Giovanna Perini. [The Writings of the Carraccis. Ludovico, Annibale, Agostino, Antonio, Giovanni Antonio]

Review by Giovanni Mazzaferro
Translation by Francesco Mazzaferro

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Giovanna Perini

Gli scritti dei Carracci
[The Writings of the Carraccis]
Ludovico, Annibale, Agostino, Antonio, Giovanni Antonio

Introduction by Charles Dempsey

Bologna, Nuova Alfa Editoriale, 1990

Fig. 1) Stories of Medea and Jason, Medea falls in love with Jason
Bologna, Palazzo Fava, Carraccis' Frieze (1583-1584)
Source: Wikimedia Commons

ABOUT GIOVANNA PERINI FOLESANI SEE IN THIS BLOG: Giovanna Perini Folesani, Luigi Crespi as an Historiographer, Art Dealer and Artist Through his Correspondence (Part One and Two); Sandra Costa, Giovanna Perini Folesani, The Wise and the Ignorant - The Dialogue of the Public with Art (16th-18th Century); Giovanna Perini, The Writings of the Carraccis. Ludovico, Annibale, Agostino, Antonio, Giovanni Antonio; Roger de Piles, Dialogue on Colouring, Edited by Giovanna Perini Folesani and Sandra Costa (Part One and Two); Giovanna Perini Folesani, Sir Joshua Reynolds in Italy (1750-1752). Passage to Tuscany. The 201 a 10 Notebook of the British Museum

Over twenty-five years after its publication, the collection of the writings of the Carraccis presented by Giovanna Perini [1] still proves all its validity. To address the issue of the whole set of Carraccis' documents (excluding the contracts) which survived to the present day means in fact to enter a veritable minefield. What arrived to us has an extremely fragmentary nature. Just think that - historically - the text that had the greatest impact on art literature is made up of Annibale’s margin annotations to a copy of Vasari's Lives (annotations correctly indicated by Bellori as the work of Annibale, but instead assigned by Malvasia to Agostino and so classified until few decades ago). There are also a few letters of the three; the most numerous are those of Ludovico, but it is a fact that means nothing by itself: it may have been simply due to chance. Some traces also remain of Agostino’s poetic production, including a sonnet which raised lively debates on the so-called "eclecticism" of the Carraccis. Quite marginal are the three final letters of Antonio, son of Annibale, who after his father's death (1609) addressed Cardinal Farnese,asking to extend to him the protection already granted to the parent. The same applies to the single letter by Giovanni Antonio, brother of Agostino and Annibale, who, following the death of the latter also addressed Farnese to ask him to intervene in a shabby affair of money with Ludovico, questioning the fact that Antonio was really Annibale’s son.

The real point is that most of the Carracci’s writings did not reach us in the original, but were witnessed through Malvasia’s Felsina Pittrice (literally: Felsina, the Etruscan name of Bologna, painting). While these texts were initially included in nineteenth century anthologies without too many problems, criticism from positivism age seriously put into question their veracity. The fact that the originals of the letters were not found among Malvasia’s preparatory papers, now kept at the Archiginnasio Library of Bologna, led then to think that these were simple fakes, intentionally created by the Bolognese scholar. Mind you: these statements, with different nuances, were shared by the elite of XX century art criticism, like Roberto Longhi, Sir Denis Mahon and the Bolognese Francesco Arcangeli.

Fig. 2) Stories of  Medea and Giasome, Medea's Wizardry
Bologna, Palazzo Fava, Carraccis' Frieze (1583-1584)
Source: Wikimedia Commons

To write a book like this, a book that would instead reject the forgery charges in almost all cases, required a great preparation and much, much courage. Qualities that Giovanna Perini does not miss (to the contrary, she seems to miss the capacity of a linear exposition). It is therefore inevitable that the analysis of individual texts of the Carraccis is tied hand in glove with the figure of Malvasia, with the study of his historical method (a method which was simply denied by the most intransigent criticism) and, albeit not always convincingly, with the rejection of the complaint of excessive parochialism against the Felsina Pittrice. Especially on this, Charles Dempsey took stance in his introduction. Here is a key passage: "Even if, at least since Schlosser times, the northern Italian reaction against the Vasari's Lives had been interpreted as evidence of a deep localism, or of a wounded municipal pride that tried to resist Rome’s national centralism, supported in part by Vasari and then, after him, by Bellori, just the words "pride" and "localism" carry anachronistic and inappropriate connotations to describe the true historical situation. The Italian terms «campanilismo» and «municipalismo» are both neologisms of the Risorgimento age, specifically coined by nationalist patriots to characterize and hit the provincial resistance against Italian unification and the political and economic reform of the new country as a whole. Before 1861, the history of Italy was configured as a collection of 'regional' stories and the dispute between Malvasia and Bellori... was not so much a war between centre and periphery, but rather a struggle between two powerful visions of the future of the national and international visual culture" (p. 20). A struggle on "taste", we could define today: on the one hand Roman classicism, which had its last epigone in Maratta, vs. naturalism arising from the Carracci's revolution on the other hand, strongly inspired by the art of Veneto and Lombardy. The central battleground, of course, was the figure of Annibale, who was meant to be the champion of both factions, according to the version provided by Bellori on one side and by Malvasia on the other one (who, not surprisingly, to avoid misunderstandings, signed greater importance to Ludovico, definitely free from the Roman virus). All true, for heaven's sake. Except that we would wonder why the 'regional' stories should not be considered parochial stories. It would be enough to remember that Bologna, the second city of the Papal States in importance, was institutionally depending on Rome. The perception of being the periphery and the desire for revenge explained, for example, in architectural terms, the resistance to building models of classical Tuscan-Roman style in favour of themes reminiscent of Gothic and, on the other hand, the well-known urban interventions by the Cardinal Legate in the mid-sixteenth century.

But first things first, and let us discuss briefly the individual writings.

Annibale Carracci

Fig. 3) Annibale Carracci, The Corpse of Christ, 1583-1585, Staatsgalerie of Stuttgart
Source: Wikimedia Commons

Annibale’s annotations are extraordinarily famous, and - somehow - inaugurated a genre to which we will devote soon more attention. One of the most peculiar aspects is that they did not remain a private matter, but almost immediately became public. Bellori knew them and cared to quote one of them, also to diminish its corrosive power (according to Bellori, who attributed correctly them to Annibale, the latter was the author of the rebirth of Italian art based on ideal beauty, as opposed to late Mannerism on the one hand, and Caravaggio indecorous naturalism on the other one). Malvasia assigned them to Agostino and such wrong attribution resisted very long. The original copy of the Lives on which they were drafted (only the last volume of a Giuntina edition) has long been missing and only two eighteenth-century copies (which in fact proved faithful) witnessed them. There they were attributed to Agostino by the copyist. Only in 1972 the original was found and then donated to the Archiginnasio; the annotations were published in full by Mario Fanti between 1979 and 1980 [2]. Two things became immediately apparent: the original copy, in fact, had been annotated by at least six or seven different people (something which obviously was not perceptible in the eighteenth-century copies, where there was only one handwriting); those of Annibale, however, were easily identified by Fanti (which nevertheless reproduced all of them) through a calligraphic examination. Giovanna Perini made a clear-cut choice on it: she decides to discard all annotations which cannot be attributed to Annibale Carracci and to publish only those one. First, as a result, she managed to purge the book from much of the insults directed against Vasari (we shall speak on another occasion of why works were annotated. One of the most natural grounds – as all of us at least did once - was because there was a perceived need to react against what one had just read, and the annotations, in these circumstances, were never benevolent). Clearly, it remains the famous postscript in which Annibale Vasari was defined a “viso di cazzo” (a fucking face) and there are also other less colourful expressions which however help explain - in my opinion - why Malvasia, writing the Felsina Pittrice, had no scruples in talking of Raphael as "boccalaio urbinate" (Urbino’s charlatan). The general impression is however that, taken together as a particular kind of literary genre, the annotations are consistent and show the great passion of Annibale for the Venetian painting of the second Cinquecento, the "most divine" Titian, Jacopo Bassano, Sansovino (attached to the pure "Venetians"), Giorgione, Tintoretto and Veronese.

Fig. 4) Annibale Carracci, The Beaneater, 1584-85, Rome, Palazzo Colonna
Source: Wikimedia Commons

Intelligently, Perini flags that the absence of annotations on other artists that we know as fundamental to Annibale’s art (the typical case was Correggio) cannot lead to downsizing the latter’s influence on the Bolognese painter. It is simply a fact that Annibale noted only a group of Vasari's biographies in the third volume of the Giuntina; it is not even obvious that he read them all. In the case of such a fragmentary literature - in short - presences may be more worthy than absences. One thing should be remembered. Annibale Carracci’s footnotes moreover, have a key role in Perini arguments in support of the authenticity of the few letters of the same.

Interesting is the question of the dating of the notations. Generally they were traced back to 1590, i.e. before Annibale’s transfer to Rome. The author believes instead that they should be placed in the early years of the artist's stay in Rome, when Annibale clashed in Rome with late mannerist colleagues as Zuccari (Annibale calls them "michelangiolisti", i.e. Michelangelo’s followers). It is in this context that the Bologna artist must have felt the urgency of reading (or re-reading) Vasari to counteract the arguments of the "mannerists": "in such conditions, for Annibale to read or re-read Vasari could not but be charged with a particular polemical sentiment, not free from nationalistic motives (the Po Valley vs. Tuscan-Romans) that were primarily aesthetic, but partly also ethical: setting them into writing permitted to give them a lasting expression no less than ventilating emotions" (p. 39). The bulk of the insults was however the work of other annotators. The expression "fucking face" (for which Annibale immediately apologized, as if church blasphemy had escaped him) was however often used to deny any aesthetic value to his notes. 

Fig. 5) Annibale Carracci, Butcher's Shop, Christ Church Picture Gallery, Oxford
Source: Wikimedia Commons

Two particularly disputed texts are the letters of Annibale in July 18 and April 28, 1580 sent from Parma to his cousin Ludovico, transcribed and published by Malvasia in the Felsina Pittrice. The content of the letters, in essence, consisted in the exaltation of Correggio’s art. According to a large portion of criticism, these letters would be false on the pure basis of stylistic evidence: his first youthful work, the Crucifixion of 1583, now housed in the Parish of Santa Maria della Carità (Our Lady of Charity) in Bologna (fig. 6), would not reveal Correggio’s influences, but only those of Venetian painting. But Perini has argued extensively in favour of the veracity of the texts, noting, among other things, that such influences can be seen for example in the contemporary frieze of Palazzo Fava (figg. 1 and 2), and - I understand – also rejecting the necessary existence of an automatic link between what Annibale wrote and what he produced. According to the detractors, on that date, Carracci had not yet been in Parma. In reality, all agree on one fact: in the following years, and before his first official assignment, he was in Venice. In sum, it would be normal if the young artist had chosen different inspirations for different genres (the sacred paintings on the one hand, the mythological story on the other hand).

Fig. 6) Annibale Carracci, Crucifixion with Saint Francis and Petronius, 1583,
Bologna, Church of Santa Maria della Carità
Source: Wikimedia Commons

On this, please allow me a very personal view. The 1583 Crucifixion is normally referred to as adhering to the Counterreformation spirit that had had its most obvious manifestation in the Discorso sulle immagini sacre e profane  (Discourse on the sacred and profane images) of Cardinal Paleotti, published in Bologna a year earlier. I seriously wonder whether who took this view has ever read that Discourse, where stylistic recommendations did not really show up, but instead those iconographic were perfectly clear. In the name of the likelihood principle, the painter must represent the scene as it was narrated in the Holy Scriptures: one then understand why Christ was represented in an atmosphere which was made claustrophobic by the darkness descending on the Golgotha at the time of death; but at the same time the recommendation was not to make false histories and not to represent saints who, clearly, could not be present at the scene. Given that both St. Petronius and St. Francis appear here, is to be assumed that Annibale gave more heed to his patrons that to Cardinal Paleotti. And the calloused foot plants of St. Francis (the feet are the exact replica of those of the Bassano's farmers and reminiscent of many characters that we would find in the paintings of Caravaggio soon) have little to do with the dignity of which Paleotti was the promoter. Not for this, however, someone would dare to say that the Discourse on the sacred and profane images was a fake. The argument, in short, appears entirely specious.

Agostino Carracci

Fig. 7) Agostino Carracci Crucifixion (1589)
engraved after Tintoretto's Crucifixion in Venice (Scuola Grande di S. Rocco)
Source: http://wellcomeimages.org/indexplus/obf_images/56/43/1f3e4ffe8916180bb93e6ee9a19a.jpg

Virtually nothing survived of Agostino Carracci (especially now that the annotations have been assigned properly to their rightful author, i.e. Annibale). But a sonnet (in praise of Nicolò dell'Abate), again reported by Malvasia, has been the subject of special discussions. While it was firstly considered a manifesto of the Carracci's "eclecticism", it was declared manifestly false when the preparatory papers of the Felsina Pittrice were recovered and the sonnet was not found. The reasons for the falsifications would be two: on the one hand, to claim that Nicolò belonged to the "Bolognese" school, something which does not hold historically (the title under which the sonnet appears in the Felsina was "A sonnet in praise of the Bolognese Nicolò"), on the other hand to support the thesis of the eclecticism of the Carracci. The main challenge, once again, was that the term "eclettismo" would originate from the late seventeenth-early eighteenth century only, and that would be therefore an invention of Malvasia. On this issue, one might talk for pages and pages. Today, even the supporters of the Carraccis would reject the idea that they were "eclectic", attributing to the term a demeaning value; in fact, speaking of Carraccis’ revolution, they prefer to refer to the “analytical study of the truth”. Perini (who also has a profound preparation in the field of semiotics) just pointed out that – by themselves - words are empty and have the meaning which is assigned to them from time to time. If one wants to talk of eclecticism in reductive terms, as a "simple mechanical juxtaposition of formal motives/grounds and of features of a diverse origin" maybe it would be time to consider, in Bologna, to "certain poor paintings by Vasari" and certainly not to the Carraccis. "Faced with this superficial, epidermal, collage-like eclecticism, the Carraccis proposed an internalized and intellectual eclecticism; it was not an imitation and combination of outer forms, but of observation methods and principles. It did not aim at creating a monstrous patchwork, but a comprehensive and coherent complex, autonomous and new" (pp. 45-46). In this sense - Perini seems to say - the content of the sonnet seems programmatically well aligned with the thought of Carraccis and there is no need to think that it was an "invention" by Malvasia. On the other hand, from a contemporary angle, it does not appear absurd to speak of eclecticism in a "intimate" sense. It is just sufficient to agree on words. The distance from the ''analytical study of the truth", term which we are preferring today, really seems minimal.

Fig. 8) Agostino Carracci, Communion of Saint Jerome, about 1592-97, Bologna, National Gallery
Source: Wikimedia Commons

As to naming Nicolò as a painter from Bologna (he was born in Modena), one can certainly not rule out that the title was an "editorial" invention of Malvasia. This does not mean that the sonnet was a false. In particular, that statement does not appear in the sonnet and the phrase "Who tries and desires to become a good painter ... should simply try to imitate the deeds which our Nicolò left us" appears, if anything, to be a declaration of affection for a painter who had preceded the Carraccis by a few decades only. It is a statement - I might add - that seems to me quite logical; especially if one considers that among these works there was also the frieze (now lost, except for the decoration of the Camerino, which displays the stories from the Orlando Furioso) from Palazzo Torfanini (executed between 1548 and 1552). And the Torfanini palace is literally 50 meters far away from Palazzo Fava, where the Carraccis debuted with the frieze of Jason (1583). It seems certain that, when they obtained the mandate, the Carraccis must have given a careful examination to Nicolò’s now lost masterpiece, establishing an intimate relationship with the work and its author that led Agostino to speak of "our Nicolò".

Ludovico Carracci

About Ludovico’s relatively more numerous epistolary, the most striking aspect is that he was in contact with literary figures and art lovers who feed the collector’s circuit of paintings and drawings at the time. The letter sent by Giovan Battista Marino to Ludovico (p. 145) fits perfectly in a framework between flattery and collecting that we already described in the review of the epistolary of the famous poet in this blog. We are confronted with a case of flattery, topped with requests for "some other jokes of your choice" to perform "in idle times". And immediately afterwards the sender clarified the terms of his request, inviting the painter to "joke over some ancient tale, as it would be for example that of Salmacis and the Hermaphrodite, representing them naked and embraced in the middle of the fountain". But, of course, Marino hastened to explain to Ludovico (which appears to be a devout Catholic) that he should not feel afraid to exercise "his hand in obscene and lascivious tales", because Barocci and Palma the Younger already did it, and the whole will remain "within the study of a gentleman" (i.e. of Marino himself).

Fig. 9) Ludovico Carracci, The Virgin Appearing to St. Hyacinth, 1594, Paris, Louvre Museum
Source: Wikimedia Commons

The correspondence with Carlo looks pretty bi-directional. It is true that the writer called for the execution and the shipping of pictures, but it is also true that Ludovico equally made it. The correspondence in which the painter asked the friend to send him miraculous sulphur oil (because the children of a friend had worms) seems strange, and maybe useful for the history of science. The oil was sent on time, also accompanied by a brief explanation of the content and oil properties as well as its dosage (pp. 120-124). Reading the explanation, it seems improbable that Carlo had the slightest knowledge of medicine ("the oil is mainly made of sulphur; a salt which is made of gold, rubies, emeralds, and grenade pearls is cocked within it for many, many months"). What it is certain is that, even in those years, the production of medicines certainly happened in monasteries (Don Ferrante was a monk) and their distribution took place through an erudite circuit which overestimated their properties (a few lines below Ferrante said: "I hope we will manage to produce this spring ... an oil to cure wounds, agony, poisoned wounds, tumours, and ulcers" where the first person plural does not indicate his direct involvement in the production, but his belonging to a monastic community in which experiments were being carried out).

Fig. 10) Ludovico Carracci, Annunciation (about 1585), Bologna, National Gallery
Source: Wikimedia Commons

Returning to artistic aspects, it cannot go unnoticed that Ludovico remained an alert spectator of the art scene well into old age, and signalled to Carlo twice, in 1617, the presence of a certain Giovan Francesco da Cento (Guercino): "A young painter born in Cento, who paints with much happiness of invention, is a great designer and has a happy colouring, and by nature and exceptional capacity makes astonish those who see his works"(p. 141).

But Ludovico’s probably most important letter was the one which the artist let write (the calligraphy is too cured be his own) and sent to Galeazzo Paleotti, relative of the cardinal, who was collecting information on the functioning of the Carracci’s Accademia degli Incamminati, (according to Wikipedia, the "Academy of Those who are Making Progress" or "Academy of the Journeying") on behalf of Federico Borromeo, which in turn was planning to open one in Milan. We were in 1613. Given that the critics argued that the very existence of the Academy was an invention by Malvasia, the letter finally did justice to the highly disputed question. In particular, it explained how the prizes in competitions mechanism were structured, in order to leave no doubt to the disciples on the impartiality of the masters. The teacher's credibility and the reward mechanism were the key aspects giving authority to the teacher, when he intervened to report the errors and shortcomings of the student. A particular attention to the educational mechanisms emerged, which seemed to be one of the distinctive prerogatives of the Academy.

NOTES

[1] Today Giovanna Perini Folesani, as he added the mother's surname.

[2] See Mario Fanti, Le postille carraccesche alle Vite del Vasari: il testo originale (The Carraccis’ annotations about Vasari's Lives: the original text), in Il Carrobbio, V, 1979, pp. 148-164 and Mario Fanti, Ancora sulle postille carraccesche alle Vite del Vasari (Again on the Carraccis’ annotations to Vasari's Lives) in Il Carrobbio, VI, 1980, pp. 136-141.

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