CORSINI PALACE - CORSINI GALLERY (seventh part)

Room VI - Green Cabinet

“The room was one of the reception rooms of the apartment of Neri Maria and, together with the two following room, it was destined to receive guests. At the time of Cardinal Andrea Corsini (1735/95), who succeeded his uncle as the owner of the apartment, the room had undergone a series of transformations (1777/79). (...) The current structure of the hall dates back to 1907 when, to gain a greater exhibition space for portraits, the living room and the adjacent chapel were demolished” (Official Website of the Galleria Corsini - galleriacorsini.beniculturali.it)

“Marble funerary urn of M. Servilius” first century AD

“Marble head of Silenus” second century AD

“Bust of Pope Clement XII Corsini (1730/40)” by Pietro Bracci (1700/73) who immortalized precisely and mercilessly the severe and frowning grin of Pope Corsini

“Portrait of Cardinal Neri Corsini senior (1599/1678)” by G.B. Gaulli aka Baciccio (1639/1709)

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

“Portrait of a Knight of the Order of Sts. Maurice and Lazarus” by Agostino Carracci (1557/1602) brother of Annibale

“In the painting movement which he founded with his brother and that had in his heart the Accademia dei Desiderosi (Academy of Desiring), later Incamminati (Walkers), he was the theoretician and the researcher. Of this critical attitude and interpretation of the formal values of the great masters are proof his engravings” (Enciclopedia Treccani)

Sketch by Francesco Cozza (1605/82) for the “Pieta” in Room II

“Portrait of Cardinal Giacomo Savelli” by Scipione Pulzone (about 1550/98)

“Pupil perhaps of Jacopino del Conte, he reached fame with his portraits of famous Roman people, inspired by the sixteenth-century Flemish portraiture, portrayed with great technical ability and virtuosic attention the physical characteristics and social attributes of the subjects” (Enciclopedia Treccani)

“St. Anthony of Egypt” by Antonio Allegri aka Correggio (1489/1534)

“Portrait of Cardinal Ferdinando de' Medici” school of Alessandro Allori aka Bronzino (1533/1607) pupil of Agnolo di Cosimo aka Bronzino

“Portrait maybe of Guercino” by Guido Cagnacci (1601/63), a pupil of Guido Reni but influenced by Caravaggio

“After a start vaguely influenced by Caravaggio he approached Guido Reni, accepting Venetian influences in a personal way. He did not disdain strong baroque effects only to compose himself eventually in a measured classicism” (Enciclopedia Treccani)

“Portrait of Luigi Scaramuccia” by Francesco Cairo (1607/65)

“Portrait of Cosimo Medici III” by the Flemish Giusto Susterman (1597/1681)

“Portrait of Cardinal Antonio Barberini junior” and “Self-Portrait” by Simone Cantarini (1612/48)

“Cantarini was the best student of Guido Reni and the only painter of his circle to be able to formulate a highly personal style: his rich palette, the colors slightly graduated and new inflections in the poses of the figures helped to introduce in Bologna the painting more delicate and intimate of the last decades of the seventeenth century. His influence is evident in particular with the work of his pupil Lorenzo Pasinelli, and of the younger Donato Creti” (Dwight C. Miller - Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani Treccani)

“In the self-portrait of Simone Cantarini the message is clear and direct: the viewer observes the painter who observes himself and wonders in the mirror pretending to look at the model. Art, therefore, is a mirroring of life, a pattern or a project to follow with passion and absolute dedication” (Sivigliano Alloisi)

“Portrait of a Man” copy from Francesco di Cristofano aka Francabigio (1484/1525)

“Portrait of a Man possibly Pietro Strozzi” by Pier Francesco di Jacopo Foschi (1502/67)

“Portrait of a Man” by the French Claude Lefebvre (1637/75)

“Portrait of Michele Peretti” about 1608 by Pietro Fachetti (1535/post 1616)

Michele Peretti was the great-nephew of Sixtus V Peretti (1585/90)

“While not free from the influence of Scipio Pulzone, this painting stands out for the richness of colors, dense and condensed in the game of the flesh which results in a plastic-linear firmness that is linked to a nagging of lights of enhanced accuracy. It is a testimony of a complex training in which the influence of Caravaggio's portraits are grafted onto a culture that is still affected by memories of Mantua, Flemish and even from Rubens” (Sivigliano Alloisi)

“Portrait of a Man” by Ottavio Leoni (1578/1630)

“Portrait of a Man” by Carlo Maratta (1625/1713)

“Portrait of a Man” by Bartolomeo Passerotti (1529/92)

“Portrait of a Man” by Franz Pourbus the Younger (1569/1622)

“Portrait of a Man” by an artist of the French school of the seventeenth century

“Portrait of a Nun” by an artist of the Bolognese school

“St. John the Baptist as a young man” by an artist of the Emilia school

“Portrait of two Young Princes” and “Portrait of a Woman” maybe by an artist of the Parma school

“Portrait of a Gentleman” by an artist of the Venetian school of the sixteenth century

“Bay with fishermen” and “Bay with fishermen pulling nets to dry” by Jacob de Heusch (1656/1701)

“Jacob De Heush is one of the Italianate painters less sensitive to his culture of origin (...). His landscapes are affected by Salvator Rosa, but do not have the vigor and inventiveness of the Neapolitan painter. He mainly painted marine and deep bays animated by fantastic rocks, towers, canals and gesticulating figures who exercised a certain influence on the Roman painters of the next generation” (Sivigliano Alloisi)

“Shepherd with herd” by the Roman Andrea Locatelli (1693/1741)

“Landscape with marina and ruins”, “Landscape with marina and lighthouse”, “Landscape with cliff” and “Landscape with ruins” by Salvator Rosa (1615/73)

CORSINI PALACE - CORSINI GALLERY (sixth part)

Room V - Room of the Alcove

“The room (...) owes its name to the fact that it has been used as a bedroom by Queen Christina of Sweden until her death. Following the purchase of the building by the Corsini family, the room remained the bedroom of the new owner, Cardinal Neri Maria. Underscoring the link between the room and the Queen, the Swedish State gave the Gallery (1991) a painting that depicts her in the guise of Diana the huntress, the work of the Flemish Justus van Egmont and six commemorative medals” (Official Website of the Galleria Corsini - galleriacorsini.beniculturali.it)

Decorations in the ceiling with “Stories of Solomon” and “Stories of Moses” maybe by artists of the school of Federico Zuccari (about 1542/1609)

“Terracotta bust of G.B. Blanchis” 1680 by Fabrizio Arriguzzi (active 1630/80)

Small bronze statue “Ganymede and the Eagle” by the Florentine Antonio Montauti (1685/1740)

Outstanding portraits “Christ Crowned with Thorns”, “Our Lady of Sorrows” and “St. John the Evangelist” by Guido Reni (1575/1642)

Terracotta bust “Alexander VII Chigi (1655/67)” by Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598/1680)

“Queen Christina of Sweden as Diana” by Justus Van Egmonts (1601/74)

“Meeting of Rebekah and Eliazar at the source” by Carlo Maratta (1625/1713

“It is a masterpiece of the maturity of Carlo Maratta and stands as an exemplum of academic eclecticism of the artist” (Official Website of the Galleria Corsini - galleriacorsini.beniculturali.it)

“Ruins with baths” and “Ruins with shepherds” by Giovanni Paolo Pannini (1691/1765)

“St. Sebastian Tended by Angels” by Peter Paul Rubens (1577/1640)

“It belonged to the collection of Cardinal Neri Maria Corsini senior and it dates back to the early years of the artist's stay in Rome (1601/02)” (Official Website of the Galleria Corsini - galleriacorsini.beniculturali.it)

“St. Sebastian” by an anonymous artist of the seventeenth century inspired by Palma il Giovane

“Madonna and Child” by Angelo Caroselli (1585/1652)

“Hunting coots” and “Hunters in the woods” by Angeluccio (active mid-seventeenth century) who painted the landscapes whereas the figures were probably painted by the Roman bambocciante Michelangelo Cerquozzi (1602/60)

“The attribution of the figures to the Roman painter raises some doubts indeed because of their street fighting and thugs attitude that would seem more appropriate to Pieter Van Laer” (Sivigliano Alloisi)

“St. Apollonia” by Carlo Dolci (1616/86)

Two paintings made with oil on copper and blackboard: “Interior of Antwerp Cathedral during the day” and “Interior of Antwerp Cathedral at night” by Frans Francken III (1606/after 1667) with Peter Neefs the Younger (1620/post 1675)

“Justice” by Cesare Gennari (1637/88)

“Ecstasy of St. Francis” by Filippo Lauri (1623/94)

“Temple of Vesta with Roman monuments” and “Pantheon and Roman monuments” by the French Charles Louis Clerisseau (1721/1820)

“Clerisseau was also an architect and an elegant draftsman. Following a period of travel to follow the English architect Robert Adam, he returned to Rome in the early sixties and it was well received for his friendship with Piranesi. Here he undertook the decoration of the coffee house in Villa Albani where he met Winckelmann and a little later he made the famous room of the convent of Trinità dei Monti, which immediately became one of the curiosities of Rome” (Sivigliano Alloisi)

“Holy Family”, also known as “Our Lady of Silence” by Marcello Venusti (about 1512/79)

“The Assumption of Mary Magdalene” copy by an unknown seventeenth-century artist from an original by Giovanni Lanfranco

“The Holy Family with John the Baptist and Mary Magdalene” copy by an unknown sixteenth-century artist from an original by Parmigianino

“Landscape with waterfall and figures” by Pandolfo Reschi (1643/99)

“Concert” by the Flemish artist Theodor Rombouts (1597/1637)

“The Holy Family with St. John” by the Emilian Bartolomeo Schedoni (1578/1611)

“The comprehensive training of Schedoni led, in contact with the painting of Ludovico Carracci and Giovanni Lanfranco (in Parma since 1610), to a very personal style, where the direct and contrasted light isolates and highlights the solid and almost geometrically constructed forms and emphasizes the vivid and brilliant colors” (Enciclopedia Treccani)

“Adoration of the Shepherds” by an artist of the school of Jacopo Bassano

Significant “St. Jerome” by an artist of the school of Jusepe de Ribera

“Deposition of Christ from the Cross” by a sixteenth century artist of the Tuscan school

“Portrait of Vittoria Della Rovere as Faith” by the Flemish artist Giusto Sustermans (1597/1681)

“Landscape with Satyrs” by Pietro Testa (1612/50) engraver from Lucca who sadly committed suicide in the Tiber for his disappointments in his job as a painter

“Fruit Seller” by Jacob Van Steverden

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)