Studi di Storia dell'Arte 24
21x30 bross, pp. 288; 336 ill. b/n e col, 2013 - ISSN 1123-5683
Liliana Barroero, Cristina De Benedictis, Anna De Floriani, Gert Kreytenberg,
Francesco Federico Mancini, Enrica Neri Lusanna, Vincenzo Pacelli, Steffi Roettgen, Pietro Ruschi,
Erich Schleier, Nicolas Schwed, Anchise Tempestini.
Marcello Castrichini direttore responsabile
Stefano Causa
Mina Gregori e i napoletani
Mina Gregories and Neapolitans
Ginevra Utari
Una data per la Croce di San Marco a Firenze
A date for the Cross of San Marco in Florence
IThe Cross
of the Florentine church of San Marco is the biggest painted Florentine
cross come down to us. The article gives notice of the discovery of the
will of Domina Lapa de Saltarelli, dated May 22, 1339, in which she left
a golden florin in to finance the work painting; a very similar
chronology to that of the commemorative stone that in 1341 reminds Fia
de’Caponsacchi as patron of the Major Chapel of the church. This
chronological term starts the reconstruction of the events of the work
within the church of San Marco, for
which it was commissioned by
Silvestrini. Furthermore, we proceed with a critical and stylistic
reevaluation of the Cross, currently in restoration at the Opificio
delle Pietre Dure of Florence, focusing on the two main attributions of
the work related to Stefano Fiorentino or Puccio di Simone. The findings
emerging from the comparison with the style and the decorative details
typical of the activity of Bernardo Daddi, bring to validate an idea
already advanced by critics, i.e. that the commission of the monumental
Cross has begun in the workshop of Giotto and, after his death, was
brought to completion by his students in a mixture of styles among which
is likely to find the presence of the
young Puccio di Simone.
Joseph Polzer
Did Simone Martini visit Buffalmacco in the Campo Santo of Pisa?
A
small sinopia depicting Saint Martin who divides his mantle with the
beggar that appears on the arriccio of Buffalmacco’s Last
Judgement mural, as well as a tiny head of an
angel (?) located on the arriccio of the adjacent Triumph of Death, both
located in
the
Campo Santo in Pisa, are stylistically and iconographically closely
related to the oeuvre of Simone Martini. They clearly differ in style
from Buffalmacco’s sinopie surrounding them. Significantly the sinopia
of Saint Martin was painted on top of
Buffalmacco’s. Simone Martini’s assumed authorship of these sinopie
rests on the following
propositions: He would have known Buffalmacco
personally. According to the early sources Buffalmacco apprenticed with
Tafo, whom I consider to be no other than the Master of Figline, whose
stained
glass
windows in the Saint Martin Chapel influenced Simone when he started to
paint the Siena Maestà and at times thereafter, with Simone also
influencing the Master of Figline, or Tafo, in return. Simone could
have painted his drawings in Pisa passing
through the port city on his way to Avignon sometime in the fall of
1334. He would have traveled in the retinue of Giangaetano Orsini, papal
legate in Italy, when Pope
John XXII recalled
the latter to the papal court. At that time Buffalmacco was at work on
his Campo Santo murals.
Gert Kreytenberg
Un contributo all'opera di Marco Romano
A contribution to Marco Romano's work
The author publishes a marble Madonna and
Child enthroned conceived to be seen from below. The presence of a book
in the right hand of Mary and the fact that the Child seems to indicate
himself with his right hand, are perhaps alluding to the periods sub
lege and sub gratia.The sculpture is closely related to the works of
Tino di Camaino, but the general characteristics of the group recall
also the statue of the socalled Porrina sculpted by Marco Romano for the
Collegiata Church of Casole d’Elsa and we can notice affinities with the
Virgin Mary and the Sant’Imerio by the same author in the Loggia on the
facade of the
Cathedral of Cremona. The author traces
the critique about Marco Romano, starting from the signed San Simeon
prophet in the church of San Simeone Grande in Venice. Compared
to the reconstruction of Marco Romano’s catalogue proposed in 1983 by
Giovanni Previtali, the author believes that two of the four busts and
one of the two lions in the inner facade of Siena Cathedral are to be
assigned to Goro di Gregorio. The Madonna enthroned is placed on
stylistic grounds in the first decade of the fourteenth century.
Anna De Floriani
Una proposta per Donato de' Bardi miniatore
A proposal for Donato de Bardi's miniature
The
present article focuses on an illuminated Missal realized for the
Cathedral of Genoa (now Genoa, Biblioteca Universitaria,
ms. A. VIII. 1). The manuscript is illustrated by a historiated initial
(representing David before God and the Annunciation) and by 58 decorated
initials. On the basis of stylistic comparisons with panel paintings,
the historiated letter may be ascribed to the hand of Donato de’ Bardi
or to a close follower. Donato (like his brother Boniforte) was born in
a high-rank family of Tuscan origin settled in Pavia. He arrived in
Genoa about 1412-1420 and died there about year 1450. His style was
deeply influent for the renewal of the late gothic language of Genoese
painting. The most of the decorated letters of the manuscript were
painted by two illuminators trained in Tuscan style, probably connected
with Donato’s atelier either through
the same painter or through Domenico da Vernio, a Tuscan artist active
in Genoa from 1426 to 1444 and recorded in several documents
toghether with Boniforte de’ Bardi. The last four decorated letters were
completed, in a more archaic style, by a Genoese illuminator, maybe some
20 years after the first campaign of illustration of the Missal,
that can be dated to the third decade of the fifteenth century or to the
beginning of the fourth one.
Anna Maria Pedrocchi
Michelangelo, Fiammetta e il vescovo di Crotone. Tre personaggi per una cappella in Sant'Agostino a Roma
Michelangelo, Fiammetta and the bishop of Crotone. Three characters for a chapel in Sant'Agostino in Rome
The life of three personages meets around
the history of an antique chapel in Sant’Agostino church in Rome. The
first is the famous courtesan Fiammetta, Cesare Borgia lover, who
obtained the chapel property for her particular position in the roman
society of the last Quattrocento. The second one is the bishop Giovanni
da Viterbo, whose considerable property was confiscated from the pope
Rodrigo Borgia and, in part, used to decore the Fiammetta chapel. The
third one is the young Michelangelo Buonarroti in Rome from 1496 to
1501. He, although a sculptor, after the vatican Pietà, had the
commission to paint the imagine of “ The man of sorrow”,, as altarpiece.
The artist accepted becouse he had no
work at all, but after few monthes, he stopped and leaved the painting
unfinished, coming again to Florence. The table remained on the altar
until 1603, when Ermes Cavalletti, the new oner, commissioned the
altar-piece to Caravaggio “ Pellegrini Madonna” . The old Michelangelo
table disappired passing through other collections ( Borghese -
Farnese), to arrive, at the end, to the national Gallery- London.
Peter Lüdemann
Agostino Busti, detto il Bambaia e la sua cerchia.
Temi all’antica nella scultura milanese del primo Cinquecento
Due to political turmoil and the eclipse
of a refined court culture, in Milan the first decades of the 16th
century seem to have constituted a rather unfavourable period for the
production of sophisticated all’antica works destined for private art
collections. Nonetheless, especially Agostino Busti, called il Bambaia,
and his circle did create a couple of small scale reliefs and sculptures
on profane themes presumably committed by local patrons, which allow to
throw some light on the taste and intellectual orientation of the
latter. Based on an epigram from the Anthologia Palatina, Bambaia’s
Shepheard with a goat and a young wolf of 1515/20 ca. may be linked to
his Cow, possibly conceived as a miniature replica of a famous lost
bronze by the antique artist Myron exalted in several compositions from
the same source. Once recognized as visualizations of exphrastic poems,
the two statuettes therefore can be interpreted as a figurative
equivalent to Alciati’s Emblemata elaborated in the same cultural
context. Notably more complex and ambitious shows to be a fragmentary
cycle constituted by the Horse-tamer, the Triumph of a youth and the
Archers in the Victoria and Albert Museum
and an unfinished Triumph in the
Prado, which Benedetto Cervi, a former collaborator of Bambaia, executed
some ten years later. While the precise subjects of the four reliefs and
the iconographic ties between them have up to now in great part remained
obscure, their inscriptions, freely adapted from classical literature,
allow to reconstruct a neo-platonic program appropriate for a studiolo
interior. Converging stylistic and iconological arguments further point
to a patron connected with Alessandro Bentivoglio, around 1530 a leading
figure among the few known protectors of the Milanese intelligentsia.
Laura Teza
Bernardino di Mariotto ‘barbarico’. Lo Sposalizio mistico di santa Caterina e la civiltà del cuoio umbro-marchigiana
Bernardino di Mariotto 'barbaric'. The Mystical Sposal of St. Catherine and the civilization of Umbrian-Marche leather
The Marriage of saint Catherine by
Bernardino di Mariotto, now in Perugia, National Gallery of Umbria, is a
woodden panel coming from the monastery of benedectine nuns of Santa
Caterina vecchia. The presence in the painting of St. Catherine, St.
Mary Magdalene and St. Peter’s is here
explained by the institutional
situation of the benedectine nuns, who ruled the St. Mary Magdalene
monastery and were in turn directed by the important male settlement
of St. Peter. It is a tempera on
panel, carried out with an
outdated technique, following the medieval
tecnical manual of Cennino Cennini, and it’s appearence is so archaic
that some eighteenth-century authors (Orsini, Vermiglioli)
considered it as a four-fifteenth
century painting. The features of the painting, so rich in gold leaf,
reliefs and coloured glass, want to emulate the aspect of an icon. The
monastery of Saint Catherine belongs to the new
reformed congregation of Santa
Giustina, that has a very great consideration of the icons, which formed
the historical and cultual basis for a religious settlement.
Furthermore, the golden-brown appearance of the painting and the
patterns of the clothes of various saints, underline the
confidence of Bernardino di Mariotto
with the manufacture of leather, much practiced by his marchigian
partner Marino.
Valentina Catalucci
La Famiglia del Nero di Firenze: proprietà, patrimonio e collezioni.
Il Palazzo del Nero (oggi Torrigiani in piazza dei Mozzi) - 1a parte
The Nero Family of Florence: property, heritage and collections. The Nero Palace (today Torrigiani in Piazza dei Mozzi) - Part I
This article (part 1) focuses on the Del Nero Florentine noble family’s history from the second half of the16th century until the house’s extinction at the beginning of the19th century, with special reference to
their properties and art collections. The first paragraph concerns the history of the Del Nero Palace in Florence and it is based on archival documents; special attention is given to the 18th century palace chapel, never treated in art historical studies. The second paragraph concentrates on the family’s collections from their first description by Francesco Bocchi in his book “Bellezze della città di Fiorenza” (1591) through the analysis and comparison of the family’s inventories taken during the following centuries until the inheritance of all Del Nero goods by the Torrigiani family (first half of the 19th century). Finally, the last paragraph investigates the history of another Del Nero mansion in Florence, the so-called “Casino Del Nero” or “Conventino” (which is nowadays part of a luxury hotel), where a ceiling fresco by the painter Tommaso Gherardini, commissioned by the Del Nero family, still exists (18th Century).
Francesco Federico Mancini
Federico Zuccheri e il ritratto di Ludovico II Mattei di Capranica
Federico Zucchari and the portrait of Ludovico II Mattei of Capranica
A painting in a private collection portrays Ludovico II Mattei di Paganica (also known as Ludovico “iuniore”). The style of the work together with the documented relationship that joined the Mattei family to painters Taddeo and Federico Zuccari, leads us to consider the painting like autograph work by Federico Zuccari. Ludovico”iuniore”, son of Pietro Antonio and nephew of Ludovico I, had two sons Fabio and Muzio. Probably the portrait, a tribute to the memory of their father who died in 1580, was commissioned by Muzio, more interested of his brother to invest in works of art. The proximity of the Mattei family to the Farnese family, patron of brothers Zuccari in Caprarola, makes even more likely the attribution of the portrait to Federico. This attribution is also based on many, eloquent comparisons with certain works of the painter.
Marco di Mauro
Note su Filippo Vitale e i pittori della sua cerchia
Notes on Philip Vitale and the painters of his circle
This short essay is a contribution to the memory of Vincenzo Pacelli. Just few hours before his death, I was discussing with him
about a painting by Filippo Vitale, that later would have been exposed in Sapri. Here I want to continue our discussion about the painting, suggesting comparisons with other works of Neapolitan followers of
Caravaggio.
Vincenzo Pacelli
Questioni metodologiche, nuove proposte e qualche puntura sul primo Seicento a Napoli
Methodological issues, new proposals and some punctures on the first sixteenth century in Naples
Francesco Guarino.
Gianluca Forgione
Per Cesare e Francesco Fracanzano
For Cesare and Francesco Fracanzano
This article proposes new additions to the
catalogue of paintings by Cesare and Francesco Fracanzano. The new
works, that have recently re-emerged in the art market, from public and
private collections or have been traced among the anonymous
Neapolitan paintings of the Zeri Photographic Archive, have in
particolar enriched, with the notable exception of the distinguished
Lamentation over the body of Abel, the Francesco’s prolific
production of devotional works of modest size or specific studies of
heads. In spite of what De Dominici says, this genre of art must have
earned to the two brothers a good reputation in the art market and in
the intellectual circe of the viceroyality capital. The article also
proposes a new addition to the early activity of Salvator Rosa, the
Diogenes of the Fesch Collection in Ajaccio, which shows fully how
significant was the influence that Francesco Fracanzano had in the
artistic development of his young broher-in-law.
Elisabetta Monastero
Le collezioni Argenti, Costaguti e Omodei. Una linea di tendenza
The collections Argenti, Costaguti and Omodei. A trendy line
The aim of
this paper is identify a specific field of Roman
collecting during the 17th century, which was
influenced by several aspects, among which the
most important were the neostoic trend, spread in
Rome by Justus Lipsius, and the mystic doctrine,
elaborated by Miguel Molinos, a Spanish priest.
The paper looks into the cultural environment of some Roman
collectors, namely Giovanni Battista Costaguti
the Younger, Bonaventura Argenti and Luigi
Alessandro Omodei, and it shows a programmatic comparison of their collections, proving
the
existence of a common collecting trend. The
first part of the paper introduces collectors’ life as well as their
collections by means of several sources, whilst
in the second one a common interest for some
painters, such as Pier Francesco Mola and
Salvator Rosa, and for some specific subjects are
shown. Finally, starting from
the analysis of these aspects, the
Padri Filippini Congregation will result in the
heart of this new collecting trend..
Mary Newcome
Drawings by Carlo Alberto Baratta
Baratta is most known for his highly elegant and highly finished drawing compositions heightened with white, most of which are considered as finished works in themselves. However, he did other kinds of drawings. To illustrate his versatility as a draftsman, this article includes two charming watercolors perhaps conceived for stagesets as well as less involved drawing compositions, one of which is for a documented altarpiece. These drawings also reflect his influences (from early 17th century baroque artists to his contemporary Gio. David) and relate to his many interests ring the period at the turn of the century when the taste for the rococo was giving way to neoclassicism..
Maria Barbara Guerrieri Borsoi
Opere del pittore Pietro Gagliardi a Frascati
Works of the painter Pietro Gagliardi in Frascati
Pietro Gagliardi stayed in Frascati many times and executed several paintings in this town during his long career. This article presents a survey of the major works, mainly based on unpublished documents
and texts neglected in general studies dedicated to the artist. It clarifies the commissioning and the dating of many works although more rarely it is still possible track down the paintings due to the serious damage caused by the bombing that took place in Frascati in 1943-44. The article analyzes in particular the decoration of the chapel dedicated to the patron saints of Frascati in the church of S. Maria in Vivario, still well preserved and for
which the painter received an attestation of appreciation from the citizens, and the vicissitudes of the painting in the apse of the church of the Scolopi, now reviewable on the basis of an unpublished preparatory sketch although the building was completely destroyed during the war.
