Mitteilungen Des Kunsthistorischen Heft 3 Institutes in Florenz
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MITTEILUNGEN DES KUNSTHISTORISCHEN INSTITUTES LXI. BAND — 2019 IN FLORENZ HEFT 3 DES KUNSTHISTORISCHEN INSTITUTES IN FLORENZ MITTEILUNGEN 2019 LXI / 3 LXI. BAND — 2019 MITTEILUNGEN DES KUNSTHISTORISCHEN HEFT 3 INSTITUTES IN FLORENZ Inhalt | Contenuto Redaktionskomitee | Comitato di redazione Aufsätze Saggi Alessandro Nova, Gerhard Wolf, Samuel Vitali _ _ Redakteur | Redattore Samuel Vitali _ 275 _ Carlo Ginzburg Editing und Herstellung | Editing e impaginazione Storia dell’arte, da vicino e da lontano Ortensia Martinez Fucini Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz Max-Planck-Institut _ 287 _ Serena Padovani Via G. Giusti 44, I-50121 Firenze Fra Bartolomeo nella prima attività da frate-pittore e l’inizio del rapporto Tel. 055.2491147, Fax 055.2491155 [email protected] – [email protected] con Raffaello. Due questioni di cronologia www.khi.fi.it/publikationen/mitteilungen Die Redaktion dankt den Peer Reviewers dieses Heftes für ihre Unterstützung | La redazione ringrazia i peer reviewers per la loro collaborazione a questo numero. _ 309 _ Janis Bell Zaccolini, dal Pozzo, and Leonardo’s Writings in Rome and Milan Graphik | Progetto grafico RovaiWeber design, Firenze Produktion | Produzione _ 335 _ Chiara Franceschini Centro Di edizioni, Firenze Mattia Preti’s : Painting, Cult, and Inquisition Madonna della Lettera Die erscheinen jährlich in drei Heften und in Malta, Messina, and Rome könnenMitteilungen im Abonnement oder in Einzelheften bezogen werden durch | Le escono con cadenza quadrimestrale e possonoMitteilungen essere ordinate in abbonamento o singolarmente presso: Centro Di edizioni, Via dei Renai 20r _ 365 _ Gabriella Cianciolo Cosentino I-50125 Firenze, Tel. 055.2342666, Dislocazione, musealizzazione e ricezione dei reperti pompeiani: [email protected]; www.centrodi.it. il caso delle colonne a mosaico Preis | Prezzo Einzelheft | Fascicolo singolo: € 30 (plus Porto | più costi di spedizione) Jahresabonnement | Abbonamento annuale: € 90 (Italia); € 120 (Ausland | estero) Die Mitglieder des Vereins zur Förderung des Kunsthistorischen Instituts in Florenz (Max-Planck- Institut) e. V. erhalten die Zeitschrift kostenlos. I membri del Verein zur Förderung des Kunsthistorischen Instituts in Florenz (Max-Planck-Institut) e. V. ricevono la rivista gratuitamente. Adresse des Vereins | Indirizzo del Verein: c/o Schuhmann Rechtsanwälte Ludwigstraße 8 D-80539 München [email protected]; www.khi.fi.it/foerderverein Die alten Jahrgänge der sind für Subskribenten online abrufbar über JSTORMitteilungen (www.jstor.org ). Le precedenti annate delle sono accessibili online su JSTOR (www.jstor.org)Mitteilungen per gli abbonati al servizio. ____ 1 Mattia Preti, Madonna della Lettera or The Messinese embassy to the Virgin, 1664. Messina, Museo Regionale Interdisciplinare wards a later dating and an unspecified Messinese commission.4 MATTIA PRETI’S This article argues that the painting was executed in Malta in 1664 for an altar dedicated to the Madon- PAINTING, CULT,MADONNA AND INQUISITION DELLA LETTERA na della Lettera in the church of San Francesco in Val- letta; the altar was subsequently dismantled in 1668. IN MALTA, MESSINA, AND ROME Evidence for this emerges from a set of unpublished documents in a volume containing cases of indulgences kept in the archive of the Sant’Uffizio in Rome. -Al though they do not mention the name of the artist di- rectly, the documents are useful in reconstructing the brief life of the altar and in establishing the date of a painting which, on the basis of iconographical and ma- terial considerations, can reasonably be identified with the one we see today in the museum of Messina. The painting described in the inquisitorial sourc- es, like the one in Messina, depicted the Messinese Chiara Franceschini embassy to the Virgin in 42 AD, a legendary episode probably invented in the first half of the sixteenth cen- tury. A print from 1740 allegedly reproducing a wood- have been executed by Mattia Preti after his defini- Quando Monsignore entrò la cappella era illuminata dal sole cut from 1522 (Fig. 2) explains how the letter written tive move to Malta in 1661 (Fig. 1).1 Though schol- del pomeriggio calante; e al di sopra dell’altare il quadro vene- by the Virgin Mary that was venerated in Messina ars believe it was intended to be sent to Sicily, both first arrived there.5 The conversion to Christianity of ratissimo dalle signorine si trovava in piena luce: era un dipinto the exact date of the painting – sometime between nello stile di Cremona e rappresentava una giovinetta esile, assai the population of Messina was thought to have been 1660 and 1675 – and its original context are un- the work of Saint Paul, who was asked to come from piacente, gli occhi rivolti al cielo, i molli capelli bruni sparsi in known.2 Following the earthquake of 1908, the work grazioso disordine sulle spalle seminude; nella destra essa strin- Reggio to preach in that city; when the apostle in- was transferred to the museum from the church of ____ formed the people that Mary was still living in Jeru- geva una lettera spiegazzata. Il Gattopardo San Giovanni Decollato in Messina; however, it is (Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, ) 2 View of Messina, in: Spiegazioni salem, in 42 AD the town sent a delegation, headed not mentioned in any previous document, nor in the di due antiche mazze di ferro by Saint Paul himself, to ask for her protection. Mary, 3 ritrovate in Messina nell’anno MDCCXXXIII, Preserved in the Museo Regionale of Messina early sources describing San Giovanni Decollato. Venice 1740, between pp. 168 and 169 according to the story, confirmed the blessing of her is a large painting with a , or The recent spate of studies on the Calabrian painter protection by signing and handing them a letter, the Madonna, generally della consideredLettera Theto repeat the above-mentioned information, leaning to- Messinese embassy to the Virgin original of which, according to eighteenth-century reconstructions, disappeared after 430.6 While the 1 The altarpiece is painted in oil on canvas and measures 261 by 166 , Bologna 1980, p. 50, respectively with the date “avanti il 1660” and sina cm. See Claudio Strinati, in: , exh. cat., ed. 1650–1656. For Gioacchino Barbera, in: Mattia Preti: il Cavalier Calabrese Dal golfo allo stretto: itinerari seicenteschi by Roberta Rinaldi , Catanzaro 1999, p. 188, no. 55; Federico Zeri/ , exh. cat., ed. by /Nicola Spinosa, Messina 2004, p. 57, et al. tra Napoli e Messina idem Francesca Campagna Cicala, , Palermo 1992, p. 132, no. 15, “pure bisogna ammettere il contributo di qualche collaboratore”. , ed. by Francesca Campagna Cicala/Giovanni Molonia between pp. 168 and 169. See Giovan Giuseppe Mellusi, “Dalla lettera Messina: Museo Regionale re d’arte recuperate no. 115; John T. Spike, , Taverna 1999, 2 Vincenzo Abbate, “Appunti per la committenza siciliana di Mat- (= , VIII [1998]), della Madonna alla Madonna della lettera: nascita e fortuna di una ce- Mattia Preti: catalogo ragionato dei dipinti Quaderni dell´attività didattica del Museo Regionale di Messina p. 180, no. 93. First proposed by Roberto Longhi, , tia Preti”, in: , V (1980), pp. 65–74: 65f. (with a date after pp. 39, 133, no. 156. lebre credenza messinese”, in: , XCIII (2012), Scritti giovanili: 1912–1922 Bollettino d’arte Società Messinese di Storia Patria Florence 1956, I, p. 322 (“primo periodo”) and p. 412 (after 1665), the 1660); Spike (note 1), p. 180 (1675); Donatella Spagnolo, “La Madonna 4 Keith Sciberras, pp. 237–261: 239f. and fig. 1; Placido Samperi, Mattia Preti: The Triumphant Manner. With a Catalogue of His Iconologia della gloriosa Vergine attribution to Preti was confirmed, after restoration, by Giuseppe Consoli, della Lettera”, in: , exh. cat., ed. by , Valletta 2012, pp. 65, 119f. , Messina 1644, I, pp. 71–73; Placido Mattia Preti: con lo sguardo verso Caravaggio Works in Malta madre di Dio Maria Protettrice di Messina in: , exh. cat., Rosalba Panvini/Franco La Fico Guzzo, Siracusa 2016, pp. 48f. 5 [Giacomo Francesco Quingles/Paolo Agliota], Reina, , Messina 1688, II, pp. 2–151. Opere d’arte restaurate (1965–1969): XIII Settimana dei Musei Italiani Spiegazioni di due anti- Delle notizie istoriche della città di Messina ed. by , Messina 1970, p. n. n., no. 12, and , 3 Antonino Salinas/Gaetano Maria Columba, , Venice 1740, 6 Maria Pia Fantini, “La lettera della Madonna ai messinesi: apocrifa, idem idem Museo Regionale di Mes- Terremoto di Messina: ope- che mazze di ferro ritrovate in Messina nell’anno MDCCXXXIII | 335 336 | CHIARA FRANCESCHINI | wards a later dating and an unspecified Messinese commission.4 MATTIA PRETI’S This article argues that the painting was executed in Malta in 1664 for an altar dedicated to the Madon- PAINTING, CULT,MADONNA AND INQUISITION DELLA LETTERA na della Lettera in the church of San Francesco in Val- letta; the altar was subsequently dismantled in 1668. IN MALTA, MESSINA, AND ROME Evidence for this emerges from a set of unpublished documents in a volume containing cases of indulgences kept in the archive of the Sant’Uffizio in Rome. -Al though they do not mention the name of the artist di- rectly, the documents are useful in reconstructing the brief life of the altar and in establishing the date of a painting which, on the basis of iconographical and ma- terial considerations, can reasonably be identified with the one we see today in the museum of Messina. The painting described in the inquisitorial sourc- es, like the one in Messina, depicted the Messinese Chiara Franceschini embassy to the Virgin