Gianfrancesco Buonamici, [On the Notable Things in Rimini], Edited by Patrizia Alunni

Review by Giovanni Mazzaferro
Translation by Francesco Mazzaferro
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Gianfrancesco Buonamici
Delle Cose Notabili d’Arimino
[On the Notable Things in Rimini]
Critical Edition and Notes by Patrizia Alunni
Photographs by Gilberto Urbinati
Rimini, NFC edizioni Guaraldi, 2016

Rimini, Arch of Augustus.
© 2015 Gilberto Urbinati. Courtesy of the author

The Gambalunga Library in Rimini preserves, with mark Sc-Ms 1321, an anonymous manuscript entitled Delle Cose Notabili d’Arimino (On the Notables Things in Rimini). The writing, once being part of a miscellaneous manuscript owned by the canon Zeffirino Gambetti, was only rediscovered at the end of last century and attributed to the Rimini architect Gianfrancesco Buonamici (1692-1759). Originally planned for printing, it unfortunately remained incomplete, most likely due to the death of its author; the evidence of this incompleteness is the existence of blank spaces in the text, which should have been supplemented with technical data to be evidently recovered at a later time (dates, measurements, etc.). Even more significant is the absence of the description of the Malatesta Temple (at the time the Church of St. Francis, while today is the Cathedral of St. Columba). The manuscript has now been published for the first time, with a critical edition by Patrizia Alunni, and a rich photographic apparatus produced for the occasion by Gilberto Urbinati. Thanks to it, the reader can see in colour all the surviving works cited by Buonamici.

Rimini, Augustus and Tiberius Bridge 
© 2015 Gilberto Urbinati. Courtesy of the author

The reason for a historical-artistic guide

A question arises immediately: in 1754 (i.e. five years earlier at most) Giovan Battista Costa had published the guide by Carlo Francesco Marcheselli entitled Pitture delle chiese di Rimino (Paintings of the churches of Rimini). This was the first guide of the city. Without any doubt, Buonamici knew it. This is also demonstrated by the fact that, on many occasions, he simply paraphrased it. So, why to write a new guide? Should it be considered a reaction to the 1754 publication? One might find a polemical intent to that end, reading the beginning of Book II:

"Rimini is not enriched of the ornaments like the principal cities in Italy; it is not, however, totally devoid of them; and yet one can observe respectable things here, which are well worthy of the studious research of scholars. In fact, we see many travellers crossing the city, carefully observing and anxiously researching to find what has become famous. However, they are certainly making it in a very uncomfortable way, using guides which produce more damage than advantage to them."

One may think that Buonamici deemed that the guide by Marcheselli-Costa was ill-advised and considered it necessary to propose a more complete one. And yet, a comparative analysis between the two writings shows that, very often, the attributions of one were those of the other. Moreover, the quality of critical interpretation of the works (basically referring to a classical taste) did not differ significantly.

Benedetto Coda, The Wedding of St. Joseph and the Virgin, Rimini, Town Museum
© 2015 Gilberto Urbinati. Courtesy of the author

In fact, most likely, Buonamici intended to produce a truly different work from that of Marcheselli. And in fact, we are facing really dissimilar works. In particular, the Notables Things in Rimini were composed of two books: the first book presented the history of the city, from the ancient Romans onwards, with particular attention to aspects (such as the presence of religious relics in places of worship) that were deriving from the previous tradition of annals. The second book, to the contrary, offered the real journey through the churches and oratories in town (and immediately around it) with a different route than the one proposed by Marcheselli. Buonamici aimed therefore to the creation of a historical-artistic guide, more complex and varied than the one already published five years earlier. A noticeable obvious difference consists of the attention given to the main Rimini monuments from the Roman era, namely the Arch of Augustus and the Tiberius Bridge. While they were merely mentioned by Marcheselli, they were instead the subject of a discussion of various pages by Buonamici. I agree therefore with what written in the back cover: the author specifically proves a ''professional focus on the architecture of the buildings and the discussion of monuments", an attention which is also demonstrated by a highly specialist use of architectural technical terminology, and which may not be that of a pure amateur.

Most probably, the Notables things were due to be part of an even more ambitious project, which Patrizia Alunni describes in the introduction (p. 9): to print three volumes, that should have represented the summa of his artistic and erudite experience. The first two books should have contained the description and the drawings of the Cathedral of Ravenna (which he rebuilt in 1734), with an epigraphic appendix, while the third was to cover the most important buildings in Rimini (the Arch of Augustus and the Tiberius Bridge). It is probable that this third volume was actually the Notables Things of Rimini, thus aiming at illustrating the city's artistic heritage and not only the two Roman monuments in question. 

Paolo Caliari aka Veronese, Madonna with Saints Peter and Paul and martyrdom of St. Julian ,
Rimini, Church of St. Julian © 2015 Gilberto Urbinati. Courtesy of the author

Giorgio Picchi, Death of the false wife in the square of Rimini Rimini, Church of Saints Bartholomew and Marino 
© 2015 Gilberto Urbinati. Courtesy of the author

Who was the real author?

We would not offer a complete picture, if we did not give account of some concerns of the editor about the authorship of the work. Buonamici has been considered to be the author (by a previous scholar) on the basis of internal evidence and a calligraphic comparison with other (also anonymous) manuscript, also assigned to by Buonamici. Patrizia Alunni, however, is not so certain about it. In particular she cannot help but remember the close collaboration between the architect and the physician Paolo Andrea Draghi, a medical doctor who was part of Rimini’s scholarly circles. The curator reports the existence of a manuscript, authored by Paolo Andrea Draghi and entitled Apologetic reasoning by Andronicus Flaminius to Philalethes for Chevalier Gianfrancesco Buonamici (Andronicus Flaminius was Paolo Andrea Draghi’s academic nickname). Well, this manuscript appears to be virtually identical to a printed booklet entitled Apologetic Reasoning by Aceste Italicus to Philalethes in response to the reflections concerning a drawing by Cavalier Gianfrancesco Buonamici. Well, this second text is attributable to Buonamici himself, since Aceste Italico was his nickname. This is a quite intricate situation, which can indeed be summarized as follows: Buonamici possibly published in his own name (and probably with Paolo Andrea Draghi’s agreement) a work written by the latter. If one compares then Draghi’s manuscript with the Notable Things kept at the Gambalunga Library, it is relatively easy to discover that the handwriting is identical and that the same is true for the manner in which the pages are structured (in both cases, the text is divided in two columns, the one on the right used is used to add notes) is the same. What is the conclusion one should draw from it? Have, in reality, the Notables Things been drafted by Paolo Andrea Draghi? The curator hesitates to make this inference, and in my view rightly so, because of the lexical properties displayed by the author at the manuscript descriptions of the Arch of Augustus and Tiberius Bridge, typical of an architect (and not of an erudite amateur). She prefers therefore to speak of the fruit of collaboration with four hands. The (curious) fact remains that, considering the two artistic guides produced in Rimini in the middle of  '700, the first one was drafted by Marcheselli, but with consisting contributions by Costa, and the authorship of the second must be jointly assigned to Messrs Buonamici and Paolo Andrea Draghi.

Guido Cagnacci, Ecstasy of Saint Teresa and Saint Maddalena de' Pazzi and the vision of Saint'Andrea Corsini,
Rimini, Church of St. John the Baptist
© 2015 Gilberto Urbinati. Courtesy of the author

The taste of the eighteenth century

Whoever has been the real author of the Notable Things, he displayed view in line - as I said – with the taste of his time: He showed great appreciation for the masters of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; to the contrary, he included few references to the fifteenth century (which, in principle, are limited to a citation of Ghirlandaio, whose main merit was to be the master of Michelangelo). The works of the primitives were remembered on a purely incidental way, and more than anything else only in order to corroborate popular traditions. I am quoting here only one case, that of the Church of St. Julian, where, under a Veronese altarpiece, is mentioned a "a great marble ark within which lie the relics of the holy martyr Julian." On this ark, it is said that it had miraculously survived a voyage across the sea. This was proven by "a panel painted already four hundred forty years ago ... divided in many parts, which show separately the scenes of the story of the miraculous arrival" (p. 131). It is obvious the author was unable of any stylistic reading (everything that is old was indicated by him as a work by Giotto). Buonamici was the son of his time, and this example is an obvious demonstration of it.