[Pietro Selvatico and the Renewal of the Arts in 19th-Century Italy]. Edited by Alexander Auf der Heyde, Martina Visentin and Francesca Castellani

Review by Giovanni Mazzaferro
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Pietro Selvatico e il rinnovamento delle arti nell’Italia dell’Ottocento
[Pietro Selvatico and the Renewal of the Arts in 19th-Century Italy]

Edited by Alexander Auf der Heyde, Martina Visentin e Francesca Castellani

Pisa, Edizioni della Normale, 2016

The volume contains the proceedings of the conference dedicated to Pietro Selvatico, held at the Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti on 22 and 23 October 2013. It is an integral part of a re-evaluation route of the figure of the Paduan Marquis, which in recent years has first led to the publication of the facsimile edition of his work Sull’educazione del pittore storico odierno italiano (On today’s education of the Italian historic painter - edited by Alexander Auf der Heyde, Pisa, Edizioni della Normale, 2007) and then driven to the release of Alexander Auf der Heyde’s monograph Per l’«avvenire dell’arte in Italia»: Pietro Selvatico e l’estetica applicata alle arti del disegno nel secolo XIX (For the «future of art in Italy»: Pietro Selvatico and the aesthetics applied to the arts of design in the nineteenth century, Pisa, Pacini Publishers, 2013). Finally, I would like to recall the publication, a few months after the conference proceedings, of the two volumes devoted to the history of the Accademia di Belle Arti in Venice during the nineteenth-century, where, in fact, Selvatico (who occupied for ten years the top position in the Academy, between 1850 and 1859) appears as the great reformer of the Institute in this period, whose teaching methods had been hitherto based on a belated neoclassicism. I've written at length on the beautiful monograph of 2013 and, out of respect for the reader, I will not repeat what was already said; I am therefore referring to the respective review in this blog.

I would like to elaborate here on further aspects. Obviously, when 27 scholars are providing input from different backgrounds, there is also the opportunity to deepen arguments previously omitted (also because of the vast publications of the Paduan Marquis). Consider, for example, Selvatico’s role as an author of historical narratives (what was probably the subject of the heaviest criticism against him) with his texts being fictionalized biographies of famous artists. His communication strategy was investigated by Massimo Ferretti in Sotto «l’albero dell’arte». Gli artisti del passato fra esempio del bello visibile e racconto storico. (Under "the tree of art." The artists of the past between examples of the visible beautiful and historical narrations). But it is worth reading also the texts by Chiara Marin on Selvatico pubblicista: gli interventi sulla stampa periodica lombardo-veneta (Selvatico as a publicist: interventions on magazines from Lombardy and Veneto) and by Giovanna D'Amia on La collaborazione con la «Rivista Europea» e i rapporti con l’ambiente milanese. (The collaboration with the "Rivista Europea" and the relationship with the Milanese circles). I would not neglect the importance of the work done by Alexander Auf der Heyde and Martina Visentin in Gli scritti di Pietro Selvatico: un censimento bibliografico (The writings of Pietro Selvatico: a bibliographical census). When one considers how important his activity as a publicist was for Pietro, it is evident that to have a full 'inventory' of what he wrote becomes fundamental: it consists of a list of some hundreds of contributions (which the editors themselves admit it is still incomplete). As far as I'm concerned, recently studying much energy to Vasari's study, I'd like to signal the commentary and the notes to the Mantegna biography in the 14-volume edition of Vasari’s Lives published by Le Monnier between 1846 and 1870.  

Pietro Selvatico and Vincenzo Lazzari, Guida di Venezia e delle isole circonvicine, 1852
Source: http://www.gonnelli.it/uk/auction-0011-1/selvatico-pietro-guida-di-venezia-e-delle-isol.asp

The story of a loser

All of that said, and without bothering to discuss all contributions submitted in the book (the reader will find the complete list at the bottom of the review) I cannot deny feeling an instinctive sympathy for Selvatico, mainly for two reasons. First, it is impossible to classify him within a single category of scholarship and activity. Second, his story was basically the one of a loser, and probably also of a man who found it hard to get along with himself. He made sensational turnarounds. For instance, after having been in charge of the Academy nine years long, he came to the conclusion that it was better to abolish Academies rather than to reform them; he followed thereby the “So much the worse, so much the better” logic, which reminds me disconcertingly much of today's Italian political life. He was certainly wrong as to timing and methods of his interventions and was therefore overtaken by history.

I would like also to note that, among the twenty-seven authors of the essays, some defined Selvatico as a purist, but others made differences between different forms of purism; some commented on the admiration he manifested towards the Nazarenes, but others remembered that the Marquis was opposed to any form of slavish imitation of his beloved XV Century painters (and here I would like to suggest that Selvatico may have at least read von Rumohr’s writings). In short, Pietro is hard to place, and I am convinced that it is easier to figure out what the Marquis was not: for example, he was not a connoisseur. Ragghianti dazzled him saying that "he is very weak in his inborn sense of art, in the spontaneous adherence to figurative art by itself" (p. 19). And rightly Ferretti noted that Selvatico’s aesthetics was a different one from that to which Ragghianti was referring. Selvatico’s was in fact interested in the aesthetic of "art production" (p. 22), referring to art as a 'system'. That understanding of art is today a lot closer to us than it was in the last century; this explains – as recalled by Margherita d'Ayala Valva at p. 544 – why nobody more than him has been mentally associated to the ‘stupidity’ of the nineteenth century.

Actually, there was another thing that Selvatico (as he was not a connoisseur) did not practice, at least as far I can read in the proceedings of the conference: he was seemingly not linked to market mechanisms as art dealer, as he was not involved in the contractual negotiations to purchase old paintings on behalf of museums or other collecting bodies, whether Italian or foreign. I must say that I am very surprised that this feature – notably not being a market man – has not emerged as an element of reflection in the proceedings. (I am apologizing to the editors, if they will ever read this review, but it is well known that at least a fault has to be found in any book review). And yet, this was a quite unusual fact in those years, as experienced not only by the activities of von Rumohr, Mündler, Eastlake, Morelli and Cavalcaselle (only the latter was immune), but also the activities of a number of Italian scholars who on the one hand authored successful works and on the other hand exerted parallel trading activities (the most obvious, but never studied case, was the Bolognese Michelangelo Gualandi). Moreover, not to have commercial interests made Selvatico more credible, when he dealt with conservation and heritage restoration. In those days, the habits were quite different, as also emerging from Giuseppina Perusini’s description about the activities of the restorer Paolo Fabris (See Selvatico e il restauro pittorico (Selvatico and painting restoration- pp. 483 ff.) In fact, Fabris abused his role as a restorer to act as a dealer in the sale of paintings abroad.

Selvatico was no connoisseur, he did not act as an art dealer knowledge, and he was even not an Italian patriot. In front of a revolutionary violence which obviously troubled him, he abandoned the Catholic liberalism of which he had been so a convinced spokesman until 1848 and embraced reactionary thinking (as well explained by Mr Auf der Heyde in his 2013 book). We should not deny it: despite of the novelty and in many ways the modernity of his (carried out or planned) reforms in the Academy, his views were eclipsed by the reproach of having compromised with the Austrian government, a reputation that clung well beyond death. The course of events, of course, did not favour him. At a time when Italy became unified and Selvatico could have tried to impose his teaching methods to the attention of the new unitary institutions, the Marquis (who had been evicted from the Academy not for political reasons, but because he was disgusted not to have been supported by Austria in his personal diatribe with Blaas) remained a stranger in his hometown Padua for another five years, until his death. In the meantime (for example) Cavalcaselle and Morelli were crossing the Marche with a donkey to try to map the local artistic heritage. They would end up fighting the one against the other, the first being an aristocratic and supporter of Cavour, while the second had humble origins (and was a Republican partisan, supporter of Garibaldi). Nevertheless, they would both gained legitimacy as landmarks of Italian art history. Luca Giacomelli rightly points out in Selvatico, Giusti e la polemica sull’insegnamento del disegno  (Selvatico, Giusti and the controversy on drawing teaching) that the annexation of Veneto, in 1866, "presented a new intellectual challenge for Selvatico: to act as a protagonist in the organization of the school of the new-born Kingdom, implementing his ideas about education at a national scale "(p. 490). Clearly, with his political past, the Marquis started the competition for influence at a clear disadvantage.

Façade of the Church of  S. Peter in Trento (designed by Pietro Selvatico)
Source: Wikimedia Commons

Selvatico and his 'mania for foreign things'

I cannot avoid devoting a few words to the question of Pietro Selvatico’s so-called xenomania. It is well known that the Marquis was accused in his days to be a fanatic of all what was happening across the border, and to sacrifice the Italian taste and tradition in favour of foreign models. The charge was - of course – silly, but was taken quite seriously, in the years of the establishment of many national realities. Among other things, that charge was fitting well with his reputation as an Austrian spy. Selvatico was, instead, a man who kept himself updated on the debate on the arts, on the revaluation of the Middle Ages, and especially on the use of educational systems in the non-Italian Academies. An entire section of the book is devoted to exploring these issues: the French developments (even for a mere matter of language: the mother was French) and the German ones played a predominant role. However, I found particularly intriguing the pages that Donata Levi devoted to his interactions with the English cultural world in Selvatico e la cultura inglese: labili tracce tra indifferenza e omissioni (Selvatico and the English culture: faint traces between indifference and omissions). Those traces were not numerous, but - beyond the formal mutual indifference between the two – they betrayed a common feeling: the rediscovery of the Middle Ages and the Gothic. In the case of Messrs Selvatico and Pugin, one can objectively not detect anything more but two routes walking in parallel, sometimes approaching, but never meeting. However, this goes clearly beyond it when we take into account Selvatico’s relationship with Ruskin.

In spite of a substantial indifference shown by the English critic vis-à-vis Selvatico in The Stones of Venice (published in three volumes between 1851 and 1853), the reality appears quite different today. An examination of so-called "Venetian notebooks" and other preparatory materials (in particular, another notebook kept at the Bodleian Library in Oxford) shows clearly that the Englishman consulted very often the so-called "aesthetic guide" published by Selvatico in 1847 (On architecture and sculpture in Venice from the Middle Ages to the present day). This testifies the "veritable combat that Ruskin always conducted with the authors whom he most often visited or with those who intrigued him the most... Selvatico’s text is investigated, almost dismantled and reassembled in an operation dictated by the need for a constant and accurate check on the field, on the buildings or on the original documents" (p. 268). These pages have to be read carefully; in them, Ruskin is attracted by the periodization of Venetian buildings which Selvatico provided from the origins to 1500, and ends substantially to agree with him. In conclusion: the Paduan Marquis certainly does not appear as the uncritical plagiarist of any foreign "fashion" but rather a well-integrated man in a European circuit, who, as part of this circuit, contributed to the continental debate on art.

Index

Here is the index of the contributions collected in the book:

Alexander Auf der Heyde, Martina Visentin, Francesca Castellani, Introduzione (Introduction)

Biography, history and aesthetics in Selvatico’s thought

• Massimo Ferretti, Sotto «l’albero dell’arte». Gli artisti del passato fra esempio del bello visibile e racconto storico (Under "the tree of art." The artists of the past between examples of the visible beautiful and historical narrations).
• Franco Bernabei, Modelli storiografici e critici in Selvatico (Selvatico’s historiographical and critical models) 

Scientist in the Venetian scholar world

• Michele Simonetto, Pietro Selvatico e l’agricoltura come reggimento civile delle città. (Pietro Selvatico and agriculture as civil government of the city).
• Giuseppe Gullino, Selvatico e l’Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti (Selvatico and the Veneto Institute of Sciences, Letters and Arts).

Publicist and militant critic

• Chiara Marin, Selvatico pubblicista: gli interventi sulla stampa periodica lombardo-veneta. (Selvatico as a publicist: interventions on magazines from Lombardy and Veneto).
• Giovanna D’Amia, La collaborazione con la «Rivista Europea» e i rapporti con l’ambiente milanese. (The collaboration with the "European Journal" and the relationship with the Milanese environment).
• Alfredo Cottignoli, Selvatico e Tenca: due critici d’arte a confronto. (Selvatico and Tenca: a comparison between two art critics).

Xenophile and agent of cultural transfer

• Tiziana Serena, Selvatico, l’“esteromania” e la fotografia: alcune aggiunte. (Selvatico, his "xenomania" and the photograph: some additions).
• Alexander Auf der Heyde. I rapporti con Vienna: Selvatico, l’abate Pietro Mugna e Rudolf Eitelberger von Edelberg (The Relationship with Vienna: Selvatico, the abbot Pietro Mugna and Rudolf Eitelberger von Edelberg).
• Rossella Fabiani. Pietro Selvatico nelle lettere a Pietro Nobile. (Pietro Selvatico in the letters to Pietro Nobile).
• Martina Visentin, Sui contatti di Selvatico con la contemporanea storiografia francese: Rio e Montalembert. (On Selvatico’s contacts with the contemporary French historiography: Rio and Montalembert.)
• Donata Levi, Selvatico e la cultura inglese: labili tracce tra indifferenza e omissioni. (Selvatico and the English culture: faint traces between indifference and omissions).

Historian of architecture and curator of monuments

• Guido Zucconi, Per una scienza dei monumenti architettonici (For a science of architectural monuments).
• Xaxier Barral i Altet, Il dibattito in Francia sull’architettura medievale al tempo di Pietro Selvatico (1803-1880) (The debate in France on medieval architecture in the time of Pietro Selvatico - 1803-1880).
• Antonella Ballardini, Selvatico e gli studi dedicati a S. Marco. (Selvatico and the studies he devoted to the San Marco Cathedral)
• Isabella Collavizza, L’istituzione della Commissione per la conservazione dei monumenti delle province venete. (The establishment of the Commission for the Conservation of the monuments of the Veneto provinces).
• Elisabetta Concina, Considerazioni sui Monumenti artistici e storici delle province venete di Pietro Selvatico e Cesare Foucard (Considerations on the ‘Artistic and historical monuments of the Venetian provinces’ by Pietro Selvatico and Cesare Foucard.

Reformer of education in Venice and Padua

• Rosa Tamborrino, Imparare l’architettura a Venezia secondo Pietro Selvatico: la formazione tra impegno civile, sperimentazione e conoscenza storica di una bellezza visibile. (Learning Architecture in Venice according to Pietro Selvatico: education between civic engagement, experimentation and historical knowledge of a visible beauty).
• Antonella Bellin, Elena Catra, L’Accademia di Belle Arti di Venezia e la riforma di Pietro Selvatico (1849-59) (The Academy of Fine Arts in Venice and Pietro Selvatico’s reform - 1849-59).
• Maria Ida Biggi, Pietro Selvatico e la Commissione Artistica governativa per gli spettacoli al Teatro La Fenice. (Pietro Selvatico and Artistic governmental Commission for events at the Teatro La Fenice).
• Giuseppina Perusini, Selvatico e il restauro pittorico (Selvatico and painting restoration).
• Luca Giacomelli, Selvatico, Selvatico, Giusti e la polemica sull’insegnamento del disegno (Selvatico,Giusti and the controversy on drawing teaching).

Architect between theory and practice

• Francesca Castellani, La basilica di transizione. Selvatico e il Santo: dal monumento al progetto, dalla didattica al cantiere. (The transition basilica. Selvatico and the Basilica of Sant'Antonio in Padua: from the monument to the project, from teaching to the construction site).
• Vincenzo Fontana, Dalla teoria alla pratica. La cappella Pisani a Vescovana. (From theory to practice. The Pisani chapel in Vescovana.)

Art writer and benchmark for artists

• Margherita d’Ayala Valva, L’artista lettore, la tecnica, la scrittura. Morbelli legge Selvatico (The artist reader, the technique, the writing. Morbelli reads Selvatico).

Instruments

• Tiziana Serena, La biblioteca d’arte di Pietro Selvatico Estense. (The art library of Pietro Selvatico Estense).
• Alexander Auf der Heyde, Martina Visentin, Gli scritti di Pietro Selvatico: un censimento bibliografico (The writings of Pietro Selvatico: a bibliographical census).