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A Rare Document on Giorgione MA.JUN.SEGRE.pg.proof.corrs:Layout 1 16/05/2011 12:25 Page 383 A rare document on Giorgione by RENATA SEGRE ON 25TH OCTOBER 1510, Isabella d’Este, wife of Francesco II on the interior of the casa Marta in his natal Castelfranco to some Gonzaga, marchese of Mantua, had already heard that ‘Zorzo da of the characters in his paintings.4 Castelfrancho’ was dead and wrote to her agent Taddeo Albano A newly discovered document in the Archivio di Stato di in Venice asking if he could obtain a picture of a night scene Venezia (see Appendix below) does not help to solve questions (‘nocte’), which she very much wished to install in her studiolo. as to his artistic activity but provides some other facts: his sur - Albano replied on 8th November, confirming that the artist had name and his father’s name and some details of his family in died of plague some days ago (‘più dì’), but that the painting Castelfranco and its social status. Moreover it provides a picture Isabella wanted could not be found among his possessions of his economic circumstances and domestic life that can be read (‘non essere in dicta eredità tal pictura’).1 While the exact date of through the everyday objects in his house in Venice. It is an Giorgione’s death is not known, it can be placed in the autumn inventory of Giorgione’s goods that were found in Venice after of 1510 (between September and the beginning of October) on his death, a legal document compiled by order of a judge of the the basis of contemporary documents,2 during one of the first Venetian magistrature (named Giudice del proprio),5 at the re quest terrible outbreaks of plague that hit Venice in the course of the of an heir of Giorgione’s. In the document the painter is named sixteenth century. Yet, if we can fix his date of death with some Georgio, not Zorzi, its Venetian variant, which is found in certainty, it would be extremely risky to pinpoint his date of contemporary Venetian documents, and not Giorgione, the birth. We know that he was probably born in the mid-1470s, name under which he has become famous after his death6 and given that Vasari claimed that he died aged thirty-four.3 But it is which I shall use here for convenience. precisely such uncertainty and his tragic death from plague at an We can start with the information that the inventory does not early age, as well as the marvel of his painting, that have created provide: we do not know where the house was or how it was laid a sense of mystery around Giorgione and fed the myth of an out and there is no indication of who lived there other than the enigmatic and indecipherable character. There is an equal fasci- painter. After Giorgione’s admission into the Lazzaretto nuovo nation in some of his most famous works, from the Three philoso- (the island in the Venetian lagoon used to quarantine those in phers to The tempest, and controversy continues to surround contact with plague victims) where he later died, nothing should them. Near contemporary accounts of his life have also con- have been removed from his house: laws decreed that the tributed to the legend, most notably Vasari’s, who described him houses of plague victims should be sealed, but we know that the as a frequenter of the beau monde, who delighted in musical fear of contagion was not enough to prevent them from being companions and beautiful women and claimed that it was from ransacked. The suggestion that some objects had been removed his involvement with a ‘madonna’ (or prostitute) that he caught is strengthened not only because there are no works of art or the illness that killed him. Further complicating matters are the artists’ materials in the inventory, but also because of the Man- supposed connections with the Jewish milieu that certain art tuan agent’s reply to Isabella d’Este that there was no work by historians have read into some of his works, from the decoration Giorgione for sale, that the friends and patrons of the artist were I would like to thank Sylvia Ferino who encouraged me to publish this document in Dal Pozzolo and Puppi, op. cit., pp.63–67. and introduced me to THE BURLINGTON MAGAZINE. All the documents cited are in 3 In fact Vasari did not provide his precise date of birth, only that of his death (and the Archivio di Stato di Venezia, except for those in the Sezione di Archivio di Stato even that may not be very precise); see G. Vasari: Le vite de’ più eccellenti architetti, di Bassano del Grappa (hereafter cited as SASB) and the Biblioteca comunale at pittori, et scultori italiani, da Cimabue, insino a’ tempi nostri, ed. L. Bellosi and A. Rossi, Castelfranco Veneto. The abbreviations in the quotations and in the Appendix have Turin 1991, II, p.557. been spelt out. 4 See R. Segre: ‘Ebrei a Montagnana e Castelfranco negli anni di Giorgione’, in Dal 1 A. Luzio: ‘Isabella d’Este e due quadri di Giorgione’, Archivio storico dell’arte 1 Pozzolo 2004, op. cit. (note 2), pp.91–106, and the subsequent debate. (1888), p.47. 5 This magistrature originally had a far larger area of jurisdiction, but was progres - 2 The recent quincentenary of Giorgione’s death gave rise to some important sively reduced to a few sections, including landed property (construction, restoration new publications. These include E.M. Dal Pozzolo and L. Puppi, eds.: exh. cat. and boundaries) and dowries (the restitution of dowries to widows or to their heirs Giorgione, Castelfranco (Museo Casa Giorgione) 2009–10; and E.M. Dal Pozzolo: after the ending of a marriage, or by ab intestato, or in the case of there being no will). Giorgione, Milan 2009. Two other recent publications are worthy of note: G. Nepi ‘Archivio di Stato di Venezia’, abstract of vol.IV of the Guida Generale degli Archivi di Sciré and S. Rossi, eds.: exh. cat. Giorgione. ‘Le maraviglie dell’arte’, Venice (Gallerie Stato Italiani, Rome 1994, p.988. In this case the jurisdiction is due to Alessandra’s dell’Accademia) 2003; and E.M. Dal Pozzolo, ed.: Giorgione a Montagnana, Atti del dowry claims on Giorgione’s inheritance. Convegno (Montagnana 2003), Padua 2004. However, it was the first two publications 6 He appears with the name of Zorzi (‘maistro Zorzi da Chastelfrancho depentor’) in that helped me in this work in a field that, for an historian, seems like a minefield. the rare documents already published relative to the years 1506–08 which record his Most of the relevant documents on Giorgione in Castelfranco may be found in activity in Venice; the same name appears in Isabella d’Este’s letter (see note 1 above) the work of two scholars, Giovanni Chiuppani and Giacinto Cecchetto; see and in Marcantonio Michiel’s Notizia d’opere di disegno; see Dal Pozzolo 2009, op. cit. G. Chiuppani: ‘Per la biografia di Giorgione da Castelfranco’, Bollettino del Museo (note 2), pp.32–38. Other instances of his being called Zorzo or Zorzi da Castelfranco Civico di Bassano 6 (1909), pp.73–81; and G. Cecchetto: ‘Castelfranco tra la fine del are given in G. Gronau: ‘Zorzon da Castelfranco: la sua origine, la sua morte e XV secolo e i primi decenni del XVI: “mappe urbane” e i paesaggi del contado’, tomba’, Nuovo Archivio veneto 6, VII, pt.I (1894), pp.450–51. the burlington magazine • cliii • june 2011 383 MA.JUN.SEGRE.pg.proof.corrs:Layout 1 16/05/2011 12:25 Page 384 A RARE DOCUMENT ON GIORGIONE not willing to part with the works they already owned and that the forty days of the quarantine were over and they were in any case there was none in his ‘eredità’.7 It almost seems from declared healthy (‘neti et sani’), they would be allowed to return the letter that a distinction is being made between the belongings to their normal life and take possession of their property once that his heirs would eventually inherit (which were of no interest) more. In consequence, unlike those who were known to have and his true – artistic – inheritance which may have been kept the plague (housed in the ‘hospedali de li amalati’ at the Lazzaretto elsewhere, perhaps in his studio, which, according to some, was vecchio), their possessions were not automatically burned,10 but at S. Silvestro.8 disinfected and stored.11 Unlike other similar deeds, often drawn up by a notary, this is Taken as a whole, Giorgione’s belongings were not of great not a proper inventory in which the objects would be described worth: they were valued at eighty-nine ducats in total, of which room by room, but a list of household goods belonging to the twelve were down for the fur-lined gown, not included in dead painter: one gets the impression that this is a household the first inventory. This would suggest that the inventory is in considerable disorder, with items not properly stored, but incomplete. With his belongings valued at less than ninety muddled up with pieces of furniture: beds, benches, a table, a ducats, Giorgione’s life in Venice could not have been easy. For few domestic objects and kitchen equipment. The small amount comparison, Giovanni Bellini was paid fifty ducats for a portrait, of clothing was in a bad state, mostly in drab and dark colours; one of his assistants would earn between two and four ducats a and the mention of a few shirts (‘camise’) and a woman’s satin month, while a collaborator of the stature of Carpaccio received dress are not enough to prove that a woman was living in the five ducats.12 Giorgione himself, for frescoing the façade of the house, still less a family.
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