VENEZIA PALACE - MUSEUM OF VENEZIA PALACE (second part)

MUSEO DI PALAZZO VENEZIA

Museum of Venezia Palace

In the rooms of the Cybo Apartment and in the premises of the Palazzo Venezia formerly Viridarium of Paul II Barbo (1464/71), which was dismantled and moved in 1911 of about 100 m (330 feet)

Ceilings 1916 by Ludovico Seitz (1844/1908) in imitation of the style of the sixteenth century

VESTIBULE and ANTEROOM

“Bust of Pope Paul II” by the workshop of Paolo Taccone aka Paolo Romano (about 1415/77)

Venetian Paintings

“Double Portrait” about 1502 maybe by Giorgio Zorzi or Giorgio da Castelfranco aka Giorgione (1477-78/1510)

Mysterious and extremely beautiful painting where the light shines differently on the two characters, creating an effect of almost photographic realism

The young man in the foreground holds a wild orange bitter and sweet at the same time that the Renaissance was associated with the sufferings and the joys of love

“Madonna and Child” and “Head of a Young Woman” maybe by Antonio Pisano aka Pisanello (about 1390/about 1455)

The head of a young woman maybe was part of the lost decoration of the Basilica of St. John Lateran that Pisanello had carried out with Gentile da Fabriano in the first half of the fifteenth century and which was destroyed during the works of Francesco Borromini for the Jubilee of 1650

“Madonna and Child” by Paolo Veneziano (active about 1320/62)

Emilia-Romagna Paintings

“Crucifixion” first half of 1400s by Stefano da Ferrara

There are few biographical information regarding this painter and there is much uncertainty in the attributions. In this painting the expressions of torment of the faces are remarkable and innovative

“Christ Carrying the Cross” by Bernardino Zaganelli (about 1465/about 1511)

“Adoration of the Magi” by Lorenzo Sabatini (about 1530/76)

“Pieta” about 1579 by Lelio Orsi (1511/87)

“In this work there are influences of Correggio's poetry, especially in the pathos expressed by the figure of St. John the Evangelist, whereas the plasticity of the body of Christ is livid expression of a strong influence by Michelangelo, disseminated through engravings. Not to mention that from an elaboration of an idea by Michelangelo, namely the Deposition for Vittoria Colonna, comes the pose of Christ lying in the lap of the Mother” (Official website of the Museum of Palazzo Venezia - www.museopalazzovenezia.beniculturali.it)

Lazio, Umbria and Marche Regions Paintings

“Head of the Redeemer” from an artist of the school of Pietro de' Cerroni aka Pietro Cavallini (about 1240/about 1325)

“Great Painted Cross” from the church S. Tommaso dei Cenci

Processional banner “Virgin Mary of Mercy” by the Master of Staffolo

Rooms 4 and 5 - Tuscan Paintings

“Marriage of St. Catherine” by the Master of the Coronation of Christ Church

Small panel “Prophet Hosea” by Gherardo di Jacopo aka Starnina (active 1387/1409)

“Nativity” end of 1400s by the school of Filippo Lippi and Pesellino with a portrait of Lorenzo the Magnificent in the lower right

Remarkable “Head of the Redeemer” maybe by Benozzo di Lese aka Benozzo Gozzoli (1420/97), more probably by Fra' Giovanni da Fiesole aka Fra Angelico (about 1395/1455), maybe from the destroyed Chapel of Eugene IV Coldumer (1431/47)

“Episodes from the life of St. Catherine of Alexandria” by Bicci di Lorenzo (1373/1452)

“Vision of St. Bernard” by Francesco di Ubertino Verdi aka Bachiacca (1494/1557)

“Madonna and Child with Angels and Saints” by Mariotto di Cristofano (1393/1457)

Paintings on Canvas

Oldest and largest part of the collection added in 1919 from the collection Ruffo of Motta Bagnara:

“Marriage of St. Catherine” by Ciro Ferri (1634/89)

“Dance of the Nymphs” 1725 by Donato Creti (1671/1749)

“Restless temperament, haunted by an almost obsessive anxiety for perfection, Creti offers a varied range of expressive accents ranging from Veronese inclinations to his own classicism sometimes full of mannerism moods, some other times sublimated in purist formulas, almost neoclassical, largely ahead of its time. This work is a significant blend of his experiences: the party atmosphere is evoked with a Frenchified gallant grace, the traditional Arcadian landscape here is imbued with a rediscovery of more refined ways of the Emilian Mannerism, which give a more decanted and thin grace to this idyll” (Carlo Bertelli, Giuliano Briganti, Antonio Giuliano)

“David and Abigail” and “Finding of Moses” by Giuseppe Maria Crespi known as the Spanish (1665/1747) from Bologna

“Dead Christ” by Orazio Borgianni (1578/1616)

“The sons of Francesco Orsini” 1597 maybe by Tiberio Titi (1578/1637), the son of the painter Santi di Tito and official portraitist of the Medici Grand Dukes

“Wedding at Cana” by Francesco Solimena (1657/1747)

“Cleopatra” by Carlo Maratta (1625/1713) who represented the Egyptian queen with the face of his daughter Faustina as she dissolves a pearl in vinegar to prove her indifference to luxury

“St. Peter weeping” by Giovanni Francesco Barbieri aka Guercino (1591/1666)

Golden terracotta “Baptism of Jesus” and “Terracotta bust of Pope Innocent X Pamphilj (1644/55)” by Alessandro Algardi (1598/1654)

CORSINI PALACE - CORSINI GALLERY (fifth part)

Room IV - Room of the Fireplace

“The room owes its name to the presence, at the time of the Corsini family, of a fireplace in Ginori porcelain embedded in the center of the northern wall, where now is Christ and the adulteress by the Venetian Rocco Marconi. Known in the documents as 'Room of Mirrors' or 'Great Room', the setting was intended to function as a cabinet: a place of study and meditation of the cardinal and private audience hall in which were received guests who arrived after crossing the magnificent gallery of representation (Room III)” (Official website of the Corsini Gallery - galleriacorsini.beniculturali.it)

At the center of the room ancient “Corsini Throne” second or first century BC

It was found in the years 1732/34 during the excavations to build the Corsini Chapel in the Basilica of St. John Lateran

Marble sculptures “Genius of Hunting” and “Genius of Fishing” by Pietro Tenerani (1789/1869)

Two small bronze statues “Diana the Huntress” and “Adonis” by the Florentine Antonio Montauti (1685/1740), sculptor appreciated by the Corsini family

“Christ and the Adulteress” by Rocco Marconi (known from 1504/d. 1529)

“It has long been debated about the role of Marconi in the artistic context of the lagoon after the conclusion of the Bellini experience, assessing the degree of reception and involvement in the trends that developed under the influence of Giorgione, Titian and Sebastiano del Piombo. Against an overall reductive judgment of the capacity of Marconi to adapt to the new guidelines, expressed by Ansaldi and Garas and taken up by De Vecchi (...), later critical opinions stood back to a position more prone not only to consider Marconi as one of the most outstanding students of Bellini (Gibbons, Tempestini, Heinemann), but also to appreciate his progressive growth in the changed Venetian environment of the twenties” (Giorgio Tagliaferro - Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani Treccani)

“The Prodigal Son” and “The Death of Abel” by Michelangelo Cerquozzi (1602/60)

“Madonna and Child” by Andrea d'Agnolo aka Andrea del Sarto (1486/1531)

“Ecce Homo” and “Penitent Magdalene” by the Florentine Carlo Dolci (1616/86)

 “Salome with the Head of John the Baptist” 1638/39 by Guido Reni (1575/1642)

“It is like a stage for the aesthetic ideal of the Bolognese painter, the undisputed champion of the seventeenth-century classicism, with carefully building lighting effects and a perfect balance of form. (...) The rarefied atmosphere of the composition typical of the Bolognese artist work between the thirties and forties, can be found in contemporary works or a little later, as Blessed Andrea Corsini of the Pinacoteca di Bologna and especially Salome at the Art Institute of Chicago, which has in common with the Corsini painting the marked pathos of the Baptist's expression” (Official Website of the Galleria Corsini - galleriacorsini.beniculturali.it)

“St. Jerome” sixteenth century by an unknown artist of the Venetian school

“Adoration of the Shepherds” about 1562 by Jacopo da Ponte aka Jacopo Bassano (about 1510/92)

“Today is unanimously considered one of the masterpieces of Jacopo's mature production. The artist adopts here a compositional model already tested in previous versions of the same subject (such as the ones at Hampton Court or at the Accademia in Venice), bringing subtle but significant variations. The role of the shepherds in the scene takes on a distinctly important central focus of the composition, all played on vivid contrasts” (Official Website of the Galleria Corsini - galleriacorsini.beniculturali.it)

“Adoration of the Magi” by Donato Creti (1671/1749)

“Ecce Homo” by Orazio Ferrari (1606/57)

Nine splendid “Heads” by Benedetto Luti (1666/1724)

“In his production of portraits, unfortunately not intense, he often reaches through an immediate pictorial style, shy of decorative tinsel and false modesty, a penetrating psychological and daring insight, full of a deep human energy” (Giancarlo Sestieri)

Four marvelous pastels by Rosalba Carriera (1675/1757) of the years 1741/43: the “Four women’s faces representing the four elements: fire, water, air and earth“

“She was very famous throughout Europe, demanded by princes and kings who assiduously attended her studio. Specialist in pastel technique, she gave to her finest portraits a mundane Rococo grace with soft and light colors and a fluffy and soft as powder touch. Rosalba's pastels found wide resonance in France: they would be taken into account also by artists of firmer mettle, such as Maurice Quentin de la Tour and Perroneau” (Carlo Bertelli, Giuliano Briganti, Antonio Giuliano)

Six small paintings on copper with “Stories of criminals” from works by the French painter Jacques Callot (1582/1635), including one with “Execution of a criminal” by Giovanni Paolo Pannini (1691/1765)

“St. John the Baptist” seventeenth century by an unknown artist of the school of Guercino

“Noli Me Tangere” sixteenth century copy by unknown artist from the original by Federico Barocci aka Barocci

“Martyrdom of St. Andrew” and large oval “Madonna and Child with St. John the Baptist” by Carlo Maratta (1625/1713)

“The paintings of this artist of extraordinary ability does not contain puzzles or anything that would shock a viewer, anything that would arouse violent emotions. His fluent way of handling the current allegorical language, the impersonal generalizations of which his work abounds, the admission of the right amount of festive splendor, all this predestined his grandiloquent style to become the courtly style par excellence in the Europe of Louis XIV. Maratta was not an artist devoted to speculation and theories” (Rudolf Wittkower)

“Portrait of Cardinal Domenico Morone” by Scipione Pulzone (about 1550/98)

“Sea Storm” and “Shipwreck” by the Flemish Bonaventura Peeters (1614/52)

Two outstanding “Heads of elderly men” by Peter Paul Rubens (1577/1640)

“In May 1600 he left for a study tour in Italy; he was first in Venice and then in Mantua where Vincenzo Gonzaga gave him the job of official court painter, a position he kept during all of the eight years he spent in Italy. (...) The art of Rubens was endless; his great talent evolved slowly and he found his own style only after his return from Italy, meditating constructively on those experiences” (Enciclopedia Treccani)

“St. Francis in meditation in the desert” by Annibale Carracci (1560/1609)

“Deposition of Christ from the Cross” sixteenth century, by an unknown artist from the Emilia region

“Mary Magdalene Penitent” by Francesco Cozza (1605/82)

“Portrait of Cardinal Alessandro Farnese” maybe by Pietro Bonaccorsi aka Perin del Vaga (1501/47)

“Portrait of Cardinal Bernardino Clesio” about 1531 by the German Bartel Bruyn (1493/1555)

“Bruyn was influenced in part, as Ragghianti says, from portraits by Raphael, but translated into a language in which the Gothic hardness is frozen in a realism severe and far, knowing, though, how to seize the pride and cunning attitude of the character in the cold and calculating eyes, stressed by the uneven raising of his eyebrows” (Sivigliano Alloisi)

“Portrait of Wolfgang Tanvelder” by Hans Maler zu Schwarz (1480/1529)

“Archangel Gabriel” and “Our Lady of the Annunciation” by Sebastiano Ghezzi (1590/1670)

“I Maccaronari (Maccaroni Eaters)” by Domenico Gargiulo aka Micco Spadaro (1609/75)

“St. Rose of Lima” by Agostino Masucci (1691/1758)

“Madonna and Child” by G.B. Salvi aka Sassoferrato (1609/85)

“Portrait of a Gentleman” by an anonymous seventeenth-century Genoese artist

“Portrait of a little girl” by the Flemish Giusto Sustermans (1597/1681)

“Cain killing Abel”, “Esau sells his birthright” and “Martyrdom of St. Stephen” by Francesco Trevisani (1656/1746)

“Revolt of the peasants” and “Looting of a village” by the Flemish Jan Baptist Van Der Meiren (1664/about 1736)

CORSINI PALACE - CORSINI GALLERY (third part)

Room II - First Gallery

“Known in the eighteenth century as 'Second Antechamber', the First Gallery was added, along with the Antechamber, to the apartment of Neri Maria Corsini during the extension work carried out in the years 1750/53 by the architect Ferdinando Fuga” (Official Website the Corsini Gallery - galleriacorsini.beniculturali.it)

The decorations of the room 1736/38 are by Ginesio del Barba (1691/1762)

Small bronze statues “Baptism of Jesus” and “Fauns on a goat with parrots” by Alessandro Algardi (1598/1654) and “Lion Biting a Bull” copy by Antonio Susini (1580/1624) from an ancient original statue

Impressive and visually disturbing “Agony of Prometheus Bound to the Rocks”, “Marina with lighthouse” and six other paintings by Salvator Rosa (1615/73)

“A man of brilliant talents but eternal rebel, ruthless in his criticism of society, obsessed with a pre-Romantic egotistical concept of genius, he used to take offense when praised as a painter of landscapes, seascapes and battles. But it is on the successes in this field more than on the large historical compositions that his posthumous fame is resting. The 1700s saw in the landscapes of Salvator Rosa and Claude Lorrain, the quintessence of the contrast between the sublime and the beautiful. In the words of Sir Joshua Reynolds, Claude leads us to the tranquility of the scenes of Arcadia and fairyland, while the style of Rosa has the power to inspire feelings of grandeur and sublimity” (Rudolf Wittkower)

“Landscape with St. John the Baptist” and “Landscape with Horse Riders” XVII century, by an unknown Dutch painter

“Pietà (Mercy)” by Francesco Cozza (1605/82)

“Cozza, a figure painter, favors narrative moments, by subordinating the landscape to the arrangement of characters, expressing consequently a very individual style in the landscape painting of the seventeenth century” (Ludovica Trezzani)

“Hare” by Hans Hoffman (d. 1592)

“Jacob's Ladder” by Donato Creti (1671/1749)

“Together with the senior Marco Antonio Franceschini, Creti was the last significant exponent of the doctrine of classical-idealism in Bolognese painting. He was deeply engaged in what we might call the metaphysics of ideal form, i.e. the search for the perfect shape in nature. For him the important thing was to make the invention of the individual figure and outline its concept perfectly. He was clearly a fanatical perfectionist” (David Miller - Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani Treccani)

“Finding of Moses” by Luigi Garzi (1638/1721) a pupil of Andrea Sacchi later influenced by Carlo Maratta

“Hunters on horses” by the Dutch artist Philips Wouwerman (1619/68)

“Wouwerman's oeuvre consists mainly of small cabinet pieces with horses, such as battle and hunting scenes, army camps, smithies and interiors of stables. He also painted sensitively executed silvery-grey landscapes, genre pieces and a few original representations of religious and mythological scenes. Wouwerman was also exceptionally prolific. Although he only lived to the age of 48, more than a thousand paintings bear his name. Even when one bears in mind that a number of these paintings should actually be attributed to his brothers Pieter and Jan, Philips left an extraordinarily large oeuvre” (from the web site www.wouwerman.org)

“Tamar and Judah” by Giovanni Lanfranco (1582/1647)

“Architectonical Perspective” by Viviano Codazzi (1604/70)

“Adoration of the Shepherds” and “Adoration of the Magi” by Jan Miel (1599/1664)

“Shepherds and Flock by Some Ruins” by the Dutch Cornelis Van Poelenburgh (about 1586/1667)

“Cornelis van Poelenburgh was a founder of Dutch Italianate landscape painting. He studied under the Utrecht Mannerist Abraham Bloemaert, but his years in Rome, from 1617 to 1625, were more decisive for his development. An early member of the schildersbent, the club for Rome's Netherlandish painters, he was nicknamed “Satyr.” In Rome, a friend noted that Poelenburgh “exerted himself to the utmost to paint his figures in the manner of Raphael.” Poelenburgh also copied German artist Adam Elsheimer's Italianate landscapes, which were usually painted on copper. (…) After returning from Italy, he became one of Utrecht's leading artists, honored as Peter Paul Rubens's guide during his 1627 visit to the city. At the king's invitation, Poelenburgh worked in England from 1638 to 1641. (…) Poelenburgh painted some history paintings, but his fame rests on the enamel-smooth landscapes, often depicting romantic ruins and statuary fragments, that he created after 1620. He was among the first artists to render Italian sunlight and atmosphere convincingly. His highly detailed figures were so admired that he was hired to paint them in other artists' works” (The J. Paul Getty Museum Web Site – www.getty.edu)

“Holy Family with S. Anna” by Pietro de’ Pietri (1655/1716)

“Holy Family” by Simone Cantarini (1612/48)

“Triumph of Ovid” by Nicolas Poussin (1594/1665)

“History was for Poussin of the highest value, the ideal to which he gave vision. He faced historical, biblical and mythological subjects, from which his spiritual inclinations, which led to the denial of the purposes of the most striking Baroque style, appear abundantly clear” (Carlo Bertelli, Giuliano Briganti, Antonio Giuliano)

“Head of agonizing man” by an unknown artist probably a pupil of Guercino

“Winter Landscape” and “Landscape with Pond” by the Flemish artist Lucas Van Uden (1595/1672-73)

“Portrait of Pope Urban VIII Barberini (1623/44)” about 1636 by Guidobaldo Abbatini (1600/56)

“He can combine with remarkable balance, the 'friendliness' of Matteo, highlighted by a colorist opulence influenced by Pietro da Cortona, but still supported by considerable technical qualities, with the description of a physical decline that shines through, without drama, backlit. There is no doubt on Abbatini's ability, as evidenced by how he can detect the golden embroidery stole, or how casually he describes the lace and the folds of the clothes and he is able to forge with a few touches, the heavy tissue that garnish the seat of the chair. Surely these were the qualities that Bernini appreciated in the Umbrian painter and that led him often to use his cooperation” (Sivigliano Alloisi)

“The departure of Jacob” by Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione aka Grechetto (about 1611/65)

“Battle”, “Blindman’s Buff”, “The watering hole” and “St. John the Baptist Preaching” by the so-called bambocciante Michelangelo Cerquozzi (1602/60)

“Portrait of a Man” by Federico Fiori aka Barocci (1535/1612)

“For a long time this painting was considered a self-portrait also by contemporary historiography, until Olsen has expressed doubts about its authenticity. Indeed, both inventory information and comparisons with the identified self-portraits of the painter don't help to clarify the issue. (...) The beautiful head alive and alert is in front of us with no conventionalities, with an immediacy that goes beyond the conventional pose. It is framed by a white collar, soft and smooth, which helps to give life to the face free and gentle of the character. Even in the portrait, Barocci anticipates the demands of the truth of many artists of the seventeenth century” (Sivigliano Alloisi)

“Winter Landscape” and “Woodland Landscape” by the Flemish Franz de Momper (1595/1673)

Spectacular “Denial of St. Peter” by the so called Master of the Judgment of Solomon (XVII century) or maybe by Jusepe de Ribera aka Spagnoletto (1591/1652)

“Hunt of Wild Beasts” XVII century, copy from an original by Rubens

“Bivouac of soldiers in a cave” and “Breakfast outside” by the Flemish Anton Goubau (1616/98)

“Landscape with peasants” and “Landscape with figures” by the Roman Andrea Locatelli (1693/1741)

“Sposalizio mistico di S. Caterina” di Carlo Maratta (1625/1713)

“Mystic Marriage of St. Catherine with Baby Jesus at the Presence of St. Anthony of Padua” by Ippolito Scarsella aka Scarsellino (1551/1620)

“St. Peter weeping” by Francesco Solimena (1657/1747)

“The ransom” by the Flemish Christoffel Jacobsz Van Der Lamen (about 1606/about 1652)