Jerzy Miziołek ENAISSANCE WEDDINGS AND THE ANTIQUE: This book ith Robert Browning I could say: Rdiscusses some thirty Italian Renaissance domestic paint ings from the W‘Open my heart and you will see Viennese collection of Count Karol Lanckoroński (1848–1933), twen- Grav’d inside of it, Italy’ ty-six of which have belonged to the Wawel Royal Castle in Kraków since Antique the and Weddings Renaissance 1994. The majority depict mythological subjects and scenes from Greek Italian Domestic Paintings the from Lanckoroński Collection Karol Lanckoroński, and Roman history which once decorated the walls of nuptial chambers Around the World (1891)” (spalliere were large panels at shoulder level – spalle in Italian) or the fronts of painted wedding chests, usually referred to as cassoni or forzieri. The “This interpenetration of art and life also ap- ERZY MIZIOŁEK is professor of the classical domestic paintings Lanckoroński amassed in the last quarter of the nine- pears in the approach to paintings [on cassoni Jtradition in the visual arts at the University of teenth century reflect, in an exemplary way, the Renaissance fascination and spalliera panels]. Similarly to the depiction Warsaw (Institute of Archaeology). He studied art with ancient literature, uomini illustri, archaeology, and the classical tra- of costumes of Biblical figures or of the legends history and classical archaeology at the Jagiellonian dition. Like other amateur archaeologists and lovers of classical art, of saints on the small predella paintings below University, Kraków, and Christian archaeology at Lanckoroński had a great affinity with the paintings created for domestic altarpieces, the artists portray the life of the the Pontificio Istituto di Archeologia Cristiana, settings by Italian artists active in the fifteenth and first half of the six- world around them in a naïve, familiar man- Rome. He was awarded a doctorate in 1987, and a teenth centuries. These artists included, among others: Apollonio di Gio- ner. On chests and cassoni, we encounter the postdoctoral degree (habilitation) in 1996. He has vanni, Biagio d’Antonio, Jacopo del Sellaio, Sandro Botticelli, Alvise Do- same rendition of contemporary life, but usual- held a Saxl Fund fellowship from the Warburg Insti- nati, Giovanni di Buonconsiglio and Antonio Palma. Moreover, this ly in the guise of scenes from antiquity, proba- tute (1989), a J. Paul Getty postdoctoral fellowship book also offers a new insight into the mystery of Botticelli’s Primavera bly based on contemporary poetry steeped in in the History of Art and Humanities (1991), a Mel- and is an explorative study into the subject matter of the paintings in the the spirit of the antique, like the Triumphs of lon fellowship at Villa I Tatti (Harvard University context of weddings, although their stylistic analysis and authorship are Petrarch. Since cassoni served secular purposes, Center for Italian Renaissance Studies, 1994/1995), also discussed. we rarely find religious subjects on them, except a Paul Mellon fellowship at the Center for Advanced he book is divided into two parts, the first comprises two for occasional recurring scenes from the Old Study in the Visual Arts at the National Gallery of Tchapters dealing with Karol Lanckoroński and the fate of Jerzy Miziołek Testament. Just as in the stories of saints in Art, Washington (1996, 1997, 1998, and 2001) as his collection, as well as wedding rituals in Renaissance Italy paintings for churches, the deeds of ancient he- well as a Getty Research Institute fellowship (2006). and the history of domestic painting. The second part, consist- roes are not presented to us as solemnly alien or Since 1992 he has taught courses in Italian Renais- ing of eight chapters, discusses the cassone panels and paintings remote from life. For the artists of those times sance art, and also the classical tradition in the visual deriving from day beds—lettucci—and panelling of the walls— RENAISSANCE WEDDINGS in Florence or Ferrara, Orpheus and Odysseus arts in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. He spalliere. The book also contains Appendices which include ob- belonged to the world around them, just as in is the author of nearly 200 papers and reviews pub- servations on the conservation of most of the works discussed in his famous frescos in Santa Maria Novella, lished in periodicals such as: the Journal of the War- this book, as well as a complete English translation of Lancko- AND THE ANTIQUE Ghirlandaio placed the prominent ladies of burg Institute, Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Inti- roński’s Einiges über italienische bemalte Truhen [Some remarks Florence in 1490, dressed in the latest fashion, tutes in Florenz, Prospettiva, Renaissance Studies, I on Italian painted chests, 1905] which, until now, has remained when they come to congratulate St. Anne on Tatti Studies, Fontes, Iconographica, Pegasus, Arte little known and has never been properly studied. This transla- the birth of the Virgin Mary”. Cristiana and Arte Lombarda. He has published tion, from the German, was made especially for this publication. Italian Domestic Paintings twelve books, including: Sol verus: Studies in the Ico- arco Antonio Altieri’s Li Nuptiali, written in Rome short- From: Count Karol Lanckoroński’s, Some Re- nography of Christ in the Art of the First Christian Mly after 1500—being a description of aristocratic Roman from the Lanckoroński Collection marks on Italian Painted Chests/Cassoni (1905) Millennium (1991); Soggetti classici sui cassoni fioren- weddings—provides a valuable glimpse of wedding customs tini alla vigilia del Rinascimento (1996); Chopin and references to Antiquity. He argues, among other things, among Artists and Scholars (2010); The Villa of Pliny that when the groom takes the bride he does so in memory of the Younger in an Eighteenth Century Vision (2016); the Rape of the Sabine Women. “For in every smallest act—he Nel segno di “Quo vadis?”. Roma ai tempi di Nerone e writes—that can be observed in these weddings, the Rape of the dei primi martiri nelle opere di Sienkiewicz, Siemir- Sabine Women returns to memory.” Throughout this book there adzki, Styka e Smuglewicz (2017). He also edited are links to be found between ancient tales, the humanistic Falsifications in Polish Collections and Abroad (2001), movement, Renaissance weddings and the visual arts. and Chopin e l’Italia (2015). «L`ER M A » «L`ERMA» di BRETSCHNEIDER Renaissance Weddings and the Antique Italian Domestic Paintings from the Lanckoroński Collection JERZY MIZIOŁEK Renaissance Weddings and the Antique Italian Domestic Paintings from the Lanckoroński Collection «L´ERMA» di BRETSCHNEIDER Jerzy Miziołek Renaissance Weddings and the Antique Italian Domestic Paintings from the Lanckoroński Collection ISBN 978-88-913-0850-4 Project: NPRH 31H 12 0060 81 © Copyright Jerzy Miziołek © Copyright 2018 «L´Erma» di Bretschneider Via Cassiodoro, 11 – 00193 Roma http://www.lerma.it Design and production «L´Erma» di Bretschneider Book design and typesetting: Dario Scianetti, Łukasz Kamiński and Maciej Tarkowski All right reserved No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form without prior permission in writing from the publisher. Jacket/cover illustration: Apollonio di Giovanni, e Adventures of Ulysses, c. 1450 (detail of Fig. 125) Frontispiece: Apollonio di Giovanni, e Adventures of Ulysses, cassone front, tempera on panel (detail of Fig. 124), Wawel Royal Castle, Kraków. CONTENTS Foreword by Antonio Paolucci 7 Introduction and Acknowledgements 9 Part I: e Collector and the Artistic Genre 1. Karol Lanckoroński and his art collection 19 2. Renaissance weddings and the visual arts 59 Part II: e Power of Narrative. Paintings from Domestic Settings and their Meaning 3. e Garden of Love, the gaze of Narcissus and the Story of Pyramus and isbe 97 4. e Awakening of Paris and the Beauty of Helen 117 5. Ulysses, Penelope and the Charm of the Sirens’ Song 153 6. Psyche, Cupid and Botticelli’s Primavera 189 7. Orpheus and Eurydice, or, the Power of Music and Everlasting Love 223 8. Battles and Triumphs: the Romans and the Gauls, Scipio Africanus and the Invincible Perseus 267 9. Shooting at Father’s Corpse and other exempla iustitiae 305 10. Sages Crowned...and Derided, or, the Stories of Aristotle and Virgil 339 Conclusion 377 Appendices: 1. Karol Lanckoroński, Some remarks on Italian painted chests 387 2. Ewa Wiłkojć, e Lanckoroński cassone and spalliera paintings – conservation notes 401 Bibliography 419 Index I 473 Index II 492 Photo credits 496 FOREWORD Jerzy Miziołek has been a constant presence in my working life. I knew him in Florence when I was Soprintendente of the Musei Fiorentini and he was still a young scholar but one already of international stature. It was not dicult for me to befriend him because his exuberant vein of Polish conviviality was conta gious View of Rome, detail of Fig. 234. and irresistible. I remember Professor Miziołek’s perlustration of the Florentine museums (the Bargello, the Palazzo Davanzati, the Bardini), search- ing out every remote corner with inexhaustible passion. I remember him at I Tatti di Settignano, in Berenson’s photograph library, and in the Kunsthistorisches Institut in the via Giusti in Florence. Many times and often, in those semi-legendary spaces dedicated to the history of art, we were accompanied, he and I, by very dear friends who are now departed—Luciano Bellosi, Miklós Boskovits—whom it gives me such pleasure to remember with heartfelt aection. Jerzy Miziołek loved Italy as only Slavs can love it, with total devotion. But within all Italian culture he was fascinated above all by Florence and by that particular moment or aspect of the Renaissance that would once have been called “Pre-Raphaelite”. In the Vatican in Rome, where it was my fortune to have been called, most recently, to administer the collections of the Holy See, I once again found Jerzy.