LIFE OF GIOVANNI MORELLI

Jaynie Anderson

The Life of

Giovanni MORELLI in Risorgimento Italy

1866

1867

1868

1869

1870

1871

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January: begins to form an outstanding collection of Renaissance painting for his cousin Giovanni Melli, on the understanding that Morelli will later inherit it (Morelli eventually bequeaths the collection to the Accademia Carrara, Bergamo).

February: Sir William Boxall is appointed second director of the National Gallery, London.

2 July–27 September: fights in the Third War of Independence, in the Legion for the defense of the Stelvio and Tonale as a volunteer with Colonel Guicciardi; distinguishes himself in the defense of the Valtellina.

27 September: is appointed Capitano di Stato Maggiore, in a decree from the Colonnello Comandante della Legione.

September: is appointed Commissario ordinatore della Sezione Belle Arti for the Paris Exhibition.

January: death of Giuseppe Molteni, for whom Morelli writes an obituary.

15 September: death of Morelli’s mother, Ursula Zavaritt Morell.

12 November: is elected an honorary member of the Istituto di Belle Arti delle Marche, Urbino.

29 March: is elected to the Camera dei Deputati for the fourth and last time.

From 20 July: travels to England for the summer, visiting many English private and public collections and the National Exhibition of Art at Leeds. Returns to Italy via Calais, Lille, Bruges, Antwerp, Rotterdam, and Frankfurt. In the Netherlands he meets the younger artist Edmond Morin, who accompanies him for nine days.

December: serves on a government commission to examine the Pettenkofer restoration method.

Study trip to Germany. In early August he visits Berlin with Count Lodovico Belgiojoso d’Este and Count Alessandro Melzi d’Eril, and from late August with Giuseppe Mongeri he travels to Nuremberg, Prague, Dresden, Weimar, and Kassel.

Death of Giulia Mannelli, wife of Niccolò Antinori.

September–October: travels with Gustavo Frizzoni for fifteen days to Lugano, Locarno, Luino, Arona, Novara, the Valsesia, and the Sacro Monte di Varallo, to study local schools of painting.

13 November: resigns from the Camera dei Deputati.

Becomes member of a government commission to make an inventory of Italian monuments of national and regional interest (Membro della Sottocommissione della Giunta delle belle arti per l’elenco dei monumenti italiani di interesse nazionale e regionale).

Travels in Lombardy, to Pavia, Castiglione d’Olona, and Varese.

1 May: publishes (in La Perseveranza) an anonymous article on

the sale of Raphael’s Madonna Conestabile to the Tzar of Russia, criticizing the involvement of the Minister Cesare Correnti.

Travels to the Netherlands (Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Leyden), Belgium, and Germany (Berlin, Frankfurt), and at Dresden visits an exhibition of the two versions of Holbein’s Madonna del Bürgermeister Meyer.

1872 April: en route to Spain, visits the Louvre in Paris and the Wicar collection in Lille.

24 April–9 June: in Spain (Madrid, Granada, Toledo, Seville, Cordoba), where Austen Henry Layard is now British ambassador; assists Pedro de Madrazo with catalogue of the Prado Museum.

On his return gives his analysis of the political situation in Spain in an audience with Vittore Emanuele II at San Rossore.

Is appointed president of the central committee for the conservation of works of art (Presidente del Comitato centrale per la conservazione delle opere di belle arti).

10 August: sells his large properties at Alserio, near Erba, and at Como, for 91,000 lire, as well as other properties at Brenna and Lurago.

1873 Is nominated as a Senatore del Regno (senator in the upper house of the Republic of Italy).

Inherits part of the collections and estate of his cousin Giovanni Melli.

Spring: travels to Bologna with the restorer Luigi Cavenaghi to examine frescoes by Francia in the Chapel of Santa Cecilia, at the request of Marco Minghetti.

September: accompanies King Vittorio Emanuele II to Vienna and Berlin; they visit the exhibition of Old Master paintings from private Viennese collections at Vienna’s World Fair.

1874 Corresponds with Lionel von Donop about Buonaventura Genelli, and includes a short autobiography in a letter.

Is appointed Commissario regio con l’incarico di redigere il catalogo dei dipinti delle scuole classiche di proprietà pubblica e privata e il catalogo delle opere da acquistare per completare la storia dell’arte rappresentata nelle sue scuole (Commissioner with the task of drawing up a list of works of art in public and private collections to represent the Italian Schools of painting).

Is appointed president of the Committee for the Conservation of Works of Art (Conservazione delle opere di belle arti) Publication of Gino Capponi’s Storia della Repubblica di Firenze, for which Morelli advised on artistic questions.

Appointment of Sir Frederic Burton as third director of the National Gallery, London.

1874–76 Publishes a series of articles on the Borghese and Doria Galleries in Rome, under the pseudonym Lermolieff, revising the attributions

chronology

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1875

1876

1877

XVI chronology

of many famous Renaissance paintings, room by room. The most remarkable is his re-evaluation of the works of Raphael and his account of Leonardo da Vinci and his Lombard followers.

Appointed corresponding member of the Italian Society for Liberal Education and the Social Sciences in Florence (Socio corrispondente della Società italiana di educazione liberale e della Scuola di scienze sociali di Firenze).

Appointed vice-president of celebrations for the 400th anniversary of Michelangelo’s birth.

Summer: with Gustavo Frizzoni, follows Dürer’s itinerary to Strasburg, Colmar, Berne, Lausanne, Geneva, Besançon, and the lake of Lugano.

August: in Paris with Gustavo Frizzoni, studies the paintings and drawings by Pisanello and Leonardo in the Louvre, as well as the His de la Salle collection of drawings.

Prevents Wilhelm von Bode from buying Giorgione’s Tempesta for Berlin, by placing it in the collection of Prince Giovanelli in Venice.

February–March: tours Sicily with Gustavo Frizzoni and Lodovico Melzi d’Eril, to compile an inventory of notable works of art.

February: attends salon of Donna Laura Minghetti in Rome.

May: begins keeping an account book, “Spese di Casa,” for his Milanese flat, which details expenses, initially for his housekeeper Teresa. The chronology of his travels in these next years is based on this book, as well as from letters.

September: meets Jean Paul Richter, with whom he corresponds until his death.

October: travels with Gustavo Frizzoni to Varallo, Arona, Novara, and Vercelli, to study Gaudenzio Ferrari.

December: attends Senate in Rome.

Travels constantly between Bergamo and Rome, usually stopping either in Florence to visit Niccolò Antinori or in Bologna to visit Laura and Marco Minghetti.

19 February: stays in Florence en route to Rome.

24–31 March: goes to Rome via Florence.

3–14 April: in Rome, where Marco Minghetti gives his first speech about women in Italian art, with Morelli’s advice, after which Morelli goes to Naples and Montecassino with Frizzoni for the cataloguing project.

28 April–12 May: Rome, then stays in Florence en route to Milan.

24 May: to Bellagio and back.

1–17 June: at the Albergo della Minerva, Rome.

11–14 August: visits the Zavaritts at Bergamo and Gorle, before leaving for a long study tour in Germany, beginning in Munich.

1880

1881

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1 March: second meeting with Prince Frederick and Princess Victoria (at Pegli, Genoa), then is in Rome for six days, then Florence.

24 April: in Rome; 1 May in Florence; 12 June in Rome.

1 July: in Turin, to see exhibitions, and later to Santena (Cavour’s summer house, a villa he detests).

3 July: travels with Donna Laura Minghetti to the Certosa of Pavia, and to Cremona and Mantova; he finds her the most enjoyable travel companion, interested only in the beautiful, never the vulgar.

11–17 July: Morelli is in Rome; 18 July with Antinori in Florence; 19 July at casa Minghetti, Bologna.

August: undertakes serious study in many German collections, checking observations for his forthcoming publication (4 August takes a carriage from Milan to Borgoricco; 5 August through the Spluga pass to Coira, where he stays until 7 August; then to Basel via Zurich until 9 August; to Freiburg and Karlsruhe; 10 August Karlsruhe to Frankfurt; 12 August Frankfurt to Darmstadt; 13–14 August Frankfurt to Kassel; 15 August Cassel to Braunschweig; from 16 August he is a guest in casa Habich; 17–18 August trip to Gotha; 19 August Gotha, Weimar, Leipzig; 20 August Altenberg; 21 August Altenberg, Bamberg, Nuremberg; 22 August Nuremberg to Munich; 26 August Munich to Innsbruck; 27 August Innsbruck to Verona.

By 3–6 September: with the Layards in Venice; 13–17 September with Clementina Frizzoni at Crella.

17–19 October: with Jean Paul Richter at Verona.

November: Morelli publishes with Seemann the first German edition of his opinions on Italian paintings in Germany: Die Werke italienischer Meister in den Galerien von München, Dresden und Berlin.

Ein kritischer Versuch von Ivan Lermolieff. Lady Layard expresses a wish (seemingly unrealized) to translate it into English.

11–12 December: with Donna Laura Minghetti at Bologna.

26 January: from a photograph he recognizes the St Petersburg Judith as an echt Giorgione.

Relishes reading the polemical reviews of his first book.

March: declines Francesco De Sanctis’ invitation to become director of the galleries and museums of Florence, unless he can have Gustavo Frizzoni as deputy director.

9 July: visits the Accademia dei Concordi at Rovigo.

28 July–28 August: travels from Milan to Geneva with Mongeri, then to Dijon, Paris, Lille, Flanders, Stuttgart, returning via the Engadine and Como.

Poussin, Zurbarán, and Murillo, making it evident that he was as passionate about sixteenth- and seventeenth-century European painting as about the Italian Renaissance. Morelli’s love of Baroque art was stimulated by Otto Mündler (1811– 1870),32 whom he met soon after his arrival (armed with one of Rückert’s letters of introduction from Erlangen) and with whom he visited the Louvre frequently. Yet Morelli never wrote about the Baroque, and never managed to like Caravaggio.

He later wrote that Mündler was “not only a great connoisseur of paintings, but he has a soul that is capable of the most noble aesthetic enthusiasm.”33 Morelli’s enthusiasm for Veronese was kindled at Dresden in 1838, when the drama of the artist’s historical imagery would strike a chord with his own playwriting. In 1838, The Marriage at Cana was the most magical of any work of art that he had ever seen, one that gave him indescribable pleasure: “No other painting until now has had such magic for me” (Kein Bild hat noch bis jetzt einen solchen Zauber für mich gehabt).34 He visited the Louvre daily, and went to concerts and operas in the evening, enjoying works by Gluck, Rossini, and Mozart (such as Don Giovanni).

During these years, Mündler was working on his masterly publication Essai d’une analyse critique de la notice des tableaux italiens du Musée National du Louvre (1850). In this, he criticized the attributions in the first catalogues of the Louvre, written by Frédéric Villot. Mündler’s critical essay was seminal for Morelli’s later books on German and Italian galleries. During Morelli’s Parisian sojourn he also met Ralph Wornum, later keeper of the National Gallery in London,35 who was then working on the first catalogue of the London collection, published in 1847.36 Wornum’s catalogue was regarded as a masterpiece, and owed much to his friendship with Mündler, and maybe to Morelli. All too little is known of the interactions between these three gifted art historians—Mündler, Morelli, and Wornum—at this critical Parisian period in their development, over the course of two years.

In Paris Morelli was more concerned with the study of art and literature than with science, even though he joined the French geological society, where Agassiz was presenting his new theories.37 Morelli also made the acquaintance of scientists, politicians, and writers, such as François Arago, Alexandre Dumas, and Félix Savart, but none seems to have been as influential on him as those he knew in Germany.

On Christmas Day 1838, Morelli reflected on his life and what might lie ahead. To Federico Frizzoni he declared how proud he was to be an Italian, and how much he looked forward to his return to his homeland. He had not yet thought of marriage (Ans heiraten hab ich noch nicht gedacht), and enjoyed the solitude of his existence, which had always been a part of his life.38 Any woman would have to have the patience of Job to put up with him, he remarked.

When Morelli did eventually return to Italy, in 1840, it would be to pursue a life on the land, although he also aspired to be a playwright. It was decades later that he would draw upon his youthful experiences in Germany and France, when forming his definition of la scienza dell’arte, as an instrument for preserving the patrimony of Italy.

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The lIfe of gIoVannI MorellI In rIsorgIMenTo ITaly

56. Sandro Botticelli, The History of Virginia the Roman, c. 1500.

57. Jan Miense Molenaer, Young Man Smoking, c. 1635.

58. Antonio Pisano, called Pisanello, Portrait of Leonello d’Este, c. 1441.

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59. Sir Austen Henry Layard. Photograph by Maull & Polyblank, London, c. 1860.

60. Lady Layard. Photograph by Julia Margaret Cameron, 1869.

61. Louise Marie Richter, c. 1880.

62. Lady Eastlake. Calotype by David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson, c. 1843–48.

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63. Lorenzo Lotto, Giovanni Agostino della Torre and his Son, Niccolò, c. 1515–16. Shown before conservation.

64. Fig. 63 shown after conservation.

65. Sandro Botticelli, Portrait of Giuliano de’ Medici, c. 1478–85.

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66. Jean Paul Richter, c. 1879.

67. Louis Kolitz, Portrait of Sir Joseph Archer Crowe, 1877.

68. Giovanni Battista Cavalcaselle.

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69. Giorgione, The Sleeping Venus, c. 1508/10.

70. Engraving after painting attributed to Correggio, The Reading Magdalen.

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Giovanni Morelli changed the way we look at art

Before Morelli (1816–1891), the attribution of a painting to a particular artist or school was often based on overall impression, hearsay, even gut feeling. But Morelli, having trained as a medical doctor to look closely at anatomical detail, applied scientific rigor to understanding the works of masters such as Titian, Leonardo, and Raphael, and of other Renaissance and Baroque painters. By closely scrutinizing, analyzing and comparing details overlooked by most other collectors, critics, and curators, his radical “Morellian method” became the basis of modern art connoisseurship.

A proud Italian of Swiss Protestant heritage, Morelli was also a staunch patriot. He risked his life in the Italian Wars of Independence, and was elected four times to the parliament of the newly unified nation. In 1873 he was nominated senator for life. As a statesman he fought for his homeland’s cultural patrimony: at a time when many of Italy’s great art collections were being snapped up by foreign collectors and museums, he introduced some of the world’s first legislation to prevent their loss to the nation.

The Life of Giovanni Morelli in Risorgimento Italy is the first full biography of this important figure, including his romantic friendships with remarkable women such as Clementina Frizzoni, Laura Acton Minghetti (wife of the Italian prime minister), and Princess Victoria (daughter of Queen Victoria and subsequently empress of Germany).

At his death he bequeathed his art collection to the Accademia Carrara in Bergamo, the birthplace of his mother, a city he loved.

Jaynie Anderson is professor emeritus at the University of Melbourne, where she was foundation director of the Australian Institute of Art History (2009–15) and Herald Chair of Fine Arts (1997–2014). She is a fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities and past president of the Comité Internationale de l’Histoire de l’Art. In 2015 she was knighted by the president of the Republic of Italy as Ufficiale dell’Ordine della Stella d’Italia. Educated at the University of Melbourne and Bryn Mawr College, she was the first woman Rhodes Fellow at the University of Oxford. Her recent books include Unconstrained Passions: The Architect’s House as Museum in the Italian Past and the Australian Present (2016) and The Invention of Melbourne: A Baroque Archbishop and a Gothic Architect (2017).

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