrote

from the lives of Pope Alexander VII in his Dictionnaire portatij des beaux-arts

and his great-nephew Cardinal
Antonio Felice Zondadari.
Bianchi was offered a knighthood
by Clement XII but refused it, accept-
ing instead a commission for
St. Peter's "che pu chiamarsi il Toson
d'oro per un Pittore" as one of Mengs's
(1759) that Bianchi "painted with equal
success subjects from history, land-
scapes, portraits, seascapes, and
animals," only his subject pictures
and landscapes are known today. He is
said to have had a passion for the open
air (and to have died from working

biographers put it (Clark 1964, too hard in his garden), so it is not sur-
"Bianchi," p. 46). In 1730 Cardinal prising that his history paintings are
Annibale Albani, prefect of the often set in naturalistic landscapes
Fabbrica di S. Pietro, placed the com- (cat. 180) and that he produced small
mission for a monumental canvas, gouache landscapes for the Roman
The Immaculate Conception Worshiped tourist trade (The National Trust.
by Saints john Crysostom, Francis of Assist, Felbrigg Hall, Norfolk; Clark 1981,
179 and Anthony oj Padua (S. Maria degli figs. 54-55).
Angeli, Rome), to be executed in Bianchi studied sculpture in the
siveTorlonia inventory, according to PIETRO BIANCHI mosaic for the basilica. A lost bozzetto workshop of Pierre Legros at an early
Gaspare Landi's report of 1814 (Vodret ROME 1694-174O ROME was made in 1730; the altarpiece was age and. like Carlo Maratti before him,
1994, pp. 394-95. nos. 469, 474; begun and a payment received in 1734 he supplied designs and advice to
assessed at 50 scudi each). Pietro Bianchi was born on but put aside in 1735-36 because of dif- Filippo delle Valle (Saint john of God,
The painting depicts the moment September 5, 1694, the son of a ferences between Bianchi and the St. Peter's, Rome), Giovanni Battista
immediately following the sinful act: cooper, Giovanni Bianchi, of Ligurian bursar of the Fabbrica, Monsignor Maini (Saint Francis of Paola, 1732; St.

only after tasting the forbidden fruit origin. He was orphaned at the age of Altoviti. In 1738 Bianchi received Peter's, 1732), Pietro Bracci (Paolucci

do Adam and Eve realize their own two and was taken in by one of his another payment on the condition tomb, 1726: S. Marcello al Corso;
nudity. Covering themselves with fig older sisters, whose husband, Arrigo that he finish the painting within one Benedict XIII tomb, 1734-37; S. Maria
leaves, they hear God's condemna- Giorgi, was in the service of the year, but apparently it was only barely sopra Minerva; statue of Clement XII,
tion. From a stylistic point of view, the Marchese Marcello Sacchetti. Bianchi finished at the time of his death in 1734; formerly Capitoline Hill), and
painting has marked differences from was apprenticed to the painter 1740. The canvas received its final Carlo Marchionni. Bianchi's profes-
The Expulsion of Adam and Eve, which is Giacomo Triga at an early age and touches (the adoring angels, angelini, sional interest in sculpture derived in
unquestionably handled in a more then placed in the studio of Giovanni heavenly glory, and the Virgin's face) part from his own practice of arrang-
concise, vigorous, and dramatic Battista Gaulli, called II Baciccia. There by his leading pupil, Gaetano Sardi, ing small clay and wax figures and
manner, as is the preliminary study he acquired his nickname, "il Creatura and the composition was executed in carefully lighting them in the course
(Van Dooren 1989, no. 129). Indeed, di Baciccia," on account of his youth mosaic for St. Peter's from 1744 to 1747 of preparing his paintings.
the composition of this picture more and small stature. On the death of (DiFederico 1983, p. 79, no. 27, pi. 148). Bianchi devoted much time to his
closely resembles Benefial's works Gaulli in 1709, Bianchi moved briefly Toward was commis-
1737 Bianchi pupils, who in addition to Gaetano
from the 1740s and 1750s (such as the to the studio of Giuseppe Ghezzi, but sioned by Don Fabrizio Colonna to Sardi included Francesco Mattei,
Arsoli frescoes). The Expulsion may in was dissatisfied with his master's paint a ceiling insert, Fame Crowning Raimondo Paticchi, and the
fact have been commissioned at a later endless pontifications and around Merit, the first of a set of six allegorical Portuguese sculptor Joao Grossi.
date to accompany the first painting. 1710 began to study with Benedetto decorations that were to surround an Olivier Michel has pointed out (199s).
In the soaring depiction of Eternity Luti.He prospered under Luti's tute- earlier canvas by Luti in the Palazzo the confusion on the part of modern
supported by a group of angels, the lage and remained with him until the Colonna. The cycle was completed by biographers between Bianchi and his
references to Raphael and painter's death in 1724. Bianchi won Pompeo Batoni about 1737-39, and it exact namesake, a painter from Como
Michelangelo are immediate, prizes in the Accademia di S. Luca con- is probable that the two artists were (c. 1657-1732), who was a protege of
although they are transformed into corsi, or student competitions, in 1707, originally given equal shares of the Cardinal Francesco Acquaviva. Pietro
the sharp and luminous idiom of the and 1713;
1711, in the last he was placed work and two smaller
that Bianchi's Bianchi died on March 12. T40. [epb]
painter's last works. The dynamic second in the first class with a magnif- scenes were not ready on his death. bibi iography Dezallierd'Argenville i~s 2.
modeling of the two nude figures that icent drawing of a Miracle of Saint Pius Bianchi's oil painting of The Blessed pp. -6-80; Soprani and Ratti 1768-69. vol.
immediately calls to mind the V Chilsicri Accademia
(Galleria di Giovanni Angelo Porro Worshiping the 2. pp. 292-505; Clark 1964. "Bianchi":
painter's constantly declared passion Nazionale di S. Luca, Rome; Cipriani Crucifix (S. Maria in Via, Rome) proba- Rangoni 1990, "Bianchi"; Pampalone 1995
Sestieri 199s; Casale 1996; Michel 1996.
for the study of anatomy, [lb] 1990, no. 46). He was elected to mem- bly datesfrom about this period. In
"Bianchi''
bership of the academy in March 1735, i^;8 he began work on his last major
five years before his death. painting, a Rest on the Plight into Egypt
Bianchi's first commissions date (S.Maria delle Grazie alle Fornaci,
from around 171s. but he did not Rome), which was completed alter his

acquire a serious and public reputa- death by Sardi.

tion until about ten years later. Bianchi's refined style, which Clark
Although his p. unlings are singularly called "lithe, grand and poetic," (( lark

beautiful, too few are known to estab- 1970, p. 180) and his personal transfbl

PAINTINGS
 Christina of Sweden in the Consistory Antoine Joseph Dezallier d'Argenville
during the reign of Alexander VII. mentioned a painting of Mercury and
Interestingly, the inventory lists only Argus belonging to Bianchi's heirs,
nine, rather than ten, paintings in the and Giuseppe Ratti described the
series: Pietro Bianchi's picture, which, large and handsome painting in Ponce
according to the inscription on the as "un quadro di sette palmi, entrovi
back, depicts the meeting of Cardinal Mercurio, che sta in atto di recidcre

Zondadari, probably as nuncio extra- il capo ad Argo addormentato"

ordinary, with King Philip V of Spain (Dezallier d'Argenville 1752, vol. 2,

in the pavilions during military exer- p. 80). Little is known of Bianchi's

cises, is not included in the inventory. patron, Pietro Mancini, except that he
There can be no doubt, however, that also owned a pair of hermit saints in a
it was indeed part of the original series, landscape by the artist, Saint Onupfirius

given that it, along with the seven and SaintMary of Egypt, described by
other paintingsnow in Rome, had at Ratti and discovered by Anthony
one time been in the Palazzo Chigi- Clark in the collection of the descen-
Zondadari in the small town of dants of Gianlorenzo Bernini in Rome
Quirico d'Orcia (not far from Siena). (Casale 1996, p. 108, figs. 1, 2).

Furthermore, Carlo Ratti referred at The Ponce painting shows Mercury

length to Cardinal Zondadari's com- preparing to slay the giant Argus,
missioning of Pietro Bianchi to paint depicted here as a brawny shepherd
this scene from the beginning of the sleeping under a tree. The tale is told
cardinal's embassy in Spain. This by Ovid (Metamorphoses 1: 668-721) in
painting evidently had already been his account of Jupiter's infatuation
i8o dauphin and the nephew of King taken to another location well before with Io, the daughter of Inachus, first

Louis XI V, as heir to his throne in his the cardinal's death. King of Argos. Jupiter changed himself
Pietro Bianchi
will. In an attempt to negotiate a The inventory indicates that into a cloud to conceal his infidelity
The Meeting of Cardinal peace,on November 21, 1701, Pope Cardinal Zondadari commissioned from his wife, Juno, and seduced the
Clement XI named three nuncios six different artists to paint this series princess. Juno was not deceived,
Zondadari and Philip V, King
extraordinary to be sent to the courts of ten pictures. Odazzi and Sebastiano however, and so Jupiter "transformed
of Spain of Vienna, Paris, and Madrid. Antonio Conca are mentioned by Pascoli and poor lo into a sleek white heifer (lovely

c. 1727
Felice Zondadari, a bishop at the time, Bianchi by Ratti: Costanzi's work still although a cow)" (Metamorphoses 1:

Inscribed on the back of the original can-

was sent to Spain in this capacity. bears his signature. Of the three paint- 639-63). Juno then asked her husband
vas: INCONTRO DEL CARDINAL ZONDADARI From 1706 he served in the regular ings in Rome that have hitherto for the heifer as a gift, which she knew
CON FILIPPO V NEI PADIGLIONI DA CAMPO. office of papal nuncio to Spain. After remained anonymous, the canvas he could not refuse, and entrusted her
Oil on canvas inflicting a crushing defeat on the inscribed Monsignor Zondadari sbarca to the hundred-eyed giant Argus,
48/2" x 577s" (113 x 147 cm) papal forces in Bologna, Emperor ad Alicante is by Pietro Bianchi; Luigi whom Bianchi, like most eighteenth-
provenance Palazzo Chigi Zondadari in Joseph I then marched on Rome and Garzi painted the scene of Cardinal century painters, has depicted as a
Quirico d'Orcia; Bellini collection in forced Pope Clement XI to recognize Flavio Chigi in front of S. Maria del noble shepherd.
Florence; Florentine art market; purchased his younger brother the Archduke Popolo in Rome during the plague Jupiter then sent his messenger
by the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica
Charles as Charles 111 of Spain. As a of 1656; and the Sienese painter Mercury to lull the giant to sleep with
exhibition Rome 1972, Aojuisti, cat. no. 24
result, the nunciature in Madrid was Giuseppe Nasini was responsible for his reed pipes and to cut off his head.
BIBLIOGRAPHY Pascoli [1730-36] 1933,
closed and Zondadari was expelled the depiction of the cardinal's younger Bianchi has depicted the climax of the
vol. 2, p. 394; Soprani and Ratti 1768-69,
from Spain. He then spent three years brother Alessandro being enthroned drama, the moment when Mercury,
passim; Moroni 1840-61, passim; Pastor
in Avignon before being made a cardi- as archbishop of Siena, [mlb] arrayed in ankle-wings and magic cap,
1938-53, vol. 34, passim; Clark 1964.
nal on May 8, 1712. Zondadari was a has finally induced Argus to sleep on
"Bianchi"; Ragghianti 1967: Boschetto 1968;
Clark 1968. "Costanzi"; Minneapolis
candidate for the pontificate in the a rock by playing his pan pipes for

Institute of Arts. European Paintings from the conclave of 1724 and again in 1730. He l8l hours. Following the murder of
Minneapolis Institute of Arts. New York: died in the family palace in Siena on Argus, Io was freed and returned to
Pietro Bianchi
Praeger, 1971, p. 447, cat. no. 238; Faldi 1972: November 23, 1737. human form. She was made a goddess
Johns 1993, p. 24 Sometime before 1728 (and proba- Mercury and Argus with lo and bore Jupiter a son, Epaphus.
Galleria Nazionale dArte Antica, Palazzo bly after the conclave of 1724) Anthony Clark observed that "The
1730-35
Barberini, Rome Zondadari commissioned various shepherd Argus's hut, shown behind
Oil on canvas
artists to paint a series of pictures 72//' x 50X" x 128.1 cm)
the cow Io, is of an architecture still
(183.7
Cardinal Antonio Felice Zondadari depicting important events in his to be found in the haystacks of the
provenance painted for Pietro Mancini,
(born September 13, 1665), depicted family's history, nine of which are Rome; with the artist's heirs, Rome; Paul Campagna, and extended back to
in Pietro Bianchi's picture as quite known. Eight, including this work by Ganz. New York: from whom acquired in Roman prehistory. Local and ancient
boyish-looking despite his thirty-six Pietro Bianchi, are now in the Galleria 1965 meanings of the hut and cow would
years, was a member of a prominent Nazionale d'Arte Antica in Rome, and exhibitions Minneapolis Institute of Art, have been known to Bianchi and are
Sienese family. In 1645 his father, a ninth, signed by Placido Costanzi 1962; Cleveland 1964, cat. no. 9: New York. above and beyond the Greek fable he
Ansano Zondadari, married Agnese (cat. 206) is in the Minneapolis The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1965; is telling" (Maxon and Rishel 1970,
Chicago, Minneapolis, and Toledo 1970,
Chigi, the sister of Cardinal Flavio Institute of Arts. Lione Pascoli p. 180).
cat. no. 74
Chigi and the niece of Pope Alexander referred to this series in his biography The subject was popular in eigh-
bibliography Dezallier d'Argenville 1752,
VII. Ansano took the Chigi name, as of Giovanni Odazzi and mentioned teenth-century Italian painting, in
p. 80; Soprani and Ratti 1768-69, vol. 2,
did his eldest son, Bonaventura. The that the artist had painted one of the part for the opportunity it provided
p. 298; Clark 1964, "Bianchi." p. 44. pi. 58;
other three sons — Marcantonio, pictures. The inventory of Cardinal Held, (ulius S., Rene Taylor, and James N. painters to demonstrate their skill in
Antonio and Alessandro all
Felice, — Antonio Felice Zondadari's property Carder. Museo de Arte de Ponce. Fundacion Luis drawing and modeling the male nude.
kept the Zondadari name. that was drawn up in Rome (presum- A. Fcrrc: Paintings and Sculpture of the European Ubaldo Gandolfi, for example, painted

Not long after the death of King and American Schools. 2nd ed. Ponce, Puerto a series of six large canvases of
ably for those items in his living quar-
Rico: Museo de Arte de Ponce, 1984,
( hark s ol Spain on Novembei 1, 1700, ters in Rome) confirms Pascoli's mythological subjects to adorn the
pp. 18-19
the War of the Spanish Succession statement. According to the inven- walls of the palace of the Marescalchi
Museo de Arte de Ponce. Puerto Rico
broke out, even though the king had tory, the picture painted by Odazzi family in Bologna that included depic-
named Philip of Anjou, the son of the represented the abdication of Queen tions of the episodes immediately pre-

326 PAINTINGS
 his career got underway only after Arts, Lyon; The Walters Art Gallery,
Luti's death in 1724, thanks to several Baltimore), represent his elegant,
prestigious commisions from Spain luminous, and colorful style of paint-
and Portugal. According to his biogra- ing. He employed a naturalistic and
phers, Bianchi was an enthusiastic truthful approach to portrait painting,
fisherman and hunter, to which activi- and he loved to render the beauty of
ties he always took along his paper costume and the play of colors and
and pencil, [epb] materials. Blanchet was a refined col-
orist, and his paintings, like those of

Subleyras, are distinguished by the

LOUIS-GABRIEL BLANCHET luminosity of his whites and the rich-
VERSAILLES 1701-1772 ROME ness of his handling of oil paint.
One of Blanchet's earliest portraits
Louis-Gabriel Blanchet was born on of a British Grand Tourist was of the
November 29, 1701, the son of Gabriel architect William Chambers (1753;
Blanchet, valet de chambre of one untraced) whom he depicted beside
Monsieur Blouin, himself the princi- volumes of Vitruvius and Palladio.
pal valet of King Louis XIV. Nothing The following year Blanchet depicted
is known of Blanchet 's youthful artis- Henry Willoughby, Later 5th Baron
tic activity until April 30, 1727, when Middleton (1754; Lord Middleton,
he competed at the Academie Royale Birdsall, North Yorkshire) in a familiar
de Peinture et de Sculpture for the prix mode, wearing a richly embroidered
de Rome in painting, and was placed coat, seated beside a classical bust.
second to Pierre Subleyras. He was A portrait inscribed Lord Arundel pre-
nominated on March 12, 1728, for a sumably represents Henry, 8th Baron
pension at the French Academy at Arundell of Wardour (sale catalogue,
Rome and resided at the Palazzo Sotheby's, Monte Carlo, ]une 17, 1988,
Mancini from November 1728 to 1733. lot 887), who was in Rome in 1760.
Nicolas Vleughels, director of the Blanchet enjoyed favorable relations
French Academy, seems to have had with artists of various nationalities
little esteem for Blanchet 's abilities as and produced portraits of the Danish
a painter, but the managed
young artist painter johan Mandclberg (1756; Royal
to retain his lodgings at the academy Academy of Fine Arts, Copenhagen)
under one pretext or another. With and the British sculptor and painter
the arrival in Rome in 1732 of the Due /ames Barry (c. 1767; Royal Society
de Saint-Aignan, French ambassador of Arts, London).
to the Holy See, Blanchet found a sig- In 1737-38 Blanchet was commis-
nificant patron. While in Rome, Saint- sioned by |ames Francis Edward
Aignan began to form a collection of Stuart, the Old Pretender, to paint full-
paintings and other works by French length portraits of the Stuart princes,
artists, most of whom were resident Charles Edward and Henry Benedict
at the French Academy. Among (cats. 183-84). as a gift for the Duchess
ceding the slaying of Argus, Mercury can believe Giuseppe Ratti's anecdote Blanchet's earliest works for this of Parma. He also painted portraits of
Lulling Argus to Sleep and Mercury about that, upon seeing Bianchi's land- patron is a series of four overdoors the Old Pretender and his wife,
to Behead Argus (c. 1770-75; The North scapes, Jan Frans van Bloemen (called with allegorical subjects; Painting Paying Clementina Sobieska, and in effect
Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh). In Orizzonte) "remained stupefied." Homage to Pope Clement XU (Settecento served as a portraitist to the exiled
spite of their obvious differences in His landscapes were widely appreci- 1959. fig- 38), signed and dated 1732, in Stuart court in Rome. His portraits of
color, composition, and handling, ated in his own time, and a measure particular reveals his strong classiciz- Roman visitors were not restricted to
Bianchi's and Gandolfi's paintings of their contemporary esteem is ing orientation, and a style based on the British and French; he painted the
are startlingly similar in one respect provided by the example of Cardinal the paintings of Francesco Imperiali young Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
— the confident understanding of Annibale Albani's gift of Venus and Subleyras. Like Subleyras, with (private collection, Glyndebourne,
human anatomy that these artists Mourning the Dead Adonis to Count whom he shared a lodging in 1737, Sussex) at the time of the young com-
gained from drawing from the live Heinrich Briihl, the powerful minister Blanchet remained in Rome for the poser's trip to Italy in 1769-71 (Clark
model and that was such an impor- of Augustus III, King of Poland and rest of his life and can be said to have and Bowron 198s, p. 373).
tant part of the Roman and Bolognese Elector of Saxony (Soprani and Ratti been truly a Roman painter. In 1752 Blanchet finished The Vision
traditions of discgno. 1768-69, vol. 2, p. 298). Blanchet's modern reputation rests oj Constantino (Musee du Louvre. Paris),
Clark admired Bianchi's "impres- Mercury and Argus with io is one of primarily on his portraits of visitors a copy of Giulio Romano's fresco in
sive use of landscape, the ability to Pietro Bianchi's finest paintings, a to Rome, mostly French and British, the Sala di Costantino in the Vatican,
construct the picture with, and keep a masterpiece of landscape painting in notably the exiled Stuarts in Rome. which, together with a Victory of
strong impression of, weather and the the Arcadian mode. The device of the Among his seven paintings acquired Constantine over MaxctUius (1^46; Musee
natural scene, [that] are far beyond the leafy tree extending vertically through by the Due de Saint-Aignan was the des Beaux-Arts, Lille), he had begun
powers of Locatelli, with whom the composition was a favorite of the double portrait of The Reverend Fathers more than a decade earlier as part of
Bianchi was obviously familiar" artist's, familiar in such works as Francois jacquierand Thomas Leseur (1752: project initiated in 1-3- to supply the
(Clark 1964, "Bianchi," p. 44). Pyramus and Thisbc and The Death oj Musee des Beaux Arts, Nantes), math- Gobelins tapestry manufactory with
Although appreciated by modern Adonis (private collection; Sestieri ematicians who contributed to the copies after tin Vatican rescoes. ThisI

critics principally as a history painter, 1994, vol. 2, figs. 109-10, the latter a scientific reputation of the Minim turned out to be a traumatic affair
Bianchi was in fact one of the most copy of a lost original). Bianchi's soft convent of S. and are depicted
Trinita involving the artist and the authorities
accomplished landscape painters of brushwork, pastel-like handling, and amidst telescopes, an armillary of the French Academy. In the last two
the first half of the Roman Settecento. velvety texturing of line underscore sphere, and celestial globe. Blanchet's decades of his lite Blanchet produced
He inherited Benedetto Luti'sgift for his debt to Benedetto Luti, even portraits of two rich Lyonese, the a number of history paintings, begin-
creating transparent and delicate toward the end of his relatively short brothers Claude Tolozan ning in the 17SOS with a series of
landscape backgrounds, and in the life. He remained for years in his D'Amaranthe and Louis Tolozan allegories depicting put t i as personifi-
presence of the Ponce painting one master's workshop, to the extent that de Montfort (1756; Musee des Beaux- cations of Painting, Sculpture, and the

PAINTINGS
 Arts, and in other guises. Three were
shown in the exhibition held on
March 19, 1750, in the portico of
Pantheon under the auspices of the
Congregazione dei Virtuosi
500 scudi as a dowry. He died on
September 17, 1772. [epb]
bibliography Montaiglon 1887-1912,
passim; Le Moel and Rosenberg 1969;
al Hiesinger and Percy 1980. pp. 36-37;

Pantheon. One example of the genre Michel 1995; Michel 1996. "Blanchet"

involves a strange scene in which two

women attend four little children, one
of whom is chained, within a prison 182
(1751; private collection). Other works
Louis-Gabriel Blanchet
in this vein include a set of Seasons,
each with four once owned by
putti, Giovanni Paolo Panini
the Bailli de Breteuil, ambassador to
1736
Rome of the order of Malta from 1758 Indistinctly signed and dated on the cover
to 1777; Summer can be identified with of the sketchbook: L G Blanchet [fee] it/ 1736;

a painting attributed to Boucher in the inscribed on the back of the original can-
Museum Narodowe in Warsaw. vas: /. Paolo Panini. Peintre ^'Architecture/

In the late 1750s Blanchet turned to Orig.lk J Print par L G Blanchet a Rome
religious themes; notably a Saint Paul Oil on canvas
Musee Calvet, Avignon); an 38" x 30" (96.5 x 76 cm)
(1757;
Adoration of the Magi (1757; Musee de la PROVENANCE Arthur Tooth & Sons.

Benedictine, Fecamp); and a Virgin and London; London, Sotheby's, March 28. 1979,

lot 69 by Carle van Loo); purchased by

(as
Child with the infant Saint John the Baptist
the British Rail Pension Fund Collection;
(Chaucer Fine Arts, London). In his
sale, London. Sotheby's. July 5. 1995, lot 54;
maturity Blanchet returned to the purchased by the present owner
subjects from the 1750s, such as an
exhibition Marble Hill House,
Allegory of Painting and Sculpture (1762; Twickenham, on loan 1985-95
untraced) and a series of allegorical bibliography Arisi 1986, p. 1 (as by Carle
themes depicting female personifica- van Loo); Kiene 1992. fig. 21 (as by Van
tions of Summer and Autumn (1769 and Loo); Konrad O. Bernheimer Kunsthandel,

1772; untraced). In 1765 he painted Munich. Gcmalde 1996—199^. Munich, 1996,

eight chiaroscuro copies of antique

no. n
Konrad O. Bernheimer. Fine Old Masters
sculptures for Saltram House, perhaps
an indication of an association with
Robert Adam. (Among Blanchet 's Blanchet hasshown Panini before his 182

effects following his death were found on a portfolio, brush in

easel, leaning
a number of drawings "di statue hand. The white cuffs and open collar the inscription on the reverse of the director of the French Academy at
grandi" and "di statue le piu celebri of his chemise and richly embroidered original canvas was discovered. Rome from 1724 until his death in 1737.
di Roma misurate e segnate con tutte gold and blue jacket contrast vividly During the restoration undertaken Panini was intimately involved in the

le regole di disegno"; Michel 1996,
"Blanchet," p. 485).
Blanchet was an accomplished
draftsman and produced a number
of views of Rome and the Roman
countryside. These are distinguished
by a common technique of black and
white chalks on gray or buff paper,
and closely similar dimensions (for
example, Hiesinger and Percy 1980,
no. 24). Some are inscribed
with the brilliant red cloak that flows by Viola Pemberton-Pigott in 1982, the affairs of the academy and for many
around the sitter like an antique toga. cover of the sketchbook on which the years taught perspective there (Olivier
Blanchet's usual confident command artist rests his right hand was found to Michel, "Panini et l'Academie de France"
of light, color, and texture is have been entirely repainted at an early in Michel 1996, Vivreetpeindre,
supremely evident in this portrait of stage in the painting's history. During pp. 85-93). I" 1732 he was received as a
Panini, whom he conveys as a relaxed removal of this repaint, traces of a sig- member of the Academie Royale de
and elegant gentleman-painter amidst nature and date were visible, confirm- Peinture et de Sculpture in Paris, an
the tools of his profession. In this ing that an earlier restorer had effaced honor accorded few Roman artists.
picture Blanchet has managed to tran- most of Blanchet's signature and Patronized by Cardinal Melchior de
scend the often static genre of the por- repainted the passages with a false sig- Polignac, Louis XV's ambassador in
with trait of the artist at his easel and has nature emulating that of Vanloo. Rome from 1724 to 1732 (cat. 264). the

numbers, written out in Italian, introduced a surprising vivacity Removal of the old and discolored Due de Choiseul, French ambassador
suggesting that they may have been through Panini's sober expression and varnish also revealed the brilliance to Benedict XIV (cats. 275, 276), and the
grouped in albums. They do not critical gaze, the arrangement of his of Blanchet's palette, notably in the Abbe de Canillac, charge d'affaires of
appear to have been preparations for limbs and tilt of his head, and the play crimson robe and blue coat worn by the embassy of France to the Holy See
engravings, as known.
no example is of light across his features and dress. Panini. There are several significant in 1724-25 and 1748-49, Panini
The attribution of these sheets rests on The portrait is the only known pentimenti discernible in the working of inevitably made the acquaintance of
tradition; only one of them is signed, painted likeness of the celebrated view the striped sash, and the red cloak every important French artist who
and since none is dated it is difficult to painter, apart from the self-portraits seems to cover a golden yellow cloth; traveled to Rome, and he greatly influ-

establish a chronology. These drawings that appear in several of Panini's own the hands and fingers have also been enced younger French painters such
may be compared to similar works by paintings. He depicted himself, for reworked. as Jean-Nicolas Servandoni, Charles-
Richard Wilson and Charles-Michel- example, in Preparations to Celebrate the That Panini would have been for- Louis Clerisseau, Claude-Joseph Vernet,
Ange Challe, both of whom Blanchet Birth of the Dauphin oj France in 1729 in mally portrayed by one of the leading Fragonard, and Hubert Robert, who
appears to have influenced. Piazza Navona, Rome, 1731 (cat. 264); French painters in eighteenth-century had traveled to Italy to complete their
Blanchet cannot have been finan- Interior oj the Picture Gallery of Cardinal Rome is not surprising — he was asso- artistic education (see Loire 1993).

cially successful —or he may have Silvio Valenti Conzaga, 1749 (Wadsworth ciated with the French community in These important French contacts
been a spendthrift, for he was impris- Atheneum, Hartford, CT; Arisi 1986, the city from the outset of his career. In notwithstanding, the nature of
oned on October 11, 1752, for debt. He- p. 430), and in several versions of his 1718, for example, he chose Reynaud Panini's relations, personal and pro-
appears to have recovered thereafter, interiors of an imaginary picture Levieux, an orefevre from Languedoc, as fessional, with Blanchet are still not
and woes were certainly
his financial gallery (cat. 275). The painting was tra- the godfather of his eldest son, Rinaldo explained; nor are the circumstances
eased on September 27, 1755, when he ditionally attributed to Carle Vanloo Giuseppe; in 1724 he married as his of the commissioning of the present
married Annunziata Dies, the daugh- and recorded as such in much of the second wife, Catherine Gosset, daugh- portrait, which is presumably a por-
ter of a Venetian goldsmith living in recent literature Oil Panini; however, ter of a French banker in Rome and the trait of honor or an official commis-

the I'ia/.za di Spagna, and received in 1979, during relining of the picture, sister-in-law of Nicolas Vleughels, sion from a French source. [EPB]

28 PAINTINGS
 1

184

183 184 Domenico Corvi, Ozias Humphry, hope of leading a successful invasion
Laurent Pecheux, Girolamo Pesci, of Britain and remained in seclusion
Louis-Gabriel Blanchet Louis-Gabriel Blanchet
Francesco Trevisani, and the medalists in the Palazzo Muti in Piazza dei Ss.
Prince Henry Benedict Stuart, Prince Charles Edward Stuart Thomas Pingo and Ottone and Apostoli. which the pope had placed
Gioacchino Hamerani, although the at his disposal. James and Clementina
Later Cardinal York 1739
Signed and dated: L G Blanchet/ fecit 1739
artists most closely identified with the were married first by proxy, then by
1739 Stuart court were Antonio David, the bishop of Montefiascone (espe-
Oil on canvas
Oil on canvas Domenico Dupra, and Louis-Gabriel cially appointed for the marriage by
38/4" x 29X4" (98.4 x 75.6 cm)
38K" x 28X" (97.8x7? cm) Blanchet. Prince James Francis Clement XI) on the night of
provenance acquired in Rome by
provenance acquired in Rome by Edward Stuart, the Old Pretender, the September 1. 1719, in a temporary
William Hay, Edington, Scotland; by
William Hay, Edington, Scotland; by
descent to Lt.-Col. G. H. Hay, Duns Castle, only son of King James II. was secretly chapel erected in one of the apartments
descent to Lt.-Col. G. H. Hay, DSO, Duns
Berwickshire: his sale, London, Christie's, conveyed to France with his mother. in the prince's residence. A record of
Castle, Berwickshire: his sale, London,
March 25, 1966. lot 83, acquired by Her Mary of Modena during the revolu- the marriageceremony was commis-
Christie's. March 25. 1966, lot 8;: acquired
Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in conjunction tion of 1688. After his father's death in sioned from Agostino Masucci and is
by the late Lord Woolton and ceded by him
with the Holyrood Amenity Trust
to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II for the 1701, he was recognized as James III, de today in the Scottish National Portrait
Holyrood Amenity Trust exhibitions Edinburgh 1883, cat. no. 3;
jure king of England, by Louis XIV and Gallery. Edinburgh (Rudolph 198?,
London 1889, cat. no. 160; Edinburgh.
exhibitions Edinburgh. Board of by his Jacobite supporters. pl-459)-
Scottish National Portrait Gallery. 1949-50:
Manufactures. Loan Exhibition of Works of After failing in his attempts to Prince CharlesEdward Stuart
Edinburgh 1950, cat. no. 149c; London 1982.
Old Musters & Scottish National Portraits. 1883;
Kings, cat. no. 43 regain the throne, Prince James took (1720-1788) was born on the evening
no. 4; London, The New Gallery. Exhibition
bibliography Nicholas. Donald. The final refuge in Italy at the invitation of of December 31, no, and immedi-
of the Royal House of Stuart. 1889, no. 176:
Edinburgh, Seven Charlotte Square. An Portraits oj Bonnie Prince Charlie. Maidstone. Pope Clement XI. On his arrival in ately entrusted to his governess. Lady
_ _
Exhibition of Rare Scottish Antiquities. 1950,
England: Clout & Baker Ltd., 1973. Rome in the early summer ol i i . the Misset: within hours he was baptized
no. i49d; London 1982. Kings, cat. no. 43 pp. 16-17; Kcrslakc 1977, vol. 1, p. 43, and exiled prince was feted and received by the bishop ol Montefiascone in his
vol. 2, pi. 112
bibliography Kcrslakc 1977, vol. 1, p. 43, with royal honors. By the time he mother's chapel in the Palazzo Muti.
Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth
and vol. 2, pi. 930
II
approached thirty, his followers were A painting ol this event bv Mastu 1

Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II desperate (or him to marry and con- and Pier Leone Ghezzi (Scottish
The Jacobite court in exile in Rome tinue the Jacobite line, so in 1-11; he National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh;
employed a variety of artists to supply married a seventeen-year-old Polish Kcrslakc 19--. vol. 1, p. 1 so. and vol. 2.

portraits of members, both

its for pro- princess, Maria ( lemenlina Sobieska, pi. 436) was painted tor the Old
paganda purposes and as gifts for sup- granddaughter oi the King oi Poland. Pretender a number of years after the
porters oi the Stuart cause at home The birth of his two sons. Charles and event, using portrait engravings for
and abroad. Their number included Henry, encouraged his supporters, but likenesses ol the English, Scottish, and
the painters Pompeo Batoni. he himself had long since given up lush nobility present at the ceremony.

PAINTINGS 329
 —

Prince Charles ("Bonnie Prince among the most beautiful and engaging jAN FRANS VAN BLOEMEN, ered him the principal successor to
Charlie," the Young Pretender), consid- images of the brothers ever painted. called ORIZZONTE Dughet and the landscapists of the
ered to be prince of Wales by the In the portrait of Prince Charles, for ANTWERP 1662-1749 ROME previous century. In Pascoli's words,
Jacobites, was born and brought up in example, one writer has seen "an early "Per lo cui saporito, morbido e armo-
Rome and trained for a military career. indication of the elegant, confident Born into a Catholic family of painters nioso pennello l'eta nostra non invidia
He made several efforts to regain the young man who was to charm his way and draftsmen in Antwerp, Jan Frans alia passata i Gelle, i Grimaldi, i

throne for his father, but in April 1746 beyond history into legend" (Alan van Bloemen was baptized on May 2, 1 Dughet, e Rosa" (quoted
i in Busiri
his army was routed at Culloden by Bold, Bonnie Prince Charlie [London: 1662, in the cathedral of Notre Dame. Vici 1974, p. 230).
the government forces under the Duke Pitkin Pictorials Ltd., 1973], p. 1, repro- His first teacher was his brother Pieter Although Van Bloemen's works
of Cumberland. After a period of hiding duced on the cover). van Bloemen, called "Lo Stendardo," from his earliest years in Rome are
in the western Highlands, Charles In November 1737 Blanchet had a prolific painter of animals, land- dominated by the influence of
escaped to France and remained in received from Prince James the com- scapes, and views of ruins who Dughet, he nonetheless gradually
exile for the rest of his life. In 1748 he mission for a pair of portraits of the became a master in the Antwerp assumed his own distinctive personal-
was banished from France and, after, princes for their great aunt the Guild of St. Luke in 1673 and traveled ity. Already by the end of the seven-
various travels, settled again in Rome Duchess of Parma, who was delighted the following year to Rome. Jan Frans teenth century his paintings began to
in 1766. In 1772 Charles married with them. These full-lengths were next studied between 1681 and 1684 anticipate the vedute of the Settecento.
Princess Louise Stolberg-Gedern, by completed in 1738 and are today in with another Antwerp painter, Anton By the second decade of the eigh-
whom he had no children. His later the National Portrait Gallery (Kerslake Goubau, a painter of market scenes teenth century he was regarded as the
life was marked by depression and 1977, vol. 1, pp. 43, 326). The following and hambocciati situated in Roman or foremost landscapist in Italy, and his
alcoholism, and although he styled year Blanchet painted the present pair Mediterranean settings, who had consciously idealized landscapes were
himself Charles III, all hope of the atthe Palace of Holyroodhouse to himself lived in Rome from c. 1644 avidly sought by both the local aris-
restoration of the house of Stuart complement portraits of their father until 1650. tocracy and visiting Grand Tourists. In

was gone. By his mistress Clementina and mother (National Portrait Gallery, Van Bloemen traveled to Paris in the 1730s Van Bloemen began to adapt
Walkinshaw, he had in 1753 an illegiti- London; Kerslake 1977, vol. 2, pis. 442, 1684-85 and then to Lyon, where he his delicate and sensitive manner deci-
mate daughter, Charlotte, whom he 511) dressed in red ermine-lined rejoined his brother Pieter, and the sively toward a more overtly noble and
created Duchess of Albany. cloaks. The portraits of the prince and pair traveled to Italy, stopping briefly idealized vision of landscape painting,
Henry Benedict Stuart
Prince his brother were painted for Captain in Turin and then going on in 1686-87 echoing the classical serenity of

(1725-1807) was the younger son of William Hay, a Scot employ of

in the to Rome. Both brothers were Poussin's compositions and even bor-
Prince James and Maria Clementina the Jacobite court in Rome and the members of the Schildersbent, the rowing elements directly from the
Sobieska. At an early age he took orders Pretender's groom of the bedchamber. clique of Dutch and Flemish artists French painter, as in Landscape with the

in the Roman Catholic Church and There is from James Edgar,

a note active in Rome; Jan Frans was given Belvedere of the Vatican (Galleria

pursued a successful ecclesiastical James Francis Edward Stuart's secre- the bent name, or nickname, Pallavicini-Rospigliosi, Rome) and
career, becoming bishop of Ostia, tary, to Hay, who on June 25, 1740, was Orizzonte (Italian for "horizon"), in Landscape with a Temple (Villa d'Este,
Velletro and Frascati in 1745, archbishop sent from Rome to Scotland, stating recognition of his facility for produc- Tivoli). Van Bloemen's efforts to ideal-
of Corinth in 1759, and bishop of that the portrait of the Pretender was ing panoramic landscapes. The Van ize the actual buildings and sites of his
Tusculum in 1761. He was created car- not quite ready. It was, however, sent Bloemen brothers lived in via landscapes and to ennoble them with
dinal in 1747 by Pope Benedict XIV. His off in April 1741, and Blanchet received Margutta, in the area habituated by heroic figures have been linked by
adherence to Catholicism lessened still 15 zecchini in payment (Kerslake 1977, from the north of Europe and
artists modern critics to the high artistic goals

further the chance to produce a male vol. 1, p. 179. citing extracts from the occupied the studio that had previ- implied by Bellori's Idea, in which the
Stuart heir and alienated many of his Stuart papers, Royal Archives, ously belonged to Claude Lorrain. Jan artist aspires not merely to emulate
English and Scottish supporters. In his Windsor). Of the various references Frans married Matthia Rosa Barosini, nature, but to surpass it.

youth he had been called "duke of York" to Blanchet in the Stuart papers at a native of Zagarolo, in Rome in 1693, Van Bloemen has been called "the
by the Jacobites, and from this title he Windsor, none appears to pertain and the Dutch artist Gaspar van Canaletto of the idea of the Roman
became known as Cardinal York. After to either of these portraits. Wittel (Gaspare Vanvittelli) was god- campagna," (Clark 1970, p. 70) and his

the death of his brother Charles in 1788, Prince Charles is shown half- father to the couple's first child, bap- lush and expansive landscapes came
Prince Henry was considered by the length, in breastplate and paulron, tized in 1694. Apart from an to represent the ideal of nature in
Jacobites to be the next claimant to the an ermine cape around him, standing eight-month journey to Naples, Sicily, Rome in the eighteenth century. He
He styled himself Henry IX, but
throne. with his right hand resting on a and Malta, he lived in Rome for the enjoyed patronage from the leading
made no claim to the throne, except to helmet and his left on the hilt of remainder of his life and died there on Roman aristocratic families — the 1783
strike a few medallions that bore this his sword, wearing the orders of the June 13,1749- catalogue of the Galleria Colonna lists

title. He amassed a large fortune but Garter and the Thistle. His brother Van Bloemen loved the beauty of no fewer than eighty of his works
was financially ruined during the is shown three-quarter length, in a the countryside of Rome, and ideal- but he also found favor with the more
Napoleonic occupation of Italy in 1799; plum-colored coat with gold embroi- ized evocations of the Roman sophisticated ecclesiastical collectors
King George III took pity on him and dery and red cloak, standing with his Campagna became the principal such as Cardinals Colonna, Ottoboni,
awarded him an annual pension of left arm resting on a helmet, and He made
subject of his paintings. and Imperiali, and his smaller can-

£4,000. When he died in 1807, the holding gloves in his left hand, numerous passeggiate to draw the vases were greatly admired by con-
male line of the house of Stuart wearing the ribbon and star of the landscape around the Alban Hills and noisseurs and amalori, such as Piero
became extinct. Garter and the badge of the Thistle. incorporated into his works evocative Ranieri, Fabio Rosa, and Giambattista
Many portraits of the Young The young princes must have given motifs from the towns and small vil- Costantini. By the middle of the 1730s
Pretender and his brother Henry were fresh sittings, for apart from differ- lages there, datingfrom the Middle his works had entered collections
painted throughout their lifetimes. Not ences of pose and appearance (they Ages and often in ruins. Van Bloemen throughout Italy and abroad, and he

all were painted from life; many were appear both slightly older and more was also deeply inspired by the classi- had become a favorite with visiting

cither copies, based on engravings, or mature), the princes do not wear the cizing landscapes of the French Grand Tourists, particularly the
imaginary portraits recognizable only orders of the Garter and the Thistle painter Gaspard Dughet; for Lione wealthy British aristocracy.
from the princes' dress, having no in the earlier full-lengths. one of Van Bloemen's con-
Pascoli, Although Van Bloemen was elected
The practice of
physical likeness. Nearly a decade later Blanchet temporary biographers, the combina- to membership in the Congregazione
making copies was widespread and painted a grand full-length of Cardinal and Dughet's
tion of nature dei Virtuosi al Pantheon in 1714, his

stemmed from the Stuarts themselves. York in his robes, signed and dated landscapes was sufficient to explain artistic career was marred by a pro-
If a commissioned portrait was to their 1748 (The Darnaway Castle Collection; his art. Gaspard's transcriptions of the longed confrontation with the
liking, they would often have replicas Kerslake 1977, vol. 1, p. 327, and vol. 2, Roman Campagna continued to enjoy Accademia di S. Luca. Pascoli wrote
and miniatures made as gifts for loyal pi. 938). [EPB] tremendous popularity in the eigh- that because of his reputation and
supporters. The I lolyroodhouse por- teenth century, and it is clear that Van success as a painter, he incurred the
traits are genuine likenesses and Bloemen's contemporaries consid- envy of the members of the

330 PAINTINGS
Accademia, who considered land- easy to overlook his efforts of nearly creation. The appearance of vedute range widened, and his broad touch
scape an inferior genre of painting. fifty years to perfect this formula. Van made on the spot give some idea of replaced by a sparkling pointillism.
They evidently defeated attempts to Bloemen's artistic formation can be the expansion of his repertory during Within Van Bloemen's own develop-
admit the Flemish painter during grouped into four distinct periods, these years. The landscapes of Dughet ment this landscape anticipates works
Carlo Maratti's tenure as Principe of beginning with his training in his never lay much below the surface of of the 1720s and 1730s in its calmer
theAccademia between 1701 and 1713; Antwerp under Anton
native Van Bloemen's artistic consciousness, rhythms, increased luminosity (the
on September 30, 1725, under Goubau, a painter of Italianate land- however, and served as the link to the delicate tinted light in the background
Giuseppe Chiari's presidency, Van scapes who strove to evoke the atmos- other two great seventeenth-century is particularly beautiful), and lucid
Bloemen was officially approved as phere of Rome rather than render French paysagistes, Claude Lorrain and and rational structure which antici-

accademico di merito, but inexplicably exact topographical views. In his early Nicholas Poussin. It is from the ideal- pates the grand, classical landscapes
his name does not appear subse- years Van Bloemen was also attentive ized landscapes of Poussin's later of the late 1730s and 1740s in the style
quently in the academy's records. The to the tradition of pseudo-Italianate years, such as the Funeral of Phocion of Poussin. The increasing suppleness
precise reasons for this omission are landscape painting expressed, for of Plymouth, Oakly Park, Ludlow)
(Earl and naturalism of the figures suggest
not known, and was not until May
it 6. example, in the work of Cornelis thatVan Bloemen developed his final, Van Bloemen's progress toward mas-
1742, that Van Bloemen appears to Huysmans and Adriaan van der Cabel. grand style of landscape painting, a tering the requirements of academic
have become a member of the The second period in Van maniera magnified that resulted in his figure painting.
Accademia di S. Luca. [epb] Bloemen's development began with most memorable works, the grand The complexity of this canvas, its

BIBLIOGRAPHY Pio [1724] 1977, pp. 93, 279,

his arrival in Rome in the late 1680s classical landscapes of the second half size (tela d'lmpcralore), provenance, and
337—38, 352; Clark, 1961, "Figures"; Busiri and his close attention to the works of of the 1730s and 1740s in the Galleria richly gilded English frame with clas-
Vici 1968; Zwoilo 1973. pp. 27-38; Busiri Crescenzio Onofri, Jacob de Heusch, Pallavicini-Rospigliosi and other sicizing ornament indicate that it was
Vici 1974;Coekelberghs 1976, pp. 19-74; and, above all, Gaspard Dughet, who Roman collections, many of which one of the many landscapes by
Salerno, Luigi. ed. Dittori di paesaggio a Roma,
had died there a little more than are signed and dated. (For an excellent Orizzonte bought by the cavalieri
1600-1760. Rome: Ugo Bozzi, 1978, vol. 3,
decade before, in 1675. Van Bloemen discussion of Van Bloemen's develop- inglesi in Settecento Rome, [epb]
pp. 848-55: Whitfield 1978, cat. nos. 8-11;
Rangoni 1990. "Bloemen" inherited Gaspard's enthusiasm for ment as a landscape painter, see
the landscape of the Roman Coekelberghs 1976, pp. 34-67.)
Campagna, and he returned time and Landscape with an Abbey and a Ruined 186
again to the sites around Tivoli, the Doric Temple reveals Van Bloemen's
Jan Frans van Bloemen,
185 Alban hills, and the environs of Rome inspiration from Dughet in its selec-
that had been made popular by the tion of motifs taken from the scenery called Orizzonte
jan Frans van Bloemen,
French painter (and by Claude Lorrain around Rome (the abbey has not been
called Orizzonte
A Panoramic View of Rome
before him). In Rome, Van Bloemen identified, but was presumably was
was immediately exposed to the drawn from life), the overall construc- Observed from Monte Mario
Landscape with an Abbey and
variety of Dughet's landscapes and tion of the landscape by means of a c. 1730-35
a Ruined Doric Temple enjoyed ample opportunity to study series of intersecting diagonals, the Oil on canvas
1715-20 his work at first hand. He made faith- device of the three trees extending
c. 67//' x 97'A" (172 x 247 cm)
Oil on canvas ful copies after Dughet in his early almost to the height of the composi- provenance acquired on the London art
years in Rome, and his integration of tion at the and the seated figure in
left, market the 1940s by the present owner s
n'/" x 52" (85.7 x 132.1 cm) 111

provenanch England, private collection

the style of these works into his own antique dress observed three-quarters father

exhibition Atlanta. Oglethorpe manner was so thorough that many of from the rear, which make an appear- Mrs. Juliet M. E. Hambro
University Museum. The Grand Tour: his paintings passed under Dughet's ance in Orizzonte's compositions
Landscape and Vedula Paintings. Venice and name, and vice versa. (In the 1783 cata- before the end of the seventeenth
Rome in the iHth century. 1997, cat. no. 29 logue of the Galleria Colonna two century and thereafter. The French In his life of Van Bloemen. Nicola Pio
Walpole Gallery, London large tempera paintings by Dughet are master's approach to landscape paint- described the painter's landscapes in
even cited as "ritoccati da Orizonte"; ing, however, has been modified here terms that describe the great portion
see Coekelberghs 1976, p. 46). by Van Bloemen — his striking natu- of his Ceuvre: "Beautif ul pictures done
The mature paintings of Jan Frans van In the third phase of his career, ralism muted in favor ol a more care- in such beautiful sites, with verdant
Bloemen represent such a very grand roughly 1710-30, according to Denis fully and artificially constructed foliage, limpid silver water, and with
and heroic type of pastoral landscape, Coekelberghs, Van Bloemen began to landscape, his shifting play of light an agreeableness of color; accompa-
a world of ruins, waterfalls, pine trees, develop his own pictorial idiom and and shade replaced with more even nied by small figures of the utmost
and distant towers so satisfying in to requite his debt to Dughet; his land- nuances ol tone and atmosphere, his gracefulness, with rural dwellings and
conception and articulation, that it is scapes now are very much his own palette lightened and his chromatic urns: all so well assembled, that his

PAINTINGS ??1
pictures were welcomed into all the 187 Conca and Pompeo Baton The col- i. ments to the respective artists
galleries of Italy" (Pio [1724] 1977, p. 93). laborators normally supplied only the confirm the fact that, although con-
Jan Frans van Bloemen,
Interestingly, Orizzonte's gradual largest, most prominent characters in temporary landscapists were steadily
development from a careful imitator called Orizzonte, and the foreground of his compositions successful economically, the set and
of Gaspard Dughet to the creator of (often with allusions to Raphael, standard prices for landscapes were
Placido Costanzi
some of the grandest and most ideal- Domenichino, and Guido Reni); inevitably lower than those for reli-

ized depictions of the Campagna ever The Flight into Egypt Van Bloemen himself painted the less gious and other subject pictures. Only
painted did not include many topo- c. 1735-40
important staffage in the second and large landscape machines with elegant
graphical views recorded on the spot. Oil on canvas third planes. Even in the late 1730s and figurine, for which there was only a
Although he continuously made pen 39" x 53/2" (99 x 135.9 cm) 1740s Van Bloemen's collaboration with limited market, rose toward the grand
and ink drawings of the environs of provenance acquired in Rome by Henry other painters is not nearly so extensive prices. The documents of payment
Rome in the open air as part of his Blundell, for Ince Blundell Hall, Lancashire, as is commonly believed. He was show that Batoni and Masucci were
working method, most of the views he England; thence by descent to Col. Sir himself an accomplished figure painter, each paid 400 scudi, Panini 300 scudi,
painted were imaginary and created in Joseph Weld, who sold Ince in i960, but described in contemporary documents and Van Bloemen and Costanzi
the studio. kept the art collections, transferring the as "Monsu Orizonte celebre di paesi e (whose canvases set into the walls are
paintings to Lulworth Castle, Dorset
A Panoramic View of Rome Observed figurine," and he quickly learned to the smallest in the entire program)
exhibitions Liverpool i960, cat. no. 42;
jrom Monte Mario, one of the most imitate the styles of his collaborators, 80 scudi each for their respective
Bournemouth. England, Russell-Cotes Art
admired prospects of Rome in the with the result that many of his land- paintings (Clark and Bowron 1985,
Gallery and Museum. Pointings from the
eighteenth century, is thus distin- scapes on the art market bearing attri- pp. 53. 228).
Lulworth Castle Gallery. 1967, cat. no. 42
guished as one of Van Bloemen's rare
bibliography Blundell
butions to the more prestigious The expansive, panoramic land-
1803, p. 2?i.
vedutc rcali. This view of the city lining no. LXVI; Neale, John Preston. Views of the contemporary history painters are scapes at Lulworth Castle with their
the banks of the Tiber with the Alban Seats of Noblemen and Gentlemen in England, entirely by his own hand. large, carefully drawn figures repre-
Hills in the distance was familiar to Wales, Scotland, and Ireland. London, 1823, The artist Van Bloemen collaborated sentone of the most successful collab-
many contemporary visitors as they vol. 6, n. p., q.v. "Ince, Lancashire; The Seat with most frequently and successfully orations between the two artists in the
of Charles Blundell, Esq.," Gronau, H. "Ince
followed via Trionfale on to the eastern was the delicate, intelligent, and noble 1730s. (In the Ince Blundell catalogue
Blundell Hall Catalogue." Ince Blundell Hall
slopes of Monte Mario, the ancient painter Placido Costanzi. The two by H. Gronau cited above, the follow-
(typescript handlist), 1948; Busiri Vici 1974,
clivus Cinnoe. Sketched boldly with Van appear to have begun working together ing anecdote is recorded: "Orizzonti,
p. 212 (as "Mr. Blindell Weld's")
Bloemen's loose, impressionistic as early as 1725-30, although the earli- on seeing the figures, was so much
Private collection, England
brushwork number of ancient and
are a est signed and dated painting with pleased with them, that he begged
modern monuments, from the Ponte indisputable contributions to the to have the pictures to retouch, and
Milvio, on the left, to S. Giovanni dei 188 staffageby Costanzi appears to be always declared these to be two of the
Fiorentini and the Castel S. Angelo on from 1737, followed by others from best he ever painted.") Van Bloemen's
the right. On the right-hand side of Jan Frans van Bloemen, 1741, 1742, and 1744 (Busiri Vici 1974, landscapes are carefully constructed
Van Bloemen's composition is the called Orizzonte, and pp. 134-48, nos. 315, 327, 348). The to circumscribe and accent the fore-
Villa Madama, the suburban villa working relationship of the two ground figures, and the towering
Placido Costanzi
designed by Raphael for Cardinal painters was well known in contem- mountains and limpid vistas closing
Giuliano de' Medici (Pope Clement VII). The Rest on the Flight into porary Rome, and Pier Leone Ghezzi the horizons of each suggest why the
The painting is a variant of a canvas acknowledged their collaboration in artist was known to his contempo-
Egypt
formerly in the collection of a pen-and-ink caricature of Costanzi raries as "Orizzonte." The colors are
Delegazione Montedison, Rome c. 1735-40 dated February 29, 1740, in which he strong and rich, the light radiant, and
(Busiri Vici 1974, no. 211, figs. 10, 33, 34, Oil on canvas is shown standing before an easel, the brushwork sparkling. The
190). The between the two
differences 39" x 53/2" (99 x 135.9 cm) brushes and palette in hand, contem- arrangements between Van Bloemen
versions of the view occur largely in provenance as above plating a wooded landscape without and Placido were probably informal,
the foreground figures and the herd of exhibitions Liverpool i960, cat. no. 43; figures (Busiri Vici 1974, fig. 161). And and there is no evidence that Placido

sheep at the lower right. Busiri Vici Bournemouth. England. Russell-Cotes Art at the end of the century, Luigi Lanzi even supplied drawings in advance of
Gallery and Museum. Paintings Jrom the
dated the Montedison painting to noted that "Placido Costanzi is often his execution of the figures. If he did,
Lulworth Castle Gallery. 1967, cat. no. 44
around 1735; Coekelberghs (1976, mentioned with approbation in the Van Bloemen may have kept them for
bibliography Blundell 1803, p. 231, no.
p. 48) preferred a broader date in the collections of Rome, for the elegant use in painting replicas with figures
LXVII; Neale, John Preston. Views of the
1730s. One of Van Bloemen's versions figures he inserted in the landscapes entirely by his own hand (Busiri Vici
Seats of Noblemen and Gentlemen in England,
must have been known to Richard Wales, Scotland, and Ireland. London, 1823,
of Orizzonte" (Lanzi [1809] 1847, 1974, no. 246, with figures by Van
Wilson, who painted a similar view vol. 6, n. p., q.v. "Ince, Lancashire: The Seat vol. 1, p. 499). Bloemen). The Lulworth paintings are
for William Legge, 2nd Earl of of Charles Blundell. Esq"; Gronau, H. "Ince The most important collaborative not signed but, as Coekelberghs (1976,

Dartmouth, in 1753, now in the Yale Blundell Hall Catalogue." Ince Blundell Hall commission shared by the two p. 34) observed, the presence of
(typescript handlist), 1948; Busiri Vici 1974,
Center for British Art, New Haven. painters. Landscape with Christ and the flowers in the landscapes of Van
p. 212 (as "Mr. Blindell Weld's")
Aside from following Van Bloemen's Woman of Cana and Landscape with the Bloemen (whose name means
Private collection. England
arrangement of framing trees, Wilson Good Samaritan, was installed in the "flowers" in Flemish) maybe inter-
has even repeated such small details as right-hand saletta of the Coffee House, preted as a kind of floral signature.
the gesturing figure at the left of the Lione Pascoli noted in his biography created for Pope Benedict XIV in 1742 Pascoli noted the enthusiasm for
foreground in the Montedison painting of Van Bloemen that Carlo Maratti in the gardens of the Palazzo del Van Bloemen's landscapes on the part
and the triangular highlight on the villa "did the figures" in a pair of important Quirinale (Busiri Vici 1974, nos. 345-46, of the cavalieri inglesi in Rome, and
(London, Tate Gallery, Richard Wilson landscapes for Marchese Niccolo figs. 166-67). The Palazzo del indeed the present pair was acquired
[Tate Gallery, London, 1982], p. 162). Maria Pallavicini, and that Giuseppe Quirinale was the preferred residence by one of the great English collectors

[epb] Bartolomeo Chiari, Benedetto Luti, of the pope, and from the beginning of the late eighteenth century, Henry
and Luigi Garzi also supplied figures of his pontificate he embellished the Blundell. The scion of a distinguished

tor other important commissions. In palace and made

more comfortable.
it Roman Catholic Lancashire family,
spite of the popular conception that Among other improvements, he com- Blundell was thirty-six when his

Van Bloemen commonly relied upon missioned Ferdinando Fuga to con- father. Robert (whom he succeeded in

local history painters for the figures in struct a palazzino di ritiro in the gardens 1773), made over to him the family
his landscapes, only the paintings of to serve as a place both of repose and seat, Ince Blundell Hall, near
his last decades, his most classicizing reception. The interior pictorial deco- Liverpool. English penal law against
and ambitious, luxurious and presti- ration involving Batoni, Masucci, Roman Catholics in force at the time
gious productions, reveal the evidence Panini, Costanzi, and Van Bloemen prevented Blundell from holding
of such professori ben noti as Sebastiano was executed in 1742-43, and the pay- public office, and the honorary posts

I'AINTTNt.S
 —

i87

obtained by gentlemen of similar classical sculpture and antiquities Bologna. Meucci cultivated Bottani's sustained from the very first by fault-

station were unavailable to him, so such as William Weddell of Newby. taste for correct drawing by directing less handling of the nude and of
after the death of his wife in 1767 he Blundell's enthusiasm for pictures him to study Andrea del Sarto's fres- drapery (Perina 1961). A good example
devoted his energies and his consider- matched his passion for antique coes in the cloister of the of this practice is a surviving sketch-

able fortune to collecting. sculpture, and the 1803 catalogue of SS. Annunziata. So it was natural that book of academic studies (Rome,
Blundell began to collect paintings his collection, An Account of the Statues, theyoung artist, born in Cremona on Palazzo Venezia, ms. 4: Perina Tellini
in England sometime between 1763 Busts, Bass-Relieves, Cinerary Urns, and December 27, 1717, into a family who 19^1, p. 406).

and and even before his visit to

1767, other Ancient Marbles, and Paintings, at may have come from Pontremoli, There followed numerous altar-

Italycommissioned four large land- Ince. Collected by H. B„ lists 197 paint- should have headed in the direction pieces for various centers in the Papal
scapes of the Roman Campagna from ings and drawings. The collection he of Agostino Masucci's studio, which States, where there was a movement
Richard Wilson for a room at Ince. assembled at Ince reflected the pre- at that time enjoyed a good reputation to diffuse the cult of the early martyrs
The inspiration to collect on a grander vailing taste of the period for the for continuing the tradition of the through the dissemination of relics
scale seems to have come from Italian Baroque and for Dutch seven- Carracci and Maratti (Marrini 1765-66, and the renovation of altars and other
Charles Townley, a Lancashire neigh- teenth-century landscapes and genre vol. 2, p. 3). manifestations of their cult. The best
bor and fellow Roman Catholic, who Antonio
scenes. In Italy he patronized Bottani's career progressed through example is the tightly conceived altar-
in 1772 returned from seven years' Canova and acquired numerous the usual stages: works for Roman piece of Orte, made sometime before
residence in Rome with an important works by contemporary painters churches and the Papal States as well 1752, in which the statuesque figures
group of classical sculptures and including Pompeo Batoni, Giuseppe as for the rest of Italyand Europe, of eight idealized early Christian saints
antiquities that was to become one of Cades. Antonio Cavallucci, Corrado commissions from princely families, appear below a noble Assumption oj the

the founding collections of the British Giaquinto, Gavin Hamilton, Anton and finally, in 1758, membership in the Virgin that recalls Maratti (Susinno
Museum. Blundell made his Grand Raphael Mengs, and Pietro di Pietri. Accademia di S. Luca, whose Principe, 1969-70, pp. 63-72). Maratti was also
Tour in 1777 and visited Rome in Like many of his English compatriots, or head, was then the painter Placido the source for another painting of the
March and April, when he was accom- he had a great passion for landscape Costanzi. Bottani's reception piece same subject with Saints Gregory and
panied by Townley and taken in hand painting, and his collection contained was the modello for an altarpiece of Silvia, dating around 1744, in
by one of the leading ciceroni to the vis- dozens of landscape and topographi- Saint loachhn and Saint Anne with the S. Gregorio di Sassola. near Tivoli
iting Grand Tourists. Thomas Jenkins. cal paintings by Dutch, English. Virgin Mary as a Child, installed that (Susinno 1969-70, pp. 72-74).
Largely under Jenkins's guidance, artists. And like
French, and Italian same year in S. Andrea delle Fratte in Bottani's workshop production of
Blundell bought antiquities from the many Grand Tourists, he avidly Rome (Faldi 1977, p. 507). In April 1764 altarpieces was one of the most con-
Villa Mattei and the Villa d'Este as well sought topographical views of the Bottani was made director pro tempore spicuous and financially rewarding
as from the collections of other sights he had visited on his Italian of the Capitoline Scuola del Nudo. At aspects of his work. In these years
Roman families. He made subsequent sojourns, in particular Rome, Venice. the conclusion of this canonic career many were executed for locales in
trips to Rome in 1782-83, 1786, and Naples, and their environs. In addition course, which made him one of the west Tuscany, Pontremoli, Livorno.
1790, and during all of these visits he to the present pair, he purchased in most accredited artists in Rome in the and Pescia. Because of his own
bought sculptures and paintings from Rome five landscapes by Carlo 1760s, he won appointment as director family's origins in Pontremoli he
the English dealers —Jenkins, Gavin Labruzzi. (For a resume of Blundell's of the recently reformed academy of maintained contact with the local
Hamilton, James Byres, and Father Grand Tour and collecting activities, Mantua. In the Empress Maria aristocracy as we know from a letter
John Thorpe — and from Italian see Bowron 1991, pp. 7-8, 12; Theresa's decree, dated Vienna May 29. of July 2, 175~, in the archives of the
dealers, antiquarians, and sculptors Ingamells 1997, pp. 101-2, each with 1769. confirming his nomination, he Dosi-Delfini family, in which the
such as Albacini, Volpato, and further references.) [epb] was called "Direttore e Professore painter asks the Marchese Antonio
Antonio d'Este. Henry Blundell took Primario," and given a salary of 1200 Dosi not to hire outside artists for a
to collecting with an enthusiasm bor- florins (Perina 1961, p. 58, n. 13). painting of The Death of Saint Francis in
dering on obsession, and at the time GIUSEPPE BOTTANI In the earliest of Bottani's known the local church of S. Nicolo. The
of his death in 1810 there were over paintings. The Rest on the Flight
CREMONA 1717-1784 MANTUA to Egypt painter particularly appeals to the
500 pieces of ancient sculpture at (1745) for the church of the Missionea marchese's ability to distinguish "the
Ince. The collection was one of the When Giuseppe Bottani went to Montecitorio in Rome (Susinno 1971, Roman manner from other incorrect
two largest private collections of Rome in 173s he had already had some pp. 10—15), Bottani put to good use his and untrue ones" (Bertocchi and Dosi-
ancient marbles ever formed in Great training in Florence with Antonio studies of the antique. Raphael, and Delfini i9 7 o, pp. is-16). Other works
Britain —Townley 's was the other Puglieschi and at the studio of the Carracci Farnese Gallery, adhering include an altarpiece for the cathedral
and was comparable in importance Vincenzo Meucci, who was in turn to a clearly anti-Rococo style of com- which
as well as other paintings in
and quality to those created in the the pupil of one of Guido Reni's stu- position, solidly anchored in the tradi- Bottaniwas assisted by his brother
1770s by other British collectors of the dents, Gian Gioseffo del Sole from tions ol the sixteenth century and Giovanni (Rvbko iqqo. "Bottani":

PAINTINGS 333
 Susinno 1969-70, pp. 75-104; Majesty the Queen [London; Phaidon,
Hiesinger and Percy 1980, p. 63, 1964], nos. 362-63, figs. 112-13) and
no. 50). For Livorno, Giuseppe Bottani two subjects taken from the Odyssey
painted at least four altarpieces (Athena Pointing Out Ithaca to Ulysses

(Chracas. Diario Ordinario di Roma, and Athena Transforming Ulysses into a

March 5, 1757, no. 6186; Tellini Perina Beggar; Mantova nel Settecento 1983,
1973. fig. 2; Susinno 1969-70, pp. 168-69, nos. 184-85). Lastly, the
pp. 96-98) including an Immaculate lively representation of the great
Conception for the cathedral which lit- country fair organized by Prince
erally copies a painting in the Palazzo Camillo Rospigliosi on his estate at

S. Bernardino in Tivoli (Bernardini M. Maccarese (1755; Museo di Roma),

1997. PP- 70-73, no. 12). In 1769 he sent shows Bottani as a skillful animal
to Pescia a Birtli of the Virgin for the painter (Susinno 1976). The painting
Forti Chapel in the cathedral, which also contains anatomically perfect
had been completely renovated in the and fashionably dressed figures.
Roman manner with architecture by While keeping his own work dis-
Ferdinando Fuga and sculpture by tinct, Giuseppe Bottani could count

Filippo della Valle (Ansaldi 1816, p. 12). on the collaboration of his brother
Orazio Marrini, Bottani's first biog- Giovanni, with whom he shared his
rapher, also records works destined accommodation on the selciata di
for Roman Catholic churches in S. Sebastianello during his last years
Ireland and Poland. Long before he in Rome, together with their sister
settled for good in Lombardy, Bottani's Teresa. In 1767, to celebrate the mar-
so purely based on that of
style, riage of Prince Giovanni Andrea IV
Domenichino, had been admired in Doria Pamphili to Leopoldini di
Milan, where his Saint Paula Setting Out Savoia Carignano, Bottani redeco-
for the Holy Land significantly took its rated the ceiling of the apartment on
place alongside canvases by Batoni and the piano nobile of the Palazzo Doria
Subleyras in the church of Ss. Cosma e Pamphili with a large painting of
Damiano (1^45: now in the Pinacoteca Hercules Ascending to the Temple of Glory,
di Brera, Milan) and this did not change a subject chosen over his other sug-
substantially after his move to Mantua, gestion, the Birth of Venus (Susinno
when his solemnly rhetorical altar- 1978). The new decor was to be the
pieces were distributed around north- by the
setting for a great feast offered
ern Italy, helping promote a recovery prince to Joseph co-Emperor of
II,

ot the Roman-Bolognese classicism of Austria-Hungary, and his brother

the seventeenth century (Marrini Grand Duke Leopold of Tuscany, on
1765-66, vol. 2, p. 32, nos. 1-3; Tellini the occasion of their visit to Rome in 1S9

Perina 1973: Mantova nel Settecento 1983, 1769. The work was in line with the
pp. 165-72; Bianchi 1997). Academic hoped-for reforms in art training by teaching material for the academy una biografia aggiornata al 1769." In Pier

recognition in addition to member- the minister Carlo di Firmian (see of Mantua, but without success. The Maria Cionini Visum: Scrini di amid. Turin.

ship of S. Luca, the Accademia Scotti 1984, pp. 283-309), and proba- inventory he drew up is now a valu- Italy. 1977. pp. 133-35: Susinno 1978. p. 309

Clementina of Bologna, and the bly as a result Bottani was invited to able source, providing evidence of Galleria degli Uffizi. Florence

Accademia del Disegno, Florence (in
1767) was lavishly bestowed on this
"distinguished painter and man skilled
in geometric and astronomical sci-
ences," who "with bold step" trod "the
simplest and loveliest paths of nature
and of truth" (Marrini 1765-66, vol.
p. 31), and he was able to treat any
take on the post of director of the how "Roman" artistic methods were
painting and sculpture classes in the disseminated outside the confines of Thiswork sent by Bottani to the exhi-
academy of Mantua, where in 1769 he the papal capital, [ss] mounted in July 1767 by the
bition
was invited to replace the aged bibliography Marrini 1765-66, vol. 2,
Accademia del Disegno in the cloister
Giuseppe Bazzani, champion of a lin- pp. 31-32; Perina 1961; Susinno 1969-70; of SS. Annunziata in Florence, to
gering Rococo. Drawing on his sug- Perina Tellini 1971: Tellini Perina 1973; which "all ranks of persons ere
2, gested alternative to the Hercules in the Susinno 19-6: Susinno 1978: Hiesinger and allowed access, not excluding women,
Percy 1980. pp. 59-63: Magni 1984: Rykbo
Palazzo Doria Pamphili, Bottani but excepting lowly people" (Gazzetta
1990. "Bottani Sestieri 1994. vol. 1.
";

subject matter successfully. His com- painted for Firmian a new Venus Rising Toscana [1767], no. 28, p. 117; quoted in
pp. 32-35; Zatti. Susanna. "Bottani.
positions included great historical from the Sea with a cortege of cupids, Giuseppe." In AK.L, vol.
Borroni Salvadori 1974, p. 48),
13. p. 254; Bianchi
works, such as The Death of Cleopatra naiads, and tritons (1770), earning 1997; Loire 1998, pp. 83-88 appeared at exhibitions with the title

and The Torment of Mezio Fufezio. praises from his patrons "for the nude used here, and with an indication that

painted for the Venturini Pontremoli of such various ages" (see Mantova nel it belonged to Bottani himself
family or the grandiose Death of Dido Settecento 1983, p. 165: Bianchi 1997, 189 (Borroni Salvadori 1974, p. 69). The
(Susinno 1969-70, pp. 152-54; Tellini p. 67), while his Minerva Raising Painting Giuseppe Bottani exhibition was opened by the Grand
Perina 1973, p. 16, figs. 10—11; Perina (1770; private collection, Milan) and Duke Leopold, and contained 830
1961, p. 59, fig. 9), which Anton von Saints Theresa and joseph (1780; Galleria Armida about to Wound works by 257 artists, lent by 65 art
Maron appears to have studied for his Nazionale d'Arte Antica, Rome), are Herself. Restrained by Rinaldo lovers and collectors and a handful
canvas on the same theme (and both allegorieson the themes of good gov- of the artists themselves. For the most
1766
painters were in turn influenced by ernment and the fine arts, respectively. part they were classic works, from the
Signed and dated lower left: Joseph Bottani
the Guercino in the Galleria Spada) After Bottani's death on September previous century, owned by the great
fecit Romac 1766
on the ceiling of the Casino Borghese 17, 1784, his brother Giovanni inher- Florentine families who generously
Oil on canvas
(1786). But he also produced some ited his office in Mantua and the con- lent their canvases by Carlo Dolci and
80" x 58" (205 x 147 cm)
highly successful landscapes with bib- tents of his studio, with gessos brought Salvator Rosa, Guido Reni and Luca
bibliography Marrini 1765-66, vol. 2,
lical or mythological scenes, such as from Rome, numerous preparatory Giordano, and marbles and bronzes
part 2. pp. xxxi-ii; /I trionfo i~6- p. xx;
those bought by Richard Dalton for drawings, life studies, and unfinished Zaist. Giovanni Battista. "Notizie istoriche
by Giambologna and Massimilano
King George III of Fngland, including works. )ust as Pecheux was to do in dc' pittori sculton cd architctti cremonesi." Soldani Benzi (Borroni Salvadori 1974.

The I light into Lgypt and The Return to Turin a year later, he attempted to sell Cremona. Italy: P. Ricchini, 1774. vol. 2, p. 47). There were few Roman
Nazareth (Michael I.evey. The Later everything as a job lot to the Austrian pp. 173-74; Borea. Evelina. "L'armida che painters, but those few showed a

1802 as a stock of tenta di uccidersi di Giuseppe Bottani e swing Florentine taste from which
Italian Pictures in the Collection of tier government in in

334 PAINTINGS
Bottani could benefit: the Marchese figurative [Bologna, Nuova Alfa, 1985],

Giuseppe Riccardi lent The Holy Family pp. 314-16). Bottani creates his
with the Sleeping Virgin, now in Armida partly by referring to classic
Pommersfelden and the "large picture" precedents such as Guido Reni's
showing The Allegory of the Arts by Suicide of Lucretia (Neues Palais,

Pompeo Batoni (cat. 162) in Frankfurt Potsdam), and partly by idealizing

(Clark and Bowron 1985, p. 220, no. 41, nature itself in the beautiful feminine

and p. 240, no. 113) (it should be noted form of the sorceress, as can also be

that an engraving designed by Bottani seen in the documented drawing by

was dedicated to the marchese's rela- the artist, delicately executed in black
tive Francis Maria Riccardi, see pencil (see Susinno 1978, p. 309, fig. 2).

Mantova nel Settecento 1983, p. 182). The It is difficult to establish whether or

Marchese Carlo Gerini also lent paint- not Giuseppe Bottani, who was not
ings by Batoni: Hercules at the Crossroads married, had any opportunity to
(now in the Galleria d'Arte Moderna, portray from life the ivory (or rather
Florence) and Dido Restraining Aeneas marble) female nudes of his Venuses
(Ford Collection, London; see Clark and his majestic heroines (for instance

and Bowron 1985, pp. 228-29, no. 67, these illustrated in Susinno 1978, fig. 7;

and p. 241, no. 115). Gerini already pos- Mantova nel Settecento 1983, no. 182;
sessed an important painting by Bianchi 1997, pp. 67-68). Certainly in
Bottani of The Incredulity of Thomas (see some cases Virgin figures or allegori-

Mantova nel Settecento 1983, p. 176). He cal ones such as Faith appear to have
also lent Placido Costanzi's Mercury been achieved by adding drapery to
with the Libera! Arts (now in a private studies of clearly male nudes (see

collection: see Sestieri 1994, vol. 2, Susinno 1978, p. 309, figs. 3, 5),

fig. 369). The senator Martelli sent a as Federico Barocci had already done
Noli me tangere by Marco Benefial (see (Andrea Emiliani, Mostra di Federico

Civai 1990, p. 139, fig. 34)- Bottani's Barocci [Bologna: Alfa, 1975], nos. 25,

painting was soon to pass into the col- 141). Bottani's female figures here and
lection was
of the grand duke, where it elsewhere always turn out like statues,

recorded by Zaist (1774), and where it even though they are based on a deep
remained unknown until found and knowledge of anatomy. It is more
published by Evelina Borea in 1977. worthwhile to emphasize the extreme
The modern literary theme is taken richness and elegance of the draperies,
from a passage in the twentieth canto echoing the art of Reni, and the virtu-
ofTasso's Gerusalemme Iiberata (octaves oso display of illusionism in rendering
122-130), which Bottani illustrated with the surface and texture of various 190 one of the most intensely evocative
extreme fidelity. After the final defeat materials, from the red woolen cape portrayals of Rome and its artistic
Giuseppe Bottani
of the Muslim army, Armida flees on thrown over Rinaldo's armor to the life in the 1760s. In 1756 Caterina della
horseback to a secluded, protected soft white gleam of the linen and the Caterina della Valle Valadier Valle, daughter of the famous sculptor
spot with the intention of killing sumptuousness of Armida's silken Filippo, originally from Florence,
with Her Children Giuseppe
herself. She puts aside her weapons, garments "which the looms of Lyon became the wife of Luigi Valadier, and
which the painter depicts in the fore- never could make as shiny and bright" and Maria Clementina in 1760 their first son, Andrea, was
ground, and turns tothem almost as (as said in 1800 by Matteo Borsa while
c. 1766 born, taking the name of his paternal
though reproving them for not being discussing the 1745 Brera altarpiece Oil on canvas grandfather, who had died the year
bathed in enemy blood and inviting The Departure oj Saint Paola, mentioned before. The young wife is portrayed
28//' x 23/2" (72 x 60 cm)
them to wound her soft breast, which in Perina 1961, p. 52). with the little Giuseppe, born on April
provenance bought by the government
now exposed: "If every other
she has In the Florentine grand duke's col- of Rome in 1934 from Signora Seni ved. 14, 1762 (and baptized the following
bosom you seems made of
to lections, this picture from Tasso Fedi and passed on to the Museo di Roma day in the church of S. Luigi dei
diamond/You will dare to wound a would soon be joined by Bottani's Self- in 1935 Francesi by his paternal aunt and
feminine breast/In this of mine, which portrait of 1765, from the collection of bibliography Susinno 1976, pp. 41-44, uncle Margherita and Giovanni
stands naked before you/ May your the abbot Antonio Pazzi (Gli Uffizi: cat- fig. 8; Barroero 1990, p. 433, fig. 619; Rybko Valadier), and with Maria Clementina
merits and your victories lie/ vulnera- alogo generale, 2nd ed. [Florence: 1990, "Bottani"; Sestieri 1994, vol.
and vol. 2, fig.
1,

144; Zatti, Susanna. "Bottani,

p. 33, —who like Andrea has until now
ble to blows is this of mine; know well/ Centra Di, 1980], p. 818, inset A 140). escaped the scholarly reconstruction
Giuseppe." AKL,
Love, that you will never strike in vain." Therefore, the grand duke would have
Museo di
In

Roma, Rome
vol. 13, p. 254
of the family genealogy — baptized on
Having chosen an arrow "the most known both the artist's name and face June 14, 1764, in the parish church of
piercing and strong," she is just about when he met him in Rome during the S. Lorenzo in Lucina, following the
to stab herself when Rinaldo, who has journey he made in 1769 with his The painting was bought in 1934 from family's move to strada Paolina (via
followed her, prevents her desperate brother the emperor designate Joseph a private source in Rome, descendants del Babuino) in the heart of the artistic
move: "From behind he approaches II. Both of them must have admired of the son-in-law of Giuseppe quarter around the Piazza di Spagna;
her and takes her arm/ Which already his merits, since the Grand Duke Valadier, Giuseppe Seni, husband of like her brother, Maria Clementina's
aims the savage point at her breast." Leopold sat for a portrait for which Marianna Valadier. It was then attrib- godfather was her maternal uncle
Armida sees him and faints. "She falls, there remains a finished drawing uted to Anton Raphael Mengs, but Pietro della Valle and her godmother
like a flower half cut, /
Bending her (Susinno 1978, p. 309, fig. 4), and was restored to Giuseppe Bottani in Margherita Valadier.
limp neck: he holds her up." |oseph, supporting his minister 1976, on the basis not only of the A significant link between the births
The theme had enjoyed a certain Firmian's desire to introduce Roman- clearly characteristic style, but also is the midwife Anna Spagna, from the
popularity in serial illustrations of the inspired reforms in the arts, instituted of a detailed study of the hands of a parish of S. Lorenzo Damaso, a
in
poem, such as those by Guercino and the academy in Mantua, [ss] female figure recognized among the member of the family that would lake
Simon Vouet, but rarely had such a artist's drawings (see Susinno 1976, over the running of the Valadier silver-
theatricaland dramatic scene been p. 44. fig. 9)- ware shop after Giuseppe had reached
represented as an independent subject The group portrait, distinguished the peak of his career as an architect
(see Andrea Buzzoni, cd., Torquato by a restrained elegance that captures and had married his second wile,
Tasso: tra letleralura. musica. tealro c arli the social ambitions oi .1 rising class, is Margherita Spagna (in i8i~).

PAINTINGS
 Caterina Valadier is placed at the the Early Nineteenth Century," jewelry stone his string of academic, knightly, Rome in 1751-52, presumably through
center of a significant network of Studies, vol. 4, [1990], pp. 37— 4s) but and above all noble titles (such as that his agent, James Russel. Among these
family relationships within Rome's similar to that with which Batoni of his first wife, Laura Campana, views one View of the Ponte
pair, a
artistic class open to the contributions adorns his queens. It is a jewel that Marchesa di Cavello) intended to ensure della Coira nearTivoli and a View
of widely diverse nationalities: of her falls halfway between the evocation for his descendants a place among the of Civita Castellana, representing
sisters, Ottavia was to marry the of classical prototypes (for example, a ranks of the Roman aristocracy, [ss] a bridge and aqueduct respectively,
Tyrolese painter Cristoforo similar band of gold, but after the clas- explain Busiri's rationale in matching
Unterperger in 1775, and Petronilla sical model, without inset stones and one view with another. Busiri's patrons
the Frenchman Nicolas Duran. A pearls, crowns the colossal head of GIOVANNI BATTISTA constitute a Who's Who of British
third, Camilla, who died in 1779 at Juno in the Barberini Sciarra Colonna BUSIRI visitors to Rome in the eighteenth
the age of twenty-nine, was a distin- collection, now housed in the Ny ROME 1698-1757 ROME century and include a number of
guished miniaturist in her own right; Carlsberg Glyptothek in Copenhagen, discerning collectors: William Legge,
for herself and her father she erected and is an ideal model for the head of Giovanni Battista Busiri was among 2nd Earl of Dartmouth: Joseph Leeson;
an elegant sepulchral memorial in Caterina) and the sort of prop used by the earliest eighteenth-century Henry Clinton, 9th Earl of Lincoln;
archaeological style in the parish both painters and actors, the produc- Roman painters to cater to the taste of and Sir Robert Hildyard, 3rd Baronet.
church of S. Susanna, on which she tion of which constituted a significant British tourists for pictorial records The most famous group of Busiri
had her own portrait in profile placed local industry. Signora Valadier has and attractive souvenirs of their stay views was acquired by William
in a gilt-bronze medallion; it is logical assumed the allegorical costume of in the Eternal City. He was born in Windham, who formed a collection
to suppose this had been made by her Latona, daughter of the Titan Ceo, Rome, the youngest of three sons of of twenty-six gouache paintings,
brother-in-law Luigi, or at least in his and loved by Jupiter, by whom she a French architect, Simon Beausire, eleven dating from 1739 and ten from
flourishingworkshop (on Camilla, see conceived the divine twins Apollo and and a Roman-born mother, Angela 1740, as well as a series of six large oils
Minor 1978, p. 247, n. 54). Such bio- Diana. Here Bottani shows Giuseppe Francesca di Barlandino Manzoni. His by Busiri, while he was in Rome in
graphical details underline the state (whose features were to remain unal- activity as an amateur painter of land- 1739-40. The "cabinet" at Felbrigg Hall
of relative autonomy of this family tered rightup to the official portrait scapes and vedute began around 1720 was designed especially to house the
group of French and Tuscan origins that Wicar did of him for the series of and is documented by four paintings majority of pictures acquired by
compared with traditional aristocratic the Accademia di S. Luca in 1827; see in tempera representing Rome and its Windham abroad and survives intact
patronage, and explain the tendency Incisa della Rochetta 1979, pp. 66, 199, environs (Busiri Vici 1966, pp. 26-27). as a distinguished example of an
of its members to seek artistic recog- cat. no. 247) displaying a lyre, the In 1735 Busiriwas documented as Englishman's taste shaped by the
nition primarily from within their attribute proper to Apollo, the god residing in the parish of S. Lorenzo in Grand Tour. The gouaches in situ

own circle. The closeness of the group of music, and Maria Clementina as Lucina, Rome, at strada Paolina (via del by Busiri are a notable feature of
was partly topographical Caterina — the infant Diana, recognizable by the Babuino), 51, together with the painter this ensemble. "In their beautiful gilt

had only to cross the Piazza di Spagna silvery crescent moon in her hair. In Ignazio Stern. In the years 1750 and frames, probably by the carver Rene
with her children to reach Bottani's the Rome of the 1760s, the family of 1751 he lived in the parish of S. Andrea Dufour, and hanging on crimson
studio in the Salita di S. Sebastianello. the silversmith described by Father delle Fratte, at via della Purificazione, damask, they impart a character to
He was about ten years older than John Thorpe as "the first workman 121, in a house in which the sculptor a room which has few rivals in its
Luigi Valadier, and already an estab- of these things in Europe" (see Three Giovanni Maini, principe of the evocation of the taste of Grand Tour
lished artist, as well as being a sought- Generations 1991, p. 132), might be Accademia di S. Luca, also resided. collector in the mid-eighteenth
after portraitist of provincial embellished, without fear of incurring Busiri's oil paintings reveal the century" (Sutton 1982, p. 22).
ecclesiastics and nobility (see the censure of snobs and aristocrats, powerful influence of Gaspard Robert Price (father of Uvedale
Hiesinger and Percy 1980, p. 62, no. 49; with the same ornaments and the Dughet upon his development as a Price, writer on the Picturesque) also
Sestieri 1994, vol. 1, p. 33, and vol. 2, same symbolic evocations that Marco landscape painter (Hawcroft 1959, had great enthusiasm for Busiri's
and had become a member of
fig. 143), Benefial had used twenty years earlier p. 297, figs. 1-2). However, he pre- views and is known to have taken
theAccademia di S. Luca in 1766, at a to represent Princess Paola Erba ferred to work in gouache (bodycolor) drawing lessons from the artist in

time when silversmiths and bronze Odescalchi Orsini d'Aragona with rather than oil, and seems to have Rome. Writing to Lord Haddington
workers could not go beyond enrol- her children Paolo and Giacinta, when deliberately cultivated the matt finish at Geneva on December 19, 1741, Price

ment in the more modest Compagnia he depicted them similarly as Latona and dry surface achievable through described how he had smuggled his
dei Virtuosi al Pantheon. It is probable with her children Apollo and Diana this medium. Busiri's views of the Busiris into England (presumably to
that there was a pendant to this paint- (Museo di Roma; see Falcidia 1964). ancient sites of Rome, the Campagna, avoid import tax) by concealing them
ing, a portrait of Luigi, either alone or The Valadiers' social strategy, here and the Alban Hills enjoyed consider- in his fiddle case. In the same letter he
with his elder brother Andrea, who precociously entrusted to the persua- able success with British Grand declares, "I would not give the worst
may have died in infancy since he is sive discourse of the pictorial image, Tourists in the 1730s, 1740s, and of my Busiris water-colours, for four

not mentioned in a census of spring would prove victorious several years early 1750s. Charming, portable, and of the best pictures I ever saw of him"
1769, which records two other chil- later when, in 1779, Luigi obtained the exquisitely painted and framed in (a reference to John Wooten, to whom
dren, the two-year-old Filippo and knighthood of the Golden Spur, their precious, Roman-made "Salvator his father had recently introduced
the eight-month-old Maria Anna which brought with it the prestigious Rosa" frames, these little vedute pro- Price). His tutor, the botanist and
(Archivio del Vicariato, S. Lorenzo in titles of Conte Palatino and Nobile vided ideal souvenirs of a Roman dilettante Benjamin Stillingfleet,

Lucina, census 1769). These facts, and Romano (see Marconi 1963, p. 79). holiday. Busiri confined his subject described Busiri "as one of the first

the apparent ages of the children in the These proved useful, if nothing else matter to a relatively restricted reper- masters of drawing landscapes with
painting, suggest a date of around 1766. (together with the presumably good tory of views that he repeated fre- the pen" (Hawcroft 1959, pp. 296-97).
Bottani's group is compared in a offices of the ecclesiastical entourage quently, pairing one site with another, Busiri's works are documented in

noble, classical style that looks back to of Pius VI Braschi. into whose graces including the Capitoline Hill and the collections of the Doria, Colonna,
Domenichino, articulating the figures he had entered)in helping him avoid Campo Vaccino, Basilica of and Sanseverino families; Carlo

through deep knowledge of perspec- the ignominy of an anonymous grave Maxentius; Colosseum; Pyramid of Marchionni, architect of the Villa

tiveand anatomy, but rendering the in the "Camp Scellerato" behind the Cestius; Castel S. Angelo; Pantheon; Albani and the Vatican Sacristy, is also

gestures and expressions of the chil- Muro Torto, to which he would other- Temple of Minerva Medica, and the recorded as owning a cache of paint-
dren with a completely natural and wise have been condemned by his Tomb of Cecilia Metella. ings and drawings by the artist. Busiri
anti-rhetorical grace. Caterina, mysterious suicide in 1785. And so it Busiri supplied suites of views to a was an excellent draftsman and an
dressed up all'anticaas Juno or was in the family tomb in S. Luigi dei number of English and Irish patrons, album of his drawings, primarily
Cleopatra, is adorned with a rich Frances! that Giuseppe would ask such as Ralph Howard, 1st Viscount rapid studies in pen and brown ink,
diadem quite different in design from to "rest my ashes beside those of Wicklow, one of the most discrimi- belongs to the Fitzwilliam Museum,
the Roman jewelry of the eighteenth my greatly beloved parents" (see nating Irish connoisseurs of the eigh- Cambridge (including sketches of

century (see Stefano Aluffi Pentini, I )ebenedetti 1987, p. 429). It was left to teenth century, who acquired eight Pisa, Siena, Viterbo, Naples, and
"Roman Jewelry of the Seventeenth to his son Antonio to carve on his tomb- views by Busiri during his visit to Marino); a series of fifty-seven others

PAINTINGS
 —

are at the British Museum, London,

where they were traditionally attrib-
uted to Jan Frans van Bloemen.
Few of Busiri's views of Rome and
its environs are signed, and those that
are often provide variations of his
given name, Giovanni Battista. (He
was known by a variety of names
"Tista," "Titta," "Tittarella,"

"Titarelli" — that appear to derive from

both the diminutive form of Battista
and his short stature; and a number
of his views are thus inscribed in con-
temporary writing.) Many of Busiri's
works have been attributed to other
painters, notably Marco Ricci, Jean-
Baptiste Lallemand, and Charles-Louis
Clerisseau. It was not until 1958, with
Francis Hawcroft's presentation of the
documented landscapes at Felbrigg
Hall at the Norwich Castle Museum

in Eighteenth Century Italy and the

Grand Tour, and the following year

in Rome at II Settccento a Roma, that

Busiri's distinctive individual manner

achieved widespread recognition. A
number of his paintings were engraved
by other artists, including four views
of Rome and its environs that were
reproduced by the engravers Thomas
Smith and Francis Vivares and pub-
lished in London in 1746. [epb]

bibliography Hawcroft 1958; Hawcroft

1959; Busiri Vici 1966; Busiri Vici 1972;

Moore A. 1985, pp. 123-32; Martin S. 1997

191

Giovanni Battista Busiri

View of the Colosseum, Rome
c. 1740-45

Gouache on paper
SYs" x (22 x 33.5 cm)
provenance Tulloch collection. Ireland:
C. Marshall Spink, London, 1961 (as by
Marco Ricci); London. Sotheby's July 3,
1989, lot 233; where acquired by the present
collection

bibliography Busiri Vici 1966, pp. 36-37,

67, n. 36; Wynne, Michael. "A Cache of
Busiris." In Maria Teresa Caracciolo, ed.,

Hommage au dessin: melange offert a Roscline

Baaw.Rimini, Italy: Galleria, 1996, p. 461
Private collection

192 192

Giovanni Battista Busiri Busiris." In Maria Teresa Caracciolo, ed., Forum Boarium (in classical times, of the square is popularly known as
The Piazza di Eocca della Hommage au dessin: melange offert a Roscline the main cattle market) known as the the Temple of Vesta (simply because
Bacou. Rimini, Italy: Galleria, 1996, p. 461
Piazza di Bocca della Verita. The site of its circular shape), although the
Merita, Looking toward the Private collection
was leveled during the papacy of actual deity towhich it was dedicated
Tiber, Rome Clement XI and a fountain installed is unknown. One of the best-pre-
c. 1740-45
Busiri's depiction of the vast, hall- in 1717-18, executed after a design by served temples in Rome and the first

ruined structure of the Flavian Carlo Francesco Bizzaccheri and to be built of marble (c. 100 BC), the
Gouache on paper
amphitheater, the most famous mon- Francesco Moratti (for the pope's building owes its survival to its con-
8%"xi3/»" (22x33.5 cm)
provenance Tulloch
ument of ancient Rome and the interest in the fountain and rationale version into a church early in the
collection, Ireland:
C, Marshall Spink, London, 1961 (as by
emblem of the city's eternity, requires for intervention at the site, see Johns Middle Ages; the alterations depicted
Marco Ricci); London, Sotheby's )uly j. little comment. His other view repre- 19';?. pp. i"S~ 7 9. fig- 10 j). The support in Busiri's painting were removed in
1989, lot 233: where acquired by the present sents the "classic" view, popular from for the great bowl is in the form ol two 1809-10. when the circular temple
collection Gaspar van Wittel (Gaspare Vanvitelli) tritons, acting like Atlantcs. their fish- was restored by I.uigi Valadier to its

bibliography Busiri Vici 1966, pp. 36-37, to nineteenth-century photographers like bodies entwined. The round original appearance. The temple was
67, n. 36; Wynne, Michael. "A Cache of of Rome, of the part of the ancient temple in the background on the right important among the precedents tor

PAINTINGS JJ37
 —

the plans of the centralized churches are confined to the fountains and the GIUSEPPE CADES Abbondio Rezzonico. It was at this
of the Renaissance. figures lolling beside them in the fore- ROME 1750-1799 ROME point that Cades met the young
Busiri developed his own, highly ground, and the distribution of antiq- Canova and also made contact with
individual, picturesque style, framing uities — for example, the antique Cades was born to a French father Piranesi; a portrait of the latter by
his views between feathery trees and marble vase near the center of the (Jean Cades, naturalized in Rome as Cades was engraved by the sitter's son
placing rapidly sketched figures at rest composition that is derived from and amateur painter
Cadeotti, a tailor Francesco.
or in conversation in and around the or intended to suggest the Borghese from the Languedoc village of Saint- In the period 1780-90 Cades was
monuments depicted. He typically Vase (Musee du Louvre, Paris). A Orens) and an Italian mother. He was involved in many schemes for the dec-
placed an architectural feature as the third variant of the composition is a precocious artist, his first dated oration and embellishment of Roman
central point of the composition and in a private collection in Rome; a drawings produced as early as 1762. palaces: Ruspoli (1782), Chigi (1784;
constructed an imaginary landscape fourth was engraved in London in In 1766 he won the first prize in the 1788-90), Altieri (1787; 1791), and
around it. His vcdute are immediately 1746 (Busiri Vici 1966, pi. xiii, fig. 36). Concorso Clementino at the Borghese (1787). His most important
recognizable by their pale blue skies A similar if slightly later gouache view Accademia di S. Luca for the second works in this field are based on literary
and the radiant sunshine that floods of the Piazza di Bocca by
della Verita category of painting with a drawing and poetic themes: for Prince
the buildings, figures, and vegetation Busiri was sold at Sotheby's, London, depicting the Healing of Tobit, which Borghese's Casino at Porta Pinciana
and the aesthetic effects of the on December 1, 1983 (lot 95), and has remained in the academy's collec- he painted the story of Gualtieri
gouache medium. Whereas Gaspar demonstrates further his penchant for tion ever since. That same year he fell d'Angversa, inspired by a short story
van Wittel presented the principal modifying his basic compositions, in out with his master, Domenico Corvi, in Boccaccio's Decameron (cat. 195),

sights of Rome panoramically, to this instance by disposing differently who disapproved of his pupil's exces- and for the Palazzo Chigi at Ariccia
paraphrase Andrea Busiri Vici (Busiri the figures in the foreground. sive independence, and gave up his he did tempera and fresco paintings
Vici 1966, p. 29), Busiri chose to The dating of Busiri's views is academic training. He then associated of poetic subjects taken from Ariosto's
capture the city in a series of snap- almost entirely dependent upon with the more marginal circles of for- Orlando furioso. The refined literary
shots, constructing a composite of the knowledge of their original patron or eigners in Rome, in particular with and artistic tastes of his client, Prince

preeminent monuments of antiquity owner's Grand Tour visit to Rome the circle of northern artists centered Sigismondo Chigi, certainly had an
view by view, in isolation: the temples the exception being a number of the aroundFuseli and Serge! and with the influence on the selection and iconog-
of Saturn, Vespasian, and Vesta; vedute acquired by William Windham Frenchmen who were most indepen- raphy of those subjects. At the same
Minerva Medica; the tombs of Cecilia for the cabinet at Felbrigg, which are dent of their academy. Cades won his time Cades sent works to the
Metella, Cestius, the Horatii and dated 1739 and 1740. But even when first official commission in 1774: an provinces of the Papal States (Ascoli
Curiatii; the ponte Lucano, Milvio, the travels of an owner are known, altarpiece depicting the martyrdom Piceno; 1781, Saint Peter Appearing to

Nomentano, Rotto, and Salario; the ambiguity regarding the dating of a of Saint Benignus intended for the Saint Agatha in the Presence of Saint Lucy;
Colosseum, and so forth. work is not necessarily resolved, as in church of the abbey of S. Benigno di cat. 194) and to other Italian states
The genesis of Busiri's topographi- the case of the eight Dublin gouaches Fruttuaria at San Benigno Canavese (Genoa, 1785). It was probably in the

cal views is to be found in his pen- collected by Joseph Leeson. Leeson in Piedmont. His first patron was early 1780s that he traveled to northern
and-ink sketches made out-of-doors, made two visits to Rome, 1744-45 Cardinal Vittorio Amedeo delle Italy for study purposes. He stayed for
on the and elaborated and
spot, and 1750-51, and the Busiris have Lanze. But the output of the artist's a while in Venice, a visit documented
refined in the studio. This was vividly been dated to each of these periods early years consists mainly of draw- by notes in his own handwriting and
demonstrated by Busiri Vici in his (Wynne, p. 460, as 1744-45, see above; ings —usually large-format, very fin- drawings contained in a notebook
monograph, in which he compared, Sergio Benedetti, The Milltowns: A ished, and doubtless intended for sale. now held at the Thorvaldsen Museum
for example, drawing no. 54 in the Family Reunion [Dublin: National Of these, Achilles Withdrawing to His in Copenhagen. In 1786 he was elected
album at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Gallery of Ireland, 1997], p. 84, as Tent with Patrodus, Surprised by Ulysses a member of the Accademia di S. Luca.
depicting the Arch of Constantine, bought by Leeson during his second (Musee du Louvre, Paris; cat. 324) is From that year he is registered with
with a small gouache of the same view Grand Tour). The earlier date may be the only one of which a painted his wife, Anna Teresa Leonetti, in the
(Busiri Vici 1966, p. 38, pi. ix), and a preferred for the Dublin gouaches version is known (Musee du Louvre, Trinita dei Monti district: he lived in a
pen drawing of the Temple of Saturn and a date of around 1740-45 for the was formerly in the
Paris); this house in the scesa S. Giuseppe (near
from the same source with a painted exhibited views of the Colosseum and Puymaurin collection. These draw- the parish of S. Andrea delle Fratte).

gouache of the site (Busiri Vici 1966, the Piazza di Bocca della Verita, on ings demonstrate the new way in His first child, a daughter named
p. 42, pi. x). account of their extraordinary quality which the artist looked at ancient Vittoria, was born in 1787, followed
Busiri's view of the Colosseum and richness, which is comparable to history, conveying it with theatrical by Raffaello, Michelangelo, Chiara,
exhibited here should be compared to examples at both Felbrigg and Dublin. pathos tinged with irony. Breaking Marianna, and Angela.
a similar view that belongs to a set of The present pair of "deliziose with the most traditional trends of Cades's great technical virtuosity
eight small gouaches acquired in tempere," like the best of Busiri's Roman painting and its arduously and his curiosity about the past
Rome by Joseph Leeson, 1st Earl of temperas, remain fresh, vivacious, achieved balance between classical prompted him to experiment with a

Milltown (National Gallery of Ireland, and colorful, their appearance hardly and Baroque, Cades reverted to the variety of techniques, some of which
Dublin; Wynne, p. 461, fig. 2, see dimmed by the passage of two grand manner of the sixteenth had fallen into disuse: in the early
above). The Dublin view of the hundred and fifty years. The medium century. He thus succeeded in formu- 1790s he used encaustic — in accor-

Colosseum is the only one of the eight of gouache proved exceptionally lating an original "neo-Mannerist" dance with theories rediscovered and
to be signed and bears the signature longlasting, and Busiri's views in style inwhich the crisis of the transi- published in 1784 by Vicente
Cio B:sta. Michael Wynne has the medium are remarkably well tion between the ageing Baroque and Requeno — to paint two compositions
observed Busiri's characteristic preserved; when they have been kept the nascent Romantic aesthetic is inspired by the life of Alexander the
method of establishing a prominent framed and glazed and out of the expressed. Great. These had been commissioned
architectural feature as the central light, they are marked only by a slight The altarpiece at the Roman basil- by Czarina Catherine II, who intended
point of a composition that could be discoloration. The figurcue that inhabit ica of Ss. Apostoli, The Ecstasy of Saint them for her son Alexander Pavlovitch
repeated endlessly in the studio with Busiri's landscapes are sketched with Joseph of Copertino (1777; in situ) marks (Hermitage, St. Petersburg). Two origi-
only minor changes of staffage. In the a lively and nimble brush and are in a renewed interest in Venetian art in nal etchings are known at present: a

c ase 1 il Busiri, the "staffage" comprises perfect keeping with their setting. Cades's painting, no doubt influenced Death of Leonardo da Vinci in the Arms
not only the figures but also architec- [EPB] by his contact with the Venetian circle of FrancisI and an episode from the

tural fragments, bits of columns, cor- in Rome, centered around the papal Gospels, Suffer the Little Children to Come
nices, architraves,and the insertion of nephews of Pope Clement XIII unto Me (copper plates at the
other non-existent ruins. The compo- Rezzonico. Using distemper, he Calcografia in Rome). From the 1790s

sitions oi the Dublin and London painted the decoration of a music a classicist tendency, sometimes
views are nearly exactly alike in their room designed by the architect pushed to the point of purism,
treatment of the Colosseum and sur- Giacomo Quarenghi for the residence became established in Cades's paint-
rounding buildings; the differences of one of those nephews, Don ing. It is openly expressed for the 1
1
rst

PAINTINGS
time in the four canvases sent to Oil on canvas

the monastery of the Friars Minor

98%" x 57X" (250 x 147cm)
Conventual in Fabriano, in the provenance commissioned by Pietro
Paolo Leonardi, bishop of Ascoli Piceno,
Marches, in 1-90. That trend, which
for the city's cathedral, where the picture
favored sober colors and a spare
remained until 1918; deposited at that date
layout, did not prevent the reemer-
in the Pinacoteca
gence of Mannerist forms in some
bibliography Orsini [1790] 1977, p. 4;
late works: this constant in Cades's
Luzi 1894, p. 130; Galleria Ascoli Piceno 1919.
manner as a painter, and especially as 40; Voss 1924, 666; Cardarelli and
p. p.

a graphic artist, was no doubt derived Ercolani 1954, p. 75: Roettgen 1973, p. 60;
from his constant interest in Bernini, Dante, and Alfio Ortenzi. La pina-

Michelangelo. coteca civica di Ascoli Piceno. Rome:

the age of Autostrade, 1978. pi. LI; Rudolph 1983,
Cades died prematurely at
no. 113; Cera 1987. no. 187: Caracciolo 1992.
only forty-nine. He left several works
70A,
unfinished — in particular The Fall oj
p. 261, no.

Pinacoteca Civica
pi. 10

di Ascoli Piceno
the Rebel Angels, for a Russian client,

and a Martyrdom of the Blessed Signoretto

Alliata, for Pisa Cathedral; the sketches This altarpiece, commissioned by

for these are held in Chicago (Art Bishop Pietro Paolo Leonardi. as the
Institute) and Baltimore (Walters Art inscription at the bottom of the
Gallery) respectively, [mtc] column attests, was intended for the
bibliography Orsini (1790] 1977; Lanzi first altar on the right of the nave of

1809: Muller. L. Description des tableaux et Ascoli Piceno Cathedral. It is the first

dessins du Muscc Thorvaldsen. Copenhagen. work Cades sent to the Marche, a

1847-50; Luzi 1894: Noack 1911; Stein 1913: province of the Papal States that
Galkria Ascoli Piceno 1919: Cardarelli and
between 1787 and 1790 would provide
Ercolani 1954; Schiavo i960; Clark 1964;
him with the prestigious commission
Clark 1968; Maxon and Risliel 1970, p. 184;
for five large altarpieces for the
Vitzthum 1971; Caracciolo 1975: Clark 1975;
Roettgen 197J; LAccademia 1974; Caracciolo Franciscan monastery of the Friars
1977; Bernini. Dante, and Altio Ortenzi. La Minor Conventual in Fabriano. For
pinacoteca civica di Ascoli Piceno. Rome: one of the five later pictures, The Holy
Autostrade, 1978; Caracciolo 1978; Spirit Appearing to Saint Lucy and Saint
Caracciolo 1978, "Cades"; Incisa della
Apollonia, the artist reverted to the
Rocchetta 1979; Rudolph 1985; Caracciolo
composition of this picture, with
1984; Cera 1987; Mellini 1987; Caracciolo
1988; Caracciolo 1988, "Cades"; Barroero
variations. In this composition Cades
1990: Caracciolo 1991-92; Caracciolo 1992; associates the two Sicilian saints,

Petrioli Tofani. Prosperi Valenti Rodino. Agatha of Catania and Lucy of

and Sciolla 1993-94; Caracciolo 1994; 193 Syracuse, following the tradition
Caracciolo 1996; Caracciolo 1996, "Cades"; according to which Agatha appeared
Wintermute 1996: Caracciolo 1997;
here between twenty-five and thirty- remained almost in the state of a sketch to Lucy, who had made a pilgrimage
Pavanello 1998
years old and the painting can be dated and the en camaieu effect of the back- to her tomb, to tell the latter of her
approximately to the second half of ground bring to mind effects in por- imminent death. It illustrates a
the 1770s. The artist depicts himself traits by David dating from the period moment in the martyrdom of Agatha
193 wearing an unusual neo-Renaissance of the French Revolution, and are sur- in AD 251: during the night following
costume, with his hair straggling over prising in the way they foreshadow her torture, during which the execu-
Giuseppe Cades
his shoulders. His right arm, hidden some works produced by Romantic tioner had chopped off her breasts,
Self-portrait by the puffed sleeve, straddles the edge painters in the following century. Saint Peter appears to the saint in her

Second half of the 1770s of the foreground, creating a skillfully Among the members of Fuseli's prison and heals her mutilated body.

Inscription: Giuseppe Cades Pitt. re Rom.o 1786 foreshortened effect: in the resulting circle in Rome, the English painter Beside her, Lucy proffers her two eyes,

Oil on canvas space that is both restricted and deep James Jefferys (in Rome from 1775 to the symbol of her own martyrdom,
25%" x 19X" (65 x 50 cm) the fine head is turned in a three- 1781) produced a self-portrait similar on an engraved tray.

quarter view, as the sitter abandons to this one by Cades, in which he In this picture Cades adopts a new,
provenance gift from the artist's widow in

1800 (Archives of the Accademia di S. Luca,

his reading and turns his serious gaze depicted himself in seventeenth- simple, pared-down layout: he avoids
Decreti ... , 55, 1793-1803, folio 92 verso) to meet the eyes of the viewer. century costume with his curly hair concentrating his figures, releasing
exhibitions Florence 1922. cat. no. 15s;
The layout of the picture is reminis- looseon his shoulders and his serious, them from their tension and easing
Chicago, Minneapolis, and Toledo 1970, cent of Titian's Portrait oj a Man dreamy eyes raised from reading and the compression of events in the drama.
cat. no. 76; Rome 1970, cat. no. 42; (National Gallery, London), then drawing to look at the viewer (Prcssly Only the volume of the three figures,
Leningrad, Moscow, and Warsaw. believed to be a portrait of Ariosto, a 1979, p. 83, fig. 82). [mtc] planted powerfully against the mists
Ital'ianskaja zivopis Will veka iz muzeer Italii.
famous work in Cades's day. The game ol the background, indicates the depth
1973, cat. no. 76; Rome 1998, cat. no. 103
of disguise and changed identity, so of the space. Made to stand out by
bibliography Caracciolo
1973, p. 74; Susinno
1973, p. 8: Clark

1974, p. 264; Incisa della

typical of the eighteenth century, here 194 deliberate isolation — reminiscent of
Rocchetta 1979. no. 193. pi. XXXI: takes the form of a specific reference
Giuseppe Cades
some of Goya's characters — the figure
Caracciolo 1992, no. 32. pi. 1
to a period, a school of painting, and oi Saint Lucy — with her ravishing face

Accademia Nazionale di San Luca, Rome an individual; Cades's work here Saint Peter Appearing to Saint imprinted with a haughty, almost dis-
embodies one aspect of Romantic art,
Agatha in the Presence of Saint
dainful expression — authoritatively
already taking shape in Cades's day, dominates the whole composition.
The date noted at the bottom right which involved looking to the art of Lucy The picture's charm lies above all

corner of this picture seems to be a the past for sources of inspiration and in the richness of the coloring and its
1781
later addition, like the whole inscrip- infusing them with a new life; this in Signed and dated lower left: G. Cades rSi superb range, in which deep pinks
tion; it refers to the artist's election as turn laid the foundations for the predominate, skillfully harmonized
Inscription Petriis Paolus Ltonardi/Epus el
amember of the Accademia di S. Luca, revivalist spirit of the nineteenth Pnps [Episcopus el Princeps] AscolanusfTdbulam with bronze and mother-of-pearl
which took place in two stages on century. The extremely free touch in picttm ci aram/in elegantiomn formam/aen sua tones and more delicate yellows and
(anuary 8 and August 6, 1786. Cades is this self-portrait, which seems to have rtiegU blues. The martyrdom of the two

PAINTINGS
 saints, which had been depicted since
the previous century (albeit often
quite differently) by Bolognese and
Roman classical masters, takes on a
new note with the refined colors and
the silky effects of the fabrics, and the
discreet sparkle of the jewelry adds a
sophisticated fashionable touch to the
subject. It evokes the "conversation
pieces" or group portraits made by the
artist around this time (in particular
the superb portrait in pastels of
Princess Anna Maria Salviati
Borghese as Cornelia, with her two
children Camillo and Francesco, dated
1779; now in a private collection). In
Cades was following the
this field

most up-to-date trends in portrait

painting, brilliantly represented in
Rome by Batoni, but he was also very
open to English influence through
intermediary figures such as Angelika
Kauffmann and Antonio Zucchi.
Antonio Cavallucci seems to have
been inspired by the figure of Saint
Lucy for the central character in his
picture depicting The Investiture of Saint

Bona, intended for Pisa Cathedral (see

cat. 197).

At present two drawings relating to

this painting are known. The first,

held in the Suida Manning collection
in New York, is definitely a prepara-
tory study for the painting. The
second, which formed part of Bertel
Thorvaldsen's collection, now in the
Thorvaldsen Museum in Copenhagen,
is probably subsequent to the paint-

ing; it may have been made by the

artist later, in connection with an
etching by Giovanni Battista Romero
which reproduces Cades's painting in

reverse and is dated 1800. [mtc]

195
Giuseppe Cades
Study for "The Recognition of
Gualtieri d'Angversa, or Count

Gualtieri d'Angversa

Recognized by His
Grandchildren"
1787
Oil on canvas
14/2" x 27/2" (37 x 70 cm)
provenance Galerie Marcus, Paris, 1959;
Wildenstein Gallery, New York, 1962;
acquired at that date by the museum
exhibitions Rome 1959, cat. no. 113;

Cleveland 1964, cat. no. 98; New York 1967.

fig. 19a: Storrs 197 3, cat. no. 123

bibliography The Art Institute of

Chicago. Quarterly, vol. 57 (1963-64). no. 4;

Caracciolo 1988, "Cades," p. 71; Barroero
1990, p. 455; Caracciolo 1992, pp. 294-95
The Art Institute of Chicago, Charles H.
Worcester Sketch Collection

At the end of 1787 Cades was finishing

a canvas intended for the ceiling of

440 PAINTINGS
 —

Poussin to Raphael. Yet Camuccini

first emerged in the late Settecento
as a rebellious outsider, nurtured as
a young hero of the avant-garde and
styling himself as an artistic, moral,
and political reformer.
Camuccini initially trained in the

studio of Domenico Corvi, the leading

Italian painter working at that time in

Rome. He broke from this distin-

guished apprenticeship for an

extended, independent campaign in
the late 1780s, drawing the works of
Raphael and Michelangelo in the

Vatican as well as corpses in the hos-

pital of S. Spirito. These works
(Camuccini Collection, Cantalupo)
established his lifelong commitment
to High Renaissance models and the
careful study of the human body,
always retaining the precise, con-
trolled draftsmanship instilled by
195 Corvi. His brother Piero, a fast-rising
Rome, also found lucrative
dealer in
one of the camerini (rooms intended possessions. In his picture Cades illus- the Villa Borghese, could have noticed work young artist copying
for the

for displaying paintings) on the trates the point in the story where this rare and unusual pictorial inter- Renaissance and Baroque masterpieces
second floor of the villa of Prince Gualtieri's daughter and grandchil- pretation of the Scottish ballad and for the tourist market, indicating that
Marcantonio IV Borghese at Porta dren "recognize" the beggar, that is, from the Decameron and
the tale economics fueled Camuccini's split

Pinciana (now the Galleria Borghese). receive, feed, and shelter him as they remembered it later on when com- from Corvi. Nonetheless, in its parallel
The ceiling (in situ: restored in the would do for their own grandfather. It posing his own poem. Cades departs to the careers of Giuseppe Cades and
second half of the 1990s) depicts the is a moment that highlights the deeper from Boccaccio's text in locating the Asmus )akob Carstens, the fracture
story of the miraculous recognition of meaning of the story, namely the episode not in England but in Venice; also exemplified the splintering of the
Gualtieri d'Angversa, after the eighth primacy of the "voice of the heart" some of that city's buildings are por- studio and academy system at the end
tale recounted on the second day of and the impulses of the spirit over the trayed with historical accuracy in of the century.
Boccaccio's Decameron. The canvas, set dispassionate approach of reason. what is one of his most deliberately Camuccini developed instead under
into the ceiling, depicts the crucial The subject had seldom been neo-Venetian works — neo- the close watch of Rome's avant-garde,
moment in the long, sad story of depicted, but had recently resurfaced Veronesean, even —and is also scat- who saw the youth as a burgeoning
Count Angversa. from the past in English- and tered with genre quotations after model of the modern, reforming
The count's fiefdom cannot be German-speaking literary circles fol- Rubens and Van Dyck. It remains an Through his brother's connec-
artist.

identified with the Flemish town of lowing the republication in 1765 of the isolated work in the context of the tions he associated with Angelika
Antwerp (as some translators have it). Scottish ballad The Beggar's Daughter of Roman art of the 1780s and foreshad- Kauffmann's circles and from the age
Even though Boccaccio specifies that Bednall Green, which may have been ows the costumed history painting of of thirteen he drew at the Villa
the person in question is a French gen- one of Boccaccio's sources, even the following century with amazing Borghese, where he witnessed the col-
tleman (perhaps a Comte d'Angers), it though this hypothesis has never, prescience. laboration of Rome's most advanced
is preferable to stick to the Italian for- apparently, been put forward. The The modcllo exhibited here artists and antiquarians on the villa's

mulation of the name and regard him ballad was republished in the collec- although it lacks the Doges' Palace, decoration. Gavin Hamilton's spare,
as a purely imaginary figure. tion Reliques of Ancient English Poetry included in the final painting — consti- sentimentalizing classicism proved
According to the story, the attractive (edited by the Revd Thomas Percy): tutes one of the most finished especially influential for Camuccini's
Count Angversa owes all his misfor- a collection of traditional English preparatory painted versions of the first public commission, Paris Entrusted
tunes to the selfish passion felt for him poems the origins of which were lost ceiling and is certainly later than the to the Shepherds on Mount Ida (cat. 196).
by the wife of his lord, the French in the mists of time; it had a consider- little sketch in the Ford collection and The antiquarian Ennio Quirio
dauphin. Having loyally spurned the able influence on the genesis of the one held in the Pinacoteca Visconti cast an even longer shadow,
forbidden love she offers him, German Romantic poetry and is Ambrosiana in Milan. The supple, free commissioning drawings of antiqui-
Gualtieri is then accused by her of similar in spirit to the publication (or execution of the painting, with the ties for his 1796 catalogue of the
attempted rape, banished from rather invention) in 1760 of the poems luminous, deftly inserted highlights, Borghese collection. Visconti urged
France, and stripped of all his posses- of the legendary warrior Ossian, by is very typical of Cades's manner in Camuccini to study ancient visual and
sions. Separated from his two chil- Macpherson. any case the old
In the 1780s. [mtc] textual sources intensely, marshaling
dren, he leads a miserable vagrant life Scottish poem was certainly one antiquity to convey stoic, heroic
on the roads of England and Ireland inspiration for the Ballade vom vertricbe- virtues to modern audiences. From
until the day when he is received in ncn und zuruckkehrenden Grafen by VINCENZO CAMUCCINI 1790 to 1796 Camuccini also partici-
the grand house where his daughter, Goethe, composed between 1813 and pated in the Accademia de' Pensieri,
ROME 1771-1844 ROME
who has made a richand happy mar- 1817, the musicality and mystery of an alternative academy run by Felice
riage, lives with her husband and chil- which endow the theme with a special Giani, where the young artist forged
dren. Feeling pity for the old man, the charm. It maybe remembered that in As the champion of the most severe ties new wave of Italian
with the
couple give him food, and their chil- 1973 Anthony Morris Clark put mode of Neoclassicism, Vincenzo artists — including Luigi Sabatelli,
dren develop an affection for him, so forward the hypothesis that the Camuccini dominated early nine- Giovanni Battista dell'Era, and
that Gualtieri ends up staying with the picture by Cades could have been teenth-century Italian art, rivaled only Gaspare I. audi. The Pensieri sketched
family. A few years later, on the point influenced "by a ballad by Goethe" by Antonio Canova. Showered with their initial ideas quickly and sponta-
of death, the French princess now (Clark 1973, p. 75); today the relation- prcst igious (.(im missions and eminent neously, a novel procedure that
confesses her guilt and reveals the ship must be reversed, and it may be governmental and academic posts. Ik- Camuccini subsequently adapted to
innocence and loyalty of Gualtieri; assumed that Goethe, who was in was self-consciously the culmination his own working method (cats. 530,
officially rehabilitated, his honor Rome between 1786 and 1788 and was of a long tradition of Roman painting !?i), building up slowly from brilliant,
restored, he can recover his titles and very interested in the decorations al leading back through Maratti and turbulent sketches through increas-

PAINTINGS
 ingly clarified drawings and bozzetti to

sleek, carefully worked paintings.

By the early 1790s Camuccini's sup-
porters encouraged the vanguard
artist to make a splashy debut on
Rome's art scene. The Death of Caesar
and Tlit' Dcalh of Virginia (Museo di
Capodimonte. Naples) stand as
Camuccini's most significant achieve-
ments and established the direction of
Italian painting tor the next four
decades. Begun in 1793 and completed
over the next fourteen years, these
colossal works developed under
intense public scrutiny (Camuccini
destroyed the initial version of Caesar
in a dramatic, self-sacrificing response
to criticism). Completely rejecting his
initial toray into sentimental
Neoclassicism. Camuccini now
adopted a pure, hard-edged language
and a drier palette to present these

stoic, moralizing tales of the Roman

republic austerely, in a mode linked
both to earlier work by Hamilton and
Anton Raphael Mengs as well as the
work of progressive French artists he
knew in Rome, particularly [acques-
Louis David and )ean-Germain 196

Drouais.
Despite the claim of Camuccini's Roman representative to Napoleon's remain Camuccini's lasting contribu- The and Helen
narrative of Paris
early biographers that he eschewed court, and he renewed his ties with tions, [jls] derives from an amalgam of ancient
politics, both Caesar and Virginia French colleagues, including David bibliography Missirini 1825; Falconieri. sources, including Homer and Ovid,
address burgeoning nationalist ideas and Anne-Louis Girodet. Camuccini's Carlo. Vita di Vincenzo Camuccini. e pochi studi but the story retold by Camuccini in

in turn-of-the-century Rome. Based political engagement still needs clari- iulla pittura come mporeana. Rome. 1875; this painting comes specifically from
directly on tragedies of political fication, but his resistance to direct Pfister 1928. pp. 21-30; Lupi Manicota. B. "II
the Library of Apollodorus (Book
pittore Vincenzo Camuccini." Latina Gens.
oppression by Vittorio Alfieri. commissions from Napoleon, insis- While pregnant with Paris.
III.xii.5).
vol. 13, nos. 6-7 (1935), pp. 148-62: Bovero,
Camuccini's paintings express the tence on local subject matter, and Hecuba dreamt that she gave birth to
Anna. "Vincenzo Camuccini." In DBI. vol.
contemporary playwright's militant invention of the archetypal image of a firebrand. King Priam, the baby's
17, pp. 62--30: Hiesinger 19-8: Piamoni de
tone and anti-tyrannical fervor, borne Pope Pius VII Chiaramonti (a touch- Angelis 19~8: Hiesinger and Percy 1980: father, perceived this dream as a bad
out by the enthusiastic pro-Roman stone for Italian nationalism and resis- Olson. Roberta M. "Representations of
J.
omen for the country, and handed the
rhetoric that characterized the pic- tance), indicate that he did not Pope Pius VII: The First Risorgimento infant over at birth to be left for dead
tures' reception. Although Joachim abandon his early role as reformer. Hero." The An Bulletin, vol. 68 (1986), in the wild. Agelaus. the servant
Murat ultimately purchased the paint- Camuccini curated the Vatican pp. 77-93; "Sovrani e principi europei nella responsible for the task, discovered
vita e nell'arte di Vincenzo Camuccini."
ings for Naples, Frederick Hervey. the painting collection from 1809 and after five days that Paris had been
Srrcnna dei Romanisri (1988). pp. 91-106;
4th Earl of Bristol, was the initial became the chief arts administrator in miraculously nursed by a bear and
Ceccopieri. Isabella, ed. Varchivio Camuaini
patron. The Alfierian subject matter the Papal States from 1814. His imentario. Vol. 32. Rome: La Societa alia thus survived. Camuccini painted the
and aggressively modern style relate increasing connection to the papacy Biblioteca Valicelliana. 1990: Penny, happy conclusion to this story, when
intimately to Hervey's politicized col- paralleled his growth as a religious Nicholas. "Raphael's Madonna dei Agelaus brings the infant home to his
lecting goals, which connected to his painter. Such celebrated altarpieces as Garofani' Rediscovered." The Burlington family, where Paris will be raised.
Magazine, vol. 134 (1992). pp. 6^-81
interest in Irish Catholic liberation. The Conversion of Saint Paul (1832-35; This canvas is probably a ricordo of
By the century's end Camuccini S. Paolo fuori le Mura. Rome), and Vincenzo Camuccini's first major
was Rome's preeminent painter. His Tlie Miracle of San Francesco di Paola public enterprise — a ceiling panel for
earlier anti-establishment stance now (1824-30; S. Francesco di Paola, 196 the Room of Helen and Paris at the
shifted,and the artist joined the Naples) reveal the artist's debt to Villa Borghese. Prince Marcantonio
Vincenzo Camuccini
Accademia di S. Luca in 1802 and Renaissance and Baroque precedent Borghese IV originally commissioned
became Principe in 180s. During the most clearly. Paris Entrusted to the the decoration of the room in 1782
Napoleonic occupation. European Camuccini's authoritv held sway from the Scottish painter Gavin
Shepherds on Mount Ida
royalty and Italian nobility filled the until his death, affecting several gen- Hamilton, who assigned the sculptural
vacuum when the international com- erations of Roman artists and scholars 1796-1800 and decorative works to artists such as
munity of tourists and artists who as a teacher, policy maker, conserva- Oil on canvas Antonio Asprucci. Guillaume-
17 Y" x 26" (45 x 66 cm)
formed his initial clientele dispersed. tor, and curator as well as a painter. Antoine Grandjacquet. Luigi Valadier.

His history paintings, following Caesar Camuccini represented the end of the provenance Christie's (as anonymous): and Agostino Penna. Reserving the
Sir Anthony Blunt by 1964: Heim Gallery.
and Virginia, now focused almost Roman classical tradition, already paintings for himself. Hamilton exe-
London: purchased by the present owner
exclusivelyon moralizing subjects, perceived as moribund in his last cuted the original version of Paris
in 1964
usually drawn from the history of years by younger Nazarene and Entrusted to the Shepherds as well as
exhibitions Cleveland 1964. cat. no. 161:
the Roman republic (The Continence of Purisino artists. Nonetheless, his three large canvases for the walls (now
Bregenz and Vienna 1968. cat. no. 134;
Sripio, Palazzo Tavcrna. Rome) but he aggressive insistence on upholding London \<pi. cat. no. 40 in the Museo di Roma) and five can-
also spearheaded the use of later the eighteenth-century Roman bibliography Visconti 1-96: Ferrara 1954:
vases set into the ceiling.
Italian history (Study for The Entry authority of draftsmanship, the Vorarlberger Landesmuseum 1968: According to documents in (amity
of Malatcsta Baghani into Perugia, unswerving commitment to the High Hiesinger 19-8: Piantoni de Angelis 1978 archives.Camuccini completed his
Camuccini Collection, Cantalupo). Renaissance, and the notion of the Private collection. Chicago interpretation of this myth in 1-96. In

The artist traveled to Paris in 1810 as a artist as an engaged public servant that year Ennio Quirio Visconti (a key

342 PAINTINGS
 —

player in the promotion of Camuccini's Camuccini. Scenes of tender familial is Cavallucci's decoration of the piano The Dream of joscph for the new church

early career) attributed the whole suite intimacy were common currency nobile of the Palazzo Caetani, which of S. Andrea in Subiaco. Paintings for

of paintings to Hamilton in his among artists in Rome during the last the family itself acquired in via delle this church were also provided by
description of the Villa Borghese. two decades of the Settecento, fueled Botteghe Oscure. This project, begun Laurent Pecheux. Cristoforo

so Camuccini's work could not have especially by the success of Angelika in 1776 with Scenes of Atalanta and Unterperger, Marcello Leopardi, Pietro

been mounted in the ceiling to replace Kauffmann's brand of history paint- Hippomenes and Scenes of Diana and Labruzzi, and Pietro Tedeschi.

Hamilton's original before that point ing. Camuccini's work shows the Apollo, along with other subjects cele- Cavallucci sent major works to Catania

(Piantoni de Angelis 1978, p. 20). Why impact not only of Kauffmann, but brating the glory of the family, was (Saint Maurus and Saint Placidus Presenting

Hamilton's canvas was removed more specifically that of the tender completed in 1780. In 1786 Cavallucci Themselves to Saint Benedict; cat. 333),

remains a mystery, as does the relation interpretations of The Meeting of Hector added to this series one of his master- Sansepolcro (Virgin of the Rosary in

between Camuccini's canvas and the and Andromache by Gaspare Landi (cat. pieces, The Origin of Music, for the the Cathedral), Urbino (Saint John the

original. (Hamilton's composition is 23s) and Antonio Cavallucci. Despite music room of the duchess. Monsignor Evangelist for one of the pendentives
now lost, although a bozzetto exists in the assurance with which he Francesco degli Albizzi, a relative of of the dome of the cathedral), and
a Minnesota private collection embraced this style, Camuccini Caetani, also commissioned Cavallucci Carpentras (Crucifix, for the cathedral).

[L'Accadcmia 1974. P- 150]). Critics never quickly abandoned this mode for the to create four overdoors for St. Peter's, One of his most fervent admirers,

singled out the lost canvas for criti- severity, nobility, and virtuous, politi- two for the sacristy of the Beneficiati Cardinal Francesco Saverio de Zelada,
cism, and the 1784 reviews in the cized messages of his highly success- (The Calling of Peter and Andrew and commissioned numerous canvases
Giornale delle Belle Arti (January 3, ful first major history paintings, [jls] Domine quo vadis?) and two for the sac- from Cavallucci for, S. Martino ai Monti
February 7, and December 4) dis- risty of the canons (The Liberation of in Rome, including Eli/ah on Mount
cussed the entire series of paintings Saint Peter and Paul and Barnabas be/ore Carmel, as well as the decoration of

with great enthusiasm. If the image ANTONIO CAVALLUCCI Peter). However, it was a journey in the apse, which was finished after his

needed repainting in 1796, the youth- SERMONETA I752-1705 ROME north Italy in 1787 that directed death by Giovanni Micocca.
ful Camuccini would have been an Cavallucci towards his unmistakable Cavallucci's production consisted

obvious choice for the work, since he Among the principal exponents of the interpretation of Neoclassical aesthet- of almost entirely religious works,
was already well known by the artists Roman Settecento, Antonio Cavallucci ics, where the original influences with the exception of the Caetani
working at the Villa Borghese. A is perhaps the one who was the slowest from Maratti are blended with very cycle, the Tarpeia of the Palazzo Altieri
student of Antonio Asprucci, the to enjoy recognition subsequently, clear signs of a deeper interest in six- and a small number of portraits
primary architect at the villa, despite the consistent acclaim with teenth-century artists such as Andrea (Francesco Caetani, Teresa Corsini,

Camuccini had sketched the Borghese which his works were received during del Sarto, Fra Bartolomeo, and, above Fondazione Caetani, Rome; Girolamo
antiquities for years. Moreover, his lifetime. Cavallucci was one of the all, Correggio. Upon his return to Silvestri, Accademia dei Concordi,
Camuccini knew Gavin Hamilton favorite painters of Pius VI, who Rome in 1788, and as part of the same Rovigo; Romualdo Braschi, private col-

through his brother, Pietro described him as "the Raphael of our commission for Albizzi, he executed lection). During a trip to Naples he
Camuccini, who often collaborated times" (Chracas, Diario Ordinario di the grand altarpiece for the parochial executed a portrait of the prince of
with Hamilton as a fellow dealer in Roma, September 19, 1789, no. 1536), church of Palidoro near Rome, Saint Belvedere (Capodimonte. Naples).
paintings and antiquities. and was even more highly thought of Philip and Saint james, which distinctly Subsequently, he also painted a por-
Extant preparatory studies expose by Giovanni Gherardo de Rossi, the reveals his new sources. A sketch of trait of Pius VI (private collection).
Camuccini's typically careful develop- influential protagonist of artistic and this work is in the Lemme collection However, according to a contempo-
ment of a composition. Preliminary literary Neoclassicism. De Rossi fre- in Rome. In 1790 he also executed a rary source, the pope was not satisfied

drawings (Piantoni de Angelis 1978, quently wrote about the artist in the lunette depicting Saint joseph Calasanz with this work, and commissioned a
p. 21) reveal progress toward a simpler, Memorie per le Belle Arti, the most for the chapel of the Ospedale di replacement by Gaspare Landi.
more balanced image. Camuccini authoritative periodical of the time, S. Spirito (today in the Palazzo del Cavallucci was a member of the
reduced the number of figures and and in 1796 offered a complete and Commendatore in Borgo). Accademia di S. Luca (1786) and of the
spread them along a frieze to make generally reliable, if occasionally inac- His membership in the Accademia Congregazione dei Virtuosi al Pantheon
the narrative clearer from the ground. curate, biography of the artist. dell'Arcadia,where he was registered (1^88). In 1790, probably because of his
By centralizing Agelaus and his wife Francesco Caetani, the Duke of in 1788 under the name of Ippomiero friendship with Giovanni Gherardo de
and pulling the figures to the front of Sermoneta. for whom the painter's Sermoneo, enabled Cavallucci to profit Rossi, he was appointed professor in
the picture plane, the artist empha- father, Bartolomeo, served as a lock- from the suggestions of the poet and the Accademia del Portogallo in Rome.
sizes the sensitive exchange of the smith, recognized the artist's talents philosopher Appiano Buonafede, who One of Cavallucci's unmistakable
helpless infant Paris to his adoptive and introduced him to the studio of advised him on the composition of his characteristics is the refined perfection
father. The rounded forms arching Stefano Pozzi, then one of the more complex paintings. Notable of his draftsmanship, accompanied by
toward the center also lend a unity eminent figures of the Roman pictor- among these is the large painting delicate color and an extreme, attentive
and compactness to the grouping that ial panorama. Upon his death in 1768, depicting The Investiture of Saint Bona consideration for composition and
recall antique cameos. At least two Cavallucci studied with Gaetano (c. 1792) for Pisa Cathedral. It is likely design. His constant interest in
smaller painted versions exist, the one Lapis, thereby effecting an almost thatmembership of the academy also Maratti — the unfailing and unsurpassed
and the work given to
exhibited here natural progression from a classicism served as the background to his model for all religious painting of the
the Accademia Nazionale di S. Luca thatwas still substantially derived involvement in the cycle of scenes from age —
and his roots in seventeenth-
by the artist as his reception piece in from Maratti to a truer Neoclassicism. Roman history for the Palazzo Altieri century art. especially Guido Reni and
1803. Both renderings use rectangular In the Concorso Clementino of 1771 he the plan of which was drawn up by Cigoli, and, naturally, his obvious debt
canvases rather than the attenuated won firstprize with his drawing of the the Jesuit scholar and antiquarian the to Raphael, remain clear. But
octagons of the Borghese ceiling, and Three Angels Appearing to Abraham. In abbot Vito Maria Giovinazzi (himself a Cavallucci stands out from his con-
thereby include landscape elements the Concorso Balestra of 1773 he won member of the Accademia dell'Arcadia) temporaries by his luminosity of color
eventually dropped in the final version. second prize with a painting portray- at the occasion of the marriage of ("brilliant light that radiates every-
This work, as well as the panel on ing the Hector's Farewell to Andromache Paluzzo Altieri and Marianna of where," according to De Rossi 1796,
the Borghese ceiling, reveals (Accademia di S. Luca, Rome). With Saxony. This took place around 1791, p. 69), which renounces the "exces-
Camuccini adapting to the sentimen- these successes behind him, he and apart from Cavallucci (who exe- sively dark" chiaroscuro effects, while
tal classicizing style that characterizes obtained numerous important com- cuted Tarpcia Showing Titus Tatius the defining space and form perfectly, [lb]
the eighteenth-century decorative missions, including works for the Entrance to the Capitol), it involved Anton mm iooraphy Vinci 1795; De Rossi 1796:
painting at the Villa Borghese. The Caetani family. Of these early works von Maron. Giuseppe Cades, Marcello Roettjjen 19-6; Rocttgen 19-9: Hicsinger
creamy colors, reductive simplicity, for his patrons the only one to have Leopardi. and Francesco Manno. The and Percy 1980. pp. 90-91, no. -9: Casale
gentle design,and graceful handling survived is Abigail before David support of Pius VI also resulted in 1990: Rangoni 1990: Scstieri 1994. vol. 1,

align with the other paintings important commissions pp. 45-47; Kunzc 1997; Loire 1998.
in (Fondazione Caetani, Rome). for Cavallucci.
pp. io(> 1 i; Seicento 1 Settecento 1998.
Hamilton's ceiling and show the early Particularly notable for its artistic including The Presentation oj the Virgin in
pp. mi 9; Scstieri 199.8
influence of the older artist on commitment and formal inventiveness the Temple for Spoleto < athedral and

PAINTINGS 343
 197

197 Sckcnto e Settecento 1998. pp. 103-5, no. 26 Oblate from the regular canons of had already praised the large painting
Lemme Collection. Rome S. Agostino. The picture was dedi- in his journals (Honour 1963, p. 376).
Antonio Cavallucci
cated by the Marchesa Ricciarda The final modcllo is in the Museo di S.

The Investiture of Saint Bona Catanti Tanucci with a letter dated Matteo in Pisa (Ciardi 1991, pp. 124-25,

This refined work was recognized by April 8, 1788 (Ciardi 1991, pp. 124-25, 141). It is larger than (38" x 45/."), and
with the Habit of the Oblate of
Roberto Longhi (letter of August 9, 141), in which she allowed the repre- of slightly different proportions from,
Saint Augustine 1959; Sale catalogue. Christie's, Rome, sentatives of the cathedral complete the Lemme collection picture, but vir-
c. 1792
November 21, 1995, p. 71) as a model freedom of choice as far as subject tually identical in composition and

Oil on canvas for the large picture (17' 8/2" x 18' 'A") matter and artist. On March 1, 1790, formal solutions. A drawing in the
29X" x 29X" x cm) of the same subject intended for the Cavallucci contracted to send the Gabinetto dei Disegni e Stampe degli
(74 74
Pisa Cathedral (see Sicca 1990, p. 273, bozzctto within two years (Enzo Carli, Uffizi (inv. 99135, 13//' x 12//'; Ciardi
provenance Christie's,Rome, November
21, 1995; to present owner 282, n. 113; Sicca 1994; Adriano Pcroni ed., (1 duomo di Pisa: il bauislcro, il cam- 1991, pp. 128, 145, 147), already well

exhibitions Paris 1998, cat. no. 26; Paris. ed., il Duotno di Pisa [Modena, Italy: F. panile [Florence: Nardini, 1989], p. no). defined in spite of the variations,
Milan, and Rome 1998. cat. no. 26 C. Panini, 1995], vol. 1, p. 487). Both the sketch and the picture were charts an earlier stage in the composi-

BIBLIOGRAPHY Dc Rossi 1796, p. 46: Sale In this painting the patron saint ol delivered in 1792 (see Adriano Pcroni. tion. In addition, studies have been
catalogue, C hristie's, Rome, November 21, the Tuscan city is portrayed, still as a p. 487, above), although in the previ- identified for the heads of the kneeling
1995. P- 7i, lot. 245; Loire 1998, pp. 106-8; young girl, receiving the habit of the ous year the sculptor Vincenzo Pacetti man in the foreground and the young

?44 PAINTINGS
 —

man in profile in the center (National Lanzi 1809, vol. 1, p. 421; Chracas, an ambitious ceiling fresco in the painting of the newly restored basilica

Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh, D516; Diario Ordinario di Roma, November 28, Palazzo Barberini, Apollo and the Four of S. Clemente, Saint Clement in Glory,

Sicca 1990, p- 267, 275). 1795)- The subtle color gradations, Seasons with Chronos, a complex alle- and for one of the Lateran Prophets,
It is not certain whether the paint- precise draftsmanship, and clear gorical/mythological painting pro- Obadiah. The ceiling fresco in
ing displayed here is a modello preced- arrangement of space revealed grammed by the learned classicizing S. Clemente pays homage to Maratti's
ing the picture in Pisa Cathedral, in Cavallucci's profound agreement with theorist Giovanni Pietro Bellori, one Triumph of Clemency of 1676 in the

spite of the slight variations notice- his most important sources, identified of Chiari's closest friends. The biogra- Palazzo Altieri and had a demonstra-
able in that work. It is more likely to by the artist's friend and adviser De pher Lione Pascoli states that such was ble impact on Mengs's ceiling fresco
be one of the small-scale replicas that, Rossi: Anton Raphael Mengs, Pompeo Barberini's admiration for Chiari that in S. Eusebio, Saint Eusebius in Glory.

according to the assertions of his Batoni, and Angelika Kauffmann, he allowed the painter to select as the For Obadiah, Chiari executed a small
biographer Giovanni Gherardo de whom, according to Giovambattista site for his work any salon in the modello that he gave to his papal bene-

Rossi (De Rossi 1796, p. 46), Cavallucci Vinci, Cavallucci knew and respected palazzo not already frescoed. The factor and also made a scale version
used to make his greater works, often (Vinci 1795. p- 44)- [lb] patron must have been satisfied, since that was displayed in the Palazzo
with the help of his collaborators he soon ordered another ceiling fresco, Montecitorio. The works for
Tommaso Sciacca and Giovanni The Birth of Pindar. The artist's most S. Clemente and St. John Lateran

Micocca. One of these replicas,
carried out with the limited participa-
tion of an assistant but finished
perfected by Cavallucci himself, was
actually the Investiture of Saint Bona,
GIUSEPPE BARTOLOMEO important commission for a secular established Chiari as one of the
CHIARI came in 1700,
ceiling fresco, however, premier painters in Rome and helped
and ROME 1654-1727 ROME when he executed The Apotheosis of promote his studio as one of the city's
Mareantonio Colonna for Prince most popular and influential.
Although the early artists' biographer Colonna's palace in the Piazza dei In such public commissions as Saint

which De Rossi owned together with Nicola Pio claims that Chiari was born Ss. Apostoli. This grand, airy painting Clement in Glory, Chiari paid careful
other works by the painter. Another in Lucca in 1654, both Pascoli and occupies the entire ceiling of the gallery respect to the classical tradition of
contemporary writer and biographer, manuscript sources at the Accademia of the piano nobile (the main, or Maratti, but in more intimate cabinet
Giovambattista Vinci, wrote that a di S. Luca state that he was born in the second, story) and shows the arrival of paintings his quiet, suave elegance is

bozzetto for the Saint Bona picture was Eternal City. Late in life he claimed to the august Colonna ancestor, the hero seen to greater advantage. In 1708 he
in the Caetani house (Vinci 1795, p. 37, be Florentine, but there is no other of the naval battle of Lepanto against painted for Cardinal Fabrizio Spada
n. one of these two could be the
1); evidence for this and he doubtless the Turks in the sixteenth century, on four mythological subjects taken
painting displayed here. The other spent almost his entire life in Rome. Mount Olympus. In this mythic from Ovid, works that fully accord
known modello —
an equally accom- The son of Tuscan parents resident in empyrean Mareantonio is introduced with the gentler and more refined sen-
plished work located in the Pisa Rome, Stefano Chiari and Maria by the demigod
to the other deities sibilities of the early Settecento. This
—
museum was delivered on )anuary Francesca di Sante Mariani, Chiari Hercules. Although Chiari continued graceful style is also seen in smaller

3, 1793, to the clients in Pisa (see Enzo entered the studio o( Carlo Maratti from triumph to triumph until his religious paintings such as Christ and
Carli, p. 110, above). This indicates that in 1666. initiating an intimate death in 1727, he never again worked the Woman oj Samaria, painted around
it is neither the 1795 model reported teacher-student relationship that on such an imposing scale. 1710-12 for Christian Schaumberg-
"in the cabinet of the Prince of lasted until the latter's death in 1713. After egregious success working Lippe, one of Chiari's most important
Teano" — the Caetani — nor the modello Both contemporary critics and for noble patrons in domestic settings, foreign patrons. Similar to Urbano
still owned by De Rossi in 1796. modern historians have recognized Chiari entered the official world of Barberini's gesture of respect in the
The large painting in Pisa Cathedral the aesthetic sympathy exhibited in papal patronage during the long reign Barberini ceiling project, Cardinal
is part of a cycle by Cavallucci that work of his teacher,
Chiari's art for the of Clement XI Albani. This art-loving Spada allowed Chiari to select the sub-
probably represents, along with the and certainly the younger artist was pontiff consistently honored him with jects, stipulating only the dimensions
decoration of the church of S. Matteo the most faithful follower of the doyen important commissions. Among the for the pictures, a compliment to the
in Soarte (carried out entirely in Rome of the Roman school of classicizing earliest was the painter's employment painter's eminence in his profession.
by Francesco Trevisani, Sebastiano artists whose influence reached into as a restorer for several fragments of In 1714 Chiari painted The Adoration of
Conca, Giacomo Zoboli, and Marco the middle decades of the Settecento. the fresco by Melozzo da Forli that the Magi (now in Dresden), probably
Benefial between 1730 and 1740) the Chiari differs from his master in a had been destroyed during the for Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni; even
high point of the Pisan Settecento heightened sense of elegance and an rebuilding of the basilica of though on a large scale, it retains the
(Garms 1984). The cycle was executed emphasis on intimacy and grace, seen Ss. Apostoli. These included the large augmented grace and delicacy seen in
under the direction of the local to great advantage in his numerous Christ in Majesty still seen in the Palazzo the Spada mythologies and the
Arcadian "colony" (see especially Sicca religiousand mythological cabinet del Quirinale and the justly celebrated Schaumberg-Lippe Samarttana.
1990, and Sicca 1994) and encompassed pictures executed for a wide variety heads of angels from the same Commissions for similar pictures
practically all the artistic developments of patrons, both Italian and foreign. Renaissance fresco. Albani also com- poured in from Britain, Germany (the
of the century as well as the most Chiari was the leading conduit of the missioned a tapestry cartoon, Pentecost, Elector of Saxony was an especially
illustrious painters active at the time. Marattesque idiom from the last as a model for the weavers at the newly avid patron), and even France, in addi-
Predominantly "Roman" in nature decades of the Seicento to the dawn of established tapestry works in S. Michele tion to other parts of the Italian penin-
the contributions introducedby the Neoclassicism, primarily through his a Ripa, one of many attempts by him sula. In his seventies Chiari was still

Bolognese and Tuscan painters appear decisive influence on Agostino to stimulate the luxury trades locally capable of executing grand altarpieces
—
more limited it generated such inter- Masucci, Maratti's last important and to reduce imports from France in a more personalized variant of the
est that the paintings were shown in student, and on Anton Raphael Mengs. and Flanders. Chiari also painted The Marattesque idiom, chief among them
churches in the city before being dis- Chiari was no prodigy. His almost Allegory of the Church, an iconographi- Saints Peter oj Alcantara and Paschal
played in their final location. In addi- twenty-year apprenticeship with cally complex painting showing Saint Baylon Adoring the Trinity, executed for
tion, the handing over and conservation Maratti partly explains the profound Peter and a blindfolded Ecclesia the Rospigliosi-Pallavicini Chapel in
of the bozzetti and modelli, as was respect for the teacher everywhere steadying the ship of the Church in S. Francesco a Ripa (see cat. 16), and the
reported by Cinzia Maria Sicca, were evident in his art. Around 1683-84 he troubled seas. Executed around 1712, charmingly lyrical Angelic Consolation
strictly controlled in order to prevent executed his first important indepen- the picture was intended as a present 0/ Saint Francis for the Colonna family
abuse and misappropriation. In 1742 a dent works — two lateral altarpieces from the pope to James Stuart, the in their chapel in Ss. Apostoli.
town council decree ruled that the for the Marcaccioni Chapel in the Old Pretender, as a mark ol esteem. Chiari's professional career reached
modelli should be kept in a room in the church of S. Maria del Suffragio. The In addition, Chiari was chosen to com- its apex in 1722, when he was elected
city hall, thereby assuring that the Pisan great success achieved by these paint- plete the grand cartoons for mosaic Principe of the Accademia di S. Luca,
cycle would remain well documented. ings firmly established Chiari as a decorations for the Presentation Chapel a position of enormous power and
The Investiture of Saint Bona was leading exponent of the Marattesque in St. Peter's, a papal project inherited prestige thai he retained until 1725. He
already considered by contemporaries style, and a series of spectacular private from Maratti. had been a member since 1697. It was
as Cavallucci's masterpiece (Vinci commissions soon followed. In 169} The most important papal commis- during his administration that the
'795. p. 37; De Rossi 1796, pp. 33-34; Prince Urbano Barberini commissioned were for the ceiling
sions, however, academy began to require members

PAINTINGS
 Maratti. Bathsheba's standing maid is the development of the genre galant in
also more demure, and the attendant France, whose chief exponents were
who washes her feet stares Francois Lemoyne, Francois Boucher,
unabashedly into her mistress's face. and Charles Natoire, in the early and
Many other details of the two pic- middle decades of the century.
tures are also at variance. Chiari While displaying an open admira-
includes a large basin full of water tion for the eroticized female form
ornamented by an elegant rocailk that surpasses his Maratti model,
handle, adding a grand column with Chiari nonetheless exhibits a pro-
drapery behind the nude figure to found admiration for his master and
emphasize her aristocratic status and for the classical tradition he inherited.
to place her in a palatial setting neces- In addition to the powerful influence
sary to the textual source. of Maratti, there is also a suggestion of
Significantly, Chiari reveals little of works by Pietro da
close study of late
Bathsheba's reflection to the beholder; Cortona, Giovanni Battista Gaulli,
like the admiring maid, the spectator Guido Reni, Francesco Albani, and,
is intended to focus on the original ultimately, Annibale Carracci. John
rather than the facsimile. Maratti, on T. Spike has convincingly attributed
the other hand, shows the reflected a drawing in the National Gallery
face full-on, and the major conceit of of Scotland in Edinburgh to Chiari,
the picture is the theme of vanity that pointing out its close affinities to the
leads to tragedy. In both paintings torso and arms of Bathsheba in the

King David observes the object of Metropolitan painting. That the

desire from a balcony, but with drawing had long been misidentified
Maratti's interpretation Bathsheba's as a Maratti is eloquent testimony to
self-absorption seems to suggest her the younger painter's thorough train-
susceptibility to the king's blandish- ing in this international classicizing
ments. Chiari's Bathsheba, on the idiom. Although nothing is known
other hand, reduces the king and the about the history of the painting
spectator to the role of passive admir- before the twentieth century, it has
ers, emphasizing female beauty with been dated on stylistic grounds to the
little hint of dire moral consequences. last years of the Seicento, with 1695,
This is an excellent example of the the date of the Maratti picture in
change in aesthetic and narrational Vaduz, serving as a terminus ante quern.
sensibilities from the Baroque to the There no reason, however, to
is

eighteenth century, a phenomenon assume the painting was executed

seen in such related religious subjects shortly after the completion of
and the Woman of Samaria,
as Christ Maratti's painting. The narrow face
Rebecca and Eliezer at the Well, Christ and ovoid features of the standing
to donate one of their works to the 198 and the Woman Taken in Adultery, attendant, the pale colors, and espe-
institution's diploma gallery, an inno- and many others. cially the refined, soft brushstroke and
Giuseppe Bartolomeo
vation that has turned the Accademia King David's espying of the bathing changeant palette, along with the deli-

di S. Luca into a major venue for eigh- Chiari Bathsheba from the roof of his palace, cate languor of the female nude are
teenth-century Roman art. With his summons to her and their subse- also frequently encountered in paint-
Bathsheba at Her Bath
Andrea Procaccini and Giuseppe quent adultery, the betrayal of her ings by Chiari after about 1700. and
Passeri, both of whom he long out- c. 1700 husband Uriah the Hittite and his any attempt to date it more precisely

lived, Chiari was the chief continuator Oil on canvas death in battle ordered by David, her must be ultimately problematic.
of the Roman grand tradition whose 53/2" x 38/2" (135.9 x 97-8 cm) conception and the death of their son [CMSll
roots ultimately lay in the art of provenance Moratilla Collection, Paris, are recounted in 2 Samuel 11: 2-24.
until 1952-53; Mario Modestini Collection,
Raphael. As Nicola Pio stated, the The moral seriousness of the biblical
New York, until 1993
fame of Chiari's Marattesque style theme, underscored by the mirrored 199
exhibitions Princeton 1980, cat. no. 14;
resounded throughout Europe and image of vanity in Maratti's painting,
Frankfurt, Bologna, Los Angeles, and Fort Giuseppe Bartolomeo
provides an essential link from the is greatly relieved by the grace and
Worth 1988, cat. no. D30
Roman High Renaissance to decorative delicacy exhibited in Chiari
bibliography Kerber 1968, p. 80; Maxon
European Neoclassicism.[cMSj] and Rishel Chiari's painting. Its pale, cool colors
1970, p. 190 The Rest on the Flight into
BIBLIOGRAPHY Pio [1724] 1977, pp. 108-9; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New suffuse the palace garden setting with
Pascoli [1750-36] 1933, vol. 1, pp. 209-17; York. Gift of Mario Modestini a sense of languid twilight and erotic Egypt
Voss 1924, pp. 604-6; Kerber 1968; Dreyer possibilities. The frank admiration of c. 1707-15
1971: Schleier 1971-73; Waterhouse 1976, all the figures for the seated nude Oil on canvas
pp. 6s-66; Scavizzi 1982; Guerrieri Borsoi This superbly delicate painting by Bathsheba aligns the painting to 19/2" x 26'A" (49.5 x 66.4 cm)
Chiari, long unrecognized as his cabinet pictures executed for private
provenance Baron de Breteuil by the
work, is a reversed variation of a galleries that were intended to be mid-eighteenth century; Julius Weitzner,
painting of the same subject by Carlo closely scrutinized for content and New York, 1955
Maratti executed for the Liechtenstein painterly technique. In addition, coy exhibitions Detroit 1965, cat. no. 120:

family. Chiari's interpretation, grace, sensual nudity, and the attrac- Storrs 1973, cat. no. 10; Tulsa 1994. cat. no. 35

however, is remarkably different from tive attendants could rather easily bibliography Kerber 1968, p. 82: Johns

the Maratti prototype, and is probably allow the painting to be read as a 1988, pp. 11-13; Johns 1993. pp. 199-200

based on an engraving. Chiari's Diana with her Nymphs, with David Bob Jones University Collection.
Greenville. South Carolina
Bathsheba is a Veronesque blonde interpreted as Actaeon, a fact that
rather than a Rcniesque brunette, emphasizes the decreased authority
more slender in proportion and much of canonical texts with eighteenth- Despite its lack of an eighteenth-
more at ease in her state of nudity century artists. Indeed, such paintings century provenance and the fact that

than the self-conscious woman of the in Rome must have been influential in it has only been correctly attributed to

PAINTINGS
 record of it. In the absence of docu-
mentary evidence, the traditional title,

The Rest on the Flight into Egypt, is the

appropriate one. [cmsj]

200
Giuseppe Bartolomeo
Chiari
The Adoration of the Magi
c. 1715

Signed, lower left: ioseph chiari

Oil on canvas
70" x 50" (178 x 127 cm)
provenance Earl of Dunravcn Collection,
by 1773: Kaiser-Friedrich-Museums-Verein;
acquired by the Staatliche Museen
Preussischer Kulturbesitz, 1972

BIBLIOGRAPHY Schleier 1971-73;

Preussischer Ku/lurbesitz 1978. p. 102

Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Preussischer

Kulturbesitz. Gemaldegalerie, Property of
the Kaiser-Friedrich-Museums-Verein

The Berlin Adoration oj the Magi is a

reduced version of a painting of the
same subject, also by Chiari, in the

Gemaldegalerie, Dresden, a work

probably painted for Cardinal Pietro
Ottoboni that is signed and dated
Chiari by Federico Zeri as recently as Vincenzo Gravina, advocated a sonal artistic invention rather than a 1714. Unlike the Dresden prototype,
1955 (it was formerly thought to be by reform of Italian poetry and culture visualization of a textual narrative is it is vertical in format, and the figures
Maratti), the Rest on the Flight into Egypt by emphasizing simplicity, naivete, cogent for Arcadian paintings, the are reduced in scale. Signed but not
has become one of the most familiar and direct metaphor, holding Baroque omnipresence of things Egyptian sug- dated, the Adoration of the Magi was
early Settecento Roman images. complexity, bombast, and euphuism if the Holy Family are
gests that painted sometime between 1714, the
Suffused with a sophisticated, languid in abhorrence. They often gathered al indeed en route from Egypt, they have documented date of the Dresden
elegance and notable for its alluring fresco for poetic recitations, and many not gotten very far. Moreover, after a painting, and the artist's death in 1727,

profusion of color, this painting is artists and leaders of the clerical and seven-year residence in Egypt, accord- but probably much closer to the
precisely the type of image favored cultural hierarchy, including Maratti, ing to the pseudo-Bonaventure's earlier date. The circumstances sur-
by private collectors for small cabinet his daughter Faustina Maratti Zappi, popular Meditationes vitae Christ!, the rounding the creation of the Berlin
collections of precious objects Pope Clement XI, Cardinal Pietro principal source for the story in the painting are unknown. It could have
intended for close scrutiny by con- Ottoboni, and Chiari himself were eighteenth century, the Christ Child been commissioned from the artist

noisseurs. Similar images abounded numbered among the pastori (shep- seems to be an infant. In addition,
still for a private collection or possibly was
in such Roman private collections as herds), as the members of the pseudo-Bonaventure explicitly states made for a church, its dimensions
that of cardinals Ottoboni, Spada, and academy were called. The patron of that the Holy Family met the youthful being congruent with those of paint-
Corsini, among others, and were the Arcadians was the Baby ]esus, a Baptist after they had traversed the ings executed for flanking chapel
highly sought after by foreign collec- symbol of regeneration, reform, and desert and just before they crossed the altarpieces or lateral paintings for one
tors, above all the British and innocence. While harking back stylis- Jordan River. Furthermore, the apoc- of the side walls. This supposition,
Germans. What particularly delighted tically to Bolognese seventeenth- ryphal text makes the point that the however,is mere speculation, based

collectors and connoisseurs alike century artists such as Albani and journey home was more arduous than on the vertical format and
solely
were distinctive brushwork, diffuse Reni, the Rest on the Flight into Egypt the passage to Egypt seven years dimensions of the picture. The first
compositions, and inventive narra- nonetheless embraces a new spirit, a before, because Mary could no longer record of the existence of the Adoration
tives that took significant departures lighter sensibility, a more delicate carry her son. Thus, the presence of of the Magi is from the second half of
from canonical texts, all features seen palette, softer brushwork, and a John the Baptist in the Greenville the eighteenth century, when it

in Chiari's painting. Spread across a greater inventive freedom from painting cannot be explained logically appeared in the collection of the 1st

lyrical, expressive, "exotic" landscape notions of ut pictura pocsis that were by reference to the Return from Egypt. Earl of Dunraven. The Irish nobleman
prominently marked by such egyp- regnant in the Baroque era. Artistic inventiveness, not a differ- probably acquired the picture during
tianizing elements as a sphinx, a palm Some scholars have supported a ent iconography, is suggested by the his visit to Rome in 17-;, when
tree, a column (according to
truncated new, curious identification for the presence of the flower-bearing Pompeo Batoni painted his portrait.
apocryphal texts, pagan idols crum- iconography of the painting, suggest- cherubs at right, the youthful John the Without documentary evidence,
bled as the Holy Family passed them ing that the subject is actually the Baptist and adoring angels around however, the picture's origins must
on their way into Egypt), and a distant extremely rare Return jrom the Flight Mary and the Christ Child, and Saint remain obscure.
cityscape with a pyramid, Chiari has which The Return from
into Egypt, for Joseph unburdening the donkey with The compositional source lor both
imbued the painting with a sense of Egypt (Townsend 1994, p. 184) is pre- the assistance of another cherub at the Dresden painting and the Berlin
sweet elegance and purposeful, naive sumably intended. This reading is left. The faci that there are several Adoration oj the Magi is a representa-
wonder. based largely on the presence of John paintings closely related to this one tion ol the same theme that Chiari
Iitempting to associate the paint-
is the Baptist in the scene, an admittedly also militates against such an arcane executed as a lateral altarpiece c. 168s
ing with the new spirit of reform unusual (but not unprecedented) iconography. If such a rare subject had for the Marcaccioni Chapel in S. Maria
esp« lused by the Accademia inclusion for the iconography of the been often repealed lor the market by del Suffragio, an early work thai did
dell'Arcadia. The Arcadians, led by Flight into Egypt. While the idea that so prominent an artist as Chiari, it much to establish him as one of the
( lovan Man:: Crcscnnbcni and C tan the "subject" of a painting is a per- seems unlikely that there would be no premier Roman painters ol the rising

PAINTINGS
 M. Huntingdon Art Gallery, University of Pietro da Cortona, and Carlo Maratti.
Texas,on loan 1985-96 The mannered grace of the poses and
bibliography Sestieri 1994, vol. 1, p. 58 the delicacy of the colors, however,
Private collection, Washington, D.C. are hallmarks of the highly personal
style that Conca had been practicing
This impressive, grandiloquent paint- in Rome for over thirty years.
ing, signed and dated 1741, was first Although no patron for Christ and
published by Giancarlo Sestieri in the Woman Taken in Adultery is known,

1981. Like the theme of Christ and it is likely that the painting was exe-
the Woman of Samaria, this subject cuted for a private collection, since its

allowed artists to juxtapose pretty relatively modest dimensions would

penitence to Christian moral philoso- have precluded use as a lateral altar-

phy. To Conca represents a

this end, piece in a chapel or some other public,
kneeling Christ tracing words in the ecclesiastical function. Such works
dust on the pavement of a public were popular with the clerical hierar-

square, while the adulteress looks chy in Rome, who would have seen no
on in gracious dismay. The narrative impropriety in hanging such a picture
comes from the Gospel of John next to a mythological painting or a
(8: 3-11), and describes how, while he scene from ancient history. The reli-

was teaching in the temple, a group of
scribes and Pharisees brought before
Jesus a woman caught in the act of
adultery. Hoping to trick him
blasphemy, they pointed out that the
law of Moses demanded that such a
sinner be put to death. Jesus did not
answer, but knelt and wrote in the
sand, the only Gospel reference to
the fact that he was literate. Christ's
detractors continued to demand a
judgment, and he uttered the cele-
brated statement: "He that is
gious sensibilities of such patrons and
such pictures, however, should not be
underestimated. Deeply familiar with
into the gospels, collectors valued narra-
tives that also provided subtle maxims
based on thorough knowledge of the
texts; in this instance, verse 12, imme-
diately following the narrative of the
woman taken in adultery, quotes
Christ: "I am the light of the world."
Such textual interrelationships
between narratives and maxims
without appealed to the sophisticated spiritual

sin among you, him cast a stone at

let and literary tastes of patrons just as

her," and continued writing on the visual issues of artistic discernment

ground. Soon all had departed, and and connoisseurship stimulated their

Christ told the woman to go in peace aesthetic proclivities, [cmsj]

and sin no more.
Conca's depiction shows the point
in the narrative when Jesus is actively DOMENICO CORVI
writing as the scribes and Pharisees VITERBO 1721-1803 ROME
generation of Maratteschi. As might be the Magi are a subtle scheme of light- continue their accusations; the two
expected, in all three of Chiari's inter- ing and an elegant informality. These who stand nearest the woman try to Just as Carlo Maratti had been a domi-
pretations of the subject there are visual qualities, much less developed discern what Jesus is actually writing, nant figure in the Roman school
direct references to his teacher Carlo in Maratti, Gaulli, Guglielmo Cortese, which neither the text nor the painter throughout the second half of the sev-

Maratti, especially the figure of the and other late Baroque painters, reveals. The crowd of accusers, almost enteenth century, so Domenico Corvi
angel kneeling at left in the Berlin herald the mature styles of Sebastiano all of whom are male, are represented became one of the most influential

picture. The Virgin proffering the Conca and Agostino Masucci. [cmsj] in active postures. One actually holds masters there during the second half
Christ Child to the kneeling Magus in a stone, in anticipation of the tradi- of the eighteenth. Having entered the
the Berlin Adoration is also an adapta- tional punishment for the sin of adul- studio of Francesco Mancini in 1736, at
tion of the figure of the Virgin in an SEBASTIANO CONCA tery, although the unfortunate the age of fifteen, he won a first prize
altarpiece by Maratti in S. Maria di GAETA 1680-1764 NAPLES woman's partner in crime nowhere is (ex aequo with Jean-Franqois Vignal)
Montesanto. The intersecting compo- For biography see Drawings section to be seen. Significantly, the two drawing submitted to the 1750
for a

sitional diagonals are seen in numer- women at the lower right of the com- Concorso of the Accademia di S. Luca.
ous late Seicento altarpieces, and one position and the female figure on the He was admitted to the academy on
senses a profoundly eclectic conser- 201 far left react in fear and horror, reveal- November 9, 1756, and a year later was
vatism throughout the painting. These ing gendered differences in response. elected director of the Accademia del
Sebastiano Conca
visual references, fully understood by The scene is set in an elaborate square Nudo for the first of several times (see

contemporaries, were a means of Christ and the Woman Taken framed on three sides by classicizing Curzi and Lo Bianco 1998; Italo Faldi,

visualizing Chiari's aesthetic alle- architecture, the large arch with short Pittori vitcrbesi di cinque secoli [Viterbo,
in Adultery
giances and claiming Maratti's legacy; ionic columns in the middle distance Italy: Cassa di Risparmio delta provin-
1741
they are not indications of an possibly standing in for the temple in cia di Viterbo, 1970], pp. 351-75;

"exhausted" tradition, dearth of artis- Signed and dated in the lower left corner: Jerusalem, where John sets the story. Rudolph 1982). Yet the conspicuous
Equcs Scbastianus Conca f. 1^41
tic imagination, or other negative The arcade crowned by a balustrade in group of paintings, in which he for-
Oil on canvas mulated his distinctive, pithy style and
characteristics traditionally projected the far distance recalls similar struc-
46" x 63" (114 x is8 cm)
onto such academic paintings by tures from the paintings of the imagery derived from the Baroque
modernist historians and critics who provknanck sale, Christie's,London, June Venetian Renaissance artist Veronese. tradition of Rubens and such follow-
28, 1974, lot i2j; where acquired by Ira
only value "originality." There is a deli- Christ, the adulteress, and the crowd ers of Caravaggio as Honthorst, was
Spanicrman Inc.. New York, 1976; British
cacy of color and a suavity of gesture, of scribes, Pharisees, and women are not to be found in Rome. In fact,
Rail Pension Fund. London; sale, Sotheby's,
however, that are Chiari's own contri- New York, January jo, 1997, lot Hi; where arranged in a frieze-like fashion between 1754 and 1756 Corvi had sent

bution. Coupled with the painter's acquired by the present owners across the front plane of the composi- three altarpieces to churches in

deep reverence for the grand tradi- 1XHIBITIONS Barnard Castle, co. Durham, tion, clearly indicating Conca's con- Senigallia, thanks to the recommen-
tions of Roman religious painting The Bowes Museum, on loan 1977-84; nections to the classical traditions of dation of Monsignor Nicola Antonelli;
seen Co advantage in the Adoration oj (iacla 1981, no. 96; Austin, Texas, Archer Roman painting, above all Poussin, in 1756-57 he frescoed a lunette (The

PAINTINGS
 a —

the force of the revolution, even

though something of his manner can
be seen in the Roman Neoclassicism
of Vincenzo Camuccini. [smcr]
bibliography Faldi, Italo. Pittori vitcrbesi di

cinque sccoli. Viterbo, Italy: Cassa di

Risparmio della provincia di Viterbo, 1970;

Rudolph 1982; Curzi and Lo Bianco 1998

202
Domenico Corvi
The Virgin and Child

Worshipped by Saints Nicholas

of Bari, Mary Magdalene,

Paolino, Emidio, Vincenzo

Ferrer, and Nicholas of

Tolentino
1753-54
Oil on canvas
9' 7" x 6' 2 l
A" (292 x 190 cm)
provenance church of the Madonna di

Loreto (the "Cappella di Palazzo" incorpo-

rated in the Palazzo Comunale), Senigallia,
until 1930, when demolished: Palazzo
Comunale, Senigallia, 1930-97
exhibitions Senigallia, Italy, Palazzo
Baviera. Restauro fra pubblico c privato: per una

201 casa comune dei beni culturali. 1997,

cat. no. 20; Viterbo 1998, cat. no. 9

Beheading of Saint john the Baptist) and of Gregory Barbarigo fresco (1765) in the nocturne of almost surreal elegance in bibliography Margutti 1886: Cucchi, P. Il

passato e I'avvenire di Senigallia. Senigallia,

figures of two apostles on the vault in nave of S. Marco, the compellingly its silvery tones and sculptural figures
Italy, 1931, p. 31: Cucchi, P. (i Palazzo
the church of the Gonfalone in dramatic altarpiece of Pope Gregory VII plotted against a Piranesi-like per-
Comunale di Senigallia. Senigallia, Italy, 1934,
Viterbo; and in 1758 he completed the Extinguishing the Fire Started by the Troops spective of columns and cypresses
p. 27; Serra, Luigi, Bruno Molajoli, and
cycle of four canvases commissioned of Henry IV in the Vatican (1769) in the remains his masterpiece. By now the Pasquale Rotondi. (nventario degli oggetti

by Cardinal Domenico Orsini for the Borghese church of S. Caterina da master's fame had spread (as indicated d'arte d' Italia: VII, provincia di Ancona e Ascole

church of S. Chiara in Palestrina (Italo Siena, as well as the contemporary by the canvases he sent in 1774-78 to Piceno. Rome, 1936, p. 117; Zazzarini 1937,

on ceilings of the Palazzo the abbey of Solothurn); he was given Curzi 1990, pp. 113, 117, pi. x. fig.
pp. 78-80, see above). frescoes p. 15: 1:
Faldi,
Giovannelli 1992-93; Sestieri 1994, vol.
It is still unclear why Corvi, despite Doria-Pamphili (The Apotheosis of the pastoral alias Panfilo Eracleate in 1,

p. 63; Faldi, Italo. "Domenico Corvi a

the support of his master Mancini and Andrea Doria, now lost, documented 1777 at the Accademia dell'Arcadia
Viterbo." Bollettino J'Arre, 6th ser.. vol. 80,
full academic recognition, was finding by the modeWo in the Minneapolis and, while consolidating his preemi-
no. 95 (1996), pp. 121-26; Palazzo Baviera,
it so difficult to make headway in Museum of Art; and the extant Abigail nence as a "Pictor Doctus" through Senigallia. Italy. Restauro tra pubblico c privato:
Rome, to the extent that by 1759 he Pacifying David; see Curzi and Lo teaching anatomy (see cat. 340), he per una casa comune dei beni culturali.
was eking out a living as drawing Bianco 1998). branched out into other areas such Senigallia, 1997, pp. 36-37, 85-97; Curzi and
master to the young brother of Prince Corvi's versatility in coping with as the 1779-80 restoration of Lo Bianco 1998. pp. 36-37. 86-89

Marcantonio IV Borghese. The situa- unusual subjects is evidenced in the Lanfranco's frescoed loggia in the Comune di Senigallia (Ancona), from the

tion righted itself only when, after canvases executed in 1765 for a room Villa Borghese. Chiesa di S. Rocco

having reached the age of forty, his in the mezzanine apartment of The apogee of Corvi's career, repre-
lateral canvases were unveiled in a Principessa Costanza Barberini sented in his 1785 self-portraits (see The seventeenth-century altarpiece in

chapel in S. Marcello al Corso in 1762: Colonna di Sciarra in the Palazzo cat. 204), coincided, however, with the the "Cappella di Palazzo" had been so
the formidable execution and imagi- Barberini, which include two colorful beginning of his inexorable marginal- severely damaged by an earthquake in
native combination of classical scenes from the lives of earlier ization, despite the beautiful Aurora 1741 that, during a pastoral visit some
models (the Niohe statues in the members of the Colonna family triptych which he painted in 1782 for a years later, the bishop deemed it unfit
Finding of Moses) and Giaquinto's resplendent in historical costumes ceiling in the Villa Borghese: subse- for cult purposes. Consequently, on
painterly flamboyance (in the Sacrifice and also one representing the spectral, quently he was forced again to accept June 9, 1753, the municipal council
of Isaac), within verdant Locatellian neo-Gothic figure of Saint Margaret commissions for altarpieces in resolved to commission a new canvas
landscape settings, introduced Corvi Colonna Expelling Demons in a Landscape. churches far from Rome. The increas- for the high altar and request
to the Roman public as a talent to be In 1770 he proceeded to decorate the ingly harsh realism and schematic- Monsignor Nicola Antonelli to "find
reckoned with (Loire 1998, pp. Stanza di Chiaroscuro in the same simplification of these compositions in Rome an expert painter" to under-
132-34). Thereafter he was sought out apartment with illusionistic statues, (sent to such towns as Cascina, take the task (see Curzi 1990, pp. 113,

by the foremost patrons, the nature of and this shift from a predominant Canino, and Rocca di Cave), together 117, nn. 5-8). Since Nicola's nephew
whose commissions stimulated him Rococo taste to the classicizing with his exclusion from the team of Count Bernardino Antonelli also
to produce ever more novel solutions modes then being defined by Mengs the major painters employed (or the resided in Rome at that time and fre-

for church and palace decorations and Hamilton, Batoni and Lapiccola, decoration ol the Palazzo Altieri in quented Corvi's private "Accademia"
over the next ten years. Examples arc can be perceived in the contrast the 1790s. indicate the isolation telt by as a dilettante, it is not surprizing that
the tapestry ensemble woven between between his still vaporous Triumph oj a former leading light. Unlike Maratti, Corvi was chosen for the job (see
1764 and 1766 to his designs for the Apollo, frescoed in 1771 on a vault of whose interminable school influenced Curzi and Lo Bianco 1998, p. 3s). He
Sala del Trono in the Capitoline the Palazzo Borghese, and that of the Roman art right up to the death ot his soon produced a preparatory oil
Palazzo dei Conservatori, the Clement Sacrifice of Iphigcnia, completed a year last pupil, Masucci, in 1759, Corvi was sketch, probably submitted to the
XIII Rezzonico Approving the Beatification later in the same palace. The latter — almost abruptly cast into obscurity by council for approval, and consigned

PAINTINGS 349
 The specific requirements of the
commission obliged Corvi to create a
modern icon, for the canvas was des-
tined to a sanctuary full of ex-voto
objects honoring the Virgin and the
patron saints of the city, whose
number had been doubled after the
1741 earthquake by the addition of
Emidio, Vincenzo Ferrer, and Nicholas
of Tolentino. Therefore the artist had
toaccommodate all six saints and
opportunely gave prominence to the
original trio, situated in the center and
left part, relegating the "newcomers"
to the right margin in a composition
that perfectly clarifies even in a
chronological sense their hierarchy.
The finely calculated pyramidal
arrangement of so many figures in a
criss-crossing of diagonals, culminat-
ing in the apparition of the Virgin and
Child on a cloud platform against the
suffused rosy light of the empyrean,
contains numerous references to the
sources of Corvi's art, from Correggio,
Domenichino, and Rubens to Mancini,
Conca, Subleyras, and even Gaetano
Lapis. By 1754 he had forged these
eclectic gleanings into a style of his
own, particularly distinguishable in
the sculptural folds and delicate hues
of the Magdalen's costume and the
expressive head of Saint Nicholas.
These connotations of form, together
with the tensity pervading the hushed
devotion of the saints, place Corvi at

the very forefront of the artists who

were then distancing themselves from
the current Rococo idiom in an
attempt to invigorate Roman painting
with a more trenchant interpretation
of past and present models, [smcr]

203
Domenico Corvi
The Miracle of Saint Joseph
Calasanz Resuscitating a Child
in a Church at Frascati
1767

Oil on canvas
87X" x 69'A" (223 x 176 cm)
PROVENANCE probably Pope Clement XIII
Rezzonico, Rome, 1767; anonymous pri-
vate collection; Heim Gallery, London,
1980; whence purchased in 1981 by the
Wadsworth Athcncum
i-xhibition London, Heim Gallery. From

Tintoretto to Ticpolo. 1980. cat. no. 20

bibliography Heim Gallery, London.

From Tintoretto to Tiepolo. London: Heim
Gallery 1980, no. 20; Rudolph 1982,
pp. 35-36: Pansecchi 1989-90, pp. 343-451
Cadogan 1991, pp. 120-21
202 Wadsworth Athencum, Hartford.
Connecticut, The Ella Gallup Sumner and
the picture shortly before May 15 of Curzi in Rcstauro Ira pubblko c private, ambitious and meticulously executed Mary Catlin Sumner Collection

the following year, receiving the final p. 90, see above). Thus it came about altarpiece that remains the prime doc-
installment of payment, amounting to thai the thirty-three-year-old ument of his earliest manner as well as
[30 Roman scudi, on August 31 (the Domenico Corvi made his somewhat an indication of the fundamental role This important picture was presented
bozzetlo appeared on the London art tardy public debut as an artist in played by the local Antonelli family in in a 1980 Heim Gallery exhibition

market some years ago and is cited by Senigallia rather than Rome, with an promoting his career. with a correct attribution ("immcdi-

350 PAINTINGS
ately recognizable as a Corvi") and a tigious Scolopian institutions that
mistaken identification of the saint as even today maintain the educational
"evidently" Philip Neri (1515-1595), standards set by Calasanz.
who still figures in the title by which The saint's iconography, estab- extraordinary precision of details 204
it is catalogued in the Wadsworth lished in various pictures after the such as the hanging lamp and verita-
Domenico Corvi
Athaeneum (Heim Gallery, From 1748 beatification, lays emphasis on ble "still life" of the altar with candles,
Tintoretto to Tiepolo, no. 20, see above; his pedagogical merits and devotion crucifix, and Mass cards, lace and Self-portrait of the Artist in His
Cadogan 1991, pp. 120-21). However, to the Virgin Mary, a case in point brocade trappings, veined marble
Studio
ten years ago Fiorella Pansecchi being the 1765 altarpiece by Gaetano column and gilt-framed icon of the
pointed out that the saint is Joseph Lapis in the Scolopian convent at Virgin and Child. The emotive import 1785

Calasanz (1558-1648), who — like Rome, which represents

Frascati, near of the scene is enhanced by an oblique Signed on the top sheet of the papers on
the table to the right: D. Corvi
and
Philip Neri, Ignatius Loyola, him indicating to a group of young illumination, casting into shadow the
Charles Borromeo —
was one of the students the apparition of the Virgin pilgrim kneeling at the foot of the
Oil on canvas
i7 A" x 20/;" x cm)
]

major personalities who emerged in on clouds above an altar (both the altarand into relief the lovely profile (95.3 52.1

the wake of the Counter-Reformation altarpiece and the modello are illus- and colorful local dress of the suppli- provenance Eckilstuna (Sweden);
Richard Hellgren Collection: London,
to renew the Catholic Church trated by Angela Negro in Rome 1993, ant mother, while the entry of a gestic-
Daniel Katz Ltd., 1998; whence purchased
(Pansecchi, 1989-90, p. 344; the iden- no. 23, pp. 45-47). Calasanz was one of ulating Scolopian Father with a clutch
by the present owner
tification is confirmed by the features the several saints canonized by pope of youthful pupils from a door to the
exhibition Viterbo 1998, cat. no. 32
of his death-mask conserved in the Clement XIII Rezzonico on July 16, right adds a note of animation that
bibliography Bowron 1993. p. 76. fig. 36;
Congregazione Generalizia dei Padri 1767, in St. Peter's, on which occasion offsets the utter stillness of Saint
Curzi and Lo Bianco 1998. pp. 150-51.
Scolopi in Rome).The great achieve- the upper register of the interior was Joseph Calasanz rapt in prayer. In the no. 32
ment for which he is revered was the decorated by Carlo Marchionni with studied blending of realism and spiri- Private collection
creation, following his move in 1592 eighteen simulated statues of female tuality Corvi recycled motifs from his
from Spain to Rome, of the Scuole Pie, virtues painted in monochrome on earlier figural repertory (the mother
providing a highly qualified cursus stu- the designs of Corvi; furthermore, the in his 1766 votive canvas for Domenico Corvi's splendid self-por-
diorum free of cost to children of the Scolopian Fathers commissioned a S. Domenico in Turin), yet with a trait, commissioned by the Grand
impoverished classes. Founded in 1597 picture from Corvi recorded as the - fresh inventiveness and superlative Duke of Tuscany, Leopold, for the
adjacent to the Trastevere church of Miracle ofJoseph Calasanz Resuscitating a execution that explain the numerous Galleria degli Uffizi collection of
S. Dorotea, thence transferred in 1612 which they gave to the
Child at Frascati, other commissions he received from artists' self-portraits, was exhibited in
to that of S. Pantaleo near Piazza pope in commemoration of the event, the Rezzonico family around that Rome in November 1^85 and delivered
Navona (still the headquarters of his and Pansecchi has convincingly sug- time. IsmcrI to the Florentine museum on March
"Scolopi" order recognized five years gested that it is the present canvas of 20 of the following year (see Galleria
later by Paul V as a congregation), this the same subject (Pansecchi 1989-90). degli Uffizi. Florence, (.'!i Uffizi: catalogo
prototype of a modern public school Corvi visualized the miracle as a generate [Florence: Centra Di, 19^9].
rapidly spread throughout Italy and contemporary tableau vivant of histori- p. 847, no. A 255; Curzi and Lo Bianco
northern Europe in a network of pres- cal exactitude in the costumes and 1998, pp. 140-51, nos. 31-32). That fiill-

PAINTINGS 351
length effigy remains an eloquent Dorigny engraving, with further the no longer extant Roman palace of essary corrections." In contrast, the
visual statement of both the master's bibliography; Rudolph 1988-89, Cardinal Alberoni to see that Placido mosaic was to be made for
that
pride of status at the height of his pp. 242-43). As it turned out, Corvi lacked the raw talent and inspiration from Pompeo Batoni's
St. Peter's

career and the essential ingredients was the last major exponent in an of his slightly younger contemporary, design was never executed.
and accoutrements of his chosen eminent line of Roman masters. It Pompeo Batoni. Close examination of From the records of both the
profession, condensed in a scene that may be felt, consequently, that the the oval pendants Christ in Benediction Accademia di S. Luca, to which he
shows him in action rather than as the eighteenth-century prolongation of (cat. 208) and The Immaculate was elected a member in 1741, and
customary face staring from the wall. the saga ends here, with Corvi's majes- Conception (cat. 209) also reveals his the Virtuosi al Pantheon, it is clear
In full artisan-professional regalia tic attestation in the two varying self- frequent reuse of the same facial types that Placido conscientiously carried
(from turban headdress and scarlet portraits to what it still signified at that and poses, even in the same paintings. out his duties in the various offices he
mantle to beribboned breeches and time to be an innovative heir to a thor- No story of an early demonstration held, including president of each. As
on an elaborately
slippers), seated oughly grounded, perennial tradition. of Placido's artistic talent has sur- president of the Virtuosi (in 1750) he
upholstered chair with palette and [smcr] vived, unlike that regarding the recog- paid for remodeling expenses, fora
brushes in hand, Corvi has captured nition of Pompeo Batoni's talent in his new door, out of his own pocket. He
himself for posterity in a moment of drawings on his father's engraving also gavesome silver to both groups,
concentration while painting a nude PLACIDOCOSTANZI plates; however, the return of Placido even though he himself had had to
figure of Hercules, on the canvas NAPLES 1702-1759 ROME and his family from Naples in 1711 or pawn several items and had not paid
mounted on an easel illuminated by a 1712 seems to coincide with the start the annual rent on the properties he
studio lamp, as he turns to scrutinize Placido Costanzi, the son of a gold- of Placido's apprenticeship with owned for several years. His greatest
the model out of view to the
(live?) smith and gem-engraver, Giovanni Trevisani. According to Pio's biogra- act of generosity was to leave his
left. Behind him to the right a plaster Costanzi, enjoyed early success. phy, Placido supplemented the train- two organiza-
estate jointly to these
cast of the Medici Venus (the original is Nicola Pio's biography of Placido lists ing he received in the studios of tions, which maintained ownership
of volumes
in the Uffizi), plus a stack an impressive group of patrons and Trevisani and Luti with the drawing of the house in Rome until 1923.
on anatomy and perspective clamping paintings for a young artist just of the work's of Raphael in the Vatican Even though in his own lifetime
down several physiognomical draw- embarking on his career after having and Annibale Carracci's frescoes in Placido Costanzi was not necessarily
ings (autograph studies, as evinced by completed five years of apprentice- Palazzo Farnese. From the contents considered an artist of the first rank,
his signature) piled on a table, indicate ship with Francesco Trevisani and of Placido's studio at the time of his he nevertheless produced some very
the canonical sources of the art he is another five years with Benedetto death, which included many loose attractive and charming works. The
practicing. Luti; in addition to works that Placido drawings and prints as well as twenty- pastel heads of a young woman and a
If this, then, was Corvi's public tes- painted for cardinals Alberoni, six bound volumes of engravings of page in the Palazzo Corsini in Rome
timony of his rank as a leading painter Zondadari, Martelli, Acquaviva, works by "celebri autori," it seems and the figures he painted in the land-
(and merited a gold medal in recogni- and Tolomei to decorate buildings likely that Placido never ceased his scapes in the Coffee House are among
tion from the grand duke), the smaller in Rome and elsewhere in Italy, there careful study of the works of the Old his most appealing works. The pastels
three-quarter-length figure replica were also those that were sent to Masters and those of his teachers' exhibit a freshness and a dreamy
exhibited here offers a more intimate France, Flanders, Spain, and even as generation. The numerous plaster quality; the figures in the Coffee
rendition of the scene with several faraway as Lima, Peru. Placido fol- casts and uncounted figures in House, unlike some of Placido's more
interesting variants. The artist lowed up with three major commis- potter's clay further emphasize a classicizing works, do not appear stiff
(without turban) is now seated on an sions: the ceiling fresco of The Trinity very deliberate and studious mode or labored, [mlb]
ancient marble "stool," whose figures with Saints Romuald and Gregory (1726) in of working. BIBLIOGRAPHY Pio [1724) 1977, pp. 194~95;
carved in relief represent the S. Gregorio al Celio in Rome (cat. 205); Placido's diligence paid off. Three Clark 1968, "Costanzi": Bowron 1980:
Judgment of Paris, an allusion to the the ceiling fresco of Saint Peter deeds of sale (for the house and stable Rudolph 1985; Cordaro 1984; Schiavo 1985;

timelessly classical aesthetic of Beauty Defeating Paganism (1732) in S. Pietro in inRome and two adjoining properties Cordaro 1987; Bryan 1994

(Venus Victn'x). Moreover, he is the village of Castel S. Pietro Romano; on the outskirts of Rome that Placido
making a preliminary drawing of the and Saint Peter Resurrecting Tabitha purchased) each stated that he paid for
same Hercules on the canvas with a (1736-40 and 1757), the design for a the property with funds from his sub- 205
porte-crayon and the mahlstick mosaic was eventu-
in St. Peter's that stantial savings from his earnings as a
Placido Costanzi
supporting his right hand, the back- ally executed in 1758-60. Placido was painter. His success also allowed him
ground reduced two books and
to just also among those artists commissioned to marry into the upper reaches of the Study for "The Trinity with
the sheaf of drawings on a cupboard to decorate the throne room of the bourgeoisie in Rome; Anna Maria
Saints Romuald and Gregory
and, above in a nitch, a plaster cast of Spanish king's new palace at La Granja Barazzi's father, Filippo, and her
a youth posed like the Farnese (1735-38), the nave of S. Maria brother Francesco were both mer- and the Triumph over Heresy"
Hercules. Above all, it is the subtle Maggiore in Rome (1740), the Coffee chants who engaged in a wide variety 1726
pastel tonality that distinguishes this House of the Palazzo Quirinale in of commercial transactions. Oil on canvas
version of the composition, not to Rome (1741-43), and a gallery in the When Placido's design for the 62" x 30" (157.5 x 76.2 cm)
mention the winsome insertion of London house of the Earl of mosaic was displayed in St. Peter's it
provenance Paolo Rosa, Rome; P. & D.
Corvi's pet dog thrusting its tousled Northumberland (1752-53). Along stirred up great controversy, accord- Colnaghi, London: from whom purchased
little head up against his leg in the with other commissions, Placido left ing to Pier Leone Ghezzi; Ghezzi in 1975 by the Toledo Museum
lower left corner. the extremely large canvas of The stated that the composition was terri- bibliography Gibelli 1888. p. 38; Clark

On one hand, the declensions

the Martyrdom of Saint Torpe for the cathe- bly botched and it was wrong to have 1968. "Costanzi"; Mallory 19^6; The Toledo
of Corvi's two self-portraits shed light dral of Pisa unfinished at his death on art students sketch it and the populace Museum of Art. Ohio. European Paintings.

Toledo. Ohio: The Toledo Museum of Art,

on his character and calling in 1785, October 3, 1759. go see under the mistaken impres-
it
1976, pp. 41-42; Rudolph 1983; Sestieri
at the age of fifty-four. On the other, What makes Placido rather unusual sion that Placido's painting was excel-
Bryan 1994
1991;
they resume the currently held is documentary
the richness of the lent. Even more vicious was a
The Toledo Museum of Art. Purchased
premise regarding the premier role of record that survives and the light it caricature the truculent painter Marco with funds from the Libbey Endowment.
the Roman school, from antiquity to sheds on his character and personality. Benefial drew of Placido sitting in the Gift of Edward Drummond Libbey
Raphael and thence to Maratti — who His skill notwithstanding, it is only dead of night straining to defecate.
had portrayed himself in a like fashion necessary to look at the hand of Despite these scathing characteriza-
a century earlier and explicated the Tabitha in the center of Placido's tions of Placido's artistic output, he This picture is Placido Costanzi's
foundation of this credo in a drawing design for the mosaic in St. Peter's persevered. Although no action was modello for his ceiling fresco of The
of The Accademia di I )isegna engraved and the hands of the female allegorical taken regarding the making of the Trinity with Saints Romuald and Gregory
by Dorigny — up to the present (see figures in the modcllo for the ceiling mosaic for well over a decade, in 1756 the Great and the Triumph Over Heresy in

Hiesinger and Percy 1980, pp. 114-16, fresco of Peace and justice Crowning Placido finally requested and received the church of the Camaldolese Order
no. 101a, for Maratti's drawing for the Innocence Who Overthrows Calumny in space where he could "make the nec- in Rome. S. Gregorio al Celio. In the

PAINTINGS
 the grand master of the Knights of According to an unidentified
Malta, and Giovanni Odazzi's picture source, Placido "was praised by every-
of the abdication of Queen Christina one for having had such spirit and
of Sweden. courage to create a work so worthy,
Cardinal Zondadari was the protec- being only 26 years old, and for this

tor of the Camaldolese order; he paid [work] to be the by this painter

first

for the cost of Placido's fresco, which in fresco. Poems were written and

came 300 soldi, out of his own per-

to printed for him" (Gibelli 1888, p. 38).
sonal funds. The cardinal's personal Even though the unnamed author of
papers have not come to light in either this report appears prone to exaggera-
the Vatican or Siena, but from those tion — Placido had already painted
records conserved in the order's at least one known fresco ceiling
archive in Camaldoli it is known that (in Palazzo Alberoni) — passage this

the commission spanned an almost makes it clear that the unveiling was
two-year period from January 14, a moment of public triumph for the
1726, when Placido was awarded the artist. ImlbI
commission, to its public unveilingon
October 14, 1727. Placido submitted
one half of the cartoons on December 206
23, 1726, and the remainder on
Placido Costanzi
February 24, 1727; the cartoons, which
had been mounted on the ceiling of The Departure of Cardinal
the nave, were then examined by car-
Zondadari from Madrid
dinals Zondadari and lmperiali along
with the sculptor Camillo Rusconi 1728

and the Flemish landscape painter Jan Initialed and dated on a rock in center
foreground: p.c.RA. 1728.
Frans van Bloemen on March 5, 1727.
Placido began the actual painting of
Inscribedon the back of the original
canvas: di casazondadari/rappresenta
the fresco on April Assuming
2, 1727.
monsig[no]r zondadari quando parte
that Placido painted the modello and
dalle spagne, e da la/benedizione al
received Zondadari's approval before POPOLO
making full-scale cartoons, the Oil on canvas
modello must date from the second 45/2" x 58" (115.6 x cm)
147.3
half of 1726. The author of the entry in provenance acquired in 1969 by the
the Toledo Museum of Art's catalogue museum
European Paintings speculated that this BIBLIOGRAPHY Pio [1724] 1977, pp. 194-95;
sketch may have remained in the pos- Pascoli [1730-36] 1933, vol. 2, p. 394; Pastor

session of the order after the fresco 1938-53, vol. 34, passim; Clark 1968,

was completed. It was, in fact, "Costanzi"; Minneapolis Institute of Arts.

hanging on the wall of the gallery on
the piano nobile of Placido's house for
some time after his death
property inventory refers to a
"bozzetto della volta di S.
that measures 7 palmi by iVipalmi or
Bulletin, vol. 58 (1969), pp. 93, 100;
Minneapolis Institute of Arts. European
Paintings from the Minneapolis Institute of Arts.
in 17S9; his
New York: Praeger, 1971, p. 447, cat. no. 238;
Faldi 1972; Faldi 1977; Cordaro 1984;
Gregorio" Krautheimer, Richard. The Rome 0/
Alexander VII, 1655-1667. Princeton, N.J.:

approximately 61 /» by 30/4 inches Princeton University Press, 1985, p. 12;

Cordaro 1987; Olivier Michel. Conversation
(156.4 x 78.2 cm), which is very close
with author, March 5, 1993
to the measurement given in the
The Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Gift of
Toledo catalogue entry.
Dennis Charles Bergquist in honor of his
There are only relatively minor dif- family and friends
ferences between the modello and the
finished fresco. For instance, in the
modello the gaze and the head of God This picture bears the date 1728, which
the Father are directed off toward the Anthony Clark initially misread as
right, whereas in the fresco his head 1723 (Clark 1968, "Costanzi"). Despite
faces the same general direction as his including the correct date for this
outstretched right arm. The column picture in the catalogue European
base behind the allegorical figure of Paintings jrom the Minneapolis Institute

Faith in the modello is absent in the of Arts (1971), Clark in his entry still

upper part of the picture, the older, These allude to the heresies that Pope fresco. Perhaps the most striking (and spoke of "the 1723 Zondadari series."
bearded man on the left is Saint Gregory the Great stamped out in puzzling) change is in the head of Presumably he continued using the
Romuald, the Camaldolese order's each place: idolatry in England, neo- Saint Gregory. In the fresco he has 1723 date on the basis of Nicola Pio's
founder, and on the right is Saint phytes and simony in France, become much younger looking and statement (1723-24) that Placido had
whose patrician family
Gregory, Arianism in Spain, and Donatism and bears a striking resemblance to Carlo painted some pictures for Cardinal
home was believed to be beneath the Manichaeism in Africa. This subject Maratti's depiction of Saint Charles Antonio Felice Zondadari, and the
church. In the lower half the allegori- relates to the Counter-Reformation Bartolomeo in the 1690 altarpiece for fact that the ceiling frescoes in the
cal figure of Faith, seated on a cloud, theme of the Church Triumphant, two the high altar in S. Carlo al Corso. In family palace in Siena (see cat. 207)
is surrounded by female allegorical late examples of which appear in the addition, Placido's figure of Christ in date after 1724, as does the ceiling
figures who represent (moving clock- series of paintings commissioned by both the modello and the fresco dis- fresco in S. Gregorio al Celio in Rome
wise from the male figure of Heresy in Cardinal Zondadari-Sebastiano tinctly echoes the Christ in Maratti's The inventory of the cardi-
(cat. 205).
tke midst of tumbling over backwards Conca's depiction of the standards altarpiece, despite the differences in nal's property that was drawn up in
and tailing out of the painting) from a captured Turkish ship being the positioning of Christ's legs and the Rome, however, includes two other
England, France, Spain, and Africa. presented to Marcantonio Zondadari, tilt of his head and torso. paintings by Placido. a Saint Lawrence

PAINTINGS
 206

and a Saint Stephen, which may have dated 1727) and another whose were not exact duplicates, but huge, Chigi-Zondadari in Siena, the renova-

been the works Pio had in mind. subject is not entirely clear. It depicts almost 9 by 12 foot, copies of only five tion of S. Gregorio al Celio in Rome,
Clark identified this scene as "the Alexander VII when he was still a car- of the ten original paintings. These and this series — failed to procure the
young nuncio leaving for Spain (1706)" dinal arriving to attend a meeting. five copies, which included, in addi- papal tiara for him. The very thing he
and commented on "the convincing According to Olivier Michel, the tion to the two events painted by stressed in this series of ten paintings
but highly fanciful view of Rome with inscription on the back of the canvas, Conca, Giovanni Odazzi's depiction as well as in the conclave of 1730, his
the Alban Hills and Monte Cavo which has been recorded as Vir-Ech, of the abdication of Queen Christina service as nuncio in Spain, resulted in
behind" (Anthony Morris Clark in probably was meant to be Utrecht. The in 1655, Luigi Garzi's of Cardinal Flavio the defeat of his candidacy at the
European Paintings [see above]) Both the inventory gives the location as Chigi during the Roman plague of hands of the Spanish and French.
inscription on the back of the picture Brussels. Michele Cordaro (1984) was 1656, and Giuseppe Nasini's of [mlb]
and the description of it in the inven- probably correct in identifying the Alessandro becoming archbishop of
tory ("la partenza di Madrid di S.E. intended location as Miinster, where Siena in 1714, were all hung together in
defonto"), however, strongly suggest the signing of the Treaty of the hall or salon of the "primo aparta-
that the scene actually depicts Westphalia that ended the Thirty mento nobile." No mention was made
Zondadari's departure from Madrid Years' War took place in 1648. in the inventory of the authorship of
cither at the end of his service as nuncio Lione Pascoli in his biography of these enormous copies, only that they
extraordinary or in 1709 after having Sebastiano Conca mentioned that the were valued at 35 scudi apiece, as
been expelled as papal nuncio. Rather artist had painted two pictures and opposed to the 50 scudi for each of
than intending the cityscape in the two replicas for the Zondadari series. the originals. Evidently Cardinal
background to be a literal depiction These depicted Antonio Felice's older Zondadari intended this pictorial

of Rome, it appears that Placido used brother Marcantonio, the grand survey of his family's history to make
a pastiche of Roman scenes to create master of the Knights of Malta, receiv- an immediate and overwhelming
what could pass for a view of Madrid. ing the standards from a Turkish ship impression on his visitors. The fate

Along with this picture Placido thatwas captured on May 23, 1721, and of these copies is unknown.
painted two others: Antonio Felice Antonio Felice's first meeting as papal Unfortunately for Cardinal
Zondadari Taking l.cavc of His Spanish nuncio with King Philip V in 1706. The Zondadari, all his efforts to enhance
Escort in the Pyrenees (initialed and inventory reveals that the replicas his standing — the work on Palazzo

354 PAINTINCS
 Catherine Legrand, likewise, recog- 208
nized the hand of Placido in the alle-
Placido Costanzi
gorical figure of Intelligence and the
fresco in the grand salon (see Legrand Christ in Benediction
and d'Ormesson-Peugeot 1990, and Before 1753
Loisel-Legrand 1995). Steffi Roettgen Oil on canvas
agreed with the attribution of the
51X" x 39//' (130 x 100 cm)
fresco in the grand salon to Placido,
provenance collection of Fabio Rosa;
but despite the stylistic similarities bequeathed to the Accademia di S. Luca in
between this work and the Charity his will of 1753
and Intelligence frescoes, she pro- bibliography Clark 1968, "Costanzi";
posed instead that they were entirely Pietrangeli 1969; VAccadcmia 19^4; Faldi

thework of Giovanni Odazzi or that 1977; Cordaro 1984: Rybko 1990; Sestieri
Odazzi died before these two frescoes 1991; Cipriani and De Marchi 1992; Bryan
1994; Sestieri 1994. vol. 1. pp. 65-67
were completed and Placido merely
Accademia Nazionale di San Luca, Rome
retouched them. It does not seem
likely that an artist would work on

two different frescoes in different This picture of Christ, shown seated

rooms simultaneously. The existence on a cloud with his arms raised and
of Placido's modello for Charity and his palms up with the stigmata clearly
drawing of a Sibyl in Frankfurt, which visible, and its pendant, The Immaculate

appears to be an early formulation of Conception (cat. 209), did not constitute

the design used for Intelligence, Placido Costanzi's reception piece,
strongly militate against such a sce- which each artist was supposed to
nario as Roettgen's, especially consid- submit to the Accademia di S. Luca
ering that the fresco remained largely after becoming member. Despite
a
unchanged from Placido's modello for the unlikelihood that an artist would
Charity, aside from the addition of donate two pictures when one was
another putto in the lower left and the that was required, Anthony Clark
sweetening up of Charity's face. In (1968) was the first to speculate that
addition, the dark spots in the sky Placido that did indeed submit these
around the head of Intelligence are two works; Italo Faldi (1977), Michele
very much like those in the book and Cordaro (1984), Ana Maria Rybko
207 Saint Peter's drapery in Placido's (1990), and Giancarlo Sestieri (1991
fresco Saint Peter Defeating Paganism and 1994) all repeated Clark's specula-
207 and only stated that they were located (1732) in the church of S. Pietro (in the tion. These two works were, in fact,

"nella sala e nei prossimi salotti." town of Castel S. Pietro Romano) part of the collection of Fabio Rosa, a
Placido Costanzi
Antonella Spagnoli identified three which entailed making round depres- papal accountant, who expanded the
Study for "Charity" ceiling frescoes inrooms on the piano sions in wet plaster. collection of pictures he had inherited

c. 1727/28-1731
nobile as being the work of Placido: the The question remains as to why from his father, Francesco, a painter.

Oil on canvas
fresco in the grand salon that she called what seems to be the preliminary Fabio Rosa, in turn, bequeathed his
Conscience Reigning Over Beauty, Peace, sketch for the allegorical figure of collection to the Accademia.
16%" x ifA" (41.5 x 35.2 cm)
and justice (others have referred to it as Intelligence is actually a drawing of a Not only was Placido the author of
provenance London, Christie's, July 4,

1997, lot 365A; Walpole Gallery, London Allegory of Virtues), Intelligence (in an Sibyl. Even more puzzling is the fact these two paintings; he was also the
BIBLIOGRAPHY Pio [1724] 1977, adjacent room), and Charity (located in that this drawing is one of a series of appraiser responsible for the record-
Romagnoli 1840, p.
pp. 194-95; 29; another adjacent room, now used as a five drawings of Sibyls (all attributed ing and valuing of the artworks in the

Spagnoli 1987-88; Legrand and chapel). The locations of these pictures to Placido), and yet Placido did not inventory of Fabio Rosa's property
d'Ormesson-Peugeot 1990; Roettgen 1994; notwithstanding, Spagnoli's observa- paint one Sibyl in Palazzo Chigi- after his death in 1753. According to
Loisel-Legrand 1995
tion about the striking similarity of Zondadari. Loisel-Legrand in trying the inventory, and hence the artist
Private collection
the face of Intelligence to that of to make sense of the existence of who painted these pictures, their
Conscience (the woman seated on the Placido's drawings of Sibyls in light of precise subjects were the Redeemer
Work on the expansion and remodel- throne) and the face of Charity to that Benefial's authorship of the Sibyl fres- ("il Santissimo Salvatore") and the
ing of Palazzo Chigi-Zondadari in of the woman in the upper left side of coes, referred to Placido's and Immaculate Conception ("la Santissima
Siena took place from 1724 to 1726. the ceiling fresco in the grand salon Benefial's "rapporto reciprico" and Concezzione"). The fact that the
Although documents indicate that makes these attributions all the more speculated that "one finished the wounds are clearly visible on Christ's
this was at the behest of the primo- convincing. Furthermore, the painting project left incomplete by the other" palms is in keeping with the iconogra-
genitor of the family, Giuseppe Flavio technique of these three frescoes is very (Loisel-Legrand 1995, p. 92). There phy of Christ as the Redeemer.
Chigi Zondadari, given his youth (ten different from that employed in the six does not appear to be any relationship Faldi called attention to the classi-
Roettgen argued that it
years), Steffi Sibyls and the allegorical figure of Hope whatsoever between the drawings of cizing features of this painting,
was probably Cardinal Antonio Felice attributed to Benefial: in the former Placido and the frescoes of Benefial. In namely the "impeccably frontal" (Faldi
Zondadariwho was responsible for the colors were already blended on the fact, none of Benefial's designs bears 1977, p. S04) pose of Christ, whose
commissioning the new construction palette before application to the plaster, any resemblance to any another, figure is located on the central vertical
and decoration of the palace. The date whereas in the latter the majority of whereas Placido's are all quite similar axis and is surrounded by a circular
Marco Bencfial included in the the modulation of the colors was to each other. Perhaps Cardinal grouping of angels. According to
inscription he painted below the achieved by applying darker colors in Zondadari had initially intended to Faldi. although this picture follows
Libyan Sybil indicates that frescoes a dabbing motion, almost like stippling, award the commission for the Sibyls the academic tradition of Maratti
were still being painted as late as 1733. overbroad swaths of lighter colors, to Placido, but, because of the draw- and Chiari. it already is "beckoning"
According to Ettore Romagnoli, in much like the technique Pietro da ings' lack of invenzionc. he gave it to Winckelmann's canons, which
addition to Bcnefial, Placido Costanzi Cortona used in the Palazzo Barberini instead to Benefial. [mi b] informed the late eighteenth-
and Vincenzo Meucci were also ceiling fresco and the crosshatching and early nineteenth-century
involved in the decoration of the technique Giambattista Tiepolo and Neoclassicism style. One must be cau-
palace. Romagnoli gave no indication his son Domenico used in their tious, however, not to equate Placido's
of the subjects of Placido's paintings various frescoes. exercises in classicism with proto-

PA1NT1NGS 355
 208 209

Neoclassicism. Placido, as is confirmed very different in character. His head is 209 Virgin's right elbow is drawn in close

by what is known of his working tilted slightly to his right; his right to her body, and her left leg is further
Placido Costanzi
method from his surviving drawings arm juts almost straight out from the forward than her right leg, the oppo-
and paintings as well as other docu- shoulder, and the forearm is raised The Immaculate Conception site of the positioning of Christ's limbs.
mentary evidence, was a careful such that his right hand is just above Before 1753
In addition, in each picture the single

student of the past, not an innovator. his head; his left elbow, however, is angel is located in the lower part of the
Oil on canvas
Furthermore, the striking contrast drawn in close to his side, and his left x x 100 cm) composition, on the same side as the
51V4" 39XS" (130
between Placido's depiction of Christ hand is about level with his jaw. His forward projecting leg of the main
provenance collection of Fabio Rosa;
the Redeemer and a much earlier lower body is twisted to his left so that bequeathed to the Accademia di S. Luca in figure, thus acting almost as visual
painting called \\ Redcntore, which even his right foot is to the right of the his will of 1753 brackets.
entered the collection of the Pinacoteca central vertical axis. This, albeit bibliography Golzio 1964; Clark 1968, Taking into account the standard
Vaticana only in 1832, points to how subtle, spiral arrangement of his body "Costanzi"; Pietrangeli 1969; L'Aaaiiemia practice of reading from left to right,
Placido's painting is very much a is typical of Settecento style. 1974: Bowron 1980; Rudolph 1983; Cordaro it seems very likely that Placido
product of its time rather than Despite the wonderfully rendered 1984: Rybko 1990; Sestieri 1991; Cipriani intended for the picture of Christ to be
and De Marchi 1992; Bryan 1994; Sestieri
looking forward to Neoclassicism. inward gaze of the angel in the lower hung to the left of the Virgin Mary. The
1994, vol. 1, pp. 65-67; Loisel-Legrand 1995
The authorship of the painting in left of the picture, in this painting rather large right arm of the angel to
Accademia Nazionale di San Luca. Rome
the Vatican (Musei Vaticani Archivio Placido's lack of invenzione is particu- the left of Christ and the drapery that

Fotografico XXVI-13-2) is uncertain; larly conspicuous. The hair and face of rises over Christ's right thigh form a

according to the curatorial notes in the angelon the left are echoed in the According to the property inventory curved line that pulls the viewer's eye

the Pinacoteca Vaticana, it has been small wingless boy to the right of of Fabio Rosa, the original owner of to the head and shoulders of the small
believed to be the work of Correggio Christ. In addition, the facial features the Immaculate Conception and of Christ wingless boy to the right of Christ.
or perhaps a copy by Annibale Carracci of the putto in the lower left, the putto in Benediction (cat. 208), these two Nothing prevents the viewer's eye
after a lost original by Correggio. in the shadows to the right of Christ, paintings were hung together on the from moving down the boy's legs and
Regardless of who painted the Vatican and the cherub below are all very same wall in a room in Fabio Rosa's out of the picture, whereas in the
Redcntore, the rigid frontality of Christ similar, if not absolutely identical. home in Rome on via Paolina. Even Immaculate Conception the extended
is striking; the head, torso, and legs Furthermore, the putto in the lower without this documentary evidence, it right arm of the angel to the right of
are in perfect symmetrical alignment left is not all that different from either would be impossible not to recognize the Virgin serves to bring the viewer's
with the central vertical axis that runs the putto to the left of the Virgin (cat. these two oval canvases as pendants. eye back into the lower center of the
through Christ's figure. Even the arms 209) with hand raised or the
its right In each the main figure is located on painting, after having already fol-

are almost perfectly symmetrical, left-hand putto above and to the right the central vertical axis and is seated lowed a diagonal up from the putti in

extending out from his sides at a slight of the Virgin, [mlb] on a cloud surrounded by an angel, the lower left and the blue cloak on
angle from his shoulders with a bend put and a single cherub. The poses
1 i. the Virgin's right side and then down
at the wrists so the palms are tilted of Christ and the Virgin are loose another diagonal from her head to the

slightly upward. Placido's Christ is mirror images of one another: the angel on the right of the picture.

256 PAINTINGS
 I

In addition to the title given in the fundamental shifts in artistic values above all, and sim-
a sobriety of focus after antique sculptures "nellamuseo
inventory, the crescent moon and the through their mutually foreign plification, which would be the foun- da Mengs" as a hint some interest at

crown of stars indicate that the response to the artistic culture, past dation of his radical "return to order" in, along with Pompeo Batoni, the

subject of this painting is the and present, of that place. principles, and which would govern most celebrated artist in Rome at that
Immaculate Conception. Another David was the son of a haberdasher. his work up
for the next thirty years, time: indeed Mengs displayed his col-

picture by Placido depicting the His artistic promise was not evident in and through his service to Napoleon. lection of casts after famous antique
Virgin, the Assumption of the Virgin, his youth but, through a distant family It is often said that the greatest statues in the arcades of St. Peter's

in the collection of the Accademia di connection to Boucher, he gradually lesson learned by David in Rome was Square, or the loggia of the Palazzo

S. Luca, may have been his reception entered the strict Parisian system of to look at nature straight on, to rid Barberini, where earnest students
piece. Just as the figures of Christ and artistic advancement and, in 1775, won himself of any Rococo interest in dec- went to make drawings after them.
Gregory the Great in the ceiling fresco the prix de Rome after several unsuccess- oration and embellishment. The Schnapper concludes that David must
in S. Gregorio al Celio represent a bor- ful attempts. He had the good fortune freshness and unadorned quality of have known Mengs personally: Mengs
rowing from Carlo Maratti, almost the to travel to Italy from Paris with the his numerous landscape drawings would have returned from his nearly
entire pose of the Virgin in the newly appointed head of the French (often of dramatically light, cuboid twelve years in Spain in 1777. and died
Assumption, except for the feet, derives Academy at Rome, Joseph-Marie Vien. structures), or contemporary genre in 1779, the year before David returned
directly from Domenichino's treat- As he would himself later report, subjects (an ox, or a peasant at rest, for for the first time to Paris. And cer-

ment of the same subject in the ceiling David was not particularly enthusiastic example), certainly support this. It is comparisons can be
tainly general

medallion in S. Maria in Trastevere. about this very necessary step in his this quite literal cleansing of his eyes, made between Mengs's Perseus and
Costanzi may well have borrowed progression, as he remembered that along with his passion for antique Andromeda of 1777 (State Hermitage
the pose of the Virgin in this render- few artistic reputations were made in sculpture and paintings of the Roman Museum, St. Petersburg: fig. 17) — dis-

ing of the Immaculate Conception, France by those who did not follow past, that ironically placed him as one played in such triumph and with such
but he definitely borrowed from his the regime of a Roman tutelage. of the great anti-academics of all time: an enthusiastic reception — and
own work for at least one of the other Rome. David shared lodgings
In on becoming essentially the art czar David's "pure" celebration of the male
figures. The head of the angel in this with his fellow pensioner Peyron, and of France in 1793, one of his first acts nude (albeit via the Apollo Belvedere)
work is almost identical to that of the absorbed himself in the regular was to close the academy. up and through his equally elevated
kneeling page in Placido's depiction of instruction in drawing from the nude But can these three elements — his Leonidas at Thermopylae (completed
Antonio Felice Zondadari Taking Leave of at the Palazzo Mancini (the headquar- nurturing encounter with nature 1814: Musee du Louvre, Paris), painted
one of
His Spanish Escort in the Pyrenees, ters of the French Academy on the head-on, the antique, and art from when memories of Rome had sea-
the ten paintings from the Zondadari Corso since 1725). He also developed a Raphael through the Carracci — fully soned considerably.
series (see cats. 180, 206); even the deep passion for drawing after the explain the remarkable sea-change Pompeo Batoni, Mengs's rival as

angles of the heads and the shoulders antique, either in reality or from casts. that David underwent during his five preeminent artist in Rome at this
of these two figures are essentially the One telling anecdote relays his plea- years in Rome? This critical moment point, visited David's studio once, if

same. Given the striking similarity of sure that Giovanni Paolo Panini (an in the formation of a great genius has. not twice. On the first occasion (and
these two figures along with that of instructor at the French Academy and more often than not, been observed there the documentation seems to
the dark-haired angel to the wingless an important bridge between the stu- from a French national viewpoint that come was to see the altar
first-hand) it

boy in Christ in Benediction (cat. 208), it dents and the broader artistic commu- would both focus exclusively on his of Saint Roch, commissioned by the
might appear that Placido used the nity of the city) had a new casting activity within the French artistic city of Marseille and displayed at the
same model, just as Catherine made of the entire frieze of Hadrian's community of Rome, and then later French Academy with great success in
Legrand postulated on the basis of Column to replace an earlier cast that emphasize his position as the seminal 1779 before being sent to France (cat.
the similarity between the face of had been allowed to disintegrate. figure for much that would happen in 212). It was at this point Batoni is said
Saint |ohn in Pace oves meas in S. Giorgio Surviving sketchbooks from these the next (and indeed "French") century. to have beseeched the young artist to

in Siena and that of Narcissus. It seems years (and they are numerous) The purpose here in representing remain and continue his career in
more likely, however, that Placido abound in these drawings. thisyoung artist by perhaps a dispro- Rome, where he would, undoubtedly,
repeatedly used the same prototype, David was rigorous in his explo- portionate number of works in the have become the director of the
as opposed to the same live model. ration of the masterpieces of the High present exhibition — nearly equal to academy (chef d'ecolc). A very similar
Both the head of the angel in the Virgin Renaissance and the Baroque: Raphael those representing Mengs, and more story (so similar, and originating from
Mary and that of the kneeling page in received his greatest praise, although than, for example, Benefial (a figure as a somewhat later date in the vast doc-
the picture from the Zondadari series there is remarkably little graphic evi- radical in intention, if not effect, as the umentation surrounding David)
and quite possi-
are clearly related to. dence of his visits to the Vatican, young David) — is to provoke the reports a visit by the aged Batoni to
bly were derived from, the pastel head major painting galleries, or churches little-examined issue of David's exact see the completed Oath oj the Horatii in

of a young man in the Galleria to underscore this passion, which relationship to the actual Rome of his 1784, when he made a second plea for
Nazionale dArte Antica in Palazzo emerges more clearly through the time as a living artistic environment, David to stay. On one of these occa-
Corsini that had formerly been attrib- paintings done during his five years in and one that was the most vital in the sions Batoni is said to have presented
uted to Benedetto Luti, which Rome. Unfortunately, what must have world. the Frenchman with one of his own
Anthony Clark reattributed to been an important step in his evolu- David often did not rest easy in palettes as a sign of his esteem.
Placido. [mlb] tion at that point — a full-size copy Rome — or Italy, for that matter. In his But what visual evidence is there for
after Valentin's Feast at Carta in the memoirs there are flashes of dark prej- Rome's influence on David? In ways
Barberini gallery — has been lost. udice about the Romans themselves far from easy to explain, several com-
JACQUES-LOUIS DAVID Among David's first Roman works. and mysterious fits of melancholy, positional features and narrative
PARIS 1748-1825 BRUSSELS The Funeral of Patroclus (1779; National brought on in part (as the painter details of David's Antiochus an,
Gallery of Ireland, Dublin), for all its himself acknowledged) by his frustra- Stratonice, done in 1--4. the year before
With Canova, Jacques-Louis David energy and complexity, is still done in tion at his own limitations before the he left Paris for Rome, reflect to a
is the towering pan-European artistic the spirit of Boucher and the manner wonders that he beheld, but also by remarkable degree elements in
figure of the late eighteenth century. he left behind in Paris. However, his other pulls that are still hard to explain. Batoni's own famous treatment ol the
Both men irrefutably changed the first large-scale academy figures of the And many before now have faltered same (heme. Batoni's painting never
views by which art should be made same date, his Hector (cat. 210) —one in an attempt to place David in some lef 1 Rome during the eighteenth
during the 1770s and 1780s, and both ol I he required samples of progress to relationship to his immediate contem- century, but may have been known
were able, through their influence and be sent back to his sponsors at the poraries (in or out of the Palazzo in Paris through an (as yet untraced)
tremendously charged productions, academy in Paris — show the first clear Mane ini), even those convinced < 'I the engraving. There is more justification
to carry this revolution well into the signs of his now limited (and much essential oneness of cosmopolitan for comparing Batoni's beautiful
19th century. Both came to the essen- darker) palette, a new pleasure in Roman artistic culture. Bui there are Death ol MeIeager(Conte Minutoli
tial principles of their new views in shadows (a radical departure from his few facts to draw on. Steff i Rocttgcn Tegrimi Collection, Lucca) with
the city of Rome, and shaped these pastel and sunny early work), and. points 10 an annotation on drawings David's treatment ol the female

PAINTINGS
 — —

figures on the right side of his 3.30 x 4.25 m) and ambitious task,
Andromeda, done after his first return even at the cost of expanding his

to Paris in 1780, where strong memory expenses beyond the state subsidy
of both the pose, but more tellingly, (he had to borrow money from his
the whole emotional tenure of the in-laws). This decision was made with
Batoni figure, is maintained. great difficulty. His second son had
Beyond these comparisons, hard just been born, he was established
evidence is difficult to find beyond the with a large atelier with students in

broad view that David's evolution into Paris, his mixed feelings about Italy

the maker of tableaux of great restraint and the Italians gave no evidence of
and dignity, played out in a precise and resolving themselves, and yet there
rhetorical manner within a shallow, seems to have been no hesitation in

schematically defined interior, is part his mind commission should

that the
of a larger, general process. The work be carried out in Rome. On the nega-
of the grand manner so central to the tive side, it has been pointed out that

history of painting in Rome from the he was escaping Pierre, the head of the
young David to Batoni (see, for Parisian academy, whose rigidity and
example, the Alexander at the Tent of small-mindedness he detested.
Darius in Potsdam) to Gavin Hamilton Meanwhile, Vien noted from Rome
to Placido Constanzi (in whose studio, that David's return may also have
ironically, David painted the Horatii), been prompted by greed and ambi- 210

to Poussin, straight back to Raphael tion. However, perhaps the most

and antique relief sculpture demon- telling reason was simply the artist's new century and, if a
well into the not simply as draftsmen but to display
strates this process. A similar transfor- desire to return to the capital of art to new elevation and sobriety of color their mastery of drawing, chiaroscuro,
mation can be seen in David's drawings make his masterpiece. and composition, as practiced by and elemental uses of color. This figure,

in Rome, where, quite early on, he David, now with

expanded his Unterperger, Maron, or Nocchi, seem an unidealized young model posed in

entered his "second manner," which household of family and students, in many ways related, as does an inter- one of the set positions, was David's
emphasized outline, rather than a rented the large studio formerly est in elevated subjects, Mengs (and envoi (literally "sent item") for the year
Rococo hatching of defined edges, belonging to Placido Costanzi just off for that matter. Batoni) is a more direct 1778. It is a key document of the perva-
above all else, the most characteristic the Piazza del Popolo at via Babuino explanation of this evolution of style. sive practice of life studies in all young
quality of Roman drawing (carried to and via Margutta. His landlords were [JR] artists' education, as well as a remark-
the extreme by Flaxman; see cat. 345). the Accademia di S. Luca, to whom BIBLIOGRAPHY David 1989 able example of the powers already
This development was noted by Costanzi had willed the property. within the grasp of this still growing

Goethe's friend and guide Tischbein, There, over the next year and a half, young artist working within very tight
who lived just across the street from with Drouais as his most trusted assis- 210 strictures. It is unclear when the per-
David in 1784-85. tant, he executed the huge painting Jacques-Louis David fectly apt heroic title Hector (a refer-
In 1780 David returned with great that he unveiled to the Roman public ence to the fallen Trojan hero who was
enthusiasm to Paris, where he was for only a few days in the summer of Academy Male, Called
then dragged by his heels from Achilles'
forced, despite the high praise 1785 before it was crated and shipped, "Hector" chariot around the city walls) was first

received by the Saint Roch when it was with considerable difficulty, to Paris, applied. A second envoi called Patrocius
1778
shown at the Salon the year before, to where it arrived late at the Salon. This, (Musee Thomas Henry, Cherbourg)
Oil on canvas
create a new work to mark his entry of course, had the advantage of with a more dramatic and alert figure
47%" x 67%" x cm)
into the academy. He chose the attracting more attention.
still
(123

provenance kept by David

172

in his Paris
seen from behind —seems to have ful-
poignant story of The Discovery of The Roman response was broad and filled the requirement two years later
studio in the Louvre and, perhaps, in Cluny
Belisarius (first version, Musee des positive. As David himself reported to with equal merit (although equally
thereafter; in Baron Gros's studio by 1820;
Beaux-Arts, Lille; second version, d'Angiviller, the Diario de Roma acquiredin 1835 by the Marquis de Moncal- without clear attributes).
Musee du Louvre, which
Paris), described the work with remarkable Gozon; purchased by the Musee Fabre in All the lightness of touch, the plea-
assured his reputation and placed him accuracy, and praising eloquence. 1851 sure in animating an entire surface,
firmly as the new center of painting in Tischbein confirmed the response, exhibitions Rome. Palazzo Mancini. and the evenness of light that marked
Paris. He secured and heightened his although noting its quality was con- September 1778; Paris 1781, Salon de 1781, no David's earlier work, and reflect his
number; Paris 1989, cat. no. 30
fame with a series of masterpieces siderable for a "French" picture. first master Boucher, are entirely
bibliography David 1989, p. 92, no. 30
over the next four years. To encourage On its return to Paris, quickly fol- purged from this picture, whose

man whom lowed by David and Musee Fabre. Montpellier

power and dignity are well beyond
the he would, perhaps his family, the its

rightly, see as the greatest evidence of painting came to be seen, remarkably essential purpose as an academic
the success of his program of artistic rapidly, as the milestone in the history Among the many reforms brought exercise. The figure is brilliantly lit

reforms in Paris and in Rome, in 1784 of art it has been considered ever about by the new director in charge while the background is brought
d'Angiviller raised the level of state since. It is, of course, naive to claim of the visual arts under the crown, the down to deep shadow. No elements,
encouragement of the arts by declar- that this picture (along with earlier in 1775 of the royal drawing school in other than those directly observable
ing the king's own direct sponsorship Italian works from his five-year stay in Paris. For him its very existence chal- in the simplest of studio arrange-
in a series of commissions to decorate 1775-80) is entirely Roman in its styl- lenged one of the essential reasons ments, are added to embellish or
royal residences. David's assignment istic and expressive make-up, just as it why a talented young figure (working entertain. A stark, monumental pres-
was the charged and deeply patriotic would be foolish to think that it could through the procedure of competitive ence, justifying the heroic title, is

subject of The Oath of the Horatii have been painted anywhere else at exercises)would be sent, at the state's established here for the first time on
perhaps his most famous creation (he that moment. The Horatii profoundly expense, to Rome, where closely this scale in David's painting, which
chose the image of one arm grasping a absorbs and represents a vast history supervised drawing of posed male will prove fundamental to all his later

sword as his own emblem) and, as — it of painting and sculpture and, as evi- nudes had been an essential (the essen- creations. [)r]
would turn out, one of the images denced by the next years of painting tial, arguably) element of instruction
most deeply symbolic of the history and sculpture in France (through since the founding of this academy in

of France over the next two decades. David d'Angers and Delacroix), the seventeenth century.
David chose to return to Rome to renews and transforms works made in Students in Rome were required
undertake this huge (the final canvas the grand tradition. What is its legacy periodically to send back to Paris
measures 10' 9/" x 1
3'
11X"; in Rome itself? Through figures such examples of their progress in this fun-

as Vincenzo Camuccini, it plays out damental element of their education,

358 PAINTINGS
211

Jacques-Louis David
Saint Jerome

1780
Signed and dated, lower right: ). L. David,

f/roma 1780

Oil on canvas
68/2" x 487s" (174 x 1^4 cm)

provenance J.
G. Moitte in his death sale,
1810; Cardinal Fesch, sold in Rome in 1845;

Gustav Maitland 1880 and given by his

descendants to the basilica of Quebec in
1922; put on deposit to the seminary;
museum in 1884;on extended loan to the
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, since
1995

exhibitions Rome, Palazzo Mancini,

i779[sicj; Paris 1781, Salon dc 1781, no num-
ber; Paris 1989. cat. no. 36

bibliography David 1989. p. 100, no. 36

Notre-Dame de Quebec, from the collec-

tion of the council of churchwardens, on
deposit at the Musee de la civilisation,

Quebec, on loan to the National Gallery of

Canada

How exactly this simple depiction of

the aging hermit saint, looking up from
his seclusion in a hut in the wilderness
to receive sustenance from above,
relates to the officially required works
(the envois) that were sent from Rome
back to Paris to display a student's
progress, is unclear. It is possible that
the painting can be identified among
those "half nude" figures critiqued
favorably in Paris in 1780 (Michel R.
1981, p. 101). Aside from this connec-
tion, this is David's first ambitious
encounter with a religious subject.
As David noted in his reaction to
earlier Italian painting upon his arrival
in Rome, Guercino played a major
role in his early evolution. And while
the exact location, during David's stay
in Rome from 1775 to 1780, of the
Baroque master's very similar version
of the same subject (now in the
Mahon collection at the National
Gallery, London) is unknown, the
Guercino makes a tempting compari-
son to David's Saint jerome.
All the interest in rugged detail,
plainly witnessed and rendered in
an almost colorless exercise of earth
tones, looks back at early seventeenth-
century Roman painting in the tradi-
tion of Caravaggio (to whom David
never So does the description
refers).

of the aged man's flesh and the unide-

alized poignancy of his expression.
This is as close to historicization as
David will ever bring himself. The illustrious history as a perused object
highly effective (in terms of emotional of piety and desirability) Saint Rocfi,

impact) pose of the figure in folded the work that first established his rep-
and twisted stature, very atypical for utation in Rome and would, upon its

David, reflects his close attention to arrival in Paris, begin the process that
his models, if not to those elements would end with the artist's position as
that he will retain in his later work. first painter to the Emperor Napoleon

The is a work that antici-

Saint jerome Bonaparte in 1804. [|r]

more ambitious (and com-

pates his
missioned, which this work certainly
was not, even given its subsequent

PAINTINGS ?S9
 212
Jacques-Louis David
Saint Roch Interceding for the

Victims of the Plague

1780
Signed and dated lower left: L. David
Jaciebat/Rmac. 1780

Oil on canvas
8' bV" x 77//' (260 x 196 cm)
provenance David's studio in Rome and
Paris, 1780-82; Department of Health,
Marseille, by February 1782: hung in their

public offices until its transfer to the muse-

um in 1944
exhibition Paris 1989, cat. no. 40
BIBLIOGRAPHY DflVl'd 1989, pp. IO5-7,
no. 40

Musee des Beaux-Arts. Marseille

On May 10, 1780, David exhibited at

the Palazzo Mancini his altarpiece

showing Saint Roch imploring the
Virgin's favor for the plague victims
of Marseilles. Joseph-Marie Vien, his
friend and the director of the French
Academy at Rome, would report to
the director-general of fine arts, the
Comte d'Angiviller, on the success of
the this work, noting that this was no
longer the production of a talented
student but rather the creation of a
great master. From this success,
Angiviller offered David another
year's pension to continue his studies
inRome, at the same moment when
Pompeo Batoni (the leading dean of
Roman painting) encouraged him to
remain in the city and bring it glory.
However, David, mindful of the direc-
tion of his career in a fashion that is

particularly revealing in the context of

this exhibition, refused and returned
to Paris the following summer, where
the Sijint Rocfi was shown to acclaim at
the Salon that August.
The department of health of the
city of Marseillewanted a work for its
chapel to commemorate the plague of
1720, the horrors of which made were
still vivid to the people of that city
sixty years later. Alert to the economy
such an arrangement would allow,
they asked Vien in Rome to give the
commission to a talented pensionnaire.
After several acrimonious interac-
tions David, whose emergence as a 212

major figure pivoted around this

work, both in Rome and Paris, pressed Roch. and the lamenting, Lazarus-like specifically Guercino and Guido Reni essential grandeur and the immediacy
them for more money until the final However, as
figure in the foreground. but also the plague scenes by Poussin of the narrative are very modern and
delivery in 1782. he expanded the composition he (most specifically his Plague of Assdod; completely the work of David. The
The subject is conventional and heightened its theatricality with the Musee du Louvre, Paris), while the more revealing comparisons are to
perfectly apt to the commission. Saint additions of a beseeching woman, a recumbent figure in the foreground hisown, Roman, contemporaries. The
Roch. a victim himself (the wound on horrified adolescent, and a whole may reflect his early thinking about mother and child in complete profile,
this left thigh would be licked clean by procession of victims (their corpses the works of Charles Le Brun, even silhouetted against the radiant (and
his faithful dog), had been since the borne by others) streaming in from while in Rome (see Robert hope-giving) sun as it bursts through
fourteenth century the patron saint the background against a city view Rosenblum, "Moses and the Brazen the clouds, will have great resonance
of plague victims. In a preparatory oil and a bleak, overcast sky. Serpent: A Painting from David's in the works of Cades, for example.
sketch attributed to David (Musee Much has been written about the Roman Period," The Burlington The urgency of the shouting youth
Magnin, Dijon) it is clear that his orig- sources for this work, which obvi- Magazine, vol. 105 (1965), pp. 557-58). (reflective in turn of Caravaggio and
inal intention was to limit the narra- ously draws heavily on Roman and However, as intelligently as the paint- Valentin) has its parallel, on the other
tive to three figures: the Virgin, Saint Bolognese Baroque paintings, most ing may refer to this heritage, its hand, in the contemporary emotional

360 PAINTINGS
 —

intrusions in Corvi's altarpieces,

which create dramatic subplots in a
way quite unique to Roman painting
at this moment. And, perhaps most
important, this rather obvious, and
extremely effective, formal division
of the spaces into three with the —
principal figure set in a very shallow
space —has little to do with the Baroque
in either France or Spain, and much
more in common with the grand
history and religious paintings of
Batoni and most especially Mengs
(see Roettgen 1993. "Mengs,"
pp. 70-71)- [)R]

213
Jacques-Louis David
The Oath of the Horatii
1786

Signed and dated lower left:;. L. david

faciebat/parisi/s, anno mdcclxxxvi
Oil on canvas
51//' x 65'A" (130.2 x 166.2 cm)
provenance painted for the Comte de
Vaudreuil, 1786?; Firmin-Didot family, by
1794; Hyacinthe Didot. 1880; Louis
Delamarre, Paris, by 1913; Baronne Eugene
d'Huart; (Paul Roux et al. sale, Paris,

December 14. 1936. lot 116); Wildenstein,

Paris and New York, 1937

exhibitions Paris, Galerie Lebrun.

211
Explication des ouvrages de peinture exposees

au profits des Grecs. 40 (as by

1826, cat. no.
David, entirely retouched by him five years nn. 23, 24, pi. 69; The Toledo Museum play by Corneille. The royal commis- just because of the profound, ungiv-
after 1786; Paris 1913, cat. no. 25 (as by of Art. Ohio. Toledo Treasures. Toledo: The sion, as arranged by the Comte ing severity of the work. That balance
Girodet, retouched by David); Rome Toledo Museum of Art 1995, p. 113 d'Angiviller, required themes that between grandeur and grace is
Palazzo delle Esposizioni. Mostra di capola- The Toledo Museum of Art, Purchased would rekindle patriotic feelings and perhaps too weighted to the former
vori dclla pittura francese dell'ottocento. 1955, with funds from the Libbey Endowment.
virtue. Challenged by the traitorous for a completely Roman acceptance,
cat. no. 27 (as by David); Cleveland 1964, Gift of Edward Drummond Libbey
Curatii brothers of Alba, the three as, possibly, is the unmitigated moral
cat. no. 114, (as by David); London 1968,
cat. no. 179, fig. 338 (as by David); Berlin,
sons of Horatius vowed loyalty to force of the image.

Nationalgalerie. Bildervon Menschen. 1980, This painting is a reduced version of the Rome and their father, slew the The attribution of the picture, pur-
cat. no. 29; Stockholm 1982, cat. no. 10, large (10' 9/." x 13' 11//'; 330 x 425 cm) Curatii, and returned victorious chased as a David by the Toledo
PP- 32-34 canvas David made in Rome during to Rome, only to find their sister Museum of Art in 1950, was heatedly
bibliography Thiery. L. Guide des amateurs his second trip in 1784-85. It is the Camilla, who was married to one of debated in the pages of Burlington
des clrangers voyageurs a Paris. 1787. p. 548
ct
work that, from its first showing in the traitors, collapsed in grief. She in Magazine during 1966 and 1967
(as a reduction by David of the Louvre
Rome that summer to its inclusion in turn was killed for her disloyalty by between Robert Rosenblum and the
painting); Landon, C. "Exposition publiquc
September in the Paris Salon, estab- her brother, who was pardoned for his museum's then director. Otto
des tableaux du cabinet de M. Didot."
journal de Paris (March 26. 1814), p. (as
lished once and for all David's preemi- crime by popular demand. David's Wittmann. Rosenblum established
4
"excellent copy by Girodet"); Rosenblum nent position in the history of French initial choice seems to have been the that there was a long chain of docu-
1965: Wittmann. O. "Letters: ]acques-Louis (and Roman) art, and serves as a point later, climactic episode of the story (as mentary evidence, back to 1840, cred-
David at Toledo." The Burlington Magazine, of departure for the entirely irre- shown in the drawing in the Louvre, iting David's pupil Anne-Louis
vol. 107 (1965), pp. 323-24; Wittmann, O. versible direction painting would RF 1917); however, he soon shifted to Girodet, who —
depending on the
"Letters: The Toledo Horatii." The Burlington
Magazine, vol. 108 (1966), pp. 90, 93;
take. The painting's inclusion in this the dramatic moment (which does source cited —executed almost the

Wildenstein and Wildenstein 1973, pp. 23

exhibition is dictated both by its con- not occur in Corneillc's play) of the entire painting, or at least a good part
(no. 176), 209 (in no. 1810), 226, 227 (23, in
siderable refinement and beauty as an departing youths vowing their lives of it, with the master coming in only
no. 1958); The Toledo Museum of Art, independent work of art, as well as to their father and country. to finish up at the end. David may
Ohio. The Toledo Museum of Art, European (obviously, but unapologetically) its The Horatii's artistic progenitors are then have considerably reworked the
Paintings. Toledo: The Toledo Museum of being a substitute for the larger work, many, but most certainly include surface five years after its dated com-
Art, 1976, pp. 51-52, pi. 211; Stackclberg
the size of which forbids its removal Poussin's Death of Gcrmanicus, which pletion to accommodate the second
1980, p. 11; Canaday, John. Mainstreams of
from the Louvre. This is despite, or, David would have known well from owner of the painting, the famous,
Modern Art. 2d. ed. New York: Holt,
Rinehart, and Winston, 1981, pp. 10-18,
indeed because of, the complex his visits to the Barberini collections. and rich, Parisian painter Firmin-
21,

24, 25, 29, 31, 47, 55, 61, 63, 64, 72, 134, 149,
debates that surround the actual His attention to archaeological details Didot. Wittman countered with the
152, 173, 195. 247, 252, 260; Crow 1985, pp. 7.
authorship of the present canvas. was nearly as applauded by his con- claim that all these statements had
163, 209, 212-17. 219-20, 223, 230, 232-33, The source of the subject which — temporaries in Rome and Paris as the been made after David's death, and
235-41, 242, 244, 249-55; Michel R. 1988, was to take on vast implications as the splendid and restrained gravity of the that the overall merit of the picture
PP- 34-42, 40-41; Crow 1989, pp. 47, 49; French Revolution advanced and effei 1. In Rome itsell despite [he justified an unqualified attribution to
Carr 1993, pp. 307. 308, 315, fig. 3; Johnson
notions of patriotism, and the individ- alert and very enthusiastic reception David himself. Perhaps the most sub-
1993. pp. 4. 11. 14. 38-39, 58-66, 69, 80, 82,
ual's proper relationship to the state, the picture was given when shown stantial anil lasting outcome of this
162, lig. 2, pi. Crow, Thomas. Emulation:
Making
1;

Artists for Revolutionary Prance. New evolved — are drawings from several there before being shipped to Paris exchange — and the majority ot schol-
Haven and London: Yale University Press, ancient and contemporary sources, the lesson ol this new. radical depar- ars since thai time have favored the
995, pp. 90, 91 (as by Girodet), 92, 102, 315, most accessible lo David through the ture found less fertile ground, perhaps attribution to Clirodel while accepting

PAINTINGS 361
 —

David's own hand by degrees — is the

realization thatcontemporary schol-
ars' rather modernist biases are ill-

equipped to deal with the complex

activities of a large artistic studio such
as David's, in which young, extremely
talented artists were asked to make
replicas of majorworks by the princi-
under the
pal chef d'atelicr. Created
master's supervision and with his
direct involvement, particularly at the
moment of completion, these — to
judge by the prices they fetched
were held in very high esteem. Such
activity is well established in David's
studio, particularly through the
Louvre repetition of the BcUsarius, or
the studio involvement in the numer-
ous (four or more) variants after the
famous Napoleon Crossing the Alps, in
which the "original" version is still in

question. David himself proudly

points to Drouais's work on the large
version of the Horatii (the arm of the
third brother, as well as the large
passage of yellow drapery) adding a
further, muting element to any debate
that would see attribution in too cate-
gorical a light. And, as Wittmann ini-
tially noted, it is nearly impossible to
distinguish different "hands" or, for
that matter, variants of quality
between any given passage and
another, in this masterful reduction
of the vast painting, [jr]

JEAN-GERMAIN DROUAIS
PARIS 1763-1788 ROME

In marked contrast to his master

Jacques-Louis David, Jean-Germain
Drouais was early recognized for his
talent: his successful in the com-
entry
petition for the prix de Rome in 1784
was held up in comparison to Le
Sueur or Poussin, remarkable praise
for so young an artist. From the third
generation of an artistic dynasty, he
studied first with his father, the suc-

cessful and excellent portrait painter

Franqois-Hubert Drouais. From his
father, he moved in his early training

to Nicolas-Guy Brenet, but by 1781 he

had allied himself to David, who
would form a profound affection for 214

him and, in turn, hold his talent in

great respect. David had just returned tion for Drouais, who was destined Paris), which like David's Hector (cat. through letters). However, they also
from his five-year training period in for Italy in any case after his success in 210), goes well beyond the conven- mark a decisive step — a heightened
Rome. It is telling, particularly in the the 1784 prix de Rome, which prompted tional academy figures: the huge level of theatricality and slipping of
context of this exhibition, the purpose the elder artist to move back to that Marius at Minturnae (also Louvre), restraint — quite different from
of which is to examine the hold that city (Thomas Crow, Emulation: Making which received the praise of no less a David's work. This development of a
Rome had over the making of art in Art for Revolutionary France [New Haven figure thanThomas Jefferson, who new style and sentiment was cut short
the eighteenth century, that David and London: Yale University Press, knew it upon its return to Paris; and by Drouais's early death in Rome, of
took Drouais, his most treasured 199s]. p. 20). the P/iiloctetes (cat. 214). These three smallpox, on February 13, 1788.
student and assistant, back with him Drouais stayed on in Rome after the ambitious works all show, in their The loss of so great a talent was
to Rome when he left Paris in 1784 to completion of the Horatii and David's strong direct lighting, shallow space, immediately felt in Rome, as well as
take up the colossal work of The Oath second return to Paris in 1785. Freed and severe exploration of the virtue in Paris. Goethe, who visited Drouais's

:>l
the I loratii (cat. 21?). Drouais is sup- from the supportive but dominating of dignity and restraint in the face of studio to see the Philoctetes on
posed to have actually executed the influence of his master, he executed high passion, pain, and grief, a direct February 22, notes in his Italienische

arm ol the third brother and the three remarkably innovative and inde- and very profound understanding of Rcise the profound grief that afflicted

yellow dress ol Sabina. Thomas ( row pendent paintings in the next two the work of David (with whom the artistic world of Rome. An ambi-
even argues that it was David's affec- years: a Wounded Athlete (Louvre, Drouais continued on close terms tious tomb relief honoring Drouais,

362 PAINTINGS
 —

designed by Charles Percierand exe- The story of Philoctetes has many ported back to France through other naked saint from the French painter's

cuted by Charles Michollon, was versions, coming down from antiq- French students active there, such as The Martyrdom of Saint Eustace
placed in S. Maria in via Lata, near the uity through Homer and Aeschylus Anne-Louis Girodet. [jr] (Pinacoteca Vaticana, Rome). Poussin

French Academy headquarters in the (but only in fragments), Euripides, and also inspired The Martyrdom of Saints

Palazzo Mancini. It was paid for by his most extensively through the tragedy Valentine and Hilary and The Beheading of
fellow academicians. David is said to by Sophocles, which seems to be the FRANCESCO FERNANDI, Saints Valentine and Hilary (before 1724;
have closed himself in his room after primary source used by Drouais. The called IMPERIALI chapel of Sts. Valentine and Hilary,
receiving the news, and eventually hero (sometime king and lover to MILAN 1679-174O ROME Viterbo Cathedral).
had a memorial cenotaph to the dead Helen) joined the Greek fleet in its war Imperiali's work "in tutti li generi
youth built in his own garden, the against the Trojans. Bitten by a sacred A painter important in the transfor- presumably pre-
delle cose naturali"

center of which was a lead vase con- snake, his agony was so great (as was mation of the late Baroque into the vented him from admittance to the
taining Drouais's letters. His sense of the stench from the wound) that he Neoclassical, Imperiali arrived in Accademia di S. Luca; on September
Drouais's promise, as well as the mag- was put ashore and abandoned on the Rome around 1705, following a brief 12, 1723, he was unsuccessfully pro-

nitude of his talent, is reflected in his island of Lemnos, in some versions at period of training with a minor posed for membership along with his
famous statement: "I have lost my the command of Ulysses himself. In Milanese painter, Carlo Vimercati, and friend Agostino Masucci, who was

emulation. He alone could trouble my continuous pain, he managed to subsequent travels throughout Italy. successfully elected two years later

sleep." (Wildenstein and Wildenstein survive through his skills as an archer; He appears to have had a significant (Clark 1964, "Imperiali," p. 229, n. 6).

1973, David, p. 401). [jr] here in the foreground a dead bird can residence in Palermo, where, accord- In 1723 he asserted his independence
bibliography Ramade and Fournier 198s be seen, left uneaten; from its wing he ing to Pio, he painted "molte tavole by joining an attempt of artists not in

has improvised a fan, with which he and quadri per quei principi e signori" the academy, led by Michelangelo
attempts to cool his unhealing (Pio [1724] 1977, p. 40). He was patron- Cerruti, to challenge the institution's

214 wound. The bow and arrows were a ized in Rome by Cardinal Giuseppe control over artistic production in
gift to Philoctetes from his friend Renato Imperiali, whose name he Rome. In a letter of 1726, however,
Jean-Germain Drouais
Hercules, two of whose labors are adopted. In his early years he pro- Imperiali is cited as one of the leading
Philoctetes shown on the quiver (quoted from an duced a number of minor works, history painters in Rome, along with
antique relief in the Villa Albani, for including "tutte sorte di animali e the other "pittori istorici eroici",
1787-88
Oil on canvas
which a Percier drawing survives). The pesci" (examples now at Penicuik Giuseppe Chiari. Francesco Trevisani,
x
arrows had the magic power never to House, Midlothian, and Hopetoun Sebastiano Conca, and Giovanni
88K" x 68/2" (225 174 cm)
miss their mark. The treacherous House, West Lothian, and Holkham Odazzi (Waterhouse 1958, p. 101,
provenance returned to the artist's
mother in 1788; it was offered to the state retrieval of the arrows by Ulysses, Hall, Norfolk, a pair bought in 1714). citing a letter of the Abate Giuseppe
by various owners until its final acquisition and the use of this miraculous Their naturalism and dark painterly Gentile to Lothar Franz von
in 188; by the museum in Chartres weapon in the slaying of Paris and the handling derive from a northern Schonborn, the elector-bishop of
exhibition Rennes, France, Musee des final destruction of Troy, place Italian tradition and recall the art of Mainz, of July 20, 1726). By the 1720s
Beaux-Arts de Rennes. jean-Germain Philoctetes as a critical character at Sinibaldo Scorza. Also among his Imperiali had fully transformed his
Drouais, 1763-1788. 1985
both the beginning and end of the epic. early works were small studies of con- earlier dark, realistic manner into a
bibliography Ramade and Fournier 1985 It is tempting to see Drouais con- versation pieces (Penicuik House) that vigorous classical style that revealed
Musee des Beaux-Arts de Chartres sciously attempting to take up the suggest Imperiali's awareness of paint- all the proprieties of drapery and
current debate in Rome about propri- ing in Venice and Bologna. In handling setting, and his works from this date

Although it was begun in 1787 as a ety in art, and its limitations, in con- and tone they are similar to certain onward are often described as "proto-
demonstration of the young academi- trast to literature, in depicting works of Giuseppe Maria Crespi. Neoclassical."
cian's mastery of a subject requiring a pathetic subjects advocated by Lessing Imperiali gradually developed a Other important works by the
male nude (not unlike David's Saint in his Laocoon and in direct confronta- more elevated style under the influ- artist include The Virgin of the Rosary
jerome), correspondence between tion with the views of Winckelmann. ence of such older Roman painters as with Saints jerome. Dominic, and Francis
Drouais and David reveals that the However, there is no evidence in his Carlo Maratti, Giuseppe Ghezzi, and (cat. 215); four scenes commissioned
ambitious work was not finished in correspondence that Drouais was Luigi Garzi, from whom his broadly by Elector Clemens August to record
time for a Paris showing, nor for the engaged at such a theoretical level. sculptured drapery and physical types his meeting with Benedict XIII at
annual exhibition at the Palazzo And, if anything, his depiction of the derive, refined by the infusion of the Viterbo in 1727; and an altarpiece in
Mancini in August. Drouais. as exem- victim of fate and the gods — the pun- graceful classicism of Raphael. In S. Francesco, Gubbio, painted around
plified by his work as an assistant on ishment of Philoctetes is variously 1720-22 the Irish impresario Owen 1730. His altarpiece for S. Gregorio al

David's Horatii (which already defied attributed to his disloyal revelation of McSwiny commissioned him to paint Celio, Rome, The Death of Saint

the rules of the academy), stood well a secret told him by Hercules, and to The Allegorical Tomb of George I (private Romuald. painted in 1733-34, is marked

outside its regulations. It was not, Venus's desire to prevent his partici- collection), one of a series of paintings by a directness and vigor of handling
sadly and ironically, until the follow- pation in war against her favored commemorating British historical that Clark thought the inspiration for
ing August, on the suggestion of the Trojans —would seem to defy those figures commissioned from Italian the "unornamented naturalism" of
director-general of the fine arts in arguments about how best to depict artists. Several overdoors Tobias Marco Benefial (Clark and Bowron
Paris, Comte d'Angiviller, that the
the pathos with due restraint and dignity. before His Father, Abraham and the Angels. 1981, p. 85). Throughout his career
painting was shown in Rome, then as For example, the upturned gaze of The The Continence of
Sacrifice of Tuccia. Imperiali produced mythological and
a tribute to the dead artist, and Philoctetes could be either the begin- Scipio — were painted for the Palazzo biblical paintings for private clients,
received a mixed reception, in part ning of a swoon or an entreaty for Reale in Turin in 1721-22 and reveal particularly British visitors to Rome
because of its unfinished state. escape. Arguably a simple carryover what Clark described as the painter's who, according to Pio, admired "la sua
The subject enjoyed a considerable from an antique bust of the blind "slightly glum, earthy and unpreten- bella e vagha e gustosa manicra" (Pio
vogue in the last quarter of the eigh- Homer, which serves as a model for tious poetry" (Clark and Bowron 1981, [1724] 1977, p. 41). Imperiali's reputa-
teenth century. James Barry depicted the head, this troubling introduction The paintings of Nicolas
p. 82). tion in England is confirmed by the
it in 1780 (Pinacoteca Nazionale, of a sentiment very close to individual Poussin attracted Imperiali. and their high prices fetched by his paintings in
Bologna), and Abildgaard also pro- expression tests the boundaries of influence is vividly apparent in his The theLondon salerooms. He was among
duced a version (cat. 161). Drouais's Lessing's dictum and challenges David Sacrifice 0/ Noah and Rebecca Hides Her thecontemporary Italian painters
friend and fellow academician Louis himself, inwhose works heroes Household Gods from l.aban (early 1720s; whose works fetched more than £40
Gauffier showed a Philoctetes Mourning neither swoon nor implore. Even at The National Trust, Stourhead, at auction in the first half of the eigh-
the Death of Hercules, presumably in a this young age, Drouais had stepped Wiltshire). Imperiali's monumental teenth century (lain Pears. The
landscape (untraced), while back in beyond his master and taken up a altarpiece depicting The Martyrdom oj Discovery oj Pointing: The Growth of
Paris it was used by Taillasson and direction of artistic exploration that Saint Eustace (early 1720s; S. Eustachio, Interest in the Arts in England, 1680-1768.
Jollain in Salon submissions and by would have its play in Rome during Rome) even quotes Poussin directly, New Haven and London: Yale
the sculptor Delaistre. the next ten years, just as it was trans- adopting the figures ol the priesl and University Press. 1988. p. 218).

PAINTINGS
 [mperiali's last official commission Angelo and Bernini downwards to Fernandi, played an important inter-
was for a painting to decorate the that time" (Clifford 1993, p. 4s, quoting mediary role between the artists and
throne room of King Philip V of Spain an unpublished travel diary). In light the priori di Vetralla, the local citizens
at La Granja. The program was of Imperiali's connections with charged with representing the inter-
devised in 175s by Filippo Juvarra to Scottish visitors to Rome, as both a ests of the community. The painters
illustrate royal virtues through scenes painter and a cicerone, and his relations commissioned to supply altarpieces
from the life of Alexander the Great, with Cardinal Imperiali, protector of included Imperiali (Virgin of the Rosary
and eight large pictures were commis- the Scottish nation and a close confi- with Saints Jerome, Dominic, and Francis),
sioned from Francesco Solimena, dant of the Stuart court in exile, it has Marco Benefial (The Transfiguration),
Francois Lemoyne, Francesco been suggested that the artist may Domenico Maria Muratori (The
Trevisani, Placido Costanzi, Agostino have doubled as a Jacobite agent Martyrdom of Saint Andrew for the high
Masucci, Pittoni, Donato Creti, and (Clifford 1993, pp. 45-46). Imperiali altar, Vision oj the Immaculate Conception
Domenico Prodi. Lemoyne was died on November 4, 1740. [epb] Appearing to Saint Hippolytus, and
replaced upon his death (in 1737) by BIBLIOGRAPHY Pio [1724] 1977, pp. 4O-4K Assumption with Saint Clement and Saint
Carle van Loo; Parodi's terms were Waterhousc 1958; Clark 1964, "Imperiali"; Eustace), and Giacomo Triga (Saints

exorbitant, and by 1736 he was Prosperi Valcnti Rodino 1987, pp. 19, 37, john the Baptist, Lucy. Gregory the Great,
replaced by Imperiali. The series was 45-46, figs. 3, 24-26; Rangoni 1990, and Mary Magdalene). Muratori's altar-
"Imperiali"; Clifford 1993; Prosperi Valenti
ready in 1737 and the paintings are piece devoted to the titular saint was
Rodino 1996, "Imperiali"
now in a battered state at the Real in place for the consecration of the
Collegio di Alfonso XIII in the church on May 7, 1720, but the other
Escorial. Imperiali's oil sketch for paintings were not commissioned or
Liberality, or Alexander Rewarding His 215 produced until a few years later.

Soldiers (private collection, London; Imperiali's painting was the last to 215
Francesco Fernandi, called
Clark 1964, "Imperiali," fig. 60) richly be commissioned — Raho's publica-
quotes from several famous composi- Imperiali tion of the documents confirms both and presented him with a chaplet of
tions by Poussin. the date and authorship of the paint- beads that he called "Our Lady's
Virgin of the Rosary with Saints
The classical rigor of Imperiali's ing. Until Clark's article of 1964, the crown of roses.")
figuresbegan to soften in his late Jerome, Dominic, and Francis work had been attributed previously Anthony Clark wrote of the Virgin
works, and this shift can also be seen 1723-24 to Ludovico Mazzanti and to of the Rosary with Saints Jerome, Dominic,
in his choice of literary subjects set in Oil on canvas Giovanni Antonio Grecolini. Raho and Francis:

pastoral, Arcadian landscapes, such as

5X"x 6' also published an exchange of letters
9' 2X" (289 x 210 cm)
Erminia Carving HerTrue Love's Name (ex provenance painted for Vetralla
during May
1722 between Cardinal This is surely an Imperiali cre-
Yvonne FFrench collection; Clark Cathedral, 1723-24 Imperiali and the priori di Vetralla, in ation of the early 1730s which
1964, "Imperiali," fig. 58). Clark saw in exhibition Rome 1959, cat. no. 377 (as by which the choice of Imperiali and the has taken the flying putto and the
such paintings "Imperiali's special Ludovico Mazzanti) subject and site for his picture were enthroned Virgin and Child
contribution to Roman Arcadian bibliography Griseri 1962, p. 36 (as by mentioned. The first payment to the directly from Maratti's painting
taste" (Clark 1964, "Imperiali," p. 233). Giovanni Antonio Grecolini); Clark 1964, artist for the picture is dated of the same subject in Palermo
Imperiali was evidently a natural, "Imperiali," p. 233. fig. 56 (as attributed to September 27, 1723 (50 scudi in advance [1695, oratory of S. Citha]. I

prolific draftsman, whose surviving Imperiali and assistants); Raho 1996-97, of a total payment of 220 scudi "includ- would offer that the execution of
pp. 123-25, pi. 6; Raho, F. "Precisazioni
drawings represent a fraction of the ing also the price of the canvas, as this painting is not wholly
documentarie sul duomo di Vetralla." In
compositional sketches and studies ordered by Cardinal Imperiali"); the Imperiali's, excepting the Virgin
Informazioni: pcriodico del centra di cata-
for individual groups and single logazione id beni cultural), iimmmtstrazicme second on October 13, 1724 ("payment and Child, the flying putto and
figures he made in the preparation provinciate di Viterbo, nn. 90-98. to Ferrante of 170 scudi, the last and the Saint Francis. A drawing
of oil paintings. (The largest surviving Forthcoming final payment for the picture of the which carefully and beautifully
group of autograph drawings belongs Chiesa di Sant'Andrea. Vetralla Virgin of the Rosary with other saints, reproduces the Audenaerd
to Sir John Clerk, Bt„ Penicuik House. to be placed on the altar of this cathe- engraving of the Maratti exists
Midlothian; see Clifford 1993, passim, dral" [quoted in Raho 1996-97, p. 124]). and bears a convincing old attri-

who does not discuss the large Vetralla, a medieval town forty miles Initially, the priori di Vetralla seem bution to Batoni. The Maratti,
number of drawings after Imperiali's north of Rome in the province of to have wanted a painter to retouch or the Gubbio Imperiali, and the
drawings at Penicuik.) Imperiali Viterbo, was transformed at the restore a venerated image of the present painting are the clear
attracted English and Scottish patrons beginning of the eighteenth century rosary that depicted the respective sources of Batoni's earliest altar-

and also acted as an agent and entre- with the erection of a new cathedral "mysteries of the Virgin" in a series piece [1732-33, S. Gregorio al

preneur on behalf of British collectors on the site of a church dedicated to of small, rectangular images along the Celio, Rome], and Batoni repeats
seeking drawings of classical antiqui- S. Andrew. Thanks to the research of lines of a traditional example surviv- the figure of the Saint Jerome
ties in Rome. Dottoressa Francesca Raho (based on ing in the sacristy of S. Maria della several times in his career. The
Beginning in the 1730s, he took on a documents located in the Archivio Pace, Ronciglione. Cardinal Imperiali entire figure of Saint Jerome is

number of pupils, notably Pompeo Storico del Comune di Vetralla), it is informed the priori that no distin- the most Batonian feature of any
Batoni and Camillo Paderni, and his known that the construction of the guished painter from Rome would Imperiali and the rendering of
drawing classes were attended by new cathedral to the designs of undertake such a menial task and con- the habit of Saint Dominic,
Alexander Clerk, William Hoare, Giovanni Battista Contini proceeded vinced them that their interests would although within Imperiali's styl-

William Mosman, Allan Ramsay, in tandem with the demolition of the be better served by allowing his istic laws, is done with the
James Russet, and other young British "vecchio duomo" from the end of protege, Imperiali, to paint a new impersonal precision often char-
Rome. According to Ramsay,
artists in 1710. The cornerstone of the new altarpiece for the chapel devoted to acteristic of Batoni. (Clark 1964,
"Imperialiwas a person of great church was laid in 1711 and the build- the "Ss. Misteri del Rosario." The "Imperiali," p. 233)
humanity and honour. Often after ing consecrated in 1720, although it theme is represented in the Vetralla
Mass on Sundays and on Holy Days he was not finally finished and decorated altarpiece according to the traditional
would conduct ... a number of pupils until several years later. Counter-Reformation dictates, the Any possible participation by Batoni
around some of the churches and For the apse of the church and the Virgin and Child each holding a in the execution of the Vetralla altar-

palaces and ... instruct them in several lateral nave chapels, altar- rosary and enthroned before Saint piece is impossible in light of its docu-
observing and often his remarks upon pieces were comissioned from several Dominic. (The invention of the rosary mented date of 1723-24: the younger
all the best pieces ol painting, statuary painters in Rome. Cardinal Imperiali, by Dominic was claimed by early his- painter did not arrive in Rome from
and architecture in and about the city Prefetto della Congregazione del Buon torians of his order, who related that his native Lucca until 1727.

of Rome, from Raphael, Michel Governo and patron of Francesco the Virgin appeared to him in a vision Nonetheless, the Virgin of the Rosary

PAINTINGS
 Maratti, including works by Giuseppe BENIGNE GAGNERAUX
Ghezzi and Placido Costanzi. Yet, DIJON 1756-1795 FLORENCE
whatever their academic indebted-
ness, Imperiali's paintings, in Clark's The son of a barrel maker from
words, are "simply felt and strongly Burgundy, Gagneraux entered the
conceived." Rebecca and Eliezer at the school of drawing in Dijon, his native
Well is significant, too, as an example town, in 1767 or 1768. Francois
of Imperiali's use of Arcadian settings Devosge, the director and founder of
for his subjects and "Imperiali's this provincialacademy, had as his
special contribution to the Roman most celebrated pupils the painter
Arcadian taste" (Clark 1964, Pierre-Paul Prud'hon and somewhat
"Imperiali," p. 233). later the sculptor Francois Rude.
The genesis of the composition of Gagneraux was convinced of his
Rebecca and Eliezer at the Well can be vocation: in 1774 he arrived secretly in
traced to a red-chalk drawing by Rome, but found it impossible to earn
Imperiali in Philadelphia, signed and a living there. Two years later, inspired
dated 1722, that appears to represent by his example, the Burgundian States
Jacob's first sight of Rachel by the well established a prix de Rome, one for a
where she had come to water her painter, one for a sculptor. Gagneraux
father's flocks (Hiesingerand Percy was awarded the sculpture prize in
1980, no. 15). The drawing was either the first year (Prud'hon would win it
preceded or immediately followed by in 1784). With this he was able to live

216 an oil sketch now in the collection of in the Eternal City, albeit under diffi-

Fabrizio Lemme, Rome, that repre- cult circumstances, from 1776 to 1780,

with Saints Jerome, Dominic, and Francis present painting appears to represent sents the three principal figures of during which time he worked on.
remains a significant source of inspi- Rebecca being addressed by Eliezer, Rachel, Jacob, and one of the amongst other pieces, a copy of
ration in his artistic formation, and the servant of Abraham. For townswomen (Seicento e Settecento Raphael's School of Athens. His grant
it is entirely credible that Batoni Imperiali, the distinction between the 1998, no. 51). More importantly, the expired after four years, but he
would have made the short journey two scenes seems to lie in the pres- Lemme sketch delineates the motifs of decided to stay on in Rome. Although
to Vetralla to see this capolavoro from ence of the camels described in the the sheep drinking from the well and he was completely independent of the
the hand of his mentor, Imperiali. first event and the sheep in the the cow in profile behind, in addition French Academy in Rome, its succes-
The older painter had helped Batoni second. In the biblical account the to the basic elements of the foliage sive directors Joseph-Marie Vien and
prepare a cartoon for his first public patriarch Abraham, wishing to find a and long sloping hill in the back- Louis Lagrenee, in 1781 and 1782
work in Rome, an altarpiece for wife for his son Isaac, sent his servant ground of the London painting. A red- encouraged him to apply for the prix
S. Gregorio al Celio, and was working to look for a bride among his kinsfolk chalk preparatory drawing for the deRome offered by the Academie
on his own altarpiece, a Death of Saint in Mesopotamia rather than from the head of one of the sheep at the well is Royale in Paris; however, he was pre-
Romulus, for the church at about the people of Canaan, where he lived. in the collection of Sir John Clerk, Bt„ vented by illness from doing so and
same time, [epb] When Eliezer reached the town of Penicuik House, Midlothian (Clifford earned his living drawing antiquities
Nahor in Chaldea, he waited at the I993.p-53.no. 22, fig. 43). for Francesco Piranesi's engravings.
spring for the young women to come Unfortunately, not enough is Good fortune came his way in 1784,
2l6 from the town in the evening to draw known of Imperiali's working proce- when Gustav III, King of Sweden
water.He prayed that whoever gave dures to reach a satisfactory conclu- (whose agent for antiquities in Rome
Francesco Fernandi, called
him and his camels water would be sion regarding the relationships was Piranesi), visited Gagneraux's
Imperiali the one God had chosen for Isaac. among these sketches and the London studio while staying in Rome on his
Eliezer had barely finished when painting. Nor is it possible to date Grand Tour. He bought a painting
Rebecca and Eliezer at the Well
Rebecca, a beautiful virgin, appeared Rebecca ana" Eliezer at the Well precisely Gagneraux had been working on since
c. 1725 at the spring and filled her pitcher. She beyond the common-sense assump- 1780, Blind Oedipus Commending His
Signed at lower left: Franus Feranus d.
invited him to drink and drew water tion that the full composition must Family to the Cods (Nationalmuseum,
Imperiali
for his camels. Fortuitously, she follow rather than precede the use of Stockholm). The king also commis-
Oil on canvas
belonged to the family of Abraham common motifs in the two smaller, sioned a painting of The Meeting oj
48/2" x 62/4" (123.2 x 158.1 cm)
through his brother Nahor, and sketchy depictions of Jacob and Gustav III and Pope Pius VI at the Musco
provenance Henry Pelham, Archibald Eliezer took her back Canaan Rachel. In spite of the evidence Pio-Clementino, Vatican (1785;
to to
Douglas Pelham-Clinton, 7th Duke of
become the bride of of Isaac. of a number of documented works Nationalmuseum, Stockholm). Pius
Newcastle, Clumber House,
Rebecca and Eliezer at the Well exem- ranging over two decades of artistic VI also commissioned a copy of this
Nottinghamshire; by inheritance to the
Earl of Lincoln; sale, Christie's, London, plifies Imperiali's pleasing and digni- activity, Imperiali's independent easel work (1786; National Museum.
March 31, 1939, lot 24; bought by Spink, fied manner and his cultivated feeling paintings remain difficult to date and Prague). Gagneraux's position was
London; sale, Christie's, London, October for designand color. For Clark the defy the construction of a convincing strengthened by this double patron-
24, 1986, lot 118 painting was "one of the finest among chronology. He treated the subject of age, and he was soon flooded with
exhibition Nottingham Castle Museum, the group of paintings by Imperiali of Rebecca and Eliezer at the Well in commissions from clients in Rome
on loan until about 1939
Old Testament scenes, in all of which 1721-22 in an overdoor at the Palazzo and abroad: he painted a ceiling for
bibliography Waterhouse 1958,
the artist only chose those subjects Reale, Turin (Rudolph 1983, fig. 2s6), Prince Borghese in his villa on the
pp. 105-6, fig. 3; Clark 1964, "Imperiali,"
which could be shown in rural splen- and again in a richly painted version Pincio and an overdoor for Prince
p. 229; Clifford 1993, p. 42
dor, with an animal or two." The with many figures at Penicuik House, Altieri's palazzo by the Gcsu; French.
Private collection
painting represented for him a "com- which appears to date from the 1730s Portugese. Swedish, Swiss, and Dutch
bination of academic nobility and 49-50, fig. 45, as
(Clifford 1993, pp. amateurs also commissioned easel
Francesco Imperiali often depicted what might be called rustic virtue" representing Jacob and Rebecca at the paintings from him.
Old Testament subjects, in particular (Clark 1064, "Imperiali," p. 229) Well), [epb] Although Gagneraux had never
Rebecca and Eliezer at the Well common to a number of followers of visited Paris, he was now the most
(Genesis 24: 10-27) and Jacob and Carlo Maratti; it was Imperiali's dis- fashionable French painter in Rome:
Rachel at the Well (Genesis 29: 1-14). tinction to avoid the Rococo distilla- a very different position from that ol
It is often unclear which scene is actu- tion of Maratti's work by drawing the pupils of the French Academy at
ally being represented in his paintings carefully upon a range of classicizing Rome, housed in the Palazzo Mancini,
of these biblical themes, although the models from Poussin to that same which was directed by )oscph-Marie

PAINTINGS 36S
Vien (1775), Louis Lagrenee (1781), and Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, and
Francois Guillaume Menageot Lofstadt Castle in Sweden, and above
(1787-93). Winners of the prix de Rome all at the Musee des Beaux-Arts in
at the Academie Royale included Jean- Dijon. Largely neglected after Henri
Baptiste Regnault (1776), Jean- Baudot's study of 1847 (republished in
Germain Drouais and Louis Gauffier 1889), Gagneraux enjoyed a revival

(1784), and Anne-Louis Girodet (1789), with the renewed interest in

all preparing for careers in Paris, Neoclassicism, when his works were
although some of these artists chose shown at exhibitions in 1972 (London
to remain in Italy during the French 1972) and in 1974-75 (Paris, Detroit, and
Revolution. Gagneraux's artistic New York 1974). A thesis by Birgitta
milieu was more international than Sandstrom (1981) and the monograph
French, including people as diverse as exhibition Benigne Gagneraux, shown in

Angelika Kauffmann, Giuseppe Cades, Rome and Dijon (see Laveissiere et al.

Tobias Sergei, and John Flaxman. His 1983) helped to restore his reputation.
work has much in common with that Gagneraux is a perfect example of the
of these figures, particularly of his two constrasting aspects of international
friends Sergei and Flaxman. The line Neoclassicism between 1780 and 1790:
engravings published by Gagneraux in the persistence of the severe "grand
1792 only slightly pre-date the Odyssey manner," which began with Poussin,
and the Iliad, both engraved by Piroli was developed by Jean-Francois Pierre
after Flaxman. Peyron and revitalized by Jacques-
In 1788 and 1789 Gagneraux pro- Louis David; purist studies inspired by
duced two large paintings of battle the Greek vases, anticipating Ingres;
scenes for the Palais des Etats de but also terribilita and eroticism — for
Bourgogne at Dijon, showing the which, Rome, Gagneraux found
in

exploits of the Prince de Conde in the numerous models in the works of the
seventeenth century (Musee des Renaissance and its mannerist legacy.
Beaux-Arts, Dijon), but his success [SL]

was largely due to his "graceful" sub- bibliography Baudot 1889; Sandstrom
jects, mythological scenes similar to 1981; Laveissiere et al. 1983
those of Francesco Albani, or love
allegories inspired by Anacreon. Love
Triumphs over Force (1793; Musee des 217
Beaux-Arts, Dijon) adopts a hellenis-
Benigne Gagneraux
but is inspired also by Titian
tic style,

and Poussin's cherubs and other putti. The Genius of the Arts 217

His aim is simply to create a kind of

1789
"pictorial love poem," similar to the head in the other), and the rays and goes on to say: "It is intended for
Signed and dated lower left, top of bas-
short pieces of Anacreon and those relief: B. Gagneraux. 1789 streaming from the temple of glory, Paris, and has been shown in the resi-
found in the Greek Anthology. Even so, Oil on canvas which are absent in the Dijon version. dence of Cardinal Bernis, and was
he never abandoned the "grand 43" x 33X" (109 x 84 cm) The latter is delicately painted, but has much admiired. A similar one has
genre," the history painter's tradtional
provenance Galerie Marcus, Paris, been worn away by excessive cleaning, been commissioned for London."
route to more lasting success. His around 1970; Hotel des Ventes de Dijon, which has revealed several changes of That Benigne Gagneraux only men-
masterpiece in this field is Soranus and June 5, 1994, lot 111 (Emmanuel de Vregille mind on the painter's part. The other tioned two versions in his catalogue,
Servilia (1793; Musee des Beaux-Arts, and Christian Bizouard; Eric Turquin, canvas (from Rome) is more finished, suggests that the first painting, "for
Dijon), a heroic Roman subject, Paris); W. Apolloni Gallery, Rome, 1996 better-preserved, and appears to be Paris," shown at the residence of
shown after his death in the Paris bibliography Baudot 1889, p. 41, nos. the later of the two. Cardinal Bernis, is that of the Dutch
Sandstrom 1981. pp. 48, 137-38. men-
10-11;
Salon of Year VII. Gagneraux himself drew up a hand- banker Renoir, and that the second
tioned in no. 11, fig. 41, Laveissiere et al.
Gagneraux died young. In 1793 he written catalogue of his work, accord- version, "for London," is that of
1983, pp. 122-23, no. 44; Gazette de I'Hotel
risked his life in the anti-French riots
Drouot (Paris), no. 24, June 10, 1994, p. 211
ing to which he painted two versions Remond de Lavelenet (even though he
in Rome and left for Sweden to take of this subject: "no. 10, painted in 1788, is referred to as "from Marseille"). But
Private collection
up the position of history painter to depicts the Genius of the Arts, which reference corresponds to which
the court. He stopped off en route in Surrounded by Three Small Genii, is 4 feet of the two surviving paintings? The
Florence, a francophile city, which Two surviving versions of this com- high, 3 feet wide, and belongs to M. painting in the Dijon museum is des-
had also welcomed Francois-Xavier position are known, both painted in Renoir, aDutch banker; no. 11, also ignated in the Catalogue des Peintures
Fabre and Louis Gauffier. The Grand Rome, identical in size, and signed painted in 1788, is a second version of Francises published in 1968, as that
Duke of Tuscany commissioned him and dated 1789. One was bought in the preceding painting, same size, for painted for Remond de Lavelenet. but
to paint a Lion Hunt (now lost), but 1956 from a dealer in Aix-en- M. Remond de Lavelanet, Marseille" none of the records in the museum

above all he enjoyed the patronage of
Jean de Sellon, a Swiss art lover, in
whose household he remained
over a year, as drawing master to his
two daughters. Gagneraux died in
Florence on August 18, 1795, after
falling from a window: an apparent
suicide, possibly prompted by an
unhappy love affair and the psycho-
logical shock of his dangerous
Provence, by the Musee des Beaux-
Arts in Dijon and was shown at Dijon
for during the Gagneraux exhibition of
1983. The other —
which came on to
the Parisian art market around 1970,
was recognized from a photograph,
and reappeared in 1994 is the one
shown here. The minor differences
between the two versions lie in the
flight position of the signature (bottom
(Baudot 1889). The date "1788" and the archive confirms this assertion (prob-
larger dimensions are not necessarily ably a hasty deduction based on the
surprising: the information in this fact that it came from Aix-en-
document is frequently approximate Provence, a town close to Marseille).
and the two surviving paintings, The alterations made to the painting
signed and dated 1789, must be the mentioned above suggest rather that
— two described. Furthermore, the this is in fact the first of the two paint-
painter's brother Jean-Baptiste-Claude ings, belonging to the Dutchman
Benigne Gagneraux describes the Renoir, who would therefore have
subject Benigne has just finished been resident in Paris.

from Rome. right, beneath the Ionic capital, in the painting in a letter written from One of the paintings is mentioned
Gagneraux's paintings can be seen Dijon painting), the motif drawn by Rome, dated May 30, 1789, to the intwo Parisian sales, the first held on
in the Galleria Borghese and the the little seated genius (Apollo's head teacher of both brothers, Francois December 14, 1813, of Gabriel-Auguste
Palazzo Altieri, Rome, in the in the Dijon version; an old man's Devosge (Laveissiere et al. 1983, p. 122), Godefroy, former "controleur general"

PAINTINGS
of the fleet, lot no. 52, set at no francs, GIUSEPPE GHEZZI Protector Pietro Ottoboni (1692) and one was allowed to Domenico Parodi,

the second of M. Sarrazin held on COMUNANZA, NEAR ASCOL1 produced a history of the Compagnia one to Giuseppe Passeri, and two to
January 8, 1816, lot no. 82. The dimen- PICENO 1634-1721 ROME in 1706 (De Marchi 1999, pp. 74-79). In Lazzaro Baldi). In describing the two
sions (reversed in 1816) are the same, addition, in 1705 the Accademia paintings for the transept, Anthony
40 inches by 30 inches, identical with Ghezzi was born on November 6, dell'Arcadia admitted him as a pastor Clark, the first modern connoisseur of
the two existing paintings. The sketch 1634, the son of Sebastiano Ghezzi, with the alias of Afidenio Badio, and in Ghezzi's work, speaks of the "original

made of this composition has recently a painter, sculptor in wood, architect, 1708 he became a member of the imagination and memorable force,

been discovered (Paris 1995, no. 2). and engineer (see Semenza 1999). In academy's "council of wise men." The despite the characteristically unim-
On the altar is written: doctarum a letter to Father Pellegrino Orlandi Accademia not only acknowledged pressive execution" (Clark 1963, p. 11).

... praemium//frontium d/is (1701), Ghezzi recalled with resent- his personal talents as a man of letters, The beginning of the eighteenth
mjscent// superis ("Reward for great ment his father's ruinous experiments but also responded warmly to his century in Rome saw the rise of a
minds, they join the gods on high"). in alchemy, which "left his heirs in plan — in accordance with the pre- thriving group of veritable lobbyists

The temple of Glory, which glows poverty" (De Marchi 1999, p. 24). The vailing Horatian spirit of fraternity from the Marches region (Clark notes
brightly on the righthand side of the young Ghezzi consequently went to between the fine arts and poetry among others, provided
that Ascoli,

picture, is the goal held out to young study law and philosophy in Fermo, — officially to provide space for the many "bold and efficient bureaucrats"
artists, represented here by the three where he also applied himself to "confederate" group of Arcadian poets [Clark 1971-73, p. 62]). Ghezzi, had

small genii of Sculpture, Drawing, and painting. In 1651 he moved to Rome during the awards ceremonies for already been able to avail himself of
Architecture, while the ground is and for several years worked in the young artists on the Capitoline Hill. Maratti's friendship (the artist was god-
strewn with brambles, symbolizing legal profession, finally becoming These events were often solemn occa- father at the confirmation of Ghezzi's

the hardships of the artist. The Genius an independent notary in 1671 (see sions, with musical accompaniment. son Pier Leone) and the favor and
of the Arts, bearing the flame of De Marchi 1999). When he was thirty- Ghezzi later published the poets' com- esteem of cardinals Decio Azzolini
knowledge, holds a laurel crown seven and the father of one son (the positions,which frequently related to and Giovan Francesco Albani. When
above the head of the child represent- future abbot and papal official Placido past and contemporary works of art, the latter became Pope Clement XI,
ing Drawing (the primacy of drawing Eustachio), Ghezzi abandoned his including his own (see De Marchi Ghezzi had the satisfaction of com-
must be acknowledged!), who legal career, through which he had 1999, "Ghezzi," pp. 79-90). mending him publicly each time in
remains seated, absorbed in his work, undoubtedly expanded his circle of Obviously, Ghezzi's key position the accounts of competitions he orga-
while his two companions are already acquaintances and contacts in Rome. within the Roman academies allowed nized on his commission from 1702.
standing, one presenting a bas-relief, He dedicated himself to painting, him to associate not only with artists The 1705 report mentions the papal
the other an architectural plan. which he had always practiced as an but also with the nobility, diplomats, interventions for the beautification of
Duringsame period
this inquisitive amateur, modernizing his and high-ranking prelates involved Rome and exalts him for continuing
Gagneraux was painting furious battle styleby assimilating the artistic influ- with the arts in various ways (an the work of Sixtus V, the other pontiff
scenes for Dijon (Musee des Beaux- ences of Rome and sending works to admiring Pascoli provides a detailed from the Marches region (see Ghezzi
Arts, Dijon) while his Tancred Baptizing his native region. In 1672 his public list of this). Hence his close involve- 1705, p. 13). For the pope he painted in

Clorinda (Louvre, Paris) refers back to exhibition in Rome of the Madonna ment in the production of expert 1706 the holy protector of Urbino,
Mannerism. This picture, however, del Suffragio for the church of the same reports, estate appraisals, and acquisi- Saint Crescentinus, in the Roman
displays the calm purity of line, the name was followed immediately by a tions, and his ability as a result to church of S. Teodoro. Over the next
sweetness and color demanded by its Virgin oj the Rosary for the adjacent collect works on his own account, pri- few years —embittered by the contro-
subject: amid the pinks, slate blues oratory (Pansecchi 1984, p. 724). Both marily drawings (see Prosperi Valenti versies that arose within the
and grays, rare colors are employed - works were painted in a skillful and Rodino 1999). But he also continued to Accademia di S. Luca because of mod-
the blondness of the hair, the green of erudite manner, modeled on the and to carry out restoration
paint, ifications to the constitution (see De
the laurel, and the red drapery. In this Baroque masters and characterized by works on a fairly regular basis for Marchi 1999, "Ghezzi," pp. 71-74) he —
sculpted vision, beauty can only be a natural "flavor" and passionate senti- Roman churches: the Annunziata published reports for Pope Clement's
immobile. The desired ideal, accord- ment that marked all his best works. delle Monache Turchine, S. Cecilia Concorsi Clementini until 1716,

ing to the theories of Johann Joachim The year 1674 marked the birth of his (1676), S. Margherita, S. Maria in painted a large painting (lost) for the
Winckelmann, is grace, hence the son Pier Leone as well as the begin- Aracoeli, S. Maria della Scala, S. Maria Roman church of the Napoletani in
supple Praxitelean lines of the Genius, ning of Ghezzi's success as a leading in via Lata (all 1680s), and S. Giuseppe 1710 at the age of seventy-six, and even
reminiscent of the Farnese Genius Roman artistic milieu.
figure in the dei Falegnami (1692). He finally suc- a lunette for the church of the
(Museo Archeologico, Naples) and the He was accepted as a member of the ceeding in obtaining commissions for Maddalena in Rome (c. 1718; see
Marble Faun (Museo Capitolino, Accademia di S. Luca and also elected important decorative groups such as Pansecchi 1984, p. 729, n. 27; Fonda-
Rome). This work is closely related to as its permanent secretary on the those for the chapel of the Pieta in his zione Lungarotti 1988, p. 58, n. 23).
that of Pierre-Paul Prud'hon, a fellow basis of his past experience as a notary. national church of the Marches "The solidity of old age is like

pupil at the school of drawing in He held this task until 1718 (Missirini region, S. Salvatore in Lauro (1694-97) winter's calm": one of the maxims
Dijon. The two artists were also in 1823, p. 143). His design for the and S. Silvestro in Capite (c. 1696). In copied by Ghezzi's son Pier Leone
close contact during the three-year Accademia, even though it attracted the paintings in Glasgow and the while on holiday in May of 1730 in the
Roman period of 1785 to 1788. It was controversy and criticism, was used chapel of S. Silvestro, and in the cycle villa "Benedicta Literaria" seems to suit

in Rome that Prud'hon worked on the when it was modified by

until 1716, in S. Maria in Vallicella, Ghezzi dis- Ghezzi perfectly. Proof of the older
composition of Union of Love and Domenico Campiglia (Turner 1976). played inventive originality and struc- Ghezzi's mental and physical well-
Friendship (Minneapolis Institute of At the same time, other institutions tural clarity combined with a being is provided by Nicola Pio in a
Arts), his first major painting, which requested Ghezzi's numerous skills: passionate adherence to late Baroque biography identified by Jacob Hess
he showed at the Salon of 1793. the first of these was the archconfra- composition based on contrasts of and overlooked by scholars, dedicated
Although was based principally on
it ternity of the Marchigian community light and vigorous paint impasto, and to the "painter and orator" and w ritten
the study of Leonardo da Vinci and of for which he was/estarolo from 1676. in his oration for the centenary of the before Giuseppe's death: "He lives
Antonio Canova, it may owe some- Until 1718 he organized picture exhibi- Accademia di S. Luca the most— happily at an advanced age with the
thing to the purism of Gagneraux, tions in S. Salvatore in Lauro, of which serious and revealing documentation decorum and splendor ol the
who was in turn influenced by the he left many valuable reports (see De of the artist's theories — he recalled Professio." (British Library. London.
grace already apparent in Prud'hon's Marchi 1987). Subsequently, he was with admiration the work of Bernini, Harley MS 6032, fol. 93 r). Giuseppe
drawings, [sl] employed by the Congregazione dei Lanfranco, Baciccio, and Pietro da Ghezzi died on November 10. 1-21. [1 v\
Virtuosi al Pantheon for thirty-five Cortona (Ghezzi 1696). For the holy BIBLIOGRAPHY Pio |i"24] 19": Clark 1963;
years as secretary and/or regent year ol 1700 Ghezzi succeeded in Clark ig~i --(; Pansecchi 1984; Lo Bianco
involved in drawing up the new obtaining the commission for as many 1985; De Marchi 1987; Mai tmelli 1990;
constitution in 1698. He also wrote as four paintings for the decoration of Pascoli 199:; De Marchi 1999; l.o Hianco
1999; Costanzi, Massa. and Montcvecchi
prayers for ceremonies and commem- the nave of S. Maria in Vallicella (only
1999
orative texts in honor ol Cardinal I laniclc Seller exceeded this w ith five;

PAINTINGS
 uted by Stella Rudolph to Pier Leone, of Gratitude, still in the Accademia and
may be attributable to his father —not inspired by his father's style, which
least for its marked affinity with was indebted to Maratti. On the heels
Maratti, similar to that of the two ver- of this came other important official
sions of the Holy Family painted by recognitions: his appointment as
Giuseppe for Rome and Ascoli and Pittore della Camera Apostolica in

possibly identifiable with the Virgin 1708, with the right to succeed
of Egypt which Ghezzi exhibited as Giuseppe Passeri, who died in 1713;

his own work in the exhibition at the title of knight inherited from his
S. Salvatore in Lauro (De Marchi 1987, father and his grandfather Sebastiano,

p. xxi, n. 53). It is not impossible that on whom it had been

also an artist,
Giuseppe's name could also be conferred by the King of Portugal; and
assigned to to catalogue no. 25 on the cross of knighthood conferred on
p. 220 of the Ascoli catalogue (1999), him by the Duke of Parma in 1710. In
since he frequently visited the Fathers 1743, with the death of Pietro Paolo
of the Oratory, and his hand has also Cristofari, these honours were followed
been recognized by Anna Lo Bianco by his appointment as superintendent
in her examination of the painting, of the mosaic factory attached to
which she attributes to Pier Leone, [fp] St. Peter's (Cipriani M. 1999,

pp. 190-92). Soon after 1710, and now

218 well established in the academic world
PIER LEONE GHEZZI of figurative art, the artist took part in

218 logue, and Anna Lo Bianco, who ROME 1674-1755 ROME commissions ordered
the great public
dated it to around 1725, could not help by Pope Clement XI Albani, who had
Giuseppe Ghezzi
pointing out the many stylistic and a real affection for Ghezzi. In 1712 he
Venus Giving Arms to Aeneas typological similarities with the work PierLeone Ghezzi was born to was commissioned to paint The

Before 1721
of his father, Giuseppe (Lo Bianco Giuseppe Ghezzi and Lucia Laraschi Election of Saint Fabian for the Albani

Oil on canvas 1985, p. 120). As early as 1970 Anthony on June 28, 1674. His father, Giuseppe, Chapel in the church of S. Sebastiano
38" x 53" (96.5 cm x 135.5 cm) Clark insisted that "we will not under- originally from the Marche, was also a fuori le Mura, designed by Carlo
stand Pierleone until the paintings of painter and gave his son his first lessons Fontana for Clement. The artist's lan-
hxhibition Ascoli Piceno 1999, cat. no. 32
Giuseppe are known and under- in preparation for an academic, schol- guage still appears late Baroque,
bibliography Buchanan 1970, p. 20;
Maxon and Rishel 1970, p. 194; Lo Bianco stood," and considered the Glasgow arly lifestyle, particularly in drawing, perhaps to adapt to the other great
1985, p. 120; Sestieri 1994, vol. 2, fig. 467; Lo painting to be "perhaps [Pier Leone] according to the precise biographies altarpiece in the chapel, painted by
Bianco 1999, cat. no. 32 Ghezzi's most magnificent painting" by Moucke and Pascoli (see Pascoli Giuseppe Passeri, depicting The
Glasgow Museums, Art Gallery and (Clark 1970, p. 194); indeed, so magnif- 1992, pp. 651-63). To reinforce his son's Communion of Emperor Philip the Arab.
Museum. Kelvingrove icent is it that it is actually by chances of a brilliant career, Giuseppe In 1715 Ghezzi took part in one of
Giuseppe. That this is the work of the chose an exceptional baptismal godfa- the most important commissions of
The figures in the painting are taken more cultured and reflective Ghezzi ther for him, Carlo Maratti, then at the all the Albani pope's reign, the fresco-
from Book VIII of Virgil's Acncid, but senior is amply supported by detailed height of his fame (see De Marchi 1999, ing of the nave of the ancient basilica
the scene is organized in a completely comparison with various other works pp. 190-92). His first known work is of S. Clemente, in which all the most
original and amusing way and with of his, starting with the theatrical and the Landscape with Saint Francis, signed famous artists of the time participated:
unusual details. It is clear that the sensual Pygmalion in Budapest, of and dated on the back 1698, now in the Giuseppe and Tommaso Chiari,
weapons are already on the ground similar format and dated about 1695. Pinacoteca Civica in Montefortino, Giovanni Odazzi, Giacomo Triga,
near an oak tree (verse 616) and the But in paintings of quite another type near Ascoli Piceno. In 1702 he painted Antonio Grecolini, Pietro de'Pietri,
cupids are playing with the plumed — for example those in S. Silvestro in the first of his four self-portraits, (all Giovanni Domenico Piastrini,

helmet; Venus, gracefully robed and Capite in Rome (c. 1696-97) — the except the last, from 1747, now in the Sebastiano Conca, and Pietro Rasina,
in a maternal attitude, leans over the artist has set the figures against stormy Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence). This representatives of each of the various
gilded chariot pulled by doves and skies by golden clouds, contrasted
lit graceful, playful little work is furnished figurative styles current in Rome.
driven by cupids, and gestures theatri- ruddy and pallid nudes, and set cleanly with a long inscription in verse, in the Ghezzi produced a famous work. The
cally toward the unexpected spectacle: edged against sky-blue waters. The artist's hand, on the back of the canvas, Martyrdom of Saint Ignatius of Antiocli.
the robust and ruddy Tiber, who has figures' clothes are light and flowing perfectly indicative of the witty, per- for which there exists a preparatory
emerged from the water rather than and the colors sharp and vibrant. More ceptive spirit which is the constant sketch on canvas, formerly in the
being the customary semirecumbent specifically, the features of the cupid characteristic of Ghezzi's personality: Lemme collection, but donated by
old man. He wears a crown of reed valet in the foreground are close to Lemme himself in 1997 to the Galleria
foliage (verse 34) and a short skirt of those in the Louvre's beautiful prepara- Pier Leone am 1/ Of the house of Nazionale di Arte Antica in the Palazzo

the same material, and appears with a tory drawing for the lunette in the Ghezzi who, on the day 28 June/ Barberini. Soon afterward, in 1718, the
gesture of agreement to support Roman Chiesa della Maddalena When to one thousand six artist was once more active in a great

Aeneas, who has just emerged from (Legrandi99i,p.45). hundred/ Years seventy four papal enterprise, the decoration of the
bathing in the fatal waters of the river; hope that the work of
In the more/ were added was born I nave of St. John Lateran, for which he
a cupid is beside him, ready with the Giuseppe Ghezzi is at long last being and added/ To these is my age of painted The Prophet Micah, one of
perfumed ointments. Venus looks recognized, after years of being over- twenty eight years/ Now that in twelve ovals entrusted to the leading
toward Aeneas, who leans on the looked in favor of his son Pier Leone, a seventeen hundred and two/ Roman artists. Also commissioned by
lance that he has just been given and few points are worth mentioning. The Time shows himself to me, with Albani was one of the most significant
contemplates the site in the Latium painting Jesus among the Doetors men- his measures/ now while he flies paintings of this period, The Miracle of
where he will found Rome. Giuseppe tioned by Pier Leone as by his father, and never stops/ laugh in his1 Saint Andrea Avellino (private collec-
Ghezzi found the story of Rome par- "which seemed done by Rubens," is face and redeem myself/ by giving tion, Rome), solemn in its composi-
ticularly exciting and he used it also undoubtedly the one listed among the perpetual life to my portrait. tion and narrative and rich in detail.
in the Concorsi Clementini (see his works of Giuseppe de Sestieri (Sestieri The artist also devoted himself to
accounts of the years 1708, 1709, and 1994, vol. 1, p. 81) exhibited in portraiture around this time, with a
1711), but carried out with a quite Matthiessen's London exhibition In 1705, a little over the age of thirty, series of examples striking in their
typical eighteenth-century grace. (London The Rest
1987, p. 89, no. 24). Ghezzi was admitted to the Accademia unusual and immediate rendering of
This painting is attributed to Pier on the Flight into Egypt with Saint john (Lo di S. Luca. As his reception piece he the sitters. The most important of
Leone in the Glasgow Museum cata- Bianco 1999, p. 1209, no. 26), attrib- did a painting featuring the Allegory these are the portrait of Clement XI

8 PAINTINGS
(Museo di Roma, Rome), the portrait fashionable dress, full-length and life-

of Carlo Albani (Staatsgalerie, size, along with Ghezzi himself in a

Stuttgart), the portrait of Annibale self-portrait, signed and dated, shown
Albani (private collection, Milan), the facing the spectator, to celebrate

portrait of Gabriele Filippucci himself and his work. This sort of plein
(Pinacoteca Comunale, Macerata), and air portraiture ante litteram, is strongly

the portrait of Benedetto Falconcini reminiscent of the illusionistic style of

(Worcester Art Museum). The unusu- Panini, with whom Ghezzi worked
ally informal and realistic tone of subsequently on the celebrations
these paintings derives from the prac- organized in 1729 by Melchior de
tice of caricature to which Ghezzi had Polignac in honour of the birth of the

been devoted from childhood. His French dauphin, for which Ghezzi
works in the latter genre form a vast devised the firework display (see
body of work amounting to thousands He was at that time also busy
cat. 264).

of examples, held in collections all over on various other projects, as his biog-
the world.The most numerous and raphers have pointed out: "Not to
famous collection however, is that of painting alone is his expertise

the Vatican Library, to which the artist restricted; for he turns wood, and
himself gave the title Mondo nuovo; it engraves on copper, and in semi-pre-
comprises eight volumes of the Codici cious stones.He has studied medicine,
Ottoboniani Latini, from 3112 to 3119, anatomy Understands also archi-
. . .

each containing between a hundred tecture and has fully proved himself in
and thirty and two hundred carica- various operations and singularly in
tures arranged and bound by Ghezzi that of the superb firework display"
himself. The artist may be regarded as (Pascoli 1730-36, vol. 2, p. 206). Again
the real founder of this genre, now for Melchior de Polignac, he did the
practiced professionally and bought drawings after the antique of one of
by admirers all over Europe. the most important recently discovered
After the deaths of both his father monuments, The Burial Chambers of
and the pope in 1721, the artist seems Liberti and Liberie di Livia Augusta, pub-
to have distanced himself progres- lished in one volume in 1731. This is also
sively from academic principles in the date of the great paintings for the
favour of a freer style of painting, church of S. Salvatore in Lauro, which
descriptive but illusionistic, in which belonged to the Marchigian commu-
the celebratory intention combines nity in Rome: Saints Joachim, Anna, and
with the narrative style. The most Joseph and Saint Emidio and Other
obvious example is the great Lateran Marchigian Saints (the latter now moved 219

Council, painted for the 1725 jubilee to the sacristy), both recorded in the

(North Carolina Museum of Art, Memorie del Cavalier Ghezzi serine da se missioned by the steward of Pope Winckelmann 1975-76, p. 57; Sale cata-
Raleigh; see fig. 4), which clearly sug- medesimo dagennaro 1731 a luglio 1734. Benedict XIV, as the documents logue, Christie's, London, July 6, 1978,

gests the influence of Panini, as can be From 1730-35 on Ghezzi was less record (Vatican City, Archivio Segreto Chaucer Fine Arts
lot 36; Sale catalogue,

Inc., London, November 28-December 21,

seen by a comparison with the Views active and allowed himself to concen- Vaticano, S.P.A., Computisteria, vol.
1978, lot 7: "Ghezzi" 1980; Portrait en Italic
from the Castle of Rivoli (Castello di trate on his many side interests. His 269, cited in Lo Bianco 1985, pp.
1982, p. 144; Lo Bianco 1985, p. 104; Sestieri
Racconigi and Museo Civico di Arte final painting for a Roman church, The 85-88). This was the last big undertak- 1988, p. 43; Lo Bianco 1997, p. 73; Lo Bianco
Antica, Turin). Further examples of Investiture of Saint Ciuliana Falconieri, is ing completed by the artist, who died 1999, p. 105
his style in these years are the two signed and dated 1737, and was done at the height of his fame on March 6, Staatsgalerie Stuttgart
famous scenes of The Miraculous for the church of S. Maria 1755, and was buried in the family
Intercession oj Saint Philip Nerifor dell'Orazione e Morte on a commission tomb in S. Salvatore in Lauro. His wife,
Vincenzo Maria Orsini, the future Pope from the Falconieri family (cat. 222); Caterina Peroni, whom he had married Carlo Albani, son of Orazio, brother
Benedict XIII, one in the Stanze of the last known painting on a religious at a late age, in 1736, followed him in of Clement XI, who was born in
S. Filippo in S. Maria in Vallicella, the subject, The Holy Family (Musee des 1762. The inventory of the Ghezzi Urbino in 1687, and died in 1724 at the
other at Matelica in the Marches, in Beaux-Arts, Nantes), is signed and family possessions revealed a rich col- age of only twenty-seven, had been
the church of S. Filippo. From the dated 1741,and shows new artistic lection of paintings, drawings, and named "knight commander of the
same period date Ghezzi's frescoes for interests. The work reveals the power- books (Corradini 1990). [alb] equestrian order of Saint Stephen
Alessandro Falconieri in his summer ful influence of the art of Pierre bibliography Lo Bianco 1999 with the authority given him by the
residences at Torrimpietra and Subleyras, from which his Saint Joseph Grand Duke of Tuscany, the grand
Frascati, near Rome. In the first case and the Child Jesus (1741; Musee des master of the order" (Valesio [1770]
the paintings cover the entire recep- Augustins, Toulouse) is clearly derived. 219 1977-79. P- 430, August 16, 1705). Carlo
tion room of the castle and continue He continued to produce portraits, had two brothers, Annibale and
Pier Leone Ghezzi
in several adjacent rooms. They cele- but less prolifically than in his youth. Alessandro, both more famous than
brate Falconieri's appointment as a Dating from 1732 are his portrait of Carlo Albani he and both acquainted with Pier
cardinal in 1724 with scenes on the the sculptor Edme Bouchardon (Uffizi.
c. 1705-10
Leone Ghezzi. There exists a very fine
theme of The Visit of Pope Benedict XIII Florence) and the portrait of Paolo de portrait of Annibale, signed by the
Oil on canvas
and His Retinue to the Estate in a series of Matteis (private collection, Rome), artist and held in a private collection
39" x 29/2" (99 x 7.5 cm)
unusual group portraits immortaliz- almost a caricature in paint. Slightly in Milan, showing him when he had
provenance collection of Palazzo Chigi-
ing the pope and the prelates of his later are his Portrait oj a Woman (Musee Albani — Papacqua di Soriano del Gimino just been made a cardinal in 1^12. The
court, shown against a landscape des Beaux-Arts, Nantes), the Portrait of (Viterbo); collection ol Anthony Morris second brother. Alessandro. noted tor
background that suggests the sur- a Man (private collection, Milan), and Clark; sale, Christie's. London. 1978, lot j6; his passion for classical antiquity, is

rounding countryside. Soon after- his self-portrait of 1747, produced for sale. C haucer Fine Arts, Inc., London, immortalized in many caricatures
wards, in 1727, the artist produced his Accademia lecembcr 19-S. lot -; to lie current ownei
the di S. Luca, where it
I t
drawn by Ghezzi (Pampalone 1990,
famous EXHIBITIONS Paris 1982. cat. no. 80; Ascoli
Conversation Scenes in the villa remains. Also in 1747 Ghezzi decorated p. 86). The painting indicates the close
Piceno 1999, cat. no. is
at Frascati, in which appear the the gallery in the papal palace at Castel bonds betw een the painter and the
members of the BIBLIOGR \PH\ ( lark 1963, p. 11;
patron's family in Gandolfo with rural landscapes, com- Albani family, which produced Pope

PAINTINGS
 anchored in the seventeenth century,
compared with Pier Leone's disregard
of the rules. According to Francesco
Valesio, in 1705 Albani had just been
invested with the title of knight of
Saint Stephen and so the painting
should be dated to immediately after
then, in the period just preceding his
portrait of Annibale Albani of 1712.
[alb]

220
Pier Leone Ghezzi
The Miraculous Intercession oj

Saint Philip Neri on Behalf of

Cardinal Orsini, the Future

Pope Benedict XIU

1724-26
Oil on canvas
J9" x 29" (99.5 x 74.5 cm)
hxhibitions Rome, Palazzo Venezia.
(n corso d'opera situazioni e progetti. 1988, no
number; Ascoli Piceno 1999, cat. no. 15

bibliography Moticke 1752-62, vol. 4,

p. 223; Clark 1963, p. 18; Escobar 1964,

p. 158: Dania, L. "La chiesa di S. Filippo a
Matelica." L'Azione (December 5, 1970), p. 3;
Lo Bianco 1985. p. 126; Rome. Palazzo
Venezia. In corso d'opera situazioni e progetti.

Rome: Palombi, 1988, p. 32; Sestieri 1994,

1, p. 82: Negro 1995, p. 288; Regola e la
vol.

jama 1995, p. 556; Lo Bianco 1997. p. 82; Lo

Bianco 1999, p. 138

Congregazione dell'Oratorio di S. Filippo

Neri, Rome

This painting is mentioned for the first

time in 1726, in an inventory of the

movables of the Chiesa Nuova as "A
picture of 4 palmi showing the miracle
reported by His Holiness Pope
Benedict XIII under the ruins of the
earthquake in Benevento by the inter-

cession of Saint Philip Neri, with a

gilded frame" (Negro 1995, p. 294).
The original rich scroll attached to
the frame bearing the words Petri Card.

Ottoboni Vicecancellarius munus explains

the work's presence in the church.
It was in fact a gift offered to the

Oratorians by Cardinal Pietro

Ottoboni, who was closely bound to
the community, with whom he had
220 spent a period of spiritual meditation
not long before, in 1724, and to whom
Clement XI. It was to his close ties Corsini —the characteristics of a more cravat from which hangs the knight's he had left numerous gifts, as again
with the pope that Ghezzi owed his informal and naturalistic style are cross in silver and enamel. A particu- recorded by Angela Negro.
involvement most important
in the already apparent, and became more larly sophisticated detail is the gloved However, the painting had not been
public commissions of the period. marked in later works, from c. 1720 to hand in the foreground, admirably done for the cardinal, but for Pope
When Clark published the painting 1730. The monumentality of the poses blending academic drawing with fash- Benedict XIII himself, as recorded in

in 1963, he emphasized the traditional is emphasized by his full-bodied chro- ionable refinement, and creating a the painter's biography written by
format, derived from Carlo Maratti matic color and flowing drapery, powerful center of attention. A paint- Francesco Moiicke, who likewise
and Giuseppe Passeri. but suggested which reveal the influences of his aca- ing by his father, the beautiful Saint reports its whereabouts "with the
that there already appeared a desire demic training. The official nature of Liborio in the church of S. Caterina at Oratorian Fathers in the Chiesa Nuova."
for more intense and intimate charac- the portrait gives the painter an Comunanza, near Ascoli Piceno, may It is therefore highly probable, as Negro
terization, which Ghezzi obtained opportunity for minute description be considered as a precedent: here the suggests, that the pope offered the
through elegant and free brushwork. of the rich robes of office: the ample detail of the red-gloved hand recurs, small canvas to Cardinal Ottoboni to
Although the influence of Maratti is cape of iridescent black velvet bor- with the same eyecatching effect. The cement the close link that was forming
clear — it suggests his very fine Portrait dered with gold braid and matching general tone of the painting is pro- between them, and therefore gave this
oj an Unknown Man in the Galleria lace, and the gleaming white lace foundly different, for it is still firmly gift to the Chiesa Nuova.

370 PAINTINGS
 .

Vincenzo Maria Orsini, the future point for a delightfully entertaining

Benedict XIII, intended this picture gallery of portraits, bordering on cari-

to commemorate a miraculous event catures, with his usual attention to the

that happened to him in 1688 when, as particulars of clothesand headgear,

archbishop at Benevento, he survived symptomatic of his interest in fashion.
a disastrous collapse of the episcopal With a few variations the painting was
palace caused by an earthquake. Many copied in an engraving designed to
sources report the episode; among illustrate the life of Saint Philip Neri of
them, Giovanni Marciano published a Florence: the drawing was executed by
letterby Orsini himself testifying to Pier Leone Ghezzi and the engraving
the miracle, meticulously describing by Gerolamo Frezza.
the sequence of events. This written Its mention in the 1726 inventory

account makes particularly interesting establishes a latest possible date for the

reading as it corresponds closely to the painting, which must be before then

detailed layout of the area depicted by but after 1724, which was when Orsini
Ghezzi, who evidently knew its con- was elected to the papacy. Very shortly
tents and must have discussed them afterwards the artist replicated the

with the pope himself. Thus the fortu- painting for the church of S. Filippo in
nate combination of circumstances Matelica, near Macerata in the Marche.

through which the protagonist Its commissioning can be connected

remained unharmed are known: as he to a precise individual, Filippo
himself wrote, his head happened to Piersanti, who was actually born in

be protected by Matelica. This version, later than that

in the Chiesa Nuova, cannot be later
some thin canes, which formed a than 1730, the end of the pontificate
small roof above me, enough to of Benedict XIII, who must have been
shield my head and allow me to behind its commission, [alb]
breathe comfortably. In the room
where I fell there was a cupboard
of walnut, full of Scriptures, 221
inside which kept I all the effigies The large painting in Matelica proves number of persons depicted. Their
Pier Leone Ghezzi
wrapped which express
in paper, more than anything the Rome picture's facial expressions are, however, identi-
historically some of the most The Miraculous Intercession of success in papal circles, which led to cal, equally excited and astonished, and
celebrated facts about the life of the wish to repeat it, in an enlarged there is same entertaining collec-
the
Saint Philip Neri on Behalf of
my glorious Guardian Saint version, as amark of respect to tion of portraits, verging on carica-
Philip Neri This cupboard
. . .
Cardinal Orsini, the Future Benedict XIII. The patron of this work, tures, with the same concern for
came on that fragile little
to rest
Pope Benedict XIII intended for a church also dedicated to fashion details. And, as in the Rome
roof of canes, which protected Saint Philip, can be identified with an painting, the portrait of Orsini, then
1725-30?
my head as I said, and it opened, individual closely linked to the pope. archbishop of Benevento, stands out
although it had been locked, and Oil on canvas This was Filippo Piersanti, born in above everything in his undignified
68" x 68" x cm)
out came the illustrations of the (173 173 Matelica itself, who held important and to some extent ridiculous position
life of the Saint, which scattered exhibitions Urbino, Italy, Palazzo posts under the pope, which were later as he emerges from the rubble, with
Ducale. Restauri nelle Marche: tcstimonianze
around me, and under my head renewed under successive papacies. more than a hint of caricature, [alb!
acquisti e recuperi. 1973, cat. no. 132: Rome
landed the one in which is From 1724 he was master of ceremonies
1995, Regola, cat. no. 115; Ascoli Piceno
depicted the occasion when the 1999, cat. no. 35
and papal chaplain. It was from the
Saint, as he was praying, saw the bibliography Bigiaretti. S. "Matelica e
Orsini pope that he learned his true 222
Blessed Virgin supporting with dintorni." Pkenum, vol. 9 (1912). p. 74: Dania, veneration of San Filippo whose — Pier Leone Ghezzi
her most holy hand the beam of L. "La chiesa di S. Filippo a Matelica." name he also happened to bear, a ven-
the old Chiesa della Vallicella, L'Azione (December 5. 1970), p. 3: Palazzo eration shown fully on the occasion of The Investiture of Saint
which had come out of place . .
Ducale, Urbino. Italy. Restauri nelle Marche: this important commission, dedicated
testimonianze acquisti e recuperi. Urbino: Arti
Giuliana Falconieri between
(Giovanni Marciano, Memorie his- to the saint, and for the church with
Grafiche. 1973, p. 508: "Ghezzi" 1974, p. 364;
torkhe della Congregazione his name, in his native city. It was Saint Philip Benizi and Saint
Rudolph 1983, no. 291; Lo Bianco 1985,
dell'Oratorio [Naples: De Bonis enhanced in this way by the work of a
p. 126: Sestieri 1988. p. 42; Valazzi 1990, Alessio Falconieri
Stampatore Arcivescovale, p. 344; Zampetti 1991, p. 76: Regola e la Jama
great artist, based on an original that
1693-1702], vol. 1, p. 208) 1995, P- 556: Mariano, Fabio. Le chiesejilip- was exceptional in that it had been
Signed and dated on the altar: 1737
pitic nelle Marche: arte e architcttura. Florence: executed for the pope himself. Given
Nardini, 1996, p. 112: Lo Bianco 1999, p. 138 also that Piersanti was born in 1688,
Oil on canvas
In fact everything coincides, even Chiesa di S. Filippo Neri, Matelica the year of the miracle depicted, the
114" x 70" (290 x 178 cm)
(Macerata) exhibition Ascoli Piceno 1999,
the subject of the drawing shown on reasons behind the commission are cat. no. 42
Orsini's head as he emerges from the clear. Taking all.thcse details into con- BIBLIOGRAPHY Moucke 1752-62, Vol. 4,

famous scene of p. 222: Titi 1763, p. 465; Nibby 1839-41, vol.

rubble, depicting the As has already been suggested (Lo sideration, it is also possible to date the
1,

p. 446; Pistolesi 1841, p. 548; "Ghezzi" 1920,

the miracle of the beam, painted by Bianco 1995), this painting should not picture to the years immediately after
p. 539: Voss 1924, p. 565: Loret 193s, p. W.
Pietro da Cortona on the vault of the be considered the preliminary version 1724-26, when the smaller version
Hagcr 1964. p. 84: Graf and Schaai 1969.
nave of the Chiesa Nuova. The saint's of the small work in the Chiesa Nuova, was painted, but certainly not later p. 50; Vasi M. 1970, p. 589; Salerno. Luigi.
role then further confirmed by the but is actually a larger replica based than 1730, the end of the papacy of Luigi Spezzaferro, and M.inlrcdo Tallin. Via
sculptured bust that Ghezzi depicts, upon it. In fact the original is the Benedict XIII, who was undoubtedly (iiulia: una Utopia urlianistica del 500. Rome:
whole and still on its pedestal, in the Roman canvas mentioned in Francesco responsible for the commission. Stabilimento Aristide Staderini, 19?!, p. 469;
"Ghezzi" 19^4. p. 564: Lo Bianco 1985. p. 32:
center of his composition, a detail Moiicke's biography, which records it The difference between the two ver- 1

Corradini 1990. Testimonialize," p. 52:

omitted in the version at Matelica. To as being a commission from the pope sions consists, first, in this work's
Sestieri 1994. vol. 1, p. Si: l o Bianco 199".
these elements is added a large group himself to commemorate the miracu- great emphasis on a composition seen Lo Bianco
p. 84: 1999. p. 148
of characters, depicted in attitudes of lous event of which he was the protag- close-up, and square rather than rec-
Chiesa di S. Maria dell' Orazione t Morte,
Mu lined agitation or frantic activity, onist in the course oi the earthquake tangular shape, which thereby reduces Rome
which offered Ghezzi the starting at Benevento in 1688 (see cat. 220). the view of the background and the

PAINTINGS
 —

period. The depiction of the carpet, found in Italian churches, Spanish

with the shadow of the step crossing palaces,and other royal collections,
the colored stripes, also displays have been relatively inaccessible to the
great skill. general public. Although the tradition
The novelty of the layout is of luxurious and propagandistic deco-
matched by an equally unusual choice rative commissions promoted by
of colors, offering lighter and lighter autocratic courts lasted both in Spain
shades to imitate the fine fabric of the and in the Kingdom of the Two
veils and lightweight materials. The Sicilies until well into the early nine-

only dark patch is the rich red of the teenth century, it had generally come
painter's cloak in his self-portrait. The to an end in other parts of Europe by
intense psychological characteriza- the time of Giaquinto's death in 1766.
tion of the faces and air of something With its demise, Giaquinto's name
taking place imprinted on the painted and the significance of his contribu-
scene suggest a response to Benefial's tion to eighteenth-century European
objective and documentary style of painting quickly faded from memory.
portraiture. Born in the provincial town of
The painting is dated 1737, the year Molfetta, in Apulia, southern Italy,

in which the work in the church, Giaquinto began his artistic training

undertaken by Clement XII, was com- there in the studio of Saverio Porto,
pleted; it was also the year in which where he worked until 1721, when he
Saint Giuliana was canonized, on June left for Naples. Except for a brief
16 (Pastor 1938-53, vol. 34, p. 410). The return to his native city (1723-24),
church was consecrated on October Giaquinto remained in Naples for the
20, 1738 (Mariano Armellini, Le chiese next six years. Corrado's earliest biog-
di Roma: dal secolo IV al XIX, rev. ed. rapher, De Dominici (1742-44) stated
[Rome: R.O.R.E., 1942], vol. 1, p. 518). that in Naples the painter entered the
The preparatory drawing is in the studio of Nicola Maria Rossi, but
Kunstmuseum, Diisseldorf undoubtedly his most significant
(inv. FP 3207). It is characterized by influence in the Neapolitan capital
the inked strokes and the swift brush- was Francesco Solimena. Giaquinto's
work typical of Ghezzi's graphic close study of the master's work is

output, [alb] evident in his Visitation (Pucci

Collection, Naples), inspired by
Solimena's famous altarpiece of the
CORRADO GIAQUINTO same subject in the church of S. Maria

MOLFETTA 1703 — 1766 NAPLES Donnalbina. Equally important

development of Giaquinto's mature
to the

Although today the work of Corrado style were the luminous fresco deco-
Giaquinto is generally unknown rations painted by Luca Giordano for

outside a small group of scholars and the Certosa di S. Martino, Naples, in

astute connoisseurs, in his own life- 1704.

time—and from the 1740s
especially Giaquinto left Naples for Rome in
onwards — he was considered Rome's Over the next thirteen years he
1727.
supreme decorative painter and fres- worked as an independent artist,
coist and in some quarters was her- modifying his robust Neapolitan style

alded as one of Europe's most to reflect the more

Rococorefined
important artists. His prominence taste exemplified by the works of
This painting, restored in 1999 by the gious habit from Saint Philip Benizi, was confirmed in 1753, when he was Sebastiano Conca and other first-gen-
Centro di Conservazione Barbabianca, are the clerics and family members called to Madrid by Ferdinand VI, one eration followers of Carlo Maratti.
is signed and dated 1737. Commissioned shown in contemporary dress; the of the richest kings in Europe, to serve Giaquinto's reputation was firmly
by the Falconieri family, who had given figure to the right in the background, as his First Painter. Giaquinto had established by 1733, when he com-
the site for the building of the church looking out at the viewer, can be iden- already been working for the power- pleted the extensive fresco cycle in the
designed by Ferdinando Fuga, the tified as a self-portrait of Ghezzi ful Spanish Bourbons during his two nave and cupola in the French church
canvas one of the numerous variants
is himself, swathed in a red cloak decades in Rome. This patronage , of S. Nicola dei Lorenesi, Rome. The
of scenes from the life of the saint done repeating a favorite motif. The recent along with that of the Savoys in Turin critical success of this commission
by this painter: these include the large restoration has brought out some in the 1730s and of Pope Benedict XIV prompted two invitations to the Savoy
canvas of The Death of Saint Giuhana sophisticated and moving details, such in Rome during the 1740s, meant that court in Turin (1733 and c. 1735). There,
Falconieri (rom his early years (Galleria as the saint's short, dishevelled hair, unlike many artists, such as Pompeo he produced mythological frescoes
Corsini, Rome) and the altarpiece of just cut for her ordination as a nun. Batoni, Giaquinto never needed to for the Villa della Regina (c. 1733), the
Saint Ciuliana and Saint Alessio Presented This beautiful painting, its render- depend on the mass of Grand Tour painted and frescoed cycle of the life

to the Virgin Saint Philip Renizi, created ing of the figures couched in extremely clients flooding Italy in order to of Saint Joseph for the church of
for the church of S. Marcello in the naturalistic terms, constitutes one of promote his career. Paradoxically, this S. Teresa (c. 1735), and six oil paintings
jubilee year 1725. The reference to the the happiest examples of Ghezzi's reli- fact was largely responsible for his based on the story of Aeneas (now in

two saints of the Falconieri family is gious work, but his last for a public lack of recognition from both con- the Palazzo del Quirinale, Rome), all

emphasized by the presence in the destination. The rendering of the noisseurs and the art historical com- of which attest to the perfection of his
picture's background of The refined drapery of the white surplices munity over the following two elegant Rococo forms and pastel
Annunciation in SS. Annunziata in is equalled by that of the lace trim- centuries. While the works of Carlo palette. Besides working for the Savoys,
Florence, the mother church of the mings on the clothes, the jewels of the Maratti, Sebastiano Conca, and Giaquinto also received employment
Servite order, which Saint Alessio old lady with clasped hands, the silky Pompeo Batoni are well represented from the Spanish Bourbons, who, in
founded. material of the saint's garment, all per- in important English collections and 1735, asked him to provide two paint-
Surrounding (he main character, fectly consistent with the interest in international museums, Giaquinto's ings for an Aeneas series commis-
who is in the act of receiving the reli- fashion manifested bv the artist at that extant works, which are mainly to be sioned for Philip V 's retirement palace

PAINTIN(,S
atLa Granja. Other important com- above the royal staircase (Spain

mission of the 1720s and 1730s include Rendering Homage to Religion and the

the small Virtues ceiling fresco Church), the Capilla Real, and one in

(c. 1727-30) in the Palazzo Borghese the Hall of Columns (The Birth oj the

and the large altarpiece of the Sun and the Triumph oj Bacchus). In terms
Assumption of the Virgin (1739). commis- of patronage, a comparison of
sioned by the powerful Roman cardi- Giaquinto's frescoed and painted

nal Pietro Ottoboni, for the church of decorations in the Capilla Real with
S. Maria Assunta, in Rocca di Papa the cycle he provided for Rome's
(cat. 223). S. Croce offers a telling contrast

The years between 1740 and 1753 between the financial, political, and
were the most productive and distin- artistic realities of the impoverished
guished of Giaquinto's time in Rome. Rome of Benedict XIV and the
In 1740 the painter was admitted to the fabulous wealth at the court of
Accademia di S. Luca. Around the Ferdinand VI in Madrid.
same time he established a studio and In 1762, suffering from ill health
was put in charge of training all of the after years of grueling responsibilities

Spanish students sent to Rome to in Madrid, Giaquinto returned to

perfect their craft (among them, Naples, where he remained until his
Antonio Gonzalez Velazquez, Preciado death in 1766. During his final years

de la Vega, and Jose del Castillo). Large he retained his position, his salary,
decorative commissions completed and all his honors as First Painter to

during this decade include the Saint the King of Spain (now Charles III)

|ohn of God cycle in S. Giovanni and completed the Allegory of Fortitude

Calabita. the large canvas of the and Vigilance (1763; Palazzo Reale,
Translation of the Relics of Saint Acutius Caserta) and a Marian series of six
and Saint Eutyches (c. 1744; see cat. 360) large oils for the royal church of
for Naples Cathedral, and, most S. Luigi di Palazzo (1764-65), where he
notably, the vast fresco and painted worked with his good friend the royal
cycle commissioned by Benedict XIV architect Luigi Vanvitelli.
for S. Croce in Gerusalemme. This Giaquinto's artistic influence lived
important commission, completed on long after his death. His sumptu-
c. 1744 (cats. 224, 225) established ous brushwork can be discerned in
Giaquinto's international reputation the early Roman paintings of Jacques-
as a leading member of the Roman Louis David, who worked in Rome in
Rococo school. During this time the 1770s. In Spain, Giaquinto's stylish
Giaquinto's style progressed from the coloration and compositional flair

delicateRococo forms of the 1730s were emulated by the youthful Goya

toward a more solid classicism that and many others in the succeeding
pays homage to the tradition exempli- generation of court artists, such as
fied by Carlo Maratti, the last great Antonio Gonzalez Velazquez,
master of the Roman Baroque. The Francisco Bayeu, Mariano Salvador
prevailing classicizing taste (which Maella, and Jose del Castillo, who
was especially strong during the 1740s were charged with decorating the new
when Pompeo Batoni and the Bourbon palace and other important 223 success. In later years Giaquinto and
Frenchman Pierre Subleyras estab- royal sites. Countless other earnest others favored by Ottoboni, such as
Corrado Giaquinto
lished reputations in Rome) is bril- but uninspired imitations of the the architect Filippo Juvarra and the
liantly expressed in Giaquinto's master's hand are detected in the Study for "The Assumption of composer Domenico Scarlatti, were
Baptism of Christ for S. Maria dell'Orto. works of artists working in Naples, to enjoy the lavish patronage of the
the Virgin"
This altarpiece, completed for the Palermo, and throughout the Spanish kings Philip V and Ferdinand
holy year festivities of 1750 (cat. 227), Kingdom of the Two Sicilies where ,
1739 VI in Madrid.
epitomizes the languid elegance and the official Bourbon court style created Oil on canvas Several other versions of this oil
sophistication of Giaquinto's mature by Giaquinto in the 1750s was prac- 38X4" x 25/4" (98.4 x 64.1 cm) sketch are known to exist (D'Orsi
Roman style at mid-century. ticed well into the new century, [ic] bibliography unpublished; for finished 1958, p. 49), and it is around this time,
altarpiece and related works see: D'Orsi
Despite his triumphs in Rome, bibliography De Dominici 1742-44, vol. in the late 1730s, that questions of
1958, p. 48, fig. 43; Settecento 1959, p. 116,
which culminate in the exquisite dec- 3, pp. 722-2;; Moschini 1924; D'Orsi 1958; attribution, which are particulary
no. 258, fig. 9.
orative cycle comprising paintings, Videtta 1962; Videtta 1965; Videtta 1966; problematic in Giaquinto's case,
Private collection, U.S.A.
and decorative stuccos com-
frescoes, Videtta 1967; Laskin 1968: Studisu Corrado become more evident. By this date the
missioned by the Spanish Bourbons Giaquinto 1971; Amatoi976; Fernandez 1977,
artist had already completed several
pp. 116-50; LArt europecn 1979. pp. 179-82;
forS.Trinita degli Spagnoli (c. 1748),
Golden Age 1981, vol. Amato
Among Giaquinto's Roman works is important Roman commissions and
1. pp. 107-16;
Giaquinto's greatest and most influen- this previously unpublished bozzetto in had distinguished himself as an
1985; Siracusano 1986; Taste for Angels 1987,
tial years were spent in Madrid, where oil for his large-scale altarpiece for the important decorative artist at the
pp. 303-13; Cioffi 1992; Cioffi 199}; Giaquinto
he worked from 1753 to 1762 decorat- 199 j; Cioffi 1996; Michel 1996, Vivre etpcindre, church of S. Maria Assunta in Rocca Savoy court in Turin, where he worked
ing the new royal palace (now known pp. 297—318: Rowlands 1996, pp. 396-404: di Papa, a small town in the Frascati for two lengthy periods during the
as the Palacio de Oriente). During Cioffi 1997; Mann 1997. pp. 30-35, 59 hills just outside Rome. The commis- 1730s. Little is known about the
these years Giaquinto acted as direc- sion was given by Cardinal Pietro Giaquinto studio per sc. but it is clear
tor-in-chief of artistic affairs at the Ottoboni, one of Rome's most impor- thatmany copies of his works were
Spanish court and established himself tant artistic patrons, who lived in the being made by his students and other
as Europe's foremost painter-decora- center of town in the splendid Palazzo close followers. It was standard studio
Giovanni Battista Tiepolo,
tor after della Cancelleria. Working within practice at the time tor voungcr artists
who succeeded him in Madrid. Ottoboni's prestigious circle con- to copy a master's work, and
Within the royal palace Giaquinto ferred high status on an artist, and Giaquinto had done so himself when
completed three vast fresco cycles Giaquinto's entry into it denoted his he was training in the studio ol

PAINTINGS r>
 — .

Francesco Solimena in Naples. While main elements of the preliminary

many of these contemporary copies sketch are carried through in the final

are artistically competent and aesthet- large oil, with the exception of the
ically pleasing, they all lack the preci- figure with unshod feet bowing in

sion of brushwork, subtlety of front of the Virgin's coffin at the left.

coloration, and elegant figural types In the Rocca di Papa altarpiece this
always evident in Giaquinto's auto- figure has been enlarged and accentu-
graph work. These characteristics are ated and is shown kneeling in a more
amply present in this oil sketch, which courtly and upright position, kissing
displays all the freshness and verve the Virgin's white shroud, [ic]

associated with his paintings.

Compositionally, the painting is

constructed along the lines of a stable 224

isosceles triangle,which is formed at
Corrado Giaquinto
the lower left and right by figures
kneeling in the foreground plane, and Study for "The Adoration of the
culminates at the top with the head of
True Cross on the Day of the
the Virgin Mary. At the center of the 224
canvas is the pivotal miraculous Last Judgment"
event —the dramatic discovery of the 1740-42 to the first Christian emperor, Pointing upward, Saint Michael guides
empty tomb by incredulous
Virgin's Oil on canvas Constantine, and his mother, Saint the viewer to the next group of figures,
onlookers With the stone cover
.
32//' x 53/4" (81.7 x 135.4 cm) Helena. Tradition has it that Helena which include Saint Augustine, shown
askew, the white cloth and blush-pink The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas traveled to the Holy Land and brought wearing his bishop's miter. To his left,
roses that had shrouded the Virgin's City, Missouri, Purchase Nelson Trust back relics of Christ's Passion, among holding the distinctive papal cross, is

dead body tumble out in disarray. At them fragments of the True Cross, a Saint Sylvester, who baptized
the left, a bearded man in a blue nail used for the Crucifixion, the Constantine into the Christian faith.

mantle points upward to Mary, who is 225 superscription deriding Jesus's claim Beside him, hand piously held to his
carried aloft to the heavens by accom- to supreme kingship, and remnants of chest, is Saint Peter, who appeared to
Corrado Giaquinto
panying angels and a cupid bearing a the crown of thorns. Upon her return Constantine in a vision. Directly to the
golden plate with a white flower, indi- Study for "Saint Helena and the to Rome, these relics were housed in left are the main protagonists,
cating the Virgin's purity. Although the private chapel of her villa, the site Constantine in battle armor and Saint
Emperor Constantine Presented
thisimage does not explicitly denote upon which S. Croce later arose Helena, who recommends her son to
the Immaculate Conception, the to the Holy Trinity by the Within the church of S. Croce, the the Virgin Mary, whom she holds in a
painting's subject does suggest it in a
Mary" subject of the Saint Louis painting was steadfast gaze. To the right of Helena
Virgin
general way. During the first half of greatly enlarged to form a monumen- is Saint Louis (King Louis IX of
C. 1744
the eighteenth century the issue of the tal canvas set into a decorated wooden France), who brought the crown of
Oil on canvas
Immaculate Conception was very ceiling covering the long nave. A thorns (two thorns of which are also
controversial. The most important 137" x 56/4" (348 x 143 cm) monumental version of the Nelson- held in S. Croce) to the Sainte
advocates of the Immaculist point bibliography Laskin 1968; Plummer Atkins modello was also painted on a Chapelle, Paris. Next to the French
1983; Vasco Rocca 1985, pp. 97-111; Taste for
of view were the Spanish kings, who large canvas that was was set just king is Joseph and just above his
Angels 1987, pp. 303-13; Rowlands 1996,
were then pressing the Italian popes beyond, at the nave crossing. Below, shoulder, held aloft by a cherub, is a
pp. 396-404; Mann 1997, pp. 30-35. 59
to define the popular doctrine as offi- on the lower choir walls flanking the flowering branch, which evokes both
The Saint Louis Art Museum, Purchase,
cial Church dogma (Cioffi 1992, vol. 1,
Gift of Frederick H. Ludlow high altar Giaquinto painted two sub- the Tree of Knowledge, from which

pp. 194-225). Simply stated, the doc- jects from the life of Moses in fresco the True Cross was supposedly made,
trine argues that the Virgin, like her secco, rather than the more durable and the staff of Saint Joseph, which
son Jesus, was divinely (rather than Of all Roman commis-
Giaquinto's buon fresco. As a result of time and bloomed to indicate his future role as
humanly) conceived within the womb sions, by most prestigious
far the neglect, Giaquinto's S. Croce frescos the Virgin's husband. Next on the
of her mother, Saint Anne, and was and most taxing was that of— are now damaged beyond repair, and right, resting on a cloud and swathed
thus spared the taint of Original Sin. producing a series of paintings for the his two ceiling paintings have dark- in a mantle of deep heavenly blue, is

Sharing this purified character, other- renovation of the ancient church of ened with age. Hence the entire the Virgin herself, shown in the full-

wise unique to Jesus, Mary, like her S. Croce in Gerusalemme. Both the S. Croce commission can best be ness of her beauty and youth. Next to
son, was bodily assumed into Heaven large scale and the exquisite finish of appreciated in the four extant modetti, the Virgin is her mother, Saint Anne,
to sit at the right hand of God the these two magnificent examples of which are all in excellent condition who is presented by a cherub with a
Father. The Virgin's corporeal Giaquinto's mature Roman style attest and illustrate the freshness of color nail of the Crucifixion. Anne's inclu-
Assumption, one of the specific to the supreme importance of the and vibrancy of brushwork for which sion here attests to her daughter's
proofs of her divinity, is depicted here. S. Croce in Gerusalemme commis- Giaquinto was famous. identification as the Virgin
The coloration of this sketch sion, both in the artist's ceuvre and in Although there some conjecture
is Immaculate, a theological point that

exhibits the slightly darker and more the context of eighteenth-century as to the identity of some of the sec- was especially controversial during
saturated hues characteristic of Roman painting. The paintings shown ondary figures in the Saint Louis Benedict XIV's papacy (Cioffi 1992).
Giaquinto's early paintings. The facial here are modetti of two of these paint- painting, its meaning is still wholly Moving upward, the religious
types of the two male figures in the ings: preliminary, smaller-scale ver- ascertainable. Following Vasco drama culminates with Jesus, who
background at the lower right of the sions which would have been shown Rocca's iconograpical analysis of the holds a banner of victory and kneels
sketch are slightly more rustic than to the patron for approval before the painting (Vasco Rocca 1985), which is in supplication before God the Father
those found in later works, and stand final versions were undertaken. In this the most comprehensive disussion of He in turn points to the crown of
in contrast to the loveliness of the case Giaquinto's patron was Pope the S. Croce iconographical program thorns, the superscription, and the
Virgin. Giaquinto's dazzling use of Benedict XIV, known throughout thus far, at the bottom of the canvas is Cross. Anchoring the composition
delicate pastel hues are found in the F.urope for his great intellect and the figure of Saint Michael. Dagger in at the very top of the painting is the

rose, blues, and golden-yellows of the sophisticated taste. hand, he stands elegantly and white dove of the Holy Spirit.

Virgin and angel group, the coral and As originally conceived, supremely poised over Lucifer, who The adoration of the True Cross is

turquoise of the background land- Giaquinto's paintings were to form has toppled from his throne, and the picked up and emphasized in

scape, and the combination of delicate- pari of a comprehensive iconographic flailing bodies of the other rebel Giaquinto's other large oil the Nelson-

pink and green garments on the scheme glorif ying the ancient founda- angels, who fall into the hot and Atkins painting. Here the principal
kneeling figure at the lower left. The tion of the church, which dated back smoky pit of Hell at the lowerleft. Apostles, featuring (from the left)

374 I'AINTINCS
 —

James with a sword, Peter with his

keys, and John the Evangelist, behold
the heavenly vision of the Holy Cross
held aloft by angels. Overwhelmed by
awe and amazement, they convey all
the terror and glory of Judgment Day.
The miraculous apparition of the True
Cross to the Apostles also alludes to
Constantine's vision of the Cross in a
dream that preceded his victory over
Maxentian's troops at the Milvian
Bridge in ad 312.

Frescoed slightly later in the decade,

on the lower choir walls, Giaquinto's
Moses Striking Waterfrom the Rock
(Exodus 17:1-16) and The Serpent of Bronze
(Numbers 21:1-9) complete the icono-
program (see figs. 107-8).
graphical
These subjects introduce pre-Christian
episodes that foreshadow Christ's
passion: the institution of the New
Covenant through his sacrifice on
the Cross, and the redemption of sin
through the sacrament of Baptism.
Stylistically, the S. Croce modelli
offer ample testimony to the sophisti-
cation and technical bravura of
Giaquinto's mature style. The Saint
Louis canvas attests to his ability to
create complex and dynamic compo-
sitions of groups of figures without
compromising iconographical legibil-

ity. Added to this are the refinement

and delicacy of the coloring. The
ability to present strict theological
subject matter in so pleasing a guise,
to inform beauty with meaning, was
Giaquinto's particular talent.
Giaquinto's substantial gifts as a
painter-decorator were recognized in
his own time, most especially after
this demanding commission, for
which he gained international
renown. However, despite the impor-
tance of the commission and the
quality of the artist's work, the entire
S. Croce commission was a deep dis-
appointment to Benedict XIV, who,
when it was finished in 1744, lamented

the whole enterprise as "una porcaria

moderna" ("a modern mess"
[sic]

[Plummer 1983, vol. 1, p. 70, n. 28]).

The pope's frustration was under-
standable, for the initial grand renova-
tion project for his former titular
church —which included an extensive
renovation and realignment of its
principal facade along the path of a
new stradone or boulevard planned for
the holy year celebrations of 1750
had to be abandoned halfway through
due to lack of money. The funding for
the entire enterprise had come from
the coffers of the Dataria, a tribunal of
the papal Curia. In the 1740s the Dataria
functioned as a semi-secret discre-
tionary fund entirely controlled by the
pope without reference to the Curia.
During this decade Benedict XIV used
these funds (which were officially
allocated to charitable purposes such
as alms, aid to religious orders in
financial straits, and pensions to
 preletes) to fund the renovation of
S. Croce. Because the project cost far
more than originally anticipated, the
situation became grave when funding
for the Dataria, which came mostly
from duties paid to the papacy by
Spain, was drastically reduced owing
to the new concordat then being
negotiated between King Ferdinand
VI and the pope. In terms of
Giaquinto's oeuvre, the financial
misfortune that halted the S. Croce
project largely destroyed the antici-
pated aesthetic effect and consequent
appreciation of his greatest Roman
commission. The poverty of the
papacy at mid-century stood in stark
contrast to the wealth of the Spanish
Bourbons in Madrid, for whom
Giaquinto worked from 1753 until
1762. Anticipated but never realized
in S. Croce, the rich splendor of
Giaquinto's decorative ensembles, in
which luminous frescoes are set into
vast expanses of gleaming white and
gold stucco, are best appreciated on
the vaults of the Capilla Real in
Madrid, which the artist finished

painting just before the death of his

patron, Ferdinand VI, in 1759. [ic]

226
Corrado Giaquinto
Study for "Saint Nicholas of
Bari Blessing the Soldiers"
1746

Oil on canvas
53//' x 38//' (135x97 cm)
provenance collection Pio Santamaria,
Rome 1972. Staatsgalerie Stuttgaart

exhibitions Florence 1922, cat. no. 474:

Bari 1993, cat. no. 22

bibliography Mostra in Palazzo Pitti 1922,

cat. no. 474; D'Orsi 1958, pp. 68. 142.
figs. 70-71; Cioffi 1993; Giaquinto 1993,
cat. no. 22

Staatsgalerie Stuttgart

This strikingly beautiful oil modcllo is a

study for a larger oil painting commis-
sioned in 1746 for S. Nicola dei
Lorenesi, which was the most impor-
tant French church in Rome after
S. Luigi dei Francesi. Located just
behind the Piazza Navona on via
dell'Anima, this small church was 226

built in 1635-36 by the Lorraine-born

Francois du ]ardin, known in Italy as artists of his generation working for the decorative effect of the church's survived in a superb state and is in

Francesco Giardini. During his two important patrons such as cardinals interior and of Giaquinto's two large the Pinacoteca Provinciale in Bari.
decades in Rome, Giaquinto com- Ottoboni, Acquaviva, and Polignac. oils. These were set just below the The subject of the commission of
pleted two important decorative pro- The Stuttgart painting shown here cupola on the walls flanking the high 1746was Saint Nicholas of Bari, the
jects for the church. The first work for relates to Giaquinto's second decora- altar in the presbytery. The twin to the fourth-century bishop of Myra in
S. Nicola dates to c. 1731-33, when he tive commission of 1746, and its style Stuttgart picture, Saint Nicholas of Bari southwest Turkey. According to tradi-

frescoed its nave, choir vaults, and reflects the more monumental and Saving the Victims oj a Shipwreck, was tion, Saint Nicholas' s relics were
cupola. The intimate scale and deli- classicizing character of his paintings destroyed in the nineteenth century translated to Bari when his shrine in

cate coloration of these frescoes are of the 1740s. Giaquinto's patron in and replaced by a copy made by Myra was overrun by the Muslims in
typical of the Roman Rococo style both cases was the church's chaplain, Ghilardi in 1827. Fortunately 1087. He was also the patron saint of
practiced by Giaquinto (Palazzo Domenico Fabri, who in 1746 also Giaquinto's exquisite modcllo for the Giaquinto's home town of Molfetta.
Borghese, Rome, vault fresco, commissioned the luxurious mar- lost painting (also from the Pio which, like other southern Italian

1727-30) and other international bling of Sicilian jasper that heightens Santamaria Collection, Rome) has coastal towns, venerated him because

376 PAINTINGS
of his aid to victims at sea. While the 227
Bari modcllo pays homage to this tradi-
Corrado Giaquinto
tion, the Stuttgart paintingshows
three generals of the Emperor The Baptism of Christ
Constantine's army who had been 1750
wrongly accused of crimes and sen- Oil on canvas
tenced to death by decapitation. 86%" x 72%" (220 x 185 cm)
Through Saint Nicholas's intervention exhibition Rome 1984. Roma, fig. XI. 25
they were exonerated. Here they are BIBLIOGRAPHY D'Orsi 1958, p. 79, figs. 84,
shown kneeling before him in pro- 87; Olsen 1971, fig. 1; Broeder 1973, p. 79,
found gratitude and homage while fig. 20; Barroero 1975. fig. 4
receiving his blessing. Chiesa di S. Maria dcll'Orto, Rome
Compositionally, Giaquinto's paint-
ing draws inspiration from Roman
Baroque sources, most notably Pier Giaquinto created this magnificent
Franco Mola's fresco of 1657, Joseph Baptism of Christ for the chapel of
Making Himself Known to His Brethren, St. John the Baptist in S. Maria
in the gallery of the Palazzo del Rome.
dell'Orto, located in Trastevere,

Quirinale. The broken column, which
suggests the eighteenth-century
interest in classical antiquity
reminiscent of Piranesi, adds a
contemporary touch to the mainly
traditional treatment. From
onward some of Giaquinto's large-
The church, which was originally
attached to a hospital, was founded in
and is 1492 by the association of fruit growers,
hence the name (orto being Italian for
"garden"). In 1750, in time for the holy
the 1740s year celebrations, Gabriele Valvassori
restored theSt. John the Baptist

scale works clearly show signs of Chapel and Giaquinto's painting was
assistance by members of his studio, placed above the altar. Like many of
and this seems to be the case in the Giaquinto's altarpieces, this painting
The extant
finished oil for S. Nicola. has a landscape setting, but in this

painting in the church shows some case it has been significantly reduced
changes in the background architec- on the
to focus the viewer's attention
ture, which is extended and enlarged two main protagonists of the sacred
giving the composition a monumen- act, who are shown in a pose of

tal but somewhat ponderous quality. almost balletic grace. In the fore-

In addition, the kneeling altar boy ground, kneeling on a rock with his

grasping an elaborate golden candle- right foot immersed in water, is Jesus.

holder at the left of the modello is elimi- He holds his hand to his chest in an
nated in the final version, and the attitude of piety, humbly accepting
luxuriant background of trees has the sacrament meant to cleanse the
been simplified. human soul of Original Sin.
Whereas the final painting (which Conforming to tradition, the ritual
is also marred by age and modern purification is administered through
restoration) does not demonstrate the the agency of water by Saint John the
freshness of color and exquisite detail Baptist, who acts as an active counter-
of Giaquinto's best work, these traits still and contemplative
point to the
are amply evident in this modello. Son of God kneeling before him. The
There is much to appreciate in the miraculous nature of the event is con-
painting, but the most refined feature veyed by the golden halo that
is the delicacy of Giaquinto's distinc- emanates from Jesus's head and by the
tive palette of acid-yellow, olive -green, dove of the Holy Spirit, from whose
coral, pink, rose and turquoise-blue. breast a glowing beam descends. Two
Known throughout his lifetime as an angels at the right look on in wonder
exceptionally humble and religious and awe.
man, Giaquinto was able to infuse his The dignity of the figures, the 227
many sacred subjects with a unique restrained emotion, the simplicity of
sense of piety and quiet reverence. An composition, the cool coloring and creating his own highly decorative Maria dell'Orto include a poignant
autograph oil sketch that precedes the soft lighting epitomize the refined style. Hence, not only are the exuber- study tor the head of Christ in the
execution of the Stuttgart picture is in style that Giaquinto practiced at mid- ant Neapolitan models of Francesco Villafaletto Collection, Rome (D'Orsi
the Museo di Capodimonte, Naples century. Its clear antecedents include Solimena and Luca Giordano found in i9s8, p. 81, fig. 67), and an enchanti-
(D'Orsi 1958, fig. 70). [ic] works of the seventeenth-century his work, but also those of Pier ngly fresh oil sketch on copper (Olsen
Bolognese school, such as The Baptism Francesco Mola, Pietro da Cortona, iq^i. fig. 1) that closely anticipates the

of Christ by Francesco Albani Giovanni Lanfranco, and Annibale final version, [u |

(Pinacoteca Nazionale, Bologna) and Carracci, whose Roman decorative

the later Baptism altarpiece created for cycles Giaquinto studied very closely.
St. Peter's in Rome, by Carlo Maratti, Stylistically, the S. Maria dell'Orto
the last great master of the Roman altarpiece has much in common with
Baroque. These reflections of the past two smaller oils, both entitled Christ at
do not, as has often been implied, the Column (collection of the late

denote a lack of creative imagination Joseph F. McCrindle; Broeder 197},

on the artist's part (D'Orsi 1958, p. 80). p. 79, fig. 20; and private collection,
It is importanl to remember that location unknown), which can be
Giaquinto borrowed freely from his dated to the same period. Preliminary
artistic antecedents in the process ol works for the large altarpiece in S.

PAINTINGS 377
 .

ANNE LOUIS GIRODET DE for Liberty), in the Musee Malmaison, neglect is that many of his landscape Beaux-Arts de Tours. Balzac et la peinturc

ROUSSY-TRIOSON combines a homage to republican paintings have been lost, or misattrib- 1999, cat. no 32

MONTARGIS 1767-1824 PARIS generals killed in battle during the uted to other Neoclassical landscape bibliography Coupin 1829: Gerard H.

revolutionary wars with a treatment painters. 1886: Benoit. Francois. LArt francais sous la

revolution et empire; les doctrines, les idees, les

Anne Louis Girodet de Roussy- of the subject of Ossian. a poem by Girodet was a complex, cultivated, l

genres. Paris: L. H. May. 1897: Bordes 1974;

Trioson was born in January i~67 in
a small town in the province of Loiret.
not far from Paris. His father. Antoine
Girodet. was director and controller
of the apanage (crown estate) of
Scotsman James MacPherson.
(Ossianic literature was all the rage in
Europe at the beginning of the nine-
teenth century. Bonaparte kept a copy
by his bed. Madame de Stael, Goethe,
and sophisticated artist, one of the
most educated of David's pupils. He
read and translated Greek and Latin
works by Virgil,
texts, including
Musaeus. Sappho, and Anacreon. He
Bernier 1975: Levitine 1978: Rubin 1978;
Bellenger 1993: Crow. Thomas. Emulation:
Mating Artists for Revolutionary- France. New
Haven and London: Yale University Press.
1995: Grigsby 1995: Solomon-Godeau.

Orleans, that of Philippe Egalite. who and Chateaubriand all swore by also devoted much time and effort to Abigail. Male Trouble: A Crisis in
was beheaded in i~93. The apanage of Ossian. the new Bible, the "Homer of producing an illustrated edition of the
Representation. New York: Thames
&Hudson. 199-: Clark. Alvin, ed. Mastery
Orleans was made up of the the North." This book turned out to Aeneid, and to writing a didactic auto-
and Elegance: Two Centuries of French Drawings
Orleanais. the county of Blois. and the be one of the most extraordinary biography in descriptive verse, a genre from the Collection of jeffrey E. Horvitz.
estates of the Gatinais, which included archaeological fakes in the history of made famous at the end of the eigh- Cambridge: Harvard University Art
Girodet's native town. Socially, there- literature, but it left a huge pictorial teenth century by the now little Museums. 1998. nos. 109-10
fore, Antoine Girodet was not far legacy and was the subject of several favored poet Dellile. David vouch- Musee Girodet. Montargis
from noble rank. He died in 1784, The painting of Ossian
exhibitions.) safed to Etienne Decluze — his pupil
when his son was only seventeen. The was commissioned by Charles Percier. and future art critic, as well as the

boy's upbringing was taken in hand as decoration for the Chateau de author of some of the most important The Sleep of Endymion is a key work
by DocteurTrioson. a family friend, Malmaison. where Napoleon lived diaries for the understanding of his in the history of French painting.

also originally from Montargis, now when he was still only First Consul. age — that "Girodet was too erudite" Girodet painted it in Rome while he
living in Paris, where Girodet had David said of this painting that (Etienne Jean Decluze. Louis David: son was still a pupil of David, albeit one of
been educated from a tender age. "Girodet was mad. and had painted ecoleet son temps [Paris: Didier, 1855]. the most brilliant. It represents a con-
Madame Girodet died in 1^86, leaving figures of crystal." The Deluge, also in p. 264). Baudelaire too said of him that scious departure from David's
the artist an orphan at only nineteen. the Louvre, was painted in 1806 and, "his paintbrush was always dipped in Neoclassicism. which dominated
Two years earlier Girodet had started in the face of such competition as the most literary of sources" (Charles French and European art for over a
studying with David, the greatest David's Intervention of the Sabines. won Baudelaire. "Le musee classique du quarter of a century, from the revolu-
painter of his day. whose work and the prix Deccnnal for best history paint- Bazar Bonne-Nouvelle." in Critique tion right through to the end of the
personality would leave a significant ing, organized in 1806 by the imperial sum de critique musical [Paris:
d'art: empire. Girodet won the grand prix de
mark not only on the art of painting government. The shown
Burial of Atala. Gallimard. 1992]. p. 71). To understand Rome in 1^89 and arrived in Rome in
but also on the system by which the in the Salon of 1808 (now in the Girodet fully, it is essential to bear his July 1-90. He set about this composi-
arts were organized in France. Benoit Louvre), was based on Chateaubriand's literary sophistication in mind. He tion a few months after enrolling at
Francois Trioson was equerry, coun- novella Atala, or. The Love Story ofTwo was always considered a bizarre per- the French Academy at the Palazzo
cillor, and physician in ordinary to the Savages in the Desert, a work published sonality and his comment "I prefer the Mancini. and worked on it until
king and his armies, and military in 1801, which would radically trans- bizarre to the flat." has been much October 1791. In an attempt to achieve
physician to the Comte d'Artois and form the shape of poetry and literature repeated, [sb] greater freshness of color. Girodet was
the Due d'Orleans. In 1809 he for- in France through the introduction of bibliography: Coupin 1829: Gerard H. inspired tomix his paints with olive
mally adopted Girodet and settled his the Romantic sensibility. And finally. 1886: Benoit. Francois. L'Art francais sous la As a result, he had to start his
oil.

inheritance on him. and Girodet duly Revolt at Cairo was a large-scale history remlunon el lempire; les doctrines, les idees. les main figure over again from scratch
added Trioson's name to his own. painting, whose violent subject was genres. Paris: L. H. May. 189-; Bordes 19-4: when the paint failed to dry. It was
Bernier 19-5: Levitine 19-8: Rubin 19-8:
Girodet won the grand prix de Rome treated in vivid color; it subsequently exhibited in Rome that same year,
Bellenger 1993: Crow. Thomas. Emulation:
in 1-89. but his stay in the city was adorned the walls of the Tuilleries along with other compulsory works
Mating Artists for Revolutionary France. New
troubled by anti-French riots and the Palace, and was presented at the Salon by the royal pensionnaires. and there-
Haven and London: Yale University Press.
burning, in January 1-93, of the French of 1810. Solomon-Godeau.
1995: Grigsby 1995:
after at the Paris Salon of 1-93. under
Academy. He fled to Naples, but Recent art historians have been pre- Abigail. Male Trouble: A Crisis in the title Endymion. by Moonlight.
remained in Italy until 1-95. Girodet's pared to grant an increasingly signifi- Representation. New York: Thames & This painting immediately made
letters to Trioson and to Francois cant role to Girodet in the evolution of Hudson. 199": Clark. Alvin. ed. Mastery and Girodet's reputation. He showed it
Elegance: Two Centuries of French Drawingsfrom
Gerard, a friend from his days in the the Davidian school and in the begin- again at the Elysee exhibition in 1-97,
the Collection of\effrey E. Horvitz. Cambridge:
atelier, are the most important surviv- nings of French Romanticism. and once more, twenty-three years
Harvard University An Museums. 1998.
ing documents concerning the anti- Although fame rests on his highly
his later, at the 1814 Salon. The Sleep of
nos. 109-10
revolutionary upheavals in which accomplished history painting, recent Endymion started life as one of the life
Hugou de Basseville, representative discoveries have concentrated more study exercises required of the pension-
of the French republic in Rome, was on his portraiture. Girodet painted at naires as part of the Academie syl-
killed. After Girodet's death in 1824 a least fifty portraits, of which around 228 labus. Quatremere de Quincy. in his
grand funeral was held, which several twenty remain untraced. The portrait historic eulogy, records that "it was in
Anne-Louis Girodet
artists and critics referred to as the known as Romainvillc-Triason shown at factone of the compulsory studies
funeral of classicism —
at a time when the Salon of 1800 (Musee du Louvre. The Sleep of Endymion assigned to the pupils, in which they
a new generation, represented by Paris), the portrait of Mademoiselle 1810?
were expected to demonstrate their
Gericault. Horace Vernet, and Lange in Denmark, shown at the Salon Oil on canvas skill in rendering, and their knowl-

Delacroix, was introducing a new of 1799 (Minneapolis Institute of Arts), 35X" x 46" (89.5 x 117 cm)
edge of. the nude figure, while still

style, already termed "Romantic." that of Francois Rene de Chateaubriand,

provenance at the museum before 1900,
giving some room for personal

In assessing Girodet's place in the and the portrait of Jean-Francois Belley. gift of Madame de Clarival. the heir of expression and poetic interpretation."
history of French painting, attention Black Parliamentary Representative from Rene-Ange Dumeis On the basis of these criteria, the
should be focused on his five major Martinique, shown at the Salon of 1798 exhibitions Bregenz and Vienna 1968, assessment of the jury of the Academie
works. Of these. The Sleep of Endymion, (Musee National des Chateaux de cat. no. 248 A: Tokyo. Tokyo Fuji Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture
in the Louvre, was painted while he Versailles) are some of his most signif- Bijutsukan Gakugeika. Furangu. Kakumci to (1-93) was that painting needed more
was in Rome, between 1790 and 1792 icant works. The least-known aspect Roman Shugi Ten. Traveling exhibition. "fluidity of movement, greater fidelity
1987-88. cat. no. 101: Avignon. France.
(the painting exhibited here is a later of Girodet's work is his landscape to nature in the details. Less curva-
Musee Olivet La mort de Bara. 1989,
version, from the Musee Girodet). painting, to which he attached partic- ceousness. less ghostly whiteness in
no. 41: Copenhagen. Statens Musuem
Ossian and the French Generals (also ular importance; —he believed that it
cat.

for Kunst. Mellem gudcr og helte: historiemalet

the flesh tones, even given that the
known as Apotheosis of French Heroes was a genre that encompassed all the i Rom. Paris og Kobenhavn. i"o-i820. 1990. light source is the moon, less conven-
Who Died for the Country during the War others. The main reason for this cat. no. 59: Tours. France. Musee des tionality in the rendering of forms ...

PAINTINGS
 increasing love of literature, or as a
first sign of panic as he discerns the
faint beginnings of a change of direc-
tion of the part of the French school.
Too late. Endymion had introduced a
hitherto unknown, interiorized world,
a Caravaggio-like softness, a new sen-
sibility, that chimed with the times
and would eventually find its full

expression in romantic feeling.

The painting has been in the Louvre
ever since it was acquired by Louis

XVIII. The Montargis version is

smaller, and passed into the collection
of the Musee Montargis some time
before 1900, bequeathed by the
Viscountess of Clairvil, heir of Rene
Ange Dumeis (1808-1864), a pupil and
apprentice of Girodet. The painting is
of superb quality, and the catalogue to
the Montargis exhibition held in 1967,
the first of its kind, drew attention to
the important differences existing
between this and the Louvre painting,
concluding that the Montargis picture
was a sketch, and not a studio copy.
Several lithographs have been made of
the painting, one by Auby Leconte in
1822, another by Francois Noel in 1827,

both versions of the Louvre painting.

A third, earlier version, dated 1810, by
Henri Guillaume de Chatillon, is quite
228 clearly made from the Montargis
picture, and makes apparent the
but these comments should not painter his protection against anti- Greek source, not mentioned by Noel, various compositional differences
obscure our overall esteem for this Jacobean militia. In his preface to the but which corresponds in exact detail between the two paintings. Chatillon,
truly poetic piece of work, evidently expanded edition of 1803, he pays to Girodet's scene: the Dialogues of the a friend and pupil, worked with
the product of a talent we are pleased tribute to Girodet, thanking him for Gods, by the Greek philosopher Girodet to produce the lithographs of
to acknowledge." "generously sharing much of his own Lucian, in which Aphrodite raged at Anacreontis, a series that would not
Girodet succeeded in transforming valuable research." The entries for Diana for having dared watch be published until after Girodet's
an academic exercise into a major, his- Ossian and Endymion benefited consid- Endymion as he slept out under the death. One hypothesis is that the
toric painting. His subtle interpretation erably from Girodet's erudition, and heavens, and gone to visit him where Montargis painting was executed at

of the mythological subject was the offer some insight into his under- he The other-worldly light that
lay. the same time as the lithograph. The
inspiration for the unique and original Endymion legend.
standing of the seems to emanate from the young dedication reads: "To Docteur Trioson,
lighting effects, which became Endymion appears sometimes as a man's body as he sleeps, and the pres- doctor of medicine, former field doctor
Girodet's personal trade mark, evident shepherd from Asia Minor, at others ence/absence of the goddess, repre- to the French army, by his adopted
in all his work, from Ossian to the Burial as the twelfth King of Eulide, who, sented here by her attribute, the son Anne Louis Girodet Trioson,
ofAtah. This discovery allowed him to when banished from his throne, moon —or by moonlight, the
rather, member of the Legion d'honneur."
depart from Davidian realism and to devoted himself to the study of the symbol of the nocturnal world she The fact that the lithographer has
develop an entirely new, dreamlike heavens, where he encountered inhabits —
are both indicative of the signed and dated the lithograph, taken
style, the roots of which can be traced Diana. The grandson of Jupiter, he is depth and originality of Girodet's together with the considerable warmth
back neither to late eighteenth-century generally associated with the moon. reading of the myth. Endymion as of the dedication, would seem to
Rome, nor, even, to the school of He is said to have been granted his anti-Narcissus, asleep for all eternity, suggest that Chatillon, as would have-
northern European artistswhose work wish — to be plunged into everlasting absent even from himself, exposed to been common practice in a studio at
he might have come across in Rome. sleep, in order to escape the ravages of the gaze of the "other," is both Eros that time, was also involved with the
The approach is more obviously related old age and death. Diana fell in love and Tanatos at once. Lcwe, disguised execution of the painting itself, [sb]

to literary sources, to those poetic with him on account of his great as a zephyr, parts the branches, allow-
sensations which Girodet sought, beauty and came to visit him every ing Diana's shining rays to pass, and
throughout his life, to transpose into night in a caveon Mount Latmos. By to play upon the sleeping Endymion's JAKOB PHIL1PP HACKERT
the visual medium —so much so that Endymion she had fifty daughters and lips. In several letters to Dr. Trioson, PRESZLAU, GERMANY 1737-1807
from 1812-14 on he himself became one son, Etolus. Another, less Girodet remarks proudly on how radi- SAN PIETRO DI CARPEGGI, ITALY
more interested in poetry and versifi- common legend, interesting for its cally his treatment sets him apart
cation than in painting. evocation of the morbid and homo- from David. Some time later, in a By the time of his arrival in Rome in
The theme of Endymion was widely erotic aspects of the myth, tells how letter written either to Bernadin de 1768. the Prussian landscape painter
popular with painters and poets. In Endymion was beloved of the god of Saint-Pierre or to the Marquis de [akob Philipp Hackert already enjoyed
1801 Francois Noel, an editor, lithogra- sleep, who in order that he might have Pastoret, he attempted, paradoxically, a pan-European reputation. He has
pher, scholar, and member of numer- the perpetual pleasure of Endymion's to play down the creative aspects of since then justly come to be under-
ous erudite societies, published his lovely eyes, made him sleep with them his Endymion, insisting rather on the stood as a pivotal figure in the history
Dictionary oj Fable, an important two- wide open. imitative aspect of his masterpiece. He ol eighteenth-century landscape
volume mythological dictionary. Noel Girodet, who was extremely widely drew attention to the importance of painting, the man who both reformed
and Girodet had become friends in read, would have been familiar with his illustrations for Virgil, done in and isolated the vaiuM tradition
Venice in 179s. when Noel, in his role these variants. George Levitine, and Rome (1791—2), and for Racine (1801). through his ability to subsume care-
as republican consul, offered the alter him Thomas Crow, traced a may be taken as evidence ol his
This fully observed, recognizable places

PAINTINGS 379
 into a generic, idealized style that up off Livorno so that Hackert could Parnassus (see cat. 378), the great owned by Marcantonio IV Borghese,
looks back to Claude Lorrain. This observe the nocturnal light effects triumph of his friend and colleague whose family crest can dimly be made
style would have a very strong effect (the huge painting is still at Petershof). Anton Raphael Mengs. Yet as accurate out on the faqade of the house.
on landscape painting and printmak- In 1786 Hackert was asked by as Hackert's view of the villa is, with The painting is a smaller version
ing, particularly as traced by other Ferdinand IV, King of Naples (whom its two-story pavilion connecting to (although not necessarily a reduced
northern artists, well into the nine- he first met in 1782), to move south, the peristyle ellipse across a formal replica) of a painting (49" x 68"; 125 x
teenth century. where he lived for the next thirteen garden, the artist completely under- 175 cm) owned by the Borghese family,

Hackert's paintings have a remark- years. While there, his international playsits importance as a treasure also dated 1780. It is part of a series of
able sameness, despite his wide diver- fame was consolidated and he estab- house of hotly discussed (and newly works by Hackert commissioned by
sity of geographic sites and range of lished, seemingly forever, modern excavated) sculpture or as a center of Marcantonio as part of his extensive
scale, from small gouaches (often perceptions of the Neapolitan islands modern painting. Rather, he produces redecoration of the interior spaces of
done in series) to large-scale decora- and the Campagna. Forced to leave an idyllic evocation of the Campagna the Villa Borghese on the Pincio.

tive cycles, for example at Schloss Naples after the temporary fall of the populated by and
villas as perfect Hackert mentioned his work on the
Bodwiz on the island of Rugen in Bourbons in 1799, he retreated to abstracted as those invented by project, one of the last great artistic

Stralsund, Pomerania. Tuscany, where he died. In 1787, in Claude, harking back to Horace and a undertakings of the century in Rome,
With their encaustic-like surfaces Naples, he had met Goethe, who pastoral arcadia. in a letter to his friend John Meerman
and completely even lighting, they befriended him and who, in 1811, using An engraving done in Naples in in July 1779. Five large paintings plus

also have an arcadian magic that, par- material left him by Hackert, edited 1785 and dedicated to Prince Yussupov four smaller seascape overdoors are
ticularly after Hackert settled into and published the painter's memoirs, records another, more closely seen but described by Goethe in his memoir of
Italy permanently, created through its him a place of privilege in
giving nearly identical view of the villa and Hackert as being in place by 1782. These

magical spell of goatherds and radiant German letters and art history, [jr] the surrounding buildings. This print paintings appear in guidebooks until
ruins taken up by Walpole —and bibliography: Hackert 1994; Kronig and follows a painting done for Catherine the late nineteenth century as in the

through shifts in Italian taste for Wegner 1994; Weidner 1998 of Russia, which is still at Tsarskoe central space, formerly an open loggia,

"English" garden design and informal- Selo and dated 1784. [jr] on the "back" of the villa under
ity — a new definition of values about Lanfranco's ceiling. Goethe said that
nature and man's place in it. 229 the inspiration for this ambitious
Born in northeast Brandenburg, 23O decorative scheme comes from
Jakob Philipp Hackert
Hackert was a member of an artistic Marcantonio IV's uncle Prince
Jakob Philipp Hackert
dynasty. He was one of five sons, all of View oj the Villa Albani Aldobrandini, in his house in Frascati,
whom became artists, and he studied 1779
The Beach at Practica di Mare where a cabinet room was decorated
in Berlin with his father (also called with paintings in "gouache" by
Oil on canvas with the Palazzina Borghese
Philipp), a portrait and animal painter. Hackert. The antique notion of com-
25X4" x 35" (65.5 x 89 cm)
A student of Blaise Nicolas Le Sueur at 1780 pletely transforming a room with
bibliography Hackert 1994. pp. 242-43,
Signed and dated lower left: 1780 large landscape views was a particularly
academy from 1755, Hackert
the Berlin no. 81
was introduced early to works by Oil on canvas Roman most vividly played out
taste,
Anhaltische Gemaldegalerie Dessau
Claude Lorrain and to Dutch land- 25//' x 38%" (64 x 98 cm) in the murals by Pier Leone Ghezzi at

scape painting. He then worked bibliography Gonzalez-Palacios 1991, Torrinpietro, outside Rome. The
p. 142, no. 61; Vasale 1992: Hackert 1994, immediate reproduction by Hackert
throughout northern Germany, set- The Villa Albani, on via Salaria
p. 159 no. 21, p. 159
tling for a Stockholm (where
time in beyond the Aurelian Walls of Rome, of one of these specific scenes for con-
Staatliche Museen zu Berlin,
simply under-
he received royal commissions) before must have held a particular attraction sumption outside Italy
Nationalgalerie
moving to Hamburg and then Paris. In for Hackert, as it was the seat of the scores the great charm and probable
Rome, where he lived until 1786 (with antiquarian and theoretician johann charm of the idea, [jr]

sketching tours to Switzerland as well Joachim Winckelmann, who served as The subject is as idyllic as the day.
as Sicily and Naples), he was allied secretary to Cardinal Albani and Fisherman and aristocrats mix
with the cosmopolitan world already helped form the large group of antiq- happily along a beach in front of a GAVIN HAMILTON
German-speaking
established by his uities there (see cat. 25). The villa was, pretty pink villa. Dogs romp, children MURDIERSTON HOUSE, SCOTLAND
colleagues Anton Raphael Mengs and therefore, central to a German-speak- laugh, ships gaily skim across the 1723-1798 ROME
Johann Joachim Winckelmann. His ing intellectual community that Tyrrhenian Sea. As the inscription
patronage extended as far as Russia, Hackert would enter only after the carefully explains, the scene is the villa Although not well known to modern
where the Empress Catherine II oblig- tragic assassination of Winckelmann. of Prince Borghese at Practica, a prop- audiences, Gavin Hamilton maintained
ingly had one of her battleships blown It was also the site of the fresco of erty on the sea not far from Rome a reputation of the highest order during

380 PAINTINGS
his lifetime, and his peers thought him remained on the easel for years. Even
a crucial pioneer of the vigorous and more significantly, from 1764,

noble classicizing mode forged in Hamilton shrewdly engaged Rome's

mid-eighteenth-century Rome. He leading printmakers (particularly

arrived in Rome in 1748, and chose to Domenico Cunego) to engrave his

enter the studio of Agostino Masucci, paintings. As a result, his compositions

the principal champion of the long- were widely disseminated in an elegant,
standing classical tradition in Roman unified set, and artists as diverse as

art, leading back through Carlo )acques-Louis David and )ohn

Maratti to Raphael. The young
initially painted portraits for British
Grand Tourists, but the economic-
support of his affluent family allowed
him to concentrate on history paint-
ing, the most noble but least lucrative
genre of painting. While in Rome,
Hamilton fell under the sway of the
by influ-
antique, fostered in the 1750s
Herculaneum and per-
ential visits to
sonal contact with Robert Adam and
artist Trumbull were able to draw repeatedly
on his ideas; the engravings also
provide a valuable record for modern
art historians of Hamilton's work.
Hamilton also served as one of
Rome's best-known and most suc-
cessful dealers. Involved in many cele-
brated archaeological excavations in
the Papal States during the latter half
of the century, he led particularly
lucrative digs at Hadrian's Villa in

Johann Joachim Winckelmann. His 1769-71, as well as at Ostia and Gabii.

university education (in Glasgow), Englishmen in Rome on the Grand
unusual among eighteenth-century Tour formed Hamilton's principal 231

artists, enhanced his ability to pursue clientele, but he sold important works

history painting through a thorough to Clement XIV Ganganelli and Pius Although Hamilton's production international artists alike, particularly
knowledge of classical literature, and VI Braschi for the Vatican Museums slowed during the last decades of the Antonio Canova, Benjamin West,
his 1761 acceptance into the and counted Catherine the Great century, his style responded to new David Allan, Alexander Runciman,
Accademia di S. Luca attests to his among his customers. His finds currents in painting. Prince and Vincenzo Camuccini. [jls]

importance among the international include some of the most renowned Marcantonio Borghese IV provided bibliography Hamilton 1879;
community of artists Rome.
in discoveries of the period, including his most significant late commission, Waterhouse 1955: Ferrara 19S4: Watcrhouse
The Scottish painter drew
first the Wounded Amazon from Monte the design of the Room of Helen and 1954; Irwin 1962; Stainton 1974: Irwin and

attention for a series of works after the Cagnolo (Metropolitan Museum Paris at the Villa Borghese, crowning Irwin 1975: Macmillan 1986; Rangoni 1990,
"Hamilton"; Macmillan 1994; Williams
Mad, initiated in 1760 with Achilles of Art, New York), the Lansdowne the series of classicizing interiors
1994; Rodgers 1996
Lamenting the Death oj Patroclus Discobolus, the Warwick Vase from planned by Hamilton for his British
(Countess of Seafield, Cullen House). Tivoli (Burrell Collection, Glasgow), clients. For this space, dismantled in

Advanced at the same time that Anton the Townley Venus from Ostia (British 1891, the artist engaged Rome's
Raphael Mengs worked on the Museum, London), and the Shelburne leading sculptors and craftsmen to 231
Parnassus fresco at the Villa Albani, Hermes from Tor Columbo (Santa createone of the most harmonious
Gavin Hamilton
Achilles placed Hamilton at once in the Barbara Museum of Art). Hamilton environments at the villa. Hamilton
vanguard of the new style. The series also dealt in Old Master paintings, reserved the painted decoration for The Death oj Lucretia
dominated his production for the next with the Ansidci Madonna by Raphael himself, narrating the lives of Paris
1767
fourteen years and included and The Virgin of the Rocks by Leonardo and Helen with five works set into the
Oil on canvas
Andromache Lamenting the Death of (both National Gallery, London) ceiling (four and three
still in situ) large 84" x 104" x 264 cm)
(213.3
Hector (1761; lost); Achilles Dragging the among most sensational coups.
his canvases for the walls (Museo di
provenance Hopetoun House. 1768;
Body of Hector around Troy (1766; lost); Hamilton remained true to the Roma). The lighter coloring and fluid Dowell's. Edinburgh: Alexander, Glasgow;
The Anger of Achilles (1769; Broadlands); Hellenic subject matter that estab- handling in these paintings, coupled Christie's, London, March 22. 1968. lot 28
Priam Redeeming the Body of Hector (date lished his reputation, but he experi- with the pliant bodies and dynamic (as Thf Sacrifice oj Iphigenia); Colnaghi,
unknown; lost); and HectorTaking mented with other material during use of space, reveal a crucial shift London; Paul Mellon; gift to the museum,
1981
Leave of Andromache (1775; Hunterian the most active phase of his career. from the rugged toughness of the
Gallery, University of Glasgow). The The best-known of these images earlier canvases and demonstrate the bibliography Waterhouse 1954;
Rosenblum 1961; Skinner 1961; Tomory
restrained palette, stoic expression, portray episodes from the Roman impact of Angelika Kauffmann.
1978; Macmillan 1994
and frieze-like compositions republic, including the Death of Lucretia. Pompeo Batoni, and the other artists
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven,
announced a new epic dimension in The painter also explored subjects working at the villa.
Paul Mellon Collection
painting, rooted in careful study not treating Scottish heroes, including Hamilton never outlined his theo-
only of ancient sculpture but also of Mary Queen of Scots Resigning Her Crown retical position in print, but in 1773 he
Poussin and Charles LeBrun, whose (1765) and The Discovery of Palmyra by published Schola italica mclurae, forty Gavin Hamilton presents the pivotal,
works Hamilton knew largely Wood and Dawkins (1758; both engravings of High Renaissance and brutal event leading to the foundation
through engravings. The stern Hunterian Art Gallery, University of early Baroque paintings arranged in of the Roman republic. Sextus
Homeric subjects moreover placed Glasgow). The latter work moreover an volume, coupled
ideal gallery. This Tarquinius, the son of the last

the artist at the forefront of the move- provided a crucial precedent for the with extant letters and conversations Etruscan king, came to Lucretia's
ment to return to the most archaic contemporary history painting of reported by Quatremere de Quincy, home while her husband was away at
classical sources, perceived as more- Benjamin West by presenting an eigh- reveals a stance squarely rooted in the battle. Intending to rape Lucretia,
pure and heroic. teenth-century event in a classical tradition of Pietro Bellori and tied to Sextus threatened to murder her and
Despite the ultimate destination for guise. Hamilton also executed some the ideas of Mengs and Winckelmann: to lay a slave beside her corpse to
all six paintings in inaccessible British of the earliest works of art based on by the creators' good
artists, fueled imply that she had been killed in the
country houses, the Homeric series Milton with the Pcnseroso and Allegro tasteand intelligence, selected the best act of adultery. Rather than suffer this
attracted significant notice in Rome. of 176s (both lost). He executed por- aspects from nature, antiquity, and dishonor, Lucretia ceded to Sextus.
Their high visibility derived in part traits throughout his career, with The sixteenth- and seventeenth-century She reported the attack the next day
from their display in the artist's Hth Duke oj Hamilton with Dr. John Moore Italian art. and recombined them into and two other
to her spouse, father,
studio, which doubled as a popular and Ensign Moore of 1777 (Duke of an ideal form. Hamilton did not have men, including Lucius Junius Brutus.
Owing to Hamilton's slow
gallery. Hamilton, Lcnnoxlovc) standing .is .1 suiclio pei' se, but he heavily influ- Although hey declared her inno-
I

working method, building up from his most substantial achievement in enced the careers of several genera- cence. Lucretia stabbed herself before
initial oil sketches, each work this arena. tions of Anglo-American and their eyes and demanded revenge. The

PAINTINGS
 — ——

pledge she secured from the men Munich), a work that evidently ANGELIKA KAUFFMANN period and joined the Accademia di
ushered in a popular uprising against inspired the Scottish painter (Tomory CHUR, SWITZERLAND 1741-1807 S. Luca in 1765 (adding to membership
the Tarquins led by Brutus, which 1978, pp. 59-60). However, little
ROME in the Florentine and Bolognese acad-
ended tyrannical Etruscan rule and residue of Giordano's exuberant emies), submitting as her reception
established the republic. Baroque machine remains in Angelika Kauffmann has long been piece an allegory of Hope. Her first

Closely following Livy (Book I), Hamilton's blunt and severe picture. appreciated as one of the few female history paintings emerged in 1764:
Hamilton portrays the exact instant By shifting to the oath, Hamilton artists of the eighteenth century to Bacchus Discovering Ariadne (Bregenz)
withdraws the dagger
after Lucretia accentuated the nobility of Lucretia's achieve international fame during her and Penelope at Her Loom (Hove Museum
and the men swear to avenge her. To action and revealed an explicitly polit- lifetime. Nonetheless, the early litera- and Art Gallery, Sussex). The under-
convey a narrative at once suffused ical dimension to the story, an effect ture — largely biographical — cast the standing of ancient literature and
with sentimental pathos and forceful wholly distinct from the ebullient painter as a society portraitist and sculpture brought to these canvases
resolve, the artist divides the canvas in Neapolitan design. decorator in England. The explosion demonstrates Kauffmann's aggressive
two parts. On the left, Lucretia slumps Hamilton only painted three of monographic studies of Kauffmann pursuit of knowledge, with their
by her grief-
into a chair, supported Roman subjects across his long over the past twenty-five years, rooted balance and restraint deriving from
stricken husband. Sobbing uncontrol- career Lucretia, Agrippina Landing at in feminist theory and committed to the theories of Winckelmann and
lably into his mantle, he holds her Brundisium (Earl of Spencer, Althorp), reexamining primary sources, has Mengs. The pictures' common theme,
dying body with a gentle gesture that and Volumnia's Appeal to Cermanicus dramatically altered this earlier view. the experience of women, became
empathetically echoes that of his (lost) —
and each notably features a Kauffmann now stands as one of the Kauffmann's hallmark.
expiring wife. By contrast, the other female protagonist. Duncan most influential artist-intellectuals of Primarily working for a British
men leap into action, stepping toward Macmillan has recently argued that the eighteenth century and funda- tourist clientele, the young artist left

the viewer and focusing their eyes on these three pictures jointly champion mentally rooted within the interna- London, the most
Italy in 1766 for

the bloody dagger. Their taut muscles moral sentiment as the fundamental tional community of Settecento Rome. financially rewarding market for por-
and angular gestures balance one virtue driving political action. In each Kauffman's father, a peripatetic traiture. Kauffmann at once cultivated
another, forming a single, locked unit. case, feeling governs Hamilton's hero- Swiss painter of modest accomplish- a salon-studio, bringing together a
Brutus stands in the physical center of ines,and their sentiment therefore ment, pegged his daughter as a child powerful network of female patrons
the canvas, but Lucretia's body acts as tempers and guides masculine action. prodigy in both music and painting. while simultaneously retaining strong
the hinge for the two narratives. Only Lucretia's loyalty to her husband The young artist received her early ties with British artists, especially

Although she backwards into her

falls can provoke and direct her male training at home — a typical pattern for Joshua Reynolds. Two years later
husband's arms, Lucretia looks not avengers to act against tyranny; female artists —and by age twelve she she helped found the Royal Academy,
toward her spouse but up at the Lucretia therefore stands as the moral had established her bent for portraiture where she henceforth exhibited regu-
dagger, actively connecting her to the conscience that fuels human freedom by painting The Bishop of Como (lost). larly. Portraits such as Augusta. Duchess
pledge. Despite her lifeless right arm. (Macmillan 1994, pp. 84-89). The following year she executed the oj Brunswick (1767; Royal Collection,
the expiring woman summons her Hamilton's canvas heavily influ- first of the many self-portraits (Tiroler UK), and john. Lord Althorp, with His
remaining energy to clutch Brutus's enced subsequent developments in Landesmuseum, Innsbruck) that punc- Sisters (1774; Althorp,
garment with her opposite hand. late eighteenth-century art, encour- tuated her career. In 1754Kauffmann Northamptonshire) not only reveal
Lucretia's arm thereby forms a strik- aged by its long tenure in the painter's accompanied her father to Milan, the heady prestige of her London
ing horizontal line that echoes the Roman studio and especially its wide where she painted likenesses of presti- clientele but also her quick develop-
arm with which Brutus holds the dissemination in a 1768 print by gious local figures and copied works of ment toward larger, more complex
dagger, a dramatic visual strategy Domenico Cunego. Lucretia catalyzed art. After a brief return to Switzerland compositions. These pictures, often
that links their actions and renders her the theme of the heroic pledge so upon the death of her mother, when full-lengths with multiple figures, pre-
last moment participatory instead of crucial to painting in this period she assisted her father with frescoes in sented sitters in learned allegorical
passive. recast in such varied works as Henry theSchwarzenwald parish church, the guises, invested simultaneously with
To create the startling vigor of the Fuseli's Oath of the Rutili of 1778-81 Kauffmanns returned to Italy in 1759. classical gravity and lyrical charm.
scene, Hamilton pulls the enormous (Rathaus, Zurich) and Jacques-Louis During this period she boldly aban- Her audiences identified this grace
figures to the front of the picture David's Oath oj the Horatii (Louvre, Paris) doned music to concentrate on art, with sentiment, a mode of expression
plane. A severe colonnade directly of 1784 (Rosenblum 1961, pp. 14-16) making the unparalleled decision to emerging in eighteenth-century
behind the protagonists eliminates although none of these offers such a pursue history painting (cat. 234). England and tied inextricably to femi-

any recession into the background daring role for a female character. Such ambitious goals could only be ninity. Kauffmann extended this

and thus any distraction from the
theme's gravity. The precision of
Hamilton's handling as well as the
aggressive contrasts of light and dark
further accentuate this seriousness,
and the highly saturated, muted colors
form an equally stern palette.
Although Hamilton painted Lucretia
during the ascent of the
ing style, his canvas owes
refined and elegant mode promoted
Charles. Lord Hope,commissioned achieved through further travel, with female sensibility into history paint-
the canvas in 1763 while on his Grand Rome as the ultimate goal. En route, ing, a genre normally considered
Tour, presumably from a modello she copied canonical works in male. While providing the moral
already on view in the painter's Modena, Parma (Correggio), and instruction demanded by the genre,
studio. Documents record the paint- Bologna (Reni and the Carracci), com- female characters and domestic
ing's development over the next six piling extensive sketchbooks; she later subject matter transmitted her ideas
years, until its 1768 shipment to translated the drawings into widely (Cleopatra Adorning the Tomb of Marc
Hopetoun. Hamilton also painted at distributed etchings. Antony, 1770; Burghley House,
new classiciz- least two other versions, one on view Florence marked Kauffmann's deci- Lincolnshire), and she pioneered
little to the in Hamilton's studio in 1779 and com- sive shift toward classicism. Through British, Ossianic, and Germanic
mented on there by Antonio Canova friendships with Benjamin West and sources for subject pictures (Eleanora

by Anton Raphael Mengs but forges a in1780 (evidently the version in the (ohann Friedrich Reiffenstein she Sucking Poison from the Wound of
distinct mode of "heroic primitivism" Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, London). joined the city's vanguard community Edward 1, 1776; private collection).
(Macmillan 1994, p. 81). An early sketch is in the National of Anglo-German artist-intellectuals. Kauffmann returned to Rome in
Despite the popularity of Lucretia's Gallery of Scotland (Rosenblum 1961, Upon her subsequent 1763 arrival in 1782 after marrying Antonio Zucchi,
story from the Renaissance onward, pp. 11-12; Skinner 1961). [jls] Rome, the young painter gravitated to who yielded his own career as a deco-
artists usually selected other parts of figures at the core of the new style, rative painter to manage his spouse's

the narrative, particularly the rape including Gavin Hamilton, Johann finances. Economics partly motivated
(often eroticized) or the pathos of her Joachim Winckelmann, Giovanni their move, since Mengs's recent death
suicide (for example, I'hc Death of Battista Piranesi, and Pompeo Batoni. and Batoni's slowing career posi-
Lucretia by Ludovico Ma/.zanti, Portraits — both traditional Grand tioned Kauffmann as Rome's domi-
cat. 251). One important exception Tour commissions and more intimate nant portraitist, decisively secured by
combined the oath with Lucretia's images of her colleagues dominated — the 1783 commission to paint the
Miu idc I lu t )eath of I u< retia by Liu ,1 her output (cat. 232). She showed Neapolitan royal family (1784;
Giordano (Staatsgernaldesamrnlungen, astonishing growth as an artist in this Capodimonte, Naples). Moreover, the

2 PAINTINGS
 explosion of the Grand Tour among natural talent overcame any potential
the nobility of northern and eastern defect with rigorous application to

Europe opened vast new markets for drawing, color, and above all elegant

the multilingual painter, exemplified harmony of composition.

by the Bariatinskaya family portrait Kauffmann's classicism — sophisti-

Pushkin Museum, Moscow).

(1791;
cated, learned, and suffused with sen-
Moreover, Rome proved a more hos- timent — established the chief

pitable market for history paintings alternative to the revolutionary,

than London. Her account book aggressive mode of David and

reveals extensive sales of subject pic- Camuccini. As such, her work held
tures, escalating in scale and author- sway over multiple generations of
ity, but retaining her distinctive gentle artists in the late Settecento, including

style (cat. 235). Canova, Girodet, and Ingres, and

By assuming the grand quarters established the anacreontic style that
formerly occupied by Mengs atop the would last well into the nineteenth
Spanish Steps, Kauffmann cast herself century, [jls]

as the prime heir to the classicizing bibliography De Rossi [ 81 1

] 1970;
tradition of Roman painting. Gerard 1892; Manners and Williamson
Operating with unusual indepen- 1924; Vorarlberger Landesmuseum 1968;

dence, she rarely participated in the

Walch 1968; Angelika Kauffmann 1979; Clark
and Bovvron 1981. pp. 125-38; Roworth
group commissions so important in
1984; Roworth 1988: Baumgartel 1990;
late eighteenth-century Rome. Her
Rosenthal 1992; Roworth 1992: Roworth
studio not only housed an important 1994; Rosenthal 1996; Baumgartel 1998;
collection of antiquities and modern Sandner 1998; Mehr Lkht 1999
paintings, but also her well-known
conversazioni. These public events
brought together the cosmopolitan 232
literary and artistic figures converging
Angelika Kauffmann
in late Settecento Rome, explaining
the expanding erudition of Samuel Powel
Kauffmann's late work. Above all, she 1764-65
fostered the cults of friendship and Oil on canvas
genius, seen in her allegorized self- 49/;" X 39//' (125.4 x 99-7 cm)
portraits (cat. 234; see also Self-portrait
provenance Samuel Powel. Philadelphia;
as Painting Embraced by Poetry, 1782; thence by descent
Iveagh Bequest, UK) as well as the exhibition Philadelphia, Philadelphia
— Goethe
small images of her friends Museum of Art. 1931, inaugural installation
among them
chief Goethe-(1787; bibliography Moon, Robert C. The 232

Nationalmuseum, Weimar) — that Morris Family of Philadelphia. Vol. 2.

form crucial instruments in this Philadelphia. 1898-1909; Powel. Samuel artist in her own first years in Rome. eled through Italy with the Duke of
atmosphere of intellectual exchange. "Short Notes on a Course of Antiquities at
Born into a prestigious Philadelphia York and contracted the two leading
Kauffmann enthusiastically promoted
Rome in Company with Messrs: Apthorp.
Quaker family, Samuel Powel Scottish ciceroni. James Byres and
Morgan & Palmer." In The journal of Dr. ]ohn
new talent, particularly accomplish- (1738-1793) inherited the family Abbe Peter Grant. Byers led the young
Morgan of Philadelphia From the City of Rome
ments of women, recorded in such to the City of London. 1764. Philadelphia:
fortune upon his father's 1759 death. men through a rigorous nineteen-day
allegorized portraits of central figures Lippincott, 1904: Philadelphia Museum Shortly thereafter, he graduated from course of the chief ancient and
as the poet Fortuna Sulgher Fantastici of Art. Tatum 1976; Marks,
Bulletin, 1931; Philadelphia College and embarked on modern sights of Rome, recorded in
(1791; Galleria Palatina, Florence). Arthur. "Angelika Kauffmann and Some where he connected
a trip to England, notes by both men (Prown 1997,
Though famously devout, Kauffmann Americans on The Grand Tour." The with John Morgan, a fellow pp. 92-95). Grant furthermore
American Art journal, vol. 2, no. 2 (1980).
painted significant religious pictures Philadelphian studying medicine in secured them a private audience with
pp. 4—25; Prown 1997
only later in her career. The 1789 Holy Edinburgh. In 1763 the young men Pope Clement XIII Rezzonicoand
Private collection, U.S.A.
Family for Bergamo led to several began a Grand Tour of France and membership in the Accademia
notable projects, secured by her close Italy that was considered "the most dell'Arcadia. acts that suggest the
rapport with Rome's most prominent Samuel Powel's brocaded topcoat and celebrated taken by any American breadth and seriousness of their intel-

cardinals. Her contribution to the proud, erect posture combine with abroad in the eighteenth century" lectual interests.
Santa Casa in Loreto, The Virgin with the plain background to present the (Whitfield J.
Bell, "Samuel Powell," in The two-month visit of Powel and
Saint Anne and Saint Joachim of 1791, twenty-six-year-old American as a Patroit-lmprovers: Biographical Sketches of Morgan to Rome coincided with
commissioned by Pope Pius VI, culmi- serious, cultured gentleman. He looks Members of the American Philosophical Angelika Kauffmann's second stay
nated this aspect of her career and out from the canvas with a measured Society [Philadelphia: American there from April 1764 to June 1765.
1 occasioned a papal visit to her studio. gaze, unrolling a floorplan for a classi- Philosophical Society, 1997]). The painter had already established
Kauffmann never outlined a theo- cizing villa, and architectural tools Americans traveled to Italy far less fre- herself there as a portraitist, primarily
retical position in print. However, the strewn before him indicate that the quently than their British counter- among the British and German intel-
artist's biographer and colleague design is the sitter's own. Kauffmann parts because of the prohibitive lectual communities, and her close
Giovanni Gherardo de Rossi, therefore casts Powel not as a leisured distance and cost. Those who did so rapport with West. Byres, and Grant
described the artist as "la Pittrice dellc visitor but as an architect, actively largely went as merchants or for pro- may have drawn the young men into
. Grazia." In eighteenth-century terms, absorbing the lessons of Roman fessional training, as was the case with her studio.
1
grace embodied the reason, erudition, culture and reinterpreting them for Benjamin West, John Singleton The works Kauffmann executed in
judgment, and balance of her paint- the New World. Such a presentation and John Morgan. For its
C opley, thetwo years preceding her 1765
ing, aspects thought reinforced by her not only places the sitter squarely in purely cultural emphasis, Powel's departure for London reveal a remark-
rational, learned, and virtuous per- the context of the learned circles con- journey was therefore doubly unusual. ably diverse range of expression and
S< inality. Though she withheld from verging on Kauffmann's studio in the Through theirLondon contacts rapid-fire growth as a painter, includ-
drawing the male nude, the corner- mid-i76os, but also argues powerfully (particularly West), Powel and Morgan ing her first history paintings. Her
stone of Roman eighteenth-century for the intellectual merits of the Grand quickly integrated themselves into portraits range from the lively infor-
practice, Kauffmann's hard work and Tour, an important theme for the Roman expatriate society. They trav- mality of Jo/ninn Joachim U'l'iidcclmami

PAINTINGS
 of 1764 (Kunsthaus, Zurich) and David countermode of portraiture later Americans evidently left Rome before Brooklyn 1976. cat. no. 50: Chicago 1978,

Garrkk (Burghley House, UK) to the refined by Anton Raphael Mengs. The Kautfmann finished their canvases, cat. no. 13: Vaduz and Milan 1992,

grandeur and easy authority of John Americans' choice of Kauffmann as and she shipped the work to Powel in cat. no. 46: Dusseldorf, Munich, and Chur
1998, cat. no. 26
Byng (Wrotham Park, UK) and John their portraitist indicates that they London the following year (Marks,
bibliography Giornale per Ic Belle Arti
Morgan (National Portrait Gallery, considered themselves part of the pp. 12, 16; see above), [jls]
April 1785, pp. liii-liv: De Rossi
Hirt 1785;
Washington, D.C.), works directly accomplished milieu surrounding
Manners and Williamson 1924:
[1811] 1970:
influenced by Pompeo Batoni's domi- the young painter, confirmed by the Walch 1968; Baumgartel 1987: Roworth
nant style. Powel's image, like many learned and carefully selected attrib- 233 1988: Baumgartel 1990: Roworth 1992:
portrait drawings in Kauffmann's utes she assigned to the sitters. Roworth 1994; Schulze 1996: Baumgartel
Angelika Kauffmann 1998: Kauffmann 1998: Sandneri998
Italian sketchbook (Victoria and The precise identity of the drawing
Albert Museum, London), adopts a Powel holds remains unclear, for Cornelia, Mother of the Gracchi Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond,

third, more traditional mode. Inspired while Powel's journal describes The Adolph D. and Wilkins C. Williams
1785
Fund
by English colleagues in Rome, such drawing ancient monuments in
Signed on plinth at right: Angelica
as Nathaniel Dance, these less ani- Rome, the plan portrays contempo- Kaujjmann pinxt.
mated works eliminate elaborate set- rary classicizing architecture. The Oil on canvas The artist's memorandum of paintings
and focus tightly on the sitters'
tings sheetmay represent initial ideas for 40" x 50" (101.6 x 127 cm) from October 20, 1785, describes the
staid expressions. Powelton, the now destroyed West provenance George Bowles: Rebecca present canvas in this way: "Cornelia,
Despite these distinctions, Philadelphia country house designed Rushout Bowles, 1818: Ann Rushout, mother of the Gracchi, is visited by a
Kauffmann's portraits in this period by the sitter following his return to Wanstead Grove, by 1826: Harriet R. noblewoman friend who has them see
share a modest scale and a light and America, or it may show a Roman Gockerell, 1851; Charles Rushout. all her beautiful jewels and asks to see
liquid handling of paint. Above all, building of special interest. 2nd Baronet, 1869; Charles Fitzgerald, Cornelia's. Cornelia then chooses the
srd Baronet, 1879; Phillips and Neale,
they present the sitters as engaged No documents have emerged regard- moment when her sons Tiberius and
London. November 9, 1879: Government of
artists and intellectuals. Her work ing the commission, but scholars have Caius, together with her little daugh-
the Province ol Alberta, Canada: Christie's,
thus looked away from the more com- ascribed the work
Kauffmann
to
London, November 22, 1974; Herner ter Sempronia, return home from
mercially successful style of Batoni through family tradition and stylistic Wengraf, London, 192s: Virginia Museum public school, and she presents them
and Louis-Gabriel Blanchet, which evidence, an attribution recently reaf- of Fine Arts to thewoman, saying: These are my
emphasized luxury and consumption, firmed by Wendy Wassyng Roworth exhibitions London, Royal Academy. most precious jewels.'" (Kauffmann
and paved the way for the cerebral (personal communication, 1998). The 1786; Los Angeles, Austin. Pitlsburgh, and 1998, p. ?i. author's translation).

384 PAINTINGS
 This subject had few visual prece- Jacques-Louis David's The Oath of the

dents and was derived from Factorum Horatii (Louvre, Paris), which
acdictorum mcmorabilium, by Valerius Kauffmann would have seen the pre-

Maximus (Book IV.i, introduction), vious year in the Frenchman's nearby

later retold in Charles Rollins Histoire Roman studio (Clark and Bowron
rotntiine. The widowed daughter of 1981, p. 137). While she adopts the
Scipio Africanus, Cornelia devoted spare, pure language of Rome's most
her life to the moral upbringing of her radical painters to accentuate

children,most notably her two sons, Cornelia's virtue, Kauffmann simulta-

who later became great reformers of neously embeds a critique of David's
the Roman republic, acclaimed for painting in her own composition.
and uprightness.
their intelligence Instead of opposing the passive, emo-
Cornelia thus represented the model tional response of David's women to
mother and exemplified feminine the heroism of the warriors,
virtue. Kauffmann explicitly valorizes the

The artist significantly altered feminine, domestic sentiment and

her initial idea (seen in a preliminary takes that as the primary subject of
sketch in the Kupferstichkabinett, the painting.
Berlin, reproduced in Baumgartel George Bowles, one of Kauffmann's
1998, no. 227) in order to heighten commissioned
steadiest patrons, 234

the work's monumentality and Cornelia as part of a triad of history

dynamism. Initially conceived as a paintings for his home in Wanstead 234 (De Rossi [1811] 1970, pp. 16-17). She
seated figure of Charity, Cornelia now Grove, England, which also included had shown prodigious talent in both
Angelika Kauffmann
stands in the center of the canvas, Pliny the Younger and His Mother at arenas, but deliberation with her local
dominating the pyramidal composi- Misencum (Princeton University Art Self-portrait between the Arts priest convinced the teenager to elect

tion: her regal pose contrasts dramati- Gallery) and Virgil Writing His Own painting, the more challenging and
of Music and Painting
cally with that of her seated and Epitaph at Brundisium (private collection, less immediately rewarding pursuit.
humbled neighbor. The severe vertical Bowdoin, Me.). The connection among c. 1796 Moreover, she intended to pursue
Signcdon belt: Angelica Kauffmann Se lp:s
most prestigious
folds of the heroine's modest garment the three paintings has not yet received history painting, the
Pinx Roma 179 ... [date illegible]
align with the stark Doric architecture adequate explanation, although the genre, and the one most inaccessible
Oil on canvas
in the background, further accentuat- pairing of Pliny and Cornelia clearly to women.
57/»" x 85%" (147 x 218 cm)
ing her integrity and moral strength. ennobles the bonds between mother By placing the protagonist between
provenance James Forbes. Stanmore
two allegorical figures in a moment of
By placing the figures on a diagonal, and child (Roworth 1992, p. 92).
Hill, Middlesex; Christie's. London, )une
with the boys entering from the left, Cornelia became Kauffmann's most difficult decision, Kauffmann invokes
25, 1839. lot 163: Mrs. Strickland,
Kauffmann energizes the composition significant history painting. According the Choice of Hercules. This theme
Cokethorpe; thence by descent; Knight,
and transforms Cornelia's virtuous to the April 1785 issue of the Memorie Frank, and Rutley's, November 12, 1908,
enjoyed wide popularity in the eigh-

motherhood into noble activity rather per le Belle Arti, she exhibited the canvas lot 158; Lord St. Oswald, Nostell Priory, teenth century, fueled by the Earl of
than a passive state. Even Sempronia that year in Rome to great public Wakefield Shaftesbury's 1713 text A Notion oj the
has a meaningful role, toying with the acclaim, and Giovanni de Rossi exhibitions London 1955. cat. no. 14; judgement of Hercules. Shaftesbury alle-

noblewoman's jewels to emphasize extolled thework for its erudition, Nottingham 1987. cat. no. 15 gorized the hero's decision between
their childish insignificance. inventiveness, and grace. The artist BIBLIOGRAPHY De Rossi [l8ll] 1970; Vice and Virtue to encourage history
As Bettina Baumgartel has stressed, furthermore reprised the composition Gerard 1892; Brockwell 191s; Manners and painting, which he saw as the most
Williamson 1924; The Iveagh Bequest 1955;
the image affirms a contemporary twice for important patrons, in each demanding but morally rewarding
Walch 1968; Clark and Bowron 1981,
ideal good mother, fostered in
of the case forging alternate interpretations genre. Kauffmann surely encountered
pp. 125-38; Parker, Rozsika. and Griselda
the eighteenth century most famously of Cornelia by combining the picture Pollock. Old Mistresses: Women, Art and the book in England, and she knew
by Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Cornelia with different pendants. For Queen Ideology. London: Routledge 81 Kegan Paul, many artists' interpretations, includ-
fulfils her essential nature as a Maria Carolina of Naples in 1785, 1981, pp. 21-22; Shawe-Taylor 1987, no. 15; ing those by Annibale Carracci,
woman, modest and self-abnegating, Kauffmann joined the picture with Roworth 1988; Baumgartel 1990; Rosenthal Benjamin West. Pompeo Batoni, and
uniting motherly love, domestic hap- Julia, the Wife oj Pompcy, Swooning (both 1992; Roworth 1992; Rosenthal 1996; )oshua Reynolds, as well as an ancient
Baumgartel 1998
piness, and benevolent virtue Kunstsammlungen zu Weimar) to relief at the Villa Albani. Kauffmann's
National Trust, Nostell Priory, St. Oswold
(Baumgartel 1998, pp. 381; Baumgartel address the honor of family loyalty. most direct inspiration, however,
Collection, London
1990, pp. 30-31). By locating these Three years later Prince Poniatowski likely came from one of her chief
fundamental values in an example of of Poland commissioned a third British patrons, the Hoare family.
the Roman republic and presenting version,which Kauffmann paired Choosing abandon Music to pursue
to Visiting their country seat at Stourhead
them in the format of a history paint- with Brutus Condemns His Sons to Death Art, Angelika Kauffmann stands in (whose garden design played out the
ing, Kauffmann elevated these domes- (lost), startling pendants that contrast the center of the canvas, flanked by Choice of Hercules), the painter would
tic, feminine virtues to the highest feminine allegiance to family to mas- these allegorical figures. Painting have seen their celebrated version of
possible rhetorical level, and identi- culine devotion to state (Roworth points insistently to their goal, the the story by Nicolas Poussin.
fied them as equal to the public, mas- 1994, pp. 53-56). Kauffmann's image sublime temple of immortality The image not only presents
culine qualities customarily affirmed also enjoyed wide distribution in a emerging in the rocky background, Kauffmann's decision in moralizing
by Settecento history painting. 1788 engraving by Francesco and her animated sash, severe protile. terms, but also explicitly identif ies her
The painting employs Kauffmann's Bartolozzi, and through this means and insistent lean emphasize her as a Roman artist-intellectual.
trademark repertory of gracefully the composition influenced subse- urgent entreaty. Kauffmann turns to Settecento Roman artists adopted
drawn figures, tender gestures, and quent versions of the subject by such leave but glances back tenderly at the Hercules as the archetype of the
gentle, harmonious coloring, which diverse artists as Benjamin West, Pierre sentimental figure of Music, who sor- modern hero (see p. 54 above) and the
she considered the appropriate lan- Peyron, Louis Gauffier. and Vincenzo rowfully holds Kauffmann's hand to use of this image in a self-portrait
guage for such a sentimental, moraliz- Camuceini. [ji.s] her chest in a final parting gesture. asserts that only Rome opened such
ing subject. Despite the delicate Writers have continually inter- an elevated choice for the painter. By
handling and the sweet figures, the preted this image biographically. melding the genres of allegory ami
painting demonstrates a severity and According to a narrative established history painting with portraiture,
majesty unprecedented in by De Rossi, Kauffmann's first biogra- the painter amplifies the intellectual
Kauffmann's oeuvre. Anthony Clark pher, the artist left behind her early status oi the artisi and inserts her own
connected this shift to the impact of study of music to focus on painting work in the ongoing dialogue of

PAINTINGS
 — a

Roman self-portraits addressing this The painting stands as one of he met Giuseppe Bossi, Andrea portrayed in 1785 on horseback,
theme throughout the century (see, Kauffmann's most complex produc- Appiani, and Pietro Verri, and exe- together with Giovanni Stern amid
p. 62; see also cats. 193, 204, 248). tions. It fuses the genres of allegory, cuted a portrait of Giuseppe Parini. Roman antiquities (Casa Chigi Albani,
Another crucial antecedent for history painting, and portraiture However, he was never tempted to Rome), and illustrious exponents of
Kauffmann's picture hung at while giving common iconographies leave Rome permanently, even when the antique such as Ennio Quirino
Stourhead, Carlo Maratti's Self-portrait unexpected, new meanings. Bossi and Leopoldo Cicognara offered Visconti, from whom he asked advice
with Niccold Pallavicini, a work that sim- Kauffmann thereby simultaneously him the chairs of painting in the Milan in 1795 as to a philologically correct
ilarly fuses traditional categories to identifies herself as an heir to the her- and Venice academies in 1804 and 1808. representation of Asclepius (lost; letter

elevate the intellectual position of the itage of Roman history painting

and Received in Rome as by the power- of October 14, 1795, cited in Fiori 1977,

artist. By embedding the distant comments on her complicated and ful Delia Somaglia family (Portrait of P-43)-
temple from Maratti's canvas into her unique relationship to that tradition Cardinal Giulio dclla Somaglia, 1787; Landi's extraordinary talent as a
own work, Kauffmann unmistakably demanded by her gender. To convey Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna, portrait painter soon brought him
places her self-portrait in this dis- these ideas, Kauffmann created a work Rome), Landi attended the private into rivalry with Kauffmann in the
tinctly Roman tradition. memorable not only for its learned school of Pompeo Batoni, then that of favor of contemporaries. A large part
Recent studies have also interpreted iconography and penetrating psychol- Domenico Corvi, which he left within of his success in the nineteenth
the Hercules trope in light of ogy but also for the composition itself: a short time to study independently century is due to the naturalness and
Kauffmann's exceptional position as a its bold, jewel tones; subtle layers of the masterpieces of antiquity and the psychological penetration that he
woman pursuing history painting. thin glazes; and the powerful, inven- Renaissance. From the former he brought to his portraits. These quali-
Earlier artists customarily presented tive design of the figures, [jls] learned soft brushwork, and from ties can be seen in such masterpieces
Vice as an eroticized and often nude the latter he adopted the technique as the Portrait of Count Giacomo Rota
female figure, an approach Kauffmann of drapery and dramatic light effects (1798; Museo Civico, Piacenza), the
rejected by painting both figures in GASPARE LANDI seen in the painting that won him the Self-portrait with the Family of the

modest The juxtaposi-

classical dress. PIACENZA I756-183O PIACENZA 1783 Parma academy competition, The Marchese Landi (1797; D'Albertas
tion of Music and Painting does not Theft of the Palladium (Galleria Nazionale, Collection, Turin), and the portrait
therefore strictly contrast Vice to Parma). But only by studying the pic- of his pupil Tommaso Minardi (1810;
Virtue, but addresses the more compli- Despite their connection to the patri- torial and work of the
theoretical Accademia di S. Luca, Rome).
cated choices between an emotional cian house of Landi from Mezzanone recently deceased Anton Raphael Although considered inferior in the
or rational pursuit, and a domestic or Oltrepo, Gaspare Landi's parents, Mengs did Landi attain artistic matu- academic hierarchy, portraiture was
public career (Baumgartel 1990, p. 175). Ercole and Francesca Rizzi, were rity, under the banner of a quest for remunerative and so enabled Landi to

The decision thus revolves around poor. This brought him a troubled ideal beauty and the grand manner. A finance his more demanding figura-
purely intellectual concerns specific to youth and family misfortune, with Self-portrait (c. 1801; private collection), tive compositions. From his first

a woman challenging the dominant separation from his mother and from inspired by that of Mengs and pre- attempts in Rome, he emerged as a
paradigm of the artist. By recasting the his sisters, who were both sent early to served in the D'Alba Collection in great interpreter of subjects from
Choice of Hercules with a female pro- a convent. He did not receive a regular Madrid, can be seen as a homage to mythology (Prometheus on the Rock,
tagonist, Kauffmann justifies her artistic training but was educated at the master (Mellini 1983, p. 39). His 1782; lost), literature (Francesca da
rejection of a more predictable and first by the Jesuits. Later, an uncle friendship with Canova (Portrait of Rimini, 1786, painted for the Marquis
socially acceptable career for an indulged his artistic vocation by Antonio Canova, 1806: Galleria de Crequi; Oedipus at Colonna, 1805;
eighteenth-century woman and honors placing him in the studio of Gaspare Borghese, Rome) was also decisive. lost), history (Veturia at the Feet of
her adoption of one customarily Bandini, a figure painter from Parma. Besides appealing to Landi through Coriolanus, 1817; Galleria d'Arte

coded as male. Still later, with a painter on glass, its natural affinity with the gout grec as Moderna, Florence; Mary Stuart

The three female figures balance Antonio Porcelli, he studied Oliviero defined by Angelika Kauffmann and Leaving France, 1817-27; for the Duke
one another in harmonious poses that Gatti's manual of engravings after the later Gavin Hamilton — far from of Berwick and D'Alba) and from
counteract the tension of the narrative Guercino (Oliviero Gatti, Principi del the heroic moralizing commitment scripture (Hagar, 1787; Colleoni
and present the triad as the Three Guereino, owero primi elementi per intro- of David or of the pensionnaires of the Chapel, Bergamo). A shrewd promo-
Graces. Layering an iconography cus- durre legiovani al disegno [Mantua, 1619]; French Academy — Canova's graceful tion, resting on the interpretation of
tomarily associated with women over Arisi, di Grapello, Mischi 1981, p. 175). work proved for him a source of con- De Rossi's Lettere pittoriche and the sys-
that of Hercules,Kauffmann masks her He then progressed to copying Old tinual stimulus in both subject matter tematic exhibition of the works in his
bold insertion into the male sphere of Masters (Pordenone, Camillo and form (Hebe as Cup-bearer to jupitcr, studio in vicolo S. Giacomo degli
history painting, and thus makes her Procaccini, Ludovico Carracci, and 1790; Galleria d'Arte Moderna, Brescia). Incurabili, at the Pantheon, or in the

statement more acceptable to an eigh- Guercino), becoming associated with His aim was to render in paint the Palazzo di Spagna, before they were
teenth-century audience (Rosenthal the perspective specialist and decora- softness of living flesh, as in the sculp- sent to their final destination, won
1992, pp. 47-48; Rosenthal 1996, tive artist Mariano Nicolini. Landi's tor's marbles, and, by studying nature, him an international clientele. His
pp. 347-48). In addition, the Three first attempts in the field of religious to ward off the danger of a stony, more prestigious commissions
Graces represent ideal friendship in painting (Santa Rosa oj Viterbo, Santa bloodless style (the statuino) associated included Hector Welcomed on Olympus
Cesare Ripa's konologia, thus empha- Chiara, Santa Catarina oj Bologna, in with copying the works of antiquity. (1813) for the Palazzo Torlonia and the
sizing that Kauffmann retained Music S. Maria di Campagna, Piacenza) and He often borrowed Canova's iconog- two paintings for the Quirinale —
as a warm memory rather than a dis- portraiture (Portrait of Count Alfonso raphy, such as that of the pose of commission obtained thanks to
carded vice. The motif furthermore Scotti di Fombio; lost) earned him the Meekness, quoted by Landi in Antiochus Canova, who praised him to Napoleon
embodies the central theoretical values protection of the Marchese and Stratonice (c. 1790; private collec- as one of the greatest contemporary
held by the artist: grace, harmony, and Giambattista Landi delle Caselle, a tion; Mellini 1983, p. 36); conversely, painters. Based on subjects dictated by
balance. distant relative, who generously paid Canova sometimes included in his Denon Aaron Rachcld in his Tent with

Countess Catherine Bariatinskaya for him to complete his artistic own sculptures details derived from the Wise Men from the East Who Follow
ft he Princess Holstein-Bcck) of Russia apprenticeship in Rome, where he solutions worked out by Landi. This Him in the Army and Pericles Surrounded
purchased the initial version of this went in 1781. type of dialogue legitimizes the by Athenian Artists and Philosophers Visits

painting in 1792 (PushkinMuseum, Despite strong ties with his native reading of many of Landi's paintings theWorks of the Parthenon (1811-13, Museo
Moscow). This canvas is one of two town and its aristocracy, who were as pictorial transpositions of the del Sannio, Benevento) — these paint-

reprisals (De Rossi [1811] 1970, p. 17) always lavish with commissions, sculptor's work. ings for the Quirinale's Sala dello
and may date to 1796, when John Landi decided to settle in Rome. He Canova also introduced the young Zodiaco were intended to record his-

forties, the first recorded owner and a left it only for temporary returns man from Piacenza into his regular torical examples of good government
major Kauffmann patron, commis- home (1790-92 and 1797-1800, fleeing circle. In Rome, Landi came to know and cultural advancement, with which
sioned another large allegorical from political upheavals) and tor a Arcadians such as Vinccnzo Monti, the Napoleonic regime identified itself.
picture from the artist in Rome stay in Milan in 1791, when, as the Giovanni Ghcrardo de Rossi, and Other works for this room were
(London 1955, pp. 13-14). guest til Prince Alberico di Belgioioso, Prince Sigismondo Chigi, whom he provided by Landi's rival Cammuccini.

PAIN'I IN(,S
 —

Comparison between the two artists 235

became a topos (Stefano Susinno, Gaspare Landi
"La pittura a Roma nella prima meta
dell'Ottocento," in Enrico The Meeting of Hector and
Castelnuovo, ed., La pittura in Italia:
Andromache with Their Son
L'Ottocento [Milan: Electa, 1991], vol.1,

pp. 406-7), in which Landi came to be Astyanax at the Gates of Troy

seen as the champion of color, capable 1793-94
of fusing "the mellowness and beauty Oil on canvas
of Venetian colore with the softness of 59" x 80/4" (150 x 205 cm)
Lombard chiaroscuro" (Betti 1830, p.
provenance Ranuzio Anguissola,
7), and Camuccini as that of Tuscan- Piacenza: given to the Istituto Gazzola in
Roman tradition of discgno. The Road 1884 by Fanny Visconti di Modrone
to Calvary (1806-8; S. Giovanni in Anguissola

Canale, Piacenza), which is considered EXHIBITIONS Piacenza 1922, cat. no. 337;
Piacenza 1979, cat. no. 48; Milan 1992
Landi's sacred masterpiece (along
with two paintings placed in the bibliography De Rossi 1804, Lettera;

Masini 1841. p. 11; Scarabelli 1843, p. 69;

cathedral to replace two works by
Ambiveri 1879, p. 173: Fermi 1906, pp.
Ludovico Carracci, which were sent to
199-202; Arisi i960, pp. 273-74; Arisi, Di
France [The Deposition of the Virgin and Grapello, and Mischi 1981, p. 141; Mellini
The Three Marys at the Sepulcher,
1983, pp. 31-32
1797-1803]), was described by the sec- Istituto Gazzola di Piacenza
retary of the Bologna academy, Pietro prose translation by Melchiorre psychological attitudes of the event's
Giordani. He compared it to its Cesarotti. The artist's freedom in his protagonists offered Landi the oppor-
pendant, Camuccini's Presentation in When Landi returned to Rome from interpretation of The Meeting oj Hector tunity for a variation on the theme of
the Temple, and admired above all its Piacenza in the autumn of 1792, he with Andromache and of Hector "expression," a motif that Leonardo
dramatic power and variety of the brought with him, among the other Reproving Paris, gives the two canvases had treated exemplarily in his Last

expressions. Landi's power of expres- commissions he had received in his particular significance. Here Landi Supper (De Rossi 1805, p. 7). The
sion was rooted in the art of Leonardo home town, one for "one or more pic- demonstrated his preference for liter- refined play of facial expression
and Raphael, but he had previously tures on any subject at a set price of ary subjects and at the same time con- within an ideal of beauty close to the
been inspired by the "simplicity of two hundred zeccfiini" (Fiori 1977, p. 80) centrated on the exploration of ideal antique, but also to Canova, was again
composition" of the Primitives, ordered by the Marchese Ranunzio beauty and the expression of decodified by De Rossi. Hector dis-
"adding thereto all that by which Anguissola of Grazzano. During that —
emotion ideas that absorbed him plays "fatherly tenderness in his face"
Painting was improved in later cen- stay in his native town, started two in the last decade of the century. The as he lifts the imposing helmet which
turies," as wrote the scholar Onofrio years earlier but interrupted by a long precise definition of the figures in the had frightened his son Astyanax. The
Boni in 1815 concerning The Three sojourn in Milan, the artist had proba- foreground looks back to the seven- boy, turning to his nurse, "presses
Marys at the Sepulcher (1810-12; Galleria bly painted the pair of extraordinary teenth century, and in particular to himself timidly against her breast,
d'Arte Moderna, Florence, quoted in portraits of The Marchese Ranunzio Guercino, whom Landi had studied in while she, supporting him in her
Pinto S. 1972, p. 38; for a deeper Anguissola with His Son and his wife. Antonio Porcelli's studio in his youth. arms, would fain approach the great
account of the relationship between The Marchesa Bianca Stanga di Soncino In a letter of February 23, 1795, to the Hero, on whom she fixes her eyes in
Landi and the Primitives see Agostini (Museo Civico, Piacenza). His client's Piacenza scholar Gian Paolo Maggi, wonder and reverence." Finally,
1985). Landi was professor of painting complete satisfaction had evidently Landi explained that he had chosen Andromache, in tears as she expects
at the Accademia di S. Luca from 1812 generated the production of more the "half-length figures" to give her husband's imminent end, but
to 1827, becoming its permanent pres- works, the prelude to a further order himself the chance to work on a large already smiling at the reaction of their
ident in 1817. On his death, on in 1795 for two more paintings "with scale, over life-size, despite the limited son, is caught in an extraordinary
February 28, 1830, he left unfinished two or three half-length figures" (Fiori width of the canvases available to him "mixture of pain and happiness" (De
The Immaculate Conception (S. Francesco 1977, p. 44), which Landi appears to (Fermi 1906, p. 201). In the two paint- Rossi 1804, Lettera, p. 13). De Rossi
di Paola, Naples) painted for the have produced in the following year ings the artist explored the idea of drew attention to Paris's soft flesh
Bourbon King Ferdinand I. [sg] and which can probably be identified contrast, between an irascible Hector tones and the emotion of Andromache,
bibliography Pindcmonte 1795: De Rossi as a Savior and a Virgin mentioned in a and a radiant Hector, and variety. In and these were also mentioned by
1804; De Rossi 1804, Lettera; Dc Rossi, letter to the Marchese Giambattista Hector Reproving Paris the cxemplum vir- Landi in writing to Maggi (letter of
Giovanni Gherardo. "Lettera sopra un Landi dated October 20, 1797 (Fiori became the pretext for an exercise
tutis February 23, 1795, cited in Fermi 1906,
quadro dipinto dal signor cavalier Gaspare These two different com- on the theme of the ideal beauty. The The Horatian principle of ut
1977, P- 5i)- p. 201).
Landi pittore piacentino al chiarissimo
missions suggest the freedom granted contrasting types of beauty were pietiira poesis, followed by the painter
abate d. Luigi Lanzi." Manuscript, 1808;
freedom of style that
to the painter, a derived from antiquity and corre- in his adherence to Homer's text, was
Betti i8jo; Masini 1841; Scarabelli 1843;
Giordani 1859; Ambiveri 1879, pp. 166-92: can be evinced in works produced for sponded exem-
to the character of the also celebrated by Ippolito
Fermi 1906; Ozzola 1907: Ozzola 1907, the local aristocratic patrons plary figures drawn from Homer, as Pindemonte. who translated The
"Proposito"; Mostra landiana 1922; Arisi intended to support their compa- pointed out by the playwright and art Odyssey, and in a sonnet dedicated to
i960, pp. 267-76, 338-39; Pinto S. 1972, triot's high professional achievement, expert Giovanni Gherardo de Rossi, the painter's work wrote: "Your brush
PP- 37-39; Fiori 1977; Piacenza del Scttecento through commissions, and so director of Portugal's Real Accademia is worth as much as Homer's lute"
1979. pp. 21-22; Settccc nw cmiliano 1979, pp.
enhance civic prestige, but also to de Belas-Artes, in his 179s ekphrastic (Pindemonte 1795, n. p.). Andromache's
207, 209, 214; Ceschi Lavagctto 1983: Mellini
indulge his autonomous artistic description of the painting (Dc Rossi pose recalls not only that of
1983; Agostini 1984; Agostini 1985; Cera
1987. pis 47S-99: Mellini 1987, "Landi";
choices. But they also testified to the 1804, Lettera, p. 9). They ranged from Correggio's Mary Magdalene in The
Natoli and Scarpati 1989, vol. 1. pp. 354-57;
artist's social and cultural prestige as the model of virile, heroic beauty Virgin of Saint Jerome (Parma. Galleria
Barilli. Renato. ed. Il primo '800 iluliano: la he continued to establish himself as a exemplified by Hector to Paris's gentle Nazionale; De Rossi 1804, Lettera,
pittimi Irepassato efuturo. Milan: Mazzotta, master of history painting thanks to a beauty and the perfection of Helen's p. 13), but also that of Canova's
1992, pp. 129-31, 204-5, 270-71; Mellini 1992 thorough literary grounding which, feminine beauty. Their diversity was Temperance, mourning over the sepul-
for his patrons, guaranteed success. emphasized by the variable grada- cher in the Monument to Clement XIV
To fulfill the 1792 commission tions of their flesh coloring. (Rome, Ss. Apostoli): of all Canova's
Landi planned two paintings con- The pendant. The Meeting oj Hector works this was the one Landi most
ceived as pendants, with recurrent and Andromache, dealt, on the oilier admired. But perhaps Canova himself
subjects from Book VI of Homer's hand, with the moving domestic emo- later remembered the languidly
Iliad, which he probably read in the tions of 1 lomer's tale. The different drooping arm of the figure painted by

PAINTINGS
Landi — a visual translation of the particular admired Van Lint's land- Like his cohort, the Roman land- 236
recurrent epithet of Andromache, "of scapes, and more than seventy of his scapist and view painter Andrea
Hendrik Frans van
the pale arms" — for his statue of Italy works are listed in the 1783 catalogue Locatelli, Van Lint was powerfully
Lint,

Weeping on the tomb of Alfieri (S. of the Galleria Colonna. Inevitably a drawn to scenes with water; not only called Monsu Studio
Croce, Florence). Hector's helmet was strong component in his contempo- views of the Tiber and Aniene rivers,

derived from the Borghese Mars rary popularity were the echoes of the but also the cascades at Tivoli and the
A View of Borghetto, near
(Louvre, Paris), with the variants of ideal landcapes of Claude Lorrain, falls at Terni, which in the eighteenth Rome
the griffin and the sphinx replaced by whose favorite motifs he often set century were among the principal
1713
the lion and the winged dragon within even more picturesque combi- natural spectacles in Italy. He was Signed and dated at lower left: HF mono-
respectively — the latter probably in nations. Van Lint always maintained a deeply impressed by the beauty of the gram) van lint Fi./ 1713
|

homage to the arms of the Anguissola veneration for the art of Claude, coastline near Rome, which practi- Oil on canvas
which in fact bear a winged
family, whose compositions he often literally cally from his arrival Italy figured in 21X" x 42/2" (55 x 108 cm)
dragon on the crest (Crollalanza copied, occasionally signing them both his realistic and imaginary views, PROVF.NANCE acquired in Rome in the
[1886-90] 1965, vol. 1, p. 47). In the with his own name. He possessed an reflecting the inspiration of a variety early eighteenth century by a member
painting Landi displayed his talent as a exceptional ability to enter into the of sources ranging from Jan Brueghel oi the Hearne family of Hearncsbrooke

colorist. The chromatic contrasts, spirit of Claude's pastoral landscapes, to Claude Lorrain. There are a number House, Killimor, co. Galway, Ireland; pur-
chased with Hearncsbrooke House by
through a continuous, soft transition which he would have known at first of views of Naples and Venice signed
Judge Aeneas MacKay; Hearncsbrooke
between points of light and shade in hand in a number of Roman collec- by Van Lint, but there is no documen-
House sale, December 6, 1912, lot 188; sale,
the pyramidal composition, became tions. His own delicate and pic- tary evidence that he actually traveled
Christie's, London, December 13, 1996,
harmonies. The technique of glazing, turesque treatments of the landscape to these cities, and he appears to have lot 87, where purchased by the present
recommended to the pupils instead of in and around Rome evoke a similar developed these scenes on the basis of owner
a virtuosity of touch (Scarabelli 1843, sense of the pastoral serenity of a compositions by Van Wittel. bibliography Briganti 1996, p. 174

p. 100), ensured that the hues would Golden Age. Van Lint often endowed his compo- (described as dated 1711)

have mellowness and finish, together Van Lint's earliest topographical sitions with decisively classical figures Private collection

with the transparency necessary to views (vedutc dal vcro) of Rome include copied from famous works by Guido
preserve the local color even in the sweeping panoramic views of the city Reni and other Seicento painters (cat.

shadows, in a sfumato technique inher- from a variety of approaches and 237) and, according to Busiri Vici, sup- Van Lint's best-known works are his
ited from Leonardo, [sg] locations that suggest the breadth and plied by Pompeo Batoni, Giuseppe relatively straightforward views in
reach of his aspirations as a vedutista. Chiari, Sebastiano Conca.Corrado and around Rome, the topographical
His repertory of views eventually Giaquinto, Adriaen Manglard, Anton objectivity of which derives from the
HENDRIK FRANS VAN LINT, encompassed practically everything Raphael Mengs, and Pierre Subleyras. methods and manner of Gaspar van
called MONSU STUDIO worth seeing in the Eternal City, and Van Lint in turn emulated the style of Wittel, with whom he was associated

ANTWERP 1684-ROME 1763 he returned again and again to such these figurine by his collaborators, in his early years in Rome, between

classical sites as the Colosseum, Arch occasionally copying them exactly 1700 and 1710. Their relationship must
Hendrik Frans van Lint was one of the of Constantine. Pyramid of Cestius, himself at a later date. have been close, although no docu-
finest petits-maitres of landscape and the Baths of Diocletian and Van Lint was a prominent member mentation links the two painters
working in Rome in the eighteenth Caracalla. Van Lint held an obvious of artistic society in Rome, accepted beyond their fellow-membership in the
century. He was born in Antwerp on affection for Rome's rivers with their as a member of the Congregazione Schildersbent, the fraternal association
January 28, 1684, the son of the picturesque bridges, which he Artistica dei Virtuosi al Pantheon in of northern artists in Rome. Denis
Flemish painter and draftsman Pieter endowed with a curious mixture of 1744 (although not of the more presti- Coekelberghs (Coekelberghs 1976, p. 85)

van Lint and his wife, Anna Morren. naturalism and poetry. His ability to gious Accademia di S. Luca), a corpo- noted that Van Lint arrived in Rome at
He trained briefly under the Antwerp imbue these scenes with an almost ration of artists who organized an a time when the older artist found it

painter Pieter van Bredael in 1696-97, magical luminosity and capture the annual exhibition of their own paint- difficult to keep up with the pace of
but shortly after 1700 traveled to particulars of a scene with extraordi- ings in the portico of the Pantheon. his commissions, and Van Lint's

Rome: he remained there for the rest narily acute powers of observation is He was elected Reggente, or rector, knowledge of Van Wittel's composi-
of his life except fora brief return to without parallel in the Settecento. His of this body in 1752. He married tions strongly suggests that he worked
Antwerp in 1710 following the death views constitute a catalogue of the Ludovica Margareta Tassel di in the older artist's studio before

of his mother. In his early years in sites along the Tiber such as the Porto Giacomo in 1719, and among their ten emerging as an independent artist in
Rome, Van Lint was deeply influenced di Ripetta, Castel S. Angelo, S. children Giacomo became a distin- 1711. A View of Borghetto, near Rome was

by the works of the great vedutista, Giovanni dei Fiorentini, and the Isola guished landscapist in his own right. sold in 1996 with a striking pendant
Caspar van Wittel, whose topographi- Tiberina and the Sant' Angelo, Sisto, There is contemporary evidence that view by Gaspar van Wittel of St. Peter's,

cal views dominated the youthful and Rotto bridges. Hendrik Frans van Lint also acted as a the Vatican and Romcjrom the Vigna di

activity of Van Lint and left a powerful Van Lint also held deep feelings for picture restoreron occasion. He died Santo Spirito (Briganti 1996, p. 174, no.

imprint upon his methods and the beauty of the countryside around in Rome on September 24, 1763, in his 116; cat. 308). Other instances of the
manner of working. Rome, gathering from the Campagna house on via del Babuino. [epb] two painters sharing the execution of
Van Lint's bent-name (given him by material for his painted compositions BIBLIOGRAPHY Zwollo 1973, pp. 90-119;
a pair of paintings have been suggested
colleagues in the Schildersbent, the form of pencil, pen, and wash
in the Coekelberghs 1976, pp. 75-129; (London 1978, nos. 7 and 24, as the
fraternity of Dutch and Flemish artists drawings made on the spot. The start- Roethlisberger 1983, pp. 190-94; Busiri Vici work of Van Wittel and Van Lint,
in Rome), with which he often signed ing point for his paintings was often a 1987. pp. 21-269 respectively), and at Holkham Hall

his paintings, was "Studio," a pseudo- drawing made out-of-doors to which a signed view by Van Lint of Castel
nym indicative both of his meticulous he frequently added ruins, buildings, S. Angelo (Busiri Vici 1987, p. 79) hangs

approach to his work and possibly a hillsides, and (oliage as imaginary ele- en suite with seven views by Van Wittel
reference to his assiduous attention to ments to the actual landscape. He paid acquired in Rome in 1716 by Thomas
the paintings of Claude Lorrain. Van scrupulous attention to the memo- Coke (Jackson-Stops 1985, p. 264).
Lint was patronized to a great extent rable remains of antiquity in the Van Lint was a close observer of his
by visitors to Rome on the Grand Campagna and often such archaeo- surroundings, in Rome and in the
Tour, who acquired his paintings as logical monuments as the tomb of Campagna, and the Dutch writer
souvenirs of their travels through the Caecilia Metella, Tor de' Schiavi, the Arnold Houbraken relates how he had
Campagna to Rome, but he also came so-called tomb of the Horatiae and "the habit, at certain times of the year,
to be enthusiastically collected by the Curiatii, the Temple oi the Sibyl at of spending a few weeks outside
patrician families of Rome, Altoviti, Tivoli, and the tomb of Nero on via Rome drawing ruined palaces, rocks,
Capponi, Pamphili, Sacchetti, and ( assia appear in various formats in mountains, and attractive landscapes,
Sodcrmi. Don Lorenzo Colonna in his landscapes of Latium. in order to ease his mind"

I'AINTINCS
 thyrsus. The drunken Silenus emerges
from the path on the right, accompa-
nied by revelers. The main group of
figures is derived from the composi-
tion of Guido Reni that Cardinal
Francesco Barberini had commis-
sioned in 1637-40 for Queen
Henrietta Maria of England, which
was later destroyed but was widely
known in the eighteenth century
through a number of contemporary
copies and engravings (D. Stephen
Pepper. Guido Reni: A Complete
Catalogue of His Works with an
Introductory Text [Oxford: Phaidon,

1984], pp. 278-79, pi. 202). Van Lint

reused the central group in his land-
scapes on several other occasions.
The motif of the sleeping nymph in

the lower right corner is common in

van Lint's work, deriving from ideal

landscapes of the Seicento such as
236 Claude's Landscape with Narcissus and
Echo (1644; National Gallery, London),
(Coekelberghs 1976, p. 80). These 237 ence is neither Van Lint's simplifica- although it can be traced back through
trips to Amelia, Ariccia, Capranica, tion of the earlier composition nor his Giorgione's Sleeping Venus
Hendrik Frans van Lint,
Caprarola, Castelgandolfo, Civita alteration or suppression of various (Gemaldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden)
Castellana, Nemi, Sutri, and called Monsu Studio natural and figural elements in to its original prototype in ancient
Valmontone provided the raw Claude's landscape (although his sub- sculpture. Steffi Roettgen (Frankfurt,
Ideal Landscape with Bacchus
material in the form of sketches and stitution of a herd of elephants for a Bologna, Los Angeles, and Fort Worth
drawings for picturesque views he and Ariadne on the Island of waterfall in reference to Bacchus' 1988, p. 612) has suggested that this
composed and painted in his studio.
Naxos sojourn in India is highly amusing), nymph may be associated with
The landscapists of the Seicento went but rather his creation of a radiant, Ariadne, exhausted after her painful
1741
out into the Campagna, and returned crystal-clear morning light that suf- abandonment by Theseus and now
Signed and dated at the lower left: Enrico
with drawings from nature; Van Lint fuses the landscape. Van Lint's palette awakened to gaze upon her new and
Franco van Lint d. studio. Fc. Rome 1^41
is distinguished, as Clovis Whitfield is also blonder and his colors higher in happy destiny with Bacchus.
Oil on canvas
has observed, for being among the key than Claude's, and the result is a Beginning in the 1730s, Van Lint
59%" x 76//' (151 x 195 cm)
first eighteenth-century painters to landscape that anticipates the paint- employed Pompeo Batoni to supply
provenance Chevalier Raoul Tolentino,
realize the picturesque possibilities ings of ]akob Philipp Hackert (in the the "numerose figurette" in his pas-
Rome; sale, American Art Association,
of these views, after ignoring their second half of the eighteenth century) toral landscapes (Clark and Bowron
New York, May 1-2. 1919. lot 297; sale,
topographical exactness in favor of American Art Association, New York, more than it reflects its ultimate her- 1985, nos. 7-12; Busiri Vici 1987, nos.
aestheticism (London 1978, Grand April 22-26, 1924, lot 334; Appleby itage, the ideal landscapes of Annibale 246, 249, 251. 256, 260). Batoni's earli-
Tour, biographical note). Brothers. London; sale. Christie's, London, Carracci a century and a half earlier. est biographers emphasized his admi-
Borghetto, or Castello Savelli, is a November 26, 1976, lot 81; Richard The subject is Bacchus' rescue of ration for Reni, Domenichino, and, of
ruined thirteenth-century castle built L. Feigen & Co., New York; from whom Ariadne following her desertion by course, Annibale Carracci. He contin-
purchased by the present owner
on Roman foundations along the Theseus on the island of Naxos (Ovid, ued in the late 1730s and early 1740s to
exhibitions Milan, Arte Antica srl. Dipinti
ancient via Latina between Metamorphoses 8; 176-82). Bacchus is study Reni, and it was recognized that
dal XV al XVlll secolo. 1978; Munich 1983,
Grottaferrata and Frascati. It passed seen arriving with his retinue, among he was one of the few painters of this
cat. no. 126; Frankfurt, Bologna, Los
from the counts of Tusculum to the
Angeles, and Fort Worth 1988, cat. no. D32
which are music-making satyrs and period who could produce a success-
Savelli, and later to Julius II, who con- bibliography Clark 1961, "Figures," p. 55
maenads and putti carrying his ful modern equivalent of Reni's work.
verted it into an outwork of the abbey (assigning the figures to Pompeo Batoni);
of Grottaferrata. The site was obviously Clark and Bowron 1985, p. 373 (rejecting ..
2 '7

pleasing to Van Lint, for seven other the earlier attribution to Batoni); Busiri
views of Borghetto are known, all dif- Vici 1987. pp. 232-3;, no. 277; )affe 1993,

ferent (Busiri Vici 1987, pp. 108-12, p. 84, fig. 97 (erroneously reattributing the
figures to Pompeo Batoni)
nos. 106, 109-14). The present paint-
Sandra H. Payson Collection
ing is much the largest and finest and
in the opinion of Giuliano Briganti it

"may be numbered among the finest One of Hendrik Frans van Lint's rare
works of Van Lint" (letter described in large-format canvases and clearly a
Christie's sale catalogue, London, major commission from a patron who
December 13, 1996, p. 153). A pen-and- has not been identified, Ideal Landscape
ink drawing in Berlin (Busiri Vici 1987. with Bacchus and Ariadne on the Island of
p. 108, no. 108) was clearly used for this Naxosis loosely derived from a

depiction of the village and its medieval famous landscape painted in Rome by
castle, which still survive, [hpb] Claude Lorrain a hundred years earlier
(1648; Galleria Doria-Pamphili,
Rome). Van Lint has reversed and
made a number of modifications to
Claude's composition, analysed by
Roethlisberger (Roethlisberger 1983,
p. 194) in his discussion of the two
paintings. The most significant differ-

PAINTINGS 389
 Father John Thorpe reported in a of Cestius that reveal a profound debt View oj the Piazza Navona with a Market mature paintings to a more poetic and
letter of April 2, 1774, to Lord Arundell to Giovanni Ghisolfi and Salvator Rosa and View of the Roman Forum (1733; idealized interpretation of the Roman
that he had been offered six "views" and anticipate the early works of Panini, Gemaldegalerie der Akademie der landscape. He developed an individual
in private hands at a grand price with which they have been confused. Bildenden Ktinste, Vienna); these type of "idyllic" Arcadian landscape
"because all of the figures which are In 1715 he oversaw the painting of a remain an exception from his usual, that accounts for most of his produc-
many in each were put by Pompeo room on ground floor of the
the more fanciful interpretations of the tion, aside from some bambocciate and
when young, and are chiefly copied Palazzo Ruspoli in Rome, whose walls city and its environs. He also painted a few topographical views. By the
from original pictures" (Clark and were covered with marine scenes in bambocciatc in his later years that take mid-i720S Locatelli's landscapes were
Bowron 1985, pp. 53-54). gouache. It appears that Locatelli advantage of his competence as a in considerable demand from both
The joint masterpiece of Van Lint painted only the figures and was figure painter and seem to reveal the Roman and foreign patrons, and his
and Batoni, a collaboration of the late already being paid at the rate customary inspiration of the art of Filippo Lauri. reputation in his lifetime rivaled that
1730s now in the Staatsgalerie for a master painter. He also decorated On the other hand, Locatelli occasion- of his elder contemporary Jan Frans
Stuttgart, was inspired by a Claude Prince Antonio Ottoboni's apartments ally made use of the talents of history van Bloemen. The compositional
of 1644 now in Grenoble
(Clark and in the Palazzo della Cancelleria, Rome, painters such as Giuseppe Tommasi, assurance and decorative impact
Bowron 1985, no. 12). Comparison with landscapes (untraced) that were Pierre Subleyras, and Pompeo Batoni evinced in this exceptional pair of
between the figurine in that painting highly praised by Pio. to supply the figures in his landscape landscapes make it easy to understand
and in this reveals substantial differ- Locatelli's principal contemporary compositions. why Locatelli was so successful.
ences, and underscores the fact that reputation derived from his landscapes Locatelli suffered considerable Another powerful source lies

Van Lint, like Jan Frans van Bloemen, and vedute on canvas, and before 1723 financial difficulties during his life- behind Locatelli's development,
was quite capable of adopting the he was an independent master, in time, in part because he worked whose allure few eighteenth-century
figural styles of the history painters demand from both foreign and local slowly and was burdened with a large Roman paesisti could resist —Gaspard
with whom he collaborated and exe- patrons such as Cardinal Alessandro family and poor health. He died on Dughet's landscapes, which were held
cuting the figures in his landscapes Albani and Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni. February 19, 1741, according to Olivier in great repute and were abundant in

entirely by himself. The figures in the His most distinguished early decorative Michel, "after a dissolute life, in the collections of local aristocratic
present work are unquestionably by commissions were from Filippo Juvarra poverty and unlamented, his widow families such as the Colonna, who
Va-n Lint, probably after drawings on behalf of Vittorio Amadeo II of renouncing all claim to an estate that had been the painter's greatest
made earlier for him by Batoni. An Savoy for two views of the unfinished was crippled with debts" (Michel 1996, patrons. The compositions seen here
important record of Batoni's reper- Castello di Rivoli in Turin, in which "Locatelli." p. 525). [epb] employ a number of features adopted
tory of figural motifs for this purpose Locatelli interpreted Juvarra's plans BIBLIOGRAPHY Pio [1724] 1977, pp. 185-86,
from Gaspard's Campagna landscapes
is the pocket album of sketches at and designs (1723-25; Castello di 310— u; Mosco 1970; Maxon and Rishel 1970, and reveal Locatelli's admiration for
Philadelphia, which contains, for Racconigi, Turin). In 1735, again through p. 198; Busiri Vici 1976; Fernandez 1977, the French master's works for —
example, quite a number of ideas for Juvarra, he received a commission from pp. 274-77, 477-78, pi. 78; Michel and example, the highly classical arrange-
Michel 1977; Rangoni 1990, "Locatelli";
figurine inworks that can be dated to King Philip V of Spain for two over- ment of the landscape with fisher-
Michel 1996, "Locatelli"
the second half of the 1730s, including doors in the "Chinese Room" designed man, expressed in the recession of
a drawing for the standing figure o( a by Juvarra in the Palace of S. Ildefonso planes parallel to the picture surface
woman carrying a child in her arms in in Segovia, which show Christ in the leading to a vista in the distance; the
a landscape collaboration between the Desert and Christ and the Woman of 238 long sloping diagonal leading into the
two artists (Clark and Bowron 1985, Samaria. In 1738 Locatelli decorated middle ground in the companion
Andrea Locatelli
pp. 54. 63, n. 148). [epb] two doors in the Palazzo Corsini, painting; and the classical framing
Rome, each with four decorative Landscape in Latium with and containing use of trees, extending
panels of landscapes. The Colonna from the bottom to the top of each
Fisherman at a River
ANDREA LOCATELLI family bought many of his paintings canvas. There is no confusing
and a 1783 inventory of Palazzo c. 1730-35 handling with
ROME 1695-1741 ROME Locatelli's delicate

Colonna lists more than eighty of his Oil on canvas Gaspard's, however, and his high-
Born on December 19, 1695, Locatelli works; the Barberini once owned more 51%" x 37%" (132 x 95 cm) keyed palette and luminous atmos-
was one of the foremost eighteenth- than twenty of his landscapes. Private collection phere are distinctly his own.
century interpreters of the landscape Locatelli first specialized in river Anthony Clark's witty and intelli-
of the Roman Campagna. He received and coastal scenes strongly influenced gent insights into the work of Locatelli
his initial artistic training from his by the marine paintings of Salvator 239 are relevant when looked at in com-
father, Giovanni Francesco, a little- Rosa. His early works also include a Andrea Locatelli parison with these large and memo-
known Florentine painter who settled group of paintings that show land- rable landscapes:
Landscape with Herdsmen and
in the district of Trastevere in Rome scapes with ancient ruins, although
around 1700. Nicola Pio recounts that his interest in the genre was brief. His Animals Locatelli's style begins in
at the age of twelve he became a pupil later, idyllic views of the Roman Salvator Rosa and tends to
c. 1730-35
of "Monsu Alto," a little-known Campagna show his absorption of remain rough, autumnal and
Oil on canvas
painter of coastal views in the style the Arcadian landscapes of Gaspard dry (doubtless from the Attic salt
51/s" x 37X" (132 x 95 cm)
of Adrian Manglard and Jacob de Dughet, which he made lighter, airier, Lanzi noticed). He is a wistful
provenance Geri collection; sold Milan.
Heusch, few of whose works exist. and more idealized under the influ- and sympathetically candid
March 16-19. 1937. lots 167, 168; with
After Alto's death around 1712, ence of Jan Frans van Bloemen. (In Colnaghi, London, c. 1962; Michael Jaffe,
artist, and the extremely delicate
Locatelli entered the studio of another Anthony Clark's words, "Locatelli can Cambridge; Thomas Agnew & Sons, Ltd., but rather fatuous poetry of
marine painter, Bernardino Fergioni, best be compared with the older van London, 1976; private collection, U.S.A. Filippo Lauri was another influ-
and then went on to Biagio Puccini to Bloemen, than whom he is more real- bibliography Busiri Vici 1976, pp. 102, ence, transformed by Locatelli
draw from life and the human figure. istic, introspective, clear in his use of 264, nos. 165-66, figs. 122, 122a into something more rough,
This pattern of study appears quite and rounded in his sense of
light, Private collection brawny, and male . . . .Unlike van
common in the careers of eighteenth- form" [Clark 1970, p. 198]). In 1728 Pier Bloemen he almost always does
century Roman volute painters. Leone Ghezzi inscribed a caricature of difficult to establish a chronology
It is his own figures, using a woebe-
I 1 'i atelli's arl develi iped In mi ,1 close him, A. Lueatcllijamoso pittore di paesi for Andrea Locatelli's ceuvre, since his gone which is usually sym-
type,
reliance upon seventeenth-century (Vatican Library, Cod. Ottob. Lat. 3116, style remained fairly homogeneous pathetic and sometimes
sources to an increasingly imaginative fol. 87), and mythological scenes in throughout his career and he rarely exquisite. He specialized in
idealization of the Roman countryside. Arcadian landscapes became a feature signed and dated his paintings. His rustic genre scenes as well as
His earliest works consist of landscape of his career in the 1 7 30s and 1740s. early style has its roots in the work of less populated landscapes and in

capriccios incorporating Roman ruins Locatelli painted a few realistic vedute Giovanni Ghisolfi and Salvator Rosa, these scenes he was imitated by
such as the Arch of Titus and Pyramid ol Roman sites on copper, notably a but these influences gave way in his his pupil Paolo Monaldi, who

O PAINTINt.S
 239

had none of Locatelli's sense of bibliography Busiri Vici 1976 tain by Bernini and memorable faqade oxen, and, above all, cows. The forum
tension and interplay between Private collection, courtesy of Hazlitt, of S. Agnese by Borromini, was one of was. after all, a cow pasture in the sev-
landscape and human figure Gooden & Fox Ltd.. London the major squares in Rome and an enteenth and eighteenth centuries
(which van Bloemen, mechani- obligatory destination on every seven- (when it was called the Campo
cally modernizing Gaspard Among Locatelli's several hundred teenth- and eighteenth-century Vaccino) and its rural character is

Poussin, also missed) ... In all surviving paintings, only a handful tourist's itinerary. Gaspar van Wittel deliberately emphasized by Locatelli.
his best pictures Locatelli's depict topographically accurate views. recorded the Piazza Navona in a series He has chosen the usual viewpoint,
humans are battered but real The earliest of these are a pair of large of paintings on parchment, copper, with his back to the Capitoline Hill,

participants in nature. They do perspective views of the projected and canvas from 1688 to 1721 (Briganti looking from west to east, but in com-
not loiter in an easy park as in Castello di Rivoli. based on Filippo 1996, nos. 36-44), and it is his angled parison to the two views in the exhibi-
Van Bloemen. Even though they Juvarra's designs, and painted in view observed from the piano nobile tion by Panini (cats. 26^. 2^4), he has
may be pensioners of a certain 1723-25 for Vittorio Amedeo II of Savoy of the Palazzo Massimo Lancelotti taken spectacular liberties with the
defeat they are inhabitants with (Castello di Racconigi, Turin). His other that Locatelli has used in the Vienna topography of the site. For example,
accurate tasks. In most of the vedute reali encompass a view of the picture. Given the contemporary this view appears to begin roughly
best pictures there is a concern Tiber with the Ponte Rotto (Stadtisches interest in views of the Piazza halfway down the forum, about where
with water, even though water is Museum-Gemaldegalerie, Wiesbaden), Navona — recorded by Panini. the fountain and water trough erected
the rarest presence in Locatelli's a view of the Tiber with the Castel Canaletto. and Vasi among
Bellotto. there in the sixteenth century and
pictures. (Clark 1970, p. 198) S.Angelo (private collection. Rome), many others — not it isunusual
at all removed to the Piazza del Quirinale
[epb] and a view of the Piazza Navona, that Locatelli would have fulfilled a on Monte Cavallo in 1816 was located.
signed and dated 17;? (Gemaldegalerie request for a vcdula esatta of the Piazza This perspective affords a clear view
der Akademie der Bildenden Kunste, Navona as a vast open-air market, of S. Maria Liberatrice (now-
Vienna: Busiri Vici 1976, nos. 213-17). although the pairing of the square destroyed) and the Farnese Gardens
240 This present view of the Roman with the forum is unusual. (Van on the right. However, the Arch of
forum is almost certainly the pendant Wittel, for example, most often linked Titus, marking the eastern boundarv
Andrea Locatelli
to the Vienna picture, with which it his views of the Piazza Navona with a of the forum, seems nearly as distant
View of the Roman Forum shares thesame dimensions and pendant showing the square of (now in Detroit),
as in Panini's view

c 1733
copper support, which Locatelli rarely St. Peter's.) and the three columns and a fragment
Oil on copper employed. Both paintings are distin- In the view of the Roman forum, as of entablature of the Temple ol Castor
28X" x j6%" (75x9; cm) guished by their pictorial quality, in thai of the Piazza Navona, Locatelli look oddly out of place (and forlorn)

provenance possibly taithlul depiction of Roman sites, and reveals his horrorvacui. filling every at the extreme right edge ol the c om-
Liechtenstein fami-
ly collections, Vienna; Hazlitt. Gooden & elision of the genres of bambocciate and inch of his composition with repre- position.
Fox. London. 1997-9X1 from whom topographical view painting. The sentatives from the lower ranks of Locatelli's interest in the depiction
acquired by the present owner Piazza Navona, with its famous foun- Roman society, horses, sheep, dogs, of low-life figures and animals vies

PAINTINGS
 240

with his concern for topography, Gemaldegakrie der Akademie der Bildenden in the Concorso Clementino at the Rome, a group of ceilings in the
however, and this almost surreal Kunste in Wien [Leipzig, Germany, Accademia di S. Luca. He quickly rose Palazzo de Carolis (now the Banca
scene of the forum as cow pasture 1927], p. 234), suggests a similar prove- to prominence and in 1694 was elected di Roma), contributing an Allegory oj
shows why he was so successful in the nance for this work, [epb] to the academy as accademico di merito. Diana (c. 1720; in situ). In Florence he
tradition of Pieter van Laer and He produced a variety of works for the enjoyed the support of Grand Duke
Netherlandish painters in Rome. His leading Roman families — the Torri, Cosimo III de' Medici, and it was
scenes of simple country life (games, BENEDETTO LUTI Colonna, Pallavicini, Barberini, and through his connection with the
dances, festivals, eating and drinking FLORENCE 1666-1724 ROME Odescalchi —and enjoyed the patron- Tuscan court that his artistic reputa-
at rural osterie) in Arcadian settings age of Pope Clement XI, Cardinal tion spread to France, England, and
that are often characterized by ruined, Benedetto Luti was one of the most Pietro Ottoboni, Cardinal Carlo Germany.
thatched buildings were evidently significant and influential artists Agosto Fabbroni, and Padre Antonin Like many young artists in Rome
popular in the 1730s, and his bamboc- active in Rome in the first quarter of Cloche, master-general of the around 1700, Luti consciously
ciate were owned by such sophisticated the Settecento. The son of a Florentine Dominican order. His public works adopted his native style of painting to

collectors as Cardinal Silvio Valenti artisan, he was born on November 17, in Rome included altarpieces for conform to the Roman classical tradi-
Gonzaga (Busiri Vici 1976, nos. 218-53). 1666, and trained in his native city S. Caterina da Siena a Magnanapoli tion and devoted years to the study of
His principal follower in this genre under the direction of Anton and Ss. Apostoli; he also painted for Raphael, Annibale Carracci,
was Paolo Monaldi, whose work in Domenico Gabbiani, from whom the churches of S. Maria degli Angeli, Domenichino, Guido Rcni and
this vein for Prince Camillo Rospigliosi he thoroughly absorbed the style of Pistoia; Ss. Jacopo e Filippo, Carlo Maratti, the grand exemplars of
and decorations in the 1770 s of the Pietro da Cortona and his late Baroque Pontedera; and S. Caterina d'ltalia, Roman disegno. His long years of study
second-floor apartments in the successors. In 1690 he left Florence for Valetta. were rewarded in 1712, when he pro-
Palazzo Barberini give an indication Rome, where in 1692 he made his Luti was invited to participate in the duced Tlic Investiture of Saint Ranieri

of the sustained popularity of genre artistic debut in the annual Saint most important papal commission to (Pisa Cathedral), his first major work
painting in SettecentoRome. Bartholomew's Day exhibition with painters in Rome in the first quarter of to reveal on a grand scale his mastery
The gift of the companion view of a monumental painting of God Cursing the century, the series of Old of the traditional Roman conventions
the Piazza Navona to the Akademie Cain after the Murder oj Abel (The Testament Prophets above the nave of invention, expression, composi-
der Bildenden Kunste, Vienna, by the National Trust, Kedleston Hall, arcade in St. John Lateran (cat. 243). tion, and anatomy. This brilliant

estate of Prince (ohann of Liechtenstein Derbyshire) and in the same year won He was also involved in the major rephrasing of Roman classicism
in 1881 (Robert Ligenbcrgcr, Die first prize in the first class of painting secular commission of the time in according to the lighting, color, and

392 PAINTIN(,S
handling of Florentine Baroque paint- colored chalk drawings (cats. 366-68). among Romans and foreigners alike, Bowron 1979; Bowron 1980: Coccia 1990,

ing resulted in a style that was distin- These studies of heads and busts of and one contemporary estimated his "Luti"; Pascoli 1992, pp. 31^-23: Bowron 1996
guished, within the context of apostles, saints, angels, and children collection of drawings to number
contemporary painting in Rome, are remarkably fresh and brilliant. around fifteen thousand.
by its effects of luminosity, color, They were deliberately imitative of the Benedetto Luti was also active as a 241
painterly richness, and naturalism. art of Correggio, which enjoyed enor- teacher and academician. He held
Benedetto Luti
The grand, rhetorical manner of the mous vogue in the eighteenth century, private drawing classes and main-
Pisa painting, which formed the basis and share with the paintings of the tained a large studio on a more formal Saint Charles Borwmeo
of all Luti's subsequent works, was sixteenth-century Emilian master basis, especially between 1710 and
Administering Extreme
taken a stage further in 171 3 in one of similar qualities of sweetness, charm, 1720. Among his more notable pupils
his greatest pictures. Saint Charles suavity, and, above all, grace of color were Pietro Bianchi, Placido Costanzi, Unction to the Victims of the
Bonomco Administering Extreme Unction and drawing. William Kent, Jean-Baptiste van Loo,
Plague
to the Plague Victims (cat. 241). In that One explanation for Luti's Carle van Loo, Giovanni Paolo Panini,
1713
year Luti also dispatched the first of restricted artistic production is his and Giovanni Domenico Piastrini. He
several paintings commissioned by activity in the Roman art world as a exercised an important teaching and Signed and dated at lower left: Roma 1713/
Benedetto Lutifece
the electoral archbishop of Mainz, connoisseur, collector, and academi- administrative role in the Accademia
Oil on canvas
Lothar Franz von Schonborn, for cian.As a result of the patronage of di S. Luca: from 1704 or earlier he was
41/2" x 6tVs" (108 x 159 cm)
Schloss Weissenstein in Grand Duke Cosimo III, Luti received elected annually as one of the judges
Pommersfelden provenance acquired by the Palatine
(cat. 244). Following countless opportunities to meet for the academy's competitions; he
Elector Johann Wilhclm. Dusseldorf; evac-
the death of Maratti in 1713, Luti's rep- foreign visitors and their agents in frequently taught the life drawing
uated to Munich in the winter of 1805-6
utation in Rome was greater than that Rome. With a reputation as the "best classes; he played a prominent role in
during the Napoleonic wars and incorpo-
of any other painter in the city, and connoisseur in Rome" (Richardson [. 1715 in the deliberations leading to the rated into the collection ot the electorate
during his lifetime it was seriously 1722, p. 182), he was one of the princi- major changes in the institution's of Bavaria: Bavarian State collections
rivaled only by that of Trevisani and on the Roman art market.
pal dealers statutes intended to consolidate its bibliography Pigage i"8, vol. 1, p. 25,
Chiari. He maintained close relationships authority in the Roman art world; and no. 1 54: Parthey, Gustav, DeutscherBUdersaak
was one of the great colorists
Luti with foreign collectors, in particular in 1720 he was elected the academy's Verzeichniss da in Dcutschland vahandenen

of eighteenth-century OeVnlder verstorbmer Meder oiler Sduden.

Rome, and his with Pierre Crozat and Pierre-Jean Principe. Luti died on June 17, 1724.
Berlin: Nicolais, 1863-64. vol. 2, p. 6),
influence on later artists, such as Mariette, and he was involved in the [epb]
no. 11; Moschini 1923, p. 111. no. 30. fig. 8:
Pompeo Batoni, was considerable. He sale and dispatch of the famous collec- BIBLIOGRAPHY PlO [1724] 1977, pp. 24-25; Voss 1924. pp. 565, 609-10: Sestieri 1975,
was not, however, a prolific painter tion of paintings of Queen Christina Botlari and Ticozzi 1822-25, vol. 2.
p. 255, no. 71; Bowron 1979, pp. 164-71. 282.
(only about seventy-five autograph of Sweden to Philippe II, Due pp. 70-84, vol. 5, pp. 304-5. and vol. 6, no. 68. fig. 9S: Bowron 1996
paintings survive), and he is probably d'Orlcans, in Paris. As a collector, Luti pp. i6s-?o (a selection ol (he artist's letters);
Baycrischc Staatsgcmaldesanimlungen.
better-known today for his pastel and achieved an even greater reputation. Moschini 192); Heinzl 1966; Sestieri 19^3;
Munich. Staatsgalerie Schleisshcini

PAINTINGS 393
 The conditions of artistic patronage in Charles, wearing a violet mozzetta, is

Italychanged dramatically at the end shown in the streets of the city amid a
of the seventeenth century, and the crowd of dying citizens. He is flanked
traditional sources of patronage by a deacon holding a missal and a
expanded with an influx of collectors server bearing a plate with the chrism.
and their agents from London, Paris, Although the literary sources report
Diisseldorf, Vienna, Munich, that the saint administered the sacra-
Stockholm, and Madrid. One of the ments of Confirmation, Penance, and
most energetic of these new patrons Extreme Unction to the plague-
was the Palatine Elector Johann stricken, here there is little doubt that
Wilhelm (1658-1716), the aristocratic the woman in the foreground receives
and elegant prince of the Holy Roman the Last Rites.
Empire. In 1678, after becoming ruler The principal source for Luti's
of the duchies of Julich and Berg, he design is Pierre Mignard's 1657 altar
rapidly expanded his art collections for S. Carlo ai Catinari, Rome, Saint
and established the foundation for a Charles Borromeo Administering Eucharist
picture gallery that eclipsed all other to the Dying. Although replaced ten
eighteenth-century German collec- years later by Pietro da Cortona's
tions.He acquired masterpieces by painting of a related episode in the life

Rembrandt, Rubens, Van Dyck, Titian, of the saint, Mignard's composition

Raphael, and Veronese, the majority continued to inspire eighteenth-
of which have passed into the century painters through Jean Audran's
Bavarian state collections, but he was engraving. Besides the general com-
also keen to acquire paintings by con- positional arrangement of the princi-
temporary masters and filled his gal- pal figures, Luti has adopted from
leries with Italian late Baroque Mignard's painting such specific
paintings. thematic motifs as the young acolyte
The two paintings by Luti owned by bearing a candle, the stricken woman
—
Johann Wilhelm the present canvas, holding a rosary, the dying infant
finished September 30, 1713, and an sliding from her lap, and the ribbon,
Education of the Virgin (1715; Alte flask, and bowl in the lower right
Pinakothek, Munich) — were probably foreground.
acquired as part of the continuing Luti has also borrowed from such
exchange of gifts between the courts other obvious sources as Marcantonio's
of Florence and Diisseldorf. On May engravings after Raphael, Nicolas
17, 1691, the elector had taken a second Poussin's Plague of Ashdod (a copy was
wife, Anna Maria Luisa de' Medici, in the Palazzo Colonna by 1715), and 242 painted in 1704 for one of the most
daughter of Cosimo III, and the occa- Domenichino's Saint Cecilia important patrons of the day,
Benedetto Luti
sion prompted a dispatch of presents Distributing Alms (S. Luigi dei Francesi, Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni, sparked
from the grand duke to his son-in-law, Rome). The influence of these classi- Christ and the Woman of renewed interest in the technique in
including paintings and sculptures cal models is evident in the lucid orga- Rome in the first half of the eighteenth
Samaria
executed by his favorite artists in both nization of the figures, the solidity century. Placido Costanzi, Sebastiano
Rome, including
Florence and Luti, and definition of the individual forms, c. 1715-20 Conca, and Francesco Trevisani
Anton Domenico Gabbiani, and in the sharp, precise drawing. Luti Inscribed in ink on the reverse of the sup- notably painted small, exquisite paint-
port: Mr. West, and an illegible catalogue
Massimiliano Soldani Benzi, has used these classicizing sources to ings, sacred and profane, on copper
and Giovanni Battista Foggini. moderate the Florentine Baroque style
number or price: W 18
but one can find examples of the
Oil on copper
The earlier of the paintings by he brought to Rome in order to create technique in the oeuvres of Batoni,
14/j" x 11/4" (37 x 30 cm)
Luti acquired by the elector for his an entirely original and personal pic- Giaquinto, and many other contem-
provenance said to be from Benjamin
Diisseldorf gallery depicts an event torial solution to the difficult porary Roman artists.
West's collection; Arthur Appleby,
in the life of Charles Borromeo demands of history painting. The These painters utilized copper with
London, i960; from whom purchased by
(1534-1584), one of the most exalted Schleissheim painting represents a Anthony Morris Clark, Minneapolis and the deliberate intention of fashioning
figures in Counter-Reformation art. major success for Luti in his effort to New York, 1960-76; private collection something that would be out of the
Popular devotion to the saint, viewed achieve a pictorial clarity and exhibition Chicago, Minneapolis, and ordinary and remarkable, and the
by his contemporaries as an exemplar grandeur of effect worthy of Raphael Toledo 1970, cat. no. 84 small cabinet-sized pictures with their
of Christian charity, continued undi- and Maratti. One explanation of Luti's bibliography Sestieri 1973, p. 252, no. 33; jewel-like surfaces and delicate han-
minished into the eighteenth century, contemporary success is his ability to Bowron 1979, pp. 179-80, 268, no. 32, dling found an enthusiastic response
especially in Italy. Saint Charles was, engage his audience sympathetically fig. 109 in both cultivated lay and ecclesiasti-

moreover, revered personally by and make the drama of the scene he Private collection, Houston cal circles of patronage Rome.
in

Johann Wilhelm — himself a devout depicts a real and present event to the Benedetto Luti's Christthe Woman
and
Catholic, educated by Jesuits — who observer. Another is found in the Although paintings in oil on copper of Samaria, once a treasured work in
once paid a visit to the relics of Saint painter's own aesthetic sensibility, his are generally associated with northern the collection of Anthony Morris
Charles in the church of S. Ambrogio preference for quiet poses and dimin- European painting of the late six- Clark, shows the soavita of handling
in Milan. The most notable event in ishedmovement, for subtle color har- teenth and seventeenth centuries, a that he could achieve in painting on
the saint's life occurred on August 2, monies and tonal nuances, and for number of Roman Settecento painters the smooth, hard surface of a metal
1576, during the plague that devas- refined emotional content, [epb] employed the support for small support. Luti was both the most sensi-
tated Milan. In the extensive hagio- cabinet paintings. Copper had of tive painter and the most individual
graphical literature that flourished course been used as a support for colorist of the early eighteenth
at the time of his canonization in 1610, small devotional paintings by century in Rome, and the exquisite
his heroism in caring for the dead and Annibale Carracci, Guido Reni, and color of the garments worn by Christ
dying and administering the sacra- Domenichino in the early seventeenth and the Samaritan woman are
ments to them was extolled and popu- century, but Carlo Maratti's small particularly memorable.
larized as a theme in the visual arts. In Holy Eamily (Gemaldegalerie, The painting is typical ot Luti's
the Schlcisshcim painting. Saint Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna), mature devotional works, which are

?94 PAINTINGS
usually harmoniously composed 243
scenes with a few, often just one or
Benedetto Luti
two, noble and robust figures. The
composition has a simplicity and sta- Study for "The Prophet Isaiah"
bilityworthy of its ultimate composi- c. 1716-17
tional prototype in Annibale Oil on canvas
Carracci's Christ and the Woman of 29/2" x 21%" X 55-5 cm)
(75
Samaria in the Pinacoteca di Brera. provenance Palazzo Albani alle Quattro
Luti's treatment of the interval of Fontane, Rome, at least until 1819; Bryan
space between the figures, which collection, England; acquired by the pre-
allows the wellhead and fluted sent owner at Bonham's, London, in the

1970s
column to exercise important roles in
the rhythm of the design and permits
exhibition London 1995, cat. no. 26

a glimpse of the Alban Hills in the dis-

bibliography Conca 1981, p. 127: Pascoli

tance, is particularly skillful. On the 1992, p. 321

Walpole Gallery, London

evidence of the weight and clarity of
form, and the accomplished and bal-
anced composition, the work may be Benedetto Luti was one of the artists

dated to the years 1715-20. most

selected to participate in the

The differences between late important papal commission to

Baroque and early eighteenth-century painters in early eighteenth-century
painting inRome are vividly revealed Rome, the decoration of the interior
when Christ and the Woman of Samaria is of St. John Lateran. When Cardinal
compared with a painting nearly iden- Benedetto Pamphili became arch-
tical in subject, size, and format by priest of the basilica in 1699, he found
Ciro Ferri formerly in the the cathedral church of Rome much
Liechtenstein collection (London, as it had been left after its partial

Christie's, November 29, 1974, lot 57. refurbishment by Borromini earlier in

reproduction). Ciro's declamatory late the century. At the architect's death in

Baroque manner has been trans- 1667, the twelve large niche taberna-

formed by Luti, in Rudolph cles that line the nave were left empty
Wittkower's phrase, into an "elegant along with twelve empty oval stucco
and sweet eighteenth-century style" frames of Borromini's design on the
(Wittkower 1973, p. 467). He has clerestory level of the nave walls.
accomplished by unifying his
this Under the direction of a congregazione
tonal range within a narrow register deputized by Pamphili, twelve colos-
by the liberal use of gray; creating an sal marble statues of Apostles were
impression of greater luminosity with commissioned for the niches from 243

a higher scale of values; and employ- Camillo Rusconi, Pierre Legros, Pietro
ing a brighter and warmer palette Stefano Monnot, and other sculptors. their subjects are as follows: and as late as 1819 the paintings of
than his predecessor. Typically, Luti's Exactly when the decision was Benedetto Luti, Isaiah; Francesco Luti, Nasini, Muratori, and Benefial
forms are relaxed and complex in
less reached to fill the oval surrounds Trevisani, Baruch; Andrea Procaccini, were still in the palace (cited in
attitude than those Baroque
of his late above with canvas paintings of the Daniel; Luigi Garzi, Joel; Giuseppe London 1995, cat. no. 26), although
predecessors, their volume is Prophets is uncertain, but according Bartolomeo Chiari, Obadiah; Pier the others had been dispersed or
increased by ample drapery, and their to a contemporary account it must Leone Ghezzi, Micah; Sebastiano transferred to the Vatican gallery.
physical movement diminished. have been made before 1714, the date Conca, Jeremiah; Giovanni Paolo There is a significant variation
The evident sincerity and contem- of the death of the papal architect Melchiori, Ezekiel; Giovanni Odazzi, between the London oil sketch and
plative piety of the painting are quite Carlo Fontana (for the particulars of Hosea; Giuseppe Nasini, Amos; Marco the final painted version: the Virgin,
in keeping with Settecento religious the Lateran project and its signifi- Benefial, jonah; and Domenico Maria who in the sketch appears in a celes-
feeling. Few writers have commented cance for the art patronage of Clement Muratori, Nahum. tial vision, was replaced, doubtless
upon Luti's refined spiritual temper, XI, see Johns 1993, pp. 75-92). Luti's Isaiah (reproduced in Johns upon the advice of the congregazione,
but certainly the mode of feeling The rationale for decorating the 1993, fig- 43) is depicted in the act of by the abstract monogram of the
expressed in his private religious clerestory level of the basilica with reading his prophetic codex; above Virgin. However, between this oil
works is as distinctive as their pre- Prophets was based on Saint Paul's him is the monogram of the Virgin, and the final design there
bozzetto
cious and subtle effects of color and dictum, "Super fundamentum and under his foot on the right is a must have been other preparatory
tone, and their gentle and delicate Apostolorum et Prophetarum" tablet inscribed with the words of the studies, such as the beautiful red,
figures. The sentimentality of his (Ephesians 2: 20): "The Church has text that the Evangelists accepted as a black, and white chalk drawing at Yale

devotional images, like those of the the Apostles and the Prophets for its prohecy of the virginal conception of that depicts Isaiah in a pose and atti-

best of his contemporaries such as foundation and Christ Jesus for its Jesus: "A young woman is with child tude quite close to his final disposition
Sebastiano Conca, is saved from cornerstone." The principal contribu- and she will bear a son" (Isaiah 7: 14). in the finished canvas (Bowron 1979.
lachrymosity by a deep-rooted gravity tor was Lothar Franz von Schonborn, The Lateran committee overseeing the p. 208, n. 98, fig. 146). This drawing
and seriousness, which is the legacy of the elector of Mainz (see cat. 244), commission seems to have exercised represents Luti's idea of the figure at a
Seicento religious attitudes. who had not previously participated close supervision throughout all moment immediately after it had been
A painting by Luti's pupil Placido in the Lateran decorations. The stages of the work. Each painter was developed from the life model, but
Costanzi of the same subject and remote location of the Prophets high required to submit a small modello for preceding the execution of at least
composition, together with a pendant above the nave of the Lateran has official approval, and in some cases one other design in oils.
Noli me langere (Busiri Vici 1974, caused their critical neglect but, as changes were ordered. An unusual The Lateran Prophets were installed
pp. 140, 144, figs. 169-70), suggests the Pascoli noted, the twelve painters stipulation was that, after approval of in their stucco surrounds in time for
existence of a lost companion for the responsible were "twelve of the most the first design in oils, the artists had the feast of the birth of John the
present painting, [epb] celebrated painters in Rome" (Pascoli to submit a full-scale version for Baptist on June 24, 1718,311 especially
1992, p. 321). Beginning with the first recvaluation. These models were important holy day for the Lateran
prophet on the left of the nave, closest transferred to the Palazzo del basilica. Luti was probably engaged in

to the major altar, the painters and Quirinale to be displayed as a group. the Lateran project from about 1716 to

PAINTINGS
 i7i8, and as late as January 17 of that
year he wrote to the Elector of Mainz
apologizing for not being able to
deliver a painting owing to his work
for the basilica (Bowron 1979, p. 206,
n. 94). In the light of the compositional
differences between the Walpole
Gallery bozzetto and the final design
(there is no indication of the inscribed
tablet, for example) and Luti's loose,

improvisatory handling, the sketch

would appear to belong to a fairly early
stage in the evolution of the composi-
tional scheme. With its extraordinary
pinks, vermilions, and yellows, this
sketch is a splendid example of what
Lione Pascoli admired as Luti's "tender
and delicate manner, softly and gently
colored with perfect drawing and har-
monious composition modulated with
his exquisite taste" (Pascoli 1992, p. 317).

[epb]

244
Benedetto Luti
The Education of Cupid
1717

Signed and dated at lower left: sack/

ROMAN! IMPERII/ EQVES BENEDICTVS LVTl/
ROMAE PINCEBAT/ ANNO MDCCXVII
Oil on canvas
106//' x 78" (271 x 198 cm)
provenance commissioned by Lothar
Franz von Schonborn, Elector of Mainz.
in 1713 and installed in the audience hall
in Schloss Weissenstein. Pommerstelden
exhibition Rome 1959, cat. no. 354

bibliography Moschini 1923, p. 111.

no. 15; Voss 1924, pp. 362, 610; Sestieri 1973,

p. 252, no. 44; Bowron 1979. pp. 198-203,

273-74, no. 47, fig. 138; Carlsen and Mejer
1982, pp. 33, 39-40, n. 40. fig. 4
Graf von Schonborn, Kunstsammlungen,
Pommersfelden

Mythological subjects, particularly

those calling for the depiction of the
female nude, enjoyed a resurgence in
late Baroque Italian painting. Among
those who most persistently
requested such subjects were the
German princes of the Holy Roman
Empire. Having recovered from the
effects of the Thirty Years' War, which
had devastated their cities, impover-
ished their treasuries, and driven away
native artists and architects, the
German rulers turned to Italy as a
source of artistic endeavor. From the
1690s, the Wittelsbachs, Schonborns,
Liechtensteins, Margraves of
Brandenburg, and others employed One of the leaders of the German devoted to painting, sculpture, and had increased to 500 pictures, neces-
not only Italian painters, sculptors, cultural resurgence, together with the architecture. In 1711 he began the con- sitating the transfer of some to his
and architects but also musicians, palatine elector (see cat. 241), was struction of a summer residence at other residence, Schloss Gaibach.
singers, and dancers. This new source Lothar Franz von Schonborn Pommersfelden in Franconia, Schloss As early as 1708 Lothar Franz,
oi patronage proved fruitful fora (1655—1729), arch-chancellor of the Weissenstein, which also served as the acting through his agents in Rome,
number ol Roman painters in the Holy Roman Empire, Elector-arch- main repository for his collection of the Hofrat Bauer von Heppenstein
early eighteenth century, encouraging bishop of Mainz, Prince-bishop of pictures. By 1715 construction of the and the Abate Giovanni Melchiori,
them to modify their production to Bamberg, and canon of Wiirzburg. gallery in the palace was sufficiently began commissioning works from
conform to the tastes of these princes Typical among the German autocratic advanced for 250 paintings to be Roman painters, including Francesco
(Bowron 1979, p. 190, n. 60). rulers, Lothar Franz was passionately hung: by 1719 the elector's collection Trevisani and Sebastiano Conca. He

396 PAINTIN(,S
 —

favored small cabinet pictures of in the breadth and idyllic quality of its From 1^20 Mancini was often to be altarpieces in the church of S. Maria

mythological subjects and larger can- pastoral mood; the large and tranquil found in Rome, which was to become dei Servi, among which San Pellegrino

vases intended for decorative pur- figures in their landscape setting are his home and the main center of his Laziosi Healed by the Crucifix stands out

poses such as overdoor paintings. The undoubtedly intended to recall some- work, and in 1725 he was made an for its intensity.

shared feature of such works was their thing of Corrcggio's original effect. academician of S. Luca. But he also Examples of secular decoration by
ability to delight through both Another underlying influence upon strengthened his ties with the region Mancini are scarce. After his youthful
content and form. Lothar Franz the Education a) Cupid is Pictro da of his birth, particularly the town of Sun Chariot, painted in the Palazzo

delighted particularly in erotic themes Cortona's frescoes in the Sala della Fano. Outstanding among the works Albacini in Forli (where his master,

and demanded female nudes above all Stufa, Palazzo Pitti, Florence. Luti was, that he did for the town is the great Cignani, had also done paintings), his

else, even in Old and New Testament after all, a Florentine-trained painter, altarpiece for the church of S. Cristina, most important secular work is the

themes. The earliest appearance of and his admiration for his great coun- The Virgin and Child with Saints Christina, decoration of the Coffee House in the

Benedetto Luti's name in connection tryman is evident here. The figures Francis of Assist, and Felix of Cantalice Palazzo Colonna in Rome with The
with Lothar Franz occurs in 1712, and especially recall the animation of (cat. 245). It is one of the masterpieces Fable of Psyche, done in the 1730s or
the following year the artist supplied gesture and pose, the specific turn of of eighteenth-century painting from early 1740s. Toward the end of the
the elector with a pair of mythologies head and glancing eyes developed by the Marches and is a good example of 1730s there was an episode that preju-
representing Diana and Endymion and Cortona in the 1630s and 1640s. The the tender style, with effects sugges- diced Mancini's relations with his
Venus and Adonis (1713: Schloss pose of Cupid quotes directly a putto tive of pastel, which characterizes the native town. In December 1737,
Weissenstein, Pommersfelden; in Cortona's Age of Gold, but even the whole production. In 1724 he
artist's wanting some social recognition,
Bowron 1979. pp- 272-73. figs. 131-32). general features of Venus, her high had taken on the young painter the artist asked to be included in the
Even before the mythologies of 1713 brow, slender nose, and tapering chin, Sebastiano Ceccarini, from Fano, as group of local nobility. Refusing this

arrived in Pommersfelden. the elector as well as her breadth of form, reveal a pupil. Ceccarini's rapid progress in request, the authorities even denied
commissioned two more paintings the predominant influence of public commissions was one of the him citizenship. From that moment
from Luti. notably the monumental Cortona's models, [epb] reasons why, in 1726, the people of his dealings with Sant'Angelo became
Education of Cupid. The artist informed Fano proclaimed his teacher, Mancini, rarer, and he went ever more fre-

Hofrat Bauer in 1716 that the painting an honorary citizen. It is highly likely quently to Rome. With the election
was completed —adding his opinion FRANCESCO MANCINI that the success of the young of Pope Benedict XIV Lambertini,
that it was his finest work to date sant'angelo in vado 1679-1758 Ceccarini's paintings was due to the Mancini's position there was strength-
but he insisted upon the necessity of ROME direct intervention of his master: one ened. He was
in fact one of the pope's

reworking certain passages "per dare proof is The Virgin Appearing to San favorites,and in 1740 Benedict con-
alcune grazie maggiori." The work is. Mancini was born in a small town Rocco, signed by Ceccarini (Pinacoteca ferred a knighthood on Mancini. The
indeed, Luti's most impressive mytho- in the Marche, near Urbino. He was Civica, Fano), which repeats in reverse same pope entrusted him with the
logical painting and, after its comple- trained under the most important a composition by Mancini and con- altarpiece for the high altar in the
tion in 1717, became the source of Emilian master of that time, Carlo tains several touches typical of basilica of S. Maria Maggiore, which
countless repetitions of paintings, Cignani, alongside the slightly older Mancini himself. was being renovated for the jubilee
prints, and drawings. The elector's Marcantonio Franceschini. It is not In 1730 began Mancini's period of year of 1750, and also the design for
impatience is understandable when it known precisely when the young greatest achievement and recognition. one of the enormous altarpieces for
is understood that this painting was painter from the Marches began His activity expanded not only in Italy St. Peter's, Saint Peter Healing the Lame

intended to fulfill a much more signif- work; this was not in his home town, but also in Portugal, where he sent Man, which was subsequently repro-
icant role in the decorative program however, but in the neighboring region works for the royal monastery of duced in mosaic.
of Schloss Weissenstein than most of Romagna. At this time (the first Mafra, the pictorial decoration of By now a group of new pupils was
previous writers have suggested. It decade of the eighteenth century) he which had been entrusted by King gathering around Mancini, including
was not placed in the Schlossgalerie did some paintings for Cesena, San John V to painters of the Roman the painter and theorist Giovanni
but in the great Marmorsaal. or Pellegrino Leziosi Heals a Blind Man school. Mancini also took part in Andrea Lazzarini. Nicola Lapiccola,
saloon, the culminating achievement (church of S. Domenico) and San Maura, another ambitious decorative and the gifted Domenico Corvi.
of the palace, which Lothar Franz Abbot (abbey of Madonna del Monte), program of the time, that of Pisa Although Mancini's repertory of
intended as a great audience hall inwhich the influence of Cignani is Cathedral, dedicated to the stories of images was limited, his highly refined
(Walter Jiirgen Hofmann, Schloss very evident. Mancini's destiny was Pisa's saints and beati; his contribution draftsmanship and muted colors
Pommersfelden: Geschichte seiner sealedby his meeting with the cultured was the great canvas The Blessed stand as a link between the moderate
Entstefiung [Nuremburg: H. Carl, 1968], and authoritative head of the Gambacorti Founding His Order. In 1736 Emilian classicism of the early eigh-
pp. 137-41)- Camaldolese order of monks. Father he moved to Macerata, on the invita- teenth century and the more extreme
The Education of Cupid, which was Pietro Canneti, who entrusted to him tion of one of the principal represen- stance, anticipating the Neoclassicism
once considerably larger than its the decoration of Ravenna's renovated tatives of the town's aristocracy, adopted by some of his own pupils
present dimensions, in order to corre- Biblioteca Classense; there, between Guarniero Marefoschi; there he (and supporters, such as Mariano
spond to the accompanying thematic 1713 and 1714, Mancini frescoed the stayed, almost without a break, until Rossi) toward the end of the century
pictures in the decorative scheme, ceiling with The Triumph of Divine the end of the decade. For Marefoschi in Rome.
occupied the center of the main Wisdom and also painted the large can- Mancini carried out the main part of In 1750 Mancini was appointed
The education of gods
entrance wall. vases of The Union of the Latin and Greek the pictorial decoration (frescoes and principal of the Accademia di S. Luca,
and heroes was a popular theme since Churches and Gregory X and Graziano canvases) of one of the most refined a role that he filled until 1751. Among
the Renaissance, reflecting interest in Compile the Sacred Canons. Father eighteenth-century religious com- his last works in Rome are two altar-
the revival of learning. The subject of Canneti's protection helped Mancini plexes in the Marche. the little basilica pieces for the church of S. Gregorio al

Mercury, the god considered since to obtain increasingly important of the Madonna della Miscricordia, Celio. His final work was once more
antiquity to be the inventor of the commissions, particularly in Umbria. built by Luigi Vanvitclli, while two for his home town. The Triumph of Saint
alphabet and of the arts in general, In 1719 he was commissioned to fresco other canvases in the church were Michael Archangel, donated to the cathe-
teaching Cupid and Venus the Liberal Foligno Cathedral — a project that kept entrusted to Sebastiano Conca. dral of Sant'Angelo in Vado in 1754. [la]
Arts is of especial importance in this him busy for several years; in the Among the works that Mancini did in BIBLIOGRAPHY Calalogodclkpilture 1740:
context, both iconographically and second half of the 1720s he was asked Macerata should be mentioned the Tomani Amiani. Stefano. Cuida storico artis-
for its obvious reference to a famous to paint the cupola of the Oratorian altarpiece San Giuliano, depicting the tica di Fano (Manuscript 1853). Edited by

version of the subject by Correggio, church in Perugia. Previously, also for town's protector, for the cathedral, Franco BattisteDL Pesaro. Italy: Banca
Popolare Pesarese, 1981: D'Aciardi 1914;
Venus with Mercury and Cupid (c. 1525; the Oratorians, he had carried out an and the two paintings The Crucifixion
Pictrangcli 1951: Scsticri 19". "Mancini":
National Gallery. London), in the altarpiece in Citta di Castcllo, The and The Virgin Appearing to Saint Philip
Battistelli and Diotallevi 1982; Pietrangeli
Settecento an exemplar of grace and Meeting of Christ and Saint Peter ("Domine Neri for the Oratorian church. He is
1982, pp. 145-46; Schiavo 198s, "Virtuosi":
elegance. Much of the allure of the quo vadis?') (Pinacotcca, Citta di also represented in his native town, Fucili Bartohtcd 1986. pp. 449-54; Clcri
Pommersfelden Education of Cupid lies Castcllo). Sant'Angclo in Vado. with a group of 1992; Ambrosini Massari. Anna Maria.

PAINTINGS 397
 the painting on the high altar; and ANTON VON MARON
although it indicates neither subject VIENNA 1731-1808 ROME
nor artist, must certainly refer to the
it

altarpiece by Mancini. Thus, even if Although Maron produced some

Mancini had not yet started the paint- history paintings, it was for his por-
ing, he must already have been in traits that he was most highly

negotiation with the friars. A dating esteemed in his lifetime. It was in

between 1715 and 1720 is also con- his birthplace, Vienna, that Maron
firmed by stylistic reasoning, in that received his first artistic training. In
the Fano altarpiece is extremely close, his obituary — so far the only source
in its elongated figures and angular for this information — Carlo Nighem
draperies, to the altarpiece for the (probably Karl Aigen, a member of the
Oratorians of Citta di Castello (now Vienna academy) and Daniel Gran are
in the Pinacoteca there) entitled The named as his teachers. From 1755 he
Meeting of Christ and Saint Peter continued his studies in Rome, where
("Domine, quo vaciis?") painted in he lived, from 1756, in the house of
1718-19, before he moved to Foligno. Anton Raphael Mengs; until 1761 he
The altarpiece for the Fano was Mengs's pupil and studio assis-
Capuchins would therefore represent tant. Two joint commissions for fres-
an important moment of passage coes in Rome are known from this
between the painter's early indepen- period: the ceiling of the church of S.
dent activity, carried out mainly in Eusebio (1757) and the Parnassus at the
Emilia-Romagna under the influence Villa Albani (1760-61). Mengs, who
of Cignani, and his mature activity, had no previous experience in the
when his center of gravity shifted to field of fresco painting, made use of
Rome, with consequently new artistic Maron's existing practical knowledge
sources (the school of Maratti and of the fresco technique. This collabo-
Benedetto Luti in particular, but also ration brought about a fundamental
the legacy of Pietro da Cortona). Even change of style in Maron's work: he
if the ties with Cignani and Emilian turned away from the Viennese late

painting are evident, Mancini here Baroque style and adopted a new
reveals his own strong identity: the formal vocabulary influenced by
extraordinary mother-of-pearl Roman tastes and Mengs's reforming
translucence of the figures, who ideas. Of all Mengs's pupils Maron
appear weightless, and the pastel-like was regarded in the Roman art world
delicacy of the handling outstrip any as the one whose artistic development
245 other Emilian painter of the period, had been most deeply influenced by
and seem to originate from a personal the German's precepts, which Maron
Rodolfo Battistini, and Raffaela Morselli,
Sant'Angelo in Vado. In the first two rethinking of the late Guido Reni. The continued to represent even after his
eds. La Pinacoteca Civka di Fano. catalogo gen-
Cassa Risparmio
he lived and worked for a time; to tenderness of gestures and feelings teacher's death in 1779. Over the years
erate: collczione di di Fano.
Milan: carifano, 1993: Sestieri 1994, vol. 1,
Sant'Angelo he sent work from Rome. that informs the entire composition is a lifelong friendship developed out of
pp. 111-13 Of the works created for Fano this characteristic of the art of the Marche, the teacher-pupil relationship. This
altarpiece is definitely the most ambi- and is linked to the gentle, poetic was further manifested through
tious, and it represents one of the quality of the afjetti which found in Maron's marriage in 1765 to Therese
245 highest peaks of the artist's early Barocci a model to be imitated for Concordia, Mengs's elder sister and a
work. It is held to be the oldest of centuries. Another point to stress is successful miniature painter.
Francesco Mancini
those that Mancini is known to have the unusual presence of the Early Mengs's summons to Madrid in
Virgin and Child with Saints done for Fano. Although a firmly doc- Christian martyr Saint Christina, 1761 entailed a fundamental change in
umented date is not available, various characterized by arrows, the instru- Maron's position as an artist in Rome.
Christina, Francis of Assisi,
details indicate that it is early, before ments of her torture, in this otherwise He now ran Mengs's studio, together
and Felix of Cantalice the fresco decoration of Foligno thoroughly Franciscan picture. The with the Wiirzburg court painter
1715-20 Cathedral, for which Mancini