Amici Di Palazzo Pitti Bollettino 2017

BOLLETTINO 2017 AMICI DI PALAZZO PITTI Amici di Palazzo Pitti Bollettino 2017 a cura degli Amici di Palazzo Pitti Presentazione 3 Carlo Sisi Contributi Botticelli in America 6 Miles Chappell I dipinti di Fra Bartolomeo in Galleria Palatina, nel quinto centenario della morte 23 Serena Padovani Luigi Ademollo, pittore in palazzo Pitti alla corte degli Asburgo-Lorena. Parte II 34 Egle Radogna Canova e Firenze, nella corrispondenza epistolare del 1814 48 Carlo Sisi, Silvio Balloni Il ritratto degli arciduchi e Mengs a Firenze 53 Elena Marconi Don Tommaso Corsini e alcuni artisti del suo tempo 58 Silvestra Bietoletti Riflessioni a margine della mostra Tracce. Dialoghi ad arte nel museo della moda e del costume 66 Caterina Chiarelli, Simonella Condemi Momenti della musica del Novecento a Firenze 80 Eleonora Negri Donaria granducali per la Chiesa e il Monastero di Santa Felicita I parte - I Medici 88 M. Cristina François Attività dei Musei di Palazzo Pitti Tesoro dei Granduchi (già Museo degli Argenti) 94 Galleria Palatina e Appartamenti Reali 100 Galleria d’arte moderna 104 Galleria della moda e del costume 106 Giardino di Boboli 107 Attività dell’Associazione Visite 112 Gite e viaggi 114 Conferenze 123 Eventi particolari 125 Piccola Antologia Ricordo di Marco Chiarini, studioso e amico 128 Miles Chappell Auguri a Detlef Heikamp 131 L’Associazione Amici di Palazzo Pitti 133 Redazione: Laura Baldini e Serena Padovani con la collaborazione di Detlef Heikamp Presentazione Per la nostra Associazione degli Amici di Palazzo Pitti la pubblica- zione del Bollettino riveste, fra gli altri, il compito di documentare le diverse componenti di un ciclo annuale di impegni e attività che giu- stificano e rafforzano la nostra presenza all’interno del nuovo assetto delle Gallerie degli Uffizi con l’obbiettivo, da tutti noi condiviso, di ga- rantire nel tempo gli aspetti identitari dello straordinario organismo della Reggia e del Giardino con le sue molteplici valenze storiche e cul- turali, gli avvicendamenti dinastici con le loro conseguenze sul gusto, le vicende collezionistiche e le coerenti scelte museali messe in atto da una responsabile generazione di conservatori. Siamo per questo grati al Direttore e ai vari coordinatori dei Musei per l’ospitalità accordata agli Amici e per la fiducia dimostrata nell’af- fidarci i calendari e gli esiti della loro attività, che il Bollettino rende noti con spirito di partecipazione e con la precisa volontà di informa- re gli associati su quanto avviene nei diversi comparti di un così com- plesso sistema espositivo. Ma lo stesso Bollettino, grazie al qualifica- to impegno di Laura Baldini e di Serena Padovani, è soprattutto un prezioso veicolo di contributi scientifici che riflettono in special modo la vita culturale dell’Associazione, consegnando alle pagine i testi delle conferenze, i risultati di ricerche afferenti ad artisti o a opere pre- senti nelle Gallerie di Palazzo Pitti, le testimonianze che nel volgere 3 di una stagione hanno sottolineato i profili di amici e studiosi partico- larmente vicini alle nostre attività. In questo numero, ancora una volta ricco di proposte e di qualche inedito, la critica dell’arte si occupa di Botticelli, di Fra Bartolomeo, di Mengs, di Ademollo e di Canova; delle conferenze si pubblicano quelle dedicate al gusto artistico di don Tommaso Corsini e agli eventi musicali del Novecento a Firenze; nella ‘Piccola antologia’ spiccano, infine, il Ricordo di Marco Chiarini pro- nunciato alla Biblioteca Marucelliana in una memorabile e affollatissi- ma giornata, e il testo composto per i novanta anni di Detlef Heikamp, due protagonisti della cultura artistica fiorentina ai quali la nostra As- sociazione riconosce, con affetto e particolare gratitudine, il merito e il metodo della sua istituzione. Il Presidente Carlo Sisi Contributi Botticelli in America Miles Chappell Botticelli graced the arrival of spring 2017 in Virginia with paintings from the Galleria Palatina and other Italian museums in an extraordinary exhibition. Botticelli and the Search for the Divine: Florentine Painting between the Medici and the Bonfires of the Vanities, organized by Aa- ron H. De Groft, John T. Spike and Alessandro Cecchi, was inaugu- rated in February by the Muscarelle Museum of Art at the College of Wil- liam & Mary, in Williamsburg, Virginia, and in April at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Massachusetts, both historic venues1. The enthusiastic, ardent response to the exhibition is reflected in the reviews and the extraordinary attendance2. We offer a brief description of the exhibition – which was slightly varied in the two venues – as presented at the Muscarelle Museum and comments on selected works following the numbers and dates in the informative, fully illustrated catalog. This valuable addition to Botticelli studies consists of introductory essays, entries with histories, accounts of prior attributions and new propo- sals for twenty-eight works, a useful appendix with biographies sup- plemented by complementary illustrations and a thorough bibliography3. Artistic origins and early works The first section of the exhibition presented mainly works by his 6 teacher Fra Filippo Lippi (1406-1469). The Madonna and Child (no. 6, recently dated ca. 1466-1469; Florence, Palazzo Medici Riccardi), exemplifies his late style. Characteristics such as the nearly life-size figures, the intimacy of their interaction, the humanity in their expres- sions, and the exquisite delineation and color—evident in the jewels and the dress (one wonders if the inscriptions are readable)—will in- fluence Botticelli, who was in Lippi’s studio in the 1460s, in his own treatments of the theme. The verso with the Study of a Head and Figure of a Bearded Man and Various Sketches, an impressive, unfinished drawing in charcoal, brush and wash, is of particular interest. While the two sides are generally considered to be separate works, a relationship seems possible. This is suggested by the fully prepared surface of the verso, the partial outline of the figure with points revealing pounc- ing and tracing from a cartoon4, and the centered, large, half-length figure of a bearded man with a rapt expression and his hand on his chest. The subject and placement of the image on the verso suggest the possibility that the painting was intended to be two-sided and that the large brush drawing depicts a saint, perhaps John the Baptist. The proj- ect may have preceded the Madonna on the recto before being aban- doned at the stage of the under-drawing. Probably later, small sketches were drawn round this figure: a caricature, a posed leg suggestive of a crucifixion, eyes, and a tabernacle which was recently suggested as a frame for the altar.5 Botticelli seems to recall the man and for- mat in his paintings of half-length figures such as Christ Crowned with Thorns (Bergamo, Accademia Carrara). The Annunciation with St. Julian the Martyr (under no 6, mid-1460s; Prato, Museo di Palazzo Pretorio) raises complicated questions of in- terpretation and authorship (fig. 1). Generally considered a studio work, the painting was given by Maria Pia Mannini to Lippi and his assistant Fra Diamante and later to Lippi’s workshop6. The work is here cataloged as by Lippi and assistants with the suggestion by Spike that the angel’s delicate face recalls the technique of Botticelli. The impressive Botticelli in America perspective design seems calculated to em- phasize certain details. The scene is a large room, recalling contemporary Florentine Ren- aissance architecture, and the space has a strong illusion of depth thanks to the careful drawing of the transversal and orthogonal lines and planes and of the ever-diminishing scale of the patterns in the decorated floor and ceiling. The recession emphasizes the prominent two-arch arcade with a black and gold column and the room and a window with a view of trees. In a stratified or relief-like dis- position of figures seen in profile, the seated Virgin looking up to the hand of God in the clouds is faced by the kneeling Gabriel and a standing young saint with a sword and the palm of martyrdom. There are problems with the established identifications of the saint as either Julian the Hospitalier or Julian the Mar- tyr because the former was not martyred and the latter is usually shown as an older, beard- 7 ed man. We propose that the saint is Minia- to, the first Florentine martyr, shown as a young man with blond hair, dark tunic, red 1. Fra Filippo Lippi and Workshop, cape, staff and palm. These details characterize his depictions at the Annunciation with St. Julian the Martyr, church of San Miniato, Florence, such as the thirteenth-century façade mid. 1460s; Prato, Museo di Palazzo and apse mosaics, Jacopo del Casentino’s altar in the sacristy, and Ag- Pretorio. nolo Gaddi’s painting in the Cappella del Crocifisso.7 While symboliz- ing the Virgin, the prominent column and trees could also make allu- sions to the Flagellation and to the woods of the Cross in the three trees (a cedar, cypress, and olive or oak). That the Annunciation may document a lost work by Lippi is suggested by the fact that there are three versions—nearly identical in composition and size—which are given to his workshop.8 The versions must repeat an admired but now lost work by the master, and the design appears to have influenced Bot- ticelli’s later treatments of the subject in which the action takes place in elaborate architectural settings with deep vistas. Two paintings in the exhibition illustrate Botticelli’s debts to Lippi. As long recognized, the Madonna and Child with an Angel (no. 7, ca. 1465; Florence, Museo degli Innocenti) derives from Lippi’s famous Madon- na and Child with Two Angels in the Uffizi but is, Spike observes, char- acteristically less naturalistic in concept and expression and more in- trospective in mood.

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