Angelo Maria Monaco
Giacomo Barri “francese” e il suo Viaggio pittoresco d'Italia [The 'French' Giacomo Barri and his Pictorial Journey across Italy]
Gli anni a Venezia di un peintre-graveur scrittore d’arte nel Seicento
Florence, Edifir, 2014
Isbn 978 88 7970 594 3
Giacomo Barri is a little-known figure in the art world in Venice. So little known that doubt has remained until our days on his French origins; moreover, little is known about his biography. Of Barri, in fact, we would not be able to mention a single picture (although we know that he was a painter or at least a copyist). Yet we owe to the Frenchman Jacques de Pierre de Bar, better known as Giacomo Barri - who moved from France to Venice at the age of four years - the birth of a genre, that of the pocket guide on Italian painting to see on your trip. I mean, if he had worked in the world of television communication, today we would say that Barri was the inventor of a format of incredible success.
The book that we have at hand has the undoubted merit of shedding light, as much as possible, on the biography and artistic activity of Barri (trace only remains of his engravings), as well as to present the text and analyse the sources of the Viaggio pittoresco (Pictorial Journey). Finally, the book offers also the English translation of the work, published in London in 1679 by the English engraver William Lodge.
But first things first. Only since 2010 it has been definitively clarified, by retrieving archival material, that Giacomo Barri and Jacques de Pierre de Bar are the same person; Barri was born in France; he had moved to Venice at the age of four years, as a guest of his uncle, and surely he also stayed in Rome for eight years, serving the Barberini. No picture is left of him. We know that Barri attended the colony of French artists in Venice, dedicated in general to painting copies, and rarely to art creation; it is therefore likely that he too was dedicated to the genre. There are instead etchings of him impressed in Venice from 1666 onwards; on the one hand they reproduce subjects from the paintings by Veronese, particularly pleasant to the clients of the time; and on the other they promote the painting of his period, in particular that of Giovanni Coli and Filippo Gherardi, pupils of Pietro da Cortona. There is an episode in the life of Barri that brings him to the attention of the contemporary art scene, and that - in the absence of any information about his biography – shows nevertheless that he enjoyed some consideration in the lagoon. In 1679 the Venetian painters sent to the Senate a request to obtain administrative autonomy, separating from the 'Art of the Painters', which included workers of all types, also devoted to crafts of a very humble nature. It is a classic claim to see the special status of painters recognised, as artists of higher quality compared to the mass of the craftsmen. The request flows, in 1682, into the creation of the so-called 'Collegio dei pittori' (College of painters). Giacomo Barri signs one of the requests addressed to the Senate in this time frame (1679-1682) together with the colleagues Angelo Frezzato and Lelio Bonetti. An element not to be overlooked.
But we are interested in Barri as the creator of a genre, that of artistic guides. Let us be clear: before the “Pictorial Journey across Italy” (Viaggio pittoresco d’Italia, where " pittoresco " means "pictorial" and not picturesque, exactly as in the Carta del navegar pitoresco by Marco Boschini) there were other city guides (and also of Venice: just think of the Venezia città nobilissima by Sansovino), which are made both for the consumption of visitors, as well as to enhance the wealth and therefore the reputation of each urban centre and of its history. There was however no pocket guide for a journey across Italy, to indicate to the beneficiary the main masterpieces to visit in individual locations. If you want, the guide by Barri is the first editorial for the public of the Grand Tour, a cultural phenomenon that is increasing and will assume much greater proportions in the following centuries. Mind you: the Viaggio Pittoresco is not a masterpiece. So speaks Schlosser in his Letteratura artistica (pp. 536-537):
"The first attempt of this kind [editor's note: of what Schlosser calls of Literature of the “Ciceroni”] is a poor and insufficient booklet that wants to embrace in a quick look, the Viaggio Pittoresco d'Italia, by an obscure Venetian painter called Giacomo Barri, of 1671: note also that it was printed for the first time in Venice, the “city of foreigners”, and that eight years later it was already translated into English (London, 1679). Only some regions are described in greater detail: first of all Venice and its territory, the State of the Church (especially Bologna, what is particularly significant), then the duchies of Parma and Modena; discrete space is given here to major princely galleries, and elsewhere to private collections. There is also some information about art in remote locations that are of some value. The rest of Italy is not treated with sufficient amplitude. Florence for instance occupies only three pages, Genoa and Naples a couple, Lucca instead takes again a lot of space, with obvious disproportion. Like in most of following literature on travelling, it is very characteristic that the text talks about what at that time was meant to be "modern” painting: first of all, therefore, properly contemporary art; of the preceding painting, instead, there is nothing that goes back before Raphael, Giorgione, Titian; the true "primitive" art, only rediscovered by the British in the late eighteenth century onwards and afterwards the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, was not deemed worthy of being mentioned even once, it is completely gone and forgotten."
Beyond recognising the right of primogeniture in the genre, this is certainly not an opinion particularly benevolent. And, mind you, the limitations of the work are undeniable. Monaco, however, tries to recalibrate the whole, first by just highlighting that the small size of the work is a precise editorial choice: one wants to give someone touring across Italy an agile instrument to carry around in his views: "The disputed brevitas [n.d.t. shortness] and insufficient breadth of information, the small and succinct size of the book, the non-inclusion of theoretical and argumentative sections will not be considered as the questionable result of a negligent modus operandi [n.d.t. behaviour], but rather as the consequence of an editorial option to the benefit of the layman, whose synthetic nature, clearly, appeared unfortunate to the eyes of encyclopaedic scholars, who misunderstood, in conclusion, the practical purpose of the trip" (p. 110). If anything (we add), it is more relevant the resounding disparity with which cities, for example, as Venice and Florence are treated. But even here there is a distinctive element that characterizes Barri’s work. He never indulges in polemics; there are never negative examples. Simply, what he does not like or he does not consider interesting is not treated. There is no doubt, for example, that the overall vision by Barri is set by the predominance of Venetian painting over Tuscany; but he does not indulge in the well-known controversy against Vasari that had dragged on for well over a century. The problem is solved by talking about the Florentine paintings in three and a half pages; and if we consider that, in those three pages, he cites two paintings by Titian, some works of Bassano, a painting by Correggio and a canvas of Annibale Carracci, it is well understood that there is practically nothing remaining. In the same way, there is a clear preference attributed to Raphael compared to Michelangelo, but this comparison is not resolved in discussions of a theoretical character. Simply Raphael is mentioned 45 times; Michelangelo only one (and moreover this one is the Last Judgement, which is erroneously said to be in Rome in the Pauline Chapel).
Monaco, however, avoids the danger of incensing things that cannot be praised: he highlights, for example, that according to the information provided by Barri, the Viaggio Pittoresco would be the direct result of the inspection carried out by the author of the work, but that this is factually wrong. Careful examination of the text shows that this is, in large part, a compilation work. The primary sources from which Barri draws - hands down - are three: The Le Minere della pittura (Caves of painting) by Marco Boschini (published just seven years earlier, in 1664) in respect of the works exhibited in Venice, the Microcosmo della pittura (Microcosm of painting) by Francesco Scannelli (1657), especially for Emilian painters and the Maraviglie dell’Arte (Marvels of Art) by Carlo Ridolfi (1648) for the works of Venetian painters not treated by Boschini.
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| Canaletto, Venice: Piazza San Marco with the Basilica (1730 ca.) |
"The relationship between the Viaggio and the Minere della pittura is very close (if not embarrassing), as Barri - although undoubtedly having the opportunity to run a direct survey of paintings in Venice - literally quotes most of the works and their descriptions as given by Boschini. The author performs in practice a real cast, to which he seeks to give some originality by simply modifying or reversing the order given in the description of the works at the respective sites.
More sophisticated is the relationship with the Microcosmo, where the different nature of the discussion (drawn in discursive form) led Barri to intervene heavily in the text, reduces to a plain description much more elaborate information. It does not deviate too much from the true saying that – of about a thousand works reported by Barri - at least a quarter has been borrowed from the Microcosmo. Clearly, there is a total dependence of the citations in the case of works of some painters who Barri knows well through Scannelli, such as it is the case with many works by Ludovico Carracci. In other cases it is not possible to distinguish whether this is a direct quote or a simple coincidence in the report. In still others ones, the greater punctuality in the description of Barri compared to Scannelli shows the total independence of the reports, as in the case of some works of Lanfranco and Pietro da Cortona, for which, in particular, the indication of a greater number of works in the Viaggio Pittoresco is attributable to pure chronological reasons. Almost completely decoupled from the Microcosmo and the Minere is the review of works by Venetian artists outside of the lagoons, based substantially on the Maraviglie"(p. 381-382).
Monaco feels it necessary however to point out that some passages of Barri’s guide could be a truly and direct drafting of him (but cautiously adds that the assumption also comes from not having found any reference to sources known to us). It is the recognition of the Roman works (at least for some works not reported by Scannelli) and those of the Palazzo Ducale in Parma.
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| Caspar van Vittel, Rome: Castel Sant'Angelo from the South |
The English translation of 1679
As already mentioned, the Viaggio Pittoresco was translated in London in 1679. It was published, under the title The Painters voyage by the English engraver William Lodge, who in his introduction tells us that he went to Venice in the 70's of 1600, that he found the booklet potentially useful and that he translated it because he showed that no other copy was available at home. Even of the English text is here given transcription. It should be immediately said that the Anglo-Saxon edition has some differences compared to the Italian one, both as regards the editorial appearance and what concerns the real text. Although the qualifying aspect of the work of Barri, or its reduced size, is maintained (which then allows it to be a handbook, which can be agile consulting for the traveller in Italy) Lodge slightly increases the size and inserts six engravings: five portraits of Italian artists an (a not trivial choice) a map of Italy. From a content point of view, however, he added a further chapter, devoted to the collection of paintings by Manfredo Settala in Milan. We do not know the reasons for this choice, which clearly has nothing to do with an awareness of the weaknesses inherent in Barri’s guide (it is far from certain that, after the inclusion of the collection of Settala, the traveller would have been less biased idea of Italian heritage). What is certain is that The Painters voyage was a success, and rightfully entered and remained for several decades in the list of required reading for English aristocrats who were preparing to embark on the journey in Italy.
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