St. ONUPHRIUS

S. ONOFRIO AL GIANICOLO

Piazza di S. Onofrio 2

1439 on the site of the 1419 oratory of the Blessed Nicola da Forca Palena

Completed in the sixteenth century

Restored in 1949

St. Onuphrius was a martyr of the fourth century, patron saint of weavers

UNDER THE OUTSIDE PORCH

Three lunettes with stories of St. Jerome: “Baptism”, “Vision” and “Temptation” 1605 by Domenico Zampieri aka Domenichino (1581/1641) for Cardinal Girolamo Agucchi

This work was the personal Roman debut of Domenichino, after having worked with Annibale Carracci in the Farnese Palace

On the right - CHAPEL OF OUR LADY OF THE ROSARY

Above the door - Lunette with “Two Sibyls” by Agostino Tassi (1578/1644)

OUTER LUNETTE ABOVE THE PORTAL OF THE CHURCH

“Madonna and Child” 1600 by Claudio Ridolfi

1^st RIGHT - CHAPEL OF St. ONUPHRIUS

Two spandrels with “Annunciation” by Antonio Aquili aka Antoniazzo Romano (about 1435-40/1508)

Round panel “Eternal Father” maybe by Baldassare Peruzzi (1481/1536)

2^nd RIGHT - CHAPEL OF OUR LADY OF LORETO

Stucco and frescoes by G.B. Ricci (about 1550/1624)

Above the altar “Madonna of Loreto” 1604/05 by Annibale Carracci (1560/1609) and his workshop, consisting at the time of Domenichino, Sisto Badalocchio (1585/1645), Francesco Albani (1578/1660) and Giovanni Lanfranco (1582/1647)

“The charming painting mixes the depiction of the miraculous transportation of the house of the Virgin Mary from Nazareth to Loreto, to the well-known theme of the intercession of prayer for the souls in purgatory, on which, to extinguish the ardor of the flames within which they are immersed, the Child is pouring water from a jar” (Daniele Benati)

TO THE RIGHT OF THE MAIN ALTAR

“Funerary Monument of Giovanni Sacco” of the school of Andrea Bregno (1418/1503) and, in the lunette, fresco “St. Anne teaching reading to Mary” by unknown artist of Umbrian or Roman school

APSE

Frescoes “Stories of Mary” 1503/06 maybe first work in Rome by Baldassare Peruzzi (1481/1536), according to Giorgio Vasari

3^rd CHAPEL ON THE LEFT

“Funerary Monument of Cardinal Filippo Sega” with portrait of Domenico Zampieri aka Domenichino (1581/1641)

2^nd LEFT - CHAPEL OF THE HOLY TRINITY

In the vault “Trinity” by Francesco Trevisani (1656/1746)

1^st CHAPEL ON THE LEFT

“Funerary Monument of Torquato Tasso (1544/95)” 1857 by Giuseppe De Fabris (1790/1860)

The great poet from Sorrento renewed the genre of the epic poem with his Gerusalemme Liberata (Jerusalem Delivered) completed in 1575

“I went to visit Tasso's tomb of and I cried. This was the first and the only pleasure I have felt in Rome” (Giacomo Leopardi)

Votive lamp design by Duilio Cambellotti (1876/1960)

SACRISTY

Fresco in the vault about 1723 by Girolamo Pesci (1679/1759)

On the right “Blessed Peter of Pisa” by Francesco Trevisani (1656/1746)

CLOISTER

Fifteenth century lunettes with “Stories of St. Onuphrius” painted in the seventeenth century by Claudio Ridolfi, Giuseppe Cesari aka Cavalier d'Arpino (1568/1640) and Vespasiano Strada (1582/1622)

UPSTAIRS

In a corridor wall “Madonna of the donor” by Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio (1466-67/1516), mistakenly believed by Leonardo da Vinci

Museo Tassiano

Torquato Tasso Museum

Housed in the two rooms where the great poet Torquato Tasso (1544/95) lived the last period of his life and where he died on April 25, 1595 

“Jerusalem Delivered is a revised version of a historical event in which the author inserted different themes to present a vision of a world full of conflicts and contradictions, in which are fighting on the one hand the angelic powers and the Christian sense of the marvelous, on the other hand the powers of hell and other diabolical magic. (...) Tasso suffered ostracism from the Accademia della Crusca (...) and was not liked by Galileo Galilei, who in his 'Considerazioni al Tasso' (Thoughts about Tasso) even defined the poem a 'junk of crammed words'. However, since the eighteenth century Tasso was unquestionably included in the canon of the greatest Italian poets together with Dante, Petrarch and Ariosto. Throughout the history of Italian poetic language he was a crucial pivot point: the gatherer of the manifold experiences of rhetorical and stylistic renaissance as well as the forerunner of modern developments (...). For Giacomo Leopardi he was an example and an essential reservoir of peculiar and daring language and style, and in episodes of mannerism of twentieth-century poetry is not uncommon to detect the presence Tasso, for example in Ungaretti” (Enciclopedia Treccani)

Among the objects exhibited:

FIRST ROOM

Mask taken from his corpse, the urn that kept his ashes for many years, a metal crucifix given to him by the Pope and bequeathed by him to the monks, four chairs, a wooden casket adorned with twelve statues of saints, an inkwell made of wood, one small oval mirror, the yellow band with which he girded

SECOND ROOM

Various manuscripts and old editions of the Jerusalem Delivered and of other works of his

St. CATHERINE OF THE ROPE MAKERS

S. CATERINA DEI FUNARI

Via dei Funari

1560/64 Guidetto Guidetti (about 1498/1564) for Cardinal Federico Cesi patron of the Society of the Miserable and Precarious Virgins

It replaced the former S. Catharina Domne Rosae of the twelfth century, which, in turn, had replaced a three-aisled basilica, S. Maria de Donna Rosa in Castro Aureo

Dedicated to S. Catherine of Alexandria martyr of the fourth century, decapitated after resisting to starvation and the crushing with a toothed wheel

The current name comes from the ropes makers who used to work nearby

From 1543 up to 1611 every 25 November, on the day of St. Catherine, from the adjacent monastery, a procession of miserable and precarious virgins used to begin. They were daughters of courtesans or prostitutes put on display so they could marry with a large dowry

On Sunday a Mass for the Indians speaking Kerala is celebrated

“The undisputed quality of design of Guidetto Guidetti, a yet little-known figure, were chiefly directed to the exterior of his architectural achievements. They are emblematically expressed in this unique façade, where the study of the architectural mass and the accurate ornamentation of the outside contrasts vividly with the interior of the church. In fact, internally the church, despite being characterized by six chapels decorated with frescoes, is presented as a simple and bare room covered by a vault without color effects, communicating a certain severity as a whole to the discerning visitor” (Stefania Quattrone)

COUNTER FAÇADE

“St. Catherine before the Empress” by Federico Zuccari (about 1542/1609)

1^st RIGHT - BOMBASI CHAPEL

“St. Margaret” 1599 by Annibale Carracci (1560/1609) for Gabriele Bombasi, autographed replica, with some variations, of the St. Catherine of 1592 for the altarpiece of the Cathedral of Reggio Emilia now in the Louvre

“The strong chiaroscuro that stains the face of the saint, the bright colors of the clothing, the material almost Titianesque of the colors with which are described the landscape and the dragon on the ground, combined with the reprise, in the cyma, of the Correggio fragment detached from the apse of Parma's Cathedral, place this work in a moment of intense relationship with the Lombard-Venetian culture” (Silvia Ginzburg)

“He enlarged the form of pictorial language beyond the strictly devotional limits and reviving the old values of the great Italian tradition. The drawing from life, considered as an essential method of work, the sensitivity to organic form and plastic structure connect in fact Annibale back to the great legacy of mature Renaissance” (Carlo Bertelli, Giuliano Briganti, Antonio Giuliano)

As witnessed by Bellori, Caravaggio stopped to look at this painting for a long time and then said: “I am glad that in my time I see a painter”

In the cyma “Coronation of Mary” designed by Annibale Carracci but executed by one of his pupils, maybe by Innocenzo Tacconi (active in Rome 1607/25)

2^nd RIGHT - RUIZ CHAPEL

Jacopo Barozzi aka Vignola (1507/73) for the abbot Spanish Philip Ruiz

Above the altar “Deposition” by Girolamo Muziano (1532/92) who also painted the frescoes on the sides and on the vault with “Scenes from the Life of Christ”, “Prophets” and “Saints”

On the pillars on the right “St. Mark” and “Christ carrying the cross”, on the left “St. Luke” and “Ecce homo” 1571 by Federico Zuccari (about 1542/1609), painted on blackboard

3rd RIGHT - SOLONE CHAPEL

Ottaviano Nonni aka Ottaviano Mascherino (1524/1606)

“The client is identified in the family Solone, named as Soiano in the documents, but that does not appear as the name of any known Roman family. The most reliable interpretation results, probably and simply, from the expression itself by Mascarino '(...) of Solon' (of the big sun), i.e. of the family whose coat of arms is represented by a large beaming sun: the Della Vetera family” (Website of the Conservatorio S. Caterina della Rosa - www.ipabsantacaterina.it)

On the altar “Assumption” 1598, unfinished masterpiece by Scipione Pulzone (about 1550/98)

Frescoes on the vault and under the arch “Life of the Virgin”, “Marian Symbols” and “Prophets” by Giovanni Zanna aka Pizzica who maybe also painted on the side walls on the right “St. Catherine of Alexandria” and on the left “St. Lucia”

MAIN CHAPEL

Guidetto Guidetti (about 1498/1564) with changes made in the eighteenth-century

Altar piece “Glory of St. Catherine” by the Sienese Giovanni Sorbi (1695/about 1764)

On the sides “St. Augustine” and “St. Monica” by the Neapolitan Alessandro D'Elia, who also made the bezel “Elevation to the sky of St. Catherine”

Of the original decoration of the sixteenth century remains:

In the vault “Glory of St. Catherine” maybe by Livio Agresti (about 1508/79)

On the right “Martyrdom of St. Catherine” and on the left “Dispute of St. Catherine” 1573 by Federico Zuccari

Monochrome bands on the sides, on the right “Sts. Sisinius and Saturninus” and on the left “Putti” and “Sts. Romanus and Augustine” by Raffaellino Motta aka Raffaellino da Reggio (1550/78)

3^rd LEFT - TORRES CHAPEL

Above the altar “Stories of St. John the Baptist” 1573 by Marcello Venusti (about 1512/79) on slate

“That imperceptible distressing, unsatisfied and unstable feeling that always accompanies crisis caused by the decline of old ideals, pushes another student of Perin del Vaga, Marcello Venusti, to beat a street full of hijackings, looking for new encounters and new experiences (...). His St. John the Baptist is a work that revises themes of Sebastiano del Piombo and Raphael according to meanings of Florentine flavor almost similar to Andrea del Sarto” (Federico Zeri)

“He seemed to have found in the technique of oil painting on slate the best expression of his art. Painter influenced by Northern European painters, in Rome he was under the influence of Sebastiano del Piombo, and, especially, Michelangelo, great friend of his and the godfather of his son” (Website of the Conservatorio S. Caterina della Rosa - www.ipabsantacaterina.it)

SIDE ENTRY

Here there was originally a chancel

On the right wall “Funerary Roman Tombstone”

1^st LEFT - CANUTO CHAPEL

For the bishop Andrea Canuto whose tombstone is in front of the chapel

Above the altar “Annunciation” copy from original by Marcello Venusti

Basin and arch “Life of the Virgin Mary”, “Prophets”, “David” and “Moses” 1610 by Girolamo Nanni

SPADA PALACE - SPADA GALLERY (third part)

Room III

The room was known as GALLERY OF THE CARDINAL and was designed in the years 1636/37 by Paolo Marucelli (1594/1649)

Ceiling decorations “Four parts of the world, the four elements and the four seasons” 1698/99 by Michelangelo Ricciolini (1654/1715)

“Portrait of Youth” maybe by Annibale Carracci (1560/1609)

“Allegory of the Massacre of the Innocents” about 1639 and “Sacrifice of Iphigenia” 1640 by Pietro Testa (1612/50) Lucca engraver who committed suicide in the Tiber for disappointments in his painting career

“Astronomers” about 1645 and “Cain and Abel” by Niccolò Tornioli (1598/1651)

The Astronomers exalts the new astronomical discoveries and in particular the telescope of 1609 by Galileo Galilei

At the center of the picture is Nicolaus Copernicus showing the phases of the moon, to the left Ptolemy and Aristotle, and on the right the woman with the turban is Astronomy itself. Galileo Galilei (1564/1642) had recently died and this painting was a burning issue at the time

Some scholars saw a quote of the Narcissus attributed to Caravaggio in the man on the right looking into the telescope, as well as one of the reasons they would ascribe with certainty the Narcissus to Caravaggio

“The Vestal Virgins” about 1670 by Ciro Ferri (1634/89)

“Landscape” about 1555 by the visionary Niccolò dell'Abate (about 1510/71)

“There are two scenes socially opposite: the aristocratic wild boar hunting with knights and ladies in the foreground, and the popular procession with the greasy pole in the distance. The fantasy architecture that gives the entire composition a fairytale feel, refers to the Flemish landscapes and to those of Dosso Dossi” (Maria Lucrezia Vicini)

“Feast of Mark Anthony and Cleopatra” about 1701 by Francesco Trevisani (1656/1746) from Istria, with Cleopatra dissolving a pearl in wine to show her indifference to wealth

“In the episode, described with theatrical taste, are placed precious details that combine features of sixteenth-century Venetian tradition with those of Roman classicism” (Maria Lucrezia Vicini)

“Allegory of Music and Poetry” and “Allegory of Painting and Sculpture” by Sebastiano Conca (1680/1764)

“Summer and Autumn” and “Spring and Winter” by Luigi Garzi (1638/1721)

“The Abduction of Aeneas” copy of Giacinto Campana (1600/about 1650) from the original by Guido Reni now in the Louvre. Reni himself revised this copy

“The Death of Dido” about 1631 by Giovanni Francesco Barbieri aka Guercino (1591/1666) composed almost like a scene out of the newly born Italian musical theater, also known as opera, the most comprehensive art form that would eventually spread throughout the world

“The work is remarkable for the scenographic vision and the richness of the costumes is made with plastic and coloristic sense, characteristics of the artist's work, learned from experiences in Veneto, Bologna and Ferrara” (Maria Lucrezia Vicini)

Two paintings of the same subject “Boreas Abducting Orythia” one by Francesco Solimena (1657/1747) and one by Giovanni Francesco Romanelli (1610/62) from Viterbo, a pupil of Pietro da Cortona

“Bacchus” by Pier Francesco Mola (1612/66)

“Spring or Flora” about 1680 by Carlo Cignani (1628/1719)

“Looting of a village” by Peter Snayers (1592/1666)

Very realistic “Portrait of young man” by a follower of Annibale Carracci

“View of a beach by moonlight” by Egbert van der Poel (1621/64)

“Death of Cleopatra” 1706 and “Death of Marcantonio” 1702 by Domenico Maria Muratori (1661/1742) for Cardinal Fabrizio Spada

“Christ and the Samaritan” about 1677 and the sketch of “Triumph in the name of Jesus” for the vault of the Chiesa del Gesù (Church of Jesus) by G.B. Gaulli aka Baciccio (1639/1709)

“S. Lucia's shoulders” about 1632 by Francesco Furini (1603/46)

In this very original painting S. Lucia holds a plate with her eyes which had been removed by the torturers. An opportunity for the Florentine Francesco Furini to show off his specialty: painting beautiful bare backs of women

“He preferred the female figure and created a kind of refined painting genre whose subject, inspired by the poems of chivalry, the biblical tradition and mythology, were appreciated by scholarly collectors. Deeply stimulated by the trip to Venice and the painting by Pietro da Cortona (working in Florence in 1637), Furini became in his maturity a painter increasingly fluid and soft” (Carlo Bertelli, Giuliano Briganti, Antonio Giuliano)

“Portrait of Angela Mignanelli” about 1730 by Marco Benefial (1684/1764)

“The smug expression of the face, not rigid, but natural and of remarkable psychological intensity is enhanced by using soft and pasty brush strokes which give brightness to the eyes, sweet and mysterious at the same time. (...) The artist seems to overcome the ways of Roman portraiture of the seventeenth-eighteenth century and get closer to the French one, anticipating more casual formal solutions that will be in vogue especially in the second half of 1700s at the hands of Mengs, Goya, and Pier Leone Ghezzi” (Maria Lucrezia Vicini)

“Landscape with windmills” 1607 by Jan Brueghel the Elder (1568/1625)

At the center of the room two globes 1616/22 by the Dutch cartographer William Bleau

“Statue of a philosopher sitting” of the beginning of the first century AD

Room IV

“David with the Head of Goliath” about 1610 by Orazio Lomi aka Orazio Gentileschi (1563/1639) from Pisa

About 50 cm (20 inches) of the painting in the lower part have been lost, where the body of Goliath was

“The painting, in which the hand of Agostino Tassi has been identified in the landscape, reflects the classicist ideals of Carracci's style, and the realistic ones that enrich the scene into several parts, as one can see in the rendering of the coat. A terse light affects the body of David, enhancing the volumetric characteristics, in memory of the original Tuscan Mannerist training of the painter” (Maria Lucrezia Vicini)

“Christ and the adulteress” and “Christ tempted by the devil” by Mattia Preti (1613/99)

Christ and the adulteress is a work of extraordinary visual impact and powerful religious significance. The dizzying cleavage of the adulterous woman stuns and draws the eye inexorably as Christ indicates it and watches us expliciting in the act the message of salvation by grace that disregards human works

The message is clear: God's mercy can save us from the sins of the flesh, even from such white and unavoidably erotic flesh

Isn't this cleavage after all so dazzling illuminated by the same light that comes from the right and that shines on Christ's face and also on the beautiful gesture of forgiveness of His left hand?

“La Pietà” by Orazio Borgianni (1578/1616)

“Allegory of Astronomy” by G.B. Magni aka Modenino (about 1592/1674)

Five paintings of the so-called Bamboccio Pieter Van Laer (about 1595/1642)

“The value of detectable anti-rhetorical realism in his paintings reveals a fundamental part of the culture of the Dutch painter in addition to his mastery in the use of light and shadow. His painting and that of his many followers - the Bamboccianti such as Jan Miel, Michiels Sweerts - proposed the discovery of a papal city not monumental, of a Rome that invited reflection on social policies” (Carlo Bertelli, Giuliano Briganti, Antonio Giuliano)

Three paintings in the so-called bambocciante style including “Death of the donkey” and the historical view “Revolt of Masaniello” by Michelangelo Cerquozzi (1602/60)

“Accents more distinctly typical of everyday life than the ones of Pieter Van Laer are detectable in the lively folklore scenes of Cerquozzi, also a follower of Laer, even if he developed an independent style facing also sacred subjects of large format, battles and still lifes” (Carlo Bertelli, Giuliano Briganti, Antonio Giuliano)

“The Holy Family with St. John the Baptist” and “Herodias with the head of St. John the Baptist” by Jean Valentin aka Valentin de Boulogne (about 1591/1632)

“St. John the Evangelist” by the Frenchman Nicolas Tournier (1590/post 1657)

“Market” about 1650 by Willem Reuter (1642/1681), influenced by Michiel Sweerts

“Allegory of Vanity” by Andrea Podestà (about 1608/before 1674)

“Capture of Christ” by a follower of Gherardo delle Notti, maybe Trophime Bigot (about 1579/1649)

“S. Cecilia” and “Madonna nursing the Child” by Artemisia Gentileschi (1593/about 1652)

“Worthy disciple of her father Orazio and highly regarded since 1614 in the Florentine art scene, she lived for a long time in Naples, where the local painting environment represented by artists like Cavallino and Caracciolo was deeply influenced by the Caravaggio's knowledge of Artemisia. She inherited from her father the taste for precious fabrics and a preference for the rendering of golden and firm flesh through a naturalistic study of shadows and lights rousing stunningly beautiful effects” (Carlo Bertelli, Giuliano Briganti, Antonio Giuliano)

“Both works have been painted in her youth and are characterized by the delicate and refined drawing of colors, for the firmness and for the expressive intensity of the two female figures, the result of the artistic experiences of his father” (Maria Lucrezia Vicini)

Plaster cast “Divine love defeats profane love” about 1630 maybe a model of the bas-relief at the Galleria Doria Pamphilj by the Flemish artist François Duquesnoy (1597/1643)