Luciano Mazzaferro. The ‘Original Treatises’ of Mary Philadelphia Merrifield. Part II: The Volpato manuscript and the 'pirate' edition in Bassano del Grappa

Translation by Francesco Mazzaferro
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Luciano Mazzaferro
The 'Original Treatises' of Mary Philadelphia Merrifield
Part II: The Volpato manuscript and the 'pirate' edition in Bassano del Grappa

Gian Battista Volpato, The Holy Family, 1700 ca
http://www.studiomondi.it/

JUNE 2018: This post was published in 2014. Afterwards, an important set of letters were discovered in Brighton. They were sent by Mary Philadelphia Merrifield to her husband from Italy during the trip she conducted there between 1845 and 1846, in search of manuscripts evidencing the artistic techniques of the ancient Italian masters. Much of the information contained in this post may therefore be outdated, incomplete and sometimes incorrect. I published the letters in 2018 in La donna che amava i colori. Mary P. Merrifield. Lettere dall’Italia (1845-1846) – i.e. The Lady Who Loved Colours. Mary P. Merrifield. Letters from Italy (1845-1846) – Milan, Officina Libraria, 2018, isbn 88-99765-70-5. I would therefore like to point out this new publication to anybody interested. Nevertheless, I am keeping the old posts visible, as they testify ​​what information was available before the letters were discovered and how the research on Mary P. Merrifield has evolved in recent years.

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Note by Giovanni and Francesco Mazzaferro: This text is the faithful transcription and translation of a part of a "Reader’s Note" drafted by our father, Luciano Mazzaferro, with reference to the “Original Treatises on the Arts of Painting” by Ms Mary Philadelphia Merrifield . Our father drafted these pages around 1998. The transcribed pages refer to one of the treatises published by Merrifield, i.e. the Modo da tener nel dipinger (On the method to follow in painting) by Gian Battista Volpato. The notes to the text are editorial and have been compiled in 2014).

This is also an essay in the series dedicated to Mary Philadelphia Merrifield. The previous, noted on this blog are:

Giovanni Mazzaferro. Mary Philadelphia Merrifield: the Lady from Brighton who Loved Colours;

Caroline Palmer. Mary Philadelphia Merrifield and the Alliance with Science;
Caroline Palmer. Colour, Chemistry and Corsets: Mary Philadelphia Merrifield's 'Dress as a Fine Art'
Luciano Mazzaferro. The 'Original Treatises' by Mary Philadelphia Merrifield. Part One: The Le Bègue Manuscripts

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Volpato Gian Battista, Modo da tener nel dipinger

This is the integral transcript of a manuscript preserved in the Biblioteca civica (Public Library) of Bassano del Grappa [Note of the translator: a town in Northern Italy, in the Veneto region]. Mrs. Merrifield does not specify the location of the work, but it cannot be ruled out that the manuscript was already marked there with the number, i.e. 1763, which we find in the volume No. 40 of the Inventari dei manoscritti delle Biblioteche d’Italia (Inventory of the Manuscripts of the Libraries of Italy), published in Florence sixty years ago [1].

These and other manuscripts by Volpato were known long before Mrs. Merrifield dealt with them. They were widely read and used by Verci for the preparation of the Notizie intorno alle vite e alle opere di Pittori, Scultori e Intagliatori della città di Bassano (News around the lives and works of Painters, Sculptors and Engravers of the town of Bassano), published in Bassano in 1775 [2]. Lanzi, a highly influential scholar in the early decades of the last century, had provided a fairly simplistic judgment on Volpato as a painter, but at the same time had shown some sympathy for his work as a writer: "His work is strewn with good comments." [3]. And immediately later on: it is "at least necessary to accept he was a good theorist." Algarotti - are always Lanzi’s words - took a copy "of his major writing, as it can be seen in the index of his books on fine arts already published" [4]. The appreciation by Algarotti, not always an accurate researcher, both provided good food for thought as well triggered repeated pinpricks. At the beginning of the new century, in 1807, Bartolomeo Gamba published a brief writing on the illustrious citizens of Bassano. In it, the reputation of Volpato as a painter is really savaged, because he was too far away from the then dominant neo-classical style. Are reported to public contempt "those huge backs and those lewd asses, and those blackish and dark shades that you see ... in his paintings" (p. 51) [5]. But even here we perceive a decisive change in the assessment as soon as the author moves to comment on the manuscripts: Gamba signals at p. 50 that "many of Volpato’s writings about the teaching of the arts of design remain, some of which served to Verci, and were also useful to Algarotti, who sometimes happily robed the dresses of others." In a hushed and almost dismissive tone appears the assessment by L. Cicognara in the most famous Catalogo ragionato (Commented catalogue) imprinted in Pisa in 1821 [6]: there is no shortage of minute news, as usual precise and challenging ones, but - when one tries to identify the core message – he will find that the manuscripts of Volpato deserve attention especially for the debt contracted by Verci and for the interest they were able to raise in Algarotti. Some twenty years later, when Charles L. Eastlake translated and commented the Treaty of Goethe's Zur Farbenlehre giving it the title Goethe's Theory of Colours [7], he found a way to mention in full dignity Volpato’s main work, by then still unpublished: it was the Verità pittoresca svelata ai dilettanti (The Truth on Painting unveiled to Amateurs" [8]). He happened again to emphasise Volpato’s obvious influence on Verci’s compilation, to whom he had given the scheme or, if you more like it, the “groundwork” of some essential parts. Indeed, nothing really new; and it would probably have not been necessary to mention this last reference to Volpato, if even Mrs. Merrifield had not felt the need to mention it (pp. 721 ff.). This circumstance, together with the other largely well-known one of the significant influence that the vast culture and not common organizational skills of Eastlake had on the soul and on the choices of Merrifield, lead us to suppose that the latter had decided to take an interest in Volpato and that she went to Bassano on his advice or suggestion, if not for an express instruction by him, the man who, a little later, would become (due to the direct involvement of Peel) the first Director of the National Gallery in London. Even knowing that I am following a suggestion that cannot go beyond the limits of a reasonable formulation of hypotheses, it seems logical to assume, however, that Ms Merrifield had come to Bassano with the intent to examine the manuscript of Volpato’s Verità pittoresca (the work appreciated by Eastlake) in order to trim it off, as it had happened for other reviews, by selecting those chapters and sections which would better meet the requirements of her research than other sections. And it is also reasonable to think that, only after her arrival in Bassano, she changed her mind. After having examined the manuscripts in the Biblioteca civica, Ms Merrifield oriented herself in favour of the treatise which she published later on, finding it was more effective than the Verità pittoresca and had a smaller size, making it possible to ensure the complete reproduction.

Gian Battista Volpato, La Verità pittoresca svelata ai dilettanti
lhttp://www.europeana.eu/portal/record/2023813/Generale_ricerca_AnteprimaManoscritto_html_codiceMan_38894.html

Both in the major work as well as in the smaller treatise, preferred by Ms Merrifield, Volpato had used the format of a dialogue. The Verità pittoresca is presented as a conversation between Ottavio - a character who, according to Pallucchini [9] should be identified with the author himself - and another painter called Florindo. In the small work used by Merrifield the dialogue does not involve painters anymore, but their assistants or workshop aids. The older of the two assistants provides guidance and reveals some "secrets" on how best to carry out the work to an inexpert young man named Silvio. He introduces himself as being at the service of Florindo. If you go back just a few lines, you will realise that the "owner" of Silvio is, to be exact, one of the two protagonists of the Verità pittoresca. In reality, Ms Merrifield’s text refers to Floriani rather than indicating Mr Florindo. However, a following writing with which we are dealing soon [note of the editor: see below the issue edited by Baseggio] tells us that the person to whom Silvio related was unequivocally Florindo and that the name Floriani is due to an inaccurate reading, which can be explained by two circumstances: first with the bad handwriting of the text (see p. 722) and with the consequent difficulty, not to say almost impossibility of reconstructing the original text; second, with the tendency of the English scholar, by now engaged in many tasks, to assign some tasks to one or both of the two children accompanying her on a trip to Italy. The children, less prepared than her, were not always able to solve with the same effectiveness various interpretative doubts and to avoid some blatantly naive output [10].

Giambattista Volpato, Madonna della Cintura, Montegaldella (Vicenza)

The restoration of the actual name of the "master" of Silvio (Florindo instead of Floriani) is not - as it might appear at first sight - simply a pique, but allows us to gain a useful element to date the short manuscript, which does not contain, as far as I know, any indication of the year in which it was drafted. Mrs Merrifield correctly points out that the writing must necessarily be after 1670, since the text mentions an essay by Francesco Lana, printed in Brescia in that year [11]. After having identified this milestone, Mrs Merrifield adds however that in his view the date could be posterior to 1670 by a number of years; and here it must be said that her intuition was right, even if that error of transcription did not permit to find out any evidence to support her point of view. If one of the parties is a student of the Florindo, and if Florindo is one of the two dialogue partners of the Verità pittoresca, it seems logical to infer that the work included by Merrifield in her publication must have been drafted after the Verità pittoresca and, in a sense, must be its logical continuation. Set aside the big issues on which the painters had discussed, their helpers or apprentices are now occupying themselves with the ordinary matters of their work, rarely taking the liberty of any divagation. Now, since there is broad agreement in saying that the Verità pittoresca was not prepared to be printed (a printing which never materialised) before 1685, the treatise on which we are dwelling must necessarily be much later than 1670 (when Lana’s work saw the light) and must be placed probably around 1690. With this update, the underlying thesis supported by Merrifield becomes even more credible: “I am of opinion that the notices to this MS. respecting painting in oil, are to be considered as applying to paintings of the Venetian school at the conclusion of the seventeenth century”. [12]

In the preliminary note she prepared, Ms Merrifield recalls various instructions and workshop secrets that the more experienced colleague provides to the young and inexperienced Silvio. Here it is sufficient to remember that the dialogue focuses on how best to carry out the various tasks which, not involving special qualities of imagination and invention, were usually performed by personnel of the workshop. The dialogue refers thus to the preparation of the canvas and, with particular insistence, to the most recommendable processes for the preparation of the colours. The artist who is watched with greater admiration is naturally the most famous painter of theplace, i.e. Jacopo da Ponte called Bassano. And, from time to time, reference is made to some writer or essayist who also interested himself for the most humble of the painting activity. We were able to find Lana (quoted a few lines above because of the date in which he composed his essay) and, in another part of the manuscript, two well-known authors of the previous century: Armenini [13] and Borghini [14]. The dialoguers sometimes move out of topic to kindly talk of good wine, to bet on whom will pay the next bill and to dedicate their libations sometimes to their respective "masters" and sometimes to the saint patron. All things considered, a quite pleasant dialogue, less dense of news and evaluations compared to other manuscripts of the modern age chosen by Merrifield, but easy and quick to read. Towards the end, i.e. immediately before the foreseeable libations to pay farewell, the dialogue suddenly increases its tones: driven by a disdain that seems sincere and which appears in any case well motivated, the older of the two figures hits those "ignorant people" who recklessly performed clean-up and restoration works, ruining or removing the "last retouches which are the perfection of the work." He continues: "I even saw washing paintings on board or canvas, and in a way that, that after having been washed, they flaked off, because the chalk beneath is affected by humidity and lifted; and therefore it is a great madness washing intact paintings " (p. 751). Equally reprehensible are certain oil interventions, as evidenced by the deterioration of the figure of a saint in a large canvas by Titian kept in a church in Venice: it had been greased "so many times by sacrilege and graceless" brushers and copyists, that this figure was so deteriorated and darkened that "you no longer see what face it has." [15] The counterproof of the damage done to the image of the saint is provided by those angels, painted on the same canvas, that, "being on the top of the painting [and] therefore far from similar interventions, were preserved in their beauty" (p. 751 and 753). This passage captures the first attitudes of critical awareness, leading to fix a number of directives for the preservation of art works, at least for those owned by government and religious bodies.

The 'pirate' edition in Bassano del Grappa

At the cost of attributing to Volpato’s short treatise a greater importance than it may deserve, I do not think we can abruptly stop these annotations. Instead, I think it necessary to dwell on a couple of other issues, in particular on the publication - certainly not agreed with the English scholar – of the same manuscript by an editor in Bassano.

It is hard to reconstruct the entire course of events, but at least on some points not many uncertainties remain. When she went to Bassano, Mrs Merrifield got a good reception. The collaboration was undoubtedly more than satisfactory. Already in the first volume of the work, when she felt a duty to thank those who had helped her, Mrs Merrifield wanted to include in the long list (I, p. 9, footnote) "Mr Giambattista Baseggio, President of the Athenaeum of Bassano". The name of the Baseggio returns in the section on Volpato: Mrs Merrifield warns us that the manuscript had been kindly lent to her (in short, there was a loan and not a mere read permission) by Baseggio, who also granted a permission to copy it. Since Baseggio’s subsequent behaviour looks nothing short of amazing, it is worth to refer directly to the English text of which I take the liberty to point out a few words: “the original… was kindly lent to me by Sig. Baseggio, the librarian and president of the Athenaeum of Bassano, with a permission to copy it…” (p. 722). Benevolence, therefore, kindness and understanding of the many difficulties to be overcame. Yet, shortly after the return of the manuscript by Merrifield, Mr Baseggio’s attitude changed and he took the decision to also study the manuscript, to transcribe it, prepare it properly and print it as a matter of urgency, even before the "writer from Brighton" (as Merrifield was called in some Italian cultural circles) could kick off the publication of this and other manuscripts, with their English translations and notes. From being a Merrifield’s supporter Baseggio turned, without fanfare, in one of his competitors and antagonists. One aspect must be held firm:  Baseggio performed an independent transcription from that of Merrifield and he could certainly not use the comment that the latter wrote only in view of the publication of his extensive collection of manuscripts. Baseggio did not plagiarize anything: he did neither have the courage nor the habit, to do so. A local writer, known and heard in his area, speaks of him with great consideration recalling the commitment placed on the reorganization of the library and the remake of the catalogue: from a wealthy family, he had decided to donate his entire salary for the purchase of new books from the library directed by him. [16]  Browsing through the "Pagliaini" [17] and the repertoire that goes under the name of CLIO [18] (Vol. I, p. 355) it turns out that Mr Baseggio had given and continued to give to the press small writings, which - exception made for a memory on Guercino - were always dedicated to topics of strictly local interest. We are in fact faced with a figure - I would say to a cultural animator – who would merit to be remembered with very positive accents for his generosity and mind openness, if at least one spot did not remain to spoil the overall picture: having snatched the idea from the lady came all the way from her Brighton house with the children; having deprived her, with little graciousness and with the mastery of a consummate navigator, of the pleasure to be the first one to publish a manuscript  that, all things considered, was consistent  with (and was part of, without doubt) a collection of unusual value. Prepared without unnecessary delay, Baseggio’s version was ready in 1847. It was published within the same year with the help of the vestrymen of the parish church of Bassano and was dedicated, as a sincere esteem and the rules of good living recommended, to Msgr. Zaccaria Bricato, Archbishop of Udine [19]. The initiative did not pass entirely unnoticed and even today (see, for example, the item "Giovan Battista Volpato" in Vol. 32 of The Dictionary of Art of the Grove Editor [20]) there is a bias to forget the issue edited by Merrifield, emphasising the text published by Baseggio.

A special critical effort is not needed to realise the gaps that stand between the version of the Baseggio and that of Merrifield. Mrs Merrifield sees in Volpato an author who can provide useful material and first-hand for his historical study on art techniques practiced by artists and from high-level craftsmen: it has already been mentioned that, according to the English scholar, the procedures described in the small treatise by Volpato would permit to report some solutions developed in the workshops of Venetian painters of the late seventeenth century. Baseggio moves instead on a dimension that is typical of researches of local interest, and is interested in Volpato, not in his paintings, which fail to capture any interest from him, nor for the merits of this manuscript, which defines "lightweight and able to explain, at best", the reason why his paintings blackened to such an extent as to make it impossible to decipher the objects that are represented there. In short, Volpato is a painter of the third or fourth row and the only remarkable thing he could do was to identify the procedures that made his production not acceptable [21]. Yet, despite its weaknesses, Volpato is also a well-known and celebrated figure in Bassano; and this feature is for Baseggio reason enough to talk on him and offer to print the unpublished job. Inserted in the entire historical process glimpsed by Merrifield, the figure of Volpato takes prominence and receives full justification, but here - in the reconstruction that Baseggio gives - fades away and is discarded: we encounter a character of maniera, without any biting or questions.

Different is also the language of the characters, which is free and dishevelled in the pages of Merrifield and that becomes elegant, mannered and respectful of good grammar rules in the other publication. Although Merrifield (or the son, to whom she probably left the task of the transcript) made, for the reasons that were said and that is certainly not the place to repeat, some mistakes in deciphering, the two protagonists of the dialogue continue to interact quite naturally in their own language, using the terms typical of their profession and often some colourful expressions. For Merrifield, an expert in philology, this is a clear and essential choice: if the reader is disturbed by slang forms and cannot use his knowledge of Italian, he can make use of the English translation placed in front, in the even-numbered pages. For Baseggio, to the contrary, the dialectal forms are a blasphemy, an ugliness to be avoided, as he says in clear notes in the preface (p. 11): even the Verità pittoresca, Volpato’s best text, should be turned into Italian "to appear without shame even in our day", because it is not real Italian, so much it is full of Venetian jargon. Moreover, one should think about straightening "the form more in general". And here Baseggio works in professional terms. With few exceptions, simple consonants - customary among Venetians - are doubled:  cola (glue), pitore (painter), biaca (grout), asciuto (dry), seco (again, dry), modelo (model) , penelo (brush), azuro (blue), gialo (yellow), bola (bubble), trato (line), peza (rag) and countless other items (dear to Volpato and respected by Merrifield) are italianised by Baseggio and become colla, pittore, biacca, asciutto, secco, modello, pennello, azzurro, giallo, bolla, tratto and pezza. Not few accents just disappear, while others sprout on words that lacked them in the original text. Long periods are broken; the subjunctive appears in most cases, in homage to comfortable, but in this context annoying rules of coordination among verb tenses; prepositions are changed and interpolations performed, periods are turned around and extensive alterations made, which Mrs Merrifield would have felt completely arbitrary. Even proper names, which in the dialogue written by Volpato had accommodated the mode of expression of the Venetians, return cleaned up in their old national sense, just as the 'Rafael Borgini' which Mrs Merrifield left unchanged, even if followed by appropriate confirmation annotations; the Director of the Public Library of Bassano restores it immediately and translates into Raffaello Borghini. Even the title of the work changes: the sentence originally conceived by Volpato is rejected: “Modo da tener nel dipinger”, i.e. "the method to follow in painting", which is not a fanciful expression coined by Merrifield and that, not surprisingly, I find in vol. LV of the "Inventories of manuscripts, etc. ... "[22]. Instead, it is preferred a longer and almost courtly expression, namely “Del preparare tele, colori, ed altro spettante alla pittura” ("On preparing canvases, colors, and other due to the painting "). And it is good to make it clear that the first words in the original title were drawn from an expression that appears in the first question asked by Silvio to his interlocutor, while the later heading models a recurring expression in several titles of treatises published in the seventeenth century. But perhaps in this case - I am referring to the alteration of the title - this is not a change solely due to the needs of a misunderstood literary dignity: we cannot completely exclude the fact that even a number of diverse reasons and origins became relevant. This may include a certain ‘modesty’ to reveal, even in the words of the cover page, the relationship with the manuscript which Mrs Merrifield would publish shortly. Perhaps it was hoped that in faraway England the public would not realise that it was the same text. This is obviously a simple hypothesis, but - although knowing that we are moving on a terrain where we need to go with caution - I would not exclude that these or other similar reasons may have assumed a role of some weight. [23]

That Baseggio’s behaviour has not been clear and straightforward and ended up in sharp contrast with the initial, broad availability towards Mrs Merrifield seems difficult to dispute; however, this and other reserves vis-à-vis the director of the library in Bassano do not authorise to argue that he was a completely unprepared researcher, unaware of what had happened in the artistic circles in which Volpato was active. At least on one point the comparison between the publication which took place in Bassano and the chapter devoted to Volpato by Ms Merrifield is resolved in favour of Baseggio. And this was due to a better knowledge of the Italian language and, in particular, the Venetian dialect expressions present in large sections in the manuscript; to a more patient attention to the obscure passages of the text and, in addition, a more accurate comparison of Volpato with the other figures of his era; and to the reflexes (and even that should not be overlooked) of that scholarly activity which was the field of study preferred by the head of the library of Bassano. The comparisons are useful. Some reading errors committed by Merrifield (or one of his sons) and avoided by Baseggio sometimes have a range of little or no account, and - when they come up – they affect speeches of a thin technical importance or are even localized on mere contour phrases such as reciprocal frequent calls to raise the elbow : 'vino non è punto inferiore al capone‘ (Wine is not worse at all than capon - read p. 727 of the London publication, where perhaps it is imagined that the conversation took place during a lavish banquet): "wine is not less powerful than love", it is said , with a well-known similitude that fits well in the subsequent course of the speech, at p. 18 of the booklet printed in Bassano. In the first text, about a bet (see p. 749), it is whispered that "we will enjoy together at the market" (i.e. the debt resulting from the loss of the bet will be honoured with purchases at the market), while in the transcription of the same manuscript, edited by Baseggio, the market disappears and is replaced appropriately with a variety of fine wine: "together, we will enjoy Moscato". The composition of the dialogue is not compromised even in other situations with fewer Bacchus implications, like when we speak of a painting that, suddenly detached from the wall, would have gone broken by falling on a “scrigno" (treasure chest) (still on p. 749), in reality ill-suited to a workshop of painter. Baseggio’s interpretation (see p. 36 of his pamphlet) reads "scagno", a now obsolete word that stands for "bench" or, more simply "chair". Sometimes, however, the inaccuracies of reading do not produce completely innocent changes, without any substantial weight. We have already said about Florindo, who became Floriani, and prevented immediately to grasp the connections between a character of the writing, and another one that appears in the Verità pittoresca. And, if you want to have another similar example, you can quote the wrong quote from a painter, which causes no little confusion to those who rely only on the London edition. According to the interpretation given in the collection of Merrifield, the dialogue would count (always in the unfortunate page 749, which obviously is affected by the critical bad physical condition of a large piece of the manuscript) a reference to Canziani, a painter of very poor reputation [24] (and what hurts more, too young at the end of '600 not to give rise to doubts or second thoughts about the dating, in other respects reasonable, of the work). We should, strictly speaking, not only come closer - as here has been proposed – to the end of the seventeenth century, but even spill over into the next century, with the risk of going over 1706, the year of Volpato’s death. But then everything can quiet down soon, as Baseggio reads, instead of the impossible Canziani, the name of Carpioni [25], the name of an artist who fits several decades before and who appears here in his own right for having modelled an art style to which the same Volpato adhered.

Come to this point, I do not deny that I would really like to know whether Mrs Merrifield ever learned of the publication by Baseggio and, if so, when this would have happened. As far as I know, none of the two editors (neither Mrs Merrifield nor Baseggio) never explicitly touched on the subject but, after thinking a little on it, it seems to me that two conclusions, or if you want two reasonable conjectures, are not completely out of place. It is first of all very unlikely that Mrs Merrifield came into possession of Baseggio’s file long before her work was handed over to the publisher John Murray in London. If this had happened, Mrs Merrifield would have had time to change her text and to correct the most significant errors, simply deductible through a comparison with the draft made ​​by Baseggio. To this first observation you may now add another one. If it is unlikely that Mrs Merrifield timely knew the initiative of Baseggio, however there are some elements to suppose that, right before printing, a copy of the print-out in Bassano reached her hands. Otherwise you will not be able to understand some circumstances, such as the printing of an extract from Merrifield’s second volume, exclusively dedicated to the pages containing the treatise of Volpato, and the dissemination of this extract not really in England, but exclusively among Italian friends and acquaintances [26]. Consider that the extract is not indicated in the catalogue of the British Library where all or almost all of the material published in England is collected and stored, while it appears with unusual abundance in areas of Italy travelled by Merrifield. In Bologna, I discovered without much difficulty, two copies: one at the Academy of Fine Arts and the other in the Archiginnasio Library. And both bear the handwritten dedication by the scholar. It seems logical to assume that these extracts - produced for the small work of Volpato, and not for other and more important parts of the collection - have been forwarded to Italian friends and acquaintances (who - it could be assumed - knew about the issue in Bassano), to reiterate vis-à-vis them (and not the fellow British scholars, certainly ignorant of the whole affair) the right of priority to which she could legitimately aspire. All of this, however, in a graceful form, almost on tiptoe, and with undeniable elegance.

And now let us turn to the last question. Among the repertoires commonly consulted by those who are concerned with sources of the history of art, only the work of Schlosser reports the edition of Volpato edited by Merrifield (see page 621 ff.) [27], but we must immediately notify that the statement included in the work by the Austrian scholar contains an indication that results in a new element of disorientation. In fact, in his view the Modo da tener nel dipinger is not a work of the painter about whom we have been talking so far, but of a namesake engraver (or almost with the same name): that Giovanni Volpato known for various jobs and, in particular, for the reproduction of the frescoes performed by Raphael in the Vatican Rooms. From the end of 1600 we would thereby pass to 1700 and then the script would rejuvenate by a century. [28]

Schlosser is a too authoritative scholar to claim it can be simply ignored. After having completed the duty to mention his opinion, it seems to me, however, that several factors would lead to stick to the previous attribution. And this for various reasons, which I am exposing quickly. First, because Schlosser does not confirm his statement with any argument serving to validate it. Second, because I am not aware that his opinion was never agreed with by anybody, even by those (and they are not few) who have made reference to the edition of Bassano derived from the same manuscript, and therefore were involved in the same problem of attribution. Third, because I see no reason why the engraver Volpato would have occupied himself of canvases, colours and other materials and processes which are typical of the work of a painter (and not of those who work in a profession involving the knowledge of other technical characteristics). Fourth, because I could not explain why one of the two dialogue partners, moved by Schlosser to the end of the eighteenth century, should feel the need to refer to that Florindo which had appeared one century before in the Verità pittoresca that everyone - even the Austrian scholar – attributed to Volpato in the seventeenth century. Fifth, because the aforementioned inventory of manuscripts held by Italian libraries [29] states that the treatise is written with seventeenth-century handwriting and attributes it, without any hesitation, to the first of the two Volpatos. Sixth, because the same inventory judges the script we are talking about as an autograph (and not copied by other hand from an original text, i.e. an apograph, as in the case of the Verità pittoresca), and because it seems to me strange - not to say improbable – that the compiler of the repertoire, convinced supporter of the authorship, would have not completed a comparison with the hand writings of the first of the two Volpatos , which are also stored in one of the neighbouring shelves, in the same library of Bassano. I think, for example, to the letter that the painter Giovan Battista Volpato (and not the engraver with nearly same name) wrote on April 20, 1689 to Giovanni Lanzarin, and that it can be found, just in Bassano, under the signature 9.119.XXX.11.

NOTES

[1] Albano Sorbelli (ed.), Inventari dei manoscritti delle biblioteche d’Italia. (Inventories of the manuscripts of the libraries of Italy). Vol LV: Bassano del Grappa. Florence, L.S. Olschki, 1934. We take this opportunity to point out that all time references in this manuscript were kept unchanged. Thus, for example, when you read that the publication of the lists of Bassano is ‘sixty years ago’, you have to take into account that Luciano Mazzaferro wrote in the late 1990s. All citations to ‘the previous century’, in the same way, refer to 1800, and not to 1900.

[2] Giambatista Verci, Notizie intorno alla vita e alle opere de’ Pittori, Scultori e Intagliatori della Città di Bassano, (News around the life and works of  Painters, Sculptors and Engravers of the Town of Bassano), Venice, Giovanni Gatti, 1775.

[3] Luigi Lanzi, Storia pittorica della Italia (History of Painting in Italy), Vol II. Edited by Martino Capucci, Florence, Sansoni, 1970 , p. 147.

[4 ] Catalogo dei quadri, dei disegni e dei libri che trattano dell’arte del disegno della Galleria del fu sig. conte Algarotti in Venezia (Catalogue of paintings, drawings and books dealing with the art of the design of the Gallery of the late Mr. Count Algarotti in Venice). Year and place of publication do not appear. However, the Getty Research Institute dates the work as 1776 and attributes its receivership to Giovanni Antonio Selva and Pietro Edwards. The reference to Volpato is contained on p. 79. https://archive.org/details/catalogodeiquadr00selv

[5] Bartolommeo Gamba, De’ Bassanesi illustri (On illustrious citizens from Bassano), Bassano, Remondiana Printing House, 1807.

[6] Leopoldo Cicognara, Catalogo ragionato dei libri d’arte e d’antichità posseduti dal Conte Cicognara, (Annotated catalogue of books on art and antiquities owned by Count Cicognara), Arnaldo Forni publisher, 1998 (reprint of the 1821 edition).

[7] Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Theory of Colours, translated and annotated by Charles Lock Eastlake, London, J. Murray, 1840.

[8] Gian Battista Volpato, The Truth on Painting Unveiled to Amateurs, Public Library of Treviso, Ms. no. 398.

[9] Rodolfo Pallucchini, La pittura veneziana del Seicento (Venetian painting of the seventeenth century), Vol. I, Venice, Alfieri publisher, p. 336.

[10] Charles Merrifield (1827-1884) and Frederick Merrifield (1831-1924). The young age of the children really amazes. Yet, it must be said that already in The Art of Fresco Painting in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance (1846) Ms Merrifield had benefited from the children to translate works drafted in other languages​​ (provided that it was to fill in the first drafts, while the revision was made by the mother). Charles had translated from Italian, Frederick from Spanish. See The Art of Fresco Painting, Introduction, p. 9.

[11] Francesco Lana, Prodromo overo Saggio di alcune inventioni nuove premesso all’Arte maestra (Introduction or Essay on some new findings, premised to the Master Art), Brescia, Rizzardi , 1670. For a modern edition , see Francesco Lana, Prodromo all’arte maestra (Introduction to Master Art), curated by Andrea Battistini , Milan, Longanesi 1977.

[12] Original Treatises … , p. 722.

[13] Giovan Battista Armenini, De’ veri precetti della pittura (On the true precepts of painting) (Ravenna, 1586). Modern edition edited by Marina Gorreri, Turin, Einaudi, 1988.

[14] Raffaello Borghini, Il Riposo (The Rest) (Florence, 1584). Modern edition by Marco Rosci. Milan, Labor Editions, 1967.

[15] The painting of which we speak is the "St. Peter Martyr" of Venice, probably to be identified with the altarpiece painted by Titian in the church of Santi Giovanni e Paolo in Venice. The work was destroyed by a fire in 1867. A seventeenth-century copy of Johann Carl Loth is exposed.

[16] G.J. Ferrazzi , Di Bassano e dei Bassanesi illustri (On Bassano and illustrious Citizens of Bassano) Bassano, Baseggio Printhouse, 1847, p. 109. The fact that the printer is also called Baseggio suggests a possible relationship (although it is likely that the surname may be typical of that area).

[17] Attilio Pagliani, General Catalogue of Italian library from 1847 to around 1899. Milan, Associazione tipografico-libraria italiana (Italian Association of book printers and booksellers), 1901.

[18] CLIO Catalogo dei Libri Italiani dell’Ottocento (CLIO - catalogue of Italian books of the nineteenth century) (1801-1900), 19 vols. Bibliografica Publishing.

[19] Giambatista Baseggio (ed.) Del preparare tele, colori, od altro, spettante alla pittura. Dialogo inedito scritto da Giambatista Volpato pittore bassanese (On preparing canvases, colors, or other due to painting. Dialogue novel written by Giambatista Volpato, painter in Bassano), Bassano, Baseggio Printhouse, 1847. It can be consulted online

http://books.google.it/books?id=AslLAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA2&hl=it&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=4#v=onepage&q&f=false

[20] The Grove Dictionary of Art, by Jane Turner. 34 vols., 1996.

[21] The Baseggio edition is quoted below: "If I meant, speaking on Giambatista Volpato, to remember a man that took an honoured place in the history of painting in Italy, I would make a huge mistake: for he  not only has no merit at all to be mentioned as a painter who let art progress, but even not to be recalled as one who conserved prevailing art but at least made such works which did not compare shamefully with those of his contemporaries"(p. 7). In fact, Volpato is best remembered - and Baseggio does not refrain from doing so - for an absolutely intolerable episode, i.e. the subtraction of two altarpieces of Bassano from two churches of the county. The originals were replaced with copies. Discovered and prosecuted in 1685, Volpato was banished from Feltre for ten years.

[22] Albano Sorbelli ( ed.) , Inventari dei manoscritti…(Inventories of manuscripts), quoted.

[23] If Baseggio’s intentions were muddling waters, so that it would not be understood that his Del preparare tele, colori, od altro, spettante alla pittura was the same manuscript on the Method to follow in painting by Merrifield, it must be said that he was quite successful. We have evidence that the combination of the two works has, in fact , gone unnoticed so far, with one exception, namely Les traditions techniques de la peinture médiévale (Technical traditions of mediaeval painting) by Guy Loumyer , printed in 1914 (p. 202), where it is correctly noted that that it is a single Treaty.

[24] Giovan Battista Canziani, Veronese painter. According to the Abecedario Pittorico di padre Pellegrino Orlandi (Pictorial Abecedarium of Father Pellegrino Orlandi) he ‘lived around  the year 1712’.

[25] Giulio Carpioni (Venice , 1613 - Vicenza, 1678).

[26] I have been both at the Archiginnasio Library as well as at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna to track down the two copies mentioned by my father. At the Archiginnasio Library, the brochure is classified under "Volpato" as an author and is registered as "18 Belle Arti. Insegnamento teorico-pratico Cap. I.H.16". Technically, this is not an excerpt, though (I checked) the content is absolutely identical with respect to what appeared in the Original Treatises. But the page numbering goes from 1 to 37, instead of from 719 to 755, and the publisher is different. This is William Clowes and Sons, Stamford [sic] Street, London. On top of the title page appears the dedication: "Sig. Gaetano Giordini with Mrs. Merrifield 's comp.". I believe that it is an autographed dedication, for Merrifield fell into the same error as in the acknowledgements at the beginning of the Original Treatises (p XI note) and misspelled the name of Gaetano Giordani, then director of the Art Gallery, as Giordini. How the dossier landed in the Archiginnasio Library is obvious: at the death of Giordani, the Library purchased his entire collection of books, including brochures. The date does not appear. It is uncertain, therefore, whether it is an anticipation, dictated by the rush to respond to the publication of Baseggio without waiting for all Original Treatises to be ready or if instead it is a reprinting following the publication in 1849.

The visit to the Academy of Fine Arts has been less fruitful. For logistical problems, consulting the old fund is not operational (books were moved to different locations than the locations of the catalogue). It is certain, however, that there is a copy, because I found the card in the catalogue, this time under the name of Merrifield. It is likely that this is a copy sent to Masini, then secretary of the Academy [GM]

[27] Julius Schlosser Magnino, La letteratura artistica. (The art literature). Consulted in the 3rd edition. La Nuova Italia publishers, 1967. The first edition, in German, is of 1924; the first Italian edition of 1935.

[28] Giovanni Volpato (Bassano del Grappa, 1735 - Rome, 1803).

[29] Albano Sorbelli ( ed.), Inventari dei manoscritti…(Inventories of manuscripts), quoted.