Marta P. Cacho Casal. [Francisco Pacheco and his 'Book of Portraits']. Part Two

Translation by Francesco Mazzaferro

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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 Two

Fig. 7) Portrait of Luis de Vargas in Francisco Pacheco's Libro de retratos
Source: 1983 edition by Prevision Española

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Portraits of the artists

Three artists’ portraits are contained in the book of Pacheco. They are those of Pablo de Céspedes (about 1538-1698), Luis de Vargas (about 1505-1567) and Pedro de Campaña or Peter de Kempeneer as you wish (about 1503 - about 1580). In the Art of Painting we may find textual clues (basically margin notes) that suggest that Pacheco also wrote the praises of other artists: Alonso Sánchez Coello (about 1531-1588), Navarrete el Mudo (1526-1579), El Greco (1541-1614), Bartolomeo Carducho (1560-1608) and Diego Velázquez (1599-1660). The latter, as it is well known, was his pupil and married his daughter. These are hypotheses that however need to be checked (it is however possible that the praises of some of these artists were written for other projects than the Book; this may be the case of El Greco, of foreign origin and operating in Toledo, i.e. not in Andalusia).

Fig. 8) Portrait of Peter de Kempeneer in Francisco Pacheco's Libro de retratos
Source: 1983 edition published by Prevision Española

Taking into consideration the three praises that have come to our day, Ms Cacho Casal notes that, in reality, they have different characteristics. Pacheco and Céspedes were well acquainted and even friends. According to the author Céspedes was probably one of the most trusted oral sources for Pacheco, especially with regard to art in Rome, where - let us not forget - the Seville author never travelled. "Céspedes's praise is one of the most interesting of the work. One can easily check (...) that Pacheco included in the Book of Portraits information that does not appear in the Art of Painting and, consequently, not even in Palomino (...). Palomino did not know the biography of the Book, nor did he know of his existence” (p. 221). It follows that the subsequent artistic historiography, based on Palomino's biographies, has overlooked the information that appears in the Book. Such information is absolutely worthy of faith, because it originates from a direct source, or from Céspedes himself.

Luis de Vargas's biography is full of information on works of art, dates and anecdotes which, unlike Céspedes, could not derive from direct knowledge. Vargas died when Pacheco was only three years old. It was then wondered whether these were credible claims. The answer (strangely neglected by scholars) is provided by the same artist from Seville: Pacheco was able to consult the "Libro de secretos" (a kind of personal diary) of the artist, at that time kept in the library of the Duke of Alcalá, and today lost.

The case of Pedro de Campaña is totally different. Here, the information provided appears to be in contrast to what Pacheco himself presents in the Art of Painting. There are aspects - such as the alleged trip to Italy of the Flemish painter and his presence in Bologna in 1530, when Emperor Charles V was crowned - which are strongly controversial. On a trip to Italy, the scholars spoke precisely from the information of Pacheco (in the Art of Painting), but the analysis of Ms Cacho Casal, based above all on a stylistic observation (his painting, recalled by Pacheco as 'very much dry', i.e. typical of the Flemish world), tends to exclude an actual journey.

In fact – as Ms Cacho Casal wrote - the three biographies in question illustrate well the strategies used by the author to produce praises: on the one hand, the use of written sources (in the case of Luis de Vargas's personal diary), on the other the information provided directly by the person concerned (Céspedes) and, finally, in the absence of more reliable sources, the use of oral tradition which inevitably may unreliable and inconsistent.

In all three cases, however, it should be emphasized that the editing of biographies coincided only partially with what is written in the Art of painting, and revealed itself more complete and detailed than what was written in the posthumous work printed in 1649.

Fig. 9) Portrait of Luis Pons de Leòn in Francisco Pacheco's Libro de retratos
Source: 1983 edition published by Prevision Española

Fig. 10) Portrait of King Filippo II in  Francisco Pacheco's Libro de retratos
Source: 1983 edition published by Prevision Española

The ‘verdaderos ritratos’

So far I have not addressed the analysis of the portraits. Naturally, Ms Cacho Casal worked on it, but emphasized that until now the examination of the work has been limited, in fact, to the pure artistic appreciation of the effigies, losing the overall meaning of Pacheco's book-manuscript: a laudatory work linking in an inseparable unity portraits, written praises in with the press and poetic compositions. From a theoretical point of view, the authoress felt the need to clarify what Pacheco intends for those 'verdaderos ritratos', i.e. true portrays, that the Seville artist quoted as from the title page. It would be wrong to think that, with this expression, Pacheco wanted to talk about 'portraits from the real', or 'from the natural'. Obviously there are some portrays from life (and it seems likely that at least two or three have been performed in the face of the dead body of the praised), but not all portraits are from life. The circumstance is obvious, if one thinks that many of the characters dealt with by the artist passed away when he was not yet born, or was still very young. In fact, one must not speak of 'portraits from life' but of 'credible portraits', i.e. which are worthy of faith. The likelihood is ensured by executing them against patterns that could be the images of the faces that appeared on the burial of the praised or (most often) starting from other portraits in print or originals. Again, in this case, the interpreter's problem is to understand what these models are. And – as a further difficulty – to try to identify the portraits without names, by comparing them with other images. The concept of 'likelihood' obviously refers to a very dear theme to counterreformation and to which Pacheco was certainly not insensitive (think of the great final section of the Art of the Pintura dedicated to the iconography of the decoration). Yet it should be said that, in reality, the artist had to work on a yielding ground that weakened the worth itself of the portraying practice. According to Paleotti (whose texts our Sevillian knew well) being portrayed was not something for everyone, as it tempted the human pride; it was no coincidence that it was a title of merit for church men to refuse to be portrayed in order not to yield to any temptation to do so. Pacheco was, in life, a well-known portraitist, and not always (even for obvious commercial reasons) was perfectly aligned with his counter-reformed thesis. There is one more element that emerges from the reading of the theoretical part of the Art of Painting dedicated to the portrait. Here Pacheco stood in favour of the portrait as a camouflage of the human traits even when there were imperfections in the human face (not only deformity, but also particular conformations of the face, ears, eyes, etc ... which theories on physiognomy of the time matched with less edifying moral qualities). The counter-reformed Italian treatises (Ms Cacho Casal cites Armenini on p. 279), however, condemned this excess of realism as mediocre and maintained the superiority of 'ideal' portraits, though not totally adhering to the original model. Could this have been the main legacy that Pacheco left to his student Velázquez? The temptation to take this view is obviously strong.

Fig. 11) Portrait of Francisco de Ballesteros in Francisco Pacheco's Libro de ritratos
Source: 1983 edition published by Prevision Española

Fig. 12) Portrait of Baltasar de Alcazar in Francisco Pacheco's Libro de retratos
Source: 1983 edition published by Prevision Española

The models of Pacheco

How did the idea of Book of Portraits came up with? In all honesty, we do not know. The most remarkable thesis is, of course, that Pacheco wanted to take inspiration from the praises of the illustrious men by Paolo Giovio. In 1546 the latter published the Elogia veris clarorum virorum imaginibus apposita (Praises attached to the true pictures of famous men), dedicated to the writers, and in 1551 published those relating to the men of arms. It is not clear whether the Spanish artist had a direct and / or in-depth knowledge. We know that Pacheco did not know Latin. In 1568 the military section was translated into Spanish. Moreover, although born as a literary completion of portraits collected by Paolo Giovio in his Borgovico museum, the Elogia were published without the effigy of the characters being considered and the same applies to the Spanish translation in 1568. The success of the work was however great and led to the publication, in the seventies of the 1500s, of a complete edition of engravings (printed in Basel). It remains that in the Art of Painting, among the many books that are quoted, Pacheco did never mention Giovio’s Elogia. The impression is that there may have been been an influence, but indirect and mediated by some other figure in the Seville circles of the painter. Moreover, Ms Cacho Casal clearly showed that Pacheco's project was more complex than the one by Giovio: "As far as I know, the Book is the only case in Europe of a manuscript-book of portraits made by the same artist and assembled in the format of a printed text, accompanied by biographical notes and poetic compositions. This work is basically based on the merger of two different traditions. First, the collections of portraits of contemporary characters, such as that of Caterina de' Medici, which included members of the court, her sons and humanists like Erasmus. Secondly, the ancient tradition of praises, biographies and poems devoted to illustrious characters, who were widely disseminated during the Renaissance, as in the case of the Elogia by Giovio"(p. 282). This mix, which is probably the result of the reflection of not one person, but of the entire cultural environment in Seville, is the true specificity of Pacheco's work.