VATICAN MUSEUMS - VATICAN PICTURES' GALLERY (fifth part)

ROOM XIII

Various aspects of Roman classicist painting in the first half of the seventeenth century

"David and Goliath", "David and the Lion" and "Vision of St. Francis" about 1641 by Pietro Berrettini aka Pietro da Cortona (1597/1669)

The two oils on canvas representing David are copies of frescoes now lost that Pietro da Cortona had painted during the second decade of the 1600s in the now destroyed Villa del Pigneto also called Villa Sacchetti. Other two are part of the collection of the Palazzo del Quirinale

"The stories of David, in the softness of soft and light colors show the most Arcadian side of Pietro da Cortona's classicism prevailing at the time, which influenced a whole circle of painters active in Rome in that period" (Maria Antonietta De Angelis)

"The vision of St. Francis is a very high example of the brilliant style of Pietro da Cortona. The wise gradation of light, which pulsates with gold in the mystic 'glory' in the background, fully illuminates the figure of the Child and turns itself off in the subdued brown robe of the Saint and on the ground, creating an effect of magical vision" (Maria Antonietta De Angelis)

"Victory of Gideon over the Midianites" 1624/25 by Nicolas Poussin (1594/1665). It is the only subject of all of his normally bright works to be set at night

"Judith and servant with Holofernes's head" 1611/12 by Orazio Lomi aka Orazio Gentileschi (1563/1639)

"It reaches a significant level of mingled fascination for the simultaneous presence of raw realism and elegance: the gruesome stains of clotted blood, splashed up into the arms of two women, have the pathos of superb realism. The light sharp and clear, that bleaches their faces, is derived from Caravaggio, while the sumptuous brocade, the complex jagged folds and the beautiful detail of the sword offer one of the vertices of Gentileschi's realism" (Maria Antonietta De Angelis)

"St. Francis Xavier" by Anthony Van Dyck (1599/1641)

"Apotheosis of Vincenzo I Gonzaga fourth Duke of Mantua" first half of 1600s by an artist from the workshop of Peter Paul Rubens (1577/1640)

"Vision of St. Bruno", "St. Jerome" and "St. Jerome in a Landscape" by Pier Francesco Mola (1612/66) and school

"St. Ignatius of Loyola" and "St. Francis Xavier" by the Flemish painters Gerard Seghers and Jan Wildsen. From the Chiesa del Gesù (Jesus Church), they had been probably used during the canonization ceremony of the two Jesuits in 1622

"Fortune restrained by Love" by an artist of the school of Guido Reni

"Adoration of the Magi" by the Flemish painter Vincent Malo (1600/44)

"St. Sebastian cured by Irene" by the French Trophime Bigot (about 1579/1649)

Trophime Bigot was a painter who lived in Rome from 1620 to 1634 but of whom very little is known. He is often confused for technical and stylistic similarities with two other painters, the so-called Master Jacomo and one of their students. He specialized in night scenes and figures portrayed half-length

"Village Fair" about 1620 by Giovanni Francesco Barbieri aka Guercino (1591/1666)

"One of the few realistic landscape compositions to which Guercino dedicated himself before entering the great circle of sacred production that gave him fame" (Maria Antonietta De Angelis)

"The Holy Family with St. John" by Giovanni Francesco Castiglione (1641/1710)

"Inside view of the Chiesa Nuova for the canonization of St. Philip Neri" 1622 maybe by Andrea Sacchi (1599/1661) interesting document that shows the Chiesa Nuova before the Baroque additions

ROOM XIV 

Diverse schools of painting in the second half of the seventeenth century

"Rinaldo's Farewell to Armida" about 1665 by Giovanni Bonati (about 1635/1681)

"Baptism of Christ" by Pierre-Louis Cretey

"Garland of flowers with Madonna and Child" by Daniel Seghers (1590/1661) and Erasmus Quellin II

"Garland of flowers with St. Ignatius" about 1624 by Daniel Seghers and Hendrik Van Balen

"Orpheus, Pluto and Proserpina" first half of the 1600s by an artist of the Dutch school

"Sacred furniture and musical instruments" and "Sacred furniture and damask draperies" by Francesco Fieravino aka Maltese, painter of whom very little is known but who is definitely known to have been active in Rome between 1650 and 1680

"Portrait of an actor" about 1630/40 by Pietro Paolini (1603/81) from Lucca, with a gesture of the hand of the character portrayed, almost as an invitation to enter the theatrical fiction

"Madonna with Child" about 1650 by G.B. Salvi aka Sassoferrato (1609/85)

"The Salvi, born in Sassoferrato, is an artist who turns on the one hand on examining his contemporary painters (Reni and Domenichino) and on the other hand his work as a copyist of the great Renaissance painters (Perugino, Raphael, Titian) leads him to develop a style of archaic purism and a technique with bright colors, such as enamel. More typical qualities of Sassoferrato are the love for accuracy of details and a solid sculptural processing of forms" (Maria Antonietta De Angelis)

"Fruit and Flowers" by Franz Werner von Tamm (1865/1724)

"Flowers and Fruit" by Andrea Belvedere (about 1652/1732)

"Two still lifes with classical elements and fruit" by Pietro Navarra active in Rome in late eighteenth century and early eighteenth century

"The still life of Pietro Navarra are characterized by a crepuscular and melancholy vein twilight highlighted by ripe and flabby fruit (symbol of decay) and the soft colors tending to dark shades" (Maria Antonietta De Angelis)

"Game meat" maybe by Baldassare de Caro (1689/1750)

"St. Francis Xavier dying" about 1675 study for the altarpiece of S. Andrea al Quirinale and "Angels Musicians" about 1672 study for the dome of the Chiesa del Gesù (Church of Jesus) by G.B. Gaulli aka Baciccio (1639/1709)

"Baciccio is the protagonist of the end of a century which, thanks to its surge of exuberant painting (light, motion, color), pass in a few years from the Baroque to the Rococo style. (...) A painting style that, from the new science, knows how to grasp, in the wake of Bernini, the main discovery: the cosmic vision of the world. A painting style that flips unconventionally from sacred to profane, who skillfully manages to confuse Heaven with Olympus" (Maurizio Fagiolo dell'Arco)

"Battle" about 1659/60 by Jacques Courtois aka Borgognone (1628/79)

"Hunter" maybe by Philipp Peter Roos aka Rosa da Tivoli (1651/1705)

"Martyrdom of St. Peter of Arbues" by Bartolomè Esteban Murillo (1618/82). St. Peter of Arbues was the Grand Inquisitor of the Kingdom of Aragon and was killed in 1485 by a group of rioters. The painting was donated to Pope Pius IX Mastai-Ferretti (1846/78) by King Alfonso XII of Spain in 1876 nine years after the canonization of the saint

"St. Peter baptizing Sts. Process and Martinian" about 1630 by Andrea Camassei (1602/49) sketch for a fresco in the Basilica of St. Peter destroyed to make room for the tomb of Clement XIII Rezzonico (1758/69) by Antonio Canova. The fresco was considered the masterpiece of Andrea Camassei

"Portrait of an old philosopher aka the Alchemist" maybe by David III Ryckaert (1610/90)

"Herd of horses" by the Flemish Pieter Van Bloemen aka Stendardo (1657/1720)

"Portrait of a Man with the symbols of vanitas" by the Flemish Pieter Meert (about 1620/69)

"A typical moralizing portrait of Flemish kind: the man who definitely is a real character, lays his hand on a skull, on the table there is a tulip cut. These two symbols of 'vanitas' provide the painting with a vocation of 'Memento Mori' (don't forget you must die) reminder, very popular in Protestant figurative art" (Maria Antonietta De Angelis)

ROOM XV

Painters in Rome in the first half of the eighteenth century

"Clement IX" Rospigliosi (1667/69) 1669 by Carlo Maratta (1625/1713)

"The nonchalance of the painting technique outlines the clothes with great fluidity, capturing in the draperies the sparkle of velvet, while the sharp examination of the noble personality of the pope concentrates on the face, making this work a direct consequence of the Maratta's study of the Innocent X by Velázquez in 1650" (Maria Antonietta De Angelis)

"For effectively realistic, meticulous execution, perfect balance of attitude and expression, balanced interaction between introspective level and public exhibition of expression, and of course for pictorial splendor, the painting of Maratta (of which there is an autograph replica at the Hermitage in St. Petersburg) is placed next to masterpieces by Antonie Van Dyck and Diego Velázquez in an ideal high table of the seventeenth-century portraits of powerful men" (Luca Bortolotti - Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani Treccani)

"Miracle of St. Toribio from Lima" 1726, "Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane" 1746 and "Descent from the Cross" 1746 by Sebastiano Conca (1680/1764) and "Madonna" school of Sebastiano Conca

"In the vast canvas of the Miracle of St. Toribio of Lima, painted on the occasion of the canonization of the saint on the 10th of December 1726, Conca is influenced in this classic and monumental composition by the lesson of Carlo Maratta, to which he adds formal features associated with the nascent rococo style. So the artist manages to unite 'in seductive chromatics those elements that usually characterize the exotic in the papiers-peints (costumes, lush vegetation, mysterious landscapes) in a set with authentically fabulous character' (Casale)" (Anna Maria De Strobel)

"The Virgin Mary appears to St. John Nepomucene" 1746 model for the altarpiece of the church of S. Maria della Pace in Brescia and "Pius VI" Braschi (1775/99) 1775 by Pompeo Batoni (1708/87). The portrait of Pius VI is a study for the first official portrait of Pope kept in the Museum of Rome

"George IV of England" 1819 by Sir Thomas Lawrence (1769/1830) donated by George IV himself to Pius VII Chiaramonti (1800/23) in about 1820

On the table that belonged to Napoleon, defeated by George IV, there is a letter of Pius VII. George IV was regent of the throne of the United Kingdom from 1811 to 1820 in place of his father George III who was mental ill. He reigned as King until 1830 when he died at 68 years alcoholic and obese. He never loved his wife, Queen Caroline Amalie of Brunswick and it seems that she had as a lover the painter Sir Thomas Lawrence himself

"Madonna and Child with St. Anthony of Padua and a holy bishop" by G.B. Crosato (about 1697/1758) from Treviso

"The picture is similar to the frescoes painted by the artist in Stupinigi for the physiognomy of the figures, but also for the 'affective tone, unique, in that air between the soft and dreamy, on the verge of blossoming into melancholy, or just enhanced by a wave of anxious curiosity' (Mariuz)" (Anna Maria De Strobel)

"St. Michael the Archangel strikes Lucifer" by Corrado Giaquinto 1720/25 (1703/66) and "Satan before the Lord" mid 1700s by an artist of the school of Corrado Giaquinto

"Portrait of Benedict XIV" Lambertini (1740/58) 1740 and "Holy Family" 1735/40 by Giuseppe Maria Crespi aka Spagnolo (1665/1747)

Crespi was a friend of Cardinal Lambertini, Bolognese like him, and he originally had made this portrait with the robes of cardinals. He changed them into a papal dress after the election to the papal throne

"Triumph of Faith" about 1774 and "Death of St. Andrew Avellino" by Gaetano Gandolfi

"Drowning of St. Clement" 1725 by Pier Leone Ghezzi (1674/1755) altarpiece for the Clementine Chapel in the Basilica of St. Peter for which Ghezzi painted two more canvases. They were removed in 1784 when Carlo Marchionni completed the Sacristy

"If from an iconographic point of view the painting respects the traditional canons of narration of the story, the connotation of artificiality, which brings the sacred fact to the present, is given by Ghezzi's self portrait in modern clothing and feathered hat, with his hand pointing to the anchor, symbolic attribute of martyrdom. The artist expresses all his artistic ability in shaping the contours and folds of the clothing of the figures, accentuated in the muscles, in the rendering of the waves and makes 'tragic and comic appear inseparably united in this painting' (Lo Bianco)" (Anna Maria De Strobel)

"Rest on the Flight into Egypt" and "Fight between Love and Pan" by Francesco Mancini (1679/1758)

"Christ with the Samaritan woman at the well" by the excellent Francesco Trevisani (1656/1746) from Istria

"Trevisani, who arrived in Rome in 1678, had as a protector from the beginning of the eighteenth century the influential Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni. In particular, it is thanks to the interest of this great patron that the artist succeeded in becoming one of the most renowned painters in Europe and to build a very prestigious career, so much to be defined in the last years of his long life, 'the only good painter of our day'. He is fully embedded in the Roman cultural climate, also adhering to the ideas of Arcadia which he carried in the visual domain. In fact, his compositions, while emphasizing the theatrical aspect, show a taste focused on the poetic of feelings" (Anna Maria De Strobel)

"Portrait of Voltaire" about 1775 by the Swiss Jean Huber (1721/86) who specialized in portraying the great writer and philosopher enough to be called Huber-Voltaire

"St. Anthony the Abbot" by an artist of the school of Alessandro Magnasco

Eight paintings of "Astronomical observations": "Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and Comet" 1711 by Donato Creti (1671/1749)

They were painted for the Bolognese count Luigi Ferdinando Marsili, who donated them to Pope Clement XI Albani (1700/21) to convince him to build an astronomical observatory. He succeded and so Clement XI inaugurated in Bologna in 1711 the first public observatory in Italy. There is no painting of the planet Uranus which was discovered only in 1781

ROOM XVI

Wenzel Peter

"Self Portrait" 1813, four paintings of animals and "Earthly Paradise" with Adam and Eve and 240 different species of animals by the Bohemian artist Wenzel Peter (1745/1829) much appreciated by Gregory XVI Cappellari (1831/46)

He was known as the "pet portraitist". He copied Raphael's Loggias under the direction of Christopher Unterberger in the Grand Hermitage in St. Petersburg for the Tsarina Catherine II

ROOM XVII

Works by Gian Lorenzo Bernini for St. Peter's Basilica

Models in clay and straw by Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598/1680) for the Altar of the Chair and the Altar of Holy Sacrament in St. Peter:

"Head of St. Athanasius" and "Head of St. John Chrysostom" 1661/65

"Five Angels" two of them done in collaboration with Ercole Ferrata (1610/86) and Ercole Antonio Raggi (1624/86)

"Portrait of Carlo Maderno (1556/1629)" by anonymous

"Marble plaque of 1638 commemorating the construction of one of the towers of St. Peter" begun by Bernini and then demolished because it was threatening to collapse. A resounding fiasco for the great master that almost ruined his brilliant career

ROOM XVIII

Collection of icons

Selection of the most significant works from the collection of about 150 icons in the Vatican Picture Gallery

"Christ said eye severe" of the late eighteenth century, Russian art

Huge "Iconostasis of Kefalonia" 1808 School of Kefalonia

"The icon should not be considered mere figure, 'image', nor can it be the personal interpretation of an artist. It 'shows' each sacred Image, which means that it is suggestive of the prototype that it describes, in the sense that it constitutes one (of the possible) hypostases. It must therefore be regarded as the sort of bridge that allows the faithful to approach, and contemplate, through the specific form taken every time, the supernatural Figure object of faith. (...) As the Divine is humanly unrepresentable, the Incarnation of Christ indicates the possibility, indeed the necessity, to make tangible to the human senses, and in this case to the eye, the One who entered into human history as a human being" (Cristina Pantanella)

VATICAN MUSEUMS - VATICAN PICTURES' GALLERY (fourth part)

ROOM XI

Aspects of Italian paintings in the second half of the sixteenth century

"St. Sebastian receiving the crown and the palm of martyrdom" by the school of Girolamo Siciolante da Sermoneta (1521/80)

"Miracle of St. Peter's shadow" by the Sicilian Tommaso Laureti (about 1530/1602). He was a pupil of Sebastiano del Piombo and designed, with Giambologna, the Fountain of Neptune in Bologna

"Sacrifice of Isaac" and "Holy Trinity with the Dead Christ" about 1590 by Ludovico Carracci (1555/1619)

"Ludovico Carracci, together with his cousins Annibale and Agostino was in the last two decades of the sixteenth century the bearer of the key elements to overcome the late Mannerist formalism prevailing in Roman culture at the time, and of which one of the leaders was Girolamo Muziano. Ludovico differs, however, deeply both from the pietism of Agostino and from the complex reform of the classic style made by Annibale, which will prevail in the next century as the basis for a new poetics. Ludovico was closely linked to a conceptual visual art as a means of devotion especially for the people" (Maria Antonietta De Angelis)

"Procession of St. Gregory" and "Miracle of the Snow" 1573/75 by Jacopo Zucchi (about 1542/96) both formerly on the Altar of the Cradle in the Basilica of St. Maria Maggiore

"With the two panels by Jacopo Zucchi, a pupil in Florence of Giorgio Vasari, the prevailing Mannerism is colored with unusual descriptive vivacity. (...) It is interesting to note that the strong upward perspective Zucchi has given to the two panels indicates that they were designed to be viewed from the bottom up" (Maria Antonietta De Angelis)

"Annunciation" 1606 by Giuseppe Cesari aka Cavalier d'Arpino (1568/1640)

"Sometimes, though quite rarely, Cesari reaches with his limited means a convincing expression of an otherworldly majesty full of religious pathos. This is especially true for the Annunciation, noble but not without a certain affectation, whose free and measured gestures are happily tempered by the grace of the four angelic cherubs in the air" (Hermann Voss)

"Rest on the Flight into Egypt" aka Madonna of the Cherries 1570/73

"The theme of the Madonna of the Cherries is clearly derived from the Correggio's Madonna of the Bowl in 1530 for the same gesture of the Virgin, but otherwise the invention of Barocci is entirely independent. The sweetness of the landscape in the background, the lively presence of the donkey, the smiling face of the child playing with cherries (symbol of the Passion) offered by St. Joseph represent his typical way of telling stories which mixes the sacred and the simplicity of everyday life" (Maria Antonietta De Angelis)

"Annunciation" 1582/84, "St. Francis Receiving the Stigmata" about 1595 and "Blessed Michelina" 1606 four extraordinary masterpieces by Federico Fiori aka Barocci (1535/1612)

His hometown of Urbino was often painted by him as in the Annunciation, where we see the Doge's Palace or in between the folds of the cloak of the Blessed Michelina where it is possible to see Valbona, his neighborhood Urbino

"The four major works by Barocci are four different sides of his stylistic personality always marked by a sensitive study of the characters through an extreme calibration of shades of color, whose quality is unmistakable thin. Equally unique is its technical preparation of the canvas, also extremely fine. The latter, however, has often been detrimental to the preservation of his paintings, all of which have always presented problems of conservation and restoration for the lifting of the layer of paint" (Maria Antonietta De Angelis)

"Shimmering tones and pearly sheen, matte iridescence and feverish sparkle that stand out from a dull pallor: these are the amazing and new effects of Barocci's painting style" (Hermann Voss)

"Mystic Marriage of St. Catherine" by Innocenzo da Imola (about 1484/1550)

"St. Bernard crushing the devil" 1563/64 by Marcello Venusti (about 1512/79) and "Pietà" second half of 1500 of his school

"Mystical press and Christ in Glory" about 1571 by Marco Pino aka Marco da Siena (about 1525/87)

"Holy hermit" about 1590, "St. Jerome" about 1585/92, "St. Francis of Assisi" and "Resurrection of Lazarus" 1555 by Girolamo Muziano (1532/92)

The large Resurrection of Lazarus, perhaps his most celebrated work, was placed on the grave of Muziano at the beginning of the right aisle of the Basilica of St. Maria Maggiore. Later the painting was transferred to the Quirinale Palace and arrived in the Vatican Gallery in about 1790

"It embodies a complex list of inventions, so often translated in print - as it happened with this picture - and reworked by minor artists, which, combined with the high production rate of his workshop, was a prelude to the large business workshops of the end of the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth centuries. (...) In the Resurrection his artistic message is enclosed in full. It is conceived as a vast theater where so many people become noisy crowd yet ordered in the harmonic 'concinnitas' (harmonic and elegant style) of each individual attitude" (Maria Antonietta De Angelis)

"St. Francis Receiving the Stigmata" by a follower of Girolamo Muziano

Marble bas-relief "Cosimo I founding the University of Pisa" about 1550 by Pierino da Vinci (about 1530/53) son of Bartolomeo, stepbrother of Leonardo da Vinci

According to Giorgio Vasari, the only source of information on this otherwise unknown artist, he died only 23 for malaria

ROOM XII

Masterpieces of the early seventeenth century

"The Incredulity of St. Thomas", "Penitent Magdalene" 1622, "St. Margaret of Cortona" and "St. John the Baptist" by Giovanni Francesco Barbieri aka Guercino (1591/1666)

"The Penitent Magdalene is a true masterpiece full of twilight, which surrounds the sadness of the Holy Penitent, immersed in the contemplation of the nails and crown of thorns, instruments of the Passion of Jesus. The painting is almost contemporary with the famous paintings, executed in collaboration with Agostino Tassi, Dawn and Night in the Casino Ludovisi, sharing with the latter the night sky backgrounds that open between layers of clouds" (Maria Antonietta De Angelis)

"Last Communion of St. Jerome" 1614 masterpiece by Domenico Zampieri aka Domenichino (1581/1641)

"Domenichino was a colorist more refined than what it would be expected just judging from his frescoes: this work and Diana the Huntress in the Galleria Borghese made during his best period demonstrate the breadth of its range. The St. Jerome, arranged with greater care and with bolder accents of his model, the masterpiece by Agostino Carracci, has never failed to convince for the sincerity and depth of its religious feeling" (Rudolf Wittkower)

"Deposition" about 1602/04 by Michelangelo Merisi aka Caravaggio (1571/1610) for Girolamo Vittrice and destined to the Vittrice Chapel in the Chiesa Nuova (where Caravaggio frequented the Oratorian association), in honor of his uncle Pietro Vittrice, maybe represented as Nicodemus looking toward the viewer

The other characters are from left: St. John the Evangelist, the Virgin Mary, Mary Magdalene and Mary Cleophas

It was taken from the Chiesa Nuova by the French in 1797 and returned in 1817 when it entered the Vatican Picture Gallery

The Vittrice Chapel was also dedicated to the Pietà (Holy Mercy) and Caravaggio maybe cited his namesake Michelangelo Buonarroti in the body of Jesus that appears to be a fascinating transposition in color of the marble masterpiece by Michelangelo

"The stone is the real silent star of the picture. Not the stone intended to cover and seal the tomb, but the marble bed for the funerary rites (lapis untionis). The marble slab presents us with his corner and immediately comes to mind Psalm 118: The stone rejected by the manufacturer has become the cornerstone. At this time Christ is the stone rejected by history. His disciples denied him. His wonderful utopia is finished on the cross and now it will fade away forever in the tomb. These thoughts at this moment, go through the bystanders' minds and Caravaggio depicts them with merciless truth" (Antonio Paolucci)

"He knew how to capture the eloquent moment of absolute stillness that it is always produced in collective events between one motion and another, such as the immobilization of the pendulum at the extreme point of his bow" (Peter Robb)

"Madonna and Child with Sts. Jerome and Thomas" aka Olivieri Altarpiece 1634, "St. Matthew and the Angel" 1635/40 and "Crucifixion of St. Peter" 1604/05 from St. Paul at the Three Fountains for Cardinal Pietro Aldobrandini, all works by Guido Reni (1575/1642)

"The fact that even Guido Reni, although he went through Ludovico's school in Bologna, would have been dragged into the powerful orbit of Caravaggio for a period could almost be expected, but even though the picture shows an extraordinary understanding of his dramatic realism and light, the basis of Reni's art was classical and his way of painting very far from that of Caravaggio. The frame is made in the form of traditional, classic pyramid and firmly balanced by opposing attitudes and gestures" (Rudolf Wittkower)

"Martyrdom of St. Erasmus" 1628/29 by Nicolas Poussin (1594/1665), his first successful Roman work, for the altar in the right transept of St. Peter's Basilica

"The artist had the idea to stand out the index finger of the priest, stretched in the direction of the idol, in the blue sky as a means of contributing to the unfolding of the narrative. The Roman knight too, which dominates the left side of the picture is pointing his finger, which we see in front and foreshortened, but towards the martyr. Neither the priest nor the soldier are looking in the direction of what they pointing at, but to their interlocutor: the eye does not follow the index (...). The diagonals they are generating cross over both in the pictorial space and in the psychic space of the scene which they organize through the accurate and well-known properties of the gesture" (André Chastel)

"Trial and Martyrdom of Sts. Processus and Martinian" 1629 by Jean Valentin aka Valentin de Boulogne (about 1591/1632) for another altar in the right transept of St. Peter's Basilica

"Vision of St. Romuald" 1631 and "Mass of St. Gregory" with the Corporal miracle 1625 by Andrea Sacchi (1599/1661) copy of the altarpiece for the Basilica of St. Peter

"In the Vision of St. Romuald, instead of using the rhetorical language of the Baroque style, Andrea Sacchi creates a real drama in terms of intense introspection in the faces and attitudes; and the soft golden Venetian tone that permeates this symphony in white is in perfect harmony with the thoughtful and deeply serious mentality of the listening monks" (Rudolf Wittkower)

"The Mass of St. Gregory reveals a great master mature at last. With its rich and warm colors used in a light key and it execution splendid and free, this can be considered as the first masterpiece of the new style called Baroque Classicism. A minimum of figures, six in all, calls for a detailed analysis and strengthens the effect of the silent drama. The organization of the canvas with its triangle of three prominent figures is essentially classical. But there isn't a central axis and the cross of spatial diagonal pushes the design towards progressive compositional trends. In addition the close grouping of massive figures and the insistent pressure exerted by the ones showing us their back in the painting belong to the baroque repertoire" (Rudolf Wittkower)

"Denial of St. Peter" about 1615/19 maybe by Carlo Saraceni (1579/1620) or, according to Roberto Longhi, by the so-called Pensionante del Saraceni (Saraceni's lodger)

"This painting was the subject of a reflection of Roberto Longhi in 1939: he introduced a nebulous artist, whom he named 'Pensionante del Saraceni' (Saraceni's Lodger). (...) In the light of present scholarly research a new angle of view is perhaps appropriate. The overabundance of replicas of the Denial of St. Peter cannot be explained except by a well-known high-level genesis, and certainly not by an unknown artist. One is now inclined to believe that this work was painted by Saraceni himself, as stated authoritatively by A. Zuccari: considering the style and technique used, also other paintings may in part by ascribed to him. It is comforting the observation of Longhi in 1917 on the processing capacity of the style of the Venetian artist, not necessarily univocal, and further confirmation in the sentence 'with Saraceni style is a choice'" (Maria Giulia Aurigemma)

"Head of a Young Man" about 1635 maybe by Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598/1680)

VATICAN MUSEUMS - VATICAN PICTURES' GALLERY (third part)

ROOM VIII 

Raffaello Sanzio (Raphael)

All masterpieces by Raffaello Sanzio (Raphael) (1483/1520)

In the three large paintings from three different phases of his short life there is a recurring analogy in the compositional division in a lower human sphere and an upper divine sphere

At the center

"Transfiguration" begun in 1517, unfinished and completed by Giulio Pippi aka Giulio Romano (1499/1546) and Giovanni Francesco Penni (about 1496/1528)

Jesus is transfigured on Mount Tabor among the prophets Elijah and Moses with on the left the saints Pastor and Julius who witness the scene

It was commissioned by Cardinal Giulio de' Medici, later pope Clement VII, for the Cathedral of St. Just in Narbonne in Provence where, however, it was never sent

It was exhibited above the bed of death of Raphael in Palazzo Caprini in Via della Conciliazione, then in the Palace of the Chancellery and since 1523 in St. Pietro in Montorio

In 1797 it was taken to Paris by order of Napoleon, and it was given back in 1816 when it was finally placed in the Vatican Picture Gallery

"Raphael tied two episodes that exalt each other: above a sky of dazzling brightness, partially shielded from the figures, below a dark valley, before which the characters stand out plastically detected by a raking light. The two scenes are both separate and combined with a simultaneity that marks the process of approaching the framework by the beholder, as at first from a distance the upper scene appears with its stately symmetry. At close range the lower scene takes strenght and grips the attention, inspired by different principles of composition. The double structure is necessary to affirm the dialectical relationship between Heaven and Earth, Spirit and Matter, cause and effect" (Carlo Bertelli, Giuliano Briganti, Antonio Giuliano)

"The transfer of the achievements of the great historical frescos in the altarpieces for high altar at its most monumental, more solemn, is the sensational result of the Transfiguration. (...) The surface is split into an upper half dominated by the purest symmetrical balance, and a lower part, treated more freely. But the contrasts are now pushed to the extreme. Raging jarring of diagonals, lines rudely interrupted, sudden light and heavy shadows that characterize the purely earthly action of the lower part. In the upper part all this fades so neatly and clearly in the overflowing serenity of the transfigured Christ" (Hermann Voss)

ON THE RIGHT

"Coronation and Assumption of the Virgin Mary" aka Oddi Altarpiece 1502/03

Three panels from the predella of the Oddi Altarpiece: "Annunciation", "Epiphany" and "Presentation of Jesus in the temple" about 1503

ON THE LEFT

"Madonna of Foligno" 1512/13 for Sigismondo de' Conti writer of letters for Julius II in thanksgiving to the Virgin for having saved his house in Foligno which had been struck by lightning

In the background we see a strange shooting ball of fire that gave rise to fanciful interpretations

Originally on the high altar of S. Maria in Aracoeli, it was transported to Foligno in 1565 and then in Paris in 1797 on behalf of Napoleon. When it returned in 1816 it became part of the Vatican Collection

"It was the first significant example of a painting for an altar of a chapel. Contrary to the habits of the fifteenth century it is big in size, conceived and framed as a tabernacle, forced to the simplicity and grandeur by the remote location and the essentially architectural function of the altar itself" (Hermann Voss)

Three panels with Theological Virtues from the predella of the Baglioni Altarpiece now in the Borghese Gallery: "Hope", "Charity" and "Faith" 1507

IN THE DISPLAYS ON THE WALLS

"Ten Tapestries of the Old School" with stories of Sts. Peter and Paul 1515/19 woven in Brussels by the workshop of Pieter van Aelst:

Death of Ananias, The Sacrifice of Lystra, Conversion of St. Paul, Stoning of St. Stephen, St. Paul in prison (known as the "Earthquake"), The Delivery of the Keys, The Miraculous Fishing, St. Peter heals the lame, Frieze of the Hours and Frieze of the Seasons

"Compared to the Raphael Rooms, the main figures stand out more clearly than the secondary figures, just like the chorus of an ancient tragedy - the comparison is particularly apt for the Delivery of the Keys and the Death of Ananias - and also the movements themselves are more expressive and better coordinated with each other. Just by looking at the main features of the figures, the eye reads the pace of the event, which in a continuous flow, keeping the attention of the viewer fixed, flows between all these stories" (Hermann Voss)

These tapestries used to be hanged in the Sistine Chapel from 1519 on feast days, alternating with the Tapestry of the New School now in the Gallery of Tapestries. The tapestry cartoons are in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London

In addition, two "Friezes with grotesque" about 1530 with the arms of Clement VII and of the Duke of Montmorency

"The eloquence of gestures and expressions of the characters, the great compositional structures and the spectacular scanning of the actions seem to identify the essential features of various spiritual situations, fixing them with high rhetorical style in 'exempla' of universal value. They shape for the West the faces of Christ and the Apostles, as well as Michelangelo's frescoes had been given a visual image to the first episodes of the Bible" (Carlo Bertelli, Giuliano Briganti, Antonio Giuliano)

"Compared to the Raphael Rooms, the characteristics of the tapestries that immediately catch the eyes consist in the limited number of figures, in the smaller presence or even disappearance of architecture, in the simplicity and understandability of the representation. (...) They are completely focused on the historical subject and free of extraneous components. Despite of the great simplicity with which they are made - and that after the richness of the Rooms has the effect of a conscious choice - the drama of the event elicits a far stronger impression" (Hermann Voss )

"Tapestry with Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci" early 1500 maybe executed when Leonardo was still alive. It was donated in 1532 by King Francis I of France to Clement VII Medici (1523/34)

ROOM IX 

Leonardo da Vinci, Giovanni Bellini and Schools of Painting between fifteenth and sixteenth century

"St. Jerome" about 1482 by Leonardo da Vinci (1452/1519), study for a painting

It is the only work of Leonardo da Vinci in Rome not executed, however, during his stay of seventeen months in Rome in the Palazzo Belvedere in the Vatican

It was cut in two and an unconfirmed story wants that the pieces have been found separately in early 1800, one in an antique shop, and the other (the square with the head) in a shoemaker's shop. It is mentioned for the first time in the 1803 will of the painter Angelica Kauffmann. It became part of the Vatican Picture Gallery in 1856

"The features of the saint remind of other Girolamos (and Bernardinos) of the fifteenth century Tuscan art, and also the iconography of the ancient so-called dying Seneca, known in several copies. (...) Some see in the painful darkness of St. Jerome an incipient sign of those religious tremors which, a decade later, will result in the misfortune of Savonarola. But another interpretation is more likely. The shadows that seem to take possession of his paintings are the same shadows that creep into his life. Leonardo had been for a few years an autonomous painter, with its own shop, but the awards were slow in coming. In the circle of Marsilio Ficino abstract subjects were argued which, in that form, were less and less of any interest for the young investigator" (Massimiliano Capati)

Oil on board "Lamentation over the Dead Christ" with the Sts. Joseph of Arimathea, Nicodemus and Mary Magdalene about 1471/74 by Giovanni Bellini (about 1432/1516) cyma of the altarpiece called "Pala Pesaro" from the church of St. Francis at Pesaro, where it is represented a coronation of the Virgin with Saints

"One of the fundamental works of the maturity of this artist born in Venice from the well-known painter Jacopo Bellini. Around Giovanni Bellini, also known by the nickname of 'Giambellino' move his brother Gentile Bellini and especially his brother-in-law Andrea Mantegna. (...) Pictorially the Pala Pesaro is one of his most monumental ones, placing him next to Antonello da Messina, and above all, to Piero della Francesca" (Maria Antonietta De Angelis)

"Way to Calvary" about 1534 by Polidoro Caldara aka Polidoro da Caravaggio (about 1495/1543) study for the altarpiece of the Church of the Annunciation of the Catalans in Messina

It is clear the influence of Raphael's "Spasm of Sicily", painting with the same subject, which was in the church of S. Maria Spasimo in Palermo at the time and now is in the Prado Museum in Madrid

Oil on panel transferred to canvas "Adoration of the Magi" second half of 1500s by Raffaellino Del Colle (about 1490/1566) with preparatory study

Polidoro da Caravaggio and Raffaellino Del Colle often worked together producing notable decorations on the façades of many palaces in Rome, so-called "graffiti", now, unfortunately, only a memory handed down by written sources

"Nativity" maybe by Domenico Bigordi aka Ghirlandaio (1449/94) and assistants

"Redeemer" and "Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane" by a painter of the circle of Antonio Allegri aka Correggio (1489/1534)

"Portrait of Francesco II Sforza when five years old" 1496 by Bernardino de' Conti (about 1470/1525) painter from the Leonardo's circle, who trained with Ambrogio de Predis

"Two broken pillars from altarpiece with Saints" by Vincenzo Pagani

"Portrait of Alexander VI" Borgia (1492/1503), maybe by the Spaniard Pedro Berruguete (about 1452/1504)

Detached fresco from a house in Bergamo "Portrait of a Man aka Bramante" by a painter of the Lombard school of the sixteenth century

ROOM X 

Venetian Renaissance Painting and Italian Schools of High Renaissance

"Madonna and Child with Saints" by Gerolamo Del Pacchia (about 1477/1535)

"Madonna of the Milk" by Lorenzo di Credi (1459/1537)

"Coronation of the Virgin and Angels" about 1560/63 by Francesco de' Rossi aka Francesco Salviati (1510/63)

"Portrait of a Gentleman" by the Dutchman Anthonis Moor Van Dashorst aka Antonio Moro (1517/76)

"Doge Niccolò Marcello" about 1542 and "Madonna and Child with Saints" called "Madonna of St. Nicholas" of the friars on Lido Island about 1520/25 by Tiziano Vecellio (Titian) (about 1490/1576)

The portrait of the Doge was maybe painted by an assistant of his workshop. The Madonna of S. Nicholas was damaged by a fire caused by candles in the Venetian church

"The portrait of the Doge Marcello has a definitely archaic look, as if it was a fifteenth century work. This seems to stem from the fact that this posthumous portrait must have been a traditional portrait of the doge and it is clearly related to the existing iconography of Niccolò Marcello, mostly on medals" (Maria Antonietta De Angelis)

Oil on board "St. George slaying the dragon" about 1525 by Paris Bordon (1500/71), a student of Titian but influenced in this splendid work by Pordenone's works

"Vision of St. Helena" about 1580 and "Allegory of the Liberal Arts" by Paolo Caliari aka Veronese (1528/88). The Allegory was part of a ceiling with two other panels now in the Capitoline Museums

"The St. Helena, as well as the robust frame of the image, shows the typical range of Veronese's colors including always a striking, if refined, contrast between warm colors (in this case the crimson of the mantle) and cool colors (greens) enhanced by the silvery tone of the dress and veil. (...) Unlike Titian, who investigates the psychological nature of his subjects, and Tintoretto, who exalts their social quality, Veronese painted characters almost as myths, living in the golden Olympus of a refined and rich Venice. Even in the late period of his production, in which this St. Helena fits, it is impossible to see the end of this golden vision, which was already taking place in the Venetian society at the time" (Maria Antonietta De Angelis)

"Coronation of the Virgin aka Madonna of Monteluce" 1505/25 by Giulio Pippi aka Giulio Romano (1499/1546) and Giovanni Francesco Penni (about 1496/1528) from drawings by Raphael to whom it had been commissioned in 1503 by the nuns of the Monteluce monastery in Perugia

It was delivered only in 1525, five years after the death of Raphael, with the decisive intervention of his two assistants. A copy in mosaic is in the left transept of the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls

"The Madonna of Monteluce presents a series of mysteries. Among them, the anomalous construction of the two parts into which the altarpiece is made, especially the convex shape for the base of the lunette with the Coronation of the Virgin. The major restoration to which it was submitted in the eighties persuaded Fabrizio Mancinelli to consider the current altarpiece fruit of the union of two different paintings, the top part made in earlier times by Raphael himself with the help of Giulio Romano, the bottom part painted by Penni at the time of the final contract. This would explain the differences in both preparation and execution technique" (Maria Antonietta De Angelis)

"Madonna of the Pears": Madonna and Child with Saints Jerome and Bartholomew about 1550 by Alessandro Bonvicino aka Moretto (1498/1554)

"With Moretto, Brescia's painting style, which is due to Romanino, and the generally Lombard style due to Foppa, is enriched by contributions from Veneto, above all, by Giorgione and Titian, as can be seen even from this painting of sober monumentality, but animated by a precise search for the light (in the window on the right) and by the warm mixing of colors derived from Venice" (Maria Antonietta De Angelis)

"Apparition of the Virgin to Augustus and to the Tiburtina Sibyl" 1544 and "The Holy Family with St. Catherine" by Benvenuto Tisi aka Garofalo (about 1481/1559)

According to a tradition, first Roman and then spread in the Middle Ages, Augustus would have had the vision of a beautiful woman with a baby in her arms, and he also heard a voice saying, This is the altar of the son of God. It was the Virgin Mary and the legend goes that for this reason Augustus decided not to take power explicitly

The Council of Trent (1545/63) would eventually completely remove the traditions including pagan myths very popular until the Renaissance. Other examples were the Sibyls painted by Michelangelo on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel or Raphael's Gods in the vault of the Chigi Chapel in S. Maria del Popolo

"The contemporaneity of the clothes of the courtiers and of Augustus blends with the quote of the classical building in the background and with the glimpse of wild landscape, almost cosmogonic, which occupies the right half of the painting" (Maria Antonietta De Angelis)

"Christ at the Column" and "Madonna of the belt and saints" fifteenth century by an artist of the Lombard school

"Sacred Conversation" by Bonifacio dei Pitati (about 1487/1553) and workshop

"Adoration of the Shepherds" by Camillo Filippi (about 1500/74) from Ferrara 

"His delightfully naive style is also to be found in this small painting where the figures sketched a little rigidly contrast with a technique of painting in bright contrasting colors with evocative glimpse of the countryside" (Maria Antonietta De Angelis)

"Madonna and Child with St. Jerome" by the Bolognese Jacopo Boateri

"Presentation of Jesus in the temple" maybe by Francesco Bissolo from Treviso