Giovanni Marigliano, known as Giovanni da Nola (Marigliano, Nola; documented from 1508 - died between 5 August 1551 and 25 April 1553)

Mars c. 1545

Marble 74 x 48 x 23 cm. (29 x 19 x 9 cm.)

Provenance:

Possibly Fernando Ramon de Cardona, 2nd Duke of Cardona (c. 1470 – 1543); Thence by descent

The bust, cut at the height of the chest and resting on a double voluted pedestal carved from the same block of white Carrara marble, depicts a warrior, probably an allegory of Ares, the Greek god of war, son of Zeus and Hera, and later known to the Romans as Mars (figs. 1-4). The striking and pronounced psychological introspection is that of someone who, prior to going into battle, focused, thoughtful and concentrated on a distant objective, contracts his chin and tightens his lips, allowing only for an instant a sense of unease to pass over his features.

The classicizing connotations of the work are immediately recognisable, evident in the Roman armour with a gorgon placed at the centre of the breastplate although almost entirely obscured by the paludamentum (military cloak) which, fastened by a rosette-shaped clasp, covers only the left upper arm, while on the opposite side is a shoulder strap consisting of leather pteryges; from the shoulder flaps hangs a knotted ribbon that joins to a ring at the level of the nipple and running under the arms can be seen a Greek motif alternated with rosettes.

The type of bust and the decorative characteristics of the cuirass strongly recall the Julius Caesar (h. 68.5 cm) in the Metropolitan Museum (fig. 5), New York, dated 1512-1514 and attributed to the Florentine sculptor and pupil of Andrea del Verrocchio, Andrea di Piero Ferrucci (c. 1465-1526; Naldi 2002, pp. 215-217), an artist who played a significant role in the origin and development of early Mannerist sculpture, working in Florence in the workshop of Santa Maria del Fiore, but also active for an extensive period in Naples.

While evidently influenced by the bust of Julius Caesar, Mars stands out for a form of expression that is more modern, a sharp definition of the flesh and a distinct pictorialism in the chiaroscuro rendering of the facial features, elements typical of the two principal sculptors working in Naples during the second quarter of the sixteenth century, Girolamo Santacroce and Giovanni da Nola, and which therefore suggest a later dating towards the second half of the sixteenth century.

In order better to appreciate the stylistic particularities of the bust, it is in fact necessary to turn to the lively and successful legacy of Andrea Ferrucci in Naples: in this context, Giovanni da Nola played a leading role in disseminating throughout his native city Florentine artistic vocabulary and that of Michelangelo (De Dominici 1742, ed. Naldi 2003; Weise 1977, passim; Abbate 1992; Amirante, Naldi 2007). Not only is the working of the large eyes, characterized by a deeply incised pupil and half-moon shaped iris, typical of works by the sculptor from Nola (figs. 6-7), but suggestive comparisons can be drawn above all with the works of his maturity and, in particular, with the magnificent monument in the Neapolitan church of San Giacomo degli Spagnoli, dedicated to the Spanish viceroy Pedro de Toledo and his wife Maria Osorio Pimentel (Loffredo 2015; Naldi 2016; fig. 8), where several figures that bear out the hypothesis of the attribution of Mars to Giovanni da Nola are to be found.

This hypothesis is reinforced by the statue of Prudence which, in addition to the dented and tightly folded metallic drapery at her feet, resembling that of the bust, appears closely related to it also in the fine hair, through which a soft breeze seems to caress the locks causing them to fall to the sides of the head, covering the ears almost entirely (figs. 9-10). Other useful comparisons are to be found in Temperance (fig. 13), in the praying figure of the viceroy's wife (fig. 12) and above all in Fortitude (fig. 11), characterized by a helmet similar in its inventiveness and eccentricity to that worn by Mars, the thick plumage and female figure resting on the crest enable parallels also to be drawn with the 'Trofeo' in the baths at Rocca Mondragone (now Capua, Museo Campano; fig. 14), attributed to Giovanni da Nola, assisted by Annibale Caccavello and datable to the early 1550s (Amirante, Naldi 2007, pp. 63- 70).

Da Nola's evident interest in the art of armour (fig. 15) was almost certainly reinforced by the arrival in Naples in 1541 of the magnificent statue of Minerva carved by Giovan Angelo Montorsoli for the Funerary Monument of Iacopo Sannazaro in Santa Maria del Parto in Mergellina (fig. 16), whose helmet in the form of a lion's head probably served as a model for that of Fortitude on the monument commemorating Pedro da Toledo, as well as for the helmet of Mars, with its fierce expressiveness, teeming with dragons and figures all'antica.

The relationship to Montorsoli's Minerva (c. 1540-1541) and close affinities with the monument in San Giacomo degli Spagnoli, datable to circa 1545, suggest a dating for this work towards the mid-1540s. At that time, Giovanni da Nola must have been particularly celebrated in the south of Italy as the sculptor of figures all'antica similar to the work discussed here; this is demonstrated by a passage in L'Altilia, a comedy set in Naples and written between 1541 and 1543 (but not printed in Mantua until 1550) by Anton Francesco Ranieri, a Milanese poet who travelled to Naples and established contacts with the Carracciolo: following a quip by Capitan Basilisco "E un certo che di fiero m'accompagna in tutti i gesti miei che mi fa terribile com'un dio Marte, n'è vero ?" [And a certain fierceness accompanies all my actions that makes

me as terrifying as the god Mars, it's true ?], Mosca replies "Che Marte! che voi avete un passo, un trapasso, un incontro dinnanzi, certe altre fierezze sì fatte che non sapria che si pescar Gian da Nola a ritrarvi dal naturale!" [Mars indeed! you have a way of walking, a majestic gait, a presence before you, certain other conceits so that even the great Gian da Nola would find himself in difficulty portraying you from life!] (Ranieri 1550, [Act 3, Scene 1] p. 24: Don Fastidio [B. Croce] 1896, p. 196).

It should also be remembered that the bust comes from the collection of the House of Cardona, direct descendant of the family that commissioned from Giovanni da Nola the Funerary Monument of Ramon de Cardona conserved at Bellpuig (Yeguas i Gassó 2009): it is true that this was executed between 1524 and 1528, more than a decade earlier than the date proposed for the present bust, but it cannot be excluded that the artist continued to maintain a relationship with the family after the completion of the monumental work in marble that had established Giovanni da Nola as one of the principal sculptors of his time and had paved the way for his fame throughout Europe, causing his name to resound in the most distant corners of the territories under Spanish rule.

Bibliography

F. Abbate, La scultura napoletana del Cinquecento, Rome 1992.

F. Amirante, R. Naldi, ‘Con Paolo Giovio al servizio di don Gonzalo II de Córdoba, duca di Sessa’, Giovanni da Nola, Annibale Caccavello, Giovan Domenico D’Auria. Sculture ’ritrovate’ tra Napoli e Terra di Lavoro, 1545 - 1565, ed. by R. Naldi, Naples 2007, pp. 61-94.

B. De Dominici, Vite de’ pittori, scultori ed architetti napoletani, 1742, ed. and commentary by F. Sricchia Santoro, A. Zezza, 4 vols., Naples 2003-2014, I-II [2003], Vita di Giovanni Merliano, volgarmente detto Giovanni da Nola, scultore ed architetto, ed. by R. Naldi, pp. 451-501.

Don Fastidio (pseudonym of B. Croce), ‘Ricordo di Giovanni da Nola in una commedia del Cinquecento’, Napoli Nobilissima, V/10, 1896, p. 160.

F. Loffredo, ‘Sulle origini e la sistemazione del monumento di Pedro de Toledo in San Giacomo degli Spagnoli a Napoli’, Bollettino d’arte, C, s. VII, 2015, 26, pp. 33-52.

R. Naldi, Andrea Ferrucci. Marmi gentili tra la Toscana e Napoli, Naples 2002.

R. Naldi, ‘Giovanni da Nola, Pedro de Toledo e il sepolcro di San Giacomo degli Spagnoli: qualche osservazione preliminare’, Rinascimento meridionale: Napoli e il viceré Pedro de Toledo (1532-1553), conference proceedings (Naples, 25-27 October 2014), ed. E. Sánchez García, Naples 2016, pp. 479-521.

A. F. Raineri, L’Altilia, comedia, Mantua 1550.

G. Weise, Studî sulla scultura napoletana del primo Cinquecento. Revisioni critiche, confronti ed attribuzioni, Naples 1977.

J. Yeguas i Gassó, El Mausoleu de Bellpuig. Història i art del Renaixement entre Nàpols i Catalunya, Bellpuig 2009.

Mars, Giovanni Magliano, known as Giovanni da Nola, Nicolás Cortés Gallery