IL COLLEZIONISMO POETICO: CARDINAL PIETRO BEMBO AND THE FORMATION OF COLLECTING PRACTICES IN VENICE AND ROME IN THE EARLY SIXTEENTH CENTURY A Dissertation Submitted to the Temple University Graduate Board In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY By Susan Nalezyty January, 2011 Examining Committee Members: Tracy E. Cooper, Advisory Chair, Department of Art History Marcia B. Hall, Department of Art History Elizabeth Bolman, Department of Art History Peter Lukehart, External Member, CASVA, National Gallery of Art i © by Susan Nalezyty 2010 All Rights Reserved ii ABSTRACT Il collezionismo poetico: Cardinal Pietro Bembo and the Formation of Collecting Practices in Venice and Rome in the Early Sixteenth Century Candidate’s Name: Susan Nalezyty Degree: Doctor of Philosophy Temple University, 2011 Doctoral Advisor: Tracy E. Cooper Cardinal Pietro Bembo’s accomplishments as a poet, linguist, philologist, and historian are well known, but his activities as an art collector have been comparatively little studied. In his writing, he directed his attention to the past via texts—Ciceronean Latin and Petrarchan Italian—for their potential to transform present and future ideas. His assembly of antiquities and contemporary art served an intermediary function parallel to his study of texts. In this dissertation I investigate Bembo as an agent of cultural exchange by offering a reconstruction of his art collection and, in so doing, access his thinking in a way not yet accomplished in previous work on this writer. Chapter One offers a historiographic overview of my topic and collecting as a subject of art historical study. Chapter Two maps the competition and overlapping interests of collectors who bought from Bembo’s heirs. Chapter Three calls upon anthropological methodology for treating the study of material culture and applies it to Bembo’s mission as a collector. Chapter Four concludes with a statistical analysis of subjects and object types to which Bembo was drawn. In the extensive Catalog individual works are examined in conjunction with one another and considered for what they reveal about Bembo’s theoretical strategy. Appendix A is a timeline outlining Bembo’s life. Appendix B is a chronologically ordered selection of accounts describing Bembo as a collector and descriptions of his collection and his properties. Appendix C is a Bembo family tree. Appendix D presents by location known repositories for traced objects that can be connected to Bembo’s collection. The recovery of Pietro Bembo as a collector illustrates that his wide-ranging ambitions were iii intertwined. His museum was not a place fixed in geography but, rather, a dynamic mechanism for transmitting the analytic power and poetic potential he located in the visual. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Foremost, I must thank my advisor, Tracy Cooper, for her unwavering support during the long life of this project. It was she who assigned Bembo to me in her graduate seminar on Michiel. I am in debt to her for scholarly, professional, and practical advice, encouraging me at every step as my modest paper metamorphosized into this dissertation. I am grateful to Marcia Hall for her calm guidance and her sound professional advice. Elizabeth Bolman’s willingness to take the time to read the drafts and grant proposals improved the outcome of my efforts in every case. Peter Lukehart’s inclusion of me on his team for his research database on the Accademia di San Luca gave me the opportunity to interact in the dynamic environment at CASVA. It was a pleasure to learn from his great experience in archival work and to benefit from his professional advice. I would be remiss if I did not thank Mary Garrard, my advisor for my master’s degree. Her good counsel is the foundation for this and for any project I embark on throughout my career. On the way I have imposed on a good many people who deserve recognition and thanks. Sarah McHam offered comments and suggestions that positively shaped my proposal, the basis for the larger project, and her kind encouragement always fueled me to continue, even when it seemed that I could not. Monika Schmitter generously shared her personal notes from her study of the manuscript of Michiel’s Notizia. I thank her for her openness to answer any question and willingness to suggest ways of presenting and focusing my cross-disciplinary methodology. My approach to the cultural significance of art and material remains throughout this dissertation is highly indebted to Patricia Fortini Brown’s excellent work on this subject, and her positive words encouraged me to approach Bembo in this way. My delightful exchanges with Stefano Gulizia urged me to consider literary theoretical approaches that incorporate the study of material remains, a highly relevant methodology for my reconstruction of a poet and linguist’s art collection. Lisa Kahn’s specialist’s knowledge helped me access the problems inherent to the identification of subjects and portrait identities of ancient Roman sculpture. Early in the v project, Dora Thornton’s suggestions validated my inclusion of material culture items within the project, and her work on Early Modern studioli is in the background of my work on Bembo’s museum. Research was funded early on by the Temple University Fellowship in Rome in 2005. A Grant for Independent Research in Venetian History and Culture from The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation allowed me time to search archives and libraries in Venice and visit relevant sites in Padua. A Kress Travel Grant gave me the opportunity to present my findings at the Renaissance Society of America’s annual meeting in Venice, 2010. Finally, a Dissertation Completion Grant from the Temple Graduate School saw that I was well supported at the conclusion of this project. Other museum specialists have donated their time to help establish provenance on objects in their collections. Miguel Falomir at the Prado brought to my attention a largely unknown copy of a Titian portrait of Bembo. He also generously shared his time to discuss other aspects of my project and imparted valuable insights and bibliographic suggestions. Alison Luchs’s enduring curiosity about the descriptions of sculptures that I shared with her dramatically shaped a number of my object essays and attuned my approach by contextualizing evidence from inventories. Alfred Bernhard-Walcher at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna generously gave his time sorting through lists of objects in hopes of identifying works, resulting in one that we both agree was likely owned by Bembo. Susan Walker, at the Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology in Oxford, promptly responded to my inquiries about a sculpture under her care. I would like to thank Celia Curnow, who gave me access to the beta version of the on-line research database the Virtual Hamilton Palace Inventories Project, which supplemented my understanding of key unpublished documents. Finally, I would like to thank my daughter, Lila, for her curiosity and love of travel, and my son, Danny, for his health, his energy, and his hugs and kisses. Thank you both for sharing your mommy with that dead guy, Bembo. vi DEDICATION For Don, My dear husband, best friend, travel agent, and tech support … for your unfailing optimism, humor, and patience on the way. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ...................................................................................................................... III ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ......................................................................................................V DEDICATION................................................................................................................. VII LIST OF FIGURES ............................................................................................................. X LIST OF PLATES ............................................................................................................ XIV LIST OF TABLES ........................................................................................................... XVII CATALOG OF OBJECTS ............................................................................................... XVIII CHAPTER ONE: LINGUISTIC SKILL AND THE POWERS OF OBSERVATION ......................... 1 Bembo’s Biography ................................................................................................... 3 Properties .................................................................................................................. 4 Books ........................................................................................................................ 5 Art Collection ........................................................................................................... 6 Methodology ............................................................................................................ 7 CHAPTER TWO: THE COLLECTION’S DISPERSAL AND ITS BUYERS ................................. 10 Marcantonio Michiel’s Notizia d’opere del disegno .................................................. 11 Vincenzo I Gonzaga ................................................................................................. 16 Bartolomeo della Nave ............................................................................................. 19 James Hamilton, 1st Duke of Hamilton ..................................................................... 22 Archduke Leopold William .....................................................................................