Translation by Francesco Mazzaferro
CLICK HERE FOR ITALIAN VERSION
Marta P. Cacho Casal
Francisco Pacheco y su Libro de retratos
[Francisco Pacheco and his Book of Portraits]
Siviglia-Madrid, Fundación Focus-Abengoa and Marcial Pons Ediciones, 2011
Review by Giovanni Mazzaferro. Part One
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| Fig. 1) The front-cover of the book |
Francisco
Pacheco (1564-1644) is best known for his Arte de la pintura (Art of Painting, released posthumously in
1649), which has already been thoroughly reviewed on this blog. In fact, it is
well known that the main works of the artist and literate born in Sanlúcar – a few miles far from
Seville – are two. To the Arte de la
pintura one should add the Libro de
retratos (Book of Portraits), which is much less known for a number of
reasons. First of all, the book was never published (and - as we shall see - it
probably was not even intended for printing). The manuscript of the Book of Portraits was well known to
contemporaries: Vicente Carducho praised it in his Dialogues on Painting (1633). Moreover, it was so dear to Pacheco that,
five years before his death, while extending his will, he instructed the heirs that
it should be sold in its entireness without dispersing the pages. Nevertheless,
the manuscript of the Libro de retratos
and, with it, the memory of its existence went soon lost. Palomino, the author of
the Vidas in the early eighteenth
century, which led many to call him as the 'Spanish Vasari', did not know its
contents. In 1864, the text was rediscovered by a Spanish scholar specialised
on Cervantes, the literate José María Asensio (1829-1905). However, he let it publish
only in different instalments between 1881 and 1884 in a edition which was
conceived as a facsimile (see
https://archive.org/stream/BRes140079/libroDeDescripcion#page/n0/mode/2up), but was not completely free of
flaws. José Lázaro Galdiano bought it from Asensio’s heirs in the early
twentieth century, and from him the work went to the library of the Fundacio
Lázaro Galdiano, established in 1948, where it is still preserved. Nevertheless,
one had to wait for the 1980s, when Spain started opening up after Franco’s
isolationism, before the book was finally reprinted (I have at hand in this
library also the 1983 edition with the prologue of Diego Angulo, published by
Prevision Española, which was also referred to by Marta P. Cacho Casal in her
work). It is worth noting that all of this consists of facsimile editions, and
not critical ones. There is, to this day, no critical edition of the work,
which is therefore much warranted. In 2011 Marta P. Cacho Casal published this
book, which undoubtedly represents an extraordinary step forward for the
knowledge of the text in critical terms, also because it happily includes in
the appendix a precious index of the names contained in the manuscript at the
Galdiano Foundation. Moreover, it should be remembered that the knowledge on Pacheco
outside the Spanish world is fairly limited, since none of his writings has
ever been translated into any other language, with the exception of a French
edition of the Art of Painting by Lauriane
Fallay d'Este in 1986 (new editions in 2001 and 2010).
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| Fig. 2) The front-cover of the 1983 edition of Pacheco's Libro de retratos |
A manuscript volume
The
complete title of Pacheco's work, as it is from his highly expanded title page,
was Libro de descripción de verdaderos retratos de ilustres y memorables varones [Book
describing the true portraits of illustrious and memorable men]. A lot has been
discussed about the intentions of the Andalusian artist. It was argued, in
particular, that, as in the case of Art of
Painting, Pacheco did not succeed in achieving the printing of his work.
Actually, Ms Cacho Casal's thesis (which I find convincing) is that this was a
typical example (far more widespread than one would think) of a
book-manuscript, or a manuscript that, formally, presents all the lay-out features
of a printed book (so much so that it can be mistakenly seen as its 'last
stage' before publication), but however is not aimed at being printed. A few
elements suggest this hypothesis: the text, with its in-folio format, presents
56 'true' portraits (we will go back to this point) of 'illustrious men'. They
are not engravings, but 56 original drawings by Pacheco, in black and red
pencils, and retouched with sepia coloured gouache. The author points out
that translating the drawings into prints would have required a large financial
investment; it would have also required a technical know-how which both Pacheco
and his associates in Sevilla lacked. The book, moreover, did not include a
dedication, so that one can rule out the hypothesis that a patron may have
supported the enterprise. The highly accurate placement of the text itself
(which was not necessary at draft level) seems to be a clear indication that no
print version was foreseen: "The
Libro de retratos presents the format and
design of a print book, as can be appreciated by noticing the title page, the
organization of the text, and other details, such as the catchwords. This
attention to detail is perhaps a sufficiently conclusive indication of the fact
that the painter had not planned to publish the work" (p. 118).
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| Fig. 3) Frontispiece and a portrait of the manuscript Source: https://bibliotecalazarogaldiano.wordpress.com/2014/06/12/el-libro-de-retratos-en-el-450-aniversario-del-nacimiento-de-francisco-pacheco/ |
Portraits, praises, poetic compositions
It has just been said that 56 illustrious characters are portrayed in Pacheco's work. They were
(mostly) religious men, but also humanists, soldiers, artists and musicians.
The structure of each paragraph is not limited to the simple portrait, but is normally
extended over four pages according to a predefined scheme. The first page was
occupied almost entirely by the framed portrait, with a box indicating the name
of the person in question. At the bottom of the first page it began the
veritable praise of the subject, which continued in the second and third
facades. The fourth page presented one or more epitaphs or poetic compositions
(not all from Pacheco's hand) devoted to the praised. In their turn, the prose praise
was carried out according to a repetitive scheme that can be schematized in
five points: (A) rhetorical introduction; (B) family of origin and childhood; C)
received education; D) personal qualities and memorable facts; E) death. "The protagonists of these portraits were
famous men, most of them from Andalusia, who lived between the reigns of Philip
II [note of the editor: King of Spain from 1556 to 1598] and of Philip IV [note of the editor: King
from 1621 to 1665; of course, it should be recalled that Pacheco died in 1644]" (p. 118). In fact, the majority of those praised belongs to the
generation directly preceding that of Pacheco, and thus to a historical moment
in which Philip II was at the height of his kingdom. "The youth and part of Pacheco's adult life took place under the reign
of this monarch, who died when the painter was 34 years old (...). Taking this into account, it does not seem
absurd to conclude that the Book of Portraits was, in part, a tribute to Philip II and to the time of his reign" (pp.
177-78). While the standard outline is the one just described (portrait,
praise, and poetic compositions), eleven portraits were an exception, either not
returning the name of the displayed or the praise in prose or the poetic
compositions, or none of them. It does not appear to be a case that, when the
names are present, it turns out that they died after Pacheco. It seems
reasonable to think that the Spanish artist and writer had a 'repertoire' of
portraits to which praise and epitaphs were added only later, after the death
of every single praised.
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| Fig. 4) Portrait of Fernando de Herrera in Francisco Pacheco's Libro de retratos Source: https://bibliotecalazarogaldiano.wordpress.com/2014/08/21/el-libro-de-retratos-en-el-450-aniversario-del-nacimiento-de-francisco-pacheco-ii/ |
How reliable is the manuscript of the Galdiano
Library?
It goes
without saying that the real question to the scholar is to understand whether
the manuscript kept at the Lazaro Galdiano Library has reached us with or
without any modifications of any kind to Pacheco’s original intentions. Ms Cacho
Casal points out that it is very unlikely that the will of the artist (which -
as we said – had stated in 1639 that the Book was to be sold for the benefit of
the heirs but in its integrity) was respected. There are many hints at this.
First of all, one should ask whether the Book had already been bound by Pacheco
or whether it was made up of a series of loose leaves, which could be easily withdrew
(this is especially true of the drawings, which were obviously particularly
desirable). Two reasons induce us to prefer the second hypothesis: first, the artist
was concerned about stating explicitly a testamentary disposition, and second, the
work was most probably a ‘work in progress’, with insertions and completions at
the time of the death of each portrayed. The author's own words go into the
same direction: in the Art of painting
(see page 164), Pacheco wrote that he had completed more than 170 black and red
pencil portraits over the course of his lifetime, and had selected around hundreds
characters, as they were eminent for their particular qualities. According to
these words, the manuscript version that came up to us would lack 44 praises.
Always in the Art of painting, some
praises of characters (even of artists) are cited which do not appear in the
manuscript. Needless to say, one of the great challenges of today's scholars is
to reconstruct the list of disappeared praiseworthy figures (and if possible to
track down the texts).
And again:
the order in which the characters appear in the Galdiano manuscript appears to
be quite random. The praise of King Philip II (which, according to Pacheco’s explicitly
wording, was the one with which the work begins) in the manuscript is number forty-two.
In the sequence of the manuscript, the praises follow each other without a
precise logic, alternating among themselves characters with different ranking
and background, while it is clear from the internal evidences of the praises in
prose that Pacheco had a very precise sequence in mind, grouping among others religious
men belonging to the same order.
Despite
this overall uncertainty, then, it is possible to combine two options that have
realistically good chance of being true: first, the Book of Portraits was not intended for the press; however, the
book-manuscript has come to us in a manipulated version. Of course, this complicates
the analysis of the text.
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| Fig. 5) Portraits of Lope de Vega and Luis del Alcázar in Francisco Pacheco's Libro de retratos Source: https://bibliotecalazarogaldiano.wordpress.com/2014/08/21/el-libro-de-retratos-en-el-450-aniversario-del-nacimiento-de-francisco-pacheco-ii/ |
Years for the drafting
The front-page
of Pacheco’s book leaves no doubt: it was explicitly dated 1599. However, this date
does not help. The material collected in the work reaches at least until 1638.
One can think that the year 1599 was when the artist began to develop the idea
of the manuscript, but while trying to achieve more clarity on this issue it
should be clear that there are high risks of a fiasco. Internal evidence and
third testimonies anticipate that date to the early 1590s (when Pacheco was
little more than 25 years). In fact, Ms Cacho Casal has really failed to give a
convincing answer to the problem (and this is objectively due to missing elements
of information, and not to faults by the scholar). If one thinks that the
work was thought to be homage to Philip II's reign, one could imagine that the
title of the cover was somehow correlated with the death of the sovereign
(1598). But then: why 1599 and not 1598? If anything is clear, all in all, is
that the Book of Portraits was the
work of a lifetime; moreover, in the case of Pacheco, the long-life works were
two, evidently thought to be complementary: on the one hand, the Book of Portraits and, on the other one,
the Art of Painting, as highlighted by Mr Bonaventura Bassegoda i Hugas in the critical edition of this last work.
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| Fig. 6) Portrait of fray Juan Bernal in Francisco Pacheco's Libro de retratos Source: https://www.abebooks.com/LIBRO-DESCRIPCION-VERDADEROS-RETRATOS-ILUSTRES-MEMORABLES/11967657855/bd#&gid=1&pid=3 |
Libro de retratos and Arte de la pintura
Here there
is another problem: to understand in what relationship the Libro de retratos and the Arte
de la pintura are. First of all, one preliminary consideration is due: both
Mr Bassegoda and Ms Cacho Casal seem to share a somewhat 'lessened' idea of
Pacheco's writings. If Mr Bassegoda did it in a more subtle way, Ms Cacho Casal
more clearly interpreted his figure as a man who was not a maître à penser, but still an integral part of the Andalusian
cultural and literary world. Pacheco's main merit, however, would be to make us
available the ideas that circulated in those circles in the first half of the
seventeenth century. This caveat is necessary, because in both the Libro de retratos and the Arte de la pintura a substantial part of the text looks like a
compilation and is derived from previous sources. If in the Arte de la pintura the circumstance is immediately apparent,
because the author reported to the side of the page the author he drew from (as
it is well known, demonstrating a vast knowledge of Spanish and Italian art
literature), the identification of the sources for the Libro de retratos is more difficult because such a type of information
is missing. In this regard, Ms Cacho Casal warned: "The Libro de retratos has
traditionally been regarded as a mine for bibliographic information for
important Spanish authors of the 16th and 17th centuries. Consequently, scholars and historians have
used and quoted fragments of this work directly, as if it were a primary
source. However, Pacheco used many texts of others and information that various
friends and colleagues provided him
to draw up his praise" (p. 188). The task of the interpreter is,
therefore, to identify the source from which the artist from Seville draws. In
the specific case, it is a very ungrateful task, because, while in the case of the
Arte de la Pintura the quotes are from printed works,
here appear to be mostly handwritten sources, of which Pacheco turns out to be
a great collector (see the paragraph Pacheco
como editor y coleccionista de textos
- Pacheco as editor and collector of texts, at pages 92-102).
At any rate,
there are differences. The Art of
Painting clearly reveals a didactic purpose, suggesting that the audience
to whom Pacheco referred to was that of his fellow artists and (at most) that
of the "connoisseurs". By its nature, to the contrary, the Book of Portrays praises a world that was
basically formed by the preeminent figures of Andalusian society, avoiding any
criticism. Almost all of the portrayed were originally from the Andalusia. When
they were not - as with King Philip II - the author resorted to stratagems,
arguing that the sovereign was born in Valladolid in 1527, but was conceived in
Seville (see page 171). The only foreigner who deserved praise was the painter
Pedro de Campaña (Peter de Kempeneer) who was considered because, while born in
Brussels, he was very successful in Spain (and Andalusia). The
"ideal" audience at which Pacheco aims, therefore, is probably formed
by the Andalusian (and especially Sevillian) intellectual circles that
collaborated with him (both in the gathering of information and in the editing
of laudatory poems). This is a sort of self-representation which at certain
moments takes the contours of a collective work.
After having
clarified this difference, further contextual convergences may become clearer,
focusing first of all on the idea of nobility of painting. It is (of course, since
the writing is an artist) a theme particularly dear to Pacheco, which is therefore
present in both works. In the Arte
de la Pintura, the
question of the nobility of painting is argued in theory and with a didactic /
moralistic approach (think of the last section devoted to 'decorous' images for
the art of counterreformation). In the Libro de ritratos,
the nobility of painting is achieved by treating humanists, poets, literati, religious
men and artists at the same level. Two different ways to support the same idea.
End of Part One
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