Francesca Guidolin. [The Colour of Distance. Matteo Zaccolini as a Painter and Theorist of Perspective]

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Francesca Guidolin
Il colore della lontananza.
Matteo Zaccolini, pittore e teorico di prospettiva
[The Colour of Distance. Matteo Zaccolini as a Painter and Theorist of Perspective]

Ca’ Foscari University, Venice
PhD Thesis in History of Arts. Cycle XXVII. Year of discussion 2015
Course Coordinatore Prof. Giuseppe Barbieri
Tutor of the PhD student Prof. Martina Frank

Giovanni and Cherubino Alberti, Frescoes in the choir of the Church of San Silvestro al Quirinale, Rome
Quadraturism by Matteo Zaccolini
Source. Lalupa via Wikimedia Commons

A preliminary caveat is a must: in this paper I am reviewing the PhD thesis defended by Francesca Guidolin in 2015. The text is freely available and downloadable from the Internet, by clicking here. Like all PhD theses, it should be still considered as an intermediate stage, and not the end result of a research. However, I think the results are sufficiently important, in this case, to consider them as of now.

The misfortune of a treaty, in the shadow of Leonardo

The name of Matteo Zaccolini (1574-1630) says little to the layman, and not too much to specialists either. Zaccolini, born in the Northern-Italian town of Cesena, was a prospective painter of great prestige in the first decades of the seventeenth century. Above all, he was also the author of a Trattato di prospettiva (Treatise on prospective) remembered, among others, by Baglione, Bellori, and Félibien. A copy (not the original) of the treatise was discovered by Carlo Pedretti at the Laurentian Library in Florence in the 1970s; it was divided into four volumes, entitled respectively De Colori (On colours - ms. ASHB. 1212/1), Prospettiva del Colore (Perspective of colour - ms. ASHB. 1212/2), Prospettiva Lineale (Lineal perspective - ms. ASHB. 1212/3) and Della Descrizione dell’Ombre prodotte da Corpi opachi rettilinei (On the description of the shadows produced by straight opaque bodies - ms. ASHB. 1212/4) [1]. In total, the treatise made together 700 pages, the most famous of which are those dedicated to the colour perspective. In them, some scholars (particularly Janis Bell) have clearly seen a paraphrase, drawn not only from copies of Leonardo's Treaty of painting, but also from the original manuscripts of the same. It is no coincidence that, contrary to what was thought originally by Pedretti, it has been proven that the four manuscripts were copies commissioned by Cassiano dal Pozzo, i.e. by the one who more than any other strived, around 1630, to arrive at a publication in print of Leonardo's treatise, only to give up and indeed contribute to the success of the project in France in 1651. Cassiano was, moreover, the author of a sort of biography of Zaccolini (also discovered by Pedretti), preserved this time in Montpellier with signature H.267. If one takes into account that, in this biography, the Roman scholar signalled that Zaccolini had seen autograph manuscripts of Leonardo and that had been fascinated to the point to begin writing also from right to left [2], it is evident that the author from Cesena (who devoted himself to the religious life starting from 1605 and became a lay brother of the Order of the Theatins) has always been studied in relation to the genius of da Vinci, remaining obscured by him.

There is, to date, no critical edition, not even a partial one, of the Treatise on Perspective. In 1983 Janis Bell transcribed the second volume of the treaty in her doctoral thesis, Color and Theory in Seicento Art: Zaccolini’s “Prospettiva del Colore” and the Heritage of Leonardo [3]. The intention of the same scholar to prepare a critical edition of the text was made impossible by her poor health. Ms Francesca Guidolin has now transcribed the first volume, i.e. On colours, in his doctoral thesis. It was a major step forward, since the On colours is complementary to the Perspective of colour, and constitutes its indispensable theoretical premise.

Giovanni and Cherubino Alberti, Frescoes of the choir in the Church of San Silvestro al Quirinale, Rome
Source: http://www.tesoridiroma.net/chiese_rinascimento/silvestro_papa.html

Zaccolini and the town of Cesena

However, it would be quite an understatement to define Guidolin’s work as the mere transcription of the text by Zaccolini, (as the section presented here (On colours) exceeds 300 manuscript pages). In fact, the work is divided in two parts: the first one is the result of particularly demanding archival research, but I consider it really fruitful, as it certainly offers an overview of Zaccolini, his formation in Cesena, and his artistic activities, which were testified first in Cesena and then in Rome and Naples. It is without any doubt the most significant contribution to date presented on the artist. The second part deals instead with the examination of the text on colours.

The archive research, moreover, has led to collateral discoveries of great interest. We already knew (as also proven by Zaccolini’s dedication at the beginning of the work) that Matteo had a discipleship relation with the Cavalier Scipione Chiaramonti (1565-1652). Zaccolini was a "man without letters" (in the words of Leonardo da Vinci, with which he admitted he did not know Latin) and it was Chiaramonti ("Famous Astronomer and Professor of every Science") to introduce him to the study of linear perspective and shadow theory [4]. Chiaramonti (on his part, a pupil of Guidobaldo del Monte) was a scholar of optics and perspective, with a solid knowledge of medieval and humanistic sources, and a totally Aristotelian vision of the world. Local sources report that he organised a "Lyceum" at his house, in which he taught these principles, and Zaccolini was also attested among his disciples. Moreover, as well known, Chiaramonti also wrote a treatise on perspective, which has however been lost. Well, when looking for information on Zaccolini, Ms Guidolin has found it (see p. 37). It is “La nova pratica perspettiva di Scipione Chiaramonti da Cesena, nella quale dalle cose novamente e sodamente dimostrate dal Sig. Guido Baldo dal Monte nei suoi libri di perspettiva si deducono le regole de’ rettamente operare, e con gli stessi fondamenti si scuoprono gli errori e l’imperfettioni de’ passati perspettivi” (The new practice of perspective by Scipione Chiaramonti from Cesena, in which he explained the rules of correctly operating, drawing them from the things which had been first demonstrated by Mr Guido Baldo dal Monte in his books on perspective; and from the same fundamentals he discovered errors and imperfections of past perspectives). The treaty was written in 1610, that is when Zaccolini was already living in Rome for almost ten years, but without doubt testified the object of Chiaramonti’s teachings in his "high school." This is witnessed for example by the fact that the treatise taught thinking in prospective terms when "the panel where you draw [...] is not flat, but concave, as are the vaults of the naves"(p. 43). 

Francesco Masini, Frieze of the last fllor of the Town Hall of Cesena (detail)
Source: http://www.homolaicus.com/arte/cesena/storia/Piazza%20del%20Popolo/PiazzaPopolo.htm

Thanks to Chiaramonti, who explained him the theoretical elements, and probably in the shadow of the most 'fashionable' painter from Cesena in those years, namely Francesco Masini, Zaccolini became a perspective painter, and (for his first official commission) was part of the group of artists (led by Masini) which dealt with the ephemeral apparatuses at the entrance of Pope Clement VIII in Cesena in 1598. It is correct to speak of a working group, because the skills, in a work of this kind, were specialized and Zaccolini was most likely occupied with the illusionistic aspects: its task was to combine the real world of architecture with that of the illusion of perspective, "breaking through" two-dimensional surfaces in order to reproduce eye-deceiving effects. It's just obvious that all this work shared many aspects also with the sphere of theatrical play, and it is no coincidence that Chiaramonti wrote (this time we knew it already) also a treatise Delle Scene e Teatri (On Scenes and Theatres) (1614). One of the aspects with which the painter had to fight when proposing an illusionistic structure (in addition to the linear perspective) was the issue of colour (i.e. the 'coloured' perspective). To this theme, in substance, Zaccolini would dedicate all his life, both from a professional point of view and in terms of thought processing. The Trattato di Prospettiva (the Perspective Treaty in strict terms, thereby the third volume, excluding the linear perspective) was dedicated to exactly this: how to reproduce on a two dimensional surface the 'colours of remoteness', which is how to replicate on a vault or on a canvas the "actions of nature" that, even for just a few moments, deceive the view and make sense "apparent" colours, giving the eye the feeling of remoteness of things.

  

Baldassarre Croce and Matteo Zaccolini, Susanna and the Elders, Rome, Church of Santa Susanna
Source: http://spazio.libero.it/Susanna_EiVecchioni/

Zaccolini in Rome and Naples

Around 1600, Matteo moved to Rome and started working as ‘quadraturist’ in important sites of the pontifical city as the Church of Santa Susanna and the vault of San Silvestro al Quirinale. Once again, we have to repeat: Zaccolini was not a figure painter: he mainly dealt with illusionistic solutions aiming at ideally breaking down the vaults and at bringing the faithful closer to the kingdom of heaven. He had to display as far what was instead near, and at the same time to make undetermined (but noticeable) the transition from the finite to the infinite. It must be said that, even in ideal conditions, one could probably not find any better interpreter. Matteo was consecrated to the religious life and entered the order of the Theatine as a lay brother in 1605. From that moment on, he devoted his entire artistic life to the decoration of religious institutes related to the Order. By a twist of fate, almost all of his illusionistic works were lost: Guidolin recovers from the sources the testimonies of the works carried out at the Theatine house of San Silvestro at Monte Cavallo, undoubtedly the work that occupied him most (for a bibliophile like myself, it is a pain to know that "over the shelves of the library, occurring in around the walls, he formed an order of so well fake books, that he deceived the sight, with beautiful reliefs of corbels, and ornaments balls, and different masks excellently conducted in light and dark" and not to be able to see them (p. 149). Matteo travelled in the major monasteries of the Theatins, at the time a relatively young (founded in 1524) and booming order (also in terms of building). As part of his movements, the news related to his transfers in Naples are particularly important, not only because it was first thought that Matteo had gone to Naples just once, but now Guidolin has found out that he went there at least twice (a first occasion was on 1609-1610; the second one was much more prolonged and lasted between 1618 and 1623). Once again, glancing between local sources and archives, he was able to reconstruct a piece of the catalogue; he did so, precisely because a passage of On colours allows us to establish that, when he was in Naples, Zaccolini studied the phenomena of nature to better understand the rules and describe them in his book on "the theory of colours". He did it probably during his first stay [5]:

"The most agreeable site [...] that is the climate of Naples, helped us very well. There, at the house in the famous fabric of the Holy Apostles [editor's note: it is the convent of the Theatins] we have written and made the most of our natural observations concerning apparent and real colours, since this location is at some height [editor's note: it is in a high place] and is rich of beautiful views, both in the land, and in the sea. [...] At times, we can see in the morning the ruddy and very bright red sea. So, for that purpose, I think no one can find a more appropriate site in the world from where to observe all true and apparent colours in all elements [editor's note: water, air, earth and fire]; since this climate tempers them most perfectly. Therefore, in that place there is richness of all things and of all colours, and that also from the earth, due to the miraculous sulphur mines and the variety of flowers and fruits. Since here it is almost continuously spring, it seems that one is faced with the doubt that this is another paradise on earth".

Ludovico Cigoli, Immaculate Comception, 1610-12, Pauline Chapel, Church of Santa Maria Maggiore, Rome
Source: Wikimedia Commons

On Colours

The copy of On colours preserved at the Medici Library is divided into thirteen chapters (or, rather, treatises). In fact, Zaccolini’s original was structured in eight books, at least according to what the author wrote in his dedication to Scipione Chiaramonti [6]. One may wonder what happened. I think that both Janis Bell and Francesca Guidolin explain the situation with a subsequent intervention by Cassiano dal Pozzo, who would have "put in order" Zaccolini’s disorderly sheets, also adding chapters that were originally not intended to enter into the treatise (think about the treatises X and XI, intended to explain how to treat victims of the tarantula bite with colours or with colours and sounds in combination). This is in my view a logical explanation. I wonder whether another one has also been taken into account (and eventually discarded), i.e. that the dedication does not correspond to the latest version of the Treaty drawn up by Zaccolini.

It was said that Zaccolini was a disciple of Chiaramonti, and astronomer of clear Aristotelian faith, and so it does not surprise that the world of the colourful perspective was widely included as part of Aristotelian science. If anything, one must remember that, during the Roman presence of Zaccolini, it was also active in town Ludovico Cigoli, dear friend of Galileo, who studied sunspots from the dome of Santa Maria Maggiore and represented in the Pauline Chapel the first 'Galilean' moon of history (for Aristotle, the moon was perfectly straight). Even Cigoli wrote a Trattato pratico di prospettiva (Practical treatise of perspective), and it would be nice to know if the two were ever able to meet, and what they thought of each other. In fact, Zaccolini and Cigoli were interested in the same topics, but with a completely different vision of the world. Accordingly, in the writing of this first volume Zaccolini made extensive reference (from the title) to De coloribus, a treatise at the time considered (already with some uncertainty) as a work by Aristotle and today attributed (always with the same uncertainties) to Theophrastus. The De coloribus had been republished in Latin in Florence in 1548 and was certainly part of those texts from which Chiaramonti drew during his teachings at the Lyceum. Ultimately - Guidolin writes – one could consider Zaccolini’s manuscript as "an extended commentary on the pseudo-Aristotelian treatise, one of the oldest sources on the colour known to us" (p. 206).

Andrea Pozzo, Apotheosis of St. Ignatius, 1685, Church of S. Ignazio, Rome
Source: Wikimedia Commons

Andrea Pozzo, Jesuit Church of Vienna, 1702-09
Source: Wikimedia Commons

Zaccolini’s world was thus divided into the four classical elements (earth, air, fire and water). "Nature is governed by the combined action of the four qualities, the heat and the cold, the dry and the wet, contrary forces ascribing their properties to the elements, also characterizing their outward appearance."

However, I would not want that the reader feel like if the 'dogmatic' component prevailed over all. In fact, a striking element is the role played by experience in the treatise. One should not forget that the ultimate goal of Zaccolini was purely practical: it was about teaching artists on how to represent on a two-dimensional surface the facts of nature, so as to replicate them perfectly. To do so, it were necessary a prior theoretical training (the "theory of colours", which was in fact covering the first volume) and then the practical instructions (the "perspective of colour" treated in the second volume). However, the role of experience was critical also in this first volume. Zaccolini taught painters how to observe nature, and produced therefore a copious (but still partial, as colours are by definition infinite) series of practical examples (conducted in most cases - as mentioned - in Naples). This feature should always be taken into consideration; for Guidolin, it was one of the reasons explaining why the artist never managed to publish: he was dissatisfied with his descriptions of endless nature.

The colours, for Matteo, exist as a property of things, and are determined in their 'own' shape by the way in which the elements of which are formed (water, air, earth and fire) and the qualities of nature (hot, cold, dry and wet) interact. However, the 'real colour' never actually shows how it is effectively, because it reaches the eye through the light, and, depending on the type and amount of light, the colour is distorted, becoming 'apparent': In fact, it is not only light to determine the 'apparent' colours: also the distance that separates us from what we see is fundamental. Here it seems appropriate to leave the floor to Guidolin:

"Only if we take into account that ‘colours have a certain nature to communicate and spread their species’, we can understand how, by increasing the distance of our point of view with respect to a certain illuminated body, the species derived from it will lose in different ways their strength, ‘weakening’ and mingling with those present in the air, to the point to display the coloured bodies as different from the so-called "real" ones. [...] On the way they do before reaching the eye, the species gradually weaken according to "how much greater will be the amount of air between the eye and the object". Thus it begins the process of ‘transformation or degradation’ of colour, which ‘tending to indeterminate with the appearance of a confused mass’, is transformed into new impressions visible until the appearance of the turquoise, the last colour of the distance" (p, 225). Starting from this basis, Zaccolini undertook a systematic observation of all aspects of nature; he further complicated things step by step, by taking account of the 'accidents' that can lead to change the phenomena of coloured perspective, also in a subtle and quite transitory measure. The number of observations is impressive and makes us understand how the artist has devoted years to his work, drawing up a kind of 'encyclopaedia of colours'. It will be then the task of the artist to translate it into the vaults of the churches or on the canvases of paintings according to the instructions of the second volume, on the 'Perspective of colour '.

*  *  *

A big thank-you to Francesca Guidolin for taking in turn a non-simple study, and a wish that her research will always be as fruitful as the one she had the opportunity to exhibit in her doctoral thesis.

NOTES

[1] The marks follow what, according to Pedretti, was the order in which the four volumes were presented by Zaccolini. This order was subsequently called into question.

[2] The originals of Zaccolini are lost and therefore we do not know if they were written normally or after the manner of Leonardo. However, transcribing the text, Ms Guidolin finds an indirect confirmation of the fact that at least some of them were written form right to left, where Zaccolini explicitly states, in the volume on the Description of shadows, that since the topic was stubborn "I resolved to go back to writing in the normal manner” (p. 191). It should also be said that, according to sources - in particular Bellori in the Nota delli musei, librerie, galarie… (Note on the museums, libraries, and galleries) (1664) Zaccolini was the author of a backward-written commentary on the Sphaera (Sphere) by Sacrobosco (p. 192). Just recently (2016, and then after the doctoral thesis by Ms Guidolin) an Italian translation of Sacrobosco’s Sphaera was discovered; the translation was attributed precisely to Zaccolini. It is - mind you - a transcript of the Sphere by Giovanni Sacrobosco, translated into Italian and declared by Don Francesco Pifferi Sansavino (1604) - Zaccolini did not know Latin -. See Domenico Laurenza, A Copy of Sacrobosco’s Sphaera in Mirror Script Attributed to Matteo Zaccolini in Illuminating Leonardo. A Festchrift for Carlo Pedretti Celebrating His 70 Years of Scholarship (1944-2014), a cura di Constance Moffatt e Sara Taglialagamba, Brill Publishing, 2016.

[3] Now available in print on demand, addressing a request to University Microfilms International, Ann Arbor, Michigan, U.S.A.

[4] The Zaccolini - Chiaramonti relationship was clearly one of discipleship, as it is apparent right from the reading of the inscription written in the Treaty. However, it is worth pointing out that, by birth, Chiaramonti was only nine years older than Matteo.

[5] However, Ms Guidolin makes dutifully also clear that the only date that appears in On colours refers to the appearance of two comets, on 11 and 16 November 1618 (see p. 201 n. 855).