Francesco Mazzaferro
Florence - Warsaw, 1931 - 1934:
Jan Zamoyski, Samuel Tyszkiewicz and a collective translation of Cennino Cennini's Book of the Art into Polish
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| Fig. 1) The first page of the Book of the Art in the 1934 edition by Samuel Tyszkiewicz, exhibited at the Historical Museum of Warsaw in 2009. You can see the woodcuts used to print the xylographic frame, designed according to Renaissance models |
1933 was an
important year for the fortune of Cennino Cennini. The first versions in the United States and the Soviet Union were published, translated by Daniel V.Thompson and Alla Nikolaevna Luzhetskaia respectively. To them have already
been devoted two posts in this blog. But the first translation of the Book of
Art in Polish (1) was also released on that year: not in Poland, but in
Florence, at the Stamperia polacca
(Polish Printing House) owned by Samuel Tyszkiewicz and established in 1928. The following year a new
version appeared, also in Florence, edited by the same printing house (2). A
third version, also in the name of Samuel Tyszkiewicz was published in 1955, as
we shall see, in a prestigious Polish collection of art history sources (3).
Tyszkiewicz was
a polyglot, mastering Italian, French, English, Spanish and Latin. It is
therefore not improbable that he got acquainted to translate texts from those
languages into Polish. But why Cennino?
The simplest
answer is that Tyszkiewicz had just married for the third time with a young Art
historian, Maryla Neumann, in 1922. By 1928 he had already published two small
art books of her: one on Benedetto da Majano and the other one on Bernardo
Rossellino. And in fact, once he had divorced from Maryla, he did not produce
books on art any more. Cennini’s treatise was his last book on art.
But there is
also a more complex answer: Tyszkiewicz
was integrated in art circles inspired by traditionalism and classicism; he was
in contact with artists and art institutions which considered Cennino’s
treatise as a manifesto for a “Retour to order” after the wild first decades of
the new century (with cubism, dada, etc.). He agreed with and contributed to
this conservative stream of modern art in Poland, by publishing what was
becoming a reference text for all conservative artists across Europe.
The translation
of the Cennino’s text in fact was not the work of Tyskiewicz only, as it is sometimes
mentioned. One can understand it from a very brief colophon at the end of the
book (4): in fact, Tyskiewicz put a colophon
at the end of any of his prints, with information on the technical details of
the work: the font size, the type of paper, the printing process, the size, the
cover, the edition, the number of copies, etc. …
The 1933
colophon (5) clarifies that the printer prepared a first Polish translation,
which was completed in 1931. The text benefited from a technical review on the
specialized terminology by the painter, art critic, designer and decorator Jan
Zamoyski. It states that the translation was "done by us" (dokonanu przez nas) in 1931, with the
support (za poparciem) of the
Institute for the Promotion of Fine Arts (Towarzystwo
Zachęty Sztuk Pięknych) and with input on the technical vocabulary (w słownictwie facbowem uzupelniony) of
the painter Jan Zamoski, President of the Brotherhood of St. Luke (Bractwo św. Łukasza).
The text of the colophon also explains,
however, that something was going wrong. Translation and publication were late;
for reasons "beyond the control of this printing house" – the text
reads – the manuscript had been delivered to the press only in January 1933.
The colophon of 1934 shows the same
information, however with small but significant changes (6): he writes that the
translation is now "my own" (przezemnie)
and no longer ours (przez nas), and
took place at the initiative and with the help of (z inicjatywy i z pomoc) - and not only with the contribution - of
the Institute for the Promotion of Fine Arts. The contribution of the painter
Jan Zamoyski on the technical terminology remains unchanged. For the rest, Tyszkiewicz
uses the same expressions contained in the previous year’s colophon, justifying
the delay with reasons beyond the control of the printing house.
What happened?
In 1933 Samuel and Maryla Tyszkiewicz split up and then divorced. Maryla Neumann had probably assisted him in
the translation, and therefore the personal events had an impact on the
finalisation of the process too. But the worst impact was perhaps on the
organisation of the work at the printing plan, where Maryla played important
support functions, implementing the technical instructions of the husband. The
catalogue of the 2009 exhibition in Warsaw refers to a letter of 3 November
1933 in which Samuel explains that he was forced to take direct control again of
several manual activities of the typography exactly when the printing of
Cennino’s treatise in Polish – the most complex one until that moment - was
due.
The typographic
mark MST (7) (i.e. the coat of arms of the Polish Printing House, with the lily
of Florence) that before the divorce meant Maryla
Samuel Tyszkiewicz, became Samuel
Magister typographus. We believe this is the reason why in the colophon of
1933 Tyszkiewicz describes the translation as a collective process (our translation) in collaboration with
the Institute, while that of 1934 makes of it a personal work only (my own translation), at the initiative
and with the help of the 'Institute. We still want to hope that the laborious
translation of Cennini Cennino’s text was not the only cause of the divorce. The
comparison of the two colophons also shows these were months of major changes:
the Polish Printing House moved from Piazza d’Azeglio (first colophon of 1933)
to Via di Camerata (second colophon of 1934).
Whatever may
have happened, a new woman entered Samuel’s life: the xylographic frame of a Renaissance style on the first page of the 1934 version was engraved by Victoria
Lenzi, the new companion and future fourth wife (they will marry in 1945).
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| Fig. 2) The typographic mark of the Polish Printing House in Florence |
The reading of
the colophon of 1934 also clarifies another important point. The two editions
of 1933 and 1934 were nothing else but two versions of the same edition. It had
been the “Institute for the promotion of the fine arts” to commission as from
the very start two different versions: the first one of 1933 was relatively
simpler and the one of 1934 more complex and elegant. They were expected to be
published in parallel, and to be distributed together. Also in this case,
something went wrong with timing.
Why two
versions, and to whom they were addressed? Difficult to say. The only possible
explanation is linked to the fact that Tyszkiewicz took part in an exhibition
in Warsaw on 1933, at the Institute for the promotion of Polish art abroad (Towarzystwa Szerzenia Sztuki Polskiej Wśród
Obcych), under the aegis of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Poland. Possibly the text of Cennino was a high
quality gift for diplomats, Polish personalities living abroad (above all in
France, England and United States) as a courtesy by Polish authorities.
Correspondingly, at least one part of the print-outs had to correspond to the highest
aesthetic levels as a true piece of “arts and crafts”, possibly for the most
important beneficiaries of the donation.
* * *
We shall now consider the personalities of the two people mentioned: first Jan Zamoski (the painter and terminologist) and then Samuel Tyszkiewicz (the printer and translator).
Jan Zamoyski
(8), surely a man of great artistic culture, was well known in the thirties,
even outside of Poland. He had contacts with the “Novecento Italiano” movement
in our country and with the 'New Objectivity' in Germany. He exhibited at the
Venice Biennale in 1934, the Prussian Academy of Arts in Berlin in 1935 and
represented Poland at the Carnegie Foundation in Pittsburgh in 1937. In Poland he
cooperated regularly with the aforementioned Institute for the promotion of the
fine arts and the Institute for propaganda of art (Instytut Propagandy Sztuki), two major academic institutions which had
tried to shape a national art school in Poland since the nineteenth century.
And, as it has already been said, it was the former institution which financed
the translation into Polish and publication of the Book of the Art.
The Polish
scholar Irena Kossowska, in her article on Zamoyski in culture.pl (9), describes him as eclectic painter of a classical
and realist school. "He opposed the prevalent impressionist and
post-impressionist French style, preferring the concept of syncretistic
realism, referring to the elegant forms of Italian Renaissance, Flemish Art,
Spanish Baroque, the seventeenth-century Dutch painting and international Caravaggism."
Frequent and
varied were the quotes from old masters, sometimes as a source of sublime
beauty sometimes in an intentionally ironic interpretation. Still Irena Kossowska explains, for example, that "the introduction of gilding in the
composition emphasises the traditionalist orientation of the artist, who uses
conventional images of old masters to give them a contemporary new look."
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| Fig. 3) Caravaggio’s influences: Jan Zamoyski, The Elder, 1925 |
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| Fig. 4) Flemish influences: Jan Zamoyski, The man who plays the guitar, 1927 |
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| Fig. 5) The influence of historic painting: Jan Zamoyski, The victims of the fire, 1928 |
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| Fig. 6) The influence of Hans Holbein the Elder: Jan Zamoyski, Grandmother, 1932 |
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| Fig. 7) Renaissance and irony: Jan Zamoyski, The Madonna of the diaper, 1937 |
His works combine in an eclectic way different influences: about him Polish criticism spoke of "noble realism", to refer to his love for taste and decorative pictorial culture. Again, the terminology recalls Italy and the "magical realism" of Casorati and Donghi. One of his most famous paintings, "Portrait of a woman in red sweater," reveals obvious influences from Renaissance (Bronzino) and modern Italian and German art.
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| Fig. 8) Jan Zamoyski, Portrait of woman in red sweater, 1931 |
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| Fig. 9) Angelo Bronzino (1503-1572), Portrait of Laura Battiferri, ca 1455-1560 |
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| Fig. 10) Antonio Donghi (1897-1963), Portrait of a woman at the café, 1931 |
In 1934 Zamoyski
became part of the "Block of professional plastic artists" (Blok Zawodowych Artystów Plastyków), a
group of figurative traditionalist artists who opposed the avant-garde and published the review Plastika.
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| Fig. 12) The Italian Journal Valori Plastici, September-December 1920 with a design by Carlo Carrá |
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| Fig. 11) The Polish Journal Plastika, 1936, Year II, No. 5 |
Although Irena Kossowska does not say so in his essay on Zamoyski, it is likely there was a
reference - in the choice of terms and values – to the group of the Italian Journal
"Valori Plastici" (Plastic
values) by Alberto Savinio, journal which had been active in the previous
decade throughout Europe and had the "Return
to order" as its main message.
Throughout his
career as a painter, Zamoyski was very interested in the fresco technique.
Along with Boleslaw Cybis he produced a cycle of frescoes (more than 100 square
metres) of a clear Renaissance inspiration, at the headquarters of the Military
Geographical Institute in Warsaw, between 1934 and 1937. The fresco was dedicated
to the heroic acts of Boleslaw the Brave (Duke and King of Poland from 992 to 1025).
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| Figs. 13-15) Boleslaw Cybis and Jan Zamoyski, Cycle of frescoes at the Military Geographical Institute in Warsaw with the exploits of Boleslaw the Brave, 1934-1937 |
The entire cycle of frescoes can be admired
at http://www.sztuka.net/palio/html.run?_Instance=www.sztuka.net.pl&_PageID=846&newsId=8820&callingPageId=845&_sectionId=222&_regionId=122&_cms=newser&_catId=1&_CheckSum=-1507838451. The two painters portrayed themselves in the fresco.
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| Fig, 16) The self-portraits of Boleslaw Cybis and Jan Zamoyski. Cycle of frescoes at the Geographical Military Institute in Warsaw on the heroic acts of of Boleslaw the Brave, 1934-1937 |
Zamoyski was
co-founder of the Brotherhood of St. Luke in Warsaw (Bractwo św. Łukasza) in 1925, a group of ten artists of which he
was president until its dissolution in 1939. It is not a coincidence if they
decided to give themselves the same name used for centuries by congregations of
painters in medieval and Renaissance Italy and the Netherlands, and more
recently used by the Nazarenes in Germany a hundred years before.
Irena Kossowska
informs us that the Brotherhood "had the goal of creating a Polish school
of painting that was rooted in the European tradition in accordance with the
conventions of past centuries, mixing up in the workshops the skills of the old
masters and reshaping their practice of art and craft." She adds that
"the ideal of the young painters was the organization of artistic work on
the model of a medieval guild." The goal was "to make of Warsaw a new
Florence." It is therefore not surprising that, at the stage of his
professional training, Zamoyski has spent one year in Italy. Unfortunately, I
am not able to tell you precisely where and when.
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| Fig. 17) The members of the Brotherhood of St. Luke in 1928. On the left, the painting by Jan Zamoyski entitled “The victims of the fire”. From left: Eliasz Kanarek, Aleksander Jędrzejewski, Antoni Michalak, Jan Wydra, Edward Kokoszko, Bolesław Cybis, Tadeusz Pruszkowski, Jan Zamoyski, Jan Gotard, Czesław Wdowiszewski. |
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| Fig. 18) The signatures of the members of the Brotherhood in 1928 |
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| Fig. 19) The exhibition catalogue of the Brotherhood in Warsaw (1928) |
The Brotherhood set
itself the purpose of documenting national history, an important task since the
country had regained its independence only in 1919. In 1939, the group -
chaired by Zamoyski - exhibited a set of seven tempera, painted by the ten
members collectively, in the hall of honour at the Polish pavilion at the
Universal Exhibition in New York. Two of the ten authors (Bolesław Cybis and
Eliasz Kanarek) accompanied the seven tempera paintings to New York. They are
now preserved at the Library of Le Moyne College in Syracuse: a painful issue
not yet closed on the Polish side: the paints were used by the Polish
government in London (the government in exile, supported by the Western allies,
whose army took part in the liberation of Italy) to settle payments to the
United States; that payment was never recognised in Warsaw, which still claims
the seven paintings back. The paintings describe the historical Polish epic in
terms of the encounter between the Eastern folklore, the Western world and art
and the common Catholic orientation. The journey of paintings and painters towards
the US took place on an ocean liner MS Batory, whose interiors were decorated by
Zamoyski. Although the group disbanded in 1939 because of the war, that mission
into the New World is still remembered in Poland. A posthumous book by Zamoyski
on that experience was published in 1989 (10) and, the Polish director Michał
Dudziewicz was inspired from the same episode to draw a documentary film in
2005, titled "Łukaszowcy NY'39"
or "The Group of San Luca in New York in 1939 "(11). A curiosity: the
opening of the Universal Exhibition with Roosevelt and Einstein was the first
television broadcast ever in the United States. The Polish pictorial
traditionalism met in the United States with the newest American media technologies.
And who knows, maybe these were the first paintings in the world to have been
displayed in the homes of wealthy families in America.
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| Fig. 20) Brotherhood of St. Luke, The meeting of Boleslaw the Brave with Otto III, during his pilgrimage to the shrine of St. Adalbert in Gniezno, Polish Pavilion at the International Fair of New York, 1939 |
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| Fig. 21) Brotherhood of St. Luke, The Rescue of Vienna, Polish Pavilion at the International Fair of New York, 1939 |
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| Fig. 22) Brotherhood of St. Luke, The Baptism of Lithuania, Polish Pavilion at the International Fair of New York, 1939 |
Today it is difficult to consider the paintings of the Brotherhood in 1939 as a product of modern art since Cubism - for example - was already thirty years old. Not so then. The Brooklyn Museum in New York had devoted an exhibition to the painters of the Brotherhood already in October-November 1933. Frequently we forget that not all of the twentieth century was avant-garde, as well as not the entire second half of the nineteenth century had been impressionism. Everywhere were co-existing forces of the revolution and the restoration of the aesthetic values of the past and today - with the benefit of time distance - we can no longer deny dignity to both. Who won? Do not forget that each of us spends several hours in front of a definitely very figurative and traditional medium – the television - and that films (think for example at the same Polish cinema) are, for almost their totality, the last heirs of a traditionalist aesthetic mood. So, one day, the very idea of modern art will need to be re-thought, just to understand our today’s world.
From what has
been said so far, it is not surprising that Jan Zamoyski helped in the
translation of the Book of the Art of Cennino Cennini in 1931. Many of the
techniques of painting by Jan Zamoyski and the Brotherhood of St. Luke (fresco,
tempera, gilding) coincide with those of other artist groups who were
interested in Cennino Cennini in previous decades: think about the Beuronese art in Germany and in Austria-Hungary (Prague) and the diverse Secessions chools of Gödöllő in Hungary, but also to the use of the fresco in all
Scandinavian schools of painting of those years. From the point of view of
cultural orientations, the intellectual conservatism of the Brotherhood of St.
Luke and Zamoyski is the same as that of Pierre-Auguste Renoir in the letter to
Henry Mottez, displayed as introduction of the French version of Cennino’s
treatise in 1911. And it should even not surprise at all that the Russian
version of Cennino, always of 1933, had the primary aim, for the politburo, of
supporting the primacy of Socialist Realism in the Soviet Union, against the constructivist
and suprematist avant-gardes of the early years after the October Revolution.
Among other things, it should be mentioned that after the Second World War
Zamoyski will become a painter of socialist realism, producing portraits of
Stalin and Gomulka. He was born as a realist, as a realist he also died: the
world around him had, however, profoundly changed.
In conclusion, the
role of Cennino is confirmed as a common focal point for the aesthetic of the conservative
art world across Europe in the first three decades of the 1900s. Also in
Poland, during the twenty years between the regained independence (1919) and
aggression from Nazis and Communists (1939). The basic elements of my previous post on Cennino on Poland are also well validated. I referred there to the quotation
of the two introductory pages of the Book of the Art in the first issue of the
magazine "Art and Artists" (Sztuka
i Artysta) in January 1924, as manifesto for the
new Journal, which combined cultural interests and publicity for its own
auction house. "Art and Artists" intended to advertise to the Polish
middle class the purchase through auctions of secessionist art pieces produced
by the Young Poland movement (Młoda Polska) between 1890 and 1918. It wanted however to propagate that art to
his public in less tense and aggressive terms than the Polish secessionist artists
themselves had done in the turn of the century, when extreme neo-romantic motives as Satanism had been useful to
desecrate the culture of the occupying powers (Austria-Hungary, Russian Empire,
the German Reich). At that moment, around 1895, the national task of Polish art
was to violate every taboo, and accelerate the pace of modernity, to precipitate
the crisis of the central European empires.
Once Poland gained independence again in 1919, Polish art returned to
its conservative-Catholic roots. The group of “Art and Artists” rejected the
old iconoclastic narrative of a Stanislaw Brzozowski and turned to the
ultra-conservative myth of Cennino Cennini as advertisement for its own public.
and the “arts and crafts” side of classicism in the Polish interwar period
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| Fig. 23) Samuel Tyszkiewicz at the printing press |
Samuel Fryderyk Tyszkiewicz was a Polish aristocrat (even today his family is very well known, think of Beata Tyszkiewicz, the favourite actress of Andrzej Wajda). He had a fascinating, almost astonishing and in some ways perhaps even partially unstable life, as narrated in a short essay by Grzegorz Sowula, which I read in the German translation of 1991. (12) His professional background was technical: he was an engineer, who studied in Paris at the École Pratique d 'Electricité Industrielle and worked in an aeronautics company, testing a new engine. The engine did not work, the company where he was employed failed, and he had to work as a taxi driver in the French capital, to keep the wolf from the door: it was intolerable to his first wife, who returned to Poland. He followed her in vain
Tyszkiewicz
fought in the tsarist army (Warsaw was part of the Russian Empire) during the
First World War, then enlisted in the new Polish republican army and - after
the war - was sent on a mission to the Polish Embassy in Paris, to solve a
series of bilateral problems between allies. For his merits in France he
received, among other things, the Legion of Honour; the Polish government
granted him an important economic compensation through which he could fund a
long trip to Italy, with his second wife. It was in Italy that, almost by
accident, the problem arose of how to print and bind the notebooks on the
journey of him and his wife, and since then the passion for quality printing
literally overwhelmed him.
To Italy he
moved with his third wife (Maryla, on whom we have already spoken), in Florence
in 1926, where he opened in 1928 the Stamperia
polacca, i.e. the Polish Printing House, which soon became one of the
finest printing centres in Europe. 1928 – we already know it - is also the year
of the affirmation of the Brotherhood of St. Luke with the exhibition in Warsaw
(it is important to read the events in parallel). We already know that the
third wife of Tyszkiewicz (Maryla) was an art historian. During those years arose
Tyszkiewicz’s interest for Cennino Cennini, his contacts with Jan Zamoyski, his
collaboration with the Institute for the promotion of the fine arts.
Tyszkiewicz
earned his money by printing undergraduate degrees and all the official
documents of the University of Florence, and spent it all to print expensive
and precious print editions, with a limited run and destined for a collecting
elite of bibliophiles, not only for the perusal of the Polish aristocracy, but
also bibliophiles in Europe and the United States. Also the relationship with
his third wife went progressively in ruins, but Tyszkiewicz still managed to print
the Book of the Art.
His future fourth
wife Victoria Lenzi kept alive the Printing House at the outbreak of the
Second World War, during which he took refuge in Nice, where he opened a
branch: to survive, during the Italian occupation before and the German one
afterwards, he printed almost everything. After the war, for a few years the
two plants in Florence and Nice co-existed, until everything was brought back
to Florence. The business model of the thirties, however, did not work any more. On
the one hand, from Poland – now under Communism – he did not receive any more
commissions and purchase orders for his high quality printing products; on the
other hand, new technologies became more sophisticated and undermined the
excellence printers in their market niches. Tyszkiewicz was forced to reduce
the ambition of the quality of his works, and also their prices. At his death
in 1954, the Printing House was managed by his wife until 1966. However, she turned
to solely printing documents for the University, and abandoned her husband's bibliophile
activities. When Victoria died, all materials were acquired by Professor Jan W.
Wos, which puts them from time to time at the disposal of several exhibitions.
Tyszkiewicz was
certainly an amazing printer, if it is true that his books have been shown in
numerous exhibitions (the catalogue of the exhibition in Warsaw in 2009 quotes
19 previous exhibitions). The most recent ones in Italy were in Trento and Verona
in 2004, and in Florence this year, in 2014. In Poland, the most recent ones
were in Warsaw in 2009 and Lublin in 2011. I want to emphasise that - if the
Brotherhood of St. Luke adopted a classicist style of painting - Tyszkiewicz did
it also with his publications. Just look at the cover of Firenze of 1934 and
you will realise this.
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| Fig. 24) The 1933 edition of the Book of the Art (Rzecz or malarstwie) |
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| Fig. 25) The edition of 1934 |
The classicism
of Tyszkiewicz is thus all based on “arts and craft”, but conceptually
corresponds to the adoption by Jan Zamoyski and his fellow painting of the pictorial
techniques and aesthetic motifs of the Old Masters. It was most classical the choice
he made of the types to print his own books (Incunabola and Sinibaldi
types). It is not by coincidence that - at the recent exhibition in Florence -
Tyszkiewicz was presented as a humanist.
Sowula wrote on
it: "To consider it well, an element stands out among all: the conscious
and firmly pursued intention to achieve a form of "omnipotence" through
the techniques. [Tyszkiewicz] put his engineering skills to the service of the
workshop, applied them to include all the technical aspects of the book -
composition, typesetting, printing -, leaning on his knowledge also for
bindery, which he understood as part of an overall project from the design of
the decoration of the book to the aforementioned preparation of the brackets in
copper.
However, in this
methodical and organized man lived - who like his contemporaries tell, prepared
for the trip to Italy in a great detail, wanting to use his time in the best
way possible - it was still living the spirit of a Renaissance artist, who
wants to do everything and everything can do: planning, writing, translating,
illustrating."
Sowula
continues: "All the decorative elements were created in his own company -
the wooden forms for high pressure printing were designed and cut by
Tyszkiewicz himslef. The motifs used were from old illustrations, ornaments,
prints, etc… Each book has been printed in a text font corresponding to the
overall global size of the text itself, in two, sometimes three sizes. The
number of inks has not passed the three. The blank pages (endpapers), which
separate the cover from the printed pages (cover which sometimes comes even
after a printed page, but never before the text), are always and only inserted
in a number proportional to the number of pages provided for the entire
composition of the book. " Thus, the
Renaissance concept of proportion applied to publishing! The Vitruvian man
among the printing presses.
Highly classical
also the choice of the printed texts. On the Italian side, in addition to
Cennino, the Vita Nuova (New Life) of
Dante, translated into Polish; on the Polish side, the most important writer of
the classicist period, Adam Mickiewicz, with a Polish and an Italian version of
the Sonnets of Crimea (a topical theme still today, by the way!) and other
classics of the nineteenth century.
Certainties
and still unresolved questions on the issue of the Book of the Art
Unfortunately I
have not managed to put my hands on the issue of 1955, published in Wrocław,
the only one with an apparatus of introductions and comments. It is part of a series of texts on history of art sources (Teksty Źródłowe do Dziejów Teorii Sztuki i.e.
“Texts of the sources of the history of art "), which includes among
others Vasari, Leonardo, Durer, Leon Battista Alberti, Poussin, Rembrandt,
Delacroix, Fromentin and around twenty Polish artists. The 1955 version was
transacted on the Polish antiquities market for the last time four years ago;
unlike those of 1933 and 1934, the 1955 has not been placed to be visible on
line in the internet. Bohdan Urbanowicz (1911-1994, painter and art theorist)
and Bohdan Marconi (1894-1975, painter and restorer) wrote the introduction,
and the commentary was by Hanna Jędrzejewska (chemistry and restorer). It seems
the letter by Adolfo Venturi and the introduction by Mary Pittaluga were not
included any more in the 1955 edition. Most likely reading the introduction and
the comments of that book would solve many questions.
After all what
has been reported, however, it seems logical to assume that the translation has
been a collective work. Given the importance which fresco and tempera were
acquiring in Poland (as in almost all of Europe) in those years, the choice of translating
the Treaty of Cennino into Polish was probably prompted by the Institute for
the promotion of fine arts in Warsaw, which perhaps pointed out to the name of
Jan Zamoyski - a leading artist in the thirties, who had experienced a year of
study in Italy - as the scientific counterpart. Nor is it impossible that it
was Zamoski himself - as president of the Brotherhood of St. Luke - to take the
initiative, in order to make use of an important text in Polish for his
Brotherhood. The third wife, Maryla Neumann, probably had the necessary
contacts with the artistic world of Warsaw. It is likely to
think that Samuel and Maryla have started the translation, reserving to Jan the
task of polishing the technical vocabulary. When the couple broke up, that brought
about a production delay. Not only that: perhaps, originally the work had to be
accompanied by a text of Maryla (she had already published two volumes at the
Polish Printhouse in Florence, dedicated to Benedetto da Maiano and Bernardo
Rossellino). Of course, it all came to nothing, and for that a lot of time went
lost. It was needed to find a replacement for a history of art text.
Samuel
Tyszkiewicz, however, had an important contact in the Florentine art world: the
one with Adolfo Venturi (1856-1941), the patriarch of the Italian art
criticism. He would publish in a few years only, in 1936 a volume of sketches
by Adolfo Venturi, entitled Istantanee (Snapshot),
Venturi
contributed in two ways: he wrote a letter (which was published in Italian) and
asked an Italian scholar, Ms Mary Pittaluga (1891-1977), a protégée of himself
(but also an assistant teacher to his son Lionello), to write an introduction
(seven pages). The text was published only in Polish. It illustrates the life
and work of Cennino, the medievalist tradition of colour recipes, the relationship
of Cennino to the fourteenth century (in particular Giotto and Giotto), and his
theory of colours.
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| Fig. 26) The letter by Adolfo Venturi, in the 1933 edition |
Why has the
letter of Venturi never been translated into Polish? The reason is simple.
Following the tradition of Albert Ilg - who had taken care of the first
German-language version in Vienna in 1871 - Venturi writes an irreverent text
on Cennino, destroying the quality of his treatise. If, therefore, the letter was
still to be published for gratitude (and perhaps even for a parallelism with
the letter of Pierre-Auguste Renoir to Henriy Mottez, which was used as an
introduction to the French version of 1911), it was best to leave it in
Italian, so that in Warsaw readers did not know what it contained.
The last
question remains, to which I do not know to answer: Was the one by Samuel/Maryla
Tyszkiewicz and Jan Zamoyski a good translation or not? Did it turn to be only
a testimony of the interest in the classic world of art by a young and independent
Poland between 1919 and 1939? Or did it provided to the Polish public the
necessary aesthetic and technical tools to actually understand in full the
technology used by Giotto and the later generations? The fact that the
translation was still used in a scientific monograph such as that of 1955
suggests that the Polish text of 1933/1934 must not have been so bad, after all.
That translation was - in his own way - a collective work, as the paintings of
the Brotherhood of St. Luke at the international exhibition in New York in
1939.
NOTES
(1) Cennini,
Cennino - Rzecz o Malarstwie [The Book of the Art]. With a letter of
introduction by Adolfo Venturi and an introduction by Mary Pittaluga. Edited by
Samuel Tyszkiewicz. Florence,
Samuel Tyszkiewicz publisher, 1933 See: http://polona.pl/item/8379277/6/ .
(2) Cennini, Cennino - Rzecz o Malarstwie [The Book of the Art], rękopis z Roku
Pańskiego MCCCCXXXVII przechowany w Bibljotece Laurencjańskiej we Florencji,
opracowany na podstawie trzech wydań włoskich, na język polski przełożony oraz
przypisami opatrzony przez typografa, wydawcę, a w stownictwie fachowem
sumiennie sprawdzony dzięki współpracy malarza imć. Jana
Zamoyskiego członka Bractwa św. Łukasza A.D. 1931. With a letter of
introduction by Adolfo Venturi and an introduction by Mary Pittaluga. Edited by
Samuel Tyszkiewicz. Warsaw Samuel Tyszkiewicz publisher and the Society for the
Promotion of the Arts, 1934 http://polona.pl/item/8379439/6/
(3) Cennini, Cennino - Rzecz o malarstwie [The
Book of the Art]. Translated from Italian by Samuel Tyszkiewicz. Introduction
of Bohdan Urbanowicz and Bohdan Marconi. Comment by Hanna Jedrzejewska.
Wrocław, Zakład imienia Ossolińskich, 1955.
(4) "In
publishing" - as explained by Wikipedia - "... the colophon is a
brief textual description, placed at the beginning or end of a book, showing
the production notes relevant to the edition.” (See: http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colophon)
(5) Translation
of the colophon, on page 123 of the Book of Art in the edition of 1933: “Issue number nine. Florentine Printing House
– Workshop in Square D'Azeglio, with entrance from Via Giordani N° 7. This
translation of the ‘Book of the Art’ was made by us in July of the year 1931
with the funding of the Society for the Promotion of Fine Arts in Warsaw, and
with a support by the artist and painter Jan Zamoyski of the Brotherhood of St.
Luke, who completed the professional technical vocabulary. For reasons
independent of the Printing House, the text was finished and brought to
printing in January 1933. According to the wishes of the "Society for the
Promotion of Fine Arts” we printed two different issues: one in hundred copies
in quarto format, numbered in words in the compressor from the first to the
hundredth number, and two hundred copies of the same in 8° numbered by hand
from Number 101 to number 300. All copies have been hand made with font
incunabula, old and italics, points 12 and 18, made in the Nebiolo plants in
Turin and put manually under pressure according to the antique mode on soaked sheets with the following
breakdown: 75 books in 4° on a purely rag, hand-refined, ribbed paper, with our
water mark on Checciano paper in Pescia, close to Lucca: 25 copies in 4 ° on a
purely rag, ribbed paper produced by Pietro Miliani in Fabriano, with a water
mark Perusia, and finally 200 exemplaries in 8° on smooth rag paper with our aquatic
on paper Cecchi (Pescia). Edition in quarto, illustrated with drawings,
woodcuts and prints, adorned with the initials illuminated with vermilion and
endpapers following themes of Trecento paintings, framed by itself in parchment
with gold. Printing completed on the St. John day, the patron saint of
Florence, in the year of the Lord 1933.” San Giovanni is celebrated every 24
June.
(6) Translation
of the colophon, on page 124 of the Libro dell'Arte in the edition of 1934: “Issue number nine. Produced in Tyszkiewicz’s printing plant in Florence in Via di Camerata
N° 23 (founded in
the year 1927 in Piazza D’Azeglio). This translation of the ‘Book of the Art’
was made by me in July of the year 1931 at the initiative and with the support
of the "Society for the Promotion of Fine Arts” in Warsaw, and with a
support by the artist and painter Jan Zamoyski of the Brotherhood of St. Luke,
who completed the professional technical vocabulary. For reasons independent of
the Printing House, the text was finished and brought to printing in January
1933. According to the wishes of the "Society for the Promotion of Fine
Arts” we printed two different issues: one in hundred copies in quarto format,
numbered in words in the compressor from the first to the hundredth number, and
two hundred copies of the same in 8° numbered by hand from Number 101 to number
300. All copies have been hand made with font incunabula, old and italics,
points 12 and 18, made in the Nebiolo plants in Turin and put manually under
pressure according to the antique mode on soaked sheets with the following
breakdown: 75 books in 4° on a purely rag, hand-refined, ribbed paper, with our
water mark on Checciano paper in Pescia, close to Lucca: 25 copies in 4 ° on a
purely rag, ribbed paper produced by Pietro Miliani in Fabriano, with a water
mark Perusia, and finally 200 exemplars in 8° on smooth rag paper with our
aquatic on paper Cecchi (Pescia). Edition in quarto, illustrated with drawings,
woodcuts and prints, adorned with the initials illuminated with vermilion and
endpapers following themes of Trecento paintings, framed by itself in parchment
with gold. Printing completed on the St. John day, the patron saint of
Florence, in the year of the Lord 1933. Besides
the print of this edition in quarto, due to unforeseen circumstances, I was
able to finish the illustration (part) only for St. Michael in the year of the
Lord 1934.”
(7) The typographic
mark MTS is an obvious derivation of the Renaissance, which was adopted by the Bolognese
printer Benedict Faelli http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/benedetto-faelli_(Dizionario_Biografico)/
and still used by many publishers today.
(8) It should be
immediately warned that there are homonymy problems, of which every cultivated Polish
reader is fully conscious. The most famous Jan Zamoyski (1542-1605) was in fact a
Renaissance-era Polish chancellor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Zamoyski)
who not only dominated the political games in those years in Poland and
Lithuania, but also played an important role in Italian culture (he was also
rector of the University of Padova), and among other things, commissioned the
building of the city of Zamość (bearing his name) to the Italian architect
Bernardo Morando, according to the model of the ideal city. A contemporary of
our Jan Zamoyski was instead August Zamoyski (1893-1970), an avant-garde sculptor
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_Zamoyski). There are also a few
contemporary painters with the same surname. Then there are novelists,
accounts, spies, sports, etc ... In short, one should be very careful to avoid
confusion.
(9) Kossowska,
Irena - Jan Zamoyski: Życie the twórczość
(Jan Zamoyski: Life and production), in culture.pl,
11 April 2006 (see: http://culture.pl/pl/tworca/jan-zamoyski)
(10) Zamoyski,
Jan - Łukaszowcy: malarze the malarstwo
Bractwa św. Łukasza (painters and painting of the Brotherhood of St. Luke), Wydawnictwa Artystyczne the Filmowe,
1989 See also the thesis of Elizabeth Zimnica, entitled "Making History.
Poland at the 1939 World's Fair in New York, "Queen's University, Canada,
1999
(11) For details on the film, see: http://www.wkazimierzudolnym.pl/lukaszowcy-n-y-39.html. The film is available in pirated version on youtube, in Polish: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K05qQ02BmhU (Part I) and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEWPb_DwfRo (part II)
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