Nikola Benin
Pitti Palace, Galleria Palatina, Florence
HISTORY of the work and its owners
This lovely golden gem once adorned the rooms of Cardinal Ferdinando de Medici in Rome. Cardinal Ferdinando later became Grand Duke Ferdinando of Tuscany after the death of his older brother, Francesco, in 1587. The two brothers were the sons of Cosimo I de Medici and Eleanora of Toledo.
The painting was transferred in 1706, at the behest of Grand Prince Ferdinando de Medici of Tuscany (9 August 1663 – 31 October 1713), to the Pitti Palace, where it has been ever since.
DESCRIPTION of the work
Our eyes are immediately captured by the movement and bright coloration of this lively work. Seeming to emulate the maenads of the millennia-ago Pompeiian frescoes, Peruzzi's dancing muses are a swirl of delicious hues and fancy footwork.
The subjects are Apollo tripping the light fantastic with the nine muses identified by the Uffizi in their description thusly:
"Apollo, although depicted with the quiver instead of the lyre, guides the nine Muses, who dance with him. Each is related to a particular artistic-intellectual activity, or 'art' in the Greek sense.
From left to right we recognize Calliope (epic poetry), Clio (history), Erato (choral lyric), Melpomene (tragedy), Terpsichore (dance), Polimnia (pantomime), Euterpe (music: flute), Talia (comedy) and Urania (astronomy).
Nine protectors of all forms of thought: it is no coincidence that the word 'museum' derives from the Greek word Mouseion which means 'sacred place to the Muses'."
The wooden rectangular painting (height: 35 cm (13.7 in); width: 78 cm (30.7 in) was once the top of a spinet or harpsichord but later cut and framed as an independent artwork, just as we see it today.
I like to think, since the Grand Prince Ferdinando was especially known for his love and patronage of music, that it remained as part of an instrument until after his death and that he enjoyed playing it as much as looking at its painted beauty.
Prince Ferdinando was called "the Orpheus of princes" and during his reign in Florence he made the city an important musical center. In fact, "through his patronage of Bartolomeo Cristofori, Ferdinando made possible the invention of the piano." How right it was that he once owned a precursor to the piano with this pretty decorative lid. (2, 3)
Needless to say, this painting has been copied many times and myriad similar images can be found online.
THE ARTIST
Initially this work was attributed to Giuliano Romano but the attribution was updated in the last century to Baldassare Tommaso Peruzzi (7 March 1481 – 6 January 1536), a Sienese artist, who worked for many years in the Bramante/Raphael circle of architects/artists in Rome during the same period as Romano.
[As an added curiosity I have included a black and white photo of the painting from the 1920's which still has the attribution of Giuliano Romano on its frame. Note both the current image of the framed work (in color) and the old black and white photo have the same museum inventory number 167. (see the images in the comments below)]
While you may not readily recall the name of artist Baldassare Peruzzi, most likely you are familiar with his greatest architectural works, which include the façade of the Villa Farnesina (formerly the Villa Chigi) in Rome, as well as the stunning mannerist Palazzo Massimo alle Colonne (1535) with its magnificent curved façade, also in Rome. Peruzzi also contributed some of the interior frescoes at the Villa Farnesina alongside Raphael.
This latter work, the Palazzo Massimo, whose curved front was designed by Peruzzi to follow the shape of the ruined former Domitian-era Odeon that was its original foundation, was built after the former Massimo family palaces were burned during the sack of Rome in 1527.
(See comments below for images of these two architectural works)
When Raphael died in 1520 Peruzzi was appointed the new head architect of St. Peter's where he had labored for years previously beside the two former head architects, Bramante and Raphael.
"At Raphael's death, Peruzzi, appointed chief of works, found that the piers of Bramante needed great strengthening, having almost collapsed under their own weight; anxious, too, to restrict the scope of the work, and desiring to let the dome be seen from all points of view, he reverted to the Greek cross plan. The plan he adopted was really a skillful combination of the good points of the plans made by Bramante and Raphael. It seems a plausible theory that Raphael's eastern termination and Peruzzi's plan were based upon a study (perhaps by Bramante) of the ancient Church of San Lorenzo at Milan.
Peruzzi's annotator explains that St. Peter's Basilica was to have four doors, the high altar to occupy the middle. At the corners were to be four sacristies, upon which clock towers might be reared. Had this plan been implemented, there can be little doubt that it would have been not only the most magnificent temple the world had seen, but one of the purest in taste." (4)
Vasari remembers an important chapter in the life of the artist/architect this way:
"Then in the year 1527, when the cruel sack of Rome took place, our poor Baldassare was taken prisoner by the Spaniards, and not only lost all his possessions, but was also much maltreated and outraged, because he was grave, noble, and gracious of aspect, and they believed him to be some great prelate in disguise, or some other man able to pay a fat ransom. Finally, however, these impious barbarians having found that he was a painter, one of them, who had borne a great affection to Bourbon, caused him to make a portrait of that most rascally captain, the enemy of God and man, either letting Baldassare see him as he lay dead, or giving him his likeness in some other way, with drawings or words. After this, having slipped from their hands, Baldassare took ship to go to Porto Ercole, and thence to Siena; but on the way he was robbed of everything and stripped to such purpose, that he went to Siena in his shirt. However, he was received with honour and reclothed by his friends, and a little time afterwards he was given a provision and a salary by the Commonwealth, to the end that he might give his attention to the fortification of that city. Living there, he had two children; and, besides what he did for the public service, he made many designs of houses for his fellow citizens, and the design for the ornament of the organ, which is very beautiful, in the Church of the Carmine." (6)
Peruzzi returned to Rome before 1535 and was buried at his death in 1536 in the Pantheon in Rome, near his fellow artist Raphael. (See the comments below for his Pantheon burial bust and epitaph)
SOURCES
First and foremost a large thank you goes to the Uffizi Facebook page which featured this painting today.
2. Britannica https://www.britannica.com/biography/Baldassarre-Peruzzi
3. Wikipedia Peruzzi, Ferdinando de Medici, Palazzo Massimo alle Colonne
4. Renaissance Spell http://www.renaissance-spell.com/Saint-Peter-Basilica.html
5. Rome in the Footsteps of an XVIIIth Century Traveller
6. Vasari quote on Peruzzi
Giorgio Vasari, from the life of Baldassare Peruzzi in The Lives of the Painters, Sculptors and Architects (1568), translated by Gaston du C. de Vere (1912)
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