Translation by Francesco Mazzaferro
Alessia Cecconi
«Nella presente aggiunta all’Abcedario pittorico del padre maestro Orlandi». Per una rilettura delle Vite gabburriane [In the present addition to Father Orlandi's Abcedario. Rereading Gaburri's Lives]
in
Studi di Memofonte 1/2008
Among all online resources available
today, the richest and most precious Italian site dedicated to the sources of
the history of art is www.memofonte.it,
i.e. the site of the Memofonte Foundation in Florence. Assessing them as the
most qualified web source in Italy is somewhat an expected outcome, as Memofonte
was set up by Paola Barocchi, the art historian who has dedicated his life to art
sources. A visit to the website is strongly recommended.
In addition to the really rare and valuable texts available online, it must be
remembered that an online magazine (available free of charge), is published
semi-annually: the Studi di Memofonte. The review below is for a contribution
published by Alessia Cecconi in the Issue No1 of 2008 of that online magazine.
If you want to read the essay, just click here.
[1] The Lives of the painter Francesco Maria Niccolò Gabburri (1676-1742) are
preserved in manuscript in the Palatine Fund of the National Central Library of
Florence (Pal. EB9.5, I- IV). These four volumes, unfortunately, were partially
damaged by the flood in Florence in 1966. Fortunately, the Scuola Normale di
Pisa had previously made a microfilm of the manuscript, which is now in the
possession of the Memofonte Foundation. The Foundation itself has carried on
its website the digitized version of the work, now therefore fully available to
scholars.
[2] "This contribution aims at rereading Gabburri’s endeavour, inserting
it into the broader culture of Eighteenth-century’s literature on art, as part
of a literature genre of large fortune: that of the ‘abbecedario’ (something like a thematic dictionary,
treating topics in alphabetical order). The first step is to analyze the Vite
not as a parallel work to the Abcedario [editor’s note: sic] of Father Pellegrino Orlandi... but as a
genuine attempt to publish a completely new edition of Orlandi’s alphabet, amending
numerous errors, with substantial additions to any painter, with thousands voices
more than the Abcedario pictorico, and a with noteworthy updated bibliography
"(p. 1). An analytical attempt of this kind can only start from the
careful examination of the originary Abcedario, namely that of Antonio Pellegrino
Orlandi. Rarely, reading the texts, but also the correspondence of the scholars
of the Eighteenth and early Nineteenth century, we found a source which has
been at the same time so often quoted, but also equally often mistreated, as
the Abcedario pittorico by the Conventual Father Orlandi from San Martino
Maggiore in Bologna. The reality is that, with the publication of his Abcedario
- the first edition is of 1704 -, Orlandi originated a new genre. Father Orlandi,
mind you, not only was not an artist, but even not an art expert. Nevertheless,
he had the idea to classify the news about thousands of artists - from the most ancient to the contemporary
ones - according to a strict classification scheme which provided for their
organization in alphabetical order. Indeed, he drew up, with incredible
patience, a sort of biographical dictionary that also presented in the final
pages some tables, including one with the correlation between the names of the
artists and their last names or nicknames. Now, it is easy to see the immense
added value that the Abcedario immediately brought to scholarly circles: the
ability to easily consult data on a specific painter, however browsing a single
tome. The fortune of the work was such that fifteen years later (1719) Orlandi
managed to publish a second edition, greatly increased in content. And the
success was such that, after the death of the author, new editions proliferated.
In this sense the fact
that the biographies of the artists were sometimes sketchy, sometimes
completely wrong became in several respect secondary: "the content of the
biographies listed was necessarily punctuated by errors (due to a revival of fallacies
already present in sources which had almost never been verified), deficient in numerous biographies, and veiled by a specious
controversy against Vasari: ...Orlandi collected and managed a large set of
information, and applied on it selection criteria that led to a schematization
of the news, but not to any critical choice of artists and their work" (p.
6). The important thing is however that Orlandi has "invented" a
genre, that of 'abbecedari', which will have vivid fortune throughout the
eighteenth century, and not only in Italy.
[3] I already mentioned that the new editions, the additions, and the additions
to the additions of the Abcedario pittorico of Father Pellegrino Orlandi were
multiple. The reasons were twofold: on the one hand they aimed at updating, on
the other hand at amending it at least partially from of the numerous errors
they contained. The Abcedario all in all enjoyed a strange destiny - and the
fact is not so amazing -: it was at the same time a very popular source of
information, but one being heavily criticized. All reprints - must be said – respected
in full the fundamental plant of the work, namely the choice to have the
biographies of the artists in alphabetical order. Among the various editions
(see p. 7-9) it is worth remembering the one published in Naples in 1731 for the
types of Angelo Vocola. In this edition, "a significant addition is placed
at the end of Orlandi’s Lives: these biographies, written by the Neapolitan
Antonio Roviglione, naturally reflected the milieu of origin of the issue,
going to trace the biographies of Neapolitan and foreign artists, with
inclusion of some Roman and Florentine ones"(p. 8).
[4 ] Gabburri, who – let us not forget - held various positions within various
academies of Florence, but that was above all Lieutenant of the Grand Duke at
the Florentine Academy of Design from 1730 to 1740, planned a new updated and
amended release of the Abcedario orlandiano. This is witnessed, for example, by
a letter written in 1732 to Jean Pierre Mariette, who shared his passion for
collecting prints and drawings. The result was exactly the Vite di
pittori (Lives of painters). To try dating the origin of the manuscript, but
more generally to better understand the peculiarities of Gabburri’s contributions,
it is important to understand the structure of the manuscript."Gabburri’s work
looks like a dictionary of the lives of the artists listed by first name (and not by surname);
the biographies are preceded by a long list of surnames of the artists,
followed by the corresponding names retrievable in the manuscript. The Vite are
then divided by alphabetical letters; at the end of each letter, you will find
many more cards, making up the Aggiunti (Additions) to each alphabetical letter,
as expressed in the header of various papers by the same author. End tables or
appendices are missing. Every paper is written on the middle column on the
right, while the left is dedicated to additional notations stretched at a later
time, related to the biographical voice of the right column "(p. 11).
Gabburri first started from the text of Orlandi’s Abcedario pittorico and - ordering
the artists by name - complemented, or amended the biographies of the convent Father from Bologna. However, the intervention does not maintain the structure of
the Abcedario unaltered. To the contrary: the size of the additions is
remarkable. Fortunately for us (cf. p. 12) Gabburri (who likes to always specify
its sources) systematically marked differences between the original contribution
of Orlandi and its additions, which are always underlined. There is then, at the end of Orlandi’s
Vite, a very large section of additions that represent an original contribution
by Gabburri. Here we must however limit the meaning of the term "original":
we are not talking of lives written by the Tuscan scholar, but almost always of
lives collated by him through sources other than by Orlandi. Moreover, over the
years a noticeable number of notes started to appear in the left column of the
manuscript (the column devoted to later annotations to the first edition):
"these notations, often written with the most minute calligraphy, finished
by filling (in some cases, with a sort of horror
vacui) almost every inch of the manuscript "(p. 15).
[5] If we now try to question the dating of Gabburri’s work, an initial
response arises spontaneously, namely that the Lives are the result of
sedimentation lasted for years. The tradition - based on a pioneering study of
Fabia Borroni Salvadori (Francesco Maria Niccolò Gabburri and contemporary
artists, in the Annals of the Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa, 1974) - claims
that Gabburri started its work in 1719 to last, at least in substance, until the death (1742). This hypothesis is based on several examples of
biographies in which individual artists are mentioned as being alive in 1719.
The careful examination of the manuscript, however, has allowed to establish
that in all these cases the author is actually transcribing the texts of the
biographies of Pellegrino Orlandi (whose second edition of the Abcedario - remember it - just came out in 1719): all occurrences fall therefore in the first part
of the manuscript, the one copied by Orlandi, and are not underlined (they are
therefore not handwritten new contributions by Gabburri). Moreover, the
analysis of the Additions already shows (perfectly interspersed with other
biographies of different sources) data related to those Neapolitan artists that
Antonio Roviglione added in the Napolitan edition of 1731 (edition that - you
remember - reported Orlandi’s text of 1719 with the final additions by
Roviglione). Therefore, it seems certain that Gabburri worked having at hand a
copy of the Neapolitan edition of the Abcedario in a 1731 version. And
again, the digitization of the work (particularly useful in these circumstances)
provides additional textual analysis: "Questioning the transcribed text with the request relating to the years between 1720 and 1732, it is
easy to find that each time years between this range are quoted, there is never
an indication to present continuous tense, as 'is working' or 'is alive in the
present year’, but always to past tenses" (p. 14). The notations in the
present continuous tense start to appear (however rarely) from 1733, but
multiply at the years 1738 to 1739. And finally, almost all of the amendments
that appear in the left column of the manuscript report the years 1740-1741.
All these factors make it possible today to make the following assumptions:
Gabburri began to work on his Vite around 1732, that is during the months in
which he informed Monsieur Mariette that he wanted to reprint the Abcedario pittorico
by Orlandi and he asked for news about French authors. Most likely, the
following years were especially devoted to collection of information and study;
certainly the crucial phase of the preparation of the manuscript dates back to
1738-1739, and the revision of the same committed the biennium 1740-1741.
[6] No less important is to try to understand how Gabburri differs from Orlandi,
and not only for the (obvious) addition of his
contemporaries by the first one (that the latter author dell'Abcedario had no
way of knowing), but just in setting work. Here Alessia Cecconi recalls plenty
of new ideas (it's really rare to read an essay of this density, but also of
this clarity). We will recall the three innovations that seem to be the most
important, referring the rest to a reading of the text:
- First, Gabburri showed a particular attention to figures belonging to the so-called "minor arts": "the attention to the applied arts is also reflected in a precise use of the artistic vocabulary, which is used in the punctual indication of the particular technique used by the artist; a specific terminology is recorded also in cases where Gabburri discusses the art of engraving, a technique that holds a special place in his Lives. Just in relation to the latter consideration, it should be noted that many of the additions are just the lives of some engravers "(p. 17);
- Second, Gabburri’s horizon was definitely European. The Tuscan scholar looked for and consulted (either directly or through correspondents who translated on his behalf) news about Spanish, French, Flemish artists. It must be said, however, that in this way he made use of the main texts of foreign literature on arts (see Gaburri’s Bibliography). And if the names of Palomino, Félibien, de Piles and Van Mander may seem somewhat obvious, there are others that are much less and are indicative of a search for sources not superficial: it is the case with Juan de Butron for the Spanish or Jacob's Field Weyerman (known in Italian as the Campovivo) for the Flemish (cf. Vaima Gelli. Osservazioni sulle notizie di artisti stranieri nelle Vite di Pittori di Gabburri. Breve esame di alcune fonti).
- Third, if Orlandi, in the wake of Malvasia, was strongly critical of Vasari, Gabburri returned (understandably) to reaffirming the primacy of art history in Florence. "Vasari is defended whenever Orlandi, on the heels of fellow Malvasia, had advanced doubts or controversy ... If Vasari was defended, Baldinucci became a holy scripture to which to appeal in cases of doubt. Gabburri's admiration for Baldinucci not only invested the work of the historian, but the person tout-court, for its proximity to the Grand Duke and the monarchs of the time, for its parallel endeavours as literate and as collector, for his ability to master the various graphic techniques , the passion for portraits of friends and painters "(p. 19).
Nessun commento:
Posta un commento