ENGLISH VERSION Annamaria Ambrosini Massari (edited by). 'Learned friends'. Amico Ricci and the Birth oh Art History in the Marche. Part Two

Translation by Francesco Mazzaferro
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‘Dotti amici’. Amico Ricci 

e la nascita della storia dell’arte nelle Marche

A cura di 
Annamaria Ambrosini Massari

Part Two
(go back to Part One)

Marco Benefial, Study for a Nude,  Alessandro Maggiori's collection
Source: http://www.farsettiarte.it/it/asta-0167-1/marco-benefial-studio-per-nudo-riverso.asp?pag=48

Annamaria Ambrosini Massari

A discovery in the Ricci Fund of Macerata:

manuscripts and drawings by Alessandro Maggiori

[7] Until now, we knew of Alessandro Maggiori (1764-1834) especially the versatile printed output, which encompasses: the Guide of Ancona (1821) and the Guide of Loreto (1824), an annotated edition of the Rhymes of Michelangelo (1817), an essay on the work by Sebastiano Serlio (1824), a work on the cultivation of maize (1833) and the Itinerario d’Italia e sue più notabili curiosità (Itinerary of Italy and its most notable curiosities) (1833), which is probably his best-known work. All with an important caveat: the first publication (in chronological order) dates back to 1817, when the Fermo-born count was already 51 years old. On what had happened earlier, it is almost completely dark. The only sources consisted of (1) the biographical sketch that Amico Ricci, united by a deep friendship with him, dedicated to him in the Volume LXVIII (July-August-September 1836) of the Giornale arcadico (Arcadian Journal) and displayed here in the Appendix C  and of (2) the nucleus of letters which Maggiori sent to his father between 1781 and 1809, i.e. at his arrival in Bologna (which, like for many people born in the Marche at that time, turned to be his second home) for study, until the final return home (p. 4). These materials are now enriched by two different types of documents, which have been located through the systematic examination of the Ricci Fund at the Library Mozzi-Borgetti of Macerata: first, the letters sent by Maggiori to Ricci (they are 163, included in the period between 1828 and 1834, the year of death of the Fermo-born scholar – see pp. 202-257) and stored in the Epistulary; this is the testimony of a fruitful relationship for the exchange of scholarly information, designed especially for the preparation of the Memoirs by Ricci (the Memoirs were published just in 1834, the year of the death of Maggiori and were dedicated to him); Ricci addresses Maggiori like a disciple does towards his teacher, asking him constantly not only information but also opinions, reports and corrections to his own writings. It is the case for instance of the Viaggio per i vari paesi della nostra montagna eseguito nel settembre 1828 (Journey to the countries of our mountain, run in September 1828). Of by far more importance, however, is the corpus of manuscripts by hand of Maggiori, until now attributed to Amico Ricci and again returned to the original authorship due to the systematic examination conducted by Annamaria  Ambrosini Massari. Manuscripts and drawings appear listed in Appendix B (pp. 76-82). We now know that to gather the manuscripts and drawings was Amico Ricci himself, who agreed it with the brothers of the deceased after the death of Alessandro (p. 26). "The voluminous fund in Macerata has ... thus ... many ... autographs by Maggiori, which can be assigned to a period of time ranging from 1790 to 1816 or so. They are notes, bibliographic extracts, guides of many cities in the Marche, travel notes in different places, especially notebooks relating to Lazio and Umbria, drafts of treatises, lives of artists, attempts of polemical essays on historical and artistic themes, structured as dialogue, like usual in the Enlightenment time: in short, a veritable mine of material, extraordinarily accompanied by around one hundred drawings of the same Maggiori, mostly related to manuscripts, art works seen during travels, art works on which he studied and practiced, in those years of the great illusions, when he aspired to become a great painter" (p. 20). All of this material was reorganized and enriched by titles, sometimes used in other manuscripts by Ricci, who benefited from it for his studies (especially for the draft of a second edition of the Memoirs): "The relationship of Ricci with the papers by Maggiori is, therefore, very clear and vital, a dialogue that will continues [note of the editor: even after the death of Maggiori]. Ricci has organized the writings of his master and indexed them. It is almost always his handwriting for the titles and related comments provided to the various parts, making the autonomous notebooks by Maggiori. He intervened to separate them and also to mix them with his owns, whenever possible, combining them according to the issues ... "(p. 24). As a result – at least at a first glance – the whole was considered as a work authored by Ricci himself and only a closer inspection made it possible to revise that assessment. The work of separation and re-allocation was based sometimes on the dates (there are manuscripts of the first decade of the 1800s, when Ricci was still a child) and on the examination of handwriting, but especially on "what can be called his real signature, the mark of his [note of the editor: Maggiori’s] style, i.e. the custom of accompanying texts with drawings. Not only drawings that refer to art works, but also drawings that accompany the text just to satisfy a basic need to portray, decorate, and invent. Among the most frequent drawings are columns, candles and candlesticks, feet, hands, faces, grotesque, sun, moon, and so on" (p. 21). Thus, the Maggiori corpus displays a series of works and projects prior to his printed works. They now allow reconstituting the studies and the thought of the scholar born in Fermo – in their maturation and progress - better appraising their real stature.

[8] As already mentioned, Alessandro Maggiori moved to Bologna in 1781, ostensibly to study law. Soon, his dream is however to become a painter; Alexander studied and practiced with passion. Also the beginning of his collecting activities should certainly be traced back to this great youthful enthusiasm; the young looks for and purchases designs to use as models and improve its technical figure; he does so with a clear stylistic preferences and with a particular fondness for the Bolognese classicism linked to the Carraccis and in particular to Ludovico. He will always remain faithful to the Bolognese school, in clear opposition to the fashions of the time that will mark the triumph of neo-classicism. Maggiori collects, travels, visits the art works where they are, transcribes notes; very often visual notes. His notebooks are full of sketches of the art works seen on site and quickly fixed on paper, in order to better study them in his free time. "The method used is really a forerunner of what epitomized by one of the fathers of modern connoisseurs, Giovan Battista Cavalcaselle, if only because it combines exercise and documentary intent: a direct interest in the work, first as a painter and then, or rather in parallel, as an amateur and collector... A vivid selection of memoirs has to be noted, in particular in relation to some travel notebooks, like the very rich one with Appunti diversi di storia dell’arte (Various notes of art history), which contains fast and immediate notes on places and art works" (pp. 41-42). In those years Alessandro became "a master of the written report on art works - with a modern sensibility to the value of cataloguing them –, which is essential to ensuring conservation... In this regard, Maggiori expressed at a very early date, 1787, thus before Lanzi, the need to write a book of all the paintings, sculptures, and architectures, even with the specific intention to make a sort of map of the situations at risk, with a census of the art works which were damaged, or destroyed in the process of ruin" (pp. 16-17). Inevitably, the interest in the work of art is more pronounced for the reality of his homeland; and in an equally natural way it also extends to so-called "primitives". "The research on the centuries preceding Raphael is based on the intent to enhance local art history, of which painters and art works are documents, 'finds', to compare and analyse for a reconstruction of the whole, regardless whether the works are tasted or collected, which will come only later and exactly thanks to the work done by scholars"(pp. 17-18).

[3] Life cases will decide that Maggiori will not become an established painter, but the passing of years is an occasion to take back, rethink and enrich the previously earned materials, in the light of new cultural projects. The most striking case is that of the preparation of guide-catalogues of towns, (almost) all in the Marche. It was said that Maggiori managed to publish the guides of Ancona (1821) and Loreto (1824), but the manuscripts (then in the hands of Ricci) witnessed further plans for Sant'Elpidio, San Giusto and Civitanova, Jesi, Osimo, Macerata, and finally Fano and Viterbo (pp. 59-62). And we must not forget the works of considerably more theoretical nature. "The ideas, no longer aiming at creating a personal style as a painter, but conceived now as issues of scholarly reflection and aesthetics, are always the ones that Alexander explained to the father, in his youth letters: opposition to Neoclassicism and faith in the tradition of seventeenth-century Bolognese classicism" (p. 63). Among this group of writings, the editor selects one, to which Ricci granted the title Epistola illustrativa le opere eseguite dai Carracci nella Galleria Farnese (Epistle illustrating works carried out by the Carracci in the Farnese Gallery); Maggiori "lists there a series of anti-Raphaelite and anti-neo-classical ideas, rehabilitating the theories of Carlo Cesare Malvasia and refuting those arising mainly from reading of Mengs, by which only Rome and Raphael brought Annibale Carracci to perfection, while Ludovico Carracci escaped from Rome because he knew that he could not stand comparison. In fact, according to Maggiori, Annibale, in an effort to rival Raphael, lost in originality, that is in perfection in style, and took too much time to study and imitate the works of others, while Ludovico, who also studied the ancient masters and ancient sculptures, nevertheless never lose his main purpose, the imitation of nature "(p. 64).

Ludovico Carracci, Madonna Bargellini, Bologna, Pinacoteca Nazionale
Source http://www.emiliaromagnaturismo.it/it/galleria-fotografica

[10] As it can be seen, therefore, Maggiori and Ricci had very different stylistic tastes, which were derived from different theoretical considerations from each other. Yet the personal relationship between the two has always been based on mutual respect (the dedication of the Memoirs to Maggiori is an example in this sense). In the end it could not be otherwise: Maggiori finds in Ricci the person who could potentially carry through his historiographical and scholarship plans, aimed at enhancing and preserving the artistic heritage of the Marche; Ricci considers Maggiori as one of the forerunners of art scholarship in the Marche, a teacher to whom to turn to at all times of difficulty of interpretation, but also a man with whom to compare the best suited method of study to reach satisfactory results. The result of this happy union is precisely now shown by the fund of the Mozzi-Borgetti Library, so `that it is certainly fair to say that its rediscovery has shed light on the personality and work of not one but two key figures in the creation of art history in the Marche region.

[11] The circumstances in which the papers by Maggiori passed to Amico Ricci have been explained; Maggiori also possessed a library of great consistency. However, it is strange that the books have not met the same fate, knowing that Ricci was also an avid bibliophile (see below Elisa Barchiesi, Amico Ricci: profilo biografico e delle opere – Amico Ricci: biography and works, p. 104). In fact Andrea Emiliani reports in his introduction to this work (p. XIX): "Personally, I remember well the pride and satisfaction with which Roberto Longhi, showing his extraordinary library in Via Benedetto Fortini in Florence, told me that it had been entirely taken over by the descendants of Maggiori in Ancona. "

Elisa Barchiesi

Amico Ricci: biography and works

[12] The dense essay by Elisa Barchiesi can be read by following multiple paths, each different among each other and equally challenging: on the one hand, the succession of biographical events of the Marquis from Macerata; on the other hand the relationship with the other scholar circles not only locally, and the very special link with Bologna; or, again, the genesis of the Memoirs (which can be said to have occupied a period between 1827 and 1834 - see. p. 98), the project for the preparation of a second edition (in the Ricci Fund, a copy of the book for personal use has been found, enriched with annotations and corrections at least until mid-century), and the fortune of the work. We feel that the most interesting ideas are those dedicated to the working method applied by Ricci for the preparation of the Memoirs. "In 1828 he had already outlined the basis of his method of research: the study of literary sources, the exchange of views with friend scholars, the direct verification of the work, which prompted him to go to churches, mansions, and see for himself the works of the artists from the Marche, as evidenced by the Viaggio per i vari paesi della nostra montagna (Journey to the villages of our mountain)... and - as you can learn from the correspondence focused on the research for the publication of the Elogio di Gentile da Fabriano (Eulogy of Gentile da Fabriano), published in 1829, and flowing, updated and corrected, in the seventh chapter of his Memoirs"(pp. 100-101). We have already mentioned (see: Annamaria Ambrosini Massari,‘Dotti amici’. Amico Ricci e la nascita della storia dell’arte nelle Marche. - 'Educated friends'. Amico Ricci and the birth of art history in the Marche) that the best Ricci is often the one of the manuscripts, where judgments are more free and the direct observation of the work seems to have the upper hand over literary source, while in the printed edition he seems to self-restraint himself; the reality is that, among more or less fortunate passages, we capture the anticipatory behaviour of the method of work of many experts in the following decades (to remain in the Marche, one must mention the famous voyage by Giovanni Morelli and Cavalcaselle in 1861).

Gentile da Fabriano, Adoration of the Magi, Firenze, Uffizi Gallery
Source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/

[13] The literary source, however, is always the starting point. It is important to remember that Amico Ricci owned a very large library. On the model of Cicognara, he drafted an annotated catalogue of art books possessed in 1840, (stored in the homonymous Fund, ms. 175-175 b). We are talking of around 1,500 volumes, now preserved at the Library of Macerata. For a brief review of these works (which still constituted "the classics of literature, art, the most authoritative authors in the field of fine arts, current search tools for the modern student" - cfr. p. 105), please see pp. 106-110. We, as bibliophiles, merely state here that we would like to see the catalogue by Ricci published one day.

[14] On Ricci’s Bolognese acquaintances it may be useful to spend some additional words: Bologna was, for Amico, like a second home, since the time of study (the transfer to Bologna is of 1806). Among Amico’s many correspondents witnessed in the Epistolary stand out, for example, the names of Antonio Bolognini Amorini, the President of the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna between 1831 and 1845, and of Gaetano Giordani the curator of the Pinacoteca of Bologna for decades, a tireless archive researcher. Bolognini Amorini, after reading the Memoirs, is so enthusiastic that "in 1835, he published a compendium of the work of Ricci, a small brochure, a kind of map of the phases through which art went in the Marche" - pp. 149-150 - (it should be remembered that Schlosser, in its Art Literature mentions the compendium on p. 595, but is not able to mention its author). The noble from Bologna proposed and obtained, the same year, that Ricci be named Honorary Academic at the Academy of Fine Arts. Not only that, a decade after the scholar of Macerata will be appointed President (he was the first not-Emilian citizen to hold that post). Amico remains as president until 1848, when he decided to step down, probably because he prefers to concentrate fully on writing the Storia dell’Architettura (History of architecture), but he is still classified among the members of the Bolognese institution  until his death.

[15] To note, among the apparatus added to the essay, a Abbozzo di Indice delle Memorie (Sketch of Index of the Memoirs), which dates back to 1832 (pp. 135-136) and a list of published works by Amico Ricci (p. 157).