Ugo Da Carpi's Diogenes

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chapter 10 Ugo da Carpi’s Diogenes

Naoko Takahatake

In 1516, Ugo da Carpi petitioned the Venetian Senate for a described the Diogenes twice in the Vite, once in the life of privilege, claiming the invention of a method for printing Marcantonio and again in the life of Parmigianino, prais ‘chiaro et scuro’, a beautiful and instructive medium for ing the woodcut in no uncertain terms as a ‘più bella those who delight in ‘disegno’ (Introduction, Fig. 1, p. 6).1 stampa’ (a most beautiful print).3 The critical fortune of Nowhere in Ugo’s description of this new technique does this superlative work has as much to do with its sophisti he introduce the idea of colore. Vasari, in the technical cated design and technical bravura as it does with the introduction prefixed to the 1550 edition of the Vite, refers large number of impressions that were printed. However, to the process as ‘stampe di legno di tre pezzi’ (woodcuts of the many known today, only a few were issued under from three matrices).2 In his records of specific chiaro Ugo’s supervision and can therefore be said to represent scuro woodcuts by Ugo da Carpi, Antonio da Trento and his artistic intention. As we shall see, the colour inks used Domenico Beccafumi, there is no mention of colour. in later impressions reflect the tastes of publishers rather Indeed, from the earliest descriptions, colour was not a than those of the printmaker. Discriminating between primary consideration in the interpretation of Italian early and posthumous printings is essential not only to an chiaroscuro woodcuts. It is, then, unsurprising that mod accurate evaluation of Ugo’s contribution, but also to ern study of the Italian chiaroscuro woodcut has been problems of attribution, chronology and the history of the principally matrix-centric in approach, remaining largely blocks. blind to the question of colour. While the ambition of the The earliest known chiaroscuro woodcut in Italy is technique was not to be a colour woodcut as such, the for Ugo’s two-block Saint Jerome after Titian (B.XII.82.31), mulation of colour inks was integral to a printmaker’s aes likely executed by 1516 in Venice, the year of his petition to thetic quest. the Senate. By this date, Ugo had cut a number of wood Ugo da Carpi’s Diogenes after Parmigianino (c.1527–30, cuts, ranging from small book illustrations to monumen B.XII.100.10) is a tour de force of chiaroscuro block design, tal multi-block works. He was in Rome by 1518, as testified cutting and printing (Fig. 10.1). Seated in front of his bar by the dated papal privilege found on his Aeneas and rel, Diogenes of Sinope looks down at a book before him Anchises (B.XII.104.12) and Death of Ananias (B.XII.46.27). and draws a length of fur to his chest. With the stick in his The bulk of his chiaroscuro woodcuts were executed in right hand he points to a second open book that bears the Rome after drawings by Raphael or Raphael’s school and inscription: ‘FRANCISCVS // PARMEN // PER VGO CARP’. engravings by Agostino Veneziano and Marcantonio To the right stands a plucked chicken, acknowledging Raimondi. There is a marked technical development and Plato’s mockery of Man as a species of featherless biped. innovation in his Roman prints, from the two-block Sibyl Through an intricate distribution of design over four (B.XII.89.6), considered his first print after Raphael,4 to his blocks, Ugo masterfully models form, expresses move ment and captures texture: the articulation of the Cynic’s 3 Vasari, Vite, 5: 15. tensed musculature, the fluid swell and cascade of drap 4 This print is described by Vasari and broadly accepted as Ugo’s ery, and the rough texture of the fowl’s bared skin. Vasari work. Vasari, Vite, 5: 15. Achim Gnann tentatively ascribed it to Antonio da Trento. A. Gnann, Parmigianino und sein Kreis: 1 ‘havendo io trovato modo di stampare chiaro et scuro, cosa nova, et Druckgraphik aus der Sammlung Baselitz, exh. cat. (Munich: mai più non fatta, et [esta] cosa bella et utile a molti chi havera piacer Staatliche Graphische Sammlung München, Alte Pinakothek, di disegno’. 24 July 1516, Archivio di Stato, Venice, Notatorio di Munich and Frankfurt am Main, Städel Museum; Munich: Hatje Collegio, registro 18, 7 March 1515–27 August 1520, c. 39, published in Cantz, 2008), 172–73, no. 59. However, this print was recorded in the M. Rossi ed., Ugo da Carpi, l’opera incisa: xilografie e chiaroscuri da Ferdinand Columbus collection by Scribe A, who ceased work on Tiziano, Raffaello e Parmigianino, exh. cat. (Carpi: Comune di Carpi, the inventory around 1522, thus precluding an attribution to 2009), 182, document 37. Antonio, who was not active at this early date. M.P. McDonald, The 2 G. Vasari, Le vite de’ più eccellenti pittori scultori e architettori nelle Print Collection of Ferdinand Columbus (1488–1539): A Renaissance redazioni del 1550 e 1568, ed. R. Bettarini and P. Barocchi, 6 vols. Collector in Seville, 2 vols. (London: British Museum Press, 2004), 1: (Florence: Sansoni, 1966–87), 1: 170–71. 154 and 2: 339, no. 1896. For a tentative attribution to Antonio da

increasing refinement of his cutting demanded ever more precision of block registration, which he must also have engineered. The fact that Ugo was the blockcutter, printer and pub lisher of these woodcuts is attested by the 1518 papal privi lege inscribed on the Aeneas and Anchises and Death of Ananias: ‘apud Ugum de Carpi impressam’. Not only did he possess the executive skills and financial wherewithal to generate and publish his own prints,6 but he also took great measures to protect his investments.7 There is there fore little reason to suppose that he was among those printmakers in the immediate circle of Raphael working with the publisher Baviero de’ Carrocci, called il Baviera. The early impressions of Ugo’s chiaroscuro woodcuts are extremely scarce, suggesting limited editions for a small and sophisticated market of collectors.8 Had he availed himself of il Baviera’s channels of distribution, we might expect a commercial scale of production more compara ble to that of the latter’s intaglio prints.9 Ugo became acquainted with Parmigianino shortly after the painter’s arrival in Rome in 1524. This association is confirmed by Ugo’s only known painting, Veronica with the Sudarium Flanked by Saints Peter and Paul (c.1525), after a drawing by Parmigianino.10 The Diogenes is the only signed and unanimously accepted print by Ugo that Figure 10.1 Ugo da Carpi, after Parmigianino, Diogenes, c.1527–30, chiaroscuro woodcut from four blocks, sole responsibility for acquiring colours. While this may merely attest to a financial responsibility, it may be that Ugo developed 48.1 × 35.2 cm Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, bequest of his proficiency working with colour at this time. S. Santini, ‘Ugo W.G. Russel Allen, 64.1085; photograph da Carpi, note per una biografia’, in Rossi ed., Ugo da Carpi, 20. © 2014 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston 6 Ugo was born into a situation of privilege in Carpi, and docu ments from 1495 to 1502 record his involvement in the adminis tration of his properties. Santini, ‘Ugo da Carpi’, 20. four -block prints such as the Death of Ananias and 7 Ugo obtained another Papal privilege in 1525 for his calligraphy Massacre of the Innocents (B.XII.34.8) after Agostino manual, Operina di Ludovico Vicentino da imparare di scrivere lit- Veneziano and Marcantonio Raimondi respectively. tera cancellerescha (Rome: [s.n.], 1525). The variety of approaches to translating designs from a 8 I know of five or fewer impressions of some of Ugo’s chiaroscuro range of sources powerfully demonstrates Ugo’s interpre woodcuts, including Saint Jerome; the first version of Hercules tative agency and his autonomy as a blockcutter operating Chasing Avarice from the Temple of the Muses (B.XII.133.12); Hercules Strangling the Nemean Lion (B.XII.117.15); Hercules independently. He must have strategised these subtle dis Crushing Antaeus (B.XII.117.14); and Aeneas and Anchises. As tributions of designs over multiple blocks and conceived Michael Bury noted, we have little information about the original the elegant juxtapositions and meticulous layering of audience for chiaroscuro woodcuts, although the sophistication prepared inks in different palettes.5 What is more, the of the images implies a knowledgeable clientele. M. Bury, ‘Italian Chiaroscuro Woodcuts’, review of D. Graf and H. Mildenberger, Trento, see also A. Gnann, In Farbe! Clair-obscur-Holzschnitte der Chiaroscuro: Italienische Farbholzschnitte der Renaissance und Renaissance. Meisterwerke aus der Sammlung Georg Baselitz und der des Barock. Print Quarterly 20 (2003), 418. Albertina in Wien, exh. cat. (Vienna: Albertina; Munich: Hirmer 9 Bury remarked that the channels of distribution for chiaroscuro Verlag GmbH, 2013), 162–63, no. 72, which was published as this cur woodcuts were distinct from those of intaglio prints. Bury, rent volume was going to press. In his interpretation of this and ‘Italian Chiaroscuro Woodcuts’, 418. other prints, Gnann reached different conclusions to those dis 10 The drawing is now in the Uffizi. R. Harprath in Raffaello in cussed in this essay. Vaticano, ed. Fabrizio Mancinelli, exh. cat. (Vatican City; Milan: 5 In 1503, Ugo hired Saccaccino Saccaccini to help execute painting Electa, 1984), 324–25, no. 123. The painting is in the Archivio commissions in and around Carpi. The contract stipulates Ugo’s della Fabbrica di San Pietro, Vatican.