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Sommario

vii Presentazione Andrea Bacchi, Elisabetta Sambo X Il “Maestro dall’occhio vispo”: curiosità insaziabile, generosità e passione nel metodo di un conoscitore anomalo Andrea De Marchi XLIX Nota ai testi 3 12 22 30 37 52 55 67 87 92 104 111 118 123 129 134 143 148 156 163 171 173 175 180 182 192 202

Scritti scelti di Everett Fahy Some Later Works of Piero di Cosimo (1965) A Lucchese Follower of Filippino Lippi (1965) Some Notes on the Stratonice Master (1966) The Beginnings of Fra Bartolomeo (1966) Some Early Italian Pictures in the Gambier-Parry Collection (1967) The ‘Master of the Naumburg Madonna’ (1968) The ‘Master of Apollo and Daphne’ (1968) The Earliest Works of Fra Bartolomeo (1969) A Tondo by Sandro Botticelli (1969) Bartolomeo di Giovanni Reconsidered (1973) An Altarpiece by Cosimo Rosselli (1973) A Holy Family by Fra Bartolomeo (1974) [Early Italian Paintings at Yale and in the Kress Collection: Review] (1974) Les cadres d’origine de retables florentins du Louvre (1976) Michelangelo and Domenico Ghirlandaio (1977) Italian Painting before 1500 [in the Fogg Art Museum] (1978) A Madonna by Spinello Aretino (1978) On Lorenzo di Niccolò (1978) Babbott’s Choices (1982) The Tornabuoni-Albizzi Panels (1984) A Predella Panel by Neri di Bicci (1985) [From The Martello Collection: Catalogue Entry] (1985) The Kimbell Fra Angelico (1987) [L. Pagnotta, Giuliano Bugiardini, 1987: Review] (1988) The Medici Aesop: Introduction (1989) The Argonaut Master (1989) The Ruskin Madonna ([1976]-1990)

221 La Madonna Van Gelder del Maestro di Stratonice (1990) 224 [Da Il giardino di San Marco: schede] (1992) 233 Morelli and Botticelli (1993) 239 Florence, Palazzo Strozzi. Late Fifteenth-Century Florentine Painting [Review] (1993) 243 Florence and Naples: A Cassone Panel in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (1994) 254 Two Suggestions for Verrocchio (1994) 260 Arte e società del Quattrocento nell’opera di Domenico Ghirlandaio (1994) 270 [Da Fra’ Bartolomeo e la scuola di San Marco: saggio e schede] (1996) 300 [Da Sumptuosa tabula picta: schede] (1998) 306 [Da Omaggio a Beato Angelico: scheda] (2001) 311 The Este Predella Panels and Other Works by the Master of the Fiesole Epiphany (2001-2002) 326 [Da Due collezionisti alla scoperta dell’Italia: scheda] (2002) 329 [Da Matteo Civitali e il suo tempo: schede] (2004) 339 Early Italian Paintings in Washington and Philadelphia [Review] (2006) 347 [Da Capolavori da scoprire: scheda] (2006) 351 Ghirlandaio Copying Memling (2007) 358 The Master of the Richardson Tabernacle (2008) 369 The Marriage Portrait in the Renaissance, or Some Women Named Ginevra (2008) 379 [Da Firenze e gli antichi Paesi Bassi: schede] (2008) 388 An Overlooked Michelangelo? (2009) 405 [Da Botticelli nelle collezioni lombarde: scheda] (2010) 409 [From Old Master Paintings 2010: Catalogue Entry] (2010) 412 [From The Bernard and Mary Berenson Collection: Essay and Catalogue Entry] (2015) 416 [Da Piero di Cosimo: schede] (2015)

Tavole fuori testo

423 436 472

Bibliografia di Everett Fahy, 1961-2015 Bibliografia citata Indice dei nomi, dei luoghi e delle opere

Sommario

Tavole fuori testo

423 436 472

Bibliografia di Everett Fahy, 1961-2015 Bibliografia citata Indice dei nomi, dei luoghi e delle opere

367, XLIV

of Leonardo. Italian Renaissance Paintings from Leningrad, densa silloge di capolavori di Leonardo (la Madonna Benois – della Madonna Litta diplomaticamente non si parla mai) e di artisti suoi contemporanei e successori (Cima da Conegliano, Raffaello, Francesco Melzi, Andrea del Sarto, Jacopo Palma il Vecchio, Correggio, Jacopo Pontormo, Lorenzo Lotto, Francesco Primaticcio, Tiziano), prestati dall’Ermitage alla National Gallery of Art di Washington e al Metropolitan Museum of Art di New York nel 1979, in tempo di Ostpolitik, pronubo Armand Hammer (in premessa sono riprodotte due lettere di Leonid Brežnev e di Jimmy Carter!): credo sia raro trovare un’introduzione così misurata e sensibile alla genesi della Maniera moderna, non in astratto, ma con la lettura delle opere. Come era la storia dell’arte che piaceva a Everett Fahy.

1. Everett Fahy (1941-2018).

XXXII

Andrea De Marchi

Il “Maestro dall’occhio vispo”: curiosità insaziabile, generosità e passione

XXXIII

367, XLIV

1. Everett Fahy (1941-2018).

XXXII

Andrea De Marchi

Il “Maestro dall’occhio vispo”: curiosità insaziabile, generosità e passione

XXXIII

A Lucchese Follower of Filippino Lippi

1965

295, XL

In 1906 Bernard Berenson published three paintings by an anonymous painter whom he suspected of working in Lucca1. Berenson named this new artist the ‘Master of the Lathrop Tondo’, after a Madonna Nursing the Child with Saints Jerome and Catherine, one of his paintings then in the collection of Francis Lathrop. As Berenson observed, the tondo shows the influence of Domenico Ghirlandaio and Filippino Lippi, combined with an unmistakable Flemish taste. Such a combination could only lead to Lucca, the one Tuscan city other than Florence where both artists left important works and where commerce with the North provided examples of Flemish painting. Although Berenson’s hypothesis was a convincing one, it remained unnoticed for half a century. Only in 1955 was it taken up again by Ragghianti who added to Berenson’s original group five more works, two of them still in situ near Lucca2. These additions to the Lathrop Master’s oeuvre reveal yet more explicitly the artistic personality implied by the three works published by Berenson: that of a provincial master, formed by the Lucchese works of Ghirlandaio and Filippino, who responded with real creative intelligence to the examples of Netherlandish painting he saw in Lucca. According to Berenson, he was a technician of exceptional quality and an artist not much inferior to Ghirlandaio. Since the Lathrop tondo bears two coats of arms, Berenson suggested that the painting might commemorate the alliance of two Lucchese families. Unaware of their identity, he inferred that the newly-wed couple were named after the two saints in the picture. In fact it now appears likely that the tondo commemorates such a union. For the coats of arms are those of the Guinigi and the Buonvisi, two prominent Lucchese families, and at least one marriage involving Pubblicato in «Paragone», n. 185, XVI, 1965, pp. 9-20. Berenson 1906. The present article is an outgrowth of research for my doctoral dissertation at Harvard University on Domenico Ghirlandaio. I am particularly grateful to the National Gallery at Washington for a Finley Fellowship and to the Harvard Corporation for its renewal of my appointment to I Tatti. To Dr. Federico Zeri I owe my deepest thanks. He first called my attention to the Saint Roch predella panels, and he has facilitated my study in many ways, not the least of which was the loan of many photographs. I am also indebted to Professors Ulrich Middeldorf, John Pope-Hennessy, Millard Meiss, and Sydney Freedberg, for advice and encouragement. 2 Ragghianti 1955. Ragghianti unnecessarily complicates the history of the Lathrop Master by renaming him the Guinigi painter. 1

1965

both houses is on record during the time when the Lathrop painter was at work. As Gino Arrighi has shown, Caterina Buonvisi married Michele, son of Girolamo Guinigi, in 14963. Such a date is perfectly consistent with the style of the painting. Although certain morphological details correspond to types Domenico Ghirlandaio used a decade earlier, the overall style of the tondo certainly belongs to the late 1490s. The grottesche ornamenting the Madonna’s throne, for instance, rarely occur in Italian paintings before that date. These grottesche become more eccentric in the later works of the Lathrop Master. By the time of the San Cassiano a Vico altarpiece, which Ragghianti dates about 1510, they run riot throughout the bizarre architectural background, and even the figures of the Madonna and saints show strange distortions of an unclassical kind. This change in style is explained by Rag ghianti as the result of Amico Aspertini’s arrival at Lucca around 1506. Aspertini painted several altarpieces for Lucca, and his fresco decorations of the chapel of Sant’Agostino in San Frediano are of fundamental importance for the Lucchese school4. Another Bolognese artist had a similar influence at Lucca. Francesco Francia’s altarpiece of the Immaculate Conception, painted about 1506 for the church of San Frediano, surely inspired the languid drapery folds and the equivocal emotional expressions of the saints in the San Cassiano painting. The impact of these Emilian works in Lucca can be seen in a large altarpiece in the parish church of Santissima Annunziata, located a short distance outside the Porta Santa Maria. A hitherto unpublished work, this altarpiece bids fair to be considered the Lathrop painter’s masterpiece. The central panel shows the Annunciation, which takes place in an enormous hall decorated with marble revetments and pilasters. To the right in an alcove hang brocade curtains, evidently surrounding the Virgin’s bed, while to the left in the background a grand Roman portal opens upon a hilly landscape. This extraordinary space construction is unprecedented in the known works of the Lathrop Master, which as a rule are much less enterprising. A glance at the figures, however, confirms his authorship. The head of the Virgin, for instance, resembles that of the Saint Catherine in the Lathrop picture and gives the same impression of being bent forward like a turtle’s. The drapery in both pictures is identical, bulging out in folds which look more like rumpled paper than cloth. For the reliefs with military trophies in the pilasters, there is a precedent in the decorations of the architecture in the Lathrop Master’s late altarpiece at Lammari, which Ragghianti published as a work of about 1510. Finally, the Annunciation gives further testimony to the interest in Flemish painting that Berenson noted. The large wooden sandals in the foreground, for example, would be inconceivable without a Flemish prototype. Likewise, the painstakingly described sewing basket recalls similar realistic motifs in Flemish painting. In terms of sheer inventive genius, the Santissima Annunziata altarpiece stands apart from its sources. There is nothing to compare with the fantastic lectern which stands in the center of the 3 See Arrighi 1955. [In fact Arrighi could not find any record of this wedding, but pointed out that two different Guinigi-Buonvisi marriages were documented around that time – Francesco di Giovanni with Lucia di Benedetto and Michele di Giovanni with Elisabetta di Benedetto (in 1496, the same year Caterina Buonvisi married Filippo Calandrini) –, a fact later acknowledged by Ragghianti (1960b, p. 84); see Paoli 1986, pp. 174-175.] 4 See Campetti 1930-1931.

A Lucchese Follower of Filippino Lippi

296

A Lucchese Follower of Filippino Lippi

1965

295, XL

1965

A Lucchese Follower of Filippino Lippi

296

Silvia Ginzburg

perino on michelangelo, 1

1. Michelangelo, Prophet Isaiah, ca. 1508–1510. Vatican City, Vatican Museums, Sistine Chapel.

2. Perino del Vaga, An ancient judge and an augur, ca. 1518. Rome, Baldassini Palace, main hall.

staff seems to have been partially copied after the cartoon.5 In Rome, Perino was urged to turn his attention toward Michelangelo by Raphael, who encouraged his pupils to study the Sistine vault. Perino, together with Giovanni da Udine and Polidoro da Caravaggio, was among the first to study Michelangelo’s frescoes. Among the many interpretations that came out of that experience, Perino’s was focused not so much on the robustness of the bodies and the rendering of the anatomies but rather on the composition as a whole, on the connections that bring together all the individual elements. By identifying and isolating the structure in its articulation of single interconnected elements, he could reflect on what we call its decorative nature, in the rhythm, the instability

5. The influence of Michelangelo’s cartoon is clearly visible in the detached frescoes from Palazzo Baldassini, now in the Uffizi, and even more in the drawing in the British Museum, Department of Prints and Drawings, inv. no. 1860,0616.118, probably connected to that project (Ginzburg 2018, p. 59, fig. 3); for the frescoes in the Logge see Dacos 2008, figs. 137, 140.

of the composition, and the suspended motions that link the figures. Many of Perino’s creations are inspired by this approach, in which “each form is echoed and balanced by the others, each line interrupts or continues the movement of another.”6 In his idea of painting as decoration, which will always remain a distinctive character of his style, Perino gives a valuable demonstration of his intelligent study of Michelangelo’s vault. As Johannes Wilde has shown, the Sistine ceiling combines elements of the tradition of perspective illusionism that had central northern Italian roots, in which painting aims to pretend to be a continuation of real architecture, with aspects of the decorative tradition of the ancient matrix, in which an abstract ornamental system was preferred. The solution adopted by Michelangelo, in which each module obeys an isolated perspective system, presupposes a continuous shift from an illusionistic intention in relation to 6 Davidson 1966, p. 21.

Silvia Ginzburg

perino on michelangelo, 1

1. Michelangelo, Prophet Isaiah, ca. 1508–1510. Vatican City, Vatican Museums, Sistine Chapel.

2. Perino del Vaga, An ancient judge and an augur, ca. 1518. Rome, Baldassini Palace, main hall.

Barbara Agosti

perino on michelangelo, 2

17. Michelangelo, Virgin and Child (Madonna Medici), ca. 1521–1534, h 226 cm. Florence, San Lorenzo, Sagrestia Nuova. Opposite page 18. Perino del Vaga, Study for Saint Mathew, ca. 1539, black chalk, white heightening, pen and gray ink, gray wash on beige gray paper, 371 × 267 mm. Paris, Musée du Louvre, Département des arts graphiques, inv. no. 2815 recto.

Barbara Agosti

perino on michelangelo, 2

Barbara Agosti

perino on michelangelo, 2

21. Francesco Salviati, Design for the Casket of Pier Luigi Farnese (?), ca. 1541–1543, pen, brown ink and brown wash, traces of black chalk, 162 × 303 mm. Florence, Gallerie degli Uffizi, Gabinetto dei Disegni e delle Stampe, inv. no. 1577 E. Opposite page 22. Manno Sbarri and Giovanni Bernardi with plaques of rock crystal carved after drawings by Perino del Vaga, Farnese Casket, ca. 1543–1561. Naples, Museo e Gallerie Nazionali di Capodimonte.

Florence by the end of August 1543. This date can be considered a terminus ante quem for the commission of the casket by Pier Luigi and the execution of this project, which appears very close to Perino’s models. The scheme and the rhythm of the composition are the same as those Perino had conceived for the basamento of the Stanza della Segnatura. The decorative motifs are also typical of Perino, such as the pair of nudes sitting back to back, modeled after the nudes of the Sistine vault, or the ironically grotesque masks similar to the ones invented for the windows of the Sala Regia, or the unsettling head with the strange headdress that appears identical to the one in the project for the spalliera (see entry XV), or the tassels formed by the festoons that create a direct link between the works executed in Genoa and the decorations of Castel Sant’Angelo. The terribilità of the Sistine fresco was gradually investigated by Perino, without him ever abandoning his prominent decorative inclination. On the contrary, he managed to concentrate in the foreground the vertiginous spatiality of the Judgment, while at the same time giving the dramatic boldness of the forms a strenuously elegant grace. This process can be appreciated in the preparatory drawings with mythological subjects for the rock-crystal plaques of the casket commissioned by Cardinal Alessandro Farnese (fig. 22). This marvelous microarchitecture was the result of a collaboration that involved Perino for the design, Bernardi for the crystals, and Manno Sbarri for the goldsmithing.23 This sequence of drawings clearly shows how Perino was gaining a deeper understanding of the vertiginous space of the Judgment and is gradually abandoning the frieze-like composition that he adapted from the antique reliefs.24 Perino’s most talented collaborators would show themselves to be the most intelligent interpreters of Michelangelo’s lesson. For example, Daniele da Volterra would establish a touching and close relationship with the old Michelangelo, and the young Pellegrino Tibaldi, who since the very early stages of his career worked alongside Perino on the decoration of the Sala Paolina in Castel Sant’Angelo, would prove to be the most precocious and extraordinarily free interpreter of the Judgment.25

23. E. Parma, in Perino del Vaga 2001, pp. 302–307, nos. 170–174. 24. Agosti 2019. 25. Romani 1990; Romani 2003.

Barbara Agosti

perino on michelangelo, 2

23. E. Parma, in Perino del Vaga 2001, pp. 302–307, nos. 170–174. 24. Agosti 2019. 25. Romani 1990; Romani 2003.

Lorenzo D’Amici

PERINO’S INVENTION FOR THE SPALLIERA AND ITS RECEPTION

X Anonymous artist, central Italian school of the second half of the sixteenth century (circle of Taddeo Zuccaro?) Study of a single figure from Perino’s model for the spalliera Pen and brown ink, brown wash, over traces of black chalk; 109 × 90 mm. Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional de España, inv. no. DIB/16/9/29. Provenance: Carderera Collection (Lugt 432); Biblioteca Nacional de España (1867). Bibliography: De Barcia 1906, p. 642, no. 8211.

derlying drawing reproducing Perino’s project but only a timid sketch of the parts that were left visible after Rubens reworked it. Thus, the drawing should be considered as a derivation from the sheet reworked by Rubens, rather than as an early copy of Perino’s project that was later modified following Rubens’s example. Both derivations are important testimonies to the enthusiastic reception of the sheet reworked by Rubens.

Anonymous Flemish artist (after Peter Paul Rubens), Copy after the lost study by Perino for the spalliera reworked by Rubens, first half of the seventeenth century, 345 × 650 mm. Formerly Colnaghi (1931).

The drawing was recently connected by Gonzalo Redín Michaus to Perino’s design for the spalliera (oral communication from the library, February 15, 2019). In the past, it has been attributed to an Italian artist of the seventeenth century, but it seems more plausible that this is the work of a draftsman who was still active in the sixteenth century. The sheet, which is very small, shows only one putto holding the escutcheon. The execution of this figure is impeccable, even in the smallest details.

The highly finished figure, as well as the great number of details (first of all, the flowing hair, which appears treated in the same manner only in the canvas) and the consistent rendering of the chiaroscuro effects, suggest that this drawing should be included among the copies of the canvas now in the Palazzo Spada. Its attribution remains uncertain. Nevertheless, as Francesco Grisolia kindly suggests, it should be noted that the drawing bears strong similarities to the circle of the Zuccaro brothers, particularly the style of Taddeo.

Lorenzo D’Amici

PERINO’S INVENTION FOR THE SPALLIERA AND ITS RECEPTION

Lorenzo D’Amici

PERINO’S INVENTION FOR THE SPALLIERA AND ITS RECEPTION

XII Francesco Curia Study for a male nude from Perino’s model for the spalliera

XIII François Bourlier (attr.) Study after Perino’s model for the spalliera; The Nine Muses Surrounding the Globe

Pen and brown ink; 75 × 95 mm.

Pen and brown ink, brown and gray wash, over traces of red chalk; 394 × 269 mm.

Stockholm, Nationalmuseum, inv. no. NMH 690/1863. Provenance: Nicodemus Tessin (1676); Gustav III transferred to the Royal Library (1777); Royal Museum (1794); Nationalmuseum (1866). Bibliography: Bjurström 1996, p. 229, no. 42; Bjurström and Magnusson 1998, no. 917; di Majo 2002, p. 19.

The sheet was part of the Stockholm album that included a conspicuous group of drawings by Curia. Like the other drawing at the Nationalmuseum (entry X), this is an important testimony of Curia’s attention for Perino’s work and for the spalliera in particular: the figure included by Perino in the form of a caryatid in his model for the spalliera now in the Galleria Spada is here carefully studied. In this case, the artist isolated the figure of the telamon, investigating its anatomy with particular attention, despite the fact that the handling of the pen is here even more rapid and without the use of wash. As for the Figure Studies mentioned above, also in this case, the observation of Curia’s technique suggests that this drawing was executed directly in front of the model. It would otherwise be hard to explain the rapid execution of these sketches (in some parts almost abbreviated), which even juxtapose different versions of the same figure. If they were copied after another graphic model, one would expect a much more defined result. Thus, it can be plausibly assumed that these studies were carried out by the Neapolitan artist directly in front of the spalliera. As previously suggested, this would be a proof that the model for the spalliera was still visible in Rome at the time of Gregory XIII.

Paris, Musée du Louvre, Département des arts graphiques, inv. no. RF 899, recto, Album Perrier François, f. 15. Provenance: Colonel Carl Andreas Krag; bequeathed to the museum in 1880 through the mediation of Christian Höst, bookseller from Copenhagen. Bibliography: Boubli and Prat 1997, pp. 272–273, no. 1060; Loisel 2004, p. 152, no. 205.

The Perrier album, now at the Louvre, represents one of the most important testimonies to the interest nurtured by French artists toward Italian art. Among the almost two hundred drawings included there, it is possible to identify several copies of artworks that were visible at the time in Italy. These include archeological remains but also paintings and drawings of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The lower section of the sheet shows a copy after Ludovico Carracci’s drawing of the Allegory of History—which at the time was in the collection of Francesco Angeloni; it was then acquired by Mariette and is now at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford (Parker 1956, p. 86; Loisel 2004, p. 152)—while in the upper section, a copy after Perino’s canvas now in the Palazzo Spada is included. The drawing agrees with the left side of the central section of the canvas painted by Perino. Unlike Perrier’s copy on canvas, commissioned by Bernardino Spada, the drawing still includes the papal insignia, which will later be substituted by the French artist with a fruit and flower basket similar to the one that appears on top of the Victory’s head. This is again an extremely important detail of the composition, as it shows that this copy was executed after a lost drawing, or more probably after the model for the spalliera itself, and certainly not after the sheet at the Uffizi (entry I), as in the case of the other sheets analyzed here: the one at the Victoria and Albert Museum (entry V), the one at the Uffizi (entry VI), and the one from the Resta Codex (entry VII).

Lorenzo D’Amici

PERINO’S INVENTION FOR THE SPALLIERA AND ITS RECEPTION

XII Francesco Curia Study for a male nude from Perino’s model for the spalliera

XIII François Bourlier (attr.) Study after Perino’s model for the spalliera; The Nine Muses Surrounding the Globe

Pen and brown ink; 75 × 95 mm.

Pen and brown ink, brown and gray wash, over traces of red chalk; 394 × 269 mm.

Adriana Capriotti

from perino’s spalliera to bernardino’s frieze: reuse and reinvention in cardinal spada’s studiolo

Adriana Capriotti

from perino’s spalliera to bernardino’s frieze: reuse and reinvention in cardinal spada’s studiolo