Carl Friedrich von Rumohr
Drey Reisen nach Italien. [Three Journeys to Italy]
Leipzig, F. A. Brockhaus, 1832
Part Two
Review by Francesco Mazzaferro
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| Fig. 15) The three tomes of the Italian Investigations and the Three Journeys to Italy |
A diary of memoirs,
not an autobiography
After the initial section dealing with the
aesthetic issues (to which I have already devoted the first part of this post)
the Three Journeys to Italy. Cal
Friedrich von Rumohr’s Memories were structured into three main units, each
dedicated to a journey and divided into chapters with different numbering. It was
therefore a set of scattered memoirs, and not an autobiography. There were,
inevitably, elements of fragmentation and discontinuity in the narrative. From
the point of view of the literary quality, the first and second journeys were
definitely superior to the third. The organization of the travel reports proved
to be asymmetric: in the first journey, for example, the initial pages described von Rumohr’s previous life in Germany, describing the museums that he
visited there; the travel route was then described step by step, both for the
journeys to and from Italy. As the second journey was actually a long stay of
five years, it would have required a predominant number of pages compared to
the other two, but von Rumohr deliberately omitted many issues (ahead of the
return, for example, he made no mention of the reasons leading
him to travel back to Germany). At the end of the third journey, finally, twenty-five
pages of detailed accounts were dedicated to the artworks he inspected for the
count of the Prussian administration in Lombardy and Veneto, to finish with a
sudden conclusion: one half page only dedicated to Venice, and no mention of
the return trip.
Nonetheless, the Three Journeys offered a testimony not only of some salient
episodes in the life of Carl Friedrich, but also of the development of art in
Italy and Germany, in the years of the Napoleonic rule and in those immediately
following it. In Italy, the author witnessed the dismantling of private
collections (the Melzi collection in Milan, the Zambeccari one in Bologna) and
the gradual establishment of large public museums (the Brera Gallery in Milan,
the Pinacoteca Art Gallery in Bologna, the Gallery of the Academy in Florence).
In Rome he observed a sequence of events of great importance for the
development of German art (the sequencing between the circle of neo-classical
painters and that of the Nazarenes, with intermediate figures between the two
as Joseph Anton Koch). As for the method, von Rumohr witnessed the start of a
systematic search of the sources of art history, combining it inseparably with the
direct inspection of the works and then with his role as a connoisseur. His personal preferences were also made often very explicit
in the pages of the Three Journeys: he
disliked profoundly any breaking of linearity in architecture (the Tyrolean
Baroque and the Spanish-style architecture in Naples), any gigantism in
sculpture (the Farnese Hercules, the statue of Saint Carlo Borromeo), and any mannerism
and academicism in painting. Finally, he factually hated from heart all the
aesthetic theories prevailing in the German world.
The Three
Journeys could hardly have been used by a visitor as a guide for the Grand Tour to Italy. The text described
none of the most important monuments of the peninsula. Carl Friedrich was
rather a careful observer who discovered the strengths and weaknesses of the
Italian society of those years and wondered about their historical and cultural
reasons. He discovered the country was severely weakened by the Napoleonic
wars, even in the field of art: besides the French seizures, he experienced the
unregulated flow of valuable goods on the antiquities market, often generated
by the disposal of the property of religious orders like in Siena. He witnessed
that the Palazzo Pitti in Florence had been literally emptied and the Bourbon
collections transferred from Naples to Palermo to escape the Napoleonic troops.
But in fact, he also discovered that no authority was able to consolidate its
power in Italy: every government was everywhere weak. The authorities were exhausted
by the anti-French guerrilla in Naples, suffered massive desertions among
troops due to maintain order and law in Rome, and could not stop the criminal
activities of gangster bands in the countryside. There was famine in Naples but
also in Florence, and Verona was a poor town. The intermediate structures in
the society pursued personal interests and did not provide for the common good.
Von Rumohr raised questions about the reasons
for this weakness, and found them in social and economic structures. Italy was
a country seeking to monetize its art, rather than preserving it: the Lombard
nobility was competing to receive Carl Friedrich’s visit, hoping to benefit
from purchases for Berlin museums; scams, fakes, and simply made-up attributions,
corroborated by apocryphal signatures or other malicious manipulations in the
paintings, were always around the corner.
While fully aware of the limitations of the circles
that he attended, Carl Friedrich showed nevertheless a profound love for Italy.
When in Germany, he suffered from real nostalgic crises and sought any kind of
excuse to visit again our country. He had a strong aversion for the too conceptual
nature of aesthetic discussions in Germany, which in his view paralyzed the
artists and prevented them from expressing their full talent. During the second
and the third journeys, he accompanied two young painters (Franz Horny and
Friedrich Nerly) to Italy in the belief that only in Rome they could get free from
the burden of German aesthetic and regain the space to freely exercise their
talents.
The love of a young for
Italian art
Carl Friedrich von Rumohr fell in love with
painting when he was only fifteen years old, in front of some canvases
attributed to Ruisdael, Correggio, Raphael and Claude Lorrain. He saw them in
the private collection of the Count von Brombeck, in the castle of Söder [67]
(a tiny town near Hannover). The collection included four hundred pieces, now dispersed.
Since then, he sought to see as many paintings he could and started, already as
a teenager, to travel across the leading museums of the German world, like
Dresden, Kassel and Munich [68]. The second chapter of the First Journey was titled "From the German art
collections" and documented, among other things, his enthusiasm since the
years of youth for Raphael (he devoted several pages to the Sistine Madonna
[69]), Paolo Veronese [70] and Rubens [71]. As for the Dutch, it is absolutely
extraordinary - at least in the eyes of a reader of our day – that he assigned more
importance to Adrian van de Velde, Paul Potter, Gerard Dow and Johann Both [72]
compared to Rembrandt. On the other hand, the reading of those pages serves to
understand the taste of the period, and also the conditions in which his
interest for painting was developing in those days.
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| Fig. 16) Giovan Pietro Rizzoli called Giampietrino or Cesare Bernazzano, Leda with her children, 1520-1530 |
Here is, for example, what Carl Friedrich wrote
on a visit to the gallery of Kassel: "It
remains an unforgettable memory of Leonardo da Vinci’s Charity in the old
gallery of Kassel, the painting whose memory had vanished, and which had almost
gone lost. Just before me, Goethe had passed in Kassel; for hours - I was told
- he had sat in front of the panel, and the seat was almost still warm when I was
there. (...) In my vivid memory of that picture, I can still recognize the
pupil of Verrocchio, the companion of Lorenzo di Credi, whose children were so
similar to these. And yet I have seen more cleverness in all parts, more depth
in character and expression. In the traits of the mother and those of three
children, in particular the small one in his arms, I recognized I do not know
what pain, what uncontrollable nostalgia. The painting is called the Charity.
With this name, painters represented similar compositions in Italy in the
following years, and yet always with a sense of maternal enthusiasm for the
cheerful offspring who rejoiced around the mother. But here it seems that
Leonardo did not follow this pattern; in fact, his nature was to always go
beyond what the others were doing. Maybe, he wanted to make a reference to the
lost paradise, and therefore intended to express pain, and concerns and an
uncontrollable longing, or had in mind a mystical theme of which we lack the interpretation
key today. Certainly the mother with a series of three sons served as a symbol
of love of God, according to Christian concepts" [73].
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| Fig. 17) Francesco Salviati, Charity, 1543-1545 |
Carl Friedrich wrote that he found himself in
front of the work (which he believed to be one by Leonardo) shortly after the
passage of Goethe. And yet this must have been a hyperbole: Goethe had indeed
described the picture in a page of his diary in 1803, but he had visited Kassel
in 1801 [74]. Von Rumohr had instead probably visited the gallery in 1804-1805.
In any case, it is clear that, in those years, the work was considered as one
of the absolute masterpieces of Italian art in Germany. Its history is really
interesting. The painting was mysteriously discovered in Paris in 1756, and was
immediately attributed to Leonardo, with the title Charity, by analogy with a series of similar drawings, held in
Windsor, Chatsworth and Rotterdam, and considered autographs by Leonardo [75].
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| Fig. 18) Leonardo da Vinci, Leda and the Swan, 1503 - 1507, Devonshire Collection, Chatsworth |
In truth, the drawings depicted a Leda and the swan, while the newly
discovered painting responded to the Renaissance iconography of the Charity (a woman caring as a mother for three
children, who are not their own). A vague memory only had remained of a Charity of Leonardo, so that the discovery was a real sensation. The
Grand Duke of Hesse purchased the canvas to show it as the jewel of his
collection in Kassel (then as now the work was located in the local art
gallery). In 1806, the French seized the canvas and transferred it to the
Louvre. After an incredible series of adventurous transfers across the
Netherlands, France and Germany (among other things, for a period during the
Second World War it belonged to the personal collection of Hermann Göring), the
canvas returned to Kassel only in 1962.
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| Fig. 19) Carlo Portelli, Maastricht Charity, 1555-1560 |
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| Fig. 20) Marcantonio Franceschini, Charity, 1684 (?) |
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| Fig. 21) Francesco Melzi (?), Leda and the Swan, 1514-1516 ca. |
When Carl Friedrich saw it, the canvas showed
only three children (the one in the harms and the two in the bottom right
corner). A subsequent restoration discovered the fourth one (in the bottom left
corner), as well as the painted-over eggshell, revealing the true theme of the
work (i.e. Leda with her two pairs of twins: Helen and Clytemnestra, Castor and
Pollux). This was the veritable only reason why the (three) children observed
by Carl Friedrich were not wrapped to the mother, as in the iconographic motif
of Charity as a Christian symbol of
love: it was in fact a completely different symbolic and compositional scheme.
It was known that Leonardo had painted both a Leda (of which many imitations of students remained) and a Charity, whose image was completely unknown. It
is not to be excluded that one of the four children and the eggshell had been
intentionally painted over in the Eighteenth century in order to assign the
picture to Leonardo, of whose Charity much
less was known. After the restauration in 1904, the work was attributed by
Woldemar von Seitlitz, a major art historian of Dresden, to a pupil of
Leonardo, Giovan Pietro Rizzoli, said Giampietrino. Today the painting is
exhibited in Kassel as a work of Giampetrino or of Cesare Bernazzano, another
disciple of Leonardo. And yet, as demonstrated by Friedrich Marx's essay on
"The Charity of Leonardo da Vinci in
the Grand Ducal Gallery in Kassel" of 1916 [76], the attribution to
Leonardo died hard.
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| Fig. 22) The study of Friedrich Marx "On the Charity of Leonardo da Vinci at the Kassel Grand Ducal Gallery" |
The case of the Leda shows that, in those decades, the Italian art history was
based on a number of often uncertain attributions and very suspicious business
affairs. This ambiguity was the other side of the coin of the commercial success
of Italian art in Europe, and the result of the eagerness of the powerful people
of all ages to collect Italian masterpieces for their collections, paying a high
price (or, if necessary, using force). In this case also Carl Friedrich fell
into the trap and confirmed the attribution to Leonardo.
The first journey
(1805-1806)
Carl Friedrich von Rumohr left for Italy when
he was twenty years. It was the time of Napoleon's victories in the war against
the German states, with the battle of Austerlitz in 1805 and the creation of
the Confederation of the Rhine, the framework within which Germany was subjected
to French interests, in 1806. Carl Friedrich departed from Munich in the
direction of Italy along with some peers: two painters, a sculptor and a poet
[77]. The latter was, as we said in the first part, Ludwig Tieck (1773 -1853),
one of the fathers of the Sturm und Drang,
with whom he was linked by a solid relationship of friendship, despite the
complete difference of ideas about art [78]. None of them spoke a single word
of Italian [79], but the attraction for the country of art was too strong, even
in those war years.
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| Fig. 23) Carl Friedrich von Rumohr in a print reproduced in the edition of the Italian Investigations of 1920, edited by Julius von Schlosser |
The pages on the first journey immediately surprise the reader for
what he wrote, but also for what he omitted. One would search in vain for
a description of the Sistine Chapel and
the Raphael Rooms, as well as other masterpieces of Italian art. Instead, the reader noted a permanent interest in the overall reasons (for example, the social
and economic causes, as well as ideological ones) that could offer him a rational
explanation of the conditions of the Italian society, and as part of it, even the
state of the fine arts and architecture. In many respects von Rumohr, during
his journey to Italy, seemed interested in collecting the elements of a first
social history of Italian art.
When he was still travelling in the
German-speaking world (in the third chapter, devoted to "Travel through the mountains of Tyrol")
von Rumohr revealed his profound aversion for baroque and rococo architecture:
"In the long run we can adjust to
everything; and yet I have never managed to conciliate with the architecture of
the churches and cloisters of Innsbruck. (...) The general pattern of these
buildings consists of the absurd architecture of the Italians, inspired first
by Michelangelo Buonarroti, and then reaching the peak with Bernini and
Borromini" [80]. He was disturbed
by the "senseless fluctuations and
interruptions of their lines" [81], that the Tyrolean architects had further
stressed in order to create combinations that were, in his opinion, devoid of any
meaning [82] and which he called "neo-Roman
monstrosities" [83].
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| Fig. 24) The basilica and the cloister of Wilten (Innsbruck) in a etching of 1840 |
The fourth chapter was devoted to the ''Entrance into Italy and the journey to
Rome." In Trento, he immediately observed that the passage of the
linguistic border corresponded to a different relationship between urban and
agricultural structures: the urban centres in the Italian world were never
surrounded by woods, and city inhabitants - as a result - never lived in direct
contact with nature [84]. The observation revealed his early interest in
agricultural economics. He wondered on the possible reasons (climate, security
reasons) why Italian towns were always physically separated from the woods, and
came to the conclusion that they were purely cultural, i.e. the consequence of
the people's language commonality: "Maybe,
the reason lies in the work of the language. This wonderful element is more
powerful than you think. Thanks to it, opinions, views, thoughts, and reasons
go from house to house, creating over time a general consensus and even
managing to suppress, albeit unwittingly, the taste of dissent" [85].
He arrived in Verona, and one would expect some
lines on the Arena. Instead, it followed comments on a city that had remained
ancient both in its Roman ruins and in its medieval centre, mainly because it
was poor and therefore it did not have modern buildings yet: "The soil of the province is sterile, its
exploitation is less intensive, the city trade is limited " [86]. Carl
Friedrich wrote that - between the cities of Lombardy [sic] - Verona was the
only one to be in this situation, both in terms of public buildings and private
residences; an exception, since main cities as well as smaller ones "are too rich in order to remain old, which
in Italy is still considered in a very negative way, as it used to be amongst
us in Germany until forty years ago" [87]. We were therefore in a
period of transition. On the one hand there had been (both in Germany and in
Italy) powerful energies in the direction of the modernization of the cities
for economic reasons and probably also because of the influence of the
Enlightenment. People did not see much problems in the destruction of entire
medieval neighbourhoods in order to create new structures. On the other hand,
it began to emerge the reasoning (typical of the romantic world, like in
Germany) of historicism and thus also the preservation of assets (as well as
the construction of modern buildings inspired by the past: think of the
construction of the Cologne Cathedral in Germany).
The pages of Mantua were all dedicated to
Giulio Romano and Palazzo Te,
whose architectural structures von Rumohr said he recognized later in Rome, even if he
did not appreciate the frescoes there [88]. He arrived in Bologna while the public
art gallery was still under construction; he could instead admire the paintings
of the Zambeccari collection [89]. Not surprisingly, he was completely silent
on the Carraccis and the Bolognese school of the seventeenth century (as seen in the first part of the post, he attributed to that art school the decline of art
in a conceptual direction). Instead, he quoted some works by Francesco Francia,
but especially focused on the Casio
Altarpiece by Boltraffio, at that time still in the Church of Santa Maria
della Misericordia (now in the Louvre, where it has remained after being exchanged
for another work with the Pinacoteca di Brera).
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| Fig. 25) Boltraffio, Virgin and Child with Sts John the Baptist and Sebastian, aka “Casio Altarpiece”, 1500 |
Even in the case of Florence - where he spent
only six days – he visited the city in a state of disorder of the art collections,
due to the confiscation of religious property and other vicissitudes in the
Kingdom of Etruria, under Napoleon's control: "Palazzo Pitti was empty; the Galleria dell'Accademia has not yet been
staged. We still managed to see something in the churches, although very little
that was both known and accessible. We had to therefore limit ourselves to the
Uffizi Gallery, which appeared to us as a small world" [90]. It is
clear that the travel direction was Rome: for this reason the group quickly
visited the cathedral in Siena [91] and then took it towards the eternal city.
"Who
is not a part, or at least half-part, of the world of artists cannot imagine
what feelings of real anxiety and what expectations of strange uncertainty
assail these people, when they start to smell the proximity of the city. Since,
if you come from this side, you do not see Rome except when you have come to the
threshold of the city. When world men go through this way, they tend to doze,
while history experts usually count on all their fingers the proofs of their
knowledge about the past. Only the artist ponders here about quite different
things, thinking to everything that has been painted, to all the rivalries that
have been produced, to all the clashes that have erupted. He will think of
Raphael, who lived honoured, powerful, surrounded by a court of a distinct
type, certainly in the splendour. Or he will think of Michelangelo, who opposed the Popes. Or to the many other artists of ancient and modern times that learned
and acquired glory here, or to those who failed miserably, going to shatter on
the rocks of those churches where they worked. Because here in Rome there is
really all about, in the most complete way. [A travelling artist about to reach
Rome] will perhaps have in mind, when he is in a good mood, even the laughing
common people of the era of Bamboccio [92] and Claude [93], on which
Sandrart tells so beautiful stories. And then he will concentrate on himself, his
desires, feelings and fantasies. [94]”
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| Fig. 26) Pieter van Laer, said Bamboccio, The cake seller, 1640-1660 |
After entering the city, his two first
impressions were related to the comparison between what he was seeing and the knowledge
he had acquired from etchings. The Milvian Bridge (then called Ponte Mollo) was
no longer the one depicted by Johann Both in a beautiful "rustic" mood, but had been just
rebuilt in a "miserable neo-Italian
style" [95] (the neoclassical architect Giuseppe Valadier had in fact
restored it precisely in 1805), while 'Piazza del Popolo' [96] was fortunately
still in the conditions in which Gomar Wouters had described it at the end of
the seventeenth century (it was eventually restored, again by Valadier, in
1818. Von Rumohr said it was happy to have been able to see it before).
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| Fig. 27) Johann Both, View of the Milvian Bridge, 1636-1640 |
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| Fig. 28) Gomar Wouters, 'Piazza del Popolo' adorned with new buildings and a view of the city of Rome as it is today, 1692 |
Carl Friedrich soon discovered an extraordinary
harmony with the city, unlike the fellow travellers [97]. He spoke on it at the
beginning of the fifth chapter, on "Living in Rome". Therefore, he
decided to settle down here and to rent an apartment not far from the the papal
palace at the Quirinale, which had a breath-taking view over the city: "I saw the cloisters with their gardens full
of orange trees and beyond the Colosseum, the Caracalla Baths, the Pyramid and
in the distance the watchtowers of the shore, and on the other side the pope's
garden and the Vatican" [98].
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| Fig. 29) Asmus Jacob Carstens, The Night and his Sons, the Sleep and the Death, 1794 |
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| Fig. 30) Joseph Anton Koch, Landscape with thanksgiving offerings of Noah, 1803 |
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| Fig. 31) Joseph Anton Koch, The Matterhorn viewed from Rosenlaui, 1824 |
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| Fig. 32) Christian Gottlieb Schick, Apollo among the shepherds, 1806-1808 |
Once in Rome, Carl Friedrich immediately went
in search of the German-speaking artists who were living there. He met the painters
Joseph Anton Koch [99] (1768 -1839) and Christian Gottlieb Schick (1776-1812)
and still found the traces of their neoclassic master Jacob Asmus Carstens in
their studios [100] (1754 -1798). He also made acquaintance with the Danish neoclassic
sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen [101] (1770-1844). He further noted that Thordvalsen
enjoyed widespread success, while the merits of Koch were not always
recognized, also as a consequence of a certain discontinuity in the quality and
in the history of his paintings style [102]. Yet "he is true innovator in landscape painting: he knows how to give
substance, character and personality to the land forms" [103]. The
pre-romantic Koch, not the classic one, fascinated him.
He devoted really beautiful pages to his
arrival in Naples - we are in the sixth chapter – and different ones from the often
stereotyped tribute which the travellers devoted to the city at that time. Carl
Friedrich visited the region while the Napoleonic troops were searching the irregular
soldiers of Michele Arcangelo Pezzo, better known as Fra Diavolo, who were making continuous guerrilla attacks against
the French [104]. In Capri, French troops must also defend themselves from the
incursions of the English fleet, without sufficient means and therefore at the
cost of heavy losses [105]. The military clashes and the acts of guerrilla
around Naples exacerbated the extreme poverty; however, the society was both unable
and unwilling to find effective forms of solidarity to deal with the
exceptionally serious conditions, beyond pure window dressing. To an Italian contemporary
reader, the narration is revealing how the key aspects of the so-called Southern Question, and some vulnerabilities
of the Italian society in general, were already clearly visible to a careful
observer in the Napoleonic era. Here too, von Rumohr’s pages differed from the
models consciously practiced by the previous art literature.
"Naples?
It has already been discussed so much on it, in poetry and prose! But now remain
silent, dear reader; I will not repeat the old music, I will not describe the
topography of the city and its territory, and I will not even mention the list
of new archaeological excavations. No, no, I will tell you only what I felt and
what I thought in this place. It is not much in itself, but at least it is not
something already known. (...) Once again, I have experienced in Italy a
serious, long and widespread famine. If I think again about these experiences,
I feel compelled by a strong impulse to express some considerations in this
regard. In no other country in the world there are so many bequests, foundations
and confraternities aiming at relieving and reducing the misery of the sick,
the weak, the needy and the injured. Charity is a necessary requirement to earn
the respect of the citizens in the present as well as to secure their
consideration and indulgence in the future. So, just because everyone feels the
need to honour this duty on time and regularly, and in this aspect everything
has, since ever, its own well-defined shape, its own rhythms and cadences, in
Italy one does not feel compelled nor takes any initiative to activate
emergency measures to prevent desperate times. So it can happen that, upon the
occurrence of an exceptionally serious situation, the same person on the one
hand distributes the usual alms, while on the other hand lets his wheat wither
away in the warehouse, in the hope of a new rise in prices; in short, he may contribute
to aggravate the state of necessity in its general aspects, and then relieve
them in the particular ones. And you should not explain these contradictions with
the hypocrisy behind which moneylenders often try to cover their real
intentions as usurers. No, in Italy people do not need to be so sophisticated. They
believe in an unscrupulous way that, having done their duty, they can pursue their
personal daily benefits without even having to dissemble their behaviour" [106].
Let's go back to art: in the emergency
conditions determined by the Napoleonic invasion, "part of the artistic treasures of Naples have followed the ruling house
in Palermo, and in particular the Gallery has really thinned. In addition to
the antiquity of the Farnese and Pompeii, many paintings have remained by
Sebastiano del Piombo and Christoph Amberger; in both cases they are significant
works for the two artists. The Pompeian museum in Portici is instead intact" [107]. It should be added that, if today the
Capodimonte Gallery in Naples still houses (three) works by Sebastiano, there
is no evidence on paintings of the German artist currently preserved in Naples
(they were not even mentioned in von Rumohr’s Italian Investigations). They were therefore either paintings which
have gone lost or attributions which are no longer considered valid today.
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| Fig. 33) Sebastiano del Piombo, Portrait of Clement VII, around 1526 |
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| Fig. 34) Sebastiano del Piombo, Madonna of the Veil, 1520 |
Finally, as to the Farnese collection, Carl
Friedrich had nearly any enthusiasm for it: "The antique collection of the Farnese betrays the taste of his time and
even the personal preferences of the initiators of this collection. Here is the
Callipygian Venus, there is the imposing Hercules (the model of many sculptors
of the school of Michelangelo), there again is the Farnese Bull. Originally, the
Farnese wanted to expose them in places of public passage. These works have
today a limited favour; antiquity shows to us better sides than what
Michelangelo's followers appreciated, seeking among ancient statues only those
that seemed to confirm their direction. Yet their choices have led to the assessment
on the value of art of the ancient world, until Winckelmann and beyond, to the
detriment of the study of ancient art and good taste" [108].
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| Fig. 35) Venus Callipigia, 1st century BC |
As for the Angevin and Aragonese architecture
of Naples, Carl Friedrich judged it "barbaric"
[109], essentially confirming the same judgment that he had already expressed concerning
the Tyrolean Baroque. His taste on the architectural style was characterized by
a sense of measure: he disliked any commingling of styles or architectural
elements (in this case, the excessive number of windows, the elevation of
buildings up to ten floors, the lack of protruding parts), which would give the
impression of a rupture of harmony.
The pressure of events following the Napoleonic
wars led to Carl Friedrich’s decision to speed-up his return to Germany (the
return trip is described in the seventh chapter, entitled "Roman Memoirs. Return Trip Back at Home"). In fact, the situation became
dangerous when an entire German battalion in Napoleon’s army, located in Rome
to control public order, deserted and disappeared in the Roman convents, with
the encouragement and active support of German language prelates; the French
troops began searches and reprisals against the German speaking communities in
Rome, to look for them [110]. Von Rumohr had no role in that act of
insubordination, but made no secret of considering the involved soldiers and
prelates as true patriots, the heroes of an anti-French national liberation
movement which – once they had fled from Rome – was due to continue with the
unfortunate Tyrolean independence movement of Andreas Hofer [111]. In those
conditions, Carl Friedrich decided to spend a few days in Rome to study for the
last time museums and galleries [112] and then left the city along with Ludwig
Tieck [113]. The Italian stages of his fast return back to Germany were
Florence, Parma and Milan [114].
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| Fig. 36) Correggio, St. Bartholomew and St. Matthias on St. John, Detail of the fresco in the dome of the Parma Cathedral, 1520-1524 |
Von Rumohr and Tieck spent a few days in Parma
to admire the works of Correggio. There is a page displaying real enthusiasm for
the possibility they had to climb up to the top of the dome of the cathedral,
admiring closely its frescoes, especially the apostles and the angels. It was a
revelation, which induced Carl Friedrich to say that Antonio Allegri, although
being a much less educated painter than Raphael and Michelangelo, was superior to
them because he used a "more
original and innate concept of beauty", based on a combination of
shapes and outlines [115]. In Milan - where the Brera Gallery was still being
formed – he admired the Melzi collection [116] and the Last Supper by Leonardo [117]. A few lines were enough to tell the
reader about his disgust in front of the colossal statue of St. Carlo Borromeo [118] (described as "a huge
scarecrows in the fields", devoid of the formal architectural
qualities that were needed for each work of these dimensions) and soon after
the painter was back in the German world crossing the Lake Maggiore, along the
Ticino, and from there reaching Zurich and Basel (where he paid tribute to
Holbein).
The second voyage
(1816-1821)
Ten years later, Carl Friedrich was back in
Italy. Meanwhile, Europe had been devastated by the Napoleonic wars. He had spent
most of the period in Bavaria, near the beloved mountains and especially in a
part of Germany that in his opinion was the most similar in temperament to
Italy [119]. Since von Rumohr - as
explained in the first chapter of this section, entitled Veranlassung (the reason, the occasion) - had great nostalgia of
Italy [120]. Indeed, in those years, von Rumohr felt out of place in Germany:
"I definitely lacked a point of reference
for life and activity" [121]. He
then began to work on literature, more out of boredom than out of conviction,
perhaps looking for new interests.
 |
| Fig. 37) Heinrich Meyer, Oedipus solves the riddle of the sphinx, 1789. S ource: https://archive.org/stream/zeichnungenvonjo00meye#page/n29/mode/2up |
 |
| Fig. 38) Heinrich Meyer, Portrait of Goethe, 1795. Source: https://archive.org/stream/zeichnungenvonjo00meye#page/n31/mode/2up |
The instance to travel again to Italy presented
itself when, in the neoclassical art circles of Weimar animated by the Swiss
painter and art critic Heinrich Meyer [122] (1760-1832), von Rumohr knew Franz
Horny, a young artist (1798-1824) who was severely sick with tuberculosis.
Despite the disease, Horny wanted to go to Rome to study with Joseph Anton
Koch; he hoped, in fact, that the Mediterranean climate might alleviate his
lung problems (instead, he died at the age of 26 in Olevano). Carl Friedrich
decided to accompany him to Italy, considering him a great talent, while seeing
in him all the symptoms of a completely wrong education to art, based on the
infinite re-copying of the old masters, and therefore destined to weaken the
artist's creative ability [123]. He hoped that a stay in Italy would liberate
Horny’s talents from all the false barriers created by the Weimar aesthetics.
The young painter friend did not know indeed how to paint from life and even
revealed himself unable to get inspired by the splendid panorama of the Alps
and the vegetation surrounding Lake Garda [124]. Also after he had arrived in
Rome, despite the contacts with the German artists of the place, and numerous
attempts to adopt different styles, he never adjusted to the use of the colour
and only worked on drawings. His incapacity to be a true painter, despite his
talents, was one of the reasons for von Rumohr to reflect several times in the Three journeys on the damage inflicted
by the Weimar aesthetics school on the contemporary art, a theme already
mentioned and amply discussed in the first part of this post [125].
 |
| Fig. 39) Franz Horny, Olevano Landscape, 1822 |
Once again, Carl Friedrich crossed - we are in
the second chapter - the Alps, making also a trip to Arco and on the shores of
Lake Garda. The third chapter narrated the transfer from there to Florence via
Bologna (where the two admired the Santa Cecilia of Raphael, which had been returned
by French authorities in 1815, and just exposed in the new Art Gallery, as well
as a few unidentified works by Marcantonio Franceschini [126]). The winter stay
in Florence was aggravated by "famine,
plague, and fatal diseases" in the city [127]. In May 1816 he finally
reached Rome, after ten years of absence, as narrated in the fourth chapter,
whose very title specified the unique character of the new stay in Italy:
"Return to Rome. Archival research."
Arrived in Rome, von Rumohr discovered major
changes in the artistic world of German artists who were lived there. The
classicists had, in fact, been joined by the Nazarenes: "The change that occurred in this little
world, where the artistic endeavours of all the European nations had sought and
found a meeting point for several centuries, was incredible. There had been a
rift between the viewpoints of the artists, and new tensions were born, even if
the parties had never ceased to mutually recognize their merits. I was
surprised by the fertility of the true talents of these times" [128].
 |
| Fig. 40) Peter von Cornelius, Joseph interprets the Pharaoh's dreams, Cycle of Frescoes of the Casa Bartholdy, 1816-1817 |
His attention was attracted by the fresco cycle
of the Casa Bartholdy in Palazzo Zuccari
[129], one of the founding art works of the Nazarenes, now shown at the Alte Nationalgalerie in Berlin. The work
was performed in those years, from 1815 to 1817: "And in fact the famous room in the house of the Consul General of
Prussia was already partly completed and partly still being finished. They were
the first pictures in fresco in a long time, since the frescoes painted in this
technique, in southern Germany and even in Italy since 1700, testified indeed technical
skills, but were too devoid of content to be still the subject of attention" [130]. And he focused in particular on a
design by Overbeck for the cycle, depicting a Hail Mary [131].
Von Rumohr spent the summer in Rome and then
returned to Florence, a city that he had actually quite neglected so far. There
he had a second revelation. "After a
year of different pleasures and pains I started a job that provided me later
the material for a variety of studies"
[132]. It was the beginning of Carl Friedrich’s interest for art history
sources; he said that already in the previous winter (the one passed in
Florence during the plague) he had browsed Vasari’s Lives and used them as a yardstick for the artworks he was visiting
and observing, discovering however that the very celebrated artist-writer missed
"criticism, memory and even the will
to adapt to the historical truth" [133].
Subsequent critics who "have
promised the world to improve and complete it" were not been able to
find "stable reference points from
which to observe and study the art as a whole" [134] and had proven
themselves "not as accurate and
reliable as you should expect from correctors. Only in recent times we have
seen an improvement" [135].
"It
was time to take an initiative, and for that I dived in the Archives of the
Opera del Duomo in Florence. I was not given access to the scrolls, but to some
hundreds of bound books in the stores. Enough to try and enough to practise.
The books were starting from the year 1300" [136]. Rumohr examined all protocols on the
discussions preparing and accompanying the construction of the Cathedral and
all notary contracts with the artists between 1430 and 1480 [137]. He then moved
to the archive of the Brotherhood of Mercy [138]. He helped himself by having
recourse to the "Ancient and Modern
Florence Illustrated", an eight-tome encyclopaedic history of Florence
curated a few years earlier by V. Follini and M. Rastrelli [139].
 |
| Fig. 41) The first volume of Ancient and Modern Florence Illustrated of 1789 |
Then, when the Florentine archivists made his life
difficult, preventing him from having free access to the riformagioni (the city deliberations), he moved to Siena where he was
given access to the archives of the financial administration [140].
It was an activity of frantic searching, which
would give life to the first two volumes of the Italian Investigations ten years later, i.e. in 1827.
It was the first attempt to write a history of
Italian art in the German world, basing it on documentary data and not on
literary grounds. And yet, looking retrospectively, Carl Friedrich wrote in the
Three Journeys: "I'm not satisfied with what I did, and I
have the impression of having achieved more in my observation activities and
direct visual study of the works (of which I can glory in the field of art),
than with what I did with the use of documentary material. In this regard, I
should have overcome my inhibitions and imposed my presence in the archives who
resisted, if necessary operating intrusively or even resorting to corruption.
In short, I was happier with myself than I have been diligent. After all, if I
could not make public many new items of information, at least the ones that I
brought to light were good and important. And finally, please do not believe
that the 'Investigations' give an idea of all my work, since I had to take into
account the necessity of the measure" [141].
In Siena, he was also able to acquire original
parchment documents, which were sold on the public square by a certain B.
Montini, an antiques dealer who had acquired them on the cheap from the archives
of the Carmelites, taking advantage of the Napoleonic seizures. They were
original diplomas of popes and emperors, medieval codes of Livy and other
documents which he delivered to the Berlin court Library [142].
But it would be wrong to think that von Rumohr
had retreated into the world of archives and thus has severed all connections
with reality. In one of his frequent trips to Rome he animated a discussion
with the Prussian Ambassador Niebuhr on the economic differences between the
north and the south of Italy. The theme is the historical reason of the
difference between sharecropping (Colonia
partiaria) in the north of Italy and large estates in the south of the
peninsula. Niebuhr's thesis was that sharecropping had a Germanic origin (sors barbarica), and was therefore a
historical remnant of the presence of northern European populations in Italy,
while Carl Friedrich’s answer had a political and economic nature: "In the age of democratically governed
municipal organizations, market forces push the farmers to own land; where
instead capitalists operate, they bare them from land possession, if ever there
was" [143]. It was a very
daring opinion for his time and the ambassador invited him, almost as a
challenge, to document it. It was the origin of the studies that von Rumohr
pursued for years on the issue of agricultural economics and which would justify
his later fourth trip to Italy to examine the cropping and irrigation systems
of Lombardy, years after the publication of the Three journeys in 1832.
 |
| Fig. 42) Franz Horny, Italian landscape with decorative figures, 1822 |
The fifth chapter (entitled "The Death of Horny. Brigands") was
dedicated to the fate of his younger friend. In Rome, Horny studied with Joseph
Anton Koch, helped Peter Cornelius in the frescoes of the Villa Massimo [144], and made great progress, despite never being able
to get entirely free from the pencil drawing and starting to properly paint
[145]. His health did nothing but worsen [146] and the two moved to Olevano
[147], where they could enjoy a better climate, but were exposed to the risk of
local banditry, to which several pages are devoted, including a kidnapping of
which Carl Friedrich was a victim (he managed to escape and thus to save his
live by way of sheer fortune) [148]. Horny remained in Olevano even when von
Rumohr decided to return to Germany in 1821. The young failed painter died
there years later in 1824.
The last chapter on the second journey was
centred on the visits which Carl Friedrich received from high-ranking
delegations from Germany and Denmark (Landmannschaften
– curiously, the same term used today for national soccer teams). To accompany
personalities in visits in Italy meant to have a source of income and to gain
valuable knowledge. Particularly successful was the meeting with the Crown
Prince of Denmark, Christian Frederic (the future King Christian VIII) and his
wife Caroline Amalie, with whom von Rumohr maintained relationships throughout
life. In fact, he decided to return to Northern Europe to enjoy their favours.
The third journey
(1828-1829)
The reasons underlying the third journey were
not entirely different from those of the second. On the one hand, von Rumohr
still considered the German academic culture on art as unbearable, on the other
one he wanted to complete his studies in Italy to prepare a new volume of the
"Italian Investigations",
this time on Raphael. The opportunity to return came as he was teaching another young
artist, Friedrich Nerly (1807-1878), of whom he had became a tutor in 1823 (when
Nerly was still sixteen). Five years later he decided to accompany him to Italy,
once again to hide a talented young painter from the vices of German
aesthetics.
 |
| Fig. 43) Christian Dietrich, Waterfalls near Rome, 1750 |
The first chapter presented Carl Friedrich in
the new activities as tutor of young artists (the title was Künstlerbildung, namely the education of
artists); Rumohr admitted, however, that, in this regard, his activity had not
been successful [149], with the exception of Friedrich Nerly. He had experimented
a new method of teaching with him, based on colour and composition [150]. It was
a practical technical teaching, an alternative to the academic one and inspired
by the way in which fine arts had been taught in the past in artists' studios. In
fact, with the disappearance of the apprenticeship [151] - he wrote – either a
painter had to learn alone (exposing himself to the risks of self-taught
education [152]), or was forced to make use of the academies, with considerable
disburse of money [153] and no result [154]. The most successful painters like
Balthasar Denner, Christian Dietrich (also called Dietricy) and Anton Raphael
Mengs had in fact all studied with relatives. A practical man like Carl
Friedrich could not but observe that the market prices of the painters between
1700 and 1800 were very low: "It is
an uncomfortable reality, which can be explained only by making the causal
hypothesis that such a vast effort has not led to anything but to perpetuate
wrong avenues, that otherwise would have probably died alone for lack of new
followers" [155].
The second chapter explained the "Original
intentions and the subsequent change of the travel plan" (Ursprüngliche Bestimmung und spätere
Abänderung des Reiseplanes). In origin the goal was to accompany Nerly in
Italy, in the full understanding of "his
growing desire of thrilling impressions, which every artist seeks and finds in
Italy", but also of the need for him "not only to learn, but above all to gain freedom and autonomy"
[156]. Yet Carl Friedrich was convinced that "we cannot dare to give a young person to himself without any transition
[157]".
 |
| Fig. 44) Thomas Richmond (?), Portrait of Christian Karl von Bunsen, 1847, etching |
But there was actually a third reason which was
about to become prevalent: the tight collaboration with the Prussian authorities
to feed the Berlin Museum, which was growing by the day. Carl Friedrich was a
frequent traveller to Berlin to follow the progress of the art collection. He
discovered there numerous fakes or works of school, often sold as masterpieces
of the great masters. Not surprisingly, the Prussian administration contacted
him, through Christian Karl von Bunsen (1791-1860), the new ambassador in Rome,
asking him to pass judgment on a painting which was located in Florence and which
the government wanted to acquire for the Berlin collection [158]. In Florence,
the reference point for art trade negotiations with Germany was Johann Baptist
Metzger (1771-1844), an engraver and art dealer, active for decades in Tuscany,
and very close to the Nazarenes. It is perhaps worth noting here that this
story demonstrates the political importance of art transactions in that time.
Many of the Prussian ambassadors in Rome in those years were – besides being
diplomats – also scholars. The already named Niebuhr, with whom Carl Friedrich
had exchanged opinions on sharecropping and large estates during the second
trip, assumed later on the chair of ancient art history at the Bonn University.
Bunsen, who replaced him, was a famous Egyptologist. Evidently for the Berlin
authorities the Rome diplomatic representation had a great role in the
management of cultural relations.
 |
| Fig. 45) Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld, Portrait of Johann Baptist Metzger, 1819 |
 |
| Fig. 46) Raffaello, Tempi Madonna, 1508 |
Carl Friedrich quickly realized that Metzger had
many pieces which would complement the Berlin collection [159]; one of the most
important, the Tempi Madonna by
Raphael [160], had already been sold by him to the ruling family of Bavaria (it
is still today at the Alte Pinakothek
in Munich). He had therefore to hurry. He was authorized by the king to make the
purchases he suggested [161].
 |
| Fig. 47) Sandro Botticelli, Madonna with Child and John the Baptist as child in prayer, undated |
 |
| Fig. 48) Sandro Botticelli, Christ the Saviour, undated (photo: Christoph Schmidt / SMB) |
He was able to get his hands on a Botticelli (the
round "Madonna and Child with John
the Baptist child in prayer"), which he added thereby as second work
of the Tuscan painter in the Berlin collection after the "Christ the Saviour" which was there
since 1821 thanks to the acquisition of the collection of the Englishman Solly.
Once again encouraged by Bunsen, Carl Friedrich turned to the Marquis Nerli, the
heir to an ancient Florentine family of the Guelph side [162], while the Crown
Prince himself came from Berlin to follow the events [163]. Von Rumohr acted as
his guide for four days, explaining that he "knows the city better than many Florentine" [164], and also accompanied
him in Siena and Arezzo [165].
He was in Siena (where he conducted his beloved
archival research) and was preparing to leave for Rome and Naples, when the
Prussian administration contacted him again: the Crown Prince had just seen in
Milan a painting attributed to Raphael. As it was in poor conditions, the
prince wanted to obtain the opinion of an expert before purchasing it. Carl
Friedrich left immediately for Milan despite the difficult weather conditions (it
was difficult to travel with snow at that time) [166] and came to the
conclusion that it was a minor Lombard. But he discovered the works of
Sebastiano del Piombo, Titian and Moroni, and came to the conclusion that
Lombardy was a very rich and unexplored mine for the Berlin art collection. At
that point he got a letter from Alexander von Humboldt himself, giving him the mandate
to buy as much as possible for the Berlin collection, before the arrival of
competitors [167]. And this is the reason why, instead of travelling south, his
third journey went across Northern Italy.
Here opens the section of the third journey covered
by Chiara Battezzati in her 2009 essay on "Carl Friedrich von Rumohr and art in northern Italy" [168]. They were the final twenty-five
pages of the Three journeys, in
reality not a travel narration, but a thick catalogue of inspected works, whether
selected for purchase or discarded. Von Rumohr lose any view of Nerly and
instead his diary took the tone of a very precise description of the works
available at the Lombard nobility. The catalogue stopped abruptly with the
arrival in Venice, almost as if to continue it in a so art-rich city was
excessively time-consuming. I am referring to this section to relevant post already published in the blog.
NOTES
[67] von Rumohr, Carl Friedrich - Drey Reisen
nach Italien: Erinnerungen. Leipzig, F. A. Brockhaus, 1832, 327 pages. The text
is available on the Internet at
[68] von Rumohr, Carl Friedrich - Drey Reisen
nach Italien… 1832 (quoted), p. 69.
[69] von Rumohr, Carl Friedrich - Drey Reisen
nach Italien… 1832 (quoted), pp. 74-77.
[70] von Rumohr, Carl Friedrich - Drey Reisen
nach Italien… 1832 (quoted), pp. 78-80.
[71] von Rumohr, Carl Friedrich - Drey Reisen
nach Italien… 1832 (quoted), p. 82.
[72] von Rumohr, Carl Friedrich - Drey Reisen
nach Italien… 1832 (quoted), p. 82.
[73] von Rumohr, Carl Friedrich - Drey Reisen
nach Italien… 1832 (quoted), p. 70.
[74] See: Herzog, Erich, Goethes Spuren in
Kassels Gelerien (The traces of Goethe in Kassel galleries), speech delivered
on January 1, 1978. Text available at: http://goethe-gesellschaft-kassel.org/data/documents/1978_Herzog_Spuren-Goethes-in-Kassels-Galerien.pdf .
[76] Marx, Friedrich - Über die Caritas des
Leonardo da Vinci in der Kurfürstlichen Galerie zu Cassel : mit einer
Photographie und vier Textabbildungen, Bonn, In Kommission bei L. Roehrscheid,
1915. The text is available at the internet address:
http://digital.slub-dresden.de/werkansicht/dlf/16253/?tx_dlf%5Bpointer%5D=0&cHash=a341840c2ac9646dd1e5df0a1415bef7.
http://digital.slub-dresden.de/werkansicht/dlf/16253/?tx_dlf%5Bpointer%5D=0&cHash=a341840c2ac9646dd1e5df0a1415bef7.
[77] von Rumohr, Carl Friedrich - Drey Reisen
nach Italien… 1832 (quoted), p. 85.
[78] von Rumohr, Carl Friedrich - Drey Reisen
nach Italien… 1832 (quoted), p. 156.
[79] von Rumohr, Carl Friedrich - Drey Reisen
nach Italien… 1832 (quoted), p. 99.
[80] von Rumohr, Carl Friedrich - Drey Reisen
nach Italien… 1832 (quoted), p. 94.
[81] von Rumohr, Carl Friedrich - Drey Reisen
nach Italien… 1832 (quoted), p. 94.
[82] von Rumohr, Carl Friedrich - Drey Reisen
nach Italien… 1832 (quoted), p. 94.
[83] von Rumohr, Carl Friedrich - Drey Reisen
nach Italien… 1832 (quoted), p. 95.
[84] von Rumohr, Carl Friedrich - Drey Reisen
nach Italien… 1832 (quoted), p. 103.
[85] von Rumohr, Carl Friedrich - Drey Reisen
nach Italien… 1832 (quoted), p. 103.
[86] von Rumohr, Carl Friedrich - Drey Reisen
nach Italien… 1832 (quoted), p. 106.
[87] von Rumohr, Carl Friedrich - Drey Reisen
nach Italien… 1832 (quoted), pp. 106-107.
[88] von Rumohr, Carl Friedrich - Drey Reisen
nach Italien… 1832 (quoted), p. 107.
[89] von Rumohr, Carl Friedrich - Drey Reisen
nach Italien… 1832 (quoted), p. 108.
[90] von Rumohr, Carl Friedrich - Drey Reisen
nach Italien… 1832 (quoted), p. 109.
[91] von Rumohr, Carl Friedrich - Drey Reisen
nach Italien… 1832 (quoted), p. 110.
[92] Pieter van Laer, said Bamboccio
(1599–1642).
[93] Claude Lorrain (1600-1682).
[94] von Rumohr, Carl Friedrich - Drey Reisen
nach Italien… 1832 (quoted), pp. 111-112.
[95] von Rumohr, Carl Friedrich - Drey Reisen
nach Italien… 1832 (quoted), p. 112.
[96] von Rumohr, Carl Friedrich - Drey Reisen
nach Italien… 1832 (quoted), p. 113.
[97] von Rumohr, Carl Friedrich - Drey Reisen
nach Italien… 1832 (quoted), p. 115.
[98] von Rumohr, Carl Friedrich - Drey Reisen
nach Italien… 1832 (quoted), pp. 115-116.
[99] von Rumohr, Carl Friedrich - Drey Reisen
nach Italien… 1832 (quoted), p. 116.
[100] von Rumohr, Carl Friedrich - Drey Reisen
nach Italien… 1832 (quoted), p. 116.
[101] von Rumohr, Carl Friedrich - Drey Reisen
nach Italien… 1832 (quoted), p. 116.
[102] von Rumohr, Carl Friedrich - Drey Reisen
nach Italien… 1832 (quoted), p. 117.
[103] von Rumohr, Carl Friedrich - Drey Reisen
nach Italien… 1832 (quoted), p. 117.
[104] von Rumohr, Carl Friedrich - Drey Reisen
nach Italien… 1832 (quoted), pp. 128-129.
[105] von Rumohr, Carl Friedrich - Drey Reisen
nach Italien… 1832 (quoted), pp. 139-142.
[106] von Rumohr, Carl Friedrich - Drey Reisen
nach Italien… 1832 (quoted), pp. 126-127.
[107] von Rumohr, Carl Friedrich - Drey Reisen
nach Italien… 1832 (quoted), p. 136.
[108] von Rumohr, Carl Friedrich - Drey Reisen
nach Italien… 1832 (quoted), pp. 136-137.
[109] von Rumohr, Carl Friedrich - Drey Reisen
nach Italien… 1832 (quoted), p. 143.
[110] von Rumohr, Carl Friedrich - Drey Reisen
nach Italien… 1832 (quoted), p. 146.
[111] von Rumohr, Carl Friedrich - Drey Reisen
nach Italien… 1832 (quoted), p. 151.
[112] von Rumohr, Carl Friedrich - Drey Reisen
nach Italien… 1832 (quoted), p. 155.
[113] von Rumohr, Carl Friedrich - Drey Reisen
nach Italien… 1832 (quoted), p. 156.
[114] von Rumohr, Carl Friedrich - Drey Reisen
nach Italien… 1832 (quoted), p. 156.
[115] von Rumohr, Carl Friedrich - Drey Reisen
nach Italien… 1832 (quoted), p. 158.
[116] von Rumohr, Carl Friedrich - Drey Reisen
nach Italien… 1832 (quoted), p. 160.
[117] von Rumohr, Carl Friedrich - Drey Reisen
nach Italien… 1832 (quoted), p. 160.
[118] von Rumohr, Carl Friedrich - Drey Reisen
nach Italien… 1832 (quoted), p. 160.
[119] von Rumohr, Carl Friedrich - Drey Reisen
nach Italien… 1832 (quoted), pp. 165-166.
[120] von Rumohr, Carl Friedrich - Drey Reisen
nach Italien… 1832 (quoted), p. 167.
[121] von Rumohr, Carl Friedrich - Drey Reisen
nach Italien… 1832 (quoted), p. 176.
[122] Heinrich Meyer also had a very important
role in the art literature of his time. Consider, for example, his
"History of fine arts among the Greeks from their origins to their highest
summit" (Geschichte der Künste bildenden bei den Griechen: von ihrem Ursprunge
bis zum höchsten Flor) published by Walterschen Hofbuchhandlung in Dresden in
1824. The text, of 519 pages, is available at
https://archive.org/stream/meyersgeschicht00meyegoog#page/n2/mode/2up.
https://archive.org/stream/meyersgeschicht00meyegoog#page/n2/mode/2up.
[123] von Rumohr, Carl Friedrich - Drey Reisen
nach Italien… 1832 (quoted), pp. 172-173.
[124] von Rumohr, Carl Friedrich - Drey Reisen
nach Italien… 1832 (quoted), pp. 190-191.
[125] von Rumohr, Carl Friedrich - Drey Reisen
nach Italien… 1832 (quoted), pp. 192-194.
[126] von Rumohr, Carl Friedrich - Drey Reisen
nach Italien… 1832 (quoted), p. 196.
[127] von Rumohr, Carl Friedrich - Drey Reisen
nach Italien… 1832 (quoted), p. 197.
[128] von Rumohr, Carl Friedrich - Drey Reisen
nach Italien… 1832 (quoted), p. 197.
[129] von Rumohr, Carl Friedrich - Drey Reisen
nach Italien… 1832 (quoted), p. 198.
[130] von Rumohr, Carl Friedrich - Drey Reisen
nach Italien… 1832 (quoted), p. 198.
[131] von Rumohr, Carl Friedrich - Drey Reisen
nach Italien… 1832 (quoted), p. 198.
[132] von Rumohr, Carl Friedrich - Drey Reisen
nach Italien… 1832 (quoted), p. 198.
[133] von Rumohr, Carl Friedrich - Drey Reisen
nach Italien… 1832 (quoted), p. 199.
[134] von Rumohr, Carl Friedrich - Drey Reisen
nach Italien… 1832 (quoted), p. 199.
[135] von Rumohr, Carl Friedrich - Drey Reisen
nach Italien… 1832 (quoted), p. 199.
[136] von Rumohr, Carl Friedrich - Drey Reisen
nach Italien… 1832 (quoted), pp. 199-200.
[137] von Rumohr, Carl Friedrich - Drey Reisen
nach Italien… 1832 (quoted), p. 200.
[138] von Rumohr, Carl Friedrich - Drey Reisen
nach Italien… 1832 (quoted), p. 200.
[139] von Rumohr, Carl Friedrich - Drey Reisen
nach Italien… 1832 (quoted), p. 200. This is the work in eight volumes “Firenze
antica, e moderna illustrate” (Ancient and modern Florece illustrated) edited
by V. Follini and M Rastrelli, published by P. Allegrini, J. Grazioli, A.G.
Pagani between 1789 and 1802.
[140] von Rumohr, Carl Friedrich - Drey Reisen
nach Italien… 1832 (quoted), p. 200.
[141] von Rumohr, Carl Friedrich - Drey Reisen
nach Italien… 1832 (quoted), p. 201.
[142] von Rumohr, Carl Friedrich - Drey Reisen
nach Italien… 1832 (quoted), p. 202.
[143] von Rumohr, Carl Friedrich - Drey Reisen
nach Italien… 1832 (quoted), p. 203.
[144] von Rumohr, Carl Friedrich - Drey Reisen
nach Italien… 1832 (quoted), pp. 206-207.
[145] von Rumohr, Carl Friedrich - Drey Reisen
nach Italien… 1832 (quoted), p. 208.
[146] von Rumohr, Carl Friedrich - Drey Reisen
nach Italien… 1832 (quoted), p. 205.
[147] von Rumohr, Carl Friedrich - Drey Reisen
nach Italien… 1832 (quoted), p. 212.
[148] von Rumohr, Carl Friedrich - Drey Reisen
nach Italien… 1832 (quoted), pp. 241-218.
[149] von Rumohr, Carl Friedrich - Drey Reisen
nach Italien… 1832 (quoted), p. 246.
[150] von Rumohr, Carl Friedrich - Drey Reisen
nach Italien… 1832 (quoted), pp. 248-250.
[151] von Rumohr, Carl Friedrich - Drey Reisen
nach Italien… 1832 (quoted), p. 237.
[152] von Rumohr, Carl Friedrich - Drey Reisen
nach Italien… 1832 (quoted), p. 238.
[153] von Rumohr, Carl Friedrich - Drey Reisen
nach Italien… 1832 (quoted), p. 239.
[154] von Rumohr, Carl Friedrich - Drey Reisen
nach Italien… 1832 (quoted), p. 239.
[155] von Rumohr, Carl Friedrich - Drey Reisen
nach Italien… 1832 (quoted), p. 239.
[156] von Rumohr, Carl Friedrich - Drey Reisen
nach Italien… 1832 (quoted), p. 258.
[157] von Rumohr, Carl Friedrich - Drey Reisen
nach Italien… 1832 (quoted), p. 258.
[158] von Rumohr, Carl Friedrich - Drey Reisen
nach Italien… 1832 (quoted), p. 259.
[159] von Rumohr, Carl Friedrich - Drey Reisen
nach Italien… 1832 (quoted), p. 260.
[160] von Rumohr, Carl Friedrich - Drey Reisen
nach Italien… 1832 (quoted), p. 261.
[161] von Rumohr, Carl Friedrich - Drey Reisen
nach Italien… 1832 (quoted), p. 261.
[162] von Rumohr, Carl Friedrich - Drey Reisen
nach Italien… 1832 (quoted), p. 266.
[163] von Rumohr, Carl Friedrich - Drey Reisen
nach Italien… 1832 (quoted), p. 267.
[164] von Rumohr, Carl Friedrich - Drey Reisen
nach Italien… 1832 (quoted), p. 267.
[165] von Rumohr, Carl Friedrich - Drey Reisen
nach Italien… 1832 (quoted), p. 267.
[166] von Rumohr, Carl Friedrich - Drey Reisen
nach Italien… 1832 (quoted), p. 273.
[167] von Rumohr, Carl Friedrich - Drey Reisen
nach Italien… 1832 (quoted), p. 281.
[168] See: Chiara Battezzati, Carl Friedrich
von Rumohr and Art in Northern Italy.
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