Review by Giovanni Mazzaferro
Scritti d’arte
Parte Seconda. Pitture et sculture… in Bologna
[Part Two - Paintings and Sculptures... in Bologna]
Edited by Marinella Pigozzi
With bibliographical footnotes by Giovanni Sassu
Bologna, CLUEB, 1999
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| Bologna, The unfinished facade of the San Petronio Basilica Source: Wikimedia Commons |
Go back to Part One
Paintings and sculptures: what is missing
Paintings and
sculptures and other notable things which are in Bologna and where to find them, was in chronological terms the
first manuscript written by Cavazzoni, among those which came down to us. As in
the case of the Collection of Examples,
which we discussed earlier, it is kept at the Bologna Archiginnasio Library
with mark MS B. 1343. It was dated 1603 and dedicated to Romeo Pepoli, the older
brother of that Roderico who was instead the recipient of the Collection of Examples. In the
dedication, Romeo was defined as "ardent lover" and "live viewer"
of the artworks. To please the dedicatee, Cavazzoni intended to report in his
manuscript (21 cards in all) the "heroic
deeds" of the "excellent
workers" who worked in the city. The author apologized immediately if he
would not be exhaustive; however, he made it clear from the title that his text
would refer only to the things that seem "notable" to him. He
introduced therefore a subjective element, which is probably the only one of
all the work, but also the most difficult to interpret. We do not know, for
example, whether the work was complete or the gaps that one notices immediately
(for example, the absence of any reference to the St. Stephen's Basilica in
Bologna) are signs of an intermediate state in the processing of the manuscript
or are due to a precise choice. By itself, the fact that St. Stephen was
neither mentioned in Lamo’s Graticola di Bologna [Grid of Bologna] (which Cavazzoni seemingly did not know) nor in
these Paintings and Sculptures leads
to the suspicion that the choice was dictated by the taste of the time. There
is no doubt the latter was the case, when we are faced with cases such as the Ospedale della Vita (Hospital of Life):
here are mentioned one altarpiece by Lorenzo Costa, two paintings by Bartolomeo
Bagnocavallo, the Death of the Virgin
by Alfonso Lombardi, but not the Lamentation
over dead Christ of Niccolò dell'Arca, which clearly was considered
"not notable".
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| Alfonso Lombardi, Death of the Virgin, 1519-1522, Oratorio dei Battuti, Santa Maria della Vita, Bologna Source: http://www.emiliaromagna.beniculturali.it/index.php?it/107/opere/30/transito-della-vergine |
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| Niccolò dell'Arca, The Mourning over the Dead Christ (detail), Church of Santa Maria della Vita, Bologna Source: Wikimedia Commons |
Paintings and
sculptures was not
a guide of Bologna. It did not proposed a plan for visits as, for example, in
the case of Lamo’s Grid of Bologna,
but seemingly followed a "devotional" hierarchical order which opened
with the seat of the archbishop of Bologna (i.e. the Cathedral of St. Peter),
continued with Bologna's main church (the Basilica of San Petronio) and then
along the other locations in the area. There were also references (especially
in the final part) relating to the Public Palace and private buildings (e.g.
Palazzo Torfanini in Via Galliera, whose facade was frescoed partly by Girolamo
da Treviso and partly by Prospero Fontana, and which contained the cycle of
frescoes painted between 1548 and 1552 by Nicolò dell’Abate). The manuscript
ended with a listing of the Madonnas attributed to "Lippo dal Massi",
i.e. Lippo Dalmasio (1355-1410). This was discussed at length by criticism,
which interpreted it as an early attention to the primitives. More likely, in
fact, it is the demonstration of how much the spiritual and religious aspects marked
Cavazzoni’s personal experience. We have already seen in Part One that Francesco
drafted works such as the 1608 Corona di
Grazie (Crown of Graces), a collection of images of Madonnas visible in the
churches and on the walls of Bologna, and that his latest work (among those known
to us) was the Treaty of the Holy Journey
to Jerusalem (1616). The manuscript ended with the list of "names and surnames of all the painters,
sculptors, architects, engravers in Bologna" which, albeit with
criteria that nowadays would be completely questionable, delivered the names of
art makers of whom today we would not have otherwise any memory, since we do not
even have a single recognized work of them.
The manuscript did not contain any personal judgment
on the merits of the works. It was limited, in most cases, to a listing of
works in which, at times, the description of the subject may have
been lacking, but where there was always an attribution to this or that art
maker. Marinella Pigozzi wrote about them: "His ‘sketches’ have no historic or critical judgment; what is missing
is precisely the build-up of an explicit judgment, of a personal taste, not
because he lacked artistic interests, but because, in line with that age, it
was the religious experience, together with the didactic purpose, to underpin
the pages and to bring them over the private and personal element"(p.
86).
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| Ercole de' Roberti, Magdalene (Weeping woman), National Art Gallery of Bologna The only preserved fragment of the Crucifixion painted in the Garganelli Chapel of San Peter's Cathedral (about 1487-1490) Source: http://www.arte.it/opera/santa-maria-maddalena-piangente-2531 |
Paintings et sculptures: what is included
In fact, everything I've written so far should
be censored. A manuscript as Paintings
and Sculptures is not to be valued for what it is missing, for its errors,
shortcomings and flaws, but should be considered for what it offers us and
allows us to know. An example is the Cathedral of St. Peter in Bologna, with
the Chapel of Cardinal Paleotti (p. 14) consecrated just ten years before and
destroyed exactly ten years later; and, again in St. Peter, the Garganelli
Chapel (p. 15), whose wall decorations were entrusted to Ercole de' Roberti, of
which today survives only a magnificent fragment preserved at the National Art
Gallery of Bologna. Consider, again, the famous Chapel of Our Lady of Peace in
San Petronio, also mentioned by Vasari, whose frescoes were lost with a shameful
general reset 1727. Cavazzoni was the only one permitting us to know (albeit
with the necessary pinch of salt) what was displayed there and who were the authors
of the frescoes (pp. 20-21). His key merit was then on the issue of the
attributions. In the essay accompanying the release of Cavazzoni’s Writings on Art
(see what said at the beginning of Part One) Giovanni Sassu wrote an essay “On the Reliability of the ‘Live Observer’
", in which he dwelled precisely on how much confidence we should place in
the names specified by the author. Quite understandably, rather than indulging
in statistical considerations, he preferred to analyse the work organising its
examination in successive historical periods: from the fourteenth century to
the end of the fifteenth century; the first quarter of the sixteenth century; the
second quarter; the third quarter and the last years of the century until the
earlier seventeenth century. It may seem obvious to say, but the result is that
the reliability of Cavazzoni increases as you get chronologically closer to the
years in which he lived. We should not be surprised, then, if Francesco
assigned the frescoes in the Bolognini Chapel in San Petronio to Buffalmacco
and not to Giovanni da Modena. The same had been written, moreover, even by Vasari.
And, given the time difference that separated him from the execution of the
works, it is understandable that everything related to the Ferrara paintings of
second half of the XV century was generally attributed to Lorenzo Costa. But,
coming at the beginning of the sixteenth century, Cavazzoni shows that he was
very well informed about Francesco and Giacomo Francia (distinguishing
correctly the works of the one and the other) as well as the odd genius of Amico
Aspertini. If anything, it surprises that some mistakes would have been largely
avoidable, because it was possible to verify the signatures of the art makers
on the works; after all, in some circumstances, Cavazzoni must have not been,
after all, such a meticulous "live observer".
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| Orazio Samacchini, Enthroned Madonna Crowned by the Holy Trinity and Saints, about 1570, National Art Gallery of Bologna Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:OrazioSamacchini-1.jpg |
Cavazzoni's world
To walk towards the end of the sixteenth
century means grasping Cavazzoni’s artistic education. Sassu wrote: "The manuscript offers the best, so to speak,
about the painting preceding or contemporary with the Carracci reform, which is
culturally closer to the painter-writer" [8]. And here is precisely
the crux of the matter. The information which Cavazzoni provides is invaluable for
artists such as Bartolomeo Pessarotti or Orazio Sammacchini, who were his
teachers, or even Prospero Fontana and Ercole and Camillo Procaccini. In
contrast, clearly there was no high interest in the works of the Carraccis
(which contributes, once again, to dispel the idea of his proximity to the
Carracci environment, as supported instead by Ranieri Varese in 1969). The
authoress also wrote: "There is no
interest in the truthful descriptive modules and the genres proposed by the
Carraccis. Cavazzoni does not grasp the power of synthesis and the truth of
Ludovico, the attention to the little things, which was the guiding idea of his
poetic; he does not remember Augustine’s skills in being attached to the real and
joking with the verisimilitude"(p. 89).
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| Prospero Fontana, Deposition, 1563, Art Gallery of New South Wales (Australia) Source: http://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/works/219.1994/ |
Instead, a deep religiousness shines throughout
the text, which is demonstrated also in the order according to which churches were
described: he always started from the main altar chapel, and then proceeded to
the side chapels. His world - as we said - was that of the devout manner: he
still used solutions typical of Mannerism, but translated them visually according
to Cardinal Paleotti’s guidance. He demonstrated full awareness of the power of
images. Images must play an educational and catechetical role towards the
public; must adhere to the letter of the Gospels and explain the mystery to
which the believers are facing in a simple and direct way. This is message that
was at first generally mentioned in the Council of Trent and then had
materialised in the prescriptive texts by St. Carlo Borromeo (Instructionum Fabricae et Supellectilis ecclesiasticae, 1577) and indeed by Cardinal Paleotti (Speech around the sacred and profane images, 1582). The images were
deemed to be so powerful, that they might be considered miraculous; it was the
case of many Madonnas cited in the text. Not surprisingly, talking about Lippo
di Dalmasio, Cavazzoni wrote: "He never
painted vain things, but always took pleasure in his work for mere devotion of
the image of the glorious Virgin, the Saviour and the Saints. On the day when
he wished to give substance to the image of the Virgin, he always heard the
mess and then, with all devotion possible, took the most holy Eucharist and
finished his prayer, then started his work, so that until today many of his
imagines were very devoted and miraculous "(p. 77). The interest in
the “primitives" was in fact the exaltation of the painter's devotion, as
such independent of the taste of the time and, not surprisingly, timeless. What
written on Cavazzoni fits perfectly with a thought expressed in the Collection of Examples, which if
decontextualized, would even run the risk of hand down the image of a basically
"heathen" Cavazzoni: "Oh,
how much every Christian painter should thank of such a gift, which His Divine
Majesty grants, to be able to represent God and his Blessed Mother with all the
saints until the paradise itself, still showing the pains of hell! So that the
faithful and talented painter can be equated to a demigod."(p.
117-118).
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| Prospero Fontana, Entombment of Christ, National Art Gallery of Bologna Source: http://mariapaolaforlani.blogspot.it/2015/12/tra-la-vita-e-la-morte.html |
It is in this profound religious sentiment that
Paintings et sculptures on the one
hand and the Collection of Examples on
the other one, two very different texts by themselves for the different
function for which they were created, find a common ground and give us an image
of a painter, Francesco Cavazzoni, that definitely was not a leading painter,
but lived deeply the values of his time.
NOTES
[8] Bologna al tempo di Cavazzoni. Approfondimenti. (Bologna at the
time of Cavazzoni. Insights). Curated by Marinella Pigozzi, Bologna, CLUEB,
1999, p. 67.
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