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Author(s): E. H. Gombrich
Source: The Burlington Magazine, Vol. 122, No. 922, Special Issue Devoted to Sculpture
(Jan., 1980), pp. 70-71
Published by: Burlington Magazine Publications Ltd.
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/879877
Accessed: 11-08-2019 22:06 UTC
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della Illustrissima Signora Madamma di bona memoria')When mustI first visited Mantua as a student my head was full of
have resembled the Augustus and Livia gem reproduced debatesonabout the status and meaning of 'Mannerism' in
Plate 39 in Fulvio Ursini's Imagines Illustrium, Antwerpsixteenth-century art. Being startled by the Palazzo del Te I
[1606]. Accordingly, it could never have shown the was horned
surprised to find that it had not yet been mentioned in
these discussions and that in particular Giulio Romano's
Jupiter associated with Alexander as seen in the double portrait
of Alexander and Olympias reproduced on Plate 6. In hisbuilding
com- designs had been completely neglected. This was
mentary Ursini specifies that the Augustus-Livia plasma beforein-
Rudolf Wittkower had published his seminal paper of
taglio closely resembles one formerly in Pietro Bembo's 1934 on the Laurenziana as a document of mannerist
collec-
tion. From this it can be ascertained that Ursini was speaking aesthetics,
of and the question whether or not the term Man-
the cornelian version also known to Enea Vico who discussed it nerism could be usefully applied to architecture was still sub-
on page 92 of Book Two of his Discorsi sopra le medagliejudice. de gliJulius von Schlosser readily accepted the thesis subject
antichi [1555]. Vico was not directly concerned with the of Bem-
'Giulio Romano als Architekt' and I found to my satisfaction
bo cornelian, however, but with a most beautiful andthat large
much of what I had read about the alleged anti-classical
cameo of inestimable worth in the Grotta of the Duke of Man- style applied to many of Giulio's bizarre designs, while others
tua. Whereas Peiresc, writing at the beginning of the seven- seemed to me to be almost ostentatiously restrained and
teenth century, merely mentioned the then present owner, classical.
Vico I made much of this tension and of what it appeared
located this cameo in the very rooms built for Isabella d'Este to signify in psychological terms, though I explicitly rejected
the recourse to the 'spirit of the age' as an explanation of these
and he did this in print less than twenty years after her death.
In the course of discussing various errors in past attempts to
characteristics.
identify portrait types, Vico turned to the question of the true When I revisited the Palazzo after the war, I wondered
portrait of Livia which si vede al naturale insieme con quella
whether I had not been too portentous about the festive and
del suo marito e col suo nome in lettere scrittofra le cose rare
frivolous
e decoration of this pleasure house; at the same time I
preciose della Grotta dell'Eccellentissimo Signor Duca di had
Man-also been conditioned, through my association with the
tova scolpita in uno bellissimo e gran cameo di inestimabile
Warburg Institute, to look at mottoes and emblems I had not
prego, alla cui similitudinene ha una in corgniuola intagliata
even noticed as a student. It soon turned out that Frederick
Monsignore Bembo. In the light of Vico's description (his asser-
Hartt's eyes had been equally sharpened, and when he pub
tion that Isabella's gem was inscribed with Livia's name)
edand
his important article in the Journal of the Warbur
based on the visual evidence provided by the engraving in Ur-
Courtauld Institutes of 1950 on 'Gonzaga symbols in the P
sini's book, it would now appear that neither the gem in Len-
zo del Te', a lucky find enabled me to supplement his ac
ingrad nor the cameo in Vienna can be traced back to Isabella
with a text explaining the astrological imagery of the Sala
d'Este's collection. If correct, this means that the Gonzaga
Venti. Soon afterwards I also noticed a motif derived from the
cameo known to Rubens and described by Peiresc mustHypnerotomachia
have in the Sala di Psiche - a clue not mention
entered the collection at a later point. by Verheyen though it led him to a fresh reading of that cyc
The type of archival research initiated by McCrory and the
(but refusing to recognise Adonis in the youth in the bath).
search through sixteenth-century printed sources advocated While
by my comments remained close to the texts, Frederick
this note will certainly lead to new and potentially exciting
Hartt followed the trend of the post-war period in emphasisin
discoveries concerning a major aspect of renaissance collec-
the allegorical import of the topics represented, seeing in the
tions. Indeed a hitherto overlooked reference to a Hannibal Psyche room 'A sort of Neoplatonic ascensio, from inanima
medallion in Isabella's collection has recently surfaced in matter
the to the godhead' - the very theme that had also bee
writings of Paolo Giovio and this may be taken as indicativefound
of on more or less good evidence in several of
the discoveries that remain to be made even concerning Michelangelo's
her religious creations.
well documented possessions. Professor Verheyen rejects both the psychological and
CLIFFORD M. BROWN
philosophical bias of these previous interpretations. He righ
points out that some of the irregularities which have been
credited to Giulio's anti-classical leanings were simply due to
The Literature of Art the practical need of incorporating an existing villa in a larger
structure. Moreover he has commonsense on his side when he
The Palazzo del Te
warns us against taking lighthearted jokes as symptoms of de
BY E. H. GOMBRICH anxiety. Maybe he goes a little too far here; for though I
In recent years much progress has been made in our sympathise with his reaction against my own reading of t
knowledge of the Palazzo del Th and its history. The publica- Sala dei Giganti in terms of Edgar Alan Poe's nightmare
tion in 1967, by Professor Verheyen, of a set (now in stories, I am not sure that humour need exclude the frisson o
horror.
DUisseldorf) of detailed drawings, of the building, accompany-
ing Giacomo Strada's description of 1567-8, provided in- I believe the author is also right in pointing to Aretino rather
valuable information, and was supplemented in 1971 by Kurt *The Palazzo del TO in Mantua, Images of Love and Politics. By Egon
Forster and Richard Tuttle, who analysed the extensive Verheyen. 224 pp. + 72 ills. + 6 plans. (John Hopkins University Press),
eighteenth-century restorations and alterations. Professor ?15 .85
70
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71
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