Copyright by Claire I. Sumner 2020

The Thesis Committee for Claire I. Sumner Certifies that this is the approved version of the following Thesis:

Canonizing Zuccaro: The Early Life of Taddeo Series and the Building of an Artistic Legacy

APPROVED BY SUPERVISING COMMITTEE:

Louis Alexander Waldman, Supervisor

Miroslava Benes

Canonizing Zuccaro: The Early Life of Taddeo Series and the Building of an Artistic Legacy

by

Claire I. Sumner

Thesis Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements for the Degree of

Master of Arts

The University of Texas at Austin August 2020 Dedication

For my parents, without whom I could never have found my passion for art or finished this thesis. Thank you for all your encouragement and support.

Acknowledgements

This thesis could never have been completed without the generosity and encouragement of generations of historians. Most directly my advisor Dr. Louis

Alexander Waldman and my second reader Dr. Miroslava Benes. Their support and advice were invaluable. I must also thank the scholars who generously donated their time and expertise to attend my colloquium: Dr. Jefferey Chipps Smith, Dr. Douglas Biow, Dr.

John Clarke, and Christine Zappella. Special thanks to my friend, peer, and roommate

Ingrid Kottke who donated her time to act as my scribe during the proceedings and talked me down from numerous intellectual cliffs in the months following. I would also like to acknowledge the importance of the scholars who guided me through my undergraduate years at Randolph College. Dr. Andrea Campbell and Dr. Susan Stevens, I could never have done this without you.

v Abstract

Canonizing Zuccaro: The Early Life of Taddeo Series and the Building of an Artistic Legacy

Claire I. Sumner, MA

The University of Texas at Austin, 2020

Supervisor: Louis Alexander Waldman

The Early Life of Taddeo Zuccaro is a series of twenty-four highly finished drawings in pencil, ink, and wash executed by Federico Zuccaro (1541c-1609) in the mid-1590s depicting scenes from the life of Taddeo Zuccaro (1529-66) during his apprenticeship and early career. Each drawing is paired with a tercet of poetry also by Federico meant to complement the scene being depicted. The drawings and accompanying verse are a tribute to Taddeo, whose career was cut short by his death in 1566, from his younger brother and apprentice. The choice of Taddeo’s early life as the subject almost thirty years after his death was part of Federico’s attempt to depict a family legacy in his Palazzo in Rome that highlighted his artistic pedigree and innovative compositions. While the lives of artists is now a common subject of both visual and literary depictions, the subject was almost unique in the seicento, only the funerary banners painted by the members of the Accademia del Disegno for Michelangelo’s funeral in 1564 precede The Early Life of Taddeo series.

vi This paper investigates how Federico Zuccaro through The Early Life of Taddeo Zuccaro series turns his brother into an exemplum for the students of the newly founded Accademia di San Luca of which Federico was the first principe, principal. Federico uses hagiographic imagery, which had previously only been used in relation to Michelangelo, to place his brother among the canon of great artist and by doing so elevated his brother, himself, and his newly founded academy. The Early Life of Taddeo Zuccaro is an ambitious attempt to control Taddeo’s narrative and establish a familial legacy that highlights many of the changing elements, both positive and negative, that will have long-lasting effect on how artists are viewed and operate. The drawings demonstrate just how aware the savvy artist was of their changing circumstances and the active role that artists could play in manipulating and responding to their evolving role in the social fabric of Italian cities at the end of the sixteenth century.

vii Table of Contents

List of Illustrations ...... x

Introduction ...... 1

Chapter 1: The Drawings as Objects, The Drawings as Biography ...... 12

THE DRAWINGS AS OBJECTS ...... 12

TADDEO’S LIFE, THE BIOGRAPHY ...... 16

The Arrival in Rome ...... 18

The Changing Role of the Apprentice ...... 27

The Return Home and Triumph ...... 30

THE EARLY LIFE OF FEDERICO ...... 40

Chapter 2: Precursors and Premonitions: Federico’s Path to the Founding of the Accademia di San Luca and the creation of the Early Life of Taddeo ...... 46

THE RETRIBUTION DRAWINGS ...... 47

THE DANTE HISTORIATO AND FEDERICO’S ROLE AS EDUCATOR ...... 61

FEDERICO AND THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE ARTIST ACADEMY IN ITALY ...... 64

Chapter 3: Canonizing Taddeo...... 72

FEDERICO ON ART ...... 73

TADDEO AS AN EXEMPLUM ...... 75

THE AFTERLIFE OF AN ARTIST: THE CANONIZING OF MICHELANGELO ...... 80

TADDEO AS A FIGUREHEAD ...... 91

CONCLUSION ...... 100

viii Appendix ...... 154

Bibliography ...... 175

Vita ...... 181

ix List of Illustrations

Fig. 1 Federico Zuccaro, Allegories of Faith and Hope, Flanking the Zuccaro Emblem, about 1595, Pen and brown ink, brush with brown wash, over black chalk underdrawing, 18.1 × 41.7 cm (7 1/8 × 16 7/16 in.),

99.GA.6.1. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles ...... 102 Fig. 2 Federico Zuccaro, Taddeo Leaving Home Escorted by Two Guardian Angels,

about 1595, Pen and brown ink, brush with brown wash, over black chalk and touches of red chalk 27.4 × 26 cm (10 13/16 × 10 1/4 in.),

99.GA.6.2. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles ...... 103 Fig. 3 Federico Zuccaro, Pallas Athena Shows Taddeo the Prospect of Rome, about 1595, Pen and brown ink, brush with brown wash, over red chalk, 42 × 16.2 cm (16 9/16 × 6 3/8 in.), 99.GA.6.3. The J. Paul Getty

Museum, Los Angeles...... 104 Fig. 4 Federico Zuccaro, Taddeo at the Entrance to Rome Greeted by Toil, Servitude, and Hardship, and by Obedience and Patience (the Ass and Ox), about 1595, Pen and brown ink, brush with brown wash, over black chalk, 40.9 × 17.4 cm (16 1/8 × 6 7/8 in.), 99.GA.6.4. The J. Paul

Getty Museum, Los Angeles...... 105 Fig. 5 Federico Zuccaro, Taddeo Rebuffed by Francesco Il Sant'Angelo, about 1595, Pen and brown ink, brush with brown wash, over black chalk, 17.9 ×

41.5 cm (7 1/16 × 16 5/16 in.), 99.GA.6.5. The J. Paul Getty

Museum, Los Angeles...... 106

x Fig. 6 Federico Zuccaro, Allegories of Fortitude and Patience, about 1595, Pen and brown ink, brush with brown wash, over black chalk, 17.3 × 42 cm (6 13/16 × 16 9/16 in.), 99.GA.6.6. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los

Angeles...... 107 Fig. 7 Federico Zuccaro, Twenty Drawings Depicting the Early Life of Taddeo Zuccaro, about 1595, Pen and brown ink and brown wash over black

chalk, 99.GA.6. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles...... 108 Fig. 8 Federico Zuccaro, Taddeo Sent on an Errand by Calabrese's Wife, about 1595,

Pen and brown ink, brush with brown wash, over black chalk, 42 × 17.1 cm (16 9/16 × 6 3/4 in.), 99.GA.6.8. The J. Paul Getty Museum,

Los Angeles...... 109 Fig. 9 Federico Zuccaro, Taddeo Drawing by Moonlight in Calabrese's House, about 1595, Pen and brown ink, brush with brown wash, over black chalk,

42.1 × 17.7 cm (16 9/16 × 6 15/16 in.), 99.GA.6.9. The J. Paul Getty

Museum, Los Angeles...... 110 Fig. 10 Federico Zuccaro, Taddeo Employed on Menial Tasks at Calabrese's House, about 1595, Pen and brown ink, brush with brown wash, over black chalk, 17.6 × 41.9 cm (6 15/16 × 16 1/2 in.), 99.GA.6.10. The J. Paul

Getty Museum, Los Angeles...... 111 Fig. 11 Federico Zuccaro, Two Child Angels, Symbolizing Patience and Industry,

about 1595, Pen and brown ink, brush with brown wash, over black chalk, 17.5 × 41.8 cm (6 7/8 × 16 7/16 in.), 99.GA.6.11. The J. Paul

Getty Museum, Los Angeles...... 111

xi Fig. 12 Federico Zuccaro, Taddeo Drawing after the Antique; In the Background Copying a Facade by Polidoro, about 1595, Pen and brown ink, brush with brown wash over black chalk and touches of red chalk, 42.3 × 17.5 cm (16 5/8 × 6 7/8 in.), 99.GA.6.12. The J. Paul Getty

Museum, Los Angeles...... 112 Fig. 13 Federico Zuccaro, Taddeo Copying Raphael's Frescoes in the Loggia of the

Villa Farnesina, Where He is Also Represented Asleep, about 1595, Pen and brown ink, brush with brown wash, over black chalk and

touches of red chalk, 42.4 × 17.5 cm (16 11/16 × 6 7/8 in.),

99.GA.6.13. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles...... 113 Fig. 14 Federico Zuccaro, Taddeo's Hallucination, about 1595, Pen and brown ink, brush with brown wash, over black chalk, 27.5 × 27.3 cm (10 13/16

× 10 3/4 in.), 99.GA.6.14. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles. ..114 Fig. 15 Federico Zuccaro, Taddeo Returning Home with the Sack of Stones and in Bed Recovering from His Fever, about 1595, Pen and brown ink, brush with brown wash, over black chalk and touches of red chalk, 17.7 × 42.3 cm (6 15/16 × 16 5/8 in.), 99.GA.6.15. The J. Paul Getty

Museum, Los Angeles...... 115 Fig. 16 Federico Zuccaro, Taddeo Returns to Rome Escorted by Drawing and Spirit toward the Three Graces, about 1595, Pen and brown ink, brush

with brown wash, over black chalk and touches of red chalk, 42.6 × 18 cm (16 3/4 × 7 1/16 in.), 99.GA.6.16. The J. Paul Getty Museum,

Los Angeles...... 116

xii Fig. 17 Federico Zuccaro, Taddeo in the Belvedere Court in the Vatican Drawing the Laocoön, about 1595, Pen and brown ink, brush with brown wash, over black chalk and touches of red chalk, 17.5 × 42.5 cm (6 7/8 ×

16 3/4 in.), 99.GA.6.17. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles...... 117 Fig. 18 Federico Zuccaro, Taddeo in the Sistine Chapel Drawing Michelangelo's Last Judgment, about 1595, Pen and brown ink, brush with brown wash,

over black chalk and touches of red chalk, 41.9 × 17.7 cm (16 1/2 ×

6 15/16 in.), 99.GA.6.18. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles. ...118 Fig. 19 Federico Zuccaro, Taddeo Decorating the Façade of the Palazzo Mattei, about 1595, Pen and brown ink, brush with brown wash, over black chalk and touches of red chalk, 25 × 42.2 cm (9 13/16 × 16 5/8 in.),

99.GA.6.19. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles...... 119 Fig. 20 Federico Zuccaro, Allegories of Study and Intelligence Flanking the Zuccaro

Emblem, about 1595, Pen and brown ink, brush with brown wash, over black chalk and touches of red chalk, 17.6 × 42.5 cm (6 15/16 ×

16 3/4 in.), 99.GA.6.20. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles...... 120 Fig. 21 Federico Zuccaro, Portrait of Michelangelo, about 1600, Pen and brown ink, brush with brown wash, over black chalk, 24.1 × 12.3 cm (9 1/2 × 4

11/16 in.), 4588. The Musée du Louvre, Cabinet des Dessins, Paris. ..121 Fig. 22 Copy after Federico Zuccaro, Portrait of Michelangelo, about 1600, Pen and

brown ink, brush with brown wash, over black chalk, 41.5 × 24.8 cm

(16 5/16 × 9 ¾ in.), 11023 F. Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence...... 122

xiii Fig. 23 Copy after Federico Zuccaro, Portrait of Polidoro, about 1600, Pen and brown ink, brush with brown wash, over black chalk, 26.9 × 13.8 cm (10 9/16 × 5 7/16 in.), 11016F. Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli

Uffizi, Florence...... 123 Fig. 24 Copy after Federico Zuccaro, Portrait of Taddeo, about 1600, Pen and brown ink, brush with brown wash, over black chalk, 37 × 23.2 cm (14 9/16

× 9 1/8 in.), 11025F. Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi,

Florence...... 124 Fig. 25 Copy after Federico Zuccaro, Portrait of Raphael, about 1600, Pen and brown ink, brush with brown wash, over black chalk, 30.5 × 14.6 cm (12 ×

5 ¾ in.), 1341 F. Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence...... 125 Fig. 26 Copy after Federico Zuccaro, Portrait of Raphael, about 1600, Pen and brown ink, brush with brown wash, over black chalk, 39 × 25 cm (15 3/8 ×

9 7/8 in.), lot 102. Formerly London, Christie’s December 8, 1987. ...126 Fig. 27 Federico Zuccaro or Studio, Pallas Athena Shows Taddeo the Prospect of Rome, about 1600, Oil on Leather, 45.2 × 16.2 cm (17 13/16 × 6 3/8

in.), FN 17128. Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica, Rome...... 127 Fig. 28 Federico Zuccaro or Studio, Taddeo at the Entrance to Rome Greeted by Toil,

Servitude, and Hardship, and by Obedience and Patience (the Ass and Ox), about 1600, Oil on Leather, 45.5 × 16.4 cm (17 15/16 × 6

7/16 in.), FN 17127. Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica, Rome...... 128 Fig. 29 Federico Zuccaro or Studio, Taddeo Sent on an Errand by Calabrese’s Wife, about 1600, Oil on Leather, 45.5 × 16.6 cm (17 15/16 × 6 9/16 in.),

FN 17125. Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica, Rome...... 129

xiv Fig. 30 Federico Zuccaro or Studio, Taddeo Drawing by Moonlight, about 1600, Oil on Leather, 45.3 × 16 cm (17 13/16 × 6 3/16 in.), FN 17126. Galleria

Nazionale d’Arte Antica, Rome...... 130 Fig. 31 Federico Zuccaro or Studio, Taddeo Returns to Rome Escorted by Drawing and Spirit, about 1600, Oil on Leather, 45.5 × 16 cm (17 15/16 × 6

3/16 in.), FN 17129. Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica, Rome...... 131 Fig. 32 Federico Zuccaro or Studio, Taddeo in the Sistine Chapel Drawing Miachelangelo’s Last Judgement, about 1600, Oil on Leather, 45 ×

16 cm (17 11/16 × 6 3/16 in.), FN 17130. Galleria Nazionale d’Arte

Antica, Rome...... 132 Fig. 33 Federico Zuccaro or Studio, Taddeo Decorating the Façade of the Palazzo Mattei, about 1600, Oil on Leather, 81.4 × 173 cm (32 1/16 × 68 1/8

in.), FN 17124. Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica, Rome...... 133 Fig. 34 Federico Zuccaro or Studio, Portrait of Michelangelo, about 1600, Oil on Leather, 150 × 65 cm (59 × 25 5/8 in.). Pinacoteca Communale,

Macerata...... 134 Fig. 35 Federico Zuccaro or Studio, Portrait of Raphael,, about 1600, Oil on Leather,

150 × 65 cm (59 × 25 5/8 in.). Pinacoteca Communale, Macerata...... 135 Fig. 36 Federico Zuccaro, Calumny, about 1569-72, oil on canvas, 144.6 × 235.0 cm,

RCIN 405695. Royal Collection Trust, Hampton Court Palace...... 136 Fig. 37 Cornelis Cort after Federico Zuccaro, The Calumny of Apelles, 1602, engraving, 47.100.466. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

City...... 137 Fig. 38a Pastorino de’Pastorini, Federico Zuccaro (Obverse),1578, bronze, 5.03 cm

diameter, A.44-1978. Victoria & Albert Museum, London...... 138 xv Fig. 38b Pastorino de’Pastorini, Federico Zuccaro (Reverse),1578, bronze, 5.03 cm

diameter, A.44-1978. Victoria & Albert Museum, London...... 139 Fig. 39a Il Bramante Donato di Angelo, Donato di Angelo (Obverse), ca.1505-1506, cast bronze, 4.4 cm diameter, A.225-1910. The Victoria and Albert

Museum, London...... 140 Fig. 39b Il Bramante Donato di Angelo, Donato di Angelo (Reverse), ca.1505-1506,

cast bronze, 4.4 cm diameter, A.225-1910. The Victoria and Albert

Museum, London...... 141 Fig. 40a Leoni Leone, Medal (Obverse), ca.1533, cast lead, 3.3 cm diameter,

G3,IP.1069. The British Museum, London...... 142 Fig. 40a Leoni Leone, Medal Reverse), ca.1533, cast lead, 3.3 cm diameter,

G3,IP.1069. The British Museum, London...... 143 Fig. 41a Leoni Leone, Baccio Bandinelli, 1493-1560, Florentine Sculptor [obverse],

bronze, 3.87 cm diameter, 1957.14.1021.a. National Gallery of Art,

Washington, DC...... 144 Fig. 41b Leoni Leone, Inscription in a Laurel Wreath [reverse], bronze, 3.87 cm

diameter, 1957.14.1021.a. National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. 145 Fig. 42a Leoni Leone, Michelangelo Buonarroti, 1475-1564, Florentine Artist

[obverse], c.1561, bronze, 5.9 cm diameter, 1957.14.1022.a.

National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC...... 146 Fig. 42b Leoni Leone, Blind Man with a Staff and Water-flask, Led by a Dog [reverse], c.1561, bronze, 5.9 cm diameter,1957.14.1022.b. National

Gallery of Art, Washington, DC...... 147

xvi Fig. 43 Cornelis Cort after Federico Zuccaro, The Calumny of Apelles, 1579, engraving; two plates printed on two sheets, (upper plate): 14 1/4 × 21 1/8 in. (36.2 × 53.7 cm); (lower plate): 14 11/16 × 21 1/8 in. (37.3 × 53.7 cm), 1988.1086. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

City...... 148 Fig. 44 Federico Zuccaro, Porta Virtutis (Gate of Virtue) or Minerva Triumphant

over Ignorance and Calumny, 1581-1582, pen and brown ink, brush with brown wash, over black chalk on paper, 15 1/4 x 11 1/4 inches

(387 x 286 mm), 1974.25. The Morgan Library & Museum, New

York City...... 149 Fig. 45a Italian, Medal (Obverse), 1588, bronze, 6.2cm, G3,IP.1158. The British

Museum, London...... 150 Fig. 45b Italian, Medal (Reverse), 1588, bronze, 6.2cm, G3,IP.1158. The British

Museum, London...... 151 Fig. 46 Federico Zuccaro, Self-Portrait, after 1588, oil on canvas. Galleria degli

Uffizi, Florence...... 152 Fig. 47 Pierfrancesco Alberti, An Academy of Painters, 1600-1638, etching, 16 1/4 x 20 9/16 in. (41.2 x 52.2 cm), 49.95.12. Metropolitan Museum of Art,

New York City...... 153

xvii Introduction

The Early Life of Taddeo Zuccaro is a series of twenty-four highly finished drawings in pencil, ink, and wash executed by Federico Zuccaro (1541c-1609) in the mid-1590s depicting scenes from the life of Taddeo Zuccaro (1529-66) during his apprenticeship and early career.1 Each drawing is paired with a tercet of poetry also by

Federico meant to complement the scene being depicted. 2 The drawings and accompanying verse are a tribute to Taddeo, whose career was cut short by his death in

1566, from his younger brother and apprentice. The choice of Taddeo’s early life as the subject almost thirty years after his death was part of Federico’s attempt to depict a family legacy in his Palazzo in Rome that highlighted his artistic pedigree and innovative compositions. While the lives of artists is now a common subject of both visual and literary depictions, the subject was almost unique in the seicento, only the funerary banners painted by the members of the Accademia del Disegno for Michelangelo’s funeral in 1564 precede The Early Life of Taddeo series.

1 Of the twenty-four drawings, three (seated portraits of Taddeo, Raphael, and Polidoro) are thought to be lost or destroyed. Until 2007 it was thought that all four of the seated portrait drawings, which also includes a portrait of Michelangelo, were lost but the drawing of Michelangelo was rediscovered in the collection of the Louvre and displayed for the first time with proper attribution to Federico Zuccaro in the Getty exhibition Taddeo and Federico Zuccaro: Artist Brothers in Renaissance Rome, Oct. 2007 – Jan. 2008. 2 There are variant spellings of both brother’s names and their family name in the literature. Federico is commonly referred to as Federico or Federigo while Taddeo is most commonly referred to as Taddeo, Tadeo, or Tadée. Within the drawing series Federico spells his brother’s name “Tadeo” and “Thaddæo.” The family name has many variants but is usually spelled as Zuccaro, Zuccari, or Zucheri. In this paper the brothers will be addressed as Taddeo and Federico Zuccaro in accordance with the spellings used in the Getty Collections which houses the bulk of the drawings. The brothers will be addressed solely by their first names throughout this paper to avoid confusion. 1 Julian Brooks describes The Early Life of Taddeo series as “a defining moment in the coming-of-age of the Renaissance and of artists’ self-consciousness,” encapsulating in a few words the importance of the series.3 Federico Zuccaro was a founding member and the first principe (president) of the Roman art academy, the Accademia di San Luca.

Federico was devoted to guiding the future of artistic production and artist training in

Rome. Throughout his career he situated himself in emulation of, if not downright opposition to, Giorgio Vasari as an artist and theoretician. The drawings are both the expression of the rising importance of the artist during the Renaissance and an expression of Federico’s sophistication and experimentation. I will argue that through The Early Life of Taddeo series and their eventual display as wall paintings Federico intended to insert his brother visually in a role similar to that of Michelangelo at the Accademia del

Disegno in Florence. Michelangelo had been installed as an honorary head of the

Accademia del Disegno at its inception and after his death he was treated as an exemplum, bordering on divinity, for the younger members of the academy.4

The Zuccaro brothers were extremely successful monetarily, attracting patronage with the papal court and monarchs abroad, but they also enjoyed a positive reputation amongst their peers. Federico and Taddeo were considered by their contemporaries to be two of the greatest artists in Rome of the generation following Michelangelo and Raphael

3 Julian Brooks, Introduction to Taddeo and Federico Zuccaro: Artist Brothers in Renaissance Rome, ed. Julian Brooks, (Los Angeles: The J. Paul Getty Museum, 2007), Catalogue of an exhibition at the J. Paul Getty Museum October 2, 2007 through January 6, 2008, 1. The drawing group is titled The Early Life of Taddeo in the catalog Taddeo and Federico Zuccaro: Artist Brothers in Renaissance Rome published by the Getty in 2007 but in the Getty Museum collections online the works are all titled Twenty Drawings Depicting the Early Life of Taddeo Zuccaro. 4 Fredrika Jacobs, “(Dis)Assembling: Marsyas, Michelangelo, and the Accademia del Disegno,” The Art Bulletin 84, no.3 (2002):434. 2 and prominent members of the artistic milieu of the mid to late seicento.5 Taddeo died tragically young cutting his career short at the age of thirty-six, but Federico took an active role in developing his brother’s artistic legacy as well as his own. Federico likely served as the primary source for the biography of Taddeo that appeared in the second edition of Giorgio Vasari’s Le vite de' più eccellenti pittori, scultori, e architettori in

1568 which shares almost exactly the narrative of the Early Life of Taddeo series.6

Like Vasari before him, Federico also developed his reputation as both an intellectual and an artist. He published multiple books and treatises on art, his most well received being L'idea de' Pittori, Scultori, ed Architetti published in 1607. In his role as a founding member of the Roman art academy and as its first principal, Federico placed himself in the center of the burgeoning debates over how to teach art and the proper status of the artist that would come to define artists’ lives and practices. 7 The Early Life of Taddeo series is a visual representation of so many of the complex interwoven ideas and preconceptions that would come to define this turning point in artistic history, yet it remains understudied and underexplored.

The dearth of research into the work is, at least in part, due to its only recently entering a public collection. The timeline of the early provenance of the drawings is incomplete. Federico’s home and workshop were inventoried after his death in 1609 but there is no mention of the drawings in the related documentation.8 The drawings reappear

5 Julian Brooks, introduction to Taddeo and Federico Zuccaro: Artist Brothers in Renaissance Rome, 1. 6 Ibid., 3. 7 Ibid., 2. 8 It is still possible that the drawings were in the artist’s possession as many drawings were simply listed as bundles and not described individually. Ibid., Note 14, 5. 3 in the historical record in 1735 when they are described in an unnamed private collection by the connoisseur Pierre-Jean Mariette (1694-1774); his description of the series includes all twenty-four of the drawings, and he describes the three lost portraits.9 The drawings were catalogued in the Paignon Dijonval collection in 1810.10 The Paignon

Dijonval collection was dissolved in 1816 and the twenty drawings from the Early Life of

Taddeo series along with much of the collection were sold to the London art dealer

Samuel Woodburn (1786 -1853). Now in England, the whole collection was sold to

Thomas Dimsdale (1758-1823), a prominent banker. After his death the series was repurchased by Woodburn and sold to the portrait painter Sir Thomas Lawrence (1769-

1830) where they were marked with his stamp of “TL.”

After Lawrence’s death the works returned to Woodburn for a third time. The drawing series failed to sell at auction and were still in Woodburn’s possession at his death in 1853. The drawings were bound in a red leather album with fifty-three other drawings attributed to Federico and Taddeo and again put up for auction at Christie’s in

1860.11 They were purchased by Sir Thomas Phillips, Bt. (1792-1872) and sold by his descendant Thomas Fitzroy Fenwick (1856-1938) to a New York-based book dealer, Dr.

9 Mariette attributes the drawings to Federico though they were at the time assumed to have been done by Taddeo. He makes this attribution at least partially from the knowledge that Federico was a poet. Brooks, Introduction to Taddeo and Federico Zuccaro: Artist Brothers in Renaissance Rome, Note 15, 5. 10 The catalogue was printed and published under the title Cabinet de M. Paignon Dijonval. Etat Détaillé et Raisonné des Dessins et Estampes dont il est composé; le tout gouverné par Peintres classés par Ecoles, et rangés à leurs dates; suivi de deux Tables alphabétiques, l’une des Peintres, l’autre des Graveurs. A l’Usage des Artistes et des Amateurs. Each drawing is briefly described as are a number of other works by Federico and Taddeo. The works are attributed to Taddeo not Federico in the catalogue and there is no mention of the four portraits. 11 Brooks, Introduction to Taddeo and Federico Zuccaro: Artist Brothers in Renaissance Rome, 4. 4 A. S. W. Rosenbach. They were still in his collection in 1950 when they were transferred to the collection of the Phillip H. and A.S.W. Rosenbach Foundation of Philadelphia.12

The works returned to a British collection in 1978 when the Phillip H. and A. S.

W. Rosenbach Foundation sold the drawings to the British Rail Pension Fund. The

British Rail Pension Fund began selling off its art assets in the 1980s and Thursday,

January 11, 1990 the drawings were put up for auction at Sotheby’s New York.13 The drawings sold to a private collection and were then put up for sale for the last time at

Christie’s New York auction house on Thursday, January 28, 1999. They were purchased as a single lot by the J. Paul Getty Museum entering a public collection for the first time.14

That The Early Life of Taddeo series spent so long shuttling between private collections has limited the access of art historians and so the pool of literature to be plumbed on the work is shallow. The first published account of the works is in the

Cabinet de M. Paignon Dijonval. Etat Détaillé et Raisonné des Dessins et Estampes dont il est compose from 1810 where the works are attributed to Taddeo, not Federico,

Zuccaro. The Cabinet de M. Paignon Dijonval is not meant as an art historical treatise

12 While in the foundation’s collection the red leather album was disassembled and mounted separately. Six sheets from the album (not from the Taddeo series) were sold individually to a Janos Scholz. J. A. Gere, "The Lawrence-Phillipps-Rosenbach "Zuccaro Album"." Master Drawings 8, no. 2 (1970): 125. Accessed August 3, 2020. www.jstor.org/stable/1553043. 13 The drawings were advertised: “The complete series of twenty drawings comprising the Life of Taddeo Zuccaro will be offered for sale as a single lot... If the drawings fail to sell as one lot, they will be immediately reoffered as single lots.” The drawings were listed with individual sale estimates with the culminating image of Taddeo Decorating the Façade of the Palazzo Mattei fetching the highest individual estimate. John A. Gere, The Life of Taddeo Zuccaro by Federico Zuccaro: From the Collection of the British Rail Pension Fund, Auction catalog, (Sotheby’s: New York, January 11, 1990). 14 The Christie’s auction was entitled “Cabinet Italien: Italian Old Master Drawings from Two Private French Collections.” Brooks, Introduction to Taddeo and Federico Zuccaro: Artist Brothers in Renaissance Rome, N. 24, 5. 5 and so only describes each work in only a few short sentences.15 It is not until the 1960s that anything substantial is published in relation to the drawings when Dr. John A. Gere

(1921-1995), Keeper of the Departments of Prints and Drawings at the British Museum, began publishing on the Zuccaro brothers’ drawings. He published works on The Early

Life of Taddeo in 1970, 1990, and 1993 but makes no mention of the drawings when discussing biographical references for Taddeo’s life in his 1969 monograph Taddeo

Zuccaro: His Development Studied in his Drawings suggesting he was not fully aware of the works a year prior to his 1970 publication “The Lawrence-Phillips-Rosenbach

‘Zuccaro Album’” in Master Drawings though he addresses the series as “well known.”16

In 1990 Gere wrote the introductory synopsis for the catalog of the auction of the

Early Life of Taddeo Zuccaro at Sotheby’s by the British Rail Pension Fund.17 Gere covers the bibliography of Taddeo as well as a short survey of proposed locations for the completed wall paintings before tracing the provenance of the drawings. This is Gere’s most thorough account of the drawings in English. He had previously presented a paper entitled “I disegni di Federico Zuccari sulla vita giovanile di suo fratello Taddeo” at a conference at the Bibliotheca Hertziana in 1989 but the text of the paper was not published until 1992 in the Italian catalog Per Taddeo e Federico Zuccari nelle Marche:

15 Cabinet de M. Paignon Dijonval. Etat Détaillé et Raisonné des Dessins et Estampes dont il est composé; le tout gouverné par Peintres classés par Ecoles, et rangés à leurs dates; suivi de deux Tables alphabétiques, l’une des Peintres, l’autre des Graveurs. A l’Usage des Artistes et des Amateurs. 16 John Gere, Taddeo Zuccaro: His Development Studied in his Drawings (London: Faber and Faber, 1969), 12. Gere, "The Lawrence-Phillipps-Rosenbach "Zuccaro Album"," 123. 17 John A. Gere, The Life of Taddeo Zuccaro by Federico Zuccaro: From the Collection of the British Rail Pension Fund, Auction catalog, (Sotheby’s: New York, January 11, 1990). 6 Sant’Angelo in Vado.18 Though not in English, it provides a much more detailed analysis of the drawings in terms of narrative, context, and subtext.

After Gere’s passing the next major work to discuss the drawing series would be the catalog for the 2007 J. Paul Getty Museum exhibition centered on the works following their acquisition in 1999.19 The catalog is very thorough in tracing the provenance of the works and fleshing out their correct order and narrative. Essays by

Julian Brooks, Nathaniel E. Silver, Robert Williams, and Peter M. Lukehart place the works in context with the changing methods of artist education, practice, and production while Christina Strunck’s essay “The Original Setting of the Early Life of Taddeo Series:

A New Reading of the Pictorial Program in the Palazzo Zuccari, Rome” explores the possibilities of a physical context for the works as interior wall paintings.20 The exhibition catalog is a first step in contextualizing the drawings from which this paper will build.

18 John A. Gere, “I disegni di Federico Zuccari sulla vita giovanile di suo fratello Taddeo,” in Per Taddeo e Federico Zuccari Nelle Marche, ed. Bonita Cleri (Marche, Italy: San Severino, 1992), catalogue of an exhibition at Il Gabinetto delle Stampe e dei Disegni della Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence, Italy, June 28- August 20, 1992. 19 Taddeo and Federico Zuccaro: Artist Brothers in Renaissance Rome, edited by Julian Brooks (Los Angeles: The J. Paul Getty Museum, 2007), catalogue of an exhibition at the J. Paul Getty Museum October 2, 2007 through January 6, 2008. 20 Julian Brooks contributed multiple articles. “The Career of Taddeo Zuccaro” addresses Taddeo’s major works through his drawings and addresses the working relationship between Federico and Taddeo. In “Following in the Footsteps of Young Taddeo” Julian Brooks and Nathaniel E. Silver address the practice of copying and what works, both contemporary and ancient, would have been available to a young Taddeo to copy as part of his artistic development. Robert Williams in “The Artist as Worker in Sixteenth-Century Italy” addresses the changing production methods in the mid to late sixteenth century and it affected the training of young artists and workshop practice. “Parallel Lives: The Example of Taddeo Zuccaro in Late- Sixteenth-Century Rome” addresses more directly different aspects of the changing artistic culture of the late sixteenth century through the writing of contemporary artists including Federico Zuccaro. The article also addresses difficulties with the artist-patron relationship that Federico responds to in drawing and print throughout his career. Ibid. 7 The central intention of this paper is the investigation of the relationship between

Federico’s The Early Life of Taddeo drawings, pedagogy, and Federico’s association with the Accademia di San Luca, Rome. By building on the contextualization of the brothers and the drawings by the authors of the Getty 2007 exhibition catalogue to firmly place the brothers in their artistic milieu, this paper can expand beyond the larger social influences to focus more closely on the development of Federico’s artistic persona. Using the framework established by authors such as Margot and Rudolf Wittkower and Douglas

Biow to delve into the creation of the artist’s personality of the mid to late Renaissance, which is so often applied to Michelangelo this paper can then transfer the tools used to analyze the structure of Michelangelo’s quasi-divinity and legacy to an analysis of

Federico Zuccaro’s co-opting of his contemporaries posthumous persona as a tool to legitimize both his family and the Accademia di San Luca.

The first chapter of this paper will serve as an introduction to The Early Life of

Taddeo drawings and the Zuccaro brothers. First, it will address the drawings as objects, discussing the works in terms of size, media, and utility. The extant paintings on leather will also be analyzed in terms of how they might have been located within the Palazzo

Zuccaro, a topic begun by Christina Strunck in 2007. Then, the narratives portrayed in the drawings and the struggles depicted in Taddeo’s early life serve as an introduction to the changing world and challenges faced by young men seeking to pursue a career in art.

Expanding upon the story told by Federico of his brother’s life as a young artist, Chapter

1 will address the rest of Taddeo’s short but influential career as an artist. By addressing

Taddeo’s biography beyond the span of the drawings the work can be better 8 contextualized within the milieu of late-sixteenth-century Rome and Federico’s motivations for creating the series will become clearer. The comparisons and connections to Michelangelo, Raphael, and Polidoro that appear in The Early Life of Taddeo cannot be addressed without first establishing Taddeo’s and Federico’s place in the artistic communities in Rome and Florence.

To further contextualize the works, Federico’s own artistic production must be examined, and it makes up the content of the first half of Chapter 2. Following a chronological path beginning with the death of his brother, Federico’s noncommissioned works are examined in order to build a picture for the reader of a reflection of how

Federico viewed himself and his place in society as an artist and his commitment to artistic education. The first three works, The Calumny, The Lament of Painting, and

Porta Virtutis all follow a pattern of perceived slight and retribution that establish a pattern of behavior that inform the reader of Federico’s personality but also serve to emphasize the broader changes to the status of the artist in Italian society.

His last noncommissioned work before The Early Life of Taddeo is the Dante

Historiato, a series of 88 illustrations for Dante’s Divinia Commedia created by Federico during his time working in Spain from 1586-88. The illustrations have an accompanying commentary and an abridged text that includes lines of Dante rewritten by Federico

Zuccaro that change the emphasis of Dante’s original work to simplify the emphasis on sin, punishment, and reward.21 The illustrations themselves are an experiment in visual

21 Andrea Mazzuchi, "A Pictorial Interpretation of Dante’s Commedia: Federigo Zuccari’s Dante Historiato," in Interpreting Dante: Essays on the Traditions of Dante Commentary, ed. Nasti Paola and Rossignoli Claudia, (Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 2013), 390. 9 narrative development that serve as a precursor to the streamlined visual and textual synthesis seen in The Life of Taddeo while the text hints at Federico’s interest in creating literature to guide the next generation of artists. The Dante Historiato serves as an entry point into discussing Federico’s connection to the artist academies in Rome and Florence.

In the second half of Chapter 2, I will argue that there is a direct connection between The Life of Taddeo series and Federico’s ambitions to establish an academy in

Rome to rival the Accademia di Disegno in Florence. My argument requires establishing the context around Federico’s academic and literary ambitions. The first half of this section is devoted to the history and development of the academy in Italy. It will discuss the economic and social changes that led to the creation of the academies as well as the political motivations behind their patronage. The second half of the section will narrow the focus directly to Federico’s involvement with the academies in both Florence and

Rome. I will begin with Federico’s disenchantment with the Accademia di Disegno during his sojourn in Florence and the art and literature that resulted from it. It will also be a first step towards looking into the motivations behind the creation of The Life of

Taddeo drawings.

The final chapter will draw together the threads of the previous chapters by comparing Federico Zuccaro’s intention to place his brother as an exemplar for the

Accademia di San Luca in Rome with the similar position of Michelangelo for the

Accademia di Disegno in Florence. The first half of the chapter will look at the tension between specificity and generalizing present in the visual narrative as well as in the poetry to make clear the pedagogical potential of the series. To further support the 10 connection between Taddeo and Michelangelo the chapter will compare the hagiographic undertones of the treatment of Michelangelo’s body at his funeral in Florence and the depiction of Taddeo’s fever hallucination in The Life of Taddeo. It will also continue to build on the importance of establishing connections between Taddeo and Michelangelo in relation to the changing status of the artist, and look at the competition between Federico and Vasari as gentleman artist scholars championing the superiority of their cities as arbiters of artistic innovation and taste.

While Federico did not succeed in giving his brother’s legacy the longevity of his predecessor’s, The Life of Taddeo is an ambitious attempt to control his brother’s narrative and establish a familial legacy that highlights many of the changing elements, both positive and negative, that will have long-lasting effect on how artists are viewed and operate. The drawings demonstrate just how aware the savvy artist was of their changing circumstances and the active role that artists could play in manipulating and responding to their evolving role in the social fabric of Italian cities at the end of the sixteenth century.

11

Chapter 1: The Drawings as Objects, The Drawings as Biography

THE DRAWINGS AS OBJECTS

The drawings known as The Early Life of Taddeo series (figs. 1-20) now housed at the Getty originally numbered twenty-four: four drawings of allegorical figures with a dumbbell-shaped composition; sixteen narrative scenes of varying shape; and the four vertical, rectangular artists’ portraits. The dumbbell shape employed for sixteen of the twenty is an unusual conceit on Federico’s part; he has taken the more traditional oblong shape employed in wall painting and enlarged the final quarter of each end to create an expanded space on each side. Of the narrative scenes, three are squares of approximately equal size, the last scene of the series is significantly larger than the rest and rectangular rather than square. The other twelve narrative scenes are modified oblongs of the same shape and dimension as the allegorical scenes. Eight of the narrative dumbbells have a vertical orientation; the other four are horizontal.

The series originally included four full-length portraits of Taddeo Zuccaro,

Michelangelo Buonarroti, Raphael, and Polidoro, but the portraits were separated from the rest of the series in the latter half of the eighteenth century and have since been lost.

A version of the Portrait of Michelangelo (Fig. 21) exists by Federico’s hand in the collection of the Louvre but it has been cropped and so cannot be confidently identified as the final composition. There are multiple copies of the Portrait of Michelangelo and

12 the other three portraits (Figs. 22-26). Enough copies exist of the portraits that their composition can be assumed with a high degree of certainty.22 Based on these copies, one can deduce that the original portraits were vertical in orientation, bordered by two small circular medallions and two small horizontal dumbbells with allegorical figures. With the inclusion of the portrait copies, the series can be considered in its entirety as originally created by Federico. All but the first of the allegorical drawings and the four portraits are accompanied by a tercet of poetry that supplements or explains the content of its accompanying drawing. The drawings are thought to be models for an interior wall painting scheme of the style popular in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.23

This assumption is supported by the survival of nine paintings in oil on leather that correspond to the drawings that were painted by either Federico Zuccaro or his workshop (Fig. 27-33). Seven of the paintings share their compositions with seven of the twelve narrative scenes and are held in the collection of the Palazzo Barberini, while the painted versions of the portraits of Michelangelo (Fig. 34) and Raphael (Fig. 35) are held in Pinacoteca Communale in Macerata in the Marches. If a full set of twenty-four paintings ever existed, or if the extant paintings were ever grouped, is unknown; the provenance of the paintings is not well documented. The seven paintings stored at the

22 Only a selection of the extant copies has been included to provide a visual proof of what the works would have looked like. For a full accounting of the known copies see Julian Brooks, “The Early Life of Taddeo Series," ,” in Taddeo and Federico Zuccaro: Artist Brothers in Renaissance Rome, edited by Julian Brooks (Los Angeles: The J. Paul Getty Museum, 2007), catalogue of an exhibition at the J. Paul Getty Museum October 2, 2007 through January 6, 2008, 36-40. 23 For more on interior design at the end of the Renaissance in Italy see the following: for an overview in English see: Display of Art in the Roman Palace, 1550-1750, ed. Gail Feigenbaum, (Los Angeles, CA: The Getty Research Institute, 2014), particularly Francesca Cappelletti, “Frescoes: Ubiquity and Eloquence,” pp. 182-190. Also see Peter Thornton, The Italian Renaissance Interior, 1400-1600, (New York: Abrams, 1991). For grander schemes, see Julian Kliemann, Gesta dipinte. La grande decorazione nelle dimore italiane dal Quattrocento al Seicento, (Milan: 1993). 13 Palazzo Barberini were purchased by the Museo di Roma in 1914 from the Contessa

Vincenza di Santafiora; these were held at the Museo until they were transferred to

Palazzo Barberini. The provenance of the two portraits in the Marches is entirely unknown.24

The paintings’ media is unusual and expensive: large sheets of leather covered in silver leaf and painted with oils. Leather is a much more expensive and difficult base for oil painting than canvas; however, it was sometimes used for wall paintings in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The paintings are not described in the inventory of

Palazzo Zuccaro (composed after Federico’s death in 1609), but this does not negate the possibility that the paintings were in the Palazzo at his death. If they had been framed and inset within the walls, then they would have been considered fixtures and therefore would not always have been included in an inventory. 25 It has long been assumed that paintings were set into the walls of one of Federico Zuccaro’s palazzi but where in the home and which palazzo remains a matter of debate see Gere 1990 and Strunck 2007.

Federico owned two palazzi, one in Rome and one in Florence. Zygmunt

Wázbiński in 1985 argued for the dating of the drawings and the paintings to the 1570’s when Federico was living in Florence, where he built a studio house on the corner of Via

Gino Capponi and Via Giuseppe Giusti. Wázbiński created a reconstruction that placed them in the large room on the ground floor. His proposal requires a twenty-fifth painting and does not satisfactorily place the works in the overall decorative scheme of the

24 Brooks, “The Early Life of Taddeo Series,” 36 & 43. 25 John A. Gere, The Life of Taddeo Zuccaro by Federico Zuccaro: From the Collection of the British Rail Pension Fund, Auction catalog, 3. 14 home.26 In 1990 John A Gere did not outright dismiss Wázbiński’s proposal, but he countered that dating the works to the 1590’s and therefore for Palazzo Zuccari in Rome

(now the Bibliotheca Hertziana) is more logical. Gere argues this based on their extremely Roman subject matter and the central emphasis on the artist more characteristic of Federico’s later decorative scheme.27 That the drawings were meant for the Roman palazzo is now the most accepted theory, but there are multiple proposed locations.

The palazzo now known as Palazzo Zuccari lies at the crossroads of the Via

Sistina and Via Georgiana. Federico purchased the land in the early 1590s and undertook the construction in the mannerist Palazzo now known for its Gates of Hell doorway. The north end of the Palazzo housed Federico’s studio and is separate from the domestic spaces that border on the garden. The bottom floor of the palazzo is decorated with intricate fresco programs with liberal arts themes that would pair well with The Early Life of Taddeo. The frescos on the bottom floor survive; however, the upper floors remained undecorated as Federico ran into financial difficulties before he could complete the program.28 Christina Strunck, in her 2007 chapter “The Original Setting of the Early Life of Taddeo Series: A New Reading of the Pictorial Program in the Palazzo Zuccari,

Rome,” combined an examination of the existing visual program, and the physical layout, to present an argument for the paintings having been intended for the space now called

26Zygmunt Wázbiński, Mitteilungen des Kunsthitorischen Institutes in Florenz, xxix, 1985, pp.275ff, cited in Gere, The Life of Taddeo Zuccaro by Federico Zuccaro, 3. 27 Ibid, 4. 28Christina Strunck, “The Original Setting of the Early Life of Taddeo Series,” , in Taddeo and Federico Zuccaro: Artist Brothers in Renaissance Rome, edited by Julian Brooks (Los Angeles: The J. Paul Getty Museum,2007), catalogue of an exhibition at the J. Paul Getty Museum October 2, 2007 through January 6, 2008. 15 the Sala del Disegno.29 While the paintings cannot be ignored, the lack of information surrounding them and their incomplete nature make them supplemental to the drawings as resources for the investigation of Federico’s intentions in depicting his brother’s young life.

TADDEO’S LIFE, THE BIOGRAPHY

The drawings narrate the story of Taddeo’s life from 1543-1548 in a chronological order. As with many artists from the sixteenth century, the primary resource for art historians for Taddeo Zuccaro’s biography is Vasari’s Lives of Artists, which draws heavily on Federico Zuccaro as a source for his then deceased brother’s biography.30 This makes establishing the veracity of the visual biography a circular exercise that requires that the reader accept Federico Zuccaro gave a true account of his brother’s young life. A boon to the art historian is the survival of Federico’s own copy of

Vasari’s Lives which he annotated, usually adding extra detail or contradicting Vasari’s recounting.31 Federico’s own recounting must have been second hand, Federico was twelve years younger than his brother Taddeo and was not in Rome for the events depicted in The Life of Taddeo series, adding another layer of separation between the drawings and the “true” events.

29 Strunck’s article includes a visual reconstruction of their placement based on the dimensions of the spaces and the existing leather paintings. Strunck, “The Original Setting of the Early Life of Taddeo Series,” 114, 117-119. 30 Julian Brooks, introduction to Taddeo and Federico Zuccaro: Artist Brothers in Renaissance Rome, 3. 31 The annotations are addressed most thoroughly in Zygmunt Wazbinski, “Lo Studio – la Scuola fiorentina di Federico Zuccari,” Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorisches Institutes in Florenz 29, (1985): 275-346. 16 The first drawing in the series, Allegories of Faith and Hope, Flanking the

Zuccaro Emblem (Fig. 1), does not depict a scene from Taddeo’s life. Rather, it portrays allegorical female figures representing Faith on the left and Hope on the right flanking a roundel containing the Zuccaro emblem of a conical sugar loaf surrounded by seven fiori di zucca, zucchini blossoms in a horizontal, dumbbell.32 The sugar loaf and the blossoms are both plays on the Italian word for sugar, zucchero, and the family’s last name. This sort of word play demonstrates Federico’s desire to be seen as both an artist and an intellectual worthy of a higher status than that of craftsman.33 Federico was made a cavaliere (knight) sometime before his death in 1609, but the date is uncertain. It is quite possible that the family emblem was aspirational at the time of the creation of the drawings, just one of the many elements of Federico’s campaign to raise artists, himself foremost, to a higher status.

The two female figures seated on either side of the roundel have elegant, elongated, elastic limbs typical of mannerist bodies and Federico’s figures. Both women look to their left and likely would have been leading the viewer to one of the larger narrative scenes, possibly the next scene of Taddeo leaving home, in their final setting as wall paintings. Hope is seated on the right with her hands folded in prayer and her face in complete profile. Faith holds a cross in her left hand and points upwards with softly bent and unnaturally long right arm. A small dog representing fidelity stands on its hind legs

32 Brooks, “The Early Life of Taddeo Series,” 28. 33 Strunck, “The Original Setting of the Early Life of Taddeo Series,” 120. 17 to rest its front paws on her right knee. This is the only drawing without an accompanying tercet of poetry; it seems to play the role of a visual title page.

The Arrival in Rome

Of Taddeo’s life before his arrival in Rome very little is known beyond what is recorded in Vasari. He was born to a family of artists September 1, 1529 in Sant’Angelo in Vado, a small town near Urbino in the Marches.34 His father Ottaviano Zuccaro

(c.1505-1555)35 was a painter and Taddeo began his training in his father’s studio.36 He then apprenticed for a short time with another local artist named Pompeo Morganti da

Fano.37 The possibility for artistic growth, fame, and monetary gain drew Taddeo to

Rome, and he left Sant’Angelo in Vado at age fourteen. The first of the square narrative drawings, now titled Taddeo Leaving Home Escorted by Two Guardian Angels (Fig. 2),

34 Of course, Taddeo’s brother Federico was a painter, but they also had a cousin Giampietro Zuccaro who was a sculptor who worked in Perugia and Vasari tells us that Taddeo secured a place for another of his brother with a goldsmith in Rome. "Zuccari, Giampietro," Benezit Dictionary of Artists, October 31, 2011. https://www.oxfordartonline.com/benezit/view/10.1093/benz/9780199773787.001.0001/acref- 9780199773787-e-00202507. Giorgio Vasari, Vasari's Lives of the artists; biographies of the most eminent architects, painters, and sculptors of Italy, edited by Betty Burroughs, translated by Mrs. Johnathon Foster, (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1850), 35 Liana De Girolami Cheney, "Zuccaro family," Grove Art Online, 2003. https://www-oxfordartonline- com.ezproxy.lib.utexas.edu/groveart/view/10.1093/gao/9781884446054.001.0001/oao-9781884446054-e- 7000093663. 36 In Federico’s annotated copy of Vasari’s Lives, he states that his father had studied the work of Andrea del Sarto in Florence. Only one extant work has been attributed to Ottaviano Zuccaro, a painting in the Church of Sant Stefano in Candelara, Pesaro. Brooks, “The Early Life of Taddeo Series,” 5, note 2. 37 Pompeo Morganti da Fano is also known as Pompeo di Bartolommeo Marescalchi, Pompeo da Fano or Pompeo Presciutti. Though little is known of the artist’s life multiple paintings by Pompeo survive and there are multiple in the collection of the Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan. "Morganti, Pompeo," Benezit Dictionary of Artists, October 31, 2011. https://www-oxfordartonline- com.ezproxy.lib.utexas.edu/benezit/view/10.1093/benz/9780199773787.001.0001/acref-9780199773787-e- 00125851. 18 shows the scene of Taddeo’s departure from his family home in Sant’Angelo in Vado.38

The scene is set by the inclusion of the bell tower of the Sant’Angelo in Vado cathedral and the inclusion of the recognizable local church of San Filippo.39 Federico employs identifiable architecture in almost all the exterior scenes, providing the viewer with a very tangible sense of place and increasing the implied veracity of his visual narrative.

Vasari’s Lives asserts that Taddeo left his native town against his father’s wishes.

In Federico’s drawing he depicts his brother as being pulled forward by two-winged guardian angels. Taddeo’s body language creates the idea that he is being pulled against his will by God, or destiny, to Rome while all eyes guide the viewer to Ottaviano who entreats his son to stay. All except a young Federico who gazes out at the viewer, his face indistinct below rapidly drawn cherubic curls. Below the drawing the first tercet of the series reads: “Note the human feelings and the great desire/of the well-disposed young heart/ together with helpers, which are lent to him by God.”40 Throughout the series

Federico will label important figures, often on the hem of a garment. Here he labels himself and Taddeo but not their parents.

The next two images depict Taddeo with classical and allegorical figures. The first, titled Pallas Athena Shows Taddeo the Prospect of Rome (Fig. 3), shows Athena standing on a hill below a tree and pointing an awed Taddeo to Rome, visible in the distance. Rome is depicted in delicate detail, the Column of Antonius, the Coliseum, the

Pantheon, the church of Santa Maria del Popolo, and the Aqueduct of Claudius are all

38 All titles are taken from the Getty Exhibition Catalogue 39 Brooks, “The Early Life of Taddeo Series,” 28. 40 [N]ota gl’affetti humane e’l’gran di[sio] / Del ben disposto giovinetto core, / Insiem’gl’aiuti, che à quell presta Dio. Translation from Brooks, “The Early Life of Taddeo Series,” 28. 19 clearly identifiable. Taddeo is labeled in black ink capitals on the hem of his shirt contrasting with the brown wash of his tunic. Athena is shown with her helmet, aegis, and a shield.

The next scene, Taddeo at the Entrance to Rome Greeted by Toil, Servitude, and

Hardship, and by Obedience and Patience (the Ass and Ox) (Fig. 4), depicts Taddeo at the outskirts of the walls of Rome. Like the previous scene, Federico has included recognizable architecture to situate the viewer in Rome. The bell tower of Old Saint

Peter’s is visible in the midground and behind the basilica of New Saint Peter’s designed by Michelangelo, finished up to the drum. The Vatican obelisk visible located in the

Vatican Circus behind the bell tower was moved by Domenica Fontana to Saint Peter’s

Square in 1586.41 This has been used by some scholars to date the drawings to before

1586 rather than the 1590s but it is entirely possible that Federico was intentionally portraying the Rome Taddeo would have arrived to.

The foreground is crowded with figures, who have each been labeled for the reader. Taddeo faces away from the reader in the same outfit from the previous scene with his name along his shirt’s bottom hem, his head is now topped with a wide brimmed hat. He is greeted by the female figure of Toil (Fatica), who places her hand upon his shoulder and motions him into the city. She is identified by a label along the hem of her garment. Taddeo holds a yoke, a symbol of subservience and labor, presumably given to him by Toil.42 Behind Toil’s left shoulder, an elderly man labelled as Hardship (Disagio)

41 Brooks, “The Early Life of Taddeo Series,” 29. 42 Ibid., 28. 20 leans on a cane and behind Toil’s left shoulder a roughly sketched, presumably female figure labelled as Servitude looks towards the central pair. Below Toil’s arm are an ass and an ox symbolizing obedience and patience.43 The ox stares straight out at the viewer, inviting the viewer into the scene and heightening the emotion.

The two images and their accompanying poetry strike a balance between signaling the divine favor Taddeo has received and foreshadowing the hardships that he will have to overcome to become a great artist. For all that, both tercets are essentially narrative. The first reads: “Having left one, and the other parent/ to Rome he aspires, and there is escorted/ by Pallas, who inflames him, and promises favor.” and the second,

“Hardship, and servitude at the gate/ move to meet him, and he fears/ no toil, which carries him to virtue.”44 Taddeo is granted favor by Pallas Athena as a representation of wisdom or possibly his classical artistic predecessors, implying that his own drive to work will lead him to victory over his struggles. The first of Taddeo’s struggles would be finding a master with whom to continue his studies.

Upon arriving in Rome, Taddeo, with a letter of introduction from his father, sought out the painter Francesco Nardini da Sant’Angelo who was a distant relative of the

Zuccaro family.45 Taddeo hoped for a position in the household of the artist or an introduction into artistic society in Rome but was summarily rejected, leaving fourteen-

43 Ibid., 28-29. 44 The first: Lasciato l’un, e l’altro genitore / A Roma aspira, e quivi li fa scorta / Palla, e l’infiamma, e promette favore. The second: Disiagio, e servitù in sù la Porta / Incontro se li fan, et ei non teme / Fatica alcuna, ch’a Virtude la porta. Translations are from Brooks, “The Early Life of Taddeo Series,” 28. 45 Francesco Nardini’s father Giacomo Nardini was a painter in Sant’Angelo in Vado and his sister Bartolomea had married Ottaviano Zuccaro’s father (Taddeo the Elder), making Francesco and Taddeo cousins. Ibid., 29. 21 year-old by Taddeo to fend for himself on the unfamiliar streets. Vasari describes the encounter with reproach for the elder artist: “He [Taddeo] humbly approached Francesco il Sant’Agnolo, who was working by the day as a painter of grotesques with Perino del

Vaga and begged him – as his countryman – to help. But nothing came of it, for

Francesco, behaving as certain countrymen do, helped him neither by deed nor word but reproached him and rebuffed him harshly.”46 Federico depicts in Taddeo Rebuffed by

Francesco Il Sant’Angelo (Fig. 5) the core of the scene as described by Vasari, presumably based on Federico’s testimony, but certain elements have certainly been exaggerated to heighten the drama of Francesco’s refusal.

At the right of the composition the young Taddeo, still labelled at the hem of his shirt, bends at the waist with his hat in his hand. His arms are spread wide in a beseeching manner, and he holds his letter of introduction in the hand stretched towards Francesco.

His head is upturned; he looks towards Francesco with his lips parted in speech.

Francesco is pictured as a well-dressed gentleman seated comfortably on a cushioned stool in what is presumably his workshop. Rather than painting grotesques in another artist’s employ he is engaged in painting a figural composition on canvas. Francesco’s head is turned dramatically away from Taddeo. His hand is outstretched to stay Taddeo’s speech in a pose of dramatic refusal. In the left foreground, Taddeo leaves crying. He is hunched over and dejected with his hat in his hands. The poetic tercet accompanying the scene is less descriptive than the previous and reads more as a warning, “Who goes far from his hometown places/ hope only in God, not in any relative/ so that here the

46 Vasari, ed. Betty Burroughs, trans. Mrs. Johnathon Foster, 181. 22 unfortunate is afflicted, and fears.”47 Federico follows the tercet with a single line that explains the scene, “Arrived in Rome Francesco il Sant’Angelo sends him away and doesn’t recognize him as a relative.”48 Federico will include secondary explanatory text after six of the poems.

According to both Vasari and Federico, Taddeo then spent some time working hand to mouth, being paid by the day to grind pigments for other artists and spending little time working on his own artistic practice. Federico depicts this period of Taddeo’s life, about which Federico says Taddeo never told their father, in the background of the drawing of Francesco’s rejection. Below Taddeo’s arm, in the background of the right side of the image, a small Taddeo is shown grinding pigments while in the back center of the composition Taddeo is shown spending precious time sketching a painted façade, possibly the Palazzo Ricci which was painted by Polidoro and where contemporary documents tell us many young artists would go to copy the master’s work. This facade now exists only in these drawings.49

Between the rejection of Taddeo by Francesco il Sant’Angelo and the next scene of his eventual apprenticeship is the second of the allegorical dumbbells, Allegories of

Fortitude and Patience (Fig. 6). Like the first of the allegorical images two female embodiments of virtues sit on either side of a roundel. This time the roundel is left blank.

Julian Brooks suggests that each roundel was intended to hold the Zuccaro family

47 Chi va lontan’da la sua Patria, speme / In Dio sol ponga, ne in alcun’parente, / Per cui quivi il meschin’si dole, e teme. Translation from Brooks, “The Early Life of Taddeo Series,” 29. 48 Giunto in Roma Fra[nces]co detto il S[an]to Angelo lo sciacia e no lo vole conosian’per parente. Translation from Brooks, “The Early Life of Taddeo Series,” 29. 49 Brooks, “The Early Life of Taddeo Series,” Note 9, 44. 23 emblem of the loaf and blossoms.50 On the left side sits fortitude, a symbol of Taddeo’s courage and endurance in the face of hardship. Her legs face left while she dynamically twists her torso and head to the right. She reaches out with her right hand to grasp the muzzle of an Ox, symbolizing obedience as in The Entrance to Rome. At her feet is a small lion, a symbol of bravery. On the right side sits Patience holding the yoke of servitude with her attribute, the ass. She faces right, bending at the waist with eyes uplifted in a pose of supplication. Next to her feet a lamb stands, possibly symbolizing faith, or meekness. The repetition of the symbols of the ass, ox, and yoke from The

Entrance to Rome is intriguing, providing contrasting contexts and giving the symbols both positive and negative connotations. The accompanying portion of poetry also directly connects the two scenes, “He who desires not hardship, or servitude to/ suffer, should not think to gain in comfort/ recognition of excellence, or any virtue.”51

Taddeo is eventually able to find a place as an apprentice in the studio of

Giovanni Piero Condopulos (also called Giovanni Piero Calabrese) who was a well off and respected artist who came to Rome from Greece sometime before the sack of

Rome.52 His treatment of Taddeo is a central moment of dramatic hardship in both

Federico and Vasari’s telling of Taddeo’s life. Rather than providing him with the education and support Taddeo had originally hoped for from Francesco Nardini da

50 Ibid.,” 29. 51 Chi fatica non vole, o servitude / Patir, non pensi acquistar’sotto coltre / Fama di pregio, o alcuna virtude. Translation from Brooks, “The Early Life of Taddeo Series,” 29. 52 Giovanni Piero Calabrese was involved with the Compagnia di San Luca, the artist’s confraternity, and was elected consul in 1534, 1541, and 1546 which suggests he was well respected by other artists in Rome who would have voted on his election. Brooks, “The Early Life of Taddeo Series,” 30. 24 Sant’Angelo, Calabrese treated Taddeo as servant rather than an apprentice, and a badly treated servant at that. Vasari writes:

Eventually he [Taddeo] was taken in by a certain Giovampiero Calabrese, but this did him little good. He and his wife, a most unpleasant woman, made him grind colors day and night, but still he suffered from a lack of bread. Of even this he could not have more since they kept the bread in a basket hanging from the ceiling with bells attached which sounded the alarm if it were touched. But even this would have caused Taddeo little irritation if he had been able to study some drawings by Raphael of Urbino which his miserable master possessed.53

Federico depicts the scene almost exactly as written in Taddeo in the House of

Giovanni Piero Calabrese (Fig 7), including small notations to clarify the scene for the reader.54 In the background of the drawing Taddeo grinds pigments under the watchful eye of Calabrese’s wife, and above their heads hangs the belled basket of bread. In the foreground, Taddeo opens a chest of drawings for Calabrese who holds up a page, likely meant to be one of the drawings by Raphael, but Taddeo is unable to see the work.55 The scene is set in a fire-lit interior, adding to the drama of the image. In the background,

Taddeo is visually subsumed by the shadow of Calabrese’s wife. A second unknown light

53 Vasari 1568 Vol. 7, translation from Brooks, “The Early Life of Taddeo Series,” 30. 54 Below the belled basket the notation reads “al suon del campanel, co[n]vie[n] io viva” (at the sound of the bell, what comes I live); next to Calabrese, “giova[n] pietro calvares no[n] lasciarla vedere i disegni” (giovan Pietro calavres does not want to let him look at the drawings); and beside Taddeo’s head are his thoughts “tu mi privi di quel ch’io tanto bramo” (you deprive me of what I so strongly desire). Translations from Brooks, “The Early Life of Taddeo Series,” Note. 21, 44. 55 The Raphael drawings belonging to Calabrese are discussed in no other sources, so their identity or possible is unknown. If they were truly drawings by Raphael, they were likely from Raphael’s time in Rome. Ibid., 30. 25 turns the chest of promised drawings into a glowing light source. Curiously, the accompanying poem admonishes Taddeo: “Look how someone has to cure himself of laziness/ in servitude, and in someone else’s power/ day and night, not staying under the covers.”56 Nothing in the previous images would imply that Taddeo was in anyway lazy suggesting this admonishment is targeted more at the reader than Taddeo himself.

Taddeo is made to perform household labor during his working hours rather than learning from his master. Thus, he is forced to take his education into his own hands. The next three drawings depict the rest of Taddeo’s stay in the Calabrese household. In the first two Federico emphasizes his brother’s devotion to his art, stealing whatever time he can to improve himself as an artist. In the middle and background of

Taddeo Sent on an Errand by Calabrese’s Wife (Fig. 8), Taddeo stops to admire an unidentified painted façade while in the foreground he shown a second time drawing, with a stick on the stone he uses to grind pigments. Vasari does not mention Taddeo’s drawing, but Federico made a note of it in his edition of The Lives. The next scene,

Taddeo Drawing by Moonlight in Calabrese’s House (Fig. 9) depicts Taddeo in his small room drawing in the dim light not just on paper but on his window shutters. The drawing after that, Taddeo Employed in Menial Tasks at Calabrese’s House (Fig. 10) is the last to depict his time in Calabrese’s workshop and shows Taddeo doing an array of duties while

Calabrese’s wife looks on in a relaxed seated position, a sharp contrast to the industrious

Taddeo.

56 [M]ira come convien ch’altrui si spoltre / In servitù, et in poter’d’altrui / Il di, e la notte, ne star sotto coltre. Translation from Brooks, “The Early Life of Taddeo Series,”30. 26 The Changing Role of the Apprentice

Taddeo’s inability to find a position as an apprentice on his arrival reflects the changing environment for artists in Rome. Rome was ascending towards the status of artistic capital that it would claim in the Baroque, and artists were flooding the city. The

Sack of Rome in 1527 had destroyed large swaths of the artistic production of the previous century. Not only was there random destruction caused by military action but looting and defacement. The army of Charles V was composed in a large percentage of

Lutheran German Landsknechts who had been left unpaid and after a breakdown of authority with the death of Duke Charles III sacked Rome to reclaim their lost wages.

Symbols of Catholicism including churches, monasteries, and the palazzi of high-ranking clergy were specifically targeted to be defaced, destroyed, or looted.57

After regaining control of the city, the Papacy undertook new commissions and building projects to rebuild the city and reestablish their visual control over the city.

Artists were drawn to Rome to fill the need for reconstruction. Soon the number of artists outnumbered the available commissions. The papal court and a few wealthy families maintained a hegemonic control over artistic commissions. They hired from a select group of popular artists. The traditional guild model of an apprentice becoming an assistant before eventually establishing their own shop or taking over their master’s had been disrupted.58

57 Andre Chastel, The Sack of Rome, 1527, trans. Beth Archer (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1983) 101-102. 58 Robert Williams, “The Artist as Worker in Sixteenth Century-Italy,” Taddeo and 27 Before the changes to an artist’s status that would occur at the end of the

Renaissance, the training of artists followed a similar structure to that of any other guild.

Artworks were a collaborative effort created along a production line which operated under traditional guidelines. At age 12, a young boy would be apprenticed to a master for whom he would work for six years learning artistic skills while performing basic household tasks and manual labor. As the apprentice advanced, he would take on a larger role in the production of work. Apprentices were often tasked with completing the more tedious or time-consuming portions of a painting such as the background.59 After this period he would be judged qualified to be considered a journeyman. As a journeyman he could now leave his master’s workshop and travel to other workshops to work for a salary as an assistant. After completing his ‘masterpiece’ he would be judged by the guild leaders and, if he passed, he was then a master and could operate his own workshop.

After the Sack of Rome, the number of trained artists that had come to Rome in search of prestigious commissions and a better life had inflated the market, turning artists’ talent and experience into cheap labor without the cost of training or housing an apprentice.60 While Francesco Nardini da Sant’Angelo was cast as the villain in this scene, he was likely just as much a victim to the changing times as Taddeo was. In

Federico’s depiction of Taddeo’s arrival in Rome, Francesco is shown seated comfortably

Federico Zuccaro: Artist Brothers in Renaissance Rome, edited by Julian Brooks, (Los Angeles: The J. Paul Getty Museum, 2007), catalogue of an exhibition at the J. Paul Getty Museum October 2, 2007 through January 6, 2008,96. 59 Bruce Cole, The Renaissance Artist at Work: From Pisano to Titian (New York: Harper and Row, 1983) 13. See Cole’s work for further information on artist production. 60 Williams, “The Artist as Worker in Sixteenth Century-Italy,” 96. For a near contemporary account of the harsh conditions in Rome for young artists see Giovanni Battista Armenini, The True Precepts of the art of Painting, trans. and ed. by Edward J. Olszewski (New York: B. Franklin, 1977). 28 in fine clothes sending a tearful Taddeo out into the streets, but Francesco had himself only just arrived in Rome, possibly only months before Taddeo. According to Vasari,

Francesco is “working by the day,” suggesting that he may not have been in a position to help the younger new arrival (Fig. 5).61 In fact, Francesco would later champion for

Taddeo to join large projects on which he worked and play a part in earning Taddeo his first major commission, the final image in this series.62 The “truth” of Francesco’s relationship with Taddeo, as shaky as it is, contradicts Federico’s account and supports the idea that Federico is creating a dramatized portrayal of his brother’s life rather than a biography. Federico would attempt to control the narratives surrounding his brother and his own career in various ways over the course of his career.

The terrible conditions of Taddeo’s apprenticeship in the Calabrese household drove Taddeo back out onto the street. In Vasari’s words,“Taddeo resolved to live by himself and to return to the workshops of Rome, where he was already known, spending part of the week working to live, and the other part drawing.”63 This resolve is made corporeal in the next drawing, Two Child Angels, Symbolizing Patience and

Industry (Fig. 11). Patience stands on the right, facing forward with his small, cherubic wings outstretched. His left leg is raised on a block in an elevated contrapposto and he holds a staff in his left hand behind which rests his bow. In his left hand, tilted away from his hip, he holds a fanciful shield bearing a female head, possibly Pallas Athena or a gorgon. Patience’s pose is mirrored across the blank roundel as Industry. The second

61 Brooks, “The Early Life of Taddeo Series,” 29. 62 Ibid. 63 Vasari, ed. Betty Burroughs, trans. Mrs. Johnathon Foster, 181. 29 cherub holds a shovel topped with fanned stalks of wheat representative of labor and reward. His shield shows a spider on its web, another symbol of industriousness.64

In the next two drawings he is shown industriously copying from antique as well as contemporary masters. In the first drawing, Taddeo Drawing after the Antique, in the

Background Copying a Façade by Polidoro (Fig. 12), he copies from a stack of ancient sculpture. In the background, another Taddeo copies a façade, likely one of two by

Polidoro. The next, Taddeo Copying Raphael’s Frescoes in the Loggia of the Villa

Farnesina, Where He is also Represented Asleep (Fig. 13), shows Taddeo copying fresco by moonlight until he falls asleep. Federico’s accompanying tercet is a poignant description of his industrious fervor, “Desire to learn lures him to/the frozen stones, which from him/steal many years, he unrealizing.”65 He treats this scene as the cause of

Taddeo’s eventual early death, attributing his demise to his great sacrifice for his art.

The Return Home and Triumph

In the fourteenth drawing, Taddeo’s Hallucination (Fig. 14), Taddeo is worn down by the constant hardships he faces as a young artist in Rome and returns home. On his journey, he becomes sick with a fever, causing hallucinations. It is in this scene that Federico’s story diverges furthest from Vasari’s. Vasari tells of Taddeo’s choice to return home, but he does not include the story of the stones, “All these hardships affected his health, and if he had not had youth on his side, he certainly would

64 Brooks, “The Early Life of Taddeo Series,” 31. 65 Desio d’imparar lo va adducendo / Su l’aggiacciate pietre, ch’à se stesso / Fura molti anni non se n’accorgendo. Translation from Brooks, “The Early Life of Taddeo Series,” 32. 30 have died. Having fallen ill, and having received no more help from Francesco il

Sant’Agnolo than on the previous occasion, he returned to his father’s house in

Sant’Angelo, so as not to finish his life in such misery.”66 Federico records the story of the hallucination in detail in his copy of The Lives:

Something that happened to him on his way home should be recorded. Exhausted by walking and suffering from fever, he stopped to rest beside a river and, while waiting to be ferried across, he fell asleep. When he awoke he fancied, in the confusion of mind caused by illness, that the stones on the river bank were painted with figures like the facades and works of Polidoro which he had admired so much in Rome. This delusion was so powerful, that he really believed these to be what they seemed; he picked up the stones that seemed to him the best and most beautiful, and with them filled the sack in which he was carrying his few necessities and his drawings…With such a load [Taddeo] returned to Sant’Angelo, recommending the stones to his mother more than himself; not until he was healed did he realize his mistake.67

The hallucinations are described in a more abridged form in the accompanying poem, “Weary from the journey, by ill health oppressed/ waking he believes the stones painted with stories,/ he takes them home, deceiving himself.”68 Federico depicts the scene as a continuous narrative borrowing from Raphael the use of the “dream bubble” to visualize Taddeo’s mind’s interior vision.

66 Translation from Brooks, “The Early Life of Taddeo Series,” 32. 67 Translation from Brooks, “The Early Life of Taddeo Series,”, 32-33. 68 Dal sonno del camin, dal male oppresso / Crede svegliato le pietre historiate, / Qual porta a casa, ingannando se stesso. Translation from Brooks, “The Early Life of Taddeo Series,” 32. 31 The scene begins in the midground at the viewer’s left where the now pre- teen Taddeo lies sleeping. His arms are crossed below his head and propped up by his walking stick, a visual sign for his frail health. Directly above his head, a perfect circle cuts through the landscape, the “dream bubble”, and presents a scene reminiscent of the background of Taddeo Drawing after the Antique, in the Background Copying a Façade by Polidoro. The bubble is filled almost entirely by a roughly sketched three-story

Roman Palazzo with a frescoed façade. In front of the façade are two sketchy figures, one seated and drawing the other standing behind, possibly offering advice like the figure in the previous drawing.

Closer to the front of the drawing, a now conscious Taddeo, supported by his walking stick, stares into the river at some large stones. It is possible that there were scenes lightly sketched onto the stones, but they are now too faded to distinguish between rough composition and textural detail. Continuing the alternating of fore and midground, the next Taddeo crouches in the middle ground to gather rocks from the river. His bag is already almost full of the large stones. The last of the Taddeos faces away from the viewer in the viewer’s right foreground to emphasize the sack on his back and his stooped posture. His right hand almost touches the edge of the sheet as he steps out of the frame towards the next scene. On the hill above the far-right Taddeo’s head is sketched a church and two cloaked and veiled figures who are walking towards the building.

How long Taddeo spent in Sant’Angelo recuperating is not recorded by

Vasari or Federico, but it occupies only a single drawing, Taddeo Returning Home with the Sack of Stones and in Bed Recovering from His Fever (Fig. 15). The scene reads from 32 right to left, showing Taddeo’s arrival with his bag of stones, his parents welcoming him home, and the final scene shows his recuperation aided by his mother and the comforts of home. The reunion with his parents is the primary scene, occupying the center foreground and the majority of the composition. Taddeo collapses into his mother’s embrace mid- stride but still points to the bag at his feet, drawing his parents’ attention to what he believes is his important burden. His father Ottaviano is shown in a gesture of surprise with his hands outstretched and spread. His crossed feet emphasis the feeling of a moment interrupted. The poses of Taddeo and his parents create a circular composition that keeps the viewer eye focused on them as the central figural grouping. The family is raised above the other two scenes on the doorstep of the Zuccaro home. The other

Taddeo, arriving at his parents’ home to the viewer’s right, plays the role of surrogate witness to the scene. His angled head and raised eyes guide the viewer to the middle of the composition.

On the left-hand side of the composition Taddeo is shown in bed recuperating surrounded by his family. The composition of the scene is reminiscent of paintings of The Birth of The Virgin with the central figure in a canopied bed surrounded by well-wishers and the activity of the sick room. Even with such a small portion of the overall composition, it is clear that this is the home of a successful artist family. The canopied bed is hung with multiple fabrics and the bedding is plush, on the upper register of the wall there is decorative frieze and Federico has sketched in two religious paintings next to the bed. Federico has included himself in the scene as well, labeled and clinging to his brother’s sick bed. The inclusion of the artist within his drawing adds a level of 33 veracity that reminds the viewer after the hallucination scene that these drawings are biographical.

After recuperating in the Marches, Taddeo makes a triumphant return to Rome in the next scene Taddeo Returns to Rome Escorted by Drawing and Spirit toward the Three

Graces (Fig 16). Taddeo faces away from the audience in a covered entryway that overlooks a street corner in Rome. The choice to pose Taddeo facing away from the viewer invited the viewer into the scene so that they share Taddeo’s viewpoint. On

Taddeo’s left a female representation of Design or Disegno holds his left hand. Design holds artists tools to her chest including a square and paintbrushes as her attributes. On

Taddeo’s left Spirit pulls Taddeo towards Rome by his left hand. Spirit is represented by a classically dressed male figure, possibly Mercury, with wings in his hair. Before them on the street the Three Graces dance in their traditional circular posing. All the figures have been labelled to aid the viewer’s identification of their roles in the scene.

We know from Vasari that Taddeo entered the workshop of the artist Jacopone di

Battista Bertucci da Faenza (ca.1502-ca.1579) on his return to Rome. Jacopone’s life is not well documented but Vasari makes reference to him in two separate biographies in

The Lives: in Taddeo’s biography as his teacher, and passing mention is made to

Jacopone in the life of Primaticcio where he calls him an excellent painter who painted the tribune of San Vitale in Rome.69 Working for Jacopone, Taddeo would have been part

69 This information is pulled from an article by Felton Gibbons which provides a biography of Jacopone as well as his known works which include seven extant signed works. Felton Gibbons, “Jacopo Bertucci of Faenza,” The Art Bulletin 50, no. 4 (Dec. 1968), 357. https://www-jstor- org.ezproxy.lib.utexas.edu/stable/3048572. 34 of the team of artists that worked at Castel Sant’Angelo under Perino del Vaga.70

According to Vasari, Taddeo also apprenticed under the painter Daniele Porri da Parma who had worked under Corregio and Parmigianino in Parma and would have introduced

Taddeo to their refined Mannerist styling. Though records show these relationships as being happy and productive, Federico deemphasizes them in his drawings. The next two drawings show a now fully-grown Taddeo working independently.

In Taddeo in the Belvedere Court in the Vatican Drawing the Laocoön (Fig. 17)

Taddeo sits in a collapsed view of the Belvedere Court at the Vatican, sketching in front of the Laocoon. Behind Taddeo is the cropped torso of the Apollo Belvedere and in the midground are the sculpted river gods. Tiber and The Nile. The background places the scene against recognizable architecture. Trajan’s Column is being sketched by other artists on the left-hand side and at the center Federico has labeled the Stanze of Raphael.

In Taddeo in the Sistine Chapel Drawing Michelangelo’s Last Judgement (Fig. 18)

Taddeo copies from Michelangelo’s The Last Judgement in the Sistine Chapel. Federico has posed Taddeo at the left corner of the fresco near the altar. Federico has not attempted to faithfully portray Michelangelo’s work but has suggested the work through groupings of muscular figures. In his sketch Taddeo is also shown copying individual figures rather than attempting to copy the entirety of the large composition.

The last narrative drawing, Taddeo Drawing the Façade of the Palazzo

Mattei (19), shows the climax of all of Taddeo’s trials and hard work: his first independent commission. He was commissioned in 1548, at the age of eighteen, to paint

70 Brooks, “The Early Life of Taddeo Series,” 33. 35 the façade of Jacopo Mattei’s palazzo with scenes from the life of the Roman dictator

Marcus Furius Camillus.71 The work is now lost but Vasari recorded the content in each scene in detail, including their Latin inscriptions. Drawings related to the commission give an idea of what the finished work may have looked like, a traditional multi-level fresco done in grisaille to emulate a classical Roman frieze. Vasari was not the only one impressed by the young artist’s skill, he writes that the façade was “greatly praised by the whole of Rome, and with good reason; for though Taddeo was only eighteen years old, no-one since the time of Polidoro and Maturino, and Tamagni and Peruzzi, had done anything better of this kind.”72

Federico’s drawing of his brother completing the façade is the largest and most complicated of the series. Taddeo toils on a scaffold in the midground, identified by an inscription below the scaffolding, surrounded by the Graces who inspire his work. Down below a crowd has gathered to admire the artist’s work. In the foreground Federico has labelled the important figures of the Italian art world admiring the work (from left to right): the Roman artist Girolamo Siciolante da Sermonta; Daniele da Volterra, a follower of Michelangelo; Michelangelo himself; Michelangelo’s servant Urbino; Giorgio Vasari; and the Florentine painter Francesco Salviati.73 In the midground unnamed Romans have

71 The palazzo was not the first work he completed on his own, his earliest work recorded by Vasari was a series of frescos, completed under the supervision of Daniele Porri, for the church of Santa Maria at Alvito, Abruzzo. He completed ten frescos for the church: two evangelists, two Sibyls, two Prophets, and four scenes from the life of the Virgin and Christ. The frescos do not survive. The Palazzo Mattei was the first work he completed independent of his master and the work that earned him the renown on which he built his career. John A. Gere, Taddeo Zuccaro: His Development Studied in His Drawings, 29. 72 Translation from Gere, Taddeo Zuccaro: His Development Studied in His Drawings, 29. 73 There is an inscription written by drawing collector Padre Sebastiano Resta (1635-1714) on the back of a drawing of part of the frescos of Palazzo Mattei, said to be by Taddeo Federico, that may be related to this drawing, “Va per bocca di Pittori non volgari, che Michel Angelo Buonarota prendesse apprensione dal 36 stopped to admire Taddeo’s work, including a young errand boy, an echo of the young

Taddeo admiring Polidoro’s frescos as a young boy in Taddeo sent on an Errand by

Calabrese’s Wife (Fig.8).

The final drawing in the series, excluding the portraits, is a last allegorical dumbbell, Allegories of Study and Intelligence Flanking the Zuccaro Emblem (Fig. 20).

This final emblem includes the most complicated of the allegorical compositions, each figure has been placed within an interior space and is surrounded by attributes and accessories. At the left Study, represented by a muscular male nude, faces away from the viewer. He is seated on an ambiguous seat in front of a ledge in lieu of a desk and examines a classical torso, touching the torso with his left hand and either making notations or sketching the figure with a quill. Behind Study are a small female nude and a fanciful antique lamp. Below the figure are a cornucopia representing the fruits of labor and a cockerel representing vigilance.74

On the right sits Intelligence, represented by a figure dressed like the Athena from

Pallas Athena Shows Taddeo the Prospect of Rome (Fig. 3) in a helmet and breastplate.

She sits in front of a ledge, facing the viewer with her eyes upraised in an inspired pose. valore di Taddeo, che vidde spiccare in questa Opera [the Mattei facciata], chefu tra le sue prime, ma che quando vidde Taddeo cingere spada con piuma bizzarra al Capello, disse ridendo: Da che Taddeo cinge spada non mi fa piu temere da' i suoi Pennelli.” There are no other recorded accounts of this anecdote or mention of Taddeo as being gauchely aspirational, considering the gap between the likely writing of this story and the recorded events they should be looked on with a reasonable level of skepticism. In his article ‘A Forgotten Michelangelo Story’ Dwight Shurko discuss the anecdote in connection to Michelangelo’s recorded interactions with younger artists. Dwight Shurko, "A Forgotten Michelangelo Story," Notes in the History of Art 21, no. 3 (2002): 19-22. www.jstor.org/stable/23206767. 74 The image of study corresponds very closely with the description of the figure in the expanded 1611 edition of Cesare Ripa’s Iconologia, “Un Giovane di volto pallido, vestito d’habito modesto, sarà a sedere, con la sinistra mano terrà un libro aperto, nel quale miri attentamente, con la destra una penna da scrivere, & gli sarà a canto un lume acceso, & un Gallo.” Cesare Ripa, Iconologia, Padua, 1611, (New York: Garland Publishing, 1975), 505. 37 In her right hand she holds the caduceus, possibly representing eloquence, while she rests her right on the ledge. Behind her on the ledge a small statue of a nude man with a single arm outstretched faces away from the viewer. Behind Intelligence is a stack of books with a single book open, as if she has just turned away from her reading. Behind her feet is an elephant, possibly representing religion.75 Study and Intelligence flank the Zuccaro family emblem, representing the virtues that lead to the family’s success.

Federico has created a satisfyingly closed narrative, a young man sets out on an adventure, he struggles, and he is rewarded but for the real Taddeo Zuccaro the façade of the Palazzo Mattei was just the beginning of his influential eighteen-year career. Taddeo would spend almost the entirety of his career working in Rome where he was a leading artist of the Mannerist style, particularly in his façade painting. The visibility of his work on the exterior of homes aided his prestige among contemporary artists, but the short lifespan of most façade fresco has limited his presence in the modern canon. None of

Taddeo’s work from before 1553 survives. This includes work completed for important patrons including Guidobaldo II della Rovere, the Duke of Urbino and Pope Julius III.

Taddeo’s major surviving works include: the frescos for the Mattei Chapel in

Santa Maria della Consolazione, completed between 1553 and 1556; the Frangipani

Chapel in Santa Marcello al Corso circa 1557 and left unfinished; frescos in the Pauline

Chapel at the Vatican; and his final commission the Sala dei Fasti Farnesiani in the

75 There are multiple instances in the Iconologia in which an elephant is used to represent religion. 38 Palazzo Farnese, begun in 1563.76 Though Taddeo’s career was short his intense activity and skilled synthesis of visual elements from both ancient and contemporary models establish his importance in the transitionary period between the Renaissance and the

Baroque. E. James Mundy describes Taddeo’s oeuvre as follows: “Taddeo Zuccaro, in his brief but intense eighteen-year career as an artist, took the visual vocabulary of

Mannerism and, in a sense escorted the movement, to its ultimate demise.” The timing of his death in 1566 coincided with the beginnings of the standardization of artistic motifs following the Council of Trent. This standardization is regarded as the death of Mannerist painting.77

Historians will never know how Taddeo would have adapted to the changes, but his early death served as a catalyst for his fame. Gere argues that Taddeo’s early death insured his placement in Vasari’s second edition of The Lives published in 1568, two years after Taddeo’s death. Gere contends that Vasari would have been uncomfortable including such a young artist if his career and personality had not been clearly defined by the time of his death.78 Vasari’s biography defines Taddeo as a hard-working and talented artist whose experiences as a young man demonstrated his devotion to his art and framed him as having caused his death by due to his dedication to his studies and mistreatment as an apprentice. Federico, who makes up for a lack of artistic talent with an instinct for

76 For a detailed timeline of Taddeo’s entire career and the drawings associated with his lost commissions see John Gere, Taddeo Zuccaro: His Development Studied in his Drawings, (London: Faber and Faber, 1969). 77 E. James Mundy, Renaissance into Baroque: Italian master drawings by the Zuccari, 1550-1600, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), Catalogue of an exhibition at the Milwaukee Art Museum and American Academy of Design, New York, 1989-1990, 7. 78 Gere, Taddeo Zuccaro, 12. 39 self-promotion, will take this story a step farther in The Early Life of Taddeo, where he employs his brother’s story as a tool for the promotion of his pedagogy and the

Accademia di San Luca.

THE EARLY LIFE OF FEDERICO

Unlike his brother Taddeo, Federico outlived Vasari. This affected his depiction in the lives and hinders comparison of their biographies in The Lives as there is a lack of detail regarding Federico’s early life in his brother’s biography. The earliest biography of Federico is in Giovanni Baglione’s Le vite de’ pittori, scultori & architetti.

Dal pontificato di Gregorio XIII del 1572 in fino a’ tempi di Papa Urbano Ottavo nel

1642, published over thirty years after Federico’s death in 1609. Baglione’s biographies are shorter and lack the depth of Vasari’s, prioritizing the course of the artists’ career over anecdotes and personality. A sketch of Federico’s early life can be developed by pulling information from his own writings and Taddeo’s biography, in which Federico plays a significant supporting role.

Federico was born either in 1540 or 1541 in Sant’Angelo in Vado. He likely learned the basics of the artist’s trade from his father Ottaviano. Contrary to this likely early training Vasari says that his father intended him “to study letters.”79 Since there were at least two ‘Maestri di Grammatica’ who taught rhetoric and poetry in

Sant’Angelo in Vado during this period, Federico’s early education may have included the study with a maestro. Federico learned how to read and write in Italian as a child and

79 Vasari, ed. Betty Burroughs, trans. Mrs. Johnathon Foster, 184. 40 he may have learned at least rudimentary Latin as well. An early education in the subjects might have influenced his later development as an art theorist and poet.80 According to

Federico’s comments and Vasari’s text, he and his parents traveled to Rome for the

Jubilee in 1550, and his at that time his parents left Federico with his brother. Ottaviano intended Federico to continue his studies in letters, but Taddeo considered him more suited to painting; he brought him into his workshop where the young Federico might

“acquire the first principles of learning, and then set him to study design, furnishing him meanwhile with better assistance and more ample support than he had enjoyed himself.”81 The best source for information on Federico’s apprenticeship in his brother’s workshop is Federico himself in his Lettere a principe et signori amatori del disegno, pittura, scultura et architettura.

Unlike Taddeo, Federico’s training followed the most traditional of paths, as he spent the entirety of his training in his brother’s workshop advancing from student to assistant before receiving his own commissions. Baglione writes that the brothers worked together on a façade in Piazza Colonna where they painted a pieta flanked by Saints Peter and Paul. Here, Federico painted Saint Paul. The brothers worked extremely closely with

Federico serving as a collaborator and assistant to his brother. Vasari tells the story of an extremely supportive relationship between Taddeo and his younger brother in which

Taddeo has his brother execute larger and larger portions of commissions and designs, culminating in Federico’s completion of all but the Nativity scene for the commission of

80 Nelle Marche, 18. 81 Vasari, ed. Betty Burroughs, trans. Mrs. Johnathon Foster, 184. 41 the chapel for the Company of Santa Maria dell’ Orto-a-Ripa in Rome. According to

Vasari, Taddeo knew that Federico would not receive the commission on his own, so he took the commission in his name as an opportunity for Federico to complete the work and establish himself.82

This relationship was not without tension though, which is demonstrated in the anecdote, recorded in Vasari and commented on by Federico, relating to Federico’s first commission, painting the façade of the Palazetto Chermandio for Tizio Chermandio, master of household for Cardinal Alessandro Farnese in 1559:

But when Federigo executed this picture he was but twenty-eight years old, wherefore Taddeo, who reflected that these paintings were in a public place, and that the credit of Federigo was at stake, not only went often to see how he was proceeding, but would frequently retouch and amend certain parts with his own hands.83

This was endured patiently for some time by Federigo, but one day he fell into a transport of rage, and seizing a hammer he dashed something…that had been painted by

Taddeo, to pieces…the brothers eventually reconciled, with the understanding that

Taddeo might correct or retouch the designs or cartoons of Federigo at his pleasure, but was not allowed to lay a hand on the works which the latter was executing in oil, in fresco, or in any other manner.84

The fresco, a modello, and a cartoon by Federico completed for this commission all survive and show the evolution from first design to final dramatic composition, which

82 Vasari, ed. Betty Burroughs, trans. Mrs. Johnathon Foster, 189. 83 Federico was eighteen or nineteen at the time of the commission, not twenty-eight. 84 Vasari, ed. Betty Burroughs, trans. Mrs. Johnathon Foster, 192-193. 42 shows Eustace on bent knee in a pose of dramatic astonishment flanked by his two hunting dogs. The sharp turn of his head guides the viewer to the white stag with a crucifix between its horns. This image of the stag is now almost invisible with age. The most inventive element of the fresco is the use of color more commonly found in interior fresco. Taddeo, in contrast, had employed the monochromatic models used by Polidoro for his own exterior work though he began to employ color in his own work following his brother’s innovation.85

Like his brother before him, Federico’s first façade established his reputation as a eminent painter, and he was “universally extolled.”86 In the same year he was commissioned for multiple projects at the Vatican: he painted scenes from The Life of Christ in the Casino of Pius IV, frescos of the Escutcheon of Pius IV, Justice, and

Equity at the Tribunale della Ruota Romana, and completion of 16 paintings of scenes from The Life of Moses at the Belvedere.87 Federico’s own success was not the end of the brothers’ working relationship; the brothers continued to share a workshop, and surviving drawings show the brothers continued to employ each other’s compositions and figures in their own work. Federico played a pivotal role in one of his brother’s most important commissions: the Villa Farnese at Caparola. The large commission was completed mostly based on drawings sent by Taddeo as he did not wish to be away from Rome for extended periods of time. Though Federico was away in Venice for much of Taddeo’s active years

85 Brooks, “The Early Life of Taddeo Series,” 53. 86 Vasari, ed. Betty Burroughs, trans. Mrs. Johnathon Foster, 193. 87 Cheney, “Zuccaro Family.” 43 working at the Villa, drawings show that Federico helped Taddeo develop compositions, possibly by sending drawings through the post.88

This commission also highlights one of the greatest differences between the two brothers. Federico would travel, receiving commissions across Europe, but

Taddeo was a distinctly Roman painter, rarely leaving the city after he established his workshop. Federico traveled to Venice in 1564 at the request of Cardinal Giovanni

Grimaldi to paint his family chapel in San Francesco della Vigna. After Venice he traveled through Lombardy on an architectural study trip under the tutelage of the great

Andrea Palladio.89 His trip with Palladio is early evidence of his continuous desire to learn. While many now consider Federico to be the less talented brother, often labelling him as a “commercial” painter in comparison to his brother’s more unique style, scholars acknowledge his desire to experience different regional styles as he synthesized them into his own work.90

In 1565 Federico made his first trip to Florence to create a series hunting scenes as part of the decorative scheme for the wedding between Francesco de’ Medici and

Joanna of Austria.91 A commission from the Medici after his work for the Vatican confirms that within a decade of his first independent commission Federico had already completed work for two of the most powerful institutions in Italy. On this first trip to

Florence in 1565, Federico’s name was added to the roster of members of the Accademia

88 Brooks, “The Early Life of Taddeo Series,” 64. 89 Cheney, “Zuccaro Family.” 90 Mundy, 21. 91 Cheney, “Zuccaro Family.” 44 del Disegno, of which he would become an active participant, and critic of, on his next trip to Florence in 1574.92 He returned from Florence to Rome the same year to collaborate with his brother on projects at Trinità dei Monti, San Marcello, the Sala Regia at the Vatican, and his previously mentioned project at the Villa Farnese at Caprarola.

This would be the final project the brothers would work on together, and it would be another decade and a half before Federico would immortalize his brother in The Early

Life of Taddeo cycle.

92 Ibid.; Goldstein, Teaching Art: Academies and Schools from Vasari to Albers. (Cambridge, New York, Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 22.

45

Chapter 2: Precursors and Premonitions: Federico’s Path to the

Founding of the Accademia di San Luca and the creation of the Early

Life of Taddeo

Taddeo Zuccaro fell ill in early August of 1566 and passed away on September 2,

1566 at age thirty-seven. Federico was twenty-six and had been collaborating with his brother for the last fifteen years. He was left in charge of his brother’s many active projects, including the Palazzo Farnese as well as their shared workshop. While his brother’s death would have been personally devastating for Federico it also leads to his development as an independent artist. Federico’s intellectual and artistic evolution can be traced through his known non-commissioned works and his contributions to the development of the artists’ academies in Rome and Florence. In many ways, The Early

Life of Taddeo series will represent the shared culmination of his intellectual and artistic careers.

No longer anchored by working with his brother Federico will travel more and begin his lifelong campaign to elevate his family and all Italian artists to the level of intellectual rather than artisan. His first stratagem in this campaign immediately follows his new independence, his brother’s burial. Federico buried his brother next to Raphael, his artistic predecessor and inspiration, at the Pantheon. The inscription on Taddeo’s tomb is in Latin and emphasizes not just the tragedy of his brother dying so young but

46 that Raphael had died at the same age emphasizing the connection between the two artists, a theme that reappears in the drawings of his brother’s life.93 From the location of the burial to the choice of Latin for the inscription Federico is presenting the Zuccaro family as an important and educated part of the Roman artistic milieu. His later campaigning will be much more aggressive. After three separate events over the course of his career Federico would respond strongly and publicly to what he considered slights against himself and the art of painting. Though later biographers use these artistic outbursts to paint the picture of an arrogantly self-conscious man whose life revolves around his own self-importance that leads to his failure, Federico is in no way that one dimensional.

THE RETRIBUTION DRAWINGS

It is impossible to deny that Federico’s sometimes combative reactions to perceived slights would cause issues in his life but painting him as a bitter man jealous of the success of other artists, most prominently Vasari, is simply untrue. As will become apparent, Federico’s active interest in the wellbeing of younger artists would preoccupy much of his thoughts and actions particularly as they pertain to artistic development and the academy. While it may not be accurate to call any of Federico’s actions entirely altruistic his actions throughout his life show a man with a keen sense of the state of his profession and his fellow artists.

93 Julian Brooks, “The Career of Taddeo Zuccaro,” 66. 47 The first of Federico’s artistic outbursts was soon after his brother’s death, but clearly shows his sensitivity was not entirely self-centered. Federico would take over many of his brother’s active commissions, including the work at Villa Farnese at

Caprarola. As discussed in the previous chapter, Federico was already playing a large role in the collaboration between himself and Taddeo at the Villa. He provided sketched compositions for his brother’s use and would visit the palazzo on his brother’s behalf to oversee the work. Without his brother’s influence the project began to falter. Letters that survive from 1569 record a disagreement over payment and in 1572 Federico was replaced by the Parmigiano artist Jacopo Bertoia.94

In response to the slight, whether real or imagined, that Federico felt at being removed from the project he painted the first of three works, that will be identified here as his ‘retribution works,’ a composition, titled The Calumny of Apelles or alternatively

Calumny. The painting exists in two finished versions, one is a large gouache in the

Caetani Collection (ca. 1604) in Rome and the other is an oil paint panel (ca. 1569-72) in the Royal Collection Trust at Hampton Court Palace (Fig. 36).95 The composition comes from the classical tradition, filtered through a Renaissance lens. The story of The

Calumny, a painting by the renowned painter Apelles, comes from the 2nd century classical author Lucian’s essay On not Believing Rashly in Slander.96 According to

94 “Calumny.” Royal Collections Trust, The Royal Collection Trust, accessed May 10, 2020, https://www.rct.uk/collection/405695/calumny. 95 There are also two extant drawings connected to the composition. One is a large preparatory sketch of the entire work in Hamburg and the other is detail of the center lower cartouche in the collection of Christ Church, Oxford. Ibid.. 96 Peter Hecht, review of The Calumny of Apelles: A Study in Humanist Tradition, by David Cast, Simiolus: Netherlands Quarterly for the History of Art 13, no. 1 (1983): 58, doi:10.2307/3780608. 48 Lucian, Apelles was accused by others jealous of his talents of having taken part in a conspiracy against Pharaoh Ptolemy IV Philopator. Ptolemy sentenced Apelles to death and at the moment of execution one of his detractors confessed to the slander against the artist exonerating him. The Pharaoh grants the man as a slave to Apelles along with a sum of gold as compensation.

Supposedly Apelles created a painting to express his ire at the Pharaoh’s falling prey to the slander of others and to warn others of the dangers of believing calumny.

Lucian describes in detail:

On the right of it sits Midas with very large ears, extending his hand to Slander while she is still at some distance from him. Near him, on one side, stand two women—

Ignorance and Suspicion. On the other side, Slander is coming up, a woman beautiful beyond measure, but full of malignant passion and excitement, evincing as she does fury and wrath by carrying in her left hand a blazing torch and with the other dragging by the hair a young man who stretches out his hands to heaven and calls the gods to witness his innocence. She is conducted by a pale ugly man who has a piercing eye and looks as if he had wasted away in long illness; he represents envy. There are two women in attendance to Slander, one is Fraud and the other Conspiracy. They are followed by a woman dressed in deep mourning, with black clothes all in tatters—she is Repentance. At all events, she is turning back with tears in her eyes and casting a stealthy glance, full of shame, at Truth, who is slowly approaching.97

97 Lucian of Samosata, Lucian, trans. by A. M. Harmon, (New York and London: Macmillan Co: 1913), 1: 363, n.1 quoted in Rudolph Altrocchi, "The Calumny of Apelles in the Literature of the Quattrocento," 49 It is extremely unlikely that the painting ever existed. Instead Lucian is employing

Apelle’s name is an exercise in ekphrasis, a rhetorical exercise where the writer describes an imagined work of art in vivid emotional detail to prepare his audience for a complex argument to follow. There is no evidence that Apelles ever painted a scene like that described and the circumstances are a chronological impossibility. 98

Lucian’s text was rediscovered in Constantinople at the start of the 15th century and quickly translated into Latin. Leon Battista Alberti, the Renaissance artist and scholar included the description of the work in his treatise on art De Pictura first published in

1450. Renaissance scholars and artists believed that Lucian’s description and other exercises in ekphrasis described real works of art and the painting of the Calumny became a trope narrative for the educated artist. Sandro Botticelli and Andrea Mantegna both painted their own interpretations of the allegorical scene.

Federico as an educated artist, would have known the story of the

Calumny and, more importantly, his intended audience of his peers and patrons would have understood his intention and Cornelius Cort turned the composition into a print (Fig.

37), exposing the work to an even larger audience. Federico’s success in disseminating his narrative is demonstrated by Karl Van Mander’s including the work in his biography of Federico:

Federico also painted a great canvas in egg tempera, a Calumny, in just the same manner as the Calumny of Apelles, in order to make a point. Some thought or guessed

Publications of the Modern Language Association of America, 36, no. 3 (September, 1921): 456-457, doi:10.2307/457203. 98 Hecht, review of The Calumny of Apelles, 455. 50 that it was because of some difference arising between Farnese and him regarding payment, and that the cardinal had said: Raphael and other good painters were no more, so it was no loss. To which Federico was said to have replied: The good art lovers, popes, and princes, were no more, so it was no loss. But when Cornelius Cort’s engraving of this was issued in print, the explanation in Italian was added afterwards.99

The text under the print is in Latin and laments the vices that prevail when good leadership is lost, a coded accusation aimed at the Cardinal that true understanding of the arts by patrons has been lost.100

Federico’s version of the Calumny is pointedly complicated, and he modifies the composition, changing the narrative to validate his own interpretation of the events leading to his dismissal from the Palazzo Farnese project. The painting is packed with figures and layered with allusion and allegory. It includes all of the figures from Lucian’s ekphrasis but rather than presenting the artist as a young man being thrown before his detractors begging for divine redemption in the face of an ill-informed king the power dynamic has been switched and the young artist, crowned in laurels, is being led from the room by Mercury and a female allegorical figure holding an ermine, a representation of purity and truth while the foolish king is restrained by wisdom. Federico “improves” on the classical model to create a more satisfying turn of events and preserve his honor.

The collapse of the Farnese commission is notable because of his response to it but also in part because it is an outlier, Federico completed many successful commissions

99 Paul Arblaster, “Excerpts of the Lives of Italian Artists from the Book of Painters,” Art in Translation 6, no. 3 (2014): 249. 100 Infandae heu scelerum species Calumnia Frausque / et furor ac Sordes mensque inconsulta Tyranni /Sed quas securo contemnat pectore virtus / Et custos sine labe animi facundia praesens 51 throughout the 1560s and 1570s both in Italy and aborad. Between 1568-70 he completed

Taddeo’s commission for an altarpiece for San Lorenzo in Damaso, Rome. Also in 1570, he went to Orvieto to paint two scenes of Christ’s life for the Cathedral and in 1573 he was part of the team of artists chosen for the large-scale commission of a passion cycle in

San Lucia del Gonfalone in Rome. In 1574 he undertook his first ambitious trip outside of Italy.

Federico traveled first to Lorraine and then to the Netherlands, stopping in

Antwerp “where the painters received him warmly and did him great honor.”101 There is some evidence that he completed designs for tapestries while in Antwerp.102 His final leg was to London where he was commissioned by Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester to paint portraits of Queen Elizabeth I and Dudley himself as gifts for the Queen.103 A drawing of the queen by Federico survives in the collection of the British Museum.104 On his return he must have left almost immediately for Florence where he would be based for the next six years and where he would complete his next retribution work.

The most impactful, and decisive, work of Federico’s stay in Florence was the completion of the Last Judgment in the dome of the Duomo begun by Giorgio Vasari

101 The order in which Federico reached each destination is not currently clear. Van Mander describes the trip as beginning in Lorraine then on the Netherlands and England in The Book of Painters but I have also seen the trip described as starting in Spain before travelling onwards to England and finally to the Netherlands. 102 Cheney, Liana De Girolami. "Zuccaro family." Grove Art Online. 2003; Accessed May 23, 2020, https://www-oxfordartonline- com.ezproxy.lib.utexas.edu/groveart/view/10.1093/gao/9781884446054.001.0001/oao-9781884446054-e- 7000093663. 103 Carlo M. Bajetta, “Elizabeth I, Chiappino Vitelli and Federico Zuccaro: Two Unpublished Letters,” in Notes and Queries 258, no.3 (2013): 389. doi:10.1093/notesj/gjt123. 104“Drawing,” The British Museum, The British Museum, accessed May 23, 2020, https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_Gg-1-417. 52 which occupied Federico from 1574-1578. Federico was already a member of the

Accademia di Disegno and was likely already acquainted with Vasari when he was chosen to complete the decoration of the Duomo Dome after Vasari’s death. Federico is sometimes referred to as Vasari’s assistant and the level of input he had in the final design can depend on the focus of an article’s author and will not be addressed in detail here. Federico certainly felt pride in his accomplishment in completing the dome.

After the dome’s completion Federico commissioned a medal to commemorate the event from the Medici court medalist Pastorino Pastorini, an almost unheard-of conceit for an artist (Fig. 38a &38b).105 The commissioning of a commemorative medal was usually the realm of rich and powerful figures such as dukes and princes.106 The medal follows the usual male pattern, modeled after classical coins, of a portrait of the patron on the obverse and a complimentary reverse depicting the event for which the medal was commissioned.107 On the obverse Federico is shown in profile wearing simple doublet with a generous ruff and a sash. He is identified by Latinate text FEDERICVS

ZVCCARVS followed by the date, 1578. The reverse depicts the dome of the Florence

Cathedral cut away to reveal the interior where the fresco was located. The interior railing and columns have been included in miniscule detail. Along the edge of the coin again in Latinate block capitals is TENP. FRANC. MED. DVVX. ETRVRIAE (In the

105 Innocente e calunniato: Federico Zuccari (1539/40-1609) e le vendetta d’artista, ed. Cristina Acidini and Elena Capretti (Florence: Giunti Editore, 2009), catalogue of an exhibition at Il Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi, Florence, Italy, December 6, 2009 – February 28, 2010, 150. 106 Phillip Atwood, Italian Medals c. 1530-1600 in British Public collections (London: British Museum Press, 2003), 277. 107 Portrait medals commemorating women usually had a portrait on the obverse and a reference to the woman’s virtue or virtues on the reverse. Atwood, 66-67. 53 time of Francesco de’ Medici, grand duke of Tuscany). Below the dome a small rectangle encloses PINSIT (He painted) referring to Federico on the obverse.108 Through the commissioning of his medal Federico places himself and his work as an artist on the same plane as noblemen and their accomplishments.109

Other prominent artists had previously commissioned portrait medals, but placing his artistic accomplishment on the reverse was an innovation on the part of Federico.110

Donato Bramante was possibly the earliest artist to commission a portrait medal of himself, contracted from Caradossa Foppa c.1505 (39a&39b).111 The obverse shows a bust length profile of Bramante in the style of a classical nude surrounded by the text

BRAMANTES ASDRVVALDINVS. On the reverse a female representation of architecture is shown holding a compass and a rule, behind her to the right is a representation of the Bramante’s never completed design for St. Peter’s Basilica. The obverse text reads FIDELITAS LABOR (fidelity and toil) meant to describe Bramante’s commitment to his work as an architect.112 In many ways it is this first medal that most closely aligns with the message of Federico’s own medal, though the reference to

Bramante’s project is more oblique instead focusing on his virtues of character.

108 Translation from Atwood, 277. 109 For more on the Federico’s medals see Chapter 3 of Robert Williams, Art, Theory, and Culture in Sixteenth Century Italy: From Techne to Metatechne (Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997). 110 Joanna Woods-Marsden, Renaissance Self-portraiture: The Visual Construction of Identity and the Social Status of the Artist (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998), 177. 111 Emily A. Fenichel, “Penance and Proselytizing in Michelangelo’s Portrait Medal,” Artibus et Historiae 37, no. 73 (2016): 126, https://www-jstor-org.ezproxy.lib.utexas.edu/stable/44082060. 112 Ibid. 125. 54 Titian is the subject of an early medal by the sculptor and prolific medal maker

Leone Leoni that celebrates Titian’s knighthood granted by Charles V in 1533 (Fig.

40a&40b). The portrait side shows a small profile of Titian fully encircled by text in

Latinate capitals similar to those on Federico’s medal: TITIANVS: PICTOR ET:

EQVES:C: (Titian, painter and imperial knight) while the opposing face bears the image of a bacchante playing a double flute and an amoretto holding a thyrsus, thought to be a reference to Titian’s painting The Bacchanals.113 The obverse of Titian’s medal declares his profession unlike Bramante’s but bolsters his importance by also including his knighthood and the reverse of the medal makes an even less direct connection between

Titian’s profession and the medal’s imagery.

Bartolomeo (Baccio) Bandinelli was another of the early artists to commission a medal in praise of himself. Circa 1547, Bandinelli commissioned multiple variations on a portrait medal from Leoni (Fig. 41a, 41b).114 He supplied Leoni with a sketched self- portrait and three different obverse designs. The self-portrait shows Bandinelli in a right facing bust length profile with a long flowing beard dressed in classical attire pinned at the right shoulder. The text reads BACIVS: BAN. SCVLP. FLO (Baccio Bandinelli,

Florentine sculptor). The first reverse was a mountain of ice with the words ‘Ex glacie neves’ (From ice, snow) meaning “the whiteness of my virtues and positions held” a variation on a design that Bandinelli had devised for Giulio Giovio. The simplest reverse is centered around text, CHANDOR ILLESVS (Unimpaired radiance) surrounded by a

113 Atwood, 93-94. 114 Ibid., 98. 55 laurel wreath which was the motto of his patron Pope Clement VII. There are no extant examples of the third reverse, but a description of the medal can be found in Bandinelli’s autobiography Memoriale and depicted “a tower beset by winds and a legend taken from

Dante.”115 Bandinelli’s profession is not absent from his medals, but the emphasis of the reverse is placed on Bandinelli’s intellectual accomplishments and his association with important religious and political figures.

Michelangelo also commissioned a medal during his lifetime, and, like his predecessors, the emphasis was put on his virtues rather than celebrating one of his many artistic achievements (Fig. 42a&42b). Michelangelo commissioned his medal from Leoni in 1560 only four years before his death. The front of the medal features a traditional profile portrait with Michelangelo’s prominent forehead and broken nose. Like the other medals the sitter is identified in the border text: MICHAELANGELVS BONARROTVS

FLOR[entinus] AET[atis] S[uae] ANN[o] 88 (Michelangelo Buonarotti Florentine age

88).116 Unlike the other artists including Federico no reference is made to Michelangelo’s profession nor his association with nobility. The obverse is similarly obscure. A blind pilgrim wearing a pointed hat and holding a staff is guided forward from left to right by a small dog representing faith (fido). The flowing robes of the aged pilgrim reveal a contradictorily muscular form, recalling Michelangelo’s own preoccupation with the muscular male body. The lengthy inscription reads DOCEBO INIQVOS VIAS TVAS ET

IMPII AD TE CONVENERTENTVR (Psalm 50:15 ‘I will teach the unjust thy ways and

115 Ibid. 116 ”Michelangelo Buonarroti, 1475-1564, Florentine Artist [obverse], c. 1561,“ The National Gallery of Art, The National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, accessed August 8, 2020, https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.45094.html. 56 the wicked shall be converted to thee’).117 It seems likely that the pilgrim represents

Michelangelo himself and that his intentions in commissioning the medal were to curry favor in heaven rather than the worldly occupations of the previous medals.118 Of course,

Michelangelo at 88 was a rich man and already seen as practically divine. His high social status was so secure that he was unafraid to deny the pope.119 The high status of

Michelangelo was not extended to other artists though and the young Federico would have had very different motivations in commissioning his own medal namely reaching a level that would elevate himself and his profession.

Beyond insinuating Federico as an artist was worthy of higher status, the portrait medal may have been a dramatic bid to sway the opinion of important patrons and critics.

Federico was defensive of the dome project which had been sharply criticized by prominent Florentine artists and writers. He published a print, again engraved by

Cornelius Cort, known as The Lament of Painting (Fig. 43). Much like the Calumny the print is crowded with classical and allegorical figures that come together to relay a complicated narrative that places Federico again in the role of the virtuous artist attacked by detractors who do not understand truly inspired art. The print is so large that it is printed on two sheets. The upper sheet holds the heavens where at the left Jupiter presides over a panoply of deities and personifications with Apollo placed prominently at the right front. The three graces and Amor are leading a weeping personification of painting followed by all nine of the muses towards Jupiter’s throne. Behind them Minerva, as the

117 Fenichel,126. 118 Ibid. 119 Vasari, translated by George Bull, 346. 57 goddess of wisdom, stands before a painting within the print, and explains the internal allegory of the painting that represents what is plaguing painting: Painting is attacked by

Calumny and constantly assailed by the changing quality of Fortune and the Virtues which provide an artist with inspiration are in danger.

In the bottom half of the painting a well-dressed painter, Federico, sits before a large canvas painting the forging of Zeus’ lightning bolt in Hephaestus forge. The top half of the painting then represents the painter’s vision as he works of Olympus. He looks not at the painting or up at his vision but at a shining personification of wisdom at the center of the print. Wisdom has defeated envy who is pictured buried at the bottom of the print and leading the painter to ignore the dogs (representing his critics) who tear at his clothing to distract him from his work. Again, the image likely has a literary source.

There is a story that first appeared in Francesco Lancilotti’s Traciato di pictura published in Rome and was repeated by Michelangelo Biondo in Della nobilissima pittura published in Venice in 1549. There are variations between the two versions but the base story is Painting as a beautiful woman, described by Biondo as a beautiful giantess whose head reaches where the sun sends out its rays, comes to an artist and monologues her complaints about the state of painting in the world. The classical world is praised while the current state of art is lamented. She entreats the artist to reestablish her primacy and protect her from the volatility of Fortune.120 Federico has cast himself as the artist who will save painting from the ignorance of his contemporaries who criticize his work.

120 Inemie Gerards-Nelissen, "Federigo Zuccaro and the ‘Lament of Painting’,” Simiolus: Netherlands Quarterly for the History of Art 13, no. 1 (1983): 46-47. doi:10.2307/3780606. 58 Federico Zuccaro’s final retribution was a step too far which led to his arrest, and on November 27, 1581 Federico was given four days to leave the papal states and never return at pain of imprisonment.121 The work that would lead to his exile was Porta

Virtutis, a painted wall hanging executed for display at the feast of Saint Luke hosted by the painter’s guild in 1581 (Fig. 44). The work was displayed prominently on the façade of the church of San Luca in Rome and survives as three studies, one for the original work now housed at Christ Church, Oxford and two detailed copies created as evidence for the trial that would lead to his expulsion. Like the Calumny and The Lament of

Painting the work was a response to what Federico perceived as an unfair criticism of his work.

Paolo Ghiselli, an important member of the retinue of Pope Gregory XIII, commissioned Federico to paint the altarpiece for his family chapel in Santa Maria del

Baraccano, Bologna. The altarpiece was completed by Federico in Rome in December

1580 and sent to Bologna. On arrival the work was rejected by the patron after Bolognese painters wrote an anonymous letter to Ghiselli listing the defects of the work. It is thought they were angered by the choice of a Roman painter to paint the altarpiece for the

Bolognese chapel. Federico offered to paint a second version of the work, but his offer was refused, and the commission went to the local artist Cesare Aretusi. Federico’s altarpiece, which depicted Gregory the Great kneeling before a vision he received at

121 Patrizia Cavazzini, “The Porta Virtutis and Federico Zuccari’s Expulsion from the Papal States: An unjust Conviction?,” Romischesjahrbuch fur Kunstgeschichte 25, (1989), 169. 59 Hadrian’s Mausoleum that saved Rome from a plague, is now lost but the composition survives in two drawings.

Federico unveiled his response to this rejection on October 18, 1581 the feast day of Saint Luke. The Porta Virtutis was very public on the façade of the church of San

Luca and to avoid misunderstanding Federico spent the morning interpreting the work for his fellow confraternity members as well as labelling the work. The painting depicts

Minerva guarding the realm of artistic virtue from personifications of Ignorance and

Envy. In the original drawing the painting being apotheosized behind Minerva is

Federico’s design for the altarpiece in Bologna.122

His actions offended the Bolognese artists and they sued him for libel. Federico insisted that the work was not aimed at any specific group and, according to Federico, the painting “represented…the difficulties and the means necessary to acquire virtue, which toils and persecutions that envy and slander always oppose virtue… Virtue and excellence are usually attacked, but not conquered, by the defamatory monsters in the presence of the wicked powerful.”123 Federico said that he had actually created the composition after the events in Florence in 1578 and then that the composition was not his own but his student’s. He also modified the drawings he submitted as evidence to disguise the damning elements of the original composition. Unfortunately, his desire for revenge had led him to be too brazen this time and the Bolognese Pope sent him into

122 “Federico Zuccaro,” The Morgan Library & Museum, The Morgan Library & Museum, accessed May 25, 2020, https://www.themorgan.org/drawings/item/191951. 123 Cavazzini, “The Porta Virtutis and Federico Zuccari Expulsion from the Papal States,” 175. 60 exile. The exile was not to last long though, Francesco Maria II della Rovere, the Duke of

Urbino interceded on his behalf and he was pardoned within two years of his exile.124

All three of the retribution works create layered narratives with multiple interpretations and employ imagery pulled from classical antiquity modified to suit

Federico’s narrative needs but the Porta Virtutis is his most original composition. The work shows his growing confidence in building his own story that will come into full bloom in his The Early Life of Taddeo drawings. The Calumny, The Lament of Painting, and Porta Virtutis are the most compelling examples for how Federico understood his own place in society and how he communicated with the world at large. While a modern viewer might see Federico as self-important, he saw himself as standing up for the dignity of the arts and his profession. All three works layer his personal narrative in a larger metaphor of artistic virtue triumphing over their critics and the ignorant public. All three works also attribute to the artist divine inspiration and protection and the latter two also emphasize the importance of hard work on the part of the individual. The paired themes of divine inspiration and diligent study will reappear in a positive light in The

Early Life of Taddeo and in Federico’s treatise on art L’idea de’Pittori, Scultori, ed

Architetti.

THE DANTE HISTORIATO AND FEDERICO’S ROLE AS EDUCATOR

After his return from exile he soon left Rome again in 1585, this time for Spain at the behest of King Phillip II. After years of negotiations Federico had agreed to take part

124 Ibid, 177. 61 in the decoration of the newly completed Escorial. Over the course of three years and with the support of five assistants Federico painted the high altarpiece and two reliquary chapels for basilica as well as the frescos for the great cloister. Federico’s arrival had been one of great expectations and unfortunately his work did not meet the King’s tastes.

All but one of his frescos for the cloister and almost half of his work for the high altar were quickly replaced by works by Pellegrino Tibaldi and the side altars were

“corrected” by a minor Spanish artist.125 Though their tastes differed, Federico’s relationship with the King seemed to be a positive one on both sides. King Phillip’s response to the replacement of Federico’s frescos was supposedly, “He is not to blame, but those who sent him to us.” Federico’s ebullient compositions were not suited to the strict iconographic approach of the Spanish court. Federico was paid handsomely and gifted even more, including two medals and a gold chain which Federico dons in his

Uffizi self-portrait (Fig. 46).126

Federico’s time in Spain was not without valuable production, while working at the Escorial Federico undertook an ambitious personal project, abridging and illustrating the entirety of Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy. The works now called the

Dante Historiato da Federigo Zuccaro are now bound in a codex housed at the Uffizi.

There is no evidence that Federico had been commissioned to complete the series and the drawings stayed in Federico’s personal collection until his death and were recorded in the inventory in 1609. The illustrations were bound into a codex before entering the museum

125 Rosemarie Mulcahy, “Federico Zuccaro and Phillip II: The Reliquary Altars for the Basilica of San Lorenzo de El Escorial” Burlington Magazine 129, (1987): 502. 126 Ibid, 509. The larger medal depicts Federico’s profile on obverse and the high altar of the Escorial on the reverse (Fig. 45a&b). 62 collection, possibly before leaving the artist’s home, and rebound again in the nineteenthth century. The works are numbered much like the Early Life of Taddeo, and they are in order according to the narrative of the Commedia. Each illustration is accompanied by a page of text and the text has been shown to be in the artist’s own hand, proving that Federico is both editor and illustrator of the Dante Historiato.127

The Historiato contains a total of eighty-eight illustrations: twenty-eight for the

Inferno, forty-nine for Purgatorio, and eleven for Paradiso. The facing sheet for each illustration has the verses transcribed in capital letters with accompanying text including summaries of the canto in text, commentaries, and other short annotations in cursive.

Both scripts have been identified as Federico’s handwriting. Federico does not rely solely on his own knowledge and quotes heavily from two commentaries: Cristoforo Landino and Guglielmo Rovillio. Both commentaries were recorded in the Escorial Library.

Federico does not include the entirety of the Commedia, but instead abridges the poem to shorten and focus the poem. Many of the political and theological components of the work are excluded focusing on the elements of judgement, punishment, and salvation that move the plot of the Commedia forward. Federico goes so far as to change or add his own lines to keep narrative and rhyme scheme consistent.128

Each book of the Commedia has been illustrated in a different manner. The

Inferno is sketched in black and red pencil, Purgatorio in blue and black ink, and

127 Mazzuchi, "A Pictorial Interpretation of Dante’s Commedia,” 391. 128 Ibid., 397. 63 Paradiso almost entirely in red pencil.129 The multitude of variations in all elements of the images do not lend the series to being copied and reproduced as prints. The drawings are also not visually cohesive; the labelling varies even within the individual books, and therefore they do not make a cohesive design for reproduction. As a painter of fresco,

Federico is very experienced in the creation of visual narratives without a direct relationship to text, and while his previous prints incorporated text, they were single sheets not an entire story. The codex reads as an experiment in the combination of image and text to create cohesive longform narrative that is a precursor to his combination of narrative and his own poetry in The Early Life of Taddeo. Considering that the artist kept the drawings for the remainder of his life he may have later used them for pedagogical purposes, possibly sharing them with his apprentices, giving the Dante Historiato and the

Early Life of Taddeo drawings a shared purpose.

FEDERICO AND THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE ARTIST ACADEMY IN ITALY

There is evidence that Federico was intending to settle in Florence or at least establish a secondary residence there after his arrival in 1574 but before the events following the unveiling of the dome soured the city for him. He had purchased the palazzo on Via Capponi previously owned by the great Andrea del Sarto, with whom he said his father Ottaviano had studied, and built on a studio. He also decorated the house

129 Ibid., 390-91. 64 interior and exterior with wall paintings of myths, allegories, and Aesop’s fables modeled after the programs painted by Vasari on his own home in Florence.130

Many scholars have commented on the competitive relationship between

Federico and Vasari, often framing it as one of jealousy or one-sided rivalry on the part of Federico.131 Federico’s sometimes derogatory annotations to The Lives are given as evidence for his hatred. This paper will not attempt to attribute any emotions to either party since access to the entirety of Federico’s annotations was unavailable to the author.132 It does seem curious that if their relationship was a bitter one that Federico would have been asked to finish Vasari’s final commission. It is clear that Federico had similar social and political ambitions to the older artist and that he followed many of the same paths to reach his goals. The two most notable being the establishing of an academy and the publishing of his own works on art history and art pedagogy. Instead Federico might be considered as seeing himself as an artistic inheritor of Vasari, like his brother

Taddeo is portrayed as the inheritor of Michelangelo and Raphael in the Taddeo Series.

Federico and Vasari certainly had similar beliefs on the importance of the

Academy to the elevation of the artist. Vasari was instrumental in the establishment of the Accademia di Disegno in Florence in 1563 just as Federico would be in the

130 Constanza Caraffa, “Casa Zuccari: An artist’s house in Florence,” Photothek, Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz, accessed May 25, 2020, online exhibition catalogue, http://photothek.khi.fi.it/documents/oau/00000211?Language=en. 131 See John A. Gere’s introduction to Taddeo Zuccaro: His Development Studied in his Drawings and Mrs. Johnathon Foster’s commentary on Taddeo’s life in Vasari’s Lives of the Artists. Giorgio Vasari, Vasari's Lives of the artists; biographies of the most eminent architects, painters, and sculptors of Italy, edited by Betty Burroughs, translated by Mrs. Johnathon Foster, (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1850). 132 Though the comparison might be made to the annotations of Michelangelo that survive which are also decidedly negative but are followed by cordial correspondence between Vasari and Michelangelo and not taken as evidence of bitter hatred. 65 reestablishment of the Accademia di San Luca in Rome in 1593.133 Like many of the great movements of the Italian Renaissance, the establishing of academies comes from the classical tradition. The term academy comes from Hekademia or Akademia which was a grove or park outside of Athens where Plato would meet with his followers.134

The academy was reborn in the Renaissance as the Platonic Academy founded by

Cosimo de’Medici in 1439, and was not an academy in the modern sense of a place of formal education but rather an informal meeting of scholars where they would discuss philosophy and literature.135 Literary academies began popping up in many Italian cities and were closer in environment to a confraternity than a school. Artists were often associated with these academies either in a tertiary sense where they were commissioned to create ephemera for academy events or as full members. If made a member of the group it was for literary contributions, not artistic ones. Federico Zuccaro was even a member of the literary academy in Parma, the Accademia degli Innominati having been accepted based on his writings rather than his artworks.136

In many ways the academies acted like guilds with members having to submit a piece of work for review by committee in order to gain acceptance but with a much higher degree of status because of the association between literary academies,

Neoplatonism, and nobility. Because of this, Vasari saw in the academy model an

133 Carl Goldstein, Teaching Art: Academies and Schools from Vasari to Albers (Cambridge, New York, Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 16 & 30. 134 Nikolas Pevsner, Introduction to Academies of Art Past and Present, (New York: Da Capo Press, 1973), 1. 135 Ibid., 3. 136Francois Quiviger, “The Presence of Artists in Literary Academies,” in Italian Academies of the Sixteenth Century, eds D.S. Chambers and Francois Quiviger (London: The Warburg Institute, 1995), 110. 66 opportunity for the advancement of the status of the artist. Vasari capitalized on the gathering of major Florentine artists that accompanied the donation of a vault in the cloister of the Santissima Annunziata by Fra Montorsorli for the burial of artists in

1562.137 Vasari understood that the power of the guilds was waning and that he could leverage his position in the court of Cosimo I de’Medici to establish an artists’ academy with real social power. It took more than a year to come to fruition but when the

Accademia di Disegno was founded on January 13, 1563 it was with Cosimo de’Medici as protector.138

Cosimo was also named a capo, or president of the academy along with

Michelangelo Buonarotti. Both roles were strictly honorary as Michelangelo had left for

Rome never to return before the establishing of the academy and Cosimo had no interest in the day to day of the academy. Vincenzo Borghini, as the luogotenente, was the actual leader of the academy along with a board of 36 artists who had been chosen by secret ballot to be members.139 The bylaws of the newly established academy make it clear that its primary purpose was not the education of young artists but the replacement of the old guild system, which the academy succeeds in doing in the mid-1570s.140

137 Goldstein, 16. 138 The formation of academies in the Renaissance and the establishment of the Accademia di Disegno are of course more nuanced than can be addressed in a few pages. The author recommends the above as well as Karen-edis Barzman, The Florentine Academy and the Early Modern State (Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid: Cambridge University Press, 2000) for further research on the subject with earlier bibliography. More recently see Douglas Biow, Vasari’s Words (Cambridge, New York, Madrid: Cambridge University Press, 2018). 139 Anthony Hughes, “’An Academy for Doing’. I: The Academia del Disegno, the Guilds and the Principate in Sixteenth Century Florence,” Oxford Art Journal 9, no. 1 (1986): 3. 140 Barzman, 59. 67 Education was a component of the academy but there was no organized system instruction or classes. There was also no intention to replace the workshop apprenticeship model of training. Instead the most successful artists were chosen to visit artists workshops and track the progress of the most promising apprentices and provide them with supplemental instruction. After finishing their apprenticeship, young artists could submit a work to the academy to qualify for membership and there would be competitions for young artists to present their work with sums of money or supplies as prizes to support their development. This was not very different from the traditional guild model.141

Federico had joined the Accademia di Disegno on his first trip to Florence in

1565 and he had taken an active role in the organization on his return though he became disenchanted with current running of the Accademia during his longer stay. A letter survives from Federico written to the academy near the end of his stay in Florence championing reform.142 He writes to suggest to the heads of the academy that they implement a training plan for apprentices that included figure drawing classes, composition, materials and tools training, critiques by academy masters, and lectures in mathematics.143 Though Federico’s proposals were considered seriously they would not be implemented until over a decade after Federico’s departure from Florence.

Federico was surely frustrated with the Accademia di Disegno’s lack of focus on youth education and theory and both would play an important role in his own

141 Pevsner, 47. 142 Goldstein, 22. 143 Barzman, 68. 68 reestablishment of the Roman Accademia di San Luca. Attempts to open an artists’ academy in Rome began over a decade after the founding of the Accademia di Disegno in

Florence and in Rome it was the Papal rather than the Medici patronage that was key to establishment and status. Attempts had been made under Gregory XIII and Sixtus V, in

1577 and in 1588, to establish academies in Rome but these academies existed more in name than in practice.144 Under the guidance of his patron the Milanese Cardinal

Federico Borromeo, Federico Zuccaro was granted the right to reestablish the academy under Clement VIII and on November 14, 1593 the Accademia di San Luca was declared open and it has remained in some form until this day.145

At first meeting, held either in Federico’s Palazzo or a shed near the Church of

Saint Luke, Federico was elected president of the academy with the power to choose his own governing body. At the next meeting the academy rules were decided with a clear emphasis on education that sharply differentiates the Roman academy from its Florentine counterpart. That Education had been the goal of the Roman academy since the first iteration in 1577 is clear in the Breve issued by Gregory and Sixtus associated with their attempted foundings. The papal powers saw the establishment of a Roman academy as a tool for controlling artistic output and bringing artists more in line with the mandates of the Council of Trent. Whether Federico agreed with the papal views or merely saw a means to an end in establishing his own academy is unclear.146 His own writings on art

144 Barzman, 14. 145 Pevsner, 60. 146 Christopher L. C. E. Witcombe presents an interesting argument for Federico’s disagreement with the Papal intentions in his article “Gregory XII and the Accademia di San Luca in Rome,” in Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome 54, (2009): 107-118. 69 were deeply influenced by Thomas Aquinas but Federico’s own work had run afoul of the censors at the Escorial only a few years earlier.

Whatever the reason, Federico was deeply devoted to the educational program of the Accademia di San Luca. For the established artist in the first set of rules regular attendance was required and particular emphasis was put on the giving of lectures and disputations on the theory of art. Every day after the lunch hour and once a fortnight for the entire meeting there were to be debates among the members over the precedence of painting or sculpture (the Paragone debate), the definition of Disegno, the rendering of the human body in motion, decoro, composition, and the distinguishing qualities of architecture. For the giovane, young students, he built a series of classes and lectures based on his own teaching philosophies.147 Students begin their study with the ABC’s of the human figure advancing to the full figure and drapery before composition. Federico emphasized the importance of the eye over mathematics in the development of perspective. The print Academia di Pitori by member Pietro Francesco Alberti depicts students studying at San Luca and in the left foreground a very young Giovani is showing a sheet of eyes, one of the first of the ABC’s, to one of the adult academy members for guidance. Other students are shown studying anatomy on a cadaver while in the center of the room an older gentleman teaches mathematics. On the walls are paintings, presumably winning works from the younger members or donations from the masters of the academy for student study.

147 Peter M. Lukehart, “Parallel Lives: The Example of Taddeo Zuccaro in Late-Sixteenth-Century Rome,” 105-106. 70 It is clear from his involvement in the programs at both the Academia di Disegno and the Accademia di San Luca that the education of young artists was for Federico the central goal of the academies and a driving force in Federico’s life. Federico cared deeply about the advancement of the status of the artist not only for himself but for the next generation. According to his will, Federico intended to donate the Palazzo Zuccaro to the

Accademia di San Luca at his death to create a home for young artists newly arrived in

Rome; artists who like his brother Taddeo who might have been forced to live on the streets when they first arrived in Rome.148 As the next chapter will demonstrate the Early

Life of Taddeo series was meant to serve as a model for the young men who entered the academy. Taddeo is cast as an exemplum for the young men entering the academy, demonstrating that with diligent effort divinely given talent can be nurtured into a successful career.

148 Ibid., 108. 71

Chapter 3: Canonizing Taddeo

In establishing the Accademia di San Luca, Federico was creating a lasting legacy in the social fabric of the Roman art world for himself, one that he wished to turn into a familial legacy through his brother Taddeo. As discussed in the first chapter, Taddeo and

Federico came from a family of established painters in the Marches. Their father and uncle were both painters and Taddeo’s and Federico’s cousins were also artists; Taddeo’s biography refers to a goldsmith cousin whom he helped establish in Rome. In his postille to Vasari Federico emphasized that his father had studied with the great Andrea del Sarto, and Federico purchased del Sarto’s home in Florence as his own studio to establish a physical link between himself and del Sarto that mimicked their artistic ties.

Taddeo was arguably the most talented and famous of the Zuccaro and so was the ideal conduit for projecting Federico’s new professional standing onto his entire family while also increasing Federico’s own reputation and that of his new academy. By setting up Taddeo as a figurehead for the Accademia di San Luca, Federico created a reciprocal relationship which bolstered both the Accademia di San Luca and Taddeo. This relationship enhanced the academy through the attachment of an important artist and created a parallel to Michelangelo’s posthumous association with the Accademia del

Disegno. Taddeo’s legacy was thus also raised to a canonical and indeed near-divine status by his use as an exemplum for the student artists on a par with Michelangelo.

72 Accepting that The Early Life of Taddeo was intended as wall paintings for the Palazzo Zuccari in Rome, it becomes inarguable that there was meant to be a connection between the drawing series and the Accademia di San Luca. Though it never came to pass, Federico had intended to donate his home in Rome to the academy after his death for use as a hostel for young artists who came to Rome to learn at the academy.149

Federico had intended his home to be a tangible legacy of his time as head of the academy and his own beliefs on how students should be educated. The decoration of the walls of the palazzo by Federico was never finished, but the existing decorative schemes all reflect a preoccupation with the theories and practice of artistic creation that coincide with the messages within The Early Life of Taddeo.

FEDERICO ON ART

Federico had his own theories on artistic education and on the fundamental qualities of art that were encompassed in the idea of disegno.150 He published multiple written works including two treatises on art, Lettere a principi et signori amatori del disegno, pittura, scultura et architettura and his more successful L’idea de’ pittori, scultori ed architetti which included the more theoretical views on art that he attempted to bring into the debates and lectures at the Accademia di San Luca as well as more practical thoughts on artistic practice. Federico built his ideas on the theories of previous authors including Vasari but diverged from them in at important points. Most particularly

149 Strunck, “The Original Setting of the Early Life of Taddeo Series,” 116. 150 For an overview of the development of art theory, particularly the idea of disegno, in Renaissance Italy see: Moshe Barasch, Theories of Art 1: From Plato to Wickelmann (New York: New York University Press, 1985). 73 he diverged on his definition of the defining idea of art theory developed by Vasari, that of Disegno.151

Federico defines disegno in two parts in L’idea de’ pittori, scultori ed architetti: disegno interno and disegno externo. Disegno interno is a “concept formed in our mind, that enables us explicitly and clearly to recognize anything, whatever it may be, and to operate practically in conformance with the thing intended.152” Disegno interno is given to men by God and is the “very cause of art.153” The principle of disegno interno encompasses the divine or metaphysical idea of a thing or image and is inherent in all men, not just artists. Disegno externo “is nothing but that which is circumscribed by form without corporeal substance.”154 Disegno externo is the most basic of corporeal expressions of the divinely given idea and for an artist that is an outline or pure line drawing. It is not the line drawing itself but the idea that it expresses that is disegno externo which is itself the expression of disegno interno. Federico was not the first to divide disegno into an interior and exterior expressions, but he was the first to fully define and build his work around this idea.

On the practical side, Federico rejected the dominance of mathematical perspective in creating compositions, instead favoring the natural perspective of the eye

151 Barasch, 219. 152 Translation from Barasch, 300. 153 The translated preface to Vasari’s Lives of Artists is published as Giorgio Vasari, Vasari on Technique: Being the Introduction to the Three Arts of Design, Architecture, Sculpture and Painting, Prefixed to the Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, edited by G. Baldwin Brown, translated by Louisa S. Maclehose, (London: J.M. Dent & Company, 1907; New York: Dover Publications, Inc, 1960). Federico’s treatise was published in an edited Italian edition in 1961: Federico Zuccaro and Alberti Romano, Scritti d’arte di Federico Zuccaro, edited by Detlef Heikamp, (Firenze: Leo S. Olshki, 1961). 154 Translation from Barasch, 301. 74 as an expression of disegno interno. He did not reject the teaching of mathematical perspective entirely. He included mathematics as one of the fundamental teaching subjects in both his letter to the Florentine academy and the program at his own academy in Rome, but maintained that it should be used as a tool rather than as the defining truth of composition. He also believed that the human body was the fundamental building block of a painting and he urged students of all artistic practice to root their study in drawing. According to Alberti, Federico was a proponent of method of learning he called

“the Alphabet of Drawing…eyes noses mouths, ears, heads, hands, and other similar parts, whether of the human body or of animals, and figures, equally of the things of architecture, and works of relief in wax, clay, and similar exercises” and in L’idea he instructed young artists to “begin for some time by drawing a variety and diversity of things…figures, animals, bizarre things, ‘partimenti’, grotesques, perspective studies, and other things both natural and artificial.”155 The emphasis on drawing is clearly visible in

Alberti’s engraving of the Academy from 1625 (Fig. 40) where he includes not only students drawing but also a variety of casts of the objects recommended by Federico for study.

TADDEO AS AN EXEMPLUM

Federico was not the first Renaissance artist to advocate the study of drawing.156

There was a long tradition of copying the works of masters and even implementing their

155 Translations taken from Julian Brooks, “The Early Life of Taddeo Series," 106. 156 For a more in depth treatment of the role of drawing in artist practice and theory see: Francis Ames- Lewis, The Intellectual Life of the Early Renaissance Artist (New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 75 figures in original compositions. Federico’s emphasis on drawing is important because of the role it played in establishing the educational program at the Accademia di San Luca.

The Early Life of Taddeo drawings, with their emphasis on drawing and the possible downfalls of apprenticeship, were intended to be seen by the young artists newly arrived in Rome and attending the academy to learn their craft. The cycle represented a visual advertisement for both Federico’s pedagogy and the benefits of the academy. As the protagonist of that context, Taddeo becomes the model a student of art should imitate, even in the face of difficulties these students will not have to face. So Federico, as the establishing president of the academy, is responsible for the students’ good fortune in circumventing the apprenticeship system in Rome.

This intention also explains the choice of the early period in Taddeo’s life for the subject of the frescoes rather than his larger and more prestigious commissions in later life. Federico could use his brother’s early life as a visual tool for educating the young men on the path to success. In the poem accompanying the first scene, Taddeo Leaving

Home Escorted by Two Guardian Angels (Fig. 2) Federico tells his viewer that his brother was provided with God-given talent, but he also stresses the hard work and determination on the part of Taddeo to become a great artist. It his “great desire” to become a great artist that is the impetus for the entire drama that unfolds. Each element

2000); Bruce Cole, The Renaissance Artist at Work: From Pisano to Titian (New York: Harper and Row, 1983); Drawn From the Antique: Artists and the Classical Ideal, edited by Adriano Aymonino and Anne Varick Lauder (London: Sir John Soane’s Museum, 2015), catalogue of an exhibition at the Teylers Museum, Haarlem, March 11 through May 31, 2015 and the Sir John Soane’s Museum, London June 25- September 26 2015; Louis A. Waldman, Baccio Bandinelli and Art at the Medici Court: A Corpus of Early Modern Sources (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 2004); and Robert Williams, “The Artist as Worker in Sixteenth Century-Italy,” in Taddeo and Federico Zuccaro: Artist Brothers in Renaissance Rome, edited by Julian Brooks (Los Angeles: The J. Paul Getty Museum, 2007), catalogue of an exhibition at the J. Paul Getty Museum October 2, 2007 through January 6, 2008. 76 of divine grace and virtue is balanced by clear depictions of the work required to express them. This is perfectly represented by the paired second and third scenes Pallas Athena

Shows Taddeo the Prospect of Rome (Fig. 3) and Taddeo at the Entrance to Rome

Greeted by Toil, Servitude, and Hardship, and by Obedience and Patience (the Ass and the Ox) (Fig. 4). First, he is welcomed to Rome by Pallas Athena, symbol of the arts, but then before he can enter, he also must be met by Toil, Servitude, and Hardship. The allegorical dumbbells also repeat this pattern, pairing Patience and Industry and Study and Intelligence.

The scenes of his early difficulties in Rome also pair his trials with triumphs of character that align with Federico’s emphasis on drawing as the fundamental component of all of the fine arts. When Taddeo is rejected by Francesco Il Sant’Angelo in Taddeo

Rebuffed by Francesco Il Sant’Angelo (Fig. 5), the scene centers on his rejection and following emotional turmoil but, in the back of the scene, Taddeo is shown taking his study into his own hands, copying from the façade of a great Roman house. This trend continues through his time in the house of Giovanni Piero Calabrese, where even as he is mistreated he continues to spend his every free moment improving as his supposed mentor restricts from him the drawings from which he could learn the most, the drawings of the great Raphael. In the visible drawings meant to be by Taddeo in Taddeo Drawing by Moonlight in Calabrese’s House (Fig. 9) Taddeo is drawing the human figure, which is for Federico the foundational subject of drawing study.

The study of drawing is visually central to the series in the same way it is central to Federico’s pedagogy. The four scenes on either side of the narrative climax (Fig. 12-13 77 & 17-18) move Taddeo’s independent study of drawing from a position in the narrative subservient to his personal hardships and refocuses the emphasis onto his artistic development. Taddeo studies a column, a building block of architecture, in the foreground of Taddeo Drawing after the Antique; in the Background Copying a Façade by Polidoro (Fig. 12) as well as a classical sarcophagus and the work of a Renaissance

Master. While he draws in the background Taddeo converses with an older gentleman, possibly an older artist, a premonition of the practice at the Accademia di San Luca visible in the Alberti print. If an anatomy and mathematics lesson had been included in the scene the image would include all the main elements of a young artists education at the academy.

The emphasis on pedagogy is further supported by the accompanying poetry.

Federico’s prose goes beyond describing the actions and emotions of a scene to directly address the reader and advise them on proper behavior. This is made most clear in the tercet accompanying Taddeo Drawing by Moonlight in Calabrese’s House (Fig. 9) which reads: “Note here the example of my brother/ how he studies, see how he sends away/ sleep from his eyes, and from himself harsh sloth.”157 Federico refers directly to his brother as an example while giving commands to the reader to note his hard work in the study of drawing. It is only through assuming that Federico is addressing the reader that the poetry accompanying Taddeo in the House of Giovanni Piero Calabrese (Fig. 8) reads true: “Look how someone has to cure himself of laziness/ in servitude, and in

157 Nota l’essempio qui del fratel’mio / Cosi si studia ve come disaccia / Da gl’occhi il sonno, e da se l’otio rio. Translation from Brooks, “The Early Life of Taddeo Series,” 30. The drawings in narrative order paired with their accompanying poetry can be found in the appendix. 78 someone else’s power/ day and night, not staying under the covers.”158 The “someone” is referred to as lazy while Taddeo has been shown to be industrious and described as fearing no toil in the prose attached to Taddeo at the Entrance to Rome Greeted by Toil,

Servitude, and Hardship, and by Obedience and Patience (the Ass and Ox)(Fig. 4). The someone must be a theoretical negative example given to instruct the reader towards how to cure this behavior in themselves. Though the series is meant to depict the true events of Taddeo’s life Federico has molded events to suit his moralizing message.

Most revealing of Federico’s intent in driving his own ends over his brother’s biography are the scenes following Taddeo’s return to Rome and following his convalescence in Sant’Angelo in Vado. Historically, Taddeo entered the workshop of two different artists Jacopone di Battista Bertucci, da Faenza and Daniele Porri da Parma, who worked on the project of Perino del Vaga at Castel Sant’Angelo. He also began a friendship with his Francesco Il Sant’Angelo, who had been unable to aid him in his early years, but rather than depicting this network of teachers and friends Taddeo is depicted drawing alone. 159 The entirety of his development after his return to Rome is encompassed in the dumbbells Taddeo in the Belvedere Court in the Vatican Drawing the

Laocoon (Fig. 17) and Taddeo in the Sistine Chapel Drawing Michelangelo’s Last

Judgement (Fig. 18).

In the first half of the series Federico laments the current state of the apprenticeship model in Rome heightening the drama of his brother’s life to further his

158 [M]ira come convien ch’altrui si spoltre / In servitù, et in poter’d’altrui / Il di, e la notte, ne star sotto coltre. Translation from Brooks, “The Early Life of Taddeo Series,” 30. 159 Brooks, “The Early Life of Taddeo Series,” 33. 79 point but in the second half the campaign has moved on to the importance of drawing.

The image of his return to Rome, Taddeo Returns to Rome Escorted by Drawing and

Spirit toward the Three Graces (16), Taddeo is greeted by an anthropomorphic spirit of

Design, or more accurately Disegno. His return is followed by a montage of drawing practice that eventually culminates in his first major commission, for the Palazzo Mattei façade which was his debut on the Roman art scene and the basis for his future success.

The clear message is that if one is gifted by God with some measure of talent and works hard, most importantly in practicing drawing they will eventually become successful.

Especially since the Accademia di San Luca, and Federico’s donation of his home, means that young artists will no longer have to sleep on the streets or work for cruel masters. If

Federico’s design had been accomplished Taddeo’s life would have spoken to the young students from the walls, “If I can do it so can you.”

THE AFTERLIFE OF AN ARTIST: THE CANONIZING OF MICHELANGELO

Federico’s choice to use his brother’s life as topic for these large-scale wall paintings was no doubt inspired by the events surrounding Michelangelo’s funeral in

Florence in 1564, which was the most elaborate funeral ever held for an artist. The multi- day event was a new apex for artistic prestige and emblematic of the changed location of artists within the social hierarchy of sixteenth century Italy.160 Michelangelo died in his

160 Michelangelo’s funeral is an under-addressed period in the artist’s biography. Marco Ruffini’s Art Without an Author: Vasari’s Lives and Michelangelo’s Death is the most recent and comprehensive work to address Michelangelo’s funeral. It is also addressed in Hibbard’s biography Michelangelo. Marco Ruffini, Art Without an Author: Vasari’s Lives and Michelangelo’s Death (New York: Fordham University Press, 2011); Howard Hibbard, Michelangelo (Philadelphia: Harper & Row, Publishers; 1974). 80 home in Rome on February 18, 1564 at age 89. When Michelangelo passed, he was attended by his two doctors, Gherardo Fidelissimi and Federico Donati, and his friends

Diomede Leoni, Daniele da Volterra, and Tommaso dei Cavalieri. The confraternity of

San Giovanni Decollato, which Michelangelo had been a member of for fifty years, took charge of the burial and interned the body at Santi Apostoli. The papal authorities, hoping to keep Michelangelo’s body in Rome, held a funeral for the artist about which, unfortunately, little is recorded. Vasari writes that Michelangelo’s body was transported in a procession through Rome to the church of Saint Apostoli where he was buried “in the presence of all Rome” and where Pope Pius announced his intention to have a sepulchere erected for the artist in Saint Peter’s basilica. Already his first funeral makes clear the new heights of prestige that an artist could reach.161

Meanwhile in Florence, Leonardo Buonarroti, Michelangelo’s heir, received a letter from Diomede Leoni informing him of his uncle’s death. At near the same time,

Duke Cosimo I de’Medici received a letter from Michelangelo’s doctor Gherardo

Fidelissimi informing him of the death. The duke had been monitoring Michelangelo’s health through his ambassador to the papal See since at least February of that year.

According to surviving sources Michelangelo had asked to be buried near his father at

Santa Croce in Florence and Michelangelo’s nephew Leonardo intended to fulfill his uncle’s wishes. Six days after Michelangelo’s death Leonardo arrived in Rome to take the body back to Florence but was too late to stop his uncle’s interment at Saint Apostoli.

Leonardo was forced to secretly exhume his uncle’s body for transport out of Rome.

161 Hibbard, 311. 81 Michelangelo’s body was smuggled out of Rome by Florentine merchants who surrounded the body with bales of hay in order to disguise their precious cargo.162

Leonardo had hoped to have a private funeral for the artist out of respect for

Michelangelo’s disdain for performative ceremony but on arrival in Florence, the Duke usurped the duties of burial from Michelangelo’s nephew. Instead the Accademia di

Disegno under the auspices of Principe Vincenzo Borghini was called upon to organize a grand funeral for the Florentine expatriate.163 All of which is described in Vasari’s second edition of The Lives of Artists:

All though he traveled with the post, his nephew Lionardo arrived after all was finished. Duke Cosimo meanwhile resolved to have the man whom he had been unable to honor while he was living brought to Florence after his death and given a noble and costly burial: and after the Duke had been told of the happenings in Rome,

Michelangelo’s body was smuggled out of Rome by some merchants, concealed in a bale so that there should no tumult to frustrate the Duke’s plan. Before the corpse arrived, however, Florence received the news of Michelangelo’s death and at the request of the acting head of their academy, who at the time was the Reverend Don Vincenzo Borghini, the leading painters, sculptors, and architects assembled together and were reminded that under their rules they were obliged to solemnize the obsequies of all their brother artists.164

162 Ruffini, 15. 163 Ibid, 15. 164 Translation from Hibbard, 311-312. 82 The reference to Borghini as acting head of the academy and the artists’ call to arms reemphasizes for the reader a connection between Michelangelo and the Accademia del Disegno. As mentioned in the previous chapter, Michelangelo had been made Co-

President in absentia of the Accademia di Disegno along with the Duke at the founding in

1563. Michelangelo had left Florence for the last time in 1534 and so had never taken part in any of the governing of the Academy.165

Michelangelo’s immense fame had made him a symbol of Florentine excellence and his career was a matter of civic pride. In Vasari’s words, “Florence received the news of Michelangelo’s death,” not just Florentine artists or Michelangelo’s family and patrons.166 Though Michelangelo’s position in the Accademia del Disegno was purely ceremonial, his name alone had been enough to provide legitimization and status to the newly formed group in Florence and beyond the city walls. Michelangelo’s death in

Rome turned his body into a political pawn in the power struggle between the Medici in

Florence and the Papal powers in Rome but also in the smaller scale battle between

Roman artists and Florentine artists for cultural superiority.167

Having won the battle for the divine Michelangelo’s body, the Florentine academy and Vasari fell into a fervor of grand spectacle to glorify their prize.

Michelangelo’s body arrived in Florence on March 11, much earlier than expected, and so in order to prepare the funeral was postponed until July 14. Michelangelo’s funeral

165 Ruffini, 12-13. 166 Vasari, translated by George Bull, 432. 167 For a concise summary of the competition between Florence and Rome see Ada Palmer, “The Double Rivalry of Rome and Florence,” in Tensions in Renaissance Cities, edited by Julia Tomasson (Chicago: University of Chicago, 2017), catalogue of an exhibition at the University of Chicago Library, Special Collections Research Center, Chicago, March 27 through June 9 2012. 83 consisted of an unprecedented number of ephemera produced in concert by different members of the academy for his funeral procession, including a set of sixteen paintings in chiaroscuro depicting important scenes from the life of Michelangelo such as meetings with popes and the completion of the Sistine Chapel. These paintings, sixteen in number like the Early Life of Taddeo, are the only precedent for the depiction of the life of an artist on a grand scale in renaissance Italy. Federico was not in Florence for the funeral, but he may have seen the works still on display when he went to Florence for the wedding of Francesco de’ Medici and Joanna of Austria. Even if he had not seen the works, he would have read about them in Vasari’s The Lives of Artists which describes the content and composition of each work as well as the artist.168

Further elements of grandeur included a grand catafalque which was laid in state as a stand in for the artist’s body in the Medici church of San Lorenzo, souvenir funeral books, and a grand funeral monument. Vasari includes each element in his description of the funeral in 1568:

A great catafalque was constructed in San Lorenzo, a funeral oration was delivered by Benedetto Varchi, and a funeral book was published – honors previously reserved for emperors. Michelangelo was buried in Santa Croce, the church of his old neighborhood, and given a tomb – not surmounted by the Pietà as he had once wished –

168 Nikia Leopold, “Artists’ Homes in Sixteenth Century Italy,” PHD Diss., (Ann Arbor, Michigan: University Microfilms International, 1980), 322-323. 84 designed by Vasari, with a bust of the artist and statues representing Painting, Sculpture, and architecture mourning his death.169

Vasari describing the events as “honors previously reserved for emperors” makes it clear that the contemporary audience was well aware of the significance of the events in relation to Michelangelo’s status as an artist. Even before his death Vasari had reinforced Michelangelo’s role as the “divine Michelangelo” using his exceptional status as a tool to raise the perception of all artists from artisans to people of rare and exceptional gifts.170 As a member of the next generation of artists, Federico could build on the groundwork laid by Vasari to exalt his own brother and through Taddeo himself and his new academy.

Perhaps the most dramatic element of the events surrounding

Michelangelo’s body’s arrival in Florence is the opening of the coffin on March 12, two days after its arrival in Rome. Against the wishes of Michelangelo’s only family member,

Vincenzo Borghini led thirty-two members of the academy through the streets to see

Michelangelo’s body. The coffin was opened and Borghini instructed all thirty-two members to approach the coffin one-by-one and place their hand upon Michelangelo’s head.171 The surviving description of the events is included in multiple contemporary

169 Translation from Hibbard, 312. 170 Vasari did not originate the concept of Michelangelo’s divinity; the epithet originates with Pietro Arentino in 1535 but Vasari championed it in the public consciousness before and after Michelangelo’s death. Two recent exhibitions have dealt with the subject of Michelangelo’s mythos and its visual portrayal after Michelangelo’s death: Michelangelo: The Man and the Myth, edited by Pina Ragionieri (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008) catalogue of an exhibition at the Syracuse University Art Galleries, Syracuse, NY, August 12- October 19, 2008 and The Louise and Bernard Palitz Gallery, New York, November 4, 2008- January 4, 2009 and Il volto di Michelangelo, edited by Pina Ragionieri (Firenze: Mandragora, 2008) catalogue of an exhibition at Casa Buonarroti, May 7- July 30, 2008. 171 Ruffini, 18. 85 biographies that sprang into existence following the funeral but originates in a small volume called the Esquie del Divin Michelagnolo Buonarroti, that was published by

Giunti press quickly following the funeral in July and repeated verbatim in Vasari’s 1568 edition.172 It describes the events surrounding the opening of Michelangelo’s coffin after its arrival in Florence:

All of us present ... believed that we would find the corpse already putrefied and decayed, because it had already been in the coffin for twenty-two days or more, and twenty-five days since his death. But when it was opened, there was no bad smell whatsoever, and you would have sworn that he was resting in a sweet and most quiet slumber. The same features of the face, the same appearance, except for a lack of color, which was that of death. No limb was decayed or revolting, and touching his head and cheeks, which everyone did, they seemed soft and lifelike, as if he had died only a few hours before. This filled everyone with amazement.173

The story down to the phrasing is pulled from the genre of saint’s biographies that had been flourishing since the printing press made the written word more accessible.

The lifelike appearance of a twenty-five-day old corpse pulls from the trope of incorruptibility whereby through divine intervention a human body does not decay after death. The lack of smell, the description of body as appearing as in slumber but without

172 Rudolf & Margot Wittkower‘s annotated translation of Esquie del Divin Michelagnolo Buonarroti published as The Divine Michelangelo: the Florentine Academy’s Homage on his Death in 1564 is one of the definitive works dealing with Michelangelo’s death and divinity: Jacopo Giunta, The Divine Michelangelo: the Florentine Academy’s Homage on his Death in 1564, edited and translated by Rudolf Wittkower & Margot Wittkower (London: Phaidon Publishers, 1964). 173 Lisa Pon, “Michelangelo’s Lives: Sixteenth-Century Books by Vasari, Condivi, and Others,” The Sixteenth Century Journal, Vol. 27, no. 4 (Winter, 1996):1021-1022, https://www.jstor.org/stable/2543906. 86 color, and the body being as if it had died only a few hours before are all prescribed traits of the incorruptible saint’s body.174 Furthermore, the story of Michelangelo’s body’s journey from Florence to Rome follows a second saintly trope, that of the furta sacra.

The furta sacra or sacred theft, is the removal of a relic or body of a saint from one place, usually Rome, to a new site where it can be more greatly appreciated.175 The theft is always at the bequest of the saint and the removal due to lack of appreciation or a desire to return to their home city. Thus, it is important that in both Vasari and the Esquie del

Divin Michelagnolo Buonarroti Michelangelo had expressed a desire to be buried in

Florence and that he had to be smuggled out of Rome.176

The saintly biography and these particular tropes would have been very relevant to the popular consciousness of sixteenth century Florence. As already discussed, the saintly biography was a very popular genre of printed material in Italy in this century and

St. Catherine of Siena, possibly the most popular of all Italian female saints, story employs both of these tropes. St. Catherine lived in the fourteenth century and was canonized in the fifteenth. She was born into a large family of cloth dyers in Siena and became devoted to Christ at a very young age, according to her biography Raymond of

Capua, she had her first visions of Christ at age five and vowed her life to God at age seven. She resisted marriage through fasting and cutting of her hair eventually joining a tertiary Dominican order so she could practice an active spiritual life. At the age of twenty-one she experienced a mystical marriage with Jesus, in which a vision of Christ

174 Ibid, 1022. 175 For a history of the act of furta sacra, particularly in the medieval period see Patrick J. Geary, Furta Sacra: Thefts of Relics in the Central Middle Ages (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990). 176 Pon, 1023. 87 appeared and wed her, another common trope for female saints. She also experienced a vision of receiving the stigmata. Beyond her mystical visions she took active part in the religious politics of the age and played a part in making peace between Florence and the

Papal States and returning Pope Gregory XI from Avignon to Rome leading to her enduring popularity in Italy.177

Catherine died in Rome on April 29, 1380 at the young age of thirty-three. She was buried in the cemetery of Santa Maria sopra Minerva near the Pantheon in Rome and soon after miracles were reported at her grave. One of these miracles is that after her death her body was found to be incorruptible, “the body looked just the same as immediately after death: fresh and fragrant, the face peaceful, the limbs still pliable.”178

In an example of furta sacra, the people of Siena greatly desired the return of their miraculous citizen. Knowing that they would be unable to remove her entire body from

Rome without detection the Sienese persons, alternately described as merchants or

Dominican friars, tasked with returning Catherine to Siena removed only her head to represent the saint in her home city. The thieves were able to successfully exit the city and to return home with Catherine’s head. The head was then processed through the street having remained fresh throughout their journey and is now housed in a clear faced reliquary in the Basilica of San Domenico.179

177 How influential she was in these roles is a debate that will not be addressed here it is sufficient to say that this was believed by the sixteenth century audience and played a role in her popularity. 178 Alice Curtyane, Saint Catherine of Siena, (New York: Macmillan, 1930), 202-203. 179 Ibid, 204. There is also a more dramatic story in which the thieves are stopped by guards on their way out of Rome and pray to St. Catherine for assistance. She then performs a posthumous miracle by transfiguring her head into rose petals when displayed to the guards, allowing it to be removed from the 88 St. Catherine enjoyed great popularity in Italy. Canonized in 1461, she was declared a patron saint of Rome in 1866 (and became the patron saint of all of Italy in

1939).180 Sixty-one editions of either Catherine’s writings or her biographies were printed between 1477 and 1589 with forty of these coming from nine printing presses in Italian cities including Florence.181 Catherine’s is also not the only saintly biography to contain the tropes of incorruptibility, furta sacra, and divine visions but just one of the most popular of a very popular genre. Michelangelo’s contemporaries, familiar with saintly biographies like those of Catherine Siena, would have recognized the application of the narrative of furta sacra and the incorruptibility of Michelangelo’s body as saintly signifiers.

Vasari had already begun to build upon the groundwork of Aretino’s divine

Michelangelo in the popular consciousness in his first edition of The Lives of Artists in

1550. In the opening lines of Michelangelo’s biography in The Lives of Artists Vasari describes Michelangelo as having been sent down from heaven by God to restore Italian painting:

While industrious and distinguished spirits, illuminated by the widely renowned

Giotto and his followers, were striving to give the world proof of the talent which the benevolence of the stars and the proportionate mixture of their humours had bestowed upon their genius, all toiling anxiously…though in vain, in their eagerness to imitate the city. Her head returns to its natural state when they have safely passed the gates. This story appears in multiple modern repetitions of the saint’s life, but I have been unable to trace it to a historical source. 180The Editors of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, “St. Catherine of Siena,” in The Encyclopaedia Britannica (Encyclopædia Britannica, inc.), https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Catherine-of-Siena. 181 Ruth Mortimer, “St Catherine of Siena and the Printed Book”, The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America 86, no. 1 (1992): 12, www.jstor.org/stable/24303041. 89 grandeur of Nature with the skills of art…the most benevolent Ruler of Heaven kindly turned his regard towards earth…He decided to free us of so many errors, by sending down a spirit who would be so universally skillful in every craft and art that his work alone would demonstrate how to solve the real difficulties in the sciences of drawing and painting…Tuscans have always been pre-eminent, being more devoted than any other

Italians to the labor and study of all the arts, he [God] chose Florence, most worthy of cities, as this man’s native land. Thus, in one of her citizens, he duly brought to perfection all those gifts that in Cimabue, Giotto, in Donatello, in Filippo Brunelleschi, and in Leonardo da Vinci had made such a marvelous beginning…In Florence then, in the year 1474, there was born to Ludovico Simon Buonarroti a son whom he christened

Michelangelo as if to suggest he might be more heavenly and divine than mortal182

This quote demonstrates that even before his death, the idea that Michelangelo had been singled out to be gifted a divine talent by god was accepted into the popular culture. The quotation also makes clear his importance to Florentine civic identity.

There is little doubt that the subtext of saintliness in the biographies published after Michelangelo’s death was intentional or that the audience would have misunderstood the meaning. Even in private correspondence Vasari places Michelangelo on a level comparable to saints. In a letter to Leonardo while he was in Rome following

Michelangelo’s death Vasari places greater value to the body of Michelangelo than to the bodies of St. Peter and St. Paul, “It is sufficient to say that if you had sent here the bodies

182 Translation in Michelangelo Buonarroti, Poems and Letters: Selections, with the 1550 Vasari Life, translated by Anthony Mortimer, (London: Penguin, 2007), chap. 3, Digital edition. 90 of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, you would not be equally praised, nor would these princes, citizens, our arts and the whole population of Florence be so obliged to you.”183 The importance of Michelangelo to the image of both civic governance and academic governance could not be overstated. Though there was never any movement to actually canonize the artist, in his association with the Accademia del Disegno Michelangelo posthumously moves from presidential figurehead to artistic ‘patron saint.’

TADDEO AS A FIGUREHEAD

Federico, a man very aware of the tools for influencing public appearance, could not have been unaware of the status of Michelangelo in association with the Accademia del Disegno and the importance of creating for his new academy an appearance of equal prestige. He would want his academy to have everything that the Florentine Academy had, including a divinely inspired figurehead. The way in which Federico presents his brother Taddeo in The Early Life of Taddeo narrative suggests that he hoped to place

Taddeo in this position. Federico emphasizes the role of the divine in the course of his brother’s life and casts him as an art saint like Michelangelo. Taddeo receives a vision from the arts during his fevered return to Sant’Angelo in Vado, another saintly trope, and he is eventually martyred to the cause of his artistic creation by his fervent study on the cold floors of the Villa Farnesina.

As already discussed, Federico’s own theories on art were heavily influenced by the idea of a divinely given disegno interno and Taddeo’s role as an exemplum of artistic

183 Ruffini, 22. 91 study therefore is already divinely inspired. The entire drawing series and accompanying poetry are infused with an aura of manifested divine destiny starting from the very first sheet fused with the pagan classical imagery that symbolizes artistic excellence. While figures from the classical past make appearances within the chronological narrative, the allegorical dumbbells are restricted to contemporary virtues, both Christian and secular, beginning with Faith and Hope, the two virtues required to begin a divinely appointed destiny as Taddeo will do on the next page.

No one could argue after viewing this first scene and its poetry that Federico had not intend to imbue his brother with the divine appointment afforded to the great artists of the Renaissance by their biographers. In Taddeo Leaving Home Escorted by Two Angels

Taddeo is removed from his family by two heavenly messengers which were “lent to him by God” to escort him to his heavenly appointed destiny in Rome according to the paired tercet.184 Taddeo’s body language is reluctant and his parent’s body language is beseeching and disapproving. Though not as specifically associated with saintly stories the lack of understanding and disapproval of the family are also common elements in the stories of saints, who are often drawn from a young age to serve God in an extreme manner, as Taddeo is driven to study with an almost inhuman fervor in Rome.

The very next drawing, Pallas Athena Shows Taddeo the Prospect of Rome, balances the Christian with the classical and shows Taddeo as singled out by God and the classical gods that have become representative of the arts. If angels guided Taddeo from

Sant’Angelo then Pallas Athena in her role of artistic patron escorts Taddeo to his

184 Brooks, “The Early Life of Taddeo Series,” 28. 92 destination in Rome. She “promises favor” in the accompanying prose and so in just the first two scenes Taddeo had been doubly anointed by both God and Art..185 It would be important for Federico to temper the religious element of Taddeo’s artistic appointment.

According to Federico’s own artistic beliefs the divinely given disegno interno cannot be executed without disegno’s second iteration, disegno externo, which requires hard work and practice. Disegno externo is represented in the next dumbbell, Taddeo at the

Entrance to Rome Greeted by Toil, Servitude, and Hardship, and by Obedience and

Patience (the Ass and Ox).

Of course, no classical myth or biblical parable would be complete without hardships. Faith, in both gods and artists, must be tested, and according to his brother’s story Taddeo would be tested more than most. As previously discussed in Chapter One,

Federico exaggerates Francisco Il Sant’Angelo’s stability in Rome in order to dramatize

Taddeo’s hardships on his arrival in Rome.186 The art historian is also left without an alternate perspective on Taddeo’s apprenticeship at the home of Giovanni Piero

Calabrese, so it is possible that that situation is similarly exaggerated. Though not the focus of the middle section of the narrative, the scenes and poetry remain steeped in both

Christian and artistic divinity. The portion of the poem associated with the scene at

Francisco Il Sant’Angelo’s studio makes reference to God, reemphasizing the importance of faith to Taddeo’s success, and the following tercets are littered to references to virtue, spirit, and glory.

185 Ibid., 28. 186 Also discussed in Brooks, “The Early Life of Taddeo Series,” 29. 93 Art’s divine qualities make a reappearance in the visual narrative in Taddeo in the

House of Giovanni Piero Calabrese. The majority of the scene is cast into dramatic shadow by the fireplace on the right-hand side, but an unseen secondary light source illuminates the trunk being held open by the child Taddeo for his master Giovanni. The trunk, as was previously discussed, contains drawings by Raphael and seems to glow from within. It could be seen as being illuminated by the supernatural beauty contained within. Raphael held a similarly divine status to Michelangelo following his premature death in 1520 and Calabrese’s denial of access to the Raphael drawings in his collection amongst the grievous offenses recounted in Taddeo’s biography in Vasari’s Lives of

Artists.187 The denial of access to the drawings was treated as seriously as Taddeo’s semi- starvation. Taddeo is forced to turn his head away from the bright light of the artwork so not to be blinded like Semele is blinded by Jupiter or Saul is blinded by God.

Neither Federico nor Vasari paint a strong picture of Taddeo’s personality in their biographies of the young artist. He has none of the eccentricities so common in the great artists of the Renaissance. 188 Instead his life is defined by a single-minded devotion to developing his artistry. The next six drawings are a montage of Taddeo exhausting himself to improve his skill ending on a poignant note in Taddeo Copying Raphael’s

Fresco in the Loggia of the Villa Farnesina, Where He is Also Represented Asleep.

187 Giorgio Vasari, Vasari's Lives of the artists, edited by Betty Burroughs, translated by Mrs. Johnathon Foster, 181. 188 For more on the phenomenon of the eccentric artist in the Renaissance see Douglas Biow, In Your Face : Professional Improprieties and the Art of Being Conspicuous in Sixteenth-Century Italy (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 2010) and Margot and Rudolf Wittkower, Born Under Saturn: The Character and Conduct of Artists, A Documented History from Antiquity to the French Revolution (New York: New York Review Books, 1963). 94 Federico treats this episode in Taddeo’s life as the cause of his early death in the accompanying poem: “Desire to learn lures him to/ the frozen stones, which from him/ steal many years, he unrealizing.”189 Taddeo, in a way, is martyred for his art. His intense work ethic and desire for artistic greatness leading him to exhaust himself prematurely.

Though he lived a very long life, Michelangelo had been attributed a similar level of obsessive devotion to his work by his biographers. Multiple sources provide anecdotes of Michelangelo not eating or eating only bread to devote himself more completely to his work. Eccentric behavior that mirrors the extreme devotion of the beatified is seen in the biographies of other artists as well, Jacopo da Pontormo’s devotion to solitude for example mirrors the asceticism of a hermit though it is not accompanied by the same religious connotations.190 Eccentricities To return to the example of St. Catherine, she starved herself nearly to death to avoid marriage and remain devoted to Christ. For many other saints their extreme devotions did lead to their eventual death like they did for

Taddeo.

The moment that moves the depiction of Taddeo beyond that of artistic devotee to chosen supplicant is the only scene where Federico diverges from his shared narrative

Vasari, Taddeo’s Hallucination. According to Taddeo, Federico experienced a fever hallucination when returning from Rome to Sant’Angelo:

Something that happened to him on his way home should be recorded. Exhausted by walking and suffering from fever, he stopped to rest beside a river and, while waiting

189 Translation from Brooks, “The Early Life of Taddeo Series,” 32. 190 Biow, 97. 95 to be ferried across, he fell asleep. When he awoke he fancied, in the confusion of mind caused by illness, that the stones on the river bank were painted with figures like the facades and works of Polidoro which he had admired so much in Rome. This delusion was so powerful, that he really believed these to be what they seemed; he picked up the stones that seemed to him the best and most beautiful, and with them filled the sack in which he was carrying his few necessities and his drawings…With such a load [Taddeo] returned to Sant’Angelo, recommending the stones to his mother more than himself; not until he was healed did he realize his mistake.191

His finds the story important enough to include in detail in his annotations in

Vasari but it is unclear from his notation if he had shared this story with Vasari when

Federico was sharing information for the second edition of The Lives with Vasari or why

Vasari would have chosen not to include it in his own biography. It is possible that Vasari found the story too mystical or too close to mental illness and so not fitting for his idea of the artist gentleman.

Federico’s repetition of the story in both his annotations and the drawing series implies that the story is rooted in the truth, at least as Federico knew it. The annotations were most likely completed over a decade before Federico even purchased the land to build the Palazzo suggesting the story is rooted in truth. It is convenient in any case that Taddeo’s short life should include an event that so seamlessly combines a

Christian ecstatic vision with a physical labor akin to the twelve labors of Hercules. The story of Taddeo’s hallucination and return to his childhood home takes up two of the

191 Translation from Brooks, “The Early Life of Taddeo Series,” 32-33. 96 sixteen narrative sheets with the scene of his hallucination occupying one of the four larger squared panels providing a clue to the significance weighted to the event by

Federico.

The image and its accompanying poetry are unusually free of reference to

God or allegorical figures and the hallucination itself takes up only a small measure of the composition. Only the choice of the “dream bubble” to symbolize Taddeo’s hallucination and the inclusion of the church in the right midground offer a clear and tangible religious connection. Federico has borrowed the bubble as a narrative tool from

Raphael’s fresco Joseph Explaining his Dreams in the Vatican loggia.192 Raphael’s fresco depicts a scene from the story of Joseph, the youngest of the twelve sons of Jacob, in

Genesis. In the scene Joseph is explaining the prophetic dreams, depicted above Joseph’s head in small bubbles, sent to him by God. In the first dream Joseph and his brothers are depicted as sheaves of wheat and the brother bow to their brother. In the second dream the sun, moon, and stars bow to Joseph. In the story the jealous brothers then sell Joseph into slavery in Egypt but will eventually be forced to come to their brother remorseful and bowed.

This story of jealousy and repentance recalls the themes of Federico’s earlier prints Calumny and The Lament of Painting but none of the surviving stories from

Taddeo’s life connect to that theme. Instead it is the ideas of prophecy and divine selection that are most applicable. Federico refers to his brother’s hallucination as a dream (sonno) like Joseph’s dream and it gives his brother’s vision a prophetic slant. The

192 Ibid, 32. 97 façade he sees is described as being by Polidoro but it is also a premonition of Taddeo’s own success in the façade of the Palazzo Mattei, much like how God showed Joseph his eventual success in his dreams. The divine dream is not only a prophetic tradition but a saintly one as well, to return again to the example of St. Catherine she had visions of

Christ from a young age including her mystic marriage. Taddeo’s hallucination translates the idea of the saintly vision into a vision of divine art. The connection between the religious and artistic is further reinforced by the placement of the church above Taddeo’s head on the right-hand side of the image, which mirrors the position of the dream bubble on the opposite side.

This near absence of religious iconography does not disprove a mystic subtext to the work but rather can be seen to doubly reinforce its presence. Federico was a religious artist working during the counter-reformation in Italy, he would have been hypersensitive to the possibility of his brother’s vision being seen as blasphemous and so would have been very careful to maintain an acceptable level of religious reference. It is possible that it is for reasons similar to these that Vasari had excluded this story from his biography of

Taddeo. Vasari might have balked at including an anecdote that hinted at a certain level of madness in an otherwise very respectable gentleman artist whereas Federico might have viewed the hallucination, having a clear and temporary cause in a fever, as a safe subject for his own biography.

The final pillar in Federico’s campaign to beatify his brother in the artistic canon is also the most blatant: the final four drawings in the series, the portraits. Federico places his brother Taddeo, Polidoro, Raphael, and Michelangelo on literal pedestals 98 within illusionistic niches much like a display of classical sculpture. These are also the four artists whose work Taddeo had been shown drawing from in the earlier narrative scenes. Through the scenes of his practicing from their work and the series of portraits

Federico is building the ideal artistic genealogy for his brother and the younger artists who would view this series. Taddeo then becomes the link between these young artists and the greats that came before him.

In his portrait Michelangelo is seated in the pose of his famous Moses from the tomb of Pope Julius II. His left-hand balances on a piece of furniture and his right holds a furled scroll. At his feet sit the tools of the sculptor, painters, and architects -- trade hammers, chisels, a plumb line, set square, and brushes. The copy, unlike the cropped original, has four flanking designs: two dumbbells with allegorical figures of painting

(left) and sculpture (right) and two roundels one with a figure of architecture (top) and an unidentified figure (bottom). Like Michelangelo, Raphael has been depicted in the pose of one of his own prophets, the prophet Isaiah from Sant’Agostino in Rome. Raphael holds an unfurled scroll with an image of Diana of Ephesus. At Raphael’s feet are painters’ tools, including brushes, a palette, and a square. In the drawn copies, Raphael’s niche is heavily decorated with putti and a garland that mimic the original Raphael composition in Sant’Agostino but they have been excluded from the final painted version. This brings the composition more in line with the streamlined niches of the other figures. In one copy Raphael’s niche is also flanked by two dumbbells and roundels with

99 the images helpfully labeled as “architectura,” “gratie,” “disegno,” and “invention e colorito.”193

Taddeo and Polidoro are not posed as their prophets. Polidoro is posed as

Mars, likely from one of his own facades though it has been lost to the elements. Unlike the other three artists he is in a standing pose, holding a torch at chest level in his left hand and in his right hand a partially unrolled sketch, possibly a façade design. At his feet are further art implements associated with painting. The model for Taddeo’s pose is also lost to us but is presumably one of his own designs for a prophet, based on his pose and attire though it also mirrors very closely the pose of Raphael. Taddeo also holds an unfurled drawing of Diana of Ephesus, and the tools at his feet are a mixture of those at the feet of Raphael and Polidoro. The closeness of the image of Taddeo to Raphael continues the paralleling of the two Marchigian artists by Federico that began with the inscription on Taddeo’s tomb roughly thirty years earlier.

CONCLUSION

The poses of the artists’ portraits as their own compositions was a novel conceit by Federico that accorded with his larger goal of placing his brother within the pantheon of great artists. In an era when many artists were vying to fill the vacuum of

“great artists” left by the death of Raphael and then Michelangelo. Federico was very conscious of his social and professional position and would surely have been aware of this atmosphere of quasi-hereditary artistic inheritance and could make no stronger

193 Ibid, 36. 100 statement than that of placing his own brother and teacher physically and visually into the artistic canon. The comingling of the classical pantheon in Polidoro being posed as Ares with the biblical iconography of the prophets returns to the idea of artistic divinity pushed by the narrative designs.

Like Vasari before him, Federico wished to turn his brother into an emblem for his new academy but Federico had the advantage of the pre-charted path forged by

Vasari’s divinization of Michelangelo on which to model his own strategy and his brother’s early death to turn him into the tragic hero of Federico’s campaign for academic education. In both cases there was no longer a person to inhibit the ideas they were meant to represent, and Federico was able to co-opt both of their images. Federico’s intent in establishing the Accademia di San Luca was to raise the status of the artist and to provide a more consistent educational model for young men who had the drive to become artists but he was also keenly aware of the opportunity to promote his family and himself.

101

Fig. 1 Federico Zuccaro, Allegories of Faith and Hope, Flanking the Zuccaro Emblem, about 1595, Pen and brown ink, brush with brown wash, over black chalk underdrawing, 18.1 × 41.7 cm (7 1/8 × 16 7/16 in.), 99.GA.6.1. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

102

Fig. 2 Federico Zuccaro, Taddeo Leaving Home Escorted by Two Guardian Angels, about 1595, Pen and brown ink, brush with brown wash, over black chalk and touches of red chalk 27.4 × 26 cm (10 13/16 × 10 1/4 in.), 99.GA.6.2. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

103

Fig. 3 Federico Zuccaro, Pallas Athena Shows Taddeo the Prospect of Rome, about 1595, Pen and brown ink, brush with brown wash, over red chalk, 42 × 16.2 cm (16 9/16 × 6 3/8 in.), 99.GA.6.3. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles.

104

Fig. 4 Federico Zuccaro, Taddeo at the Entrance to Rome Greeted by Toil, Servitude, and Hardship, and by Obedience and Patience (the Ass and Ox), about 1595, Pen and brown ink, brush with brown wash, over black chalk, 40.9 × 17.4 cm (16 1/8 × 6 7/8 in.), 99.GA.6.4. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles. 105

Fig. 5 Federico Zuccaro, Taddeo Rebuffed by Francesco Il Sant'Angelo, about 1595, Pen and brown ink, brush with brown wash, over black chalk, 17.9 × 41.5 cm (7 1/16 × 16 5/16 in.), 99.GA.6.5. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles.

106

Fig. 6 Federico Zuccaro, Allegories of Fortitude and Patience, about 1595, Pen and brown ink, brush with brown wash, over black chalk, 17.3 × 42 cm (6 13/16 × 16 9/16 in.), 99.GA.6.6. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles.

107

Fig. 7 Federico Zuccaro, Twenty Drawings Depicting the Early Life of Taddeo Zuccaro, about 1595, Pen and brown ink and brown wash over black chalk, 99.GA.6. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles.

108

Fig. 8 Federico Zuccaro, Taddeo Sent on an Errand by Calabrese's Wife, about 1595, Pen and brown ink, brush with brown wash, over black chalk, 42 × 17.1 cm (16 9/16 × 6 3/4 in.), 99.GA.6.8. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles.

109

Fig. 9 Federico Zuccaro, Taddeo Drawing by Moonlight in Calabrese's House, about 1595, Pen and brown ink, brush with brown wash, over black chalk, 42.1 × 17.7 cm (16 9/16 × 6 15/16 in.), 99.GA.6.9. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles.

110

Fig. 10 Federico Zuccaro, Taddeo Employed on Menial Tasks at Calabrese's House, about 1595, Pen and brown ink, brush with brown wash, over black chalk, 17.6 × 41.9 cm (6 15/16 × 16 1/2 in.), 99.GA.6.10. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles.

Fig. 11 Federico Zuccaro, Two Child Angels, Symbolizing Patience and Industry, about 1595, Pen and brown ink, brush with brown wash, over black chalk, 17.5 × 41.8 cm (6 7/8 × 16 7/16 in.), 99.GA.6.11. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles. 111

Fig. 12 Federico Zuccaro, Taddeo Drawing after the Antique; In the Background Copying a Facade by Polidoro, about 1595, Pen and brown ink, brush with brown wash over black chalk and touches of red chalk, 42.3 × 17.5 cm (16 5/8 × 6 7/8 in.), 99.GA.6.12. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles.

112

Fig. 13 Federico Zuccaro, Taddeo Copying Raphael's Frescoes in the Loggia of the Villa Farnesina, Where He is Also Represented Asleep, about 1595, Pen and brown ink, brush with brown wash, over black chalk and touches of red chalk, 42.4 × 17.5 cm (16 11/16 × 6 7/8 in.), 99.GA.6.13. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles.

113

Fig. 14 Federico Zuccaro, Taddeo's Hallucination, about 1595, Pen and brown ink, brush with brown wash, over black chalk, 27.5 × 27.3 cm (10 13/16 × 10 3/4 in.), 99.GA.6.14. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles.

114

Fig. 15 Federico Zuccaro, Taddeo Returning Home with the Sack of Stones and in Bed Recovering from His Fever, about 1595, Pen and brown ink, brush with brown wash, over black chalk and touches of red chalk, 17.7 × 42.3 cm (6 15/16 × 16 5/8 in.), 99.GA.6.15. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles.

115

Fig. 16 Federico Zuccaro, Taddeo Returns to Rome Escorted by Drawing and Spirit toward the Three Graces, about 1595, Pen and brown ink, brush with brown wash, over black chalk and touches of red chalk, 42.6 × 18 cm (16 3/4 × 7 1/16 in.), 99.GA.6.16. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles.

116

Fig. 17 Federico Zuccaro, Taddeo in the Belvedere Court in the Vatican Drawing the Laocoön, about 1595, Pen and brown ink, brush with brown wash, over black chalk and touches of red chalk, 17.5 × 42.5 cm (6 7/8 × 16 3/4 in.), 99.GA.6.17. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles.

117

Fig. 18 Federico Zuccaro, Taddeo in the Sistine Chapel Drawing Michelangelo's Last Judgment, about 1595, Pen and brown ink, brush with brown wash, over black chalk and touches of red chalk, 41.9 × 17.7 cm (16 1/2 × 6 15/16 in.), 99.GA.6.18. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles.

118

Fig. 19 Federico Zuccaro, Taddeo Decorating the Façade of the Palazzo Mattei, about 1595, Pen and brown ink, brush with brown wash, over black chalk and touches of red chalk, 25 × 42.2 cm (9 13/16 × 16 5/8 in.), 99.GA.6.19. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles.

119

Fig. 20 Federico Zuccaro, Allegories of Study and Intelligence Flanking the Zuccaro Emblem, about 1595, Pen and brown ink, brush with brown wash, over black chalk and touches of red chalk, 17.6 × 42.5 cm (6 15/16 × 16 3/4 in.), 99.GA.6.20. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles.

120

Fig. 21 Federico Zuccaro, Portrait of Michelangelo, about 1600, Pen and brown ink, brush with brown wash, over black chalk, 24.1 × 12.3 cm (9 1/2 × 4 11/16 in.), 4588. The Musée du Louvre, Cabinet des Dessins, Paris.

121

Fig. 22 Copy after Federico Zuccaro, Portrait of Michelangelo, about 1600, Pen and brown ink, brush with brown wash, over black chalk, 41.5 × 24.8 cm (16 5/16 × 9 ¾ in.), 11023 F. Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence.

122

Fig. 23 Copy after Federico Zuccaro, Portrait of Polidoro, about 1600, Pen and brown ink, brush with brown wash, over black chalk, 26.9 × 13.8 cm (10 9/16 × 5 7/16 in.), 11016F. Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi, Florence.

123

Fig. 24 Copy after Federico Zuccaro, Portrait of Taddeo, about 1600, Pen and brown ink, brush with brown wash, over black chalk, 37 × 23.2 cm (14 9/16 × 9 1/8 in.), 11025F. Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi, Florence.

124

Fig. 25 Copy after Federico Zuccaro, Portrait of Raphael, about 1600, Pen and brown ink, brush with brown wash, over black chalk, 30.5 × 14.6 cm (12 × 5 ¾ in.), 1341 F. Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence.

125

Fig. 26 Copy after Federico Zuccaro, Portrait of Raphael, about 1600, Pen and brown ink, brush with brown wash, over black chalk, 39 × 25 cm (15 3/8 × 9 7/8 in.), lot 102. Formerly London, Christie’s December 8, 1987.

126

Fig. 27 Federico Zuccaro or Studio, Pallas Athena Shows Taddeo the Prospect of Rome, about 1600, Oil on Leather, 45.2 × 16.2 cm (17 13/16 × 6 3/8 in.), FN 17128. Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica, Rome. 127

Fig. 28 Federico Zuccaro or Studio, Taddeo at the Entrance to Rome Greeted by Toil, Servitude, and Hardship, and by Obedience and Patience (the Ass and Ox), about 1600, Oil on Leather, 45.5 × 16.4 cm (17 15/16 × 6 7/16 in.), FN 17127. Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica, Rome. 128

Fig. 29 Federico Zuccaro or Studio, Taddeo Sent on an Errand by Calabrese’s Wife, about 1600, Oil on Leather, 45.5 × 16.6 cm (17 15/16 × 6 9/16 in.), FN 17125. Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica, Rome. 129

Fig. 30 Federico Zuccaro or Studio, Taddeo Drawing by Moonlight, about 1600, Oil on Leather, 45.3 × 16 cm (17 13/16 × 6 3/16 in.), FN 17126. Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica, Rome.

130

Fig. 31 Federico Zuccaro or Studio, Taddeo Returns to Rome Escorted by Drawing and Spirit, about 1600, Oil on Leather, 45.5 × 16 cm (17 15/16 × 6 3/16 in.), FN 17129. Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica, Rome.

131

Fig. 32 Federico Zuccaro or Studio, Taddeo in the Sistine Chapel Drawing Miachelangelo’s Last Judgement, about 1600, Oil on Leather, 45 × 16 cm (17 11/16 × 6 3/16 in.), FN 17130. Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica, Rome.

132

Fig. 33 Federico Zuccaro or Studio, Taddeo Decorating the Façade of the Palazzo Mattei, about 1600, Oil on Leather, 81.4 × 173 cm (32 1/16 × 68 1/8 in.), FN 17124. Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica, Rome.

133

Fig. 34 Federico Zuccaro or Studio, Portrait of Michelangelo, about 1600, Oil on Leather, 150 × 65 cm (59 × 25 5/8 in.). Pinacoteca Communale, Macerata.

134

Fig. 35 Federico Zuccaro or Studio, Portrait of Raphael,, about 1600, Oil on Leather, 150 × 65 cm (59 × 25 5/8 in.). Pinacoteca Communale, Macerata.

135

Fig. 36 Federico Zuccaro, Calumny, about 1569-72, oil on canvas, 144.6 × 235.0 cm, RCIN 405695. Royal Collection Trust, Hampton Court Palace.

136

Fig. 37 Cornelis Cort after Federico Zuccaro, The Calumny of Apelles, 1602, engraving, 47.100.466. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City.

137

Fig. 38a Pastorino de’Pastorini, Federico Zuccaro (Obverse),1578, bronze, 5.03 cm diameter, A.44-1978. Victoria & Albert Museum, London.

138

Fig. 38b Pastorino de’Pastorini, Federico Zuccaro (Reverse),1578, bronze, 5.03 cm diameter, A.44-1978. Victoria & Albert Museum, London.

139

Fig. 39a Il Bramante Donato di Angelo, Donato di Angelo (Obverse), ca.1505-1506, cast bronze, 4.4 cm diameter, A.225-1910. The Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

140

Fig. 39b Il Bramante Donato di Angelo, Donato di Angelo (Reverse), ca.1505-1506, cast bronze, 4.4 cm diameter, A.225-1910. The Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

141

Fig. 40a Leoni Leone, Medal (Obverse), ca.1533, cast lead, 3.3 cm diameter, G3,IP.1069. The British Museum, London.

142

Fig. 40a Leoni Leone, Medal Reverse), ca.1533, cast lead, 3.3 cm diameter, G3,IP.1069. The British Museum, London.

143

Fig. 41a Leoni Leone, Baccio Bandinelli, 1493-1560, Florentine Sculptor [obverse], bronze, 3.87 cm diameter, 1957.14.1021.a. National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.

144

Fig. 41b Leoni Leone, Inscription in a Laurel Wreath [reverse], bronze, 3.87 cm diameter, 1957.14.1021.a. National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.

145

Fig. 42a Leoni Leone, Michelangelo Buonarroti, 1475-1564, Florentine Artist [obverse], c.1561, bronze, 5.9 cm diameter, 1957.14.1022.a. National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.

146

Fig. 42b Leoni Leone, Blind Man with a Staff and Water-flask, Led by a Dog [reverse], c.1561, bronze, 5.9 cm diameter,1957.14.1022.b. National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.

147

Fig. 43 Cornelis Cort after Federico Zuccaro, The Calumny of Apelles, 1579, engraving; two plates printed on two sheets, (upper plate): 14 1/4 × 21 1/8 in. (36.2 × 53.7 cm); (lower plate): 14 11/16 × 21 1/8 in. (37.3 × 53.7 cm), 1988.1086. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City.

148

Fig. 44 Federico Zuccaro, Porta Virtutis (Gate of Virtue) or Minerva Triumphant over Ignorance and Calumny, 1581-1582, pen and brown ink, brush with brown wash, over black chalk on paper, 15 1/4 x 11 1/4 inches (387 x 286 mm), 1974.25. The Morgan Library & Museum, New York City.

149

Fig. 45a Italian, Medal (Obverse), 1588, bronze, 6.2cm, G3,IP.1158. The British Museum, London.

150

Fig. 45b Italian, Medal (Reverse), 1588, bronze, 6.2cm, G3,IP.1158. The British Museum, London.

151

Fig. 46 Federico Zuccaro, Self-Portrait, after 1588, oil on canvas. Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence.

152

Fig. 47 Pierfrancesco Alberti, An Academy of Painters, 1600-1638, etching, 16 1/4 x 20 9/16 in. (41.2 x 52.2 cm), 49.95.12. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City.

153 Appendix

All images were sourced from the J. Paul Getty Museum Online Collection. Text and Translations from Julian Brooks “The Early Life of Taddeo Series.” In Taddeo and Federico Zuccaro: Artist Brothers in Renaissance Rome. Catalogue of an exhibition at the J. Paul Getty Museum October 2, 2007 through January 6, 2008.

154

155

[Nota gl’affetti humani e’l’gran di[sio] Del ben disposto giovinetto core, Insiem’gl’aiuti, che à quell presta Dio.

Note the human feelings and the great desire of the well-disposed young heart together with helpers, which are lent him by God.

156

Lasciato l’un, e l’altro genitore A Roma aspira, e quivi li fa scorta Palla, e l’infamma, e promette favore.

Having left one, and the other parent to Rome he aspires, and there is escorted by Pallas, who inflames him, and promises favor.

157

Disagio, e servitù in sù la Porta Incontro se li fan, et ei non teme Fatica alcuna, ch’a Virtude la porta.

Hardship, and servitude at the gate move to meet him, and he fears no toil, which carries him to virtue.

158

Chi va lontan’da la sua Patria, speme In Dio sol ponga, ne in alcun’parente, Per cui quivi il meschin’si dole, e teme.

Who goes far from his hometown places hope only in God, not in any relative so that here the unfortunate is afflicted, and fears.

Giunto in Roma Fra[nces]co detto il S[an]to Angelo lo sciacia e no lo vole conosian’per parente. Arrived in Rome Francesco il Sant’Angelo sends him away and doesn’t recognize him as a relative.

159

Chi fatica non vole, o servitude Patir, non pensi acquistar’sotto coltre Fama di pregio, o alcuna virtude.

He who desires not hardship, or servitude to suffer, should not think to gain in comfort recognition of excellence, or any virtue.

160

[M]ira come convien ch’altrui si spoltre In servitù, et in poter’d’altrui Il di, e la notte, ne star sotto coltre.

Look how someone has to cure himself of laziness in servitude, and in someone else’s power day and night, not staying under the covers.

161

Ecco ch’il tempo gl’e tolto a costui Ch’ha di studier, e di virtù desio Ma come ei sel’racquisti osserva lui.

Look here how time is taken away from him who has desire of study, and of virtue but how he regains it, look at him.

162

Nota l’esempio qui del’fratel’mio Cosi si studia, ve come discaccia Da gl’occhi il sonno, e da se l’otio rio.

Note here the example of my brother how he studies, see how he sends away sleep from his eyes, and from himself harsh sloth.

163

O quanto indegne fatighe sopporta Un ellevato spirito, a qui lo spinge Desio di Gloria, e fuor’di casa il porta.

Oh how many unworthy chores he bears an elevated spirit, pushed by the desire for glory, which takes him outside the house.

164

Se’amore di virtù bell’alma cinge Industria, e Patientia lè procura Frutti suavi, e degna Gloria attinge.

If love of virtue embraces a good spirit Industry and Patience procure him sweet fruits, and he reaches deserved glory.

165

Or ch’io son fuora di servile cura Di racquistar’il tempo cosi intendo Passato già, nella servitù dura.

Now that I am out of servile work I intend to regain in this way the time already spent in harsh servitude.

Taddeo Zuccaro alle facciate di Polidoro a pi[etre] antichi Taddeo Zuccaro at the facades of Polidoro and antique stones. 166

Desio d’imparar lo va adducendo Su l’aggiacate pietre, ch’à se stesso Fura molti anni non se n’accorgendo.

Desire to learn lures him to the frozen stones, which from him steal many years, he unrealizing.

Taddeo Zuccaro alle loggie di Agustin Chigi, Vi dorme, e studia la notte, e vi s’amala.

Taddeo Zuccaro in the loggia of Agostino Chigi, he sleeps there, and studies in the night, and there becomes ill. 167

Dal sonno del camin, dal male oppresso Crede svegliato le pietre historiate, Qual porta a casa, ingannando se stesso.

Weary from the journey, by ill health oppressed waking he believes the stones painted with stories, he takes them home, deceiving himself.

168

I disagi e le fatighe passate Che mai prezzo or’conosce ch’importa Ecco gl’affetti delle cose amate.

The toils and hardship borne now he knows how much they cost him here the warmth of beloved things.

Tornato a casa amalato ricomo-da lo plotre alla Matre. Returned home ill, he was restored by the care of his mother.

169

Disegno Gratia, e Spirito su la porta Il giovane Taddeo trova tornando; O felice colui ch’ha si gran scorta.

Disegno, Grace, and Spirit at the gate the returning young Taddeo finds; O happy the one who has such an important escort.

Ritorna Taddeo, a Roma, e nell entrata e ricevuto dal Spirito, dal disegno, e dale Gratie, che se li fanno incontro.

Taddeo returns to Rome, and at the entrance is greeted by Spirit, by Disegno, and by the Graces, who meet him there. 170

Ecco qui, o Giuditio, osseervando Va de l’antico, e Polidoro il fare E l’opre insiem di Rafael studiando.

Look here, O Judgment, how he observes the antique and Polidoro’s style as well as Raphael’s work he studies.

171

Inutile fatiga è l’punteggiare Ma lo servar qui l’arte il gran desio Il frutto fa, chi qui vole studiare.

Useless effort is to jot but to observe the art here, great desire bears fruit to him who is willing to study.

172

Ardir, Gratia, Fierezza, Arte, e Disegno Mostra Taddeo ne la sua verde etade Che fa stupir’ogni più dotto ingegno.

Boldness, Grace, Vigor, Art, and Disegno Taddeo in his green youth displays which astonishes all the most ingenious minds.

Taddeo fa la facciata de Matthei in eta di diciotto anni, Il spirito, e la fierezza gli guidano il penello, e le gratie gli somministrano le mistiche.

Taddeo does the façade of the Mattei at the age of eighteen years, spirit and vigor guide his brush, and the graces administer mystical teachings.

173

Amore vole studio, e I’inelligentia e senza questo rare volte, o mai serve fatiga assidua e diligentia.

Love requires study, and intelligence and without these rarely or ever serves assiduous toil and diligence.

174 Bibliography

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180 Vita

Claire Sumner is a native of the West Coast. She graduated from Randolph College in Lynchburg, Virginia in 2015 with a Bachelor of Art in Art History with emphasis in Museum Studies. Her Senior Thesis, ‘The Search for Fame: Tracing the Iconography of the Fame Armor of Guidobaldo della Rovere,' was published in The Jack:

A Journal of Academic Writing in the fall of 2015. After graduation she pursued her interest in art conservation and spent three years as a Conservation Technician at the Anchorage Museum in Anchorage, Alaska before pursuing her master’s in art history at the University of Texas in Austin from 2018-2020. She intends to continue her studies in Italian Renaissance Art at the doctoral level.

Email: [email protected]

181