COLONNA PALACE - COLONNA GALLERY (sixth part)

Room of Landscapes

Vault “Allegory of the Battle” by Sebastiano Ricci (1659/1734)

“Ricci is the typical extrovert virtuoso of the eighteenth century and as such his splendor could look a bit superficial. Roberto Longhi spoke of his paintings that have the flavor of a skilled reportage of all the Europeans themes. But it took the easy and versatile talent of Ricci to bring Venetian art back to a new understanding of the great past and towards the synthesis accomplished by the heroic style of Tiepolo” (Rudolf Wittkower)

Two magnificent chests of sandalwood and precious stones: one in ebony and ivory with the image of the Last Judgement by Michelangelo, another maybe by Carlo Fontana (1634/1714)

“Landscapes” by Gaspard Dughet (1615/75), Crescenzio Onofri (1632/1712) and Jacob de Heusch (1657/1701)

“Antigone near the bodies of Eteocles and Polynices” maybe by Paul Brill (1554/1626)

“The deer hunting” and “Battlefield” by Jacques Courtois aka Borgognone (1628/79)

“Preaching of St. John the Baptist” by Michelangelo Cerquozzi (1602/60)

Room of the Apotheosis of Martin V

In the center of the ceiling painting “Apotheosis of Martin V Colonna (1417/31)” 1720 by Benedetto Luti (1666/1724)

“Among the students of Maratta only the distinguished Benedetto Luti from Florence, character of international renown, also known as a collector and teacher, completed the transformation of Maratta's style in an eighteenth-century style elegant and sweet” (Rudolf Wittkower)

In the ceiling near the walls: “Merit crowned by Virtue” by Pietro Bianchi aka il Creatura (1694/1740) Roman student of Luti and Baciccio

In the ceiling near the walls: splendid “Time discovers the truth” and in the corners “Allegories” by Pompeo Batoni (1708/87) among which there is an incredibly explicit and passionate sapphic kiss between Peace and War

“In the work of Batoni, in his thematic ideas, he reconstructed his love for the operatic melodrama of which he had to be an assiduous listener (...), and as a painter of mythological themes he had a preference for scenes that would lend themselves more to express a pathetic aspect (...). As in opera, where they often are not overly moved if not in words, so in Batoni’s painting, the characters express themselves psychologically in a gesture, in a tear, but the painting remains serene and full of life because of its colors: it becomes a show, a wise and skillful game content in the oblivion of all evil or simply of all the unpleasant” (Isa Belli Barsali – Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani Treccani)

“Madonna and Child asleep, St. John and St. Elizabeth” by Agnolo di Cosimo Tori aka Bronzino (1503/72)

“Under the influence of Michelangelo, Bronzino also carried out a total change of style, which manifested itself most clearly in the extraordinarily exalted corporeality of the naked figures, in the strong emphasis on the muscles modeled as if they were sculpture. To this he added a chromatic style, cold and hard, which increased even more the plastic impression” (Hermann Voss)

“Portrait of Onofrio Panvinio” by Jacopo Robusti aka Tintoretto (1518/94)

“Mangiafagioli (Beans Eater)” about 1584/85 by Annibale Carracci (1560/1609)

“Being able to work simultaneously on two levels, Agostino and Annibale Carracci reveal a dichotomy that from then on became more and more marked in the work of great artists and culminated in the dual activities or double aspirations of Hogarth or Goya. It is not surprising that this mentality would define the Carraccis as the ancestors of the modern caricature” (Rudolf Wittkower)

“St. Charles Borromeo” by Giovanni Lanfranco (1582/1647)

“Rape of Europa” by Francesco Albani (1578/1660)

The color combinations are intoxicating and bring out the irresistible sensuality of the icy and curvy legs in Europe, constituting, with her breasts exposed, the element in the painting that glows more than any other with bright light

Two “Portraits of men” by Domenico Robusti aka Tintoretto (1560/1635)

“Portrait of a Gentleman” by Paolo Caliari aka Veronese (1528/88)

“Madonna with Child, Two Angels and St. John” maybe by Andrea d'Agnolo aka Andrea del Sarto (1486/1531)

“The Holy Family with St. Sebastian, St. Jerome and Mary Magdalene” by Paris Bordon (1500/71)

“Guardian Angel”, “The Virgin of the Annunciation” and “The Archangel Gabriel” by Giovanni Francesco Barbieri aka Guercino (1591/1666)

“Ecce homo” by Francesco da Ponte aka Bassano the Younger (1549/92)

“Resurrection of Lazarus” and “Portrait of a Gentleman with cameo” Francesco de' Rossi aka Francesco Salviati (1510/63)

“St. Jerome Penitent” by Giovanni di Pietro aka Spagna (about 1450/1528) a pupil of Perugino to whom he owed a lot for his style

“Bust of Cardinal Girolamo I Colonna” 1651 by Orfeo Boselli (about 1600/67)

The Cardinal was the one who wanted to begin the art collection of the family

“Virgin Mary gives the scapular to St. Simon Stock” by Ippolito Scarsella aka Scarsellino (1551/1620)

SIXTUS V SMALL PALACE

PALAZZETTO DI SISTO V

Via di Parione 7

Built at the end of 1500s for the wedding of the nephew of Sixtus V Peretti (1585/90) Flavia Peretti with Virginio Orsini

Now is the seat of the Pio Sodalizio dei Piceni (Pius Sodality of the Piceni) derived by the Association of Residents in Rome from Marche Region

The association was founded in early 1600s and, in 1633, it became the Brotherhood of the Holy House of Loreto

The LIBRARY contains about 14,000 books

Courtyard and roof terrace with frescoes by Paul Brill (1554/1626)

INSIDE LOGGIA

“Stories of Hercules and nudes” Giuseppe Cesari aka Cavalier d'Arpino (1568/1640) and Federico Zuccari (about 1542/1609)

ROOMS

Oil paintings on canvas such as:

“Our Lady of Mercy” by Federico Fiori aka Barocci (1535/1612)

“Virgin Mary with Child blessing aka S. Maria delle Grazie” 1494 by Antonio Aquili aka Antoniazzo Romano (about 1435-40/1508)

It was originally a processional standard and it was the only painting not to have been destroyed by the fire of 1591 in the church of S. Salvatore in Lauro

“The stylistic and compositional features, including the structure of the throne in a niche or the iconography of the sacred group, correspond to the subjects of Marian paintings of the nineties definitely attributed to Antoniazzo (...) here solved in a version with a more pronounced Umbrian character, derived from Pinturicchio. His original function as a standard makes it a typical product of the mature phase of the painter, when the demands intensified in his workshop for equipment and items to be carried in processions on the occasion of the annual festivals of the brotherhoods” (Anna Cavallaro)

“Cardinal Domenico Consolini” by Francesco Podesti (1800/95

“Christ Redeemer” attributed to Melozzo of Ambrosi aka Melozzo da Forlì (1438/94)

VATICAN MUSEUMS - ROOMS NEAR THE SISTINE CHAPEL (second part)

Sala Clementina
 Clementine Room

Frescoes on the vault and on the walls by the brothers Giovanni Alberti (1558/1601) and Cherubino Alberti (1553/1615) for Clement VIII Aldobrandini (1592/1605) with a decorative model of “perspective quadrature”

Here it is introduced for the first time in Rome the optical effect of the “broken” ceiling that will have a huge success in the incipient Baroque period

On the smaller walls “Stories of St. Clement” with a coastal landscape by Paul Brill (1554/1626)

“No one had hitherto ever seen in Rome or in any other place an illusionistic painting so big and so full of decorative invention. Indeed the Sala Clementina still represents the first example of exclusively illusionistic decoration of a large room, a conception that was later further developed by the Baroque style” (Hermann Voss)

The room is used for private audiences of the pope and here the body of John Paul II was exposed before the funeral

 

 

Sala Ducale  

Ducal Room

Two adjoining rooms that Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598/1680) joined together with a wonderful invention of putti holding a curtain open between the two rooms, executed by Ercole Antonio Raggi (1624/86)

Vault

“Grotesque decorations” by G.P. Venale and “Landscapes with Four Seasons” maybe by Matteo Neroni aka Matteo da Siena (active 1567/92) or by Marco dal Pino aka Marco da Siena (c. 1525/87)

“The strength of Matteo da Siena was in the genre of landscape fresco in which the landscape is placed playfully in the invention of an overall decorative larger set, thus assuming a role, but of secondary importance. His landscapes, therefore, express something characteristic in a few strokes, they had, in short, a narrative function. The landscapes of the Four Seasons have met with much approval thanks mainly for this feature. Without giving up completely to the traditional marginal accumulation of details in landscapes, they are still enjoyable thanks to a certain simplicity and to the unitary nature of the setting” (Hermann Voss)

Walls

“Landscapes” by Paul Brill (1554/1626) and “Grotesque decorations” of the period of Benedict XV (1914/22) who had also the terra cotta floor substituted with a marble one

 

Cappella Paolina

Pauline Chapel

1537/40 Antonio Cordini aka Antonio da Sangallo the Younger (1483/1546) for Paul III Farnese (1534/49)

It was formerly used for conclaves, now it is used for weddings

On the side walls:

“Conversion of St. Paul”

“Compared to previous representations of the same subject, Michelangelo introduces an important novelty: we don't see just angels around Christ, but obviously also groups of men and women identified as an army of chosen ones who had already crowned the Christ of the Last Judgment. Around 1540 St. Paul was at the center of the debate between reformers and conservatives. To authorize the Lutheran interpretation of salvation were his own writings, which were undergoing continuous and painstaking exegesis. Representing around 1543 in the very heart of the apostolic see, in full theological battle, those who are sanctified by 'faith that is toward me' as the vernacular translation of the Acts of the Apostles of his friend Antonio Brucioli recited, was an iconographical novelty and a clear stance in the debate on salvation, which was occupying him at that time with his friends of the school of Reginald Pole, convinced, as the Lutherans, that salvation was assured by a living faith and not by the exercise of works” (Antonio Forcellino)

“Crucifixion of St. Peter” 1542/1550, the last paintings by Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475/1564)

“The beauty, strength and harmony of St. Peter's muscles set in motion a theatrical machine that in gestures and facial expressions tell the feeling without giving anything to the decorum, the establishment, the hierarchical character recognition; especially without giving in anything to the story as fact confined to specific age. Michelangelo comes to a spiritual representation placed in an eternity which coincides with the perennial nature of faith. We are, remember, in the chapel that Paul III wanted to be destined for the conclave. Peter's gaze was therefore turned to the cardinals who elected the pope and it was the first thing the newly elected pope would have seen immediately after his election. Then Peter would remind that pope of his Church, made not of armed and powerful people but of people touched by devout faith” (Antonio Forcellino)

Other frescoes on the walls:

“Healing of St. Paul in the house of Ananias”, “Fall of Simon Magus” and “Stoning of St. Stephen” 1573/77 by Lorenzo Sabatini (about 1530/76)

“Baptism of the centurion” 1580/85 by Federico Zuccari (about 1542/1609) who also did the fifteen “Stories of Sts. Peter and Paul” and “Allegorical Nudes” on the vault