Ruptures in Painting after the Sack of Rome: Parmigianino, Rosso, Sebastiano Aimee Ng Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 2012 © 2012 Aimee Ng All rights reserved ABSTRACT Ruptures in Painting after the Sack of Rome: Parmigianino, Rosso, Sebastiano Aimee Ng The Sack of Rome of 1527 was the greatest disruption to the history of sixteenth- century Italian art. Sufficient attention has been paid to its ramifications in terms of the diaspora of artists from Rome that disseminated “Mannerism” throughout Europe and monumental papal projects executed in its wake, including Michelangelo’s Last Judgment (1534-41), Perino del Vaga’s decoration of the Sala Paolina in Castel Sant’Angelo (1545-47), and the propagation of a more disciplined use of classicism in architecture and literature by the papacy of Pope Paul III. Focus on these consequences, of a grand scale, emphasizes the impact of the event for papal history but has obscured to some extent a set of works that was directly and immediately affected by the Sack of Rome: paintings by artists who were dispersed from Rome, produced in cities of exile. These paintings by displaced artists are the subject of my dissertation. Repercussions of the Sack disrupted the practice of painters who were forced to flee the ruined city, including Polidoro da Caravaggio, Perino del Vaga, Giovanni da Udine, Giovanni Antonio Lappoli, Vincenzo Tamagni, Parmigianino, Rosso Fiorentino, and Sebastiano del Piombo. The first post-Sack paintings of three of these artists, executed for private patrons (rather than under papal or imperial direction as in the cases of Giovanni da Udine and Perino), signal the disruption of the Sack through both marked stylistic innovation and iconographic manipulation: Parmigianino’s St. Roch with a Donor in Bologna, Rosso’s Lamentation at the Foot of the Cross in Sansepolcro, and Sebastiano del Piombo’s Nativity of the Virgin in Rome. In these altarpieces, each artist exhibits a distinct change in his creative production and disturbs the iconography of a well- established sacred subject by inserting an aberrant and conspicuous reference to Rome. Together, these examples suggest that, while the artists do not illustrate the event of the Sack itself in their works, they mark their paintings as products of a specifically post- Sack context, in which the identity of the three painters as refugees from Rome was an essential component. This study raises the problem of the roles of historical trauma and of biography in art historical investigation. Chapter One examines contemporary writings about artists and the Sack and explores the extent to which an artist’s association with the event was both a deeply personal issue as well as a public aspect of identity. The cases of Polidoro, Lappoli, and Tamagni are presented here as complementary cases to the chapter studies of Parmigianino, Rosso, and Sebastiano. Chapter Two investigates Parmigianino’s production of the St. Roch altarpiece in Bologna, where his new monumentality and dramatic effect combine with an incongruous inclusion of antique costume to assert his artistic lineage to and recent departure from Rome. Chapter Three studies Rosso in Sansepolcro and the ways in which his Lamentation signals his distance from Rome – both physical and artistic – through appropriation of local culture and through his inversion of the figure of the Roman soldier. Chapter Four follows Sebastiano back to Rome after exile where he resumed the project for the Nativity that had been interrupted by the Sack. His emulation of the art of his former rival, Raphael, introduces an aberrant classical component that acknowledges at once the nostalgia for pre-Sack Rome inherent in his commission and the transformation, initiated as a result of the Sack, of the legendary site of the Nativity itself, at Loreto. Table of Contents Introduction – Painting, Trauma, and Dispersal 1 Chapter One - Correspondents and Counterparts 21 Chapter Two - Parmigianino and the Salvation of St. Roch 45 Chapter Three - Rosso’s Lamentation 95 Chapter Four - Sebastiano’s Nativity and the Relic of Rome 152 Conclusion - Departures from the Sack of Rome 201 Illustrations to the Text 210 Bibliography 231 Appendix - Artists Displaced by the Sack 253 i List of Illustrations Chapter One 1.1 Polidoro da Caravaggio, Design for Madonna delle grazie. Windsor, Royal Library 1.2 Polidoro da Caravaggio, Design for Madonna delle grazie. Vienna, Albertina 1.3 Detail of fig. 1.1 1.4 Detail of fig. 1.2 1.5 Polidoro da Caravaggio, St. Peter. Naples, Museo e Gallerie Nazionali di Capodimonte 1.6 Polidoro da Caravaggio, St. Andrew. Naples, Museo e Gallerie Nazionali di Capodimonte 1.7 Polidoro da Caravaggio, Scene from the Life of Mary Magdalene. Rome, San Silvestro al Quirinale 1.8 Polidoro da Caravaggio, Drawing of Two Female Figures against a Landscape, detail of Castel Sant’Angelo. Montpellier, Musées Atger (Faculté de Médecine) 1.9 Giovanni Antonio Lappoli, Visitation. Arezzo, Badia delle Sante Flora e Lucilla 1.10 Giovanni Antonio Lappoli, Adoration of the Magi. Arezzo, San Francesco 1.11 Vincenzo Tamagni, Consacration of Solomon. Vatican City, Vatican Palace Loggia 1.12 Vincenzo Tamagni, Marriage of the Virgin. Rome, Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica di Palazzo Barberini 1.13 Vincenzo Tamagni, Assumption of the Virgin with Sts. Sebastian, Roch, and Timothy. Montalcino, S. Maria del Soccorso 1.14 Vincenzo Tamagni, Virgin and Saints. San Gimignano, Sant’Agostino 1.15 Detail of fig. 1.13, St. Roch 1.16 Detail of fig. 1.14, St. John the Evangelist Chapter Two 2.1 Parmigianino, St. Roch with a Donor. Bologna, San Petronio ii 2.2 Parmigianino, Vision of St. Jerome. London, National Gallery 2.3 Parmigianino, Madonna of the Rose. Dresden, Alte Meister Gemäldegalerie 2.4 Francesco Francia, St. Roch. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art 2.5 Giovanni da Bagnacavallo, Madonna and Child with Saints Monica and Francis and Donors. Bologna, S. Maria della Misericordia 2.6 After Titian, St. Roch. Woodcut. London, British Museum 2.7 Antonio da Correggio, Madonna of St. Sebastiano, detail of St. Roch. Dresden, Alte Meister Gemäldegalerie 2.8 Parmigianino, Conversion of Paul. Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum 2.9 Parmigianino, Cupid Sharpening His Bow. Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum 2.10 Amico Aspertini, Pietà. Bologna, San Petronio 2.11 Raphael, St. Cecilia. Bologna, Pinacoteca 2.12 View of San Petronio interior, with Giovanni da Modena’s St. Christopher, Bologna 2.13 Parmigianino, Studies for St. Roch. Pen and ink. Besançon, Musée des Beaux- Arts, recto and verso 2.14 Parmigianino, Study for St. Roch. Red chalk. Houston, Menil Collection 2.15 Parmigianino, Studies for St. Roch. Pen and ink with wash. Paris, Musée du Louvre, recto and verso 2.16 Parmigianino, Studies for the Baptist and St. Jerome. Pen and ink with wash and white heightening. Chantilly, Musée Condé 2.17 Parmigianino, Study for the Conversion of Paul. Pen and brown ink and brown and gray wash heightened with body color. London, Courtauld Gallery 2.18 Parmigianino, Study for St. Roch. Black chalk. Chatsworth, Devonshire Collection 2.19 Parmigianion, Study for the Face of St. Roch. Red chalk on paper stained with oil. Oxford, Christ Church 2.20 Parmigianino, Marriage of the Virgin. Pen and brown wash with white heightening. Chatsworth, Devonshire Collection 2.21 Gian Jacopo Caraglio after Parmigianino. Marriage of the Virgin. Engraving. London, British Museum 2.22 Parmigianino, Entombment, version 1, state 1. Etching. London, British Museum iii 2.23 Parmigianino, Entombment, version 2, state 1. Etching. Vienna, Albertina 2.24 Details of fig. 2.13, leg of St. Roch 2.25 Parmigianino, Studies for the Vision of St. Jerome. Pen and ink with wash (recto) and red chalk (verso). London, British Museum 2.26 Detail of fig. 2.1 2.27 Parmigianino, Study for a Madonna and Child with Sts. Roch and Sebastian, detail of footwear of St. Roch. Pen and ink with wash and heightening. Florence, Uffizi 2.28 Raphael, Holy Family of Francis I, detail of the foot of the Virgin. Paris, Musée du Louvre .2.29 Apollo Belvedere, detail of left foot. Vatican City, Vatican Museum 2.30 Parmigianino, Studies for the Madonna of the Long Neck. Black chalk. San Marino, Huntington Library 2.31 Detail of fig. 2.11, St. Cecilia’s costume 2.32 Detail of fig. 2.1, St. Roch’s garment 2.33 Roman, 2nd century AD, Minerva, detail of feet. Bronze. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art 2.34 Denis Calvaert, Study of Parmigianino’s St. Roch. Black chalk. Private Collection Chapter Three 3.1 Rosso Fiorentino, Lamentation at the Foot of the Cross. Sansepolcro, S. Lorenzo 3.2 Rosso Fiorentino, Deposition from the Cross. Volterra, Pinacoteca 3.3 Fra Bartolommeo, Lamentation. Florence, Galleria Palatina 3.4 Perino del Vaga, Lamentation. Pen, brown ink, and brown wash on blue paper. Munich, Staatliche Graphische Sammlung 3.5 Luca Signorelli, Standard with Crucifixion (recto). Sansepolcro, Museo Civico 3.6 Rosso Fiorentino, Marriage of the Virgin. Florence, S. Lorenzo 3.7 Rosso Fiorentino, Creation of Eve and Fall of Man. Rome, S. Maria della Pace, Cesi chapel 3.8 Rosso Fiorentino, Dead Christ with Angels. Boston, Museum of Fine Arts 3.9 Rosso Fiorentino, Dying Cleopatra. Brunswick, Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum iv 3.10 Rosso Fiorentino, Virgin and Child with Sts. John the Baptist, Anthony Abbot, Stephen, and Jerome (Ripoi Altarpiece). Florence, Uffizi 3.11 Rosso Fiorentino, Bacchus. Red chalk and red wash over black chalk. Besançon, Musée des Beaux-Arts 3.12 Gian Jacopo Caraglio after Rosso, Fury. Engraving. London, British Museum 3.13 Photograph of Domenico Alfani, Adoration of the Magi. Whereabouts unknown 3.14 Cherubino Alberti after Rosso Fiorentino, Adoration of the Magi.