LÓPEZ DE ARAGÓN ARTE ANTIGUO

GIROLAMO DENTE ALSO KNOWN AS GIROLAMO DI TIZIANO (C. 1510 - BEFORE 1572) THE FOUR SEASONS OIL ON CANVAS / 162 X 187 CM INSCRIPTION: HIEMO. D. /N° 21

PROVENANCE: PARIS, CIRCA 1934; BUENOS AIRES, CIRCA 1990

The discovery of the Four Seasons by Girolamo Dente, almost a century after it was first recognised in a private collection in Paris, allows for reflection on one of the most faithful assistants of Titian (Tiziano Vecellio), who was born in Pieve di Cadore, around 1483/1485, and died in in 1576. The inscription leaves no doubt about the identity of the author however it raises the question over its early provenance, that remains unresolved. All scholars agree on the attribution, but virtually no-one after Baron von Hadeln has been able to study the painting from live (1).

The canvas has a thick herringbone texture, according to the Venetian tradition. The colours are fresh and reflect Titian’s palette. The painting is in very good condition. It is a fundamental starting point to research other paintings by “Girolamo di Tiziano”, who, like in this case, worked alone quite early, probably even outside his master’s atelier. Girolamo Dente was originally from the episcopal county of Cèneda, which is now a neighbourhood of Vittorio Veneto (2).

The dioceses of Cèneda - also called Saint Titian, bishop of Oderzo, and till today subordinate to the Patriarchate of Aquileia- offered work to Venetian artists, especially to minor ones (3). Together with Belluno and Cadore, it was one of the Venetian territories most actively involved in a “simplified Tizianismo”(4). Although Girolamo Dente moved to Venice at a very young age, he kept very much in touch with his native village. Only Ortensio Lando remembers him correctly as “Girolamo Dente from Cèneda disciple of Titian of Cadore”(5), while Giorgio Vasari and other ancient writers simply call him “Girolamo di Tiziano”. In the words of Vasari: “Girolamo, who I know only by the surname di Tiziano, was Titian’s disciple and assistant for many works” (6). Girolamo Dente’s life and career are based on few documents and paintings of certain attribution. The scholars generally consider Girolamo Dente a minor, unoriginal artist, who worked within Titian’s sphere of influence (7). In the past, his name has sometimes even been confused with that of the Girolamo Muziano, like in the case of the altarpiece signed “HIE.mo” in the Gallerie dell’Accademia in Venice, which was correctly attributed by Sergio Claut (8).

Girolamo Dente however may have had greater importance than is thought, both as an independent artist and as Titian’s assistant. Following the critical openings by Fossaluzza, Claut Calle Castillo de Alarcón 15 Villafranca del Castillo Madrid 28692 TLF. 00 34. 629229872 -- CIF. B.80237035 Email: [email protected] LÓPEZ DE ARAGÓN ARTE ANTIGUO

and Lucco, Giorgio Tagliaferro has recently done considerable study to single out the personality of Girolamo Dente within Titian’s workshop. Anyway further research is required. For instance, nothing is known about his relationship with his brother Sabaoth who, following the death of Govanni da Udine (12 August 1561) - one of the main collaborator of Raphael- took over most of the fresco decoration of Pope Pius IV Loggia on the third floor of the Apostolic Palace in the Vatican City (9).

The mysterious figure of Girolamo’s brother and his participation to one of the most important projects in late Roman Mannerism provide food for thought about the artistic exchanges between Venice and Rome (10).

From a famous letter, written on 9th October 1564, García Hernández, the Spanish Ambassador living in Venice, informed Gonzalo Pérez, Secretary to Phillip II (11), that he had read and delivered a letter to that Pérez had sent to Titian on 1st September. We learn from the letter how “Geronimo Ticiano, a relative or servant of his (...) lived in his home for over 30 years”(12). Girolamo Dente is likely to have become Titian’s helper in the early twenties and stayed within his sphere of influence for a long time. He was a witness at the wedding of Titian and Cecilia di Perarolo di Cadore, that was officiated by Paolo Dente in Venice in 1525 (13). Paolo Dente was deacon of San Giovanni Nuovo and older brother to Girolamo, who at the time was already living with Titian in the San Polo sestiere (district). Following that, Girolamo Dente moved with his master to Fondamenta Nuove in the parish of San Cancian, to the house-workshop of Biri Grande (this is now a warehouse located behind the present day Palazzo Donà delle Rose), a building that Titian rented out in 1531 and later refurbished to make it his home, where he spent the rest of his life (14).

Very soon Girolamo Dente became the second permanent assistant after (circa 1494-1560) (15). When Francesco, Titian’s younger brother, moved to Pieve di Cadore around 1530 to keep a close eye on the family timber and land administration businesses, Girolamo took over from him as first assistant. Working in his master’s shadow, he became known as a relative or servant (“deudo o criado”). As with other assistants or imitators of Titian, he even used the name of his master for his signature to underline the artistic affiliation and to attract the clients (Simone Peterzano did the same).

The terms of Girolamo Dente’s artistic career are supported by little accurate data and the reconstruction of the catalogue of paintings is, as Tagliaferro says, “conjectural, to a large extent”(16). This is why it is useful to revisit the works that are documented or have been verified by studies. The decoration of the organ in the Cathedral of Cèneda dates from 1533, for which later in 1539, when he was living in Titian’s house in Venice (“Magistro Hieronimo pictore de Venetiis commoranti cum magistro Titiano de Cadubrio”), he accepted the Calle Castillo de Alarcón 15 Villafranca del Castillo Madrid 28692 TLF. 00 34. 629229872 -- CIF. B.80237035 Email: [email protected] LÓPEZ DE ARAGÓN ARTE ANTIGUO

commission for painting his first documented altarpiece, the Madonna and Child, Saint Sebastian and Saint Rocco and the donor Bonetto Sarcinelli (17). In 1543 he is documented as a set designer in Treviso (18). I shall return to this point later, because it has never been considered in greater detail. The altarpiece Madonna and Child and John the Baptist, Margaret and Michael (Madonna con il Bambino e i santi Giovanni Battista, Margherita e Micheles) for the church of Santa Maria dei Battuti in Belluno (Venice, Gallerie dell’Accademia) (19), signed “HIER.mo”, appears to date from to 1559. The altarpiece Madonna and child with Saint John the Baptist and Saint Aaron for Sant’Aronne di Cusighe, in the province of Belluno, seems to date from the sixth decade; the church was frescoed by the young Paris Bordone (1500-1571), former disciple and later rival of Titian (20). Girolamo Dente’s peripheral activity is also confirmed by the altarpiece Saint Andrew between Saint Sebastian and Saint Roch, painted for the church of Sant’Andrea di Mel, in the diocese of Cèneda: the altarpiece, which was originally on a predella, is still conserved in the Annunziata parish church (21). Another important attribution to Girolamo Dente are the two panels of Saint Catherine and Saint Venera, previously attributed to Giuseppe Porta Salviati (circa 1520-1575) (22), that came from the church of San Giovanni Evangelista in Torcello (now in the Provincial Museum) (23). The large painting for the Albergo della Scuola della Carità, depicting the Annunciation and several portraits inserted in the sides, dates from 1557-1561 (Gallerie dell’Accademia, Venice, previously in temporary storage in Mason Vicentino) (24). The portrait of Doge Lorenzo Priuli, dated from 1560 and documented by a payment of 25 ducats to “Maistro Girolamo Tucian dipintor”, was thought destroyed in the fire at the Ducal Palace in Venice (1577), however it is the picture offered for sale at Sotheby’s (London, 28 April 1971, lot. 71) (25). Girolamo Dente painted several portraits however, virtually all of this part of his oeuvre remains almost entirely unexamined.

The last well-known altarpiece, signed “HIER D. TICIAN”, depicting the Assumption of the Virgin Mary for the church of Sant’Elpidio a Mare, commissioned by Nicolò Gherardini (26), dates from 1564. Again in the Region of Marche, in Ancona, the attribution of the altarpiece in the sacristy of San Francesco ad Alto depicting Saint Mark the Evangelist, Saint Leonard and Saint Francis of Assisi, is still debated. The painting has variously been attributed to Muziano, Bordone and Dente. The attribution to Dente is shared by most scholars, with the exception of Tagliaferro, who disagrees for stylist reasons (27). I have not been able to examine the painting in person, because the Art Gallery of Ancona is temporary closed. The altarpiece in San Francesco ad Alto commemorates Marcantonio Antiqui and Leonardo Bonarelli, who were sentenced to death in 1534 by Cardinal Benedetto Accolti, governor of Ancona (28). Finally Dal Pozzolo has attributed to Dente another devotional painting, the Holy Conversation with both three- quarter length donors, formally Titian’s school, in the Gallery of Dresden (Inv. 175) (29). Calle Castillo de Alarcón 15 Villafranca del Castillo Madrid 28692 TLF. 00 34. 629229872 -- CIF. B.80237035 Email: [email protected] LÓPEZ DE ARAGÓN ARTE ANTIGUO

The letter from Ambassador Hernandez cited above, dating from the end of the summer of 1564, was seeking to obtain a copy of The Martyrdom of Saint Lawrence, a masterpiece with a long and impressive history, that was executed by Titian for Elisabetta Querini, wife of Lorenzo Massolo, for and placed in the Venetian church of Santa Maria Assunta dei Crociferi. The Venetian noblewoman, celebrated by Pietro Bembo and loved by Giovanni della Casa, thereby intended to atone the guilt of her son, Pier Paolo Massolo, who, two months after the wedding in 1537, had killed his young wife Chiara Tiepolo and then fled to Mantua, where he became a monk in the abbey of San Benedetto al Polirone. The Martyrdom of Saint Lawrence was passed to the Jesuits in 1657, following the suppression of the Ordine dei Crociferi (30). Ambassador Hernandez had proposed Girolamo Dente as copyist, without ruling out that Titian could personally replicate the painting at a later stage. Dente was ready to assume immediately the commission for the sum of fifty scudi. At first Phillip II was disposed to accept the Ambassador’s proposal, because the painter had been recommended as “tel que mejor lo haze aquí despues dél” (the second best only to the master) i.e. Titian, “aunque no tiene comparación, y si Su Magestad quisiere dos, este havras mas presto” (although there is no comparison and if Your Majesty should want two, this fellow will produce them faster) (31).

Belonging to Titian’s workshop, speedy execution and good price were three valid reasons to convince Phillip II to commission the copy to Girolamo Dente. At that time, the painter, if not Titian’s best assistant, was certainly qualified and available. He was capable of taking on a sensitive assignment “in the absence” of his master, without compromising Titian’s name (32). Indeed Hernandez would have never made the mistake of submitting the name of a mediocre copyist to the King. This thing is, however, that it is by no means clear if Dente produced the copy at Biri Grande or in his own, undocumented, workshop. In other words, it is unclear from the sources, if in 1564 Dente was still a painter working for Titian, or if he had actually become independent and only periodically worked with the master.

Titian would have entrusted all or part of a replica to one of his disciples only within the workshop, where every day, for many years, he took on an endless number of requests and commissions with the help of pupils and relatives. Sometimes assistants could have a key role in the execution of paintings, albeit very discreetly, since the master has to guarantee his reputation and sign the works with his name. This is why the value of Titian’s signature and the sense of autography in his later paintings, particularly those for Philip II, have no comparison in the Renaissance. The workshops of Raphael and of Andrea del Sarto pose similar, though not identical problems (33), since they still convey the working methods of Early Renaissance workshops, whereas Titian had made personal changes to the organisational structure at Biri Grande, in some ways anticipating the

Calle Castillo de Alarcón 15 Villafranca del Castillo Madrid 28692 TLF. 00 34. 629229872 -- CIF. B.80237035 Email: [email protected] LÓPEZ DE ARAGÓN ARTE ANTIGUO

system employed by Rubens and Van Dyck. Therefore Titian’s later paintings should be interpreted in the light of his personality and of the new asset of the home-workshop.

It was Titian himself, however, who put paid to the negotiation with Philip II by offering to complete the assignment himself and stating that the copy would be produced rapidly. To persuade the King, he even suggested to create a cycle of paintings on the history of St. Lawrence. The replica of the altarpiece however was only completed in 1567, far later than Philip II would have wished (34). Therefore, it is unclear if Titian intervened personally out of greed, or for fear that Dente was not good enough for the assignment, or for what, in my view, is the most widely held opinion, for jealousy, because he wanted to maintain an exclusive relationship with the King of Spain and prevent any of his former -or present assistantsfrom winning favour directly with the King. Not even El Greco succeeded in becoming a court painter, neither in Rome nor Madrid, although the failure to achieve this ambitious objective was largely his own doing.

The replica of The Martyrdom of Saint Lawrence at the Escorial is very clearly by Titian and his workshop, but it is impossible to distinguish the work of the assistants. Titian certainly had the help of his son Orazio and of “another very brave young disciple of mine” (maybe Gian Maria Verdizzotti?) (35), however, this does not ultimately mean that he did not also call on Girolamo Dente for help. If ever Dente did collaborate, his brushstroke blended in perfectly with Titian and other assistants. Indeed, Augusto Gentili is right in saying that this painting is “an excellent example of how to create a replica”(36).

For this and other reasons, Dente’s role in Titian’s workshop is far from clear. His participation in the works of the master may be put forward merely as supposition. He did not only work for Titian, but he also had a degree of autonomy. In the course of over thirty years at Biri Grande, the role of Girolamo Dente as assistant must be examined very carefully in Titian’s more important assignments: for instance, in powerful, eminent works such as Presentation of the Virgin at the Temple for the Scuola della Carità in Venice, which is now at the Gallerie dell’Accademia (circa 1534-1538) (37). One of the four Carità paintings, as I mentioned above, was painted by Dente himself, the other two by Giampietro Silvio. Other Titianesque paintings in which the hand of Dente can be found are as follows: the Madonna and Child and Saints Peter and Andrew (38) for the church of Santa Maria Nuova at Serravalle (Vittorio Veneto), the village adjoining Dente’s birthplace (circa 1542-1547); the Vendramin Family at the National Gallery, London (circa 1540-1543 and 1550-1560), where the three portraits on the far left (fig. 1), as it has been hypothesised with great intelligence by Nicholas Calle Castillo de Alarcón 15 Villafranca del Castillo Madrid 28692 TLF. 00 34. 629229872 -- CIF. B.80237035 Email: [email protected] LÓPEZ DE ARAGÓN ARTE ANTIGUO

Penny (39), may be referred to Dente; The Trinity or The Glory of the Family of Charles V, a painting that was first sent to Brussels and earmarked by the Emperor for the Yuste monastery and later transferred by Phillip II to the Escorial and that now hangs to the Prado Museum (circa 1551-1554) (40), where some of the marginal faces are certainly not by Titian’s brush (41); in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna (circa 1566-1568) (42), in which some of the figures’ features are not painted in Titian’s style and are more consistent with Dente’s manner (43).

It is likely, as Tagliaferro and Dal Pozzolo have recently pointed out, that Girolamo Dente was cast aside when he started getting old and perhaps even troublesome. It is plausible that he was no longer included in the group of assistants that helped Titian in the final phase of his career. The continuous succession of new young and motivated assistants, the changing roles in the workshop, the increased importance of Orazio Vecellio (circa 1525-1576) (44) -it was he who received the Ambassador Hernández in the absence of his father, who had an official engagement in Brescia- and of other members of the family clan were some of the main changes in the latter thirty years of activity at Biri Grande, under the supervision of Titian. The impact of the Farnese and Hapsburg commissions marked a turning point in the functioning of the workshop, which over a long period of time had been dizzying, frenetic, team work. Given the importance of the requests and the pressures of commitments, Titian had to reorganise the workshop around these new assignments and adapt his pace. In the final period were increasingly the family interests and the international business to turn around Titian’s star (45).

During the long period working as assistant to Titian, Giolamo Dente also worked for himself. His work as an independent painter was mostly confined to the Veneto area, although he also worked in the Marche and Apulia, two regions on the Adriatic coast where Venetian painters had a huge presence from the 1300s to the early 1600s. In the course of conducting in-depth research on 16th century Venetian painting in Apulia, I observed how the altarpiece in Monopoli, depicting the Madonna and Child and two Angels with Saint Nicholas of Bari and Benedict of Norcia and coming from the church of San Lorenzo, now in the Diocesan Museum (fig. 2), is wholly attributable to Girolamo Dente. The altarpiece, which was long referred to the workshop of Titian or to Francesco Vecellio, was correctly recognized by Lucco and Claut (46). The Monopoli altarpiece is likely to date from the fifth decade of 1500, similar to that of San Felice at Giovinazzo (a port near Bari), requested to Lorenzo Lotto by the local community and sent from Venice in 1542 (47).

Calle Castillo de Alarcón 15 Villafranca del Castillo Madrid 28692 TLF. 00 34. 629229872 -- CIF. B.80237035 Email: [email protected] LÓPEZ DE ARAGÓN ARTE ANTIGUO

Like in Lotto’s altarpiece, it has also been noted in Dente how the apparent archaism served the painter, even more than the patron, to express a feeling of nostalgia and memory. The Monopoli altarpiece is decisive in confining, from a stylistic point of view, the dating of the Allegory of the Seasons to the forties, as indeed it is supported by all thecritical literature that has examined the painting. The Allegory of the Seasons alludes to the way time was organised in the Julian Calendar; to the complement of the elements, to the binary rhythm of nature, to the wealth of the fruits, to earthly joy. For this and other reasons, the depiction of the seasons and abundance were particularly widespread in the 1500s thanks to Paolo Giovio, who was the main inspiration for these allegories (48). Pontormo painted a cycle of frescoes of Vertumnus and Pomona in the Medici Villa at Poggio a Caiano (49). The allegory of Abundance and the Seasons are recurring motifs in the decoration for the papacy of Paul III (Pope from 1534-1549), as amply reflected in the Sala dei Cento Giorni in Palace of Cancelleria, a fresco painted by Vasari and his assistants in the summer of 1546 for the Cardinal Alessandro Farnese (50). When Titian went to Busseto, passing through Ferrara, Bologna and Parma in the spring of 1543, and when he later went to Rome, from October 1545 to June 1546, passing through Urbino and coming back through Florence, he was able to see directly the iconographic themes loved by the Farnese family and by other Italian princes (51). The allegory of the seasons is also a frequent motif in Veneto art. Just staying on the subject of Titian, I remind that his cousin Cesare Vecellio (circa 1521-1601)(52), whose career ran in parallel with that of Girolamo Dente, painted a fresco of the Allegory of the Seasons for the ground floor room of Palazzo Piloni in Belluno (now Palazzo della Provincia) (53). In Venice, it is worth noting that Tintoretto painted the Four Seasons on a ceiling in Casa Barbo in San Pantaleone, around 1546. Brothers Francesco and Jacopo Barbo had a Pope in their family history, Paul II (Pope from 1464-1471). This is why the choice of an iconographic motif has also been explained as a Romanising trend. This revelation by Claudio Ridolfi associates the Four Seasons painted by Tintoretto, the Spring (Chrysler Museum, Norfolk, gift of Walter Chrysler Jr., 71.527), the Summer (National Gallery of Washington, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1961.9.90), and the Autumn (private collection). The Winter is missing, whilst the Allegory of Man’s Dreams, which was originally placed in the centre of the ceiling, has been conserved (Detroit Institute of Arts, Inv. n. 23.II). Although Tintoretto’s canvases date from the fourties, it is not possible to make an accurate comparison with Dente, because the composition is different. Nevertheless, Tintoretto’s choice of figures reflects ideas of Mannerism, popularised by Salviati and Vasari in Venice. Dente must have been aware of these. It is no coincidence that his business as a set designer in Treviso folded one year after the staging of La Talanta by Pietro Aretino, the comedy staged by the Compagnia della Calza in the 1542 Carneval. In addition, in 1543, as readers are reminded above, Titian was at the Court of Paul III for two months. These facts are directly related to

Calle Castillo de Alarcón 15 Villafranca del Castillo Madrid 28692 TLF. 00 34. 629229872 -- CIF. B.80237035 Email: [email protected] LÓPEZ DE ARAGÓN ARTE ANTIGUO

Dente’s picture and indirectly suggest that it should be dated no later than the first half of 1546. Indeed it is possible that Girolamo Dente painted the Four Seasons during the time Titian was in Rome.

The allegories of the seasons may also have eccentric figurative solutions as is the case with the Winter painted by Tintoretto’s school on the face of the clock in the College Hall in The Ducal Palace (post 1577), personified by a female divinity crowned with a crescent moon, which is probably a reference to Diana (54). Dente, however, did not venture beyond the trends of the day. He did not delve into the bizarre spirit of Mannerism, but rather preferred to adopt simple and pleasing solutions. Spring is personified by a female goddess that is holding a bolt of lightning in her hand, which can be identified as , as deduced from the basket of flowers that the cherub behind her is carrying. The face resembles the type of females painted by Titian in the second half of the thirties, as can be seen in the large painting of the Presentation of the Virgin at the Temple (quoted above), in which a very similar young girl stands out (55). This type of ideal female face, fresher compared to previous examples in Titian’s paintings, becomes common in the paintings for the Farnese and the Hapsburgs, as can be seen for instance in the Danae at Capodimonte (circa 1544-1546), in the abovementioned Trinity (or Glory) and in other “poesie” (mythological fables), however it is also reflected in other paintings, particularly some of the workshop’s devotional works. The vase-bearing cherub that accompanies the Spring also pertains to a vast Titianesque repertoire. The famous youthful painting (1518-1519)(56) is a virtually boundless exemplum of full length cherubs. Titian must have left at least some trace of the dozens of cupids that appear in the Prado painting.

Some records, in the form of models, sketches, drawings, must have been left in his studio. Summer is personified by a divinity that represents Ceres, although it looks like Venus. The origin of the image is the , painted for Guidubaldo della Rovere in 1538 (57). The figure of Ceres is almost identical to the model in the Venus of Urbino, apart from the position of the head and the facial expression. Other similarities can be found in the female figures, particularly in the heads, painted by Titian in the early erotic paintings for Phillip II (58). Girolamo Dente attempted to dissimulate his Titianesque influence conforming to the classical Venetian erotic painting repertory. The first to triumph with a nude woman lying on a landscape was with the Sleeping Venus in the Dresden Gallery (Inv. 185). Later Palma il Vecchio (1480-1528) continued the genre with the Nymph in the Landscape, also in Dresden (Inv. 190), and with the Venus and Cupid in the Fitzwilliam Museum of Cambridge. Paris Bordone continued the iconographic tradition successfully, at least until the end of the 1540s, as demonstrated by the Venus and Cupid in the Museum of Warsaw (Inv. 187158) (59). Autumn, bursting into the scene, does not have the same visual vigour of Bacchus leaping off the car in the Titian’s very famous painting at the National Gallery Calle Castillo de Alarcón 15 Villafranca del Castillo Madrid 28692 TLF. 00 34. 629229872 -- CIF. B.80237035 Email: [email protected] LÓPEZ DE ARAGÓN ARTE ANTIGUO

of London, coming from the collection of Alfonso d’Este, Duke of Ferrara (December 1522) (60); however he appears making an elegant bid to capture the dynamic impetus that Dente sought to achieve under the influx of the central Italian mannerism. On close examination Autumn is rather reminiscent of some Dosso Dossi figures. There are obvious similarities with Michelangelo’s style and plasticity, and also with the Veneto taste for colours, that Dosso used in esoteric paintings such as the so-called Wise Men (or Zodiac Signs), which has been partially preserved in public and private collections (61), or such as the Apollo Musician in the Galleria Borghese (62). In the figure of Autumn precise references to the Ferrara School can be seen. Indeed, Dente may have seen the in the Este collection. This would also explain Dente’s direct knowledge of Dosso paintings. He may have even seen Titian’s masterpiece when he was a child and the painting was being produced in Titian’s studio (circa 1520-1522). At the time Titian lived in San Polo, but worked in Ca’ del Duca at San Samuele, a workshop left at his disposal by the Republic of Venice. Winter is a nude old man, lying on the ground, with his legs crossed and his face turned towards the spectator. Dente was certainly attracted by this type of fine figure after the triumph of Mannerism in Venice, with to the cycles of paintings by Salviati, Vasari and their circle. The well-known temporary apparatus for La Talanta by Pietro Aretino and most of the paintings and decorations for the private residents have been lost. However we can read the description of the comedy’s décor by Vasari. Some works have been conserved, such as the three panels painted by Vasari for the Palace Corner-Spinelli in the spring of the same year (64).

Among the first examples of mannerist works by central Italian painters, such as the scholars of Raphael and Perin del Vaga, was the hall of Palazzo Grimani at Santa Maria Formosa, decorated by Francesco Menzocchi, Camillo Mantovano and Francesco Salviati with panels depicting the Stories of Cupid and Psyche (65). In the Menzocchi painting with Mercury announces the ban on Psyche (formally Forlì, private collection), dating to around 1538-1539, Poseidon appears in the same position of Dente’s Winter. Similarly, around 1532-1533, under the guidance of Girolamo Genga, Menzocchi had painted a fresco of two personifications of Rivers in the hall of the Villa Imperiale, near Pesaro, and later reproduced other river allegories in the Council Hall of Forlí (66). Likewise, Menzocchi’s river images and other similar mannerist models inspired Battista Zelotti for the monochromes on the ceiling of the Sala dei Tre Capi in the Ducal Palace in Venice, dating from 1553-1555 (67). The model of the “serpentine” figure, proposed in Venice by Menzocchi and received by Dente shortly afterwards, dates from the unfinished statue of the Day sculpted by Michelangelo for the Tomb of Giuliano de’ Medici, Duke of Nemours, in the Sagrestia Nuova at San Lorenzo in Florence (1526-1532) (68). It should be remembered that Battista Franco (ante 1510-1561) had Calle Castillo de Alarcón 15 Villafranca del Castillo Madrid 28692 TLF. 00 34. 629229872 -- CIF. B.80237035 Email: [email protected] LÓPEZ DE ARAGÓN ARTE ANTIGUO

carefully studied the Medici Tombs during his stay in Florence, starting in the Spring of 1536 (69). Dente did not visit Florence or Rome and had never seen an original drawing by Michelangelo for the Medici Tombs (70), but may have known Michelangelo’s sculpture through Franco’s drawings, particularly the one in the Musée du Louvre, Paris (Departement des arts graphiques, Inv. 130) (71). If this was true, he would have sought to dissimulate rendering the image in counterpart.

Michelangelo’s sculptures, however, were very famous. Dente may have intercepted Michelangelo’s model through other channels. Tribolo made terracotta reductions of the Sagrestia Nuova sculptures in around 1535 (72). Daniele Ricciarelli made others in plaster (now lost) during his stay in Florence in 1557, which, according to Ridolfi, were sent to Venice to Tintoretto (73). This date however is too late to justify Tintoretto’s indirect knowledge of the Sagrestia Nuova. In fact he must have known Michelangelo’s figures far earlier (74). Copies of Michelangelo’s works were circulating everywhere and in various forms. It may be that Dente copied the figure of Day from a drawing by Tintoretto or by another artist.

According to Ridolfi, Tintoretto was inspired by Michelangelo’s plastic art and used clay models to study the figures from all angles in order to achieve dynamic, spontaneous effects (75). Tintoretto’s models have all disappeared, however their importance in the creative process bears witness to the literary sources that can be perceived by observing the actual works. Dusk, for instance, is an explicit tribute to Michelangelo in the Miracle of the Slave, painted by Tintoretto for the Scuola Grande di San Marco in 1548. Regarding Tintoretto’s study and knowledge of the Sagrestia Nuova, two very significant drawings remain which were made using clay models: the Day (Paris, Musée du Louvre, Departement des arts graphiques, Inv. 5384) (76) and the Dusk (Florence, Uffizi Gallery, Drawings and prints section, Inv. 13048 F) (77). In both drawings the figure is seen full length from behind. To get an idea of how the Michelangelo models (or similar figures) were copied in clay and how they continued to be used and passed on in Tintoretto’s practice, we need to consider the drawing of the Dusk, attributed to Ludovico Carracci (Oxford, Ashmolean Museum, n. 1846.100; P.II 355) (78). References to some masterpieces in the Este collection, by either Titian or Dosso, can be observed in the fairy-tale treatment of the landscape, which leads to the hypothesis, as I have said, that Girolamo Dente had seen them in person or had a clear memory of these paintings. The choice of combining various different figures on a single canvas, the binary rhythm of the two couples of men and women with the young boy, as well as the considerable opulence of the image and the very size of the canvas -intended for a luxury setting, perhaps a State Room- denotes the desire to imitate the master in a very Calle Castillo de Alarcón 15 Villafranca del Castillo Madrid 28692 TLF. 00 34. 629229872 -- CIF. B.80237035 Email: [email protected] LÓPEZ DE ARAGÓN ARTE ANTIGUO

important commission. For this reason Girolamo Dente must evoke classical references at all costs -because of the great significance the Renaissance attached to the dignity of Antiquity- even if in an secondary way. Indeed, like in this case, the capital with the painter’s signature and the corner of the monumental building on the right edge of the painting are marginal, secondary motifs.

Unfortunately, at present it is not possible to indicate any patron for this painting. However the examples of Grimani, Correr and Barbo families and the Mannerist ambience of the 1540s, encouraged by the presence in Venice of Salviati, Vasari and many other “foreign” painters, lead us to place the execution of the Four Seasons in a vivacious and attractive setting for allegorical painting. The painting set is always faithful to natural landscapes, whilst however renewing the rhetorical and classical examples from Rome, Urbino and Florence.

The Allegory of the Seasons is the only painting with a secular subject clearly attributable to the brushwork of Girolamo Dente. The other profane paintings, assigned subsequently by the critics, are the Concert with fawns and nymphs (oil on canvas, 115 x 91 cm, previously in Florence, Bellesi Antiques) (79), another mythological allegory generally quoted as Ceres, Diana, Bacchus, Saturn and Cupid (Prague, Castle Gallery) (80), Venus with Cupid and Satire (oil on canvas, 117 x 110 cm, Rome, Galleria Borghese, Inv. 124) and its variant Venus and Cupid (Hampton Court, Royal Collection) (81). Another painting formerly New York, Piero Corsini (oil on canvas, 96.8 x 108 cm) and now Montecarlo Maison d’Art, which is a variant of the Allegory of Marriage by Titian in the Louvre, in my opinion has to be left apart, because the canvas requires a spectrographic analysis, even a restoration, to make any serious pronouncements. Therefore, I agree with Tagliaferro that at present the Corsini painting can only be classified generically as by Titian’s workshop or by one imitator, although the attribution to Girolamo Dente proposed by Dal Pozzolo could be correct (82). In the group of Girolamo Dente erotic paintings, vulgarising Titian’s figurative language and inventions for commercial ends, another two canvases are included: the Toilet of Venus (oil on canvas, 110 x 92 cm, offered at the Dorotheum, Vienna, 29 September 2004, lot. 7) (83) and another similar image with a different layout (oil on canvas, 111 x 127.5 cm, previously Monaco, Weinmüller, 25 June 1970, n. 701) (84). These two paintings belong to a very late, highly mannered phase. They have none of the freshness of the Four Seasons, a painting that is linked to Girolamo Dente’s peak, when his ability to adhere to Titian’s figurative language also left room for a certain degree of autonomy and for a surprising real artistic initiative.

Calle Castillo de Alarcón 15 Villafranca del Castillo Madrid 28692 TLF. 00 34. 629229872 -- CIF. B.80237035 Email: [email protected] LÓPEZ DE ARAGÓN ARTE ANTIGUO

Andrea Donati

(1) For a brief profile see: Giovanna Nepi Sciré, in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, Rome, Istituto Della Enciclopedia Italiana, 1990, 38, pp. 788-790, s.v. Dente (Denti), Girolamo; Susanne Christine Martin, Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon, die bildenden Künstler aller Zeiten und Völker [Saur], begr. und mithrsg. von Günter Meißner, München/ Leipzig, de Gruyter, 2000, 26, p. 183, s.v. Dente, Girolamo. (2) DETLEV VON HADELN, Girolamo di Tiziano, «The Burlington Magazine», LXV, 1934, pp. 84-89; Jan Zarnowski, L’atelier de Titien: Girolamo di Tiziano, «Dawna Sztuka», I, 1938, 2, pp. 107-129; M. Roy Fisher, Titian’s Assistans During the Later Years, Ph. D. Thesis, Harward University, Cambridge Massachussetts, 1958, New York, 1977, pp. 31-42; p. 16, Fig. 1; Giorgio Fossaluzza, Per Ludovico Fiumicelli, Giovan Pietro Meloni e Girolamo Denti, «Arte Veneta», XXXVI, 1982, pp. 131-134; Mauro Lucco, Il Cinquecento, Parte prima e seconda, in Le pitture del Santo di Padova, a cura di Camillo Semenzato, Vicenza, Neri Pozza, 1984, I, pp. 145-174; Sergio Claut, All’ombra di Tiziano. Contributo per Girolamo Denti, «Antichità Viva», XXV, 5/6, 1986, pp. 16-29; Nepi Sciré, p. 789: “Critics are now in agreement on assigning the Four Seasons to him, already in Paris (Hadeln, 1934), and is now in a private collection in Buenos Aires. Vicina alla piccola pala cenedese, the painting that can be dated towards the end of the fourth decade, is naively trying to summarise Michelangelo references -‘Winter” clearly inspired by from Michelangelo Day- and Titian. The inscription “Hiemo d Titian” is considered by Zarnowski (1938) to be a collector’s annotation rather than a signature”. For further aknowledgment see Enrico Maria Dal Pozzolo, La bottega di Tiziano: sistema solare e buco nero, «Studi Tizianeschi», IV, 2006, pp. 53-98 (p. 85); Id., in Tiziano. L’ultimo atto, catalogo della mostra a cura di Lionello Puppi (Belluno - Palazzo della Magnifica Comunità, Pieve di Cadore, 15 settembre 2007 - 6 gennaio 2008), Milano, Skira, 2007, p. 420; Giorgio Tagliaferro, Bottega e impresa di Famiglia, in Le botteghe di Tiziano, con saggi di Giorgio Tagliaferro, Bernard Aikema, Matteo Mancini, Andrew John Martin, redazione Tessie Vecchi, Firenze, Alinari-24Ore, pp. 73-109. Calle Castillo de Alarcón 15 Villafranca del Castillo Madrid 28692 TLF. 00 34. 629229872 -- CIF. B.80237035 Email: [email protected] LÓPEZ DE ARAGÓN ARTE ANTIGUO

(3) TOMASI, G. La diocesi di Cèneda, chiese e uomini dalle origini al 1586, Vittorio Veneto, Diocesi di Vittorio Veneto, 1998, 2 voll.; Giorgio Mies, Arte del ‘500 nel Vittoriese, [Vittorio Veneto,] De

Calle Castillo de Alarcón 15 Villafranca del Castillo Madrid 28692 TLF. 00 34. 629229872 -- CIF. B.80237035 Email: [email protected]