Bollettino d'Arte, s.VII, fasc. 33-34, 2017 - Abstracts

33-34 - Abstracts imp IN COSTRUZIONE_Layout 1 01/02/2019 09:02 Pagina 301 Abstracts STÉPHANE VERGER From the death of a prince to his glorification: metamorphosis of a throne. The Benvenuti d’Este situla, the first masterpiece of Situla Art This situla was found in a grave in Este in 1880. It is one of the finest examples of Recent Orientalising period art from northern Italy. It was made in the second half of the seventh century BCE. This paper presents a new interpretation of the embossed decoration of the three friezes framed within three registers, one above the other. In 1997 it was pointed out the three friezes should be read as one cohesive cycle. This paper proposes a reading of the various episodes present on the strip. The “story” starts at the bottom and reads from right to left. The lower register frames the death of a tall man. The middle one depicts a winged lion leading the way into a fantastic and transitional world. In the upper register a sovereign sits enthroned. It’s impossible to say whether the situla depicts a myth (unknown to us) from the lands occupied by the Veneti. It may instead be the story of a real person. The thread of the storyline lies in the chair or throne, a symbol of power on which the protagonist is seated. In the lower order it’s an almost naturally verdant environment, in the upper register more disciplined, almost ritual. The two are separated by the fantastic winged lion in a world that marks the divide between the world of heroic combat and that of the afterlife. Here forefathers live in a world of heroes, sung of by Hesiod in Ancient Greece. This is a middle world, tied to that of Hades, lying at the extreme edge of the world. It was believed that this was where its inhabitants, those who for some reason entrance to the underworld had been barred, could live an endless benign existence. The use of the situla in everyday has left it with several “scars” on its surface, where back then it had had to be repaired. It ended its days as an urn for a cremated infant. In the same grave, 126, there was a second burial, that of an adult woman. Her rich range of grave goods included a metal plated rod or sceptre. This was a sign that she belonged to a noble élite, or that she’d had a high ranking role when alive. The cremated three year old buried in the bronze bucket and the woman would have been part of one of Este’s noble families. Various talismans had also been placed in the grave to provide the infant with magical and spiritual protection. Apart from the situla itself there were other significant items inside it: a brooch made in Slovenia, a far off land, an amber and coral necklace and two gold discs, sun symbols. MARCO CAMERA A black figure stamnoid pyxis from the Piazza San Francesco votive deposit in Catania A black figure stamnoid pyxis is a one off in the well known votive deposit found in Piazza San Francesco in Catania. The vase was found in a completely fragmentary state. The deposit is to this day still the most important collection of archaeological finds from the Chalcidean apoikia of Katane. It’s an inestimably valuable source for any study of local production and the town’s vast commercial network. During the archaic and classical periods this stretched as far as Greece’s main centres. Its vascular shape, and most of all its decoration of mounted warriors within a broad frieze, undoubtedly bring to mind Corinthian prototypes. Its form though, and the quality of the clay used to make it, mark it down as a local, colonial product. Hypothetically it would have been made in a Catanian workshop between the first and second quarter of the sixth century BCE. The unusual decorative motif and originality of the composition reveal that the potter had an artistically eclectic personality. Though one of a kind, the vase fits in with traditional production in the pottery work301 33-34 - Abstracts imp IN COSTRUZIONE_Layout 1 01/02/2019 09:02 Pagina 302 shops of Greece’s western apoikiai. From the outset they showed a particular leaning towards experimentation and a new interpretation of set forms. The Catanian pyxis is the result of a formal and iconographic heritage that takes inspiration from more than just the locally produced Sicilian pottery. It also draws on a deep rooted local tradition. It can be seen as a late but extraordinary and unusual trace of the artistic vitality of Sicilian potters during Archaic times. GIUSEPPINA MONTEROSSO An amphora and its twin. A case of mistaken identity at the heart of an intriguing affair on Catania’s antiques market. Every archaeological find has its own story to tell to whoever’s willing to listen. Sometimes stories intertwine, leading to misunderstandings and errors. This was the case with the two pots in this paper: a pseudo Panathenaic amphora and a black figure Attic type B one. The former belonged to the noble Zappalà Asmundo family. It had been found in the Indirizzo quarter in Catania’s historical centre in the late 1800s. The latter was in the collection of Syracuse’s Paolo Orsi Archaeological Museum. Given the lack of documentation that accompanied it, all that can be said about its origins is a vague “somewhere around Catania”. For decades of confusion they were swapped one for the other. Careful examination of archives, records and inventories has pieced together their history, identifying them correctly. The two of them are reasonably well preserved. New photographs have been taken. An idea’s been put forward as to where they were made. One may be the work of the Lysippides Painter or one of his workshop, whereas certain details on the figure of Athena recall the pseudo Panathenaic amphora in Vatican Group G23. LUCILLA DE LACHENAL Three Giustiniani statues and their forgotten origin in Velletri The paper examines notes taken by antiquarians about three statues in the Torlonia Museum on Via della Lungara. They provide information about the three being brought to Rome from Velletri. This information is missing from more recent documentation. There is also a description of their purchase in the first decades of the 1600s at the hands of the Marquis Vincenzo Giustiniani. By confronting etchings made by different hands over different periods it becomes clear that the statues have been restored more than once. The Giustiniani collection of archives revealed that the statues were on display in the family’s palace on at San Luigi dei Francesi up till the 1800s. They then passed into the hands of the Torlonia family and were divided and shared between their various townhouses, meeting different fates. GIAMPAOLO ERMINI A fourteenth century iron gate in Prato’s Cathedral This paper discusses the iron fencing that encloses the baptismal font just inside on the right when you enter Prato’s Cathedral. The fencing is signed and dated. There has been a new interpretation of the signature, deciding that the actual date is 1349 (not 1348). The makers’ names are Giovanni and Ristoro, whose identity and geographical origins are discussed here. The niche for the baptismal font was opened on the inner wall of 302 33-34 - Abstracts imp IN COSTRUZIONE_Layout 1 01/02/2019 09:02 Pagina 303 the church front in 1444. By studying overlooked or lesser known material evidence, documentary sources, old photos, comparable artefacts, and an analysis of their historical context, the article questions previous hypotheses on the original provenance of the fence (the Manassei Chapel; the baptistery itself). Instead it argues that it was made for a different site. This would have been the two–storey “intermediate” Chapel of the Virgin’s belt (built no earlier than 1346, and possibly completed by September 1350; now lost). The belt is Prato’s most important relic. Its form repeats some of the original features of the grill fencing the chapel’s lower storey. It is likely that the use of a grill for Prato’s chapel owes itself to a similar solution adopted in 1327 for the Chapel of the Cathedral of San Giacomo in Pistoia, and that, in turn, it served as a model for the extant Chapel of the Virgin’s belt, whose famous bronze fence was commissioned for Maso di Bartolomeo in 1438. In the final paragraph some unpublished documents are discussed recording works done on the baptistery in 1444. SARA ISGRÒ The uncharted fourteenth century in Palermo. Palazzo di Matteo Sclafani between recollection and restoration Mediaeval Sicily is still little documented historically. Sicilian buildings dating to the second half of the thirteenth and into the fourteenth centuries tell of a contradictory process of renovation. After the end of the War of the Vespers (1282–1302) there was a housing boom in Sicily. Imposing residences for the nobility went up. These were a clear sign that their owners were well aware of the leading role they were to play in the fields of economy, politics and culture. The Chiaramonte were the biggest family in Palermo. Just as noble and influential were the Sclafani. The latter had Alemannic origins, probably arriving in Sicily along with the Franks. Frederick II had conferred the title of First Count of Adernò on Matteo Sclafani. He was also Lord of the states of Centorbi and Ciminna and the lands of Sclafani and Chiusa. In the world of domestic architecture in Palermo during the fourteenth century, the quality of the Chiaramonte and Matteo Sclafani residences stands out. More than many others it’s the Sclafani’s choice of architecture, playing on motifs from Norman–Arabic architecture, that stands as the finest and most splendid example from the 1300s. They represent an original and refined interpretation of the heart and soul of fourteenth century Sicilian architecture in Palermo. Enclosed within the fabric of Palazzo Sclafani are all the connotations of social, political and cultural order, fused together in an “ideal”, freezing that precise moment in time. From the bibliographical and archive evidence three significant moments in the palace’s history have come to light: the first was when the building was the residence of Count Matteo Sclafani; the second when it became Palermo’s first public hospital; and the third when it was converted to a barrack block, which is what it remains to this day. Starting from Matteo Sclafani’s townhouse, this paper broadens the field of research into fourteenth century Sicilian domestic architecture, when possible relating them to any contacts with the city states of central northern Italy. PIA PALLADINO Fragments of a late Gothic psalter for San Sisto in Piacenza: Exempla for the liturgical renewal of the end of the fifteenth–century The article deals with eleven illuminated manuscript leaves excised from a late–gothic psalter and divided among American private and public collections, the provenance of which is traced to the famous monastery of San Sisto in Piacenza. The examination of these little studied and in some cases unknown fragments par303 33-34 - Abstracts imp IN COSTRUZIONE_Layout 1 01/02/2019 09:02 Pagina 304 allels that of a two–volume Psalter (now divided between Boston, Public Library Med. Pf. 97 and a private collection), executed for the same Emilian monastery towards the end of the Quattrocento as part of a wider liturgical renewal begun in the second half of the century. The presence of close iconographic and compositional correspondences between the earlier leaves and the pages of the later, integral volumes leads to the conclusion that the lost psalter may have been included in a hitherto unknown, first series of choirbooks, probably commissioned for San Sisto upon its incorporation into the Congregation of Santa Giustina (1425), that later became the source of models for the artists involved in the artistic renewal at the end of the fifteenth–century. The placement of these miniatures — which must be attributed for now to an anonymous artist here christened the Master of the Piacenza Psalter — within the context of late gothic culture in Piacenza in the Visconti era offers a new point of departure for the reconstruction of the complex panorama of local miniature production in the first decades of the Quattrocento. LUCIANO SERCHIA The «seventh gate. Here you’ll find a marble statue of the Lord of the Manor and its founder»: documents, new theories and previously unpublished research into the periods of construction of and renovations to Torrechiara Castle Torrechiara Castle in Langhirano, province of Parma, is rectangular with a tower at each corner. These are connected one to the other by lower buildings. Sitting on top of a hill it’s surrounded by walled terraces. It has always been considered one of the best preserved examples of little altered 1400s architecture. Jacopo Caviceo, a contemporary of the man who built the castle, Pier Maria Rossi, describes it in his writings. So too does Vincenzo Carrari, a couple of centuries later in the 1680s. Both write of a walled inscription above the entrance gate, the seventh gate, on the west side. It states that the castle was completed in thirty years, between 1448 and 1460. Despite the writings of the two above, both Ireneo Affò in the late 1700s, and Lorenzo Molossi in the 1830s insisted to their historian colleagues that the castle had been built in twelve years, between 1448 and 1460. They based their conclusions on a different walled inscription above the arched entrance to the ravelin, triangular fortress, in the northwest, the sixth gate. During numerous restorations the writer has uncovered a variety of archaeological evidence buried within the architectural hotchpotch. This includes the rectangular recess above the “seventh gate” that would have housed the inscription and a statue of Pier Maria Rossi. Both were removed during Francesco Sforza di Santa Fiora’s renovations during the 1680s. Their loss meant that the information they carried was blown to oblivion. For a long time it was difficult to analyse in depth the Pier Maria Rossi transformations during those thirty years’ building work. This paper concentrates on some of the work done during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, leaving aside later renovations during the late mediaeval period to suit the needs of a building that was to house a Renaissance court. FRANCESCO GATTA Guido Reni and Domenichino: the discovery of the Scherzi di amorini that had hung in the chambers of Odoardo and news about two landscape artists working for the Farnese family Thanks to a series of paintings that are predominantly Roman landscapes in the style of the Carracci studio the author of this paper refers to Palazzetto Farnese as a “temple to the sacred and prophane” for Rome’s nature artists. Only a very small number of these have survived. Of them there’s a group with prophane subjects in the Musée Condé in Chantilly. There are others, including two by Giovanni Lanfranco with sacred 304 33-34 - Abstracts imp IN COSTRUZIONE_Layout 1 01/02/2019 09:02 Pagina 305 subjects, in the Museo Nazionale di Capodimonte. A landscape painting with Scherzi di amorini has come to light on the antiques market. It had been attributed to Francesco Albani, but the author recognises it as a rare masterpiece by a young Guido Reni. It would have been the painting commissioned by Odoardo Farnese to be hung in the secreted chambers of Palazzetto Farnese. It’s the same case with two landscape paintings with putti wrestling. They too ended up on the art collectors’ market. In this paper they are attributed to a young Domenichino, whereas previously they were only marginally believed to be late products of the Carracci workshop. This paper adds adds new insights into what we know of the origins of early 1600s landscape painting in Rome. They confirm that Cardinal Odoardo Farnese had a refined choice in artists on to whom confer commissions. In the paper there is also an interesting as yet unpublished portrait of the Cardinal attributed to Innocenzo Tacconi. TOMMASO BORGOGELLI Gregorio Preti: a new altarpiece in Rome and other additions to his catalogue of work This paper goes back over the elusive character of Gregorio Preti, brother of the elder and better known Mattia. The first work considered is an important altarpiece portraying Saint Nicholas in the church of San Nicola ai Prefetti in Rome. It’s an addition to the very few known works of the artist in the city. The author believes that a further three previously unidentified paintings are by the same artist. These include the Adoration of the Shepherds in the church of San Domenico in Modigliana and the Healing of a Possessed Man in the Collegio Papio in Ascona. They represent a significant increase in the number of known works by Gregorio outside Rome and the borders of the Marches. LUCA LEONCINI Ripples of Bernini in Genoa: The Schiaffino brothers and the Rape of Persephone in the Palazzo Reale A document dated 1707 in Genoa’s State Archives describes a Rape of Persephone in the Hall of Mirrors of the Palazzo Reale in Genoa. The document’s already been published but not in its full entirety. It fixes a terminus ante quem for the work. It seems likely that it’s the one still on display in the theatrical setting of the Genoa townhouse. It has been attributed to Francesco Maria Schiaffino. The art historian Ratti believes the marble group is derived from a work by Camillo Rusconi. It’s generally thought to date to 1725, when the sculptor from Genoa returned home after four years as an apprentice in the Roman studio of the Milanese sculptor. The terracotta prototype was given by Rusconi to the Accademia di San Luca in Rome in 1707. It was a likeness of Bernini’s work now in the Galleria Borghese. Unfortunately it’s been lost. The mention of a Rape of Persephone in Genoa in that 1707 document makes it difficult to carry on attributing the group to Schiaffino. The sculptor was born in 1688 and would have been too young to receive such an important and complex commission. At the most the artist may have collaborated with his brother Bernardo. The latter by then was an established sculptor with a studio full of commissions. It seems more likely that the Bust of Eugenio Durazzo was also work of the elder of the two Schiaffino brothers. Ratti, not new to making similar mistakes and inaccuracies, attributes the bust to Francesco Maria just like the Rape above. The Genovese aristocrat Eugenio Durazzo died in 1705. He owned the large house in Via Balbi that’s now known as Palazzo Reale. He looked over its initial decoration. Perhaps it was he that commissioned both the Rape of Persephone and his portrait. It’s hard to believe the latter was commissioned twenty years after his death, as has been thought up till now. Bernard may also have seen Camillo Rusconi’s version via Paolo Gerolamo Piola. The latter diffused Rusconi’s designs throughout Genoa. 305 33-34 - Abstracts imp IN COSTRUZIONE_Layout 1 01/02/2019 09:02 Pagina 306 ROBERTA PORFIRI News about Pasqualino Rossi. The identification of an altarpiece in the Church of Santa Balbina and the discovery of two paintings from the collection of the Marquis of Carpio, Gaspar Méndez de Haro y Guzmán A canvas of the Madonna and Child between Saint Francis de Sales and Bernardino of Siena hangs in the Church of Santa Balbina in Rome. To date it hasn’t been published or attributed as the work of any artist in particular. Recent restoration and preliminary diagnostic analysis has shed new light on the work. Given strong stylistic similarities with other works by Pasqualino Rossi (b. Vicenza 1641 – d. Rome 1722) it’s thought that he painted it. The theory is further strengthened by the presence of a monogram, PR. This was already visible before restoration, but now stands out and is clearly evident. The style and technical mastery shown in the painting makes it one of his best. It probably dates to an advanced period in the artist’s career. The church’s history itself point to a date for the painting after 1689, in the early 1690s. If true, the discovery of such a major commission partly fills a hiatus in news of the Vicenzan artist’s activity in Rome. Little is known of the period from the mid 1690s up to his death in 1722. The identification of the altarpiece as a signed work by Pasqualino Rossi opens other horizons of critical assessment of the artist, who until now, for the most part, was thought to have concentrated on scenes from everyday life as opposed to religious art. Along the same lines, two more of his paintings, previously thought to be lost, were recently found on the antiques market. They portray mythological subjects (Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Deianira) and encourage a more precise, broader and unblinkered reassessment of the artist’s talents. During his long career he was clearly capable of handling all types of subject. Until now only known of from documents, the two paintings had been a part of the Seventh Marquis of Carpio’s collection. Their discovery, along with the identification of the Santa Balbina altarpiece, highlights the artist’s dual career of both public and private commissions that was to follow him all his life. ANTONIO NAPOLITANO The Augustinian library of San Giovanni in Carbonara and the archetype of Ferdinando Sanfelice’s “stellar” architectural module This paper sheds new light on the eighteenth century architecture of the library of San Giovanni in Carbonara di Napoli. It minutely describes the events that have shaken the library collection through the years. It may have been for only two and a half centuries, but between the middle of the sixteenth and into the late seventeenth century the library was a must for scholars and travellers visiting Naples. It’s thanks to descriptions of it in their travel diaries that it rose to fame in Italy and abroad for the richness of the collection of manuscript codices, many in Greek and Latin, and printed volumes that it housed. The first news of the monastery library dates back to 1470, but it wasn’t until 1531 that the collection was noticeably enriched. This was thanks to a generous donation by Cardinal Girolamo Seripando. In the following centuries his gesture was followed by other benefactors. On several occasions over the following decades the library was pillaged. On a particularly bad occasion in 1718 Charles VI ran off with a lot of the collection to enrich his Imperial Library in Vienna. The stolen works were handed back to Naples’ National Library in 1923. There they were reunited with the rest of the book heritage, housed there since the early 1800s. From 1736 the library was given a location worthy of its prestige. It was housed in a building designed by the famous architect Ferdinando Sanfelice. He came up the library atop one of the towers of the Aragonese city walls. The project appears in some drawings as well as in an 1817 plan. These provide an idea of how the building looked as well as the cultural and geometric mix locked away within it. This all 306 33-34 - Abstracts imp IN COSTRUZIONE_Layout 1 01/02/2019 09:02 Pagina 307 changed in the second half of the 1800s when the library was converted into a barrack block, the Caserma Garibaldi, today Naples’ Justice of the Peace court. VALENTINA BALZAROTTI A new document to do with Pellegrino Tibaldi and Bernardino Elvino’s chambers in the Apostolic Camera New evidence of a payment made to Pellegrino Tibaldi in May 1548 has come to light. The money was in return for decorating the chambers of Bernardino Elvino, bursar to the Apostolic Camera, the papal treasury. It helps to better pin down the painter’s earliest activity. After working under the guidance of Perino del Vaga, as part of his workshop, active in Castel Sant’Angelo, he drifted into the orbit of Daniele da Volterra, with whom he collaborated in decorating the church of Trinità dei Monti. The payment is the earliest known record of Tibaldi’s artistic career, another stitch in a tapestry of important relationships that the artist’s subsequent commissions were to weave. ALESSIA ULISSE News about the Chapel of the Nativity in the church of Santa Maria della Pace: A Caetani commission This paper concerns the Chapel of the Nativity in the church of Santa Maria della Pace. It was decorated by Girolamo Siciolante da Sermoneta. A document housed in the San Pietro in Vincoli archives identifies who commissioned the work and the timeline for its completion. The written font is borne out by some of the stylistic effects of the painting. The same document brought to light further clarifications and hypotheses about the Cesi Chapel. This is the other votive chapel in the church of Santa Maria della Pace decorated by Siciolante in the 1540s. AMALIA PACIA Ettore Modigliani, the London exhibition (1930) and the politics behind buying works for Italian museums It was thanks to a 1930 art exhibition at the Royal Academy in Burlington House, London, that there was a significant increase in the number of Italian works acquired for the nation’s public collections. The Exhibition of Italian Art 1200–1900 had been strongly desired by Sir Joseph Austen Chamberlain and his wife Lady Ivy Muriel, both great admirers of Italian art. Ettore Modigliani, Superintendent for mediaeval and modern art in Milan was the protagonist of the event. He was nominated Commissar General for the exhibition, the only one responsible for the choice of works to be displayed. Modigliani faced an exhausting task of selection, travelling throughout Europe, from England to Ireland, on through Germany and into Hungary. He was helped by the staff of Milan’s Brera Art Gallery, Antonio Morassi and Fernanda Wittgens. Three months prior to the exhibition Modigliani drew up a deal with the English committee that was decisively in Italy’s favour. Apart from covering postage and packaging of the works from Italy to the Royal Academy and contributing handsomely to the travel and lodgings of Modigliani’s staff, the English partners also ceded a large proportion of any takings from the exhibition, 41.25%. This sum was set aside for the purchase of works of art to boost Italy’s national artistic heritage. This was to serve as a reminder of the exhibition’s success. On Modigliani’s own initiative a private association, the Friends of Brera, was set up to manage the funds. The Ministry for National Education set down the guidelines for which pieces were to 307 33-34 - Abstracts imp IN COSTRUZIONE_Layout 1 01/02/2019 09:02 Pagina 308 be purchased. It was the Superintendent, however, that proved decisive in the choice of works, without upsetting his formal relationship with the hierarchy of central government. His ways of buying and selling proved sharp and decisive. RICCARDO SALVATORI The Superintendent Armando Ottaviano Quintavalle and his rescue of works of art in Torrechiara Castle during the Second World War. Documents and fonts from the Soprintendenza di Parma e Piacenza archives This paper concerns the activity of Armando Ottaviano Quintavalle. He was the then Superintendent of the Soprintendenza Archeologia, Belle Arti e Paesaggio for the provinces of Parma and Piacenza. Letters, official announcements and a report drawn up by the superintendent himself, stored in the Soprintendenza archives, piece together his relationship with the Directorate General for the Arts in the Ministry for National Education. On the eve of war the Minister Giuseppe Bottai asked Quintavalle, along with his colleagues in the other provinces, to make safe from possible bombardment or pillaging any works of art in his custody. The superintendent found himself faced with technical and ethical choices. He conserved the artistic heritage he had saved in Torrechiara Castle. Unwilling to hand it over to the Germans or the fascists of the Republic of Salò, from 1943 onwards he was to use cunning and fine diplomacy to avoid the works of art from Piacenza and Parma being dispersed. Per le abbreviazioni dei periodici del settore archeologico si fa riferimento a quelle dell’Istituto Archeologico Germanico, ora accessibili dal seguente link: https://www.dainst.org/documents/10180/70593/02_Abbreviations+for+Journals_quer.pdf/a82958d5-e5e9-46968e1b-c53b5954f52a 308