The widespread practice of distributing portraits of [Fig. 3, showing Lanfranco’s and Sacchi’s cartoons members of the Church, aristocracy, and legendary hanging on the walls left and right, and Fig. 8], and famous men and women created a huge market for to Romanelli, his [Cortona’s] student, and that the copyists, though copies of portraits, like those of petitioner not only is satisfied with this same price, landscapes, tended to be relatively cheap, mirroring the but that for those [cartoons] for the pendentives and lower esteem and value of those genres in the hierar- lunettes he has on his own initiative reduced [the fee] chy of painting.200 Payments by the Chigi are charac- to 150 scudi. And because Your Lordship can with teristic: 90 scudi in 1662 to Giovanni Maria Morandi more certainty of fairness make the petitioner rejoice for eight portraits of various sizes of Cardinal Chigi, in your favors by treating him equal to the others three of which were copies; in 1673, 10 scudi for five . entreats you to consider that all the altarpieces portrait copies by the unknown Cintio Bocchi; and in done for St. Peter’s cost 1,000 scudi apiece, [even 1686, 1.8 scudi for an anonymous copy 3 palmi high though] they are not more than a fourth [in size] of (67 cm) of the “Ecc.ma Sig.ra D. Agnese Chigi.”201 one said cupola. As for the . single pendentive by Further examples could be cited of payments to the the Cavalier Lanfranco, it is equivalent to a portion endless copyists ignored by Mancini, Baglione, and the of a cartoon of the cupola made by the petitioner; other early biographers, but the prevailing pattern of and because if one alleges that in size there is a dif- prices would not be altered, nor would the impression ference of some palmi, the petitioner states he has of a thriving market for copies that kept many Roman never experienced that paintings are bought and sold painters engaged. by the palmo and measurement. Undaunted by having contradicted himself on whether the size of a work should affect its value (the Big Business: Pietro da Cortona palmo in Rome was 22.35 cm), Cortona shifted focus and continued: It was probably in 1667 when Pietro Berretini da Cortona (1597–1669), Rome’s foremost painter, one of It further is said that [paintings] in oil are valued its chief architects, and a past principe of the Accademia more than those in fresco. As for this, one replies that and still a crucial figure in its affairs, felt compelled to the same study and labor one puts into a work in oil draw up a petition to the pope in an effort to collect one puts into a fresco. Others say that the spaces the remainder of his fee for work in St. Peter’s. As of between one figure and another are a weakness, that date he had received only 5,200 of 7,900 scudi due [which] shows a lack of understanding of painting for 32 cartoons he made for mosaics in the basilica. Pay- because sometimes those spaces are necessary for ments had stopped in 1662, but the artist did not know artistic reasons, as the petitioner has done, and not to if it was through “the advice of those who lack expe- save labor. Moreover, to provide a modern example rience with this kind of work and cannot judge it, or regarding prices, recently 3,600 scudi were paid to for some other reason,” he wrote, although he suspected the Cavalier Bernini for only two clay models of two that his fee was considered excessive and accordingly figures for the Cathedra [Petri], whose labor it seems he was determined to prove otherwise.202 His frank should not be compared with a single cupola, for petition to the pope is remarkably informative about a which no more than 3,200 scudi is claimed; more variety of artistic and economic issues that he and his was paid [to Cortona], 4,000 scudi, for the cupola of high-profile colleagues faced in Rome’s competitive art the Chiesa Nuova; [thus] the petitioner has made the world and that are central to the issues raised through- price 800 scudi less. Whence the petitioner, who out this book. does not ask for any gift, as is done by others, but 5 Pietro da Cortona (design by), A Priest Dispensing Ceremonial Bread, 1650s. Mosaic (executed by Orazio Manenti). Chapel of the Holy Addressing the Most Blessed Father, he wrote: only suitable payment for his labors, humbly entreats Sacrament, St. Peter’s, Rome. His Holiness . .203 Pietro Berretini, humblest servant of Your Lordship, having provided the bill for the cartoons for the As Cortona strove to refute the possible reasons for deserved as much; even so, he was willing “on his own that the new altarpieces in St. Peter’s could (though mosaics in the chapel of the Holy Sacrament [Fig. 5] which payments had been suspended, he sought to initiative” to give a 25 percent discount. Cortona was not always did) cost 1,000 scudi, but he disregarded and that of St. Sebastian in St. Peter’s, for which . cover himself on all fronts. Foremost was his con- correctly informed that a few decades earlier Lan- the fact that those exceptionally high payments were 2,700 scudi remain due . [considers] himself obli- tention that his pricing was fair in market terms: that franco, Sacchi, and Romanelli had received 200 scudi for enormous paintings and included pigment costs. gated to demonstrate to Your Lordship that similar important painters like himself, notably Lanfranco and for similar cartoons. He further maintained that his For the Death of Sapphira, for instance, Cristofano cartoons have always been paid at 200 scudi each, for Sacchi, and even his own student Romanelli, were paid price was fair in terms of labor expended as deter- Roncalli spent 111.5 scudi of his 800 scudi fee on instance to the Cavalier Lanfranco, to Andrea Sacchi a certain fee for comparable work and therefore he mined by size. Again he was generally right in arguing ultramarine.204 18 19 Thus, only part of the story really was told when expected to finish the job, himself was belittled by Cortona argued for equity by saying that he, Lanfranco, envious rivals as a painter of small Madonnas unfit for Sacchi, and Romanelli deserved to be paid the same. large commissions and as a procrastinator who “took Evidence is slight for estimating with accuracy any a long time without ever reaching the end of his of those painters’ annual production, though Sacchi’s labors.”305 Documents cited below back up the latter undoubtedly was the smallest. Thanks to data in claim. Guercino’s Libro dei conti, it appears that, in peak years Andrea Pozzo’s problem was out of the ordinary. (1637, 1648–50), the painter turned out between 15 and Accordingly to Pascoli, when the artist finished deco- 20 canvases.299 While Maratta gained a reputation for rating S. Ignazio in three years (1694), he feared that being “dilatory and irresolute in completing his works,” the work’s merits would be lessened if it became Bellori tried to refute the charge by asserting that “in known how quickly he had painted his grand project, the space of two years he made so much progress in which amounted to some 1,000 square meters of painting that he completed twenty-two pictures in a fresco. In an effort to forestall negative criticism, Pozzo short time, large and small.”300 would have liked to delay the unveiling by a couple of Speed of execution had another financial dimension: years.306 satisfying a buyer by delivering on time and gaining One more money matter relates to speed of execu- a reputation of being “available.” Giulio Rospigliosi’s tion: the debates over the superiority of colore versus letter of 1646 to his brother encapsulates this issue. He disegno, given that the former generally relied on recommended that his brother consider hiring Andrea swifter brushwork.307 If buyers in general would pay Camassei or some foreign painters such as Monsù more for disegno-based art (which is only a hypothe- Lomer (Lemaire), Monsù Mignard, Monsù Giusto (Juste sis since data are lacking), the knotty question is, de Pape) “because I expect they would provide much would that have been due to the greater labor seem- satisfaction and at a reasonable price. Sig.r Pietro da ingly expended or to aesthetic preference, assuming Cortona, Monsù Pusino and il Sig.r Andrea Sacco are that those are separable criteria? In a rare comment more famous, but I don’t know if they are in Rome on the issue, Pascoli said that the opposite was true, now and, anyway, I doubt that you could get a work that colore-based paintings sold for more due to their from their hands for many, many years.”301 Bellori, too, effortless attractiveness. Disegno-based work, on the was sensitive to this question, as his opening lines of other hand, “remains behind” because it is appreciated Lanfranco’s vita indicate: “A great advantage and very only by experts (Bellori had remarked in his lecture great profit does accrue to a person who accomplishes on the Idea that “the common people refer everything with ease what he undertakes, for there is someone we to the sense of sight. they appreciate beautiful have seen who, by deferring works through excessive colors, not beautiful forms”).308 Salvator Rosa thought ponderation, ended by having them remain on his the same, observing that prices for Tintoretto’s imper- hands unfinished, without any reward for his extensive fectly drawn portraits, like those by other north Ital- labors, and having allowed others to overtake him in ians, were higher than prices for portraits by Santi di profits and in esteem.