Mattia & MariaNovella Romano A Selection of Master Drawings A Selection of Master Drawings Mattia & Maria Novella Romano A Selection of Drawings are sold mounted but not framed. Master Drawings © Copyright Mattia & Maria Novelaa Romano, 2015 Designed by Mattia & Maria Novella Romano and Saverio Fontini 2015 Mattia & Maria Novella Romano 36, Borgo Ognissanti 50123 Florence – Italy Telephone +39 055 239 60 06 Email: [email protected] www.antiksimoneromanoefigli.com Mattia & Maria Novella Romano A Selection of Master Drawings 2015 F R FRATELLI ROMANO 36, Borgo Ognissanti Florence - Italy Acknowledgements Index of Artists We would like to thank Luisa Berretti, Carlo Falciani, Catherine Gouguel, Martin Hirschoeck, Ellida Minelli, Cristiana Romalli, Annalisa Scarpa and Julien Stock for their help in the preparation of this catalogue. Index of Artists 15 1 3 BARGHEER EDUARD BERTANI GIOVAN BAttISTA BRIZIO FRANCESCO (?) 5 9 7 8 CANTARINI SIMONE CONCA SEBASTIANO DE FERRARI GREGORIO DE MAttEIS PAOLO 12 10 14 6 FISCHEttI FEDELE FONTEBASSO FRANCESCO GEMITO VINCENZO GIORDANO LUCA 2 11 13 4 MARCHEttI MARCO MENESCARDI GIUSTINO SABATELLI LUIGI TASSI AGOSTINO 1. GIOVAN BAttISTA BERTANI Mantua c. 1516 – 1576 Bacchus and Erigone Pen, ink and watercoloured ink on watermarked laid paper squared in chalk 208 x 163 mm. (8 ¼ x 6 ⅜ in.) PROVENANCE Private collection. Giovan Battista Bertani was the successor to Giulio At the centre of the composition a man with long hair Romano in the prestigious work site of the Ducal Palace seems to be holding a woman close to him. She is seen in Mantua.1 His name is first mentioned in documents of from behind, with vines clinging to her; to the sides of 1531 as ‘pictor’, under the direction of the master, during the central group, there are two pairs of little erotes who the construction works of the “Palazzina della Paleologa”, play among themselves, passing bunches of grapes to each which no longer exists, in the Ducal Palace.2 According other. On closer examination, one discovers that the male to the autograph treatise Gli oscuri et difficili passi body, from the chest down, is transformed into a trunk, dell’opera ionica di Vitruvio (1558) Bertani subsequently and the branch that clings to the leg of the woman is in travelled twice to Rome in order to study «the discipline fact one of the man’s legs. The woman, with a bewildered of Architecture and for other studies».3 While in contact and astonished expression, wants to free herself from the with the scholarly Roman environment, with Girolamo branches that cling to her but the man is strongly holding Genga and other Roman collectors of antiquities,4 the onto her. young Bertani practiced the art of painting, sculpture and That the drawing deals with a metamorphic subject architecture.5 After his return to Mantua, in 1546, on taken from Greco-Roman mythology is clear for more the death of Giulio Romano, Bertani was involved in the than one reason. In the Metamorphoses of Ovid, there completion of the construction of the Cathedral, which are recurring stories of men and women transformed Romano had designed.6 Three years later, he was appointed into trees. Moreover, the winged putti, amorini or erotes, prefetto delle fabbiche ducali7 by the Duke Guglielmo alluding to Eros/Love normally accompany erotic scenes. Gonzaga. Bertani owes his fame to these works, above all Finally, the vine and the grape clearly refer to the god he was involved in the expansion of the New Court in Dionysus/Bacchus, to whom the invention of the vine the Ducal Palace (completed in 1561), in the construction and wine is traditionally attributed and from whom of the Palatine Basilica of Santa Barbara (1562-1572), the the epithet of Bacchus Staphylo (or also Omphacite) court theatre (1549), and in some minor buildings of the derives. The identification of the subject depicted, whose city.8 The artist died in Mantua in 1576.9 interpretation is complex, is therefore certainly related to It was Renato Berzaghi who first compiled the initial the myth of Bacchus who here is represented, as in classical catalogue of the artist’s drawings,10 establishing his graphic Greek statuary, as young with long wavy locks of hair.11 oeuvre of about eighty sheets; among these, many are The suggested interpretation is taken from Ovid’s text, finished drawings to be supplied as models, to painters, whose first Italian translation into vernacular dates back to engravers, tapestry makers, scenographers and decorators. 1497. It was widely known and appreciated among artists This extraordinary drawing should rightfully be added who were commissioned to depict mythological subjects to the corpus of sheets attributed to Bertani due to its and ‘fables’. The scene represents the story of Bacchus and significant stylistic, technical, formal and compositional Erigone, daughter of Icarius, gardener of Attica. Bacchus, affinity with many of them. In this way, this discovery, as having fallen in love with the young girl, assumed the form well as enriching the graphic oeuvre of the master, goes to of a vine and when she arrived to collect bunches of grapes further underline his capacity for invention, a creativity the god took her by surprise by changing back into his which equals that of his most illustrious predecessor. human form and, taking her into his arms, took advantage actual size of her.12 This is a clear willingness to represent an extremely are squared in black chalk: features, which the drawing in rare subject in a decorative programme linked to the stories question also possesses. The format is also similar to that of Bacchus. of the two drawings for the Chamber of Jupiter.18 Typical Returning to the issue of authorship, the drawing has stylistic features of the graphic ductus of the artist are the interesting technical, stylistic and formal similarities with rhythmically cadenced lines of the figures which underline some sheets preserved at the Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe the drawing, being well-defined and with full contours, the of the Uffizi in Florence, now attributed to Giovan Battista sure pen strokes which outline the profiles of the faces, the Bertani, thanks to an interesting contribution by Piera superciliary arches and the muscular and well-honed limbs Giovanna Tordella.13 The scholar, with whom Giovanni of the central figures, as well as the parallel hatching of Agosti independently agrees,14 identified the sheets inv. the background, which accentuates the plastic poses of the 15985F, inv. 15986F, and inv. 15982F, with the respective erotes,19 and also the light watercolouring which creates subjects of Danae, Europa, and Bacchus transforms calibrated light and shade effects on the bodies. Moreover, Tyrrhenian pirates into dolphins.15 Tordella connects the the serpentine position of the two central figures, gives first two to the execution of respective frescoed semi- the composition a concrete dynamism which increases the lunettes, now damaged, in the “Chamber of Jupiter” dramatic nature of the action.20 Berzaghi, in support of his (or “of the lovers of Jupiter”),16 which was part of the position, which seems more than acceptable, remembers apartment of the Duke Guglielmo in the Palazzina della how in the short celebratory poem in octaves by Raffaello Rustica in the New Court of the Ducal Palace in Mantua.17 Toscano, the Rooms above the Edification of Mantua, The third sheet and another, in which Tordella identifies an decorations depicting the ‘Journey to Naxos’, ‘Bacchus in episode of the myth of Glaucus (inv. 15983F), have been India’, the ‘Triumphs’ and the ‘Invention of wine’ in the related to the decoration of the “Chamber of Bacchus”, hall of Bacchus (now badly damaged),21 are described.22 a hall adjacent to that of Jupiter by Renato Berzaghi. It is to this milieu that our drawing can also justifiably The drawings, executed in pen and ink, and brown be connected, also constituting a fundamental element for watercolour, like most of the sheets assigned to Bertani, reconstructing a lost courtesan decoration. Luisa Berretti 2. MARCO MARCHEttI called MARCO DA FAENZA Faenza c. 1528 - 1588 Study for a mural decoration Pen, watercoloured ink, chalk and white whitening on cerulean laid paper 173 x 195 mm. (6 ¾ x 7 ⅝ in.) PROVENANCE G. Vallardi (L. 1223). Considered by Giorgio Vasari the most ingenious creator the Loggia of Pius IV in the Vatican (1560-1563), he later of grotesques of his generation,1 Marco Marchetti began collaborated with Vasari who called him to supervise the his apprenticeship most probably in Faenza in contact creation of the grotesque friezes on the ceiling of the “Salone with a group of artists from Emilia Romagna which dei Cinquecento” in Palazzo Vecchio (1563 -1565). From specialised in said grotesques and was active in Rome in the biography of Giovanni Baglione, another great admirer the 1540s. These include Giacomo Bertucci, the master of his, we know that Marchetti worked in the decorative of Taddeo Zuccaro, and Pietro Mongardini from Imola, sites in the apartments of Gregory XIII in the Apostolic a close collaborator of Perin del Vaga. It was precisely the Palaces, creating the friezes in the two Sale dei Paramenti. halls decorated by the latter at the Castel Sant’Angelo that He later took over the supervision of the ornamental parts constituted for the young Marchetti an important source of of the loggias of the second floor, which were completed in study and inspiration for the development of his decorative 1577. He was also responsible for the first six Stories of St. language.2 The first reliable testimony regarding his activity Francis of Paola, frescoed in the lunettes of the west side of dates back to May, 1553, when he is cited in a document, the cloister of the Church of the Trinità dei Monti, datable along with other artists, intent in the creation of the frieze to 1579-1580.3 Throughout his life, Marchetti maintained with the Stories of Ulysses in the Palace of Cardinal Ricci in constant ties with his land of origin as evidenced by some Rome.