Pietro Giordani. Panegyric to Antonio Canova.

Translation by Francesco Mazzaferro

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Pietro Giordani

Panegyric to Antonio Canova

Edited by Gabriele Dadati

Foreword by Fernando Mazzocca

Piacenza, Tip.le.co, 2008

Antonio Canova, Pauline Bonaparte as Venus Victrix (1805-1808), Galleria Borghese, Rome

[N.B. On Antonio Canova see also in this blog: Consiglia Giugliano, Canova’s Biographies in the XIX Century; Antonio D'Este, Memoirs of Antonio Canova; Pietro Giordani, Panegyric to Antonio Canova; Melchior Missirini, On the Life of Antonio Canova, Artworks seized in Italy during Napoleonic Campaigns 1796-1814 and Recovered by Antonio Canova 1815 and The Artist and his Death. Wills by European Artists from the Late Middle Ages to the Twentieth Century. 

On Pietro Giordani see also in this blog: Mascia Cardelli, Pietro Giordani as connoisseur, Firenze, Mascia Cardelli editore, 2007]

[1] The full title of the work is Panegirico ad Antonio Canova dedicandosi il suo busto nell’Accademia di Belle Arti in Bologna, 28 giugno 1810 (Panegyric to Antonio Canova, on the occasion of the dedication of his bust in the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna, on June 28, 1810). In fact, one should not overemphasize the indication of any specific circumstance and of the exact date, to which the Panegyric makes reference. The Panegyric was published in its most complete version (or least incomplete one, because it is unfinished) only posthumously (by Antonio Gussalli). And one cannot even say that this work was written for that occasion and had then remained unpublished for over forty years; actually, this was a project born for that circumstance, which was however never finalised by Giordani. The Panegyric was then published again on several occasions, in a more or less complete version (the edition curated by Giuseppe Chiarini or the extensive extracts proposed by Paola Barocchi and Fernando Mazzocca in their anthologies are to be mentioned). A critical edition - and all the more one of the level proposed by Gabriele Dadati - was missing; it should however be noted that in the same series – Piacenza’s Historical Library - the publishing house Tip.Le.Co. had published, four years before, the excellent Carteggio (Epistulary) between Giordani, Antonio Canova and his half-brother Giovanni Battista Sartori). The work consists of two parts. The first part is a broad introductory essay, commenting on the history of friendship between Giordani and Canova, and on the few known elements relating to the preparation of the Panegyric; it also offers some elements of comparison between Giordani’s Panegyric, the Storia della scultura (History of the sculpture) by Leopoldo Cicognara and the essay Canova et ses ouvrages (Canova and his works) by Quatremère de Quincy. The second part presents the work in a critical edition (based on the text as set out in the Gussalli version) and the related exegetical annotations. The materials proposed in the appendix are quite precious. They start with three texts opportunely defined as dating back to ''the archaeology of the Panegyric". "They are: first, the Letter that the scholar from Piacenza prepends to the volume of verses that was due to welcome Canova in Bologna in autumn 1809; second, the Compendium read at the Academy of Fine Arts in June 1810; and last but not least a fragment of a letter to Leopoldo Cicognara of August 1810, where the Piacenza-born author explains the expectation created in Bologna by the hoped arrival of the sculptor, and what he did once he arrived" (pp. X-XI). Finally, it includes the autographs by Giordani on the Panegyric, maintained at the Pietro Giordani Fund of the Medicea Laurentian Library (they are basically diagrams, sketches and preparatory materials).

Antonio Canova, The Three Graces (1813-1816), Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg

[2] Giordani meets personally Canova in Rome, in 1806, when the sculptor is already at the peak of his success. Obviously, he greatly desires to meet a man whose name was on everyone's lips; it is less obvious that an authentic and personal friendship was immediately born between the two, which lasted for decades and which (luckily for us) was based on the intense exchange of letters – on which Matteo Ceppi and Claudio Giambonini wrote in the already mentioned Carteggio (Epistulary) – more than on their rare meetings. Since 1808 Giordani is general secretary of the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna and often visits the salon of the Countess Cornelia Martinetti, also a great admirer of the sculptor from Possagno. It is natural that the whole Bolognese society, both the high society and the artistic circles, prepares to pay tribute to the sculptor with due honours, when it seems possible that Canova is making a stop in Bologna, in the course of a trip between Rome and Possagno in 1809. Eventually, on that occasion, there was no stop in Bologna: the sculptor (along with the half-brother Giovanni Battista Sartori), was warned of the presence of bandits around Bologna and preferred to return to Rome. Nevertheless, the countess decided to publish a booklet in verse in honour of Canova (Per l’aspettato arrivo di Canova in Bologna, For the expected arrival of Canova in Bologna, January 1810), with a Letter by Giordani as preface (published here in the appendix). The official celebrations planned by the Academy of Fine Arts were instead postponed to June 1810, on the occasion of the distribution of the annual awards. On June 28, a bust of Canova was inaugurated; it was the work of the Ravenna-born sculptor Gaetano Monti, and Giordani read his Compendio dell’Orazione panegirica pel Canova (Compendium of the panegyric speech for Canova). The Compendium - mind you - was never published, until the posthumous edition of Giordani’s works by Antonio Gussalli, but it is undoubtedly the embryonic project of the broader Panegyric. On the one hand, the Panegyric celebrated the sculptor as the man who not only recovered the sculpture to its former glory of the classical world, but also enlivened and further carried it to new heights, thanks to his work. On the other hand its stressed the great goodness and moral stature of Canova as an individual. All is linked to a symbolic date, i.e. the unveiling of the bust of the artist, which took place in Bologna in June 1810. Over the decades, Giordani disseminates often vague information on progress of the Panegyric in his correspondence (pp. 25-31). One feels the inner conflict of Giordani, who on the one hand wants to remain faithful to the initial project and at the same time desires (and is even requested) to take account of subsequent events. Should he, for example, ignore or not the recovery of Italian artworks, once Napoleon Bonaparte has lost power? In fact, in the general triumph, there is nevertheless some annoying voice of criticism on that recovery. Should he take account or not of Canova’s works following 1810? Should he write or not on the death of the sculptor, which occurred in 1822? Moreover, some self-restraint on the publication (or awareness of the inadequacy to the task) becomes evident, which blocks Giordani for decades; perhaps, his intention is also not to be confused with a large, often not excellent, part of the literature on Canova, that fills the shelves of Italian libraries in those years. Yet, it is clear that the scholar from Piacenza remains faithful in substance to his original project.

[3] Many years elapse and, finally, the first four chapters of the Panegyric are published in a “Strenna Vallardi” [note of the editor: a gift book published every year by the Vallardi publisher] in 1836 (Non ti scordar di me. Strenna pel Capo d’Anno, ovvero pei Giorni Onomastici - Forget-me-not. A gift book for the New Year); three years later another five chapters are included in a second gift book (Fiori d’arte e di lettere italiane per l’anno 1839 - Anthology of Art and Italian Literature for the year 1839). At that time, nine chapters are published. In a letter to Giovanni Battista Sartori, Giordani apologizes for the modesty of the published material ("much insistence of friends and printers [note of the editor: an insistence perhaps due to economic reasons] forced me, against my will, to publish them separately in two parts, which by themselves may not have any real value") (p. 30). He seems discouraged about the possibility to go much further than this. In fact, Giordani dies without the publication of other material (excluding an unauthorized edition by the Le Monnier publisher, which - anyway - essentially repeats the Panegyric as already appeared in the previous gift-books). It will be necessary to wait for the posthumous edition of the Opere (Works) (1854-1862), edited by Antonio Gussalli to see the publication of the final part of the ninth chapter and of the tenth one. "Here ten notes follow, which still develop this matter, even in the philosophical direction that it should have, to then get to the summaries, respectively in seven and twelve points, of the chapters on Canova Ristoratore dell’Arte (Canova Restorer of Art) and Gratitudine del mondo cogli onori (Gratitude of the world with honours). Of the part on Canova’s endeavour in Paris, that had been promised to Sartori at least post-mortem, there is no trace anymore" (p. 31).

[4] For the record, it must be finally remembered that the visit of Canova in Bologna eventually took place from 29 to 31 July 1810 (see. p. 8).