Translation by Francesco Mazzaferro
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Giuseppe Campori
Gli artisti italiani e stranieri negli Stati estensi
[Italian and Foreign Artists in the Este Territories]
Catalogo storico corredato di documenti inediti
[Historical Catalogue with Unpublished Documents]
Review by Luciano Mazzaferro
Rome, Multigrafica editrice, 1969
Reprinting of the Modena edition, 1855
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| Antonio Allegri aka Correggio, Madonna with Child (Madonna Campori), about 1517-1518, the painting joined the Galleria Estense in 1894 as a bequest of Giuseppe Campori Modena, Galleria Estense Source: http://www.galleriaestense.org/opera/madonna-con-il-bambino-madonna-campori/ |
[Note by Giovanni and Francesco Mazzaferro:
this text is a transcript of a manuscript by Luciano Mazzaferro, our father, who
reviewed the volume. The manuscript dates back roughly to 1995. We did not make
any type of change to the text, even when new elements have become known in the
meantime which would call, in some cases, for a change in dates. An example: we
left Marco Boschini’s birth date at 1613, while we are now aware that he was born in 1602. The notes contain the original reference notes, referring to
volumes held in the Mazzaferro Library. All other sources were consulted by our
father at the Archiginnasio Library in Bologna. The only editorial intervention
we made consists of the setting the titles of each individual paragraph in bold,
and translating the whole into English].
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| Dosso Dossi, Madonna with the Child and Saints George and Michael the Archangel, 1518, Modena, Galleria Estense Source: http://www.galleriaestense.org/opera/madonna-con-bambino-tra-i-santi-giorgio-e-michele-arcangelo/#![galleria]/0/ |
Critical fortune of Giuseppe Campori
Giuseppe
Campori, the scholar, politician, philologist and collector of manuscripts and
works of art, was not always regarded with benevolence. Adolfo Venturi associated
him with Messrs Bertolotti, Gaetano Milanesi, Cittadella and various
researchers of the nineteenth century when, on the occasion of the X
International Congress of Art History, attempted to outline a program for the publication
of the main sources of Italian artistic literature. So far nothing to object.
It should be nevertheless added that Venturi, on that occasion, reserved to him
and the other unfortunates an assessment which was anything but benevolent:
"The work was intermittent, did not comply with best methods, had no philological
rigor in the transcripts, and was sometimes inaccurate" [1]. And a little
further on, always on the same page, one can read: "...errors are like
certain species of worms that germinate and multiply infinitely. It would be a
risk to mention with full faith the documents which a primary school teacher
wrote down for Campori...". And such words create a dark shadow of
suspicion on Campori, that was accredited by a so well-known personality like
Venturi. Hence all researchers who were ready to continue giving credit to both
Mr Campori and the other historians mentioned along with him were suddenly
considered as improvident and almost naive.
For his
part Benedetto Croce, in his wo volumes on the History
of the Nineteenth Century Italian Historiography noticed only fleetingly
Campori and cited him for a few unengaged pages he dedicated to Lucrezia Borgia
and Torquato Tasso, but completely neglected to recall his archival researches
and his main works: and, on a closer inspection, it is logical that it was the
case, since Campori tended to consider history of art as a collection of
information on the life and environment of the various artists, caring much
less than Croce wanted about the aesthetic depth of the works and the inner
life of those who had produced them. It is not by accident that the most
reliable and leading advocate of Croce’s thesis in the field of visual arts - I
mean Carlo Ragghianti - forgot completely to mention Campori in the first and
most spontaneous edition of his Profilo della critica d'arte in Italia (Profile
of art criticism in Italy) [2] and rediscovered him in a footnote of the new
edition released by Vallecchi Publishers [3] where, almost by a quirk of fate,
Campori is mentioned alongside Adolfo Venturi.
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| Niccolò dell'Abate, Aeneas defeats Turnus (Aeneid, Book XII ), 1540, Modena, Galleria Estense Source: http://www.galleriaestense.org/opera/morte-di-turno-canto-xii-delleneide/#![galleria]/0/ |
Towards the
middle of the twentieth century, we begin to grasp a change in the judgments on
Campori. In the Biographical and
Bibliographical Italian Encyclopedia, printed by the publisher B.C. Tosi, and
exactly in the Fourth series, on "Historians, theorists and critics of
Fine Arts (1800-1940)" a kind of aesthetics deafness of Campori is taken
for granted and it is written that none can expect from him "ideas on taste
or art or criteria of judgment in his activity as art scholar"; however,
after this concession to the convictions of the idealistic era, it is added
that "his work must be commended and remembered with respect, because, in
addition to its philological and documentary value, it shows from time to time,
especially in the collection of unpublished letters, the scholar humanity in
the candid romantic enthusiasm for the life of the creators of art" (p.
82). We are in 1942 and the author is Sergio Samek Ludovici, a scholar who, a
few years later, made himself known because of a number of initiatives taken in
the field of research on sources of artistic literature: first, for reprinting
and commenting the Life of Bernini written
by Filippo Baldinucci [4], and for the translation and the presentation of the main
work by Hildebrand, namely The problem of
the form [5], and finally, for the reorganization of testimonies about the Life of Caravaggio [6]. Then, when the
study of art sources exceeded the modest circle of the few scholars who had
continued to practice it and turned into a precise stream of knowledge and even
became a true fashion, Campori was suddenly seen with interest, and most of his
works were reprinted in facsimile. The volume here under consideration benefited,
within a few years, of two editions: one by Multigrafica (in my opinion, the
best for technical accuracy) and the other by the publisher Forni that, along
with this, also released various other works of the Modena-born researcher.
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| Guido Reni, Saint Roch imprisoned, 1617-18, Modena, Galleria Estense Source: http://www.galleriaestense.org/opera/san-rocco-in-carcere/#![galleria]/0/ |
Campori's sources
Campori
consulted an extensive literature. In addition to Vasari, Baldinucci, Bellori,
Boschini and Ridolfi, we should also mention the ubiquitous Malvasia,
Baruffaldi and Zanotti, then Messrs Crespi, Soprani, Affò, Pascoli, Ratti,
Orlandi, Zaist, Cadioli, Masini, Passeri, Scannelli, De Dominici and even
Cellini. Zani is for him a
constant point of reference: it is significant that the artists not
remembered in the latter’s Methodical Encyclopedia
are here preceded by an asterisk. And then we should mention some authors who are
not far from his time, or are even his contemporaries, such as Messrs Gualandi,
Litta or Amico Ricci, the latter from the Marche. And it is, of course, an
incomplete list to which at least some scholars from Modena, like Tiraboschi,
Vedriani and Pagani must be added. Occasionally, we can notice references to
foreign artists: here are the French Mariette, Lalande and Cochin, the Englishman Richardson, the German Sandrart and the Swiss Füssly. He read both manuscripts
which had already acquired an indisputable reputation in the circles of
researchers (think of the writings of Mancini) and works anchored to local events
only, such as the repeatedly cited chronicles of Tomasino Lancelotto or Giovan
Battista Spaccini. Among the sources used, I am pleased to find also the News of the Artists from Carpi of Eustachio
Cabassi, which were eventually published only in 1986. Campori moves with ease
in the patrician archives of Modena and of other lands of the duchy, in the
deposits of the libraries, in the shelves containing old deeds, in the archives
of communal or religious institutions. There is a keen interest in the letters
written by artists, in those addressed to them or in those which can otherwise
provide useful references on their activity. Occasionally, a veiled regret seems
to appear for having made some letters of his collection available to Gualandi, while respecting agreements and therefore without exposing himself to any
possibility of criticism, the latter had included them in his collection of a
decade earlier. Although prudence, typical of philologists, can suggest to contrasts
the material provided by Campori with the originals (like it is the case also
with other scholars who operated with less refined criteria than those used
today by the specialists), I find pleasantly surprising to see that he followed
paths which first diverged from each other and then could be reunited, and that
he collected material of great documentary interest and offered us unexpected tips
and intuitions, such as when Marmi is given a "long report on the life and
works of Rosalba Carriera" (p. 138), thus providing the first reliable summary
of events experienced by the Venetian paintress, here considered because she
came to Modena and painted there some portraits.
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| Guercino, Martyrdom of St. Peter, 1618-19, Modena, Galleria Estense Source: http://www.galleriaestense.org/opera/il-martirio-di-san-pietro/#![galleria]/0/ |
The individual artists
In the volume
of Campori are provided news on the artists (also from the Middle Ages) who had
come from other Italian or foreign territories, and had acted in the Este States,
i.e. in an area that roughly coincided with the current Italian provinces of
Modena, Reggio Emilia and Massa Carrara. Even though it was the best pearl of
the Este estates, the territory of Ferrara is not considered since, at the time
when Campori worked (we are around Mid-1800) was since more than two centuries
in the papal domains. Despite this cut, the studied artists are several tens,
even hundreds, and it is therefore inevitable that much of the material to
crumble is collected in a very large number of entries (each artist constitutes
a separate item from the others): very often the same source - be it a
collection of archive documents or a book or a manuscript - appears on several
occasions, but with so few lines that, in most cases, it becomes difficult or
even impossible to collect, as I tried to do elsewhere, complete testimonies or
at least significant passages, worthy of being mentioned and enumerated. Some
possibilities of sorting, however, remained, and I intended to exploit them by
presenting, in the following paragraphs, the material formed by the combination
of passages from a single writing (as for Cochin and Lancellotto), or letters
or literary taste compositions - in whole or represented by a few verses -
dedicated to individual masters or minors operators:
AGRESTI, LIVIO (dead in 1580). Letter to Alfonso Gonzaga, without date (1537?)
Retrieved from
the archive of Novellara, it is reproduced on p. 2. It is followed by two
communications by Girolamo da Ponte to Gonzaga with favourable comments on Agresti.
In the first of the two, at p. 3, I find: "And since I already know the
opinion of all the other painters [editor's note: on Agresti], I also wanted include
that of Michelangelo and I did it by quoting Mr. Thomaso del Cavaliere, of whom
Michelangelo has a high reputation...". I would like to draw the
attention of the reader to the last words, respectful but less evasive than
those used by Vasari ("M. Tommaso de 'Cavalieri, a Roman gentleman, who
was and is one of the best friends, whom ever Michelangelo had").
ALEOTTI, GIOVANNI BATTISTA (1546-1636)
A passage
of the manuscript is presented in the pages. 8-9. Aleotti was an architect and
military engineer and worked in drainage and, more generally, in hydraulic works.
ARLOTTI, ROBERTO
It comes
from a manuscript of the Biblioteca Estense, and is now included in the pages
340-341. Arlotti, the poet from Parma, recommended to Palma, who had been
tasked to make a Pieta for the
cathedral of Reggio, not to spare "in this work the usual love and
value." Here follow some recommendations and are expressed convictions
that are perfectly in line with the ways of thinking of that time.
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| Cristoforo Munari, Still life with glasses, music instruments, a book and some fruits, 1708, Modena, Galleria Estense Source: http://www.galleriaestense.org/opera/alzata-con-cristalli-strumenti-musicali-libro-e-frutta/#![galleria]/0/ |
BOSCHINI, MARCO (1613-1678). A funeral organised by Venetian painting for the passing away from the
earthly to the heavenly life of the most serene Alfonso the Fourth from Modena
...
On pp.
91-92 are displayed eleven verses of this minor work of Boschini, the known
writer of art, who was tasked to purchase works of Venetian masters by Alfonso
IV. The latter is said to have told him, when he was giving him the task:
"What you
will make, it will be well done:
Do not set
yourself limits, nor concerns,
Find
paintings of these main painters"
CAMPI, BERNARDINO (1522-1590 or 1595) Letters
The three
letters submitted by Campori (pp. 113-115) were written during his stay in
Guastalla. The first two are dated April 10, 1588; the last one is of April 16
of the same year.
COCHIN, CHARLES NICOLAS (1715-1790) Voyage d’Italie; Parigi, 1758
Although Campori
is induced to express reservations about Cochin’s evaluations and considers him
a "famous thrower of rash judgments" (p. 19), he does not resist the
temptation to quote him on several occasions; he does it transcribing the
original text and avoiding any translation.
I am
omitting the minor passages and, for those of some weight, I am listing the
works that have attracted the attention of Cochin. They are all of the
seventeenth century: the Modena Ducal Palace started by Bartolomeo Avanzini (p.
19), Christ on the Cross comforted by the
Angel by Guercino in the sanctuary of the Madonna della Ghiara in Reggio
(p. 35), the paintings by Mattia Preti in the dome of a church of Modena (p.
383), "two pictures of countries and a painting depicting the construction
of ships" performed by Salvator Rosa and then stored at Sassuolo (p. 421)
and the frescoes painted in 1618 by Tiarini in the aforementioned Madonna della
Ghiara (p. 460). On page 94 is mentioned a judgment of Cochin on the whole artwork
by the painter Jean Boulanger from Troyes, who worked in Modena and in other
places of the duchy and that died in its capital in 1660.
GENNARI, CESARE (1637-1688) Letters
The
published letters are six and are not all in their entirety. Two provide
information on the Roman painter Paolo Albertoni and his relations with the
Count of Novellara (pp. 6 and 7); three relate to work that this nobleman had
entrusted to Gennari himself (pp. 236-238); another, that is the sixth, is
written together with his brother Bartolomeo and mentions the "unfortunate
loss" of the uncle (Guercino) "passed from this life" (p. 53).
The eldest letter is dated October 1661; the last written is of December 1671.
GIUNTI, DOMENICO (c. 1512 – 1560) Letters
Campori
warns that the letters are all unpublished, and were supplied to him for
transcription by the advocate F. Giordani in Parma. Of the twenty-eight letters
(pp. 248-271), twenty-four are addressed to Don Ferrante Gonzaga, first viceroy
of Sicily and then governor in Lombardy; one to the Princess of Molfetta; the
last three to Cesare Gonzaga. It is, this, the largest epistolary included in
the volume. The letters are presented in chronological order and are
distributed during the period between July 1541 and September 1560.
LANCILLOTTO, TOMASINO (c. 1469-1554) The Chronicles of Modena, manuscript of the
Biblioteca Estense of Modena.
G.
Tiraboschi ("Biblioteca Modenese", Volume III, p. 73) wrote that Lancillotto
"was a diligent writer of the things of his time, that is from 1502 until
1554...". An extensive study on this chronicle writers was made by Pietro
Martini who published it in the Archivio Storico Italiano (Italian Historical
Archive) (vol. XIV. 1871 - pp, 33-63, 333-359, and vol XV. 1872 pp. 244-267 and
478- 500).
I am pointing
out some of the news that Campori took away from the eight manuscript volumes
of the Biblioteca Estense. For every passage I am indicating the date on which
it was written, the topic to which it relates and, finally, the page or pages
on which the news is reported in the text of Campori: June 18, 1522,
accommodation in the cathedral of the canvas of San Sebastian painted by Dosso
Dossi, p. 189; April 15, 1526, arrival in Modena of the Spanish military engineer
Pietro Navarro, pp. 330-331; 23 to 24 April 1526, the engineer Giuliano Leni
visits the places to fortify in the city of Modena, p. 282; November 23, 1532,
additional information on the placement of Dossi’s work cited above, p. 190;
September 22, 1540, the engraver Angelo da Piacenza restores the choir of the
Cathedral of Modena, pp. 367-368; June 13, 1549, military engineer Cristoforo
Casanova's death and his replacement by Alessandro da Terni, pp. 139 and
453-454; September 7, 1549, death of the engineer Francesco Pasqualetti and his
testamentary dispositions, pp. 346-347; July 13, 1550, news about Giulio Romano’s
family and marriage of the daughter Griseide with Mr Alberto degli Erri, p.
372.
Campori
also uses the Chronicle of Giovanni
Battista Spaccini, which extends from 1588 to 1636. Spaccini’s work is however
judged at a somewhat lower level compared to Lancellotti’s records and the
passages shown in the work under consideration here seem to confirm the
rightness of this negative judgment.
LEONI, LEONE (1509-1590) Letters
Leoni was a
goldsmith, medallist and appreciated sculptor. On pages 286-291 five of his
letters are presented, all directed to don Ferrante Gonzaga. The last is not
dated; the other four are of 1549.
MARINO, GIAMBATTISTA (1569-1625) La Galleria
Campori
uses, reproducing it on pages 240-241, a madrigal in honour of Lucilio
Gentiloni, artist from the Marche, "in praise of a drawing of the same
that presented the story of Ganymede abducted by Jupiter."
SPADA, LIONELLO (1576-1622) Sonnet for wedding
The sonnet
was published in Poems for the royal weddings
of the most serene prince and lord don Alfonso d'Este and the infant Isabella
of Savoy, Modena 1608. Campori, who here appears very benevolent, defines
the sonnet "... not so much less
than the artistry of his author" (p. 449).
TERZI, TERZO de (XI century) Letters
Here are
published (pp- 456-457) two letters sent from Rome in 1544: the first, written
in October, is addressed to Alessandro Guerino, the "ducal
secretary", while the second, two months after, is sent directly to the
Duke.
On Terzo
de' Terzi wrote Benvenuto Cellini in his speech Della Architettura (On Architecture), [7] who gave an imaginative
reconstruction of his first name - i.e. Terzo [the third] - rightly rejected by
Campori. In 1919, Filippo de Pisis, who then liked to sign as Luigi Filippo
Tibertelli de Pisis, became interested on this architect and expert in
hydraulics.
TESTI, FULVIO (1593-1646)
Letter to Count Francesco Fontana
It is
reported on pp. 65-67. Sent from Rome, it is dated 29.1.1633. It contains news
and reviews on Bernini. I am transcribing a few lines: "Chevalier Bernino
[is] that famous sculptor who made the statue of the Pope and the Daphne, which
is in the Borghese vineyard; he is the Michelangelo of our century, both in
painting and in sculpting, and does not give in to anyone of the ancients in the
excellence of art. ... This is really a man who will delight people, because he
masters very well fine letters and has sayings and witticisms that penetrate
the soul [...]. On Monday, the above mentioned Chevalier Bernino is performing
a comedy composed by him where are things which will let die with laughter
anyone who has practice of the Court, because everyone – whether small or large,
or whether prelate or knight, expeciallly if living in Rome – will get its part."
IDEM, Ode dedicated to Salvator Rosa
In 1645,
the ambassador of the Duke of Modena in Tuscany delivered a "Reminder"
to Testi asking him "to honour with one of his compositions the Virtue of
Mr. Salvator Rosa, the Neapolitan painter ...". Testi replied with this
ode that, in the text of Campori, extends from p. 413 to p. 421.
At the end
of the book we find two indexes, one for the places mentioned in the text, the
other for the artists. An index of the sources used by Campori is unfortunately
missing; in our view, it would have been very useful.
Notes
[1] Adolfo
Venturi, Programma per un’edizione delle
fonti della storia dell’arte italiana (Program for an edition of the
sources of the history of Italian art) in Adolfo Venturi, Epoche e maestri dell’arte italiana (Eras and Masters of Italian Art).
Preface by Giulio Carlo Argan. Turin, Einaudi, 1956, p. 320.
[2] Carlo
L. Ragghianti, Profilo della critica d'arte in Italia (Profile of art criticism in Italy), Florence, U Editions, 1948.
[3] Carlo
L. Ragghianti, Profilo della critica d'arte in Italia (Profile of art criticism in Italy), Florence, Vallecchi, 1973, p.
136.
[4] Filippo
Baldinucci, Bernini's life with the novel Life of Baldinucci written
by his son Francesco Saverio, by Sergio Samek Ludovici, Milan, Edizioni del
Milione, 1948.
[5] Adolf Hildebrand, Il
problema della forma (The problem of form), edited by Sergio Samek
Ludovici, Florence-Messina, G. D'Anna, 1949.
[6] Sergio Samek Ludovici, Vita del Caravaggio dalle testimonianze del suo tempo (Life of
Caravaggio by the testimonies of his time), Milan, Edizioni del Milione, 1956.
[7]
Benvenuto Cellini, Works, edited by
Bruno Maier, Milan, Rizzoli, 1968, p. 853.
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