Orfeo Boselli. Osservazioni della scoltura antica. Ed. S.P.E.S., 1978

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Orfeo Boselli
Osservazioni della scoltura antica dai manoscritti Corsini e Doria e altri scritti
[Observations on ancient sculpture from the Corsini and Doria manuscripts and other writings]

Edited by Phoebe Dent Weil

S.P.E.S. Studio per Edizioni Scelte, 1978

Review by Giovanni Mazzaferro

Orfeo Boselli, Chest of the Cardinal Girolamo Colonna, Rome, Private Collection
Source: http://www.adsi.it/capolavori-da-scoprire-colonna-pallavicini-patrizi-montoro-2007/

[1 ] In the paratext:

" At a time when it becomes ever more vivid the need for a historical interpretation of the technique, the Osservazioni della scoltura antica (Observations on antique sculpture) by Orfeo Boselli, a pupil of François Du Quesnoy, are of binding interest for scholars of ancient and Seventeenth century sculpture. They will find in it those rules to model and work with marble, to make portraits and entire statues, to drape and put in symmetry, which, derived from figurative and literary evidence of antiquity, were particularly attractive to many sculptors of the Seventeenth century.

The still unpublished treaty by Boselli is here reproduced in facsimile from the manuscript of the Corsiniana Library, whose gaps have been filled from the transcript of an existing copy in the Archives Doria Pamphili, hitherto unknown. The original numbering for papers of the two texts has been preserved in this edition. To that numbering – to be found in the footer - refer the copious notes, the index, and the very useful list of collections and collectors of old sculpture, enriched with copious references.

In the appendix are published in facsimile other unpublished writings of Boselli, preserved in the Vatican Library: La nobiltà della scoltura (The nobility of sculpture), a lecture given at the at the Accademia di S. Luca on December 30, 1663, followed by the Apologia of the same lesson. The appendix ends with an essay on the value of the sketch - model by Phoebe Dent Weil (University of Washington, Center of Archaeometry), known for his research on the restoration of ancient statues, who also edited this edition."

Orfeo Boselli, Statue of  St. Benedict, St. Benedict Chapel, Church ofi Sant'Ambrogio della Massima, Rome
Source: http://www.poloromano.beniculturali.it/index.php?it/377/3-cappella-di-san-benedetto

[2] The Osservazioni della scoltura antica were never published. As mentioned above, this is a facsimile edition of the manuscript which contains them (the manuscript, mind you, and not of a printed work; hence, some difficulty in reading the text; it would have been better to have a modern transcription, but it is clear this would have implied a heavier financial burden). The manuscript is preserved in the Library Corsiniana, fund Corsinia Vetus Reference n. 1391, classification 36 -F- 27. The text, which certainly is one on which Boselli prepared a publication that never took place, has three gaps at sheets 25-27, the sheet 57 and sheets 63-66. The shortcomings of the sheets 25-27 and 63-66 have been filled by integrating with a second manuscript, preserved at the Library Doria - Pamphili (No. 115), which is an Eighteenth-century copy of the Treaty. The lack of sheet 57 is thus the only one which could not be repaired. The curator knows a third copy of the Treaty, kept at the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale in Florence (Palatino 833), to which she does not refer, because largely incomplete (two of the five books that make up the work are missing). He is instead unaware of another copy, also largely incomplete, present in the Library Ariostea Ferrara (New Accessions 61). All these details are listed to report that, in 1994, Antonio P. Torresi has edited the treaty based on the versions of the Central Florence and of the Ferrara Ariostea libraries (Orfeo Boselli, Osservazioni sulla scultura. I manoscritti di Firenze e di Ferrara, Ferrara, Liberty house, 1994), notably on the most incomplete ones. In fact, critics have continued to cite the version annotated by Dent Weil as the reference one.

[3] The Eighteenth Century front page of the manuscript Doria Pamphili shows the date 1650. From internal evidence it is likely, however, that at least most of the treaty was written in 1657.

[4] In his introduction, the editor points out to some aspects which we are recalling briefly. The treaty is part of a long tradition that dates back to Leon Battista Alberti and on the one hand aims at the inclusion of art making in the ranks of the liberal arts, on the other one strengthens the effort to provide a theoretical but also practical basis to teaching arts to the younger generation.  The title of the Treaty speaks of "sculpture", but in reality Boselli deals only with a certain type of sculpture: "Boselli, following Michelangelo, defines true sculpture as marble carving, unlike Pliny and Pomponius Gauricus for whom true sculpture is that cast in bronze" (pp. XIII- XIV). Indeed, not much is known of Boselli’s life. In this sense, the most reliable information are provided by Fioravante Martinelli in his Roma ornata dall’Architettura, Pittura e Scoltura (Rome adorned by Architecture, Painting and Sculpture). Boselli attended the circles of the Accademia di San Luca, where he entered full-fledged in 1650, and of which he became a Prince in 1667, a few months before his death. His theoretical thinking is part of the great tradition of the Seventeenth-century classicism and in this sense he is very far from the dominant figure in Roman sculpture of the time, namely that of Gian Lorenzo Bernini. The Treaty of Boselli also holds particular importance for a better reconstruction of the phenomenon of collecting ancient statues. “Boselli’s lifetime spans the period of formation and growth of the great Roman collections of antiquities during the first half of the seventeenth century. The Osservazioni reflects the passionate antiquarian fever that so pervaded the time and that was to have such a persistent influence in future years. By midcentury the quality and quantity of antique sculpture assembled in Roman collections was to remain unparalleled. Boselli’s familiarity with the major and minor Roman collections as student, restorer, dealer and friend of collectors provides us with some extremely rare and important information. Boselli provides as well a rare insight into aesthetic judgement of the period, telling us which sculptural works he considers important and why… Boselli mentions over thirty collections and collectors, including himself, and over one-hundred-fifty specific sculptural works plus monuments and excavations. Given the sparse and scattered information on Roman collections of antiquities during this period, an effort is made here in the «Index of Collections» to combine Boselli’s information with that contained in the various guide books, travel diaries, notices, memorie, catalogues, and books of engravings in the hope of paving the way toward a more thorough study of this fascinating subject” (p. XVIII).

[5] The reprint of the manuscript is followed by a) a general bibliography, b) a bibliography on Boselli, and a list of works cited in the Treaty of Boselli, c) the notes to the manuscript, d) a general index that very much recalls the presence of Paola Barocchi (thanked in the preface), with a dense network of "great voices" and subheadings, e) an index of collections and collectors of antique sculptures, and f) an index of the sculptures and ancient monuments. All of these materials, as well as the introductory essay and the essay in an appendix (on the sketch-model relationship) are in English. Also in the appendix, as mentioned at the beginning, appear facsimile reprints of La nobiltà de la scoltura. Lezione recitata ne l’Academia del Disegno in S.Luca… il Di 30 Decembre anno 1663, and of the subsequent Apologia della lezione, in response to criticism of an unidentified "French censor”.

[6 ] See also Elizabeth Di Stefano, Orfeo Boselli and the "nobility" of the sculpture (Palermo, Aesthetica  2002)