View metadata, citation and similarbroughtCORE papers to you at by core.ac.uk provided by Online Repository of Birkbeck Institutional Theses LOCATING El GRECO IN LATE SIXTEENTH‐CENTURY ROME: ART and LEARNING, RIVALRY and PATRONAGE Ioanna Goniotaki Department of History of Art, School of Arts Birkbeck College, University of London Submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, July 2017 -1- Signed declaration I declare that the work presented in the thesis is my own Ioanna Goniotaki -2- ABSTRACT Much has been written about the artistic output of Domenicos Theotocopoulos during his time in Spain, but few scholars have examined his works in Venice and even fewer have looked at the years he spent in Rome. This may be in part attributed to the lack of firm documentary evidence regarding his activities there and to the small corpus of works that survive from his Italian period, many of which are furthermore controversial. The present study focuses on Domenicos’ Roman years and questions the traditional notion that he was a spiritual painter who served the principles of the Counter Reformation. To support such a view I have looked critically at the Counter Reformation, which I consider more as an amalgam of diverse and competitive institutions and less as an austere movement that strangled the freedom of artistic expression. I contend, moreover, that Domenicos’ acquaintance with Cardinal Alessandro Farnese’s librarian, Fulvio Orsini, was seminal for the artist, not only because it brought him into closer contact with Rome’s most refined circles, but principally because it helped Domenicos to assume the persona of ‘pictor doctus’, the learned artist, following the example of another of Fulvio’s friends, Pirro Ligorio. The elitist art that resulted from Domenicos’ collaboration with Orsini, represented, for example, in his paintings of Boy Lighting a Candle and the Healing of the Blind, was partly responsible for the Greek painter’s failure to engage the interest of Cardinal Farnese, in whose palace he stayed for two years, 1570- 1572. But Domenicos was determined to establish a career in Rome, as his registration in the painters’ guild, the Accademia di San Luca, in September of 1572, confirms. Although he ultimately failed in this respect, the time he spent in the city was decisive for his understanding of both ancient and modern art, and played a fundamental role in his later artistic development in Spain. -3- ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Many debts were incurred during the research and the writing of this thesis. I am grateful to my parents and my sister, Eleni, for their support, and particularly to Dr Dorigen Caldwell for her help and advice, as well as for the productive discussions we had. I would also like to thank the staff of libraries such as the Warburg Institute and the Bibliotheca Hertziana, as well as the staff of institutes I visited while doing this research in Rome, such as the American Academy, for their assistance. And, of course, I owe deep love and gratitude to my husband, Zach, for his continuing assistance and unwavering support during all these long years. This thesis would not have been completed without him. -4- In memory of my dear husband Zach -5- TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract ............................................................................................................................................ 3 Acknowledgements .......................................................................................................................... 4 List of Illustrations ........................................................................................................................... 7 Introduction ...................................................................................................................................... 11 1. Domenicos and His World: Humanism and Reform in Late Renaissance Rome ......................... 21 2. Titian, Tintoretto and Palladio: El Greco Between Venice and Rome ......................................... 49 3. Giulio Clovio’s Letter of Recommendation ................................................................................. 61 4. The Artistic Milieu of Rome: Friendships, Rivalries and Theoretical Positions .......................... 72 5. Fulvio Orsini, Domenicos and The Ideal of ‘Doctus Pictore’ ...................................................... 96 6. Palazzo Farnese and Beyond ........................................................................................................ 127 7. Domenicos as an Independent Master .......................................................................................... 158 8. Patrons and Paintings: Domenicos’ Work After 1572 .................................................................. 180 9. Looking to Spain: Domenicos’ Later Acquaintances in Rome ..................................................... 198 Conclusions ...................................................................................................................................... 207 Bibliography ..................................................................................................................................... 212 Illustrations ....................................................................................................................................... 244 -6- LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 1. Domenicos Theotocopoulos, The Day, drawing, black chalk heightened with white chalk on blue paper, Staatliche Graphische Sammlung, Munich. 2. Jacopo Tintoretto, Study after a statuette of Michelangelo’s Day, drawing, black chalk heightened with white lead on blue paper, Christ Church Library, Oxford. 3. Domenicos Theotocopoulos, Christ Healing of the Blind, oil on panel, Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, Dresden. 4. Domenicos Theotocopoulos, Christ Healing of the Blind, oil on canvas, The Wrightsman Collection, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. 5. Sebastiano Serlio, ‘La Scena Tragica’, woodcut from Il secondo libro dell’ architettura, Paris, 1545, fol. 69. 6. Jacopo Tintoretto, The Washing of Feet, oil on canvas, Museo del Prado, Madrid. 7. Domenicos Theotocopoulos, Purification of the Temple, oil on panel, Samuel H. Kress Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington. 8. Domenicos Theotocopoulos, High altar of the Church of Santo Domingo el Antiguo, Toledo. 9. Domenicos Theotocopoulos, Portrait of Giulio Clovio, oil on canvas, Museo Nazionale di Capodimonte, Naples. 10. Domenicos Theotocopoulos, The Purification of the Temple, oil on canvas, The Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minnesota. 11. Domenicos Theotocopoulos, The Purification of the Temple, detail. 12. Domenicos Theotocopoulos, The View of Mount Sinai, tempera and oil on panel, Historical Museum of Crete, Iraklion. 13. Domenicos Theotocopoulos, Healing of the Blind, oil on canvas, Galleria Nazionale, Parma. 14. Domenicos Theotocopoulos, Boy Lighting a Candle, oil on canvas, Museo Nazionale di Capodimonte, Naples. 15. Francesco Bassano, Boy Blowing on a Firebrand, oil on canvas, formerly Collection of Victor Spark, New York. 16. Federico Zuccaro, The Calumny of Apelles, fresco, Palazzo Caetani, Rome. 17. Federico Zuccaro, The Calumny of Apelles, drawing, pen and brown ink and wash on paper, Kunsthalle, Hamburg. 18. Domenicos Theotocopoulos, Fabula, oil on canvas, Museo del Prado, Madrid. 19. Domenicos Theotocopoulos, Portrait of Cardinal Charles de Guise, Cardinal of Lorraine, oil on canvas, Kunsthaus, Zurich. -7- 20. Domenicos Theotocopoulos, The Adoration of the Shepherds, tempera on panel, J.F. Willumsens Museum, Frederickssund. 21. Taddeo Zuccaro, The Adoration of the Shepherds, drawing, pen and brown wash, heightened with white, The Devonshire Collections, Chatsworth. 22. Taddeo Zuccaro, The Raising of Eutychus, fresco, Frangipani chapel, Church of S. Marcello al Corso, Rome. 23. Taddeo Zuccaro, The Raising of Eutychus, drawing, pen and brown wash, heightened with white, on blue paper, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. 24. Marcantonio Raimondi after Michelangelo, The Climbers, engraving, Trustees of the British Museum, London. 25. Domenicos Theotocopoulos, The Agony in the Garden, oil on canvas, The Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, Ohio. 26. Domenicos Theotocopoulos, The Agony in the Garden, oil on canvas, Diocesan Museum, Cuenca. 27. Taddeo Zuccaro, The Agony in the Garden, oil on panel, Strossmayer Gallery, Zagreb. 28. Taddeo Zuccaro, The Agony in the Garden, fresco, Mattei Chapel, S. Maria della Consolazione, Rome. 29. Federico Zuccaro, Annunciation, oil on panel, Reliquary altar, Monastery of El Escorial, El Escorial. 30. Domenicos Theotocopoulos, Annunciation, oil on canvas, Museum del Prado, on loan to Museum Balaguer, Villanueva y la Geltrú. 31. Federico Zuccaro after Albrecht Dürer, The Holy Trinity and Four Angels, drawing, pen and ink with brown wash, heightened with white on faded blue paper, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. 32. Federico Zuccaro, Dead Christ Supported by Angels, drawing, red chalk, Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven. 33. Federico Zuccaro, Dead Christ with Angels, fresco, Villa Farnese, Caprarola. 34. Domenicos Theotocopoulos, Trinity, oil on canvas, Museo del Prado, Madrid. 35. Federico Zuccaro, God the Father Supporting the Dead Christ, fresco, Pucci-Cauco chapel, Church of Trinità dei Monti, Rome. 36. Domenicos Theotocopoulos, The Assumption of the Virgin, oil on canvas, The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago. 37. Federico Zuccaro, The Assumption of the Virgin, fresco, Pucci-Cauco chapel,