Room
III - Gallery of the Cardinal
“The room
was built as part of the extension work of the building at the time of the
Riario family, between 1590 and 1594, under the direction of the architect
Giacomo Della Porta. At the time of the Corsini family it was rearranged by the
architect Ferdinando Fuga and it became the representative room in the
apartment of Cardinal Neri Maria, destined to the “Gallery of paintings” itself
and to be the passage that guests had to walk to go to the Audience Hall (Room
IV) “(Official Website the Corsini Gallery - galleriacorsini.beniculturali.it)
Lovely
small bronze group “Small fauns on a goat with parrot” by the Florentine Gaspare Bruschi (1710/80)
“Lanfranco
(...) on the 23rd of August 1613 rented for a year, along with Antonio
Carracci, a house in Via Paolina. (...) Dating to this period (1612/14),
immediately after his return in Rome, is the altarpiece of the Salvation of the
Soul for a chapel in S. Lorenzo in Piacenza (now Naples, Capodimonte), the only
work in which it's possible to notice a slight temporary approach to the
luminous and colorful effects of Bartolomeo Schedoni, but in which are also
visible elements of Caravaggio's style. These are even stronger in S. Agatha
visited and healed by St. Peter, a 'picture for a room' painted for Pier Maria
Dalla Rosa” (Erich Schleier - Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani Treccani)
“In these
small paintings nature unfolds with quiet solemnity, surrounded by a satisfied
calm where the characters are perfectly at ease and don't recite the usual role
of contour, but are naturally taking part of delightful scenes of everyday
life. (...) The landscapes by Anesi, mostly of small size, always communicate
this wonderful sense of balance, this solar and absolute contemplation”
(Sivigliano Alloisi)
“Landscape
with animals (the ford)” maybe by the German Abraham
Begeyn (about 1636/97)
“It is
unlikely to identify the author in Nicholaes Berchem, one of the most famous
Italianate Dutch painters, despite some compositional elements, such as the
peasant girl on the donkey and the theme of travel, are typical of his. Missing
in the painting is Berchern's already almost rococo elegance and fluency. (...)
The painting, however, is appreciated for a sense of humble truth and
participation, for a vision not at all idealized, but real and concrete of a
countryside, certainly Roman, desolate and haunted by malaria of which the two
peasants show on the faces the terrible signs. Therefore I propose to assign
the work to Begeyn a painter who, as well as having imitated Berchem, seems to
have been in Italy” (Sivigliano Alloisi)
“Carlo
Maratta, after the death in 1669 of Pietro da Cortona, became the leading
exponent of Roman painting. (...) He left a legacy to the artists of classical
training a solid repertoire of formulas and models that would remain valid
again for another fifty years” (Maria Antonietta De Angelis)
“Holy
Family” 1516 by Bartolomeo di Paolo del Fattorino aka Fra' Bartolomeo (1472/1517)
“A rich
mythological conception of learned inventions, never sterile, however, because
activated with very sharp transitions of truth, with an ease and a spirit
intimately 'Bolognese'. (...) There is in Albani’s works a sense of novelty and
poetic sense (...) for his personal humanistic transformation of the concept of
classics, impossible to be recreated exactly, but interpreted by Albani with a life of its own, if dropped in a
erotic and bourgeois environment” (Antonio Boschetto - Dizionario Enciclopedico
degli Italiani Treccani)
“Vanity” by Angelo Caroselli (1585/1652)
“The image
was supposed therefore to move emotionally the observer and, in order to
achieve this, paintings had to be painted by those who had faith and subjects
had to be represented in an illusive way. Dolci expressed in his paintings his
personal religiosity but also the religious ideals of the time (...). Dolci
assumed this position with precise religious conscience. He gradually honed and
extolled his means of expression, relinquishing any dispersion and focusing
more and more the image, often reduced to a half figure even without movement. With
this painter of great stylistic coherence the expressive evolution happened
thus in the sense of increasingly limiting self-imposed constraints to reach with
the extreme concentration of an illusively striking image a more compelling
call to prayer” (Maria Barbara Guerrieri Borsoi - Dizionario Biografico degli
Italiani)
“Battle” by Jacques Courtois aka
Borgognone (1628/79)
“In the
works of Gentileschi it is possible to see a free and original interpretation
of the poetry and coloring of Caravaggio. The Tuscan quality, the simple
compositional structures and his clear draughtsmanship and craftsmanship always
characterized his production. His profound sense of color led Caravaggio's
luminosity to optical effects clearest and lightest such as to enhance in
particular the silky brocade and the softness of soft clothes” (Carlo Bertelli,
Giuliano Briganti, Antonio Giuliano)
“Madonna of the Straw” about 1625 by the great Flemish Antoon Van Dyck (1599/1641). It was painted during the
period in which he lived in Italy
“The
painting alludes to Christ's death in the veil of sadness that appears on the
face of the Madonna and in the symbols that surround the characters” (Official
Website of the Galleria Corsini - galleriacorsini.beniculturali.it)
The subject
was taken from the Orlando Furioso by Ludovico Ariosto
“A rare
subject known in Rome for a large painting by Giovanni Lanfranco in the
Galleria Borghese which should probably be considered as a precedent for this
painting. (...) Are evident, compared with a good graphics capability, the
limits of the coloristic research especially in the figures in the foreground
made almost monochrome with a few shots of pink to raise the incarnate,
probably in an attempt to submit to Domenichino's poetic of 'suffering' with
Norandino and Lucina white as marble with fear” (Sivigliano Alloisi)
“Andromeda” by the Florentine Francesco
Furini (1603/46) a specialist in painting
female pale and smooth bodies
“All the
critics have stressed the importance of the stimulus exerted by the pictorial
environment of the Venetian lagoon on the development (...) of the style of
Furini, without detracting from the influence of other models, starting with
Andrea del Sarto and ending with Correggio and Leonardo, whose technique of
sfumato impressed Furini very much. He, incidentally, had a copy of the
Treatise on Painting by Leonardo, with illustrative drawings done by Furini
himself (...). The fourth decade represents the consecration of Furini in
Florentine, especially among the noble families” (Roberto Cannatà - Dizionario
Biografico degli Italiani Treccani)
“The vital
element of his style is to propose, with clear pictorial view, the fundamental
problem chiaroscuro, which, in the footsteps of Caravaggio, by G.B. Caracciolo
(the Battistello), on the one hand, and the best Guercino and Lanfranco, from
'another, always represented the reason for his art. Its luminosity is realized
(even through complex intentions of composition) more and more decidedly in the
paintings collected, where the constraint of space seems to intensify in the
imagination of the artist, at the same time, the value chiaroscuro and dramatic
feeling” (Enciclopedia Treccani)
“Christ Carrying the Cross” by Giorgio Vasari (1511/74)
