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Lorenzo Lotto
Il libro di spese diverse
[The Book of Accounts]
Introduction, commentaries and apparatus by Francesco De Carolis
Trieste, EUT Edizioni Universitarie di Trieste, 2017 (but 2018)
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| Lorenzo Lotto, Portrait of Giovanni della Volta with his Wife and Children, 1547, London, National Gallery Source: https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/kAF-dQpcDv3P_A |
Issues of chronology and
completeness of the Book.
The oldest transcription, in the Book of accounts, was dated 1538; the last
one referred to 1556. Based on these (objective) data, Pietro Zampetti deduced
that Lotto's accounting book referred precisely to the last 18 years of his
life [8]. The curator (and others before him) rightly pointed out that the 1538-dated
recording actually referred to the Pizoni portrait, indeed first accomplished
in 1538, but then rejected and subsequently transformed into a Saint Bartholomew,
and sold to Bartolomeo Carpan only in December 1542. In short, it seems logical
to suppose that Lotto 'brought order' years away in records left open since years
and that the beginning of the Book of accounts
should be chronologically postponed. In this regard, it is evident that the
most disparate theses were supported. The view of De Carolis seems to me to be
absolutely common sense: according to the curator, we should think of a deferred
initial dating of the manuscript around early 1540s: "An initial dating of the manuscript to 1540 was then suggested by the
chronology of Lotto's works and movements. We know that, in the period between
1538 and 1540, the artist was in the Marche [...]. The reasons for a complete
absence of the operations carried out in this two-year period would be
inexplicable. It is therefore with the return to Venice in the early days of
1540 that the artist began the use of the Book of accounts, certainly not the only one of the accounting
books in his possession during his long career" (p.25) [9]. Moreover,
it is also true that the last transcription made on the Book was from September 1556, but – as the curator explained - it was
merely a piece of paper glued to another item, almost to balance a question
left open after the oblation of 1554, which, to all intents and purposes,
appears the most significant date. In that year, in fact, the artist closed his workshop and, in essence, stopped keeping his accounts, no longer exercising an
entrepreneurial activity.
The start and end dates of the transcripts
aside, the key question seems to me different: to what extent can Lotto’s Book be considered exhaustive and cover
all his artistic activity of those years? Or, if we want to put it differently,
should specialists in art attributions surrender in front of the silence in Lottos’
register? I honestly believe they should not. The reason why I take this view
is not so much because some paintings mentioned in the Book have never been
identified, but because - in my opinion – a few others might well have been ignored,
intentionally or by mistake. For example, there was no mention of gifts
(although they must have existed). Moreover, if it is true that Lotto did
not keep a journal, but simply supporting records (see Part One), he might well have forgotten some works. This might
have happened with some of his painting and (even more likely) with some
productions of his workshop, sold in dribs and drabs. On the contrary, it is improbable
- I would say impossible - that he omitted works of a certain commercial importance.
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| Lorenzo Lotto, Adoration of the Child, about 1545, Loreto, Museo Antico della Santa Casa di Loreto Source: http://www.lorenzolottomarche.it/adorazione-del-bambino-154850/ |
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| Lorenzo Lotto, Assumption, 1550, Ancona, Church of San Francesco alle Scale Source: Wikimedia Commons |
The economy of the
sixteenth century
The real underlying protagonist of the artist's
recordings is the economy of the sixteenth century, in many ways still largely
linked to a tradition that we would consider purely medieval. There were, for
example, transactions taking place in cash, but very often they were supplemented
by payments in kind, according to the practice of barter. No mention is almost
made of the exercise of usury (Lotto knew it well, as he was often indebted),
which was practiced exclusively by the Jews (in Venice the so-called ‘new’
ghetto was from 1516, the so-called ‘old’ ghetto of 1541). It is surprising, if
anything, to hear about usury in the case of Joan
Francesco de Monopoli (calling himself Francis, he may have hardly been a Jew,
and Lotto, moreover, always indicated the circumstance explicitly), who even
seemed to be debtor of the artist; so, ironically, it seems that usury was
practiced by Lotto himself (see page 173). In reality, as everyone knows, procedures
to compute and collect interests were in fact very common, as they were often
hidden between the differing valuations of the pledged (pledging was very
common) and redeemed goods. It is also nice to take note, in addition to
traditional contractual forms, of others that we would be inclined to consider
more 'sophisticated’. This was the case, for instance, of 'tentative sales' (Lotto spontaneously delivered his works to
potential customers asking for a payment, if they deemed they were up to
expectations) or 'deposit accounts'
(the artist left his paintings in custody to trustees in other cities,
commissioning them to sell the artworks), or finally the very famous, bitter
(and unclear) lottery organized in Ancona between 1550 and 1551. The phenomenon
of lotteries of artworks was certainly not new; unfortunately, we ignore how it
was regulated, except the fact that Lotto used the sale of some lottery tickets
for the extinction of his debts. In fact, a crucial point needs to be clarified: was Lotto’s lottery organised like today, i.e. did the extraction transfer the
ownership of a work (and, in this case, it is inferred that Lotto sold a few
tickets)? Or was (as it seems most likely) the lottery an instrument to sell buy
options? Did owners of lottery ticket merely have a right to select and purchase
any picture among a series of them? Could an option, as such, also remain
unexercised if there was (for example) no agreement on the price? The large
size of unsold artworks suggests the latter was true.
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| Lorenzo Lotto, The Sacrifice of Melchisedech, about 1545, Loreto, Museo Antico Tesoro della Santa Casa Source: http://www.lorenzolottomarche.it/il-sacrificio-di-melchisedech-1545-50/ |
For Art
I am perfectly aware that asking hypothetical
questions on the past may look like futile. If Mary Philadelphia Merrifield
(1804-1889), an extraordinary figure of Victorian researcher in the field of
artistic techniques, had known Lotto’s Book
of accounts, she would have most probably consulted with extreme interest above
all the pages contained at the end of the notebook, written upside down and
clearly copying a series of items relating to the expenses incurred by the
painter for the exercise of art. In the case of Guercino's Book of Accounts, in fact, Merrifield wrote: "The book consists of a series of payment
records received for the execution of paintings (no frescoes are reported) and
in many cases it also mentioned the ultramarine, the canvases, and the
imprimiture to be paid by the buyer. I copied all the news related to these
last aspects; the rest of the diary does not seem to me of particular value for
my current studies" [10].
The attention of Ms Merrifield to the materials
- as it is well known - was coherent with the English interest for the
techniques of the ancient masters, during the first half of the nineteenth century. She
inquired two different features: on the one hand, the lexicon concerning the
pigments; on the other hand, the vehicle used by Venetian painters to ensure
brightness and stability to their colours. Even without dwelling on the
'proceedings', the Book would have been
most useful to the British scholar, above all because it was the expression of
the art of a painter at the time considered minor. Merrifield thought that the
Venetian 'secret' had been common heritage of all the Venetian artisans of the sixteenth
century and had been lost because of Titian: he introduced unsurpassable technical
'virtuosities', which caused the loss of traditional procedures.
Today, of course, the scholars’ approach is
completely different. Nevertheless, De Carolis did not fail to emphasize some
specific aspects in his paragraph about 'Lotto
materials. Between technical subtleties and aesthetic values'. The
variegated reality that emerges in the purchase of oils seems to me of
particular interest. Thus, even if there are some notes on purchases of linseed
oil and purged walnut oil, it is also true that Lotto sometimes also bought
nuts for the personal extraction of the relative oil. "The direct hand-made production of the
binder in the workshop was an indication of the high care for the work, which
went beyond the material terms, and was enhanced by aesthetic implications. Lotto
was well aware that the production of oil could lead to a wrong chromatic gradation
or, in the worst case regarding the characteristics of the walnut oil, to a
drying that could have produced a superficial crust. [...] The oil extraction activity makes evident
the knowledge of the intrinsic qualities of the various types of binder and,
consequently, its discretionary use and production" (page 93). The
discretion - I would like to add - could also be linked to the importance of
the client and the works being performed.
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| Lorenzo Lotto, Presentation of Jesus at the Temple, 1555-1556, Loreto, Museo Antico Tesoro della Santa Casa Source: http://www.lorenzolottomarche.it/presentazione-al-tempio-155-c/ |
Lotto and the Light
The curator invites us not to look only at the
materials, and to focus instead on some 'signs'
that bring us physically ‘inside’ Lotto's
workshop. Therefore, he thinks we should not underestimate the work of
rearrangement of doors and windows in the workshops rented in Venice and
Treviso, a clear indication of the need to have a suitable light for working.
From this point of view - De Carolis continued - it is evident his attention to
the quality of light that can be related to the indications of Paolo Pino in his Dialogue of painting: light became
a substantial element of colour. The editor wrote a particular brilliant and
suggestive page: "As for our artist,
we can see the effects of his interest on the best lighting conditions in the
most significant works of the period: in particular, when Lotto was intent on
the arrangement of the Rialto workshop, the main commission he was working at
was the altarpiece with the Alms of Saint Antoninus [...], brought to completion between 1540 and 1542. Lotto’s attention to the
natural outlook and to the exact display of lights, which in the altarpiece for
the basilica of Saints John and Paul made the Florentine Dominican so solid and
the crowd so agitated, found confirmation in the practical needs of having optimal
lighting in the workshop, as made evident in the Book of accounts. In aesthetic terms, the need for the best
possible light placed Lotto in a different position than the major Venetian
artists of the time, in particular Titian and Tintoretto. In particular, in the
new system put in place by the latter in the Miracle of Saint Mark, now
preserved at the Gallery of Academy in Venice, a few years after the Alms of Saint Antoninus, the quantitative
value assigned to light will be decisive to the detriment of the qualitative
value preferred by Lotto: the two light
points created by Tintoretto in the Venetian canvas, the meridian one and the
external one coming from the right, give body to the scene and represent one of
the discriminating factors with respect to Pino's considerations and Lotto’s Venetian
results. It is this difference that
defines Lotto as a painter far from the winning current in the Venetian
sixteenth century, and which at the same time can explain the expression «maestro in giving the
light» used by
Giovanni Paolo Lomazzo" (page 89).
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| Lorenzo Lotto, The Alms of Saint Antoninus (detail), 1542, Venice, Basilica di San Giovanni e Paolo Source: Wmpearl via Wikimedia Commons |
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| Tintoretto, Miracolo di San Marco, 1548, Venezia, Gallerie dell'Accademia Fonte: Didier Descouens tramite Wikimedia Commons |
I have found these lines highly beautiful. And
yet, I should like to ask myself: does the letter of the manuscript really make
it possible to establish a link between the enlargement of a window and the
displacement of a door and Lotto’s 'painting
of light'? Honestly, I have sincere doubts on it, and it seems to me that
De Carolis falls here (and only here) in the same errors already attributed to
Zampetti, forcing the reading of an accounting document. The
problem of optimal light, in particular, does not seem to me to be a specific aspect only of Lotto’s experience, but a question common to all painters in the exercise of the 'Art', or their profession. From this point of view I just remember that
Cennino Cennino already dedicated one of the first chapters of his Book of the Art
(the seventh, to be precise) to the need to have a temperate light. In short,
light serves everyone; how it is then rendered on the pictorial surface and is
integrated with the colour, is something that belongs to the style, but does
not emerge from the Book of accounts.
A final consideration
To be frank and candid, the reading of the Book of accounts is, in itself,
unsettling. It is so for a reason indicated by De Carolis: it is an accounting
document for private use and not a text with more or less literary ambitions
intended for an audience of scholar students or readers. In a century in which
the starting point of any treatise was the question of the nobility of painting
(with various variations on the comparison between the arts), he spoke in the Book only about his profession. Which
does not exclude - it is clear - that Lotto probably also considered 'noble' the
art he was practicing with skill and diligence. And, likewise, the Book probably did not bear witness to
the ignorance of the artist; his culture was also testified by the iconographic
refinement, full of well-defined symbols, of his works. Simply, this was not
the reason why he wrote. Lotto, with all evidence, did not feel the need to
return to Pliny and his anecdotes about ancient painters and so on; his culture
remained, in many ways, an oral one, as such much more difficult to explore.
Aretino, in the famous letter of 1548, mocked him, contrasting him with the
fortunes of Titian. Of course, it is quite possible that Lotto was a 'failed'
painter, rejected by the courts and by the great patrons; I would like,
however, to think that he was not interested at all in those courts, and that
for this reason he did not write or seek the support of writers such as
Aretino; that, in short, Lorenzo felt himself, all in all, as a man of the
guild, like in fact most of his colleagues. All this - I am convinced – cannot
be drawn from the Book of accounts.
And allow me a final provocation: the great
value of the manuscript is certainly to shed light on the chronology of the
artist's works. Besides this, we should however state that the Book of accounts is not a book by Lotto
on himself, but on the world that surrounded him and with whom he came into
contact. A world difficult to interpret, in its mechanisms and features
(because, very often, we can find only a few quick hints on it), but a very true
expression (in its concrete reality) of the functioning of a society, on which
we still have much to learn.
NOTES
[8] The date of Lotto's death is uncertain and
ranks between 1556 and 1557.
[9] In this regard, I feel the need to report a
doubt. On f. 200r of the manuscript (we are in the section For the art, i.e. including the small payments that were recorded
reversing the notebook) appears the indication of the purchase, in March 1542
of "a book to write my accounts".
Neither Zampetti nor De Carolis highlighted the circumstance. The registration
is not conclusive at all. For example, we know that Lotto had a "libro d’afitason", in which he recorded the expenses
related to renting. I had the opportunity to have a brief exchange of ideas
with Francesco De Carolis on the question, and his view was that the logic of
the registration of the items tends to exclude that this record may have been on
the purchase of the Book of accounts
(in that case we would even know how much it costs). I can only align myself
with those who have dedicated a lifetime of study to the question, except to
remember (these are words of De Carolis himself) that "Mario Lucco claims that the notebook was
started by the artist in 1542, without giving substantial results, but highlighting
that the number of notes starting from that year becomes more consistent"
(page 24).
[10] G. Mazzaferro (edited by), La donna che amava i colori. Mary P.
Merrifield. Lettere dall’Italia, 1845-1846 [The lady who loved colours. Mary P.
Merrifield. Letters from Italy, 1845-1846], Milan, Officina Libraria,
forthcoming, pp. 155-156.
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