MARIO ASPRUCCI Neoclassical Architecture in Villa Borghese 1786-1796
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Susanna Pasquali MARIO ASPRUCCI Neoclassical Architecture in Villa Borghese 1786-1796 Edition curated by Stefano Grandesso in collaboration with Eugenio Costantini Acknowledgements Elisa Camboni, Accademia Nazionale di San Luca, Roma Francesco Ceccarelli, Università di Bologna Jean-Philippe Garric, Université Sorbonne, Paris Alessandra Mercantini, Archivio Doria Pamphilj, Roma Carlo Mambriani, Università di Parma Simona Morretta, Soprintendenza, Roma Marco Pupillo, Museo Napoleonico, Roma Photo Credits Arte Fotografica, Rome, plates Giulio Archinà per StudioPrimoPiano, Siderno, p. 6, fig. 24, 31, 35, 37, 38, 40, 43, 47 Photo Archive Galleria Carlo Virgilio & Co., Roma, fig. 16, 19, 25, 26, 51, 53, 54, 66, 70, 72 Archivi Alinari, Firenze, fig. 41 Araldo De Luca, fig. 49 The editor will be pleased to honor any outstanding royalties concerning the use of photographic images that it has so far not been possible to ascertain. Layout Stefania Paradiso ALESSANDRA DI CASTRO GALLERIA CARLO VIRGILIO & Co. ARTE ANTICA MODERNA E CONTEMPORANEA Piazza di Spagna, 4 - 00187 Roma Via della Lupa, 10 - 00186 Roma Tel. +39 06 69923127 59 Jermyn Street, Flat 5, London SW1Y 6LX [email protected] Tel. +39 06 6871093 www.alessandradicastro.com [email protected] - www.carlovirgilio.it © Edizioni del Borghetto Tel. + 39ISBN 06 6871093 978-88-942099-3-8 - Fax +39 06 68130028 e-mail: [email protected] http//www.carlovirgilio.it Susanna Pasquali MARIO ASPRUCCI Neoclassical Architecture in Villa Borghese 1786-1796 Presentation Francesco Leone English translation Michael Sullivan PRESENTATION CATALOGUE OF DRAWINGS p. 29 Francesco Leone INTRODUCTORY NOTE Mario Asprucci and the making of the park of Villa Borghese: new light on the Roman PART 1 - THE VILLA PINCIANA, 1784-1793 neoclassical avant-garde p. 7 From the purchase of a statue to the erection of a temple, IN SEARCH OF MARIO ASPRUCCI p. 11 1784-1786. pl. 1 Life Planting a lake on top of a hill, 1787 Early death The one hundred added rods that made the difference, An appraisal January - July 1788 The fate of his papers The round temple: from Settimius Severus to Diana, Drawings from the antique 1787-89. pl. 2 The visionary paper architecture Variations on the Acqua Felice perspective showpiece. In the service of the Borghese pl.s no.s 3, 4, 5 The shifting location of Septimius Severus. pl. 6 THE PRINCE AND THE VILLA: OPEN QUESTIONS p. 23 Proposals for the renovation of the Casino dei giochi d’acqua, or Aranciera. pl.s 7, 8, 9, 10 Suggestions from the Triopeion of Herodes Atticus: Cristoforo Unterperger and Ennio Quirino Visconti in competition. pl.s 11, 12, 13 Statues in fountains. pl.s 14, 15, 16 The outcome of competition: the Museo Gabino. pl. 17 From the Gallinaro to the Fortezzuola. pl. 18 Epilogue: the Roman Propylaea. pl. 19 PART 2 - OTHER DRAWINGS BY MARIO OR LINKED TO HIM Variations on Mario Asprucci’s designs for Propylaea. pl.s 20 and 21 Polledrara and vaccheria: a new image for farm buildings. pl.s 22 and 23 Variations on the archaic Doric: ideas for jeux-d’eau on a slope. pl.s 24 and 25 A rotonda all’antica. pl. 26 A pavilion suggestive of a Roman ancient house. pl. 27 PART 3 - DRAWINGS RELATING TO BORGHESE PATRONAGE, BEFORE AND AFTER THE WORK OF MARIO ASPRUCCI The use of columns and pillars. pl.s 28 and 29 Two mantelpieces. pl. 30 and 31 Three gateways. pl. 32, 33, 34 The survey of a granary. pl. 35 A fountain in the city. pl. 36 Four executive drawings. pl.s 37, 38, 39, 40 PART 4 - OTHER DRAWINGS SEQUENCE OF THE DRAWINGS IN CATALOGUE p. 101 Notes p. 106 Design for the choir-stalls of a church. pl. 41 List of abbreviations p. 111 A large U-shaped building. pl. 42 Bibliography p. 112 A cemetery chapel. pl. 43 5 6 Francesco Leone the antique and focused by Francesco Milizia – of simplicity, rationality and functionalism that the great Mario Asprucci and the making of the park architects of neoclassical and Napoleonic Europe have in common. Like Antolini in Milan, Asprucci in Rome of Villa Borghese: new light on the Roman would have been the architect of modernity and of neoclassical avant-garde social shift. That is what his Jacobin convictions, shared with his friend Ennio Quirino Visconti, make clear and above all his participation as architect in the free and “Poor Mario Asprucci died around the age of about revolutionary association of artists set up by Felice 40. A great loss for his family and for art, having Giani in Rome in the late 1780s and early 1790s that all the good qualities, and full of merit; I am very first went under the name of Accademia de’ Pensieri disheartened by such a loss”. and then that of Accademia della Pace. It was a melting pot of artistic experimentation, of thematic research, Sadly the sculptor Vincenzo Pacetti, one of the best- of ethical reflection, ofbohémien spirit around which, connected and most influential figures in the Roman scornful of the slavishness and the prescriptions of th th artistic milieu between the late 18 and early 19 official academic institutions, the young recruits from centuries, recorded the premature death of this great every nationality present in Rome challenged each talent in his diary on May 7, 1804. The words used – a other in heated evening meetings. In the nineties that sort of epitaph made even more moving by the intimate workshop shaped the future leaders of Italian art and aspect a private diary can have – effectively portrays the many of the European ones. And, who can say, that it esteem and high hopes that his father Antonio Asprucci would not perhaps have been to Asprucci instead of (1723-1808), architect of the house of Borghese, Pacetti to Giuseppe Valadier that the new face of Rome was himself, to whom Mario was very close, and the Roman entrusted during the period of the Restoration. artistic world must have placed in the young architect Whereas – or so it was believed until the discovery of struck down in the prime of life. these drawings – Mario’s premature death left those Nothing earlier presaged such a tragic end. Mario potentialities substantially unexpressed or otherwise was born under a lucky star, a true child of fortune, confined to the planning stage. And here lies the first destined for a career of great renown. His story began crucial aspect of the finding of the sheets sets before us. in the 1770s in the shadow of his father, when the The collection, relating chiefly to Villa Borghese, finally latter was in charge of the striking renovation of the restores a real artistic countenance to a character whose Casino Nobile of Villa Borghese at the behest of Prince creativity was until now known almost exclusively from Marcantonio IV: a true crucible, arena of strenuous the sources, from a few other drawings and a scattering competition between artists of different nationalities. of literary reports. We knew of Mario’s great talent – as He was shaped in a cosmopolitan and avant-garde city, we have seen underlined by Pacetti, and by Guattani in in a period, that of the long papacy of Pius VI Braschi the elegy he dedicated to him in 1809 in the columns of (1775-1799), which is now considered one of the peaks the “Memorie Enciclopediche Romane” – but we could in the artistic and cultural history of papal Rome. not attribute to him, except by hypothesis or indirect Starting from what Susanna Pasquali tells us, one may report, the concrete execution of any project. The conjecture on what Mario Asprucci might have left to many designs in this large group attributed to him with the history of art and architecture had he completed certainty in this catalogue, however, definitely clarify his trajectory: it can be said with some certainty that the leading role, among many other influential co-stars, with the Jacobin upheaval, the Napoleonic domination played by Mario in the design and execution of many and the rebirth that ensued, Rome, the city of popes of the buildings in the park of Villa Borghese between and tradition, would have found its “revolutionary” 1786 and 1796: the artificial lake with the temple of architect in him, as Paris did in Boullée and Ledoux Aesculapius, the temple of Diana, the piazza di Siena or Milan in Antolini with the utopian design of the and more. The recovery of these drawings has finally Foro Bonaparte. The more mature and conceptual clarified how Mario’s work fits – and then imposes itself projects for civil society architecture among those through its innovative and European stature – within published here document, in addition to his talent, the conjoint work of a team that, when combined with the international range of the young Asprucci and the radical modernization to which the Casino Nobile profound reflection on the themes – inspired by had already been subject for a decade, gave rise to the 7 most impressive and vital Roman art workshop of the in Rome from 1786 to 1788), a decisive part was played 18th century along with the contemporary Museo Pio- by the intellectual nonchalance of the Anglo-Saxon Clementino in the Vatican. Within this large and highly world, less burdened by the overwhelming legacy of reputed team, Mario could vie at the highest level with the ancients. In the last century it was Hugh Honour, some of the greatest exponents of that unrepeatable not by chance, who first grasped the importance of this international milieu anchored in classical antiquity grafting of the Anglo-Saxon culture onto the Roman that made Rome in the last quarter of the 18th century temper of that time, in 1959 coining the still effective the pulsating capital of the artistic avant-gardes of the term “Anglo-Romans” to define an artistic milieu, that whole of Europe.