Melchior Missirini, On the Life of Antonio Canova. Edited by Francesco Leone

Translation by Francesco Mazzaferro
CLICK HERE FOR ITALIAN VERSION

Melchior Missirini

Della vita di Antonio Canova
[On the Life of Antonio Canova]

Edited by Francesco Leone

Bassano del Grappa, Istituto per gli Studi su Canova e il Neoclassicismo, 2004

Antonio Canova, Psyche Revived by Cupid's Kiss (1787-1793), Paris, Louvre Museum
Source: Wikimedia Commons

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; 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.

[1] On the life of Antonio Canova was published by the Forlì-born Abbot Melchiorre (however, commonly called Melchior) Missirini in four books in Prato. It was 1824. Abbot Missirini had long been the secretary of Canova. The death of the sculptor of Possagno, which occurred in 1822, had as a direct consequence the creation of a rich and fortunate editorial stream, aiming to reconstruct and enhance his figure or simply to evoke the main steps of his biography. The work by Missirini, however, has a particular value. It is in fact what was considered the official biography of the Venetian artist.

[2] Immediately after the death of Canova, it was planned to write an "authorized" biography of the sculptor, and soon it was thought that the ideal extender work could be the writer Pietro Giordani, by virtue of his literary fame and long-standing attendance with the sculptor (see the Correspondence between Giordani and Canova). Giordani however refused. It was on that occasion that Leopoldo Cicognara, overcoming the hesitations of the half-brother of Canova, Giovanbattista Sartori, turned (we were at the beginning of 1823) to the writer Melchior Missirini in Forli, the long-standing secretary of Canova. And if one aspect has to be evidenced throughout the whole period of the gestation of the work, it is exactly the careful direction by Cicognara, who never failed to encourage and cautiously advise Missirini. Francesco Leone writes on it: "The guidelines on the general setting to give to the script, on the agenda, on the style to hold and on the diplomatic strategies to be followed, all of this continued to flow steadily from the gifted pen by Cicognara..." (p. 38). The result that emerges is precisely that of an official biography: "From this obviously derives the watchful attention paid by the scholar to the public face of Canova’s biography, to the detailed account of the commissions he received and of the sculptures he produced, to the more or less faithful transcript of his dialogues with Napoleon..., to the sculptor’s action for the preservation of artistic heritage, to his liberal activities in the Academy of St. Luke in favour of the young artists, to the attention he gave to public museums (and therefore his sponsoring activities), to the glorious recovery of art works stolen to the Papal States (and to Italy) by the French, to his incessant studies in archaeology and the Poetics of Aristotle, to the awards he received during his life, to the funerals organised, to the numerous medals coined in his honour, and even to the list of friends and scholars with whom he had an ongoing relationship for life, and finally to the list of twenty-four artists who had portrayed him. Ultimately, it was a solemn official portrait offered to the artist, all-around him..." (p. 43).

Antonio Canova, Perseus with the Head of Medusa (1797-1801). Rome, Vatican Museums
Source: Wikimedia Commons

[3] In principle, the work of Missirini was accepted favourably. As always happens, however, controversies did not lack. The main dispute among them was that of Antonio D'Este, a close friend and really narrow collaborator with Canova. The story is known. Just during the preparation of the biography, D'Este had made Missirini aware of a series of anecdotes about the biography of the artist. These anecdotes were however censored by the Abbot from Forli (probably on the advice of Cicognara), because he judged them too "personal", and therefore they were not included in that official spirit that inspired the writing of the work. D'Este got offended, and undertook the writing of a biography, which was intended to replace the “official Canova” with the events of Canova as a man. The Memoirs of Antonio D'Este, however, were published only posthumously by the grandson in 1864.

[4] Also the Pensieri di Antonio Canova su le Belle Arti (Thoughts of Antonio Canova on the Fine Arts) enter in the category of these controversies. These thoughts were published by Missirini in the ninth chapter of the third Book of the work. The assessment by D'Este (who, as mentioned, had some resentment for other reasons) was disdainful, as Mr Leone explains at p. 44: "some of which are not worthy of an artist; others would do wrong to my friend." For Missirini, instead, the Thoughts were proposed "as aesthetic breviary, critical support, whose text is provided for use by the general public to whom the life was addressed, to the understanding of Canova’s sculpture" (ibid). Missirini’s intention was not to argue that the Thoughts were autographs of Canova and that D’Este had simply transcribed them. And yet the misunderstanding arose immediately, starting from the edition that, in the same year, Niccolò Bettoni proposed in Milan.

[5] Leone also includes some pages that are a short autobiography of Missirini.

[6] The book presents a double numbering: one for the work published in 1824 and the other one for the pages containing essays and indexes, before and after the facsimile reproduction of 1824.