Giovanni Andrea Gilio. Dialogue on the Errors and Abuses of Painters. Edited by Michael Bury, Lucinda Byatt and Carol M. Richardson. Part One

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Giovanni Andrea Gilio
Dialogue on the Errors and Abuses of Painters
Edited by Michael Bury, Lucinda Byatt and Carol M. Richardson
Translated by Michael Bury and Lucinda Byatt

Los Angeles, The Getty Research Institute, 2018

Review by Giovanni Mazzaferro. Part One

I am acutely aware that, by reviewing the Dialogo degli errori e degli abusi de’ pittori by Giovanni Andrea Gilio (? -1584) in its first English translation, edited by Michael Bury, Lucinda Byatt and Carol M. Richardson, one could think I am displaying my xenophilia. The Dialogue was in fact published integrally in Italian for the first time in 1961 by Paola Barocchi in an excellent edition within her anthology on the Trattati d'arte del Cinquecento (16th Century Art Treatises) [1]. The reason that led me to choose instead the English version is at least twofold: Paola Barocchi’s version, annotated in an exemplary manner, is in any case almost sixty year old and in the meantime new acquisitions have been made (for example, five of the six protagonists of the Dialogue have been identified as really existing figures); secondly - and this is a much deeper reason – Gilio’s translation has now brought forward the publication in English of almost all the most important Italian artistic treatises of the second half of the sixteenth century [2]. Using a deliberately bold statement, a scholar of the Counter-Reformation or of the art of the sixteenth century does no longer need to master Italian. In his time, Leonardo da Vinci defined himself as a "man with no letters" due to the fact that he did not know Latin and clashed throughout his life with difficulties in interpreting texts in that language (not to mention Greek), managing to understand them only when he could find translations into vernacular Italian. Here, if another Leonardo was born today, around the world, it would be enough for him to know English. Which - it is clear - is not a bad thing, as long as you are aware of the fact that, first, all translations are, in their own way, 'betrayals' of the original text and, second, it becomes impossible to make a thorough analysis of the (more or less technical) original lexicon. All matters, however, of which Michael Bury and Lucinda Byatt (i.e. the translators of the Dialogue) were well aware, judging by the latter's excellent essay on the subject [3]. 

The frontispiece of the second volume of the Trattati d'arte del Cinquecento, edited by Paola Barocchi (Bari, Laterza, 1961)
Source: https://archive.org/details/221Trattati2Si260

Gilio and his writings

On Giovanni Andrea Gilio, from Fabriano (in the Marches), we know so little that, in practice, only his works remain to bear witness to his presence [4]. We are aware that he was a priest, evidently with a literary formation. From 1567 on he was prior of the chapter house of Saint Venantius, the main church of Fabriano (technically, Fabriano became a bishop's seat only in 1728. Only from that date it could enjoy the title of 'città-civitas-city'). Gilio’s writings show prominently hagiographic and religious interests, easily attributable to the counter-reformed climate of the years in which he lived. There are also titles that indicate his belonging to a cultured world, particularly attracted by literary and poetic interests. In fact, his writings encompass the Treatise on how the devil emulated God - Trattato de la emulatione che il demonio ha fatto a Dio (Venice, 1550, but in reality most likely 1563) and The Life of St. Athanasius, Patriarch of Alexandria - La vita di S. Atanasio, patriarca di Alessandria (Venice, Pietro Bosello, 1559), The persecutions of the Church - Le persecuzioni della Chiesa (Venice, Gabriele Giolito de 'Ferrari, 1573) and the Poetic Topoi - Topica Poetica (Venice, Oratio de' Gobbi, 1580). All these writings, as it clearly emerges, had something in common: they were published in Venice. Why exactly in Venice? We do not know, and I ignore whether anyone ever investigated the issue. Now, the importance of the lagoon city as a publishing centre in the sixteenth century is clear to all: in Venice, everything was printed. Equally well-known are the commercial and cultural links existing between Venice and the Marches in the same period. In particular, even then, Fabriano was very famous for the production of paper, an indispensable raw material for the work of Venetian publishers. That said, we know nothing about the intermediaries that allowed Gilio to publish his works in the lagoon (with different publishers) over the course of at least twenty years.

For the sake of completeness, it must be said that, in addition to the printed writings (which also include the Due Dialogi - Two Dialogues which we will discuss immediately below), we know a Sonnet on the Madonna painted by Gentile di Fabriano in a panel of the Hermitage of Val di Sasso near Fabriano (it is the Valle Romita Polyptych, now in Milan’s Brera Art Gallery). The sonnet is accompanied by others poems by other Fabriano-based authors, and remained unpublished until 1850 [5]. 

Gentile da Fabriano, Valle Romita Polyptych, about 1400, Milan, Brera Gallery
Source: The Yorck Project via Wikimedia Commons

The Due dialogi

The  Due Dialogi (Two Dialogues) are an exception to all the above listed titles, because they were published in Camerino and not in Venice by Antonio Gioioso (i.e. a publisher, however, with only twenty-five titles in the catalogue) in 1564. Their title was: Two Dialogues. In the first of which are discussed the moral and civic parts belonging to literary courtiers, and to every gentleman and the usefulness that the princes draw from literates. In the second one, are discussed the errors of the painters with regards to histories. To be precise, the second dialogue had in fact an even much longer title: Second Dialogue by M. Giovanni Andrea Gilio da Fabriano, in which are discussed the errors and abuses of the painters with regard to histories; with many annotations on the Judgment of Michelangelo and other figures both from the new as well as the old papal chapel. With the statement of how sacred imagines should be painted. Finally, after the second dialogue, the author also included a Discourse by M. Gio. Andrea Gilio da Fabriano, including the City, the Town, the Colony, the City Hall, etc. in which the author claimed for his hometown the rank of 'city' even if it did not have it formally, as already said, not being a bishop's seat [6]. Therefore, a first circumstance should be kept in mind: while the Dialogue on the Errors and Abuses of Painters is almost always considered in its own right, it was actually conceived as part of an 'anthological' work, which included an initial dialogue on the qualities suitable for the literary-courtesan and the final speech on Fabriano's 'nobility' [7]. None of the three writings (if I am not wrong) included references to the others. What united them, however, were the three dedications (one for each text, although the first one preceded the notice of the publisher to the readers and therefore was seemingly a general introduction), all addressed to the famous Cardinal Alessandro Farnese (1520-1589). 

The front cover  of the facsmile edition of the Due Dialogi, edited by  Paola Barocchi in 1986 (Florence, S.P.E.S)

Gilio and Cardinal Farnese

Titian, Portrait of Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, 1545-1546, Naples, National Museum of Capodimonte
Source: https://www.wga.hu/art/t/tiziano/10/22/04farnes.jpg via Wikimedia Commons

Did Gilio and Cardinal Alessandro ever meet? There are those who thing they did not; that is, the dedications would have been an attempt to ingratiate themselves with the favours of a very famous patron in order to obtain an economic recognition and personal prestige, as it was often used in those times. I note however that in the dedication to the first dialogue, the author wrote that he wanted to donate it to the cardinal "because it is more demanding and ingenious, most illustrious Monsignor, to learn how to maintain friendship and servitude when they have been obtained, than  manage to obtain them": 'to maintain', not 'to obtain'. Either Gilio was a braggart or they had a previous acquaintance. All this assumes that Gilio was for a (more or less short) period in Rome. I do not see why to exclude it. Michael Bury, in his beautiful introductory essay to the present volume [8] points out that, in the Treatise on how the devil emulated God, Gilio wrote to have just been there, attending the scene of a Spaniard doing card tricks in public. Bury, among other things, maintains (and is likely to be right) that the treatise in question was not published in 1550 (please go back to the upper section on Gilio and his writings), but in 1563. Only one copy of the work (conserved at the Casanatense Library of Rome) is dated 1550 and has no title page, with an indication of date (1550) and place of edition (Venice) written by hand. Not enough to think it is accurate! All subsequent copies are dated 1563 and were edited by Francesco de Franceschi in Venice. Taking not only all this into account, but also the fact that the characters of both the first and second dialogues of the edition printed in Camerino in 1564 show that they are moving well in Rome and that they have seen at least some works of art, it is highly probable that Gilio was in Rome in the late 1550s or early 1560s and possibly he was admitted in some way – as literate priest – in the presence of the cardinal.

Some hypotheses on the Due Dialogi

The front cover of the modern edition of the Dialogo del letterato cortigiano, edited by Paolo Cherchi (Ravenna, Longo Publishing house, 2002)

All this may seem boring. However, when we ask ourselves about the meaning of the Two dialogues, we are actually raising not one, but two questions: what did the two dialogues aim at overall and what was the purpose of the Dialogue on the errors and abuses of the painters, when individually taken? Concluding the introduction to the first dialogue, which - it is repeated - seems a general introduction, but in reality refers only to the work on the literates-courtiers, Gilio wrote, turning to Farnese: "If you will be pleased of my effort, I will be encouraged to produce even more beautiful and useful texts under your honoured name"[9]. Was the Dialogue on Errors perhaps one of the 'more beautiful and useful texts' mentioned by the author? And the Two Dialogues are a collection of writings sent separately to Cardinal Farnese? This is a very personal hypothesis, which however is not supported – if I am not wrong - by the presence of any separate manuscripts or texts in the archives of Cardinal Alessandro. However, perhaps it is a hypothesis which would be worth exploring. And why did Gilio included in a single volume – let us say it candidly, with an unhappy title – without disclosing also the existence of a Discourse on the rank that would deserve Fabriano? Did Gilio take care of it? Or was it an initiative taken by some of his friends? Lucinda Byatt points out in her essay that in the Notice to the readers, the publisher (Antonio Gioioso) said he was printing the work "to please the many gentle spirits who urged me to do so". If so, who were these 'spirits'? The same characters animating the two dialogues? If in 1961 Paola Barocchi wrote that she was not able to find information on the six Fabriano-based characters who feed the second dialogue (Ruggero Corradini, canon and doctor, Vincenzo Petrolino, jurist, Troilo Mattioli, also a lawyer, Polidoro Saraceni, doctor, Silvio Gilio, jurist and Francesco Santi, scholar and merchant), in the meantime it is proven (with the exception of Santi) that they really existed [11]. And at least three of them (Silvio Gilio, Petrolino and Mattioli) were authors of sonnets in praise of Gentile da Fabriano printed in 1850 together with that of Giovanni Andrea (see again the above section Gilio and his writings).

In short, were the Dialogues a tribute to a common friend? This would explain why the book was not published in Venice. Or were they a combined collection, to make shine the capacities of the Fabriano cultural and literary circles, on a specific occasion, perhaps in a hurry, such as to justify the fact of addressing Camerino’s nobility [12]? All in all, the volume testifies to the fact that even the small Fabriano, which was not yet a 'city', hosted people who were informed of the most advanced cultural debates in the theological, literary and artistic fields. 

An ‘instant book’?

Daniele da Volterra (attributed to), Portrait of Michelangelo, about 1544, New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Source: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/436771?rpp=30&pg=1&ao=on&ft=Jacopino+del+Conte&pos=5

A final evocative and imaginative hypothesis deserves to be taken into consideration. On 21 January 1564 the Congregation of the Council of Trent decided to conceal the nudity of the Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel. In a discreet way and starting from the following year, Daniele da Volterra (who will be nicknamed the Braghettone – i.e. the breeches maker" – for this) took care of it. Michelangelo died on 18 February 1564. The Two Dialogues came out in 1564 (no one knows in which month). The title of the second dialogue left (apparently) few doubts: Gilio spoke of the errors and abuses of the painters and, in particular, of those of Michelangelo in the Last Judgment. Did Gilio (or somebody for him) print an instant-book (once again, the circumstance would explain the publication in Camerino, with the haste that would have been necessary in this case) using materials he had already drafted in previous years? In reality, it is unlikely it was the case. If it was an 'instant book', why to include it between the literary-courtesan dialogue and the discourse on Fabriano? Moreover, throughout the book there is no explicit reference to the decision of the Congregation of the Council and even less to the death of Michelangelo. Michelangelo, moreover, is explicitly defined by the author as the greatest painter of modernity, the only one able to approach and even equal the ancients. But about this apparent contradiction (Buonarroti, the greatest of all artists, but also the one that most of all erred), we will talk when we will discuss the contents of the Dialogue on the errors and abuses of painters.

End of Part One
Go to Part Two 

NOTES

[1] In particular, Gilio’s text is found in volume II: Paola Barocchi (edited by), Trattati d’arte del Cinquecento fra manierismo e contoriforma, Bari, Laterza, 1961. The volume is available on the Internet at:

https://archive.org/details/221Trattati2Si260

[2] In the counter-reformed area, what is still missing are probably only Carlo Borromeo’s Instructions (1577), which however refer only to architecture, and Lomazzo's Writings of art (assuming they can be considered counter-reformation texts, and taking into account that in any case they are untranslatable). For the rest, please see (in addition to Vasari’s editions): Mark W. Roskill, Dolce’s Aretino and Venetian Art Theory of the Cinquecento, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 2000; Raffaello Borghini’s “Il Riposo”, edited by Lloyd H. Ellis, Toronto, Toronto University Press, 2007; Gabriele Paleotti, Discourse on Sacred and Profane Images, Introduction by Paolo Prodi, translation by William McCuaig, 2012; Gregorio Comanini, The Figino, or On the Purpose of Painting, edited by Ann Doyle-Anderson e Giancarlo Maiorino, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 2001; Giovanni Battista Armenini, On the True Precepts of the Art of Painting, edited by Edward J. Olszewski, New York, Burt Franklin, 1977. And, in the seventeenth century, one should also take into account: Federico Borromeo, Sacred Painting, Museum, edited by Kenneth S. Rothwell Jr., Cambridge MA, Harvard University Press, 2010.

[3] Lucinda Byatt, Gilio's Text and the English Translation in G.A. Gilio, Dialogue on the Errors ..., pp. 65-78.

[4] For some biographical indications see the related entry edited by Michele Di Monte on the Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, vol. 54 (2000).

[5] The circumstance is indicated by Mr Di Monte in the article mentioned above in footnote [4]. The sonnet was printed on the occasion of the Sabolucci-Fornari wedding.

[6] Camerino was an ancient university. Therefore, one should not be surprised by the presence of a typography.

[7] The only facsimile reprint of the entire work was published by Paola Barocchi in 1986 for the S.P.E.S. (the acronym means Studio per Edizioni Scelte - Study for Selected Editions). The Dialogue of the courtly scholar had a modern edition, edited by Paolo Cherchi and with a linguistic note by Francesco Bruni (Ravenna, Longo editore, 2002). As this edition has remained, in fact, not well known, I am reproducing below the text of the back cover of the book: "Giovanni Andrea Gilio da Fabriano’s Dialogue of the courtly scholar belongs to the kind of treatises on the courtier that flourished in the sixteenth century, and took an original place among them. Written around 1564, it did not belong to the kind of the treatises that either idealize or despise the courtier, but inaugurated a new avenue that saw in the courtier a professional, a writer who "serves" at the court of princes and cardinals. For this new type of courtier, Gilio wrote a vademecum, illustrating the most appropriate knowledge and behaviour: he needs to be an expert, without pedantry, of the liberal arts, and to behave realizing those minor virtues (discretion, spirit, prudence, and similar) that would become typical of seventeenth-century courtiers. Among the qualities of the courtier there must also be his linguistic competence, and for this reason the dialogue deals with linguistic problems with amplitude and competence, entering into the full discussion of the time. The Dialogue is a linguistic document whose importance is highlighted by Francesco Bruni.”

[8] Michael Bury, Gilio on Painters of Sacred Images in G.A. Gilio, Dialogue on the Errors ..., pp. 5-44, precisely p. 6.

[9] Giovanni Andrea Gilio, Due dialogi, curated by Paola Barocchi ... cit.

[10] Lucinda Byatt, Gilio's Text and the English Translation in G.A. Gilio, Dialogue on the Errors ..., pp. 67-68.

[11] See G.A. Gilio, Dialogue on the Errors ... cit., pp. 79-81.

[12] In his philological note to the treatise, Ms Barocchi pointed out that "the princeps was the fruit of a modest typographic art and was not supported, like it would have been the case in Venice and Florence, by grammar experts; so much so that the other works of Gilio [...], all printed, as we can see, in Venice, present more correctness and graphic coherence". See Paola Barocchi (edited by), Trattati d’arte del Cinquecento vol. II.,,, Quoted, pp. 545-546.