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Giovanni Mazzaferro
Hand-drawn Portraits in Giorgio Vasari's Lives:
New Discoveries
Part One
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| Figura 1) Portrait of Pisanello in a Giuntina sample kept at the Municipal Library Passerini-Landi of Piacenza © Municipal Library Passerini-Landi Piacenza |
1. Introduction [1].
On July 14, 1564 Vincenzo Borghini wrote, in a letter addressed to Giorgio Vasari and focusing on the planned second edition of the Lives:
"Moreover, I am of the view that the face you
have put to this Niccola Pisano does not fit with him at all, but corresponds
to somebody closer to our times; and the same is true also for the way he is
dressed. Now, I do not really like it, and I would like to keep it empty in
future, that is to put the ornament without a soul; since, maybe, if a suitable
portrait will have been found, one would be able to add it by himself. In sum,
if you begin to put one which is evidently not fitting, you ruin the
credibility of all others" [2].
In sum, Borghini complains with Vasari
because the portrait of Nicola Pisano is not reliable, and the dress is too
similar to those of their times. He recommends therefore, in these cases, to
leave "l’ornamento senz’anima",
i.e. to publish empty medallions without the image of the artists, because any questioning
of a single picture would undermine the credibility of all others. I do not
know if, in this case, Vasari followed Borghini’s advice and produced a new
portrait of Nicola Pisano; certainly, it was one of the 144 portraits that
appeared in the second edition of the Lives,
the so-called Giuntina, published in
1568 [3] (actually it is on p. 97 of the first volume). But Borghini’s
suggestions did not fall entirely on deaf ears. In eight cases, Vasari published
in fact only the medallions without the portraits. In the first volume, the
empty ovals were those of Pietro Cavallini (p. 166), Giovanni da Ponte (p.
193), Berna the Sienese painter [4] (p. 200), Duccio (p. 203) and Taddeo
Bartoli (p. 232 ); in the second volume were absent the portraits of Correggio
(p. 16), Torrigiano the Florentine sculptor (p. 51) and Marco Calavrese painter
(p. 227).
About the iconographic apparatus of the Lives as a whole, the reference work has
remained the one of Wolfram Prinz [5], which made evident a fact that was still
easy to imagine: not all the portraits of the artists brought to the attention
of the reader were "real", i.e. copies of actually existing images
related to the respective artists. Often (especially as to the biographies of
the fourteenth century artists) it was necessary to work by imagination.
Everything one would ask was that these "portraits" should be
"plausible", when compared to the times in which the artists lived
and to the text of the biographies. Specifically, according to Prinz, only 95
of the 144 portraits were real, while the others were entirely fictional [6]. If
these numbers are reliable (and there is no reason not to believe it), it is
rather questionable (and, frankly, I do not have any good answer) why Vasari
decided to produce fictional woodcuts portraits in 49 cases, while in eight
situations he preferred to leave the medallions empty.
Yet, there is a fact that, in my opinion,
has been widely underestimated, namely how important it was the presence of the
portraits for the editorial success of the work. Vasari, in fact, included
artists for the first time in the production of printed books which were
illustrated with the portraits of famous men; it was a trend that was indeed
taking root in the second half of the sixteenth century [7]. We must not
forget, on the other hand, that, although the interests of Vasari seemed aimed
more than anything else to the likelihood (when possible) of the portraits, a
little less than twenty years after the publication of Giuntina (that is in
1586) the De humana physiognomonia
(On the human physiognomy) by Giovanni Battista Della Porta [8] was released,
thereby creating an audience which was interested in "seeing" the
faces of the artists to draw inferences about their moral and psychological
qualities.
The readers of Giuntina, in short, knew
very well they were buying a quite peculiar work, proposing them for the first
time a comprehensive survey of the life of the leading painters, sculptors and
architects and their works; however, they also wanted to see the faces of those
painters, sculptors and architects. I realized it during the last months, while
conducting a systematic study at the search of the annotated specimens of the
Torrentiniana (1550) [9] and Giuntina
(1568) editions of the Lives. This
search has led me to become interested in and to analyse (directly or
indirectly) eightyfive specimens preserved all over the world [10].
During my research work I have observed in
several cases that the ovals were filled with portraits, sometimes imaginary
ones, sometimes clearly referring to the artists in question; I saw situations
in which portraits were also drawn or pasted in the half pages which were left empty
or in the final pages of the work; in short, I managed to check that what
Borghini hoped in his letter had really materialised: "everyone has added the portraits by himself", to paraphrase his words. Or, he has commissioned
somebody to do it. It does not make a great difference. This confirms the clear
perception that the Lives were,
rightly so, considered an illustrated work and that the illustrations had to be
completed in some way.
In this essay, I am proposing the results
of my research. A last preliminary observation is however warranted: I have chosen
to focus this text solely on the portraits, separating them from the
handwritten annotations on which I will write elsewhere. Conceptually, they were
in fact manifestations of two different intentions: the annotations were
presumably written in a hurry (even if it was not always the case) and were
mainly included by the reader, who almost always was the owner of the moment,
for his private use; the portraits may have been commissioned to artists who -
alas - in most cases have remained unknown to us; and surely, they were not drawn
in a few minutes, but were the result of a long and meticulous work. There were
also some "unclear" cases of drawings that looked like quick sketches
(sometimes, even doodles of young readers who were annoyed because they were
forced to study Vasari's text). The latter are not included in this research
[11].
2.
Pisanello and a medal dated 1450 ca. in the Passerini-Landi Library of
Piacenza.
I would like to start with a specific case,
which concerns the first volume of a Giuntina edition preserved at the
Passerini-Landi Municipal Library of Piacenza with signature Cinq. Ang. 246-248
[12]. By themselves, the three volumes of the Giuntina do not have anything
particularly important, if not the wonderful drawing I have displayed at the
beginning of this article (Fig. 1). It is a portrait of Antonio di Puccio
Pisano or Pisanello, one of the key figures of Italian art in the transition
phase between International Gothic
and Humanism. Vasari did not devote to Pisanello a single biography, but drafted
a joint one dedicated to Gentile da Fabriano and Vittor Pisano [13], at whose
beginning is shown the portrait of Gentile. Well, at the end of this biography,
at p. 403 of the first volume, this drawing sought to replicate (or anyway to recall)
the ornaments within which Vasari placed the portraits of the artists. It is legitimate
to wonder whether the portrait was imaginary or the copy of some earlier representation
known to us. In the specific case, I was lucky and was able to establish with certainty
that the author has followed (except for the features of the face) a very
precise pattern. This model is now kept at the National Gallery of Art in
Washington. It is a bronze medal attributed to Antonio Marescotti, a Ferrara
medallist who was almost always at the service of Borso d'Este, for whom
Pisanello worked too. The similarities are striking, starting with the words
"Pisanus Pictor" ("painter
from Pisa"), which in the book is written in an oval rather than a circle, to
continue with the typical hat and (at least in my view) even with the robe
decorations. The artist is portrayed in profile, in the tradition of medals of
the time, a vogue which, in fact, Pisanello himself had brought into vogue. The
only elements on which the drawer seems to have played with imagination are the
features of the face, which are less "hieratic" compared to the taste
of the previous century.
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| Figura 2) Antonio Marescotti - Medal with portrait of Pisanello. Washington, National Gallery of Art. Source: http://www.nga.gov/content/ngaweb/Collection/art-object-page.44374.html |
One thing seems beyond doubt. The artist who
designed Pisanello’s portrait on the specimen of the Giuntina in Piacenza had this medal under his eyes. We cannot know,
of course, whether the one in the National Gallery (and donated from the Kress
Foundation), was the only example coined. However, it is clear that the owner of
the Giuntina specimen in Piacenza must have been a rich and important man, who
probably commissioned the drawing to an artist of his choice; and it seems equally
clear that the medal (roughly traced back to 1450) was coined in the Ferrara
area. We must be satisfied with this information, for now, because there are no
further elements that would allow us to better identify the owner of the
volumes.
To my knowledge, the only specimen of the
1568 edition with hand-drawn portraits, which has been already commented, and
whose portraits have been published, is the one marked 29.E.4-6 at the
Corsiniana Library in Rome. However, a lot of confusion was made on this
specimen. First of all, it had a special feature, since it displayed ten
portraits, since in addition to the eight replenishing the ovals left empty by
Vasari, two others were presented: one was applied to the end of the second
volume, representing the face of a soldier with his crest, and a second one in the third
volume, bound in a sheet between pages 848- 849, with the portrait of Giulio
Clovio. All portraits were glued: they were prepared separately and then
applied on the volume. In the case of the eight portraits that have filled in
the space left free by Vasari, the camouflage effect is excellent, so much so
that at first glance the portraits seem to be painted directly on the Lives.
I am
proposing all the portraits below, except the case of Correggio (cfr. Fig. 24)
which will be presented later, as part of a section which is specifically
dedicated to the artist's portraits.
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| Figure 3) Portrait of Pietro Cavallini in the specimen 29.E.4-6 at the Corsiniana Library of Rome. As you can see, the picture is not included, as unfortunately I did not get the relevant permission to publish it in low resolution by the Corsiniana Library of Rome (which I am therefore not able to thank). This was the textual motivation of the refusal: "... we cannot accommodate your request. As you can see on the form that you filled out (see p. 2), the license to use low-resolution images on the web for one (1) year is subject to the condition that the images cannot be downloaded. The images on your blog are available for download, as we could check. I must therefore confirm that your request to be supplied images cannot be agreed." While the regulation has been saved, common sense has not. To see the image, it is sufficient to consult Carlo Maria Simonetti, La vita delle Vite vasariane ... quoted., p. 155. |
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| Figure 4) Portrait of Giovanni da Ponte in the specimen 29.E.4-6 at the Corsiniana Library of Rome. As you can see, the picture is not included, as unfortunately I did not get the relevant permission to publish it in low resolution by the Corsiniana Library of Rome (which I am therefore not able to thank). This was the textual motivation of the refusal: "... we cannot accommodate your request. As you can see on the form that you filled out (see p. 2), the license to use low-resolution images on the web for one (1) year is subject to the condition that the images cannot be downloaded. The images on your blog are available for download, as we could check. I must therefore confirm that your request to be supplied images cannot be agreed." While the regulation has been saved, common sense has not. To see the image, it is sufficient to consult Carlo Maria Simonetti, La vita delle Vite vasariane... quoted, p. 156. |
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| Figure 5) Portrait of Berna Sienese in the specimen 29.E.4-6 at the Corsiniana Library of Rome. As you can see, the picture is not included, as unfortunately I did not get the relevant permission to publish it in low resolution by the Corsiniana Library of Rome (which I am therefore not able to thank). This was the textual motivation of the refusal: "... we cannot accommodate your request. As you can see on the form that you filled out (see p.2), the license to use low-resolution images on the web for one (1) year is subject to the condition that the images cannot be downloaded. The images on your blog are available for download, as we could check. I must therefore confirm that your request to be supplied images cannot be agreed." While the regulation has been saved, common sense has not. To see the image, it is sufficient to consult Carlo Maria Simonetti, La vita delle Vite vasariane... quoted, p. 157. |
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| Figure 6) Portrait of Duccio, Sienese painter in the specimen 29.E.4-6 at the Corsiniana Library of Rome. As you can see, the picture is not included, as unfortunately I did not get the relevant permission to publish it in low resolution by the Corsiniana Library of Rome (which I am therefore not able to thank). This was the textual motivation of the refusal: "... we cannot accommodate your request. As you can see on the form that you filled out (see p. 2), the license to use low-resolution images on the web for one (1) year is subject to the condition that the images cannot be downloaded. The images on your blog are available for download, as we could check. I must therefore confirm that your request to be supplied images cannot be agreed." While the regulation has been saved, common sense has not. To see the image, it is sufficient to consult Carlo Maria Simonetti, La vita delle Vite vasariane... quoted, p. 158. |
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| Figure 7) Portrait of Taddeo Bartoli in the specimen 29.E.4-6 at the Corsiniana Library of Rome. As you can see, the picture is not included, as unfortunately I did not get the relevant permission to publish it in low resolution by the Corsiniana Library of Rome (which I am therefore not able to thank). This was the textual motivation of the refusal: "... we cannot accommodate your request. As you can see on the form that you filled out (see p.2), the license to use low-resolution images on the web for one (1) year is subject to the condition that the images cannot be downloaded. The images on your blog are available for download, as we could check. I must therefore confirm that your request to be supplied images cannot be agreed." While the regulation has been saved, common sense has not. To see the image, it is sufficient to consult Carlo Maria Simonetti, La vita delle Vite vasariane... quoted, p. 159. |
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| Figure 8) Portrait of Torrigiano florentine sculptor in the specimen 29.E.4-6 at the Corsiniana Library of Rome. As you can see, the picture is not included, as unfortunately I did not get the relevant permission to publish it in low resolution by the Corsiniana Library of Rome (which I am therefore not able to thank). This was the textual motivation of the refusal: "... we cannot accommodate your request. As you can see on the form that you filled out (see p.2), the license to use low-resolution images on the web for one (1) year is subject to the condition that the images cannot be downloaded. The images on your blog are available for download, as we could check. I must therefore confirm that your request to be supplied images cannot be agreed." While the regulation has been saved, common sense has not. To see the image, it is sufficient to consult Carlo Maria Simonetti, La vita delle Vite vasariane... quoted, p. 161 |
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| Figure 9) Portrait of Marco Calavrese in the specimen 29.E.4-6 at the Corsiniana Library of Rome. As you can see, the picture is not included, as unfortunately I did not get the relevant permission to publish it in low resolution by the Corsiniana Library of Rome (which I am therefore not able to thank). This was the textual motivation of the refusal: "... we cannot accommodate your request. As you can see on the form that you filled out (see p.2), the license to use low-resolution images on the web for one (1) year is subject to the condition that the images cannot be downloaded. The images on your blog are available for download, as we could check. I must therefore confirm that your request to be supplied images cannot be agreed." While the regulation has been saved, common sense has not. To see the image, it is sufficient to consult Carlo Maria Simonetti, La vita delle Vite vasariane ... quoted, p. 162. |
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| Figure 10) Here, at the end of the second volume, was applied what I believe is the portrait of Hannibal in the specimen 29.E.4-6 at the Corsiniana Library of Rome. As you can see, the picture is not included, as unfortunately I did not get the relevant permission to publish it in low resolution by the Corsiniana Library of Rome (which I am therefore not able to thank). This was the textual motivation of the refusal: "... we cannot accommodate your request. As you can see on the form that you filled out (see p.2), the license to use low-resolution images on the web for one (1) year is subject to the condition that the images cannot be downloaded. The images on your blog are available for download, as we could check. I must therefore confirm that your request to be supplied images cannot be agreed." While the regulation has been saved, common sense has not. To see the image, it is sufficient to consult Carlo Maria Simonetti, La vita delle Vite vasariane ... quoted, p. 164. |
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| Figure 11) Between p. 848 and p. 849 of the third volume of the specimen 29.E.4-6 of Corsiniana Library of Rome was bound a sheet with a portrait of Giulio Clovio and the epigraph transcript of his tomb in San Pietro in Vincoli in Rome. As you can see, the picture is not included, as unfortunately I did not get the relevant permission to publish it in low resolution by the Corsiniana Library of Rome (which I am therefore not able to thank). This was the textual motivation of the refusal: "...we cannot accommodate your request. As you can see on the form that you filled out (see p.2), the license to use low-resolution images on the web for one (1) year is subject to the condition that the images cannot be downloaded. The images on your blog are available for download, as we could check. I must therefore confirm that your request to be supplied images cannot be agreed." While the regulation has been saved, common sense has not. To see the image, it is sufficient to consult Carlo Maria Simonetti, La vita delle Vite vasariane ... quoted, p. 163 |
It was said that a lot of confusion was
made on the specimen. Carlo Maria Simonetti proposed the portraits in the last
chapter of his La vita delle Vite vasariane (Life of Vasari’s
"Lives") [14]. He attributed to Gaspare Celio both the annotations
as well as the portraits in the work, an occurrence made implausible by later
studies [15]. According to Mr Simonetti, the portraits were all of one hand and
the sample would be "signed with a
self-portrait displaying the helmet of the legionnaires of ancient Rome"
(p. 154). A few years later, Nicoletta Lepri recalibrated such statements in an
essay and noted that the annotations belonged to three different hands, the
most important of which seems to be of a Florentine artist very close to Cigoli
and Federico Zuccari. The eight portraits in ovals left empty by Vasari would be
attributed to this artist, while the portrait of Clovio (surely inspired by the
effigies dominating his tomb in San Pietro in Vincoli, Rome) and "the head of a Roman legionnaire" at
the end of the second volume would be of another hand [16]. Eliana Carrara,
then, finally clarified things and pointed out that the title page of the first
volume, in an inconspicuous, but legible location included the ownership note:
"Owned by Annibale Mancini from
Florence" [17], a little known artist, who was a friend of Cigoli and worked
at the service of the Este between Rome and Modena in the first half of 1600.
Ms Carrara explained many interesting
aspects of the annotations (for example, that part of them were copied from
those of Annibale Carracci in another copy of the Lives), but did not discuss the portraits. It is from here,
however, and in particular from this attribution to Annibale Mancini that I
would like to start my analysis. Since, when examining with more attention the
soldier's picture pasted to the end of the second volume (see. Fig. 10), a few
things appear evident, at least in my view. First, this is of course not a
self-portrait of Celio, but not even a "real" portrait of this or
that character. We are facing, in my opinion, a copy from the ancient,
probably from a Roman relief or statue, revisited in Mannerist style. The next
question is obvious: why? Why to propose a Roman legionary (as Nicoletta Lepri
suggested) at the end of the book? The only explanation is that this was not a Roman legionary. Moreover, please
allow me to say that, at a first glance, the face does not seem to represent
the typical picture of a Roman soldier; if anything, it would suggest the idea
of something hostile, barbarian, and intimidating. But, at the same time, the
features of a famous enemy, who is respected, like Hannibal, for instance. I
think that what was applied to the pages of the book was a drawing representing
the ancient copy of a few episodes of the Punic wars, showing the face of
Hannibal. Moreover, if you think of it, all the Renaissance representations of
Hannibal and all his busts in Roman age always portrayed him as a proud leader
with a beard. So yes, Mr Simonetti was in some way right: The image at the end
of the second volume was a holder's signature, just like his name appeared in the
title page; but, it was not a self-portrait of Celio. It was an hand-drawn ex-libris that identified the owner of
the book: Annibale (Hannibal) Mancini.
Was Mancini the author of the drawing? Here
we can only guess. A few things seem however certain: the style difference is such
that, if Mancini was the author of the ex-libris,
he was definitely not the designer of the artists’portraits in the left empty
medallions. The opposite is also true. At this point, it seems to me useful to
ask: how many drawers worked at the Mancini specimen? One (as Mr Simonetti
says), or two (as claimed by Ms Lepri)? Or even more? Let's go back to look at
the portraits. The first six ones (Figures 3 to 7 and Fig. 24) are certainly of
the same hand. This is proven by the uniformity of execution, with the hatching
(whether cross-linked or not) inscribed in the background of the pictures to accommodate
the form of the oval and to create space, just as in Vasari’s printed
portraits. From the seventh portrait on (that of Torrigiano) things changed. The bottom halftone was only hinted, at the left of Torrigiano’s
bust. In the following case of Calavrese, then, we are faced with a sketch and
not with a finished drawing. In my view, this sketch did not have the features
of an artist-made portrait. The hatching in the background was completely
missing, so that the image seems more in the foreground than the others, due to
the absence of space depth. The design, moreover, is softer, less angular; the
one framed in the medallion seems more a portrait of a child, of a cherub or an
angel than the effigy of a painter. My personal impression is that the author
of this portrait (and maybe the previous one) was another person than the one
of the first six. Therefore, it is likely that two different people were
drawing in the book, with the second one having completed the series of eight
ovals. They were later joined by other two: the author of the portrait by
Giulio Clovio, which, as you remember, was taken from the tomb of the Croatian
miniaturist, and the drawer who copied the face of Hannibal at the end of the
second volume. In conclusion, the overall iconography of the Corsiniana sample
was due to four different artists. Nothing to be surprised, especially if we
consider that, from the annotations, it appears that Mancini was in possession
of the work and wrote it down for at least twenty years in a row, adding notes,
and - probably - even images to the specimen.
Let us now focus on the six portraits of artist,
designed by the same hand, ranging from Figure 3 to Figure 7 and also
encompassing Figure 24. Is it possible that they represented the
"true" faces of the artists in question? May it be, in other words, that
the designer had identified and were copying original portraits or
self-portraits of them? It is very difficult, I would even dare to say
impossible. First of all the research work would have lasted years; it is not
inconceivable, however, that this work was done upstream, by a collector person
who then entrusted the execution of the ovals all at once to a single author.
In fact, the main evidence leading to exclude the veracity of the pictures is
just their variety. After all, the faces depict different types of artists. In
some cases, these types of artists are indicated by Vasari himself in the
relevant biographies (where, of course, references to physical features are
however missing; otherwise there would be portraits). Pietro Cavallini’s look,
for instance, was that of a man who lived in dignity and meekness and - as
Vasari says - was so religious to be considered a semi-holy person and to produce
images miraculous of the Madonna; Giovanni da Ponte (in whose case Vasari
combined by mistake biographical and artistic information of at least two artists)
was a young reckless, "disciple of
Buonamico Buffalmacco, and imitated him more in enjoining the worldly goods
than in trying to be a talented painter" [18]; Taddeo di Bartolo was a
very modest man, and not by coincidence had his eyes turned down; and again Pietro
Torrigiano had the grim look of an angry man, who suffered from envy towards the
younger artists who exceeded the quality of his achievements in art and, for
that reason, even got to land a punch on Michelangelo’s nose, deforming it for
the rest of his life. These were all elements of information which the artist was
able to read in Vasari’s biographical medallions.
When these elements were not in the text,
then they were replaced by the need to continue working on the variety of
representations: therefore, Berna from Siena was portrayed as a man of great
physical strength, and Duccio’s portrait showed a grin to provide the reader
with the impression that he was at once clever and prone to joke. The one of Correggio
was probably the least successful of the portraits in relation to the content
of Vasari's biography, simply because Vasari wrote that the artist died when he
was forty years old, while his image looked more like a fifty-year old noble
and/or scholar of the early seventeenth century. But that of Correggio (fig.
24) was, by far, the most important face and on this face we will talk later on.
True or not true, the portraits in the Corsiniana
Library knew a posthumous fortune, which, at least to my knowledge, no one has
so far highlighted. When Giovanni Gaetano Bottari published his edition of the
Lives in 1759, six of the eight missing portraits in Giuntina were clearly
elaborations of the hand-drawn faces in the Mancini specimen. It was in
particular the case of the effigies of Giovanni da Ponte, Berna, Duccio, Taddeo
Bartoli, the Torrigiano and Marco Calavrese. It is no wonder: Bottari was long
librarian at the Corsiniana and, evidently, had the opportunity to review the
volumes once owned by Mancini.
4.
Portraits of a Giuntina specimen kept at the Dartmouth College (Hanover, New Hampshire, USA).
The specimen of the Giuntina kept at the
Rauner Special Collections Library at the Dartmouth College (Hanover, New
Hampshire, USA) presents five portraits in the first volume of the Lives, marked Rauner Rare Books, N.6922 1568. The portraits are
unpublished. To be precise, two of them (the one of Duccio and Taddeo Bartoli) have already been posted on the library's blog in December of 2013 [19]; the others
are shown here for the first time [20]. Not having personally consulted the
volumes of the american library, I cannot say whether the drawings were
executed directly on the book or whether they were first hand-drawn, cut out
and pasted in the white spaces. Against the background of the case of the Corsiniana,
I am inclined to the latter hypothesis. The five images in question relate to
the left-bank medallions by Vasari only in the first volume of the Lives, i.e. the faces of Cavallini,
Giovanni da Ponte, Berna Senese, Duccio di Buoninsegna and Taddeo Bartoli.Let
us enjoy them:
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| Figure 12) Portrait of Pietro Cavallini in the specimen Rayner Rare Books 6922 N. 1568 V. 2. Courtesy of the Dartmouth College Library (Hanover, New Hampshire, USA). |
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| Figure 13) Portrait of Giovanni da Ponte in the specimen Rayner Rare Books 6922 N. 1568 V. 2. Courtesy of the Dartmouth College Library (Hanover, New Hampshire, USA). |
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| Figure 14) Portrait of Giovanni da Ponte in the specimen Rayner Rare Books 6922 N. 1568 V. 2. Courtesy of the Dartmouth College Library (Hanover, New Hampshire, USA). |
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| Figure 15) Portrait of Duccio di Buoninsegna in the sample Rayner Rare Books 6922 N. 1568 V. 2. Courtesy of the Dartmouth College Library (Hanover, New Hampshire, USA). |
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| Figure 16) Portrait of Taddeo Bartoli in the sample Rare Books 6922 N. 1568 V. 2. Courtesy of the Dartmouth College Library (Hanover, New Hampshire, USA). |
By comparing these five drawings with those
of the Corsiniana specimen (figs. 3-7), it becomes absolutely evident how
different they are, testifying - if ever proof were needed - that the authors acted on the basis of their imagination, trying more to show the right variety
of features of the faces than the real effigies (which were completely
unknown). In this case, differently from the specimen at the Corsiniana Library,
there was no correspondence between facial features and the character of the
artist illustrated by Vasari in his biography. For example, Bartoli was mentioned
by Vasari as a shy person, but here looked like a villain frequenter of
taverns. One should note however that the overall technical methodology of the
portraits was the same (after all, it was the one adopted by Vasari) with hatching
in the background of the image, to fill in the ovals and create the illusion of
spatial depth.
More detailed than the Corsiniana ones, the
Dartmouth drawings also show a higher taste for sketches and reveal a
performance that probably was chronologically much later than the first one. One
could make an attempt of dating them around the second half of the seventeenth century,
but we cannot go beyond it, since the author's name is obviously unknown.
In this regard, it is better to immediately
clarify an important point: in 1647 Carlo Manolessi published the third edition
of the Lives [21] in Bologna. It was an issue which has been defined by all as very
unprofessional, but that should be studied in terms of its impact on the contemporary
scholar world. It is sufficient to say that Mariette and Malvasia studied
precisely on this edition. The Manolessi version displayed some more portraits.
They were not, as it is sometimes said, all the effigies absent in Giuntina;
from a simple consultation work, it is evident in fact that there were just
four new designs: those of Pietro Cavallini, Correggio, Benvenuto Garofalo and
Giulio Clovio. In essence, only two of the eight medallions which had been left
empty by Vasari were filled by Manolessi; Garofalo and Clovio were instead inserted
from scratch. It is worth noting it, because, more or less implicitly, it was
considered that the phenomenon of the hand-drawn portraits on the Giuntina
disappeared with the release of the third edition in Bologna. It was not so, and
I cannot exclude a priori that the Dartmouth portraits were subsequent to 1647.
It is also unclear whether the three
volumes of the Dartmouth College always belonged together or were assembled at
a later time by a collector. Unfortunately, the consultation of the
bibliographic file of the library cannot make clarity on this [22]. One can
read that the title front-page of the first volume (the one with the drawings)
is unfortunately missing, while the other two contain two signatures of
possession, belonging to people who lived 150 years apart from each other. The
second contains an indication of ownership "Benedictus cardinalis Lomellinus" and the third the signature of
ownership "Andrea Curburri".
To better understand these aspects might help us to understand why the first
volume included the missing portraits of the artists and the second did not.
Cardinal Benedetto Lomellini,
from Genua, died in 1579 [23]. It can be argued that it
was the first owner of the second volume of the Dartmouth Lives. As for the signature of "Andrea Curburri", present
in the third volume, I can say with certainty, having seen it, that it was a
mistake of those who made the transcript. The owner of the third volume was
Andrea Gabburri (1691-1761?), a member of the Academy of Design in Florence
from 1737 until his death, which occurred around 1761-63 [24]. The abbot Andrea
Gabburri was one of three sons of Francesco Maria Gabburri (1676-1742), an
important figure of culture and art collecting in Florentine at the turn of the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Francesco Maria was the author of the Vite dei
pittori (Lives of the painters),
whose manuscript is today preserved at the Palatine fund of the Central
National Library of Florence and can be consulted online on the website of the Memofonte
Foundation [25]. He was also an important collector of graphics and the owner
of a rich collection of portraits, dispersed today. This might suggest, of
course, that the first volume of the Dartmouth College Lives may have belonged to Gabburri’s father, who purchased it
either because there were the portraits or because he wanted to commission them.
If this was true, we would be in front of the specimen of the Giuntina which was
quoted on p. 86 of the Catalogue of Drawings and prints by Francesco Maria
Niccolo Gabburri, 1722, also available online on the Memofonte website [26]. There
is however an important caveat. Martina Nastasi, great expert of the Tuscan
scholar, pointed out to me that Gabburri father always reported in his
catalogues the presence of margin notes or drawings, while in this case he did
not; moreover, he also always drew on his books and manuscripts his coat of
arms with the motto "non sine labore"
("not without efforts"), which is here missing. All of this would lead me to
believe that this is the wrong assumption [27].
In short, and until new elements of
information will be acquired, it must be said that the most recent holder
reported in the specimen of the Dartmouth College was Andrea Gabburri, who died
in 1761. It is possible that he obtained the three volumes from different
sources, and specifically bought the first because it was enriched with
portraits of artists in the ovals left empty by Vasari. After all, to collect
portraits was, as we have said, a family passion.
NOTES
[1] I should like to thank Ms Eliana Carrara for having read the first part of this essay, also providing me invaluable inputs. Of course all the specific inaccuracies contained therein are my sole responsibility.
[2] The transcription is from Carlo Maria Simonetti, La vita delle «Vite» vasariane. Profilo storico di due edizioni (The life of the Vasari’s "Lives". Historic profile of two editions), Florence, 2005, p. 109. The letter was originally published by Karl Frey in the second volume of Giorgio Vasari’s letters (Der literarische Nachlass Giorgio Vasaris (1563-1574)) (Giorgio Vasari’s literary heritage), Munich, 1930, letter 168.
[3] Giorgio Vasari, Le vite de’ piu eccellenti pittori, scultori, e architettori scritte da m. Giorgio Vasari pittore et architetto aretino, di nuouo dal medesimo riuiste et ampliate con i ritratti loro et con l'aggiunta delle Vite de' viui, & de' morti dall'anno 1550. insino al 1567 (The Lives of the most excellent painters, sculptors, and architects, written by Mr Giorgio Vasari, painter and architect of Arezzo, reviewed and expanded by the same with their portraits and the addition of the lives of the alive and dead artists between 1550 and 1567), Florence, Giunti, 1568.
[4] The title of the life is dedicated to “Berna, painter from Siena”, but on the frame containing the white oval is written “Berna, painter from Florence”.
[5] Vasaris Sammlung von Künstlerbildnissen (Vasari collection of artists’portraits) in Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz, 12, 1966, pp. 1-158. Three years before, Prinz had anticipated the results of his study in La seconda edizione del Vasari e la comparsa di ‘Vite’ artistiche con ritratti (The second edition of Vasari and the appearance of the artists’ ‘Lives’ with portraits) in «Il Vasari. Rivista d’arte e di studi vasariani» 1963 - XXI, n. 1 p. 3. On the portraits also dwelled the catalogue Giorgio Vasari: principi, letterati e artisti nelle carte di Giorgio Vasari, Casa Vasari, pittura vasariana dal 1532 al 1554 (Giorgio Vasari: princes, writers and artists in Giorgio Vasari’s sheets, Casa Vasari, Vasari's painting from 1532 to 1554), Arezzo 26 September to 29 November 1981. By Laura Conti, Margaret Daly Davis, Florence, 1981.
[6] Wolfram Prinz, La seconda edizione… quoted; pp. 8-14.
[7] See Tommaso Casini, La questione fisiognomica nei libri di ritratti e biografie di uomini illustri del secolo XVI (The question of physiognomy in the books of portraits and biographies of famous men of the sixteenth century) in: Il volto e gli affetti. Fisiognomica ed espressione nelle arti dei Rinascimento (The face and the affections. Physiognomy and expression in the arts of the Renaissance), Florence, 2003, pp. 103-117.
[8] Giambattista della Porta, De humana physiognomica (On the human physiognomy), Vico Equense, Typography of Giuseppe Cacchio, 1586.
[9] Giorgio Vasari, Le vite de piu eccellenti architetti, pittori, et scultori italiani, da Cimabue insino a' tempi nostri: descritte in lingua toscana, da Giorgio Vasari pittore aretino. Con vna sua vtile & necessaria introduzzione a le arti loro. (The lives of the most excellent Italian architects, painters and sculptors, from Cimabue until our times, described in Tuscan language by Giorgio Vasari, the painter from Arezzo. With a useful and necessary introduction to their arts), Firenze, published by Lorenzo Torrentino, 1550.
[10] To understand from where I have been starting, see in this blog, Giovanni Mazzaferro, The Annotated Specimens of Vasari's 'Lives': an Inventory. To be precise, I am listing hereafter the entities and locations in which specimens of the work were found. According to the different conditions, I have examined the specimens in four different ways: a) directly and in person on the spot; b) directly, via the Internet; c) by entrusting the task to third parties (in most cases, to officials of the respective libraries. Since it is impossible to do so individually, I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of them very much); d) by inspecting volumes which already showed annotated copies of the Lives. I distinguished the cases a) and b) from the others, by marking them with an asterisk. I am well aware that entrusting third parties may be little 'scientific' and surely something may have escaped me. However, much new has also emerged and therefore I consider this a great step ahead.
The following specimens of the Torrentiniana have been consulted: 1) Amherst College, Amherst (Massachusetts), USA; 2) Library Casa Carducci, Bologna, Italy *; 3) Library of the Department of Arts, Sections of Visual Arts 'I. Supino', Bologna, Italy *; 4) Bibliothèque Royale de Belgique, Brussels, Belgium; 5 and 6) Vatican Apostolic Library, two copies (Reserve Fund and Cicognara Fund), Vatican; 7) Claremont Colleges Library, Claremont (California), USA; 8) Library Academy of the Crusca, Florence, Italy; 9) Marucelliana Library, Florence, Italy; 10) the National Central Library, Florence, Italy; 11) Universitätsbibliothek Johann Christian Senckenber, Frankfurt, Germany*; 12) Victoria and Albert Museum, London, United Kingdom; 13) Biblioteca Comunale di Lucca, Italy; 14) University Library of Naples, Italy; 15) Institut national d'histoire de l'art, Paris, France; 16) Municipal Library Passerini-Landi of Piacenza, Italy *; 17) Casanatense Library, Rome, Italy; 18 and 19) National Central Library of Rome, Italy (two copies) *; 20) Library of Archaeology and Art History, Rome, Italy *; 21) University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA; 22) Austrian National Library, Vienna, Austria *; 23) Yale University, New Haven (Connecticut), USA; 24) Bibliothèque National de France, Paris, France.
These specimens of the Giuntina have been consulted: 1) Amherst College, Amherst (Massachusetts), USA; 2) University of Texas, Austin, USA; 3) Indiana University, Bloomington, USA; 4) Municipal Library Archiginnasio, Bologna, Italy *; 5) Zeri Foundation Library, Bologna, Italy *; 6) Bibliothèque Universitaire Droit Lettres Université Caen Normandie, France; 7) Regional Library in Catania, Italy; 8) Malatesta Library in Cesena, Italy *; 9) Newberry Library in Chicago; 10) University of Chicago Library; 11) Claremont Colleges Library, Claremont (California); 12) Southern Methodist University in Dallas, USA; 13) Rainer Rare Books Library at Dartmouth College, Hanover (New Hampshire), USA; 14) Biblioteca Berenson - Villa I Tatti, Florence, Italy; 15 and 16) the Library of the Academy of the Crusca, Florence, Italy (two copies); 17) Humanities Library University of Florence, Headquarters of Letters, Italy; 18) Universitätsbibliothek Johann Christian Senckenber, Frankfurt, Germany *; 19) McMaster University in Hamilton (Ontario), Canada; 20) Public Library of Imola, Italy; 21) Indiana University of Pennsylvania, USA; 22) Cornell University at Ithaca (New York), USA; 23) Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal, Lisbon, Portugal; 24) Victoria and Albert Museum, London, United Kingdom; 25) University of Louisville (Kentucky), USA; 26) Biblioteca Comunale di Lucca, Italy; 27) National Library of Spain, Madrid, Spain; 28) Universidad Complutense, Madrid, Spain *; 29) Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Milan, Italy; 30) Biblioteca del Castello Sforzesco, Milan, Italy; 31) Library of the Lombard Historical Society, Milan, Italy; 32) Bayerische Staastbibliothek, Monaco of Bavaria, Germany; 33) Biblioteca del Monumento Nazionale of Montecassino, Italy; 34 and 35) Centre National d'Architecture, Montréal, Canada (two copies); 36) Girolamini Library, Naples, Italy; 37) University Library, Naples, Italy; 38) Heirs Kraus, New York, USA; 39) Worcester College, Oxford, United Kingdom; 40) Institut national d'histoire de l'art, Paris, France; 41 and 42) Bibliothèque National de France, Paris, France (two copies) *; 43) Biblioteca Comunale Augusta, Perugia, Italy; 44) Oliveriana Library, Pesaro, Italy; 45) Public Library Passerini- Landi, Piacenza, Italy *; 46) Brown University at Providence (Rhode Island), USA; 47) Brigham Young University at Provo (Utah), USA *; 48) Public Library Panizzi, Reggio Emilia, Italy; 49) Casanatense Library, Rome, Italy; 50) Alessandrina Library, Rome, Italy; 51) National Library, Rome, Italy*; 52) Angelica Library, Rome, Italy *; 53) Library of Archaeology and Art History, Rome, Italy *; 54) University of California, San Diego, USA; 55) Library Briganti, Siena, Italy; 56) Library of the Accademia degli Intronati, Siena, Italy *; 56) University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, USA; 57) Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, Venice, Italy *; 58) Library of the Museo Correr, Venice, Italy; 59) Austrian National Library, Vienna, Austria *; 60) Brandeis University in Waltham / Boston (Massachusetts), USA; 61) Zentralbibliothek Zürich, Switzerland.
This survey covered a total of 85 specimens then, 22 of which were consulted personally.
[11] I would like to quickly recall those known to me: two sketches are present in a Giuntina specimen at the Cornell University (Ithaca, New York, USA) - see the oval of Berna from Siena - and the Municipal Library of Imola, Italy (medallion of Giovanni da Ponte). In 2009 a specimen of the Giuntina version was auctioned at Sotheby's with a sketched portrait of Duccio di Buoninsegna. The design can be seen at http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2009/fine-books-and-manuscripts-n08602/lot.267.html (it is the fourth photo of the series). A very slight black pencil sketch with a portrait of Correggio is also displayed in the Giuntina specimen with location 71.5 C10-12 at the National Central Library of Rome, Italy. A second sketch (of undoubtedly higher quality level) was drawn by Father Sebastiano Resta in a Giuntina specimen which belonged to Leopoldo Cicognara and today is at the Vatican Apostolic Library. Cfr. Barbara Agosti and Simonetta Prosperi Valenti Rodino (eds), Le postille di padre Sebastiano Resta ai due esemplari delle Vite di Giorgio Vasari nella Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana (The margin annotations of father Sebastiano Resta to two copies of Giorgio Vasari's Lives in the Vatican Apostolic Library), Vatican City, 2015, p. 23.
[12] I should like to thank Massimo Baucia, Curator of the Old Library Fund, for his helpfulness and courtesy.
[13] The name Vittore was an error by Vasari.
[14] Carlo Maria Simonetti, La vita… quoted…; pp. 151-164.
[15] The argument with which Mr Simonetti attributed the footnotes to Celio are, frankly speaking, incomprehensible. In essence, the author would be Celio because in the Corsiniana Library were once kept two copies of the Lives (one of the Torrentiniana edition and the one in question) and the first (now in Florence) had been actually annotated by Celio.
[16] Nicoletta Lepri, Annotazioni di Gaspare Celio a un volume della Torrentiniana (Remarks by Gaspare Celio in a volume of the Torrentiniana) in Arezzo e Vasari, Vite e Postille, edited by Antonino Caleca, Foligno, 2007, pp. 343-379. In particular see p. 346 n. 13. The note refers to the "profile of Paolo Giovio copied from his tomb in S. Pietro in Vincoli", but it is clearly a typographical error. It must be Giulio Clovio, since Paolo Giovio died and was buried in Florence.
[17] Eliana Carrara, La fortuna delle Vite del Vasari fra Firenze, Modena e Roma nel primo Seicento: il caso dell’esemplare Giuntino 29.E.4-6 della biblioteca Corsiniana (The Fortune of Vasari's Lives between Florence, Modena and Rome in the early seventeenth century: the case of the Giuntina specimen 29.E.4-6 in the Corsiniana library) in: Le Vite del Vasari. Genesi, topoi, ricezione (Vasari's Lives. Genesis, topoi, reception), by Katja Burzer, Charles Davis, Sabine Feser and Alessandro Nova, Venice, 2010, pp. 217-233.
[18] Opere di Giorgio Vasari con nuove annotazioni e commenti di Gaetano Milanesi. Volume I, p. 632. Florence, 1973. Reprint facsimile edition in 1906.
[19] The link is http://raunerlibrary.blogspot.it/2013/12/filling-in-vasari.html (last consulted on 24 September 2016).
[20] I should like to thank Jay Satterfield for his kindness and helpfulness.
[21] [Giorgio Vasari], Delle Vite De’ più Eccellenti Pittori, Scultori, et Architetti… in questa nuova edizione diligentemente reviste, ricorette, accresciute d’alcuni Ritratti et arricchite di postille nel margine, [edited by Carlo Manolessi], Bologna, Published by the heirs of Evangelista Dozza, 1647.
[22] The link is http://libcat.dartmouth.edu/record=5480762. Last consultation on 26 September 2016.
[23] See about it: Massimo Carlo Giannini, Biographical Dictionary of the Italians, ad vocem.
[24] I should like to thank Eliana Carrara for the information she provided me. The information on the death of Abbot Andrea Gabburri, published online by the Academy archive, is contradictory. While it is said on the one hand that he passed away in 1761, his promotion to adviser is dated on the other hand 1763! Quite curious!
[25] The internet address is http://www.memofonte.it/autori/francesco-maria-niccol-gabburri-1676-1742.html. Last consultation on 26 September 2016.
[27] I owe a heartfelt thanks to Martina Nastasi.
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