Carlo Brisighella. Description of the Paintings and Sculptures of the City of Ferrara

Translation by Francesco Mazzaferro
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Descrizione delle Pitture e Sculture della Città di Ferrara
di Carlo Brisighella
[Description of the Paintings and Sculptures of the City of Ferrara by Carlo Brisighella]

Edited by Maria Angela Novelli

Ferrara, Spazio Libri editore, 1991

Ferrara, The Este Castle

[1] First printed edition of the manuscript of Carlo Brisighella preserved in Ferrara’s Biblioteca Comunale Ariostea with signature Cl I 429. The full title of the manuscript is as follows: Description of the paintings and sculptures that adorn the churches of the city of Ferrara and its oratories. Posthumous work by Carlo Brisighella, citizen of Ferrara, brought again to light and augmented with a copious addition of new paintings and changed, renovated or increased sculptures, both in those churches and oratories, as well in several public and distinguished places, and in many churches and oratories of the Bishopric, from the year 1704 until today, with other historic and picturesque news, thanks to the work of Dr. Girolamo Baruffaldi, member of the Accademia Clementina of Fine Arts of Bologna, with all necessary indexes.

Ferrara Cathedral

[2] The full title of the manuscript already reveals a lot about the history of the manuscript. The introductory communication of Girolamo Baruffaldi to the readers clarifies even better: the Description was written by Carlo Brisighella – on whom we only know the few things which Baruffaldi refers to, i.e. that he was the great-grandson of the painter Carlo Bononi - probably at the end of 1600 and in the first few year of 1700. Brisighella, close to death, and aware that he would not have been able to give his work to the prints, provided a copy of it to Archbishop Girolamo Baruffaldi, scholar of local art history (incidentally, here it is hardly necessary to mention that Baruffaldi was the author of the Vite de’ Pittori e Scultori Ferraresi - Lives of Painters and Sculptors from Ferrara - destined to remain unpublished until the mid-1800s). If Brisighella thereby hoped to have made possible that his manuscript would be brought to a rapid publication, he made a big mistake: on the one hand Baruffaldi decided to wait for the renovation and completion of the Cathedral, with which the manuscript opened, not to publish a work which would be overtaken by events; of the other hand the abbot from Ferrara was repeatedly involved in legal disputes with the ecclesiastical authority, which deprived him of the availability of his library and archives for many years (the events are exposed by Maria Angela Novelli in Storia delle “Vite de’ Pittori e Scultori Ferraresi” di Girolamo Baruffaldi. Una vicenda editoriale e culturale del Settecento - History of the ‘Lives of Painters and Sculptors from Ferrara’ by Girolamo Baruffaldi. An editorial and cultural event of the eighteenth century). We know, however (pp. VI-VII), that in 1727 the manuscript was basically ready for publication. Baruffaldi, besides having updated and double-checked the text by Brisighella - which, we should recall, only focused on churches and oratories in Ferrara - had also added two new sections, the first one devoted to the paintings and sculptures preserved in public buildings of Ferrara, and the second one reserved for works of art preserved in the churches of the Bishopric. Nevertheless, nothing concrete was achieved, and in 1735 Baruffaldi decided to deliver the manuscript to the scholar of Ferrara Giannandrea Barotti. Barotti carried out his task for a decade, in a presumably very sporadic way. Meanwhile, the health of Baruffaldi (who, however, only died in 1755) went aggravating and, when it was clear that no publication would have been achieved, everything fell into oblivion. Only in 1767 Mr Barotti, on pressure from third parties, took up the manuscript again, but – due to his substantial inability to account for what happened in the last thirty years - was content to simply order the compilation of a new copy of the manuscript and to add a very small number of annotations. "This copy, definitely easier to read, is however of limited value philological value [note of the editor: Ms Novelli writes in her Preface, from which in general we have drawn extensively in the preparation of this note] for the flattening of the complex chronological stratification, resulting in a difficulty to acknowledge fatherhood and extent of the different interventions, and for the suppression of numerous passaged on the art works which had disappeared in the meantime. Sold in 1872 by the Hercolani heirs to the Municipal Archiginnasio Library in Bologna, while being late and so altered, it is however the most frequently cited manuscript in studies on the art of Ferrara" (pp. VII-VIII). These are reasons, therefore, which led Ms Novelli to work on the extended copy by Baruffaldi - preserved at the Ariostea Library in Ferrara - and not on the later copy at the Archiginnasio Library in Bologna.

Ferrara, Schifanoia Palace, Hall of the Months

Ferrara, Schifanoia Palace, Francesco del Cossa, Allegory of March

Ferrara, Schifanoia Palace, Francesco del Cossa, Allegory of April

[3] "In the Description are registered for the first time paintings, now well known, by Garofalo, Dosso, Bononi, Scarsellino, and Bastianino, but also of many minor artists, currently almost all dispersed; moreover, are listed in it also anonymous and temporary art works. Overall, the manuscript is well informed, and there are relatively few inaccurate news and attributions. The notes by Baruffaldi and Barotti, during more than half a century, have provided the text with that update that the weight of time, dispersions and modernizations had made necessary. Judgments and attributions are echoed and welcomed by all local writers, to whom the manuscript, while not given to the press, was well known. Baruffaldi took from it the objective elements for his more ambitious, but sometimes chaotic work of the Lives, who recognized the merit of Brisighella being "the one who gathered most news on Ferrarese painters." It follows directly from it the first printed guide of the city: Le pitture e sculture che si trovano nelle chiese di Ferrara (The paintings and sculptures that are found in the churches of Ferrara) published in 1770 by Cesare Barotti, son of Gianandrea "(pp. VIII-IX). 

[4] Very rich final apparatus of indexes.